KEVIN McGILL

FILE - Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
Supreme Court orders Louisiana to use congressional map with additional Black district in 2024 vote
The Supreme Court has ordered Louisiana to hold congressional elections using a House map with a second mostly Black district, despite a lower-court ruling that called the map an illegal racial gerrymander.
 
FILE - A kayaker walks past large buoys being used as a floating border barrier on the Rio Grande, Aug. 1, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments on the future of the barrier of giant buoys that aimed at deterring migrant traffic on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Future of Texas’ migrant-blocking buoys may hinge on whether the Rio Grande is ‘navigable’
A federal appeals court is considering the latest arguments on whether Texas must remove a barrier consisting of large floating buoys anchored in the Rio Grande as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to deter immigration.
 
FILE - Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including, from left, Kevin Bourgeois, John Gianoli, Richard Windmann and John Anderson, hold signs during a conference in front of the New Orleans Saints training facility, Jan. 29, 2020, in Metairie, La. Louisiana’s Supreme Court agreed Friday, May 10, 2024, to reconsider its recent ruling that wiped out a state law giving adult victims of childhood sexual abuse a renewed opportunity to file damage lawsuits. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)
Louisiana court may reopen window for lawsuits by adult victims of childhood sex abuse
Louisiana’s Supreme Court has agreed to reconsider its ruling that wiped out a law giving adult victims of childhood sexual abuse a renewed opportunity to file damage lawsuits.
 
FILE - Teliah Perkins stands in front of the federal appeals court building in New Orleans, May 3, 2023, following a hearing on her lawsuit against two St. Tammany Parish, La., sheriff's deputies stemming from her arrest in May 2020. A teenager who video-recorded his mother Teliah's forceful arrest by Louisiana sheriff's deputies has been awarded $185,000 by a federal jury in a lawsuit filed over one deputy's attempt to interfere with the recording. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill, File)
A teen said a deputy threatened him as he filmed his mom’s arrest. A jury awarded him $185,000.
A teenager who video-recorded his mother’s forceful arrest by Louisiana sheriff’s deputies in 2020 has been awarded $185,000 by a federal jury in a lawsuit filed over one deputy’s attempt to interfere with the recording.
 
FILE - Louisiana Attorney General candidate Liz Murrill takes part in a forum as part of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana's 2023 conference, April 26, 2023, at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Baton Rouge, La. A panel of federal judges who recently threw out a congressional election map giving Louisiana a second mostly Black district said Tuesday, May 7, 2024, that the state Legislature must pass a new map by June 3 or face having the panel impose one on the state. However, voting rights advocates and Republican Attorney General Murrill said they would head take an appeal in defense of the new map to the Supreme Court. (Travis Spradling/The Advocate via AP, File)
Advocates ask Supreme Court to back Louisiana’s new, mostly Black House district
Voting rights advocates have filed an emergency motion asking the Supreme Court to keep in place a new Louisiana congressional map that gives the state a second majority Black district.
 
Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, performs during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Thursday, May 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Time is on their side: Rolling Stones rock New Orleans Jazz Fest after 2 previous tries
The Rolling Stones made their first appearance at the 54-year-old New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
 
FILE - Democratic Louisiana Sen. Cleo Fields speaks during the swearing in of the state Legislature, Jan. 8, 2024, in Baton Rouge, La. A panel of federal judges on Tuesday rejected a new congressional map that would give Louisiana a second majority Black district, renewing the political fortunes of Graves, whose district was altered by the map. Fields had declared his intention to run for Congress in the new district. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, Pool, File)
Advocates say Supreme Court must preserve new, mostly Black US House district for 2024 elections
Republican state Attorney General Liz Murrill said she would appeal Tuesday’s ruling. And a coalition of individuals and civil rights groups filed a formal notice Wednesday saying they would go to the Supreme Court.
 
