The Times-Picayune 04-01-2025 by The Advocate

LAST CALL?

Regulars pack Uptown’s Milan Lounge on what could be its final night

BY JENNA ROSS Staff writer

Stopping by the Milan Lounge on Monday afternoon, just before the bar opened at 3 p.m., a couple of regulars asked for a drink. But not before they picked up a mop and broom.

The owner’s lease was set to end at midnight, so the regulars who’d come to rely on the Uptown dive bar — to watch the Chicago Cubs, to play a game of darts, to shout at an episode of “Jeopardy” — had come to help with the ﬁnal cleanup and pay their respects.

Not only to the place, an affable hole-in-the-wall on a residential

“When I worked here, I could go down the bar and name every person. I could tell you where they live, what their dog’s name is. It’s that kind of place, that kind of community.”

stretch near the intersection of Prytania and Milan streets, but to the people who frequented it. The ones who ran the leagues, boiled the crawﬁsh and, when the neighborhood’s power went out, offered up the ice.

“When I worked here, I could go

down the bar and name every person,” said Vincent Giusti, who spent ﬁve years behind the bar before leaving for a job at Pascal’s Manale. “I could tell you where they live, what their dog’s name is. It’s that kind of place, that kind of community.” Giusti, who had returned to tend bar in recent months to help out the owner, made a recent offer to the landlord, Robert Haylock, to run the Milan with George Johnson, a Santa Fe, New Mexico, transplant who has been playing steel-tipped darts with Giusti since 2015. Giusti said he’d aim to keep it “very close to what it is.”

Teachers pay hike uncertain

No plans in place after Louisiana voters rejected constitutional amendment

BY ELYSE CARMOSINO Staff writer

After voters on Saturday rejected a constitutional amendment that would have funded higher salaries for teachers, it’s unclear whether educators will still receive a raise next school year or instead see their paychecks shrink.

ä Lawmakers are working on an alternative plan after the defeat of an amendment to change state tax policy PAGE 7A

One of four constitutional changes championed by Gov Jeff Landry that failed to pass over the weekend, Amendment 2 would have made one-time pay stipends the Legislature approved last year — $2,000 for teachers and $1,000 for support staff — a recurring part of their salaries.

But now, without funding for permanent raises and with the stipends set to expire after this school year there are no plans to keep teacher pay at its current level. As a result, Louisiana educators could see their paychecks decrease unless the Legislature ﬁnds funding for another round of stipends or a permanent increase. While campaigning for the amendment, Landry said there was no alternative plan to raise teacher salaries: “If Amendment 2 does not pass,” he posted on X last week, “there is no backup stipend.” When asked Monday, a spokesperson for Landry did not say whether the governor would support additional stipends for teachers if lawmakers proposed them during the coming legislative session.

“We tried to give them a permanent pay raise so our teachers never had to go back to the (Legislature) again to advocate for their money,” the

ä See TEACHERS, page 7A

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

During a time of turmoil for the Ofﬁce of Motor Vehicles, State Fire Marshal Bryan Adams will take over the agency after Commissioner Dan Casey stepped down last week, Gov. Jeff Landry announced Monday In a statement, Landry pointed to Adams’ career in public service as making him exceptionally qualiﬁed for the role.

“He is committed to modernizing the outdated OMV system to better serve the people and ensure it operates efﬁciently moving forward,” Landry said.

ä See OMV, page 5A Adams

High-stakes archdiocese talks with victims begin this week

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer

Dozens of attorneys for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, its parishes, charities, lenders and hundreds of survivors of clergy sex abuse will meet face-to-face this week for a three-day highstakes mediation aimed at bringing an end to the long-running bankruptcy case. The settlement talks, which

begin Tuesday at the Central Business District ofﬁces of archdiocese law firm Jones Walker, come as the ﬁfth anniversary approaches of Archbishop Gregory Aymond’s move to place the local Roman Catholic Church under federal bankruptcy protection.

The May 1 milestone will make it one of the costliest and longest running of the 40 Catholic Church bankruptcies filed around the country over the past two decades

In recent court hearings, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill has suggested that if the two sides cannot come together soon she will consider dismissing the case — a move that would open the nation’s second-oldest diocese to a ﬂurry of lawsuits detailing decades-old allegations of child rape and molestation. The talks will aim to bridge the gap between what the church is offering to pay survivors as ﬁnan-

cial compensation for the abuse they suffered as children and how much they are willing to accept according to comments both sides have made in court in recent weeks.

Attorneys for both sides have indicated during the hearings they have made some progress closing what is, effectively, a $150 million gap. But even if the parties agree on a dollar ﬁgure in the coming days,

the case won’t necessarily be resolved any time soon, at least if the experience of other dioceses is any indication. That’s because church insurance companies must agree to whatever is ultimately negotiated, and the local diocese’s four insurers are not a part of this week’s settlement talks. A separate mediation with them is scheduled for later this

ä See TALKS, page 5A

Bartender Vincent Giusti, right, pours shots for customers and for himself on the last night inside the Milan Lounge on Monday.

STAFF PHOTOS By CHRIS GRANGER

A dog named Buddy and his owner Billy Gans, walk into the Milan Lounge on Monday

A sign above the doorway to the Milan Lounge has weathered lots of humidity and hurricanes over the years.

VINCENT GIUSTI, former bartender at Milan Lounge

ä See MILAN, page 5A

Plans to end protections for Venezuelans halted SAN FRANCISCO A federal judge on Monday paused plans by the Trump administration to end temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, a week before they were scheduled to expire. The order by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco is a relief for 350,000 Venezuelans whose Temporary Protected Status was scheduled to expire April 7. The lawsuit was filed by lawyers for the National TPS Alliance and TPS holders across the country Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has also announced the end of TPS for an estimated 250,000 additional Venezuelans in September Chen said in his ruling that the action by Noem “threatens to: inﬂict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States.”

He said the government had failed to identify any “real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneﬁciaries” and said plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that Noem’s actions “are unauthorized by law arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.”

U.S. airstrikes pound Yemen overnight

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Suspected U.S. airstrikes struck around Yemen’s rebel-held capital overnight into Monday morning, attacks that the Iranian-backed Houthis said killed at least three people.

The full extent of the damage wasn’t immediately clear The attacks followed a night of airstrikes early Friday that appeared particularly intense compared to other days in the campaign that began March 15. The strikes around Sanaa Yemen’s capital held by the Houthis since 2014, and Hajjah governorate also wounded 12 others, the rebels said. Their Al-Masirah satellite news channel aired footage of broken glass littering homes in Sanaa after the concussive blast of the bombs, but continued not to show the targets of the attacks — suggesting the sites had a military or intelligence function. Strikes there killed one person, the rebels said.

Another strike targeting a pickup truck in Hajjah killed two people and wounded a child, the Houthis said. It marked the ﬁrst publicly known time the American strikes targeted a vehicle in this campaign.

Severe weather blamed for 4 deaths in U.S

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — A tree fell on a van in Michigan, killing three children, during a ﬁerce weekend storm that swept the region and contributed to the death of an 84-year-old man in an Amish buggy in Indiana, authorities said Monday Meanwhile, more potentially dangerous weather rolled across parts of the Southeastern U.S. Trees and power lines were no match for freezing rain and extreme winds over the weekend, and utilities were gradually restoring power in Michigan, although 290,000 outages remained by Monday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us. Indiana and Wisconsin had trimmed their outages to roughly 85,000.

The victims of the fallen tree in Kalamazoo County were a 2-yearold girl, her 4-year-old brother and an 11-year-old girl who was their cousin Three other people in the van were injured Sunday about 130 miles west of Detroit.

“The family could not have avoided this,” Sheriff Richard Fuller told reporters, adding that the tree struck the passenger area where the children were sitting.

The area had been under a severe thunderstorm warning at the time, one of several Sunday in southern Michigan.

At roughly the same time, an Amish buggy in Middlebury, Indiana, ﬂipped because of intense winds, killing Lonnie Yoder police said.

Myanmar quake deaths pass 2,000

Disaster compounds country’s humanitarian crisis

BY DAVID RISING Associated Press

BANGKOK The death toll in last week’s massive earthquake in Myanmar has passed 2,000, state media said Monday, as accounts of some people’s last moments emerged: Two hundred Buddhist monks crushed by a collapsing monastery Fifty children killed when a preschool classroom crumbled Seven hundred Muslims struck while praying at mosques for Ramadan.

The quake could exacerbate hunger and disease outbreaks in a country that was already one of the world’s most challenging places for humanitarian organizations to operate because of civil war, aid groups and the United Nations warned.

The 7.7 magnitude quake hit Friday, with the epicenter near Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay It damaged the city’s airport, buckled roads and collapsed hundreds of buildings along a wide swath down the country’s center Relief efforts are further hampered by power outages, fuel shortages and spotty communications. A lack of heavy machinery has slowed search-and-rescue operations, forcing many to search for survivors by hand in daily temperatures above 104 degrees Rescue workers at Mandalay’s collapsed U Hla Thein monastery said they were still searching for about 150 of the dead monks.

Some 700 Muslim worshippers

attending Friday prayers were killed when mosques collapsed, said Tun Kyi, a member of the steering committee of the Spring Revolution Myanmar Muslim Network. He said some 60 mosques were damaged or destroyed. Videos posted on The Irrawaddy online news site showed several mosques toppling. It was not clear whether those numbers were already included in the ofﬁcial toll.

Myanmar state MRTV reported that the leader of the military government, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, told Pakistan’s prime minister during a call that 2,065 people were killed, with more than 3,900 injured and about 270 missing.

Relief agencies expect those

Israeli military orders evacuation of Gaza’s Rafah

BY WAFAA SHURAFA and FATMA KHALED Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip

Israel’s military on Monday issued sweeping evacuation orders covering Rafah and nearby areas, indicating it could soon launch another major ground operation in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost city

Israel ended its ceaseﬁre with the Hamas militant group and renewed its air and ground war earlier this month. At the beginning of March it cut off all supplies of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid to the territory’s roughly 2 million Palestinians to pressure Hamas to accept proposed changes to the truce agreement.

Israel’s military ordered Palestinians to head to Muwasi, a sprawl of squalid tent camps along the coast. The orders came during Eid al-Fitr, a normally festive Muslim holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.

Last May, Israel launched a major operation in Rafah, on the border with Egypt, leaving large parts in ruins. The military seized a strategic corridor along the border as well as the Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s only gateway to the outside world that was not

controlled by Israel.

Israel was supposed to withdraw from the corridor under the ceaseﬁre it signed with Hamas in January under U.S. pressure, but it later refused to do it, citing the need to prevent weapons smuggling.

On Monday, people fled with their belongings loaded onto donkeys and stacked on car roofs. Families traveled by foot carrying luggage as children held the adults’ hands.

“We are dying. There is no food, no drink, no electricity, no medicine,” said Hanadi Dahoud, who was displaced from the southern city of Khan Younis. “We want to live. We just want to live We are tired.”

Dozens gathered at a funeral for some of the 15 emergency responders killed by Israeli ﬁre during a ground operation in Rafah last week. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies called it the deadliest attack on its medics in several years.

Raed al-Nems, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent, said the paramedics were “killed in cold blood” despite wearing uniforms and operating in clearly labeled ambulances. At funeral prayers, their shrouds were draped with Red Crescent banners.

numbers to rise sharply since access is slow to remote areas where communications are down.

The United Nations’ Myanmar country team called for unimpeded access for aid teams.

“Even before this earthquake, nearly 20 million people in Myanmar were in need of humanitarian assistance,” said Marcoluigi Corsi, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator

“We’re really not clear on the scale of the destruction at this stage,” Lauren Ellery, deputy director of programs in Myanmar for the International Rescue Committee, told The Associated Press.

“They were talking about a town near Mandalay where 80% of the buildings were reportedly col-

lapsed, but it wasn’t in the news because telecommunications have been slow.”

Groups the IRC works with have reported that some places are cut off by landslides, she said.

The World Health Organization said it has reports of three hospitals destroyed and 22 partially damaged in the region.

“There is an urgent need for trauma and surgical care, blood transfusion supplies, anesthetics, essential medicines and mental health support,” it said.

More than 10,000 buildings are collapsed or severely damaged in central and northwest Myanmar, the U.N. humanitarian agency said. One preschool classroom building collapsed in Mandalay district, killing 50 children and two teachers, it said.

An artiﬁcial intelligence analysis of satellite images of Mandalay by Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab showed 515 buildings with 80% to 100% damage and another 1,524 with 20% to 80% damage. It was not clear what percentage of the city’s buildings that represented. Rescue efforts are also complicated by the civil war In 2021, the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking what has turned into signiﬁcant armed resistance.

While one group has declared a partial unilateral ceaseﬁre, the government and other armed groups have not stopped ﬁghting.

Government forces have lost control of much of Myanmar, and many places were dangerous or impossible for aid groups to reach even before the quake. More than 3 million people have been displaced by the ﬁghting, according to the U.N.

3 U.S. soldiers found dead in armored vehicle in Lithuania

One soldier still missing

BY LIUDAS DAPKUS and LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press

VILNIUS, Lithuania Three of the U.S. Army soldiers who went missing in Lithuania have been found dead in their armored vehicle that was pulled from a swampy area early Monday, according to U.S. Army Europe and Africa Command. Another soldier is still missing.

The bodies of the three soldiers were recovered after a massive six-day effort by U.S., Polish and Lithuanian armed forces and authorities to dig the M88 Hercules vehicle out of a peat bog at the expansive General Silvestras Žukauskas training ground in the town of Pabrade.

The soldiers were on a tactical training exercise when they and their vehicle were reported missing early Tuesday, the Army said.

The command in a statement said the identities of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division soldiers are being withheld pending family notiﬁcations.

“We stand in grief with the families and loved ones of these extraordinary ‘Dogface Soldiers’ during this unimaginable time,” said Maj. Gen Christopher Norrie, 3rd Infantry Division commander “But the search isn’t ﬁnished until everyone is home. Words cannot express our gratitude to those still working around the clock during these extensive search and recovery efforts and your unwavering commitment not to rest until all are found.”

Hundreds of Lithuanian and U.S. soldiers and rescuers took part in the search through the thick forests and swampy terrain around Pabrade, just 6 miles west of the border with Belarus. The armored vehicle was dis-

covered on Wednesday submerged in 15 feet of water Lithuanian armed forces provided military helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, unmanned aerial systems and search and rescue personnel. They brought in additional excavators, sluice and slurry pumps, other heavy construction equipment, technical experts and several hundred tons of gravel and earth to help the recovery U.S Navy divers were able to maneuver through

thick layers of mud, clay and sediment “with zero visibility” to reach the 63ton vehicle Sunday evening and ﬁnd two points to attach steel cables, according to the command. The command said that during the effort to pull out the vehicle, it began to lose traction, so additional heavy dozers were brought in and attached to provide additional grip. The vehicle was pulled free after about two hours, the command said.

XINHUA NEWS AGENCy PHOTO By MyO KyAW SOE

Members of a Chinese search and rescue team transfer a pregnant survivor from a collapsed building on Monday in Mandalay Myanmar in the aftermath of an earthquake.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ABDEL KAREEM HANA

Displaced Palestinians arrive Monday in Khan younis, Gaza, after the Israeli military issued sweeping evacuation orders covering most of Rafah.

U.N.: Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinian medics

Officials say bodies buried in mass grave

BY WAFAA SHURAFA, LEE KEATH and FATMA KHALED Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Palestinians held funerals Monday for 15 medics and emergency responders killed by Israeli troops in southern Gaza, after their bodies and mangled ambulances were found buried in an impromptu mass grave, apparently plowed over by Israeli military bulldozers.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said the slain workers and their vehicles were clearly marked as medical and humanitarian personnel and accused Israeli troops of killing them “in cold blood.” The Israeli military said its troops opened fire on vehicles that approached them “suspiciously” without identiﬁcation.

The dead included eight Red Crescent workers, six members of Gaza’s Civil Defense emergency unit and a staffer from UNRWA, the U.N.’s agency for Palestinians. The International Red Cross/Red Crescent said it was the deadliest attack on its personnel in eight years. Since the war in Gaza began 18 months ago, Israel has killed more than 100 Civil Defense workers and more than 1,000 health workers, according to the U.N. Here is what we know about what happened.

Missing for days

The emergency teams had been missing since March 23, when they went about noon to retrieve casualties after Israeli forces launched an offensive into the Tel al-Sultan district of the southern city of Rafah.

The military had called for an evacuation of the area earlier that day, saying Hamas militants were operating there. Alerts by the Civil Defense at the time said displaced Palestinians sheltering in the area had been hit and a team that went to rescue them was “surrounded by Israeli troops.”

“The available information indicates that the ﬁrst team was killed by Israeli forces on 23 March,” the U.N. said in a statement Sunday night.

Further emergency teams that went to rescue the ﬁrst team were “struck one after another over several hours,” it said All the teams went out during daylight hours, according to the Civil Defense.

The Israeli military said Sunday that on March 23, troops opened ﬁre on vehicles that were “advancing suspiciously” toward them without emergency signals.

It said “an initial assessment” determined that the troops killed a Hamas operative named Mohammed Amin Shobaki and eight other militants. Israel has struck ambulances and other emergency vehicles in the past, accusing Hamas militants of using them for transportation.

However, none of the dead staffers from the Red Crescent and

Civil Defense had that name, and no other bodies were reported found at the site, raising questions over the military’s suggestion that alleged militants were among the rescue workers.

The military did not immediately respond to requests for the names of the other alleged militants killed or for comment on how the emergency workers came to be buried.

After a ceasefire that lasted roughly two months, Israel relaunched its military campaign in Gaza on March 18 Since then, bombardment and new ground assaults that have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry The ministry’s count does not distinguish between militants and civilians, but it says over half those killed are women

Louisiana farmers react to end of USDA programs

Cuts end aid to food banks, schools

BY STEPHEN MARCANTEL

Staff writer

Betty Chenier started up her side-by-side on an early spring day at her small farm in Opelousas. She drove past large greenhouses and rows of crops She inspected her recent plantings and then pointed to a pecan tree in the distance.

“My husband said once, when the pecan trees start to sprout, that’s how you really know when winter is over,” she said laughing. “No other superstitious stuff, just that one.”

She returned to her inspection of tomatoes, garlic and onions, strawberries and sweet potatoes. But this year, her crops look more bare than usual, she said.

“We usually have all this planted, but we’re not planting a lot of stuff because we don’t know what’s what,” Chenier said.

The “what’s what” is in reference to recent Trump administration cuts to U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that helped food banks and schools purchase food from small local farmers.

The two federal programs, called Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement, provided about $1 billion to schools and food banks across the nation.

Louisiana food banks received around $13 million this year for the program, with Lafayette’s Second Harvest spending around $6 million across two years to Acadiana-area farmers In 2023, the food purchase assistance program made $837 million in payments to over 10,900 farmers nationally

In Louisiana, the program worked with about 40 farms to get products into food banks in every Louisiana parish.

This ﬁscal year, Louisiana has spent about $3.4 million getting food from local farmers into schools as of Dec. 9, according to a table that has since been removed from the USDA’s website.

The Ascension Parish School Board is the largest purchaser in the state in the Local Food For Schools program, spending $269,347 between 2023 and 2024. Lafayette Parish ranks third with $157,344 in purchases, according to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry

Existing agreements are expected to be fulﬁlled, but the USDA said it did not plan to award additional money that had been set aside for the year but not yet used.

For people like Chenier that looks like thousands of pounds of food dedicated to helping ﬁght food insecurity while providing her and her husband, John, with a steady source of income for their small operation. She said this season, she is expecting to plant half of what she did last year.

Chenier has worked with Second Harvest Food Bank for more than four years. She started providing food for the mobile markets but was approached to participate in the food purchase assistance program two years ago. She said she was contracted until 2027. “I was told that this could not go away It made us invest and put money into (our farm),” she said.

The couple recently built a home for a farmworker that they can no longer afford and two greenhouses to make room for fall and winter crops set aside for the program.

John Chenier, who just turned 70, said with the program gone, he is not sure how much longer they can operate, adding that it might be time for him to retire.

“We can’t afford to make a living with it,”

MARCANTEL

STAFF PHOTO By STEPHEN

John and Betty Chenier talk about the recent cuts to two U.S Department of Agriculture programs. The programs contributed to at least half of their business.

he said. “Everything was going up,” but he said, the couple had a guarantee they would sell their produce. “Now, we don’t have that guarantee anymore.”

In Eunice, a beef processor and ﬁfth-generation rancher Chip Perrin said the two USDA programs allowed his business to thrive. He joined the programs a year ago when Second Harvest reached out to him

Through the programs, his company processed around 7,000 pounds of beef for food banks and 10,000 pounds for schools and food banks a week. They also processed around 30 cattle a week from other ranchers in the program.

The increased business allowed him to expand his operations and hire more workers.

Perrin also said he was able to visit a school that his product went to, adding that he was proud to play a role in combating child food insecurity

“Everybody was excited about it, and we really ramped up to take on that business this year, and then overnight, funds get cut, and that business is gone. For farmers, the ranchers, us, the schools, everybody,” Perrin said. “That’s 40,000 pounds of beef that’s no longer running through our plant.”

Perrin’s business is pivoting in an attempt to make up for the loss, but he said he had to lay off employees.

Perrin said he believes the USDA programs will be reinstated in some form, and that there is likely wasteful spending in the federal government and agencies like the USDA. However, he said, these programs did their job of investing in local farmers and small communities while decreasing food insecurity.

Second Harvest is also trying to pivot, Paul Scelfo, regional director, said. His ofﬁce has received many calls from rural community pantries across the Acadiana region that have shown concern.

“Obviously, the decision to cut that funding is not favorable for Second Harvest,” he said. “I don’t know how else to put it, but that doesn’t mean we’re stopping We’re still looking for other funding opportunities and other ways to work with our farmers to make sure they stay engaged.”

In Louisiana, 1 out of 7 people are considered food insecure, and 46 out of 64 parishes have food insecurity rates higher than 15%.

Scelfo said cutting these programs will increase food insecurity in the state, especially in rural communities.

The USDA’s food purchase assistance funds allowed for one of the largest sources of fresh produce to Second Harvest.

“It was an unprecedented amount of food and an unprecedented amount of a ripple effect throughout our communities,” Scelfo said.

Staff writer Ashley White contributed to this article.

and children. Aid workers say ambulance teams and humanitarian staff have come under ﬁre in the renewed assault A worker with the charity

World Central Kitchen was killed Friday by an Israeli strike that hit next to a kitchen distributing free meals. A March 19 Israeli tank strike on a U.N. compound killed a staffer the U.N. said, though Israel denies being behind the blast.

Mass grave

For days, Israeli forces would not allow access to the site where the emergency teams disappeared, the U.N. said.

On Wednesday, a U.N. convoy tried to reach the site but encountered Israeli troops opening ﬁre on people.

The convoy saw a woman who had been shot lying in the road. The dashboard video shows staff talking about retrieving the woman. Then two people are seen walking across the road. Gunfire rings out and they ﬂee. One stumbles, apparently wounded, before he is shot and falls onto his face to the ground. The U.N. said the team retrieved the body of the woman and left.

