The Times-Picayune 03-24-2025 by The Advocate

WHERE BUSINESS & CULTURE COLLIDE

La. congressional districts on Monday docket

much like the old one, with five majority-White districts and one majority-Black district.

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

A group of Black voters, known as the Robinson litigants, filed a legal challenge arguing the Voting Rights Act required two majorityBlack districts, because roughly a third of the state is Black and the districts could be conﬁgured to be compact while linking communities with similar interests.

But a second group of “non-African Americans,” known as the Callais litigants, then filed their own lawsuit, claiming the new map relies primarily on race and is an illegal gerrymander under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. A special panel of three federal judges ruled in their favor That has left Louisiana in a legal limbo that the state wants the Supreme Court to address.

U.S. Supreme Court to weigh if race or politics was the main factor in redrawing ä

General Liz Murrill said in a ﬁling to the Supreme Court.

The state and Robinson litigants are now on the same side in pressing for two Black-majority districts.

The Callais litigants say they will lean on the special panel’s rulings in arguing their case.

When Louisiana was required to draw new U.S. House districts due to population changes in the 2020 census, it originally passed a map

WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday will hear oral arguments in the long-running, backand-forth legal battle over whether Louisiana should have two majority-Black congressional districts. The justices will sort out inconsistent court rulings and issue a decision that will shape politics in Louisiana for years to come. It also could dictate how legislatures across the nation balance the often conﬂicting requirements of the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause.

A federal judge agreed. Gov Jeff Landry and the Legislature created a new map with two majority-Black districts.

“To put the situation bluntly, the state is stuck in an endless game of ping-pong and the state is the ball, not a player,” state Attorney

“We’ll be focusing on the threejudge district court’s well-supported factual ﬁndings that the second Black-majority district is neither compact nor consistent with

From the brink

Merger between nonproﬁts Save Our Cemeteries, Preservation Resource Center salvages mission

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer

For much of the past half century, visitors eager for a tour of one of New Orleans’ historic cemeteries could be guided by a volunteer from Save Our Cemeteries, a local nonprofit founded to preserve and restore the city’s unique burial grounds, revered for their aboveground tombs and ties to the Creole past. But earlier this year, financial issues prompted a change. Save Our Cemeteries has officially dissolved and is merging its operations into the Preservation Resource Center, a larger nonprofit that will take over the group’s cemetery tours and aims to keep alive the mission of preserving historic cemeteries.

The merger, which became ofﬁcial in late

ä See CEMETERIES, page 3A

By BRETT DUKE

ABOVE: Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, closed to the public by the city in 2019 for badly needed repairs, has not yet reopened BELOW: Jamie Barker right, leads a tour through St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 in New Orleans.

ELECTION 2025

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

Controversial changes, other local issues on Saturday ballot

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

On Saturday residents in every parish will have the chance to vote on four proposed amendments to the Louisiana Constitution.

DISTRICTS, page 3A ä Critics fear Amendment 3 goes too far to curb juvenile crime.

The changes deal with courts, taxes, how juveniles are treated in the criminal justice system, and elections for judges. Three of the constitutional amendments have faced controversy — and court challenges. One of those, Amendment 2, is part of a push by Gov. Jeff Landry and the Legislature to overhaul Louisiana’s tax system.

This month, every ballot includes the four proposed amendments, but some parishes will vote on local issues, too. There are 23 parishes that will consider just the amendments, while 41 parishes will also vote on local races or propositions. Voters can ﬁnd out where to vote at geauxvote.com, on the GeauxVote mobile app or by calling their parish registrar of voters. Here are the four proposed constitutional amendments in the order they appear on the ballot.

Amendment 1 This amendment would give state lawmakers new, broader authority to create regional or statewide

See BALLOT, page 4A

STAFF PHOTOS

BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS

Schumer says he won’t step down as leader WASHINGTON Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer says he won’t resign his post, despite pressure from some in his party after he voted to move forward with a Republican spending bill that avoided a government shutdown.

“Look, I’m not stepping down,” Schumer said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday The New York senator said he knew voting for the bill backed by Republican President Donald Trump would spark “a lot of controversy.”

“I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was,” he said. “People disagree.”

Democrats last week were confronted with two painful options: Allowing passage of a bill they believe gave Trump vast discretion on spending decisions or letting funding lapse. After Schumer said he’d vote to advance the spending measure, 10 Democrats supported breaking the party’s ﬁlibuster and allowing the bill to pass Schumer’s move has sparked outrage from some Democrats and progressive activists who protested at his ofﬁce and called on him to resign his position. They said they’d like to see him face a primary challenge — perhaps from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The uproar prompted Schumer last week to postpone his book tour amid a series of planned progressive demonstrations. Schumer isn’t up for reelection until 2028.

He told NBC that the spending bill that funds the government through September was “certainly bad.”

Wildfires prompt evacuations in Carolinas

Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation in one North Carolina county as emergency crews fought separate fires in an area of the state still recovering from Hurricane Helene, while South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation starting at 8:20 p.m Saturday for parts of Polk County in western North Carolina about 80 miles west of Charlotte.

“Visibility in area will be reduced and roads/evacuation routes can become blocked; if you do not leave now, you could be trapped, injured, or killed,” the agency said in a social media post. The public safety department said a shelter had been established in Columbus, North Carolina

The North Carolina Forest Service’s online wildfire public viewer indicated three active fires in Polk County, with the two largest spanning between 1.7 and 1.9 square miles Two other fires were active in nearby Burke and Madison counties, with a third wildfire burning in Stokes County on the northern border with Virginia.

In South Carolina, Gov Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency Saturday as part of an effort to stop a blaze in Pickens County called the Table Rock Fire that started the previous day in an area within the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“As this wildfire continues to spread, the State of Emergency allows us to mobilize resources quickly and ensure our firefighters have the support they need to protect lives and property,” McMaster said in a statement that reinforced a statewide outdoor burning ban issued Friday by the South Carolina Forestry Commission.

Pope released from hospital

Francis spent 5 weeks fighting double pneumonia

BY NICOLE WINFIELD, PAOLO SANTALUCIA and TRISHA THOMAS Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — A frail Pope

Francis returned to the Vatican on Sunday after a five-week hospitalization for life-threatening double pneumonia, and he made a surprise stop at his favorite basilica on the way home before beginning two months of prescribed rest and recovery.

The 88-year-old pope sat in the front passenger seat of his white Fiat 500L wearing nasal tubes to give him supplemental oxygen as he entered the Perugino gate of Vatican City, where his return brought relief after fears that his illness could be fatal or lead to another papal resignation.

Francis’ motorcade from Gemelli hospital overshot the Vatican initially and took a detour across town to stop at St. Mary Major basilica, where the pope’s favorite icon of the Madonna is located and where he always goes to pray after a foreign visit.

He didn’t get out of the car but gave a bouquet of ﬂowers to the basilica’s cardinal to place in front of the Salus populi Romani icon.

The Byzantine-style painting on wood is revered by Romans and is so important to Francis that he has chosen to be buried in the basilica to be near it

The tour through Rome’s historic center came after Francis made his first appearance in five weeks to give a thumbs-up and brief blessing from a hospital balcony Hundreds of people had gathered on a brilliant spring Sunday morning to say goodbye and catch a ﬁrst glimpse of Francis, who seemed to be gasping for air.

“I see this woman with the yellow ﬂowers. Brava!”

a bloated-looking Francis said in a breathless voice. He gave a weak sign of the cross before being wheeled

Gaza officials say Israel struck major hospital

BY WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip

Israel’s military struck the largest hospital in southern Gaza on Sunday night, killing one person, wounding others and causing a large fire, the territory’s Health Ministry said.

The strike hit the surgical building of Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis, the ministry said, days after the facility was overwhelmed with dead and wounded when Israel resumed the war in Gaza last week with a surprise wave of airstrikes.

Israel’s military confirmed the strike on the hospital, saying it hit a Hamas militant operating there. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas.

Like other medical facilities around Gaza, Nasser Hospital has been damaged by Israeli raids and strikes throughout the war

More than 50,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the war, the Health Ministry said earlier Sunday

The military claimed to have “eliminated” dozens of militants since Israel ended a ceaseﬁre Tuesday with strikes that killed hundreds of people on

one of the deadliest days in the 17-month war

Israel’s unrest over Gaza and political issues grew Sunday, with anger at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as his government voted to express no conﬁdence in the attorney general, seen by many as a check on the power of his coalition.

“I’m worried for the future of this country And I think it has to stop. We have to change direction,” said Avital Halperin, one of hundreds of protesters outside Netanyahu’s office. Police said three were arrested.

Israel’s military ordered thousands of Palestinians to leave the heavily destroyed Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in the southern city of Rafah. They walked to Muwasi, a sprawling area of squalid tent camps. The war has forced most of Gaza’s population of over 2 million to flee within the territory, often multiple times.

The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service said it lost contact with a 10-member team responding to the strikes in Rafah. Spokesperson Nebal Farsakh said some were wounded.

Israel’s military said it had fired on advancing “suspicious vehicles” and later discovered some were ambulances and ﬁre trucks.

back inside.

Chants of “Viva il papa!” and “Papa Francesco” erupted from the crowd, which included patients who had been wheeled outside just to catch his brief appearance.

Doctors say Francis needs two months of rest and convalescence at the Vatican, during which he should refrain from meeting with big groups of people or exerting himself. But they said he should be able to resume all his normal activities eventually His return home, after the longest hospitalization of his 12-year papacy and the second-longest in recent papal history brought tangible relief to the Vatican

and Catholic faithful who have been anxiously following 38 days of medical ups and downs and wondering if Francis would make it.

“Today I feel a great joy,” said Dr Rossella Russomando, who was at Gemelli on Sunday but did not treat Francis. “It is the demonstration that all our prayers, all the rosary prayers from all over the world, brought this grace.”

The Rev Enzo Fortunato, who heads a papal committee dedicated to children, said it was clear that Francis was happy to return home and would surely improve, especially after receiving so many get-well cards from children from around the world.

“If the ﬁrst medicine was the affection of the children, the second medicine is deﬁnitely (going) home,” Fortunato said. “It will certainly speed up his recovery.”

At the Vatican, where a Holy Year is underway, pilgrims cheered and applauded when Francis’ greeting from Gemelli was broadcast live on giant TV screens in St. Peter’s Square.

“For me it was an important emotional experience to see him, because many people were waiting for this moment,” said Sister Luisa Jimènez, a nun from Francis’ native Argentina.

Another nun from the same order, Colombian Sister Angel Bernal Amparo, expressed concern, given his bloating and inability to speak much.

“He didn’t look well,” she said. “He couldn’t (talk) and I realized it was because of his breathing and, well, he left right there. But I was glad to have seen him.” No special arrangements have been made at the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican hotel where Francis lives in a two-room suite on the second ﬂoor next to the basilica. He will have supplemental oxygen and 24-hour medical care as needed, although his personal physician, Dr Luigi Carbone, said he hoped Francis would progressively need less and less assistance breathing as his lungs recover

Ukraine-U.S. talks start in Riyadh

Russia-U.S meeting to follow

BY DARYNA KRASNOLUTSKA Bloomberg News (TNS)

Talks in Riyadh between Ukrainian and U.S. officials, part of an effort to end Russia’s three-year invasion of its neighbor, started on Sunday afternoon, Ukraine’s defense minister said.

The discussions are expected to be followed on Monday by a meeting between the U.S. and Russia. Moscow’s delegation has arrived in Riyadh, Tass reported, citing team member Grigory Karasin, chairman of the Federation Council’s committee on International Affairs.

“We are implementing the president of Ukraine’s directive to bring a just peace closer and to strengthen security,”

Ukrainian defense chief Rustem Umerov said on social media, adding that Sunday’s agenda includes proposals to protect energy facilities and critical infrastructure.

“Today we’re working through a number of complex technical issues — our delegation includes energy experts as well as military representatives from the naval and air components,” Umerov said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said that special emphasis on preparation for the meeting took place during a gathering of his military cabinet in Kharkiv Umerov attended that meeting, along with Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Andrii Hnatov, the forces’ chief of general staff, and top Zelenskyy aides. Mike Waltz, U.S. national security adviser said the upcoming talks among “technical teams” would focus on a potential Black Sea maritime ceasefire He suggested that would lead into discussions about

“the line of control, which is the actual front lines” of the conﬂict, which started when Kremlin forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

“That gets into the details of veriﬁcation mechanisms, peace-keeping, freezing the lines where they are,” Waltz said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And then, of course, the broader and permanent peace” including security guarantees for Ukraine.

It’s unclear how far discussions will advance in Riyadh, whether more meetings will be scheduled, or what con-

cessions Russia is prepared to offer Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state TV that negotiators from Moscow will be ready to discuss nuances of resumption of the Black Sea initiative in Riyadh, without elaborating. As of 2024 Russia occupied an estimated 20% of Ukraine in the nation’s east and southeast, including Crimea, with about 3 million Ukrainians estimated to be living under Russian occupation with millions more displaced and many others — including children deported to Russia.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By DOMENICO STINELLIS

Pope Francis gestures as he appears Sunday at a window of the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ABDEL KAREEM HANA

Displaced Palestinians who fled from Rafah amid ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip arrive Sunday in Khan younis, Gaza.

traditional redistricting principles. It was purposely drawn relying predominantly on race,” said Edward D. Greim, the Kansas City lawyer representing the Callais parties.

But Cleo Fields, the Baton Rouge Democrat who occupies the newly created seat, believes the high court will deem the Legislature’s map appropriate.

While acknowledging that “it is not the most compact district,” Fields said he thinks the Supreme Court will ﬁnd the state complied with both the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection. Fields added that other Louisiana congressional districts are more spread out.

“For the Supreme Court to say you can’t do it like that would mean that no legislature in the country can draw congressional lines,” he said.

Race or politics?

The ultimate question before the Supreme Court is whether in trying to comply with the Voting Rights Act, the Legislature relied too much on race, violating the Equal Protection Clause

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed because Southern states had created obstacles that kept Black citizens from participating in elections, including diluting Black voter strength by spreading their numbers across districts with White majorities. Voters in Louisiana’s majority-White districts have never elected a Black candidate to Congress.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights

CEMETERIES

Continued from page 1A

February came as Save Our Cemeteries dealt with the closures of several of the city’s most popular and oldest historic cemeteries to the public.

Giving tours of historic cemeteries was Save Our Cemeteries’ main source of revenue.

“We probably would have been able to remain as an independent organization, but our board felt this was a better way to keep our mission alive,” said Sally Asher, who chaired the Save Our Cemeteries board and is now a PRC board member “It’s not a loss. It’s a power merger.”

The PRC, which has a shared history with Save Our Cemeteries and a similar mission, has a larger budget and more resources, making it a natural partner to take over the organization and continue its work, according to PRC Executive Director Danielle del Sol.

The PRC also hopes to expand Save Our Cemeteries’ tour business to potentially include cemeteries that have been shuttered for years because of disrepair

“One of our ﬁrst priorities is to ﬁgure out how to reopen Lafayette No. 1,” del Sol said of the 192-yearold cemetery on Washington Avenue across from Commander’s Palace in the Garden District

The city, which owns Lafayette No. 1, closed it to the public in 2019 to make badly needed repairs to the historic tombs and never reopened it.

“There is a lot of interest in that cemetery, and it is an important community asset,” del Sol said

Act requires legislators to create a minority-majority district when populations are large enough, geographically compact and follow traditional redistricting principles such as linking communities that share similar interests.

But the Equal Protection Clause forbids using race as the predominant factor in creating congressional districts. The clause is in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which was passed in 1868 to protect recently freed slaves.

The Callais parties argue that Louisiana’s Black population doesn’t live close enough together to support creating two majorityBlack districts. The fact that the new district stretches from Baton Rouge to Lafayette to Shreveport is evidence legislators were using

race to draw a district with the goal of creating a second Black district, they argue.

That argument resonated with two of three judges on the special panel deciding the Callais challenge. They ruled race was the predominating factor for the Legislature’s 2024 map. The Supreme Court’s ultimate decision will be made in the context of whether the panel’s majority was correct.

The third panelist, former 5th Circuit Chief Judge Carl Stewart, of Shreveport, disagreed with the majority He said the Robinson claimants presented evidence that while race was a factor politics predominated. The new maps protected White majorities in the districts of three Republicans, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Benton,

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Jefferson, and Rep. Julia Letlow of Start, and also targeted Baton Rouge Republican Rep. Garret Graves, who had run afoul of Landry and Scalise.

Victoria Wenger, a New York lawyer with the Legal Defense Fund, which represents the Robinson litigants, pointed out that her clients preferred a second Black-majority district between Monroe and Baton Rouge that had a sufﬁciently large and geographically compact minority population But that map would have endangered the reelection of Letlow and Johnson, so legislators chose to target Graves’ 6th Congressional District instead.

“We certainly say politics was on par, if not superseding how race was considered,” Wenger said.

What justices might do

After Monday’s hearing, a decision by the Supreme Court likely won’t come until late May or June.

The court has several options.

It could accept the Legislature’s map, which would guarantee the second majority-Black district until the next U.S. census in 2030, or order legislators to redraw the map following instructions by the justices that may or may not require a second majority-Black district. Another possibility is sending the case back to the three-judge panel for a new map and a decision on whether a second Black-majority district is needed or possible.

Two recent Supreme Court rulings, one from Alabama in 2022 and the other from South Carolina in 2024, offer clues to what the justices might be looking for in the Louisiana case.

The Alabama decision, which required the state’s legislature to redraw its congressional map to include a second Black-majority district, found that race can be a factor under the Voting Rights Act

Shared history, similar mission

The PRC and Save Our Cemeteries have ties dating back more than 50 years Both groups were founded in 1974 and by similar constituencies.

