The Acadiana Advocate 05-17-2026

LETLOW TAKESBIG LEAD IN SENATE RACE

With Trump’sbacking,she’llface

FlemingasCassidy concedes loss

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

Backed by President DonaldTrump’s endorsement, U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow ousted Sen.Bill Cassidy Saturday in Louisiana’shotly contested Republican Senate primary

ä All five amendments fail. Page 6A

ä Newclosed party primarycauses confusionatthe polls. Page 6A

With 61 of 64 parishes reporting, it appearedstate Treasurer John Fleming would finish second, with Cassidy running third.

“This is not the result Inecessarily wanted,” Cassidy told asmall crowd of supporters at Boudreaux’sCatering in Baton Rouge shortly before 10 p.m., adding that he had conceded to Fleming and Letlow. His wife, Laura, stood by his side.

The results in the closed party primary mean that Letlow and Fleming will advance to the June 27 Republican Party runoff, while Cassidy’s bid fora thirdtermwillend.He is scheduled to leave the SenateinJanuary,only the second senator in Louisiana to lose reelection in 94 years.

Letlow won about 45% of thevote, compared to 28% for Fleming and 24.5% for Cassidy Polls in recent days have shown Letlow with an edge over Fleming in a hypothetical runoffbetweenthe two She will likely have much more money than Fleming —asshe did during the

primary—whichwould bolsterher chancesfor becoming the first female Republican senator ever in Louisiana. Letlow’sfirst-place finish andCassidy’scrushing defeat —shows the enduring power of Trump’sbrand for conservative voters. She didn’tget into theraceuntil three days after she received thepresident’s endorsement on Jan. 17, and she brandished hissupport afterward at every opportunity On Truth Social, Trumpthanked “the Great People of the State of Louisiana” for “thisBig Victory.”

“Bill Cassidy,after falsely using his “relationship” with me during hispolitical career,and winning Elections because of it, voted to impeach me on preposterouschargesthatwerefake then, andnow,are criminally insane!” Trump wrote. “His disloyaltytothe man who got him elected is now apart of legend,and it’s nice to seethathis political career is OVER!”

While Cassidy didn’taddress Trump by name, he clearlyrespondedtothe

president’sdislike of him.

“Insults bothermeonlyiftheycome from aperson with integrity,” Cassidy said. Saturday night’sresult is avictory notonlyfor Trumpbut also Gov. Jeff Landry,who backed Letlowaswell. Landry raisedmoney fortwo outside groups that didn’thavetoreport their donors and began relentlessly attacking Fleming when his rise threatened to keep her out of the runoff.

Cassidy’sdefeat —the first in his career after sixvictories,beginning withhis election to thestate Senate in 2006 —will be news throughout the country because media outlets outside Louisiana have reportedonhis fateas alitmus test of Trump’sinfluence and popularity Cassidy,68, lost even though he and a pro-Cassidy super PACoutspent Letlow and her super PACbyabout 4-1.

ThreeDemocrats also competed in their party primary on Saturday.Jamie Davis, acorn,soybean andcotton farmer in northeast Louisiana who had the state Democratic Party endorsement, ran first. Gary Crockett, who served 24 years in theNavy and ownsfour businesses in New Orleans, was running neck-and-neckwith Nick Albares, a policy analyst in New Orleans whowas backedbyhisformerboss,ex-Gov.John

See SENATE, page 6A

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

Lafayette Parish voters on Saturday rejected the renewal of aparishwide property tax that provides about 65% of the annual revenue forpublic libraries.

Library Director Danny Gillane previously said if the renewal failed with the May 16 election, the 3.12-mill tax probably will return to voters on a later ballot, possibly this November

The tax generates about $8.89 million ayear for operation and maintenance of buildings and services and forpersonnel, Gillane said.

TheLafayetteParish library system alsoreceives about $5.2 millionayear from asecond property tax, 1.84 mills.

In 2018, voters did not renew athird property tax that generated more than $3 millionayear for the public library system

Thelibrary tax renewal appeared on Saturday’s ballot below five statewide constitutional amendments that voters rejected, according to early resultsfrom theLouisianaSecretaryofState’s Office.

It’snot the first time alocal tax renewal failed when it wasplaced on the ballotwithunpopular state constitutional amendments.

In March 2025, a4.47-mill parish tax that generates $12.7 million ayear forroad andbridge maintenance and repair also was not renewed by voters whenitwas placed on the ballot with unpopular statewide constitutional amendments that voters shot down.

Lafayette voters reject property tax renewal La.leaders mull plan to revamp FEMA

Task forcerecommendsstates take on more responsibility,cost

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON Louisiana officials are thankful that aTrump administration task force did not recommendshuttering the Federal Emergency Management Agency,but they are still working to understanda potentially historic revampthat could speed payments even as states shoulder more of thedisaster response responsibilities and costs.

“There are somethings that need to occur with FEMA, some things that need to occur to streamline the wayFEMA works. But the devil is in the details,”saidLafourche ParishPresident Mitch Orgeron.

Overall, he likes what he sees, such as sending disaster aid as ablock grant directly to the states, but Orgeron said he’swaiting forthe specifics on

BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS

U.S. allows Russia oil sales waiver to expire

The Trump administration allowed a waiver that encouraged more Russian crude sales to lapse, even as the Iran war stokes concerns about global oil supplies and higher fuel costs.

The expiration effectively ends for now a brief period where the administration eased sanctions on some Russian oil, enabling purchases that would otherwise be barred. The Trump administration issued an initial waiver in March and a second after the first expired in April both applying only to a subset of Russian oil that had already been loaded onto tankers.

The waivers have been controversial, especially with European allies who see sanctions as essential to starving Russia of crude revenue and depriving Moscow funding for its war in Ukraine. Critics say the sanctions relief has served to enrich Moscow — even though it’s been limited to waterborne oil especially as crude prices surge But some countries, including India and Indonesia, had lobbied the Trump administration for extended sanctions waivers, as the Iran war and the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz deprive global markets of millions of barrels of crude daily

The Trump administration has also pivoted on the issue, responding to entreaties from countries heavily reliant on crude imports. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in April initially said the U.S. would not renew the sanctions waiver allowing purchases of some Russian crude before ultimately issuing a new authorization two days later

Rwandan genocide suspect dies in custody

KIGALI, Rwanda A Rwandan suspect charged in connection with the 1994 genocide died in a hospital while in custody in The Hague, Netherlands, a U.N. court said Saturday, three years after the court declared him unfit to continue standing trial.

Félicien Kabuga, 91, was accused of encouraging and bankrolling the mass killing of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority His trial began in 2022, nearly three decades after the 100-day massacre that left 800,000 dead.

In 2023, the judges declared him unfit to continue standing trial because he had dementia and said they would establish a procedure to continue hearing evidence without the possibility of convicting him.

On Saturday, the U.N International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals said in a statement that Kabuga died while hospitalized in The Hague, and the medical officer of the U.N. Detention Unit was notified immediately

An investigation into his death has been ordered to establish the circumstances of how he died, the statement said.

An arrest warrant for Kabuga was issued in 2013, and a $5 million bounty was announced. He was arrested in 2020 in France, and his trial started in 2022

Kabuga was charged with genocide, incitement to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, as well as persecution, extermination and murder He pleaded not guilty If he had been convicted, he would have faced a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Shark fatally mauls

diver in Australia

MELBOURNE,Australia

A shark fatally mauled a diver off an Australian tourist island on Saturday, police said.

The 38-year-old man had been spearfishing with a friend when he was attacked on a coral reef off Rottnest Island near Australia’s southwest coast, Western Australia Police Sergeant Michael Wear said.

The victim was near a dive boat when he was bitten on the legs, Wear said. He was then taken by that boat 1,100 yards to the island, where paramedics could not resuscitate him.

Lifeguards reported a 16-foot white shark had been seen in the vicinity before the attack.

The attack was Australia’s first shark fatality since January, when a 12-year-old boy died in a hospital days after he was mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor

Trump: Islamic State group head killed

U.S., Nigeria carry out joint strike

BY MICHELLE L PRICE and OPE ADETAYO Associated Press

WASHINGTON — U.S. and Nigerian forces killed a leader of the Islamic State group in Nigeria in a mission carried out Friday, President Donald Trump said.

Trump announced the joint operation in Africa’s most populous country in a late-night social media post. He said Abu Bakr al-Mainuki was second-incommand of the Islamic State group globally and “thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing.”

Al-Mainuki was viewed as the key figure in IS organizing and finance, and had been plotting attacks against the United States and its interests, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share sensitive information.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu confirmed the operation and said Al-Mainuki was killed alongside “several of his lieutenants, during a strike on his compound in the Lake Chad Basin.”

The joint operation is the latest by both countries since their new security partnership that kicked off last year after Trump claimed Christians were being targeted in Nigeria’s security crisis and threatened U.S. military intervention. Residents and security analysts have

said Nigeria’s security crisis affects both Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims, who are the majority in the north.

According to the spokesperson for the Nigerian military task force that carried out the Friday operation, the mission was a “highly complex precision air-land operation” and was carried out during three hours of darkness early Saturday without any casualties or loss of assets.

“His elimination represents the single most consequential counterterrorism outcome” in the region since the inception of the operation in 2015, Sani Uba, the spokesperson for the task force, said in a statement.

United Nations experts in their latest report said IS had intensified efforts in West Africa, citing more than 500 attacks between

PRESS PHOTO By ABDEL KAREEM HANA

ASSOCIATED

Palestinians attend the funeral of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the leader of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, and his daughter and wife on Saturday in Gaza City They were killed in an Israeli strike Friday evening

Israeli strike kills Hamas’ military wing leader

Israel says he was an architect of Oct. 7 attacks

BY SAMY MAGDY and SAM MEDNICK Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed the leader of Hamas’ military wing who was one of the last surviving architects of the attacks that triggered the war in late 2023, the Israeli military said Saturday Hamas confirmed the death.

Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed on Friday, Israel’s army said, describing him as one of the senior Hamas military commanders who directed the planning and execution of the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw more than 250 taken hostage.

A Hamas spokesperson, Hazem Qassem, confirmed the killing on social media.

The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains fragile, and the top diplomat overseeing it says it has stalled because of the deadlock over disarming Hamas. Both sides have traded accusations of violations. Gaza has seen near-daily Israeli fire with more than 850 people killed in the Palestinian territory since the ceasefire went into effect in October, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry

The ministry is part of Gaza’s Hamasrun government, but staffed by medical professionals who maintain and publish detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community. The ministry overall says Israel’s retaliatory strikes in the war have devastated the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 72,700 people.

Israel said that al-Haddad had assumed the role of Hamas commander after his predecessor, Mohammed Sinwar, was killed. The army said that al-Haddad had surrounded himself with Israeli hostages during the war as a shield against an attack

Al-Haddad’s family confirmed his death in Friday’s strike to The Associated Press. Six other people, including his wife and daughter, were also killed. His two sons were killed earlier in the war

His body was wrapped in Hamas and

Palestinian flags as it was carried by mourners at Saturday’s funeral in Gaza City

Al-Haddad joined Hamas when it was established in the 1980s, and was a member of the Qassam Brigades’ Majd section tasked to go after collaborators with Israel. He was also a member of Hamas’ Military Council, the highest group of commanders that played a key role in the attacks that sparked the war

Israel’s army chief of staff called his killing a significant operation, and said that Israel would continue pursuing its enemies to hold them accountable.

Violence flared Saturday in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli troops shot and killed a 34-year-old Palestinian in the Jenin refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Health ministry Hassan Fayyad was fatally shot in a thigh, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Israel’s military said that troops first fired warning shots at a person trying to infiltrate the camp and shot him when he didn’t comply They provided him with medical treatment as he was transferred to a hospital, it said.

Israeli troops on Thursday shot and killed a 15-year-old boy in Eastern Lubban town in Nablus, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Israel’s military said that it identified three people hurling rocks toward Israeli vehicles and “endangering lives,” and troops fired at them, killing one.

On Friday, settlers set fire to a mosque and vehicles in the village of Jibiya, northwest of Ramallah, Palestinian religious authorities said. Security camera footage showed people pouring flammable material on the mosque and at least two vehicles, said Sabir Shalash, the head of Jibiya’s municipal council. Spraypainted Hebrew slogans were found on the mosque’s walls, he said.

The Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs described the attack as “a cowardly terrorist act” and criticized the international community’s inaction over mounting Jewish settler attacks against Muslim and Christian sites in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli military and police said that they were deployed to the area and didn’t locate any suspects, but were investigating. The army said that it “strongly condemns” attacks on religious institutions.

January and October last year

Born in Nigeria’s Borno province in 1982, al-Mainuki took the helm of the IS branch in West Africa after his predecessor, Mamman Nur, was killed in 2018, according to the Counter Extremism Project, which tracks militant groups.

Al-Mainuki was based in the Sahel area, the monitoring group said, adding that it is believed that he fought in Libya when IS was active in the North African nation more than a decade ago. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2023.

Trump, in his social media announcement, said Al-Mainuki was “second in command globally,” hiding in Africa, a claim that some analysts say is off the mark.

The Nigerian military, in a statement, also said intelligence shows that earlier this year Al-Mainuki might

have been “elevated to the position of Head of the General Directorate of States, placing him the second most senior leader within the ISIS global hierarchy.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said Al-Mainuki was the senior ISIS General Directorate of Provinces Emir — “the number two for ISIS globally — responsible for overseeing the planning of attacks, directing the hostage-taking and managing financial operations.”

There is no way to verify his position within IS independently Analysts say AlMainuki was the deputy to Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the leader of the Islamic State West African Province who was reported to have died in 2021. He is regarded as one of the central proponents of the formation of ISWAP, after its split with Boko Haram in 2016.

Driver plows into pedestrians in Italy

8 injured as driver detained

BY GIADA ZAMPANO Associated Press

ROME A driver plowed into pedestrians in the northern Italian city of Modena on Saturday injuring eight people, four of them critically, before trying to flee and being detained by police, local authorities said. They said the man was known to officials for having mental disorders. Authorities identified the driver as Salim El Koudri, a 31-year-old secondgeneration Italian born in Bergamo and living in the province of Modena. El Koudri, who holds a degree in economics, is unemployed, authorities said He was detained and questioned at police headquarters in Modena as investigators tried to determine whether he acted deliberately Investigators said at a news conference Saturday evening there was no

immediate indication the man was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. His home was searched as part of the investigation.

Modena Prefect Fabrizia Triolo said el Koudri had been known to local mental health services for schizoid disorders, while officials stressed that early findings pointed to possible mental instability but required further verification. No links to extremist groups emerged.

Mayor Massimo Mezzetti said no one was killed in the dramatic crash but four victims were in serious condition. He said a woman was pinned against a shop window and required the amputation of both legs.

Mezzetti said the vehicle entered one of the city’s main streets and the man “drove onto the sidewalk sending several people flying,” before crashing into the shop window Victims were taken to hospitals in Modena and Bologna, including by helicopter for the most critical cases.

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Trump’s comment on Taiwan raises anxieties

U.S. president says island a ‘good negotiating chip’ with China

BY SIMINA MISTREANU Associated Press

Recent comments by President Donald Trump that arms sales to Taiwan are a “very good negotiating chip” in the United States’ dealings with China are heightening anxieties on the island democracy that Beijing claims as its own.

Trump made the comment in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier that aired right after the U.S. president wrapped up a high-stakes visit to China on Friday China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province, to be retaken by force if necessary

The U.S., like all countries that have formal ties with Beijing, doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country but has been the island’s strongest backer and arms supplier Trump is now suggesting that is open to negotiation.

Asked if he would approve a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan that has been held up for months, Trump said that’s up to China.

“I’m holding that in abeyance and it depends on China,” he said. “It’s a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly It’s a lot of weapons.”

The U.S. is bound by its

President Donald Trump walks with China’s President Xi Jinping on Friday at the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing.

own laws to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself and sees all threats to the island as a matter of grave concern.

By conditioning U.S. arms sales to Taiwan on his negotiations with China, Trump may play into one the island’s “nightmare scenarios,” said William Yang, a Northeast Asia senior analyst for International Crisis Group: that Taiwan, instead of being at the negotiating table, is on the menu.

Although Trump didn’t say specifically what he would want from China in return for denying Taiwan the weapons, he has been pressing Beijing to buy more

American goods and to help put pressure on Iran.

Trump and the U.S. Congress already approved in December a separate $11 billion arms sales package to Taiwan. Beijing reacted furiously by staging live fire drills around the island.

China has framed Taiwan as “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations” during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent summit with Trump The visit is to be followed next week by a trip by Russian President Vladimir Putin to Beijing.

In one of his strongest statements to date, Xi on Thursday warned Trump of “clashes and even conflicts”

if the issue of Taiwan is not handled properly

Taiwan’s presidential office on Saturday sought to smooth over the tensions by highlighting “that the consistent U.S. policy and position toward Taiwan remain unchanged.”

“The Republic of China is a sovereign, independent, democratic country; this is self-evident, and Beijing’s claims are therefore without merit,” said Presidential Office Spokesperson Karen Kuo, referring to Taiwan’s official name. She added that the island remains grateful to Trump for his support and stressed that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan

are stipulated by law

Another statement that raised concerns on the island was Trump’s call for Taiwan’s microchip sector the world’s largest and most advanced — to pick up and move to the U.S.

“I’d like to see everybody making chips over in Taiwan come into America,” Trump told Fox News, describing such a move as “the greatest thing you can do.”

Trump has long pressed Taiwanese chipmakers, which produce more than 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, which are used for artificial intelligence, smartphones and military equipment, to base some of their production in the U.S.

Taiwan’s leading chipmaker, TSMC, has committed an investment of $165 billion in a mega-campus in Arizona.

The island’s government, in a sweeping trade agreement with the U.S. earlier this year pledged $250 billion in investment in the U.S. microchip sector, which included TSMC’s previous commitment.

Trump also reiterated older accusations that Taiwan “stole” its chipmaking sector from the U.S. decades ago.

While Trump during his summit with Xi did not alter U.S. policy wording on Taiwan — which many observers had feared he would he did seem to adopt some of the Chinese president’s own narrative about the island’s government.

Beijing has branded Taiwanese President Lai Chingte as a “Taiwan independence diehard,” and warned that he would bring war and destruction to the island.

Trump and other top U.S. officials don’t usually communicate with Taiwanese leaders but have shown support in the past for example by allowing former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to transit on U.S. soil en route to visiting Latin American countries. Lai, who is about to reach his presidency’s two-year mark, has yet to set foot on the U.S. mainland, and some observers have interpreted that as a rollback of support by the Trump administration.

In his interview with Fox News, Trump stressed that he didn’t want to see a change of status quo between Taiwan and Beijing. “But they have somebody there now that wants to go independent,” he said, likely referring to Lai.

“They’re going independent because they want to get into a war and they figure they have the United States behind them.” He added that he is not looking to fight a war thousands of miles away Trump’s worrying statements about Taiwan may be another instance of “his transactional rhetoric being turned up to the max,” said Wen-Ti Sung, a fellow with the Atlantic Council. “What matters more is the substance, which Taiwan is holding its collective breath for.”

Putin to visit Chinese leader days after Trump’s trip to Beijing

By The Associated Press

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a two-day trip to Beijing next week, the Kremlin said Saturday

The announcement comes less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump

finished his own state visit to China, where he also met Xi to discuss trade and the U.S. and Israel’s war in Iran.

In a statement, the Kremlin said that Putin’s trip, planned for May 19-20, had been scheduled to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the 2001 Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship

It said that the two leaders would discuss bilateral relations as well as “key international and regional issues” and economic cooperation. Relations between China and Russia have deepened in recent years, particularly since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 left

Moscow shunned on the global stage and heavily reliant on Beijing for trade due to Western sanctions.

When Putin visited China in September 2025, Xi welcomed his counterpart as an “old friend.” Putin also addressed Xi as “dear friend.”

The Russian leader is also scheduled to visit China for

the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the city of Shenzhen in November Ukraine repatriated the bodies of fallen soldiers Saturday following an earlier exchange with Moscow involving prisoners of war Russia returned 528 bodies that “according to the Russian side, may belong to Ukrainian servicemen,” Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement. Experts will now “take all necessary measures aimed at identifying the deceased who have been repatriated,” it said.

USS Ford returns home after 11-month deployment

By The Associated Press

NORFOLK, Va. — The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world largest aircraft carrier, returned home to Virginia on Saturday after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, that saw it support the U.S. war with Iran and the capture of Nicolás Maduro when he was Venezuela’s president.

The most advanced U.S. warship and two accompanying destroyers docked at Naval Station Norfolk with about 5,000 sailors waiting to see their families for the first time since June. Besides combat operations and traversing continents, the sailors aboard the carrier faced a noncombat-related fire that left hundreds without places to sleep and forced lengthy repairs on the Greek island of Crete.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on hand for the arrival of the warships, which included the destroyer USS Bainbridge.

Hegseth commended the crew of the Bainbridge for a “job well done.”

“You didn’t just accomplish a mission, you made history,” Hegseth said on the destroyer’s deck. “You made a nation proud.”

Hegseth also spoke to the crews of the USS Mahan, a destroyer, and the Ford.

In recognition of their ser-

January to capture Maduro. Then it would see more battle, heading toward the Middle East as tensions with Iran escalated. The Ford participated in the opening days of the Iran war from the Mediterranean Sea be-

fore going through the Suez Canal and heading into the Red Sea in early March.

Technically, the crew of the USS Nimitz was on duty and away from home for a total of 341 days in 2020 and 2021. However, that includ-

ed extended isolation periods ashore in the U.S. meant to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Associated Press writers Ben Finley and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

vice during the Iran war, the Ford and the accompanying ships were awarded the prestigious Presidential Unit Citation, lauded for “outstanding performance in action” against “a determined enemy.” It’s the highest award a unit can receive and one typically reserved for significant achievement in combat.

The Ford’s 326 days at sea are the most for an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years and broke the record for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, according to U.S Naval Institute News, a news outlet run by the U.S. Naval Institute, a nonprofit organization. The only longer deployments were the 1973 deployment of USS

Midway at 332 days and the 1965 deployment of USS Coral Sea at 329 days.

The Ford’s long time at sea has raised questions about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods as well as about increasing strain on the ship and its equipment beyond the fire, which started in one of the carrier’s laundry spaces.

When the Ford first left Virginia’s coast in June, it headed to the Mediterranean Sea. It was then rerouted to the Caribbean Sea in October as part of the largest naval buildup in the region in generations.

The carrier took part in the military operation in

Strike shuts down North America’s largest commuter rail system

BY PHILIP MARCELO and MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press

NEW YORK The Long Island Rail Road, North America’s largest commuter rail system, was shut down Saturday after unionized workers went on strike for the first time in three decades.

The railroad, which serves New York City and its eastern suburbs, ceased operations just after midnight after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.

The unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the public agency that runs the railroad, have been negotiating for months on a new contract, with talks stalled over the question of workers’ salaries and healthcare premiums. President Donald Trump’s administration tried to broker a deal, but the unions were legally allowed to strike starting at 12:01 a.m. Kevin Sexton, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said no new negotiations have been scheduled.

“We’re far apart at this point,” Sexton said early Saturday “We are truly sorry that we are in this situation.”

MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said the agency “gave the union everything they said they wanted in terms of pay” and that to him it was apparent the unions always intended to walk out.

The walkout, the first for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994, promises to cause headaches for sports fans planning to see the Yankees and Mets battle this weekend or to watch the Knicks’ playoff run at Madison Square Garden, which is located directly above the railroad’s Penn Station hub in Manhattan

The station was devoid of its usual weekend bustle in

the afternoon. Only a few dozen people were seen traversing the main concourse, many dragging rolling luggage from departing or arriving Amtrak trains, which are not affected by the strike.

Departure boards normally showing upcoming trains by destination instead listed ghost trains marked “No Passengers.” A few signs affixed to customer service windows explained that the railroad was shut down because of a strike

Access to platforms was blocked off with bicyclerack style barricades and roll-down gates as MTA police officers stood sentry, directing people to alternative transportation. If the stoppage continues into the workweek, the roughly 250,000 people who ride the system each weekday will be forced to find other routes to the city from its Long Island suburbs. For many that likely means navigating the region’s notoriously congested roads Gov Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short and pushing the negotiations toward a strike. Trump, a Republican, responded on his Truth Social platform, saying he had nothing to do with the strike

and “never even heard about it until this morning.”

“No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump said, renewing his endorsement of Long Island politician Bruce Blakeman, who is challenging Hochul’s reelection bid. “If you can’t solve it, let me know, and I’ll show you how to properly get things done.”

Hochul urged Long Islanders to work from home if possible. The MTA has said it would provide limited shuttle buses to New York City subway stations, but that contingency plan was not envisioned to handle all the riders the system normally carries on a workday And while remote work options greatly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, many people still need to show up in person, said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, a commuter advocacy group.

“You work in construction, you work in the healthcare industry, you work at a school or you’re about to graduate from school, that’s not always possible,” she said. “People need to get where they need to go.”

SteveLatiolais,right,noticed hislongtimecoworkerChayson Richard, left,was experiencing stroke-like symptoms in February whilethe pair were on asmoke break. Hisquick reactionsaved Richard’slifeand preventedthe stroke from causing irreparabledamage.

By Amanda McElfresh| amcelfresh@theadvocate.com

This articleisbrought to youbyFMOLHealth|Our Lady of Lourdes.

ChaysonRichard rememberslittleabout that ThursdaymorninginFebruary.Hewasinhisoffice atAnalyticStress,aLafayette-basedheattreatment company, when he steppedout fora smokebreak withafewcoworkers.Richardwasfrustrated–he haddropped hiscoffee-plus-energy drink, and hisphonekeptslippingoff hislap as he triedto haveaconversationonspeaker.Hethoughtitwas justanoff dayuntil hiscolleague SteveLatiolais suspectedsomething much more serious.

“Hewas standing five or sixfeetawayfrom me,and he said,‘Ithink you’re having astroke,’” Richardrecalled. “I told himIwas fine andhe said,‘You’re absolutelynot fine.’ He immediately called foranambulance.”

Latiolaisand others couldsee symptoms that Richardcouldn’t–thewayhisbodywasdrooping toonesideandhowhewasslurringhiswordswhen he triedtospeak,two classicstrokesymptoms. When Richardarrived at FMOL Health |Our Lady of Lourdes, doctorsquickly confirmed that Richardwas indeed having astroke.

“Chasehadasignificantblockageinhisneck,and aportionoftheclothadbrokenoffandtraveledto themainblood vessel in hisbrain,” said Dr.Saad Karim,OurLadyofLourdesvascularneurologist andstrokemedical director.“But, Iwas notatall surprisedthathedidn’tfeelany pain That is the casewithalmostall stroke patients That’s why it’s so importanttoknowthe symptoms andto gethelpimmediately.

Richardsaidhisdecisiontoaskmedicstobring himtoLourdes wasinstinctual. Hisfamilyhas always gone to thehospital, in largepartdue to itsCatholicidentity. In fact,Richard hadbrought hismotherthere fortreatment just afew days earlier. In hiscase, choosing Lourdesalsomeant goingtoAcadiana’s first Stroke Center of Excellence, whichhas earned aGoldSealofApproval from TheJoint Commission forPrimary Stroke Centersand theAmericanHeart Association’s GetWith TheGuidelines Gold PlusAward for 11 consecutiveyears

Dr.Karim said nurses,physiciansand techniciansare readytoassessand treatpotential strokepatientsimmediatelyuponarrival.Arapid assessment takesplace in theemergency room, includinginput from avascularneurologist,who confirmsifthe patienthas hada stroke,and if so what treatmentisneeded.

Treatmentoptions caninclude powerful blood thinnersandclot-bustingmedications,procedures

to remove aclot or place astent in affectedblood vessels, or both

“Wehave awell-oiled machinethatprovidesfully comprehensivestrokecare. We allworktogetherto notonlysave thepatient’s life,but give them back as much normalcy and functionalityaspossible, Dr.Karimexplained.“We knowthatquicktreatment isessentialbecausetimeis brain.Nearlytwomillionbraincellscandieinone minute withoutadequateblood flow.A 10-hour delayintreatment canage thebrain by 36 years. Theearlierwecanremoveclotsandresumeblood flow,themorelikelyitisthatthepatientwillhave agoodoutcome.”

Richard’streatment involved astent as well as intensiveblood thinners That care,and the speedatwhich it happened,meant that Richard walked outofthe hospital just afew days after hisstroke. Less than aweeklater,hewas back on thegolfcourse.

“I hadtosee if Icould stilldoit, andIwas able tomakeitthroughtheround,”Richardsaid.“That mademefeelbetterabouteverything.Ididnotice that Ididn’thave thesametouch andfeelasI had before,and Iusedthe cart quiteabit.But,itfelt good to be able to do somethingnormalsosoon after somethingreallydrastic hadhappened.” Richarddid not have to undergoany longterm rehabilitation,althoughDr. Karimsaid occupational,speechand physical therapyisnot uncommonforstrokepatients.However,Richard hasmadesomelifestylechanges.Hequitsmoking atage55afterbeingadailysmokersincehewas16. He’s lost about60poundsand is more conscious aboutwhatheputsinhis body. He’s also more diligent abouttakinghis diabetes andhighblood pressuremedications

“I don’tthink I’ve done anything drastic. I’m not goingtochangewho Iam. But, Iknowthings couldhave been very differentifIhadn’tbeen around otherpeopleortheyhad waited even 10 more minutestocallanambulance,” he said.“I didn’t realizeatthe time howscary my situation was. Ihavenowords to sayhow grateful Iamto my colleagues forsteppingupand to thepeople at Lourdeswho knew exactlywhattodo.

howFEMA will implement the suggestions.

“I can tell you that if Lafourche Parish hada 50% matchonanythingrelated to Hurricane Ida, it would bankrupt Lafourche,” Orgeron said. “If they’renot providing that last-resort assistance, you’re effectivelynot going to be able to have local government sustainable in the long run. And that’s going to be the key issue.”

President Donald Trump appointed a12-member FEMA Review Council to do adeep diveinto theagency’scapabilitiesand operations, then come up with ideas on streamlining and economizing disaster response.

Its report was released May 7 and included about 150 suggestions to simplify and expeditegetting money to victims andimpacted communities; transfermany current federal tasks to thestates; require states handle environmentalimpact studies and audits; raise thedamage thresholdfor FEMA to get involved; shrink the National Flood Insurance Program, including increased involvement of private insurance;embarkon astrategic review of staffing and downsize by moving employees in Washington to the regional offices.

It also said the agency should stop helping survivorssecure long-term housing and focus on temporary housingand rental assistance for those whose homes were destroyed and release federal money to the states in the form of grants rather than reimbursements.

“I have heard from countless Louisiana families, smallbusinesses and local officials who are frustrated with how FEMA deliversrelief,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson “I applaud President Trumpfor establishing this review council to putFEMA backontrack, because Louisiana is no stranger to disasters.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter,D-New Orleans, was less laudatory

“Proposals to privatize flood insurance or shiftmore costs to states raise serious concerns, especially as Louisianafamilies already facesoaring insurance premiums and private insurers continue pullingout of high-risk

qualified.

Sitting on the coast, withreceding marshes bringing astorm’s fury further inland, Louisiana’sdisasters tend to be worse than most,said Louisiana National Guard Brig. Gen. Jason P. Mahfouz, who is director of theGovernor’s Office of Homeland Security andEmergency Preparedness.

“I’velooked at nearly every major disaster declarationwe’vehad for the last 10 years, andwewould qualify even underthe newper-capita threshold,” Mahfouz said.

The tax wasplaced on the November ballot without constitutional amendments and the tax wasrenewed. There was some confusion Saturdayamong voters registeredasnoparty who wanted to vote in the

markets,” Carter said. “If these recommendations are implemented as proposed, they risk weakeningFEMA and leaving Louisiana communitieseven more exposed when thenextstorm hits.”

Thepanel’ssuggestions —at least the ones accepted by FEMA brass andCongress —will take twotothree yearstofully implement.The 79-page report is going through its monthlong public comment stage. Then FEMA officials will have toadd specifics for how theproposals would actually work

Some of the ideas can be instituted with an executive order,but most will need legislation approved by Congress.

Potentialinsurance changes

The FEMA panel wantsNFIP to rely more on the private sector.About ahalf-million Louisiana homeand business owners are required to carry insurance issued through the federal government to cover damage from rising water.

Butthe ratesofthe federally subsidizedpolicieshavenot kept up with the risks of flooding, leavingNFIPabout $20 billion in debt and at areal riskofcollapsing altogether.

Oneissue to consider,said state InsuranceCommissionerTim Temple, is that very few companies write flood insurance in Louisiana. Temple testified before the council.

On the otherhand, privatein-

surers have access to modeling toolsthat more accurately reflect risk and better recognize mitigation, such as house elevation and higherlevees, that could be reflected in theirpremium rates.

“Today,there is not enough capacity in the private marketto transition policyholders away from theNFIP,and significant work remains if we wanttobuild thecapital and market capacityneeded to do so overtime,” Temple said. “The mostimportant stepswecan take centeron long-term, consistent coordinationamong local, parish and state agencies to investincommunity andcoastal mitigationprojects that measurablyreducerisk.

Post-disasterresponse

Changes to the three main postdisaster relief programs will need legislativeauthority to deliver amajorportionofthe federal grantsto local and state governmentswithin 30 days.

To accomplish that timeline, the councilrecommended calculations includevariables likethe sizeof thehurricane andimpactonlocal communitiestocome up withanestimate thatcan be paid much faster thanthe current process of figuring out how muchtopay after lengthy damage assessments.

The taskforce also suggested raising the threshold by morethan 50% before FEMA gets involved. About 29%ofthe disasters declared between 2012 and2025 wouldn’thave

State and parish emergency managers are analyzing the programmatic changes recommended in thereport andapplying the new variables to the existing onetogive legislators and state officials abetterunderstanding of “whatposition that we would be in and whether that can be an advantage or disadvantage,” he said. Mahfouz saidhewasn’t surprised by what he sawinthe report. And he noted that the guidelines that reduced thefederal footprint in disasters could be overridden by the president acting on circumstances of aparticular storm,tornado, earthquake, wildfire or other disaster Mark Cooper,who was amember of the task force, said the panel’s goal was to make it easier. For instance, disastersurvivors find help spreadacross14programs, requiringthe individualtofill out14different applications with the same information

“And we thought, ‘How can we do it so it’sjust asingle program and give it to the state so they can get it to the individuals quicker?’”said Cooper,aBaton Rouge consultant whoheaded GOHSEP underRepublican Gov.Bobby Jindaland was chief of stafftoDemocratic Gov. John BelEdwards.

“Louisianaisgoing to have to do certainthings. If they don’thave thestaffing, they need to look at making those arrangements, going either through anonprofit or throughafor-profitagency to see if they can support like individual assistance, forexample,” or seeking help from other states, Cooper said. “There’sa need forFEMA, especially at the federal level for catastrophic disasters, but pushing moreofthe responsibility downto the FEMAregions andtothe states to get things done quicker and moreeffectively.”

EmailMarkBallardat mballard@theadvocate.com

Voters reject all5 constitutional amendments

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

Allfiveconstitutional amendments were headed for defeat Saturdaynight as results poured in,with most by lopsided votes.

Amendment 3, which wouldhave made permanent a$2,000 stipend for teachers and given them another $250 to boot, was faring the bestout of the bunch, though it too was doing poorly.At9:45 p.m., with mostprecincts reporting, only 42% of voters cast their ballotsinfavor of Amendment 3, accordingtounofficialresults on the Louisiana Secretary of State’swebsite.

Proposalsthatwould have raised the mandatory retirement age for judges, given the Legislature more control over state employees, created anew school district in St. George and let parishes stop taxing business inventory all were struggling to pick up more than even 40% of the vote. The amendments took abeatingin an election cycle marred by controversy:Gov.JeffLandry suspended the U.S. House races at the lastminute so that the state could redraw its congressional map to favor Republicans after alandmark Supreme Court ruling declared Louisiana’s existing map unconstitutional.

With Democratic turnout high dur-

ing the early voting period, political pundits predicted backlash to the redistricting efforts could reduce the odds that the five constitutional amendmentswouldpass.

Amendment 1wouldhave allowed theLegislature to decide whichstate governmentjobs should be at-will positions without civilservice protections.Supporters said it would help make thegovernment more efficient, while detractors argued it would leave state employees vulnerabletopartisanpolitics.

Amendment 2, whichwas fiercely fought in East Baton Rouge Parish, would have createda newschool district in St. George, taking it out of the Baton Rouge public school system.

Voters in 2019 created the newcity of St.George, andafter alonglegal battle the courts,allowed it to ramp up agovernment in 2024.

Proponents ofanew school district for thenew city contend it is a neededantidote to many of the city’s poor quality schools. Critics say it would exacerbateracialsegregation and leave poorer students behind.

Amendment 3would have liquidated state education trust funds to payoff teacher retirement debt, and then used thesavings from that

debt to permanently raise teachers’ salaries by $2,250.

Teachers receiveda $2,000 salaryincreaseseveralyears ago, but it came in theform of atemporary “stipend” as the Legislature declined to makea long-termcommitmenttofund it.Amendment 3would have given teachers another $250 on top of the$2,000 they were already receiving.

Support staff, who had been receiving$1,000 stipends, would have gotten another $125.

Now,teachers are likely to get $2,000 less each year —Senate President Cameron Henry previouslywarned that if Amendment 3failed, the Legislaturewould not backfillthe money

Meanwhile,Amendment 4would have allowed parishestostop taxing business inventory, in exchange for one-timepaymentsfrom the state. It was pitched as away to help parishes attract investors; parishes that opted to do away with thetax would not have been able toreinstate it down theline.

Amendment 5would have raised the mandatory retirement agefor judges from 70 to 75.

Currently, judges who turn 70 can serve outtheirterms, but they may notrun for reelection

Raising the retirement age would have allowed judges with expertise to continue serving, according to supporters of theamendment.Critics said the mandatory retirement ageprotectsthe public fromjudges who experience cognitive decline as they age.

Here’show each amendment was faring at around9:45 p.m., according to unofficialresults on the Louisiana Secretary of State’s website

Amendment1 —Civil service

Amendment 1was failing 22% to 78%.

Amendment2—St. George schools

Amendment 2was failing37% to 63%.

Amendment3 —Teacher pay funds

Amendment 3was failing 42% to 58%.

Amendment4—Business inventorytax

Amendment 4was failing 35% to 65%.

Amendment5 —Judicial retirement age

Amendment 5was failing 24% to 76%.

Newclosedparty primarycausesconfusion at thepolls

Cancellation of Houseraces adds to exasperation

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

Louisiana’snew closed party primary systemonSaturdayleft many voters confusedand election commissioners exasperated.

Most of the angst centered on the new rules for no-partyvoters, who have to choose whether to vote Democratic, Republican or no-party on aone-page form called Declaration of BallotChoice. Election commissionersreported delays throughout the dayfrom having to explain the new process to no-party voters and then having those voters choose which election to vote in.

No-party voters who checked the “no-party” boxfound when they went behind the curtain that they could not vote in thehigh-profile Senate election for one of the Republican or Democratic candidates. To do that, they had to check the box for Republican or Democratic.

Louis Perret, the clerk of courtin Lafayette Parish, said oneelection commissioner was so frustrated that she went home for lunch on Saturday and didn’treturn.

“I’ve been here 22 years,” said Diane Broussard, the clerk of court in Vermilion Parish. “By far,this has been the worst election.I’m on a text chain with other clerks of court. There’sconfusion throughout the state.”

Broussard and other clerks of court reported another problem: Some people who have beenregistered as Democrat for years,but who typically vote Republican, showed up not realizing that, under the semi-closedpartyprimary, they could onlyvote for aDemocrat.

“The closed party primary is idiot-

SENATE

Continued from page1A

Bel Edwards. The top two will advance to the Democratic Party runoff on June 27. The winners of the Democratic and Republican runoffs will meet in ageneral election on Nov.3,with the Republican candidate heavily favored.

Polls closed on Saturdayat8 p.m. Tenminutes later,the secretary of state posted initial results from absentee voting, the firstsign that Cassidy would have along night as Letlow took abig lead, and the senatorwas in third place.

Mark Spencer,who owns aMardi Gras online store in Belle Chasse and called himselfa“guns and Bibleconservative,” finished adistant fourth in the Republican primary Letlow,45, who before her first run for office worked for the University of Louisiana at Monroe,saidduring the race that she never expectedto be ahigh-level political candidate. Her entry into politics was born of tragedy.Her husband,Luke, was elected to represent the5th Congressional District House seat in December 2020but died 24 days later,just before he took office.

ic. It’sawaste of money,”said Harry LeBlanc, aretireeand no-party voter,after he voted at Lakeshore Playground in Metairie. “I don’tunderstand why it existsexcept for the parties trying to give themselves an advantage.”

LeBlanc noted that, having chosen on Saturday to vote in the Republican primary, he will nowhaveto vote forRepublicansinthe June27 runoff as well.

“That takes away choices,” LeBlanc said Many polling stations reported no problems onSaturday.

Earlyvoting from May 2-9 also produced many problems.

In theSenate election,U.S. Rep. Julia Letlowand state Treasurer John Fleming are trying to unseat Sen. Bill Cassidy, as is little-known business ownerMark Spencer Three Democrats are on theballot Saturdayina separate party primary.Theyare JamieDavis,afarmer from northeast Louisianawho has the endorsementofthe Louisiana Democratic Party; Nick Albares, a policy analyst in New Orleans who has the support of his former boss, ex-Gov.John Bel Edwards; and Gary Crockett, abusiness owner in New Orleanswho spent 24 years in theNavy.

