Oliver Laughland

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Laughland

The Donald Trump administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Laughland

Robert Taylor sits in his living room at home in Reserve, Louisiana, on 6 February. New drywall has been installed on most of the first floor. It is only February and already Robert Taylor is facing his second seismic life event of the year. Both are wrapped in grief and angst, tied indelibly to the land that surrounds his home in the community of Reserve, Louisiana. It was on 11 Januarywhen Taylor’s wife of 61 years, Zenobia, was laid to rest at a cemetery a few miles away.

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Laughland |Sara Sneath

Oil giant Marathon Petroleum is fighting an expanded class action lawsuit fueled by an investigation by the Guardian and Forensic Architecture, which examined a massive toxic blaze at the company’s sprawling refinery in south-west Louisiana in 2023.

Jan 2, 2025 | theguardian.com | Oliver Laughland

At the cross-street of Bourbon and Saint Phillip, a few dozen yards from the police security line around the crime scene on Thursday morning, it was almost as if nothing had happened. Tourists meandered past the ornate old creole cottages, the bars served cold beer on tap, and horse-drawn carts traipsed through the western end of the French Quarter, in a familiar scene.

Jan 1, 2025 | theguardian.com | Oliver Laughland

The silence on Bourbon Street told much of the story. At the intersection that marks the centre of New Orleans’s noisy tourist hub, lined with tall palm trees and towering hotels, the quiet on the morning of New Year’s Day was broken only by yellow police tape fluttering in the light breeze and the occasional blare of sirens echoing on the road.