Louisiana
Shortened teal season tops proposed hunting seasons
There was drama Tuesday in what usually is a drama-less January Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting.
January’s meeting focused on the agency’s Wildlife Division announcing the proposed dates and other usually minor alterations for the next hunting season.
Ducks, namely teal, provided the eye-opening lead-in to that staff’s presentation.
This year, the special September teal season will be nine days — Sept. 20-28 — not the 16 days hunters have had for nearly two decades.
The reason comes from the 2024 Waterfowl Breeding Count survey, an estimate conducted on breeding grounds in the north-central United States, the Canadian prairielands and in Alaska.
The count on bluewing teal came in at 4.599 million, just below the 4.7 million needed to allow Louisiana hunters a 16-day season. The bluewing count has declined during the past three surveys from 6.485 million in 2022 to 5.25 million in 2023.
So, what usually are calendar adjustments from the previous hunting seasons turned out to stand only for resident game — deer, squirrel, rabbit and quail seasons.
And for the second year, the West Zone waterfowl season took another turn. In 2024, some West Zone hunters banded together to ask the commission to extend their duck season to the last day, Jan. 31, allowed in the federal waterfowl framework.
They got their wish last year, but not this time.
Commission member Kevin Segrera, who was later voted to chair the commission this year, offered an amendment calling for an extra early end to the West Zone duck season. His amendment, passed unanimously and has a Nov. 1-30 first split followed by a Dec. 13-Jan. 18 second split. The current West Zone season has three splits.
Other proposed changes included:
- Adding a two-day special weekends for Youth (Nov. 8-9) and honorably discharged veterans (Jan. 30-31) to the East Waterfowl Zone;
- Changing to a four-per-season limit (2 antlered/2 antlerless) deer in Deer Area 4 where the limit had been three for a season;
- Removing physically challenged hunter blinds on Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area and the Floy McElroy WMA (for lack of use) and establishes a similar blind one on the Sandy Hollow WMA;
- Moving to allow dogs only on Wildlife and Fisheries’ WMA camping areas;
- Setting a 2 p.m. curfew on waterfowl hunting and a rule prohibiting mud boats and air-cooled vessels and all other nighttime activities on the Biloxi Marsh WMA, and a rule requiring all fish on the WMA to be taken by rod and reel;
- Opening the 2026 turkey seasons on Good Friday, which adds an extra day to the seasons in all three turkey hunting areas;
- And, opening U.S. 11 to all-hours access to the Pearl River WMA.
Newly elected vice chairman Andy Brister offered an amendment to allow hunters 65 and older to use any legal firearm to take deer during the primitive firearm season, a move that mimics the allowance for hunters 17 and younger.
Another offering came regarding the opening of the dove season. Federal regulations allow Louisiana to open the dove season Sept. 1, which, this year, is a Monday. Wildlife Division spokesman Jeff Duguay said previous surveys showed hunters preferred a full weekend to open this season, which, this year, falls Sept. 6-7. Duguay said another survey is in the offing and said the commission staff will work to compile the results for either the Feb. 6 or March 6 commission meetings.
For the full 2025-2026 hunting season’s notice, go to the agency’s website: wlf.louisiana.gov/resources/category/commission-action-items.
Duguay said the public can expect a Zoom meeting in February to discuss the seasons and take public comment.
Comments will be taken during the Feb. 6 and March 6 meetings. March 6 is the deadline to make comments mailed to: Jeffrey Duguay, LDWF Wildlife Division, P.O. Box 98000, Baton Rouge, LA, 70898-9000 or e-mail: jduguay@wlf.la.gov.
DESTIN, Fla. — A North Carolina man allegedly headed to do a mass shooting at a large Louisiana festival was arrested in Okaloosa County Wednesday evening.
Federal authorities contacted the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in regards to the man. The department was told the man would be in the area.
The man’s name has not been shared by authorities.
Deputies found the man at a Destin Hotel. They took him into custody as a “fugitive from justice.”
The man will be extradited to Louisiana to face state charges, deputies say.
Louisiana
Mom whose 3 children were killed in Louisiana mass shooting still has bullet lodged in face — and sometimes thinks kids are alive
The mother of three of the eight children massacred by deranged Army veteran dad Shamar Elkins in Louisiana still has a bullet lodged in her head and is struggling with her memory — sometimes believing her kids are still alive, according to a relative.
Christina Snow, the girlfriend of 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, was shot in the face early Sunday when the former National Guardsman went on a shooting rampage at two nearby homes in Shreveport.
Three of Snow’s children she shared with Elkins — Braylon Snow, 5, Khedarrion Snow, 6, and Sariahh Snow, 11 — were killed in their home.
