The Times-Picayune 02-10-2025 by The Advocate

Onebrighterfuture forour kids.

Take a bow, New Orleans

Take a bow, New Orleans. And a breath. You did it. You crushed Super Bowl LIX. The game. The week The event. It was all an overwhelming success. Sure, the game turned out to be a dud. The Philadelphia Eagles drubbed the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in a game that, relatively speaking, lacked drama, thrills or controversy In the grand scheme of things, though, the game was irrelevant What mattered was the big picture. The biggest show in the world came to town, and New Orleans didn’t just deliver The city raised the bar Took the thing to another next level.

Jeff Duncan

From the postcard weather to the gonzo events to the Eagles’ authoritative beatdown of the Chiefs, the week couldn’t have gone much better (Unless, of course, you were a Chiefs fan.) Super Bowl LIX was New Orleans at its best, the city in full plumage for the world to experience and appreciate.

It all added up to something that felt less like a football game than a celebration of New Orleans and everything it represents.

“It was a week of goosebumps,” said Jay Cicero, the president of the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, who oversaw local operations for the game.

ä See DUNCAN, page 9A

STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, left, looks up at the Lombardi Trophy as coach Nick Sirianni hoists it into the air following their Super Bowl LIX victory at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

The Eagles celebrate their victory over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday

Rescuers recover 1 body in landslide in China

BEIJING Emergency teams in China’s southwestern Sichuan province raced against time Sunday to locate 28 people after a landslide triggered by rains killed one person and buried homes.

Nearly 1,000 personnel were deployed following the landslide in the village of Jinping in Junlian county on Saturday. Some officers navigated through the remains of collapsed buildings, using drones and life-detection radars to locate any signs of life with the help of locals who were familiar with the area, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Two injured people were rescued and about 360 others evacuated after 10 houses and a manufacturing building were buried, CCTV reported.

At a news conference Sunday, authorities said preliminary assessments attributed the disaster to heavy rainfall and local geological conditions. They said these factors transformed a landslide into a debris flow more than half a mile long, with a total volume exceeding 3.5 million cubic feet. The rescue operation was hampered by continuous rainfall and more landslides. According to estimates, the collapsed area was about 16 soccer fields in size and many houses were carried far by the debris flow

Storms drop fluffy snow across New England

CONCORD,N.H.— New Englanders stocked up on both Super Bowl snacks and staples like bread and milk this weekend ahead of a fast-moving storm that dropped up to a foot of light, ﬂuffy snow.

The parking lot was packed and the checkout lines were long at a Market Basket grocery store in Epping, New Hampshire, on Saturday, WMUR-TV reported. None of the shoppers seemed to panic about the storm, which cleared out by Sunday morning well ahead of kickoff time

Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service, said the storm moved from the Great Lakes into the Northeast, with accumulated totals of 6 to 12 inches in upstate New York and New England and 3 to 5 inches around Boston and New York City. While northern areas enjoyed the powder, the snowfall in New York City was wet and dense, clogging storm drains and creating ponds of water at sidewalk intersections in Northern Manhattan.

Airports in Boston and New York saw increased ﬂight delays and cancellations Sunday Earlier Saturday, heavy snow fell in sections of northern and central Wisconsin, with the community of Medford reporting 13 inches on Saturday Some places in northern Michigan got more than a half a foot on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

The next storm is also expected to move quickly, Oravec said. It is forecast to form across the plains on Tuesday and push eastward, bringing a swath of snow to areas south of the states hit this weekend.

More than 500 eggs stolen from Seattle cafe

SEATTLE More than 500 eggs were stolen from a cafe near Seattle on Wednesday morning. The thieves hit the Luna Park Cafe in West Seattle at about 4:42 a.m., according to Seattle police.

Security footage shows two men entering the restaurant’s refrigerator and stealing about 540 eggs, some bacon, ground beef and “liquid egg products,” police said. About $780 in goods were stolen, with eggs accounting for $387. The breakfast goods were loaded into a van and the thieves left the scene. They later returned but quickly left when they realized an employee was there, police said. The heist comes as egg prices soar in the U.S. Most Americans are paying $4 a dozen or more, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicting a 20% price hike in 2025. In 2022, eggs cost $2 a dozen on average.

This isn’t the first egg theft either Last week, 100,000 eggs were stolen from a truck in Pennsylvania. Seattle police are investigating the theft.

Trump repeats vow to take control of Gaza

Pressure mounts to renew ceasefire after emaciated hostages released

BY MOHAMMAD JAHJOUH and TIA GOLDENBERG Associated Press

MUGHRAQA, Gaza Strip New details and growing shock over emaciated hostages renewed pressure Sunday on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a fragile Gaza ceaseﬁre beyond the first phase, even as U.S President Donald Trump repeated his pledge that the U.S. would take control of the Palestinian enclave Talks on the second phase, meant to see more hostages released and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, were due to start Feb. 3. But Israel and Hamas appear to have made little progress, even as Israeli forces withdrew Sunday from a Gaza corridor in the latest commitment to the truce

Netanyahu sent a delegation to Qatar, a key mediator, but it included low-level ofﬁcials, sparking speculation that it won’t lead to a breakthrough. Netanyahu, who returned after a U.S. visit to meet with Trump, is expected to convene security Cabinet ministers on Tuesday Speaking on Sunday Trump repeated his pledge to take control of the Gaza Strip.

“I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One as he traveled to the Super Bowl.

Trump said Arab nations would agree to take in Palestinians after speaking with him and insisted Palestinians would leave Gaza if they had a choice.

“They don’t want to return to Gaza. If we could give them a home in a safer area — the only reason they’re talking about returning to Gaza is they don’t have an alternative. When they have an alternative they don’t want to return to Gaza.”

Trump also suggested he was losing pa-

U.S.

By The Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Sunday that top administration ofﬁcials will meet with European ofﬁcials this week about how to end the war in Ukraine, nearly three years after Russia launched an all-out invasion.

Less than a day earlier, the New York Post reported that Trump had a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss steps toward a negotiated solution.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he ﬂew to the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Trump declined to discuss his reported phone conversation with Putin.

“I don’t want to do that. We’re trying to end that war It’s a war that would have never happened if I were president, it would have never happened, but we’re making progress. But I can’t tell you,” he said.

Asked to clarify whether his conversations with Putin took place before he took ofﬁce or after, Trump said, “I’ve had it.

Let’s just say I’ve had it. And I expect to have many more conversations. We have to get that war ended. It’s going to end.

There was no immediate conﬁrmation of the call by the Kremlin.

In a television interview, national security adviser Mike Waltz said the Russian economy is not doing well and that Trump

tience with the deal after seeing the emaciated hostages released this week.

“I watched the hostages come back today and they looked like Holocaust survivors. They were in horrible condition. They were emaciated. It looked like many years ago, the Holocaust survivors, and I don’t know how much longer we can take that,” he said.

Israel has expressed openness to the idea of resettling Gaza’s population — “a revolutionary, creative vision,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday — while Hamas, the Palestinians and much of the world have rejected it

Egypt said it will host an emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss the “new and dangerous developments.”

Trump’s proposal has moral, legal and practical obstacles It may have been proposed as a negotiation tactic to pressure Hamas or an opening gambit in discussions aimed at securing a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia condemned Netanyahu’s recent comment that Palestinians could create their state there, saying it aimed to divert attention from crimes committed by “the Israeli occupation against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza, including the ethnic cleansing they are being subjected to.”

Qatar called Netanyahu’s comment “provocative” and a blatant violation of international law

Families of remaining hostages said time is running out as some survivors described being barefoot and in chains.

“We cannot let the hostages remain there. There is no other way I am appealing to the Cabinet,” said Ella Ben Ami, daughter of a hostage released Saturday, adding she now understands the toll of captivity is much worse than imagined.

The father of a remaining hostage, Kobi Ohel, told Israel’s Channel 13 the newly released men said his son, Alon, and others “live off half a pita to a full pita a day These are not human conditions.” Ohel’s mother, Idit, sobbed as she told Channel 12 her son has been chained for over a year

Michael Levy said his brother the newly released Or Levy, had been barefoot and hungry for 16 months. “The decision-makers knew exactly what his condition was and what everyone else’s condition was, and they did not do enough to bring him back with the urgency that was needed,” he said.

Federal consumer protection agency told to stop work

Trump administration effectively shuts down bureau

BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP economics writer

WASHINGTON The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down an agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 ﬁnancial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal.

Russell Vought, the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget, directed the CFPB, in a Saturday night email confirmed by The Associated Press, to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama pushed to include it in the 2010 financial reform legislation that followed the 2007-08 financial crisis.

require a separate act of Congress to formally eliminate it. But the head of the agency has discretion over what enforcement actions to take, if any Yet Elon Musk commented, “CFPB RIP” on social media site X on Friday And the CFPB homepage on the Internet was down Sunday, replaced by a message reading “page not found.” Also late Saturday, Vought said in a social media post that the CFPB would not withdraw its next round of funding from the Federal Reserve, adding that its current reserves of $711.6 million is “excessive.” Congress directed the bureau to be funded by the Fed to insulate it from political pressures.

“is prepared to tax, to tariff, to sanction” Moscow to get Putin to the negotiating table. Waltz also underscored that the Trump administration is looking to use this week’s engagements to begin talks on clawing back some of the United States’ assistance to Ukraine. He said European allies will also need to take a greater role in supporting Ukraine going forward.

“We need to recoup those costs and that is going to be a partnership with the Ukrainians in terms of their natural resources and their oil and gas and also buying ours,” Waltz said in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Those conversations are going to happen this week. And I think an underlying principle here is that the Europeans have to own this conﬂict going forward. President Trump is going to end it And then in terms of security guarantees, that is squarely going to be with the Europeans.”

Vice President JD Vance will be in Paris on Monday for an artiﬁcial intelligence summit that’s gathering government ofﬁcials and will head later in the week to the Munich Security Conference, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will lead the battle-weary country’s delegation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump’s special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, will also be in Munich.

The email also ordered the bureau to “cease all supervision and examination activity.”

On Sunday, administration ofﬁcials also said that the CFPB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., would be closed through Friday, according to an email obtained by The Associated Press. No reason was given for closure.

“Employees and contractors are to work remotely unless instructed otherwise,” the email to headquarters workers said.

The order follows similar efforts by the White House to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Since the CFPB is a creation of Congress, it would

“This spigot, long contributing to CFPB’s unaccountability, is now being turned off,” Vought said on X. The CFPB says that it has obtained nearly $20 billion in financial relief for U.S. consumers since its founding in the form of canceled debts, compensation, and reduced loans. Last month, the bureau sued Capital One for allegedly misleading consumers about its offerings for high-interest savings accounts and “cheating” customers out of more than $2 billion in lost interest payments as a result, the bureau said. Dennis Kelleher president of Better Markets, an advocacy group, said, “That’s why Wall Street’s biggest banks and Trump’s billionaire allies hate the bureau: It’s an effective cop on the ﬁnance beat and has stood side-by-side with hundreds of millions of Americans Republicans and Democrats — battling ﬁnancial predators, scammers, and crooks.” The administration’s move against the CFPB also highlights the tensions between Trump’s more populist promises to lower costs for working-class families and his pledge to reduce government regulation.

Vought

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By OHAD ZWIGENBERG

A Palestinian man wearing a red shirt, left, stands amid the rubble of destroyed buildings on Sunday while watching Israeli soldiers, bottom right, take position in the northern Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel.

CHAMPS

Eagles topChiefs fortheir second Super Bowl title

Experts weigh in on class remarks

Suspended LSU law professor’s words draw rebukes, defenders

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

LSU’s decision to suspend professor Ken Levy, who used vulgar language to criticize Gov Jeff Landry and President Donald Trump during a lecture, has roiled the law school and launched a high-proﬁle legal battle.

At the heart of the controversy is a debate: Were Levy’s comments part of his right to free speech and academic freedom, the kind of intellectual discussion that tenure is meant to protect? Or were they demeaning and threatening to students the kind of speech that the university can discipline in the name of maintaining a professional and safe learning environment?

“The big question here is whether the comments made in class is actually protected speech or whether it’s subject to discipline,” said Robert Noel, a political-science professor who teaches constitutional law at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and runs a criminaldefense practice.

Levy, a tenured LSU law professor contends his statements were the former

“Professor Levy engaged his students in robust debate, challenged their viewpoints, and expressed his opinion — clearly protected rights of speech and academic freedom,” his attorney, Jill Craft, argued in a lawsuit ﬁled last month.

Craft and other supporters of Levy have questioned if his suspension is part of a larger trend of Landry publicly attacking professors who criticize him.

“If the governor got his feelings hurt, well then he needs to not run for political ofﬁce,” Craft said on Friday But for LSU, and for Landry, Levy’s comments were not protected speech

“The Ken Levy situation is not a question of academic freedom,” the university said in a statement Friday.

“Our investigation found that Professor Levy created a classroom environment that was demeaning to students who do not hold his political view, threatening in terms of their grades, and profane,” it said.

Some say the line is not always clear

“It’s a gray area,” said Olivier Moréteau, an LSU law professor and member of the LSU chapter of American Association of University Professors, which advocates for academic freedom in higher education.

On Jan. 14, the ﬁrst day of a criminal-law course, Levy told his students that he had a no-recording policy Levy referenced an incident after the November presidential election when his colleague, law professor Nick Bryner, made comments during a class lecture that were critical of Trump and eventually shared with Landry. Landry publicly criticized Bryner on social media.

Levy talked about Landry, and later Trump, using several vulgar terms in the process

“Frankly, like, forward my s*** to the governor Like, I generally don’t have a problem. I would love to become a national celebrity based on what I said in this class. Like, f*** the governor,” Levy said, prompting student laughter Levy said he could put students in jail if they secretly recorded him and shared the recording, which also elicited laughter from students. Later in class, Levy said that changes to criminal procedure can happen quickly. And it was possible that concepts taught during the class could end up changing during the semester due to the U.S. Supreme Court. He went on to say, “You probably heard I’m a big lefty, OK. I’m a big Democrat. I’ve been, I was devastated by, I couldn’t believe that f***** won,” referring to Trump’s election. “Those of you who like him,

I don’t give a s*** You’re already getting ready to send your evaluations: ‘I don’t need his political commentary.’ No, you need my political commentary You above all others need my political commentary,” said Levy, again provoking laughter.

“But here is the deal. I stopped listening to the news. I don’t know what’s going on. I know there are ﬁres in L.A., and I know (Jimmy) Carter died. That’s about it. All right? I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what Trump is doing. I don’t care what he’s doing.”

Noel said the Levy case touches on two separate — but intertwined issues.

“The one issue is the right of the university to ensure that you have proper decorum on the part of the professors,” Noel said. “And the other is the First Amendment right of the professors to make a comment even one that involves an expletive about the governor.”

Part of LSU policy says,

“Academic freedom protects freedom of speech, thought, and expression within the university setting to promote learning and knowledge.”

“Academic freedom is ensured through tenure, which prevents termination or punishment of faculty for any reason that could plausibly stiﬂe academic speech and inquiry but does provide for termination or discipline of faculty members for justifiable causes,” the policy states.

Tenure promotes “inquiry into truth” free from external pressure due to differing ideological views, it states.

But it goes on to state that faculty can’t pressure students into adopting any particular point of view and they must “respect for the rights, views, and opinions of others.”

Levy has argued discussion and criticism of the actions taken by political ﬁgures is clearly the kind of intellectual discussion tenure aims to protect.

“No amount of curse words or divergent opinion justiﬁes” the harm caused by the teaching suspension, according to his legal ﬁlings.

But LSU argues Levy went beyond “facilitating learning and gaining knowledge relevant to the subject being taught or researched.”

“We expect faculty to explore the subject matter, not threaten or indoctrinate,” it said.

Moréteau, the law professor called himself “a ﬁerce defender” of academic freedom. But he believes Levy crossed a line in his use of profanity and verbal attacks against Landry and Trump.

LSU’s decision to suspend professor Ken Levy, who used vulgar language to criticize Gov. Jeff Landry and President Donald Trump during a lecture, has roiled the law school and launched a high-profile legal battle.

“Attacking people and calling them names in a classroom environment is not appropriate and certainly makes a number of students feel very uncomfortable That’s not right,” said Moréteau.

But Kevin Cope, an LSU English literature professor and officer of the local AAUP chapter, said he viewed some of Levy’s comments “as a kind of sharp humor.”

Cope also argued the university classroom is a type of “sacred space” where any kind of idea may be discussed — so long as its pertinent to the course.

With political discussions in the law school, where almost any topic could apply to the political issues or actors of the day, that pertinence can be understood broadly, he said.

“The nature of the topic — the law, society, politics, the people who act their lives out in all three of those venues — the line between all three of those is very thin indeed,” Cope said.

Looming over the debate is Landry’s willingness to publicly call for discipline against professors who criticize him.

When Levy exclaimed, “F*** the governor,” he did so in the context of Landry’s targeting of fellow professor Bryner

Landry called out Bryner in two posts from the ofﬁcial governor’s social media account. In the first, Landry shared a video of Bryner teaching in class. In the second post, Landry called on LSU to investigate and discipline Bryner for those comments.

Landry made a similar move in 2021 when he was attorney general.

Bob Mann, then a tenured professor of mass communication at LSU, in a social media post criticized a Landry for his stance on COVID vaccines and one of Landry’s staffers, calling her “a ﬂunkie.” In response, Landry post-

ed on social media from his official state attorney general account, saying he hoped LSU “takes appropriate action soon.” Landry also issued a formal letter to LSU President William Tate over Mann’s criticism of his staff. Landry this week criticized Levy’s comments on social media.

“Is this the type of language and attitude you expect your tax dollars to pay for?” Landry said. “No judge would tolerate this conduct in their courtroom or any legal professional setting. It should not be tolerated at our taxpayer funded universities either.”

Noel, the political science professor said bitter political divisions have put the country “in a bad spot” and hampered the teaching of different perspectives.

“At the university, in the professional level, you have to be able to discuss more than one point of view You

cannot be afraid to offend people,” he said.

Cope, the English professor, said there had traditionally been “wide latitude” for the airing of all kinds of views in the university setting.

“In the early part of my career there was room for a lot of joking and speculation and daring comments,” said Cope, who has taught at LSU for 41 years. But he said there’s been a “gradual narrowing” of what speech is tolerated in the classroom, a trend he attributed to both the political left and political right.

“That is a shame because it is a narrowing down of what can be discussed in the university,” he said. “It is a narrowing down of the kind of training that the students get. And ultimately, therefore, it’s a narrowing down of the competence of the students that emerge from such an institution.”

By The Associated Press

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A

U.S. Marine from California was identified by military officials Sunday as one of four people killed when a plane contracted by the U.S. military crashed in a rice field in the southern Philippines.

Sgt. Jacob M. Durham, 22, of Long Beach, died Thursday in the crash of an aircraft that was conducting a routine mission “providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support at the request of our Philippine allies,” officials at Camp Pendleton, California, said in a statement. Officials said the cause of the crash was under investigation.

