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S at u r d ay, F e b r u a ry 8, 2025
“To have people who’ve never been to Louisiana get a taste of us and who we are, it’s a great opportunity.” KARI TOLLIVER, culinary student making pralines for the Super Bowl
SUPER SWEETS
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Judge to halt leave for USAID workers Ruling temporarily blocks plan to pull 2,200 off the job
BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press
STAFF PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Terrence Jones, founder and CEO of Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy Company, watches as culinary student Miyah Benjamin Savoie scoops out pralines Thursday at the W.D. and Mary Baker Smith Career Center in Lafayette.
Culinary class takes part in praline candy production for Lafayette company supplying the Super Bowl BY ASHLEY WHITE Staff writer
When Kari Tolliver sits down to watch the Super Bowl, she won’t be waiting for touchdowns and commercials. The W.D. and Mary Baker Smith Career Center student will be looking for a silver foil pouch with a “Creole-ish” sticker and a Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy Company praline inside. It might just be a candy from the batch she made with her culinary classmates in Lafayette. “To have people who’ve never been to Louisiana get a taste of us and who we are,” she said, “it’s a great opportunity.” Kari and her peers made thousands of pralines under the supervision of Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy Company founder and CEO Terrence Jones and Career Center instructor and chef Theresa Edwards. The Louisiana Creole Pecan Candy Company is the pecan praline supplier of the Super Bowl, being held in New Or-
leans on Sunday. Jones’ company was one of 225 selected from more than 2000 applicants that will be supplying everything the Super Bowl needs this year. It’s a full-circle moment for Jones, who grew up in Lafayette and attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. When Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl in 2013, Jones and his business fraternity brothers were cast as fans in her performance. Now, his company’s candies will appear in Superdome suites during the game, at the NFL Super Bowl Experience at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and at an NFL charity event before the game. It’s supplying nearly 20,000 candies for VIPs and guests, Jones said. To help fulfill all those orders, Jones reached out to Edwards, whom he met at a Louisiana Restaurant Association convention in 2022, to ask
ä See SWEETS, page 4A
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Friday dealt President Donald Trump and billionaire ally Elon Musk their first big setback in their dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, saying he will order a temporary halt to plans to pull thousands of agency staffers off the job. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, who was nominated by Trump, sided with two federal employee associations in agreeing to a pause in plans to put 2,200 employees on paid leave as of midnight Friday. Nichols stressed his order was not a decision on the employees’ request to roll back the administration’s swiftly moving destruction of the agency. “CLOSE IT DOWN,” Trump said on social media of USAID before the judge’s ruling. The American Foreign Service Association and the American Federation of Government Employees argue that Trump lacks the authority to shut down the six-decade-old aid agency without approval from Congress. Democratic lawmakers have made the same argument. Trump’s administration moved quickly Friday literally to erase the agency’s name. Workers on a crane scrubbed the name from the stone front of its Washington headquarters. They used duct tape to block it out on a sign and took down USAID flags. Someone placed a bouquet of flowers outside the door. The Trump administration and Musk, who is
ä See JUDGE, page 4A
Experts weigh in on class comments
Suspended LSU law professor’s words draw rebukes, defenders BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
Culinary student Kari Tolliver scoops out pralines on Thursday.
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,
ä See COMMENTS, page 4A
Concerns grow about bird flu impact on agriculture, public health BY EMILY WOODRUFF
Staff writer
Professor Sarah Michaels, a medical entomologist, began a recent class at Tulane University with a discussion about the cheapest eggs in town. Once an affordable source of protein, a dozen eggs — if you can find them on Louisiana shelves — now averages around $7, accord-
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ing to a price tracker. The soaring price of eggs is a ripple effect of an ongoing outbreak of avian influenza, also known as H5N1 or bird flu, which has spread from wild birds to dairy and poultry farms, infected cats, and caused at least one human death in Louisiana — the only recorded fatality from bird flu in the U.S. to date. As the outbreak worsens,
concerns about its impact on agriculture and public health continue to grow. The virus has devastated poultry farms, spread to dairy cattle, and raised alarms among infectious disease experts over its potential to mutate. On Friday, poultry processing plants in New York shut down due to outbreaks among flocks, bringing the total
ä See FLU, page 4A
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An ongoing outbreak of bird flu has sent the price of eggs soaring nationwide. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO
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