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Prices good at all New Orleans, Gretna, Kenner, Metairie, Marrero, Slidell, Mandeville and Covington stores October 22nd - 29th, 2025.
F r i d ay, O c t O b e r 24, 2025
2025 LEGISLATURE
GOP election delay plan draws fierce opposition
$2.00X
Council seeking cash for payroll
State action needed for N.O. to sell revenue bonds BY BEN MYERS Staff writer
The race is on for New Orleans’ government to clear the necessary hurdles for a quick cash infusion to make payroll, after the City Council on Thursday voted unanimously to take what amounts to a $125 million payä Moreno day loan. The city needs the State forms policy Bond Commission’s approval committees to sell revenue bonds, and for transition. its next scheduled meeting PAGE 4A is Nov. 20. City officials have said cash could run out at some point next month. Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, the council’s vice president, said before the vote she is trying to get the Bond Commission to schedule an emergency meeting next week. A state Treasury
ä See COUNCIL, page 6A
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Rep. Rodney Lyons, D-Marrero, center, shakes hands with Rep. Kendricks Brass, D-Vacherie, during the first day of the special legislative session at the State Capitol on Thursday.
Democrats challenging legislation that would allow more time to possibly draw new congressional map BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
Democrats in the Louisiana Legislature quickly put up a fight on the first day of a special session Thursday, opposing a Republican plan to push the state’s closed party primaries from April to May. The GOP effort is aimed at creating more time before the 2026 midterm election cycle to respond to a possible U.S. Supreme Court decision in a consequential voting rights case — and to allow state lawmakers to potentially draw a new congressional map with one or two fewer
seats favoring Democrats. Democrats in the Legislature don’t have the votes to stop the plan, but they spent hours asking pointed questions during a public vetting of the legislation in the Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee. Sen. Gary Carter Jr., D-New Orleans, fiercely criticized the plan. His questioning of First Assistant Secretary of State Catherine Newsome turned heated, and the senator appeared visibly frustrated. “If this bill were to pass, it interferes with Louisiana’s currently scheduled U.S. midterm elections,” he insisted angrily, after Newsome
Mardi Gras parades get earlier start on Thursday Other Carnival changes OK’d
BY DOUG MacCASH
refused to agree with that characterization. “I don’t agree that it interferes with the congressional election, because that was your original question — and it doesn’t interfere; it changes the dates,” Newsome emphatically responded. “We can administer it in April and May or May and June with integrity.” Five minutes later, Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, entered the committee room, looked at Carter, and quietly told him to “breathe, breathe.”
Never mind Halloween. On Thursday, the New Orleans City Council was already busy with Mardi Gras. The council voted to start a string of parades early, to greenlight the expansion of an Uptown float den, and to name an intersection after a renowned Black Masking Indian. Mardi Gras is, of course, a passion in the Crescent City, a major industry and a big part of its international identity, so it’s never too soon to get down to Carnival business. The big party kicks off in just 74 days. With three popular parades — Chaos, Babylon
ä See ELECTION, page 7A
ä See PARADES, page 6A
Staff writer
NBA coach and player charged in sprawling gambling schemes certain types of wagers are vul- ä Pelicans game in 2023 More than 30 arrested in takedown of sports betting, rigged poker games nerable to massive fraud in the
BY ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, TIM REYNOLDS and PHILIP MARCELO
sprawling gambling operations that authorities said leaked inside information about NBA athletes and rigged poker games backed Associated Press by Mafia families. Portland coach Chauncey Billups NEW YORK — The head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers and a player was charged with participating for the Miami Heat were arrested in a conspiracy to fix high-stakes Thursday along with more than 30 card games tied to La Cosa Nosother people in a takedown of two tra organized crime families that
WEATHER HIGH 84 LOW 70 PAGE 8B
cheated unsuspecting gamblers out of at least $7 million. Heat guard Terry Rozier was accused in a separate scheme of exploiting private information about players to win bets on NBA games. The two indictments unsealed in New York create a massive cloud for the NBA — which opened its season this week — and show how
growing, multibillion-dollar legal sports-betting industry. Joseph Nocella, the top federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, called it “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the United States.” “My message to the defendants
Business ......................8D Commentary ................7B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................1E Deaths .........................3B Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....4D-7D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
integral in case against Rozier. PAGE 1C
who’ve been rounded up today is this: Your winning streak has ended,” Nocella said. “Your luck has run out.” Both men face money laundering
ä See GAMBLING, page 4A
13TH yEAR, NO. 73