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As new parents, teachers in La. face tough choices
City on pace for fewest murders in 50 years Violent crime rate shifts from record high to 1970s low
BY JOHN SIMERMAN Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By MICHAEL JOHNSON
Erika Musgrove, a special-education teacher for East Baton Rouge Parish schools, sits down to play the card game Rainbow Pirates with her daughter Olivia and son Theodore as her husband, Tyler, holds their son Matthew recently in Baton Rouge.
Educators save, scrimp and even borrow sick days to afford family leave BY ELYSE CARMOSINO Staff writer
Erika Musgrove held her youngest son Matthew for only the briefest of moments last August before nurses at Baton Rouge General whisked him to the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. It was a bittersweet moment for Musgrove, a special-education teacher for East Baton Rouge Parish schools. The joy of seeing her newborn, who arrived four weeks early, came with worry over his care and the choice she’d soon need to make: earning a paycheck or spending enough time with her baby in those first crucial months of life. East Baton Rouge Parish, like many Louisiana school districts, doesn’t offer paid parental leave. That meant Musgrove’s two months at home with Matthew, even under a state law that allows teachers to take extended sick leave for a portion of their pay, would end up costing her more than $4,000 in lost wages. Musgrove needed to get back to work, but she and her husband struggled to find day care. Her little boy was still so tiny two months after his birth that workers initially assumed he was too young to be left in their care. “There was so much stress just mak-
ä See MURDERS, page 6A
Erika Musgrove laughs as her son Matthew giggles at his siblings making faces. ing sure he would be OK,” Musgrove said. For many Louisiana teachers, taking extended parental leave without sacrificing pay is difficult if not impossible financially. As of this year, just one public school district out of roughly a dozen whose policies were easily
accessible online — Orleans Parish — offered any fully paid time off for new parents. In other districts, only extended sick leave as required by state law is available, which allows teachers to receive 65% of their pay for 30 days.
ä See TEACHERS, page 8A
fies much of President Donald Trump’s agenda, like building a wall along the Mexican border. But mostly, the legislation is about tax cuts — about 50 different ones. House Speaker Mike Johnson, BY MARK BALLARD R-Benton, says preventing exStaff writer isting tax breaks from expiring WASHINGTON — After narrowly and adding new ones will enerpassing Congress without a gize the nation’s economy. single Democratic vote, the “It’s going be jet fuel,” Johnsweeping One Big Beautiful Bill son told Fox News Sunday and Act signed into law July 4 codi- anybody else who asked. “Small
WEATHER HIGH 93 LOW 77 PAGE 8B
business owners, entrepreneurs, risk-takers, the people that provide the jobs, manufacturers, farmers get assistance here, and that will lift the economy.” “Waiters and waitresses with no tax on tips. We get rid of all taxes on overtime pay for bluecollar workers. It’s going to lower inflation, create higher wages for families,” added House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, RJefferson, in a video released on X.
Landry’s second year stirs more conflict, even within GOP Governor says passing serious reforms requires ruffling ‘a lot of feathers’
BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer
The rub for Democrats is that the new law pays for the tax cut’s drop in federal revenues — about $4.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office — mostly with reductions in spending on Medicaid and food stamps. Republicans say the changes will protect those programs for those who truly need them.
Gov. Jeff Landry got most of what he wanted in Baton Rouge in 2024, his first year in office. He took advantage of the Republican supermajority in the Legislature to draw Louisiana’s congressional boundaries, lock up more criminals and revamp the state tax system in ways that he says will generate more invest- Landry ment. Landry has had a bumpier ride this year. In March, voters overwhelmingly rejected constitutional amendments whose approval had been the next item on his conservative agenda. Then, during the two-month legislative session
ä See TAX CUTS, page 3A
ä See LANDRY, page 4A
How will Trump tax cuts impact state’s residents? Complex changes embedded in wide-ranging bill
Early this year, as heartache and controversy trailed the bloody New Year’s attack on Bourbon Street, New Orleans experienced a remarkable lull in the more familiar kinds of carnage, mostly by guns, that have plagued the city for decades. In February, two people were killed in the city, the fewest of any month since 1970, according to crime analyst Jeff Asher. Murders remained in single digits in March and again in April, with seven each month. For a city that averaged 200 murders annually over the past five years, and as recently as 2022 had recaptured the moniker of the U.S. murder capital, those respites have helped set New Orleans on a remarkable path. When it comes to killings, the city is on pace for its safest year statistically since the early 1970s. Preliminary NOPD data shows 53 murders in 2025 as of Thursday. That count includes the 14 revelers slain in the Jan. 1 terrorist attack, when Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a Ford F-150 Lightning down Bourbon Street hours into the year.
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................3B Nation-World................2A Classified ..................... 1F Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
12TH yEAR, NO. 335