The Louisiana Weekly
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The Louisiana Weekly is a weekly newspaper founded during the civil rights era in 1925 as a portal by which African Americans could express and share news important to their communities and as a means to combat racial injustice in New Orleans and beyond. Today, that legacy persists as they continue to serve the New Orleans Metro Area as well as state, national, and international readers by..
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Delaney Dryfoos
The Lens
Last Monday evening — after years of debate and court battles – the planning commission of St. John the Baptist Parish finally voted to allow heavy industrial uses on a disputed plot on the parish’s rural West Bank.
The large swath of agricultural land in Wallace, La. once housed the Whitney Plantation’s slave quarters, burial grounds and sugar mill. It has been at the forefront of environmental justice advocacy for decades.
Darryl Malek-Wiley, an organizer with the Sierra Club, first spoke out against the rezoning of the land in 1990, when the site was slated for a ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Stacy M. Brown
Contributing Writer
(NNPA Newswire) — The devastating consequences of firearm mishandling, and inadequate storage continue to haunt families across the United States. In 2016, 14-year-old JaJuan McDowell fell victim to an unintentional shooting, a stark reminder of the dangers posed by unsecured firearms. Eight years later, JaJuan’s mother, Julvonnia McDowell, still grapples with the pain of her loss, advocating tirelessly for safe firearm storage practices.
“When guns aren’t securely stored, the result is unimaginable pain and trauma,” McDowell shared during a televised inte ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Wesley Muller
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — A package of legislation to benefit insurance companies found widespread support in a Louisiana Senate committee on March 20 after only one member questioned why the state would help the industry instead of drivers and homeowners who pay extraordinarily high premiums.
The Senate Committee on Insurance approved four bills that are part of Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple’s pro-industry agenda. Before winning election last year, Temple spent more than two decades in the insurance industry, managing and owning the kinds of comp ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Drew Costley
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — Vale Tesch, a 17-year-old senior at Benjamin Franklin High School, has spent afternoons learning about soil health and how it affects crop production at Grow Dat Youth Farm. It’s a different kind of education than they get at their high school, and they feel safe at the farm in their identity as a transgender person.
The farm, located in the middle of City Park, serves dual roles. It’s both a community-supported agriculture business and a youth program that teaches teenagers about sustainable farming practices, access to healthy foods and ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Contributing Writer
(kffhealthnews.org) — Sarah Feldman, 35, received the first ominous letters from Mount Sinai Medical last November. The New York hospital system warned it was having trouble negotiating a pricing agreement with UnitedHealthcare, which includes Oxford Health Plans, Feldman’s insurer.
“We are working in good faith with Oxford to reach a new fair agreement,” the letter said, continuing reassuringly: “Your physicians will remain in-network and you should keep appointments with your providers.”
Over the next few months, a flurry of communications about the ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Stacy M. Brown
Contributing Writer
(NNPA Newswire) — An eye-opening report titled “Surfacing Missing Voters: Addressing Data Systems, Tools, and Engagement Models that Invisibilize Black and Brown Communities,” authored by Miriam McKinney Gray for the Democracy & Power Innovation Fund (DPI), has unveiled a concerning reality: Nearly 25 million Black and Latino eligible voters are effectively absent from voter databases, making them virtually unreachable by traditional outreach methods.
The revelation is crucial as America heads toward the all-important November general election between ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Sara Sneath
Contributing Writer
(Special from DeSmog via lailluminator.com) — Through billions in tax breaks and subsidies, taxpayers in Louisiana, Texas, and other states have supported the construction or expansion of dozens of facilities manufacturing plastics in the United States since 2012. However, many of these plants have also repeatedly exceeded legal limits on the air pollution they release into surrounding communities, disproportionately affecting people of color.
That’s according to an Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) report published on March 14.
For instance, in 2015, the ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
2d ago
By Stacy M. Brown
Contributing Writer
(NNPA Newswire) — Amidst escalating turmoil in Haiti, a recent exodus of U.S. citizens fleeing the violence underscores broader concerns about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Caribbean nation. As conflict rages on in regions like the Middle East and Eastern Europe, voices like Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, emphasize the need for global attention to the suffering of people worldwide, including those in Haiti.
“A lot of people are concerned about the suffering that’s going on in the Middle Ea ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
1w ago
By Jessica Cutz, The 19TH
Contributing Writer
(Special from The 19th via lailluminator.com) — All three of Ashley Gaignard’s children were born preterm and at low birth weights. It was a fact that Gaignard didn’t think about much at the time – her children are now in their twenties – because it felt so common among her friends and family.
“I thought that maybe because I was tiny and petite that I would have small babies,” she said.
But she did notice a pattern: Her mom had small babies, so did her siblings. People in her family also had difficult pregnancies, with one of her siblings experienc ..read more
The Louisiana Weekly
1w ago
By Khalil Gillon
Contributing Writer
(Veritenews.org) — New Orleans city officials say they are making a slew of changes to ensure participants in the city’s youth workforce programs get paid for their work on time this year – something that didn’t happen last summer.
Many youth workers who participated in the program last summer received paychecks more than a month after the program had ended, and one teen had to wait more than two months to be compensated for work completed during the summer, according to news reports.
The problems that led to those delayed payments have now been fixed, said ..read more