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Temps in Gulf reach record highs Milestone comes at peak of 2025 hurricane season
BY JULIA GUILBEAU Staff writer
STAFF FILE PHOTOS
Trips taken by New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, left, and her former bodyguard Jeffrey Vappie to Scotland and other locales are at the center of an 18-count indictment brought against the pair on Aug. 15.
Cantrell set to make first court appearance Federal case centers around mayor’s trips with Vappie
BY JONI HESS
Staff writer
Four years ago, as New Orleanians battled surging crime, rising home insurance costs and a collapsed sanitation system in the wake of Hurricane Ida, Mayor LaToya Cantrell traveled to Scotland, ostensibly to speak at a climate change conference. But that trip was also “where it all started” with her former New Orleans Police Department bodyguard and alleged paramour Jeffrey Vappie, according to an 18-count indictment brought against the pair on Aug. 15. Cantrell will appear in federal court
Wednesday, where she’s expected to enter a plea of not guilty to charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and obstruction of justice, culminating a multiyear federal investigation centered on trips to Scotland and other locales she and Vappie took between 2021 and 2024. The case will go before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Wells Roby at 2 p.m. Prosecutors’ case against the mayor in the coming months is expected to hinge in part on whether those trips were a front to further her personal relationship with Vappie, and the extent to which she shielded their romantic entanglement from a federal grand jury. The latter is the strongest part of the
feds’ case, said Walter Becker, a veteran white-collar defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, on Tuesday. “If the object of the fraud is to hide a romantic relationship, some juror is going to think. ‘Everyone is going to lie about that,’” he said. “Lying to the grand jury, however, is cut and dry.” The charges come at the close of tumultuous final term for Cantrell, marked by an increasingly tense relationship between her administration and the City Council, plummeting approval ratings and mounting issues at home during the height of her and Vappie’s travels.
ä See TRAVEL, page 4A
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 coming 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. Currently, 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
ä See GULF, page 5A
Shreveport case could upend how councils across La. vote Attorney general contends resolution was illegal
BY ADAM DUVERNAY and BEN MYERS Staff writers
echoing a television ad his campaign began airing over the weekend blaming Moreno for much of the city’s problems.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s new claims in a lawsuit against the Caddo Parish Commission could affect how local bodies around the state conduct business and — if a judge agrees — subject their previous votes to legal challenges. In an August lawsuit, Murrill said the Caddo commission violated LouiMurrill siana’s open meetings law first by privately voting to adopt a resolution welcoming U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, to Shreveport’s Municipal Auditorium, and then by ratifying it later electronically at a public meeting.
ä See DEBATE, page 4A
ä See VOTE, page 5A
Candidates lay out plans for city services 9 hopefuls make cases at Urban League debate
ELECTION 2025 N.O. MAyOR
BY BLAKE PATERSON
Staff writer
Nearly three weeks out from the start of early voting, nine candidates for New Orleans mayor made their pitches at a debate Tuesday night at Xavier University hosted by the Urban League of Louisiana. City Council Vice President Helena Moreno has maintained a double-digit lead in
WEATHER HIGH 91 LOW 74 PAGE 8B
polling over state Sen. Royce Duplessis and City Council member Oliver Thomas, who are both seeking enough votes to force the October race into a November runoff. Duplessis in his opening remarks said he wants to make New Orleans an easier and more affordable place to live and argued that people are leaving New Orleans because of the “dysfunction out of City Hall,”
Duplessis
Moreno
Thomas
Business ......................5B Commentary ................7B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................9D Deaths .........................3B Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....5D-8D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
13TH yEAR, NO. 29