FILE - Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., speaks at a news conference after the House passed the debt ceiling bill, May 31, 2023, at the Capitol in Washington. A panel of federal judges on Tuesday rejected a new congressional map that would give Louisiana a second majority Black district, renewing the political fortunes of Graves, whose district was altered by the map. Fields had declared his intention to run for Congress in the new district. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
Louisiana won’t immediately get a new majority-Black House district after judges reject it
A new Louisiana congressional map giving the state a second majority-Black House district has been rejected by a panel of federal judges.
 
FILE - Cardell Hayes enters Orleans Parish Criminal District Court in New Orleans, Sept. 20, 2023, for a hearing regarding his retrial for shooting former NFL star Will Smith. Hayes is scheduled for sentencing Thursday, April 25, 2024, in a New Orleans courtroom. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)
Man who shot ex-Saints star Will Smith receives 25-year prison sentence for manslaughter
 
FILE - Turbines operate at the Block Island Wind Farm, Dec. 7, 2023, off the coast of Block Island, R.I. The Biden administration is preparing to announce plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production, with up to a dozen lease sales anticipated beginning this year and continuing through 2028. The plan was to be announced Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in New Orleans by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)
Biden administration announces plans for up to 12 lease sales for offshore wind energy
The Biden administration has announced plans for a new five-year schedule to lease federal offshore tracts for wind energy production. The plan was announced Wednesday in New Orleans by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
 
Zach Lemann, curator of animal collections for the Audubon Insectarium, prepares cicadas for eating at the insectarium in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The insectarium plans to demonstrate ways to cook cicadas at the little in-house snack bar where it already serves other insect dishes. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Would you like a cicada salad? The monstrous little noisemakers descend on a New Orleans menu
They may look like little monsters. And their seemingly endless racket may be a nuisance. But as parts of the nation prepare for the emergence of trillions of noisy cicadas, bug experts say the little creatures can also be a tasty snack.
 
FILE - Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., speaks at a news conference after the House passed the debt ceiling bill, May 31, 2023, at the Capitol in Washington. Louisiana Sen. Cleo Fields, who served in Congress in the 1990s and is currently a state senator, has declared his candidacy for a new majority-Black congressional district created in January by the Legislature. The new map greatly alters the district currently represented by Graves. Opponents of the new map are challenging it in federal court, calling it a "racial gerrymander." (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
New Black congressional district in Louisiana bows to politics, not race, backers say
Louisiana is awaiting a decision from three federal judges that could affect the balance of power in Congress — and the fortunes of two prominent state politicians.
 
New Orleans shooting that killed 1, injured 11 renews calls for changes to new concealed carry law
A shooting outside a New Orleans nightclub over the weekend has prompted renewed calls from city officials for changes to a pending Louisiana law allowing people to carry concealed handguns without a permit.
 
A car is flipped at McDonalds on Old Spanish Trail after an apparent tornado touched down in south Slidell, La., Wednesday, April 10, 2024. (Scott Threlkeld/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Storms bring floods and damaging wind across the South; 1 dead in Mississippi
Officials in a Louisiana city are assessing the damage from a tornado spawned by a system of severe weather also blamed for a death in Mississippi and damage from Texas to the Florida panhandle.
 
FILE - A tassel with 2023 on it rests on a graduation cap as students walk in a procession for Howard University's commencement in Washington, Saturday, May 13, 2023. A federal appeals court says a Biden administration plan to provide student debt relief for people who say they were victims of misleading information by trade schools or colleges is “almost certainly unlawful.” The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, dated Thursday, April 4, 2024, came in a court challenge filed by Career Colleges and Schools of Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
An appeals court blocks a debt relief plan for students who say they were misled by colleges
A federal appeals court says a Biden administration plan to provide student debt relief for people who say they were victims of misleading information by trade schools or colleges is “almost certainly unlawful.” The 5th U.S.
 
Lawyer Paul Sterbcow, left, with his client, attorney Richard Trahant, talks to reporters outside the federal appeals court building in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Trahant is appealing a $400,000 court sanction for allegedly violating a bankruptcy court secrecy order by alerting a school principal and a reporter that a suspected child predator was working as a chaplain at a high school. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill)
Lawyer for sex abuse victims says warning others about chaplain didn’t violate secrecy order
A New Orleans attorney is appealing a $400,000 court penalty for warning a school principal and a reporter about a high school chaplain who was suspected of being a sexual predator. Richard Trahant represents victims of clergy abuse.
 
