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By now you’ve probably heard about the EBT card breakdown during a power outage in which shoppers at a couple of Louisiana Walmarts purposely took advantage of the situation by “buying” a huge number of groceries for amounts that greatly exceeded their EBT limits in normal times. You might say the Walmart managers were stupid not to ban the use of the cards for the duration of the problem, or limit the amount that could be charged on them. And if you said that, perhaps you’d be right. But perhaps they thought that if they did that they would face...

In a sign of the internal backlash against the right wing of the House Republican Conference, Louisiana Republican Charles Boustany questioned the political allegiances and motivations of his tea party-aligned colleagues and said they had put the GOP majority at risk in the current shutdown fight. "There are members with a different agenda," Boustany said Wednesday in an interview in his office. "And I'm not sure they're Republicans and I'm not sure they're conservative."

As the most profitable entertainment enterprise ever, the video game series Grand Theft Auto has completely enthralled players; and in this case, an Auburn football fan who decided it was time to play out his real-life version. As WDSU reports, on Saturday, September 21st around 2:30 AM, 20 year old freshman lacrosse player and Auburn student Zachary Burgess decided it was time for him to take his shot at GTA, for realsies. He stole a truck, kidnapped a woman, and ended up crashing into nine parked cars – a feat that took zero brain cells and cojones the size of...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Walmart has no regrets about allowing a wild shopping spree at two of its Louisiana stores when an electronic glitch lifted the spending caps on the cards of food stamp recipients. "We know we made the right choice," Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg told ABCNews.com today. The chain has no regrets even though Louisiana's Department of Children and Family Services said food stamp recipients should have been limited to $50 each during the emergency and that Walmart will have to pay the difference. Lundberg declined to comment about how much the company may have lost or why it did not follow...

On Saturday, Louisiana’s “EBT” system malfunctioned, causing spending limits on users’ food-stamp cards temporarily to be lifted. In two counties at least, recipients noticed the error, spread the word, and set about trying to check out as much as they could fit into shopping carts. At Walmarts in the towns of Springhill and Mansfield, employees called corporate headquarters to ask what they should do. They were instructed to “keep the registers ringing.” This they did — and with a vengeance.By the time that proper limits on the cards had been restored a couple of hours later, the shelves had been...

Police in two north Louisiana cities won't investigate fraudulent food stamp purchases made at local Wal-Marts this weekend unless asked by the retailer, law enforcement representatives said Tuesday. But it is unclear whether the world's largest retailer would ask local police to intervene, after a company representative said Wal-Mart believed it made the right decision this weekend and would keep customers' best interests at heart in the issue going forward.The fraudulent purchases were made at the Springhill and Mansfield locations during a massive system-wide outage on Saturday (Oct. 12). Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling said the retailer instructed cashiers at the...

<p>Wal-Mart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, La., saw a stampede and a shelf-clearing rush Saturday after a computer glitch for food stamp recipients led to benefit cards allowing unlimited purchases.</p> <p>Police were called as entire shelves were being cleared out, until the glitch was fixed and low-income residents using the cards were no longer allowed to make purchases.</p>

Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Walmart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says Walmart was so packed, “It was worse than any black Friday” that he’s ever seen. Lynd explained the cards weren’t showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman said to let the people use the cards anyway. From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and...

The Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system allows recipients of government food stamps to purchase goods using a digital card with a set spending limit, but for a few hours over the weekend, that limit disappeared for many users visiting Walmart stores in Louisiana. Walmart and local police in Springhill and Mansfield confirmed to CBS affiliate KSLA that officers were called into the stores to help maintain order Saturday as shoppers swept through the aisles at two stores and bought as much as they could carry. Xerox, which hosts some of the infrastructure used by the EBT card system, told KSLA...

Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits. The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended. Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Walmart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says Walmart was so packed, "It was worse than any black Friday" that he's ever seen. Lynd explained...

MANSFIELD, LA (KSLA) - Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits. Additional Links Computer issue, not government shutdown, likely cause of EBT card failures The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended. Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Walmart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says...

