MySTERy TUNNEL SPARKS TALES OF PIRATES, ESCAPES 1D THE
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S u n d ay, a p r i l 19, 2026
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‘I don’t see any daylight on the horizon’
State public schools lost 60,000 students in a decade, and enrollment is still falling
YEARLY BELOVED
BY PATRICK WALL Staff writer
40 years of the Festival International de Louisiane has helped Lafayette emerge as a center for global arts BY JOANNA BROWN Staff writer
Downtown Lafayette has seen many changes over the past 40 years. In 1987, the area was in the throes of the mid-1980s oil downturn — shuttered businesses, few public attractions and a neighborhood that emptied out at night. City leaders like Cathy Webre, then head of the
Downtown Development Authority and Downtown Lafayette Unlimited, were already seeking to revitalize Jefferson Street with events like Downtown Alive!, which started in 1983. But there was a sense that the community could do a lot more to utilize its native cultural assets, like music, food, art and the French language. Beginning in 1985, the seeds were planted to host a free international
festival that would connect Lafayette’s Francophone culture with the rest of the world. Festival International de Louisiane’s first president, Herman Mhire, got the ball rolling through an exhibit of Senegalese art he was showing at the University Art Museum, using his connections in the international art world to begin planning the event. The
ä See FESTIVAL, page 4A
Aprieonna Herbert trudged home from her school bus one recent sunny afternoon, then collapsed into bed. The seventh grader is still adjusting to waking up in the dark to catch the bus at 5:50 a.m. each morning, which rumbles down her quiet street of bungalows and double-wide trailers in Belle Rose. She lives less than a mile from Belle Rose Middle School, yet the bus takes her 10 miles THE CRISIS away to Assumption Parish High School in neighboring Napoleon- OF DECLINING ville. ENROLLMENT Like nearly every other LouisiIN LA.’S ana school district, Assumption TRADITIONAL Parish had too many schools PUBLIC for its dwindling student popuSCHOOLS lation. So last year, the School Board made a once-unthinkable First in an decision: It shut down all three occasional of the district’s middle schools, series relocating their students to the high school campus. “A lot of people were upset,” said Aprieonna’s mother, April Anderson, who years ago attended Belle Rose Middle School. “That school has been there for a very long time.”
EMPTY DESKS
ä See STUDENTS, page 8A
STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRAD KEMP
ABOVE: People attend the Festival International de Louisiane in 1998. TOP: Attendees fill the dance floor as Donna and the Buffalo, of New york, kick off Festival International de Louisiane on April 23, 2025 at the Scene Fais Do Do in downtown Lafayette. STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRAD BOWIE
STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE
Seventh grader Aprieonna Herbert makes her way home after getting off the school bus in Belle Rose on Tuesday.
Ruling changes path for lawsuits against oil companies Leaders face stark choice as La. coast hangs in balance
BY ALEX LUBBEN
Staff writer
A U.S. Supreme Court decision has struck a serious blow to Louisiana’s longstanding efforts to hold oil companies responsible for coastal damage, leaving state officials with a stark choice of wheth-
WEATHER HIGH 72 LOW 50 PAGE 6B
er to press ahead with the fight or seek to settle now. The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on Friday was a narrow decision on a technical issue, but its Landry ramifications are potentially vast. Dozens of similar lawsuits from Louisiana parishes are pending, and state officials had hoped to use proceeds from those cases to clean up and restore por-
tions of the rapidly eroding coast. Gov. Jeff Landry has made no secret of his willingness to settle with the oil companies on fair terms, but Murrill the decision may have stripped the state of a portion of its leverage. At the same time, Louisiana still has cards to play, and Attorney General Liz Murrill expressed confidence the state would
ultimately prevail. The result of Friday’s ruling in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish is that the $745 million verdict in a 2025 state-court trial may be thrown out and the case retried in federal court. It also sets off what could be years of new jurisdictional fighting over where the other cases belong. It was a clear win for the oil and gas companies, which have spent more than a decade fighting to move the lawsuits out of Louisiana state courts, where juries
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are drawn from the coastal communities suing them. It gives the industry leverage to argue all of the cases belong in federal court. Landry, who recently announced a settlement with ConocoPhillips, a defendant in 13 of the 42 coastal lawsuits filed by Louisiana parishes, said Friday he hopes for “a resolution” in the remaining cases. “Federal court moves faster than state court — those oil and gas companies that want to litigate it,
ä See RULING, page 6A
101ST yEAR, NO. 293