On the ballot for parts of East Baton Rouge Parish, there’s a measure to create a new city: The City of St. George. It’s the first step to carving out a new school district, separate from East Baton Rouge Parish Schools.

Supporters say St. George will allow more local control over taxes and improve education.

Crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico saw its biggest drop in more than a decade due to the production shutdown ahead of Hurricane Barry earlier this summer, but most consumers likely didn't notice a difference at the gas pump.

As Hurricane Barry approached the Louisiana coast in July, companies evacuated workers and temporarily shut down many of their oil and gas platforms in the Gulf.

** Correction 10/11/19 : An earlier version of this story  mistakenly referred to "shotguns" in the piece, which were never used by the hunters. The corrected version refers to "rifles." **

Louisiana alligators were once on the brink of extinction. Today, there are more than ever on the coast. Hunting alligator is a way of life for thousands of Louisianans. But it’s becoming less profitable, as foreign imports flood the market and drive down prices. Fewer hunters are heading out to the swamps each fall.

Seven parishes in coastal Louisiana have sued oil and gas companies to restore the coast. The suits say that nearly a hundred companies carved canals through the marshes over the years, and those canals worsened coastal land loss and made parishes more vulnerable to storms. Now, in the first settlement of its kind, one of those oil companies is settling.

To learn more about the case and its implications for the other suits, reporter Tegan Wendland talked with Christopher Dalbom, senior researcher at the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy.

Steel recycling company Bayou Steel has filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The move comes a day after announcing it would be laying off 376 employees and shutting down its LaPlace-based steel mill.

According to documents filed in Delaware bankruptcy court Tuesday, the steel recycling company owes between $50 and $100 million to other businesses. Among the 30 entities owed the most, seven are based in Louisiana.

Top male professors at Tulane University School of Medicine created a "long-standing hostile and discriminatory work environment" for the women physicians, researchers and staff  who worked there, according to a complaint filed in federal court by Tulane medical school professor and physician Dr. Lesley Saketkoo.

A new report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says sea levels are rising twice as fast as they used to. They’re also warming up and losing oxygen, meaning climate change will increasingly impact everything from coastal flooding to hurricanes to the number of fish in the sea.

According to the report, about 680 million people (10% of the global population) live in coastal regions less than 30 feet above sea level, and face increasing risks caused by sea level rise, storm intensification, and a host of other issues. Large swaths of coastal Louisiana and the Gulf Coast fall squarely into that category.

To better understand what the report suggests about the future of the Gulf Coast, WWNO’s Travis Lux spoke with Dr. Lisa Levin, an oceanographer at UC San Diego and one of the authors of the report.