BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER Staff writer
took
But
ended.
“This is how freedom looks like,” Hadi said to his wife. “There’s no
police coming for you, and there’s no fear of being deported to Afghanistan.” Before the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, Freshta was one of many prosecutors in Kabul who worked alongside American military officials to prosecute crimes committed by the terrorist group.
Esponge left, and his father Chris Esponge, right, both with
concession stand building and pickleball courts.
BY MEGAN WYATT | Staff writer
Picard Park in Milton has hosted countless youth
sporting events over the years but has seen few renovations in the five decades since its construction
Rep Troy Hebert, who grew up playing ball at the Lafayette Consolidated Government park, was there Friday when a $1.1 million renovation project was announced.
He said the renovation is long overdue.
“That’s the same original stand I used to buy barbecue burgers from when I was a kid,” Hebert said. “It’s a much-needed upgrade, without a doubt.”
The park will soon get new pickleball courts, bathrooms, accessible parking, a picnic area and a concession area. Construction is set to begin this month and wrap before the end of the year at 130 Park Lane.
“Milton has a special place in this administration’s heart because of the — I guess the different projects,” said Lafayette Parish Mayor-President Monique Boulet, alluding to the nearby controversial drainage project inherited from the previous administration “But it is a beautiful part of the parish and so this is the bright spot.”
It was a vocal group of Milton residents who pushed for the renovation project. They formed the Picard Park Committee and pressed parish and state lawmakers to find the funds to make it a reality Some of those same residents are also pushing Boulet and her team to finish work on the Homewood Detention Ponds located less than a mile from the park. A public meeting on that proj-
Mayor-President
The family has asked to be identified only by their first names and requested not to appear in photos because of continued fears of retaliation.
The couple were at ground zero when Kabul fell in 2021 as American troops withdrew They were within earshot when a suicide bomb detonated on Aug. 26, 2021,
BY MARK BALLARD | Staff writer
WASHINGTON The Federal Emergency Management Agency may not close entirely — as President Donald Trump says he’s open to — but it appears the disaster relief agency is in for rearranging. Trump created a FEMA Review Council, which will conven in April, to report on the agency’s strengths and failings and make recom mendations for chang by summer A U.S. House committee hearing last week floated several ideas including letting states carry more of the disaste burden. That would cause dramatic for storm-prone Louisian ticularly reliant on FEMA. Louisiana has received to recover from 28 disasters, according to a January Carnegie Endowment report. Meanwhile, Trump has cut FEMA’s budget and fired 200 probationary employees while trying to force out another 800 in an agency with about 17,000 workers Some emergency officials and members of Con-
See FEMA, page 5A
Police warn of increased crowds, security concerns
BY STEPHEN MARCANTEL | Staff writer
for
state Rep.
ect is scheduled for 6 p.m. March 18 at the Milton Civic Center After getting $100,000 approved by the Lafayette Parish Council for the park project, advocates were able to secure another $1 million from the state with help from Sen. Page Cortez and Hebert.
“The restroom area is very old,” said Bob Bixenman,
Sarah Bias tended to customers behind the counter of the Mamou Superette on Friday She grabbed cigarettes and chatted up regulars waiting in line in the busy convenience store. Overall, it was a regular day in the small Evangeline Parish town of Mamou. In normal times, the just under 3,000 residents would be recovering from the town’s yearly Mardi Gras celebration, which brings thousands of visitors. But a few blocks south of the store, police tape hung from a stop sign at the corner of Sixth and Pine streets — where, on Tuesday, two people were killed and 12 were injured in a mass shooting at an outdoor zydeco concert The incident was the second shooting during Mardi Gras week in Mamou; three others were injured in a
See MAMOU, page 5A
12 people injured in shooting at Toronto pub
TORONTO A dozen people were injured in a shooting at an eastern Toronto pub in what police called a reckless act of violence by three men who entered the bar and fired randomly without warning.
Superintendent Paul MacIntyre of the Toronto Police Service said that authorities received numerous emergency calls reporting a shooting at the Piper Arms about 10:40 p.m. Friday A preliminary investigation determined that three males entered the pub and began shooting at customers, MacIntyre said during a news conference at the scene. There were no immediate arrests.
“One male was armed with what appears to be an assault rifle, the other two males were armed with handguns, and they walked into the bar, they produced their guns and they opened fire indiscriminately on the people sitting inside,” MacIntyre said, adding that there were no fatalities.
Police arrived at the scene and found 12 people suffering from various injuries. The victims were transported to local hospitals and six were confirmed to have gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening, MacIntyre said, calling the victims “extremely lucky.” The remaining six victims were hurt by flying and broken glass.
Police: Officer killed, another hurt by teen NEWARK,N.J A 14-year-old shot and killed a police officer and wounded another Friday evening in New Jersey, authorities said, in a chaotic scene that witnesses described as seeing officers running down a busy street before they heard a volley of a dozen or more gunshots.
The slain officer, 26-year-old Joseph Azcona, was part of a team of Newark police detectives and federal agents that had gone to capture a suspect in an illegal weapons sting when the officer was fired on in his vehicle, authorities said.
“He didn’t even get a chance to step out of the vehicle before he was struck,” Emanuel Miranda, Newark’s director of public safety, told a Saturday morning news conference with Newark’s mayor and top prosecutor Miranda called Azcona a “true hero.”
The other officer who was struck was hospitalized with injuries that were not expected to be life-threatening, authorities said. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka called the shooting a “heinous, callous disregard for humanity” and that officers had gone to the scene knowing that “grave danger was possible.”
Man with flag climbs London’s Big Ben tower
LONDON Traffic around the Palace of Westminster in London came to a standstill on Saturday as emergency services tried to reach a man who climbed the Big Ben tower holding a Palestinian flag Photos show the barefoot man, who appeared to be staging a protest, standing on a ledge several yards up Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben.
Officials said tours of the Houses of Parliament were canceled because of the incident.
Westminster Bridge and a nearby street were closed for much of Saturday and several emergency services vehicles were at the scene as crowds looked on. Police also blocked off all pedestrian access to Parliament Square. The Metropolitan Police said earlier that officers received reports about the man about 7 a.m. Saturday and were “working to bring the incident to a safe conclusion” alongside firefighters and ambulance services.
BY KEVIN FREKING Associated Press
WASHINGTON House Re-
publicans unveiled a spending bill Saturday that would keep federal agencies funded through Sept. 30, pushing ahead with a go-italone strategy that seems certain to spark a major confrontation with Democrats over the contours of government spending.
The 99-page bill would provide a slight boost to defense programs while trimming nondefense programs below 2024 budget year levels That approach is likely to be a nonstarter for most Democrats who have long insisted that defense and nondefense spending move in the same direction.
Congress must act by midnight Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, is teeing up the bill for a vote on Tuesday despite the lack of buy-in from Democrats, essentially daring them to vote against it and risk a shutdown. He also is betting that Republicans can muscle the legislation through the House largely by themselves.
Normally, when it comes to keeping the government fully open for business, Republicans have had to
work with Democrats to craft a bipartisan measure that both sides can support. That’s because Republicans almost always lack the votes to pass spending bills on their own.
Crucially, the strategy has the backing of President Donald Trump, who has shown an ability so far in his term to hold Republicans in line.
Trump praised the bill, posting on his Truth Social platform that Republicans have to “remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right.”
“Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s
PHOTO PROVIDED By UKRAINIAN EMERGENCy SERVICE
Firefighters battle a blaze Saturday after a Russian rocket attack in Dobropillya, Donetsk region, Ukraine.
Polish PM warns against appeasement
By The Associated Press
KYIV, Ukraine Russia launched heavy aerial attacks on Ukraine for a second night Saturday after the United States stopped sharing satellite images with the Ukrainian government, officials said. At least 22 people have been killed.
The U.S. decision to withhold intelligence and military aid came on the heels of a tempestuous White House visit last week by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy President Donald Trump is trying to pressure Ukraine into accepting a peace deal with Russia
Without U.S. satellite imagery, Ukraine’s ability to strike inside Russia and defend itself from bombardment is significantly diminished.
“This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X Saturday “More bombs, more aggression, more victims. Another tragic night in Ukraine.”
At least 11 people were killed in multiple strikes on a town in Ukraine’s embattled eastern Donetsk region late Friday, and another seven people were killed in four towns
close to the front where Russian troops have been making steady advances, said regional Gov Vadym Filashkin. Three others died when a Russian drone hit a civilian workshop in the northeastern Kharkiv region, emergency service officials reported. One man was killed by shelling in the region.
Filashkin declared a day of mourning Saturday and warned that more victims could still be found in the rubble.
Russia fired two ballistic missiles into the center of the front-line town of Dobropillya, then launched a strike targeting rescuers who responded, according to Zelenskyy Forty-seven people, including seven children, were injured in the attack.
“It is a vile and inhumane intimidation tactic to which the Russians often resort,” he said.
When asked Friday if Russian President Vladimir Putin was taking advantage of the U.S. pause on intelligence-sharing to attack Ukraine, Trump responded: “I think he’s doing what anybody else would.”
Zelenskyy did not mention intelligence-sharing Saturday, but said he welcomed Trump’s proposal Friday to impose large-scale banking sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire and final peace settlement is reached.
‘financial house’ in order,” he said.
House Republicans’ leadership staff outlined the contours of the measure, saying it would allow for about $892.5 billion in defense spending and about $708 billion in nondefense spending. The defense spending is slightly above the prior year’s level, but the nondefense spending, the aides said, was about $13 billion below last year
The measure also will not include funding requested by individual lawmakers for thousands of community projects around the country, often referred to as earmarks.
But Republicans noted that it would provide for the largest pay increase to junior enlisted service-
members in more than 40 years, and it included an additional $500 million for a nutritional assistance program for women, infants and young children.
The bill does not cover the majority of government spending, including programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Funding for those two programs are on auto pilot and are not regularly reviewed by Congress.
The top Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro and Washington Sen. Patty Murray, both issued statements blasting the legislation.
“I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution,” DeLauro said.
Murray said the legislation would “give Donald Trump and Elon Musk more power over federal spending — and more power to pick winners and losers, which threatens families in blue and red states alike.”
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the focus must be on preventing a shutdown because closures have negative consequences all across government.
“They require certain essential government employees, such as Border Patrol agents, members of our military and Coast Guard, TSA screeners, and air traffic controllers, to report to work with no certainty on when they will receive their next paycheck,” Collins said. “We cannot allow that to occur.”
Trump’s request for unity appears to be having an effect. Some conservatives who almost never vote for continuing resolutions expressed much openness to one last week.
Rep. Ralph Norman, RS.C., says he has never voted for a continuing resolution, what lawmakers often call a CR, but he is on board with Johnson’s effort. He says he has confidence in Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, to make a difference on the nation’s debt.
“I don’t like CRs,” Norman said “But what’s the alternative? Negotiate with Democrats? No.”
Vatican: Pope responding well to treatment, showing improvement
BY NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
ROME Pope Francis is responding well to the treatment for double pneumonia and has shown a “gradual, slight improvement” in recent days, the Vatican said Saturday But his doctors have decided to keep his prognosis as guarded, meaning that he’s not out of danger yet.
The 88-year-old pope, who has chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, has remained stable with no fever and good oxygen levels in his blood for several days, doctors reported in a Vatican statement.
The doctors said that such stability “as a consequence testifies to a good response to therapy.” It was the first time the doctors had reported that Francis was responding positively to the treatment for the complex lung infection that was diagnosed after he was hospitalized on Feb. 14.
Francis worked and rested during the day on Saturday, as he entered his fourth week at Rome’s Gemelli hospital with his condition stabilized following a few bouts of acute respiratory crises last week.
“In order to record these initial improvements in the coming days as well, his doctors have prudently maintained the prognosis as guarded,” the statement said.
In his absence, the Vatican’s day-to-day operations continued, with Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrating Mass for an anti-abortion group in St. Peter’s Basilica. At the start, Parolin delivered a message from the pope from the hospital on the need to protect life, from birth to natural death.
In the message, dated March 5 and addressed to the Movement for Life, which seeks to provide women with alternatives to abortion, Francis en-
E-Edition: theadvocate.com/eedition Archives: theadvocate.newsbank.com
Envoys to try to ‘advance’ Gaza ceasefire
BY WAFAA SHURAFA Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Israel said that it would send a delegation to Qatar on Monday “in an effort to advance the negotiations” around the ceasefire in Gaza, while Hamas reported “positive signals” in talks with Egyptian and Qatari mediators on starting negotiations on the truce’s delayed second phase.
The statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office gave no details except to say it had “accepted the invitation of U.S.-backed mediators.”
Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif alQanoua also gave no details. Talks on the second phase should have started a month ago.
There was no immediate comment from the White House, which on Wednesday made the surprise confirmation of direct U.S. talks with Hamas.
Over the past week, Israel has pressed Hamas to release half of the remaining hostages in return for an extension of the first phase,
which ended last weekend, and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce. Hamas is believed to have 24 living hostages and the bodies of 34 others.
Israel last weekend cut off all supplies to Gaza and its more than 2 million people as it pressed Hamas to agree. The militant group has said that the move would affect the remaining hostages as well.
The ceasefire has paused the deadliest and most destructive fighting ever between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The first phase allowed the return of 25 living hostages and the remains of eight others in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli forces have withdrawn to buffer zones inside Gaza, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza for the first time since early in the war and hundreds of trucks of aid entered per day until Israel suspended supplies.
Before their weekly rally in Tel Aviv, relatives of hostages appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump, who met with eight former hostages on Wednesday “Mr President, a return to war
means a death sentence for the living hostages left behind. Please, sir do not allow Netanyahu to sacrifice them.”
Also on Saturday, foreign ministers from Muslim nations rejected Trump’s calls to empty the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population and backed a plan for an administrative committee to govern the territory to allow reconstruction to proceed.
The foreign ministers gathered in
Saudi Arabia for a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to address the situation in Gaza. The OIC has 57 nations with largely Muslim populations. They supported a plan to rebuild Gaza put forward by Egypt and backed by Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Without mentioning Trump, the ministers’ statement said that they rejected “plans aimed at displacing the Palestinian people
individually or collectively as ethnic cleansing, a grave violation of international law and a crime against humanity.”
They also condemned “policies of starvation” they said aim to push Palestinians to leave, a reference to Israel’s cutting off all supplies to Gaza.
Trump has called for Gaza’s population to be resettled elsewhere permanently, so that the United States can take over the territory and develop it for others. Palestinians have rejected calls to leave.
The ministers at the OIC gathering supported a proposal that an administrative committee replace Hamas in governing Gaza. The committee would work “under the umbrella” of the Palestinian Authority, based in the occupied West Bank. Israel has rejected the PA having any role in Gaza, but hasn’t put forward an alternative for postwar rule.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom said in a joint statement that they welcome the Arab initiative for a Gaza reconstruction plan, calling it “a realistic path.” They added that “Hamas must neither govern Gaza nor be a threat to Israel anymore,” and they support the central role for the PA
BY BASSEM MROUE and SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press
BEIRUT — The death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000, a war monitoring group said Saturday, making it one of the deadliest acts of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in addition to 745 civilians killed, mostly in shootings from close distance, 125 government security force members and 148 militants with armed groups affiliated with Assad were killed. It added that
electricity and drinking water were cut off in large areas around the city of Latakia
The clashes, which erupted Thursday, marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after insurgents took authority after removing Assad from power.
The government has said that they were responding to attacks from remnants of Assad’s forces and blamed “individual actions” for the rampant violence.
The revenge killings that started Friday by Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government against members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect are a major blow to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the faction that led the overthrow of the former gov-
ernment. Alawites made up a large part of Assad’s support base for decades.
Residents of Alawite villages and towns spoke to The Associated Press about killings during which gunmen shot Alawites, the majority of them men, in the streets or at the gates of their homes. Many homes of Alawites were looted and then set on fire in different areas, two residents of Syria’s coastal region told the AP from their hideouts. They asked that their names not be made public out of fear of being killed by gunmen, adding that thousands of people have fled to nearby mountains for safety.
Residents of Baniyas, one of the towns worst hit by the violence, said bodies were strewn on the streets or left unburied in homes
and on the roofs of buildings, and nobody was able to collect them.
One resident said that the gunmen prevented residents for hours from removing the bodies of five of their neighbors killed Friday at close range.
Ali Sheha, a 57-year-old resident of Baniyas who fled with his family and neighbors hours after the violence broke out Friday, said that at least 20 of his neighbors and colleagues in one neighborhood of Baniyas where Alawites lived, were killed, some of them in their shops, or in their homes.
Sheha called the attacks “revenge killings” of the Alawite minority for the crimes committed by Assad’s government. Other residents said the gunmen included foreign fighters, and militants from neighboring
villages and towns.
“It was very very bad. Bodies were on the streets,” as he was fleeing, Sheha said, speaking by phone from nearly 12 miles away from the city He said the gunmen were gathering less than 100 meters from his apartment building, firing randomly at homes and residents and in at least one incident he knows of, asked residents for their IDs to check their religion and their sect before killing them He said the gunmen also burned some homes and stole cars and robbed homes.
The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman said that revenge killings stopped early Saturday
“This was one of the biggest massacres during the Syrian conflict,” Abdurrahman said about the killings of Alawite civilians.
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and killed 13 Americans and 170 Afghan civilians. It was then that Freshta and 1,500 Afghan prosecutors were forced to flee their homeland after the Taliban’s takeover. Her family had no other choice but to abandon everything they knew to escape the ever-present threat to her life, and they have since lived as refugees in Pakistan. Though distanced from the Taliban’s doorstep, the couple described their lives in Afghanistan’s neighboring country as “hell.”
But this week, their dreams were finally realized, thanks to the help of East Baton Rouge Parish District
Attorney Hillar Moore and a group of fellow U.S. prosecutors hellbent on getting families like theirs to safety Freshta and Hadi, both 32, were overcome with relief as they spoke to a welcoming party of about a dozen people at the airport Thursday night as Moore stood beside them.
“I don’t know what to say,” Hadi said, struggling to speak through tears. “We made it. Because of a few people, it was possible.” Like living in ‘a prison’
The process of immigrating to the U.S. is no easy task, even for allies like Freshta who worked with the American military Freshta’s life has been in greater danger than most, Moore said, as she was one of the first women to prosecute a case involving violence against women.
“Afghanistan did not prosecute rapes and sexual assaults because the word of any woman was only valued at one-half of any man,” Moore said.
Moore is a member the Association of cuting Attorneys, a that has worked tirelessly in recent years to help group of Afghan prosecu tors immigrate to the A university professo and journalist, Hadi’ threatened by the Ta
where the Taliban continues to actively look for them.
In recent years, Freshta’s brother was captured and beaten five times by Taliban members who sought to uncover her and her husband’s whereabouts, she said.
Fears of being deported back to the Taliban’s doorstep have surged.
LaBahn said Pakistan has made March 21 the deadline for Afghan refugees to be deported.
“Every night till 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m., we were just awake and thinking about what will happen,”
Freshta said
Outside of a dangerous period where Hadi was forced to return to Afghanistan to secure his passport, the two have lived in a handful of homes in Pakistan
Though they were distanced from the terrorist group, living in Pakistan offered little relief, the couple said.
Tensions between the two neighboring countries have been high, said David LaBahn, president of the attorneys group. Pakistan only reluctantly accepts refugees, and has since deported many of them.
Nearly all of Freshta and Hadi’s family still live in Afghanistan,
Continued from page 1A
of the Picard Park Committee. “That’s the one I was shooting for Page Cortez is the one who pushed for pickleball courts.” Parish Council member John Guilbeau, who represents the area, said he was pleasantly surprised to see $100,000 approved for the project and far more surprised to see another $1 million from the state go toward the park.
“We were so happy with $100,000,” Guilbeau said. “And then Page comes in with the millions.”
The project will include the construction of four pickleball courts,
The couple did the best they could to keep their children from crying even inside the temporary Pakistan, hopinvisible to knocking on refugees. natural and human bese of the , going, because of delet the kids cry freely,” Hadi said. “Every time we say, ‘No, just be silent. Don’t cry.’”
As threats of deportation and being turned over to the Taliban increased, the couple went almost a year without stepping foot outside of their temporary home.
“We couldn’t leave the house,”
Freshta said. “That was such a prison.”
Hopes killed, resurrected
Moore said he has known of Freshta for about a year Like others in the attorneys group, the East Baton Rouge district attorney operates on
bathroom and concession facilities, accessible parking and a new picnic area.
A Beazley Architecture designed the renovation project, and E&L Construction is doing the build-out.
Although the $1.1 million investment is certainly welcome, park supporters are holding out hope for more improvements in the years ahead. They envision a new dog park and updates to the existing baseball and soccer fields, basketball and tennis courts, play areas, walking path and parking lots.
“We’ve got to save what we have,” said nearby resident and parkgoer Wayne Colvin. “And build upon that.”
Email Megan Wyatt at mwyatt@ theadvocate.com
a belief that the U.S. has a responsibility to help the prosecutors find refuge in this country after aiding the American military
LaBahn said this shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it unfortunately has become so, especially recently
A Trump executive order on Jan. 20 halted the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program that allowed prosecutors like Freshta and her family to find safe haven in the U.S.
“This sweeping executive order and the effects of this executive order are trapping them, and it’s really bad,” LaBahn said.
LaBahn said the Taliban has killed 54 Afghan prosecutors since 2021, and 50 prosecutor families remain in danger
After trying to find passage for nearly a year it looked as though a door opened for Freshta and Hadi when they received a call from advocates in mid-January with instructions to race to the Islamabad airport.
The time was now, they were told.
But almost in an instant, their dreams were extinguished.
Baggage packed and ready to go, the couple wept as they texted Moore after they heard they could not go to the U.S., due to Trump’s order
“You dream about something, dream big, and you have hope, you have plans you’re ready to start a new life,” Hadi said. “And something happens, and someone says to you, ‘No, stop there.’
The development also was a punch to the gut of Moore, who at the time said he was “almost certain” the family would be killed if deported back to Afghanistan.
After they were denied passage,
Freshta and Hadi were forced to continue living in limbo in Pakistan with hope dwindling and pressure of deportation back to Afghanistan surging, as the March 21 deadline approached.
“We didn’t know what would happen,” Hadi said “It was total uncertainty.”
But at the beginning of February, a lawsuit was filed in a federal court in Washington state, challenging the Trump administration’s order
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Jamal N. Whitehead granted an injunction, pausing Trump’s immigration order and opening the door for refugees like Freshta and Hadi to come to the U.S. if they acted quickly
The same day, the couple went to the airport in Islamabad where Pakistani officials told them Trump ended the American refugee program.
But after some convincing, they were finally able to board a plane for Qatar and then another for Seattle, still worried they could be stopped and sent home at any moment.
“Every step of this trip was full of anxiety and tension,” Hadi said. “This was our last chance.”
On American soil
On Wednesday they landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
The idea was that arriving in the city where a judge had temporarily blocked Trump’s order would improve their chances of clearing immigration
Local attorneys who volunteer for the attorneys group waited outside customs at the airport, ready to spring into action if immigration officials wouldn’t let them through.
Hadi said it was “the last impor-
tant step” of their journey The husband and wife waited and prayed as authorities brought the family into a room, took their phones and left to review their documents. Thirty minutes passed before a customs official came back
“He said, ‘You came late. There’s no process. You’re not allowed to enter,’” Hadi said
The couple asked him to retrieve one of their phones on which they had a copy of the court ruling from days prior
The officer read the order and contacted officials in Washington, D.C., Hadi said.
The family waited for two more hours on pins and needles, until the customs officer finally returned
“Congratulations. Your documents have been processed,” he told them.
The husband and wife erupted in tears.
“It was a beautiful moment,” Freshta said Overcome with relief, Hadi likened the feeling to weightlessness or being given “a cold glass of water after years in the desert.”
During a brief phone call Wednesday, the typically stoic Moore sounded relieved himself.
“They made it through,” he said A new life in Baton Rouge Group volunteers met the couple outside the airport terminal and took them to a hotel, where they stayed until traveling to Baton Rouge the next day
Now in Baton Rouge, Freshta and Hadi are living in a hotel as Moore and others look for more permanent housing for them.
A GoFundMe has been launched to support them in rebuilding their lives. The district attorney and others said clothing for the family, household items and other donations can be dropped off at the Louisiana District Attorneys Association office at 2525 Quail Drive in Baton Rouge.
Moore hopes to secure a sponsor for Freshta and help her find work as a support staffer in the District Attorney’s Office while she pursues a law degree in the U.S. Hadi said he is interested in going back to school here and furthering his media education or studying something new
On Friday afternoon, after spending their first night in Louisiana, the couple sat at the kitchen table in their hotel room Leaning back in their chairs, they held hands while their daughter napped in the next room and their son played on the floor beside them.
“This is freedom,” Hadi said. “We have not slept good like this in many years.”
Email Patrick Sloan-Turner at patrick.sloan-turner@ theadvocate.com.
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gress worry that the cuts to what they think is an already understaffed agency will weaken responses for future disasters.
“I am deeply concerned about the Trump administration’s attack on FEMA and the dedicated public servants in emergency management at every level,” said Rep Timothy Kennedy, D-N.Y “The truth is that for decades, FEMA has come to the aid of the American public time and time again. And they have done so while being understaffed and underfunded.”
Yet FEMA is unlikely to be shuttered entirely — the president would need Congress to do that. And Louisiana emergency leaders and members of its Congressional delegation say major changes could be good for an agency that has frequently been a source of deep frustration in the state.
“For years thousands of Louisiana families, small businesses and local officials have called my office expressing deep frustration with how FEMA delivers disaster relief,” said House Majority Leader
Steve Scalise, a Jefferson Republican whose district includes hurricane-battered southeast Louisiana.
“President Trump is fully aware of these problems, and I look forward to working with his administration to improve FEMA and the Nat Flood Insurance Program.”
shooting Monday
Information scarce
At the Superette, customers had plenty of theories about what might have happened Tuesday Some questioned whether the two shootings were connected or if the alleged shooter was beaten up the night before and looking for revenge. Many questioned whether it could have been prevented One thing is for sure: The incident came as a shock to residents, who say violence like Tuesday’s is not normal in their town.
“You hear of that around but not right here for a damn Mardi Gras,” said one customer Information has been scarce, with Mamou Police Chief Charles “Pat” Hall offering only a brief confirmation of the shooting Wednesday Louisiana State Police is assisting in the investigation but deferred all comments to city police. The Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office also would not comment.
Police have not announced any arrests made in connection with the shooting.
At least one City Council member has expressed frustration with the lack of information. District 2 council member Brook Chapman said the police chief has not updated the council since Wednesday He said information about the incident has mainly come from the media.
“We have an incompetent chief and assistant chief,” Chapman said.
‘Y’all will be on the line’ It is unclear how much crime occurs in Mamou.
put the costs on the national credit card,” the institute said. “Growing federal intervention displaces more efficient state, local, and private efforts Congress should phase out FEMA aid for disaster preparedness, response, and
f.”
States to take more burden FEMA is responding to more disasters each year about 1,400 hurricanes, wildfires, floods and tornadoes over the past decade. Over the last four years, FEMA reported providing more than $12 billion to individuals and $133 billion to state and local governments, tribal nations, territories and some nonprofits to help in recovery efforts.
The growing expense has some conservatives talking about reducing the federal government’s role.
The Cato Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank, argues that the federal government must cut spending to deal with massive budget deficits. That includes disaster response, which the states should finance themselves.
The states demand federal aid, and federal politi-
The city stopped submitting data to the FBI in 2017.
In October, a Mamou High School student was killed in a murder/suicide in Acadia Parish. In March, police were searching for a suspect in an alleged driveby shooting, with the last reported fatal shooting being in 2021.
Last Mardi Gras, three men were arrested when they allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 19-year-old woman Other crimes reported that day included vehicle thefts, assaults and the stabbing of a different 19-year-old woman.
The City Council discussed Mardi Gras secu-
At a hearing last week, Rep. Dale Strong a Republican from Alabama who chairs the subcommittee that monitors FEMA called for the agency to shed its role in housing migrants without documentation and refugees But he also talked about transferring more of the disaster costs to the states.
“As we contemplate how best to reconfigure or establish efficiencies within FEMA to support its operations, we must ask whether FEMA’s expanding mission set has slowly exhausted the agency’s resources and workforce preventing it from completing its core mission to the highest level of sufficiency,” Strong said.
Rep. Troy Carter, DNew Orleans, agrees that FEMA needs “comprehensive reform” but warned that “dismantling it before putting a new structure in
rity at a Feb 12 meeting. Of particular concern was preventing a car attack similar to the terror attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day
Assistant Police Chief Caleb Simien suggested to the council that all festivities be moved to the south side of town to make it easier to barricade crowds and focus security forces in one part of the city rather the traditional dual celebrations that occur on the north and south sides of town.
The City Council opposed the idea, saying the separate celebrations were part of the city’s Mardi Gras tradition.
Hall pushed back, sug-
place would leave millions of Americans, especially in disaster-prone areas like Louisiana, vulnerable to further hardship.
“States, while capable of responding to some immediate needs, do not have the resources, infrastructure, or capacity to provide the widespread, coordinated relief that FEMA can offer We must strengthen FEMA, not dismantle it, to ensure that no community is left behind in their time of need.
Streamlining, reorganizing
Though abolishing the agency gets most of the headlines, shuttering FEMA probably isn’t in the cards, said Jacques Thibodeaux, director of the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, called GOHSEP
Having partnered with FEMA for the past 20 years the agency is still providing assistance for individuals and local governments for 10 disasters —
Thibodeaux said Louisiana has “very extensive knowledge of how FEMA works.”
Louisiana GOHSEP’s annual budget is about $3.1 billion, of which about $2.8 billion is federal funding that routes through FEMA.
Thibodeaux is open to
gesting there could be increased crowds as people avoid major cities because of the New Orleans attack. He said the department lacked the budget for adequate equipment and extra security personnel to handle larger crowds.
“If something happens, y’all will be on the line Not me,” he said.
‘Somebody’s babies’
Back at the Mamou Superette, Bias said she saw security personnel on Mardi Gras, but they were congregating in one area rather than walking among the crowd.
She said crowds have grown too large for the
some ideas, such as moving FEMA out of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and back to the White House to allow emergency coordinators direct access to the chief executive. Thibodeaux answers directly to the governor and not through several layers of administrators.
“I think that FEMA getting back to their roots is a good thing,” he said.
Slashing bureaucracy is a common theme in talk about FEMA.
The agency grew in the 1970s out of previous decentralized federal efforts at the insistence of Southern governors who demanded that disaster recovery be more coordinated. FEMA has been tinkered with ever since.
Congress passed laws, demanded regulations and expanded the agency’s mission beyond helping people and local governments recover from disasters as well as administering the National Flood Insurance Program.
Over time, myriad rules, often to ensure the federal money is being spent properly, have piled up.