On Sunday, the U.N. said teams were able to reach the site after the Israeli military informed it where it had buried the bodies, in a barren area on the edges of Tel al-Sultan. Footage released by the U.N. shows workers from PRCS and Civil Defense, wearing masks and bright orange vests, digging through hills of dirt that appeared to have been piled up by Israeli bulldozers.

The footage shows them digging out multiple bodies wearing orange emergency vests. Some of the bodies are found piled on top of each other At one point, they pull out a body in a Civil Defense vest out of the dirt, and it is revealed to be a torso with no legs. Several ambulances and a U.N. vehicle, all heavily damaged or torn apart, are also buried in the dirt.

“Their bodies were gathered and buried in this mass grave,” said Jonathan Whittall, with the U.N humanitarian ofﬁce OCHA, speaking at the site in the video. “We’re digging them out in their uniforms, with their gloves on They were here to save lives.”

“It’s absolute horror what has happened here,” he said.

French far-right leader barred from

seeking office for 5 years

BY SYLVIE CORBET, JOHN LEICESTER and SAMUEL PETREQUIN Associated Press

PARIS A French court on Monday convicted Marine Le Pen of embezzlement and barred her from seeking public office for five years — a hammer blow to the far-right leader’s presidential hopes and an earthquake for French politics.

Le Pen denounced the verdict in an interview with French TV channel TF1 as a “political” move aimed at preventing her from running in the 2027 presidential election and said that millions of French people “are outraged.”

She described the ruling as a violation of the rule of law, said she would appeal and asked that the court proceedings take place before the 2027 campaign. She would remain ineligible to be a candidate until the appeal is decided.

Le Pen also was given four years’ imprisonment, with two to be served under house arrest and two suspended — which would not apply pending appeal.

The court ruling was a political as well as a judicial temblor for France hobbling one of the leading contenders to succeed President Emmanuel Macron at the end of his second and ﬁnal term So broad were the political implications that even some of Le Pen’s oppo-

nents said the Paris court had gone too far But it’s too early to say how the case will affect voters. The potential elimination of Le Pen could ﬁre up diehard supporters, just as U.S. President’s Donald Trump’s legal problems motivated some of his. But it could also leave her on the sidelines, deflating what had been her upward trajectory Le Pen said the court should not have made her ineligible to run for ofﬁce un-

til all her chances at appeal had been exhausted, and that by doing so it was clear the court was aiming “specifically to prevent” her from being elected president.

“If that’s not a political decision, I don’t know what is,” Le Pen said in the TF1 interview She said the ruling marked a “fateful day for our democracy” but vowed to keep pursuing what she called the now “admittedly narrow” path to the presidency

Noticeisherebygiven pursuanttoArticle 7, Section 23(C) of the Louisiana Constitution and R.S. 47:1705(B) thata public hearing of Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority– East on behalf of the East Jefferson LeveeDistrictinJefferson Parish will be held at its regular meeting placeinJoseph Yenni Building,Second Floor Council Chambers locatedat1221 Elmwood Park Boulevard, Jefferson, LA on Thursday, May15, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. to consider levying additional or increased millage rateswithout further voter approval or adopting the adjustedmillage ratesafter reassessmentand rolling forwardto ratesnot to exceed the prior year’s maximum. Theestimatedamountoftax revenues to be collectedinthe next year from the increased millage is $12,625,105 and the estimated amount of increaseintaxes attributable to the millage increase is $598,197.

Le Pen

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ABDEL KAREEM HANA

Mourners react Monday during the funeral of eight Red Crescent emergency responders recovered in Rafah a week after an Israeli attack in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.

Judge blocks release of records in Hackman case

BY MORGAN LEE Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. — A court on Monday blocked the release of any public records that show the bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, but said other images and documents can be disclosed.

A representative for the Hackman family estate had urged a New Mexico judge to seal photos, video and documents to protect the family’s privacy Santa Fe-based Judge Matthew Wilson had court put a temporary hold on the release of records pending Monday’s hearing.

Wilson said anything that

does not include images of the couples’ bodies could be released

The partially mummiﬁed remains of Hackman and Arakawa were found in their Santa Fe home on Feb. 26, when maintenance and security workers showed up at the home and alerted police. Authorities have conﬁrmed Hackman, 95, died of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease about a week after his wife’s death. Hackman may have been unaware Arakawa, 65, was dead Her cause of death was listed as hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is a rare, rodent-borne disease. New Mexico’s open re-

cords law blocks public access to sensitive images including depictions of dead bodies. Experts also say some medical information is not considered public record under the state Inspection of Public Records Act.

Estate representative Julia Peters has emphasized the possibly shocking nature of photographs and video in the investigation and potential for their dissemination by media in the bid to block them from being released.

The Hackman family estate also sought to block the release of autopsy reports by the Ofﬁce of the Medical Investigator and death investigation reports by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Ofﬁce.

BY COLLIN BINKLEY Associated Press

WASHINGTON Harvard University has become the latest target in the Trump administration’s approach to ﬁght campus antisemitism, with the announcement of a new “comprehensive review” that could jeopardize billions of dollars for the Ivy League college.

A federal antisemitism task force is reviewing more than $255 million in contracts between Harvard and the federal government to make sure the school is following civil rights laws, the administration announced Monday The government also will examine $8.7 billion in grant com-

mitments to Harvard and its afﬁliates. The same task force cut $400 million from Columbia University and threatened to slash billions more if it refused a list of demands from President Donald Trump’s administration. Columbia agreed to many of the changes this month, drawing praise from some Jewish groups and condemnation from free speech groups, who see it as a stunning intrusion by the federal government.

Dozens of other universities have been put on notice by the Trump administration that they could face similar treatment over allegations of antisemitism. The federal government

is a major provider of revenue for American universities through grants for scientiﬁc research.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Harvard symbolizes the American dream, but has jeopardized its reputation by “promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry” and failing to protect students from antisemitism.

“Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truthseeking, where all students feel safe on its campus,” McMahon said in a statement. Harvard did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

“But cleaner!” Giusti added, to a few cheers from the early arrivals. As of Monday afternoon, he hadn’t heard the bar’s fate. About 3:15 he made a toast to the small group gathered in the snug bar, adorned with dusty memorabilia that spoke to a long history and many inside jokes. A green Wrigley Field sign. A model train set A neon sign spelling “Milan” glowing orange against a purple wall.

“Cheers to the future,” Giusti said, his face long, “whatever it holds.”

Haylock said by phone later that the bar was closing because things “just did not work out” with owner Paige Wilkinson. But he expected that any closure would be temporary

“The place has been a popular neighborhood bar for close to 100 years. We all expect it to be here for at least another 100 years,” said Haylock, adding that he’d gotten offers from “many potential operators and I am still evaluating.” Wilkinson couldn’t be reached. She inherited the bar from her partner Kevin Burley who died in 2023, Giusti and others said The cleanup, crawﬁsh boil and ﬁnal night of the Milan was set to run until midnight, and as the afternoon wore on more regulars arrived. Many came by foot, includ-

TALKS

Continued from page 1A

month.

In church bankruptcies in Camden, New Jersey and Rochester, New York, both ﬁled around the same time as the New Orleans case, insurance companies have challenged settlements agreed to by survivors, the church and the courts.

“We’ve seen in a variety of situations in other dioceses where the creditors’ committee and the diocese have come to an agreement with none of the insurers or some of the insurers,” said attorney Molly Burke, of Minneapolis-based Jeff Anderson & Associates, which has represented abuse survivors in cases around the country “Sometimes, this can put pressure on other insurers or parties to reach a settlement, but it really is a

OMV

Continued from page 1A

For weeks, delays at OMV ofﬁces and public tag agencies statewide have frustrated Louisianans. That’s because the system’s outdated software system keeps freezing, sometimes multiple times a day

The Louisiana Public Tag Agent Association reported that, between Feb. 21 and Monday one member tracked 38 hours of downtime.

On March 21, Landry declared a state of emergency due to the outages, waiving late fees for Louisianans that need to renew their Class E driver’s licenses Most regular drivers hold a

ing Rory, the black-and-cream cat from across the street. Alexander Spurr, a chef, brought his own koozie, with an image of Burley’s face. “I love you,” it said, Burley’s signoff. Giusti’s girlfriend, Chris-

tina McCarthy, had made peanut butter and chocolate cookies, setting them on the bar

“Have a cookie,” she instructed friends.

J.C. Thompson III ran to and

from the little backyard, seasoning the water for the boil. Milan has been “my spot” since 2015, said Thompson, a caterer “This is crazy bittersweet,” he said, tears springing from his eyes.

He wiped them with a white kitchen towel tucked into his pocket.

“It’s all right, just weird not knowing.”

People want a bar where, when you arrive, everyone yells your name, Thompson said. “You want those rapports with people, and that wasn’t a hard thing to achieve here. Just be here, be yourself, and I promise you, you’ll be noticed.”

These bars are rare, longtime patrons argued. Good company, cheap drinks. It’s this “little golden spot” that shouldn’t exist in this neighborhood, said Bill Gans, who had one arm slung around his friend and his other holding the leash of his dog, Buddy, another Milan mascot. He pointed right, then left, saying, “If you go this way, it’s more corporate, and that way it’s mansions.”

Next to him, Grant Lawrence nodded, sipping his drink from a plastic cup. “You could be a homeless guy or a millionaire,” he said. “As long as you’re paying the bill, you’re good. It’s the great equalizer.”

A little after 4 p.m., Johnson came out of the bar and onto the sidewalk.

“It’s ready,” he announced, holding a clear plastic

case-by-case scenario.”

In a statement, Aymond said the bankruptcy case has “taken too long and been too costly and caused additional angst for the survivors, many who have already suffered for decades as a result of their abuse.”

“I have instructed our team to prioritize bringing the bankruptcy proceedings to a just and equitable conclusion for the good of all, especially the survivors,” he said.

Attorneys for abuse survivors did not respond to requests seeking comment.

Closing the gap

The mediation is the ﬁrst in this case to take place in-person and will be led by Judge Christopher Sontchi, a former chief justice for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and an international mediation expert appointed by Grabill earlier this year

Class E license. The OMV has also been holding some weekend hours, as ofﬁcials believe a high volume of trafﬁc in the OMV database may contribute to the system outages.

Adams said in a statement that he is dedicated to improving the OMV system, which “has faced challenges for too long.”

Adams will return to the State Fire Marshal’s Ofﬁce after his time at the OMV, a release from Landry’s ofﬁce said. Dale “Ed” Branch, the chief of staff for the State Fire Marshal’s Office, will replace Adams as the head of that agency

Casey said he left the OMV so he would have more time with his grandchildren, noting how much time the job of

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gregg Zive, who has been overseeing settlement talks in the case since 2021, is also expected to participate.

Last fall, the church ﬁled a draft reorganization plan offering to pay survivors $62 million, or about $113,000 each, not including money they could potentially recover by suing church insurers.

Survivors are asking for nearly $1 billion, or about $1.8 million each, though a competing plan they ﬁled envisions $777 million of that amount coming from insurers — money the insurance companies have not agreed to pay

Without the upfront contribution from insurers, the survivors’ plan amounts to $215 million, a number much closer to the church’s $62 million offer

But because mediation talks are private and the case is under a gag order,

OMV commissioner requires

The OMV’s software system is 50 years old. The state is on the brink of selecting a new one, ofﬁcials have said, but it could take several years to fully install it.

Landry’s executive order allows the state to skip a sixto nine-month procurement process that would have made the modernization take even longer

The outages come as a May 7 deadline looms for travelers to get driver’s licenses that meet federal REAL ID requirements in order to travel. Those licenses require more stringent proof of identiﬁcation.

Email Meghan Friedmann at meghan.friedmann@ theadvocate.com.

it’s hard to say how much progress has been made in recent months.

Another issue that attorneys in the case hope to work out this week concerns the process that will be used for survivors to approve or decline a settlement.

The bankruptcy settlement could require that claimants “opt in” by afﬁrmatively agreeing to whatever agreement is reached, or it could automatically include claimants as part of the settlement unless they afﬁrmatively “opt out.”

The decision, though technical, could have implications for church parishes, schools and other afﬁliates as they try to determine their potential exposure to

lawsuits outside of the bankruptcy process.

Cautionary tale

In other church bankruptcy cases, insurance companies that weren’t party to negotiations between the church and abuse survivors have thwarted settlements.

Last year, the Diocese of Camden settled its nearly 4-year-old bankruptcy case with abuse survivors for $87.5 million. But insurers sued to block the plan and in January were granted a reprieve by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

The bankruptcy case of the Diocese of Rochester meanwhile, ﬁled in fall 2019, resulted in a $125 million settlement with three of its four insurers. But the fourth company, Continental Insurance Co. is holding up the planned settlement for the diocese’s more than 550 abuse survivors, court documents show An attorney for one of the insurance companies that represents the New Orleans archdiocese, U.S Fire and Casualty, said in a statement Monday that insurers need to be included in negotiations. “You can’t reach a global consensus on a plan of reorganization by excluding parties in interest,” said attorney Tancred Schiavoni. Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@ theadvocate.com.

BRIEFS

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Dow wants to use new nuclear reactors

Dow, a major producer of chemicals and plastics, wants to use next-generation nuclear reactors for clean power and steam at a Texas manufacturing complex instead of natural gas. Dow’s subsidiary, Long Mott Energy, applied Monday to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a construction permit. It said the project with X-energy an advanced nuclear reactor and fuel company, would nearly eliminate the emissions associated with power and steam generation at its plant in Seadrift, Texas, avoiding roughly 500,000 metric tons of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions annually

If built and operated as planned, it would be the first U.S. commercial advanced nuclear power plant for an industrial site, according to the commission.

The Seadrift manufacturing complex, at about 4,700 acres, has eight production plants owned by Dow and one owned by Braskem. There, Dow makes plastics for a variety of uses, including food and beverage packaging and wire and cable insulation, as well as glycols for antifreeze, polyester fabrics and bottles, and oxide derivatives for health and beauty products.

The commission expects the review to take three years or less. If a permit is issued, construction could begin at the end of this decade so the reactors would be ready early in the 2030s, as the natural gas-ﬁred equipment is retired.

Rocket spending $9.4B on rival Mr. Cooper

The mortgage company Rocket is buying competitor

Mr Cooper in an all-stock deal valued at $9.4 billion, just weeks after acquiring real estate listing company Redﬁn. Rocket Cos. said Monday that bringing Mr Cooper Group Inc. into the fold will create a business representing one in every six mortgages in the United States and give it almost 7 million additional clients. The deal will boost loan volumes, the company said, while lowering client acquisition costs.

The U.S. housing market has been slumping for years with homebuyers and sellers buffeted by soaring mortgages rates and sky high prices that have put homes out of reach for many Americans.

Companies like Rocket, which is on an acquisition streak, are attempting to create more of a one-stop shopping experience for frazzled would-be homebuyers.

Trump executive order targets ticket scalpers

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that he said will help curb ticket scalping and bring “commonsense” changes to the way live entertainment events are priced. Designed to stop “price-gouging by middlemen,” the order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to ensure that scalpers offering tickets at higher prices than their face value comply with all Internal Revenue Service rules, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.

It also orders the Federal Trade Commission to ensure “price transparency at all stages of the ticket-purchase process” and to “take enforcement action to prevent unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market,” which the Trump administration argues can “restore sensibility and order to the ticket market.” The push marks a rare instance of policy crossover with the administration of former President Joe Biden, which used the FTC to target “junk fees,” or levies tacked on at the end of the purchase process that can mask the full price of things like concert tickets, hotel rooms and utility bills.

BUSINESS

NOLA.COM/BIZ

Wall Street swings on tariff threats

Trump says ‘Liberation Day’ is Wednesday

BY STAN CHOE AP business writer

NEW YORK President Donald Trump’s fast-approaching “Liberation Day” sent stock markets swinging sharply worldwide on Monday

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose in another roller-coaster day, after being down as much as 1.7% during the morning. The reversal helped the index shave its loss for the ﬁrst three months of the year to 4.6%,

making it the worst quarter in twoand-a-half years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also swerved higher after erasing an initial loss. Slides for Tesla, Nvidia and other influential Big Tech stocks, though, sent the Nasdaq composite down. Such neck-twisting turns have become routine for the U.S. stock market recently because of uncertainty about what Trump will do with tariffs — and by how much they will worsen inflation and grind down growth for economies.

Wall Street’s swings followed a selloff that spanned the world earlier Monday as worries built about the effects of the tariffs that Trump says will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Instead of stocks, prices strength-

ened for things considered safer bets when the economy is looking shaky Gold rose again to briefly crest $3,160 per ounce.

Prices for Treasury bonds also climbed, which in turn sent their yields down. The yield on the 10year Treasury fell to 4.21% from 4.27% late Friday and from roughly 4.80% in January

On Wednesday, the U.S. is set to begin what Trump calls “reciprocal” tariffs, which will be tailored to match what he sees is the burden each country places on his, including things like value-added taxes. Much is still unknown, including exactly what the U.S. government will do on “Liberation Day.”

If the tariffs end up being less onerous than investors fear maybe Trump includes no additional tariff increases on China, for example — stocks could rally But if they end up being a worst-case scenario, which gets businesses so fearful that they start cutting their workforces, stocks could sink much further

At Goldman Sachs, economists expect Trump to announce an average 15% reciprocal tariff. They also raised their forecast for inﬂation and lowered it for U.S. economic growth for the end of the year They now see a 35% chance of recession in the next year, up from an earlier forecast of 20%, “reﬂecting our lower growth forecast, falling confidence, and statements from White House officials indicating willingness to tolerate economic pain,” according to Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle.

European countries resist U.S. push to scrap DEI initiatives

Contracts could be dropped, leaders say

By The Associated Press

PARIS

U.S. government efforts to eliminate diversity initiatives are not going down well on the European continent

Laurent Saint-Martin, France’s minister for foreign trade, said on Monday the country won’t compromise after the U.S State Department said that French companies who have contracts with the U.S. government need to drop diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In neighboring Belgium, where some companies received similar requests, the government lashed out at the new U.S. rules.

French media reported last week that French companies received a letter saying U.S. President Donald Trump’s rollback of DEI initiatives also could apply outside of the U.S. Saint-Martin spoke to RTL Radio following the reports and said French authorities will

seek explanations from their U.S. counterparts about the letter

The reported demands included abandoning inclusion policies that are part of French and European Union laws such as equality between men and women, the ﬁght against discrimination and racism or the promotion of diversity to help people with disabilities, he said.

“All of this is progress that corresponds ﬁrst and foremost to our French values, we are proud of this and we don’t want to compromise on it,” Saint-Martin said. “We can’t just cancel the application of our own laws overnight.”

French media said the letter was signed by an ofﬁcer of the U.S. State Department who is on the staff at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. The embassy didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce, speaking to reporters at a brieﬁng in

Washington, conﬁrmed that letters were sent.

“This is an effort to comply with the executive order from the president and it is essentially a self-certifying statement to local consulates and embassies,” she said.

Le Figaro daily newspaper published what it said was a copy of the letter The document said an executive order that Trump signed in January terminating DEI programs within the federal government also “applies to all suppliers and service providers of the U.S. Government, regardless of their nationality and the country in which they operate.”

The document asked U.S. government contractors to complete, sign and return within ﬁve days a separate certiﬁcation form to demonstrate that they are in compliance.

Saint-Martin said he was “deeply shocked” but insisted on the need to have a “positive agenda” and maintain a dialogue with the U.S. In Belgium, Finance Minister Jan Jambon said Europeans have a “culture of nondiscrimination” that must be continued. “We have no lessons to learn from the boss of America,” he told channel RTL-TVi.

Entergy’s gas holdings set to be added

BY LIZ SWAINE Staff writer

may be different, but the transition should be seamless to CenterPoint’s 380,000 customers in Louisiana and Mississippi.

he said. The same offer will be made to Entergy employees.

The $1.2 billion acquisition is complete. Delta Utilities now owns CenterPoint Energy’s natural gas distribution in Louisiana and Mississippi. By the summer, they are set to add Entergy’s gas distribution, giving Delta reach into large chunks of Louisiana that include Shreveport, Bossier City, Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Delta Utilities CEO Tim Poche said the company name and logo

“They will interface, interact with us just like they do CenterPoint today, we have a transition services agreement in place with CenterPoint,” Poche said. That means for the next six to 12 months, CenterPoint customers will log into the same website and use the same auto-pay system.

With the anticipated summer addition of Entergy’s gas assets, Delta, headquartered in New Orleans, would become one of the 40 largest natural gas providers in the U.S. with 600,000 customers and a $1.7 billion business.

The company is wholly owned by Bernhard Capital Partners and its afﬁliated funds. BCP is a private equity management company headquartered in Baton Rouge.

schedules and riders. These commitments will ensure continued rate stability for customers for a signiﬁcant amount of time.” Poche has been following the natural gas market and is aware of talk of price increases due to data center power needs and LNG exports.

Job offers have also been made to the 500 current CenterPoint employees, and Poche said they’re all joining the team. “They’re the most important asset of the organization, that asset walking in and out of the door every day and we want to protect it and invest in it,”

When the Louisiana Public Service Commission approved the sale of CenterPoint in November, Delta Utilities said they were “committed to continuing under the existing rate stabilization plan, tariffs,

“We anticipate a very stable rate environment. We are stepping into the shoes, as we’re saying, of CenterPoint,” he said. “We received unanimous regulatory approval from Louisiana and from the Mississippi regulators, and the rates will continue to be intact for a fairly long-term period.”

Email Liz Swaine at liz.swaine@ theadvocate.com. Delta

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

French companies received a letter last week that said President Donald Trump’s rollback of DEI initiatives also could apply outside of the U.S

Lawmakers consider amendment future

Measure’s failure looms ahead of legislative session

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

After Gov Jeff Landry and his allies in the Legislature failed to convince voters to green-light a constitutional amendment to change state tax policy, lawmakers are already beginning to formulate an alternative plan.

The question is: Will they again propose a sprawling rewrite of an entire section of the constitution, or will they take a less ambitious approach?

The decision looms large as the next legislative session is set to begin in two weeks on April 14.

On Saturday 65% of voters or roughly 410,000 out of the 634,000 total who cast ballots rejected Amendment 2, which failed by wide margins in urban, mostly Democratic parishes but also failed in some Republican areas of the state.

The proposed amendment would have been a near-complete revision of Article VII of the Louisiana Constitution an expansive and complicated section that governs state taxes and budgeting.

Now lawmakers are back at the

TEACHERS

Continued from page 1A

drawing board

At least one piece of legislation aimed at constitutional changes to state tax law likely will be introduced during the regular session this year, said state Rep. Julie Emerson, R-Carencro, who sponsored Amendment 2 and was a key ﬁgure in advancing the Landry administration’s tax policy initiatives over the past several months.

Emerson, who chairs the House tax-writing committee, said she’s unsure if legislation will take a more “broad strokes” approach or if it will be narrowly focused on certain changes

“I do think you’ll see at least one bill that deals with Article VII. I just don’t know how many pieces of Article VII we’ll be trying to deal with,” she said.

DepartmentofRevenueSecretary

Richard Nelson, the architect of the tax overhaul pushed by the Landry administration during a November special session, said he would “continue to work with the Legislature to earn voter support for essential revisions to Article VII.”

