The Entergy Foundation
has given a $75,000 grant to the Lindy Boggs National Center for Community Literacy at Loyola University. The money will go toward raising literacy rates among African-American men in metro New Orleans, a group the Boggs Center has identified as the area's most poorly served. Studies have shown that about 40 percent of adults in New Orleans read below the 6th grade level.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco
righted a decades-old wrong when she pardoned a civil rights activist arrested in 1963 while trying to integrate a public swimming pool. Blanco pardoned Betty Claiborne on Martin Luther King Day. The misdemeanor arrest had interfered with Claiborne's ability to work as an East Baton Rouge Parish Prison chaplain. Claiborne, then 20, spent 10 days in jail after trying to integrate Baton Rouge's City Park pool.
The Windsor Court Hotel
has been named one of the best places to stay in North America by readers of two leading travel magazines. The downtown hotel appears on Conde Nast Traveler's most recent 'Gold List,' ranking first of the four Louisiana hotels on the list. It also appeared as tops in Louisiana on Travel + Leisure's annual 'T+L 500,' the 500 highest-rated properties in the country.
Rep. Charles Lancaster,
the House and Governmental Affairs chairman, and other legislators are pushing to raise the $100 limit that lobbyists can spend on tickets to sporting or cultural events for elected officials. The ticket allowance is an exception to state laws that prohibit legislators from taking gifts from lobbyists, a loophole the state Board of Ethics tried in vain to close last year.
