#nola.com

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

At the beginning of July, Nancy Davis started feeling nauseous. The Baton Rouge resident considered COVID-19 or the flu, then decided to take a pregnancy test just in case. She saw the two blue lines denoting a positive test and ran to the living room to tell her boyfriend. They were both elated.

But their happiness was short-lived. At the first ultrasound, at Woman’s Hospital, the largest birthing center in Louisiana, the technician looked troubled and left the room. A woman in a white coat entered. Davis knew that wasn’t good.

The doctor pointed to the top of the head. There was no skull, she told Davis, an unsurvivable condition. The doctor tried to comfort her, saying this was one of the conditions that qualifies as an exception under the state’s abortion laws. Davis, about 10 weeks into her pregnancy, was still heartbroken.

“There was nothing I would have preferred more than to have this baby,” said Davis, 36. Instead, she prepared herself to pay an estimated $5,000 for an abortion at the hospital.

But that’s not what happened. Even after doctors at the hospital said they would provide an abortion once she got the diagnosis of acrania, a rare and fatal condition, from a specialist, the hospital called to tell her it would not be able to do it, she said. The hospital directed her to a Florida abortion clinic instead, or to carry the baby to term.

'MEDICALLY FUTILE'

Davis' predicament illustrates the gray area in Louisiana's new abortion law and the administrative regulations that attempt to explain it to medical professionals and the public. They all but forbid abortion, except to save the life of the mother or when the fetus is "medically futile," according to a list of conditions issued by the state.

Acrania does not appear on the state’s list of accepted conditions for abortion. But the state also has a broad exception for any “profound and irremediable congenital or chromosomal anomaly existing in the unborn child that is incompatible with sustaining life after birth in reasonable medical judgment.”

Two physicians must sign off on the anomaly. But Woman’s still said it would not perform the abortion.

“In the absence of additional guidance, we must look at each patient’s individual circumstances and remain in compliance with all current state laws to the best of our ability,” said Caroline Isemann, a hospital spokesperson, in a statement.

That's not how some doctors have interpreted the law.

'THEY JUST WON'T FUNCTION'

“Acrania, to me, is synonymous with anencephaly, and it’s on the list,” said Dr. Cecilia Gambala, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Tulane University School of Medicine, referring to another brain and spine defect. “There is no skull.”

Gambala said that even if hospital attorneys were uncomfortable with giving the go-ahead for an abortion based on the acrania diagnosis, they could use the broad exception that the state allows for when a fetus is incompatible with life. And acrania, in Gambala's opinion, meets that description.

"Babies can be born alive, they just won't function," Gambala said. "Their heart might be beating, they can breathe, but they have no brain tissue to actually develop as far as comprehending what's happening or reacting to anything."

GUIDANCE NEEDED

Cases like this will become more common until there is more clarity surrounding the law, whether from legislation, additional guidance from the state Health Department or litigation, said Matthew Brown, a New Orleans-based attorney specializing in health care law.

“The problem is very specific,” Brown said. “And that’s why the law doesn’t address it.”

Brown said the hospital may view the fetus as currently viable because acrania is not immediately fatal and there is still a heartbeat. It also doesn’t immediately endanger the life of the mother, even though the health risks and psychological risks are significant as the pregnancy continues.

Other hospitals may see the situation differently. Until there is more clarity, scenarios like this will continue to play out, he said.

"Any pregnant woman at this point, even the ones [who] are hoping for a healthy child and planning to give birth, is facing additional uncertainty about how they're going to be cared for under bad circumstances because of this law," Brown said.

After seeing a maternal fetal medicine specialist, Davis starting researching the condition on her own. She found devastating images of infants and fetuses who looked like they were missing parts of their heads. She read that babies with acrania are stillborn or die shortly after birth, just like her doctors told her.

“I haven’t run across a case where these babies live,” Davis said.

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

The nearest abortion clinic that can take Davis is an eight-hour drive, and would require a week's stay because she needs a consultation before the procedure.

