Digging up literal political dirt; could more COVID restrictions be coming?

The Advocate's Top Headlines

with Matthew Albright | Assistant metro editor

Good morning! Let's get you caught up on some of yesterday's biggest stories.

Political dirt

An Ascension Parish councilman's dad has been getting truckloads of free dirt from a parish dredging project, which he's been using to fill a hole on his property. The councilman claims his family's doing parish government a solid by giving it a place to dump the muck, but some of his colleagues argue the dirt is potentially valuable and it's unethical for the family to get it for free.

This story explains the arrangement, the criticism over it, what state ethics laws say and how it all fits into parish politics already roiling over flood problems.

Could more COVID restrictions come back?

Gov. John Bel Edwards already brought Louisiana back to requiring masks indoors after the delta variant of the coronavirus caused an unprecedented fourth surge.

Could more restrictions start coming back? This top state official thinks they might.

Regardless of what the government says, several major events across South Louisiana have been canceled. We'll be updating this list of COVID-canceled events in the Baton Rouge area as we hear about them.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!