The push to unionize auto plants in the South appears to have lost momentum. This comes after a big loss in May when workers at a Mercedes factory rejected joining the United Auto Workers.

Stephan Bisaha of the Gulf States Newsroom visited the UAW’s campaign in Montgomery, Alabama to learn why it’s so hard to unionize in the Deep South.

Last week, the large core of the Artemis II moon rocket left an assembling facility in Michoud, Louisiana and headed for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is just the latest journey for the rocket, which is set to launch into space late next year.

NASA engineer Chandler Sheuermann tells us about this upcoming mission to the moon, what will make the launch historic, and Louisiana’s role in assembling the rocket.

This weekend, hundreds of artists from across the country will work on a single project aimed at exploring how artists can help build healthier communities. Their aim is to explore how art can improve the overall health and well-being of communities.

One of the participating locations in this nationwide project is in Baton Rouge. Mike Weary, artist-in-residence at the Arts Council for Greater Baton Rouge tells us about the city’s involvement and what he sees in the relationship between art and health.

Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber; our contributing producers are Matt Bloom and Adam Vos; we receive production and technical support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon  and 7:00 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, Google Play, and wherever you get your podcasts. 

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A Louisiana businessman who sent more than 800 elderly residents from his seven nursing homes to ride out Hurricane Ida in a crowded, ill-equipped warehouse pleaded no contest to 15 criminal counts Monday and was sentenced to three years of probation.

Bob Dean Jr. also must pay more than $358,000 in restitution to the state health department and more than $1 million as a monetary penalty, but state Attorney General Liz Murrill expressed frustration in a news release that Dean didn’t get any prison time.

“We asked specifically that he be sentenced to a minimum of 5 years in prison, and not be given only probation. I respect our judicial system and that the judge has the ultimate discretion over the appropriate sentence, but I remain of the opinion that Dean should be serving prison time,” her statement said.

Dean, 70, owned seven nursing homes in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana. As Ida approached, Dean moved hundreds of residents into a building in the town of Independence, roughly 70 miles (110 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans.

Authorities said conditions at the warehouse deteriorated rapidly after the powerful storm hit on Aug. 29, 2021. They found ill and elderly bedridden people on mattresses on the wet floor, some crying for help, some lying in their own waste. Civil suits against Dean’s corporation said the ceiling leaked and toilets overflowed at the sweltering warehouse, and there was too little food and water.

Within days after the storm hit, the state reported the deaths of seven of the evacuees, five of them classified as storm-related.

By the time Dean was arrested on state charges in June 2022, he had lost state licenses and federal funding for his nursing homes.

According to Murrill, Dean pleaded no contest to eight counts of cruelty to the infirmed, two counts of obstruction of justice and five counts of Medicaid fraud. Judge Brian Abels sentenced Dean to a total of 20 years in prison, but deferred the sentences in favor of three years of probation. The plea was entered in Tangipahoa, north of New Orleans.

Defendants who plead no contest do not admit guilt but elect not to defend against the charges. They are then subject to being convicted and punished as if there had been a guilty plea.

Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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If you were to make a list of “things that have washed up on a Louisiana beach” you’d have quite a collection of different things. Sure, there are some things you’d expect to find washed up on the sand. You know, some shells, a crab, maybe some seaweed. And in Louisiana’s case, you can’t rule out a diaper, some trash, and maybe some medical waste too.

But for the most part, we can identify the stuff, either natural or manmade, that shows up on the sand with the exception of the stuff you see pictured below.

Not only is this stuff washing up on beaches in Louisiana but folks around Galveston have been reporting a lot of it. There are also reports of this “stuff” washing up on the beaches near Biloxi in Mississippi and Orange Beach in Alabama. And that naturally leads to this question. What is it? Is it a plant? Is it an animal? Can it hurt me?

We are not the only ones wondering about the “stuff” and here’s your answer.

Now if we could just get some pastrami, some rye bread, and some Russian dressing to wash up on the beach we could have Reuben Sandwiches. But something tells me this “sauerkraut” would be harder to eat than the real sauerkraut that most of us avoid at all costs anyway.

The plant-like stuff is actually a creature. It’s called Sauerkraut Bryozoa. It’s an invertebrate animal that feeds on plankton. No, it can’t hurt you. But, it can be uncomfortable to step on and it can certainly foul a fishing line.

Experts in the ocean creatures say the “sudden” appearance of the Sauerkraut Bryozoa is not unexpected. It happens almost every summer and beachgoers should expect to see more of it over the next week or two, then its appearances along your favorite beaches will fade like the lingering daylight of a late summer day.