“I can’t just get up and shoot out; I have kids,” said Davis, who has a 13-year-old and a 1-year-old and no transportation, after a hit-and-run wreck totaled her car a few months back.

Florida also bans abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, and Davis is now nearing 14 weeks. The next-closest state, North Carolina, is a 15-hour drive.

In desperation, Davis visited Care Pregnancy Clinic, a pregnancy crisis center that discourages abortions, on Flannery Road. Staff gave her information on how to bury the baby and said their prayers were with her.

“It makes me feel horrible, like I’m alone in this,” Davis said. “It makes me feel like they just threw me to the wolves.”

After being told to go to Florida, Davis said she wanted other people to know how laws decided in the Louisiana Legislature play out in real life.

“I never in a million years thought it would affect me like this,” she said. “It seems like Louisiana is the hardest place right now to get that done. They don't even wanna say that word.”

[electricalsun]

[gregfaia]

Gregory G. Faia

Greg Faia

Gregory G. Faia Jefferson Parish Finance Authority

NOLA.com

#nola #neworleans #jeffersonparish #jeffersonparishfinanceauthority

https://gregfaia.me

[insidethekaleidoscope]

LOL this is just like TEXTBOOK New Orleans 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

[rapeculturerealities]

Birth control bill stalls in Louisiana Legislature; see why | Local Politics | nola.com

A bill to enshrine the right to contraception in state law has stalled in the Legislature amid pushback from powerful conservative lobbying groups that have been at the forefront of Louisiana’s anti-abortion movement.

House Bill 395 by state Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-New Orleans, would bar the state from enacting laws or regulations that restrict “the sale or use of contraceptives or emergency contraceptives.”

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Thoughts on this proposed law in one of your US states?

Some sex offenders could be surgically castrated under bill | Local Politics | nola.com

I'm not to sure if it's a good idea to give the government so much power, but there is a certain primitive logic to it.

Criminal inclination may have a heritable component, and this effectively stops that process.

Of course, the issue then becomes, what happens when someone is falsely convicted, or takes a plea bargain (many such cases) in order to reduce total prison time so as to meet employment obligations?

Ideally, someone OTHER than the government would do this, but the more I think about it, the more I conclude that unlike with execution (where it's already common for people convicted of certain crimes to be killed by third-party groups, usually other inmates), this isn't something that can easily or safely be done by amateurs. We can trust inmates to kill certain types of criminals, and create non-government incentives for them to do so (commissary donations, pen-pal programmes, etc) but we probably shouldn't do that with delicate invasive surgery.

I don't want to be the one throwing my hands up and saying "there is no good solution" ...but maybe there isn't one?

the potential eugenics angle here manages to make me see even deeper red than i would otherwise. what a positively barbaric bit of legislation, do these torturers and mutilators have no concern for their souls?

this bit was particularly striking:

Though no one on the Judiciary C Committee objected to sending SB 371 to the full Senate, Sen. Mark Abraham, R-Lake Charles, asked whether Barrow was concerned that the punishment could apply to first-time offenders, especially teens.

“We’ve said many times somebody might make that mistake and then years later turn their life around for various reasons,” Abraham said. “It could affect them the rest of their life even though they might have changed.”

“For me, when I think about a child, one time is too many,” Barrow responded.

this is less than a year after a ban transgender care for minors in the same state. castration of teens for positive medical purposes: degeneracy. castration of teens as an exercise in sadistic revenge: righteousness.

[capybaracorn]

Palestinian-American teen one of hundreds killed by Israelis in West Bank

They are using US tax dollars to ‘kill our own children’, says father after Israeli soldiers and settlers opened fire, killing his 17-year-old son.

Palestinian-American Tawfiq Ajaq, 17, is one of 369 people killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October, including 95 children.

Speaking at his son’s funeral on Saturday, Tawfiq’s father, Hafez Ajaq, implored Americans to “see with their own eyes” the ongoing violence in the occupied West Bank.

“They are using our tax dollars in the US to support the weapons to kill our own children,” Hafez Ajaq said. “How many fathers and mothers have to say goodbye to their children? How many more?