For instance, in major disasters, local governments can hire companies to pick up debris in public areas.
small city and suggested a cap be implemented next year
Another customer said there used to be more officers during Mardi Gras, but the number seems to have dwindled over the years.
“We used to have officers from all over for this festivity,” he said. “Now we just have the local ones and Evangeline Parish. They walked down the street; they had motorcycle police officers and canine dogs. It has been years since we had that.”
FEMA reimburses the local governments. But often homeowners need to tear out much of their houses, and there’s simply not enough room on the street side of the culvert to pile up the debris.
FEMA has to proactively waive that regulation for the local contractors to pick up debris on the privately owned house side of the culvert, which takes time. This red tape leads to a lot of anger among disaster victims who are understandably impatient to get back on their feet.
“FEMA is badly broken and in need of reform,” said Rep Julia Letlow a Start Republican whose district now includes parts of the Baton Rouge area.
“I’m glad to see President Trump order a review of an agency that too often puts bureaucracy ahead of effectively helping Americans in need. Sunshine is the best medicine, and this evaluation will provide us the information necessary to bring accountability to FEMA and competence to our nation’s disaster response.”
Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate. com.
Martello said it used to be that Mardi Gras would see its share of drunken fist fights but that those days are over People are far more likely to draw weapons, she said.
“There’s nothing you could do about it; it’s done,” Martello said. “I feel sorry for the families because, I mean, they were kids, somebody’s babies.”
Email Stephen Marcantel at stephen.marcantel@ theadvocate.com.
Angie Martello, Anna Fontenot and Dionne Brooks sit on a porch less than a block from where the shooting occurred. The women said tragedy like this has never struck the small town. They said out-of-towners are bringing in “squabbles.”
BY JOSH BOAK Associated Press
WASHINGTON With his flurry of tariffs, government layoffs and spending freezes, there are growing worries
President Donald Trump may be doing more to harm the U.S. economy than to fix it.
The labor market remains healthy with a 4.1% unemployment rate and 151,000 jobs added in February, and Trump likes to point to investment commitments by Apple and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to show that he’s delivering results.
But Friday’s employment report also found that the number of people stuck working part-time because of economic circumstances jumped by 460,000 last month. In the leisure and hospitality sectors that reflect consumers having extra money to spend, 16,000 jobs were lost. And the federal government reduced its payrolls by 10,000 in a potential harbinger of the alarm being sounded by the stock market, consumer confidence and other measures of where the economy is headed.
Since January, the economic policy uncertainty index has spiked 41% to a level, 334.5, that in the past signaled a recession. Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University economist and co-developer of the uncertainty index, said it’s unclear how this will play out, but he’s worried.
“I have an increasing fear we will enter into what may become known as the ‘Trump recession,’” he said. “Ongoing policy turbulence and a tariff war could tip the U.S. economy into its first reces-
sion in five years.” That last recession occurred under Trump because of the coronavirus pandemic For his part, Trump seems comfortable with the uncertainty that he’s generating, saying that any financial pain from import taxes is a mere “disruption” that will eventually lead to more factories relocating to the United States and stronger growth.
If Trump’s gambit succeeds, the Republican would cement his reputation as an unconventional leader who proved doubters wrong. But if Trump’s tariffs backfire, much of the price would be paid by everyday Americans who could suffer from job losses, lower wages, higher inflation and, possibly, an injured sense of national pride
In an interview to air Sunday on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump was pressed to provide some clarity on his tariffs agenda that has caused uncertainty to fester The president largely hedged his answer and blamed the 6% drop in the stock market over the past two weeks on “big globalists.”
“You know, the tariffs could go up as time goes by, and they may go up and, you know, I don’t know if it’s predictability,” the president said.
The White House maintains that Friday’s jobs report showed the administration’s strategy is working because manufacturers added 10,000 jobs. Of the manufacturing gains, 8,900 jobs came from the auto sector, recovering some of the industry’s job losses in January The White House also suggested that the loss of leisure and hospitality jobs was the result of
flu
season and people having depleted savings and credit card debt because of President Joe Biden’s term.
“I thought it was a really, really impressive jobs report,” Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said of Friday’s numbers.
Hassett said the additional factory jobs were the result of companies “on-shoring” work because of the coming tariffs.
“This is the first of many reports that are going to look like this,” Hassett said with regard to the hiring in the industrial sector
The stock market selloff raises doubts about whether tariffs will create the promised jobs.
“Markets anticipate,” said John Silvia, CEO of Dynamic Economic Strategy “The turn down the dark alley of tariffs signals higher inflation, slower economic growth and a weaker U.S. dollar It is an economic hor-
ror movie in slow motion.”
Trump has instigated a trade war in the last week with Canada, Mexico and China, only to then hit a monthlong pause on some of his import taxes because of the threat to U.S. auto factory jobs and because of Mexico’s latest efforts to curb fentanyl smuggling.
More tariffs are coming on April 2 for Europe, Trump says, possibly putting the United States into open conflict with a continent it helped rebuild after World War II. South Korea, India and Brazil could also face new tariffs, Trump said in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday
Silvia said Trump’s tariffs need to be more targeted with regard to products and nations and set at lower rates, adding that doing so would provide an assurance that there is solid research backing the measures.
There were multiple signs of uncertainty and concerns
about the tariffs in the Federal Reserve’s beige book, a collection of anecdotes from hundreds of businesses that the Fed releases eight times a year
Published Wednesday, the beige book included 47 references to uncertainty, up from just 17 in the previous edition in January
“Many businesses noted heightened economic uncertainty and expressed concern about tariffs,” the Fed’s New York branch reported. “Looking ahead, businesses were notably less optimistic.”
“This is the perfect storm for businesses,” said Brian Bethune, an economist at Boston College. “How can you possibly plan anything in this environment?”
Still, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday on CNBC that he sees positive momentum in combating inflation. He said crude oil prices have fallen since Trump’s inauguration, as have the interest rates on
10-year U.S. Treasury notes and mortgages. Still, interest rates on government debt are higher than they were last year in September and the recent decline could reflect a slowdown in economic demand.
Bessent suggested a core problem is that the U.S economy has become overly reliant on government deficits and that the Trump administration would be fostering stronger growth in the private sector
“We’ve become addicted to this government spending, and there’s going to be a detox period,” he said.
This particular form of economic rehab is coming from Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is led by T-shirted tech mogul Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, X and SpaceX, among other companies.
The alleged savings by DOGE are still too paltry to bend the troubling trajectory of the national debt that is largely being driven by tax revenues that are insufficient to cover the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare.
But the initiative has started to downsize the federal workforce in ways that could surface in future jobs reports. Roughly 75,000 employees took the deferred resignation plan. There are also thousands of probationary federal workers who were fired and tens of thousands of layoffs to come based on the administration’s plans.
Asked Friday in the Oval Office if the government layoffs could hurt the overall labor market, Trump said the economy would be great.
BY CHRISTINE FERNANDO Associated Press
house for the fire service,” said Marc Bashoor a for opened in 1973 to combat a growing number of fatal it’s been canceled,’” he said. “It’s really upsetting.”
-Jeff M.
WASHINGTON — While attention focuses on changing tariffs and rising prices, the deadline to stop a government shutdown is fast approaching
When Friday night turns to Saturday morning at midnight, much of the federal government will close unless Congress this week passes legislation to authorize further spending.
Mark Ballard
Both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, are scurrying to get such a bill passed. So far, they haven’t nailed down enough votes to avoid a politically damaging shutdown.
With a 218-216 Republican majority, Johnson can lose only two GOP votes if everyone shows up and the Democrats remain opposed to the usually bipartisan measure.
Johnson is optimistic.
“I believe we’ll pass it along party lines,” he said Thursday “It is a fundamental responsibility we have to fund the government. And a clean CR with a few minor anomalies is not something that they should vote against.”
He’s referring to a “continuing resolution,” a single stopgap measure that would authorize government to spend taxpayer dollars until the end of September A new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. A CR lumps all funding together at the same levels that were approved last year under President Joe Biden.
By clean, Johnson is saying the bill does not include additional funding cuts or riders promoting conservative causes that have proved to be stumbling blocks in the past.
“I certainly hope that reasonably minded members on both sides of the aisle will do the right thing. It doesn’t help anyone to have a government shut down,” Johnson said.
He blamed unreasonable Democratic demands for stifling negotiations that forced the need for a continuing resolution.
Traditionally, Congress passes 12 bills that appropriate spending for the fiscal year at federal agencies. But that’s only happened a few times this century as Re-
Verne Kennedy, La. pollster, dies
Only political insiders knew his name, but Verne Kennedy played a significant role for decades in deciding who would be elected governor of Louisiana.
V. Kennedy
Kennedy was a pollster whose survey results helped candidates craft messages for voters. Former governors Edwin Edwards and David Treen were among his clients.
Kennedy’s data also helped business owners decide who to bet their money on. Kennedy, 83, died on Feb. 28 in Gulf Breeze, Florida. He had two children and was married to his wife Martha for 61 years.
Besides working for candidates, Kennedy did polling for a group of about 20 business owners for Louisiana governor’s races from 1995 through 2023.
“We wanted to pick someone who wasn’t in Louisiana or was tied to any candidate and did good research,” said Randy Haynie, a veteran lobbyist in
publicans and Democrats have become increasingly intransigent.
Because the CR, however clean, deals with lump sums rather than specific expenditures, Trump and his efficiency czar, Elon Musk, would have more discretion to move money around during a time when the two are unilaterally cutting funds and firing workers to reduce the size of government.
Democrats want language in the bill that would give the legislative branch more input in those executive branch
Baton Rouge who was a member of the group that hired Kennedy
“We trusted Verne. He gave us the numbers straight up.”
John Georges, who owns The Advocate | The Times-Picayune, was the organizer of the group for many years.
“He was about the science and not the art of politics,” Georges said.
Kennedy didn’t just poll on governor’s races in Louisiana. In Jefferson Parish, for example, he did surveys for such candidates as former Sheriff Newell Normand and former assessor Lawrence Chehardy, said Bob d’Hemecourt, a veteran political operative.
decisions.
“I won’t vote for any budget that fails to protect the American people from the extreme policies of the Musk-Trump administration,” said Democratic Rep. Troy Carter, of New Orleans.
“Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House. They have the power and the responsibility to govern. If they can’t come together and pass a budget that prioritizes working families, economic stability, and national security, then they alone will be respon-
that year showed then-U.S. Sen. David Vitter, the Republican who was the heavy favorite, leading with 36% of the vote, with John Bel Edwards, a little-known Democratic state representative, running second with 27%.
But because African American voters typically gave 90% of their vote to the Democratic candidate, Kennedy redistributed the numbers by giving 90% of the undecided Black voters to Edwards.
In 2022, Kennedy was inducted into the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame.
In 2023, Kennedy told the business group that his data showed something that few were predicting: then-Attorney General Jeff Landry had a shot at being elected governor outright in the primary And that’s what happened.
Kennedy’s first poll in May
That gave him 35%, and as news of Kennedy’s survey spread, Edwards suddenly gained credibility as a candidate among the political class.
In July, his numbers showed the Democrat leading with 34%, while Vitter and then-Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, a Republican, both had 21%. Given that virtually all voters knew Vitter from his years in public office, Kennedy deduced that Vitter had little room to grow Edwards soundly defeated Vit-
sible for shutting down the government.”
Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees have been negotiating to move the individual bills that authorize spending for each agency But Congress doesn’t have time to pass those bills before Friday night.
“Given the March 14 deadline, Congress must act swiftly to prevent a funding lapse,” said Rep. Julia Letlow, R-Start and a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
“Funding the government will keep crucial services operational while empowering us to continue working to pass President Trump’s agenda of tax relief, enhanced border security, and boosting American energy production,” she added.
There have been 10 government shutdowns since 1981. The duration of shutdowns has ranged from a couple of days to 21 days in 1995-1996 to 35 days in 2018-2019.
Generally, federal employees are furloughed, national parks and agency offices are closed.
Some employees, such as active military and air flight controllers, are required to continue working without pay, though usually they are reimbursed once the shutdown is over
Shutdowns end up costing the federal government extra — $400 million in 19951996, $5 billion in 2018-2019 and rattles the world’s financial markets.
The actual CR text is expected to be released over the weekend. The House Rules Committee would take up the CR on Monday and a vote by the full House then would be expected Tuesday The Senate would then have to approve the measure and deliver it to Trump by Saturday morning.
“I am working with the GREAT House Republicans on a Continuing Resolution to fund the Government until September to give us some needed time to work on our Agenda,” Trump wrote on social media. “Conservatives will love this Bill, because it sets us up to cut Taxes and Spending in Reconciliation, all while effectively FREEZING Spending this year.”
Email Mark Ballard at mballard@ theadvocate.com.
ter in the runoff election, 56% to 44%.
Kennedy’s bill dropping Biden drilling rule passes
WASHINGTON The U.S. House gave final approval on a 221 to 202 vote Thursday to a resolution sponsored by U.S. Sen. John N. Kennedy, R-Madisonville, that lifted an offshore energy production rule rendered during the Biden administration.
The rule required offshore lessees and operators to “submit an archaeological report with any oil and gas exploration or development plan” to drill or lay pipelines.
“I am proud to see that the House passed my resolution to help bring back America’s energy dominance, and I look forward to President (Donald) Trump signing it into law,” Kennedy said in a statement.
The Biden administration rule, approved in September, effectively required a survey when reports previously were only
necessary if there was a “reason to believe” that sunken ships, submerged settlements or other archaeological findings were on the seafloor
Democrats argued that all the rule did was standardize reporting that most of the energy industry already filed with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, called BOEM.
Republicans, however, rejected that assessment, arguing that the Biden administration passed the rule as another hurdle to exploring, drilling and producing oil and natural gas in the Gulf. The archaeological rule was one of 225 regulations that increased compliance costs that were particularly onerous for smaller operators, GOP House members argued. Voting for the legislation were all the Republican members of Louisiana’s congressional delegation: House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton; Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson; Rep. Julia Letlow R-Start; and Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette.
Both Democratic members of the state’s delegation voted against the measure: Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans; and Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge.
BY JUSTIN MITCHELL Staff writer
The doors have been open for about two weeks at Field’s Italian restaurant, the newest dining option on Government Street in downtown Ocean Springs, and dinner reservations are going as fast as general manager Ashton Senn can answer the phone.
“We are booking out every single night,” said the food and beverage industry veteran who has worked in restaurants and nightclubs across New Orleans and the Mississippi Coast
The fried burrata appetizer flies off the menu so fast, she often has to make a grocery store run to Rouses to get more.
Once one table orders the dish adored with housemade vodka sauce and chili oil, others follow suit. The same goes for mascarpone cheese used in the fromscratch tiramisu.
Field’s Italian is the brainchild of Field and Jourdan Nicaud, brothers who run some of the most recognized restaurants on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, including waterfront Bacchus eateries in Pass Christian and Ocean Springs, and Field’s Steak and Oyster Bar in Bay St. Louis and Biloxi. Jourdan Nicaud’s latest restaurant is Toro Sushi on Court Street in the Bay
The Pass Christian natives wanted to add an Italian concept to downtown Ocean Springs, a city that’s growing in popularity among tourists looking for a weekend getaway and Louisiana residents in the market for a second home or beach house.
“This has been three years in the making, Jourdan Nicaud said “(We) felt that Gulf Coast was missing an Italian food product at a lower price point, but with a high-end feel.” Jourdan, who lives in New Or-
Rooftop, which had a Mexican restaurant on the first floor and indoor-outdoor bar and dance club on the second.
Field’s is on the first floor and offers two different vibes for diners, Senn said. Guests are greeted by green velvet couches, tropical wallpaper and a giant bar with windows that open to outdoor patio seating.
No reservations are required at the bar, and the full menu is served there.
“It’s cool, colorful and vibrant,” Jourdan said, and the decor transports customers from coastal Mississippi to Miami Beach.
Senn said the private rooms can be arranged to seat from six to 24 people.
A peek at the menu
Lauren Joffrion is the corporate executive chef for the restaurant group, and her menu at Field’s Italian blends the classics with unique coastal flavor profiles.
“We wanted to do some familiar Italian flavors, but with a modern twist,” she said.
crab arancini and mozzarella sticks — the lasagna, lobster ravioli and peppered pig flatbread with an Alfredo sauce base, hot cherry peppers, peperonata, salami and sausage.
Joffrion and her team make everything from scratch, she said.
The most popular cocktails from the bar menu, crafted by Senn, are the “Spressy” espresso martini and Negroni pitcher What’s next?
Field’s will soon open for lunch too, as spring and summer kick off the busiest time for tourism in south Mississippi. Jourdan said a second Field’s Italian restaurant will open in Pass Christian this spring.
It will be located just off the beach in his new Bungalows development, a mixed-use space that features local retail, restaurants and long-term rental units.
“People are already asking about (Field’s), wanting to know who is eating there and what people think,” Ocean Springs Mayor Kenny Holloway said.
Holloway, a Republican who was elected in 2021, said he’s excited for more businesses to open in the building that houses Field’s Italian, including Cat Island Coffee and a rooftop piano bar that Senn will also manage for the Nicaud brothers. A jewelry store anchors the first floor with Field’s, and the second floor will also have hotel rooms.
“It’s good development,” he said. “It’s not anything far out that would be of concern.”
leans with his wife, Vibha, and their daughters, is a big foodie who splits his time between the city and his hometown. He and Field have been renovating a three-story building that houses Field’s after the brothers closed
Behind a door and down a hallway is the dining room, which has shades of olive, blue and brown. The spaces are more intimate, and there are private rooms separated by leather curtains for large parties and events.
One of the most popular dishes so far has been the spicy rigatoni alla vodka, with guests choosing to add Joffrion’s meatballs to the dish at the recommendation of beloved server Fready Staten.
“A lot of people say this is one of the best meatballs they’ve ever had,” Senn said.
Other popular menu items include the hot charcuterie board — with meatballs, Italian sausage,
Holloway added that Louisiana natives are scooping up second homes near downtown, as Government Street offers dining, art, bars, boutiques, and more local businesses that are just a short walk or drive from the beachfront.
“There are Saints and LSU cars with (Louisiana) tags all over the place,” he said “Ocean Springs is a popular little retreat.”
Email Justin Mitchell at justin. mitchell@theadvocate.com.
Math expert explains how new plan will help instruction
BY ELYSE CARMOSINO
Staff writer
A few years after Louisiana pushed schools to adopt a new, systemic approach to reading instruction, education officials want to revamp the way students learn math.
Last month, the state emerged as an unexpected leader in literacy after scores on a national test saw Louisiana jump from 50th in the nation for fourth grade reading in 2019 to 16th last year
Officials attributed the gains to a series of laws and policies that encouraged schools to have their educators systemically teach students about the fundamentals of reading. The state now aims to do something similar with math instruction, which Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley has called a “back-to-basics” approach.
Jamie Hebert, the state education department’s math director and a former math teacher who heads a team of curriculum and standards specialists, is helping lead the charge.
She explained that a back-tobasics strategy means building foundational math skills and using frequent assessments to identify students who need extra help
“We’re at a point where we need educators to know which students are and are not fluent and make sure they understand how to support them individually,” she said, “just like we’ve done with foundational skills in literacy.”
PROVIDED PHOTO By JAMIE HEBERT Jamie Hebert, math director for the Louisiana Department of Education, explains what Superintendent Cade Brumley’s ‘back-to-basics’ math plan will look like in schools.
To prompt this shift, the state Legislature passed a law in 2023 requiring that all math educators for grades four through eight complete training on how to teach numeracy skills. Last year, lawmakers also voted to require tutoring for students who score below a certain threshold on state math tests.
Moving forward, Hebert said the state will focus on early intervention and additional teacher training and support to ensure they can give struggling students the personal attention they need.
Here’s what Hebert has to say about the future of math education in Louisiana.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity
What does a back-to-basics approach to
Q&A WITH JAMIE HEBERT
MATH DIRECTOR FOR THE LOUISIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
math instruction look like in classrooms?
In math, it means understanding which kids need support, and also understanding how to intervene and communicate that struggle to parents. In classrooms, it looks like teachers are keeping track of students’ successes or struggles in the moment.
We’re doing a lot of things right in Louisiana, and our NAEP (national test) scores are proof of that work. But building foundational skills for students will continue to support that growth.
Why do students’ math scores tend to decline after fourth grade?
In elementary, kids are doing very concrete math. As they move into middle school, things become much more abstract, and so the relevance is harder for kids to see. We’re working on foundational learning as a way to address that.
Can you talk about the department’s “Math Refresh” effort that started a couple of years ago? Is it ongoing?
It’s now our comprehensive plan, which includes having highquality, grade-level instruction provided by a high-quality teacher as the expectation for all of our students in Louisiana.
In order for that to happen, teachers need to be given ongoing professional learning and time so they can better support students, and we must acknowledge the role of the family and caregivers in students’ success
The state has also placed a big emphasis on tutoring in recent years. Is that part of the state’s math plan?
Yes. Tutoring initiatives are in place for K-5 schools and for families of students in grades
WE’RE ASKING EXPERTS ACROSS THE STATE HOW TO TACKLE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING LOUISIANA
K-12. In K-5, students who are
identified [as needing extra support] through screeners must be provided high-dosage tutoring during the school day
Students in grades K-12 can also apply to the Steve Carter tutoring program. This year, that program expanded to include math. It provides $1,500 tutoring vouchers to families so they can purchase high-quality literacy and math tutoring services.
There has been a lot of discussion about the “new math” in schools, which focuses on conceptual understanding and problem solving versus rote memorization. Does the department encourage schools to use this approach?
We often talk about “new math” as math people do in their heads. It’s mental math. We’re just explicitly teaching our students to put their thinking on paper so that they can build that fluency and understanding in mathematics. Really, our department is focused on the alignment and coherence of the standards, the curriculum and the assessments and how all of that connects for kids.
Our standards call for kids to develop skill and fluency, build understanding, and apply that skill and knowledge.
One example is an early elementary student learning that two plus three is five. They might be given a group of objects and they count the objects and then they can make a group of two and a group of three. When they separate that into two groups, they still have five objects.
Eventually that becomes a tool in students’ back pockets. If they
don’t have the objects in front of them and they’re struggling with something, they can draw a picture of the objects, but that picture is just a tool. It eventually becomes automatic.
This is parallel to literacy in that it’s similar to students sounding out words. When students come across an unfamiliar word, they know all the sounds that the letters make and we sound it out. The more that we read that word, the more automatic the word recognition becomes.
A new state law requires students in grades K-3 to take three numeracy assessments each year.Why is that important?
We talked earlier about how teachers should know which kids are fluent and which are not. The screeners are the tool that helps them do that. It gives teachers the knowledge of individual students and which specific skills they need support with.
Screeners identify struggling students early so that teachers can intervene early
Other recent state laws require numeracy training for current and aspiring teachers. What are some core math concepts every teacher needs to know?
Teachers need to clearly understand how the mathematics build across and within their grade level. This understanding helps them think about how, if a student is unsuccessful on a specific thing, what should they have known before that?
It’s teaching teachers to look at student work and think about what the work is telling them about what students do and do not know Then they can take action to support student success. Staff writer Patrick Wall contributed to this report.
Email Elyse Carmosino at ecarmosino@theadvocate.com.
demand equal rights, end to discrimination and sexual violence
BY MEHMET GUZEL and ANDREW WILKS Associated Press
ISTANBUL Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere to mark International Women’s Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence.
On the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city, a rally in Kadikoy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine. The colorful protest was overseen by a large police presence, including officers in riot gear and a water cannon truck.
The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared 2025 the Year of the Family Protesters pushed back against the idea of women’s role being confined to marriage and motherhood, carrying banners reading “Family will not bind us to life” and “We will not be sacrificed to the family.”
Critics have accused the government of overseeing restrictions on women’s rights and not doing enough to tackle violence against women.
Erdogan in 2021 withdrew Turkey from a European
treaty dubbed the Istanbul Convention, that protects women from domestic violence. Turkish rights group We Will Stop Femicides Platform says that 394 women were killed by men in 2024.
“There is bullying at work, pressure from husbands and fathers at home and pressure from patriarchal society We demand that this pressure be reduced even further,” Yaz Gulgun, 52, said.
In many other European countries, women also protested against violence, for better access to gender-specific health care, equal pay and other issues in which they don’t get the same treatment as men.
In Poland, activists opened a center across from the parliament building in Warsaw where women can go to have abortions with pills, either alone or with other women.
Opening the center on International Women’s Day across from the legislature was a symbolic challenge to authorities in the traditionally Roman Catholic nation, which has one of Europe’s most restrictive abortion laws.
From Athens to Madrid, Paris, Munich, Zurich and Belgrade and in many more cities across the continent, women marched to demand an end to treatment as second-class citizens in society, politics, family and at work.
In Madrid, protesters held up big hand-drawn pictures depicting Gisele Pélicot, the woman who was drugged
by her now ex-husband in France over the course of a decade so that she could be raped by dozens of men while unconscious. Pélicot has become a symbol for women all over Europe in the fight against sexual violence.
Thousands of women marched in the capital Skopje and several other cities in North Macedonia to raise their voices for economic, political and social equality for women.
Organizers said only about 28% of women in the country own property and in rural areas only 5%, mostly widows, have property in their name.
By The Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran Iran’s Su-
preme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he rejects a U.S. push for talks between the two countries because they would be aimed at imposing restrictions on Iranian missile range and its influence in the region.
Speaking to a group of officials on Saturday, Khamenei did not identify the United States by name but said a “bullying government” was being persistent in its push for talks.
“Their talks are not aimed at solving problems, it is for let’s talk to impose what we want on the other party that is sitting on the opposite side of the table.”
Khamenei’s remarks came a day after President Donald Trump acknowledged sending a letter to Khamenei seeking a new deal with Tehran to restrain its rapidly advancing nuclear program and replace the nuclear deal he withdrew America from during his first term in office.
Khamenei said U.S. demands would be both military and related to the regional influence of Iran.
“They will be about defense capabilities, about international capabilities of the country (They will urge Iran) not to do (certain) things, not to meet some certain people, not to go to a certain place, not to produce some items, your missile
range should not be more than a certain distance. Is it possible for anybody to accept these?”
Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, said such talks would not address solving problems between Iran and the West. Though Khamenei did not name any person or country he said the push for talks creates pressure on Iran in public opinion. “It is not negotiation. It is commanding and imposition,” he said.
Trump in comments to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday did not mention the letter directly But he made a veiled reference to possible military action, saying: “We have a situation with Iran that, something’s going to happen very soon. Very, very soon.”
BY ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN
AP science writer
NEW YORK A total lunar
eclipse will flush the moon red Thursday night into Friday morning across the Western Hemisphere.
The best views will be from North America and South America Parts of Africa and Europe may catch a glimpse. Lunar eclipses happen when the moon, Earth and sun align just so. The Earth casts a shadow that can partially or totally blot out the moon. During a partial lunar
eclipse, Earth’s shadow appears to take a bite of the moon. The full moon is covered during a total eclipse and blushes coppery red because of stray bits of sunlight filtering through Earth’s atmosphere Lunar and solar eclipses happen anywhere from four to seven times a year according to NASA. A partial lunar eclipse graced skies in the Americas, Africa and Europe last September and the last total lunar eclipse was in 2022. The so-called blood moon will be visible for about an hour starting at 1:26 a.m. on
Friday morning. Peak viewing will be close to 2 a.m.
To see it, venture outside and look up — no need for eclipse glasses or any special equipment
“As long as the sky is clear, you should be able to see it,” said Shannon Schmoll, director of Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University.
The setting of the moon may make it harder to see the eclipse in Europe and Africa.
“This is really an eclipse for North and South America,” said astronomy expert Michael Faison from Yale University.
Only 18 out of 100 women surveyed in rural areas responded that their parents divided family property equally between the brother and sister “The rest were gender discriminated against within their family,” they said.
In Nigeria’s capital, Lagos, thousands of women gathered at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium, dancing and signing and celebrating their womanhood. Many were dressed in purple — the tra-
ditional color of the women’s liberation movement.
In Russia, the women’s day celebrations had a more official tone, with honor guard soldiers presenting yellow tulips to girls and women during a celebration in St. Petersburg.
In Berlin, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for stronger efforts to achieve equality and warned against tendencies to roll back progress already made.
“Globally, we are seeing populist parties trying to create the impression that equality is something like a fixed idea of progressive forces,” he said. He gave an example of “ large tech companies that have long prided themselves on their modernity and are now, at the behest of a new American administration, setting up diversity programs and raving about a new ‘masculine energy’ in companies and society.”
In South America, some of the marches were organized by groups protesting the killings of women known as femicides. Hundreds of women in Ecuador marched through the streets of Quito to steady drumbeats and held signs that opposed violence and the “patriarchal system.”
“Justice for our daughters!” some demonstrators yelled in support of women slain in recent years.
In Bolivia, thousands of women began marching late Friday, with some scrawling graffiti on the walls of courthouses demanding that their rights be respected and denouncing impunity in femicides, with less than half of those cases reaching a sentencing.
Kirsten Grieshaber contributed to this report from Berlin.
BY ADAM DAIGLE Acadiana business editor
Where in the United States can you visit a Buc-ee’s and a Trader
Joe’s all in the same area?
If things go according to plan, Lafayette would be one of only three to have that level of retail bragging rights That’s a unique retail territory to be in — one of three cities to have the two popu-
Tony Spell says constitutional amendment bad for nonprofits
BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
A Baton Rouge church leader
known for successfully battling COVID restrictions at the Louisiana Supreme Court is now mounting an eleventh-hour campaign against a proposed constitutional amendment backed by Gov Jeff Landry, arguing it could lead to the elimination of some property tax exemptions for churches.
“The power to tax is the power to destroy,” said the Rev Tony Spell, pastor of Life Tabernacle Church, quoting an 1819 U.S. Supreme Court decision “It becomes a political weapon in the hand of a legislative body,” he added. Spell, in a 2020 crusade against COVID restrictions, once found an ally in Landry, who was state attorney general at the time. Now Spell says Landry has not been up front with voters about the impact of the amendment and strongly opposes the ballot measure, even after talking with the governor this week.
Landry did not respond to a request for comment.
Spell is calling on state officials to halt voting on the proposed constitutional amendment, which includes a slew of tax-policy changes and will appear as Amendment 2 when voters go to the ballot box on March 29.
Legislators who support the amendment point out that property tax exemptions for religious organizations and nonprofits would remain in place in state statute — they would only be removed from the state constitution — and they say there are no plans to eliminate property tax breaks for nonprofits.
“No entity that is enjoying a
lar American retail brands close enough that you could visit both on your lunch break, online listings show
Only two cities in Texas — Fort Worth and the Houston suburb of Katy can claim both companies. In what is referred to as the greater Katy area, which has a population of about 300,000, the two stores are only 7 miles apart.
In 121,000-population Lafayette,
the Buc-ee’s site — which crews recently cleared at the corner Interstate 10 and Louisiana Avenue — would be 11 miles from the site sources indicate Trader Joe’s is targeting near River Ranch at the corner of Camellia Boulevard and Bluebird Drive. That deal is not expected to close until possibly August.
