Sunday Brunch

By Greg LaRose | Editor-in-Chief

On this day in 1921, the Tulsa Tribune reported on the arrest of Dick Rowland, a Black man, following an incident with Sarah Page, a white woman, in an elevator of a downtown building. Groups of Black and white residents converged on the courthouse where Rowland was being held until police dispersed the crowd with gunfire. Early the next morning, white supremacists descended upon the Greenwood District, a community of Black homes and businesses. The Tulsa race massacre would unfold over the next 24 hours, leaving nearly 300 people, most of them Black, dead and 35 city blocks destroyed.

By Piper Hutchinson

The legislation would create a new exemption in the state’s public records law to conceal how much public money universities pay directly to student athletes. Regardless of its source, all revenue a state university receives is public money. For each athletics department, it is a mix of self-generated revenue such as ticket sales, tax dollars and, for some, student fees. 

By Wes Muller

In addition to the $30 million lawmakers had already dedicated to the program, the new influx of cash will allow the state to fund another 5,000 fortified roof grants later this year. The next round of lottery applications for the grants begins Monday.

By Piper Hutchinson

Opponents of the bill have raised concerns it will erase transgender people from state law and that it could create a conflict with federal guidance on Title IX, a federal civil rights law that ensures equal opportunity to educational opportunities regardless of sex. 

In the wake of one of the deadliest domestic violence incidents in Louisiana history, advocates pushed the state legislature to provide more money for victim services.
But no additional money has been set aside for domestic abuse prevention and state lawmakers are only a few days away from finalizing the annual state budget plan that takes effect July 1. 

Louisiana communities are poised to gain the power to remove added fluoride from their local public drinking water systems. The law would apply to water service areas that serve multiple parishes down to small neighborhood water districts.

The Louisiana Legislature has approved a proposal to enact stricter gubernatorial term limits, sending the measure to voters to decide in the fall election. Currently, the Louisiana Constitution prevents a governor from being elected to more than two terms only if the terms are back to back.

A federal judge declined to block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting voting by mail, finding that it was too early to challenge the directive. The decision represents a setback for groups, including the NAACP, that have sued to stop the order ahead of the midterm elections in November.

In a deal that could provide a major trade boost for American farmers, the White House said that during the recent summit, China committed to buying at least $17 billion in additional U.S. agricultural products annually for three years. But Beijing has not confirmed the figure and farm groups expressed skepticism that the deal would materialize.

The Congressional Black Caucus urged American corporations to condemn efforts to dilute Black voting strength, as Southern states eliminate congressional districts where most residents are Black.

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