Louisiana

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Louisiana Senate candidate goes viral for smoking marijuana in campaign ad

      by

      Louisiana Senate candidate goes viral for smoking marijuana in campaign adDemocrat Gary Chambers Jr smokes blunt in video in effort to ‘destigmatize’ use and raise awareness about racial justice A US Senate candidate from Louisiana has shared a campaign video in which he smokes marijuana in an effort to “destigmatize” its use and raise awareness about racial justice.Gary Chambers Jr, a 37-year-old Democrat and social justice advocate from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is shown seated outdoors in a chair, taking puffs from a blunt.“My first campaign ad, ‘37 Seconds.’ #JustLikeMe,” Chambers tweeted on Tuesday in a caption for the ad, which has spread widely on social media. In it, he recites arrest statistics of Black Americans and marijuana possession.“Every 37 seconds, someone is arrested for possession of marijuana. Since 2010, police have arrested an estimated 7.3 million Americans for violating marijuana laws,” Chambers says, to the sound effect of a ticking clock. “Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana laws than white people.”He adds: “States waste $3.7bn enforcing marijuana laws every year. Most of the people police are arresting aren’t dealers, but rather people with small amounts of pot, just like me.”Writing about the campaign video, Chambers said:“I hope this ad works not only to destigmatize the use of marijuana, but also forces a new conversation that creates the pathway to legalize this beneficial drug, and forgive those who were arrested due to outdated ideology.”In a statement to CNN, he elaborated that it was “long past due that politicians stop pretending to be better or different than the people they represent”, adding: “Some parts of the country are fighting opioid addictions and creating millionaires and better schools from the marijuana industry. Others are creating felonies and destroyed families. I can’t stand for that.’”According to Chambers’ campaign, the ad was shot over the weekend in New Orleans, a city that just recently passed a law to decriminalize marijuana possession. The city council also added a blanket pardon for marijuana possession convictions dating back to 2010, which the council members said would apply to about 10,000 old cases.Last June, the Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, signed a bill into law that reduces the penalty for possessing small amounts of marijuana, and at the beginning of this month lawmakers legalized the “smokable” form of medical marijuana under certain conditions.Chambers is seeking to challenge Republican senator John Kennedy, a staunch conservative and Donald Trump ally, in November’s all-party primary.TopicsLouisianaRaceUS politicsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Our favorite photos from 2021: how Guardian US pictures captured a historic year