In Fort Worth, with its population just under 1 million, the two stores
are about 25 miles apart.
The greater Katy area, it’s worth noting, also has a massive threestory Topgolf location with over 100 bays. The Topgolf in Lafayette has two levels and 60 bays. Yet Katy does not have a Dave & Buster’s; the nearest location is on the edge of Houston.
In Lafayette, local officials, along with Buc-ee’s representatives, will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at the site at a later date, said Mandi Mitchell, president and CEO of the Lafayette Economic Develop-
ment Authority Construction for the Ruston Bucee’s is expected to begin this week, reports indicate, but a groundbreaking date for that is also undetermined.
The $82 million Lafayette project will include a 74,000-squarefoot store along with about 120 gas pumps and 546 parking spaces. That square footage would be nearly as large as
See COMBO, page 2B
Power plant Superintendent Luis Bayuelo gives a tour inside the Louis
in Lafayette. The station will be demolished over the next year
A look inside ‘Doc’ Bonin power plant before its demolition
BY MEGAN WYATT Staff writer
The Louis “Doc” Bonin Electric Generating Station on Walker Road will soon be demolished and rebuilt as part of a $400 million project by the Lafayette Utilities System.
Demolition is set to begin this sum-
mer and will take about a year The Acadiana Advocate recently had the opportunity to explore the facility with power plant superintendent Luis Bayuelo.
The Doc Bonin station opened in 1965 at 1120 Walker Road with one natural gas-fired steam turbine and cooling tower That first unit had a capacity of just 55 megawatts.
A second unit with a 100-megawatt capacity was added to the station in 1970, and a third unit with a 200-megawatt capacity was added in 1976 to keep up with the demands of a grow-
ing city
“Each new one was double the previous unit,” Bayuelo said. “But it was double the space, too. So they kept adding to the building.”
The new station will feature a single, more efficient natural gas unit with a capacity of 230 to 250 megawatts. It will also be much smaller than any of the existing units at the station. Construction is set to begin on the new station, which will have a smaller footprint, in 2027 and be fully
A Houma man was arrested in Lafayette on counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and computer aided solicitation of a minor
Richard Charles Tujague, 56, of Ann Carol Street, was arrested Thursday as part of an operation in which he was chatting online with an undercover agent, ac-
cording to a news release from the state Attorney General’s Office. He was working in Lafayette at the time of his arrest.
According to the release the arrest was the result of a joint investigation between the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation Cyber Crime Unit in the Attorney General’s Office, Homeland Security Investigations, the Covington Police Department and the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office. Tujague was booked into the
Lafayette Parish Correctional Center as a fugitive from St. Tammany Parish. He will be transported back to St. Tammany Parish at a later date for booking on these charges. His bail information is unknown at this time.
Gambling devices seized at Henderson store
State Police arrested a Youngsville man after illegal gambling
devices and smoking products were seized at the Henderson Hwy One Stop last week. Moehammed Dubashi, 45, was arrested on Thursday and faces one count each of illegal gambling and dangerous chemical substances (nitrous oxide) and eight counts of unauthorized gaming devices, according to State Police. State troopers were notified in February by agents with the state
See BLOTTER, page 2B
BY MARIE FAZIO Staff writer
Most mornings, Pierre Champagne wakes before dawn, dons a blue polo and socks emblazoned with the University of New Orleans logo and reports to campus to help save his alma mater
Champagne, a retired AT&T engineer who graduated from the university in 1976, has spent the past few months volunteering at the front desk of the Bursar’s Office, answering the phone and reassuring panicked students as the university contends with the worst financial crisis in its history
“If you want to define it, my job is to give (students) comfort, give them encouragement, make sure they know they have an ear to listen,” said Champagne, who keeps tissues and a fully stocked mug of candy at his desk to help soothe anxious students.
For years, Champagne has been on a alumni money ten media, post 400,000 STEP DENTS!! on But on versity budget have rollment expens Since has closed colleges to address a $10 million gap. way dent Speaker the
sees higher education across the state, to consider putting UNO under new leadership. The proposal would move UNO from the University of Louisiana System, where it’s been since 2011, back to the Louisiana State University system.
The financial uncertainty and questions about UNO’s future have spurred an outpouring of support from alumni near and far, school officials say Adam Norris, a UNO spokesperson, said alumni have recently offered financial donations, hosted alumni events, volunteered on campus and helped with student recruitment.
“I am so inspired by so many of our alumni who now are leaders in our community, leaders in business who constantly reach out to me to tell me how much their UNO degree has meant to them and how much they’re rooting for us,” UNO president Kathy Johnson told staff at a December town hall meeting.
Alumni step up
UNO is often credited with developing New Orleans’ middle class by offering an affordable education to a diverse student body,
Tim Ryan, a UNO graduate and New Orleans economist who has served as a UNO faculty member and chancellor, said the university plays an important role in the New Orleans economy as a designated research-based institution.
“The amount of community support has been overwhelming,” she said.
‘How can I help?’
nificant artists, such as Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown, Bunny Matsuccessful local atbefore Hur-
dents,” he said. “At least show up Come to campus. Find your department.”
Sometimes, he said, students, staff and faculty simply need a morale boost and to know they have the community’s support “That is the greatest power I believe we have that is not fully tapped,” he said.
A personal fight
Champagne attributes UNO with shaping the trajectory of his life.
After graduating from De La Salle High School, a Catholic school on St. Charles Avenue, he enrolled at UNO because of its low cost. His engineering coursework included a co-op position at Southern Bell, now AT&T, that led to a long career at the company
And on a spring day in 1971, he met his wife Cheryl on campus. (He can still point out the exact spot, five steps above a landing at the University Center.) Two weeks after that first meeting, they were engaged.
Few alumni have stepped up as visibly as Champagne. After his retirement in 2023, he began patrolling the campus and popping into buildings to ask, “How can I help?”
“After a while,” he said recently, “people actually came to realize that I am serious.”
His current post in the Bursar’s Office comes after decades of volunteer work at UNO, including scorekeeping during basketball games, mentoring engineering students and assisting the alumni association. In 2022, Champagne and his wife, Cheryl, who has been an adviser to the cheerleading squad on and off since the 1970s, were inducted into the UNO Athletics Hall of Fame.
“If we’re going to ever diversify our economy, a place like UNO is an incredibly critical part of it,” repUL hat her to while and in afwho with about enrollment to fiince predicament has surfaced, she said she’s heard from alumni and others asking how they can help. A group of alumni have discussed writing an op-ed and others plan to write to state legislators urging them to step in.
Pierre Champagne is a ubiquitous presence on campus. He regularly attends meetings of the student government, faculty and staff senate, and the United Campus Workers, the campus union that represents faculty and staff. After the university cut spending on groundskeeping services, he helped pick up the slack, recently cleaning the grime he noticed on some signs around campus.
“I beg alumni and former stu-
“My ring trilogy: my marriage, my degree, my engineering career,” Champagne said, pointing to his wedding band, engineering society ring and class ring. “Tolkien has his, I have mine, and it would have been impossible without UNO.” nomiuniversity’s annual Carnival parade, known as Krewe of UNO, on a float honoring the school’s “Everyday Heroes.” through campus Tuesday, Champagne threw beads and candy to onlookers from the ship-style float. Decked out in a bedazzled silver and blue hat and a sash that read “UNO hero,” was accompanied on the float by the student homecoming queen, a representative from the Beach at UNO, a faculty member and a student advisor
Champagne said that seeing the celebration proceed despite the turmoil at UNO felt a little like New Orleans throwing the first Jazz Fest after Hurricane Katrina.
“We need to be able to laugh together, to celebrate together and commiserate together,” he said. “This is my life, this is my family.”
Continued from pag
property today tion pass lie chair writing Ta one amen move some property tax exemp tions for religious and nonprofit organizations. While those tax breaks would continue as part of state statute, the bar for changing them in the future would be lower
was not aimed at ultimately iminating exemptions for nonprofits.
oader challenge
ment will be made on or before March 31 of each year
Continued from page 1B
is billed as the world’s largest Buc-ee’s store.
LEDA will also give the company a one-time payment of $300,000 if it maintains 150 employees.
The issue of property breaks for religious is also a factor in separate, broader legal challenge to the proposed amendment.
New Orleans attorney William Most is leading that charge in a lawsuit filed in the 19th Judicial District. Representing a pastor and two teachers, the plaintiffs in the suit, he is asking the court to block Amendment 2 from appearing on the ballot or, if that’s not possible due to timing, block it from taking effect.
Shoppers at the store will pay an extra 1-cent sales tax on all items on top of another 1-cent sales tax for the economic development district in that area, according to the 20-year cooperative endeavor agreement LEDA signed with Buc-ee’s.
The store is expected to generate $1.5 million in sales tax collections a year, LEDA officials said.
The Buc-ee’s store is a big deal also in terms of jobs and tax revenue, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores.
in the south Mississippi city of Pass Christian. That store will be 74,000 square feet and include 126 gas pumps, 24 EV charging stations and 165 toilets. It remains a hugely popular brand, especially in Texas and the southern U.S., although Buc-ee’s often ranks behind Wawa and QuikTrip as the most popular convenience store chain in the U.S. “There’s something about that logo,” Lenard said.
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Any legislation aimed at changing property tax exemptions in the constitution needs voter approval. If Amendment 2 passes, changes to the property tax breaks would only require a two-thirds vote of the Louisiana Legislature. If the amendment passes, “I’m two ture,” exemptio tion its tions owned nizations for health, tional, purposes.
wou constitution exemption wor and mi pr to Louisiana tax law With Landry’s backing, they ultimately slashed income taxes and raised the sales tax, among other changes Now legislators want voters to sign off on a rewrite of the section of the constitution that deals with taxes, which state leaders have branded as an effort to simplify overly complicated tax policy
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A preliminary injunction hearing is set for Wednesday in Baton Rouge.
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Court filings argue that, in a variety of ways, the ballot language voters will see is biased and misleading.
Moving tax exemptions and credits out of the constitution and placing them in statute gives the Legislature more flexibility to
This week, Most published a piece in the news publication Central City News under the heading “Churches Could Be Taxed out of Existence,” warning readers that of are of is on video urges the is
The company will be reimbursed $3.5 million for its $12.5 million public infrastructure improvements in two payments from the current economic development district’s trust fund: a $1.75 million payment within 30 days of opening and another $1.75 million payment one year after that first payment.
It will be reimbursed for its private infrastructure improvements each year by either 2% of the store’s annual revenue or $20,000, whichever is greater Pay-
Convenience stores are often big contributors to local taxes with $1 out of every $4 in sales going to taxes.
“That is federal, state and local,” Lenard said. “That is because of gas taxes, beer taxes, tobacco taxes and various other taxes. Convenience stores are pretty efficient tax collectors. And when you have the sales of a Buc-ee’s that means a lot to a local community.”
Buc-ee’s, meanwhile, is moving ahead on its store
“Anytime I wear a Buc-ee’s T-shirt and we’re hundreds of miles from the nearest Buc-ee’s, someone stops me and says, ‘Oh, wow You’ve been to Bucee’s.’
“There are people that have tattoos from Bucee’s. When people have your brand on their body, they’re not going to drive down the street because the gas is 2 cents cheaper.” Email Adam Daigle at adaigle@theadvocate. com.
Continued fro MEGA
Office of Alcohol and To bacco Control of suspected illegal gaming and unlawful activities at the convenience store on La. 352.
On Wednesday, state troopers and ATC agents executed a search warrant
and
He broader changes ining.”
Transparency group is purely advisory
BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer
Echoing a national trend, the northshore district attorney and St Tammany Parish Council have teamed up to form a DOGE-like committee aimed at finding waste and improving the parish’s budget process.
Officially, the new committee, known as the “Transparency and Resource Accountability Committee,” or TRAC, will focus on the parish’s 2026 budget, after last year’s budget-making process was marred by infighting over funding for the district attorney, northshore judges and parish jail.
A forensic accountant from District Attorney Collin Sims’ office will be available to provide the Parish Council with “an exhaustive budget review for 2026 and recommendations for more efficient operations if discovered,” according to the council’s resolution creating the committee.
But some of the committee’s new members suggested in interviews that TRAC may eventually have a larger purview And the committee appears to be at least partly inspired by trends at the national level.
“It’s DOGE minus the ability to execute the suggestions,” Sims said in a phone interview, referring to the federal Department of Government Efficiency that was created by President Donald
Trump and is run by Elon Musk. Gov Jeff Landry has also formed a DOGE-like task force to study government spending.
Unlike Musk’s federal agency
St. Tammany’s four-letter group has no new staff and is purely advisory It will consist of Sims, Parish Council Chair Joe Impastato and the council’s Finance Committee, the resolution said
Impastato said he and the chair of the Finance Committee, council member Cheryl Tanner, will direct what agencies the district attorney’s forensic auditor, Laura East, will look into first. Sims, meanwhile, will approve how much time East, who will remain an employee in his office, can spend on the initiative, the resolution said.
East will essentially serve as a “fact-finder,” Sims said, providing budget information to the Parish Council and President Mike Cooper’s administration at no additional cost to the taxpayer
“It’s not an investigation. We’re here to help,” Impastato added.
If anything, he said he thinks that when taxpayers realize how some agencies are using their money, they will be pleased.
East normally works for Sims on white collar and public corruption investigations. He said she has worked on the case involving Abita Springs employees criminally charged with embezzling public funds.
In the coming months, the Parish Council will establish guidelines for the committee, the resolution said.
Impastato said East will prioritize reviewing budgets under par-
ish government control, such as the animal control budget and the St. Tammany Coroner’s Office.
But eventually, Sims and Impastato said they hope the committee will be able to look at all government agencies in the parish, including ones with their own dedicated property taxes.
Officials, including Parish President Mike Cooper Sims and Impastato, have pushed a message of greater transparency as they seek voter support for a sales tax rededication on the March 29 ballot that would cover some of the parish’s criminal justice expenses.
Cooper is now also backing the transparency committee.
Cooper’s spokesperson, Michael Vinsanau, said TRAC won’t be sending emails asking people to note five things they did this week. “The purposes are different,” he said. “But it is going to create more
accountability in the budget process.”
For Sims, tax restructuring is the way forward for St. Tammany government. And he thinks the committee can help with that.
“Taxpayers in St. Tammany have said we don’t want to pay any more taxes. We need to start using your money smarter,” he said.
Sims said he hopes the committee will eventually look at the budgets of “all” agencies. The Sheriff’s Office and School Board are excluded at this point, he said.
The Parish Council does not have any direct power over the money from that dedicated tax — Caillouet said Mosquito Abatement’s budget is controlled by a board of volunteers — though the Parish Council does have to pass a resolution for such agencies to put their tax requests on a ballot Sims is also technically the legal representative of parish agencies like Mosquito Abatement.
The resolution establishing TRAC did not specifically mention Mosquito Abatement, and Caillouet said he had not been notified about anything related to the committee.
“We’re all for minimizing waste and fraud,” Caillouet said, but he noted that his agency’s tax was approved by a parish vote and said “mosquitoes are a bipartisan issue.”
The general idea of a government transparency group is not new in St. Tammany, which saw a series of public corruption scandals in the 2010s.
In 2013, the parish convened a task force to study the creation of an inspector general. That task force recommended a more thorough auditing system for the parish, a proposal that became state law the following year
Since then, Concerned Citizens of St. Tammany, a community watchdog group, has pushed for the establishment of an inspector general’s office That idea was floated at a Home Rule Charter Review Committee meeting in February
“I’m not against dedicated taxes for certain things, but there are a lot of things that should just be line items in the budget, right?” Sims said, offering the Mosquito Abatement District as an example. Almost all of Mosquito Abatement’s District’s $8.7 million in expenditures in 2024 were covered by a parishwide property tax voted on by parish residents, said St. Tammany Mosquito Abatement Director Kevin Caillouet.
operational in 2029. The project will provide another local source of electricity for the city in anticipation of the closure of the Rodemacher Power Station Unit 2 near Boyce. The coalpowered Rodemacher plant, which LUS has an ownership interest in, is slated to close by 2028 amid stricter environmental regulations. It is able to provide about 250 megawatts of power to the city of Lafayette.
LUS also owns and operates the T.J. Labbe and Hargis-Hebert electric generating stations in Lafayette, which opened about 20 years ago Each of those stations has the capacity to produce about 100 megawatts of electricity
“We can produce about 200 megawatts in town,” Bayuelo said. “But that’s not enough for the Lafayette demand.” Demand fluctuates depending on the time of year and time of day, but it gen-
erally hovers around 400 to 450 megawatts at any given moment, Bayuelo said. Without the new power plant, LUS would have to purchase electricity on the open market to meet local demand Volatile prices would likely mean more expensive utility rates for residents and businesses.
President Donald Trump’s tariff wars are a terrible idea anyway, but Louisiana’s congressional delegation should be particularly opposed to them and eager to reassert congressional authority Trump has been playing a cat-and-mouse game with taxes on imports from Canada and Mexico, has instituted new tariffs on China and is threatening “reciprocal” levies on goods from all nations that impose their own import taxes. His announcements have spooked stock markets, even as inflation continues above target rates and the economy looks headed for a contraction in this year’s first quarter The tariffs surely will lead to higher prices not just on imported goods but also on American-made products that use foreign parts. For instance, if Trump a month from now goes through with the threatened (but temporarily suspended) tax on Canadian and Mexican auto parts, Bloomberg reports average car prices could rise by a whopping $12,000. New home prices could rise by some $35,000.
The Tax Foundation says the tariffs will raise not just prices but also taxes, with just those on our American neighbors and on China putting an extra tax burden on the average American household of $1,072. And all for little net gain to the U.S Treasury as “nearly all the new tariff revenue raised under President Trump’s first term was used to bail out farmers harmed by retaliatory tariffs.”
Not to mention that just keeping track of and implementing all the individual tariffs would require more government workers and red tape, rather than streamlining the federal behemoth. Louisiana would be hit especially hard by widespread tariff hikes. The whole point of Trump’s trade policy is to favor local manufacturers by discouraging imports. Likewise, when other nations retaliate, as they surely would, U.S. exports will decline accordingly All of which means far less work for U.S ports Considering that, by tonnage, Louisiana has four of the nation’s 10 busiest ports — South Louisiana (2), New Orleans (5), Greater Baton Rouge (7), and Lake Charles (10) the tariffs could be devastating to the state’s economy
That statistic involves merely the ports themselves. When one considers all the local suppliers that export from Louisiana and the businesses that depend on easy access to imported goods at low prices, the deleterious results wouldn’t be mere ripple effects, but tidal waves. For just one example, Geoffrey Meeker, the Louisianabased owner of the French Truck coffee house chain, said in January that a threatened 25% tariff on Colombia “would have wiped out my company’s profit for a quarter” and hurt his 170 employees. Kristi App, chief operating officer at the J.W Allen global logistics provider in St. Rose, said “things can change with tariffs that completely blow up your budget.”
The Constitution specifically gives Congress, not the president, the power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” Led by Louisiana’s delegation, Congress should retake that power from President Trump.
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Arnessa Garrett is Deputy Editor | Opinion Page Editor. Email her at arnessa.garrett@theadvocate.com. OUR VIEWS
Is
really a
Democrats are raising an alarm about what they call a “constitutional crisis.” If there is one, they should know because they are to blame for it. That’s because their party, since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, has been violating the boundaries and restrictions on government set forth in our founding document.
The Founders wanted government to be limited so the people would be able to achieve their highest aspirations consistent with hard work and their talents.
Much of life has boundaries and rules that when violated, bring consequences. Think of speed limits, boundaries in sports, even rules while playing cards and board games. Warnings on medications tell of what can happen if directions are violated and possible side effects ignored.
Only when it comes to government are constitutional limits violated with little concern from most politicians.
One consequence that is finally receiving serious attention is the national debt. As The Wall Street Journal recently noted, servicing the debt now costs more than the entire Defense Department budget. This is unsustainable and as the Journal notes and I
In your letters, many of you often want to recommend a book, movie, restaurant or something that you liked to other readers. Generally, we allow these recommendations because they help others to find interesting options they may not have known of. However, if a letter is a promotion for something that a reader has a financial interest in, we generally do not publish that If you want to get the word out about something you’re involved with, we have an advertising department that can help with those kinds of inquiries. Plus, we think our letters page is more vibrant when we publish strong opinions rather than promotions. For those who pitch guest columns for our pages, we know you may have an interest in the topic you are writing about. Often, a writer has a strong opinion on a topic precisely because it affects them in a profound way We only ask that you disclose this. We generally don’t allow writers to market
wrote five years ago in a book called “America’s Expiration Date” — past nations have expired under the weight of massive debt.
Looking to the past for wisdom in how to deal with debt and so much else is ignored by many modern politicians in both parties.
The Founders — and those presidents who paid attention to their wise words — conducted government in a responsible way that promoted the general welfare. It only takes a few seconds on Google to assess the wisdom of presidents who embraced their principles. Below are only three of many examples that show what they believed to be the consequences of big government and the scourge of debt.
Thomas Jefferson: “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. ...”
Notice the inversion. Labor and what it produces for the person who earns from it is to be protected and encouraged. Government is to be restrained
products and services to our readers. Readers have argued for greater transparency among letter writers and guest columnists about their interests in a topic. We believe transparency is important and allows the reader to evaluate an opinion in the proper context. It is why we demand similar transparency from our political leaders. We encourage readers to bring any issues about conflicts of interest to our attention. We do strive to make it known and remove ourselves from issues where we may have conflicts. I want to thank those readers who have responded to our first Town Square of the Year: If you could make a New Year’s resolution for the state of Louisiana, what would it be? We’ve had a newsy start to the year, so we did not yet publish your responses. But we will be contacting those who have sent the best letters and publishing them shortly There is still time to get in a letter
from causing injury to the person or business that profits from such industry Today the attitude seems to be that government should be a major beneficiary of one’s labor and risk-taking. Consider the top federal tax rate of 37% and additional state, local and other taxes that go to government coffers. Again, Jefferson put it succinctly: “The course of history shows that as government grows, liberty decreases.” We are not the first to roam the Earth. Others who came before have figured things out so that we don’t have to, but too many act as if the past can teach us nothing. Our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, was wiser than the credit given him by many historians. A century ago, Coolidge said: “Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.” Need I say more? Donald Trump and Elon Musk seem to be listening. Will Congress?
Email Cal Thomas at tcaeditorstribpub.com.
Going to our letters inbox for the week of Feb. 6-13, we received 80 letters. National politics was the hottest topic, with 18 letters. Of those, five focused on the actions of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency In the aftermath of a successful Super Bowl in New Orleans, we got 15 letters commenting on the event. And immigration continues to draw interest, with four letters on that topic. We continue to have a high volume of letters, mostly prompted by the flurry of changes at the federal level. While we strive to publish as many letters as we can, we will not have room for letters that repeat the same or similar arguments. And unfortunately, we cannot respond to letter writers about the status of their letters. But know that they may take a few weeks to get published.
There’s absolutely nothing in the United States like the love affair Louisiana has with food and drink. When this newspaper last week published Ian McNulty’s wonderful review of Avegno lounge, the new adjunct to the legendary Uptown restaurant Gautreau’s, memories came rushing back. It was in the late 1970s, or maybe 1980, that as Dr Howard Russell drove his son Hugh and me to some forgotten event, we stopped for about 10 minutes at an abandoned Soniat Street pharmacy that Dr Russell recently had acquired There were still wares — aspirin bottles, I think, and bandage boxes, and the like on some shelves. I distinctly remember running my finger through and blowing into the air clouds of significant layers of dust.
“What are y’all gonna do with this place?” I asked Hugh shrugged in response: “My mom is thinking of starting a restaurant here.”
Then Hugh and I looked at each other and laughed Hugh’s mother, Anne Avegno Russell, had grown up with my mother and Anne was my godmother Anne had an irrepressible personality, full of life and warmth. Still, raising what soon would be six children seemed to be more than enough for her to handle — and though she cooked really well, she had no restaurant background at all. Sure enough, though, she plowed forward, and on either Aug. 23 or 24, 1982 (I can’t remember if it was the Monday of that week or the Tuesday), she opened in the old pharmacy building what was intended to be a sort of high-end lunch place, named Gautreau’s after the Avegno relative made famous as the “Madame X” of the portrait by painter John Singer Sargent. Gautreau’s then featured a few dine-in tables, but the expectation was that its main focus would be providing plenty of takeout soups, salads and sandwiches. I walked
in about midafternoon on that first day, which had seen more traffic than Anne expected, and I ate some of the very last remaining soup. Anne was, if I remember correctly, a bit panicked at the thought that she already was short of food supplies for the next day’s clientele. I went off to my freshman year of college two or three days later and, lo and behold, by school year’s end, Gautreau’s was open for dinner, too, and was drawing rave reviews as a gourmet restaurant. Somewhere along the line Anne hired a wonderful, professional chef named Armand Jonté, who cemented Gautreau’s place in the pantheon of the city’s finest restaurants. Hugh later became the restaurant’s general manager and I filled in twice on short notice as a busboy, without more than ten minutes’ training, when employees belatedly called in sick.
The experiences left me with a new, awed appreciation for the hard work and indefatigable energy required to run a good restaurant’s kitchen.
The Russells sold Gautreau’s in the early 1990s, and I hadn’t eaten there in three decades until my good friend Bill Kearney, whose father grew up down the street from my father, bought it in 2023 with business partner Jay Adams, whose daughter Katie is the general manager There at the reopening night, I discovered the place and the food were still magic. The Kearney-Adams team by all accounts is working wonders. And now, with the well-received opening a few weeks back at the adjoining lounge Avegno — I am so, so eager to try it — I feel sure Anne, who died in 2009, would love knowing that her creation is now becoming even more of a gathering place than it already has been for lo these 42 years. All of which is over-lengthy prologue to this observation: Here in Louisiana, memorably good restaurants spring up in every neighborhood, usually with lengthy, intertwining family histories. They spring up as po-boy joints; they spring up as plate-food cafes; they spring up as ethnic-food specializers; and some spring up
to serve fine, gourmet repasts. But spring up they do, again and again; here, there, and everywhere they arise and, amazingly, thrive.
My Alabama-native wife, accustomed to searching in vain for Mobile neighborhood restaurants, is constantly delighted with the accessibility and variety and personality of Louisiana dining establishments of all kinds. She always asks how it can be so wonderfully this way
Well, Anne Russell is how Bill Kearney and the Adamses are how The Mandinas are how, and the Liuzzas are how and the Brennans and Domilises, the Reginellis and Chases, the Jubans and Prejeans, are how
Good food and drink in convivial settings are a Louisiana family blessing. And it’s particularly fitting for a restaurant to emerge from a pharmacy, because Louisiana cuisine and Louisiana friendliness are a miraculous prescription for the soul.
Quin Hillyer can be reached at quin.hillyer@theadvocate.com.
Is there a more fitting image to capture the current state of city government in New Orleans than the mayor being grounded?
Perhaps, but only if you consider a previous move by the same City Council that recently ordered LaToya Cantrell to stay home: her eviction from the city-owned Pontalba apartment that she improperly used. Both are embarrassments for the city’s lame duck leader — surely designed, at least in part, to humiliate. Yet it would be wrong to view either action as purely gratuitous or entirely unprovoked.
Yes, the council’s unanimous vote to temporarily bar Cantrell and her staff from spending public money on most travel is an obvious callback to her much-lampooned luxury flights to far off locales for conferences cultural visits and the like These trips had her out of town one of every five days in 2023 and the first part of 2024, and cost taxpayers a cool quarter million bucks for her and other city staffers. But it’s also an on-point response to her bizarre and unconvincingly explained reversal on the city’s agreement to pay the Orleans Parish School Board a $90 million settlement over 10 years to end a longstanding dispute over tax collections Cantrell’s administration had been in on the negotiations, and she signed a budget that included the money The school system has been counting on upfront payments in light of an unrelated and also galling accounting error that put it in a deep hole. The council supported the settlement and has now joined with the school board in asking a court to force the administration to pay up.
The mayor’s professed reasoning for her weird reversal is a moving target She’s claimed that the council entered the agreement without the administration’s permission. Her top finance aids have made the case that the city is facing unexpected financial challenges lost traffic camera revenue, confusion about President Donald Trump’s federal spending cuts and some other multimillion-dollar judgments — and can’t afford to pay That seemed to come as news to council members who approve and closely monitor city spending.
It also amounted to an open invitation for a council crackdown — not to mention a Council President JP Morrell social media beatdown, the sort he rarely refuses and certainly didn’t here.
“No more flying around the country,” Morrell wrote. “No more eating out. No more other related nonsense, because if we can’t afford to take care of the kids, we can’t afford to do anything else.”
Still, Morrell insisted at the meeting at which the ban was adopted that “this is not punitive This is in response to representation made by the head of the finance
department that our budget is in crisis, that spending is out of control.”
He’s got a point there, even if it comes across as awfully punitive anyway
New Orleans traditionally has a strong mayor system, with the legislative arm of government mostly deriving its power in specifically designated realms such as utility regulation and land use, as well as the budget.
But this council, led by two at-large members who rotate the presidency, Morrell and now-mayoral candidate Helena Moreno, has been as assertive as any in recent memory in part in response to Cantrell moves that raised eyebrows.
Another example is the charter change the council pushed to give itself approval over top mayoral appointments, which saw its first use when Cantrell chose and the council ratified Anne Kirkpatrick as police superintendent.
The amendment followed some explosive controversies involving Cantrell appointees, and the fact that 60% of voters supported it suggests a public appetite for a stronger oversight.
All this may have much to do with the personalities involved; indeed, there’s been plenty of council preening throughout these multiple squabbles, and you can’t get much more on the nose than clipping the mayor’s wings, whether metaphorically or literally Still, anything that strengthens checks and balances — and reins in an executive who goes off the reservation is probably a good thing, at any level of government. In fact, it’s something that a certain legislative branch up in Washington might want to consider
Email Stephanie Grace at sgrace@ theadvocate.com.
President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday night, getting more than 36 million people to watch. That’s 13% higher than former President Joe Biden’s 2024 speech (32.2 million), but lower than each of Trump’s first-term congressional addresses (47.7 million viewers in 2017, 45.6 million in 2018, 46.8 in 2019, 37.2 million in 2020).
Trump may be the president, but fewer people are listening to him.
That includes Black Louisianans.
who chose something other than a speech full of lies, people who deliberately chose to ignore Trump.
According to Variety, Neilson rating results show that “this year’s total accounts for viewers across ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Merit Street, Telemundo Univision, PBS, CNN, CNNe, FOX Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Newsmax and NewsNation.” Fox News didn’t focus on Trump’s viewership loss. Instead, the conservative network claimed success because 10.7 million of the viewers watched their network. What Nielson didn’t measure was those who chose to watch Black, independent media, people
Roland Martin Unfiltered, a Black-focused daily digital news program, has a healthy audience of Black and other people. Martin started the show in 2018. He’s built the startup into a mainstay in six years Tuesday night was a major high. In an interview, Martin said until Tuesday night the highest viewership was about 29,000 viewers. That was the night that the Tyre Nichols Memphis police beating video was released. About 8,000 were online before the first half-hour ended.
