Free Republic

House Speaker Mike Johnson went to battle with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., over spending cuts and the national debt in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" this weekend. Johnson made the comments during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" with host Shannon Bream, after Paul had called the spending cuts in the current version of the bill "wimpy." "It sounds like his biggest objection is the fact that we are extending the debt ceiling. That's a critically important thing to do. We have to do it. We're not going to get any Democrats to assist on that," Johnson said Sunday....

Little remains of the historic Nottoway plantation home in Iberville Parish after a fire reduced the 160-year-old mansion to rubble on Thursday. Charred pieces framework had fallen to the slab, with soot surrounding the once grandiose property. The prominent white columns that supported the roof were mostly gone. White Castle officials are investigating what caused the fire and have begun combing through the remains.

One of six inmates still at-large after a New Orleans jailbreak last week has been captured, and a jail worker who allegedly helped the inmates escape has been arrested, the Louisiana attorney general's office announced Tuesday. Sterling Williams, 33, an Orleans Parish jail maintenance worker, was arrested after admitting to helping the 10 inmates escape Friday. He is charged with 10 counts of principal to simple escape and one count of malfeasance in office. Williams said he turned off the water to the cell from which the inmates escaped, allowing them to dismantle a toilet and flee. Williams said one...

No update on the seven yutes seen on camera jostling open a door and 11 escaping, with 4 being recaptured soon after. Authorities suspect that family members are helping hiding the escapees. And we all pay for such insight!

Eleven inmates considered "armed and dangerous" escaped a New Orleans jail Friday morning, the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office said. The inmates were discovered missing during a routine headcount conducted at 8:30 a.m. at the Orleans Parish Jail, according to the sheriff's office. They are believed to have escaped sometime just after midnight. New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said one inmate has since been apprehended in downtown New Orleans through facial recognition, caught by a surveillance camera. Louisiana State Police identified the escapee as Kendall Myles and said Myles tried to flee on foot before being apprehended "without further incident."...

Louisiana’s attorney general is investigating a second case involving New York doctor Margaret Carpenter after she allegedly prescribed and mailed abortion medication to another woman in the state, this time located in the city of Shreveport. The Shreveport woman was 20 weeks pregnant when she took the abortion medication and subsequently went into labor, Attorney General Liz Murrill said during a testimony for an anti-abortion bill in the state’s House Civil Law and Procedure Committee on Monday. “She and her boyfriend, after she gave birth, took the baby, wrapped it in a towel, and threw it in a garbage can,”...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has canceled votes scheduled for Friday, May 16. According to Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), “Members are advised that votes are no longer expected in the House on Friday, May 16. He continued, “Last votes for the week are now expected at approximately 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 15. This is a change from the previously announced schedule.” No reason has been given. No accountability offered. Just more silence from the so-called “leader” of the House. ... Just last month, Johnson abruptly canceled the remainder of the week’s voting schedule, halting progress on critical conservative...

CV NEWS FEED // The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) is included in House Republicans’ omnibus tax bill, US Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, announced May 12. Cassidy, a chief sponsor of the ECCA, said in a post on X that the inclusion of the act in what President Donald Trump has called the “one big, beautiful bill” is a victory for parents and children. Cassidy and US Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, led the introduction of the ECCA, which offers a charitable donation incentive for people and businesses who help fund scholarship awards to offset expenses for qualified students’ public...

A biological male trans activist once highlighted by PBS as a “trans woman of color” has pleaded guilty to stealing over $100,000 in federal COVID-19 relief funds through fraudulent business loan applications. Brandon Jarrow, also known as Brandi Jarrow, admitted to submitting false information in applications for two separate pandemic relief programs. He pleaded guilty on May 8 before US District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo in New Orleans, according to the Department of Justice for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Jarrow, 33, submitted a fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) application in June 2020, which resulted in a $95,000 disbursement...

Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected pope and will be known as Pope Leo XIV. The 69-year-old is the first American to become a pontiff and will lead members of the Catholic Church's global community of 1.4bn people. Born in Chicago, he is seen as a reformer and worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there. He also has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges in the local Church. Why do popes choose different names? One of the first acts of...