New Orleans police have arrested a woman in connection with a Central City shooting that left two teenagers wounded Sunday. Verquan Carter, 21, was booked late Tuesday (Oct. 8) with two counts of attempted first degree murder and discharging a firearm during a violent crime. Witnesses at the scene told police Carter opened fire around 6:30 p.m. after getting into an argument with a woman who was walking in a group of people near the intersection of Jackson and South Claiborne Avenues, according to an arrest warrant written by NOPD Detective Virgil Landry. During the argument, Carter took out a...

A Harvey woman shot and wounded her ex-boyfriend after he hit her with a baseball bat and tried to choke her, authorities said. Clarence Fultz, 26, of Harvey, limped away after he was shot on Sept. 27, but authorities did not arrest him until Friday, according to Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. Fultz and the victim, a 28-year-old woman, lived together for about five months in a Harvey apartment before she asked him to leave on the night of Sept. 26, an incident report said. Fultz left, but returned around 3 a.m. wanting to talk.He...

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration Note: Petroleum production includes crude oil, natural gas liquids, condensates, refinery processing gain, and other liquids, including biofuels. Barrels per day oil equivalent were calculated using a conversion factor of 1 barrel oil equivalent = 5.55 million British thermal units (Btu). The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the United States will be the world's top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2013, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. For the United States and Russia, total petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbon production, in energy content terms, is almost evenly split between petroleum and natural...

**SNIP** "Due to the downgrade of Tropical Storm Karen to a tropical depression, and the discontinuation of all watches and warnings for St. Tammany Parish, the parish Emergency Operations Center will stand down. The parish's EOC staff and our partner agencies have ceased operations and they, along with the parish president, would like to thank the citizens of St. Tammany Parish for their cooperation during this event."

"Gunman who took hostages at Louisiana bank posted chilling Facebook messages" SNIPPET: "The gunman who took three hostages at a Louisiana bank Tuesday -- killing one of them before being shot and killed by police -- recently posted chilling messages on Facebook, including a cartoon strip about hostages.   In a post on Sunday, 20-year-old Fuaed Abdo Ahmed displays a cartoon strip that focuses on an apparent hostage situation." SNIPPET: "Ahmed's final post, made Tuesday just hours before the hostage standoff began, is of a photo of a man with a sword attacking a tank.Under the photo is a quote...

Republicans lawmakers from Louisiana are insisting that the government shutdown will not impact the region's preparedness ahead of the expected landfall of Tropical Storm Karen on the Gulf Coast. The storm, which has maximum winds of 50 miles per hour according to the National Hurricane Center, is expected to slam the Gulf Coast late Saturday or early Sunday morning. Forecasters believe Karen could intensify to hurricane strength before then. That's led to questions about the government's preparedness for severe weather. According to The Times Picayune in New Orleans, at least 2,000 federal workers have been furloughed in the state, including...

The Holder DOJ stopped at nothing to convict five New Orleans police officers.In a shocking case of “grotesque” misconduct by federal prosecutors, a federal judge in Louisiana has ordered a new trial for five New Orleans police officers convicted for a shooting on the Danziger Bridge on September 4, 2005 — in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina — and for a subsequent cover-up. This is another black eye for the Holder Justice Department that the media have barely covered. Participating in the misconduct that the judge said had created an “online 21st-century carnival atmosphere” was Karla Dobinski, a lawyer in...

Tropical Storm Karen threatens Central Gulf of Mexico states. NHC Public Advisories NHC Tropical Discussions

(UNNAMED) GOP Staffer on Vitter Amendment: "Congress Literally Threw Staff Under The Bus" The latest Republican assault on Obamacare involves jacking up health insurance costs for members of Congress and their staffers. That has some GOP aides upset. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida), is of the same mind: "If you're going to stick pins in a voodoo doll, the doll shouldn't be people who work for you." Vitter's office did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did McCaul's. Jacking up health care costs for low-paid aides is not only mean; it could cause brain drain on the Hill. Staffers...

Two teens are behind bars after a would-be victim turned the tables on three armed robbers in Mid-City on Thursday night (Sept. 26), pulling out his own gun and firing at them, causing them to flee. No one was injured. Aaron Smith, 18, and Hakeem Carter, 17, were stopped by police shortly afterward, according to NOPD spokeswoman Hilal Williams. An item dropped on the ground by one of the teens as they ran linked them to the crime, she said. Smith and Carter were arrested and booked with two counts of attempted armed robbery. The third robber remains at large....