Asked what legislation this year could entail, Nelson said, “We are still looking at our options.”

Some think a piecemeal approach might be more palatable to voters.

Amendment 2 was “a very ambitious approach,” said Sen. Franklin Foil, R-Baton Rouge, who chairs the Senate tax-writing committee.

“If I were to try to do it again, I might try to do it in smaller pieces so people can have some options as opposed to just one big amendment with everything in it,” he said.

Policy plans

Amendment 2 included dozens of proposed changes. Among them:

n Loosen restrictions on constitutionally protected state trust funds dedicated to speciﬁc priorities such as coastal restoration and education

n Put a constitutional cap of 3.75% on the state income tax rate

n Put a higher standard tax deduction for seniors in the constitution

n Allow state lawmakers to adjust certain property tax exemptions

n Make it harder for lawmakers to approve tax break programs

n Free up money to increase teacher salaries by $2,000 by paying off $2 billion of state debt using money in state trust funds.

“I thought it was a really good amendment and would have done a lot of really good things for the public,” Foil said.

Looking ahead to this year’s legislative session, he said, “everything is on the table.”

Foil said he’s unsure if the plan will ultimately result in another proposed constitutional amendment or just changes to state stat-

spokesperson, Kate Kelly, said in a statement. She added Landry will “continue to advocate for structural reform to provide a permanent pay increase for our teachers.” However, it’s not clear how permanent raises would be possible without the funding that was expected to come from the passage of Amendment 2. If voters had approved the amendment, it would have dissolved three longstanding education trust funds and used that money to pay down debts related to the state’s teachers’ retirement fund, for which individual districts pay interest School systems would then have been expected to put some of their savings, estimated to be about $200 million annually, toward giving teachers and sup-

port staff raises. Rep. Barbara Freiberg, R-Baton Rouge, who serves on the House Education and Legislative Budget

ute, but either way he’s “anxious to move forward.”

Some of his priorities that were also part of Amendment 2 include doubling the standard deduction for seniors and merging two state savings accounts that are designed to help the state weather ﬁnancial downturns. Emerson said it’s particularly worth revisiting the debt payment that would pave the way for teacher salary increases. And like Foil, she said important priorities include doubling the standard deduction for seniors and merging the two state savings accounts.

Those two accounts are trust funds set up through the constitution.

The Budget Stabilization Fund was set up in 1990, and money in that account can be used when the state is facing budget shortfalls. As of November, the fund balance was $1.06 billion.

The Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund was set up in 2016 to shield the state from year-to-year ﬂuctuations in oil and gas revenue and corporate tax revenues. Money there can be used for transportation and construction projects and in emergency cases decided by the Legislature. Its balance was $2.77 billion as of October Amendment 2 would have essentially combined these two accounts, leaving the Budget Stabilization

committees, said she supports raising teacher pay but understands why voters declined to approve the 115-page amendment, pointing to its length and complexity

“People were concerned about an amendment with so much in it,” she said. “We have to go back to the drawing board.”

Freiberg said she would support either permanent teacher raises or one-time stipends this session if Landry and lawmakers can find funding. She noted that the governor’s proposed budget, released in February, does not include funding for stipends.

Last year’s proposed budget also did not initially include money for stipends. The governor agreed later to include the funding in exchange for $24 million in cuts to day care subsidies.

Fund while eliminating the Revenue Stabilization Fund and freeing up more money for lawmakers to spend on yearly expenses.

Lessons learned

As lawmakers consider the path forward, some said they received valuable feedback from constituents on the lack of support for Amendment 2.

One of those was House budget Chair Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, who said voters called him to share their reasoning for voting “no.”

The task of educating voters on a complex amendment was a tall one, he said.

“It’s difficult to educate every voter on each part of that. I mean it was a lot in one amendment,” McFarland said.

Emerson acknowledged, “there were a lot of components to Amendment 2.”

“We had a lot of people reach out and say, you know, it was just too much,” she said. “I wish y’all could maybe break it up a little bit.”

She heard from several people that they were confused about it after hearing a lot of information, both for and against the measure.

“Several people told me I didn’t go vote because I heard so much on both sides, and I was confused about it,” she said.

Richard Nelson, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue, said this year’s steep budget shortfall will likely make it more difﬁcult to ﬁnd funding for teacher pay

“There’s just not as much wiggle room in the budget,” he said in an interview Monday

The state’s largest teachers union, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, had supported the amendment.

Since voters rejected it, union President Larry Carter said he has been in touch with lawmakers and Landry to ﬁgure out next steps.

He said the big question now is how the state would pay for a salary increase.

“With the amendment failing,” he said, “funding for teacher pay raises is uncertain.”

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Jeff Parish Council election ends in upset

Longtime member

finishes out of runoff

BY LARA NICHOLSON Staff writer

West Bank political veteran

Ricky Templet, who was bested by two opponents in the race for his former seat on the Jefferson Parish Council on Saturday, was likely a casualty of higher than normal voter turnout and a growing discontent for the rapid-ﬁre policy changes enacted by Gov Jeff Landry and the GOP-controlled state Legislature, political observers say Templet, a long-serving Republican, received endorsements from most local politicians, including Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng and U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson.

His war chest also far exceeded his opponents, with Templet raising $388,000 compared with $173,500 by Timothy Kerner Jr and just $2,705 by Andrea Manuel.

Still, he ran third, garnering only 28% of the vote. Manuel, a littleknown Democrat from Gretna, was the front-runner with 36%, and Kerner, the Republican mayor of Jean Laﬁtte, came in a close second with 35.6%.

The pair will meet in a runoff on May 3.

ä See ELECTION, page 2B

Authorities detail former deputy’s arrest

Ex-officer allegedly asked teen for photos

BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer

A former Jefferson Parish Sher-

iff’s Ofﬁce deputy, accused of inappropriate communication with a 14-year-old girl, exchanged more than 4,000 messages with the teen including some that were sexual in nature, according to authorities. In one of the messages, James Traylor, 57, told the teen he wanted her to “sit on my lap and wrap your arms and legs around me,” according to new details revealed by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Ofﬁce during a bail hearing on Monday in Jefferson Parish Magistrate Court. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto on Monday said he was embarrassed by the allegations against Traylor, who retired from the department in 2022 after 34 years. He was working as a reserve deputy at the time of his arrest.

“I’m not trying to sweep this under the rug. This is appalling,” said Lopinto, who suspected there may be more victims.

Traylor was taken into custody Thursday and booked on counts of computer-aided solicitation of a minor He met the victim while she was attending St Angela Merici School, a Catholic elementary school in Metairie, where Traylor worked as a resource ofﬁcer according to the Assistant District Attorney Tonia Williams The Archdiocese of New Orleans declined to comment on the case.

BRIGHT SPOT

A couple shares an umbrella with Mardi Gras colors and a quiet embrace while walking through the rain in the French Quarter of New Orleans on Monday Even as storms

Voters reject criminal justice funding

BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer

Despite an unprecedented degree of support from a who’s who of elected ofﬁcials, voters in St. Tammany joined the chorus of “nos” across the state on Saturday to reject a novel proposal to fund the northshore District Attorney’s Ofﬁce, the 22nd Judicial District Court and the St. Tammany Justice Center It marked the sixth time since 2016 that St. Tammany voters rejected a tax proposition to fund the parish’s criminal justice system.

This time around, parish ofﬁcials asked voters to approve the rededication of a portion of an existing sales tax, emphasizing that it wasn’t a new tax they were seeking.

But voters again said “no.”

“I’m disappointed,” said District Attorney Collin Sims, who has worked in the office since 2015 and experienced the years of consternation in the parish over how to fund the criminal justice system with money from the parish government’s increasingly in-demand general fund.

“The taxpayer doesn’t have trust in government and, to be

honest, it’s government’s fault,” Sims said.

The proposal would have freed up a portion of an existing 2% sales tax that can only be used for roads and drainage and allowed it to fund the criminal division of the District Attorney’s Ofﬁce, the 22nd Judicial District Court and expenses of the St. Tammany Justice Center

The sales tax is expected to bring in $89 million annually and 17% of that would have been used as revenue for the criminal justice system.

See FUNDING, page 2B

AG’s Office to defend death sentence

Antoinette Frank on death row for 1995 shooting

BY JILLIAN KRAMER Staff writer

Louisiana Attorney General

Liz Murrill’s ofﬁce announced on Monday that it will take over defending the conviction and death sentence of Antoinette Frank, the former New Orleans police ofﬁcer who killed two restaurant workers in a notorious triple homicide that shocked the city

Murrill said in a statement that adopting Frank’s post-conviction case was part of a sweeping offer she’s made to every Louisiana district attorney to “take over defending in all of the death penalty cases through post-conviction relief, federal habeas, and execution.”

Murrill said many on death row have raised “the same or very similar” claims, and having her

April is peak Louisiana. Flowers. Showers. Sun. Music. Festivals. There are the biggies Baton Rouge Blues Festival (Friday through Sunday), the French Quarter Festival (April 10-13), Festival International in Lafayette (April 23-27) and Jazz Fest in New Orleans (April 24-May 4). There are also other delights that don’t get as much attention that the more intrepid would appreciate.

Hallmark-style charm

Last year I went to New Iberia’s Books Along the Teche Literary Festival and had one of the most enjoyable weekends of my life. I realize that may sound like a stretch, but the weekend had all the things: perfect weather, great food, a cute town, lots of books and incredibly kind, smart and generous people. I’m going back this year because I liked it so much. (In full disclosure, I’m making a presentation, too.)

The festival begins Friday and lasts through Sunday.

New Iberia has enough charm to merit a trip almost any time (or a Hallmark made-for-TV movie for that matter), but this is the weekend it really shines. Organizers have three days of events from morning until night, including local and Southern authors, covering a wide range of topics, including:

n Storytelling traditions in Acadiana with Barry Jean Ancelet and Darrell Bourque

n How to turn travels into books and articles with Chere Coen

n A James Lee Burke Book Club discussion of “Clete” hosted virtually by CJ Lotz and Burke n The Great Southern Writer Symposium with Mary Kay Andrews

n “Critiquing Your Book: The Truth of an Audience” with Ben Gibson

n “I’ve Got an Idea for a Picture Book! Now What?” with Denise Gallagher

But that’s not all New Iberia’s book festival offers. It has adventures that build on the obsession of one of the town’s favorite sons, Burke, including a bookstore with the same name as the festival, a Dave Robicheaux-themed mystery bus tour and more, including:

n Panel discussion “Traiteurs: The Traditional Cajun French Folk Healers in the 21st Century” led by Mary Perrin

n Readers’ Theater from Burke’s book “New Iberia Blues” n T-Boy’s Adventure Boat Tour of Bayou Teche n Symphony Sunday in New Iberia City Park. Many events are free, but some require tickets. Visit booksalongthetecheliteraryfestival.com for details.

The city is a walkable, charming downtown set on Bayou Teche, with a variety of good eats, including the chic Pie Bar Plus, Avery Island, home of Tabasco and Jungle Gardens, is nearby and offers a wonderful tour of the factory and a selfdriving tour of the gardens. New Iberia, population 27,000, is about 135 miles from New Orleans if you avoid the interstate and take U.S. 90. Having done that drive many times, I appreciate its scenery and noninterstateness. From Baton Rouge, New Iberia is about 70 miles. I love much of that drive, too, by opting for the more rural route that takes me over drawbridges and through sugar

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Jan Risher

LOUISIANA AT LARGE

FILE PHOTO

Antoinette Frank is escorted out of the Kim Anh Restaurant after the jury was given a tour of the murder scene Sept. 27, 1995. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s office announced on Monday that it will take over defending the conviction and death sentence of Frank.

ST. TAMMANY

Mid-City house may be demolished

BY MARCO CARTOLANO Staff writer

An abandoned Mid-City house with more than a dozen propane tanks inside caught ﬁre March 25, grabbing the neighborhood’s attention as smoke billowed from the blighted structure. There is evidence that human interaction contributed to the blaze, Fire Capt. Edwin Holmes said Monday, but the incident is under investigation. It is unclear if the ﬁre was accidental or intentional, Holmes said.

The fire last week was not the ﬁrst time the home near the corner of South Telemachus and Palmyra streets worried neighbors, who say it has been long-abandoned, is in deteriorating condition and attracts squatters.

“It just got worse and worse with every storm,” said Eileen McClelland, who lives a few houses down from the house. “With the fire, it just looks like it’s more likely to fall down in the next hurricane and damage somebody’s property.”

The New Orleans Department of Code Enforcement said Friday a demolition order has been placed on the house, but it needs approval from the Historic District Landmarks Commission before plans can move forward.

While ofﬁcials believe the house is not in imminent danger of collapsing, it soon will be and it cannot be rehabilitated. Certain architectural elements could be salvaged such as historic wood windows, according to the Department of Code Enforcement statement.

The fire in Mid-City Firefighters were called to the two-story, multiunit house about 9:30 a.m., and the second ﬂoor was heavily involved when they arrived, according to the New Orleans Fire Department.

The blaze was under control by 10:11 a.m. and no injuries were reported, but firefighters found empty or partially used propane tanks in every room of the second floor and there were reports of a vagrant inside the house.

The front and side doors of the singed house were boarded up by Thursday afternoon.

DEPUTY

Continued from page 1B

Traylor and the girl exchanged text messages on Facebook and Snapchat. He’d asked the teen to use Snapchat because of the app’s instant-delete feature that erases messages once they’ve been viewed, authorities said.

Traylor sent the girl messages that were sexual in nature, according to Williams. In one message, Traylor said, “I want you to have your way with me in the hot tub,” according to Williams. The communications included

FRANK

Continued from page 1B

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams’ office did not respond to a request for comment about ceding Frank’s case to the attorney general. Neither office responded Monday to a request for a copy of a letter making it official.

Louisiana ended a 15-year hiatus in executions when it killed Jessie Hoffman Jr on March 18 using nitrogen gas. A federal judge had blocked Hoffman’s execution,

ELECTION

Continued from page 1B

Turnout for the primary was around 31%, a full 10% higher than the turnout statewide, according to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Ofﬁce.

This is Templet’s second election loss in a row, the ﬁrst being in 2023 when Parish Council member Jennifer Van Vrancken unseated him from at-large Division A Before that, he served on the Parish Council from 2012 to 2023.

District 1 includes Gretna, Terrytown, Jean Laﬁtte, Crown Point, Estelle, Barataria, Grand Isle and parts of Harvey and Marrero.

A major factor in the outcome of Saturday’s council election was the four statewide constitutional amendments the race shared a ballot with, according to political analyst John Couvillon, CEO of JMC Analytics and Polling. Advocacy groups and community leaders launched messaging

FUNDING

Continued from page 1B

PHOTO PROVIDED By NEW ORLEANS FIRE DEPARTMENT

New Orleans Fire Department firefighters work to douse a fire at an abandoned Mid-City house on March 25.

Andre Bosch, who lives across the street from the abandoned house, said the boards were installed shortly after the ﬁre.

The house has been abandoned for at least 10 years, neighbors said, and has been left exposed to the elements, racking up over 20 code violations for issues with its electrical system, sanitation, weeds and plant growth, roof and exterior walls.

Many of those code violations are still open, according to the city’s One Stop App, a portal where residents can search for permit information and submit permit requests.

“In the four years I’ve lived here, it’s been abandoned the entire time,” Bosch said.

McClelland said pieces of the gutter fell off during Hurricane Ida and were left dangling, the yard is occasionally overgrown and squatters stay in the house from time to time.

Jasmine Haddad, another neighbor, said issues with the building’s condition have worsened more recently, but neighbors didn’t know about the presence of the propane tanks until the ﬁre.

“We had no idea what was inside that building,” Haddad said.

‘Doesn’t seem . rehabable’

Neighbors have been unable to get in contact with the property owner for years to discuss selling the property or its condition, Haddad said.

tongue and kissing emojis, Williams told the court.

Traylor asked the teen for nude photos, photos of herself in a bikini and photos of herself in the shower Williams said.

The two met up at the Bonnabel Boat launch in Metairie on March 24 and March 25.

The two hugged but no sexual activity was reported, Williams said.

A friend of the victim notiﬁed her parents of the “inappropriate relationship” on Wednesday, Williams said. Her parents reported the matter to the Sheriff’s Ofﬁce. Jefferson Parish Criminal Commissioner David Wolff set Traylor’s bail at $200,000 on Monday. Wolff

but Murrill fought in court to reinstate it.

Just who may face execution next among the state’s 55 death row prisoners is uncertain. Capital defense lawyers claim none have exhausted their full legal remedies, which also include a review by a federal judge.

But Murrill’s ofﬁce argues that Frank has waited too long to challenge her fate.

Prosecutors claim that Frank assisted her lover Rogers LaCaze, on March 4, 1995, in a late-night robbery gone awry at Kim Ahn Noodle House. A jury convicted LaCaze of

campaigns against the amendments in the weeks leading up to the election, including in Jefferson Parish. Particularly controversial were measures that would have paved the way for Landry and Republican lawmakers to rewrite the tax code and enact harsher punishments for juveniles in the criminal justice system.

As a result, more Democrats turned up at the polls, leading Manuel to garner extra support.

About 42% of voters in Saturday’s district race were Democrats, compared with 26% who were Republican and 32% who were listed as other, according to the Secretary of State’s Ofﬁce.

All four amendments were rejected by voters, one of the ﬁrst major defeats for Landry since he took ofﬁce.

“You cannot disentangle the Andrea Manuel showing from the atmospherics of the amendment voting,” Couvillon said.

Manuel’s success also represents the successful mobilization of Black voters, Couvillon said. If

“It doesn’t seem like it’s rehabable at this point, and I think what we’re trying to get the city to do is to agree take it down at this point, unfortunately,” Haddad said. “We’ve tried and tried to revive this beautiful home for almost a decade.”

The property owner is listed as Mary C. Adams on city documents. According to a statement provided by the Department of Code Enforcement, a separate owner assumed a 54% stake in the property last year

Neighbors shared an email correspondence with from Department of Code Enforcement Director Anthony T. Davis Davis told neighbors the property owners owed the city $42,695 from violations and an unpaid court judgement from 2022.

On Oct. 8, a lien was added to the property’s tax bill, according to the One Stop App.

Entergy also disconnected the house’s meter in October following requests from the neighbors and the Mid-City Neighborhood Council, according to emails provided by neighbors. Both McClelland and Haddad said the meter was illegally tampered.

“It never should have gotten to that point. The city’s been well aware of this blighted property and it should have been gone,” McClelland said. “We all knew something like (the ﬁre) would have happened.”

issued a protective order barring contact with the victim and her family

Traylor was still being held at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna on Monday afternoon.

The case is still under investigation.

“We are looking for anyone that had any type of relationship or inappropriate encounter with him. Please let us know,” Lopinto said. “We’re looking for any information that gives us the ability to add additional charges.”

Detectives can be reached by calling the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce Investigations bureau at (504) 364-5300.

killing 25-year-old Ronald Williams II, an off-duty police ofﬁcer guarding the restaurant. In a separate trial, a different jury convicted Frank of fatally shooting Cuong Vu 17, and Ha Vu 24. LaCaze and Frank each received a death sentence. LaCaze has since succeeded in having his death sentence tossed, following an appeal in 2015. He is now serving life in prison. Frank has argued that a lifetime of abuse at the hands of her father left her vulnerable to the inﬂuence of LaCaze, a drug dealer who forced her to shoot the Vus, she claims.

elected, Manuel would be the ﬁrst Black council member in what is now a minority district, with 36% Black and 17% Hispanic residents, compared to 39% White, according to U.S. census data.

Robert Collins, a public policy professor at Dillard University, said in order to win the runoff, Manuel will need another big showing from Democratic voters and will need to attract some Templet supporters, which she could do if she can win his endorsement.

The May 3 ballot won’t include any high-proﬁle state ballot measures, but it will include local millage renewals for drainage, recreation and libraries.

Turnoff from mudslinging

In the weeks leading up the election, Kerner and Templet’s campaigns became a mudslinging match in an attempt to sway voters Templet criticized Kerner’s ability to lead his town and nicknamed him “Little Timmy Kerner,” while Kerner accused Templet of being part of a political

‘I was not elected to complain’ Although there was lots of debate on social media, there was no organized opposition to the tax rededication If anything, for a tax in St. Tammany, it received an unheard-of level of support, with backing coming from local business groups, parish and state government, northshore judges, the Sheriff’s Office and influential community groups like Concerned Citizens of St. Tammany Even Gov Jeff Landry urged voters to support the sales tax rededication. Despite that support, 52% of parish voters rejected the idea. Only voters in unincorporated St. Tammany were able to vote and about 21.3% of eligible voters did, with 17,572 people voting against and 16,241 people voting in favor of it, according to the Secretary of State’s Office’s website.

That may partly explain the outcome, Sims suggested, saying voters in the unincorporated St. Tammany often deal with problems related to roads and drainage, and this proposal was shifting money away from investment in that infrastructure.

Another possibility is that the sales tax rededication got caught up in the wave of “no” votes against the four constitutional amendments on the ballot, Parish Council member Arthur Laughlin said.

Voters, however, did overwhelmingly approve another tax proposition on the ballot — a 4.35mill tax for the parish’s libraries.

Parish Council member Joe

RISHER

Continued from page 1B

25 miles of garage sales?

Not only will the town of Jackson host a car show Saturday it will also be along the route of 25 miles of garage sales along La. 10, from Clinton, through Jackson to St. Francisville. (This is rural Louisiana, which means that sales won’t be one on top of the other They’ll require some driving.)

Midway along the garage sale path, in Jackson, local residents will offer a variety of other activities, including an art gallery opening at Jackson Presbyterian Church, located at 3017 Bank St. I loved visiting Jackson a few weeks ago and looking at the innovative ways people are working together to make things work, particularly at the aforementioned Presbyterian church, which was built in 1852, and is down to four members.

Remarkably the church is still going relatively strong, thanks in large part to clever members who decided to open part of their lovely and historic building to

There has been little activity in her case since 2009, when Frank’s attorneys filed a supplemental petition for post-conviction relief. They alleged that egregious actions by prosecutors and an ineffective defense lawyer denied her a fair trial. The state never filed a response. After Gov Jeff Landry signed legislation last year restricting post-conviction relief, Frank’s lawyers filed a supplemental petition “out of an abundance of caution,” they wrote. But Murrill argued in the statement that Frank’s attempt to amend her petition isn’t allowed.

“machine” serving Gretna’s elite and ﬁled a lawsuit against him to stop an attack ad from airing. Manuel stayed above the fray.

“Nobody laid a glove on her because they ﬁgured she would be eliminated,” Collins said. Collins said he spoke to numerous Republican voters Saturday who either voted for Manuel in protest of the two candidates or didn’t vote at all due to frustration with the divisive campaigning on both sides.

But what likely gave Kerner the edge over Templet, Couvillon said, was that voters were looking for change, even in an area as incumbent-friendly as the West Bank. Kerner framed himself as the anti-establishment candidate, despite being the third in his family to run Jean Lafitte, another point of scrutiny for Templet.

