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How The Lens got the state of Louisiana to turn over a $1,000-an-hour contract with out-of-state lawyers hired to defend the state police
The arguments of the state’s lawyers were ever-evolving. First, they contended that the contract could be kept secret because it contained the “mental impressions of attorneys.” Then, they argued it was protected under “attorney-client privilege,” and cited a “deliberative process” exemption that’s found nowhere in Louisiana law.
Finish Renaming the Streets Now
Exactly what are we to commemorate on June 19, our newest federal holiday?. Juneteenth, the poetic contraction of the date that gives the holiday its name, was initially celebrated mostly among black Texans as a commemoration of that day in 1865 when news of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 Emancipation Proclamation reached people enslaved in the southern part of their state.
The Sound of Freedom
Most New Orleanians have learned that the city’s sound of freedom has deep roots in the Sunday dancing and drumming in Congo Square. “Music became the consciousness of our society, promoting both harmony and expression,” said Cyril B. Saulny of Treme for Treme, an umbrella group of neighborhood residents.
New Orleans’ intensive Center for Resilience closes abruptly
In 2021, Deborah was able to get her son, B., into the Center for Resilience, a groundbreaking therapeutic day program located on Calhoun Street, near Audubon Park. She felt she couldn’t keep him safe, that he had spiraled out of control. She did not know what to do. Whenever his mother drove somewhere, she would meticulously plan the route, with backup options, avoiding busy streets on the passenger side of the car, in case he opened his door and ran. At school, he would disrupt an entire classroom. He couldn’t deal with peers, with a school environment.
Behind The Lens episode 240: ‘An enduring insult’
This week on Behind The Lens, the New Orleans City Council Street Naming Commission issued a report two years ago recommending that 37 streets be renamed so as to remove the names of former slaveholders. Seven streets, including Lee Circle, have since been renamed. Then the work stalled. Writer Lolis Eric Elie joins the podcast to speak about his father, Lolis Edward Elie, a civil rights pioneer who’s on the short list of people whose names are being considered to replace the current street names.
A research duel heats up, amid high-stakes decision on LNG exports
This story was originally published by DeSmog and is reprinted here with permission. Industry and academic groups have launched a research arms race to influence the U.S. Department of Energy’s decision about whether more liquified natural gas exports are in the public interest. In late January, President Joe Biden...
A concussion and a missing dreadlock
The teacher grabbed Roger’s dreadlocks and put his weight against him. He was immobilized. That can be seen clearly in at least one cell-phone photo taken by a classmate on April 11. Another classmate’s cell-phone video of the encounter is less clear, though it shows an altercation between students...
Federal judge: ‘I don’t think robbers would ask for help’
On Tuesday, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, lawyers from the ACLU of Louisiana and Cooley LLP argued in front of a three-judge panel on behalf of Bilal Hankins, a Black teenager stopped at gunpoint moments after he and his friends had approached officers for help in finding a lost dog.
Behind The Lens episode 239: ‘It’s unconscionable’
This week on Behind The Lens, one year after Calvin Cains III was shot and killed by Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s deputies, his mother and father are still asking for the body cam footage from the incident, and they have filed a federal lawsuit to get it. The defense against...
How federal tax dollars meant to fight climate change could end up boosting Louisiana’s fossil fuel production
Billions of federal tax dollars will soon be pouring into Louisiana to fight climate change, yet the projects they’re supporting may actually boost fossil fuels – the very products warming the planet. At issue are plans to build dozens of federally subsidized projects to capture and bury carbon...
‘Show us the video’
It’s been almost a year since Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies shot and killed 18-year-old Calvin “Trey” Cains III in the parking lot of his mom’s Metairie apartment complex. Yet his mother, Mallory Woodfork, and his father, Calvin Cains Jr., are still searching for answers...
Stories behind the soil: Le Petit Jardin de Belle
In southern Louisiana heat, teenagers joke back and forth while sinking their gloved hands into the dirt on a two-and-a-half-acre sustainable farm, nestled into New Orleans City Park. Grow Dat Youth Farm was founded in 2011 on a former golf course not far from Pan-American Stadium. Youth workers are paid...
Louisiana paying D.C. attorneys $1,000 an hour to defend against probe into state police
A law firm in Washington, D.C. is collecting $1,000 an hour to help shield the Louisiana State Police from a federal civil-rights investigation. The white-shoe firm, WilmerHale, was given the contract to defend LSP from a sweeping investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice spurred by evidence of racial discrimination and use of excessive force.
We are not helpless in the face of climate change.
As we enter hurricane season, we need to talk about climate change. But it needs to be more than mere talk and debates. While politicians debate, markets respond to facts. Many of us see this in our skyrocketing homeowners insurance rates – if we are lucky enough to have insurance.
Behind The Lens episode 238: ‘Juvenile Jails’
This week on Behind The Lens, a proposed bill in the state legislature would provide funding to parish governments to build new local juvenile-detention facilities resulting in a system that mirrors Louisiana’s adult system, which uses local lockups to house state prisoners. And the class of 2024 at Living...
Living Memories
“This is my people. This is all I know,” said Brianna Smith, as she stood in the place that had become her haven, a converted laser-tag venue in New Orleans East that was renovated five years ago into the Living School New Orleans. The high school’s staff and students...
Paying sheriffs to keep the kids
For roughly four years, 17-year-olds in Louisiana were considered juveniles in the eyes of the criminal legal system. They could be detained pre-trial in juvenile detention centers across the state. Judges could place them in state custody in juvenile facilities. Then, in mid-April, they became adults, thanks to a change...
Behind The Lens episode 237: ‘A union victory’
This week on Behind The Lens, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is getting heat from both sides in Louisiana, with industry proponents decrying recent moves by the agency to tighten pollution controls, and environmentalists threatening to sue the agency for not doing enough. And there is now a union of teachers and staff at local charter school Lycée Français, after an overwhelming yes vote on May 13.
Language Access in Bulbancha
Since its establishment as a colonial outpost of the French empire, New Orleans has been an international and multi-ethnic port city full of immigrants, migrants, and indigenous residents. Languages of all kinds flourished even before European colonization, as the indigenous name for the region was Bulbancha, or land of many tongues.
On the heels of staff non-renewals, Lycée Français teachers win union vote
On Monday night, union teachers raised their arms high into the air as they walked out of Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans, the French-curriculum charter school. The big union vote was victorious. A solid 81% of teachers and staff voted in favor of the union. Of the 64 teachers and staff who voted, 52 pulled the lever in favor of the union while 12 opposed it.
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The Lens is the New Orleans area’s first nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest newsroom, dedicated to unique investigative and explanatory journalism.
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