About a month ago, the Department of Justice made the bizarre and by almost all accounts counterproductive decision to sue the state of Louisiana for working to turn around the state’s low-performing public school system and allowing low-income students with opportunities to escape from these fail factories with a voucher program. The DOJ’s apparently depraved move to use outdated desegregation decrees to actively block poor and largely minority students from access to a better education went over well with pretty much nobody, and with Gov. Bobby Jindal least of all.After calling the Obama administration out last week for their disingenuous...

No city has embraced the school choice movement more than New Orleans. Yet over the past few weeks, the Wall Street Journal has been taking a close look at how the idea is working out, and the results have been decidedly mixed. The biggest problem is that there simply aren’t enough high-quality schools to go around. The city grades each public or charter school on an A–F scale, and only 14 percent of seats were in schools with a B or higher. Given the the dearth of high-performers and the limited number of seats at these schools, parents are often left to choose...

A Louisiana pastor was shot to death while preaching in church, and the suspected gunman was arrested after surrendering to police, authorities said on Saturday. Woodrow Karey, 53, faces a charge of second degree murder in the slaying late on Friday of Pastor Ronald J. Harris Sr. at the Tabernacle of Praise Worship Center in Lake Charles, Louisiana, Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Kim Myers said. Lake Charles is 190 miles west of New Orleans. Karey walked into the church, shot Harris twice with a shotgun and then fled, Myers said. About 50 to 60 people were in the church...

A judge on Friday denied an effort by former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to postpone his corruption trial, which he said had been compromised by inflammatory comments posted online by prosecutors. Nagin’s argument for a delay stemmed from online postings that recently prompted a federal judge to order a new trial in a murder case involving five New Orleans policemen convicted in connection with the shooting deaths of two unarmed people at Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina. … Nagin, who was mayor during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, is accused of receiving kickbacks in exchange for city contracts, and wire...

Though there is still a long way to go for the Delta Queen to return to the rivers as a cruise ship, passing of bill H.R. 1961 in the House of Representatives is a major step in this direction. On Wednesday, September 25th 2013, the House has approved the bill that would grant the historic Delta Queen a 15 years exemption from a fire-retardant materials construction requirement. The House voted 280 to 89 in favor of the Delta Queen with almost all Republicans voting with “yea”, while Democrats voted 82 to 84 against the bill. The bill still has to...

Six people are accused of gang raping a 13-year old girl in Tangipahoa Parish. Kevin Griffin and Trayvon Robertson have been arrested, along with three young men whose names have not been released because they are juveniles. A sixth man, Tevin Smith, is at large. Investigators believe the group coerced the teenage girl into an abandoned trailer, known around town as “the trapper,” and forced her to perform sexual acts.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., who is leading Senate GOP efforts to defund ObamaCare, apparently is no longer courting the vote of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. That became apparent Tuesday afternoon, as the freshman Tea Party favorite began a marathon speech on the Affordable Care Act, referring to the Louisiana Purchase, the derogatory term used to describe Landrieu's negotiations that won approval of a fix for the state's Medicaid funding shortfall to help gain her vote. In his talk, Cruz referred to the Louisiana Purchase as "one of the sorry aspects" of the frantic efforts to pass the...

Royal Dutch Shell has picked a site in Louisiana for a plant costing at least $12.5 billion that would turn natural gas into diesel, jet fuel and other liquids, the Louisiana governor’s office announced Tuesday. Shell said the project, which is no sure thing, could help to harness more domestic natural gas to make transportation fuels. The company will continue to consider the option before making an investment decision at the site in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, according to the news release. The plant would offer the benefit of displacing oil used to make fuels and other products and lowering emissions,...

A deadly brain amoeba that’s killed two boys this year has been found in a U.S. drinking water supply system for the first time, officials said Monday -- in a New Orleans-area system. The Naegleria fowleri parasite killed a 4-year-old Mississippi boy who likely got it playing on a back yard Slip 'N Slide, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials say. Tests show it’s present throughout the water supply system in St. Bernard Parish, directly southeast of New Orleans. “We have never seen Naegleria colonizing a treated water supply before,” said Dr. Michael Beach, head of water safety for...