On Tuesday night, more than 1.1 million people watched the “State of Our Union,” Martin’s Trump speech alternative. People who tuned into Martin’s six-plus-hour special heard the Rev Dr William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival. As an anti-poverty activist Barber emphasized the plight of poor people and workers and issued a call for action.
“We’ve got to increase and increase and embolden our agitation,” he said during the live broadcast as I watched. “We’ve got to stand tall because bowing down is not an option.”
Martin said it’s taken focus and time to build the national media platform he leads, and Tuesday night is evidence that Black people want to engage with independent Black media addressing serious issues without bowing to Trump’s stupidity. Hundreds of Louisianans tuned in to hear Barber, Martin and a host of nonpartisan, partisan and elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Troy Carter New Orleans native Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was featured on a panel. Before the show, Martin sent a text to a few friends and it flew into the Black universe. It popped into community and family text groups. It was posted on social media, including on New Orleans Facebook groups. “Black Louisianans were definitely watching,” he said later Yes, they were. I got several copies of the text.
“We’ve never done anything quite like this,” Payne shared with me Thursday “We’ve held other live streams across YT (YouTube) and IG (Instagram), but nothing compares to this.”
Payne said what happened shows that “there were a number of people looking for refuge” from what was expected.
Trump won 49.8% of the November popular vote. At least 50.2% of voters wanted someone else. Trump and the GOP toyed with large media even as they capitalized on the reach of independent and single-person media platforms.
Democrats should pay attention to Martin’s and Payne’s success. Obviously, Makeba and others will spend hours where there is appealing, substantive programming.
So did Dwana Makeba, a Gentilly hair stylist, former educator and Army veteran who wasn’t going to watch Trump then chose to watch Martin’s show after several friends sent her the text. She watched the program from shortly after 7 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. Makeba, 54, decided to watch the Trump recording the next morning, but she stopped. “I was so repulsed,” she told me. She said the president was “in full arrogance” mode talking about things he’s done “as if those things were positive,” knowing he’s hurting children, workers and veterans like her Retired WWL anchor Sally-Ann Roberts was watching, too. “II watched and was impressed with Bishop Barber’s sermon,” she shared. What happened Tuesday night also surprised Amber Payne, publisher and general manager of The Emancipator, a digital news outlet that challenges readers to think seriously about race, racism and structural racism and how it impacts everyone. Since it started in spring 2022, the online magazine hasn’t done anything like the 24hour livestream attempted a few days ago. The outlet had 98,000 livestream viewers, including 21,000 during the time that the president spoke to the joint session of Congress. The broadcast was so successful that they picked up 2,700 new subscribers.
Email Will Sutton at wsutton@ theadvocate.com.
Texas vs. LSU ended after this edition went to press For complete coverage, visit theadvocate.com
Typically this is the time of year to write a state of the union column on the UL men’s basketball program. The season ended Wednesday after a 1-1 showing in the Sun Belt Tournament in Pensacola, Florida, and that usually signi-
fies a perfect time to take stock and look toward the next season.
Kevin Foote
It’s a lot different this year and it’s almost impossible to write that type of column Interim head coach Derrick Zimmerman and the staff did a terrific job of keeping the Ragin’ Cajuns as competitive as possible after longtime coach Bob Marlin was dismissed in December But until UL athletic director Bryan Maggard announces the new head coach, there’s no real way to analyze where the program is headed.
Signs point to Houston associate head coach Quannas White as a top candidate to become the next man in charge.
The 44-year-old is from New Orleans, was an AAU coach for eight years in the state to develop key recruiting ties and has worked with Kelvin Sampson at one of the nation’s top programs over the past eight seasons in Houston.
He’s been the clear-cut best option since the day Marlin’s firing was official, and history tells us Maggard almost always gets his coaching target.
Houston’s style of play is pretty different than most programs. If the choice is White, he will look for specific skill sets to fill out
ä See FOOTE, page 3C
21 Dallas Baptist sets up rubber match with UL
BY MATT MIGUEZ Contributing writer
a roller-coaster start to the weekend series,
urday was more of the same for the UL Ragin’ Cajuns baseball team. The difference this time was that the Cajuns weren’t on the winning side of it, falling 10-6 to the Dallas Baptist Patriots and tying the weekend series with the No. 21-ranked team in the country The Cajuns (7-8) will look to respond in the rubber match as they’re aiming for their second series win
BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer
ä 2025 NFL Draft 7 P.M.APRIL 24,NFL NETW
Though the New Orleans Saints hold a top10 pick for the first time in nearly 20 years, figuring out what direction they will go with it feels like an exercise in futility. Last year it felt preordained they would take the best available offensive tackle with the No. 14 pick and they did, selecting Oregon State’s Taliese Fuaga. Tackle was such a glaring need last year that it felt obvious, but this year the needs feel pressing all over the roster The defense could use young playmakers at all three levels, especially now that Brandon Staley is calling the shots for a different type of scheme than the one the Saints have run for the better part of the last decade. While New Orleans has some nice pieces on offense, it’s also not hard to envision the team using its top pick or picks on any number of positions on that side of the ball, giving new head coach Kellen Moore some additional firepower Even with Alvin Kamara coming off a strong season, that could include running back in what is considered a strong class at that position Let’s take a spin through the Pro Football Focus mock draft machine and take a look at some players who may be available when the Saints pick on 2025 NFL Draft. No. 9: Arizona W Also considered: P Warren, LSU OT Georgia LB/Edge shall Edge Mike Green. The first eight fell favorably in ing us several re with the No. 9 overal was extremely tempting ther the offensive McMillan would big-bodied football sorely missed since suffered an ankle There is decent along the offensive while this wide recei ally considered to years. This felt Saints could snag The 6-foot-5 McM skills and would
a top-25 opponent at home after taking two of three from Nebraska earlier in the season. First pitch is set for 1 p.m. at Russo Park. Parker Dillhoff got the game started with a three-up, three-down inning on just eight pitches, but the wheels fell off in the second inning as the Patriots scored six in the frame to jump in front In the inning, DBU turned over the batting order and benefited from a walk, hit by pitch and a throwing error
wasn’t ideal for Anthony three runs in the first to week, the right-handed jusurrendered two runs to North Alawalk and two hits Saturday hits was a hard hit double down the left-field line. just want to be sharper out of the gate,” Eyanson said. “This outing, I put a pretty big emphasis mentally on executing in the first inning.” week ago when it took uninning for Eyanson to find a San Diego transfer locked after allowing a run-scoring Lions. out the next seven hitters run came across, finishing
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BY TOYLOY BROWN III Staff writer
Instead of athletic forwards skying for a put-back basketball, LSU men’s basketball watched its shortest player elevate.
Jordan Sears, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, ran from the wing to the paint and soared for a one-handed dunk among the Texas A&M big men. On the ensuing possession, the fifth-year point guard buried a deep left-wing 3-pointer This ignited fans in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center and gave LSU a seven-point lead with 6:36 left in the first half.
The electric sequence did not have staying power though, as LSU lost 66-52 to No. 22 Texas A&M in the regular-season finale Saturday LSU fell 68-57 on the road at Texas A&M (22-9, 11-7) on Jan. 18. Sears had 21 points for LSU (1417, 3-15). LSU’s top scorer Cam
Carter had seven points
The Aggies had 14 offensive rebounds and 17 second-chance points. LSU finished the game shooting 30% overall.
The Tigers were without Corey Chest and Vyctorius Miller because of injuries.
Coach Matt McMahon used a new starting lineup by inserting forward Derek Fountain for Daimion Collins and Sears for Curtis Givens to give the two seniors a start during their final game at the PMAC.
The new-look lineup did little to slow down Texas A&M star guard Wade Taylor He was 4 of 4 as the Aggies jumped out to a 15-7 lead with 14:49 remaining in the first half
LSU got a taste of success on offense after it forced turnovers.
Mike Williams had back-to-back steals, and on the second one he found Carter for a corner 3-pointer, cutting LSU’s deficit to four with 10:19 left in the half.
Williams cut the deficit to one after an and-one mid-range pullup after he ran off the 3-point line. During the ensuing possession, Sears got a defender in the air and drew a foul on a 3-point shot. He made all three free throws as LSU took its first lead at 21-19 with 7:52 left in the first half.
The Tigers continued to flourish with a 20-1 run to take a 29-20 lead over the Aggies with 5:39 left in the half.
Sears was the primary driver of the success. He scored 16 in the first half and had zero turnovers.
LSU owned a 32-30 halftime lead. The Tigers kept Texas A&M off the offensive glass with just four in the first half. This was crucial as the Aggies entered the game leading the nation in offensive rebounding rate.
Almost four minutes into the second half, Sears appeared to hurt his ankle after landing awkwardly on defense. He was helped to the locker room but returned to
the court three minutes later
The Tigers struggled in his brief absence as Texas A&M scored seven points during a 9-0 run. The final basket came after Solomon Washington, a New Orleans native, retrieved his own miss from the free-throw line for a layup and a 41-34 advantage with 14:15 left. At the heart of the bounce-back second half was the Aggies’ rebounding. They had eight offensive boards in the first eight minutes of the half.
The Tigers also became frigid from the field. They were 6-of-27 shooting in the second half and trailed by as many as 16.
LSU made it a 10-point game on three occasions with under six minutes left but couldn’t get any closer LSU’s next game will be in the SEC Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee. As the No. 15 seed, it will face the 10th-seeded team at 6 p.m. Wednesday
The Associated Press
AUBURN, Ala. — Mark Sears hit a game-winning floater as time expired, and No. 7 Alabama spoiled the home finale of rival and No. 1 Auburn with a 93-91 overtime road win Saturday
The off-balance buzzer-beater from the free-throw line was only the third made basket of the game for Sears, who finished with nine points. Alabama (24-7, 13-5 Southeastern Conference) got 23 points from Grant Nelson and 15 points each from Labaron Philon and Clifford Omoruyi.
The win ended a two-game losing skid for Alabama and handed a second straight loss for Auburn (27-4, 15-3). Johni Broome scored 34 points, including a game-tying layup in the final minute of regulation and a game-tying 3-pointer with 15 seconds left in overtime.
Tahaad Pettiford added 19 points for Auburn, which was without second-leading scorer Chad Baker-Mazara for the final 10:52 of regulation and overtime. Baker-Mazara was ejected for a Flagrant 2 foul on Alabama’s Chris Youngblood. No. 4 TENNESSEE 75, SOUTH CAROLINA 65: In Knoxville, Tennessee, Chaz Lanier scored 23 points to lead No. 4 Tennessee to a victory over
South Carolina on Saturday
The Volunteers (25-6, 12-6 Southeastern Conference) wrapped up a double bye for the SEC Tournament. Cade Phillips came off the bench to score 15 points, Igor Milicic had 13 and Jordan Gainey added 10 points. No. 13 MARYLAND 74, NORTHWESTERN 61: In College Park, Maryland, Julian Reese had 19 points and 11 rebounds in his home finale, and No. 13 Maryland pulled away late for a victory over Northwestern on Saturday
The Terrapins (24-7, 14-6 Big Ten) had a sluggish day offensively but did enough to win for the seventh time in eight games with the only defeat coming on a 65-foot shot at the buzzer against Michigan State late last month. No. 14 LOUISVILLE 68, STANFORD 48: In Louisville, Kentucky, Terrence Edwards Jr and Chucky Hepburn scored 16 points apiece, and No 14 Louisville ended the regular season Saturday with a victory over Stanford
The Cardinals (25-6, 18-2 Atlantic Coast Conference) used their defense to earn their ninth straight victory and 19th in 20 games. Stanford went nearly eight minutes between baskets, missing 11 shots in a row That allowed Louisville to go on a 14-1 run and take a 29-11 lead after Hepburn’s layup with 5:04 left be-
fore halftime. No. 10 IOWA ST 73, KANSAS ST 57: In Manhattan, Kansas, Curtis Jones scored 24 points to lead No. 10 Iowa State past Kansas State on Saturday The Cyclones (23-8, 13-7 Big 12) led wire-to-wire. They got 14 points from Joshua Jefferson and 11 points from Dishon Jackson. Kansas State (15-16, 9-11) was led by senior David N’Guessan with 19 points. Dug McDaniel had 14 points. No.19 KENTUCKY 91,No.15 MISSOURI 83: In Columbia, Missouri, Otega Oweh scored 22 points, and Andrew Carr added 16 points and 12 rebounds to help No. 19 Kentucky beat No. 15 Missouri Saturday Koby Brea scored 17 points and Amari Williams added 14 points and eight rebounds to help Kentucky (21-10, 10-8 Southeastern Conference) win its second game in a row PENN ST 86, No. 12 WISCONSIN 75: In Madison, Wisconsin, D’Marco Dunn had 25 points and Yanic Konan Niederhauser added 15 points and 11 rebounds as Penn State rallied in the second half for an victory over No. 12 Wisconsin on Saturday, preventing the Badgers from clinching a double bye in the Big Ten Tournament Wisconsin (23-8, 13-7) went into the weekend in a three-way tie for third with No. 13 Maryland
and No. 18 Purdue, but could have secured the double bye with a victory following Illinois’ victory over the Boilermakers on Friday No. 6 ST. JOHN’S 86, No. 20 MARQUETTE 84: In Milwaukee, Zuby Ejiofor hit a tiebreaking shot at the buzzer, Kadary Richmond got the first St. John’s triple-double this century and the sixth-ranked Red Storm beat No. 20 Marquette in overtime Saturday for their sixth consecutive victory St. John’s (27-4, 18-2 Big East) matched a program record for regular-season wins. The Red Storm went 27-4 in the 1985-86 regular season and ended up finishing 31-5 that year. They already had clinched their first Big East outright regular-season title since 1985 a week earlier ARKANSAS 93, No. 25 MISSISSIPPI ST 92: In Fayetteville, Arkansas, Jonas Aidoo made one of two free throws with 11 seconds left to break a tie game and No 25 Mississippi State missed two potential game-winning shots at the rim at the other end to close out Arkansas’ victory on Saturday Mississippi State (20-11, 8-10 Southeastern Conference) used a 12-0 run to go up by one point with 3:14 to play, its first lead since before halftime. Arkansas (19-12, 8-10), which led by one at the break, opened the second half on a 10-run.
BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer
The beauty of softball is tomor-
row As bad as Friday was for the UL Ragin’ Cajuns, with losses to Iowa and Alabama, Saturday was positively glorious with a doubleheader sweep of the Hawkeyes and Crimson Tide. After shutting out Iowa 3-0 in the opener the win over Alabama came down to the bases being loaded with two outs in the bottom of the seventh.
UL starter Tyra Clary coaxed a comebacker to the circle to end the threat and preserve a 4-3 win
over No. 21-ranked Alabama to close out the Spring Break Showdown in Tuscaloosa in style.
The two wins improved UL to 13-8 on the season, while Alabama dropped to 19-7. Next up for the Cajuns is a 6 p.m. Tuesday road game against LSU. Clary delivered the Cajuns’ second complete-game performance in the circle on Saturday In seven innings, Clary allowed three runs (two earned) on seven hits, three walks and two strikeouts. In the first game, freshman Mallory Wheeler tossed a three-hit shutout, walking two and striking
out four In the first game, the Cajuns scored single runs in the first, second and sixth innings. Maddie Hayden, who was 2 for 3 with an RBI, singled, advanced on a sacrifice bunt and scored on Cecilia Vasquez’s sacrifice bunt. Hayden was in the middle of the scoring in the second as well with an RBI single after walks to Savannah White and Mia Liscano and a base hit by Erin Ardoin. In the sixth, Roe doubled and Ardoin tripled her home with an insurance run.
Alabama jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on RBI singles by Alexis Pupillo and Ken-
nedy Marceaux. But UL tied it with two runs in the third on a two-run single from Vasquez after Mia Liscano reached on an error and Hayden singled. In the fourth, White singled, advanced on an error and scored on Hayden’s RBI bunt single.
The Cajuns added an insurance run in the sixth on a Liscano RBI single, and it’s a good thing, because the Crimson Tide rallied for a run and loaded the bases in the seventh. A two-out error with the bases loaded score one run, but Clary got the final out to preserve the victory
Chiefs WR Worthy gets domestic violence charge
Kansas City Chiefs rookie receiver Xavier Worthy has been arrested on a felony domestic violence charge.
Williamson County, Texas, online jail records Saturday showed that Worthy was arrested Friday by deputies and held in the county jail on a charge of assault on a family or household member in which their breath was impeded, or choking in common terms.
In a statement, Worthy’s attorneys, Chip Lewis and Sam Bassett, said their client was innocent of the charge against him. His attorneys said the allegation was made by a woman who had been living in Worthy’s home in Williamson County The statement said she had been asked to leave multiple times over the last two weeks “upon discovery of her infidelity.”
Bills extend pass rusher Rousseau for 4 years
The Buffalo Bills on Saturday signed edge rusher Greg Rousseau to a four-year contract extension that’s worth up to $80 million in the team’s latest move to lock up its young core.
The 24-year-old Rousseau was selected by Buffalo 30th overall in the 2021 draft out of the University of Miami. He was entering this season playing on the fifth-year option of his rookie contract, but he is now under contract through 2029.
Rousseau finished last season with a team-leading eight sacks — three coming in Buffalo’s season opener 16 tackles for a loss and three forced fumbles. Overall, he’s totaled 25 sacks, 46 tackles for a loss and forced six fumbles over 62 games — all of them starts.
Heat center Adebayo fined for antics toward referee Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo was fined $50,000 by the NBA on Saturday for making inappropriate contact with and directing profanity toward a referee.
Adebayo’s actions came after the conclusion of the Heat’s 106-104 loss to Minnesota on Friday, when he missed a 3-point attempt that would have won the game.
Minnesota’s Julius Randle leaped to contest the shot and Adebayo ended up falling to the court after the shot. The NBA determined Saturday that referees were correct in not calling a foul, saying in its Last 2 Minutes report there was only marginal contact on the attempt and further contact came after the ball already had been released.
Tigers sign former Astros starting pitcher Urquidy
The Detroit Tigers have signed right-hander José Urquidy to a $1 million, one-year contract that includes a club option for the 2026 season.
The team announced the deal on Saturday
Urquidy, who turns 30 on May 1, had Tommy John surgery on June 5. He also had the operation in 2017. His club option is worth $4 million, and he can earn an additional $3 million in performance bonuses based on games started next year
Urquidy was placed on the 60day injured list as he continues his rehab from his elbow surgery
Urquidy made his major-league debut with Houston in 2019. He is 27-16 with a 3.98 ERA in 70 starts and nine relief appearances — all with the Astros.
Morikawa in position to win for first time in 17 months
Collin Morikawa made a 12foot birdie putt on the 18th hole Saturday on the Bay Hill course for a 5-under 67, giving him a one-shot lead in the Arnold Palmer Invitational and a chance to win for the first time in 17 months.
Russell Henley holed a long bunker shot for birdie on the opening hole ran off four in a row to start the back nine and had a 67 to finish one shot behind. Corey Conners of Canada missed the 18th fairway, chipped out and made bogey for a 69 and was two back.
Shane Lowry, the 36-hole leader, struggled. He shot a 76, leaving him six shots behind. Rory McIlroy shot a 73 to fall seven shots behind.
Continued from page 1C
the roster, and there’s no telling how many players on the current roster fit those requirements.
New coaching staffs typically bring in their own guys that fit their system anyway, and the transfer portal has opened the door for some coaches to concoct an entirely new roster
So there’s no telling how much turnover this year’s roster is about to undergo. For example, Mostapha El Moutaouakkil was easily UL’s best player this season. His consistency in Sun Belt play without much scoring help around him was impressive.
But El Moutaouakkil was a 6-foot-6 post player this season without much range on a jumper That skill set won’t easily fit in every coach’s puzzle.
Kyndall Davis and Zeke Cook are both seniors with junior-college backgrounds, so they could take advantage of the NCAA’s waiver to claim another year of
eligibility Houston is all about defense and athleticism, so that duo’s athleticism might fit under White.
Sophomores Brandon Hardy, Chancellor White, London Fields and Kyran Ratliff have shown flashes but never any consistency, so some movement from that group wouldn’t be surprising.
Then there’s senior Hosana Kitenge, who missed the entire season with a torn Achilles. He’ll have more eligibility, and he returned last offseason when others left the program as transfers. The first-team preseason All-Sun Belt selection also has a skill set that may not fit into every coach’s plans.
Jeremiah Evans is another intriguing case. The 6-10 freshman was all over the place at times this season, and there was no doubting his athleticism, aggressiveness and ability to score inside or outside. Change is coming. There’s no doubt about that.
Completely starting from scratch even is on the table.
Whichever option the new staff chooses, it’s about to get really interesting around the Cajundome.
Continued from page 1C
complement to Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed. In three years at Arizona, McMillan hauled in 213 passes for 3,423 yards and 26 touchdowns.
No. 40: Ohio State DT Tyleik Williams
Also considered: Toledo DT Darius Alexander Oregon OL Josh Conerly, Ole Miss CB Trey Amos, LSU edge Bradyn Swinson.
While Bryan Bresee is coming off a nice season as a pass rusher, the Saints desperately need to get stronger along their defensive interior. Enter Williams, the 334-pound Ohio State product who instantly would provide a physical presence in the middle of the defense. Williams got the nod over Alexander here, mostly because of his ability as a run defender
No. 71: LSU TE Mason Taylor
After going with a pass-catcher in the first round, let’s give Moore another offensive weapon in the LSU product. Taylor is
not as flashy as some of the other tight ends in this class, but he may offer more for the team when combining his pass-catching and blocking ability Taylor has a strong pedigree, as his father (Jason Taylor) and uncle (Zach Thomas) are Pro Football Hall of Famers. He backed that up by breaking LSU’s career receptions record for tight ends in his three years there. With Juwan Johnson poised to hit free agency, this is a positional need for the Saints.
No. 93: Georgia OG Tate Ratledge
The Saints have a hole at guard, and there may be a couple of avenues to fill it. One is to kick right tackle Trevor Penning inside where his run-blocking skill and overall demeanor may translate nicely — and draft his replacement in the top 10. Another is to use one of their three second-day picks on a guard. Let’s follow that latter scenario and snag Ratledge a three-year starter in the Southeastern Conference who also wowed at the combine, posting an unofficial 9.98 Relative Athletic Score.
Email Luke Johnson at ljohnson@theadvocate.com.
second inning.
“It was the freebies,” UL coach Matt Deggs said after the game. “That’s how generous we were. Everything started with hit batters We got wild pitches, we got an error or two, and that’s how they (Dallas Baptist) scored 10 runs on eight hits.
“Really proud of the job JR (Tollett) did. I thought our hitters grinded and battled against good arms all day long and gave us a chance to win that game.”
“That was the plan all along,” Deggs said about the early pitching change. “I should have pulled him out for the first. He gave us a good first inning, and I should have just got him there. Command’s been an issue for him, but he had a really clean first inning.
“Really proud of the job JR (Tollett) did. I thought our hitters grinded and battled against good arms all day long and gave us a chance to win that game.”
Tollett came in during the second inning and was efficient, pitching a careerhigh six innings while giving up just one run. The Cajuns helped their relief pitcher with a four-spot in the sixth to cut the Patriots’ lead to 6-5, but they couldn’t find the much-needed fifth run.
Dillhoff struggled with his control once again, especially in the critical
“That’s what happens, especially when you’re running, you know, you’re low on arms because of injury or whatnot right now You know, sometimes you get a little greedy right there.”
True freshman Brooks Wright continued his strong start in Lafayette, driving in a pair of runs on a big single in the sixth.
“He’s looking good,” Deggs said of Wright. “He’s got a long way to go, a lot to learn, a lot of growing up to do, but all the physical tools are there. Big knock he had today, made some great plays in center field, and he’s fearless. He plays a shallow center field and he got burned one time, but I like the guy.”
the afternoon with 15 strikeouts in seven innings as No. 1 LSU took down North Alabama 6-2 at Alex Box Stadium.
“When you get a pitcher that throws four pitches for strikes,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said, “it’s really hard to handle all of them.” Saturday’s performance was the most strikeouts an LSU pitcher had accumulated in a game since Ty Floyd struck out 17 in Game 1 of the 2023 College World Series final
“I don’t really look at the stats during the game at all,” Eyanson said.
He didn’t allow a hit after the first inning. Only one batter reached base on a walk in the third.
The money pitch for Eyanson was his slider By keeping it low and out of the strike zone, he was able to get the Lions (3-10) to consistently chase after it with two strikes
“I just want to execute with that pitch,” Eyanson said, “keep it down.”
WhileEyansonwasLSU’sstaronthemound, junior Jared Jones stood out at the plate
With LSU trailing 2-0, Jones kicked off the comeback in the first inning with a double that bounced off the edge of the top of the wall in center field. He later scored on a bloop hit into center field from junior Ethan Frey that cut LSU’s deficit to 2-1. LSU (15-1) tied the game in the third inning after Frey popped out to shallow right field. Freshman Derek Curiel, the runner at third base, wasn’t expected to score on the play but the throw home was off line, allowing LSU to tie the game.
“We weren’t really good (offensively),” Johnson said, “but we were close to being really good.”
Thanks to Curiel again, LSU took the lead in the fifth inning after his double drove in junior Chris Stanfield. Jones then blasted a two-run home run into left field — his fifth of the year to give the Tigers a 5-2 lead. Jones went 3-for-4 with two RBIs and two
doubles. Curiel was the only other Tiger who had multiple hits.
“Just having more college at-bats up under my belt obviously helps a lot,” Jones said. “And then guys protect me in the lineup, like Derek and Danny (Dickinson), who are around me, so I’m getting pitched to a little bit more.”
Junior right-hander Zac Cowan replaced Eyanson in the eighth inning and struck out five batters in two shutout innings to end the game. Between Eyanson and Cowan, 20 of the 27 outs LSU recorded came via strikeout.
“It was pretty boring out there,” Jones said about playing defense. LSU returns to Alex Box Stadium for the final game of its series with North Alabama on Sunday First pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. and the game can be streamed on SEC Network+.
Email Koki Riley at Koki.Riley@theadvocate.com.
Herman Fuselier
Accordion ace Corey Ledet has made fans dance to zydeco on the beaches of Hawaii. He’s toured Russia with his own security detail in tow Ledet recently had so many Alaskans moving and grooving at the Anchorage Folk Festival that the astonished promoter booked him for another fest. But after 22 years on stages near and far, along with two Grammy nominations, Ledet admits the March 11 gig at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans gives him butterflies. He plays at the halftime show of the Pelicans-Clippers basketball game, his first NBA gig.
“I still get a little nervous before I play,” said Ledet, 43 “The anticipation builds up “Then once I finally get there, I settle down. This is going to be pretty cool.”
Pelicans fans will get a sample of a self-taught, squeezebox wizard nicknamed “The Accordion Dragon.” Accordionists are almost on every corner in Acadiana, the south central and southwest corner of Louisiana that is the homeland of zydeco and Cajun music.
Ledet is one of the talented few to master the complex, piano-accordion style of Grammy Hall of Famer and “King of Zydeco” Clifton Chenier In fact, Ledet has played at Chenier’s grave when particular tunes gave him the blues. Those troubles soon faded in Chenier’s presence.
Ledet’s study and extraordinary talent have produced more than a dozen albums and tours to 15 countries.
Yet Ledet lives a reality for many musicians in this musiccrazed state. Although homegrown musicians entertain thousands and earn Grammy nominations and victories, few can afford to play music full time. Those that do must travel.
Ledet drives 18-wheelers for Amazon, a job that gives him steady pay, health benefits, retirement and a flexible schedule for music on the weekends.
Ledet is also among the road warriors whose music is accepted more on the road than at home. Ironically, Ledet decided five years ago that all his future songs would be written in Kouri-Vini, the Creole language spoken by his family in St. Martin Parish.
The all-Creole “Corey Ledet Zydeco” album that followed earned a Grammy nomination in 2021. “The style of music I play, it might not put me over too well at home, which is OK,” said Ledet. “Now I enjoy getting out more, seeing different things, meeting new people.
ä See LEDET, page 6D
BY JOANNA BROWN Staff writer
On a quiet street in the heart of New Iberia, an old rice mill full of original German machinery, wide cypress planks and a few mill cats is still in operation — just as it’s been, more or less, for the past 113 years.
The Conrad Rice Mill stands as an intact monument to Louisiana agricultural history largely thanks to the fact that the business has only been owned by two families since it was started in 1912. That was the year that P.A. Conrad, a planter from a family of German settlers to Louisiana, built a mill and started buying up rice land on the banks of the Bayou Teche.
While the mill was under the Conrads’ ownership, they processed and sold white rice to New Iberia grocery stores — the same snowy grains that fly off shelves across the country But when a young Lafayette businessman named Mike Davis bought Conrad Rice Mill in 1975, a new vision for the company was born: specially-milled, aromatic brown rice, with all the flavors of bayou country in the nutty, toothsome kernels.
“White rice was difficult. It’s a commodity item The market’s up, you’re doing good — but all
of a sudden you have a big crop in Thailand, and the price drops,” said Davis.
“We consider ourselves to be a specialty, or niche, operation. We’re all about value added, and to add value, you’ve got to do more to it.”
Doing things different
Davis’s plan for doing more involved his partner, Claude Brewer, who had contacts at the Louisiana State University rice research station in Crowley Brewer picked up
a new rice that had been brought over from southeast Asia and crossed with another strain to produce an aromatic brown rice with a better yield. It would become the company’s flagship product, Konriko Wild Pecan brown rice.
“We were really the first to start selling aromatic rice in the United States,” said Davis “We also did a little more to it than that.
“When you remove the bran layers
BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer
The Krewe of Xanadu brought the wow factor to this year’s ball and pageant on Feb. 25.
Kris Wartelle
The krewe celebrated its 35th year with a party like no other. Thousands of revelers packed the Cajundome Convention Center to enjoy the show
This year’s theme was “Xanadu in the City,” and the ladies did indeed rock the city Members performed the fun dance numbers they are known for to get the crowd going. Royal members then paraded in stunning costumes depicting city scenes that represented the whimsical essence of Xanadu.
We loved the over-the-top table decorations. Many were truly works of art. These gals have imagination and creativity galore. You know Mardi Gras is in full swing when it is time for Xanadu’s biggest night. The mood is always right and the lights are always bright in the city with Xanadu
We want to thank the president of the Xanadu Krewe Pam Block for inviting us to the celebration. It was a special night and one we thoroughly enjoyed. We also want to send Xanadu King Glenn Armentor our wishes for a safe and speedy recovery. Congratulations Xanadu on another great year!