Neighborhood advocates and members of the Junior League of New Orleans founded the PRC to help preserve and revitalize New Orleans’ historic buildings and neighborhoods. Over the decades, its programs, education and advocacy efforts have been instrumental in the revitalization of Coliseum Square and the Lower Garden District, the Warehouse District and Algiers Point, among other neighborhoods.

Mary Louise Christovich, a civic leader and Junior League member at the time, founded Save Our Cemeteries the same year to save the wall vaults at St. Louis Cemetery No. 2, a nearly 200-year-old cemetery on North Claiborne Avenue on the edge of the French

Quarter

The mission of the organization later expanded to include advocacy for the dozens of historic cemeteries citywide, doing work to help improve the sometimes dire conditions at local cemeteries.

“Save Our Cemeteries has put a ton of work into restoration and documentation of some of our oldest cemeteries,” del Sol said. “We are really excited we will be able to bring back a focus on that original mission.”

Challenging market conditions

The city has approximately 42 historic cemeteries, known and marketed to visitors as “cities of the dead,” because of their aboveground tombs reﬂecting the city’s French, Spanish and Caribbean heritage — and its propensity to ﬂood. Thousands of visitors to the city include historic cemetery tours on their list of must-see attractions.

As tourism became an increas-

in states with a history of diluting Black voter strength, provided the second minority-majority district complies with traditional redistricting principles, such as compactness

The South Carolina case allowed moving precincts because of race as long as state legislators have a political reason for doing so in that case to preserve a Republican seat in the U.S. House.

Several attorneys general from GOP-run states argued in a friendof-the-court brief in the Louisiana case that the Voting Rights Act is violated only if minority populations are forbidden from registering to vote or are blocked from voting. Attorneys general from 19 Democratrun states countered that spreading minority voters in small numbers across districts packed with White voters effectively keeps minorities from being represented properly

A March 6 report from the Brennan Center for Justice, which is afﬁliated with the New York University Law School, found Black voter turnout in Louisiana’s new majority-Black district increased by about 6% in the November election.

Alice Washington, of Baton Rouge, one of the Robinson litigants, said she became involved when trying to understand voter apathy

“I discovered that people didn’t feel that their vote mattered. They didn’t feel they had a voice,” Washington said. “In districts where you got a 70% majority and like a 30% minority population, there was never an opportunity where we were going to win and get our person in, no matter what we did. A second majority-minority district encourages citizens to want to vote, to want to become a part of the legislative process.”

Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate.com

court by independent tour operators, some of whom said they were forced to go out of business.

Save Our Cemeteries was not a party to the lawsuit but Asher said the organization “struggled to pivot from those closures.”

Broader reach, more potential

Talks about a potential merger between Save Our Cemeteries and the PRC began in 2023, after a board member with Save Our Cemeteries approached the PRC. Both groups felt it was a natural ﬁt, ofﬁcials with both organization say

ingly important driver of the local economy in the 1980s and 1990s, Save Our Cemeteries capitalized on growing interest in the sites and began giving cemetery tours as a way to generate revenue to support its mission.

But over time, they began to face competition from private tour companies and independent tour guides. Then, in 2019, the city shut down Lafayette No. 1, which had been among the most popular tours offered by Save Our Cemeteries, del Sol said.

The following year, the pandemic forced the closure of all cemetery tours for several months.

When they were allowed to reopen, the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which owns several of the oldest cemeteries in the city, decided not to reopen St. Louis No. 2 and limited public access to the 226-yearold St. Louis No. 1 to all but a single private tour company

The controversial move was challenged unsuccessfully in

The PRC is now running Save Our Cemeteries and plans to hire a full-time director to head the new department, as well as a parttime employee to coordinate tours of three popular cemeteries — St. Louis No. 3, which is located on Esplanade Avenue, St. Roch Cemetery and Metairie Cemetery

Because the PRC has a broader reach and more robust social media platform than Save Our Cemeteries did, del Sol believes it will be better able to take the historic cemetery tours to a new level.

“We will be the only nonproﬁt organization giving cemetery tours,” she said. “We think that will matter to people.”

Asher, meanwhile, will continue to work as a volunteer, along with others, on educating the community about the importance of New Orleans’ historic cemeteries.

“Ideally we would like to restore more tombs and help people navigate the legal and permit requirements of how to restore tombs,” she said.

Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@theadvocate. com.

specialty courts Currently they can only create specialty courts, such as drug courts or family preservation courts, within a parish or a judicial district.

It would also clarify that, under the Louisiana Constitution, the state Supreme Court has authority over disciplinary cases involving lawyer misconduct by outof-state attorneys working in Louisiana. Currently, the constitution only says the Supreme Court has authority over “disciplinary proceedings against a member of the bar.”

Proponents say Amendment 1 will give lawmakers ﬂexibility to set up new legal forums like business courts requiring specialized knowledge, something many states already do.

“The amendment will give the Legislature the ﬂexibility to create new courts to address the needs of our citizens,” said Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, who sponsored the measure. “If we need a regional drug court or mental health court, this amendment will allow the Legislature to create one.”

Proponents of the amendment also argue it would empower Louisiana to punish out-of-state bad actors.

Opponents, however, say the amendment is too vague, and the true impetus behind the proposed changes is unclear Some legislators who voted against the amendment argued it was a way for conservative lawmakers to strip power from judges they think are too liberal.

Leaders for a Better Louisiana, a state policy advocacy group that formed this year through a merger of the statewide business roundtable Committee of 100 and Council for a Better Louisiana, opposes Amendment 1.

“To date there has been little to no discussion about whether there is a need to create a new business court or expand the jurisdiction of drug or other specialty courts,” an analysis of the amendment prepared by Better Louisiana states. “Nor has the Legislature addressed the signiﬁcant problems that currently exist with the high number of judges Louisiana already has (and) the disparities in their caseloads.”

Amendment 2

This amendment would restructure one of the 14 articles of the Louisiana Constitution that deals with taxes, debt, savings, investing and budgets.

Broadly, it would give state lawmakers more power to decide which revenue streams should fund government and how to spend those funds. It would also place a lower cap on income tax rates. And it would make it harder for lawmakers to increase government spending and to pass new tax breaks

State individual income tax would be capped at 3.75% in the constitution, down from the current cap of 4.75%. Seniors 65 years and older would be eligible to double their standard income tax deduction.

Groceries, residential utilities and prescription drugs would continue to be exempt from state sales tax under the constitution.

Local governments would be constitutionally required to mirror the same sales tax exemptions as the state moving forward. The constitution would also authorize the state to administer a centralized tax collection system.

Amendment 2 would remove many property tax exemptions from the constitution. They would remain in state statute, but legislators could eliminate them with a two-thirds vote, instead of requiring voter approval.

The affected property tax exemptions include public lands property owned by nonproﬁts, labor groups or fraternal organizations, boats and medical equipment, among others.

The Industrial Tax Exemption Program, which sometimes creates controversy by generating millions of dollars of tax breaks for major businesses, would also move into statute where it could be more easily changed.

Also removed from the constitution but remaining in statute would be authority granted to local governments to adjust property tax millages to deal with ﬂuctuating property values.

The amendment would also authorize local governments to opt out of collecting property tax on business inventory, a major source of revenue for some parishes but not for others.

The amendment would make it harder for lawmakers to pass tax breaks. A two-thirds vote of the Legislature, rather than a simple majority, would be required to pass new tax breaks. New property tax exemptions would need a three-fourths vote of the Legislature Amendment 2 also proposes a major reorganization of state trust funds or savings accounts, that are currently set up under the constitution with rules on how the money can be spent — for example on education, road construction or health.

Some funds will remain in the constitution with changes, some will be removed from the constitution but continue to exist under state law, and some will be eliminated entirely

Remaining in the consti-

tution would be the state’s rainy day savings account, the Budget Stabilization Fund, though with a higher cap on the amount of money that can be saved.

Also staying in the constitution would be the Transportation Trust Fund, which is dedicated to road construction, and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Fund. But funding sources for the latter would be determined by state law rather than constitutional mandate.

Another savings account meant to shield the state budget process from ﬂuctuating revenue streams, the Revenue Stabilization Trust Fund, would eventually be eliminated entirely after money saved there is used to ﬁnance a variety of initiatives.

Corporate tax collections that have been funneled to the Revenue Stabilization fund would instead go into the state general fund.

Several funds would move out of the constitution and into state statute, where they could only be changed with a two-thirds vote of the Legislature: Millennium Trust, Unclaimed Property Permanent Trust Fund, Artificial Reef Development Fund, Oil Spill Contingency Fund, Louisiana Fund and Local Revenue Fund.

Three funds for early childhood, elementary secondary and postsecondary education would be liquidated and eliminated. They are the Education Excellence Fund, Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund and Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund Taken together, the three funds contained nearly $2 billion at the start of the current ﬁscal year

The amendment would require those liquidated education funds to pay down a portion of debt in the Teacher’s Retirement System of Louisiana. The savings would be used to increase teacher salaries by $2,000, solidifying what was previously a one-time pay raise.

Amendment 2 would also impose a constitutional limit on how much state lawmakers can increase spending of state general funds from year to year

The Landry administration, which played a central role in crafting this amendment, has highlighted the

permanent reduction to the state income tax rate, teacher salary increases, and streamlined government that would result if voters approve it.

“Amendment 2 addresses tax and policy issues that have held Louisiana back for generations,” said Department of Revenue Secretary Richard Nelson. “It provides individual tax relief, smarter government spending and a brighter future for our children.”

The amendment received bipartisan support in the Legislature. The statewide teachers’ union, Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, and Better Louisiana have all endorsed it

But some opponents say the caps on revenue from income tax and on government spending would negatively impact low- or middleincome people and families And others argue the ballot language is misleading and biased in favor of the amendment.

The latter concern is the subject of lawsuit led by New Orleans attorney William Most challenging Amendment 2.

“Democracy only works if state ofﬁcials are transpar-

for

ent with voters about what they are being asked to vote on,” Most said when he announced the legal challenge last month.

Amendment 3

This proposed amendment would broaden the authority of state lawmakers to expand the list of crimes for which juveniles age 16 and younger can be treated as adults in the criminal court system.

Currently, the constitution defines a list of 16 felony crimes for which juveniles can be charged as adults. And 14 of those are violent offenses like murder, rape and armed robbery

Amendment 3 would throw out that list and allow state lawmakers to decide juveniles can be charged as adults for any felony offense.

“It offers the Legislature the ability to study and debate solutions for the most serious of juvenile crimes that have jeopardized the safety and security of communities,” said bill sponsor Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, while debating the legislation during session in November The landscape of juvenile

crime has changed “catastrophically,” and the constitution prevents lawmakers from adequately responding to crime trends, she said. But opponents say the change would send more young people to adult prison, a result that does more harm than good.

Teenagers sent to adult prison are at a greater risk of suicide and more likely to reoffend, said Kristen Rome, executive director of Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, an advocacy group that opposes the systematic criminalization of young people of color

“Putting more kids in adult prison does not make us safer,” said Rome.

Amendment 4

Amendment 4 is the only one that hasn’t provoked a lawsuit ahead of the election. It would change the timeline for elections for vacant and newly created judgeships.

Currently, elections for those judicial seats must happen within 12 months

The amendment would speciﬁcally require them to happen during the next gubernatorial or congressional elections in the next 12 months, or on “on the election date first available pursuant to applicable law” passed by the Legislature.

The Legislature recently changed some elections — including the state Supreme Court — to a closed party primary system, starting in 2026. That could require three elections instead of two: two during the party primary race and one in a general election. Organizations such as LABI and Better Louisiana back Amendment 4 as a way to potentially limit the number of elections the state holds and save money on election administration costs. Some opponents have argued the requirements for filling vacant judgeships should be changed via state statute rather than cemented in the constitution. Email Alyse Pfeil at alyse. pfeil@theadvocate.com.

Turkish court orders Erdogan rival held in jail pending trial

By The Associated Press

ISTANBUL Hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters gathered outside Istanbul city hall Sunday night to protest the arrest of the city’s mayor a key rival to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier Sunday, a court formally arrested Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and ordered him jailed pending the outcome of a trial on corruption charges. His detention Wednesday morning sparked the largest wave of street demonstrations in Turkey in more than a decade, with large crowds gathering outside city hall for the ﬁfth night in a row It also deepened concerns over democracy and rule of law in Turkey His imprisonment is widely regarded as a political move to remove a major contender from the next presidential race, currently scheduled for 2028. Government ofﬁcials reject the accusations and insist that Turkey’s courts

operate independently “If you weren’t here today, if you hadn’t rushed here since the first day, if you had yielded to tear gas and barricades, if you had gotten scared and remained at home, then today a caretaker appointed by Tayyip Erdogan would be residing here in this building,” said Ozgur Ozel Sunday night pointing at city hall as he spoke to the massive crowd chanting anti-government slogans.

Ozel is the head of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, to which Imamoglu belongs.

The prosecutor’s office said the court decided to jail Imamoglu on suspicion of running a criminal organization, accepting bribes, extortion, illegally recording personal data and bidrigging. A request for him to be imprisoned on terrorrelated charges was rejected although he still faces prosecution. Following the court’s ruling, Imamoglu was transferred to Silivri prison, west of Istanbul.

Canadian officials kick off election campaigns

BY ROB GILLIES Associated Press

TORONTO New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his Conservative opponent said U.S. President Donald Trump must respect Canada’s sovereignty as they kicked off their election campaigns Sunday against the backdrop of a trade war and annexation threats from Trump. Carney announced there will be a ﬁve-week election campaign before the vote on April 28.

“We are facing the most signiﬁcant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty,” Carney said.

“President Trump claims that Canada isn’t a real country He wants to break us so America can own us We will not let that happen.”

The governing Liberals had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Trump declared a trade war Trump has repeatedly said that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state and he acknowledged Friday that he has upended Canadian politics.

Trump’s almost daily attacks on Canada’s sovereignty have infuriated Canadians and led to a surge in Canadian nationalism that has bolstered Liberal poll numbers.

The election campaign for 343 seats or districts in the House of Commons will last 37 days. Although other parties are running, the Liberals and the Con-

servatives are the only two that have a chance to form a government. The party that commands a majority in Parliament, either alone or with the support of another party, will form the next government and its leader will be prime minister Carney replaced Justin Trudeau, who announced his resignation in January but remained in power until the Liberal Party elected a new leader on March 9 following a leadership race by the governing party The opposition Conservatives hoped to make the election about Trudeau, whose popularity declined as food and housing prices rose and immigration surged. But after decades of bilateral stability, the vote is now expected to focus on who is best equipped to deal with Trump. PierrePoilievre,theleader of the Conservatives, is Carney’s main challenger The party and Poilievre were heading for a huge victory in Canada’s federal election this year until Trump’s neardaily trade and annexation threats derailed them.

Poilievre said he will stand up to Trump but Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, a conservative ally, said in an interview that Poilievre would be “very much in sync” with the “new direction in America.

“I will insist the president recognizes the independence and sovereignty of Canada. I will insist he stops tariffing our nation,” Poilievre said as he launched his campaign.

Amendment takes on juvenile crime

Voters to decide if lawmakers can set which felonies carry adult charges

BY JONI HESS Staff writer

Demiyah Robinson, a 16-year-old sophomore at Frederick Douglass High School in Bywater, thinks local and state politicians need to do more to stop juvenile crime — but that doesn’t include locking teens up in adult prisons, she said.

“The jails are already packed. If they’re going to be charged as an adult now, we’re going to have to have more jails,” Robinson said.

But some lawmakers say sending teens for more stints in adult jail would help resolve a problem that has spiraled out of control.

“Our priority is rehabilitation, but we must also protect families and communities,” Sen Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, said in a statement this week.

Gov Jeff Landry and the Republican-led state Legislature have now put that debate before Louisiana voters, who will head to the polls on March 29. A weeklong early voting period ended Saturday Amendment 3, one of four proposed changes to the constitution voters will weigh this week, would allow lawmakers to change or expand the number of felony crimes for which juveniles can be tried as adults.

As it stands, there are only 16 crimes that fall in that category, among them varying degrees of rape, murder and other offenses. One of the lawmakers behind the measure, State Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, said new crimes could include distribution of fentanyl, carjacking, or home invasion.

By the end of 2024, there were 853 youth in custody across the state, according to the state Ofﬁce of Juvenile Justice. Combined with its adult jailed population, Louisiana has one of the highest incarceration rates in the U.S., according to the Prison Policy Initiative, a national criminal justice research group.

Amendment 3

If the amendment passed, the Legislature could add new offenses for which children as young as 14 can be tried as adults. Lawmakers would need a two-thirds vote to do so.

If a juvenile is charged as an adult for one of those offenses, they would be housed in an adult facility under the same sentencing laws as adults, excluding the death penalty Cloud, another sponsor of the measure, said current state law limits the state’s ability to curb rising violent crime. In 2022, juveniles accounted for 9.9% of all ar-

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MATTHEW PERSCHALL

Amendment 3 would allow lawmakers to change or expand the number of felony crimes for which juveniles can be tried as adults.

rests for violent crime, up from 8.7% in 2021, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics within the U.S. Department of Justice.

Villio said the move is necessary to protect society It would also curb the negative impacts violence has on the economy, as juvenile crime can cause reduced tourism and low business investment, she said.

“This isn’t about prosecuting 10-year-olds as adults, and it isn’t about prosecuting juveniles for petty crimes,” Villio said, adding that the change would be limited to 15- and 16-year-olds.