Three defense contractors also were killed in the crash, military officials have said.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines confirmed the crash of a light plane in Maguindanao del Sur province. The bodies of the four people were retrieved from the wreckage in Ampatuan town, said Ameer Jehad Tim Ambolodto, a safety ofﬁcer of Maguindanao del Sur. U.S forces have been deployed in a Philippine military camp in the country’s south for decades to help provide training and advice to Filipino forces battling Muslim militants. The region is home to minority Muslims in the largely Roman Catholic nation.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

Vance, Musk question authority of the courts

Trump’s

agenda faces legal pushback

BY JILL COLVIN Associated Press

WASHINGTON Top Trump administration ofﬁcials are openly questioning the judiciary’s authority to serve as a check on executive power as the new president’s sweeping agenda faces growing pushback from the courts

Over the past 24 hours, officials ranging from billionaire Elon Musk to Vice President JD Vance have not only criticized a federal judge’s decision early Saturday that blocks Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from accessing Treasury Department records, but have also attacked the legitimacy of judicial oversight, a fundamental pillar of American democracy, which is based on the separation of powers.

are these judges leaving us,” the person had written, in part.

The court order against Musk barred his team temporarily from accessing a Treasury system that contains sensitive personal data, such as Social Security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans. Musk and his team say they are simply rooting through government systems to identify waste and abuse at the direction of the Republican president.

Deputy White House chief of staff of Stephen Miller called the ruling “an assault on the very idea of democracy itself.”

“If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance wrote on X on Sunday morning.

That post came hours after Musk said overnight that the judge who ruled against him should be impeached.

“A corrupt judge protecting corruption. He needs to be impeached NOW!” said Musk, who has been tasked by President Donald Trump with rooting out waste across the federal government.

Musk also shared a post from a user who had suggested that the Trump administration openly defy the court order

“I don’t like the precedent it sets when you defy a judicial ruling, but I’m just wondering what other options

“What we continue to see here is the idea that rogue bureaucrats who are elected by no one, who answer to no one, who have lifetime tenure jobs, who we would be told can never be ﬁred, which, of course, is not true, that the power has been cemented and accumulated for years, whether it be with the Treasury bureaucrats or the FBI bureaucrats or the CIA bureaucrats or the USAID bureaucrats, with this unelected shadow force that is running our government and running our country,” Miller said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

The pushback comes as the administration’s efforts to dismantle government agencies and eliminate large swaths of the federal workforce are being held up by the courts. Judges have also blocked Trump, at least temporarily, from moving forward with mass federal buyouts, from placing thousands of USAID workers on leave and from implementing an executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.

Early Saturday U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer issued a preliminary injunction after 19 Democratic attorneys general

sued, alleging the Trump administration allowed Musk’s team access to the Treasury Department’s central payment system in violation of federal law

“We’re very disappointed with the judges that would make such a ruling, but we have a long way to go,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while he ﬂew from Florida to New Orleans to attend the Super Bowl. He added: “No judge should frankly be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”

The payment system handles tax refunds, Social Security benefits, veterans’ benefits and much more, sending out trillions of dollars every year while containing an expansive network of Americans’ personal and financial data. A hearing is set for Friday Democrats have been sounding alarms over Musk and Trump’s efforts, including efforts to halt spending that has already been appropriated by Congress. Under the U.S. Constitution, Congress is the body in charge of spending.

“I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly, since Watergate,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.,

when

is a

BY JILL COLVIN Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said he is serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state in an interview that aired Sunday during the Super Bowl preshow

“Yeah it is,” Trump told Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier when asked whether his talk of annexing Canada is “a real thing” — as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently suggested.

“I think Canada would be much better off being the 51st state because we lose $200 billion a year with Canada. And I’m not going to let that happen,” he said. “Why are we paying $200 billion a year essentially a subsidy to

Canada?”

The U.S. is not subsidizing Canada. The U.S. buys products from the natural resource-rich nation, including commodities like oil. While the trade gap in goods has ballooned in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, the deﬁcit largely reﬂects America’s imports of Canadian energy Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada would be better off if it agreed to become the 51st U.S. state — a prospect that is deeply unpopular among Canadians Trudeau said Friday during a closed-door session with business and labor leaders that Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state is “a real thing” and is linked to his desire for access to the country’s natural resources.

“Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing. In my conversations with him on,” Trudeau said, according to CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster “They’re very aware of our resources of what we have and they very much want to be able to benefit from those.”

In the interview, which was pretaped this weekend in Florida, Trump also said that he has not seen enough action from Canada and Mexico to stave off the tariffs he has threatened to impose on the country’s two largest trading partners.

“No, it’s not good enough,” he said. “Something has to happen. It’s not sustainable. And I’m changing it.”

they are facing. “The pace of this assault on the Constitution in order to serve the billionaire class, it is absolutely dizzying. And so, you have to run a fullscale opposition,” Murphy said. “Ultimately, you’ve got to bring the American public into this conversation because we need our Republican colleagues in the House and in the Senate ultimately

Republicans,

country

our democracy is at risk.” Murphy expressed concern that the courts are illprepared for the onslaught

red alert moment

this entire

has to understand that

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ROD LAMKEy

President JD Vance speaks Wednesday at the International Religious Freedom Summit at the Washington Hilton in Washington.

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QUARTER TIME

Crowds ﬂocked to Bourbon Street on Sunday ahead of Super Bowl LIX. Fans were treated to a purple carpet rolled out on the street as they prepare to cheer on their teams in the big game.

STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

A wave of red and green jerseys flood the French Quarter ahead of Super Bowl LIX on Sunday

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Kansas City Chiefs fans follow a brass band as they second-line to the Caesars Superdome before the start of the Super Bowl

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Big Lu Fernandez, of Vero Beach, Fla., leads a Philadelphia Eagles chant with members of the Stallings Knights New Orleans recreation football team, who are raising money for their travel team while football fans head to the Caesars Superdome for Super Bowl LIX.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Fans begin arriving at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD Eagles fans pause while heading to the Caesars Superdome for Super Bowl LIX

STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS Eagles and Chiefs fans mingle at the FOX Super Bowl LIX broadcast studio on Bourbon Street.

PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

Fans gather along the gates surrounding the purple- carpeted FOX Super Bowl LIX broadcast studio on Bourbon Street.

PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS Fans walk past the start of the purple carpet in the French Quarter

DUNCAN

Continued from page 1A

From beginning to end, it was also a series of OMG moments for New Orleanians. The awe-inspiring lighting of St. Louis Cathedral.

The spectacle of opening night.

The splendor of NFL Honors at the Saenger Theatre.

The pageantry of the Super Bowl Host Committee parade.

The city never looked so beautiful, its landmarks so majestic. The cathedral, Saenger and the Dome were resplendent. Downtown blazed like a Pixar movie brought to life.

Don’t take it from me.

Everyone said it. Celebrities. Journalists. Even NFL executives. The testimonials were everywhere all week. Not a day went by without someone raving about the city, its food and infectious joie de vivre.

Cardi B, Chad Johnson and Clay Travis, among others, posted ringing endorsements of the city and its incomparable Super Bowl hosting credentials on their social media platforms.

“We have such a special town,” Cicero said. “There’s been nothing but positive comments and reaction. It’s been spectacular.”

And potentially lucrative.

What’s the value to the New Orleans tourism industry when someone like Cardi B’s inﬂuence tweets to her 36.4 million followers: “New Orleans have the best tasting food. Like damn everything taste good here!!! Ya’ll GOT THAT!!!!!”

It all felt like a giant Chamber of Commerce ad for the city and state, and the game was no different.

While there was an array of celebrities in attendance, including Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Kevin Hart, Jon Hamm, Kevin Costner, Bradley Cooper, Jay-Z and of course, Taylor Swift, the biggest

star of the night was New Orleans and Louisiana.

The pregame show was a tribute to the city and state’s music and culture, highlighted by Lauren Daigle and Trombone Shorty’s rendition of “America the Beautiful.” New Orleans native Ledisi crushed her rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” The “NOLA Strong” hype video, featuring Trombone Shorty, was spinetingling. And the memorial to the victims and ﬁrst responders of the Bourbon Street terrorist attacks was moving and on point.

In the end, the lopsided game won’t be remembered among the best Super Bowls ever, but it still was historic.

The presence of President Donald Trump made it the ﬁrst Super Bowl ever attended by a sitting president.

The media contingent of 6,414 was also a Super Bowl record. And by all accounts, the viewership ratings will also be a record.

Best of all, unlike many Super Bowls past, the week went off without a major hitch. And that’s a credit to the city’s skilled and experienced team of organizers, led by the sports foundation.

The ﬂawless execution also served as an important reminder of our civic potential when we set aside our differences and unite for a common cause. Things work much better when we’re patting not stabbing each other’s backs.

“Our sense is that it has gone extremely well, better than we imagined, and we imagined pretty big,” Cicero said. “That’s why our theme is ‘It’s what we do.’ ”

The week was cathartic on so many levels and for so many reasons. It was exactly what New Orleans needed after Jan. 1

Best of all, Super Bowl LIX sent a resounding message. It showed the world that New Orleans can still get it done and established deﬁnitively that no one does Super Bowls like we do.

Email Jeff Duncan at jduncan@ theadvocate.com.

CAESARS SUPERDOME • NEW ORLEANS KANSAS CITy CHIEFS (15-2) VS. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (14-3)

Tom Brady walks on the sideline before Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

Pregame activities are seen before kickoff of Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

Jon Batiste performs the national anthem before Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

Harry Connick Jr performs before Super Bowl LIX on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Ledisi performs ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ before Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans Sunday.

President in suite with Gayle Benson to watch Super Bowl

Staff and wire reports

President Donald Trump met briefly with first responders and family of victims of the New Year’s Day terrorist attack in New Orleans before watching the pregame pageantry from Saints owner Gayle Benson’s suite alongside NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Entering through the tunnel of the corner of the Chiefs’ end zone, he greeted New Orleanians for a few minutes and took pictures before going to the suite, where his daughter Ivanka joined him. A mix of cheers and boos went up when he emerged.

“While thousands of fans from across our Nation gather in New Orleans to cheer on their favorite team, we remember that 14 families will be missing a loved one who was tragically murdered during a senseless terrorist attack while celebrating the New Year on Bourbon Street,” Trump said in a statement Sunday afternoon. “Our thoughts are also with the 35 individuals injured during the attack whose lives were changed forever that fateful night, and our prayers will remain with them for continued strength, comfort, and healing.”

Trump was the ﬁrst sitting president to attend a Super Bowl.

While aboard Air Force One en route to Louisiana, the flight crew announced that the plane was flying over the Gulf of America. It was the ﬁrst time Trump had ﬂown over the Gulf since he

ordered the federal government to refer to it by that name, instead of the Gulf of Mexico. Trump held a 30-minute, in-flight news conference to announce that he had declared Feb 9 “Gulf of America Day” to honor the fact that the Gulf is “an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America,” according to a copy of the declaration provided by the White House.

During the news conference, Trump also said he planned to impose 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum

Monday Air Force One landed around 3:30 p.m. at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans and

Trump departed around 3:45 p.m. for the Superdome.

During the 27-minute drive, supporters along the route waved ﬂags, held signs and saluted

There was plenty of other national politicking going on in New Orleans Sunday U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., posted a photo on the social media app X of him with Frank Bisignano, chair of the payment processing company Fiserv and Trump’s nominee to run the Social Security Administration

Two of Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Barron Trump, ate at Antoine’s in New Orleans on Sunday afternoon Huffington Post reporter S.V Date contributed to this story as pool reporter for the president’s trip.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By BEN CURTIS

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By BRyNN ANDERSON

Lara Trump, from left, New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson, President Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her son Theodore stand for the national anthem before Super Bowl LIX in a suite in the Caesars Superdome on

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N. Korea slams U.S.-S. Korea-Japan partnership

Kim vows to boost his nuclear program

BY HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said an elevated U.S. security partnership with South Korea and Japan poses a grave threat to his country and vowed to further bolster his nuclear weapons program, state media reported Sunday Kim has previously made similar warnings, but his latest statement implies again that the North Korean leader won’t likely embrace President Donald Trump’s overture to meet him and revive diplomacy anytime soon. In a speech marking the 77th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army on Saturday, Kim said the U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral security partnership established under a U.S. plot to form a NATO-like regional military bloc is inviting military im-

balance on the Korean Peninsula and “raising a grave challenge to the security environment of our state,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency “Referring to a series of new plans for rapidly bolstering all deterrence including nuclear forces, he clariﬁed once again the unshakable policy of more highly developing the nuclear forces,” KCNA said. Amid stalled diplomacy with the U.S and South Korea in recent years, Kim has focused on enlarging and modernizing his arsenal of nuclear weapons. In response, the United States and South Korea have expanded their bilateral military exercises and trilateral training involving Japan North Korea has lashed out at those drills calling them rehearsals to invade the country

Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has said he would reach

LegalNotice

out to Kim again as he boasted of his high-stakes summit with him during his ﬁrst term.

During a joint news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday Trump said that “We will have relations with North Korea, with Kim Jong Un. I got along with him very well, as you know I think I stopped the war.”

During a Fox News interview broadcast on Jan. 23, Trump called Kim “a smart guy” and “not a religious zealot.” Asked whether he will reach out to Kim again, Trump replied, “I will, yeah.”

Trump met Kim three times in 2018-19 to discuss how to end North Korea’s nuclear program in what was the ﬁrst-ever summitry between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea. The high-stakes diplomacy eventually collapsed because Trump rejected Kim’s offer to dismantle his main nuclear complex, a partial denuclearization step, in return for broad sanctions relief.

North Korea hasn’t directly re-

Personswho lived in Harahan, RiverRidge,South Kenner, Metairie,Waggaman, Avondale,orBridgeCityin2017, 2018, or 2019 maybeaﬀectedbya

sponded to Trump’s recent overture, as it continues weapons testing activities and hostile rhetoric against the U.S. Many experts say Kim is now preoccupied with his dispatch of troops to Russia to support its war efforts against Ukraine. They say Kim would still eventually consider returning to diplomacy with Trump if he determines he would fail to maintain the current solid cooperation with Russia after the war ends.

In his Saturday speech, Kim reafﬁrmed that North Korea “will invariably support and encourage the just cause of the Russian army and people to defend their sovereignty security and territorial integrity.” Kim accused the U.S. of being behind “the war machine which is stirring up the tragic situation of Ukraine.”

In South Korea, some worry that Trump might abandon the international community’s long-running goal of achieving a complete denuclearization of North Korea to produce a diplomatic achievement.

Protesters in Serbia block bridge, roads

By The Associated Press

BELGRADE, Serbia Striking university students in Serbia blocked a bridge in Belgrade as well as roads throughout the Balkan country on Sunday to mark 100 days since the collapse of a concrete canopy at a train station which killed 15 people. Many residents joined the students for a seven-hour blockade of the Gazela, or Gazelle, bridge over the Sava River in the Serbian capital. Simultaneously a threehour blockade of key roads started in Novi Sad, while students in Nis blocked a highway pay toll station at the entrance of the southern city The blockades are part of a campaign of protests led by striking university students who are demanding justice over the Nov 1 disaster at a train station in Novi Sad, which critics have blamed on government corruption.

Aviation disasters cause fears about safety of flying

BY JOSH FUNK Associated Press

The spate of recent aviation disasters and close calls have people worried about the safety of ﬂying.

The midair collision that killed 67 near Washington, the ﬁery plane crash in Philadelphia and now a missing plane in Alaska are only the most high-proﬁle disasters

There was also a Japan Airlines plane that clipped a parked Delta plane while it was taxiing at the Seattle airport earlier this week and a United Airlines plane caught fire during takeoff at the Houston airport Sunday after an engine problem sparked a ﬁre on the wing

That’s not even to mention the security concerns that arose after stowaways were found dead inside the wheel wells of two planes and aboard two other ﬂights.

And don’t forget about the time that a passenger opened an emergency exit door on a plane while it was taxiing for takeoff in Boston.

So of course people are wondering whether their ﬂight is safe?

What happened in the worst incidents?

The Jan. 29 collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed everyone aboard both aircraft. It was the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since Nov 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and ﬁve on the ground There hadn’t even been a deadly crash of any kind involving a U.S. airliner since February 2009. Crashes are more common involving smaller planes

A boat on the Potomac River cruises past emergency response vehicles staging at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling on Jan. 30 in Washington after a midair collision between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter that killed 67.

like the single-engine Cessna that crashed in Alaska on Thursday Ten people including the pilot were killed A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people onboard and another person on the ground. That Learjet generated a massive fireball when it smashed into the ground in a neighborhood not long after taking off from a small airport nearby. How worried should I be?

Fatal crashes attract extraordinary attention partly because they are rare. The track record of U.S airlines is remarkably safe, as demonstrated by the long stretch between fatal crashes. But deadly crashes have happened more recently elsewhere around the world, including one in South Korea that killed all 179 people

aboard in December There were also two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. And last January, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in ﬂight, raising more questions about the plane.

And federal ofﬁcials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls between planes at U.S. airports. Among the reasons they have cited for stafﬁng shortages are uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirements.

President Donald Trump added to those concerns Thursday when he blamed the midair collision on the “obsolete” air trafﬁc control system that airports rely on

2 mass graves with bodies of migrants found in Libya

BY SAMY MAGDY Associated Press

CAIRO Libyan authorities have uncovered nearly 50 bodies from two mass graves in the country’s southeastern desert, officials said Sunday in the latest tragedy involving people seeking to reach Europe through the chaos-stricken North African country

The ﬁrst mass grave with 19 bodies was found Friday in a farm in the southeastern city of Kufra, the security directorate said in a statement, adding that authorities took them for autopsy Authorities posted images on its Facebook page showing police ofﬁcers and medics digging in the sand and recovering dead bodies that were wrapped in blankets. The al-Abreen charity, which helps migrants in eastern and southern Libya, said that some were apparently shot and killed before being buried.

A separate mass grave, with at least 30 bodies, was also found in Kufra after

raiding a human trafﬁcking center, according to Mohamed al-Fadeil, head of the security chamber in Kufra. Survivors said nearly 70 people were buried in the grave, he added. Authorities were still searching the area.

Later on Sunday, authorities said they freed 76 migrants from the trafﬁcking center, and arrested three people a Libyan and two foreigners — on suspicion of detaining and torturing migrants. Prosecutors ordered the suspects to remain in detention pending investigation.

Migrants’ mass graves are not uncommon in Libya. Last year, authorities unearthed the bodies of at least 65 migrants in the Shuayrif region, 220 miles south of the capital, Tripoli. Libya is the dominant transit point for migrants from Africa and the Middle East trying to make it to Europe. The country was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime

autocrat Muammar Gaddaﬁ in 2011. Oil-rich Libya has been ruled for most of the past decade by rival governments in eastern and western Libya, each backed by an array of militias and foreign governments.

Human traffickers have beneﬁted from more than a decade of instability, smuggling migrants across the country’s borders with six nations, including Chad, Niger, Sudan Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia.

Once at the coast, trafﬁckers pack desperate migrants seeking a better life in Europe into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels for risky voyages on the perilous Central Mediterranean Sea route.