      by

      Our photographers captured many moving and inspirational moments in 2021. Here’s our pick of the most striking imagesby Gail Fletcher and Alvin ChangIn 2021, our photographers told some of the most profound stories in America. They captured personal moments, like a man assessing the remnants of his home after Hurricane Ida. There were inspirational stories, like how a majority Black high school created a girls lacrosse team during the pandemic. And there were historic scenes, like the lead-up to the presidential inauguration just weeks after insurrectionists tried to overturn the election results. Thank you to all the photographers who worked with us this year.US cities are suffocating in the heat. Now they want retributionThe city of Baltimore is suing oil and gas companies for their role in the climate crisis, which has had an outsized impact on community of color. The image below shows Karen Lewis, who says her row house in Baltimore can get so hot that sometimes she has trouble breathing.Photographer: Greg KahnBallparks, stadiums and race tracks: US mass vaccination sites – in picturesPhotographer Filip Wolak took aerial photos of mass Covid-19 vaccination sites around the US. The Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta was selected as one of Georgia’s four mass vaccination sites beginning 22 February 2021.Photographer: Filip WolakAfter slavery, oystering offered a lifeline. Now sewage spills threaten to end it allRaw sewage leaks in Virginia have threatened the livelihoods of the few remaining Black oyster-people on the east coast. These leaks can be seen draining through neighborhoods, like this culvert that connects the historic African American Pughsville neighborhood to the larger drainage system. Below is five-year-old Braxton Miller swinging above the water.Photographer: Alyssa SchukarA quiet revolution: the female imams taking over an LA mosqueIn some mosques, women aren’t allowed to pray in the same room as men; in some mosques, women can’t even pray inside. But female imams in Los Angeles are pushing those boundaries with mixed congregation mosques and LBGTQ mosques, and using their sermons to talk about topics like sexual violence and pregnancy loss. Below are Nurjahan Boulden, Tasneem Noor and Samia Bano after praying together in Venice, California.Photographer: Anna BoyiazisThe preparation for an inauguration like no other – a photo essayThe Guardian asked photographer Jordan Gale to document the lead-up to the presidential inauguration, which happened just weeks after insurrectionists tried to overturn the election results on 6 January 2021. Below are steel gates blocking off parts of Pennsylvania Avenue leading up to the US Capitol and a woman looking through a security checkpoint.Photographer: Jordan GaleSalmon face extinction throughout the US west. Blame these four damsFour closely spaced damns in eastern Washington state are interfering with salmon migration. Below, salmon are seen swimming through the viewing area at Lower Granite Dam Fish Ladder Visitor Center in Pomeroy, Washington.Photographer: Mason TrincaThe California mothers fighting for a home in a pandemic – photo essayIn this photo essay about the precarious nature of America’s safety net, Cherokeena Robinson, 32 – who lost her job during the pandemic – lays in bed with her son Mai’Kel Stephens, 6, at their transitional house in San Pedro, California that they share with one or two other families at a time.Photographer: Rachel BujalskiA tiny Alaska town is split over a goldmine. At stake is a way of lifeIn Haines, Alaska, a mining project promised jobs, but some are worried contamination from the mine could destroy the salmon runs they rely on. In the photo below, a seagull flies above hundreds of spawning chum salmon on a slough of the Chilkat River, just below the Tlingit village of Klukwan.Photographer: Peter Mather‘Sad and so unfair’: Palestinian Americans celebrate a painful EidFor Palestinian American Muslims, the conclusion to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is supposed to be a time of celebration. This year, the violence in Gaza and Jerusalem made it a somber event. The photo on the left is Tiffany Cabán, who would eventually win a seat on the New York city council. On the tight are Muslim greetings each other after morning Eid al-Fitr prayers.Photographer: Ismail Ferdous‘This is a spectacular chorus’: walk into the cicada explosionTrillions of periodic cicada emerged this year after a 17-year dormancy underground along the eastern US. In the photograph below, cicadas swarm the trees near a home in Columbia, Maryland.Photographer: Gabriella DemczukHow a majority Black school in Detroit shook up the world of lacrosseDetroit Cass Technical high school, where the student body is 85% Black, only offered three spring sports for girls – until a group of girls asked the administration to add lacrosse. It was a unique request; while it’s a Native American game, most participants are white. This story is about this team’s two-year journey to get on the field and, eventually, win. Below, clockwise, are Kayla Carroll-Williams, 15, Zahria Liggans, 18, Alexia Carroll-Williams, 17, and Deja Crenshaw, 18.Photographer: Sylvia JarrusA chemical firm bought out these Black and white US homeowners – with a significant disparityIn 2012, the South African chemical firm Sasol announced plans to build a complex in Mossville, Louisiana. They bought out the homes of people who lived on that land, but an analysis found that they offered significantly less money to Black homeowners than white homeowners. The image on the right shows Eyphit Hadnot, 58, and his older brother Dellar Hadnot, 61. The Hadnot family lived in Mossville for 80 years when Sasol offered them the buyout, which they rejected. On the left is a plot of land where a home used to stand before Sasol leveled the building.Photographer: Christian K Lee‘Ida is not the end’: Indigenous residents face the future on Louisiana’s coast – photo essayThe communities of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles suffered some of Hurricane Ida’s worst destruction. That left then with a hard question: Stay to rebuild, or leave? The photo shows Kip de’Laune searching for any salvageable items at his home in Point-Aux-Chenes after Hurricane Ida.Photographer: Bryan TarnowskiShe survived Hurricane Sandy. Then climate gentrification hitAfter Hurricane Sandy, Kimberly White Smalls hoped the city would help her rebuild her home in New York’s Far Rockaway neighborhood. Instead, the only option she was left with was to sell the house to the city. Below are Smalls’ grandsons – Donovan E Smalls, 9, left, and Kelsey E Smalls Jr, 8 – running down the street in Far Rockaway, Queens.Photographer: Krisanne JohnsonTopicsPhotographyUS politicsCoronavirusClimate crisisCaliforniaAlaskaReuse this content More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Edwin Edwards, Flamboyant Louisiana Governor, Is Dead at 93

