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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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F r i d ay, J u n e 20, 2025
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CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH
Top-scoring students qualify for new award
BY PATRICK WALL Staff writer
Louisiana will cover the full price of college tuition for a small group of stellar students, under newly passed legislation — but it won’t give more money to thousands of students whose state scholarships cover only part of their tuition bill. Top-scoring high schoolers will qualify for a new “Excellence” award through the state’s TOPS scholarship program under House Bill 77, which the Louisiana Legislature passed last week and Gov. Jeff Landry is expected to sign. Starting this fall, the award will provide up to $12,000 per year to students who attend a public university, or roughly the annual cost of tuition and fees at LSU’s main campus, and up to $8,500 for students at eligible private universities. To qualify, students must score 31 or higher out of 36 on the ACT and earn 3.5 or above grade-point average. Fewer than 900 students annually are expected to get the award, or less than 2% of firstyear students at the state’s public colleges and universities. The bill’s author, Rep. Christopher Turner, R-Ruston, initially had grander ambitions. His original bill would have established uniform rates for TOPS scholarships, which vary by school and often fall thousands of dollars short of the full cost of tuition and fees. The new rates would have meant
STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Brenda Robinson, project coordinator with TRIO, center, fights off the heat with a hand fan as she begins to chant ‘This Little Light of Mine’ to kick off a Freedom March on Thursday during the Juneteenth celebration at Southern University. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Students take turns in the spotlight of a dance circle Thursday during the Juneteenth celebration at Southern University.
ä See TOPS, page 4A
Application for new Plaquemines LNG terminal withdrawn Venture says it wants to focus on expansion of existing facility
ä Juneteenth celebrations held across the country. PAGE 5A
BY BLAKE PATERSON Staff writer
Venture Global, the Virginia company that has spent billions of dollars building liquefied natural gas export terminals across south Louisiana, has withdrawn its application with federal regulators for a new terminal in Plaquemines Parish, saying it wants to focus instead on expanding an existing facility. Venture Global had proposed building its Delta LNG terminal on a 1,100-acre site near Mile 54 of the Mississippi River next to its Plaquemines LNG terminal. But in a letter sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week, the company said,
ä See TERMINAL, page 4A
WEATHER HIGH 94 LOW 75 PAGE 6B
Man arrested in BR card skimmer scheme Police say suspect tied to Romanian crime ring
being taken to East Baton Rouge Parish on Tuesday. Pascu Eduard, 34, has been wanted by the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office since May 2023 in connection with multiple financial crimes, including bank BY QUINN COFFMAN fraud, identity theft and card Staff writer skimming. The warrant was issued after A man accused of using a card skimming device to steal thou- Eduard was caught on a secusands of dollars from a Baton rity camera allegedly setting Rouge bank — part of a scam up a card skimming device on authorities say was organized by an ATM at Neighbors Federal a Romanian crime syndicate — Credit Union. The devices are often diswas arrested in Maryland before
guised to look like part of the ATM, while actually recording the numbers from credit or debit cards used at the machine. The numbers can then be replicated onto counterfeit cards, with the cards’ PIN codes being recorded by a secret camera attached to the ATM. Eduard was arrested in Baltimore, a spokesperson for the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office said. He is believed to have worked with two accomplices to set up one of the devices on May 11,
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2023, and then remove it on May 16. Two days later, Eduard and his co-conspirators visited multiple ATMs in Baton Rouge to withdraw money using counterfeit cards replicated with the card numbers stolen using the skimmer, according to an affidavit for his arrest. Four transactions were made, and Eduard withdrew a total of $2,257.90. However, 346 customers at the credit union had
ä See SKIMMER, page 3A
100TH yEAR, NO. 355