As Louisiana students make big strides in reading, state officials have credited schools’ embrace of the
Schools
Parish were early adopters of the new way to teach reading
St. Charles Parish revamping how kids learn to read
BY ELYSE CARMOSINO Staff writer
Inside a classroom in St. Charles Par-
ish, a group of first graders sit around their teacher as she points to an easel with a large piece of paper titled “READING.” Under it, six steps lay out how to identify a word using its vowels and syllable type.
Today, the group is working on consonant blends, when two or three consonants appear next to one another in a word. The students start by reviewing “S” blends, reciting the words wasp, crisp and clasp
“We’ve got to say that blend to help us read the word correctly,” Toni Dugas, a reading intervention teacher at Norco Elementary School, tells her students.
To an untrained observer, it might have looked like a typical reading lesson. But in fact, it’s a big departure from how reading has been taught in many U.S. schools, where phonics instruction is kept to a minimum and students are encouraged to use context clues to read unfamiliar words.
In sharp contrast the approach used in Dugas’ classroom is based on a body of research known as “the science of reading,” which teaches students to decipher words letter by letter and sound by sound.
This year, national data showed Louisiana led the country in fourth-grade reading gains on a closely watched test and outpaced other states in post-pandemic reading improvement. State education leaders credit the success to a series of
laws and policy changes over the past four years that have pushed Louisiana schools to adopt practices rooted in the science of reading.
It’s an approach that’s gained traction throughout the U.S., with 40 states passing similar policies over the last few years.
St. Charles’ school system has been on the front lines of the shift, having spent years transitioning to methods informed by the science of reading that are meant to systematically teach students how to read words one sound or letter pattern
at a time.
While the process was difficult, Norco staff and teachers say that their students have seen undeniable success, as demonstrated by rising test scores.
The old methods “served us really well at certain times in the past, but now we have more advanced research,” said Assistant Superintendent Erin Granier, who called the new approach “a game changer.” Now “we know how kids learn to read.”
See READING, page 4A
Federal appeals court halts case
Long-running legal challenge to La. execution protocols could be reopened
BY JOHN SIMERMAN Staff writer
A federal appeals court in New Orleans has halted a judge’s decision to reopen a legal challenge to Louisiana’s execution protocols while it considers an opposition from Attorney General Liz Murrill. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a one-sentence order on Monday, issued an administrative stay of U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick’s ruling from last week. Dick ruled Friday in favor of attorneys for death row inmates who are seeking to fend off the first Louisiana execution since 2010. They had asked Dick, a nominee
ä See CASE, page 4A
BY CHRIS MEGERIAN and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump backed Elon Musk’s demand that federal employees explain their recent accomplishments by the end of Monday or risk getting fired, even as government agency officials were told that compliance with Musk’s edict was voluntary Confusion and anger over the situation spawned new litigation and added to turmoil within the federal workforce.
See WORKFORCE, page 5A
Beer sales in stands banned at Cajuns baseball games
Singing hawker left without a job
BY JA’KORI MADISON Staff writer
When it comes to college baseball, it’s hard to beat the fan experience at a Ragin’ Cajuns game at M.L. “Tigue” Moore Field at Russo Park. The fans know the players’ walkup songs. They stand and sing “Centerfield” during the sev-
enth-inning stretch — even when there’s no music. There is also a sense of shared tradition when spectators hear, “Get your cold beer!”
It was Anthony Daniels, known professionally as Moose Harris, who in recent years has been the roving beer salesman in the stands at “The Tigue.” In fact Daniels has traveled throughout colleges in south Louisiana showcasing his talent and selling cold beer for 25 years.
But his time in the stands has come to an end.
In 2024, the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control issued an order prohibiting roving beer sellers at college sporting events.
According to the ATC, the ban is an old policy that is seeing renewed enforcement.
“For an independent concessionaire, it simply allows for the sale of alcohol products, which, again, is a regulated product, within the concession areas,” ATC Commissioner Ernest Legier said in a 2024 interview, noting that state law does not necessarily mention the practice of hawking.
LSU was the first to see the tradition end in 2019 when the Southeastern Conference passed a rule prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages by vendors within the
seating areas. LSU is the only Louisiana school in the SEC.
Legier said enforcement of the rule is a way to limit underage drinking. It’s also about being consistent, he said.
“Our agency ensures that alcohol sales at these facilities are consistent under our practices and are done under the watchful eye of the regulatory authority and service is restricted so we can make sure
See BEER, page 5A
STAFF PHOTOS By DAVID GRUNFELD
‘science of reading.’
in St. Charles
A teacher shows a flashcard to a child on Feb 17 as part of a reading program at Norco Elementary School in Norco.
BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS
Pope resumes some work while still critical
ROME Pope Francis remained in critical condition Monday but showed slight improvement in laboratory tests and resumed some work, the Vatican said, including calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.
The Vatican’s evening bulletin was more upbeat than in recent days, as the 88-year-old Francis battles pneumonia in both lungs at Rome’s Gemelli hospital. It was issued shortly before the Vatican No. 2 led the faithful in a somber nighttime recitation of the Rosary prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
The Argentine pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been hospitalized since Feb. 14 and doctors have said his condition is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and pre-existing lung disease.
But in Monday’s update, they said he hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday, and the supplemental oxygen he is using continued but with a slightly reduced oxygen flow and concentrations The slight kidney insufficiency detected on Sunday was not causing alarm at the moment, doctors said, while saying his prognosis remained guarded.
Jury selection begins in Chicago mass shooting
WAUKEGAN, Ill. — The man accused of opening fire on a suburban Chicago Independence Day parade, killing seven people, is about to stand trial, nearly three years after the attack.
Jury selection started Monday after several delays. Part of the reason is the erratic behavior of the defendant, Robert Crimo III. Opening statements are expected next week.
Authorities said a gunman perched on a roof shot at crowds assembled for a Fourth of July parade in downtown Highland Park, a wealthy suburb 30 miles from Chicago. Seven people were killed in the 2022 shooting, including both parents of a toddler Dozens more were wounded. They ranged in age from their 80s down to an 8-year-old boy who was left partially paralyzed. Unknown illness kills over 50 in Congo
KINSHASA,Congo An unknown illness has killed over 50 people in northwestern Congo, according to doctors on the ground and the World Health Organization on Monday
The interval between the onset of symptoms and death has been 48 hours in the majority of cases, and “that’s what’s really worrying,” Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring center, said. The outbreak began Jan. 21, and 419 cases have been recorded, including 53 deaths. According to the WHO’s Africa office, the first outbreak in the town of Boloko began after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours following hemorrhagic fever symptoms 63 hostages remain in Gaza after latest release
JERUSALEM Hamas freed six Israelis on Saturday in the last scheduled release of living hostages by the militant group under the current stage of a ceasefire agreement with Israel. In all, a total of 33 Israelis are being freed during this stage — including eight who are dead. Five Thai hostages have also been freed separately Sixty-three hostages, including the body of a soldier held since 2014, remain in Gaza. The remains of four Israeli hostages have been returned in a transfer that was marred when Hamas handed over the wrong body for Shiri Bibas, an Israeli mother of two young boys abducted by militants. After a tense standoff, her remains were returned and iden-
tified early Saturday
The final four sets of remains are expected to be returned in the coming days.
U.S. splits with European allies
Trump refuses to blame Russia for Ukraine war in U.N. votes
BY EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS In a dramatic shift in transatlantic relations under President Donald Trump, the United States split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in votes on three U.N. resolutions Monday seeking an end to the three-year war
In the U.N. General Assembly, the U.S. joined Russia in voting against a Europe-backed Ukrainian resolution that calls out Moscow’s aggression and demands an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops.
The U.S. then abstained from voting on its own competing resolution after Europeans, led by France, succeeded in amending it to make clear Russia was the aggressor The voting was taking place as Trump was hosting French President Emmanuel Macron in Washington. It was a major setback for the Trump administration in the 193-member world body, whose resolutions are not legally binding but are seen as a barometer of world opinion.
The U.S. then pushed for a vote on its original draft in the more powerful U.N. Security Council, where resolutions are legally binding and it has veto power along with Russia, China, Britain and France. The vote in the 15-member council was 10-0 with five countries abstaining, all from Europe.
The dueling resolutions reflect the tensions that have emerged be-
tween the U.S. and Ukraine after Trump suddenly opened negotiations with Russia in a bid to quickly resolve the conflict. They also underscore the strain in the transatlantic alliance over the Trump administration’s engagement with Moscow European leaders were dismayed that they and Ukraine were left out of preliminary talks last week.
In escalating rhetoric, Trump has called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator,” falsely accused Kyiv of starting the war and warned that he “better move fast” to negotiate an end to the conflict or risk not having a nation to lead. Zelenskyy responded by saying Trump was living in a Russianmade “disinformation space.”
Trump’s meeting with Macron will be followed by a visit on Thursday from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, key U.S. allies who were in lockstep with Washington on Ukraine just over a month ago. They now find themselves on opposite sides on the best pathway for the UN to call for an end to the war
In Monday’s first vote, the General Assembly approved the Ukrainian resolution 93-18 with 65 abstentions. The result showed some diminished support for Ukraine, because previous assembly votes saw more than 140 nations condemn Russia’s aggression and demand an immediate withdrawal.
The assembly then turned to the U.S.-drafted resolution, which acknowledges “the tragic loss of life throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict” and “implores a swift end to the conflict and further urges a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia,” but never mentions Moscow’s aggression. In a surprise move, France proposed three amendments, backed by more than European countries, which add that the conflict was the result of a “full-scale invasion of
ASSOCIATED
Correctional officers and their supporters demonstrate Monday in sight of Coxsackie Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley in Coxsackie, N.y.
Illegal prison guard strike stretches into second week in N.Y.
BY MICHAEL HILL, CEDAR ATTANASIO and JAKE OFFENHARTZ Associated Press
COXSACKIE, N.Y A wildcat strike by guards at New York’s prisons, now in its second week, is fueling fears over deteriorating conditions behind bars.
A 61-year-old inmate died over the weekend at one of the prisons where National Guard troops were deployed to replace corrections officers who walked off the job. Jonathon Grant, who was serving a 34- to 40year sentence for rape and burglary, was pronounced dead Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell at the Auburn Correctional Facility, state officials said. It wasn’t clear if the prison’s staffing situation was a factor in Grant’s death. State officials didn’t immediately release information about his health history. A medical examiner will determine the cause of death, state prison system spokesperson Thomas Mailey said The public defender’s office that provided legal counsel to Grant expressed concern that the walkout by guards had disrupted inmate medical care.
“Since the strike began, Legal Aid has received dozens of reports from incarcerated clients across New York State about their inability to access critical
medical care and essential prescriptions, including blood pressure medication and necessary insulin shots,” said The Legal Aid Society “This tragic incident highlights the dangers posed by the ongoing strike, as staff in over 40 prisons refuse to fulfill their duties.”
Guards at state prisons began walking out a week ago in a job action that was not approved by union officials, who acknowledge that it violates a state law barring strikes by most public employees.
New York Gov Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, deployed National Guard troops to prisons to maintain order.
A judge ordered the striking officers back to work last week, but the workers didn’t budge.
Isaiah Waters, an inmate at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, said in a phone interview that his cell block has been on lockdown for a week, with four National Guard officers assigned to his 57-person dorm along with members of a correctional emergency response unit.
“The tension is building up. I’ve never seen it like this,” said Waters, who is 37 and has been incarcerated since he was 19. “There’s no programming, no religious services, you can’t send mail or get visitors. We’re not used to being around each other for this many hours day in and day out.”
Ukraine by the Russian Federation.” The amendments reaffirm the assembly’s commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity, and call for peace that respects the U.N. Charter Russia also proposed an amendment calling for “root causes” of the conflict to be addressed. All the amendments were approved and the resolution passed 93-8 with 73 abstentions, with Ukraine voting “yes,” the U.S. abstaining, and Russia voting “no.” Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa said her country is exercising its “inherent right to self-defense” following Russia’s invasion, which violates the U.N. Charter’s requirement that countries respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations.
“As we mark three years of this devastation Russia’s full invasion against Ukraine — we call on all nations to stand firm and to take the side of the Charter, the side
of humanity and the side of just and lasting peace, peace through strength,” she said Trump has often stated his commitment to bringing “peace through strength.”
U.S. deputy ambassador Dorothy Shea, meanwhile, said multiple previous U.N. resolutions condemning Russia and demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops “have failed to stop the war,” which “has now dragged on for far too long and at far too terrible a cost to the people in Ukraine and Russia and beyond.”
“What we need is a resolution marking the commitment from all U.N. member states to bring a durable end to the war,” Shea said.
The General Assembly has become the most important U.N. body on Ukraine because the 15-member Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, has been paralyzed by Russia’s veto power AP diplomatic writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
Syrians express hope, skepticism as national dialogue conference kicks off
BY GHAITH ALSAYED and OMAR ALBAM Associated Press
DAMASCUS A longawaited national dialogue conference intended to help chart Syria’s political future after the fall of former President Bashar Assad kicked off Monday in Damascus.
The conference had been one of the chief pledges by the country’s new rulers, former rebels who took power in a military offensive but have since promised an inclusive political transition. Its results will be closely watched by both Syrians and the international community including countries still weighing whether to lift sanctions imposed during Assad’s authoritarian rule.
The main session will be Tuesday, with participants holding workshops to discuss transitional justice, the structure of a new constitution, reforming and building institutions, personal freedoms, the role of civil society and the country’s economy The outcome of the national dialogue will be nonbinding recommendations to the country’s new leaders.
Plans for the conference — which had been promised by the country’s new authorities in the immediate aftermath of Assad’s fall in a lightning rebel offensive in December — had been in flux up until the last minute.
The date of the conference was announced on Sunday, one day before it was to start.
