Louisiana

Pilani Bubu found her music community after she moved from South Africa to New Orleans. She understood that the people she met wanted to learn more about her culture back home. That’s when she started to incorporate South African music into her repertoire

South Africa’s Pilani Bubu has ‘jumped off the shoulder of giants’ to create music filled with tradition

The singer-songwriter has always straddled between the worlds of globalization and the traditions of her homeland.

South Africa’s Pilani Bubu has ‘jumped off the shoulder of giants’ to create music filled with tradition
French-speaking Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, has abandoned dwellings are everywhere due to storms, erosion, and rising sea-levels.

Storms and rising sea levels threaten to wipe out French language in Louisiana’s bayou country

Storms and rising sea levels threaten to wipe out French language in Louisiana’s bayou country
The Shell Norco oil refinery along the Mississippi River in Norco, LA.

Hurricane Ida adds misery to 'Cancer Alley': Part II

Hurricane Ida adds misery to 'Cancer Alley': Part II
Founder of RISE St. James and 2021 Goldman Environmental Prize winner Sharon Lavigne

Hurricane Ida adds misery to 'Cancer Alley': Part I

Hurricane Ida adds misery to 'Cancer Alley': Part I
The double yellow center lines are shown through the middle of the photograph with a downed power lined stretches across the road blocking passage.

Laura blasts Gulf Coast with wind, rain and wall of seawater

Laura blasts Gulf Coast with wind, rain and wall of seawater
Four Black American women activists wearing yellow shirts and holding protest signs stand in a field near a fence.

From Louisiana to Taiwan, environmental activists stand up to a major plastics company

Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese plastics company, intends to build a complex in St. James Parish, Louisiana, a region already known as "Cancer Alley." Environmental activist Anne Rolfes faces criminal charges for a protest action she took to call attention to the company's history of harm.

From Louisiana to Taiwan, environmental activists stand up to a major plastics company
Employees dehead Louisiana white shrimp at C.F. Gollott & Son Seafood in D'Iberville, Mississippi, June 3, 2010.

US seafood workers fight unsafe job conditions amid pandemic

A coronavirus outbreak among workers at a Louisiana crawfish processing plant kicked off a legal battle with their employers over dangerous working conditions during the pandemic. Many of them are migrants on seasonal visas.

US seafood workers fight unsafe job conditions amid pandemic
Harjot Singh Khalsa (left) and Rajkaranbir Singh are hosts of Punjabi Radio USA, which provides valuable information to immigrant workers.

Immigrant ‘digital first responders’ provide vital services. They're in a financial crisis. 

The news media has become a vital resource during the coronavirus pandemic — especially outlets serving immigrant communities. But those organizations are suffering from the same financial crisis bigger media outlets are experiencing. 

Immigrant ‘digital first responders’ provide vital services. They're in a financial crisis. 
Government officials, wearing protective masks, stand next to a plane

US deportation flights risk spreading coronavirus globally

US officials say that immigration enforcement must continue, pandemic or not. But deporting people who may have been exposed to coronavirus in detention facilities risks spreading the disease to countries unequipped to deal with COVID-19. 

US deportation flights risk spreading coronavirus globally
Aged male rhesus macaques monkeys at Tulane University are pictured. 

Can Tulane University’s monkeys help the global fight against the coronavirus?

Monkeys at the Tulane National Primate Research Center have been infected with the coronavirus. Eventually, the animals will be tested with potential vaccines. 

Can Tulane University’s monkeys help the global fight against the coronavirus?
A shrimp boat is shown in a illustration that combines the boat with a map of the Mississippi Delta.

Gulf shrimpers fight for their livelihoods in a fertilizer-fueled dead zone

Farm pollutants from multiple states feed a massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Shrimpers pay the cost.

Gulf shrimpers fight for their livelihoods in a fertilizer-fueled dead zone
The Mississippi River near New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Mississippi: Pushed to the brink

Up and down the Mississippi River, new pressures are being put on America’s inland hydro highway, which helps deliver US goods and commodities to the rest of the world and allows trade flows to return. The strain on the river system is only becoming more acute with the impacts of climate change.

The Mississippi: Pushed to the brink
Isle de Jean Charles

A new book tells the stories of people coping with a changing American shoreline

Across the United States, it doesn’t take a devastating storm for scientists and citizens to see the unwelcome transformations that climate change is causing right now.

A new book tells the stories of people coping with a changing American shoreline
Atchafalaya bayou

Federal judge halts Louisiana pipeline

A federal Judge has temporarily halted the Bayou Bridge Pipeline on environmental grounds. The pipeline would cut across Louisiana’s pristine Atchafalaya Basin in order to connect the Dakota Access Pipeline to the Gulf coast.

Federal judge halts Louisiana pipeline
The silhouette of roseau cane during a sunset on the Louisiana coast.

In a hungry little insect, a big threat to Louisiana’s coast

A tiny invasive bug loves the cane that grows along the mouth of the Mississippi River. Can it be stopped?

In a hungry little insect, a big threat to Louisiana’s coast