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U.S. carries out strikes on Iran Trump blames Tehran for downing Army helicopter
BY JON GAMBRELL, KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military launched airstrikes Wednesday on Iran following the crash of an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz that U.S. President Donald Trump blamed on the Islamic Republic.
Tehran vowed to respond, again throwing into question efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire in the Iran war that’s seen the Strait of Hormuz effectively choked off and global energy prices spike. Missile alert sirens sounded in the island kingdom of Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, which Tehran said it targeted for retaliation. Fighter jets from the U.S. Air
President Donald Trump talks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New york early Tuesday.
Force and Navy conducted the strikes, the U.S. military’s Central Command said, targeting “air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites.” Iran acknowledged strikes around Bandar Abbas and Qeshm Island, but gave no details on the damage. “The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MARK SCHIEFELBEIN
ä See STRIKES, page 7A
E LEC T ION 2026
EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH DISTRICT ATTORNEy
District attorney race heats up
Judge accused of misconduct in bar fight Video footage shows Gonzales scrap BY JOHN SIMERMAN Staff writer
Incumbent District Attorney Hillar Moore
Challenger Ryan Thompson
STAFF FILE PHOTOS
Candidates spar over hate crime case as election approaches BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER
Staff writer
Allegations that a 13-year-old boy dressed up in Ku Klux Klan garb to deface a neighbor’s property with racist messages have sparked a fight between Baton Rouge’s district attorney and his first political challenger in 17 years. On Monday, attorney Ryan Thompson — who is taking on longtime incumbent District Attorney Hillar Moore in November’s election — held a news conference with the NAACP at the home of Carolyn Morrison-Howard in Central.
Comments by Thompson and Moore’s response mark the first public exchange between the two, though neither initially mentioned the election or called out the other by name. Thompson last week filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of Morrison-Howard against the parents of the boy accused of racist threats. That came after Moore’s office charged the teen with hate crimes for allegedly painting racist messages on the woman’s property and carving a swastika on a vehicle parked outside her home. At the news conference, Thompson
demanded that “the District Attorney’s Office take a hard look at this again” and suggested that stalking and terrorism charges should have been brought too. Moore shot back in a news release Monday evening, accusing “one participant at the press conference” of using the alleged hate crime to “advance a political campaign” and “created a false narrative” about how the case is being handled. “While reasonable people can disagree on public policy, no one should use
ä See RACE, page 8A
Three years ago, a late-night fracas landed a state judge, Steven Tureau, in the mud and trash behind Swamp Chicken Daiquiris, a Gonzales bar. Now, Tureau faces judicial misconduct charges over the incident, accused by the Louisiana Judiciary Commission of misusing the prestige of his office and conduct unbefitting a judge. Tureau, who has served for five years on the 23rd Judicial District Court bench in Ascension, Assumption and St. James parishes, has admitted he crossed the line in a dispute with Michelle Lee, part-owner of Swamp Chicken. The judge, his wife and another couple Tureau showed up at the bar late on Feb. 12, 2023, after dinner and drinks at a local steakhouse. At the time, Tureau was in secret discussions with the bar’s co-owner, Stephen Frederic, about buying Lee out of the business. Frederic had recently learned that one of the bar’s licenses was due to expire. He blamed Lee and told Tureau about it. Things turned nasty that night after the judge’s wife and a friend “worked their way through the crowded bar in front of the band, which upset other patrons,” the commission wrote. Jostling ensued, and the two women were moved to the back of the bar, where they complained about Lee. The judge confronted Lee. Tureau brought up buying the bar and was heard saying “that you were going to shut her down,” the commission alleges. Frederic, the bar’s co-owner, began to push him away.
ä See JUDGE, page 8A
Inmates’ families left in dark after Louisiana prison deaths Failed legislation would have created reporting system
Center. More than six months later, she’s still searching for answers. Eight months after detectives told them their son died at the West Baton Rouge Parish Detention Center, Charlene and Henry Henderson say they have learned BY AIDAN McCAHILL more about it from watching the Staff writer local news than from public offiJahane Draper says she learned cials. through social media that her son Monica Lafayette recalls the died at Elayn Hunt Correctional excruciating two weeks she had
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to wait to see her daughter’s body, and the bruises she saw when she finally viewed her. The questions for Lafayette — whose daughter was in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison — have stretched on for more than 10 months. In Louisiana, there is currently no uniform, statewide system for reporting deaths in custody. Many families of inmates who died say they are forced to fight for basic
information, disrupting an already arduous grieving process. Some wait months for just a death certificate. “You play it in your mind, trying to figure out what happened,” said Jehane Draper. “Because we don’t know what happened … your mind tends to go here, tends to go there, your mind is never at rest.” State Rep. Candace Newell, a New Orleans Democrat, sponsored
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a bill that failed this past legislative session that aimed to establish basic reporting requirements for deaths in custody. “Families have been left in the dark at the very moment they are grieving the most,” she said. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which declined an interview, has
ä See PRISON, page 10A
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