Youth advocates push back

But critics of the move say the state should instead be working to address the root cause of teens committing crimes. Often, teens steal or distribute drugs because of a lack of resources, or, because of negative influences said Renee Carthan of Daughter of Incarceration, a New Orleans nonproﬁt that aims to stop crime and poverty

Carthan said she fears that if Amendment 3 passes, lawmakers might add theft

to the list of felony crimes for which teens may be prosecuted as adults.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the threshold for a felony is not high at all, especially theft,” she said.

In Louisiana, adults hit with theft of an item valued between $1,000-$5,000 can serve up to five years in prison.

Others say Louisiana’s prisons are not always equipped to follow federal law for housing children in adult jails. That law dictates that children must be sightand-sound separated from adults to lower the risk of abuses.

Kristen Rome of the nonproﬁt Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, which advocates for incarcerated young people, said prisons are already scrambling to accommodate 17-yearolds who for the ﬁrst time in years are being tried as adults. Last year the state Legislature lowered the age that a person can be tried as an adult to 17, upending a criminal justice reform law passed in 2016 that raised the age to 18.

“Irrespective of what Lou-

isiana wants to think, we’re talking about children,” Rome said. “Adult systems are not equipped to provide resources juveniles need.”

Challenged in court

The Legislature introduced and passed Amendment 3 during a special session Landry called in November to overhaul the tax code. Landry signed off on putting the matter before voters, and has been urging voters to back it at various speaking engagements around Louisiana, including a “state of the state” luncheon in Monroe on March 12.

But criminal justice advocacy groups, such as Voice of the Experienced, have been trying to knock it off the ballot. That group ﬁled a lawsuit last week arguing that Amendment 3 and Amendment 1 are unconstitutional because they do not jibe with the special session’s overarching focus on tax reform.

Amendment 1 would allow the state Supreme Court to discipline out-of-state lawyers practicing in Louisiana and it would expand the Legislature’s authority to create specialty courts outside of a particular parish or judicial district.

“These are about radical constitutional changes part of a broader plan to rework the state constitution,” said Emily Ratner, attorney for Voice of the Experienced.

The Louisiana Supreme Court last week tossed a separate lawsuit against Amendment 2, Landry’s signature effort to restructure tax laws.

The polls are open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday Email Joni Hess at joni. hess@theadvocate.com.

Your hearing is an integral part of your overall health and wellbeing. Studiesshow that untreated hearingloss has been linked to many health issues, including cognitivedeclineand dementia.1

We are hosting aSpecial Eventduring the month of March! During this event, we will be offering these FREE services:

•FREE Hearing Consultations

•FREE Video Otoscope Exam: Hearinglossorjust earwax?

•FREE Clean &Check on currenthearing aids

•FREE Baseline Audiogram Assessment

•FREE Familiar Voice Test

•FREE Demo of Audibel’s latest hearing technology!

AreYou or Anyone YouKnow Experiencing the Following?

1. Asking people to speak up or repeat themselves?

2. Turning theTVuploud tounderstandwhat is being said?

3. Ringing or noises in your ears?

4. Hearing but not understandingcertain words?

Audibelis NOW Offering...

•Hearingaids at NO COST to those who qualify!•

• That’s Right. No Co-Pay!NoExamFee! No AdjustmentFee! If youhavethiscard, youmay qualifyfor free hearing aids! Call today to verifyyour benefits

Simply call one of our ofﬁcesbelow to scheduleyour FREE hearing test.

Appointments areavailable on afirst-come, first-served basis and thereisNOCOST for these services.

MARCH 2025

3026 Gause Blvd., Ste. E 985-718-3589 BOGALUSA 2801 S. Columbia St. 985-545-3733

215 St Ann, Suite 5 985-796-2041

‘Angels on Earth’ Community helps woman build

BY BOB WARREN Staff writer

Darla Haro turned her gaze at what was left of her world as she had known it for so many years: a pile of dusty rubble.

“It’s OK,” she said, with a little nervousness in her voice. “It’s down now But you know what?

Right now I’m happy.”

As Haro spoke, the huge claw of the machine demolishing her

Report: Jeff Parish paid firefighters illegally

Inspector general claims overtime for winter weather was unlawful

BY LARA NICHOLSON Staff writer

The Jefferson Parish inspector general is raising alarm bells on an unlawful payment to firefighters in her first investigative report since becoming embroiled in controversy over a public letter she issued six months ago.

Inspector General Kim Chatelain, tasked with identifying parish waste, fraud and abuse, recently issued an investigative report accusing Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng’s administration of unlawfully doling out more than $27,000 in emergency pay to East Bank Consolidated Fire Department employees during a winter weather event in January 2024.

The report says the payment went against personnel rules set by parish fire civil service laws, which do not provide for emergency pay Lee Sheng responded that the payment was not prohibited because the fire chief instituted his own policy allowing for emergency pay, according to the parish attorney’s office and the fire chief.

Chatelain’s report criticized the one-sentence statement, saying it “lacks the depth and consideration expected of a response from a public office after reviewing serious and well-documented concerns.”

“We have a long cultural history, and the parish will not pivot away from it, where there’s a lack of response, lack of substantive response and lack of corrective actions,” Chatelain said in an interview

“While the parish president has been critical of me for a lack of communication when it comes down to a written response, she makes no commitment to correct anything.”

The report alleges that in January 2024, the parish president declared a state of emergency due to anticipated severe winter weather and only required essential employees to work on Jan. 16. Jefferson Parish employees outside the ﬁre department who worked were due up to seven hours of emergency pay as a result.

The East Bank Chief Charles Hudson requested the parish give firefighters who worked emergency pay as well, which was approved by the parish’s chief operating officer about two weeks later, the report states. The parish paid $27,550 to 71 fire department employees as a result. The fire chief and the parish relied on the chief’s policy manual for the decision, which was amended in January 2023 to allow for emergency pay However, Chatelain says that parish civil service laws do not authorize the chief to make

home continued scraping pieces of wood and drywall into a pile to be scooped up and hauled away

That pile of rubble on her Hoover Drive property in Slidell marked the start of much better days ahead for Haro, who turns 79 on Monday Haro’s home, badly damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and then damaged again in 2021’s Hurricane Ida, was threatening to fall down around her

The roof had leaks where the rain poured in. Exterior walls were down to tattered insulation. And Haro had lived without air conditioning for more than a decade

But as her plight became public — through a man who saw her struggling atop a ladder last summer and subsequent stories in the media — the community rallied around Haro, and soon she will have a new home

“Angels,” she said Wednesday

morning, looking around at the crowd that had gathered to watch the heavy equipment make kindling of the dilapidated house.

“They’re angels on Earth.”

Once the demolition of Haro’s old house is complete, a new, 1,100-square-foot, three-bedroom home will be built to replace it.

The house will be Daro’s outright, said Andrew Cahanin of DSLD Homes.

Cahanin and Jeff Vallee of H1

new home

Associates, a St. Tammany Parish developer, said they and an assortment of subcontractors are coming together to handle the work.

“We saw her story and this is an opportunity to showcase our skills and philanthropy,” Vallee said Wednesday morning, watching the demo work with Cahanin and a small crowd of other peo-

STELLA!

David D’herete of New Orleans shouts ‘Stella!’ as an onlooker, apparently overcome with desire, hops over the ropes and plants a kiss on him during the Stella Shouting Contest at Jackson Square in New Orleans on Sunday. D’herete won third place in the event. Contestants aimed their shouts to Beth Bartley d’Amour, portraying Stella, or Todd d’Amour, portraying Stanley, characters from Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ The event kicked off the 39th Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival, which returns to the historic French Quarter for its celebration of contemporary literature, theater, New Orleans culture, and of course, Williams. Over 60 events over ﬁve days are slated for Wednesday through Sunday. Most of the events are in or near the Hotel Monteleone, the festival’s host hotel. ä See more on 2B.

Board to probe firings of public defenders

Terminations alleged to be retaliatory

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

A committee will investigate the ﬁrings of ﬁve chief public defenders who claim the state terminated their employment without just cause — and in violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

In February, State Public Defender Rémy Starns told the ﬁve chief public defenders their contracts would not be renewed. In a meeting Thursday the Louisiana Public Defender Oversight Board decided to create a committee to hold hearings about Starns’ decision.

In letters to the board, the defenders have said they believe their terminations were at least partly retaliatory, as all ﬁve have spoken against Starns’ views of how public defense should operate in Louisiana.

Last year, for example, Starns supported a bill that overhauled the public defense system, making him a gubernatorial appointee and giving him the power to hire and fire public defenders. Previously, a different board had made those decisions and had the power to select the state public defender, rather than the governor The five public defenders, whose employment would end effective July 1, opposed that legislation, which ultimately passed and became Act 22. Now, they find themselves at odds with Starns over their jobs, and they’ve turned to the Louisiana Public Defender Oversight Board for help. Starns declined to comment on this story In its meeting Thursday, the board decided it was obliged, under state statute, to appoint a committee to consider the chief defenders’ claims.

St. Tammany Parish deputy killed in car chase

17-year-old driver arrested

BY MARIE FAZIO Staff writer

A St. Tammany Parish sheriff’s deputy who was killed in the line of duty early Sunday was identiﬁed by authorities as 37-year-old Sgt. Grant Candies, a nine-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office who also served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Candies was killed shortly after midnight on Sunday morning as he was deploying a spike strip on Interstate 10 near the Oak Harbor exit in Slidell in an attempt to end a high-speed chase led by a 17-year-old driver, according to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office. He was hit by the ﬂeeing driver, according to the Sheriff’s Ofﬁce.

Spike strips are used to stop vehicles by puncturing holes in tires.

“Sgt. Candies was an asset to the department,” St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith said in a statement.

“He was the kind of deputy every agency hopes to have and someone his teammates routinely reached out to for advice and direction due to his vast knowledge of this job.”

Candies began working with the Sheriff’s Office nearly a decade ago and was promoted to sergeant in 2023. That same year he was named its deputy of the year He was married and had two children, according to the Sheriff’s Ofﬁce.

“While we grieve, we also honor and we remember a man who lived with purpose, who led with strength and who left behind a legacy that won’t be forgotten,”

ä See ANGELS, page 2B

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Candies

All in the name

Actors Beth Bartley d’Amour, portraying Stella, and Todd d’Amour, as Stanley, listen as master of ceremonies and actor Bryan Batt introduces them during the Stella Shouting Contest at Jackson Square in New Orleans on Sunday

Landry names interim Louisiana health secretary

Drew Maranto to replace Michael Harrington

BY EMILY WOODRUFF Staff writer

Michael Harrington has retired as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health, Gov Jeff Landry’s ofﬁce announced Thursday Harrington’s departure comes after a short tenure at the agency where he was appointed undersecretary

ANGELS

Continued from page 1B

ple. “Today’s the day it gets real.”

Vallee also gifted Haro with a car a 2012 Buick LaCrosse, to allow her to get around Haro beamed as she climbed behind the wheel to check it out.

“Now I can go to Walmart!” she said with a loud laugh.

Haro, who worked for years as a hairdresser, said she had lived in the Hoover Drive home for around four decades. Her husband, Arthur died more than 30 years ago and she managed the best she could, she said. But Katrina battered the house, leaving damage that she didn’t have the money to repair Then, years later, Ida delivered even more damage Haro’s story become public last summer when Norman Chappetta, a Slidell resident, saw her teetering atop a tall ladder, desperately trying to patch some of the leaks in the house. He left her a note that said he wanted to help Haro said she was skeptical at ﬁrst, thinking it was some kind of scam. “But it wasn’t,” Haro said. “Norman started it all.”

Chappetta contacted the Slidell Independent newspaper, which wrote a story That story spurred more media coverage. And Trey Brownﬁeld, a Slidell City Council member hopped in to help out as well.

Chappetta started a GoFundMe, “Help Mrs. Darla

DEPUTY

Continued from page 1B

Smith said. “His laughter, his wisdom and his drive will carry on in the deputies he mentored, in the family he adored and in the community he gave his life to protect.”

The fatal chase started on Brownswitch Road when a deputy attempted to stop a car and the driver sped off. The chase ended when the car crashed into a New Orleans Police Department unit on the southshore, Sheriff’s Office officials said.

in January 2024 and promoted to secretary in June. Drew Maranto, who currently serves as undersecretary, will assume the role of interim secretary Landry said he expects to name a new secretary in the coming weeks.

Harrington, a former hospital executive, joined LDH with the understanding that he would serve temporarily, according to a news release.

“This has been in the works for some time, as

Michael has made it clear from the beginning that he intended to step down in the spring,” said Landry “He joined during a busy period, and we deeply appreciate his service and willingness to come to Louisiana and work in one of the largest and most challenging departments.”

Harrington brought “vast experience” and “innovative ideas” to the department, said Louisiana Surgeon General Dr Ralph Abraham.

The LDH secretary and

the surgeon general serve in parallel roles within the department. While the secretary manages the department’s operations and budget, the surgeon general, a position created by the Louisiana Legislature in 2024, is tasked with shaping health policy and advising on strategic initiatives. The secretary carries out the surgeon general’s recommendations, according to the department.

Maranto joined the LDH in January 2024 as chief of staff and was promoted

to undersecretary in June.

According to the LDH website, he is a former congressional staffer, campaign adviser and small business owner based in Baton Rouge.

“LDH remains focused on implementing the governor’s charge to improve health outcomes and move people from dependence to independence,” Maranto said in the statement.

Email Emily Woodruff at ewoodruff@theadvocate. com.

crew with BJ’s Service Group

Find a Safe New Home,” account that has raised just over $22,000. Other donations have also come in, Brownﬁeld said “A lot of people came together to make this happen. She is an amazing lady,” said Brownfield, who helped spearhead the effort.

Before the demo work began Wednesday morning, Haro took one last walk around her home, surveying the crumbling building set among the blooming azaleas and wisteria.

“See every azalea bush? I planted those because of Arthur,” she said of her late husband. “It starts with an ‘A,’ like my Artie.”

WWL-Louisiana reported that a New Orleans police officer who was also injured during the chase was taken to a hospital and later released. State Police were also involved in the chase, WWL reported Sheriff’s Office officials said five people were riding in the fleeing car. The alleged driver, a 17-year-old from Slidell, was arrested and booked in New Orleans. He was later transferred to St. Tammany Parish and booked on counts of aggravated flight, firstdegree murder and attempted first-degree murder.

Continued from page 1B

that call, and that the Parish Council would have to amend its personnel rules in order to allow emergency pay for firefighters. “Under the law, the firemen were not due or owed emergency pay,” Chatelain said. The report recommended the parish not pay the fire department emergency pay “without legal basis to do so” and to make sure the fire chief’s policies are in line with fire civil service rules. It did not recommend collecting the money back from the firefighters. The parish administration maintains the payment was

conducted lawfully

“Members of the Eastbank Consolidated Fire Department were not entitled to Emergency pay, but every other eligible classified employee of Jefferson Parish was entitled to emergency pay,” the administration said in a statement. “We recognized this and addressed it by taking the necessary steps after consulting with the Parish Attorney’s Office who opined that this was not prohibited.” The Inspector General’s Office is also currently conducting audits of the fire department’s sick leave policy and firefighters’ disclosure of secondary employment.

The report follows months of tension between the parish and the inspector general, who became the center of a

Board member Adrejia Boutté said she believed the chiefs’ letters had triggered a law requiring the board to do so.

“A district public defender who feels that he has been demoted or terminated without just cause may, within ﬁfteen days after the action, demand in writing a hearing and investigation by the board to determine the reasonableness of the action,” Louisiana Revised Statute 15:170 says. “Upon receipt of a request for a hearing, the board shall appoint a five-member hearing committee made up of ﬁve board members.” In the end, Boutté’s argument won out, with the board overwhelmingly voting to create the committee. But not everyone agreed it was necessary

Board Chairman Gerard Caswell referred to an opinion that state Attorney General Liz Murrill provided to the board. The opinion said that contract nonrenewals are not entitled to hearings, according to Caswell, who said he believed the nonrenewals did not count as terminations.

“I don’t believe that their request for a hearing is wellfounded,” said Caswell. Caswell also contended that the board did not know which public defenders were and were not doing their jobs — and that that was Starns’ responsibility

“We don’t have the authority as a board to hire district defenders,” Caswell said. “We don’t have the authority to overturn the public defender’s decision that he doesn’t want to renew a contract.”

Judge Frank Thaxton, another board member countered that it would be up to the committee to collect evidence to decide whether Starns had terminated the defenders’ employment by not renewing their contracts. And, he contended, “there is statutory authority for overturning what Mr Starns has purportedly done.”

Five board members will serve on the committee. They are Boutté, retired Judge Paul deMahy, retired Judge Ernestine Gray, retired Judge Freddie Pitcher and Peter Thomson. All board members have either served as judges or lawyers. DeMahy will chair the committee.

State statute requires that the committee hold a hearing on the ﬁrings within 30 days. Then, it has another 30 days to submit a recommendation to the full board on whether to afﬁrm the termination or overturn it. The full board must then vote on whether to adopt that recommendation.

political firestorm last year when she issued a public letter criticizing a project to build a leasable commercial space in Gretna using parish funds.

The fallout from the letter resulted in the revival of an accusation that she has too close a friendship with at-large council member Jennifer Van Vrancken, the enlisting of an independent law ﬁrm to investigate her ofﬁce and a new set of rules for her public conduct.

Chatelain has repeatedly called the criticisms against her ofﬁce an attack on parish oversight, including in her 2024 annual report released Wednesday titled “Achieving Accountability.”

Email Lara Nicholson at lnicholson@theadvocate. com.