FILE - In this Jan. 27, 2014, file photo, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin arrives at the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans. Nagin, who was convicted on federal bribery, money laundering and other corruption charges in 2014, has completed his 10-year sentence is asking a federal judge to restore his rights to carry a gun and vote. Prosecutors said Thursday, March 28, 2024, the New Orleans-based federal judge in the case has no authority to restore his federal firearms rights. And, it's up to the state of Texas, where he now lives, to decide on his voting privileges.(AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman, File)
Convicted ex-New Orleans mayor has done his time. Now, can he get the right to carry a gun?
A former mayor of New Orleans who was convicted on federal corruption charges wants the right to carry a gun, but the path to that is complicated.
 
FILE - Migrants wait to be processed by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol after they crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico, Oct. 19, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. A Texas law that allows the state to arrest and deport migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. will remain on hold for now, a federal appeals court ruled. The order late Tuesday, March 26, 2024, from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals followed a March 20 hearing by a three-judge panel of the court. It’s just the latest move in a seesaw legal case that is not yet over. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Texas’ migrant arrest law will remain on hold under new court ruling
Texas’ plans to arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. will remain on hold under a federal appeals court order. The ruling likely prevents enforcement of Republican Gov.
 
FILE - Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including, from left, Kevin Bourgeois, John Gianoli, Richard Windmann and John Anderson, hold signs during a conference in front of the New Orleans Saints training facility, Jan. 29, 2020, in Metairie, La. Advocates for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse say they will ask Louisiana's Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that wiped out 2021 legislation giving them a renewed opportunity to file civil damage lawsuits over their molestation. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)
Louisiana Legislature opened window for sex abuse survivors to sue, but state’s high court shut it
Advocates for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse say they will ask Louisiana’s Supreme Court to reconsider a ruling that wiped out 2021 legislation giving them a renewed opportunity to file damage lawsuits. The ruling bucked a trend.
 
FILE - This image provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2019, shows proposed cigarette warning labels. A federal rule requiring that cigarette packs and advertising include graphic images demonstrating the effects of smoking, including pictures of smoke-damaged lungs and feet blackened by diminished blood flow, does not violate the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, March 21, 2024. (FDA via AP, File)
Requiring ugly images of smoking’s harm on cigarettes won’t breach First Amendment, court says
A federal appeals court says a requirement that cigarette packs and advertising include graphic images demonstrating the effects of smoking does not violate the First Amendment. The ruling Thursday from the 5th U.S.
 
FILE - Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, lifted a stay on a Texas law that gives police broad powers to arrest migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally, while a legal battle over immigration authority plays out. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Texas immigration ruling puts spotlight on nation’s most conservative federal appeals court
The federal appeals court that heard arguments over a Texas law that would allow the state to arrest and deport people who enter the U.S. illegally is a favorite for Republicans. The 5th U.S.
 
World War II veteran Olin Pickens, of Nesbit, Miss., who served in the U.S. Army 805th Tank Destroyer Battalion, looks at the virtual exhibit of himself at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Wednesday, March 20, 2024. An interactive exhibit opening Wednesday at the museum will use artificial intelligence to let visitors hold virtual conversations with images of veterans, including a Medal of Honor winner who died in 2022. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
AI-aided virtual conversations with WWII vets are latest feature at New Orleans museum
An interactive exhibit opening Wednesday at the National WWII Museum uses artificial intelligence to let visitors hold virtual conversations with images of veterans, including a Medal of Honor winner who died in 2022.
 
An array of hats decorated for St. Patrick's Day is displayed at a park in New Orleans during an Irish-themed fundraiser for a local school on Thursday, March 14, 2024. Although New Orleans is better known for French, Spanish, African American and Caribbean influences, the Irish have played a major role in the city's history, and the city celebrates the legacy with parades and parties centered around the March 17 St. Patrick's Day holiday. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill)
When it’s St. Patrick’s Day in New Orleans, get ready to catch a cabbage
Visitors to New Orleans might be surprised to know that Irish immigrants are part of a city culture that is well known for evolving from early French and Spanish colonization, Caribbean commerce and the legacies of enslaved Africans.
 
