La. senators reject Confederate monument protection bills

BATON ROUGE - Decisions on the fate of Confederate monuments erected in towns and cities around Louisiana will be left to local governments.An effort to make it harder to remove the monuments was spurned Wednesday by state senators.The Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 4-2 to scrap the House-backed bill from Rep. Thomas Carmody, a Shreveport Republican, and a second proposal by Sen. Beth Mizell, a Franklinton Republican.All four senators who voted against the bills were black. Two