It is unclear whether the committee will hold one hearing for all five public defenders, or one hearing for each. The chief defenders involved include Michelle AndrePont, of Caddo Parish; Trisha Ward, of Evangeline Parish; Brett Brunson, of Natchitoches Parish; Deirdre Fuller, of Rapides Parish; and John Hogue, of East Carroll, Madison and Tensas parishes. The defenders also sent letters to Gov Jeff Landry’s ofﬁce regarding Starns’ decision. At the board meeting, Christopher Walters, a representative for the governor, asked that the board give Landry’s team time to meet with the defenders before making a ﬁnal decision. Email Meghan Friedmann at meghan.friedmann@ theadvocate.com.

Darla Haro, center, with Slidell City Council member Trey Brownfield, left, and Haro’s sister, Donna Babin, watch as Haro’s home is demolished.

STAFF PHOTOS By SCOTT THRELKELD

demolishes the home of Darla Haro in Slidell on Wednesday.

STAFF PHOTO By SCOTT THRELKELD

Arnold, Joyce Duchmann Jr., Hermann

Hargis, Syvonne Thompson, Elliott Young, Rose

years, r Her‐itage Manor in Mandeville The family extends their heartfelt gratitude to the dedicated caregivers who provided comfort and sup‐port during Joyce’s ﬁnal years Funeral services will be held at Greenwood Fu‐neral Home on Canal Blvd in New Orleans on Wednes‐day March 26, 2025, begin‐ning with Visitation at 11 a.m and a Funeral Mass at 1 p.m Burial will follow at St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 on Esplanade Ave.

E Jefferson Duchmann Jr., Hermann

Garden of Memories

Duchmann Jr., Hermann

New Orleans

Greenwood

Arnold, Joyce Young, Rose St Tammany

EJ Fielding

Hargis, Syvonne

Obituaries

Arnold, Joyce Marchand

Mrs. Joyce Marchand Arnold passed away peacefully Wednesday morning, March 19, 2025, at the age of 93. She was born September 9 1931, in West‐wego, LA to the late Michel J and Lottie Mae Marc‐hand and was the sister of the late MJ Marchand and Walter Leonard Marchand Joyce was preceded in death by her husband of 57 years, Charles E. Arnold Sr , and survived by two sons Charles Arnold Jr (Emily) and Larry Arnold (Alison); one daughter, Gaynell Arnold Clancy (Rodney); six grandchildren, Patrick Clancy (Kelli), Amy Arnold Zimmerman (Eric), Lauren Arnold Hambaugh (Jon), Jason Clancy, Derek Arnold (Kim), and Drake Arnold (Lauren); and eleven greatgrandchildren She also leaves many other family members and friends who will sadly miss her. Joyce was a stay-at-home mom most of her adult life. She went to her children’s ath‐letic and school events, did some substitute teaching and was very involved with their schools. When her kids were older, she sold Avon. Joyce loved fishing the beach, swimming, playing cards and doing puzzles. She also enjoyed playing Bingo and trips to casinos to play slot ma‐chines. Fishing was some‐thing she especially en‐joyed throughout her life beginning as a child with her parents in Grand Isle, LA. Joyce and her husband had a summer home on Lac des Allemands where you could often find her sitting on the pier with her cane pole Joyce lived in St Bernard Parish most of her life, before moving to Lul‐ing and eventually into St Anthony’s Gardens in Cov‐ington For the last few years she resided in Her‐itage Manor in Mandeville The family extends their heartfelt gratitude to the dedicated caregivers who provided comfort and sup‐port during Joyce’s final years. Funeral services will be held at Greenwood Fu‐neral Home on Canal Blvd in New Orleans on Wednes‐day, March 26, 2025, begin‐ning with Visitation at 11 a.m. and a Funeral Mass at 1 p.m. Burial will follow at St Louis Cemetery No 3 on Esplanade Ave

Hermann E. Duchmann Jr. passed away on Friday, February 28, 2025 at the age of 71. He is survived by his loving wife of 53 years June Duchmann; his daughter, Jessica (Lance); and his grandsons, Matt and Ben He will also be dearly missed by his nieces and nephews: An‐drea, Ryan, Amber Crystal David, Jeff, Sherry, Ashley, and Jillian Hermann was preceded in death by his parents, June Friddle Duch‐mann Lester and Hermann E Duchmann, Sr.; his sib‐lings: Adrian Duchmann (Diane), Marsha D. Bennett (late James) Martin Duch‐mann, and Sharon D Williams (late Bob); as well as his nephew, Mike Hermann was born and raised in New Orleans, LA and was a resident of Metairie, LA. He was a hardworking man from a young age, working con‐struction with his father, driving a semi-rig for American Steel delivering steel being a self-em‐ployed fisherman, and es‐tablishing Blue Diamond Enterprises for purchasing, refurbishing and flipping houses. Hermann was a lifelong outdoorsman who enjoyed both fishing and hunting He was a car en‐thusiast and always wanted a 1976 Corvette, which he became the proud owner of one in 2017 He joined the Greater New Orleans Corvette Club and made some great friends to share his enthusiasm with. Relatives and friends are invited to attend the Funeral Services at Garden of Memories Funeral Home & Cemetery, 4900 Airline Drive Metairie LA 70001 on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 Visitation will begin at 11:00 am with a Memorial Service starting at 1:00 pm followed by inurnment. To order flowers or offer con‐dolences, please visit www gardenofmemorie smetairie com.

Hargis, Syvonne Adams McWilliams

Syvonne Adams McWilliams Hargis, age 95, of Mandeville, Louisiana, passed away on Monday March 17, 2025. She was born on August 18, 1929, in Ponchatoula, Louisiana She is survived by her chil‐dren, Sandy McWilliams, Dale Dean McWilliams and Debbie McWilliams Es‐quinance (Bruce); grand‐children, Michele Linehan (Colin), Melissa Hughes, Kyle McWilliams (Ashley), Brittany Esquinance Jenk‐ins (Cody) and Laurie Es‐quinance Pike (Blake); and great-grandchildren, Au‐drey Linehan, Christopher Hughes (Gabrielle), Kinley McWilliams, Kylie McWilliams Harper Jenkins, Bran‐son Jenkins, Hunter Pike, Brynlee Pike, and many ex‐tended family members and friends. She was pre‐ceded in death by her ﬁrst husband, John B. McWilliams; second hus‐band, Earl Hargis, Jr.; par ents Willow E. Adams a Carnie Milton Adams; a a stepsister Nellie Ha ward She was a reside of Mandeville, Louisian for the last 60

Syvonne Adams McWilliams Hargis, age 95, of Mandeville Louisiana, passed away on Monday, March 17, 2025. She was born on August 18, 1929, in Ponchatoula Louisiana She is survived by her chil‐dren, Sandy McWilliams Dale Dean McWilliams and Debbie McWilliams Es‐quinance (Bruce); grand‐children, Michele Linehan (Colin) Melissa Hughes Kyle McWilliams (Ashley), Brittany Esquinance Jenk‐ins (Cody) and Laurie Es‐quinance Pike (Blake); and great-grandchildren, Au‐drey Linehan Christopher Hughes (Gabrielle), Kinley McWilliams, Kylie McWilliams, Harper Jenkins, Bran‐son Jenkins, Hunter Pike, Brynlee Pike and many ex‐tended family members and friends She was pre‐ceded in death by her first husband, John B McWilliams; second hus‐band, Earl Hargis, Jr.; par‐ents, Willow E Adams and Carnie Milton Adams; and a stepsister, Nellie Hay‐ward. She was a resident of Mandeville Louisiana for the last 60 years. In her early years she loved trav‐eling, time at the beach and gardening In her later years she loved to spend her time playing bingo doing arts & crafts and spending time with family and friends In lieu of flow‐ers, the family requests Masses in memory Mrs Syvonne Relatives and friends are invited to at‐tend the graveside service on Tuesday March 25, 2025 at 11:00 AM at Garden of Memories Cemetery, 4900 Airline Drive, Metairie, Louisiana E. J Fielding Fu‐neral Home of Covington, Louisiana, is honored to be entrusted with Mrs Har‐gis’s funeral arrange‐ments Her family invites you to share thoughts, memories, and condo‐lences by signing an online guestbook at www ejfield ingfh.com

ACelebration of Life for ElliottJ.Thompson will be held on Friday, March 28, 2025, at Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, 8282 I-10 Service Road, New Orleans, LA 70126. Visitationfrom 9:00am -10:00am, Celebration Service at 10:00am.

Young, Rose Ann St. Pierre Rose Ann St Pierre Young, 86, “Roe” or “RoRo” as she was affection‐ately called, passed away peacefully on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Metairie Louisiana She was born on September 20, 1938 in New Orleans, Louisiana to Elvira Lecce St. Pierre and Richard Joseph St Pierre, Sr She was the older sister of Richard Joseph St

September 20, 1938 in New Orleans Louisiana to Elvira Lecce St. Pierre and Richard Joseph St. Pierre, Sr She was the older sister of Richard Joseph St Pierre, Jr., who died many years ago at the age of 18 In addition to her parents and her brother, she was preceded in death by her husband, Charles A Buddy” Young Roe was a very good Christian She loved Jesus and spoke about Him often She was very generous to everyone and would have given any‐one her last dollar. Roe worked as a Collections Clerk for many years, and she was very good at her job She was always proud to tell us about her work‐day Roe loved to sing and would do so randomly whenever family and friends visited her. When the time came, she took her mother into her home and took excellent care of her until she passed away Roe is survived by four very close cousins: Carol Venezia Ledet Marie Venezia Glaviano, John Joseph Martinez, and Kathy Lecce Lodriguss. In addition to these four, she is survived by numerous other cousins and friends A visitation for Roe will be held on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 from 12 pm to 1 pm at Greenwood Funeral Home, 5900 Canal Boulevard New Orleans, LA 70124, with a Mass to follow at 1 pm, and

How to place an Obituary Notice

EMAIL: obits@theadvocate.com OR CALL FOR MORE INFORMATION: 225-388-0289

How to place a Memorial Ad

Thompson,Elliott James

How to make a Canadian curse

The old saying goes, “If you are ever bored by a Canadian’s politeness, just call him an American and see what happens.” It’s odd, but not being American is what binds us Canadians most. It’s not that we hate America, though I worry that may be changing, but we deﬁne ourselves by our differences.

That’s why America is sticking a finger in every Canadian’s eye each time President Donald Trump calls us the 51st state. Imagine how Americans would react if a larger country announced plans to absorb them. This month, all my Canadian friends, both liberal and conservative, have canceled their trips here to see us in New Orleans. Canadians are now hardened against America such that voluntarily joining is not even conceivable We feel betrayed. We stormed the beaches of Normandy with Americans. We fought and died with you in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. We housed you after 9/11, fought your fires in Los Angeles, and, by many accounts, our Mounties were the first help to arrive in Chalmette after Katrina.

In the coming months, we should expect a disinformation campaign claiming that Canada has suddenly become communist, and that we now suppress free speech and enable fentanyl. They will say we practice unfair trade, but Trump himself negotiated the current trade agreement in 2018, calling it “the fairest, most balanced and beneﬁcial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.”

The fact is Canada actually has a trade deﬁcit with the U.S. if you subtract the energy we export to keep American factories running. Taking over Canada is Trump’s shallow quest for personal glory and nothing more. Please don’t believe the hype. There is too much to lose. I can’t think of two countries with a stronger friendship.

DAVE

DENNY New Orleans

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name 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. TO SEND US A LETTER SCAN HERE

Secretary of Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Gary Westcott, far right, holds up a photo of murder victim Molly Elliott, while Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill speaks at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola following the execution of Jessie Hoffman on March 18. To Murrill’s left are Angelique Freel, executive counsel to the governor; Seth Smith, chief of operations at DOC; Adrienne Aucoin, general counsel for DOC; and Jonathan Vining, executive counsel for DOC

Legal

process is what makes executions ‘cruel and unusual’

The biggest problem with the death penalty in Louisiana, and in the other states utilizing capital punishment, is that the fatuous legal (don’t call it judicial; that adjective accords the system too much honor) priesthood condones and effectively encourages the penalty’s transformation into a cruel, cowardly, haphazard, horribly expensive, time-consuming, serial appeals game and never-ending drama of eleventh-hour delays. It’s wrong to ask victims’ families to help determine when and if the ultimate penalty will be sought and to shoulder for decades what should be society’s burden of defending the more moral and humane thing to do in the face of inevitable criticism by selfrighteous do-gooders and their fellow saints basking in mutual moral acclaim. What’s deemed unusual by the latter people — essentially capital punishment in its entirety — would be usual if the intent of the Legislature were followed reasonably And the objectors’ arguments regarding the cruelty of various means of execution are often no more than quackish opinion.

According to the lawyers representing

him, Jessie Hoffman should not have been lawfully killed for the notably cruel 1996 abduction, rape and murder of Molly Elliott because Jessie Hoffman’s method of execution, nitrogen gas, would prevent him from practicing his Buddhist breathing meditation during “the period between life and death,” whatever that means.

According to former Gov John Bel Edwards, for whom I voted twice and still like but who turned out to be a death penalty opponent on the sly, Louisiana somehow cannot ﬁnd lethal and painless execution drugs while the U.S. is awash in fentanyl and other opioids that in 2021 put over 70,000 Americans to sleep, presumably accidently and reasonably comfortably but certainly permanently Possibly since conﬁscated drugs are illegal, we cannot use them because they might be hazardous to the health of people being executed. The arguments against capital punishment are often astoundingly stupid and disingenuous.

RON SAMMONDS Baton Rouge

Death penalty supporters don’t understand crime or punishment

Jessie Hoffman spent almost 30 years on death row for the rape and murder of a young married woman when he was 18 years old. There were many reasons to oppose his execution. Two stand out.

One, the death penalty does not work. If anything it may incite crime, including rape and murder Two, we don’t yet have the tools to understand violent crime. Why did Hoffman violate and murder a young woman who he did not know and had no reason to harm? If we cannot answer this question, how can we say the punishment fits the crime in this, or any murder case? It was my unpleasant duty to defend a firstdegree murder case in Tennessee almost 50 years ago. The first thing my able co-counsel

did was to ask our client to write down the story of his childhood and adult life. We presented the awful facts of his childhood (e.g. his mother slit her wrists in his presence when he was 3 years old) to the jury, and that’s what kept him out of the electric chair Did the lawyer who defended Hoffman paint a picture of his miserable childhood to the jury that voted to have him executed? Knowing the facts, would the jury have spared Hoffman’s life? I haven’t read the trial transcript in the case. But chances are that the jury was not well informed in his old trial or we would not have been debating his fate.

ROGER STETTER New Orleans

Cassidy must take on leading role in promoting vaccine safety

“First, Do No

Harm”: It’s an ancient principle of medicine, dating back to Hippocrates, but U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, has done harm — to us and to the children of Louisiana by betraying his country and his own legacy as a leader in public health when he put the Department of Health and Human Services into the hands of a medically ignorant, uniformed anti-vaccine activist with no health care training or experience.

As health care professionals who have, in fact, seen the dire consequences of vaccinepreventable illnesses, we call on Cassidy to protect the childhood vaccine schedule for our nation and our state by using his power

as the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to call for hearings on vaccine safety, demanding carefully researched evidence under oath. We also remind our neighbors that there is an active measles outbreak in Texas, caused by low vaccination rates. This outbreak has spread into other states as well. And measles is more contagious than COVID; if your children haven’t yet been vaccinated, today would be a great day to get that done.

MARY ELLEN ALEXANDER registered nurse

DONNA GLEE WILLIAMS, registered nurse

VERONICA P. ALEXANDER, M.D

Congress must reclaim its authority to rein in Trump

The Democratic Party’s decision to stick with Joe Biden, despite concerns about his mental ﬁtness, led to Harris, an unqualiﬁed choice for president. Many voters rejected Trump due to his divisive rhetoric, narcissism and role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. His attempts to undermine democracy further damaged his credibility The Constitution’s checks and balances are meant to prevent the concentration of power in one individual, yet many Republicans who initially condemned Trump later changed their stance.

Trump’s early actions, including immature proposals like making Canada the 51st state and pardoning those involved in the Jan. 6 attack, reﬂect a disregard for diplomacy and the rule of law His handling of the conﬂict in Ukraine, claiming Ukraine started the war, further highlights his lack of integrity and credibility Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his authoritarian style raise alarms about his potential ambitions to implement a similar system in the U.S.

The health of our democracy requires commitment to integrity, accountability and the rule of law Congress must protect these values, rather than blindly following a false narrative of a “mandate.” Otherwise, we risk descending onto a path that undermines the core principles of our nation.

BESE does no service to La.’s students with renaming Gulf Jan. 20 marked both Donald Trump’s inauguration and Martin Luther King Day, alongside a signiﬁcant snowstorm in Baton Rouge. While the weather is uncontrollable, voters have a say in choosing their leaders. Trump and his supporters claim a mandate for his policies, but his 2024 election win, receiving only 32% of eligible votes, contradicts this assertion. Kamala Harris garnered 31%, with 37% abstaining from voting, showing widespread disillusionment with both candidates and the political system.

It is truly sad to hear that the Louisiana BESE members have agreed to the current U.S. president’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. They would have done much better for the Louisiana people by standing up for what makes sense and not bowing down to what seems to be merely one person’s isolationist ego trip. Today it’s the Gulf of Mexico. What will be next? In George Orwell’s book, “1984,” the powersthat-be control the people’s history and language and can alter it whenever they choose. Is that what they really want? Because that is just what has happened here. And I live very near the Gulf of Mexico.

DENISE L. PADDOCK New Orleans

LINTON NAQUIN JR. Baton Rouge

STAFF PHOTO By JAMES FINN

COMMENTARY

ROLE REVERSAL

Louisiana’s deep into crawfish season and loving it, but it looks like this guy is in deep trouble and needs some help! What can he possibly say to get outta this predicament?! Send in your funniest punchlines and see if you can save him… and WIN!

