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COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: LSU VS. UCLA • 6 P.M. • ESPN 1C THE

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M o n d ay, J u n e 16, 2025

Tilapia resurge in Louisiana waters

$2.00X

Private schools dismayed after funding limited Legislature provides set amount for LA GATOR program

BY PATRICK WALL | Staff writer At Gardere Community Christian School in Baton Rouge, hopes were high for LA GATOR. Many thought Louisiana’s new program, which gives families state-funded grants for private school tuition or homeschool expenses, could be life changing. Teachers and administrators showed up at the school on the Saturday in March when applications opened to help parents apply. And in May, students and parents pleaded for funding for the program during a state Senate hearing. “Allow my sister and brother and everyone else in my neighborhood to have such an amazing learning journey,” said Radiance Bailey, a ﬁfth grader with ﬁve siblings at the school and two more hoping to enroll. On Thursday, many people at Gardere and private schools across the state were bitterly disappointed when the Louisiana Legislature passed a state budget that included far less funding for LA GATOR than its backers sought. The

ä See FUNDING, page 4A STAFF PHOTOS By BRETT DUKE

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Joel Caldwell throws a cast net in a canal in Port Sulphur on June 4. It’s believed that tilapia fish escaped from a corporate retreat near Port Sulphur nearly 20 years ago and despite a massive eradication effort in 2009 they’ve been found recently in Louisiana waters.

Despite eradication effort, scientists find invasive fish BY ALEX LUBBEN | Staff writer PORT SULPHUR — Along the levees in this former company town near the end of the Mississippi River, a destructive fish is making an unexpected comeback. Tilapia, a commonly farmed fish that’s ubiquitous at grocery store seafood counters, can pose a dire ecological threat when released into the wild. That’s exactly what happened in this Plaquemines Parish community about 20 years ago, when the fish escaped from a bass pond on a property owned by one of the largest mining companies in the world. Chris Schieble, a deputy assistant secretary with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said he believes the fish broke free when Hurricane Katrina flooded much of the parish. The LDWF then led an effort to kill the tilapia in 2009. At the time, it appeared that the eradication had succeeded.

‘Laughing gas’ can prompted bill to toughen penalties Senator also supported decriminalizing drug test strips BY MEGAN WYATT | Staff writer

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Joel Caldwell

ä See TILAPIA, page 3A holds juvenile tilapia collected from a canal in Port Sulphur on June 4.

A can of grape-flavored nitrous oxide sits under state Sen. Brach Myers’ desk at the State Capitol. Leading up to this spring’s legislative session, Myers set out to discover how easy it was for anyone to get a hold of laughing gas. At Myers’ behest, his 15-year-old son purchased the grapeflavored can on Amazon. Myers filmed it. It was easy, costing just $35. His son faced no age verification barriers or other efforts to prevent the sale to a minor, Myers said. The can arrived just two days later. Now, a bill from Myers that changes penalties for online sales of nitrous oxide has sailed through the Louisiana Legislature and is awaiting the governor’s signature. Senate Bill 98

ä See BILL, page 4A

Ellen Dionne Alverez learns about her family tree in New Orleans on June 8. Alverez is a second cousin of Pope Leo XIV. STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

WEATHER HIGH 87 LOW 73 PAGE 10C

Race splits two branches of Pope Leo’s family Cousins seek to reunite family as lineage is traced

skinned passed for White. The other side continued on as Black. Most of the family left Louisiana more than a centuBY DESIREE STENNETT | Staff writer ry ago, but accordLeo XIV Two generations before his birth, ing to genealogist Pope Leo XIV’s New Orleans fam- Jari Honora, who has been studyily splintered along racial lines. ing the pope’s local ancestry, two On one side, those who were fair- branches of the extended family —

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one Black and one White — stayed in New Orleans. They never met. Ellen Dionne Alverez, 77, grew up in the 7th Ward and has lived her entire life in the city. When Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was chosen as pope last month, word quickly spread through her Black New Orleans family that he might be a cousin.

ä See FAMILY, page 5A

100TH yEAR, NO. 351