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Judge: St. James schools remain segregated
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Trump says attacks on Iran will last weeks State Department urges Americans to leave region BY JON GAMBRELL, MELANIE LIDMAN and SAMY MAGDY
School Board had sought to dismiss case after 60 years
Associated Press
duction is scarce, but because of how oil and gas is priced on the global market. “The impact of these disruptions depends on their duration and severity,” Gray said. “Short-term price swings may be manageable but prolonged issues could significantly raise costs.” That means gasoline prices, currently averaging around $2.50 a gallon in Louisiana, will likely rise in the coming weeks, though it’s too soon to say how high. Natural gas prices, which heat and cool homes, also are rising, which could mean that ratepayers in Louisiana, still reeling from sticker shock after February’s freeze, will
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli and U.S. airstrikes pounded Iran in an escalating campaign that President Donald Trump said Monday would likely take several weeks. Tehran and its allies retaliated across the region, striking Israel and a variety of targets inside Gulf states, including energy facilities in Qatar and the American embassy in Saudi Arabia. The intensity of the attacks, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the lack of any apparent exit plan set the stage for a prolonged conflict with farreaching consequences. Places deemed safe havens in the Mideast like Dubai have seen incoming fire; energy prices shot up; and U.S. allies pledged to help stop Iranian missiles and drones. Trump said operations are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared “to go far longer than that.” As the conflict spiraled, the State Department urged U.S. citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries due to safety risks. “The hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters before briefing members of Congress about the Iran operation. Trump said the military campaign’s objectives are to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, wipe out its navy, prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure that it cannot continue to support allied groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which fired missiles at Israel on Monday. As several airstrikes hit Iran’s capital, Tehran, the top security official Ali Larijani vowed on X: “We will not negotiate with the United States.” World markets were rattled as the fighting expanded across a region vital to energy supplies. Saudi Arabia said early Tuesday that the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh came under attack from two drones, causing a “limited fire” and minor damage. A
ä See IMPACT, page 5A
ä See ATTACKS, page 5A
BY CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT Staff writer
Sixty years after residents sued to end racial segregation in the St. James Parish school district, a federal judge found inequalities remain — including one school’s student body being more than 95% Black — and denied a School Board request to dismiss the case. U.S. District Judge Darrel James Papillion, of New Orleans, found Friday that the school district had failed to comply with aspects of a 2017 consent order and that vestiges of segregation persist at schools across the district. His order focused on three schools that were once all-Black and legally segregated before Brown v. Board of Education, including the St. Louis Math and Reading Academy. Papillion found that aspects of a special literacy program designed to attract students from across the parish to St. Louis had been adopted districtwide, nullifying the program’s intended desegregation purpose. “In sum, this Court recognizes the District’s efforts in desegregating its geographically complex school district and desires to return St. James Parish Schools to the local authorities,” he wrote. “But this Court cannot ignore the fact that St. Louis, or former Fifth Ward, a historically Black school remains a virtually all-Black school.” His ruling follows an initial onepage decision released in September, in which he said he would later publish the full order with his reasons. The School Board has appealed his ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Papillion was nominated to the federal bench by former President Joe Biden. The development is just after a judge rejected a bid by the neighboring St. John the Baptist Parish School Board to end its longstanding desegregation order. It also comes after Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s stated goal last year of closing all remaining desegregation cases in the state with the help of the U.S.
ä See SCHOOLS, page 4A
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MARK SCHIEFELBEIN
President Donald Trump speaks Monday before participating in a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
War could impact gas prices and energy production in La. INSIDE
BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer
The war in Iran is sending shock waves across global energy markets that are likely to reach Louisiana, first through rising prices at the pump and, if the conflict persists, with companies in the state potentially looking to increase production of oil and natural gas. Gasoline prices are tied directly to the price of crude oil, which rose 6% on Monday to nearly $72 a barrel as the U.S. continued to unleash airstrikes and Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and U.S. targets across the energy-rich Middle East. President Donald Trump said the attacks could persist
ä Hegseth insists Iran conflict is
‘not endless.’ Page 3A
ä Officials say some La.
National Guard members could be in region of conflict. Page 4A ä Iranian students at LSU cheer death of Khamenei. Page 5A for weeks in the Persian Gulf region. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the transit point for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply, was virtually closed to maritime traffic. Tyler Gray, director of innovation at the LSU Energy Institute, said disruptions in the oil and gas market thousands of miles away can show up in south Louisiana within days. That’s not because pro-
Photo of autistic student in a cabinet rocks Gonzales Middle Teacher, principal depart school
BY CHARLES LUSSIER Staff writer
Late on a Friday afternoon in early February, Sydney Alexander posted on social media a picture she had just received of her 12-year-old son Jaelon. The picture showed the boy in a school uniform with his head hidden inside a cabinet. “A teacher named Coach Patrick put my child in this cabinet,” the mother asserted. Three days later, the following Monday, the teacher, Patrick Mahoney Jr., and the school’s principal, Lori Charlet,
WEATHER HIGH 84 LOW 67 PAGE 6B
were gone. The news shocked Ascension Parish. Charlet, in particular, is well known and well loved. A native of Donaldsonville, Charlet spent 25 years as principal at Gonzales Middle School. Just two days before, she rode as a lieutenant in the Krewe of Ascension Mambo parade as it rolled through Gonzales. The Advocate was unsuccessful in reaching either Charlet or Mahoney for comment. Mahoney is known too, mainly through his family. His father, Patrick Mahoney Sr., is a longtime wrestling coach at East Ascension High School. Mahoney Jr., until recently, served as assistant coach to his dad at the high school. The father is a longtime physical ed-
ucation teacher at the middle school. The son spent almost two years as a paraprofessional at East Ascension High before moving in August to Gonzales Middle to work as a special education teacher. In January, Mahoney Jr. was honored by the parish school board as one of 22 “rising educators” who’ve transitioned from support roles to teaching. District spokesperson Jackie Tisdell said Mahoney Jr. has been enrolled this school year in an alternative certification program focused on special education. Mahoney Jr.s’ name is absent from the Teach Louisiana teacher certification database, which is maintained by
A picture taken in November shows an autistic student at Gonzales Middle in a classroom cabinet. PROVIDED PHOTO
ä See STUDENT, page 4A
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