Cassidy held anewsconference by phone with reporters on Friday to express concerns aboutthe new semi-closed party primary system.

Cassidy opposed moving from the open,orjungle primary,inJanuary 2024 when Gov.Jeff Landry pushed the change through the Republican Legislature, with the senator citing the cost of having an extra runoff election under thenew system.

On Friday, Cassidy warned that turmoilwould disenfranchise voters andwho would end up not voting.

“AsLouisianans vote today,it’sbecomingcrystal clear that no-party voters are facing adisjointed, difficult process to actually cast avote in theGOP primary,” he said Saturday

Letlow ran in his steadand was elected in April 2021. She won reelection twice more and moved from Monroe to BatonRouge with her two young children.

Fleming, 74, is adoctor who has served as the state treasurer since 2024.

Cassidy opposed thecreation of the closed party primary in January 2024 by Landry and Republican legislators, with political analysts saying he faced a tougher path to victoryifconservative Democrats could not cross over andvote for him.

Cassidy appealed to Democrats to switch to no party so they could votefor him. Under thenew election rules, no-party voters could choose on election daytovote ineither theRepublican or Democraticprimary

But afterFeb.1,only 7,488 Democrats switched their party registration

On Friday,Cassidy notedthat then-Gov.Bobby Jindal andthe Legislature switched to aparty primary in 2008.

“It was adisaster,” Cassidy said. “Soafter one election, we went back to theopenprimary,whichhas served us well.”

Landry initially sought acompletely closed partyprimary system whereonly Democrats could vote for Democrats andRepublicansfor Republicans.

ButU.S. Sen. John Kennedy and others gotthe state Senate to amend theclosed party primarybill by then-stateRep.Julie Emerson, RCarencro, who is now Landry’schief of staff, to allowno-party voters to choose whichparty primary to vote in

Kennedy said the change was necessary to allowthe state’sno-party voters to participate in the primary As of May1,no-party voters constitute about813,000 voters, or 27% of the electorate, according to pollster John Couvillon, whoconducted surveys for Fleming.

WilliamVandermeer, aretiree in New Orleans, thought he had changedhis registration to no-party to be able to vote forCassidy on Saturday.

But he learned when he wentto vote at afire stationonNorman C. Francis Parkway thathewas still listedasa Democrat.

Under the jungle primary,Vandermeer noted he could have voted forCassidy or anyofthe other Republican candidates.

Adding to the confusion is Landry’sApril 30 decision —following acourt order —tocancel thesix U.S.House races in Louisiana but proceedwiththe racesfor Senate, Public Service Commission,state Supreme Court, BoardofElementary andSecondary Education and local races.

“A lot of people think the whole election hasbeen canceled,” Broussard said. “Voters have been calling

Cassidy,a doctor who specialized in treating livers before he gotinto politics,faced avery differentpolitical landscape this year in his third campaign for the Senate.

As aU.S.House member in 2014, he defeated then-U.S.Sen.Mary Landrieu, aDemocrat, by repeating over and over again that shehad voted withPresident Barack Obama “97% of the time.”

Cassidy won reelection in 2020 by trumpeting hisconservative voting record and Trump’sendorsement.

But Cassidy’sfortuneschanged when he voted to convictTrump on impeachment charges of inciting the Jan.6,2021, attack on theCapitolby thepresident’s supporters.

Louisiana’sRepublican Partyimmediately censured him, andCassidy’ssupport among Republicans plummeted

Only 26% of Republican primary voters hada favorable opinionof Cassidy,while 62% held an unfavorable view,according to asurvey taken on May 11-12 by Greg Rigamer,a New Orleans pollster,for Alton Ashy, amajor lobbyistwho has raised money for Letlow

Thebiggest questioninLouisiana politicsduring the second half of 2025 was whether Letlow would give up an easy reelection racefor her 5th Congressional District seat and chal-

all week about that. There wasn’t enough time to get out the word.”

Perretagreed.

“All theeducation and outreach efforts that all of us put together seemtohave made asmall dent but notabig dent in voter confusion,” Perretsaid.

At 2p.m., he found only 6.9% turnout of Lafayette Parish’sregistered voters, leading him to estimate that the overall turnout would be less than30%.

The office of Secretary of State Nancy Landry is projecting a28% turnout, which would be abig drop from the typical 50% turnout for past primary elections in nonpresidential, even years.

State Rep. Aimee Adatto Freeman, aDemocrat who represents Uptown New Orleans, said she found uncertainty when she wenttovote Saturday morning at the St.Joan of Arc School on Cambronne Street.

She saidshe didn’tsee asign telling voters that their vote in the 2nd Congressional Districtwouldn’t count.Freeman wentahead and votedanywayfor U.S. Rep.Troy Carter

“Weneedtogoback to thejungle primary,” saidFreeman,who voted twoyears ago against moving to the semi-closed party primary Andrew Farnsworth, an elections commissioner at Hynes Charter School in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans, said he and others have been abletoreset voting machines for no-party voters who chose “no-party” andthen emerged irate from the polling booth that they didn’thave achoice in the Senate election.

“It’sslowing things down,” he said, adding that commissioners began taking extra timetoexplain the new rules to no-party voters beforehand.

Said Judy Chauvin, an election commissioner working another table at Hynes: “If they don’tchange the system before thegeneral election, we’re staying home.”

lenge Cassidy While she mulledthat over,state Rep. Julie Emerson, of Carencro, andstate Sen. Blake Miguez, of New Iberia, jumped into the race.

Butwhen Trumpendorsed Letlow, Emersonand Miguez exited, leaving Fleming as theonly other major challenger to Cassidy

AfteryearsintheHouserepresenting northwest Louisiana, Fleming finished fifth in the 2016 Senate race, so political analysts didn’ttake his candidacy seriously in the early going for this year’sSenate campaign.

But Fleming showedenduring strength, powered by his staunch opposition to anew technology known as carbon capture and sequestration that he said threatened to poison waterways and strip landowners of theirproperty rights.

Fleming showed such strength that Landry raised big moneyfrom energyindustry executivestofinance an anti-Fleming attack ad campaign. TheAccountability Project,one of the pro-Landry outside groups, said Flemingissoft on border security, didn’tserve as Trump’sdeputy chief of staff in his first term and voted for carbon capture andsequestration bills as amember of Congressmore thanadecade ago. Flemingcalledall those attacks “lies.”

Groups rally for Black political representation in Ala.

Demonstration held in birthplace of Civil Rights Movement

BY KIM CHANDLER Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Thou-

sands of people rallied Saturday in the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement to mobilize a new voting rights era as conservative states dismantle congressional districts that helped secure Black political representation.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, called Montgomery “sacred soil” in the fight for civil rights.

“if we in our generation do not now do our duty we will lose the gains and the rights and the liberties that our ancestors afforded us,” Booker said.

The crowd was led in chants of “we won’t go back” and “we fight.”

“We are not going down without a fight. We are not going down to Jim Crow maps,” Shalela Dowdy, a plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case said.

A crowd of thousands gathered in front of the city’s historic Alabama Capitol, the place where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr spoke in 1965 at the end of the Selma-to-

Montgomery Voting Rights March. The stage, set in front of the Capitol, was flanked from behind by statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and civil rights icon Rosa Parks — dueling tributes erected nearly 90 years apart.

Speakers said the spot was once the temple of the Confederacy and became holy ground of the civil rights movement.

Some in the crowd said the effort to redraw lines has echoes of the past.

“We lived through the “60s. It takes you back When you think that Alabama’s moving forward, it takes two steps back,” said Camellia A. Hooks, 70, of Montgomery, Alabama.

The rally began in Selma, where a violent clash between law enforcement and voting rights activists in 1965 galvanized support for passage of the Voting Rights Act. It then moved to the state Capitol, where King gave his “How Long, Not Long” speech that same year

A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Louisiana hollowed out voting rights law that was already weakened by a separate decision in 2013 and then narrowed further over the years. That helped clear the way for stricter voter ID laws, registration restrictions, and limits on early voting and polling place changes, including in states that

MIKE STEWART

Aaron McGuire sings a spiritual song Saturday during a voting-rights rally in Montgomery, Ala.

once needed federal preclearance before they could change voting laws because of their historical discrimination against Black voters.

Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement are alarmed by the speed of the rollbacks, noting that protections won through generations of sacrifice have been weakened in little more than a decade.

Kirk Carrington, 75, was a teen in 1965 when law enforcement officers attacked marchers in Selma on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” A White man on a horse wielding a stick chased Carrington through the streets.

“It’s really just appalling to me and all the young people that marched during the ’60s, fought hard to get voting rights, equal rights and civil rights,” Carrington said. “It’s sad that it’s continuing after 60-plus-odd years that we are still fighting for the same thing we fought for back then.”

Montgomery is home to one of the congressional districts that is being altered in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.

A federal court in 2023 redrew Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District after ruling that the state intentionally diluted the voting

power of Black residents, who make up about 27% of its population. The court said there should be a district where Black people are a majority or near-majority and have an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.

But the Supreme Court cleared the way for a different map that could let the GOP reclaim the seat. While the matter remains under litigation, the state plans special primaries Aug. 11 under the new map.

Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who won election in the district in 2024, said the dispute is not about him but

rather people’s opportunity to have representation.

“When Republicans are literally turning back the clock on what representation, what the faces of representation, look like, what the opportunities, legitimate opportunities for representation look like across this country, then I think it starts to resonate with people in a little bit of a different way,” Figures said.

Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Republican, said the Louisiana ruling provided an opportunity to revisit a map that was forced on the state by the federal court.

“People tend to forget what happened. When this thing went to court, the Republican Party had that seat, congressional seat two,” Ledbetter said last week. “There’s been a push through the courts to try to overtake some of these red state seats, and that’s certainly what happened in that one.”

Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case, said there is grief over the implosion of the Voting Rights Act but it is crucial that people recommit to the fight.

“We have to accept that this is the new reality, whether we like it or not,” Milligan said. “We don’t have to accept that this will be the reality for the next 10 years or two years or forever.”

Maine mourns firefighter killed in lumber mill blast

At least 11 injured

By The Associated Press

MORRILL, Maine A 27-yearold firefighter killed in a huge fire and explosion at a lumber mill in Maine’s midcoast region was honored Saturday, a day after the incident that injured at least 11 others. A memorial of flowers dedicated to Andrew Cross sat outside of the Morrill Volunteer Fire Department as a procession of dozens of firetrucks, police cars and other vehicles escorted his remains to a funeral home. Dozens of first responders and other community members gathered in Morrill to salute and pay their respects.

FDA official ousted in latest shake-up at agency

Doctor scrutinized COVID shots, antidepressants

BY MATTHEW PERRONE Associated Press

WASHINGTON A Food and Drug Administration official involved in scrutinizing the safety of antidepressants, COVID-19 vaccines and other widely used therapies has been removed from her role leading the agency’s drug program.

FDA leadership changes.

Hoeg’s rapid rise through the agency was engineered by Makary, who quickly promoted her from serving as his special assistant to overseeing the agency’s largest center responsible for regulating most U.S. prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

FDA center directors are typically career agency scientists with decades of experience. Hoeg had no previous government or management experience.

Since arriving at the FDA last March, Hoeg led investigations into the safety of injectable RSV drugs for children, antidepressants and COVID-19 vaccinations.

The procession routed through the small town of fewer than 1,000 people on its way from Augusta to Belfast, Maine, a journey about 46 miles long. Roughly two dozen fire departments had responded to the massive flames that tore through a silo at Robbins Lumber in a rural area, according to the state fire marshal’s office. Officials on Saturday identified Cross as the firefighter who was killed. Cross joined the Morrill Volunteer Fire Department when Jethro Pease was fire chief, Pease told the Portland Press Herald. “He was a good bright young man,” Pease said.

“He’d do anything for anybody.”

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

MaineHealth Maine Medical Center in Portland, which has a Level 1 trauma designation, said Saturday that eight of 10 patients brought to the hospital were still being treated. Two patients had been transferred. Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor had been treating one patient who was in critical condition but said Saturday that that patient was transferred to another facility Robbins Lumber’s website describes the company as a “high-tech lumber manu-

facturer” that has been in existence since 1881 and family-owned for five generations. The mill in Searsmont, about 95 miles from Portland, was cooperating with authorities on the investigation and would cease operations at this time, said family spokesperson Christian Halsted. Halsted said Friday that it was a “hugely devastating day for the family.” Lumber and wood products are a critical and historic industry in Maine. The Maine Forest Products Council said it contributed more than $8 billion to the state’s economy in 2024 and provides about 29,000 jobs.

Canadian cruise passenger receives presumptive positive hantavirus test

BY JIM MORRIS Associated Press

VANCOUVER, British Columbia

One of four Canadians who returned home from a cruise ship where there was a hantavirus outbreak received a “presumptive positive” test result for the virus, Canadian officials said Saturday

showing mild symptoms, including a fever and headache, two days ago. Both are in a hospital in Victoria.

“The patient is stable, the symptoms remain mild at this point,” said Henry “They are still in hospital, in isolation, being monitored and receiving care as needed.”

The second person showed “very minor symptoms” and tests were negative, she said.

Dr Tracy Beth Hoeg will be replaced as FDA’s acting drug center director by Dr Mike Davis, who has been serving as deputy director, according to an email sent to agency staff Friday that was obtained by The Associated Press.

Hoeg said in a social media post late Friday that she was “fired,” from the agency, adding: “I learned so much and leave with no regrets.” Hoeg’s departure is the latest in an ongoing shake-up at the powerful regulatory agency.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned earlier in the week, and Dr Vinay Prasad, the agency’s vaccine and biotech chief, stepped down last month following intense criticism from drugmakers, patients and investors.

The agency also announced Friday that Karim Mikhail would take over as acting director of the vaccines center. Mikhail, a longtime pharmaceutical executive, was hired by Makary last spring.

Makary’s ouster from his role atop the FDA followed weeks of complaints from President Donald Trump’s political allies, including anti-abortion groups and vaping lobbyists, who are frustrated with the direction of the agency Hoeg, who is closely aligned with Makary and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had been leading FDA’s drug program since December the latest official to briefly hold that position amid a revolving door of

Those inquiries reflected Hoeg’s longstanding interests and concerns from before joining government

A sports medicine physician and public health scientist, Hoeg first gained attention during the pandemic as a critic of masking, school closures, vaccine mandates and other government measures. She co-wrote papers with other medical contrarians who would go on to join the Trump administration, including Makary and Prasad.

Like Makary and Prasad, Hoeg also frequently expressed her opinions in blog posts and podcasts, including one titled “Vaccine Curious.” The podcast discussed a number of discredited ideas, including that mRNA vaccines may contain harmful DNA contaminants.

A Danish American citizen, Hoeg was instrumental in the Trump administration’s recent effort to drop a number of federally recommended shots for children, including those for the flu and hepatitis B at birth Those changes have been temporarily blocked by a federal judge in Boston, though the administration plans to appeal the decision.

At the FDA, Hoeg led an “initial analysis” of vaccine injuries that linked COVID-19 shots to 10 reported deaths in children without providing the supporting evidence.

The findings were discussed in an internal memo Prasad sent to staffers last November, though the FDA has not formally announced the findings or explained how they were developed.

Results from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg to confirm the case are expected to come over the weekend, said Dr Bonnie Henry, the public health officer for the province of British Columbia.

“Clearly this is not what we hoped for, but it is what we planned for,” Henry said.

The person, one member of a couple in their 70s, began

“It is encouraging that symptoms were identified early, supportive care can be provided, and they will be monitored carefully over the next few days,” Henry said.

Three people have died since the hantavirus outbreak began on the MV Hondius. If confirmed, the

Canadian patient would be the 10th person from the ship to test positive. The outbreak on the ship has reached 12 cases, nine of which have been confirmed. Among those who died are a Dutch couple who health officials believe were the first exposed to the virus while visiting South America. The four Canadians returned to British Columbia on May 10. Besides a couple in their 70s from the Yukon, there was a person in their 70s from Vancouver Island and a B.C. person from British Columbia in their 50s who lives abroad. All were in isolation. Henry said the hantavirus is different from COVID-19 and is not considered to have “pandemic potential.”

France says cruise ship Andes virus matches known South American viruses

By The Associated Press

PARIS France’s Pasteur

Institute said it has fully sequenced the Andes virus detected in a French passenger from the MV Hondius cruise ship and found that it matched viruses already known in South America, with no evidence so far of new characteristics that would make it more transmissible or more dangerous

“The analyzed virus corresponds to the viruses already known and monitored in South America,” Health Minister Stéphanie Rist said Friday on X “At this

stage, no element suggests the emergence” of a form of the virus that could be more transmissible or more dangerous, she said.

Pasteur said genomic analysis confirmed that the virus found in the French passenger matched the virus detected in other cases aboard the ship and closely resembled known Andes virus samples circulating in South America.

“This sequencing work allows us to better understand the virus and to ensure close health monitoring,” Rist said. She added that the data would be shared with

the international scientific community

Pasteur said the viruses detected in patients from the ship were identical to each other and about 97% similar to some Andes viruses circulating in South America, including those identified in rodents. JeanClaude Manuguerra, who heads Pasteur’s Environment and Infectious Risk unit, said the remaining variation appeared to reflect natural viral variation and did not seem to affect the characteristics of the virus detected among travelers.

Search suspendedfor 4Italiansinunderwatercave

Military diver dies in effort in Maldives

BY KRISHAN FRANCIS and GIADAZAMPANO Associated Press

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka Maldivian authoritiesonSaturday suspended the search for the bodies of four Italian divers believedtobedeep inside an underwater cave, after a military diver died during aperilous mission to tryto reach them.

ThegroupoffiveItalian divers is believed to have died while exploringa cave at adepth of about 160 feet in Vaavu Atoll on Thursday, according to Italy’sForeign Ministry.The recreational diving limit in the Maldives is 98 feet.

Maldives presidential spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef said the search was suspended after Mohamed Mahudhee, amember of the Maldivian National Defense Force, diedof underwater decompression sickness after being transferred to ahospital in the capital.

Authorities are awaiting the arrival of three Finnish divers, experts in deep and cave diving, on Sunday,to rethink their search strategy, he said.

Mahudhee will be buried with military honors in afuneralattended by President Mohamed Muzzu on Saturday night. The diver was part of the group that had briefed Muizzu on the rescue plan when he visited the search

site on Friday “The death goes to show the difficulty of the mission,” Shareef said Rough weatherhas repeatedlyhampered rescue efforts.

Searchoperations onSaturday involved eight local divers who worked in shifts to locate themissing Italians, the Italian Foreign Ministry said. Initial teams had already dived to identify and mark the entrance to the cavesystem where the Italiansdisappeared. The cause of the deaths remains under investigation.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said everything possible wouldbedone to bring the victims home. He offered his condolences for the death of the Maldivian diver during therescue efforts.

The victims have been identifiedasMonica Montefalcone,anassociateprofessor of ecology at the University of Genoa; her daughter Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologistFedericoGualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; anddiving instructor Gianluca Benedetti, according to the Maldiviangovernment Benedetti’sbody was recovered on Thursday.His body was found nearthe mouthofthe cave and authorities believed theremainingfour had entered the cave Montefalcone and Oddenino were inthe Maldives on an official scientific mission to monitor marineenvironments and study the effects of climatechange on tropical biodiversity,the University of Genoa said in astatement

Friday. However, the scuba diving activity during which the deadly accidentoccurred was notpart of theplanned research and was “undertaken privately,” it said.

The statement also said the two other victims —student Sommacal andrecent graduate Gualtieri —were notinvolvedinthe scientific mission.

Carlo Sommacal, Montefalcone’shusband and Giorgia’s father,expresseddoubts over the accident, saying that “something musthave happened down there” given his wife and daughter’sextensive experience.

SpeakingtoItalian TV,he

whale’ssituation.

BY GEIR MOULSON and STEFANIE DAZIO Associated Press

BERLIN Ahumpback

whale found dead last week off aDanish island has been identified as the animal released two weeks ago in a spectacular and contentious rescue effort, after repeatedly becoming stranded off Germany’sBaltic Sea coast, authorities said Saturday The dead whalewas stranded on Thursday just off the small island of Anholt in the Kattegat, the broad straitbetween Denmark and Sweden that connects the Baltic Sea to the North Sea.

The site is south of the location about 45 miles from Skagen, on the northern tip of Denmark, where the whalethatgained thenicknames “Timmy” and“Hope” was releasedonMay 2after being transported toward the North Sea in abarge.

“It can now be confirmed that the stranded humpback whale near Anholt is the same whale that was previously stranded in Germany and was the subject of rescue attempts,” Jane Hansen, head of division at the Danish Environmental Protection

Agency,said in an emailed statement Sheaddedthatconditions on Saturdaymade it possible for aDanish Nature Agency employee to locate and retrieve atrackingdevice that was stillfastened to the whale’sback, and “theposition and appearance of the device confirm that this is the same whale thathad previously been observed and handledinGerman waters.”

Thefinding brought asad end to weeks of efforts to guide the mammal back to its habitat in theAtlanticOcean.

The whale was firstspottedoff the German coast on March 3. It’snot clear why it swam into the Baltic Sea, which is far from its habitat anditwasn’tsuitedto, although someexperts said it may have lost itsway while swimming after ashoal of herring or during migration In late March, it wasrescued from shallowwater in the German Baltic resort town of Timmendorfer Strand with thehelp of an excavator,but it soon ran into trouble again nearby Local mediaproduced dayslong livestreams, and news sites alerted readers to the smallest developments in the

At thebeginning of April, experts saidthat they had givenuphopefor thewhale and expected it to die in the inletwhere it was stranded at the time.

But the whale’sdeteriorating conditionprompted acontroversythatdrewin privately funded rescuers, regional authorities and the scientific community.Activists stagedprotests calling forthe animal’srescue, while influencers debated the best way to help it

Some scientists said that further rescue efforts would in themselvescause the ailing andexhausted animal severe stress.

The regionalgovernment in Germany’s MecklenburgWestern Pomerania state allowed aprivaterescue initiativetogoahead with the ambitious effort to pull the whale onto aflooded barge.

The initiative confirmed thatthe number tracking device found on the dead animal corresponded with the one that had been attached to the whale, German news agency dpa reported. It noted that it wasn’t possible to say conclusively what caused the whale’sdeath.

describedMontefalconeas acareful and highly disciplined diver who would never put herdaughterorother colleagues at risk.

The Italiantouroperator that managesthe Maldives’ diving trip denied authorizing or knowing aboutthe deep dive that violated local limits,its lawyer told Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Saturday Orietta Stella, representingAlbatros TopBoat, said theoperator “did notknow” thegroupplanned to descend beyond 30 meters. That threshold requires special

permission from Maldivian maritime authorities and the tour operator “would have never allowed it,” she said.

The dive far exceeded what was planned for ascientific cruise focusedoncoral sampling at standard depths, Stella added. The victims wereexperienced divers, but the equipment used appeared to be standard recreational gear rather than technical equipment suited for deep cave diving, she said.

She also clarified that Albatros only marketed the cruise andneither owned thevessel nor employed the crew,

which was hiredlocally Cavedivingisa highly technical anddangerous activitythatrequires specialized training, equipment and strict safety protocols. Risks increasesharply in environmentswhere divers cannot head straight up and at depth, particularlywhen conditions arepoor.Experts say it’seasy to become disoriented or lost inside caves, particularlyassediment clouds can sharply reduce visibility Diving at 160feetalsoexceeds the maximum depth recommendedfor recreational divers by most major established scuba certifying agencies, with depths beyond 131 feet consideredtechnical diving and requiring specialized training and equipment. The Italian Foreign Ministry said the cave is divided into threelargechambers connected by narrowpassages. Recovery teams explored two of the three chambers on Friday, but thesearch was limited duetoconsiderations over oxygen and decompression.

Italian officials said that around 20 other Italians on the same expedition aboard the vessel“Duke of York” weresafe. Italy’sembassy in Colombo was providing assistance to those onboard and had contacted the Red Crescent, which offered to deployvolunteerstohelp provide psychological aid. TheMaldivesTourism Ministry said it suspended the operating license of the “Duke of York” pending an investigation.

LSULCMCHealthCancer Center reshapes healthcare with clinical trials that areatthe forefront of medicalinnovation

By Amanda McElfresh | amcelfresh@theadvocate.com

ForDenisePhipps, afrightening trip to theemergency room forchest pain turned into adiagnosis that could have easily stripped away hope ThelifelongNew Orleansresident, amotherofsix andagrandmotherofmorethan20, initiallythought shemight be having aheart attack.Instead,doctors discovered amassinone of herlungs. Furthertesting revealed themasswas Stage3 lung cancer that was already spreading to otherpartsofPhipps’ body

In many hospitals, thefocus wouldhaveshifted to palliative care –treatmentdesignedtomanagesymptoms andextendlife, rather than cure thedisease.But, physiciansattheLSULCMCHealthCancerCentersaw anotherpossibility

Phippswaseligibleforanationalclinicaltrial,oneof morethan100activetrialscurrentlyunderwaythrough theLSULCMCHealthCancerCenter.Today,aftertreatmentthatincludedadvancedtherapiesandsurgery,she is in complete clinicalremission

“She hadaremarkableresponse,”saidDr. Leonard Wudel,ChiefofThoracicSurgeryandAssociateProfessoratLSUSchoolofMedicine.“Almostallofthecanceroussitesweregoneafterherclinicaltrialwascomplete. It’s amazingtosee what canhappenwhenyou areable to treatapatientwithcurativeintent, especially when youknowasaphysician that sheprobablywould not havesurvivedifaclinicaltrialwasnotavailabletoher.”

‘Builders’ drivemedical innovation and precisiontreatments

TheLSU LCMC Health Cancer Center hasrapidly expandeditsclinicaltrialportfolioinrecentyearsasit positionsitselfasoneoftheGulfSouth’sleadingcancer research hubs andworks toward achievingNational CancerInstitutedesignation,astatusnotcurrentlyheld by anyinstitutionsinLouisiana or Mississippi.

“Medicinecannotadvance withoutclinicaltrials. Theyaretheonlywaytodeterminewhetheranewtreatmentoranewpreventativemeasurewillwork,”saidDr. LucioMiele,directoroftheLSULCMCHealthCancer Center.“Clinicaltrialsarenolongerseenastherouteyou takewhenyouhavenootheroptions.Ourtrialsrunthe gamutofcancertreatmentfromthe very earlyphases to late phases.Wehavetrialsthatinvestigatenot only newinterventions,butnewstrategiestopreventcancer or detect it earlier.”

Dr.Miele said theongoing clinicaltrialsatLSU LCMC Health Cancer Center addressdifferentforms ofthedisease,includinggynecological,breast,lungand pancreatic.The center is expandingits clinicaltrials intobraintumors,andplanstosoonbeginnewstudies on CAR-Ttherapy To be acandidate for aclinicaltrial,Dr. Mielesaid apatientmustmeetcertainclinicalanddemographic criteria.Increasingly,researchersalsoensurepatients havetumorswithspecificmolecularfeaturesthatindicate acertain medication or treatmentismorelikely to be effective

“Whatweare doingnow is precisiononcology.We areworking to be at theforefront of medicine with the trialsthatusethisapproach,”hesaid.“That’swhyIlook for builders –high-energy people whoare notcontent with doingthingsthe waytheyhavealwaysbeendone. Icameheretomakeadifferencebybringingthebestin cancer medicine to an area whereitpreviouslyhas not been available,and I’mlooking to bringinpeoplewho sharethatgoal.” Treatmentaccessspurs renewedhopeand a fight forthe future in Louisiana Unsurprisingly,Phippssaidshe hada deeply emotionalreactiontolearningabout hercancerdiagnosis.Therewereplentyoftearsfromherandherfamily. AsalongtimecaregiverandCertifiedNursingAssistant formorethan40years,shehadseenfirsthandtheimpact that diseases canhaveonpeople.

“Wecriedalot,”shesaid.“Nobodyeverwantstohear that they have cancer.Ithit allofusreallyhard. When Dr.Wudel andhis colleagues recommended Phippsenrollinaclinicaltrial,therewasnohesitation. “Iwasupforitrightaway,”shesaid.“Icouldtellthat Dr.Wudel knew what he wastalking about.

Patientsalwayshavethefinalsayinwhethertoparticipateinaclinicaltrial,but Dr.Wudel said it is rare that someonedecidesnottoenroll.Whensomeonesaysyes toaclinicaltrial,Dr.Wudelsaidheandhiscolleaguesare intentionalaboutexplainingthedauntingcommitment thatliesahead–oftenatleastayearfulloftests,labwork, procedures,medical appointments andmedications

“Weexplain that this is goingtobethe focusofyour life for at leastthe next 12 months,” he said.“It canbe adifficult conversation becausea more conventional treatmentpathisnotreadilyavailable,andpatientshave tounderstandthattheclinicaltrialmightnothelpthem. But,themajorityofpatientswanttodothis.Theywant togivethemselvesachanceandhavesomehopewhere thereotherwise mightnot be any.”

InPhipps’case,sheunderwentsurgery,chemotherapy andother treatments,and recently hadanother operation to addresscancerthathad spread to herthyroid Today,sheisdoingwellandisworkingtoregainhervoice soshecankeephavingconversationswithherchildren andgrandchildren,including anew baby on theway “Itwas abig decision,but Iprayedonitand IknewI wasdoing theright thing,”she said Phipps’treatment wasmadeeasierbythe fact that ittookplaceinNewOrleans.Dr.Mielesaidakeypriorityfor theLSU LCMC Health Cancer Center is to help morepeoplelikePhippsaccesscutting-edgetreatment withoutleaving thestate “Travelisexpensive andinconvenient, andnot everyone canaffordit. It createsabarrier to clinical trialparticipationthatwewanttoeliminate,”Dr.Miele said.“WewantLouisianapatientstohavejustasmuch of an opportunityfor clinical trials as residentsinany otherpart of thecountry.”

LOUISIANAPOLITICS

Kennedy’sbillpasses, hoping to stop anothershutdown

WASHINGTON —Because legislationbyU.S.Sen. John Kennedy

was unanimously approvedlast week in the upper chamber,senators won’tget paid when the government shuts down in the future because partisan bickering keeps Congress from passing spending authorizations

The government was fully operational for only 103 days out of the last 226 betweenOct.1, when the current fiscal year began, and Friday

The Madisonville Republican predicts another shutdown before voters go to the pollsand decide if Republicans will maintain majoritiesinthe House and Senate But the pay ban won’ttake effect until after the November midterm elections —apoint to whichKennedy agreed to get his resolution passed.

Kennedy voiced concern “that my Senate colleagues on the Democratic side are going to try to shut down government yetagain right before the elections to try to create chaos to affect the midterm elections.”

Without authorization to spend money,the federal government ceasedmanyoperations for arecord43 days in 2025, when Democrats demanded an extension of subsidies forthosewho would otherwise see their Affordable CareAct healthinsurancepremiums double. Then, the governmentclosed for another four days earlier this year because ofdelays on the votes necessary to continue operations.

The Department of Homeland Security then went without funding for another 76 days, from Feb. 14 to April 30, over Democratic demands for greater accountability in the Trump administration’s deportation efforts after federal officers fatally shot two U.S. citizens.

Legislature heading into homestretch

The Louisiana Legislature has until June 1tofinishworkon several major issues, including congressional redistrictingand a budget for state government. The latter part of this year’s session hasbeen dominatedbya hurried effort to draw new districts for the U.S. House in the wake of aU.S. Supreme Court decision that found the state’scurrent voting map unconstitutional. After several marathon hearings and intense debate, the Senate has passed a map that would eliminate one of the state’stwo majority-Black, Democratic controlled districts.

The House and Governmental Affairs Committee is expected to take up the bill this week, in ahearing that could mirror the

Theseshutdowns were over appropriations forthe Fiscal Year 2026,which beganOct.1,2025, andexpiresonSept. 30, 2026.

This week, the House hopes to consider legislation that clears up theshort-term patches used to getgovernment back to workin Fiscal Year 2026, House Speaker MikeJohnson,R-Benton, said at aFriday morning news conference. Senate Majority Leader JohnThune, R-S.D., told reporters Thursday that the Senate also would be advancingits version.

To end thelast partial government shutdown, Congress began fundingDepartment of Homeland Security officessuch as the FederalEmergency Management Agency andthe Transportation Security Administration —but not the Immigration &Customs Enforcement andU.S. Customs &Border Patrol officers. FEMA, TSA, andother parts of Homeland Security got caught up in a partisan battle over how theICE andBorder Patrolagentswere carrying outthe Trumpadminis-

hourslong,emotionally charged meetings in the Senate. Avote in thefullHouse will likely happen late this week or early nextweek

House Speaker Phillip DeVillier has said he generally supports themap theSenate passed,but members of his chamber maywanttotweak some of the specificdistrictlines. If they do, the bill would have to go backtothe Senate for concurrence.

tration’sdeportation effort. Democrats wanted agents to removetheir masks, wear badges and body cams, as well as other provisions. Republicans —atleast most of them —refused to consider those changes. So Democrats refused to approve Homeland Security funding, knowing that the Sen-

Meanwhile, the Senate will be figuring out how to trim the budget for stategovernment that the House passed earlier in the session.

Theforecast for how much revenue the state has for the next fiscal year,which starts July 1, has shrunk by roughly $104 million.

SenatePresident Cameron Henry has said his chamber will remove Gov.Jeff Landry’srequesttoadd to $43 million tothe state’sLA GATOR school voucher program.Other new spending in the House version of thebudget, including newmoney for prisons, payraises for judges and increased fundingfor school opera-

tional costs, is also potentially on thechopping block. While those two marquee debates are happening, lawmakers will also be pushing over the next two weekstopass any other legislation they have proposed. That includes a bill that makes it illegal to sleep on the street,which supporters say is meantto get homeless people into treatment or other help; bills giving theLegislature more power to removejudges and other elected officials from office; and abill to get rid of inspection stickers, among hundreds of others.

Kennedy introduces bill to cap insulin price

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy,RMadisonville, has introduced a bill that would cap the price of insulin, the drug used to treat diabetes, at $35 amonth.

Kennedy’sbill would set aprice cap and require theDepartment of Health and Human Services to create aprogram reimbursing entities for costs over the limit.

He argues thebill will ultimate-

ate would need 60 votes and the Republicanmajority held only 53 seats. House andSenate GOPleadership opted to again go with a parliamentary procedure called reconciliation, which is only supposed to be used in emergencies when more money is needed than was originally approved. The

ly save the federal government money by reducing the expensive treatments that ensue when people skip doses of insulin due to cost, leading to much moreserious health problems.

“My bill is not somenew welfare program that spends money we don’thave. My bill saves money,” Kennedy wrote. A2024 law that capped the price of insulin at $35 forAmericans on Medicaid reduced diabetesrelated medical expenses by 5%, Kennedy said in the release.

About 486,600 adults in Louisiana havediabetes, the release said. The federal government spends about$307 billion ayear on diabetes-related healthcare.

LindaMcMahon endorses increase to LA GATOR

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has endorsed Gov. Jeff Landry’spush to roughly double funding forLAGATOR, thestate’sschool voucher program

“I urge Louisiana lawmakers to support @LAGovJeffLandry’s budget proposal to expand the incredibly successful GATOR school choice program,” McMa-

method is now frequently pulled out to get around the filibuster rules and pass budget itemswith abare majority of 51 votes. Congress has approved 24 budget reconciliations in the 46 years since the rules were established. Last summer’sOne Big BeautifulBill Act was areconciliation. The massive measure included tax breaks, Medicaid workrequirements, and other pieces of Trump’sdomestic agenda, which no Democrat would support. Reconciliation is acrooked path that requires beginning in committee, then passing by the parliamentarian to ensure that the language fits the strict reconciliation rules. Then, aseries of procedural votes is necessary Thune wants a“thin reconciliation” that focuses only on funding ICEand Border Patrol without the concessions Democrats sought. Johnson is pushing asimilar resolution in the House. Conservatives in both chambers also want moretax breaks, more spending cuts and arequirement to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Others want to makeadjustments to healthcare. But leadership fears adding other elements would open the door forDemocrats to try to include, say,anextension on subsidies that helped workers whoearn too much to qualifyfor Medicaid pay medical insurance policies bought on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Additional issues also could create factions among GOPmembers. To avoid failure, leadership can’tafford but three Senate Republicans switching sides or three House Republicans. Johnson and Thune say Republicans are considering athird reconciliation bill forlater this summer to include those other issues.

Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate.com.

hon said in apost on X. “This expansion will empower more families and students across the Pelican State to choose the best possible education.”

Landry has asked lawmakers to add $45 million to the program, which gives parents money to send their children to private school or cover homeschooling expenses.

The state House has approved a budget that includes the increase, but the Senate is likely to remove it before the session ends June 1. Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, has been adamant that senators have concerns about unsustainable growth in the program’s cost. Also, legislators are having to cut money from the budget after recent revenue forecasts came in lower than expected.

Landry thanked McMahon for her support of LA GATOR in a response post on X.

“Pro LA GATOR meanspro student and pro family!” Landry wrote.

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AfterChina trip,Trump returnstoescalatinginflation

BY JOSH BOAK Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump returned from the spectacleofaChinese state visit to aless than welcoming U.S. economy with the military bandand garden tour in Beijing giving way to pressureover how to fix America’sescalating inflation rate.

Consumer inflation in the United States increased to 3.8%annually in April, higher than what he inherited as the Iran war and the Republican president’sown tariffs have pushed up prices. Inflation is now outpacing wage gainsand effectively making workers poorer.The Cleveland Federal Reserve estimates that annual inflation could reach 4.2% in May as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high.

Trump’stime with Chinese leaderXiJinping appears unlikely to help the U.S. economy much, despite Trump’sclaims of coming trade deals. The trip occurred as many people are voting in primaries leading into the November general election while havingtoabsorb the rising costs of gasoline, groceries, utility bills, jewelry,women’sclothing, airplane tickets and delivery services. Democratssee the moment as apolitical opportunity

“He’sreturning to adumpster fire,” said Lindsay Owens, executive directorof Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal think tank focusedon economic issues. “The president will not have the faith and confidence of the American people —the economy is their top issue and the president is saying, ‘You’re on your own.’”

The president’strip to Beijing andhis recentcomments that indicated atonedeafness to voters’ concerns about rising prices havesug-

gestedhis focus is notonthe American public and have undermined Republicans who had intended to campaign on last year’stax cuts as helping families.

Trump described thetrip as avictory,saying on social media that Xi “congratulated me on so many tremendous successes,”asthe U.S. president haspraisedtheir relationship.

Trump told reporters that Boeing would be selling 200 aircraft —and maybe even 750 “ifthey do agood job” —to the Chinese.He said American farmers wouldbe “veryhappy” because China would be “buying billions of dollars ofsoybeans.”

“Wehad an amazing time,”

Trump said as he flew home on Air Force One, and told Fox News’ Bret Baier in an interview that gasoline prices were just some“shortterm pain” and would “drop like arock”once thewar ends

Trump departed from the White Housefor China by saying the negotiations over theIran war depended on stopping Tehran fromdeveloping nuclear weapons. “I don’tthink about Americans’ financialsituation. Idon’t thinkabout anybody.I think about onething: We cannot let Iran have anuclearweapon,”Trumpsaid. That remark prompted blowback because it suggested to somethat Trump cared more about challenging Iran thanfighting inflation at home. Trumpdefended his words, telling Fox News: “That’sa perfect statement I’dmake it again.”

The White Househas since stressed that Trumpisfocusedoninflation.

Askedlater about the president’s words, Vice President JD Vancesaidthere hadbeen a“misrepresentation” of the remarks. White House spokesman KushDesai said the “administrationremains

laser-focused on delivering growthand affordability on the homefront” while indicating actions would be taken on grocery prices.

But as Trump appeared alongside Xi, new reports backhomeshowed inflation rising for businessesand interest ratesclimbing on U.S. government debt

His comments that Boeing would sell 200 jets to China caused the company’sstock price to fall becauseinvestors hadexpected alarger number.There waslittle concrete information offered aboutany trade agreements reached during thesummit, including Chinese purchases of U.S. exports suchasliquefied natural gas and beef.

“Foreign policy wins can matter politically,but only if voters feel stabilityand affordability in theirdaily lives,”saidBrittany Martinez, aformer Republican congressionalaide whoisthe executive directorofPrinciples First, acenter-right

Cargotrain hits busatBangkok rail crossing,killing at least8

By The Associated Press

BANGKOK Atrain crashedintoa public bus on Saturday in Thailand’s capital, Bangkok killing at least eight people.

Thai news reported the crash happened in thelate afternoon near an airportrailway station in the central area. The city’semergency services, Erawan Medical Center said at leasteight people were killedand more than 20 others wereinjured.

Footage of the momentofthe crash shared on social media showed aline of vehicles had stopped at arailwaycrossingwhena cargo train struck an orange bus.The impact also dragged several nearby vehicles along the tracks before the bus was engulfed in flames. Several motorcycles and their riders were also seen being thrown onto the road after the collision Later videos showed agroup of rescuers entering thecharredbus afterthe flames were brought under control.

Deputy Transport Minister SiripongAngkasakulkiattold reporters at thecrashsite that all the bodies were found on the bus. He said it was still unclear how many people were on board.

advocacy group focused on democracy issues.

“Midterms arealmostalways areferendum on cost of living and public frustration, and Republicans are not immune from thesame inflation and affordability pressuresthat hurt Democrats in recent cycles,” she added. Democratic lawmakers are seizing on Trump’scomments before his trip as proof of his indifference to loweringcosts. There is potential staying powerofhis remarks as Americans head into Memorial Dayweekend facing rising prices for the hamburgers and hot dogs to be grilled.

