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W e d n e s d ay, M ay 27, 2026
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Landry: Teachers to receive one-time pay bump But it’s not clear where funding will come from BY PATRICK WALL
Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By JILL PICKETT
Dignitaries send confetti flying from handheld confetti cannons Tuesday during an event at The Community Center at England Air Park in Alexandria to announce plans by Applied Digital to build a Delta Forge 1 data center in Rapides Parish.
‘PARADIGM SHIFT’ FOR LA. Texas company plans to build data center near Alexandria that will employ 200
BY ADAM DAIGLE
Acadiana business editor Referring to it as a “paradigm shift” for the central Louisiana economy, state and local officials on Tuesday announced a $3.6 billion data center in Rapides Parish that is expected to create 200 jobs that will pay three times the state’s average wage. Applied Digital, a Texas-based company that designs, builds and operates high-performance data centers, plans to build an artificial intelligence factory campus near the town of Boyce. Gov. Jeff Landry and other state and local officials referred to the project, which will be known as Delta Forge 1, in transformative terms in its potential for jobs that will pay on average $90,000 a year and the 1,000 construction jobs before it opens likely in summer 2027.
ä See DATA, page 4A
Pope Leo XIV, left, presides over the funeral of late Cardinal Emil Paul Tscherrig in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on May 15. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GREGORIO BORGIA
WEATHER HIGH 83 LOW 72 PAGE 8A
Louisiana will give public school teachers a one-time pay bump this year, Gov. Jeff Landry said Tuesday, though he declined to explain how the state will pay for stipends that top lawmakers previously said the state could not afford. Educators had been bracing to lose the $2,000 stipends for teachers and $1,000 for school support staff, ä Senate passes which the state has given them the past budget with pay three years in lieu of raises for judges, permanent raises, firefighters, prison after the state Legguards. PAGE 5A islature advanced a budget plan last week that did not include the pay bumps. Landry said he and lawmakers will look for money for the stipends, which cost about $200 million this fiscal year, but he did not say where the money will come from. “We’re going to try to use every tool in the toolbox to try to find that money,” he said at a news conference Tuesday with state Senate President Cameron Henry and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier. The state leaders also announced a plan to potentially overhaul the state’s school-funding system. When asked how the state will pay for the temporary pay bumps for Louisiana’s teachers, who are among the lowest paid in the country, Landry said he won’t know until he sees the final budget that the Legislature must pass by Monday. He promised to hold another news conference soon to “go through exactly what our plan is.” Hours later, Henry and DeVillier issued a statement saying they believe the Legislature “can forge a path to providing properly appropriated, recurring funds” for
ä See TEACHER, page 5A
Jason Zhang, president and co-founder of Applied Digital, discusses the company’s plans to build an artificial intelligence factory campus near the town of Boyce. The $3.6 billion data center in Rapides Parish is expected to create 200 jobs that will pay three times the state’s average wage.
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Gov. Jeff Landry discusses the Louisiana Constitution and how it affects policymaking during a news conference about teacher pay raises at the State Capitol on Tuesday.
La. Catholics call Latin Mass a beloved ritual Popularity grows amid controversy of it dividing church
BY BOB WARREN Staff writer
When Wesley Franatovich settles into a church pew for the Latin Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in New Orleans, he feels a sense of calm wash over him.
There’s ritual and mystery and choreography, and in that, Franatovich said, “there’s comfort.” “And I think people are looking for a sense of comfort these days,” Franatovich, a 29-year-old New Orleans real estate agent and longtime Roman Catholic, said during Mass at the church. “A lot of people are searching for things that ground them in a way — a lot of people see that in the Latin Mass. There’s a reverence about it.”
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Franatovich said a favorite moment comes when the congregation, together with the priest, sings the Nicene Creed in Latin: Credo in unum Deum. … “It’s powerful,” he said. The Latin Mass has been in the news lately, following Pope Leo XIV’s escalated warnings to the Society of St. Pius X that its planned consecration of bishops without papal consent is a schismatic act.
ä See MASS, page 4A
101ST yEAR, NO. 331