Hannah Chalew salvaged an old oil well from the Poland Avenue scrap yard in New Orleans. She coated it with bagasse, or sugar cane pulp, from Grow Dat, the urban farm in City Park. The paint is recycled, from another nonprofit, the Green Project, and the plants — palmettos, cypress, elephant ear — are largely from the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana’s greenhouse.
The embedded plastic trash — a toothbrush, a COVID-19 test, an old burned CD — “came from my life,” she said. “Plastic will be a fossil marker of our time, here long after we’re gone.”
The result is an artwork that gestures at what humans might leave behind, a sculpture called “Orphan Well Gamma Garden.” It’s a window into the post-apocalypse, where the stuff of civilization has coagulated around Chalew’s reclaimed steel wellheads, that questions the kind of future that humans are creating, and what might survive us.
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Trash is packed into an art piece called, “Orphan Well Gamma Garden” in the back of artist Hannah ChalewÕs studio in New Orleans, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. The piece was on display the the CAC in New Orleans during Prospect. 6. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
“I felt kind of like a reverse archaeologist, imagining how some person in the distant future would think about this, like, disembodied sippy-cup top,” Chalew said. “What will the people, or the creatures, who encounter this make of it?”
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That work turned out to be only the first in a series of orphan-oil-well-inspired work. A new piece, “Christmas Tree” — named after the Christmas Tree wellheads that pockmark Louisiana’s coastline and are so called because they taper somewhat like a tree — was inspired by a June trip to the mouth of the Mississippi River. There, Chalew saw wells that had become “orphaned.” The companies that owned them had gone bankrupt and responsibility for plugging them had fallen to the state. Some were leaking oil.
She wonders, too, what kind of plant life might recolonize old wells. She embedded “Christmas Tree” with oak wood and resurrection fern — a plant that can dry out and enter into a desiccated, dormant state, and remain that way for up to a century. When exposed to water, the fern comes back to life.
Artist Hannah Chalew poses in a studio in New Orleans, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
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STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
She said she wanted to imagine “what might recolonize” old, abandoned fossil-fuel infrastructure.
Chalew’s “Christmas Tree” was just on display at Good Children Gallery part of a show called “Mining for Wonder in the Humdrum.” The show closes Dec. 7. She has work on display as part of another exhibition, called “Fragile Matter,” at the Hilliard Art Museum in Lafayette.
“I realized that this is a body of work,” she said. “These totemic sculptures are part of an eventual show that will be a kind of ‘orphanage’ of old well sculptures.”
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Hannah Chalew’s new sculpture, “Christmas Tree,” on display at Good Children Gallery on St. Claude Ave. in New Orleans. (Photo by Alex Lubben, The Times-Picayune)
‘You don’t need to worry about the radon’
The ‘gamma garden’ in the title is an allusion to the post-World War II, U.S.-led initiative called Atoms for Peace, which sought to find peaceful uses for nuclear technology. The idea was to speed evolution in plants by planting them around a pole made of radioactive metal. (Most of the plants died.)
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Chalew named her work after this practice because old oil wells can themselves be radioactive, which she learned as she was building the sculpture. She called up a friend who works at an environmental advocacy group, who told her, “You don’t need to worry about the radon. You need to worry about the benzene,” another carcinogenic chemical that can waft off oil wells.
She tested her wells for both and found them to be free of radiation and toxins.
The legacy of the petrochemical industry has been the focus of Chalew’s work. In one of her recent paintings, “Feedback LOOP,” now on display at the Hilliard, Chalew paints plants as intertwined — as they often are in south Louisiana — with industrial pipes and valves.
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An art piece called, “Orphan Well Gamma Garden” stands in the back of artist Hannah Chalew’s studio in New Orleans, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. The piece was on display the the CAC in New Orleans during Prospect. 6. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
An oak tree, downed in Hurricane Ida, almost appears to be fighting against the pipes that make up LOOP, an offshore oil hub connected to pipelines that weave their way through Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. As with her orphan well sculptures, the materials are natural or salvaged, with ink made from oak trees and paper made from sugar cane and used plastic.
Her critique extends further, calling out industry’s affiliation with the arts.
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Artist Hannah Chalew poses near a pile of dumped metal near Venice, La., Thursday, June 5, 2025. (Photo by Sophia Germer, The Times-Picayune)
STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER
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She emblazoned the words “HELIS OIL + GAS” on each of the wells, a reference to the one-time Louisiana oil and gas company, which, through its charitable foundation, is a major patron of the arts in Louisiana. By centering this particular well in her work, she is critiquing how the arts in New Orleans are funded. She’s refused funding from grant-making institutions that are linked to the oil and gas industry, she says, and won’t accept support from Helis.
