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W e d n e s d ay, s e p t e m b e r 10, 2025
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FBI agent details wiretaps of Haynes Federal investigator takes stand in bribery trial BY CLAIRE TAYLOR
Staff writer
STAFF FILE PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
More than 30 schools in the Acadiana region have received Blue Ribbon designation since the award’s inception, according to archival data retrieved from the National Blue Ribbon website. The first award given in the area was to Lafayette Elementary in 1984. Most recently, Delcambre Elementary was awarded the honor in 2024 for making significant strides in closing achievement gaps.
Blue Ribbon program comes to abrupt end Trump discontinues long-running national award, which recognized 7 La. schools last year
BY PATRICK WALL Staff writer
For the past four decades, a few Louisiana schools each year have been identified as some of the best in the country — until now. President Donald Trump’s administration has abruptly ended the National Blue Ribbon Schools program, a longrunning annual award for outstanding public and private schools, according to a recent notice sent to state education leaders. Last year, seven Louisiana schools were awarded, an honor bestowed on just a few hundred of the nation’s more than 100,000 schools each
year. This year’s winning schools were set to be announced this month. But in an Aug. 29 letter to state education chiefs, a U.S. Department of Education official said the agency “hereby discontinues the national program.” Citing Trump’s effort to dismantle the federal education agency, the official encouraged states to “creatively fashion” their own awards programs. “In the spirit of Returning Education to the States, USED is ending its role in the program,” the letter said, which Alabama Daily News first reported. Louisiana Department of Education spokesperson Ted Beasley said state
officials are discussing other ways to recognize this year’s nominated schools, which have not yet been announced. He added that the state agency also gives annual awards to exceptional students, teachers, principals and school employees, as well as to schools that demonstrate a commitment to the state’s education goals, such as improving preschool or math instruction. “We feel that through programs such as our Louisiana Models of Excellence, we can continue to celebrate and spotlight schools for academic excellence,” Beasley said in a statement.
BY JULIA GUILBEAU Staff writer
It’s been a quiet few weeks in the tropics, but ahead of Sept. 10 — the statistical peak of hurricane season — weather experts are warning that record-high temperatures in the Gulf will require continued vigilance from Louisiana residents in the com-
WEATHER HIGH 92 LOW 70 PAGE 8A
ing months. Though the Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1, peak season is considered to be between mid-August and mid-October, a time when the Gulf of Mexico reaches its warmest temperatures and the winds that break up cyclones are at their lowest. The Gulf’s ocean heat content, a measure of surface temperatures combined with the temperatures of deeper waters, is at an all-time high, according to Brian McNoldy, a climate researcher at the University of Miami. Though hot waters alone don’t
create hurricanes, they are a main source of fuel for rapidly intensifying hurricanes, allowing them to strengthen and become more resilient against factors that break up storms, like wind shear. The ocean’s heat content in the Gulf has surged in the past two to three weeks after remaining fairly average for much of this hurricane season, according to McNoldy. Sea surface temperatures in the Gulf are hovering around 87 degrees Fahrenheit, according to National Oceanic and At-
ä See FBI, page 7A
Shreveport case could upend how councils across La. vote Attorney general contends resolution was illegal
BY ADAM DUVERNAY Staff writer
mospheric Administration data, about two degrees higher than average for this time of year. Near the Louisiana coast they are around 85 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Coastal Data Information Program. Farther south, near Florida, it is 2 degrees warmer. The reason for the sharp increase in temperatures isn’t clear-cut, but a lack of storms and cloudiness has likely allowed the undisturbed waters to get hotter and hotter, McNoldy said.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill now contends that, for most public legislative bodies in the state, only votes cast by voice count. Murrill is suing the Caddo Parish Commission and its seven Democrats over allegations they violated state open meeting laws in June when some commissioners presented Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with a resolution on which no members yet had voted. Murrill filed that lawsuit Aug. 19 and, on Murrill Aug. 29, filed an amended complaint in which she raised the issue of voice voting by claiming that, under state law, a move by the Caddo Commission to later ratify the resolution was faulty because the votes were cast with an electronic system. State law requires votes cast by most legislative bodies in Louisiana be done “viva voce,” or “with living voice,” meaning they must say “yea,” “nay” or otherwise speak their votes.
ä See GULF, page 7A
ä See VOTE, page 7A
ä See BLUE, page 7A
Gulf temperatures reach record highs Milestone comes at peak of 2025 hurricane season
The FBI’s investigation into a series of bribery and kickback schemes in Lafayette and Louisiana, dubbed “Operation Cajun Hustle,” started with a tip that a Crowley businessman on contract with the Lafayette District Attorney’s Office was shaking down defendants in the pretrial diversion program to make their charges disappear. FBI supervising agent Douglas Herman, who led the investigation, spent three hours on the witness stand Tuesday in the federal trial of Gary Haynes, Haynes 67, an assistant district attorney hired by 15th Judicial District Attorney Don Landry to run the pretrial diversion program. A federal grand jury in 2024 indicted Haynes on multiple charges associated with the scheme in which he and Dusty Guidry, of Youngsville, a contract employee with the District Attorney’s Office, allegedly steered offenders to the pretrial diversion program and certain businesses that offered classes that were paid for by the defendants. The business owners allegedly agreed to split the money with Haynes and Guidry.
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101ST yEAR, NO. 72