Two days before that announcement, Hassan al-Daghim, spokesperson for the committee organizing the national dialogue, had said the date of the conference had not been set and the timing was “up for discussion by the citizens.” He also said the number of partici-
pants had not been determined yet and might range from 400 to 1,000.
On Monday, officials said 600 people had been invited.
Al-Daghim called the conference a “historic event.”
“It’s something wonderful in itself for the Syrians to be able to speak their opinion without being afraid and without repression by security forces” as was the case under Assad’s
rule, he said.
Conference participant Iman Shahoud, a judge from Hama, said she considers the conference “the day of true victory because you can see in front of you all the sects and components of the Syrian people are present, women and men.”
“This is a day that the Syrian people have been waiting for a long time,” she said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25 at U.N. headquarters.
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Until recently, St. Charles schools — like many across Louisiana and the country taught students to read using a method called “balanced literacy,” where teachers give short lessons on reading skills, then students spend a lot of time reading on their own If students come across a word they don’t recognize, they’re encouraged to guess the meaning using context clues or pictures — a strategy called “cueing.”
“You might have a book that would say, ‘The ball is red,’ but the picture would have a red ball, so the student wouldn’t even need to read ‘red’ or ‘ball,’” said Ada Webre, who oversees literacy coaches in St. Charles schools.
Balanced literacy has come under attack in recent years, with experts and educators saying it’s left many students without basic reading skills. In 2022, Louisiana lawmakers banned schools from teaching the cueing strategy
As balanced literacy fell out of favor, alternative approaches based on the science of reading have been on the rise.
Based on research into how the brain develops the ability to read, students learn how to connect sounds to letters and about the different sounds produced by letter combinations, while also studying vocabulary and practicing reading aloud.
The sounds and skills are taught in order, beginning with the component parts of words.
“It’s like building a house, building that foundation,” said Cheney Murray, a longtime first grade teacher in St. Charles. “If a child doesn’t understand the ‘ch’ sound, when they get to a word that uses it, they can’t do anything.”
Louisiana began requiring schools to adopt practices based on the science of reading in 2021.
Teachers now must take intensive training courses and school districts need to provide teachers in grades K-3 with literacy coaches who can offer on-site training,
demonstrate lessons and provide feedback. Schools now give a reading assessment to students in grades K-2 three times each year and, beginning this spring, third graders who don’t hit state targets on the assessments can be held back.
Unlike balanced literacy the new approach is based on decades of research.
“It’s a collection of insights and principles based on replicable, peer-reviewed evidence from studies that go back 40 years,” said Maryanne Wolf, a child-literacy researcher and advocate. As the new methods take hold in more schools, “there’s a good feeling that we’re really moving the dial, and the studies show that.”
Changes bring tears
Years before Louisiana began to push for literacy reforms, teachers in St. Charles Parish sought ways to help their youngest students, whose reading scores had lagged.
District leaders knew something needed to change, but they also knew it wouldn’t be easy Some of their educators had been using the old methods to teach reading for decades.
“It was hard,” said Granier, the district’s assistant superintendent. “Lots of tears, lots of anger.”
Granier said she understood teachers’ reluctance to abandon a style of reading instruction that many had built their careers around.
“It becomes your belief system,” she said. “We took that away from teachers, and they didn’t have an identity anymore.”
But it didn’t take long for everyone to get on board when they began to see results, she added.
One person who embraced the new methods was Tiffany Webre, Ada Webre’s daughter who is a second grade teacher at Norco Elementary
On a recent morning, her students gathered on a rug in the center of the room, looking up at a smartboard that displayed a lowercase, upside down “e.”
“Remind me what sound this makes,” Tiffany Webre said to the class as she motioned to the board “Schwa,” the students responded.
prisoner with an execution date, 81-year-old Christopher Sepulvado, died over the weekend.
After a short lesson where students called out words that use the “schwa” sound, the children split into pairs to do worksheet activities where they identified letter combinations needed to make different sounds. Depending on each pair’s skill level, some worksheets only included individual words while others featured phrases or full paragraphs.
An important part of the activity is getting students to read the words out loud, explained Principal Shannon Diodene.
“They’re reading to each other, and over the course of the year, they learn how to give feedback,” she said “It’s really just building their fluency.”
The reading assessments that Louisiana schools must give younger students throughout the year help identify the ones who are falling behind.
In St. Charles Parish, those students are pulled into a daily, half-hour-long reading “intervention” where a special instructor guides a small group through the day’s lesson, giving each student one-on-one attention. When they return to the classroom, they’re able
to jump back into the next lesson without interruption.
One teacher described it as a “well-oiled machine.”
Before, “we were asking our most at-risk kids to learn two whole different processes of reading,” Ada Webre said. “What they taught in the classroom didn’t always match what they taught in intervention.”
The district’s yearslong shift to the new reading approach appears to be paying off.
of former President Barack Obama, to revive a long-dormant federal lawsuit over the ways that Louisiana kills its condemned.
When the suit was first filed in 2012, Louisiana only allowed executions by lethal injection Dick dismissed the case in 2022 after then-Attorney General Jeff Landry argued it was moot, as the state was unable to get the lethal injection drugs and was not executing anyone.
Dick’s decision, however, allowed the plaintiffs to refile the case if circumstances changed.
Landry became governor last year and helped engineer an expansion of execution methods to include electrocution and nitrogen gas. Landry recently announced that the state was ready to resume executions with a new protocol for lethal gas, which corrections officials have declined to release to the public.
Judges have signed execution warrants for three death row prisoners so far
A judge revoked the first one, and a second death row
That leaves a March 18 date for an execution by nitrogen gas for Jessie Hoffman of New Orleans Hoffman was 18 when he raped and then killed a woman named Mary “Molly” Elliott on a remote dock in St. Tammany Parish. Hoffman is now 46, having spent most of his life on death row. Collin Sims, the district attorney in St. Tammany and Washington parishes, requested the warrant.
Murrill argues that Dick got it wrong when she reopened the challenge to the state’s execution methods, because there were no “extraordinary circumstances” to justify it.
Murrill also argued that Dick’s ruling sets a bad precedent for other challenges to the constitutionality of Louisiana laws in the district.
She called it “extraordinarily important to Louisiana” to overturn Dick’s ruling “before it becomes a playbook for resurrecting long-dead cases simply because there was a legislative change in law.”
“I’m grateful that the 5th
Circuit has swiftly intervened and blocked this order,” Murrill said Monday Cecelia Kappel of the Loyola Center for Social Justice representing Hoffman and other death row prisoners, wrote in a response that Murrill’s argument was “disingenuous and callous.”
“The state is trying to make Jessie Hoffman a test case of a brand-new method of execution without any judicial review,” Kappel said in a phone interview
“The attorney general’s filing is just part of what I see as a plan to execute under cover of darkness without any court looking at it.”
The panel of appeals court judges included Catharina Haynes, a nominee of former President George W. Bush; and two nominees of President Donald Trump, James Ho and Andrew Oldham.
Dick’s ruling came in response to a request that advocates first made last summer, after the law went into effect allowing a menu of execution options to help jump-start Louisiana’s execution chamber
“This case has always been about Louisiana’s execution protocol,” Dick wrote. “It is
still about Louisiana’s execution protocol. And
is an actionable case and controversy.”
“They’re able to read things that they’ve never been able to read before,” Granier said. “It’s just amazing.”
Email Elyse Carmosino at ecarmosino@theadvocate. com.
In 2023, 61% of the school’s third graders tested at benchmark or above on state literacy assessments. The following year that number rose to 76%, and the latest midyear scores suggest the progress has continued.
What he’s doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?’” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. “And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist.”
The Republican president said Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud” as he suggested that federal paychecks are going to nonexistent employees. He did not present evidence for his claims.
But even as Trump and Musk pressed their case, the Office of Personnel Management informed agency leaders that their workforces were not required to respond by the deadline of 11:59 p.m. Monday, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The conflicting directives led to a proliferation of varying advice for federal employees, depending on where they work. Some were told to answer the request for five things that they did last week, others were informed it was optional, and others were directed not to answer
There are also signs Musk is testing the limits of his influence. Some administration officials — including some of Trump’s most strident allies, such as FBI Director Kash Patel — have told employees not to respond to the email requesting five things they did, citing privacy or security concerns and noting that agencies have their own processes for evaluating employees.
“When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now please pause any responses,” Patel wrote in an email.
where,” he posted on X, his social media platform.
The latest turbulence began over the weekend, when Trump posted on his social media website, “ELON IS DOING A GREAT JOB, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM GET MORE AGGRESSIVE.”
Musk followed by saying “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” and he claimed “failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” The directive echoed how he has managed his own companies.
tial and sensitive nature of the Department’s work.” But employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington were instructed to respond “in general terms,” leaving out case-specific or otherwise sensitive information. In an email viewed by The Associated Press, attorneys were provided with guidance about how to respond about the number of court hearings they attended, defendants they charged, cases they resolved or other tasks.
that underage individuals aren’t getting their hands on these products,” Legier said Although the ATC law book does not specifically mention the practice of beer roving, Legier, said, “In very limited circumstances, we as an agency have applied the idea of hawking or someone walking around selling beer But, as a public safety issue, the agency is more restrictive in venues
at all.
Meanwhile, attorneys representing unions businesses, veterans and conservation organizations filed an updated lawsuit in federal court in California on Monday, arguing Musk had violated the law by threatening mass firings.
The lawsuit spearheaded by the State Democracy Defenders Fund, called it “one of the most massive employment frauds in the history of this country.”
Anna Kelly, a White House deputy press secretary, criticized the litigation by saying “in the time it took these employees on taxpayer-funded salaries to file a frivolous lawsuit, they could have briefly recapped their accomplishments to their managers, as is common in the private sector, 100 times over.”
where there are likely to be more underaged individuals which you would assume are at a college venue.”
This has left beer hawkers like Daniels feeling a sense of displacement.
“Beer hawkers were part of an immersive experience at sports games that people enjoyed and I enjoyed entertaining them. We provided an experience in the stands while they watched the game on the field. And now that aspect is being taken away,” he said His love for entertaining and interacting with the
Musk is leading Trump’s efforts to overhaul and downsize the federal government They’ve urged employees to resign, directed agencies to lay off probationary workers and halted work at some agencies altogether There has been pushback in protests around Washington and from within the government. The Office of Special Counsel, a watchdog for the federal workforce, said Monday that the firing of several probationary workers may be illegal. Trump is trying to fire the office’s leader, Hampton Dellinger, in a case that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court Dellinger asked the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board to stop layoffs of six employees, but suggested that many more workers should also be protected from losing their jobs.
public, in combination with financial stability were some of the reasons he first fell in love with beer hawking in 1999. Originally from New Iberia, Daniels moved to New Orleans to attend UNO in the ’90s to study music. During his time at UNO, he came across an ad in The Times-Picayune that was looking for beer hawkers and jumped at the idea. He discovered it was a way to earn money using his passion for singing, dancing and performing for sports fans.
It has been the most significant public divergence between the billionaire entrepreneur and Senate-approved Cabinet leaders who have otherwise been enthusiastic about fulfilling Musk’s objectives.
Trump dismissed the idea there was any kind of split involving his most powerful adviser
“They don’t mean that in any way combatively with Elon,” he said, adding that “everyone thought it was a pretty ingenious idea.”
The Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency for the federal government, declined to comment Monday while Musk continued to threaten layoffs.
“Those who do not take this email seriously will soon be furthering their career else-
“This is why I was so good at beer hawking. I mean, it’s a situation where people want be entertained every second and I did that naturally,” Daniels said. For him, the stands were his stage.
“Even if I entertained them for two minutes while selling, it is how I connected so well with people and became more noticed by recurring fans. I’d rap, sing, or even call people to dance,” he said.
Daniels moved from New Orleans back to Acadiana in 2022, after he said business
The Office of Personnel Management sent out its own request afterward.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” the message said. However, it said nothing about the potential for employees being fired for noncompliance.
There was swift resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the president’s loyalists — including the State Department, Homeland Security and the Pentagon — which instructed their employees over the weekend not to respond. Lawmakers in both major political parties said Musk’s mandate may be illegal.
Justice Department employees were told in an email Monday morning that they don’t need to respond to the request “due to the confiden-
slowed down because of the pandemic. He found a home at University of Louisiana at Lafayette sporting events, where fans embraced him. That all ended in 2024, when the ATC issued its ruling.
Although hawking of nonalcoholic beverages are still allowed at college events, Daniels said he will be without a job this season after his employer in February said “they were no longer allowed to walk anymore.” Daniel is employed by DJC Concessions, a subcontractor of Sodexo. Sodexo has not responded to que-
Education Department workers were directed to comply on Monday morning. “The email is legitimate and employees should respond,” wrote Rachel Oglesby chief of staff at the department She added that “frontline supervisors will evaluate responses and non-responses.” Thousands of government employees have been forced out of the federal workforce either by being fired or through a “deferred resignation offer during the first month of Trump’s second term. There’s no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs, but the AP has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside Washington.
It’s not clear how many Louisiana-based federal employee have been fired. But employees at several federal agencies who live or work in the state have said they lost their job in recent days.
ries about why it ended the hawking of nonalcoholic beverages and food items. Always working as an independent artist in his spare time, Daniels said he will now refocus his time on his music and his online business, A Cat Named Moose, where he sells apparel, home goods and accessories. “This has impacted me on a emotionally and financially,” he said. “But I hope I made enough impact on those that knew me and Moose Harris will be seen again whether that’s through my music or art.”