Texas parental consent law for teen contraception doesn’t run afoul of federal program, court says
A federal appeals court says a Texas law requiring that minors have parental permission to get birth control does not run afoul of a federally funded pregnancy health program known as Title X. Tuesday’s ruling from the 5th U.S.
 
FILE - A view of the Upper Pontalba building in New Orleans' French Quarter, July 19, 2023. The New Orleans City Council voted, Thursday, March 7, 2024, to change the locks on the coveted city-owned apartment in it’s latest dispute with Mayor LaToya Cantrell, whose use of the French Quarter property drew scrutiny and figured in a failed recall effort. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill, File)
New Orleans’ mayor says she’s not using coveted city apartment, but council orders locks changed
The New Orleans City Council has voted to change the locks on a coveted city-owned apartment in its latest dispute with Mayor LaToya Cantrell.
 
FILE - The healthcare.gov website is seen on Dec. 14, 2021, in Fort Washington, Md. A federal appeals court was scheduled to hear arguments Monday, March 4, 2024 on whether former President Barack Obama's signature health care law requires full insurance coverage of certain types of preventive care, including HIV prevention and some types of cancer screenings. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
Latest attempt to chip away at ‘Obamacare’ questions preventive health care
A federal appeals court is considering whether the government properly put in place requirements that health insurance plans affecting an estimated 150 million Americans must cover certain types of preventive care.
 
WWII veteran Samuel Meyer, 99, speaks with reporters after being awarded with the rank of chevalier, or knight, in the French Legion of Honor, on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. Meyer is best known in New Orleans as the longtime proprietor of Meyer the Hatter, a landmark hat business begun by his grandfather in 1894. (AP Photo/Kevin McGill)
New Orleans hat seller honored by France for service in WWII
A 99-year-old New Orleans businessman best known in the city as a proprietor of his family’s landmark hat store on St. Charles Avenue has been honored by the French government for his military service during World War II.
 
Paul Carpenter, a New Orleans magician, performs card tricks during an interview in New Orleans, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024. Carpenter says he was hired in January by Steve Kramer, who has worked on ballot access for Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips, to use AI software to imitate President Joe Biden's voice to convince New Hampshire Democrat voters not to vote in the state's presidential primary. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton)
Magician says political consultant hired him to create AI robocall ahead of New Hampshire primary
A New Orleans magician says a Democratic consultant who worked for Dean Phillips’ presidential campaign hired him to create the audio for what authorities say may be the first known attempt to use artificial intelligence to interfere with a U.S. election.
 
FILE - Anne Kirkpatrick speaks during a news conference after New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, back left, announced Kirkpatrick as her nominee to head the New Orleans Police Department, Sept. 11, 2023, in New Orleans. The New Orleans Police Department's progress in complying with an 11-year-old reform agreement has “accelerated dramatically,” a federal judge said Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024, but she gave no indication when she would feel comfortable relaxing court oversight of the department. (Chris Granger/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP, File)/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
11 years later, still no end to federal intervention in sight for New Orleans police
A federal judge says the New Orleans Police Department’s progress in complying with an 11-year-old reform agreement has “accelerated dramatically.” But at a Wednesday hearing, U.S.
 
FILE - The Louisiana Capitol stands prominently, April 4, 2023, in Baton Rouge, La. A major Louisiana health insurer's plan to reorganize and sell itself to insurance giant Elevance Health for $2.7 billion was shelved hours ahead of a scheduled public hearing Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024, in Baton Rouge, where critics of the sale have voiced various concerns over the proposal. (AP Photo/Stephen Smith, File)
A $2.7 billion sale of a major Louisiana health insurer is off table for the second time in a year
A major Louisiana health insurer’s plan to reorganize and sell itself to insurance giant Elevance Health was shelved hours ahead of a scheduled public hearing in Baton Rouge.
 
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