Former Louisiana priest sentenced to life in prison after conviction on three counts of sexual abuse

 

Former Louisiana priest sentenced to life in prison after conviction on three counts of sexual abuse

WWLTV

Jun 2, 2026

A former New Orleans-area priest will spend the rest of his life in a Texas prison. A jury handed down the sentence for Anthony Odiong after his conviction last week

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New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments

Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom. (AP produced by Javier Arciga)

BY SARA CLINE
Updated 10:00 PM EDT, June 19, 2024


BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom, the latest move from a GOP-dominated Legislature pushing a conservative agenda under a new governor.

The legislation that Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law on Wednesday requires a poster-sized display of the Ten Commandments in “large, easily readable font” in all public classrooms, from kindergarten to state-funded universities.

“If you want to respect the rule of law, you’ve got to start from the original lawgiver, which was Moses” who got the commandments from God, Landry said.

Opponents questioned the law’s constitutionality and vowed to challenge it in court. Proponents said the the measure is not solely religious, but that it has historical significance. In the language of the law, the Ten Commandments are “foundational documents of our state and national government.”

The posters, which will be paired with a four-paragraph “context statement” describing how the Ten Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries,” must be in place in classrooms by the start of 2025.

Under the law, state funds will not be used to implement the mandate. The posters would be paid for through donations.

The law also “authorizes” but does not require the display of other items in K-12 public schools, including: The Mayflower Compact, which was signed by religious pilgrims aboard the Mayflower in 1620 and is often referred to as America’s “First Constitution"; the Declaration of Independence; and the Northwest Ordinance, which established a government in the Northwest Territory — in the present day Midwest — and created a pathway for admitting new states to the Union.

Not long after the governor signed the bill into law at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School in Lafayette on Wednesday, civil rights groups and organizations that want to keep religion out of government promised to file a lawsuit challenging it.

The law prevents students from getting an equal education and will keep children who have different beliefs from feeling safe at school, the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation said in a joint statement Wednesday afternoon.

“Even among those who may believe in some version of the Ten Commandments, the particular text that they adhere to can differ by religious denomination or tradition. The government should not be taking sides in this theological debate,” the groups said.

The controversial law, in a state ensconced in the Bible Belt, comes during a new era of conservative leadership in Louisiana under Landry, who replaced two-term Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in January. The GOP holds a supermajority in the Legislature, and Republicans hold every statewide elected position, paving the way for lawmakers to push through a conservative agenda.

Similar bills requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms have been proposed in other states including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah. However, with threats of legal battles over the constitutionality of such measures, no state besides Louisiana has succeeded in making the bills law.

Legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms are not new.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a similar Kentucky law was unconstitutional and violated the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The high court found that the law had no secular purpose but rather served a plainly religious purpose.
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Associated Press reporter Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed.
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The story has been corrected to clarify that the time for gubernatorial action did not lapse. The governor signed the bill Wednesday.

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Televangelist seeks donations for $54M private jet

Published May 29, 2018

By Bradford Betz | Fox News

Televangelist seeks donations for $54M private jet

Jesse Duplantis, a Louisiana-based televangelist, is asking his followers to donate money for a $54 million jet, that can "go anywhere in the world in one stop."

A Louisiana-based televangelist is asking his followers to donate money for a $54 million jet that can “go anywhere in the world in one stop,” The Times-Picayune reported.

Jesse Duplantis, 68, a Christian minister based in Destrehan, about 25 miles east of New Orleans, says his ministry has paid cash for three private jets.

“You know I’ve owned three different jets in my life and used them and used them and just burning them up for the Lord,” Duplantis says in a video posted to his ministries’ website.

Duplantis is now reportedly seeking the funds for a Dassault Falcon 7X, worth $54 million.

In 1888, some found a back door way around the 'Sunday law'

Photographs and Memories: In 1888, some found a back door way around the ‘Sunday law’

The “Enterprise Saloon,” advertising in the Houma Courier in the 1880s, was among the merchants affected by strict enforcement of the Sunday law.


By Bill Ellzey Contributing Columnist


Sunday Posted Nov 26, 2017 at 1:45 PM


In Louisiana’s coastal sugar cane region, “grinding” season in November 1888 curiously brought attention to the enforcement of what was called the “Sunday law,” which forbade the sale of most commercial retail goods on Sunday.

