Gulf States Gumbo

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are becoming a common tool for concealing negotiations over large industrial developments in Louisiana. 

Gulf States Newsroom’s senior reporter Drew Hawkins joins us to round up months of reporting on NDAs across Louisiana government — from the 50-plus elected officials and 121 state employees who've signed NDAs with Gov. Jeff Landry's administration, to Landry's own agreement with Meta, to Rep. Julia Letlow's matching NDA and the stock trades she failed to disclose on time. 

This episode is hosted by Tanya Ott. The podcast is produced by Aubri Juhasz, Elise Catrion Gregg, Maya Miller, Drew Hawkins, Tanya Ott, Orlando Flores Jr., and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme. 

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected]. 

And support our local station partners by donating to  WWNO, WRKF, MPB, or WBHM.

School is back in session in the Gulf South. So this week, the Gulf States Gumbo is, too.

First, we start in Algiers Point, on the Westbank of New Orleans.

Research shows many students don’t read enough and are behind when they return to school.

One way to fight this? Book clubs. We visit a middle school book club meeting at the Cita Dennis Hubbell Library to learn more.

Also, Youth and Families reporter Aubri Juhasz sits down with Trisha Powell Crain, with the Alabama Daily News and Alabama Public Television, and Devna Bose, Mississippi Today's education reporter, to discuss education stories they're keeping their eyes on for the school year.

This episode is hosted and written by Aubri Juhasz. The podcast is produced by Maya Miller, Elise Catrion Gregg, Drew Hawkins, Tanya Ott, Orlando Flores Jr., and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.

After the Louisiana v. Callais decision, which says states cannot draw congressional district lines based on race, lawmakers are clamoring to redistrict parts of the region.

In this week's episode, we get two dispatches from democracy and government reporter Maya Miller, who visited Southaven, Mississippi, where voting rights organizations have joined forces for the People’s Hearing. The events are a slate of community meetings where residents offer oral and written testimonies on redistricting and voting in the South.

And, she also has a conversation with Southern Poverty Law Center Mississippi State Policy Director Sonya Williams-Barnes on the SHIELD Act and the power of the Black male vote.

This episode is hosted by Maya Miller. The podcast is produced by Aubri Juhasz, Elise Catrion Gregg, Drew Hawkins, Tanya Ott, Orlando Flores Jr., and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.

This week, we’re doing something a little different by bringing you a preview of a new podcast from our partners at Deep South Today. 

“Black Box” is a 5-part series that follows Mississippi Today’s mental health reporter Allen Siegler’s work tracking the state’s opioid settlement funds — and the people it’s supposed to help. 

It really drives home the importance of having every available tool for treating addiction, and how Mississippi has — or has not — used money intended to help with the opioid crisis to expand access to tools like MAT, rehab, Narcan and other supports. 

Listen to the opening of the first episode, and then stick around for a conversation with Siegler about the project, his reporting and what he’s learned covering addiction in Mississippi. 

This episode is hosted by Drew Hawkins. The podcast is produced by Aubri Juhasz, Maya Miller, Elise Catrion Gregg, Tanya Ott, Orlando Flores Jr., and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme. 

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to  WWNO, WRKF, MPB, or WBHM.

More than a million Americans have died of drug overdoses since the year 2000. Despite the staggering loss, one tool for treating opioid addiction has been tangled up in politics, stigma, and money for decades.

Medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, has a long and complicated history in the U.S., including a direct connection to the Gulf South. 

On this week’s episode, we're joined by Emily Dufton, drug historian and author of the new book “Addiction, Inc.” 

Dufton takes us back to a 1920s morphine clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana — one of the most successful in the country before it was shut down — and forward through Nixon's surprising role in launching methadone treatment, Reagan's dismantling of it and the marketing playbook that turned Suboxone into "the cure" sold by the same reps who once pushed OxyContin. 

We also talk about who gets access to treatment and who doesn't, what countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands are doing differently, and what it could mean for the Gulf South now that opioid settlement money is starting to flow.