Grammy-winning singer Roberta Flack dies at 88
BY HILLEL ITALIE
AP national writer
NEW YORK Roberta Flack, the Grammy-winning singer and pianist whose intimate vocal and musical style made her one of the top recordings artists of the 1970s and an influential performer long after, died Monday She was 88 She died at home surrounded by her family, publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement. Flack announced in 2022 she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing. Little known before her early 30s, Flack became an overnight star after Clint Eastwood used “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” as the soundtrack for one of cinema’s more memorable and explicit love scenes, between the actor and Donna Mills in his 1971 film “Play Misty for Me.” The hushed, hymn-like ballad, with Flack’s graceful soprano afloat on a bed of soft strings and piano, topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and received a Grammy for record of the year “The record label wanted to have it re-recorded with a
faster tempo, but he said he wanted it exactly as it was,” Flack told The Associated Press in 2018. “With the song as a theme song for his movie, it gained a lot of popularity and then took off.”
In 1973, she matched both achievements with “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” becoming the first artist to win consecutive Grammys for best record.
A classically trained pianist so gifted she received a full scholarship at age 15 to Howard, the historically Black university, Flack was discovered in the late 1960s by jazz musician Les McCann, who later wrote that “her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known.” Flack was versatile enough to summon the up-tempo gospel passion of Aretha Franklin, but she favored a more measured and reflective approach, as if curating a song word by word. Overall, she won five Grammys (three for “Killing Me Softly”), was nominated eight other times and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2020, with John Legend and Ariana Grande among those praising her “I love that connection to other artists because we understand music, we live music, it’s our language,” Flack told songwriteruniverse.
com in 2020. “Through music we understand what we are thinking and feeling. No matter what challenge life presents, I am at home with my piano, on a stage, with my band, in the studio, listening to music. I can find my way when I hear music.”
In 2022, Beyoncé placed Flack, Franklin and Diana Ross among others in a special pantheon of heroines name-checked in the Grammy-nominated “Queens Remix” of “Break My Soul.” Flack was briefly married to Stephen Novosel, an interracial relationship that led to tension with each of their families, and earlier had a son, the singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright. For years, she lived in Manhattan’s Dakota apartment building, on the same floor as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who became a close friend and provided liner notes for a Flack album of Beatles covers, “Let It Be Roberta.” She also devoted extensive time to the Roberta Flack School of Music, based in New York and attended mostly by students between ages 6 to 14. “I wanted to be successful, a serious all-round musician,” Flack told The Telegraph in 2015. “I listened to a lot of Aretha, the Drifters, trying to do some of that myself, playing, teaching.”
Jan Risher
LOUISIANA AT LARGE
Believing in something bigger
When Carolin Purser invited me to attend the 30th Plain Talk About Literacy and Learning, an annual New Orleans gathering of literacy experts and educators, my reaction was, “This should be interesting.”
The three-day event, presented by the Louisiana-based Center for Literacy and Learning, took place at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside on Feb. 12-14 More than 3,000 people attended I was there for the first day and listened to several standing-room-only presentations alongside educators hanging on every word of the latest thinking on how to teach students to read more proficiently
The point of the gathering is near and dear to my heart My mom was an elementary reading teacher for 40 years, and I grew up listening to her talk about literacy research.
She created a home and countless classrooms that fostered a love of reading. Should you meet one of thousands of her former students, long grown, most will recall which book Mrs. Risher read to their class. Titles such as “Johnny Tremain,” “Old Yeller” and “Where the Red Fern Grows” were favorites.
My mom was famous for crying in the sad parts, a technique not mentioned in the Plain Talk sessions I attended.
On the day I was there, attendees had the chance to hear a keynote address and 42 breakout sessions. Presentations covered a broad range of topics. I attended several, including:
n “Design of Explicit Instruction: High Leverage Practices that Promote Learning” with Anita Archer, whom Purser described to me as “worldrenowned.” I shared some of her techniques with my daughter a 23-year-old first-year teacher
n “Pressing the Reset Button on Spelling” with Lyn Stone, from whom I learned tidbits on new ways to think about spelling
n “Robust Vocabulary Instruction: Learning Words Inside and Out” with Nancy Frey I appreciated her different techniques for vocabulary acquisition that I had never considered.
Attendees rushed into hotel ballrooms to grab a seat for these presentations like they were going to a Taylor Swift concert Stone’s spelling presentation included points like:
n “Fluent reading and writing is one of the chief goals of primary education. Phonics can only cover so much.”
n “Good spellers use mnemonics of all kinds to build schemas about the writing system. Teaching practice needs to include these.” As a relatively good speller, I couldn’t agree more.
However, I was not a great speller growing up — mnemonics have helped save me time and again through the years A college professor named Dr MaryAnn Dazey at Mississippi State helped me realize mnemonics’ value. Dazey would say things like:
n “There is a ‘rat’ in ‘separate.’”
n “A ‘cess’ pool is ‘necessary.’” I’ve picked up others on my own:
n “Cemetery” is spelled with three e’s. A lady may scream “e-ee” as she walks past the cemetery
n “Complement” adds something to make it enough. “Compliment” puts you in the limelight.
n I associate the word parallel with the number 121. There is one R, two Ls and then one more L Person after person I met at the convention sang the praises of Louisiana educators using databacked research to raise literacy rates significantly In January, on an assessment known as the “nation’s report card,” data was
Coastal restoration feelings surveyed
Views across regions differ, but demand for action widespread
BY JOSIE ABUGOV Staff writer
Land in coastal Louisiana is disappearing at some of the highest rates in the world, and the state is investing billions of dollars into projects to address it.
But how do the communities living with this crisis feel about these efforts? What do people know about the projects’ impacts, especially years after they break ground? Researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette wanted to find out.
Professors Liz Skilton and Anna Osland had already studied how
the decline in community engagement after restoration work begins has limited understanding of the long-term impact on coastal communities. Their two new articles, published in different coastal journals in December and January, sought to address this gap.
“I think it ended up producing some really unique results that captured the experience of Louisiana’s coastal restoration projects,” Skilton said. “So we’re involved with them, we know about them, but maybe we don’t think about them in our everyday.”
Community knowledge and
engagement is likely to become more important as the state faces severe funding shortages for coastal restoration in the years ahead. While people live near some of these projects, much of the work requires a boat to access, Osland noted. Many residents hadn’t seen the completed restoration project in their backyard, even if they were engaged in its planning. After traveling to projects across the state and conducting interviews with volunteer community members, the research team found that people in different areas of Louisiana hold vary-
ing views on land loss solutions, but there is “significant demand for action” in all coastal regions. They also found that people’s personal history — such as enduring devastating storms — shaped their views on restoration projects.
While these studies looked at the perspectives of Louisianans who may lack scientific expertise, the professors said that the research has policy implications. Skilton and Osland are both researchers at the Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Public Policy Center at UL, and they collaborated with the coalition Restore the Mississippi River
Artist Adrian Fulton works on paintings to be auctioned off at the fundraiser.
BAyOU BIDDING
Former state Sen. Fred Mills acts as the auctioneer at the Bayou Teche Museum’s gala fundraiser held recently in the museum and at the Sliman Theatre in New Iberia. Patrons bid on numerous auction items and sampled the cuisine of area restaurant chefs. The newly renovated Doc Voorhies Wing was opened and the art exhibit ‘Celebrating the Legacy of Past Artists’ was on display
Citgo Petroleum Corp. agrees to pay $160K fine Settlement reached in 200 alleged violations
BY DAVID J MITCHELL Staff writer
Citgo Petroleum Corp. has agreed to a $160,000 fine in a proposed settlement with state regulators to end more than 200 alleged violations from air emissions and other issues at its Lake Charles-area oil refinery between 2017 to 2021. The alleged violations at the 2,000-acre complex along the Calcasieu River include an accidental but preventable leak of 662 pounds of the human carcinogenic benzene in August 2018 and a September 2018 crude oil leak triggered by corrosion in a storage tank’s floating roof, state settlement and compliance docu-
ments say Though contained in a diked-off area around the tank, the oil spill emitted hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic volatile organic compounds evaporating from the exposed oil, compliance documents say The proposed fine from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality is only the latest from state and federal regulators over air and water quality failures in recent years that have already cost millions of dollars in fines for the economically important complex south of Interstate 10 in Sulphur and Westlake. Under a U.S. Department of Justice settlement in 2021, the company agreed to pay $19.7 million for a 2006 spill of millions of gallons of waste oil and industrial wastewater into the Calcasieu River and its broader estuary during a heavy four-day rain event. The latest settlement was made
public in late January, remains in a required 45-day public comment period and still needs approval from the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office. If the deal is approved, under the standard terms of such agreements, Citgo would admit to none of the exceedances and other potential violations that it self-reported to DEQ, but they could be considered in future permitting and enforcement actions. With more than 1,000 direct workers, the 463,000-barrel-perday oil refinery is a top 10 employer and property taxpayer in Calcasieu Parish. Making gasoline, jet fuel, butane and many other products, the refinery is the nation’s seventh-largest. It is tied into a vast pipeline network and has access to the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump recently unilaterally renamed the Gulf of America through an executive order
The refinery is the flagship for Citgo, an arm of the Venezuelan state oil company worth billions of dollars that is poised this year to be sold in a debt auction overseen by a federal judge in Delaware, according to RBN Energy LLC. DEQ officials did not return a request for comment on Friday In the settlement document, they say the deal was reached to avoid the cost of litigation and was determined based on the agency’s standard rubric for fines. Confirming the settlement, Citgo representatives said the company operates “in a way that is protective of people and the environment.”
“Citgo is committed to continuous improvement in our environmental and safety performance. We regularly review and improve our processes and procedures and maintain equipment to ensure
CITGO, page
PHOTOS By LEE BALL
Be a good neighbor, not a selfish Chad, at parades
Parade routes are not only public property, they’re communal spaces where the magic of the Carnival season happens — not just the joy of catching coveted throws, but also the delightful lagniappe of sharing the fun with friends and strangers alike.
Increasingly in recent years, however, selfish revelers have tried to make these spaces their own, furnishing decked-out encampments with tarps, elaborate tents and even living room furniture, a trend that too often changes the vibe from “we” to “me.”
We applauded new rules passed by the New Orleans City Council last year to crack down on the so-called “Krewe of Chad,” a nickname inspired by a particularly obnoxious spraypainted claim of neutral ground territory some years ago. And we also understand that this year, things are different. Following the Jan. 1 terror attack on Bourbon Street and the elevation of Carnival to SEAR 1 status, a heightened special event security designation that requires extensive federal support and coordination, the council acknowledged this season’s altered reality by giving the New Orleans Police Department discretion over whether and how to enforce the new law We know that law enforcement agencies across the state are working hard to make sure that everyone has a safe and happy Carnival. They prepare for months, trying to anticipate potential problems.
But we also know that in many areas, they’re strapped as well as they try to keep an eye out for unforeseen threats.
So here’s a thought for those heading out to parade routes in New Orleans and all over the state during the peak week of celebrations: What if everyone decided to follow the rules anyway, not because they could get cited but because it’s the neighborly thing to do?
There’s even a cheat sheet for what that would entail, which New Orleans officials are posting in prominent spots all along the parade route. They explain that portable toilets not provided by the city are banned. So are “enclosures of any kind” such as tents, canopies, shelters, screens, awnings, ropes, spray paint open flames, generators, upholstered furniture, scaffolding and platforms. The signs also spell out rules for ladders, which must be no taller than 6 feet, free-standing rather than fastened together and positioned at least 6 feet back from the curb.
These signs are meant to clear up any confusion over what’s allowed if a dispute arises among parade-goers, or if law enforcement officials see fit to use their discretion to enforce the rules.
They also offer a list of common-sense guidelines for peaceful coexistence rules for parade route etiquette, if you will — which we wholly endorse.
If Emily Post had ever experienced the wonders of Carnival in Louisiana, we think she would endorse them too.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’s city of residence The Advocate | The Times-Picayune require a street address and phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@ theadvocate.com. TO SEND USA LETTER, SCAN HERE
Fight to charge N.Y. doctor for abortion misses point
This letter is in response to the article on the indictment of a New York doctor for prescribing abortion pills and the arrest of the mother for administering them to her pregnant teenage daughter I agree that the law must be followed. However, I take issue with the absence of charges and an indictment against the male sperm donor Who impregnated a teenage girl? We all know that women and girls cannot biologically self-impregnate.
This is the glaring hole in today’s abortion laws: The sperm donors are never prosecuted for the abortion of the children they conceive.
Rapists and pedophiles are getting away with soul murder They are getting away with conceiving children and then abandoning them. They are not held responsible for their conceived children being aborted. Our politicians’ pat response is, “We castrate them.”
I have no problem with castration. Ask any rancher, and they will tell you what to do with a stallion, bull or ram that is wreaking havoc and causing harm — you castrate them.
Our politicians’ declaration, “We castrate them,” is a bluff. They are hucksters selling tickets to a carnival show — it’s all smoke and mirrors.
The castration law in Louisiana and other red states requires rapists and sexual deviants to volunteer for castration it is not and never has been a mandatory sentence.
I would suggest handing the scalpel to a woman who has been raped or to a father whose child has been sodomized that would get results.
It is women, children and medical professionals who are targeted with criminal charges and prison sentences. Abortion laws, as they are today, excuse, deny and ignore the part sperm donors (men) play in this tragedy FOLWELL DUNBAR New Orleans
City should revisit power plant project
The Acadiana Group of the Sierra Club strongly opposes a proposed $400 million loan to build a simplecycle gas turbine peaker plant.
The opposition centers on the flawed 2020 Integrated Resource Plan, which the letter argues uses unreliable demand and natural gas price projections, ignores significant uncertainties in technology and environmental regulations and fails to adequately consider cost-effective alternatives like time-of-day pricing, energy efficiency programs and utility-scale
battery storage. The long-term debt associated with the SCGT plant risks locking Lafayette into obsolete technology and unnecessarily burdens ratepayers for decades.
Ultimately the Sierra Club urges the Lafayette City Council to halt the project, revisit the IRP and explore viable alternatives that prioritize ratepayer savings and adaptability to future energy demands.
ROGER PEAK
Until Saints identify the problem, team will struggle
Amen to Arthur Lecompte for his letter regarding Saints general manager Mickey Loomis being responsible for the team’s failures. I totally agree and have been thinking and saying the very same thoughts that he so perfectly expressed.
