Sunday Brunch

By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief

We have coverage of “No Kings” events in Louisiana and around the U.S. on our home page right now. Visit lailluminator.com.

By Wes Muller

Sampling of stormwater discharges from a destroyed petrochemical facility in Tangipahoa Parish detected high levels of cancer-linked compounds known as “forever chemicals,” according to months-old lab reports that state environmental officials released this month.

By Julie O’Donoghue

A Louisiana senator is proposing a state constitutional amendment to allow legislators and the governor to remove judges from the bench, all the way up to justices on the Louisiana Supreme Court. The legislation says they can only be removed for “gross misconduct, malfeasance or incompetence” but doesn’t include a definition for those words. 

By Elise Plunk

Elected Republican officials in Louisiana, a state long friendly to the fossil fuel and petrochemical sectors, are scattered along the spectrum with their views on carbon capture and sequestration, a technology that industry touts as its front-running solution to curbing potentially harmful emissions. 

It takes 1,500 to 2,000 hours of on-the-job training to become an entry level plumber in Louisiana. A state lawmaker has offered a proposal to shorten that process, citing a growing shortage of plumbers in the state. The option isn’t sitting well with current plumbers who’ve gone through the years of required training to obtain their licenses.

Louisiana legislators have advanced a bill to combat college hazing by increasing penalties, training and reporting requirements for schools and campus organizations. 

State lawmakers have advanced a variety of new proposals to continue Louisiana’s crackdown on the mislabeling and misrepresentation of imported seafood. A committee has approved two bills that would give more power to the state Department of Agriculture and Forestry to investigate and seize unlawful seafood from wholesalers and retailers. 

President Donald Trump, who wants to ban mail-in voting, said he had the right to vote by mail-in ballot in Florida’s special election last week “because I’m president of the United States.”

Republican lawmakers in several states so far this year introduced bills that would legally treat abortion as homicide. The proposed laws could have implications not just for pregnancy termination but for certain fertility treatments or even some forms of contraception.

The college sports landscape continues to grapple with gender inequity in name, image and likeness deals, a patchwork of state NIL laws, booster collectives and the NCAA’s controversial transfer portal, among other issues. A U.S. Senate committee dove into the topic, with the conversation devoted largely to whether college student-athletes should be considered employees.

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