By Sarah Gamard
Representatives from the global casino enterprise Caesar’s Entertainment outlined for the Riverboat Economic Development and Gaming Task Force the negative impact of a local smoking ban on its No. 1 Louisiana enterprise, Harrah’s Casino & Hotel in downtown New Orleans.
The casino is one of the three in Louisiana owned by Caesar’s. The other two are in Bossier City.
By Sarah Gamard
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana law requires gaming riverboats to have a working paddlewheel, even though the boats do not traverse the waterways. The chairman of the legislatively created task force in charge of recommending rules for the state’s gaming industry called that requirement “ridiculous.”
By Tryfon Boukouvidis
BATON ROUGE — Spouses of certain Louisiana law enforcement officers would receive better pension survivor benefits under a bill filed for the legislative session that starts April 10. It is sponsored by Sen. Barrow Peacock, R-Bossier City, who also filed a bill to expand the reach of the Teachers’ Retirement System.
By William Taylor Potter
GONZALES — Representatives from the Governor’s Office and the Office of Community Development hinted to victims of the August floods that in April they may at last see federal disaster relief to compensate them for some or all of their losses, emphasizing that the delays stem from Washington not Baton Rouge.
By Sarah Gamard
BATON ROUGE — Statistics show that gambling addiction in Louisiana is affecting more people than ever, up more than 8 percent in the past eight years, but that it is off the radar.
Janet Miller, the executive director for the Louisiana Association on Compulsive Gambling, told the Louisiana Gaming Control Board Thursday that she came before it to raise awareness for March Problem Gambling Awareness Month.
Read the story in The Shreveport Times
By Katie Gagliano
Proposed legislation prefiled for the 2017 Legislature by State Rep. Pat Connick, R-Marrero, aims to close a longstanding loophole in Louisiana’s domestic violence statutes by including same-sex couples.
House Bill 27 would alter the state’s civil and criminal statutes by opening harsher sentencing possibility for abusers in same-sex cohabiting relationships and by providing key public welfare assistance options to same-sex victims.
By Rose Velazquez
BATON ROUGE — Louisiana students as young as kindergarteners who take toy guns to school could face criminal penalties under a bill filed for the Legislature’s spring session by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton. House Bill 43 would ban the possession of “imitation firearms, projectiles or ammunition” in Louisiana schools, at school-sponsored events or within 1,000 feet of campuses.
By Caitie Burkes
With language reminiscent of the evolution-versus-creationism arguments from Inherit the Wind, the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) Tuesday accepted updated content standards for science education in Louisiana’s public schools.
This time around, the controversy over climate change was thrown in.
By Sarah Gamard
The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) School Innovation and Turnaround Committee Tuesday took a step toward tightening prerequisites for a French immersion school in New Orleans.
The school, Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans, wants to require students have a certain level of proficiency in French before admitting them to its French immersion program where classes are taught in French instead of English.
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 