The state law had been enacted several years earlier, but until the fall of 1888, not uniformly enforced.

References to and explanations of reactions to strict enforcement appear in November 1888 in parish-by-parish columns published in the weekly specialty newspaper, “The Louisiana Planter and Sugar Manufacturer”:

“District court continues in session with a considerable docket; the most important features being the large number of Sunday law prosecutions,” wrote the columnist who called himself “Murdock,” in the “Terrebonne Letter.”

“Merchants here and in New Orleans are greatly interested in the issue. The case is being tried to-day and the jury is a good one.”

“Lafourche Letter” reported, “District court, with Judge Taylor Beattie presiding, opened here last Monday for the October term.

“The charge to the grand jury was able and very clear. Special reference was made to the Sunday law, which is violated by saloon-keepers by keeping their back doors open.

“The judge charged that no citizen had a right to set up his own opinion against a positive statute, but that every one was bound to obey the laws until they were repealed in the proper mode.”

Further, “a prominent and intelligent planter of this parish told your correspondent that he was at first opposed to the law on the ground mainly that it was a matter possibly beyond legislative interference, but that since the law has been in force in this parish a great and beneficial change has come over his plantation hands.

“He says he called their attention to the fact that, while their wages had not been increased, yet that they received more money on payday than formerly, for the reason that not having the temptation of Sunday whisky to demoralize them and unfit them for work, they were able to report for duty on Monday morning bright and early, and they thus made better time.

“The largest store in this town reports a steady increase in its sales since the Sunday law has been in operation. The colored laborers, who are the best customers of the town stores, now find that they have more money to spend for legitimate purposes, since they are debarred from spending their hard earnings in riotous living, as formerly.

“When it was feared that the last general assembly might tamper with the Sunday law, a petition was circulated in this town which was signed by every merchant to whom it was presented, without a single dissenting voice, praying the legislature to leave well enough alone.

“The president of the police jury informs your correspondent that under the operation of the Sunday law the criminal expenses of the parish have materially diminished. The ladies who formerly were unable to pass through the streets of the town without being liable to find the sidewalks obstructed by noisy and drunken Negroes, are now able to enjoy the the freedom of the streets.”

In Terrebonne, enforcement was not so well received:

“District court is in session, and one all absorbing feature of the proceedings of this term is the rigid enforcement of the Sunday law,” Murdock wrote. “Yesterday thirteen merchants were arraigned, pleaded guilty and were fined $25 each for selling goods on Sunday.

“The law is obnoxious to the great majority of our people and inimical to every business and planting interest, particularly at this season, when the plantation laborers must leave their work Saturday evenings in order to make their necessary purchases of rations.

“Its influence upon the trade of Houma is more decidedly hurtful, and merchants are loud and vehement in their protests. Since the enactment of the law it has been greatly ignored or evaded through the back door, and this sudden descent upon them by the officers of the law was like a bolt out of a clear sky.

“However, every one recognizes that it is the office of the court to enforce the law as it is found upon the statute books, and those thirteen guilty merchants acted very sensibly in paying the penalty of their wrongdoing without any protest.”

In the last “Lafourche Letter” of 1888, the correspondent wrote:

“Had it not been for the great blessing of the Sunday law, which is strictly observed in this parish, our overworked merchants and clerks would not have been in a happy frame of mind and body to resume their active duties behind the counter this morning.

“As it is, both employers and employees commence another week with recuperated energies from the Sunday rest.

“The Sunday law has not injured business; one of our oldest merchants made the remark that in fourteen years of merchandising in this town he had not seen such a prosperous season as the present one, at the close of the year 1888.”

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‘Sovereign citizen’ movement spreading

POSTED ON JULY 19, 2016 BYJACKSONVILLE JOURNAL COURIER
‘Sovereign citizen’ movement spreading



By Tammy Webber, - Jesse Holland - and Eric Tucker - Associated Press

Gerald Herbert | AP Millville, New Jersey, police chaplain Robert Ossler prays Monday at a makeshift memorial at the fatal shooting scene in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where several law enforcement officers were killed on Sunday. A former Marine set out to ambush police in Baton Rouge, authorities said Monday.


