No snoring, no gargling and no goatees? Here are the 28 weirdest laws in Louisiana
In Louisiana, there are a number of strange, and antiquated, laws that are still within the state's legal system.
As for Louisiana's antiquated laws, these are laws that are still technically within the legal code, but are no longer enforced or considered relevant in modern society.
Because of a foundation in the Napoleonic Code, Louisiana's legal system is unique and complex compared to the rest of the U.S., which is based on English Common Law.
The Napoleonic Code is a comprehensive French legal code established by Napoleon Bonaparte, and it reflected principles like equality before the law and the protection of property rights, according to Fiveable.
Whether it's harsh consequences, laws for unique circumstances or strange prohibitions, Louisiana has a few weird laws within its legal code.
It's illegal to be an alcoholic in Sulphur.
Cowbells are banned in Carencro.
Roller Skating on the sidewalk is prohibited in Abbeville.
Trick-or-treating is illegal for those 14 and older in Rayne.
It's illegal to ingest blood or other bodily fluids during a ritual.
At funerals, you're only allowed three sandwiches at the wake.
Practicing Voodoo is prohibited in New Orleans.
It's illegal to tie your alligator to a fire hydrant.
Gargling in public is prohibited.
In Jefferson Parish, it's illegal to feed hogs garbage unless it's cooked first.
It's illegal to have a snake within 200 years of a Mardi Gras parade.
Biting someone with false teeth can be classified as aggravated battery.
In Sulphur, it's illegal to use obscene language on the telephone.
An old ordinance states that goatees are illegal unless you pay a special license fee in order to wear one in public.
Another old ordinance declares it illegal for a woman to drive a car unless her husband is waving a flag in front of the vehicle.
It's illegal to dare someone to lay down on railroad tracks that are owned by someone else.
Fake wrestling matches are prohibited.
Minors aren't allowed to go to businesses with coin-operated foosball machines unless they're accompanied by an adult in Jefferson Parish.
It's illegal to wear masks in public in Louisiana, except during Mardi Gras.
It's illegal to steal someone else's alligators and/or crawfish.
Snoring is prohibited unless all bedroom windows are closed and locked.
Making false promises is punishable by law.
Chasing fish in a city park is illegal in New Orleans
It's illegal to ride a bike with only one hand in New Orleans.
It's illegal to mock or heckle boxers during a match.
It's illegal to shoot lasers at law enforcement officers.
Urinating in the water supply could land you up to 20 years in prison.
Taxi drivers are prohibited from making love in the front seat of their taxi during shifts.
Presley Bo Tyler is a reporter for the Louisiana Deep South Connect Team for Gannett/USA Today. Find her on X @PresleyTyler02 and email at PTyler@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: What are the weirdest laws in Louisiana? Read about them here
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Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
School killings leave stunned Austria and France searching for answers
Two shocking attacks within two hours of each other, in France and Austria, have left parents and governments reeling and at a loss how to protect school students from random, deadly violence. At about 08:15 on Tuesday, a 14-year-old boy from an ordinary family in Nogent, eastern France, drew out a kitchen knife during a school bag check and fatally stabbed a school assistant. Not long afterwards in south-east Austria, a 21-year-old who had dropped out of school three years earlier, walked into Dreierschützengasse high school in Graz at 09:43, and shot dead nine students and a teacher with a Glock 19 handgun and a sawn-off shotgun. In both countries there is a demand for solutions and for a greater focus on young people who resort to such violence. Austria has never seen a school attack on this scale, but the French stabbing took place during a government programme aimed at tackling the growth in knife crime. The Graz shooter, named by Austrian media as Arthur A, has been described by police as a very introverted person, who had retreated to the virtual world. His "great passion" was online first-person shooter games, and he had social contacts with other gamers over the internet, according to Michael Lohnegger, the criminal investigation chief in Styria, the state where it happened. A former student at the Dreierschützengasse school, Arthur A had failed to complete his studies. Arriving at the school, he put on a headset and shooting glasses, before going on a deadly seven-minute shooting spree. He then killed himself in a school bathroom. He owned the two guns legally, had passed a psychological test to own a licence and had several sessions of weapons training earlier this year at a Graz shooting club. This has sparked a big debate in Austria about whether its gun laws need to be tightened – and about the level of care available for troubled young people. It has emerged that the shooter was rejected from the country's compulsory military service in July 2021. Defence ministry spokesman Michael Bauer told the BBC that Arthur A was found to be "psychologically unfit" for service after he underwent tests. But he said Austria's legal system prevented the