Sunday Brunch

By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief

On this day in history in 1901, President William McKinley was shot twice by anarchist Leo Czolgozs while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley would die a week later.

By Wes Muller

Louisiana officials offered SpaceX what might be one of the largest single-project tax breaks in U.S. history to cinch a $100 billion deal to build its largest launch facility yet in coastal Vermilion Parish. 

By Elise Plunk

A crowd staunchly divided over whether the state should grant a key permit for the Hyundai steel mill planned in Ascension Parish filled every seat available Tuesday night at the Lemann Center Gymnasium. T-shirts emblazoned with personal opinions on the project, worn with suits by some and casual attire by others, punctuated the crowd, where a common question passed between people in adjoining seats: “Are y’all for or against?”

By Julia O’Donoghue

This is the second health care company to pull out of Louisiana’s Medicaid program this year. UnitedHealthcare left Louisiana’s Medicaid program in the spring following a legal dispute with Attorney General Liz Murrill over its parent company’s pharmacy benefits manager.

Athletics and campus administrators from Louisiana colleges convened last week to tackle one of their biggest challenges: How to deal with the downstream financial effects in the new era of paying student-athletes. Since 2021, the NCAA has allowed athletes to monetize their name, image and likeness by inking sponsorship deals. Starting last year, Division I college sports programs were able to pay players directly for NIL deals through revenue sharing.

The Louisiana Democratic Party voted to oppose a constitutional amendment to prohibit governors from running for office again after they have served more than one and a half terms, equal to six years. Proposed Amendment 4 will appear on the Nov. 3 election ballot that also features the U.S. Senate and congressional races.

The Louisiana Democratic Party has selected the candidates it will officially back in the Nov. 3 congressional midterm elections, when Republicans will be heavily favored to retain five of the state’s six seats they hold in the U.S. House of Representatives.

A summer of food recalls, including the record-shattering cyclosporiasis outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce that has sickened thousands, has raised many Americans’ fears of contracting a foodborne illness. The recalls have focused attention on the Trump administration’s decision to cut funding and staff at several public health agencies, and prompted questions about whether those changes have made consumers more vulnerable.

Cuts to the nation’s largest food assistance program will likely spill over into schools, causing students to lose access to free breakfast and lunch. More than 1 million American children have lost access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, following a recent federal law.

The U.S. Postal Service rushed the development of electronic tools to comply with a Trump administration policy placing new restrictions on mail-in voting, and defied a court order to stop work on the system, according to an explosive whistleblower complaint.

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