Rights groups and U.N. agencies have for years documented systematic abuse of migrants in Libya including forced labor, beatings, rapes and torture. The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before migrants are allowed to leave Libya on trafﬁckers’ boats.

and promised to replace it.

But even with all that,

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy went on Fox News earlier this week and tried to assure viewers that air travel is “way safer than traveling in a car and train. This is the safest mode of transportation.”

And the statistics back that up. The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the U.S Department of Transportation tell a similar story

What is being done?

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating these recent crashes and close calls to determine what caused them and look for ways to prevent similar incidents.

There have already been troubling revelations about

the midair collision, but it will take more than a year to get the full report on what happened.

The NTSB always recommends steps that could be taken to prevent crashes from happening again, but the agency has a long list of hundreds of previous recommendations that have been ignored by other government agencies and the industries it investigates.

But Duffy said the public is right to say that crashes like the recent ones are unacceptable. That is why he plans to make sure “safety is paramount” as he leads the agency that regulates all modes of transportation.

“I feel really good about where we’re at and where we’re going and the plans we have in place to make sure we even make the system safer and more efﬁcient than it is today,” Duffy said in the Fox interview

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City slickers

Orleanians

BY DOUG MacCASH Staff writer

This had to be a ﬁrst. Fox Sports had carpeted Bourbon Street. erally For two blocks, the stor entertainment strip was lined with purple polyester pile. At midpoint, a stage had been erect ed, upon which Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and other iconic football commentators discussed the upcoming contest, as a crowd swarmed around them.

BY JAMES FINN Staff writer

President Donald Trump’s sweeping deporta-

Super Bowl LIX was just a few hours away It was more than a championship football game, it was an opportunity for New Orleans to court the world. Few, if any, broadcasts are bigger than the Super Bowl, and the number of potential tourists the game could reach is inestimable.

For Fox to have chosen Bourbon Street as a backdrop was a gift to the city, especially considering the terrorist attack had taken place there, just blocks away, 39 days before.

afest place in the country’ Kansas City Chiefs fan Jeff Loudenback said news of the terror attack that claimed 14 victims didn’t cause him to consider canceling trip to New Orleans for the big game. “When stuff like that happens, people know security is going be here,” he said. Noting that President Donald Trump was expected to attend the game in the Caesars Superdome, Loudenback said “with the president and the Super Bowl, this is the safest place in the country.” Later, Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump watched the game with NFL Commissioner Roger

Loving Cup nomination deadline Friday

Staff report

The deadline is approaching for nominations for The Times-Picayune’s 2024 Loving Cup award. The award has been given since 1901 to recognize residents who have worked unselﬁshly for the New Orleans area. Anyone may be nominated, and anyone may nominate. The nominations should include a brief description of any civic, social, cultural or religious activities that have contributed to the impact the nominee has had on the area. Posthumous nominations are not accepted.

Nominations can be emailed to lovingcup@theadvocate.com or mailed to The Times-Picayune Loving Cup Committee, 840 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70130. They should be received by the end of Friday The Times-Picayune will hold a ceremony to honor the winner The 2023 Loving Cup was awarded to Darryl Berger, a well-known New Orleans real estate developer and philanthropist.

Past Loving Cup recipients include Boysie Bollinger, Gayle Benson, Leah Chase, Archbishop Phillip Hannan, Tommy Cvitanovich, Michael Smith and Anne Milling.

Developers looking to Parish Council after zoning board sides with residents

BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer

A developer’s request to rezone nearly 350 acres west of Covington for hundreds of new homes was rejected by the St. Tammany Parish Planning and Zoning Commission during a standing-room-only meeting Tuesday night. Now, the St Tammany Parish Council, which takes the commission’s decisions as recommendations, will have the ﬁnal say In front of a crowd of over 100 people, the developer’s lawyer, Paul Mayronne, argued

BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

host of

Orleans performers, including Trombone Shorty, Terence Blanchard and Freddie Lonzo, on Sunday at the Superdome before the Super Bowl.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD A Homeland Security agent lets a fan pet his furry assistant en route to the Superdome.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Fans arrive Sunday at the Caesars Superdome ahead of the big showdown between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs at the Super Bowl.

Trout, redfish, drum killed by thousands in snowstorm

BY MIKE SMITH Staff writer

Louisiana’s record freeze and snowstorm last month killed many thousands of ﬁsh, but marine conditions were not as severe as a 1989 cold snap, and time will tell if species such as speckled trout and redﬁsh were badly affected, biologists with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said

The department had investigated 77 ﬁsh kills statewide through Thursday, most discovered by its own teams searching for them. The dead fish included 12,552 speckled trout; 6,568 redﬁsh; 2,142 black drum; 2,657 sheepshead; and 19,107 striped mullet.

Most of the dead trout, redﬁsh and drum were found in the Ter-

IMMIGRATION

Continued from page 1B

“As immigrants, all we ask for is what we’ve earned with our sweat,” Sosa said in Spanish. “Now this is having a massive effect on my business, on all businesses that rely on us.”

Disruptions for businesses in areas with large immigrant populations underscore the potential for deeper market impacts if Trump follows through on a pledge he has made to deport some 20 million people with a broad array of immigration statuses from the U.S., including those who entered the country illegally In the past, analysts say sweeping immigration enforcement activity has chilled local economies reliant on migrants, particularly in conservative states like Louisiana, whose leaders support tough immigration policies.

A surge in immigration over the Southern border between 2021 and 2024 made the U.S. economy more reliant on immigrants than ever before, increasing the potential fallout of Trump’s policies, said Pia M. Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and former immigration adviser to Republican President George W. Bush.

Supporters of Trump’s crackdown say their agenda prioritizes public safety, highlighting immigration arrests like those in Louisiana last month of convicted sex offender Yared Geremew Mekonnen and Honduran Miguel SolorzanoDominguez, accused of distributing cocaine.

Following periods of heightened immigration enforcement, studies show immigrants become less likely to venture into public spaces, apply for public assistance or work public-facing jobs, Orrenius said.

“With states that have cracked down, research shows that immigrants are less likely to move there, more likely to leave and more likely to transition to shadow economies,” she said.

‘Chilling effect’

In Kenner, where Latino residents make up most of the customers at Venezuelan eatery Coma Arepas, owner Julio Machado estimated that sales have dropped by 95% since Trump took ofﬁce The restaurant now sits empty for long stretches of the day Remaining sales come mostly through delivery apps.

“People are just staying in,” Machado said in Spanish. “They’re afraid.”

Meanwhile, he said the way Trump and others in his administration have described immigrants — the president calls them “illegal,” “aliens” and “criminals” — has “affected me on an emotional level, seeing the generalizations that we’re criminals.”

“No one’s coming here to steal your work or your money,” he added.

Christian Pokorn, owner of New Orleans-based Pokorn Construction, said he has struggled since the inauguration to recruit workers for rooﬁng, construction and foundation-setting jobs, particularly in highly trafﬁcked areas like the French Quarter Workers have told him they are fearful of a stiff police presence there in the wake of the Jan. 1 vehicle-ramming attack on Bourbon Street.

Louisiana’s construction industry is powered in part by immigrants, many from Guatemala and Honduras. All of the workers Pokorn hires are documented, he said, but still, the increased scrutiny has frightened some away Without Central American workers, the jobs are not easily ﬁlled.

“It’s going to increase prices, slow things down and make schedules harder to keep,” said Pokorn, who was born in Austria and himself began his construction career as a young immigrant to the U.S.

“The average American does not want to be doing this work,” he

rebonne/Timbalier Basin, while most sheepshead were in the Barataria Basin and mullet in the Pontchartrain Basin, department data shows.

The data showed “concentrations of kills occurring in some areas where fish likely did not have time to leave shallower areas or have access to deep enough, slightly warmer, water readily available in which to take refuge,” biologists said in a report supplied to the state’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.

“Coastal water levels were already somewhat lower prior to the Arctic blast and ﬁsh may have moved to deeper waters prior to those areas reaching critical water temperatures,” the report said. When water temperatures drop

said. “If you’ve ever carried a pack of shingles up a 60-foot extension ladder, you’d know why Good luck getting it done without them.”

Local politics

Besides the president’s effort to erode birthright citizenship — a federal judge blocked that order, though the matter could land before the majority-conservative U.S. Supreme Court Trump has slashed protections for migrants from a handful of countries. On Tuesday, his administration began sending flights of detained migrants to the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have ramped up arrests since Trump took office, the agency has said, though ofﬁcials have not provided detailed data backing up arrest ﬁgures. On Wednesday CBS News reported that ICE detention facilities, several of which are located in Louisiana, had exceeded capacity and that the agency was releasing some detainees. ICE did not respond to multiple inquiries about its enforcement strategy in the New Orleans area

Though immigration has historically been the purview of the federal government, Republican Gov Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, like other GOP immigration hardliners, have pledged to aid Trump’s mass-deportation effort, stoking consternation in immigrant communities. In an interview Thursday, Landry said he is particularly focused on helping the feds deport people with criminal histories.

“If you’re in Louisiana and you’re here illegally and you’re conducting criminal activity, we’re going to come ﬁnd you,” Landry said.

In Jefferson Parish, whose growing population is nearly 20% Latino, fear over those policies has been acute. Seeking to temper anxieties, some local Republican leaders are striking a softer tone.

“We have a large Latino community in my district, and while I am sure there is a great deal of fear for them, I would encourage everyone to not panic as our legal processes run their course,” said Jefferson Parish Council member Arita Bohannon, who represents much of Kenner. “There appears to be a fair amount of reliance on social media posts and conjecture that many times turns out to be untrue.”

Bohannon said she was unaware of effects that immigration policies might be having on local businesses The executive director of the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission, Jerry Bologna, said his group has yet to hear concerns from partner businesses regarding immigration policy

Day without immigrants

Even as they reported slower sales some businesses like El Exquisito shut their doors this week in protest.

Last week, doors closed at droves of establishments in keeping with a national “day without immigrants” demonstration. They included the supermarket chain Ideal Market, which has locations around the metro area; the Guatemalan fried chicken stop Pollo Campero in Kenner; Gretna-based Honduran restaurant Sabores Del Puerto; and Perez Latin Grocery in Chalmette, among others.

“Let’s make our presence felt,” Sabores Del Puerto’s owners said in Spanish.

Other Latino business owners, already suffering from revenue dips due to lower sales, decided they couldn’t afford to join in. Machado was among them.

“We have to keep open to keep going and to pay our employees, to pay our rent, our insurance,” he said. “If we close for a day or two, it’s devastating for our ﬁnances.”

Staff writer Lara Nicholson contributed to this report.

Email James Finn at jﬁnn@ theadvocate.com.

below 40 degrees for more than a day, conditions can be fatal for saltwater ﬁsh. The cold weather the week of Jan. 20 led to water temperatures below that point across coastal Louisiana, with some areas remaining there for four days. Though the snowfall was recordbreaking, with as much as 12 inches falling in some areas, the freeze was not as severe as the one in 1989 in relation to south Louisiana’s water bodies. Wildlife and Fisheries noted that the 1989 freeze led to ice forming on Lake Pontchartrain and other large coastal water bodies, which did not occur this time. When it comes to marine life, this winter so far has been similar to those of 1996, 2000 and 2014 in severity, biologists found, using

ZONING

Continued from page 1B

the proposed subdivision’s direct access to two major parish corridors — U.S 190 and La. 1077 — and its consistency with the density of nearby developments made it an optimal place to build single family housing.

The developer, H1 Associates, sought a zoning change from a rural classiﬁcation to a suburban classiﬁcation.

“If this is not an appropriate place, then I ask you rhetorically: Where is it?” Mayronne said

But opponents clad in LSU gear and other purple attire to show their unity, argued that even without the proposed subdivision, the highways are already congested, the schools crowded and the community’s subdivisions are prone to ﬂooding. The development, they argued, would lower quality of life for everyone.

The potential subdivision in the unincorporated community of Goodbee would cover two undeveloped pieces of land, one 305 acres and the other 38 acres. The vast majority of the two tracts are zoned to

FANS

Continued from page 1B

Goodell, Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson and others.

Though members of the New Orleans Police Department and several other law enforcement agencies stood sentry at most intersections along Bourbon, it retained its laissez-faire reputation. Israel Bartley the doorman at the Executive Gentlemen’s Club, did his best to shepherd sports lovers toward the scantily clad women in the doorway Bartley said the army of Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagle fans that crowded Bourbon Street had been convivial despite their rivalry “There’s been no stupidity,” he said, laughing Most people, he said, were aware of the Jan. 1 tragedy and “they pay their respects.”

Bartley said business had been good and spirits high. “We needed this,” he said. “We needed this uplifting.”

“You have a lot of wealthy people here,” Bartle said. At 4 p.m., some Super Bowl tickets were still available online starting at $2,200. “But,” Bartle said, “you got normal folks, too, just out here having fun.”

A Swift return

Some of the wealthy people would probably be transported to the Superdome via the line of limousines outside of the Roosevelt Hotel, with NOPD motorcycle officers seemingly waiting to escort them

One of the ofﬁcers said that the black SUVs might be intended for celebrities. But, if so, he didn’t know who they were. Celebrities were certainly around Paul McCartney, Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z and, of course, Kansas City’s most famous fan, Taylor Swift, were all in town. Just to name a few Chiefs second-line

Over on Girod Street, a sort of sports second-line appeared, composed of scores of Chiefs fans, some in costume. As Jonas Retikis, of Lenexa Kansas, explained, the paraders were KC fans from across the country who planned to attend a watch party together at a Central Business District bar

Most of the group “can’t afford to go to the game,” Retikis said. “We’re just going to walk down there, have a little pep rally and walk back.” Then, he said, “we’re going to eat a lot of good barbecue and have a few more adult beverages.”

Retikis and the other Chiefs fans seemed to grasp New Orleans customs perfectly

Email Doug MacCash at dmaccash@theadvocate.com.

an index it employs to track such data.

The lingering effects on fish populations are not generally known until a year or two afterward, and the total number of fish killed is likely to be higher than what has been reported. Wildlife and Fisheries said anglers should expect fishing to be below average in the months ahead and possibly worse if there were far more fish kills than reported.

“You can probably expect some lower landings this year as a result,” Jason Adriance, Wildlife and Fisheries’ finfish program manager, told the commission on Thursday

Email Mike Smith at msmith@ theadvocate.com.

allow only one home every 5 acres, whereas the requested zoning would allow one home every 7,500 square feet.

In all, the 38-acre tract could have up to 100 homes, said the developer, Jeff Vallee of H1 Associates, and the 305-acre lot would likely have hundreds more, though he didn’t have an exact amount.

“People think this is going to come in overnight and it’s just not,” Vallee said by phone on Wednesday

Residents would not move in for at least two years, and the whole development would likely take up to 20 years to ﬁnish, he said.

But Matthew Allen, executive director of Northshore RiverWatch, a conservation nonproﬁt based in St. Tammany Parish, argued the development would cause ﬂooding in the surrounding area and that developers should build on higher ground.

“This whole property floods,” he said.

The development would have more than 50 acres of retention ponds and “exceed” the parish’s drainage requirement, Mayronne said, which include requiring new subdivisions to have 25% less runoff than the undeveloped property

Regardless, Mayronne said the

MACHETE

Continued from page 1B

But the trial was traumatizing for Fradieu, who is still struggling physically and emotionally to recover from the attack and the horriﬁc injuries inﬂicted.

Fradieu rarely ventures from home, too afraid to go out after the attack, according to her mother Delisse George, 54. Fradieu has not regained the use of her hands, which were slashed and broken as she tried to defend herself against the machete blade.

“Her scars on the outside have healed, but she still has a lot of internal scars,” George said Thursday

Without warning

Constant attacked Fradieu on the night of May 23, 2020, while she worked at a Little Caesars in the 1600 block of Gretna Boulevard.

Fradieu and a female co-worker, 52, were the only people on duty that night. Both were familiar with Constant, who was a regular customer, according to authorities.

That night, he entered the store and asked to apply for a job. Then, without warning, Constant pulled out a machete, hopped over the counter and began chasing the women, according to authorities.

The 52-year-old employee ran to a neighboring business to call for help. But Constant caught up to Fradieu and began attacking her with the machete.

Fradieu tucked her chin to her chest to protect her throat but suffered deep gashes to her hands, arms, chest and head, relatives said. She played dead to stop the attack, according to authorities, and Constant left. He was arrested four days later after Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office investigators received a tip identifying him.

Tried in absentia

Constant was uncooperative during the ﬁrst day of trial, George said. He damaged a computer monitor and was removed from Judge Jacqueline Maloney’s courtroom, according to court records.

On the second day, he refused to leave his cell and was tried in absentia, the District Attorney’s Ofﬁce said. Constant is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 21.

Even though Constant wasn’t present, the trial was difﬁcult for Fradieu and family, her mother said. Surveillance video presented during the trial showed the frightening moments leading up

THRELKELD

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT

Though the January snowfall was record-breaking with as much as 12 inches falling in some areas the freeze was not as severe as the one in 1989 in relation to south Louisiana’s water bodies, according to state Wildlife and Fisheries biologists.

question before the zoning board was not about drainage, but zoning. He argued the proposed suburban zoning was consistent with nearby lots and the parish’s 2040 zoning plan.

The Planning and Zoning Commission was not convinced. The commissioners voted 11-0, with three members absent, to deny the rezoning requests for both of the tracts. Two commissioners spoke, very brieﬂy

“I don’t really have to reiterate what everybody’s already said,” said Commissioner Rene Arcemont. “We’ve had 15 emails, 40 cards today and another 67 on the sign-up sheet that is against it, so my motion is to deny.”

Commissioner Phillip Truxillo argued the zoning change would have a negative impact on “safety, welfare and quality of life,” pointing to trafﬁc on La. 1077, one of the corridors the development would abut. Vallee said he was “hopeful” going into the meeting but anticipated a possible denial. Now, he said, he plans to appeal to the Parish Council.

Email Willie Swett at willie. swett@theadvocate.com

to the attack, including Constant’s brandishing of the machete and his ﬂight after the women, according to George.

Video showed the severely injured Fradieu stumble back into frame and press the panic button before collapsing, a disturbing sight for her relatives.

“We weren’t prepared for that,” George said.

They also had to hear the coworker’s screams that Fradieu was dead.

“There was not a dry eye in the courtroom,” said Marlo Best, Fradieu’s aunt.

Afraid to live

Fradieu suffered deep gashes to her face and body She had broken hands, arms and teeth, according to relatives. The blade fractured her skull and caused some brain damage, George said. She still has metal embedded in her skull.

Fradieu had once dreamed of becoming a cosmetologist. She specialized in avant-garde makeup and could truly transform her face, George said.

“Now that she doesn’t have full use of her hands, she can no longer do that,” George said. “She no longer has plans. She doesn’t think about the future.”

Fradieu endured 15 surgeries and more than 300 days of occupational and physical therapy She sees a psychotherapist and a trauma therapist. But she rarely wants to leave the safety of her home.

Though alive, Fradieu is barely living, her mother said.

“She’s too afraid to do anything,” George said. “She’s secluded herself, isolated herself.”