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 Monday, March 31 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.To enter, email entries to 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 on Thursday, March 27. Have fun, folks!— Walt

Founders set best example of civil discourse

President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on March 4 was one of many examples of how political leaders of both parties no longer model civil discourse. The acrimony on both sides made clear just how far we have strayed from the ideal of seeking to understand and persuade that are hallmarks of proper civil dialogue. Understanding the impact of polarization can start to explain how we got here. Polarization is rampant, with polls indicating most adults feel we are strongly divided and that political discussions are often stressful and frustrating.

dence on July 4, 2026, offers a starting point. Among the many things that made it so unique in world history, the Declaration begins with a call for respect and reasoned argument even in times of armed conﬂict

Allan

Carey GUEST COLUMNIST

In part because of the echo chambers we inhabit, misunderstanding about what others actually believe is widespread, creating a recipe for disaster Concerningly, some studies show that the average age of polarization is now eleven years old.

How can we improve? The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Indepen-

The Declaration laid the foundation of America’s commitment to openness and free speech, both as legal and moral principles, but also in establishing a culture of speech that upholds those principles.

Frederick Douglas, in his 1860

“Plea for Free Speech in Boston,” emphasized the sacred right of speech and the importance of a culture that values both speaking and listening.

Douglas put his thoughts eloquently:

“Equally clear is the right to hear To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him

of his money.”

To improve our discourse, we must respect each other’s rights to speak and hear as political equals. As individuals, we can make much progress through acting with humility and curiosity.

As a society, this begins by fostering a culture of civil discourse in our schools, our communities and ultimately our legislatures. In both cases, we have much to learn from the example of the Founders and the Declaration of Independence By elevating the dignity of even our perceived enemies, we can pursue improved understanding of each other’s views and ﬁnd areas of shared humanity and agreement to build upon.

Allan Carey is a director of education initiatives at the Cato Institute. He will be speaking Tuesday at the annual Civil Discourse Speaker Series. The event runs from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. at Isidore Newman School’s Henson Auditorium. It is free and open to the public.

Russia’s Putin on the blitz in Ukraine

The cliche has been that the ball is now in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s court Not any longer Putin has responded to U.S. appeals for a cease ﬁre in the war with Ukraine with a strong backhand, rejecting a cease ﬁre in his unprovoked invasion. Now the ball is in President Trump’s court. What will he do?

Cal Thomas

In state focused on LSU law prof, injustices rampant

I hate cruelty I’ve hated it all my life Still, I’m fascinated by it. I have always wondered how any person could deliberately harm another human being or animal and not feel terrible about it.

As many readers know, over nine weeks ago, I was suspended without notice or a hearing from teaching at LSU Law School because an anonymous student alleged that I had made “inappropriate” remarks in my very ﬁrst Administration of Criminal Justice class ever on Jan. 14. Speciﬁcally I referenced Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry in the context of explaining why I inserted a rule in the syllabus that students may not record or distribute recordings of my class. Ironic, right? And I referenced President Donald Trump in the context of giving an overview of the course and the casebook.

In both cases, I used profanity There is no rule at LSU against using profanity or making relevant political comments. And if the two separately are permissible, then the two together are equally permissible.

On Jan. 28, I ﬁled a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against LSU in state court in Baton Rouge. On Jan 30, Judge Don Johnson granted my TRO, but the First Circuit Court of Appeal stayed it on the grounds that LSU could not be ordered to reinstate me until after an evidentiary hearing. We had the evidentiary hearing on Feb. 10-11, and Judge Tarvald Smith granted my injunction.

But once again, the First Circuit ﬁrst stayed the ruling and then ruled on Feb. 20 that, even with an evidentiary hearing, the courts cannot order LSU to reinstate me.

In order to arrive at this conclusion, they had to invent a brand new rule: There is just no such thing as a mandatory preliminary injunction. On March 5, I appealed this baseless decision to the Louisiana Supreme Court. That very same day, LSU ﬁled a “reconventional demand,” which is a fancy term for trying to make me pay their attorney’s fees.

Just think about that: LSU not only suspended me without notice or a hearing for mere words; they now want me to pay them for having the nerve to ask the courts to repair this injury And this is on top of the $50,000-plus I have already racked up in legal bills. Fortunately, my GoFundMe, “Leave Levy Alone,” has received this much in donations. People across the state and country know injustice when they see it.

What I have not been able to ﬁgure out is why LSU is so hellbent on destroying me Even if my use of profanity and criticisms of two Republican politicians had been untenable (which they weren’t), nobody got hurt. My words did not cost anybody their lives or health or jobs or money Yet LSU has been pursuing me as if they had. Why the absolute ruthlessness? Why the crusade to ruin my reputation and career? Why the unwavering effort to reduce my 16 years of teaching at LSU, and me, to a few selected seconds of just one class — again, my very ﬁrst class teaching a new subject?

Let’s not forget who the real villain is and it’s not Ukraine. Russia now occupies about 20% of that country Given Putin’s stated goal of reclaiming all the former Soviet territories, it’s unlikely he will cede a foot to Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly bragged about the personal relationships he has with Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un and China’s Xi Jinping.

In a forthcoming column for the publication Independent Arabia, Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton a frequent critic of the president — writes: “Personal relations have a place in international affairs, as in all things, but they are not decisive factors in national-security decision-making, especially for the world’s hard men. These authoritarians are cold-blooded and clear-eyed in knowing what their national interests are, and they pursue those interests unhesitatingly.”

In the disastrous meeting in the Oval

Ofﬁce with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said to Zelenskyy: “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now.” It would

On “Face the Nation,” Ambassador Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, said Putin and President Donald Trump would hold a phone call. Witkoff said he met in Moscow with Putin for more than three hours. He called it a “positive momentum” that the two presidents would be talking to each other, but gave no indication of where that “momentum” might lead. Witkoff declined to answer a question by host Margaret Brennan about comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron that Putin is not genuinely seeking peace He said he didn’t know what Macron had said (easy enough to Google) and so would not comment. On the same program, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “ It’s hard to negotiate an enduring end of a war as long as they’re shooting at each other, and so the president wants a cease ﬁre That’s what we’re working on, assuming we can get that done.” Putin has laid down heavy conditions for a cease ﬁre and has claimed reaching one might only give Ukraine time to re-arm

published.

appear that Putin not only has the cards, but the entire deck and he’s the dealer Putin is not likely to give up much, if anything, by appeals to his ego. That might work in some cases with Trump, but dictators are different Even a cursory look at history proves the point.

The problem all along is that under former President Biden the objective was never clear Biden provided just enough arms to Ukraine to create a stalemate with Russia, but not enough for victory Putin apparently believed he could wait out Biden, even while thousands of his soldiers were slaughtered, thinking he might get a better deal with Trump.

After watching the ﬁlm “A Complete Unknown” about the life of Bob Dylan, I was reminded of when in 1963 Dylan and Joan Baez performed a version of the Pete Seeger song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

That sentiment appears to be of great concern to President Trump, though his goal of a cease ﬁre looks remote without conceding victory to Putin. As for the Russian dictator, graveyards for his soldiers appear to be of no concern at all. Email tcaeditors@tribpub.com.

There is so much injustice in Louisiana alone, and yet the “wrong” that LSU is choosing to concentrate all its efforts on is profanitylaced criticism of public ofﬁcials? How do LSU leadership and LSU’s counsel in this matter, Jimmy Faircloth, continue with this vicious campaign, day after day, and not have any misgivings? Where is their conscience?

In his very popular book “The Power of Now,” Eckhart Tolle suggests that people inflict “mental, emotional and physical violence, torture pain, and cruelty on each other” because, rather than being “in touch with their natural state, the joy of life within,” they are “in a deeply negative state” and “feel very bad.” I will not speculate on whether LSU leadership or Faircloth “are in a deeply negative state” or “feel very bad.” I am certainly not in a position to psychoanalyze any of them. But it is difficult for me to imagine decent, compassionate human beings knowingly and willingly engaging in this kind of relentless inhumanity If LSU didn’t like what I said in class, the reasonable, proportional response would have been to do what initially happened two days after the infamous class: ask me to tone down the profanity It was not to suspend me without notice or a hearing a suspension that has now lasted over nine weeks. It was not to fight tooth and nail in court to continue this unconstitutional suspension. And it was not to make me pay over $50,000 in legal bills — or thousands more to LSU in attorney’s fees simply to keep doing my job.

Ken Levy is the Holt B. Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU.

New Orleans Forecast

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

The LSU women’s basketball team’s first shot of the NCAA Tournament doubled as the first field-goal attempt Flau’jae Johnson had taken in over three weeks.

The star junior stood in the left corner open behind the 3-point line. The shot she tried wound up rolling off the rim, bouncing off the backboard and pausing — for just a fraction of a second — above the front of the iron.

“Then the ball rattled in,” Johnson said.

And what followed was not only one of LSU’s most dominant wins of the season, but also one of its most commanding performances of the past four years.

The No 3 seed Tigers beat No. 14 seed San Diego State on Saturday 103-48, setting a program-record NCAA

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

his outing. Shores gave up ﬁve earned runs and seven hits in four innings as the Longhorns LSU drops road series to Texas with 6-2 loss

See SERIES, page 6C

Tournament points total in the process. Since 2021, LSU has won 11 games by more than 55 points. All of those contests tipped off in either November or December, the months in which the Tigers play mostly tune-up games against mid-major opponents. Not March. In fact, coach Kim Mulkey’s LSU teams hadn’t won an NCAA Tournament matchup by more than 27 points before Saturday. Their largest margin of victory to date in such games was the one they earned last season in a second-round meeting with Middle Tennessee, a No. 11 seed that forced the Tigers to ﬁrst erase a nine-point third-quarter deﬁcit before they could advance to the Sweet 16.

ä See LSU, page 4C

Following SEC title, LSU gym ranked No. 1 seed

Tigers head to regionals with top ranking for 1st time

BY SCOTT RABALAIS Staff writer

BIRMINGHAM,Ala. — The confetti came down, the smiles came up, and one important point came to LSU coach Jay Clark’s mind as he watched his Tigers celebrate their second straight Southeastern Conference gymnastics championship.

“I told them they didn’t have to share this one,” Clark said Saturday on the SEC Network after the meet.

LSU and Oklahoma tied for the SEC regular-season title despite the fact the Tigers beat the Sooners head-to-head in a conference dual meet on Feb. 14. LSU finished runner-up to OU in January in the four-team Sprouts Collegiate Quad in Oklahoma City The Sooners, competing in their ﬁrst SEC championship meet, were ranked No. 1 from the preseason until Saturday, but no more. LSU’s score of 198.200 gave the Tigers the nation’s top National Qualifying Score at 198.115. OU dropped to No. 2, though its NQS remained unchanged at 198.040. It is the ﬁrst time LSU will go into NCAA regionals ranked No. 1 nationally The Tigers will have the No. 1 overall NCAA seed when regional announcements are made at 11 a.m. Monday on ESPNU. NCAA regionals will be April 2-6 at Alabama, Penn State, Utah and Washington. The top two teams from each regional advance to the NCAA Championships, April 17-19 in Fort Worth, Texas. “I’m not one who is hung up on ranking

Pels better in rematch with Pistons, but fall short again

BY ROD WALKER Staff writer

Six days ago, the New Orleans Pelicans suffered the worst regular season homecourt loss in franchise history to the Detroit Pistons. The Pelicans got another shot at the Pistons on Sunday, this time at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena. The result wasn’t embarrassing this time, but the Pelicans still found themselves on the wrong side. This time, a 136130 loss to the Pistons.

“I though the effort was there,” said Pelicans coach Willie Green. “The guys played together and shared the ball offensively and that was fun to watch. We still came up short to win

happened to them six days ago in the Smoothie King Center The Pelicans lost to the Pistons 127-81 last Monday which tied the record for worst regular season loss in franchise history Pistons coach J.B Bickerstaff predicted before Sunday’s game that it would likely be closer this time around.

“It’s a matter of respect,” Bickerstaff said. “These are NBA players with NBA skillsets that have accomplished a lot. You look at CJ McCollum, Bruce Brown and Kelly Olynyk. Up and down the roster these are guys who have done things in this league at a high level. You know if you give them opportunities and take them lightly, they can do what it takes to beat you. They are going to come out with a sense of purpose and attitude because of the way we played the other night to not

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

guard Flau’Jae Johnson drives past San Diego State guard Naomi Panganiban

Larson wins Cup Series at Homestead

BY ALANIS THAMES AP sportswriter

HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Kyle Larson passed Alex Bowman with six laps remaining in NASCAR’s Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday giving the Hendrick Motorsports driver the 30th win of his career at one of his best tracks. Larson sped by as Bowman scraped the wall on Turn 4 with the lead. Larson extended his edge to more than a second over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, then held on to beat Bowman by 1.205 seconds for his second career Cup Series win at Homstead, and his second victory of the weekend Larson fell one race short of sweeping the triple-header weekend. He won the Craftsman Truck race on Friday and finished fourth in the Xfinity Series on Saturday. He was hoping to join Kyle Busch as the only drivers to sweep a triple-header weekend — Busch did it at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2010 and 2017. He was far from dominant on Sunday Larson, driving the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, led just 19 of 267 laps and had to overcome poor starting position, pit road mishaps and bad restarts to pull off the win — his first victory of the season and first in the Cup Series at Homestead since 2022. Bowman, who was Saturday’s pole winner, finished second in the No. 48 Chevrolet. Bubba Wallace was third for 23XI Racing after leading 43 laps — the most laps he’s led in a race since September 2023. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Denny Hamlin rounded out the top five. Ryan Blaney was running third when his engine blew up on Lap 207, causing a thick cloud of smoke to cover the track and a

lengthy cleanup. It had been a strong race for Blaney before then. He led 124 laps and won Stage 1 after starting sixth. It was the second time in three races that Blaney did not ﬁnish a race because of an engine failure with his No. 12 Team Penske Ford.

“It just stinks,” Blaney said. “Led a lot of laps. Lost a little bit of track position there with some stuff on pit road but got back to third. And it was a great race between me, Bubba and Larson. It

was going to be a heck of a battle the last 60 laps or so, but just didn’t really work out for us. We’ll keep our head up.

“It’s one of those things where it’s not really going our way right now, but the good news is we’re bringing fast cars.”

Pit road mishaps

While exiting pit road on Lap 84, Josh Berry’s No 21 Ford hit the side of Larson’s car then hit Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford. Both Logano and Berry spun then went the wrong direction into their pit stalls to check the damage. Larson’s car was slightly damaged from the contact.

Another incident happened on Lap 172. Chase Elliott received a penalty for not being line up single-ﬁle coming into pit road, even though Elliott could be heard on his in-car feed saying the he had veered left to avoid hitting someone, but gave the spot back. Elliott, driving a No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, finished 18th.

Up next

The Cup series races next at Martinsville Speedway, where Blaney won in November to punch his ticket into last season’s playoff ﬁnal four Wiliam Byron won Martinsville last spring.

Hovland ﬁnds swing, rallies to win at Innisbrook

The Associated Press

PALM HARBOR, Fla. — Viktor Hovland won the Valspar Championship on Sunday and has no idea how it happened.

His swing is so out of sorts that Hovland has gone through five coaches since he won the FedEx Cup in 2023. He had gone eight months without making a 36-hole cut against a full ﬁeld and felt so lost he wasn’t even sure he was going to play this week. And then he delivered one worldclass shot after another, none more impressive than a 7-iron from 186 yards over a bunker to 5 feet on No. 16, the toughest hole on the Copperhead course.

Three shots behind with five to play, he rallied with three birdies to pass Justin Thomas and close with a 4-under 67 for a one-shot victory

“It’s been quite the struggle the past year-and-a-half, so for me to come back and win this tournament is quite incredible,” Hovland said. “I was not very hopeful with my game leading into this week. Just goes to

Continued from page 1C

and scores,” Clark said Sunday

“But I think it is a testament to the resilience and growth of our pursuit and the process this team has been through. They believe, and they’ve overcome some stuff and gotten better when they’ve been challenged. They’ve put in the work to be the No. 1 overall seed.”

The Tigers led most of the meet at Birmingham’s Legacy Arena, across the street from the SEC’s headquarters. Starting on uneven bars, LSU posted a season hightying 49.600 and still had the lead halfway through the meet at 99.050 to Oklahoma’s 98.925 after the Tigers went 49.450 on balance beam.

Seniors Haleigh Bryant and Aleah Finnegan led LSU with 9.925s, which would tie for the SEC beam title with Missouri’s Helen Hu and

PELICANS

Continued from page 1C

let it happen again.”

Nobody was more up to the task than McCollum, who had one of the worst shooting nights of his NBA career in last week’s loss. He shot 1 of 15 from the floor, 0-for-7 from 3-pointers and 1-for-

show this game is pretty crazy

“Wasn’t sure I was going to show up, but I’m glad I did.”

He didn’t leave satisfied that his game was back in order There’s still too many errant shots, too many times he feels the club is out of position and he has to find a fix on the way down.

But he found a swing that worked on the toughest stretch of Innisbrook.

“I honestly did not believe I could do it this week,” Hovland said.

It looked bleak even after Hovland and Thomas ﬁnally separated from the pack during a ﬁnal round so tight that nine players had at least a share of the lead at some point.

Hovland was three shots behind Thomas when he holed a 12foot birdie putt on the par-5 14th to start his amazing run. He hit 7-iron at a tucked pin on the 16th hole — the toughest hole on the Copperhead course — to 5 feet for birdie that tied him for the lead.