She also logged the carbon footprint of producing and transporting the sculpture at 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide, which she’s tried to offset by planting cypress trees. She considers this a challenge to other artists to consider the environmental impact of their work.
“I want to create these visions that are beautiful, but then as you explore them, sort of unsettling,” she said. “Is this the future we want our descendants to inherit?”
The Republican candidate for the District 1 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission will now be determined in a June runoff between a state lawmaker and a past parish president.
State Rep. Stephanie Hilferty and attorney and policy consultant John Young bested three other candidates in Saturday’s Republican primary with 28 percent and 31 percent of the vote, respectively. Since neither got more than 50 percent of the vote, the race to represent the New Orleans suburbs on the PSC advances to a June 27 runoff.
The winner will face Democrat Connie Norris, who was unopposed in her party’s primary, and Chris Justin, an engineer running as an independent, in November’s general election.
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Hilferty and Young both vowed to serve as watchdogs against excessive utility spending. They edged out state Rep. Mark Wright, who finished third with 24 percent of the vote.
Sen. Bill Cassidy’s primary loss Saturday brings to an end a two-decade career in public office that was ultimately defined by tensions with President Donald Trump.
Cassidy failed to advance in the Republican primary in Louisiana, as Trump-backed Rep. Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming are projected to head to a June 27 runoff.
The result marks another trophy for the president’s collection in his ongoing bid to oust Republicans perceived as disloyal to him.
Throughout Cassidy’s career, there were occasional signs that the physician-turned-politician wasn’t quite in lockstep with his party on a handful of issues, including around health care. But Cassidy’s cardinal sin, in the eyes of the Trump and his supporters, was voting in 2021 to convict the then-former president on impeachment charges of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6.
Sen. Lindsey Graham says status quo in the Strait of Hormuz is ‘hurting us all’
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Sunday called for more U.S. military action in Iran.
“I think the status quo is hurting us all. The longer the [Strait of Hormuz] is closed, the more we try to pursue a deal that never happens, the stronger Iran gets,” Graham told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
Graham’s comments come amid a pause in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, which have not yet led to a deal to end the war.
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Somalia is among the most exposed to ripple effects from the Strait of Hormuz crisis. The East African nation was already facing one of its worst food security crises in years.
Now, poor rains and renewed climate shocks are again pushing harvest expectations down, while global supply chain disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict are pushing up fertilizer and food costs, the world’s leading body on hunger warned.
Notable quote
If they go to war in the Pacific, what you are witnessing now in the Strait of Hormuz is just a dry run.
Singaporean Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan
As the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz drags on, guardians of another critical waterway are worried about the precedent it sets for any potential future clash between the United States and China. The Strait of Malacca carries more than a quarter of global trade, including most of the oil that flows from the Persian Gulf to key Asian markets
‘Meet the Press’
Former FBI Director James Comey said he has “complete faith in our judicial system” as he faces an ongoing federal case over a 2025 Instagram post.
The judiciary is “the genius of our founders,” Comey told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
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“It’s frankly the only leg of our three-legged stool that is still standing in the U.S. government, but it’s standing tall and straight,” he added. “It is the guardian of the rule of law, and I believe in it.”
Politics in brief
Ballroom bill: The Senate parliamentarian said that the GOP budget bill, which aims to fund ICE and Border Patrol alongside $1 billion for the White House ballroom, needs to be rewritten to account for jurisdictional issues.
Gauging the mood: NBC News spoke to roughly 30 Republican National Committee members and GOP activists around the country about how the party can keep control of Congress in November.
Dropping hints: Pennsylvania’s 7th District has been close to evenly split in recent elections. This year, the Democratic primary is also sending signals about what matters to the party.
On Gaza border, Israeli hard-liners lay out their desire to settle Palestinian territory
Right-wing Nachala movement settlers march near the Gaza border near Kibbutz Nir Am, Israel, in April. Erik Marmor / Getty Images
A river of Israeli flags winds through a desert path as hundreds of people march toward the border in a display of their determination to build new Jewish settlements atop the rubble of northern Gaza.
Daniella Weiss, founder of the radical right-wing settler group Nachala, sums up the crowd’s intentions.
“We are here on the way to new Jewish communities in Gaza,” she told NBC News in an interview at the border in late April.
“What we did in Judea and Samaria, we are going to do the same thing here,” Weiss added, a reference to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where illegal Jewish outposts and settler violence against Palestinians have grown dramatically in recent years.
