By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief
Start the countdown:Just 206 days until football season starts (218 for the NFL).
The main challenger to U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy to win reelection is U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who has an endorsement from President Donald Trump, in the Republican primary. (Louisiana Illuminator photos)
By Greg LaRose
Just a couple of weeks after declaring her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, Republican Congresswoman Julia Letlow finds herself in the crosshairs of an attack ad that tries to paint her as an anti-Trump liberal despite having the president’s endorsement.
LSU’s Memorial Tower pictured on March 20, 2023. (Matthew Perschall/LAI)
By Piper Hutchinson
The LSU Honors College has historically been an add-on option for qualifying students’ existing degree paths, allowing them to take classes that typically have fewer students and more focused subject matter. But the program has struggled to retain students as they matriculate. The value of being an LSU honor graduate has not always been enough to outweigh the effort needed for the required thesis.
Nan, 2, swings barefoot at Mickey Markey Park in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans on November 13, 2025. (Photo by Christiana Botic/Verite News)
By Tristan Baurick and Halle Parker, Verite
A Verite News investigation conducted over four months in 2025 found that lead pollution in New Orleans parks not only persists, it is more widespread than previously known. Dozens of city parks with playgrounds remain unsafe, including those that underwent city-sponsored lead remediation in 2011. The city does not appear to have conducted any major remediation or lead testing of parks since that time.
By Greg LaRose
A special election was held Saturday in six parishes to fill five vacancies in the Louisiana Legislature, including three seats representing New Orleans. Two of the contests will be decided in a runoff next month, but the outcomes won’t alter the overall party makeup of the state house where Republicans continue to hold a super majority in both chambers.
By Nada Hassanein
Over the next decade, obesity rates across the nation could surge to close to half of U.S. adults, a new study published in the medical journal JAMA estimates. Researchers conducted the analysis using body mass index data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and self-reported weight data from a national survey of adults ages 20 and older.
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