| Good Morning, Gov. John Bel Edwards is expected to loosen mask mandates this afternoon as the number of COVID infections and hospitalizations have been declining. He ordered faces covered in public back in August when the number of cases – mostly among those who have not been vaccinated – from the delta variant of the highly infectious and often deadly coronavirus disease overwhelmed hospitals and killed thousands. The number of Louisiana residents willing to be inoculated against COVID has increased dramatically since August but the state still has the second lowest vaccination rate in the U.S. – 10 points behind the U.S. average. On Thursday, Edwards leads a Louisiana group of 11 to attend next week’s 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties. Called COP26, the Glasgow, Scotland meeting will host diplomats from about 200 countries for what is expected to be the most important international meeting on climate in six years. U.S. President Joe Biden will also be there. Louisiana is especially vulnerable to changing weather patterns caused by global warming, as the last year of killer hurricanes, rain events and freezes have shown. The state’s insurance regulator on Monday dropped the emergency protections in place since Hurricane Ida and allowed insurance companies to start canceling coverage for policyholders living in 25 southeast Louisiana parishes. Some of the state’s insurers say they are under “significant stress” as they confront upwards of $20 billion in insured losses and hundreds of thousands of claims. Louisiana is fast running out of teachers as retirements rise and education colleges report fewer and fewer students are attending schools of education. Education leaders have said for years that the number of teachers is shrinking for a variety of reasons: pay, classroom conditions, and a sort of a negative aura around the profession. Every utility in Louisiana is charging more, an average of 12% more statewide, or $11.67 for a residential customer using 1,000-kilowatt hours of electricity, according to the reports kept by the Public Service Commission, which regulates the privately owned for-profit companies and the cooperative nonprofits that sell power throughout the state, except a handful of municipalities like the City of New Orleans. As always, check throughout the day for the latest Louisiana political news at theadvocate.com/politics or NOLA.com/politics and on Twitter at @MarkBallardCNB, @tegbridges, @samkarlin, @blakepater, @WillSentell. Here are a dozen articles, commentaries and editorials that will catch you up for the week to come. One last item: Thank you to our subscribers. Your support means a great deal to us. If you're not yet a subscriber, we’ve got a special offer you can check out here. – Mark Ballard | 
