The Advocate 03-28-2026 by The Advocate

NCAA TOURNAMENT

DUKE TOPS TIGERS AT THE BUZZER 1C

ADVOCATE THE

T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

S at u r d ay, M a r c h 28, 2026

$2.00X

Population growth slows in BR area

EBR remains largest parish in state BY CHARLES LUSSIER Staff writer

Livingston and Ascension parishes continue to lead the Baton Rouge region when it comes to population growth, though the pace of expansion has slowed, according to the latest U.S. census population estimates.

Meanwhile, East Baton Rouge Parish has seen its population grow for two years in a row, outpacing Louisiana as a whole. The parish, however, has yet to fully recover from declines early in the pandemic. The 10-parish Baton Rouge metro as a whole grew over a ﬁve-year period, but seven of the parishes

did not. Between the last U.S. census in 2020 and July 1, 2025, the federal agency found Livingston was the fastest-growing parish in Louisiana, expanding its population by 9%. That equates to almost 13,000 more residents. Ascension is not far behind, growing its total number of residents by almost 7%, or 8,600 people. That is the third-fastest pace of growth in the state.

“Suburbs have been growing. It was happening before COVID. COVID accelerated that trend,” said Andrew Fitzgerald, a senior vice president with the Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnership, formerly the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. Growth rates slipped between 2024 and 2025, to 1.2% in Livingston and 0.8% in Ascension. Over that year, the state population was ﬂat, growing less than a tenth of a

Entergy wants power capacity boost for Meta data center

percent. The parishes have the ninth- and the 11th-largest populations out of the state’s 64 parishes. East Baton Rouge added an estimated 2,463 residents in 2024 and 2,008 in 2025, according to estimates released this week. The recent growth has allowed East Baton Rouge to remain the largest parish in the state. It also is a

ä See POPULATION, page 5A

Johnson balks at deal to fund TSA Speaker says House won’t approve Senate measure

BY MATTHEW ALBRIGHT and MARCO CARTOLANO Staff writers

companies sign a “ratepayer protection pledge” in early March. Entergy said in its news release that Meta committed to paying for some of the infrastructure costs up front and sending millions to its charitable program for low-income customers and for energy efﬁciency. The company said customers will see $2 billion in savings because of the new deal, details of which weren’t

The U.S. Senate worked overnight to pass a bill Friday that funds the Transportation Safety Administration, but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, said his chamber would not approve the deal. Johnson and ä Airports other House Re- warn travelers publicans said not to arrive the Senate protoo early. posal was unacceptable because PAGE 4A it did not include funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the Border Patrol. “It is the most reckless thing we’ve ever seen, and we’re so frustrated by it,” Johnson said. He later referred to the Senate’s deal as “a joke.” Johnson instead proposed a continuing resolution that would fund the entire Department of Homeland Security, including TSA and immigration agencies, for 30 days while Congress sorts things out. Johnson challenged the Senate to pick up the bill on Monday. But the Senate recessed for two weeks after passing its bill Friday, so senators would have to return to

ä See POWER, page 4A

ä See JOHNSON, page 4A

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Work continues on the Meta data center site in Holly Ridge.

The plans also come amid questions a news release Friday, Entergy said If approved, it would equal it Inplans to build seven new natural gas- nationally about how data centers are afplants, upgrade its existing fecting residents’ electric bills, which are nearly half the power it powered nuclear plants, build 2,500 megawatts of rising along with a host of other everyday generates for state solar farms and install batteries to store costs. President Donald Trump had tech

solar power. The gas plants alone will total 5,200 megawatts, about five times what the entire city of New Orleans uses on an Staff writers average day. The new power capacity Entergy is Entergy Louisiana plans to dramatically boost the amount of electricity it can seeking to generate in Richland comes generate and transmit in Richland Parish, on top of two natural gas turbines it is where it is already building power plants already building for Meta at the site, as for Meta’s massive AI data center, the well as a third power plant for the project clearest sign yet that the Facebook par- under construction near Baton Rouge. All ent is moving forward on a significantly together, those three plants will generate 2,262 megawatts of power. larger project than first announced.

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL and SAM KARLIN

N.O. Banksy mural is up for auction ‘Gray Ghost’ was on the wall of a former firehouse

BY DOUG MacCASH Staff writer

Now’s your chance to own one of the rare remaining New Orleans murals by the British grafﬁti master Banksy, who is arguably the most famous artist in the world. But it won’t come cheap. Banksy’s stencil painting goes up for auction on Saturday with a starting bid of $725,000, including fees. Banksy’s prints and paintings regularly reach the million-dollar mark at auction, occasionally fetching multimillions. Potential buyers should note that the mural probably won’t ﬁt nicely over the couch. It’s 8 feet tall and 5

WEATHER HIGH 74 LOW 52 PAGE 6A

feet wide, and — since it’s painted on a chunk of brick wall — it weighs almost 3 tons. The sale of the New Orleans mural and other works by Banksy is being conducted online by Hessink’s auction house in Maastricht, Netherlands. The cumbersome painting is currently on display at the Louisiana State Museum at the Presbytère. Though it may not be a convenient artwork to own, it has a fascinating provenance. The globe-trotting artist secretly slipped into the Big Easy in 2008 like an arty James Bond. Banksy was on a mission of mercy, intent on drumming up sympathy for the city’s ongoing, grinding recovery from Hurricane Katrina that had taken place three years before. The undercover Englishman painted

more than a dozen small murals on structures across the city that instantly became icons of the era. Among his sardonic artworks was a forlorn girl huddling beneath a faulty umbrella, a homeless Abraham Lincoln pushing a shopping cart, looting National Guardsmen, and a second line-style brass band attempting to play while wearing gas masks. On a former firehouse on Jackson Avenue, Banksy produced a painting that was meant to demonize Fred “The Gray Ghost” Radtke, a devoted grafﬁti foe, who was in constant conﬂict with the Crescent City’s street artists/aerosol vandals. Banksy depicted Radtke as a shadowy, soulless house painter bent on eradicating an innocent stick

STAFF FILE PHOTO

A restored mural by the British graffiti superstar Banksy is on ä See BANKSY, page 5A display at the Louisiana State Museum at the Presbytère.

Business ......................5B Deaths .........................4B Nation-World ................2A Classified .....................7D Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....4D-6D Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C

101ST yEAR, NO. 271