The Acadiana Advocate 05-26-2026

NCAA TOURNAMENT: CAJUNS

La. wants more money for fortified roof grants

BY SAM KARLIN

Staff writer

Louisiana may soon get a massive influx of money for a widely touted solution to ever-rising home insurance

rates: Fortified roofs.

State lawmakers appear poised to pass a bill that would add significantly more money to the grant program that gives Louisiana homeowners $10,000 each toward a new fortified roof. The cash would come from excess funds collected by Citizens, the state-created insurer of last resort, and is expected to net an extra $50 million for the program, enough for 5,000 additional roofs — on top of the $30 million the program gets annually

In all, the program would have enough money for 8,000 new fortified roofs this year, nearly double the number completed so far through the grant. To date, the Louisiana Department of Insurance has certified 4,800 roofs through the program.

The plan would provide a longsought boost to a strategy that leaders hope will pull the state out of a yearslong crisis that has pushed

With

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy isn’t sure when or even if he’ll go back to practicing medicine after January, when he leaves the Senate.

“I really don’t quite yet know what I’m going to do. I’ve got some speaking opportunities,” Cassidy told local reporters over the phone at a news conference. “I just met with my staff. I’ve been really focused on the next seven months What do we have teed up that we can do that’s going to help my state and my country?” Cassidy was defeated in a closed Republican primary on May 16. But, for the next seven months, he remains chair of the powerful Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Cassidy already has been working on legislative ideas to lower the cost of healthcare and health insurance.

“I’d really like to accomplish that,” he said. He’s got another measure to punish China for not enforcing environmental laws that he wants to see concluded. He’s working with LSU on ways to rebuild Louisiana’s fast-eroding coastline

Lawmakers defend not tapping reserve for teacher pay, vouchers

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

Louisiana legislators’ plan to draw millions from a special state fund to pay for local projects and other initiatives without funding a stipend for teachers or expanding a school voucher program has drawn backlash both sides of the aisle, with government policy think tanks questioning lawmakers’ priorities.

The state’s latest set of budget bills, which could still be amended as legislators enter their final days of session, would divvy up $800 million from the

Revenue Stabilization Fund for infrastructure upgrades, state economic development initiatives, regional law enforcement agencies, local governments and some nonprofits and other private organizations.

Legislative leaders say it is smartest to spend money from the reserve fund on one-time expenses.

ä See LOCAL, page 4A

ing increasingly noticeable in Lafayette. Teens say

Vital ‘third spaces’ continue to disappear ä See GATHER, page 5A

Muslims begin the Hajj amid heat, war concerns

MECCA, Saudi Arabia The annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, officially began

Monday

More than 1.5 million pilgrims have arrived in Saudi Arabia from outside the country, Saleh bin Saad Al-Murabba, commander of the Hajj passport forces, said Friday The faithful have been pouring into the country for the Hajj against the backdrop of a tenuous ceasefire in the Iran war and related regional tensions and uncertainty

Egyptian pilgrim Samya Abdul Moneim said she was grateful to God that she made it to the Hajj, which is required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who can afford it and is physically able to make it.

“I am in a state of blessing and happiness,” she said in Mecca on Sunday “It’s an indescribable feeling, truly I mean, thank God, I am in a blessing.”

Typically on the first day many pilgrims in Mecca converge on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert. Ahead of that, pilgrims have been circling the cube-shaped Kaaba in the Grand Mosque in sweltering temperatures. For pilgrims, Hajj can be a deeply moving spiritual experience and a chance to seek God’s forgiveness and the erasure of past sins. Pilgrims perform the Hajj rituals over several days.

This Hajj “is, in effect, a hard reset for me,” Youssef Chouhoud, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, said Monday from the tent city of Mina. “I pray that I emerge on the other side of this journey with a new sense of purpose and the discipline to see it through.”

Around him, many pilgrims were resting and refueling, he said via WhatsApp, noting how demanding the pilgrimage is.

“It is for many pilgrims the most difficult thing they will ever do in their lives,” he said. “But nothing this meaningful is ever going to be easy.”

He found it inspiring “to see so many who have sacrificed so much to be here only to compete with one another in giving charity and helping each other along the way,” he said. “All this in the hope that their intentions and actions may be accepted by their Lord.”

Rescuers race to reach 7 trapped in Laos cave

BANGKOK Rescuers are racing against time to reach seven people who have been trapped in a cave in central Laos since last week.

A group of villagers in Xaisomboun province went into the cave to look for gold on May 19, but heavy rain triggered flash flooding that blocked the exit, according to Laos and Thai rescue teams involved in the operation.

Bounkham Luanglath, who leads the Laos’ Rescue Volunteer for People, said Monday that one of the people from the group escaped before the exit was blocked and alerted authorities The status of the seven people who are trapped remains unknown.

He said the cave is a narrow chamber often visited by villagers searching for gold deposits. He said that authorities had repeatedly warned people against entering the cave out of safety concerns.

Deaths at 4 in building collapse in Philippines

ANGELES Philippines Rescuers pulled out three people Monday from an immense pile of rubble that was all that remained of a nine-story hotel that collapsed while under construction in a northern Philippine city, bringing the death toll to four with 17 others still missing, officials said. Two of the men were dead, while emergency personnel struggled in the early morning hours to revive one in an ambulance near the pile of concrete slabs, twisted iron bars and aluminum scaffoldings that was all that remained of the building in Angeles City of Pampanga Province. They eventually gave up and drove away The poignant scene was witnessed by a small group of journalistswho watched hundreds of rescuers led by firefighters and police scrambling for hours to extricate the men, who were at the time alive but trapped under concrete slabs and iron bars.

CALIFORNIA

Authorities: Blast risk over at chemical tank

Evacuation orders still in place for about 50K

BY LEAH WILLINGHAM and JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press

The risk of a catastrophic explosion at a damaged chemical tank in Southern California has been eliminated following a close overnight inspection that confirmed a crack in the tank relieved pressure and cooled the chemical, authorities said Monday

The results of the evaluation was “incredibly positive news,” and allowed officials to turn the corner after days of concern about a possible explosion, said Orange County Fire Authority division chief Craig Covey

However, evacuation orders remained in place for about 50,000 people in Garden Grove, California, located south of Los Angeles. There has been no chemical leak as of early Monday, but the Orange County Fire Authority said the risk to public safety is “ongoing.”

Covey didn’t say in the recorded message what the most likely outcome might be but officials had previously said they hoped to cool off the chemical inside the tank so it wouldn’t leak or explode. The tank’s interior had cooled to 93 degrees, Covey said, down from 100 degrees Sunday

After the tank overheated Thursday and began venting vapors, firefighters have repeatedly sprayed the tank with water in an attempt to cool the chemical inside, methyl methacrylate which is used to make plastic parts. As the interior temperature rises, methyl methacrylate converts from a liquid to a gas and increases the pressure, according to Purdue University engineering professor Andrew Whelton Exposure to methyl methacrylate can cause serious respiratory problems, neurological problems and irritation to the skin, eyes and throat, according to fact sheets about the chemical.

Orange County health officials said the

chemical is easy to smell and people may notice it over a large area without being harmed.

Kim Yen, a retiree who has evacuated from her home in Garden Grove, said she’s been following the news on an “hourly basis,” and was pleased to hear in the latest update that there was no longer a risk of an explosion.

“According to that update I am happy and many of us are happy, but still, we are still on our evacuation,” she said.

Yen, who lives just two blocks from the plant, said that while she’s ready to return home, she wants to make sure it’s safe before she does. And, she said, she’s been worried about the emergency crews.

“They are really our heroes,” Yen said.

At a shelter that opened in a hall located in a large park in Fountain Valley, just southwest of Garden Grove, the parking lot was full on Monday as some people sought refuge inside the hall and others set up tents outside. Other people were gathered in the park to enjoy the outdoors on Memorial Day

The tank is at a site owned by GKN Aerospace Transparency Systems, a British company that makes cockpit windows, canopies and windshields for military and commercial aircraft. The tank holds 6,000 to 7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate used to make plastic parts.

GKN Aerospace technical specialists and the Orange County Fire Authority removed external insulation material from the tank to help cool its contents, according to a GKN Aerospace statement released on Monday

“We apologize for the ongoing disruption this incident is causing and our priority remains its safe resolution, so that residents can return to their homes as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

GKN Aerospace says on its website that it employs about 16,000 people across 32 manufacturing sites in 12 countries and supplies technologies and components used by major commercial and military aircraft manufacturers worldwide.

It remained unknown when the operation would reopen.

Israeli military says it’s striking Hezbollah sites in Lebanon

Netanyahu vows to ‘increase the blows’

BY BASSEM MROUE and MATTHEW LEE Associated Press

BEIRUT Israel’s air force targeted sites belonging to Hezbollah in Lebanon, including in the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley, late on Monday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to intensify attacks on the Lebanese militant group.

Netanyahu’s warning came as Hezbollah has been firing fiber optic drones — a weapon used widely in the war in Ukraine at Israeli forces in southern Lebanon and northern Israel in recent weeks.

“We will hit them. It’s true that they are shooting drones at us, fiber optic drones.

We have a special team working on that and we will solve that too,” Netanyahu said in a video posted on social media.

“What this requires of us now is to increase the blows, to increase the intensity We will smite them hip and thigh.”

Lebanon’s state-run National News

Agency said that after Netanyahu’s post, some residents started leaving Beirut’s southern suburbs where Hezbollah has large presence. The agency also said several airstrikes hit the eastern town of Mashghara in the Bekaa region on Monday night. Meanwhile, Hezbollah said that it car-

ried out eight attacks earlier in the day, including a drone attack on Israeli troops in Misgav Am in northern Israel.

The daily attacks between Israel and Hezbollah have been ongoing despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in place since April 17.

A U.S. State Department official said earlier on Monday that Hezbollah has ignored repeated requests to stop firing at Israel, including a recent ultimatum. The official, who was not authorized to talk to the media and therefore spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Israel will never be expected to passively absorb attacks on its forces and civilians.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, Hezbollah has fired over a thousand drones and over 700 rockets to try and derail ongoing negotiations between Lebanon and Israel, the official said, adding that “the status quo is untenable.”

Last month, Lebanon and Israel began their first direct talks in more than three decades with meetings held in Washington. Lebanese and Israeli military officials are to meet again on Friday, at the Pentagon, to discuss the ceasefire. Israel and the United States are seeking to have Hezbollah disarmed.

The State Department official said the direct Lebanon-Israel talks and the implication that Lebanon stands to get significant support from the U.S. is a threat to the Iran-backed Hezbollah, along with a challenge to its narrative of resistance against Israel.

Trump: Iran deal should expand Abraham Accords

President: More countries should join as part of agreement

BY LINDSAY WHITEHURST and MUNIR AHMED Associated Press

WASHINGTON President

Donald Trump said Monday that any agreement to end the Iran war should include a requirement for several additional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to join the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements from Trump’s first term aimed at normalizing relations with Israel.

Trump said in a social media post that negotiations are “proceeding nicely” but tied any eventual agreement to expanded participation in the 2020 accords.

The proposal came as the emerging Iran deal faced criticism from fellow Republicans who favor a harder line on Iran, and it could add friction to the negotiations.

Trump pointed to Saudi Arabia and Qatar as countries that should “immediately” sign on, alongside Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates became the first countries to join in 2020.

He wrote that “after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultane-

ously sign onto the Abraham Accords.”

Trump has long hoped Saudi Arabia would join, but the kingdom has maintained that any normalization deal requires first establishing a clear path for Palestinian statehood. That’s also key for Pakistan, which is among the countries that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Islamabad-based analyst Syed Mohammad Ali said Pakistan’s position on Israel remains unchanged despite Trump’s latest proposal.

The president said he brought up the Abraham Accords plan with leaders during negotiations on Saturday He said he would accept “one or two” countries declining to sign, but said most should be willing. Egypt and Jordan already formally recognize Israel and have long-standing peace treaties.

Masood Khan, Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States, said it remains to be seen how workable the proposal might be for the countries on Trump’s list.

“The invocation of the Abraham Accords at this stage gives an altogether new dimension to the diplomatic and mediatory processes because this issue was not on the agenda,” he said, pointing to the domestic pressure Trump is facing to strike a favorable deal. Still, Khan said, “the diplomatic track is still working, and I believe Pakistan is very much at the center of it, supported by regional countries.”

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Pope apologizes for Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery

encyclical

BY NICOLE WINFIELD and PAOLO SANTALUCIA Associated Press

VATICAN CITY Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the Holy See’s role in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican’s record a “wound in Christian memory.”

Past popes have apologized for Christians’ involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade But no pope had ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologized for, the role that past popes played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”

History’s first U.S.-born pope, whose family history includes both enslaved people and slave owners, delivered the apology in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” (Magnificent Humanity), which was released Monday

The sweeping manifesto is about safeguarding humanity in an era of increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. Leo raised the slave trade in relation to what he called the new forms of slavery and colonialism that the digital revolution is fueling. Black American Catholics, activists and scholars have long called for the Holy See to atone for its role in the colonial-era trade in human beings, beyond generic apologies for the involvement of individual Christians.

“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote. “For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”

Shannen Dee Williams, historian at the University of Dayton and author of the 2022 history of American Black Catholic nuns, “Subversive Habits,” welcomed the apology as a “monumental step toward the kind of essential truth-telling and reparation that many Catho-

lics have prayed and worked to witness.”

“The Catholic Church has never been an innocent bystander in the history of White supremacy,” said Williams. “Black Catholics have waited a long time to hear the Vatican speak honestly about the church’s leading roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery--and thus by exten-

sion the enduring systems of anti-Black racism in the world today.”

The Vatican has insisted that it always upheld the dignity of all human beings as children of God. But a series of 15th-century directives from the Vatican authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave nonChristians.

In 1452, for example, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which gave the Portuguese king and his successors the right “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” and take all possessions — including land — of “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” anywhere. The bull also gave the

Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”

That bull and another issued three years later, Romanus Pontifex, formed the basis of the Doctrine of Discovery, the theory that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of land in Africa and the Americas.

Nicholas V’s permissions to the Portuguese were confirmed or renewed by Pope Callixtus III in 1456, Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 and Pope Leo X in 1514, according to the Rev Christopher J. Kellerman, a Jesuit priest and author of “All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church.” Spanish kings received the rights for the Americas. In 2023, the Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery, but it never formally rescinded, abrogated or rejected the bulls themselves. The Vatican insists that a later bull, Sublimis Deus in 1537, reaffirmed that Indigenous peoples shouldn’t be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property and weren’t to be enslaved.

Leo XIV calls for robust regulation of artificial intelligence

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, KAITLYN HUAMANI and PAOLO SANTALUCIA Associated Press

VATICAN CITY Pope Leo XIV called Monday for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit, issuing a sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war.

“Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), Leo’s first encyclical, has been eagerly awaited ever since history’s first U.S.born pope announced days after his election that he considered AI to be the biggest challenge facing humanity today In the text, Leo denounced the “culture of power” driv-

ing the AI race, especially in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote warfare. He declared that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems, setting up another flash point between the American pope and the Trump administration, which has worked aggressively to deregulate AI development.

“Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death, the pope told a special Vatican presentation of the encyclical, one of the most authoritative types of teaching documents a pope can issue.

Experts in the tech industry, academia and Catholic morality said the document will likely become a bench-

mark in the debate over AI, a point of reference for policymakers, researchers and ordinary folk alike. It comes as the near-daily developments in the technology trigger concerns over AI replacing human jobs and even human intelligence.

Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute, said the document would prompt people “at the forefront of these tools” to ask questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”

The Vatican launch also included remarks by the cofounder of Anthropic, which is currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over access to its AI technology The Vatican decided to involve Anthropic as part of its decadelong ef-

Leaders keep on Belarus for signs it might offer Russia help in Ukraine

BY HANNA ARHIROVA and YURAS

KARMANAU

Associated Press

KYIV Ukraine Belarus’ exiled opposition leader visited Kyiv on Monday as the Ukrainian capital cleaned up after Russia’s biggest missile attack of the year, and world leaders kept a close eye on how much support the Belarusian government is ready to provide for Moscow’s all-out invasion. Russia and ally Belarus held joint nuclear drills last week, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned in recent days that Belarus could provide a launchpad for Russia to open a new front in north-

ern Ukraine. Some Russian troops entered Ukraine from Belarusian territory in Moscow’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022 In a further sign of concern, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke by phone with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday about the war in Ukraine, their first call since the invasion began. Further systemic strikes” on Kyiv are in store, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday It urged foreign citizens, including members of diplomatic missions, to leave the city as quickly as possible and told residents to stay away from military and government facilities.

The ministry said Friday’s deadly Ukrainian drone strike on a college dormitory in Starobilsk was “the final straw.” Ukraine said it hit only targets supporting Russia’s invasion.

The Russian army is locked in a hard and costly slog on the 780-mile front line that mostly snakes through eastern and southern Ukraine.

“Russia hit a dead-end on the battlefield, so it terrorizes Ukraine with deliberate strikes on city centers,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said on X, after the weekend barrage that killed two people and damaged buildings across the Ukrainian capital.

Candidates flood Texas airwaves in last day of GOP Senate runoff

BY THOMAS BEAUMONT and JESSE BEDAYN Associated Press

SAN ANTONIO,Texas Voters in Texas will see little of the Republican candidates for U.S. Senate on Monday But that’s only if they stay away from screens.

There were no public campaign events scheduled for Sen. John Cornyn nor state Attorney General Ken Paxton on the final day of their more than yearlong quest for the GOP nomination. Instead, their fight for Tuesday’s runoff continues as it has for months intense and unabated — through advertising that has topped $109 million, heavily from Cornyn’s side. Cornyn is scheduled to host an annual, noncampaign event in San Antonio to rec-

ognize high school graduates attending the nation’s service academies. The senator seeking a fifth term held his last public campaign event in Corpus Christi on Friday, ahead of Tuesday’s voting. Paxton headlined his last events Thursday in the Austin area and in San Antonio, content to let his campaign and a super PAC carry his primary message: that President Donald Trump endorsed him on May 19. Trump’s announcement and accompanying dismissal of Cornyn, who has had an awkward public relationship with the president, came on the second day of early voting, which ended Friday Though the candidates were quiet over the weekend Trump reaffirmed his support for Paxton on Sun-

day, and disparaged Cornyn as insufficiently loyal to him. Paxton, Trump posted on social media, “was also very loyal to your favorite President, ME,” while calling Cornyn “VERY disloyal to me.” It was Trump’s strongest rebuke of Cornyn, who had dismissed his 2024 comeback chances, and echoed the president’s reproach of Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy before he lost in the May 15 GOP Senate primary After Trump’s jabs, Cornyn still leaned into his support for the president just before Monday’s event The senator said that 99.3% of his votes aligned with Trump, that he “wants him to be successful” and then he referenced Trump’s previous comments “where he called me a good man and a friend.”

fort to engage Silicon Valley in dialogue over the human cost of AI.

And yet in his text, Leo repeatedly blasted the concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the private sector as a danger, especially to children and the most vulnerable, and called for external regulation of their work.

“It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required,” he wrote “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is

determined by a few.”

Leo appealed to AI developers and political leaders responsible for regulating them to slow down and reflect on what they are doing. He urged them to use ethical and spiritual guidelines to make the choice to work not for their own profit or power, but the betterment of humanity

AI competitors OpenAI and Anthropic are the second- and third-most valuable U.S. private companies, each valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, more than the GDP of many nations. Both companies are heading toward near-trillion-dollar IPOs.

Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah welcomed Leo’s criticism and concern. He said such external checks were fundamental to the technology “going well” for humankind since there is so much at stake — “a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale.”

“We need more of the world religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments — to do what His Holiness has done here: to take this seriously, to look closely and to push events in a better direction,” Olah said. “We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.”

GRANTS

As a result, most companies are offering significant premium discounts to homeowners with fortified roofs.

The bill, by Rep. Paul Sawyer R-Baton Rouge, has advanced with little opposition as legislative leaders and Gov Jeff Landry have for months looked for ways to put more money toward the grants. In February, Landry asked the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation, a state-created nonprofit similar to Citizens, to send some of its excess funds to the program, though it doesn’t appear likely to happen. Senate President Cameron Henry said earlier this year he expected lawmakers to find more money for fortified roofs.

Sawyer said the move will transfer funds from prior natural disasters to help solve the “financial disaster” of skyrocketing homeowners’ insurance rates.

“Being able to take something from the Katrina experience and apply it to the real world, presentday insurance crisis that is affecting all of Louisiana, but especially the coast, this is a silver lining,” Sawyer said.

The funding should help ease a glaring mismatch between supply and demand: Only about 20% of people who registered for lotteries to get the grants so far have won them, according to state data.

“We can effectively double what we have now,” Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple said in an interview

“It will continue to keep Louisiana on the forefront of insurance company conversations. When they talk about wanting to write more fortified homes, Louisiana is the fastest-growing state for fortified roofs.”

Still, nonprofit leaders who help low-income homeowners put new roofs on their homes say the program will need to adapt, especially given that homeowners are expected to pay any expenses over $10,000 on their own dime.

“I want them to spend more money,” said William Stoudt, head of Rebuilding Together New Orleans, which helps low-income homeowners put fortified roofs on their homes. “There’s definitely a case for needing $80 million. But the program needs to continue to evolve to account for its changes over the past few years.”

Those who have gone through with the grant program so far are “low-hanging fruit,” who can afford to participate, Stoudt said. Increasingly, the people still clamoring for a new roof will need more assistance, like gap funding to cover the costs above $10,000. The out-of-pocket costs can add up to thousands of dollars that many homeowners don’t have.

Still, fortified roofs are easing the insurance crisis, Stoudt said. And demand remains: His waitlist of clients seeking services has grown to more than 1,000, with half saying they want roofs.

“If you’re going to truly redeploy $50 million in overpayments from Citizens, you need to be cognizant that a lot of people who

LOCAL

Continued from page 1A

They contend the many initiatives added to the budget will make a huge difference to local communities and strengthen the whole state.

But critics from various policy groups have argued that, if lawmakers can back those investments, they should be able come up with $43.5 million to expand LA GATOR, a program that gives taxpayer dollars to families to pay for private school. And, they argued, the Legislature should be able to set aside $200 million to renew stipends for teachers and school support staff so that those workers do not make $2,000 and $1,000 less, respectively, next year

The latest budget proposal also has reignited debate over what critics call “pork” “pet projects” that receive funding at the request of individual lawmakers without going through a formal vetting process.

The Revenue Stabilization Fund is made up of corporate overflow tax revenue that accrues when annual collections exceed a certain threshold. Corporate tax revenue can be volatile, and the fund’s growth is expected to stagnate in the coming years after legislators passed bills in 2024 that cut corporate taxes.

The Revenue Stabilization Fund has about $3.9 billion in it, according to state Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, who plays a key role in drawing up the state budget as

“Being able to take

REP PAUL SAWyER, R-Baton Rouge

have Citizens are not currently able to access these grants,” he said.

$1 billion problem

After hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Citizens faced a glaring problem. It couldn’t afford to pay all its claims.

Created by the Legislature in 2003 as an insurer of last resort, Citizens’ nonprofit board decided to issue bonds worth nearly $1 billion to raise the money it needed to pay for hurricane-damaged homes.

To pay off the bonds in the ensuing two decades, Citizens levied a surcharge on Louisiana policyholders. And over time, the insurer reworked its bond deals to save money and reduced the amount of the surcharge from 5% to 1.4%, said Richard Newberry, Citizens’ CEO.

Last year, Citizens decided to stop levying the fee because it had raised enough money But it took up to a year for insurers to catch up and stop charging it on homeowners’ bills The lag led to the fee raising $64 million more than was needed to pay the bonds, according to Temple.

John Ford, spokesperson for the Insurance Department, said a judge has ordered Citizens to use $14 million of the extra funds to pay for costs associated with a

chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Top budget officials say it would be irresponsible to put money from the Revenue Stabilization Fund toward recurring expenses like investments in education. In general, putting temporary money toward one-time expenses can create so-called “fiscal cliffs” budget holes that arise when funding dries up.

The Legislature never committed to a long-term funding source that would turn the teacher stipends into permanent pay raises, but it has given those stipends to teachers three years in a row Budget conundrums

The Legislature’s budget woes began earlier this month when state economists forecast that Louisiana would collect less revenue than previously expected. As a result, officials had to trim the budget for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1, by about $100 million.

Then, on May 16, a constitutional amendment that would have liquidated state education trust funds to make teacher pay raises permanent failed at the ballot box. To extend the stipends, lawmakers would need to allocate $200 million next year

Top legislators spent hours in budget negotiations last week Those talks culminated in a set of Senate amendments that did not include money for teacher pay raises.

“If they can find $800 million for local projects, for corporate incentives and other construction needs, then certainly they can find money

lawsuit alleging they mishandled claims. That leaves $50 million for fortified roofs. If Citizens tried to return the money to policyholders, each would get $20 to $30, Temple said But Temple and legislative leaders instead agreed to allow Citizens to use the extra money to send $50 million to fortified roofs. Citizens’ board is expected to vote to send the money this summer Louisiana modeled its fortified roof program after Alabama, which has led the country in adoption of stronger roofs.

Travis Taylor, director of risk and resilience at the Alabama Department of Insurance, said the state has completed 10,500 roofs through the grant program. But the state has 60,000 fortified roofs in total, meaning the vast majority have paid for them on their own dime.

Still Alabama dedicates funding each year to nonprofit groups, which help cover the gap between the $10,000 grant and the cost of a new roof Taylor said the agency usually spends about $3 million to $4 million of its roughly $13 million in fortified grant funds each year on those nonprofit partnerships.

“This is not an intended solution to put fortified roofs on every house,” Taylor said. “This is an education program.”

to keep teachers from taking a pay cut in this economy,” said Jan Moller, director of Invest in Louisiana, a Baton Rouge-based progressive think tank.

The Revenue Stabilization Fund should not be a long-term solution, but it could buy legislators time until they reconvene, Moller said.

McFarland said lawmakers are committed to finding a way to give teachers permanent pay raises but declined to offer details about when that might happen Senate President Cameron Henry has said he wants the Legislature to take up the matter in 2027. Meanwhile, a Senate amendment that cut out new funds for LA GATOR is drawing backlash from some conservatives.

“The repeated state funding of local pet projects and nongovernmental organizations at alarming levels as critical state needs like LA GATOR remain unmet — demonstrates ‘business as usual’ at a time when lawmakers should be fulfilling their pledge to enact positive change and take Louisiana in a new, more prosperous direction,” said Erin Bendily, senior vice president of the Pelican Institute, an influential right-leaning think tank that has been a major proponent of LA GATOR. Gov Jeff Landry proposed doubling the size of the program, which would cost another $43.5 million. Henry has long been skeptical of the GATOR program and said earlier this year that it would be irresponsible to expand it

‘Pet projects’

Under the current budget proposal, about $81 million of the $800

A study commissioned by the Alabama Department of Insurance after Hurricane Sally in 2020 found that houses with fortified roofs sustained significantly less damage than those without.

“There are more and more insurance companies that are writing policies down on our coastline because of fortified (roofs),” Taylor said. “That’s because of the risk they’re not having to take, and the proof that fortified works.”

Oversubscribed

Despite the tens of millions of dollars Louisiana has put toward the fortified roof program, not everyone is benefiting.

The program is oversubscribed, with far more people signing up for lotteries than winning grants. And when people do win grants, about 40% of them drop out, many because they can’t afford out-ofpocket costs.

Some officials have tried to offer additional support.

In Jefferson Parish, for example, council members each received $500,000 from COVID relief funds to spend on their districts. Council member Jennifer Van Vrancken decided to create her own roof program.

Under the pilot, homeowners in Jefferson Parish who won the state lottery would get up to $5,000 in additional money above the $10,000 the grant provided — to pay any overages.

The result, Van Vrancken said, is that the number of people who went on to build fortified roofs soared to more than 80%.

“We thought the easiest way to start making a difference was

million from the Revenue Stabilization Fund would be directed to an account that has been dubbed the Strategic Investments Across Louisiana Fund.

House Bill 1, a key budget bill, shows how the $81 million money would be spent.

The allocations vary greatly in size and have been set aside for a range of public and private entities, from organizations like Keep Louisiana Clean, which aims to reduce littering and would receive $500,000, to Visitation of Our Lady School in Marrero, an all-girls Catholic school that would receive $50,000 to pay off debt on its gymnasium.

Some of the bigger ticket items include $2.2 million for a training center at the Franklin Parish Sheriff’s Office, $800,000 for the YWCA of Greater Baton Rouge and $1.5 million for renovations at the Northeast Louisiana Children’s Museum in Monroe.

A large chunk of the money is dedicated to helping out local municipalities. House Bill 312, which expands the budget for the current year, gives millions more to pet projects.

The House set aside about $70 million for amendments requested by legislators, but about $20 million is for statewide initiatives, McFarland said. The Senate added member-driven amendments worth millions more. For years, outside groups and even some officials have questioned whether doling out money to individual lawmakers’ wish lists is the smartest way to spend state funds.

Steven Procopio, policy direc-

to piggyback on the state’s program,” she said. Van Vrancken’s office is finishing the last four grants and then will finalize the data, with hopes of securing a more permanent funding source to continue the program. And Temple has encouraged other parishes to follow Jefferson’s lead. New Orleans officials are discussing an initiative similar to Jefferson Parish with the Insurance Department, LDI spokesperson John Ford said. Ford said the state agency is also discussing changes to the program, but is not pushing to increase the grant amount above $10,000.