This episode is hosted by Orlando Flores Jr. The podcast is produced by Aubri Juhasz, Maya Miller, Elise Catrion Gregg, Drew Hawkins, Tanya Ott and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to  WWNO, WRKF, MPB, or WBHM.

It is hot outside. And while historical, state-wide temperature records have not been broken, the Deep South is experiencing persistent summer heat waves with heat indices frequently exceeding 105°F.

It’s also been noticeably warmer-than-average in the overnight hours. That adds extra strain to local power grids and affects public health. When GSN senior reporter Drew Hawkins looked into it, he found something surprising — a relationship between heat and mental health crises.

Also on this week’s show, reporter Aubri Juhasz spends time in summer camp — a tradition that’s getting more and more expensive, but there are ways to make it more affordable for families.

This episode is hosted by Tanya Ott. The podcast is produced by Elise Catrion Gregg, Maya Miller, Aubri Juhasz, Drew Hawkins, Orlando Flores Jr. and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.

In 2023, a set of tornadoes wreaked havoc on the South, with the worst damage done in the small Mississippi town of Rolling Fork. 

Researchers from the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium spoke with residents shortly after that. This year, they published a paper on how communities can change responses to weather crises.

On this week's episode, community engagement reporter Elise Catrion Gregg spoke to the researchers about what they learned about responding to weather emergencies and how we can use communities to prepare better.

This episode is hosted by Elise Catrion Gregg. The podcast is produced by Aubri Juhasz, Maya Miller, Drew Hawkins, Tanya Ott, Orlando Flores Jr. and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.

On this week’s episode, we say hello to a new team member and discuss the school choice movement in the Gulf South.

WWNO’s and WRKF’s Aubri Juhasz is joining the team as our new Youth and Families Reporter. She jumps into the host chair this week to talk with community engagement reporter Elise Catrion Gregg about a story they co-reported on education savings accounts.

They’re similar to school vouchers, where states basically give scholarships to families to help them pay for private school tuition.

The two discuss implementation issues of the accounts in Louisiana, concerns about the possible harm to public schools in Mississippi and more.

This episode is hosted by Aubri Juhasz. The podcast is produced by Matt Bloom, Elise Catrion Gregg, Maya Miller and Drew Hawkins, Tanya Ott, Orlando Flores Jr. and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.

On this week’s episode, we’re talking climate change and a recent Tulane University study that made waves online.

WWNO’s and WRKF’s Aubri Juhasz and Eva Tesfaye join us to talk about The Guardian’s article on the study, titled: ‘‘Point of no return’: New Orleans relocation must start now due to sea level rise, study finds.

The two discuss what they found reading through the study it’s based on, the national media coverage of it and how locals are responding to it.

This episode is hosted by Elise Catrion Gregg. The podcast is produced by Matt Bloom, Drew Hawkins, Orlando Flores Jr. and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Nellie Beckett is our community engagement producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.

On this week’s episode, community engagement producer Nellie Beckett talks with Burgin Mathews, director of the Southern Research Music Center, about the culture and history of music in the Gulf South.

The Southern Music Research Center is a public online archive of rescued recordings, rare photos and flyers, oral history interviews, and other artifacts from a deep diversity of musical genres and eras. Founded by Birmingham English teacher and scholar Burgin Mathews, the nonprofit catalogs the musical expressions, traditions and histories of the American South.

Nellie speaks to Burgin about the work of archiving Southern music culture and bringing it to life every week on his show, The Lost Child, a weekly dive into grassroots Southern musical history.

This episode is hosted by Nellie Beckett, who is also our social producer. The podcast is produced by Matt Bloom, Elise Catrion Gregg, Drew Hawkins, Orlando Flores Jr. and Ryan Vasquez. Joseph King is our social producer. Our theme music is by DJ Supreme.

To get in touch with the team, email [email protected].

And support our local station partners by donating to WWNO, MPB, or WBHM.