News

Jeff Davis Parish officials are working to establish zoning and permitting requirements for battery energy storage facilities and data centers before either type of development arrives in the parish. The Police Jury’s Ordinance Committee recently agreed to recommend adding battery storage facilities and data centers to the parish’s I-1 light industrial zoning classification while continuing work on more detailed ordinances governing how the facilities could be permitted, operated and eventually decommissioned.

LAKE ARTHUR — Lake Arthur officials will again seek contractors for electrical upgrades to the town’s wastewater lift stations after receiving no bids for the project during its first round of advertising.

A false graphic circulating on social media claims that a new Louisiana law requires drivers under a certain height to use booster seats in their vehicles. Officials with the Louisiana State Police are warning residents that the information is not true.

A Block Off Broadway Community Theatre is holding auditions in search of its next big star. ABOB is preparing for its next production, “Knock ’Em Dead,” and is inviting area residents to audition for a chance to be part of the cast.

(The Center Square) — As the federal government faces hundreds of billions of dollars in estimated annual fraud losses, a bipartisan majority of voters want it to use artificial intelligence to help catch waste and abuse, a new poll found.

(The Center Square) — Louisiana school officials are raising concerns about a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow local voters to give older homeowners larger property tax exemptions, warning the measure could reduce school funding without giving school boards a say.

(The Center Square) — Louisiana is ending its Medicaid managed care partnership with Healthy Blue, a change that will force more than 290,000 people to move to another health plan by the beginning of next year.

(The Center Square) — Louisiana could emerge as one of the biggest domestic beneficiaries of a U.S.backed expansion of Venezuela's oil industry, with refineries designed to process the country's heavy crude and infrastructure capable of receiving massive oil tankers offshore.