News

French Quarter Festival kicks off with food, music, culture

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s spring festival season kicked off Thursday with what has been called the largest free showcase of Louisiana music, food and culture in the world: the French Quarter Festival.

STATE BRIEFS

Louisiana budget gap gets a new, lower number: $648 million

Tabloid paid for, spiked, salacious Trump tip

NEW YORK (AP) — Eight months before the company that owns the National Enquirer paid $150,000 to a former Playboy Playmate who claimed she’d had an affair with Donald Trump, the tabloid’s parent made a $30,000 payment to a less famous individual: a former doorman at one of the real estate mogul’s New York City buildings.

As it did with the ex-Playmate, the Enquirer signed the ex-doorman to a contract that effectively prevented him from going public with a juicy tale that might hurt Trump’s campaign for president.

McCarthy, Scalise are likely contenders for House speaker

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some say it’s a fight between West and South. Or a test of who can woo conservatives. Or who would be the better fundraiser and communicator for a divided party struggling to protect its House majority.

But one thing is clear: If the showdown between California Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise for House speaker is a popularity contest, it will be tight.

Russia: Syrian gov’t now in control of rebel town

BEIRUT (AP) — The Russian military announced on Thursday that the Syrian government is now in full control of the last rebelheld town on the outskirts of Damascus that was the site of a suspected chemical attack over the weekend.

The development would mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar Assad as the United States and its allies consider punitive military attacks against Syria following the suspected chemical attack that killed 40 people.

Accusers confront Bill Cosby, and they aren’t holding back

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Women who say comedian Bill Cosby knocked them out with intoxicants and sexually assaulted them decades ago are finally getting a chance to confront him — and they aren’t holding back.

Janice Baker-Kinney will return to the witness stand on Thursday after punctuating her first two hours of testimony at Cosby’s sexual assault retrial in suburban Philadelphia with a firm declaration: “I was raped.”

Chemical watchdog: Ex-spy poisoned by very pure nerve agent

LONDON (AP) — The international chemical weapons watchdog on Thursday confirmed Britain’s finding that a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent, as Russia continued to deny suggestions that it was behind the attack.

Investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, said the nerve agent was “of high purity.” Britain says that means only a state with a sophisticated laboratory could have manufactured it.

Calif. to join Guard border mission, but with conditions

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Jerry Brown accepted President Donald Trump’s call to send the National Guard to the Mexican border, but rejected the White House’s portrait of a burgeoning border crisis and insisted that his troops will have nothing to do with immigration enforcement.

The Democratic governor broke a week of silence Wednesday by agreeing to contribute 400 troops, though not all will be on the border. Brown’s commitment brought the pledges from four states that border Mexico to just shy of the low end of the president’s target of 2,000 to 4,000 troops.

Dirt pit rezoned with conditions

A complaint was filed recently by Jennings resident Shawn Stoleson to the Jeff Davis Parish Police Jury concerning a dirt pit owned by Mark Gary off La. 102, which did not have an appropriate zoning classification.

Wednesday, the Jeff Davis Police Jury approved a requested zoning classification change from A-1 to I-1 for the dirt pit, meaning a change from an agricultural to a light industrial zoning.

Fenton discusses retirement options for employees

FENTON – The board of aldermen agreed Tuesday to allow CenterPoint Energy to continue offering services to the town and discussed retirement benefits for the village’s police officers and employees.

The issue of offering retirement benefits to the village’s employees and police officers came up during the monitoring of the village’s financial activities by accounting firm J. Walker and Company as mandated by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office due to errors in its 2015-2016 audit.