“If you as an established public ofﬁcial can only get 28%, well, that to me is pretty illustrative that perhaps voters got tired of you,” Couvillon said. Kerner has served as mayor of

Impastato, meanwhile, said some residents were confused by the language on the ballot. Despite holding around 80 outreach events, he believes they could have tried to get the message out to more of the parish.

“We are going to regroup, come up with something better, make sure it’s not a tax increase and we’re going to keep our parish safe,” Impastato said.

The District Attorney’s Ofﬁce remains fully funded in 2025. But as the parish’s 2026 budget process heats up in the fall, Sims said he will begin looking at areas where they can cut costs. Around 90% of his budget, he said, is payroll and beneﬁts.

“I was not elected to complain; I was elected to do my job and my job I intend to do,” Sims said He said he still remains dedicated to tax restructuring as a means of improving the parish’s budgets and said the new transparency committee that he created could help with that.

“We will spend as much time as it takes listening to and engaging with the voters to ﬁnd a solution that they will support to fund public safety, including the district attorney and judges’ ofﬁces,” Parish President Mike Cooper said in a statement.

The sales tax funding infrastructure is not going anywhere. The proposal Saturday would have given a 25-year extension to the sales tax, changing its expiration date to 2056.

While that didn’t happen, the sales tax will continue to be collected until 2031, at which time the parish would have to decide whether to try and renew it. For now it can only be used for infrastructure.

create an artists’ studio, with another part of the church acting as a small art gallery Jackson has around 4,000 people and is centrally located, about 35 miles north of Baton Rouge. Topographically, it just feels different from many other south Louisiana towns and cities, which could have something to do with its elevation. Jackson is a whopping 151 feet above sea level, compared to New Orleans at 6, Lafayette at 36 and Baton Rouge at 56 feet above sea level. I ﬁnd Jackson fascinating with its interesting architecture. It was named in 1815 for Andrew Jackson, after he led troops to win the Battle of New Orleans. It was the original home of Centenary College and some of the buildings are still there, maintained by the Louisiana Ofﬁce of State Parks.

These days, it’s also home to Cotton Fields Coffee Shop, owned and operated by the incredibly engaging Fields Day, which is a story in and of itself. If you are in Jackson, stop by Cotton Fields Coffee for a boost of caffeine and spirit.

Email Jan Risher at jan. risher@theadvocate.com.

“The state’s position is that she has exhausted her appeals,” she said.

Monday’s announcement came during a hearing at which Criminal District Court Judge Kimya Holmes granted the state an extension to respond to Frank’s claims, setting a hearing for April 14.

“The fact that no one moved on this for 16 years is shameful,” Holmes said.

Nalia Campbell, one of Frank’s attorneys, did not oppose the delay

Email Jillian Kramer at jillian. kramer@theadvocate.com.

Jean Laﬁtte since 2020. He earned endorsements from Van Vrancken, Lt. Gov Billy Nungesser and his father, state Rep. Timothy Kerner Sr Manuel is a bilingual Spanish educator, life coach and a member of the Democratic State Central Committee. She received no endorsements. Both candidates ran unsuccessfully for state offices in 2023. Kerner ran against Sen. Patrick Connick, a Republican, and Manuel ran against Rep. Vincent Cox III, also a Republican Email Lara Nicholson at lnicholson@theadvocate.com.

LOTTERY

SUNDAY, MARCH

Pearson, Robert

Ruhlman, Robert

E Jefferson Garden of Memories

Pearson, Robert

Ruhlman, Robert

New Orleans Charbonnet

Lake Lawn Metairie

St Tammany Audubon

Obituaries

Michael K. Crane passed away on March 27, 2025 at 81 years of age. He was born on November 14, 1943 in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Central Catholic High School in San Antonio before moving to New Orleans to attend Loyola University. There he was amember of Beggars Fraternity and earned aBachelor in Business Administration. In this time of changing jobs frequently, Michael was an anomaly. Hisentire career of nearly 42 years was spent in the service of one company, Stewart Enterprises, Inc. While a student at Loyola, he took aweekend summer job at Lake Lawn Park Cemetery answering callsand assisting sales professionals with their leads. He became afull-time sales counselor in 1964. Over the next four decades, he advanced through multiple positions -sales group manager, sales director, preneed sales director, and vice president of sales at Stewart Enterprises. He was the recipient of numerous awards and accolades including recognition as thetop salesperson in the country by the Prearrangement Interment Association of America and its Counselor of the Year five years in arow.He was aPaul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. As his career advanced, Michael moved into the executive ranks of Stewart Enterprises ultimately becoming President of the Central Division, the position he held until retiring in 2005. Michael was agenuine southern gentleman to all who knew him. He was adevout Catholicand most recently aparishionerofSt. Peter Catholic Church in Covington. In his retirement, he enjoyed many pursuits, including golfing, swimming, traveling and the outdoors. He was along suffering and loyal Saints fan. Most of all, he enjoyed spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren and grand dogs. He is preceded in death by his parents, John M. Crane and Julia "Judy" Brown Crane, and brother, Jon Stephen Crane. Michael was aloving, generous and devoted husband and father. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Barbara Kogos Crane; daughter, Emily Michelle Crane; sons, Michael Keith Crane, Jr Allan Charles Crane (Marjorie), and Jeffrey Rene Crane (Janet); grandchildren, Paul and Judy Crane; and brother, Warren Patrick Crane. The family gives aheartfelt thank you to Ochsner Health System, particularly St. Tammany Parish Hospital in Covington, Dr. Craig Seicshnaydre, and the exemplary skilled and compassionate 3rd floor care team. Relatives and friends are invited to attend aFuneral Mass at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100

Hospital in Covington, Dr. Craig Seicshnaydre,and the exemplary skilled and compassionate 3rd floor care team. Relatives and friends areinvited to attend aFuneral Mass at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home,5100 Pontchartrain Blvd., New Orleans, LA 70124 on Thursday, April 3, 2025, at12:00 p.m. Visitation will begin at 10:00 a.m. until service time. Interment will follow at Metairie Cemetery in All Saints Mausoleum. Inlieu of flowers, please consider adonation to St. Michael's Special School,1522 Chippewa St., New Orleans, LA 70130 or Little Sisters of the Poor,1655 McGill Ave., Mobile, AL 36604. To share your fond thoughts, memories, and condolenceswith the family, please visit the online guestbook at lakelawnmetairie com.

Hilleren, Willie 'Billy' Crutchfield Wright

Billy Wright Hilleren passedaway on March 27, 2025 at Oakwöld Plantation in Evergreen, Louisiana, the cherished home of her childhood and her residence for the past nineteen years.A native of Evergreen, she graduated from Bunkie High School before continuing hereducation at Louisiana State University.

Billy dedicatedher professional life to serving others. She began hercareer at the Louisiana State Department of Health and subsequently earnedher certification from Ochsner Hospital as aregistereddietitian in New Orleans. Her passion for advocacy led hertoLoyola University, where she obtained her Juris Doctorate beforeembarking on adistinguished twenty-one-year careeras an attorneyalongside her husband, David Hilleren. She was deeply committed to seeking justice for her disadvantaged clients and was both admiredand respectedbythose she represented.

Adevoted member of Hessmer Baptist Church, Billy found great joy in singing in the choir, volunteering at Vacation Bible School, and serving as Youth Director. She was also aMaster Gardener and dedicatedher recreational time to beautifying the Oakwöld grounds, areflection of her deep love for nature and her home

Billy is survived by her husband of forty-sixyears, David Hilleren; her four children, Rebecca Wright Dupree King, William GainesDupree (Tasha), Christine HillerenWilkins (Chad), and ClayKemper Hilleren(Kathleen); her brother, John Burns Brunson Wright (Annette); and herfive treasured grandchildren, Addison Holaday King (Katie), Brittany Porter KingDartez (Brooks), Jeanne Claire Hilleren, John David Hilleren, and Luca David Wilkins. She was preceded in death by herbeloved parents, Porter and Barbra Wright, and her sister, Virginia KemperWright.

Family and friends are invited to avisitation on April 5, 2025 from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. at Bayou Rouge Baptist Church in Evergreen, followedbya memorial service celebrating Billy's life.Inlieu of flowers, memorialcontributions may be made to theFood Bank of Central Louisiana, 3223 Baldwin Avenue,Alexandria,LA 71301, or Heart of Hospice, 1001 Bayou Place, Alexandria, LA 71303.

The Family wishes to extend their heartfelt gratitude to Lisa Fields and family and Christian at Heart of Hospice fortheir loving care in Billy'sfinal chapter of life

It is with profound sad‐ness that we announce the passing of Ronald Hines, Sr., affectionately known as "Big Ronald." Mr. Hines a distinguished husband, father grandfather and Marine, peacefully passed away on Sunday, March 23, 2025 at the age of 75, sur‐rounded by those who loved him dearly He was born in New Orleans on No‐vember 2, 1949 to the late Jeff, Jr. and Luella Hines. Ronald was a student at Booker T Washington High School Survivors include his devoted wife, Elois Hines; supportive brothers, Jeff Hines, III and Jihad x Al- Mujaheed aka Charles Hines; beloved children, Sonya Bullock (Sokoto), Ronald Jr Jamal, Sr. (Latashia) and Lerone Hines, Sr. (Lauren); twenty ﬁve treasured grand and great grandchildren; beloved partner, Patricia Morgan; many nieces nephews, cousins, other relatives and close friends. In addition to his parents, Mr Hines is also preceded in death by siblings, Berna‐dine Moran, Eddie and Jef‐frey Hines; nieces and a nephew, Zita Hines, Yolanda Scott and Arthur Moran, III. A Funeral ser‐vice honoring the life and legacy of the late Ronald Hines, Sr., will be held at St Peter Claver Church 1923 St Philip Street, New Orleans LA on Wednesday April 2, 2025 at 10 am, Pas‐tor Troy Lawrence of Reap‐ing the Harvest, Ofﬁciating Interment Southeast Louisiana Veterans Ceme‐tery, 34888 Grantham Col‐lege Drive Slidell, LA. Visi‐tation 9 am in the church Please sign online guest‐book at www charbonnetf uneralhome.com Charbon‐net Labat Glapion, Direc‐tors (504) 581-4411.

Mangiapane Sr., Joseph Sherwood

was a commercial loan of‐ficer for various banks and won many awards for his outstanding performances His professional life was marked by integrity, dedi‐cation, and a genuine con‐cern for the financial wellbeing of his clients. In his family life, Joseph Sr en‐joyed coaching his son, Joey, and all of Joey’s friends in track football, and baseball at Johnny Bright Playground He often could be heard remi‐niscing on his time as “Coach Joe.” It was obvi‐ous to all who knew himhe truly cherished those years and memories In re‐tirement, he voluntarily en‐tertained our aging com‐munity in various assisted living facilities in Slidell. His melodious voice and warm presence brought comfort and happiness to many and his perfor‐mances were often the highlight of the day for those he serenaded Joseph was a man who gave of himself selflessly, always placing the needs of his family and friends above his own. His legacy is one of kindness, com‐passion, and an enduring love that will continue to inspire those he leaves be‐hind Joseph was proud of his lifetime service to the United States Navy, his family his years coaching, his loyal banking cus‐tomers and the commu‐nity of Slidell. He will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him Rela‐tives and friends are in‐vited to attend a visitation on Wednesday, April 2 2025, from 10:00 a.m to 12:00 p.m at St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church in Slidell. A Funeral Mass will begin at noon Joseph will be laid to rest with Mil‐itary Honors in the South‐east Louisiana Veterans Cemetery following ser‐vices. Memories and con‐dolences may be ex‐pressed at www Audubon FuneralHome.com

Ruhlman, Robert Ray

We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of Robert Ray Ruhlman, born in New Orleans on January 26, 1960 to the late George J. Ruhlman, Jr. and Alice R Ruhlman. Rob passed away on March 24, 2025 after a long battle with cancer. He is survived by his loving partner Charles M Barbier; siblings Margaret R. Mang (Fabien), Bernice R. DeCorte and John R. Ruhlman (Eileen); nieces and nephews, George J Ruhlman IV Amanda M Weaver (Dustin), Melissa A Mang Jessica D Reeg (Steven), John R. Ruhlman Jr (Kaitlin), Joel Ray Ruhlman (Amanda), and Dara R Greene (Jordan). He was preceded in death by his brother George J Ruhlman III. Rob graduated from St. John Preparatory School in New Orleans and went on to Saint Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, La. where he achieved a BA in psychol‐ogy and philosophy He also completed graduate studies at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans where he received a Mas‐ters of Divinity Rob’s work experience began as a psych tech at Jo Ellen Smith Hospital His varied experiences there helped him decide to join the mili‐tary He served six years in the U.S. Navy, mostly spent on the USS Independence Aircraft Carrier as a com‐bat systems tech. After his military service ended, he worked at Tulane Univer‐sity in the Psychology De‐partment as a computer tech and troubleshooter Post Katrina, Rob started a repair and remodeling company with Charlie Bar‐bier They offered Handy‐man Services and helped repair and rebuild many damaged properties after

repair and remodeling company with Charlie Bar‐bier They offered Handy‐

Dean AnthonyD’Arcangelo April1,1969-August7,2015

Robert “Bob” Edward Pearson 91, of Metairie Louisiana, passed away peacefully on Friday, March 28, 2025. Bob was born on February 8, 1934, in Lake Village, Arkansas to the late James Boyd Pear‐son and the late Odessa Swaim Pearson He was preceded in death by his parents and sister Jane Pearson Bob was a loving husband, stepfather and grandfather He leaves be‐hind his wife Jeannie Rue Pearson, with whom he shared 40 years of love, partnership, and dedica‐tion to family; his daugh‐ter, Elizabeth Rue Brennan, his son, Stephen Robert Rue (Elizabeth Herberg), granddaughters, Brooke Bridgeman Brennan (Mac Brennan), Ashley Elizabeth Brennan (Jack Schwietz), and GiGi Elise Herberg, along with his brother-inlaw, J Robert Ates. Bob was an accomplished ath‐lete in football, basketball, and track in high school, which earned him a full athletic scholarship to at‐tend the University of Arkansas, where he was a proud member of the Ra‐zorback football team In January of 1957, Bob gradu‐ated from the University of Arkansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in Busi‐ness Administration, which set Bob up for a successful lifelong business career Bob also proudly served this country that he so loved, spending 30 years in the Army Reserves, retiring in 1985 as a Lieutenant Colonel. Relatives and friends are invited to at‐tend Bob’s funeral services on Thursday, April 3, 2025, at Garden of Memories Fu‐neral Home, 4900 Airline Drive, Metairie, Louisiana 70001. Visitation will be held from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, with a service begin‐ning at 1:00 pm A burial will take place immedi‐ately after services in Gar‐den of Memories Cemetery with Military Honors. In lieu of ﬂowers the family request that donations be made in Bob’s memory to the Wounded Warrior Pro‐ject Online condolences may be offered at www gar denofmemoriesmetairie com.

HAPPYBIRTHDAY

ONE

Joseph Sher‐wood Mangiapane Sr of Slidell, Louisiana, passed away on March 25, 2025, at the age of 81. He was a na‐tive of New Orleans Louisiana, born on August 30, 1943, to his loving par‐ents, the late Sherwood and Katherine Mangia‐pane Joseph is survived by his devoted wife of 24 years, Patricia Mangia‐pane; his son, Joseph Man‐giapane Jr. (girlfriend, Ali McFarland); as well as one granddaughter, Molly Man‐giapane He is also sur‐vived by a host of ex‐tended family and friends all of whom he loved greatly. Mangiapane began his 22 year career in the United States Navy in 1965, after graduating from Southeastern Louisiana University He spent four years on board various naval vessels some trans‐porting forces to fight in Vietnam and others replen‐ishing underway vessels serving the U.S fighting task force in Vietnam Dur‐ing these four years he served in many positions, including Communications’ Officer for the staff, han‐dling of crucial operations. Upon leaving active duty Mr Mangiapane remained in the Naval Reserves for 18 years, wherein he was President of the Naval Re‐serve Association and achieved the rank of com‐mander. In his civilian life, Commander Mangiapane was a commercial loan of‐ficer for various banks and won many awards for his outstanding performances His professional life was marked by integrity, dedi‐cation, and a genuine con‐cern for the financial wellbeing of his clients. In his family life, Joseph Sr en‐joyed coaching his son, Joey and all of Joey’s friends in track, football, and baseball at Johnny Bright Playground He often could be heard remi‐niscing on his time as “Coach Joe.” It was obvi‐ous to all who knew himhe truly cherished those years and memories In re‐tirement, he voluntarily en‐tertained our aging com‐munity in various assisted living facilities in Slidell. His melodious voice and w

Mangiapane Sr., Joseph Hines Sr., Ronald

Hilleren, Willie

Crane, Michael

Pearson, Robert Edward 'Bob'

Crane, Michael K.

Mangiapane Sr., Joseph

Crane, Michael

Hines Sr., Ronald

OUR VIEWS

Johnston was epitome of bipartisan class

Former U.S. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, who died March 25 at age 92, was a signiﬁcant player on national policy and an absolute giant of Louisiana politics. Both state and nation were better for his public service.

Johnston, a lawyer and Army veteran, began his political career in Caddo Parish with elections to the state House of Representatives in 1964 and the state Senate in 1968. In those days of notoriously indecorous (to put it kindly) state government, Johnston began forging a reputation as a quiet, serious legislator Given little chance when he entered a 16-candidate Democratic ﬁeld for governor in 1971, he tapped into a new voter hunger for reform to earn a runoff primary spot against then-U.S. Rep. Edwin Edwards.

Edwards’ scant 4,488-vote runoff victory, alas, kept Louisiana in the state-politics-as-entertainment business, but the skintight race had the effect of giving Johnston the statewide name recognition to easily win a U.S. Senate race in 1972. Johnston’s ascent to Washington, D.C., arguably was an inﬂection point, as he ushered in the decades-long era in which most Louisiana members of Congress began establishing reputations not as colorful Southern demagogues but as bipartisan workhorses often key to the agreements that just plain “got things done.”

Using affability more than raw power plays during his four full Senate terms, Johnston became arguably the single most influential legislator on national energy policy He did so without regard to party forging alliances with Republican presidents as well as Democratic ones Johnston pushed laws that encouraged energy exploration that greatly benefited Louisiana’s economy while helping keep energy prices low nationwide Between 1982 and 1998, the years when his legislative stewardship held most sway over national policy, inflation-adjusted energy costs declined steeply

Meanwhile, Johnston was a staunch and effective advocate for bringing federal money back home for Louisiana projects. He was a particularly diligent proponent of the Red River Project and Interstate 49, opening key transportation links between North and South Louisiana, and he helped deliver dozens of other projects to the state, including two national parks and seven wildlife refuges.

Johnston’s ﬁnal reelection campaign in 1990, was memorable for unfortunate reasons, as a late surge by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke vaulted Duke into an unexpectedly strong showing of 43.5% of the vote to Johnston’s 54%. Still, Johnston’s history of bipartisan comity helped keep the Klansman at bay, with eight Republican senators and Republican housing secretary Jack Kemp all endorsing the Democrat Johnston.

Both state and national politics could use much more of Johnston’s civility and bipartisanship today Meanwhile, Johnston leaves a legacy of responsible stewardship of the public weal Well done, and well lived.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’s city of residence

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It’s time to pay attention to what’s going on in D.C.

While New Orleans was distracted by the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, inside pages of The Times-Picayune chronicled the speedy destruction of federal government agencies. Multiple laws, regulations and civil service protections were apparently violated in the sudden executive branch attempt to fire large numbers of federal employees. Buyouts were offered, although funds had not been appropriated for this purpose. Departments were to be “closed” without congressional authorization; funding authorized by Congress was withheld in violation of law Several inspectors general, whose job was to find “waste, fraud and abuse,” were abruptly fired.

Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement used military aircraft to ﬂy detainees to Guantanamo and India, which costs much more than leasing commercial planes. More military members were stationed at the border despite reports of dramatically fewer border crossings after the inauguration.

The DOGE team (including someone

As tax season is upon us, Entergy New Orleans wants to support members of our community by providing free resources to help our customers ﬁle their taxes and maximize their returns.

For more than 15 years, Entergy has provided free tax preparation services for customers here in New Orleans. One of the most effective ways Entergy supports community members is by helping customers ﬁle for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. Last year, Entergy volunteers processed more than $55 million in tax refunds for our low-to-moderate income customers.

The Earned Income Tax Credit is one of the nation’s most effective means of lifting Americans out of poverty, ben-

ﬁred by a computer security ﬁrm for hacking) gained access to our most sensitive government data. They could view (and copy?) your health information, your bank account and Social Security information and proprietary information about companies in competition with Elon Musk’s businesses. What could possibly go wrong?

To identify “waste, fraud, and abuse,” someone must understand the context and purpose of funding. This cannot be done in a day or two, especially by someone with no knowledge of the system being evaluated. Extraordinary damage is done when people are terminated and funds are abruptly and clumsily cancelled without consideration for widespread consequences. If this has not yet affected people or things you care about, soon it will. Meanwhile, what has been done to lower the cost of living? Inﬂation has actually gone up after the inauguration. If this troubles you, call or write your members of Congress.

ROSEMARY HAYS-THOMAS New Orleans

efiting approximately nine million people each year However, the IRS reports that as many as 20% of people who qualify for this credit each year fail to claim it. If your family earned less than $64,000 in 2024, you may qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Entergy New Orleans is committed to providing meaningful financial support to our customers who live at or below the poverty line, providing access to critical tax resources that will ensure each family and filer receives the full tax refund they deserve. We encourage residents to visit us online to learn more about available resources.

DEANNA RODRIGUEZ president and CEO, Entergy New Orleans

Council ignored Marigny residents on Elysian Hotel

I am one of many Marigny residents who attended the City Council meeting on Feb. 27. My white card wasn’t pulled; I didn’t get a chance to speak. But I want to be heard like the over 600 neighbors who signed the petition against the construction of the Elysian Hotel. We are not just neighbors in a neighborhood.

We are constituents who are supposed to be represented by our council. We made it very clear that granting a FAR waiver of 20,000 square feet in violation of the zoning code is unacceptable. The council chose proﬁt over people.

BARBARA LAFLEUR

New Orleans

I have always felt that you have been fair and evenhanded in your selection of letters for publication, but I am disappointed that you chose to print the letter from Charley Ireland regarding Pope Francis. It contained, in my opinion, a gratuitous comment on the pope, who has consistently addressed the morality of certain acts in light of Christian values and not individual persons.

In fact, he has clearly stated that one should always act according to one’s conscience in matters of morals. For example, when asked a question about how one should weigh a candidate’s stance on abortion and immigration before our elections, he responded that one should consider the lesser of the two evils.

In the same vein, in response to a question about homosexuality he responded: “Who am I to judge?” Vote your conscience, he says. If we would all do this, our politics would surely serve the common good and not the good of one’s political party GERALD MURPHY New Orleans

The Jefferson Parish Council should utilize the reports from the Ofﬁce of the Inspector General to make informed decisions, especially regarding taxpayer-funded projects. Instead of leveraging these insights, some council members have been attacking the inspector general’s process.

