New Orleans is gearing up for the Super Bowl, and Gov. Jeff  Landry announced his administration will begin clearing homeless encampments downtown, moving some unhoused residents to a warehouse in Gentilly and others out of state. 

The Times-Picayune/The Advocate’s Sophie Kasakove joins us for more.  

The flu virus is surging nationwide, with positive test rates reaching higher than 18% in early January. This winter, we’ve also seen spikes in RSV and COVID-19. 

Dr. Susan Hassig, epidemiologist at Tulane University, tells us more about the viruses going around – and how to stay safe.

The 6th iteration of Prospect New Orleans, a triennial citywide exhibition of contemporary art, will soon close. . Prospect.6: The Future Is Present, The Harbinger Is Home features artists from Louisiana and around the world, and puts New Orleans in the  global spotlight. 

Prospect.6's co-artistic director, Miranda Lash, and programming director, Denise Frazier, tell us more about the exhibit and how to see it.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Diane Mack. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We get production and technical support from Garrett Pittman, Adam Vos and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

A diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is difficult for anyone to hear. But that was especially the case for Joe Redmond, a music executive from Denham Springs who spent his career in radio. While he is losing his voice, Joe has been determined to take advantage of all the opportunities he has, including working with the Team Gleason organization, and a new caregiving program called Pathfinders. 

Redmond joins us today more on his career, his diagnosis and the vital role that caregivers play in the lives of ALS patients. 

The New Year's Day attack on Bourbon Street left many New Orleanians worried about the city’s security. But for many of the area’s Muslims, they’re concerned about increased discrimination and anti-Muslim sentiment. 

Verite News reporter Safura Syed tells us more about the rise in Islamophobia and how local mosques are responding. 

The truck attack on Bourbon Street has led some residents to call for better pedestrian security in the French Quarter. Some even want parts of the Quarter to be pedestrian-only — no cars allowed. Earlier this week we heard from Chris Olsen, French Quarter resident and business owner with a petition to ban cars on her certain blocks. 

WWNO’s Matt Bloom spoke with Olson and a few others those behind this new push. 

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Alana Schreiber. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We get production and technical support from Garrett Pittman, Adam Vos and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, the NPR App and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

Just after 3 a.m. on New Years Day, pedicab driver Tyler Burt was finishing his shift, when a white SUV turned the corner of Bourbon and Canal Street, running over the man he had been high-fiving as the truck rammed down the street. 

In his first trip back to the French Quarter since the attack, Burt spoke with the Gulf States Newsroom’s Drew Hawkins about what he saw and how he’s coping. 

Concerns over security failures have been a major part of the conversation ever since the Bourbon street attack. Bollards, the steel beams embedded in the ground meant to protect pedestrians from vehicle attacks, were not in place on New Year's Eve. City crews were in the process of installing new ones ahead of the Super Bowl.

Louisiana Considered’s Alana Schreiber spoke with Juliette Kayyem, a national security expert and senior lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. They discussed why security on Bourbon Street was so ineffective and what needs to be done about it.

While Louisianans still have questions about what happened, many are focused on recovery efforts. In the days since the attack, blood drives have popped up across the city and thousands are coming out to donate.

Alana Schreiber visited one of those blood drives on the corner of Iberville and Canal Street to speak with residents who want to play a part in recovery efforts.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Alana Schreiber and Drew Hawkins. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We get production and technical support from Garrett Pittman, Adam Vos and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, the NPR App and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

There’s a shortage of specialized nurses who play a critical role in providing care to sexual assault survivors. Particularly in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. They are called sexual assault nurse examiners — or SANEs.

As Drew Hawkins reports for the Gulf States Newsroom, one potential solution is to use telemedicine — but it’s currently not available in the Gulf South.

College textbooks are expensive. You might already know this if you’ve been to college, but prices have accelerated just in the last few years. And while tuition hikes and admission practices often create barriers of entry to higher education, sometimes it’s that are prohibitively expensive, as they’re often not covered by scholarships. 

As the spring semester gets into swing at schools across Louisiana, we found ourselves interested in efforts LSU is taking to address the accelerating problem of college textbook prices. Allen LeBlanc, Open Scholarship Librarian, at LSU Libraries tells us more about solutions.

In June 2024, researchers released a medical study involving one Out Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. It looked at techniques for intubating patients, the practice putting a tube down your throat to provide ventilation, is something that's generally done when you're in critical condition. 

The trial involved Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge as well as other ERs and ICUs across the nation. They’re using a BPAP, a bilevel positive airway pressure machine.

Dr. Christopher Thomas is a pulmonary critical care specialist at the hospital. He tells us more about this study, what researchers are hoping to find, and the results of a new airway pressure machine. 

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We get production support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer Aubry Procell. 

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, the NPR App and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

The Super Bowl is coming to New Orleans in less than a month. And this year’s logo was recently revealed, featuring the work of New Orleans artist Queen Tahj. She is the first artist to handcraft a Super Bowl logo and her design honors New Orleans artistic traditions, with specific nods to Black Masking Indians. 

She joins us more about her design — and her time playing football as captain of the middle school team. 

The Historic New Orleans Collection is gearing up for its 17th Musical Louisiana series, this time featuring a performance of the earliest known surviving full-length opera written by a Black American composer. Edmond Dédé’s ”Morgiane” from 1887 will be performed by Givonna Joseph, co-founder of Opera Créole.

