By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief
We’ve got a scorcher in store for start of your workweek. Much of Louisiana is under a heat advisory today, and it will get hotter through Wednesday.
The red-cockaded woodpecker seeks out mature longleaf pine trees to build its home. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service photo)
By Elise Plunk
Conservationists credit the federal Endangered Species Act for the rebound of a variety of fauna and flora that were previously on the brink of extinction. These include species still at risk in Louisiana, such as the red-cockaded woodpecker. But advocates now fear Trump administration policy could erase that progress as well as other efforts to protect threatened plants and animals.
Richard Nelson, president of the Louisiana Community and Technical College System, says plans are in the works to open a charter school that will allow high school students to gain workforce skills while completing their high school diploma. (Henrietta Wildsmith/LAI)
By Piper Hutchinson
Louisiana high school students could soon have the option on obtaining workforce certifications while also earning their diploma, Richard Nelson, leader of the state’s network of vocational training campuses, recently shared those plans in a sit-down conversation with the Illuminator.
An illustration shows the nondisclosure agreement Gov. Jeff Landry signed on behalf of the “Office of the Governor” with an LLC in April 2024. (Drew Hawkins/Gulf States Newsroom)
By Drew Hawkins, Gulf States Newsroom
In an apparent break from the previous administration in Louisiana, at least 121 of Landry’s employees — from the most senior aides to the most junior temps — have signed a strict confidentiality agreement with the governor’s office binding them to secrecy about what they learn on the job, records obtained by the Gulf States Newsroom and Type Investigations show.
By David Lightman
Political party poll watchers are showing up more and more, usually outside polling places. They have a different mission than the nonpartisan election observers long regarded as bulwarks of credibility, and there’s concern that voters will be confused who’s there to influence them and who’s there to protect them.
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
A federal judge has ruled the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not sufficiently justify restrictions imposed in 2023 on a drug used to terminate early pregnancies, adding another layer of complexity to a string of legal cases with opposing goals that could affect future abortion access. Those cases include Louisiana’s lawsuit against the Trump administration that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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