Grand Old Popey. Pope Leo XIV was an active voter who participated in several Republican primaries in recent years and voted in the most recent presidential election, according to a report. Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago native, pulled the lever in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014, and 2016, the Washington Free Beacon reported, citing election records. The Dolton, Illinois, born pontifex also voted in general elections in 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2024, the report stated.

Robert Francis Prevost, who was selected as the Catholic Church’s first American pope Thursday and took the name Leo XIV, has a family history that some were celebrating as uniquely diverse, with one genealogist claiming he has ties to “free people of color” in New Orleans. Key Facts The maternal side of Pope Leo XIV’s family can be traced back to at least the 1840s among “free people of color” in New Orleans, according to Jari C. Honora, a genealogist with the Historic New Orleans Collection, a research center documenting the city’s history. Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., who represents New...

A federal jury convicted a Louisiana nurse practitioner yesterday for her role in an over $2 million health care fraud scheme. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Shanone Chatman-Ashley, 45, of Opelousas, was a nurse practitioner and enrolled provider with Medicare. Chatman-Ashley worked as an independent contractor for companies that purportedly provided telehealth services to Medicare beneficiaries. As part of the scheme, the defendant caused the submission of false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for medically unnecessary durable medical equipment (DME). Chatman-Ashley routinely ordered knee braces, suspension sleeves, and other types of DME for patients who had...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨Epic. Secretary Doug Burgum gets a tour of an oil rig in the Gulf of America: "Biden banned the possibility of even developing acres of the Gulf of America. He banned all of that. Trump unbanned that... we're back in business again." From Rapid Response 47 9:31 AM · May 3, 2025

When Congress passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March 2021, it allocated $350 billion in assistance to state and local governments – providing the largest infusion of cash to local governments since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For New Orleans, that money represented a desperately needed lifeline. The city had been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. It was an early hotspot for the virus. And Black residents, who comprise about 60% of the city’s population, were disproportionately impacted, accounting for more than 75% of COVID deaths in the first few months of the pandemic. As...

A West Australian energy company is building a liquified natural gas (LNG) production and export terminal in Louisiana to expand the U.S. liquified natural gas export market. Perth, Australia-based Woodside Energy on Tuesday announced its plan to develop a three-train, 16.5 million ton per annum (Mtpa) liquefied natural gas production and export terminal in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, called Louisiana LNG. Gov. Jeff Landry said the company's and a New York company decisions to invest $17.5 billion in the project was because of President Donald Trump’s “commitment to unleash American Energy.” The Biden administration sought to ban new exports of LNG...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said on Sunday he does not think the law would allow President Trump to send United States citizens convicted of violent crimes to Salvadoran prisons, despite the president’s suggestion that he might be open to that possibility. “No, ma’am. Nor should it be considered appropriate or moral,” Kennedy told NBC News’s Kristen Welker when asked on “Meet the Press” whether he thinks such a move would be legal. “We have our own laws,” he continued. “We have the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. We shouldn’t send prisoners to foreign countries in my judgment.” Trump, in a...

A $744 million jury verdict in Louisiana is at the center of a coordinated legal effort to force oil companies to pay billions of dollars to ameliorate the erosion of land in Louisiana, offset climate change and more. Proponents say the payments are overdue, but critics say the lawsuits will hike energy costs for all Americans and are wrongly supplanting the state and federal regulatory framework already in place. In the Louisiana case in question, Plaquemines Parish sued Chevron alleging that oil exploration off the coast decades ago led to the erosion of Louisiana’s coastline. A jury ruled Friday that...

Saunders said the NFL can be very "heterosexual dominant" while announcing his upcoming camp ...Saunders, 28, made the announcement on stage during the 2025 GLAAD Media Awards on Thursday, March 27 and spoke about the initiative during an appearance on NFL Network's "Good Morning Football," where the Super Bowl champion said, "Football is for all."

SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry expressed disappointment after voters rejected a constitutional amendment he said would have been a game changer for the state. Although there were four amendments on the ballot, Amendment 2 seems to be the one the governor hoped to pass, as it was the only one his message addressed. Many decried the amendment from the start, and a group of residents filed suit to get it removed from the ballot. The Louisiana Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, a move the governor applauded, but then came election day, and a higher-than-expected voter turnout would...