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Machine gun converters surging in BR Contraptions enable firing barrage of bullets in seconds BY AIDAN McCAHILL Staff writer
Cathy Toliver had just finished a video call with her grandson Devin Page Jr., who she referred to as “snickerdoodle.” It was late on the night of April 12, 2022. Toliver told the boy in Baton Rouge she would see him the next day, kissing the 3-year-old good night over the phone.
Then 45 minutes later, Toliver received a reality shattering phone call from her daughter, Tye Toliver, the boy’s mother. “Mama!” her daughter screamed. “They just killed my baby!” In the following days, when griefstricken family members visited the crime scene in the city’s Fairfields neighborhood, they saw 39 pieces of tape along the walls of the adjacent house, as law enforce-
A memorial for Tye Toliver’s son Devin Page Jr. displays photos of him at his grandmother Cathy Toliver’s home in Baker.
ment had marked each bullet hole. A 40th bullet had shattered Devin’s bedroom window. Almost three years later, investigators have yet to identify the gunman responsible for Devin’s death. What is clear: The assailant didn’t target the Tolivers’ home, but used a weapon equipped with a machine gun conversion device
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
ä See GUN, page 6A
Beekeepers losing hives at alarming rate
Out-of-state students fueling LSU’s growth 40% of freshmen not from Louisiana BY PATRICK WALL
Staff writer
Several factors worsen colony losses BY HALEY MILLER
destruction of the habitats where the bees find food has sliced his colony numbers nearly in half. “We’re talking about March,” For Louisiana beekeeper Josh Janway, this March has been one Janway said. “That’s when flowof the worst starts to a honeybee ers are supposed to be out, bees season he can remember. are supposed to be growing. And Last year, he was operating with we’re just not seeing it.” just under 4,000 hives. Now, a conJanway and beekeepers across fluence of factors, including pesä See BEES, page 4A ticide use, Varroa mites and the Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
ABOVE: The queen bee of the hive at Janway Farms is marked with a white dot from a paint pen. TOP: Bees swarm beekeeper Josh Janway as he takes a beehive out of its case at Janway Farms.
Danielle Hawkins, an LSU admissions counselor, asked a group of about 40 middle and high schoolers this week how many had been to a Mardi Gras parade. Only a few hands went up. “OK, a couple,” she said brightly. “Look at y’all!” The students had come from Tampa to tour the Baton Rouge campus. Hawkins, who frequently travels to New Jersey and Pennsylvania to recruit, gave a presentation, then introduced their tour guide: an LSU junior from Houston. As the Florida students shuffled across the sprawling campus, where 4 in 10 freshmen come from out of state, 10thgrader Ah’Yanna Maultsby liked what she saw. “It feels like I actually could belong here,” she said. Louisiana’s flagship public university, LSU has become a magnet for out-ofstate students. Its steady expansion, to more than 34,000 undergrads last fall, has been driven almost entirely by students coming from outside Louisiana. Over the past decade, the number of undergrads from other states has nearly tripled, exceeding 12,000 students in 2024, according to LSU fall enrollment data that includes online and campus students. By contrast, the number of Louisiana undergrads inched up only 2%, to about 20,300 students. The swelling ranks of students from outside Louisiana — including nearby states like Florida and Georgia as well
ä See STUDENTS, page 4A
WEATHER HIGH 80 LOW 64 PAGE 8B
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