Last month, Aws al-Nasaan, 14, was gunned down in broad daylight in the small Palestinian village of Al-Mughayyir, in the occupied West Bank. The boy’s blood still stained the sidewalk in front of his school days after an Israeli settler shot him dead.
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Napoleon Solo almost didn’t race. Thanks to a jockey’s suggestion, it won the Preakness.
Imagn Images; Getty Images
Before winning the 151st Preakness Stakes, Napoleon Solo almost wasn’t entered in the race known as the middle jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown.
The horse had competed twice this year and finished fifth both times. It was after the second race that jockey Paco Lopez told owner Al Gold and trainer Chad Summers that there was more to Napoleon Solo’s potential than its most recent finishes indicated.
“Paco told Chad … to go to this race,” Gold said on the NBC Sports broadcast. “I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t think this horse could go this far.”
The faith paid off, and Napoleon Solo overtook favorites Taj Mahal and Iron Honor for the Preakness.
Got maggots? These doctors are bringing the bugs into their practice on purpose
Leila Register / NBC News; Getty Images
The lowly maggot gets a bad rap, mostly known for feeding on corpses and rotting meat. But modern medicine is giving its reputation new life — as a tiny surgeon.
Polly Cleveland, of New York City, turned to so-called maggot therapy in 2023 when she was caring for her late husband, Tom, who developed sores after a hospital stay.
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“You get this little vial with these teeny, tiny little maggots on a piece of gauze,” Cleveland said. “I stuck the maggots in, and by golly, they did their thing” cleaning up the wound.
The thinking is straightforward: Diseased and dying tissue must be removed from wounds in order to prevent infection. To maggots, this dead tissue is food, and they are able to remove it precisely and painlessly.
In case you missed it
The Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho was locked down Sunday following a midair collision during a local air show that sent two fighter jets crashing to the ground.
Thai police charged a train driver with negligence after a crash on Saturday in central Bangkok killed eight and injured 32.
Bulgaria triumphed for its first win at the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, held under the shadow of controversy over the continued participation of Israel.
A Canadian who was a passenger on the MV Hondius cruise ship, which is set to dock Monday in the Netherlands, has tested positive for the Andes hantavirus.
A passenger on board the plane that crashed into the ocean off the coast of Florida last week has been arrested on cocaine smuggling charges.
SpaceX is preparing to launch a new version of its megarocket — a prototype of the system NASA could use to carry astronauts to the moon’s surface.
Bill Cassidy is among seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Published On 17 May 202617 May 2026
US Senator Bill Cassidy has lost his Louisiana Republican primary after years of criticism from supporters of Donald Trump over his vote to convict the United States president during his 2021 impeachment trial linked to the January 6 Capitol attack that year.
Cassidy failed to secure enough support in the southern state on Saturday to advance to a run-off, finishing behind Representative Julia Letlow and State Treasurer John Fleming. The two will face each other in a second round of voting on June 27.
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The result underlines Trump’s continued influence over the Republican Party as he targets politicians seen as disloyal, even as he faces growing political pressure over inflation, falling approval ratings and criticism of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump after the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters who sought to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss. While several Republicans who broke with Trump chose not to seek re-election, Cassidy campaigned aggressively for a third six-year term and heavily outspent his rivals.
On the morning of the vote, Trump attacked Cassidy on social media, calling him “a disloyal disaster” and “a terrible guy”. Speaking after his defeat, Cassidy appeared to respond indirectly to Trump’s remarks. “Insults only bother me if they come from somebody of character and integrity,” he told supporters.
He added: “Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about the constitution.”
Letlow, meanwhile, embraced Trump’s backing during her victory speech. “I want to say thank you to a very special man, … the best president this country has ever had, President Donald Trump,” she said.
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She later described Cassidy’s impeachment vote as evidence that he had “turned his back on Louisiana voters”. Trump celebrated Cassidy’s loss online, writing: “That’s what you get by voting to impeach an innocent man.”
The Louisiana race is the latest in a series of contests in which Trump has backed efforts to remove Republicans who opposed him. Earlier this month, several Indiana state senators were also defeated after they had rejected Trump’s redistricting plan aimed at winning more seats in the US Congress for Republicans.
Saturday’s elections also took place amid confusion after a recent US Supreme Court ruling weakening part of the Voting Rights Act related to electoral district maps.
While the Senate primary went ahead as planned, Louisiana officials postponed primary elections for the US House of Representatives to redraw district boundaries. Civil rights groups challenged the delay, arguing it violates both the US Constitution and the Louisiana Constitution.