I’ve also noticed that former Saints who go on to other teams are now getting to prove their value as essential,
productive team members. They’re doing so much better since they left the Saints. It takes more than just good coaching. We need the good players, too. I really hope that, eventually, wisdom will prevail and the Saints will at least be competitive.
Fear-mongering
What is lost among the overarching vaccination debate is a subtle question about what lives we value relative to others.
I hope it isn’t controversial to view vaccines as a form of preventative medicine. Much like exercise and a healthy diet act as barriers to disease, vaccines are proactive measures to fortify our body While the typical conversation surrounds the right of autonomy, the importance of community and trust (or skepticism) toward medicine, an underlying question often goes ignored: Even if vaccines had some relationship to autism, so what? Is the perceived risk of autism comparatively worse than permanent paralysis? Should I not go to the gym because of the possibility I drop a weight on my foot? That an event occurs and gives me PTSD?
Using immutable human traits to instill fear has been an unfortunately common tool in American human history, and it should always be met with scrutiny This includes the antivaccination’s conclusion that autism is more of a risk to society than the flu, hepatitis B, mumps, measles, Rubella, cervical cancer tetanus, cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, COVID-19 and the list goes on.
JACOB BLAIS
Don’t ignore signals, signs from Trump administration
Lafayette The United States is poised to take over the Gaza strip, Panama, Greenland and Canada. It’s no wonder our vice president once said, “Trump is America’s Hitler.” And in case there was any doubt, he even had his righthand brain do the Roman salute at his inauguration.
KATHY VERRET Hammond
I wish the Greatest Generation was still around to tell us again where this inevitably leads. Pay attention to reality and think about why your representatives continue to mislead you about facts like who pays tariffs and who is a hero/patriot and who is an unreformed felon/ sociopath.
WILL DARLINGTON
Lafayette
Metairie
Central Louisiana faces wins and losses but still optimistic
Chances are, you haven’t been to Campti.
Located about 11 miles north of Natchitoches, Campti is barely a dot on the map. There’s little reason to go, unless you happen to be one of the scores of employees at the Red River containerboard mill there, which for decades has been a major economic driver in central and northwestern Louisiana. The mill produces about 800,000 tons of containerboard per year That will end this spring. International Paper announced earlier this month that it would close the Campti mill by the end of April The closure is part of a larger corporate move — three other IP facilities around the country are also closing.
The news sent state and local officials scrambling, both to help serve the laidoff workers and to mitigate the millions of dollars in tax revenue the mill generates for local law enforcement, municipalities and schools. Gov Jeff Landry will hold a roundtable Tuesday to gameplan ways to boost the local economy in light of the closure.
The Campti mill closure shouldn’t come as a surprise. Paper mills around the state and indeed around the country — have been aging out of existence for years. Nevertheless, the loss of the mill will be a hard hit, especially for central Louisiana. It’s a story residents there have heard before: Large, wood-driven industry closes down due to corporate realignment or market changes, dealing an economic blow to a largely rural area. Outside of the region, few will likely take notice. For those of us on the Interstate 10/12 corridor, central Louisiana is mostly an afterthought. It’s a place you drive through to get somewhere else
The best thing about it, it is said, is that the 75-mile-per-hour speed limit on Interstate 49 helps you spend less time there.
In the past several months, if people in south Louisiana talked about Central Louisiana at all it was likely about Pineville’s libidinous former mayor North Louisiana, which will also feel the Campti closure, suffers many of the
same endemic problems. At least the northern parishes have an east-west interstate, Interstate 20, that is so welltraveled that Ruston, of all places, is getting the state’s first Buc-ee’s. In recent years, though, central Louisiana has been on the cusp of a comeback. Alternative energy has led the way The biggest sign of hope is the planned $2 billion redevelopment of a shuttered International Paper mill site in Pineville. After the mill shut down in 2009, the site sat vacant for more than a decade. When I visited in 2023, there were derelict warehouses on the site and old rail cars sitting on overgrown track around the 1,300-acre campus.
The company behind the redevelopment of the site — SunGas Renewables wants to build a green methanol plant there to supply ship fuel. Construction could start later this year
Not far way, in LaSalle Parish, Drax Biomass has been making wood energy pellets that it sells in Europe to help plants there generate electricity since 2017. Outside of timber products, other alternative energy industries have set up shop the state’s middle. Syrah Technologies, an Australian company, makes components for electric vehicles in Vidalia, and Canada-based Ucore Rare Earth Metals is putting a processing facility at England Air Park in Alexandria. Recently, local officials have begun actively attempting to lure data centers,
like the one planned for Richland Parish in north Louisiana. Their pitch is simple: land is cheap, there’s access to I-49, and storms are less of a threat than they are in the southern part of the state. It’s easy to look at these possibilities and see the potential of central Louisiana’s economic engine to rev again. But it’s not all smooth road ahead. Local economic development officials desperately want an east-west interstate. They’ve spent years pitching Interstate 14, the so-called “Forts and Ports” interstate, that would stretch from Texas to Georgia and run right through the state’s central belt. Those plans, if they ever come to fruition, are still decades away Another bump in the road may come from Washington. Recent actions by the Trump administration, specifically with regard to clean energy industries and international trade, could impact deeply red central Louisiana’s new companies even further Lafe Jones, the chief operating officer of Louisiana Central, told me that he’s optimistic that there will be no hiccups, but “everybody’s in a waitand-see mode” to see how it all shakes out. Nevertheless, real optimism has been rare in central Louisiana. It’s nice to see it. Heck, one day we might even stop in Campti.
Faimon A. Roberts III can be reached at froberts@theadvocate.com.
Policies of European elites end in tears
If you follow these things closely, you may have seen a clip of the chairman of the Munich Security Conference breaking down in tears, unable to speak any further while reflecting on Vice President JD Vance’s speech there. This breakdown is remarkable because the chairman, Christoph Heusgen, is not a minor apparatchik but a sophisticated and knowledgeable official who was former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s national security adviser from 2005 to 2017 He had a front-row seat to Merkel’s epochal decisions to shut down nuclear plants in 2011, admit 1 million Muslim male “refugees” in 2015, and hold defense spending far below the 2% level sought by the second Obama and first Trump administrations His previous appearance on social media came when, as head of Germany’s United Nations delegation in 2018, he led his colleagues in laughing derisively at President Donald Trump’s criticism of Germany’s reliance on Russian natural gas. Heusgen’s tears were apt Merkel’s policies, hailed by European elites at the time, now “lie in ruins,” writes the Economist.
in the Pentagon, argues in his 2021 book “The Strategy of Denial,” the United States produces more than a fifth of the world economic product, Europe almost the same proportion, and Asia, including China and India, upward toward half.
And, as Vance noted recently, while America and China produce innovative technology, Europe, the fount of creativity from the 17th century to the early 20th century, now smothers it in overregulation. Europe’s criminal prosecutions of speech, including accurate reports of migrants’ criminal attacks and even of politically incorrect abortion statements made by citizens in their own houses, are repugnant to traditional American mores. And while Eastern Europe has increased defense spending in response to Russia’s threats, the large nations of Western Europe have been lagging.
Trump administration foreign policy seems to be following Colby’s blueprint His strategy seems to be to leave Europe to cabin in its hostile regional hegemonic power, Russia, and to leave Israel (with Abraham Accord bolstering) to deal with its hostile regional hegemon, Iran
such as drones and hypersonic flights, may leave our relatively small number of very sophisticated and expensive aircraft carriers and fighter planes vulnerable to attack.
The central task of American foreign policy this argument goes, should be to build our defense capabilities and increase our forward posture to make it clear to China’s leaders that they have no chance to seize Taiwan. This should build on previous steps to cooperate with regional allies, particularly Japan, India and Australia. The amount of death and destruction that would be caused by any war in that region is unthinkable or it would be if we did not have the history of the warfare between Japan and China from 1937 to 1945 to consult.
In the meantime, as in even the best years of the American-led trans-Atlantic partnership, there are some ugly things that need to be done. The failure of Ukraine’s offensive in 2023 and America’s unwillingness and Europe’s inability to send their own military forces or larger and more effective weapons to Ukraine in 2023 and 2024 have reduced the alternatives to continued violent war and morally unsatisfying peace.
Will the MAGA base ever figure out they’ve been played?
Farm country provided Trump with some of his most fervent support. Farmers are now being tossed aside by Trump policies, none of which he seems interested in dialing back. A trade war would be disastrous. Farm products are a major U.S. export. Last year, the U.S. exported more than $30 billion in farm products to Mexico, $29 billion to Canada and $25 billion to China. When a country slaps big tariffs on products from another country that country can be expected to hit back with its own punishing tariffs. Trump’s insults also add focus to the revenge: Offended nations are targeting products coming from Trump country American farmers rightly worry that a trade war would incentivize other countries to find more reliable suppliers of corn, wheat and whatever else they grow. As a soybean grower in Iowa told the Financial Times, “Farmers understand that trading relationships go up on a stairway, where you work hard to build them up, but go down on an elevator — very, very fast.”
Trump’s mania for tariffs was no secret during the campaign, nor were his deportation plans that are going to ravage rural workforces. What were U.S. farmers thinking when they voted for Trump? That he really loved them?
Trump is working on a plan to take away added funding from the Internal Revenue Service and use it for securing the southern border — as if the U.S. can’t afford two important government functions at the same time If anything, weakening the IRS’s ability to collect taxes owed would deprive government of the money that could be used to defend the border
Eroding the IRS’s ability to enforce the tax laws is a gift to rich tax cheats. They have all sorts of tricks to hide income. The working stiffs do not. Their taxes get taken right out of their paychecks. Medicaid buys health care for Americans who typically make less than $50,000. These low earners gave most of their votes to Trump. Republicans are now circling Medicaid as a fat target for spending cuts.
Their Project 2025 blueprint clearly states, “The dramatic increase in Medicaid expenditures is due in large part to the ACA (Obamacare), which mandates that states must expand their Medicaid eligibility standards.”
During the campaign, Trump insisted he was “not running to terminate” the Affordable Care Act. But that wouldn’t preclude stripping it of so many benefits and slashing so many beneficiaries that a walking corpse would be all that’s left. And Trump will call it Obamacare. Trump has named the mastermind behind Project 2025, Russell Vought, his budget director In addition to Medicaid, Vought has it in for Head Start, veterans benefits and medical research.
Republicans vow not to touch a hair on Medicare, which covers the elderly, but that too is not entirely off the table. “In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem,” Project 2025 laments. It calls these programs “runaway entitlements.”
The Department of Health and Human Services is home to both Medicare and Medicaid. How do you all feel about the crackpot Bobby Kennedy Jr being put in charge?
Don’t expect Republicans in Washington to publicly oppose Trump, even at the expense of their voters’ health care. But some are quietly worried.
Vance’s speeches in Munich and earlier in Paris criticized Europe generally and Germany in particular for stifling technological innovation, for suppressing speech, especially opposition to mass migration, and for spending well below NATO targets on defense. The European elites have had things their way and have led their societies on a path to decline.
Today we live in a world quite different economically from the one the builders of the trans-Atlantic alliance brought into being in the three postwar decades. As Elbridge Colby, Trump administration nominee for the No. 3 post
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE
That’s caused some Republicans, especially Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to voice doubts about his nomination.
But the strong negative reaction to the loss of 7,000 Americans in Iraq and 2,500 in Afghanistan made the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations averse to sending any U.S. military forces into Ukraine, where casualties could be much higher, or against Iran after perceived failure in Iraq.
Moreover, Colby argues, the U.S. no longer has the defense capability of waging two or even one and a half wars simultaneously, and the development of relatively cheap defensive weapons,
You can lament, as I do, Vance’s cold indifference when, in February 2022, he said he doesn’t “really care what happens to Ukraine,” as well as Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine “started it.”
You can look back at former President Barack Obama and former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s failure, when Russia seized Crimea in 2014, to act on America and Britain’s guarantee to Ukraine in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
But given where things are now, do you have a better course in mind?
Michael Barone is on X, @MichaelBarone.
“If you cut Medicaid, you’re, like, pissing off the people who put you in office — who Trump resonates with, right?” one House Republican (who did not share his name) told The Wall Street Journal. But It’s pretty naive to think that Trump cares about the people who put him in office. All he wanted was their votes. He got them. Now scoot.
Froma Harrop is on X, @FromaHarrop. Email her at fharrop@gmail.com.
Faimon Roberts
Michael Barone
Froma Harrop STAFF FILE PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
The former International Paper facility is located in Pineville, in Rapides Parish.
Delta to conduct this work.
“Our state does a fantastic job of getting engagement at the planning stage, at the preconstruction stage but I think that the study really highlights that there are opportunities to continue to get that engagement from community members much farther down the line,” Osland said.
Skilton, Osland and their research team of students trekked across Louisiana to eight key locations with impacts five years or older in three coastal regions. They chose an array of sites ranging in impact, controversy and restoration method. Some of the projects included:
n Pontchartrain Basin Biloxi Marsh Project
n Mardi Gras Pass Mississippi River diversion
n Wax Lake Outlet in the Atchafalaya Basin
from page 1B
compliance with environmental standards,” the representative said.
Some environmentalists who track southwest Louisiana industries argued the fine amounts to a “slap on the wrist” for blatant and numerous violations by a big company that receives state property tax and other breaks.
“The evidence is clear that they knowingly violated the law, failed to follow up, and is indicative of a culture that does not place the community, the environment, or even their own workers as a priority and instead places profits above all,” said James Hiatt, a former Citgo employee turned climate activist. “And the regulators allow it.”
