Meghan Friedmann

Aly Rau, a former assistant secretary for the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services, will now serve as deputy secretary for that agency, officials announced this week.

Budget cuts to the already-embattled and understaffed Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services could mean gutting the agency's emergency shelter programs and diminishing child abuse prevention services.

BY TYLER BRIDGES and MEGHAN FRIEDMANN | Staff writers Gov. Jeff Landry wants to enact the most sweeping overhaul of Louisiana's tax system

For years, Louisiana has struggled to clean up thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells , which threaten both the environment and public health

Gov. Jeff Landry is not opposed to a passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans , but he would rather see three lanes on either side of I-10 along that route, he told The Advocate | The Times-Picayune Tuesday.

An orphaned and leaking oil well site undergoes testing in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.

Jeff Landry is not opposed to passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, but he would rather see three lanes on either side of Interstate 10 along that route, he told The Advocate — The Times-Picayune on Tuesday.

Dilapidated infrastructure remains at the B-5 orphan well site in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge in Lottie, La., Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Unfavorable state audits and a criminal investigation have raised doubts about Louisiana's efforts to plug abandoned oil and gas wells.

Legislature could more easily add crimes for which kids may be tried as adults