army from passing on the results of such tests. There are now calls for that law to be changed. Alex, the mother of a 17-year-old boy who survived the shooting, told the BBC that more should have been done to prevent people like Arthur A from dropping out of school in the first place. "We know… that when people shoot each other like this, it's mostly when they feel alone and drop out and be outside. And we don't know how to get them back in, into society, into the groups, into their peer groups," she said. "We, as grown-ups, have got the responsibility for that, and we have to take it now." President Alexander Van der Bellen raised the possibility of tightening Austria's gun laws, on a visit to Graz after the attack: "If we come to the conclusion that Austria's gun laws need to be changed to ensure greater safety, then we will do so." Austria has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 people. Although there have been school shootings here before, they have been far smaller and involved far fewer casualties. The mayor of Graz, Elke Kahr, believes no private person should be able to have weapons at all. "Weapons licences are issued too quickly," she told Austria's ORF TV. "Only the police should carry weapons, not private individuals." What we know about Austria school shooting Graz in shock and grief after attack Armed gendarmes were present at the entrance to the Françoise Dolto middle school in Nogent, 100km (62 miles) east of Paris, when a teenager pulled out a 20cm kitchen knife and repeatedly stabbed Mélanie G, who was 31 and had a four-year-old son. The boy accused of carrying out the murder told police that he had been reprimanded on Friday by another school assistant for kissing his girlfriend. As a result he had a grudge against school assistants in general, and apparently had made up his mind to kill one. Schools were closed on Monday for a bank holiday, and Tuesday was his first day back. The state prosecutor's initial assessment was that the boy, called Quentin, came from a normal functioning family, and had no criminal or mental health record. However, the child also appeared detached and emotionless. Adept at violent video games, he showed a "fascination with death" and an "absence of reference-points relating to the value of human life". The Nogent attack does not fit the template of anti-social youth crime or gang violence seen in France until now. Nor is there any suggestion of indoctrination over social media. According to the prosecutor, the boy did little of that. He had been violent on two occasions against fellow pupils, and was suspended for a day each time. There is no family breakdown or deprivation and school officials described him as "sociable, a pretty good student, well-integrated into the life of the establishment". This year he had even been named the class "ambassador" on bullying. For all the calls for greater security at schools, this crime took place literally under the noses of armed gendarmes. As Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau put it, some crimes will happen no matter how many police you deploy. For more information on the boy's state of mind, we must wait for the full psychologist's report, and it may well be that there were signs missed, or there are family details we do not yet know about. On the face of it, he is perhaps more a middle-class loner, and his apparent normality suggests a crime triggered by internalised mental processes, rather than by peer-driven association or emulation. That is what strikes the chord in France. If an ordinary boy can turn out like this from watching too many violent videos, then who is next? Significantly, the French government had only just approved showing the British Netflix series Adolescence as an aid in schools. There are differences, of course. The boy arrested for the killing of a teenage girl in the TV series yields to evil "toxic male" influences on social media – but there is the same question of teenagers being made vulnerable by isolation online. Across the political spectrum, there are calls for action but little agreement on what should be the priority, nor hope that anything can make much difference. Before the killing, President Emmanuel Macron had angered the right by saying they were too obsessed with crime, and not sufficiently interested in other issues like the environment. The Nogent attack put him on the back foot, and he has repeated his pledge to ban social media to under 15-year-olds. But there are two difficulties. One is the practicality of the measure, which in theory is being dealt with by the EU but is succumbing to endless procrastination. The other is that, according to the prosecutor, the boy was not especially interested in social media. It was violent video games that were his thing. Prime Minister François Bayrou has said that sales of knives to under-15s will be banned. But the boy took his from home. Bayrou says airport-style metal-detectors should be tested at schools, but most heads are opposed. The populist right wants tougher sentences for teenagers carrying knives, and the exclusion of disruptive pupils from regular classes. But the boy in Nogent was not a problem child. About the only measure everyone says is needed is more provision of school doctors, nurses and psychologists in order to detect early signs of pupils going off the rails. That of course will require a lot of money, which is another thing France does not have a lot of.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