In the DEQ settlement, dozens of the alleged breakdowns involved operational failures that allegedly violated the terms of the Citgo refinery’s air permits or other internal guidelines, or missed deadlines to make repairs to avoid leaks, the 2021 compliance document says. Sometimes heavy rain or power losses not tied to Citgo caused the breakdowns. In other cases, employees
n Calcasieu-Sabine marsh creation project
Before and after every site tour with a coastal expert, the researchers interviewed the recruited community members using a data collection process called a “history harvest,” a method often used for public history work.
Emma Willis, who was a public history graduate student enrolled in the course, visited a few of the sites, including two intended to protect New Orleans as well as the central region’s Wax Lake Outlet, which is seeing land growth in the Atchafa laya Basin She recalled a big difference between the interviews that took place in these two regions.
“Coastal erosion is happening so rapidly, people had memories in places that aren’t there,” Willis said. “But the most moving part was being able to take people to places where we’re growing land. People were grinning ear to ear at that.”
Overall, the studies found
didn’t do standard emissions monitoring, it says.
The alleged operational breakdowns sometimes undermined the effectiveness of scrubbers and protective flares or otherwise allowed elevated levels of toxic and other air pollutants to escape, DEQ papers allege. Other emissions contribute to harmful ground-level ozone or create tiny particulates that can cause respiratory problems and asthma with long-term exposure, compliance papers allege.
Among the emissions are nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrochloric acid, benzene and a class of chemicals known as volatile organic compounds that can be tied to hydrocarbons and, in some instances, are carcinogenic.
Public concern
Often, the failures at Citgo went unnoticed by the broader public but occasionally drew attention On July 23, 2017, residents reported a foul stench from the refinery due to a release that included hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, carbon disulfide and carbonyl sulfide.
Of those four chemicals, all but sulfur dioxide has a strong rotten egg smell. Sulfur dioxide has a more
that there were distinct regional attitudes on coastal projects. Willis was among the four graduate students engaged in coding to identify themes from the hundreds of conversations. One of the first things she noticed was how large a role people’s experiences with storms affected their impressions of coastal projects. Participants from the eastern and western parts of the state spoke extensively about how hurricanes affected their communities. Different experiences also on ration, udies found. On the eastern side of the state, participants focused on the levee system di-
versions
One community member criticized the salinity impacts of Mardi Gras ass on fishing communities in Plaquemines Parish. Another said that “levees provide a certain level of security, but what happens is everything is fine until it is cata-
pungent smell, like a burnt match, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Citgo officials blamed the incident on the loss of its high-pressure boilers, which immediately triggered protective flaring that released many of the air pollutants.
Company officials told DEQ the emissions were lighter than air and dissipated in the atmosphere. No evacuations, injuries or offsite impacts were reported at the time Citgo officials reported.
In other cases, Citgo failed to report alleged failures in a timely fashion. For two weeks, the refinery did not disclose the Aug 22, 2018, benzene leak, which happened during the transfer of the chemical to a barge, regulators allege.
State and federal law requires initial reporting of that large of a benzene leak within 24 hours and for follow-up reports in the days and weeks afterward.
Federal regulators closely watch benzene emissions from refineries.
In the big crude oil leak, Citgo crews began emptying Tank 41 on Sept. 27, 2018, after they spotted its floating roof listing to one side.
On the morning of Sept. 28, 2018, however the floating roof sank inside the
strophic.”
On the western side of the state, community members urged stronger coastal restoration measures in their region and “expressed wariness” over dredging ship channels for marsh creation. And along the central coast, community members seemed more optimistic, in large part due to the natural and man-made diversions that have resulted in the region’s land growth.
Someone at the Atchafalaya Basin site exclaimed, “It’s building land like amazing!” Still, all of the participants who were interviewed called for increased action to solve the coastal crisis, the studies say
“While they may have differing opinions on the type of projects desired in their region, they see the need for coastal restoration projects throughout the state,” the researchers wrote.
Email Josie Abugov at josie.abugov@theadvocate. com.
tank. About four hours later, a leak from the bottom of the tank was found, DEQ officials said in compliance documents.
The entire episode went on for 23 hours and an estimated 1,337 barrels of crude oil leaked out, which would roughly fill a little more than three 15-by-30-foot backyard swimming pools about 5 feet deep.
About 407,520 pounds of volatile organic compounds also evaporated from the failed tank roof and from leaked oil sitting in the diked-off area around the tank.
Included in those emissions were an estimated 2,600 pounds of benzene and nearly 2,120 pounds of ethylbenzene, which causes eye and throat irritation in short-term exposures and is a suspected carcinogen with long-term exposure.
David J. Mitchell can be reached at dmitchell@ theadvocate.com.
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released that show Louisiana’s fourth graders leading the nation in reading growth. Louisiana’s fourth graders jumped 26 spots in the national rankings, landing at 16th place. Being up close and personal with educators refreshed my memory of their commitment to students — and the many teachers who poured into me. I also considered that so many people come to New Orleans to take deep dives into so many other topics Plain Talk is just one of thousands of meetings each year in Louisiana.
According to Brandee Barrett, marketing manager with neworleans.com, last year, the New Orleans convention team booked more than 1,000 meetings for 2025 not including meetings booked directly with hotels. In 2024, they booked more than 1.4 million room nights for 2025 and into future years as far out as 2040. The economic impact of the meetings industry exceeds $2 billion of direct spending within metropolitan New
Orleans annually I looked at the list of upcoming conferences/trade shows. There’s one called World of Wood. Others include Premium Cigar Association, Satchmo Summerfest, World Languages Expo and so many more. Plain Talk reminded me of the quiet, persistent work those who believe in something bigger than themselves do daily Driving home, I thought about how small each of us is in the grand scheme, but also how mighty Every convention, every conversation, every shared idea, plays a role in something larger And isn’t that, at its heart, what literacy is all about? The power to share, to connect, to understand and to keep learning.
Email Jan Risher at jan. risher@theadvocate.com.
BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer
Saturday was more like it for the UL Ragin’ Cajuns baseball team, which swept a doubleheader from No. 23 Nebraska.
ä UL at McNeese, 6 P.M.TUESDAy,ESPN+
On Tuesday, the Cajuns have a chance to display some consistency with the first road task of the season at 6 p.m. against McNeese State at Joe Miller Ballpark in Lake Charles. “It was a good week,” UL baseball coach Matt Deggs said. “I don’t feel like we’ve played our best ball and still haven’t, but anytime you can go 3-1 on a week, it’s a good week.”
After four straight sluggish games, it was starting pitcher Blake McGehee who turned things around with five shutout innings in Saturday’s first game against the Cornhuskers.
Tuesday’s starting pitcher is expected to be sophomore right-hander JR Tollett (1-0, 7.71 ERA). Tollett’s four-inning relief appearance stabilized UL’s pitching in a 14-11 comeback win over Texas Southern last Tuesday
“That’s his best outing ever here,” Deggs said of Tollett. “We know he’s got it, because we’ve seen him do it to us plenty of times last year and this year in practice. To see him put it together in a huge spot, he basically won that game for us.
“Hopefully he’ll build off of that.” McNeese is expected to counter with left-hander Cooper Golden (5.63 ERA) for his third start of the season. The Cowboys are off to a 5-1 start with two wins over Wichita State and a weekend sweep of Oakland.
BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer
It’s been an uphill climb all season for the UL men’s basketball team
But now riding a three-game winning streak with two games left in the regular season, suddenly interim coach Derrick Zimmerman’s squad has a chance to get its heads above water in time for next week’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Pensacola, Florida.
BY REED DARCEY Staff writer
It starts with the Ragin’ Cajuns’ final home game of the season against Arkansas State at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Cajundome.
“They’re a very explosive team,” Zimmerman said. “They obviously can score the ball with the best of them.”
UL enters the week 11-18 overall and 8-8 in Sun Belt play which is good for a three-way tie for seventh place with Texas State and Georgia State. The best-case scenario for the Cajuns is a No. 6 seed in Pensacola.
Arkansas State is 20-9 and 11-5, which is tied for second with South Alabama and Troy UL’s final game is at South Alabama on Friday
The Red Wolves won the first meeting against the Cajuns 83-63 in Jonesboro, jumping out to a 44-24 halftime bulge behind four double-digit scorers, including former Cajuns player Kobe Julien with
BY TOYLOY BROWN III Staff writer
The LSU men’s basketball team is firmly 15th in the Southeastern Conference with a handful of regular-season games left.
Coach Matt McMahon didn’t sugarcoat the toll losing has had on his players, especially after an 11-2 nonconference start.
“It really tests your character and tests your resilience and your mindset to come in every day and stay focused on getting better,” McMahon said. Despite the extended losing spells and its most recent 14-point loss to now No. 3 Florida, LSU (14-13, 3-11 SEC) remains dedicated to winning and hopes to accomplish that against No. 5 Tennessee (22-5, 9-5) at 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center At Monday’s media availability, McMahon was asked what his team’s goals are as things stand and whether the National Invitation Tournament has been discussed since participating in the NCAA Tournament is a long shot. McMahon said player development is taking center stage, especially with five underclassmen in the rotation.
“We really just approach every game as a one-game season and stay focused on getting our team better,” he said. “It’s easy to be discouraged. You’re not winning the number of games you would like. So putting a lot of time (and) investment into our players, keep them focused on getting better and improving and finding ways to compete in these games.”
The third-year coach referenced his team’s 22-2 run in the
Texas forward Madison Booker right, drives to the basket against South Carolina forward Sania Feagin, left, and guard Bree Hall on Feb 9 in Austin, Texas.
Texas third No. 1 in three weeks
Longhorns grab
BY DOUG FEINBERG AP basketball writer
1976. It has never happened with five schools.
Ins and outs
Mets starting pitcher to miss start of season
PORT ST LUCIE,Fla.— New York Mets starting pitcher Sean Manaea is expected to begin the season on the injured list because of a right oblique strain.
Manaea said Monday that he had been dealing with the issue since getting to spring training. He says it never got worse but never improved. The left-hander was the Mets’ top starter last season and then got a $75 million, three-year contract. He had an MRI over the weekend and won’t throw for two to three weeks.
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Manaea wouldn’t throw again until he was free of symptoms.
Mendoza also said infielder Nick Madrigal fractured his non-throwing shoulder in a spring training game Sunday
Panthers say they will not re-sign LB Thompson
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Carolina Panthers are moving on from longtime linebacker Shaq Thompson.
The Panthers informed Thompson, who is an unrestricted free agent, that they will not be resigning him.
Thompson is expected to pursue other options in free agency The 30-year-old has been with the Panthers for a decade, but has been limited to just six games over the past two seasons because of injuries. He was the team’s first-round pick in 2014 and ranks fourth in team history with 752 tackles, behind only Thomas Davis, Luke Kuechly and Mike Minter Thompson appeared in 123 games in his 10 seasons with Carolina.
Unidentified team wants to do away with tush push
Texas is No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 women’s basketball poll for the first time in 21 years and the third team to hold the top spot in the past three weeks. The Longhorns moved atop the poll Monday after previous No 1 Notre Dame lost in double overtime to North Carolina State. UCLA had been No. 1 the 12 prior weeks to the Irish.
“I’m so happy for my kids, they’ve earned where they are today,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said in a phone interview hours before his team faced Georgia late Monday
It is only the fifth time since 2001 that three schools have been No. 1 in a three-week span Add in South Carolina being No. 1 to start the season and there have been four teams atop the rankings this season, just the sixth time that has happened since the poll began in
“There’s so much parity in the game right now,” Schaefer said.
Texas, which last held the top spot in the poll on Feb. 16, 2004, received 19 first-place votes from a 31-member national media panel. The Longhorns have spent 48 weeks atop the poll dating to their first appearance at No. 1 in 1980.
“So much respect and admiration for coach (Jody) Conradt and the tradition of our program and I certainly understand the standard we hope we can live up to,” Schaefer said.
Notre Dame fell to third after its 19-game winning streak was snapped while UCLA moved up a spot to second The Bruins, who edged Iowa 67-65 on two late free throws Sunday, garnered 11 top votes. USC was fourth receiving one first-place ballot. UConn was fifth.
South Carolina, LSU and North Carolina were next.
North Carolina State jumped up four places to ninth after its big win over Notre Dame. TCU was 10th.
Florida State and Louisville reentered the rankings this week at No. 24 and 25. The Seminoles beat Pittsburgh and then-No. 20 Georgia Tech The Cardinals knocked off then-No. 11 Duke before losing to North Carolina. The Yellow Jackets and Illinois both fell out of the Top 25.
Conference breakdown
The Southeastern Conference has seven ranked teams. The ACC has six while the Big Ten and Big 12 each have five. The Big East has two.
Games of the week
No. 4 USC at No. 2 UCLA, Saturday The Big Ten regular-season title will be on the line when the two Los Angeles teams play. USC won the first meeting, handing the Bruins their lone loss of the season.
No. 22 Creighton at No. 5 UConn, Thursday First place in the Big East will be on the line when the Bluejays visit the Huskies.
No. 8 North Carolina at No. 16 Duke, Thursday The two ACC rivals will play for the second time
this season with a potential doublebye into the quarterfinals of the conference tournament at stake. No. 10 TCU at No. 17 Baylor, Sunday First place in the Big 12 Conference could be at stake as the Horned Frogs visit the Bears.
INDIANAPOLIS — One NFL team is proposing an end to the tush push play the Philadelphia Eagles have used so successfully at the goal line and in short-yardage situations, including during their victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59. According to NFL Network and the Washington Post, league executive Troy Vincent said Monday that a team submitted a proposal to ban the play, a modified quarterback sneak where two teammates behind Jalen Hurts push him forward to help him try to gain the yardage necessary for a first down or touchdown. Vincent didn’t identify the team. NFL owners could vote on the proposal when they meet next month in Florida.
Guardians owner Dolan dies Sunday at age of 94
CLEVELAND — Lawrence J. Dolan, owner of Cleveland’s major league baseball team since 2000, has died at age 94.
The Cleveland Guardians put out a statement Monday saying Dolan died Sunday night of natural causes.