“While the dropout rate is higher than we’d like, there is a high level of interest in the program, and many people are waiting for the opportunity to receive a grant,” he said. “Increasing the grant amount might help lower the dropout rate, but it would also reduce the total number of fortified roofs we can put on.”

Stoudt, of Rebuilding Together New Orleans, said the state should consider other tweaks. If lowerincome homeowners got enough funds directly from the grant to cover the full cost of the roof, it would improve the program’s effectiveness, he said.

One of his clients won a grant and got 20 quotes from contractors, searching for a bid she could afford, Stoudt said, but ultimately dropped out.

“More people are being fortified, which is great,” he said. “But inherently it will become more and more difficult to fortify roofs over time because the easiest ones get done first.”

tor of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, a nonpartisan good government group, said spending on pet projects is “driven more by politics than they are by the overall needs of the state.” State Treasurer John Fleming, who in 2024 tried to get lawmakers to submit forms indicating which amendments they requested, also cast doubt on pet project spending.

“There’s a lot of risk for mis-expenditures. There’s a lot of risk for inside dealing, especially when it comes to (nongovernmental organizations),” Fleming said.

If lawmakers were more “analytical” about spending and stopped “playing politics” to get money for their districts, Fleming added, “we could deploy that money for better roads and highways and better teacher pay.”

“Of course he (said that), he’s running for Congress,” McFarland said when asked to respond to Fleming’s statement. He was referring to Fleming’s ongoing campaign for U.S. Senate. McFarland argued the allocations go toward critical local projects, and that the state has done a better job of scrutinizing funding for NGOs in recent years. Those, too, can be vital, McFarland said, noting state funds have gone to everything from cancer centers to organizations that fight food insecurity Moller, of Invest in Louisiana, also defended the practice.

“As a basic matter I don’t think there’s anything wrong with legislators taking money back to their districts for needs in those communities,” Moller said. “They know those communities the best. That’s why they’re there.”

Researchers and youth advocates say third spaces are critical for social development, emotional support and conflict resolution, yet many have gradually disappeared, become more expensive or shifted away from being teencentered over the past several years. Today, many activities marketed toward teens in Lafayette come with a price tag.

Trampoline parks, bowling alleys and entertainment centers often require families to pay per visit, making consistent access to these spaces difficult for some households

More than a place to hang out Kari Vigelgesang, an education researcher who studies youth community spaces, defines third spaces as informal places where people gather voluntarily to build relationships and a sense of belonging.

“The first space is your home,” Vigelgesang said. “The second space is school for children or work for adults. Then the third space is something they voluntarily go to for entertainment, connection and support.”

Historically, those places looked different from what they do today For many adults who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, third spaces included recreation centers, libraries, parks and free summer programs. As funding became more competitive, many youthcentered programs either closed or became more expensive, Vigelgesang said.

“I remember community summer programs and swimming lessons being free,” she said. “Those spaces allowed people to come together and build connection, community and belonging.”

Research suggests many public recreation spaces have faced growing financial pressure over the past several decades. A 2019 report from the Property and En-

CASSIDY

Continued from page 1A

He’ll probably have to hand off lowering the cost of flood insurance to his successor Cassidy has long been on point in Senate efforts to fix Social Security The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is expected to run out of money in 2032, at which point benefits for the elderly will be reduced by about 25%.

“We’ve been talking about it through the years, and I got seven more months to get it done,” Cassidy said But one thing is clear about how Cassidy will serve out the rest of his term: President Donald Trump can’t count on him to keep quiet Pushed out by Trump Cassidy beat incumbent Sen. Mary Landrieu in 2014. When he ran for reelection in 2020, Cassidy polled 1.2 million votes.

He received only 99,496 in this year’s Republican Party primary. He came in third and out of runoff contention.

U.S Rep. Julia Letlow, a Baton Rouge Republican who Trump endorsed, and state Treasurer John Fleming, R-Minden, face each other in a June 27 runoff to determine which Republican will face off in the November general election against either Jamie Davis, a farmer from Ferriday, or Gary Crockett, a businessman from New Orleans, who are competing in the Democratic runoff.

Cassidy’s third Senate race was not a charm because of lingering anger over his supporting Trump’s conviction in the 2021 impeachment trial on charges that the president incited his supporters to storm the Capitol and disrupt the official certification that Democrat Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

The Louisiana Republican Party censured Cassidy Gov Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature changed the state’s open primary system, in which all candidates competed regardless of party to a closed primary where only voters registered for a specific party or no-party voters can participate in the primary election.

Right before early voting

vironment Research Center found that, when adjusted for inflation, funding for public recreation and outdoor programs has stopped or declined in many areas despite rising demand for recreation spaces nationwide. The report also notes that recreation-related spending now accounts for a smaller share of federal budgets than in previous decades, even as public lands and recreational spaces remain central to public use and community life.

While not specific to Lafayette, the report reflects national trends also visible locally

Vigelgesang said those funding shifts have changed what youth spaces look like today As public investment declined and costs increased, many youth-centered spaces either closed or became more expensive.

“The only place we have is ice skating and Sky Zone,” Cleveland said. “There’s really no place to just sit and hang out. Why do we have to bowl and pay for shoes and buy stuff every time to have fun?”

Even spaces that once felt welcoming for teens have become more complicated. In April, Lafayette police responded to a

began in the GOP primary, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Hopefully all of the Great Republican People of Louisiana, which I won, BIG, three times, will be voting Bill Cassidy OUT OF OFFICE in the upcoming Republican Primary! It wasn’t the first time Trump castigated Cassidy In April 2024, Trump posted a two-page entry that read, in part: “One of the worst Senators in the United States Senate is, without question, Bill Cassidy, A TOTAL FLAKE, Republican though he may be.”

Cassidy didn’t respond to Trump’s humiliations, but kept his head down and worked to get back into the president’s good graces.

He is largely responsible for ensuring vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr was confirmed as secretary of the U.S Department of Health and Human Services — the agency that oversees vaccines. He was a deciding vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as secretary for the Department of Defense.

Cassidy was in the Oval Office when Trump signed into law the HALT Fentanyl Act, which closed loopholes makers were using to avoid prosecution, and the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act, which provides first responders with naloxone, the medication to treat overdoses.

He drafted the section of the tax cuts law that eliminated taxes on tips for some barbers and hairdressers, as well as a set-aside for families who want to send their children to private parochial schools.

After Cassidy lost the primary election, Trump gloated on Truth Social: “His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!”

A problem for Trump?

The caution that sits on the shoulder of most politicians left Cassidy’s after election night results were tallied.

In his concession speech, Cassidy didn’t mention Trump by name, but was hardly circumspect about who he meant.

“When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to,” the senator said. “But you don’t pout, you

large fight involving juveniles at Sky Zone Trampoline Park, resulting in multiple arrests and renewed concerns about teen behavior in public gathering spaces. The business later updated its youth supervision policy, increasing age restrictions and requiring adult accompaniment for minors in certain cases.

A midafternoon fatal shooting April 23 at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge also intensified public concern about safety in spaces traditionally seen as routine gathering places for teens and families.

Why these spaces matter

The lack of accessible, low-cost gathering spaces for teenagers has implications beyond weekend hangouts, educators and youth advocates say They argue that when young people do not have consistent, supervised places to build relationships and spend time outside of school or home, it can affect social development, increase unsupervised time in public spaces and place more pressure on businesses and law enforcement to manage youth behavior In Lafayette and across Acadiana, officials

don’t whine, you don’t claim the election was stolen.”

Upon returning to Capitol Hill, Cassidy stopped speaking cautiously He said he was at peace with his impeachment vote against Trump.

“That may have cost me my seat, but who cares? I had the privilege of voting to uphold the Constitution. Isn’t that a great thing?” Cassidy said. “When I die, if that’s put in my obituary ‘He voted to uphold the Constitution,’ I’ll figure that that’s going to be a better obituary.”

He criticized Trump’s effort to shoehorn into a narrow bill on funding immigration enforcement $1.776 billion to compensate conservatives who felt targeted by the Justice Department under Biden.

“We are a nation of laws; you can’t just make up things,” Cassidy said.

He also blasted a plan to spend $1 billion to build a ballroom at the White House.

“This is a spit-in-the-eye insult to all my taxpayers in Louisiana, to spend a billion on a ballroom when we should be doing something about the high price of gas, groceries and healthcare,” he said.

Both amendments were pulled from the funding bill

Thursday

Cassidy joined a handful of Republicans and all but one Democrat in a procedural move to eventually call a floor vote on a resolution to end the military action in Iran.

On Wednesday, Cassidy wrote on X that “Americans are exhausted by a culture that treats every disagreement as betrayal.”

“Our constitutional system was designed around debate, persuasion, and compromise,” Cassidy continued.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday: “Bill Cassidy is a very principled conservative, very independent thinker and probably knew the challenges he was up against in that race.”

Thune also noted that, as chair of the Senate Health Committee, Cassidy could still be “a real force for change and a factor in trying to get some things done” during the remaining seven months of this Senate’s term.

“Cassidy’s departure will

say the question is increasingly becoming how communities can create environments where teens can safely gather without relying on commercial venues or informal spaces like parking lots and retail centers.

Rhyan Wheeler, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana, said many businesses are not designed to handle youth development or conflict resolution in the way dedicated youth organizations are.

“They have rules, but they don’t have people there holding youth accountable until things get out of hand, which is not their overall job but it’s needed when dealing with youth,” Wheeler said.

That challenge reflects a broader issue: how to create spaces for teens that are both welcoming and supervised enough to remain safe

Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana serves nearly 3,000 youth annually across eight clubs in seven parishes, offering mentorship, academic support, career readiness programs and leadership opportunities while keeping membership costs low enough for working families.

“When youth come into the club, there are expectations,” Wheeler said. “They’re learning teamwork, communication and how to work through conflict in a safe space.”

Those skills are increasingly important, according to Wheeler, particularly as young people are expected to carry those lessons into everyday public settings, where they must navigate independence, social pressure and conflict resolution in real time

Programs like Lafayette’s Teen Court, 100 Black Men of Greater Lafayette and Lafayette PARC recreation centers also illustrate how structured youth spaces, compared with commercial entertainment venues, can positively engage teens. These programs and spaces offer supervised environments where young people can build leadership, communication and decision-making skills while participating in activities designed to support mentorship, accountability and healthy social

subtract most of the Senate membership interested in responding to the approaching crisis of Social Security funding,” Washington Post columnist George Will

development.

Working together to fill the gap

Despite the challenges, Vigelgesang and Wheeler said, communities can rebuild third spaces through partnerships and intentional investment.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana has remained sustainable through a combination of grants, fundraising, corporate partnerships and community trust. Some club locations operate inside parks and recreation facilities, while others share buildings with schools, housing authorities or community organizations to reduce costs.

Wheeler said partnership models could help other organizations create affordable teen-centered spaces without carrying the financial burden alone

Schools, libraries, museums, parks and nonprofits could all play a role in rebuilding low-cost, accessible gathering spaces for youth, she added. For parents, Wheeler said one of the biggest challenges is reframing how teens view structured youth spaces, which are often seen as restrictive.

Many teens, she said, prioritize independence and may resist environments they associate with rules or supervision.

“You almost can’t approach it like telling teens what to do,” Wheeler said. “They have to come and see for themselves.”

Still, she believes rebuilding teen spaces starts with exposure, giving young people access to environments where they can safely socialize, build skills and feel connected to their community Vigelgesang said the broader goal is to treat youth spaces not as optional recreation, but as community infrastructure

“When we build these strong relationships in our communities and we have more shared responsibilities for our children and adolescents,” she said, “we’re going to see stronger supports for students and hopefully stronger social, emotional and behavioral health.”

Staff writer Ashley White contributed to this report.

wrote “He will be replaced by a Republican whose identity does not matter: He or she will win because voters are pleased to assume he or she will be a cipher,

vigorously subservient to Trump.”

Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate. com.

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LOUISIANA AT LARGE

Nightdives into lore of amusician

Imoved to Louisiana thesame year the Blue Moon Guest House andSaloon opened in Lafayette. First, my family stayed there. Then Istarted going to performancesand fun events there.I even organized acouple of them, but Inever even considered the possibility of singing on its legendary stage. Until last week.

Afew weeks ago, Iwenttoa songwriting workshop withlegitimate musicians. Josh Brashear, Mary Alice Vanderwaters and I wrote alittle ditty.Acouple of weekslater,Brashear invited me to “sing the bridge” at theBlue Moon.

So, Iwent —contributing 19 words in song to his performance during Storyteller Night,which happens every other Tuesday night at the Blue Moon in Lafayette. The crowd was generous, and the evening was ablast.

Nancy Nicholson, who runs Acadiana Talent, organizes the Storyteller Night, which she calls alistening room. That means no talking —and she’sserious.

Musicians play original music, and the audience actually pays attention. Jason Harrington is the onstage host and backs up musicians with his guitar and/ or harmonica. He’sanincredible talent and moves the evening right along. Steve Judice, whom Imet briefly at the songwriting retreat, also performed at the event. After the workshop, amutualfriend —who turns out to be Judice’s cousin —sent me alink to aYouTube video of Judice performing apiece he wrote called “The Camel Song.”

The song recounts an actual event that anyone in Louisiana who waspaying attentionin2019 surely remembers. Awoman visiting the Tiger Truck Stop in Grosse Tete —the one that once housed alive tiger,replaced it with acamel, and kept the name —entered the camel yard to retrieve her dog and found herself pinned. What she did next, andwhat she bit, became legendary on the internet. Judice wrotethe song within aday or two of the incident. He needed material for ashow opening for ahumorous songwriter named Kipp Adaway, and the incident arrived,hesaid, like an answered prayer The song is clever in ways that cannot be fully described in a family newspaper.What can be said is that Judice has agiftfor wordplay,acommitmenttothe bit and the good sense to end with adisclaimer: “This is my interpretation of the facts as they mighthave been.”

The YouTube video hasbeen up for three years, and, for reasons unknown, has only 275 views. He has never released the song beyondYouTube. At the Blue Moon, Judice played nothing like “The Camel Song.” He played something called “Private Miller’sMama’s House,” asong in honor of soldiers who didn’tcome home.

Despite the hilarity of “The Camel Song,” his music is layered and many are aboutserious topics. They are the work of someone paying attentiontothe world.

Judice practiced law,primarily in Baton Rouge, for 38 years, primarily litigation, the high-stress variety.In2012, he had aquadruple bypass. By October of that year, symptoms were returning. He made achange, trading trial work for mediation, helping opposing parties find their way to settlement.

“Basically peacemaking,” he said, “which kind of agrees more with my spirit.” Now 70, he has been playing

Lafayette fire chiefsworn in

Borden brings operationalleadership, experience

BY KRISTIN ASKELSON Staff writer

Earl Borden,a 20-year firefighting veteran and St. Bernard Parish fire chief, was officially sworn in Friday as Lafayette’snew fire chief. He replaces interim Fire Chief JohnBourgeois II, who helmedthe departmentfollowing theretirement of 32-year Chief Robert Benoit in fall 2025.

