THUMBS UP
New Orleans’ Christmas Tree Drop program
collected 8,000 trees in January, twice the number collected in 2023 via a partnership between the City of New Orleans’ Office of Resilience and Sustainability, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Louisiana Army National Guard. The program collects Christmas trees from residents and drops them into the Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge, where they’re used to protect and rebuild marshland.
THUMBS UP
The Library of Congress
has awarded a $50,000 Community Collections Grant to Nous Foundation, a New Orleans-based organization promoting and preserving French and Creole language and culture. The foundation was one of 10 people and groups to receive the grant and will use it to support “La Musique Nous Reunit,” a project interviewing and recording Louisiana musicians working in French and Creole, including Louis Michot, Leyla McCalla and Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes.
THUMBS DOWN
Gov. Jeff Landry
has restructured the state’s public defender system, which provides constitutionally mandated, public lawyers for arrestees who can’t afford private attorneys, by consolidating power in Landry’s hands. A new law pushed by Landry replaces the state’s 11-member defender board with a powerful gubernatorial appointee and a nine-member group with limited authority. In Louisiana, 88% of criminal defendants use a public defender.
