The Acadiana Advocate 03-13-2025 by The Advocate

Boulet outlines priorities for future

Lafayette mayor-president targets slumlords, drainage

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

Lafayette Mayor-President Monique Boulet in her State of the Parish address on Wednesday outlined her priorities for 2025 and beyond, including cracking down on slumlords, moving ahead with stalled drainage projects and working with state ofﬁcials to remove $27 million in inventory taxes on businesses.

The sold-out State of the Parish event at the Cajundome Convention Center was Boulet’s ﬁrst since taking ofﬁce in January 2024.

In 2025, Boulet said, the public will see stronger enforcement of community development and planning regulations, including addressing

rundown properties that are a haven for the homeless and drug activities.

“If you are a slumlord,” she said, “we ask that you start cleaning up your property We are coming to make your life harder.”

For several years the city has cracked down on dilapidated properties that attract crime and homeless people, creating an adjudication process to condemn the structures.

On Tuesday, the City Council introduced ordinances to condemn nine properties for being dilapidated and dangerous to the public.

Also in 2025, Boulet said she will continue to make drainage a priority That will include reorganizing how Lafayette Consolidated Government plans for and manages ﬂood risks,

which currently is handled by three different departments. Construction will resume this year on two stalled drainage projects, the Homewood Detention Ponds Project and the Coulee Ile des Cannes Project, Boulet said. The projects were stalled because, under previous Mayor-President Josh Guillory, construction was started without proper federal permits.

In February, LCG canceled a contract signed under Guillory with McBade Engineers & Consultants of Youngsville alleging the company failed to live up to the terms of the Homewood contract dated May 12, 2021, and amended on Dec. 30, 2021,

ä See BOULET, page 5A

Speaker gets help passing funding legislation

Johnson, Scalise credit Trump for role on continuing resolution

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON — For the second time in as many weeks, House Speaker Mike Johnson succeeded in wrangling his narrow and often dysfunctional Republican House majority into passing legislation sought by President Donald Trump. Johnson, R-Benton, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, said Trump personally played a big role in accomplishing both legislative wins.

ä Military leaders warn of risks to armed forces’ readiness in temporary funding bill. PAGE 2A

Tuesday’s successful effort to approve a resolution that would avert a government shutdown noticeably lacked the frenetic arm twisting and ﬁnger-pointing witnessed on the chamber ﬂoor Feb. 25 that secured just enough support for Trump’s “one big beautiful” budget bill. By contrast, Tuesday’s “continuing resolution,” which authorizes government spending from Saturday until Sept. 30, was relatively relaxed.

“You see President Trump pushing, as well as all of us in our House leadership, to get this bill passed,” said Scalise.

Landry: ‘Time to get back to work’

Changes expected for remote state workers

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

Gov. Jeff Landry on Tuesday said he is readying an executive order that would require state employees who work remotely to return to the ofﬁce. Landry brieﬂy mentioned the plan at the Tchefuncta Country Club during a keynote address to the PAC that supports the St. Tammany Chamber of Commerce.

“I’ve been pushing my cabinet secretaries to make sure that our people are going back to work,” he said. “And I can tell you in the next 30 days or so, we’re going to sign an executive order telling everybody, ‘It’s time to get back to work.’” The room erupted in applause in response to the remark.

Landry didn’t elaborate on details of the planned executive order and did not respond to a request

Trump vows to take back ‘stolen’ wealth as tariffs go into effect

President increases tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports

BY JOSH BOAK, PAUL WISEMAN and ROB GILLIES Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump openly challenged U.S. allies on Wednesday by increasing tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25% as he vowed to take back wealth “stolen” by other countries, drawing quick retaliation from Europe and Canada.

The Republican president’s use of tariffs to extract concessions from other nations points toward a possibly destructive trade war and a stark change in America’s approach to global leadership. It also has destabilized the stock market and stoked anxiety about an economic downturn.

“The United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and, frankly, by incompetent U.S. leadership,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday “We’re going to take back our wealth, and we’re going to take back a lot of the companies that left.”

Trump removed all exemptions from his 2018 tariffs on the metals, in addition to increasing the tariffs on aluminum from 10%. His moves, based off a February directive, are part of a broader effort to disrupt and transform global commerce. He has separate tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, with plans to also tax imports from the European Union, Brazil and South Korea by charging “reciprocal” rates starting on April 2. The EU announced its own countermeasures Wednesday Euro-

ä See TARIFFS, page 4A

ASSOCIATED

PHOTO By

CURTIS ä See SPEAKER, page 4A

ä See REMOTE, page 5A Ireland’s Prime Minister Taoiseach Micheál Martin is greeted by President Donald Trump as he arrives at the White House on Wednesday.

STAFF PHOTO By LESLIE WESTBROOK

Lafayette Mayor-President Monique Boulet leads a standing ovation to honor attending family members of Lafayette Police Sr Cpl. Segus Jolivette, who was killed in the line of duty, as she delivers her address during the State of the Parish 2025 Business Luncheon on Wednesday

BRIEFS

USDA ends Local Foods for Schools program

WASHINGTON The U.S Agriculture Department is ending two pandemic-era programs that provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks to purchase food from local farmers and producers.

About $660 million of that went to schools and childcare centers to buy food for meals through the Local Foods for Schools program. A separate program provided money to food banks.

The cuts will hurt school districts with “chronically underfunded” school meal budgets, said Shannon Gleave, president of the School Nutrition Association. “In addition to losing the beneﬁts for our kids, this loss of funds is a huge blow to community farmers and ranchers and is detrimental to school meal programs struggling to manage rising food and labor costs,” Gleave said in a statement

USDA said the programs are a legacy of the pandemic and no longer supported the agency’s priorities.

School nutrition directors are bracing for potential rollbacks to programs that expanded funding for school meals, which for some children can be their only reliable source of food.

Proposed spending cuts to fund Republicans’ tax bill include raising the poverty level needed for schools to provide universal free meals without an application. Restricting eligibility for food assistance programs and requiring income veriﬁcation for free or reduced price school meals, two proposals for cutting costs, would also likely cut out eligible families from accessing food, the School Nutrition Association said.

Kuwait frees a group of jailed Americans

WASHINGTON Kuwait has released a group of American prisoners, including veterans and military contractors jailed for years on drug-related charges, in a move seen as a gesture of goodwill between two allies, a representative for the detainees told The Associated Press on Wednesday The release follows a recent visit to the region by Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s top hostage envoy, and comes amid a continued U.S. government push to bring home American citizens jailed in foreign countries

Six of the newly freed prisoners were accompanied on a ﬂight from Kuwait to New York by Jonathan Franks, a private consultant who works on cases involving American hostages and detainees and who had been in the country to help secure their release.

He said that his clients maintain their innocence and that additional Americans he represents also are expected to be released by Kuwait later The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment The names of the released prisoners were not immediately made public.

Captain of cargo ship that hit tanker in custody

LONDON The captain of a cargo ship that collided with a U.S. tanker is a Russian national who remains in U.K. police custody, the vessel’s owner said Wednesday, as it emerged that the ship failed several safety checks last year The 59-year-old man, who hasn’t been named by authorities, was arrested by police in northeast England Tuesday on suspicion of manslaughter by gross negligence over the collision. He hasn’t been charged.

Shipping company Ernst Russ, which owns the Portugal-ﬂagged cargo vessel Solong, said that the ship’s 14 crew were a mix of Russian and Filipino nationals.

U.K. authorities say they have found no evidence of foul play in the crash, and there is nothing so far to indicate that it’s connected to national security.

The cargo ship collided Monday with MV Stena Immaculate, a tanker transporting jet fuel for the U.S. military in the North Sea off eastern England on Monday, setting both vessels ablaze. One sailor from the Solong is missing and presumed dead.

Surprise victor in Greenland elections

Winning party favors slow path to independence

BY DANICA KIRKA Associated Press

NUUK,Greenland Greenland’s likely new prime minister on Wednesday rejected U.S President Donald Trump’s effort to take control of the island, saying Greenlanders must be allowed to decide their own future as it moves toward independence from Denmark.

Jens-Frederik Nielsen’s Demokraatit, a pro-business party that favors a slow path to independence, won a surprise victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary election, outpacing the two left-leaning parties that formed the last government. With most Greenlanders opposing Trump’s overtures, the campaign focused more on issues like health care and education than on geopolitics.

But on Wednesday Nielsen was quick to push back against Trump, who last week told a joint session of Congress that the U.S. needed Greenland to protect its own national security interests and he expected to get it one way or the other.”

“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Nielsen, 33, told Britain’s Sky News. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”

Greenland a self-governing region of Denmark, has been on a path toward independence since at least 2009, when the government in Copenhagen recognized its right to self-determination under international law Four of the ﬁve main parties in the election supported independence, though they disagreed on when and how to achieve it.

The island of 56,000 people, most from

indigenous Inuit backgrounds, has attracted international attention since Trump announced his designs on it Trump is focused on Greenland because it straddles strategic air and sea routes in the North Atlantic and is home to the U.S.’s Pitufﬁk Space Base, which supports missile warning and space surveillance operations. Greenland also has large deposits of the rare-earth minerals needed to make everything from mobile phones to renewable energy technology

But Trump’s overtures weren’t on the ballot.

The 31 men and women elected to parliament on Tuesday will have to set priorities for issues such as diversifying Greenland’s economy, building infrastructure and improving health care, as well as shaping the country’s strategy for countering the president’s America First agenda.

Demokraatit won 29.9% of the vote by campaigning to improve housing and educational standards while delaying independence until Greenland is selfsufﬁcient. Four years ago, the party ﬁnished in fourth place with 9.1%.

Nuuk resident Anthon Nielsen said the party’s victory would be good for the country. “Most politicians want Greenland to be independent,” he said. “But this party who won, they don’t want to hurry things so everything must be done right.”

Demokraatit will have to turn its attention to forming a governing coalition.

Naleraq, the most aggressively proindependence party, ﬁnished in second place, with 24.5% of the vote. It was followed by Inuit Ataqatigiit, which led the last government, at 21.4%.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen congratulated Demokraatit and warned that Greenland’s new government would likely have to “deal with massive pressure” from Trump.

Military leaders

tell senators flat budget will hurt readiness

BY LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press

WASHINGTON Military service leaders told senators Wednesday that passing a temporary budget that keeps defense spending largely ﬂat will hurt readiness and efforts to modernize the armed forces.

The vice chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force said that if they don’t get additional funding, they at least need the ﬂexibility to shift money to ensure priorities are covered. Congress has been unable to get through a full 2025 ﬁscal year budget and instead has passed temporary stopgap measures that largely keep funding at 2024 levels.

A bill passed Tuesday by the House would increase defense spending by about $6 billion and trim $13 billion in non-defense spending, which are rather ﬂat changes for both categories when compared with an overall topline of nearly $1.7 trillion in discretionary spending.

The legislation now moves to the Senate.

This would be the ﬁrst year that Congress hasn’t passed a defense spending bill and will instead use a full-year continuing resolution, the military leaders said They said that continuing the 2024 budget lines doesn’t allow the services to start new contracts, including for weapon modernization or housing and other improvements.

“Ultimately, the Army can afford a large, ready or modern force, but with the current budget, it cannot afford all three,” Gen. James Mingus, vice chief of staff of the Army told the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee “Either we provide soldiers the capabilities needed to win or accept greater risks in other areas.”

He warned that the Army will pay for those risks down the road, “not in de-

layed projects or budget adjustments, but in real-world battlefield consequences. We need to invest in the things and training our soldiers need for the next fight, not the last fight.”

Other service leaders echoed his warning, noting that shortfalls in shipbuilding, maintenance and sustainment affect both the Navy and the Marine Corps.

Adm. James Kilby, vice chief of naval operations, said this “will slow shipbuilding, including our amphibious warships.”

Marine leaders have long complained about the lack of critically needed amphibious ships that can transport Marines at sea to combat. As of Wednesday morning, said Gen. Christopher Mahoney, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, just 13 of the Navy’s 32 amphibious ships were available for use.

Air Force Lt Gen. Adrian L. Spain, deputy chief of staff, said the continuing resolution will affect combat readiness in his service “to the tune of about $4 billion.”

President Donald Trump and Defense

Secretary Pete Hegseth have both spoken extensively about the need to focus on military readiness and lethality But the government is also facing drastic cuts in spending and personne.

Senators acknowledged the continuing resolution presents a challenge for the military, but they provided no clear answer on whether ﬂexibility will be built in the spending bill.

“From a readiness standpoint, none of us think this is helpful. What would be worse, in my view, is a government shutdown,” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned whether the deployment of active duty forces to the southern border is impeding training and readiness because troops are largely erecting barriers and helping border agents.

Student’s detention will stretch on as lawyers spar

Judge asked to move legal fight to N.J. or La.

BY JAKE OFFENHARTZ and LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated Press

NEW YORK Mahmoud

Khalil will remain detained in Louisiana until at least next week following an initial court hearing in New York on Wednesday over the Trump administration’s plans to deport the Columbia University graduate student for his role in campus protests against Israel.

The brief hearing, which focused on thorny jurisdictional issues, drew hundreds of demonstrators to the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan to denounce the Saturday arrest of Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident who is married to an American citizen.

Khalil, 30, didn’t attend after initially being held in New Jersey, he was moved to an immigration detention center in Louisiana.

After Khalil’s Manhattan arrest, Judge Jesse M. Furman ordered that the 30-year-old not be deported while the court considers a legal challenge brought by his lawyers, who want Khalil returned to New York and released under supervision.

During Wednesday’s hearing, attorney Brandon Waterman argued on behalf of the Justice Department that the venue for the deportation ﬁght should be moved from New York City to Louisiana or New Jersey because those are the locations where Khalil has been held.

One of Khalil’s lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, told the judge that Khalil was “identified, targeted and detained” because of his advocacy for Palestinian rights and his protected speech He said Khalil has no criminal convictions, but “for some reason, is being detained.”

Kassem also told Furman that Khalil’s legal team hasn’t been able to have a

single attorney-client-protected phone call with him. Furman ordered that the lawyers be allowed to speak with him by phone at least once on Wednesday and Thursday Calling the legal issues “important and weighty,” the judge also directed the two sides to submit a joint letter on Friday describing when they propose to submit written arguments over the legal issues raised by Khalil’s detention. Kassem said Khalil’s lawyers would update their lawsuit on Thursday Some of Khalil’s supporters, many of them wearing a kefﬁyeh and mask, attended the hearing. Hundreds more demonstrated outside the courthouse, beating drums, waving Palestinian flags and chanting for Khalil’s release. The raucous crowd grew quiet, though, to hear Kassem speak.

“As we tried to make clear in court today, what happened to Mahmoud Khalil is nothing short of extraordinary and shocking and outrageous,” Kassem told the crowd. “It should outrage anybody who believes that speech should be free in the United States of America.” Columbia became the center of a U.S. pro-Palestinian protest movement that swept across college campuses nationwide last year Khalil, whose wife is pregnant with their first child, ﬁnished his requirements for a Columbia master’s degree in December Born in Syria, he is a grandson of Palestinians who were forced to leave their homeland, his lawyers said in a legal ﬁling.

President Donald Trump vowed on social media to deport students he described as engaging in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the administration moved to deport him under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state the power to deport a noncitizen on foreign policy grounds.