Fourth grade students in Vermilion Parish, La. were given a homework assignment that included words like “Po Pimp” and “mobstaz,” but school officials said the worksheet was age appropriate based on an education website affiliated with Common Core education standards. “I try to instill values in my son,” parent Brittney Badeaux told Fox News. “My goal is for him to ultimately to become a great man, a family man, a well-rounded man. And now my son wants to know what a pimp is.” Badeaux was helping her 9-year-old son with his homework when she heard him say the words “Po...

What does it take for an employee to get fired in Eric Holder’s Justice Department Civil Rights Division? Certainly perjury doesn’t do it. Neither does using a government credit card to book airfare for romantic liaisons with a Miami girlfriend — that just gets you a nice buyout. Want to use civil rights laws to protect only black victims of discrimination? Ho hum. The culture of lawlessness is so pervasive at the Civil Rights Division that a former Voting Section chief felt comfortable telephoning current DOJ employees and suggesting they turn over confidential memos … because they were worth cash...

Downstream capital spending projected to hit $100 billion over the next three years will create labor shortages, especially in skilled trades, panelists said at a conference Wednesday morning . The Gulf Coast will see much of that spending — and the tight labor market — as companies build or expand refineries, chemical plants and pipelines, speakers told oil and gas leaders at a forum sponsored by the research firm IHS. But the labor demand will not approach the heyday of 2007, characterized by relentless recruitment wars between companies and double-digit wage inflation. speakers said. Wage growth for skilled trades probably...

North Carolina has become the seventh state to prohibit state judges from considering Islamic law in family cases, joining what critics say is a national anti-Muslim campaign. ... North Carolina now joins Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee, according to Religion News Service, in banning Islamic Sharia law. A constitutional amendment seeking the same change in Alabama will be on the 2014 ballot. In Missouri, the governor vetoed an anti-Sharia bill because of its potential impact on international adoptions. But the law in Oklahoma was struck down in court as unconstitutional,

NEW ORLEANS — Citing “grotesque prosecutorial misconduct” on the part of federal lawyers here and in Washington, a judge on Tuesday threw out the 2011 convictions of five former police officers who had been found guilty in a momentous civil rights case of killing two citizens and engaging in an extensive cover-up in the days after Hurricane Katrina. In a heated 129-page decision, Judge Kurt D. Englehardt of Federal District Court here declared that federal prosecutors had created a “prejudicial, poisonous atmosphere” in making anonymous online comments before and during the trial at nola.com, the Web site of The Times-Picayune,...

WASHINGTON The capital is full of portraits of government officials, sometimes more than one of the same person.... an effort is underway to put an end to the practice of taxpayers footing the bill for the commissioned paintings. The measure is dubbed the Eliminating Government-funded Oil-painting, or EGO, Act. Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La., introduced it after reports that the Environmental Protection Agency spent $38,350 for former administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s portrait. “Lisa Jackson can borrow my camera for free,” he suggested.

The first eight-plus months of 2013 have convinced us of one thing: Rand Paul acts and the rest of the potential 2016 Republican presidential field reacts. On drones, Paul led a 13-hour-long filibuster that drew Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (among others) to the floor in support. On Syria, Paul was out front in his opposition to a military strike — a position that 30 of his Senate Republican colleagues shared as of this writing. Those 30 include both Rubio,who voted against the use-of-force resolution in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. ... Below are our rankings...

As the 2013 season of devastating wildfires continues to rage across the American West, the question of arson as a form of major terrorism is again being raised. Already this year, 35,440 reported fires have burned a total of 3.9 million acres, with a quarter-million acres scorched the iconic Yosemite National Park. Large blazes continue to burn in several states, with six alive in Idaho, five each in California and Montana, and one each in Alaska, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, says at this time last year, 45,278 fires had burned 7.9...

The brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri has officially been found in the St. Bernard Parish, La. water supply following last week's death of 4-year-old who got the lethal infection when playing on a slip 'n slide. "The water is safe to drink and there are basic precautions that families can take -- such as chlorinating their pools and avoiding getting water in their noses -- to protect themselves, though infection from this amoeba is very rare," Louisiana state health officer Jimmy Guidry said in a press release. St. Bernard Parish is five miles from New Orleans.