George, who now battles anxiety and depression herself, said she does her best to be strong for her daughter and push Fradieu out of her comfort zone.

George praised her family her sister, mother, brother and others — for their support through the past four years.

“We’re not alone in that aspect,” George said. “She (Fradieu) has me, and I have my village.”

Email Michelle Hunter at mhunter@theadvocate.com

Davids, Mary

Peters Jr., James

Rabin, Larry

Roberts, Robert

Rockwood, Kathleen

Vaughan, Toni

New Orleans

Charbonnet

Davids, Mary

Peters Jr., James

Jacob Schoen

Roberts, Robert Lake Lawn Metairie

Rabin, Larry

Vaughan, Toni

Obituaries

Mary Davids, age 86, of New Orleans, Louisiana, born on July 19, 1938 in New Roads, LA, transi‐tioned to her heavenly home on January 30, 2025 Mary was the loving mother of Michael Phillip Jr., Paul, Antoinette, Iris, Jonique and Cindy In addi‐tion

ial honoring the life and legacy of the late James Clifford Peters, Jr. will be held at All Saints Catholic Church 1441 Teche Street New Orleans, LA 70114 on Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 10 am Interment Mount Olivet Cemetery, 4000 Nor‐man Mayer Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70122. Visita‐tion 8 am with recitation of the Holy Rosary at 9 am followed by obituary read‐ing in the church Please sign online guestbook at www charbonnetfuneralho me.com Face mask and social distancing strongly encouraged. Charbonnet Labat Glapion, Directors (504) 581-4411.

Rabin, Larry Bruce

Shop, which later evolved into The Crateand Designers Anonymous. His determination and work ethic kept thefamily enterprise successful formany years. This experience in retail and Larry's natural fortitudeand adaptability would serve him well in his next career in the commercial real estateindustry. A 35 year career that started with John Kushner and Associates and flourished with CorporateRealty, Larry specialized in strategy and deal making for national retail concepts coming to the Gulf South. Many of these national retail concepts that are nowfamiliar in this regionfound success from their relationships with Larry. He was also asuccessful retail developer and amentor to many who learned success under his guidance.

Ivera Jones, and William Bridges who all became partofthe family as they ensured his comfort and dignity. His medical team, including Dr. Charles Smith and Dr. Stephen Kantrow, provided expert care for a patient with complicated healthchallenges. We will forever be grateful for all of the wonderful medical professionals who stepped in to show Larry love and support as he faced new challenges that came his way. Withhis head held high, he took every chance he could to enjoy life with friends and family. He was truly inspirational to so many.

This relationship provided Larry with adeeper faith that gave him strength and resolve as his challenges increased.

Although July 5, 1949, doesnot appear to be a day of historicalsignificance,belovedfamily, friends, and colleagues profitedwhen Larry Bruce Rabin was borninhis favorite city of NewOrleans on this day. Born as the middle child of Sarah and Sam Rabin, Larry was always his mother's favorite. Growing up with hisadoring sisters, Janis Rabin (Dr. Stan Alfred, z"l)and Dr. Vicki Rabin Bursten (Andy), theirs was ahome of laughter and play, filled with friends and extended family with an open door policy. These siblings and their cousins established a lifelong bond of love and loyalty that has continued with future generations of nieces and nephews. Janis, Vicki, and Larry remained by each other's side until Larry's final fight was over on February3,2025. Many of Larry's childhood pals from these early years have also remained very close and important throughout his life. This foundation of devotion and camaraderie would remain athread throughout Larry's life.His example remains an integral part of his extended family, and we are betteratunderstanding how real relationships are the most worthwhile currency thatone can earn. Woven into his life was true resilience courage,determination, and apassionate zestfor life that was inspiring to those who knew him. He was agood man, amensch in the truest sense An excellent athlete, Larry excelled in golfand basketball until these pursuits gave way to motorcycles, pinball, and perhaps some drag racing by the lake as he made hisway through Newman School. He went on to Tulane but always cheeredfor LSU. He was competitive in all pursuits. Oneofthesepursuits in his formativeyears turned out to be played in alonger game when he connected with Ann Lengsfield in high school. They would not marry for many years, but this relationship would prove to be invaluable and agreat love story. In the meantime, Larry faced some earlychallenges. At the age of 21, his beloved father faceda critical illness. He bravely stepped in to lead the family business, TheOrleans Shop, which laterevolved into The Crate and Designers Anonymous. His determination and work ethic kept the family enter-

During Larry's early work years and first marriage, he had two beautiful daughters, Randi Rabin Karotkin (Jesse) and Dr. Lauren Rabin Blair (Jon). He taught the importance of relationships, love, and living with passiontothe next generation. With his mustache in tow,Larry also taught his daughters how to playbasketball and how to throw amean spiral. His lessons of good character, hard work and determination prepared them for success in life that they and their families enjoy.

And now back to Ann. After an almost 20 year hiatus, one that is necessary for this story as it provided Annwithher two wonderful children, Richard Weber (Rebecca) and Maggie Weber, the fabric was now in place for Ann and Larry to weavetogether their two families. These combined families have been together for 36 years. Many spaghetti noodles found their way stuck above thefamily dinner table on the ceiling in the early years. Mandatory 'Family Outings' meant six Rabins and Webers in Larry'slittle sedan and, by sheer will, Ann and Larry brought this family together. It would be fun, they said. Well, it worked. Maybethroughtheir shared love for one another, maybebecause this was apath that was meant to be, fun was had Lifelong relationships were established and they became afamily. This has continued to the next generation as Annand Larry, who became Mimi and Pops, welcomed seven grandchildren, Mica, Zev, James, Fox, Judah, Dylan, and Henry. This generation will teach the next Larry's valuable lessons of "can do."

Blending afamily of many personality types could not have been an easy start for this relationship, but Ann and Larry's lovefor one another made it work. Loveconquers. Ann and Larry loved to travel together, share great meals withfriends and family, cheer on the Saintsand LSU, and enjoy the wonderful thingsthat the city of New Orleans has to offer, all while trying their best to keep their children out of trouble. They were devoted to one another until the end Through Larry's declining healththese last few years, Annremained by his side -aswife, best friend, confidant,cheerleader, and caregiver. Their faith and love of family, friendships, and an appreciation for life gave them strength. Ann was blessed to have tremendous help with Larry's care from Laura Hill, Shirella Ray, Demetrious Gaunichaux, Ivera Jones, and William Bridges who all became part of the family as they ensured his comfort and dignity. His medical team,

cial real estate industry. A 35 year career that started with John Kushner and Associatesand flourished with Corporate Realty, Larry specializedinstrategy and deal making fornational retail concepts coming to the Gulf South. Many of these nationalretail concepts that arenow familiar in this region found success from theirrelationships with Larry. He was also asuccessful retail developer and amentor to many who learned success under hisguidance During Larry's early work years and firstmarriage, he had two beautiful daughters, Randi Rabin Karotkin (Jesse) and Dr. Lauren Rabin Blair(Jon). He taught the importance of relationships, love,and living with passion to the next generation. Withhis mustache in tow, Larry al-

Larry's devotion to Newman School, and especially his cherished class of '67, led his classmates to establish theLarry Rabin Scholarship Fund and honored him with being 'President for Life' of their class for his unwavering dedication in keeping his classmates connected Larry filled his days with courage, love, and faith. Rabbi Katie Bauman of Touro Synagogue, alifelong family friend,became Larry's spiritual leader. This relationship provided Larry with adeeper faith that gave him strength and resolve as his challenges increased.

Larry's zest for life, his ability to make others laugh, resilience, and love of friends andfamily will remain an inspiration to us all. How can we ever forget his quick witand sidesplitting sense of humor? He instilled these values in the next generation to share with the next. We will do our best to live up to the good character by which Larry lived his life. You will be missed, Pops. Love remains. In his honor, donations may be made to: Isidore Newman School, Class of 1967 Larry Rabin Scholarship Fund-1903 Jefferson Ave., New Orleans, LA 70115; Touro Synagogue, Rabbi Bauman's Discretionary Fund, 4238 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70115; Museum of Southern Jewish Experience, PO Box 15071, New Orleans, LA 70175.

Visitation will begin at 12:00 PM at Touro Synagogue on Monday February 10th with aservice to follow at 1pm. So many of you

of the wonderful medical professionals who stepped in to show Larry love and support as he faced new challenges that came his way. Withhis head held high, he took every chance he could to enjoy life with friends and family. He was truly inspirational to so many.

Larry filled his days with courage, love, and faith. Rabbi Katie Bauman of Touro Synagogue, alifelong family friend,became Larry's spiritual leader. This relationship provided Larry with adeeper faith

them for success in life that they and their families enjoy And now back to Ann.

of friends and family will remain an inspirationtous all. How can we ever forget his quick wit and side-

Davids, Mary

Nation heading into ‘political twilight zone’

This nation once depended on a rule of law

If someone broke a law there was a consequence. The rule of law for one individual who has become president is no longer true. Wanting to be president for life (“I am not leaving”), he incited a riot where law enforcement officers were injured and some ultimately died. If United States senators had recognized the law, this man would now be in a federal penitentiary looking out through bars, but instead, he has now become president again. What was once right (the law) is no longer paramount. Now his administration is set to undo what has seemed the right thing to do. Climate change is occurring — snow in New Orleans, fires in Los Angeles, etc. The sensible policy would be to do all that can be done to minimize or reverse this trend. Yet his policy is “Drill, baby, drill.” Only in America are parents concerned about the safety of their children in schools due to gun violence. The sensible policy would be to do everything possible to reduce the abundance of guns. The integrity of the federal government should not be challenged for partisan purposes Now the civil service is to be altered so individuals can be hired and fired without cause. The FBI and CIA are responsible for the nation’s security Now the former is to be used to seek out citizens who dissent.

This nation has now entered into a political twilight zone. What was once right, the law is no longer of consequence. Whether this nation can survive this political twilight zone is unknown

BYRON ALMQUIST NewOrleans

Cartoon depicting Musk as Nazi was disrespectful

The cartoon depicting Elon Musk giving a Nazi salute to a WWII veteran totally misrepresents what Musk did at the inauguration event and is an affront to every true American.

My parents were both veterans of that war, and they would have been appalled to see this cartoon. I get that the cartoonist is a leftist and hates conservatives and this president. But this particular cartoon was disgusting. This paper should be ashamed for having published it.

CLARENCE A SPRICK JR. Lafayette

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name and the writer’s city of residence.The Advocate | The Times-Picayune require a street address and phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@theadvocate.com.

TOSENDUS ALETTER SCANHERE

YOUR VIEWS

Church wants immigration policy based on dignity of all

We write with hearts full of compassion and a deep desire to express our solidarity with migrants during this stressful time. We recognize the immense challenges migrants face, and we want to assure them that they are not alone. Compelled by the gospel of Jesus Christ and recognizing the inherent dignity of each person as a child of God, we stand in ﬁrm solidarity with our immigrant brothers and sisters. As bishops, we will advocate for their just treatment and dignity within the framework of the law

The Church has always recognized the responsibility of nations to control their borders and create migration policies. What is clear is the urgent need for a comprehensive reform of our country’s immigration system. Catholic social teaching identiﬁes principles that should be included in any reform. It is necessary that the root causes of forced migration should be addressed. Any law enforcement efforts should be tar-

geted, proportional and humane and should guarantee humanitarian protection and due process. Longtime residents should have an earned pathway to citizenship. Family unity should remain a cornerstone of the U.S. system and legal pathways to migration and citizenship should be expanded, reliable and efﬁcient.

We also hope that our country can develop an effective asylum system for those fleeing persecution and an immigration system that keeps our borders safe and secure. Enforcement policies should focus on those who present risks and dangers to society — and in particular, aim to reduce gang activity stem the flow of drugs and end human trafficking.

Sacred scripture provides us with countless examples of God’s love for the stranger and the sojourner These words remind us that we are all pilgrims of hope on this Earth.

TOM COSTANZA executivedirector LouisianaConferenceofCatholicBishops

N.O. civic leaders have supported community; it should support them

In view of recent criticism, I would like to offer a novel idea: Our proven and devoted civic leaders ought to be celebrated rather than condemned and subjected to a public hatchet job.

I have worked in New Orleans as a rabbi and appointed civic leader for almost 40 years, and I have witnessed ﬁrsthand the beneﬁts of unstinting civic leadership in so many instances. Following Hurricane Katrina, when we were challenged to secure failing schools, address broken levees, protect from soaring crime and mammoth homelessness — our civic leadership selflessly stepped forward to help lead in each of these crises.

Without question, the scandals and offender wrongdoings within the Catholic Church of New Orleans present us with some of the saddest moments in our city’s history All of us acknowledge both the unnecessary agony experienced by the victims and their families, and despair over how it was so slowly addressed I take exception, however to the recent attacks by the national media and a local TV station, which chose Super Bowl week to highlight criticism of some of our city’s most respected and trusted leaders — almost suggesting that they themselves were accomplices in something sinister Federal Judge Jay Zainey is a champion of causes on behalf of the homeless. Newell Normand

has kept us safe as a sheriff and continues to serve by means of his daily radio show.

John Georges stepped forward and saved the locally owned newspaper, preventing it from shutting down.

Gayle Benson has supported nearly every charitable cause in the city since taking ownership of the Saints and the Pelicans. I trust these leaders to generously continue to work alongside so many others to help solve our city’s problems and do the right thing.

We should consider ourselves fortunate to have these people in our great city

RABBI EDWARD PAUL COHN NewOrleans

Ten Commandments

law doesn’t respect traditions of our country

The Jan. 24 guest column by Kelly Shackelford in support of Louisiana mandating display of the Ten Commandments is, in places, laughable. But I’m not laughing. He justiﬁes his stand because “the Ten Commandments were widely displayed in schools for the ﬁrst century of our nation.” Really? We have to do this now because that’s the way it used to be when lynchings were common, segregation was rampant and women couldn’t vote?

He warns “secular outrage” will lead to “public schools across the nation canceling all ﬁeld trips to our nation’s capital.”

I went to Catholic schools for 10 years, and agree it is an important historical document. I agree that troubled kids should learn “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” But tell me please, when you meet your Jewish friends for a beer have you asked them their thoughts on Commandments I and II: “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” When you invite your Muslim friends over for dinner have they mentioned that in the Quran there are 10 commandments given by Allah to mankind?

Would Shackelford favor that the life-guiding commandments of the Quran be posted in Louisiana classrooms also for the good of society, alongside the Ten Commandments? In Arabic? It’s only fair Bottom line: The way the U.S. was “for the ﬁrst century” included Thomas Jefferson writing in 1802, “Religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

That’s the “history and tradition” of our nation and should continue to be.

TOM ROCHE NewOrleans

Ignoring justice with Jan. 6 pardons will have consequences

President Donald Trump has issued a blank pardon to over 1,500 people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6 riot. Granted, some were not extremists and were, in fact, innocent dupes of Trump‘s urging to “ﬁght like hell” and his statement that “if you don’t ﬁght like hell, you’re not going to have a country to protect anymore.”

However, these words and Trump’s false statements that the 2020 election was stolen paved the way for the insurrection by the White supremacist insurrection groups, The Oath Keepers and The Proud Boys.

Trump‘s recent election in turn also paved the way for the release of these dangerous extremists. They were found guilty by a 12-person jury of a duly constituted court of law that required a unanimous verdict of all 12 members of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They were found guilty of the serious felony of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government. For Trump to totally ignore the facts and circumstances of the most dangerous threat to the cornerstone of American law and justice that “no man is above the law“ is without conscience. It is, in the end, simply an action of a duly convicted felon, commuting sentences of duly convicted felons. THOMAS GUILBEAU Lafayette

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

Families wait after being processed by the U.S Border Patrol and then dropped off at the Central Station bus terminal in downtown McAllen, Texas.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson

COMMENTARY

HIGH STEPPING!

Carnival parade prep is in full swing, and it looks like this krewe is gonna take their fun to new heights! you never know what you’ll see around here this time of year!

So, what’s the little girl telling her friend in this cartoon? you tell me. Be witty, funny, crazy absurd or snarky — just try to keep it clean There’s no limit on the number of entries

The winning punchline will be lettered into the word balloon and run on Monday, Feb 17 in our print editions and online. In addition, the winner will receive a signed print of the cartoon along with a cool winner’s T-shirt! Some honorable mentions will also be listed.

To enter, email cartooncontest@theadvocate.com.

DON’T FORGET! All entries must include your name, home address and phone number Cell numbers are best

The deadline for all entries is midnight on Thursday, Feb 13.

Have fun, folks! — Walt

I.G. ﬁrings are blatantly illegal

Contempt for law

Contempt for Congress. Contempt for oversight. That is the lesson of President Donald Trump’s Friday night massacre of at least 14 inspectors general most appointed by Trump himself in his ﬁrst term.

The blatantly illegal action is troubling in itself — nonpartisan inspectors general play a critical role in assuring the lawful and efficient operations of government, in Democratic and Republican administrations alike. An administration supposedly focused on making government more efficient would be empowering inspectors general, not firing them en masse.

But this episode is even more alarming than that. It offers a chilling foreshadowing of Trump unbound, heedless of the rule of law and unwilling to tolerate any potential impediment to his authority

Over a period of six weeks late into his ﬁrst term, Trump ousted ﬁve inspectors general who had crossed him, a move that was deeply concerning but within his power as president. In a nod to the president’s constitutional prerogatives, the 1978 law establishing independent inspectors general authorizes the chief executive to dismiss them but requires that he provide Congress “the reasons for any such removal” at least 30 days beforehand.

In 2020, Trump complied with that minimal notice. Two years later Congress, with bipartisan support, tightened the statute, specifying that the president must inform lawmakers of the ‘‘substantive rationale, including detailed and case-speciﬁc reasons,” for the action.

On Friday night, the newly emboldened president ignored all that, summarily ﬁring the inspectors general at the departments of Defense, State, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Energy Commerce and Agriculture as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, Small Business Administration and the Social Security Administration. The email, from White House head of presidential personnel Sergio Gor said the ﬁrings were “due to changing priorities” and announced that the dismissals were “effective immediately.”

The changing priority would appear to be letting the president function

without fear of oversight.

“This is unprecedented, this is unfortunate and it doesn’t seem to comport with the law,” said Glenn Fine, one of the inspectors general removed during Trump’s ﬁrst term. “It undermines the credibility and independence of IG’s and their effectiveness if they’re viewed as tied to one political party or another rather than as independent and objective.”

Fine, who served as the Justice Department’s inspector general from 2000 until 2011 and acting inspector general at the Defense Department from 2016 to 2020, is the author of “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.”

One of the few presidentially appointed inspectors general who appear to have been spared is the Justice Department’s Michael Horowitz, a well-regarded Obama appointee whose reports on the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation were campaign trail fodder for Trump allies. Trump also did not dismiss the widely criticized inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security Joseph V. Cuffari Jr

Some of the inspectors general, I’m told, might turn up for work because they view their removal as unlawful.