A former Marine who killed three Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police officers identified with a growing movement that originated among white supremacists and whose adherents believe they’re immune to most state and federal laws, including paying taxes and getting driver’s licenses.

Gavin Long, 29, of Kansas City, Missouri, filed documents last year declaring himself a sovereign citizen, as a member of the United Washitaw de Dugdahmoundyah. Members of the mostly black group believe they’re descended from the early Native American mound builders and own the Louisiana Purchase land.

Nothing in that group’s ideology calls for violence; some members have sold fake driver’s licenses, passports and filed fake court documents, according to Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But individuals who have declared themselves sovereign citizens have become violent, killing several law enforcement officers in the last 15 years or so.

One such incident took place in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 2010, when Sgt. Brandon Paudert and another officer were shot and killed during a traffic stop by sovereign citizen movement member Jerry R. Kane Jr. of Forest, Ohio, and his 16-year-old son Joseph.

Paudert was the son of former West Memphis Police Chief Bob Paudert, who now travels the country warning police officers not to underestimate potential violence from so-called “sovereign citizens.”

“My experience in the last six years is: The more confrontations and the more encounters they have with law enforcement, the more dangerous they become,” he said.

The sovereign citizen movement generally traces its origins to the 1970s, when members were avowed white supremacists. But the unifying ideology was about government rather than race, said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

“As a result, over the decades, the proportion of white supremacists became ever smaller and smaller a proportion of the movement as a whole,” Pitcavage said. “That fact opened the movement up to people of all sorts of other backgrounds who had anti-government leanings.”

Potok said the sovereign citizen movement is largely unorganized but growing quickly, especially since the Great Recession, and now involves an estimated 300,000 people — the majority of whom now may be African-American.

“The sovereign citizen ideology became particularly attractive as a result of economic troubles,” Potok said.

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Sister of slain Baton Rouge officer Montrell Jackson: ‘It’s coming to the point where no lives matter’

The Washington Post
Theresa Vargas
3 hrs ago






G.O.P. Gathers, Focused on Law and Order



GOP to kick off convention; Trump to make surprise visit 



  


© Berrien County Sheriff's Office/AP Photo             

In this undated photo released by the Berrien County Sheriff's Office, Deputy James Atterberry Jr. is shown. Authorities say 44-year-old Larry Darnell Gordon was handcuffed Monday, July 11, 2016 at Berrien County's Circuit Court when he disarmed Atterberry during a fight and shot him. The sheriff's department announced Wednesday that Atterberry was released from the hospital.A woman also was shot in the arm and hostages were briefly taken before Gordon was fatally shot by other bailiffs. Bailiffs Joseph Zangaro and Ronald Kienzle died in the incident.


Joycelyn Jackson was already sitting in church when she found herself needing God most. She hadn’t yet learned that her younger brother Montrell Jackson was among the three officers killed in Baton Rouge when her pastor asked the congregation to send prayers to her family.

“I didn’t want to break down in church, but it was just something I couldn’t hold,” said Jackson, 49. “He was a wonderful person. A wonderful person.”

Joycelyn Jackson said that she understands the anger behind the movement Black Lives Matter but that “God gives nobody the right to kill and take another person’s life.” Montrell Jackson, 32, had gotten married in the past few years and had a baby boy he adored, she said.

“It’s coming to the point where no lives matter,” she said, “whether you’re black or white or Hispanic or whatever.”

In an emotional Facebook post on July 8, Montrell Jackson wrote that he was “tired physically and emotionally.”

“I swear to God I love this city but I wonder if this city loves me,” he wrote. “In uniform I get nasty hateful looks and out of uniform some consider me a threat. … These are trying times. Please don’t let hate infect your heart. This city MUST and WILL get better.”

On a GoFundMe page set up for the fallen officer by a relative, he is described as a hero in a “time of uncertainty and imminent danger.”



© courtesy of Joycelyn Jackson Slain officer's sister: ‘It’s coming to the point where no lives matter’

“Words cannot describe the devastation that we feel right now,” reads the page. “Rest in Peace, Montrell, you will always be our Hero.”

Virginia Tech quarterback Josh Jackson identified the officer as his cousin on Twitter, using a hashtag that many adopted Sunday: #PrayForBatonRouge

“Rest in peace to my cousin Montrell Jackson who was one of the policeman that was killed.”

