The Lens

12/27/2024

🔍 “I am a writer who happened to come to prison.”

Strickland’s short story, “Waiting,” won the PEN Prison Writing Award for Fiction and will be featured in the 2024 PEN Prison Writing Awards Anthology.

Click the 🔗 to read the essay. https://buff.ly/408OLL4

To read Lawson Stricland's interview with Nick Chrastil click the 🔗 below!
https://buff.ly/3Pkif25

12/23/2024

🎙 The state commission that will allot the money also received a $26 million request from the Jackson Parish Sheriff’s Office — which already operates a troubled detention facility in Jonesboro— to build an additional 64-bed annex designated specifically for juveniles.

https://buff.ly/3OXy8LN

12/23/2024

Support The Lens’ reporting team. Give today and your gift will be matched up to $1,000.

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12/21/2024

🔍 The Delores Taylor Arthur School for Young Men shut its doors on Friday, leaving students urgently searching for places to complete the academic year. Parents believe that the school’s abrupt mid-year closure was a tragedy that could have been anticipated and avoided.

✍️: .jewson

Click the 🔗 in bio for the full article!

12/21/2024

🎙️ Recently, the introduction of a new series of regulations for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has triggered significant concern among environmental advocates and activists. These legislative changes are perceived as potential threats to the agency's ability to effectively safeguard the environment.

https://buff.ly/4fwDvfZ

12/21/2024

🎙️ The closure, of Delores T. Arthur School for Young Men, was not linked to contract renewals but to precarious finances. Last week, the Delores T. Arthur board voted to hand in its charter midyear. Founder Byron Arthur said the 98-student school was staring at an $800,000 budget deficit come June.

Listen to the full episode below:
https://buff.ly/4fwDvfZ

12/20/2024

For 15 years, The Lens has explored New Orleans and Gulf Coast issues, from land-use to criminal justice, infrastructure, education, & the environment, showing their impact on locals.

If you value our work, consider donating; every bit helps.

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12/20/2024

🔍 In late September, the Port of New Orleans signed a lease with Sunrise Foods International and Norfolk Southern to revitalize the property by quickly converting the wharf warehouse into a space fit to unload, store and transfer organic grain shipped from Turkey.

✍: Delaney Dryfoos

Click the 🔗 for the full article
https://buff.ly/3VOgzSc

12/19/2024

Wondering how to repurpose your old Christmas tree? Consider donating it to aid in safeguarding Louisiana’s coastline from erosion.

12/19/2024

The statewide utility, Entergy Louisiana, has already gained approval from the Louisiana Public Service Commission to sell its gas distribution system in Greater Baton Rouge. Bernhard agreed to pay $484 million in total for Entergy Louisiana and Entergy New Orleans’ gas systems.

Though Councilmembers were swayed by job creation, critics said that the jobs pale in comparison to the rate increases and environmental effects that Orleans residents will now shoulder.

12/18/2024

🔍 In October, healthcare advocates and providers in Louisiana filed suit, with hopes of barring the enforcement of Act 246, the law that reclassified two medications commonly used with medical abortions.

✍: La'Shance Perry

Click the 🔗 for the full article!
https://tinyurl.com/Fighting-Act-246

12/17/2024

If Louisiana found $500 million to fund every submitted application, the proposals would create an additional 2,000 jail and juvenile-detention beds across the state — though it’s possible some beds may be decommissioned after new facilities are built.

Local governments request more than $500 million to build regional and local juvenile-detention facilities — and to repair and construct some adult jails.

12/17/2024

🔍 The City Council's Utilities Committee unanimously approved Entergy New Orleans' sale of its natural gas distribution system to Delta States Utilities, despite public disapproval.

✍:

Click the 🔗 for the full article!
https://buff.ly/3P3NoXH

12/17/2024

🎙 A dying and degraded swamp will have a shot at new life after the process to begin reconnecting it to the mighty Mississippi is now underway after the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) came to its rescue.

🔗: https://buff.ly/4iIrxmj

12/16/2024

🔍 With hopes of getting state funding to expand, renovate, and build new jails and juvenile detention facilities around the state, local governments in Louisiana have submitted applications to a criminal justice funding commission requesting more than $500 million.

✍: Nick Chrastil

Click the 🔗 below for the full article!
https://thelensnola.org/2024/12/16/towns-across-louisiana-clamor-to-build-new-juvenile-detention-centers/

12/16/2024

Today and every day, our nonprofit newsroom is rooted in the ideals of democracy.

If you rely on our independent journalism all year long, will you give today to support The Lens?

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12/13/2024

The Lens considers what our readers and community need from our reporting. We’ve built a team that brings humanity to our stories, added photographs to expand how we tell those stories, and created new beats to reflect the opportunities that we have identified.

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12/12/2024

For those with HIV, those extreme events are making it harder to stay on track with their medications, which stop the disease from progressing to AIDS and prevent transmission to others.

A new analysis finds that New Orleans and other parts of the country with high HIV prevalence are also some of the most at-risk areas for climate disasters