By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief
It feels like the sun won’t shine quite as bright on a world without Dolly Parton in it. Did you know that she recorded her first song at age 13 in Lake Charles? It was 1959 when she produced “Puppy Love” at Goldband Studio, KPLC-TV reports.
Our colleagues at the Tennessee Lookout offer a look at the impact the Queen of Country Music made in her home state through philanthropy and her business investments. Read more.
The marquee on Frank’s Theatre in Abbeville welcomes SpaceX at an event Thursday to announce the company’s Spacebase Louisiana project in Vermilion Parish. (Wes Muller/LAI)
By Wes Muller
Following months of rumors, SpaceX confirmed that it’s building a $100 billion self-sustaining spaceport in Vermilion Parish, marking what state officials say is the largest capital investment in Louisiana history.
Libby Smith Nehrbass of Lafayette holds up a sign to protest SpaceX’s announcement of Spacebase Louisiana in Vermilion Parish. She and her husband own a hunting and fishing lodge on Pecan Island. (Wes Muller/LAI)
By Greg LaRose
SpaceX’s plans to launch thousands of rockets a year from coastal Southwest Louisiana will put habitat and hurricane protection at risk, according to three wildlife groups that oppose waivers to federal regulations aimed at expediting the development.
Graduates stand at the end of University of Louisiana at Lafayette commencement exercises May 16, 2025, at the Cajun Dome. (Greg LaRose/LAI)
By Piper Hutchinson
A legislative task force is staring at a growing problem with higher education in Louisiana: How to fund a system with more demands than ever before while state and federal dollars are on the decline.
By Anne Saker
Some states that cover nonmedical home care through Medicaid have marginally increased workers’ wages. But those small gains could be wiped out next year, when billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts go into effect as part of the broad tax and spending measure that President Donald Trump signed last year.
COMMENTARY
By Andrea Hagan
Earlier this year, convicted felon Ashtin Ursin, who also faces a second-degree murder charge, was released from jail in Baton Rouge while awaiting trial on multiple gun and drug charges. He was issued an ankle monitor and given limited exceptions to home confinement. Between Feb. 20 and April 29, according to the district attorney, GPS reports from the company paid to monitor him show Ursin violated his release conditions between 967 and 1,181 times. What about Ursin’s prior record suggests that he would comply with a stay-at-home order?
NEWS FROM THE STATES
Pennsylvania reports the nation’s first two measles deaths in 2026 | Penn Capital-Star
Northwest late summer days marred by historic drought, wildfires | Oregon Capital Chronicle
Court filings detail undercover surveillance of anti-ICE protestors | Minnesota Reformer
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