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Students could have to repay lost TOPS funds
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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M o n d ay, a p r i l 20, 2026
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8 children killed in north Louisiana mass shooting suspect killed by police after chase; most of the victims were his kids, shreveport officials say
Bill would have them on the hook if they flunk out
BY HALEY MILLER staff writer
A major shift could be coming to TOPS, the well-known scholarship that helps Louisiana high schoolers pay to attend in-state colleges. The Legislature is debating having students who stop meeting the requirements of the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students scholarship not only lose their funding, which is the current practice, but pay what they have received back to the state. “If a student accepts TOPS funds, there is a responsibility to meet the program’s requirements,” bill author Rep. Dennis Bamburg, R-Bossier City, said. “If those obligations aren’t met with good cause, taxpayers deserve a mechanism to recover those dol- Bamburg lars.” Some legislators immediately expressed reservations about the bill. TOPS is widely recognized as a significant incentive for the state’s high schoolers to pursue a college education. “There’s nobody more conservative about how we spend our money than me,” Rep. Phillip Tarver, RLake Charles, said. “I probably get in trouble for other things on the other extreme. But I don’t know about a student — like you said, he earned that scholarship. I’m not sure how we can take it away just because he doesn’t properly apply himself, and he makes a mistake, and he needs to move on and go do something else.” The legislation narrowly cleared the House Committee on Education 6-5 last Tuesday, with chair Rep. Laurie Schlegel, R-Metairie, casting the tiebreaking vote. Some members voted yes despite misgivings so the bill could reach the floor for a full debate. “I’ll give you one opportunity,” Schlegel said to Bamburg during
ä see TOPS, page 5A
sTAFF PHoTo By By JILL PICKETT
A house on 79th street in shreveport is among the four locations tied to a mass shooting sunday.
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BY BRIAN McCALLUM staff writer
Suspect killed
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BOSSIER PARISH Shreveport Red River
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Police said the Shreveport gunman who shot up two houses early Sunday killed seven of his own children, as well as killing another child. Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon said Sunday evening that the suspect, Shamar Elkins, shot one woman, who was mother to some of the children, first and then killed the eight children at a home in the Cedar Grove neighborhood. The minor victims ranged in age from 3 to about 12 years old. The suspect died after a police pursuit, Shreveport Police Department spokesperson Chris Bordelon said at a news conference.
Shreveport police responded to four connected crime scenes early Sunday — including one in Bossier City. Bordelon said detectives were confident the shooting was “entirely a domestic incident.” “We believe the offender in this case did execute some of his own children,” Bordelon said. Elkins was shot and killed by a Shreveport police officer after he allegedly carjacked a vehicle near the intersection of West 70th Street and Linwood Avenue and fled into Bossier City. Police said officers pursued Elkins where he stopped in a subdivision north of Interstate 220. Elkins got out of his vehicle with a weapon and was shot by
ä see SHOOTING, page 5A
Hunters push back on Louisiana’s chronic wasting disease measures state trying to slow spread to deer
mick, R-Oil City, played a video for his fellow lawmakers on a House committee. On the screen was a wispy-haired Ted Nugent, the ’70s rock star turned conservative acBY AIDAN McCAHILL staff writer tivist. The topic? A sickness called On a Wednesday morning at the chronic wasting disease that turns State Capitol, Rep. Danny McCor- deer into “zombies” — and the
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controversial efforts by the state to slow its spread. Nugent, a spokesperson for libertarian hunting rights group Hunter Nation, was voicing support for a measure proposed by McCormick to suspend bans on hunters spreading bait to make it easier to bag deer.
“I’ve had enough of CWD and the one-size-fits-all rules that come with it,” the Motor City Madman said in the prerecorded video. “The left and the misinformed have used scare tactics for far too long to purposely destroy our hunting lifestyle and heritage.” Chronic wasting disease is an
infectious neurodegenerative disease that is always fatal. It has spread like a slow but inextinguishable wildfire among deer and elk across North America. In recent years, some hunters have grown skeptical of efforts to combat a
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2 26 excellence. pride. tradition.
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ä see MEASURES, page 6A
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