No public events: The Louisiana Department of Health will again forgo public flu vaccine events and advertising under Gov. Jeff Landry. Ralph Abraham, the state’s surgeon general, says the agency “won’t do anything” to promote vaccination, marking the second consecutive year the state has departed from a long-standing bipartisan practice of hosting mass flu-shot campaigns. Read more from Louisiana Illuminator.
Closed: Var’s Pizza on Perkins Road, by local restaurateur Chad Hughes, has permanently closed after a little more than a year in business. The reason for the closure is currently unclear. Earlier this year, Hughes’ downtown property—the former City Bar building—was seized after he allegedly failed to repay a nearly $2 million loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Read more from WBRZ-TV.
Services paused: The IRS will furlough just under half of its staff and pause most of the agency’s taxpayer services as gridlock in Congress pushes the government shutdown into its second week. The plan released Wednesday, which calls for about 34,000 workers to be furloughed, represents a sharp departure from the first week of the shutdown. That outline allowed the agency’s 74,299 employees to continue working with pay by using leftover funding from the Biden administration. Read more from Bloomberg. A subscription may be required.
