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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...

Thomas Steven Sanders, a convicted child murderer whose federal death sentence was commuted by Joe Biden in December 2024 through his autopen, has been indicted for first-degree murder by a Louisiana grand jury.​ Sanders was originally sentenced to death in 2014 for the 2010 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Lexis Roberts of Las Vegas. He had taken Lexis and her mother, Suellen Roberts, on a trip to the Grand Canyon, during which he murdered Suellen in Arizona and then brought Lexis to Louisiana, where he killed her in Catahoula Parish. Despite his federal conviction and death sentence, Biden commuted Sanders’...

An immigration judge in the case surrounding detained activist Mahmoud Khalil has given the Trump administration one day to show evidence the former Columbia University student should be deported, as she wants to make a decision on the issue Friday. Louisiana Judge Jamee Comans said Tuesday the government had 24 hours to produce evidence against Khalil, a green card holder being targeted by the Trump administration over his role in pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations last year. Comans said that without sufficient evidence, she will terminate the case Friday and Khalil will be released. The federal government would not be able to...

ZACHARY, La. (WAFB) - The head of the Zachary Police Department is speaking out in response to social media rumors about a traffic Bingo game some officers allegedly played. In a statement released on Tuesday, March 25, Zachary Police Chief Darryl Lawrence Sr. confirmed that some officers created a Bingo game as a competition between shifts two years ago, but he denied a quota system or breaking of any laws. “The officers did not receive any incentives or awards for this game,” he stated. According to the chief, the police administration did not create or approve this game, and he...

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - The Shreveport Police Department has arrested two women for allegedly shooting at each other during an argument. Police say around 7 a.m. on March 29, officers got multiple calls about some kind of dispute happening at an apartment complex in the 1900 block of Patzman Street. Callers reportedly told police that two women were having a heated argument outside of one of the buildings. Police were told the two women are sisters. During the fight, police say one of the women, identified as Karezma Robinson, 22, armed herself with a gun and used it to...

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...

ST. AMANT — A woman was arrested Friday after allegedly burning down a St. Amant camper while its occupant was still inside. Nicole R. Mellon, 43, is accused of arson and attempted murder, State Fire Marshal investigators said. Mellon and the camper’s occupant allegedly argued hours before the camper went up in flames. A neighbor woke the occupant after the fire was set on Monday, and the occupant escaped the camper safely. The St. Amant Fire Department was called, however, neighbors extinguished the fire with a hose before firefighters arrived.

Detained Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil will stay locked up in a Louisiana ICE facility for now — as a New Jersey judge refused to consider freeing him on bail during a hearing Friday. Newark federal court Judge Michael Farbiarz declined to hear arguments on whether to free the 30-year-old green card holder — who has become the face of President Trump’s crackdown on students protesting the Israel-Hamas war — during the hour-long hearing, which was attended by his pregnant wife. Instead, the judge said he’d rule first on the feds’ bid to move Khalil’s legal case challenging his deportation...

It’s been almost four years since U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy cast the political dice and diverted from Republican group think. He dared to endorse the impeachment of then-recently replaced President Donald Trump for his incitement of the Jan. 6 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol. “Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” Cassidy said at the time. Now Louisiana’s senior senator finds himself an unfavored incumbent, although a well-funded one, among hardcore GOP types ahead of his 2026 reelection bid. Despite an otherwise consistent track record...

Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has delivered a pointed warning to judges nationwide as local courts have slowed the rollout of Donald Trump's political agenda. 'We do have authority over the federal courts,' Johnson shared at a press conference Tuesday. 'We can eliminate an entire district court,' he noted.

DONALDSONVILLE — Hyundai is planning a nearly $6 billion investment in Louisiana, Gov. Jeff Landry, President Donald Trump and other officials announced at the White House on Monday. The South Korean car manufacturer will be opening its first North American steel facility in Donaldsonville, the governor said during the afternoon announcement. According to Louisiana Economic Development, the $5.8 billion facility will be located on 1,700 acres of sugarcane fields in the RiverPlex MegaPark industrial center. The facility is expected to create 1,300 direct jobs and 4,100 indirect jobs in the capital region. “Hyundai’s decision to invest nearly $6 billion in...

Brad Pitt has hit a snag in the $20.5 million lawsuit against his Make it Right Project. Pitt, 61, started the project in the wake of 2005's devastating Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans with an aim to build ecologically sustainable homes to replace the houses that were flooded. He spent $12 million through his Make It Right Project to build 150 ecologically sustainable homes but now, nearly two decades later, those homeowners have organized a class action lawsuit against him and his non profit. Many of the homes have developed mold problems and other serious issues. The homeowners' legal team,...

We now have more information on the corruption involved in the pause in LNG exports. Joe Biden approved the pause but didn’t know he did. When questioned by Speaker Johnson, Biden said he wouldn’t do that. During the Houthi attacks and the Ukraine crisis, Biden paused all LNG shipments to Europe. He halted the approval process for export licenses and facilities being built/planned to save the climate. A Louisiana judge granted a stay. It turns out that Secretary Granholm, a wholly unprincipled agent for the hard left, buried a report with data and conclusions refuting the premise they used to...

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) will not run for Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) seat next year after raising speculation that he might, he announced Thursday. Higgins noted several polls from the GOP Trafalgar Group that indicated Republicans in the state wanted to see him run for the seat and that he had received encouragement to launch a bid. “Now, it is my considered determination that current engagement in the House being incredibly significant, it may be ultimately more beneficial to the Republic that I remain in service to the MAGA America First agenda as a senior Republican in the House of...

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote declined to stop Louisiana from carrying out its first execution in 15 years later Tuesday with Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the court’s three liberal justices in agreeing to delay it. Jessie Hoffman, 46, is set to be executed for the 1996 kidnapping, rape and murder of Molly Elliott, making Louisiana the second state to carry out an execution by nitrogen gas. The Supreme Court has also declined to step in since Alabama began employing the method last year. Five of the court’s conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel...

A New York federal judge has denied the Trump administration’s bid to dismiss the legal challenge brought by Mahmoud Khalil, the recent Columbia graduate and Palestinian activist who was detained by immigration enforcement agents earlier this month, and has ordered the case transferred to New Jersey. Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last spring, was arrested in New York on 8 March by federal immigration authorities. He was transferred first to New Jersey and then to Louisiana, where he is currently detained. The Trump administration sought his deportation but two...

An elementary school teacher and principal made a six-year-old student clean up her own feces after she had an accident caused by a dairy allergy, the young girl's fuming mom claims. Jamisha Augustine told WFAB that her daughter has a dairy allergy, but drank milk for breakfast at Rollins Place Elementary in Louisiana and became sick almost instantaneously. The young girl then asked her teacher several times to let her use the bathroom, but eventually stopped letting her go, Augustine said. 'She asked here teacher to go to the restroom, but she said "no" because she went too many times,'...