Dolan, a Cleveland native, purchased the team from Richard Jacobs in 2000 for $320 million. The Dolan family is the longest-tenured owners in franchise history
BY DAVE SKRETTA AP basketball writer
Auburn remained atop the AP Top 25 for the seventh straight week on Monday, while preseason No. 1 Kansas dropped out of the men’s basketball poll for the first time in nearly four years, ending the Jayhawks’ ranked run at 80 consecutive weeks. The Tigers earned all 60 votes from the national media panel after beating Arkansas and Georgia last week. They were followed by Duke and Florida which traded places in the poll, with Houston and Tennessee rounding out the top five. Houston has the nation’s longest active streak in the Top 25 at 102 weeks.
The Jayhawks were dropped this week after a 74-67 loss at Utah and a 91-57 blowout loss at BYU, the biggest margin of defeat in school history for a ranked Kansas team against an unranked opponent. BYU entered the poll at No. 25 this week.
The Jayhawks’ were dropped this week after a 74-67 loss at Utah and a 91-57 blowout loss at BYU, the biggest margin of defeat in school history for a ranked Kansas team against an unranked opponent. BYU entered the poll at No. 25 this week. Kansas took out its frustration on Oklahoma State on Saturday, rolling to a 96-64 victory in
Allen Fieldhouse.
“We’re 1-0,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self said afterward. “That’s what we’re talking about. And everybody’s stat sheet in what they’re averaging this year is exactly what happened today And we’re not even gonna talk about the other stuff right now.” Alabama fell two spots to No. 6 this week and was followed by St. John’s and Michigan State, which jumped six spots after back-toback ranked wins over Purdue and Michigan. Iowa State and Texas Tech rounded out the top 10.
Kansas dropped out along with Ole Miss, which had been ranked the last 13 weeks and 15 of the past 16. That made room for Saint Mary’s, which beat Portland and Gonzaga to enter at No. 23, and BYU, which followed its win over the Jayhawks by beating thenNo. 19 Arizona 96-95 on Saturday thanks to two free throws by Richie Saunders with 3.2 seconds left.
It was the first time the Cougars had beaten ranked teams in consecutive games since 1988.
“My message to our group is, you know, whatever the next challenge in front of us, we’re trying to attack it, whether that’s practice, whether that’s shoot-around, whether that’s a game,” first-year BYU coach Kevin Young said. “I know that sounds cliche but that’s really been the recipe for us, to
not look any further than what we have to do at that moment.”
Rising and falling
Louisville joined Michigan State in making the biggest jump in this week’s poll, climbing six spots to No. 19. The Cardinals beat Florida State in their only game last week for their fifth consecutive win, and they head into this week tied with No. 13 Clemson for second in the ACC behind the secondranked Blue Devils.
Purdue fell seven spots to No. 20 after losses to Michigan State and Indiana, but the Boilermakers held onto a spot in the Top 25 for the 55th consecutive week. That is now the third-longest active streak behind Houston and Tennessee (76 weeks).
Preseason Top 25 checkup
Kansas isn’t the only team ranked highly in the preseason poll to drop out all together this season.
Two-time reigning national champion UConn was No. 3 with 11 first-place votes in October but did not appear on any ballots this week. Gonzaga was sixth, Baylor eighth and North Carolina ninth in the preseason poll — and all are unranked. In all, more than half of the teams in the preseason poll 13 of them — failed to crack this week’s Top 25. Conference watch The SEC continued its dominance with three of the top five and eight total in the Top 25 this week. The Big 12 had three in the top 10 and five ranked teams, while the Big Ten also had five teams in the poll. The
The franchise was known as the Cleveland Indians before changing its name to the Guardians after the 2021 season. Over the past 24 seasons, Cleveland has won seven American League Central Division titles, made nine postseason appearances and advanced to the 2016 World Series before losing to the Chicago Cubs.
Florida’s Condon expected to return to action Tuesday GAINESVILLE, Fla. Florida forward Alex Condon, who missed the last three games because of a sprained right ankle, is expected to return at Georgia on Tuesday Condon turned his ankle in the first 30 seconds of a win at Mississippi State on Feb. 11 and has been sidelined since. He leads the thirdranked Gators with 7.8 rebounds a game and ranks fourth on the team in scoring, averaging 10.6 points. He’s one of four Florida players joining forward Sam Alexis and guards Walter Clayton Jr and Alijah Martin — who have missed time during the team’s
Coach
PHOTO By ERIC GAy
Saints add two more assistant coaches
BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer
The new coaching staff for the New Orleans Saints is starting to fill out.
A week after hiring former Los Angeles Chargers head coach Brandon Staley as their defensive coordinator former Eagles assistant coach Doug Nussmeier as offensive coordinator the Saints added two more assistants on Monday
The Saints are hiring former University of Texas defensive passing game coordinator Terry Joseph as their defensive backs coach, according to a league source. They are also hiring Kyle Wilber to work as their assistant special teams coach, according to a league source, bringing aboard a young coach with a decade of playing experience.
The 51-year-old Joseph is a New Orleans native whose name should be recognizable around these parts — his cousins, Vance and Mickey Joseph, are also high-level coaches in their own right.
This will mark Terry Joseph’s first NFL coaching job. He’s been coaching in the college ranks since 2006, when he took a graduate assistant job at LSU.
His most recent stop was at Texas, which is where he’d been since the start of the 2021 season as the defensive passing game coordinator. His unit is coming off an impressive 2024 season, ranking No. 7 nationally in passing yards allowed per game (173.8) and tied for first in interceptions (22)
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McNeese has been paced by a stingy pitching staff with a 2.67 team ERA that has given up only 42 hits, 15 walks and struck out 63 in 54 innings. Opponents are hitting .214 against the Cowboys so far this season.
At the plate, McNeese is hitting .275 and averaging 5.0 runs a game with five homers and six stolen bases.
Easton Dowell (.400, 1 HR, 4 RBIs), Larry Edwards (.350, 2 RBIs) and Davis Meche (.333, 1 RBI) lead the way for the Cowboys.
“They’re a tough customer especially over there,” Deggs said. “They do a great job of getting local guys to stick around and a great job of recruiting overall.” Through seven games this season, UL has allowed 14 unearned runs. The defense was better Saturday, and so was the hitting, led by Conor Higgs (.350, 1 HR, 2 RBIs) after he did not get a hit during the first weekend of the season.
“We’ve got to have it,” Deggs said. “I talked to him and Caleb (Stelly) and Donk (Luke Yuhasz) look, our older guys have to play good. If Higgs gets hot, watch out because there’s nobody that can get as hot as him.”
So far, Sam Ardoin (.500, 2 RBIs) and Brooks Wright (.429, 5 RBIs) lead the Cajuns at the plate.
Email Kevin Foote at kfoote@ theadvocate.com.
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minutes of the first half against Florida as a stretch of play that shows what the Tigers are capable of.
“How do we make it more sustainable?” McMahon said. “There was (good) basketball being played on both ends of the floor How do we sustain that level of play for longer periods of time? Really, that’s where the focus has to continue to be.” Tennessee is the next foe LSU will use to chart its progress. Finding reliable ways to score will be especially crucial against a team with the best defense in the country
The Vols are first in both adjusted defensive efficiency and defensive effective field goal percentage, and third in both block rate and defensive 3-point efficiency, according to KenPom as of Monday McMahon called Tennessee guards Zakai Zeigler and Jahmai Mashack a couple of the best defenders in the country, and center Felix Okpara a “phenomenal” rim protector
Efficient offense isn’t going to be an easy task against Tennessee LSU can’t afford for leading scorer Cam Carter to struggle like he did in the last
Texas A&M secondary coach Terry Joseph directs his players before a game against South Carolina on Oct. 31, 2015. The Saints are hiring Joseph to coach their defensive backs next season.
Joseph has played a part in developing some premier defensive backs. Texas corner Jahdae Barron won the Jim Thorpe Award, given annually to the nation’s top defensive back, last year while playing under Joseph.
While he was at Notre Dame, Joseph also recruited and developed Kyle Hamilton, who would go on to become a first-round draft pick and an All-Pro with the Baltimore Ravens.
The 35-year-old Wilber spent most of his playing career with the Dallas Cowboys, where he was a teammate of new Saints head coach Kellen Moore He was a core special-teamer for much of
his career, logging at least 70% of his team’s special-teams snaps seven times with the Cowboys and Raiders.
Wilber’s playing career ended after the 2021 season, and he quickly found work in coaching, catching on as a special teams quality control assistant with the Green Bay Packers in 2023.
He will work under Phil Galiano, whom the Saints promoted to special teams coordinator last week after longtime coordinator Darren Rizzi accepted a job with the Denver Broncos.
Email Luke Johnson at ljohnson@theadvocate.com.
at the plate Saturday
tries to control the
as
LSU
defends for Florida in the first half Saturday in the Pete
Assembly Center. The Gators won the game 79-65.
game against Florida when he had seven points and shot 23.1% from the field McMahon said LSU will have to be mindful of Tennessee’s screening, which he described as one of the best in the country Those picks free up top shooter Chaz Lanier, who is averaging 18 points per game. “When you watch (Lanier’s) film, he doesn’t need much time or space to get a shot off, so a really quick release,” McMahon said. Lanier’s 94 total 3-pointers are the most by an SEC player He is
also ninth in conference play in 3-point percentage (37.1%), a spot ahead of Carter (36.7%). Beating Tennessee will require one of Tigers’ best offensive efforts. They’ll need strong jump shooting from their four-guard lineup they likely will use for the fourth consecutive game. No matter the challenge, the prevailing mindset McMahon has is for LSU players to get better and have that eventually translate into wins.
Email Toyloy Brown III at toyloy.brown@theadvocate.com
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15 points.
“We’ve got to have low turnovers,” Zimmerman said. “We’ve got to rebound the ball from the defensive side. We can’t let them get run-out baskets. I feel like we have to make them play against our half-court defense. Our halfcourt defense is pretty good.”
Rebounding from earlier losses has been a strength for UL this season, avenging losses against Texas State, Southern Miss and Troy
“Just going back and film study from the time you played them and other games they’ve played,” Zimmerman said “Just trying to get some extra film study to find a loophole, find a little leak — something or somebody we can attack. Being able to make adjustments, that’s what it’s all about.
“With our staff, we try to give ourselves the best chance to win by putting in extra time on film study.”
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Tigers’ 15 second-half field goals.
Those adjustments forced Kentucky to lose its rhythm, which, in turn, allowed LSU to find more shots within its preferred up-tempo style of offense.
Williams took the keys of that attack and drove the Tigers through a much more productive second half. In transition, her knack for converting difficult shots helped LSU take advantage of the misses it forced at the other end. In the half court, her mid-range shooting allowed the Tigers to unlock their offense, and her passing allowed them to thwart the zone defense the Wildcats tried unsuccessfully to deploy once they started to lose control in the third quarter
“She’s a load,” Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks said. “She’s a great player She missed 11 shots, but she made the ones she needed to make.”
Among those buckets were the two that Williams found inside the final two minutes of the fourth quarter
Mulkey gave her a choice before she scored the first one Williams could run a dribble handoff at either the left elbow, where Sa’Myah Smith was stationed, or to the right, where Morrow was waiting. She chose left and grabbed the ball from Smith, then took two long strides to the rim, using her right elbow to create space for the fadeaway runner she banked in against a 6-foot-7 defender Kentucky scored on its ensuing trip down the floor
The Cajuns are led by the consistency of junior forward Mostapha El Moutaouakkil (14.1 pts, 5.3 rebs) and senior guard Kentrell Garnett (10.6 pts, 2.3 rebs), who hit the game-winning 3-pointer to beat Troy last Thursday
The key, though, has been on the defensive end.
“It’s just mindset,” Zimmerman said. “It’s all about mindset Defense is all about want-to. For me, I was a defensive guy when I played. I made my money on the defensive side of the ball. So trust me, I’m not too happy when I look up and see that we’ve given up 80plus, 90-plus points to a team. That doesn’t sit well with me at all, and the guys know that.”
Because of that extra grit, the Cajuns are hot at the right time of the year
“It helps them with confidence,” Zimmerman said. “It gives the team confidence to trust what we’re doing, trust the process Just continue to work and good things are going to happen.”
Email Kevin Foote at kfoote@ theadvocate.com.
That possession — like many others before it started and ended in the hands of Williams.
“Probably in the last month,” Mulkey said, “I have kept it in her hands a little more at the point when I would get frustrated with our point guard play She can play all positions on the floor at her size.”
Williams has guided the LSU offense down the stretch of close wins over Stanford, Oklahoma and Kentucky The free-throw line jumper she hit against the Cardinal forced overtime, and the topof-they-key 3-pointer she orchestrated iced the Jan. 30 win over the No. 13 Sooners — now one of five wins the Tigers have picked up this season over ranked teams. In losses to No. 6 South Carolina and No. 1 Texas, Williams shot only 33% from the field and converted only two of 12 attempts from beyond the arc.
But the sophomore has averaged 17.7 points, 4.1 rebound and 3.4 assists per game since Southeastern Conference play began while shooting 47% from the field and 39% from beyond the arc. Last year Williams averaged only 12.1 ppg on 43% shooting against SEC opponents. Now she’s one of five league players who shoot multiple 3-pointers per game and average at least 15 ppg with at least a 45% field goal percentage and a 35% 3-point percentage. And Mulkey is putting the offense in her hands down the stretch of close games and watching her guide LSU to wins.
“That’s what great players do,” Mulkey said.
Email Reed Darcey at reed. darcey@theadvocate.com. For more LSU
Then Williams countered with a 3-pointer, but not before maneuvering around a screen on the left wing and knifing a bounce pass to Johnson, who had timed a smart baseline cut into the lane. The Kentucky defense collapsed onto her, so she tossed a pass back out to Williams, who was all alone near the top of the key
STAFF PHOTO By BRAD KEMP
UL left fielder Conor Higgs watches his solo home run, which was a part of his big day
PHOTO By PATRICK DENNIS
guard Cam Carter
ball
Denzel Aberdeen
Maravich
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ERIC GAy
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ADAM HUNGER Las Vegas Raiders linebacker Kyle Wilber heads to the locker room during a game against the New york Jets on Dec. 6, 2020.