“I recommend that you reach out to White House Counsel to discuss your intended course of action,” Small Business Administration inspector general Hannibal “Mike” Ware replied to Gor in a letter obtained by Politico. “At this point, we do not believe the actions tak-

en are legally sufficient to dismiss Presidentially Appointed, Senate Confirmed Inspectors General,” added Ware, who heads the Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency

The firings don’t just pose a fundamental challenge to the inspectors general and the agencies they serve they are a threat to the authority of Congress itself. What is the point of laws if lawmakers permit them to be so cavalierly ignored? Yet the response of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has been a thundering champion of inspectors general, was disturbingly muted. “There may be good reason the IGs were fired. We need to know that if so. I’d like further explanation from President Trump,” Grassley said in a statement. “Regardless, the 30-day detailed notice of removal that the law demands was not provided to Congress.” Well, that sure tells them what’s what. Congress and the rest of us need to closely watch what comes next. Presumably, Trump didn’t remove the incumbent inspectors general just to let their deputies continue business as usual. “You can weaponize these jobs,” one of the ousted inspectors general told me. “You can ignore bad things. You can go after the prior administration. You can try to filter or edit work that comes out. They’ve taken away one of the huge checks and balances.” And that was precisely the point. Ruth Marcus is on X, @RuthMarcus.

The perverse defense of DEI

If you think meritocracy inevitably means White domination, you’re either a White racist or a supporter of DEI.

Stephen A. Smith, the sportscaster is the latter and is convinced that talk of neutral standards is a tool of White supremacy Rifﬁng off President Trump’s comments about DEI at the FAA after the Reagan National crash, Smith opined, “The way that the Trump administration is handling it — ‘we want the most qualiﬁed, we want the smartest, we want this, we want that’ — what you’re really saying is we want White dominance again. That’s what you’re really saying. You want White dominance!”

“You’re always using the word qualified, qualified, qualified,” Smith continued scornfully, objecting to the notion that “everybody that got a position through DEI is not qualified.”

“We know what you’re implying,” he added. “We know what you’re insinuating!”

Smith’s position amounts to saying, “How dare you suggest that a system to hire and promote people based on race and gender and other characteristics is hiring and promoting people based on race and gender and other characteristics.”

This is a common trope in the DEI debate, where the defenders of an overtly race-conscious ideology perversely impute race-consciousness to the defenders of colorblindness.

The New York Times ran a story on Trump’s attacks on DEI in the wake of the midair crash above the Potomac River asserting: “The meaning behind his words was clear, that diversity equals incompetence. And for many historians, civil rights leaders, scholars and citizens, it was an unmistakable message of racism in plain sight at the highest levels of American government.”

This, of course, conﬂates opposition to DEI with opposition to any diversity as such, in what is a ridiculous smear

The critics of DEI have no problem with qualified — to use the word Smith finds so offensive people of all backgrounds filling various jobs or getting accepted at elite universities. It is the DEI ideologues who care deeply about the racial and gender composition of every institution.

The Times quotes Margaret Huang, who is, sad to say, the president and chief executive of the Southern Poverty Law Center, declaring that the message of DEI’s enemies is “that women, Black and brown communities are inherently less capable, and if they hold positions of power or authority in government or business, it must be because the standards were lowered.”

No, the contention is that if standards are lowered in the name of DEI, then standards have been lowered to the detriment of the institution that has lowered them.

If proponents of DEI want to stop having a debate about qualiﬁcations, they could simply support across-the-board, race-neutral standards — but then they wouldn’t be proponents of DEI.

There is another, opposite tack of DEI’s defenders, who want to portray it as a form of meritocracy itself.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos recently, Donna Brazile said that DEI “includes every American, women, minorities, people with disabilities, veterans” — apparently not noticing that she left out a large category of Americans, White males, in her list of “every American.”

For Brazile, DEI is “a tool that enables the government or corporations or individuals to open the door, to remove barriers, to bring in the best and the brightest.”

In her account, DEI is simply equality of opportunity Obviously, if the DEI regime meant nothing more than opening up doors to hire the best applicants, contract with the best companies, and admit the best students, there’d be no controversy over DEI. Brazile’s version of DEI runs counter to the welter of quotas, race-conscious trainings, and race-exclusive programs that actually make up the regime.

If she opposed all of that, she’d indeed be a staunch defender of meritocracy, but, again, then there’d be no disagreement. It’s a sign of the growing political and intellectual fragility of DEI that its defenders steadfastly refuse to cop to what they’re defending.

Rich Lowry is on X, @RichLowry.

Ruth Marcus

Rich Lowry

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By EVAN VUCCI

President Donald Trump speaks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday

New Orleans Forecast

Robert "Bob" Penny Roberts, December 8, 1941 – January 13, 2025. Robert "Bob" Penny Roberts, aged 83, following a life welllived, passed away on Jan‐uary 13, 2025, at New Or‐leans University Medical Center with his wife by his side A devoted husband of 42 years to Barbara Rose Hayley, Bob was her best friend partner and love Together, they shared a life full of joy, kindness, and deep connection. Born on December 8, 1941, in Dav‐enport, Iowa, Bob was the son of Francis Sidney Penny and Lillian Claire Bullock Following his fa‐ther’s passing, Bob was adopted by his stepfather, Edwin Milnes Roberts He is survived by his wife, Bar‐bara; his sister, Leslie Claire Roberts Stanga (Michael Stanga) of Plano, TX; his nieces and nephews Molly Stanga (Larry Wilkie) Mark Stanga (Maegan Stanga), Scott Stanga and Lane Stanga Myers (Taylor Myers); 9 grandnieces and nephews; his lifelong friend Robert Watkins; and his beloved border collies, Hunter and Rosie Roberts, and kitty Willow. Bob was prede‐ceased by his parents; his stepfather; his sister, Mari‐anne Roberts; maternal Bullock family relatives paternal Penny family rela‐tives, and his cherished pets Blusher, Coda, Lyric, Meg, Kitty Cat and Helmet. A graduate of Auburn Uni‐versity (B.S., Economics, 1963) and Tulane University School of Law (J.D., 1967), Bob dedicated 49 years to civil litigation experience, trial and appellate divi‐sions, mainly in federal courts involving a broad range of subject matter in‐cluding civil rights consti‐tutional law, employment discrimination, school de‐segregation voting rights and reapportionment, labor relations, contracts and negotiation, libel and First Amendment and many business and com‐mercial matters. As part of various teams, he champi‐oned justice, representing individuals and classes in cases that advanced civil rights into legal prece‐dents. His civil rights ef‐forts in the early 1960s through 70s included sup‐port of Freedom Riders, Student Nonviolent Coordi‐nating Committee (SNCC) Tony Amsterdam’s Capital Punishment Project, prac‐tice with Lawyers Constitu‐tional Defense Committee in New Orleans, practice in association with Commu‐nity Action for Legal Ser‐vices, Inc., in NYC, Commu‐nity Lawyer Fellowship (U. of Penn), and practice from staff attorney to Director of Litigation with National Employment Law Project, Inc., addressing systemic employment discrimina‐tion and advocating for marginalized communities Returning to New Orleans in 1985, he continued as sole practitioner until his retirement in 2016, leaving a legacy as a compassion‐ate and committed advo‐cate for social justice and civil liberties After return‐ing to New Orleans Bob trained in Shotokan karate under Sensei Takayuki Mikami for 14 years and he earned the rank of San Dan 3rd-degree black belt through rules of Japanese Karate Association/Inter‐national Shotokan Karate Federation For 13 years, he enjoyed teaching karate at Xavier University of LA and judged tournaments na‐tionally for USA-Nat’l Karate-Do Federation (USANKF) affiliates Bob loved New Orleans—its music cuisine, and culture Whether fishing crabbing preparing grillades and cheese grits, or playing piano, he found joy in the city’s vibrancy and his friends An accomplished craftsman, history enthusi‐ast, and devoted advocate for human and animal rights, Bob’s life reflected his values and his pas‐sions A celebration of Bob’s life will be held at Jacob Schoen & Son Fu‐neral Home, 3827 Canal St , New Orleans, LA, on Febru‐ary 12, 2025, beginning at 2 pm with an informal memorial service at 2:30 pm, and reception to fol‐low from 3 pm - 5 pm. In lieu of flowers, the family invites donations in Bob s memory to the ACLU Foun‐dation of Louisiana (https://www laaclu org), Equal Justice Initiative (https://eji.org), Northshore Humane Soci‐ety (https://www northsh orehumane org), or fa‐vorite charity of choice Bob will be deeply missed and forever remembered for his efforts toward so‐cial justice his warm “Good Morning!”, wit, spe‐cial smile and his quiet im‐pact on the lives of those he touched.

Rockwood, Dr. Kathleen Barrett

Dr. Kathleen Barrett Rockwood,a beloved physician, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend, passed away peacefullyat home, surrounded by her family, on February 4, 2025, at the age of 76. Born in New Orleans, LA, on May 10, 1948, Kathleen's life was one of remarkable achievement,boundless love, and unwavering dedication to those around her. She touched the lives of countless friends, patients, and family members, leaving an indelible mark on all who knew her.

Rockwood, Dr. Kathleen Barrett

Kathleen was affectionately known by many as Kathy or KK, and her warmth, intelligence, and hospitality were felt by all. She had atrue gift for creating spaces of love and connection, often hosting intimatedinner parties where her guestswere treated to both delicious meals and thought-provoking conversation. Alover of family, friends, travel, and the beauty of life, Kathleen's river house was abeloved haven where she reveled in both peaceful mornings and breathtaking sunsets.

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Kathleen was the daughter of William Burton Barrettand Lucille McChesney Gray, and the granddaughter of Lucille McChesneyGray and Mat Marion Gray Jr. She is survived by her loving husband, Dwight Nelson Rockwood Jr., and their three children: Sheldon Rockwood Long,Dwight Nelson Rockwood IV,and Martha Rockwood Rester. She also leaves behind nine cherished grandchildren: Reese Lucille,Margot Estelle, and Kathleen Claire Rester (James Jacobs Rester); Dwight Nelson IV and Miller Maurice Rockwood (Cedra Rockwood); Cameron Elisabeth, Charlotte Miller, Thomas Matthew, and Nelson BarrettLong. Kathleen was the proudeldest sister of theBarrett girls: Linda Burwell, Betty Ballay, Nancy Larkin, Dolly Smith, Joan Ounanian, and Kimberly Shepherd. Kathleen was affectionately known by many as Kathy or KK, and her warmth, intelligence, and hospitality were felt by all. She had atrue gift for creating spaces of love and connection, often hosting intimatedinner parties where her guestswere treated to both delicious meals and thought-provoking conversation. Alover of family, friends, travel, and the beauty of life, Kathleen's river house was abeloved haven where she reveled in both peaceful mornings and breathtaking sunsets.

Aproud graduateofThe Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, Kathleen continued her education at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL,and later earned aMaster's degree in European History from Barat Collegein Chicago, IL. She began her teaching career at her alma mater in NewOrleans before marrying Dwight and relocating to Pensacola, FL, in 1971. There, she taught middle school history and forfun, ran asnowball stand in the summers using the renowned SnoWizard for authentic NewOrleansstyle snowballs. In 1975, Kathleen and Dwight moved back to New Orleans, where she attended Louisiana State University Medical School and began her illustrious career as amedical internist at Baptist Hospital. Balancing thedemands of her growing family with her thriving career, Kathleen managed to run her own private practice, serve as the most prominent admitting physician at Baptist Hospital, completed weekly rounds at the Maison Hospitaliere and contributed to theclinic at Loyola University. Even at home, she would read EKGs well intothe night—always pushing forward withstrength and determination.

In 1995, anew chapter began as Kathleen and her family moved to New Braunfels, TX, where she quickly became the town's trusted internist.She found joy in her new life by the Comal River, in ahome that felt like atrue reflection of her spirit.Despite the hardships she faced, including the 1998 flood that destroyed their river house, Kathleen rebuilt with grace and resilience, further proving her unwavering determination. She was deeply involved in her community, taking part in the Gay Forties Club, the Ladies Who Lunch, the Comal County Medical Society, and acherished Friday breakfast club that she continued to attend until the end of her life. Kathleen's love of learning and adventure led her to explore the world extensively. She traveled to Europe multiple times, as well as to destinations like Russia, China, Southeast Asia, South America, New Zealand and many more. A true intellectual at heart, she was passionate about

meals and thought-provoking conversation. Alover of family, friends, travel, and the beauty of life, Kathleen's river house was abeloved haven where she reveled in both peaceful mornings andbreathtaking sunsets. Aproud graduate of The Academy of the Sacred Heart in New Orleans, Kathleen continued her education at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL, and later earned aMaster's degree in European History from Barat College in Chicago, IL. Shebegan her teaching career at heralma mater in New Orleans before marryingDwight and relocating to Pensacola, FL, in 1971. There, she taught middle school history and for fun, ran asnowball stand in the summers using the renowned SnoWizard for authentic New Orleansstyle snowballs. In 1975, Kathleen and Dwight moved backtoNew Orleans, where sheattended LouisianaState University Medical School and began her illustrious career as amedical internist at Baptist Hospital. Balancingthe demands of her growing family with her thriving career, Kathleen managed to run her own private practice, serve as the most prominent admittingphysician at Baptist Hospital, completed weekly rounds at the Maison Hospitaliere and contributed to the clinic at Loyola University. Even at home, she would read EKGs well into the night—always pushing forward with strength and determination.

Kathleen's love of learning and adventure led her to explore theworld extensively. She traveled to Europe multiple times, as well as to destinations like Russia, China, Southeast Asia, South America, New Zealand and many more. A true intellectual at heart, she waspassionate about history andculture, living her life with amotto to "Go and do!" She lived her life fully, embracing every opportunity to experience and learn.

Kathleen's legacy will be remembered by all who had the privilege of knowing her. Her love for family, her dedication to herpatients, her adventurous spirit, andher unwavering warmth and kindness will live on in thehearts of those she leaves behind.

ACelebration of Life Service will be held on Saturday, February 15, 2025, at 11:00 AM, followed by aReception at her favorite placeinthe world: 102 Guada Coma Dr., New Braunfels, TX 78130. In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests donationsbe made to Hope Hospice of New Braunfels, or the Alzheimer's Association organizationsthat were close to her heart.

Please sign the guestbook at www.doeppensch midtfuneralhome.com

Toni AnnTregre Vaughan left this earth February 3rd to become a citizen of God's glorious kingdom. Toni, aresident of Baton Rouge was preceded in death by her father, Euclid Tregre. She's survived by mother, Bonnie Riché Tregre and sister Donna (David) Abadie. She also leaves behind in-laws, Vivian Vaughan and Bryan Vaughan. She was mother of Cory (Toni) Albers and Fawn (Lane) Foster. Shewas Gi Gi to Aidyn Nolting(23), Brooklyn(16), Ethan Foster(21), Sadie(17), Aubrey andAndy Albers(6). She was the wife to Russell. Together they were parents of Rascal. Also survived by numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins andlifelong friends. Toni was employed by CMA Technology Solutions. Services will be 2/13/25 at Lake Lawn Funeral Home 10:00 a.m. with Mass at 2:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donationsmay be made to Friends of the Animals Baton Rouge and L.O.P.A. in Toni's memory.

Toni AnnTregre Vaughan left this earth February 3rd to become a citizen of God's glorious kingdom. Toni, aresident of Baton Rouge was preceded in death by her father, survived Bonnie sister Abadie. hind Vaughan Vaughan. She (Toni) (Lane) Gi Brooklyn Foster(21), Aubrey Albers(6). to were Also ous cousins friends. ployed by hnology Solutions. Services will be 2/13/25 at Lake Lawn Funeral For the latest news, sports and entertainment, download the NOLA.com app

Vaughan, Toni Ann

Roberts, Robert Penny 'Bob'

Vaughan, Toni Ann

SPORTS

PHILLY’S SPECIAL

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Fangio delivers masterpiece in Superdome return, Page 7C

Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith, an Amite City native, pulls in a touchdown in front of Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Jaylen Watson during the ﬁrst half of Super Bowl LIX on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome. The Eagles defeated the Chiefs 40-22 to win their second Super Bowl since 2018. STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

Bench brigade

Gilbert, reserves spark first-ever sweep by LSU of Lady Vols

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

When Aneesah Morrow picked up her third foul, forcing coach Kim Mulkey to put her on the bench, the LSU women’s basketball team was clinging to a onepoint lead over Tennessee. About ﬁve minutes still had to tick off the third-quarter clock.

Flau’jae Johnson, with three fouls of her own, sat on the sideline. So too did both of the LSU post players, relegated to supporting roles against a Lady Vols team that likes to run the ﬂoor and take 3s. On Sunday, Mulkey didn’t have much of a choice. She had to throw Mikaylah Williams and a small, rag-tag lineup of reserve guards on the ﬂoor asking them to carry her offense through a crucial stretch of LSU’s 82-77 win over Tennessee.

“That might have been where the game was won,” Mulkey said.

The No. 6 Tigers (25-1, 10-1 SEC) outscored the No. 19 Lady Vols by four points across those five minutes. Williams orchestrated the offense. Kailyn Gilbert, in the midst of quashing a monthlong shooting slump, scored 12 of her game-high 23 points. Even Jada Richard, a freshman who saw the floor for just five minutes, nailed a jumper in the paint That shot widened LSU’s lead to six points — all the cushion it needed to hang on to a win and sweep a home-and-home series with Tennessee for the first time in program history

“When you take two of your three main players,” Mulkey said, “and they’re sitting over there on the bench, you wonder how your bench and your players that you have on the floor are gonna respond. And I thought that they handled themselves beautifully.”

Exactly a month ago, these two teams met for a frenetic battle of offense, a clash that Gilbert decided with a driving, last-second hook shot. LSU has since proven it has a knack for winning close games, and Tennessee has since cemented its status as a player on the national scene.

The Lady Vols (17-7, 4-7) threatened upsets over No. 4 Texas and No. 2 South Carolina, then toppled No. 5 UConn on Thursday for the

ﬁrst time since 2007, picking up a statement victory on their way to Baton Rouge.

The Tennessee offense converted an efficient 48% of its shots against LSU. But LSU countered by forcing enough turnovers and grabbing enough offensive rebounds. The Tigers may not have shot it well from the ﬁeld only 38% but they turned 19 Lady Vols’ giveaways into 24 points and scored 16 second-chance points off 15 offensive boards.

Under first-year coach Kim Caldwell, Tennessee wants to take lots of shots and earn lots of possessions But on Sunday it attempted 12 fewer ﬁeld goals than LSU.

“We’re developing those that aren’t on the ﬂoor,” Mulkey said, “to be ready to go, and we don’t miss a beat.”

Williams scored 16 points and dished out seven assists. Johnson and Morrow combined to notch only 26 points on 8-of-26 shooting while battling foul trouble, but reserve guards Gilbert, Richard and Mjracle Sheppard picked up most of their scoring slack.

Sheppard chipped in eight points, and Gilbert broke the 20-point mark for the ﬁrst time since the Tigers’ last matchup with Tennessee. The LSU bench

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scored 34 points. Tennessee’s reserves, on the other hand, accounted for only six. Jewel Spear, Talaysia Cooper, Ruby Whitehorn and Zee Spearman each scored in double ﬁgures, but their contributions weren’t enough to beat a more balanced LSU team

“They did some special stuff in the skills that they have,” Mulkey said. “(Sheppard) just brings that energy, that defensive intensity You better know where she is because she’s gonna go in there and get an offensive board She’s gonna go in there and block a big shot. She’s just active, and she makes everybody else play just a little bit faster.”

