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Thousands without power after reported tornadoes strike Texas and Louisiana communities as storm continues to threaten South, Midwest | CNN

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Thousands without power after reported tornadoes strike Texas and Louisiana communities as storm continues to threaten South, Midwest | CNN




CNN
 — 

Greater than a dozen reported tornadoes struck throughout communities in Texas and Louisiana, damaging many houses and companies as home windows and roofs had been blown off buildings – and the risk is predicted to persist Wednesday in different southern states.

An enormous, multi-day storm is bringing totally different impacts to a big swath of the US this week, with components of Alabama, Florida and Mississippi beneath a twister watch via 5 a.m. Wednesday whereas snow can be in retailer for the Midwest.

“A winter storm will transfer into the Mid-Mississippi Valley by Wednesday morning. Areas of heavy snow and a wintry combine over Oklahoma and the Ozarks will increase northeastward into the Ohio Valley via early Wednesday,” the Nationwide Climate Service said on Twitter.

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On Tuesday, the storm inflicted intensive harm to the Houston-area communities of Deer Park and Pasadena, the place downed timber and particles littered streets and hundreds had been with out energy after traces had been knocked down.

“We’ve seen loads of harm. We’ve seen buildings which have collapsed,” Pasadena Mayor Jeff Wagner mentioned.

Josh Bruegger, the town’s police chief, described the harm because the worst he has seen in 25 years, including, “For the approaching days, we’re going to have our palms full.”

In Deer Park, individuals who had been at St. Hyacinth Catholic Church hunkered down in a hallway and closed all doorways as they heard what they consider to be a twister roll via the realm, Father Reginald Samuels mentioned.

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“It received actually loud, we heard glass breaking, and the constructing was shaking then it was calm,” Samuels instructed CNN, including that nobody was damage.

Harm was additionally reported at a Deer Park nursing residence, prompting the evacuation of about 60 residents Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Jerry Mouton instructed CNN. There have been no experiences of accidents, in line with Jerry Dilliard with the Atascocita Hearth Division. CNN reached out to the nursing residence’s operator Tuesday for extra data.

Mr. Electric employees Héctor Vázquéz, left, and Lucas Perry pass off a phone outside their office building where they were working when a powerful storm system hit Tuesday in Deer Park, Texas.

As clean-up efforts are underway in Deer Park, faculties within the metropolis will shut Wednesday, the district mentioned.

“We hope it will give households an opportunity to recuperate from the stress of at the moment’s occasions, and we consider it’s best for youngsters to be with their dad and mom or guardians after a pure catastrophe,” the district mentioned in an announcement despatched to folks and workers Tuesday evening.

“It seems many houses and companies in our space had been broken, and a few neighborhoods stay with out energy presently,” the assertion continued.

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Pictures of injury in Deer Park present tree limbs mendacity on roads, roofs flown off buildings and broken automobiles.

John Liparito surveys storm damage Tuesday in Pasadena, Texas.

Greater than 100,000 houses and companies in Texas and Arkansas had been left at the hours of darkness early Wednesday morning, in line with the monitoring web site PowerOutage.us. As of 9 p.m. ET, no less than 14 tornadoes had been reported throughout southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana.

In Louisiana’s Beauregard Parish, the sheriff’s workplace reported vital harm to houses and different buildings, noting that roads had been blocked and energy traces had been down. Practically 16,000 houses and companies had been additionally with out energy in Louisiana early Wednesday morning.

Total, there have been no experiences of great accidents related to Tuesday’s storm harm, with Pasadena officers reporting one harm.

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Louisiana

Obituary for Chris "Big Irv" Stevenson at Southern Funeral Home Winnfield

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Obituary for Chris "Big Irv"  Stevenson at Southern Funeral Home Winnfield


Chris Big Irv Stevenson, age 47 of Winnfield, Louisiana passed away Friday, March 14, 2025 in Ruston, Louisiana. Christopher Michael Stevenson better known as Big Irv was a son, brother, father, grandfather and a friend. He had a big heart, big love, a big smile and a contagious laugh that



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After earlier doubts, Louisiana teachers union backs constitution change that will raise pay

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After earlier doubts, Louisiana teachers union backs constitution change that will raise pay


Louisiana’s largest teachers’ union has come out in support of Amendment 2, a change to the state’s constitution backed by Gov. Jeff Landry that would dissolve three longstanding education trust funds to pay for $2,000 salary increases for teachers. Residents will vote to approve or reject the measure on March 29. 

Pictured: Tatyana Foster, a fifth grade teacher at Atkins Elementary School in Shreveport, La., assists a student Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025.



