LSU BASEBALL Johnson elated about holding onto top recruits 1C
N O L A.C O M
|
T u e s d ay, J u ly 14, 2026
‘BUILDING A FOUNDATION’
Landry trumpets impact on Louisiana from massive expansion of Meta AI data center
$2.00X
Moreno gives update on first six months
Mayor outlines work to manage budget, fix infrastructure BY JONI HESS Staff writer
Mayor Helena Moreno gave a rundown Monday of her first six months in office, outlining her work to manage the city’s budget crisis, reform the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board and repair basic city infrastructure. The wide-ranging report highlights her accomplishments since taking office Jan. 12, a period also dominated by escalating clashes with state Republican leaders, a fiscal crisis and problems with Moreno the city’s embattled water utility. In the past six months, Moreno secured state approval for more local oversight over S&WB and has called for additional revenues that could help fund stormwater management projects through a recurring parcel fee. Moreno also obtained a three-year extension for infrastructure projects funded under the federal Joint Infrastructure Recovery Request program, and hired additional city staff to repair thousands of potholes and broken streetlights. To address community development issues, including blight and park maintenance, the
ä See MORENO, page 5A STAFF PHOTOS By MICHAEL JOHNSON
Dina Powell McCormick, president and vice chair at Meta, talks about Meta’s commitment to Richland Parish and Louisiana on Monday. BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL and ALYSE PFEIL Staff writers
Gov. Jeff Landry and other Louisiana leaders on Monday cheered the announcement that Facebook parent Meta is more than doubling the size of its mammoth Hyperion data center in Richland Parish, as the scale of the investment — and what it could mean for the state — came into greater focus. At a news conference hours after the tech giant released details of its planned expansion, Landry, who has aggressively courted new industrial development in the state, championed it as a moment that “Louisiana has been waiting for.” “We’re building a foundation for the next generation of American prosperity,” he said during a presentation that included remarks from Meta executives and some Richland Parish leaders who welcomed the expansion. Meta will now spend $50 billion on
most sophisticated and power hungry data centers planned to date. The project also will take longer to build and come online, meaning more workers will move into the area and more permanent jobs will eventually be created, even as concerns remain about power, water usage and the return on the state’s investments via tax breaks. Hyperion will be one of the first 5-gigawatt data centers in the U.S., and only a handful of others are in the planning stages or under construction. Oracle and OpenAI are building a more expensive data center in the desert of New Mexico Gov. Jeff Landry discusses the with a $165 billion price tag, but it’s impact on the state’s economy roughly the same size as Hyperion Monday after announcing Meta’s and, for now at least, is a planned plans to expand its Richland Parish 2.5-gigawatt facility. Since the project broke ground in data center. January 2025, it has fueled a boom Hyperion, up from $10 billion just 18 in Richland Parish, a tiny rural months ago. Its footprint has more community of 20,000 full-time resithan doubled to roughly 5 square dents. Richland Parish Assessor Lee miles. And its computing power has ä See META, page 5A doubled, making it one of the fastest,
U.S. begins new Iran strikes Trump says ships will be charged to use the Strait of Hormuz
BY JON GAMBRELL, KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and WILL WEISSERT Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. launched strikes on Iran early Tuesday morning, hours after President Donald Trump said Washington is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump separately suggested the United States will charge other ships for safe passage, upending hundreds of years of American policy supporting freedom of navigation across the globe. Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain and two tankers associated with the United Arab Emirates traveling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The Emirates threatened to retaliate against Iran, potentially
ä See STRIKES, page 7A
Residents frustrated by flooding Street conditions worsened by ‘human error’
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer
Though weekend street flooding across swaths of New Orleans had receded by Monday, a current of frustration with the city’s struggling water utility continued to run strong. Residents and political leaders on Monday said the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board should
WEATHER HIGH 84 LOW 75 PAGE 6B
be held accountable for pumping failures that left parts of the city without working drainage during the height of severe storms Saturday. One pumping station, which drains the Mid-City and Lakeview neighborhoods, was offline for 45 minutes due to “human error,” S&WB Executive Director Randy Hayman said Sunday, while an automated pump at the station serving Hollygrove tripped off, requiring employees to restart it by hand. The pump failures come as concerns about management of the water utility have continued to
mount and as the City Council prepares to gain control of the utility Aug. 1, after the Louisiana Legislature approved a law authorizing council oversight of S&WB’s budgets, personnel and internal policies. “At the end of the day, the responsibility for making sure that everything is being done properly, that people are being properly trained and that there is operational redundancy. These are all leadership issues,” council President JP Morrell said. “We have significant concerns about existing
STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
Pedestrians walk through floodwaters on South Clark Street after a ä See FLOODING, page 7A downpour in New Orleans on Saturday.
Business ......................6A Commentary ................5B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................7D Deaths .........................3B Opinion ........................4B Comics-Puzzles .....3D-6D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
13TH yEAR, NO. 336