      by

      He served four terms, charmed voters with his escapades and survived a score of investigations before going to prison in 2002 for racketeering.Mere months after being released from prison, former Gov. Edwin Edwards of Louisiana greeted an enthusiastic crowd as the Grand marshal of the 2011 International Rice Festival in Crowley, La.Jennifer Zdon for The New York TimesEdwin W. Edwards, the only four-term governor in Louisiana’s history, a swashbuckling rogue who charmed voters with his escapades and survived a score of grand jury investigations and two corruption trials before going to prison in 2002 for racketeering, died on Monday at his home in Gonzales, La. He was 93. His biographer, Leo Honeycutt, said the cause was respiratory failure. In January 2011, Mr. Edwards was released from a federal prison in Oakdale, La., after serving more than eight years of a 10-year sentence for bribery and extortion by rigging Louisiana’s riverboat casino licensing process during his last term in office.Six months later he married. And in the fall, he rode in an open convertible through cheering crowds waving Edwards-for-governor signs at an election-day barbecue. “As you know, they sent me to prison for life,” he told them. “But I came back with a wife.”Before Mr. Edwards, no one had ever been elected to more than two terms as governor of Louisiana. Indeed, the state constitution prohibits more than two consecutive terms. But from 1972 to 1996, with a couple of four-year furloughs to stoke up his improbable comebacks, Mr. Edwards was the undisputed king of Baton Rouge, a Scripture-quoting, nonsmoking teetotaler who once considered life as a preacher.In a state where it has always been good politics to wink at a little wickedness, Mr. Edwards, the silver-haired, bilingual son of French Creole sharecroppers and a relentless electoral and legislative infighter, was perhaps the most dominant political force since Huey Long, the radical populist known as the Kingfish, who was assassinated at the State Capitol in 1935.Courting votes in a bayou drawl with Cajun-inflected pledges to “laissez les bons temps rouler” (“let the good times roll”), Mr. Edwards — who avoided the prototypical political sins of self righteousness and talked the way plain folks did over gumbo and crawfish pie — rose from a local council to the State Senate to a seat in Congress and the governor’s mansion in 17 years.A complete obituary will be published shortly. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      The Louisiana gas industry’s answer to lax safety enforcement? Loosen it more