It’s time for pre-spring pruning and fertilizing of your trees and shrubs
Before plants leaf out for the spring, it’s a good idea to take some time for maintenance tasks in the garden. Here are two important items to put on your to-do list: pruning and fertilizing your trees and shrubs. Mid-to-late February makes an ideal time for trimming away branches to shape trees and shrubs. The sap is rising and buds are swelling this time of year, so pruning now will allow plants to heal quickly and grow new branches where necessary Pruning also causes a hormone signal that triggers regrowth in most plants This is why we wait until the weather begins warming up to ensure new branches and leaves won’t get cold damage. Deciduous trees and shrubs and most evergreens respond well to pre-spring pruning. Now is your opportunity to reduce the size of plants that have outgrown their space, correct symmetry issues and lift the canopy of trees.
Exceptions include springflowering shrubs and trees like Japanese magnolias, azaleas and bigleaf hydrangeas — that set flower buds the previous year If you cut these plants back now, you won’t have any blooms later this year They should be pruned immediately after flowering in late spring.
LSU AGCENTER PHOTO By RANDy LABAUVE Use sharp loppers to prune branches.
So, take a look around your landscape. What needs some tidying and shaping? Perhaps you have a row of evergreen shrubs like boxwoods that look a bit unkempt. Do you have deciduous trees like bald cypress and crape myrtles that have sprouted low-hanging branches? Maybe you would like to remove these and raise the tree canopy to make it easier to maintain the ground underneath.
To prune your trees and shrubs, you’ll need a pair of sharp hand pruners. For larger branches, you may need to use loppers or a handsaw Make sure the blades are sharp so you can easily make neat cuts, which will heal better Don’t make your cuts flush with the trunk — but don’t cut too far away either. You should leave a small stub, which will leave enough tissue for the shrub or tree to be able to heal the wound. Remember not to get carried away A good rule of thumb in gardening is to never cut off more than one-third of a plant’s height or width at one time. Keep your focus on shaping plants for now — not removing material that was affected
ä See PRUNING, page 6C
KEEP ROLLING
BY DOUG MacCASH Staff writer
By John Schroder’s count, since 1984 he’s ridden or marched in 131 parades presented by 56 organizations across Louisiana.
Most have been Carnival parades: the Mardi Paws dog parade in Covington; the Tchefuncte boat parade; the all-women Krewe of Muses, in which he appeared among the coed Dead Rock Stars dance troupe.
Schroder was all set to be a substitute rider for one of the members of the Rex organization last year, but the opportunity didn’t pan out. So he put the Mardi Gras morning procession back on his bucket list. He’s determined he’ll roll with the King of Carnival someday
That’s part of the overall goal Schroder set for himself. As he explained, “At one point, I decided, ‘You know what, I’m going to ride in every parade.’”
Five days, five parades?
Such a quest can get pretty crazy Schroder was born on Feb. 8, and in 2005, Mardi Gras fell on his 44th birthday To celebrate, he rode in five Carnival parades on five con-
secutive days. Starting the Friday night before Fat Tuesday, he was tossing beads from a float in the Original Orpheus parade in Mandeville. Afterward, his wife Ellie sped him across the Causeway, so he could be ready to climb onto a glittering Endymion float on Saturday afternoon. Then he made his way Uptown to take his spot on a Bacchus float on Sunday
Roughly 24 hours later, Schroder was back on the route atop a New Orleans Orpheus parade float on Lundi Gras. And finally, at 3:30 a.m. on Mardi Gras morning, with just a few hours of sleep under his belt he was getting ready to ride in Zulu. By Ash Wednesday, Shroder said he was exhausted from standing on lurching floats, but the experience was fantastic.
For former Louisiana Treasurer John Schroder, riding in every parade is a longtime goal ä See SCHRODER, page 6C
BY MOLLY KIMBALL Contributing
writer Ready to discover how just one lifestyle change might enhance your health from the inside out?
Schroder
Kimball
PROVIDED PHOTO FROM JOHN SCHRODER
John Schroder, seen here while preparing to ride in the Endymion parade, hopes to eventually ride in every major Mardi Gras parade in the region.
STAFF FILE PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
The Krewe of Orpheus parades in New Orleans for Lundi Gras in 2024.
Husband says he’ll no longer open doors for me
Dear Miss Manners: I have been married to the same man for 40 years. He has recently decided that opening doors for me, serving me first at dinner, and other forms of respect and thoughtfulness are “sexist.” I fix dinner for him daily, do his laundry, etc. all of the things that a “traditional wife” does. I recently retired from a great career and am no slouch when it comes to work. Is he right? I’m hurt and disappointed.
Judith Martin MISS MANNERS
Gentle reader: Fun times ahead at your place! Miss Manners is sorry to miss watching your husband’s face as he keeps discovering what it is costing him to stop opening doors for you. He is right that many gender-specific practices are fading away But he is unwise to mandate such changes without your consent. Surely you had some working arrangement all these years: You have cooked and laundered, and presumably he
TODAY IN HISTORY
By The Associated Press
Today is Tuesday Feb. 25
the 56th day of 2025. There are 309 days left in the year
Today in history
On Feb. 25, 1964, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) became world heavyweight boxing champion for the first time as he defeated Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.
On this date:
In 1870, Republican Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi was sworn in as U.S senator, becoming the first African American member of either house of Congress.
In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Philander Chase Knox.
In 1986, President Ferdinand Marcos fled the
PRUNING
Continued from page 5C
by our recent freezes and appears to be dead. It’s still too early to determine the full extent of freeze damage. Wait a few more weeks and reevaluate your plants after spring growth has begun. You’ll be able to tell what is actually dead — and needs to be pruned and what survived and was able to bounce back.
Philippines after 20 years of rule in the wake of a tainted election; opposition leader Corazon Aquino — the first woman to lead the country — assumed the presidency In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, 28 American soldiers were killed when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In 1994, American-born Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire with an automatic rifle inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, killing 29 Muslims before he was beaten to death by worshippers.
In 1997, a jury in Media, Pennsylvania, convicted chemical fortune heir John E. du Pont of third-degree murder, deciding he was mentally ill when he shot and killed world-class wrestler
did tasks that were considered “manly” — servicing the car, mowing the lawn and shoveling snow, perhaps. Maybe even doing the taxes. It is quaint now even to think that way Between you, you could each stop performing these “traditional” tasks and bring your household to a standstill. But the little gestures you mention are in a different category. They are symbolic, not practical. Of course you are capable of opening doors. And distinguishing behavior by gender would be damaging in a
David Schultz. (Du Pont died in prison in December 2010 while serving a 13- to 30-year sentence; he was 72.) In 2020, U.S. health officials warned that the coronavirus was certain to spread more widely in the U.S.; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to be prepared. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, speaking in India, said the virus was “very well under control” in the United States. Today’s birthdays: Former talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael is 90. Actor Tom Courtenay is 88. TV journalist Bob Schieffer is 88. Film director Neil Jordan is 75. Rock musician-actor John Doe (X) is 72. Comedian Carrot Top is 60. Actor Tea Leoni is 59. Actor Sean Astin is 54. Singer Daniel Powter is 54. Comedianactor Chelsea Handler is 50.
While you’re pruning, you also can fertilize your trees and shrubs to nourish them before spring. Use a two-to-three-month controlled release, balanced fertilizer You don’t want to use fertilizer that will feed too far into the summer and cause unnecessary growth beyond early summer Follow the instructions on the fertilizer bag carefully Spread the product across the root zone rather than piling it up around the trunk.
SCHRODER
Continued from page 5C
He said he called his father, who was suffering with terminal cancer, as his Zulu float was surrounded by “people as far as you could see,” he said.
A familiar name
If the name John Schroder rings a bell, it’s because when he wasn’t riding in parades — he was serving as a Louisiana state representative from St. Tammany Parish from 2008 to 2017, and Louisiana state treasurer from 2017 to 2024. Schroder ran for governor unsuccessfully in the last election. Schroder, 63, arrived at his love of Mardi Gras naturally As a kid, his dad worked at the Star Chrysler dealership on the Canal Street parade route. It was a throwme-something bonanza for his five siblings and all their friends.
“It was very normal,” Schroder said, for his mother to take the family to the lot “to catch two, three, four parades on a weekend.”
His mom, he said, was especially devoted to the celebration. Her “whole side of the family were Mardi Gras fiends,” he said. Just as soon as the Christmas tree came down, the purple, green and gold decorations went up, he said.
Police, politics, business Schroder put himself through college painting houses, he said, then joined the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and eventually became a Criminal Investiga-
tion Division special agent Owing to that experience, when he entered civilian life Schroder became an undercover narcotics detective in Ascension Parish, where he disguised himself as, what else, a house painter
Between his careers as a detective and a politician, he became a successful businessman, investing in northshore real estate.
At age 30, Schroder rode in his first Carnival parade — the bygone Corps de Napoleon parade in Metairie with his mom. “I just remember how excited she was,” he said, “sorting the beads, laying it all out on the float.”
Pretty soon, he was just as excited as she was. Schroder signed up to ride in the Centurions parade in Metairie, then the Original Orpheus parade in Covington, then Thoth — where he was a float lieutenant for 12 years then Endymion, where he’s still a float leader In addition, he dabbled in as many other krewes as would have him.
“I started getting big into it,” Schroder understated.
He’d drive a tractor
Schroder said he isn’t picky He doesn’t need to be a float rider to participate. A time or two, he’s been a chauffeur for a grand marshal Heck, Schroder said he’d be happy to drive a tractor, as long as he can be in a parade. His favorite parts of the season, he said, are Endymion’s roll through Mid-City and Thoth’s visit to hospitals and homes.
Schroder said his toughest parade was on one of those
shiveringly cold, wet Mardi Gras mornings, marching all the way down St. Charles Avenue with Pete Fountain’s Half-Fast Walking Club.
“It was miserable. I don’t really drink, but I remember having a bloody mary that morning to try to warm myself up.”
At what cost?
Schroder said you might not expect to find a businessman and former state treasurer so involved with Carnival.
“Being conservative on financial things doesn’t really match up with Mardi Gras,” he said. “It’s a waste of money.” Unless, of course you count the camaraderie, family traditions and other intangibles.
“It’s just unbelievable, seeing the people, and everything that goes with it,” Schroder said. “I love it.”
Part of his Carnival celebration these days “is taking my grandkids to the parades.”
What Schroder says he’s learned over the years is that Carnival may seem like a huge event, but it’s actually made up of hundreds and hundreds of small clubs all doing their things simultaneously He wants to sample as many as possible.
Schroder says he has no exact criteria for which parades to add to his running total. He plans to prioritize processions that take place in New Orleans. But, he said, “I will ride in any parade that I’m invited to ride in.”
Email Doug MacCash at dmaccash@theadvocate. com.
professional setting. In private and social life, however, such customs often linger because they have acquired a certain charm. That is why for example, a high-powered executive still might want her father to “give her away” at her wedding. You might want to tell your husband that as the female in the marriage, you will decide what is sexist and what is harmlessly charming. You might pick his next laundry day to do so.
Dear Miss Manners: When planning a party, I am sure many of us could agree it is stressful trying
to get an accurate head count. How do you get the people you invited to respond in a timely fashion?
Gentle reader: An excellent question. Please let Miss Manners know when you come up with an answer
Send questions to Miss Manners at her website, www missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
Paramour has history with reader’s friend
Dear Harriette: A couple of months ago, I got back into the dating scene after focusing on myself for a while. I met a handsome guy who goes to church, has a good job and is ambitious and sweet. Dating him has been great, and it’s exactly the sort of romance I prefer I decided to open up to my friends about this new person, and I learned that a girlfriend of mine dated him a year or two ago. She says it was very casual, which is a relief. Now, though, the thought of physical intimacy is looming in my mind. Should I leave this guy alone? Lover and Friend Dear Lover and Friend: Did your friend express any reservations about you dating this man? As big as the world seems, we are often reminded how small it turns out to be in terms of our points of connection. If you had said your friend had been serious with this man and was uncomfortable about you dating him, that could be grounds for reservation on your part, but casual dating a year or more ago does not neces-
sarily send up a red flag. Ask your friend if there’s anything you should know about your guy that sounds an alarm. Find out what she liked about him and also why they stopped going out — but do not belabor the point. Focus on your own relationship with this man. You gave a list of things that you like about him. Go back to that list and see if they remain true. Take your time getting close to him. If you expect that he will meet your friends, you should also tell him who they are and that when you were talking about dating him, one remarked that she had dated him, too. Observe his reaction to that news. Again, don’t make a big deal out of it. As far as intimacy goes, when it feels right, you can take that next step. Don’t worry about it until then. Dear Harriette: I’d like to chime in with some advice to your reader who gets nervous at job interviews. When I started out in the working world, I would get so nervous in interviews that I would shake and my voice would quiver A
couple of things helped me tremendously First, after each interview, I wrote down the questions I was asked and prepared answers for those questions before the next interview The same questions are often asked in multiple interviews. Then, I worked on getting excited about my answers. An interviewer once told me my answers were good, but I didn’t have any “pizazz,” so I worked on showing pizazz — and I got offers from each of the rest of that round of interviews. One other thing: At the end of each interview, I would ask each interviewer how I did and got many candid answers that helped me prepare for future interviews. — Interview Veteran Dear Interview Veteran: Brilliant strategy on your part. Your proactivity and willingness to learn at each step paid off. Thank you for sharing.
Send questions to askharriette@ harriettecole.com or c/o Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.
