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How cornbread dressing was banned from Angola prison’s Thanksgiving menu

by Bernard Smith November 26, 2025 Updated December 2, 2025
Four men smile as they stand behind large wooden bins filled with sweet potatoes, loading black “Inspire the City” tote bags during a Thanksgiving food giveaway outside the Mahalia Jackson Center in New Orleans.

Holiday giveaway brings hope to Tremé amid immigration fears

“When I saw the brother Jamar (McNeely) giving out turkeys and hams, I said, ‘Let me bring the vegetables,’” said DeLance Vanderhorst of Healthier NOLA.
by Gus Bennett November 26, 2025 Updated December 2, 2025

An Oil Well in Reverse: Smitty’s hopes to inject liquid waste into a landfill in Jefferson Parish

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality allows the operator of Smitty’s to dump pollutants from its recent explosion deep into a Jefferson Parish landfill. Plus, NOLA Public Schools improves, getting a B from the state.
by Carolyne Heldman November 21, 2025 Updated December 3, 2025

Last call at the First and Last Stop

Over the past 75 years, more than a dozen Black proprietors have run the First and Last Stop Bar, a longtime gathering spot for 7th Ward neighbors and Black-masking Indians. But earlier this month, a new owner posted an eviction notice on the door.
by Katy Reckdahl and Gus Bennett November 20, 2025 Updated December 11, 2025
Assistant principal at Frederick A. Douglass High School smiles and dances among students in a school auditorium after announcing the school earned an A+ rating, with the stage band playing and students celebrating around him.

Compare 2025 school performance scores for New Orleans charters

As a district, NOLA Public Schools improved from a C to a B. The move up appears to be driven by a jump in A-rated schools in the city.
by Marta Jewson November 20, 2025 Updated November 23, 2025

Kicking the Can: SNAP during the shutdown and charter schools await their fate

The shutdown is over, how did the state do in protecting its most vulnerable. And charters await their fate with state evaluations.
by Carolyne Heldman November 14, 2025 Updated November 14, 2025

Oily waste from Smitty’s Supply disaster will be injected under Jefferson Parish landfill

Waste has been stored and recycled at other sites, but LDEQ grants an emergency exemption for River Birch.
by Wesley Muller, Louisiana Illuminator November 14, 2025 Updated December 2, 2025

States’ death penalty policies are heading in sharply different directions

Forty-one people have been executed so far this year, the highest number since 2012.
by Amanda Watford, Stateline November 7, 2025 Updated December 2, 2025
A 3x3 grid of insect photos showing eight identical bees and one green beetle in the top right corner, symbolizing mistaken identity in scientific research funding.

This Ecologist Lost Her Grant for Studying Diversity—of Insects

The federal trawling of grants for misaligned priorities has brought in bycatch at Louisiana Tech University.
by Hannah Richter, Sierra Magazine November 4, 2025 Updated November 4, 2025

“A Fundamental Reset”

Fossil fuel companies rebrand as "energy" producers. Also construction of a new LNG terminal is halted by a federal judge.
by Carolyne Heldman October 31, 2025 Updated October 31, 2025

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