It might have been raining outside, but it was cozy inside Marcello’s restaurant as King Richard Coeur de Lion LXXII
Dr. Patrick Welch hosted family, friends and krewe members at a party commemorating the end of his reign as king.
The evening cocktail party was held on Feb. 23, the day after the Order of the Troubadours ball. The event was filled with music, cocktails and jazz adding to the mood of the relaxed celebration.
Dr. Welch and his lovely wife Charlotte greeted guests with a signature cocktail and a prescription for whatever might be ailing them. The humorous gift included remedies one might need in case of overindulgence the night before.
Thankfully, we were not in need of such remedies, but we did enjoy the best tomato basil soup we’ve ever had thanks to Marcello’s fabulous spread. There was also plenty of good cheer to go around. The royalty represented the krewe with all the majesty bestowed up on them, and we felt lucky to have been part of the magic. Thank you, Troubadours, and congratulations on another fabulous year
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! It’s time for the working man’s Krewe of Triton ball. That was the theme of this year’s pageant, much to the excitement of NASCAR fans. The ball was held March 1 at the Cajundome in Lafayette.
Triton’s Captain is a car enthusiast, so he chose the theme “Start Your Engines” to reflect that passion.
Anyone who has ever been to a Triton ball already knows how exciting this event is. Only Triton can fill the Cajundome with an actual Mardi Gras parade complete with full scale floats and large high school marching bands. Now imagine the entire parade dedicated to cars of every type. Royal floats depicted scenes from “Talladega Nights,” “Dukes of Hazzard,” “Speed Racer” and “Herbie the Love Bug.”
Outside the dome, mint condition Ferraris, Maseratis and Porches were on display for the arriving guests to view
Inside the dome, thousands gathered to enjoy the show with music, pageantry and fun for all.
We love this spectacular ball. We also thank the wonderful krewe members who always help ensure that we are where we need to be to catch all the action.
Until next year Triton, watch out for those speed traps!
Authors we’re looking forward to at the New Orleans
BY JAN RISHER Staff writer
The New Orleans Book Festi-
val at Tulane University is one of those rare gifts. It’s free. It’s well organized. It’s full of literary greats. The event, set for March 27-29, celebrates literature and reading. It features authors, panel discussions and book fairs.
This year is expected to live up to years’ past, with an “aim to support and nurture a literary community by connecting readers of all ages and backgrounds with local and national authors through experiences that celebrate the power of literacy and ideas.”
At last count, the book festival’s website features 201 writers, a combination of internationally known and locally grown set to be part of the three-day event
Here is a taste of the variety of authors and the books they have released:
Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom is a native New Orleanian. Her memoir “The Yellow House,” which came out in 2019, details her upbringing in an unsung New Orleans East neighborhood far from streetcars and Garden District mansions. After Hurricane Katrina, her beloved shotgun house was bulldozed, but she and her family still cling to it. The book doesn’t include whimsical, romanticized tales of French Quarter magic, but it does express the relentless pull of home and family
The memoir, which won the 2019 National Book Award, is a very real, gritty and sometimes tender look at one family’s trials and tribulations across generations. Broom’s “The Yellow House” was heralded by The New York Times book review as “an instantly essential text, examining the past, present and possible future of the city of New Orleans, and of America writ large.”
Connie Chung
Connie Chung is a familiar face to many The former CBS News anchor’s memoir, “Connie: A Memoir,” was released in September
Not only a New York Times bestseller, the newspaper also listed it as one of 100 Notable Books of 2024. Time magazine listed it on its 100 Must-read Books of 2024. It won Kirkus’ best nonfiction book of the year The book reveals behind-thescenes details of her personal and professional life.
Casey McQuiston
Casey McQuiston grew up in
south Louisiana and now lives in New York City McQuiston writes bestselling romantic comedies.
The most recent being “The Pairing,” which Rolling Stone described as “summer’s best romance novel” is about two bisexual exes who accidentally book the same European food and wine tour and challenge each other to a hookup competition to prove they’re over each other except they’re definitely not.
Vivek Murthy, M.D.
Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., MBA, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March 2021 to serve as the 21st Surgeon General of the United States. He left the office in January
As the nation’s top doctor Murthy helped to advance the health and well-being of all Americans and worked to address critical public health issues around loneliness and mental health including Surgeon General’s advisories on the youth mental health crisis and social media’s impact on youth mental health, the epidemic of loneliness and isolation, and on burnout in the health worker community Murthy also issued a Surgeon General’s Framework on
mental health in the workplace.
His book, which came out in 2023, is called “Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.”
The book includes strategies to help weather the crisis of loneliness and heal, including these four specific pieces of advice:
n Spend time each day with those you love. Devote at least 15 minutes each day to connecting with those you most care about.
n Focus on each other Forget about multitasking and give the other person the gift of your full attention, making eye contact, if possible, and genuinely listening.
n Embrace solitude. The first step toward building stronger connections with others is to build a stronger connection with oneself. Meditation, prayer art, music and time spent outdoors can all be sources of solitary comfort and joy
n Help and be helped. Service is a form of human connection that reminds us of our value and purpose in life. Checking on a neighbor seeking advice, even just offering a smile to a stranger 6 feet away, all can make us stronger
Boyce Upholt
Boyce Upholt grew up in the Connecticut suburbs and moved to the Mississippi Delta in 2009 to teach school and become a writer When he was assigned to profile
John Ruskey, Upholt began learning more about the Mississippi River and its vast floodplain. He was hookwed.
In “The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi,” he mixes geography and geology, hydrology, ecology and travelogue with villains, heroes and lore. When Upholt began research for the book, he paddled the lower river, camped along its shores, bathed in the water and drink river-water coffee. What resulted from his adventures is a book that tells the story of the sweeping history of the Mississippi River and the centuries of efforts to control it.
Email Jan Risher at jan.risher@ theadvocate.com.
When some good folks from the local Audubon Society asked me to dream up a list of great bird books, I had fun exploring the possibilities. The titles should resonate with birders across Louisiana as spring’s bird-watching season gets in gear
I didn’t aim to be definitive. This isn’t a list of the best bird books of all time; it’s simply a survey of some books I’ve found useful as a Louisiana bird enthusiast The list includes some old favorites as well as recently released titles. Here are five standouts:
‘Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern and Central North America’
With convenient birding apps such as Merlin within quick reach on a smartphone, printed field guides like the Peterson series might seem outdated. I welcome those digital tools for birders, but the Peterson books offer a lovely, compact survey of area bird life, and the artwork is a pleasure
all its own I have a soft spot for the fifth edition, which was completed by an LSU ornithologist, H. Douglas Pratt, after series founder Roger Tory Peterson died before the project was finished.
‘Attracting Birds to Southern Gardens’
Drawing birds to your window means more than putting out a bird feeder An ideal mix of plants and trees is part of the equation, too. Authored by LSU experts Thomas Pope, Neil Odenwald and Charles Fryling Jr., this book uses a clear arrangement of text and pictures that even novice gardeners can follow I think everyone in Louisiana should get a copy as a
housewarming present.
‘The Birds of America’
There are more pictures from Louisiana in John James Audubon’s “The Birds of America” series than anywhere else. Those
of us who live in this part of the world should be aware of this legacy Deluxe editions of the book can be pricey, but you can usually find small versions within your budget.
‘The Life of the Skies’
Bird-watchers have a reputation as an odd bunch, but in this lively narrative, author Jonathan
Rosen argues that watching birds just might be America’s biggest pastime. His reporting takes him to Louisiana, where he looks for the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker near Pearl River But the only ones he manages to see are stuffed specimens at LSU, which he describes as “folded like portable umbrellas.” Phrases like that make Rosen a joy to read.
‘Spark Birds
This anthology of essays and poems about birds has taken a place of honor on my nightstand, the brief entries a nice way to close each day I’m partial to “Afternoon With Brown Pelicans,” a Jean Monahan poem with Louisiana’s state bird at its heart. Watching some pelicans fly away, she’s moved to think that “everything, everything we have is borrowed.”
Which is why watching birds is so special. It nudges you to live in the moment, embracing a bit of magic before it takes flight.
Email Danny Heitman at danny@ dannyheitman.com.
BY CATHERINE S COMEAUX
Contributing writer
Twenty years ago, when I was a household of one living on pasta, cheese and peanut butter I signed up for Earthshare Gardens in hopes of getting more fresh vegetables in my diet. The nonprofit, communitysupported agriculture program had just started a small farm in Lafayette.
Funded by shareholder buy-in, a handful of volunteer growers with a passion for sustainable farming practices would provide shareholders with a bag of locally grown veggies every other week big, beautiful, sometimes mysterious vegetables.
They occasionally included recipes. One particularly prolific season for greens, they shared a Gumbo z’Herbes recipe that has since become a family favorite.
Gumbo z’Herbes, or green gumbo, with its dark verdant, cling-to-yourspoon texture has become a Halloween tradition in our family thanks to its resemblance to witches’ brew However, the dish is perfect for the transitional time between winter and spring in south Louisiana when the chill of gumbo weather is still in the air as warm fronts are more frequent, and experienced gardeners are harvesting greens while the rest of us will find them more abundant in the grocery stores.
The dish is traditionally a Lenten meal — simple yet full of fortifying greens for the season of fasting leading up to Easter In the past, Lent was a time when Catholics refrained from meat for the full 40 days, but current church traditions call for abstaining from meat only on Fridays with fish and seafood permitted in its place. (As a bonus, alligator was approved as part of the “fish family” by the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 2010.)
Every year, Acadian Catholics debate whether a fried seafood platter is in the true spirit of abstaining from meat on Fridays. I offer green gumbo (omitting the andouille and sausage) as a simple, hearty Friday meal this Lent or any time of year in the spirit of reducing meat con-
According to Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service, mustard greens should be planted through mid-March, Swiss chard until the end of April, and collards midMarch until the end of September For a wide variety of unique greens to plant, check out heirloom seed catalogues like Ujamaa Seeds at www.ujamaaseeds.com or Southern Exposure Seed Exchange at www.southernexposure.com.
sumption for the sake of the environment and health.
Abstaining from meat might be inspired by noble spiritual, environmental or health reasons, but there’s even greater benefit when the selfdenial is coupled with an enthusiasm for vegetables.
New culinary horizons open up when you grow a garden, explore the produce section beyond the bagged salads or join a CSA Earthshare Gardens opened my eyes to a wider variety of vegetables, greens in particular
Beyond mustard and collards, there are dinosaur kale, dandelion
greens, callaloo and so many more
The original Earthshare Gardens recipe included the notation that for each different green added to the gumbo, a new friend would be made another bonus of expanding your vegetable world.
In the Acadiana area, individuals can contact Earthshare Gardens at www.earthsharegardens.org to become a shareholder for their spring growing season, which runs from Feb. 23 to May 18
The public can also learn more about growing vegetables locally by volunteering to assist in the gardens.
Many Americans are fortunateto havedental coverage fortheir entire working life, through employer-provided benefits.When those benefits end with retirement, paying dental bills out-of-pocket can come as a shock, leading people to putoff or even go without care. Simply put —without dental insurance, there may be an importantgap in your healthcare coverage.
When you’re comparing plans ...
types of
nip
5-8 bunches
(e.g collard, mustard,
shallots, beet greens, parsley celery leaves, watercress or dandelion greens)
1
6. Brown your onion and garlic in the fat released while browning the meat.
1. Thoroughly
or
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7. Add the browned meat back to the pot along with the green liquid. Mix well.
8. Add the chopped cooked greens and seasonings.
9. Keeping heat low gradually add 2 quarts water or broth. Raise the heat to high and bring gumbo to a boil, then lower heat to low
10. Dip a measuring cup in the pot and pull out a cup or so of the liquid, whisk the roux in this hot liquid and then dump it all back in the pot. Or add the roux directly to pot — it will eventually dissolve.
11. Simmer on low for 11/4 hours. Taste after about a half hour of simmering, then add salt and pepper as you like it.
12. Serve over white, longgrain rice with cornbread.
Recipe tips:
1. If you choose to go meatless,
Ask about the Premier Plan –our most
5.
Continued from page 1D
from the rice, it’s called white rice, which is what you mostly see in the grocery store. We didn’t want to do that, because everybody did that. So we learned this little technique that Mr Conrad [Julian Conrad, P.A. Conrad’s son] taught us, to scratch the bran layers on the grain of rice to where water can get through to the inside and cook faster.”
Konriko Wild Pecan rice cooks in about 20 minutes, instead of the typical 50 minutes for brown rice, and Davis says their processing method produces a nutty cooking aroma, with finished grains of rice that have a little curl to them. “We didn’t know that was going to happen, but that’s how it happened. And it makes it really interesting,” said Davis.
Conrad Rice Company products, including their seasoning blends, are sold in stores under the Konriko brand name. The Conrads had applied for a product trademark as “Conrico,” an acronym for Conrad Rice Company — but changed the Cs to Ks due to the similarity with another trademark. Davis continues to operate under these names to this day, but Wild Pecan Rice” was his personal brainwave, thanks to a fateful dinner at La Fonda in Lafayette in the early 1980s.
Davis remembers being at dinner with a friend, discussing business, when he had the idea to name his new brand of rice “Wild Pecan” — based on the fresh flavor reminiscent of the local pecans that fall on the banks of the bayou.
It’s surely not the only legacy that has been forged over conversation and a few drinks at La Fonda, a longtime haunt for Lafayette’s business community “He doesn’t remember that conversation,” Davis said of his friend, laughing “I tell him, ‘What do you mean you don’t remember? You were there!’”
A Louisiana rice legacy
Since Davis purchased the Conrad Rice Company 50 years ago, he has achieved a rare accomplishment — keeping the
“The only thing I can tell you about what’s going to happen in the future is that it’s going to change. I don’t know how it’s going to change, and I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I can tell you — a fresh college graduate could walk right in here and know as much as I do in about two days, because it just keeps changing. You just have to figure it out, and figure it out again.”
MIKE DAVIS Conrad Rice Mill owner
core of the mill and business intact, while pivoting to access new markets and build brand loyalty Visitors to Conrad Rice Company and the Konriko Company Store, located at 307 Ann St., New Iberia, can take tours of the old mill that still functions much as it did under the Conrads, still churning out rice for major grocers across Louisiana and the United States, including Publix, H-E-B and Stop & Shop.
“If you develop a label and you build some ambience behind it, and some romance to it, and get it out there and established, you can find that customer loyalty,” says Davis. He didn’t start out in life as a rice planter, or even a businessman — he graduated in marketing from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and decided that he wanted to go into farming after leaving military service in 1968. In a twist of fate, Lafayette business scion Herbert Heymann (the son of Oil Center developer Maurice Heymann) would be the catalyst for launching Davis into the world of rice.
“He had been my Little League football coach,” said Davis of Herbert Heymann. “I was talking to him and found out he had a piece of property out in St. Martin Parish — 612 acres, just sitting there. He said, ‘Sure, I’ll lease it to you, Mike. I’m happy to have you there.’”
Davis started raising cattle on the property and teaching school. “It didn’t take me too long to realize there wasn’t a whole lot of money to be made, doing what I was doing,” he
Continued from page 1D
point where the train line’s east met west.
Remnants of the train track are still embedded in the levee along La. 415, commonly known as River Road.
The Martins drove the few miles from their Port Allen home and stopped alongside the levee, only a few yards from a state historical marker commemorating the former Sunrise community. The real thing
No such marker has been designated for Anchorage, but what’s there is the real thing. Wooden pilings stand on either side of the last vestiges of a track at the top of the levee. Below, more pilings surround crumbling wooden reinforcements that supported the track. “This was where teenagers used to come and party when I was in high school,” David Martin said “Did you ever come here?” Debbie Martin asks. Her husband smiles. Maybe a time or two.
East meets west
Between 1906 and 1947, this was the spot where a steam-powered rail ferry transported trains to the west. According to the West Baton Rouge Parish Historical Association’s archives, the railroad ferry George H. Walker was the line’s final and best known ferry operating between 1923 and 1947.
said. “So I started looking for a middleman operation, something that was agricultural based, because I like that.”
Eventually, a chance meeting in New Iberia led him to the Conrad Rice Mill — right into a conversation where P.A. Conrad’s sons were discussing their retirement and desire to sell.
Davis said, “I was 29 and didn’t have any money But I asked them how much they were asking, and it wasn’t that big a number So we shook hands on the deal, and I told them I’d be back in a week with some earnest money which I didn’t have.”
With contacts like Claude Brewer and Herbert Heymann, Davis was able to pitch the deal to some of Acadiana’s most seasoned business and agricultural players, and secure the future
that he had been looking for “Mr Heymann actually cosigned my first note to get here, and he didn’t have to do that. These men who helped me get started, they enjoyed nurturing people along, kind of mentoring you. When I got to kicking it along pretty good, I went to Mr Heymann, and asked him what I could do to repay him. I thought his answer was great. It was simply to help someone else — pay it forward. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
According to Davis, he would love for someone to one day take over the business, learn it and continue to build on the legacy that the Conrads started more than 100 years ago, the way he did — but the mill’s next act is yet to be written. His children practice law and dentistry,
and Davis says that while he’s about to turn 80, he has no plans to retire. He’ll continue to work with his employees at the mill and company store, promoting a storied Acadiana brand in an ever-changing world.
“The only thing I can tell you about what’s going to happen in the future is that it’s going to change,” he said. “I don’t know how it’s going to change, and I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I can tell you — a fresh college graduate could walk right in here and know as much as I do in about two days, because it just keeps changing. You just have to figure it out, and figure it out again.”
Email Joanna Brown at joanna.brown@theadvocate. com.
operating as the seat of state government at the time.
“The east bank landing was near the Louisiana State Capitol building, and the west bank landing was just a bit farther upriver at Anchorage, making for an angled crossing distance of about a mile and a quarter,” the Waterways Journal article states.
The ferry was operated by Gulf Coast Lines and the Missouri Pacific Railroad with the Willard V. King ferry preceding the George H. Walker at the crossing.
The earlier ferry was a twotrack transfer boat with a capacity of 16 freight cars or eight passenger cars.
Biggest steel-hull boat
Therefore, the Southern Pacific Railroad’s line used the George H. Walker for 11 years between 1923 and the abandonment of its southwest Louisiana railway in 1934. Southern Pacific wasn’t the only railway serviced by the ferry system. It was put out of business a few years after the Kansas City Railroad line opened in 1945. The Kansas City Railroad line still runs through the center of Baton Rouge’s Huey P. Long Bridge. Traveling diagonally
As for the train ferry’s route, trains on the east side would pull up in the Kansas City Southern railroad depot, which now houses the Louisiana Art & Science Museum at 100 S. River Road downtown. The Waterways Journal, in a 2019 article, states that the landing was “near the Louisiana State Capitol,” which makes sense, since Louisiana’s Old State Capitol across from the station was
“In May 1922, the railroad contracted with the Dravo company of Pittsburgh to design and build a replacement, a steel-hulled boat large enough to carry entire passenger trains,” the Waterways Journal states. “Dravo came up with a design for a 340-foot sidewheeler with three train tracks. The price tag was $250,000, the equivalent of about $3.5 million today.”
The resulting ferry was, of course, the George H. Walker, which was the largest steel-hull boat on the Mississippi River at the time.
“The finished boat had a length overall of 346 feet and a hull depth of 11 feet,” the Waterways Journal states. “The beam was 56 feet, but with the sponsons and paddlewheels, the boat’s width was about 91 feet over the guards. The hull was divided into 26 airtight and two oil-tight compartments.
The boat was powered by four 72-by-18-inch Bronson-type boilers, two on each side.
“The boilers were adapted for oil but could be fired by coal if necessary,” the Waterways Journal states.
Not a pretty boat
The Waterways Journal points out that the George H. Walker wasn’t exactly a pretty boat.
“As steamboats go, the Walker was not going to win any beauty contests,” the article states. “It was basically a big flat deck with an unadorned, short, squat block-shaped deckhouse on each side, paddlewheel housings looming a little higher, and a simple structural bridge straddling the three tracks to hold the pilothouse above it all.”
But that didn’t matter as long as the ferry did its job. And it did just that for quite a while, enabling transportation from Baton Rouge to Anchorage, where, according to the West Baton Rouge Historical Society, also was home to a small train depot.
Now the site is marked only by the ruin of a trestle unnoticed by most drivers along the River Road. But not Debbie and David Martin.
They know its history and location, and they’re happy to keep its story alive.
Do you have a question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your question to curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and the city where you live.
Continued from page 1D
“This music has taken me to Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Paris — and two Grammy nominations.
I’ll take it.” His evolution continues. With “Black Magic,” an allblack, customized accordion imported from Italy, Ledet is working on an all blues album and holding auditions for band members skilled in the genre.
Ledet is also adding jazz, reggae, rock and more to his accordion gumbo. He’s expecting more of the world to eat it up.
“If you look up blues festivals, you won’t be able to count them. That’s how many blues festivals there are worldwide.
“It’s the same formula that Clifton (Chenier) and Buckwheat (Zydeco) did. You can play the blues on a piano accordion.
“Blues is like Jell-O. There’s always room for it.”
Herman Fuselier is executive director of the St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission. A longtime journalist covering Louisiana music and culture, he lives in Opelousas. His “Zydeco Stomp” show airs at noon Saturdays on KRVS 88.7 FM.
BY NOREEN KOMPANIK TravelPulse (TNS)
Renowned for its 27 miles of sugar-white sand beaches and stunning turquoise waters, Panama City Beach, Florida, has announced new attractions, enhanced accessibility offerings and more for 2025.
“Panama City Beach is proud to showcase the many exciting new openings and developments in store for 2025,” said Dan Rowe, President and CEO of Visit Panama City Beach. New and upcoming openings include:
Pirates Voyage and Dinner Show, spring
Dolly Parton brings the swashbuckling fun of her Pirates Voyage Dinner & Show to Panama City Beach in a captivating new attraction with an immersive dining experience including a fourcourse feast, epic pirate battles and spectacular stunts. Inside the sprawling indoor theater, an action-packed show features pirate battles on deck, in a 15-foot-deep lagoon and in the “sky” above two full-sized pirate ships, accompanied by high-flying acrobatics and pyrotechnics, tropical birds, playful sea lions and more.
McGuire’s Irish Pub
In its third location, McGuire’s brings a turn-of-the-century New York Irish saloon-themed restaurant to Panama City Beach With a lively atmosphere and more than 1 million signed dollar bills hanging from the ceilings and walls, the Pub offers delicious food drinks, and live Irish entertainment.
Topgolf, summer
Topgolf will open a new facility in Panama City Beach’s Pier Park area, bringing a modern, hightech golf experience. The twostory venue features 74 outdoor climate-controlled hitting bays, a restaurant and bar, 22-foot video wall, more than 140 HDTVs, an outdoor patio, music, familyfriendly programming, and prime spots for team outings and family gatherings.
Shop By the Shore Trail, spring The Trail offers a coastal shopping experience with local
treasures capturing the charm of Panama City Beach. Visitors can grab a passport from the Visitors Center or participating stores, follow the map for a unique shopping adventure, get the passport stamped at each stop and leave with a special souvenir Fun. For. All. Microsite, spring Continuing the evolution of the “Fun. For All.” accessible travel
initiative, Visit Panama City Beach is gearing up to launch the official “Fun. For All.” Microsite, a resource for visitors planning an accessible getaway The site features interactive maps and spotlights accessible offerings throughout the destination.
Frank Brown Park Skate Park, summer
Frank Brown Park expands outdoor recreation offerings with a new skate park breaking ground in January, a state-of-the-art facility for skaters of all ages and skill levels, with plans for multiple skate lanes and various riding areas.
Edward F. Hickey Jr. Park, open In an effort to make the destination’s beautiful beaches accessible to everyone, the Park at Beach Access 22 was converted into a new ADA beach access point designed to accommodate those with mobility challenges. Features include handicapped parking spaces, an accessible beach ramp and over 100 feet of mobility mats extending to the beach. A new accessible viewing platform is scheduled for later this year
Frank Brown Park Pickleball Courts, late 2025
The park continues growing its amenities with the addition of 10 pickleball courts. Construction is expected to begin in August, with completion in late 2025.
By Christopher Elliott
My family booked a condo in downtown Toronto through Vrbo recently Just before we arrived, we received a text that our reserved condo had plumbing issues and that they had assigned us another rental in a different building
Christopher
Elliott
When we tried to check in, we found the unit appeared to be occupied by another guest. There were toiletries in the bathrooms, clothes in the closets and food on the table.We immediately notified the manager His advice was to lock ourselves inside the condo and that they would send a cleaner I considered this an unsafe suggestion.
Also, the condo wasn’t the equivalent to
the one we had originally reserved — it was smaller and had one less bathroom than the original condo
The manager insisted that we return to the property and promised to clean it. But we didn’t trust him, so we returned the key to the concierge and found a different place to stay.We texted the manager asking for a refund.The manager replied that my husband had been abusive and that they would not refund the money Can you help me get our $2,356 back, please? — Elizabeth Kimpel, Potomac, Maryland
Vrbo should have offered you a full refund when it couldn’t provide the rental you had reserved.
Vrbo has a Book With Confidence guarantee that says if your property is “materially misrep-
resented” in the listing, it will help you book a replacement. So what went wrong here? It looks like you worked with the property manager on the rental swap. When you needed help, you reached out to Vrbo in writing, but Vrbo just contacted the property manager for a resolution. This isn’t surprising. Vrbo sees itself as a platform — an intermediary between the renter and the rental manager — and only wants to get involved when it collects its fees. Apart from that, Vrbo usually sides with the rental managers, who are its real customers.
In reviewing the correspon-
dence between you, the manager and Vrbo, I don’t see any evidence that your husband was abusive.
If anything, you were polite and direct. You just wanted what Vrbo had promised. Not a smaller apartment and not a condo that was already occupied. You could have sent a brief, polite email to one of the company’s executives, asking for another review of your case I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of the Vrbo executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.
Here’s my take on what should have happened. Instead of referring you back to the condo man-
ager, Vrbo should have found you a comparable rental quickly That would have fixed the problem and ensured your family had a positive experience using the rental platform. Clearly, Vrbo did not take its Book With Confidence guarantee seriously in your case. It can do better I contacted Vrbo on your behalf. It apologized and refunded the $2,356 you spent on the occupied condo.
Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him on his site.
BY LYNN O’ROURKE HAYES
FamilyTravel.com (TNS)
Plan the adventure of a lifetime and create epic memories. Here are five ideas to consider Splurge on a family safari
Visit northern Tanzania’s Serengeti for wildlife viewing and a cultural extravaganza Home to more than 3,000 lions and 1,000 leopards as well as zebras, wildebeests, warthogs and waterbuck, it’s a magical sanctuary best known for the great migration. With the Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti as your base camp, choose to explore via half- and full-day jeep tours, walking safaris, or from the basket of a high-flying, hot air balloon. The excitement doesn’t end when you return to the lodge, where a watering hole, just beyond the Infinity pool, serves up hydrating sustenance to elephant families on a daily basis Dine on the veranda, with sweeping views of the plains, where giraffe, eland and topi graze in the distance. The Kijana Klub and Discovery Centre provide a relaxed hangout option for children’s downtime at the lodge. There they can also learn about Maasai history and culture, the significance of the Serengeti Cheetah Project and life in the bush. Relax at the spa, take a family cooking class and be amazed by a live performance of tribal dance and song offered by local Maasai. For more: www.fourseasons.com/ serengeti
Be amazed by Antarctica
Some go to check off their sev-
enth continent. Others, to see penguins waddle or whales breach amid blue-tinged icebergs. An increasing number of travelers choose an Antarctic expedition to better understand climate change and to learn from onboard scientists, naturalists and history experts who have spent
decades observing the changing landscape. No matter your reason for booking, a journey to this wild southernmost destination is an awe-inspiring adventure. On an Abercrombie & Kent voyage, you’ll cross the storied Drake Passage before reaching a land where there are no permanent residents,
no hotels or shopping opportunities. However, you’ll trade traffic noise for the sounds of glaciers calving and zip to remote islands via Zodiac boats where Crabeater and Weddell seals loll on the ice. You’ll be mesmerized by the towering snow-covered mountains, the ever-changing ice formations, the smile-inducing Adelie, Gentoo and Chinstrap penguin colonies, and the opportunity to step where few have ventured before. And, you’ll return home having joined the ranks of great explorers like Shackleton and Scott who forged the way For more: www.abercrombiekent.com
Discover Minnesota’s Boundary Waters
Ease your canoes into the pristine water near Ely, Minnesota, and look forward to peaceful days of paddling amid a sparsely populated, 1 million-plus acre expanse of wilderness. Listen to the waves lapping against the shoreline and the haunting lullaby offered by local loons as you drift to sleep in one of 2,000 secluded campsites that dot the lake region. Wake to the sounds of birds chirping in the birch trees and enjoy breakfast over a campfire. Then set out to explore more of the 1,500 miles of canoe routes that crisscross the waterways. For more: www.exploreminnesota.com
Galapagos
Given the island’s location on the equator, air and water tempera-
tures remain relatively stable, making the Galapagos Islands a desirable destination any time of the year Within this pristine and diverse eco-system, your family will thrill to the site of cliff-diving blue-footed boobies and the waved albatross known for an elaborate courtship dance that can include 20 minutes of bowing, honking, whistling and bill clacking. You’ll want to know about Darwin’s 13 finches, creatures that were central to the scientist’s evolutionary theories. Learn more about the volcanic island’s winged population as well as the abundance of sharks, sea lions, mantas and iguanas via a live aboard vessel (popular with scuba divers), a cruise or a hotelbased tour
For more: www.expeditions.com
Our sparsely populated and endlessly captivating 49th state lures those who yearn for epic scenery, spouting whales and glaciers the size of small countries. Experience rugged Alaska via boutique yachts and expedition ships that set sail for adventure beginning each spring. Aboard smaller vessels you’ll have meaningful cultural experiences, find your way to natural nooks and crannies, opt for hiking and kayaking and discover rarely visited wilderness areas, increasing the chance for up-close wildlife viewing. Fish for super-size trout or the salmon of your culinary dreams. Those who venture to America’s last frontier will be rewarded with Mother Nature in all her glory For more: www.travelalaska. com
Hulu series ‘so unique and so funny and fresh’
BY LESLIE AMBRIZ Associated Press
WEST HOLLYWOOD Calif. Abdullah Saeed wasn’t looking to write a groundbreaking comedy. He was just looking for a job.
The “Deli Boys” creator wrote a sample script in 2019, hoping to secure a staff position in a writers’ room after transitioning from journalism to screenwriting (“Nobody was buying my documentaries,” jokes Saeed.) He had recently co-written a script for a feature film, but needed something to showcase his own voice.
Saeed sat down to write without worry about representing his entire community and decided to freely create a show that was as lighthearted as he is.
“The pressure was off because I didn’t think it was going to be a TV show I was just like, ‘OK, whatever, I think that’s funny,’” said the Pakistani American writer “Deli Boys” soon landed in front of television writers and producers Jenni Konner (“Girls”) and Nora Silver (“Single Drunk Female”), who immediately wanted to do more than hire Saeed They wanted to develop the half-hour pilot and bring it to life.
