(The Center Square) — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed an executive order Wednesday that demands an “immediate and aggressive response across multiple state agencies to address a major breach at the Orleans Parish Correctional Facility. 

Ten inmates at the New Orleans facility escaped on Friday after removing a toilet and burrowing through a hole in the wall, even writing “to [sic] easy LOL” as a bit of parting graffiti.

Five of them have been caught, but the remainder are still at large. 

“Our criminal justice system is a three-legged bar stool. If one fails, the whole system collapses,” Landry said in a news release. “This brings us to where we are today – New Orleans willingly handed the jail keys to those leaders who vowed to keep criminals out of jail. Sadly, it worked.

“However, the state will not sit idly by. We are taking immediate, decisive action to ensure that this never happens again. The people of Louisiana deserve not only transparency and accountability, but also a justice system that is unyielding in its commitment to public safety – and our executive order demands it. Enough is enough.”

(The Center Square ) – A north Texas district court has ruled in favor of Texas in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its Biden-era Enforcement Guidance on bathroom and pronoun policies.

Last year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the EEOC, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and other federal officials to block an EEOC guidance that redefined the meaning of “sex” in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Center Square reported.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court Northern District of Texas Amarillo Division, the same court where Paxton filed a lawsuit in 2021 to block similar EEOC guidance, which the court struck down.

In 2021, the EEOC issued guidance requiring employers to allow exceptions for employees with stated “gender preferences and identities” to use bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, dress codes and personal pronouns contrary to their biological sex. Texas argued the guidance was unlawful and increased the scope of liability for all employers, including the state of Texas, which employed roughly 140,000 people in September 2022, according to the state comptroller’s office.

The lawsuit was later amended to include the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a defendant after the agency promulgated a new rule threatening to cut federal funding to states that prohibit “sex-change” procedures on minors and classify the procedure as child abuse. Biden administration guidances would have allowed biological males to use women’s facilities and abolished sex-specific workplace dress codes.

The court struck down both rules, vacated the 2021 guidance and issued a binding declaratory judgment between the EEOC and Texas.

A similar ruling was issued on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. The 2024 guidance sought to redefine “discrimination” to include “gender identity,” opening up private and state employers to lawsuits if they didn’t adopt sweeping “transgender inclusive policies” and comply with “pronoun police,” Paxton argued.

“The Biden Administration unlawfully tried to twist federal law into a tool for advancing radical gender ideology by attempting to force employers to adopt ‘transgender’ policies or risk being sued,” Paxton said. “The federal government has no right to force Texans to play along with delusions or ignore biological reality in our workplaces. This is a great victory for common sense and the rule of law.”

Kacsmaryk’s 34-page ruling says the EEOC exceeded its statutory authority and its guidance was “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent” and vacated it.

He also rejected EEOC’s arguments, said it misread the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v Clayton County, “cited no binding authority for its metastasized definition of ‘sex,’” and contravened Title VII by defining discriminatory harassment to include transgender bathroom, pronoun and dress preferences. He also said if Congress wanted to redefine “sex” in Title VII to include “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” it would have. “But it did not,” he wrote. “Congress has the power to amend statutes to add accommodations, EEOC does not. Yet that’s exactly what the enforcement guidance does.”

Kacsmaryk also listed sections of the guidance that he said are unlawful and vacated them.

The Trump administration EEOC is unlikely to appeal the ruling.

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blames staffing shortages as it closes or limits access to 31 recreational beaches and campgrounds ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.

The majority of the closures, 21 of them, are at Lake Lanier, a popular area in northeast Georgia just outside of Gainesville. Two are at Allatoona Lake, near Cartersville. The others are at the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint public shoreline area, three at Alabama’s Black Warrior and Tombigbee Lakes area, one at Mississippi’s Okatibbee Lake and sites at Georgia’s Walter F. George and Lake George W. Andrews area.

“The well-being of our community is our top priority, and the current staffing levels do not allow us to maintain the necessary safety measures within our parks,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District said in a news release. “This includes essential services such as park supervision, maintenance, and safety monitoring that ensure a secure and enjoyable environment for all visitors.”

The Corps did not give a reason for the staffing shortage.

The closures are temporary but it’s not known how long they will last.

“We will be continually assessing and reassessing closures throughout the summer,” the Corps said. “We encourage visitors to check the current operational status of USACE recreation areas for any restrictions or safety alerts prior to visiting.”

U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said he was disappointed to learn about the closures. 

“As the most visited of all 464 federally operated lakes in the U.S., Lake Lanier draws over 10 million visitors annually. The Army Corps of Engineers oversees the lake and surrounding parks,” McCormick said in a statement. “Last year, I introduced Amendment #48 in HR8997 to prevent campground closures around Lake Lanier. While the rule passed, Democrats blocked the overall bill. I’m working with county officials, the executive branch, and the Corps to find a solution before Memorial Day weekend.”

The closures do not affect areas not managed by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. Hall County Parks and Leisure has four recreational areas along Lake Lanier. The agency said in a social media post that those areas are open. Forsyth County officials, which has seven lake parks, said they are also open.

The Mobile District is not the first to close recreational areas. The Omaha District announced in April it would shut down or reduce services at sites in Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana starting May 1. The Kansas City District announced sites in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa would be affected beginning May 15, also because of staffing challenges.