“What Americans do not see is any sympathy, any support, or any plan from Trumpand congressionalRepublicans to lower costs —in fact, they seethe opposite,” Senate Democratic leader ChuckSchumerofNew York said Thursday Vance faulted the Biden administration for the inflation problem even though the inflation rate is now higher than it waswhen Trump returned to the White House in January 2025 with aspecific mandate to fix it.

“The inflation number last month wasnot great,” Vance said Wednesday, but he then stressed, “We’re not seeing

anything like what we saw underthe Bidenadministration.”

Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 underBiden, aDemocrat. By the time Trump took the oathofoffice, it was afar more modest 3%.

The data tells adifferent story as higherinflation is spreading into thecost of servicing the national debt. Over the past week, the interest rate charged on 10year U.S. government debt jumpedfrom 4.36% to 4.6%, an increasethatimplies highercosts forauto loans and mortgages.

“My fear is that the layers of supply shocks that are affecting the U.S. economy will only further feed into inflationary pressures,” said Gregory Daco, chiefeconomist at EY-Parthenon.

Daco noted that last year’s tariff increases were now translatingintohigher clothing prices. With the Supreme Court ruling against Trump’sability to impose tariffs by declaring an economic emergency,his administration is preparing a newset of import taxes for this summer Daco stressedthatthere have been aseriesofsupply shocks. First, tariffs cut into the supply of imports. In addition, Trump’simmigration crackdown cut into the supply of foreign-born workers. Now,the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off the vital waterway used to ship 20% of global oil supplies.

“We’re seeing an erosion of growth,” Daco said.

contributionstoits development.

KittipongRaksa saidheparked his car nearthe train tracks when he heard the signalindicating the train was about to pass.

“I heard athud andthenanother.I heard something hitting my car,”saidKittipong.

“ThenI sawthe trainpass, dragging the bus withit.” He said after the collision, he found someone caughtunder his car,with abroken leg.

Kittipong saidhedid notsee thebarriers being lowered.

When asked about reports that the bus had stopped on the railway tracks and that the barriers, used to keep motorists away from thetrackswhen thetrains are passing, may not have lowered properly,Siripong said the matterstill needs to be investigated.

As thestate’s industrial sectorexpands to includenew job opportunitiesinautomation, advanced manufacturingand steel production, LouisianaCommunity andTechnicalCollegesisworking to ensure theirprogramsadapt to meet current andfuture demands.

ForBaton RougeCommunity CollegestudentsJaidenTrahanand Hope Robertson, theseprogramsrepresent pathways toward stable long-termcareers supporting thestate’s economy.

“BRCCisaffordable, closetohomeand hasa good reputation forpreparing students forreal-world jobs,” said Trahan, whois studying processtechnologyatBRCC. Theprogram prepares students forcareers in industrial plants,suchaschemical,petroleumand manufacturingfacilities.

B.J. Bertucci,RPCCDeanofCareerand Technical Education, said the partnershipwithHyundai is agreat exampleofhow thecollege works with industries to developprogramsthatwilltrain localstudentsnot only forexistingcareers,but forjobsthatare expected to become availableinthe future as technology evolves. In addition to the Hyundai training center,RPCCisplanning to launch acomprehensive advanced manufacturingprogram in thecomingyears.Meanwhile, Bertucci said RPCC instructorsare weavingadvanced manufacturing educationintoexistingprogramsinprocess technology,welding industrial maintenanceand drafting

Sweetest

Trahan said theBRCCprocess technology traininghas been robust,coveringplant operations,safetyprocedures, equipment operation, process control andproblem-solving.The educationhas also helped Trahan learntoworkwellunder pressure andaspart of ateam.Ashenearscompletioninthe program,Trahansaidhe envisionsa strong future in the field.

“Mycareergoalistoworkasaprocess operator in aplant,” he said.“Iwanttohavea stable,well-paying job andpossiblyadvance into higherpositions over time,suchasa lead operator or supervisor.”

“We’re having alot of conversationswithindustrypartnersto learnmoreabout what aspectsoftheir manufacturingare now automated or on theirway to beingautomated,” Bertucci said “We’re trying to look at what theneedswillbethree to five years in thefuturesowecan addressthose now.

Hope Robertson, another BRCC processtechnologystudent,said shewas attractedtothe programbecause of itsaccessibility and relevancyinthe modern economy. Thepractical knowledge sheis gaining, including howequipment such as distillation columns, coolingtowersand controlloops operate, will be applicable in multiple settings

As an educator,Ray Tanner uses that same philosophy each day. Tanner is aPolymer MajorMachinery Specialist at ExxonMobil ProductSolutions in BatonRouge,and also serves as an instructor in BRCC’s millwright program. Tanner said hiscoursesinclude basic knowledge aboutconstructionand millwrighting,propertoolusage howtotakeaccuratemeasurementsand more.Healsoemphasizes safety proceduresand howimportant it is to do things theright way, even if it takesa little longer

“Mycareergoalisnot only to become aprocess operator,but to excelinmy field,”she said.“Iamcommitted to developing the skills andknowledge necessarytosucceed,provide formyfamily andbuild astableand rewardingfuture.”

“It’sverygratifyingtosee students whocomeinwithout any knowledgeabout millwrighting,thentheir eyes lightupwhenthey graspthe concepts andunderstandtheyhavethe abilitytoworkin this field,”Tanner said.“They arelearning skills they canuse for therestoftheir lives, andtheystart to seethatthere arecareer opportunitiesfor them.IlovetobeapartofBRCCand stepping up to help students learn they have notonlythe capacity to do these jobs,but also an avenue to reachthose goals.

LCTC educatorssaidthatcreatingthose typesofviablecareer pathways reflects thebroader missionbehindthe institutions workforcetraininginitiatives.Tofulfill that mission, LCTC works closelywithindustrypartnerstoensurethatprogramsare aligned with workforceneeds. Akey wincameinFebruary, when officials brokegroundonthe newRiver Parishes Community CollegeHyundai Training Center in Donaldsonville.The center is expected to open in late 2027 or early2028, although some steelmanufacturing education is expected to be availableatRPCCcampuses sooner.The curriculum will focusonelectricalmaintenance,mechanicalmaintenance and advanced manufacturing.

“Webelieve that thetalentedindividualstrained here will play a vitalroleinthe successful start-up of oursteel mill andinachieving rapidand sustainablegrowthinthe yearsahead,” HyundaiSteel Presidentand CEOBoRyong Leesaidatthe groundbreakingceremony.

“Weare acompany that investsinpeople, technology andthe local community.Weare deeply committedtoworking in harmonywith thecommunity andgrowing together,strivingtomakemeaningful

BY SHARON LURYE Associated Press

ARDMORE, Pa.— For high school senior Aliyah Pack, getting distracted during school is thenorm. Kids in her Pennsylvania schooldistrict use iPads starting in kindergarten, switch to Chromebooks in second grade and get their own MacBooks in eighth grade.

Aliyah said she has difficulty focusing, and she finds it hard to concentrate when she’slearning from ascreen. She’ll watch Netflix in class on her school laptop, hiding her earbudsbehind her long, curly hair

“It’svery hard to get into the mindset of being in school,” Aliyah said.

Aliyah’smother saw her grades were falling and asked the school to take away her laptop.But she was told that wasn’tpossible.

Across the country,parents are voicing concerns about excessive screen time in schools and lobbying educatorstogoback topencil and paper In places like Lower Merion Township, where Aliyah goes to high school, some are taking it even further.Over 600 peoplein the affluent Philadelphia suburb have signed apetition asking to preserve parents’ ability to opt their children out of using digital devices during the school day.The public school districthas pushed back, saying it’snot feasible to let hundredsofstudents opt out of technology that is essential tothe curriculum.

At ameeting last week,school boardmemberssaidtheywere considering manyways to respond to parental concerns about technology,but allowing opt-outs wasnot one of them.

“There is not an option for us to not have technology in schools,” said Lower Merion School Board member Anna Shurak.

EDUCATION

Theboard wasmeeting to discuss updates to the district’s technology policies, including repealing apolicy that allows optouts. Over 100 peopleshowed up to protest, many wearing buttons that said “Screens Down, Pencils Up.”

Many emphasizedthey’renot anti-tech —infact, mostparents agree that learning how to responsibly use computers is an essentiallifeskill. They just don’twant tech todominatethe classroom.

“Teaching how to use technology is not the same thing as using technology to teacheverything else,” said Sara Sullivan, aparent.

Technology inescapable

The debate inLower Merion raisesthe question of whether technology has become so intertwined with learningthat it’s impossible to opt out

Kidsuse devices to play educationalgames,submit their homework,accessonline resourcesand write essays —but parentsare questioningthe value of gamified edtech software.

Subashini Subramanian said thesoftware her second-grade daughter uses formath, DreamBox, incentivizes rushing through levels to gain points. When she encouraged her daughter to think through the problemsmethodically,the 8-year-old said, “IfIgo through all the steps, it’sslowing me down. Ihave to click, click, click.”

At the school board meeting, manyparents saidthey wereexhaustedfrom battlingtheir kids over screen time.

Adam Washington says hisson struggles with screen addiction, so sometimes he takes away his phone or TV —only to find him watching YouTube on the school laptop instead

“The screen is killing him.Itis killing me, and him, together with ourrelationship,” Washington said.

Anotherparent at the meeting questioned what students would do instead of using their computers.

“Opting out is not asolution. It’s avoiding the hard work of finding

asolution,” Seth Ruderman said. Parental pushback

The pushback on technology in theclassroom has gained steam around the country.Atleast 14 states have proposed laws to limit screen time in schools, according to Ballotpedia, with four states —Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Iowa —passing such legislation.

In Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest school district said it will ban screens until secondgrade,require daily caps for screen time per grade, ban YouTube and require an audit of all education technology contracts.

In Vermont, proposed legislation would allownot justparents but alsoteachers to decline to use classroom tech.Democratic State Rep. Angela Arsenault, abill cosponsor,saidshe’s responding to parents’ worriesabout edtech.

“Parents in many districts and states just aren’t being listened to or not being heard when theyask that theirstudents not be forced to use these products,” Arsenault said.

The Lower Merion school districtsaid it’slistening to community concerns andhas already made changes, including blocking some problematic websites flagged by parents.

“Wehave wonderful teachers who have continuously prioritized human interactionand relationships,”Superintendent Frank Ranelli wrote in aletter to parents. He declined to commenttothe AP for this story

The district said it is looking into possible changes,includingstronger cellphonerestrictions, not allowing the youngest students to take devices home andinstalling software to monitorstudents in class.

However,surveillance software can bring its own problems and poses risks to student privacy.In 2010, the Lower Merion School District paid$610,000 to settle lawsuits by two studentswho alleged thedistrict had spied on them via thewebcam on their school-issued

laptops.

High school student Mia Tatar, 16, raised concerns at the board meeting that there’sbeen an unintended consequence to theantitech backlash. The internetfilters on school computers arenow so strict, she said she’s been blocked while doing research on appropriatetopicsfor school,like breast cancer Mia said students need to learn how to responsibly use technology, and adding filters or getting rid of laptops won’tdothat.

“It doesn’tteach kids howto hold themselves accountable and how to be responsible for regulating their ownscreen timeonce they’re in the world,” Mia said in an interview

Her friend Elliot Campbell, 15, said there should be strict limits on screen use in the youngest grades, but students should get morefreedom as they get older

“If we lose ourlaptops or if we lose the partialfreedom we have on them, it’snot going to prepare us forcollege,” Elliottoldboard members at the hearing.

Fellow high schooler Joaquin Imaizumi takesadifferent view. He said it’s“completely unfair” to expect children to regulate their usage of devices that even adults find addictive.

“This isn’tabout learning to constrainyourself,” he said in an interview.“We don’tgivesomeone drugs and say,‘OK,now learn how to deal with this.’”

His biggest concern is that devices make it far too tempting to accessAItoolslike ChatGPT,which he sees eroding his classmates’ ability to think forthemselves.

“I’ve seen the atrophy of my peers’ thinking, whichisexistentially concerning,” Joaquin said.

Theinfluence of AI starts early. Asecond-grader named Lillian Keshet, whogot up to speak at the boardmeeting, said Google Docs will give her “suggestions” about what to write in class.

“I’m apretty good writer by myself,” Lillian said. “I don’tneed your suggestions, Google!”

Congolesereportconstantburials as eboladeathsrise

At least80 reported dead

By The Associated Press

BUNIA, Congo— At least 80 deaths have been reported in Congo’snew Ebola disease outbreak in the eastern Ituri province, authorities said, as health workers raced Saturday to intensify screening and contact tracing to contain the disease. Officials first announced the outbreak on Friday,with 65 deaths and 246 suspected cases.

Meanwhile, Associated Press journalists in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, interviewed locals who recounted their fears and constant burials.

“Every day,people are dying and this hasbeengoing on for about aweek.In asingle day,webury two, three, or even more people,” said Jean Marc Asimwe, a resident of Bunia. “At this point, we don’treally know what kind of diseaseitis,” said Asimwe.

Congolese Health Minister Samuel-RogerKamba said late Friday that there have been eight laboratory-confirmed cases, among them four deaths.

Ahealth officialuses athermometer to screen

Hospital in Kampala,Uganda.

Test results confirmed the Bundibugyo virus, avariant of thediseasethathas been less prominent in Congo’spast outbreaks. This is Congo’s17th outbreak since Ebola first emerged in the country in 1976. Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted through bodily fluids suchas vomit, blood,orsemen.The

disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.

suggestive of Ebola. Uganda confirmed Friday

an Ebolacasethatauthorities said was“imported” fromCongo.The person diedatthe Kibuli Muslim Hospital in Uganda’scapital, Kampala, on May 14.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control andPrevention had said it is concerned aboutthe risk of further spread due to the proximity of affected areas to Uganda and South Sudan.

The body of the patient who diedinKampalawas latertaken back to Congo and no other local case has been confirmed, Uganda’s Health Ministry said.

On Saturday,people were being screened at the entrance of the Kibuli Muslim Hospital.

Ismail Kigongo, who resides in Kampala, said the new outbreak reminded him of hisfather,whom he lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I reallyget scared

because Iremember burying my father without looking at his body,” he said. Kenya, Uganda’sneighbor,said Saturday that thereisonly a“moderate risk of importation” of the Ebola virus due to regional travel. Kenya’sgovernment said it has formed an Ebola preparedness team and has strengthened surveillance at all points of entry Congohas experience managing Ebola outbreaks butoften faceslogistical challenges in delivering expertise and supplies to affected regions. As Africa’ssecond-largest country by land area, Congo’sprovinces are far from one another and mostly battling conflict. Ituri, forinstance, is around 620 miles from the nation’scapital, Kinshasa, and is ravaged by violence from Islamic Statebacked militants.

Thesuspectedindex case in thelatest outbreak is a nurse whodiedata hospitalinBunia, Kamba said. He said the case dates back three weeks to April 24.

He did not say whether samplesfromthe nurse were tested,but said the person presented symptoms

Pope createsstudy group on artificialintelligence

BY NICOLE WINFIELD

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY Pope Leo XIV hascreated astudy group on artificial intelligence, the Vatican said Saturday,ashe gears up to release his first encyclical that is expected to emphasize the need for an ethics-based approach to the technology that prioritizes human dignity and peace. The Vatican said Leo had decided to create the in-house study group because of the acceleration in AI’s use, “its potential effects on human beings and on humanity as awhole (and) the church’sconcern for the dignity of every human being.”

The announcement came a day after Leo signed his encyclical, 135 years to the day after his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, dated hismostimportant encyclical, “Rerum Novarum,” or Of New Things. That document addressed workers’ rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers as the Industrial Revolution was underway It became the foundation of modern Catholic social thought, and the current pope has already cited it in relation to the AI revolution, which he believes poses the same existential questions that the IndustrialRevolutionposedovera century ago. The new encyclicalis expected to place the AI question in the context of the church’ssocial teaching, which also coversissues such as labor,justice and peace.

Just daysafter his 2025 election,Leo told thecardinals who made him pope that theCatholic Church owed it to theworldtooffer the “treasury of its social teaching” to confront thechallenges posed by AI on “human dignity,justice and labor.”

Thepublicrelease of the encyclical, expected in thecoming weeks, will likely become anew flashpoint between the Chicago-born Leo andthe Trump administration, which hasmade the rapid development of AI amatter of vital national economic and security strategy.The United Stateshas strongly rejected international regulatory effortstoreininAI andthe Trump administra-

“I thinkthat the Catholic Church in many ways is going to be the adult in the room on someofthese debates about how we are going to integrate AI into therest of our society,” said Meghan Sullivan, aphilosophy professor at theUniversityof Notre Dame who directs its ethics institute. “For sure, the pope is goingtobeone of the most forceful advocates for human dignity in these discussions.”

tionhas removed bureaucratic roadblocks slowing its development domestically

The flurry of Vatican activity came as U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up avisit to China that included AI business. Traveling with Trump on AirForce One were, amongothers, Elon Musk, whose social media platform Xfeatures his AI chatbot Grok, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who recentlysecured federal approval to sell H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers.

Sincethe AI boom kicked off with ChatGPT’s debut, thetechnology’sbreathtaking capabilities have amazed the world. Tech companies have raced to develop better AI systems even as experts warn of itsrisks, from existentialbut far-offthreats like rogue AIsrunning amok to everyday problems like bias in algorithmic hiring systems

Tourismplays avital role in Louisiana’s economic andculturalidentity,supportingjobs, businesses andcommunities across thestate From world-renowned festivalsand cuisine to historyand outdoorexperiences,Louisiana attracts millions of visitors each year to both largecitiesand smalltowns

In 2024,Louisiana experienced$16.2 billion in travel spending,and travel drove$990 millionintax receipts in thestate,according to theLouisiana LieutenantGovernor’sOffice. Thetourism industry supportedapproximately 107,700jobsinthe state, making it Louisiana’s sixth-largestjob sector

Regional tourismleaders recently spokewith TheNew OrleansAdvocate| TheTimes-Picayuneand nola.com aboutthe traveltrends they areseeingand what keepspeoplecoming to thearea.

Tourists enjoycomingtoSouth Louisiana forvacation, butthousands of visitors each year arealsomakingtheir waytothe region as they attend business meetings,professional conferences andindustry conventions. Walt LegerIII,president andCEO of NewOrleans &Company,saidthese rangefrom10-person meetings to internationalconferences with upwardsof25,000 attendees

CoreyRosales,presidentand CEOofNew OrleansTours, said histransportationbusiness worksfrequentlywithsmall groups of professionalswho rely on locals to advise them on the best places to eat,drink andvisit

“Theywanttoget involved with theculture. Everybody hastourism,but they don’thavethe NewOrleans culture,”Rosales said TerrieBirkel, chief operatingofficer and vice presidentofmarketing forVisit JeffersonParish, said theagencyshiftedmuchof itsworkinwards during theCovid slowdown taking time to highlightwhattheydoand why tourismmatters.The messageresonated with locals,manyofwhomare nowencouraging their friendsand relativesfromout of statetocome spend some time with them

“We’re seeing that payoff as more residents have gotten to know us,” Birkel said Birkel addedthatmanyresidents areproud to showcase thearea’srichnatural resources, includingthe LouisianaOysterTrail and GrandIsle, whichincludesseven milesofsandy beaches, astate park andsomeofthe bestfishinginthe world.

“Those areall greatoptions forfamilieswho arelooking fora greatway to have agoodtime outdoors,”she said

By theend of 2026,New Orleanswillhave hosted eightmajor medicalconferences,Leger said,including oneinDecember forwhich two Air France charterflights have alreadybeen booked.While some organizations previously shiedawayfromhosting events in NewOrleansinthe summer duetothe threat of hurricanes, LegersaidNew Orleans& Companyhas allayedthose fearsbyinvitingattendees to see thestate’s coastalrestoration work andrisk reductiontechnologyfirsthand

“We’re able to show them that we areone of themostpreparedcommunities alongthe Gulf Coast,”hesaid.

Legeradded that more families arealso travelingtothe region to watchtheir children, grandchildrenand otherrelatives play anyofthe growingnumberofyouth sports tournaments that take placeyear-round.

“There’s onething that people arealways goingtodo, andthat’sprioritizetheir kids,” he said.“If kids aretraveling forsports, that means families aretraveling with them.”

Watchthe full discussion nowatwww youtube.com/@NOLAtp.

VisitJefferson Parish is accredited through Destinations Internationalfor itshighqualityand performance. Itsmission is to partner with thetourism andhospitality industries by marketingand sellingthe JeffersonParish experience to visitors.New Orleans&Company is theofficial destinationsales andmarketing organization forNew Orleans, with avisionto ensure thecityremains remarkable,uniqueand welcoming. NewOrleans Toursisa family-owned companywithmorethan50years of experience in grouptransportation.Ithas afleet of morethan300 modern vehicles to help guests getwhere they need to be on time,stress-free safely andinstyle

Drones,bullets,cartels fuel displacement in Mexico

BY MEGAN JANETSKY and FERNANDAPESCE Associated Press

TULA, Mexico When bombs fell from the sky and bullets ricochetedoff herconcrete floors, 74-year-old María

Cabrera andher family fled into the night-cloaked mountains of central Mexico with only the clothes on their backs.

Aweek later,Cabrera picks through the charred scraps of her life, salvaging pots, woven cloths and asmall wooden cross. She knows that it’sthe last time she’ll return to her homeof 60 years.

“Oh God, why have you abandoned me,” she said through heartbroken sobs, wandering past burned ashes of what was once her mattress in asmall room with a collapsed roof and amelted refrigerator just through the door.“How are we going to rebuild? We don’t have money,wedon’thave anything.” She joined agrowing number of people displaced in conflict-torn regions of Mexico forced to fleetheir homes. Experts have described the phenomenon as an invisiblecrisis with longterm humanitarian consequences —there are few official figures on the number of displaced people, who have almost no resources to turn to once violence forces them to leave ‘Can’t live here anymore’

Cabrera fledher small town Friday after yearsof

mounting cartel violence in Tula. This town of around 200 nativeNáhuatlpeople is among many inthe central state of Guerrero ravaged by decadesoffracturing rivalcriminal groupswarring for territorial control.

Last week, agroup known as Los Ardillos attacked her town anda handful of others with drone-firedexplosives, opened fire on local community police forces, killed livestock and burnedhomes likeCabrera’stoanundistinguishablecrisp. Cabreracarefully handed bags of belongings to soldiers escorting asmall group of families returning hometogather their things. She prayed as armedmen in camouflage loaded her

possessions intothe back of atruck. As she wandered through hergarden forthe last time,she beggedforgiveness from the dogs and chickens she was forced to leave behind.

“Wedon’twant to abandon them,” she said. “But we suffered through everything. We can’tlive here anymore.”

Scattering across Mexico

Alocal human rights group, Indigenous and People’sCouncil of GuerreroEmiliano Zapata, or CIPOGEZ, estimated that at least 800 people, including childrenand the elderly,were forcibly displaced along with Cabrera, andthree community police officers— groupsoften formed to pro-

tect themselves in thewake of state absence —fighting back against the mafia were killed.

The official numbers are far lower: Mexico’sgovernmentsaid Tuesday that only 120 people were forced to flee andconfirmed no deaths. Onecommunity leader sleeping at thebasketball court on Fridaytold alocal government official that in their town alone they estimated around 280 people had been forced to flee.

Somefamilies ran into the mountains, notlooking back. Hundreds sought shelter underalocal basketball court, hoping thatitmight be safe to eventually return home.

Others —some wounded by gunfire —boarded cars, bus-

es andtrucks, scattering to different regions of Mexico.

Videos publishedonsocial media this week show groups of crying women and children pleading for help.

The imagespushedthe government to deploy 1,200 military and police officers to the region. Officials say they have provided aid to those displaced,largely containedthe violence, establisheda “safe corridor” for humanitarian aid to enter and paved the waytoward defusing theregion’s convoluted conflict.

“What we do not want is a confrontation that would affect the civilian population. Above all, we must preserve people’slives,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said at anews conference last week.

An invisiblecrisis

Critics say that it wasthe latest example of governmentinaction and efforts to downplay thedepth of the displacement crisis in Mexico. Unlike Colombia, Mexico doesn’thave acomprehensive registry of displaced people.Government figures are often cited as beinginsufficient by entities like the U.N. refugee agency,human rights groups and researchers documenting the crisis.

A2025 government National Survey of Victimization andPublic Security Perception estimated that nearly 250,000 households were forced to fleetheir homesin2024 alone to protect themselves from crime.

Between 2024 and2025 the Ibero-American University documented at least 44,695 people whohad fled their homes to other parts of Mexico. Many more migrate to the U.S. In aMay report,the university noted that forced displacements areonthe rise in Mexico at atime when Sheinbaum’sgovernmenthas sought to highlight security gains —like sharp dips in homicides —inan effort to offset threatsby theTrump administration to take military action on Mexican cartels.

“There’snomore life in these communities,” said Prisco Rodríguez, alocal representative forCIPOGEZ. “The government says peoplehave alreadyreturned to their houses, but there’snoone here. People don’tsay where they’re going out of fear and the majority never appear.”

Cabrera andher husband, 75-year-old Alejandro Venancio Bruno, were scrambling to figure out where they would go. Cabrera said that her children plead with her to come live with them in Mexico City, around 220 miles from their home, or thestate of Queretaro, and rebuild their lives elsewhere.

But Venancio said that he’sspent his life working his land, and without money ahome or his mostvaluable possessions —his goats— anyother life outsideofTula seemsunfathomable.

“It’slikestartingfrom zero,” he said.

By The Associated Press

BOGOTA,Colombia Aformer mayor allied with presidential candidateAbelardo de La Espriella was shot dead in Colombia’sheartland, local authorities said Saturday.

Oneofhis aideswas also killed. ThekillingsofRogers Devia andhis staffer Eder Cardonawas the latest incident ofpolitical violence in a region underdisputebytwo groups labeled as terrorists

by theU.S. government and athird group —asplinter of theonce dominant guerrilla Revolutionary ArmedForces of Colombia, or FARC. Devia died in an attack by gunmen in the rural area of Cubarral, acityhegoverned

between 2020-2023lying 105 miles southofthe capital Bogota, said thePublic Defender’s Officeofthe department of Metainaposting on X. De La Espriella represents the National Salvation Movement

The Public Defender’sOffice said the killings could hurt “the exercise of political rights and democratic participation” ahead of Colombia’s presidential elections, which take place May 31. There will be at leasthalf adozen candidates competinginthe election,including two members of smaller left-wing parties. If none of them gets 50% of the votes arun off will take place in June between the top two contenders.

Broussard, Youngsville lead in gains

Carencro among fastest-growing populations in state

an increase of 0.5%.

100. New Iberia’s population fell from 26,939 to 26,533, a loss of 406 residents.

BY ADAM DAIGLE Acadiana business editor

Municipalities in Lafayette Parish are leading the way in Louisiana in terms of population growth while most others were stagnant or lost population.

Youngsville’s population rose from 18,986 to 19,980, a 5.3% increase, while Broussard’s total rose from 15,324 to 15,799, an increase of 3%. Carencro’s population also spiked, rising from 12,876 to 13,224, a 2.7% increase.

The city of Lafayette’s population rose from 122,688 to 123,311,

The cities of Broussard and Youngsville had the biggest gains in the state between July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025, according to census data released Thursday

Comeaux High to lose another program

Board votes to move NJROTC to Acadiana High

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

The Lafayette Parish School Board voted Thursday to move another Comeaux High School program to a different school next year

The Navy Junior ROTC, which is an academy at Comeaux High School, will transfer to Acadiana High for the 2026-27 school year

The School Board in 2024 threatened to shut down Comeaux High. In March, the board brought the closure to a vote again, surprising many people because there was no warning or public hearing beforehand

The board voted March 12 to close the school at the end of the current school year and repurpose it as a career center Because of a lawsuit, the board rescinded that decision in April.

Since 2024, some say, the school system’s leadership has been trying to reduce the student enrollment at Comeaux High to justify closing it. In May 2025, the board voted to transfer the visual and performing arts academy from Comeaux High to Lafayette High, for example, starting with the current school year

Two instructors in the NJROTC program, in a letter dated May 11 to Superintendent Francis Touchet and the School Board, said the school district on March 16 — four days after the board voted to close Comeaux — formally requested permission from the Department of the Navy to relocate the program to Acadiana High Instructors and retired military personnel Lionel Blackman Sr. and Charles Young, in the letter, said the NJROTC has been in the school district 31 years and has “a very rich history of awards and certainly a shining light on and off campus,” including the current school year when the program received a grade of outstanding on its Area Manager Inspection and was named Distinguished Unit with Academic Honors. While there once were three NJROTC programs in the school system, now there is only one, with a list of other school districts waiting for NJROTCs to be activated, they wrote. Concerned about losing momentum or the entire program, the instructors said they support relocating the program to Acadiana High “Decisions are being made to slowly weaken Comeaux High,” resident Sarah Bennett told the board Thursday. Rather than encouraging more students to attend Comeaux High and increase enrollment, the school system is moving programs and reducing enrollment, she said Only 12 students at Comeaux High are enrolled in the NJROTC Academy, board member Kate Labue said However, about another 100 students take NJROTC classes as electives, a parent said.

More outlying cities and towns had population growth:

n The city of Scott went from 9,447 to 9,635, a 2% increase.

n The town of Maurice went from 3,059 to 3,215, a 5% increase.

n The town of Sunset went from 3,162 to 3,194, a 1% increase.

The numbers come months after census data showed Lafayette

Parish to be the fastest-growing parish in the state for a second straight year

Many of the state’s 305 municipalities reported either population drops or no movement in the past year. In Acadiana, 35 had either no movement or losses in that 12-month span. New Iberia, Opelousas and Morgan City’s population fell by over

The data released Thursday looks back five years, which shows Carencro as perhaps the fastestgrowing municipality in the state. Population there jumped from 9,328 in 2020 to 13,224, a 41.7% increase and a gain of 3,896 residents. The town of Maurice went from 2,185 to 3,215,

a

A 3D

through a partnership between RoadRunner

and Economic

Disaster response innovation

Prototype of mobile housing unit uses green energy

BY JOEL THOMPSON Staff writer

It’s nothing more than a prototype right now but sitting in the University of Louisiana LITE Center is what some are hoping could be the next major innovation in disaster response.

Todd Burkman, CEO of RoadRunner, who developed the prototype, calls it a Disaster Mobile Unit, a selfsustaining mobile housing unit powered mostly through green energy RoadRunner, a disaster relief operation that provides mobile units and emergency plate lunches to first responders, was founded by Burkman in 2021. He says the new units are able

to operate completely independently of traditional power sources in order to make them accessible to areas without reliable electricity “There’s no fuel in a disaster area

during a hurricane. It’s a major drain on your ability to be productive during relief projects,” Burkman said.

ä See RESPONSE, page 2B

Ocean liner’s legacy could be under the sea

Florida county wants to turn SS United States into world’s largest artificial reef

BY MARTHA SANCHEZ Staff writer

The only way Susan Gibbs believes she can save the SS United States is by sinking it to the bottom of the sea. The massive ocean liner, which once ferried celebrities across the Atlantic Ocean, could soon be towed 20 miles off the coast of Destin, Florida, to meet its fate. The controversial endeavor will transform the nearly 75-year-old

“It’s

The plan began two years ago as the conservancy raced to

a new home for the ship before its longtime lease at a dock in Philadelphia ended. The group searched around the country but found no other pier that could hold the

GAINS

Continued from page1B

Youngsville’spopulation

rose 24.6% during thatspan, going from 16,025 to 19,980 for again of 3,955 residents Broussard went from 13,521 to 15,799, again of 2,278.

New Iberia, Opelousas and Morgan City had the biggest losses among Acadiana municipalities in that five-year span. New Iberia lost 1,880 residents, Opelousas lost 669 and Morgan City lost 655.

Email Adam Daigle at adaigle@theadvocate.com.

COMEAUX

Continued from page1B

Also on Thursday,the board spent about 30 minutes in executive session to discuss alawsuit filed by Comeaux High parent Suzanne LaJaunie and others whoallege the board violatedits own policies and the state open meetingslaw when it voted March 12 to close the school An appeals court on May 5ruled that the lawsuit was moot because the School Board rescinded the March 12 closureorder,whichis the main reason for the lawsuit.

Fifteenth Judicial Court

Judge Valerie Gotch-Garrett ordered the school system to pay court costs and legal fees for the plaintiffs.

After Thursday’sexecutive session, the board voted to follow the advice and action of its attorney

Contact Claire Taylorat ctaylor@theadvocate.com

LEGACY

Continued from page1B

Then leaders in Okaloosa County,Florida, made an offer.They had been working for decades to build an artificial reef program and transform theGulfregion intoaninternational diving destination.

The county is now spending $13 million to build an SS United States museum on land and prepare the ship to be sunk as early as this summer.Leaders hope the attractions will draw more visitors from Louisiana and around the country toDestin and Fort Walton Beach.

But their plan is facing outcry from some veterans and preservationists who are scrambling to stop theshipfromvanishing beneath the waves. One prominentgroup called the SS UnitedStates Preservation Foundation is criticizing the plan’stiming just before the country’s250th anniversary and has started an opposition campaign urging county leaders to “rethink the sink.”

“It’snot too late to keep a local decision from becoming anational disgrace,” onerecent campaign video warned.

Debates about how to balance tourismwith preservation are common acrossthe fast-growing GulfCoast Butthe story of the ship, which has come to symbolize patriotic triumph,is also asign of the country’s increasing divide over how to honor its past.

‘The extraordinary story’ If all goes to the county’s plan, the vessel will become the world’slargest artificial reef and bring millions of tourism dollars to the region each year.Scientists will study it, and dive shops and fishing charters will lead excursions there.

“Not aday goes by that we don’tget askedquestions about thevessel and our visions for herasareef,” saidJenniferAdams, the county’stourism director “We’re ready to deployher as soon as we possiblycan.”

The conservancy is gathering artifacts from the ship, including passengers’ letters and engineers’ logs, to display in the future museum on the shores of Destin and Fort Walton

RESPONSE

Continued from page1B

The units will allow volunteers to live and operate at ground zero,which Burkmansayswillallow forgreater efficiencyin disaster relief efforts.

“This greatly reduces work time, travel time and expense in rebuilding our schools and hospitals, Burkman said.

The units are mostly poweredbysolar energy,withsome reliance on propane. RoadRunneralso created adesign for ahydrogen-powered unit. Right now the units are only prototypes, but Burkmanishopefulthat soon, they’ll be out in the field.

“This prototype lets people know thatthisistangible. It’sreal. It brings us closer to being able to finance alivable unit,” Burkman said.

RoadRunner plansto conduct a$100,000 fundraisertoraise funds to build two units. The two units, Burkmansaid,will be usedtohouse eight homeless veterans in the area.

Burkman, aformerveteran, saysaportion of the proceeds from each unit soldwill be donated to the American VeteransAssociation andhopes that the unitscould also be used to provide temporaryshelter forveteransinrural communities.

“Louisiana is No. 1in veteran suicide. As a veteran Ithink we really need to addressthat. Alot of what we provide could alsobeprovidedtorural Louisianaveterans who don’talways get those services so easily ”Burkman said.

The 3D prototype was created in conjunction with UL’s Louisiana Entrepreneurship and EconomicDevelopment Cen-

ter,which operates 11 3D printers.

Thecenter provides consultationservicesas well as technical assistance to aspiring entrepreneursinthe Acadiana area, particularly in the region’srural areas

“It’sverydifficult for people outside major metros to accessthe resources they need to bring their ideas to market. That generatesjobs and income for the community,”said Chad Lacomb, whoserves as UL’s director of the Office of Innovation and Management

RoadRunner says in addition to acontinued partnership with the LEED Center,all unitswill be produced in Louisiana througha NewOrleansbased manufacturer

“I think these aresomething that’sreally going to help Louisiana,” said Lacomb. “Itwon’t just provide disasterrelief, it’ll provide opportunity.”

Beach. The group is also planning immersive displays that will simulatethe experience of standing in theengine room as the ship blasts to sea, or watching legendarymusicianDuke Ellington play pianoin the ballroom.

“The goal is certainly to tell the extraordinarystory of this ship,” Gibbs said.

“But it’salso astoryabout our country and our past and our future.”

Theship first embarked in 1952, moving so fast that pounding waves blasted paintfromits hull. The vessel broke the trans-Atlantic speed record andstillholds the title.

U.S. presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower,John Kennedy and Bill Clinton all sailed aboard it So didMarlon Brando, Walt Disney,Judy Garlandand Marilyn Monroe. In 1963, the vessel even carried Leonardo da Vinci’s“Mona Lisa.”

But after17years, the SS United States retired as trans-Atlantic flights grew popular.The ship bounced betweenbuyers untilthe conservancy sold it to Okaloosa County,whichargued the steepcostof docking the vessel meant sinking it was the only way to save it from ascrapyard

“It certainly made more sense than having her turned into razor blades,” saidWarren Jones, who serves on the conservancy’s board.

The county lugged the vessel to Mobile, Alabama, where it is temporarily docked.

‘The people arewatching’ Opponents saysinking the SS United States will erasehistory, andthey also fear theshipcould leachtoxins into the ecosystem once it sits below the waves.Theyare asking for federal intervention to keep theship above water andhave suggestedturning it into amentalhealthcare andjob training site forveterans.

“Sinking this vesselis crazy,”said Carlos CamachoJr.,co-founderofthe nonprofit SS United States Preservation Foundation, who has written aletter voicing his opposition to President Donald Trump. “Wehavepoliticians saying, ‘it’stoo expensive, it’s sink or scrap, there’s no other way.’ They’rewrong.”

Thecounty insists it is cleaning the ship of alltoxins and following rules set by the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whichare overseeing the project’s final approval. But the ideaisstill drawing attention from high-profile voices

“The people are watching,” Erin Brockovich, the environmentalactivist whosebattleovergroundwater pollutionbecame a Hollywood hit two decades ago, recently wrote in capi-

Horne, Romona Richard

Romona Richard Horne, 72. Visitation will be observed at Fountain Memorial FuneralHome in Lafayette, LA on Monday, May18, 2026, from 9:00 am untilthe Funeral Service at 12:00 pm. Online obituary andguest book may be viewed at www.fountainm emorialfuneralhome.com. FountainMemorialFuneral Home andCemetery,1010 Pandora St.337-981-7098 is in charge of arrangements.

Judice,Marc W.

talletters on social media

“Clean your ship up before yousink her.”

The sinking is personal to Jones, who rode the ship to Europe withhis family in 1961.Hewas just aboy but remembers thejourney well —the engines roaring to life in New York’s HudsonRiver,his hands grippingthe deck railingsin punishing winds, tossing andturning onenight as the ship forged across the North Atlantic.

He later gave tours of the ship in Philadelphia,where oneday,after thelast crowd left, he wandered alonethrough the empty dining room and walked the ship’slongdecksinsilence. Jonesplans to be in Destin when the shipsinks, watching from anearby boat.

“It’llbeemotional, there’s no questionabout it,”he said. “But Iwould nothave wantedtosee that ship just go to the scrapyard. To me, that would have been the ultimate disrespect.”

