Louisiana retailers can no longer charge customers extra for using debit cards under a new state law that took effect Saturday, giving consumers new legal protections and expanding the attorney general's authority to enforce the ban.

Senate Bill 254 prohibits retail businesses from imposing a surcharge on customers who pay with a debit card instead of cash, check, credit card or another form of payment.

The law defines a surcharge as any additional amount charged by a retail business that increases the cost of a transaction for the privilege of using a debit card. It does not apply to credit card transactions.

Consumers who are assessed an unlawful debit card surcharge may recover actual damages from the retailer. Before filing a lawsuit, however, the customer must provide written notice of the alleged violation.

If the business reimburses the surcharge and cures the violation within 30 days of receiving notice, the customer may not pursue legal action. The law limits private lawsuits to willful violations, repeated violations or violations that are not corrected within the 30-day cure period.

The measure also authorizes the Louisiana attorney general to bring civil actions against businesses that violate the law.

If successful, the attorney general may recover reasonable attorney fees, court costs and investigative costs. Businesses that violate an administrative or court order issued under the law may face civil penalties of up to $500 for each violation.

Money collected through those penalties will be used by the attorney general's office to support consumer protection and education efforts.

The law also requires the attorney general to establish a toll-free telephone number and an electronic reporting system for consumers to report unlawful debit card surcharges.

Consumers submitting complaints must provide the name and address of the business, the date and amount of the transaction, the amount of the surcharge and documentation, such as a receipt or invoice, showing the charge.

At least three people were killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at an In-N-Out Burger in southern Idaho on Saturday afternoon, according to police.

Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said during a news conference that the suspected gunman was also dead. Authorities are still working to identify the shooter and determine a motive.

“We believe the threat to the community is over,” Hicks said, according to the Associated Press.

He also said investigators had not yet confirmed the total number of people killed or wounded because officials were still notifying victims’ families.

"We have literally hundreds of people that were in some way, shape or form in the area of this restaurant at the time,” Hicks said. “This is an exceptionally chaotic scene, on a Saturday afternoon here in Twin Falls, at one of the busiest locations in all of southern Idaho.”

Before the police briefing, Twin Falls County Commissioner Brent Reinke said Sheriff Jack Johnson had informed him that five people had been injured.

Witness Lane Koehn, 34, said he was stopped at a traffic light near the restaurant when he saw an individual carrying what appeared to be an AR-style rifle come out of the drive-thru area. Koehn said another man, who had a handgun, opened fire on the suspected shooter.

At least three people were killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at an In-N-Out Burger in southern Idaho on Saturday afternoon, according to police.

An unidentified employee was among the people killed. 

Police identified 24-year-old Chad Williams as the gunman. He died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks has said authorities are working to determine a motive.

“We believe the threat to the community is over,” Hicks said on Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

He also said on Saturday that investigators had not yet confirmed the total number of people killed or wounded because officials were still notifying victims’ families.

"We have literally hundreds of people that were in some way, shape or form in the area of this restaurant at the time,” Hicks said. “This is an exceptionally chaotic scene, on a Saturday afternoon here in Twin Falls, at one of the busiest locations in all of southern Idaho.”

Witness Lane Koehn, 34, said he was stopped at a traffic light near the restaurant when he saw an individual carrying what appeared to be an AR-style rifle come out of the drive-thru area. Koehn said another man, who had a handgun, opened fire on the suspected shooter.

Dr. Robert Quinn did not personally know Tony Carruthers, the Tennessee inmate whose execution was called off in May after an attempt, but he's been to Tennessee's Death Row.

Quinn is one of dozens of medical professionals signing a letter asking Gov. Bill Lee to halt executions until the Tennessee Department of Corrections can reform the process.

He began visiting Death Row as part of a ministry with his church and knew people who were very close to Carruthers.

"The fascinating thing is that Death Row is the safest unit in the prison system," Quinn said. "The average stay, at least in Tennessee, is 20 to 30 years, so it becomes a really tight family. So when somebody's killed or executed, it's like you're losing your brother."

Tennessee's next execution is scheduled for Aug. 13, when Anthony Darrell Hines is set to die for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jenkins, a motel maid in Kingston.

Jenkins' daughter spoke to Nashville's WKRN about the effect of Hines continuing appeals 40 years after her mother's murder.

“The criminal gets all of the focus because they are the ones still alive walking around,” Melissa Jenkins told the television station. “Everybody forgets about the victim and the victims’ families.”

Quinn said the person he is assigned in ministry said there is not enough attention paid to the victim's families.

