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This category showcases the lead coverage readers need to know, offering context, clarity, and insight into issues shaping New Orleans and beyond.

Hands tightly grip a chain-link fence, with a blurred figure standing behind it, suggesting detention or confinement.

ICE has been deporting pregnant and postpartum immigrants. Now we know how many.

Though federal policy discourages the detention of pregnant women and other at-risk people, Homeland Security numbers show that many have been caught up in the immigration enforcement surge over the past year.
by Shefali Luthra, The 19th News March 25, 2026 Updated March 25, 2026

Do the ‘climate-tech’ startups headed to old Navy base signal innovation—or a cover for Big Oil?

A startup hub planned for the old Navy Base boasts of green “deep tech”— but experts warn some of that tech only provides cover for polluters, while one was founded by an Israeli arms developer.
by Delaney Nolan March 24, 2026 Updated March 31, 2026

The classroom as first courtroom: Jada’s story

Jada and other Black girls often take the first steps toward the delinquency pipeline in the schoolroom, where teachers too often misread curiosity as sassiness—or as Louisiana law describes it, "willful disobedience."
by Andrea Hagan March 23, 2026 Updated April 6, 2026

The troubling side of public surveillance

The NOPD recently proposed using drones as first responders. Across the nation, cameras seem to be popping up everywhere. But many agencies have few safeguards to prevent abuse by individual officers.
by Jamiles Lartey, The Marshall Project March 20, 2026 Updated March 21, 2026

A year ago, we killed Jessie Hoffman

Jessie represents everything that is wrong with Louisiana’s death-penalty system, which costs taxpayers roughly $15 million a year and has shockingly little reliability in its convictions, due to an 80% reversal rate.
by Samantha Kennedy March 19, 2026 Updated March 21, 2026

For 100 years, Big Oil knew it was turning Louisiana’s coast into ‘Swiss cheese,’ records show

Oil giants knew that their practices were devastating coastal land, water, and habitats. That history is worth revisiting now, as the Supreme Court prepares a decision that could determine whether oil companies pay billions to rebuild Louisiana’s coast.
by Emily Sanders, ExxonKnews March 18, 2026 Updated March 17, 2026

Our culture, our food, our health: why we must confront the ‘Silent Killer’

Hypertension, often called the silent killer, continues to disproportionately impact Black Americans and contributes to higher rates of stroke, heart disease and premature death.
by Congressman Troy A. Carter, Sr. March 17, 2026 Updated March 15, 2026

As gas prices soar, Trump is ignoring the lessons of the last oil crisis

When federal officials did away with fuel-efficiency standards, they assumed — wrongly — that oil prices would fall to dramatic lows and that gas would become cheap enough to wipe out the increased fuel costs of less-efficient vehicles.
by Jake Bittle, Grist March 16, 2026 Updated March 15, 2026

Abortion pill crackdowns clear two legislatures; Hawley looks to revoke mifepristone’s FDA approval

Republican lawmakers are focused on limiting the availability of abortion medication, the most common way to terminate early pregnancies in the United States.
by Elisha Brown March 16, 2026 Updated March 15, 2026

Gov. Landry orders Louisiana schools to begin posting Ten Commandments

In the wake of an appeals court ruling, some Louisiana public school leaders are now making plans to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. Others await guidance because plaintiffs in the case could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
by Marta Jewson March 15, 2026 Updated March 15, 2026

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