Joycelyn Jackson said that her brother, at 6-foot-3, towered over many, but that in her memories he will always be that little boy who was a picky eater. She said his siblings would tease him about how when he was about 9, he insisted on eating only Burger King Whoppers for dinner. Jackson said she was the one who would get him to eat other food.

Jackson said she never worried about her brother, who was “outgoing” and “kind,” being on the force, not until recent tensions in Baton Rouge after officers fatally shot Alton Sterling earlier this month outside a convenience store.

Jackson said another brother had told the pastor about their brother’s death before she made it to church for an afternoon service. Afterward, she said, the weight of it “rushed” over her.

If she could talk to the shooter, or anyone considering violence against officers, she said she’d remind them of a judgment beyond the penal system.

“If I could say anything to anyone, it is to get their lives right with God,” she said. “Hell is horrible, horrible place to be.”

 

 

Source

 

 

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3 police officers shot dead in Baton Rouge

TODAY

2 minutes ago



Three police officers have been fatally shot in Baton Rouge, La., and three others were wounded, according to East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Department.



East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux III said one gunman was shot dead, but two other suspects may be at large.

Max Becherer, AP

Baton Rouge Police block Airline Highway after police were shot in Baton Rouge, La., on July 17, 2016.

"At this point in time the scene is still active," he said. "We are advising the public to please take an alternate route and steer clear of the area."

Corporal L'Jean Mckneely Jr., spokesman for the Baton Rouge Police Department, said officers secured the area around the suspect and sent a robot device in after the shooting, “making sure there aren’t any explosives in the area."


"So we’re taking every precaution necessary to make sure that all our lives are safe," he said.

Officers responding initially to a call did exchange gunfire with the suspect, who has not been identified, Mckneely said."There was no talking. There was shooting,” he said.





A sheriff’s spokesman, Casey Rayborn Hicks, urged issued a statement asking the public to report anything suspicious in the area to 911.

Two Baton Rouge police officers and one East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy are dead, according to WBRZ-TV and The Advocate newspaper.

"They are investigating," Baton Route Mayor Kip Holden told MSNBC. "Right now we are trying to get our arms around everything."


Kelly Zimmerman of Our Lady of the Lake said the hospital received five patients. Three were dead, one is in critical condition and the other is in fair condition, Zimmerman said.





As authorities continued to investigate the shootings less than a mile from police headquarters, both lanes of Airline Highway were shut down from Goodwood to Old Hammond. Old Hammond is closed to Tara Boulevard.

"Rest assured, every resource available to the state of Louisiana will be used to ensure the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a tweet, calling the attack unspeakable and unjustified.


The scene is still active, East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks told The Advocate.


About 20 police officers wearing bulletproof vests are near the scene and a helicopter was flying overhead, the paper reported.

Kyle Suire, owner of the Jambalaya Shoppe restaurant says “they have 200 cop in our parking lot.” And “they’ve got everything on lockdown.” He says he arrived too late this morning to see what happened. “I saw all the cops rushing in.”

The Baton Rouge mayor's office urged people to stay home, stay off the streets for now in immediate wake of police shooting, according to The Advocate.


A witness told WBRZ-TV that a man was dressed in black with his face covered was shooting indiscriminately when he walked out between a convenience store and car wash across from Hammond Air Plaza. Police closed the streets between the police department’s headquarters and Interstate 12.


Michael Vinsanau of WBRZ tweeted that more than a dozen marked and unmarked police cars sped to the scene, and that a SWAT team was on location. State police armed with rifles are posted blocks away, Vinsanau tweeted.



USA TODAY

Alton Sterling: Killed by police, forgotten by the media?

Baton Rouge police have been under scrutiny after officers fatally shot Alton Sterling, 37, on July 5 while he was pinned to the ground. Sterling was black and the officers involved were white. Sterling’s funeral was Friday. Police have said they thought he was reaching for a gun.





Contributing: Chris Woodyard, Ryan Miller and Jack Richards​


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Supreme Court asked to defend Seal of Confession in La. case

By Matt Hadro

United States Supreme Court.




