At a press conference earlier this week detailing allegations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich allegedly try to auction off his appointment of President-Elect Barack Obama’s successor in the U.S. Senate, Chicago FBI Chief Robert Gates said, “If [Illinois] is not the most corrupt state in the United States, it’s certainly one hell of a competitor.” That comment has prompted several news organizations to pose the question: What is the most corrupt state in the nation? Not surprisingly, La., with its rich legacy of corrupt officials from Huey Long to William "Dollar Bill" Jefferson, finds itself right at the top of every list.
A 2007 report from Corporate Crime Reporter , which has recently been picked up in stories by NPR, CNN, and politico.com lists the Bayou state as No. 1, followed by Mississippi and Kentucky (Ill. is ranked No. 6). Meanwhile, The Washington Post lists Louisiana, Illinois and New Jersey as the obvious top 3 and is asking readers to vote in an online poll which state is most corrupt? This morning, with just under 1,000 votes in, Illinois was leading the pack with 50 percent of the vote. La. was second with 30 percent, followed by New Jersey’s 11 percent and 6 percent who voted for other states.
Is it a crime for citizens to photograph, video, or take notes of a police officer in the line of duty, or a right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Locally, such activity, as witnessed recently, will at the very least result in a night spent behind bars.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
Episcopal School of Acadiana’s Dr. Joshua Caffery, chair of the school’s English Department, is headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress as the latest winner of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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