Bo rde nw as born andraised in the small town of Violet, in St. Bernard Parish. The town is considered partof the larger New Orleans suburban area, with aparishpopulation of around 50,000. His career began as aSt. Ber-

nardfirefighter less than ayear before Hurricane Katrina devastatedmuch of the regionin2005.

his appointment wasannounced. “Itwas about14daysstraightof rescue, between the fire departmentand the Sheriff’s Office, nonstop.”

He remembers seeing homes flooded up to their roofsasheand histeamdroveboats through the city streets during search-andrescue missions, running on only acouple of hours of sleep.

“It was sort of atrial by fire. I had alot of experience very early in my career,” Borden saidwhen

He became chiefin2022, succeeding afire chiefwho served morethan 40 years. He led afulltimedepartment of around 120 personnel. During his tenure as chief, he secureda $15 million contract to provide fireprotection for NASA’s Michoud Assem-

Neverforgotten

Lt. Col. Kevin Dugas, left,saluteswhile Kimand NeilGraham stand silently while taps is played in front of the WaronTerror Monument during Memorial Day services at Moncus Park on Monday in Lafayette

Thewreath was placed in front of the monument to honorPvt. Mark Graham,who passed away from wounds received inOperation IraqiFreedom in 2007.

Homessoldoutside LafayetteParishrising

Analystsayshigher prices couldplayrole

BY ADAM DAIGLE Acadiana business editor

The number of home sales in Acadiana outside Lafayette Parish so far this year could set arecord.

Sales totaled 791 through April, second behind the 802 sold in 2021 when interestrates fell to historic

lows, as more buyers couldbe looking beyond Lafayette Parish due to higherprices, accordingto datafrom analyst Bill Bacque, of Market Scope Consulting.

The average sale price has also increased about18% in the past 12 months,according to data. This year’saverage got abump when a home in St. Mary Parish soldfor $1.75million last month, Bacque said. In Lafayette Parish, salesare up

Gulfport’sdowntown stages acomeback

Revitalization attracts investors, spursgrowth alongcoast

BY MARTHA SANCHEZ Staff writer

Restaurants are opening. Hotels arerising.Developersare planning to build more apartmentsand shops. It is part ofadowntown resurgence in Gulfport, the largestcity on the Mississippi Gulf Coast The growing scene could be thestart of anew erainGulf-

port’scity center— aonce-bustling nightlife hub thatfellquiet during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now,vacant buildings are fillingwith businesses and word of investment opportunities is spreading.

“Peopleare reallybeginning to get it,” said Carole Lynn Meadows,chair of the Gulfport RedevelopmentCommission. “Thereare possibilitieshere.”

The largest project expected to transform downtown Gulfport isthe construction of a $105 million mixed-use town center.The development, called ChannelSouth, willinclude retail shops,morethan100 luxury

over thepastthreeyearsat1,081, but not close to the estimated 1,500 that were sold through April in 2021 and 2022, according to data.

Prices,however,continue to rise in Lafayette Parish. Total dollar volume through April is up almost 8%, andboth average and median sale prices for existing homes have increased faster than that for new construction. So far,13homes priced at $1 million or higher have sold, which

outpaces thelast40soldin2025, according to data. In March, the number of homes in that range was 85, more thandouble the totalfrom two years ago.

“We’re trending into ahigherrange marketplace,” Bacque said. “We’reseeing whatwe’vebeen seeing since2025: more product in that upper price range coming on to the market. I’m no alarmist, but it’ssomething worth noting.”

Overlooked storiesof alumsshared at ceremony

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

For years, the names Willie StokesHeardJr.,CharlesSchaeffer andRobert Todd hadbeen overlooked. But on Monday,LSU’sWilliam A. Brookshire Military Museum made sure they would never be forgotten.

Museum Director James P. Gregory ran across the names of the three LSU alums who lost their lives during WorldWar II while researching different proj-

ects. He wrote them down, delved into their stories and said he realized they werenot among the list of 645 military dead engraved on theLSU WarMemorial’srounded walls.

Though no family membersof thenewlyinducted soldiers attended, asmall crowd gathered Monday at the memorial on the edge of LSU’sParade Grounds notonly fora Memorial Day commemorationofthe LSU-connected military men and women who lost their lives in war but also to witness the additionofHeard, Schaefferand Todd.

“It’sanunfortunate reality that somenames are leftoff,”Gregory said afterthe ceremony.“Over LSUaddsthree names to itsWar Memorial

OUR VIEWS

Calcasieu bridge shows government canstill do bigthings

It is understandablethat there’salot of skepticism about government getting anything constructive done these days. Gridlock in Washington and squabbling at thestate Capitolhave become so commonplace thatit’softenthe only thingwe talkabout. But in one corner of our state, we seewhat can happen when, after manytwists andturns, a major project finally moves forward. At theend of April, the much-neededand long-awaitedconstruction of anew Interstate 10 Calcasieu River Bridge broke ground.

The $2.3 billion undertaking,byaninnovative public-private partnership championed by Gov.Jeff Landry,will replace the old bridge built in 1952 under the administrationofGov Earl K. Long. That rustingpistol-adornedstructure, with its steep grade and narrow lanes, has long been asource of anxietyfor drivers crossing from Louisiana to Texasand back.The bridge, which services the nation’simportant petrochemicalsector,initially saw about30,000 vehicles per day.Now theaveragedaily traffic count is up to 90,000. In recentmonths, crashes that shut down the bridgefor hours and damaged itsguardrailsdemonstrated justhow vital this corridor is.

The state has long known that theareaneeded anew bridge, butittooka long time to get here.InPresident Donald Trump’sfirst term, he vowed to replace the bridge in avisit to the area in 2019. Funds from PresidentJoe Biden’s infrastructure law wereeventually allocated to the project in 2021, with Biden traveling to Lake Charles and using the bridge as abackdrop to show the nation what failing infrastructure actually looks like. Gov.JohnBel Edwards proposed a$2.1 billion plan to payfor the new bridge with tolls and otherfunding,but Republican lawmakers killed it just as his time in office was ending in 2023. Thefederalgovernment threatenedto pull back funds if Louisiana couldn’tget its act together Just when we had almost losthope, abreakthrough came.The Landry administrationput forward arevised financing plan with some reduced tolls that was able towin supportin2024. So now the real work begins. The project also includes reconstruction of 5.5 milesofI-10with additional travel lanes in each direction andnew facilities for pedestrians andcyclists around the bridge, as well as maintenance forthe new roadway and bridgefor 50 years. Construction won’tbetotallycompleteuntil 2031,but the new bridge will be opento driverssometime in 2030, officials said.

At the groundbreaking on April29, state and federal officials gathered to mark the triumph at long last. Lake Charles MayorMarshall Simien called it, “a bridgetothe future.” We certainly hope so. Now if we could only get anew bridge over the MississippiinBaton Rouge

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

Legislature canhelpbuild on La.’sgains in education

StudentsinLouisiana are making historic gains in reading proficiency as we celebrate moving from 42nd in fourth grade NAEP results to 16th nationwide.

Still, too manystudentsare not yet proficient readers, apredictor of high school graduation rates and future economic mobility

The Capital Area Literacy Network, agroup of nonprofit partners, educatorsand community members, seeks to advance literacy in the Capital Area by enhancing family engagement, supporting thefunding and implementationofliteracy efforts aligned with research-backed best practices and strengthening coordination among literacy-focused entities.

Several bills in thecurrent legislativesession could accelerate growthin Louisiana’sliteracy rates. First,House Bill 271 creates theLouisiana Commission on Foundational Education to evaluate and recommend improvements in foundational literacy,numeracy andfamily engagement from kindergarten through grade eight House Bill 316 builds on Louisiana’s literacy framework, which has led to growthinearlier grades, and extends it to grades four to eight to benefit

morestudents. Twoadditional legislative priorities focus on expanding tutoring and increasing access to books foryoung readers, bothcritical to literacy growthand family engagement. Highdosage tutoringisaproven lever for improving reading outcomes,and SenateBill 27 expands this individualized support for learners. House Bill 272 funds the READ program,while continued funding through House Bill 1helps provide free books to children under 5tobuild home libraries and encourage early reading through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

The Capital Area Literacy Network supportsthe above requests in this legislative session to ensure more studentsinLouisiana can gain access to books, receive individualized support through high-dosagetutoring and benefit from coordinated efforts at the state and local level that support literacy growth. We encourage other memberstovoice their support for literacy and get involved in efforts to ensure students in Louisiana can continue to thrive.

LAURAVINSANT

CapitalArea Literacy Network core team member

Blamefuelpricesfor Spirit Airlines’demise

How easy is Rich Lowry’sjob? All theman must do to makeabuck is reframe every issue that could reflect poorly on the current administration as apolitical or culture war issue. His recentpiece on the failure of Spirit Airlines is no exception: misleading and untrue. Lowry holds no love in his heart for theunion workers at Spirit or anywhere for that matter.Ifso, he would have belt-fed us pieces over thepast months bemoaning theloss of over 100,000 manufacturing jobs and roughly 300,000 smallbusiness jobsduring Trump 2.0. Whereare the crocodile tears for these workers? He only cares about Spirit to theextent that anymajor airline failure is ahigh visibilitymess which he must hang around the neck of anyone but President Donald Trump.

Rather than the tale of anefarious Bidenadministration at work which Lowry spins, Spirit’s demisestarts as asimple story of Spirit’scompetition

out-competing it.

Mostlow-cost carriers like Spirit have been in arace to the bottom, losing massive amounts of money since 2019 (Trump 1.0) because the legacy major airlines figuredout how to break them.

Low- and ultra-low-cost customers have verylittleloyalty to any specific carrier,which forcesthese carriers to compete only on price. Therefore by offering some numberofverylow cost and completely unbundled fares to this market segment, the legacy carriers were able to push Spirit to theedge. It was Trump, however,who directly caused the high fuel costs that finally pushed thecompany over that edge. Spirit would be financially bumping along the bottom today, but still operating, if the price of jet fuel had not doubled since thestart of our misadventures in Iran.

BRIAN HENNESSY NewOrleans

The purpose of political gerrymandering is to waste as manyopposing party votes as possible. Say hypothetically,you have astate that needs to elect six representatives and has 400 Gold party voters and 200 Purple party voters. The Gold party-controlled state Legislature should draw one district so that it includes 100 Purple party voters and then distribute the remaining 100 Purple party voters in the other five districts so that they are in the overwhelming minority

With this redistricting, the maximumnumber of Purple votes are wasted. In the one majority Purple district, half of the votes are wasted since it only takes 50 votes to elect the Purple representative. In the other districts, all the Purple votes are wasted. That redistricting turns 200 Purple votes into 50 votes that count; the rest of the Purple voters get an “I voted” sticker.Ifthe Purple voters feel disenfranchised, then they can movetoaPurple state.

DAVE WHIDDON NewOrleans Everyone

canhelp combat litter

As aBoy Scout Idoalot of hiking and camping. Sadly,I notice alot of trash being leftbehind. It is everyone’sresponsibility to keep our nature areas trash-free. When people leave litter behind it not only ruins the way it looks but also harmswildlifeand pollutes waterways.

Keeping trails and campsites clean is simple if everyone practices “leave no trace.”

“Leave no trace” is aprinciple that makes Boy Scouts clean up after themselves. It is aprinciple designed to protect the outdoors by minimizing human impact. Iurge the community next timethey are on the trail to pack up all trash and pick up after their pets. Let’swork to keep nature clean, safeand welcoming foreveryone.

THOMAS MARTIN

BoyScout Troop 230 Metairie

Agood friend’s finallesson

It was 1959, and Iwas asenior in high school, hangingout at the Jewish Community Center in my hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey,whenI raninto the older brother of agirlI knew. His name was BarneyFrank, astudent at Harvard, and the next few minutes changed my entire life.

“You should apply to Harvard,” he told me and my twin brotherMarc, “it’sagreatschool.” I wasn’tquitesure where Harvard was, but we took his advice, and somehow,webothwere accepted.

That started alifelongfriendship and only the first of many timesI’ve learned something valuable from Barney.Hewent on to become amember of Congress from Massachusetts for 32 years before retiring in 2013,and during his long public life, he was always astalwart liberal, fighting for arange of causes from civil rights to economic equality.Hewas hardly thefirst gay member of Congress, but the first with the courage to come out publicly Barney,however,was nevera selfrighteous sermonizer.Hewas always asupremely practical politicianwho understood the value of compromise As columnist David Shribmanwrote “He was —this has disappearedfrom the capital —simultaneously ideological and pragmatic.” Barney died last week at age 86, but in his last days, he tried teaching his liberal allies one last lesson: Realismis better than rigidity.Power is better than purity.Asked by The New York Times to name “the biggest problem Democrats need to overcome,” he repliedthis way:

“The key to liberal democracy being able to come back is to getrid of the perception, that we have allowedto grow,that the entire Democratic Party is committed to aseries of very drastic social reconstructionsthatgo beyond the politically acceptable.

“Most of my mainstream Democratic colleagues agree with me,” he added, “but they have been reluctant to say that because they’re afraid ofbeing attacked in primaries and accusedofbeing secret conservatives.”

Barney refused to ignore the statistics and fall prey to the left’svirtually infi-

nite capacity for self-delusion. This is nota liberalcountry. In 2024, only 23% of voters identifiedasliberals in exit polls,with 42% calling themselves moderatesand 35% conservatives.

“Making mattersworse,the left truly believesthat its radical views are embraced by the public,” wroteJames Kirchick in The Atlantic. As Barney put it, fellowliberalsare “notadvocating that we takeconsciously unpopular stands They think they’re popular.They’ve convincedthemselves of that.”

Realism requires not just arecognition of statistics,but of history.Since the1960s,Democratshave often nominated orthodox liberals for president —Hubert Humphrey,George McGovern, Walter Mondale,Michael Dukakis —and they all lost.The mostsuccessful candidates —John F. Kennedy,Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama all followed Barney’sformulaoftempering ideology withpragmatism. Toooften, Barney toldPolitico, progressive Democrats have “embraced an agenda thatgoesbeyond what’spolitically acceptable. Until we separate ourselves from that agenda, we don’twin.

One exampleisimmigration. Frank points to adebate during the 2020 primaries, when nearly all of the Democratic presidential candidates raisedtheir hands to signalsupport for decriminalizing border crossings. That image,Frank writes, “should have been

captioned ‘Wewho are about to die politically saluteyou.’”

Barneyparticularly denounced the left’sembrace of cultural wokeness. One example is “the rule of the pronoun police.”

The left, he argued, should learn from the fight —ultimately successful —to legalize gay marriage:Stay strong, but start slow.Gradually build support Don’toutrun public opinion.