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RITZAU SCANPIX FOTO PICTURE By MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN

Chairman of Demokraatit, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, center hugs supporters during the election party at cafe Killut in Nuuk, Greenland early Wednesday.

Education Department layoffs gut its civil rights office

Seven regional sites shut down entirely; cases left in limbo

BY COLLIN BINKLEY Associated Press

WASHINGTON The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an ofﬁce that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.

Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off Despite assurances that the department’s work will continue unaffected, huge numbers of cases appear to be in limbo.

The Trump administration has not said how it will proceed with thousands of cases being handled by staff it’s eliminating. The cases involve families trying to get school services for students with disabilities, allegations of bias related to race and religion, and complaints over sexual violence at schools and college campuses.

Some staffers who remain said there’s no way to pick up all of their ﬁred colleagues’ cases Many were already struggling to keep pace with their own caseloads. With fewer than 300 workers families likely will be waiting on resolution for years, they said.

“I fear they won’t get their calls answered, their complaints won’t move,” said Michael Pillera, a senior civil rights attorney for the Ofﬁce for Civil Rights. “I truly don’t understand how a handful of ofﬁces could handle the entire country.”

Department ofﬁcials insisted the cuts will not affect civil rights investigations. The reductions were “strategic decisions,” said spokesperson Madison Biedermann.

“OCR will be able to deliver the work,” Biedermann said. “It will have to look different, and we know that.”

The layoffs are part of a dramatic downsizing directed by President Donald Trump as he moves to reduce the footprint of the federal government. Along with the Ofﬁce of Civil Rights, the top divisions to lose hundreds of staffers in the layoffs included Federal Student Aid, which manages the federal student loan portfolio, and the

Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees assessments of whether the education system is working and research into best teaching practices.

Trump has pushed for a full shutdown of the Education Department, calling it a “con job” and saying its power should be turned over to states. On Wednesday he told reporters many agency employees “don’t work at all.” Responding to the layoffs, he said his administration is “keeping the best ones.”

After the cuts, the Office for Civil Rights will only have workers in Washington and five regional offices, which traditionally take the lead on investigating complaints

and mediating resolutions with schools and colleges. Buildings are being closed and staff laid off in Dallas, Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Many lawyers at the New York City office were juggling 80 or more cases, said one staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for reprisals. The branch often mediated cases with New York City schools, the nation’s largest district, and its lawyers were handling a high-proﬁle antisemitism investigation at Columbia University — a priority for Trump. The staffer described several pending cases involving students

with disabilities who are wrongly being kept out of school because of behavioral issues. With limited oversight from the office, they said, school districts will be less likely to comply with legal requirements.

Pillera, who had said before the cuts that he was leaving the department, said it’s unclear how complaints will be investigated in areas that no longer have ofﬁces.

“We have to physically go to schools,” Pillera said. “We have to look at the playground to see if it’s accessible for kids with disabilities. We have to measure doorways and bathrooms to see if everything is accessible for kids with disabilities.”

Even before the layoffs, the civil rights office had been losing staff even as complaints rose to record levels. The workforce had fallen below 600 staffers before Trump took office, and they faced nearly 23,000 complaints filed last year more than ever Trump officials ordered a freeze on most cases when they arrived at the department, adding to the backlog. When Education Secretary Linda McMahon lifted the freeze last week, there were more than 20,000 pending cases.

The civil rights office was not the only division to lose attorneys key to the Education Department’s portfolio. Tuesday’s layoffs have nearly eliminated all staff working in the department’s Ofﬁce of the General Counsel, say two people familiar with the situation, who didn’t want to speak publicly for fear of reprisals.

Attorneys in the division advised the department on the legality of its actions, helped enforce how states and schools spent federal money meant for disadvantaged K-12 students, and watched for conﬂicts of interest among internal staff and appointees, among other things.

Advocacy group wants states to decrease abortion reporting

Data could be used to harm people, it says

BY GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press

States should stop requiring health providers to ﬁle reports on every abortion because the information poses a risk to both them and their patients in the current political environment, a research group that advocates for abortion access says The Guttmacher Institute says in a new recommendation that the benefit of mandated and detailed data collection is no longer worth the downsides: It could reveal personal information, be stigmatizing for patients and cumbersome for providers — or could be used in investigations.

“It would be a mistake for anyone to assume now that the information a state could collect about abortion would not be used to harm people,” said Kelly Baden, Guttmacher’s vice president for public policy

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade nearly three years ago, it opened the door for states to ban most abortions. It also ignited policy battles over information collected about ending pregnancies.

The possibility of reports being used in investigations

has increased with the return of President Donald Trump and anti-abortion ofﬁcials in key federal government jobs, Baden said Most state health departments require medical providers to report data about each abortion, though without including patient names. Massachusetts and Illinois mandate that providers give the state only aggregated data.

The states that collect the information, in turn, produce reports on abortion statistics and send their information to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a nationwide tally Together, that information gives a picture of how often abortion takes place, when in the pregnancy the abortion occurs and the age of patients.

Those reports provide the fullest government pictures of abortion nationally, but they come with a lag time of about two years and lack data from states that don’t require the reports: California, the country’s most-populous state, as well as Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey.

Certain information that some states collect such as the patient’s marital status or ZIP code and the reason for the abortion do not serve a meaningful research purpose and could stigmatize patients, says Guttmacher data scientist Isaac Maddow-Zimet In

conjunction with other data, these details could even be used to identify people who obtain abortions, he said.

The same level of detail is not required to be reported to the state for other medical care, Maddow-Zimet added.

“The real concern here is that it ﬁts into a broader pattern of abortion exceptionalism,” he said.

But Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said rolling back reporting requirements can be detrimental: It could downplay the frequency of abortion complications, for instance, she said. Additionally, details such as the reason for the abortion could shape public policy if it reveals increases in sexual assault, she said. “The more information we have, the better it is for women,” Tobias said.

Michigan has halted required reporting. Minnesota has removed some required information, such as the marital status, race and ethnicity of patients.

Connie Fei Lu a medical fellow in complex family planning at the University of Illinois-Chicago, said the 2022 Illinois change to collect a tally of abortions rather than detail on each one can protect the privacy of patients, especially those who travel from other states for abortion.

But she said the data collection policies need to be thoughtful.

Researchers learn Trump administration axed their work to improve vaccination

BY LAURAN NEERGAARD Associated Press

WASHINGTON The Trump administration is canceling studies about ways to improve vaccine trust and access, a move that comes in the midst of a large measles outbreak fueled by unvaccinated children. Researchers with grants from the National Institutes of Health to study why some people have questions or fears about vaccines and how to help those who want to be vaccinated overcome barriers are getting letters canceling their projects.

The step — ﬁrst reported by The Washington Post, which cited dozens of expected cancellations — is

highly unusual, as entire swaths of research typically aren’t ended midstream.

“It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientiﬁc knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment,” say NIH letters sent to two researchers with different grants.

“It’s really concerning,” said Dr Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who viewed and read aloud from two letters other scientists had received, noting the claim that the research doesn’t beneﬁt people or improve quality of life.

“That’s inaccurate. Vaccines clearly save lives, there’s no question about the science of that,” O’Leary said. Better understanding what parents want to learn from their pediatrician — or adults’ questions about their own shots — is “really about improving care and not just necessarily about just the vaccination rates.”

“You can’t say you’re for vaccine safety and not study how people think about vaccines,” added Dr Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association.

Some of the canceled grants are a type that help fund the salaries of promising young researchers, whose careers may be threatened, O’Leary said.

“I completely understand the delicate balance in abortion data collection in an environment where that data can end up in the wrong hands,” she said. “From a research

perspective, from a scientiﬁc perspective, not having this data is not a good thing.”

While Guttmacher wants an end to mandatory abortion reports, it’s not calling

for states to get out of the abortion data-collection business entirely; the group says states could instead use voluntary approaches to gather information.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MARK SCHIEFELBEIN

Chloe Kienzle of Arlington, Va., holds a sign Wednesday as she stands outside the headquarters of the U.S Department of Education in Washington, D.C The department’s offices were ordered closed for the day for what officials described as security reasons amid large-scale layoffs.

He noted that Vice President JD Vance came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning. Vance “did a great job of really laying out why it’s so important that we keep the government open and pass this bill so that we can continue on with the great work that’s being done to get our economy back on track, to get our country moving again.”

Johnson leads a 218-214 Republican majority in the House, meaning if two GOP representatives vote on the Democratic side, he loses. In the last Congress, the Republican House could rarely rally its majority But a combination of an endless round of meetings with representatives and help from the White House has kept Republicans together enough to pass the two bills so important to Trump.

The sweeping budget measure allows lawmakers to draft appropriations bills that would include language enacting Trump’s wants for restricting immigration, deporting more immigrants, expanding energy exploration, and continuing his signature tax breaks that are about to expire. It also orders House committees to ﬁnd at least $1.5 trillion in budget cuts, which many fear will result in drastic changes to Medicaid

This budget blueprint bill, called reconciliation, passed the House with one vote to spare and is now pending in the Senate.

Congress then needs pass a continuing resolution, called a CR, or

TARIFFS

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pean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that as the United States was “applying tariffs worth 28 billion dollars, we are responding with countermeasures worth 26 billion euros,” or about $28 billion Those measures, which cover not just steel and aluminum products but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods, are due to take effect on April 1 U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer responded by saying that the EU was punishing America instead of ﬁxing what he viewed as excess capacity in steel and aluminum production.

“The EU’s punitive action completely disregards the national security imperatives of the United States and indeed international security — and is yet another indicator that the EU’s trade and economic policies are out of step with reality,” he said in a statement.

Meeting on Wednesday with Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Trump said “of course” he wants to respond to EU’s retaliations and “of course” Ireland is taking advantage of the United States.

“The EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States,” Trump said.

Last year the United States ran a $87 billion trade imbalance with Ireland. That’s partially because of the tax structure created by Trump’s 2017 overhaul, which incentivized U.S. pharmaceutical companies

government would cease operations on Friday night.

Trump is telling Republicans, ﬁrst in the House and now in the Senate, that a government shutdown would sidetrack passage of his agenda.

On Tuesday, the House approved, 217-213, a resolution that continues government spending through the rest of this ﬁscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Only one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, didn’t approve the resolution.

The resolution increased defense spending by $6 billion and

to record their sales abroad, Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, said on X.

Canada sees itself as locked in a trade war because of White House claims about fentanyl smuggling and that its natural resources and factories subtract from the U.S. economy instead of supporting it.

“This is going to be a day to day ﬁght This is now the second round of unjustiﬁed tariffs leveled against Canada,” said Mélanie Joly Canada’s foreign affairs minister “The latest excuse is national security despite the fact that Canada’s steel and aluminum adds to America’s security All the while there is a threat of further and broader tariffs on April 2 still looming The excuse for those tariffs shifts every day.”

Canada is the largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States and plans to impose retaliatory tariffs of $20.7 billion starting Thursday in response to the U.S. taxes on the metals.

Canada’s new tariffs would be on steel and aluminum products, as well as U.S. goods including computers, sports equipment and water heaters worth $9.9 billion.

That’s in addition to the 25% counter tariffs on $20.8 billion of imports from the U.S. that were put in place on March 4 in response to other Trump import taxes that he’s partially delayed by a month

Trump told CEOs in the Business Roundtable a day earlier that the tariffs were causing companies to invest in U.S. factories. The 7.5%

made $13 billion in cuts to domestic programs, but otherwise left spending levels the same as were approved in December when Joe Biden was still president.

Though a number of Republicans paraded across conservative television to voice their worries, Johnson had been saying since last week that Republicans alone would pass the CR.

That seemed like a bold statement, given that Republicans alone have not approved a continuing resolution in recent memory

drop in the S&P 500 stock index over the past month on fears of deteriorating growth appears unlikely to dissuade him, as Trump argued that higher tariff rates would be more effective at bringing back factories.

“The higher it goes, the more likely it is they’re going to build,” Trump told the group. “The biggest win is if they move into our country and produce jobs That’s a bigger win than the tariffs themselves, but the tariffs are going to be throwing off a lot of money to this country.”

Trump on Tuesday had threatened to put tariffs of 50% on steel and aluminum from Canada, but he chose to stay with the 25% rate after the province of Ontario suspended plans to put a surcharge on electricity sold to Michigan, Minnesota and New York.

Democratic lawmakers dismissed Trump’s claims that his tariffs are about national security and drug smuggling, saying they’re actually about generating revenues to help cover the cost of his planned income tax cuts for the wealthy

“Donald Trump knows his policies could wreck the economy, but he’s doing it anyway,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “Why are they doing all these crazy things that Americans don’t like? One reason, and one reason alone: tax breaks for billionaires, the north star of the Republican Party’s goals.

In many ways, the president is addressing what he perceives as unﬁnished business from his first

Carthy, R-Calif., which opened the way for Johnson to ascend to the top spot It also was why conservatives unsuccessfully tried to oust Johnson himself last year Johnson is ﬁrst to say that getting both bills passed was a team effort on which he relied on his lieutenants, chief among them Scalise, his fellow Louisiana delegation member They corralled members individually and in groups behind closed doors to hear out their issues and get their input on how to draft the legislation. That included members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, where opposition usually arises.

Back when Johnson was a rankand-ﬁle representative, he would get irked when leadership dropped a huge CR on the members with instructions on how to vote.

Meanwhile, White House Budget Director Russ Vought came to Capitol Hill to explain the numbers to Republicans. The president personally phoned wavering Republicans and gathered the Freedom Caucus in the White House for a conference.

When Johnson was a backbencher, he routinely refused to go along. Republicans prefer to see spending plans roll out in the traditional way, with 12 separate bills detailing the appropriations for each executive branch agency CRs lump all the amounts together Since so many in the GOP majority opposed continuing resolutions, previous House leadership had to solicit support from Democratic representatives That was the scenario that led to the October 2023 ouster of Speaker Kevin Mc-

term. Trump meaningfully increased tariffs, but the revenues collected by the federal government were too small to signiﬁcantly increase overall inflationary pressures. Outside forecasts by the Budget Lab at Yale University, Tax Policy Center and others suggest that U.S. families would have the costs of the taxes passed onto them in the form of higher prices. With Wednesday’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, Trump is seeking to remedy his original 2018 import taxes that were eroded by exemptions.

The CR legislation now goes to the Senate, which on Wednesday morning filed a motion for cloture. It’s a parliamentary procedure that circumvents a filibuster Sixty senators need to vote for cloture. But cloture allows only a 51-vote majority is needed to pass when the underlying resolution hits the floor

Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate. The Senate needs to pass the continuing resolution before Friday night turns to Saturday morning or government will shut down.

After Canada and Mexico agreed to his demand for a revamped North American trade deal in 2020, they avoided the import taxes on the metals. Other U.S trading partners had import quotas supplant the tariffs. And the ﬁrst Trump administration also allowed U.S companies to request exemptions from the tariffs if, for instance, they couldn’t ﬁnd the steel they needed from domestic producers.

While Trump’s tariffs could help steel and aluminum plants in the United States, they could raise prices for the manufacturers that use the metals as raw materials. Moreover, economists have found, the gains to the steel and aluminum industries were more than offset by the cost they imposed on “downstream” manufacturers that use their products. At these downstream companies, production fell by nearly $3.5 billion because of the tariffs in 2021, a loss that exceeded the $2.3 billion uptick in production that year by aluminum producers and steel-makers, the U.S. International Trade Commission found in 2023.