“It was so unique and so funny and fresh, and (there is) nothing like that in the world, ever,” said Konner who later brought on showrunner Michelle Nader (“2 Broke Girls”).
The 10-episode Hulu original comedy presented by Onyx Collective stars Saagar Shaikh (“Ms. Marvel”), Asif Ali (“WandaVision”) and Poorna Jagannathan. Premiering Thursday, “Deli Boys” follows two Pakistani American brothers, Raj and Mir — played by Shaikh and Ali — who lose their comfortable lifestyles after their convenience store mogul father (Iqbal Theba) dies unexpectedly from a golfing accident. Raj and Mir must now work together to take over the family business, but soon learn they are in way over their heads when they discover the stores were a front
for cocaine distribution.
Saeed, who used to cover stories centered on music, cannabis and recreational drugs, says he was inspired by the “unverified stories about stealth and smuggling” that he heard over the years.
“It’s just lore,” he said of the stories he was never able to report out. “But in this show, we can borrow all that stuff, right? And so, like, there’s all these elements about, you know, stealth, like how you actually package and move drugs that really made their way into the show.”
The brothers at the show’s heart are two complete opposites who have to find themselves while being comically thrust into the drugsmuggling underworld: Raj is the free spirit who relies on cannabis, his shaman and good looks to get him by, while Mir is the buttonedup model child looking to make his father proud.
“It was great to finally, for the first time, be a flawed character not a model minority,” said Shaikh. “The spectrum for white shows goes from like, ‘Full House’ to “It’s Always Sunny.’ And, you know, we are, like them, not a
Dear Miss Manners: I received a group email from a younger family member that included all of the relatives of my generation, and some younger The subject was a beloved aunt who passed away years ago. Apparently this young man had been doing some ancestry research, and sent the family some of his results regarding my aunt.
It was filled with police reports and news stories regarding a violent and traumatic experience that my aunt suffered when she was young.
It was devastating to learn of this. Her own children knew nothing of their mother’s experience.
I feel that this was an incredibly intrusive act and can’t imagine what his motivation was in sharing information that my aunt quite clearly wanted to be kept private. I’ve never responded, and I can’t think of a polite way to do so.
Gentle reader: This conversation is going to involve correcting the young man’s manners — something that can only be properly done by a parent or other person with similar standing. Therefore, the first question for you to answer is not “how?” but “who?”
Once you know that, you can then ask that person to speak with him, saying that while you are sure his intentions were good, his actions were thoughtless. As you said, the aunt obviously did not share the information herself because she wanted it kept private.
Someone needs to alert him both to what he did and to the fact that, going forward, he needs to be more discreet.
Some follow-up communication, apologizing for his indiscretion, is likely necessary
Dear Miss Manners:: Is there a word for a married couple’s parents to call each other?
We all live relatively close to each other and visit semiregularly No one I’ve asked has an answer Maybe you can come up with something. I don’t really want to call them my “out-laws.”
Gentle reader: Actual names usually work
Dear Miss Manners:: My dear neighbor regularly walks their dog on our fairly remote suburban streets, which don’t have sidewalks, counter to the recommended method: They walk with traffic rather than facing it. They also walk with earbuds, listening to who knows what making it difficult to hear traffic coming behind them. I have gently pointed out that it’s the law, and safer, to walk facing traffic so they can see the cars coming Their answer is that “the dog tells me when cars are coming.” The dog also walks to their left, into the traffic lane, further endangering the animal. Yes, motorists are careful when they pass my neighbor on the road, but they also must be nervous that the walker does not fully acknowledge them. I sincerely care about this person and do not want to see them (or the dog) hurt. How can I impress upon them to follow the rules on walking safely?
Gentle reader You have tried. Now you are going to have to hope for the best — and remember that both etiquette and personal autonomy allow your neighbor to make their own choices.
Send questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com or email, dearmissmanners@ gmail.com.
In ‘Deli Boys,’ Saagar Shaikh, left, and Asif Ali must work together to take over the family business, but soon learn they are in way over their heads when they discover the stores were a front for cocaine distribution.
monolith, right? We have different stories. We have different values from house to house. We have different cultures from house to house. And we rarely get to see
any nuance.”
For Ali, portraying Mir was something he never would have imagined.
“It really is above just being,
you know, an exploration of what being South Asian is,” said Ali. “It’s something that I have never seen our community have before. Just like straight-up crazy comedy.”
Jagannathan plays their father’s right-hand woman Lucky, who quickly takes the boys under her wing in an effort to salvage the family’s dwindling drug operation. According to Jagannathan, Lucky was initially written as a man until Saeed was advised to go back to his script and change two characters from men to women. Soon, Lucky became a blend of Saeed’s mother whom he describes as a “self-starting, headstrong badass,” executive producers Silver and Konner, Nader and Jagannathan’s past roles as a mother on “Never Have I Ever” and “The Night Of.”
“She’s sweet and loving and nurturing and then the next scene is her putting a bullet in someone’s head,” said Jagannathan “And I think the juxtaposition of that is so funny, but the script has so much of that. It’s the expected with the unexpected right next door.”
The cast also includes Alfie Fuller (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) and Brian George, a familiar face to “Seinfeld” and “The Big Bang Theory” fans who is now front and center as Lucky’s second-incommand. Guest stars for this season also include “Queer Eye’s” Tan France, who makes his acting debut in the sixth episode
“I saw the script, and it was a fully formed character I was so nervous. But the first day I got on that set, I had the best experience,” said France, who initially thought he was only going to play a small role.
Saeed and Konner hope the show will have the opportunity to welcome more South Asian guest stars in later seasons. “There’s a lot of people we would die to have,” said Konner.
“And then for each of them, we’ve now set this thing up for ourselves where they have to play someone against type,” said Saeed.
“So, that makes it more fun for us if we get somebody huge, right? And we’ve only seen them one way; we get to put them into something different.”
Dear Heloise: Regarding a recent hint about how to find your parked car: If you have an iPhone, you don’t have to remember to take a picture or make notes. When you can’t find your car, just go to the maps app and ask for directions to your parked car It keeps track of where you stopped driving!
It doesn’t always work, but it does address the main problem: “If I could remember to take a picture or make a note when I park, I could remember where I parked!” That being said, I am careful to take a picture when I park in a big structure at an airport. — Darin
Dear Harriette: I recently returned to work after maternity leave, and I’m finding it difficult to focus. All I can think about is my baby, and it’s affecting my productivity and ability to be present at work. I love my child deeply, but I feel guilty about not being able to fully engage in my job, which has always been important to me. Even when I try to focus on tasks, my mind constantly drifts back to my baby’s needs and well-being. I’m also feeling torn between wanting to give my all at work and wanting to be there for every moment with my child. The guilt of leaving my baby during the day is overwhelming, and it’s causing me to feel distracted and less
Williams,Tucson,Arizona
Toothbrush hygiene
Dear Heloise: We have one electric toothbrush with separate toothbrush heads for each of us. We store the heads in shot glasses that are filled with mouthwash. Every brush is color coded so that we don’t get them mixed up, but even if we do, the brushes are cleaned sterilely every time. — Istello, via email Eyeglass trick
Dear Heloise: Now that it is winter, and I wear eyeglasses, I always try to remember to do what my eyeglass-wearing dad always did in the wintertime during my years growing up in Detroit: He would back out of the door of a house or walk with his back facing in when
confident in my abilities. I don’t want to let my job or my baby down, but I’m not sure how to find a balance. How can I shift my mindset and improve my focus at work without feeling like I’m neglecting my baby or my career? — Baby
Balance
Dear Baby Balance: There is a saying: You can do everything, just not at the same time. Make a daily to-do list of all of your responsibilities — one column for work, one for your baby Methodically check off your list throughout the day, doing your best to focus on whatever small, specific task is at hand. When your mind wanders, remind yourself that you just have to finish whatever is in front of you before you can pivot to something else. Create the discipline in yourself to complete small tasks with focus. This will help you to get through each day Replace
he would come in from the cold outside. Then he would turn around, which went a long way in preventing his glasses from fogging over It can be a real hazard, and it does get cold enough in Houston in the winter for people to need this hint! — Phyllis Stover, via email Caring for animals
Dear Heloise: I’ve been reading your column for many years, and I like the way you champion animal rights. Too many people in my state abandon animals when they are no longer puppies. One of the members of a social club I belong to told me that he and his wife took their 6-month-old puppy to a shelter because it chewed up one of his wife’s leather shoes. But it wasn’t the
dog’s fault; it was on the owners for leaving the shoes out where the puppy could find them. No pet should live outside or be abandoned because the owners are too lazy to interact with the animal and properly train them. This doesn’t mean hitting the animal, starving it, or mistreating it in any way Abuse only teaches the animal to fear and even hate its owner If you adopt a pet, get it neutered, make sure that it gets its shots, and take it to the vet if it gets sick. Feed it decent food, not the cheapest food you can find. Pet it, play with it, and show affection toward the animal — or don’t get a pet. C.H., in Indiana Send a hint to heloise@ heloise.com.
feelings of guilt with feelings of success for achieving small victories. Be sure to include self-care on your to-do list. This will help you to have enough energy to get through each day Dear Harriette: Another view on “Unclear Role,” the woman whose boyfriend does not want her to act in a motherly fashion to his kids. I agree that more communication to understand why he holds this view is necessary It is not apparent from the letter if he ever expresses appreciation for his girlfriend’s loving presence in his daughters’ life. Even so, his stance about the “biological mom” designation is disrespectful to his current girlfriend. He is devaluing her involvement and availability with his daughters, which she gives freely from her heart, well beyond what is being asked of her
This shows emotional immaturity His girls are part of his life, no matter what. An emotionally mature man would want a partner who also wants to embrace those who he considers the most precious. He is trying to compartmentalize or control where love comes from, and it doesn’t seem to be working.
From my experience, a man who does not support or endorse his significant other developing close bonds with his children winds up creating a fractured family — Medical Perspective Dear Medical Perspective: Thank you for sharing your informed opinion on this important topic. Children are precious. This man should treasure the love that his partner is offering them. Send questions to askharriette@ harriettecole.com.
A group of shoppers sort their purchases at Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie.
retail industry is still in flux with changes reverberating in Louisiana.
BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL
its parent company navigates bankruptcy And New Jersey-based Party City is shutting down all eight of its locations in Louisiana because the party supply retailer is going out of business Yet, amid what seems like terrible times for brick-andmortar stores, Canal Place in downtown New Orleans recently added a new Swarovski Crystal store to its mix of high-end tenants, while Lakeside Shopping Center is building out new spaces for trendy retailers Mango and Alo Yoga. Confused? You’re not alone. More than a decade after e-commerce upended the way people shop, the industry is still in flux with changes reverberating in Louisiana. Commercial property brokers, mall executives and other market watchers say some stores are As nationwide retailers bowing to e-commerce close their doors, some Louisiana malls with luxe offerings gaining ground ä See MALLS, page 2E
and sale signs are displayed
BY RICH COLLINS Staff writer
70 acres in Broussard declared certified sites
Two tracts totaling nearly 70 acres in Broussard have been certified for economic development under the state’s certified sites program.
The locations, a 21.31-acre site in Lafayette Parish and a 46.2-acre site in St. Martin Parish, put the total certified sites in Acadiana to 29, One Acadiana officials announced. The certification helps agencies connect with companies that are interested in locating in Louisiana.
The Broussard Economic Development Corporation, city of Broussard, Lafayette Economic Development Authority One Acadiana, SLEMCO and St Martin Economic Development Authority announced the certification
Issued Feb. 26 to March 4
Commercial alterations
MEDICAL: 461 Heymann Blvd., description, renovation
Ochsner Lafayette General Grant Mollett Internal Medicine; applicant, AQ Studios; contractor, Kent Design Build; $135,000.
RESTAURANT: 530 Settlers Trace Blvd., description, Fishbox Sushi restaurant; applicant and contractor, WTH Construction; $200,000
MEDICAL: 1105 Kaliste Saloom Road; description, equipment swap at Our Lady of Lourdes Heart Hospital cath lab; applicant, AQ Studios; contractor, none listed; $613,800.
OFFICE: 1245 Camellia Blvd. description, second floor renovation for RR Company of America at Camellia Tower III; applicant and contractor, Chart Construction; no value listed.
New commercial
CHURCH: 502 St. Mary Blvd. A, description, Our Lady of Wisdom Catholic Church and Student Center that will include 550-seat church with offices, study rooms, cafe, lecture halls and a social hall; applicant, McCrery Architects; contractor, The Lemoine Co.; $28.8 million. New residential
208 SANDY BAY DRIVE, BROUSSARD: Andries Builders, $311,473.
307 LAST QUARTER DRIVE, YOUNGSVILLE: Francez Builders, $350,000.
309 LAST QUARTER DRIVE, YOUNGSVILLE: Francez Builders, $350,000.
210 WINDSWEPT LANE, YOUNGSVILLE: Hays Homes $455,000.
227 CENTRAL VILLAGE WAY, YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $180,000.
226 CENTRAL VILLAGE WAY, YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $190,000.
200 RIO DRIVE, YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $190,000.
223 CENTRAL VILLAGE WAY, YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $180,000.
219 CENTRAL VILLAGE WAY, YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $190,000.
213 CENTRAL VILLAGE WAY YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $190,000.
503 SHORE DRIVE, YOUNGSVILLE: Milton Hebert Construction, $500,000
212 SABAL BEND DRIVE, YOUNGSVILLE: Monica Eddy, $530,000.
under Louisiana Economic Development’s certified sites program.
The smaller site, known as the South Morgan site, is less than 5 miles from U.S. 90 and has substantial frontage along Ambassador Caffery Parkway The larger site, known as the Mouton site, is less than a half mile from U.S. 90 in St. Martin Parish near the intersection of La. 92.
Former night spot
The Keg up for sale
The site of the former popular night spot The Keg is now up for sale and listed for $975,000.
The 7,000-square-foot building at 115 McKinley St. and adjoining parking lot across the street at 205 McKinley St., which total nearly 1.5 acres, were put up for sale re-
Fool’s Take:
A ‘fintech’ giant
PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL), a pioneer in internet payment processing, is undergoing a transition. The financial technology company’s management is culling unprofitable products and segments to build a more profitable business. That’s weighed on the company’s revenue growth, but it’s likely not a long-term concern.
Last year saw a strong recovery in adjusted earnings per share, up 21% year over year Still, management expects the transition to continue in 2025, and it’s projecting single-digit growth in the near term. But PayPal, also home to Venmo is still the leading payments network on the internet. That gives it a significant competitive advantage, enabling it to win more merchants and, in turn, drive more consumers to sign up for its digital wallet.
So long-term investors have an opportunity to buy shares now at a lower price PayPal’s stock recently sported a forward-looking price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 14, well below the five-year average of 20. For a stock capable of growing quickly, that’s a discount.
As management focuses on improved profitability, steady revenue growth and profit margin expansion should result in healthy growth in net income Combining that with a focus on repurchasing shares, PayPal stands a good chance of growing its earnings per share substantially in the coming years (The Motley Fool owns shares of PayPal and recommends its stock and options.)
Fool’s School: Asset, allocation, rebalancing
Many investors go years without engaging in — or even understanding — asset allocation and rebalancing. That can be a costly mistake The term “asset allocation” refers to how your portfolio is divided among various asset classes, such as stocks, bonds and cash.
As an example you might decide that you want to have your portfolio consist of 70% stocks, 20% bonds and 10% cash. Here’s where rebalancing comes into play Since stocks tend to change in value faster than bonds, in a few years your portfolio’s allocation might have become 85% stocks, 10% bonds and 5% cash. If so, you’ve got more in stocks and less in bonds than you wanted to have So you “rebalance”
Continued from page 1E
improving their prospects with inperson shoppers while others are seeing their sales fall — or are going out of business altogether
“It’s hard to explain a little bit because it seems like there are contradictory trends,” said Ryan Pecot, a commercial agent with Stirling. “The reality is there are a few different things going on.” Macro trends
Part of the reason for the seemingly incongruous trend, with some retail sectors seeing improvements while others slip, is a widening wealth gap and the impact of inflation on middle- and lower-income Americans.
A recent report by Moody Analytics found that the top 10% of earners, those who make $250,000 a year or more, accounted for nearly half of all spending in America last year compared with about twothirds of all spending 30 years ago, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Spending by the wealthy on new cars, homes, pricey clothes and luxury goods is rising quickly too, and outpacing inflation. From Sep-
cently, listings show The property would be a “great opportunity for redevelopment, investment or new business venture,” the listing said.
The Keg was a popular night spot for college students but has been empty in recent years. It last operated as La Honda before closing again.
The property last changed hands in 2022 when De Versailles LLC, which is registered to developer Carlos Riera, bought the property for just under $1 million, land records show Riera also owned the Whiskey River Landing near Henderson that burned in 2023.
Since then, the property had two liens placed on it by Lafayette Consolidated Government for failing to upkeep the lawn, records show
— perhaps by selling some stocks and buying some bond investments
— to get back to your ideal allocation mix. Many people change their asset allocation as they get older, shedding some stocks and adding some bonds. (“Target-date” or “lifecycle” funds will do this for you automatically.)
It’s worth reassessing your portfolio’s asset allocation annually and rebalancing as needed. It can be quite easy to do if you’re invested mainly in low-fee index funds such as ones that track the overall stock market and overall bond market. As examples, the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) will instantly have you invested in 500 of America’s biggest companies, and the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (AGG) will invest you in a broad range of bonds. You’ll simply sell and buy the number of shares you want If you’ve invested in individual stocks, you might identify your least promising ones and sell some or all of those. You might also want to shave some shares off any stock holding that’s grown a lot. For example, if one terrific stock soared so much that it’s now 35% of your portfolio, you’re holding too many eggs in that one basket. It’s true that letting your winners run can be a powerful move, but keep your risks in check.
Ask the Fool: Talking tax rates
What, exactly, does it mean if I’m in the 22% tax bracket? That I pay 22% of all my income in taxes? — E.S., Bath, Maine
You’re smart to ask, because many people assume that’s the case — and it’s not That 22% is your “marginal” tax bracket — your highest rate, paid on your top tier of income. For the 2024 and 2025 tax years, there are seven federal income tax brackets: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%. Each bracket applies to a certain range of earnings. Let’s say you’re single and your taxable income for 2024 is $75,000. You’d pay 10% on your first $11,600 of income (that’s $1,160), 12% on your income from $11,601 to $47,150 ($4,266) and 22% on your income from $47,151 to $75,000 ($6,127) (That 22% bracket covers income up to $100,525, by the way.) Add those three amounts for your total tax: $11,553. Divide that by your taxable income of $75,000, and you’ll see that you paid a little over 15% of your income in federal taxes. That’s your effective tax rate, reflecting your total taxes paid, and it’s more meaningful than your marginal rate.
tember 2023 to September 2024, top earners increased their spending by 12%.
Spending by working-class and middle-class households dropped over the same period.
“There is definitely a gap between the haves and the have-nots, and that has an effect on retail,”
Pecot said.
Higher-end malls like Canal Place are reaping the benefits of more spending by well-heeled shoppers, which includes a mix of tourists, locals and a regional drive-in market, according to manager Matt Brown.
With the February opening of Swarovski, the shopping center is 95% leased, with a tenant mix that includes Louis Vuitton, Tory Burch, Tiffany & Co. and longtime anchor Saks Fifth Avenue among others.
“The majority of our first-floor tenants are only located here, in Houston and Atlanta, so it’s really a regional luxury destination for shopping,” said Brown. “We’re thriving.”
The boom is also apparent at Lakeside, a regional mall in Metairie that averages around 99% occupancy In late February, the mall announced that Spanish fashion retailer Mango will open a 5,500-squarefoot store later this spring across from Arhaus, the trendy furniture
Continued from page 1E
U.S. throws out third of its food
In a report released last week, national nonprofit ReFed said that after a pandemic dip, the amount of unsold or uneaten food in the United States rebounded to 74 million tons, nearly a third of the country’s food supply ReFed said that food is worth $382 billion, more than 1% of the country’s gross domestic product. The largest amount of that waste, about 35 million tons, comes from uneaten groceries and restaurant leftovers, according to ReFed. Food-producing businesses, meanwhile, create about 21 million tons of surplus food annually But they are trying to change.
ReFed said that the country’s top 65 food producers — in the categories of food service, retail and manufacturing — all have food waste reduction targets in place. In total, more than $900 million was invested in food loss and waste solutions in the U.S. last year
In New Orleans, hospitality enterprises and schools are leading the way, according to Dana Eness, a founding board member of the independent business alliance Stay Local, which hosted a food waste education event last year
Aramark, Tulane’s food service provider, is testing several ideas to raise awareness about food waste in partnership with the university Keeping track of how much uneaten food is scraped from plates is one of them.
Since the start of the fall 2024 semester, workers have bagged and weighed food waste each day so the school can keep a tally of what goes uneaten in its 6-year-old, $55 million facility, which serves about 3,500 meals a day During one week in late February, the daily total was just under 160 pounds.
Most Tuesday evenings in one of Tulane’s two dining facilities, student workers take the food waste accounting to the next level. They help students discard their uneaten food into a clear container, which fills up quickly
“Traditionally you just put your tray on the dish belt, and it goes away, so no one knows how much food gets wasted,” said Emily Slazer, sustainability manager at Aramark/Tulane Hospitality “This way you can see how it’s accumulating.” Tulane Hospitality also has installed signage throughout both dining halls on campus, encouraging diners to choose the right portion size to avoid waste.
“People will fill the vessel they’re given,” Slazer said. “If there’s a huge bowl by the salad bar, they’ll fill it So we put smaller bowls by the cut fruit and things like that to nudge behaviors.”
The school has partnered with several local nonprofits and student organizations to distribute surplus food to those who need it.
Feeding the turtles
The Convention Center doesn’t cater to hungry college kids every day, but it often hosts tens of thousands of people at a time.
One weekend last month, an independent hardware distributor gathering brought roughly 20,000 people into the 1.1 million-squarefoot building.
To handle the job, the facility has two kitchens, where chefs use industrial cooking equipment to make gumbo, jambalaya po-boys and other local classics in massive quantities.
That type of volume has the potential to create a lot of surplus food and scraps, which is why the center has partnered with several food dis-
tribution and composting nonprofits to collect and put it to use.
Straight credits the food waste initiatives with helping the center earn its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold certification in 2022. It’s a rating system that measures a building’s environmental performance and sustainability It’s also a sales tool. Straight said the Convention Center’s sustainability and food waste initiatives help it stand out as it competes with similar facilities worldwide.
“We’re the largest LEED goldcertified building in the world,” Straight said. “That’s something to be said, especially for a community like New Orleans that has struggled with recycling and sustainability in the past.”
At Acorn, the Dickie Brennan-run restaurant inside the Louisiana Children’s Museum, food waste prevention isn’t just a priority, it’s a focus of the entire operation, which also offers more vegan and healthy options than your average New Orleans eatery
Campsen said the restaurant is careful not to over-order ingredients He tries to use each one in multiple dishes to decrease the chance of waste. The restaurant also uses compostable serving tools.
Leftovers and scraps serve a very specific purpose.
“People like to feed the turtles in the lake next door,” he said. “Anything that we can’t use, like the very backs of the Brussels sprouts or celery leaves that are turning, we cut it up for them.”
Pet food made from flies?
Representatives of Tulane, the Convention Center and Acorn all got a crash course on food waste mitigation last summer at the Stay Local food waste class led by Lucia Loposova, a University of Hong Kong professor who runs a global nonprofit.
Loposova gave a crash course on food waste basics: Use local ingredients, don’t throw away edible food and keep track of what ends up in the trash. But she also advocated for innovative ideas: making a leather substitute out of pineapple leaves, for instance, or milling oyster shells to make toothpaste for dogs.
“It has a fishy taste, but dogs love it,” she said. In Hong Kong, university students devised a way to use old bread as a substitute for barley when making beer The new brew gained popularity Now, the staff at some pizza places in the area might ask customers if they plan to eat their crusts. If not, they cut them off in advance and save them to make beer
And then there’s the black soldier flies.
Buffalo, New York-based company Stratium, following the lead of international counterparts, is creating fly “farms” to consume food waste. The insects’ excrement can be used as a fertilizer, and they themselves are a source of protein that can be used to make food for poultry, fish and pigs.
“It’s a fantastic solution,” Loposova said. “It’s efficient and scientifically proven. Save everything you have, create new things and make it as circular as possible.”
Dana Eness, of Stay Local, hopes someone will try out the idea in New Orleans.
“It’s an incredible entrepreneurial opportunity,” she said. “You can start with something the size of a storage container and scale up.” Email Rich Collins at rich. collins@theadvocate.com.
store that relocated from the South Market District near the Caesars Superdome to Lakeside last year California-based activewear brand Alo Yoga will also open a new store this spring in a 5,000-square-foot space.
“Lakeside is a behemoth that continues to reinvent itself, and it’s in a prime location to attract a variety of shoppers, including those who have a lot of spending power,” said Kirsten Early, a principal and longtime commercial agent with SRSA. Department store struggles
While some luxury stores are expanding and thriving, longtime chains like Macy’s, which has been closing stores for nearly a decade, and JCPenney continue to struggle, much as Sears did before it shuttered most of its stores five years ago. Part of the problem with those traditional department stores is that they tried to be too many things to too many people and couldn’t compete with online retail, said Pecot. The same goes for discount chains like Party City, Big Lots and Bed Bath and Beyond, the latter of which went out of business in 2023.
“Who is going to go to Party City when you can order the same thing with more selection online, and
have it delivered to your door in a day?” said Pecot.
Of course, there are exceptions. Not all high-end stores are doing well, and not all discount chains are doing poorly Midtier retailers like Marshall’s, T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods, which share a corporate owner, and Ross Dress for Less are doing well in Louisiana and looking to open more stores, according to commercial brokers in Metairie and in Baton Rouge.
“To an extent, it comes down to the company and how well it is run and if it is able to deliver decent quality at the right price point,” Early said.
A retailer’s success these days also comes down to their ability to pivot and respond to changing consumer tastes. The longtime Barnes & Noble in Baton Rouge’s Citiplace, an aging strip center that has lost a number of tenants over the past decade, is leaving its 20,000-squarefoot location and moving down the street to a new, smaller store in the high-end Towne Center, according to Jonathan Walker a commercial agent with Maestri Murrell.
Rival bookseller Books-a-Million went in a different direction in Lafayette. The chain moved out of its pricey 12,000-square-foot location on an outparcel near Target and
moved into a larger store nearby, rebranding as a 2nd & Charles and changing up the merchandise mix to include new and used books, music, games and pop culture items.
“They’re doing well now,” Pecot said. “It was a real success.” Too expensive to build new
One of the biggest problems retailers face is the lack of availability of new space Though there are plenty of vacant storefronts in older strip centers across the state, rising inflation, interest rates and insurance premiums have chilled most new retail construction.
“Most of the leasing we are doing is in existing shopping centers because of the cost,” said Walker “And even there, it’s so expensive to do a build-out, it’s mostly highend retailers that can afford it.” Early said she has had to turn some deals away because there isn’t enough new retail space in prime locations, which is slowing growth.
“Where is the new construction?” she said. “That is what everyone is asking, and the answer is, there is none.”
Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@theadvocate. com.
BY TIMOTHY BOONE Business editor
Just over 20 years after cofounding Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux, Brandon Landry has become one of the most successful restaurant operators in Louisiana.
Landry started the sports bar chain with Jack Warner, a fellow walk-on with the LSU basketball team, and in its first decade, WalkOn’s grew steadily in size and popularity But its reputation took off in 2012, when the Poydras Street location in downtown New Orleans was named ESPN’s Best Sports Bar in North America. Walk-On’s now has 80 company and franchise locations across the U.S., stretching from Las Vegas to South Carolina and plans to add 10-15 new restaurants this year and in 2026. Along the way, former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees became a partner, and the company signed up franchisees such as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
Landry and Brees are also partners in another restaurant chain, Smalls Sliders, which does a takeout-only business selling cheeseburger sliders and fries out of vivid orange shipping containers. And, in 2022, Landry opened yet another new restaurant in Baton Rouge — the Supper Club. The highly Instagrammable eatery with trendy decor is reservationonly, with an upscale menu that includes dishes such as Wagyu beef, Beluga caviar and Alaskan king crab.
In this week’s Talking Business, Landry discusses the status of his restaurants, his role with the Louisiana Economic Development Partnership (a private-sector advisory board that promotes economic growth) and his favorite place to get a meal.
This interview has been edited for content and clarity
How are things going with Walk-On’s?
COVID changed everything, especially for casual dining. It was an opportunity for us to look at our concept and reset. Our dining rooms were, for lack of a bet-
ter term, shut down Then they came back at 25% capacity 50% capacity throughout the country
And what we noticed is even with 50% capacity, we were doing preCOVID sales We looked at this and were like, can we go back to the drawing board and maybe reduce the footprint, reduce the menu, the amount of (items), the size of the kitchen? It gave us an opportunity to reset and think about what the next phase of Walk-On’s looks like.
We spent some time redesigning the building and the footprint and the menu, and it has done well for us.
About a year ago, Walk-On’s moved its headquarters out of Baton Rouge to Atlanta. How has that worked out for the company? It’s not something that I wanted to do. It was necessary for the brand and it was tough. I’m prob-
ably the only person on the Louisiana Economic Development Partnership that has a company that left Louisiana. And I’ve been bringing that up for discussion on the board. We’ve got to do something different here. We have to attract people. We have to retain great talent. Look, I’m born and raised in south Louisiana, White Castle. I grew up a fourth-generation sugar cane farmer’s son. I love this place. But at the end of the day, we couldn’t get people to move here. What do you see as the solution to keeping people in Louisiana and attracting workers?
Let’s start tackling some of the issues that we’ve all heard about. I mean the crime the school systems. I think when great minds come together and we truly have a focused approach, you can make
some change and you can make it rather quick. A great example is what New Orleans did for the Super Bowl. There was a horrible incident that happened before the game, but the city, the parish, the state all came together and said, we’re going to make it the safest, cleanest city that a Super Bowl has seen in a long time. And we did that. Everyone that I talked to said New Orleans was a great representation for our state for Super Bowl week. Everyone came together and had a common goal.
Smalls Sliders has been growing a lot.How has the business been doing?
It is amazing the way this concept has taken off in five short years. I came up with the idea in 2018 and opened the original on Nicholson Drive across from Tigerland (in Baton Rouge) in 2019. I didn’t think it would take off like this. Being in the Walk-On’s world, we have full service in big facilities and lots of team members and large menus lots of moving parts. The idea with Smalls was the exact opposite, and we have been attracting very sophisticated franchise groups that have a couple hundred other franchise locations of numerous brands. They have the infrastructure and the knowledge of how to run these types of organizations. We just opened number 24 yesterday in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and we will probably open around 40 locations in 2025.