“They are killer machines,” Tawfiq’s father said of Israeli forces at the funeral.

Born and raised in Gretna, Louisiana, near New Orleans, Tawfiq Ajaq’s parents brought him and his four siblings to the village of al-Mazraa Asharqiya last year so they could reconnect with Palestinian culture.

On Saturday, crowds of Palestinians filled village streets, following men who held aloft a stretcher with the teen’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag and covered in flowers.

Another vigil held at the Masjid Omar mosque in Harvey, New Orleans was standing room only, according to the New Orleans news outlet NOLA.com.

Circumstances unclear

Ajaq’s relative, Joe Abdel Qaki, said Tawfiq and a friend were having a barbecue in a village field when he was shot, once in the head and once in the chest.

Abdel Qaki said he arrived at the field shortly after the shooting and helped transport Tawfiq to an ambulance. He said Israeli forces briefly detained him and other Palestinians at the scene, asking for their identification cards before the men could get to Tawfiq.

He said Tawfiq died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

“Tawfiq is an American child who was chased and shot at by an Israeli settler, then Israeli forces pulled up and continued shooting,” Miranda Cleland, an advocacy officer with Defense for Children Palestine, said in a post on X.

“This is not the first time Defense for Children Palestine hasn’t been able to confirm whether a settler or soldier killed a child. One aids and abets the other,” Cleland said.

The United States Office of Palestinian Affairs called for an “urgent investigation” into Ajaq’s death in a post on X.

Various English spellings of the teen’s name have been used in reports.

In its daily update for Friday, the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA reported a “17-year-old Palestinian child was shot and killed” near al-Mazra’a Asharqiya village in Ramallah where Tawfiq Ajaq lived.

“At the time of the incident, Israeli forces and settlers shot live ammunition towards a group of Palestinians who were reportedly throwing stones at Israeli vehicles driving on Road 60 near the village,” OCHA said.

“It is not yet clear whether the boy was shot by Israeli forces or settlers,” OCHA said.

According to OCHA’s latest figures, of 358 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, “348 were killed by Israeli forces, eight by Israeli settlers, and two by either Israeli forces or settlers”.

Israeli police said they received a report on Friday regarding a “firearm discharge, ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier and a civilian”.

Police did not identify who fired the shot, though it said the shooting targeted people “purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities along Highway 60″, the main north-south thoroughfare in the occupied West Bank.

The ongoing violence in the occupied West Bank comes as the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza approaches 25,000, with thousands more missing under the rubble.

[viktoriakomova]

WE WOOOOOOON

[soberscientistlife]

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 25-year-old niece, Shannon Epstein, was arrested and kicked off a Spirit Airlines flight after calling a Latino family “drug mules” and injuring six police officers. One officer suffered bite wounds from Epstein

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Capt. Jason Rivarde told NOLA.com that she had to be handcuffed to a wheelchair in order for cops to remove her.

When she was confronted, Epstein reportedly threatened authorities and told them she has a powerful uncle with connections to Donald Trump.

[truecrimetime]

Lacey Fletcher: Left to Rot in Couch

Lacey Ellen Fletcher, 36, suffered from nearly complete paralysis–a condition known as locked-in syndrome. On Jan, 3, 2022, she was found dead on her parents’ couch. Covered in feces and emaciated, her body had reportedly “melted” into the couch.

According to New Orleans metro area outlet NOLA.com, the East Feliciana Parish woman possibly had not been moved from the position in years, 20th Judicial District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla suggested. He said it was completely unknown when she had last been moved.

The DA said the evidence at the Fletcher house suggested the deceased woman had suffered prolong neglect, likely for years, before she died.

Lacey Fletcher’s feet were crossed underneath her on the couch–deep inside the hole that her long-suffering body had worn through both the upholstery and cushion. The hole itself was filled with urine and feces. The victim’s body was covered in ulcers on her underside, D’Aquilla said, and “appeared rotten to the bone.”