A Senate Republican requested an ethics investigation of Democrats who hinted they may use his personal scandal to fight his effort to defund part of Obamacare. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has been demanding a Senate vote on a proposal to repeal federal contributions to help pay for healthcare coverage for members of Congress under the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. The provision was included in the 2010 legislation by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

On Thursday evening, September 5th, the LSU Reveille published an article about the intention of the LSU chapter of the Muslim Student Association’s (MSA) intention to become “more noticeable on campus” and conduct “outreach” into the community. The MSA also seeks to alter what it says are misconceptions about Islam. This seemingly benign announcement is something worth taking a closer look at, mainly because there are actually significant misconceptions about the Muslim Student Association in the Reveille article. As we will show in this article, the MSA is an organization about which much is known. It is an organization with...

While President Obama publicly celebrated the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech last month, his administration took action behind the scenes in Louisiana that was a complete rejection of King's dream. The Justice Department has challenged my state in court for having the temerity to start a scholarship program that frees low-income minority children from failing schools. In other words, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder would rip children out of their schools and handcuff them to the failing schools they previously attended. And, in the ultimate irony, they are using desegregation orders set up...

"What is to be done?" James Varney asked in his recent opinion piece, referencing the unfathomable increase in New Orleans violence. The answer, Varney suggested, may lie in more aggressive policing, more specifically, the stop-and-frisk tactic. Not striking New York's stop-and-frisk policy completely, a federal judge ruled that the nation's largest police department employed the tactic illegally, systematically singling out large numbers of blacks and Hispanics. So the judge appointed an independent monitor to oversee major changes, including body cameras on some officers, according to the Associated Press.

"For the life of me, I can't figure out why people are so attracted to our family," writes Phil Robertson. And that was before Duck Dynasty, the Robertson family's reality show, smashed records for a nonfiction cable program when 11.8 million viewers checked out the season premiere in mid-August. Phil, as nearly everyone calls him, is the bearded, 67-year-old progenitor of the backwoods Louisiana clan that made it big selling duck calls and found its way into millions of other American homes through the previous three seasons of Duck Dynasty. The A&E network bills the show as "funny, functional, and...

Marco Rubio Sinking in New Hampshire 2016 Poll BY: KEVIN DERBY | Posted: August 7, 2013 8:59 AM The latest Granite State poll by WMUR and the University of New Hampshire was released late on Tuesday and it shows U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sinking in New Hampshire, home of the first presidential primary. Rubio is expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. In recent months. Rubio has drawn fire from conservatives for his prominent role in supporting immigration reform. The poll finds New Hampshire Republicans divided on who they want to see as their party’s nominee...

A new analysis of federal health data shows that Medicaid paid for nearly half of all births in the United States in 2010, a rate that continues to increase. The federal health care program covered 48 percent of the 3.8 million births that year, jumping from 40 percent in 2008, say researchers from the George Washington University School of Public Health. In only two years, the government entitlement covered 90,000 more women giving birth, as states expand the federal-state health coverage plan. Medicaid coverage varied greatly state by state, ranging from a low of one-quarter of births in Hawaii to...

Five teenagers were jailed on hate crime charges after police said they fired an assault-style pellet gun at a man in the French Quarter and yelled homophobic and racist slurs. George Brown, 18; O'na Reed, 19; Jazz Henry, 17; and two juveniles were arrested Sunday (Sept. 1) after police say they fired pellets from an air assault rifle, injuring a man who was seated on his front steps in the French Quarter. Their arrests followed a report by a man who said he was sitting on the steps of his front porch in the 1100 block of Burgundy Street around...

Bobby Jindal, a Republican, is governor of Louisiana. While President Obama publicly celebrated the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech last week, his administration took action behind the scenes in Louisiana that was a complete rejection of King’s dream. The Justice Department has challenged my state in court for having the temerity to start a scholarship program that frees low-income minority children from failing schools. In other words, Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder would rip children out of their schools and handcuff them to the failing schools they previously attended. And, in the ultimate...

What separates "Duck Dynasty" from most reality shows is how quickly we see that the money hasn't gone to anyone's head. Early in the first season, Jase and Si Robertson happen upon two dead nutria rats in the middle of the road. In Louisiana, they explain, the state pays $5 for nutria tails because of the damage the rodents do to the marshes. The men pull over, Jase takes out his knife and cuts off their tails. "Roadkill is a redneck's paycheck," he proclaims. "Just cause I got money in my pocket, that don't mean I'm too good to stop...