The role of the inspector general is to issue reports, and it is the council’s responsibility, as elected ofﬁcials, to consider these reports among other factors when making decisions. If the council disagrees with the inspector general’s ﬁndings, it should proceed accordingly without creating unnecessary drama that hinders the JPOIG’s function. It is unreasonable to expect the inspector general to only issue reports that align with the council’s views.

BRIAN

WEIMER New Orleans

Voters spoke loud and clear

Well, that was something. On Saturday, Louisiana voters batted aside four attempts to amend the state constitution, rejecting a late push from Gov Jeff Landry, who championed the measures, especially Amendment 2, which would have rewritten signiﬁcant sections dealing with taxes and revenue. The votes weren’t close either: Amendment 4, a fairly low-intensity change that would have tweaked election timing for state Supreme Court justices, came the closest to passing, and it earned a measly 36% of the vote in support. If these had been candidate races, we would be calling them landslides.

First, the other numbers.

Amendment 1, which would have allowed the Legislature to create more specialty courts, lost 65-35. Amendment 2 lost by the same margin. And Amendment 3, which would have made it easier for the Legislature to add to the list of crimes for which juveniles can be charged as adults, lost 66-34. Already, and even more in the coming days, campaign data wonks will be diving into the various numbers to ﬁgure out what they all mean Those insights will prove key going forward for candidates of both parties. But even now, I think there are some takeaways that are clear.

that Louisiana is a “state conditioned for failure.”

Beyond being insulting, this spin is hard to take seriously In 2023, when Landry won the “mandate” by winning the governor’s race without going to a runoff, about 36% of the state’s voters cast ballots

This election’s turnout was about 21%, so probably some of those who voted for Landry also rejected the amendments.

More than half of the voters in Landry’s home parish of St. Martin voted against Amendment 2, for instance.

Voters in Rapides, Concordia and Red River parishes, which went 68%, 64% and 63%, respectively, for Donald Trump just four and a half months ago, also rejected all four

While a coalition of left-leaning groups did mount a campaign to reject all the amendments, they were joined in opposition, at least to Amendment 2, by some prominent conservative voices.

The Rev Tony Spell, a politically conservative ﬁrebrand and onetime Landry ally, and Woody Jenkins, the chairman of the East Baton Rouge Republican Party, are not Soros plants. Both opposed Amendment 2 because of its complexity and the fact that it would have removed from the constitution tax exemptions on religious organizations, though those protections remain in state statute.

himself on the sharp end of it. Perhaps he thought he wouldn’t be poked by the stick he helped whittle. Presenting a massive, quickly pushed through constitutional change is not a way to build trust with voters.

And this is where we get to Amendment 3. That change would have made it easier for the legislature to add crimes to the list for which children can be tried as adults. It almost certainly would have resulted in more children getting sent to prison. Its presence on the ballot energized advocates for incarcerated people and helped drive turnout among Democrats and Black voters. It seems reasonable that once pulling the lever for No on Amendment 3, most decided to do the same on 1, 2 and 4. It’s a good win for Louisiana’s beleaguered Democrats, but let’s not get hasty Republican leaders may be licking their wounds, but that doesn’t mean they won’t remain in an extremely strong position. Defeating propositions is a lot easier than putting candidates in office. Republicans still hold every single statewide elected office and supermajorities in the Louisiana House and Senate. And that brings me back to Landry In a little more than a year in office, he has been effective in pushing through his agenda. But it is also possible that he got a bit out over his skis on this one.

labeling dilemma

Amid the blizzard of breaking news, a familiar irritation poked through: ethnic labeling. The issue unexpectedly emerged while the Senate considered a stopgap federal funding bill to keep the federal government running and avoid a possible shutdown.

After President Donald Trump said Democrats would be blamed and taxes would surge if Democrats didn’t vote for the bill, he suddenly lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, in an Oval Ofﬁce meeting.

“Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned. He’s become a Palestinian,” Trump said. “He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore. He’s a Palestinian.”

Say what? Where did that come from?

Sure, like anyone else who has been following this president very closely, I was shocked but sadly not surprised.

First, this was a stinging defeat for Landry and his allies in the Legislature, many of whom stumped hard in the closing days after early voting showed more Black voters and Democrats going to the polls (more on that in a minute). Landry’s post-election comments haven’t helped, either.

He said that the defeats weren’t “a failure” but blamed them on ”far-left liberals” spreading “propaganda and outright lies” and invoked the conservative boogeyman, George Soros, as the reason the proposals lost He said

Saturday night, Jenkins offered a stern rebuff to Landry’s election-night comments. They were “an insult to the people of this state” and said the governor’s credibility with voters is “obviously very low.” In other words, perhaps Landry shouldn’t just assume that Louisiana voters are “conditioned to failure,” but rather that they harbor a deep-seated suspicion of their government. The irony, of course, is that Landry has often stoked that sentiment, but now he ﬁnds

The question now is how he will respond. Will he retreat into a conservative bunker and insist that this defeat was the work of malign outside forces and his political enemies? Or will he work to build a plan that isn’t rushed through, isn’t massively complex, gets the deliberative time it deserves and builds trust with voters?

Let’s hope for the latter

Faimon A. Roberts III can be reached at froberts@theadvocate.com.

The liberalism that leaves many Americans out of ‘Abundance’

“Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city,” former President Barack Obama rhapsodized in April 2009. “No racing to an airport and across a terminal, no delays, no sitting on the tarmac, no lost luggage, no taking off your shoes. Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.”

It’s a curious statement to find one-third of the way into a book titled “Abundance.” Not 10% of Americans live or work in the middle of a city within walking distance of a passenger train station, but as co-authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson quickly make clear their focus is on “the land that matters in the hearts of our cities,” by which they mean the giant coastal metropolitan areas where one-quarter of the public live. They make it clear as well that they’re writing for fellow liberals. They expect 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of global warming, a high-side estimate in my view, and assert confidently that “the stocks of fossil fuels are finite,” even though fracking has shown that innovation can vastly increase the amounts recoverable. They decry “closing our gates to immigrants,” ignoring the nearly 1 million new U.S citizens every year

Nevertheless, “Abundance” is full of thoughtful analysis and useful perspectives on “the pathologies of the broad left.” They tell their intended audience — Klein writes for The New York Times, Thompson for The Atlantic things already familiar to readers of conservative publications: how former President Joe Biden’s multibilliondollar program produced just seven (or maybe 55) electric vehicle charging stations, how the Biden rural broadband project connected no one, how California’s high-speed rail program — authorized by voters in 2008 after spending unpredicted billions — is still struggling to connect the metropolises of Fresno and Merced. They understand why most voters think red states are governed better than blue states

In the process, they tell the story of how the government in the 1970s vastly improved the quality and healthiness of air and water — a story little appreciated today because conservatives don’t like crediting the government, and environmentalists like to raise money by lamenting that things are worse than ever Unhappily, federal and many state laws allowed, even encouraged, lawsuits challenging environmental infringement. Thus began, with leadership from many of my law school contemporaries, the environmentlawsuit-industrial complex.

The corollary to that has been what Klein and Thompson call “everything bagel liberalism.” The 2023 Biden semiconductor bill required an environmental questionnaire to assess environmental review, mandated an “equity strategy” for applicants, and required plans to include women and other disadvantaged people such as minorities, veterans and small businesses in their supply chains something for every Democratic Party constituency

If you handed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s favorite New Dealer, Harry Hopkins, that paper, he’d quickly draw a diagonal line crossing out everything but the amount appropriated and then send telegrams to people he knew could deliver and get the job done. Klein and Thompson don’t advise anybody to do anything like that. In fact, they don’t have any recommendations for leaving any liberal constituency out in the cold. Nor do they make the point that Philip Howard makes in his several books that responsible individuals should make ﬁnal decisions and not leave them to endless committee deliberations and court processes. Instead, they point to what great things they think must be accomplished We need more solar and wind energy and high-transmission lines — they admit red Texas does better than blue California on this — and to double the electric grid because of artiﬁcial intelligence. Those solar and wind devices will require land the size of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee, plus Massachusetts and Rhode

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME.

published. Letters are not

Island. Then, “electrify everything,” replacing 1 billion machines “within the next few years.”

You will have to replace your accustomed gas stove with electric induction and your gas heat with an electric heat pump, both of which, they assure you, will work better One suspects that the several-thousand-dollar outlays will not be voluntary, at least for nonmembers of “everything bagel” constituencies. But just when you start wondering whether such things will ever happen, you read that the nation’s largest wind farm in Wyoming, which “if all goes well from here will be completed in 2026 — eighteen years after it was proposed.”

“The arc of history does not always bend toward our beliefs,” the authors admit in their conclusion. Americans are not lining up to turn in their gas stoves, and it’s apparent California’s electric car mandate won’t be met by 2035, as Democrats torch electric vehicles rather than buy them. American trust in expert scientists was frayed by the lies and misjudgments of Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, and others during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s hard to see America making the transition from spending money to reduce carbon emissions to realizing economic gains from doing so — and even harder to see how Democrats who want to build things cut through the pettifoggery of “everything bagel” constituencies’ vetoes and get to the authors’ promised land of low-carbonemissions abundance.

I guess that Klein and Thompson (brieﬂy a next-door neighbor, and a very nice one, in my Washington apartment building) wrote this book to show their fellow liberals the need to change, to stimulate on national issues the innovative success urban liberals have scored on revising big-city zoning to allow more housing. And without any of the hatred, contempt and snobbish disdain so many liberals show for the views and habits of their fellow citizens who do not share their views. Michael Barone is on X, @MichaelBarone.

Had Trump run out of things to say about the budget and taxes when a thought about the Middle East suddenly came to mind, sending him wandering away from the issues at hand?

Unfortunately this is hardly the ﬁrst instance of Trump questioning a political critic’s ethnic or racial identity As you may recall, his recent comments echoed his whoppers about then-Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2020 and about Barack Obama during his presidency. Trump saw ﬁt to question whether Obama and Harris were even natural-born American citizens.

In August 2024, during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference, Trump falsely asserted that Harris had not identiﬁed before as both Black and Indian.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now, she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump said during the NABJ interview. Suddenly, Trump took a topic that is so vexing for many that they try to avoid it, and turned it into a topic he could try to hide behind.

Trump’s campaign spokesperson eventually acknowledged Harris is a Black woman and cited donations that Trump had made to her earlier campaigns as evidence that he is not racist.

But not everyone is easily convinced. For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a leading Muslim civil rights group, was among the ﬁrst to express outrage that he called Schumer a Palestinian, calling Trump’s poisonous words beneath the dignity of his ofﬁce and, I would add, beneath the credibility of the chief executive in our “land of the free” and “home of the brave.” CAIR called Trump’s use of “Palestinian” to describe Schumer a racial slur That’s what it sounds like to me. Trump’s feigned confusion over Harris’ Black and Indian heritage and his belittling of Schumer as somehow not Jewish adds up to the same ploy: Trump gets to decide whose identity is authentic and whose is fake I’m not the world’s biggest defender of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs, and I believe they have so many well-known shortcomings. But it’s ironic that Trump’s critique comes from an administration that has waged a vigorous crusade against the programs without doing much to help our diverse population learn more about how to get along with each other

Why, I often wonder, do the people who really need some DEI coaching seem to be the last to receive it?

Or when they receive it, there’s no guarantee their teacher or coach knows how to teach it without making their students or trainees feel so defensive they just want to run and hide

Yet in a country as diverse as ours we could all beneﬁt from hearing each other’s stories on both sides of ethnic and racial conﬂicts.

Considering how durable the barriers to peaceful reconciliation can be, it is not surprising that racial and ethnic misunderstandings persist, despite the guidance of our better angels.

But we shouldn’t be surprised to see some politicians play our divisions and suspicions against each other The best we can do is avoid those people or programs that aim to play us against each other, tribe against tribe, so we can ﬁnd ways to work together.

That’s what made America really great. Email Clarence Page at clarence47@pagegmail.com.

Faimon Roberts

Clarence Page

Michael Barone

New Orleans Forecast

SPORTS

Merry-go-round

One step short of Final Four, Mulkey ready to retool roster again

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

— In case you needed a vi-

SPOKANE,Wash.

sual representation of how close the LSU women’s basketball team was to reaching the Final Four, coach Kim Mulkey provided one in her Sunday evening news conference.

Mulkey held her hands up near her microphone, her right just an inch or two higher than her left

“You’re this close to another Final Four,” she said.

Mulkey has found herself in this position before.

Over her 25-year head coaching career, she’s guided 13 teams to the Elite Eight. Five advanced to the Final Four and eight have fallen short, including each of her last two LSU squads.

The one Mulkey built for this season saw its promising season end Sunday against UCLA, a No 1 seed that caught ﬁre from 3-point range and rode a hot shooting day to a 72-65 win and a trip to the Final Four in Tampa, Florida.

“As competitors,” Mulkey said, “nothing softens the blow Being old like I am, and being around awhile, I’ve learned to keep perspective. Time will help me think about things through the course of the year that we did that were really amazing.”

LSU rattled off wins in its ﬁrst 20 games,

BY MATTHEW PARAS Staff writer

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Sean Payton, in theory, should have every reason to back the Detroit Lions’ rule proposal that would change the NFL playoff format so that teams would be seeded based on record rather than winning their division.

You remember the Beast Quake, don’t you?

The year was 2011, and the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks ended up upsetting the reigning Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints in part because of a thunderous 67yard run from Marshawn Lynch that registered a small tremor because of the noise in the stadium. Perhaps it could have been avoided entirely if the Saints had gotten to host the game instead of Seattle, which won the NFC West despite being below .500. The Lions’ proposed rule change, in this scenario, would have beneﬁted the Saints. But Payton is a traditionalist, through and through.

“I think winning the division is important to me,” said Payton,

stringing together the second-best start in program history and it collected at least 30 victories for just the eighth time in the NCAA era. For the second year in a row, the Tigers won three tournament games before they fell in the Elite Eight

now the coach of the Denver Broncos. “I like how our playoff format is laid out, especially compared to any other sport. I think we would vote against (the proposal).”

It’s unclear how many other teams share Payton’s sentiment at the NFL owners’ meetings, but other veteran coaches such as Pete Carroll of the Las Vegas Raiders and Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers also came out Monday against changing the playoff format

If the league does take a formal vote on the matter — and there’s no guarantee it will — then the owners are expected to weigh in on Tuesday

The Lions’ proposed change comes after their division rival, the Minnesota Vikings, ﬁnished with the NFC’s second-best record at 14-3 but ultimately lost in the wild-card round to the 10-7 Los Angeles Rams. The Rams, under the league’s format, hosted the game.

The Vikings’ predicament is one that occurs every so often in

and finished with a 31-6 record. Only three LSU teams since 1982 have won more contests than Mulkey’s last two did, and they each advanced to the Final Four

ä See LSU WOMEN, page 4C

Rookie Brooks capitalizing on shot with Pels

BY ROD WALKER Staff writer

It really hasn’t started to sink in for Keion Brooks. Eventually the undrafted rookie forward for the New Orleans Pelicans knows it will.

“It’ll probably hit me this offseason,” he said. “I just want to continue to stay in the moment. Continue to learn and take it from there.” The sample size may be small, but Brooks seems ready to seize his moment.

ä Pelicans at Clippers, 9:30 P.M.WEDNESDAy,GSN

He played in just his seventh NBA game Sunday when the Pelicans outlasted the Charlotte Hornets 98-94 in the Smoothie King Center He scored a team-high 17 points, making him the 13th different player to lead the Pelicans in scoring in a game this season. Not bad for a guy who has spent more time in Birmingham, Alabama with the Pelicans’ G League team than in New Orleans.

“It’s all about opportunity,” Brooks said. “When the opportunity came, I was prepared. I’ve been playing all year Down in the G League, the coaches down there made sure I was prepared for whenever my opportunity came. It’s just working and believing, and I have a lot of faith in God.”

Brooks scored the game-sealing basket Sunday on an assist from Jose Alvarado with six seconds left.

The 17 points were a season-high for Brooks, who came off the bench and played 26 minutes. It was his third straight game reaching double ﬁgures after scoring 11 points in Friday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors and 10 points in a win over the Philadelphia 76ers the game before that.

The game against the 76ers was his ﬁrst and only NBA start so far. In that one, he found out he was starting shortly before tipoff. The late notice that night, he admits, was a good thing.

“It was deﬁnitely better that way,” he said “I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep the night before.”

But his best game came Sunday as he stuffed the stat sheet. In addition to his 17 points, he also reached career highs in rebounds (eight), blocked shots (three) and steals (two). His two assists tied his season-best. He also made one of his four 3-point attempts.

Pelicans assistant coach James Borrego ﬁlled in Sunday for Willie Green, who missed the game because of personal reasons. Borrego likes what he saw in Brooks.

“Keion had a heckuva game,” Borrego said. “His energy His physicality He can make shots He’s a heady player Physical size to guard as well. We are going to need that moving forward. He’s trending in the right way

“Give him a ton of credit. It looks like he’s playing with a lot more conﬁdence right now as well. I’m really proud of him.”

But Brooks isn’t satisfied. He knows there is a lot more work to do. This time a year ago, he was finishing up his career at the University of Washington where he averaged 21.1 points and 6.8 rebounds on his way to earning firstteam All-Pac-12 honors.

“I just want to continue to develop and show everybody that I’m a winning player and I make winning plays,” Brooks said. “Use my versatility to impact the game in a whole bunch of ways, whether that’s scoring or defensively I just want to keep stacking them.”

His transition from G League to the NBA has been made easier by playing alongside several of his Squadron teammates who also have been promoted to the Pelicans because of all the injuries.

“A level of comfortability helps calm your nerves,” Brooks said. “No matter what, this is a huge stage and you’re playing in the best league in the world.

Having some familiar faces deﬁnitely helps calm you down and put you at ease.” Brooks and the Pelicans now head on a road trip to Los Angeles to play the

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JENNy KANE

LSU coach Kim Mulkey reacts during the first half of a game against UCLA in the Elite Eight of the women’s NCAA Tournament on Sunday in Spokane, Wash.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By yOUNG KWAK LSU guard Flau’jae Johnson shoots during the

half against

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL DEMOCKER

Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch shoves Saints

67-yard touchdown run during the wildcard playoff game between the Saints and Seattle Seahawks on Jan. 8, 2011.

Tigers’ play Sunday perturbs Torina

BY JIM KLEINPETER Contributing writer

LSU softball had another subpar Sunday, but this time it resulted in the team’s ﬁrst two-game losing streak of the season.

The No. 3 Tigers dropped 5-3 and 4-1 contests to South Carolina during a Sunday doubleheader despite winning big on Friday and coming within two outs of winning Sunday’s opener

They have a chance to get back on the winning track with a nonconference game at McNeese State at 6 p.m Tuesday before hosting Alabama for a three-game series this weekend.

The previous Sunday, LSU had a chance to take over ﬁrst place in the SEC but were blown out at Georgia, 11-3, after winning the first two games. Last weekend, LSU crushed the Gamecocks on Friday 11-3 in ﬁve innings, but it looked like a different team Sunday

LSU had another chance to move up in the standings and rankings but stumbled badly. Coach Beth Torina wasn’t in the mood for silver linings after the games.

“No, losing sucks,” Torina said when asked whether the recent adversity would beneﬁt the Tigers later “Today has to be a decision about the team I told them after the game true character is shown when things get hard.

“Is this a team that wants to step up and do something different next time, be better than how they were today? Or is this the kind of performance we can expect from them. They have to make a deci-

left-hander Jayden Heavener got off to a rocky start by giving up a run without allowing a hit on three walks and a hit batter

She allowed ﬁve hits and struck out 10 but also walked ﬁve as the offense failed to generate consistent threats.

LSU batters walked seven times Friday but only ﬁve combined in two games Sunday

“We did some uncharacteristic things (Sunday) with the errors, we swung out of the zone more than we have,” Torina said. “It will be the coaches’ job to go back to the drawing board and understand why that happened, where we failed in the prep of getting them ready to be better than that performance right there. That’s on us to answer those questions and solve that mystery.”

LSU men’s basketball gets first player out of portal

LSU men’s basketball attracted its ﬁrst player out of the transfer portal for the 2025-26 season with Mississippi State center Michael Nwoko, according to the player’s social-media account.

Nwoko started 32 of 34 games at Mississippi State this season. The 6-foot-10, 245-pound sophomore averaged 6.1 points on 52.5% from the ﬁeld and 4.6 rebounds in 15.4 minutes per game.

Nwoko played against LSU in the regular season and SEC Tournament. In the March 1 matchup, he had six points and six rebounds in 15 minutes. On March 12, he had eight points, five rebounds and five fouls in 14 minutes. The Tigers finished the season 1418 overall and 3-15 in the Southeastern Conference. Five LSU players have entered the portal.

Raiders sign former LSU LB White to 1-year deal

sion to show up and be better, get back in the cage and keep pushing.”

The Tigers (31-4, 6-3 SEC) committed a season-high four errors in the first game but still had a chance to salvage it. Pitcher Sydney Berzon had a 2-1 lead and allowed only one hit and an unearned run through the ﬁrst six innings. But the No. 10 Gamecocks

took the lead on back-to-back doubles and a base hit by Ella Chancey

The Tigers rallied to tie in the bottom of the seventh on a sacriﬁce ﬂy by Danieca Coffey, but they couldn’t push across another run to end the game. Then Berzon imploded, allowing two singles and a hit batter for one run and hit another batter with the bases loaded to give South Carolina an insurance run. In the second game, freshman

Torina said the high point was the play of Savanna Bedell, who had three hits including her first career homer — in the first game and the only RBI in the second. Bedell entered Sunday with just three career starts and three hits in 11 at-bats. She batted as the designated player, a position Torina has shuffled among five players.

“Savanna Bedell was the bright spot for the weekend,” Torina said. “She did a really good job as we continue to search for somebody to fill that role, give us a little more power down there in the lineup. “She’s kept going, been a part of the program for a year and a half now She’s continued to push and push the people around her to be better and wait for her opportunity.”

Tigers leaning heavily on a pair of relievers

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

After a rocky trip to Austin, Texas, LSU baseball bounced back at home last weekend by sweeping Mississippi State.

The Tigers earned close victories on Thursday and Friday — 8-6 and 2-1, respectively before the bats came alive Saturday night in a 17-8 win.

Here are ﬁve takeaways from the series:

Filling Herring’s role

Junior right-hander Zac Cowan and freshman right-hander Casan Evans undoubtedly have been LSU’s top relievers through three weekends of Southeastern Conference play

The two have combined to allow just two earned runs in 202/3 innings against SEC competition. They’ve struck out 32 batters and have surrendered only six walks (ﬁve of those by Evans) Their dominance hasn’t come in short spurts, either. Like Grifﬁn Herring a year ago, Evans and Cowan are shutting down opponents over multiple innings. Cowan threw four shutout innings Thursday before Evans matched that line Friday. Evans also tossed 32/3 innings March 23 against Texas while Cowan had three shutout frames in the series opener against the Longhorns. Rest of the bullpen

It wasn’t as ugly as March 22 against Texas, but the LSU bullpen outside of Cowan and Evans — had its fair share of struggles against Mississippi State.

The group surrendered five earned runs in 52/3 innings while allowing four hits, walking seven batters and hitting three others.

