I work in manufacturing here in Louisiana, and we've seen this movie before. In 1990, America made 40 percent of the world's semiconductors. Today it's 12 percent. We let that slip away the same way we let solar panel and battery production slip away — by assuming free markets would sort it out, while China's state-directed economy simply took the ground we gave up. Now Congress has a chance to not repeat that mistake with AI chips, and some in Washington want to weaken expor

Louisiana's refining industry is positioned to be one of the biggest winners as Venezuela's oil sector comes back online. The state's infrastructure was essentially built for this kind of crude, and that head start is now paying off as the Trump administration pushes to ramp up Venezuelan production. The reason Louisiana fits so well is straightforward. Venezuelan oil is heavy and high in sulfur, which means it needs specialized refining equipment that not every Gulf Coast fa

Louisiana officials are betting that SpaceX's new Starbase Louisiana facility in Vermilion Parish will do more than launch rockets, it may fundamentally reshape where people in this state choose to live. Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois says the $100 billion project could push the Lafayette metro area past both New Orleans and Baton Rouge to become the state's largest population center within the next decade or so, a claim she acknowledges sounds bold

Louisiana built its reputation as "Hollywood South" on generous tax incentives that lured movie and TV productions to shoot everywhere from New Orleans streets to the state's bayous and live oaks. Now a new wave of technology, first popularized by "The Mandalorian," is giving the state's film industry a reason to matter well beyond its scenery. When Jon Favreau's Star Wars series debuted in 2019, its production team did something no one had attempted at that scale: they shot