Joseph, along with HNOC’s director of audience engagement, Amanda McFillen, tell us more about this upcoming production. 

Louisiana has a long history with the French language. And while most Louisianans no longer speak it, a growing number want their kids to learn. The question is: what kind of French?

Education reporter Aubri Juhasz takes us to a school down the bayou that’s taking a novel approach — by teaching students to talk like their grandparents. 

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Diane Mack. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We get production and technical support from Garrett Pittman, Adam Vos and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

A new petition to make Bourbon Street pedestrian-only now has more than 5,000 signatures. The petition comes after the deadly attack on New Year's Day when a driver rammed an SUV down Bourbon Street, killing 14 and injuring more than 30 others. 

Chris Olsen, French Quarter resident and owner of the vintage stores Vice and Graft and Swamp Rags, started this petition on Change.org. He joins us for more on the efforts to make the area safer.

Last week, Bogalusa mayor Tyrin Truong was arrested as part of a multi-agency drug trafficking investigation. The Democrat was elected at just 23 years old, becoming the youngest mayor in the city’s history, ushering in a wave of hope and modernity to a community in decline. Now he’s facing charges for drug offenses and soliciting sex workers. 

Reporter for the Picayune Item Alex Moraski joins us with the latest on this investigation and what’s next for Bogalusa.

The new city of St. George is taking shape. After seceding from Baton Rouge in April of last year, the city now has an approved tax to fund its budget and upcoming leadership elections. But there’s some tension surrounding big proposed salaries for the city’s leaders

Patrick Sloan-Turner has been covering the development of St. George for the Baton Rouge Advocate. He joins us with the latest updates.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Karen Henderson. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We receive production and technical support from Garrett Pittman, Adam Vos and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell. 

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, the NPR App and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

We kicked off this season of Sea Change with a globetrotting journey. A quest to understand a booming new industry on the Gulf Coast: liquified natural gas, or LNG.

In a historic move, the Biden Administration froze any decisions on new gas export projects…until it could study how shipping so much American gas overseas could affect the economy, health, and the climate.

Well, that long-awaited study was just released. The findings? Increasing LNG exports is bad news for American consumers, communities, and our climate. But that might not mean much to the new administration determined to drill baby, drill.

One of the hottest flashpoints in this fight over the future of LNG centers around whether it's a climate solution, as industry claims, or actually a carbon bomb. Today, we talk to leading scientist Dr. Robert Howarth about his recent study revealing that LNG is worse for the climate than coal.

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This episode was hosted by Halle Parker and Carlyle Calhoun. Our sound designer is Emily Jankowski. And our theme music is by Jon Batiste.

For more about LNG, check out our 3-part series, All Gassed Up, or our 1-hour special. You can find Sea Change wherever you get your podcasts.

Sea Change is a WWNO and WRKF production. We are part of the NPR Podcast Network and distributed by PRX. Sea Change is made possible with major support from the Gulf Research Program of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. WWNO’s Coastal Desk is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the Meraux Foundation, and the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

For over 50 years, Clancy DuBos has been reporting and commenting on New Orleans and state politics for The Times-Picayune and other news sources. He also owned the alt-weekly newspaper, the Gambit, along with his wife Margo where he contributed as a political columnist. 

He covered everything from the 1973 UpStairs Lounge Fire to the upheaval of Hurricane Katrina. Now, at the age of 70, he has decided to retire. 

He joins us today for more on his lengthy career, most memorable moments and why he has decided now is the time to put down the pencil.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Bob Pavlovich. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber; our contributing producers are Matt Bloom and Adam Vos; we receive production and technical support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon  and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, the NPR App, and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

The new year means some new state laws are now in effect. A controversial one requires all public schools, colleges and universities to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the law, and a judge issued an injunction in November preventing it from taking effect in several parishes named as co-defendants, along with the state. WWNO and WRKF’s education reporter Aubri Juhasz tells us more. 

Former President Jimmy Carter passed away last week at the age of 100. While he’s most often remembered as the nation’s 39th commander in chief, he is often more celebrated for his post-presidential philanthropic efforts, particularly with the Carter Center, which works to resolve conflicts, advance democracy, and eradicate diseases.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, President Carter worked to help restore and rebuild homes along the Gulf Coast as part of a project that’s been ongoing ever since.

Executive director of the New Orleans area Habitat for Humanity, Marguerite Oestreicher, tells us about Carter’s legacy and impact in Louisiana.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schrieber. We get production support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts.

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!

Yesterday, President Joe Biden visited New Orleans to mourn with grieving families and remember the victims of last week’s attack on Bourbon Street. He also met with Gov. Jeff Landry to discuss formally recognizing the disaster.

WWNO and WRKF’s Aubri Juhasz and Brooke Thorington tell us more about the events and memorials to honor the victims. 

It’s been roughly a week since the Bourbon Street attack, and the city is looking for ways to move forward and heal while still remembering the tragedy. And for many New Orleanians, recovering from this attack has reminders of what it was like to move forward after Hurricane Katrina, almost 20 years ago.

Dr. Robin Gurwitch is a clinical psychologist at Duke University and expert in supporting children in the aftermath of disasters. She also previously worked with survivors of Hurricane Katrina. She spoke with the Gulf States Newsroom’s Drew Hawkins about  healing strategies. 

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Karen Henderson. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber. We receive production and technical support from Garrett Pittman, Adam Vos and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell. 

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. 

Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you’re at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you’d like to listen to.

Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!