Elkins fired a bullet through Snow’s nose which is lodged in her head, and doctors aren’t ready to risk surgery, according to her cousin Jamarckus Snow.
The mom is now dealing with heartbreaking memory loss about the fate of her kids.
“One day, she’ll remember they’re dead. I heard yesterday she woke up and was like, ‘I got to get my kids ready for school.’ She’ll lose memory of what happened,” he told NBC News.
“One day, she’ll know, and the next day, she’s thinking her kids is still there.”
Follow the latest updates on the Louisiana father who killed 8 children in Shreveport shooting:
Elkins fatally shot his seven children — the three he shared with Snow and his four daughters with his wife, Shaneiqua Pugh: Jayla Elkins, 3, Shayla Elkins, 5, Kayla Pugh, 6, and Layla Pugh, 7.
He also killed Mar’Kaydon Pugh, 10, the son of his wife’s sister, who was staying at their house.
The vet turned his gun on Pugh and Snow, too, severely wounding both women, who are still in the hospital.
Elkins shot himself in the driveway of his former military mentor as law enforcement closed in.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear, but Elkins was suffering from mental health issues and was scheduled to appear in court on Monday after Pugh asked him for a divorce.
Louisiana
Federal appeals court upholds Texas’ Ten Commandments law. What does it mean for Louisiana?
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a Texas law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments, just weeks after the same court allowed a similar Louisiana law to take effect.
A majority of judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas’ law, which is nearly identical to Louisiana’s, is constitutional and does not violate students’ religious freedom. In February, the court lifted an injunction on Louisiana’s law, which cleared schools to put up the posters, but the judges said it was too early to rule on that law’s constitutionality.
Tuesday’s ruling could bode well for Louisiana’s law if it eventually returns to the 5th Circuit, considered the country’s most conservative federal court of appeals.
In their majority opinion, the judges rejected the argument that posting the Ten Commandments in classrooms would pressure students to honor the biblical mandates or adopt particular beliefs.
“To plaintiffs, merely exposing children to religious language is enough to make the displays engines of coercive indoctrination. We disagree,” the majority wrote about the Texas law, known as S.B. 10. A minority of the court’s active judges dissented.
Even though Tuesday’s ruling only addressed the Texas case, defenders of Louisiana’s legislation celebrated it as a victory. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the 5th Circuit’s argument in upholding Texas’ law was identical to the one Louisiana made in defense of its law.
“Our law clearly was always constitutional,” she posted on X, “and I am grateful that the Fifth Circuit has now definitively agreed with us.”
Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law in 2024, which requires all public K-12 schools and colleges to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom. A group of parents quickly challenged the law in court, and a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that stopped the state from enforcing the law.
In February, the 5th Circuit reversed the lower court’s decision, saying it had been premature to block the law before it took effect. The judges said they could not rule on the law’s constitutionality before seeing how it played out in schools.
But in the case of Texas’ law, which that state’s Republican-led Legislature passed in 2025, the court did rule on the merits.
Rejecting arguments made by attorneys for the Texas families who challenged the law, the 5th Circuit majority said that requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments does not amount to the government endorsing a particular religion, which the U.S. Constitution forbids. The law also does not impose religious beliefs on students, the judges wrote.
“As noted, S.B. 10 authorizes no religious instruction and gives teachers no license to contradict children’s religious beliefs (or their parents’),” the majority opinion says. “No child is made to recite the Commandments, believe them, or affirm their divine origin.”
The Texas families were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. The same groups, including Louisiana’s ACLU chapter, represented the Louisiana families.
In a statement Tuesday, the organizations said they are “extremely disappointed” by the 5th Circuit’s ruling, adding that they expect to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction,” the groups said. “This decision tramples those rights.”
-
New York10 minutes agoMamdani Considers Delaying Pension-Fund Payments to Ease Budget Gap
-
Detroit, MI40 minutes agoThings to do in Metro Detroit, April 24 and beyond
-
San Francisco, CA52 minutes agoCA to open 3 new state parks and expand others, including in Bay Area: Here’s where
-
Dallas, TX57 minutes agoWild vs. Stars Game 3: Key takeaways as Dallas takes series lead on Wyatt Johnston’s 2OT winner
-
Miami, FL1 hour agoMiami-Dade deputies detain elderly father who they say shot and killed his son after a domestic dispute
-
Boston, MA1 hour agoBoston has one of the best public markets in the country, says USA TODAY
-
Denver, CO1 hour agoRed flag fatigue? Colorado sees near-record number of critical fire days
-
Seattle, WA1 hour agoFOLLOWUP: West Seattle pickleball players band together to save court access