Category Archives: Louisiana

Louisiana judge orders return of devices to ex-priest caught having sex on church altar

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Former Roman Catholic priest and two dominatrices were evidently recording sexual videos in the church in 2020

A judge in Louisiana has ordered the return of electronics belonging to an ex-Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to obscenity for being caught having sex with two dominatrices atop a church altar while still belonging to the clergy in 2020.

However, the judge also told authorities to erase all data from the devices and storage media as a precaution against videos taken of the tryst from becoming public.

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Hurricane Katrina victim identified 20 years later: ‘finally where she belongs’

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Guardian US partner WWL Louisiana called in Ray Theriot, who used utility bills, driver’s licenses and property records

A woman who died at home during Hurricane Katrina in a community outside New Orleans, but who remained unidentified for nearly two decades, has finally been named before the storm’s 20th anniversary on Friday.

The woman, who was identified with the help of New Orleans’s CBS affiliate, WWL Louisiana, has been named as Dorothy Virginia Driggers Taquino, 81.

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New Orleans archbishop accused of personally hiding child abuse in lawsuit

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Lawsuit has most direct allegations of wrongdoing leveled against Aymond, who denies them, in court filing to date

A lawsuit newly filed against the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans and its top two officials alleges the city’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond, personally covered up child sexual abuse by priests and deacons – and asks a judge to reject a guarantee on his future retirement benefits as punishment.

The archdiocese responded by saying the allegations brought by the plaintiff, Argent Institutional Trust Co, are baseless.

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Explosion and fire in Louisiana leads to elementary school being evacuated

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Flames and a tower of smoke rose above an automotive supply company 50 miles north-east of Baton Rouge

An explosion and fire Friday at an automotive supply company in southeast Louisiana sent flames into the air and a tower of thick black smoke billowing above rural communities, forcing nearby residents and an elementary school to evacuate.

Officials said no injuries had been reported in the fire at Smitty’s Supply just north of the town of Roseland, but that everyone living within a one-mile (1.6km) radius must evacuate. Roseland, which is home to about 1,100 people, is roughly 50 miles (80km) north-east of Baton Rouge.

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New Orleans mayor indicted for corruption over alleged bodyguard romance

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Grand jury charges LaToya Cantrell with using city property and resources for purported affair

The New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell, was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday on corruption charges involving a purported romance with her former bodyguard.

Cantrell, 53, thus became the first New Orleans mayor in the city’s 307-year history to be charged by the US government with crimes while still in office.

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Eastern US swelters from heatwave as high temperatures affect half of country

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Heat and humidity are stretching east from the Mississippi River valley, and some areas could see heat indices of 120F

The eastern half of the US is facing a significant heatwave, with more than 185 million people under warnings due to intense and widespread heat conditions on Monday.

The south-east is likely to endure the most dangerous temperatures as the extreme heat spread across the region on Monday, spanning from the Carolinas through Florida. In these areas, heat index values (how hot it feels once humidity is accounted for) are forecast to range between 105 and 113F (40.5 to 45C).

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Catholic religious order must pay $2.4m to New Orleans clergy abuse survivor

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Federal jury awards historic damages to man who says he was sexually abused at a school run by Holy Cross order

In a historic verdict, a federal jury in New Orleans has ordered a Catholic religious order to pay nearly $2.4m in damages to a man who reported being sexually abused by one of its members in the late 1960s.

John Lousteau, 68, asserted that he was sexually abused while attending an overnight summer camp for boys at the Holy Cross school in New Orleans. He maintained that his abuser was the camp’s director, Stanley Repucci, who belonged to the Holy Cross order that ran the school.

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‘I was let out’: New Orleans man who escaped jail pleads case on social media

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Man identifying himself as Antoine Massey, one of 10 who escaped in May and who is still at large, protests innocence

A man still at large after escaping from a New Orleans jail last month appears to have taken to social media to plead his case to the public.

In a video that quickly went viral, the man identifying himself as Antoine Massey – one of 10 prisoners who fled from the Orleans Justice center (OJC) on 16 May – said he was wrongfully accused and held up papers he said corroborate his innocence.

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Third arrest made in drugging death of Telemundo reporter near New Orleans

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Police announce allegations against Christian Anderson, 33, after body of Adan Manzano, 27, found on 5 February

Authorities investigating the apparent drugging death and robbery of a Telemundo reporter who was covering February’s Super Bowl have arrested a third suspect in the case.

On Friday, the Kenner police department in Louisiana announced the arrest of 33-year-old Christian Anderson on allegations that he had a role in the death of Adan Manzano, 27, whose body was found on 5 February in his hotel room in the city just west of New Orleans.

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New Orleans archbishop appears in court during contentious clergy sexual abuse bankruptcy case

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A potential agreement with survivors is in the works, but some parties are unhappy with settlement amount

The Catholic archbishop of New Orleans made a rare in-person appearance in federal bankruptcy court on Friday, days after announcing a potential agreement to settle claims with hundreds of clergy abuse survivors that has been met with pushback from some of the plaintiffs.

“I’m here because I’m concerned for the survivors,” Gregory Aymond said in an interview with WWL Louisiana away from the cameras after what is believed to have been his first appearance in person for an open court hearing in the five years since his archdiocese – one of the US’s oldest – joined roughly 40 Catholic institutions to file for bankruptcy protection amid the worldwide church’s long ongoing clergy molestation scandal.

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New Orleans archbishop appears in court during contentious clergy sexual abuse bankruptcy case

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A potential agreement with survivors is in the works, but some parties are unhappy with settlement amount

The Catholic archbishop of New Orleans made a rare in-person appearance in federal bankruptcy court on Friday, days after announcing a potential agreement to settle claims with hundreds of clergy abuse survivors that has been met with pushback from some of the plaintiffs.

“I’m here because I’m concerned for the survivors,” Gregory Aymond said in an interview with WWL Louisiana away from the cameras after what is believed to have been his first appearance in person for an open court hearing in the five years since his archdiocese – one of the US’s oldest – joined roughly 40 Catholic institutions to file for bankruptcy protection amid the worldwide church’s long ongoing clergy molestation scandal.

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Court orders detained Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk returned to Vermont

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Lawyers say the Turkish national, who has been held in a Louisiana Ice center for two weeks, was illegally detained

A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.

A judicial panel of the New York-based US second circuit court of appeals ruled in the case of Rümeysa Öztürk after lawyers representing her and the US justice department presented arguments at a hearing on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Trump officials deport two-year-old US citizen and mother of one-year-old girl

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Lawyers in both cases, one in Louisiana and another in Florida, say clients arrested at routine Ice check-ins

The Trump administration has removed a two-year-old US citizen from the country “with no meaningful process”, according to a federal judge, while in a different case the authorities deported the mother of a one-year-old girl, separating them indefinitely.

Lawyers in the two cases, the first in Louisiana and the second in Florida, say their clients were arrested at routine check-ins at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) offices and were given virtually no opportunity to speak with them or family members.

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‘National disgrace’: US lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jails

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Delegation visits jails where Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk are being held and denounce ‘authoritarian’ Trump

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

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The great Mississippi tops list of most endangered rivers amid fears over Trump rollbacks

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Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new report

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal climate disaster agency – and the full-throttle deregulation of fossil fuels and water-guzzling datacentres – could prove catastrophic for America’s endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new report.

American Rivers’ annual most-endangered rivers list lays bare a myriad of human-made threats including floods, drought and other extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, as well as industrial pollution and poor river management – all of which Trump’s regulatory rollbacks will almost inevitably make worse.

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Jury orders Chevron to pay more than $744m for destroying Louisiana wetlands

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Verdict marks end of the first trial of 42 lawsuits filed about 12 years ago, alleging firm’s projects destroyed the regions

Chevron has been ordered to pay more than $744m in damages for destroying parts of south-east Louisiana’s coastal wetlands over the years.

The ruling, which came in the form of a civil jury verdict on Friday, marks the conclusion of the first trial among 42 lawsuits filed about 12 years earlier which alleged that the company’s oil and gas projects have led to the degradation of the region’s wetlands. Among other things, the wetlands play a key role in offering the area a measure of protection from hurricanes.

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Multiple people face charges in hazing death of Southern University student

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Man surrenders to police and two more arrests expected in Caleb Wilson’s death after Omega Psi Phi fraternity ritual

Multiple people are facing criminal charges in the recent death of a 20-year-old student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that evidently occurred amid a fraternity hazing, authorities have said.

Caleb McCray, 23, surrendered to police in Louisiana’s capital city on Thursday on counts of manslaughter as well as criminal hazing in the 27 February death of 20-year-old Caleb Wilson, a mechanical engineering student at Southern as well as a member of its famed Human Jukebox marching band.

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Police cited ‘malfunctioning’ barrier in New Orleans attack but didn’t take up maker’s offer to inspect and repair

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Manufacturer says city has not taken up its offer to inspect – and, if necessary, repair – blockade at no cost

After the deadly truck ramming attack on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street early on New Year’s Day, local police said they had intentionally left down a hydraulic barrier meant to prevent such violence because it had a history of malfunctioning – prompting the blockade’s manufacturer to contact the city with an urgent offer of free inspection and maintenance, according to recently obtained emails.

“We would like to bring out a technician for no charge in order to inspect all the Delta Scientific barriers in New Orleans and ensure they are functional and offer any solutions for maintenance or repairs needed,” Dianne Kennedy, the company’s assistant to general counsel and manager of contracts, wrote to the office of the New Orleans mayor, LaToya Cantrell.

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Republican senator who voted for RFK Jr balks at Louisiana anti-vaccine move

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Republican Bill Cassidy calls state surgeon general’s halt to promotion of mass vaccination a disservice to parents

Bill Cassidy, the Republican US senator, has said his home state of Louisiana’s recent decision to cancel the promotion of mass vaccination against preventable diseases is a disservice to parents who want to keep their children healthy.

Nonetheless, before those remarks, the medical doctor-turned-politician who has clashed with Donald Trump joined 51 of his fellow Republicans in voting to confirm anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr as secretary of the US’s health and human services department. Cassidy had also previously voted to advance Trump’s nomination of Kennedy as national health secretary from the committee level to the full Senate.

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Sexual abuse survivors grill NFL amid New Orleans Saints church scandal

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Victim support groups call for investigation into whether Saints flouted NFL’s own commitments to prevent abuse

Clergy sexual abuse survivor support groups have called on the National Football League to investigate whether leaders of the New Orleans Saints flouted the NFL’s goals by campaigning alongside the city’s Roman Catholic archdiocese to soften critical media coverage of how the church handled its clerical molestation scandal.

A statement from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (Snap) pointed out how the NFL’s website expresses a commitment to “addressing and preventing domestic violence and sexual assault”. Yet emails first reported on Monday morning by the Guardian, its reporting partner WWL Louisiana, the Associated Press and the New York Times establish how the Saints – owned by the devout New Orleans Catholic Gayle Benson – and team executives were far more involved in helping its local archdiocese spin media coverage of the abuse scandal than the organizations had previously acknowledged.

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