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T u e s d ay, a p r i l 7, 2026
Mayor lays out steps in BR blight plan
Leaders outline redevelopment efforts, including market returns
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Livingston observatory again facing budget cuts LIGO facility made historic scientific breakthrough
BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD Staff writer
The observatory in Livingston Parish that made a historic scientific breakthrough by detecting gravitational waves is once again facing heavy federal funding cuts after spending the past year advocating against similar cuts. The Trump administration released Friday its federal budget request for fiscal year 2027 and proposes cutting the National Science Foundation’s budget of $8.8 billion by 54.7%, resulting in a possible $4 billion budget for the next year. The foundation funds facilities across the country, including the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Two LIGO observatories are funded in the country: LIGO Livingston in Louisiana and LIGO Hanford in Washington state. The foundation’s budget request proposes funding for LIGO at $29 million, a 39.6% cut. For LIGO, the proposed cuts are similar to those
ä See OBSERVATORY, page 4A
STAFF PHOTOS By MICHAEL JOHNSON
East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor-President Sid Edwards announces a major initiative with the Office of Community Development that will invest federal grant funds in community development on Monday while in front of the first fully redeveloped city-parish-controlled home of his administration. BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER Staff writer
In the final weeks of 2025, MayorPresident Sid Edwards touted a milestone: His administration demolished a record 200 blighted houses in its first year, aligning with a central focus of his election campaign. On Monday, standing inside a newly restored house in Old South Baton Rouge, Edwards and his team signaled what comes next — shifting from efforts to tear down neglected properties to rebuilding them. At a news conference in front of the first fully redeveloped cityparish-controlled home of his administration, Edwards spoke on his “blight fight,” calling it “critically important.” But what comes next is just as crucial, he said, as previously blighted properties are rehabilitated and returned to the marketplace to enhance the city-parish’s housing market and economic development. The Office of Community Development was recently awarded a little more than $6 million in federal dollars, which Edwards and Development Director Kelly LeDuff say
Attorneys make case for impeaching judges BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer
of about 40 to 50 properties under the Office of Community Development that officials hope to bring back into commerce in similar fashion. “This property was once
As Louisiana lawmakers consider a bill that aims to give the Legislature the power to remove judges, no one can seem to agree on whether judges are already subject to impeachment. That’s because the Louisiana Constitution is unclear, according to lawyers. “There are competing sections ä Aerospace of the current constitution,” said legislation William Most, an attorney based raises in New Orleans, as he referred questions. to Article X Sec. 24 and Article V Sec. 5 of the constitution. “One PAGE 5A allows the Legislature to impeach officials; the other gives the judiciary exclusive jurisdiction over discipline for members of the bar.” In a recent statement, the Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the matter. “We cannot provide any legal interpretation of court rules, or state or federal law,” a spokes-
ä See BLIGHT, page 4A
ä See JUDGES, page 5A
Kelly LeDuff, development director for the Office of Community Development, talks with Mayor-President Sid Edwards as they tour the renovated home on Monday. they hope turn into affordable housing and business storefront improvements. The Lori Burgess Avenue home highlighted by Edwards and LeDuff on Monday cost roughly $45,000 in grant funding to rehabilitate — one
Outside political groups begin attacks on Senate candidate Fleming BY TYLER BRIDGES
ELECTION 2026
Staff writer
U.S. SENATE
Two outside groups are now hitting state Treasurer John Fleming with attack ads, indicating that he now presents a rising threat to U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow’s election chances in Louisiana’s Senate Republican primary. Until now, Sen. Bill Cassidy and Letlow have been criticizing each other, while Fleming, who along with Letlow wants to unseat the two-term senator, has stood on the sidelines, unscathed. But Fleming is now facing attacks from one group supporting Letlow and another
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group opposed to him. Both accuse him of not being conservative enough, even though he helped found the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus during his eight years in the U.S. House and then spent four years working for President Donald Trump during his first administration. The ads show a ratcheting up of activity in the Senate campaign about six weeks before the May 16 primary. One attack ad that just began airing paints
Fleming as favoring more “illegal aliens” crossing the border. The other ad says Fleming, who has made opposition to carbon capture sequestration as a central plank in his Senate campaign, took several votes in Congress to promote the process. Both ads, Fleming said in an interview, are full of “lies.” The ad that made it seem as if he favored more illegal aliens was deceptively edited, he said, and he provided the original video used in the ad to make this point. “People have been telling me, ‘You’re so clean, what are they going to hit with you?’ I
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said they would make something up,” Fleming said in the interview. “And that’s what they’ve done. They see me surging in the
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ä See FLEMING, page 4A
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