Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) brushed aside fears Wednesday morning about possible negative environmental impacts from SpaceX’s planned $100 billion launch facility in the state. He told CBS News on Wednesday that he was “not concerned about the environmental impact” of the new spaceport, which will be constructed along the Gulf Coast on a former… Source link
ABBEVILLE, La. (AP) — Elon Musk’s space company plans to spend $100 billion to build a massive new spaceport in Louisiana to launch rockets, state officials and the company announced Tuesday. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the deal was a big win for the state and country, likening the impact of the new launch site to the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. “Today is nothing short of a transformational moment,” he told lawmakers and others at a special event to celebrate the deal. Musk was not there, but he appeared with Landry in a promotional video that played before the Republican governor’s speech. SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell also spoke at the event. The spaceport would be located on 125,000 acres (50,600 hectares) of land formerly owned by Exxon along Louisiana’s southern coast about 200 miles (322 km) west of New Orleans in Vermilion Parish. The location provides key advantages, state officials said, including access to abundant natural gas and the ability to launch to a wide range of trajectories. It would be the …
Our report from several weeks ago, titled “SpaceX In ‘Final Stages’ Of Securing Massive New Rocket Launch Site In Louisiana,” was confirmed Tuesday afternoon by Elon Musk and his rocket company. “Starbase, Louisiana, will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year, with missions launching to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond,” SpaceX wrote on X. Starbase, Louisiana will be built to support thousands of Starship flights a year with missions launching to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond pic.twitter.com/SE6gyNZWBK — SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 25, 2026 Musk also chimed in, saying reports about the new $100 billion spaceport near Pecan Island, Louisiana, were “all accurate.” All accurate https://t.co/FkmQCEoS0i — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2026 Let’s come back to our Aug. 3 report, in which we cited the Times-Picayune: SpaceX is poised to take control of roughly 130,000 acres at Pecan Island, more specifically in coastal Vermilion Parish, as part of a settlement resolving long-running coastal lawsuits against ExxonMobil. Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to announce the agreement this month. One …
WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) – SpaceX unveiled plans on Tuesday to build its largest rocket launch complex yet in southern Louisiana, a $100 billion effort to transform coastal wetlands into a critical base for the company’s Starship and AI satellite launch ambitions. The 125,000-acre (50,585-hectare) site on Pecan Island, which SpaceX named Starbase Louisiana, is an expansion of the company’s Starship launch operations beyond South Texas and those planned for Florida as its next-generation rocket remains in late-stage development. The company’s second Starbase campus will eventually launch thousands of Starship flights a year, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said, reiterating its goals for an ambitious cadence contingent on solving steep engineering challenges and regulatory hurdles. Construction will begin next year with the first Starship launch in 2029, SpaceX said. Shotwell detailed the plans near the proposed site in Louisiana’s Vermilion Parish at an event with Governor Jeff Landry and other senior state officials. The “self-sustaining” spaceport envisioned by SpaceX will include its own methane production for propellant, power generation, deep-water shipping capabilities to transport Starships from Texas, vehicle …
Millions more people may be able to get smaller, lightweight Amazon packages delivered by drones by the end of the year under a plan the company announced Wednesday to expand the airborne shipping to suburban areas in nearly 500 U.S. cities. Customers could receive the drone deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes, Amazon said in a news release. The drones can carry packages up to 5 pounds. The plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times. Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered. The goal is not necessarily about cutting costs by replacing drivers and trucks — and drones that can only carry one package at a time would have a hard time doing that. But instead, these companies are using drones as one tool to help keep customers happy with quicker deliveries, banking on a faster delivery system attracting more shoppers. Amazon’s plan would expand its drone delivery operation more than sixfold nationwide into hundreds …
Louisiana health officials are urging residents to take precautions against a flesh-eating bacterial infection following the deaths of five people this year. The Louisiana Department of Health issued a warning about the infection, known as Vibrio vulnificus, in a press release on Thursday. The department said nine people have been infected this year and five have died. By comparison, Louisiana averaged seven cases and one death annually over the previous 10 years during the same time period. All of this year’s reported cases were linked to wounds exposed to seawater, and all patients had underlying health conditions, the department added. Vibrio bacteria naturally live in coastal waters, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and is more common in the summer when water temperatures rise. People can contract the infection by eating raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters, or when an open wound comes into contact with coastal waters, the CDC says. About 1 in 5 people with a Vibrio vulnificus infection die, according to the agency. While anyone can be infected, the …
Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more More than 20 high school seniors in Georgia will be awarded with scholarship money thanks to an initiative by actor Gail Bean. In the midst of her acting career on shows like Snowfall and Harlem, 33-year-old Bean founded the nonprofit Dream Above The Influence to support young people, including with the foundation’s All Of My Love Scholarship for future college students in Atlanta, Georgia, where Bean was raised. After more than 400 students applied for the award, the organization announced last week that Bean is awarding scholarships worth $1,913 to 22 high school seniors in the metro Atlanta area. “I’m a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated; hence we have a saying, all of my love, my peace and happiness,” Bean said …
The states — Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah and Idaho — all have Republican governors who say they welcome the chance to help America reclaim its leadership in civilian nuclear energy. If built, the storage sites would represent significant progress in a multi-decade effort to store more than 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. Plans for a permanent underground storage facility at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain have long been stalled because of staunch opposition from most residents and officials. Spent fuel is currently stored at nuclear plants and former nuclear sites nationwide and is piling up. New storage sites would move the radioactive material away from population centers, fault lines and flood plains. Experts say the plan also should help officials gain consent from communities that will host the repositories. Under the non-binding agreements, the states could host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses that would include waste sites as well as uranium enrichment, spent-fuel reprocessing and fuel fabrication. The campuses may also host advanced reactor deployment, power generation and data centers, the Energy Department …
The wind and storm surge were the main threats for the Deep South states. Parks and piers were closed up and down the coast, as were some low-lying roads. A tropical storm warning stretched from parts of the Florida Panhandle over to Louisiana, including metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain, National Hurricane Center said. Landfall, expected later Wednesday, was a lesser threat. “Landfall really doesn’t have a whole lot of meaning in this particular case,” said Robbie Berg, a warning coordination meteorologist at the hurricane center. Tropical storm force winds extended about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the center of the storm, the hurricane center said. Bertha was centered about 55 miles (90 kilometers) northeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River by mid-morning. It was moving west at 6 mph (9 kph) with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph). Storm surges up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) were possible in Louisiana from the Mississippi River mouth to the Alabama-Mississippi state line, forecasters said. Rain totals were forecast between 2 to 4 inches …
As Vanity Fair’s Chris Smith wrote in his May bombshell profile of LSU’s firestarter head football coach, the Lane Kiffin Show is never dull. When Louisiana State University and the University of Mississippi, Kiffin’s former employer, meet on the gridiron on September 19, 2026, just three games into the college football season, there’ll be even more fuel for the competitive fire. Days before the game, John Talty will publish Lane Being Lane: The Story of Lane Kiffin, College Football’s Agent of Chaos. “It is a biography, but I think it’s more than that,” Talty tells Vanity Fair. “College sports has undergone unbelievable transformation, especially in just the last six years, and the argument is no one has capitalized more on that change than Lane. I think you can kind of track the evolution of football through Lane Kiffin.” Also included: A non-zero number of F-bombs, unsurprising given the colorful vocabulary Kiffin has been known to use. “People certainly have very strong thoughts,” Talty says. “Let’s put it that way.” Talty, the national college football reporter …