President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, listen

the

luncheon at the Capitol in Washington on Wednesday.

it already spent on the two projects for starting construction without federal permits.

to add the Ile Des Cannes project near Scott.

The projects fall under the umbrella of LCG’s approximately $80 million Bayou Vermilion Flood Control project.

The state is withholding $20 million in reimbursements to LCG for money

The Boulet administration recouped $6.1 million in state funds that were being withheld

The city and parish, Boulet said Wednesday, is of the age where it is going through revitalization. Part of that, she said, will be improving connectivity for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Young people want better parks and connectivity which cities like Houston and Nashville provide, Boulet said LCG has begun planning for a Bertrand Drive revitalization project that would provide wide sidewalks connecting Moncus Park with Cajun Field.

Boulet wants to expand on the Bertrand Drive project to create a Lafayette Urban Trails System that would

REMOTE

Continued from page 1A

for comment through a spokesperson Tuesday

The governor’s effort follows a brief memorandum issued by President Donald Trump on his first day in office ordering executive department agency heads to “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person.”

It also comes ﬁve years after the onset of the COVID pandemic, which jolted businesses and organizations first into ad hoc telework plans and later into formalized policies. And since the end of the global health emergency, it’s left many grappling with the question of if and how to return to primarily in-person arrangements. At least two state agencies in Louisiana on Tuesday conﬁrmed imminent plans to revamp their telework policies.

Full-time employees in the

Louisiana Department of Revenue will be required to work from an ofﬁce at least four days per week beginning March 17, Secretary Richard Nelson said Currently, some employees work remotely 100% of the time, while others work remotely up to two days per week. Out of the department’s 724 employees, 433 employees work remotely at least part of week, according to departmental data Nelson provided.

Nelson said that, amid a nationwide push in both the public and private sectors to return to in-person work, his agency has been looking into options too.

“Everybody’s kind of moving in this direction to get people back in the office,” he said.

Revenue department employees on Monday received an email with updated remote work policies. The communication said changes are being implemented “in anticipation of new directives from the Administration.”

While full-time employees with a traditional work-

week schedule will be permitted one day of remote work, other employees like administrative assistants and those who work compressed four-day work weeks are not eligible to work remotely, the email states.

Nelson said his agency will work on transition plans with fully remote employees who don’t live near an ofﬁce building on a “case-by-case” basis.

Louisiana Economic Development this month announced that its revised remote work policy will take effect March 31, according to a spokesperson for the agency

Similar to the revenue department, LED employees will have to the option to work remotely up to one day per week with manager approval. Currently employees at the economic development department are permitted up to two days of remote work.

Staff writer Willie Swett contributed to this report.

Email Alyse Pfeil at alyse. pfeil@theadvocate.com.

provide sidewalks and connectivity for pedestrians from one end of the parish to the other

After the Bertrand Drive project, she said, the conversation will turn to Johnston Street and Louisiana Avenue from Ambassador Caffery Parkway to Interstate 10.

“It’s time for a Johnston Street revitalization,” Boulet said.

LCG is in the process, Boulet said, of selecting an

engineering team to divide Johnston Street and Louisiana Avenue into segments. With public input, the city will create a vision for each segment and construct the project over several years in segments.

Finally, Boulet said LCG is working with state ofﬁcials to remove an “onerous” inventory tax on Lafayette Parish businesses that generates $27 million for the city and parish.

“To be competitive,” she said, “we need a competitive tax structure. We understand your margins are important.”

The other local agencies that would most be affected by removing the inventory tax, Boulet said, are the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce and school system.

Lafayette Parish Mayor-President Monique Boulet is joined by sign language interpreter Rachel Granier as she delivers her State of the Parish address on Wednesday.

U.S. arms flow to Ukraine again

BY SAMYA KULLAB and HANNA ARHIROVA

Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine resumed Wednesday, officials said, a day after the Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid for Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and officials awaited the Kremlin’s response to a proposed 30-day ceasefire endorsed by Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it’s important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the ceasefire, which was proposed by Washington. He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting “detailed information” from the U.S. and suggested that Russia must get that before it can take a position The Kremlin has previously opposed anything short of a permanent end to the conflict and has not accepted any concessions.

U.S. President Donald Trump wants to end the three-year war and pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enter talks. The suspension of U.S. assistance happened days after Zelenskyy and Trump argued about the conflict in a tense White House meeting. The administration’s decision to resume military aid after talks Tuesday with senior Ukrainian ofﬁcials in Saudi Arabia marked a sharp shift

are common, are “very important,” Zelenskyy told reporters Wednesday in Kyiv Arms deliveries to Ukraine have already resumed through a Polish logistics center, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland announced Wednesday The deliveries go through a NATO and U.S. hub in the eastern Polish city of Rzeszow that’s has been used to ferry Western weapons into neighboring Ukraine about 45 miles away

lowed their school activities, athletic games, and provided many memorable family trips to their condo in Destin,FL. As an adult she was initiated into Phi Mu Sorority, Betty and Willie traveled the world and broughthome many treasures, memories, and new friends. Betty is survived by her children Betsy Hollingsworth Magee (Wes), Lewis H. Hollingsworth,and Claudia Hollingsworth Lyles (Ted). Five grandchildren,William Wesley Magee, Scott Lanier Magee, Todd Martin Magee, Kimberly Lyles Cormier, andElizabeth Lyles Kees. Eight great grandchildren were her crown of glory in herlater years. Betty was preceded in death by herhusband, William Haywood Hollingsworth,parents, Claude Eugene and Sara Mason McRoberts, brothers Claude Eugene McRoberts, Jr., Martin Lanier McRoberts, andsister-in-law Nan Dunklin McRoberts.

AMass of Christian Burial will be held at 2:30 PM on Friday, March 14, 2025 in Our Lady of Wisdom Catholic Church on ULL Campus -501 ESt. Mary Blvd., Lafayette, LA. Fr. Patrick Broussard, Pastor of OurLady of Wisdom Catholic Church, will be Celebrant of the Mass andofficiate the funeral services. Fr. Bryce Sibley will serve as Concelebrant of the Mass and assist with the funeral services.

The burial, following the Mass, will be held at Lafayette Memorial Park Cemetery -2111 W. Pinhook Road, Lafayette, LA.

The family is so grateful for the wonderfulstaff at The Blake where Betty spent almost nineyears of her life, makingitaloving home. She was attended by loving, caring, and skilled caregivers for the last year of her life: Catrina Boudreaux, Amanda Cole, Lisa Chargois, Dana Guidry, Rose Sonnier, Ann Perro, Daejanay Guidry, and Ruqayyah Azeez. The Hollingsworth family was very blessed by these ladies' love and dedication to their mother. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to [Samaritan's Purse]https:/ /samaritanspurse.org/ and the [OurLady of Wisdom Catholic Church's building fund]https://www.ourlady ofwisdom.org/waystogive

Personal condolences may be sent to the family of Betty McRoberts Hollingsworth at: www.del hommefuneralhome.com

DEATHS continued from

Betty McRoberts Hollingsworth andher family were cared for and entrusted final arrangements to Delhomme Funeral Home, 1011 Bertrand Drive, Lafayette, LA.

in its stance.

Trump said “it’s up to Russia now” as his administration presses Moscow to agree to the ceaseﬁre.

“And hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia,” Trump said Wednesday in an extended exchange with reporters during an Oval Ofﬁce meeting with Micheál Martin, the prime minster of Ireland. “And if we do, I think that would be 80% of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath” ended.

The U.S. president again made veiled threats of hitting Russia with new sanctions. “We can, but I hope it’s not going to be necessary,” Trump said. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the American delegation to Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine consented to the

U.S. ceasefire proposal, said Washington will pursue “multiple points of contacts” with Russia to see if President Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate an end to the war He declined to give details or say what steps might be taken if Putin refuses to engage.

The U.S. hopes to see Russia stop attacks on Ukraine within the next few days as a ﬁrst step, Rubio said at a refueling stop Wednesday in Shannon, Ireland.

Zelenskyy said the 30-day ceasefire would allow the sides “to fully prepare a step-by-step plan for ending the war, including security guarantees for Ukraine.”

Technical questions over how to effectively monitor a truce along the roughly 600-mile front line, where small but deadly drones

The American military help is vital for Ukraine’s shorthanded and weary army, which is having a tough time keeping Russia’s bigger military force at bay

The U.S. government has also restored Ukraine’s access to unclassified commercial satellite pictures provided by Maxar Technologies through a program Washington runs, Maxar spokesperson Tomi Maxted told The Associated Press.

Officials acknowledged Wednesday that Kyiv no longer has any of the longer-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, missiles Russian lawmakers signaled wariness about the prospect of a ceaseﬁre.

“Any agreements (with the understanding of the need for compromise) should be on our terms, not American,” senior Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev noted in a post on the messaging app Telegram.

Vatican says X-ray confirms pope is improving

BY NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

ROME Pope Francis ‘ recovery from double pneumonia continued Wednesday as a chest X-ray confirmed improvement, two days after doctors declared he’s no longer in imminent danger of death. The latest medical bulletin said the pope’s condition remained stable, but indicated a complex picture consider-

ing his overall fragility The Vatican said the 88-year-old Francis again followed its spiritual retreat remotely, and resumed physical and respiratory therapy after a quiet night. He continues to receive high ﬂows of oxygen through nasal tubes during the day, and a non-invasive mechanical mask to aid his rest at night. Francis faces important milestones this week

On Thursday he marks the 12th anniversary of his election as the 266th pope. The Holy See hasn’t said how the anniversary, a public holiday in the Vatican, might be commemorated. No medical bulletin will be issued.

The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected on the ﬁfth ballot of the 2013 conclave that was called after Pope Benedict XVI resigned.

While Francis has praised Benedict’s humility in stepping down and said he might follow in his footsteps, more recently he has said the papacy is a job for life. The Vatican has released no photos or video of Francis since he was admitted. The pope recorded an audio message last week to thank people for their prayers, though the weakness and breathlessness of his voice made clear how frail he was.

ACatholic Funeral Service will be held on Friday, March 14, 2025, at 11:30 am at Fountain Memorial Funeral Home in Lafayette, LA for Hazel G. Mhire, 95, whopassed away peacefully in the arms of our Lord on Tuesday, March11, 2025, at her residence in Lafayette, LA. Visitation will be observed at Fountain Memorial Funeral Home in Lafayette on Thursday, March 13, 2025, from 4:00 pm until 8:00 pm and will resume on Friday, March 14, 2025, from 8:30 am until the time of service. A Rosary will be recited by Deacon Art Bakeler, of St. Genevieve Catholic Church in Lafayette, on Thursday, March 13, 2025, at 6:00 pm at Fountain Memorial Funeral Home in Lafayette, LA. Entombment will follow in Fountain Memorial Cemetery in Lafayette. Father Gilbert Dutel, retired priest of Lafayette, will officiate. Hazel G. Mhire, was born on March 9, 1930, in Lafayette, LA and was along-time resident of Acadiana. Shewas raised on afarm by her loving parents alongside her six siblings during the depression.Hazel was a loving mother, sister, grandmother and great grandmother. Throughout her life, she became a great role model for many and tried to instill the importance of religion, hard work, fairness, honesty and 'saving for arainy day.' Even at theage of 91, Hazel tended to her garden, harvesting okra from her six plants that she nurtured. Cookingwas her passion and she delighted her grandchildren with pancakes and meatloaf. She was affectionately known as Perm duetoher beautifulcurls. She earned the title of Nanny to her nieces and nephews, even though she was not actually their godmother. Family meant everything to Hazel, and she leaves alegacyof love and will be deeply missed. Hazel is survived by her son,David Mhire, of Church Point, LA; her daughter, Deborah M. Salsman and her husband, Steven, of Santa Fe, NM; her sister, Mildred Patin, of Lafayette, LA; her daughter -in-law, Denise A. Mhire, of Lafayette, LA; her four grandchildren,Jeremy Mhire and his wife, Simone, Kyle Mhire and his wife, Lindsey, Kory Mhire and his wife, Christine and Amber Mhire; her two step -grandchildren,Brandon Benoit and Christopher Benoit; her seven greatgrandchildren,Gabriel Mhire, Camille Mhire, Riley Mhire, Allie Mhire, Jackson Mhire, Hazel Mae Phillips and Kaia Bennett; her step great-grandchild, Caroline Benoit and numerous dear nieces, nephews and friends. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband and best friend of 63 years, John R. Mhire; her daughter, Annette Mhire; her son, John Brent Mhire; her parents, Willie and Lillian Cormier Grossie; her five siblings, Andrew Grossie, Thomas Grossie, Ruby Arceneaux, Doris Judice and Beverly Lasseigne and her daughter-in-law,Annie Mhire. The family wishes to thank the staff of Hospiceof Acadiana. With aheartfelt appreciation and special thank you to hercaregiver, Sandy Navarre, for the compassionate care given to Hazel and her family. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in Hazel's name to LARC, 303 New Hope Road, Lafayette, LA 70506, 337-984-6110, https://lafayettelarc.org. Online obituary andguest book may be viewed at www.fountainmemorialfun eralhome.com. Fountain Memorial Funeral Home and Cemetery, 1010 Pandora St. 337-981-7098 is in charge of arrangements.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ROMAN CHOP Soldiers of Ukraine’s Fifth Brigade hold a poster thanking the U.S for support Tuesday at the front line near Toretsk, Donetsk region, Ukraine.

Mhire, Hazel G.

La. OMV computers keep crashing

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

Several weeks of computer sys-

tem outages have delayed services at Office of Motor Vehicle sites across Louisiana, frustrating both customers and the agency

facing this week started about three weeks ago,” said OMV Commissioner Dan Casey “It was on and off, and it seems to be getting worse each day.”

their insurance or receive other OMV services It also is impacting public tag agents, which are allowed to perform OMV services on the state’s behalf.

ber tracked the computer system disruptions and found there were 38 hours of downtime between Feb. 21 and March 11.

vices does not yet know how to ﬁx the problem but has “all hands on deck” working to do so, said Casey

“The current issues that we’re

The problem has lengthened wait times for customers seeking to renew their driver’s licenses, register their vehicles, reinstate

According to Adele Dauphin, president of the Louisiana Public Tag Agent Association, one mem-

On Wednesday alone, the system froze at least five times, Casey said. One time, it was out from 9:27 a.m. until 9:56 a.m. The issue then resolved, but only for about half an hour, when the program froze again. The Office of Technology Ser-

The red team rehearses Sunday for The Silverbacks Improv Theatre Improv Rumble at Wonderland Performing Arts

Lafayette.

YES, AND …

Improv comedians take the stage in Lafayette this weekend

BY JOANNA BROWN | Staff writer

Elaine Paramore has been doing improv comedy for more than 20 years now, since her freshman year at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She got started with the university’s student troupe, Cult of the Stage Monkey, and has grown with the local scene ever since helping to found Lafayette’s Silverbacks Improv Theatre and other troupes, and teaching workshops for aspiring improvisers.

This weekend, on Saturday, Paramore is directing Improv Rumble 2025 an annual production by Silverbacks Improv Theatre that pits performers from across south Louisiana and Texas against each other in an audience-juried death match.

The stakes are simple. The winning team gets bragging rights for a year, and the opportunity to show off their stuff to a theater

See IMPROV, page 4B

Sheriff:

Director Elaine Chaisson gives instructions to the cast before rehearsal Sunday for The Silverbacks Improv Theatre Improv Rumble at Wonderland Performing Arts. The Rumble brings together over 30 improvisers from Lafayette and beyond for a family-friendly, high-energy battle of wits and creativity

Alleged Mamou shooter has warrants in St.

