UL BASKETBALL STRUGGLES Men and women off to slow starts 1C THE
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S at u r d ay, d e c e m b e r 6, 2025
Latest UL cuts include high-paying VP positions
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Panel calls for end to hepatitis B vaccine for babies Cassidy says decision ‘makes America sicker’
BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer
our financial realities while furthering our academic and R1 mission, positioning us for sustainable future growth.” Kolluru said he asked that his interim president’s salary only be $1 more than when he served as vice president of research, innovation and economic development. Former UL President Joseph Savoie’s most recent compensation package included an annual salary of $510,500, housing on campus and the use of a vehicle or a vehicle allowance of $1,000 per month. The university’s 2025-26 budget showed: n Kolluru’s annual salary of $331,001 as
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, criticized a decision Friday by an influential advisory panel to stop the threedecade-old practice of recommending all newborns get the hepatitis B vaccine, issuing weaker guidance for some children. Supporters of the hepatitis B vaccinations — including Cassidy, a medical doctor who has extensive experience with the inoculation — say the practice has led to a near elimination of an infection that untreated mothers pass to their babies and that sometimes leads to fatal liver disease later in life. Since 1991, physicians have given infants their first hepatitis B shot within 24 hours of birth. The babies then receive two more doses that are sometimes administered with other vaccinations to children. A majority of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, whose members were hand-picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., found that “vaccine safety risks are not well understood and were never assessed appropriately.” ACIP voted on the proposals, which were rewritten several times, during the second day of their meeting in Atlanta. The panel of physicians and scientists recommended that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keep vaccinating newborns of mothers who test positive for hepatitis B. Mothers who don’t
ä See CUTS, page 5A
ä See VACCINE, page 4A
STAFF FILE PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Three vice presidential positions at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette have been eliminated and two others were given temporary salary cuts as the school continues to deal with a financial deficit.
Interim president also initiates temporary salary reductions
BY MEGAN WYATT and ASHLEY WHITE Staff writers
High-paying vice presidential positions were among those cut at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette this week as the school’s new interim president works to close a financial deficit he inherited. The changes were announced Friday in an email from interim President Ramesh Kolluru to faculty and staff. Three positions — VP for enrollment management, VP for student affairs and VP for university advancement — were eliminated, and two positions — VP for academic affairs and VP for intercollegiate athletics — will take temporary 15%
salary cuts. DeWayne Bowie, who oversaw enrollment, will retire, according to the email. Patricia Cottonham, who oversaw student affairs, will become the dean of students. John Blohm, who was over university advancement, will solely focus on overseeing the UL Foundation. The changes are part Kolluru of an organizational restructuring, Kolluru said in the email and are “focused on improving efficiency and streamlining administrative functions” while ensuring “our structure aligns with
Carbon-capture project may emit more than planned
Officials seek info on immigration sweeps
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL
BY JOHN SIMERMAN, BEN MYERS and LARA NICHOLSON
Border Patrol operation in N.O. raises concerns
Staff writer
A controversial plan to store CO2 deep under Lake Maurepas was intended to greatly limit greenhouse gas emissions from a nearby industrial plant, but a new proposal raises the possibility that significantly less will be sequestered. The company’s revised proposal to state regulators has the potential to allow the hydrogen and ammonia plant in Ascension Parish to become one of the largest industrial emitters of greenhouse gases in Louisiana during its first years of operation. Air Products, the company behind the project, has battled nearly four years of
ä See CARBON, page 5A
WEATHER HIGH 60 LOW 44 PAGE 6A
Staff writers
STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, right, talks with U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, in a hallway at City Hall following a Friday news conference she hosted about the U.S. Border Patrol sweeps in the metro area.
As New Orleans Mayor-elect Helena Moreno called out Trump administration officials over their secrecy surrounding the immigration sweeps that have gripped the region, U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino was busy ordering cracklins and smiling for selfies on Friday afternoon inside a Kenner convenience store. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, meanwhile, was warning New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick in a letter that an NOPD policy
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ä ACLU drops lawsuit over Louisiana’s immigration enforcement interference law.
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that limits support for immigration agents could open her up to a criminal charge. The third day of “Operation Catahoula Crunch,” the latest round of immigration sweeps from President Donald Trump’s administration after similar campaigns in Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina, brought a rise of political tensions amid more sightings of masked agents but few official details on the number of people detained or for what. Moreno led the calls for transparency, joined Friday by U.S.
ä See SWEEPS, page 4A
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