And then he took dead aim to a back pin on the par-3 17th to 12

Oklahoma’s Faith Torrez. LSU then went to floor for the third rotation and posted its best event score of the night, a 49.625, led by 9.95s from Bryant, freshman Kailin Chio and sophomore Amari Drayton. Still, it wasn’t good enough to retain the lead because Florida soared to the best score in the nation on bars this season, a 49.850 led by perfect 10s from Leanne Wong and Riley McCusker

Going to the ﬁnal rotation, LSU on vault and Florida on beam, the Gators led the Tigers 148.725148.675, with OU a close third going to ﬂoor at 148.450. Florida, however, didn’t measure up to its No. 2 national ranking on beam, forced to count a 9.775 from Alyssa Arena that led to a 49.100. Meanwhile LSU, No. 1 nationally on vault, went 49.525 on that event, led by a 9.95 from Bryant in the anchor spot to clinch it.

LSU’s 198.200, its best-ever score at SECs, outdistanced SEC

5 from the free throw line to ﬁn-

ish with 3 points He responded in a big way with his fourth game of 40 points or more this season. He also had seven assists. For the ﬁrst time in franchise history the Pelicans had four different players to record seven or more assists in a game. Jose Alvarado, Kelly Olynyk and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl had eight assists each.

feet for birdie, which turned into a two-shot cushion when Thomas faltered late.

Thomas made it a little easier on Hovland. He made four birdies in a ﬁve-hole stretch on the back nine and was ahead by three when he walked off the 15th green. But he chose driver on the 16th and hit that into the trees, leaving him no choice but to chip out to the fairway Thomas had to get up-anddown from a bunker to escape with bogey Hovland caught him with his birdie on the 16th, and Thomas was in trouble on the 18th with a drive into deep rough on the left that led to bogey He was 7 under through 15 holes but had to settle for a 66.

Hovland played it safe on the 18th with a two-shot lead, and his bogey only determined the ﬁnal margin. He ﬁnished at 11-under 273 for his seventh career victory that moves him back into the top 10 in the world. This one he might not have seen coming.

Hovland spoke openly about the frustrations of his supreme ball-

first-timer Oklahoma (197.925) and Florida (197.875). Missouri was fourth at 197.400.

“It was a test of wills there at the end,” Clark said.

LSU was the only team in Saturday’s evening session not to post a perfect 10 — Mizzou’s Mara Titarsolej also had one on bars, Florida’s Selena Harris-Miranda had one to win vault and Torrez had a 10.0 score to win ﬂoor The Tigers’ best score was a 9.95, but LSU never had to count a score of lower than 9.85, which the other three teams did.

“This was like a ﬁnal four,” said Bryant, who posted a 39.725 in the all-around. “We knew what we needed to do. It’s a really great step toward where we want to go.”

With her performance, Bryant achieved yet another career milestone. The ﬁfth-year senior joined Sarah Finnegan and Rheagan Courville as the only LSU gymnasts with five career SEC

The 35 total assist was two shy of the team’s season high.

“It’s the way we want to play,” Green said. “We want to share the basketball.”

The Pelicans (19-53) gave themselves a chance despite playing without three players from last week’s game. Zion Williamson (low back contusion), Yves Missi (right hip soreness) and Trey Murphy (out for remainder of season with a torn labrum and partially

LSU signee Reece to play in Jordan Brand Classic

LSU men’s basketball signee Jalen Reece made the Jordan Brand Classic boys team roster according to the Jordan Brand social media. The prestigious high school all-star game is on April 18 at CareFirst Arena in Washington, D.C. The last LSU high school signee to make the Jordan Brand Classic was Efton Reid in 2021. Reece committed to LSU on Oct. 16, 2024, and signed on Nov 13. The Orlando, Florida, native is the No. 71 player and No 10 point guard in the country, according to the 247Sports Composite.

After the 6-foot guard from Oak Ridge High School signed, LSU coach Matt McMahon expressed his excitement for the point guard. Reece chose LSU after receiving offers from Alabama, Ole Miss, Providence and Cincinnati.

U.S. runner wins silver in return from burrito ban

American runner Shelby Houlihan returned to the big stage after a muchdebated four-year doping ban and won a silver medal in the 3,000 meters at the world indoor championships. The U.S. record holder at 1,500 meters and former record holder in the 5,000 sat out the Paris Olympics because she tested positive after eating a burrito she claimed was tainted with a performanceenhancing drug. The 32-year-old runner said she was ﬂooded with a range of emotions after her second-place ﬁnish Saturday In the lead-up to Olympic trials in 2021, Houlihan revealed she had tested positive for nandralone and claimed it came from a tainted pork burrito she’d bought from a food truck. A slew of appeals ensued, but Houlihan’s argument was ultimately rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

striking becoming a liability He missed three straight cuts coming into the Valspar Championship, including an 80 in the ﬁrst round of The Players Championship a week ago. Hovland’s last made cut against a full ﬁeld was the Scottish Open last summer

So, what happened?

“I’ve got no idea,” he said with a laugh when his victory was secure. Jacob Bridgeman who started with a three-way share of the lead, needed to hole out from the fairway on the 18th to force a playoff. He wound up with a par and ﬁnished third.

“I hit a lot of disgusting shots, but they happened to go where I looked,” Hovland said. “Somehow I was able to hit the good shots I can a lot more often.”

There were only great shots down the stretch. Hovland chose to lay up on the 14th he went for the green in two on Saturday and made bogey — and had to rely on a 12-foot, slippery birdie putt to have any chance. That was a big one to make it.

individual championships including two all-around titles. Sandra Smith also won five SEC titles on vault and floor Bryant won the all-around for the second straight year, something Sarah Finnegan also did in 2018 and 2019. Bryant also won SEC vault titles in 2021 and 2024. Aleah Finnegan finished her SEC career with her first conference title and tied for second in the all-around with Harris-Miranda (39.675). Chio made an impressive SEC debut, finishing fourth at 39.650.

Clark said he was proud of the fact that despite last year’s success, this edition of the Tigers have stayed hungry and haven’t been complacent.

“It’s the fire,” Finnegan said, “that burns.”

For more LSU sports updates, sign up for our newsletter at theadvocate.com/lsunewsletter

torn rotator cuff in right shoulder) were all missing.

The Pistons (40-32), meanwhile, were without starters Cade Cunningham and Tim Hardaway, Jr

The Pelicans return home and will host the Philadelphia 76ers Monday “Now we want to win the games that are available,” Green said. “This was a winnable game for us.”

Piastri wins F1 Chinese GP, leads McLaren 1-2 finish SHANGHAI McLaren driver Oscar Piastri cruised to his maiden Chinese Grand Prix win from pole position with the Australian untouchable ahead of his teammate Lando Norris as the pair completed McLaren’s milestone 50th onetwo placing in Formula 1. Piastri who took his maiden pole position on Saturday, got a great start in Sunday’s race to lead into the ﬁrst corner, as Norris passed George Russell’s Mercedes for second. The Australian then slowly stretched his legs in an untroubled drive for his third career win, after Hungary and Azerbaijan last year The full result was altered by stewards after the race when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton as well as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly were disqualiﬁed.

Chavez back with Braves on minor league deal

NORTH PORT Fla. — Jesse Chavez returned to the Atlanta Braves once again — and got right back to work. The 41-year-old Chavez pitched two innings on Sunday against Baltimore. The right-hander allowed two runs, one earned, and three hits.

Chavez is trying to win a spot in Atlanta’s bullpen after he was released by Texas on Friday He agreed to a minor league deal with the Braves on Saturday Chavez appeared in regular-season games with Atlanta in 2010 and each of the previous four years. He faced a similar situation in 2024, when he was released by the White Sox near the end of spring training and agreed to a minor league contract with the Braves.

Ortiz wins in Macau, earns spot at British Open MACAU, China Carlos Ortiz of Mexico made two early birdies and pulled away Sunday for a 6-under 64 and a three-shot victory over Patrick Reed in the International Series Macau, his second Asian Tour title since joining LIV Golf. Ortiz, Reed and Jason Kokrak — all with LIV Golf were the top three players and earned spots in the British Open this summer. It will be the ﬁrst major for Ortiz in two years. Sergio Garcia finished fourth, one shot away from getting one of the International Finals Qualifying exemptions to the British Open. Ortiz, who has one victory on LIV Golf, also won the

tional Series Oman a year ago. He ﬁnished at 22-under 258 at

Golf and

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By TERRy RENNA

Kyle Larson made his move with six laps left to win the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla

Florida ends UConn’s bid for national title

BY STEVE REED Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C For 30 minutes, UConn showed the mettle and toughness that delivered back-to-back national championships for Dan Hurley, outplaying topseeded Florida in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. And then Walter Clayton took over The Gators’ ﬁrst-team AllAmerica guard scored 13 of his 23 points in the ﬁnal eight minutes on Sunday, including two crucial 3-pointers down the stretch and Florida rallied to a scintillating 77-75 victory over the Huskies, ending UConn’s pursuit of a third straight title.

Florida (32-4) advanced to the Sweet 16 for the ﬁrst time since 2017 and will play Colorado State or Maryland in the West Region semifinals in San Francisco.

“This is a great win for our program,” coach Todd Golden said. “The time was now for us to take that next step. Again, Florida basketball, back where it belongs. Being in the Sweet 16 is a great step in the right direction. We made winning play after winning play down the stretch in the last six minutes.”

There’s little doubt about that.

But they also had help from the Huskies, who made some uncharacteristic mistakes, including twice allowing the Gators to corral offensive rebounds off missed free throws, resulting in four second-chance points.

The Huskies (24-11) came in with modest outside expectations as a No. 8 seed but led for most of the second half. During his postgame news conference, Hurley struggled several times to hold back tears.

“This was just historic run that these guys have been on and the guys that have worn the uniform the past couple years,” Hurley said. “If it’s going to come to an end for us, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be in a game where we lost to a lower seed.

“There’s some honor I guess, in the way that this went down.”

UConn was seeking to become the ﬁrst team to threepeat since UCLA’s run of seven straight titles from 1967-73.

The Huskies won the 2023 title in Houston and last year in Glendale, Arizona, joining Duke (1991-92) and Florida (2006-07) as the only schools to win back-to-back since the Bruins’ run under John Wooden Florida entered the game as a 9 1/2-point favorite and ranked No. 1 in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efﬁciency by scoring 128.9 points per 100 possessions, and the Gators of the powerful Southeastern Conference joined fellow 1-seed Duke as the only teams to rank in the top 10 on both sides of the ball, making them a popular pick to cut down the nets.

But the Huskies’ defense stymied Clayton and company for most of the game, holding Florida to 35% shooting through the ﬁrst 30 minutes to build a 52-46 lead.

The Gators chipped away and then Clayton showed why he’s one of the best players in the country

He made a 3 from the right wing with 2:54 left to put Florida ahead 62-61, and teammate Will Richard followed with a steal and dunk.

Clayton’s 3 from the same spot with 1:06 left made it 70-64 — part of a 14-3 run that gave Florida an eightpoint advantage with 40 seconds left.

Champs battle to buzzer

Even when Florida seemed to have the game in hand, UConn kept ﬁghting. Thomas Haugh’s two free throws with 5.9 seconds left pushed the Gators’ lead to five to seal the win.

Hurley watched, arms folded, standing on the sideline as Liam McNeeley’s 3-pointer at the buzzer sailed skyward and dropped through the net as the horn sounded.

Aft erward, Clayt on thanked his teammates for believing in him after his rough start.

“We knew this game wasn’t going to be easy,” Clayton said. “(UConn) has got a championship pedigree, back-to-back champions. That’s a great team. They had that experience. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy We kept our composure.”

McNeeley led UConn with 22 points, and Alex Karaban scored 14. Alijah Martin contributed 18 points for Florida and Richard had 15.

Proctor, Flagg help Duke roll past No. 9 Baylor

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. — Tyrese Proctor made seven 3-pointers and scored 25 points to continue his recent tear, helping No. 1 seed Duke beat Baylor 89-66 on Sunday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Freshman star Cooper Flagg had 18 points, nine rebounds and six assists for the Blue Devils (33-3), the headliner in the East Region and one of the favorites to win it all. They will face either Oregon or Arizona in the Sweet 16 on Thursday in Newark, New Jersey

Proctor, a junior, made 7 of 8 3-pointers his third straight game with at least six 3s and an abrupt turnaround after going 0 for 10 in his ﬁrst two Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament games He made 9 of 10 shots overall Sunday Duke shot 64.4%, hit 12 3-pointers and turned it over just six times.

Freshman V.J. Edgecombe scored 16 points for the ninth-seeded Bears (2015), who haven’t reached the tournament’s second weekend since Scott Drew’s team won it all in the Indianapolis bubble in 2021. Duke took over in the 7 1/2 minutes before halftime, outscoring Baylor 24-6 with clean offensive execution while also holding up better against the Bears’ relentless work on the of-

fensive glass that upped the physicality of the game That included Flagg sporting a red, puffy right eyelid and teammate Mason Gillis picking up a bright red scratch stretching from the right side of his neck around toward his throat. Duke led 47-30 at the half, and Baylor got no closer than 13 points afterward The Bears shot 36.8%.

KENTUCKY 84, ILLINOIS 75: In Milwaukee Koby Brea matched a career high with 23 points and Kentucky beat Illinois 84-75 on Sunday to advance beyond the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend for the first time since they reached the Elite Eight in 2019.

Kentucky (24-11), the No. 3 seed in the Midwest Region, faces No. 2 seed and Southeastern Conference rival Tennessee on Friday in Indianapolis. The Wildcats have already beaten the Volunteers twice this season.

ALABAMA 80, ST. MARY’S 66: In Cleveland, Alabama thundered past Saint Mary’s 80-66 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday night, using a steady stream of alley-oop dunks to reach the Sweet 16 for a third consecutive year Chris Youngblood led the second-seeded Crimson Tide (27-8) with 13 points. Six players ﬁnished in double figures for Alabama, including forward Grant Nelson, who had 12 points

and eight rebounds after sitting out the majority of a ﬁrst-round game against Robert Morris due to a knee injury

All-American guard

Mark Sears had 12 points and three assists, including a pretty lob that Clifford Omoruyi slammed through for a reverse dunk that put the Tide up 14 with just under 8 minutes to play MARYLAND 72, COLORADO 71: In Seattle, Derik Queen banked in a fadeaway jumper at the buzzer and Maryland advanced to the Sweet 16 in a thriller, beating Colorado State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday Jalen Lake drilled a rainbow 3-pointer with 6 seconds left for No. 12 seed Colorado State, which was seeking to become the lowest-seeded team to advance to a regional semiﬁnal in this edition of March Madness, which had been light on upset or buzzerbeaters.

Queen took care of that. Maryland coach Kevin Willard called timeout with 3.6 seconds left and got the ball to Queen, the 6-foot-10 freshman center from Baltimore, who drove to his left,

By The Associated Press

The number of perfect March Madness brackets is

Louisville in Thursday’s first game, knocking out 13,339,089.

On the other end of the spectrum, ESPN reported that every pick was wrong on 30 of its brackets — a nearly impossible feat in its own right even if a contestant were trying to pick all losers.

NC State

dropped the number of perfect brackets on the NCAA’s platform down to two out of 34 million. That’s 0.000000005% for those of you who can’t do the math ESPN’s tracker was also down to two out of 24.3 million following Florida’s win

The two remaining brackets are split between secondround opponents Duke and Baylor, so one is guaranteed to reach 42-0 while the other will drop out.

Michigan’s 91-79 win over Texas A&M on Saturday night shredded the ﬁnal perfect Yahoo Sports bracket. Poor Shawno had been correct on every pick with his Grand Bracket until the fifth-seeded Wolverines sent the fourth-seeded Aggies home.

CBS Sports lost its last perfect bracket with Saturday night’s games, including No. 6 seed BYU’s two-point win over third-seeded Wisconsin and Texas Tech’s 77-64 win over No. 11 seed Drake. Creighton was listed as ESPN’s top bracket buster after its 89-75 win over

Wade officially announced as Wolfpack men’s basketball coach: McNeese’s Will Wade is ofﬁcially the Wolfpack’s new men’s basketball coach

The school announced the hiring Sunday, coming a day after Wade’s McNeese team lost to Purdue in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

An introductory news conference for Wade is scheduled for Tuesday, capping a week in which Wade was unusually open about his conversations with N.C. State compared to coaches typically deﬂecting questions or playing word games when asked about other jobs.

In that regard, the eventual hiring who has signed a six-year deal — has been an open secret for days. The contract is pending approval from the university trustees. Now N.C. State and athletic director Boo Corrigan ﬁnally have their man The N.C. State job will present a new challenge. It comes in the Atlantic Coast Conference in a time of transition for the tradition-rich league, with numerous longtime coaches — North Caro-

lina’s Roy Williams, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Virginia’s Tony Bennett, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, Miami’s Jim Larranaga and Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton — all exiting in the past four years amid a rapidly changing college landscape.

Texas

Terry fired after Longhorns make another quick exit from tourney: The University of Texas ﬁred basketball coach Rodney Terry on Sunday after a disappointing ﬁrst season in the Southeastern Conference and another quick exit from the NCAA Tournament

The move comes two years after Terry led Texas to the Elite Eight in the 2022-2023 season when, as an assistant coach, he took over the program at midseason after then-coach Chris Beard was arrested on a felony family violence charge and was fired. The charge against Beard was later dismissed. Terry’s ability to keep the team together and thrive amid the turmoil saw Texas win the Big 12 Conference Tournament, then make its deepest run in the NCAA Tournament since 2008. He was rewarded with the fulltime job and a ﬁve-year, $15

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOOT By CHRIS CARLSON

Florida guard Walter Clayton celebrates after scoring against UConn during the second half in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday in Raleigh, N.C.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By STEPHANIE SCARBROUGH Duke guard Tyrese Proctor celebrates after making a 3-pointer during the second half in the second round of the NCAA tournament against Baylor on Sunday in Raleigh, N.C.

