In the News

Hurricane-battered Louisiana’s congressional delegation is divided over Democrats’ package to avert a government shutdown, raise the nation’s legal debt limit, and allocate nearly $30 billion in emergency aid responding to Hurricane Ida and other natural disasters.

Louisiana will need at least $2.5 billion in federal assistance to help its residents rebuild their homes and recover after Hurricane Ida, Gov. John Bel Edwards wrote Monday in a letter to Congress, urging support for disaster relief legislation. 

The Democratic governor traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with lawmakers as deliberations heat up over a stopgap spending bill that includes $28.6 billion in funding for communities hammered over the last two years by natural disasters ranging from hurricanes to wildfires. 

When the Louisiana Legislature meets next February 1, 2022 to finalize new maps of state house, senate and congressional districts, neither the Republican-controlled legislature nor Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards will automatically have the upper hand.  The legislature will propose the maps but Governor Edwards must sign them into law. Hence, there will be plenty of negotiations along the way.

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The nation’s Housing and Urban Development chief spent the day in the New Orleans area touring Hurricane Ida damage.

HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge first stopped at Westminster Tower, a residential complex for senior citizens in Kenner, a suburb just outside the city of New Orleans.

We don’t like Louisiana being known nationally as a place where people are regularly assaulted or killed under any circumstance, but certainly not by our own Louisiana State Police. Led by The Associated Press, national media has focused on the case of Ronald Greene, in which Monroe-based Troop F officers chased then beat the man. He died.

There's more. Much more.

The same State Police unit beat another man, Aaron Larry Bowman, not far from his Monroe home — and not long after they beat Greene. They hit Bowman 18 times with a flashlight. He survived.

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) – Louisiana’s senators are working to put pressure on the federal government to provide more aid to the state after Hurricane Ida. For both Sen. Bill Cassidy and Sen. John Kennedy, the main focus right now is to get additional relief dollars to the state to get people back in their homes and infrastructure fixed.

But for long-term plans, that is where they differ.

When Gov. John Bel Edwards issued an executive order suspending legal deadlines in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, he also implemented a statewide eviction moratorium without expressly stating it.

“Yes, evictions are included in the proclamation,” the governor’s office confirmed in an email.

The order was issued amid widespread power outages and storm damage in southeast Louisiana. Referring to affected residents, Edwards said in a news release, “We need for them to be focused on recovery and not whether they will be held to a court deadline.”

NEW ORLEANS - East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome met with U.S. Department of Housing and Development in New Orleans on Friday as the secretary toured several HUD housing complexes.

"Her and I have something in common. She used to be a mayor, so she understands how local government works," Mayor Broome said.

Mayor Broome and Secretary Marcia Fudge along with Senator John Kennedy and Congressman. Troy Carter served lunch for residents at the Guste Senior Housing Authority, a HUD-funded complex.