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Reopening a 688-year-old murder case reveals a tangled web of adultery and extortion in medieval England
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. The sun was setting on a busy London street on a May evening in 1337 when a group of men approached a priest named John Forde. They surrounded him in front of a church near Old St. Paul's Cathedral, stabbed him in the neck and stomach, and then fled. Witnesses identified his killers, but just one assailant went to prison. And the woman who might have ordered the brazen and shocking hit — Ela Fitzpayne, a wealthy and powerful aristocrat — was never brought to justice, according to historical records describing the case. Nearly 700 years later, new details have come to light about the events leading up to the brutal crime and the noblewoman who was likely behind it. Her criminal dealings included theft and extortion as well as the murder of Forde — who was also her former lover. Forde (his name also appeared in records as 'John de Forde') could have been part of a crime gang led by Fitzpayne, according to a recently discovered document. The group robbed a nearby French-controlled priory, taking advantage of England's deteriorating relationship with France to extort the church, researchers reported in a study published June 6 in the journal Criminal Law Forum. But the wayward priest may have then betrayed Fitzpayne to his religious superiors. The Archbishop of Canterbury penned a letter in 1332 that the new report also linked to Forde's murder. In the letter, the archbishop denounced Fitzpayne and accused her of committing serial adultery 'with knights and others, single and married, and even with clerics in holy orders.' The archbishop's letter named one of Fitzpayne's many paramours: Forde, who was rector of a parish church in a village on the Fitzpayne family's estate in Dorset. In the wake of this damning accusation, the church assigned Fitzpayne humiliating public penance. Years later, she exacted her revenge by having Forde assassinated, according to lead study author Dr. Manuel Eisner, a professor at the UK's University of Cambridge and director of its Institute of Criminology. This 688-year-old murder 'provides us with further evidence about the entanglement of the clergy in secular affairs — and the very active role of women in managing their affairs and their relationships,' Dr. Hannah Skoda, an associate professor of medieval history in St. John's College at the UK's Oxford University, told CNN in an email. 'In this case, events dragged on for a very long time, with grudges being held, vengeance sought and emotions running high,' said Skoda, who was not involved in the research. The new clues about Forde's murder provide a window into the dynamics of medieval revenge killings, and how staging them in prestigious public spaces may have been a display of power, according to Eisner. Eisner is a cocreator and project leader of Medieval Murder Maps, an interactive digital resource that collects cases of homicide and other sudden or suspicious deaths in 14th century London, Oxford and York. Launched by Cambridge in 2018, the project translates reports from coroners' rolls — records written by medieval coroners in Latin noting the details and motives of crimes, based on the deliberation of a local jury. Jurors would listen to witnesses, examine evidence and then name a suspect. In the case of Forde's murder, the coroner's roll stated that Fitzpayne and Forde had quarreled, and that she persuaded four men — her brother, two servants and a chaplain — to kill him. On that fateful evening, as the chaplain approached Forde in the street and distracted him with conversation, his accomplices struck. Fitzpayne's brother slit his throat, and the servants stabbed Forde in the belly. Only one of the assailants, a servant named Hugh Colne, was charged in the case and imprisoned at Newgate in 1342. 'I was initially fascinated by the text in the coroner's record,' Eisner told CNN in an email, describing the events as 'a dream-like scene that we can see through hundreds of years.' The report left Eisner wanting to learn more. 'One would love to know what the members of the investigative jury discussed,' he said. 'One wonders about how and why 'Ela' convinces four men to kill a priest, and what the nature of this old quarrel between her and John Forde might have been. That's what led me to examine this further.' Eisner tracked down the archbishop's letter in a 2013 dissertation by medieval historian and author Helen Matthews. The archbishop's accusation assigned severe punishments and public penance to Fitzpayne, such as donating large sums of money to the poor, abstaining from wearing gold or precious gems, and walking in her bare feet down the length of Salisbury Cathedral toward the altar, carrying a wax candle that weighed about four pounds. She was ordered to perform this so-called walk of shame every fall for seven years. Though she seemingly defied the archbishop and never performed the penance, the humiliation 'may have triggered her thirst for revenge,' the study authors wrote. The second clue that Eisner unearthed was a decade older than the letter: a 1322 investigation of Forde and Fitzpayne by a royal commission, following a complaint filed by a French Benedictine priory near the Fitzpayne castle. The report was translated and published in 1897 but had not yet been connected to Forde's murder at that point. According to the 1322 indictment, Fitzpayne's crew — which included Forde and her husband, Sir Robert, a knight of the realm — smashed gates and buildings at the priory and stole roughly 200 sheep and lambs, 30 pigs and 18 oxen, driving them back to the castle and holding them for ransom. Eisner said he was astonished to find that Fitzpayne, her husband and Forde were mentioned in a case of cattle rustling during a time of rising political tensions with France. 