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INSIDE TODAY
year-round guide to a beautiful law n Wednesday, Apri l 2, 2025
W e d n e s d ay, a p r i l 2, 2025
Layoffs underway at public health agencies Sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink workforce
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Amendments defeated by bipartisan opposition Ready for a lush, inviting lawn? Here’s what you need to know
Left-, right-leaning groups worked against proposals BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By AMANDA SEITZ
Hundreds of employees waiting to get in stand in a line wrapped around the outside of the Health and Human Services headquarters building in Washington on Tuesday.
Cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, senior leaders BY CARLA K. JOHNSON Associated Press
Employees across the massive U.S. Health and Human Services Department received notices Tuesday that their jobs were being eliminated, part of a sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink the agencies responsible for protecting and promoting Americans’ health. The cuts include researchers, scientists, doctors, support staff and senior leaders, leaving the federal
approvals and other issues. “The revolution begins today!” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media as he celebrated the swearing-in of his latest hires: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the new director of the National Institutes of Health, and Martin Makary, the new Food and Drug Administration ä Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton commissioner. Kennedy’s post came Rouge, says resignation of top just hours after employees began receiving emailed layoff notices. vaccine regulator does not He later wrote, “Our hearts go out violate commitment from Health to those who have lost their jobs” but Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that the department needs to be PAGE 4A “recalibrated” to emphasize disease prevention. Kennedy announced a plan last government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. ä See LAYOFFS, page 4A decisions on medical research, drug
A charismatic Pentecostal preacher. A Grammy-winning singer and songwriter. A former Republican state representative. A one-time Saints defensive star. Leaders of groups that oppose putting children in adult prisons. An unlikely crew of people on both the left and the right on Saturday torpedoed Gov. Jeff Landry’s effort to revamp Louisiana’s tax system and make three other changes to the state constitution. Landry raised money for an expensive advertising campaign and stumped throughout Louisiana in particular for Amendment 2, a complicated measure that would have rewritten the state tax code to reduce the top individual tax rate and impose a cap on government spending. He supported the other three amendments, which would have created specialty courts, expanded the number of crimes that would put children in adult prisons and changed election dates for judicial vacancies. Each of the four amendments lost overwhelmingly, winning only 35% or so of the vote.
ä See AMENDMENTS, page 6A
STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD
About 10,000 more people voted in New Orleans in Saturday’s election than in the governor’s race in October 2023.
FBI agents make immigration arrests in New Orleans Department joins in Trump’s directive
tion of law enforcement resources toward its sweeping immigration crackdown. FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested two people on apparent immigraBY JAMES FINN tion-related charges in New OrStaff writer leans East last week, according to FBI agents are helping federal statements from law enforcement Department of Homeland Security and an immigrant advocacy group. officers carry out immigration ar- Union Migrante, the advocacy rests in New Orleans, part of the group, said the arrests happened Trump administration’s redirec- Wednesday near a cluster of busi-
WEATHER HIGH 82 LOW 74 PAGE 6B
nesses on Crowder Boulevard. In a statement and on social media, the FBI did not identify who had been detained or say what allegations prompted their arrests. The FBI is helping immigration agents “arresting dangerous criminals and helping to keep our communities safe,” FBI spokesperson Lesley Hill said. FBI agents are joining the operations under a nationwide directive from Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Hill referred additional questions to DHS, which did not respond to a request for comment. The statement appears to be among the FBI’s first public acknowledgments of its agents’ role in Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda, which promises to deport 20 million people but has faced mounting logistical, legal and resource hurdles since the president’s inauguration in January. FBI agents have historically
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played little role in immigration enforcement, according to Freddy Cleveland, a retired FBI agent who served in the New Orleans field office in the 1990s. “We did none of it, as I recall, over my entire career,” Cleveland said. Such enforcement normally is the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, the umbrella agency over ICE and Customs
ä See FBI, page 6A
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