Latest news with #TheAcadianaAdvocate
Axios
15-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
Louisiana's tourism leaders concerned about anxious Canadian travelers
Canadians' desire to visit the U.S. is absolutely tanking, new data suggests, and that's bad news for Louisiana. Why it matters: President Trump's tariffs and insistence that Canada should become the 51st American state are fueling a remarkable rally-round-the-flag effect up north. Canadian patriotism is skyrocketing alongside disdain for all things American throughout the Great White North. The big picture: Canada is New Orleans' top market of origin for international visitors by a large margin, according to New Orleans & Co., the city's tourism arm. Walt Leger, the group's president and CEO, tells Axios he's hearing from visitors and travel partners about their "distaste" for the political climate. The city has had some cancellations, but he says those have been isolated so far. It's a "concern," he says, but it's not a trend showing up in the data yet. What he's saying: "We also recognize that sometimes it's hard to know if your phone is not ringing, and I think it's fair to say that based on the sentiment we're hearing, we think that there's probably some slowdown in lead volume and other things," Leger says. Between the lines: New Orleans & Co. hosted a group of Canadian journalists last week in an effort to showcase what the city has to offer. The trip was planned before the tariffs were announced, leaders say. Zoom out: Canada is also Louisiana's top international market, according to the state's tourism office. "I'm hoping these trade wars can be put to bed quickly because it will affect our numbers from Canada," Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser said at a conference last month, according to The Acadiana Advocate. Case in point: Four busloads of Canadian tourists canceled their plans to attend this fall's Grand Réveil Acadien in Lafayette, writes The Acadiana Advocate's Claire Taylor. The Canadians cited political uncertainty as one of the reasons. Threat level: A mere 10% drop in Canadian visitors could cost U.S. businesses as much as $2.1 billion in revenue, according to the U.S. Travel Association. State of play: Advance bookings for Canada-U.S. flights in April-September are down more than 70% compared with this time last year, per aviation data firm OAG. "This sharp drop suggests that travelers are holding off on making reservations, likely due to ongoing uncertainty surrounding the broader trade dispute," writes OAG chief analyst John Grant. Airlines are also reducing transborder capacity — a strong signal that they, too, are seeing (or at least predicting) less demand. Yes, but: At least one airline is calling OAG's data into question. The numbers are "not reflective of Air Canada's booking patterns, nor the state of the market, based on all information sources available to us," an Air Canada spokesperson told travel news site The Points Guy. Yet the spokesperson confirmed there's been a "softening" in demand, and the airline has trimmed capacity accordingly. What we're watching: Reluctance to visit the U.S. this summer may not be a strictly Canadian phenomenon. Go deeper
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Yahoo
Kept in the Dark: Inside the St. Landry Parish Schools Ransomware Attack
Kept in the Dark is an in-depth investigation into more than 300 K-12 school cyberattacks over the last five years, revealing the forces that leave students, families and district staff unaware that their sensitive data was exposed. Use the search feature below to learn how cybercrimes — and subsequent data breaches — have played out in your own community. Here's what we uncovered about a massive attack on the school district in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana. The school district in Louisiana's St. Landry Parish waited five months to notify people that their Social Security numbers and other sensitive information were made public after it fell victim to a July 2023 ransomware attack — long after state law mandates and only after a newspaper investigation prompted an inquiry from the Louisiana attorney general's office. A December 2023 investigation by The 74 and The Acadiana Advocate contradicted school district assertions that no sensitive information about students, employees or business owners had been exposed online after the attack. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Stolen files, the investigation found, include thousands of health insurance records with the Social Security numbers of at least 13,500 people, some 100,000 sales tax records for local and out-of-state companies and several thousand student records, including home addresses and special education status. Four months after the attack, more than a dozen breach victims told reporters they were unaware their information was readily available online. 'They want to brush everything under the rug,' said Heather Vidrine, a former St. Landry teacher whose information was exposed in the breach. 'The districts don't want bad publicity.' Threat actors with the Medusa ransomware gang claimed a cyberattack on the St. Landry school system in July 2023, and the district reported it to the local press and police within days. Cybercriminals published reams of stolen files after the district did not pay its $1 million ransom demand, yet district leaders denied the breach affected sensitive records even after reporters presented them with extensive evidence to the contrary. After notifying state police about the attack, district officials were never told about the nature of the data that was stolen or if anything was stolen at all, Tricia Fontenot, the district's supervisor of instructional technology, said. In the face of cyberattacks, districts routinely hire cybersecurity consultants and attorneys to review the extent to which any sensitive information was exposed and to comply with state data breach notification laws. 'We never received reports of the actual information that was obtained,' she said in November 2023. 'All of that is under investigation. We have not received anything in regards to that investigation.' Just hours after the newspaper investigation revealed the data breach, a consumer protection lawyer with the state attorney general's office was on the phone with the district, questioning them 'directly in response to the article' and informing them of their data breach notification obligations under state law, emails obtained by The Advocate reveal. Under Louisiana's breach notification law, schools and other entities are required to notify affected individuals 'without unreasonable delay,' and no later than 60 days after a breach is discovered. Entities that fail to alert the state attorney general's office within 10 days of notifying affected individuals can face fines up to $4,000 for each day past the 60-day mark. School board attorney Courtney Joiner responded a day later to the attorney general's office, saying they were working 'to address the notice issue without further delay.' In a Dec. 21, 2023, letter, Superintendent Milton Batiste III acknowledged to an undisclosed number of victims that their 'sensitive information may have been obtained by an unknown malicious third-party,' records show. Officials didn't send a formal notice to the AG's office until Jan. 10, 2024. Math teacher Donna Sarver was among the district educators who received the data breach notification. She blasted school leaders for sending the letter 'well after the fact' she and her colleagues had been victimized. 'I really thought it was too little, too late,' she told reporters. 'This should have happened much earlier.' School officials couldn't be reached for comment for this story. This story was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