Baton Rouge, La., Sep 6, 2014 / 07:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling that a diocesan priest may be forced to break the Seal of Confession.

“This case concerns who – the Church or the state – gets to determine the meaning, content, and requirements of the Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation – one of the Church’s most sacred and central practices,” the diocese’s appeal read.

Back in May, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that a priest of the Baton Rouge Diocese, Father Jeff Bayhi, could be forced to testify in court about a supposed confession made by a minor allegedly regarding her sexual abuse at the hands of a parishioner.

A state appeals court initially ruled that the alleged confession was “confidential” and thus Fr. Bayhi did not have to testify in court as to its alleged contents or whether it even took place.

However, the state Supreme Court reversed that decision, saying that the seal of confession did not shield Fr. Bayhi from mandatory reporting laws.

Louisiana law states that a “member of the clergy” must report allegations of sexual abuse, except in the case of “confidential” conversations made in private “and not intended for further disclosure except to other persons present in furtherance of the purpose of the communication.” In addition, a priest “is presumed to have the authority to claim the privilege” of confidentiality “on behalf of the person or deceased person.”

However, the high court ruled that Fr. Bayhi can only invoke confidentiality if the girl refuses to disclose their conversation, and since she waived her confidentiality privilege, he is subject to the mandatory sexual abuse reporting laws.

In the appeal, the diocese stated that even to admit the conversation took place – much less reveal its alleged contents – would involve Fr. Bayhi breaking the Seal of Confession, which no priest is allowed to do, even under threat of civil penalty or imprisonment.

The existence and/or contents of the alleged conversation is “knowledge that under church law he [Fr. Bayhi] is absolutely forbidden to share with others for any reason under penalty of automatic excommunication,” the appeal stated.

“The Louisiana Supreme Court’s decision cannot stand,” the appeal stated. “It conflicts with long-standing authority of this and other courts and threatens church autonomy.”

The diocese has previously emphasized that the priest is under the gravest of oaths not to reveal the contents of a confession or if the confession even took place.

“If necessary, the priest would have to suffer a finding of contempt in a civil court and suffer imprisonment rather than violate his sacred duty and violate the seal of confession and his duty to the penitent.”

“A foundational doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church for thousands of years mandates that the seal of confession is absolute and inviolable,” the diocese stressed, also saying that the “matter is of serious consequence to all religions, not just the Catholic faith.”

In a September 4 statement, the diocese said the court’s ruling “strikes a very hard blow against religious freedom, and one which the diocese and Father Bayhi feel compelled to vigorously protest.”

The diocese also spoke out against the court’s “unprecedented” ruling that the trial court decide “whether or not a sacrament actually took place.”

“Doing so allows the state to override the religion’s own determination of what its beliefs and practices require and destroys the sacred seal of confession in the process,” the appeal stated.

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Supreme Court overturns driving law targeting noncitizens

Acadiana bureau

LAFAYETTE — The state Supreme Court has ruled that a Louisiana law that makes it a felony for noncitizens to drive without proof they are legally in the United States cannot be enforced.

The opinion, released Wednesday, came in a group of cases out of Lafayette Parish, where the law was challenged.

At issue is Louisiana’s “operating a vehicle without lawful presence” statute, which carries a penalty of up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $1,000.

In the court ruling, the justices cited a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar law in Arizona.

The federal justices had ruled Arizona was improperly trying to enforce immigration laws, the realm of the federal government.

The challenge to the Louisiana law had attracted the support of several civil rights and immigrant rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigration Law Center and Southern Poverty Law Center, and group of foreign governments that included Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

They argued, among other things, that the Louisiana law allows officers to pull people over for “driving while Latino.”


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New Director Named for FEMA’s Louisiana Recovery Office

Main Content

Release date:
MAY 10, 2013
Release Number:
R6-13-039


DENTON, Texas – The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Region 6 Administrator Tony Robinson has selected Thomas “Mike” Womack as the new Director for FEMA’s Louisiana Recovery Office (LRO).

As LRO Director, Womack oversees FEMA’s recovery operations in Louisiana for hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike.

Womack joined FEMA in 2012. Prior to that, he served in the Army National Guard for nearly 30 years. He also served as the Response and Recovery Director and then Deputy Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA). Former Governor Haley Barbour appointed Womack Executive Director of MEMA in 2006, where he served until 2012.