Obituaries Certified Civil Trial Advocate by theNational Board of Trial Advocacy. Marc served as PresidentofJudice & Adley, PLC, forfortyyears, buildinga practice centeredonmedical, dental, healthcare, andprofessional liability defense. His work earned statewide andnationalrecognition forexcellenceinlitigation medical malpracticedefense, andtrial advocacy, andhebecame ahighly sought-after speaker at legal, medical, and healthcare conferencesthroughoutLouisianaand across thecountry. Beyond the courtroom, he devotedhimself to publicand community service, holdingleadership roles with numerousorganizations. He served as PresidentofOur Lady of Fatima School Foundation (1986-1987) and on the Board of Directorsof University Medical Center, Lafayette, including as Chairmanofthe Board (1990-1991). He served on theBoardofTrustees of Women's& Children's Hospital, Lafayette (19921994), and on the Board of DirectorsofHome Bank, Lafayette (1996-2019). He also served on theBoardof Trustees of MedicalCenter of Southwest Louisiana, Lafayette (1998), as ChairmanofthatBoardof Trustees (1999-2002), on theUniversity of Louisiana FoundationBoardof Directors(2015-2019), and on theBoardofDirectors of theRagin' Cajun Athletic Foundation Marc also took great pride in hisinvolvement with numerousMardi Gras Krewes and washonored to reign as King Gabriel LXX in 2009. Knownfor hiscommitmenttoothers, Marc Judice builta life defined by hislastingimpact on thepeople andinstitutions he served -a life of dedication to family, faith, community, and thepursuit of excellence Pallbearers will be Clayton George,Kyle George,Jordan Moore Trevor Judice,Adam Judice,ZacharyJudice,and Chad Judice Honorary Pallbearers will be Dr.Michael Judice Dave George,Steve Moore, Marc David, Gerald Judice, andLarryJudice Thefamilyrequeststhat visitation be observedon Sunday, May17, 2026, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM andwill continue on Monday, May 18, 2026, from 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM.A Rosary willbe recitedSunday, May17, 2026, at 6:00 PM in Martin & Castille's DOWNTOWN Location Thefamilywould like to extendspecial thank you to Paula Taylor and all the nursesand staff at The Calcutta Housefor thelove andcaregiventoMarc and hisfamily. In lieu of flowers, donationscan be made in Marc W. Judice's name to Hospice of Acadiana, 2600 Johnston St.Suite 200 Lafayette, LA 70503 or DiscalcedCarmelite Nuns Monastery of Mary, Mother of Grace, 1250 CarmelDrive Lafayette, LA 70501. View theobituaryand guestbook online at www.mourning.com Martin& Castille Funeral HomeDOWNTOWN, 330 St LandryStreet, Lafayette, Louisiana 70506, 337-2342311

Funeral services will be held on Monday, May18, 2026, at a10:00 AM Mass in St.Mary, Motherof theChurchinLafayette for Marc W. Judice,age 79, whopassed away on Friday, May15, 2026, at The Calcutta House by Hospice of AcadianainLafayette, Louisiana. Interment will be held in Holy Mary Mother of God Cemetery Reverend CedricSonnier will be theCelebrant of the Funeral Mass and officiate theservices. Survivors includehis wife of 22 years, Michelle Regan Judice;his six siblings, Dr.Michael Judice andhis wife, Maureen, Jo Anne Judice George and herhusband, Dave, Sandra Judice Moore and herhusband, Steve,Kathy Judice David andher husband, Marc,Gerald Judice and hiswife,Lynda,and Larry Judice andhis wife, Peggy, andbeloved nieces and nephews, Clayton George, CrystalGeorge Meaux, KyleGeorge,AdamJudice, Trevor Judice,Katie Judice Budden,Jordan Moore, Sarah David Johnson, Erin David Harst, Zachary Judice,Charlene Judice Ortego, Abbie Judice Acosta, andChadJudice He wasprecededin death by hisparents, Gladys Bourque Judice and Marc Judice;his sister, Elaine Judice;and hisuncle, AlcideJudice and his wife, Pearl.His father Marc, andUncle Alcide opened Judice Innin1947, alocal familytradition whereMarc grew up servingburgersnexttohis brothers and cousins. And, to this day, thereare "still no fries." Marc W. Judice wasa respected attorney, civic leader, and community advocate whodevoted himself to hisfamilyand the Lafayette community until hisdeath. Born October 22, 1946, Marc built acareer spanning four decades of distinguishedservice in law,education, healthcare leadership,and public service -leavinga legacy defined by hard work, integrity, andanunwaveringdedication to thepeople and place he calledhome

Agraduate of the University of Louisiana, he earneda BS in accounting in 1969, thenproudly served in theUnited States AirForce from 1969 to 1974, receivingthe Meritorious Service Medal-USAF (1973) and the CommendationMedalUSAF (1974). He completed an MBA at theUniversity of Utah in 1974 and earned hisJuris Doctor from Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center in 1977. Throughouthis legal career,heearned repeated recognition as a

PM

THE GULF COAST

Census data reveals slowing population growth

But demand still isn’t letting up

BY MARTHA SANCHEZ Staff writer

The rapid population growth transforming the Gulf Coast slowed down last year in most cities from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The data, released Thursday, suggests the extraordinary surge of newcomers who have arrived in the region over the last five years may be stabilizing. Many cities are still gaining new residents, but last year’s increases were less intense than in 2024.

Some of the region’s most significant shifts happened across coastal Alabama and Mississippi in cities popular with Louisiana visitors.

About 2,200 newcomers last year increased the population by about 8% in Foley, Alabama, which is growing more than 10 times faster than most cities of similar size around the country But Foley’s growth last year was still slower than in 2024, when the population grew by 12%. Foley, however, was the 14th fastest-growing city in the U.S. last year and is now home to over 30,000 people. Growth in Fairhope, Alabama, also slowed. The city’s population grew by 0.7%, or about 200 people, last year — down from 4% growth in 2024. The population also stayed nearly flat last year in Pass Christian, Mississippi. In contrast, the small Gulf Coast city added about 200 residents and grew by 3% in 2024. The shift is welcome news for some fast-growing cities and towns across the region where leaders have been racing to widen roads and update infrastructure to accommodate the stampede of new citizens.

“Our growth was staggeringly high there for quite a while,” said Jack Burrell, a Fairhope City Council member “We want some

growth but we want something that is sustainable.”

Despite the slowdown, demographers said interest from newcomers is still raising the population in cities across the Gulf Coast. They also cautioned against drawing definitive conclusions from one year of data.

“These are just estimates,” said Cliff Holley, a research associate at the University of Mississippi’s Center for Population Studies. He said ups and downs in Census estimates from year to year are common.

Local leaders and demographers pointed to several reasons why growth may be slowing down. Prices are rising in many beachfront cities, which have become more saturated with newcomers and development since 2020. Some cities have even placed moratoriums on dense subdivision projects in attempt to keep pace with the surge.

The Gulf Coast’s trends also mirrored patterns around the country, where average growth rates dropped last year in most cities

and counties. The Census Bureau has attributed some of that shift to less international migration.

Some cities defy trend Growth slowed slightly last year in Panama City, Florida, and several Mississippi Coast cities,

including Waveland and Long Beach. In Gulf Shores, Alabama, the population stayed almost flat last year despite growing by 2% in 2024. But the slowdown trend was not universal, and many cities across the Gulf Coast grew faster than

national averages. Gulfport, Mississippi, grew by about 2% last year — about four times faster than most cities of similar size around the country Population growth in the coastal Alabama cities of Daphne and Orange Beach also outpaced national trends.

Several small inland towns on Alabama’s Gulf Coast also saw striking growth.

The population in Summerdale, Alabama, just north of Foley, grew by 6% last year — a big increase for the town of about 1,700 people. Summerdale Mayor Randy Farris said many newcomers are coming from New Jersey and Minnesota, and are expanding the town’s economy and culture.

“We’re trying to keep control of it,” Farris said “We want to keep our little piece of heaven.”

The population in a few Gulf Coast cities stayed the same last year or shrunk slightly In Mobile, Alabama, the population is flat but local leaders say they are taking steps to improve quality of life and convince families to move in.

The population also stayed flat in the Florida Panhandle cities of Pensacola, Destin and Fort Walton Beach. And Bay St. Louis, Biloxi and Ocean Springs, Mississippi, saw little population growth, despite increasing tourism in the region.

But demographers say it is too early to tell if population growth across Gulf Coast cities is slowing down for good. The Census Bureau released data earlier this year that showed the population in almost every Gulf Coast county from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle rose at a faster pace than most other counties across the nation in 2025.

In the region’s fastest-growing cities, leaders argue that development moratoriums are preventing growth from spiraling out of control. But demand is not letting up.

“I don’t know that it’s going to subside,” Burrell, the Fairhope City Council member, said. “I think we’re going to see more of the same for quite a while.”

New Orleans tourism industry adapting to new trends

Visitor numbers are rising, but summer slump seems steeper

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer

By some counts, 2025 was one of the best years on record for the New Orleans hospitality industry

An estimated 19.4 million visitors poured into the city, according to a recent study by travel consultants MMGY Global, the most since before the pandemic. They spent an estimated $10.8 billion, 8% more than in 2024. But in the heart of the city’s tourist district — the French Quarter and downtown the record numbers didn’t translate into a boost for business at some of the city’s bestknown hotels, restaurants and attractions. At the Audubon Aquarium, where nearly three out of every four visitors is from out of town, ticket sales were off 17% last year, a slump that continued through the first quarter of this year, officials said. Hotel stays were down slightly, with occupancy in the 26,000 French Quarter and CBD hotel rooms averaging a little more than 61% compared to 64% in 2024, according to Smith Travel and Research.

And amid that mixed picture, some industry leaders are concerned about what’s ahead for this year, with potential visitors contending with rising prices, particularly for gasoline, as they decide whether to spend time and money in New Orleans

“Walking around the French Quarter, you just don’t see the crowds,” said Ralph Brennan, whose restaurant portfolio includes Brennan’s, Napoleon House and Redfish Grill. “Especially during the week, it’s not what we would like it to be.” Ahead of the annual summer slump, when visitor

numbers drop off as temperatures rise, any sense of a possible downturn is particularly concerning, according to interviews with hotel and restaurant operators.

Local tourism officials acknowledge the city faces headwinds due to a nationwide drop in international visitors, higher travel costs and a more competitive market for meetings and conventions, whose attendees have typically booked longer stays in downtown hotels than regional, drive-in visitors.

Still, they say the city has rebounded from a yearslong COVID-19 shock that upended business and leisure travel, and that New Orleans’ visitors economy is showing signs of growth.

“We’re seeing the return of regional visitors to the French Quarter, and we have momentum with the election of a new mayor,” said Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans & Co. “We are trending in a positive direction.”

Dueling data?

Leger and others say part of the reason the estimated visitor count was up last year while hotel stays were down is because different companies measure different aspects of the tourism sector in vastly different ways.

MMGY conducts a random sampling online of 70,000 U.S. residents, questioning them on travel patterns, places they visited, where they stayed and how much they spent.

New Orleans & Co., and hundreds of other cities around the world, have used the firm since 2018. Before that, the University of New Orleans Hospitality Research Center was contracted to do visitor counts for the city and used a more conservative methodology, which resulted in lower numbers.

Hotel occupancy reports, compiled by Smith Travel and Research, are based on actual overnight stays as reported by the hotels, and

track average daily rates as well as the amount of revenue generated by each room That report shows that downtown and French Quarter hotels have yet to reach 65% occupancy and are still 10 points below their preCOVID high in 2019 of more than 74%.

Leger said part of the apparent contradiction is the rise in short-term rentals, which are not factored into hotel occupancy reports. Though tougher city rules passed in 2025 forced platforms like Airbnb to delist hundreds of short-term rentals across the city, thousands of units are still available on any given night, according to online tracking sites.

“The growth of short-term rental units and usage continues to impact hotel occupancy levels, as many travelers now view short-term rentals as a primary lodging choice,” he said.

The proliferation of whole house rentals with multiple bedrooms that accommodate the wedding and bachelorette parties that flock to New Orleans have further squeezed hotels, Leger said, because “they can absorb a greater volume of travelers per booked unit.”

Another reason Leger believes hotel numbers are down while overall visitor estimates are up is that a growing number of tourists are regional or drive-in visitors, who may stay with friends and family when they come — if they spend the night at all.

“Hotel occupancy is a major indicator of success,” Leger said. “It is not the only one.”

Weekend warriors

Under her umbrella in front of the Lower Pontalba on Jackson Square last week artist Heather Widnier, who goes by “Aubery Zapabar,” said she has noticed more regional visitors to the French Quarter over the past 18 months.

“They come from Texas,

Florida, Alabama,” she said, dabbing thick paint onto one of her textured acrylic works. “I know because I take a picture with them.”

But sales of her whimsical, New Orleans-themed works are down since foreign tourists cut back on U.S. travel after President Trump took office.

“The Canadians and Europeans would spend more money than the people who come from nearby,” she said.

Chris Valentino, whose family owns seven hotels mostly concentrated in the French Quarter and downtown said their occupancy overall is holding steady but that they’re seeing more last-minute bookings.

“We’re not as booked up in advance as we could be, and that has been the case since COVID,” he said. “We are not putting money in the

bank before we have it.” Brennan said his French Quarter restaurants have always drawn regional visitors and continue to do so, though not in any greater numbers than in the past.

His cousin, Dickie Brennan, who owns a separate restaurant group, said he’s seen a decline in regional and drive-in business at his French Quarter restaurants, which include Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse, Tableau and Bourbon House.

“My weekend warriors, my longtime local and regional customers, are not coming down to the Quarter anymore,” he said. “Bottom line, they do not want to see vagrants on the street.”

Positive trends

Still, some establishments have seen an uptick Developer Hammy Halum, who opened the Mayfair hotel

in the 1000 block of Canal Street in late 2024, said demand for the luxury multibedroom apartment-style units has outpaced expectations. The Historic New Orleans Collection has also seen growth in the number of visitors to its museums and attractions in the heart of the French Quarter, with about 15% year over year increases on average since 2023. President and CEO Daniel Hammer said much of the growth has come from locals, not tourists. Outside of the tourist district, demand for high-end boutique hotels in the Garden District and Uptown is strong. Zach Kupperman said occupancy at Hotel Saint Vincent, a luxury hotel in a historic building on Magazine Street, averaged 70% last year, far ahead of the market average.

OPINION

OUR VIEWS

FEMA panelhas good ideas, including keepingFEMA

We admit we were concerned when President Donald Trump convened atask forcetorecommend potentially seismicchangestothe Federal Emergency Management Agency

How couldwe notbe, given that thepresident was talking openly aboutdismantlingFEMA and shifting responsibilityfor disasterresponse to states and localities? No stateknows better than Louisiana that some disasters aresowidespread andsevere that they overwhelmthe ability of those on the groundtoeffectively respond withouta federal backstop

So we were pleased that theFederalEmergency Management Agency Review Council’s final recommendations, released earlier this month, called for atransformed FEMAtocontinueto respond during catastrophes. Andasweread thereportfurther,wefoundeven more that sounds promising.

Big picture, the panel proposes dismantling some of the bureaucratic barriers to quickresponse and recovery that we in Louisiana have seen up close.Itenvisions shiftingresponsibilities from Washington to states, localitiesand FEMA regional offices familiar with the areas they cover,and building up local capacity anda network of states to come toone another’said all while preserving astrongfederalrole forthe most dire situations.

Among specific recommendationsare getting hazardmitigation money to areas struck by disaster up front rather than as reimbursements, so that it can be better incorporatedinto rebuilding. The report also suggests combining 15 individual assistance programs, whichpanel members deemed “overly slow,confusing, and inefficient,”intoone,the quicker toget money into thehands of those in need.

The recommendations coincide with the nomination of formeracting administratorCameron Hamilton to hold the job permanently.Hamilton hadbeenfiredlast year after hemadepublic comments about the agency’s ongoing importance.

Mark Cooper,amember of thecouncil that produced these recommendations and aformer chiefofstaff to Gov.John Bel Edwards, acknowledged the initial rhetoric surroundingthe council but said that once the groupconvened, killingFEMA was never seriously considered.

He said that the panel included peoplewith emergency experience from both partiesacross the country,and that it made apoint of soliciting broad public input, including at alistening session in New Orleans last August on the Katrina anniversary “The American peopleshouldknow these kinds of processes still happen across party lines,” he said.

The report does leave us withsome lingering concerns, including the future of the National Flood InsuranceProgram, whichishoused in FEMA.The report notes that theprogramis unsustainable on its current course and envisionsshifting to aprivate sector model,ifthe markets can be convinced to take iton. It also embracesRisk Rating 2.0, acontroversialmapping system that hascaused premiums to spike for many Louisianans.

We’ll continue to monitor whether any cost and staff reductions impedethe agency’sability to act whenneeded. But if one outcome of the process is more timely and efficient help following hurricanes and other disasters,we’re optimistic

HERE AREOUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’scity of residence

TheAdvocate |The Times-Picayune require astreet address andphone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@ theadvocate.com.

TO SEND US A LETTER, SCANHERE

In Greene case,money is good butit’snot justice

No amount of money can equal justice. But$4.8 million is about as close as the family of Ronald Greene is likely to get That’sthe amount his family will receive as part of awrongful death settlement that’scoming almost exactly seven years since Green, a49-year old Black man,was dragged from his car, beaten and taunted by ahandful of White police officers alongside arural northLouisiana road as he shouted “I’mscared” and “I’myour brother.” Green initially fled when the officers triedtopull him over for an undisclosed traffic stop in May 2019. But then he stopped running and tried to surrender That didn’tmatter to the officers who rushed his car,hit him twice with astungun, put him in achokehold, punched him in theface, beat him with aflashlight and dragged him, face down, by his ankles across the pavement while he was cuffed and shackled.

age saying “That s*** hurts, doesn’t it?” to abloodied, battered and cuffed Greene. Trooperslater told his family he died from injuries sustained in acar accident after acar chase, an explanationsoimplausible thatthe emergency room physician who saw Greene when he was brought to the hospital didn’tbuy it, writing “does not add up” in his notes.

Nevertheless, State Police brass publicly maintained that fiction for two years until The Associated Pressobtained and published the body camera footage from the stop, revealing publicly the horror that transpired on that road. Even after state andfederal investigations, thefour troopers (one died in acar crash before the investigation was completed) and one Union Parish sheriff’s deputylargely escaped criminal sanctions. The federal investigation ended with no indictments, and most charges in state court were either tossed or reduced.

them served timebehind bars forkilling Greene.

Abroader federal investigation concluded in January 2025 that the Louisiana State Police had apattern of using excessive force, but those findings were later rescinded by the Trumpadministration.

Nowthe Louisiana State Police has agreed to pay nearly $5 millionto Greene’s family to settle afederal lawsuit over his death. The settlement is the closest the Louisiana State Police will ever come—and the Greene family will ever get —toanadmission of guilt. Obviously,it’snot enough. Not enough to undo the night of horrific violence that Ronald Greene endured. Notenough to undo the years of lies and obstruction the agency fedhis family.Not enough to achieve afacsimile of justice.

Oneofthe officers present —there were five LouisianaState Police troopers and one Union Parish Sheriff’s Deputy —could be heard on the foot-

In theend, one trooper andaUnion ParishSheriff’s deputy ended up pleading guiltytomisdemeanor batterycounts in Greene’sdeath. Noneof

As time passes,how to be

We sometimes get requestsfrom readers asking if their names or photos can be removed from articles we have published online. This usually involves someone who has turned their life around after being arrested for an infraction or someone seeking to maintain privacy for safetyreasons. We takesuch requestsseriously.Weknow these days that online articles can have along reach, withsearch engines being able to surface content published decades ago. In recent years, thenewspaper has established aprocess for readers who want their names removed from articles.There is aform on our website that anyone can fill out explaining thesituation and why they want their name removed.(Search for “Reviewing the Recordproject.”)

for articles involving serious crimes, we believe there is continuing public interest in knowing whowas arrested and/or convicted. In the same way,for public figures, we have to consider thepublic’sright to know

And given that the State Police has anine-figure budget, the pain of the settlement won’tbethat bad. Not as bad as Ronald Greene got that night, and not as bad as his family has felt for the last seven years.

Email Faimon A. Roberts III at froberts@theadvocate.com.

It is an evolving area of digital rights that we are navigating, as are other publications.

Butgenerally,werecognize that once people have turned their lives around, having an unfavorable digital footprint can be burdensome as they pursue new goals or even try to get adate.

Turning to our letters inbox forthe weekofApril 30-May 7, we received 79 letters.

We have apanel that reviews requestsweekly and responds quickly to readers. Generally,wegrant requests to removeinformation involving minor nonviolent infractions, such as possession of illegal substances. However,

As for photos, if you are in apublic place, such as apark or festival, you do not have to consent foryour photo to be taken and placed online. However if there is areason that having aphoto on our website puts aperson at risk, we will consider requests to remove it. In thedigital age, we have come to accept that lots of ourpersonal information will be online. But there is a line where individualsshould have protection against continuing exposure to harm from past actions. In Europe, they call this “the right to be forgotten,” and Ithink that’savery apt term.

This wasthe week that the Supreme Court issued ahistoric ruling regarding the Voting Rights Act, and that was the top issue in the letters we received. Nine letters discussed the ruling itself and another two focused on the flurry of redistricting efforts that followed. Then we had four letters on the Senate race, which wasthen sprinting to aclose. And there were four letters on various bills being considered by the Louisiana Legislature.

Last week, we issued acall forletters from readers: What is aquintessential text of American history and why? We all know the Declaration and the Constitution are on that list. But what are others that explain our American experience? Send your responses to letters@theadvocate.com We will publish aselection of the best letters as America’s250th birthday approaches.

COMMENTARY

Congress cancreativelysolve redistrictingmess

The Supreme Court continues to bollix up congressional redistricting. Congress shouldfixit.

Constitutional textualists —the term the late Justice Antonin Scalia applied to his jurisprudential approach —note persuasively that aclose reading of the language andhistory of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not mandate any particular racial thresholds or results. Instead, it says that if electoral results are consistently and suspiciously skewed, that “is one circumstance which may be considered” when assessing if aviolation has occurred, “provided,thatnothing in this section establishesa right to have members of aprotected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.”(The italics were mine, for emphasis.)

member system effectively gave littlevoice to what wasthena Black minority in the city

Quin Hillyer

Once the 1982 language was added, many Democrats, aided by court rulings that wandered from that actual text, often have tried turningthe “one circumstance” that “may be considered” into anear-absolute mandatefor so-called “opportunity districts” forBlack voters. For years, theirinterpretations have skewed ever farther from the actual 1982 language.

The language was added to a simpler,earlier version of Section 2that Congress, with President Ronald Reagan’sassent, amended in 1982 in response to a Supreme Court decision, Mobile v. Bolden. That ruling said courts had no grounds to overturn multimember districts in Mobile, Alabama, even though the multi-

Contrarily,many Republicans, including legislators in Louisiana and Alabama in the wakeoflast month’sSupremeCourt decision in theLouisiana v. Callais case, are guiltyofignoring the importance andintent of Congress’ 1982 amendment to Section2 That amendment wasn’t amere piffle; it clearlydid add something to thelandmark 1965 civil rights legislation.

To wit: Legislators still tread dangerouslyifthey drawweirdly configured districts that shoehorn geographically separated groups of Blackvoters into a singledistrict in ways that dilute those voters’ influenceinthe rest

of thestate. Remember: The animating goal of theVoting Rights Act is indeed to safeguard minority rights. The 1993 decision in Shaw v. Reno, widely celebrated by conservatives, reaffirmedthat “traditionaldistricting principles such as compactness andcontiguity” shouldn’tbeflouted.Yet the newLouisiana planproduced by the GOP-dominated state Senate last week arguably violates those principles, especially in appending apredominantly Black sectionofEast Baton Rouge to a districttowhichithas only the slimmest geographical connection. Yes, that’sbad Alas, the Callais decision whose conclusionIsupported, but not itsreasoning —did little to stopthe endless parsing of what is andisn’ta racial “result” or aracial “intent” in drawing district lines, or of how to adjudgeifdistricts are compact andcontiguous enough to pass muster

Ahalf-centuryofconfusionand discord overredistricting, combinedwiththe past year’sabominable re-redistricting across the country,istoo much.Louisiana’s formerSen. Mary Landrieu and

formerU.S.Rep.CharlesBoustany,inanessay Isaw only after Ibegan writing this piece, are right to suggest nearlythe same thing Ipropose here.Namely, Congress must takecharge. After all, while theConstitution givesstate legislaturesprimary authorityoverthe “times, places andmanner” of holding federal elections, it then givesplenary power to Congress “at anytime by law[to] make or alter such regulations.” Therefore, Congress should do two things.First, completelyban mid-decade redistricting except in response to aspecific court order. Each state should redistrict only once after each decennial census. Stop thepartisan bloodsport. The second congressional action would be morecomplicated, perhaps necessitating aspecial commission’shelp. It would require takingredistricting away fromstate legislaturesentirely andpermanently. (A constitutional amendmentdoing so might be even better). Instead,completely without regard to racial considerations proorcon —and without regard to Section 2, whichwould no longerapply to redistricting but still apply to allother vote-

related practices —Congress could make each state abide by theexact same, utterly neutral computer algorithmindrawing districts.

Essentially,the algorithm would be programmed to start in onecorner of each state and, following parish or countylines in contiguous order andtothe maximum degree of compactness, create thestate’sdistricts in compliancewithone-person/ one-vote principles. No humanintent. No political considerations. Just acombination of pure, blind mathand already-establishedpolitical boundaries.

If Black citizens(or Hispanic ones, or whoever) live in enough proximitytoeach other to form amajority in adistrict, as they quiteoften will, fine.Ifnot, then not. Regardless,the ruleswould be neutral,all discriminatory intentremoved andgerrymandering would be eliminated forever If Congress doesn’t do something like that, thevicious political brawls, admixed withracial grievance, will only intensify Congress mustact.

Email Quin Hillyer at quin hillyer@theadvocate.com

Murrill’sthreats to N.O. officials make ugly situationevenuglier

Liz Murrill’sgot some kindofnerve

The Republican attorney general added insult to injury when she threatenedtounseat seven Democratic elected officials in New Orleans andreplace them with appointees of Republican Gov.Jeff Landry Their alleged offense? They dared to raise legitimate questions over the new statelaw that effectively removed another elected official from an office to which he’d been overwhelminglyelected Murrill’stargets were not just run-of-themill elected officials. I’m talking about the mayor,the district attorney, both at-large members of the New OrleansCityCouncil and three district members —basically the city’spower structure. And for good measure, Murrill threatened to puta highly respected retired judge— an innocent bystander,she conceded, appointedbythe council to hold down the fort while multiple lawsuits get sorted out —inprison. As Mayor Helena Morenomarveledina videovowing to not back down in theface of thesebizarre threats, Murrill actually putitall down in writing in adownright Trumpian display of weaponizing the state Department of Justiceagainst political adversaries. (Knowing Murrill’spolitics, she

might takethat as acompliment. It most definitely is not.)

Duncan’sterm was set to startearlier this month

Confusion followed and lawsuits started piling up.

Grace

Until now,Murrill wasn’tavisible player in the supermajority Republican Legislature’smad dash to negate Calvin Duncan’slandslide November victory for clerk of Orleans Parish Criminal Court by disappearing the office before he could takeit. Butnor,for reasons she has never satisfactorily explained, is she a neutral legal observer Back when Duncan, aformer jailhouselawyer who spent years locked up at theLouisiana State Penitentiary at Angola before hisconviction was tossed out,was challenging incumbent Darren Lombard, Murrill threatened to takelegal action against him for saying he’d been exonerated —anonlegal termthat mostagreed was well within bounds.

Her attack, along with Lombard’s, stoked sympathy among fair-minded voters for Duncanand surely contributed tohis 68% showing.

Rather than accept thevoters’ decision, lawmakers led by West Monroe Republican Sen.Jay Morris —with strong backing from Murrill’sformer boss, Jeff Landry pushed abill to merge theoffice intothat of theclerk of Civil District Court before

Andthen theCity Council, with support from Moreno and DA Jason Williams, passed aresolution saying the existing civil court clerk’soffice had been redefined enough so that it was effectively anew office, one that was vacant andtherefore needed to be filled withanew election.

That created even morecollateral damage, including Chelsey Richard Napoleon, who’d been elected civil court clerk without opposition last fall andassumed new duties under thenew law before the council made its move. Napoleon said she didn’tsupport thelegislation, but she’s now associated in the public’smind with adeeply unpopular policy imposed from Baton Rouge.

Alsocaught up in themess is Calvin Johnson, the retired judge whoagreed to fill thepost on an interim basis, only to be threatened withjail by theAG.

There’sa real basis for legal confusion here, and it’s thecourts’ job to work through it.Thursday,the state Supreme Court agreed to do so quickly.

That’swhat should happen. Bullying from theAG’soffice should not.

For Murrill to say that the chaos caused by her own team could require —her word —that she go after Johnson forusurping Napoleon’sjob and all those other elected officials forhelping him would be simply gratuitous if it happened in avacuum. It didn’t. It happened after the Legislature voted to eliminate the criminal clerk’s office without even consulting NewOrleans officials, or backing up their claim of efficiency with any data, or building in timetoplan such amajor transition. It happened as the clerk’soffice wasgetting ready to oversee an election that, thanks to the introduction of new party primaries, wasalready shaping up as complicated. It happened even as Murrill’sRepublican allies in the Legislature are pursuing an equally rushed drive to eliminate one of the state’stwo Black majority congressional districts, and after Landry canceled U.S. House elections despite votes already having been cast. And Murrill has the audacity to suggest that the New Orleans officials reacting to the Legislature’sand governor’sactions are the only ones playing fast and loose? Spare me. Spare us all.

Email Stephanie Grace at sgrace@ theadvocate.com.

Hantavirus passengers arewitnessingacruel reality

Kathleen Parker

In the hellscape of my worst nightmare, I’m trapped on acruise ship. And that’s without arodent-bornevirus, three dead passengers, others showing symptoms of the disease and dozens aboard who could become infected. On top of this worst-case scenario, no country will allow us to dock. This nightmare is only in my imagination. But for several days,itwas been reality for nearly 150 people who became hostagestoarelatively rare disease —hantavirus —and aworld seemingly uninterested in helping them astheyfloated in limbo off the West Africancoastnear Cape Verde. Officials there have declined to welcome the weary travelers, though three sick passengers were airliftedfromthe ship last week. Officials in port cities, meanwhile,have been bickering about how to dealwith this floating petri dish. Following days of confusion about how the disease gotonboardand uncertainty about whetherthe virus can be passed from human to human, Spain finally agreed to let the shipdock in the CanaryIslands, against local officials’ wishes. Hantavirus canbefoundanywhere rodents live, but most ofteninNorth and South America. Usually,the virus is passed from rodent droppingstopeople, not from human to human. Butthe Andesstrainof hantavirus, which has been identified on the ship by authorities, canbecontagious among humans. The Dutch cruise ship, MV Hondius, departed April 1from Argentina,where a rodent known to carry theAndes strain is common. The first passenger became ill on April 6and died on board on April 11. Weekspassedbetween that death and confirmationofthe hantavirus, according to an Associated Presstimeline. Whetherarodent was astowaway or a passengerwas infected beforeboarding is aquestion yet to be answered. This uncertainty surely contributed to fearsabout releasingaboatload of possibly infected people into one’scommunity Moreover,a 65-year-old German passen-

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ARTURO RODRIGUEZ

Thehantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor at the portofGranadilla in Tenerife, CanaryIslands, Spain, on May11.

ger who was evacuated was in close contact withone of the people who died. This fact increases the likelihood of further contagion. Obviously,there are ways to mitigate the risks posed by possibly infected people reasonable isolation, testing and monitoring, and fumigation of the ship amongthem. The World Health Organization, which helped coordinatethe ship’stransit to theCanary Islands, insiststhat the overallpublic health risk of the hantavirus “remains low.” That’snice. But imagine being cloistered in acabin on thatboat,waiting and won-

dering. Am Inext? While no one should be paralyzed by fear,anabundance of caution is not irrational. Leaving people indefinitely trapped on asick ship, however,iscruel and unusual by any humanitarian standard. Ikeep thinking of the young manonthe cruise ship, Jake Rosmarin, who made a tearful video of himself explaining howhe and the other passengers were coping. He said they only want to be safe, to have clarity and to go home. It washeartrending to watch. Surely nothing scalds the soul like rejection. To know that the world doesn’t want youbecause you might be sick must feel like alittle death with each passing day. In full disclosure, I’m biased against cruise ships, which Iprefer to see departing rather than arriving whereverImight be The frequent incidents of troubled voyages, stricken with illness or tainted by passengers gone missing, make the popularity of cruises all the more baffling. Just last year, 23 incidents of gastrointestinal illness were reported on cruise ships by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though nothing like the hantavirus in potential lethality —and representing only afraction of the total number of cruises each year the risk-reward ratio might give one pause before hitting the high seas.

The poor folks on the MV Hondius signed up foranexpeditionary voyage with an itinerary that included Antarctica, the Falklands and various other small islands throughout the Atlantic. It was, briefly,a naturalist’sdream —though not, as the expression goes, one to die for.

Email Kathleen Parker at kathleenparker@washpost.com.

SWEPTAWAY

COMEBACK KIDS

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

Talk about anice recovery

It wasn’tthat long ago the UL Ragin’ Cajuns were sitting at 4-9 in theSun BeltConference.

After Saturday’s3-2 victory over Coastal Carolina, coach Matt Deggs’ clubfinishedleague play withawinning record, with seven wins over the past three weekends.

“Wow,nobody in the league had the schedule we did coming down to the end,” Deggs said.“To beat aTop 25 ball club Imean, it speaks to theirresilience, their heart,their grit, their ability to continue to work and get better, and make adjustments, and never quit.

“That’sthe biggest thing. Youjust don’tquit, and you just keep pounding that rock, pounding that rock, pounding that rock, andyou don’tquit.”

BY NOAH TRISTER

LAUREL, Md. Napoleon Solo

BY JIM KLEINPETER

Contributing writer

Another day, another dominant performance.

The LSU softball team tightened its grip on the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional with a second consecutive 8-0 run-rule victory,this oneagainst No.2 seed VirginiaTech, at Tiger Park on Saturday LSU (39-17) advances to the championship round setfor 1p.m. Sunday,needing only one victory to advance to the Super Regional round. The Tigers will play the winner of Saturday’sGame5.LSU run-ruled Akron8-0 on Friday,also in six innings.

The Tigers (39-17) got an efficient two-hit pitching performance from Cece Cellura, who walked one and struck out three while throwing 73 pitches, 50 forstrikes, to keep the dangerous Hokie bats in check. Seniorcatcher Maci Bergeron wasthe offensive catalyst with asecond-inning, two-run homer —her first since March 7, astreak of 28 games —tostake LSU to a

The serieswin means the Cajuns (34-21, 16-14) won the season series over the top four teams in the Sun Belt.

UL needed one of fourother gamestohave adifferent result Saturday. Instead, the Cajuns were 0-4 in those gamesand therefore lost thetie with TexasState for sixthplace after getting swept in San Marcos, Texas.

As aresult, theCajuns will play Marshall at 3p.m Tuesday in thefirst game of theSun Belt Conference Tournament in Montgomery,Alabama.

“Unfortunately,wedug ourselves alittlebit of ahole, but you’re still in thetournament,” Deggs said. “You just have to go out and win aball game.

“If we can win thatgame and another game, there’sgoing to have to be somedecisions made, because we have an RPI in the30s today.”

If the Cajuns beat Marshall on Tuesday,theywould then

NFLofficials are tellingussomethingwith theleague’s2026

On TV AUTO RACING

6:30 a.m. Grand Prix of Catalunya FS1

NoonNASCAR All-StarRace FS1

NoonNTT IndyCar Series practice FS2

3p.m. NTT IndyCar Seriesqualifying Fox MEN’S COLLEGE LACROSSE

11 a.m. Penn St. vs. Princeton ESPNU

1:30p.m. Georgetown vs. DukeESPNU COLLEGE ROWING

8a.m. Big TenTournament champ. BTN COLLEGE SOFTBALL

11 a.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ACCN

11 a.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN2

Noon TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN

NoonTBD,Regional —Game 3SECN

1p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN2

1:30 p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ACCN

2p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN

2p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3SECN

3p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN2

4p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3SECN

4:30 p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ACCN

5p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPNU

6p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3SECN

6:30 p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN

7p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN2

7p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPNU

8:30 p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN

9p.m. TBD,Regional —Game 3ESPN2 COLLEGETRACK ANDFIELD

12:30 p.m.Big TenTournament champ. BTN FISHING

8a.m. Bassmaster Elite FS1 GOLF

8a.m. German Masters Golf

9a.m. PGAChampionship ESPN Noon PGAChampionship CBS

2p.m. LPGA: Queen City Champ. Golf HORSE RACING

11:30 a.m.America’s Dayatthe Races FS2

2p.m. America’sDay at the Races FS2 MEN’S IIHF HOCKEY

5a.m. Great Britain vs.U.S.NHLN

9a.m. Denmark vs. Sweden NHLN

1p.m.Germanyvs. Latvia NHLN MLB

11:15 a.m.Miami at Tampa BayNBCSN

3:05 p.m.San Francisco at Athletics NBCSN

6p.m.San DiegoatSeattle Peacock NBA PLAYOFFS

7p.m.Cleveland at Detroit, Game 7Prime

MEN’S SOCCER

6:30 a.m. Nottingham at Man. United USA

7:55 a.m. KilmarnockatLivingston CBSSN

9a.m.Sunderland at Everton NBCSN

9a.m.Brighton at Leeds USA

11:30 a.m.West Ham UnitedatNewcastle USA

WOMEN’S SOCCER

5p.m.Angel City at Portland ESPN2 TENNIS

10 a.m. Rome-ATP Tennis

3a.m.(Mon.) Roland GarrosQualifying Tennis UFL

Noon Columbus at Birmingham Fox WNBA

12:30 p.m.Las VegasatAtlanta NBC, Peacock

5p.m.Seattle at Indiana NBC, Peacock

Smalleyleads buttitle up forgrabs

PGAChampionship still tightheading into finalround

BY DOUG FERGUSON Associated Press

NEWTOWNSQUARE, Pa.— ThePGA Championship where no onecould take control Saturday is now the major that practicallyeverybody can win.

Alex Smalley at least gets ahead start thanks to his sublime playon the back nine at Aronimink Golf Club, with six birdies over his last 10 holes for a2-under 68 and a two-shot lead.

His finishing kick kept this PGA Championship from having the largest 54-hole logjamin major championship history.There was aseven-waytie for theleadwith an hour to go in the third round, and players withhighest pedigree were all within range.

Fourteen players had at least a share of the lead Saturday.Midway throughthe third round, 28 players were separated by two shots. And not just any players. Jon Rahm and Rory McIlroy were among those tied at one point. Xander Schauffele andand Patrick Reed were rightbehind. About the only one who failed to seize on the moment was reigning champion Scottie Scheffler,who missedsix putts inside 10 feet,

four of them for birdie.

Smalley’sfinal birdie putt from just inside 15 feet put him at 6-under 204, two shots ahead of Rahm and three ahead of McIlroy Schauffele andReed.

Scheffler made a9-foot bogey putt on the last hole and was five behind.

“I’ve neverseen anything like this,” Schefflersaid. “I’venever seen aleaderboard like this, this bunched up. Going into tomorrow, it’s quiteliterallyanybody’s tournament.”

But itstarts with Smalley,the 29-year-old who lives in North Carolina and is playing only his

fifth major,never crackingthe top 20. He’salso never won on tour, but he’s been rounding intoform lately.Heiscoming up on three straight finishes in thetop 20. He lookedlike he mightcrack early,playing in the finalgroup with MaverickMcNealy,sprayingthe ball off thetee andopening with three bogeys in four holes to disappear from theenormous crowd atop the leaderboard. Buteven amid the big gusts andfast, scary greens, Smalley wasresilient as ever. He took the lead witha 25-foot birdie putt on the par-415th —551 yards into thewind —stretched it two shots

by reaching the par-5 16th in two for another birdie and then had a bogey-birdiefinish.

Rahm had acareless three-putt bogey on the final hole that slightly soiled his 3-under 67, but he was part of the five-way tiefor second withLudvig AbergofSweden (68),Matti Schmid of Germany (65),Nick Taylor of Canada (65) and Aaron Rai of England (67).

“Thatwas afantastic round of golf andthrilled to be in agood position for tomorrow,” Rahm said. McIlroy beganthe third round five shotsbehind but with 29 playersahead of him. He blastedhis way to a4-under 66 —his 25th score in amajor at 66 or better He wasn’tsure where that would leavehim when he finished, except that did what he needed.

“I feel like Istill did enough to think Ihave achance goinginto tomorrow,” McIlroy said.

Schauffele had a66and Reed bounced back with a67, two shots behind along with McNealy,who bogeyed thefinal hole fora71.

The pin positions werefar more accessible than the previous two days,asMcIlroy had predicted. No one shotbetter than 65, though Chris Kirk had adouble bogey on the18th for oneofthose rounds. Justin Rose was outside the cut line on Friday until holing achip from deep rough foreagle on hislastholetomakeitwithone shot to spare. He shot 65 and was among those four shots behind.

NASCAR’s All-Star prizeremains stuckat$1M

BY DANGELSTON Associated Press

DOVER, Del. There is aclassic scenefrom the first “Austin Powers” movie where the fictional supervillain Dr.Evil suggests stealing anuclear warhead and holding it hostage forransom.

Dr.Evil puts his pinky near his mouth, andsays thepricefor releasing the warhead:

“One million dollars.” After abeatofawkward silence, Dr.Evil’ssecond-in-command, Number 2, suggests ahigher dollar amount forthe ransom.

“Don’tyou think we shouldask formore than amillion dollars?” the villain says. “A million dollars isn’texactly alot of money these days.” The time frame for the movie was 1997. Here it is in 2026, and amillion dollars isn’texactly alot of moneyinsports these daysand hasn’tbeen in NASCAR since the days when Jeff Gordon swept the series full throttle into the national spotlight. Yetinanera when a$10 millionannual baseball salary seems like adiscount, NASCAR drivers willrace for the same measly $1 million prize as they have since 2003 in Sunday’s All-Star race at DoverMotor Speedway

Just as No. 2suggested, NASCAR drivers are openly asking, shouldn’tthey ask for more than amillion dollars for winningthe All-Star race?

“I think an increase would be great, for sure,” said Chase Elliott, NASCAR’smost popular driver.“Imean, Ithink it would be awesome to make thatnumber bigger,what that number needs to be, where it should be, I’m not sure. But certainly,yeah certainly,with the time and all the things that have changed overthe years, Iguess it would seemingly make sense for that to adjust.”

Adjusted for inflation, that same prize from2003 wouldbe

May3inFortWorth, Texas.

worth about $1.8 million today

Consider therising team costs of fuel, engines, tires—well, just about everything on or in astock car —and it seems only fair the prize should fall in line to assist with theaddedexpenditures.The All-Star event —and by All-Stars, NASCAR meansevery single driverin the field thatraces every singleweek in the series— has been defined by annual format changes that can often lead into abit of amystery for fans watching the race.

Drivers have long grumbled thatanincrease is overdue and a $7.7 billionTVdeal that stretches throughthe 2031 season means NASCARcan afford to loosen the winning purse strings.The charter deal that guarantees spots in the field gives theteams alump sum of money which is spread throughout the year

“I will say to thecreditofthe sport,the team owners have certainly elevated the prize money on the other races,”2012 NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski said.

Speedway Motorsports, which ownsthe Delawaretrack, said

through aspokesman it was unawareofany immediate plansto raise thewinner’s purse.

“Don’tget me wrong, the payday’snice and stufflike that,” 2023NASCAR championRyan Blaney said. “Butyeah, Ifeel like as acompetitor,Ithink it should be at least double.”

