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JAGUARS TRAVEL TO ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF 1C
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Judges order Trump to pay for SNAP Rulings say administration must use emergency reserves during shutdown BY MICHAEL CASEY, GEOFF MULVIHILL and KIMBERLEE KRUESI
tinue to pay for SNAP, the nation’s biggest food aid program, using emergency reserve funds during the government shutdown. Associated Press The judges in Massachusetts and BOSTON — Two federal judges Rhode Island gave the administraruled nearly simultaneously on tion leeway on whether to fund Friday that President Donald the program partially or in full for Trump’s administration must con- November. That also brings uncer-
ä Shutdown made people rethink what to hand out for Halloween. PAGE 4A
the month. The U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Saturday tainty about how things will unfold because it said it could no longer and will delay payments for many keep funding it due to the shutbeneficiaries whose cards would down. The program serves about normally be recharged early in 1 in 8 Americans and is a major
INSECT DETECTIVES
Among bones and maggots, LSU researchers build database to help solve crimes
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 member of the Senate Agriculture committee that oversees the food aid program, said Friday’s rulings from judges nominated to the bench by former President Barack
ä See SNAP, page 7A
Thrive proposal will test trust of voters Edwards’ plan will also determine EBR’s financial future
BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER 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 6A crawls on the hand of Alexa Figueroa.
Doctors say AI enhancing patient care BY EMILY WOODRUFF
cause fatigue, shortness of breath and more serious problems over time. Years ago, treating it reOn a black screen facing an op- quired open-chest surgery. Now, erating room, Dr. Michael Bernard through a vein in the leg, a thin watched a storm of squiggly lines catheter about the size of a spaflashing across the monitor: the ghetti noodle snakes toward the electric chaos of a patient’s irregu- heart, its tip burning tiny scars at a doctor’s command into tissue to lar heartbeat. The patient had atrial fibrillation, block misfiring electrical signals a disordered heart rhythm that can and restore a steady beat. Staff writer
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This time, Bernard wasn’t relying on instinct alone. He was using an artificial intelligence-powered mapping system designed to read the heart’s electrical patterns and highlight the precise areas driving the arrhythmia — a process that once depended largely on educated guesswork.
ä See DOCTORS, page 7A
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Eight months ago, dozens of Baton Rouge police officers lined the walls of a packed Metro Council chamber, their uniforms blending with a sea of residents with “Love My Library” pinned to their blue shirts. That tense standoff — police against library supporters — is now long gone, as Mayor-President Edwards Sid Edwards’ bold, first-year proposal known as Thrive has evolved significantly since February. Now, voters will finally weigh in on a measure that has shifted dramatically: Once a plan to move library funds into the city’s general fund for police raises, it is now a partial tax rededication of three agencies aimed at paying down debt and funding long-delayed infrastructure projects. The initiative — which will appear on ballots as proposals 1, 2 and 3 — has the support of nearly all council members, who see it as a crucial measure to stop the cityparish from falling into a much worse financial state. “We need this,” said District 2 council member Anthony Kenney. “We need to ensure our general
ä See THRIVE, page 6A
Dr. Michael Bernard, section head of electrophysiology at Ochsner Health, monitors computers to help with surgery. Artificial intelligence is helping with this procedure. STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
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