Louisiana News

People often ask, what do I think is the most important issue facing Louisiana? Or, if I could accomplish just one thing as governor what would it be? These are tough questions.

In Louisiana and Mississippi, where the political chessboard tends to be a lot less threatening and at times entertaining, this election season is living up to expectations.

The Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival and Fair Association has selected Mr. Perry Segura as Mr. Iberia 2014.

July comes to an end and that means only one thing -- the start of school cannot be far behind.

A recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Harvard economics professor Edward Glaeser, University of British Columbia economics professor Joshua Gottlieb, and Harvard graduate student Oren Ziv tracks how people's self-perceived happiness varies among American cities.

While Superintendent of Education John White wrestles with Gov. Bobby Jindal over continuing to use Common Core and purchasing a test to assess student learning, he says he's being "unfairly targeted" by members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and board watchers.

When you're talking about happiness, Louisiana grasped the concept long before Pharrell Williams had a hit record.

Advocate photo by LEE CELANO - Children watch Twiggy, the water skiing squirrel, during the Louisiana Outdoor Expo at the Cajundome in Lafayette July 26, 2014.

Advocate file photo -- A model of the Formosan termite, a New Orleans nemesis, sits on display at the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium.

Robert Thomas Binney, who has a private law practice in Slidell, was among the Louisiana State Bar Association's recipients of a Pro Bono Publico Award at the Louisiana Supreme Court in New Orleans.

The Baton Rouge metropolitan area gained more nonfarm jobs - 12,700 - in the 12 months ended June 30 than any of Louisiana's other seven metros.

Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson has said he won't accept a retirement pay boost that the Louisiana Legislature approved for him and one other state trooper on the last day of the 2014 lawmaking session.

Two members of the Nicholls State University community traveled back in time -- and across the Atlantic Ocean -- to relive history.

Brandy Jenkins looks through school shirts for her daughter at Uniforms by Logo Express in New Orleans.

A man who thought he'd go in and easily rob an East Texas grocery store Thursday morning ended up getting the scare of his life and leaving empty-handed.

Chippewa County District Attorney Steve Gibbs said his office dropped the charges against Jimmy Baldwin, 37, and Eddie Evans, 61, on July 11. Gibbs called Baldwin's case "strictly circumstantial," and said that he's already serving a 45-year prison sentence.

With a nod to its maritime connections located along the banks of the Tchefuncte River, Fairview-Riverside State Park has become the seventh location in St. Tammany Parish to display a quilt block and join the Louisiana Northshore Quilt Trail Association.

Clifford Tresner, associate professor of art at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, has been chosen to present works at two Louisiana exhibitions this summer.

But you do have to go quite a way back: He says the Ninth Congress, from 1805 to 1807, during Thomas Jefferson's second term in office, did even less, because the government had no money left after the Louisiana Purchase.

Having failed to get a response to a series of questions he posed recently to the nation's Secretary of Homeland Security, Senator David Vitter says he has had to "dig around" to find out how Louisiana is being impacted by the surge of children from Central America crossing the U.S. border.