Hey,Bubba Wallace tossedout $5 millionlastyear as asuggested prize, so NASCARwould get off easy with Blaney’ssuggestion and a$1million bump.

Dover’sfutureindoubt

Dover Motor Speedway hada points race on theschedule every year since 1969 andwas the site of two Cupweekends through 2020. The All-Starrace is being run in theNortheast— Christopher Bell won last year at North WilkesboroSpeedway —for thefirst timeinthe event’s history,but that’snot necessarily good news for themile-concretetrack

Dover president Mike Tatoian said thetrack will have aplace on thescheduleinsome form in 2027 and he remained confident NASCARwould stillthrive in

Hamlin rebounds from spin to winall-star pole

DOVER, Del. Denny Hamlin overcame aspin on his warmup lap Saturday to win the pole position for the NASCAR All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway

The JoeGibbs Racingdriver looped his No. 11 Toyota shortly after pullingontothe banking on the oval,but he recovered fora two-lap time of 1minute,49.298 seconds that included afour-tire pit stop. Brad Keselowski qualified second, followedbyErik Jones,Ross Chastain and William Byron at the concrete track known as the “MonsterMile,” whichwill become the sixth oval to play host to the AllStar Race.

ConnorZilischand RickyStenhouse Jr.also spun, andthere were 10-secondspeeding penalties for Zane Smith, Michael McDowell and Kyle Larson.

Firstday of qualifying for Indy 500 washed out

INDIANAPOLIS The first dayof Indianapolis500 qualifying was rainedout, race organizers announced Saturday It’sthe first time since 2008 afull day of qualifying waslost because of weather. The decisionprompted some significantschedulechanges forSunday Ashort practice, held in two groups, will begin at 9:30 a.m. for each drivertrying to make the 33-car starting grid. The four-lap qualifying runs will begin at noon. Butthe plantoholdaseries of elimination rounds between the 15 fastest cars has been scrapped, and organizers will revert to the 12-car format used in recent years. The topsix carsadvancetothe final round, which determines the pole winner forthe May 24 race.

Svitolina wins Italian Open; Sinner reaches men’s final ROME Elina Svitolina claimed a third Italian Open title on Saturday by beating Coco Gauff, wholost in the final in Romefor the second straight year In themen’sfinal on Sunday, home favoriteJannik Sinnerwill face Casper Ruud. Svitolinatooknearlythree hours to prevail 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-2and win herfirstWTA 1000 titlesincelifting the title in Romein2018. The Ukrainian also won in 2017. Sinner beatDaniil Medvedev 6-2, 5-7, 6-4whentheir rain-delayed semifinal resumed on Saturday andisone victory away from becoming only the second man after Novak Djokovic to winall nine Masters 1000 titles. Djokovic has woneach Masters tournament at least twice.

Delaware for yearstocome.

“Whenyou’ve never done this before, you don’tknowwhatto expect and fans vote really with their pocketbook,” Tatoian said. “We’ve been really pleased with all aspectsfrom camping to premium hospitality to ticketsales We’relooking forasbig or bigger crowd than we’ve had the last couple of years.”

Without aCup points race this season,the urgency to returnone to thescheduleinanera where NASCARleadership has been bolder this decade in trying new cities and venues could be lessened in the future

“We’llget apointsrace back,” Tatoian said. “Honestly,I just don’tknow whenthat will be.”

Complicatedformat

Oneofthe primary complaints about the All-Star race is that thereisnothing really “All-Star” about the event.

The full 36-driver field will race in the first two segments of the All-Star race before afinal200lap segment that will consist of 26 drivers.

Oh, and19drivers are already locked into that final segment because they are either aformer All-Starracewinner,aformer Cup Series championcompeting full-timethis year,orfull-time driver who has won aCup Series points race in either the 2025 or 2026 season.

Six driverswill race their way into the final segment based on performance during the opening two segments, while one more driver will advance through the NASCAR All-Star fanvote.

“It’scomplicated on how to make it work,” Keselowski said.

“You’vegot the wholecharter situation, TV wants afull field, so NASCARhas really got to pull together alot of different stakeholders withmaybe notaligned interests. Ithink they’re doing as good ajob of that as you can. Ithink the race has aplace in the sport.”

Yankees’Colenears

100 mph in sixthrehab start

MOOSIC, Pa.— Gerrit Cole reached 99.6 mphwith his four-seam fastball, throwing 86 pitches over 51/3 innings for Triple-A Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre against the Syracuse Mets on Saturdaynight in likely his next-to-last minor league injury rehabilitation start before rejoining the New York Yankees. Returning from reconstructive elbow surgery on March 11 last year,Colethrew 56 pitchesfor strikes and averaged 97 mphwith his fastball.

He allowedone runand sixhits with six strikeouts and one walk his sixth minor league start. A35-year-old right-hander, Cole is asix-time All-Star and the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner He made his first minor league rehab start on April 17.

Red Sox placeSSStory on IL with sports hernia ATLANTA— The Red Soxplaced struggling shortstop Trevor Story on the 10-dayinjuredlist with a sports hernia Saturday Boston promoted utility player NickSogard from Triple-A Worcestertotakethe two-time All-Star’sroster spot.

Story played in 41 of Boston’s first 43 games before sitting out the opener of athree-game series at Atlanta on Friday night. He is batting .206 with three homers in his fifth seasonwith the RedSox He has also committed six errors. His .547 OPS ranks 165thof173 qualified hitters. Atwo-time All-Star,Story joins outfielder Roman Anthony (right wrist sprain) and Garrett Crochet (left shoulderinflammation) on the IL forthe Red Sox, whoare last in the AL East.

PREAKNESS

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TajMahal broke to the lead early and covered the first quartermile in 22.66seconds, buttrainer Brittany Russell’sunbeaten colt couldn’tholdonand waspassed by Napoleon Solo (7-1)near the top of thestretch. Iron Honor wasathreat late but came up 11/4 lengths short. Chip Honcho (11-1) wasthird. Previously arowdy event with throngs of fans and live music on the infield, thePreaknesswas contested in asubdued atmosphere thisyear at Laurel, with attendance capped at 4,800. It wasthe first victory in aTriple Crown race for trainer Chad Summers and jockey Paco Lopez. Napoleon Solo paid $17.80 on a$2bet

The colt won his first two starts last year by impressive margins, prevailing in the Champagne Stakes by 61/2 lengths in October He couldn’tmaintain that form, however,finishing fifth in both the Fountain of Youth and Wood Memorial this year

CAJUNS

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face No. 2-seededCoastal Carolina (36-19, 21-9) at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday

“That was agreatseries,” Deggs said. “Our defense was phenomenal today, especiallyin the outfield.”

Similar to Friday’sgame, it took awhile before the scoringbegan

The Cajuns scratched across asingle tally in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Steven Spalitta singled and Drew Markle doubled to set the stage.

Donovan LaSalle hit atoweringflyballtoleftthatlooked an awful like athree-run homer,but Coastal’sleft fielder Bladen Pado made aleaping catch at thetop of thewallfor asacrificefly.

That slim Cajuns’ lead didn’t last very long.

UL starter Ty Roman seemed headed for an economical inning with two quick outs, but then he walked the 9-hole hitter Ty Barranga, who promptly stole second base.

Dean Mihos then singledtoleftcenter to knot the scoreat1-1.

UL’s offense didn’tstop,though, with apair of runs in the fifth.

Owen Galt and Blaze Rodriguez singled and aNoah Lewisbunt turned into abase hit to load the baseswith no outs.

Lee Amedee got abloop to drop forarun-scoring single toregain the lead. After afoul-out, Spalitta’s fielder’s choice grounder to the left side chased home another run for a3-1 lead.

Galt, who is now playing sec-

LSU

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2-0 lead. She also had hersecond three-hit game of the season and was on base in all four plate appearances.

“Wetalked all yearabout searching for our best game and trying to finda complete game and Ithink that was darn near as close to it as we can be,” LSU coach Beth Torina said. “Weexecuted our planbeautifully and to do that against such aquality opponent such as Virginia Tech is really something special. We know what agood team they are from top to bottom.

“I can’tsay enough about Cece’s performance. She continued to control areally dominant offense. It’ssoeasy to celebrate for Maci to have aday likethat.Itmakes my heart want to explode, it’sso cool. She’sthe ultimate Tiger.” Bergeron, asenior captain from Rayne, playing her final weekend at home, hit the first pitch she saw fromstarter EmmaMazzarone (16-6), who didn’tsurvivethe inning. She issued fiveofthe nine walks by Tech’sthree pitchers. Jalia Lassiter added asacrifice fly later in the inning to makeit3-0.

“I had prepared well allweek for her dropball,” Bergeron said “I took arisk swing at thefirst pitch, and it paid off for me. It’s trusting my preparation and being disciplined in the box “It’sawesome; I’ve been working hard all year long for this moment for my team. It means alot in the regional, whereyou need a win to move on.”

Kylee Edwards had arun-scoring double to pad the LSU lead to 4-0 and singled home arun in a four-run sixth inning. Alix Franklin had an RBI grounder,Tori Edwards asacrifice fly and Char Lorenz finished it witharun-scoring single to plate the eighth

Also in the Wood Memorial, two spots farther back, was IronHonor.Their rematch was for much higher stakes, and Napoleon Solo again finished ahead

“All yearlong, fifth place, fifth place. Everyone said he wasn’t as good as he was in the Champagne,” Summers said. “This was awin here. Peoplewill say it wasn’tagainst the best of the best. We’ll findout the restofthe year.”

Thethreehorses who did race in boththe Derby and Preakness this year —Ocelli(7-1), Incredibolt (5-1) and Robusta (25-1) finishedfourth, fifth andninth Saturday.

The race includedamaximum of 14 horses, marking its largest field since 14 also raninthe 2011 edition

TajMahal had runall three of hisraces at Laurel, which likely played arole as bettors made him theslight favorite over Incredibolt. Russellwas trying to become thefirst femaletrainer to winthe Preakness— two weeks afterCherie DeVaux achieved that milestone at the Derby —but TajMahal fellbackto10th after leading much of the way

ond base for Rigoberto Hernandez, was 2-for-3 on the day with adouble.

“I’m just workingmytailoff allseason to actlike I’m playing every day,and whenIget my opportunity,justmake themostof it,” Galt said. “I’m playingmy best for my teammates, and just be themost energetic, have the most energy,positive guy in the dugout,just do whatever Ican to try and help theteam.

“Even though Iwasn’t doing it at thevery beginning, but I’m here now.”

Roman certainly did his jobwith five solid innings, allowing one run on three hits, two walks and three strikeouts to get the win.

“I gave it my all, and everybody else gave it theirall,especially theoutfield ”Roman said. “They saved me alot, so it wasjust awesome.Great win all around.

“The plan today was just commanding thefastball really well, up in the zone,especially,and then being abletohit with offspeed.”

Parker Smith got past aone-out hitby pitch tostranda runnerat third

The 9-hole hittertorched the Cajuns again in theseventh with asingle up the middleafter two quick outs, and againMihos took advantage. Thistimeitwas an RBI triple to left-centertocut UL’s lead to 3-2 off Hayden Pearson.

Tyler Papenbrock madesure that didn’tmatter with two shutoutinnings —givingupjust one run with onestrikeout for his third saveofthe season.

“Pappy did exactly what we wanted him to,” Deggs said. “I thought he didatremendous job.”

catcher

celebratesafter hitting ahome runagainst Virginia Tech in thesecond inning of an NCAA regionalgame on Saturdayat TigerPark.

Cellura,a transfer from San Diego State, handed the Hokies theirfirst shutoutofthe season Tech entered the game with 107 home runs, but Cellura coaxed six grounders to account for sevenouts. Jordan Lynchled off the fourth with asingle, but with one out, Kylee Edwards fielded asmash up the middlebyKylie Aldridge, steppedonsecondand threw to first to end theinning. “Thedoubleplay was so well timed,” Torina said. “Cece throws alot of ground balls, which gives us theopportunity for things like that. It was awelltimed moment to get us off the field. She did agreat job andthe defense did agreat job.

It was the first loss in seven games againstSEC teams for the Hokies, who were also run-ruled for the first timethis season. They entered theseriesfifthinthe nation in homeruns in the best offensiveseasoninprogram history, according to coach Pete D’Amour

“Wedidn’tplayclean today, D’Amour said.“We hadnine walks. So, we’ve just got to pound the strike zone and make our defense, let them workand get quickinnings.

“It’s not just like we laid down We hit some balls hard.We’ve just gotta get through.”

Fewhavemoreappreciation forKeasler than UL OC Leger

When UL offensive coordina-

tor TimLeger got thesad news former McNeese football coach Bobby Keasler died Tuesday evening, it didn’ttake much time for him to remember theimpact his former head coach had on his life.

All Leger had to do was think about what he’sdone almostevery day of his life for thepast 27 years.

“I really don’t thinkthat the thingsthat have happened for me in my career as afootball coach happened at all without coach Keasler,” Leger said.

Leger was afourth-round pick of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1992 Major League draft. After three seasons of minor league ball, Leger was ready tobecome acollege student, but knew he wasn’tready to stop being an athlete.

“I knew that Ineeded structure, andIknew Ineeded athletics to help me navigatethe college experience,” Leger said.

After all, he was both astandout center fielder and quarterback at AcadianaHigh, so he went to former Rams’coach Bill Dotson’s office to discuss his options.

So they called ahandful of programs that recruited Leger as a quarterback three years earlier, without any interest.

“Then coach Dotson said, ‘Get in the car,we’re going to go see coach Keasler in Lake Charles,’” Leger remembered BeforeLeger knew it, he and his father were at aMcNeese playoff game.

“The atmosphere was unbelievable and there were good players everywhere, so Itold my dad, ‘This is what I’m going to do.

In January,heenrolled and was soon the backup quarterback to Kerry Joseph.

“I mean,hetook aguy nobody wanted who was out of football for four years and afailed minor leaguer and gave me achance put me on ascholarship,” Leger said. Keasler had led theCowboys to Southland Conference titles in 1991 and 1993, but that 1995 season was extra special at 13-1. The only loss was in thenational semifinals to Marshall.

“I still thinkthat ‘95 team I played on that he built is honestly thebest team I’ve been associated with at any level,” Leger said. “The amount of good players on that team was unbelievable NFL players, All-Americans, all

DUNCAN

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Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7) —and just twootherteams withawinning record from ayear ago —the Detroit Lions (9-8) and Minnesota Vikings (9-8).

Five of the Saints’ opponents

finished lastintheir respective divisions in 2025. In addition to theLions and Browns, who finished lastinthe NFC North and AFC North,respectively,the Saintswill play thefourth-place finishersfrom the NFC East (Giants), NFC West (Cardinals) and AFC West (Raiders) in theNFL’s scheduling formula.

Here’swhat stands out about theslate:

Toughest stretch

WEEKS1-2 AT LIONS,RAVENS

The Saints will be underdogs in Weeks 1and 2, as they are forced to open the season with back-toback true road games for the first time in 12 years. Andtheir mettle will be tested.The Lionsand Ravens are two of the most physical teams in theleague, and each features ahigh-powered offense. The Saints have alosing record in bothDetroit and Baltimore. Another 0-2 start is areal possibility.

Easieststretch

WEEKS3-5,VS. RAIDERS,FALCONS

VIKINGS

After the brutal doubleheader to open theseason,the Saints return home to playthreeconsecutive games in the Superdome against three beatable opponents. The Raiders, Falconsand Vikings wenta combined20-31 ayear ago, andall have unresolvedquarterback situations. Evenifthe Saints stumble out of thegame, this stretch givesthem ample opportunity to recover Most intriguing game

WEEK 6ATGIANTS

Amatchup of top young quarterbacks —Shough vs. Jaxson Dart

PROVIDED PHOTOByMCNEESE ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT

that stuff. We had backups that played in the NFL. It wasunbelievable.”

In that era, Keasler wasstill leaning on an old-school physical approach.

“I wish all players today could go back andwatch those teams practice,” Leger said.

“What we call practicing football now,when compared to what it was back then, doesn’tfeel the same.

“When the team period started, he would blow his whistle three or four timesreally fast, really loud. Then he’d hold the ball above his head andhe’d say,‘Iwant the offense on this side. Iwant the defense on this side. I’mgoing to put this ball downand we’re going to find out whowants to play the game.”

For Leger,what ensued were “someofthe best games that were played on that practice field.”

While Keasler could easily fall under the“old-school coach” category,Leger also recollects a coach ahead of his time.

With college football moreof abusiness today than three decades ago, Leger said Keasler was very much aCEO head coach back then.

“Looking back, he waskind of theCEO of the operation,” Leger said. “He showed up in asuit and tie to work every day.Hewas in town with all the business people, all the time, managed everything he could think of.”

Likemanyinfluential coaches over the years, Keasler was that complicated blend of tough and compassionate. By 1996, Leger was elevated into astarting role and was an AllSouthland performer.But after suffering ashoulder injury in the

season-opener ayear later,Leger missed the first half of the season.

The Cowboys wereundefeated, so that required adifficult conversation between the two as Leger’sreturn neared.

“He always had abig, big Lincoln Town Car —I called it the ‘Land Yacht,’”Leger said. “Anytimehewanted to have aone-onone conversation with you, he’d say,‘Let’stake aride,’ and you’d basically ride the 210 loops one time.”

Essentially,Keasler was telling Leger he couldn’tput him back as the starting quarterback, even though he earned the position out of camp, because the team was 7-0 and ranked No.1 nationally

“Everything about the guy was aman’sman, astraight shooter, face to face,” Leger said. “There wasnobeating around the bush with him.I learned alot about how to operate by the way he did business.

“The mostinfluential males in my lifeever were coach Dotson and coach Keasler.”

With one semester of school leftafter finishing his eligibility, Keasler had Leger coaching the Cowboys’ tight ends to kick off his coaching career

“He wassuch agreat man,” Leger said. “He wasaunique leader.Hewas funny.Healways kept you on your toes. Younever knew what you weregoing to get. He was going to tear your ass up or he was going to put his arm around you.

“But you always knew what to expect every day when you went in the building. He wasconsistent, he wasdemanding and he wastough.”

Email KevinFoote at kfoote@ theadvocate.com.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS FILEPHOTO By KAMIL KRZACZyNSKI ChicagoBears running backKyleMonangai runs with the ballagainst Saints safety Justin Reidduring agame on Oct. 19 in Chicago. The Saints returntoSoldier Field in November

—should make this afascinating contest. The Saints have had the G-men’snumber,having beaten themeach of the past three seasons. But this Giants team figures to be atougher out under first-year head coachJohn Harbaugh. Leastintriguinggame

WEEK 9VS. BROWNS Igrew up aBrowns fan, but they might be the least exciting team in the NFL. Their roster is as boring as their uniforms, and they appear to be positioning themselves forarun at Arch Manning or Dante Moore in the 2027 draft. At kickoff, most local fans will still be scratching the cobwebs outoftheir heads from theAlabama-LSU gamethe night before.

Most anticipatedgame

WEEK 7VS. STEELERS C’mon,this is ano-brainer.The first NFL game in France has the makings of aclassic —especially if Aaron Rodgers elects to play a22nd season. The Steelers are one of the league’smarquee franchises, and there are interesting subplots with former Saints Mike McCarthy and Omar Khan as head coach and general

manager in Pittsburgh. Game that couldget ugly

WEEK 11 AT BEARS

Playing at Soldier Field is never easy,especially in late November when the winds off Lake Michigan often wreak havoc on the playing conditions. The Bears whipped the Saints 26-14 at Soldier Field ayear ago, and the gamewasn’tnearly as close as the final score indicated. The loss served as the nadir to the Saints’ season. It dropped them to 1-6 and greased the skids foraquarterback change two weeks later.The Bears went on to winthe NFC North and are expected to be one of the league’sbest teams again. Game that lookslikea lock

WEEK 4VS. FALCONS Iwas told the Falcons wanted no part of being the opponent forthis game, which will be one of the highlights of the Saints’ homeschedule. Emotions will be sky-high as the Saints and NFL celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Dome-coming gameand Steve Gleason’siconic blocked punt. The Falcons will have no chance in this one. They’ll be sacrificial lambs just as they were in 2006.

LIVING

DannyHeitman AT RANDOM

As days lengthen in La., remember thepromise of rest

As summerapproaches and the days lengthen acrossLouisiana, I’ve been thinking again about evensong, atradition that nudges us to treasure each day,however long, because it must eventually yield to rest Ihad written last year about evensong, an end-of-day religious service with deep roots in the Anglican Church. The brief liturgy usually includes tranquil choral songs andshort prayers that are meant to put theday to bed. Whenmy wife and Ivisited England in 2019, we tried to see as much as we could. But the evensong programs we attended at Bath Abbey and Christ Church CathedralinOxford reminded us that experiences can be empty if we don’t take time to reflect on what we’ve seen, felt and done.

After our friend Catherine Harrell learned how much we’d enjoyed evensong in England, she invited us to share an evensong serviceatBaton Rouge’sSt. James Episcopal Church.

“It was moving to see all the singersfiling in, ashared witness to the beauty of the day dimming toward twilight,” I told readers lastyear.“While the service unfolded, the light behind the church’sstained glass windows slowly mellowed as the sun sank lower outside.”

All of this came back to mind last monthwhen Iread anewspaper story from London about some new challenges for evensong in England. As attendance declinesinsome houses of worship and costs rise, many congregations are struggling to keep evensong going. It’s a problem that’sworrying those beyond the Anglican faith, as Associated Press journalist Danica Kirka pointed out, because evensong is apart of Great Britain’swiderhistory and culture.

One scholar told Kirka that the practice of evensong centuries ago helped spreadthe development and reach of the English language.

Reading Kirka’sstory,Iwas heartened by the thought that America’smother tongue had found its voice within adaily observance meant to foster calm. At atime when language is so often weaponized on social media and in other forms of public conversation, it’s inspiring to connect withthe brighter possibility that words can be sources of centeredness and peace. Iwas also moved to wonder whether evensong might be facing another headwind that Kirka didn’tmention. In an age when smartphones and bingewatching tempt us to spend every waking moment on the next urgent thing, maybe the idea of powering down at the close of the day is too strange for many of us to embrace.

I’m looking forwardtomy next evensong service, butin the meantime, I’m trying to bring its ideals into my household routines. That means retiring my phone at least an hour before bedtime, stepping away from the TV and sitting quietly with abook or my own thoughts as the sun sets. At their best, these small habits have given me what we all want each day —namely,a happy ending.

Email Danny Heitman at danny@dannyheitman.com

‘LEARN SOMETHING EVERYDAY’

BY JA’KORIMADISON| Staff writer

For GlennM.Stokes, alongtime New Iberia residentwho died at age 87, his life’swork is reflected in alegacy shaped by teaching, exploration and hispassion for the natural world.

Whether he was studying insects, growing tropical plants or traveling the world, Stokes approached everything with thesame message he instilled in his family: There is alwayssomethingnew to learn.

“One of his bigmottoswas, ‘Learn something every day,’” hisdaughter SondraStokes said.“If you learn one thingevery day, you’re doing well.”

To much of Acadiana, Stokeswas arespected expert in mosquitocontrol and entomology; to his children, he was ahands-on teacher whoturned everyday life into alearning experience; andtohis grandchildren,hewas known simply as “Poppa,” a constant and guidingpresence.

ä See STOKES, page 4D

TRAVEL

Findingthe most interestingpath

Author’s travel advice: Beingpresent in the weirdness

BY ERIC BOWMAN TravelPulse (TNS)

Elizabeth Gilbert invitedme to play agame, and Icouldn’t wait to get started. Giving the keynote speech to acrowdofover 1,600 attendeesatthe ASTARiver Cruise Expo in Amsterdam this past March, the author of “Eat, Pray,Love,” didn’tspend hertime highlighting bucket list favorites or must-see attractions. Instead, she talked about anxiety.Specifically, what she calls “Purpose Anxiety”:the crushing weight of feeling like we must maximize every second, monetize our passions, and leave aworld-changing legacy. For travelers, this often manifests as afrantic need to “do” adestination correctly The cure? Asimple, radical shift from purpose to presence. To achieve this,Gilbert shared her favorite toolfor navigating the world: The Most Interesting Path Game

“You go out of your hotel or your ship if you’re staying shipboard, and you look to your left, look straight ahead, you look to your right, and you make —without your phone by the way —you make aconscientious decision in the moment of which path looks the most interesting,” Gilbert toldthe crowd. “The phone is good to have with you because it’ll get you back home.Whatyou want

is to get lost, like, that’swhat you really,really want. What you’redoingisyou’re asking your curiosity to be engaged with the presence of themoment. So,this is the important thing. Don’tgointhe direction youthink youshould, that you have some sortofvoice telling you should go. What you do is you’rejust like, what catches your eye?”

Gilbert shared with the crowd thatthe opposite of anxietyisn’trelaxation —it’s curiosity. She said anxiety andcuriosity live on opposite sides of a“toggle switch” in the brain. Youcannot be truly anxious while you are genuinely curious.

“Purpose is always focused on an obsession with the future,”Gilbert toldthe crowd. “Nothingwill bring more anxiety to your life than being focused on the future. If you want to suffer,get afuture.”

To break that future-focused loop while traveling, Gilbert suggests dropping the “shoulds”—the museums you feel obligated to visit or the landmarks you’re “supposed” to see —and playing agame that forces you into the mystery of the present.

“I was recently in Germany andI wasplaying mostinteresting path, and Icameout of my hotel room,and Iwas looking… and Isaw that somebody had taken awhole bunch of potted plants outsideoftheir house in Cologne —like the pots werered and orange and pink, so it’saveryconservative city,but somebodyhad decidedtotake all of thesedifferent colored pots, andthey hadall of these houseplants outside. And it caught the cornerofmyeye. So,Iwent and lookedatit. That’sthe entirety of that story,”Gilbert said, as the crowdburst into laughter

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

By ChristopherElliott

“That’show youplay most interesting path. It’s,like, oh, that’s interesting, andyou go andlookatit. Youcan live your whole life this way.And you would have an incredible life.”

To illustrate the power of being present in the “weirdness” of travel, Gilbert shared arecentexperienceata German spa. Finding herselfina “textile-free” (entirelynaked) environment where she didn’t know thelanguage or the rules, she was forced to simply watch and participate.

“I had no idea what was going on,”she laughed. “I was present to this giant, hairy German man rubbing ice on my body for some reason NotwhatI expectedtohappen when Iwoke up, but Iwas there.”

This, she argues, is the true valueoftravel. It bumps us out of “past depressionand future anxiety” and leads us into moments thatcannot be planned or replicated. If youfeel “Purpose Anxiety” creeping in during your trip,Gilbert recommends this sensory countdowntolower your cortisol and heart rate instantlybyidentifying four things you can hear,three thingsyou can feel physically two thingsyou can smelland one thing you can taste.

“Life is not amystery to be solved,”Gilbert said. “It’sa mysterytobelived.”

The Most Interesting Path game is afun one. I’veplayed this get lost type gameinAmsterdam before,the lasttime when Ivisited with my wife. This time, going solo provided someexcitingmoments that led to some great pictures, as well as astory or twothat’s best told in person.

So, where will you play The Most Interesting Pathgame next?

Hilton timesharedowngrade

Irecently upgraded our Hilton Grand Vacations timeshare, but Ireally can’tafford it. Iwant to returntoour originalagreement, which Ican honor fully

Staff report

As Elizabeth Gilbert suggests, The Most Interesting Path Game allows people to embrace the “weirdness” that travel often presents. Thegoal is to get lost in anew city and embrace your curiosity.Here are seven places that serve as astartingpoint to get lost in Louisiana.

1. Jackson Square,bound by Chartres Sreet and St.Ann Street, Decatur Street and St. Peter Street, New Orleans Easily one of themost recognizable places in Louisiana, Jackson Square sees over 2million tourists and locals each year,according to nola.gov

2. Louisiana’sOld State Capitol,100 North Blvd., Baton Rouge. The oldstate capitol is now amuseum used to educate thepublic on the state’shistory and the democratic process

3. Cypress Island Preserve,Lake Martin, 1264 Prairie Highway,St. Martinville. Acadianaresidents know Lake Martin well, aquick getaway from Lafayette that attracts thousands of egrets, Roseate spoonbills and herons to nest along its cypress-tupelo woody shores with gators and other critters to spot in the water

4. TheMyrtles,7747 U.S. 61, St. Francisville. The historic site once served as a cotton and indigo plantation, established in 1796. Today,the site offers tours, 20 guest rooms, afull-service restaurant and seasonal events.

5. Cane RiverCreole National Historical Park, 4386 La. 494, Natchez. The historical park wasestablished in 1994 to preserve the resources and cultural landscapes of the Cane River region in Natchitoches Parish. Located along Cane River Lake, the park is approximately 63 acres.

6. PovertyPoint WorldHeritageSite,6859 La. 577, Pioneer.It’sestimated that the people whobuilt the tallest mound at the Poverty Point UNESCO World Heritage Center in northeast Louisiana carried 15.5 million 50-pound basket-loads of soil, or 390,000 tons, to build it. The people of Poverty Point werehuntergatherers, and at the time it was built, its earthworks were the largest in the Western Hemisphere.

7. Abita Mystery House,22275 La. 36, Abita Springs. Also knownasthe UCMMuseum,the mystery house wasfounded by John Preble. The site is aroadside attraction and self-guided folk art museum with thousands of handmade displays.

Christopher Elliott

I’ve contacted Hilton multiple times over several months. Representatives have told me not to makepayments whiletheyhandled the issue. But now my account shows delinquency and my credit score has dropped 43 points. How can I fixthis? —Henry Pash,Woodstock, Ga.

Youdid the responsiblething by reaching out quickly to reverse the upgrade and beforeyou used any of the benefits. But the company’sdelayed responses and conflicting instructions have made the situation much worse.

When arepresentative tells you notto make apayment, you rely on that guidance —but unfortunately,ittriggeredacredit drop, which is completely unacceptable. Before Igoany further,and for the benefit of everyonereading this, let me saythat you could have avoided this problembyrunning the numbers before you upgraded your membership, not afterward. Timeshares are easytoget into, but harder(andsometimes impossible)toget out of.

Youkept adetailed paper trail, which really helpedyour case. Everyemail, voicemailand call note you’ve loggedisessential. Thatdocumentation is what gives youleverage whena company doesn’t follow through on its promises. In cases like this, it’s oftenyour only protection against

automated billing systemsorinternalmiscommunication.

Youalso have consumer protections on your side. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Hilton mustcorrect any inaccurate information on your credit report promptly

Your account should neverhave remained delinquent while the upgrade reversal was unresolved. The Truth in Lending Act requires clear disclosure of your obligations and proper handling of paymentsduring disputes.

And don’tforget,many states have timeshare laws allowing you to cancel or reverse an upgrade within acertain period. These statutesgive you legal leverage if the company stalls or gives you conflicting advice. Unfortunately, while you re-

quested areversal quickly after your purchase, you appear to have missedthe state-mandated window

Persistence is key.Keep escalating politely but firmly when local offices fail to respond. Copy higher-level executives and maintain your written record. (I publish the names, numbers and email addressesofthe Hilton Grand Vacations executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.)

That combination of patience, assertiveness and documentation is usually what separates asuccessful resolution from adrawn-out mess.

Ireachedout to the company on your behalf. After months of backand-forth, Hilton Grand Vacations agreed to reverse your upgrade transaction. Your account has

been returned to the original time slot, and Hilton Grand Vacations has refunded your $4,500 down payment.

Best of all, your credit score is back, too.

Yougot lucky.You requested a downgrade after your cooling-off period, but the level of ambiguity in the company’sstatements to you gave you astrong case for a reversal. But as they say,don’ttry this at home. Once you’ve made any kind of timeshare transaction, chances are you can’tundo it that easily

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy,anonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at elliott.org.

UL Alumni AssociationhonorsJakeDelhomme at gala

The 2026 UL Lafayette Alumni Association

Kris Wartelle

Spring Gala promised to transform Blackham Coliseum to deliver amagical night of celebration, and that it did. Decorated with elegant lights, table displays, and fabulous food and drink at every turn, the space took on anew life for the event. Hundreds of UL alumni and guests gathered on May 9for adelightful evening with friends, colleagues andformer classmates. Nostalgia was the theme for thisnight. The gala honoree, Ragin’ Cajuns legend and former NFL Pro Jake Delhomme recalled much of his football and academiccareer at the former UniversityofSouthwestern Louisiana. He, along with many others, even remembered having graduation eventsheld at the Coliseum. Delhomme creditedthe values he learned at UL with putting him on his path to theNFL.Hefondlyrecalled the teachers and coacheswho taught him to work hard and stay focused on whathe wanted toachieve. Many know what came next. Delhomme’sstellar career includes a Pro Bowlselection in 2005 and leading the Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII.

The UL alumni gala is always ahighlight on the list of springevents. Thisyear,even the rainy weather didn’tstop supporters from turning out.There were also plenty of generous souls in attendance who helped with fundraisingefforts for the association. Proceeds from the spring gala support alumni association initiatives, including the ComebackScholarship, which assists returning UL-Lafayette studentsin completing their degrees. Hats off to Dana Baker who planned theevent from afar, and UL Alumni Association director Marie Centanni. They made sure thegalawas every bit of the success manyanticipated. Congratulations!

Hilliard ArtMuseumcelebratesspringwithart,music

TheHilliard Art Museum at theUniversity of Lafayette couldnot have picked abetter daytohostits annualpicnic presentedby BMW of Lafayette. The springtime event washeldonMay 3, on thebeautiful museum grounds across fromGirardPark

Sponsors and guestsenjoyed an elegant afternoon of art, music,wineand cheese, alongwith livemusic by Ann Savoy. This was more than your averagepicnic. Guests’ picnic baskets werefilled with wine by Wild Child Wines, curatedcheeses andfresh baguettes. Anyone interested in supportingthe Hilliard shoulddefinitely put this event on next year’s to-dolist. Proceedssupport themuseum’s exhibitions and education initiatives serving university students, Acadiana familiesand visitorsfromacross theregion

We must admit, we have alwaysconsidered theHilliarda hiddenjewel in Acadiana.Itis awelcomingplace that invites students, art patrons, andthe curiousinthe community to discover all differentforms of art and expression. The museum is home to a permanentcollection of more than 3,000 works ranging from17th-century landscapes to contemporaryLouisiana photography Currently,you canview theAndy Warhol: Plus One exhibition. The gallery is open to thepublic Tuesdaythrough Saturdays. A small entrancefee is requiredwith adiscount forseniors. Admission forULstudentsand faculty is free.Visitorsmay venturethere foreducational reasons or just to enjoythe appealingspace.

Additional sponsors includedthe Haynie Family Foundation, Charles Boudreaux, and Kiki Frayard.

Momwants accountability fordaughter’sbullies

Dear Harriette: My daughtercame home from school the other day after getting into afight withtwo other students. Iwas livid! Iset up ameeting with the administration and the parents of the two other girls immediately.Apparently,mydaughter has been bullied for nearly a year at her middle school. Ican’tbelieve Ihadn’tnoticed anything wrong. Now that Iknow how bad things are and that this was not astand-alone situation, Itold the schoolthat either the twogirls need to be expelled, or Iwill be transferring my daughter to anotherschool. Iwant to ensure my

DEL TORO

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Cole

SENSE AND SENSITIVITy

daughter’ssafety, but she insists that Iammaking things worse for her. She says shedoesn’twant to switch schools; she wants to finish what she started. Irespect her courage, but as her mom, isn’titmyjob to do what Ithink is best?I feel torn —Tough Decision Dear Tough Decision: Moving your daughter to anew school may not solve the issue. If shewants to stay work with her and the administration on ways to support her.Press the administration to force disciplinaryaction on theperpetrators. Findout school policy on bullying, and if there isn’t oneinplace, lobby to

establish one. Putyour daughter in counseling so that she can learn how to defend herself in situations like this. Be gentle withher —she is going through alot.

Dear Harriette: My friend has been begging me to go on atrip together for over ayear now.Ihave been putting it off because Iknew she wouldn’tbeagood friend to travel with. She is extremely Type B, and Iknew she would leave alot of the planning to me. Iwould consider myself somewherebetween types Aand B, but when it comes to vacationing, Ineed aType Afriend who can help pick up their fair share of the planning.

Eventually,Igave in to her,but

Imade sure to set expectations and let her know that we both need to be putting in alot of effort to make the trip worth our time and money.Atthe time, she completely agreed with me. She said she was excited to help plan and she didn’twant me to feel like everything wasonmyshoulders. Ifelt reassured hearing that, so we started talking about possible destinations, budgets and types of thingswewanted to do while we were away Unfortunately,the planning process has turned out exactly theway Ifeared it would. Every time Ibringupbooking flights, researching hotels or looking into activities, she says things like,

“I trust whatever you want to pick.” It’s really frustrating me because Ispecifically said Ididn’t want to be the only one doing the work. How should Iaddress this? Should we not go on the trip at all? —All on Me

Dear All on Me: Stop being surprised by what you already knew Your friend is being herself.She is afollower,not aleader.Goon the trip if you are willing to accept your role in the friendship. If not, cancel.

Send questions to askharriette@ harriettecole.com or c/o AndrewsMcMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

DelToro at his earthiest and most imaginative.

Books become alive when held Doors manifest out of achalk outline. And creatures —fairies, a faun, the unforgettablePaleMan, with eyes in the palms of his hands —reveal aworldofdeeper and darker enchantment

Apivot pointfor delToro

Del Toro, who has since made “The Shape of Water” and “Frankenstein,” grants that he wouldn’t have become the filmmaker he is todayifhehadn’t made “Pan’s Labyrinth.” At the time, he was the well-regarded but not wellknown filmmaker of “Hellboy” and “Blade 2.”

“I was gettingall the Marveloffers from AviArad. It wasa real choice to go make the movie no one wanted to finance,” del Toro says. “It was one of the few times in my life that Imade achoice And Imade it over and over again because everything thatcould go wrong went wrong, every door that could have slammed in my face, slammed in my face.”

Del Toro made “Pan’sLabyrinth,” which Cineverse and Fathom Entertainment will rerelease in theatersOct. 9, for $19.5 million —the same budget for his best picture-winning “The Shape of Water.” But just after del Toro moved his family to Spain for the shoot, amajor financier pulled out.

“I said: I’m staying. We’regoing to make this movie,” thefilmmaker recalls. Forest fires in Spain were another complication. Verdant and mag-

ical as the forest is in “Pan’s Labyrinth,”ittook months of irrigation to bring it to life. Every lush tree you see, we made lush,” says del Toro. “Every fern we planted.”

The iconic tree of thefilm, though, was the work of Eugenio Caballero’sart design. Del Toro haslong been renownfor his textured artistry,but “Pan’s Labyrinth” includessomeofhis most memorable creations. At atime when artificial intelligence is making inroads into moviemaking, the movie’shandcrafted beauty stands out all the more.

“I thinkpeopleintrinsically know when you’ve madeaneffort,” says del Toro.“Theysense that it’simportant to you in the craftsmanship. We don’tonly go to movies to seethe world. We go to see aworldwedon’t recognize. The more thedesign is something youhaven’t seenbefore, that was madebyhand, you can sense it.”

“Virtual filmmaking to me is not as interesting,”headds.“You’re notcourting an accident. You’re

not courtinghumanity.”

Growingupwith‘Pan’sLabyrinth’ Nothing is morehuman in “Pan’s Labyrinth”thanits young protagonist.Baquerowas just 11 when she shot thefilm,but del Toro calls her “the most mature actor I’ve ever directed.” Baquero, now 31, also came to Cannes forthe screening.

“During the auditionprocess, he didn’tbaby me,” says Baquero.

“He treatedmelikeanadult.He gave me alot of homework. He gave me alot of movie references, some of which were —like ‘Grave of Fireflies’ —very dark.”

“Pan’sLabyrinth,” an R-rated fable with bloody spurts of violence, isn’tquite for children. But Baquero wasshielded from none of its cruelties. She grewupwith “Pan’sLabyrinth.”

“Icanenjoymoreandmoreastime goes by,” she says. “I can distance myself from being in the movie and watch it with different eyes. Ialmost don’tsee myselfasthatgirlanymore. Ido, but it was20years ago.”

After itsCannespremiere, “Pan’sLabyrinth”was hailedasa masterpiece and wentontoland six Oscar nominations, winning three (for cinematography,art direction and makeup). But del Toro calls hisexperiencescreening the movie forStephen King “my Oscar.” He traveled up to Maine, carrying his film reels, to showit to the author he grew up revering. “The Pale Man had him squirming big time,” del Toro says. In “Pan’sLabyrinth,” there are hidden, eternal forces underground thatoutlast the evil scourges that might trod above. There is magic in the world, but you have to know where to look. Twodecades later,del Toro still believes that. “I have experienced it in the real world. Not fauns and pale men and fairies,” he says, chuckling. “But I find that when your will lines up with the lifestream of the cosmos, you see things thathappenthat are tremendous.When youswim against the life stream, things go wrong.”

STOKES

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“He was the patriarch of the family,”his granddaughter Christina Eachus said. “He was always there forall hisgrandchildren, every soccer game, every practice, everybig or small moment.”

His commitment to curiosity and learning extended far beyond his career and became the foundation of his family, passed down through generations.

Born in Houston in 1938, Stokes was introduced early to the world of plants through his family’snursery background, alegacy that dates back generations in Louisiana. That connection grew into alegacy.He attendedthe University of Louisiana at Lafayette on a football scholarship, later earning advanced degrees in entomology, chemistry and evolutionary biology,including studies at Harvard University

Sondra Stokes described her father as adventurous, funny and generous with his knowledge and someone who found joy in sharing what he knew

“He loved teaching, giving talks, helping people understand things,” she said

His career tookhim across the world. Stokes served for 17 years as director of mosquito control in Jefferson Parish,consulted with organizations including the World Health Organization, andcontributedto the planning ofpest control systems for Walt Disney World. He also worked as aphotographer,author and outdoor editor,and remained deeplyinvolvedinthe study and care of plantsthroughout his life.

