By Elise Plunk | Reporter
Good Thursday morning. Gov. Jeff Landry and the state’s top economic development official will talk with reporters later today about the growing concern over high electric bills related to data centers. Look for our coverage on this and the governor exercising his line-item veto power.
Legislators have approved Gov. Jeff Landry's plan to reduce public school funding for operations to provide K-12 teachers and support staff with stipends next school year. (Greg LaRose/LAI)
By Greg LaRose
Gov. Jeff Landry has received the number of votes he needs from state lawmakers for his plan to provide pay stipends to public school teachers and support workers next school year. But he still has another obstacle to overcome: A lawsuit has challenged whether he can take $168 million from K-12 school operations to cover the cost of the stipends.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy talks with reporters in the Dirksen Senate office building on Dec. 3, 2025. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
By States Newsroom
U.S. Senate Republicans walked into a lunch with the president on Wednesday looking for ways to unify, but they left the closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill as fractured as ever about policy goals. Sen. Bill Cassidy somewhat jokingly said the meeting went “swimmingly” before detailing a confrontation he had with Trump over the lack of information on the Iran war.
Orolua Eluonyechie, right, has been in ICE detention since April 2024 and has not seen his son in two years. (Submitted photo)
By Delaney Nolan, The Lens
Beginning last year, a series of compounding policy changes to accomplish President Trump’s mass deportation scheme have left thousands of people trapped in what attorneys warn are seemingly endless detentions with little hope for freedom. As a result, court filings from immigrants who have found themselves detained for months or years are now swamping the dockets of federal judges in detention-heavy states like Louisiana — and making it nearly impossible for judges to act quickly on these emergency pleas for release.
By Jonathan Shorman
The U.S. Postal Service won’t deliver mail ballots in states that refuse to turn over lists of voters under a proposed rule, the agency’s chief executive said Wednesday, angering Democrats who warn the decision will disenfranchise voters.
By Jonathan Shoreman
More states are passing laws to give greater power to politically appointed boards and administrators while weakening tenure protections and faculty sway over curriculum and university leadership. Supporters of such measures frame them as efforts to hold taxpayer-funded public colleges and universities accountable at a time when many Americans question the value of increasingly expensive college degrees. Many conservative lawmakers also say they are taking aim at liberal bias on university campuses.
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Trump refashions campaign rhetoric for Freedom 250 kickoff | States Newsroom