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CAJUNS FACE ROAD TEST AT SOUTH ALABAMA 1C THE
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Judges order Trump to pay for SNAP
Ruling says administration must use emergency reserves during shutdown BY MICHAEL CASEY, GEOFF MULVIHILL and KIMBERLEE KRUESI
Trump’s administration must continue to pay for SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using emergency reserve funds during Associated Press the government shutdown. The judges in Massachusetts and BOSTON — Two federal judges ruled nearly simultaneously on Rhode Island gave the administraFriday that President Donald tion leeway on whether to fund
ä Shutdown made people rethink what to hand out for Halloween. PAGE 3A
and will delay payments for many beneficiaries whose cards would normally be recharged early in the month. The U.S. Department of Agriculthe program partially or in full for ture planned to freeze payments to November. That also brings uncer- the Supplemental Nutrition Assistainty about how things will unfold tance Program starting Saturday
INSECT DETECTIVES
Among bones and maggots, LSU researchers build database to help solve crimes
because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net — and it costs about $8 billion per month nationally. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat and the ranking
ä See SNAP, page 5A
Body ID’d as man missing since 2023 Remains discovered in St. Martinville in December
BY KRISTIN ASKELSON Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Alexa Figueroa, Ph.D. candidate, left, and Rabi Musah, chemist and Patrick F. Taylor Endowed Chair in Environmental Chemistry at LSU, check the development of maggots on Wednesday in the days-old corpse of a coyote that was left to decompose. BY EMILY WOODRUFF Staff writer
By the time the coyote had been in the field in Clinton for six days, there was little left but teeth, fur and bone. But when Alexa Figueroa, an LSU doctoral student, lifted up the leathered skin, a writhing mass of maggots revealed another world, very much alive, beneath the surface. One bug, a small black beetle with ridges along its back, caught the attention of entomologist Stephen Baca. He identified it immediately as Oiceoptima inaequale, the ridged carrion beetle, from his encyclopedic
knowledge of bugs. As it skittered across bone, fur and a churning heap of bugs, Baca plucked it out and dropped it in a vial. It’s a type of beetle they haven’t found before on the dozen or so animal carcasses they’ve set out to decompose at the Bob R. Jones Idlewild Research Station, all part of a project to document the bugs that start flocking to cadavers within minutes of death. “Oh, that’s fantastic,” said Rabi Musah, a chemist and professor at LSU, as she hovered over the
A beetle found in the decaying remains of a coyote
ä See INSECT, page 5A crawls on the hand of Alexa Figueroa.
N.O. gets UNESCO designation American city. Global recognition honors city’s musical efforts theOf10th those 10, only New Orleans
BY KEITH SPERA
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, has made New Orleans a It’s official: New Orleans is a member of the UNESCO Creative world-class “Creative City of Mu- Cities Network. The Creative Cities Network has sic.” Capping off a yearslong ef- 350 member cities in more than fort by local tourism leaders, the 100 countries. New Orleans is only
Staff writer
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and Kansas City earned UNESCO’s “Creative City of Music” designation. The application process commenced three years ago and was facilitated by New Orleans and
ä See UNESCO, page 5A
Business ......................3B Deaths .........................2B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................2B Living............................7C Opinion ........................4B Comics-Puzzles .. 9C-11C Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
A body found in a wooded area of St. Martinville has been positively identified as the remains of a St. Martin Parish man who went missing in 2023. Deputies with the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of potential human remains off Banker Road in St. Martinville on Dec. 29, 2024. The LSU Faces Laboratory this Daspit week confirmed the remains were the body of Willard Daspit Jr., according to Sheriff Becket Breaux. A cause of death has not yet been determined and the investigation remains ongoing. Daspit was reported missing on Sept. 10, 2023. The 58-year-old had left home on his motorcycle to check on a property along Bayou Alexander Highway in Coteau Holmes, about 10 miles north of Loreauville, the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office said at the time. Lara Vergenal, Daspit’s wife, said he left Sunday morning on his dirt bike to go check on his camp three houses down the road. When he didn’t return that night, she assumed his dirt bike broke down. She went to the camp to check, but the gate was locked. She found his bike that Monday in a ditch 100 yards from their
ä See BODY, page 5A
Festivalgoers dance to the Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band at the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans on April 10. STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
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