It’s crazy to say, but 750-squarefoot units are averaging between $2 million-$2.5 million in annual sales. Some units especially in Florida lately, look like they’re tracking around $3 million. Supper Club is a different sort of concept for Baton Rouge. How has business been? Phenomenal. Better than I expected.
It was a little risky bringing a concept like Supper Club that kind of broke the mold for traditional Baton Rouge fine dining. But I think what we learned is people like quality People like to be taken care of. If you do it right, source the best products, spend time coaching and training your staff to make your guests feel like
a million bucks, people will come. Our goal there was to create a unique dining experience with the best products that we could source around the world and not try to be something that we’re not. We’re not a lunchtime spot It’s for dinner only, it’s for supper We don’t ever want to rush someone. We don’t ever want to make them feel that we have to turn this table. It’s come and enjoy yourself and get dressed up and maybe feel like you’re not in Baton Rouge for a couple of hours. People appreciate that. Any thought about expanding it further to other markets or this is kind of strictly a Baton Rouge thing?
I’ve been asked that question a lot, and it started off as a passion project for Mackenzie (Landry’s wife) and I. We wanted to bring something special to our hometown. But I do think it has legs. It has to be the right situation, though. It’s not a brand that I would franchise.
How has inflation affected your restaurants? Have you had to make any sort of menu changes or recipe changes?
One thing we’re not going to do is sacrifice quality because of price. It has given us an opportunity to do a deep dive into all items that we have and go back to the table with some of our vendors and figure out how to work together, because we can’t outprice ourselves. What’s important is quality consistency and keeping the portion size. On the Walk-On’s side, it has been mainly streamlining menus and asking ourselves if we really have to have 65 menu items. Maybe it’s better to have the best 55 We may have a few guests who say, “Oh man, I really love that dish.” But guess what? They’ll find a new favorite. If you’re going to eat a meal in Baton Rouge, where’s it going to be? My wife and I love Gino’s. They’ve done a great job for 50 or so years now and still have Mama Marino’s lasagna on the menu, and you can still see her son Gino Marino and talk to him. That’s our go-to if we’re not going to Supper Club. Email Timothy Boone at tboone@theadvocate.com.
Forgenerations,Louisiana’smenhaden fishing industry has supported small coastal communities and harvested a sustainable resource while employing responsible fishing practices thatprotect the Gulf’s ecosystem. Through sciencebased management, innovativetechnology, and strict regulations,weensurethat menhaden remains abundantfor future generations
The commercial menhaden fishery uses the purse seine method, aspecially designed technique thatminimizes environmental impact.Here’show the processworks:
schools of menhaden.
•Setting the Net: The vesselencircles the school with apurse seine net, whichcloses at the bottomtoform a contained “purse.”
•Hauling in the Catch: Awinch system pulls in the net,and avacuum pump transfersthe fish onto the boat while safely returning anylarger marine species,liketurtles,sharks, or dolphins,back to the water.
•Sorting andProcessing: Fish aresorted using bycatchreduction devices,which separate non-target species beforethe catchistransported forprocessing onshore.
areemphatically rejected by scientific studies.A 2021 study published in Conservation Biologyfound thatimposing additionalcatchlimits on species like menhaden would not significantly increase predatorpopulations.Similarly,a 2017 study in Fisheries Research confirmed that predatorpopulations areinfluenced more by environmentalfactorsthanbyfishing, and thatforagefish targetedbypredators arenot the same as thosetypically caught by commercialfisheries
The menhaden industry removes lessthan 2% of the totalGulf menhaden biomasseach year—far belowlevelsthat would negatively impact the ecosystem.
The menhaden industry removesless than 2% of the total Gulf menhaden biomass each year—far belowlevels thatwould negatively impact the ecosystem.
Stock assessments confirm that menhaden populations arenot overfished, ensuring asustainable fishery that maintains acritical food source for marine predators likeredfish, speckled trout,and dolphins.Since 2019,the fishery has been certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council, the gold standardfor seafood sustainability. Louisiana’smenhaden industry operates under strict federal and state regulations,ensuring responsible practices thatsupport the environment and coastal economies.Calls foradditional restrictions lack scientific backing and threatenthe livelihoods and communities of thousands of workerswho depend on this industry
Through significantinvestments in sustainable fishing methods,reducing bycatch, and maintaining healthy menhaden populations,the Louisiana commercial menhaden industry continues to balance conservation with economic prosperity. Sustainable fishing isn’tjust about the environment—it’sabout people, communities,and Louisiana’scoastal economy. Let’sensurethatscience, not politics,drives the futureofthis fishery
BY MARGARET DeLANEY Staff writer
Louisiana’s first case of COVID-19 was reported on March 9, 2020, with the first death on March 14, 2020, followed by Gov. John Bel Edwards closing schools statewide on March 16, 2020, restricting most businesses to takeout and delivery only. The governor also postponed presidential primaries and placed limitations on large gatherings.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic after more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries.
According to WHO, more than 777 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported globally to date, including more than 7 million deaths, with 103 million cases and 1.2 million deaths being reported in the United States alone.
In Louisiana, there were over 1.5 million COVID-19 cases and 18,370 COVID-19 deaths between March 11, 2020, and December, 31 2023, according to Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering
The time of COVID-19, now referred to as “the pandemic,” does not have an official start and end date, as COVID-19 is still infecting Americans each season
On March 23, 2020 Edwards enacted a statewide stay-at-home order to encourage social distancing Hospitals across the state prepared beds and opened new floors. Medical professionals at all levels learned about a new disease, reused protective gear,
Dr Mary Raven uses her cellphone so a ventilated COVID-19 patient can listen to her husband tell her he loves her
isolated themselves from their loved ones and transitioned entire hospitals to remote care as the nation was forced on lockdown.
Five years after the world changed, the United States still faces many uncertainties about how prepared the country is for the next public health crisis.
But some in Louisiana say they are more prepared than ever
Reusing equipment and making room
Donna Williams was an emergency
room registered nurse at Baton Rouge General in March 2020. She remembers when the first COVID-19 patient was admitted to the hospital.
“It was surreal,” she said.
Joey Boutwell, a licensed practical nurse in Baton Rouge at the capitol area hospital, remembers that there weren’t enough beds to fit the influx of patients. They had to reopen a previously unused third floor
ä See PANDEMIC, page 2
BY MARGARET DeLANEY
Staff writer
It’s time for spring cleaning Yes, that includes the medicine cabinet.
Dr Mai Lam at Ochsner Health Center in Kenner, a primary care physician taking care of newborns to elderly patients, has the list of essential items, expiration requirements and optimal storage to keep the medicine cabinet fresh and effective.
Watch out for expiration dates
Lam
All prescription drugs and overthe-counter medications have an expiration date on the label that is based on testing. The date is the final day that the manufacturer can guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug, if properly stored. Some studies show that many drugs can still be taken after their expiration date if they are properly stored.
But is it better to be cautious and dispose of expired medication?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is clear on this question. The FDA says using expired medical products is risky and possibly harmful and recommends proper disposal.
The FDA explains that expired medications can be less effective or risky due to change in composition or decrease in strength Less potent antibiotics can fail to treat infections for example.
Keep it dry. Keep it cool.
Medicine cabinets work for toothpaste and soap, but the humidity in the bathroom or kitchen can be bad for medications. It can cause them to break down more quickly and render them less useful.
In the South, especially in the hotter months in Louisiana, Lam warns that it is important to keep medicines away from direct sunlight — including cars.
The best place to store most medicines is in a cool, dry and dark area, such as a secure bedside drawer, storage box, closet shelf or kitchen cabinet. Certain medications need to be in the refrigerator
“It’s really important to read the label on the bottle or package and look for specific storage instructions,” Lam said.
Consider storing medications away from curious hands — especially children — in a locked, tackle-type box to prevent them get into the wrong hands.
Louisiana researcher known for world-class heart diet reflects on career
BY MARGARET DeLANEY Staff writer
Catherine Champagne, 66, still vividly remembers passing the Perkins Road construction site where Pennington Biomedical Research Center was taking shape in the late 1980s.
She was on her way to drop off her two young sons at school and had heard plans for a facility with a mission to improve human health throughout the life span, including a center for the study of nutrition. For Champagne, the thought stirred a longing to return to a field that she loved but hadn’t pursued in years.
“That would be a really nice place to work,” the Louisiana native recalled thinking, not knowing at the time how prophetic that moment would prove to be.
Three and a half decades later, Champagne, who is a professor of dietary assessment and nutrition counseling and nutritional epidemiology has been a part of the team at Pennington Biomedical Research Center since its earliest days.
However, the professional path this St. Martinville native took to arrive at her post was hardly a geographical straight shot along Interstate 10 from her hometown to Baton Rouge.
After receiving her undergraduate degree in Home Economics Education from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette), Champagne earned both a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in
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“The losses hurt and there were many but that only strengthened our willingness to do whatever was needed,” Boutwell said.
In the coming months, Williams, Boutwell and many other health care workers in Louisiana faced the brunt of the pandemic — both mentally and physically.
Boutwell remembers seeing a family friend come close to death and learning to walk again. Joy Miceli, a registered nurse in Baton Rouge, witnessed the death of a fellow nurse and friend
The dire straits brought on by the pandemic were sudden and drastic Dr Timothy Riddel saw the news out of China, where the virus originated, and thought it most likely be similar to a bad flu in the United States. He was wrong.
“I was out of town for Mardi Gras,” said Riddel, the chief medical officer of Northshore, Mississippi Gulf Coast, Baton Rouge, Acadiana and Rush Regions for Ochsner Health. “Immediately upon my return, I was met with the harsh reality of the pandemic: severe illness and death.”
Jade Oliver-Brady was working in two emergency rooms at the time the pandemic hit.
“I watched the nurses and doctors working so hard with limited resources,” Oliver-Brady said. “Coming out of the rooms sweating, disappointed, sad and scared.”
Most health care workers had to reuse personal protective equipment, or PPE masks, gloves, goggles, full-body coverings used to protect staff and patients from contagious illnesses
Oliver-Brady, a social worker in the emergency room, was often the person who spoke to families to tell them their loved one was put on a ventilator or if they had passed.
“Life was just so immediately different,” Oliver-Brady said. “It was shocking and traumatizing.”
Health care workers across the state relied on each other for mental health needs, knowledge of a new disease and protective equipment to work in the hospital
The emotional toll rippled through hospitals, and, although many backed away from the weight of the pandemic, some found solace in their community
“We watched people die on a daily basis with the fear that it could easily happen to us knowing we were in direct contact and using reused PPE,” Oliver-Brady said. “We changed clothes in our cars to pre-
Nutrition from Mississippi State University
During her time at Mississippi State, Champagne started a family before moving to Arkansas, where she worked as a clinical dietitian at The University of Arkansas Medical Center in Little Rock, serving patients across the pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology and psychiatric specialties.
Although she received her training and honed a passion for her work in Mississippi and Arkansas, for all the pieces to truly fall into place, Champagne had to return home to Louisiana.
“I’ve had fun,” Champagne said of her 35-year career at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.
What made you want to come back to Louisiana? What intrigued you about Pennington?
After graduate school, my husband got a job in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the time we moved, we had a baby daughter After about two months living in Little Rock, there was a job opportunity at the University of Arkansas Medical Center for a clinical dietitian.
I was not yet a registered dietitian, but they hired me and I actually worked shepherding dietetic interns as a part of their clinical rotation.
In February 1975, our 19-monthold daughter died from h-flu meningitis. After that, I found out that I had passed the RD exam, but things were hard from the loss.
We missed Louisiana and came back to Lafayette where I had a job at the university Later I had a son.
After a while in Baton Rouge, I got to thinking about completing my Ph.D. Mississippi State Uni-
versity agreed to let me do my research here on the LSU campus, giving credit for some courses and counting my research for credit to my degree.
I really needed to do nutrition research to utilize my training and from what I knew about Pennington, it seemed like the best place to be. I had a mentor in New Orleans with whom I worked with on my Ph.D., and one Saturday in the summer of 1989 I called her to see about nutrition opportunities for employment, but I did not know she had a Pennington connection.
She told me I was like “manna from heaven.” She was looking for someone to take over her research with the Bogalusa Heart Study (she was in her late 90s at the time), and that person needed to have laboratory experience. It was through her that I met someone at Pennington and found
my home here. Tell me about the DASH diet and the impact it has had on a national scale
I designed the final DASH Diet menus for all four research sites (including Harvard and Duke) due to my food composition and research experience. I really did not appreciate the impact that diet had on a national level.
DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The DASH diet is a healthy-eating plan designed to help prevent or treat high blood pressure, also called hypertension. It also may help lower cholesterol linked to heart disease.
U.S. News and World Report listed DASH as the No. 1 diet for seven or eight years in a row beginning in 2001. Now it is still at the top of the list — although the Mediterranean Diet is listed as No. 1 in about the past five years. Both di-
Registered nurse Chelsea Porter dons her Tyvek coveralls in July 2020 as she prepares to go to work in the isolation unit at Lafayette General Medical Center in Lafayette.
vent bringing anything home, and many of us had to live separately from the ones that we love, especially children.” Christopher Trevino, vice president of emergency services at Our Lady of the Lake in Gonzales, remembers the fear — for patients and for their families.
“We had to circle the wagons and stay in the fight and make sure we take care of each other as well,” Trevino said
The new normal COVID-19 prompted both small and sweeping changes.
According to Trevino, the most persistent change in the hospital system has been an awareness for health care protective equipment.
Statewide programs have also worked to implement the World Health Organization’s “5 Moments for Hand Hygiene” — hand-washing, or an alcohol-based sanitizer:
n Before touching a patient,
n Before performing a procedure,
n After potential exposure to body fluid,
n After touching a patient,
n After touching a patient’s surroundings or things.
Hospital systems developed effective and thorough methods of telemedicine and telehealth in order to reach patients during lockdown.
Patients still have access to these telehealth methods, giving way for a “new normal” for many practitioners.
“Having telehealth become more normalized during COVID for practitioners, patients and families has helped us be able to establish a telepalliative care programs,” said Ra-
fael Flores, the director of mission integration at Our Lady of the Angels Hospital in Bogalusa.
In New Orleans, Falyn Curtis, vice president of information service clinical systems at Ochsner Health, said her team pushed to find solutions to accessing patients remotely.
This included patient monitoring with wireless wearable vital sign devices, virtual solutions to obtain medication histories and coordinate discharge planning and education all emerged as solutions to provide care for patients — and will continue to do so in the future, according to Curtis.
Many hospitals now prioritize the health of health care professionals more than they did before the pandemic. They mandate all to go home when sick making sure they are fully healthy before returning, with no fever for 24 hours before returning to work.
“It is not that COVID-19 made me realize the importance of community, but it certainly reinforced just how pivotal community is for our overall well-being,” Flores said.
Looking ahead, Trevino said Our Lady of the Lake in Gonzales is more prepared for large-scale health events. The emergency department and ICU will take the brunt of future emergencies.
“We are focusing on preparing for this,” he said. “Learning how to expand during large surges in patient volume is a challenge, and we need to be better at it.”
Those who stayed
The pandemic prompted an increased rate of health care workers resigning, retiring early or
ets emphasize fruit and vegetable intake, fiber from whole grains, lean protein and differ in fat intake. Both are really good diets. What is Women’s Wellness Day at Pennington Biomedical Research Center? March 8 was our 25th anniversary for the Wellness Day for Women. We have a lot of health screenings.
It’s a place where women can get some free screenings to judge how well they’re doing and what they need to do to get healthy We usually draw between maybe 600 and 700 women.
We also have a number of health related talks. This year we’re going to have a panel of investigators here at Pennington. It’s going to be like a Q&A we’re going to let the audience ask questions.
Sometimes we don’t hit all the issues that people are interested in, so this gives women in the community an opportunity to ask that burning question.
In your 35 years, what have been the biggest changes in research?
Technology has played a big, big role. I mean, we didn’t even have email at the time I started out. When email was starting off, I remember going to the director’s office one day having a conversation with him. I said, “Well, I’m going to follow up on email.” He told me, “No, I don’t do email. You send me a memo.”
And that was it.
When I started here, I started six months after the director came in July of 1989. I came in December of 1989. It was so small that I quickly knew everybody here — every person who was walking the halls I knew The bigger we got, the more interesting it was.
Email Margaret DeLaney at margaret.delaney@theadvocate. com.
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“If you have small children, take extra precautions. Some medications come in very pretty colors and storing them out of reach or ‘hiding’ them may not be good enough,” Lam said.
The essentials
“Medications that help with some minor aches and pains, as well as fever reducing medications are really good to have,” Lam said of families with patients young and old. Keep certain medications and supplies in the home for coughs and colds, minor injuries and emergencies. Here’s a checklist Lam recommends having in your home:
n Tylenol (acetaminophen)
n Neosporin (or other antibiotic creams)
leaving the profession altogether
However, some found a newfound passion for the work.
Here’s why these Louisiana health workers stayed:
n “Sheer resilience!” Joy Miceli said, registered nurse at Baton Rouge Rehab Center
n “I’m in my 50s. And although I have contemplated leaving the field numerous times, I don’t want to start over at this point in my life. I love being an ER nurse, and I feel like I do help make a difference,” said Donna Williams, an emergency room registered nurse at Baton Rouge General.
n “I want to continue to make a difference in ensuring that people have the best information possible and that every human being has access to the best care,” said Dianne Teal, a registered nurse and chief nursing officer at Ochsner Health — Baton Rouge.
n “Medicine is hard. ...There were hard days, tearful days, days where I felt so lonely and overwhelmed But I was never alone, and I think that saying “medicine is a team sport” is what bolstered me through the entire pandemic,” said Kristen Toups, a doctor of hospital medicine at Ochsner Health.
n “When I walked in a room, I remember a patient saying, ‘I am so glad to see a human.’ I smiled, and the patient stated, ‘I know everyone is scared of this and I understand.’ My heart melted. I sat with him for a while even though I did not have to I simply remember saying to myself: This is why I do this,” said Jackie Odom, a registered respiratory therapist at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.
n antacids (like Tums)
n Imodium (or other antidiarrhea medication)
n antiseptic solution to clean cuts (such as Iodine or Betadine)
n Calamine lotion to treat bug bites and other itchy problems
n cold and cough medications
n cold packs or ice packs for injuries or head aches n cotton balls and swabs n eye wash and drops n Advil or Motrin (ibuprofen)
n laxative
n petroleum jelly n scissors and tweezers n sunscreen n syrup of ipecac to induce vomiting
n thermometer
Although it can be tempting to stock up on certain medications, Lam advises to refrain from the multi-packs to avoid expiration before use Lam also recommends keeping electrolyte packages (like liquid IV and others) in the medicine cabinet for the hotter months in Louisiana “Hydration is key,” Lam said. “And electrolyte packets are excellent for fluid replacement when you are sick.” Take inventory at least once a year to replace items that have expired or been used up. Email Margaret DeLaney at margaret.delaney@ theadvocate.com.
AWake up to thehealth benefits of coffee: Amping up your morning brew
swe‘springforward’tothestart ofdaylightsavingtime,wemight feeltheimpactofthetimechange inoursleeppatternsandenergylevels.In timeslikethis,coffee,ourbelovedmorning ritual,canbecomemoreessentialthanever. Whetherit’shot,icedorcoldbrew, coffee’sricharomaandbrightflavorcan bejustthejoltweneed—especiallywhen sleepschedulesareoutofwhack
We’vegotgoodnewsforfellowcoffee fans:Beyondprovidingacaffeineboost, antioxidant-richcoffeeisapowerhouseof healthbenefits.Moderatecoffeeintake* (generallyupto300-400mgofcaffeine daily)hasbeenlinkedtobetterfocusand mood,alowerriskoftype-2diabetesand Alzheimer’s,andmayhelpenhanceathletic performanceandmentalalertness
Butwhatifyoucouldboostyourmorningbrew’sbenefitsevenfurther?Witha fewextranutrients,youcan.Herearefour research-backedadd-instoconsider.
Proteinpowder
Firstupisgoodold-fashionedprotein powder.Socialmediahasbeenabuzzwith theterm“proffee”(protein+coffee),but –kitschynameaside–itisaconvenient waytoincorporateproteinintoyourdaily routine.Proteinpowdercanhelpstabilize bloodsugarandenergylevels,support focus,keepyoufeelingfullerforlongerand promotemusclerepairandrecovery.
Touse:
•Stirascoopofproteinpowder(15-20 grams)directlyintohotcoffeeorblend itwithicedcoffeeforasmooth,latteliketreat.
•Useaready-to-drinkproteinshakeas acreamerforhotoricedcoffee.Iconic andOrgainaretwoofmyfavorites.
•Addcoffee(orcoffeeconcentrate) alongwithyourmilkofchoice,protein powderandiceintoablenderfora protein-richcaféfrappe.
Whilecollagenpeptidesaretechnically alsoproteinpowders,collagendeserves itsownspotlightforitsroleinsupporting healthyskin,gut,bones,joints,hairand nails.Thebody’snaturalcollagenproductiondipsasweage,sosupplementation canbeworthwhile
Potentialbenefitsincludeimprovingskin elasticityandhydration,supportinggut healthandreinforcingboneandjointintegrity.Aimforabout10-20gramsofcollagen perday.
Touse:
•Lookfor“collagenpeptides”or“hydrolyzedcollagen”inbrandslikeVital
Proteins,astheseformsusuallydissolve quicklyandhavelittletasteorodor.
•Stiritintohotcoffeeoricedcoffee,or blendintoacoffeefrappe,asnoted above
•Someproductscomeflavoredorwith functionalingredientslikemushroom extractsorgreenspowder,butIprefer plain,unflavoredcollagenforitsversatility.
Functionalmushrooms Itmaysoundoddifyouhaven’ttried ityet,butmushroompowderhasbeen oneofmyfavoritecoffeeadd-inslately “Functional”mushrooms—likelion’smane,
MollyKimball,RD,CSSD,isaregistereddietitian withOchsnerHealthandfounderofOchsner’sEatFit nonprofitinitiative.Formorewellnesscontent,tuneinto Molly’spodcast,FUELEDWellness+Nutrition,andfollow @MollykimballRDand@EatFitOchsneronsocialmedia. Emailnutrition@ochsner.orgtoconnectwithMollyor scheduleaconsultwithherteam.
Electronic cigarettes were developed way back in 1965 and patented in 2003.Around 2010, they hit the market, and their market share has grown exponentially
Also called e-cigarettes or vape pens, the electronic devices use heat to make an aerosol inhaled by the user
In recent years, the popularity of e-cigarettes, especially among youth, has continued to surge in Louisiana, according to 2023 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National trends show a correlation between daily or “some day” use of e-cigarettes with level of education — the higher the education, the less likely an adult over the age of 25 is to regularly use e-cigarettes.
Louisiana ranks 35th in the nation for e-cigarette smoking adults with some high school education or more with 7.8% prevalence across the state — just over the national average of 6.9%, according to data gathered by America’s Health Rankings New Hampshire has the lowest rates of
e-cigarette smokers among adults with a high school education or higher, with 4.4% rate of e-smokers.Vermont (4.7%), New york (4.8%), Maryland (5.3%), Maine (5.3%) and Wisconsin (5.3%) followed in the national rankings. Arkansas had the highest prevalence of e-cigarette smokers with 11.6% of adults, followed in the rankings by West Virginia (11.5%),Tennessee (10.3%), Oklahoma (10.1%) and Mississippi (10.1%).
Use of e-cigarettes is associated with increased odds of developing respiratory symptoms or wheezing and respiratory disease.
A 2017 study also found e-cigarette use in adolescence to be a strong predictor of regular cigarette use in adulthood.
Additives in e-cigarettes, according to the America’s Health Rankings, include harmful substances such as cancer-causing chemicals and flavoring chemicals that are linked to serious lung disease and lung injury.
*Kentucky and Pennsylvania do not have data.
reishi,cordycepsandturkeytail—are knownforsupportingenergy,immunity andfocus.
Touse:
•Whiskintohotcoffee,icedcoffee, lattesorsmoothies. •Considerpopularbrandssuchas Ryze,EverydayDoseandCuppa.Refer toinstructionsforrecommended servingsize.
Prebioticfiber(inulin) Maintainingahealthymindandbody startswithahealthygut.Andwhilegut healthcouldbe(andwillbeinanupcomingcolumn)aseparatetopiconitsown, prebioticfiberisagoodplacetostart. Inulin,oftenextractedfromchicoryroot,is asolubleprebioticfiberthathelpsnourish beneficialgutbacteriaandmayhelpwith improvedGIregularityandbetterblood sugarcontrol.
Touse:
•Stir1–2teaspoonsofinulinintocoffee. Itdissolveseasilyandaddstheslightest bitofnaturalsweetnesswithoutsugar. •Increaseslowlyifyou’renewtoit,as toomuchfiberatoncecancausebloatingorgas.
Whilethetimechangemightthrowour internalclocksforaloop,agoodcupof coffeecanhelpoffsetthatsluggishfeeling asthebodygetsusedtotheshift. Tothecoffeepuristswhopreferto drinkitstraightup,andtothesuperfood enthusiastswholoveadd-insthatinfuse anextradoseofgoodness,Iraisemymug Cheerstobrightermornings,longereveningsandcoffeethatworksashard(and smart)asyoudo!
*Individualswhoarepregnant,breastfeedingorhaveaheartconditionshould talkwithahealthcareproviderabout caffeinelimits—orskipitaltogether.
BY MORAYO OGUNBAYO The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (TNS)
Incidences for many common types of cancer have risen in recent years, with young women experiencing the brunt of the shift.
According to research from the American Cancer Society the incidence rate of cancer for women under 50 has increased from 51% higher than men in 2002 to 82% higher than men in 2021, the last year this information was recorded.
Using statistics published in “Cancer Statistics, 2025,” the society’s medical journal, the ACS found that “The risk of developing cancer varies markedly by age and by sex.”
“Middle-aged women now have a slightly higher risk of developing cancer than their male counterparts,” the ACS said in a news release on their findings. “Women younger than age 50 are almost twice as likely to develop cancer than young men,
a gap which has widened since the early 2000s.”
“We see for the first time, if you’re a woman under the age of 65, you’re now more likely to develop cancer than men in that same age group,” Dr William Dahut, a chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society, told CNN. “Age remains the No. 1 greatest risk factor for cancer overall, and that hasn’t changed. But we’re seeing some shifting.”
“The only age group where we’re seeing actually an increase in cancer risk, in incidence going up, is under the age of 50,” Dahut told CNN.
Widespread screenings for cervical cancer reduced the incidence and death rates of the disease in women. However this decrease has begun to stabilize. This is due to an increased proportion of a specific strain of cervical cancer, called adenocarcinoma, that modern screenings often overlook.
The only cancer with a lower chance of survival than it had 40 years ago, uterine cancer, develops in tissues of the uterus.
“There have only been modest advances in treatment, and there are no recommended screening tests to detect this disease early,” the ACS said. “About 70%
of cases are found at an early stage though because a common early symptom is irregular or postmenopausal vaginal bleeding.” The ACS said the lack of progress on uterine cancer is due in part to underfunding by the National Cancer Institute.
The ACS findings also saw racial disparities in cancer mortality persist, with Black people and American Indian and Alaska Native people being two times more likely to die of cancer than White people.
“You’re more likely to develop breast cancer as a White woman,” Dahut told CNN. “You’re more likely to die of it as a Black woman, particularly when you look at the younger populations.” Despite this gloomy news, rates of cancer mortality continue to decline The ACS attributes these wins to smoking cessation, early cancer detection and treatment advances, which have “reduced the cancer mortality rate in the United States by 34% over the last 30 years, sparing about 4.5 million lives.” This progress follows declines in the four mostcommon types of cancer — lung, prostate, breast and colorectal.
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
The Louisiana Health section is focused on providing in-depth, personal accounts of health in the state. This section looks at medical innovations, health discoveries, state and national health statistics and reexamining tried and true methods on
ways to live well. Health editions will also profile people who are advancing health for the state of Louisiana. Do you have a health story? We want to hear from you. Email margaret. delaney@theadvocate.com to submit health questions, stories and more.
ColorectalcanceristhesecondleadingcauseofcancerdeathsintheUnitedStates.Thegoodnews isthis:Coloncancerisoftenpreventable.
WithMarchbeingColorectalCancerAwarenessMonth,nowisagoodtimetopromotethekeysto prevention,whichincludeadoptinghealthylifestylehabitsandregularscreenings.
Scheduleyourcolonoscopytoday!Visitochsner.org/screenings.
Coloncancerandcolorectalcancerare closelyrelatedtermsthatrefertocancerofthe largeintestine.Theyareoftenusedinterchangeably.Colorectalcancer startsinthecolonortherectum.Thesecancerscanalsobecalled coloncancerorrectalcancer,dependingonwheretheystart.
Thesecancersarenormallyseeninolderadults,thoughitcanhappen atanyageandhasbeenontheriseamongyoungerpeople
Mostcolorectalcancersstartasagrowth,knownasapolyp,onthe innerliningofthecolon.Somepolypscandevelopintocancerover time,whileothersdonot.
Ifcancerformsinapolyp,itcangrowintothewallofthecolonor rectumovertime.Oncecancercellsareinthewall,theygrowinto bloodvesselsorlymphvessels.Fromthere,theycantraveltonearby lymphnodesortodistantpartsofthebody.
Eachyear,anestimated150,000Americansarediagnosedwithcolon cancer.Earlydetectionisthekeytoreducingthenumberofcases.
Ascreeningprocedurecalledacolonoscopyisthegoldstandardfor detectingcoloncancer.Itisrecommendedtostartscreeningatage45for peopleataveragerisk.
Youngeradultswhohaveafamilyhistoryofthediseaseorsymptoms suchasrectalbleedingandabnormalstoolsmayalsobeadvisedto haveacolonoscopy.
Acolonoscopyisatesttoexaminethecolon.Itallowsadoctortoseethe insideofthecolonusingaflexibletubewithlenses,atinycameraandalight attheend.
Thedoctorwillbeonthelookoutforabnormalitiessuchaspolyps,whichare smallclumpsofcellsthatformontheliningofthecolon.Mostareharmless butcandevelopintocancerovertime.
Onegreatbenefitofhavingregularcolonoscopiesisthatpolypscanbe identifiedandremovedduringthescreening,removingtheriskofcancerin thatlocation.
Somepeoplemightdismisscolorectalcancersymptomsbecausetheyoftenmimicthose ofotherhealthconditions.Sometimessymptomsdonotoccuruntilcolorectalcancerhas advanced,whichiswhyscreeningissoimportant.
Symptoms to be aware of include:
Changesinbowelhabits.Diarrheaand/orconstipation,whetheroccasionalor constant,maybeasignofcolorectalcancer.
Abdominaldiscomfort.Beonthelookoutforsymptomsincludingpersistent cramps,gas,pain,feelingunusuallyfullorbloated,orfeelinglikeyourbowelsaren’t totallyemptyafteryougotothebathroom.
