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N O L A.C O M
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S u n d ay, n ov e m b e r 16, 2025
POPE’S ROOTS REUNITE A FAMILY
$2.50X
ELECTION 2025
N.O. bond issues OK’d; Duncan wins clerk’s race McCarron, Hughes take City Council seats
BY JOHN SIMERMAN Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
Cousins Ann Carrera, Kat Beaulieu, Ellen Dionne Alverez, Camille Basak and Cindy Oliver have dinner together at Antoine’s Restaurant and discuss their relationship to Pope Leo XIV in New Orleans on Wednesday.
From branches separated a century ago, cousins finally meet in New Orleans BY DESIREE STENNETT
women walked in. Drowning out an introduction by Antoine’s waitstaff, they rushed over Ellen Dionne Alverez sat quietly to Alverez with a chorus of greetat a circular table in the 1840 Room ings. They exchanged hugs, laughter, at Antoine’s Restaurant and waited, wide smiles, names. preparing to meet a long-lost part of Once they finally sat, Ann Carrera her family for the first time. turned to her cousin Kat Alone and facing the priBeaulieu after they searched Alverez’s face. vate dining room’s open door, “She looks like the Marthe native New Orleanian, raised in the 7th Ward, was tinez side!” Carrera said of still with quiet anticipation. Alverez, seeing in her a reWhat would these Chicago semblance to her own distant cousins be like, these friendcousin, Max Martinez, and all of his siblings. ly ladies who had contacted Pope Leo XIV “It’s so exciting,” whisher — seemingly out of the blue — after she herself learned of pered Cammy Basak to her cousin her own surprising genealogy? Cindy Oliver. “I’m breathless.” Alverez, through her father’s side, On Wednesday night, in a quiet corwas a cousin to Pope Leo XIV. ner of Antoine’s in the heart of New They were, too. Orleans’ oldest neighborhood, two And then, minutes later, the four branches of Pope Leo’s family that
Staff writer
lost touch two generations before he was born were reunited over oysters Rockefeller and French 75s. The seeds of the reunion were planted on May 8, when Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was selected by his fellow cardinals as the next pope of the Roman Catholic Church. That morning, New Orleans genealogist Jari Honora saw that an American pope, with the last name Prevost, had been chosen, and jumped into U.S. census records. With that last name, Honora knew there had to be a New Orleans connection. Within hours, he found it, and a complicated but quintessentially American story about race and family history unfolded. It’s the last name of Martinez — Alverez’s maiden name — that bands
ä See FAMILY, page 18A
New Orleans voters gave Mayor-elect Helena Moreno’s incoming administration a boost on Saturday, approving $510 million in bond propositions she’d endorsed that can be spent on affordable housing, parks and other infrastructure — though it can’t go to fill a gaping city budget hole. The three separate bond measures, all approved by wide margins, came in a low-turnout election that also seated the final two City Council members and settled a bitter race for Orleans Parish clerk of Criminal Court. The clerk’s race went convincingly to Calvin Duncan, a former life prisoner and longtime inmate counsel at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola who INSIDE waged a remarkable campaign as a political newcomer to unseat ä Jefferson incumbent Darren Lombard. Duncan’s win — he earned 68% Parish voters of the vote to Lombard’s 32% — approve came in spite of an endorsement crucial from Moreno and support from funding for U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, whose backing also failed to sway vot- region’s levees ers in races this fall for sheriff and pumps. and an at-large City Council seat. PAGE 8A For the City Council, the runoff for the open District A seat, ä Election which includes parts of Mid- results for the City, Lakeview, Hollygrove and New Orleans Uptown, went to Aimee McCarron over fellow Democrat Holly area. PAGE 10A Friedman by a 58% to 42% margin. Both are former staffers of outgoing council member Joe Giarrusso. McCarron, who grew up in the district, said it was an honor to become a voice for the area where she has spent most of her life. Balancing the city’s budget, she said, is priority one. “I plan to start looking at it as early as Monday,” McCarron said. “The council really needs a budget expert, and that’s what I plan to bring.” In District E, Rep. Jason Hughes took the council seat being vacated by Oliver Thomas over former council member Cyndi Nguyen. Hughes, a veteran state lawmaker who maintained a strong fundraising lead in the race for the seat that represents New Orleans East and parts of the Lower 9th Ward, earned 61% of the vote. Throughout his campaign, Hughes, 42, said he would focus on bringing more economic
ä See ELECTION, page 8A
‘It’s a new department’
Calling in members of the me- important part,” he said. As NOPD exits It was a far cry from the sham dia, he revealed video of a poshooting on Halloween. An reviews that federal investigafederal oversight, lice armed man was allegedly hold- tors found commonplace in the a woman hostage in a Canal years before a nearly 500-paraleaders see progress ing Street gas station when a special graph consent decree with the operations officer felled him U.S. Department of Justice — but more to do
BY JOHN SIMERMAN and MISSY WILKINSON Staff writers
STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
New Orleans Police Department recruits stand in formation in the parking lot of the Police Training Academy in New Orleans on June 20.
WEATHER HIGH 81 LOW 60 PAGE 8B
The head of the New Orleans Police Department’s internal affairs division gave a presentation last week that’s become standard fare in an era of courtenforced reform.
with a single shot, in the back, paralyzing him. The “level four” use of force is still under investigation, Deputy Chief Keith Sanchez said. But the NOPD wanted to get the critical incident footage out timely. “It’s transparency that fosters the relationship between the community and the police department, and that’s the most
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the most expansive in the U.S. at the time — changed the course of policing in New Orleans. More than a dozen years after it was put in place, the federal judge who has enforced it from the start is expected to surrender her oversight this week, ending one of the country’s
ä See DECREE, page 4A
13TH yEAR, NO. 96