By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief
We’re keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Bertha, but let’s not forget about the dangers that extreme heat pose.
Gov. Jeff Landry says not all school districts will be required to shift their operational money into teacher pay stipends. (Julie O'Donoghue/LAI)
By Julie O’Donoghue
With classes starting next month, Louisiana school districts still don’t know how many of them, if any, will be exempt from having to pay $2,000 teacher stipends out of their existing state funds.
Gov. Jeff Landry reiterated at a news conference last week that not all school districts would be required to pay for the temporary stipends. For example, those using local tax funds to increase teacher pay would not have to provide stipends, according to the governor.
In 2023, Peter DeCarlo and other Johns Hopkins University researchers drove through Louisiana’s industrial corridor with a mobile laboratory to measure air pollution. They discovered that cancer risks from toxic emissions far exceeded EPA figures in some areas. (Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University)
By Ames Alexander, Floodlight
An analysis found that Louisiana’s public air monitors are often located miles from major industrial polluters and fail to test for some of the most dangerous chemicals. It identified the state’s top 25 industrial air polluters using emissions data that companies self-report to the EPA. Then we used state data to calculate each plant’s distance to the nearest public air monitoring station — and to determine which pollutants those monitors actually test for.
Fomer U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks last year at Louisiana State Penitentiary to announce the opening of Camp 57, a facility at the prison houses immigrant detainees. An appeals court covering Louisiana and other states with large detention centers is at the center of a court fight over mandatory detention for many immigrants. (Piper Hutchinson/LAI)
By Tim Henderson
Seeking to stop a “flood” of court cases freeing immigrants from mandatory detention, the Trump administration is asking an appeals court to put three immigrants back in detention. The immigrants were freed by federal judges in February and March in a case that was upheld by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hold a full hearing on the case in September.
By Anna Claire Vollers
Youth sports is now a $40 billion industry. It’s a sprawling, commercialized ecosystem where parents pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars each year for club teams, elite camps, out-of-state tournaments, private coaching sessions, professional-level uniforms and equipment, recruiting events, and even streaming subscription services to watch their kids play.
COMMENTARY
By Ronald “DC” Reynolds and Keket Sanders
At Louisiana State Penitentiary, incarcerated men are forced to work long hours in the fields often in extreme heat. For the men on the farm line, agricultural labor is not a pathway to opportunity. It is a state-enforced practice of degradation and dehumanization.
D.C. DIGEST
Border czar: ICE officers to wear body cams at traffic stops | States Newsroom
Education Dept. veterans blast Trump plan to transfer programs | States Newsroom
NEWS FROM THE STATES
How a Turkish man with US torture protections was deported | Arizona Mirror
Disaster fund spent more on immigration than all 2025 missions combined | Florida Phoenix
DA declines to prosecute fatal Memphis Task Force shooting | Tennessee Lookout
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