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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’
STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON
LSU gymnast Kailin Chio leaps through the air on her floor routine during the NCAA championship final at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, on Saturday.
PAINFULLY CLOSE LSU leads late but comes up just short of winning NCAA gymnastics championship title
BY SCOTT RABALAIS
fought through injury and all sorts of adversity. “There was nothing for these kids to hang their heads about. They did everything a coach could ask FORTWORTH,Texas — The LSU gymnastics team stood them to do.” LSU took the lead after three events with its best on the podium after Saturday’s NCAA championship meet, watching the Oklahoma Sooners lift a rotation of the day, a 49.6125 on uneven bars, that first-place trophy that was frustratingly close to gave the Tigers a 148.600-148.5250 lead over the Sooners. LSU then headed to balance beam, going home with the Tigers for the second the same event it finished on when it won the time in three years. ä See 2024 NCAA title. LSU led going to the final rotation but complete Oklahoma surged back on floor, meanended up falling just short of Oklahoma, coverage of ingBut 198.1625-198.0750 at Dickies Arena. in the end the Tigers needed a perfect 10 For the Tigers, it’s the fourth time since the NCAA from Kailin Chio in the anchor spot to win. 2016 that they have finished second in the gymnastics Chio, who recorded her NCAA-leading 13th NCAA final, all behind the Sooners, who won title meet. 10.0 score of the season earlier in the meet for the eighth time. Florida (197.6875) was PAGE 1C on vault, got a 9.90. A strong score, but not third and Minnesota (197.375) was fourth. quite good enough in the end. “I’ve been part of winning this thing a lot “We’re called the Fighting Tigers for a over the years,” LSU coach Jay Clark said. “I don’t reason,” Chio said. “We put everything that we know that I’ve been as proud of a team as this one, could do out there, and I’m just really proud of this because they’re gutsy. They fought and fought and team.” Staff writer
State public schools lost 60,000 students in a decade, and enrollment is still falling BY PATRICK WALL Staff writer
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 OF DECLINING School in neighboring Napoleonville. ENROLLMENT Like nearly every other LouisiIN LA.’S ana school district, Assumption TRADITIONAL Parish had too many schools for PUBLIC its dwindling student population. SCHOOLS So last year, the School Board made a once-unthinkable deciFirst in an sion: It shut down all three of the occasional district’s middle schools, reloseries cating 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.” A rural community missing its middle schools. A superintendent cutting her budget to the bone.
EMPTY DESKS
ä See STUDENTS, page 10A
Ruling changes path for lawsuits against oil companies Leaders face stark choice as La. coast hangs in balance
coastal damage, leaving state officials with a stark choice of whether to press ahead with the fight or seek to settle now. The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on Friday was a narrow deBY ALEX LUBBEN cision on a technical issue, but its ramifications are potentially vast. Staff writer Dozens of similar lawsuits from A U.S. Supreme Court decision Louisiana parishes are pending, has struck a serious blow to Loui- and state officials had hoped to use siana’s longstanding efforts to proceeds from those cases to clean hold oil companies responsible for up and restore portions of the rap-
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confidence the state would ultimately prevail. The result of Friday’s ruling in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish is that the Murrill $745 million verdict in a 2025 statecourt trial may be thrown out and the case retried in federal court. It also sets off what could be years
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idly eroding coast. Gov. Jeff Landry has made no secret of his willingness to settle with the oil companies on fair terms, but the decision may have stripped the state Landry of a portion of its leverage. At the same time, Louisiana still has cards to play, and Attorney General Liz Murrill expressed
C A B L E F L E X CO L L EC T I O N
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 are drawn from the coastal communities suing them. It gives the industry leverage to argue all of the cases belong in federal court.
ä See RULING, page 8A
101ST yEAR, NO. 293