NCAA TOURNAMENT

Fast-paced FSU to challenge LSU women’s defense

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

Two of the nation’s six best scoring offenses will collide on Monday in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center with a trip to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 on the line.

The LSU women’s basketball team is scoring 85.0 points per game No. 6 nationally Florida State, the third-seeded Tigers’ second-round opponent, is tallying 87.4 per night — the second-most among Division I teams.

“I would expect you’re going to see a lot of scoring,” coach Kim Mulkey said.

That expectation is a relatively new one for LSU.

The Tigers have hosted NCAA Tournament games in each of Mulkey’s first three seasons in charge, yet they haven’t faced a top-10 scoring offense in the ﬁrst two rounds of the bracket since 2022. That year, they battled Jackson State’s fourth-ranked offense in the ﬁrst round before falling to Ohio State’s eighth-ranked attack in the second.

LSU has won all six ﬁrst and second-round games it’s played since.

Yet the best scoring team it faced over that stretch was Michigan and its 42nd-best offense, which visited the PMAC for a secondround game in 2023.

The No. 6 seed Seminoles are a different challenge. They have not only the nation’s leading scorer in junior guard Ta’Niya Latson (25.0 ppg), but also two more 15-point per game scorers, senior forward Makayla Timpson (17.6) and senior guard O’Mariah Gordon (16.2).

“We want to play with pace and space,” Florida State coach Brooke Wyckoff said. “We want to be the fastest team in the country, not just score the most points. Really, that comes down to players that are able to take the ball and go get a layup, ﬁrst and foremost. And then players that can also shoot the 3.”

On Saturday, Florida State erupted for 31 fourth-quarter points, racing past No. 11 George Mason for a 94-59 win. Latson finished with 28 points after she converted

8 of her 16 ﬁeld-goal attempts and 11 of her 14 free throws. That outing was her 16th 25-point game this season; only two Division I players have posted more this year

“We’ll have multiple people that have the assignment to guard her,”

Mulkey said

The Seminoles also play at the sixth-fastest pace in the country, according to Her Hoop Stats, and they rarely turn the ball over They rank top five among Division I teams in turnovers per game (11.0) and turnover rate (12.1%).

LSU, however does have an edge on defense.

The Tigers are allowing 83.9 points per 100 possessions, a top-40 national rate, while Florida State is giving up 91.0 points per 100 possessions, which ranks just 148th among Division I teams.

“Hopefully the team that plays just a little bit of defense wins,”

Mulkey said, “because I’m a defensive coach.”

Johnson talks WNBA draft

LSU is embarking on an NCAA Tournament run, which means that Flau’jae Johnson’s career will soon arrive at a crossroads.

The star junior can either return to the Tigers or declare for the 2025 WNBA Draft

This year, players in her position must make that decision by March 31 or, if their teams are still alive in the tournament past the deadline, within 48 hours of their ﬁnal game.

Most collegiate stars have to play four full seasons before they can declare for the WNBA draft. But Johnson, a draft-eligible junior, is not one of them. League rules allow prospects to declare for the draft of the calendar year in which they turn 22 years old — regardless of how much NCAA eligibility they have left.

“I haven’t really thought about the draft,” Johnson told The Advocate on Sunday “Kind of just focusing on trying to win this championship. I’m just waiting on God to tell me what to do, for real.

I haven’t really thought about it.”

This year the three-round draft

will have two more selections than it usually does because the Golden State Valkyries — one of the WNBA’s two expansion franchises — have the fifth, 17th and the 30th picks. (The league stripped a firstround selection from the Las Vegas Aces in 2023). Still, the WNBA is a tough league to crack, especially for potential rookies such as Johnson. Only 12 prospects will be first-round picks. Most of the other 26 that are drafted this offseason will have to battle other first-year players and veterans for one of the league’s 144 roster spots.

If Johnson does declare, then WNBA teams must decide where she ﬁts in a star-studded group of guards. In a recent mock draft by The Athletic, nine of the 12 ﬁrstround picks were either guards or wings. That group does not include LSU senior Aneesah Morrow, a forward who was projected to come off the board when the Connecticut Sun selects a player with the No. 7 overall pick.

A team could choose Johnson around the same spot, but only if she declares

“It’s a lot of factors,” Johnson said. “A lot of family factors. But like I said, it’s gonna come time to make a decision.”

The WNBA draft is scheduled for April 14.

Scoring records

LSU has now set three singlegame program scoring records this season.

On Jan. 30 against Oklahoma, the Tigers scored 107 points — the most they’ve tallied against a Southeastern Conference opponent in team history

Then on March 7, they notched 101 in a win over Florida, setting a program record for points scored in an SEC Tournament game.

LSU set the last record on Saturday, when it buried San Diego State under 103 points, the highest scoring output it’s posted in an NCAA Tournament game, including the 2023 national championship win over Iowa.

The Tigers may need a similar outing to reach the Sweet 16.

Their do-or-die game against Florida State will tip off at 5 p.m. Monday on ESPN.

Hall, Kitts spark No. 1 South Carolina’s rally

BY PETE IACOBELLI

Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Bree Hall had 11 points and Chloe Kitts scored all 10 of her points in the second half as top seed South Carolina pulled away after trailing at halftime to beat ninth-seeded Indiana 64-53 on Sunday in the women’s NCAA Tournament and reach the Sweet 16 for the 11th straight time. The Gamecocks (32-3) will take on either fourth-seeded Maryland or ﬁfth-seeded Alabama in the Birmingham 2 Regional next week. Those teams play Monday night Not that anyone at Colonial Life Arena was locking South Carolina into that game after a dreadful

first-half performance where they shot just 10 of 29 and trailed the Hoosiers 26-25 at halftime. But the Gamecocks came out on fire in the third quarter hitting nine of their first 10 shots for a 20-7 run to take control.

Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley said it was a cacophony of player voices during halftime, all identifying what the players had not done the first two quarters and how to get back to being themselves after the break.

“It’s not like a board meeting where there’s one person talking at a time,” Staley said, smiling. “It is chaos.”

Whatever the process, it certainly worked for South Carolina,

which hit shot after shot to move in front. When Kitts’ 3-pointer put her team ahead 38-30, she held her arms up in celebration as the cheers rained down.

Hall’s 3-pointer closed the surge to take the game in hand and improve to 18-1 in their past four NCAA Tournaments The run has included NCAA titles in 2022 and 2024. The team lost to Iowa in the national semiﬁnals in 2023.

“We were all just missing our easy layups, and there wasn’t really ﬂow in the game” the ﬁrst two quarters, Kitts said. “Then the second half, we turned it around.” Indiana couldn’t get closer than seven points the rest of the way Shay Ciezki had 12 points to

lead Indiana. Sania Feagin added 10 points for South Carolina, which improved to 18-0 in home NCAA Tournament games.

Indiana guard Chloe Moore-McNeil said the third quarter, when the Hoosiers got outscored 26-14 and had ﬁve of their 16 turnovers, was a mixture of South Carolina stepping up and her team making errors it hadn’t in the ﬁrst half.

“Obviously, they’re the No. 1 team in the country in terms of transition offense and capitalizing on people’s turnovers,” MooreMcNeil said. “I think, yeah, they did have pressure on us, but at the same time, I think we did have some careless mistakes.”

TCU gets to Sweet 16 by beating Louisville

By The Associated Press

FORT WORTH, Texas Agnes Emma-Nnopu scored 23 points with four 3-pointers, Hailey Van Lith had a double-double against her former team and second-seeded TCU advanced to its ﬁrst NCAA Sweet 16 with a win over seventh-seeded Louisville.

Van Lith had 16 points and 10 assists after going to a Final Four and two other Elite Eight games with Louisville from 2021-23. She played in her 19th tourney game, the most among active players, after going to another Elite Eight with LSU last season.

Sedona Prince had 19 points and Donovyn Hunter 18, including three 3-pointers in a 17-0 run that put the Horned Frogs (33-3) ahead to stay Jayda Curry had a careerhigh 41 points for the Cardinals (22-11). She already had 15 of those when when she made a jumper that put them up 17-13 with 2:57 left in the first quarter before TCU’s game-turning run when Van Lith made the goahead basket.

Before winning twice at home when hosting for the ﬁrst time, the Big 12 champion Horned Frogs hadn’t even made the NCAA ﬁeld in 15 years — and last won a tourney game since 2006. They were 1-17 in conference games two years ago before Mark Campbell became their coach and has since brought in 11 transfers, most with NCAA experience.

OLE MISS 69, BAYLOR 63: In Waco, Texas, Madison Scott scored 14 points, including a tiebreaking jumper in the ﬁnal minute, and Ole Miss advanced to the Sweet 16 with a victory over Baylor on the Bears’ home court.

Sira Thienou scored 16 points as the Rebels won twice in Waco three years after a ﬁrst-round loss that was the first tournament victory for South Dakota. Aaronette Vonleh scored 16 points for the Bears. They failed to advance to the Sweet 16 from their arena for the second time in four seasons under coach Nicki Collen.

KANSAS STATE 80, KENTUCKY 79 (OT): In Lexington, Kentucky, Temira Poindexter hit a corner 3-pointer with 56 seconds left in overtime her eighth 3 of the game — and ﬁfth-seeded Kansas State dodged four misses by No. 4 seed Kentucky in the closing seconds to win a second-round game.

Kentucky star Georgia Amoore missed a jumper with 21 seconds left, a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining and then a baseline layup at the buzzer Poindexter missed her first six shots but finished 8 of 15 beyond the arc to score 24 points. The visiting Wildcats will face either Southern California or Mississippi State in the Sweet 16. DUKE 59, OREGON 53: In Durham, North Carolina, Ashlon Jackson scored 14 of her 20 points in the third quarter to power No. 2 seed Duke to a 59-53 victory over 10th-seeded Oregon in a second-round game. Duke played without leading scorer Toby Fournier, the Atlantic Coast Conference rookie of the year who averages 13.4 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. Duke coach Kara Lawson said team doctors didn’t clear Fournier to play Jackson shot 5 of 9 on 3-pointers and had four rebounds. Reigan Richardson added 13 points while Delaney Thomas scored 12. Deja Kelly finished with 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting for Oregon.

NOTRE DAME 75, MICHIGAN: In South Bend, Indiana, Hannah Hidalgo scored 21 points and No. 3 seed Notre Dame routed No. 6 seed Michigan. Notre Dame advances to the Sweet 16 for the fourth consecutive season. The Irish will have a rematch in Birmingham against either TCU or Louisville. The Horned Frogs defeated Notre Dame in the Cayman Islands in November. The Fighting Irish swept Louisville in two ACC regular-season games.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Florida State guard Ta’Niya Latson leads the nation in scoring with a 25-point average. LSU hosts Florida State in a second-round NCAA Tournament game Monday.

Continued from page 1C 6C

Two-way star Lombardi insures Tulane’s win

BY GUERRY SMITH

Contributing writer

On a day that could have gone in the other direction, two-way star Michael Lombardi made absolutely sure Tulane took care of Wichita State in the deciding game of their American Athletic Conferenceopening series.

First, he moved to the mound from ﬁrst base and struck out the Shockers’ Ryan Callahan for the ﬁnal out of the eighth inning to protect a precarious 8-5 lead

He then sent the ﬁrst pitch he saw from reliever Jack Mount in the bottom of the inning over the left-ﬁeld wall for a two-run homer, taking the pressure off himself in the ninth as the Green Wave won 11-5 in a four-hour game at Turchin Stadim.

Tulane (17-7, 2-1), which was blown out 10-4 in the opener and trailed 3-0 early on Saturday before scoring eight runs in the fourth, improved to 5-0 in home series after rallying to take this one.

Wichita State (8-15, 1-2), which was picked second to the Wave’s third in the coaches’ preseason poll, continued its early-season struggles. Lombardi ﬁnished with ﬁve RBIs and his second save in as many days, running his league-leading total to seven.

“He’s right in the lines of (alltime Tulane greats) Micah (Owings) and Bogie (Brian Bogusevic) and those guys,” Tulane coach Jay Uhlman said. “He belongs in that (class) for what he’s doing.” Lombardi, who earned a ﬁve-out save in Saturday’s 8-5 win, proved he had plenty left in the tank after Jacob Moore walked two and hit two batters in the eighth, creating the crisis. He fanned Callahan with an off-speed pitch and froze power hitter Josh Livingston, who hit three home runs for the weekend, on another one to end the game.

“I was in a good spot competitively,” Lombardi said “When it comes to winning time in the late innings, that’s where I want to be. I want to be on the mound I want to be in the box. I want to be in those

situations to help us win.”

In both cases, Lombardi did what other before him had done all game. With the wind blowing out the Wave doubled its previous high for homers with four Gavin Schulz and Tanner Chun hit back-to-back homers in the second, staking Tulane to a 3-0 lead that soon became 7-1. James Agabedis followed Lombardi’s long ball with his ﬁrst career homer in the eighth, depositing a pitch over the wall in right centerﬁeld.

Schulz’ homer off a hanging changeup was his ﬁrst since Feb 2.

“This is a huge win for us,” he said. “All week we had the conference preseason predictions on the scoreboard. We looked up, and they were above us. We want to make people pay for what they say.”

Wichita State could not make Tulane’s pitchers pay for putting plenty of trafﬁc on the bases, with 10 guys combining to walk 12 and hit four more Six times, Wave relievers entered with the bases loaded. Garrett Payne struck out two in a row to get out of trouble in the third. Gavin Smith induced a double-play grounder in the

fourth Grayson Smith rolled another double-play ball in the sixth. Jacob Moore coaxed a foul-out to catcher Hugh Pinkney in the seventh, and Lombardi registered his strikeout in the eighth.

Wichita State left 11 on base from the fourth through the eighth, remaining in catch-up mode all the way “It wasn’t great, but we made pitches when we had to and kept the ball in the park,” Tulane coach Jay Uhlman said. “And we had a really good offensive contribution from the collective group.”

The Wave broke out of an extended slump at the plate with 12 hits off eight pitchers, reaching double figures for the first time in seven games and for only the fourth time in 16. The top eight guys in the lineup all had at least one hit by the end of the third inning. Nine players scored at least one run.

Freshman Julius Ejike-Charles (1-0) earned his first career victory, working the fifth inning and allowing only one base-runner Tulane returns to action on Tuesday at UNO in the first game of the Pelican Cup series.

SERIES

took down LSU 6-2 in the series ﬁnale. The defeat was LSU’s ﬁrst series loss in Southeastern Conference play

“They did a better job with two strikes than we did,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said. “I think that was the difference in the game.”

Shores surrendered a runscoring single in the ﬁrst inning before allowing another runscoring single and a groundout that resulted in a third run in the second.

He tossed a scoreless third and nearly got through the fourth unscathed, but the big righty gave up a two-run home run with two outs to junior right ﬁelder Max Belyeu.

Shores threw a career-high 96 pitches. Only 59 of them were strikes.

“I don’t have a lot to say on that right now,” Johnson said when asked why opponents have seen the ball well against Shores.

Shores’ start put LSU’s attack in an early hole, but it wasn’t a good day for the offense.

LSU (22-3, 4-2 SEC) scattered five hits through the first five innings and didn’t score until the sixth when sophomore Jake Brown ripped a run-scoring single.

Brown also helped the second run come across by getting in a rundown between ﬁrst and second base. He eventually got tagged out sliding into second, but he kept himself in the pickle long enough to allow sophomore Steven Milam to score from third base.

Sunday had its highs and lows for Brown. He had a good day at the plate, but he also dropped a routine fly ball in right field and dropped a potential double play after moving to first base in the sixth inning.

The next batter hit a triple into left ﬁeld that extended the Longhorns’ lead to 6-2. Freshman Derek Curiel made a diving attempt but fell short, allowing the ball to roll past him and letting a run score.

“With a guy on ﬁrst, we can’t dive in that situation,” Johnson said. “If there was a guy in scoring position, I wouldn’t have had a problem with that. (Curiel) recognized (the mistake) right away.”

The bright spot of the after-

noon for LSU was freshman right-hander Casan Evans. He replaced Shores in the fifth inning and struck out ﬁve batters in 32/3 innings.

“I thought he did a great job,” Johnson said. Evans ran into a little trouble in the eighth, allowing two singles and reaching a career-high 60 pitches.

But he got a big strikeout with two runners in scoring positon for the second out before exiting for freshman left-hander Cooper Williams. Williams only threw four pitches before Texas (19-3, 4-2) unsuccessfully tried to steal home plate.

The long inning didn’t result in any runs for Texas, but it did result in Johnson getting ejected for arguing a check swing call with the ﬁrst base umpire.

“There’s some history with that umpire and a similar play that affected our team last year,” Johnson said. Before he got ejected, Johnson also got funky with his substitutions in the sixth inning when freshman left-hander Dylan Volantis entered the game to face left-handed hitter Tanner Reaves. Junior Ethan Frey — known for his prowess against left-handed pitching — pinch-hit for Reaves. But when the sixth ended, instead of replacing Frey with senior third baseman Michael Braswell, Johnson moved junior Jared Jones to third base, slid Brown to first and had Frey play right field Jones cleanly fielded the only grounder hit to him in the seventh inning.

“It’s funny, that guy can play anywhere I feel like,” Reaves said. “He’s athletic.”

The defensive adjustments were meant to maximize LSU’s offensive output, but the Tigers were shut down by Volantis instead. After replacing right-handed starter Ruger Riojas in the sixth inning, he tossed 31/3 shutout innings and didn’t allow a hit.

