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M o n d ay, o c t o b e r 6, 2025
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State detention lawsuits can go forward Inmates claim they were held past release dates
BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN | Staff writer
WILD HOG
WARFARE La. farmers, scientists battle invasive species BY AIDAN McCAHILL | Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By AIDAN McCAHILL
Darren Spano, an Air Force veteran, scans the night for an invasive wild hog using a thermal scope attached to his rifle. TOP: A wild boar walks in a swamp in Slidell. Feral hogs cause over $90 million annually in agricultural damage statewide, according to the latest estimates from the LSU AgCenter. ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By REBECCA SANTANA
Shortly after the sun’s last rays sink beneath central Louisiana’s pines, the Rougarou slips into the darkness that follows. He prowls farmland from Pineville to Natchitoches, every step sharpened by a gnawing hunger. Some still claim the nocturnal beast is a fiction of Cajun folklore, but at 6-feet-6, retired Pineville firefighter Shane Kessler is proof of the contrary. It’s nearly 2 a.m., and he’s steadying an AR-15 through the window of his pickup truck. On its tailgate, yellow block letters spell out “Rougarou Hog Control.” Three to four nights a week, from dusk until 2 a.m., Kessler peers with a military grade thermal scanner through fields of corn, soybeans and milo, searching for the white glow of body heat — his next target. “Eleven o’clock,” he mumbles, one cheek full of sunflower seeds, a white beard falling from his face. “It’s lookin’ real piggy.” Two other hunters, Darren Spano, an Air Force veteran who recently moved to Louisiana from Alaska, and Malcolm Rachal, another retired firefighter, direct their scanners out of the left windows. “Get your rifles out,” Kessler says. “I see him.”
ä See WILD HOG, page 4A
St. George lauds firm providing services New city bringing privatization vision into reality
BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER | Staff writer When Dustin Yates and other founders pushed to incorporate their own city, they imagined a lean, privatized government built on business principles like customer service and cost control. Now, more than a year after St. George marked its first birthday, Mayor Yates said he is watching that vision take shape — not through a traditional city workforce, but through a private company whose employees are tasked with creating a government from scratch.
ä See SERVICES, page 5A
WEATHER HIGH 88 LOW 72 PAGE 10C
Scot Byrd, program director, explains how the cubicles will be cleared out to make room for the City Council meeting room during a tour at the new St. George City Hall building on Thursday. STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
A federal judge has granted class-action status to lawsuits claiming Louisiana regularly kept inmates in prison past their release dates, opening the door for thousands of former inmates to join the case. The plaintiffs argue the Department of Public Safety & Corrections knew about the problem yet failed to take proper action for at least a decade. While the judge has not yet ruled in their favor, granting class-action status recognizes the scope of the problem, they say. “This is a major victory for accountability — and we hope it is the beginning of the end of the state’s pattern of illegally imprisoning thousands of Louisianans at taxpayer expense,” William Most, one of the attorneys on the case, said in a statement. State officials plan to appeal, saying the information in the lawsuit is outdated and that a new system they implemented has mostly fixed the problems. They also say sentencing calculations rely on clerks of court and sheriffs’ offices, which the agency cannot control. “We disagree with the judge’s ruling and we intend to appeal. Everything in the lawsuits is either long outdated, out-of-context or just flatly false,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement. “The release date for an incarcerated person is not a simple calculation. It involves multiple officials and complicated calculations of time served and good time eligibility,” the statement continued. “The Department of Corrections is frequently at the mercy of local officials and other branches of government.”
ä See LAWSUITS, page 4A
Government shutdown enters into fifth day
Lawmakers remain at an impasse over reopening BY JOSH BOAK | Associated Press WASHINGTON — Republican and Democratic lawmakers at an impasse on reopening the federal government provided few public signs Sunday of meaningful negotiations talking place to end what has so far been a five-day shutdown. Leaders in both parties are betting that public sentiment has swung their way, putting pressure on the other side to cave. Democrats are insisting on renewing subsidies to cover health insurance costs for millions of households, while President Donald Trump wants to preserve existing spending levels and threatening to permanently fire federal workers if the government remains closed. The squabble comes at a moment of troubling economic uncertainty. While the U.S. economy has continued to grow this year,
Classified .....................7C Deaths .........................7A Nation-World................2A Comics-Puzzles .....4C-6C Living............................1C Opinion ........................8A Commentary ................9A Metro ...........................6A Sports ..........................1B
ä See SHUTDOWN, page 5A
101ST yEAR, NO. 98