LSU coach Jay Johnson turned to six different pitchers within that group: Junior right-hander Connor Benge (twice), freshman right-hander Mavrick Rizy, junior left-hander Conner Ware, redshirt sophomore left-hander DJ Primeaux, freshman left-hander Cooper

Williams and redshirt sophomore right-hander Jaden Noot.

The best performance among them came from Noot, who tossed two shutout innings. After starting LSU’s last two midweek games, he has surrendered just two earned runs over his last nine innings. His ERA dropped to 3.07 after Saturday’s quality performance.

“Whatever coach has for me, that’s what I’m going to do,” Noot said around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning. “... So I don’t get caught up in roles.”

Noot’s strong form, combined with a healthy Gavin Guidry and Ware could be enough for Johnson to bridge the gap between the front half of his bullpen and Cowan/Evans

But LSU needs a healthy Guidry for that to happen. The junior right-hander was once again listed as out on Saturday’s SEC availability report.

“We’ve won a lot of games in three whatever years here, and he’s been a big, big part of a lot of those wins,” Johnson said on March 6 about Guidry “So we need to get him back which is why we have to do this right.”

Saturday’s lineup tweak

Since its trip to Frisco and Arlington in Texas LSU had used the same lineup structure in every game leading up to Saturday

But Johnson mixed things up a tad for the series ﬁnale. He moved sophomore Steven Milam into the cleanup spot and had junior Ethan

Frey hit ﬁfth in the order

When Frey has started, he’s almost exclusively batted fourth against a left-handed pitcher But his start Saturday came in a new spot in the lineup and against a right-hander

Senior Josh Pearson and sophomore Jake Brown have been LSU’s regulars against righties. With Brown in right ﬁeld on Saturday Pearson moved to the bench. Frey played well, going 2-for-5 with two RBIs. Milam also contributed as the No. 4 hitter, cracking a double and driving in two runs.

LSU scored 17 runs on 19 hits Saturday, so perhaps Johnson will stick with the tweak moving forward.

A step forward?

Friday easily was Anthony Eyanson’s best start in SEC play The junior right-hander didn’t allow an earned run in ﬁve innings. After struggling to get through the Missouri and Texas lineups a second time the previous two weekends Eyanson allowed just two singles in the fourth inning and had six strikeouts in the fourth and fifth frames against Mississippi State. He had a crisp fastball to start his outing — it was up to 96 mph

— and then worked in his offspeed pitches more as the night progressed.

“Worked on (the fastball) a lot in the fall, winter time,” Eyanson said Friday “It’s been a big emphasis for me, making that pitch better.”

Eyanson’s fastball has lost velocity the deeper he’s gone into starts But if he can locate his splitter strong slider and curveball consistently — especially later in outings he’ll have more outings like Friday

Curiel’s streak

Freshman Derek Curiel’s on-base streak is alive, as he’s reached base in all 29 games this season.

He nearly lost the streak Friday, needing an eighth-inning single to keep it going. He quickly dispelled any possibility of losing it Saturday when he went 2-for-4 with a pair of walks.

Curiel has a 555 on-base percentage and a .408 batting average this season.

“Very few guys have the talent, the skill and the mental game to be ready to do what he’s doing,” Johnson said on his radio show March

“And he’s got all those things.”

The Las Vegas Raiders added more help at linebacker, signing unrestricted free agent Devin White to a one-year contract Monday White, a former LSU player was a ﬁrst-round pick by Tampa Bay in 2019 and spent last season with Philadelphia and Houston, recording 19 tackles in seven games with the Texans. White had spent the offseason and ﬁrst month of the season with the Eagles before getting cut. White was a second-team All-Pro in his second season in Tampa Bay when he helped the Bucs win the Super Bowl against Kansas City White has played in 83 career games with 585 total tackles, 23 sacks, 40 tackles for loss, 64 quarterback hits, three interceptions, six forced fumbles and nine fumble recoveries.

Browns co-owner admits gaffe of acquiring Watson

Cleveland co-owner Jimmy Haslam admitted that the Browns “took a big swing and miss” with their 2022 trade for quarterback Deshaun Watson.

Haslam made the comments on Monday during a session with Browns reporters at the league meetings in Florida.

“We thought we had the quarterback, we didn’t, and we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him. So we’ve got to dig ourselves out of that hole,” Haslam said.

The 29-year-old Watson has played in only 19 games since the Browns acquired him from the Houston Texans in 2022 and signed him to a fiveyear contract worth a fully guaranteed $230 million. Cleveland sent five draft picks to the Texans, including three first-round selections.

Stanford hires former NFL coach in interim capacity

Andrew Luck picked a familiar face to take over as Stanford’s interim football coach, hiring former NFL coach Frank Reich on Monday to replace the ﬁred Troy Taylor Luck moved quickly in his new role as general manager of the football program, hiring Reich less than a week after making the decision to ﬁre Taylor after a report that became public saying Taylor had been investigated twice for allegedly mistreating staff members. Reich coached Luck for one season with the Indianapolis Colts in 2018. Reich coached six years in the NFL for Indianapolis and Carolina.

Stanford is trying to rebuild its struggling football program after four straight seasons with a 3-9 record, including the last two with Taylor in charge.

Braves outfielder Profar suspended for 80 games

Atlanta Braves outfielder Jurickson Profar has been suspended for 80 games without pay for performance-enhancing drug use.

Major League Baseball announced Monday that Profar tested positive for Chorionic Gonadotrophin (hCG) in violation of the league’s joint drug prevention and treatment program. According to the Cleveland Clinic, hCG is a hormone that helps in the production of testosterone. The suspension of Profar is effective immediately Barring postponed games, Profar would be eligible to return June 29 against Philadelphia and would lose $5,806,440 of his $12 million salary He is also ineligible for the postseason.

24.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

pitcher Zac Cowan throws a pitch against Mississippi State in the ninth inning on Thursday at

Box Stadium.

PHOTO By PATRICK DENNIS

Savanna Bedell is greeted by teammates at home plate after hitting a solo home run in the fifth inning of LSU’s 5-3 loss to South Carolina on Sunday at Tiger Park LSU coach Beth Torina said Bedell was one of the few bright spots Sunday for the Tigers.

Payton says Moore a good ﬁt with Saints

BY MATTHEW PARAS Staff writer

PALM BEACH, Fla. Sean Payton does see similarities between himself and Kellen Moore.

When Moore was hired to coach the New Orleans Saints earlier this offseason, it didn’t take long for the comparisons to Payton to begin. Moore even joked that general manager Mickey Loomis “might have a type” when hiring Both arrived in New Orleans, after all, with similar pedigrees, both lauded as innovative, young play-callers who would be tasked to lead a team for the ﬁrst time.

“We’re all, to some degree, as new coaches considered unknowns,” said Payton, the former Saints coach who is now with the Denver Broncos.

But, at the NFL owners’ meetings Monday Payton said he thinks Moore will “do well” with the

Saints. The Broncos coach praised Saints owner Gayle Benson and the team’s front ofﬁce, telling reporters that he believes they’ll provide the structure for Moore to succeed.

Payton also indicated he believes Moore’s personality is a good match for the city

“Generally, you’re going somewhere it’s broken,” Payton said.

“And you’ve got to fix it quick

And I think Kellen has that calmness about him. I think there’s a uniqueness to that city that maybe is not for everyone, but I think he’ll do well there.

“You can have impossible jobs or good jobs. And I think in this case, he’s got a good job.”

Payton knows what it’s like to fix a franchise quickly. His 15year tenure in New Orleans began with a surprising 10-6 season that included an NFC championship game appearance, and the Saints

won the Super Bowl in just his fourth season In Denver, Payton reached the playoffs in his second season at the helm.

Moore started being compared to Payton long before he was hired by the Saints. He received the comparisons as far back as 2019 when Moore was a ﬁrst-year offensive coordinator for the Dallas Cowboys. Payton also worked in Dallas, which was the coach’s last job as an assistant before the Saints hired him in 2006.

“In general, everyone has so much respect for what Sean has done in this league,” Moore said in February “Tons of respect and obviously the standard has been built based off his foundation, and we love that.

“We want to embrace it I feel fortunate.”

Email Matthew Paras at matt paras@theadvocate.com

Zion, McCollum shut down for season

BY ROD WALKER

Staff writer

Zion Williamson’s season is over So is CJ McCollum’s.

The New Orleans Pelicans announced Monday evening that they are shutting down their top two best remaining players for the remainder of the season. Williamson suffered a lower backbone contusion when he fell during a game against the Minnesota Timberwolves on March 19. McCollum was diagnosed with a right foot contusion after suffering the injury against the Detroit Pistons on March 23. Neither player has played since the injuries. Pelicans coach Willie Green was asked last week whether Williamson could be shut down for the rest of the season “Not my call,” Green said. “That will be something that he decides or the organization decides collaboratively.”

PELICANS

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Clippers on Wednesday and the Lakers on Friday He’ll be on the court with some of the biggest names in basketball in Kawhi Leonard and James Harden on Wednesday, and LeBron James and Luka Doncic two nights later.

“I’m excited,” Brooks said.

“This is what you dream of as a kid, playing against some of the best players in the world.”

This dream is just getting started.

“Honestly, it still hasn’t hit me yet,” Brooks said. “If I play good or bad, I have to practice or have another game the next day So I haven’t had time to sit down and really reminisce about it.”

The best is yet to come Just ask Alvarado, who made the assist on Brooks’ game-winning play Sunday night.

“He’s showing that he belongs here,” Alvarado said. “It’s not only about scoring, but it’s about his effort in everything he does Defensively and rebounding. Obviously the offense is going to show. I’m happy for him. He’s going to be a good player in the NBA.”

Email Rod Walker at rwalker@ theadvocate.com.

The Pelicans (21-54) have just seven games remaining, starting with a trip to Los Angeles this week to play the Clippers on Wednesday and the Lakers on Friday Williamson played in just 30 games this season. He averaged 24.6 points per game. He also tied his career-high average in rebounds with 7.2 and set a new career-high in assists (5.3). Williamson’s season included the first two triple-doubles of his career in wins over the Phoenix Suns and Clippers.

McCollum played in 56 games while averaging 21.1 points and 4.1 assists. His season included a 50-point game against the Washington Wizards and three more games with 40 or more points.

The Pelicans now have five players who are out for the remainder of the season. Herb Jones suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in January Later that month, Dejounte Mur-

ray tore his Achilles against the Boston Celtics. And on March 17, Trey Murphy’s season came to an end with a shoulder injury

The quintet of Williamson, McCollum, Murphy, Jones and Murray will miss a total of 196 games this season.

The Pelicans used their 42nd different starting lineup of the season in Sunday’s win over the Charlotte Hornets. Pelicans assistant coach James Borrego

ﬁlled in for Green, who missed the game because of personal reasons.

“I’m not sure I’ve been a part of a season like this before,” Borrego said about the injuries.

“In totality, I have not seen this. You go through stretches in a season where you’re injured. Every team does. But to see it start to ﬁnish, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Email Rod Walker at rwalker@ theadvocate.com.

Chio leads LSU gymnasts racking up All-America nods

BY SCOTT RABALAIS Staff writer

All season long it appeared LSU’s Kailin Chio was putting together one of the best freshman seasons in program history Monday’s All-America awards conﬁrmed it.

Chio earned first- or secondteam All-America honors in all four individual events and the all-around, the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA) announced Monday She is the first LSU freshman ever with such a distinction and just one of four gymnasts in 2025 in the nation to be a ﬁve-time AllAmerican.

Meanwhile, ﬁfth-year LSU senior Haleigh Bryant earned three All-American honors, giving her 30 for her career and extending her program record.

Chio is a first-team All-American in the all-around, on vault and balance beam, and a second-teamer on uneven bars and floor. Bryant is first team on vault and floor, and second team on bars.

Fourth-year senior Aleah Finnegan picked up four All-America honors — ﬁrst-team all-around, and second-team vault, beam and ﬂoor — to give her 12 for her career

Also honored from LSU were sophomore Amari Drayton (second team, ﬂoor) and Konnor McClain (second team, bars), giving the Tigers a total of 14 All-America honors.

First-team All-America honors go to the top eight ﬁnishers, plus ties, during the regular season in the all-around and all four events, according to each gymnast’s National Qualifying Score (NQS). Second-team honors go to gymnasts in ninth through 16th place. Postseason All-America awards also will be handed out after the semifinals of the NCAA championships on April 17 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Chio finished the regular season second in the nation on vault, tied for fifth in the all-around, tied for sixth on beam, tied for 11th on floor and 16th on bars. Bryant tied for seventh on vault, tied for eighth on floor and tied for ninth on beam.

Finnegan was eighth in the allaround, tied for ninth on beam, tied for 10th on vault and tied for 14th on ﬂoor LSU, which goes into NCAAs as the No. 1 overall seed for the ﬁrst time, opens competition at 6 p.m Friday in the Pennsylvania regional at Penn State. The meet will be streamed live on ESPN+.

LSU gymnast Kailin Chio finishes her routine on the uneven bars on Feb 28 at the Raising Cane’s River Center Chio won the event with a score of 9.95.

Continued from page 1C

the NFL. Payton recalled the Lions’ proposal being at least the third time in his coaching career that such a discussion is taking place, and he predicted it wouldn’t be the last time, either

“It has been discussed, but it’s been a little while, so it’ll be a fresh discussion,” said Atlanta Falcons CEO Rich McKay who serves as the chairman of the competition committee.

The NFL has made changes to the playoff format over the last few years. In 2020, it expanded the ﬁeld to 14 teams — meaning a third wild-card team in each conference was added to the ﬁeld As a result, only one team per conference received a bye rather than two. The NFL also tweaked its overtime playoff rules, most recently in 2022. If the Lions’ proposal gains momentum, the change could end up hurting the Saints in the short term. The NFC South, the Saints’ division was among the league’s worst and could be again in 2025.

Since the Seahawks won their division with an under .500 record, there have been only three teams to match that feat.

Two of them — the 2014 Carolina Panthers and 2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the NFC South. But the strength of the divisions also can change in a hurry A year after the Washington Commanders won the NFC East in 2020 with a 7-9 record, the Dallas Cowboys (12-5) and Philadelphia Eagles (9-8) made the playoffs. In 2022, three teams from the division clinched a playoff spot.

On last week’s call, McKay said that during one of the last times the league contemplated altering its playoff format, then-Panthers owner Jerry Richardson sold his colleagues on the importance of winning a division.

That’s an argument that still seems to bear weight years later Carroll, who was the Seahawks coach in 2011, said the Seahawks experiencing the “rigors” of making it through their division helped them upset the Saints.

“The reward for coming out of your division should be that you get to play a playoff game at home,” Carroll said. “I like that tradition.”

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Pelicans forward Keion Brooks jumps to score against the Golden State Warriors during the second half of a game at the Smoothie King Center on Friday.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

Saints owner Gayle Benson, left, and former coach Sean Payton hug during an event in New Orleans on Feb 5.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By DARREN ABATE

Zion Williamson, right, of the New Orleans Pelicans celebrates a basket with teammate CJ McCollum during the first half against the San Antonio Spurs on Feb 2 in San Antonio.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU starter Smith enterstransferportal

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

LSU women’s basketball starter

Sa’Myah Smith played the best basketball of her career in the women’s NCAA Tournament. Now she’s entering the transfer portal.

A source confirmed on Monday that Smith, a redshirt sophomore, is searching for a place where she can play out her last two seasons of eligibility Her decision will force LSU to replace both of its front-court starters. Star senior Aneesah Morrow exhausted her eligibility when the Tigers’ season ended Sunday with an Elite Eight loss to No. 1 seed UCLA, so LSU already knew it would have to replace at least some of Morrow’s production. The need to replace Smith arrives as more of a surprise, especially because she was playing so well in the NCAA Tournament that coach Kim Mulkey couldn’t take her off the floor on Friday in the Tigers’ Sweet 16 win over No. 2-seeded North Carolina State. In that game, the 6-foot-2 forward played 40 minutes for the first time in her career “I played her because she was playing good,” Mulkey said on Saturday “She wasn’t in foul trouble. She’s playing with unbelievable

LSU WOMEN

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This LSU team had a chance to get there, even though a couple of late regular-season losses cost it a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament as both Flau’jae Johnson and Aneesah Morrow battled injuries in the lead-up to the postseason

For the second year in a row, LSU just couldn’t climb back over the Elite Eight hump.

In 2024, the Tigers let Caitlin Clark get loose and wreck their title defense.

In 2025, they got All-American UCLA center Lauren Betts in foul trouble but failed to take advantage. Across a pivotal second quarter, the four-point lead LSU built by the end of the ﬁrst quarter turned into a six-point halftime deficit. The Bruins drained four of the six 3-pointers they attempted in that quarter, then grew their lead to 14 by hitting a couple of more to start the third.

Johnson almost willed a miraculous comeback, but her 24 secondhalf points weren’t enough to nullify LSU’s 15 turnovers or UCLA’s 10 3-pointers. Johnson ﬁnished with 28 points, and Morrow had 15. Mikaylah Williams shot 4 of 13 from the ﬁeld and

conﬁdence, and we needed her to win the game. So that’s why she played 40 minutes.”

Smith posted impressive numbers throughout the tournament. She scored 20 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and assisted six shots in LSU’s second-round win over No. 6-seeded Florida State, then notched 21 points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and two steals in the victory over the Wolfpack.

Before those games, Smith had scored at least 20 points and grabbed at least 10 rebounds in only one of her previous 76 career contests.

On Sunday in LSU’s loss to the Bruins, Smith scored only four points, but she did snare 10 rebounds and steal four possessions, mostly while she defended AllAmerica center Lauren Betts in the low post.

Now Mulkey and her staff won’t have a post player of Smith’s experience on next season’s roster unless they make a push to land a forward or two in the transfer portal.

LSU can return Jersey Wolfenbarger and Aalyah Del Rosario, and it will soon enroll the top freshman class in the country But three of those four recruits are guards

Forward Grace Knox, ESPN’s No. 6 overall prospect is the only interior player signed as part of that group. Smith started 30 games across

0 of 3 from beyond the arc to ﬁnish with 10 points. No other LSU player scored more than four points.

“I would have to go back and look at the shots,” Mulkey said. “We missed just wide-open shots. We knew going in the paint that there would be opportunity for (Betts) to alter shots and block shots, but some of the shots we just missed.”

Last offseason, LSU retooled its roster in hopes of earning a return trip to the Final Four Hailey Van Lith and two freshman guards hit the portal, leaving the Tigers with clear needs for a lead ballhandler and backcourt depth. The three transfer guards they signed — Shayeann Day-Wilson, Kailyn Gilbert and Mjracle Sheppard assumed those responsibilities Day-Wilson traded lead point guard duties with Last-Tear Poa. She started 21 games and posted a career-high assist-to-turnover ratio but averaged only 3.5 points per contest while shooting just 28% from the ﬁeld and 20% from 3-point range — all career lows. Gilbert hit two game-winning shots. When LSU opened Southeastern Conference play, she scored at least 15 points in three straight contests, giving the Tigers valuable bench scoring it didn’t have the year prior Then Gilbert cooled off. The junior notched at least 15 points just two more times across LSU’s last

Metrics favored four remaining teams all year

BY AARON BEARD AP basketball writer

The data told the story all year on Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn. In that regard, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see them in the Final Four as only the second all-chalk set of 1-seeds to reach college basketball’s ﬁnal stage.

The Blue Devils, Cougars, Gators and Tigers had held the top four spots in daily rankings from KenPom since the first half of February, and their net efficiency ranks among the best ever charted by the analytics site going back more than a quarter-century They were also the headliners on data-driven rankings from Bart Torvik and Evan Miyakawa as well, further confirmation of how good these teams have been from November, through March Madness and now entering San Antonio.

There’s only a few minor variations in those comparisons. Duke is No. 1 for KenPom and Miyakawa ahead of Houston, while the Cougars are No. 1 in Torvik ahead of the Blue Devils And the offensive and defensive efﬁciency numbers are all in the top 10 except for Torvik having the Gators at 15th in adjusted defensive efﬁciency

Otherwise, the data matches the eye test.

College and NBA TV analyst Terrence Oglesby, who played at Clemson, pointed to all four having “big, switchable guys who can make shots” as a common thread between the teams operating at elite efﬁciency on both sides of the ball.

too, when it comes to KenPom’s long-running data.

KenPom bases efficiency metrics on points scored or allowed over a standardized 100-possession pace, which eliminates tempo as a factor in high averages boosted by playing at a faster pace or numbers depressed by grind-down-the-clock styles. The overall rankings are determined by net efficiency in terms of how much a team’s offensive data outpaces its defensive numbers. In that regard, Duke’s plus39.62 rating is the second-highest net efficiency recorded by KenPom in data back to the 1996-97 season. Only the Blue Devils’ 1998-99 team (plus 43.01) that went 37-2 and lost in the NCAA title game ranks higher Duke is coming off a defensive masterclass in the East Region final against 2-seed Alabama, which had scored 113 points and hit 25 3-pointers in its Sweet 16 win against BYU. The Blue Devils have the nation’s tallest roster with every rotation player standing 6-feet-5 or taller, and they’re an elite switching group with bigs using their length to capably contest against smaller, quicker guards out to the arc. That helped them smother the Crimson Tide: Alabama went 8 of 32 from 3-point range, made just 45.4% of its two point shots and averaged .942 points per possession. Its 65-point output joined a January loss to Ole Miss (64) as the only times the Tide failed to reach 70 points in the past two seasons.

three years and two seasons at LSU. As a freshman, she played 15 minutes per contest for the 2023 national championship team. Then her sophomore year ended after only seven games when she suffered a season-ending knee injury on a trip to the Cayman Islands. That injury cut short what could’ve been a breakout season. Smith scored 16 points in LSU’s season-opening loss to Colorado that year then added two 20-point outings before she went down. She also converted 66% of her ﬁeldgoal attempts. Once the 2024-25 season began, Smith was back on the ﬂoor But she didn’t begin to reclaim her pre-injury form until the Tigers began playing in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m 100% glad I stuck with it,” Smith said after the win over NC State, “and battled what I battled, mentally and physically I don’t say it a lot, but I’m kind of proud of myself. It’s starting to pay off, and I’m happy about that.” Smith finished the year with averages of 6.6 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. She converted 57% of her ﬁeld goals. In the tournament, she averaged 13.8 points, 10.3 boards and 2.3 steals while shooting 64% from the ﬂoor So far, Smith is the only LSU player who’s entered the transfer portal.

“Outside of that top four, a lot of people were depending on runs,” Oglesby said. “You have to be able to play both sides of the ball with consistency. And these four do that so much better than everyone else.”

And that applies over years,

“Duke is as good a team as we’ve seen all year,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “We’ve got some really good teams in the SEC, and they’re at that level.” Houston (plus 36.49), Florida (plus 36.05) and Auburn (plus 35.25) currently have their own lofty perch, too, with historically elite KenPom numbers.

