HOUSTON OUTLASTS LSU TO WIN TEXAS BOWL 1C
ADVOCATE THE
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
|
S u n d ay, d e c e m b e r 28, 2025
$2.50X
Hundreds reporting chemtrail sightings in La. New law requires DEQ to track reports
BY SAM KARLIN Staff writer
crowds of revelers celebrating New Year’s Eve. Those taken that night include fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, sisters and brothers. The families and friends who were left behind have spent the past year navigating the complex emotions of a violent, unexpected loss: heart-crushing grief, anger, fear and hope.
The reports are alarming. Angry residents say the Louisiana skies are being sprayed with chemicals, creating “tic-tac-toe” shapes up above, or in one case, an “Acura logo.” The supposed culprit: chemtrails, a long-debunked conspiracy theory that scientists say is not accurate. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the agency charged with regulating the state’s expansive petrochemical industry among other sectors, has collected more than 400 such reports since just this summer, when the Republicanled Legislature passed a bill requiring it to track such reports. A handful of Republican state lawmakers have encouraged their constituents to write in, propping up the conspiracy theory that the condensation trails airplanes leave behind are, in fact, dangerous chemicals or heavy metals. The new law passed by the Legislature did more than require DEQ to collect such reports. It also banned climate geoengineering and cloud seeding, which are real technologies designed to combat climate change or generate greater precipitation for agricultural or other purposes. Neither is used in Louisiana, according to state and federal regulators. The debate about chemtrails among state lawmakers prompted a clash over long-standing farming practices, nascent climate technology and outright conspiracies. And as a result, the state environmental regulator is now required to collect reports of such alleged activities. Records show that more than 400 of the reports received by DEQ allege that condensation trails long left by airplanes are the long-debunked “chemtrails.” “This garbage has been going on here for years,” one resident reported to the state system. “At some point We the People need a Say about this …We are being poisoned and Our tax dollars are funding this.” Another resident in Metairie in October wrote, “Very typical aerial dispersions of aerosols in lines or trails … some in straight lines, some in long narrow crosses and one in the shape similar to the auto emblem for an Acura vehicle. As usual
ä See FAMILIES, page 6A
ä See CHEMTRAIL, page 7A
STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD
Pedestrians walk under ‘Second Line in the Sky’ memorial banners along Bourbon Street. Following the deadly early morning tragedy on Jan. 1 in the French Quarter, city officials have increased the focus on public safety on the Bourbon corridor, including enhanced police presence, traffic restrictions and crowd-control measures.
Keeping Bourbon Street safe A year after New year’s attack, long-term security plans still unresolved
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer
At 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve at the foot of Bourbon Street, Joseph Hamilton III watched as a nightly routine played out. Four New Orleans police officers hopped out of a golf cart, forced 3-foot-tall steel barriers into their positions on the street, and sped off, their blue lights flashing to the next intersection. As he listened to a brass band on the corner of Iberville Street, Hamilton, a New Orleans resident, thought back to the vehicle attack a year ago that killed 14 people, and the security failures that were revealed by it. “They should have been like that from Day One,” he said, motioning to the blockades. Since the attack, public safety leaders in New Orleans have more or less echoed Hamilton’s sentiment. New Orleans’ homeland security director Collin Arnold and 8th District New Orleans Police Department Capt. Samuel Palumbo say that the barriers, along with others that fully close the street to traffic during special events and holidays,
ä See SAFE, page 8A
WEATHER HIGH 81 LOW 54 PAGE 8B
‘Part of me is still broken’ Families of attack victims reflect on what was lost that night
BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer
Landon Hunter stepped on the track for a meet on May 3 and his heart suddenly began to race. It wasn’t nerves troubling the seventh grader from the Lake Charles area, however, but a memory that he said replayed like a scene from a movie. A year earlier, at his first-ever meet, Landon’s father, Reggie Hunter, had been front and center. He stood at the fence line, recording video and cheering on his son’s track debut. Landon knew his father would be absent this time, but the 12-year-old couldn’t stop himself from scanning the crowd. “I went ahead and looked for him. He wasn’t where he was last time,” Landon said. Reggie Hunter, 37, was one of the 14 people killed Jan. 1 on Bourbon Street when an Islamic State-inspired man plowed his pickup truck through the
STAFF PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Landon Hunter, 12, holds a picture of his father, Reggie Hunter, on Friday at his home in Iowa, La. Reggie Hunter was among those killed in the New year’s Day Bourbon Street terror attack.
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Classified ..................... 1F Living............................1D Nation-World ................2A Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
101ST yEAR, NO. 181
WHEN YOUR DOCTOR’S OFFICE IS CLOSED -
we are open!
7473 PERKINS ROAD | 225.246.9997
No appointment necessary