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Dan year-round guide to a beautiful law n Wednesday, Apri l 2, 2025
N O L A.C O M
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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
INSIDE TODAY
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Area still ‘buyer’s market’ for homes Ready for a lush, inviting lawn? Here’s what you need to know
Trump’s immigration crackdown, tariff policies adding to economic anxieties BY ANTHONY McAULEY Staff writer
New Orleans’ housing market, which has been in a slump since the end of the pandemic-era buying frenzy of the early 2020s, is showing little signs of improvement, and fresh fears about the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and tariff policy are adding to anxiety over the economy, industry experts said at a University of New Orleans real estate conference on Tuesday. For the third year in a row, total home sales were down in 2024 while new listings were up, according to the annual Economic Outlook and Real Estate Forecast report from the UNO Institute for
ä See HOMES, page 5A
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 government without many of the key experts who have long guided U.S. decisions on medical research, drug approvals and other issues. “The revolution begins today!” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote on social media as he cel-
ä Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton
Rouge, says resignation of top vaccine regulator does not violate commitment from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. PAGE 4A
ebrated 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 commissioner. Kennedy’s post came just hours after employees began receiving emailed layoff notices. He later wrote, “Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs” but
Various groups unite to defeat amendments
said that the department needs to be “recalibrated” to emphasize disease prevention. Kennedy announced a plan last week to remake the department, which, through its agencies, is responsible for tracking health trends and disease outbreaks, conducting and funding medical research, and monitoring the safety of food and medicine, as well as for administering health insurance programs for nearly half the country. The plan would consolidate agencies that oversee billions of dollars for addiction services and community health centers under a new office called the Administration for a Healthy America. HHS said layoffs are expected to save $1.8 billion annually — about 0.1% — from the department’s $1.7 trillion budget, most of which is spent on Medicare and Medicaid health insurance coverage for
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
ä See LAYOFFS, page 4A
ä See AMENDMENTS, page 6A
BY TYLER BRIDGES
Staff writer
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 Staff writer tion-related charges in New Orleans 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 85 LOW 73 PAGE 8B
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
Business ......................8A Commentary ................7B Nation-World ................2A Classified .....................8D Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....4D-7D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
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 5A
12TH yEAR, NO. 233