Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Unjustified use of force, dangerous vehicle pursuits and racially biased policing continue to be problems for the New Orleans Police Department, the U.S. Justice Department said in a Friday court filing, opposing the city’s move to terminate a decade-old court-backed reform agreement.

The city has made progress in turning itself around, Justice Department lawyers said. “But progress towards compliance is not the same as full and effective compliance that has proven durable,” Friday’s court filing said.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — First lady Jill Biden visited a medical center in New Orleans on Friday to stress the importance of cancer research, a priority in the budget proposal President Joe Biden sent to Congress.

The Democratic president’s overall budget plan has been roundly criticized by Republicans and won’t make it through Congress intact. But Biden is hoping the fight against cancer will find bipartisan support.

The first lady briefly touted her husband’s budget plan but the tone of the event was largely apolitical.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An appeals court has struck down a federal fisheries management rule requiring operators of privately owned charter boats in the Gulf of Mexico to equip their vessels with tracking devices, a victory for a group of Louisiana and Florida charter operators who challenged the rule in a 2020 lawsuit.

Thursday’s ruling by a panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a lower court decision upholding the regulation, which had been developed to help regulators keep track of the amount of fish caught on recreational charter vessels.

NEW ORLEANS, Dec 16 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — At least three people have died and more than a dozen were left injured across Louisiana over the past 24 hours as severe weather system moved across the South carving a path of destruction.    

A 56-year-old woman “died after a tornado destroyed her home” in Killona, about 30 miles west of New Orleans, according to a tweet from the Louisiana Department of Health. The identity of the woman was not immediately released, officials in St. Charles Parish said.

FARMERVILLE, La. (AP) — Five Louisiana law enforcement officers were charged Thursday with state crimes ranging from negligent homicide to malfeasance in the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a death authorities initially blamed on a car crash before long suppressed body-camera video showed white officers beating, stunning and dragging the Black motorist as he wailed, “I’m scared!”

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — President Joe Biden has the same authority to impose a COVID-19 vaccine requirement on federal workers that private employers have for their employees, an administration lawyer told a federal appeals court Tuesday.

A lawyer for opponents of the vaccine requirement, which has been blocked nationwide by a federal judge in Texas, said the requirement imposes an “unconstitutionally intolerable choice” for executive branch workers — taking a vaccine they don’t want or losing their jobs.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It’s been quiet — too quiet — this Atlantic hurricane season, meteorologists and residents of storm-prone areas whisper almost as if not to tempt fate.

A record-tying inactive August is drawing to a close and no storms have formed, even though it is peak hurricane season and all experts’ pre-season forecasts warned of an above normal season. Nearly all the factors that meteorologists look for in a busy season are there.

Warm ocean water for fuel? Check.

Not a lot of wind shear that decapitates storms? Check.

LaPLACE, La. (AP) — Enthusiastic church volunteer Sonia St. Cyr lost something she treasures during the blackout caused by Hurricane Ida — her independence, afforded her by the electric wheelchair she expertly maneuvers over bumpy city sidewalks.

“After Ida I was housebound,” said St. Cyr, who has multiple sclerosis. She did her best to conserve power on her wheelchair, going only to the end of her block or sitting on her porch after the storm made landfall last August 29.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Pandemic-related restrictions on migrants seeking asylum on the southern border must continue, a judge ruled Friday in an order blocking the Biden administration’s plan to lift them early next week.

The ruling was just the latest instance of a court derailing the president’s proposed immigration policies along the U.S. border with Mexico.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge hears arguments Friday on whether the Biden administration can lift pandemic-related restrictions on immigrants requesting asylum later this month.

Migrants have been expelled more than 1.8 million times since March 2020 under federal Title 42 authority, which has denied migrants a chance to request asylum under U.S. law and international treaty on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.