LSU now has hosted seven games against ranked SEC opponents since Mulkey took over the program in 2021. Before Sunday, it was 4-2 in those matchups, with both losses coming to South Carolina. The Tigers have only ﬁve games left in the regular season, and four of those contests likely will be Quad 1 games.

LSU’s next matchup, a road clash with Texas, is one of those games. It will tip off at 2 p.m. next Sunday

Because the Longhorns beat South Carolina 66-62 on Sunday, the Tigers are now in a tie for ﬁrst place in the SEC.

Texas ends S. Carolina’s 57-game SEC streak

By The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas Madison Booker had 20 points and 11 rebounds, and Rori Harmon hit two critical free throws in the ﬁnal seconds as No. 4 Texas beat No 2 South Carolina 66-62 Sunday, ending the Gamecocks’ 57-game Southeastern Conference regular-season winning streak dating to 2021. Harmon converted a pair of free throws with 10.8 seconds left to extend Texas’ two-point lead to the ﬁnal four-point margin.

A 3-point try by South Carolina’s Sania Feagin missed the mark with nine seconds left and Harmon grabbed the rebound to seal the Longhorns’ eight consecutive win and 20th straight at home dating to Jan. 2024.

Backup center Kyla Oldacre scored eight of her 13 points in the fourth quarter for Texas (242, 10-1 SEC).

MiLaysia Fulwiley scored 13 points for South Carolina (22-2, 10-1), which had its 17-game win

streak this season halted Joyce Edwards and Chloe Kitts each scored nine points

While Oldacre had a strong second half, starting center Taylor Jones had 11 points and six rebounds in the ﬁrst half. NO 1 UCLA 62, OREGON 52: In Eugene, Oregon, Londynn Jones scored a season-high 21 points to lead No. 1 UCLA to a win.

Lauren Betts added nine points, six rebounds and four assists for the Bruins (23-0, 11-0 Big Ten), who won their 22nd straight game by double digits. Former Oregon player Angela Dugalic added seven points and eight rebounds for UCLA. Nani Falatea scored 19 points to pace Oregon (16-8, 7-6), which dropped its third straight. Deja Kelly added 14 points and ﬁve rebounds for the Ducks, who shot 26.6% from the ﬁeld.

After Oregon closed within 4538 early in the fourth quarter, UCLA made three consecutive 3-pointers. Elina Aarnisalo, Timea Gardiner and Jones each made a

3-pointer to push the Bruins ahead 54-38 with 6:02 left to play NO 3 NOTRE DAME 91, NO 21

CALIFORNIA 52: In South Bend, Indiana,Hannah Hidalgo had 24 points and ﬁve assists and No. 3 Notre Dame extended its winning streak to 16 games with a win over No. 21 California. Olivia Miles added 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists for Notre Dame (21-2 overall, 12–0 Atlantic Coast Conference). Sonia Citron chipped in 16 points. Lulu Twidale scored 14 points for Cal (19-6, 7-5). Notre Dame bolted to a 44-23 lead by halftime. Cal struggled through a 1-for-9 shooting stretch and committed four turnovers as the Fighting Irish closed the out the ﬁnal 5:55 of the second quarter on an 11-2 run. NO 5 UCONN 77, PROVIDENCE 40: In Providence, Rhode Island, Paige Bueckers scored 20 points as No. 5 UConn beat Providence to extend its Big East regular-season winning streak to 33 games.

Hernández agrees to new deal with Dodgers

LOS ANGELES After welcoming a ﬂurry of new faces to the organization this offseason, the Dodgers brought back a much more familiar face on Sunday

The team and Kiké Hernández have agreed on a contract that will see the veteran utilityman re-sign with the club for its World Series defense in 2025, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.

Terms of the deal, which is still pending a physical, were not immediately clear Hernández signaled the news himself by posting a video to social media Sunday afternoon, with the caption “walking through the open door.”

The Dodgers left the door open for a reunion with Hernández this offseason, even amid their other signings in recent months.

Jets tell QB Rodgers they are ‘moving on’ from him

The New York Jets organization has told the 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers it is “moving on from him,” Fox Sports reported Sunday Rodgers said toward the end of the Jets’ 5-12 season he was undecided on his playing future, saying he wanted to take “a break mentally to kind of refresh and put my feet in the sand, and see where I’m at after that.”

But there was uncertainty as to whether the Jets would even want to move forward with the four-time MVP as the team’s quarterback. The Jets recently hired general manager Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn, and owner Woody Johnson said at their introductory news conference on Jan. 27 the new regime would have the ﬁnal say in that decision.

Another knee surgery a possibility for Embiid MILWAUKEE Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid acknowledged Sunday he may have to undergo another surgery on the left knee that has bothered him the last year if it isn’t feeling any better by the end of the season. During the telecast of the 76ers’ 135-127 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, ABC reported that Embiid said he believes his knee would likely require another surgery and long recovery period. The 76ers star wasn’t as deﬁnitive about it when talking to reporters after the game, but indicated offseason surgery could at least be a possibility “I think the straightforward answer is that when you’ve got something that’s inconsistent, at some point, you’ve got to do something about it,” Embiid said. “We don’t know what it is. We’re looking into every option.”

Detry gets first PGA Tour victory at Phoenix Open

Thomas Detry claimed his maiden PGA Tour title with a convincing Phoenix Open win at TPC Scottsdale.

The Belgian began the final round with a five-shot lead over Jordan Spieth, Rasmus Hojgaard, Daniel Berger and Michael Kim. However, while that would have given him plenty of confidence ahead of Sunday’s action, some in the chasing pack threatened to quickly eat up his lead in the opening holes.

After making birdie at the ﬁrst, Detry then bogeyed the second. However, a second birdie followed on the next hole before he began to ﬁnd his rhythm.

Bueckers did all scoring in the first three quarters, shooting 6 for 12 from the field and 6 for 6 from the line. Azzi Fudd had 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting, and Ashlynn Shade added 12 points. The Huskies (22-3, 13-0) limited the Friars (10-16, 3-10) to 27% (13 for 49) shooting. Providence missed 20 of 24 shots from 3-point range. Marta Morales led Providence with 15 points. NO 10 DUKE 90, MIAMI 49: In Durham , North Carolina Toby Fournier scored 24 points and Ashlon Jackson made five 3-pointers on the way to 23 points as No. 10 Duke blew past Miami. Oluchi Okananwa had 16 points for the Blue Devils (19-5, 10-2 Atlantic Coast Conference), who have won twice since Monday night’s loss at No. 14 N.C. State. Cameron Williams scored 14 points and Haley Cavinder added 10 for Miami (13-10, 3-9), which is winless in two games this month after a 2-6 January

“Today I paid more attention,” Detry said. “Yesterday, I actually felt pretty comfortable and I did the exact same routine, and I actually felt comfortable on the ﬁrst tee.”

Noh claims maiden LPGA Tour title at Founders Cup BRADENTON,Fla Yealimi Noh turned a one-shot deficit into a three-shot lead over Jin Young Ko in the span of two holes on the back nine on Sunday and cruised from there to her first LPGA victory in the Founders Cup. The 23-year-old from Northern California closed with a bogey-free, 3-under 68 for a four-day total of 21-under 263 at Bradenton Country Club, four shots better than Ko (71). Noh made her last bogey of the week on her final hole of Friday’s second round, then surged into the lead Saturday with a 63. Noh was making her 111th career start, the first of her sixth season on tour “To really get it done, and

in the ﬁrst tournament of

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU guard Kailyn Gilbert finishes a layup past Tennessee guard Talaysia Cooper (55) in the fourth quarter Sunday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center Gilbert scored 23 points as LSU defeated Tennessee 82-77.

Edwards lifts LSU to win over Southeastern

BY JIM KLEINPETER

Contributing writer

LSU softball’s romp through the Tiger Classic skidded a little before ending in a walk-off Sunday

Tori Edwards’ sacrifice fly to deep center ﬁeld in the seventh inning lifted the No. 12 Tigers to a 3-2 come-from-behind win against a scrappy Southeastern Louisiana at Tiger Park.

After beating Charlotte and Central Arkansas twice each by a combined 34-0 the first two days, the Tigers found themselves trailing 2-0 entering the sixth inning. But they scraped together two runs on one hit, escaped a major jam with a fine running catch by Jadyn Laneaux and pulled it out on Edwards’ fly ball.

“In that moment I knew it wasn’t about me but getting that runner across from third,” said Edwards, who hit three homers and drove in eight runs the day before “My goal was to send the ball deep, get something into the air and make it easy so we could advance and get the last run.

PHOTO By PATRICK DENNIS

LSU’s Tori Edwards hits a sacrifice fly into right field in the seventh inning of LSU’s 3-2 win over Southeastern Louisiana on Sunday at Tiger Park. With one out in the bottom of the seventh inning and the score tied 2-2, Edwards drove in Jadyn Laneaux from third with the winning run.

“I was trying to trust myself, see the ball through the zone, make it simpler than the moment seemed. It was an off-speed pitch down the

middle. I’ve been working through that, how to get that pitch up.” Edwards had struggled before

It’s time to project LSU baseball lineup

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

LSU baseball enters the 2025 campaign with a roster as deep as its ever been under coach Jay Johnson. With the new season beginning on Feb 14 against Purdue Fort Wayne, let’s project what the Tigers’ lineup, starting rotation and bullpen will be to begin the year

Lineup

1. Derek Curiel, LF, Fr

2. Steven Milam, SS, So.

3. Jared Jones, 1B, Jr

4. Josh Pearson, DH, Sr.

5. Daniel Dickinson, 2B, Jr

6. Jake Brown, RF So.

7. Luis Hernandez, C, Sr.

8. Michael Braswell, 3B, Sr

9. Chris Stanﬁeld, CF, Jr

Bench: Ashton Larson (OF), Cade Arrambide (C), Tanner Reaves (INF), Ethan Frey (OF), Blaise Priester (C), Dalton Beck (OF/1B), Eddie Yamin (C/OF/1B), Mic Paul (OF), Ryan Costello (1B/ OF), John Pearson (3B/1B), Michael Ryan (INF) and David Hogg (INF)

Breakdown: Curiel in the leadoff spot will surprise some, but the freshman has been as impressive as any hitter on the team since arriving on campus. He’s gained more than 10 pounds, has consistently put the ball in play and has showcased a level of maturity and patience at the plate that’s well beyond his years. His speed also makes him a candidate to start in center field, but Stanfield — the Auburn transfer — appears poised to earn that role. The junior started 52 games in center last season. Stanfield has also been driving the ball with force and could hit at the top of the order on opening day after LSU “overhauled” aspects of his swing and approach.

Johnson claims he has eight outfielders he’s comfortable playing, including Larson, Paul, Beck and Frey. But with only three starting spots, he’ll need to utilize the DH role to maximize arguably the strongest position group on the team. Johnson’s trust in Pearson and the veteran’s experience earns him the nod in this exercise. At catcher, the Tigers have a plethora of options. Where they lack experience no member of the room has ever caught in the SEC — they’ve tried to make up with big arms and powerful bats. Hernandez only played three games at catcher for Indiana State last season, but he’s impressed LSU’s staff with his defense since the start of the fall. He also hit 23 homers a year ago, and the Tigers are in need of power without Hayden Travinski or Tommy White.

to Johnson. Eyanson pitched for the U.S. Collegiate National Team this past summer after transferring in from UC San Diego.

If Hernandez needs a break from catching or struggles defensively Arrambide — like Curiel — had a strong fall and “probably has more tools” than any catcher assistant coach Josh Jordan has worked with before.

Johnson has been coy about who he plans to deploy at shortstop and third base. Braswell has more experience at third and Milam’s primary position in high school was shortstop — Milam told The Advocate that he’d never played third in his life prior to this preseason.

Furthering Milam’s case at short, Johnson has already declared that he’s the best defensive infielder on the team.

Starting rotation Friday: Kade Anderson, LHP So. Saturday: Chase Shores, RHP, R-So.

Sunday: Anthony Eyanson, RHP, Jr

Potential options: Conner Ware (LHP), Gavin Guidry (RHP), William Schmidt (RHP), Casan Evans (RHP) and Zac Cowan (RHP)

Breakdown: A new slider, better command and a small boost in velocity has shot Anderson into a potential ace role for the Tigers. He’s been nothing short of dominant this preseason. Shores is still shaking off some rust after missing the past season and a half due to Tommy John surgery

Consistently locating all of his pitches has been a work in progress, but his fastball reached 99 mph during Saturday’s scrimmage and his slider has looked sharp Ware and Eyanson appear to be the two strongest candidates to start on Sundays. Ware — a junior college transfer was LSU’s best pitcher in the fall, according

Both have pitched well this preseason but Ware moves to the bullpen in this projection, in part due to the Tigers’ lack of left-handed relief options.

Bullpen

Closer: Gavin Guidry, RHP, Jr

Set up: Conner Ware, LHP, Jr

Middle relief: William Schmidt (RHP), Casan Evans (RHP), Zac Cowan (RHP), Cooper Williams (LHP), Jaden Noot (RHP), Jacob Mayers (RHP), DJ Primeaux (LHP), Connor Benge (RHP), Chandler Dorsey (RHP), Dalton Beck (LHP), Mavrick Rizy (RHP), Kade Woods (RHP), Grant Fontenot (RHP), Dylan Thompson (RHP)

Breakdown: The preseason hasn’t gone perfectly for Guidry but his slider continues to fool hitters and he’s already proven to be a high-level reliever in the SEC. Ware appears to be the strongest candidate to fill the high-leverage multi-inning relief role Grifﬁn Herring was in last year Schmidt, Evans and Rizy are three freshmen with mid-90s fastballs and at least one breaking ball good enough to fool SEC hitters. Schmidt and Evans are the best equipped to throw multiple innings, while Rizy is 6-foot-9 and generates a lot of movement with his fastball. Cowan might not start, but expect him to throw a lot of innings for the Tigers. The Wofford transfer’s velocity won’t wow hitters but he may be the best strikethrower on the team. Williams, despite being a freshman, could play big role this season He throws strikes and complements his fastball well with a big curveball.

the at-bat, fouling out twice to the catcher and reaching ﬁrst on an error

“That was a really cool moment for her in her maturing process,” LSU coach Beth Torina said. “She swung through the changeup earlier in the at bat and was forced to deal with it again. It was cool to see the adjustment she made.

“She’s wise beyond her years. She studies prepares, she’s not just up there taking big swings, although it may look like that.”

Avery Hodge started the winning rally with a walk and moved to second on a bunt single by Danieca Coffey Jalia Lassiter sacriﬁced the runners ahead and after Maci Bergeron walked, Edwards delivered the wining run.

LSU (5-0) struggled offensively against SLU starter Britney Lewinski, getting outhit 6-3 The Lions (2-3) also turned two double plays and had the Tigers on the ropes after Brilee Ford’s run-scoring single in the sixth. But Coffey and Lassiter worked Lewinski for walks to start the bottom of the sixth and Bergeron

singled off reliever Hailie Burns (0-2) to load the bases. Edwards fouled out but McKenzie Redoutey hit a sacriﬁce ﬂy to right and after Maddox McKee was hit by a pitch, McKaela Walker drew a walk to tie the game.

LSU starter Sydney Berzon (2-0) retired 12 of the first 13 batters but the Tigers had some infield struggles in the fifth that resulted in a run-scoring infield single by Shelby Morris. Berzon walked one and struck out four

“They’re a good team,” Torina said. “Every time we play them it’s a game like that. They have all new personnel but play the game the same way That’s the mark of a good coach. The standard is the standard no matter what personnel he has on the ﬁeld.

“Defensive mistakes, miscues there. We’re still learning each other defensively There was a stretch of at bats we’d like to have back. We call them CPA’s (competitive plate appearances) we had a long stretch where we didn’t have one, six or seven in a row We’d like to see them be more competitive throughout.”

Ex-LSU stars help bring veterans to Super Bowl

BY SCOTT RABALAIS Staff writer

If Jayden Daniels and Justin Jefferson couldn’t play in the Super Bowl, they did the next best thing: Help get two veterans to football’s ultimate game.

The former LSU stars joined with USAA to award all-expenses paid trips to Super Bowl LIX, including a pair of tickets to watch the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles battle Sunday night in the Caesars Superdome.

Jefferson, the former LSU All-American wide receiver and Destrehan High standout, just completed his ﬁfth season with the Minnesota Vikings. Saturday, he and Daniels took questions from fans at the veterans-only USAA lounge at the Super Bowl Experience inside the Morial Convention Center, signed autographs and took selﬁes. Jefferson was also seen getting a hug from his veteran recipient, Kim Hubers, as she presented him with a Super Bowl lapel pin.

“I always want to do something for the community, especially back in my hometown,” Jefferson said. “They have been risking their lives in order for us to be free, for us to be sitting her talking right now To be able to give them the experience to be with me, talk with me, laugh with them, it’s always a joy to me

“To see the smiles on their faces, that’s what I enjoy the most To give Super Bowl tickets to someone deserving of it, to get the experience of going to a Super Bowl, I’m grateful to be in this position.”

Daniels, LSU’s 2023 Heisman Trophy-winning quar-

terback who Thursday night was named NFL offensive rookie of the year for his sensational ﬁrst season with the Washington Commanders, said being the grandson of two veterans prompted him to get involved in the program.

“When I had the opportunity to bless a veteran with two Super Bowl tickets, I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity,” said Daniels, who took questions in the USAA lounge alongside fellow ﬁrst-year quarterback Drake Maye of the New England Patriots.

A total of eight current and former NFL players joined with USAA to award Super Bowl trips including a pair of game tickets for military veterans and their friends and families.

Aside from Daniels, Jefferson and Maye, they were Saints defensive end Cam Jordan, Green Bay running back Josh Jacobs, Dallas linebacker Micah Parsons, Atlanta running back Bijan Robinson and former New England tight end Rob Gronkowski.

According to Christian Bove, USAA’s communications director, veterans’ organizations like the VFW, Wounded Warrior Project and others nominate veterans to receive Super Bowl tickets. Hubers, an Army National Guard veteran from Dell Rapids, South Dakota, was nominated through her work with Disabled American Veterans (DAV). Daniels’ recipient, 30-year Marine veteran Jonathan Knauth of Stafford, Virginia, was nominated by the Marine Corps Association.

Hubers brought her daughter Aubrey to attend the game with her Knauth

brought Jonathan Richards, his best friend since they were preschoolers.

“I try to get to at least one NFL game a year,” Knauth said. “I didn’t make one in 2024.” Naturally, Knauth said, this makes up for that. Naturally, Daniels and Jefferson were peppered with questions about their seasons, their teams, and their favorite New Orleans eating places.