“Mike brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to this position and to the Louisiana Recovery Office,” said FEMA Region 6 Administrator Tony Robinson. “We are fortunate to have him and I am confident that he will continue to enhance our relationship with Louisiana and its great citizens as we move forward with the recovery efforts in the state.”

“I look forward to working closely with our state and local partners,” said Womack. “The FEMA LRO remains unwavering in its commitment to Louisiana’s full recovery.”

Womack officially started the job on May 5. He assumes the duties from William J. Doran III, who served as LRO Interim Director since November 2012.

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FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards. Follow us on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/femaregion6 and the FEMA Blog at http://blog.fema.gov.


Last Updated:
May 10, 2013 - 12:45
State/Tribal Government or Region:
Region VI

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Coast Guard Working Gulf Platform Explosion

Posted: Nov 16, 2012 9:37 AM by Ian Auzenne
Updated: Nov 16, 2012 10:07 AM

The United State Coast Guard confirms to KATC that it is working a platform explosion at this hour in West Cote Blanche. The explosion took place at 9:00 on a rig in West Delta Block 32. The Coast Guard could not confirm any other information at this time. Once we receive more information, we will pass it along.
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Isaac: Significant flooding, power outages on Gulf Coast PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO

August 31, 2012 8:28 AM

PLAY CBS NEWS VIDEO

Last Updated 9:57 a.m. ET

(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - The storm that was Hurricane Isaac - and which is now a tropical depression - swirled into the central U.S. Friday, leaving behind a darkened, soggy mess in Louisiana. Neighborhoods were underwater, and even homes that stayed dry didn't have lights, air conditioning or clean water.

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Eerie similarities: Isaac follows track of Katrina, evacuations ordered for coast

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 8:51 AM EDT, Mon August 27, 2012

Waves batter the coast in Havana, Cuba, on Sunday, August 26, after Tropical Storm Isaac passed the island.

HIDE CAPTION

Isaac threatens Gulf Coast

Tampa, Florida (CNN) -- Thousands in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were being told early Monday to leave their Gulf Coast homes ahead of the arrival of Tropical Storm Isaac as forecasters warned it was gaining strength as it followed the same path Hurricane Katrina took seven years earlier.

The governors of the three states each declared an emergency, with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley ordering mandatory evacuations to begin at 8 a.m. for residents who live along the coast and for those in some low-lying areas inland.

"I am urging everyone to take precautions now, monitor weather warnings, and be prepared for whatever Isaac may bring," Bentley said in a statement released Sunday.

A hurricane warning was issued for the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, from Morgan City, Louisiana, east to Destin, Florida, the National Hurricane Center said.

The tropical storm was expected to make landfall late Tuesday or Wednesday, coinciding with the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, though as a much weaker Category 1 hurricane, compared with 2005's monster storm.

Isaac's strength was holding steady Monday as it moved at 14 mph through the warm gulf waters, about 360 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, forecasters said. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, according to a hurricane center advisory.

The storm was "getting a little better organized" as it moved over the Gulf of Mexico, the center said.

It appeared early Monday that the storm's ferocity would mostly bypass Florida's west coast and the Republican National Convention in Tampa, where the schedule was pushed back a day by organizers over concerns about the storm.

Isaac's eye is forecast to pass well west of Tampa.

After slamming into Haiti, where at least six people died in storm-related incidents Saturday, Isaac lashed Cuba and the Florida Keys.

There are so far some eerie similarities between Hurricane Katrina and Isaac, CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said.

The forecast for Isaac and the one for Katrina in 2005 are almost identical, he said.

"Hurricane Katrina went on to become a dangerous Category 5 hurricane in the central Gulf of Mexico," Hennen said.

On August 29, 2005, Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, killing roughly 1,800 people.
"We are just on high alert. I know the anxiety level is high," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.

"The storm is somewhat uncertain. Out of an abundance of caution, we will begin to take these precautions as quickly as we can."

Currently, there are no plans to order evacuations of New Orleans. If an evacuation is ordered, buses and trains would be used to move residents out of the city, Landrieu said.

The airport, the convention center and the Superdome would not be shelters of last resort as they were in 2005.

