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W e d n e s d ay, J u n e 25, 2025
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Fragile ceasefire appears to hold Trump vents his frustration with Iran, Israel BY JON GAMBRELL, DAVID RISING and MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel appeared to hold Tuesday after initially faltering, and U.S. President Donald Trump expressed frustration with both sides, saying they had fought “for so long and so hard” that they do not know what they are doing. But even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel had brought Iran’s nu-
clear program “to ruin,” a new U.S. intelligence report found that the program has been set back only a few months after U.S. strikes over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the assessment. The early report issued Monday by the Defense Intelligence Agency was described to The Associated Press by two people familiar with it. They were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The report also contradicts statements from Trump, who has said the Iranian nuclear program was
“completely and fully obliterated.” The White House called the assessment “flat-out wrong.” After the truce was supposed to take effect, Israel accused Iran of launching missiles into its airspace, and the Israeli finance minister vowed that “Tehran will tremble.” The Iranian military denied firing on Israel, state media reported, but explosions boomed and sirens sounded across northern Israel, and a military official said two Iranian missiles were intercepted.
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By BERNAT ARMANGUE
Israeli soldiers work Tuesday amid the rubble of residential buildings ä See CEASEFIRE, page 4A destroyed by an Iranian missile strike in Beersheba, Israel.
Murrill files 3 lawsuits against CVS Attorney general alleges ‘unfair and deceptive acts’ in text campaign
BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
legislator from Acadiana, served as Wildlife and Fisheries secretary from January 2017 until April 2023, when he abruptly resigned a day after The Times-Picayune | The Advocate identified him as the high-ranking department official who signed a contract that implicated him in a kickback scheme.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, backed by Gov. Jeff Landry, said Tuesday she had filed three different lawsuits against CVS, claiming the company used its position as both a major pharmacy chain and a pharmacy benefit manager to abuse its market power and accusing it of “unethical and deceptive acts” in its use of customer data for political lobbying. The three lawsuits filed in the Murrill 27th Judicial District Court in St. Landry Parish “detail in great length all of the ways that these manipulative tactics are Landry used to drive our prices up and to drive the independent pharmacists out of business,” Murrill said at a news conference announcing the court action on Tuesday. Landry at the media event called pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, “corporate profiteers” that don’t actually lower prescription drug prices despite claiming to do so. In a statement, CVS denied wrongdoing and said its system of PBMs and pharmacies helps make it easier for patients to afford and pick up their medicine. “CVS Pharmacy remains the lowest cost pharmacy and a critical partner in lowering prescription drug costs for Louisianans,” the company said. All three cases allege that CVS violated Louisiana’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.
ä See TRIAL, page 5A
ä See CVS, page 4A
STAFF PHOTO By JOSIE ABUGOV
Decades after playing in the NFL, Duriel Harris started selling Angus beef pasture-raised in Ville Platte. All of his customers last year were schools across 10 different parishes, ‘from Shreveport to New Orleans,’ he said.
Push to serve local food in La. schools faces funding challenges State losing millions in federal government cuts
Company had its best year yet, grossing nearly $400,000. His success is largely thanks to a market niche he found: a federal program that pays for schools to source food from BY JOSIE ABUGOV local farms. After learning about the Staff writer program, he started selling to schools Over three decades after Duriel Harris in Alexandria, then Baton Rouge and St. left the Dallas Cowboys, the Texas native Tammany Parish. All of his customers last year were settled in Acadiana and became a cowboy schools across 10 different parishes, in his own right. The former wide receiver bought two “from Shreveport to New Orleans,” he dozen Black Angus heifers in 2016, and said. “If there was ever a win-win-win situsince then, his Ville Platte operation has only grown. Last year, Harris Cattle ation, that was it,” said Harris, known
to some football fans for a 1982 hookand-lateral play while with the Miami Dolphins. “Good for the economy, local producers and good for the state.” But whether Harris can keep selling his Angus beef to schools hangs in limbo. While the push for more local food in schools has gained broad support — from “Make America Healthy Again” backers in Louisiana’s Legislature to traditional nutritionists — government cuts and a lack of long-term funding are major stumbling blocks.
ä See FOOD, page 5A
Trial date set for former state wildlife secretary Montoucet accused in bribery scheme
led to his resignation. secured bond. A federal grand jury in LafayFederal Magette indicted Montoucet in May, istrate Judge charging him with one count of Carol Whitehuconspiracy to commit bribery and BY CLAIRE TAYLOR rst, of Louisiana’s wire fraud, three counts of wire Western District Staff writer fraud and one count of conspiracy in Lafayette, on Monday set MonA trial date has been set for to commit money laundering in a Montoucet former Louisiana Department of scheme to award a Lafayette busitoucet’s trial date Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary nessman a department contract. before federal Judge David JoJack Montoucet, accused of being Montoucet, 77, pleaded not guilty seph for 9 a.m. May 11. involved in a kickback scheme that June 12 and was released on an unMontoucet, a former state
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Business ......................8A Commentary ................3B Nation-World ................2A Classified .....................4B Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................2B Comics-Puzzles .....7C-9C Living............................5C Sports ..........................1C
100TH yEAR, NO. 360