Her parents, who are out on bond, are expected to be tried later this year.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law Tuesday a bill allowing executions by nitrogen gas and electrocution, opening the door for Louisiana to revive capital punishment 14 years after it last used its death chamber.

Landry signed the legislation, House Bill 6, and 10 other bills into law while surrounded by crime victims' loved ones and law enforcement officials in a ceremony at the State Capitol. HB 6 also shrouds records of the state's procurement of lethal injection drugs in secrecy, a step supporters say will make it easier to obtain those drugs.

The death penalty bill headlined a slate of tough-on-crime legislation approved by the Republican-controlled state Legislature last month and championed by Landry, a Republican and former state attorney general who campaigned on a promise to punish criminals and uplift people affected by violent crime. The new laws reverse a path charted by the state's 2017 Justice Reinvestment Initiative by slashing chances for convicted criminals to be released from prison early and lengthening sentences for some crimes.

"This is what I ran on," Landry said Tuesday.

The Governor also signed bills that allow people to carry concealed handguns without permits, eliminate parole for adults who commit crimes after Aug. 1, dramatically cut the availability of good behavior credits in prison and limit how people can request plea deals after their convictions, among others.

Landry is expected to sign additional bills passed in last month's special session in New Orleans on Wednesday, including measures to publish court minutes for youth accused of violent crimes, increase penalties for carjacking and weapons offenses and give Landry more control over the state's public defense system.

Protests against that legislation — particularly the death penalty bill, which opponents caution promotes one method that has hardly been tested and another ruled inhumane by courts in some states — spurred fiery debate but did little to sway lawmakers, most of whom fell in line with Landry's agenda.

A series of criminal justice advocacy groups spoke out against the new laws again on Monday, saying they will do little to curb crime and risk bloating the state's prison population to pre-2017 levels.

The 2017 public safety laws, which drew bipartisan backing and support from law enforcement, released people with convictions for nonviolent crimes and saved the state some $153 million, a recent audit found.

"Blaming the wrong problems doesn’t get the right solutions, and our communities for years have made clear the solutions necessary to address the very real concerns and needs of all Louisianans," said Danny Engelberg, the chief public defender in New Orleans. "These misguided bills will balloon our already bloated legal system, jails and prison system, and further widen the inequities in justice, safety, and community well-being."

The first modern execution by nitrogen gas occurred in Alabama in January. It sparked pushback from anti-death penalty advocates who expressed concern about eyewitness reports that Kenneth Smith, who was put to death for a 1988 murder-for-hire, writhed and struggled for air for some 20 minutes after nitrogen began flowing into his mouth. Alabama officials said the execution was humane and offered to aid other states' efforts to put the method to use.

Difficulty obtaining the cocktail of execution drugs from pharmaceutical firms, along with former Gov. John Bel Edwards' opposition to capital punishment and a series of federal court orders pausing executions in recent years, had kept Louisiana from putting anyone to death since 2010.

It's unclear when state officials might begin taking steps to obtain materials needed to carry out executions or when executions could resume in Louisiana. Also unclear is which of the three execution options the state will use; the new law leaves that choice to the secretary of the state's Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

HB 6's sponsor, Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond, said in an interview last month that Landry has indicated that his preferred execution method is lethal injection.

Last week, a DPSC spokesperson referred questions about the death penalty process to Landry's office, which did not respond to requests for comment. Landry left Tuesday's bill-signing ceremony without taking questions from reporters.

The new law letting people carry concealed handguns without permits, which supporters dub "constitutional carry" because they argue it restores an absolute right to self-armament enshrined in the United States' founding document, drew applause from gun rights activists and condemnation from gun safety groups.

National Rifle Association Interim CEO Andrew Arulanandam in a statement praised the "resolve" of Landry and "pro-self-defense legislators" who voted for the new law. Angelle Bradford, a volunteer for the Louisiana chapter of the pro-gun control group Moms Demand Action, criticized Landry for "cater(ing) to the gun lobby and reinforc(ing) their deadly ‘guns everywhere’ agenda."

