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IT’S A LOVE STORY Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift engaged 2A RATTLER TO START OPENER FOR SAINTS AT QB 1C
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W e d n e s d ay, au g u s t 27, 2025
Missing boy’s body found near his home
$2.00X
City Park gets green light for master plan Hundreds of improvement projects slated for area
BY JONI HESS Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
Friends and neighbors console each other as they gather near where Bryan Vasquez was found dead on Tuesday.
NOPD conducting death investigation
a volunteer with United Cajun Navy, found the body of 12-year-old Bryan Vasquez floating in a lagoon lined with water hyacinth. Gusanders quietly separated himself from the scene and called his team. BY POET WOLFE, MARCO CARTOLANO “You need to get here,” he recalled and MISSY WILKINSON Staff writers PROVIDED PHOTO telling them. Within what felt like “the longest 10Bryan Vasquez, 12, disappeared from 15 minutes of his life,” he said, fellow Over nearly two weeks, a frantic his home on Aug. 14. volunteers and agencies, including search for a missing autistic boy galthe New Orleans Police Department, vanized law enforcement and a New Orleans East community, drawing vol- with a grim discovery just 200 yards began to arrive. unteers from across state and national from where it started. ä See MISSING, page 6A borders, before it ended early Tuesday Aided by a drone, Jon Gusanders,
Community leaders recall post-Katrina recovery effort BY TYLER BRIDGES
Staff writer
How do you make do when you now have nothing? Two panels of community leaders on Tuesday recalled being confronted with that dire situation immediately after Hurricane Katrina devastated metro New Orleans 20 years ago. Alden McDonald, the president and CEO
ä See RECOVERY, page 8A
WEATHER HIGH 91 LOW 75 PAGE 6C
An ambitious blueprint for the future of New Orleans’ beloved City Park received final approval Tuesday, setting the stage for hundreds of improvement projects over the next 20 years. “A message The City Park Improvement Association was heard Board and City Park loud and clear, Conservancy, which which is that govern the park, voted City Park does to approve City Park not need to 2050 — an all-encompassing master plan be reinvented. that prioritizes better It needs to access, connectivity, be cared for, healthy landscapes and enriched, recreational opportunities throughout the preserved and 1,300-acre green space. thoughtfully The approval marks improved and I the end of a two-year believe we have planning process that saw a six-month pause a plan in front last year because of of us that does community pushback that.” over earlier proposals REBECCA and calls for a more diDIETZ, City Park verse public input proConservancy CEO cess. “A message was heard loud and clear, which is that City Park does not need to be reinvented,” Conservancy CEO Rebecca Dietz said Tuesday. “It needs to be cared for, enriched, preserved and thoughtfully improved and I believe we have a plan in front of us that does that.”
ä See CITY PARK, page 6A
Explosion leaves many unemployed Smitty’s blast drives employees to visit workforce officials
at Smitty’s Supply Inc. near Roseland, only to see the fire when he returned to his work area. Hughes, an 11-year employee of Smitty’s, said there was no time to find and use a fire extinguisher on the 10,000-galBY DAVID J. MITCHELL lon motor oil mixing tank. He began evacuating an estimatStaff writer ed 50 people from his part of Jessie Hughes saw a 15-foot- the large lubricants plant. STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD high flame shooting from the “I told everyone to get out top of a tank and knew he had that was in my location. I told Jaden Armstrong, a member of Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, them to get out,” he said in an little time to escape. pressure washes the swings at the church in Roseland after The 56-year-old had stepped interview Tuesday. soot and residue coated the area following an explosion at out at midday on Friday to Smitty’s Supply on Friday. ä See EXPLOSION, page 8A switch hoses on equipment
Business ......................3B Commentary ................7B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................8D Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....4D-7D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
13TH yEAR, NO. 15