From 1970 to 1982, Glenn Stokesworked in Haiti, visiting the island nation more than 250 times, often accompanied by his wife, Yvonne. Thecouple became interested in the art andartists of Haiti and began to form acollection that today includesapproximately 400 paintings

But for his family,Stokes’ accomplishmentsonly tell part ofhis story

“Heenjoyed working, but for him it wasn’t just ajob,” Sondra Stokes said. “It was a pleasure.”

She remembers achildhood shapedbyhands-on learning and discovery

“My memories as ayoung

childwere insectsafaris,” she said. “He would teach me howtofind insects under wood or in leaves and we were always discovering things.”

Thoseearly lessons left a lastingimpact. Today,she continues working in the

plant industry at Lafayette’s All-Season Nursery,sharing knowledgewith othersjust as herfather did.She said many of her siblings also followed similar paths,with onebrother becoming an entomologist andanother working in mosquitocontrol

and landscaping. That passion continues to shape the family today,with younger generations pursuing science and other fields influenced by his curiosity Eachus recalleda time when her husband tried to ask Stokes for her hand in

marriage but struggled to get Stokes’ attention.

“He was too focused on explaining afeeding ritual of an owl,” she said with a laugh.

Among his most personal contributions are aseries of plumeria cultivars he developedand namedafter family members, creating a living legacy that continues to grow

“He named them after my mom, Yvonne,me, my daughters,mynieces. That’s something that will always be here,” Sondra said. He andhis wife of 68 years, Yvonne Stokes, created ahomethat became a gathering placefor generations, hosting holidays, celebrations andmilestones, the family stated.

“He wasthe center of everything, and my grandmother was just like him,” Eachus said.

For his family and those closest to him,they say they hope his legacy goes beyond his professional achievements or the businesses he built.

“He wasa world traveler, alover of plants, andsomeone who loved sharing his knowledge,” Sondra said. “My family and Ihope to continue his legacy.”

AT THE TABLE

Flower farm’s bounty resultsinblackberrycrumble bars

and ripe, warm from thesun, staining our fingertips with deep purpleaswepicked. My daughter called out each time she found aparticularly plump cluster,which made filling our basket an easy task.There was akind of abundance there —simple, generousand shared.

Olivia Regard

On aquiet Sunday afternoon, my daughter and Iwandered into apick-your-own flower farm in St. Martinville. The air carried thewarm, green scent of early summer,and rows of zinnias, cosmos and sunflowers stretched under awide Louisiana sky at St. Rose Flower Farm. Armed with apair of borrowed clippers and abucket that seemed far too large at first, we set out to create our own imperfect masterpiece. My daughter approached each bloom with careful consideration, as if she were choosing something far more consequential than aflower —tilting her head, comparing colors, sometimes stepping back before committing to the cut.

Iwatched her hands learn the quiet language of selection and care, realizing how rare it is to have an afternoon that moves at suchanunhurried pace. Together,wegathered stems, arranging them loosely as we went, the bouquet growing into something both wild and intentional. After the flowers, we meandered through the blackberry brambles. The berries hung low

St.Rose Flow Farm is named after St. Rose of Lima, the patron saint for gardeners, who, as a young girl,would gather flowers to sell in themarketplace of her town.There is something enduring in that image: achild finding purpose andbeautyinsmall, daily labor.And, although we were not preparing our flowers or berries for sale,Ifelt aquiet kinshipinthe act— hands busy with stems and fruit, shaping something lovely out of what the earth had offered freely

We left with abouquetcradled gently between us and acontainer of blackberriesthatpromised a delicious treat, though therewas concern theberriesmight not make the car ride home. More than that, we carriedwithusthe softness ofa day spent together —sunlit, unhurried and rooted in the gentle joy of gathering.

Formore information on St. Rose Flower Farm,visit www.stroseflowerfarm.com.

TODAYINHISTORY

By The Associated Press

Today is Sunday,May 17, the137thday of 2026. There are 228 days left in theyear

Todayinhistory:

On May 17, 1954, aunanimousU.S. Supreme Court handed down its Brown v. BoardofEducation of Topeka decision, which held thatracially segregated public schools were inherently unequal and thereforeunconstitutional.

Also on this date:

In 1792, the Buttonwood Agreement, adocument codifying rulesfor securities trading,was signed by 24 NewYork stockbrokers, marking the formation of the New York StockExchange In 1875, the first Kentucky Derbywas held; the race was won by Aristides, riddenbyjockey Oliver Lewis.

In 1946, President Harry S.Truman seizedcontrol of the nation’srailroads, delaying— butnot preventing —athreatened strike by engineers and trainmen.

In 1973, aspecial committee convenedbythe U.S. Senate began its televised hearings into the Watergate scandal.

In 1980, rioting that claimed 18 liveserupted in Miami after an all-White jury in Tampaacquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating Black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie.

In 1987, 37 American sailors were killedwhen an Iraqi warplane attacked theU.S. Navy frigate Stark in the PersianGulf. (Iraq apologizedfor the attack, calling it amistake, and paid more than $27 million in compensation.)

In 1995, Army veteran Shawn Nelsontook a57tonM-60tank from aCalifornia NationalGuard armory and terrorized San Diego for23minutes, barreling down residential streets, smashing into cars, street lights and fire hydrants on amileslong path of destruction. Police ultimately forced thetankhatch open and fatally shot Nelson

In 2004, Massachusetts became the firstU.S state to allow same-sexmarriages.

In 2015, ashootout erupted between members of rival motorcycle clubs, followed by police gunfire, outside arestaurantinWaco, Texas, leaving nine of the bikers dead and20people injured. In 2024, the Dow Jones Industrial Average just closed above 40,000 for thefirst time,the latest pop in asurprisingly good year for Wall Street in which theDow gained 19.7% over theprevious 12 months.

Today’sbirthdays: MusicianTaj Mahal is 84. Boxing Hall of Famer Sugar RayLeonard is 70. Sports announcer Jim Nantz is 67. Singer-composer Enya is 65. TV host-comedian CraigFerguson is 64. Musician Trent Reznor (NineInch Nails) is 61. Actor Sasha Alexander is 53. Singer-actor Kandi Burrus is 50. Basketball Hall of Famer Tony Parker is 44. Screenwriter-actor-producer Lena Waithe is 42. Dancer-choreographerDerek Hough is 41. Former NFL quarterback Matt Ryan is 41.Actor Nikki Reed is 38. Singer-songwriter AJ Mitchel is 25.

BlackberryCrumbleBars

Makes 12-18 servings; Recipe adapted from Bake from Scratch

For thedough and crumble:

For thefilling:

blackberries

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Prepare a9-inch square pan with baking spray and line with parchmentpaper

3. Whisk together melted butter, sugar,and vanilla.

4. In aseparate bowl, whisk together flour, oats, baking powder, and salt.

5. Gradually incorporate flour mixture into butter mixture until combined. Reserve 3/4 cup of the dough in asmallbowl. Press remaining dough into the bottom of theprepared pan.

6. Bakedough until the edges are lightly browned, approximately 15 minutes. Let cool while preparing filling.

7. In asaucepan over medium heat, bring blackberries, sugar, and lemon zest to aboil. Cook, stirring frequently,until the blackberries break downand release mostoftheir juices.

8. In asmallbowl whisk together cornstarch and lemon juice.

9. Stir cornstarch mixture into blackberry mixture and cook, stirring constantly,until the mixture is thick and translucent.

10. Pour filling onto the prepared crust. Crumble the reserved dough on top.

11. Bake for15minutes, then loosely cover with foil to prevent excess browning. Bake another 10 minutes until the bars are golden brown(approximately 20-25 minutes total).

Aregraduateinvitations just gift requests?

Dear Miss Manners: My daughter and Ihave adisagreement regarding graduation invitations. She has stated that sending an invitation meansyou are expecting agift, so therefore it is acceptable not to send the invitation. Ibelieve it is an opportunitytocelebrate amajor milestone in the life of thegraduatewith family and friends. Idonot think this meansyou have to bring agift, and Ithink it is wrong to presumeone’s financial capabilities. It is a time of celebrating.

graduating, and we’ll get to see her receiving her diploma!”

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

GentleReader: How nice that you are an idealist; how fortunate that your daughter is arealist. It would indeed be sweet if relatives and friends receiving graduation invitations thought “Wow! Gillian is

Andifthere is a partyinvolved, the excitement would be about basking in Gillian’sglory —orjust enjoying any excuse for aparty

Maybe Grandmama would react this way, maybe even aneighbor who watched her grow up.

Butyour daughter is right that people do regard such invitations as bills

Graduation ceremonies are tedious to anybut those with thestrongestties and attachments to agraduate. Even people who mightenjoy a party are thinking, “What’s thegoing rate for agraduation present these days?And if we don’tgo, do we still have to sendsomething?”

Of course you are proud

of your daughter’sachievement. When you tell your friends about it, no doubt they will be pleased foryou. But Miss Manners suggests that you listen to your daughter and not expect them to be as deeply involved as you are. One waytorecognize her achievement is to respect her analysis of the situation.

Dear Miss Manners: Ireceived agraduation announcement forasecond cousin whom I have never met.AmIobliged to send agift?

Gentle Reader: No. But sending congratulations would be nice.

Dear Miss Manners: My children are college students with no incomeand very little money in the bank. Ido not wantthem to spend alot of their money forMother’s Day. They always spend too much, and it really stresses me out. Also, my husband al-

ways ignores my request not to buy me any flowers. Iwould prefer that they just get me ajar of my favorite lotion, which is under $10. Would that be rude to suggest, and how can Idoitina tactful manner?

Gentle Reader: By thanking them and seeming to be delighted with their choices. And especially by refraining from criticizing and attempting to take control over their generous gestures. Miss Manners considers scorning tributes to be asure wayofkilling the spirit that inspired them

Sendquestions to Miss Manners at herwebsite, www.missmanners. com; to heremail, dearmissmanners@gmail. com; or through postalmail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 WalnutSt., Kansas City,MO64106.

When youdon’t want kids at your wedding

Hints from Heloise

Dear Heloise: How do Itell my brother and his wife that their two young boys aren’tinvited tomywedding? I’m getting married in afairly small, formal ceremony on July 4. It’sanevening, candlelit ceremony for adults only,starting around 8p.m. Areception will follow after the ceremony Iknow that only people whose names appear on theinner envelope are invited, but this has never stopped mybrother and his wife from bringing along their two young children. Iprobably wouldn’t mind it if theboys were well-behaved, but they aren’t! They are 7and 5, respectively Lastsummer,the oldest boy climbed atree, then jumped on the roof of my house and refused to come down. We had to call thefire departmenttoget him down. Iwas furious when my sisterin-law laughed and said it was so “cute”!

Pleasehelp me here. Should Ijust tell them as nicely as Icannot to bring the boys? —Ava and Brent M., in North Carolina Avaand Brent, aformal evening wed-

ding is always an adults-only affair,but somepeople thinkthattheir children should be invited no matter what. Bring up thesubject toyour brother and his wife, stating that the two of you talked it over and decided thatyou wanted an adults-only wedding. Andreally,8 p.m. is too late forchildren this young to attend awedding and areception afterward. If your brother asks if you’ll makeanexception for their two boys, tell them “no” and explain why —Heloise Chicks andhens

Dear Heloise: My husband and Idecided to movetothe country,and we love it out here. Iwanted to raise chickens, but Iwas anovice who didn’tknow what to do. A neighbor told me that Icould introduce adopted chicks to ahen if Itook dayold hatchlings and slipped them under thehen at night when she sleeps. In themorning, both thechicks and hens will have become used to the sound and smell of one another,and the hen will feel like thechicks are hers. Itried it,and sure enough, it works! My little chicks have new mamas,and

the hens take care of their new babies. Carmen E., in Portales, New Mexico Curing dryhair

Dear Heloise: My hair is as dry as a bone. Ihave tried hair conditioners and masks, but they only offer temporary relief.I brush my hair often and use the 100-strokes method, but Istill have dull, brittle hair.What should Ibedoing to get agood shine and fewersplit ends?

TanyaG., in Colby, Kansas Tanya, you might want to consult with ahairdresser to find the best routine foryour hair.Inthe meantime, you should probably give yourself afew hot oil treatments. Be sure to workthe oil downthe strands and get them covered. (Olive oil works wellfor this treatment.) Then take ashower cap, put it over your hair,and leave it on foratleast twohours (or overnight if you can). Be sure to tuck all your hair inside the cap. Afterward, washyour hair with amild shampoo and remove all the excess oil. If you need to shampoo twice to get all the oil out, this is OK,but skip the conditioner —Heloise Send ahinttoheloise@heloise.com.

BETWEEN THE PAGES WITH JOE BOND

Novelist draws on experience in group homes for new book

BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer

Joe Bond is an award-winning short story writer whose debut novel “Hope House” explores the lives of a group of troubled teenage boys in a treatment program in the late 1980s. Bond, who now lives in New Orleans with his family, grew up around similar group homes in eastern Kentucky and began working in them when he was still in high school He heard firsthand the stories of hundreds of boys and followed their journeys from intake to aftercare.

Bond

He began drafting “Hope House” after his story

“Damico” won The Masters Review Short Story Award. Octavia Books in New Orleans will host the book launch for “Hope House” from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m May 19. The book comes out on May 26.

This interview was edited for length and clarity

What was your inspiration for writing “Hope House?”

I grew up around homes that my dad ran. From my earliest memory, he was a counselor in a group home, and he would take me to work with him. I was around the boys from the time I was four or five years old through high school. Our lives as family were just inextricable from the kids that my dad cared for In the summers during college, I would work day shifts, coach the softball team and coach the basketball team

The home becomes its own world There are a lot of good kids with so many impossible situations, and there are people working in the field that care about them.

Tell me about how you fashioned these young men and gave them their own identities in the book.

The home was in eastern Kentucky, but we had kids from all over the state — from around Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, the mountains and everywhere. None of the characters are stand-ins for kids I knew, but they’re all based on the truths I knew about the kids I was around.

We had really smart, sharp charming kids who had been through the system and did not trust you because they had been through other homes They knew when you cared about them, and they knew when you didn’t It took time to earn that trust, and they could make changes.

They’re outsiders in the real world They can come together inside the house, but it doesn’t really change their standing outside the home.

How did you develop the characters’ back stories?

I wanted to make the kids as complicated as they were in real life. None of them should come off as caricatures All of the kids I knew were complex, and I think the back stories were about humanizing them, showing them the context of their lives.

They’d done stuff, but things had also been done to them. With each kid, I wanted to make them fully human and also not make them little innocent angels, because none of them were. They made mistakes, and they did things. But to understand those mistakes, you’ve got to understand their situation. I tried to create a full picture of all of that

Why do you think it’s important for people to engage with fiction stories like this?

I think it reveals something in all of us. We need to find our people, our tribe

We’re pretty divided as a country and then you see all these kids who’ve been through so much and are so different. They find what’s common about each other, and they help each other They argue with each other and fight with each other, but at the end of the day, they really care about each other Humanity is there, and this is the kind of setting that brings it out. And that’s what I saw in real life It’s a difficult place, but the boys find a way to care about each other there

I really liked how the peers kept each other accountable.Why did you choose to set up “Hope House” like that?

It’s based on what I grew up around. I think that peers have way more influence on other kids than adults do, so it can be a really powerful setup — if you have a good culture

If you have a bad culture, and you give the kids too much power it can be really bad, and it can be a mistake The kids need to feel like they’re in control, but the adults still could be in control. If it’s a good culture, the kids are holding each other accountable and modeling for each other

What are you hoping the response will be, and what does “Hope House” mean to you? I started working on the first story, probably, in 2018. It’s been a long process. I used to think I just wanted to write a book, and it really didn’t matter to me if a lot if people read it. I was happy with the idea of just writing something and it being good Now, having actually written the book, it really matters. I really want people to read it. I want people to care about these kids. Email Joy Holden at joy.holden@theadvocate.com.

A literary LIFE RAFT

Jesmyn Ward’s voice a poignant reflection on times of despair, hopelessness and her family in Mississippi

BY RIEN FERTEL Contributing writer

“On Witness and Respair,” by Jesmyn Ward, Scribner, 256 pages.

Jesmyn Ward remembers seeing the Mississippi Literary Map on the wall of her elementary school library Iconic names and faces Faulkner Welty and Wright — staring out from the confines of a state that might have then ranked last in the nation among most childhood education and well-being indicators but punched above its weight when it came to literature.

Before she read their work, Ward recognized these writers — most all writers — as “magic-workers.”

“I could already sense the worlds they constructed,” Ward writes in her new book, “On Witness and Respair.” “Why couldn’t I just step through from my world into theirs?”

It should come as no surprise to those who know her work that Ward’s own face now graces that map. The professor of creative writing at Tulane University is a MacArthur Genius Grant-winning author of four novels, including two, “Salvage the Bones” and “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” that have won the National Book Award.

But I much prefer her heart-crushing 2013 memoir, “Men We Reaped,” which documents the tragic deaths of five young men in her life, including her younger brother, Joshua. It is, in my mind, one of the best works of nonfiction published this century

“On Witness and Respair,” Ward’s first essay collection, traces the familiar contours and themes of the author’s life: growing up in DeLisle, Mississippi, the joys and struggles of being Black in America and her unwavering devotion to literature. Though each of the essays, minus the introduction, have previously appeared in print, this is an invaluable collection for Ward’s fans and a terrific introduction to one of the most powerful, and graceful, voices in American literature today Ward’s collection is foremost a love letter to the act and art of reading.

‘Tell it straight’

In an essay titled “Why Fiction Matters,” delivered at the Library of Congress in 2023, Ward reveals the roots of her love for literature. She describes her maternal grandmother Dorothy as “the first storyteller of my life,” born into a “a long line of storykeepers and tale-tellers, part of a lineage of Americans griots who remembered the truth of who we were and what we’d been through and passed it along.”

for how to survive, how to thrive, in broken worlds.”

Toni Morrison heals her “invisible, starved tribe, fed for years with false fruit: caricature and stereotype.”

Resisting expectations

But it’s not all literary valentines. A reading of “Gone with the Wind” in junior high left Ward feeling “angry Aware. More lonely than I had ever been.” But it also became the novel that “taught me much about America, the South, how others saw me,” a book that “made me want to resist those expectations and be something more.”

She mentored Ward not to ignore the pain life brings, to carry life’s tribulations into her own work.

“Tell it straight,” Dorothy taught. “Tell it all.”

She does exactly that, writing of the struggles her family bore throughout her childhood, troubles that still plague Black children and families in Mississippi.

“I carry the poverty of my Mississippi youth forward with me: By remembering the emptiness inside me,” Ward writes.

“By remembering how that emptiness permeated every bit of me. How I was hungry in my belly and ravenous to fill my brain with something that would one day help ensure that I would not be hungry forever.”

She turns to books, and as a teenager, Ward became a voracious reader “inhaling a title a day.” Black writers writing Black characters mattered most. Reading Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” on a school bus “was a revelation.” In those pages, she hears the generational voices of the women in her family

She hears her own voice, revealed like “my secret identity that I yearned to embrace, the aspirational writer.”

When Ward is not focusing on books, she turns her authorial gaze to people. There’s a few skippable essays here: promotional profiles of Regina King, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ava DuVernay Though engaging when they first appeared in print, they feel inessential years later Few writers are better than Ward at meditating on the meaning of family and home. The collection contains her first published piece of work, “We Don’t Swim in Our Cemeteries,” a reflection on Katrina that feels as vital today in understanding the hurricane’s before and aftershocks as it did when it first appeared in print nearly two decades ago. “Even after that which you love dies,” she writes of the death of the small town she knew before the storm, “the love you have for it does not die. Grief is learning to live with that love.”

In a more recent essay, she writes of her reluctance to raise a Black son in the United States and wrestles with how to answer her son’s future questions about the young men she calls his “phantom siblings”: Trayvon, Tamir and Emmett.

“I will be denying his childhood,” she writes. “Burdening him with understanding beyond his years. Darkening his innocence.”

Yet, she helps readers understand that her decision is a necessary one.

The title of Ward’s collection contains the rare word “respair” and not, as many a less careful scan might render, its homonym and close-ish synonym, “repair.”

In respair — meaning, per the “Oxford English Dictionary,” “fresh hope, or recovery from despair” — she has settled on the single perfect word to define her writing, which burns with rage as it provides hope, offering a literary life raft in our time — any time — of desperation.

We should all bear witness to Ward’s words. Read and respair

Rien Fertel is the author of four books. He can be reached at rienfertel@gmail.com.

abid by replying to the"Invita‐tion to Bid" email sent by DabneDover (dabne‐dover@lafayettela.gov).

Biddersare requestedto attend anon-mandatory pre-bidmeeting, which will be held on May27, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. CSTin theEngineeringConfer‐ence Room 2atthe LUS Operations Center lo‐catedat1314 Walker Rd Lafayette,LA70506. Bid‐ders unable to attend the pre-bidinpersoncan at‐tend by joiningthrough ZOOM usingthe follow‐inglink: https://us02web zoom.us/j/85297546598? pwd=mZ9lb0y8JaKb6Az jzKYqr4HXDBaOeM.1. Al‐ternatively, ameetingin‐vite canbeforwarded to you viaemail by contact‐ingDabne Doverat(337) 291-8262 or dabnedover@ lafayettela.gov Each bidshall be accom‐panied by acertified check, cashier’scheck or bidbondpayable to theLafayette Consoli‐datedGovernment, the amount of which shallbe five percent(5%)ofthe base bidplusadditive al‐ternates.Ifabid bond is used,itshall be written by asuretyorinsurance companycurrently on theU.S.Departmentof theTreasuryFinancial Management Servicelist of approved bonding companieswhich is pub‐lished annually in the FederalRegister, or by a Louisianadomiciled in‐surancecompany with at leastanA-Ratinginthe latest printing of theA.M Best’s KeyRatingGuide to writeindividualbonds up to tenpercent (10%) of policyholders’ surplus as showninthe A.M. Best’s KeyRatingGuide or by an insurancecom‐pany

y theOwner based on the lowest responsibleand responsive bidsubmitted which is also in compli‐ance with thebid docu‐ments. TheLafayette Consolidated Govern‐ment reserves theright to reject anyand allbids forjustcause in accor‐dancewithLAR.S 38§2214.B. TheLafayette Consoli‐datedGovernment strongly encourages the participationofDBEs (Disadvantaged Business Enterprises) in allcon‐tracts or procurements letbythe Lafayette Con‐solidatedGovernment forgoodsand services andlabor andmaterial. To that end, allbidders andsuppliers areen‐couraged to utilizeDBEs business enterprisesin thepurchaseorsub-con‐tracting of materials, supplies,servicesand laborand material in which disadvantaged businessesare available. Assistance in identifying said businessesmay be obtained by calling337291-8410. PURCHASING DIVISION Lafayette Consolidated Government PUBLISHDATES:5-11-26; 5-17-26 DPR1005116 186498-may11-17-2t $168

that sealed bids will be received either electroni‐callyathttps://lafayet tecsdgovla.tylerportico. com/va/vendor-access/ registration or in theof‐fice of thePurchasingDi‐vision at theLafayette Consolidated Govern‐ment Building,located at 705WestUniversityAv‐enue,Lafayette Louisiana, until3:00pm CentralTimeonthe 28TH dayofMay,2026 for the following: WASHED GRAVEL RE-BID andwill, shortlythere‐after,beopenedand read aloudinCityHalllo‐catedat705 West Univer‐sity Avenue,Lafayette LA.Bidsreceivedafter theabove specified time foropening shallnot be considered andshall be returned unopened to thesender. Bidders are encouraged to attend the bidopening virtuallyby usingthe followinglink https://us02web.zoom. us/j/83904010718? pwd=HUS1ovStvA5sSTG cqH6ODmTW9UlaNl.1 MeetingID: 839 0401 0718 Passcode:521176 In accordance with LouisianaRS38:2212. vendorsmay submit theirbid electronically at thewebsite listed above. Bidderswishing to sub‐mittheir bidelectroni‐callymust firstberegis‐teredwithinLCG Vendor Access at thewebsite listed above. Theregis‐trationprocess cantake some time;therefore LCGrecommendsregis‐tering days in advanceof thetimethatbidsare due. It is thesolerespon‐sibility of thebidderto h i bid i d li

y ensure their bid is deliv‐ered (whether electroni‐callyvia Vendor Access in person,orvia mail)to thePurchasingDivision priortothe scheduled date andtimeofthe bid opening. Vendorsmay requestthe bidpackage electronically from Thomas Metrejeanattg‐metrejean@lafayettela gov. Vendorssubmittingbids electronically arere‐quired to providethe same documentsasbid‐ders submitting through themailassoon as avail‐able.Onlya bidbond, certified checkor cashier’scheck shallbe submittedasthe bidse‐curity.Electroniccopies of both thefront and back of thecheck or bid bond shallbeincluded with theelectronicbid Bids must be signedin accordance with LRS Title38:2212(B)5.A Cor‐porate Resolution or Cer‐tificate of Authorityau‐thorizingthe person signingthe bidisre‐quired to be submitted with bid. Failuretosub‐mita CorporateResolu‐tion or Certificate of Au‐thoritywiththe bidshall be causefor rejectionof bid. Copies of thebidding documentsare available at thePurchasingOffice locatedat705 West Uni‐versityAvenue Lafayette,LA70506. Tele‐phonenumber(337) 2917187 (Attn:ThomasMe‐trejean).Bidding docu‐mentsshall be available until twenty-four (24) hoursbeforethe bid openingdate. Each bidshall be accom‐panied by acertified check, cashier’scheck or bidbondpayable to the Lafayette Consolidated Government,inthe amount of $500.00. If a bidbondisused, it shall be writtenbya surety or insurancecompany cur‐rently on theU.S.Depart‐ment of theTreasuryFi‐nancialManagement Servicelistofapproved bondingcompanies which is publishedannu‐ally in theFederal Regis‐ter, or by aLouisiana domiciledinsurance companywithatleast an A-Rating in thelatest printing of theA.M Best’s KeyRatingGuide to writeindividualbonds up to tenpercent (10%) of policyholders’ surplus as showninthe A.M. Best’s KeyRatingGuide or by an insurancecom‐pany in good standing li‐censed to writebid bondswhich is either domiciledinLouisiana or ownedbyLouisiana resi‐dents. Thebid bond shall be issued by acompany licensed to do business in Louisianaand counter‐signed by apersonwho is under contract with re‐siding in this state. The certified check, cashier’s check, or bidbondshall be givenasa guarantee that thebiddershall exe‐cute thecontract, should it be awardedtohim,in conformity with thecon‐tractdocuments within ten(10) days No bidder maywithdraw hisbid foratleast fortyfive (45) days after the time scheduledfor the

openingofbids. Each bid shallbesubmitted only on thebid form provided with thespecifications. Bids will be evaluatedby thePurchaser basedon thelowestresponsible andresponsivebid sub‐mitted which is also in compliance with thebid documents. The Lafayette Consolidated Government reserves the righttorejectany andall bids forjustcause in ac‐cordance with LA R.S. 38§2214.B. TheLafayette Consoli‐datedGovernment strongly encourages the participationofDBEs (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise)inall con‐tracts or procurements letbythe Lafayette Con‐solidatedGovernment forgoodsand services andlabor andmaterial. To that end, allcontrac‐tors andsuppliers are encouraged to utilize DBEs business enter‐prisesinthe purchase or sub-contractingofmate‐rials, supplies, services andlabor andmaterialin which disadvantaged business areavailable Assistance in identifying said businessesmay be obtained by calling2918410. PURCHASING DIVISION Lafayette Consolidated Government PUBLISHDATES:5/13/26, 5/17/26 DPR# 994697 187363-MAY13-17-2T

In accordance with LouisianaRS38:2212. vendorsmay submit theirbid electronically

thewebsite

Bidderswishing to

y Government reserves the righttorejectany andall bids forjustcause in ac‐cordance with LA R.S. 38§2214.B Contractorsorcontract‐ing firmssubmittingbids in theamount of $50,000.00 or more shall certifythattheyare

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE TO CONTRAC‐TORS Notice is hereby given that sealed bids will be received either electroni‐callyat https://lafayet tecsdgovla.tylerportico. com/va/vendor-access/ registration or in theof‐fice of thePurchasingDi‐vision at theLafayette Consolidated Govern‐ment Building,located at 705 West University Av‐enue,Lafayette Louisiana, until 10:00 AM CentralTimeonthe 11th dayof June,2026 forthe following: JENKINSRDBRIDGERE‐PLACEMENNT andwill, shortlythere‐after,beopenedand read aloudina room within City Hall located at 705 West University Avenue,Lafayette,LA. Bids received after

mittheir bidelectroni‐callymust firstberegis‐teredwithinLCG Vendor Access at thewebsite listed above. Theregis‐trationprocess cantake some time;therefore, LCGrecommendsregis‐tering days in advanceof thetimethatbidsare due. It is thesolerespon‐sibility of thebidderto ensure theirbid is deliv‐ered (whether electroni‐callyvia Vendor Access in person,orvia mail)to thePurchasingDivision priortothe scheduled date andtimeofthe bid opening. Biddersmay re‐questthe electronic bid packagefromHeather Kestlerat hkestler@ lafayettela.gov Bidderswishing to sub‐mittheir bidelectroni‐callymust firstberegis‐teredonlinewith Lafayette Consolidated Government as apoten‐tial supplieratthe web‐site listed above. Bidders submitting bids electron‐ically arerequiredtopro‐vide thesamedocu‐mentsasbidders sub‐mittingthrough themail as soon as available. Only abid bond,certified checkorcashier’s check shallbesubmitted as the bidsecurity. Electronic copies of both thefront andbackofthe checkor bidbondshall be in‐cluded with theelec‐tronic bid. Bids must be signedin accordance with LRS Title38:2212(B)5.A Cor‐porate Resolution or Cer‐tificate of Authorityau‐thorizingthe person signingthe bidisre‐quired to be submitted with bid. Failuretosub‐mita CorporateResolu‐tion or Certificate of Au‐thoritywiththe bidshall be causefor rejectionof bid. Copies of thebidding documentsexceptfor SectionC –“Standard Specificationsfor

Consoli‐datedGovernment, the amount of

tionsfor Roads, Drainage,Bridges and OtherInfrastructure” 2023 Editionare available from thePublicWorks Department at 1515 E University Avenue,Build‐ingA,Lafayette LA 70501. BidDocuments shallbe availableuntil twentyfour hoursbeforethe bid openingdate. Questions relative to thebidding documents shallbead‐dressedtoHeather Kestlerat hkestler@

shallbe five percent(5%)ofthe base bidplusadditiveal‐ternates.Ifa bidbondis used,itshall be written by asuretyorinsurance companycurrently on theU.S.Departmentof theTreasuryFinancial Management Servicelist of approved bonding companieswhich is pub‐lished annually in the FederalRegister, or by a Louisianadomiciledin‐surancecompany with at leastanA-Ratinginthe latest printing of theA.M Best’s KeyRatingGuide to writeindividualbonds up to tenpercent (10%) of policyholders’ surplus as showninthe A.M. Best’s KeyRatingGuide or by an insurancecom‐pany in good standing li‐censed to writebid bondswhich is either domiciledinLouisiana or ownedbyLouisiana resi‐dents. Thebid bond shall be issued by acompany licensed to do business in Louisiana. Thecerti‐fied check, cashier’s check, or bidbondshall be givenasa guarantee that thebiddershall exe‐cute thecontract, should it be awardedtohim,in conformity with thecon‐tractdocuments within ten(10)days. No contractor maywith‐draw itsbid priortothe deadline forsubmission of bids.Withdrawalof bids thereafter shallbe allowedonlypursuantto LA R.S. 38§2214.C.Other‐wise,nobiddermay withdraw hisbid forat leastforty-five (45) days afterthe time scheduled forthe bidopening of bids.Eachbid shallbe submittedonlyonthe bidformprovidedwithin thespecifications. The successfulbidderwillbe required to executeper‐formance andlabor and material paymentbonds in thefullamount of the contract as more fully definedinthe biddocu‐ments. No contractors maywithdrawhis bidfor at leastforty-five (45) days afterthe time scheduledfor theopen‐ingofbids. Each bidshall be submittedonlyonthe bidformprovidedwith thespecifications. The successful contractor will be required to exe‐cute performanceand laborand material pay‐ment bondsinthe full amount of thecontract as more fullydefinedin thebid documents. Bids will be evaluatedby thePurchaser basedon thelowestresponsible andresponsivebid sub‐mitted which is also in compliance with thebid documents. The Lafayette Consolidated h

CA RN IV AL BEARER

BY RICH COLLINS Staff writer

Several years ago, comedian and former “TheTonightShow” hostJay Leno waschattingwithaudiencemembers during astandup set at the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Barry Kern,CEO of KernStudios, was sitting close to thestage.

“What do you do for aliving?” Leno asked theNew Orleans businessman

“I build Mardi Gras floats,” Kern responded.

“Whatdoyou do the other 364 days ayear?” Lenoasked, eliciting laughs

from the crowd.

Clearly,neither Leno nor the audience understood how muchtimeittakes to build, maintain andstore hundreds of Carnivalfloats for roughly 20 parade organizations each year.And they had no idea how much Kern’s family business hasexpanded beyond Mardi Gras —and New Orleansitself —this century KernStudios, founded by Barry Kern’slarger-than-life father,Blaine Kern,in1947, has evolvedfrom aNew Orleans Mardi Gras float-building

company into aglobal entertainment production and specialty fabrication enterprise, serving theme parks, parades, festivals, events, schools, businessesand museums worldwide At the sametime, the business has also dramatically increased the size of its NewOrleans footprint, stretching from its original home base in Algiers to nearly two dozenbuildings acrossthe city,includingriverfronteventspaces that host ä See KERN, page 2E

Louisianacasinoexpansion credited forrevenue growth

BY TIMOTHY BOONE

gambling revenues. The state’s10 riverboatcasinos,six land-based properties and four racetrack casinos, or “racinos,” brought in $2.49 billion, up 8.6% from the

year before. Thecomparison against2024 was aided by thefact that Live! Casino &Hotel Louisiana opened in Bossier City in February2025 at thesite of the former Diamond Jacks property, which shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. That means for most of 2025, there was one morepropertyoperating than there was theyear before. Live! generated $112.9million in revenueduring 2025,solidly establishing itself as the third busiest casino in ShreveportBossier City,behind market leader Margaritaville and Horseshoe BossierCity.

ä See CASINO, page 2E

Issued May 6-12

Commercial alterations

MEDICAL: 1214 Coolidge St., description, buildout for operations; applicant, MBSB Group; contractor, The Lemoine Co.; $4.2 million

INDUSTRIAL: 107 Business Park Drive, description, interior renovations for Downhole Chemical Solutions; applicant, Trahan Architecture + Planning; contractor, Triad Construction Services; $115,000. SALON: 300 Youngsville Highway, description, Studio 300; applicant and contractor, Studio 300 LLC; $3,000.

BUILDING PERMITS

New residential 212 ROSE ST.: Castle Row Construction, $100,000. 117 COTTAGE PARC LANE: DSLD $241,750. 519 KILCHRIST ROAD, CARENCRO: Cody Estilette, $552,125. 144 RUE MASSIE, BROUSSARD: Blue Wing Builders, $487,500. 607 GUNTER GRASS COURT: Bolgiano Custom Homes, $765,000. 1407 SELLERS ROAD, RAYNE: Andries Builders, $471,500. 217 KELLOGG AVE.: Bailey Home Builders, $277,500. 219 KELLOGG AVE.: Bailey Home Builders, $270,125. 374 W. BROUSSARD ROAD: Manuel

Builders, $272,125. 221 KELLOGG AVE.: Bailey Home Builders, $253,375.

302 MANOR HOUSE LANE: DP Construction, $519,500. 105 SOHO CIRCLE: Prestigious Home Builders, $394,250. 121 HAMILTON PARC WAY: Manuel Builders, $325,000. 102 BLUSHING GROOM DRIVE, CARENCRO: Manuel Builders, $281,750. 409 JUDICE LANE, DUSON: DSLD $274,250. 611 BOURDETTE DRIVE: Manuel Builders, $266,500.

106 ACADIAN FALLS DRIVE, BROUSSARD: DR Horton, $132,892.

107 ACADIAN FALLS DRIVE, BROUSSARD: DR Horton, $132,892. 111 ACADIAN FALLS DRIVE, BROUSSARD: DR Horton, $126,175. 109 ACADIAN FALLS DRIVE, BROUSSARD: DR Horton, $126,220.

505 OCEANS BLVD., YOUNGSVILLE: Level Construction & Development, $214,500. 203 HIGH POINT WAY, YOUNGSVILLE: Level Construction & Development, $215,316.

316 GIREER ROAD, YOUNGSVILLE: Southern Bend Homes, $460,000.

100 QUIJANO WAY, YOUNGSVILLE: Acadiana Dream Home, $250,000.

115 PROVINCETOWN LANE, YOUNGSVILLE: Manuel Builders, $260,000.

Longtime Mid-city Lafayette lunch spot set to close

Staff report

The Logan Farms Honey Glazed Hams and Market Café in Lafayette will close this summer,

A worker moves a prop with a forklift inside a Kern Studios warehouse in New Orleans. Kern Studios’ year-round activity generates more than $100 million in revenue and employs more than 200 people globally while exporting local culture and know-how to the world.

KERN

the store announced last week.

The store, in the South College Center, said it will close July 31 and is advising customers to redeem their gift cards before then,

according to its Facebook post. The location has been offering its signature honey-glazed hams along with a lunch menu of poboys, sandwiches and side items

since

Continued from page 1E

hundreds of thousands of people annually Kern Studios’ year-round activity generates more than $100 million in revenue and employs more than 200 people globally while exporting New Orleans culture and know-how to the world. Besides its local headquarters, the studio now has operations in the Philippines along with smaller offices in Houston; Orlando, Florida; and Philadelphia A Dallas outpost is coming soon.

Guided by Barry Kern, 63, and two of his sons 33-year-old Fitz and 28-year-old Patrick — the family-owned enterprise has outgrown its local float-building peers by exporting the spectacle of modern-day Mardi Gras and by leveraging that international work to support its operations back home.

“We could never maintain the artists, sculptors, carpenters and welders we have in New Orleans if we didn’t have work on an everyday basis,” Barry Kern said. “We’re just grinding.”

Global reach

Blaine Kern, who died in 2020, is credited with creating much of the contemporary New Orleans Mardi Gras spectacle, including multimillion-dollar, double-decker “superkrewe” floats decked out with giant props, animatronics and fancy lighting. Barry Kern, in turn, has led the charge to export that spectacle to customers outside the city — especially theme parks.

A key moment came in 1989, when The Walt Disney Co. hired Kern Studios to decorate a hotel in Mardi Gras style. After that, a partnership with artists in Valencia, Spain, led to gigs building theming, signage and scenic elements at Disneyland Paris (formerly Euro Disney) in the early 1990s. Similar work followed back in the States, especially in Orlando, where Disney was expanding and other hotels and attractions were being built.

“We became the first outside company ever allowed to produce sculptures of Disney characters,” Barry Kern said Today, Kern’s company works for every major theme park group in the country, including Universal Parks, SeaWorld and Six Flags. It creates scenic elements for attractions and rides and builds elaborate floats for park parades.

“People think you weld some steel together, slap on some wheels and maybe add an electric motor and you have a float,” Fitz Kern said. “But there are a thousand pages of engineering documents for these projects.”

At the Universal Orlando theme park, the studio has built

CASINO

Continued from page 1E

Rob Norton, president of Cordish Gaming & Live Casinos, said in an email the property has done well during its first year of operations.

“Performance has been solid and in line with expectations for a new, premium offering — strong early demand supported by brand recognition and an upgraded experience, with encouraging signs of repeat visitation,” Norton said.

Another factor in the rise in Louisiana casino revenue is the 2018 change to the state law allowed floating casinos, which for decades were allowed to operate only over water, to move onto land and open bigger gambling halls with better facilities, more restaurants and adjoining hotels. Since 2022, four properties have moved onto land: Horseshoe Lake Charles, The Queen Baton Rouge, Treasure Chest in Kenner and Bally’s Baton Rouge. They joined Caesars New Orleans, which for years was the only state-regulated landbased casinos.

The moves onto land paid off.

In its first full year of operation as a landbased property, Treasure Chest saw its revenue increase by 31.4% year over year, to finish 2025 with $158.6 million in winnings.

Officials with Boyd Gaming, the parent company of Treasure Chest, noted the move onto land helped boost business in its South and Midwest region. Total revenues in the market were up $53.2 million, or 2.6%, for the year, with gambling revenue increasing by $47.4 million and food and beverage revenue up $3.4 million. Boyd said the increases were primarily driven by Treasure Chest’s move.

and maintained floats for a seasonal Mardi Gras-themed attraction that has been going on for three decades in a section of the park designed to look like the French Quarter. Each year, Kern’s artists make updates to the procession, which Barry Kern said has helped promote the real New Orleans Mardi Gras since its inception.

“It’s purple, green and gold everywhere,” he said “The crowd loves catching beads and all the interaction.”

This century, the rising popularity of theme parks in Asia spurred by increased urbanization and rising incomes — has led to the creation of several new properties in Japan, Korea, Singapore and China, where the Universal Beijing and Shanghai Disney “mega parks” cost billions to build As a result, more than half of Kern Studios’ team now works at its Philippines facility serving customers in that region and worldwide.