'That moment was quite exciting,' he said. 'I would never have expected to see these three as members of a group involved in low-level warfare against a French Priory.' During this time in British history, city dwellers were no strangers to violence. In Oxford alone, homicide rates during the late medieval period were about 60 to 75 deaths per 100,000 people, a rate about 50 times higher than what is currently seen in English cities. One Oxford record describes 'scholars on a rampage with bows, swords, bucklers, slings and stones.' Another mentions an altercation that began as an argument in a tavern, then escalated to a mass street brawl involving blades and battle-axes. But even though medieval England was a violent period, 'this absolutely does NOT mean that people did not care about violence,' Skoda said. 'In a legal context, in a political context, and in communities more widely, people were really concerned and distressed about high levels of violence.' The Medieval Murder Maps project 'provides fascinating insights into the ways in which people carried out violence, but also into the ways in which people worried about it,' Skoda said. 'They reported, investigated and prosecuted, and really relied on law.' Fitzpayne's tangled web of adultery, extortion and assassination also reveals that despite social constraints, some women in late medieval London still had agency — especially where murder was concerned. 'Ela was not the only woman who would recruit men to kill, to help her protect her reputation,' Eisner said. 'We see a violent event that arises from a world where members of the upper classes were violence experts, willing and able to kill as a way to maintain power.' Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine. She is the author of 'Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control' (Hopkins Press).
New York Post
15 hours ago
- New York Post
Gold coin collection discovered behind a wall after owner's death sells — for nearly $4 million
All in all, it was hiding behind just another brick in the wall. A collection of rare gold coins nearly lost to history after its owner passed away has fetched nearly $4 million at auction. The gilded stash had been amassed over a lifetime by numismatist Paul Narce, who lived in Castillonnès, France, until his death last year at 89, the Times of London reported. Unknown collector Paul Narce managed to amass a top-notch cache of gold coins that was only discovered after his death. Beaussant Lefèvre and Associates 'I have never seen such a major collection go on sale from the point of view of quantity and quality,' coin expert Thierry Parsy said in a statement ahead of the sale, which went down at the Beaussant Lefèvre auction house in Paris, CNN reported. 'Narce, who lived a modest life and didn't see a lot of the world, spent all of his money on his collection,' said Parsy. His rare prizes were meticulously labeled — the collection reportedly numbered more than a thousand pieces, some dating back centuries. These included pieces from the Kingdom of Macedonia, dating to 336-323 BC, and nearly complete sets of coins exchanged during the reigns of French Kings Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI — including some minted just before the latter's execution by guillotine in 1793. 'Narce, who lived a modest life and didn't see a lot of the world, spent all of his money on his collection,' said Thierry Parsy. Beaussant Lefèvre and Associates Parsy said that Narce clearly 'knew what he was buying,' which seemed unusual given that he was an unknown. In fact, the coin expert said that the treasure trove 'could have remained undiscovered forever' — had the notary in charge of the deceased's estate not heard of Narce's unique hobby from local villagers. The elderly collector had no children or heirs and had moved to a nursing home after his sister Claudette, with whom he collected the coins, passed away a year prior. Along with the aforementioned collection, they found 'masterpieces of gothic art' and ten cloth pouches, each containing 172 'Napoléons' (golden 20 franc coins) — amounting to an ingot of gold. After an extensive search of the property, the notary finally located the treasure chest — hidden behind the picture on the wall of a storage room. The coin collection went under the gavel for an eye-popping $3.8 million, far exceeding the pre-auction estimate of around $2.3 million. Meanwhile, the francs, valued at around $115,650, will be auctioned off separately. The money will reportedly go to distant cousins of Narce. Pierre Sicaud, mayor of Castillonnès, couldn't believe that the senior and his sister had amassed such an incredible collection under the radar. 'They were very polite, very modest people who lived in an ordinary house,' he explained.