The alleged suspect in a Mamou Mardi Gras mass shooting has warrants out of St. Martin Parish in connection with a January drive-by shooting. Trea’land Ty’rell Castille, 19, is wanted on ﬁve counts of aggravated criminal damage to property and six counts of assault with a firearm, according to a St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson. The charges stem from an alleged Jan. 7 drive-by shooting in the parish. No injuries were reported.

Castille was arrested on Saturday in Montgomery County, Texas, in connection with a Mardi Gras shooting. The shooting, which killed two and injured 12, occurred at an outdoor Zydeco concert on the north side of Mamou last Tuesday Montgomery County deputies, officers with the Conroe Police Department and U.S. marshals in the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force apprehended Castille at an apartment complex in South Montgomery County

He was booked into the Montgomery County Jail on two counts of first-degree murder, among other charges. He is awaiting extradition, the Sheriff’s Ofﬁce said. The shooting left the Mamou community in shock. A day prior, three were injured in a separate Lundi Gras shooting. Man arrested for internet sex crimes

An investigation led to the arrest of an Oregon man for alleged internet sex crimes involving an Acadia Parish minor Roland Vann, 31, of Salem Oregon, was arrested and is awaiting

Martin Parish

extradition to Louisiana on charges of indecent behavior with a juvenile and computer-aided solicitation of a juvenile, according to an Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce announcement. Vann is accused of using social media to exchange nude photos with a minor Vann does not appear on the Marion or Polk County jail rosters.

One injured in Tuesday afternoon shooting Opelousas police are

The state believes the root of the problem has to do with trafﬁc in the OMV’s database, which law enforcement and other states use to access drivers’ records.

“What’s happening is that more than one entity may be trying to

Outages ‘getting worse each day,’ commissioner says ä See OMV, page 4B

Man arrested after bomb found

Incident occurred at Lafayette residence

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

A Lafayette man was arrested Tuesday after a bomb was found at his residence off Congress Street in the Saints streets neighborhood a few blocks from the Cajundome. Homes in the direct vicinity of the 200 block of Ridgewood Street, where the device was found, were evacuated Tuesday, and several blocks of the neighborhood were closed to motorists for hours while law enforcement investigated. The situation was ﬁrst reported by police just after 4 p.m. Tuesday Several streets remained cordoned off by police at 7:15 p.m. The arrest was announced around 10:15 p.m. Michael Anthony Mayeux, 43, was arrested Tuesday and charged with one count of manufacture and possession of a bomb and one count of possession of a fake explosive device, Sgt. Robin Green, Lafayette police public information officer said in a news release.

He was booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center Bail was set at $25,000 for the manufacture and possession charge and $5,000 for the fake explosive device charge, according to online booking information from the jail.

BY ALENA MASCHKE Staff writer

On Monday, representatives from Acadiana’s two largest hospital systems, Ochsner Lafayette General and Our Lady of Lourdes, convened a meeting of local leaders in the health and social services sector

The hospital systems announced the results of a mandatory Community Health Needs Assessment and the areas of need they plan to focus on over the next three years. To maintain their tax-exempt status, nonprofit hospitals are required to perform such assessments every three years and provide a plan for addressing the issues identiﬁed in them. The assessment, which was the result of surveys and interviews with community leaders and an

STAFF PHOTOS By BRAD KEMP

on in

Recommendations on Amendments 1, 3, and 4 on the statewide

Louisiana voters have become accustomed to being asked to make tweaks to the state’s governing document, ﬁrst adopted in 1974 and since amended many times.

March 29 will be no different, with four new proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot Chief among them is the lengthy and complicated Amendment 2, the second element of a sweeping tax reform passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov Jeff Landry We will have a fuller explanation and recommendation in Sunday’s newspaper.

Below are our recommendations on the other three amendments on that March 29 ballot

Early voting begins March 15 and runs through March 22.

Amendment 1: Related to attorney discipline and specialty courts. No.

The ﬁrst part of this two-part amendment would clarify and explain the Louisiana Supreme Court’s role in disciplining out-of-state attorneys who practice in state courts for speciﬁc proceedings. The second part would expand the Legislature’s ability to create specialty courts that cross judicial district or parish boundaries.

While we applaud the use of specialty courts, we do not think expanding the number of judges and courts is warranted. It is likely just to create higher costs for Louisiana’s taxpayers and increased fees for those seeking redress through the judicial system. Additionally, the Supreme Court already has power to discipline attorneys who practice in the state. We urge voters to reject this proposed amendment

Amendment 3: Related to juvenile justice No. This newspaper has consistently opposed proposals that would make it easier to try those under the age of 17 as adults in Louisiana’s criminal justice system. This proposal, if enacted, would remove the current list of 16 mostly violent felonies from the constitution and give the Legislature the ability to add and remove crimes to that list at will

We feel the current list of crimes for which juveniles can be tried as adults is sufﬁcient. We recommend a no vote.

Amendment 4: Changing the timing requirements for filling judicial vacancies.Yes.

This largely technical fix to the constitution is needed after the state adopted a closed primary system for some offices, including Supreme Court. Currently, the state constitution requires that an election for judge be held and a seat filled within 12 months of a vacancy occurring. But the closed primary system could require an extra election to choose a new justice, making it impossible to fill the seat if a Supreme Court vacancy occurs at certain times of the year

This fix would require the governor to call the election to fill the role on the same date as a gubernatorial or congressional election if either of them is within 12 months of the vacancy If not, then the election would occur on the first already scheduled election date after the vacancy occurs.

This ﬁx is unlikely to have much of an impact — it does not apply to lower court judgeships. But nevertheless, in the interest of saving money due to extra elections, we recommend support.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’s city of residence The Advocate | The Times-Picayune require a street address and phone 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.

OPINION

I enjoy reading newspapers, all newspapers. My phone has all the apps including The Associated Press, which I heretofore considered a reliable source.

I do, however, tire of the use of anonymous sources, which my background in journalism tells me should only be used sparingly when information is not able to be obtained in any other way More and more, in many of the Associated Press articles, I continue to read information “from an anonymous source” or “from a person not authorized to provide the information.”

Why would I believe an anonymous source, someone who is afraid to stand behind their words? Why would I believe statements from a person who was not authorized to provide information but did it anyway? I conclude that both these individuals have an agenda.

I will provide you with an example. Back in July 2024, I read an AP article which was about Brittney

Griner’s return from Russian imprisonment to compete for the Women’s U.S. Olympic basketball team. The AP writer wrote that Griner was “wrongfully detained.” I wondered why this language was used. She broke Russian law, was arrested, imprisoned, pleaded guilty, was sentenced and subsequently released to the United States. Long story short, I emailed the AP writer and asked him why he used the words “wrongfully detained?”

Needless to say, every article that he wrote thereafter regarding the basketball star contained factually everything I put in my email.

Did this AP writer have an agenda? I thought he did since he was basically parroting a politician’s declaration while leaving out what factually occurred.

I will continue to read the newspapers, but I will always scrutinize for facts and agendas.

AL KARRÉ Lafayette

Columnist George Will’s beautifully written piece in your Feb. 21 edition somewhat fails to present its message in the stark terms that it deserves. Let me try to do just that. If we believe that history repeats itself and we remember Chamberlain at Munich in 1938 declaring peace in our time while giving Czechoslovakia to Hitler with the result being World War II, a clear modern analogy appears: Trump as Chamberlain, Putin as Hitler, Ukraine as Czechoslovakia, and the only question is the ﬁnal result. World War III?

True love of country requires action, not just words

“This is my country, land that I love,” and I stand with her today and every day Where do you stand? Democracy ﬁrst and foremost is my motto. I said the oath to my Constitution more than once: as an enlisted naval reservist, as a federal government employee and as an American every time I pledged allegiance to our wonderful ﬂag. The US of A pledged to try harder, to try to deliver peace and prosperity for everyone. What other country has done more? I can name several that have done less. Stand up or sit down. It is our time to take a stand. Where and when do you stand?

TO SEND US A LETTER, SCAN HERE

Reading the newspaper’s coverage of the two public discourses regarding conﬂicts posing as “freedom of speech” has left me feeling speechless at times. But two words keep surfacing in my mind: civility and laborious.

The Institute for Civility states, “Civility is claiming and caring for one’s identity, needs, and beliefs without degrading someone else in the process.”

Further searches into the frequency of lawsuits with the desire to include crude language in the category of freedom of speech shows a laborious number of times that people have wanted to defend their lack of civility under that banner Simply because someone has won a case regarding this ability to be crude and call it freedom of speech, it doesn’t imply it is moral, ethical or civil.

Has anyone considered the supreme waste of human resources (time, money, mental energy) spent on this topic just so someone can

behave in a rude and crude manner without regard for the value of civil discourse and treating another person with dignity and respect?

When a person in a position of leadership and authority uses crude language publicly, they fail to see that they are degrading themselves in the eyes of the person they are attempting to degrade.

Trying to have a discussion with a person who regularly uses foul language in public arenas is like trying to have a conversation with a belligerent teenager Here’s the irony as I see it: using crude language under the guise of freedom of speech when that very behavior can be intimidating causing the listener to not feel free to express an opposing viewpoint.

That’s a deﬁnition of verbal abuse and abuse of authority when it involves a professor or a public ofﬁcial.

BECKY SMITH St George

MARY LARSON Baton Rouge

A recent article in the newspaper discussed the governor putting his stamp on Louisiana’s high court. The article said that Gov Jeff Landry sought to undermine the inﬂuence of Chief Justice John Weimer because he is registered as no party and has no clear ideological lines. Not being bound by ideological restrictions or commitments seems like a quality we should want and appreciate in all our judges who are supposed to render fair and impartial decisions. It would be nice if at least a few of our other elected ofﬁcials –both local and national — would have that quality and the courage to display it. We shouldn’t want Geppetto to be able to pull everyone’s strings.

BO BIENVENU Prairieville

BERT R. BOYCE Baton Rouge

Judge correct to delay execution

Federal district judge Shelly Dick was absolutely right on March 11 to delay the intended March 18 execution of convicted murderer Jessie Hoffman Jr Hoffman has made a compelling argument that courts, upon full hearing, are likely to decide that execution by the administration of pure nitrogen gas is a “cruel and unusual punishment” that is banned by the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. He makes an even more compelling argument that he has not had adequate time to present his Eighth Amendment claims for full consideration.

And Hoffman makes an irrefutable argument that he would have suffered “irreparable harm” if the execution had been effectuated before he could secure a full hearing on the merits of his Eighth Amendment claims. Legally, the presence of irreparable harm is (quoting multiple precedents) “the single most important prerequisite for the issuance of a preliminary injunction” of the sort Judge Dick granted. Obviously, death is an irreparable harm.

Before considering this case any further, let’s be clear: This is not, repeat not, an argument about whether the death penalty itself is reasonable moral or constitutional. This is a case about how to carry out the death penalty in a reasonable and constitutional, meaning non-torturous, way It is entirely possible to approve of the death penalty in theory while insisting that certain methods should be off-limits because of the extreme pain or superabundant terror they inﬂict.

Despite the breezy assurances by

ST PADDY’S DAY

Louisiana state ofﬁcials that death-bypure-nitrogen is adequately humane, considerable evidence exists to the contrary Start with the fact that almost all veterinary scientists consider nitrogen gas too cruel even for animal euthanasia, and indeed Louisiana itself does not allow veterinarians to use that method.

Then consider that as Louisiana copied its protocols for conducting the execution, it consulted no actual medical experts.

At last Friday’s hearing before Judge Dick, expert witness Dr Philip Bickler, an anesthesiologist with a specialty in human hypoxia (the technical name for deprivation of oxygen) testiﬁed that the procedure would be “exposing [Hoffman] to a lack of oxygen such that both extreme discomfort, distress, pain, and terror would be felt all the way up to the point of losing consciousness.”

Under the circumstances of an execution, Bickler said it could take up to ﬁve minutes to lose consciousness. In other words, that is up to ﬁve full minutes of conscious torture.

This comports entirely with the reactions of all four people the state of Alabama has executed with pure nitrogen over the past year, as described by multiple witnesses each time As reported by The Associated Press and conﬁrmed by others who observed the ﬁrst one, convict Kenneth Smith “began to shake and writhe violently, in thrashing spasms and seizure-like movements….

The force of his movements caused the gurney to visibly move at least once The shaking went on for at least two minutes,” and it took ten minutes before his breathing appeared to stop.

The Rev Dr Jeff Hood, a priest actually in the chamber with Smith, described saliva and mucus ﬁlling Smith’s

A leprechaun, a frog and an alligator all walk into a bar on St. Patrick’s Day.This has a classic joke setup with a Louisiana twist.Who can come up with the funniest punchline for THIS one? Have fun!

So, what’s going on in this cartoon? you tell me. Be witty, funny, crazy, absurd or snarky — just try to keep it clean.There’s no limit on the number of entries.

The winning punchline will be lettered into the word balloon and run on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17 in our print editions and online. In addition, the winner will receive a signed print of the cartoon along with a cool winner’s T-shirt! Some honorable mentions will also be listed.

mask to the point of probable suffocation, his eyes bulging grotesquely – “absolutely, positively a horror show.”

This is not a quick, humane euthanasia. This is not like an anesthetist giving a careful mix of nitrous oxide until a medical patient drifts peacefully to sleep, followed by, say, a lethal shot of morphine the patient cannot even feel.

A death by pure nitrogen looks, on its face, to be a textbook example of an unconstitutionally cruel punishment What this is, is barbaric.

As it is, Louisiana refused to release the protocols for the execution until the day before the hearing before Judge Dick, and even then they featured numerous redactions. As the judge noted, that gave Hoffman virtually no time to prepare or argue the full merits of his case for a different method of death.

“It is in the best interests of the public to examine this newly proposed method of execution on a fully developed record,” Judge Dick wrote. “The public has paramount interest in a legal process that enables thoughtful and wellinformed deliberations, particularly when the ultimate fundamental right, the right to life, is placed in the government’s hands.”

The preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the death-by-nitrogen until a full case can be made and analyzed, is amply justiﬁed. And when that full case is considered, courts should recognize this method of execution to be a screaming violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Both the Constitution and basic human decency demand that some other death penalty method, or none at all, must be chosen.

Quin Hillyer can be reached at quin. hillyer@theadvocate.com.

To enter, email cartooncontest@theadvocate.com. DON’T FORGET! All entries must include your name, home address and phone number Cell numbers are best. The deadline for all entries is midnight,Thursday, March 13.

Perils of society incapable of patience

The number of books, essays, seminars, conferences, and government and foundation grants exploring, and deploring, the ways our screens affect us does not equal the number of American screens Yet. Technology saves time that people can devote to worrying about technology’s consequences.

Historian Daniel J. Boorstin glimpsed the future in 1962. Fortyﬁve years before the iPhone arrived, his book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America” included a joke: A woman exclaims to a mother pushing a pram, “My, that’s a beautiful baby you have there!” The mother replies, “Oh, that’s nothing — you should see his photograph.”