“It was a natural progression of our business to have production capacity over there to serve those markets,” Fitz Kern said. “It’s easier to be close to the same time zone.”

30-foot tigers, 3-story cows

Nowadays, Kern Studios also gets plenty of work completely unrelated to Mardi Gras or theme parks

One of its specialties is making three-dimensional decorative objects usually out of fiberglass or hard-coated Styrofoam — for seasonal or permanent use. Visible examples in New Orleans include the figures and sculptures that adorn Mardi Gras floats each year But there’s also demand from other customers.

The company has created an enormous armadillo for the State Fair of Texas, a life-size replica of a submarine to help a maritime company woo investors, and hundreds of cows to embellish billboards advertising the fast-food restaurant Chick-fil-A.

“You’d laugh if you saw some of the inquiries that come in,” Fitz Kern said.

Other projects include a 30-foot-long Mike the Tiger prop commissioned by LSU and a basketball-themed entryway sculpture recently installed at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.

Additionally, annual events like the Houston Rodeo and Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving parade create more opportunities for work.

“New Orleans floats are designed to be beautiful, of course, but they also need to carry dozens of people and thousands of pounds of throws,” Patrick Kern said. “In other places, the floats are more pageant style — it’s a different art form.”

The company’s handcrafted items also turn up in some unexpected places, such as historic renovations.

The Hotel Peter and Paul in New Orleans hired Kern to create several ornate foam pieces for its Victorian-era Elysian bar and it just delivered a pair of cast aluminum columns for a French Quarter renovation.

“We’re mostly doing a lot of exterior pieces because that’s what deteriorates faster,” Fitz Kern said.

Growing along with Mardi Gras

Barry Kern said supply chain disruptions, which “seem to happen more frequently,” and unpredictable spikes in the cost of material, shipping and labor create challenges for his company and other specialty fabricators. Looking ahead, though, he’s optimistic that growing interest in immersive entertainment experiences and his company’s multiyear agreements with customers will offset those threats.

Another positive development for the company: Carnival ridership has nearly tripled over the past quarter-century despite a decline in the city’s population. The effects of that growth were visible in Kern’s workspaces last week.

In the company’s Tchoupitoulas Street workshop, carpenters were building wood floats on top of undercarriages that were assembled at another Kern property on Poydras Street. An artist in a separate section of the work-

space was covered in Styrofoam

“snow” as he carved a new prop.

A few blocks downriver, at the company’s Mardi Gras World headquarters near the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, more artists were sculpting and painting props while a tour guide led visitors through the space. Next door, in the company’s massive River City Venues, caterers prepared to host an event in an interior space designed to look like the outside of an old Southern mansion.

All the activity is good for business, said Fitz Kern.

“Our revenue is growing, and we’ve added over 100,000 square feet to our real estate footprint annually for the last five years to keep up with what we’re doing in New Orleans and worldwide,” he said. And Barry Kern said the New Orleans work plays an essential role in attracting more global business.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the people who run entertainment at Disney Universal and Chick-fil-A want to come down and visit us every year at Mardi Gras,” he said. “New Orleans is a draw.”

Email Rich Collins at rich. collins@theadvocate.com.

“The land-based entertainment facility at Treasure Chest has been a tremendous success for both the Kenner community and our company,” said David Strow, Boyd vice president of corporate communications. “Our guests clearly appreciate our modern, expanded gaming floor and enhanced amenities, as shown by the consistent growth that Treasure Chest has delivered since our new facility opened in June 2024.” Bally’s Baton Rouge opened on land in December after operating in a small temporary location for nearly a year The casino brought in $3.8 million in revenue during its first month operating on land nearly six times as much as it won in December 2024. The downtown casino finished 2025 with $11.3 million in revenues, up more than 71% from what it generated its last full year operating on an aging riverboat The increased business at Bally’s has continued into 2026 The casino has seen its revenues go up every month, according to figures from the Louisiana Gaming Control Board through March.

Business at Bally’s sister property downtown, The Queen, also continued to do well. The property brought in $101.2 million in gambling revenues in 2025, up 14% from a year earlier Officials with Bally’s said the company is continuing to build momentum in Baton Rouge.

“Bally’s significant investment across both properties — The Queen and Bally’s Baton Rouge over the past several years has positioned us to elevate the overall guest experience in the market,” the company said in a statement. “In close partnership with local regulators and community leaders, we’re helping catalyze increased downtown activity, supporting sustained revitalization and long-term economic growth.”

New, different experiences Revenue at Caesars New Orleans was up 19% for 2025, coming in at $293.1 million. The downtown casino underwent a major renovation effort to prepare it for the 2025 Super Bowl, adding a 340-room hotel annex, a high-end Nobu restaurant and a 147foot wall of TV screens to its sportsbook Caesars New Orleans’ vice president and general manager said the nine-figure overhaul of the former Harrah’s Casino and the investments the company made at its Horsehoe properties in Lake Charles and Bossier City are paying off because customers want new and different gambling experiences.

“It’s not just about the gaming the slots or table games,” said Samir Mowad. “It’s about the overall experience, and when people hear about a new facility or rebranded facility with new restaurants and amenities, they respond.” At Caesars New Orleans, customers are split roughly equally between local and regional patrons and out-of-state guests. Mowad said the casino has seen growth from both groups.

Sports betting revenue also contributed to increases, rising 19.3% in Louisiana last year to $557.4 million. The vast majority of that revenue was placed through mobile apps, the report showed.

While gambling revenues in Louisiana were increasing, the story in neighboring Mississippi was different. The Magnolia State was the only U.S. jurisdiction with state-regulated casinos or sports betting to not post an increase in revenue from 2024. Revenues dropped about $200,000 from the $2.43 billion brought in during 2024, mainly due to the closure of Sam’s Town Hotel and Casino in Tunica, which shuttered in November after 31 years of operations. Mississippi has also failed to pass legislation allowing for mobile sports betting outside of licensed casinos. Gamblers who want to bet on a game have to go inside a casino even to place a wager on a sports-

TALKING BUSINESS

ASK THE EXPERTS

Investor’s advice to entrepreneurs: Details matter

BY RICH COLLINS Staff writer

John Roberts and Mickal Adler

who formed the Metairie-based private equity and venture capital fund Boot64 in 2023, are among the state’s most active investors.

Over the past three years, they’ve written 51 checks approaching $7.5 million to 40 different startup companies around Louisiana — and a few elsewhere

Several more deals are scheduled to close over the next two months.

The partners are participating in a state-run program that supplies federal matching dollars for private investment in early-stage companies that have the potential to grow A few companies in their portfolio have doubled or more than doubled in value.

Roberts, a Tulane University graduate who spent more than two decades running a chain of convenience stores before partnering to launch Boot64, now spends his days seeking promising companies and evaluating their potential to pay off for his public and private investment partners.

In this week’s Talking Business, Roberts shares his thoughts on how the state’s small business investment program is working three years in and what entrepreneurs should — and shouldn’t — do when seeking startup capital from investors.

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity

How did you and Mickal launch Boot64?

In 2022, we learned that Louisiana Economic Development had received federal funding that could be used as matching funds for venture capital firms. We responded to a request for qualifications and became the first to close with the program. We launched June 1, 2023.

Three years later, we will have almost invested our entire $10 million fund After completing four committed deals that we haven’t

Q&A WITH JOHN ROBERTS BOOT64 CO-FOUNDER

Arkansas, and they decide they want to track barges on the river but have never worked in that industry 99% of the time we’re not interested.

You’ve learned a lot about startups over the last few years.What advice would you give to founders looking to raise money and build successful ventures?

No. 1, they need to be prepared to talk about their businesses with investors in detail.

Even though we’re investing a relatively small portion of the company, we are essentially becoming their business partner, so we have to verify all their incorporation documents, sales documents and vendor contracts, and we need to understand the founders’ backgrounds.

Don’t raise $1 million, hire a bunch of people and figure out how long the money can last. No investor cares how long you can pay yourself and your people.

closed yet, we’ll probably only write one or two more checks, and then within about 60 days we’ll be fully invested. Then, we are planning to launch a $20 million fund with LED as an investor again.

ten big. We’ve invested in a couple of sleep, longevity and wellness companies as well as pure biotech companies like Beken Bio and Informuta, which tackle cancer screening and antibiotic identification, respectively

In our industry the traditional way to present all that material is through a collection of documents called a “data room,” which contains all the necessary information for an investor to do due diligence.

Investors care about what milestones and what accomplishments you can achieve with that $1 million that will set you up to be prepared for the next funding round That means boosting your daily active users or reaching a revenue milestone or creating the minimum viable product version of your software. Obviously, being profitable is the best and ultimate goal. What kind of revenue are startups targeting? At the early stage, $1 million in annual recurring revenue is the goal For Series A rounds, investors are going to want to see around three times that. I tell founders not

How has the state’s startup community evolved since Boot64 debuted?

There are certainly more funds in operation now, so when any of us find a good deal, we have more investors call to say “Hey I found this great deal. Are you interested?” And that’s good because any professional investor is never going to be the only check in the round.

Also, the founders are better educated, the whole ecosystem has matured, and there are more networking events. Founders are having more interactions with investors, and information sharing and conversations like this are happening over beers. What types of startups are hot right now? Health and wellness have got-

As you look at the 40 companies you’ve invested in, what are some of their common characteristics?

We really like domain expertise. If you’ve worked in a particular job or industry for years and you’ve seen a recurring problem and know how to fix it, we love that. For instance, SleepNavigator founder Lea Desmarteau has years of experience working in and owning sleep clinics. She saw the communication problems between doctors’ offices, sleep clinics and insurance companies, and she created software to solve the problem. With AI, anybody can build anything, but they might lack the domain expertise. If we meet somebody who’s just arrived from

Sometimes, we’ll be excited about a potential investment, and we’ll ask the founder to send us their data room, but they won’t know what we’re talking about Then we send them a template, and they respond with disorganized, incomplete or out-of-date information.

Any of those things throws cold water on an investor’s enthusiasm because time kills deals and you’re wondering, “Is this founder capable of running a complex organization, building a team and making sales?” If they can’t put together a good data room, that’s a yellow flag or a red flag.

What else do founders looking for investment need to know? They need to raise money with specific goals and milestones in mind.

AROUND THE REGION

State medical marijuana businesses poised for tax cuts

BY JONAH MEADOWS Staff writer

Louisiana’s two licensed canna-

bis growers and the more than two dozen medical marijuana dispensaries they supply around the state became eligible for massive tax breaks last month when the federal government changed the way it classifies medical marijuana.

The change came on April 22, when acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a final order from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, wiping out the tax penalty that has squeezed the economics of the industry since states began legalizing it nearly 30 years ago.

Even as states have loosened restrictions on cannabis — 40 states now have some form of legal marijuana — the industry has faced dramatically higher federal tax rates than other businesses because the federal government has, until now treated marijuana as an illegal drug like heroin, LSD and ecstasy

Davis

“It’s a draconian penalty on medical marijuana, and the federal government’s rescheduling recognizes that medical marijuana should never have been subjected to that kind of penalty,” said John Davis, president of Good Day Farms Louisiana, which produces more than 70% of the state’s legal cannabis at its 250,000-square-foot Ruston facility and effectively operates a majority of its dispensaries.

Davis said the DEA’s new classification of cannabis as Schedule III — alongside ketamine, testosterone and Tylenol with codeine — marks a “significant development” in federal policy toward medical marijuana.

Deducing deductions

Last month’s move from the

Justice Department follows a December executive order from President Donald Trump directing federal agencies to fast-track marijuana rescheduling.

The biggest immediate change of rescheduling is to release medical marijuana businesses from a section of the federal tax code called 280E, which was enacted by Congress in 1982 in response to a Minnesota man who successfully argued in tax court that he should be entitled to deduct the cost of running his drug trafficking operation as valid business expenses.

The standard corporate federal income tax rate is 21% of net profits. But without being able to claim deductions or write off expenses, businesses in the marijuana industry wind up paying at more than three times that rate.

“Many cannabis businesses are estimated to pay effective tax rates

of up to 70%, so that makes it exceptionally costly to own a cannabis business,” said Dave Brown, a cannabis consultant and co-owner of Willow Pharmacy dispensaries on the northshore. “But prior to rescheduling, the implications of 280E disproportionately impacted the dispensaries or retailers more severely than the producer-processors.”

That’s because businesses could still deduct the cost of the goods they sell, but those costs make up a smaller proportion of expenses for dispensaries compared to farms.

Now dispensaries like Brown’s will be able to deduct the cost of their rent or mortgages, employee payroll, marketing, utilities, equipment and depreciation of their assets.

“Our intention would be to declare the full suite of deductions that any other retail business is

million worth of cannabis to dispensaries in the year ending June 30, 2025, a 77% increase compared with the prior fiscal year, according to Louisiana Department of Revenue reports.

As of early this year, nearly 150,000 Louisiana residents are enrolled in the medical program, with the number of patients more than doubling in less than two years, according to figures presented by Davis at a February meeting of the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge.

While every business involved in the production or sale of medical marijuana is poised to benefit from rescheduling, the tax cut is not evenly distributed across the country In the 24 states where cannabis is sold without a prescription many businesses sell both medical and adult-use cannabis products at the same storefront. That presents a challenge for accountants.

“It’s a weird federal tax regime in that situation,” said Brown, who is also a cannabis operator in Washington state and represents operators there. “Some of your business out of the same brick and mortar is considered legal by the federal government, and some of it is considered illegal or illicit, and that presents problems and costs.”

able to declare from their federal taxes,” Brown said.

As for the effect of rescheduling on Good Day Farms a vertically integrated operation that grows and processes marijuana then sells its products to stores it manages through a subsidiary — Davis said it was “premature to speculate on specific operational or economic impacts at this stage.”

A representative of the state’s other licensed producer, Bakerbased Ilera Holistic, declined to comment on the tax change, saying the company is still evaluating the legal implications of the recent rescheduling order

High growth rate

The massive tax cut comes as Louisiana’s cannabis industry has undergone a massive expansion. Medical marijuana producers in Louisiana sold an estimated $90.9

But medical marijuana is the only form of legal cannabis in the Southeast, so no marijuana businesses in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi or Florida run afoul of the IRS.

And because ownership of the Louisiana medical marijuana market is more concentrated — with only two companies permitted to produce cannabis and one of them operating a majority of the state’s dispensaries — the financial benefits of rescheduling fall to relatively few businesses.

“We believe this announcement reflects increasing recognition of the distinction between regulated medical marijuana programs and illicit markets, as well as continued federal alignment with structured state-regulated medical frameworks,” said Davis.

Email Jonah Meadows at jonah. meadows@theadvocate.com.

Michelle Singletary

THE COLOR OF MONEy

It’svery likely you willget the call. It might be for your mother,dad or both. It could be for agrandparent who stepped in to be your guardian. When that call comes, it can be like aroguewave that sweeps you off your feet into acrushing swirl of water and sand. This is the reality of caregiving for older relatives —a wave of financialdecisionsand healthcare crisesthat leaveyou struggling to find your footing

It’swhat Beth Pinsker experienced when she got the call. Pinsker chronicles her journeyin “My Mother’sMoney: AGuide to Financial Caregiving,” the Color of Money Book Club pick this month.

Despite her credentials as aretirement columnist and acertified financial planner,Pinsker found that even her expertise couldn’t keep her from being upended “I stumbled at every turn as my mom’sfinancial caregiver,” Pinsker writes. “I hadthe book knowledge in asituation that demanded street smarts,and that

made me feel helplessagainst the giant financial and legal machine that governs howeverything gets done in the United States.”

Pinsker’s motherwas 76 when shestarted needing help in 2022.

“My mother was excellent at handling her own affairs —until she wasn’t,” Pinsker writes. The landscapeofsenior caregiving in the U.S. hasreached what experts believe is acrisis point.Family caregivers are the backbone ofthe U.S. healthcare system, yet the sheer volumeof their unpaidlabor often goes unnoticed.Accordingtoareport from theAARP Public Policy Institute, these individuals —59 millioncaregivers —provided 49.5 billion hours of care in 2024, making them among America’s largest workforce. The report estimated theeconomic value of this supportatmore than $1 trillion.

Caregivingisbecoming more intense largely becausemodern medicineisbetter at extending ourlives, even as costs escalate. Despite Medicare, the cost of care in retirementisstaggering.

According to themostrecent data fromFidelity Investments, a65-year-old retiring last year could expect to spend an average

of $172,500 on healthcare and medical expenses over the course of their retirement. Andhere is thekicker: That figure doesn’tinclude the cost of long-term care, mostdental services or over-thecounter medications.

As professional care becomes moreexpensive and resources are strained, friends and family are putting in marathon hours caring for loved ones, often taking over medical and nursing duties that used to be handled by professionals. It’sone thingtosee the costs in areport, and another to live them. Pinsker provides acandid guidebook for theoften-frustrating and complex life of acaregiver.For a little over ayear,she was afinancial manager,healthcare advocate and finally administrator of her mother’s affairs after she died. This isn’tabook about caregiving being aburden. It’s atribute to bothher mom and dad, and how it’sanhonor to care for someone when they can’tdosofor themselves. There are stories of other caregivers —some of them experts, others regular folks —who answered the call. AndPinsker doesn’tjust feature thewomen who stepped up. She writes about ason who retired early at 58 and

moved his family to care forhis 92-year-old father Caregiving foradults is hard, astatement that won’tcome as news to the manypeople doing it. I’vebeen the caregiver formy grandmother,grandfather,adisabled brother and my father-inlaw.Ittakes grit and grace to do this job.There are days when you want to scream, and you should. Then there are times when you are doing tasks so intimate, such as bathing aparent, that bring tearstoyour eyes because you know they’re embarrassed to need such help from the child they used to diaper and bathe. Pinsker has written aguide that has heart, as wellastips. She walks you through so many issues, from setting up acare schedule andlooking forfinancial red flags to using apower of attorney and fighting forbenefits. There arechecklists. The resource section is expansive and extremely helpful. Useher conversation prompts to have the difficult talks. Here’sone: “I wantto put together an emergency kit for you in case you ever need it. Can Ilook through your papers, pull somethings together,and ask for your help when Ineed it?” Ilove that every chapter has a

“DoNow” directive. It’s agentle nudge to do the things you want to put off, or you might not know you need to do. For example, she recommends you create ahealth history cheat sheet that includes a list of medications. She provides a template. Trust me, this is invaluable during doctor visits. Here’sanother must-do: As best you can, get an inventory of your loved one’sassets to identifyhow you can access cash if needed. Once aperson passes away bank accounts are often frozen, potentially cutting you off from the funds to handle their final affairs. You’ll need aplan forbridge money to cover pressing costs like keeping the rent current while you clear out an apartment or paying forfuneral expenses before the estate is legally settled and the rest of the money is released. This is abook forcaregivers and those whomay someday need one. Pinsker’smost poignant advice is that procrastination can cost your caregivers alot of heartache and money.Get your affairs in order,now

Email Michelle Singletary at michelle.singletary@washpost. com.

MADE IN LOUISIANA

Louisiana’s lone single-estate rum producer is growing

BY JONAH MEADOWS Staff writer

Among the hundreds of rums distilled in the United States, only a handful can claim “single estate” status, the farm-to-bottle model with fields, mill and distillery all under common ownership. Oxbow Rum Distillery in Point Coupee Parish is one of them.

The distillery grows its own sugar cane at Alma Plantation, grinds it at its own mill and distills it less than 20 miles away in downtown Baton Rouge.

The decade-old business makes seven types of rum three under the False River brand, including its best-selling spiced rum, and four under the Oxbow brand. It also makes the award-winning Rhum Louisiane Cane Juice Agricole, which is a rum distilled in the French Caribbean agricole style from freshly pressed cane juice rather than molasses.

“It’s the closest to the cane,” said President Olivia Stewart, who grew up at Alma, where her family has lived for generations. “Drinking it is like chewing on a stock of sugar cane, which is something I have really fond memories of.”

Sugar has been farmed on the land along False River, an oxbow lake in Pointe Coupee Parish, for longer than Louisiana has been a state.

Alma Plantation was established in 1789 by businessman and political leader Julien Poydras. Since 1859, it has been owned by the Stewart family which has been farming sugar there ever since.

Today, it grows about 2,500 acres of sugar cane and runs one of 11 remaining sugar mills in the state, which grinds cane harvested there and by about 50 other growers. Every harvest season, the mill takes about 2 million tons of cane and grinds it into about 250,000 tons of raw sugar

Olivia Stewart’s cousin launched the distillery in 2016 under a different brand name. She never intended to join the business. She’d earned a master’s degree in art business in London and was living in Manhat-

tillery for a minimum of two years, while most of its second-use barrels are aged at the plantation, where the subtropical climate expands and contracts the wood and imparts stronger flavors onto the rum.

‘Tough category’

Oxbow produces thousands of cases of rum a year, which is distributed in Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina. Sales in its home state account for close to 90% of its business.

tan when COVID-19 hit. At the same time, her father was looking to unload responsibility for managing the rum operation.

“I was furloughed, and he asked me to just go ahead and move back home and run the distillery,” she recalled.

Stewart oversees a staff of 10 fulltime and seven part-time employees with annual revenues of about $1 million.

Farm to sill

Oxbow uses just a tiny fraction of the cane harvested at Alma each year For the Rhum Louisiane, which can be made only during harvest, a small dedicated mill crushes cane juice separately from the main operation.

The juice starts to break down and oxidize rapidly if it is exposed to air after crushing, so yeast is added to begin fermentation as it’s loaded into tankers to be trucked to Baton Rouge.

“You have to be close to the source to be able to make rum agricolestyle, and we want to be able to control the environment and pitch our own yeast within minutes for the best possible flavor,” Stewart said.

For its molasses-based rums, Oxbow pulls Grade A molasses — think extra virgin molasses — directly from the mill after the first crystallization, using about 30,000 gallons a year Rich with natural sugar, this by-

product of the first cane syrup boil contrasts with blackstrap, the dark, bittersweet molasses left behind after three or four boils.

“Alma yields 10 million gallons of byproduct of blackstrap molasses every year,” Stewart said. “All of that gets sold on the commodity market, mostly as animal feed, and that’s what most rum in the world is made from, that blackstrap lowquality molasses.”

At the distillery, the fermented wash goes through two runs on two separate stills. First, there’s a stripping run in a 500 gallon copper hybrid pot still. The low-strength distillate produced in that run then

ABOVE: Head distiller Cole Brannum samples a batch at the Oxbow Rum Distillery in Baton Rouge.

LEFT: The distillery features shelves of rums from its award-winning Oxbow white rum to its False River dark rum.

STAFF PHOTOS By

MICHAEL JOHNSON

goes through a 250-gallon stainless steel hybrid pot still, where head distiller Cole Brannum separates the desirable portions.

“It’s all by hand,” Stewart said “No digitization; it’s all analog valves and gauges.”

After distillation, the rum is gradually proofed over a period of two weeks, with filtered, deionized water added bit by bit — a technique Stewart learned on a visit to Caribbean distilleries on her honeymoon that tempers the amount of heat generated and the flavor changes that result. New oak barrels are aged in a climate-controlled area of the dis-

That growth follows a difficult year for rum producers. According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, sales volumes fell by 6.2% in 2025, making rum the second-worst performing spirit after brandy and cognac. The only part of the rum market to post any growth was in the “super premium” segment, the most expensive tier, according to the council’s data.

“Rum is a tough category It’s not the hot category right now, like tequila,” Stewart said. “But I’m not caught in a lot of noise. We stand out.”

One opportunity for growth would be to establish a geographic indication for Louisiana cane juice rum. That would benefit Oxbow and the three other agricole producers in Louisiana, where more than 40% of the nation’s sugar cane is grown, putting them on the map internationally and supporting premium pricing by distinguishing their rums from mass-market spirits. It could be an uphill battle, as the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau does not enforce geographic designations, and U.S. regulators do not differentiate between different types of rum.

Nonetheless, such a designation potentially modeled on the appellation of origin that Martinique rhum agricole received in 1996 — would be a good goal for the state’s rum makers, according to Stewart, who is also vice president of the Louisiana Distillers Guild.

“The brand has become about the sugar cane, the land,” Stewart said. “That’s what rum is made from. We want to stay true to that — do one thing and do it well.”

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2. Severe weather is unavoidable;preparationisnot Louisiana’s Gulf Coastlocation makes it particularly vulnerable to severe weather.While 2026’s El Niño conditionsmay suppress Atlantic hurricanes, localized flooding and heavy rain remain significantrisks.

Preparation is key. Proactiveforecasting, response planning, and assetprotection strategies can minimizedisruptions to people propertyand operations. At Gallagher,wehelp Louisiana businesses develop tailored plans to stay ahead of these inevitable challenges.

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Aclear risk profile eliminatesuncertainty and can become a powerful competitiveadvantage.Awell-defined risk profile replaces uncertainty withactionable insights, enablingfaster, more confidentdecisions year-round —not justatrenewal. Effectiveriskmanagementiscontinuous, driving better outcomes overtime.This shift from transactional insurancebuyingto strategic, year-round risk managementistransforming how Louisiana businesses protecttheir future.

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Digital tools andanalytics arerevolutionizing risk management. Platforms likeGallagher Drive® empowerbusinesses to transform data into actionable insights, delivering the rightinformation at the righttime

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A new Alzheimer’s technology, a noninvasive headset, could potentially slow the progress of cognitive decline.

ON THE VERGE OF A BREAKTHROUGH

One-hour light and sound stimulation headsets can potentially slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease

BY MARGARET DeLANEY Staff writer

Christian Howell, chief executive officer of Cognito Therapeutics, is not a native New Orleanian or a Louisianan. But he went to Tulane University in 1994 before joining the Navy as an officer

Now as the chief executive officer of Cognito Therapeutics, a medical technology company that focuses on innovations for neurodegenerative diseases, he’s bringing those technologies to a city and people that he loves.

Howell lives in Michigan, but often travels to Louisiana as a representative of Cognito, searching for the best hospital systems to implement its medical designs.

In March, Howell and Cognito announced a partnership with the Ochsner Health system to bring new approaches to treating cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease to the Gulf South.

At the core of the new brain health collaborative laboratory, or “collabo-

ratory,” is Spectrics, a headset that flashes light and sound to stimulate the system in the brain that preserves brain function.

The goggle-like device is designed for at-home use for one hour each day. It delivers synchronized light and sound stimulation through the brain, potentially stopping the progression of neurodegenerative disease. While the initial use of the headset is to stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, the technology may also hold potential across a range of neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury, stroke and addiction.

In 2021, Spectris received the breakthrough device designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, recognizing its potential to transform neurodegenerative care. It is not currently approved by the FDA and is being evaluated in clinical trials.

LSU Health focuses on wellness, nutrition

Initiative starts with its medical students

BY RACHEL MIPRO Contributing writer

One Louisiana hospital system is examining nutrition training in a bid to increase state wellness, battling an entrenched culture of fried and fatty foods and deeply-rooted food insecurities.

LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine has joined more than 50 schools in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a U.S. Department of Education-driven initiative to incorporate 40 hours of nutrition education into curriculums.

“Medical schools talk about nutrition but fail to teach it,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said in an August news release announcing the initiative. “We demand immediate, measurable reforms to embed nutrition education across every stage of medical training, hold institutions accountable for progress, and equip every future physician with the tools to prevent disease — not just treat it.”

The HHS has faced intense criticism in recent months from health organizations worried over the administration’s approach to vaccines, among other misleading claims made in areas such as raw milk and autism.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity How was this device developed? How does it work?

For years, there had just been a fundamental belief that the best way to treat the diseases of the brain was using biology or chemistry What we have found is that physics could play a really compelling role as well to treat cognitive decline.

Dr Lee Wei Tsai at the Peak Hour Institute at MIT studied the various activity levels of the brain and what happens biologically at those activity levels. What she found was when the brain is most active, at 40 hertz, the brain begins to express important biomarkers that help to preserve brain structure and function. Those elements were important for preserving cognition and individual independence. Then she started asking, “I wonder if you could stimulate the brain or the brain’s activity to actually replicate that biology.”

ä See HEADSET, page 2X

Dr Robin English, LSU Health New Orleans associate dean for undergraduate medical education, described the initiative as a way to focus on public health. “I think it’s pretty inarguable that physicians need to understand nutrition,” English said. “So to me, this is not a political issue. This is an issue of making sure our doctors are well equipped.” English pointed to some of the health problems caused by poor nutrition. Obesity is a major risk factor for chronic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension and certain types of cancer. Proper nutrition can also have negative effects on mental health, maternal health and fetal development and immune function, among others.

Implantable tech emerges as option to treat sleep apnea

BY ROBERTA BURKHART Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

For years, Nino Orsini Jr thought his restless nights were normal.

“I would go to bed at a decent hour I would log six to eight hours of sleep where I was unconscious, but I wasn’t getting what is ‘actual’ sleep,” said Orsini, 48, of Seven Fields, Pennsylvania.

Like an estimated 30 million Americans, Orsini was living with obstructive sleep apnea — a condition in which the airway collapses during sleep, interrupting breathing and reducing oxygen levels.

Left untreated it can increase the risk of serious health problems, including heart disease, stroke and chronic fatigue, per the American Medical Association.

For years, the standard treatment was a CPAP machine, using a stream of air to keep airways open during sleep. But in recent years newer, implantable alternatives have emerged for patients who can’t tolerate CPAP

The Inspire device, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2014 and available in Pittsburgh, stimulates the hypoglossal nerve in order to keep the airway physically open, rather than forcing air through.

Orsini’s symptoms were hard to ignore — especially for his wife, Michaelle Callihan, a nurse practitioner.

At night, Callihan would often hear her husband stop breathing, then suddenly take a very deep breath. Sometimes she’d hear a bubbling noise.

“I didn’t know that I was not getting good sleep,” Orsini said. “I thought this was just the way people slept.”

After a sleep study confirmed a sleep apnea diagnosis, Orsini was prescribed a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine — the standard treatment, which uses pressurized air to keep the airway open. While effective for many, it wasn’t a good fit for him.

“I sleep on my stomach. That’s one of the only ways I can sleep,” he said. “So having a mask on my face makes it very, very difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.”

Additionally, Orsini describes himself as “a very aggressive sleeper I move around a lot, so I tend to knock the CPAP off my face.”

Callihan said the couple often awoke entangled in the CPAP hose: “It would wrap around my head, around his head, around my feet.”

But Orsini said he still vividly recalls the first night he managed to

HEADSET

Continued from page 1X

That’s when she went to Dr Ed Boyden at the McGovern Institute at MIT What they learned was that if you stimulated the eyes using light and the vestibular cochlear nerve of the ear using sound at 40 hertz, then they could hold that activity level in the brain and prolong the expression of biomarkers that help to preserve the brain’s functions

That was the real eye-opener, discovering that we can use a noninvasive stimulation to hold the activity level of the brain to really replicate the biology that preserves brain structure.

We had to make sure that we created a delivery modality that was easily adopted. Because we were focusing on Alzheimer’s patients, we wanted to understand what Alzheimer’s patients were looking for It had to be comfortable. It had to be noninvasive. It had to be easy to understand. The device is self guided — there’s one button to activate the therapy It’s going to have an enormous impact in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. But what the science is telling us is that there’s an opportunity for it to be impactful to not just Alzheimer’s disease, but other neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and MS. Also, potentially neurorestorative conditions like stroke or traumatic brain or concussion.

What were the initial results of the study?

In our studies we have fully enrolled in a 673-patient, 12-month, controlled, randomized trial for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. Once we’ve confirmed a potential patient’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, we put them under the stimulation and ensure that they can tolerate the therapy The vast majority of patients have no issue with it. About 2% of patients have an issue, either with light sensitivity or if they’re later stage in the disease or they have trouble sitting for an hour or there is a problem due to hearing loss.

keep the CPAP on all night. “(It) did exactly what it was supposed to do, and I got some of the best sleep I ever had in my life.”

Despite more failures than successful sleeps, he stuck with it on and off for years. “I would get a couple of nights where it would stay on and it would work,” and then weeks would pass where he just couldn’t get through a night with it staying in place.

Thinking back to that first blissful night of rest when the device worked, Orsini said he grew frustrated, knowing what he was missing.

A different approach

Eventually, Orsini learned about Inspire, an implanted device that works differently from CPAP

Unlike CPAP, which uses air pressure to hold the airway open, the Inspire stimulates the nerve controlling the tongue, preventing it from collapsing backward during sleep. Basically, the “hypoglossal nerve stimulator,” said AHN sleep specialist Chris Pham, “zaps the nerve in your tongue, so (it) spasms your tongue forward,” creating an open airway

The system includes a stimulation lead with a cuff that wraps around a branch of the hypoglossal nerve beneath the tongue. When activated, it sends a signal that moves the tongue and surrounding airway muscles forward, helping keep the airway open for normal breathing.

A second component, the sensing lead, is a thin wire placed near the ribs that detects each breath. That signal is relayed to a small pulse generator — similar to a pacemaker — implanted just under the skin below the collarbone. In response, the generator delivers a timed signal back to the nerve, prompting the airway to open with each breath.

The device is implanted during a 2- to 3-hour outpatient procedure and is controlled with a remote.

Patients turn it on before bed, and it can be programmed to activate after they fall asleep.

For Orsini, the results were immediate. Following the first night of use, “I had one of the best nights of sleep I’ve ever had.”

He said he’s gotten so used to the tongue sensations when the device is in use that he has to consciously think about whether it’s on or off before taking a sip of water if he wakes during the night.

Not for everyone

The device isn’t a first-line treatment. Patients must meet strict

RODRIGUEZ

JORRIN

DREAMSTIME/TNS PHOTO By ALBERTO

For years, the standard treatment for sleep apnea was a CPAP machine, using a stream of air to keep airways open during sleep. But in recent years newer, implantable alternatives have emerged for patients who can’t tolerate CPAP

criteria.

First, a patient’s apnea index score has to be greater than 15 events an hour: in other words, someone with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea whose breathing stops or becomes very shallow, on average, more than 15 times for at least 10 seconds every hour of sleep, often resulting in oxygen drops and poor sleep quality, Pham said.

Additionally, prospective Inspire patients must have a body mass index, or BMI, below 32 to 35, and they must have already tried CPAP therapy but been unable to tolerate it.

Common reasons that CPAP fails as a treatment include anxiety, difficulty falling asleep while wearing the mask or sleep habits that make consistent use impractical. For some — like Orsini — being a stomach sleeper or moving frequently during the night can cause the device to become dislodged, limiting its effectiveness.

Even then, additional testing is required to determine whether a patient’s airway anatomy makes them a good candidate. And success is not guaranteed.

“The success rate is somewhere between 60-70%,” said Pham, though outcomes within AHN network have improved to about 80% in recent years. He said 271 AHN patients have received an Inspire device over the past five or so years that the hospital network has offered the option.

“This is still a last-case resort,” he said.

Orsini turned out to be an ideal candidate for the device, because

of his struggles with the CPAP, preference for stomach sleeping, the severity of his sleep apnea and a history of serious health risks that may be exacerbated by the condition, including a heart attack nearly a decade ago.

Currently, of the handful of FDAapproved implantable sleep apnea devices on the market, Inspire and Remede, a phrenic (diaphragm) nerve stimulator, are offered at AHN, a spokesperson said. Both are also available at WVU Medicine, and Inspire is an available treatment at UPMC and St. Clair Health.

Adjusting to the device

After implantation, patients must wait several weeks before activating the device.

“They want to make sure that all the scar tissue heals over,” said Orsini, adding that he waited more than a month before trying it the first time.

And once activated, the sensation takes some getting used to:

“You feel a slight vibration in your tongue that pushes it forward and down,” he said.

“So it was described to me that,

‘I just don’t have control of my tongue.’ You can sound like Daffy Duck when it’s turned on,” Pham said.

Still, Orsini said he found the Inspire device far less disruptive than CPAP

“It’s nothing that, on its own, would make you choke,” he said.

A life-changing difference

For Orsini and his wife, the improvement has been dramatic. Not

only his mood, Callihan said, but “his overall health is better.”

Generally, Orsini said, his blood pressure has improved, and both he and Callihan are sleeping better

“I can sleep. I’m not cranky Nobody wants to shoot me at work,” she said, laughing.

In the past, despite starting work later, Callihan often had to wake up early to get her husband out of bed. After restless nights, he would sleep through alarms, forcing her to turn on the lights and repeatedly nudge him awake. Now, she said, “he actually can get out of bed now by himself with the alarm, which then I get a half hour or 45 minutes of extra sleep.”

Orsini now wakes up more rested — something he didn’t realize he had been missing.

“You don’t understand what good sleep and good rest feels like,” he said. “And the first time you get it, it is amazing.”

Pham emphasized that many people with sleep apnea go undiagnosed, especially if they dismiss snoring as harmless.

The American Medical Association estimates that roughly 80% of the 30 million Americans living with sleep apnea haven’t been diagnosed. Experts expect the total number to climb to 77 million U.S. adults by 2050.

The condition is more common in men — 38% of ages 30 to 70 have sleep apnea versus 23% of the same age group for women, per the AMA.

While snoring is often associated with sleep apnea, “snoring itself is not the true symptom of sleep apnea, but the pauses between the snoring is,” Pham explained. Other signs include waking with headaches, brain fog or a racing heart.

Diagnosis requires a sleep study, and treatment is critical — particularly for those with underlying conditions.

The worse a patient’s sleep apnea, the greater risk they face for stroke, heart failure and heart attack, Pham said.

If left untreated, sleep apnea can increase the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, per the AMA.

For patients struggling with CPAP, Orsini encourages persistence — and exploration of alternatives.

He calls Inspire “a revolutionary advancement.”

“It is the greatest solution to this problem,” he said. “It has made a massive difference in my life.”

Then, we put the headset on the patient and confirm under an EEG that we get a response from their brain about 93% of these patients receive a response. We set the device’s volume and brightness based on the patient. Then patients go home with a personalized device.

We ask patients to wear the goggles, or headset, an hour a day, every day In our initial studies, 85% of patients wore it at least 50 minutes a day, at least six days a week. What we heard from patients when receiving initial feedback was that the therapy was not disrupting their days. Patients felt like they were doing something each day to take on their disease. We heard from caregivers that they felt like it gave them respite. Rather than having to get loved ones ready to go to the hospital, they stayed at home.

The outcomes thus far have been remarkable. They’re saying that we’ve showed a 77% preservation of function. In our overture study, we showed a 77% preservation of function with patients with an active headset versus those with a sham headset, or one that doesn’t really work.

We’ve never seen a device-related adverse event. We’re confident

as we go to the FDA that we’re going to bring them something that is not only clinically meaningful, but has the potential to be both safe and effective. When, ideally will the technology be available to the public?

I will be honest, the study doesn’t keep me up at night. Our team was so thoughtful and has been so purposeful and diligent about running a good, strong study with our clinical trial partners.

I believe the science is so validated and been so deeply researched

that I’m enormously positive on that. What keeps me up at night is balancing urgency and durability When the FDA approves this, there will be millions of people in the United States that will be eligible for this therapy that do not currently have access to another therapy

We will have the last patient out of the study in June. Then we will release our key findings in August.

I am unbelievably lucky that I get to be the storyteller of what I believe will be one of the largest research studies in health.

We’ll make our formal submission for FDA approval probably in November timeframe. We’re very hopeful that we’ll see an approval the following June. There will be urgent demand for a therapy People a want to battle this condition as soon as this therapy is available. It’s important to

PROVIDED By OCHSNER HEALTH

me that we build a workflow model that’s durable, so that patients can be diagnosed responsibly

They can be brought in for confirmation that the therapy works. We can help them stay compliant and drive daily usage. This won’t happen overnight

That’s why we are partnering with these hospital systems. Our collaboratories have been making sure that we build something responsible.

The work that’s being done in New Orleans with bio development, the work that’s being done in Tulane and LSU and the work that’s being done in Ochsner, should be a real moment of pride for the region The ecosystem here is wellprepared to implement new innovations and technologies.

Email Margaret DeLaney at margaret.delaney@theadvocate. com.

EatFit LiveFit

BROUGH TT OY OU BY

Yogurt:a simpletradition with endlesspossibilities

Thisweek’scolumniswrittenbyBrittanyCraft,RDN,LDN,wholeadstheEatFitnonprofitinitiativeatOchsnerHealth.

Ialwayskeeparandomfactinmyback pocketforicebreakersorteam-building events.Itusuallystartswiththis:Ihad theprivilegeoflivinginItalyforthree yearsasachild,whenmyfatherwas stationedonaNavybaseinSicily.Ijoke oftenthatItalywas“wastedonme”at thetimebecauseasamiddleschooler, theadventurousfoodieIwouldlater becomehadnotyetfullyemerged.While myexposuretoavarietyoffoodswas certainlybroaderthanmost,Ididn’tquite takeadvantageofitthewayIwouldtoday.

Luckily,Iwasabletoremedythatwhen IstudiedabroadinGreeceandGermanyin college,takingaclassonfoodandculture aspartofmyeducationtobecomea registereddietitian.Ihaveavividmemory ofmorningsunlightfilteringthrough thewindowofourbedandbreakfastin Nafplio,Greece.Thatmorning,wewere servedasimpleanddeliciousbreakfast: soft-boiledeggsandtangyGreekyogurt toppedwithfreshfruitandadrizzleof goldenhoney.

Livingabroad,youquicklyrealizethatin manycultures,yogurtisfarmoreversatile andwholesomethanit’softenperceived intheUnitedStates.Here,yogurtis frequentlyassociatedwithbrightlycolored, sugar-sweetenedcupsinarainbowof flavors—productsthatfeelcloserto dessertratherthantradition.