[pscottm]

LA lawmakers vote to remove lunch breaks for child workers | Louisiana Politics | nola.com

Lawmakers on a Louisiana House committee voted Thursday to repeal a law requiring employers to give child workers lunch breaks and to slash unemployment benefits — part of a Republican-backed push to roll back regulations on companies and reduce aid for injured and unemployed workers,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.

[gwydionmisha]

The death of academic freedom.  

[ladytributary]

Authentic New Orleans King Cake

This recipe is based on Ana Borden’s recipe, which was posted in NOLA.com in 2014 (http://www.nola.com/food/index.ssf/2014/01/anas_mardi_gras_king_cake_reci.html). It’s an excellent recipe and I make minor changes to it as I go. The most complicated tools that you’ll need are a rolling pin and a hand mixer. Also, make sure you wash your hands before you begin.

This makes two cakes. Or one big one. Do not halve this recipe (recipes with yeast rarely halve well). Make both cakes. If you don’t want to eat both of them, I guarantee you someone else will. Or make one big one, but it’s a lot harder to manage. The two little cakes will fit ideally on one of those thick paper platters, making them perfect for giving away without worrying about getting your nice plate back.

What you need for the cake part:

2-1/4 ounces (1 packet) rapid rise (instant) yeast

1/2 cup warm water (100 to 115 degrees)

1/2 cup sugar

5 cups bread flour (+1/2 cup on hand) (I prefer bread flour for the extra gluten.)

1 cup half-and-half, room temperature (Ana uses milk, but I find I prefer baking with something slightly fattier. Plus half-and-half keeps longer in the fridge.)

2 TSP salt

2 eggs, room temperature, beaten

1 cup melted butter (This is an entire 8 oz block of butter. Cube about half of it up, microwave it 30 s, cube the rest of it, microwave another 30 s, and then let it sit for awhile until you’re ready to use it. I like the salted Irish butter best.)

Combine the sugar and the yeast into a large (LARGE) glass bowl. Slowly pour in the warm water, swirling as you go. Both the yeast and the sugar should comfortably dissolve in. Leave that alone for 5 to 10 minutes while you get the rest of your ingredients together.

Once things are fluffy in your bowl, add in your half-and-half and eggs, then your butter, which should be liquid but not painfully hot. Dump in your five cups of flour. Put your hand in the flour and start squishing. (Were your hands clean? Wash your hands before you do this.) If the dough is sticking to your hands terribly, add another quarter cup of flour or so, then knead the dough until it has a nice smooth buttery texture to it. By this point, it should no longer be sticking to your hands. Knead it another 3 to 5 minutes, then form it into a ball.

In another glass bowl, melt a pat of butter. Grease the inside of the bowl, then put your ball of dough in this bowl. Roll it around so that it gets an extra layer of butter on it, then loosely cover it, put it somewhere warm and quiet, and let it rise about 2 hours or until doubled. Wash the bowl you made the dough in so that any remnants do not glue themselves frustratingly to your bowl and wash the butter off your hands. Quit checking your ball of dough; it’s rising. Go to the gym, play video games, do some laundry, have some lunch, or find something else to do for two hours until it’s ready.

Assembling the cake

1 TBSP of cinnamon

1/2 cup of sugar

If you have a mostly empty bottle of cinnamon, fill it with sugar, shake it up, and now you’ve got a shaker for cinnamon-sugar. Otherwise, combine these things in a ziplock bag and shake them until they’re well mixed.

On a clean surface, with clean hands, throw down some flour. Put some flour on your rolling pin, too. Punch down your risen ball of dough (POW!) and roll it once or twice into a flat symmetrical shape. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough in half (assuming you are in fact making two cakes). Put one half aside out of your way and roll the other half into a large rectangle. I usually end up with something that’s about 12” by 24”, give or take.

