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S at u r d ay, S e p t e m b e r 27, 2025
Rory McBroom, 4, and his sister Emilia-Grace, 2, take photos with Santa during the Tinsel and Treasures Holiday Market on Thursday.
Christmas comes early at the Tinsel and Treasures Holiday Market
Blake Baker leads a resurgent LSU defense.
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UL eyes cuts to budget
Amid $25M deficit, university struggles to raise enrollment BY MEGAN WYATT and ASHLEY WHITE
Staff writers
The day after the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s interim President Jaimie Hebert announced that the campus is facing a $25 million budget deficit, he presented plans for potential cuts to officials who oversee the UL system. Hebert had announced the budget shortfall this week, saying most divisions across campus will slash operational expenses by 10%, but that no academic programs have been cut so far. While the cuts UL has announced should add up to roughly $15 million, administrators are still looking for more ways to cut costs.
ä See BUDGET, page 5A
Former ADA could seek new trial Gary Haynes was convicted in kickback scheme
ABOVE: Shoppers browse Thursday during the Tinsel and Treasures Holiday Market hosted by the Junior League of Lafayette at the Cajundome Convention Center. The market will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday. RIGHT: Dawn Forman, left, and Ingrid Romauch browse artwork at the Alexander Art Studio booth.
BY CLAIRE TAYLOR
Staff writer
Is Gary Haynes, the former Lafayette assistant district attorney who was convicted on federal bribery charges last week, going to seek a new trial? A 12-person federal jury on Sept. 18, after hearing eight days of testimony and arguments, unanimously found Haynes guilty on six charges related to a kickback scheme involving the pretrial intervention program he ran in the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Office in Lafayette. Federal rules give a person 14 days from the date of their conviction to file documents seeking a new trial.
STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK
ä See TRIAL, page 5A
Trump celebrates Comey charges Critics say he’s targeting rivals BY JILL COLVIN Associated Press
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump’s unprecedented retribution campaign against his perceived political enemies reached new heights as his Justice Department brought criminal charges against a longtime foe and he expanded his efforts to classify certain liberal groups as “domestic terrorist organizations.” Days after Trump publicly demanded action from his attorney general and tapped his former personal lawyer to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Virginia, former FBI Director James Comey, a longtime target of Trump’s
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ire, was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly lying to Congress during testimony in 2020. Hours earlier Thursday, Trump signed a memorandum directing his Republican administration to target backers of what they dubbed “leftwing terrorism” as he alleged without evidence a vast conspiracy by Democrat-aligned nonprofit groups and activists to finance violent protests. The developments marked a dramatic escalation of the president’s extraordinary use of the levers of presidential power to target his political rivals and his efforts to pressure the Justice Department to pursue investigations — and now prosecutions — of those he disdains. It’s a campaign that began soon after Trump returned to office and one that critics see as an abuse of power that puts every American who dares to criticize the president at risk
of retaliation. “Donald Trump has made clear that he intends to turn our justice system into a weapon for punishing and silencing his critics,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Comey indictment came less than a week after Trump installed a former White House aide and confidant to the role of U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. The president had forced the ouster of his previous pick because he wasn’t sufficiently responsive to calls from Trump to bring charges against his longtime targets. “This kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power,” Warner said. “Our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudg-
BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO By ANDREW HARRER
President Donald Trump shakes hands with James Comey, ä See CHARGES, page 5A then director of the FBI, in the White House in 2017.
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