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A woman who arrived at Louis Armstrong International Airport while wearing not a stitch of clothing was later arrested when she refused to leave the facility, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Mariel Vergara, 27, of Pueblo, Colo., was completely nude when she walked into the airport and made her way to the Spirit Airlines ticket counter on Friday night, April 3, authorities said. A deputy dispatched to the scene noted that Vergara had already put on a dress by the time he arrived. But she was still violating public decency laws because she had on no underwear, and...

The public safety director at New Orleans’ Ernest N. Morial Convention Center — where officials are erecting a makeshift hospital for patients infected with COVID-19 — stole 80 masks recommended for healthcare workers battling the deadly disease and was arrested Friday, according to court records.

Military personnel will being treating coronavirus patients at new medical facilities that have popped up in the cities of New York, New Orleans and Dallas, the White House said Thursday, marking a shift in policy for how the Pentagon is aiding in the medical response to the pandemic. Vice President Pence said at a White House briefing on the virus that President Trump had directed the Department of Defense to use military personnel to operate facilities fully focused on coronavirus patients. The move comes one day after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in response to a question from The Hill...

(Reuters) - The coronavirus has been a far deadlier threat in New Orleans than the rest of the United States, with a per-capita death rate much higher than in New York City. Doctors, public health officials and available data say the Big Easy’s high levels of obesity and related ailments may be part of the problem.

A 66-year-old Virginia musician and pastor who had questioned coronavirus media coverage died from the disease after a trip to New Orleans. A 66-year-old Virginia resident who fell ill with the new coronavirus, or COVID-19, on a trip to New Orleans died Wednesday morning at a hospital in Concord, North Carolina. The death of Landon Spradlin, an accomplished musician and a pastor, has drawn viral attention online, in part because earlier this month Spradlin questioned whether media coverage of the disease was overblown. Spradlin lived in Gretna, a small town in Pittsylvania County, about halfway between Lynchburg and Danville. While...

Last week the liberal media ran screaming headlines after 39-year-old Natasha Ott was found dead on her kitchen floor while awaiting her coronavirus test results. Rest in peace, Natasha. Of course, the left ran with the story as a way to whip up panic and attack the Trump administration...A second coronvirus test came back negative on Natasha Ott...

The United States has now become the world leader in a rather unfortunate category with the largest number of coronavirus victims. This is due to the vast expansion of tests that have been made available in the United States. In contrast, the reports out of China cannot be trusted. As of Saturday, March 28, there were 121,117 confirmed cases and 2,010 deaths associated with the coronavirus in the United States. The area with the fifth-highest total of deaths in the country is New Orleans, which leads the nation in fatalities per capita. Questions are being raised about why New Orleans...

Scoring cheap political points is always distasteful, but it is especially offensive when lives are in danger The United States has now become the world leader in a rather unfortunate category with the largest number of coronavirus victims. This is due to the vast expansion of tests that have been made available in the United States. In contrast, the reports out of China cannot be trusted.

Precautions put in place to slow the rise of coronavirus cases in New Orleans has inadvertently led to a rat problem for the Louisiana city. With restaurants closed save for take-out service, far less food waste is being discarded in the city's alleyways, driving the local rodent population out into the open to search for scraps. New Orleans' famous Mardi Gras celebration brought thousands of tourists to the city, and medical experts believe it might be a big factor in the city's COVID-19 outbreak. Now with Bourbon Street's famous bars all closed and people social distancing, videos show dozens of...

New Orleans is quickly becoming a hotspot for the coronavirus, and the city's jam-packed Mardi Gras season could be the reason why, according to medical experts. More than a million revelers crowded into the city's famed French Quarter and other neighborhoods over several weeks to celebrate the costumed gathering, the culmination of the Carnival celebration. The Mardi Gras season ran from Jan. 6 to Feb. 25, or Fat Tuesday. In the weeks after, the coronavirus pandemic has spread across the United States, overwhelming hospitals in some cities and prompting lockdowns of several urban areas. The "Big Easy" -- one of...

