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Colfax group sues LDEQ over ‘unlawful and arbitrary’ defining of hazardous waste incinerator
Colfax Clean Harbors has spent decades burning hazardous waste and detonating mines into open air. Residents, who say the Grant Parish facility is responsible for giving them cancer and making them sick, are suing the state to block its latest permit approval. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) denied the facility’s request to continue […]
Louisiana treasurer candidates talk experience, social issues in investing
Candidates running to be Louisiana’s next top money manager discussed the role of the treasurer, social issues and investing, state debt and much more in an online forum Wednesday. The webinar was hosted by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group. All three candidates in the Oct. 14 election took […]
His mother was murdered. He wants Louisiana to spare her killer’s life.
In 1996, Shareef Cousin was 16. While his peers worried about prom and house chores, he was worried about being executed for a crime he didn’t commit. He spent three years as the youngest person on Louisiana’s death row before being freed. Cousin doesn’t say he was wrongfully convicted — he says he was framed. […]
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy to teach class at LSU honors college this fall
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy is trading Congress for college — at least for a few hours each week. This fall semester, the Baton Rouge Republican will be teaching a 2000-level class at LSU’s Ogden Honors College. The course, taught alongside adjunct bioethics instructor Dr. Mike Rolfsen, is called National Issues: Strategies and Tactics. The class […]
Sediment diversion breaks ground, promising to stave back land loss on Louisiana’s coast
Humans have long tried to tame the Mississippi River with levees. In the process, they starved many of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands of the sediment that sustains them. The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, billed as the first project of its kind, seeks to remedy that by replicating those natural land-building processes by reconnecting the basin to the […]
NOAA ups its Atlantic hurricane season outlook to ‘above normal’
With peak hurricane season beginning in mid-August, another group of forecasters say the Atlantic is in for more storms than they first thought. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Thursday they anticipate above-normal storm activity this season. They had predicted in May, shortly before the season began, activity would be near-normal. […]
Ambulance deserts exist in all but one of Louisiana’s 64 parishes
Access to ambulance services varies significantly across the nation, and Louisiana fares worse than most, according to a recent study. All but one of the state’s 64 parishes contain a census block in an ambulance desert, where residents are more than 25 minutes outside of an ambulance service area, the Main Rural Health Science Research […]
Poor credit costs Louisiana drivers more on auto insurance than DWIs
Auto insurers in Louisiana and most of the country value good credit scores over safe driving, a recent report found. Drivers in the state with poor credit and clean records pay $905 more than drivers with excellent credit who have been convicted of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to a report […]
Louisiana heat leaves 16 dead in June and July, health department says
Louisiana’s record-breaking summer has had fatal consequences. Sixteen people in the state died in June and July from heat-related causes, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. Six of those deaths were in June, and 10 were in July, said Kevin Litten, the health department’s press secretary. Those two months alone have already surpassed the […]
Hurricane forecasting group maintains prediction for above-average storm season
With peak hurricane season starting in mid-August, a prominent hurricane forecasting group said Thursday it will maintain its prediction for an above-average Atlantic hurricane season because of unusually hot sea surface temperatures. Colorado State University researchers anticipate 18 named storms, including the five that have already happened, with winds of at least 39 miles per […]
What Louisiana’s Congressional delegation is saying about Trump’s indictment
Three members of Louisiana’s Congressional delegation criticized the grand jury indictment handed down against former President Donald Trump this week. But half of the delegation, four of its eight members, has released no statement on Trump’s legal troubles. U.S. Sens. John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy haven’t commented on the indictment. Reps. Julia Letlow, R-Monroe, and […]
‘An endless amount of pigs:’ The feral hog epidemic continues
There are more feral hogs in Louisiana than there are people in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Shreveport combined. That’s over 900,000 pigs, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries estimates. You may think living in the suburbs or a city guards you from what researchers call the “pigdemic,” but you’d be wrong. “The hogs […]