"We are much, much better prepared structurally than before," he said, adding that "if you are called upon, you should leave."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, meanwhile, called on residents in coastal parishes prone to flooding to voluntarily evacuate. A mandatory evacuation was ordered for St. Charles Parish and for the east bank of Plaquemines Parish.

In Gulfport, Mississippi, authorities ordered the port cleared of cargo vessels.

Eight oil rigs and 39 production platforms in the gulf were evacuated by late Sunday, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. BP said it would evacuate its oil platform workers Monday.

"ExxonMobil continues preparations for heavy weather associated with Tropical Storm Isaac at its Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay operations," a statement on the company's website said early Monday. "We are closely monitoring weather updates, determining which of our facilities may potentially be in the path of the storm and preparing those structures for heavy wind and rain."

As preparations continued on the northern Gulf Coast, Florida Gov. Rick Scott was assessing damage as Isaac skirted the state's western coast, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.

"We are experiencing some minor outages in the southern part of the state," he said at a news conference in Tampa. He said his main concern for Tampa was no longer a direct hit from Isaac but tropical storm-force winds.

Even with the storm's predicted track, GOP officials decided to push back Monday's scheduled start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa by one day, hoping the move will make it safer and easier for delegates to attend.

Officials said more than 550 flights were canceled at Miami International Airport on Sunday, while the possibility of flooding because of an anticipated storm surge forced the evacuations of portions of coastal Lee County, including Fort Myers Beach.

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From Bible-Belt Pastor to Atheist Leader

Julie Glassberg for The New York Times

Unbeliever Jerry DeWitt, converted atheist, in a church where he once preached in DeRidder, La.

By ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: August 22, 2012

...

DeWitt is a native son in every way, and this must make his apostasy all the more difficult for others to make sense of and to accept. He is descended from a long line of preachers on both sides of the family. His paternal grandfather helped establish at least 16 different churches­ in Louisiana, including one in DeRidder, he told me. (I found 69 churches in the town directory, though some may be inactive.) DeWitt grew up in the church, but it was only at 17, after being “saved” during a weekend visit to Jimmy Swaggart’s church in Baton Rouge, that he became a passionate Christian. Weeks later he spoke in tongues for the first time. Soon after that, sitting in church, he heard his pastor call on him to deliver a homily. Terrified, he asked if he could have a few minutes to pray for guidance. He stepped to the pulpit with his finger on a passage from the Gospel of Mark, and spoke for 15 minutes on the “seed of David.” The crowd loved it. “It was the biggest high I’d ever had,” he told me. “I knew right then that preaching was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.” He married a local girl at age 20, and two weeks after the wedding, he received an invitation to speak at a camp meeting in Lucedale, Miss. There he preached to overflow crowds of whooping Pentecostals who were speaking in tongues.

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Night march held to protest against escalating violence

Participants pledge action

BY NAOMI MARTIN
Advocate staff writer
March 31, 2012



Hearing the chants of “justice” in the streets, neighbors streamed out of their houses Friday night to join a group of about 150 Baton Rouge residents holding candles and marching along Fairfields Avenue to call attention to the city’s high murder rate, as well as the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin.

“The violence here is crazy,” said Brenton Scott, 16, who knows five boys who have been shot and killed from his Park Forest neighborhood. “I came tonight because I wanted to show everybody that we’re doing something about it.”

The march, organized by the Working Interfaith Network of Baton Rouge, began at the Berean Seventh Day Adventist Church about 6:30 p.m. with speeches and prayers. The organizers urged participants to sign their “next day pledge,” a commitment to take part in efforts to reduce youth violence and mass incarceration in East Baton Rouge Parish.

The speakers decried black-on-black violence.

The Rev. Robert Davis, pastor of Berean Seventh Day Adventist Church, said that a public outrage similar to that being expressed over Trayvon Martin’s killing should have happened earlier in the black community, considering the country’s 58,500 black-on-black murders over the past 10 years.

“Enough is enough,” Davis said. “We’ve already shed too much blood.”

Davis said the community needs to take action and partner with law enforcement to quell the violence.

“But if we don’t have a partner in law enforcement, we’re going to stand over your shoulder and you’re going to get sick and tired of seeing our faces,” Davis said. “We are not going to stand idly by any longer.”

