Hundreds of nurses at University Medical Center New Orleans voted to unionize last week. It’s one of Louisiana’s largest union elections in recent decades and the first private hospital in the state to unionize, according to National Nurses United, a union representing nurses across the country.

Lucy Mendez is a registered nurse at UMC New Orleans in the emergency department. She spoke with the Gulf State’s Newsrooms Stephan Bisaha about why she voted for and campaigned to join the union.

Last month, the New Orleans Police Department released a draft proposal to deploy unmanned aircraft systems to assist with policing. In other words, the NOPD is preparing to use drones. Critics are concerned the drones could reduce residents’ privacy and be used to harass low-income neighborhoods.

Nick Chrastil has been covering this story for The Lens and joins us for more on the rollout plan and NOPD’s recent drone demonstration. 

The New Orleans born singer and actor Rahim Glaspy is returning to the stage at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. He’ll debut new music as part of this month’s Ogden After Hours event. 

Glaspy joins us for more on his musical journey and the inspirations behind his latest songs. 

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Diane Mack. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our assistant producer is Aubry Procell. Our engineer is Garrett Pittman.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12 and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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