McILROY MAKES BIG MOVE ON DAY 2 OF THE MASTERS 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, a p r i l 11, 2026
$2.00X
SPLASHDOWN Legislation 2026 LEGISLATURE
Artemis II crew safely returns to Earth in perfect ending to historic moon mission
targets homeless people
Bill would make sleeping on street a crime, create ‘homelessness courts’ BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer
Over the past several years, Lashauna Williams says, she has struggled to afford permanent housing while trying to get treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. Williams, who said she grew up in foster care, described bouncing between shipping containers, rented apartments and friends’ houses. She spent several months at a New Orleans shelter where, she said, she was often treated harshly. Sometimes, she would leave the shelter early in the morning to catch a few extra hours of sleep in the park, a brief escape before she began her day, she said. Now, a proposal in the Louisiana Legislature would make camping in unauthorized public spaces a crime. Supporters of the idea, which would also allow local jurisdictions to establish “homelessness courts,” say it will give law enforcement a tool to steer homeless people toward services and help draw down funds from President Donald Trump’s administration. House Bill 211, sponsored by state Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, is part of Gov. Jeff Landry’s legislative agenda. The bill lays out a mechanism for homeless people to avoid prison time by pleading guilty,
The Artemis II splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Friday. BY MARCIA DUNN AP aerospace writer
HOUSTON — Artemis II’s astronauts returned from the moon with a dramatic splashdown in the Pacific on Friday to close out humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than a half-century. It was a triumphant homecoming for the crew of four whose record-breaking lunar flyby revealed not only swaths of the moon’s far side — never seen before by human eyes — but a total solar eclipse. Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen hit the atmosphere
traveling Mach 33 — or 33 times the speed of sound — a blistering blur not seen since NASA’s Apollo moonshots of the 1960s and 1970s. Their Orion capsule, dubbed Integrity, made the plunge on automatic pilot. The tension in Mission Control mounted as the capsule became engulfed in red-hot plasma during peak heating and entered a planned communication blackout. All eyes were on the capsule’s lifeprotecting heat shield that had to withstand thousands of degrees during reentry. On the spacecraft’s only other test flight — in 2022, with no one on board — the shield’s charred exterior
came back looking as pockmarked as the moon. Like so many others, lead flight director Jeff Radigan anticipated feeling some of that “irrational fear that is human nature,” especially during the six-minute blackout that preceded the opening of the parachutes. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha awaited the crew’s arrival off the San Diego coast, along with a squadron of military planes and helicopters. The astronauts’ families huddled in Mission Control’s viewing room, where cheers erupted when the capsule
ä See SPLASHDOWN, page 5A
U.S. SENATE
Cassidy urges Democrats to reregister for primary BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, is making a concerted push to get Democrats to switch their party registration so they can vote for him in next month’s Republican primary. That’s prompted criticism from those who say it provides more
WEATHER HIGH 84 LOW 60 PAGE 6A
STAFF FILE PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Gov. Jeff Landry and state Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, are backing a proposal that would make sleeping on the street a crime and allow jurisdictions to establish specialty ‘homelessness courts.’
ST. FRANCISVILLE
ELECTION 2026
New election rules would limit votes
ä See HOMELESS, page 4A
PHOTO PROVIDED By NASA
Cassidy
evidence that he’s not a true conservative — especially since neither of Cassidy’s two Republican opponents, state Treasurer John Fleming and Baton Rouge U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, are making a Letlow similar effort. Central to Cassidy’s move to encourage party switches is a decision by Gov. Jeff Landry and Republican lawmakers in 2024 to end Louisiana’s unusual jungle primary for federal races beginning
ä See CASSIDY, page 4A Fleming
Officer suspected of giving drugs to woman who drowned in 2022 Man also tied to alleged sexual battery case
BY QUINN COFFMAN Staff writer
A St. Francisville police officer accused of improperly driving a woman around in his cruiser the night she drowned in a hotel bathtub — a death originally thought to be an overdose or a suicide — is now suspected of having given her drugs, according to the district attorney. Richard Parsons Jr. — who resigned 2022, shortly after the drowning — was charged last year with malfeasance in of-
fice for allegedly having given Rene Horton a ride in his cruiser. Photos recovered from Parsons’ phone during the drowning investigation tied him to both Horton’s death and to a separate incident involving the sexual battery of a man, District Attorney Sam D’Aquilla said. On Thursday, D’Aquilla submitted a warrant to re-arrest 39-year-old Parsons on a count of negligent homicide in Horton’s death. He was booked on the sexual battery charge in October 2025 and the malfeasance charge in August 2025. According to D’Aquilla, Parsons dropped
Business ......................5B Deaths .........................4B Nation-World................2A Classified .....................7D Living............................1D Opinion ........................6B Comics-Puzzles .....4D-6D Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
ä See OFFICER, page 5A
101ST yEAR, NO. 285