      by

      When a natural gas pipeline fire south-west of New Orleans killed one worker and burned three others, the Louisiana state police ordered Phillips 66 to pay a $22,000 fine for failing to immediately report the incident. The fire burned for four days before first responders could put it out.But the company ultimately didn’t pay any police fine, ending up with just a warning.That story is common, according to public records reviewed by the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight with the Guardian. The Louisiana state police – which oversees pipeline safety – issued 34 fines and five warning letters in the past five years. A quarter of those penalties were reduced: three were lowered, five were replaced with warning letters and two were dismissed. The fines that did stick were low, between $2,250 and $8,000.Aside from the obvious potential harms to workers, gas leaks pose fire risks and can cause respiratory problems for people in nearby communities.Phillips 66 declined to comment for this story. The company was separately fined $20,000 over the incident by the department of natural resources.Despite the record of lax enforcement by the state police, gas companies in the state say they are being treated unfairly and have lobbied for legislation to loosen requirements around reporting pipeline leaks. Louisiana has more gas pipelines than any other state except Texas, and more gas pipeline projects are planned in the state to support the growing demand for US natural gas exports.The proposal, House Bill 549 from Louisiana’s Republican representative Danny McCormick, was approved by Louisiana lawmakers and has been sent to the Democratic governor John Bel Edwards’ desk. It is one of many efforts by the influential oil and gas industry to avoid regulation and keep its tax rates low in the state. If signed into law, it would absolve companies from reporting natural gas leaks of less than 1,000 pounds, unless they cause hospitalization or death.Gene Dunegan, the program manager for Louisiana state police’s emergency services unit, defended the department’s record on fines, saying it had reduced them when pipeline companies present reasonable explanations for failing to report them within an hour. While Louisiana law requires pipeline companies to “immediately” report leaks, it does not define a deadline for doing so. The state police ask companies to report incidents within an hour.“Our goal is not to collect monies, but to keep the violation from recurring,” Dunegan said. “Most [companies] are proactive and implement needed changes and training prior to hearing from us, others not so much.”The state police issued few tickets over the past five years – less than 10 a year on average. One pipeline company’s name appears on the list more than any other: Centerpoint Energy. The company was ticketed seven times over the past three years, totaling $38,750.Trey Hill, a lobbyist representing Centerpoint, helped push McCormick’s bill through the Louisiana legislature. Centerpoint contested a ticket for failing to notify state police of one natural gas release, but state police dismissed the fine before a judge could decide on the case, Hill said in a legislative meeting in April. Atmos Energy, which was fined by Louisiana state police twice in 2020, also supported McCormick’s bill.Louisiana was among the first states to make trespassing on pipelines a felony, which pipeline companies have used to target environmental protesters and journalists. A federal judge recently allowed a challenge to Louisiana’s anti-protest pipeline law to move forward.Pipeline incidents are already underreported, said Anne Rolfes, the director of Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental organization that opposed the Bayou Bridge pipeline. “These accidents are overlooked, business as usual,” she said.In other states, the leaks are often overseen by energy regulators. In Oklahoma, for example, violations are enforced by the state’s Corporation Commission, but the highway patrol can also file charges against companies.In Louisiana, the department of natural resources’ pipeline division regulates only much larger gas leaks in intrastate pipelines that carry toxic or flammable products. “Our role is to conduct an investigation after the fact,” Steven Giambrone, the pipeline division director, said in the April committee hearing. “We’re not a first responder.”John Porter, the commander of the emergency services unit of the Louisiana state police, warned lawmakers that looser reporting thresholds could trigger public health concerns when smaller leaks happen in populated areas.“If we have a gas leak at a major intersection, 1,000 pounds would be an extreme amount with vehicles traveling by, with pedestrians traveling by,” he said. “And all we’re asking is for notification for us so we can get the proper emergency services people out there to protect the public.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Troy Carter wins Louisiana US House seat after fierce Democratic battle

      by

      The Democrat Troy Carter won a special election for a vacant US House seat in Louisiana, defeating a state senate colleague in an acrimonious clash that divided New Orleans.Carter easily beat Karen Carter Peterson on Saturday in the race for Louisiana’s only Democrat-held seat in Congress, in a victory for the moderate side of the party after Peterson, who would have been the first Black woman elected to Congress from the state, planted herself in the progressive camp.The state senators had both made previous failed bids for the seat and the race centered mainly on personality.The second district – majority Black, based on New Orleans but extending up the Mississippi into Baton Rouge and covering areas with severe pollution problems – was open because Cedric Richmond left the position shortly after he won last year’s election to work as a special adviser to Joe Biden.Each candidate touted high-profile endorsements.Peterson had backing from the voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell, among others.In addition to Richmond, Carter had backing from No3 House Democratic leader James Clyburn of South Carolina, New Orleans district attorney Jason Williams and every Black member of the state senate besides Peterson.“I will wake up every day with you on my mind, on my heart, and I will work for you tirelessly,” Carter told supporters. He also said he would focus on economic recovery from Covid-19, overhauling criminal sentencing laws, protecting LGBTQ rights and fighting for clean air in the district.Peterson, a former chair of Louisiana’s Democratic party, conceded soon after polls closed and pledged to “keep swinging hard for the people”.Carter and Peterson reached Saturday’s runoff after a 15-candidate March primary. Carter raised more cash but faced attack ads from out-of-state groups.In one debate, Peterson described herself as “bold and progressive”. Carter is known more for his ability to work across party lines. Peterson suggested Carter cozied up to Republicans. He said Peterson’s dogmatic approach damaged her ability to pass legislation.“In order to get things done, they need to send someone to Washington who can build bridges, not walls, that can establish relationships that mean something, not kick rocks because you don’t get your way, not spew lies because you’re losing,” Carter said.The two candidates backed an increase in the minimum wage, the legalization of recreational marijuana and abortion rights. They supported changes in how police are funded, though Peterson went further, saying she backed a “complete restructuring”.Both Carter and Peterson said they support Medicare for All. But while Peterson fully embraced shifting to a government-run, single-payer plan, Carter said he’d like people to have the option of retaining employer-financed coverage. More