Daniels threw for 3,568 yards and rushed for 891 more yards with 31 combined touchdowns during the regular season. He added 957 more total yards and six total touchdowns in the postseason as he led the Commanders to a stunning 45-31 upset of the NFC topseeded Detroit Lions and an appearance in Washington’s first NFC championship game since the 1991 season. The Commanders were overwhelmed by the Eagles 55-23, a result that despite all of his ﬁrst-year success Daniels said he won’t forget.

“I think you’ve got to ﬂush it,” he said, “but it’s something that’s going to stick with you the rest of the offseason.” Jefferson, the NFL offensive player of the year in 2022, picked up his second All-Pro honors this season He had 103 catches for 1,544 yards and 10 touchdowns as the Vikings went 14-3 in the regular season Minnesota was bounced in the wild-card round by the Los Angeles Rams 27-9.

“This league is so difficult,” Jefferson said. “Everyone is working toward that goal, gearing up for this week, the Super Bowl. It’s always tough. There’s always room for improvement.”

STAFF PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

LSU baseball coach Jay Johnson looks on during a scrimmage Jan. 24 at Alex Box Stadium.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT RABALAIS

Former LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders, center, answers a question at the USAA Salute to Service lounge as New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, right, looks on Saturday at the Super Bowl Experience in the Morial Convention Center

BY THE NUMBERS

Moore to the liking

bracelets worn by fans spelling out the words “Game Over”, signaling the end of Lamar’s rap beef with Drake.

But that “Game Over” just as well could have applied to the early Eagles’ checkmate.

This one wasn’t really as close as the ﬁnal score indicated.

to win over a fanbase starving for some success.

For Saints fans looking to get one last look at Moore’s work before he migrates down South, they had to be pleased with what they saw The Eagles offense scored 33 of the 40 points.

Mahomes 4-25, Hunt 3-9, Perine 1-8, Pacheco 3-7. Philadelphia, Hurts 11-72, Barkley 25-57, Gainwell 6-10, Pickett 3-(minus 4). PASSING: Kansas City, Mahomes 21-32-2257. Philadelphia, Hurts 17-22-1-221, Pickett

0-1-0-0. RECEIVING: Kansas City, Worthy 8-157, Kelce 4-39, Hopkins 2-18, Smith-Schuster 2-16, Brown 2-15, Hunt 1-5, Pacheco 1-5, Gray 1-2. Philadelphia, Barkley 6-40, D.Smith 4-69, A.Brown 3-43, Dotson 2-42, Goedert 2-27. PUNT RETURNS: Kansas City, Remigio 1-5. Philadelphia, DeJean 3-27. KICKOFF RETURNS: Kansas City, Remigio

3-84. Philadelphia, Shipley 1-25.

TACKLES-ASSISTS-SACKS: Kansas City Tranquill 7-4-1, Reid 5-2-0, Bolton 4-5-0, McDufﬁe

4-1-0, Conner 3-3-0, Wharton 3-2-0, Karlaftis

3-1-1, Chenal 3-1-0, Cook 3-0-0, Pennel 2-3-0, Hicks 2-1-0, Omenihu 2-1-0, Anudike-Uzomah

1-1-0, Nnadi 1-1-0, Ja.Watson 1-0-0, Danna

0-1-0. Philadelphia, Baun 3-4-0, Burks 3-2-0, Williams 3-1-2, DeJean 3-0-0, Mitchell 3-0-0, Sweat 2-4-2.5, Davis 2-0-1, Ojomo 2-0-0, Slay

2-0-0, Blankenship 1-2-0, Gardner-Johnson

1-2-0, Hunt 1-1-.5, Graham 1-0-0.

INTERCEPTIONS: Kansas City, Cook 1-0. Philadelphia, DeJean 1-38, Baun 1-0. MISSED FIELD GOALS: None.

OFFICIALS: Referee Ron Torbert, Ump Mike Morton, HL Max Causey, LJ Mark Stewart, FJ Mearl Robinson, SJ Boris Cheek, BJ Jonah Monroe, Replay Kevin Brown.

Welcome to New Orleans, Kellen Moore. All indications are the Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator is about to make this city his new home. New Orleans Saints fans would like nothing more than for Moore to make things in the Big Easy look as easy as his offense made things look Sunday in a 40-22 beatdown of the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX. The last time a Super Bowl was played in New Orleans, the lights in the Superdome went out right after halftime. This time — at least as far as the Chiefs’ hopes of a three-peat go — the lights were turned off before halftime. This one was pretty much over before rapper Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance. Lamar’s performance ended with lit-up

The Chiefs’ quest to become the ﬁrst team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls never came close to fruition.

Patrick Mahomes and Company had no answer for the Eagles defense, led by former Saints linebackers coach Vic Fangio.

But if you’re a fan of the team that normally occupies the Caesars Superdome, this game was all about the Eagles other coordinator

Moore made his way to the top of the Saints’ thorough head coaching search after a few other coaches took jobs elsewhere or decided to stay put in their current jobs.

Truth be told, it really didn’t matter what the Eagles did on Sunday

This was Moore’s job as long as he didn’t get to New Orleans this week and all of a sudden have a change of heart.

Winning the Super Bowl wasn’t a requirement. But it sure helped

It was a ﬁtting end to the week for Moore, who got a chance to put an exclamation point on his one season in Philly all while hanging out in his new digs.

The Eagles practiced this week at the Saints’ facility on Airline Drive. And the Eagles occupied the Saints’ locker room for Sunday’s game. Then Moore’s offense did what Saints fans hope can spill over into the Dome next season with him at the helm.

The Eagles had 345 yards of offense: 210 passing and 135 rushing.

It makes things easy when your defense is as dominant as the Eagles were, pressuring Mahomes all game long and sacking him six times.

It also helps when you have a quarterback like Jalen Hurts, who was named the Super Bowl MVP and a running back like Saquon Barkley, who was the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year this season. Oh, and a dominant of-

fensive line. Moore won’t be bringing Hurts or Barkley or that line to New Orleans with him, so his next job will be much tougher than this one was He’s never been a head coach before. But he’s a young, offensive mind, just like the franchisechanging coach Mickey Loomis took a chance on back in 2006. Will Moore have that same type of Sean Payton success?

None of us know

What we do know is he helped the Eagles roll to 18 wins in his ﬁrst season there.

He was so good that Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said this during Sunday’s postgame trophy presentation:

“Let’s run this s**** back, Kellen,” Sirianni said.

But the 36-year old Moore, who will be the NFL’s youngest coach, has no reason to do that.

His mission in Philly is accomplished.

Moore and the Eagles will take their second Lombardi Trophy back to Philadelphia.

Now, the folks in New Orleans will be craving Moore to bring New Orleans its second one, too. Email Rod Walker at rwalker@ theadvocate.com.

BAUN SHINES IN OLD STOMPING GROUNDS

BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer

While he was sitting behind a podium on the Caesars Superdome turf for Super Bowl LIX’s opening night, Philadelphia Eagles

linebacker Zack Baun said his most memorable play in the building was a punt block against the Tennessee Titans last year

It’s safe to say he has a new one. Baun, who played 30 games in the Caesars Superdome as a New Orleans Saint, made a diving interception late in the ﬁrst half deep in Chiefs’ territory The play set the Eagles up with the ball at the Chiefs’ 14-yard line. Two plays after his interception, quarterback Jalen Hurts found receiver A.J.Brown for a 12-yard touchdown that gave Philadelphia a 24-0 lead. The Saints selected Baun in the third round of the 2020 NFL Draft He languished on the bench for much of his four seasons with the Saints before signing a one-year deal with the Eagles this offseason. He thrived in Philadelphia, becoming a defensive player of the year candidate after recording 151

on the ﬁeld for a fourth and 2 from midfield, and quarterback Jalen Hurts launched a perfect pass deep downﬁeld to Brown for a 32-yard gain.

But the play didn’t stand after ofﬁcials deemed Brown committed offensive pass interference. The 10-yard penalty backed the Eagles offense up and forced them to punt the ball away The ﬂag immediately drew a reaction on social media, as Brown did not appear to make much contact with Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie on the play outside of some hand-fighting on both sides.

While the penalty killed a prime scoring opportunity for Philadelphia, the officiating evened out as the game unfolded. The Eagles ﬁnished the ﬁrst half with three penalties, while the Chiefs were penalized four times.

Happy birthday

tackles, 3.5 sacks and ﬁve forced fumbles.

Baun recorded one interception in his four years with the Saints, last season on the road against the Houston Texans.

Controversial call In the week leading up to Super

Bowl LIX, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dismissed what he called the “ridiculous theory” that the Chiefs were beneﬁciaries of routinely favorable ofﬁciating.

But if the noise was loud in the lead-up to the game, it reached a fever pitch on the game’s opening drive. The Eagles left the offense

Eagles defensive back Cooper DeJean turned 22 years old Sunday and his birthday gift came courtesy of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the second quarter of Super Bowl LIX.

On a third and 16, Mahomes rolled right and tried to thread a

pass in to receiver DeAndre Hopkins He never saw DeJean undercutting the throw in the zone defense.

DeJean, whom the Eagles selected with the No. 40 overall selection one spot in front of New Orleans Saints rookie Kool-Aid McKinstry, intercepted the pass and returned it 38 yards for a touchdown that gave Philadelphia a 17-0 lead.

It was the ﬁrst time in NFL history a player scored a touchdown in the Super Bowl on his birthday, and it was also DeJean’s ﬁrst career interception.

Celebrity sightings

As is always the case at Super Bowls, the celebrities were out in full force Sunday Actors Jon Hamm (Kansas City)

EAGLES

Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore smiles before the start of Super Bowl LIX against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Rod Walker

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MATT SLOCUM

Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Zack Baun celebrates after intercepting a pass against the Kansas City Chiefs during Super Bowl LIX on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

CAESARS SUPERDOME NEW ORLEANS KANSAS CITy CHIEFS VS. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

THREE AND OUT: ZACH EWING GIVES HIS TOP THREE TAKEAWAyS FROM THE EAGLES’ ROUT OF CHIEFS

DISAPPOINTMENT DESERTED

1

The Eagles lost a heartbreaker in the Super Bowl two years ago to the Chiefs, who kicked the winning field goal with eight seconds left, leaving Jalen Hurts staring blankly through red and gold confetti. That script flipped bigtime Sunday evening at the Caesars Superdome, with Hurts accounting for three touchdowns in an MVP performance and the Eagles defense repeatedly stuffing Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense. The Eagles weren’t shy about admitting that Super Bowl LXVII defeat bothered them, and their motivation showed.

DEFENSE DOMINANT

One of the lasting images from this Super Bowl will be Mahomes boxed into the pocket, frantically looking for a receiver before being swallowed up by an Eagles defensive lineman. Philadelphia had 16 pressures and six sacks, all from its line.While the game was competitive, according to NextGen Stats, the Eagles had a pressure rate of nearly 50% without blitzing a single time.When Mahomes did get passes off, the result was often disastrous. Eagles rookie Cooper DeJean intercepted one and returned it for a touchdown, and former Saints linebacker Zack Baun picked off another

3

DYNASTY DERAILED

For the Chiefs, history beckoned as they sought to become the first team to win three straight Super Bowls. Instead, they suffered the ignominy of Eagles fans doing a mock tomahawk chant during the second half of a blowout. A Kansas City team that made a habit of winning in the fourth quarter simply wasn’t good enough. Mahomes’ firsthalf passer rating was 10.7, the worst of any NFL half he’s ever played. The running game totaled just 49 yards. The defense bottled up Saquon Barkley but left itself exposed elsewhere and forced just two punts.

FOR THE BIRDS

Eagles stop Chiefs’ quest for first-ever three-peat in dominant fashion

BY MATTHEW PARAS Staff writer

Super Bowls aren’t supposed to sound like this.

They aren’t supposed to sound like a home game in South Philadelphia. Team chants and theme songs aren’t supposed to reverberate from the walls and acoustics of the stadium.

Super Bowl crowds are usually made up of corporate bigwigs and celebrities They typically have little tolerance for fandom and passion.

But inside the Caesars Superdome, home of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX, the Eagles’ sound could not be denied.

They had plenty of reasons to celebrate. On the field, where confetti showered soon after the clock hit zero, the Eagles delivered a dominant performance.

The Eagles emphatically denied the Kansas City Chiefs’ attempt at a threepeat with a stunning 40-22 victory, delivering a master class of a defensive performance that will likely be remembered for years to come.

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, regarded as the sport’s best passer, was held to only 257 yards passing and sacked six times The Eagles did so with a bold game plan: According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Philadelphia did not blitz Mahomes once on 42 pressures. Instead, the Eagles generated 16 pressures by relying on their dominant front four and trusted the secondary to hold up in coverage.

“We knew what we think we needed to do to win,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “Not what anybody else thinks we’ve got to do to win. And that’s the way we felt like we needed to go about it.

“The way it was working, we kept ripping.”

It was a stunning performance, one accompanied by an excellent showing from Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (221 yards passing) — who was named Super Bowl MVP and the rest of the offense.

Just two years ago, the Eagles failed to beat the Chiefs in a Super Bowl. Hurts had said that game ignited a ﬁre inside him, and it appeared it did the same for many of his teammates who shared the pain of that defeat. Hurts had gone as far as to make his phone lock screen an image that captured him standing in the confetti of the Chiefs’ previous win.

Hurts said he doesn’t know if he’ll change the screensaver now

“I took great pride in never backing down from a challenge,” he said.

These aren’t the same Eagles of two years ago. And this past offseason had a lot to do with it. After a disastrous end to the 2023 season a flameout that saw a dominant 10-1 start turn into an 11-6 finish with a first-round exit — Sirianni

overhauled key parts of his coaching staff. On offense, he turned to Kellen Moore, a brilliant but young play-caller who could seamlessly blend the existing ideas already in place to bring a fresh approach. And on defense, Sirianni poached Vic Fangio, the well-respected defensive mastermind who left the Miami Dolphins after just one season to oversee the Philadelphia defense.

But coaching alone would not ﬁx the Eagles.

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman set out to correct the main ﬂaws on the roster And he arguably did it better than anyone this past year In free agency, he landed star running back Saquon Barkley on a three-year, $37.8 million deal. And in an era when paying big money to the position had become toxic, Roseman said he felt the narrative had shifted too far the other way — and he was rewarded for that conﬁdence.

Barkley not only became the identity of the Philadelphia offense, but he also became the ninth player in NFL history to ﬁnish the regular season with at least 2,000 yards rushing.

Roseman’s other moves also paid off.

Zack Baun, on a one-year, $3.5 million deal, turned into one of the league’s best feel-good stories as he transformed from a seldom-used reserve with the New Orleans Saints to a Defensive Player of the Year ﬁnalist In the draft, the Eagles dramatically overhauled their secondary with back-to-back picks of cornerbacks

Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean in the ﬁrst and second rounds.

Repeatedly on Sunday, in ways that hadn’t been seen since his first Super Bowl loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Mahomes ran for his life.

He ran for his life when Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter burst through the line of scrimmage. He ran for his life when Eagles pass rusher Josh Sweat used his superiority to bend around the edge He ran for his life when the rest of the Eagles defensive line gave him little to no breathing room.

No sequence demonstrated that better than in the second quarter, when Philadelphia recorded a pair of sacks on ﬁrst and second downs before Mahomes threw an interception that DeJean returned for a touchdown.

On the turnover, which gave the Eagles a 17-0 lead, pressure forced Mahomes to roll out to his right as the quarterback tried to force a careless throw in a desperate attempt to make something happen. But DeJean, whose 22nd birthday was Sunday, read the play perfectly

At halftime, the Eagles had a higher pressure rate (47%) on Mahomes’ passes than the quarterback’s completion percentage (42%).

“We knew one of the keys to this game was going to be winning upfront,” Sirianni said. “We were able to do that.”

The Eagles offensive line also put its imprint on the game. While Kansas City was more than prepared for Barkley, who had a quieter day of just 57 yards rushing, the Eagles’ front was still able to make an impact by how it created time — and open lanes — for Hurts. The quarterback made

Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean scores on a pick-six during Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday.

By DAVID GRUNFELD

up for the lack of Barkley’s rushing success with 72 yards on 11 carries.

The Chiefs also dared Hurts to beat them with his arm, and he did. For Philadelphia’s ﬁrst score, the Eagles quarterback hit wide receiver Jahan Dotson for a 27-yard strike that set up a Tush Push touchdown. Then, shortly before halftime, Hurts delivered the dagger After Mahomes’ second interception, picked off by Baun, Hurts hit A.J. Brown on an underneath route to give the Eagles a 24-0 lead.

Aat no point Sunday was Philadelphia in danger of losing, even when Mahomes tossed three touchdowns late. Super Bowl LIX — and New Orleans — belonged to the Eagles. Backup quarterback Kenny Pickett even made an appearance when the Eagles pulled Hurts with slightly more than three minutes left. Pickett’s appearance was a ﬁtting bookend for Hurts. In college, the quarterback was benched in the 2018 national championship and watched as his replacement, Tua Tagovailoa, delivered Alabama a title. But on Sunday, Hurts sat because the result was so out of the hand that there was no reason to risk him getting hurt.

In his postgame news conference, wearing a Super Bowl Champions T-shirt, Hurts grew emotional when asked about that journey His eyes started to water, but he did not cry He smiled instead. For a moment, Hurts didn’t make a sound.

Email Matthew Paras at matt.paras@ theadvocate.com

DC Fangio delivers masterpiece in Dome return

BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer

Nearly 40 years ago, Vic Fangio’s big NFL break came here in New Orleans. He signed on to coach the New Orleans Saints linebackers in 1986 and played an integral part in unleashing the potential of the “Dome Patrol” linebackers. His career took off, and he has long been considered one of the NFL’s premier defensive minds.

There was only one thing that was missing — until Sunday Back in the building where his NFL coaching career began, Fangio won his first career Super Bowl title as the defensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles.

And this performance, a 40-22 shellacking against the Kansas City Chiefs, may have been his masterpiece. The Eagles defense spent Super Bowl LIX taking a wrecking ball to the Chiefs’ quest for a historic third straight Super Bowl title, squeezing the life out of the Kansas City rushing attack and then teeing off on superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

Nearly three quarters passed before the Chiefs crossed the goal line, and by then Philadelphia had already built up a 34-point lead. Fangio coordinated one of the ﬁnest defensive performances in Super Bowl history Mahomes, the three-time Super Bowl MVP looked flustered throughout the game as Fangio’s defensive front routinely harassed him with four rushers. Even when Mahomes did have time he never looked comfortable. The Eagles sacked him

six times, intercepted him twice and recovered one of his fumbles. It still felt like a contest when the Chiefs took over at their own 30-yard line midway through the second quarter, trailing 10-0 but with plenty of time to put their sluggish start behind them.

Eagles pass rusher Josh Sweat blew past tight end Travis Kelce and dropped Mahomes for a sack. It wasn’t clear in the moment, but the dam had broken. Sweat’s sack was followed immediately by another this time featuring Sweat and linebacker Jalyx Hunt splitting it. That set up a third and 16, and Mahomes was flushed from the pocket yet again, trying to make a play downfield while rolling to his right. He never saw rookie defensive back Cooper DeJean in the Eagles’ zone coverage. DeJean undercut a Mahomes throw intended for DeAndre

Hopkins and raced 38 yards for a pick-six that gave the Eagles a 17-0 lead and ignited a blowout to give the Eagles their second Super Bowl title in franchise history By the time the first half had come to a close, the Chiefs had managed just one ﬁrst down and 23 net yards, and Mahomes had thrown two interceptions.