“He’s a high slot guy that does a great job of throwing the ball down,” Johnson said, “and that’s a very unique characteristic to deal with.”

LSU returns to Baton Rouge to face UL on Tuesday First pitch is slated for 6:30 p.m. and the game will be available to stream on SEC Network+ Email Koki Riley at Koki. Riley@theadvocate.com.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Tulane pitcher Michael Lombardi runs to first base against Texas Southern at Turchin Stadium on April 2, 2024. Against Wichita State on Sunday, Lombardi finished with five RBIs and his second save in as many days.

The small, pointy-eared French bulldog breed with a big personality is still way ahead of the once-dominant Lab, according to recent American Kennel Club statistics.

GETTy IMAGES PHOTO

The French bulldog is still the top U.S. breed, but another pup is gaining momentum

Alzheimer’s and macular degeneration share common risk factors

Is there a link between age-related macular degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease?

Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, is a common eye condition and also a leading cause of vision loss among individuals ages 50 and older The condition causes damage to the macula, a small spot near the center of the retina, which is the area of the eye needed for sharp, central vision. One marked similarity between AMD and Alzheimer’s disease is that the most common risk for developing both conditions is age; hence they are both age-related. Additionally, both conditions affect thousands of people worldwide. According to PreventBlindness.org, a 2022 study, The Prevalence of Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the United States, found that an estimated 19.83 million Americans were living with some form of age-related macular degeneration. And, caring for those with AMD is expensive, with an estimated cost that generally ranges from $8,814 to $23,400 per year with potential costs reaching up to $70,200 over a three-year period, according to the prevent blindness website.

BY JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press

NEW YORK The U.S. still has a major case of French bulldog fever, but a very different breed is staunchly chasing dog lovers’ hearts, according to American Kennel Club statistics released Wednesday

For the third year in a row, the comical, controversial Frenchie tops the club’s annual rundown of the nation’s most prevalent purebred dogs. Frenchies are followed by Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, German shepherds, poodles and some other longtime faves (Rounding out the top 10: dachshunds, beagles, rottweilers, bulldogs and German shorthaired pointers.)

Yet keep an eye on the cane corso. The powerful, protective breed vaulted from nearly 50th to 14th in the rankings in just a decade. Popularity is seen as a mixed

blessing among dog breeders and as an outright scourge by their critics. Some animal welfare activists say the AKC rankings drive fads that fuel puppy mills. The AKC says the list documents not promotes, dog-ownership trends, and the nonproﬁt club notes that it conducts thousands of breeder and pet store inspections per year Amid the arguments, there’s no disputing that there are plenty of lovable dogs in the nation’s animal shelters.

Here’s a look at the trends and what they mean.

The Frenchie phenomenon

The AKC ranking reflects purebreds, mostly puppies, that were added last year to the nation’s oldest dog registry Nearly 74,500 were Frenchies. That’s down from 98,500 in 2023 and 108,000 in 2022, but the AKC isn’t saying that the wave

ä See DOGS, page 2D

‘Ted Lasso’ is making a comeback to the pitch

BY ALICIA RANCILIO Associated

Press

Jason Sudeikis’ mustache is making a comeback. “Ted Lasso,” the dramedy about a ﬁercely optimistic American soccer coach in London, is set to return for a fourth season, Apple TV+ announced. The streamer did not say when the new episodes would become available or where they are in the production process. In a statement, Sudeikis, the show’s star and an executive producer, hinted the new episodes would be about taking chances.

that wherever they land, it’s exactly where they’re meant to be.” Ted Lasso the character was first introduced by Sudeikis in 2013 to promote

“In season four, the folks at AFC Richmond learn to LEAP BEFORE THEY LOOK, discovering

play hard for all

four quarters,” Lasso said of the players in a mock news conference. “Do we have any goals this season? Absolutely We’re gonna win a lot of games and we’re gonna get in the playoffs.” “There’s no playoffs” a reporter corrected from the audience. The bit was so popular that Sudeikis was tapped to reprise the character again the

ä See 'LASSO', page 2D

Alzheimer’s disease ranks second behind AMD as an aging disorder that causes a high degree of damage. Currently, according to reports from the Alzheimer’s Association, there are about 6.7 million Americans with the disease, and this number is expected to increase to 13.8 million by 2060. Similarly both AMD and Alzheimer’s disease are found more frequently in women than in men, and 5% to 15% of cases are found in more than one family member Additionally, there remains a genetic risk factor in both diseases. The lipid transport protein called Apolipoprotein E provides an elevated risk to individuals for AMD if they carry the allele-2 variant and a higher risk for Alzheimer’s in individuals if they carry the allele-4 variant. Furthermore, there are three events that make pathologies very similar in both diseases, with the exception that they are found in different locations: either the retina or the brain. The first similar pathology is the amyloid beta protein, which accumulates in large quantities identified in the brain of an individual with Alzheimer’s, and the presence of these plaques is defining in the disease. With those individuals diagnosed with AMD, amyloid-beta deposits are also found and accumulate underneath the retina and eventually form small clumps of protein-lipid materials called drusen. The accumulation of the amyloid protein causes eventual widespread cell death in both diseases. The second similar pathological feature in AMD and Alzheimer’s is that there are high levels of tissue damage and loss of cell function, with

Sudeikis

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By MARy ALTAFFER

A cane corso competes at the 140th Westminster Kennel Club dog show in 2016 at Madison Square Garden in New york.

Research suggests herb may lower blood glucose

Dear Doctors: I take medication for Type 2 diabetes. I also enjoy horehound candy I recently ate three candies after taking my medication and experienced a sharp drop in blood sugar Afterwards, I read that white horehound is attributed to lowering blood sugar Do you know if this is true?

Dr. Elizabeth Ko Dr Eve Glazier ASK THE DOCTORS

Dear reader: White horehound is the common name for a flowering herb in the mint family Its use as a candy flavoring, and also as a medicinal aide, dates back to ancient Egypt. Often referred to simply as horehound, the botanical name is Marrubium vulgare, a mix of Latin and Hebrew Vulgare means common in Latin, and Marrubium is believed to derive from the Hebrew words for bitter juice. Botanists suspect the “hore” portion of the name may come from the white fuzz that covers the stems of the plant, which looks like hoarfrost. And just to clear up any possible confusion, there is a plant in the same family known as black horehound. Its botanical name is Ballota nigra. However it is not the plant you are asking about. Horehound is quite fragrant, with a pungent and bitter flavor It is also highly bioactive. Thanks to its complex chemical composi-

DOGS

Continued from

has crested. Registration is voluntary, and spokesperson Brandi Hunter Munden notes that the numbers can ﬂuctuate year-to-year

The small, pointy-eared bulldog breed with a big personality is still way ahead of the once-dominant Lab, which logged 58,500 new registrations last year French bulldogs have existed in the U.S. since at least the 19th century, but they’ve been on a tear in the 21st, fueled partly by celebrity owners and social media.

“They are fabulous companions,” the AKC’s Gina DiNardo said.

Frenchie folk praise the dogs’ modest grooming and exercise needs, generally confident and friendly demeanor and, of course, those smushy mugs that fans ﬁnd irresistible — but critics call irresponsible. There can be health problems associated with squished faces and other features, and both detractors and devotees lament that the breed has become too hyped for its own good, attracting unprincipled breeders, unprepared owners and sometimes violent thieves.

The can-do cane corso

If a Frenchie is sometimes described as “a clown in the cloak of a philosopher,” a cane corso is a protector with no use for a cloak. Big, strong and athletic, the cane corso (pronounced KAH’-neh KOHR’-so) served as a Roman war dog and later a farmer’s helper boar hunter and household guardian.

Today’s cane corsi (the proper plural) are prized as loyal, rather august companions and adept dog-sports competitors. But breeders worry that social media is spreading misconceptions about the dogs, which they say are not suitable for everyone.

Breeder Vickie Venzen insists that would-be puppy buyers visit her Maryland home, where she introduces them first to an outgoing, easygoing corso and explains that such a temperament isn’t standard for the breed. Then she will bring out a corso with a classic and desirable demeanor: likely

FACTORS

Continued from page 1D

cell death occurring in the retina and the brain. The third pathological similarity is that both diseases suffer damage to the mitochondria, which are small units within the cell that remain critical in keeping the cell alive. The mitochondria work like batteries in that they provide energy to keep the retina

‘LASSO’

Continued from page 1D

tion, the herb has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, expectorant and antimicrobial properties. It has been used to thin mucus secretions in the respiratory tract, stimulate appetite, reduce gas and bloating, manage swelling, ease breathing and help fight off topical and parasitic infections. If you read the labels of cough syrups and lozenges that advertise themselves as an expectorant, you may find horehound in some of the ingredient lists. More recently, research has begun to look at the possible effects of horehound on blood glucose. A study conducted in 2012 that investigated that question yielded mixed results. But subsequent reviews of the data suggest the herb may, in fact, lead to a drop in blood glucose. The researchers pointed

out the inherent difﬁculties in assessing herbal products, which contain a wide array of bioactive ingredients. They suggested that, by broadening the scope of the analysis of the data, an effect on blood sugar could be seen. A deﬁnitive answer regarding how white horehound may affect blood sugar levels requires further study However, the initial data, along with a body of anecdotal evidence, suggest that the herb may, indeed, have a hypoglycemic effect. That means people like yourself, who are living with Type 2 diabetes, should be aware of that possibility Medications for Type 2 diabetes work to lower blood sugar Using a product that contains white horehound, whether it is a candy or a cough syrup or lozenge, may complicate blood

to greet an invited visitor peacefully, but without tailwagging effusiveness. After its greeting, the dog may walk off and watch with cool vigilance.

Next comes one of her “hard dogs”: one that’s a bit too quick to display its protective instincts.

The point is to show the spectrum of corsi temperaments and make clear that they’re neither lapdogs that just look tough nor roughand-tumble creatures that can be left outside to guard They’re very sensitive to their families, Venzen said.

“They’re very good dogs, and they’re very versatile, and they can be taught a lot,” said Venzen, who was delighted to learn recently that a dog she bred mastered paddleboarding. “But you can’t be so foolish as to think you can put it in any situation and the dog will understand.”

New dogs

The newest breed to be counted the Lancashire heeler, came in at 189th out of AKC’s 201 recognized breeds last year

The next-newest, the bracco Italiano, sprang last year from 152nd to 132nd, and some longtime aﬁcionados already are concerned about its trajectory, said owner Deb Pereira of North Stonington, Connecticut. She stresses that the substantial, handsome and sociable hunting dogs need a good deal of

and brain cells functioning. When the mitochondria begin to lose this energy and die, the cells lose their function and eventually cell death occurs. Mitochondria are critical in the function of cells and in keeping them alive, and this is true for all types of cells in our bodies, including nerve cells, muscle cells, retina cells, heart cells, etc. While research has determined that there is no association between having AMD and then developing

2020, in the middle of the pandemic lockdown. This version of Lasso was the new coach of a ﬁctional

team in London called

Lasso’s cheery disposition allowed him to win over even the surliest of soccer fans, not to mention viewers tired of staying indoors.

physical and mental exercise. Quite a few still hunt; Pereira’s bracco, Elvira, is an agility champion, and her daily walks cover about four miles.

Few dogs

The five rarest AKCrecognized breeds are the sloughi, the Norwegian lundehund, the grand basset griffon Vendéen, the Bergamasco sheepdog and, at 201st, the English foxhound. Doodle doings

To date, the AKC hasn’t recognized any sheepadoodles, Havapoos, borgis or other “designer” hybrids. The club said it has gotten some inquiries, but no doodle or other designer breed fanciers have formally begun the often yearslong process of seeking recognition.

About the everydogs

There’s no census of everyday mixed-breed dogs in the U.S., but the American Veterinary Medical Association estimates the country has about 90 million dogs — purebreds, designer mixes and others.

After animal shelters cleared out during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and then ﬁlled to overﬂowing, last year’s data from advocacy groups Shelter Animals Count and Best Friends Animal Society differ as to whether dog arrivals and adoptions rose or fell and by how much. That’s not inex-

Alzheimer’s or dementia, the diseases share common risk factors in addition to aging such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and cigarette smoking.

Dana Territo is an Alzheimer’s advocate and author of “What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer’s Disease.” She hosts “The Memory Whisperer.” Email her at thememorywhisperer@ gmail.com.

its debut. “He has highs and lows like anyone. But he’s eternally optimistic and hopeful and sincere.”

plicable, as the two groups count different sets of organizations.

But both emphasize that purebreds and mixed-breeds come up for adoption.

“Really, if you find it in your heart to rescue or adopt a pet, that’s the way to go,” Best Friends Animal Society CEO Julie Castle said.

By The Associated Press

sugar control. We think it would be wise for you to reach out to your health care provider and tell them of your experience with the horehound candy If they are not familiar with this potential side effect of the herb, ask them to research it. It is possible you will receive guidance for a safe way to indulge in the treat. But you should also be prepared for the idea that you will have to limit horehound candy, or possibly eliminate it from your diet. Send your questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla. edu, or write: Ask the Doctors, c/o UCLA Health Sciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1450, Los Angeles, CA, 90024.

Today is Monday, March 24, the 83rd day of 2025. There are 282 days left in the year Today in history

On March 24, 1989, the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and began leaking an estimated 11 million gallons of crude oil.

On this date:

In 1921, the Women’s Olympiad, the ﬁrst international women’s sporting event, began in Monte Carlo, Monaco. In 1980, Catholic Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador was shot to death by a sniper as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador In 1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavia, marking the ﬁrst time in its 50-year existence that it attacked a sovereign country In 2015, Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, crashed into the French Alps, killing all 150 people

on board; investigators said the jetliner was

“Ted Lasso”

“He’s the version of me that I wish I could be,” Sudeikis told the AP ahead of

“Ted Lasso” has won seven Primetime Emmy Awards, including outstanding comedy series for its first two seasons. It made stars out of its supporting cast, including Brett Goldstein, Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By JULIA NIKHINSON Golden retrievers compete in breed group judging at the 148th Westminster Kennel Club Dog show in 2024 in New york.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Trust your instincts, change what isn't working for you and set a high standard for others. Engage in what makes you feel content and secure. Turn your home into your comfort zone.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Take the initiative. A change will point you in a new direction. Put your energy and skills into getting ahead and reaping the rewards you deserve.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) An optimistic attitude is terrific; however, weigh the pros and cons before you take a leap of faith. Don't ignore any uncertainty or go overboard with your plans. It's better to be safe than sorry.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) You'll have the energy to finish what you start. Enlist the best of the best to help you reach your target. You stand to gain recognition that will lead to unexpected rewards.

LEO (July 23-Aug 22) Deal with relationship issues head-on and avoid misunderstandings that can compromise your position. Manufacture your success instead of waiting for it to happen.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Make adjustments to your environment or become active in a group that shares your beliefs. Your contributions will lead to an opportunity you cannot resist.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Whether you want to improve your physical, emotional or financial well-being, taking

the first step will be necessary On your mark, get set, go!

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Know what and who you are up against, and play to win. Engage in hands-on learning and don't rely on secondhand information. Participate in positive change and forward thinking.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Refuse to let anyone stand in your way. Bypass negativity, and take the path that accommodates your desires. Concentrate on what matters most, and you won't be disappointed.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Look closely at who is involved in whatever you participate in before signing up. Take a leadership position if it allows you to control situations.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Put pressure where needed most and move forward with a plan. Refuse to let uncertainty set in or cost you time and money. Set up a workspace conducive to doing your best and achieving the most.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Jettison what is no longer of value. Simplify your life and rethink what's meaningful to you. Redesigning how you move forward will be an adventure. Live life your way, and you'll have no regrets.

FAMILY CIrCUS

CeLebrItY CIpher For better or For WorSe

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

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.

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer

THe wiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

BY PHILLIP ALDER

Erma Bombeck said, “My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?”

At the bridge table, if someone makes a smelly play, even if the cards do not instantly catch fire, you should care. Try to work out what is happening and what you can do to stop your opponent’s score from multiplying.

In this deal, South is in three no-trump. West leads the spade nine. How should East plan the defense?

North was right to jump to three notrump. With no singleton or void and insufficient points to think about a slam, just go for the nine-trick game.

South starts with eight top tricks: three spades and five clubs. He needs to get a heart trick, but if the opponents take their heart ace and shift to diamonds, they might be able to take four tricks there for down one.

Declarer’s best shot is to win the first trick with his spade king, cross to the dummy, and call for a heart.

If East is napping and plays low, South gains his ninth winner and can claim.

However, East should notice things are looking bad for his side. The spadenine lead was top of nothing, marking declarer with the three high spades. Given dummy’s club winners, he is almost home. South is surely trying to sneak his ninth trick. East must dive in with his heart ace and shift to the diamond two. Here, that works perfectly for the defense. © 2025 by nEa, inc., dist. By andrews mcmeel syndication

Each Wuzzle is a word riddle which creates a disguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: nOOn gOOD = gOOD aFTErnOOn

toDAY’S WoRD LESIon: LEE-zhun: Injury; harm.

Average mark 15 words Time limit 20 minutes Can you find 19 or more words in LESION?

SAtuRDAY’S WoRD — oBVIAtES

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

dIrectIons: make a 2- to 7-letter word from the letters in each row. add points of each word, using scoring directions at right. Finally, 7-letter words get 50-point bonus. “Blanks” used as any letter have no point value. all the words are in the Official sCraBBlE® players Dictionary, 5th Edition.

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer ken ken

InstructIons: 1 Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1 thorugh 4 (easy) or 1 through 6 (challenging) without repeating. 2 The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners. 3 Freebies: Fill in the single-box cages with the number in the top-left corner. HErE is a

WiShinG Well

Scrabble GramS