In 1962, television represented the graphic revolution that had begun with photography and continued with movies. The anxiety was that people would prefer the artiﬁcial to the real. In 1960, a telegenic president (John F. Kennedy) had been elected, intensifying worries that the graphic revolution would manipulate us. Today Christine Rosen worries that we are manipulating, and diminishing, ourselves.

With smartphones ubiquitous, Rosen, of the American Enterprise Institute, wonders what becomes of us when we prefer our relationship to reality to be “mediated” by technology In “The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World,” she paints, with illuminating anecdotes, a pointillist picture — often amusing, sometimes ominous — of an era when a museumgoer expresses “disappointment that the Van Gogh he sees hanging on the wall is nowhere near as vibrant as one on his coffee mug.”

Rosen has elegant, well-bred regrets about, inter alia, the slow disappearance of handwriting. Today, hands are trained for swift keystrokes rather than the skillful application of ink to paper An intimacy is lost when texting supplants cursive.

But, then, as Virginia Postrel, author of “The Future and Its Enemies” (1998) says when reviewing Rosen’s book for Reason: Before ink, paper and knowledge of the alphabet became abundant, all communications had to have the intimacy of face-to-face exchanges. How far back should regrets go?

In 2013, the Golden Gate Bridge’s toll collectors were replaced by technology depriving commuters, Rosen says, of “a smile or a hello.” But is life diminished by trading ﬂeeting encounters with cheery toll collectors for quicker commutes?

GPS, she says, is more precise than paper maps but makes its users spectators rather than navigators. What if, however, one simply wants to arrive, without the stimulus of navigating?

“We are awash in social media but our social skills — common courtesy, patience, eye contact are deteriorating.”

The deterioration is real, and she sensibly postulates causation: Being alone with one’s obsessions on social media encourages impatience, intolerance, solipsism and narcissism And “digilante” justice inﬂicted by global mobs policing deviations from mob-deﬁned proprieties. Furthermore, socialization is generally superior when teenagers do not socialize primarily by texting.

Sensible parents know that learning to be bored gracefully should be part of growing up, and Rosen, who knows that “people hate to wait,” understands that “checking your phone to escape the tedium can feel like a micro-revolution

against the tyranny of time.” This escape from boredom feeds what she terms “the relentless acceleration of everyday life.”

And she asks: Might boredom, which is a deeply human experience, “have a purpose?” Would a society without boredom also lack daydreaming, which can express a creative mind?

Her questions are suggestive. So, however, is this: Was the 14th-century peasant who spent dawn to dusk behind an ox, plowing fields for his lordship, bored? Perhaps not. This possibility is horrifying: The peasant, leading a life bereft of distractions, was incapable of boredom. The sudden coming of computers, smartphones, tablets, social media, etc., collectively constitutes a vast, uncontrolled social experiment. It is, however, uncontrolled only in that government, fortunately, has not managed to take charge. Markets (meaning trillions of individual choices), subgroups of society (e.g., schools, parents) and individuals who share Rosen’s doubts increasingly exercise control over screens. Rosen’s refined sensibility is rightly offended by the passivity of people who treat screens as troughs that enable endless gorging on distractions. She cites Ambrose Bierce, the Civil War veteran (he was at Shiloh) whose “The Devil’s Dictionary” defined patience as “a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” Rosen knows, however the perils of a society incapable of patience. She sensibly worries that people who are taught by their screens that they are entitled to instant and constant amusement — people who cannot delay apps’ often watery gratifications — will compose a society too impatient for the pace of deliberative politics: for democracy Email George Will at georgewill@ washpost.com.

During his campaign, Donald Trump promised to deliver great wealth and lower prices Today, his administration is urging Americans to return to subsistence agriculture.

Egg prices have skyrocketed, recently surpassing $8 for a dozen wholesale large eggs Stores are rationing cartons to customers and still getting cleared out. These phenomena are primarily driven by the spread of bird flu, which is forcing farmers to cull their flocks. That’s not Trump’s fault, though it doesn’t help that he accidentally fired bird flu experts at the Agriculture Department — setting off a scramble to rehire them — and deliberately suppressed research on the disease’s transmission.

Pressed about high prices and policy mistakes, the administration has come up with patchwork of pseudo-plans. One is to research chicken vaccination, which many poultry farmers oppose, since some countries restrict imports of vaccinated chicken products (including the United States). The proposal also seems at odds with the administration’s messaging on human vaccination

Another Trump strategy is to scapegoat (scapechicken?) greedy farmers for allegedly anticompetitive conduct, as if they want to kill off their own ﬂocks. Lefty populist groups have been egging this on, despite no evidence that collusion — rather than a huge hit to supply — is driving price increases

Perhaps most eg(g)regiously, the Trump administration is encouraging Americans to cope with high prices by raising their own ﬂocks.

“How do we solve for something like this?” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins asked on Fox News.

In no universe does it make economic sense for every American household — many of whom live in urban areas or even suburbs where it’s illegal to keep live poultry to start farming their own food. The fact that we humans don’t have to spend all our time growing our own sustenance, and can instead specialize in other ﬁelds where we’re more productive, is a tremendous victory for our species.

Our post-agrarian society has allowed Americans to lead richer, healthier, longer, more leisure-ﬁlled lives There’s a reason politicians a century ago promised “a chicken in every pot,” not a “chicken in every yard.”

Encouraging millions of Americans who are completely inexperienced with animal husbandry to become amateur bird farmers in the middle of a bird ﬂu epidemic also seems like a great way to expose more humans to bird ﬂu

This DIY egg production stratagem also raises questions about how the administration expects Americans to grapple with other grocery items that have grown more expensive.

Trump has been levying (and suspending, and levying again) tariffs on lots of common food items, including produce imported from Mexico and dairy from Canada. For now, most of the North American tariffs have been “paused” for another 30 days. But if they do come back, many foods that Americans love to consume will get more expensive, including avocados (90% of which come from Mexico) and fresh tomatoes (two-thirds from Mexico).

Good luck reproducing those supplies in your own backyards. Especially since a key fertilizer ingredient, 80% of which comes from Canada, is still apparently subject to Trump’s punitive tariffs (though at “only” 10%). This tariff will make farming more expensive any time of year

As will tariffs on Canadian lumber, which might come in handy for building those chicken coops On Friday, Trump said additional lumber tariffs were (probably?) back on again.

And if you’re in the market for some chicken wire, unfortunately Trump has also separately announced new tariffs on steel worldwide, not just on products from Canada and Mexico. Those tariffs are set to go into effect next week Domestic steel prices have already been rising in anticipation.

Trump surely understands that limiting access to imports raises prices, because his administration has also ﬂirted with the idea of allowing more egg imports — with the explicit goal of driving down the price of eggs. Importing more eggs has proved complicated, though, and so far there’s not much additional poultry in motion. (Sorry.)

“Homesteading influencer” content might be trendy on social media, but surely the way to Make America Great Again does not involve having everyone raise their own livestock, log their own forests and galvanize their own steel wire. But that is, perhaps, the logical conclusion of Trump’s lifelong fixation with autarky the idea that an economy should not engage in trade and instead be selfsufficient.

If countries should be economically self-supporting, why not states? If states, why not neighborhoods? If neighborhoods, why not every man, woman and child for themselves? Between bird ﬂu and measles and other contagions, adopting the trad-wife/prepper lifestyle might sound pretty attractive right now

Catherine Rampell is on X, @crampell.

George Will

Catherine Rampell

Quin Hillyer

Cajuns navigate mess to defeat Southern

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

It was a night for patience.

Patience by the UL hitters, because there weren’t very many strikes thrown

Patience by the UL coaches and fans, because in the seventh inning during a tied game there were 15 combined walks, nine hit batters and only eight base hits and the game was tied. Fortunately for the Ragin’ Cajuns, they ﬁnally took advantage of the free bases with two runs in the bottom of the eighth to grab the lead for good in a 7-5 win over the Southern Jaguars on Tuesday at Russo Park.

“I don’t know what to say,” UL coach Matt Deggs said. “I spent ﬁve years as a juniorcollege head coach, and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like that

“I feel bad for everybody who had to watch that. It was no bueno. But somebody’s got to win an ugly game. The trick is you suck them into the same game.”

The Cajuns improved to 8-9 while South-

BY JIM KLEINPETER

Contributing writer

A young LSU softball team that was expected to need time to pull together in 2025 instead is 24-1 with a No. 4 national ranking.

Leading the way is one of the team’s most experienced players who leads the Southeastern Conference in batting average and walks, as well as gratitude.

Tigers third baseman and leadoff hitter Danieca Coffey suffered the crushing disappointment last year of her senior season ending after 16 games because of a torn ACL in her left knee. After navigating a year of pain, rehab and tears, she’s way ahead of last year’s pace when she batted .404 with a .500 on-base percentage before the injury Coffey is hitting a white-hot .561 with a .680 on-base percentage second in the league, and 29 walks. The

ﬁfth-year senior is hitting for power, ﬁelding her position fearlessly and deftly stepping into her role as the team leader

“The time out gave me a way different perspective,” said Coffey who leads her team into the opening weekend of league play against Kentucky at 6 p.m. Friday at Tiger Park. “The difference between last year and this year is I know it can be taken from me at any given moment. Every single at-bat, there’s intention behind every single swing. There’s not a chance of letting up because I know what can happen You’re grateful, and you’re working hard every single moment.”

Coffey is clearly one of the nation’s best players. In ﬁve games last week, she batted .750 with an .800 OBP She reached base in 12 consecutive plate appearances during one span and was named SEC Player of the Week for the

BY REED DARCE

women’s basketball team squads in the country a national title. are the No. 10 Tigers’ e Final Four for the coach Kim Mulkey? The will become clearer Tournament bracket p.m. Sunday madness is still more week away, with LSU’s possible game coming earlier than March 21. are five questions to in the meantime about its postseason hopes. SU be seeded? ong bracketologists a No. 3 seed and asregions in Spokane,

ranked No. 7 overall ion committee gave teams on Feb. 26. LSU its last four games,

while a few teams that were ranked lower have built win streaks. North Carolina State (No 8) reached the ACC title game, and TCU (No. 9) and Duke (No. 11) won their respective conference tournaments. Those teams each could jump the Tigers on Selection Sunday bumping them down to a No. 3 seed — the same spot in which LSU began each of the previous three NCAA tournaments.

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HIGH SCHOOLS REPORT

‘Chip

on their shoulders’

STM takes on John Curtis in Division II state semifinals

BY ERIC NARCISSE Staff writer

It’s been a few years since St. Thomas More won a boys state basketball championship.

To be precise, it was 2021 when the Cougars won the last of four consecutive state titles.

After finishing as 2024 runners-up, the third-seeded Cougars will look to make a second straight trip to the Division II select ﬁnal against No. 7 John Curtis at 1 p.m. Thursday at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles

“I think we are peaking at the right time,” coach Danny Broussard said. “You never want to lose, but I really think that loss to David Thibodaux (in the regular season) woke us up a little bit and got us refocused. I like where we are right now. We are playing good basketball.”

The 45-42 loss to the Bulldogs snapped the Cougars’ 14-game winning streak and a shot to win the District 4-4A championship outright.

Since then, the Cougars have won ﬁve in a row

Some didn’t consider the Cougars (31-5) a title contender before the season after losing star players Michael Mouton, Chad Jones and Anthony Angelle to graduation.

“People on the outside, and to be honest even on the inside, didn’t expect us to be very good after what we lost,” Broussard said. “We lost 90% of our scoring from last year’s team and that is hard to replace. That was the sentiment around town.

team I’ve had at STM, but they are the best defensive team in STM history statistically,” Broussard said. “We haven’t had to scorch the nets to get wins. Defense is what has gotten us here.”

They are a solid team.”

When the Cougars need a shutdown defender they call on John Luke Bourque.

McNeese goes back-to-back in Southland, defeats Lamar

LAKE CHARLES, La. — Quadir Copeland scored 18 points and McNeese defeated Lamar 63-54 in a cold-shooting, defensive battle on Wednesday, giving the Cowboys back-to-back Southland Conference Tournament championships. The top-seeded Cowboys (27-6) will be making their fourth appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The Cowboys led wire-to-wire. The lead was 31-22 with two minutes remaining in the ﬁrst half before 3-pointers by second-seeded Lamar’s Andrew Holiﬁeld and Alexis Marmolejos sparked an 8-2 run. McNeese led 33-30 at halftime.

The defensive battle continued in the second half as McNeese went 5 for 15 and Lamar 5 for 23 in the ﬁrst 121/2 minutes after halftime. McNeese led 47-41 at the under-8 timeout.

Seahawks agree to deal with WR Valdes-Scantling

The Seattle Seahawks agreed Wednesday to a one-year deal worth up to $5.5 million with speedster Marquez Valdes-Scantling, according to agent Harold Lewis.

The 30-year-old Valdes-Scantling ended last season with the New Orleans Saints and is one of the game’s better deep threats.

He had 17 catches for 385 yards and four TDs in eight games for the Saints last season after catching just two passes in six games for Buffalo to begin the season. Valdes-Scantling was drafted in the ﬁfth round in 2018, spending four years with Green Bay He then spent two seasons in Kansas City, including the backto-back Super Bowl wins with the Chiefs.

Commanders re-sign Mariota as backup QB

The Washington Commanders are re-upping veteran quarterback Marcus Mariota to back up Jayden Daniels in the Offensive Rookie of the Year’s second NFL season. The Commanders on Wednesday agreed to bring back Mariota and sign cornerback Jonathan Jones and defensive tackle Eddie Goldman, according to a person familiar with the deals under the condition of anonymity Mariota is the latest experienced player to stay in Washington after tight ends Zach Ertz and John Bates and linebacker Bobby Wagner also re-signed.

Fontenot 1-4, RBI. Breaux Bridge 15, Beau Chene 12 Breaux Bridge 241 431 0 — 15 16 3 Beau Chene 000 0(10)2 0 12 8 3 W – C. Laseter (5 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 3 K), L – S. Richard (1 IP, 0 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 2 K). Top Hitters – BBHS: K. Babin 3-3, 3 RBIs; B. Ellender 2-5, 2B, 2 RBIs; E. Theriot 2-3, 2 RBIs; BC: M. Stanford 2-4, 2B, 2 RBIs, J. Ducate 1-4, 2 RBIs; C. Bellard 1-2, RBI. Kaplan 14, David Thibodaux 0 Kaplan 205 52 — 14 10 2 David Thibodaux 000 00 — 0 3 3 W – H. Mire (2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K), L J. Schrader (3 IP, 5 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 4 K). Top Hitters – KAP: R. Broussard 3-4, 2B, 2 3B, 2 RBIs; C. Petry 2-2, 2B, RBI; E. Simon 1-2, 2B, 3 RBIs; DT: J. Schrader 1-1; K. Schexnayder

“But our kids have a chip on their shoulders. They have something to prove, and they were determined not to let the tradition of STM slide. They want to keep it going.”

The Cougars have gotten defensive literally in their pursuit of another title game appearance. The Cougars’ defensive effort has been well-documented, setting a school record by holding opponents to an average of 39.5 points per game.

“This is not the most talented

If the Cougars knock off Curtis to reach the title game, defense will likely get them there.

“John Curtis has been good now for a couple of years,” Broussard said “They have now (talented) basketball players at the school.”

Among them is 6-foot-1 junior guard Autrail Manning, a varsity player since the eighth grade.

“The Manning kid is a special kid,” Broussard said. “But he is not the only one. They have a lot of speed (and) quick hands and they can shoot the (3-pointer).

