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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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T h u r s d ay, M a r c h 13, 2025
PATH OF CRIME Study finds BR murderers rarely finished high school, often skipped classes
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President helps House pass funding legislation
Resolution to keep government open faces fight in Senate BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer
WASHINGTON — For the second time in as many weeks, House Speaker Mike Johnson succeeded in wrangling his narrow and often dysfunctional Republican House majority into passing legislation sought by ä Military President Donald Trump. leaders warn Johnson, R-Benton, and House of risks to Majority Leader Steve Scalise, armed forces’ R-Jefferson, said Trump personally played a big role in accom- readiness in temporary plishing both legislative wins. Tuesday’s successful effort to funding bill. approve a resolution that would PAGE 2A avert a government shutdown noticeably lacked the frenetic arm twisting and finger-pointing witnessed on the chamber floor Feb. 25 that secured just enough support for Trump’s “one big beautiful” budget bill. By contrast, Tuesday’s “continuing resolution,” which authorizes government spending from Saturday until Sept. 30, was relatively relaxed. “You see President Trump pushing, as well as all of us in our House leadership, to get this bill passed,” said Scalise. He noted that Vice President JD Vance came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning. Vance “did a great job of really laying out why it’s so important that we keep the government open and pass this bill so that we can continue on with the great work that’s being done to get our economy back
ä See SPEAKER, page 6A STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON
A Baton Rouge Police Department officer takes a photograph of shell casings at the scene of a shooting at the Urban Meadows apartment complex along Greenwell Street in 2024. BY CHARLES LUSSIER
Common threads among young men in East Baton Rouge Parish who commit murder
convictions during that 15-year span. Staff writer “I’m one of the people Young men in East Takeaways from an analysis of 18- to 29-year-old men convicted who could easily have gone down a path of Baton Rouge Parish of murder during a 15-year period in East Baton Rouge Parish crime had I not focused who committed violent on something at school. crimes typically spent 80% For me that was bastheir childhood growketball,” said LaMont ing up in the poorest 70% Cole, superintendent of neighborhoods and, al60% East Baton Rouge Parthough enrolled, were frequently absent from ish public schools. “Even parish public schools though I wasn’t a great and never earned a high basketball player, I had school diploma. basketball.” These insights are The murder rate in drawn from a new reBaton Rouge rose over Attended EBR Didn’t finish high school Grew up in poor that period and remains port released ThursEBR public school students only public schools neighborhoods high, surpassing almost day and published by The Baton Rouge Area Source: Common Good Labs analysis for the Baton Rouge Area Foundation Staff graphic every other medium and large city in the nation. Foundation. Entitled “Community Safety: New approach- violent crime, but the data and the The Capital City’s murder rate in es for preventing violence in Baton people scrutinized are all from East 2024 was higher than New Orleans, Chicago, Baltimore and New York. Rouge,” the 13-page report pools Baton Rouge Parish. The report pays particularly close It has not fallen from pandemic-era together 15 years of education and attention to young men, aged 18 to levels. criminal justice data. In his introduction to the report, The conclusions are consistent 29, who were convicted of murder with national research on the con- between 2007 and 2022. They acä See CRIME, page 4A nection between education and counted for 70% of the 160 murder
Landry: ‘Time to get back to work’ Changes expected for remote state workers
BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
Gov. Jeff Landry on Tuesday said he is readying an executive order that would require state employees who work remotely to return to the office. Landry briefly mentioned the plan at the Tchefuncta Country Club during a keynote address to the PAC that supports the St. Tammany Chamber of Commerce. “I’ve been pushing my cabinet secretaries to make sure that our people are going back to work,” he said. “And I can tell you in the next 30 days or so, we’re going to sign an executive order telling everybody, ‘It’s time to get back to work.’ ” The room erupted in applause in response to the remark. Landry didn’t elaborate on details of the planned executive order and did not respond to a request
ä See REMOTE, page 4A
Trump vows to take back ‘stolen’ wealth as tariffs go into effect Trump removed all exemptions Republican president’s use President increases ofThe tariffs to extract concessions from his 2018 tariffs on the metother nations points toward als, in addition to increasing the levies on all steel and from a possibly destructive trade war tariffs on aluminum from 10%. aluminum imports and a stark change in America’s His moves, based off a February
approach to global leadership. It also has destabilized the stock market and stoked anxiety about an economic downturn. Associated Press “The United States of America WASHINGTON — President Donald is going to take back a lot of what Trump openly challenged U.S. al- was stolen from it by other counlies on Wednesday by increasing tries and, frankly, by incompetariffs on all steel and aluminum tent U.S. leadership,” Trump told imports to 25% as he vowed to reporters on Wednesday. “We’re take back wealth “stolen” by other going to take back our wealth, and countries, drawing quick retalia- we’re going to take back a lot of the companies that left.” tion from Europe and Canada.
BY JOSH BOAK, PAUL WISEMAN and ROB GILLIES
WEATHER HIGH 85 LOW 62 PAGE 6B
directive, are part of a broader effort to disrupt and transform global commerce. He has separate tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, with plans to also tax imports from the European Union, Brazil and South Korea by charging “reciprocal” rates starting on April 2. The EU announced its own countermeasures Wednesday.
Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheál Martin is greeted by President Donald Trump as he arrives at the White House on Wednesday. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By BEN CURTIS
ä See TARIFFS, page 6A
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100TH yEAR, NO. 256