Booker helps Texas reach ﬁrst Final Four since 2003

BY ALANIS THAMES AP sportswriter

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Madison Booker scored 18 points and No. 1 seed Texas used its stifling defense to reach the Final Four of the women’s NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2003, beating well-traveled point guard Hailey Van Lith and second-seeded TCU 58-47 on Monday night. The Longhorns (35-3) will face defending champion South Carolina on Friday night in Tampa, Florida, for a spot in the national title game. Texas and won a regional final for the first time in four tries under coach Vic Schaefer, who previously made two Final Four trips with Mississippi State. The Longhorns’ 35 wins are one more than its only national title-winning squad had in 1986 under Jody Conradt, who was in the stands

19 matchups. In four NCAA Tournament games, she scored only 16 total points on 5-of-27 shooting (19%). Against UCLA, she missed all seven shots she took.

Next season, both LSU’s nucleus of stars and its supporting cast will look different. The Tigers’ four incoming freshman — Grace Knox, ZaKiyah

Monday night and led Texas to its three previous Final Fours. Van Lith scored 17 points in her collegiate finale for TCU (34-4), but Texas neutralized the Horned Frogs’ star center, Sedona Prince who had four points and nine rebounds before fouling out with 6:32 left in the game. TCU had never made it past the second round of March Madness, but Van Lith helped the Horned Frogs make program history while taking her third school to the Elite Eight. Booker, Texas’ offensive dynamo, scored 14 points in the second half. Rori Harmon added 13 points, 11 in the first half. Nothing came easy for the Horned Frogs’ high-scoring trio of Van Lith, Prince and Madison Conner Van Lith shot 3 of 15 from the field but made 10 of 11 free throws. The 6-foot-7 Prince attempted only four shots, and Conner scored nine points.

Johnson, Divine Bourrage and Bella Hines comprise the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class. Contributors such as Gilbert, Poa and Jersey Wolfenbarger can return, but both Day-Wilson and Morrow exhausted their eligibility And on Monday, redshirt sophomore post player Sa’Myah Smith entered the transfer portal. Williams will be back for her junior year But Johnson must decide between a move to the WNBA or one more season in purple and gold. Then there’s the transfer portal, which likely will spin a player or two down to Baton Rouge How many will LSU lose? How many will it add?

Mulkey started asking herself those questions before she even left Spokane Arena on Sunday, not long after she demonstrated just how agonizingly close her Tigers had come to returning to the Final Four

“It’s time to get in the portal,” Mulkey said. “This one leaves, this one goes, this one comes. So next year we’ll start this thing up again and see what kind of team you have and go to work.”

Email Reed Darcey at reed. darcey@theadvocate.com.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By yOUNG KWAK

forward Aneesah Morrow, left, guard Mikaylah Williams, right, and

forward Timea Gardiner go after a rebound during the second half in the Elite Eight on Sunday in Spokane, Wash.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU forward Sa’Myah Smith holds the LSU name tag to be placed in the Sweet 16 slot on the bracket after a win over Florida State in the women’s NCAA Tournament on March 24 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Smith entered the transfer portal on Monday.

New Haynes football coach ‘destined to lead’

BY CHRISTOPHER DABE Staff writer

P.J. Sprunk was a defensive lineman at Louisiana College when then-head coach Dennis Dunn told him he was destined to lead.

Sprunk took that statement to heart, and after he played one season of professional indoor football in Texas, he became a high school football coach.

Sprunk an assistant at Riverside, Grace King and Bonnabel before he spent the past seven seasons as head coach at Kenner Discovery — has been hired as the head coach at Haynes Academy

The move will keep Sprunk, a 2003 John Curtis graduate, in Jefferson Parish as a head coach, and at a school that is coming off an undefeated regular season for the ﬁrst time in program history under former coach Ben Powell, who is now at Country Day

“There are a lot of positive things about the campus and the culture that kind of really drove me to it,” Sprunk said. “It was a tough decision to leave here, man. I’ve been here seven years. I love the kids here. I’ll forever be thankful to

when it had 11 players, four cones and zero footballs at the ﬁrst team workout in the summer of 2018.

The program has grown since then, enough to win 29 games over six varsity seasons.

“For me, when we ﬁrst coached against him, they started with not a whole lot of participation,” said Haynes Academy athletic director Paul Longo, the Haynes head coach when Sprunk started at Kenner Discovery “I saw him grow the numbers He’s always been pro athlete, always advertising his athletes — pro Kenner Discovery That’s how we want him to be here.”

Haynes has enjoyed success in other sports in recent years. The volleyball team won a state championship in the fall. The softball team reached the state finals in 2021 and 2022.

Sprunk, whose three sons attend Kenner Discovery estimates that Haynes will return 17 players with starting experience from last season. The program will have about 45 players.

Sprunk said. “You can’t really ask for much more than that.”

Sprunk played on the offensive line while at Curtis. The Patriots won three state titles and were a runner-up once during his years in the high school program.

He had Dunn, now the head coach at North DeSoto, as a head coach in college.

“He told me one day, ‘Man, I feel like you’re destined to lead,’ ” Sprunk said. “And I didn’t really know what that meant. I was a 21-year-old college kid at the time.”

Then-defensive coordinator Buck Buchanan, now the head coach at Hendrix College in Kansas, later mentioned something about a teaching job somewhere in central Louisiana.

“When he mentioned that, and he talked about coaching, I thought, ‘Man, maybe that’s something I want to go into,’ ” Sprunk said.

He began coaching later as an assistant at Riverside.

“I fell in love with it,” Sprunk said “I knew right then and there it’s what I needed to do.”

Kenner Discovery for my ﬁrst opportunity to be (a head coach). It was kind of one of those things that

Torpedo bat designer says

it’s more

about players than bat model

By The Associated Press

MIAMI For the MIT-educated physicist behind the torpedo bat, it’s more about the talent of the players than their lumber at the plate.

The torpedo model a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — became the talk of major league baseball over the weekend.

The New York Yankees hit a team-record nine homers that traveled a combined 3,695 feet on Saturday Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger, Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm Jr all went deep using a torpedo bat. New York’s 15 homers through the ﬁrst three games matched the 2006 Detroit Tigers for the most in major league history

“At the end of the day it’s about the batter not the bat,” said Aaron Leanhardt, a former physics professor at the University of Michigan who is being credited with the design.

“It’s about the hitter and their hitting coaches I’m happy to always help those guys get a little bit better but ultimately it’s up to them to put good swings and grind it out every day So, credit to those guys.”

Leanhardt, 48, a ﬁeld coordinator for the Miami Marlins, said the origin of the bat dates to 2023, when he worked for the Yankees. He said several versions were tested that didn’t create the desired effect.

Leanhardt was approached by major league and minor league players early in the design stage, seeking information on the bats.

“I’ll let the players always talk about their own experiences. I’m not going to drag anyone into this,” Leanhardt said Monday “But there were deﬁnitely guys on the major league side and on the minor league side in 2023 that were deﬁnitely asking me questions and offering design advice and demoing them.”

Leanhardt said the past couple of days had been “surreal.” Some of Miami’s players joked around with him as he answered questions from the media before their game against the New York Mets.

“The industry as a whole was probably a little bit more aware of this maybe than you guys were,”

Leanhardt said. “Guys have been asking me about it. Guys have been wanting to swing them.”

Bat manufacturer Victus Sports dropped off a batch of torpedo bats for the Phillies just before ﬁrst pitch of their home opener on Monday Alec Bohm grabbed one, took about ﬁve swings and decided to use one.

His logic seemed sound: Look how it might have aided the Yankees.

“You see a team hit 20 homers and you’re gonna try it,” Bohm said. “It didn’t work.”

Bohm managed just one single with his new lumber He noted it

“felt just like a normal bat” and wasn’t sure if he would swing with a torpedo again any time soon.

“It’s a bat It’s different,” he said.

“It’ll probably run its course.”

Victus and Marucci Sports started selling torpedo bats online on Monday Each company highlighted its offerings on social media. Chandler Bats also had new torpedo bats on its website.

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich said he didn’t feel like the bats had any effect on their opening series against the Yankees.

“I think they have a lot of really good players. That’s probably the biggest factor in how that went,” he said.

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said shortstop Francisco Lindor used a similar bat in their series at Houston. He got the models late in spring training.

“Nothing new for us,” Mendoza said. “This is something that every team, every player continues to look for an edge and ﬁnd ways to improve within the margins And this is a perfect example.”

was too good to pass up.”

Sprunk coached the Discovery program since it began, back

“You can kind of just tell the kids are ready to work, and they’re excited about the possibility of what they can be and what they can do,”

Contact Christopher Dabe at cdabe@theadvocate.com

Tulane men’s hoops begins chase for crown in Vegas

BY GUERRY SMITH Contributing writer

The Tulane men’s basketball team will have a tall task beating USC in the ﬁrst round of the College Basketball Crown after losing talented starters Kaleb Banks and Kam Williams to the transfer portal. Without its athletic 6-foot-8 forwards — who played big roles offensively and even bigger roles defensively — the Green Wave could have a hard time matching up size-wise on Tuesday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas (10 p.m., FS1).

“I mean, it’s tough because we don’t have a full roster,” said Tulane point guard Rowan Brumbaugh, a ﬁrst-team All-American Athletic Conference pick. “It’s almost like a bowl game. It should be fun, but going into next year I wouldn’t expect this tournament to represent anything, honestly.”

USC’s three-man backcourt features 6-6 leading scorer Desmond Claude and 6-7 Chibuzo Agbo. Tulane (19-14) counters with the 6-4 Brumbaugh and 6-3 Asher Woods.

Despite their losing record (1617), the Trojans are ranked 70th in the NET, and the Wave went 0-5 against top-100 NET teams even with Banks (14.7 points, 6.7 rebounds) and Williams (9.3 points, 41.2% 3-point shooting) playing.

Still, coach Ron Hunter believes the first tournament in his six years with the Wave will be a positive experience. Tulane headed to Las Vegas with seven of its top nine players available, so it is not exactly a skeleton crew

“There were a lot of times that we had to win games without those other two guys (contributing much), so I feel good that we can do that,” he said. “Everyone’s worried about the portal. It will be an interesting tournament, but I do think our kids will show well. They know they better have our defense ready.”

USC should be close to full strength under first-year coach Eric Musselman, who was at Arkansas the previous ﬁve seasons. The only USC player in the transfer portal is freshman guard Isaiah Elohim, who averaged 2.1 points and did not play after Feb. 11.

The speedy Claude, Agbo and

Tulane vs. USC, 10 P.M.TUESDAy FS1

redshirt freshman Wesley Yates carry the USC offense. Claude had three games with 25 or more points in the last seven, averaging 21.5 in the past four Yates, a top-60 recruit coming out of high school, scored 24 points while hitting all four of his attempts from 3-point range in a doubleovertime victory against Rutgers in the Big Ten Tournament. Agbo averaged 18.7 points in a threegame stretch near the end of the regular season. USC had lost eight of 10 entering the Big Ten Tournament but nearly beat Purdue, which lost to Houston on a Sweet 16 buzzerbeater, in the Big Ten quarterfinals. The game was tied with 30 seconds left before the Boilermakers went on a 5-0 run courtesy of some officiating decisions Musselman disputed in his postgame news conference, leaving the Trojans with a similar bitter feeling as the Wave when it lost 78-77 to 16th-ranked Memphis in the AAC Tournament semifinals after a pair of debated calls.

Brumbaugh and center Gregg Glenn, who has committed to re-

turning next year, both said they had put that game in the past. Unlike Brumbaugh, Glenn sees the Fox-run inaugural College Basketball Crown as a building block.

“We’re just going to have fun and see what we’ve gotta do for next year,” he said. “It’s going to help us build character.”

The winner of Tulane-USC will play a quarterfinal game on Thursday night at MGM Grand Garden Arena against either Colorado, which finished last in the Big 12 at 3-17, or Villanova, which fired coach Kyle Neptune after the Big East Tournament and hired former Maryland coach Kevin Willard this past weekend. The semifinals and final will be at nearby T-Mobile Arena, but Tulane certainly cannot look past its opener USC is favored by 81/2 points.

“We’re going to play a really good USC team,” Hunter said. “Our guys are excited. Hosting it right before the Final Four was smart on their part It’s a great opportunity even for recruiting. You are playing on national TV when no one else is playing college basketball, so I’m excited for the guys we’ve got coming back.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ANGELINA KATSANIS

Anthony Volpe of the New york yankees hits with one of the team’s newly made torpedo-shaped bats in a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday in New york.

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE Tulane Green Wave guard Rowan Brumbaugh drives to the goal as Florida Atlantic Owls guard Niccolo Moretti defends during the first half of a game on Jan. 15.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Kenner Discovery coach P.J Sprunk watches the action during the first half against Thomas Jefferson on Oct. 23, 2021, at yenni Stadium in Metairie. Sprunk will take over the Haynes Academy football program in 2025.

Feeling lost at work? Speak up.

Clarity

and feedback

can put you on the right path

BY CATHY BUSSEWITZ Associated Press

NEW YORK When Nikelle Inman started a new job coaching first-generation college students, she looked forward to meeting with them one-on-one to talk about how to surmount obstacles and ﬁnd resources to succeed.

Instead, she and her fellow success coaches at a community college in North Carolina spent a year mired in paperwork, tasked with reviewing applications from aspiring undergraduates They never did get to meet with students.

“Admissions work kind of took over what we were supposed to do,” Inman, 34, said. “I felt disengaged with the position, more so because I just didn’t feel valued.”

It’s disorienting when a job turns out to be completely different than advertised or morphs into something we didn’t expect. But more U.S workers have reported feeling disconnected from their organization’s purpose and unclear on how to meet expectations since the coronavirus pandemic changed the way we work, according to a new Gallup analysis.

Just under half of U.S. employees who participated in a Gallup survey in November “strongly agreed” that they know what is expected of them at work, which is one of the factors the polling firm uses to measure employee engagement. In January 2020, the ﬁgure stood at 56%.

The new survey showed that new employees, younger employees, people in white-collar industries like technology insurance and ﬁnance, and those in hybrid work arrangements were especially likely to report that expectations for their roles weren’t clear

The findings make intuitive sense. Managers and employees have bushwhacked their way through disruptive changes since COVID-19 first upended public life five years ago. In late 2024, about one-quarter of employees with the ability to work remotely were doing so exclusively, up from around 1 in 10 in 2019, Gallup found Another 55% were working in the office some days and remotely the rest, according to the 2024 data, up from about one-third in 2019 More recently, layoffs at tech companies and in the government and other sectors have left organizations with fewer people to handle the load, and expectations aren’t always adjusted to the new realities.

“With all the rounds of layoffs, people’s scope and responsibilities are shifting constantly,” said Jeremy Guttenplan, an executive leadership trainer and coach based in New York.

“You think about the ones left behind and the work is just getting piled on them.” Here are some strategies for eliminating confusion when the scope and responsibilities of a job are ambiguous.

Establish expectations early Spell out or make sure you understand what a new role or project entails — along with any relevant deadlines or performance markers — from the beginning so everyone agrees

THOMAS ADAMSON AP fashion writer

PARIS Paris has spoken, and fashion’s

ﬁnal authority has laid down the law:

This coming fall, it’s all about power shoulders, enveloping outerwear and a color palette that runs from somber to surreal.

If Milan softened up with romance and New York leaned into Y2K grunge, Paris countered with sartorial surety — a wardrobe built for the sharp, the serious, and the spectacular. Coats are enormous, tailoring is back and drama is dialed up on every front.

While trends may start in luxury, they quickly trickle down, as fast fash-

BY CHRISTIE D’ZURILLA

(TNS)

A model wears a creation as part of the Valentino Fall/Winter 2025-2026 Womenswear collection presented in Paris.

ion companies like Zara, H&M, and Shein race to transform runway spectacle into massmarket hits.

Here’s what ruled the runways: Coats so big, they might eat you

If you thought last season’s outerwear was oversized, Paris just laughed in your face.

This season, coats aren’t just big — they’re monstrous. At Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière sent out blanket coats with pannier-like hips, reminiscent of 19th-century railway travelers layering for the journey ahead.

Meanwhile, Balenciaga’s Demna reined in the theatrics to focus on pure,

sculptural volume: wool coats, puffergown hybrids, and structured trenches that redeﬁned silhouette without gimmicks Marine Serre, ever the sustainable innovator crafted oversized outerwear from upcycled materials, proving excess and ethics can coexist.

Wide margins

Power shoulders are back, and they mean business.

At Givenchy, Sarah Burton’s debut delivered tailored coats with razor-sharp shoulders, softened only by impeccable drape. Victoria Beckham exaggerated the shoulder line on evening

Parton

The many problems with ‘No gifts, please’

Dear Miss Manners: I attended a bridal shower where the brideto-be asked for “no gifts, please.”

Half the attendees showed up with gifts anyway and the ones who honored her request and didn’t bring a gift were left to feel cheap

It was awkward for everyone, including the bride-to-be, who wasn’t sure if she should open the gifts or not What should she have done?

stead of goods. It creates a burden on the gift recipient, who must then protect the guests who respected her wish from feeling that they were in error

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Gentle reader: This is why Miss Manners keeps rejecting this frank and seemingly simple way of avoiding receiving presents: It doesn’t work. Some people simply ignore it. Others interpret it as a coy prompt to be sure to give presents, or as a request for cash in-

The bride should absolutely not have opened the presents in front of them. She should have brieﬂy thanked the donors, put the unopened packages aside, and written her thanks after opening them privately

But doesn’t anyone realize that, by deﬁnition, showers feature presents? So do birthday parties. Surely this accounts for the problem guests have with these gift bans. Can’t friends gather without applying those labels?

Try money-saving hint

Dear Heloise: As a money-saver for me, I use a vacuum sealer everyday to close packages of chips and brown sugar, as well as ingredients for recipes that go in the freezer so that I can close the openings and preserve their freshness. For example, as a senior citizen, I can buy larger packages of chips at a better price and maintain its freshness by closing the packages as I remove the items.

in your column for a week. I’ve tried many of them. — Marcy in Menifee, California

Reading house numbers

Dear Miss Manners: I’m a cashier in a grocery store, and we’re required to wear a name tag with our ﬁrst name printed boldly

It feels creepy when customers, often the male ones, address me by saying my name in a domineering way I’ve tried taking a deep breath to resist the urge to say something insulting, but I really wish I knew how to respond.

I resent being spoken to by a stranger this way, especially when I’m trying to be of service. Any suggestions for me?

Gentle reader: Address your supervisor That is, mention the problem while offering a solution: workplace pseudonyms.

Miss Manners can imagine your having fun with this. “Cashie the Cashier,” perhaps?

FASHION

Continued from page 1D

After all, the real purpose of name tags in commercial situations (as opposed to your school reunion, when faced with your inexplicably aged classmates) is for the rare case when the customer needs to identify you: “In the aisle, Ryan told me this was on sale, but now Lila tells me you have to buy three cases to get the discount.”

Dear Miss Manners: When I am invited to stay in someone’s home, and that home isn’t very clean, may I leave it cleaner than I found it?

I assume that my hosts are already overwhelmed and I wouldn’t want to add to their stress by impugning their housekeeping. It would be a nonissue for me to clean a bathroom (sweep the dust and hair from the

ﬂoor, wipe down the countertop and mirror, etc.) or to remove the exploded spaghetti from the inside of the microwave before I warm up my coffee. Would that count as being a good guest, or as being judgmental?

Gentle reader: Your choice. A good guest would do this so quietly that the hosts might even think that they had left things cleaner than they supposed. A bad one would make sure that they knew

Send questions to Miss Manners at her website, www missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

I also use a pair of scissors to cut open the tops to prevent the bags from being destroyed — Hallie, in Virginia

Adding to hints

Dear Heloise: A recent column of yours was very informative. Here’s how I can add to the suggestions:

n I’m going to try the method of checking car lights that Steve suggested. We try to make it a point to check them on the ﬁrst of every month.

n The lady whose hearing aids ran out of power during the fire, submitted in the letter by Paul, is of great concern. I’m going to write my congressman and urge him to make it a law that each room should have a light that flashes during an emergency n There was an interesting comment about spinach, and your response included other vegetables with oxalates that are not often mentioned at the doctor’s office. The letter was submitted by Joan.

n I’m glad to read that ants don’t like vinegar (thanks to A.B.) and to get conﬁrmation on orange yolks, too.

n I do believe you could list all the different and creative cheese-wrapping suggestions

Dear Heloise: In addition to packages getting delivered at the right house, how about when there’s an emergency at your home? It’s vital to have your house numbers clearly visible — even at night — for the police, ﬁre department, and emergency medical services It could mean life or death besides your packages going somewhere else. — Mike, in Mandeville

Leftover fat

Dear Heloise: When I cook bacon or roast chicken, I remove the fat and accumulate it in a jar in the fridge I have screwed a small yogurt container to a wooden platform under my bird feeders, and during the cold months, I put the fat out for the birds. They all like it, including woodpeckers, blue jays, chickadees, cardinals, etc — Bob D., in Midcoast Maine

Homeschooling thought

Dear Heloise: I just read a reader’s inquiry about a husband wanting his wife to quit her job to homeschool their kids, while the wife was ambivalent about the idea. With the husband being so passionate about the idea of homeschooling, perhaps he should be the one to quit his job and homeschool their kids. If they can live on the wife’s salary and maybe the husband can take up a part-time job to also contribute, this might “ﬂip the script” and make more sense for the entire family — Char W., in Ohio

Send a hint to heloise@heloise. com.

TODAY IN HISTORY

By The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, April 1, the 91st day of 2025. There are 274 days left in the year This is April Fool’s Day

Today in history: On April 1, 1945, American forces launched the amphibious invasion of Okinawa during World War II. (U.S. forces succeeded in capturing the Japanese island on June 22 after a battle in which more than 240,000 died, including as many as 150,000 Okinawan civilians.)

Also on this date: In 1924, Adolf Hitler was sentenced to ﬁve years in prison for his role in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. (Hitler would serve just nine months of the sentence, during which time he completed the ﬁrst volume of “Mein Kampf.”)

In 1946, a magnitude 8.6 earthquake centered near Alaska’s Aleutian Islands triggered a tsunami that pounded the Hawaiian Islands with waves up to 55 feet tall, killing 159.

PARTON

Continued from page 1D

“I need to laugh. I need some fun, so I’m probably gonna be stupid,” she said.

Parton told Knox News in an interview that she was “at peace” with Dean being at peace, but said, “that don’t keep me from missing him and loving him.” He “suffered a great deal” at the end of his life, she told Knox News.

“I’m doing better than I thought

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon signed a measure banning cigarette advertising on radio and television beginning in January 1971.

In 1976, Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. In 1984, singer Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father after Gaye intervened in an argument between his parents at their home.

In 2003, American troops raided a hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq, and rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who had been held prisoner since her unit was ambushed on March 23. Today’s birthdays: Actor Ali MacGraw is 86. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is 75. Actor Annette O’Toole is 73. Filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld is 72. Singer Susan Boyle is 64. Hockey Hall of Famer Scott Stevens is 61. Rapper-actor Method Man is 54. Political commentator Rachel Maddow is 52. Actor David Oyelowo is 49.

I would” since the death, she said separately “I’ve been with him 60 years. So, I’m going to have to relearn some of the things that we’ve done. But I’ll keep him always close.”

Parton and Dean met outside a laundromat in 1964, when she was 18 and he was 21 They got married on Memorial Day 1966, and he stayed in the background for almost the entirety of their marriage.

