DRAFT DAY 2
SECOND ROUND: SAINTS TAKE DT CHRISTEN MILLER 1C THIRD ROUND: SAINTS PICK TE OSCAR DELP 1C
N O L A.C O M
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S at u r d ay, a p r i l 25, 2026
$2.00X
FRIDAY @ JAZZ FEST
BATISTE GOES BIG
Neville, Loose Cattle also highlight Friday’s offerings
1 arrested, 1 at large in mall shooting Lafayette teen identified as victim in BR attack BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD
Jon Batiste performs on the Festival Stage during the second day of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Friday.
Loose Cattle perform on the Fais Do-Do Stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Friday.
BY KEITH SPERA Staff writer
During a Thursday afternoon interview for an overflow crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s Allison Miner Music MORE @ Heritage Stage, Jon discussed JAZZ FEST Batiste his bonkers travel schedule over the INSIDE past couple of weeks. After bouncing ä Saturday’s cubes. Page 1D from Japan to London to Marrakech to Paris to Las Vegas to ONLINE Los Angeles to New York, he arrived in New Orleans this week to rehearse — and, from how it sounded, finish planning — his Jazz Fest show. Would it feel like a show thrown together at the last minute by a jet-lagged
Police booked a teenage suspect Friday in the mass shooting at the Mall of Louisiana a day earlier and released a photo of a second person wanted for questioning in the crime, which killed a 17-year-old girl and injured five others. Markel Lee, 17, is the first suspect identified by law enforcement since the shooting. Baton Rouge Police Chief TJ Morse said at a news conference that Lee Lee turned himself in earlier Friday and was booked with first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder, and illegal use of a weapon. Morse said at least one unidentified suspect remains at large and asked for the public’s help in identifying and locating him. “It’s really early in the investigation still,” Morse said. “We have to give the detectives time to do their job when they’re combing through that much evidence and surveillance video.” It is unclear how many shooters were involved, as well as how many other people might have played a role. Martha Odom, a 17-year-old Lafayette
ä See SHOOTING, page 5A
STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
Four men arrested in 1982 murder
performer? participants. Big in terms of musical It would not, even if it teetered on the variety. Big in terms of meaning. brink of losing the thread a couple times. He did not squander the rare opporJust as he did in 2023, Batiste orches- tunity for a hometown artist to headline trated one of the fest’s biggest perforä See BATISTE, page 7A mances. Big in terms of the number of
Crawfish bread has deep roots in Marksville Treat has become Jazz Fest favorite
BY WILLIE SWETT
BY JENNA ROSS
Staff writer
Staff writer
MARKSVILLE — Three days until Jazz Fest, the calendar on the wall warned. A kitchen timer blared. But John Ed Laborde calmly began another batch of dough the same way he begins every batch of dough that becomes, eventually, the base of his legendary crawfish bread. He scooped the flour and the yeast. He flipped on the mixer and, after it got going, added the oil. He nudged. He tasted. He smiled. Then he turned his attention to the next step, then the next, trying not to let himself think
WEATHER HIGH 85 LOW 70 PAGE 8A
Podcast brings new attention to Northshore case
Thirty-year Jazz Fest regular Janice Posey makes her first stop for crawfish bread on Thursday. too far ahead in the logistical feat before him. Bringing eight days’ worth of crawfish bread from this humble plant in Avoyelles Parish to
STAFF PHOTOS By DAVID GRUNFELD
Panaroma Foods employees in Marksville prepare crawfish ä See CRAWFISH, page 7A bread on Monday to be sold at Jazz Fest.
When 16-year-old Roxanne Sharp’s body was discovered by a group of trail riders near the St. Tammany Parish Fair Grounds in Covington in February 1982, it shocked the small northshore community. An initial investigation by the Covington Police Department determined Sharp, a young mother, had been Sharp murdered and raped. “It was just horrific news,” recalled St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper, whose father, Ernest, was mayor of Covington at the time. “Something we never thought
Business ......................5B Deaths .........................4B Opinion ........................6B Classified .....................6D Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C Comics-Puzzles .....2D-5D Nation-World................2A
ä See MURDER, page 5A
13TH yEAR, NO. 256