Rectalbleeding.Callyourdoctorifthereisbloodinyourstool.Thiscanrangefrom brightred,brickredtoblackandtarry.
Weaknessorfatigue.Anemiaoralowredbloodcellcountcanalsobeindicators.
Unexplainedweightloss.Thisunintentionalweightlossmaybeaccompaniedby nauseaorvomiting.
Unusualstools.Lookforanydifferencesinyourstoolfromcolororshape.Be especiallyawareofthinpencil-likestools,whichcouldindicatethatsomethingmay beblockingyourbowelmovements.
Thebestwaytopreventcolorectalcanceristogetregularscreeningsandtoknowyour riskfactors.
Lifestylemeasures and changes can also lower your risk fordeveloping the disease.Theyinclude:
Maintainingahealthyweight
Startinganexerciseprogram
Eatingahealthydiet
Limitingalcohol
Riskfactors youcannot control include:
Apersonalhistoryofcolorectalpolypsorcolorectalcancer
Apersonalhistoryofinflammatoryboweldisease,orIBD
Afamilyhistoryofcolorectalcancer
Coloncancerstatisticsandsymptomsaresimilar formenandwomen.However,womencanhave ahardertimereadingthesignsofthedisease becausetheycanmimicothersometimes commonissueswomenexperience.
Thosecanincludecramping,which premenopausalwomenmightbetemptedto dismiss,orrectalbleeding,whichmanywomen ofchildbearingageattributetohemorrhoidsthat candevelopduringchildbirth.Butiftheseissues normallyassociatedwiththemenstrualperiod
lastlongerthanusual,orifthey’reaccompanied byrectalbleeding,unexplainedweightloss,or othersymptoms,it’stimetoseeadoctor.
Whilemenandwomenfacesimilarrisks whenitcomestocoloncancer,women mustdistinguishearlysignsofthedisease fromcommongynecologicalsymptoms.
Consultwithyourprimarycarephysicianif youexperienceanyofthesesymptoms.
affiliatedphysicians.TolearnmoreabouthowOchsnerempowerspeopletogetwellandstaywell,visithttps://www.ochsner.org/.
BY ELYSE CARMOSINO Staff writer
Several days a week, students at Mar-
tial Billeaud Elementary School in Lafayette can be found outside in shifts, tending to a garden nestled in a small plot beside their school building, watering, weeding and debugging an array of vegetables.
The scene is a typical one at many of the district’s elementary schools, seven of which have joined forces this year with the LSU AgCenter’s School Garden Initiative, a program that aims to teach kids healthy habits by showing them how to grow and cook their own food.
Now in its 16th year, the initiative is part of a movement to get kids curious about agriculture while connecting them to their school community
“So much learning can come from growing plants from seeds,” said Kessler Landry, a master gardener and instructional leader at Martial Billeaud. “There’s something really neat about the kids being able to take care of the plants and grow the food, then harvest it and be willing to try things like brussels sprouts and cabbage.”
At least once a week students sit through a classroom lesson with a master gardener, then head outside to apply what they learned in the garden. Classroom teachers incorporate some of what students learn, such as temperature, precipitation and learning how to decipher charts and graphs, into the school’s general math and science curriculum.
The School Garden Initiative pulls curriculum material and lessons from the junior master gardener program at Texas A&M University as well as Seeds to Success, a USDA-funded program developed through the State Department of Education and the LSU AgCenter
“It’s connecting nutrition education, the classroom curriculum and the garden as an outdoor laboratory,” said Charles Hebert, Extension Agent/4-H Youth Development in Lafayette Parish with the LSU AgCenter The program focuses on a different theme each month. In February, students learned about the life spans of different plants and the difference between biennials — plants that grow every two years — and perennials, which live for three or more and the
that each team
Jan Risher
This month marks the third anniversary of our moving to a new city — our first move in 20 years. Our two young-adult daughters who have been living on their own for several years were not the conduits to friendship that they were the last time we moved. Then, the parents of their friends became our friends. This go round, we were on our own. After decades of making and collecting friends all over, I faced the big ol’ question: How does a full-grown adult in a new place make new friends?
Three years in, I’ve made some new friends. But the truth is, I’m still figuring out the answer to that question — and, occasionally, I’m still lonely I share that to normalize the feeling. Lots of people are lonely these days. So, what can we do about it? We live in a busy world where finding opportunities to connect often don’t come easy. If the timing is off — say two people are in different phases of life — creating a friendship is tough. Proximity plays an important role too. Being friends with neighbors is easier than being friends with someone who lives on the other side of town.
Plus, becoming good friends takes time. Jeffrey Hall, a Kansas University professor, found that most people require roughly 50 hours of time together to move from acquaintances to casual friends. From there, Hall found that it takes about 90 hours to go from casual friendship to real “friends” and then more than 200 hours before a person can consider another a “close friend.”
Sanya Nayeem, a journalist in Canada, developed the “11-3-6 friendship formula Nayeem’s research shows that it takes a minimum of 11 meetings that last at least 3 hours and occur within a period of six months to “turn an acquaintance into a true friend.”
So how do you do all of that?
Here are eight ways:
Be a joiner
plant hardiness map, which gardeners and farmers use to determine which plants are most likely to thrive in a given location in the U.S., including which fruits and vegetables grow well in Louisiana
For many students, the opportunity is their first time experiencing gardening’s trial-and-error process.
“It’s kind of hard to grow vegetables because you have to know the exact steps and when to grow them,” said third grader Amelie LaBiche.
“Something I learned is that there’s a difference between good bugs and bad bugs,” said Mila Russo, also in third grade. “You have to look under the leaves and make sure the plants aren’t getting eaten by bad bugs.”
Initially launched three decades ago, the program, which gives participating schools grant money using federal, state and local funding, was on hiatus for several years after the university deemed it unsustainable to continue due to lack of staffing.
When the center decided to bring the initiative back to life in 2009, “we knew we needed a sustainability plan, and that was to incorporate a collective community of people,” Hebert said.
That plan meant bringing on board school leaders and staff, as well as master gardener volunteers — individuals
who are considered subject matter experts — to assist with teaching classes.
“The staff and students would develop the skills necessary to manage and sustain the gardens independently on a regular basis,” said Hebert.
Gardening can be physically and mentally beneficial to young children, research has shown, helping them learn more about nutrition, improve their cognitive skills and increase their physical activity levels. Various studies have found that kids who participate in school gardening programs often see better results on math and science tests, as well as higher GPAs.
According to Hebert, gardening can also help students create a sense of community and strengthen family bonds.
“We want them to grow their own vegetables and take them home to their parents,” he said. “In today’s society, people don’t sit with their family and eat. We want more kids to bring their families back together.”
For many students, one of the most exciting aspects of the program is the annual cookoff that happens the first weekend of every February
Each participating school forms a team of three to five students, who work
Repetitively going to places and seeing the same people who have shared interests leads to friendship. I’ve done this by joining a book club and joining a church. I’ve made friends in both places.
Volunteering is another way. Invite people to join you
In other cities where I lived as an adult, I started a ladies’ investment club, with the dozen or so women in the clubs becoming anchor friends for me. I haven’t started one yet in our new home, but I’m considering it.
I have hosted events in my home though and unlike Instagram, they have not been picture perfect. But they have been a lot of fun. I believe inviting people into your home is a building block of getting to know people and making friends.
I’ve hosted people for a pestomaking party, New Year’s vision board parties, a ridiculous $10 shopping spree for two dozen friends, followed by a fashion show It was over-the-top silliness and incredible fun.
Inviting someone for a walk or lunch works well.
The thing about inviting people to do things is this — they may not come. Do it anyway
Go outside
Louisiana Inspired Book Club to meet March 18
BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer
The much-anticipated Lisa Ma-
rie Presley and Riley Keough
Inspired Book Club’s virtual statewide discussion is approaching Jan Risher will facilitate the discussion of “From Here to the Great Unknown,” with a panel of guests at 12:15 p.m. on March 18.
The panelists joining the discussion are Roy Turner and Annie Vaden. Both are uniquely prepared to talk about the book and subject matter Turner is a Tupelo, Mississippi, native and the executive director of the Elvis Presley Birthplace in Tupelo. Although his career was spent in the manufacturing business, after retirement, Turner joined the team at the Birthplace His deep connections to the Presley family give him in-
Continued from page 2y
a neighbor We’ve become great friends. For months, we ended up walking around the neighborhood together and got to know each other well.
Talk to people
Paying attention and listening to people provides a chance to notice details that indicate shared or surprising interests. These provide the perfect jumping-off place to start a conversation.
As a journalist with the livedexperience, I know that if I ask people good questions, most of the time, they will talk to me. If I am interested, keep listening, ask occasional questions — and occasionally share my own stories — they will share and share and share with me.
sights and perspective that will add to the discussion of the book, including the way the family, especially Lisa Marie Presley, dealt with the grief that permeated her life
Vaden is the lead social worker in the palliative care and hematology-oncology departments of Manning Family Children’s (formerly Children’s Hospital of New Orleans)
She works with the Trauma and Grief Center to facilitate grief therapy groups for children and adolescents and has specialized training in grief and bereavement
Vaden will be able to give insight into Presley and Keough’s experiences To join the discussion, go to youtube.com/live/1dTO8HQ5l2U
Find a way to stay in touch
Social media makes this much easier than it used to be. When I meet people I believe could become friends, I say, “Are you on Instagram or Facebook?” And that link provides an opportunity to reconnect potentially
Ask for help
If a new prospective friend has a hobby I’m interested in — whether it’s metal detecting, birding, knitting, weaving, gel printing, making homemade pasta or whatever — asking for help in learning something is a great way to get to know someone better
Shopping can be a low-risk activity that can be fun to do together If I have a big event coming up and need to look my best, I’ve asked prospective friends with a sense of style to go shopping with me. I have literally said, “You’ve got a great sense of
book for 2025 is ‘From
the Great Unknown’ by Lisa
and Riley Keough.
at 12:15 p.m. on March 18. Email Joy Holden at joy holden@theadvocate.com.
style. Could you help me?”
Host an informal dinner party
Dinner parties don’t have to be fancy Even potluck suppers are a great way to mix, mingle and get to know people better
Again, if your home isn’t perfect, that’s great! No home needs to be perfect. While social media has helped us be able to stay in touch with each other, it has hurt us in setting unreasonable expectations in home decor and meals. Help normalize end tables that don’t match!
Host a game night For board game fanatics like myself, this one should be easy
As I made this list, I realized that I used to host them often, but I haven’t hosted a game night in a long time. I think I will tonight.
Email Jan Risher at jan.risher@ theadvocate.com.
Continued from page 2y
with a local chef, an elected official and a school teacher to create a meal with a themedmenu board based on USDA MyPlate standards, which emphasize vegetable-heavy meals with whole grains and lean proteins. Competition rules require that each team use at least two vegetables from their school garden.
Teams are given an hour to prepare their meal, then judges interview each group to learn about their gardening experience and why they chose the dish they created. After, the teams give a presentation where they present nutrition facts about the garden-grown vegetables they chose and share their meal with the audience.
The event is called Cuisine de Jardin, French for “we cook from the garden.”
The winning team’s meal is served to the more than 30,000 students in the Lafayette Parish School System the following October in honor of National Farm to School month and National Nutrition Week.
For the second year in a row, Martial Billeaud Elementary took home first place. This year’s dish? Pizza soup, and can-
nolis with garden-grown mint and strawberries for dessert. The program “has really become a bigger part of our school than we thought it was going to be,” Landry said. “Several kids now have home gardens because of the initiative. It’s become part of the school culture.”
Email Elyse Carmosino at ecarmosino@theadvocate.com.
Mandeville native learned through grit and resilience
BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer
Amanda Martinez is a Mandeville native and massage therapist for the New Orleans Pelicans and New Orleans Saints, as well as the owner of Massage D’ville in Mandeville. She has been practicing massage therapy for 11 years and is a mother of two.
Martinez’s road to business ownership and working with professional athletes was not an easy one In 1999 when she was 15, she was in a difficult place and ended up going to Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska, where she lived with other teenage girls in a family home and graduated in 2002.
Boys Town is a nonprofit child and family care organization that has been helping others since 1917. Based in Omaha, the organization has programs across the country, including New Orleans Boys Town Louisiana was founded in 1989 and offers Head Start programs, parenting courses, diagnostic and assessment services, Family Home sites, in-home services for families in crisis and a work development program. How did your experience at Boys Town shape your life?
I was a hard-headed teenager, and it was the best decision for my life at the time, to go there. While I was there, Boys Town taught me lots of skills. Before, I didn’t really have any guidance, so they gave me the guidance I needed on how to be a good student. They pushed me to step outside of myself, and it was more of a family environment than what I had come from. They created an environment for kids to thrive. I had family teachers There were seven other girls in the house, but we all lived as one family. We all cooked for each other and took turns doing chores. We were like sisters. I’m still in touch with a lot of the girls who I was in school with, and it’s just an extended fam-
ily We still maintain that connection.
We would do family outings, just normal stuff that families do. A lot of us came from environments where going to movies with your family wasn’t something that you did. In my situation, my mom was always working, so it was me raising my sister and brother We didn’t really get to do fun things like that. Boys Town gave us the opportunity to be a kid and to be a teenager
Are there any lessons that you learned there that you still implement today?
Boys Town taught us problem solving skills A lot of us were so reactive before we went there.
They gave us a chance to slow down and think, to be able to handle a situation in an appropriate way They helped us to find the confidence in ourselves. By putting us into sports and pushing us to do electives, we were able to find that grit within ourselves and push ourselves past our boundaries. We were able to dig deep and find who we are, and find our inner strength. I always have the Boys Town motto, “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother,” in the back of my mind.
This has instilled values of being of service to others in the community when there is a need. We were taught to give back and honor others.
Whenever you have conflict with your daughters,what comes back to you from your experience at Boys Town?
Boys Town definitely had an influence on how I raise my daughters by teaching them how to problem solve and think situations through teaching them how to navigate through issues and that mistakes are not the end of the world. A mistake is a learning opportunity
Also, helping them to get involved in extracurriculars and step outside of their norms, and pushing them to be the best version of themselves that they can be. I keep the door open for them and allow a safe space for them to be themselves A lot of kids don’t have a safe space where they’re able to be themselves. And that’s just one thing that I like to try to do as a parent. What do you think people don’t understand about teenagers in tough situations? These kids have so much more to worry about. Some of them go
to school and fear for their lives.
Some of them don’t have, especially in New Orleans, a lot of extracurriculars to go to.
They’re not provided safe spaces. Boys Town provided that safe space and that network of people there to help. We were put in an environment that helped us to thrive.
How do you use your Boys Town experience in working with professional athletes?
When I was actually at Boys Town, I worked with a lot of the athletes. I was their version of an equipment manager It was an easy transition.
I find that my experience helps me connect with some of them better because I was once in an environment where I was surrounded by a bunch of people I didn’t know A lot of these guys are coming in from all over the place. Yeah, they’re professional athletes, but they’re people, too.
So just providing warmth and being a friend to them. They have
such a different mentality at the professional level. They seem to naturally have those personality traits that Boys Town kids have, so there’s kind of a connection — that determination, that grit.
How would you describe the kind of environment around a professional sports team?
It’s a team environment. With my employees, we’re a team. We pick up where the other lacks. We all have each other’s backs. It is inspiring to know that everybody’s there for a bigger purpose than ourselves.
It’s humbling at the same time.
I’m definitely grateful to be there. You know, every time I walk in, I get a chill.
Do you know someone who is making a difference or creating solutions? Let us know about them.
Email Joy Holden at joy.holden@ theadvocate.com.
Email Joy Holden at joy.holden@ theadvocate.com.
BY RICHA KARMARKAR Contributing writer
The winner of the 2025 Grammy Award for best new age, ambient or chant album a category once dominated by Enya — was an album titled “Triveni,” meaning “the confluence of three rivers” in Sanskrit, an apt description for its weaving of Vedic chants, melodic flute and cello by India’s Chandrika Tandon, South Africa’s Wouter Kellerman and Japan’s Eru Matsumoto.
The name, which is given to the meeting point of the holy Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, said singer Tandon, came to her in one of her daily meditations.
“It was a beautiful coincidence that our album called Triveni won the Grammy on Vasant Panchami when the Maha Prayag was going on,” Tandon told RNS, referring to the ongoing Maha Kumbh Mela festival held where the three rivers meet in Prayagraj, India, considered one of the holiest pilgrimage sites in the nation. The world’s largest gathering of humanity, with 400 million people attending this year the Kumbh Mela happens every 12 years, with this year’s celebration, the Maha Kumbh Mela, happening only every 144 years, when the sun, the moon and Jupiter align.
“Think what you like, say what you like, but one has to just smile at this incredible coincidence,” Tandon said.
Tandon was a prominent business mogul for more than half her life, the namesake of New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering and sister to former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. Twenty-five years ago, however, Tandon faced what she describes as a “crisis of spirit.”
“I knew I had everything, and yet I felt like I had nothing,” she said. “If I died today, what is it that I want to have accomplished? Is it just more money, more climbing up the ladder or was there something else that would just give me happiness and make each day complete?”
That something else, she found, was devotional music.
Pulling from the mantras she once heard as a little girl in Chennai, Tandon found a new purpose in creating melodies and “praying into the notes” as a form of meditation. “Music helped me find myself,” said Tandon, the creator of six albums of her own.
And according to Tandon, the Grammy win signifies a larger cultural moment, helping young people all over the world discover the “extraordinary gems” of the ancient Vedic traditions. “Instead of a traditional Indian ornate piece of jewelry I’ve simply put them in a completely Western jewelry setting,” said Tandon “Suddenly it’s more apparent, it’s more discernible, more relatable. And suddenly there’s this curiosity about, ‘What is that? It makes me feel so good!’”
According to Tandon and other devotional musicians, the melodic repetition of Vedic mantras, often associated with the many names of the tradition’s various deities, has proved to calm the mind for centuries The 21st is no different, they say, as they see a burgeoning space for the spiritually curious youth seeking a respite from the fast-paced internet culture they grew up in. Now, a new generation of kirtan artists is leading the charge on Hindu sacred music
Amid confusing times says devotional musician Gaura Vani, Generations Z and X have found a way to articu-
late their complicated emotions and feelings through the call-and-response style of kirtans, the devotional songs commonly associated with the Hare Krishna faith.
“This is almost a miraculous thing to say, but in this world of social media and phone addiction and all that, the kids in the Krishna community are doing the craziest thing: Without anyone telling them to, they will find a weekend where everyone’s free, they will dress to the nines together, and find a temple or a space where they will do kirtans for, like, 10 hours straight,” he told RNS. “It’s crazy It makes no sense in the modern world, but they’re doing it.”
Vani, born into an American Hare Krishna family just performed his first solo live concert at Mumbai’s Royal Opera House in late January Once the head of the successful early 2000s “Krishna-conscious” rock band As Kindred Spirits, Vani joined musicians from the East and the West for a fusion of world music, mantra, pop and rock. “It’s all about spiritual stories and spiritual music from around the globe,” he said. “That’s kind of my jam.”
Some form of singing or chanting takes place in almost every Hindu tradition says Vani, but the bhakti, or devotional, tradition practiced by members of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, places an emphasis on music as a way to connect with the Divine, and “as a way to create harmony, peace in the world, peace in oneself and to heal both spiritually and physically.”
The Maha Mantra, a repetition of the words “Hare,” or praise, “Krishna” and “Rama,” set to any melody
the singer, or kirtaniya, chooses, is an ISKCON staple. This Sanskrit call-andresponse, with the names of God sung alongside a harmonium and a mridanga, a type of drum, says Vani, can lead participants to a “flow state” where it may feel like “music is kind of descending from the heavens and coming out through you.”
“It’s the closest thing to ecstasy I’ve ever experienced,” said Vani.
Steeped in this tradition since birth, Vani and his wife, a trained Indian classical dancer, have now surrounded their three teenage children with song and dance. But as Vani has taught his kids, spiritual meaning is not limited to kirtans: “If you look for it, spiritual music is all around us, in all cultures,” he said, from gospel to Sufi Zikr to praise music from South Africa. And, says Vani, it’s in his daily playlist of Nora Jones, George Harrison, the Talking Heads and The Police. (The latter’s song “Spirits in the Material World” is, he said, a personal family favorite.)
Premanjali Dejager, a 24-year-old “Krishna kid” — a term of endearment for those raised in a Hare Krishna household — lives in New York’s Bhakti Center ashram and doesn’t go a day without chanting the Maha Mantra a few times The kirtaniya, who grew up in Australia, says kirtans can feel like a “spiritual dance party,” where “teenage angst” and “club dance moves” meet in a safe, nondestructive environment.
“When you’re in the midst of it, like, when someone is really singing from their heart and, like, really connecting, you feel that sense of connection in the room,” Dejager, who grew up in
Australia, told RNS. “It’s just contagious.”
Dejager has sung around the world with her guru Indradyumna Swami, known as the Travelling Monk, since graduating gurukul, or “spiritual high school,” in 2018. But, she said, she wasn’t always so musically inclined. “I was actually a really terrible singer,” she said, recalling that she was removed from her primary school’s singing group because she “just couldn’t sing on key.”
Yet taking singing lessons in jazz and pop music grew Dejager’s confidence, and she started posting devotional singing videos on social media, some of them “really cringy.” Today, she has more than 50,000 Instagram followers and her own virtual kirtan school, where she has, since 2021, taught other aspiring singers over Zoom that what’s important is “being real,” or coming as you are to the devotional practice.
“Sometimes, if I’m feeling really sad or going through something difficult or having to make a difficult decision, that’s what’s on my mind,” she said. “It’ll just be a prayer offering of like, ‘Krishna, I need your help here. I need your guidance.’
And sometimes it does happen where I’m having to catch myself from like spacing out, and my mind goes everywhere. It is a practice of constantly trying to bring the mind back and just trying to bring my heart into the picture.”
Nikita Bhasin, a California native, considers herself more spiritual than religious.
A certified yoga instructor since the age of 17 Bhasin was raised attending and singing devotionals at the Kali Mandir in Laguna Beach
— a common story of being “dragged along by my family.”
“I left all the kirtan stuff behind because I was older and I didn’t have to do what my parents told me to do,” Bhasin, 27, told RNS. But Bhasin eventually found her way back to the music, when she learned yoga from an instructor who began practice with the same chants she heard as a child, but in a “more digestible” 10-minute format rather than the three hours she spent at the temple. She took up the harmonium and now opens and closes each of her yoga classes in New York, barring if they are in a gym setting, with a Sanskrit chant, often to the theme of the asanas, or postures, such as repeating “Jai Ma,” or hail Mother Earth, in a class about “balancing opposition.” Many of her students have never chanted before holding varying beliefs (or no beliefs) about God, some coming only for the physical asanas of yoga. Bhasin invites them to “put their own spin” on the ancient practice.
“A lot of these chants, you are chanting to something higher than yourself,” she said. “And there’s a lot of interpretations of that. There’s thousands of lineages that think of God or divine as something different: Divine could be a hug from your friend, or it could be feeling like you’re not on autopilot and are grateful and connecting with people in your life.
“It’s been interesting, because a lot of people tell me after class that they haven’t sung since they were like 10 years old, and this is how they’re coming back to their body and coming back to this childlike spirit of just letting go,” she said.
BY HALEY MILLER Staff writer
Editor’s note: This story mentions domestic violence For support, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 7997233, or find your parish crisis line here
The unveiling of Baton Rouge’s new women’s empowerment center in February was a celebration. Two different dance troupes performed. There was an a cappella rendition of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” And the supporters who stood at the podium to give speeches about the center hailed it as a haven for the women who, in the words of a minister who spoke, “take hits.”
“We take hits when we trust men, our partners, with everything that we have, and in return, we are abused and used,” Tonja Myles, of Set Free Indeed Ministry, said.
But the new center operated by the Baton Rouge chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association, will give women the space to admit they are hurt, accept help and find their strength, Myles said, her voice getting louder
“This place will do that, because at the end of the day, we all deserve to heal,” Myles said. “Healing is our birthright.”
Louisiana ranked fifth in the nation for women murdered by men in 2020, according to the Violence Policy Center using the most recent year reliable data was available. Resources for women experiencing domestic violence exist in Baton Rouge, but according to YWCA CEO Dianna Payton, they are spread across agencies, not always accessible to women who are new to navigating the social services and court system.
The YWCA opened the Women’s Empowerment
Center to provide comprehensive services, including case management, mental health support, pro-bono legal assistance, child care support and classes, all in one building
“There’s so many nuances, and every person’s journey is different — and it’s making sure no matter where they’re landing, we’re there to catch them when they fall,” Payton said.
When they enter the renovated Mid City Gardens Building, visitors will find legal offices, meeting rooms and public computers, where they can get help filing a restraining order or applying to jobs, for example.
All women and families are welcome to the center regardless of what they are going through, Payton said. In addition to services for women in domestic violence situations, the center hosts recreational activities, including trauma-informed movement in the new dance studio and art therapy Visitors can also relax in the outdoor garden.
There are no income requirements or other cri-
teria to receive services, Payton said.
“The work continues to get new layers and depth as we meet partners who are willing to come on and join us in the work,” Payton said.
The project took shape over the past two years through a partnership with the Louisiana Housing Corporation, who financed the space, built in 2013, and accepted the YWCA’s bid to lease it and create a women’s empowerment center.
Chief programs officer Brenda Evans said the Women’s Empowerment Center aligns with the Louisiana Housing Corporation’s mission to lift up families and build strong communities.
“Instead of having to go to several different outlets, we have a group of professionals there that can help you with your physical, mental, emotional needs,” Evans said. “It’s a one-stop shop for women and families and children.”
Payton, a former social worker, said the opening of the center fulfills her purpose to empower women and families She strives to address the gaps in the
SUNDAY, MArch 9, 2025
directions: Make a 2- to 7-letter word from the letters in each row. Add points of each word, using scoring directions at right. Finally, 7-letter words get 50-point bonus. “Blanks” used as any letter have no point value All the words are in the Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, 5th Edition.
instructions: 1. Words must be of four or more letters. 2. Words that acquire four letters by the addition of “s,” such as “bats” or “dies,” are not allowed. 3. Additional words made by adding a “d” or an “s” may not be used. 4. Proper nouns, slang words, or vulgar or sexually explicit words are not allowed.
todAY's Word — VerAcitY: vuh-RASSih-tee: Conformity with truth or fact.
Average mark 39 words Time limit 60 minutes Can you find 48 or more words in VERACITY?
instructions: 1 - Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1 through 4 (easy) or 1 through 6 (challenging) without repeating 2 The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners.
3 - Freebies: Fill in the single-box cages with the number in the top-left corner.
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 Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.
directions: Complete the grid so that numbers 1–132 connect horizontally, vertically or diagonally
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
mCCLain
Take this Super Quiz to a Ph.D. Score 1 point for
South in today’s deal was Australian Joe Haffer North-South were playing negative doubles, as most do these days, so South’s free bid of one spade promised at least five spades.
East won the opening heart lead and cashed another high heart. He was end-played at this point and had no good exit, so he tried the eight of diamonds. Haffer captured West’s jack with dummy’s ace and took some time to think. East’s aggressive bidding, thought Haffer, marked him with both black kings.
Neither finesse was likely to be successful, so Haffer took neither one. He cashed dummy’s ace of spades and led a diamond to his queen. He led a diamond to dummy’s 10 as East shed a heart.
Haffer discarded a club on the king of diamonds and led a spade from dummy. East won with the king but had to lead a club from the king of clubs or yield a ruff-sluff. 10 tricks either way. Nicely played!
Haffer played the hand well, but the defense might have prevailed. The East-West methods
PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Reevaluate what you want. Attend a social event that offers a unique perspective regarding new possibilities. Keep an open mind, but don’t let anyone take control.
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Retreat and give yourself a chance to carefully evaluate each situation you face Acting in haste will lead to poor decisions. Get your facts straight, and you’ll find better alternatives.
were that West’s eight-of-hearts lead was either from a short suit or included the 10. East could have risked leading a low heart at trick two. West would take his 10 and surely find the winning club shift. Maybe next time.
Tannah Hirsch welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency inc., 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, Ny 14207. E-mail responses may be sent to gorenbridge@ aol.com. © 2025 Tribune Content Agency
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Spend more time at home. Don’t rely on others to make choices for you Giving someone else jurisdiction over your life will leave you feeling incapable and doubting yourself. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Speak up, be clear and deflect anyone’s attempt to manipulate you or your choices. Listen carefully, and you will gain insight into someone’s ulterior motives. CANCER (June 21-July 22) Work behind the scenes to bring about change, and you’ll avoid interference. Pie-in-the-sky ideas may excite you, but refuse to get caught up in someone else’s dream.
about your business. Don’t feel you have to accommodate others. Focus on being your best through learning, experiencing and growing.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) A little sparkle will go a long way. Do your best to get out and mingle with people who need a little cheer. It will change your perspective about life, love and what’s important to you.
pared to experience deep, powerful feelings.
SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Let your imagination take you on a journey that helps you uncover your feelings. It’s a good time to implement a positive lifestyle change.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) A positive attitude will carry weight. Worry less about what others do while going
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) You have plenty to gain whether you travel physically or spiritually. Openmindedness will lead to encounters with interesting people. Be pre-
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) You’ll be torn between what you want to do and what others expect. Get your act together and organize a schedule to take care of both. Disappointment will come from procrastination.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Refuse to let anyone interfere or talk you out of following your instincts. A
positive change will improve your lifestyle, position and reputation Choose practicality over emotions. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Put your energy into making the most of what you already have. Refuse to get bamboozled by someone offering something too good to be true. Peace of mind is worth far more than an unrealistic desire.
The horoscope, an entertainment feature, is not based on scientific fact. © 2025 by NEA, inc., dist. By Andrews McMeel Syndication
Answers to puzzles
super quiz
1. "Moby-Dick." 2. "Fahrenheit 451." 3. "Elmer Gantry." 4. "The Old Man and the Sea."
5. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" ("1984"). 6. "The Color Purple." 7. "Slaughterhouse-Five." 8. "Peter Pan." 9. "The Razor's Edge." 10 "A Tale of Two Cities." 11. "Beloved." 12 "Catch-22." 13 "The Great Gatsby." 14. "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." 15. "Grtavity's Rainbow."
SCORING: 24 to 30 points — congratulations, doctor; 18 to 23 points honors graduate; 13 to 17 points — you’re plenty smart, but no grind; 5 to 12 points — you really should hit the books harder; 1 point to 4 points — enroll in remedial courses immediately; 0 points — who reads the questions to you?
Cryptoquote Answer
Saturday's Cryptoquote: Never give a sword to a man who can't dance. — Confucius
word GAme Answer
sudoKu Answer jumble Answer
Crossword Answers
sCrAbble Answers
wuzzles Answers
Ken Ken Answers
hidAto Answers