Clearing up Medicare confusion
Dear Heloise: I totally agree that no one should give their Medicare card number to anyone over the phone who calls them and asks for it. The scam is due to the fact that a lot of people, like me, have recently received new Medicare cards with new numbers. This is because Medicare was concerned that somewhere, someway the old cards were compromised in a data breach. I asked Medicare how and where this happened, but they would not share this information with me.
too, but is always effective with blood. Kind regards!
Adriana Kuhn, via email
Lowering grocery bills
Dear Heloise: I don’t grab a basket, not even a handheld one, if I am going to buy just milk, coffee and asparagus (to accompany chicken for dinner). This way, I can carry the few items I need and can’t add in any impulse purchases, like biscotti or an enticing new creamer It also helps me maintain a healthy weight. — MamaVanhorn,via email
Saving lotion
So, yes, people are getting new Medicare cards with new numbers, but do not share the new numbers with someone who phones you and requests the number Regards Mike Gleason, via email
Blood stain remover
Dear Heloise: I’m writing in response to a question asked in a recent column about removing blood stains. I have a miracle blood stain remover: a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and dish soap. Just dab a tiny bit of soap on the stain, then squirt hydrogen peroxide on it. Rub this in with an old toothbrush, and the stain will disappear before your eyes. This works well on other stains,
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Dear Heloise: I like to finish all of the lotion in my bottle without wasting any
My lotion comes with a pump, and there is a significant amount of lotion left in the bottom of the bottle when the pump no longer works. I remove the pump and replace it with a cap from a soda bottle. Then I simply store the bottle upside down, leaning it against the cabinet wall for stability The bottle cap is a perfect fit, and there’s no waste. — Jeff,Tipp City, Ohio
A sneaky surprise
Nontoxic weed killer
Dear Heloise: Some years ago, I found out a way to make a nontoxic weed killer In a bucket, combine 2 cups of Epsom salt, ¼ cup of dishwashing liquid, and a gallon of white vinegar After mixing it, I always leave it to sit overnight so that the Epsom salt dissolves (as it can take a while). Works like a charm! — Schrowie,A Devoted Reader
Traveling with a hoodie
Dear Heloise: I usually pack a hoodie in my carry-on piece of luggage. I unzip it and use it to stay warm by draping it over my front or putting it on with the hood over my head. This helps reduce noise if I want to sleep and protects my hair and scalp. After all, I don’t know who was sitting there before me — M.V in Wisconsin Send a hint to heloise@ heloise.com.
Dear Heloise: After seeing the letter about eggs in imported goods, I just had to write. Years ago, when I owned a drapery manufacturing company, we had a real surprise one day As we began to work on an order of imported fabric, much to my dismay and the screams of my employees, a snake crawled out of the roll of fabric. All I know about the snake is that he wasn’t from the United States. This story is true and good for a laugh now and then. — Evelyn Brown, Little Rock,Arkansas
online #AlcoholFreeFor40 community for virtual camaraderie, inspiration and accountability. Registration closes at midnight March 2. Visit www.AlcoholFreeFor40. com to learn more, sign up, and start your journey toward a healthier, more energized you. It’s the perfect springtime reset to help you feel your best — inside and out.
Email Molly Kimball at nutrition@ochsner.org.
LSU AGCENTER PHOTO By RANDy LABAUVE When pruning, leave a small stub so the tree or shrub can heal the wound.
Hints from Heloise
Harriette Cole SENSE AND SENSITIVITy
PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Love makes the world go 'round. Pick up the pieces you left behind and fill your day with positivity and a desire to see the good in others. Life is about choices; do what's best for you.
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Channel your energy wisely. Don't waste time on situations you cannot change or negative individuals trying to rattle your nerves. Focus on using your energy to promote positive gain.
tAuRuS (April 20-May 20) Say no to toxic situations Move toward peace of mind, even if your journey necessitates difficult choices. Put your time and effort into things that bring you joy.
GEMInI (May 21-June 20) It's easier to navigate life's land mines if you know what to look out for. Make changes and don't mask problems instead of eliminating them Deal with things in an assertive fashion.
CAnCER (June 21-July 22) Be the light everyone looks to for guidance. Your wisdom, experience and gratitude will offer strength to loved ones and help you recognize what's possible. Push forward and achieve great things.
LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) Be a leader, not a follower — make things happen instead of sitting on the sidelines observing and criticizing others. Join forces with sincere people and find purpose in making positive changes.
VIRGo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) An unfamiliar environment will set your mind adrift.
Use your experience to get a read on what's new and exciting, and you'll discover the power of positive change. Today is about growth.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-oct. 23) Spread the love. Compliment and help those around you, and see what happens. Choose a jubilant approach to life; doors will open, and opportunities will manifest.
SCoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Share ideas, lend a helping hand, expand your circle of friends and choose peace of mind and personal happiness over enticement. Make choices based on facts, figures and flexibility.
SAGIttARIuS (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Observe, listen and assess situations carefully. Stick to the rules and take the path that bypasses indulgent behavior and temptation. Choose wisely, and you'll be proud of your achievements.
CAPRICoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Take your time. Refuse to bend or let someone take advantage of you. Speak up and stand up for what's best for you. Protect your physical and emotional wellbeing and your reputation.
AQuARIuS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Look on the bright side of life, and you'll attract positive people and input. Make your home your sanctuary, and spend time doing the things that make you happy.
Celebrity Cipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present. Each letter in the cipher stands for another.
toDAy'S CLuE: L EQuALS A
CeLebrItY CIpher
For better or For WorSe
FrAnK And erneSt
SALLY Forth
beetLe bAILeY
Mother GooSe And GrIMM
SherMAn’S LAGoon
bIG nAte
Sudoku
InstructIons: Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.
Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer
THe wiZard oF id
BLondie
BaBY BLueS
Hi and LoiS
CurTiS
By PHILLIP ALDER
Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher who died in 531 B.C., said, “When the highest type of men hear Tao, they diligently practiceit.Whentheaveragetypeofmen hearTao,theyhalfbelieveinit.Whenthe lowest type of men hear Tao, they laugh heartily at it. Without the laugh, there is no Tao.”
This week we are looking at the defensive principle that if you lead a low card from length, you guarantee at least one honor in that suit. With a weak suit, you lead an unnecessarily high card. This is no laughing matter, but there is one situation when the rule should be ignored when you are leading partner’s suit and you have not supported that suit. Then, giving length information is (usually) more important than strength information. This deal is a textbook example. North passes as dealer, East opens one heart, and South leaps majestically to four spades. If West leads the heart seven (top of nothing), East will think it is a singleton or high from a doubleton. He will win the first trick with the heart nine (low from touching cards when playing third hand high), take the heart ace, and try to cash the heart king. But South will ruff and run all of his trumps. There is no minorsuit squeeze, but declarer takes eight spades and two clubs.
NEW YORK Fabric and crafts retailer Joann Inc., which has been a destination for generations of quilters, knitters and lovers of crafts projects for more than 80 years, is going out of business and shuttering all its stores. The announcement comes after the Hudson, Ohio-based retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, the second time in a year It cited sluggish consumer demand and inventory shortages. At the time it vowed it would keep all of its stores open
But earlier this month, Joann said it planned to close 500 stores — or more than half of its nationwide footprint. The company said Sunday that after a recent auction, financial services company GA Group, together with Joann’s term lenders, were selected as the winning bidder to “acquire substantially all of Joann’s assets” and would begin winding down the company’s operations and conduct going-out-of-business sales at all store locations.
More sanctions on Iranian oil trade
WASHINGTON The U.S. on Monday imposed sanctions on dozens of people and oil tankers across China, the United Arab Emirates, India and other jurisdictions for allegedly helping to finance Iran and its support for militant groups that launch attacks against the U.S and its allies. This is the second round of sanctions imposed on Iranian oil sales since President Donald Trump issued the National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, which calls for the U.S to “drive Iran’s export of oil to zero.” It also states that Iran “can never be allowed to acquire or develop nuclear weapons.
Apple to invest $500B in U.S. in jobs, factory
NEW YORK Apple announced Monday that it plans to invest more than $500 billion in the United States over the next four years, including plans to hire 20,000 people and build a new server factory in Texas. The move comes just days after President Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook promised him that the tech giant’s manufacturing would shift from Mexico to the U.S. Trump noted the company was doing so to avoid paying tariffs. That pledge, coupled with Monday’s investment commitment, came as Trump continues to threaten to impose tariffs that could drive up the cost of iPhones made in China.
“We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future,” Cook said in a company blog post. Apple outlined several concrete moves in its announcement, the most significant of which is the construction of a new factory in Houston slated to open in 2026 — that will produce servers to power Apple Intelligence, its suite of AI features. The company claims this factory will create “thousands of jobs.”
New CEO aims to streamline operations
BY DEE-ANN DURBIN AP business writer
Starbucks plans to lay off 1,100 corporate employees globally as new Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol streamlines operations.
In a letter to employees released Monday, Niccol said the company will inform employees
who are being laid off by midday Tuesday Niccol said Starbucks is also eliminating several hundred open and unfilled positions.
“Our intent is to operate more efficiently, increase accountability reduce complexity and drive better integration,” Niccol wrote in the letter Starbucks has 16,000 corporate support employees worldwide, but that includes some employees who aren’t impacted, like roasting and warehouse staff.
Baristas in the company’s stores who make up most of the company’s 361,000 employees worldwide — are not included in the layoffs.
Niccol said in January that corporate layoffs would be announced by early March. He said the company needed to reduce complexity and ensure that all work is overseen by someone who can make decisions.
“Our size and structure can slow us down, with too many lay-
ers, managers of small teams and roles focused primarily on coordinating work,” Niccol wrote Starbucks’ layoffs come as other big companies make similar moves. Southwest Airlines said last week it was eliminating 1,750 jobs, or 15% of its corporate workforce, in the first major layoffs in the company’s 53-year history And last month, tire maker Bridgestone Americas closed a plant in LaVergne, Tennessee, and laid off 700 workers there
FDA works to reverse layoffs and rehire lost staff after mass firings
BY MATTHEW PERRONE AP health writer
WASHINGTON Barely a week after mass
firings at the Food and Drug Administration, some probationary staffers received unexpected news over the weekend: The government wants them back.
Beginning Friday night, FDA employees overseeing medical devices, food ingredients and other key areas received calls and emails notifying them that their recent terminations had been “rescinded effective immediately,” according to messages viewed by The Associated Press.
Four FDA staffers impacted by the decisions spoke with the AP on condition of anonymity because they planned to continue working for the agency and weren’t authorized to discuss its internal procedures.
The reversal is the latest example of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s chaotic approach to cost-cutting, which has resulted in several agencies firing, and then scrambling to rehire, employees responsible for nuclear weapons, national parks and other government services.
The FDA reinstatements followed pushback by lobbyists for the medical device industry, which pays the agency hundreds of millions of dollars annually to hire extra scientists to review products. The industry’s leading trade group said Monday “a sizable number” of device reviewers appear to be returning to FDA.
“This would be welcome news, and I appreciate the administration for acting quickly,” AdvaMed CEO Scott Whitaker said in an emailed statement. “We all share the same goal — an efficient, effective FDA review process that helps advance the medical technologies American patients depend on.”
FDA staffers said entire teams of five or more medical device reviewers had been reinstated.
In the agency’s food program, at least 10 staffers responsible for reviewing the safety of new ingredients were offered their jobs back according to a food staffer who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency matters
The FDA’s deputy commissioner for
foods, Jim Jones, resigned last week, citing “the indiscriminate firing” of nearly 90 staffers in his division, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by the AP The food program recently underwent a major restructuring to better oversee essential products like infant formula and baby food.
The FDA hasn’t released official numbers on the terminations, but former FDA officials have pegged the number at roughly 700, with more than 220 coming from the medical device center. That would represent roughly 10% of the program’s total staffing.
The FDA did not respond to requests Monday about how many employees were being reinstated.
Like other agencies, the FDA terminations went to employees in their probationary period, typically the first two years of federal employment. But that approach resulted in firings across key areas where the agency has been working to beef up staffing, including rapidly
evolving fields like artificial intelligence and digital health. The cuts also included agency leaders who were recently hired for senior roles.
“The disarray caused by the wholesale termination of a wide swath of device center staff was counterproductive and appears to have caused a variety of unintended and negative results,” said Steve Silverman, a former FDA device official who now runs a consulting firm. “It’s encouraging to see a shift in the opposite direction that recognizes the critical expertise of these staffers.”
Many reviewers have advanced degrees in specialized medical and technological fields. They can typically earn more in the private sector than in government.
Last week, the lobbying group AdvaMed pushed back on the firings, calling on Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. to reverse course. The group warned that the cuts would result in slower approvals for companies and fewer new treatment options for patients.
Elizabeth Holmes fails to overturn her Theranos fraud conviction
BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos, will remain in prison after losing a bid Monday to overturn her fraud conviction, with a federal appeals court saying she hadn’t proved there were legal missteps during her trial for defrauding investors with false claims of what her bloodtesting startup could achieve. The three-judge panel in San Francisco also upheld the fraud
conviction of Holmes’ former business partner and lover Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani — as well as a lower’s court order for the two to pay $452 million in restitution.
worked, and the claims were false.
Holmes was CEO throughout Theranos’ turbulent 15-year history claimed her startup had developed a revolutionary medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood. But the technology never
A 41-year-old mother of two small children, Holmes began serving her 11-year sentence in May 2023 at a federal prison in Texas. Her listed release date at the Federal Bureau of Prisons is currently March 19, 2032. Balwani, 59, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison in California for his role in the scam and is set to be released in 2033.
The pair alleged in their appeal that legal errors were committed during their separate trials in 2022 when the court allowed some testimony, including that of a former Theranos employee, and improperly prohibited other testimony Judge Jacqueline Nguyen rejected the claims, writing in the 54-page ruling that they failed to prove any violations or major errors by the lower court.
Attorneys for Holmes and Balwani did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