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The editor of The Advocate newspaper is asking the community for donations to help keep their operation up and running. John Georges, who owns a billion-dollar group of businesses including The Advocate newspaper, said Wednesday, March 25 the plea for public donations came after people in the community asked how they could help. “Every penny matters in the newspaper business,” Georges said by phone Wednesday. “If there are people in the community who want to contribute to make their paper last longer, we are accepting.” “Simply put, we need your help,” said the mass email...

NEW ORLEANS — City and state officials worked to finalize plans Wednesday to move homeless people off the streets and fill a 155-room hotel in the Central Business District. The general manager of that hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn-New Orleans French Quarter Downtown on Gravier Street, confirmed the plan was to start moving people in groups of 35 from encampments and house and feed them for the next 30 days, using a mixture of federal, state, local and philanthropic funds. “We have transitioned our hotel into an intake facility,” said hotel general manager Adam Turni told WWL-TV in an exclusive...

We aren’t going to get too far out over our skis on this, because after all we’re in the middle of a sell-a-thon of tickets and sponsorships for Hayride tour events that right now we’re not able to put on (see here for the skinny on that, and feel free to participate!) – but yesterday Peter Kovacs, the editor of the New Orleans Advocate, blasted out an e-mail which essentially begged the public for contributions. Here’s what that looked like… Of course, The Advocate is owned by John Georges, who as everyone in Louisiana knows by now is richer than...

Popular New Orleans Bounce Music DJ Passes Away At Age 44 From CoronaVirus Infection! Video is 5 min long

As of Saturday, Louisiana was reporting nearly 600 confirmed cases of COVID-19, one of the highest numbers in the country. Sixteen people had died. The majority of cases are in New Orleans, which now has one confirmed case for every 1,000 residents. New Orleans had held Mardi Gras celebrations just two weeks before its first patient, with more than a million revelers on its streets.

Several publications on the Internet have been examining the emergency proclamation of 11 March, and emergency proclamation of 16 March by Mayor LaToya Cantrell, of New Orleans, Louisiana. The claim seems to be that Mayor Cantrell is promoting restrictions on the ownership of guns and/or the exercise of Second Amendment rights.  That claim is not justified by Mayor Cantrell's actions. What mayor Cantrell did was to follow the law, nothing less, nothing more.Here is the controversial paragraph in the emergency proclamation issued on 11 March, 2020. The proclamation of 11 March clearly states: Subject to the provisions of ACT 275...

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton tested positive for coronavirus, Payton told ESPN. Payton is the first known person within the NFL to test positive for the virus. The 56-year-old received the result Thursday after taking the exam Monday. He’s experiencing fatigue at home but doesn’t have a fever or cough. “This is not just about social distancing,” Payton told ESPN. “It’s shutting down here for a week to two weeks. If people understand the curve, and understand the bump, we can easily work together as a country to reduce it. Take a minute to understand what the experts...

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) signed a coronavirus emergency order last week allowing her to ban the sale and transportation of firearms. She signed a follow-up proclamation on March 16, 2020, further emphasizing her emergency powers to “suspend or limit the sale, dispensing, or transportation, of alcoholic beverages.” The declaration declaring the mayor’s power to restrict gun sales and transportation says she is “empowered, if necessary, to suspend or limit the sale of alcoholic beverages, firearms, explosives, and combustibles.” On March 16, 2020, the Second Amendment Foundation responded to Cantrell’s claims of emergency powers over firearms by reminding her...

Intensifying its enforcement in so-called sanctuary cities across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun 24-hour-a-day surveillance operations around the homes and workplaces of undocumented immigrants. The agency plans to deploy hundreds of additional officers in unmarked cars in the coming weeks to increase arrests in cities where local law enforcement agencies do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. ICE leadership has requested at least 500 special agents who normally conduct long-term investigations into dangerous criminals and traffickers to join the enhanced arrest campaign rolling out in sanctuary cities, according to an internal email reviewed by The New York...

A man who was arrested last year for throwing a glass of water on Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was sentenced this week in a federal court to two years probation. Blake Gibbins, 27 of Lafayette, Colo., pleaded guilty in September to one misdemeanor count of assaulting a member of Congress, The Des Moines Register reported. Gibbins was arrested in March 2019 for throwing water at the lawmaker at the Mineral City Mill and Grill in Fort Dodge, Iowa. King was reportedly eating a group lunch when Gibbins approached the table and threw the water, hitting King and those at lunch....