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Louisiana’s nitrogen gas execution back on for next week, federal appeals court rules

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Louisiana’s nitrogen gas execution back on for next week, federal appeals court rules


Dick issued a preliminary injunction, allowing time for a full trial on whether death by nitrogen gas amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is forbidden under the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. Attorneys for the state issued a notice of appeal within minutes of Dick’s ruling.

The Fifth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction.

“In sum, the district court didn’t just get the legal analysis wrong — it turned the Constitution on its head, by relying on an indisputably more painful method of execution as its proposed alternative,” the appeals court’s ruling states, written by Judge James Ho, an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Dick’s ruling had said that Hoffman’s team had given enough evidence that death by a firing squad could be a more humane way for Hoffman to die.

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In an emergency appeal brief, attorneys for the state urged the appeals court to vacate Dick’s ruling. The state of Alabama, the only state to employ nitrogen gassing in a modern-day execution and the template for Louisiana’s plan, submitted an amicus brief in support of Louisiana moving forward with the method.

“The district court’s findings are demonstrably misguided and warrant this Court’s emergency intervention,” attorneys for Louisiana said in their brief, painting Hoffman’s lawsuit as a last-ditch effort to delay justice. They also argued that Dick, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ignored precedents set by the Supreme Court and the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

The state said that Hoffman’s attorneys dragged their feet on a fresh challenge to nitrogen gassing as an execution method.

Ho was joined in his decision to vacate the injunction by Judge Andrew Oldham, another Trump appointee. 

Writing in dissent was Judge Catharina Haynes, an appointee of former President George W. Bush. She argued that the courts should allow more time for Hoffman’s case to be litigated.

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She found that Hoffman had little time to challenge his method of execution.

“As the district judge thoroughly discusses, there are issues that need more time to be resolved and decided,” Haynes wrote. “Obviously, that cannot be done once he is dead.”

Final appeal to Supreme Court expected

Hoffman is on death row for the 1996 abduction, rape and murder of Molly Elliott in rural St. Tammany Parish. Elliott’s husband, Andy Elliott, said this week that he was torn about the execution and that while it’s been a struggle to spend so long waiting for a final resolution, Hoffman’s death would not bring him closure.

“This is justice for Mary ‘Molly’ Elliot, her friends, her family, and for Louisiana,” said Attorney General Liz Murrill in a statement Friday night.

Cecelia Kappel, an attorney for Hoffman, said Friday night that his legal team will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is not required to take up the matter, but may do so at its discretion.

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“The 5th Circuit should have deferred to the district court’s assessment of the extensive evidence presented to it after a 12-hour-long hearing showing that Louisiana’s new execution method is likely to cause Jessie to suffer a prolonged and torturous death,” Kappel said.

Hoffman’s method of execution, nitrogen gas, will prevent him from practicing his Buddhist breathing meditation at the period between life and death, she said.

“I think that is just the cruelest thing about this,” Kappel said.

Kappel said earlier this week that Louisiana was trying to avoid scrutiny and place blame on Hoffman “for the rushed nature of these proceedings even though the State only announced it would use lethal gas for executions and set Jessie’s execution date last month.”

Dick’s decision came after a daylong hearing March 7 at which Hoffman testified, asking that the state find another way to put him to death. His lawyers argued that death by nitrogen gas would be inhumane and leave Hoffman feeling like he was drowning, causing emotional suffering.

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They said death by firing squad — which is not currently legal in Louisiana but was used last week to execute a man in South Carolina — would lead to a quicker and less painful death.

In its brief, the state argued that a firing squad would cause a more physically painful death and that nitrogen gas would not be as distressing as the plaintiffs made it out to be. 

What is ‘cruel and unusual punishment?’

It would be a surprise if the U.S. Supreme Court intervened in Hoffman’s case, based on how they have treated arguments about cruel and unusual death in recent years.

In 2019, the conservative-led Supreme Court narrowly rejected a Missouri death row inmate’s argument that his medical condition would lead to a painful and excessively punitive execution by lethal injection.

The court sided with the state in a 5-4 vote, with Justice Neil Gorsuch writing for the conservative majority. They ruled that executions aren’t “cruel and unusual” solely because they are painful.

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Attorneys for 51-year-old defendant Russell Bucklew had said that tumors growing in Bucklew’s throat would burst during the execution, causing him to choke for several minutes on his own blood.

“Cruel and unusual” executions are ones that “cruelly super adds pain,” Gorsuch wrote.

“The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death — something that, of course, isn’t guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes.”

An earlier majority of the high court had agreed to stay Bucklew’s execution, with former Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the more liberal justices.

The 2019 ruling was seen by legal scholars as a signal that the majority-conservative had hardened on capital punishment.

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“This Court has yet to hold that a State’s method of execution qualifies as cruel and unusual, and perhaps understandably so,” Gorsuch said.

Missouri authorities executed Bucklew by lethal injection in October 2019, six months after the high court’s ruling.



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