Dean died March 3 in Nashville, Tennessee, at age 82. He is survived by Parton and his siblings, Sandra and Donnie.

silhouettes, creating a statuesque effect. Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson played with distorted proportions, adding surrealist twists to a commanding frame. And at Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello took the idea to its purest form, distilling power into sculpted, precise shoulders that framed every silhouette like armor The message? Whether you’re in a power suit or a party dress, take up space.

Red, black and blue

Color took a turn for the cinematic this season.

Valentino’s Alessandro Michele bathed his collection in deep, bloody red, reinforcing its intensity with a show set in a Lynchian restroom. Meanwhile, Akris explored blue midnight, cobalt, and cerulean dominated a collection that felt like a meditative study on fabric and light.

Balenciaga presented black as a statement rather than a default, stripping away excess and letting the depth of the shade do the talking.

The takeaway? Monochrome dressing is in, but it’s not minimal. Logos are out

A quiet revolution in high fashion: the return of discreet, considered luxury No screaming logos, no gimmicky hype — just clothes so well-made they speak for themselves.

At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri reworked historical silhouettes into supremely wearable tailoring, proving craftsmanship is the ultimate ﬂex.

An uncharacteristically restrained collection at Rick Owens focused on impeccable construction: bomber jackets lined with leather, laser-cut leather shorts mimicking chainmail, and hoodies made of natural rubber that moved like liquid. This is luxury for those who know Tech meets couture

Tech-infused fashion isn’t new

WORK

Continued from page 1D

on what’s realistic and wanted. Writing it down in a shared document can help prevent future misunderstandings.

When a successful real estate developer asked Amber Krasinski to ﬁlm and produce 85 TikTok videos in three hours, she thought hard about whether she really wanted to take him on as a client The job might be good exposure for her communications agency, IvyHill Stategies, but Krasinski knew it would be impossible to complete in so little time. She turned it down.

Krasinski regularly gives her client progress updates and tries to make a practice of asking clarifying questions before taking on new projects.

“Any time I have a conversation with a prospective client, I have that in the back of my mind,” Krasinski said. “Avoiding that people-pleasing side that says, ‘You can ﬁgure it out, you can do it.’ You don’t want to let anybody down, but you also need to set yourself up for success.”

Seek frequent feedback

No one wants to spend all day in meetings. But more frequent check-ins with a manager or supervisor may help staff members who are unsure if they are prioritizing their time appropriately or don’t know what they are supposed to be doing.

Organizations can explore different ways of building connection between employees and providing more opportunities for feedback,

but Coperni took it further with a runway staged as a ’90s LAN party, complete with gaming inﬂuencers livestreaming the show

The collection borrowed from cyberculture, with Tamagotchishaped bags, futuristic fabrics and anime-inspired styling.

Louis Vuitton collaborated with Kraftwerk on a limited-edition capsule inspired by the group’s “Trans-Europe Express” album, blending heritage travel motifs with futuristic detailing. Even Balenciaga got in on the game, crafting couture-worthy sportswear in collaboration with Puma.

The message? The future is interactive.

Femininity stripped naked

This season, femininity wasn’t soft — it was bold, aggressive and unapologetically exposed.

Designers stripped it back to its rawest form, literally in some cases. Rick Owens put models in structured outerwear, but left their chests bare, reinforcing a vision of sensual strength.

At Givenchy, sheer knit catsuits left little to the imagination, countered by razor-sharp tailoring Valentino’s fever dream pushed sensuality further, with plunging necklines, sheer lace and corseted waists that oozed eroticism.

which can result in better understanding of workplace expectations. Brian Smith, founder and managing partner of IA Business Advisors, said his company hosts gratitude sessions for 30 minutes each week

The ﬁrst 20 minutes are led by a coach who advises attendees on issues such as how to effectively manage time or deal with challenging customers. Highlighting speciﬁc problems and strategies can help workers understand what’s expected of them. At the end of the session, participants have an opportunity to share what they’re grateful for

Start the conversation

Workers don’t have to wait for a supervisor to seek feedback or clarify expectations. You can suggest a quick check-in at any point, if you’re unsure how to prioritize long-term goals or short-term deadlines, “Managing upwards is going to make your life easier,” said Dale Whelehan, founder of 4 Day World, a think tank that explores new models of work. “Don’t assume that management has all the answers They’re probably just as lost.”

However, in hierarchical organizations where questioning management may be viewed negatively, it’s important to be delicate, he said.

To initiate a feedback discussion, you can ask to meet with a manager about a current project. Whelehan outlined how to approach the conversation if the meeting gets scheduled. Start by sharing what you understand your assignment to be. Then request the manager’s confirmation or clarification by

The theme mirrored the naked dress takeover at the Oscars days earlier, where sheer, body-revealing gowns dominated the red carpet.

But where Hollywood leaned ethereal, Paris went tougher — sheer fabrics paired with armorlike corsetry, exposed skin framed by rigid tailoring. At Chloé, aristocratic silhouettes became sensual with transparency, suggesting that power and vulnerability can — and should — coexist. The message? Femininity, stripped of fragility, dressed for battle.

Paris sets the agenda

The last of the fashion capitals to show, Paris always has the ﬁnal, snooty say on what’s hot and what’s not.

And this season the message was clear: go big, be bold, and invest in pieces that actually matter

Whether it’s the presence of a power coat, the strength of a structured shoulder, or the quiet conﬁdence of truly luxurious fabric, the best collections weren’t about trends — they were about statements. And in a world that feels increasingly uncertain, that kind of sartorial conﬁdence is exactly what we need.

saying something such as, “I just want to make sure that there’s alignment here,” he advised. Ask about anything else you need to clarify and close out the conversation by saying, “From what I understand from this conversation, my role is this. Have I understood that correctly?” Follow up with an email restating what you agreed to, Whelehan said.

Trust your instincts

With workplaces experiencing so many changes employees can ﬁnd themselves jumping from one assignment to the other, distracted by new responsibilities picked up after colleagues were laid off, or adjusting to spending more time physically in the ofﬁce.

If it all feels too chaotic, take a moment to pause. Revisit your priorities. And then work on the most important task.

“If something doesn’t feel right, don’t just accept it,” Inman said. “Whatever that avenue is, if it’s staying and trying to make it better or leaving, just don’t give up on what you know is right.”

Hints from Heloise

ASSOCIATED PRESS/INVISION PHOTO By SCOTT A GARFITT Models wear creations as part of the Victoria Beckham Fall/Winter 2025-2026 Womenswear collection presented in Paris.

ARIEs (March 21-April 19) Speak up, ask questions and leave no room for error or misunderstandings. Clarity is essential if you want to maintain your integrity and reputation. Invest in yourself and your future.

tAURUs (April 20-May 20) Finish what you start. Refuse to let second-guessing confuse or disorient you regarding what you should or shouldn't do. Keep your motives to yourself, and concentrate on your target.

GEMInI (May 21-June 20) When doubt kicks in, take a pass. Do whatever it takes to avoid compromising your position, reputation, or emotional or financial security. Refuse to let anyone take advantage of you.

cAncER (June 21-July 22) Put your time and energy into your work. Doing the best job possible will lead to rewards. Redesign your skills and how you market yourself to suit today's economy and needs.

LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) Keep adding to your qualifications and maintain technological savvy to ensure your job safety and prospects. An innovative approach to life and learning will pay off

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Market yourself for success, whether it's personal, creative or financial gains you want to achieve. Advocate for yourself, and you'll encourage others to support your efforts.

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) A break will give you the boost you need to bring about

positive change. Setting up a space to do something you enjoy will give you the motivation and opportunity to excel.

scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Call the shots instead of letting someone else dictate what you can and cannot do Change begins with you; if you want something, go after it wholeheartedly.

sAGIttARIUs (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Only open doors that have meaning to you. Your time is precious, so let those who try to take advantage of you know it isn't going to happen. Turn the tables by doing what's best for you.

cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Honesty is the best policy, especially when it comes to being truthful with yourself. Put greater emphasis on relationships, equality and the time you want to spend with others.

AQUARIUs (Jan 20-Feb. 19) Channel your energy into learning something new through communication, conferences and research. It will change your plans and perspective regarding how you use your time, energy and skills.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Don't sell yourself short; strive for a better lifestyle and personal satisfaction. Don't sit back when you should be moving forward. Take what's yours and follow your heart.

FAMILY CIrCUS

CeLebrItY CIpher

For better or For WorSe

SALLY Forth

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

LAGoon

bIG nAte

Sudoku

InstructIons: sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the sudoku increases from monday to sunday.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

THe wiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

Bridge

By PHILLIP ALDER

The best improvement in bridge in the last 20 years is the employment of “useless” cards to send suit-preference signals. Without this style of defense, West would have to guess what to do in this deal. With suit preference, it is easy. How should the play and defense go in four spades after West leads the diamond king?

South has four losers: three hearts and one diamond. (West cannot have the ace and king of hearts, because his opening lead would have been the heart ace,notthediamondking.)ButSouthhas 10 potential tricks: five spades, two diamonds and three clubs. His best play is to take the first trick and immediately to leadbackhisdiamondjack.Todefeatthe contract, West must win with his queen and shift to a heart. But how will he know that is right instead of a club switch?

At trick one, East plays his diamond two, discouraging. But on the second round, he can play the seven or four. Wantingaheartshift,hedropstheseven, the higher card asking for the higherranking of the other two side suits. Now West knows exactly what to do.

If you have only low trumps, you can also use those to send suit-preference signals.Inthisdeal,ifSouthimmediately draws trumps, East can play eight-sixthree-two, always the highest calling for a heart. The snag with these signals is that you andyourpartnerhavetowatchthecards very carefully. But if you do, you will defeat more contracts. © 2025 by nEa, inc., dist. By andrews mcmeel syndication

Each Wuzzle is a word riddle which creates a disguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: nOOn gOOD = gOOD aFTErnOOn

Previous answers:

word game

InstRUctIons:

Average

Time

Can

your law had been my delights, I should then have perished in my affliction.” Psalms 119:92

God’s

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C.

PiCKles hidato mallard

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.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

InstructIons: 1 Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1 thorugh 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. HErE is a

WiShinG Well

Scrabble GramS

Get fuzzy

jump Start

roSe iS roSe animal crackerS

DuStin

Drabble Wallace the brave breWSter rockit

luann

Lakeview Crime Prevention District Meeting 6/27/24 Time: 6:00p.m. St. Dominic Rectory,775 Harrison Avenue, NOLA 70124

Opening The meeting started at approximately 6:00p.m. Boardmembers present

wereAnn LeBlanc, Graham Ryan, ValCupit, Reid Raymond, Chris Beacher Aimee McCarron and Valerie Barrilleaux. Also presentincludedSudie Joint, RichardBordelon and Sgt. Benjamin.

Minutes:Val moved to approve minutes from theMay meeting, Aimee seconded and all wereinfavor

Crime report For the month of June through date stats available beforethis meeting, there were1766 UCR crimes citywide, 103 in the3rd and12inLV, 10 property crimes and 2persons crimes. Therewas 1aggravated assault cleared by arrest. It reportedly involved awoman approaching aman on Breakwater drive with aknife and agun. She allegedly had aprevioushistory.Therewas 1 rape allegedly committed by thevictim’sboyfriendonMilne. Intoxication wasanissue. Therewere39rapes citywide, 1inthe 3rd (the one in LV).

Therewere3auto burglaries, with 4vehicles targeted, 3auto thefts, with one vehicle recovered and 1arrest, 1shoplifting at Lakeview Grocery which was cleared by summons, and 3thefts, with one cleared by warrant. Atotal of 3 of12reported caseswerecleared this month;anold case was also cleared. Response time was 6:17 (holding time 2:25 andinroute time 3:52). Response time for Levee Boardand 3rddistrict has been 11minutes which is good b/c both help when LCPD officers arenot available.

TheEscort Line received 31 calls this month;only 4ofthem wereactual escort calls. One call was missed andnoneweremissed because of understaffing or no staffing.

YTD therehave been 91 UCR crimes in LV compared to 110last year.Overall crime is down 17%. The clearance rate is 32%. Shoplifting, aggravated assaults and armed robberies areup.

In the 3d district, persons crimes aredown 32%, carjackingisdown 88% and property crimes aredown 29%. Thedecrease is attributed to shifting officers to targeted areas.

Officers have made over 200 trafficstops primarily to try and prevent crime. Only 11 tickets have been written;mostly warnings aregiven Brief mention was made abouttwo possible sexual assaults in city park involving 2women and same alleged perpetrator.This is being actively worked.

Financial report

Sudi discussed balance sheet that showed thereis$1,269,077.75inthe account due to getting larger deposits from the city.Accounts Payable are $590K of which 395K is disputed millage. The rest arepatrols through April 20, then accrued through end of June. Accountingfees areupduetoaudit. She went over P&L showing net income of $381K. Still waiting on parcel feels which explains being down 84K. We areclose to budget on patrols. We have spent $518K and budgeted $1,018.Financial audit revealed nosignificant issues. We werewritten on Policies andProcedures(“P&P)for two things, one of which was that Sudi processes payments andthen mails checks. They also wanted new cyber trainingfor theboard. The response was theboard already goes through enough traininginother areas andthis is not needed. Audits aregoing to legislative auditors by Monday.Graham will respondthat wewill be reviewing our P&P

The city moved budget deadline to August 30insteadof September 30, but the deadline does not appear to be absolute. Aimee will check. Theplan will betomeet in August and be ready to sendbudget. Richardwill check to see ifcan advertise proposed budget.

Technology report Reid went over survey that will be sentout which also includes LCPD stickers. The survey asks for comments of concernthe public wants to make and torate how safe they believe theneighborhood is. It also gives thereader opportunity to ask for morestickers. Reid asked once we get surveys back, what should be done with them. The plan is to pass on to Sgt. Benjamin. Motion to adjourn.

Chris moved to adjourn, Reid seconded andall wereinfavor.

Lakeview Crime Prevention District Meeting 1/30/25 Time: 6:00 p.m.

St. Dominic Rectory,775 Harrison Avenue, NOLA 70124

Opening The meeting started at approximately 6:00p.m. Boardmembers present wereVal Cupit, Graham Ryan,Chris Beacher,Susan Dineen, AnnLeBlanc, Brian Anderson, Kevin Avin andAimee McCarron.RichardBordelon,Sudi Joint,and Sgt. Benjamin werealso present.

Motion to approve minutes: Susan moved, Chris seconded and all were in favor

Crime report Crime is 75% down from January last year.InJanuary,2025, therewere6 LVproperty crimes, 72 in the 3rdand681 citywide. We had oneaggravated assault (only persons crime), oneresidentburglary,two auto burglaries, and 3thefts. All but one of the crimes has been solved. Regarding the aggravated assault, ason alleged pointed agunathis mother on 1/10/25 on FleurdeLis.

The number of homeless at the5100 blockofCanal has significantly dropped. A Total of 1663 items werehandled by LCPDwhichincludedmaking 328 trafficstops but issuing only 18 tickets.

Response time has been 6:49 with hold time of 1:49and in route time of 5:00. Friends of Lakeview is helping to promote good crime stats in LV for March ballot. These numbers will help.

Financial report

At the end of the year,wehad $1.3Minbankaccount. AP is beingestimated because we have not been billed by thecity since 4/24.APis$1,095,684.61.

Audit is starting up, and auditors may want actual bills. Sudi continues to work with the City.Total incomeisdown 9Kfrompreviousyear

Wecannot have agreater than 5%variance so if thepatrol numbers are within 5% of what was budgeted, we will be okay Lastyear,wewerewritten up relating totechnical statement aboutsexual harassment. We will cover that this time.

Administrative Agenda

Chris gave technology report as Reid will be steppingoff sometime in the summer.Chris will take over this committee. Stratacast is coming to an end.

Cameras arestill functioning for themost part.

Chris is working on getting theones not workingonline. Real Time center will continue to get live feeds until theend of this year.Heisprobably going to look at pairing down scope if have initiatives we can outsource. Val mentioned thatcalls for services have not been updated on thewebsite. Chris will handle.

Motion to Adjourn Brian moved to adjourn, Chris seconded andall were in favor.

Lakeview Crime Prevention District Meeting 8/22/24

Time: 6:00p.m.

St. Dominic Rectory,775 Harrison Avenue, NOLA 70124

Opening The meeting started at approximately 6:00p.m. Boardmembers present wereAnn LeBlanc, Graham Ryan, ValCupit, Reid Raymond, Chris Beacher Aimee McCarron, Susan Dineen, Nancy Lytle andKevin Avin. RichardBordelonand Sgt.Benjamin werealso present.

Minutes: Valmoved to approve minutes from theJune meeting, Reid seconded and all wereinfavor

Crime report For the month of August through date stats available beforethis meeting, therewerethree auto thefts with all three vehicles recovered. Citywide there were186 auto thefts, 17 in the 3rd and3 in LV.There were 2shopliftingsand 3thefts. Therehave been 3auto burglaries, thought to be precipitated by suspects looking for guns. Therehave been 109UCR crimes YTD in LV with a 32% clearance rate. Thisisa16% decrease since last year at this time when we had 130crimes. Therehas been arise in 2crimes, shoplifting andarmed robbery. Regarding the latter,therewas 1armed robbery in 2023 and 2in 2024 so far.Wehave had 7personscrimes this year with 57%clearance rate. Therewere200 trafficstops with only 3-4% tickets issued. These arenot random stops.

Financial report Sudi discussed balance sheet that showed thereis$1.3Minassets. Accounts payable are$759,954

estimate payroll for officers. P&L shows about $1M in income and estimated patrol of $687,190.73. This figureincludes disputed millage but she is not accruing for same. We arecurrently $35K under budget. Once get invoices, patrols will probably come within budget. Total disputed millage since 2020 is $395,416. Graham and Valmet with Gilbert Montano about disputed millage. He asked our position which was we do not owe

time crime center.Weare embarking on idea to work with LPR vendor whom we will contract with to put on city poles and sync up with real time camera. Only real time will have access.

Parcel fee renewal discussion The parcel fee expires in 2026. We need torenew.Graham said

financial session. We will discuss increase

for resolution to put renewal district issue and parcel fee on ballot tentatively for March of 2025 and authorize Graham Ryan to take measures to do so. Kevin seconded, and all wereinfavor

Cooperative Endeavor Agreement Plan is to continue current arrangement for 364 days.Ann moved to authorize Graham Ryan to renew exact same terms of CEA for period not to exceed 3years, Chris seconded and all wereinfavor

Miscellaneous In November,wewill be voting on new officers. Brian is VP,Ann is secretary and Susan is treasurer.Ifanyone is interested in being new technology chairperson, please let Graham know

The meeting ended at about 7:10 p.m.

Lakeview Crime Prevention District Meeting 10/24/24 Time: 6:00 p.m.

St. Dominic Rectory,775 Harrison Avenue, NOLA 70124

Opening The meeting started at approximately 6:08 p.m. Boardmembers present were Graham Ryan, Reid Raymond, Nancy Lytle, Valerie Barrilleaux, Kevin Avin, Chris Beacher,Aimee McCarron, Susan Dinneen and ValCupit. Richard Bordelon and Sgt. Benjamin werealso present.

Approval of August and September 2024 Minutes Aimee moved, Reid seconded, and all wereinfavor

Crime report Year to date, overall crime in LV is down 17%. Therehave been 127 crimes YTDinLV, compared to 153 lastyear

For the month of October through the 22nd, therewere1 simple rape, 1 simple burglary and 1theft.

The rape was investigated as adomestic incident. NOPD SVU is handling the investigation. Rape accounts for 33% of the UCR crimes investigated in LV this month and 3.2% of the crimes investigated in LV year to date. Therewere 13 Citywide rape investigations, 2inthe ThirdDistrict and 1inLV.

Thesimple burglary was adomestic incident involving aperpetrator known to the victim. Awarrant was issued for the perpetrator’sarrest. Burglary accounts for 33% of UCR crimes investigated in LV this month and 7.9% of the crimes investigated in LV year to date. Therewere80Citywide burglary investigations, 10 in the ThirdDistrict and 1inLV.

The theftinvolved apackage stolen from the victim’s front porch. Theft accounts for 33% of the UCR crimes investigated in LV this month and 15% of the crimes investigated in LV year to date. Therewere232 Citywide theft investigations, 17 in the ThirdDistrict and 1inLV.

Response time has averaged 6:17 with the enroute time being 3:52 and the holding time being 2:25. LCPD Officers were first to arrive on the scene 35 of 55 priority callsfor service.

So far this year,457 guns have been stolen citywide with 240 being stolen fromauto burglaries. Only 4have been taken in LV auto burglaries.

Escort phone service received 23 total calls, with 6being outside the time it ismanned which is 3p.m. to 7a.m. Eight calls weremissed.

LCPD initiated 273 proactivetrafficstops with 2citations issued and 290 field interviews conducted.

Financial report Sudi said she still has not received bills from the city since April 2024 so the numbers for payroll areprojected. Sudi has requested the invoices several times. The City says they expect to start on them next week.

The auditor requested that disputed millage to remain in the budget; it is reflected under AP

Thereis$1.328M in total Assets with AP being about $925K which involves Sudi estimating patrols as noted. Disputed Millage is $395K, which does not include the amounts not yet billed. The remainder is for patrols.

The P&L reveals we are$19K behind in income from last year.Wehope to collect from the city and come out the same as last year by year-end.

Re: Projected Loss Budget v. Actual. We projected under budget $149K but net income is $104K so above budget amount is $253K. Sudi anticipates patrols will be on budget.

Technology update Company we work with to put video images from cameras to the cloud is ending the program, effectiveDecember 31, 2024, which means video will not go to RT crime canter.LCPD will no longer have the recurring expense of cloud storage.

Based on Reid’sresearch, he proposes adding SD-cardstorage to the existing cameras. The video would be available on the SD cards for 7days

The estimated one-time cost for the SD-cards is $7280 (for 52 SD-cards at $140/card).

At next meeting we will discuss Reid’sproposal and the futureofthe camera program. Sgt. Benjamin feels the crime cameras arehelpful to NOPD

Public comment Representative from West End mentioned work withLakeshorePolice and Levee BoardPolice.

Nancy Lytle expressed concernabout the bomb shelter on West End. Sgt. Benjamin advised that it is secured.

Miscellaneous Boarddiscussed interest in mailing an LCPD postcard. Estimated cost is $6,000.

Efforts areongoing to get LCPD renewal on March 25, 2025 ballot. Graham is working on renewing the CEA with the City

The next LCPD meeting will be November 21, 2024. Therewill be no December2024 meeting.

Motion to Adjourn Reid moved, Chris seconded, and all wereinfavor

Lakeview Crime Prevention District Meeting 11/21/24 Time: 6:00 p.m. St. Dominic Rectory,775 Harrison Avenue, NOLA 70124

Opening The meeting started at approximately 6:06 p.m. Boardmembers present wereGraham Ryan, Reid Raymond, Nancy Lytle, Valerie Barrilleaux, ValCupit,Chris Beacher and Susan Dinneen. RichardBordelon, Sudie Joint and Sgt. Benjamin were also present.

Approval

Motion

Crime