“John Luke has held the best shooter down against Tioga and against Huntington,” Broussard said. “But it isn’t going to be just one person we have to stop or one person playing defense. It is going to take a total team effort because we have to make sure they don’t get open looks.”

The challenge is something STM is ready for, Broussard said.

“We are going to have our hands full,” he said. “But I know our guys are going to do whatever it takes to win this game.”

Email Eric Narcisse at enarcisse@theadvocate.com.

Degeyter is clutch for Lafayette

Versatile junior lifts

Mighty Lions past Acadiana

BY MIKE COPPAGE Contributing writer

Hunter Degeyter is the star catcher for the Lafayette High baseball team. The junior can hit and pitch, too.

Degeyter broke up Acadiana’s no-hitter in the bottom of the seventh inning with a single, the ﬁrst of four straight hits, and threw a complete game in a 2-1 win in the District 3-5A opener Tuesday at Fabacher Field.

“For a catcher, he throws pretty well on the mound,” Lions coach Sam Taulli said of Degeyter, who allowed four hits with six strikeouts and no walks.

“The freshman (Justin Fontenot) does a good job of receiving. He just has to get a little bigger and stronger

“I feel confident enough in him that I can put Hunter on the mound. Hunter has just enough velocity, and he locates well

enough that we felt like he would give us a good chance.”

Acadiana (7-11, 0-1) took a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh behind pitcher Grady LeBlanc, who struck out ﬁve and walked two. Degeyter and Jack Kline, the Lions’ other top pitcher, each singled to left ﬁeld.

The Rams’ infield shifted just before the first pitch to the next hitter, Warner Laurant, in an attempt to thwart a sacrifice bunt Laurant, however, was swinging away and his ground ball to shortstop rolled into the outfield to score courtesy runner Tagg Trahan.

“I called a hit and run,” Taulli said. “Against a pitcher who locates well, he’s not going to be very errant with his throws. We felt confident he was going to throw a strike. All we had to do was get the barrel on the ball. Hunter did what I asked and did a very good job with it.”

Brodie Dugas’ bunt died just inside fair territory to load the bases for ﬁrst baseman Killian Painter, whose sacriﬁce

ﬂy to left ﬁeld drove in Kline with the winning run for the Lions (10-3 1-0), who have doubled last year’s win

total.

“Hitting is contagious,” Taulli said. “LeBlanc was throwing a great game. We got one hit, which kind of brought down our blood pressure Now we can work a little, get bunts down, get a little hit-and-run action.

“We knew my very large ﬁrst baseman doesn’t run very well, so he cannot put the ball on the ground. I told him, ‘We’re not squeezing with the bases loaded and no outs.’ That could run us into a problem, so I said to just try to get something into the air.”

An RBI single from Cam Guidry brought home Hunter Truxillo in the third inning for the Rams, who will host the Lions at 4 p.m. Thursday Andre Manrique, Collin DiBetta and Truxillo each singled for Acadiana.

“I’m proud of the kids,” Taulli said. “They stayed the course. They didn’t get too high or too low We knew we were going to be OK on the mound and defense. We were throwing pretty much our best and knew we were facing theirs, so we ﬁgured it was going to be a low-scoring game. We just wanted to keep it close until the end.

The Commanders also worked out a couple of big trades to acquire wide receiver Deebo Samuel from San Francisco and left tackle Laremy Tunsil from Houston

Chargers sign Steelers RB Harris, free agent CB Jackson

The Los Angeles Chargers signed former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Najee Harris and free agent cornerback Donte Jackson on Wednesday Harris brings durability having started all 68 games regular-season games with the Steelers.

A ﬁrst-round pick out of Alabama in 2021, he topped 1,000 yards in each of his ﬁrst four NFL seasons. He was a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie. Jackson also comes over from Pittsburgh, where he made 15 regular-season starts last year after being traded from Carolina.

He had a career-high ﬁve interceptions over that span before missing two of the ﬁnal three games with a back issue. He’s expected to add a veteran presence to the Chargers’ young cornerback group.

Rams release Super Bowl 56 MVP wide receiver Kupp

The Los Angles Rams cut Super Bowl 56 MVP Cooper Kupp after being unable to ﬁnd a trade partner for their former No 1 wide receiver The Rams ofﬁcially moved on from the 2021 AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year on Wednesday Kupp announced last month that the Rams were trying to trade him despite his desire to remain with the team.

But with him being owed $20 million this season, no other team was willing to make a trade. Kupp won the receiving triple crown and Super Bowl MVP in the 2021 season when he caught 145 passes for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns. Kupp added 33 catches for 478 yards and six TDs in the postseason and the game-winning

STAFF PHOTO By BRAD KEMP

St. Thomas More guard John Luke Bourque drives to the basket against Huntington during their LHSAA Division II select postseason game at St. Thomas More High School on Friday

LSU transfers ﬁlling important roles already

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

Name an LSU football position group, and there’s a strong chance it has a transfer or two in line to play a key role during the 2025 season.

This offseason, coach Brian Kelly and his staff pursued a wave of players from the transfer portal, marking a shift in their rosterbuilding philosophy. Now, the Tigers have a revamped roster with 16 transfers a group that comprises the No. 1 portal haul in the country, according to 247Sports.

“All of them have a presence pretty much in our two-deep,” Kelly said, “and that’s saying a lot.”

LSU opened a 20-minute viewing window of its third spring practice to media on Wednesday. In that period, transfers dotted the ﬁeld in the limited offensive team drills the Tigers conducted, yet most worked behind an incumbent player in rotations that Kelly said will change as practices continue.

LSU

Continued from page 1C

a position under first-year New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore.

Davis, like many of his predecessors, coached only one season at LSU.

“I don’t know why,” Kelly said about the churn. “It’s just turned out that way.”

LSU hopes it found something more permanent with Williams, a Ruston native who starred on the Tigers team that won the 2003 national championship. He’s never coached at the collegiate level before, but for the last ﬁve seasons, he worked as the defensive coordinator at Ruston High.

There, Williams drew on the experience he gained at both the collegiate level and pros Across 13 seasons with the Buffalo Bills, he recorded 481/2 sacks and 103 tackles for loss, and appeared in six Pro Bowls.

“We’re looking for some continuity at the position,” Kelly said, and Kyle was looking to settle in, and so, that was an attractive match for us from that perspective. There were certainly other things, but that was one of them.”

CAJUNS

Continued from page 1C

ern dropped to 7-7.

By the end of the three-hour, 22-minute contest, the two teams had combined for 20 walks, 10 hit batters, ﬁve wild pitches, ﬁve errors, 21 men left on base and 343 total pitches were thrown

Trailing 5-2, the Cajuns got two runs in the sixth and another in the seventh without needing a hit. Five hit batters and three walks helped lead to the runs. By the end of the seventh, UL had stranded 13 runners

The Cajuns took the lead for good in the eighth when Caleb Stelly delivered an RBI single up the middle. A Southern wild pitch added an insurance run for the Cajuns.

UL’s run in the first came when Griffin Hebert stole two bases and scored on a Mark Collins groundout. In the third, Parker Smith walked and scored on a balk Southern scored on a wild pitch in the second; Taj Bates had an RBI single in the third; and five walks by UL pitchers in the fifth got two more Jaguars home. Southern’s fifth run came on a steal of home on the back end of a double steal.

“Literally we gave them every run,” Deggs said. “They got three hits.” Prior to UL scoring two runs in the eighth to take the lead for good, the two teams had combined for 10 runs and only one of them was because of a hit.

The Cajuns stranded 14 runners in the game.

Returners comprised the preliminary first-team offense. AaronAnderson, Zavion Thomas and Chris Hilton were the receivers; Trey’Dez Green was the tight end; Caden Durham was the running back; and all five starters on the offensive line were players who appeared in games for LSU during the 2024 season. The five starters, from the left side to the right, were Tyree Adams, Paul Mubenga, DJ Chester, Bo Bordelon and Weston Davis Transfer receivers Barion Brown (Kentucky) and Destyn Hill (Florida State) ran with LSU’s second-team offense, which was led by transfer quarterback MichaelVan Buren Transfer tight end Bauer Sharp (Oklahoma) slotted into that group as well, along with transfer offensive lineman Braelin Moore (Virginia Tech), who played center alongside two freshmen — Carius Curne and Solomon Thomas and two redshirt freshmen — Coen Echols and Ethan Calloway That depth chart undoubtedly will change. Transfer receiver Nic Anderson

LSU still has two defensive line coaches, as defensive coordinator Blake Baker prefers. Kevin Peoples is back coaching the edge rushers, and Williams is now guiding the interior linemen. On Wednesday, Kelly said he spent a few minutes observing those drills and came away impressed with how Williams “connects with his players.”

“He clearly understands the nuances of the position,” Kelly said, “and can articulate and communicate that effectively to those that need to go play it.”

Williams also will need to help LSU recruit and retain players — a pair of Davis’ strengths.

(Oklahoma) will ﬁll a prominent

role So too will Moore and fellow transfer lineman Josh Thompson (Northwestern), who’s expected to join the team next week.

That list doesn’t even include the defense, which LSU beefed up with additions to the secondary and defensive line. The Tigers plucked three new pass rushers, two cornerbacks and one safety from the transfer portal.

It’s still early, but Kelly is pleased with the early returns on a transfer class that LSU needs to step in and ﬁll some important roles.

“To immediately jump into a twodeep situation with all those guys,” Kelly said, “and factor into what we’re doing, I would say that we’re very pleased with all of them.”

O-lineman yet to enroll

Thompson is the only LSU transfer who hasn’t enrolled at the university and joined the team. But Kelly expects the ﬁfth-year senior offensive lineman to join

rankings.

Kelly tamped down concerns that losing Davis, or cycling through yet another defensive line coach, will hurt LSU’s chances of retaining those players or landing additional ones in later cycles.

“Kyle got on the phone with our recruits,” Kelly said, “and spent time with the players because you start a new relationship. But it’s LSU really, and it’s the football program that at the end of the day is put under the spotlight, and we feel confident that that will stand up in most cases.”

“He clearly understands the nuances of the position and can articulate and communicate that effectively to those that

need to go play it.”

This offseason, Kelly and his staff added nine edge rushers and tackles, four via the transfer portal and ﬁve from the high school ranks. So far, they have one defensive lineman committed to their 2026 freshman class: Edna Karr’s Richard Anderson, a top-50 national prospect and one of the three best recruits in Louisiana, according to 247Sports composite

BRIAN KELLy, LSU coach, on new DL coach Kyle Williams

Williams signed a three-year deal with LSU. This season, he’ll pocket $700,000 — the same amount that Peoples is earning under his current contract.

Davis was earning $1.35 million, more than any other defensive line coach in the country Wilson Alexander contributed to this report.

Email Reed Darcey at reed. darcey@theadvocate.com.

UL outﬁelder

the Tigers next week once he ﬁnishes his coursework at Northwestern.

“A versatile player that can play guard or tackle,” Kelly said. “We haven’t decided where that will be. It’ll be putting the pieces together to see how that fits. He’s smart, he’s physical, and he brings us an experienced offensive lineman.”

Thompson transferred to LSU in December after spending four seasons at Northwestern. Last year, the 6-foot-5, 310-pounder started 10 games at right guard. In 2023, he started eight games at right tackle. In 2024, Thompson allowed only eight pressures, according to Pro Football Focus, without giving up a sack.

LSU signed two offensive linemen from the transfer portal in the offseason to help it replace the four starters it’s losing to the NFL.

One of them is Thompson and the other is Moore, a redshirt junior who started 24 contests across the previous two seasons at Virginia

COFFEY

Continued from page 1C

second time this season. Her ability as an ignition switch for the LSU offense was never in doubt. But she is also showing improved power numbers with a .758 slugging percentage and matching her career high with two homers.

She said she’s as strong as she’s ever been, but the power improvement is attributable to pitch selection and a more mature hitting philosophy

“I’ve talked with (assistant coach) Bryce (Neal) a lot about hunting pitches,” Coffey said. “Before, I knew I was a good hitter and just wanted to get on base. This year is more about doing damage. If I hunt this one pitch, I can hit it to the scoreboard. If I’m hitting inside and outside, I’m going to get my normal hit and get on base. I want people to be afraid to leave the ball over the plate.

“I want to play professionally; singles ain’t going to cut it. I need to hunt pitches and do damage.”

LSU coach Beth Torina marvels at Coffey’s ability

“Danieca is one of the best players in the country, best hitters in the country,” she said. “She can cover the entire zone. When I call pitches against her in practices and scrimmages, she’s one of the toughest outs you’re ever going to ﬁnd. It’s tough for her to have an off-day because she can hit so many different pitches speeds and parts of the zone.”

Her defense hasn’t suffered, even with the memory of her in-

TIGERS

Continued from page 1C

for the SEC Tournament, giving her roughly three weeks to alleviate the pain.

The bad news for the Tigers is that Morrow will have less time to manage her injury

The good news is that she dodged something more serious than a foot sprain when she went down in the Southeastern Conference Tournament semiﬁnal against Texas. Mulkey said Morrow even tried to return to that game, but LSU held her out because it has “bigger ﬁsh to fry.”

Any lessons from SEC tourney?

When the Tigers are at their best, they can both score and defend as well as any team in the country LSU notched 101 points in a quarterfinal win over Florida. Then it held Texas to only 56 in the semiﬁnals.

Tech. Kelly has said that the Tigers are planning to play Moore at center and move Chester to guard.

Injury update

Injured LSU starters Whit Weeks and Jacobian Guillory did not participate in practice Wednesday, but both were spotted riding exercise bikes on the sideline.

Weeks, a first-team All-Southeastern Conference linebacker, suffered a broken fibula in the Texas Bowl on Dec. 31. Guillory a sixth-year interior defensive lineman, tore an Achilles tendon in September

Kelly told The Advocate in February that Guillory could participate in individual drills during spring practices but that Weeks won’t be cleared until June.

LSU expects Guillory, Weeks and Harold Perkins a linebacker recovering from a torn ACL — to be ready for preseason practices. Wilson Alexander contributed to this report.

jury still fresh in mind. She dismisses it as a “freak accident” and has made the same play multiple times this season without a hitch, charging in from third to ﬁeld a bunt or dribbler

The role Coffey was unaccustomed to was being a vocal leader In the past, she deferred to players such as Taylor Pleasants and Ali Newland.

Now, she embraces leadership as easily as she grips the bat.

“Her stats speak for themselves,” junior pitcher Sydney Berzon said. “She is the leader of this team. Her knowledge, experience, everything she has to offer helps us every day at practice and the games. She really brings this team together I’m happy to have her another year.”

Recently during a postgame huddle, Coffey interrupted the message to deliver a few thoughts of her own, something she might not have done last year

“It’s nice to see her conﬁdent enough to do that,” Torina said.

“She’s holding the standard and holding them accountable.

“She’s really growing into that role. She’s obviously been that for us in her actions and what she’s done in the program her entire time. She’s starting to become more vocal (now).”

Coffey believes it is more important what the rest of the team thinks than what she says.

“What I’ve learned about being a leader is if you give the role to other people, they love to lead, too,” she said. “Everybody has a voice in what we’re doing. My biggest thing is making sure everyone can voice their opinion and know it’s heard.”

dicated that she’ll let the matchup dictate which ballhandler will play more minutes.

