Articles by Kevin McGill and Matthew Brown

$264M Offered for Gulf Oil Under Climate Compromise

Oil companies offered a combined $264 million for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday in a sale mandated by last year’s climate bill compromise. The auction was the first in the Gulf in more than a year …

Supreme Court Keeps Louisiana Wetland Damage Lawsuits in State Courts

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A lawsuit against oil and gas companies over damage to Louisiana’s wetlands will remain in state court, the U.S. Supreme Court said, rejecting an appeal by major energy companies who wanted to get the case moved …

Filipino Workers Say Oil Company Abandoned Them in Hurricane Ida

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – As Hurricane Ida struck the Louisiana Gulf Coast in August 2021, Renato Decena and Rosel Hernandez watched the storm punch a hole in the roof of the bunkhouse where they were sheltered _ abandoned, they allege, …

Families Shattered by Tornadoes in Gulf

A storm system that spawned dozens of reported tornadoes from Texas to the Florida Panhandle was all but done with the South last Thursday after killing at least three people and uprooting families across Louisiana, where some homes were blown …

Tornadoes, Storms Leave Trail of Destruction From New Orleans to Great Plains

A vast and volatile storm system ripping across the U.S. killed at least three people in Louisiana, spinning up tornadoes that battered the state from north to south, including the New Orleans area where memories of 2021’s Hurricane Ida and …

NTSB: Communications Outage a Factor in Louisiana Lift Boat Disaster

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An outage involving a Coast Guard marine warning system and “data gaps” in radar systems were factors in last year’s deadly capsize of an oil industry vessel during severe storms off of Louisiana’s coast, the National …

Revival Sought for Outspoken Louisiana Pastor’s Lawsuit Over COVID Restrictions

An outspoken Christian conservative attorney from Alabama has asked a federal appeals court to revive a Louisiana pastor’s damage claims against state officials over long-expired COVID-19 restrictions. A federal judge this year dismissed minister Tony Spell’s lawsuit against Gov. John …

Louisiana Suit Alleging Off-Camera Jail Beatings Revived

A federal appeals court cleared the way last Friday for a lawsuit to proceed against guards and officials at a privately run north Louisiana jail where an inmate died with a fractured skull in 2015. The lawsuit by family members …

New Orleans Officials Seek to End Federal Oversight of Police

New Orleans officials asked a federal judge Tuesday to end court-supervised oversight of its police department under a pact negotiated with the U.S. Justice Department a decade ago, after deadly police shootings of civilians following Hurricane Katrina cast renewed scrutiny …

Louisiana Court: Protest Leader Can be Sued For Cop’s Injury

A Louisiana police officer injured when violence broke out over the police killing of a Black man in Baton Rouge in 2016 has grounds to pursue a lawsuit against a protest organizer, Louisiana’s Supreme Court said last week. The 6-1 …