Evenwithitscommercializationin theUnitedStates,yogurtstilltends tocarryastrong“healthhalo.”Itis widelyperceivedasahealthychoice, anditcertainlycanbe.Buttheway itismarketedandsoldoftenmeans someofthemostvisibleoptionson groceryshelvesareloadedwithadded sugar,flavorsandotheradditivesthat movethemfurtherfromtheiroriginal, minimallyprocessedform.Thatdoesn’t

makeyogurtinherentlyunhealthy—itjust makesreadingthelabelimportant.

ChoosingaYogurt

Sugarisoftenwhatsetssomeyogurt productsapart.Allyogurtcontains naturallyoccurringsugarsfrommilk,so evenplain,no-sugar-addedvarietieswill listsugaronthelabel.Thekeydifferenceis addedsugar.

WhenIchooseyogurt,Iusually gravitatetowardplainvarieties,likeFage (pronouncedfah-yay)2%Greekyogurt fortheirversatility.However,ifyouneed somethingsweetened,youcanlookfor “less-sweet”options,likeChobaniLess

Sugar,orfullysweetened yogurtsthatutilizenatural, no-sugaralternatives likestevia,monkfruitor allulose,likeOikosTriple ZeroorChobaniZeroSugar. Proteinisalsoan aspecttonote.Greek, skyrandultrafiltered varietieswillgenerally behigherinprotein(and thereforemorefilling). Mosttraditional-style Greekyogurtbrandshave 16-20gramsofproteinper 6-ounceserving.ProteinforwardoptionslikeOikos Proevenhaveadditional wheyproteinadded.Iflookingforanondairyalternative,lookforayogurtwith atleast10-12gramsofprotein,likeKite HillGreek-styleplant-basedyogurt,fora suitableswap. Anotherimportantmarkeristhe presenceofliveactivecultures,which supportprobioticbenefits.Probioticsare beneficialbacteriathatcanhelpsupport guthealth,digestionandevenaspects ofimmunefunction.Lookforvarieties containing“liveandactivecultures,”like Siggi’s,StonyfieldOrganic,FageorChobani. Onethingthatmattersless?Saturated fat.Evenin2%varieties,the2-2.5grams ofsaturatedfatperservingisn’tlikelyto

MollyKimball,RD,CSSD,isaregistereddietitian withOchsnerHealthandfounderofOchsner’sEatFit nonprofitinitiative.Formorewellnesscontent,tuneinto Molly’spodcast,FUELEDWellness+Nutrition,andfollow @MollykimballRDand@EatFitOchsneronsocialmedia. Emailnutrition@ochsner.orgtoconnectwithMollyor scheduleaconsultwithherteam.

beimpactfulformostpeople,butitdoes makeadifferenceinflavorandcreaminess (inthebestway). Formoreyogurtbrandswelove,check outtheEatFitShoppingGuideonthefree EatFitmobileapp.

HowtoUseYogurt

Wetendtothinkofyogurtinsweet contexts,butsavoryiswhereitreally shines.Plainyogurtwithamoderatefat content,like2%orhigher,oftenworks bestinrecipesasthefataddscreaminess andhelpscreateamorebalancedtexture andflavor.Itcanbeusedasadirect substituteformayonnaiseorsourcreamin manyapplications,bringingbothrichness andprotein.Iespeciallyenjoyusingitin dips,likeacreamyspinachandartichoke version(therecipeisavailableontheEat Fitmobileapp).Foraneveneasierdipor sandwichspread,experimentwithmixing plainGreekyogurtmixedwithgarlic,herbs andspices.

Anotherunderusedapplicationisyogurt asamarinadeforproteins.Whileitadds flavor,italsoplaysavitalfunction:Yogurt gentlytenderizesmeatthroughitsnatural mildacidity,primarilyfromlacticacid whichhelpsbreakdownproteins.Itsthick texturealsohelpscoatmeatevenlyand carryspices,allowingflavorstoclingand penetratemoreeffectively.Thinkdishes likeanIndian-inspiredchickentikka,which usesyogurtmixedwithspices,garlicand ginger,oraGreek-stylechickencoated withyogurtandherbs.

Beyondtechniqueandnutritionlabels, yogurt’sversatilityiswhatmakesit suchaquietstapleacrossculturesand kitchens.Inmyopinion,yogurtatitsbest isstillwhatitwasinthatsmallbedand breakfastinNafplio—simple,nourishing andfulloftradition.

BY THENUMBERS

LOUISIANA’SyOUTH OBESITyRATEINCREASED LAST yEAR

Louisiana ranks 47th in youth obesity with 35.8% of children between the ages of 6and 17 who have obesityorare overweight for their agebased on reported height and weight, aslight increase from last year at 35.6%

Louisiana’sneighbor,Texas, moved from 47th in the nation for youth obesity in 2023 (with 36.7%) to 30th in 2024 (with 31.7%), according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Childhood obesity is defined as a bodymass index valueatorabove the95th percentile based on age and sex, while overweight is defined as aBMI value at or above the 85th percentile, but below the 95th percentile.

Just under one third of children ages 6to17nationwide are obese or overweight, with anational averageof 31.3%

These states have the highest percentageofchildren ages 6to17

WELLNESS

Continued from page1X

“I think it is important thatmedical studentshave agood grasp of both the foundational conceptsof how those biochemical andphysiologicprocesses work, but then also on abroader levelhow thattranslates to food and the foodthat patients eat and then how that food can help with either general health, as a whole, or in disease management,” English said.

As astate, Louisiana struggles with amyriad of food issues, such as heightenedobesity rates and food deserts. The state’sadult obesity rate sits around 40%, according to Centers for Disease Control and

whowere reported as overweight or obese:

n Mississippi with 41.8%;

n Arkansas with 40.2%;

n West Virginia with 39.7%;

n Louisiana with 35.8%; n Alabama and Delaware at 35.7%;

n SouthCarolina at 35.5%;

n Kentucky and Maine at 34.5%;

n Tennessee at 34%;

n and Georgia at 33.1%

These states have the lowest percentageofchildren ages 6to17 whowere reported as overweightor obese:

n Colorado at 23.1%;

n Utah at 24.6%;

n Massachusetts at 25.3%;

n Idahoat 26.6%;

n Minnesota and Virginia at 27.1%;

n NewHampshire at 27.8%;

n Vermont at 27.9%;

n Nebraska at 28.1%;

n NewJersey at 28.5%;

n Washington at 28.7%;

n and Wyoming at 29.2%

Prevention research. Additionally,there is an increasingly prevalent concern for food security.Englishsaid 15% to 20% of adults and 25% of children in the state experience food insecurity

Researchfrom Feeding Louisiana puts Louisiana as third in the country for child poverty.Other data fromthe organization estimates that 1in5Louisiana children live in afood-insecure household, and 827,690 people in thestate live with food insecurity overall.

“They may not have enough money to buy food,” English said. “They maysacrifice other things in order to provide food for their family.So food insecurity is something we also address inour teachingatLSU. That includes being able to provide themselveswith enough food and also to

Thepercentageofchildrenages6to17who have overweight or obesityfor their agebased on reported height andweight, from 2023-24data Overweight or obesechildreninAmerica

provide patients with resources if theyneed it.”

Well-Ahead Louisiana putsthe state’sdiabetes level at 15%, and estimates that 47% of Louisiana residents with heart disease are obese.

English said the organization would be examining how to teach effective nutrition to physicians, teaching themhow aspectsofnutrition relate to disease care so students can then incorporate this knowledge into patient care.

Another factor is examining students’ own nutrition —long hours, paired with intense stress, can turn studentstoward disordered eating patterns and poor health habits.

“That’sareally important piece of this,” Englishsaid. “Weknow thatphysicians who are healthy and have healthy lifestyles and diet and

exercise are better able to talk about those things withtheir patients. Physicians are more likely to offer dietary counseling if they themselves know howtofollowahealthy

diet, according to English. “That’spart of this initiative too,” English said. “Tolook at howwe’re encouraging our students to take care of themselvesaswell.”

Join us on ahealth journey through 2026 with ‘BEYOND THE SCALE: Addressing Louisiana’s obesity epidemic’ Do youwant to startahealth journey? We want to hearfromyou not about weight, butabout health, stress, food and life.Aswemove through 2026, we are inviting readers to come along ahealth journeywith us. Our nextprojectwill explore community obesity efforts.We pose one question to our readers:

Care in Action, Community at Heart

Community PurposeinAction

Recognizing EMS Week

Everyday,emergencymedicalprofessionalsanswer thecallwithspeed,precisionandcompassion,meeting peopleinmomentsofuncertaintyanddeliveringcare whenitmattersmost.EMSWeekoffersanopportunityto recognizethisextraordinaryworkandtheimpactithas acrossourcommunities.Theseexpertsarethebackbone ofemergencyresponse,leadingwithanunbreakable commitmenttoputtingothersfirst.Theirserviceshapes healthier,safercommunitiesandinstillsconfidence thathelpisalwayswithinreach,nomatterthehour.At OchsnerHealth,weareproud tocelebratetheseteamsand highlightpartnershipslikeour collaborationwithAcadian AmbulanceService,whichcomes tolifeeachyearatFestival InternationaldeLouisiane.

Louisianaheat.AcadianAmbulanceServicestepsinas avitalsafetynetforthesetourists,aswellasourlocal residents.Becauseoftheirhardwork,youneverhaveto worryaboutyourhealthwhileenjoyingtheevent.They giveyouthecomfortofknowingexperthelpisalways rightaroundthecorner.

AShared Commitment

ThecollaborationbetweenEMS andhospitalsystemsisintegral totheoverallhealthofour communities.Whileweeach servedistinctroles,wesharea commonmissionofdelivering exceptionalcarewhenpeople needusmost.

CareinAction at Festival International Fromsunuptosundown,our teamsprovideawidearrayof essentialservicestokeepfestivalgoershealthyandsafe.Whether itisrespondingtomedical emergencies,evaluatingsymptomsonsite,managing heat-relatedillness,orcoordinatingrapidtransportto higherlevelsofcare,ourstaffisequippedtohandle itall.Thison-the-groundeffortreliesonaseamless collaborationofdedicatedparamedicsandEMTs

JeffreyKuo,MD, SystemChair,PatientFlowand EmergencyMedicalServices, OchsnerHealth

AtOchsnerLafayetteGeneral,thefoundationofour careisbuiltonputtingthecommunityfirst,andAcadian AmbulanceServicesharesthatsame commitment.Theydemonstrate itthroughtheirlonghours,quick thinkingandcompassionateapproach topatientcare.Thatdedication alsoextendstopreparingthenext generationofhealthcareprofessionals AcadianAmbulanceServiceleadsits ExplorerProgram,whichgivesstudents asearlyaseighthgradehands-on experienceinthefast-pacedfieldof EMS.Thesestudentsworkalongside seasonedprofessionals,gaining firsthandinsightintowhatittakesto supportacommunityduringlargescaleevents.Together,weshareapassionforinvesting infuturehealthcareleadersandcreatingstronger,safer communities.Wewanttoextendourdeepestgratitude totheirentireteamfortheirrelentlesseffortsandforour successfulpartnership.

Thefestivalbringsincrediblemusicandfood,drawing crowdsfromacrosstheglobe.However,manyvisitors arecompletelyunfamiliarwiththeintense,exhausting

Discoverhowwe’reinspiringhealthierlivesandstronger communitiesatochsner.org/community

‘Who

gets to tell itsstory?’

As UNObecomes part of LSU, a researcher asks the importantquestion

BY MARIE FAZIO Staff writer

In the late 1950s ayoungwoman named Merle was one of thefew Black studentsattending theinstitution that was then known as LSU New Orleans. After ageology class, she stoppedby the dining hall on theuniversity’s lakefront campus for lunch.But when she tried to order her food,the cafeteria workers refused to serve her and she eventually left Earlier this year,Amanda MesterBrown, aUniversityofNew Orleans doctoral candidate, sent outa clarion call seeking alumni, faculty,staff, students and community members willing to share memories of the university’s formative years. Her project grew out of afascinationwith the university’s logo, which features Jackson Square But now it has takenonfresh urgency as UNOprepares to officiallyrejoin the LSU system, which governed UNO fromits foundingin1958 until 2013. Mester-Brownwas overwhelmed with responses from people whowanted to share theirstories, and inspired to preserve them during this pivotal moment in UNO’shistory

Some, like Merle, whodidn’twanther last name used in the research, remembered the institution’searly daysofintegration. (The universityhas always accepted all students,but thecafeteria was effectively segregated because the food service companyrefused toserve Black students. They changed course in 1961 following astudent boycott and pressure from A.P.Tureaud and Ernest “Dutch” Morial.)

Others spokeofthe once-bustling university that helped build up the

city’smiddle class. Some recalled meeting their spouses on campus.One remembered thesuccessful student movement to change theuniversity’s name from LSUNO to UNO in 1974, and the selection of the privateer mascot, which for some stood as aswashbuckling symbolofindependence from BatonRouge.

Come July,UNO will officiallybe knownonceagain as LSUNew Orleans andshedblue and silverinfavor of purple and gold.Though officials hope thetransition will shore up the university’srecentfinancial struggles andbolster enrollment,ithas surfaced questions of UNO’s future identity,as we as its past.

“Some of the peoplewho were here in the origins of thisplace developed its identity andIthink foralot of them it feelslike that’s going to go away,” saidMester-Brown, who calls the compilationoforalhistories,researchand public workshops the UNO Community Memory Project.“Most people really want this place to be representative of NewOrleans and the people of New Orleans.”

UNOand JacksonSquare?

UNO is amarkedly different place nowthan when many of MesterBrown’sinterview subjectsattended. At its peak before HurricaneKatrina, there wereabout 17,00 students. Quads buzzed with people andactivity.Parking lotswere full. Now the university hasfewer than 6,000. Campus is often quiet and parking spaces are so copious that asolar panel farm leases an empty lot.

Mester-Brownfirstthoughtshe would focus her inquiry on UNO’sseal, which depictsJackson Square, aNew Orleans landmarkseveral milesfromthe lakefront campus. But when state officials decided to revert UNO to theLSU system, she began to think bigger

“What do we wanttopreserve about this version of the place, what do we want to make sure does not getlost when thesilver and blue turns to purple

andgold?” Mester-Brown asked. “And who gets to decide identity anyway?”

She has spent hours collecting oral histories, sifting throughold issuesof TheDriftwood,UNO’s studentnewspaper, andother materials in theuniversity archive, culling together ahistory of the institution’searly days.She’s uncoveredhistoricaldocuments that push back against howthe university presents its own history,including a1958 statement from the LSU Board of Supervisors that deemed Black students it had been forced to admit as “unwanted matriculants.” (LSU’sBaton Rouge campus did notaccept its first Black studentsuntil several years later.)

“(The project) became ‘What does a university’shistorylook like if it’stold from the bottom up as opposed to top down?’”she said. “And whogetstobe thepublic in apublic university?”

Although Mester-Brown has finished collecting oral histories,anyone can still contribute memories through voice recordings online on the project website, which will be digitally archived.

JanRisher

My mother opened the bathroom door while Iwas putting on my makeup and said, “I have to read this to you.” She was laughing too hard to get through the passage. In her hand was Rick Bragg’s “The Speckled Beauty.” She had just started it. She’sread me such passages my whole life. Itold her to feel free to mark the book in the way she likes. Ihadn’tread it yet and knew Iwould enjoy seeing her little notes when Iget to read it. Ijust picked it up and found she had marked the following passage with the note, “funny.” Bragg wrote: “...you can hear the marching bands in townon Friday and Saturday nights, see the faint glow of stadium lights. They would still play football here if bubonic plague infected the land, if old men rang bells and walked the streets while chanting ‘Bring out your dead.’” Naturally,she underlined that line. My mother and Iknow alot about that kind of town. My dad coached that kind of football team in one of those towns fordecades. My mother has been visiting us fortwo weeks. In that timeshe has done what aretired reading teacher cannot help but do in a house with books stacked in a variety of places: She has read them She picked up “The Speckled Beauty” and couldn’tput it down. She laughed. She cried —sometimes on the samepage. When she finished “The Speckled Beauty,” she picked up “The Lion Women of Tehran,” Marjan Kamali’snovel about two Iranian womenwhose lives take different shapes —one stays in Iran. The other finds herself in New York City.The book tracks their friendship across decades and distance. My mother hadn’tfinished the second chapter when she looked up and said, “It’sabout twogood friends. It reminds me of Jean and me.”

Jean Harrison Sharp has been my mother’sbest friend since they were toddlers. Sharp has never lived outside of Scott County,Mississippi. My mother has never lived outside of Mississippi. And here she was, afew chapters into anovel set in Tehran and NewYork City,already seeing her own lifeonthe page. For fun, Iread fiction —almost exclusively.Nonfiction feels too much like the workI love but need to rest from. Nonfiction exercises the samemuscles as editing or writing astory Agood historical novel, on the other hand, makes my heart sing. Nonfiction rarely ends up on my nightstand.

By complete accident, Istarted listening to Patrick Radden Keefe’s“London Falling: AMysterious Death in aGilded City and aFamily’sSearch forTruth.” It’s anonfiction book about ayoung man’s mysterious death in London. It pulled me in the sameway a great novel does —not because London resembles my life, but because human longing always does.

Keefe is astaffwriter at The NewYorker and author of “Say Nothing,” which becameaphenomenon. Icame to “London Falling” not as adevoted Keefe reader but as someone whowas driving when Spotifymis-followed by voice command. It came on, and Icouldn’tstop to find something else. The book sucked me in quickly

INSPIREDDISCUSSIONS

ASK THEEXPERTS

Teachertradesclassroom forthe greatoutdoors

Educator uses hands-on experience to teachlittleones

BY JOYHOLDEN Staff writer

Mandeville native Shelley Smith, owner of Little Learners Outdoors in Baton Rouge, has workedwith kids since high school. After teaching and coaching swimming, Smith graduated from the Universityof Southern Mississippi with a degree in elementary education. She went on to teach sixth grade for two years and then kindergarten for 16 years. While teaching, Smith got her master’sdegreein early childhood educationat Louisiana State University. After teaching for 18 years, Smith left the profession and founded Little Learners Outdoors in 2020, aplace where children get to explore, play and connect withnature in a safe, nurturing environment.

This interview was edited for length and clarity

How did you getinvolved in outdoor education?

While Iwas teaching kindergarten, Istarted doing thisprogramcalled Tinkergarten, an outdoor class curriculum out of Massachusetts. Ioffered it locally on the weekends with my own kids to get them to be outside playing because playbased stuff is important to

me

While Iwas doing Tinkergarten, Istarted following other natureprograms on social media,and Irealized that there were somanyof theseforest schoolseverywhere, but not in Louisiana.

That’swhenthe Little Learners Outdoors idea cametome. Ijumpedshipin 2020.I think it was ablessingthatithappenedduring Covid because, at that time, parents were lookingfor some alternative options for education

Ifound five families that were willing to start aprogram inAugustwith me

Then Ioffered summer campthat summerof2020 to help with marketing and get things going. In August

of 2020, Istartedthe first class, my parents dayout class. From there, we grew and now we have our own location.

When you were doingTinkergarten, what did you startseeing in children that wasalight bulb moment about outdoor education?

Iwas taking some of those Tinkergarten play-based activitiesand bringing them back in my classroom. It wasinteresting to me that kids sometimes didn’tunderstand howtopretend playanymore.Iwas teaching that in Tinkergarten. It was alost skill,essentially,how to pretend play Isaw lots of arguments and kids not knowing how to talk to each other,which is what play is. It’s not just play.It’s

learning to socializeand talk and use yourlanguage skills. What is amisunderstandingabout play during those early ages?

Peoplehear “play,” and they think it means just let them do whatever,which you can do that, too. It’s important to let them have unstructured play,but there’s also structuredplay where Iput out certain materials and prompt themwithcertain things.

There were acouple things Ihad learned doing Tinkergartenand in my early education classes. All kids in their playdothese same behaviors. They’re really important fortheir development —like lining cars up or putting things in something like abag and

Continued from page1y

Whose logo is it?

On arecent evening,MesterBrown gathered about adozen alumni, professors and students around aconference tableina room in the library.The room overlooked alarge lawn, and in the distance was the smokestack, aremnant of the decommissioned naval air station that once occupied campus. Thegroup swappedstories.One

man recalled founding chancellor Homer Hitt’sinsistence on buildingthe library before the administrationbuilding. Another said he regularly studied at the lakefront andfrequenteda musiclistening room inthe University Center that was filled with records and aturntable.Another met his wife on campus.

Mester-Brown polled thegroup on thelogothat LSUofficials earlier this year said would be used afterthe school transitioned to LSUNO. Ithas purple and gold letters in the same style as LSU’s other logos. “It’slike LSU completely took

over,” one participant said. Other suggested it didn’trepresent the university, or even New Orleans.

Toward the end of the workshopparticipants were asked to sketchlogos they thought would better represent the university Suggestions included depictions of an oak tree, birds and musical notes.

“People really love this place,” Mester-Brown said.“It changed their lives. Iwanted to capture people’sfeelings about what this institution meanstothem.”

Email reporter Marie Fazio at mfazio@theadvocate.com

Q&A WITH SHELLEy SMITH

CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR

ShelleySmith, center, snuggles with her own children and poses within amakeshift frame made of branches.

carrying it around. Those are play schemas that all kids do, and it’spart of their brain development. They are actually learningwhen they’re playing.

Let’stalk summercamps. What are some thingsthat parents should know about your summercamps?

We will have camps for ages 3to12this year

Three of them are for ages 3to8,mostly the little learners, whichare my general ages. Idohave twocamps this year for the older kids, forages8 to 12, which is new this year.Older kids need to be outside, too. Allofour camps are 9a.m. to 1p.m. What’sgreat about our program is the kids are outdoors. Some parentsare afraid to send theirkidsout in the neighborhood to just

explore on their own,so we’re giving themthatina place with adult supervision. They get muddy and dirty There’sacreek in the back that we getin. There’sagood little mudslide that they can play on. What can kids learnfrom spending time outdoors? They need way less adult direction than we think. A lot of the lessons that we learn outside are childrendirected.Theyask questions —really good questions. All adults can learn fromchildren morethan we think. Every school everywhere should have more outdoor time. I’m on abandwagon of people pushing that and making it into legislation. Let’sget that to where they have at least two hours of outdoor timeduring the school day,whether that’sa formal class outdoors or just free time. What wouldyou saytoparents who want to gettheir kids outside more? Do it.There are somefun ways. There’sa1000 Hours Outside program that’slike achallengefor the year to try to get 1,000 hours outside.Theyhave little charts you can fill out. Start with the small things. Bringyourfood andgosit outside and have apicnic. Email Joy Holdenatjoy holden@theadvocate.com.

RISHER

Continuedfrom page1y

Keefe narrates the audiobook himself. Authors narrating their own work rarely goes well. “London Falling” was an exception.

As ajournalist, Icould see what he did to write the book. Every conversation was reconstructed from sources. The only edits he madewere to correct the spelling in text exchanges.

The research required is staggering. It may be the best nonfiction book I’ve ever read.

“London Falling” came out in April. Isuspect alot of people will be talking aboutitbefore the year is out.

It does what agreat book does as well as “Speckled Beauty” and “The Lion Women of Tehran.” Great booksdon’ttake readers away.They bring us back to ourselves.

Meanwhile, my mother leaves soon. The books on my nightstand

will stop disappearing. No one will open the bathroom door to read me apassage because they simply had to share it.

As Iwrote the above sentence, my mother appeared at my home office door and said, “I finished ‘The Lion Women of Tehran.’” Iasked how it was.

She said, “Excellent.” Iasked which she liked best “The Speckled Beauty” or this one.

She said, “Oh, you know Ialwayslove Rick Bragg, but Ithink I’ll have to say this one. It is special.”

From my mother,that is high praise.

She gave me alot of things, my mother —the instinct to reach for abook being abig one. The belief that what happens in Tehran, London and Louisiana is worth understanding —and worth caring about —that’sanother giftentirely

Email Jan Risheratjan.risher@ theadvocate.com.

These are stories of global progress, compiled by the media group Fix the News and shared in partnership withThe Advocate/The Times-Picayune.

CORN GENES

Scientistsatthe University of Illinois discovered that genes from teosinte, corn’s wild ancestor,can reshape soil microbial communities in moderncorn. Previous findings revealed that these roots “secrete chemicals capable of suppressing the activity of nitrifying and denitrifying microbes, according to Bioengineer org. These microbes normally convert nitrogen into forms lost to waterways or released as greenhouse gases. By keeping nitrogen in the stable ammonium form, the plants improve nitrogen-use efficiency and reduce water pollution. In field trials using modified cornlines, some showedupto a50% reduction in nitrification and significant decreases in denitrification without reducing crop yield. The research highlights how modernbreeding overlooked root and soil interactions, contributing to nitrogen loss. Reintroducing these ancestral traits could lowerfertilizer needs, cut emissions and improve sustainability.The studydemonstrates anew approach to agriculture that leverages plant genetics to influence soil microbiomes and enhance environmental outcomes.

TUBERCULOSIS

Areportfrom Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance suggests that newtuberculosis vaccines

Patronsnavigatethrough the CornMaze at

that genesfromteosinte, corn’swild ancestor,can reshape

could mark aturning pointin the fight againstthe infectious disease.Although the existing BCGvaccineprotects young children fromsevereTB, it offers limited protection for adolescentsand adults New vaccinecandidates in latestage clinicaltrials show promising effectiveness in adolescentsand adults and could save millions of lives while generating “up to$400 billion worthofeconomic benefits worldwide by 2050.”

“TB has plagued humanity since before historicrecords began, and defeating it will require atruly global effort. Allstakeholders must come together to supporta joint strategyfor TB vaccineaccess —one that combines early demand signaling, coordinated financingand shared accountability,” the article from Gavi states.

ELECTRICITYACCESS

The streets of BenininWest

Africa are now linedwith new distribution poles carrying light, partofaneffortto expand electricity access in the city which has transformed communities, businesses and daily life. Since 2016, the countryhas worked toward electricity coverage, with a goal of full coveragein2030 —supportedby The World Bank‘s Benin Electricity Access Scale-up Project.So far, 150,000 meters of grid access has been installed,

along with20,000 streetlights that connect “nearly 145,000 households, 2,789 small businesses, and 451 public institutions.”

The initiativehas improved safety, especially in communitieslikeZogbodomey, wherepublic safetyhas improved.

“Workerswho once rushed homebefore dark nowlinger Neighbors gatheroutside in the evenings.The unspoken geographyoffear— where you

could and could not safely go aftersunset— is being redrawn,” the article from World Bank states.

MITCALCULATIONS

Engineersatthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed microscopicsilicon structuresthat can perform calculations using waste heat instead of electricity, introducing anew form of “thermal analog computing.” Instead of encoding data as electrical signals, the system represents inputs as aset of temperaturesusing the excessheatalreadypresent in adevice.Heatnaturally flowsthrough specially designed materials, and its distribution formsthe basis of the calculation, withresults measuredasthermal energyat the output.

The team demonstrated that these structurescan perform matrix vector multiplication —a core operation in machine learning —with over 99% accuracy.Designedusing inverse-design software each dust-sizedstructureis optimizedtoguide heat in precise ways

This approach could improve energy efficiency by turning excessheat, typically wasted in electronics, into auseful computing resource

Fixthenews.com is a solutions journalism newsletter that finds stories of progressand shares them withreaders from across theworld. Acclaimed authorSteven Pinker calls Fix the News “the best source forpositivenewsonthe internet.”

Liturgies that build belonging in the world

BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer

Kat Armas, a Cuban American writer and podcaster, defines liturgy in “Liturgies for Resisting Empire: Seeking Community, Belonging and Peace in a Dehumanizing World” as “the labor of a community, alongside the prayers, meditations and rituals that shape us as we gather.”

She explains that empire is contrary to this work of community “Empire,” Armas writes, “with its hunger for domination, division and isolation trembles at this. It fears our togetherness, our longing for belonging. And so we must resist the forces of individualism and discord that threaten to unravel us.”

In the book, Armas provides a guide for Christians yearning for a countercultural way of living that prioritizes community and humanity over dominance and power Armas has her masters of divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary and is pursuing a masters of theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She is also the author of “Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength” and “Sacred Belonging: A 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture.”

Throughout “Liturgies for Resisting Empire,” Armas uses spiritual practices and biblical theology to help the reader cultivate authentic belonging to God, ourselves, each other and creation.

Each of the nine chapters is titled around rejecting something imperialistic and embracing something sacred like “Rejecting Ideology, Embracing Wisdom” and “Rejecting Dualism, Embracing Paradox.”

Each chapter begins with an invocation a prayer that sets the

tone for the chapter and a reflection, a story or fable that connects to the content. Similarly, the chapters end in a prayer of resistance, which often takes the form of a confession, and then a benediction, calling upon God to help the readers change and honor God

Throughout the book, Armas confronts the idols and images of empire from the Old Testament to ancient Rome to today As a Cuban American, she is familiar with European colonialism and American imperialism, but her study incorporates history as well as contemporary empires She writes, “It’s impor-

People considering

BY DORANY PINEDA

Associated Press

After Moira Cathleen Delaney was diagnosed with an aggressive form of intestinal cancer her thoughts eventually turned to her eventual death and what she wanted done with her body Delaney’s love of gardening, birds and the forest inspired her decision to be transformed into soil literally — through a process known as natural organic reduction. When she died in October at age 57, her family sprinkled some of her remains under her favorite backyard tree and gave some remains to her closest friends and relatives in glass jars to keep or plant things with.

“For her, it was a very comforting thought to be able to return to the earth in that kind of way, and to have her final physical act contributing to the life process,” said Marcos Moliné, her son Interest in body disposal options that are better for the planet has risen in recent years, according to research commissioned by the National Funeral Directors Association. Researchers and industry experts said people worry about how conventional death practices such as embalming, fire cremation and casket and vault burials affect the climate, environment and people’s health Others simply want their final resting place to be in their cherished outdoors.

“How we die does lead to a substantial impact on not only the people around us and our communities, but the earth itself,” said Mark Shelvock, a psychotherapist and lecturer at Western University in Canada who co-wrote a paper on green death practices.

What’s legal and available varies by country, state and province. Here are some common options.

Conventional practices

Embalming, the process of slowing down a body’s decomposition, involves known carcinogens like formaldehyde that get injected into veins to preserve the body for viewing and services. The Environmental Protection Agency determined the gas poses an “unreasonable risk” to public health, with people who work in

tant to understand the impact of ancient empires, because there are threads we can trace through them all — threads of power and domination, violence and hierarchy, conquest and homogeneity These patterns, though varied, stretch across time, shaping how we understand the world and our place in it.”

To Armas, resistance comes through understanding the past, reclaiming the present and building a just future. She takes a critical eye at American evangelicalism and its relationship to capitalism in creating a cultural marketplace. She includes history Scrip-

ture, memoir, political science, theology and spiritual practices to reinforce her message that Christians can live differently in community than conforming to a structure of hierarchy and dominance.

The invocations, prayers of resistance and benedictions bracket Armas’s bold tone and narrative with spiritual practice and presence. She reminds the reader of the work to be done in our hearts and spirits.

“Liturgies for Resistance” is an important book for people of the Christian faith who are looking for a fresh point of view of Scripture in a turbulent time. The way Armas breaks down various empires of new and old helps reveal patterns of domineering oppression She offers tangible and concrete ways to pursue God outside of such domination.

Armas concludes the text with a “Benediction of Belonging,” which encourages the reader to reflect, confess, appeal, resist and be blessed.

Email Joy Holden at joy holden@theadvocate.com.

Looking for faith across Louisiana

The newspaper is inviting ministers from across Louisiana — every faith tradition, every denomination, every corner of the state — to contribute first-person columns on faith for occasional publication in the Louisiana Inspired section.

Topics are wide open, as long as they’re rooted in faith. Write about doubt, community or why ancient traditions still matter Write about what faith looks like in a flood zone, a small town or a hospital room. Write about why you do this work.

Columns should be 550–750 words, first-person, written for a general audience, original and unpublished. Submissions do not guarantee publication and will be edited for length and clarity Promotional content and attacks on other faith traditions are not a fit. Honest, personal writing about faith in Louisiana life is.

To submit, email the following to Jan Risher at jan.risher@ theadvocate.com: n The completed column (550–750 words) n A headshot n A bio of no more than 100 words n The name and address of your church or place of worship n The best contact phone number for the minister (not to be published).

Louisiana has always had a lot to say about faith. We’re listening.

‘greener’ death options to aid carbon footprint

settings where it’s used at greatest risk Research has shown the likelihood of the gas contaminating soil and groundwater is low.

Fire cremation is the most popular option in the U.S., preferred by nearly two-thirds of the respondents to the funeral directors association. The energy for burning is often derived from fossil fuels. The Cremation Association of North America estimates the energy used in a typical cremation is equivalent to powering a 2,000-square-foot home for a week Materials used for caskets and vaults are often made of wood, metal or concrete that require mining or tree cutting and huge amounts of energy to produce.

Concrete, for instance, is responsible for roughly 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions and 2% in the U.S., most of which come from producing and processing the cement to make it.

Cemeteries also take up space and require maintenance, which involves energy and resources for mowing, watering or fertilizing.

“There’s all of this management that goes into conventional cemeteries that looks very much like a

golf course,” said Samuel Perry, a funeral director and president of the Green Burial Council, a global nonprofit that guides green burial standards and certification.

Natural burials

At Prairie Creek Conservation Cemetery in Florida, natural burials are combined with land conservation Graves are dug by hand and bodies are only buried in caskets or shrouds made of biodegradable materials like bamboo or cotton. Embalmed bodies and vaults aren’t allowed, and to bury cremated remains, they must be in biodegradable, chemical-free urns.

The idea is to let the body decompose naturally.

It’s an idea Scott King was skeptical of when his mother, Linda, said she wanted to be buried this way But the more he researched, the more he understood the beauty of its simplicity She was buried in a meadow at Prairie Creek cemetery in October last year, and recently King buried his brother Kenneth there, too, close to her “Through death, life begets life,” said King. “She really liked that idea, too, that she can in her

passing, help give life to something else. That was very important to her My brother, I think, sort of went along with the ride.”

The cemetery partners with a land trust to manage, restore and protect the land from development. They remove invasive species and plant native ones, and perform prescribed burns.

The benefits, said executive director Heather Grove, reach further. There’s more biodiversity and wildlife now, and “if you want to talk about carbon capturing and all that, conservation is key to sequester,” she said.

According to the Green Burial Council, a green burial sequesters about 25 pounds of carbon.

Elena Slominski, a researcher who’s studied eco-friendly disposal options, said a conservation burial “is by far the best thing you can do because it’s actually, technically a carbon sink. It actually restores ecological habitat and protects the land.”

But it’s not a good option where space is at a premium, and some argue it’s not practical because it takes up space.

Natural organic reduction

Earth Funeral is a company specializing in natural organic reduction, also known as terramation and human composting. The body remains in a sealed vessel for 30 to 45 days with mulch, wood chips and flowers. Inside, microorganisms break down the body into soil in a natural process that generates heat to reach temperatures of 131 F or higher — enough to kill germs.

“What we are fundamentally doing is using science and technology to accelerate a completely natural process” using renewable energy sources, said Tom Harries, the company’s co-founder and CEO Some of the soil is given to loved ones, and the rest is donated to conservation or reforestation projects. Fourteen U.S. states allow such a process, and 15 others have introduced bills to make it legal, according to Earth Funeral. Experts said it’s a good option if you live in a city where burial space could be limited and more expensive.

Alkaline hydrolysis

Alkaline hydrolysis is also supposed to mimic and speed up natural decomposition. At the Coloradobased water cremation company Be a Tree, bodies are put into a vessel with 95% water and 5% potassium hydroxide that is then heated to about 200 F for about 18 hours.

Skeletal remains are air-dried, processed and returned to loved ones as powder in an urn or shaped as stones. Most families keep some of the liquid for houseplants or gardening, but most of it goes to land conservation partners to be used as fertilizer, said founder and CEO Emily Nelson. Other companies discharge the residual liquid with other wastewater

This process uses about 90% less energy than fire cremation.

Perry, with the Green Burial Council, said he’s often asked whether the way a person chooses to be disposed of after death makes much of a difference in their environmental footprint.

“The quick and dirty answer is no, I don’t think this one thing is going to change a whole lot. But it’s always about changing industries. And as an industry, if we do better, we are making a bigger impact.”

Daniel Kozin contributed to this report from Gainesville, Fla.

SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2026

directions: Make a 2- to 7-letter word from the letters in each row Add points of each word, using scoring directions at right. Finally, 7-letter words get 50-point bonus. “Blanks” used as any letter have no point value All the words are in the Official SCRABBLE® Players Dictionary, 5th Edition.

word game

instructions: 1. Words must be of four or more letters. 2. Words that acquire four letters by the addition of “s,” such as “bats” or “dies,” are not allowed. 3. Additional words made by adding a “d” or an “s” may not be used. 4. Proper nouns, slang words, or vulgar or sexually explicit words are not allowed.

todAY's Word — LABYrintH: LAB-ihrinth: A maze. Average mark 42 words Time limit 60 minutes Can you find 64 or more words in LABYRINTH?

ken ken

instructions: 1 -Each rowand each column must contain thenumbers 1through4 (easy) or 1through6 (challenging) without repeating 2 -The numbers within the heavily outlinedboxes, called cages, must combine using thegiven operation (inany order)toproduce the target numbersinthe top-left corners. 3 -Freebies: Fillinthe single-boxcages withthe numberinthe top-left corner

instructions: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 gridwith several given numbers. The object is to placethe numbers 1to 9in theempty squares so that each row,each column and each 3x3 boxcontains the same number only once. The difficultylevel of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday

directions: Complete thegridso that numbers 1–132 connect horizontally, vertically or diagonally

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

Quiz

Sure to succeed

North-South had a misunderstanding. South intended his three-heart bid to ask for a heart stopperandNorththoughtSouth’s bidding showed a big hand with both minors

South won the opening spade leadwithhisaceanddrewtrumps in two rounds He exited with the nineofspadestoWest’sjack.West led the queen of spades South ruffed, seeing East discard a heart, and led a heart to dummy’s ace. He ruffed a heart and could now be confident that West had no more hearts and East had no more spades He began to run his diamonds. This was the position with one diamond remaining: NORTH

South led his last diamond. West discarded a club to keep his high spade. Dummy discarded the seven of spades, and East had to discard a club to keep the queen of hearts. The king, ace, and nine of clubs took the last three tricks! Note that the jack of clubs was irrelevant to the play. It was just there to give declarer a losing option.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Fix up your digs,rethinkyourlifestyleandlower your overhead. There is plenty you can do to ease stress and build security. Doing something that matters to you will bring about worthwhile connections

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Reach out, gather information and gain insight into proper protocol before you come across with confidence. A positive attitude will make a difference. Dreams are nice, but they aren’t reality

Tannah Hirsch welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency inc., 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, Ny 14207. E-mail responses may be sent to gorenbridge@ aol.com. © 2026 Tribune Content Agency

CANCER(June21-July22) Sizeupwhatever situations you encounter, and use your intelligence, experience and connections, not your cash, to point those in need in the best possible direction, then focus on personal growth. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) A friendly gesture, a kind word and an original suggestion will put you in an opportune position. Let your charm and enthusiasm set the tone, and you’ll excel.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Follow your heart, and ask questions if uncertainty prevails. Be honest and your approach will come across as refreshing. Socialize, research or sign up to master skills that enhance your resume.

ing in activities that challenge and elevate your awareness, strength and courage will help you stand out among your peers. Keep the peace at home.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Get the lowdown before signing up for something. Choose to surround yourself with those who have something of interest to offer ARIES (March 21-April 19) Choose creativity. Working toward something that you feel passionate about will help alleviate some of the frustration you feel regarding how others conduct themselves. wuzzLes

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Pause, observe and keep your thoughts to yourself Expect a last-minute change to disrupt your plans. Listen, do your research and look at your expenses before you make a commitment.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Broaden your horizons, and connect with those who share your interests through networking events. Partnering with someone who can offer what you lack and vice versa will help you fast-track your way forward.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Mix and mingle. Socializing and participat-

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Refuse to let anyone stand in your way Listen, digest and respond with accuracy and a resolution regarding what you can and will do. Set the tone, and you’ll rule the outcome.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Embrace what life has to offer Don’t wait for change to come to you; enforce what you want on the world around you. Size up your to-do list, and move forward with optimism.

The horoscope, an entertainment feature, is not based on scientific fact. © 2026 by NEA, inc., dist. By Andrews McMeel Syndication

Answers to puzzles

super quiz

1. Buffalo. 2. Honolulu. 3. Toronto. 4. Mexico City.5.Sao Paulo. 6. Venice.7.Istanbul. 8. Vatican City.9.St. Petersburg. 10. Orleans 11. Whitehorse. 12. Paris.13. Barcelona. 14. San Salvador.15.Chicago.

SCORING: 24 to 30 points —congratulations, doctor; 18 to 23 points—honorsgraduate; 13 to 17 points —you’replenty smart, but no grind; 5to12points —you really shouldhit the booksharder;1point to 4points —enroll in remedial courses immediately; 0points who reads thequestions to you?

Cryptoquote Answer

Saturday's Cryptoquote: Music comes from an icicle as it melts, to live againasspringwater.— Henry Williamson

word GAme Answer

sudoKu Answer jumble Answer

Crossword Answers

sCrAbble Answers

wuzzles Answers

Ken Ken Answers

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