Coat the rectangle with cinnamon and sugar. Spoon it out of the plastic bag if you don’t have a shaker, but you should get pretty healthy coverage across the top of the dough. Once this is done, cut the dough with your sharp knife along the long edge into thirds, so you have three long strips of cinnamon-sugared dough. Fold each one of these in on itself to keep the cinnamon-sugar mixture inside. Start at one end and fold either side over, then smash it down, so it’s about a third of its original width. You’ll need to smash it fairly vigorously in order to keep it from unraveling itself, and you’ll want to pinch the ends fairly well. Do this to all three strips, then braid them.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray (I like butter flavor best) and lay your braided dough in a circle on the baking sheet. You can try to braid the two ends together somehow, or you can just kind of smash them together. Let it sit for a bit while you go repeat the process with the other hunk of dough for the second cake.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Bake each cake about 12 minutes. I prefer to bake them separately. It should be golden brown and maybe look a little underdone. It’s fine; it’s baked. Remove it to a cooling rack and let it cool completely.

Glaze and decoration

1 pound powdered sugar

Pinch of salt

1-1/2 TSP almond extract

1/3 cup +1 TBSP of water

Colored sugar (If you can’t find colored sugar, you can color your own by putting regular granulated sugar in a ziplock bag, then adding a couple of drops of food coloring. Use separate bags for each color desired, and apply the sugar with a plastic spoon to avoid staining.

In a nice size mixing bowl, combine the powdered sugar and the salt, then use your mixer to begin to blend these two together on the lowest setting while you carefully and slowly add the almond extract and the water to make a sweet glaze. Blend until smooth and silky white.

Put your cake on its serving platter. If you’re adding a plastic baby, now’s the time, but if you don’t have one, don’t worry about it. You should be able to wiggle it into the underside of the braided dough. Drizzle the cake with the glaze, then sprinkle with purple, green, and gold sugar. (Use only half the glaze/sprinkle sugar if you made two cakes.) Do it again with the other cake.

Finished product.

Don’t worry if your cake is kind of oddly misshapen before you decorate it. That much sugar hides many flaws. Eat up; it’s delicious!

[vampirerealll]

Happy Mardi Gras to anyone who celebrates!! My God-mother is going to be in the parade with Iris today, and I'm so excited to see her today on the NOLA.com livestream. Luv you, auntie Voodoo!! I miss you and New Orleans, so much!!

[meret118]

Marie C. Bolden made national headlines when she turned in a flawless performance at a spelling bee in Cleveland. Her competitors included white students from segregated school districts in the South.

. . .

If you haven't heard about the Black girl who won the first national spelling bee in the U.S. 115 years ago, you're not alone: even many in her family didn't know about Marie C. Bolden's feat until after she died, decades later."It's astounding to me" that she never talked about winning a gold medal in front of thousands of people, Bolden's grandson, Mark Brown, told NPR.

But back in 1908, Bolden's victory made national news and upended racist stereotypes, less than 50 years after the Civil War. The 14-year-old did it by being perfect, spelling 500 words flawlessly to lead her hometown team, Cleveland, Ohio, to victory in the city's then-new Hippodrome Theater."

She never talked about this award, this amazing accomplishment," Brown said. "But even Booker T. Washington mentioned [it] in his speeches."

. . .

Marie Bolden knew prejudice well; in fact, it was one of the words contestants were asked to spell. Her spelling rivals included a team from New Orleans, a squad that nearly didn't compete at all, as its segregationist leaders balked at the inclusion of a Black student.

New Orleans officials knew there was a chance that an integrated team might compete at the spelling bee. As NOLA.com has reported, when one school board member considered how the team might respond to such circumstances, he replied, "Go ahead and knock the n----- out."

Of such sentiments, Brown says, "It's like, holy crap, these are young kids. What are you doing?" He added, "It's hard to fathom now, that people would be treated like that."After Bolden's win, furious members of the school board of New Orleans voted to censure its superintendent, Warren Easton. As the Black newspaper The Seattle Republican reported, the board passed a resolution stating in part, "we deeply deplore and regret the unfortunate occurrence at Cleveland and the pitting of our children against a Negro."

Weeks later, Black residents of New Orleans were set to host a spelling bee in Bolden's honor, but the mayor ordered it canceled.The treatment of Black people in the U.S. eventually prompted Bolden and her family to move to Canada, Brown said.