“I am not arguing that people shouldn’tadvocatefor things that are currently unpopular,” Franktoldthe Times “I knowthere are someissues thatI support thatare currently unpopular.And the first thing to do is to try and increasethe degree to which they have public support

“The problemwith my friends on the left today is that they wantthese things to be litmus tests, immediately,” he added. “Theydon’twant to spend any time. So what happens is theydemand that more mainstream liberals sign on to these things, and then they lose becauseofit.

“Frankly,” Barneytold the Times,“if Iweren’t dying, people wouldn’tbepaying as much attention.”

I’ve been learning from my friend for 67 years.Istill am. Hopefully others will, too.

Email Steven Roberts at stevecokie@ gmail.com.

Children arenow runningour bigcities

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani earned national attention in anotgood way when he recorded himself in front of Ken Griffin’sManhattan home revealing the billionaire’saddress. He tapped the lens in athreatening manner and said guys like Griffin aregoing to pay more taxes.

Ourscreen culture increasingly can’tread

We’ve been having adebate about “book bans” in recentyears, but given the steep decline in student literacy,the deeper question is howanyone would notice whethera book is available in aschool library or not.

The NewYorkTimes publishedaneye-opening report on astudy by the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford documenting steep declines in student test scores,especially in reading.

Overthe past 10 years, reading scores have declined in 83% of school districts.

Whatlooked like aCovid-drivencatastrophe is, instead,partofalong-running trend. Reading scores were falling at asimilar clip prior to the pandemic, in 2017-2019, and continued to fall into 2024. In athird of school districts, kids arereading afull grade levelbelow where theywerein2015.

This follows whathad been asteadyincrease in test scores from 1990 to the 2010s

The ability to read is foundational to achild’s development. It enhances verbal fluency, memory,concentration and executive function. It is associated with academic success andsundry advantages throughout life. That ourschoolsare falling down so badly on such an elementalmatterisnothing less thana civilizationalfailure

Our childrenaren’tlearning to read,inpart, because we’ve forgotten how to teach them. We decidedtojettison acommon-sensical, tried-and-true methodofreading instruction —phonics—for faddish theoriesthathaven’t worked.

It is notable thatstates showing improvement between 2022-2025 embraced phonics, which nowgoes underthe rubric “the science of reading.”

It also can’t be acoincidence that these harrowing trends are playing out against the backdrop of ubiquitous screens in schools. Schoolsare starting to ban mobile phones, but the screen thatthey take away with one hand, theygive with the other.According to a New York Times survey, 80%ofteachers say thatstudents at their schools have adevice assignedtothem; it wasonly athird in 2019. More than80% said that kids get devices by kindergarten. It would have beencomparable recklessness if schoolshad decidedatthe outsetofthe televisionage thatevery schoolchild needed apersonalTV. Parents struggle to gettheir kids off devices at home,and then send them to school, where theyread “ToKill aMockingbird” on an iPad.

Griffin is the founder andCEO of Citadel, agiant hedge fund. The wisdom of raising taxes on expensive second homes can be debated, but doxxing Griffin in that nasty, personal way was flat stupid Griffin accurately described Mamdani’sstunt as “creepy and weird,” in addition to showing a“profoundlackof judgment.”

It was quickly revealed that Citadel employed about 2,500 people in thecity who hadpaid$2.3billion in cityand state taxes over the past five years, according to Barron’s. About2,500 of them sit on local nonprofitboards.

Griffin himself has donated $650 million in charitable gifts to New York hospitals, museums and related good causes. Meanwhile, Griffin’s penthouse overlooking Central Park wasfilling the city’scoffers to the tuneofover $500,000 ayear in propertytaxes.

Griffinwasn’tdone.

He put on hold his $6 billion plans to redevelop aPark Avenue office building that wouldhave created 6,000 construction jobs and lead to 15,000 permanent jobs.

That video, he said, reinforced his decision to “double down” on Miami, where Citadel is headquartered,rather than expand in New York.

Over in Seattle, the new leftist mayor, Katie Wilson, idiotically tauntedher city’seconomic powerhouses. After learning that Starbucks was building a2,000-employee corporate center in Nashville, reporters asked Wilson whether she was concerned that local billionaires wereleavingtown for friendlier and lower-taxed climes.

Cameras caught her blank face deliveringajuvenile sing-song response, “Like, bye.”

Shortly after being elected, Wilson had attended abarista union rally and declared, “Iamnot buying Starbucks, andyou should not either.” Amazing for the mayor to say that about a homegrown companythat helped make Seattle “cool.”

Starbucks co-founder Howard Schultz wrote in the Wall Street Journal the obvious,that her attitude “vilifies employers, even while she continues to rely on them for revenue.”

Back in New York, Mamdani tried to clean uphis mess by reaching out to Griffin,offering to meet him for anice, “I’m-there-to-listen” conversation. As of this writing, Mamdani has been met with radio silence. Griffin is “ghosting” him, the New York Postreports. And why shouldn’t he?

It’sbecoming rapidly clear that Griffin is more important to New York City than Mamdani is. Same goes for Schultz in Seattle, even after he moved to theMiami area.

Seattle’sWilson isn’tnearly as polished asocial media performer as Mamdani is, but they share an equally

deep well of ignorance over how abig city funds itself. Neither ran as much as alemonade stand before thinking they could bully thecorporate leaders powering their economies. Both are on the fringe left and exploited the Democratic Party to get themselves nominated. They should not be confused withDemocratic politiciansrunning their towns with pragmatic smarts. It happens that Democrats in Nashville were instrumental in seducing Starbucks to expand their way Who elected these child mayors? Child voters largely ignorant of urban affairs and uninterested in learning about them. This is an electorate glued to social media feeds and their flood of political manipulation. Thus, we see Mamdani in ahard hat flooding themedia with “Mayor Mamdani Advances New York City’s First Free Child Care Program Pilot for Municipal Workers.” It covers allof 40 children. (More kids live in asingle tenement.) Andtheir parentshave to work for the city Words can’tdescribe Froma Harrop is on X, @FromaHarrop.

Now,bookshaven’t disappeared from classrooms,but theyaren’tnearly as prevalent as theyshould be. Anew study by the Rand Corporationfound thatmostEnglish teachersassignedatleastone full book during the school year,although 9% didn’tassign any,and roughly two-thirds assigned between only one to four

Engaging with awhole book in print is so important because notall reading is equal. One analysis found that “digital reading does improve comprehension skills, but the beneficial effect is between six andseven timessmaller thanthatofprint reading.” So,too, reading a book is betterthan reading aseriesofextended passages; it requires more attentionand greater immersion.

As educationexpert Robert Pondiscio of the American Enterprise Institute points out, it’s amistake to think of reading as solely atechnical skill, sincereading comprehension also depends on what the great educational theorist E.D. Hirschcalled “cultural literacy,” the basic facts abouthistory,civics, art and the like thatformour commonknowledge.

To ourgreat detriment, schools have downgradedthis, too.

The worst-case scenario is that we have become ascreen culture that is only capable of producing screen kids. Areport last year in the journaliScience found thatreading for pleasure steadily declined from 2003 to 2023. On topofevidencethatreading also fell from the 1940s to 2003, this makes for an 80-year decline

The poet andessayist Joseph Brodsky said, “There areworse crimes than burning books. One of themisnot reading them.” And not being capable of reading them is even worse thanthat.

Rich Lowry is on X, @RichLowry

the last few years, when just doing research for the museum, we typicallycome across information or stories that we didn’tknow, and we always make sure to double-check any names we find of those killed against our list to make sure it’sas up to date as possible.”

And Gregoryanticipates adding more names in the future.

“Unfortunately,I think it’s areality that every now and then aname will be missed,” he said. “Sowemake sure we find them and get them added to the memorial.”

So, on Monday,aftera wreath of red, white and blue was placed at thefoot of the flagpole at the center of the WarMemorial and LSU music major Aaron Westbrook played taps on his trumpet, Gregory memorializedthe threesoldiersbyreading their biographies.

Heard was anative of West Monroe and graduated LSU in 1933 with aBachelor of Arts. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserves and graduated LSU Law School in 1936.

The Army called him up to

GULFPORT

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apartments and a114-room Marriott Tribute hotelat the intersection of U.S. 90 and 49. Opening is slated for 2027.

LeadershopeChannel South, named to reference Gulfport’smanmadeshipping channel and honor the historic Great Southern Hotel that once stood on the site, will lure more visitors and young professionalsto the growing city of 76,000 people. It is also an example of surging development across the GulfCoast, where towns of all sizes are scrambling to accommodate tourists and second-homeowners moving in from Louisiana and around the country

Just afew blocks from the site of the future town center,the 115-room Markham Hotel reopened to celebrations last month. The historic hotel was founded 100 yearsago but closed in 1970, and the building was later damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Several restaurants including oneconcept by apopular social media influencer —have recently opened or plan to start serving customers this spring and summer.And all of the new businesses are within walking distancefrom Gulfport’sAmtrak stop, where passengers began flowing when the Gulf Coast line returned to service lastsummer Leaders say the excitement in Gulfport is palpable —residents are chatting about the projects and closely tracking the progressof construction. Bill Lavers, executive director of the Harrison County Development Commission, called the change in downtown Gulfport from five years ago to now “remarkable.”

Attracting investment

In the years after Hurricane Katrina, Gulfport’s downtown rebounded and became adestination for nightlife and college students home on school breaks. But during the pandemic —contrarytotrends around the country —many of Gulfport’sdowntown bars and restaurants became law offices and banks

The city’sdowntown has become so dominated by office space in recent years that it is often dark and quiet in the evenings.

But seekingtoreverse downtown’s fortunes,the GulfportMain Street Association hosted atour of vacant buildings in 2024.The group bused prospective investors to 25 properties and asked them to envision

DirectorJames

LSU’sWilliam

of theattendees about thenew additions to LSU’sWar Memorial during the Memorial Day ceremonyonMonday.

served in CompanyB,192nd Tank Battalion in thePhilippines.

“When the Japaneseattacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, they also began campaigns againstother U.S.held territory,including the Philippines,” Gregory said.

“After witnessing the Japanese attack on Clark Field, the192nd was ordered north toward Lingayen Gulf on

what business they wanted at each stop By the tour’s end,“we had asmorgasbord of ideas of what people wanted to see in our downtown and whatwe were lacking,” said Kristen Garriga, the association’s executivedirector The brainstorm led to the developmentofseveral restaurants, includingNeighbors Tap& Table, whichopenedthismonth Therestaurant features small plates, shareables and cocktails, and is the creation of TikTok star MatthewBounds andhusband CJ Bryant.

Another restaurant —a breakfast and lunch spot called The Downtowner,by restaurateur Robert St. John —isexpected to open nearby in thenext few weeks.

Italian sandwich restaurant Tavi’s Salumeria and speakeasy-style restaurant and bar Siren Social Club opened in 2024.

Gulfport Mayor Hugh Keatingsaiddevelopment is acceleratingin part because the city is gettingmoreaggressiveat cleaning up derelict properties to make downtown more appealing to investors. He alsoargued the city’sproximitytothe Port of Gulfport, GulfportBiloxi International Airport, railroad tracksand Interstate 10 are “attractive to developers.”

“Weintend to promote those assets as much as possible,” Keating said Gulfport’s future

Keating and other leaders say the restaurants,coupled with thetowncenter,will lead toamore walkable downtown.

The ChannelSouthdevelopment also includes anearly 300-space publicparking garage, funded through an allocation by the Mississippi Legislature. Leaderssay that supportwas criticalin pulling theproject off. Nowdevelopers hope to revitalize thesite withmodernappeal and areseeking aMichelin-star chef for the town center’shotel, accordingtothe mayor.

Attracting development in Gulfport can be challenging becausesomedevelopers fear hurricanes andhigh insurance costs. But leaders say downtown Gulfport needs moreamenities, including agrocery store, adry cleaners and public arts.

Some residentsalso say they hope theattention on downtownGulfportwill soon extend to otherneighborhoodsthat need revitalization.But leaders argue that thetown center is an important steptospur economic growth.

“Itpresentsa very bright future,” Keating said.

Dec. 20 to face the Japanese invasion.

By April 1942, Heard’s companywas captured and forced to walk theBataan Death March. The Americans were boarded ontoa Japanese ship,for prisoner of war camps in Taiwan when the vesselwas torpedoed by aUnited Statessubmarine Heard perishedalongside 1,780 American prisoners of

war thatday

Meanwhile, Shaeffer,anativeofParis,Texas, wasserving in the Marine Corps in the southwest Pacific when he died in aplane crash on July 12, 1944, at HendersonField, Guadalcanal. He attended LSU from 1925 to 1928.

Finally,Todd, born in Virginia, entered the service on Oct. 3, 1942, serving as agunnerwith the 527th Bomber

Squadron in England.

“On June 11, 1943,while over Germany on amission to bomb the submarine pens at Wilhelmshaven, their aircraft collided with aGerman fighter plane and crashed near theairfield at Marx, Germany,” Gregory said.

Todd wasa 1928 graduate of LSUand hadworked as a reporter for both The TimesPicayune andthe Baton Rouge State-Times before going to war

Thedeceased’snamesare listed beneath the wars in which they served.

“The WarMemorial was put here in 1998, andasyou can see, the last of the World WarIInames that were put there at thattime end in Z,” Gregory said. “Only afew nameshave been added since, and Ibelieve this is the first timenames have been addedinatleast

five years.”

“I think to me it’sour duty —not only forthe museum but in general at LSU —to make sure all of the names are on this list, because they deserve to be remembered,” Gregory said. “They deserve to be honored for their sacrifice. So,evensomething as smallasputting theirname on the memorial is away of making sure theywill never be forgotten.”

FIRE

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bly Facility in New Orleans Borden holds amaster’sdegreeinfire and emergency management

administration from Oklahoma State University, along withabachelor’s degree in public administration from UpperIowa University.Heisexpected to completehis doctorate in organizational change andleadership from the

University of Southern California in 2026. He is agraduate of the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program and the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Fire Service Executive Development Institute.

theof‐fice of thePurchasingDi‐visionatthe Lafayette ConsolidatedGovern‐mentBuilding, locatedat 705 West University Av‐enue,Lafayette Louisiana,until 11:00 a.m.Central Time on the 22ndday of July,2026 for

Continued from page1B

guitarsincehewas 16. He wrote his first song around 1994, when two of his four daughters startedpiano lessons, andhestartednoodling on the rentedpiano Whenheand his wife moved to Lafayette afterretirement, they built asmall outbuilding beside the house:half gardenshed, half music room. He works on his music in the building everyday andiscurrently teaching himself fiddle andaccordion. He says the outbuilding is separate from the house,sohis wife doesn’thavetohearhim play. Judicehas released six albums of original music —five solo,one co-written with aTexas songwriternamedSlim BobPierce. His music is on Spotify,except for “The Camel Song.” He describes his musical style as “Amerikinda”—a word borrowed from his friends in a TexasbandcalledThe Chubby Knuckle Choir He says it’snot quite Americana.

People who throw themselves into what makes themhappy earn my respect.Judice’s music is smart andfun. “The Camel Song,” for allofits bawdiness, is an outlier. But there’s value in laughtertoo —and, trust me on this one, “The Camel Song” is definitely worth alisten.

EmailJan Risher at jan.risher@ theadvocate.com.

celebrates an RBI double during the Cajuns’ winover LSU on March 4atRusso Park.

REGIONAL SCHEDULE

Friday’sGames Game 1– Mississippi State (40-17) vs. Lipscomb (29-24), 1p.m Game 2– Cincinnati (37-20) vs. UL (3922), 6p.m

Saturday’sGames

Game 3– Loser of Game1 vs. Loser of Game 2, 3p.m Game 4– Winner of Game1vs.Winner of Game 2, 8p.m

Sunday’sGames

Game 5– Winner of Game3vs. Loser of Game 4– 2p.m Game 6– Winner of Game5vs.Winner of Game 4–7 p.m

Monday’sGame Game 7– If Necessary– Time TBD

DESTINATION DE STARKVILLE ST

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

UL senior first baseman Lee Amedee expected to see his Ragin’ Cajuns in one of the 16 regional bracketsduring the NCAA TournamentselectionshowMonday morning.

But with each regionalthatpassed without seeing the Cajuns popuponthe screen, Amedee admitted to getting anxious.

Finally, UL was able to celebrate when it was revealed the Cajuns are headed to the Starkville RegionalhostedbyNo. 14 national seed Mississippi State.

“It was nerve-racking,” said Amedee, whose No. 3Cajuns will take onNo. 2-seededCincinnatiat6 p.m. Friday.

“Going into it,weprettymuchknewwe were in, butitdoesn’tmake your nerves go away sitting there watching all these teams they waittill theend to call us.

BY SCOTT RABALAIS Staff writer

MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey got the question outofthe way right away.

“I do not anticipate any decision on the CFP,” he said hereat aMonday afternoon news conference. That doesn’t mean that talk of potential College Football Playoff expansion won’t dominate conversation thisweek at the annual SEC spring meeting,which begins Tuesday at the Sandestin Hilton. The CFP grew from fourto12

teamsjust two years ago, but now there is increasing momentumtogrowto16or24teams, starting with the 2027 regular season. In fact, the other power conferences —the BigTen,Big 12 and ACC plus Notre Dame have allcome outinfavor of goingto24. TheSEC appears to be the lone, if substantial,dissenter, with Sankey having previously supported staying at 12 or expanding to 16.

“It doesn’tbother me,” Sankey said. “Positions in college sports changealot.”

That includes within the SEC. Sankey admittedina recent interviewthat there is support within theconference for a24team playoff. That support, or lack of it, couldcomeinto

sharper focus at this week’s meeting, which brings together school presidents, athletic directors, and football and basketball coaches from the league’s16 member schools. “I want to look at everything —16teams, 24 —whatever givesusabetter advantage and what helps the conference as a whole,” LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry said recently Of major concern is howa24team playoff might affect the entire season, from when the schedule begins —does Week 0 become Week 1, for example to whether conference championship games continue to exist. TheSEC championshipgame is reportedly worthabout $100 million annually to the league. Asked about the SEC’scommit-

menttoits football title game, Sankey curtly responded: “We have contracts,sowe’re pretty committed.”

The major impasse between theSEC andother conferences really comes down to the SEC andthe Big Ten, as theother leaguesceded controlofthe CFP to those two entities last year.If theSEC and Big Tencan’tagree on aCFP expansion number,the playoff stays at 12.

“We’velooked at allkinds of models,” Sankey said.“We’llreally look at the process of how we come to aconclusion, whether to remainat12orgotosome other number

“People have opinions. What Iencourage them to do is fulfill

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

LSU baseball’sseason is officially over Unsurprisingly,the Tigers missedout on the NCAA Tournament after posting a30-28 overall record and a9-21 record in Southeastern Conference play.They wontheir first gameatthe SEC Tournament last week over Oklahoma, then fell to Auburn in the second round.

TheNCAATournamentfieldwas announced on Monday morning. LSU was among the four SEC schools that didn’t make thetourney.South Carolina, Vanderbilt andMissouri also failedto crack the field.

SevenSEC teams (Florida,Auburn, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, TexasA&M andMississippi State)earnedbids to host aregional. Oklahoma, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Arkansas also made thetournament fieldasat-large teams. The last timeLSU missedthe NCAA Tournament wasin2011. That season, the Tigers missed the SEC Tournament despite winning 13 SEC games andposting a36-20 overall record.

LSU also missedthe tournament in 2007, coach Paul Mainieri’sfirst season in charge.Thatyear,the Tigers went 2926-1and won only 12 conferencegames. This season,LSU wonfewerthan12 games in conference play for the first timesince 1983 —the year before LSU hired Skip Bertman. They also won fewer than 35 games for just thesecond timeduring that same43-year stretch. LSU’s offseason begins when the transfer portal opens Monday

BY RODWALKER Staff writer

Three weeks havepassed since J.B. Bickerstaff’s Detroit Pistons eliminated Jamahl Mosley’sOrlando Magic in the first round of theEastern Conference playoffs It wasagrueling seven-game series. Making it even tougher is thatitpittedtwo guyswho are best of friends againsteach other.The bond between Mosley and Bickerstaff, both 47,dates back morethan twodecades when they began their climb up the NBA coaching ladder

They’ve been tight ever since. Theirfamilies vacation together Bickerstaff’s kids refertoMosley as “Uncle Jamahl.”

The two coaches talk constantly throughout theseason.— exceptwhen they areplaying each other.Thisyear was the second time in three seasons they’ve battled for seven games in a playoff series. In 2024 when Bickerstaff was coaching in Cleveland, his Cavaliersbeatthe Magicinseven games That was the first of three straight playoff trips forMosley in Orlando. Bickerstaff, despite winning that series, wasfired. Bickerstaff was named head coach of the Pistons afew months later.Hetook over aDetroitteam that had won 14 games the year before his arrival there and 17 the year before that. Bickerstaff hasled the Pistonstothe playoffs both

Jodar makes French Open splash

Spaniard has impressive debut; Poland’s Swiatek advances easily

BY ANDREW DAMPF Associated Press

PARIS Two-time reigning champion Carlos Alcaraz is out injured. Promising 21-year-old French player Arthur Fils also pulled out with a physical issue. Jack Draper has been bothered for months by a right knee problem. The list of candidates capable of challenging top-ranked Jannik Sinner, who enters the French Open on a three-month-long 29-match winning streak, has been dwindling.

Enter Rafael Jodar, the 19-yearold Spaniard who has been making waves on the ATP Tour Jodar continued to impress in his Roland Garros debut, dropping just five games in a 6-1, 6-0, 6-4 rout of American opponent Aleksandar Kovacevic on Monday despite boiling heat at the claycourt Grand Slam. The last man to concede fewer games in a French Open debut was Novak Djokovic, who allowed three to Robby Ginepri in 2005.

“I did the things very well from the start,” Jodar said. “It’s just my first year (on tour) and I’m experiencing a lot of things in these past few months.”

Mostly, Jodar has been experiencing victories. He’s won 16 of his last 19 matches, raised a trophy on clay in Morocco, reached the semifinals in Barcelona and had a run to the quarterfinals in Madrid ended by Sinner A year ago, Jodar was ranked No. 707 and playing challengers tennis’ minor leagues in the U.S. after he competed at the University of Virginia. Now he’s No.29 and is seeded 27th in Paris.

“It was obviously another chapter of my life, but I think that chapter also helped me to develop a lot and to be a better player now,” Jodar said.

Going to college also helped.

“Living there alone, it was great to develop and to do things by myself,” Jodar said. “It was a new chapter new culture for me, actually a new life.”

ously worked with 14-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal.

“Nothing comes easy,” Swiatek said. “With more titles, it’s even a bit harder because everyone expects you to be ready always and play perfectly So you need to stay humble and not take anything for granted and work your way from the beginning of the tournament.”

She improved to 28-1 in firstround matches at Grand Slams.

Also advancing were Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, who beat Veronika Erjavec 6-2, 6-2; and recent Italian Open winner Elina Svitolina, who rallied past Anna Bondar 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (3). Wawrinka, Monfils bow out

In men’s action, 2015 champion Stan Wawrinka was beaten by Dutch qualifier Jesper de Jong 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 to end his 21st and last French Open.

Rays’ Franco found guilty in sexual abuse case

Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco was found guilty for a second time on charges of sexual and psychological abuse of a minor on Monday, although the court granted him a judicial pardon. The ruling means Franco will not serve prison time because judges ruled he was both defendant and victim in the case, according to Dominican lawyer and journalist Juan Arturo Recio.

The mother of the minor was sentenced to 10 years for money laundering, which mirrors the sentence she received in the first trial. Monday’s verdict was the result of Franco’s second trial on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, stemming from a relationship with a then-14-year-old girl that started in December 2022, when Franco was 21, and continued until February 2023.

Rosenqvist collects record

$4.34 million at Indy 500

INDIANAPOLIS Swedish driver Felix Rosenqvist earned a record

$4.34 million payout after winning his first Indianapolis 500 on Sunday — topping Alex Palou’s total from last year by more than $500,000. The total purse, $30,906,400, was also a race record, organizers announced Monday That’s a nearly $11 million increase over last year’s previous all-time high. Rosenqvist made a daring, perfectly timed pass on the outside of David Malukas in the closing yards, beating Malukas across the yard of bricks by 0.0233 seconds in the closest finish in race history The previous mark came in 1992 when Al Unser Jr beat Scott Goodyear by 0.043 seconds.

Misiorowski sets record for 100 mph pitches

Cautious Swiatek

Jodar appears destined to become a top-10 player and a serious contender for the biggest trophies. And Jodar is in the bottom half of the draw in Paris — meaning he could meet Sinner only in the final.

The only real issue for the thirdranked Swiatek came when she needed a trainer to re-tape the middle finger on her tennis-playing right hand for an apparent blister after the first set.

Gael Monfils also bowed out for the last time after losing to fellow Frenchman Hugo Gaston 6-2, 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 6-0 just before midnight.

Four-time champion Iga Swiatek eliminated 136th-ranked debutant Emerson Jones 6-1, 6-2 in her opener

Swiatek has not won a title on clay this season and recently made a coaching change. She hired Francisco Roig, who previ-

Eighth-seeded Alex De Minaur defeated Toby Samuel 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 and No. 15 Casper Ruud — a twotime French Open runner-up — won against Roman Safiullin 6-2, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 0-6, 6-2.

Paris heat wave affects clay courts, players

BY ANDREW DAMPF Associated Press

PARIS Tennis players at the French Open say they haven’t experienced conditions this hot at Roland Garros since the Paris Olympics And the 2024 Olympics were held in July and August.

Temperatures for the opening two days of the clay-court Grand Slam have soared to 33 degrees C (91 F) — far beyond normal for late May in the French capital. And it’s forecast to stay that way for the entire first week. Besides making it uncomfortable for fans and players alike, the sultry conditions have also created faster conditions on court — changing the pace of the game.

“It is much different. Maybe it was that hot in the Olympics, but the balls were different, so I wouldn’t treat it as the same tournament,” four-time French Open champion Iga Swiatek said after routing Emerson Jones 6-1, 6-2 in the first round on Monday

Players have been putting bags of ice around their necks on changeovers to stay cool, while fans refreshed themselves under sprinklers.

When workers water the clay courts between sets, they have taken to directing their hoses at spectators begging to be doused, too “I don’t remember the last time it was so hot at Roland Garros,” Russian-born Australian player Daria Kasatkina said after beating Zeynep Sonmez 6-4, 6-4.

“Maybe one day But we’re going

to have it for the whole week.”

Kasatkina said the energysapping temperatures made for more up-and-down matches.

“You can suddenly just get out of the bench and feel that your focus dropped,” she said. “So this is a battle which you have to also win. Whoever adapts better to today’s conditions gets it.”

Retirement, medical timeout

Canadian player Gabriel Diallo said the heat was the main reason

why he retired midway through his match against James Duckworth on Sunday

Both Andrey Rublev and opponent Ignacio Buse called for the trainer on separate occasions during the second set of their

3-hour, 39-minute match on Monday, which Rublev won in four sets.

Buse took a medical timeout and had salts and minerals added to his water bottle as a stethoscope was placed on his chest Rublev received treatment a few games later Also during the same match, a weary-looking ball girl had to be helped off the court and received medical attention.

Heat protocol

The French Open is usually cool compared to the heat at the Australian Open and U.S. Open.

But like in Australia and New York, the French Open has adopted an extreme weather policy

If the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature which takes into account temperature, humidity, sun, wind and other factors — reaches 30.1 degrees C (86 F) or higher, 10-minute cooling breaks can be installed between the second and third sets for women’s matches and between the third and fourth sets for men’s matches.

If the WBGT hits 32.2 C (90 F), play is suspended. It would require an air temperature of about 38 C (100 F) for play to be suspended.

Some like it hot

Some players were embracing the hotter air

“I’ve always preferred hot and lively conditions to chilly on a clay court, because I feel like I can bring a little bit more of my all-court tennis on this type of surface,” Australian player Alex de Minaur said after beating Toby Samuel 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

“It’s easier to be a little bit more aggressive. The ball is jumping. I don’t necessarily have to use as much spin or heaviness, and I can let the conditions do the job for me. And it’s quite physical. I don’t mind the heat,” De Minaur added.

Same goes for American player Alex Michelsen who eliminated Alexander Shevchenko in straight sets.

“It’s definitely good for us Americans,” Michelsen said “Generally we’re big serve, big forehand, big ground game and like to play offense. When it’s super hot, the ball is moving through the air very fast. I was so happy when I saw the forecast.”

MILWAUKEE Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski threw 57 pitches of at least 100 mph — the most in a single game since pitch tracking began in 2008 — while getting 12 strikeouts to match his career high Monday in a 5-1 win against the St. Louis Cardinals. The previous record for 100mph pitches in a single game was 47 by Cincinnati’s Hunter Greene against St. Louis on Sept. 17, 2022. Misiorowski (5-2) allowed two hits and one walk in his seven-inning stint. He improved his ERA to 1.83. The 24-year-old right-hander reached 101 mph on 40 of his 96 pitches. He got to 102 mph on 22 pitches and had nine of at least 103. His top velocity was 103.4 mph, which he reached three times.

U.S. beats Hungary, stays alive at hockey worlds

ZURICH Reigning champion the United States topped Hungary 7-3 and kept hopes alive of advancing to the quarterfinals at the ice hockey world championship on Monday Matthew Tkachuk scored two goals and set up two and captain Justin Faulk and Ryan Leonard also netted twice each in Zurich. Tommy Novak assisted on five goals and netminder Joseph Woll stopped 14 shots. The Americans’ seventh and final Group A game is against Austria on Tuesday A victory earns them a spot in the quarterfinals.

The U.S. has made the last eight every year since 2011. In Fribourg, Norway upset Czechia 4-1 to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2012.

Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic among All-NBA picks

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of Oklahoma City and Nikola Jokic of Denver were unanimous firstteam All-NBA selections this season. San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic and Detroit’s Cade Cunningham completed the All-NBA first team, the NBA said Sunday Wembanyama (99 first-team votes, one second-team vote) and Doncic (91 first-team, nine secondteam) also appeared on all 100 ballots, as did Boston’s Jaylen Brown. But Brown had significantly fewer first-team nods than Cunningham, which is why the Pistons guard ended up on that top list. Cunningham appeared on 98 ballots, with 60 first-team votes. Brown got 44 first-team votes, good for a second-team pick.

UCLA, Georgia Tech head NCAA draw

BY ERIC OLSON AP sportswriter

OMAHA, Neb UCLA was rewarded Monday for its dominant wireto-wire run through the regular season with the No. 1 seed for the NCAA Tournament.

The tournament opens Friday with 16 double-elimination regionals. Winners advance to eight bestof-three super regionals. Those winners move on to the College World Series in Omaha beginning June 12.

“The committee believed this year’s championship field was deep and very balanced from top to bottom,” said NCAA selection committee chairman Michael Alford, the athletic director at Florida State. “Throughout the process, we remained focused on applying the selection principles pretty consistently across all conferences and regions and I hope that is noticed. Every decision was based on a full body of work, not just single metrics.”

UCLA (51-6), which swept the Big Ten Conference regularseason and tournament titles, was No. 1 by Baseball America in each of its weekly rankings since the preseason and has the most wins entering regionals since Tennessee came in with 53 in 2022. The Bruins’ ace, Logan Reddeman, and closer, Ethan Hawk, are among the best in the nation and lead a staff that has a 3.31 ERA. Shortstop Roch Cholowsky is widely projected to be the No. 1

pick in the Major League Baseball draft, and he, Will Gasparino and Big Ten Tournament MVP Mulivai Levu have combined for 57 homers.

Georgia Tech (48-9), which swept the Atlantic Coast Conference championships, features the nation’s most prodigious offense.

The Yellow Jackets lead Division I in scoring (10.8 runs per game), batting average (.358) and slugging (.636). Jarren Advincula is batting .431 to rank second nationally and Vahn Lackey is sixth at .410.

The national seeds following UCLA and Georgia Tech are Georgia (46-12) Auburn (3819), North Carolina (45-11-1), Texas (40-13), Alabama (37-19) and Florida (39-19). Top-eight national seeds, if they win their regional, are assured of hosting a super regional Seeds Nos. 9 through 16: Southern Mississippi (44-15), Florida State (38-17), Oregon (40-16), Texas A&M (39-14), Nebraska (42-15), Mississippi State (40-17), Kansas (42-16) and West Virginia (39-14).

The Southeastern Conference had the most teams selected with 12. The ACC has nine teams in the field, followed by the Big 12 with six, Sun Belt with five and Big Ten with four.

The last four teams to get atlarge bids were Liberty (41-19), Kentucky (31-21), Texas State (3624) and Troy (32-29).

The first four teams left out were Mercer (44-15), Michigan (34-24), Pittsburgh (33-24) and TCU (33-

21). LSU (30-28), the 2025 national champion, became the seventh program to win the title and not make a regional the following year since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1999.

Been there, done that

Texas is in the tournament for a record 65th time and Miami for a 51st Florida State is a regional host for a record 38th time.

Florida has the longest active streak with 18 straight appearances. Other notable consecutive streaks include Oklahoma State (13), Southern Mississippi (10) and Arkansas (9).

Vanderbilt (33-25) is missing regionals after making 19 straight appearances.

First-timer

Western Athletic Conference champion Tarleton State is the only first-time participant. The Texans began their transition to Division I in 2021 and weren’t eligible for the tournament when they won the WAC in 2024. Their most recent postseason appearance was in the 2018 Division II tournament.

Losing, but winning

South Dakota State takes a 24-31 record into its second regional and first since 2013, after winning the four-team Summit League Tournament as the No. 4 seed.

Holy Cross is 25-28 after winning the Patriot League Tournament and has its first back-to-back regional appearances since 1962-63.

UL

Continued from page 1C

“It was just a sign of relief seeing your name up there. It just kind of takes all the stress away.

The Cajuns’ list of credentials seemed pretty sound after reaching the Sun Belt Tournament finals with a 39-23 overall record and a No. 33 RPI.

It’s the 20th NCAA regional appearance for the Cajuns, including four in the past five seasons.

“You can never take it for granted,” UL coach Matt Deggs said. “That’ll be the worst mistake you can make, to assume or take anything for granted. I told our team before the start, ‘The game doesn’t owe you anything. You’ve got to earn everything, and even if you earn it, doesn’t mean you’re going to get in.’ It’s a tough game.”

Deggs referred back to his Sam Houston team in 2018 when “we just came out of a super regional in 2017 and won the league in ‘18 with like the 12th-rated schedule, got 39 wins and we got left there watching the selection show.”

The Cajuns are coming off a 5-2 showing in Alabama last week, while Cincinnati (37-20, 17-13) was 0-1 with a 10-2 loss to Arizona State in the single-elimination Big 12 Tournament in Arizona after a sixth-place finish in the regular season.

The Bearcats sport some impressive numbers at the plate, batting 300 with 420 runs, 97 doubles, 14 triples, 84 homers and 113 stolen bases.

Seven different hitters are batting 294 or higher, including Quinton Coats at .346 with 28 homers and 78 RBIs.

“I’m very excited for this moment,” senior pitcher Andrew Herrmann said. “I’m very excited for this team and what this

SEC

Continued from page 1C

their leadership responsibilities, not get focused on a number.”

If anything could take the focus off the issue of CFP expansion, it’s the LSU contingent here this week. Since last year’s spring meeting, LSU has gotten a new president in Wade Rousse, a new football coach in Lane Kiffin a returned men’s basketball coach in Will Wade and a new athletic director in Ausberry, though he has been in LSU athletic administration for more than two de-

PELICANS

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seasons since his arrival, including being the No. 1 seed in the East this season.

Bickerstaff is rooting for his close friend to have similar success in New Orleans Mosley takes over a team that won just 26 games this season and 21 the year before that.

Bickerstaff spoke with The Times-Picayune on Saturday about Mosley who will have his introductory news conference on Tuesday

What was it like going against such a close friend in the playoffs? It’s tough. It’s not easy

emotionally because typically when you have questions or thoughts, he’s the guy I run it by And vice versa. For that two-week period of time, you just don’t have that. We make it a point to not communicate during those times, so it does become very difficult. But we are both high-level competitors and want to win, but also want to see each other be successful. As soon as it’s over, whoever wins, we support the person moving on.

What was your message to him when he was fired by the Magic? We talk about everything all the time. I told him that his next job was going to be his best job. When you get

a job as a first-time coach, you’re kind of at the organization’s whim because they have to choose you. When you go into your next job after having the success that he had, you get an opportunity to choose. You get an opportunity to ask questions that first-time head coaches don’t get to ask. It’s important that you know the people that you’re working with. Obviously, Joe (Dumars) and Troy (Weaver) have a track record. Jamahl was able to have conversations about what it’s going to look like and what it’s going to be. You get a decision in the matter Your first time is a one-way street basically because they have to choose you. So Jamahl’s

excited about this next opportunity, and he is going to dive in head first.

Were you surprised he got back into coaching so soon?

He is obviously highly qualified and deserving. He did a great job in Orlando through really tough circumstance. They never really had the roster they expected to have because of injuries over the past few years. Yet they continued to grow and continued to get better Individually, they got better Collectively, they got better And he’s just a good person He deserves success, and he deserves the things that come his way because of the way he treats people and the way

next week or two weeks holds for us.”

Top-seeded Mississippi State (40-17) opens play at 1 p.m. Friday against No. 4 Lipscomb (2924).

Lipscomb defeated North Alabama 5-4 in 10 innings for the program’s fourth Atlantic Sun championship after surviving a 14-inning game earlier in the tournament.

“We’re going to face a really good team in Cincinnati,” Deggs said. “They’ve had a tremendous year Obviously, Mississippi State is Mississippi State. That’s a good ball club. That’s a great program They’ve always played great baseball.”

The Bulldogs were 16-14 in SEC play, 25-8 at home and 10-7 in road games this season. Mississippi State beat Missouri 12-2 and lost 4-3 to Georgia in the single-elimination SEC Tournament. Mississippi State’s Dudy Noble Field is considered by many as one of the best atmospheres for college baseball.

“I’ve done them all pretty much, and let’s say it’s right near the top,” said Deggs, who was formerly an assistant coach at Texas A&M and Arkansas. “It’s unbelievable. It’s right near the top. It’s an unbelievably passionate fan base.”

The Cajuns had their own obstacles to overcome in Montgomery, Alabama, with two wins over Coastal Carolina and two over Texas State in two different ballparks to reach the Sun Belt finals. As it turned out five Sun Belt teams made the regional field.

“We played seven games in six days,” Amedee said. “It’s just a testament to this team. We’re not going to bow down to anybody in any type of circumstances.”

Email Kevin Foote at kfoote@ theadvocate.com.

cades. Only women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey is back here in the same role as she filled at last year’s gathering. Ausberry also expects talk on how the SEC will or may not continue to exist under current NCAA governance, football scheduling now that the league has gone to nine SEC games, and how NIL and revenue sharing are controlled.

“These are the meetings that will change the direction of how everything will look in college sports,” Ausberry said. “I think we will discuss issues that have never been discussed before Real change may be coming.”

he handles himself every single day What makes Mosley a good coach? The way that he cares about the people he works with. His willingness to sacrifice of himself for the greater good and for the players he’s coaching and the organization as a whole. I think that’s where it starts. But then you look at his teams and his teams are always well coached. Defensively, they are always really good, really sound. Offensively, they had a plan. You had to game-plan to beat his teams. His teams didn’t beat themselves.

What type of situation do you think he’s entering with the Pelicans? With me having built a re-

lationship with Joe Dumars over the years and seeing Troy and having an opportunity to coach some of the players Troy drafted here in Detroit, the (Pelicans) organization is headed in the right direction. You look at the talent level on that team now It’s a team that went through similar injuries (to Orlando) last year They are talented. With Jamahl’s fit there with his personality and ability to coach and organize and build an environment, I feel like that organization has a chance to take a step this year

Email Rod Walker at rwalker@theadvocate. com.

Star indoor plantworks in warm Louisiana gardens, too

Thai Constellation monstera was ahot commodity when it first hit the market, with the hype really taking off around 2020 thanks to social media. Entranced by the plant’s beautiful green foliage with white variegations that resemble stars twinkling in the night sky,indoor gardening enthusiasts couldn’t get enough of this cultivar developed in Thailand. Thai Constellation wasn’t just cool, though. It was somewhat rare —so if you wanted one of these trendy specimensfor your own houseplant collection,itwouldcost you apretty penny

These days, Thai Constellation is easier to come by.It’s now in mass production, allowing retailers to sell it at more affordable prices.

There’sgood reason for its popularity —and that of monstera plants in general

Members of the Monstera genus, which are native to thetropical forests of Central America, are some of the most recognizable indoor plants. They’re relatively easy to care for and have striking aesthetics.

Monsteras have glossy green leaves that look like bighearts. They unfurl one by one and, as they grow,form deep lobes along their edges. Over time, the interior of each leaf becomesdotted with oval-shaped openings called fenestrations, which is why this plant is sometimes called Swiss cheeseplant.

LSU AGCENTERPHOTO By OLIVIA McCLURE Thai Constellation features the trademark monstera fenestrations on its variegated foliage.

While afew monstera species are marketed as houseplants, Monstera deliciosa is the one most people are familiarwith. Within this species,you can find classic solid green plants as well as cultivars like Thai Constellation that feature variegated foliage

With creamy white marbling, Thai Constellation is undeniably attractive. But its unique variegations offer another advantage.

Monsteras are notorious for becoming, well, monstrous Standard green monsteras grown indoors can sometimes reach 6feet to 9feet tall —and that’s more space than some folks care to dedicate to a single plant!

Because Thai Constellation leaves are covered with white swaths and speckles, they produceless chlorophyll —the greensubstance plants rely on for photosynthesis and energy That helps keep Thai Constellation’sgrowth rate in check.

Thai Constellation alsohas shorter internodes,meaning its leaves are closer together along stems. It’sshorter and bushier than typical

ä See MONSTERA, page 6C

TOTALLY ‘AWESOME’

La.child to featureinnew show on PBSKids

BY JUDYBERGERON Staff writer

It’s official —10-year-old Jacob of Breaux Bridgeisawesome.

The child, whose last name PBS isn’treleasing, will be featured in PBS Kids’ new interstitial series “America’sAwesome Kids.” He wasselected in anationwide search.

TV Notes

In recognition of America’sapproaching 250th anniversary,the live-action short-form series debuted Friday,and airs within PBS Kids’ regular programming as well as children’sprogramming on PBS. The Louisiana segment is scheduled to premiere during “Alma’s Way” at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, June 4, andJune 24 on YouTube. The entire 25-installment series will be streamable on the PBSKidsvideo app, pbskids. organd the “America’sAwesome Kids” YouTube channel.

“Jacobimpressed producers with his diverse interests, including trail riding and football, as well as his leadership skills, whichincluded developing an anti-bullying campaign forhis school,” aPBS newsrelease states. “From taking care of llamas in Iowa to Bollywood dancing in Georgia to exploring Cajun culture in Louisiana, the series celebrates theunique spirit

Agolden praline crunchcrepe is servedupfrom Crêpe Haven, 7474 Corporate Blvd., which softopened May6in Baton Rouge. STAFF PHOTO By MADDIE SCOTT

of thenextgeneration.Episodes highlight what makes local communities special and how kids are makingapositiveimpact on the world around them.”

“AwesomeKids” is producedby GBH Kids station in Boston in coordination with 23 partnering PBS stations across thecountry,includingLouisiana Public Broadcasting Nowcasting

Just when you thought all reality TV ideashadbeen exhausted, here’s another one. Theworking title is “AgeofAttraction,” and thecasting company is looking for prospectsintheir 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.

“If you don’tlook, feel or act your age— andprefer to date people whoare older or younger than you, we wanttomeet you!,” the call-out explains.

Cast hopefuls must be available for the entire period from Oct. 3 to Nov. 6; however,those dates are subject to change. Here aresome of the otherrequirements:

n Youare or will be at least18 years old at the timeofapplication.

n Youhave or will have the right to legally reside in the United

ä See TV NOTES, page 6C

BY MADDIESCOTT Staff writer

Adessert shop specializing in crepes just soft-opened earlier this month in Baton Rouge. In between Yogurtland and Hikari Ramen is anew business: Crêpe Haven, located at 7474 Corporate Blvd., across from Towne Center.The menu serves aselection

Womancan help boyfriend understand culture

Dear Harriette: IamanAmericanborn Caribbean woman currently dating an African Americanman. As we begin to get more serious,Iwant to introduce him to my family soon.I was raised in an open family that was not xenophobic or exclusionary,soI’m not as worried about him being accepted as Iamwith him understanding our culture. There are alot of unique elements in our customs that may not be so familiar to him, and Iwant to makesure he’sprepared. Things like finishing your plate and not turning down food may seem small to him,

but it’simportant to us. Ican give him arundownbefore we go, but Idonot wanttoask anyone Ilove to change for anyone else. I just want to make sure he’s comfortablearound everyoneand doesn’tfeel out of place. HowdoI make sure that he feels accepted by my community? —Blending Cultures

Harriette Cole SENSE AND SENSITIVITy

Dear Blending Cultures: Don’t think of this as achallenge. It is normalfor families to have their ways of being and for some of them to be differentfrom apartner who is coming into the fold. Just be honest with your boyfriend: Tell him thatyou

want him to be aware of their idiosyncrasies so that he and they can be comfortable. Youcan also remind your family thathemay not know everything thatisimportant to them, but he will learn over time. Likewise, askthem to get to know him and what he cares about.Mostofall, be patient and always have each other’s backs. Dear Harriette: Istarted livingwith my boyfriend, and it has been an adjustment. He grew up in a house full of boys —and it shows! Simple stuff like puttingyour clothes in the hamper is not regular to him;instead, he prefers to drop his clothes on the floor.Iappreciatehis willingness to live to-

With lowerchlorophyll production and

and

MONSTERA

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monsteras, which often have to be staked for support as they rapidlyspread upward and outward. Like many plants with light-colored variegations, Thai Constellation is abit more sensitive to direct sunlight, which can scorch the white parts of its leaves. Place yours in bright, indirect light awayfrom drafts and vents.

TV NOTES

Continued from page5C

States during production,if selected.

n Submission of an application form and compliance herein does not in any way constitute an offer to appear on the series. The producer VelvetHM, LLC may or may not invite you to attend an interview at their discretion.

n Youwill need to be available during the production dates (which dates shall be determined by the producer in itssolediscretion)and be willing to travel to various locations as part of production

n If youare selected as a potential participant, you must execute waivers and release agreementsrequired by the producer or anyoftheir licensees, successors or assigns.

n Anyoffer to become a participant may be conditioned upon your submission to abackgroundcheck, in accordance with applicable laws. To apply,gotohttps://

CREPES

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it and then took aleap of faith.” Menu rundown

There are specialty items like the golden praline crunch, whichcomes as a crepe or waffle with pecan praline bits, caramel, bananas and powdered sugar There’salso the Dubai chocolate, acrepe or waffle with crushed pistachio, drizzled with pistachio butter and white chocolate.

An east-facing window is usuallybest,asiskeeping the humidity higherin the immediate area around theplant. This is especially important in winter when heating systems tend todry theair outmore. Don’toverwater this plant. Just because it is atropical species does not mean it wants alot of water,especially when grown in an indoor container.Use awell-draining potting mix andavoid oversaturating it, which can cause root rot —acommon demise for monsteras.

us.castitreach.com/ag/realcasting/ageofattraction/welcome.html.

Andifyou’re Hollywood bound anytime soon,the long-running syndicated game show “Let’s Make a Deal” seems to alwaysbeon thehuntfor folkswho want to win cash,prizes and trips.

“Wewant couples too!,” a recent news release states. To give it ashot, visit lmadcasting.com

Plansfor ‘A CapitolFourth’

Louisianawill have at leastone representative on stage when PBS’ “A Capitol Fourth: 250th Weekend Celebration” airs at 7p.m. Friday, July 3

Country music icon and Sarepta native Trace Adkins will debut his newsong, “American Made,” during the 90-minute live broadcast and streaming eventfrom the Capitol’swest lawn.

“I have been fortunate enough to have played a small part in several of the ‘A Capitol Fourth’ celebrations over my career,” Adkins says in anews release. “But to be invitedtojoin the 250th birth-

“The majority favorite is the strawberry banana Nutella,” Nofal said. “That’s what we sell the most, and I feel like it’sa good introduction for most people to go with.” There are coffee beverages likeSpanish lattes, that has milk, sweet condensed milk and an espresso shot. Othercaffeinated drinks include energizers in the flavors of triple berryrush, green dream, purple rain, tropicalchargeand sunrise glow. Milkshakescomein

In Louisiana, you can moveThai Constellation outdoors for the summer Sit it in afull-shade location,where its white variegations will pop. Be sure to bring it inside as temperatures cool in the fall. Finally,ifyou have curious children or petsat home, you’ll want toknow that Thai Constellation and other monsteras are toxic if ingested. These plants contain calciumoxalate crystals that can cause painful irritation of the mouth, throat and stomach.

STAFF FILEPHOTO

Louisiana nativeTrace Adkins will debuthis newsong, ‘AmericanMade,’during the ‘A Capitol Fourth’ special on PBS

day of our great country is an honor beyond all others.”

Adkins marks 30 yearsin themusic industrythisyear

The special will alsofeature afireworks show from George Washington’sMount Vernon. The fireworks will be the largest displayever at the iconic home of America’sfirst president

Email Judy Bergeron at jbergeron@theadvocate. com.

theclassic flavors as well as lotus, kinder, fruitypebbles and more.

Construction tookabout six months, but planning tooka yeartotal, he said The 1,100-square-foot space seatsabout 30 diners.

The interior was designed by Nofal’swife, featuring sagegreen walls and brown and beige leather seating under warm lighting. He said the shop is aspacefor everybody

“I wanted it to be elegant and comfortable,” he said. “A space where people could come with their families, withtheir dates or if they want to study.”

Crêpe Haven, 7474 Corporate Blvd., Baton Rouge. Open daily 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

gether andhis initiative in growing our relationship, so Itry not to come off as being anag. However, Ilike my environment to look a certain way so that Ican operate acertain way. It is difficult forme to maximize my productivity in a messy space. Idon’twant to come in and start setting up rules for his house, but Idofeel like since I’m here, we might need to have somemeaningful discussions to makeitwork. How should Iopen this conversation without coming off as judgmental?

—Boy’s House Dear Boy’sHouse: Though you may be living in your boyfriend’s house, it now needs to be your collective home. Start by talking

to your boyfriend about how you like to keep your house. Point out that you think it’simportant forhim to think about living with apartner now,rather than with “the boys.” Point out that that meansputting clothes away, cleaning up after himself and basically being mindful that you live there, too. Ask him to workwith you to transform your homeinto a place that makes both of you feel comfortable.

Send questions to askharriette@ harriettecole.com or c/o AndrewsMcMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St Kansas City MO 64106.

Handling plasticproduce labels

Dear Heloise: How can I deal withplastic produce labels that won’tbreakdown in compost? —Gordon C., in Corona, California Gordon, these stickers cause alot of trouble for anyone who composts.Plastic fruit labels refuse to decompose, so you’ll find them scattered in your finished compost, even if one slips by Your best bet is to handle them right at the kitchen counter.Peel the labels off as soon as you put away the groceries and tossthem straight intothe garbage. Set adish or cup nearby so that you have somewheretodrop them; otherwise, they get buried under peels and scraps. It only takes acouple of seconds, but it saves you areal hassle later when working through your compost pile. Ialso wish labels were biodegradable, and I’m sure that plenty of folks

By The Associated Press

feel the sameway.Until somebody makes the switch, adding in this quick habit while prepping food keeps your compost clean and ready to use. —Heloise Spot-freedishes

luck! —Heloise Giving dogs pills

Dear Heloise: My dishes keep coming out with these weird gray and black streaks, even after awash. Could vinegar fix it? —M.B in TheVillages, Florida M.B., dish streaks usually stem from machine buildup, like hard water minerals or food debris. To fix this, rinse the filter and clear the spray arms. Next, run an empty cycle with a cup of white vinegar on the top rack to dissolve mineral crust and haze. Ensure that you use the correct amount of detergent foryour water type and avoid overcrowding racks to allow the proper water flow.These simple steps should restore the shine to your dishes. Good

TODAYINHISTORY

Today is Tuesday, May 26, the146th day of 2026. There are 219 days left in the year.This is Memorial Day

Todayinhistory: On May 26, 1940, Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of more than 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World WarII.

Also on this date:

In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed ameasure creating the Montana Territory

In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which barred immigration from Asia and restricted thetotal number of immigrants from other partsofthe world to 165,000 annually

In 1927, theFord Model Tofficially ended production as Henry Fordand his son Edsel drove the15millionth Model Toff theFord assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan.

In 1938, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was established by Congress.

In 1954, an explosion occurred aboard the aircraft carrier USSBennington off Rhode Island, killing 103 sailors.

In 1967, the Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’sLonely Hearts Club Band” was released.

In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in Moscow.(The U.S. withdrew from the treaty under President George W. Bush in 2002.)

In 2009, California’s SupremeCourt upheld the state’sProposition 8 same-sex marriage ban but said the 18,000 same-sex weddings that had taken place before the prohibition passed werestill valid. (Same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in June 2015.)

In 2009, President Barack Obamanominated

Dear Heloise: If you ever need to give your dog a pill, buy somepill pockets. These are little canisters that are filled with irresistible-smelling dog food. (Irresistible fordogs, anyway.) Put the pill into one pocket, then pull asecond pocket into pieces. Call your dog and offer him a piece of the second one. If you’ve trained your dog by using treats, have him sit first. Give your dog the other pieces one at atime. The trick is to get him excited, rather than suspicious, about the treats. After afew bites, the dog’s excited and eager forhis next treat. Nowyou can give him the pocket that contains the pill. Chances are, he’ll gobble it down without even noticing that there’sapill inside of it! Carrie, in Orange, California Send ahinttoheloise@ heloise.com.

federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. SupremeCourt. In 2011, Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general suspected of leading the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, wasarrested after a16year manhunt. (Extradited to face trial in The Hague, Netherlands, Mladic wasconvicted in 2017 on genocide and warcrimes charges and is serving a lifesentence.)

Today’sbirthdays: Singersongwriter Stevie Nicks is 78. Actor Pam Grier is 77. Country singer Hank WilliamsJr. is 77. Celebrity chef Masaharu Morimoto is 71. Actor Genie Francis is 64. Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait is 64. Musician Lenny Kravitz is 62. Actor Helena Bonham Carter is 60. Actor Joseph Fiennes is 56. Actor-producer-writer Matt Stone is 55. Singersongwriter Lauryn Hill is 51. Singer Jaheim is 48. NHLplayer Mathew Barzal is 29. Actor Lola Flanery is 21.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Kick-start your plans; you'll grab attention and make interesting connections. Put your talents and experience to good use. Your enthusiasm will bringabout the manpower youneed to step up and make things happen.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Refusetoletyour emotions lead you astray; be watchful andthoughtful.Keepyourintentionsand personal information to yourself. Work or domesticproblems will surface.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) How you make a difference will offer hope for abrighter future.Reach out, make suggestions or payitforward to someone in need. Apositive attitude comes from being happy withthe decisions you make.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Channel your energywisely.Less talk and moreaction will help you gain momentumand avoid interference. Personal changes that encourage smart living, healthy eating habits and afitness routine will motivate you.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct.23) Set goals, put a planinplace and makechanges to your schedule that encourageyou to follow through with your plans.Having atarget in mind will give you purpose.

SCORPIO (Oct.24-Nov.22) Choose to use your strength, agility andconnectionsto forge ahead with confidence and to help gain respect andcredibility. Orchestrate what you want to play out,and you'll soon seewho's on your team and who isn't.

SAGITTARIUS(Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Home improvements, lifestyle changes and

partnerships will all benefit from your words and your ability to bring about change.Apassionate pleawill getapositiveresponse.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Tune in to what othersneedand want from you. Showing respect will help you gain insight into what's possible. Don't limit what you can do because someone says no or gets in your way

AQUARIUS(Jan.20-Feb. 19) Stay positive. Anegative attitude will lead to discord and regret.Getting along will help you putanendtouncertaintyandmissingout on something special. Explore how you can use yourintelligence.

PISCES (Feb.20-March 20) Put your energy where it hasthe greatest impact. It's what you do thatwill make others take an interest and lend ahelping hand. Emotional issueswill require unfiltered truth

ARIES(March 21-April 19) Ataste of something you like doesn't mean you should indulge.Gaugeyourtime,costandstress before you sign up for something that can cause regret. Use your intelligence.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Keep busy in order to avoid theconsequences of idle time, leading to letting others take advantageofyou.Picka paththat helps fulfill your dreams, not one that advances someoneelse's.

Thehoroscope, an entertainment feature, is not based on scientific fact. ©2026 by NEA, Inc dist. By Andrews McMeel Syndication

Sudoku

InstructIons: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with severalgiven numbers Theobject is to place the numbers 1to9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box containsthe same number only once. The difficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

Bridge

BY PHILLIP ALDER

Matthew Lillard, an actor, director and producer,said,“Now,morethanever,we have the ability to make films foralmost nothing andthat’s broken down all barriers of entry. Ithink it’s anew golden age of filmmaking.” Make films for almost nothing? Interesting. In this deal, though, declarer needs to break down thebarriers to get to the dummy. How can he do it?

South is in six spades, and West leads theheart queen to South’s ace.

South opens two clubs, strong, artificial and forcing, then rebids twospades. North responds with two diamonds, typically0-7points,thenrebidswithadouble negative,two no-trump or three clubs, according to partnership preference, to show0-4 points. South, out of ideas, takes ashot at six spades If South immediately cashes his spade ace, he can no longer make the contract. Yes, the 4-0 break is unlucky, but declarer should be looking at 12 tricks via five spades, twohearts, three diamonds and twoclubs.But to get three diamond tricks,heneedsadummyentry.Hemust usedummy’sspade eight

At trick two, South should lead his spade jack. Eastought to play low.But then declarer unblocks (cashes) his two diamond winners before leading the spade 10.

If East ducks again, South hasnospade loser and is home. Or if East takes thetrick and, say, returnsa heart, declarer wins in his hand, leads his low spade to dummy’s eight, discards his lastheart on the diamond queen, ruffs aheart, draws East’s final trump and claims. ©2026 by NEA, Inc dist. By AndrewsMcMeel Syndication

EachWuzzle is aword riddle which creates adisguised word, phrase, name,place, saying, etc. For example: NOON GOOD =GOOD AFTERNOON

Previous answers:

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 sMuGGLInG: SMUG-uh-ling: Importing or exporting secretly.

Average mark 15 words

Time

Can you find 24 or more words in SMUGGLING?

YEstERDAY’s WoRD —HERBAL

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer today’s thought

he that takes not hiscross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me. He thatfinds hislife shall lose it: and he that loses hislifefor my sake shall findit.”Matthew 10:38-39