The second of those interceptions, a diving grab by former New Orleans Saints linebacker Zack Baun with less than two minutes remaining in the first half, set the Eagles up at the Chiefs 14-yard line Two plays later, Jalen Hurts found A.J. Brown for a 12-yard score that gave Philadelphia a 24-0 halftime lead.

The ﬁnal stamp on the authoritative performance came when defensive tackle Milton Williams swatted the ball out of Mahomes’ hand as he was gearing up to

throw a deep pass downfield. Philadelphia recovered the fumble It was fitting that Fangio finally landed his first title in New Orleans, not only because this is where he got his start, but also because this was the site of his previous failed attempt. Fangio was the San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator from 2011-14, and it was in the Superdome that his defense allowed 34 points to the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII in 2013 Last week, as the Eagles were beginning their Super Bowl preparations, Fangio showed his team some game film from that loss. He told his players about all the ways it went wrong; that the team was overwhelmed by the moment. Sunday, Fangio and the Eagles met the moment.

Email Luke Johnson at ljohnson@theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO

Fangio

SUPER BOWL SIGHTS

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni celebrates a touchdown during Super Bowl LIX on Sunday. STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

Kendrick Lamar performs during Super Bowl LIX at the Caesars Superdome on Sunday in New Orleans. STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

SZA performs during halftime of the Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday AP PHOTO By BRyNN ANDERSON

Kansas City Chiefs safety Bryan Cook celebrates an interception against the Philadelphia Eagles during the first half of Super Bowl LIX on Sunday. STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Philadelphia Eagles players celebrate with the Lombardi Trophy after the Eagles won Super Bowl LIX on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome. AP PHOTO By DAVID J PHILLIP

Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins scores a touchdown against the Philadelphia Eagles in the second half of Super Bowl LIX on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome. STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

LIVING

‘The power of the organ ’

BY ANDREW DEMILLO Associated Press

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

— It was hushed inside a 140-year-old cathedral on the outskirts of Little Rock’s downtown as about ﬁve dozen people sat in the pews during a recent lunch break in January

The nave ﬁlled with the sounds of the Gothic church’s pipe organ, and a screen showed a man performing the works of Johann Sebastian Bach Those gathered weren’t there for church, but for the third concert in a series Colin MacKnight is performing over the next year to commemorate the 275th anniversary of Bach’s death

MacKnight, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral’s music director, is performing all of Bach’s organ works throughout 2025 one lunch break at a time. The ambitious plan entails performing 18 hours of music in half-hour increments nearly every Wednesday

“I’ve wanted to for a really long time because it’s, I think, the most thorough way of immersing myself in the brilliance of Johann Sebastian Bach,” MacKnight said one morning as he rehearsed in the empty cathedral the day before a

tive’s funeral when he was about 12 years old.

“Something about hearing it that time just really mesmerized me and that was the beginning of my love of Bach,” he said.

The 31-year-old’s hands move easily between the four keyboards of the organ console, flanked by knobs controlling different sounds that are assembled into various combinations.

Underneath, his feet press on the pedalboards — combining to create the notes of Bach’s works. MacKnight, who has played the organ since he was 16, acknowledges how dizzying the sight of the instrument can be for newcomers.

“If you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s a little overwhelming, like an airplane console,” he said.

concert.

The concerts in Little Rock are among several events around the world this year commemorating the German composer’s legacy and the anniversary of his death.

MacKnight, who is from Bethesda, Maryland, has been music director at Trinity for three years. He said the ﬁrst time he remembers hearing Bach was at a rela-

MacKnight’s concerts — which are free and open to the public — are also mini-lessons for those who come, with a glossary of terms like concerto and fugue included in the program. In between pieces, MacKnight gives audience members some background on Bach and his organ works.

BY ALICIA RANCILIO Associated

Does someone with Alzheimer’s disease lose their need for love and affection during the progression of the disease?

Alzheimer’s disease can affect a person’s relationships in many ways, including how they feel about love and intimacy

According to the book, “Keeping Love Alive as Memories Fade: The 5 Love Languages and the Alzheimer’s Journey,” by Debbie Barr, Gary Chapman and Edward Shaw, it is possible to sustain an emotional connection, or emotional intimacy with a memoryimpaired individual, as the affected individual’s need for love does not disappear with the diagnosis. The authors define the “5 Love Languages,” (5LL), as: n Words of affirmation n Quality moments n Gifts for “receiving gifts” n Acts of services n Physical touch. Words of affirmation, the first of the 5LL’s describes the power of unsolicited compliments or words of appreciation. “I love you” or “You did an amazing job” are examples of encouraging and thoughtful phrases and are important to say in making the affected partner feel loved. Loving considerations under this love language focus on the partner’s feelings rather than facts. Even as the disease progresses and the affected partner has difficulty understanding the affirmations, they still respond to the warmth of the caregiver’s voice and may even nod their head or make a gesture to reply The next of the 5LL’s is “quality moments.” The spouse/ partner of the affected individual — or caregiver and loved one should think in terms of quality moments instead of quality time, noting how important it is to live in their reality at that moment. The book describes these special moments as soul connections, which run much deeper than just shared experiences.

Of all the love languages, giftgiving and receiving is arguably the most often misconstrued. “Gifts for ‘receiving gifts,’” the third 5LL, demonstrates love with a tangible item. The giftgiving isn’t an extravagance; it’s all about sentiment. It says to the individual, “I was thinking about you when I saw this,” and serves as a reminder that they are loved. These expressions could include ﬂowers, a favorite snack, or tickets to a concert, and especially nearing Valentine’s Day, these gifts enhance the relationship and are always a means of promoting dialogue and connection.

In the fourth 5LL, “Acts of Service” describes the preservation of identity and individuality Caregivers perform numerous acts of service (caregiving responsibilities) for their affected partners during the disease journey, but it is the creation of meaningful

tain

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS By KATIE ADKINS

Colin MacKnight, director of music at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Little Rock, Ark., rehearses for his upcoming lunchtime concert series featuring the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Colin MacKnight prepares for his upcoming yearlong concert series featuring the works of Johann Sebastian Bach on organ.

Moussa

Living in zero gravity causes many changes to body

Dear Doctors: Our 11-year-old son is fascinated with those astronauts who are stuck on the space station. One of the things he asks about a lot is how being in space for that long affects the human body Do you know what the latest research says about that?

Dear reader: You are referring to two American astronauts who arrived at the International Space Station last June for what was planned to be an eight-day mission. When the experimental spacecraft they had piloted developed technical difﬁculties, however, NASA decided the pair should wait for the arrival of a replacement spacecraft to make the return trip. As of New Year’s Day, the two astronauts had logged more than 200 days in space. They are not scheduled to return to Earth until at least March

By The Associated Press

Today is Monday, Feb. 10, the 41st day of 2025. There are 324 days left in the year

Today in history

On Feb. 10, 1962, on the Glienicke Bridge connecting West Berlin and East Germany, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States.

On this date

1736, the treaty ending the Seven Years’ War was signed in Paris, with France ceding its territory in Canada to Great Britain.

In 1936, Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review.

In 1959, an F4-intensity tornado tore through the St.

Dr. Elizabeth Ko Dr Eve Glazier ASK THE DOCTORS

As the astronauts await their ride home, they are undergoing signiﬁcant physiological changes That’s because our bodies have evolved to both overcome and to utilize the pull of gravity The absence of that constant resistance affects every cell, tissue, structure and biological system. That’s why astronauts in space spend hours each day exercising. Without the pull of gravity to work against, muscle mass

TODAY IN HISTORY

Louis area, killing 21 people and injuring 345. In 1967, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was adopted as Minnesota and Nevada ratiﬁed it.

In 1981, eight people were killed when a ﬁre set by a busboy broke out at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino. In 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov lost the ﬁrst game of a match in Philadelphia against an IBM computer dubbed “Deep Blue.”

(Kasparov ended up winning the match, 4 games to 2; however, he was defeated by Deep Blue in a rematch the following year.)

Today’s birthdays: Opera singer Leontyne Price is 98.

Actor Robert Wagner is 95 Singer Roberta Flack is 88.

Olympic swimming gold

decreases and muscles begin to atrophy Within several weeks, astronauts lose up to 10% to 20% of their lean muscle mass. Weightlessness erases the physical cues that trigger bone remodeling. This is the process in which new bone continuously replaces old bone. As a result, bone mass in astronauts decreases by 1% to 2% every month they spend in space. Fluids change their behavior in the microgravity of space, as well. This adversely affects the heart, circulation and blood pressure; leads to persistent nasal congestion; causes tissues of the face and upper body to become swollen; affects the inner ear and vision; and even results in increased ﬂatulence and constipation. The vacuum of space also interferes with the production of

red blood cells, resulting in a condition dubbed “space anemia.” Astronauts are exposed to higher amounts of ionizing radiation, which can increase cancer risk. There is also emerging evidence that space travel affects the structure of the human brain. The newest research has found that living in space even causes changes to human DNA. This was discovered in a fascinating study of identical twin brothers Scott and Mark Kelly Both are astronauts who have spent time in space. From March 2015 to March 2016, while Mark remained on Earth, Scott lived on the International Space Station.

Upon Scott’s return after a year spent living in zero gravity, genetic analysis found that almost 1,000 of his chromosomes and genes worked differently than

‘FLIP OFF’

Continued from page 1D

medalist Mark Spitz is 75.

Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman is 70. Basketball Hall of Fame coach John Calipari is 66. Filmmaker Alexander Payne is 64. TV host-political commentator George Stephanopoulos is 64. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., is 63. Political commentator Glenn Beck is 61. Actor Laura Dern is 58. Writer-producerdirector Vince Gilligan (TV: “Breaking Bad”) is 58.

Football Hall of Famer Ty Law is 51. Actor-ﬁlmmaker Elizabeth Banks is 51. Basketball Hall of Famer Tina Thompson is 50. Reggaeton singer Don Omar is 47. Actor Uzo Aduba is 44. Actor Stephanie Beatriz is 44.

Actor Emma Roberts is 34.

Olympic swimming gold medalist Lilly King is 28.

Actor Chloe Grace Moretz is 28. Actor Yara Shahidi is 25.

250th anniversary of the composer’s death in 2000.

and come back to get the next batch,” he said.

teammate The two split shortly thereafter and some of their tension is visible on “The Flip Off.” When Hall exited, Haack was joined by friends she’s worked with behind-the-scenes on projects Her second exhusband, TV personality Ant Antstead, even makes an appearance. The El Moussas and Haack spoke with The Associated Press about the show and working together Answers are edited for clarity and brevity

Heather, it’s not easy to date and marry a man who’s working with his ex-wife. Are you surprised you’re all collaborating now?

HEATHER EL MOUSSA: I came into a lot of chaos when I ﬁrst met this man because they were ﬁlming “Flip or Flop.” One day they like each other, the next day they don’t, so it was a lot for me to take on... But it’s been such a great relationship that we’ve all built, and especially Christina and I throughout this.

those of his twin brother. The good news is many of the adverse effects of space travel resolve upon return to Earth. Some, such as the effects of ﬂuid shifts, take only a short time. Others, including loss of muscle mass, bone density and cognitive effects, can take many months and intense rehabilitation to overcome. Some can be permanent. That has made the development of space suits and space craft to mitigate these effects a priority within the global space community

Send your questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla. edu, or write: Ask the Doctors, c/o UCLA Health Sciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1450, Los Angeles, CA, 90024.

Do you ever think back to those moments when you weren’t getting along and wonder how you got to where you are now?

HAACK: Tarek and I both have a very quick bounceback effect We could be in an argument, but then the cameras would be rolling and we can create a great scene and be over it. I like making good TV I think it’s fun. What were some of the challenges of the new show?

HAACK: The biggest amount of pressure is trying to outdesign each other Normally with a house ﬂip, you’re just designing it for the neighborhood and you know, you can paint or knock down some walls, but like you’re not trying to overdo it. During the process, we got so competitive with each other, we deﬁnitely all overspent. Tarek, you often refer to yourself on the show as the king of flipping houses.Why?

TAREK EL MOUSSA: I’ve learned a lot of lessons through experience. You know, I’ve done about 1,000 deals at this point. And every time you make a mistake, every time you lose a dollar, every time you get

burned, it’s a lesson. And you keep stacking those lessons I am so excited about the future because all those lessons are paying off.

HEATHER EL MOUSSA: He always says to keep the emotion out of it because I think you can get so stuck on when things go wrong with a ﬂip. In the beginning, I would be so mad if one thing went wrong. Tarek’s like, “You have to move on. You can’t dwell on the small things. Take emotion out of the ﬂip.”

“These pieces are in the unfortunate category of being much, much harder than they sound,” he says. Generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time, Bach is known in particular for his organ works and their heavy use of pedals and complex structures. Few organists perform the composer’s complete organ works, given the difﬁculty and quantity of the music They include Grammywinning organist Paul Jacobs, who taught MacKnight at the Juilliard School. Jacobs performed an 18-hour nonstop concert of Bach’s organ works to mark the

LOVE

Continued from page 1D

love language. For instance, the spouse/partner can give their loved one tasks such as repotting a plant or watering the garden — tasks that make him feel useful and appreciated. The last of the 5LL’s is “Physical Touch” and this

The free concerts so far have drawn a mix of church members, classical music aﬁcionados and newcomers who say they want a quiet break from the daily bustle.

“I like the complexity of the music and the power of the organ which stirs me internally,” said Barry Coplin, a member of the church who has attended two of MacKnight’s concerts.

Ben Wiley, who lives about 30 minutes away, is a classical music fan who was attending his third of MacKnight’s shows and said he appreciates being able to hear Bach’s works in halfhour increments.

“It’s a good way to be able to get it done in short bursts, to be able to absorb it better

describes the sense of intimacy, comfort and reassurance for both the spouse and loved one. The touch that the affected loved one wants from the spouse/ partner changes as his perception of the spouse/partner changes. Touch can be expressive, such as hugs, holding hands, or instrumental such as assisting with bathing and toileting. Physical closeness helps

MacKnight is also performing a 100-minute concert of Bach’s most extensive organ work the Clavier-Ubung III, sometimes referred to as the German Organ Mass — on July 28, the day the German composer died in 1750 at 65.

The Rev Thomas Alexander, a priest at Trinity, said the concerts allow the public to enjoy MacKnight’s talents, come together and learn more about Bach in a way they normally wouldn’t be able to.

“It’s like reading someone’s complete collection of novels. You get to really get to know someone in a comprehensive way,” Alexander said. “But it also builds a sense of community.”

the affected individual at an emotional level to know he is loved and appreciated.

Dana Territo is an Alzheimer’s advocate and author of “What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer’s Disease.”

She hosts “The Memory Whisperer.” Email her at thememorywhisperer@ gmail.com.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By KATIE ADKINS

Wearing custom, form-fitting shoes, Colin MacKnight demonstrates how his feet alone can play the organ at the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Little Rock, Ark.

AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Set boundaries, share your priorities and stick to your game plan. Trust your instincts and focus on self-improvement and what brings you joy. It's time to take responsibility for your happiness and move forward.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Explore the lighter side of life by participating in something that makes you feel good. Love, romance and personal improvement are attainable. Share your thoughts and feelings.

ARIEs (March 21-April 19) How you deal with the choices others make and what you do to ensure positive results will be key. Don't let yourself become a martyr. Make a last-minute adjustment if necesssary.

tAuRus (April 20-May 20) Keep life simple Put home, family and yourself first. Do not let outside influences affect your choices or plans. Set an inspiring precedent.

GEMInI (May 21-June 20) A change of plans will lead to a change of heart. Stretch your mind, learn something new and take the path that leads to something that stimulates your mind, body and soul. It's time to help yourself.

cAncER (June 21-July 22) Put your effort and resources into making financial gains, upgrading your qualifications and reaching your goals. Choose a positive attitude and a worthwhile purpose, and change whatever isn't working for you.

LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) Consider what you enjoy doing most and pick up information and skills that make you feel good about your choices. An encounter with someone will spark your interest.

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) A reset will be uplifting. The people and prospects you meet along the way will give you something to consider and encourage you to adjust your schedule. Dig in and make things happen.

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) Look over the rules and regulations before you adjust or conform to demands. Set standards and stick to what's realistic. Travel, learning and networking will pay off.

scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Keep your discussions to a minimum until you better understand what you want and what's possible. Discipline and mapping out a unique path will give you hope for a brighter future.

sAGIttARIus (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Make your position clear, and don't hesitate to walk away from any unreliable or unreasonable situation. Hold your head high and be the one who maintains integrity. cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Protect against exhaustion. Focus on what's necessary and beneficial to you. Good choices will raise your value and make those you deal with daily appreciate who you are and what you can do.

FAMILY CIrCUS

CeLebrItY CIpher

For better or For WorSe

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

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

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer

THe wiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

Bridge

By PHILLIP ALDER

Sebastian Vettel, four-time and youngest-ever Formula One World Drivers’ champion, said, “As a driver, your target is always to be with the most competitive team possible.” As a bridge player, your target is always the number of tricks needed to make or to break a contract. When on defense, always ask yourself where your side might take those tricks — what I call the defensive target.

In this deal, how should East defend against three no-trump after West leads the club queen?

West might have made a takeout double on the first round, which would have shown four spades and four or more clubs. His point-count was low, but if he could have found a fit with his partner, maybe his side could have done well. North was a trick too strong for his three-diamond rebid, but nothing else was better. And South went for the ninetrick game.

Itiscommoninno-trumptoreturnyour partner’s suit. (In a trump contract, this happens much less often.) Here, though, if East wins with his club ace and leads back the club nine, how many tricks will declarer take? Even if South is void in diamonds, he must have at least 10 win-

ners: two hearts, seven diamonds and one club — not good. The only chance for the defense is to cashfourspadetricks immediately East should take his club ace and shift to the spade queen. Here, East and West take the checkered flag. © 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:

InstRuctIons:

toDAy’s WoRD JAEGERs: YAY-gers: Hunters.

Average mark 11 words Time limit 20 minutes

Can you find 17 or more words in JAEGERS?

sAtuRDAy’s WoRD — tEMPuRA

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C. PiCKles

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

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer

ken ken

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

Offerexpires2/28/25

*OnlyonepairofMEEASYlevel1BTES312perpatientatthisspecialprice.MEEASYL1 bBTES312bestfitsforhearinglossof40dBorbetterandahearingscoreof10orless.Must ringyourspouseorfamilymembertocompletethefamiliarvoiceportionoftheexam.An audiometrictestwillbeadministeredtodetermineyourlevelofhearinglossandrecommendationsforhearingsolutionsthatspecificallyfityourleveloflossandlifestyleneedswillbe providedtoyouatnocharge.Notvalidwithanyotherdiscountoroffer Doesnotapplytopriorpurchases.Seestorefordetails.