Day-Wilson earned more run against Kentucky on Feb 23, for example, because LSU wanted her to defend point guard Georgia Amoore. That plan worked: Amoore scored only four points on 2-of-9 shooting in the second half, which helped the Tigers erase a double-digit steal and steal a win on the road.

LSU thinks games against teams such as Texas are better matchups for Poa. In the two games against the Longhorns, she played more than twice as many minutes as Day-Wilson did because the Tigers needed someone to help them evade full-court pressure — a job tailored more to Poa’s game.

Mulkey likely will take the same approach in the tournament.

She may even carve out more minutesforMjracleSheppard,who averaged 10 points and 2.5 steals per game in the SEC Tournament while starting in place of Johnson. Long road trip ahead?

“And they were all what we call alpha ABs — in scoring position with less than two outs,” Deggs said. “It’s approach and experience related. Thank goodness, they walked us and hit us.” Southern starter Genesis Prosper didn’t contribute much to the sloppiness. The sophomore righthander allowed only two runs on ﬁve hits, four walks and two strikeouts. The Southern pitchers hit seven batters, which was one shy of a school record for UL hit batters in a game. UL starter Riley Marcotte gave up one unearned run on two hits, one walk and one strikeout in two innings.

Caleb Stelly had the game-winning RBI single up the middle during the Cajuns’ 7-5

Cajuns reliever Dylan Theut struck out two in one scoreless inning, but he limped off the ﬁeld. “I don’t know,” Deggs said of Theut’s status. “He rolled his ankle on the pitch. We’ll see.”

Andrew Herrmann (2-1) got the win with two no-hit innings with one walk and one strikeout. “I thought he did great,” Deggs said Herrmann. “He’s whatever we need. Everybody is whatever we need right now until we can get this thing steadied.”

Email Kevin Foote at kfoote@theadvocate.com.

The problem? The LSU defense allowed the Gators’ 10th-ranked SEC offense to tally 87 points on 48% shooting a day before the Tigers scrounged together only 49 pointsagainsttheLonghorns That’s the fewest points they’ve scored in a single game under Mulkey Johnson will soon return to the court, giving LSU a boost at both ends of the ﬂoor

But the Tigers likely will have trouble reaching the Final Four unless they can marry their best offensive and defensive efforts against the teams they’ll encounter in the NCAA Tournament.

Is LSU settled at point guard?

Not really Shayeann Day-Wilson and Last-Tear Poa have split those duties for the last seven games or so, and Mulkey has in-

It sure looks like it. Remember the women’s tournament has two regional sites, not four Those cities are Spokane, Washington, and Birmingham, Alabama, this year Birmingham really has room for only two top teams from the SEC: South Carolina and Texas. LSU could’ve earned one of those spots, but it lost too many games down the stretch of the regular season. Now the Tigers likely will have to settle for a long ﬂight to the Paciﬁc Northwest.

That’s assuming, of course, they can advance past the ﬁrst two rounds of the tournament. Those games will take place inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center

STAFF PHOTO By BRAD KEMP

win over Southern on Tuesday.

Allen sets his sights on Super Bowl ring

BY JOHN WAWROW AP sportswriter

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y As blessed as Josh Allen considers himself following a year in which he was voted NFL MVP, got engaged to a Hollywood actress and became one of the league’s top-paid players, one item remains on the Buffalo Bills quarterback’s to-do list.

Win a Super Bowl, of course.

“Anybody I run into, friend or not friend, it’s always a congrats for having a heck of a year,” Allen told reporters on Wednesday “And when you kind of look back at it, the only thing missing is ﬁnishing our season with a win,” he said. “That’s really the only thing I’m thinking about, just trying to continue to get better and ﬁnd a way to bring a Lombardi Trophy to western New York.”

Though his focus remains on the future, Allen took time to appreciate the moment, three days after agreeing to a six-year, $330 million contract extension, with an NFLrecord $250 million guaranteed.

“It’s a pretty surreal feeling And 8-year-old me would obviously be just as pumped as a 28-year-old me,” Allen said, speaking on a Zoom call from his offseason base

in Southern California.

“I just think I’m blessed. Sometimes it is a little breath-taking, or you can’t ﬁnd the right words on how to describe it,” he added. “I’m

a pretty lucky guy.”

Resilient, too, as Allen also reflected on the obstacles he has overcome: from starting his career at Reedley Community College in

Central California, to transferring to Wyoming, where he was knocked for being raw and inaccurate, never mind those who continued to doubt him over the past year

“Maybe, we’ll see,” Allen said with a laugh on whether he’s closed the book on being called overrated.

Though the closest he has led the Bills to a Super Bowl berth is two AFC championship game losses to Kansas City in 2020 and this past season, Allen has a hold on his adopted community and team that are unquestioned since Buffalo traded up five spots to draft him seventh overall in 2018

He has set nearly every singleseason franchise passing and scoring record for his position while leading Buffalo to five straight AFC East titles.

And he’s coming off a season regarded as his most memorable on and off the ﬁeld.

Allen became the Bills third player to win MVP honors, being recognized for essentially achieving more with less after Buffalo traded top threat Stefon Diggs to Houston and lost No. 2 receiver Gabe Davis in free agency He combined for 41 touchdowns, including one receiv-

SCOREBOARD

ing, with a career-low six interceptions in a 13-win season.

Off the ﬁeld, he got engaged to Hailee Steinfeld in November

“I’m so grateful for what’s going on in my life and ﬁnding the person that I want to share it with,” Allen said. “When you have that piece figured out, it seems like everything else kind of comes a little bit easier.”

Now Allen has a new contract that locks him in through 2030, a deal he negotiated with an eye on helping the team. As eye-popping as the numbers are, Allen made sure the contract helped the Bills by freeing up much-needed salary cap space in order to retain and add talent.

The beneﬁts were readily apparent in the days leading up to free agency on Wednesday The Bills upgraded their defensive line by signing edge rusher Joey Bosa and tackle Larry Ogunjobi to one-year deals and landed receiver Joshua Palmer

“It’s weird to say this, but what is $5 million more going to do for my life that I can’t already do right now. It’s not that crazy to me,” Allen said. “I was like, if it has any impact on the cap, let’s ﬁgure out a way to not do that.”

(2);

(L,

WP — Wylie (1); Noot (1); Ware (3). HBP — by Noot (MISCH, C.); by Wylie (Dickinson); by Wylie (Pearson, Js.). PB — Priester (2). Inherited runners/scored: Wylie

2 (2); Stelly (1); Cuff 2 (5). CS Thibodeaux (5); M. Latulas(1); Higgs(2). Southern IP

(W 2-1)

WP — J. Vazquez (1); McGown 3 (4); Marcotte (1). HBP — by Prosper (Wright); by Marcotte (Johnson); by Ford Jr. (Cuff); by Vazquez (Artigues); by Vazquez (Amedee); by Taylor (Bates); by Vazquez (Higgs); by Vazquez (Stelly); by Brown (Cuff). BK — Prosper(2). Inherited runners/scored: J. Vazquez 2/2; O Brown 2/0; P. Huff 3/1; A. McGown 2/1; Kirby 3/2; Taylor, W. 1/1; Theut 1/0. Umpires — HP: Robert Schlicher 1B: Colby Vidrine 2B: Michael Carroll 3B: Brandon Castille Start: 6:04 pm Time: 3:22 Attendance: 2293 College softball

Tuesday’s games UL-Monroe 7 Grambling 0 Baylor 11, Northwestern St. 2 Minnesota 2, McNeese 0 LSU 14, UL 0, 5 innings Wednesday’s games No games scheduled Thursday’s games No games scheduled. Friday’s games Grambling at UAPB, TBA UIW at Nicholls (DH), 4 p.m. Southeastern at Houston Christian (DH), 4 p.m Southern at Alcorn, 4 p.m. UL at Marshall, 5 p.m. Georgia State at UL-Monroe, 5 p.m. Louisiana Tech at UTEP,

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders 63 Nicholls 74, Incarnate Word 70 Semifinals Tuesday’s games McNeese St. 83, Northwestern St. 64 Lamar 58, Nicholls 55 Championship Wednesday’s game McNeese St. 63, Lamar 54 Men’s SEC Tournament Glance At Bridgestone Arena Nashville, Tenn. First Round Wednesday’s games Arkansas 72, South Carolina 68 Texas 79, Vanderbilt 72 Mississippi St. vs. LSU, n Georgia vs. Oklahoma, n Second Round Thursday’s games Mississippi vs. Arkansas, 1 p.m. Texas A&M vs. Texas, 3:30 p.m. Missouri vs. Mississippi St.-LSU-winner, 7 p.m. Kentucky vs. Georgia-Oklahoma-winner, 9:30 p.m. Quarterfinals Friday’s games Auburn vs. Mississippi-Arkansas-winner, 1 p.m. Tennessee vs. Texas A&M-Texas-winner, 3:30 p.m. Florida vs. TBD, 7 p.m. Alabama vs. TBD, 9:30 p.m. Semifinals

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By CHARLIE RIEDEL

Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen looks to pass during the second half of the AFC championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Jan. 27 in Kansas City, Mo.

Jan Risher

Miss Mary’s coconut pie is

the

perfect formula for Pi Day

Finding a reason to eat a good pie shouldn’t require a national holiday That said, when Congress declared March 14 as National Pi Day in 2009, I joined the ranks of believers that baking a pie this week is an excellent notion.

My go-to pie is a French Silk pie. Sometimes I dream about it.

When Amy Martin shared her family’s long-time and much-loved coconut pie recipe, I thought, “This is the perfect dish to try for Pi Day.”

I’m pleased to say that I was right. Martin lives in Lafayette but is originally from Magnolia, Arkansas, population 10,769. The recipe she shared is one her paternal grandmother made often Her grandmother, Frances Young Hall, learned the recipe from Mary Tarkington, who worked with the family for decades.

“Miss Mary was amazing,” Martin said. “She taught me how to cook. She taught my grandmother how to cook. That’s where a lot of our recipes come from.”

Martin, who has a lot of baking credibility herself, says that coconut pie was her family’s traditional birthday treat

used Amy

family recipe to bake this old-fashioned coconut pie in celebration of Pi Day.

The recipe is straightforward and simple — no fancy ingredients. Pretty much, it’s butter, eggs, coconut, vanilla ﬂavoring, milk and sugar Martin says sometimes she makes her own pie crust, and sometimes she buys the boxed kind. At Martin’s recommendation, I used a prepared pie crust that was frozen. Once it thawed, I unrolled it and sprinkled salt on it.

“My grandmother taught me to do that. It makes a storebought pie crust almost taste homemade,” she said.

ä See THE DISH, page 6C

BY LINDA GASSENHEIMER Tribune News Service (TNS)

I was hungry for an Asian-inspired quick dinner and thought of this dish. Lo

FEELING LUCKY

Hearty lamb stew and apple cake a fitting way to celebrate Irish heritage

Kevin Belton

Because my wife Monica is not from New Orleans, she often has questions. Recently, she was curious about the wide space between West End and Pontchartrain boulevards, noting that it didn’t seem like it was supposed to be a park.

I told her that in the 1830s, a canal was built linking Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River to improve the city’s transportation infrastructure. The project was largely done by Irish immigrants, many of whom arrived in New Orleans after ﬂeeing the Irish potato famine. These men, desperate for work and a new life in America, found themselves in treacherous conditions as they worked to dig the canal through the swamps and marshlands of the city

ä See HERITAGE, page 6C

and

Irish Lamb Stew

STAFF PHOTO By JAN RISHER

Jan Risher

Martin’s

PHOTO By MONICA BELTON

Share the sidewalk! It’s not that hard

Dear Miss Manners: When walking or biking on a sidewalk or a trail, I often encounter three individuals walking or riding abreast Instead of their moving to single ﬁle to let me pass, I’m forced to move aside to the grass or curb. When I was walking on a narrow pier, keeping to my side, I was approached by this woman walking on my side rather than staying on hers. I deliberately continued to walk straight toward her We would have collided if I had not, once again, stepped aside. Should I call out this rude behavior?

dividuals might seem like a good idea, but it would put you on the wrong side of both etiquette and the rules of right of way

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Gentle reader: Yelling “gangway!” as you plow into the offending in-

Coconut Pie

Recipe is by Mary Tarkington of Magnolia, Arkansas, from the recipe box of Frances Young Hall. Makes one pie.

One rudeness does not justify another And being off-course does not relieve you of the duty to avoid a collision

Miss Manners admits you might be in technical compliance were you to force them to change course by stopping in place. But this will be cold comfort if it results in your being run down Better to step aside with a startling, “Excuse me!” that will cause them to look up as they go by Dear Miss Manners: My parents run a guesthouse that is ﬁlled mostly

THE DISH

Continued from page 5C

I gave her method a try and agree that the sprinkle of salt made a difference. A couple of other tips Martin offered were: n After the pie bakes, it will still be a bit “jiggly” when the time comes to take it out of the oven —

that’s normal. n Cream of Tartar is essential for the right meringue. Until this week, I had never made a coconut pie before Maybe it was because, like Martin, when I was a kid, I didn’t think I liked coconut pie. Now, it seems like one of the biggest treats around. I will deﬁnitely be making this one again. It’s worthy

with people they consider friends. Guests often gather directly on the other side of a door that separates the guests’ quarters from ours. When I close the door for privacy, it feels as if I am rudely shutting the door in the guests’ faces. When the door remains open, guests frequently walk into our quarters — uninvited, even in the middle of dinner — and interrupt us. Is there something I can say politely as I close the door? Or is there a polite way I can voice my discontent for the unwelcome interruptions?

Gentle reader: Please remind Miss Manners to tell the business world to stop getting into etiquette, because they take things that everyone understood and

not browned pie crust.

3. Bake at 300 F for 40-60 minutes or until ﬁrm.

Meringue

3 egg whites

½ teaspoon vanilla ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

6 tablespoons sugar

1. Beat egg whites with vanilla and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.

2. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff.

3. Place on cooked pie and brown in oven. (I baked about 15 minutes.)

of its own national holiday

Thanks, Miss Mary You, too, can send in the recipe for your signature dish. Each week, Jan Risher picks a different dish to try at home. She compares notes with the cook who sent in the recipe. If you’ve got a great dish you think others would love, email Jan. Risher@theadvocate.com.

Chunky

Apple Cake Makes 15 servings.

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition Combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in apple cubes until well combined.

2. Spread into a greased 9-inch by 13-inch baking dish. Bake at 350 F for 40-

45 minutes or until top is lightly browned and springs back when lightly touched. Cool for 30 minutes before serving.

3. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, combine brown sugar and butter Cook over medium heat until butter is melted. Gradually add cream. Bring to a slow boil over medium heat, stirring constantly Remove from the heat. Serve with cake.

muddy them up beyond all recognition. Yes, it is perfectly polite to close the door when you need privacy All you have to do is go to the door, say, “Excuse me, I’m going to close the door for a little while now,” and do so. No, there is no easy way to tell someone who appears at an open door that they are not welcome: At the very least, you will have to speak to them civilly and listen while they respond.

This was all perfectly simple until someone’s boss established an “open-door policy” and told everyone they were always available to talk — and then punished people foolish enough to take them seriously

Dear Miss Manners: One of our

By The Associated Press

Today is Thursday March 13, the 72nd day of 2025. There are 293 days left in the year

Today in history

On March 13, 2013, Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope, choosing the papal name Francis. He was the ﬁrst pontiff from the Americas, and the ﬁrst from outside Europe since Pope Gregory III’s death in the year 741.