The Rev. Jennifer Jones-Bridgett, of Shiloh Baptist Church, said she hoped the outrage sparked by Trayvon Martin’s killing would call attention to the injustices of Baton Rouge’s own murder problem.

“Everybody in here knows somebody who been killed, questions never really got answered, and we got silent and went back in the house,” she said. The audience answered, “Amen.”

Kerrick Alexander, 23, said the march was an outlet for black people to voice their frustrations with both crime and racism.

“To see people come together and actually show we care, the young people care — that’s really cool to see,” he said.

Alexander said he coaches teenagers in basketball because he wants to keep them off the streets to avoid the kind of violence that took the life of his best friend when he was 14 years old.

“It’s really making me consider it as a career because I’m able to make a change in a kid’s life and keep them from being dead or on the path to being dead or in jail,” he said.

Margaret Evans, 50, said she wanted to march to draw attention to the racism she and her family still experience today. She said one of her sons had recently been harassed by police in Mississippi who had told him: “You can’t do anything about it.”

“This is our opportunity to say, ‘Yes we can,’” she said.

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La. Gov. Bobby Jindal wins re-election

Updated 19h 10m ago


BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday easily coasted to a second term, winning in a landslide election after failing to attract any well-known or deep-pocketed opposition.






By Richard Alan Hannon, AP
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal delivers his victory speech.















The 40-year-old Republican overwhelmed nine competitors in the open primary, where a candidate wins the race outright if he or she receives more than 50 percent of the vote. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Jindal had received about 66 percent of the total vote.

His closest competitor, Tara Hollis, a Democrat from north Louisiana, garnered nearly 18 percent of the total vote. All of the other candidates were in single digits.

"I will use every day, every hour of these next four years to make Louisiana the very best that we can be. I don't believe in resting on our past accomplishments. I don't believe in taking time off," Jindal told a packed hotel ballroom of supporters in Baton Rouge.

Jindal piled up $15 million in campaign cash from around the nation and attracted no Democratic challengers with statewide name recognition or fundraising heft. He's had consistently high approval ratings since taking office in 2008.

His win comes amid the virtual collapse of the Democratic Party's clout in the state. In the current term, Republicans have gained control of all seven statewide elected posts and both chambers of the legislature. Hollis was an outsider to the political establishment and was unable to drum up the cash needed to challenge Jindal or mount a big-ticket advertising competition.

The first Indian-American governor in the United States, Jindal is considered by some a possible presidential contender in the future. He recently published a book and regularly appears on national news shows, but he ruled out a 2012 run.

Still, his brand of conservatism and refusal to raise taxes has resonated outside the state. His new term begins in January.

The race that received more attention in Louisiana was the one for lieutenant governor, because the officeholder is next in line should Jindal step down because of his national political ambitions.

Incumbent Jay Dardenne, who took office after a special election last year, had 53 percent of the ballot in defeating Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser with 47 percent , results showed with 99 percent of precincts reporting. Like Jindal, Nungesser was a vocal critic of the federal response to the massive Gulf oil spill.


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Jesuit to Serve New Orleans on Civil Service Commission

August 10th, 2011 Author: admin

Jesuit Father Kevin Wildes, president of Loyola University New Orleans, will be serving the city of New Orleans as the newest member of the Civil Service Commission, after his nomination was approved in July.

This appointment continues Fr. Wildes’ long-time record of service for the city. Following Hurricane Katrina, he played a key role in establishing the city’s Ethics Review Board and in setting up an independent Office of the Inspector General. Wildes currently sits on the Public Belt Railroad Commission.

“While I believe public service is always important, the challenges for post-Katrina New Orleans make public service even more vital today,” said Wildes. “New Orleans citizens are demanding, and rightly so, to live within a city government that functions transparently, efficiently and justly. I am honored to be able to assist in this effort.”

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu was supportive of Wildes’ nomination, explaining that reforming the civil service system is critical to improving the quality of service for the residents of New Orleans.

“Fr. Wildes has a distinguished record of service in the faith-based and academic communities and has taken on numerous positive reforms locally post-Katrina. I appreciate his willingness to help improve city government,” said Landrieu.

For more on Wildes’ new appointment, visit the Loyola University New Orleans website.

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