"So the paradigm, the formula is, you kill my son, I get you killed, I'll be fine," Quinn said. "But buried beneath there is a mountain of pain, a mountain of hurt, a mountain of grief that needs to be processed."

Hines' attorneys cite Carruthers' failed execution in their petition for clemency for their client.

"After you wisely paused executions after the botched attempted execution of Oscar Smith, TDOC assured us that corrective action and a new protocol would ensure the competent execution of prisoners. That has not proved true," Hines' attorneys said in their clemency letter to Lee.

TDOC is the acronym for Tennessee Department of Corrections.

Smith was scheduled to be executed in April 2022. Lee paused all executions to review the state's lethal injection protocols. Smith, convicted of murder for killing his estranged wife and her two children, was executed in May 2025.

A survey released this week by the Manhattan Institute, a New York-based public policy research organization focused on urban policy and economic issues, shows that 58% support the death penalty for what are deemed egregious crimes.

Regardless of how doctors feel about the death penalty, the American Medical Association's policy cautions physicians from participating in executions. Physicians are unlikely to lose their licenses if they do, according to Quinn.

"An individual’s opinion on capital punishment is the personal moral decision of the individual," the statement says. "However, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, a physician must not participate in a legally authorized execution."

The doctor involved in Tony Carruthers' attempted execution in May is facing a medical malpractice complaint filed by Carruthers' sister. A primary IV line was already inserted into Carruthers, but medical personnel could not find a required second line for a backup, according to a statement from the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

The American Medical Association's statement can make it difficult to find a "good team" to assist in an execution, according to Quinn.

"The other thing that happens is that as a physician, you dedicate your professional life to preservation and protection and improving," Quinn said. "And then to be asked to step across the line is a tough, moral hurdle to clear."

The Center Square was unsuccessful prior to publication getting comment from Lee. He gave Carruthers a one-year reprieve after Carruthers' failed execution.

"If I could, I would ask Governor Lee to come and spend a Monday night with us in that room," Quinn said. "I would invite him to see the humanity."

Climate and energy analysts say that British publication The Telegraph’s admission that strict climate policies have had a disastrous impact on their nation is “better late than never,” with some welcoming the newspaper to the “reality” that even if a climate crisis existed, humans are powerless to stop it.

President and co-founder of The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow Craig Rucker told The Center Square that “it’s refreshing to finally see the editor of a major British newspaper state the obvious: net zero has been an abysmal failure.”

Rucker said the author of the Telegraph’s article in question, Allister Heath, “gets it right – Britain’s pursuit of this radical Green fantasy has devastated industry, raised costs, and achieved absolutely nothing for the climate.”

“One only wishes this sort of honesty had come years earlier, long before the crippling damage was done,” Rucker said. “But I guess, it's better late than never."

Similarly, director of The Heartland Institute’s Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy Sterling Burnett responded with “Better late than never, I guess” to the news of The Telegraph’s admission.

“The most telling lines come in the opening paragraphs when they admit that net zero is a ‘despicable con,’ and that the attempt to save the world was a ‘futile gambit,’ from the outset,” Burnett told The Center Square.

“Indeed, futile and unnecessary since the Earth abides regardless of human action; data shows that there is no climate crisis and, despite some academics' and elites' hubris, even if there were a crisis, humans couldn't control or prevent it,” Burnett said.

“Green colonialist actions and policies designed by Western elites to control the weather 50 or 100 years from now was an inane, quixotic quest from the start,” Burnett said. “A waste of scarce resources, that could have been put to better use to reduce hunger and disease, from the start.”

“To the Telegraph, I say, welcome to reality - it's about time,” Burnett said.

The Telegraph Media Group has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.

The Telegraph article’s author as well as Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath said that “climate change is real, but Britain can do almost nothing about it.”

“It’s time to accept this sobering reality, cut our losses, cease tilting at (and building) windmills, ditch the despicable con that is net zero, and learn to cope with, and whenever possible, even enjoy, a warmer, drier, more volatile Mediterranean climate, if that is indeed to be our fate,” Heath wrote.

“We have crippled British industry, hammered consumers and pushed the grid to the brink of blackouts, all with no discernible impact on global emissions and the climate,” Heath wrote.

“Hubris has ruined us, a tiny nation accounting for 0.8 per cent of global CO2 emissions from combustible fuels,” Heath wrote. “We were fooled into believing that we could single-handedly lead the way in saving the world, a futile gambit if there ever were one.”

Chairman of the American Lands Council Myron Ebell told The Center Square that “Heath’s wake-up call is almost 20 years too late.”

“It was obvious to anyone paying attention when the Climate Change Act passed the House of Commons in 2008 with only five no votes that the costs would be staggering and the benefits negligible,” Ebells said.