On this date:

In 1781, the seventh planet of the solar system, Uranus, was discovered by astronomer William Herschel.

In 1925, the Tennessee General Assembly approved the Butler Act, which prohibited public schools from teaching of the theory of evolution.

(Gov Austin Peay signed the measure on March 21; the bill was challenged in court later that year in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. Tennessee ultimately repealed the law in 1967.)

In 1946, U.S. Army Pfc. Sadao Munemori was

friends is very seriously ill. I hosted a party and assumed they would not be able to attend, so I did not extend them an invitation. It was very presumptuous of me and I feel awful. How can I apologize? They discovered it partly through other friends talking about it.

Gentle reader: “I feel terrible. I got confused and thought you had told me you were unavailable. Will you please forgive me?”

Send questions to Miss Manners at her website, www missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.

IN HISTORY

posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for sacriﬁcing himself to save fellow soldiers from a grenade explosion in Seravezza, Italy; he was the only Japanese American service member so recognized in the immediate aftermath of World War II.

In 1954, the pivotal Battle of Dien Bien Phu began during the First Indochina War as Viet Minh forces attacked French troops, who were defeated nearly two months later

In 1996, a gunman entered an elementary school in Dunblane, Scotland, and opened ﬁre, killing 16 children and one teacher before killing himself; it remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history

In 2020, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman, was fatally shot in her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky, during a botched raid by plainclothes narcotics detectives searching for

Continued from page 5C

Thousands of Irish laborers are believed to have perished during the construction of the New Basin Canal, a staggering loss of life that casts a shadow over the ambitious project. A cholera epidemic about the same time may have made the death toll seem even higher But in any case, the working conditions they endured were brutal. The labor was physically demanding, involving long hours in sweltering heat and the marshy, disease-ridden landscape surrounding the canal What made it even more deadly were diseases like yellow fever and malaria

that spread throughout the area The canal was finished by 1838. By the 1950s, it was mostly filled in, leaving the wide grassy space there today The Irish went on to help shape New Orleans’ identity, establishing strong neighborhoods, churches and organizations that reflected their culture and traditions. While the death of so many workers was an unimaginable loss, their legacy lives on in the city they helped build. In true New Orleans style, we celebrate the city’s Irish heritage by parading with The Irish Channel St. Patrick’s Day parade and an Irish American parade. We cook we eat and we remember

This lamb stew is hearty and ﬁlled with ﬂavor and I wish I had been around to make it for all those Irish immigrants to nourish their bodies and souls. The apple cake is perfection because it is moist and sweet but not too sweet. And you can control the sweetness by how much caramel (and ice cream) you decide to add.

Kevin Belton is resident chef of WWL-TV and has taught classes in Louisiana cooking for 30 years. The most recent of his four cookbooks, “Kevin Belton’s Cookin’ Louisiana: Flavors from the Parishes of the Pelican State,” was published in 2021. Email Chef at chefkevinbelton@ gmail.com.

STAFF PHOTO By JAN RISHER

In celebration of Pi Day 2025, Jan Risher used Amy Martin’s family recipe to bake this oldfashioned coconut pie.

PHOTO By MONICA BELTON

Chunky Apple Cake

force

later found

based on false information. Today’s Birthdays: Songwriter Mike Stoller is 92. Singersongwriter Neil Sedaka is 86. Actor William H. Macy is 75. Actor Dana Delany is 69. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., is

Bassist Adam Clayton (U2) is 65. Jazz musician Terence Blanchard is 63. Actor Annabeth Gish is 54. Rapper-actor Common is 53. Actor Emile Hirsch is 40. Olympic ski-

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Line up your activities and lock them in to avoid confusion or disappointment. Precision and detailwillhelpavoidunexpectedexpenses and double bookings.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Explorethepossibilities and nurture your curiosity. What you experience will help shape what's to come.Havingconfidenceinyourselfwill change the way others perceive you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) When one door shuts, another opens. Accept change and make the most of it. Let your energy flow in directions that provide the excitement and desire you long for.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Take a moment to breatheandrethinkyouroptions.Refuse to let your ego or emotions interfere with wise choices. Verify facts before buying into something lacking substance.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Put your energy into your work or source of income. An innovative attitude and persistent drive to do your best will fetch good results if you don't go overboard. Balance will be the key to your success.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Do what suits you best. Refuse to participate in someone else's drama or dreams. Concentrate on learning and living life in a manner suitable for reaching your destination of choice.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Set doable goals. Refrain from letting anyone talk you into taking on too much. Learn to adjust to

changes you cannot control and organize your time to accommodate your to-do list.

LIBRA (Sept 23-Oct 23) Stretch your mind. Consider how you can use your intellectual and physical attributes to complete your mission without causing distress or hurting your reputation.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Participate in activitiesthatpromotephysicalandmental stimulation. Meeting people heading inasimilardirectionisencouraged.Take nothing for granted; when in doubt, ask.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Leave yourself time to nurture meaningful relationships. Set boundaries with people who take advantage of you. Put in the work, set high standards and walk away from toxic situations.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Put your energy where it counts. Focus more on your health and well-being and less on trying to please someone who drains your energy. Run the show instead of letting someone else dictate what's next.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Overreacting will not solve problems. If there is something you don't like, change it. Put together a budget you can live with. Try to maintain a positive attitude.

By Andrews McMeel Syndication

Celebrity Cipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present. Each letter in the cipher stands for another.

TODAy'S CLUE: S EQUALS F

CeLebrItY CIpher

For better or For WorSe peAnUtS

And erneSt

SALLY Forth

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

SherMAn’S LAGoon

dooneSbUrY

bIG nAte

Sudoku

InstructIons: Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

THe wiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

BY PHILLIP ALDER

When you are the declarer, sometimes your opponents will defend well and make your life somewhere between difficult and impossible. More often, though, they will not find the best plays, making your task much easier.

Take today’s deal as an example. South is in four hearts. After West leads the spade king, what is the best defense? If East and West find that sequence of plays, what is declarer’s correct line mathematically?

Three no-trump is easy here, but if South had rebid that, North, with four trumps and a low doubleton, would have corrected to four hearts.

Under West’s spade king, East encourageswithhisnine.NowWestshouldcash his spade queen, then lead a third spade (preferably the 10 as a suit-preference signal for diamonds, the higher-ranking of the other two side suits) to East’s ace. Then East should shift to the diamond four.

Southhastwolinesofplay Hecantake the diamond finesse — a straight 50-50 shot. Or he can win with his diamond ace and run all of his trumps, discarding a diamond from the dummy He gets home if clubs are 3-3 — a 35.53 percent chance — or if a defender has four-plus clubs and the diamond king. (He will be squeezed by the last heart.) Even allowing for the squeeze chance, mathemati-

cally the diamond finesse is the better line — and fails here.

However, if West wins the third spade trick and exits with a trump, declarer can cash his trumps, pitching a diamond from the dummy, then

By Andrews McMeel

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C.

Wall Street rises after promising inflation data

U.S. stock indexes rose Wednesday after Wall Street got some relief from an encouraging inflation update. But even on a rare up day for the market, President Donald Trump’s trade war still knocked stocks around.

The S&P 500 gained after skidding between an early gain of 1.3% and a later loss. The unsettled trading came a day after the index brieﬂy fell more than 10% below its all-time high set last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average also pinballed sharply, careening between a rise of 287 points and a drop of 423. It ended with a loss while the Nasdaq composite climbed.

Companies in the artiﬁcial-intelligence industry lead the way

Nvidia climbed 6.4% to trim its loss for the year so far to 13.8%.

Server-maker Super Micro Computer rose 4%, and GE Vernova, which is helping to power AI data centers, gained 5.1%.

Intel hires former board member as new CEO

Struggling chipmaker Intel has hired former board member and semiconductor industry veteran Lip-Bu Tan as the latest in a succession of CEOs to attempt to turn around a once-dominant company that helped deﬁne Silicon Valley Tan, 65, will take over the daunting job next Tuesday, more than three months after Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, abruptly retired amid a deepening downturn that triggered massive layoffs and raised questions about the chipmaker’s ability to survive as an independent company

This won’t be Tan’s ﬁrst time running a semiconductor company, nor his ﬁrst association with Intel. He spent more than a decade as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which makes software that helps designs processors, and joined Intel’s board of directors in 2022 before stepping down in August Tan will rejoin Intel’s board in addition to becoming CEO. Although Gelsinger arrived at Intel in February 2021 amid high hopes, his tenure was a major letdown as Intel’s stock price plunged 60%, wiping out $160 billion in shareholder wealth Leading up to his departure last year, Intel laid of 17,500 of its employees about 15% of its workforce — and suspended its dividend to save money on its way to an annual loss of $19 billion.

More recently, Intel delayed the opening of two new chip factories in Ohio to ensure the projects are completed in a “financially responsible manner.” The project is supposed to draw upon the $7.8 billion in funding earmarked for Intel in the CHIPS Incentives Program created during the administration of President Joe Biden. Trump to name top Fed bank regulator

The Trump administration is expected to choose Federal Reserve governor Michelle Bowman to be the central bank’s top ﬁnancial regulator, according to a person familiar with the decision who spoke on condition of anonymity. Bowman, who has been a member of the Fed’s governing board for six years, would replace Michael Barr, who stepped down last month. Barr, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, came under attack from big U.S. banks after proposing that they hold more capital in reserve in a 2023 regulatory reform proposal. Bowman’s appointment was reported earlier Wednesday by Bloomberg News. Bowman, along with Fed governor Christopher Waller voted against Barr’s proposal. She was appointed to the board by President Donald Trump in 2018. Barr resigned from his post as vice chair for supervision but has remained on the Fed’s board of governors. As a result, Trump was forced to choose from among the existing governors, rather than appointing someone from outside the Fed.

U.S. inflation cooled last month

One measure falls to four-year low

BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP economics writer

WASHINGTON — U.S. inﬂation slowed last month for the ﬁrst time since September and a measure of underlying inflation fell to a fouryear low, even as widespread tariffs threaten to send prices higher

The consumer price index increased 2.8% in February from a year ago, Wednesday’s report from the Labor Department showed, down from 3% the previ-

ous month. Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, rose 3.1% from a year earlier, down from 3.3% in January. The core ﬁgure is the lowest since April 2021.

The declines were greater than economists expected, according to a survey by data provider FactSet. Yet inﬂation remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target And most economists expect inﬂation will remain elevated this year as Trump’s tariffs kick in.

The report “is encouraging news, though it doesn’t tell us much about where inflation is headed,” said Oren Klachkin, Nationwide Financial Markets econ-

omist, in an email. “With tariffs possibly set to push goods prices higher we see inﬂation risks as tilted to the upside.”

On a monthly basis, inflation also came in much lower than expected Consumer prices rose 0.2% in February from the previous month, down from a big 0.5% jump in January And core prices rose just 0.2%, below the 0.4% increase in January. Economists watch core prices because they are typically a better guide to inﬂation’s future path.

A sharp drop in airfares, which fell 4% just in February from the previous month, helped bring down overall inflation. Rental

price increases also slowed and the costs of hotel rooms and car insurance rose much more slowly in February than the previous month. The price of new cars fell last month compared with January Grocery prices were unchanged last month from January, bringing some relief to consumers grappling with a 25% jump in grocery prices from four years ago. How big an impact Trump’s tariffs will have on prices remains unclear, for now The duties have roiled ﬁnancial markets and could sharply slow the economy, and some analysts see the odds of a recession rising.

Steel, aluminum tariffs may cause pain

BY PAUL WISEMAN and JOSH BOAK Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is again lashing out at three of his biggest irritants: foreign steel, foreign aluminum and Canada.

The Trump administration on Wednesday effectively plastered 25% taxes — tariffs — on all steel and aluminum imports. The president said on Tuesday that the U.S. would double the forthcoming levy on the two metals to 50% if they come from Canada — but pulled back on the threat by the afternoon after the province of Ontario suspended its plans for retaliatory tariffs.

The pain won’t just be felt by foreign steel and aluminum plants. The tariffs will likely drive up costs for American companies that use the metals, such as automakers, construction ﬁrms and beverage makers that use cans. The threats to the economy have rattled stock markets

“Unilateral tariffs will raise prices, cost American jobs, and strain alliances,” Philip Luck and Evan Brown, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote

in a report last month.

The latest tariffs are an amped-up replay from Trump’s ﬁrst term. In 2018, in an effort to protect American steel-makers from foreign competition, he imposed tariffs of 25% on foreign steel and 10% on aluminum, using a 1962 trade law to declare them a threat to U.S. national security

Trump’s first-term steel and aluminum tariffs beneﬁted American producers of the two metals, encouraging them to increase production. But the beneﬁciaries were relatively few: The U.S. steel industry, for instance, employs fewer than 150,000 people. Walmart alone has 1.6 million employees in the United States.

Moreover, economists have found, the gains to the steel and aluminum industries were more than offset by the cost they imposed on “downstream” manufacturers that use steel and aluminum. In 2021, production at such companies dropped by nearly $3.5 billion because of the tariffs, canceling out the $2.3 billion uptick in production that year by aluminum producers and steel-makers, the U.S. International Trade Commission

found in 2023.

This time, “there is no particular reason to think that the economics won’t be more of the same: small gains for the U.S. steel and aluminum producers and employees, but larger overall losses for the rest of U S manufacturing,” said Christine McDaniel, research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center

The president insists that steel imports are a threat to the very existence of the United States. “If we don’t have, as an example, steel, and lots of other things, we don’t have a military and frankly we won’t have — we just won’t have a country very long,” Trump said last week in his joint address to Congress. The scope and unpredictability of Trump’s tariff agenda threatens to rekindle inflation and to slow growth by discouraging companies from making investments until the trade tensions have eased. “If you’re an executive in the board room, are you really going to tell your board it’s the time to expand that assembly line?” said John Murphy, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Egg prices continue to hit records as holidays approach

Experts say some relief may be coming

BY MAE ANDERSON Associated Press

NEW YORK — Egg prices again reached a record high in February, as the bird ﬂu continues to run rampant and Easter and Passover approach.

The latest monthly Consumer Price Index showed a dozen Grade A eggs cost an average of $5.90 in

birds,

the tunnel. The USDA reported

last week that egg shortages are easing and wholesale prices are dropping, which might provide relief on the retail side before this year’s late Easter, which is three weeks later than last year It said there had been no major bird ﬂu outbreak for two weeks.

“Shoppers have begun to see shell egg offerings in the dairy case becoming more reliable although retail price levels have yet to adjust and remain off-putting to many,” the USDA wrote in the March 7 report

David Anderson, a professor and extension economist for livestock and food marketing at Texas A&M University, said wholesale ﬁgures dropping is a good sign that prices

could go down as shoppers react to the high prices by buying fewer eggs.

“What that should tell us is things are easing a little bit in terms of prices,” he said. “So going forward, the next CPI report may very well indicate falling egg prices.” However, he doesn’t expect lasting changes until bird stock can be replenished and production can be replaced.

“Record high prices is a market signal to producers to produce more, but it takes time to be able to produce more, and we just haven’t had enough time for that to happen yet,” he said. “But I do think it’s going to happen. But it’s going to take some more months to get there.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS PHOTO By JUSTIN TANG

A participant holds an ‘Elbows Up Canada’ sign Sunday during a rally on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario.