The Advocate 05-22-2025 by The Advocate

WHAT TO LOOK FOR AS SAINTS HOLD

BR pays tribute to former mayor

Friends, colleagues gather as Holden lies in state at City Hall

Mourners greet each other and pay their respects over Kip Holden’s casket during a

mayor-president of East Baton Rouge Parish at City Hall on Wednesday.

BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER

Staff writer

On Wednesday afternoon Melvin

Lee “Kip” Holden returned to City Hall in the heart of Baton Rouge one ﬁnal time.

This time not to lead, but to be remembered.

The former parish mayor-president, who guided Louisiana’s capital city for 12 years between 2005 and 2016, died last week at the age of 72.

Holden, Baton Rouge’s first Black mayor, lay in state on the ground ﬂoor of City Hall, as the public, former colleagues and other ofﬁcials gathered to pay tribute to a man elected mayor three times, and who represented Baton Rouge at the State Capitol as a legislator for nearly two decades.

“He knew the weight of leadership, the long days, the sleepless nights, the balancing of vision with reality and the burden of making decisions that affect thousands of lives,” said former Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome.

“But he also knew the joy of service a community uplifted and a young person inspired to dream.”

The former mayor died in hospice last Wednesday after a lengthy illness.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Thomas Morse Jr., center, stands in front of City Hall with other service members during a memorial ceremony for former Mayor-President Kip Holden on Wednesday.

Outside City Hall, a 20-foot-by-30foot American flag was hoisted between the ladders of two Baton Rouge Fire Department trucks.

Dozens walked beneath it and filled the first floor of City Hall, as past and present mayoral staffers, city-parish officials and employees, and members

of law enforcement joined to celebrate Holden’s life.

Though his time in Baton Rouge City Hall had its ups and downs, ﬁrst as a Metro Council member and then as mayor-president, many spoke

ä See HOLDEN, page 4A

Feds indict former La. wildlife official

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR and SAM KARLIN Staff writers

attorneys in Lafayette and Baton Rouge Guidry was also a gubernatorial appointee to the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, a volunteer board

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

will have $139 million more to spend on next year’s budget after economists said the state’s revenue outlook is in a bit better shape than previously forecast. The state will also have an additional $130 million to spend during the current ﬁscal

Federal spending bill could mean more coastal funds for La.

BY MIKE SMITH Staff writer

The “big, beautiful bill” making its way through the U.S House of Representatives has further fueled the nation’s divisions, but one little-known aspect of it has managed to unite Louisianans from across the political spectrum. The federal spending bill as it stands now includes a provision that could increase the amount of money Louisiana receives from offshore oil and gas production — revenue that must be used for coastal protection and restoration Estimates show Louisiana could see up to around $50 million per year extra over a decade not exactly a gold rush, but nothing to

sneeze at either It’s a change long-sought by Louisiana political leaders, pushed for years by former Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and taken up by the state’s current, mainly Republican congressional delegation. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, was instrumental in including the measure in the bill. It has been among the topics discussed at this week’s State of the Coast conference in New Orleans, a large gathering of political leaders, policymakers and scientists organized every two years by the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana nonproﬁt. Landrieu, in particular, used her appearance to argue that the state was being shortchanged and must be given

the resources to protect residents that work in the industries that have long beneﬁted the nation.

State officials are reasonably confident the measure could remain in the House version of the bill given its backing by Scalise and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, though there are no guarantees. The measure would then have to survive the U.S. Senate, where the outcome is cloudier

One advantage the state has is that the change is so obscure when compared to other parts of the bill being angrily debated that it may remain far under the radar for rancor

The state’s coastal leaders, who

ä See COASTAL, page 5A

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Louisiana officials are hoping the federal spending bill will result in the state receiving more money from offshore oil and gas revenue.

STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS

memorial ceremony for the former

BRIEFS

Judge blocks firing of 2 on oversight board

A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s ﬁring of two Democratic members of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

The ruling Wednesday from U.S. District Judge Reggie B Walton ends the lawsuit brought by two of the three ﬁred board members in February

The ﬁve-member board is an independent watchdog agency housed within the executive branch. Congress created the agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and tasked the board members with making sure the federal government’s counterterrorism policies are balanced against privacy and civil liberties

“The Constitution gives President Trump the power to remove personnel who exercise his executive authority,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.” Walton said in the written ruling that allowing at-will removal of board members by the president would make the board “beholden to the very authority it is supposed to oversee on behalf of Congress and the American people.”

“To hold otherwise would be to bless the President’s obvious attempt to exercise power beyond that granted to him by the Constitution and shield the Executive Branch’s counterterrorism actions from independent oversight, public scrutiny, and bipartisan congressional insight regarding those actions,” Walton wrote.

Mars rover snaps selfie as dust devil blows by CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The latest selﬁe by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars has captured an unexpected guest: a Martian dust devil.

Resembling a small pale puff, the twirling dust devil popped up 3 miles behind the rover during this month’s photo shoot. Released Wednesday, the selﬁe is a composite of 59 images taken by the camera on the end of the rover’s robotic arm, according to NASA.

It took an hour to perform all the arm movements necessary to gather the images, “but it’s worth it,” said Megan Wu, an imaging scientist from Malin Space Science Systems, which built the camera. “Having the dust devil in the background makes it a classic,” Wu said in a statement.

The picture which also shows the rover’s latest sample borehole on the surface — marks 1,500 sols or Martian days for Perseverance. That’s equivalent to 1,541 days on Earth.

Launched in 2020, Perseverance is collecting samples for eventual return to Earth from Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed and river delta.

Johnson vows to push ahead on tax cuts

BY LISA MASCARO, KEVIN FREKING, LEAH ASKARINAM and JOEY

CAPPELLETTI Associated Press

WASHINGTON Defying opposition within his ranks, House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted late Wednesday that Republicans would march ahead on their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package after a lengthy White House meeting with GOP holdouts refusing to back the bill.

Johnson and his GOP leadership team appeared confident they would be able to stick to their schedule and shore up GOP support for final passage late Wednesday or Thursday following last-ditch talks to salvage the “big, beautiful bill.” But next steps are highly uncertain.

“We’re excited that we’re going to land this airplane,” Johnson, RBenton, said back at the Capitol.

But as evening hours set in, the upbeat tone stood at odds with the unwieldy scene at the Capitol. The Rules Committee has been grinding through a marathon session,

passing its 18th hour, as the process chugs along. Another Republican, Tennessee Rep. John Rose, announced his opposition to the GOP bill. And Democrats are using all available tools and impassioned speeches to press their opposition and capitalize on the GOP disarray

“We believe it’s one big, ugly bill that’s going to hurt the American people,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, as he and his team testiﬁed before the committee.

It’s a make-or-break moment for the president and his party in Congress. They have invested much of their political capital during the crucial ﬁrst few months of Trump’s return to the White House on this legislation. If the House Republicans fall in line with the president, overcoming unified Democratic objections, the measure would next go to the Senate.

Trump had implored the lawmakers a day earlier at the Capitol to get it done, but the holdouts endured. It’s not at all clear what, exactly was agreed to or not during Wednesday’s meeting at the

White House. However, Johnson indicated afterward that Trump himself may be able to accomplish by executive actions some of the goals that Congress is unable to agree to in the legislative process.

A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Ofﬁce said the tax provisions would increase federal deﬁcits by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said.

At its core, the package is centered on extending the tax breaks approved during Trump’s ﬁrst term in 2017, while adding new ones.

To make up for some of the lost revenue, the Republicans are focused on spending cuts to federal safety net programs and a massive rollback of green energy tax breaks from the Biden-era Inﬂation Reduction Act.

Additionally the package tacks on $350 billion in new spending,

U.N. says aid has not reached Palestinians

BY WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip

The U.N. said Wednesday it was trying to get the desperately needed aid that has entered Gaza this week into the hands of Palestinians amid delays because of fears of looting and Israeli military restrictions.

Israeli strikes pounded the territory, killing at least 86 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the country is days away from implementing a new aid system in Gaza, and that it later plans to create a “sterile zone” there, free of Hamas, where the population would be moved and receive supplies.

He also said he is ready to end the war as long as Hamas releases all hostages and steps down from power — and if President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate the territory’s population outside Gaza is implemented

Under international pressure, Israel has allowed dozens of aid trucks into Gaza after blocking all food, medicine, fuel and other material for nearly three months. But the supplies have been sitting on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the majority of supplies that had

entered since Monday had been loaded onto U.N. trucks, but they could not take them out of the crossing area. He said the road the Israeli military had given them permission to use was too unsafe.

A U.N. ofﬁcial later said more than a dozen trucks that left the crossing area arrived at warehouses in central Gaza on Wednesday night. The ofﬁcial spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Israel said 100 trucks had crossed into Gaza on Wednesday

Food security experts have warned that Gaza risks falling into famine unless the blockade ends. Malnutrition and hunger have been mounting. Aid groups ran out of food to distribute weeks ago, and most of the population of around 2.3 million relies on communal kitchens whose supplies are nearly depleted.

At a kitchen in Gaza City, a charity group distributed watery lentil soup.

Somaia Abu Amsha scooped small portions for her family saying they have not had bread for over 10 days and she can’t afford rice or pasta.

“We don’t want anything other than that they end the war We don’t want charity kitchens. Even dogs wouldn’t eat this, let alone children,” she said.

Aid groups say the small amount of aid that Israel has allowed is far short of what is needed. About 600 trucks entered daily under the latest ceaseﬁre.

Va. Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly dies

BY OLIVIA DIAZ Associated Press/Report

for

America

with about $150 billion going to the Pentagon, including for the president’s new “Golden Dome” defense shield, and the rest for Trump’s mass deportation and border security agenda.

As Trump promised voters, the package proposes there would be no taxes on tips for certain workers, including those in some service industries; automobile loan interest; or some overtime pay To cut spending, the package would impose new work requirements for many people who receive health care through Medicaid. Able-bodied adults without dependents would need to fulﬁll 80 hours a month on a job or in other community activities.

Older Americans up to age 64, rather than 54, who are able-bodied and without dependents would need to work or engage in the community programs for 80 hours a month. Additionally, some parents of children older than 7 years old would need to fulﬁll the work requirements; under current law, the requirement comes after children are 18.

Fire at historic church called intentionally set

BY ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. A fire that severely damaged a historic Black church that served as the headquarters for a 1968 sanitation workers’ strike, which brought the Rev Martin Luther King Jr to Memphis, was intentionally set, investigators said Wednesday The ﬁre at the Clayborn Temple, which was undergoing a yearslong renovation, was set in the interior of the church, the Memphis Fire Department said in a statement. Investigators are searching for a person suspected of being involved with the blaze.

Flames engulfed the downtown church in the early hours of April 28. Later that day Memphis Fire Chief Gina Sweat said the inside of the building was a total loss but there was still hope that some of the facade could be salvaged.

The ﬁre department said May 14 that the building had been stabilized and investigators would use specialized equipment to study the ﬁre’s cause.

Located just south of the iconic Beale Street, the Clayborn Temple was built in 1892 as the Second Presbyterian Church and originally served an all-White congregation. King was drawn to Memphis in 1968 to support some 1,300 predominantly Black sanitation workers who went on strike to protest inhumane treatment. Workers went on strike seeking to unionize and ﬁghting for higher pay and safer working conditions. City ofﬁcials declared the stoppage illegal and arrested scores of strikers and protesters. The Clayborn Temple hosted meetings during the strike, and the movement’s iconic “I AM A MAN” posters were made in its basement. The temple was also a staging point for marches to City Hall, including one on March 28, 1968, that was led by King and turned violent when police and protesters clashed on Beale Street. One person was killed King promised to lead a second, peaceful march in Memphis, but he was shot by a sniper April 4.

RICHMOND Va U.S. Rep Gerald “Gerry” Connolly, an outspoken Democrat who sought key reforms in the federal government while bringing transformational development to his populous Virginia district, died Wednesday Connolly, 75, who most recently held a prominent position as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, served in Congress for more than 16 years. He died at home in the company of family members, his family said in a statement. Connolly announced in 2024

that he had esophageal cancer and said a few months later that he planned to retire from Congress. His death leaves House Republicans with a 220-212 majority The spirited and at times bullheaded Fairfax Democrat became known for his voluble nature and willingness to engage in spirited debates.

Connolly was ﬁrst elected to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1995. On the county board, he steered the transition of northern Virginia’s Tysons Corner from a traffic-heavy mall area to a downtown business hub.

Connolly’s local government experience launched his congressional career He was elected in 2008 after ﬂipping an open Republican-held seat by nearly 42,000 votes In his victory speech, Connolly said he would use his

position to ensure the federal bureaucracy is “a responsive, accountable instrument for the people we serve.”

“If we insist the government must work for all of our citizens again, we cannot fail,” Connolly said.

Connolly cosponsored the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act, which requires federal agencies to allow a portion of their employees to telework at least one day a week.

Connolly reached a new milestone late last year as he was chosen ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. He defeated Democratic Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for the position. The victory came shortly after Connolly announced late last year that he had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and would undergo chemotherapy and immunotherapy

Connolly

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHIOTO By OHAD ZWIGENBERG

A truck loaded with humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip makes its way to the Kerem Shalom crossing Wednesday as border police officers prevent activists from blocking the road in southern Israel.

PHOTO PROVIDED By NASA

The Mars rover Perseverance takes a selfie on May 10.

Trumpconfronts SouthAfrican leader

U.S. presidentmakes baseless claims of thesystematickilling of Whitefarmers

BY GERALD IMRAY and AAMER MADHANI Associated Press

WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump used aWhite House meeting to forcefully confront South African President CyrilRamaphosa,accusing the country of failing to address Trump’sbaseless claim of the systematickillingofWhite farmers.

Trump even dimmed the lightsof the Oval Ofﬁce to play avideo of a far-left politicianchantinga song that includes the lyrics “kill the farmer.” He also leafed through news articles to underscorehis point, saying the country’sWhite farmers have faced “death, death, death, horrible death.”

Trump had already cut all U.S. assistance to SouthAfricaand welcomed several dozen White South African farmers to the U.S. as refugees as he pressed the case that a“genocide” is underway in the country

The U.S. president, since his returntoofﬁce, has launched aseries of accusations at South Africa’s Black-led government, claiming it is seizing land from Whitefarmers, enforcing anti-Whitepolicies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy

ExpertsinSouth Africa say there is no evidence of Whites being targeted for theirrace, although farmers of all racesare victims of violent homeinvasions in acountry with ahigh crime rate.

“People are ﬂeeing South Africa for their own safety,” Trump said “Their landisbeing conﬁscated and in many cases they’re being killed.”

the White House in Washington on Wednesday

Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump’saccusation. The South African leader had sought to usethe meetingtoset therecord straight andsalvagehis country’srelationship with the United States. The bilateral relationship is at itslowest pointsince South Africaenforced its apartheid system of racial segregation, which ended in 1994.

“Weare completelyopposedto that,”Ramaphosa saidofthe behaviorallegedbyTrumpintheir exchange. He added, “that is not government policy”and “our government policyis completely, completely against what he was saying.”

Trump wasunmoved.

“When they take the land, they kill the White farmer,” he said.

Trump appeared prepared to confront Ramaphosa at the start of the meeting while journalists were present. Videos were cued up on alargeTVset to showaclip of an opposition party leader,Julius Malema, leading an old antiapartheid song

The songhas been contentious for years in the country because of its central lyrics “kill theBoer” and “shoot the Boer” —withBoer awordthat refers to aWhite farmer.Malema is not part of the country’sgoverning coalition.

Another clip played showed white crosses on theside of aroad, described as amemorial for White farmers who were killed. Ramaphosa seemed bafﬂed. “I’d like to know where thatis, because this I’ve never seen.”

Trumpkicked off the meeting by describing theSouth African presidentasa “truly respected man in many, many circles.”He added: “And in some circles he’s considered alittle controversial.”

Ramaphosa chimed in, playfully jabbing back. “We’re all like that,” Ramaphosa said.

Trumpissuedanexecutiveorder in February cutting all funding to South Africa over some of itsdomestic andforeign policies. The order criticized the South African

government on multiple fronts, saying it is pursuing anti-White policiesathomeand supporting “badactors” in the world like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.

Trump hasfalsely accusedthe South African government of rightsviolations against White Afrikaner farmers by seizing their land through anew expropriation law. No land has been seized and theSouth African government has pushed back,saying U.S. criticism is driven by misinformation.

The Trumpadministration’sreferences to the Afrikaner people who are descendants of Dutch and other European settlers —have alsoelevated previous claims made by Trump’sSouth Africanborn adviser Elon Musk and some conservative U.S. commentators that the South African government is allowing attacks on White farmers in what amounts to agenocide.

The administration’sconcerns aboutSouth African policies cut even deeper than the concerns about White farmers.

South Africa has also angered Trump over itsmovetobring charges at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Ramaphosa has also faced scrutiny in Washington for his past connections to MTN Group, Iran’ssecond-largest telecom provider.Itowns nearly half of Irancell, ajoint venturelinked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ramaphosa served as board chair of MTN from 2002 to 2013.

Ramaphosa came into themeeting lookingtoavoid thesortof contentious engagement that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy experienced during his February Oval Ofﬁcevisit,when theUkrainian leader found himself being berated by Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

“The problem in South Africa, it is notnecessarily about race, but it’s aboutcrime,” Losi said. “We are here to say how do we,both nations, work together to reset, to really talk about investment but also help …toreally address the levels of crime we have in our country.”

Muskalso attendedWednesday’s talks. He has been at the forefront of the criticism of his homeland, casting its afﬁrmative actionlaws as racist against Whites.

Musk has said on social media that his Starlink satellite internet serviceisn’t able to get alicense to operate in South Africa because he is not Black.

South African authorities say Starlink hasn’tformally applied. It can, but it would be bound by afﬁrmative action laws in the communications sectorthatrequire foreign companies to allow 30% of their South African subsidiaries to be owned by shareholders whoare Black or from other racial groups disadvantaged under apartheid. TheSouth African government says itslong-standing afﬁrmative actionlaws areacornerstone of its efforts to right the injustices of the White minorityrule of apartheid, which denied opportunities to Blacks and other racial groups.

The South African president’s delegation included golfers Ernie Elsand Retief Goosen, agesture to the golf-obsessed U.S. president. Ramaphosa brought Trumpamassive book about South Africa’sgolf courses. He even told Trumpthat he’sbeen working on hisgolf game, seeming to angle foraninvitation to the links with the president. At one point, Ramaphosa called on Zingiswa Losi, the president of agroup of South African trade unions, who told Trump it is true that South Africa is a“violent nation foranumber of reasons.” But shetoldhim it wasimportant to understand that Blackmen and women in rural areas were also being targeted in heinous crimes.

DefenseDepartmentaccepts jetfromQatar forTrump’s use

BY LOLITAC.BALDOR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON— Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted aluxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar for President Donald Trump to use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said Wednesday, despite ongoing questions about the ethics and legality of taking theexpensive gift from a foreign nation.

The Defense Department will “work to ensure proper security measures” on the planetomakeitsafe for use by the president, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. He added that the plane was accepted “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations.”

Trump has defended the gift, which came up during his recent Middle East trip, as away to save tax dollars.

“Whyshouldour military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE,” Trump posted on hissocial

mediasite during thetrip.

Others,however,havesaid Trump’sacceptance of an aircraft that has been called a“palace in thesky” is aviolation of the Constitution’s prohibitiononforeign gifts. Democratshave been united in outrage, and evensomeof the Republican president’s GOP allies in Congress have expressed concerns.

“This unprecedented action is astain on theofﬁce of the presidency and cannot go unanswered,” said Senate Democratic LeaderChuck SchumerofNew York

“Until Americans get transparency on this shady deal,which apparently includes acorrupt plot for Donald Trump to keep the plane at his libraryafter leaving ofﬁce, I’ll continue to hold allDepartment of Justice political nominees.”

Schumer has introduced legislationthatwould prohibitany foreignaircraft from being used as Air Force One andforbid use of taxpayermoney to modify or restore theaircraft

Critics also have noted the need to retroﬁtthe plane to meet security requirements, which would be costly and taketime.

“Far from saving money, this unconstitutionalaction will notonlycostour nation its dignity,but it will force taxpayers to wasteover $1 billionintaxpayerdollars to overhaul this particular aircraft when we currently have not one, but two fully operational and fully capable AirForce Oneaircraft,” said Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.

She saidduringa hearing Tuesdaythatitisa “dangerous courseofaction” for the U.S. to accept the aircraft from theQatari ruling family Air Force Secretary Troy Meinktold senators that Hegsethhas ordered the service to start planning howtoupdate the jet to meet needed standards and acknowledgedthatthe plane will require “significant” modiﬁcations.

The Air Force, in astatement, said it is preparing to

JudgesaysU.S.governmentdidn’t follow courtorder on deportations

BYLINDSAYWHITEHURST, MICHAEL CASEY, REBECCA

SANTANA andTIM SULLIVAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON The White House violated acourt order on deportations to third countries withaﬂight linked to the chaotic Africannation of South Sudan, afederal judge said Wednesday,hours after the Trump administration said it had expelled eight immigrants convicted of violent crimes but refused to reveal where they would end up. Thejudge’sstatement was anotablystrong rebuke to the government’s deportation efforts.

In an emergency hearing he called to address reports thatimmigrants hadbeen sent to South Sudan, Judge BrianE.Murphy in Boston said the eight migrants aboard the plane werenot given ameaningful opportunity to object thatthe deportationcould putthemin danger.Minutes before the hearing, administration ofﬁcials accused “activist judges” of advocating the release of dangerous criminals.

“The department actions in this case are unquestionably in violation of this court’sorder,” Murphy said Wednesday, arguing that the deportees didn’thave “meaningful opportunity” to object to beingsenttoSouth Sudan. The group was ﬂown out of theUnited Statesjust hours aftergettingnotice, leavingthemnochanceto contact lawyers who could object in court. Government attorneysargued that the men had ahistory with theimmigration system,givingthemprior opportunities toexpress a fear of being deported to a country outside their homeland.Theyalso pointedout that the judge hadnot speciﬁed the exact time needed between notice and deportation,leaving room formisunderstanding. The migrants’homecountries —Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar,Vietnam and South Sudan —would not take themback, according to Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigrationand Customs Enforcement. He later said the migrants either

came from countries that oftendonot take back all their deported citizens or had other situations that meantthey could not be sent home.

“These represent the true national securitythreats,” Lyons said at anews conference. Behind himwas adisplay of photos of men he said had been convicted of rape, homicide, armedrobbery and other crimes.

Administration officials, who have repeatedly clashed with thecourts over their attemptstodeport large numbers of immigrants, made theirdispleasure clear Wednesday President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “are working every single day to get these vicious criminals off of American streets andwhile activist judges areonthe other side, ﬁghtingtoget them back onto the United States soil,” said Tricia McLaughlin, adepartmentspokesperson. She pointedtothe photographs and described them as “the monsters” that Murphy“is trying to protect.”

award acontract to modify a Boeing747 aircraft, but that any details are classiﬁed. Trumpwas asked about themove Wednesday.“They

are giving the United States Air Force ajet,” Trump said, bristling at being questioned about the giftbyareporter Trumpsaid it was given

“not to me,tothe United States Air Force, so they could help us out” and noted that “Boeing’salittle bit late, unfortunately.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JULIA DEMAREENIKHINSON President DonaldTrump greets South African PresidentCyril Ramaphosa at

Wednesday of Holden’striumphs as leader of East Baton Rouge Parish.

Remarks touchedonwhatmany see as Holden-era triumphs, like his co-founding of the Baton Rouge Area Violence Elimination program or his leadershipasthe capital city shouldered the weight of many displaced by Hurricane Katrina. And many spoke about the mayor’slove for Baton Rouge and his deep-seated connection to his home on its north end.

Johnny G. Anderson, amember of Baton RougeDemocraticU.S Rep. Cleo Fields’ staff, said Holden “walked with kings” but never “lost his character,”telling those in attendanceabout hisfriend’s ever-present connection to Scotlandville.

“He continued to live in aplace of his upbringing,” Anderson said. “A place calledrelentless, conquering, complex, aggressive, protective, hard-core, politically astute, visionary,calculated, conﬁdent, immersed, energy,excited, inspiring, persistent. All deﬁnes the man from Scotlandville who’d rather just be called ‘Kip.’ Next to his successor, Broome, was current Mayor-President Sid Edwards, who talked aboutthe impact Holden had on him andother residents in Baton Rouge “He was aman that had away of making other folks feel seen. Their problems and issues mattered to him. The people of Baton Rouge mattered to him,” Edwards said. “I can only hope and pray that Ican be half the mayor that this manwas.” ADemocrat, Holden assumed office at City Hall in 2005 after defeating Republican incumbent Mayor BobbySimpson in asur-

REVENUE

Continued frompage1A

year that ends June 30, undera new official forecast approved by the RevenueEstimating Conference, agroup of state leaders that approves official revenue projections whichformthe basis of spending plans built by lawmakers The additional funding could be spent on next year’sbudget in any number of ways, potentially including economic development initiatives, criminal justice system improvements, infrastructure, or restoring astatewide tutoring program that was recently removed from the latest version of thebudget.

Greg Albrecht, the stateeconomist who compiledthe projections approvedWednesday,saidthe underlyingbase of the economy whichincludes factors like income andemployment —“is justalittle bitstronger than expected.

Discussions about economic uncertainty occurring at thebroader national and global levels, however,didn’tfactor intothe current analysis, he said.

prisevictory after his campaign garneredmajor support fromBatonRouge’s business community. Histhree termswerebookended by two major disasters in Hurricane Katrinaand the2016ﬂoods near theend.

Emphasizingtax breaks, Holden lured business to Baton Rouge’s downtown andplayed amajor role in revitalizing it. But his time leading Baton Rouge had its controversies too.

“Wehaven’tseen it in the hard numbers,” Albrechtsaid of apossible recession. “Nobody’sactually seen itin thehard numbers enough to say we’re goingtoproject and putout there publicly adownturn. Nobody’sdoingthatyet.”

Albrecht served as the chief economist for the Legislative Fiscal Ofﬁce for three decades and retired in 2022. He’sworking as an economist for the ofﬁce on atemporary basis.

This roundofrevenue projectionswas the first chance that state economists had to draw on datafactoring in major changes to the state tax code that took effect Jan. 1after aspecialsessioninNovember,whenlawmakers slashed income taxrates and raisedthe sales tax rate.

The Louisiana House approved a packageofspending bills and sent those to the Senate last week. The new forecast means theSenate has more money to spend as part of the package being negotiated by the two chambers.

“We’lltakeanything we can get, Sen. Glen Womack, who chairsthe SenateFinance Committee, said of the updated revenue projections. “However there’sagumbo of thingsthat’sstill out —needing

PARISH OF WEST BATON ROUGE, IN THEABOVE ENTITLED CAUSE, IWILL PROCEEDTOSELLBY PUBLIC AUCTION, IN FRONTOFTHE COURT‐HOUSEDOOR, ON THE 25THDAY OF JUNE,2025 AT TENO’CLOCK (10:00) A.M.,THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBEDPROPERTY: One(1) certainlot or par‐celofground,together with allthe buildingsand improvements thereon, situated in theParishof West BatonRouge,State of Louisiana, in that sub‐division knownasAca‐dian Crossing,Second Filing,Phase 2and being designated on theoffi‐cial plan of subdivision, on file andofrecordin theoffice of theclerk andrecorderofsaid parish andstate,aslot numberseventy-three (73),saidsubdivision, said lothavingsuchsize, shapeand dimensions andbeing subjectto such servitudes as are shownonsaidmap

MUNICIPAL ADDRESSIS: 7112 RUEDAPHINE STREET,ADDIS, LA 70710 SEIZED IN THEABOVE SUIT

TERMSOFSALE: CASH TO THEHIGHEST BIDDER WITH BENEFITOFAP‐PRAISEMENT,AND AC‐CORDINGTOLAW JEFF BERGERON,SHERIFF PARISH OF WEST BATON ROUGE BY:ANGIE DELAUNE

PUBLIC AUCTION, IN FRONTOFTHE COURT‐HOUSEDOOR,ONTHE 25TH DAYOFJUNE, 2025 AT TENO’CLOCK (10:00) A.M.,THE FOLLOWING DESCRIBEDPROPERTY: ONE(1) CERTAINLOT OR PARCEL OF GROUND,to‐gether with allthe build‐ings andimprovements thereon, situated in the Parish of West Baton Rouge, Stateof Louisiana, in that subdi‐vision knownasCANE RIDGESUBDIVISION,and beingdesignatedonthe official plat of said subdi‐vision,on file andof record in theofficeofthe Clerkand Recorder of said Parish andState,as LOT52, said subdivision, said lothavingsuchsize, shapeand dimensions andbeing subjectto such servitudes as are shownonsaidmap MUNICIPALADDRESSIS: 3903 CANE RIDGEDRIVE ADDIS, LA 70710 SEIZED IN THEABOVE SUIT TERMSOFSALE: CASH TO THEHIGHEST BIDDER WITHOUTBENEFIT

Therewas amessy ﬁring of Dewayne White,whomheappointed to police chief to reform the department. Holden laterterminated himfor “divisive” leadershipin what manysaw as abattle between Whiteand thepolice union. After Holden was term-limited,Broomewas electedmayorpresidentin2016. After news of Holden’sdeath broke last week, Broome talked about standing on his shoulders in following theﬁrst

money.”

Womack said he didn’twant to comment in detail about the state budget plan passed by the House or the Senate’snextsteps, but said his chamber will be working on it overthe next fewdays“to hopefully have somethingthat we can all work together and move forward and get it to thegovernor’s desk.”

TheSenate Finance Committee meetsThursday to hear public testimony on budgetproposals for the upcoming 2025-2026 ﬁscal year

“The REC numbers are basically what we expected, which is somewhat flat,” said House Speaker Phillip DeVillier.“It’salways nice to know you have more moneytobeable to appropriate forinfrastructure.”

Senate President Cameron Henry called the new projections “positive.

He said he expects the Senate to fund more “criminal justice improvements” as wellas“asigniﬁcant amount of money” toward economicdevelopmentinitiatives so that Louisiana Economic Development has the year-round funding it needs to continueattracting projects and businessesintothe state.

Black mayor’sfootsteps, asentiment she echoed at theceremony Wednesday “I stand, not only as asuccessor, but as someone who recognizes the tremendous shoes he wore,and the great responsibility,” Broome said. The former mayor spoke at lengthabout her predecessor’s leadership and impact, and also thanked Holden’sfamily,inparticular his wife, Lois, forthe sacriﬁces they madeduring his timein

Henry also said he wants to be sure thebudget covers “basic needs” for agencies like the Louisiana Department of Health and LouisianaDepartment of Children and Family Services.

He added that he’d like to “backﬁll” funding forhigh-dosage tutoringthatwas previously removed from the budget by the House.

State board of education President RonnieMorris said seeing the $30million restored forhigh-dosage tutoring is among his biggest hopes for how additional funds lawmakers will choose to spend theextra money

High-dosage tutoring, whichentails at least threesmall-groupsessions per week, is “a critical support system” that schoolsrelyon, Morris said. “Why are we going to change the strategyinthe middle of thegame?”

TheSenatepresident,however, also cautioned that someofthe additional moneywillbeused to ﬁll two budget gaps left over from the November special session.

“The actual trued-up number forthis year will be $95 million andnext year will be $60 million,” Henry said, instead of $130 million forthe current ﬁscalyearand $139 million for the next.

public ofﬁce, telling them it “didn’t go unnoticed.”

“He fought forwhat he believed was right.Heran hisracewith endurance, and he kept the faith in God,” Broomesaid. “Rest well, Kip. Your race is finished, your service complete and your reward eternal.”

Email Patrick Sloan-Turner at patrick.sloan-turner@ theadvocate.com.

That’sbecause atax dedicated fortourism promotion anda tax on telecommunications services arecurrently beingfunneledinto the state general fund, but those taxes should be funneled into speciﬁc dedicated funds.

“We’ll adjust everybody’sbudgets, everybody’sexpectations on what we can do,” Henry said.

“Obviously we would have liked to have hadsome more money to put toward priorities. It didn’t work that way,”hesaid, adding that whilepeople won’tbeable to geteverything theywant, “we’ll be able to address everybody’s needs.”

Department of RevenueSecretary Richard Nelson explained that abill-draftingerrorduring the November special session resulted in the tourism promotion taxinadvertentlygoingintothe state general fund. And afund in the state treasury meant to collect the telecommunicationsservices tax was not set up after aproposed constitutional amendment failed to pass in March.

Nelson said thatsending those two revenue streams to the correct accounts should be ﬁxedlegislatively this session.

STAFFPHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

Mournerssign their names and greet each other as theypay their respects during amemorial ceremony forKip Holden, former East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president, at City Hall on Wednesday.

that helps set state policy on some outdoors issues.

The grand jury, which met in Lafayette federal court Wednesday, returned an indictment charging Montoucet with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering

Don Cazayoux, an attorney representing Montoucet, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday Haynes, 66, of Lafayette, was indicted by a federal grand jury in September and charged with conspiracy to commit bribery bribery, using his cellphone in furtherance of bribery, conspiracy to commit money laundering and obstruction of justice.

A wide-reaching scheme

The indictment of Guidry and several others unveiled a sprawling bribery scheme involving the Lafayette criminal justice system and Montoucet’s statewide wildlife agency, which he oversaw after being tapped by former Gov John Bel Edwards.

Court documents, interviews and other federal records indi-

COASTAL

Continued from page 1A

are facing a sharp decline in available revenue for projects in the years ahead, have been touting the potential change to part of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, commonly referred to as GOMESA.

“GOMESA is our largest source of recurring revenue (for coastal projects),” said Glenn Ledet, executive director of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority “And so this is the largest increase that we’ve obviously ever had to that funding source.”

Regardless of whether it passes, it will not be the end of the battle. Louisiana officials will continue working to further increase the amount of offshore revenue through changes to other aspects of GOMESA. Their argument includes point-

cate that federal authorities had secured two wiretap orders in the case in August 2021. Over a fourmonth period, they listened in on more than 6,000 calls, roughly 1,500 of which were described as “incriminating.” One such call, in which Guidry discussed taking a $12,500 kickback from a vendor providing services to the diversion program, was cataloged in Guidry’s guilty plea.

Overall, Guidry admitted taking more than $800,000 in kickbacks from vendors doing business with the 15th Judicial District Attorney’s Ofﬁce — whose jurisdiction includes Lafayette, Acadia and Vermilion parishes — as well as with at least one vendor contracting with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. The latter scheme netted Guidry $89,000, he has said.

The indictment issued Wednesday alleges Montoucet and Guidry set up a scheme to give a state contract to DGL1, a company run by Lafayette businessman Leonard Franques, to provide online educational courses that sportsmen used to resolve citations from Wildlife and Fisheries agents.

From 2020 to 2022, Montoucet “knowingly and unlawfully conspired with Guidry and Franques, and others known and unknown to the grand jury, to accept and agree to kickbacks from Franques

ing to the far larger percentage of revenue Western states receive from mineral extraction on federal lands. They also note that investing in coastal restoration and storm protection now saves the nation later in disaster recovery funding.

Landrieu, who was the prime mover behind the original GOMESA bill in 2006, said Scalise and Johnson deserve credit for including the change, but that the state must push for more. She also made the case that the state deserves its share considering the importance to the nation of the Gulf and Mississippi River

“So when I hear presidents talk about energy dominance, when I hear senators and House members talk about ‘we are going to be great,’ how about starting greatness at home on the energy coast that helps make us great?” she said.

in return for being inﬂuenced in connection with awarding a state contract to DGL1,” the Justice Department said in a news release.

According to the indictment, from Nov 10, 2021, until June 10, 2022, Wildlife and Fisheries received $454,174 from the contract signed by Montoucet, of which $122,508 was held as a kickback for Montoucet, to be paid after he left ofﬁce.

The indictment alleges that Montoucet, Guidry and Franques agreed that after Montoucet’s retirement from the department, they would hire Montoucet and pay his kickbacks as a purported “signing bonus,” in order to conceal the true nature of the funds.

If convicted, Montoucet faces a sentence of up to ﬁve years in prison on the conspiracy count up to 20 years in prison on the wire fraud and money laundering counts, and a ﬁne of up to $1 million.

Resignations, guilty pleas Franques pleaded guilty in January in federal court for his role in the scheme after being indicted in December Montoucet, an appointee of Edwards, a longtime political ally, had been expected to leave his Wildlife and Fisheries post at the end of Edwards’ second term, which wrapped up in January 2024. Instead, he resigned in April

“We are a poor state Why put the burden on us? We have to get the nation to understand this, or we are doomed.”

There is reason for serious concern. Louisiana has used billions in proceeds from fines and settlements related to the 2010 BP oil spill to build large-scale coastal projects in recent years.

But that money expires in 2032, and there is nothing to replace it.

The state’s 50-year coastal master plan calls for around a billion a year in investment to keep up with Louisiana’s needs, particularly as its land loss crisis accelerates and

2023 after news of the allegations in Guidry’s guilty plea emerged. Edwards said after Montoucet resigned that he was a “dear friend” and that it was “difﬁcult for me to believe that he engaged in anything improper.”

Taken together, the allegations against Montoucet and the crimes Guidry has already admitted may make up the most signiﬁcant corruption scandal of Edwards’ tenure. Court documents say the department contract in question was signed on Oct. 8, 2021, by Montoucet and DGL1. Another company owned by Franques was among four ﬁrms allegedly paying Guidry kickbacks related to the pretrial diversion scheme in the 15th Judicial District. Long before Montoucet was implicated in the self-enrichment scheme, his handling of the contracts in question drew protests, a lawsuit and a whistleblower complaint that claimed he was “unethical” and “reckless” in running the agency

A former contractor for Montoucet’s agency raised concerns that Montoucet allegedly pressured it to send a chunk of fees it collected to Franques’ company Another contractor complained that Montoucet picked Franques for a contract even though Franques’ bid sent far less money

hurricanes intensify.

The provision at stake is part of a complicated formula that determines how much offshore revenue Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama receive each year By law, Louisiana must use the money for coastal projects.

It sets aside 37.5% of offshore oil and gas revenue to be shared among the four Gulf states, but the total amount is capped at $500 million per year Louisiana receives the most of the four states, $156 million for the last ﬁscal year

The change included in the current bill would lift the cap to $650 million for the next decade. The amount of revenue does not reach the cap limit every year but it has done so for the past three years in row State ofﬁcials estimate that Louisiana could stand to gain an extra $46 million per year or $460 million over the next decade, if the cap is hit each of those years. There is precedent for the change.

to the agency than the company already doing the work.

Diversion programs

Guidry who worked as a contractor for 15th Judicial District

Attorney Don Landry, has said he worked with Haynes, who was an employee of the ofﬁce, to steer defendants into diversion programs run by four companies.

Landry has said that Guidry and Haynes loosened the rules under which defendants could qualify for diversion a process that allows a defendant to emerge with a clean criminal record provided they complete certain requirements that come at a price.

Landry has said he retightened the rules after the FBI raided the district attorney’s ofﬁces in May 2022 and said they were investigating the diversion program. He let Guidry go at that time. Haynes has been on leave.

Joseph Prejean, of Church Point, owner of C&A Consulting, was charged in November 2023 with one count of conspiracy to defraud the federal government for conspiring with Guidry and Haynes who allegedly steered pretrial diversion defendants his way He pleaded guilty in December 2023. Staff writers Sam Karlin, Gordon Russell and Kristin Askelson contributed to this report.

The cap was previously raised to $650 million for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, but the amount of revenue did not reach the limit during those pandemic years and no extra funds were received.

State leaders point in part to a 1920 law that grants Western states half of the revenue from onshore energy and mineral mining in arguing for larger changes. Louisiana’s congressional delegation has introduced two bills that would further increase the state’s share, but the legislation has stalled. Including the lifting of the cap in what is known as the “reconciliation” bill — what President Donald Trump has called the “big, beautiful bill” allows the state’s delegation to have it approved without separate legislation. If it makes it through the House and Senate, the higher cap would expire in a decade and return to $500 million. The original GOMESA law, however, says the cap would be eliminated in 2056.

Construction starts on Ascension logistics park

Construction has started on Magnolia Ridge Logistics Park, a186-acreindustrialsubdivisioninGeismar

Magnolia Ridge is acollaboration between Alexandriabased Ratcliff Development and local private equity firm

JRE Capital.

Developers have said the park,located at Industriplex Avenue and La. 30, could eventually include 2million square feet of mixed industrial-use space

Trey Williams, managing partner of JRE Capital, said he’sheard from alot of interestedparties who are eying the parkfor space.

Magnolia Ridge will target potential tenants such as bulk distribution companies, light manufacturersand plant services businesses.

Evan Scroggs, of Lee &Associates,is the listing broker for thedevelopment. Lots ranging in size from 2to18acres, are expectedtobeavailableatthe end of the year.Asking prices will be between $6 to $7.50per squarefoot.

Metro Baton Rouge has been held back by alackofindustrialspace for the past few years, due to alack of speculative developments, Scroggs said. The local vacancy ratefor warehousespace is below 3%.

Thathas kept companies from moving into the market and local businesses from expanding. Wall Street tumbles on rising Treasuryyields

Wall Street slumped on Wednesday under the weight of pressure from the bond market, where Treasuryyields climbed on worries about the U.S.government’sspiraling debt and other concerns

The S&P 500 fell for asecond straight drop after breaking asix-day winning streak. The Dow JonesIndustrial Average and the Nasdaq composite also sank. Stocks had been drifting only modestlylower earlyinthe day, after Target and other retailers gave mixed forecasts for upcoming proﬁtsamid uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’strade war.The market then turned sharply lowerafter the U.S. governmentreleased the results for its latest auction of 20-year bonds. Thegovernmentregularly sells such bonds, which is how it borrows money to pay its bills. In this auction, theU.S. government had to pay ayield as high as 5.047% to attract enough buyers to lend it atotal of $16 billion over 20 years. That helped push up yields for all kinds of other Treasuries, including the more widely followed 10-year Treasury.Its yield climbed to 4.59% from 4.48% late Tuesday and from just 4.01% early lastmonth

Bitcoin hitsnew highs as industryscores wins

Bitcoin hit anew all-time high as the world’smost popular cryptocurrency reached price levels not seen since President Donald Trump’sinauguration.

The digital asset traded above $109,400 Wednesday morning, a huge increase from recent lows of about $75,000 last month

Several other cryptocurrencies have seen similar large gains in recent days. That includes Trump’sofﬁcial meme coins, whichhavejumpedup about 75% in the lastmonth

Thepresident is set to have dinner Thursdaywith some of thememecoins’ biggest investors, amove that’sdrawn intensecriticism from some Democratswho say that Trump is improperly using the power of thepresidency to boost his personal wealth.

Bitcoin’sprice increase comesafter the crypto industry scored amajor winwith the U.S. Senate advancing legislation that creates afederal framework to regulate the stablecoins, afast-growing formofcryptocurrency whose values are often tied to the U.S dollar

Lumentosell fiberbusiness

BYTIMOTHYBOONE Business editor

Lumen Technologies said it has reached adeal to sell its consumer

ﬁber business to AT&T for $5.75 billion, as theMonroe-based company shiftsits business toward artiﬁcialintelligence

Theall-cash deal was announced Wednesday afterthe markets closed. The acquisitiongives AT&T 1million more ﬁbercustomersand expands its presence in major markets such as Denver,Las Vegas, Or-

lando, Phoenix and Seattle. Kate Johnson, president andCEO of Lumen,saidina statement the deal allows the company to retain the core infrastructure for AI and to pay down $4.8 billion in debt

Thatwill trim annual interest expenses by more than $300 million annually

This givesthe companya “oncein-a-generation opportunity” to build adigital networking company to serve the needsofmajor customers, she said.

“This strategic decision is groundedinthe expansive critical infrastructure we’reretainingand the forward-thinking digital future we’rebuilding,” Johnson said.

Lumen,whichwas founded in 1930 as asmall regionaltelephone company,grew into atelecom giant in the 2000s when it was known as CenturyLink. But it had seen its fortunes slip in recent years. Peter Ricchiuti, aﬁnance professoratTulaneUniversity, saidLumen was “left for dead” when, in an attempttowhittle down a$20 billion mountain of debt, Lumen sold off its local telephone business and in 2022 dropped its quarterly dividend. The stock was trading at just $1.10 ashare at the end of June. Things changed dramatically in late July,however,whenLumen’s partnership withMicrosoftwas announced. The software giant will

use Lumen’sﬁber products in its AI infrastructure.

Afew weeks later,Lumenannounced it has signed $5 billion in connectivity contracts, including adeal withMicrosoft in which Lumen products would be used to expand its AI infrastructure. Lumensaid over the past year it has signed $8.5 billion in deals with clients such as Amazon WebServices and Google Cloud. The deal is expected to closein the ﬁrst half of 2026. Shares of Lumen were up 12% or 46 cents, in after-hours trading.

Email TimothyBoone at tboone@theadvocate.com.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTOByJULIANIKHINSON

Klarna reportscustomers struggling

‘Buy

BYCORA LEWIS Associated Press

NEW YORK More Klarna customers arehaving trouble repaying their “buy now,pay later” loans, theshort-term lendersaidthis week

The disclosure corresponded withreportsby lendingplatforms Bankrate and LendingTree, which citedanincreasing share of all “buy now,pay later” userssaying they had fallen behind on payments.

The late or missed installments area sign of faltering ﬁnancial health among asegment of the U.S. population, some analysts say,asthe nation’stotal consumer debt rises to arecord $18.2 trillionand the Trumpadministration moves to collect on federal student loans.

Shoppers who opt to finance purchases through BNPL services tend to be younger than the average consumer,and astudy from the FederalReservelast yearsaidBlack and Hispanic women were especially likely to use the plans, which customers of all incomelevels are increasingly adopting.

BY ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

AP business writer

NEWYORK Target’schallenge to revive salesand itsstatusasa cheap chic retailer just gotmore complicated The discounterannounced on Wednesday that sales fell more than expected in the ﬁrst quarter, and theretailerwarnedthey will slip for all of 2025 as itscustomers, worried over the impact of tariffs andthe economy,pull back on spending

Target alsosaid customerboycotts did some damage during the latest quarter.The company,long aﬁerce corporate advocatefor the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ peo-

“While BNPL provides credit to ﬁnancially vulnerable consumers, these same consumers may be overextending themselves,” the authorsofthe Federal Reserve study wrote “This concernisconsistent with previous research that has shown consumers spend more when BNPL is offered when checkingout and that BNPL use leadstoanincrease in overdraft feesand credit card interest payments and fees.”

As Klarna grows itsuser base and revenue, theSwedish company saidits first-quarter consumer credit losses rose 17% compared withthe January-March period of last year,to $136 million.

Acompany spokesperson said in astatement that the increaselargely reﬂected the higher number of loans Klarna madeyear over year Thepercentageofits loansatagloballevel that went unpaid in the first quartergrew from 0.51% in 2024 to 0.54% this year,and the company sees “nosign of aweakened U.S. consumer,” he said. Buy now, pay laterplans generally let consumers split payments for purchases into four or fewer installments, often witha down paymentatcheckout. Theloans aretypically marketed as zero interest, andmost require no

ple, scaled back many diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in January after they came under attack by conservative activists and the White House. Target’sretreat created another backlash, with more customers angered by the retailer’sreduction of LGBTQ+themed merchandise for Pride Month.

Shares fell 5.2% Wednesday Quarterlysales fell 2.8% from last year to $23.85 billion, and that was short of the $24.23 billion Wall Street expected, according to FactSet. Targetearned $1.04 billion, or $2.27 per share, for the period ended May 3. That compares with $942 million, or $2.03 per share, in theyear-ago period.

credit check or asoft creditcheck.

BNPL providers promote the plans as a saferalternativetotraditional credit cards when interest rates are high. The popularity of the deferredpayment plans, andthe expanding ways customers can use them, have also sparked public attention.

WhenKlarnaannounced apartnershipwith DoorDash in March, the news led to online comments about Americans taking out loans to buy takeout food. Similar skepticism emerged when Billboard revealed that more thanhalf of Coachella attendees used installment plans to ﬁnancetheirtickets to themusic festival.

An Aprilreport from LendingTree saidabout 4in10usersofbuy now, paylater plans said they hadmade late payments in the past year, up from 1in3 last year.According to aMay report from Bankrate, about 1in4users of the loanschose them because they wereeasierto getthantraditional creditcards.

Thesix largest BNPL providers —Afﬁrm, Afterpay,Klarna, PayPal,Sezzle, andZip originated about277.3 million loans for $33.8 billioninmerchandise in 2022, or an amount equaltoabout 1% of credit card spending that year,according to the ConsumerFinancial Protection Bureau

Target cut its annual sales projectionsWednesday.The company nowexpects alow-single digit decline for 2025 afterprojecting a 1% increase forsales in March. It also forecast annual per-share earningsof$7to$9, excluding gainsfrom legal settlements this year Forthe year,analystsexpect earnings per share of $8.34 on sales of $106.7 billion, on average. Comparable store sales, those from established stores and online channels, fell 3.8%.Thatincludes a5.7% drop in store sales and a 4.7% increase in online sales. That reverses acomparable store sales increase of 1.5% in the previous quarter

The number of transactions acrossonline andphysical stores fell 2.4%, and the average ticket dropped 1.4%.Targetsaidit couldn’treliably estimate the individual impact of each of thefactors that were hurting itsbusiness Target is also intensifying efforts to entice customers nervous about the economy.The retailer will offer 10,000 new items starting at $1 with the majority under $20. “We’re not satisﬁed with these results, so we’re moving with urgency to navigate through this period of volatility,” Target CEO BrianCornell told reporters on a call Tuesday.“We’vegot to drive trafﬁc back intoour stores or visits to our site.”

People shop for shoes in aNikestore in Newyork.

DOJ drops civil rights accusations against La. State Police

BY JAMES FINN Staff writer

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday said it would throw out ﬁndings of a three-year investigation into Louisiana State Police, withdrawing allegations that state troopers violated Black drivers’ civil rights by beating and shocking them with Tasers during arrests.

The Department’s Civil Rights Division, which President Donald Trump’s appointees have gutted since he took office in January, moved to drop the investigation along with multiple Biden-era investigations of police departments in Louisville, Kentucky; Phoenix, Arizona; and several other cities.

The “pattern-or-practice” probe of Louisiana State Police was launched in 2022. It sought to explain how culture across the agency enabled widespread use of excessive force, focusing on a series of violent encounters between White state troopers and Black drivers over several years in rural north Louisiana.

The investigation also reviewed allegations of a wide-ranging cover-up by top State Police brass following the 2019 death of Ronald Greene, who was shocked with a Taser, beaten and forced onto his belly as he howled for mercy following a trafﬁc stop by state troopers in Union Parish, according to body camera video later published by The Associated Press.

to scrutiny faced by the New Orleans Police Department under its yearslong federal consent decree.

The future of the NOPD consent decree, too, is uncertain given Trump’s new priorities for the Justice Department.

“The Louisiana State Police continues to work diligently on improving our relationship with our communities, law enforcement partners, political leaders, and agency personnel,” Major Nick Manale, a State Police spokesperson, said in response to the decision.

Louisiana Gov Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, both Republicans, cheered the department’s decision Wednesday

New priorities

The Department of Justice issued a 32-page report on State Police days before Trump took ofﬁce in January, calling Greene’s death a “total failure” and accusing troopers of repeatedly using force on people who “do not pose a threat or a ﬂight risk.”

Dropping the investigation represents an end to the “failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments

with factually unjustiﬁed consent decrees,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said in a statement Wednesday

The move to revoke those ﬁndings underscores wide-reaching impacts to local agencies of Trump’s ongoing Department of Justice overhaul. Had the review remained active, Louisiana State Police might have found itself under years of federal oversight akin

Trump, who was charged by federal prosecutors before winning November’s presidential election, has installed loyalists atop the Department of Justice, ﬁred those who oppose him and gutted branches of the agency he deems at odds with his administration’s goals, including the Environmental Crimes, Public Corruption and Civil Rights Divisions.

The department has refocused on immigration, increasingly prosecuting low-level immigration-related felonies.

The focus of the Civil Rights Division has always “ebbed and ﬂowed” across presidential administrations, said Kenneth Polite, a white-collar criminal attorney and

former top DOJ ofﬁcial.

“But I can tell you that under this particular administration, those ofﬁces are also now storing the furniture of the Environmental Division,” after seeing so many cuts, said Polite, who was the U.S. attorney in New Orleans under former President Barack Obama. Family’s closure

The decision to throw out allegations against Louisiana State Police shuts the door on one potential source of closure sought by Greene’s family Greene’s mother, Mona Hardin, had pushed for criminal charges for troopers involved in her son’s death. Hardin did not immediately respond to a phone message Wednesday

The cepartment issued its nowrevoked report on State Police days after federal prosecutors told Greene’s family in January that they would not seek criminal charges against any of those troopers.

State prosecutors secured charges against several troopers in December 2022. Prosecutors later dropped the most serious criminal charge against one of those troopers, Kory York, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge under a deal with the local district attorney

James Finn covers politics for The Times-Picayune | Nola.com. Email him at jﬁnn@theadvocate. com.

DOJ moves to end police reform settlements in Minneapolis, Louisville

BY STEVE KARNOWSKI and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS

The Justice Department moved Wednesday to cancel settlements with Minneapolis and Louisville that called for an overhaul of their police departments following the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that became the catalyst for nationwide racial injustice protests in the summer of 2020.

The Trump administration also announced it was retracting the findings of Justice Department investigations into six other police departments that the Biden administration had accused of civil rights violations, including the Louisiana State Police.

The moves represent a dramatic about-face for a department that under Democratic President Joe Biden had aggressively pushed for federal oversight of local police forces it accused of widespread abuses. The Trump administration accused previous Justice Department leadership of using ﬂawed legal theories to judge police departments and pursuing costly and burdensome court-enforced settlements known as consent decrees to address alleged problems it argues are better dealt with at the local level.

“It’s our view at the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division under the Trump administration that federal micromanagement of local police should be a rare exception, and not the norm,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhil-

lon, the new leader of the division, told reporters.

The Justice Department announced its decision just before the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. Then-ofﬁcer Derek Chauvin used his knee on May 25, 2020, to pin the Black man to the pavement for 9½ minutes in a case that sparked protests around the world and a national reckoning with racism and police brutality.

The Biden administration launched pattern-or-practice investigations into police departments across the country, uncovering issues such as racial discrimination and excessive force. The Justice Department in the ﬁnal weeks of the previous administration reached consent decree agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville but the settlements had yet to be approved by a judge.

Police reform advocates denounced the move to walk away from the agreements, saying a lack of federal oversight will put communities at risk.

“This move isn’t just a policy reversal. It’s a moral retreat that sends a chilling message that accountability is optional when it comes to Black and Brown victims,” said the Rev Al. Sharpton, who worked with the Floyd and Taylor families to push for police accountability

“Trump’s decision to dismiss these lawsuits with prejudice solidiﬁes a dangerous political precedent that police departments are above scrutiny, even when they’ve clearly demonstrated a failure to protect the communities they’re sworn to serve.”

Kristen Clarke who led

the Civil Rights Division under the Biden administration, defended the ﬁndings of the police investigations of her office, noting that they were “led by career attorneys, based on data, body camera footage and information provided by ofﬁcers themselves.”

“To wholesale ignore and disregard these systemic violations, laid bare in well-documented and detailed public reports, shows patent disregard for our federal civil rights and the Constitution,” Clarke said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The Trump administration said it was also reviewing more than a dozen police consent decrees that remain in place across the U.S. The Justice Department would have to convince a judge to back away from those already-ﬁnalized settlements a move that some communities may oppose.

Dhillon, the Civil Rights Division chief, noted that both Louisville and Minneapolis are already taking action at the local level to make changes and impose oversight without the federal government’s help She cited the hefty cost on communities to comply with federal oversight — sometimes for more than a decade and what she described as problems and abuses in the consent decree monitoring system.

“There is a lack of accountability There is a lack of local control And there is an industry here that is, I think, ripping off the taxpayers and making citizens less safe,” Dhillon said.

The Minneapolis Police Department is operating

under a similar consent decree with the Minnesota Human Rights Department.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara pledged at a news conference Wednesday that the city will abide by the terms of the federal agreement as it was signed.

“We will comply with every sentence of every paragraph of the 169-page consent decree that we signed this year,” said Frey “We will make sure that we are moving forward with every sentence of every paragraph of both the settlement around

the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, as well as the consent decree.”

In Kentucky, the city of Louisville had reached an agreement with the Justice Department to reform its police force after a federal probe that found Louisville police engaged in a pattern of violating constitutional rights and discrimination against the Black community

Louisville Mayor Mayor Craig Greenberg said the city remains committed to reforming its police force and will be soliciting appli-

cations from candidates who want to serve as an independent monitor

“Throughout all of that process, we never hesitated, we never delayed, we never took a step back in trying to learn how to do our jobs better and serve the community better,” said Louisville Police Chief Paul Humphrey “It’s not about these words on this paper, it’s about the work that the men and women of LMPD, the men and women of metro government and the community will do together in order to make us a safer, better place.”

More tornadoes and fewer meteorologists

Weather service in scramble mode during outbreak

BY SETH BORENSTEIN AP science writer

WASHINGTON As nasty tornadoes popped up from Kansas to Kentucky, a depleted National Weather Service was in scramble mode.

The agency’s office in Jackson, Kentucky, had begun closing nightly as deep cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began hitting But the weather service kept staffers on overtime Friday night to stay on top of the deadly storms, which killed nearly 20 people in the Jackson ofﬁce’s forecast area.

It’s a scenario likely to be repeated as the U.S is on track to see more tornadoes this year than in 2024, which was the second-busiest tornado year on record.

Forecasters said there was at least a 10% risk of tornadoes Tuesday for 10.6 million people in parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Weather service veterans expressed concern about the agency’s ability to keep up in the face of the cuts.

Rich Thompson, lead operations forecaster at the NWS Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said the job is getting done But he acknowledged that

A path of destroyed

stafﬁng cuts have “made it harder on us.”

“It has made it hard on the local offices just to make sure that we have all of our important duties covered. But, I mean, most of the people take those important duties seriously, so we’re going to do what it takes to cover it,” Thompson said. “I hope we’re not in the same stafﬁng situation long term. It would be hard to sustain this for months or years.”

NWS spokesperson Erica Grow Cei said the Jack-

son office “remained fully staffed through the duration of the event using surge staffing” and had support from neighboring ofﬁces.

More extreme weather

The Storm Prediction Center had tallied 883 local tornado reports this year as of Monday, which was 35% higher than average for this time of year

Many former weather service employees, especially those fired by the Trump administration, remain con-

nected to the agency’s inner workings. They describe an agency that’s somehow getting forecasts and warnings out in time, but is also near the breaking point.

“They’ll continue to answer the bell as long as they can, but you can only ask people to work 80 hours or 120 hours a week, you know for so long,” said Elbert “Joe” Friday a former weather service director “They may be so bleary-eyed, they can’t identify what’s going on on the radar.”

Tom DiLiberto, a weather service meteorologist and spokesman who was fired in earlier rounds of the job cuts, said the situation is like a boat with leaks “and you have a certain amount of pieces of duct tape and you keep moving duct tape to different holes At some point, you can’t.”

As of March, some of the weather service offices issuing tornado warnings Friday and Sunday were above the 20% vacancy levels that outside experts have said is a critical threshold. Those include Jackson, with a 25% vacancy rate, Louisville, Kentucky, with a 29% vacancy rate, and Wichita, Kansas, with a 32% vacancy rate, according to data compiled by weather service employees and obtained by the AP Technologies used to predict tornadoes have signiﬁcantly improved, but radar can’t replace a well-rested staff that has to ﬁgure out how nasty or long-lasting storms will be and how to get information to the public, said Karen Kosiba, managing director of the Flexible Array of Mesonets and Radars (FARM) facility, a network of weather equipment used for research.

“There really are not enough people to handle everything,” said University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Howard Bluestein, who chased six tornadoes Sunday “If the station is understaffed, that could affect

the quality of forecasts.” Cuts hit in different ways

Former weather service Director Louis Uccellini said budget cuts have drastically reduced the number of weather balloon launches, which provide critical information for forecasts. And weather service workers aren’t being allowed to travel to help train local disaster ofﬁcials for what to do when they get dangerous weather warnings, he said.

Though the number of tornadoes is nearly at a record pace, Thompson and other experts said the tornado outbreak of the last few days is mostly normal for this time of year For tornadoes to form, the atmosphere needs a collision of warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and storm systems chugging through via the jet stream, the river of air that brings weather fronts from west to east, said Thompson, Bluestein and Harold Brooks of the weather service’s National Severe Storm Laboratory

“The moisture that we’re getting from the Gulf of Mexico is a lot more than we used to get,” said Bluestein. “That makes the likelihood that we’re getting a stronger storm higher and that’s pretty unusual.”

Temperatures in the Gulf are a couple of degrees warmer than usual for this time of year, according to the weather service.

BY DAVID BAUDER AP media writer

NEW YORK

— The recommended reading list contained some works of ﬁction. It also contained some works that were, in fact, actually ﬁctional.

The list appeared in “Heat Index: Your Guide to the Best of Summer,” a special section distributed in Sunday’s Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer last week.

More than half of the books listed were fake, according to the piece’s author, Marco Buscaglia, who admitted to using AI for help in his research but didn’t double-check

The content distributor King Features says it has ﬁred a writer who used artiﬁcial intelligence to produce a story on summer reading suggestions that contained books that didn’t exist.

what it produced “A really stupid error on my part,” Buscaglia wrote on his Facebook page.

It’s the latest instance of an AI shortcut backfiring and embarrassing news organizations. Sports Illustrated was caught in 2023 listing nonexistent authors for product reviews carried on its website.

“The Heat Index summer supplement was created by a freelance contract creator who used

AI in its story development without disclosing the use of AI,” the syndicators King Features said in a statement, noting it has a strict policy against using AI to create material. Only the Sun-Times and Inquirer have used the supplement, the organization said.

Both authors are real, but the books aren’t. “I have not written and will not be writing a novel called ‘Nightshade Market,’” Lee posted on X.

Among the summer reading suggestions was “The Last Algorithm” by Andy Weir, described as “a science-driven thriller following a programmer who discovers an AI system has developed consciousness” and been secretly inﬂuencing world events. “Nightshade Market,” by Min Jin Lee, was said to be a “riveting tale set in Seoul’s underground economy.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By CAROLyN KASTER

homes is seen Sunday in London, Ky., after a severe storm passed through the area

La. Supreme Court declines Levy lawsuit

Donald Trump and Gov. Jeff Landry in front of students.

BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD

Staff writer

The Louisiana Supreme Court declined to hear a lawsuit from LSU law professor Ken Levy, who was suspended from the classroom after making comments about President

The tenured law professor ﬁled a lawsuit in January against the LSU Board of Supervisors, claiming his suspension violated his free speech and due process rights and asked to be returned to the classroom. Previously, an East Baton Rouge Parish district judge ruled for a preliminary injunction allowing Levy to

return to the classroom and barred LSU from infringing on his constitutionally protected due process and free speech rights. However, then an appeals court threw out the portion of the order that would have allowed him to teach again. Levy then asked the Louisiana Supreme Court to review the appellate court’s decision. The top court in the state formally denied his request in a decision Tuesday

This means that the Levy will remain out of the classroom pending LSU’s investigation and the appellate court’s decision still stands. Justice Jefferson Hughes, who agreed with the rejection, said people can stand in a public space and say whatever they want, and audience members can choose to stay or leave, but in a classroom, the “dynamic of authority figure and captive audience is different,” according to the decision’s documents. Levy told The Advocate that the

LSU professor was suspended from classroom ä

Supreme Court’s decision “was very disappointing.”

The original preliminary injunction from the district court is only temporary, so Levy’s lawyers want to make the injunction barring LSU from infringing on his constitutionally protected due process and free speech rights permanent.

Bruce Warﬁeld Hamilton, the attorney representing Levy in the Supreme Court review, said the

FEELING GRAD-IFIED

Zachary High School graduates Evelyn Vargas, holding the camera, and Greyson, left, take a selﬁe with their mom, Jessica, during a photo shoot at City Park with their friends on Tuesday

Volunteers clean up homeless encampment

Anti-litter organization hits Baton Rouge Industriplex Park

BY QUINN COFFMAN Staff writer

BY CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT Staff writer

The BREC property at 7505 Industriplex Blvd. has a small playground backed by acres of wooded area. The park also has been the site of a large homeless encampment for years. BREC and the anti-litter organization Keep Tigertown Beautiful have cleaned the site multiple times, including earlier this year But both say people return after each cleanup and eviction

“My understanding is that we clean it, and then within hours the group sets back up shop and things get messy again, and then the cycle repeats itself,” said Robyn Lott, director of communications for BREC.

The latest cleanup was on May 10, where hundreds of pounds of needles, mattresses and burned shopping carts were cleared from the location, which is now part of the city of St. George. Organizers said it was the biggest cleanup yet for Keep Tigertown Beautiful, a public service group that has

up an eighth

BY MATT BRUCE Staff writer

Sixteen

STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

PHOTO PROVIDED By JENNIFER RICHARDSON

and charred trees are seen at

Tigertown Beautiful have cleaned the site multiple times,

Search for New Orleans jail escapees continues

Two people arrested, accused of aiding some of the fugitives

BY MISSY WILKINSON and JUSTIN MITCHELL Staff writers

Six days after 10 inmates staged a brazen escape from the Orleans Parish jail, half of them remained at large as multiple law enforcement agencies continued to sweep the city as the court system began processing those already captured. Louisiana State Police arrested two women accused of aiding some of the men after their escape, and the ﬁve in custody as of Wednesday afternoon were ordered held without bail for being an “obvious ﬂight risk.”

In Central City, an increasingly familiar ritual played out as rifletoting state troopers and armored vehicles arrived as the sun set in an attempt to flush out one of five remaining fugitives

The previous night saw a successful apprehension in the 1400 block of Iberville Street, followed by a false alarm in St Roch that sent helicopter searchlights roving

RETIRING

Continued from page 1B

Ascension Parish School Board never entering into it knowing that it would be over four decades.”

In the release, Superintendent Edith Walker said Graves’ career “stands as an example of dedication, growth, and impact across every level of our organization

From teacher to other roles

At St. Amant, Graves taught

CLEANUP

Continued from page 1B

and an articulating loader to lift rusted shopping carts and other debris into the bins. Volunteers from Keep Tigertown Beautiful, The Grove Recovery Center and other groups turned out for the effort, while BREC provided the heavy machinery Richardson said ﬁve of the heavyduty dumpsters were filled, with much more debris left at the site that couldn’t be collected in a single effort.

While the encampment was well known to Richardson, what she and the volunteers found when they arrived horriﬁed her

“When we walked in it, it was like a nightmare,” she said.

In addition to “buckets and buckets” worth of IV needles, and “50 to 100” shopping carts piled up, Richardson said, they found areas where large amounts of insulation and furniture had been dumped as well.

When Advocate reporters walked

PATH

Continued from page 1B

and sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of ever getting out.

A different Baton Rouge judge this week granted Collins a shot at a second chance at freedom.

District Judge Gail Horne Ray determined Collins, who was 16 when he murdered Bellaire, did not represent the “worst of the worst” kind of juvenile offenders and revamped his sentence to make him parole eligible

That means the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee of Parole could possibly consider a parole bid by Collins in less than eight years.

and drones surveilling the neighborhood well into the night.

Residents watched from nearby sidewalks and doorsteps Wednesday as ofﬁcers poured into their neighborhood in a show of force.

Come outside, we have you surrounded’ — I heard that; it spooked me,” said Central City resident Shaina Sanabria. “All of a sudden (troopers) came from everywhere. Everywhere. One lady had an AK47. My heart dropped, for real. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Within a half hour, however, police dispersed without making an arrest, presumably moving on to the next lead.

Two arrested Corvanntay Baptiste, 38, of Slidell, andCortnieHarris,32,NewOrleans, were booked into the Plaquemines Parish jail early Wednesday morning on a felony count each of accessory after the fact.

Harris is accused of transporting two escapees who are still on the run to multiple locations in New Orleans, State Police said. Investigators also allege she used a phone to stay in contact with an at-large escapee before the jailbreak. Police did not name the escapees she aided.

physical education, health and sociology while coaching girls’ basketball, softball, cross-country and track and field. Under her coaching, the girls’ track and field team, in 1992, won its first district championship, according to the release.

Former Superintendent Donald Songy, who served from 2006 to 2010, said Graves had done “an exceptional job” in her roles.

“As a teacher and coach, she inspired many, many young people,” he said in the release “As an administrator, she worked tirelessly

the site days later, much of the debris was still visible, alongside multiple charred trees from where a past ﬁre had spread.

St. George Police Chief Todd Morris accompanied volunteers in the cleanup Richardson said that after seeing the accumulated garbage, Morris’ face was “white as a sheet.”

According to Richardson and Lott, there was no exact head count of the number of people staying at the site. When volunteers arrived, no inhabitants were in the area.

While the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce said the department was not ofﬁcially involved in the camp clearing, Richardson said one deputy arrived with her in the morning to double-check the site for inhabitants.

It is unclear if those staying at the park were tipped off about the cleaning or had abandoned the site on their own.

Richardson says her work has given her perspective on crime and addiction in Baton Rouge that goes unseen by most people.

“I’m not against homeless people. I help them every way I can I prom-

cates from the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights squared off against prosecutors from the West Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Ofﬁce.

“Jauve Collins is not the same 16-year-old kid that committed this crime 18 years ago,” the advocacy group’s legal director Hannah Van De Car argued in court during a Jan. 3 opening salvo. “He has grown into a steady, educated, responsible man who’s incredibly deserving of a second chance.”

Collins, now 34, has spent nearly the past 18 years in jails and prisons awaiting trial and serving out his life term. He will have to wait until he has served at least 25 years before he can appear before the state parole board.

“Based on the evidence presented to me, I conclude that Mr Collins is not the worst of the worst,” Judge Ray said during a hearing Tuesday inside the 19th Judicial District Courthouse. “I think he has expressed remorse for his crime And although I know that doesn’t do anything to bring Mr Bellaire back, that is one of the things I’m required to consider.”

The judge’s decision followed three separate evidentiary hearings earlier this year, where advo-

Investigators said Baptiste was in contact with 19-year-old Corey Boyd, who was found and arrested Tuesday night, before he ﬂed the jail. She also helped get him food while he was in hiding, State Police said.

If convicted, Harris and Baptiste could face ﬁnes of up to $500 or ﬁve years in prison, or both. “Those who choose to assist or conceal these individuals are violating the law and will be held accountable,” State Police Sgt. Kate Stegall said in a statement. “Harboring fugitives threatens the safety of our communities and will not be tolerated.”

Flight risk

The ﬁve inmates who have been recaptured so far — Kendall Myles, 20; Robert Moody, 21; Dkenan Dennis, 24; Gary Price, 21; and Corey Boyd, 19 — appeared via Zoom before Magistrate Commissioner Jonathan Friedman on Wednesday afternoon.

All ﬁve have been rebooked on a single count of aggravated escape, and all appeared from Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola wearing shackles and white prison uniforms. They are an “obvious ﬂight risk,”

said Heather Hendrix, who was appearing for the Louisiana attorney general.

Public defender Bernadette Fox objected to the counts of aggravated escape, arguing the mass jailbreak didn’t “rise to the level of human life being in danger.”

Friedman ordered them held without bail because of the ﬂight risk.

Murrill, Williams tour jail

The 10 inmates broke free from the New Orleans jail around 1 a.m. on May 16, climbing through a hole behind a toilet they pulled off a wall in a pod.

As of Wednesday evening, the other ﬁve missing inmates Antoine Massey, Lenton Vanburen, Jermaine Donald, Leo Tate and Derrick Groves — were still on the run.

The latest arrest of the two women follows that of 33-year-old Sterling Williams, a maintenance worker at the jail who investigators allege cut water to the pod where the inmates escaped, allowing them to pull the toilet from the wall.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, who on Wednesday joined Attorney General Liz Murrill to tour the crime scene at the jail, told a small crew of television

reporters that “certainly more than one person” is responsible for the escape, and that he expects more arrests in the coming weeks. Williams’ main goal, he said, was to see the crime scene for himself to determine “who all was involved in this jailbreak, who assisted, who knew, and when.”

After the tour, Murrill told reporters that the cell the inmates managed to escape from is no longer in use and the hole has been blocked off. She also urged the public “to continue to stay alert” and reach out to authorities if they feel unsafe.

The jailbreak has set up a battle between local and state leaders and Sheriff Susan Huston, who suspended her campaign for a second term as sheriff Tuesday after apologizing earlier in the day at a New Orleans City Council meeting. The suspension also came after the revelations about Sterling Williams, the jail employee.

Hutson, however, has also contended that the locks on a door that was forced open have long been an issue she’s been asking the city to ﬁx at the long-troubled jail, which is just 9 years old. Staff writer Kasey Bubnash contributed to this report.

The Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights is a New Orleans-based nonprofit that advocates for children ensnared in the justice system. The group argued that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down automatic life sentences for juvenile killers in a landmark 2021 ruling. The justices declared such sentences disproportionate for most youth offenders and determined they should be reserved for a small percentage of underage defendants who show signs “irreparable corruption.”

While adults convicted of seconddegree murder in Louisiana are punished with a mandatory life sentence, state law allows juvenile killers not deemed beyond rehabilitation a chance at a parole hearing after they have served 25 years. Henry Bellaire was helping his daughter, Gaylyn, carry groceries into his home just north of Southern’s campus on the night of Feb. 26, 2007, when Collins and two accomplices ambushed him in his driveway When Bellaire told the

to make sure that schools and departments worked efﬁciently and effectively Our school system owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Denise Graves, and I wish her a wonderful retirement.”

By 1995, Graves was assistant principal at St. Amant and later became the principal of Gonzales Middle School. From there, she served in district-level roles, including director of middle schools, director of human resources and director of administrative services.

“I believe my initial role as a

ise you,” Richardson said. “But this is a whole other animal It’s a siege on Baton Rouge is what it is, and if they win this war we’ll lose everything. There won’t be a tax base because everyone will be moving out of here.”

In an ofﬁcial statement by BREC last week, the Parks Department said the parish is “facing a growing homelessness crisis that is impacting public spaces, including local parks.” The statement added that BREC has partnered with the Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless to “deepen our understanding of this complex issue.”

“When we encounter individuals in our parks, we strive to connect them with available services and support,” the statement read. “In addition, we’ve worked with the Alliance over several years to explore opportunities for developing more permanent, supportive housing, including discussions related to this site Those conversations remain active and ongoing.”

When park rangers find people camping on BREC property they are referred to Saint Vincent De-

men he didn’t have any cash on him, Collins shot him in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Bellaire died two days later at the age of 69. Collins was convicted of seconddegree murder at the end of a fourday trial in 2009, and District Judge Lou Daniel sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole, probation, suspended or early termination of sentence.

But the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 2012 and another in 2016 changed the landscape on life sentences for juveniles. Ray invoked those mandates in her decision Tuesday, saying she must ﬁnd evidence of “permanent incorrigibility” to grant the prosecution’s motion to uphold Collins’ life sentence without the possibility of parole. In doing so, she considered the nature of his crime and the impact it had on the community But she also weighed Collins’ age and maturity when he pulled the trigger along with his background, prior criminal history, intellectual capacity and emotional acumen at the time. Collins dropped out of school in the eighth grade and turned to a life of crime. He taught himself to read and write in prison and earned his GED behind bars. Since his conviction, he has taken courses on construction, received technical diplomas and been certiﬁed in several trades like carpentry, electrician and HVAC training. He also has undergone anger management, substance abuse recovery and personal development counseling, the judge noted. During the slate of hearings leading up to Tuesday’s ruling, Collins’

teacher and an athletic coach is what kept me coming back,” she said. “It was the kids. It was the school, it was the faculty and staff, and it was the community.”

Managed 2016 flood response

Graves became assistant superintendent in 2010 and was appointed interim superintendent in 2016. During her time in that role, she oversaw the district’s response to the ﬂooding that devastated south Louisiana.

State Sen. Ed Price, D-Gonzales, honored Graves via a Senate

Paul,theSalvationArmy,211Capital Area United Way and other groups, according to a BREC spokesperson. For the Industriplex Park location, BREC said it is posting “park rules” signs and is considering some kind of simple barriers at the site. Richardson believes cameras, lights and barriers are necessary, along with mowing down the heavy underbrush at the site, to keep people from camping there. She thanked BREC for its help and for providing the heavy equipment necessary in the cleanup.

‘A known spot’ Jordan Dupont had a career as a schoolteacher and a basketball coach. He said he “lost it all” in his struggle with addiction to pain medication, sending him on a journey of homelessness, jail time, relapse and, ﬁnally, recovery Now, Dupont has worked for three years at The Grove Recovery Center as a 12-Step Educator and Men’s Counselor He volunteered, alongside his wife and other residents from The Grove, to help clean up Industriplex Park.

mother testified that his father died in a ﬁery pickup crash on Interstate 10 just three days before he was born. A behavioral expert who evaluated Collins testified on his behalf, saying he did not represent the worst of the worst offenders. A warden at Angola said Collins has matured over the years after taking courses and other classes in prison

But several of Bellaire’s loved ones testified for prosecutors. Among them were Gaylyn Bellaire, who identiﬁed Collins as her father’s shooter during his trial A Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections administrator also told Ray about infractions Collins has received in prison and said his disciplinary record has been “average.”

Ray made her ruling before a packed courtroom that included some of Bellaire’s loved ones. Bellaire was a retired Southern University administrator who lived across the street from then-East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden.

Ray told spectators she didn’t know the victim personally, but was well aware of his achievements. She described him an “outstanding citizen in the area of Southern Heights, the city of Baton Rouge and the state of Louisiana” and noted the widespread devastation of his murder

“It was a senseless killing that caused grief to the community and, of course, to Mr Bellaire’s family,” the judge said.

Email Matt Bruce at matt. bruce@theadvocate.com.

resolution that celebrates her career and contributions to education.

Looking forward, Graves said she planned to continue assisting the Ascension Parish community “I just plan on being grateful for what I have been able to do, which is retire, and I will just continue to try to serve the community as best I can in a volunteerism role,” she said.

Email Christopher Cartwright at christopher.cartwright@ theadvocate.com.

“It was a full-circle moment,” Dupont said. “I’ve been homeless all over Baton Rouge, and it was just one of those places.”

For DuPont and a handful of other residents from The Grove, the park was known to them from their time living on the streets.

“There was a gentleman who had actually just got out of my group who used to live there,” Dupont said, “and I got to walk with him.”

DuPont said the Industriplex site was a larger encampment, as well as “a known spot” where drugs could be bought.

“But everything is the same as every camp that you go to,” Dupont said “What you will see is people who are broken and hopeless, just trying to survive.”

Dupont added that no one at an encampment wants to be there, but that they are trapped by “the disease of addiction,” mental illness or just unfortunate circumstances.

“I did not just wake up one day and decide to be an IV drug-user,” DuPont said. “You look down at your watch one day and a decade’s gone by.”

LAWSUIT

Continued from page 1B

decision does not affect the injunctive relief prohibiting LSU from infringing on his rights.

Hamilton said there will be an upcoming trial date to attempt to make that part of the injunction permanent.

Levy initially received a letter from the university informing him he was suspended with full pay pending an investigation into statements he made in the classroom, which prompted the professor to sue, leading to a monthslong court battle across the state.

LSU previously said in a statement that his suspension doesn’t violate rights afforded by tenure and his comments weren’t protected speech Levy is still suspended from LSU with pay, his lawyer conﬁrmed.

Email Claire Grunewald at claire. grunewald@theadvocate.com.

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Obituaries

Carter Sr., Lloyd 'September'

Lloyd“September” Carter, Sr.departedthis lifeonTuesday,May 13, 2025, at ChateauNapoleon CaringNursing Home in Napoleonville,LA. He was 96, anativeofNew Roads, LAand resident of Belle Rose, LA.Visitation on Thursday,May 22, 2025, at Williams &SouthallFuneral Homefrom2:00pmto 4:00pm. Visitation on Fri‐day,May 23, 2025, at Greater Israel Baptist Church,from9:00amtore‐ligious services at 11:00am Intermentinthe church cemetery. Arrangements byWilliams& Southall Fu‐neral Home,5414Hwy 1, Napoleonville,LA70390 (985) 369-7231. To sign the guest book or offercondo‐lences, visitour websiteat www.williamsandsouthall funeralhome.com.

Castrogovannie, Albert

Albert "Black" Castrogovannie passed away on Saturday,May 17, 2025, at the age of 95. Devoted husband of the late Barbara Montecino Castrogovannie for 70 years. He is survived by two sons, Ricky Castrogovannie (Robin), Blaine Castrogovannie (Trish); threedaughters, Penny Boudreaux(Ronnie), Candy Guillot, and Alley "Teetie" Castrogovannie; eight grandchildren, ten greatgrandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. Also survived by one brother, Salvadore Genovese. Visitation willbe held at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church on Friday, May 23, 2025, from 1:00 pm until 2:00 pm. Followed by Mass of Christian Burial at 2:00 pm with entombment to follow in the church mausoleum. The family would liketoexpress sincere gratitude to the entire staff of Chateau D'ville, especially Lainey LeBoeuf, Gabbie Landry, Misty Turner, StephanieCouch and Dana Pruitt. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Autism Speaks at https://www.aut

ismspeaks.org. Church Funeral ServicesofSt. Amant, LA entrusted with arrangements.

Hebert,Chrystal Hampton

Chrystal Hampton Hebertentered into eternal restatOur Lady of the LakeRegionalMedical CenteronMay 15, 2025 She wasa native andresi‐dentofBaton Rouge, Louisiana.Viewing at Greater Mt.CarmelBaptist Church on Saturday,May 24, 2024 at 9:00 am until Celebration of Life Service at11:00 am conductedby Rev.CleeLowe; interment atSouthernMemorialGar‐dens. Survivorsinclude her mother, Audrey Hampton; other relativesand friends; precededindeath by her husband,Raymond Hebert; daughter, TonyaHebert; and father,AlbertHamp‐ton.Arrangementsen‐trusted to Miller &Daugh‐ter Mortuary

Michael Kenneth Heltz, 74, passed awayonSaturday, May17, 2025, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He died peacefully,surrounded by his entirefamily, following alongjourney withParkinson's disease. Michael was born on June 4, 1950,in NewOrleans, Louisiana.He spent his childhood in St James Parish and wasa graduateofLutcher High School, NichollsState University, and LSU School of Law.Healsoservedhonorably forsix yearsinthe United States Army Reserves. Michael practiced lawinSt. James Parish with his firm, Kliebert& Heltz, for42years, until his retirement. He wasa fierce advocate for his clients in their pursuit of justice,and was aman of honesty and integrity,who loved his family deeply. He instilled in his children adeeplove of family, sports, and travel. He was aloyal friend to many. His favoritetitle was Dad, until the birth of his first grandchild,Marshall. Thinking himself too young and too cool to be aGrandpa yet, he chose to be calledPop, and thisterm of endearment became his new nametoall.Michael is survived byhis devoted wifeof52years, Mary "Libby" Dicharry Heltz; hischildren and their spouses, Ashley Heltz Miller(Webster),JonathanMichael Heltz (Hannah), and Jordan Oliver Heltz(Jeryn); his brother,Barry Heltz(Linda);his grandchildren, Marshall DavidHeltz (Kristie),Evelyn Lilith Miller,Andrew DavidHeltz, Samuel Joseph Heltz,CharlieAvie Heltz, Amalie ElizabethHeltz, LillianIsla Heltz, and RileyMarée Berry;and his great-grandchildren, Andi JaneHeltz and Warren Michael Heltz. He is also survivedbynumerous otherrelatives, wonderful neighbors, and dear friends who enriched his life. He is precededin death by his parents, Richard and Wilhemina Martin Heltz; brother,Brian Joseph Heltz;and sister, MonaLynne Heltz.Visita-

tion willtakeplace at St. GeorgeCatholicChurch on Friday, May 23, 2025, beginning at 10:30 AM until Mass of Christian Burial at 12:00 PM.Burial to follow at St GeorgeCatholicChurch Cemetery. The family expresses special thanksto themany wonderfulcaregivers who assisted Michael on his journey and became like family to us. Memorial donations may be madetothe Michael J. Fox Foundationfor Parkinson's Research or St.Jude Children's Hospital.Family and friends may signthe online guestbook or leave apersonal notetothe familyatwww.resthavenbaton rouge.com.

With heavyhearts, we announce thepassing of JodyMann, age20, whose compassionand kindness touched countless lives. Jody's legacy liveson throughher selfless organ donationand dedication to helping others. She willbe deeply missed by her family,friends, and allwho knew her. Acelebrationof life will be held on May 24thatCentral Funeral Home,9995 Hooper Rd.Visitation: 10 AM-12 PM,service to follow. For thefull obituary, to share memories,ortosend flowers, please visit: https://www. dignitymemorial.com/obit ua rie s/ce ntr al-l a/jodymann-12345314

Muller,Deborah PaulinePoche’

DeborahPaulinePoche MullerpassedawayatOur Ladyofthe Lake Hospital inBaton Rouge, Louisiana May 19, 2025, at theage of 92. Debbie wasbornon February26, 1933, in Pon‐chatoula, Louisiana. She was along-time resident of the Southdowns neighbor‐hood in BatonRouge.She was thedaughterofPaul W.Poche’and EvaWillie Poche’ofPonchatoula.She married Ronald Adam Muller, also of Poncha‐toula,November2,1954 She is survived by Monica MullerLee andher hus‐band, Donald P. Leeof Mandeville, Louisiana, their daughter,Caroline Lee Berman andher hus‐band, DavidMichael Berman, andtheir daugh‐ter,Margot Elizabeth BermanofNew Orleans, Louisiana,JudyMuller Moriceher husband,David A.MoriceofCanton, Geor‐gia,their sons DavidA MoriceJr. of BatonRouge, Louisiana andBryan A. MoriceofGreat Falls, Mon‐tana, KathyMullerCook, her husband, Thomas W. Cook of BatonRouge, Louisiana,their daughters, Anna KatherineCook Embry,her husband,Elliot Embry,and theirson,Hay‐wood Elliot EmbryofMem‐phis, Tennessee, andEliza‐bethCorinne Cook of Baton Rouge,Louisiana.She was precededindeath by her husband,RonaldA.Muller, mother, EvaWilliePoche’, father, Paul W. Poche’ younger sister,Sylvia Poche’Lagarde,fatherand mother-in-law,Mattand MaryMuller, andsister-inlaw,MattieL.Schech. Deb‐bie graduatedfromPon‐chatoulaHighSchool in 1951 andthengraduated fromBaptist School of Nursing to become aregis‐tered nurse in 1954. Visita‐tionwillbeheldFriday, May 23rdfrom8 -10AM and services will beginat 10AMatHarry McKneely& Son FuneralHome, 100 W. MagnoliaSt.,Ponchatoula LA70454. Gravesideser‐vices will follow at the Wetmore Cemetery in Pon‐chatoula, La.Anon-line guest book is availableat www.harrymckneely.com

Lynnette DeLaune Ourso,75, of BatonRouge, passedawaypeacefully on May 20, 2025. Born and raisedinBaton Rouge, she graduated from Baton Rouge High andretired fromthe LouisianaState Police. Lynnette wasthe beloved wife of Bobby Ourso for56years andthe devoted mother of Robbie (Gretchen), Amber(Jimbo), Juddand Sharon Jones, who shealsocherished as one of herown. Shewas the proudgrandmother of Phil, Saylor,Bailey, Maggie, and Jamie. Shewas pre‐ceded in deathbyher par‐ents, Lionel “Jack” and LouiseDeLaune;sister, Peggy Poche; brother-inlaw,Jay Benard;and niece, Heather Matthews. Sheis survivedbysiblings, LJ De‐Laune (OlaKay),Margaret Matthews, Jeff Delaune (Francie),Maureen Bernard,GabePoche;as wellasninein-laws,their spouses,and many nieces and nephewswho will feel her absencedeeply.Lyn‐nette hada rare gift—she lit up thepeoplearound her.She made everyone feel welcome, valued,and athome. Herhomewas al‐waysopen, always warm and always ﬁlled with laughter, good food,and love. Shehad a ﬂairfor decorating, apassion for cleaning, anda heartfor storytelling. Herfavorite wordwas “precious,”and that’sexactly howshe madeothersfeel.Visita‐tionwillbeSacredHeart Catholic Church in Baton Rouge on Saturday,May 24, from9:00a.m.until Mass ofChristian Burial at 11:00 a.m celebrated by Rev. JoshJohnson.Burialwill followatResthaven Gar‐densofMemoriesonJef‐fersonHighway.The family asksthatyou honorLyn‐nette by making someone feel welcomed today—give a compliment,share a story,cook ameal, or sim‐ply listen.Justlikeshe wouldhave. Please share

Spencer,Mary Elizabeth Wilkins 'Lizzie'

memories at www.wilbert services.com. in theFirst Baptist Church choir andplaying thepiano, as well as various other church andmission activities.Mary Elizabeth waspreceded in death by herparents, herloving husband, son Richard Mark SpencerSr.;three brothers, RoyAllen WilkinsJr., George C. Wilkins, and EdwinNorman Wilkins, and sister Katherine Virginia WilkinsRush.Mary Elizabeth is survivedbydaughters Barbara JaneSpencer Reese (Robert), Mary Katherine SpencerRobertson (Richard), and son EverettHeathSpencer Jr (Ann), as well as abrother Charles Elam WilkinsSr., nine grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren, one great-great grandson, and numerousnieces and nephews. Pallbearers will be Mark Spencer, Heath Spencer, Chris Robertson, AndrewRobertson, Briton Whitfield, andRandy Wilkins. Honorary pallbearersare Charles E. Wilkins Sr Robert Reese, and Richard Robertson. Acelebration of Mary Elizabeth's life will be held on Saturday, May24, 2025, at Greenoaks Funeral Home in Baton Rouge.Visitation will be from12-2 p.m. followed by aservice at 2 p.m. officiated by ReverendLarkin Harris.

Mary Elizabeth Wilkins Spencer"Lizzie" went to be with herLordand SavioronMay 13, 2025, at the age of 102. Shewas born in Monroe, Louisiana, on May 12, 1923, to parents Roy AllenWilkins Sr.and FloyceLucretia Brown Wilkins. Mary Elizabeth graduatedfromTallulah High School in 1940 and attendedNortheast Junior Collegeinclerical studies. After moving to Baton Rouge at theage of 19, she workedatthe LSUSchool of Journalism, Louisiana State Capitol, andExxon ShemarriedEverett Heath SpencerSr. on August 7, 1948, and togetherthey raisedfourchildren.She foundgreat joyinsinging

Ourso, Lynnette DeLaune

Mann, Jody

Authur, Gregory Earl

Gregory Earl Authur departed this life on May9, 2025. AMemorialService will be Thursday, May 22 at 6p.m., Church of God, 3135 Ozark St., Bishop Mark Dillard.

Heltz, Michael K.

OUR VIEWS

WilliamTate’s departurea loss andan opportunity forLSU

In four years at the helm of Louisiana’s ﬂagship university,William Tate IV has been animportant ﬁgure.

Tate will leave LSU on June 30 and take over as thetop administrator at RutgersUniversity in New Jersey,wherethe boardunanimouslyapprovedhis hiring Monday.Hewillbegin there July 1. Tate called the move a“distinctly difﬁcult decision” and said the LSU community hasbeen “incredibleand inspirational.”

Tate’shiring in 2021 was agroundbreaking one. He was the ﬁrst Black president of notjust LSU, butany school in the Southeastern Conference. He took over in theimmediate aftermath ofthe pandemic and with the university embroiled in a Title IX scandal in which university ofﬁcials were accusedoffailingtoprotect students whohad been the victimsofsexual misconduct. Theschool eventually settled alawsuitconcerning thelatter for nearly $2 million.

Tate’saccomplishments in Baton Rougeare signiﬁcant. Under his leadership, LSU hasenrolled record numbers of students, not just atthe main campus but around the state. That has included bringing in higher numbers of out-of-state students. Tate has, rightly, called LSU “thebiggest inmigrationtool in the state of Louisiana.”

In addition, Tate has helped ramp up LSU’s research proﬁle, with more than $540millionin research activity in the last academicyear,almost $200 million morethanthe school brought in 2020. An LSU-led coalition also won aNational Science Foundationgrant potentially worth $160million, thelargest federal agency grant ever In athletic arenas, under Tate,LSU hascelebrated national titles in baseball, women’s basketball and gymnastics

His performance has earned plaudits fromthe board, whichlast year gave him anew three-year contract that raised his base salary to $750,000.

Tate has had to navigate the tricky political transitionsatthe state and federal level, where threatened federal funding has led to ahiring freezeand some students receiving funding-dependent admissions. Gov.Jeff Landry,who took ofﬁceinJanuary 2024,has also criticized universitiesfor silencing conservatives.”

His tenure hasn’tbeen without controversies of its own. In the face of political pressure, LSU hasreduced the visibility of its efforts to promote diversity. The decision to suspend alaw professoroverpolitical comments made in class prompteda backlash fromacademicfreedom advocates.

Nevertheless,webelieve Tate has been an overall good forthe university and we are sadtosee him go. The board is now faced with achallenge.Several other top-level administrators, includingProvost RoyHaggerty,the system’s topacademic administrator,havealsostepped down in recentmonths Tate’sreplacement will have to build ateam on the ﬂy With that in mind, the recruitment process which should proceed transparently and expediently—isalso an opportunity forthe boardtoﬁnd aleadercapable of building on Tate’s gains while maintaining LSU’splace as ahaven offreeacademic inquiry

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE AREOUR

GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupationand/or titleand the writer’scity of residence.The Advocate |The Times-Picayune require astreet addressand phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O. Box588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@theadvocate.com.

TO SENDUS ALETTER, SCAN HERE

YOUR VIEWS

Transportation shouldn’tbe barriertogoodeducation

Transportation barriers silently undermine educational access for Louisiana’smost vulnerable youth. As an advocate working with CASA New Orleansand theLouisiana Department of Children and Family Services, I’ve witnessed this critical gap ﬁrsthand.

The data is alarming. The Louisiana Department of Education reports chronic absenteeism affected nearly 25% of all students in 2023-2024, but 37.1% of foster youth and 50.3% of studentsexperiencing homelessness. These numbers represent thousands of children whose futures hang in the balance.

Why are these rates so high? Asigniﬁcant factor is what researchers call “transport-related social exclusion.”

As detailed in recent studies of East Baton Rouge Parish,inadequate transportation preventsyoung people from participating in essential educational activities, reinforcing cycles of poverty and limiting their access to vital resources.

Asubcommittee of theLouisiana Court Improvement Program has documented these transportation challenges throughout the child welfare system.A2024 CIP survey of more than 80 participants across 50 parishes

highlighted acritical gap: inadequate transportation prevents students from maintaining stability and attending court proceedings and visitations and also hampers foster youth experiencing placement changes from consistently attending school

Ourtraditional yellow school bus system alone, while crucial,nolonger meets today’s diverse student needs. Louisianamust embrace innovative multimodal transportation that incorporates smaller vehicles, smarter routing and supplemental services. For children with disabilities and foster youthnavigating placementchanges, these innovations aren’tjust luxuries, they’re necessities.

As Louisianans, we all share responsibilityfor removing transportation barriers that research consistently shows impact educational success. Recognizing this critical need, state Sen. Stewart Cathey Jr.has introduced SenateBill 160 to chart apath forward. By implementing ﬂexible, multimodal transportation solutions that adapt to individual student needs, we can ensure every child has reliable access to education, afundamental right.

KAYANA BRADLEY NewOrleans

We need better solutionsto manage homelessness

What? Ithought we werethe party of common sense. Criminalizing homelessness will notsolve theissue. It will only give thestate or city the legalabilitytohideaforever problem. This issuewill notbesolved, but it can be managed. Downtown is where theaction is Theywill return Do notplace agreater burdenonthe legalsystem or thetaxpayers fora community that hasnothing to lose. Setup, yardsapart, permanent, durable,cleanable,washing, bathing and toileting stations. Accommodatetheir lifestyle.You will notchange it Installa transparent, decorative, cleanablefence withsecured controlledunfettered access at either end forsafety This issuewill never be resolvedbut can be managed. Let thehomeless live their livesregardless of thecause. Encouragecitiestobemodelsof management, not metropolises that thepopulation, the state and thecountry will laugh at.

MICHAEL DIAZ Metairie

Here’s whyburning wood pelletsisabetterheating alternative

The article on wood pellet exports from rural Louisiana parishes is appreciated, but it omitsthe key fact of why those Europeans so favor wood pelletsover oil, natural gas or coal for heating their homes and generating their electricity Burning wood pelletsdoes not increase net atmospheric carbon dioxide

BEACH BOTTLE

because thegrowing of that wood took carbon out of the air By contrast, burning oil, natural gas and coal introduces net carbon into theair that otherwise would lie undisturbed deep in the ground. That disturbed carbon goes into the air,thus increasing greenhouse gas, which increases storms and ﬂooding.

The harmfulcarbon from burning wood pellets is pulled (recycled) from the air in the 20-year growth cycle that creates the wood of the pellets. Those other burnable fuels are not recycling carbon, they are bringing carbon into the air

RAYMOND PIERCE Hammond

Howcool woulditbeto find amessageinabottle?Who would it be from and what woulditsay?Here’syour chancetoget creativeand letusknow. So,what’sgoing on in this cartoon? youtellme. Be witty,funny, crazy,absurd or snarky —just trytokeep it clean.There’snolimit on the numberofentries. Thewinning punchlinewill be lettered into theword balloon and runon Monday,May 26, in our printeditions and online. In addition, the winner will receiveasigned printofthe cartoon along with acool winner’sT-shirt! Some honorable mentions will also be listed.To enter,emailentries to cartooncontest@ theadvocate.com. DON’T FORGET!All entries must include your name,home address and phone number. Cell numbers are best.The deadlinefor allentries is midnightonThursday, May22. Good luck, folks! —Walt

COMMENTARY

ON THE RECORD WITH FRIDAy ELLIS

‘Innovationisinthe heartlandofAmerica’

Monroe mayor discussesbig Meta investment settotransform northeastLa.

Arnessa Garrett

Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis sits in the centerofaregion on the cusp of change. Late last year, Meta announced investment in ahuge new data center in Holly Ridge, about 30 miles from Monroe. The $10 billion project also involves three new power plants in Richland Parish to support the data center Ellis appearedat the Big Towns summit in Lafayette last month, where small- and medium-sized cities celebrate successes and discuss the challenges they face. Hewas interviewed in asession called “What does the 21st Century economy mean for big towns?”by Arnessa Garrett, Deputy Editor for Opinion. Here are excerpts from their conversation edited for length and clarity

GARRETT: Can you start by telling us alittle about yourself?

ELLIS: Thank you for having me. This truly is an honor to be able to travel the state to talk about your community and why we love it so much. I’m afather of three. My wife and Iboth are people who deeply care about our community andwant to see it healthy.I’m a United States MarineCorps veteran. Ijoined just shortly after the events of 9/11 because Ifelt called to serve my country.And when it was time to come back home, it was that same callto serve your community My path to leadershipisvery unconventional.Iwas asmallbusiness owner —asamatterof fact, acigar shop owner.That’s where my journey in leadership began. People would always ask,“What does acigar shop owner know about running the largest business within your city?” But what they failed to realize is Ihad over six years of shared conversations over acigar —over acommonality —about different people’s hopes and dreams for their community,the potential thatwas not being met. And like withall things, when God puts something on your heart, the lastthing you need to do is say no. Iwas at that moment of “Send me. I’ll go.” And so, both feetin, Iran for mayor and have been serving since 2020.And it has been oneof thegreatest honors of my life to represent the people of Monroe and to shepherd them through this progress that we’re seeing, that we’ve all wished for and hoped for No secret sauce

GARRETT: Whenyou started, what were your goals for Monroe?

ELLIS: Well, selfishly,itall starts at home.You have three young kids at home that you hope havea future in your owncity.Wehear it in every community —you want to create aplace that starts first with its own citizens, aplace that they can be proud of andone where you can find opportunity for your children at home. What happens locally is so much more important than what’sgoing on in Washington, D.C.

GARRETT: Let’s talk about what’s going on locally —the huge data center that Meta is going to put near Monroe. Can you tell the audience alittle bit about that investment and how it came tobe?

ELLIS: Iwant to just kindofput Meta right here (gestures tothe side). We all know that beyond that, it has to startwith your established businesses to ensure that they’re healthy,right? It was alot of planning and alot of work, alot of realignment from permitting to create abetter business

environment, andthatstarted with direct feedback loops to your community to understand their hurdles. Andwhen you create that environment, people talk, developers talk. The economic developmentworld is avery small world, andyou can quickly earn areputation of whether or notyou’reaplace tobetodobusiness.

Now,let’stake theMeta development. There really is no secret sauce to this. It startedwithbeing open for business. We sawthat the Legislature passed serious rebates for datacentersand their equipment. Andsothatopened the doortokind oflookatLouisiana for these opportunities, and some wouldsay,“Why northeast Louisiana?”Weasked that question. Forthose who don’tknow,Meta decidedtobuild theﬁrst-of-itskind AI data center —it’sa $10 billiondata center —inrural RichlandParish.That’s where Igrew up. Fun fact, my family moved fromSikeston, Missouri, to sharecrop on that exact farm where it’sbeingbuilt.Somystory is tied directlytoRichland Parish and the site. It’s going to have 6,000 people on sitetobuild this thing. It’s massive.

Thestate owned thesite, so it wasasite within the stateinventory.Wehad access to water,and we had access to cheap energy and then natural gas. They’re building three large natural gas turbines to power this. The winners in this arms race are going to be those who can produce cheap energy, haveaccess to water and availability of land. Andsothose are some of thereasons. Butultimately,when the site selectors cameand put their feet on that soil, they got to meet the peopleofRichland Parish.They

got to meet thepeople of Monroe, and the contractors will tell you today,“We have never met acommunitysohappy to see us here and just asking us what they can do for us versus what we can do for thecommunity.” It’sjust a testamenttothe strengthofour people and the appetite for new investment and the yearning for opportunities to plug our people in and to ﬁnd aliving wage and a career Deal of theyear

GARRETT: It does present atremendous opportunity,but it also, for some of thesesmall towns, presentssome risks and some stressors. Can you talk alittle bit about that?

ELLIS: If you look at Holly Ridge, that’s(atotal population of) 7,500 people, and they’re about to have 6,000 people on site. So it’sthe conversations with the McLemore, Jitney Jungle (grocery store) people. What kind of groceries are you going to have on the shelves? Right?

It sounds so trivial, but it’sabsolutely true because that is also an area that has food insecurity So what does that look like for a family that already has trouble ﬁnding fresh groceries?

Monroe, for you that don’tknow, is avibrant, historic riverfront community kind of nestled in the Mississippi Delta. We are thehub for about 10-parish region. We’re theeducation, healthcare and employment hub for theentire region. Andsowhen Itook ofﬁce, Ihad to realize that decisions that Imake affected an entire region.

GARRETT: Youalso mentioned working with state government to makethis happen. Howimportant is it to develop those relationships in state government?

ELLIS: What do they say,“If you’re not at thetable, you’re what? You’re on the menu.” So ﬁnd aseat at the table. Or if not, pull your lawn chair up. Youcannot sit back and wait forinvestment to come to you. It’sall built on relationships. Youneed someone to tell your story and why your communitydeserves this investment. And Idowant to say this: Igotta hand it to (Louisiana Economic Development) Secretary (Susan) Bourgeois forthis. Y’all, they landed in platinum deal of the year in North America for this investment in northeastLouisiana and ruralAmerica. Louisiana hasn’treally earned the reputation that we’ve always been easy to do business with. And for this to happen and to hear closeto$50 billioninnew investmentsinthe state of Louisiana. Youcan call them jobs. But Icall thatopportunities for families. These are generational income opportunities to change generational outcomes for our families. To the governor,Secretary Bourgeois, (Louisiana Workforce Commission) Secretary (Susana) Showen, Icould nothave asked for better partners. It takes awhole team of people to make something of this scale happen.

Lookingtothe future

GARRETT: What is the message thatyou want your residents to hear and whatdoyou want people around the state to hear about Monroe?

ELLIS: To the residents, this is the big game. This is what we’ve all been working for.It’sour time to lead. And look, I’ve got no doubt about my people. We’re going to rise to the challenge. We’re going to make it happen. Everybody’sso excited. Everybody is so anxious

to get plugged in and to help. I’ve never seen this type of community engagement to this scale before. Because everybody understands that this is the ﬁrst time we’ve seen external investment in decades in our region, and they want it to be successful. They want to earn that reputation that we’re worthyofthis investment To investors, Iwant you to realize that innovation doesn’tonly live on the East Coast or the West Coast or in capital cities. Innovation is in the heartland of America. Iwas in aroom full of large corporations talking about, “How do we strengthen the heartland?” But Icouldn’thelp but realize that it was these samecorporations that siphoned talent from the heartland. In asense, they were trying to solve foraproblem they already created. They all know where innovation lives and where talent lives. And so now it’sour time. With these investments that are coming to your communities —the new Hyundai Steel plant, the expansion forExxon —support those. Figure out ways that your people can get plugged in and ﬁnd an opportunity to grow their families, to earn aliving wage, to maybe send the next generation of young men and womeneither off to job training or off to school. Support their dreams. I’ve been fortunate to live in acommunity that has supported me and my family

The Big Townssummitwas hosted by The Current andthe United WayofAcadiana. For more information, go to bigtowns.org

Arnessa Garrett is Deputy Editor |OpinionPageEditor Email her at arnessa.garrett@ theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By BRAD BOWIE Monroe MayorFriday Ellis is interviewedduring the Big Townssummit recently at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in downtown Lafayette.

Baton RougeWeather

SPORTS

How important is winning SEC tourney to LSU?

The Southeastern Conference baseball tournament circa 2025isnow astrange duck when it comes to judging its weight. It’simportance.

What to look forwhenthe Saints begin OrganizedTeamActivitiesunder newcoach Moore

BA N THE FIELD

Scott Rabalais

ä SEC tournament

LSU vs:

TBD 6:30 P.M.

FRIDAy,SECN

It still waddles like the SEC tournament, with virtually guaranteedweather delays. It quacks like the SEC tournament, with the ping of white leather-bound balls leaping off the aluminum alloy bats toward high blue outﬁeld walls. And it still hasplenty of glove-wielding little kids swarming overthe Hoover Met’soutﬁeld berms trying to snag aprized foul ball. But there’ssomething different this year.With the SEC having imported Texas and Oklahoma, the tariff that camewithitwas asingle elimination format all the way through, withall 16 teams competing.Before this year,only the top12of the SEC’s14teams played in Hoover,Alabama. LSU coach Jay Johnson, not surprisingly atraditionalist, not surprisingly voted against the format change. Asingle eliminationSEC baseball tournamentnow mirrors the formatSEC softball hashad in place for years, butitisn’t“according to Hoyle” postseason baseball. That involves adouble-elimination format, which it mustbe said the old SEC tourney only had for part of its run. “I don’tobsess over things Ican’tcontrol,” said Johnson, aman who certainly obsesses over other baseball things.“Idid vote to keep the double-elimination format. Iwantthe playerstoplay. Iguess foreight of the teams previously it wassingle elimination. Youhad to play yourway to double

Box Stadium

Saints wide receiver Rashid Shaheed catches apass during training camp practice on July 30. Shaheed is likely to make his returnfollowinga season-ending injury. STAFF FILE PHOTO By

BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer

The New Orleans Saints’schedule is locked in, the rookies have had theirﬁrst taste of professionalfootball, and now thereal thing is starting to get under way for 2025.

The team will hold itsfirst of three Organized Team Activities(OTAs) this week,including asession that is open to the media Thursday at their Metairie facility New Orleans will conduct aroughly 90-minute practice Thursday,offering thefirst glimpseofnew coach Kellen Moore workingwith what should be most of his squad —the session is voluntary forplayers to attend, but most of the rostertypically showsupfor these workouts Here are some things we’ll be watching for when the Saints takethe field as ateam for the first time Thursday

Welcomeback?

Will the Saints have both of theirtop receivers back on theﬁeld Thursday?

It seemslikea good possibilitythatboth ChrisOlave and Rashid Shaheed will be present at Thursday’svoluntary session,based on theteam’ssocialmedia posts from earlier off-season workouts. Theteam also has shared imagesofOlave catching passes in theteam’s indoor facility

Both Olave and Shaheed are coming off disappointing 2024 seasons that werecut short because of injury.For Shaheed,itwas atorn meniscus that required seasonending surgery after six games. For Olave,itwas aseries of concussions thatforced him to missthe ﬁnaleight games.

BY TOYLOYBROWN III Staff writer

Terrence Graves is entering his second season coaching Southern football after leading the program to the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship game a year ago. While Jackson State beat Southern(8-5, 7-1SWACWest)41-13inthe contest, the

Jaguars did enjoy a24-14 victory over Gramblinginthe 51st Bayou Classic.

Southern’s ﬁrst season with Graves was apositive oneasitreachedthe SWAC title game for thesecond time in three years. However,the goal is to bring theSWAC championship trophy back to Baton Rouge for the ﬁrst time since 2013. To help in thatpursuit, Graves made afew changes to the coaching staff.

Coaching changes

Marcus Bradley,runningbacks coach: Bradley joins the staff after serving as the running backscoach andwalk-oncoordinator at Prairie View,which was his ﬁrst full season as afull-time position coach at the program. He previously was adefensive graduate assistant for Prairie View from 2018-20. The Dallas, Texas, native started hiscoaching career in 2016 at Kansas Wesleyan. FredMcNair,quarterbackscoach: McNairisentering hissecondseason with theJaguars but will not remain in his previous position as the tight ends coach.Hewill nowcoach the position he played in the Arena Football League from1993-2001. Beforecoming to Southern, he wasAlcorn State’shead coach

page 4C

SOPHIA GERMER

STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

LSU coach JayJohnsonreturnstothe dugout after speaking with his players before the first pitch againstSoutheasternonApril 29 Alex

See RABALAIS, page 4C

OKC’s Gilgeous-Alexander MVP

BY TIM REYNOLDS AP basketball writer

The case for Shai GilgeousAlexander was simple. He’s the best player on an Oklahoma City Thunder team that had the best record this season and set a league mark for margin of victory If that wasn’t enough, he also won the scoring title.

That’s an MVP year

Gilgeous-Alexander was announced Wednesday as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, his first time winning the award.

It’s now seven straight years that a player born outside the U.S. won MVP, extending the longest such streak in league history

Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 32.7 points, 6.4 assists and five rebounds per game this season, leading the Thunder to a 68-14 record. The Thunder outscored teams by 12.9 points per game, the biggest margin in league history He becomes the second Canadian to win MVP; Steve Nash won it twice.

“His value is his confidence,” Oklahoma City’s Kenrich Williams said of Gilgeous-Alexander, his Thunder teammate for the last five seasons “His confidence that he has in himself and the confidence that he instills in every one of his teammates, including the coaches.”

Denver’s Nikola Jokic — a winner of three of the last four MVP awards — was second, despite a season for the ages. He averaged 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game, the first center to average a triple-double and the first player since all those stats were tracked to finish in the NBA’s top three in all three of those categories It was the sixth instance of a player finishing a season averaging a triple-double at least 10 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds per game. Russell Westbrook did it four times and Oscar Robertson once, but only one of those triple-double seasons led to an MVP win.

“He’s a special player,” Jokic said of Gilgeous-Alexander earlier this week when the Thunder eliminated the Nuggets in the

BY CLIFF BRUNT AP sportswriter

OKLAHOMA CITY The Minnesota Timberwolves must solve Oklahoma City’s ‘AAU’ defense to avoid a 2-0 deﬁcit in the Western Conference ﬁnals.

Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards used the term to describe Oklahoma City’s young, aggressive unit after the Thunder held the Timberwolves to 34.9% shooting in a 114-88 victory in Game 1 on Tuesday

“I mean, it’s hard to process because it was different every time,” Edwards said after Game 1. “Heavy in the gaps, sometimes trap the ball screens sometimes don’t. Sometimes just run and jump. It’s kind of similar to like AAU They remind me of like an AAU defensive team. Just run and jump. Fly around It’s pretty good.” Edwards said the ﬁrst key for him is to be more aggressive. He didn’t like that he scored 18 points on just 13 shots in a Game 1 loss, well below his normal output. He said his adjustment for Game 2 on Thursday night will be a simple one.

“Play without the ball a little more, get a little more cardio in,” Edwards said. “Should be good.” Minnesota coach Chris Finch said there’s plenty of ways for the Timberwolves to improve. They made just 15 of 51 3-pointers in the opener and committed 17 turnovers.

“We’ve got to pick up our decision-making,” Finch said. “We’ve deﬁnitely got to play with more force. We’ve got to play with more pass-pass combinations. We got to go somewhere a little bit quicker.”

Western Conference semiﬁnals.

“His shot selection, his shot capability he’s always there. He’s a special player.”

Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who averaged 30.4 points, 11.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game, was third.

He started this run of international players winning MVP; Antetokounmpo, of Greek and Nigerian descent won in 2019 and 2020.

Jokic, a Serbian, won in 2021, 2022 and 2024. And Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, who was born in Cameroon but since became a U.S. citizen, won the award in 2023.

Now, it’s Gilgeous-Alexander — a son of Ontario, where hockey reigns — carrying the MVP ﬂag. The MVP award, like most other NBA honors, was voted on by a global panel of 100 writers and broadcasters who cover the league and cast ballots shortly before the start of the playoffs. The other awards that were part of that voting process and have already had their results unveiled: Cleveland’s Kenny Atkinson winning coach of the year, Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels winning most improved player, San Antonio’s Stephon Castle winning rookie of the year, Cleveland’s Evan Mobley winning defensive

player of the year, New York’s Jalen Brunson winning clutch player of the year and Boston’s Payton Pritchard winning sixth man of the year Other awards announced by the league since the end of the regular season: Golden State’s Stephen Curry won the TwymanStokes teammate of the year award, Warriors teammate Draymond Green won the hustle award, Oklahoma City’s Sam Presti won executive of the year and Boston’s Jrue Holiday won the sportsmanship award for the second time in his career as well as the league’s social justice award.

Colts’ music-loving owner Irsay dies at age 65

Jim Irsay, the Indianapolis Colts’ owner who leveraged the popularity of Peyton Manning into a new stadium and a Super Bowl title, died Wednesday at age 65. Pete Ward, the teams chief operating ofﬁcer, made the announcement in a statement from the team. He said Irsay died peacefully in his sleep. With Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian, Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy and Manning, Irsay helped turn the Colts from a laughingstock into a perennial title contender Irsay began his football life as a ball boy after his late father, Robert, acquired the team in a trade. The younger Irsay then worked his way up, becoming the youngest general manager in NFL history at age 24, and succeeding his father as owner in early 1997.

N.O. native Verrett leaving ESPN after 25 years

Stan Verrett, the New Orleans native and longtime “SportsCenter” anchor, is reportedly leaving ESPN after 25 years at the worldwide leader in sports. The network does not plan to renew Verrett’s contract, Front Ofﬁce Sports reported on Wednesday Verrett shared a brief statement on social media to stay tuned as to what the future holds.

Verrett went to St Augustine High School before attending college at Howard University The Emmy Award-winner was named to the St. Augustine Hall of Fame in October of 2024. Verrett is also a former sports anchor at WDSU. He joined ESPN in 2000 as an ESPNEWS anchor In 2009, he became the co-host of the midnight edition of “SportsCenter Los Angeles.”

Fans who insulted Vinícius found guilty of hate crime

Five Valladolid fans who racially insulted Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior in 2022 have been found guilty in the ﬁrst ruling in Spain that condemns racist insults in a soccer stadium as a hate crime, the league said Wednesday A Valladolid court convicted the fans for their insults in a league match, sentencing them to one year in prison plus a ﬁne of up to $1,837.

The jail time is suspended on condition they don’t commit any offense or visit soccer stadiums for three years. Last year, three Valencia fans were handed eight-month prison sentences after pleading guilty to racially insulting Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior which was the ﬁrst conviction for racismrelated (non-hate-crime) cases in professional soccer in Spain.

Kansas hires former NBA coach as assistant Kansas hired former All-American and NBA coach Jacque Vaughn to be an assistant on Bill Self’s staff Wednesday, bringing one of the most beloved and accomplished players in school history back to campus after nearly three decades.

Vaughn will replace Norm Roberts, who announced his retirement after 37 years in coaching earlier this month. The 50-year-old Vaughn, who spent five-plus seasons as the head coach of the Orlando Magic and Brooklyn Nets, becomes the first former NBA coach to join a Jayhawks coaching staff. The Nets fired him in February 2024. Vaughn played under Roy Williams at Kansas from 199397 and finished his career as the school and Big Eight’s leader with 804 assists.

Raiders’ Wilkins to remain out from broken foot

Oklahoma City leads the league in defensive rating by a large margin in the playoffs. The Thunder lead all playoff teams with 10.8 steals per game and an opponent ﬁeld-goal percentage of .407 in the postseason. Lu Dort and Alex Caruso are two of the league’s best on-ball defenders. Caruso is versatile enough to defend guards or a big like Denver’s Nikola Jokic, as he did last series. Jalen Williams and Shai Gilgeous Alexander are quick and strong and are good in passing

lanes Williams had ﬁve steals in Game 1 Cason Wallace is an exceptional athlete. That allows the Thunder to keep fresh bodies on an opponent’s best players. In the paint, Chet Holmgren has been one of the league’s top rim protectors and Isaiah Hartenstein has been one of its top rebounders. The result can be overwhelming. Several Minnesota players struggled with their shooting on Tuesday Mike Conley made 2 of 8 shots, Donte DiVincenzo made 3 of 14 and Nickeil Walker-Alexander made 3 of 11 Edwards said it was more about the Timberwolves than the Thunder

“They got great looks, just couldn’t make them,” Edwards said. “A lot of them went in and out. And that’s going to help us. That’s going to help me and Ju (Julius Randle) because they usually make those shots. So we’re not really worried about them making shots. We’ll be all right.” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault expects the Timberwolves to adjust.

“This is a really, really good team that’s got great resolve,” he said. “These are great players. They have a great coach, tactically. So they’re going to have the next pitch that we’re going have to hit. We are aware of that, so we have to get to work.”

Raiders defensive tackle Christian Wilkins is facing an uncertain recovery process from a broken foot suffered last season and isn’t close to returning, Las Vegas coach Pete Carroll said Wednesday Wilkins was at organized team activities practice, but did not participate. He received extra work on the side afterward.

Wilkins, 29, was the Raiders’ marquee free-agent signing last year, agreeing to a four-year, $110 million contract with $82.75 million guaranteed. Wilkins had two sacks and 17 tackles in five games before injuring his foot, which required surgery He suffered a Jones fracture — a break of the bone that connects the pinkie toe to the base of the foot.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By NATE BILLINGS

Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander drives against Minnesota Timberwolves guard Donte DiVincenzo during Game 1 of their playoff series Tuesday in Oklahoma City

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By NATE BILLINGS

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards works the floor against Oklahoma City Thunder forward Chet

Penske fires top three after cheating scandal

BY JENNA FRYER AP auto racing writer

INDIANAPOLIS Roger Penske at-

tempted to close the latest cheating scandal engulfing his race team — this one at his beloved Indianapolis 500 — by ﬁring his top three executives at Team Penske after two of the Penske cars were found to be illegal Penske fired team president Tim Cindric, IndyCar managing director Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar general manager Kyle Moyer on Wednesday in the wake of this Indianapolis 500 cheating scandal

“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams,” Penske said in a statement. “We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for letting them down.” Penske is owner of the three-car team, IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500. He has won the Indy 500 a record 20 times.

The firings and Penske’s statement have been his first public reaction since two-time defending Indianapolis 500 winner Josef Newgarden and teammate Will Power were found to have an illegally modified spec part on their cars ahead of Sunday’s final round of qualifications for the 109th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” Penske after the firings were announced held a team owner’s meeting remotely in which he took responsibility for his team’s actions. Some who dialed-in told The Associated Press the meeting lasted 20 minutes and the owners were satisfied with the outcome; no owners called for the Penske cars to be kicked out of the race, and the only questions asked were about how IndyCar moves on from the scandal ahead of the biggest race in the world

“What he did in ﬁring three people is a big deal,” Arrow McLaren team principal Tony Kanaan told The Associated Press. “I think everyone recognized how big of a deal this is to Roger and now it’s just a question of how to move on and how to make sure tech doesn’t miss these things again.” Neither Newgarden or Power were allowed to qualify Sunday when rivals pointed out the ille-

gal modification. Both drivers on Monday were dropped to the back of the field and will start 32nd and 33rd Rival teams have been arguing it was not enough since it’s the second cheating scandal in two seasons and potentially illegal cars bumped Jacob Abel of Dale Coyne Racing from the field.

Newgarden is attempting to become the ﬁrst driver in history to win three consecutive Indy 500s; no driver has ever won starting from the last row

Cindric and Ruzewski had already been suspended by IndyCar for the race and both teams fined $100,000. It is the second consecutive year Cindric and Ruzewski were suspended from the Indy 500.

The trouble for Team Penske began before the fast 12 shootout on Sunday, when rival team owner Chip Ganassi was among a chorus of competitors who accused it of cheating. They noticed unapproved changes had been made to the rear attenuator, a safety device designed to absorb and reduce the force of impacts, and the assumption was the modiﬁcations would have given the two Team Penske cars an aerodynamic advantage in their four-lap qualify-

ing runs. Further investigation showed Newgarden’s winning car from last year that is displayed in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum has the same illegal modiﬁcation, as did the car Team Penske brought to the White House last month. Rivals claim to have photos indicating the modiﬁcation has been in place for some time. Cindric is the biggest name to fall in this scandal. He’s a member of the Team Penske Hall of Fame and has been with the organization since 2000 as President of Penske Racing Inc. He’s been long assumed to be Penske’s successor on the racing part of Penske’s empire.

Cindric was elevated to the role of President of Penske Performance in 2005 and, until February, essentially ran the day-to-day operations of all of Penske’s racing properties. But Penske’s right-hand man in February was stripped of most of his roles although he said he chose to step back as the overall leader of the organization. He remained president of the IndyCar program.

Cindric is the father of NASCAR driver Austin Cindric.

Shanks vows to make race Fox Sports’ biggest event of the year

BY JENNA FRYER AP auto racing writer

INDIANAPOLIS As an Indiana na-

tive, Eric Shanks can’t remember exactly when the rite of passage began of traveling to Indianapolis Motor Speedway His ﬁrst Indianapolis 500 memory is of the 1985 race, Danny Sullivan’s “Spin and Win” 1985 victory, when Shanks was around 14 and had fully embraced the way his home state played such a role in American culture.

“I think everybody takes pride in there being a spotlight on this part of the country,” Shanks said.

“The Pacers are only in the playoffs when they are in the playoffs, the Colts aren’t always in. But this is a guarantee every year.”

When he became CEO of Fox Sports in 2010, Shanks had a wish list of events he wanted for the network. Always at the top was the Indianapolis 500, a property Fox Sports finally landed this year The network is in its first year of a new broadcast deal with IndyCar and on Sunday televises its ﬁrst Indy 500. Shanks from the start has vowed the production will be the biggest of the year for Fox Sports a lofty promise for a network that also carries the Super Bowl and the World Series, among other major sporting events.

“We are going to blow the doors off of Indy We’re going to bring everything that Fox has to bear,” he said. He’s been relentless in pursuing his promise and has spent the ﬁrst ﬁve IndyCar races of the year working out early-season glitches that ranged from an unstable graphics package, issues delivering timing and scoring, a mid-race

loss of transmission, and enough bumps to drive Shanks nuts as he strives for a perfect production.

The work has gone on at the same time Fox Sports televised the ﬁrst 16 races of the NASCAR season, a run that culminated last Sunday night with the All-Star race.

Only four of the NASCAR races were on Fox, and even with the rain-effected season-opening Daytona 500, that quartet averaged 4,986,000 viewers.

Fox promised IndyCar its entire 17-race slate will be aired on broadcast — including both days of last weekend’s qualifying — but the numbers have been sporadic and unable to keep pace with NASCAR.

Fox Sports last week made several changes to races later this season (mainly start times) to ensure IndyCar and NASCAR do not go directly head-to-hear, something that happened several times earlier this year when the network juggled both racing series.

But Shanks told The Associated Press he is not considering moving IndyCar off of Fox to Fox Sports or another property if the ratings don’t improve over the next few weeks.

Instead, his focus is on ensuring the glitches through the first five races don’t happen during the 109th running of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing” or the rest of the season “In each race, it actually has been something different,” Shanks said. “You fix one thing and then there’s something else to fix. There’s a lot of different systems talking to each other and we’re on the receiving end of a lot of it. So we’re figure it out and we’re trying to do more.”

Scheffler goes for third straight win at Colonial

BY SCHUYLER DIXON AP sportswriter

FORT WORTH, Texas Scottie Schef-

ﬂer is skipping some of his usual prep work for the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial after winning the PGA Championship last weekend. The world No. 1 doesn’t want an emphasis on rest and recovery to be misunderstood.

“I didn’t just show up here to Fort Worth to just walk around and celebrate last week,” Schefﬂer said Wednesday “I’m here for a reason, and that’s not to just play a couple of ceremonious rounds and then ride off in the sunset. I’m here for a reason. That’s to compete.”

Schefﬂer’s third major also set him up to be the ﬁrst player since Dustin Johnson in 2017 to win three consecutive PGA Tour starts.

He won his hometown CJ Cup Byron Nelson north of Dallas two weeks before the PGA, then skipped the $20 million signature event at the Truist Championship before winning at Quail Hollow

Colonial isn’t quite on the level of the Nelson for Scheffler, who attended that event for years as a kid and made his pro debut there 11 years ago.

Still, Colonial is in Texas, and not far from family and friends in Dallas.

“I think any time I can sleep in my own bed and play a golf tournament, it’s a nice thing,” said Schefﬂer, who has ﬁnished in the top three with a pair of runner-ups the past three years at Colonial. “I love the golf course here. I think it’s a great test. That’s also one of the big reasons I try to come to this event each year is just for the golf course.”

Davis Riley is the defending Colonial champion and coming off his best finish at a major, tied for second behind Scheffler at the PGA. His first tour victory came in the debut of a renovation of the 7,289yard, par-70 Colonial course made famous by Ben Hogan, the only back-to-back winner in Fort Worth

(he did it in 1946-47 and 1952-53).

“It was really firm because it was brand new,” Riley, who is the same age as Scheffler at 28, said of last year’s conditions. “It softened up. I think the fairways are maybe a little bit softer, more grown in I would say the rough is a little bit up, but I think the greens, the quickness and the firmness will be very similar as to what we saw last year.”

Jordan Spieth is the other hometown favorite alongside Schefﬂer And while his fellow Texas alum beat him to the ﬁrst victory at the Nelson, Spieth is the one with his name on the wall of champions along the No. 1 tee box at Colonial. He won in 2016.

Spieth missed the cut at the PGA in pursuit of the career grand slam He ﬁnished 19 under at the Nelson, 12 shots behind Schefﬂer, who won by eight while tying the PGA Tour scoring record of 253.

This is the fourth time Schefﬂer has had a chance to win three consecutive starts, all since 2022. Another signiﬁcant feat in that span is joining Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players with 15 victories before turning 29.

Johnson’s three-peat in 2017 included the Genesis Invitational, WGC-Mexico Championship and WGC-Dell Technologies Match

Play Now that he’s back in his football-mad home state, Scheffler was asked if his rare show of raw emotion in slamming his cap on the green after winning the PGA was his version of a football spike.

“When I played football, I didn’t score very many touchdowns, so I wasn’t too experienced in that,” Schefﬂer said. “I don’t really have much to say on that. I think I just kind of let my emotions out a little bit, and I guess that’s where my brain decided it wanted to go at the time. I really have absolutely no explanation for it at all.”

Only one player has celebrated on the 18th green of the Byron Nelson and Colonial in the same year: Hogan in 1946.

New innovation

Fox Sports is compensating through new innovation, including the image of a “ghost car” graphic used in qualifying that showed how a car making a run tracked against the current leader And he’s bringing in major talent for Sunday, including Tom Brady for the ceremonial “Fastest Seat in Sports” car, which will be driven by Jimmie Johnson; Michael Strahan, Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart and Super Bowl-winning tight end Rob Gronkowski as the Snake Pit grand marshal.

Fox Sports has a ton of material to work with, including a race-consuming cheating scandal involving Team Penske, the marquee team in IndyCar It involves two-time defending winner Josef Newgarden, who is seeking to become the ﬁrst driver in history to win three consecutive 500s.

Gambling Added to Indy 500

He also achieved a goal in adding a gambling element to Sunday, something he’s wanted to do for months.

“I really want to turn the Indy 500 into more of a Kentucky Derby day from a wagering standpoint. It’s hard to understand how to wager on motorsports,” he said The solution was a partnership with DraftKings, which will have 20 or more trifectas that people can pick from. Fox Sports analyst James Hinchcliffe will pick one trifecta that will be promoted by Fox.

“I think that’s element to this event, and motorsports in general, that if we can start to kind of like add that layer of interest for people, I think it can only be helpful to viewership,” Shanks said.”

Pro tennis tours ﬁle motion to dismiss antitrust lawsuit

BY HOWARD FENDRICH AP tennis writer

The professional tennis tours and two other defendants jointly ﬁled a motion in federal court in New York to dismiss the class-action antitrust lawsuit brought by the Professional Tennis Players’ Association, a group co-founded by Novak Djokovic.

“The PTPA is not a proper plaintiff in this lawsuit. The PTPA lacks associational standing and antitrust standing, and the PTPA’s presence in this lawsuit is not only redundant, but also an improper attempt to circumvent class-action requirements,” Tuesday’s ﬁling concludes “The PTPA should be dismissed as a plaintiff.”

The PTPA sued the WTA women’s tour, the ATP men’s tour, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which oversees anti-doping and anticorruption efforts in the sport, in March, calling them a “cartel.”

The players are seeking a greater share of revenues and raised various other complaints about how tennis is structured, including limits on prize money and a lack of competition from rival tours or tournaments.

The PTPA was started several years ago by 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil with the aim of representing players who are independent contractors in a largely individual sport.

The group repeatedly has made clear it is not a full-ﬂedged union, does not have members and does not collect dues — all of which are

pointed to in the motion as reasons why the PTPA should not be allowed to be a plaintiff in the case.

“The PTPA is improperly conﬂating its ‘membership’ with the population of top players on whose behalf the PTPA purportedly advocates, some of whom have already publicly disagreed with the PTPA’s advocacy,” the ﬁling reads.

“Because the PTPA has failed to plead that these players are actually its members, and in the absence of an alleged injury to any actual PTPA member the PTPA has no standing.”

That motion came from all four defendants.

A separate motion, filed only by the WTA on Tuesday with the same court, says that the male plaintiffs — 2022 Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios, Reilly Opelka and Tennys Sandgren were among those named should not be suing the women’s tour, and also argues that the female plaintiffs who include Sorana Cirstea and Varvara Gracheva — should be compelled to go to binding arbitration instead of pursuing the court case.

That filing says WTA players agree each to follow the tour’s rulebook, “which broadly states that ‘Any Dispute’ shall be ‘submitted exclusively’ to the American Arbitration Association for a single arbitrator proceeding.” In a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday the PTPA said: “There is nothing surprising in their motions We’ve researched all the issues at length, before ﬁling our case, and look forward to responding in due course and having the judge decide.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By DAVID J PHILLIP Scottie Scheffler hits from the fairway on the 15th hole during the PGA Championship at the Quail Hollow Club on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MICHAEL CONROy

President of Team Penske,Tim Cindric, left, and driver Josef Newgarden wait during practice Wednesday for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 in Indianapolis.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MIKE

Tennessee pitcher KarlynPickens warms up before agameagainstDelaware State on Feb. 28 in Knoxville,Tenn. Pickens and Nebraska’sJordyBahl, twoofthe nation’sbest pitchers, will face offinaseriesthat begins Friday.

WCWS shapingupto

be an SEC showcase

BY CLIFF BRUNT AP sportswriter

OKLAHOMA CITY Softball’ssuper regionals arelooking alot like aSoutheastern Conference tournament.

Liberty knocked out topoverall seed TexasA&M, an SEC member,inthe regional round.Evenwithout the Aggies, nine of the 16 remaining teams arefrom thepowerhouseconference andcould qualify for the Women’sCollege World Series by winning two of three in super regionals this weekend.

First-year SEC member Oklahoma, the No. 2seed and four-timereigning nationalchampion,willhost SECmember Alabama with aWorldSeries spotat stake.

Alabama, seeded 15th, hostedthe Sooners in April and took two of three. But Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso said she thinks her teamisonthe rise heading into theNormansuper regionalopeneronFriday.

“I’ve said to you that this teamhasn’tpeaked,” Gasso said after the clinching regional win against California. “I’m starting to feel somethingright now, and it’spretty exciting. Icould not be more pleased right now that this team is starting to hit on alltheir cylinders.”

Third-seeded Florida faces Georgiaand No. 4Arkansas hosts Ole Miss in other matchups between SEC teams.

Theconference is guaranteedthree WorldSeries entries and could take six of theeight slots in Oklahoma City next week.

More SEC

In other matchupsinvolving SECteams,No. 6 Texas, thenationalrunner-up last season, faces ACC member Clemson; No. 8South Carolinaplays new BigTen member UCLA and No.7Tennesseefaces BigTen member Nebraska.

The best-of-three super regionals begin Thursday and Friday Elitecoaches

Gasso andAlabama’sPatrick Murphywill face off in amatchup of coaching royalty Gasso has won eight national championships and will lead the U.S. Olympic team in2028.

Murphy’sCrimson Tide wonthe national title in 2012. He is aﬁve-time SEC coach of theyear NiJareeCanady

Texas Tech pitcher NiJaree Canadylifted Stanfordto the World Series the past two years,and nowthe reigningUSA Softball collegiateplayer of the year is two wins from bringing her newteam to the event.

SOUTHERN

Continued from page1C

foreightseasons, ﬁnishing with a 48-33 overall record and a37-17 SWAC record.

Lemuel Stinson,cornerbacks coach: Stinson most recently was the defensive coordinator at Worthing High School in Houston. He was asixthround draft pick by the Chicago Bears in 1988 afterplaying at Texas Tech. The Houston native was acornerback for the Bears from 1988-1993, ﬁnishing with 16 career interceptions in 69 games.

Coaching departures

WillieTotten,quarterbacks coach: Totten left Southern after aseasontobecome the assistant head coach and offensive coordinator at Fort ValleyStateinGeorgia.Heplayedat Mississippi Valley alongside NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and ﬁnished his career with 13,128 yards passingand 141touchdowns. Totten was the head coach at his alma mater for seven seasons. SeanWallace,safeties coach: Wallace, 52, died in February aftera battle with pancreatic cancer.The beloved assistant coach from New Orleans played at Southern, where he had an exceptional career that earnedhim aplace in theprogram’s hall of fame. He was aSWACDe-

FloridaA&M blasts Southern in SWAC tournament opener

BY TOYLOYBROWN III Staff writer

Southern baseball’slineup, whichhas been consistent throughoutthe season, wentcold in the biggest game of the year to date. The No.7-seeded Southern lost 9-1 to No. 2Florida A&M on Wednesday at the SWAC baseball tournamentatRickwood Field in Birmingham,Alabama. FAMU (31-23), whichhas won 12 straight games, led3-0 after threeinnings andadded six in the seventh to take control. The Rattlers’ Jalen Niles, Broedy Poppell, Jay Campbell and Colton Ryals each drove in runs during thepivotal seventh inning.

Southern coach ChrisCrenshaw replaced starting pitcher Nick Luckett, an All-SWAC second-team selection, after 61/3 innings with seniorright-hander Nyles Banks.

Banksdidn’tfare muchbetter, allowing four earned runs on two hits in one-third of an inning after facing six batters.

Canady transferred in theoffseason after helping Stanford reach the nationalsemifinalstwice. She signeda $1 million NIL deal with Texas Tech, and then dominated. She hasa28-5 record and is second nationally witha0.92 ERA.

The RedRaiderswillvisit No. 5Florida State, the highest remaining seed outside the SEC, starting Thursdaynight. TheAtlantic CoastConference member won the national title in 2018 andwas runner-up in 2021 and 2023.

Acematchup Runs could be hardtocome by when Tennessee hostsNebraska.

Tennessee’sKarlynPickensand Nebraska’sJordy Bahl, two of the nation’sbest pitchers, will face off in aseries that begins Friday in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Pickens, who was clocked at aNCAA-record 78.2 miles per hour in March, leads thenation witha 0.90 ERA and is sixth nationally with 252 strikeouts.

Bahl, who won two national titles with Oklahoma, is sixth nationally with a1.50 ERA and ﬁfth with 270 strikeouts.

Liberty’sshocker

Liberty had never even won aregional game, much less advanced.

Therewas no luckinvolved—the Lady Flames played theAggies three times.

Liberty defeated Texas A&M 8-5 last Saturday,then lost 14-11 in eight innings in Sunday’sﬁrst game. Liberty won the winner-take-all game 6-5onSunday night.

fensivePlayerofthe Year

Returningcoaches

Terrence Graves, head coach: Graves is entering hissecond year leading the program afterinitially serving as the interim coach in 2023, winning the Bayou Classic. The Jaguars went8-5 overall and 7-1 in theSWACWest in his ﬁrst season. Graves is a31-year veteran assistant coach with stops at Southern, Grambling,Mississippi Valley and Norfolk State.

Mark Frederick, offensive coordinator and tight ends coach: Frederick is enteringhis secondseason as the offensive coordinator.Hewas also the running backs coach lastyear.The Woodville, Mississippi, native is in his third stintwith the Jaguars Hislast job beforereturning to Baton Rouge was as theassistant head coach and offensive coordinatorfor Prairie View HenryMiller, defensive coordinator and safetiescoach: Miller will be going into his second season with the Jaguars. Before joining Graves’ staff, he was the defensive coordinator forfourseasonsat Prairie View Everett Todd, defensive ends and special teams coach: This will be Todd’s second season as an assistantat Southern.Hespent aseason as a defensive coordinatorand safeties coach at Texas Southern and was at Gramblingfor eight seasons before that.

Damon Nivens, offensive linecoach: Nivens is in his secondseason on Graves’ staff. He previously coached three seasons in the same role at Prairie View

Damarcus Miller, defensive line coach: Miller hasbeen the defensive line coach withthe Jaguarssince 2023. He is a2023 Southern Sports Hall of Fame inductee, helping the team secure three consecutive SWAC Championships and aBlack College National Championship.

Quentin Burrell, widereceivers coach: Burrell will enter his secondseason coaching the wide receivers. He came to Southernafter ﬁveseasons as an assistant at Grambling, including two seasons coaching thewide receivers.

Chris Scott, linebackers coach: Scott is in his second stint at Southern, his alma mater,after initially joining the staff from 1989-1997. He is a 2018 inductee into the program’s hall of fame after becoming the team’sall-time leadingtackler at linebacker

Randall Moore, director of strengthand conditioning: Moore is going into his second season as the strengthand conditioning coach. He held the same position at Hampton and Norfolk State.

Kaleb Williams, defensive assistant and analyst: This will be Williams’ third season as adefensive analyst.The BatonRouge native assistsincreatingscoutingreports for thedefense.

Crenshaw replaced Banks with sophomore right-hander Peyton Huff to close the inning but the damage wasdone. The Jaguars’ lineup led the conferenceinbatting average at .313 with SWAC Playerofthe Year Cardell Thibodeaux leading the way,but they could do little at the plateonWednesday.Thibodeaux went 1for 4and scored Southern’sonly run on assacriﬁce ﬂy

by junior Jaylon Lucky in the seventh inning. Luckett (10-4) did solid work holding FAMU to threeruns through six innings, however the offensewas unabletocapitalize on scoring opportunities early.The Jaguarsﬁnished with seven hits and 10 playersleft on base.

The Rattlers’ starting pitcher Garrett Workman (10-4) allowed ﬁve hits and no runs while striking out in 52/3 innings.

The Jaguars (23-26) will play theloser of Wednesday’sgame between No. 4Arkansas-Pine Bluffand No. 5Grambling at noon Thursday

Nationalsplace Crews on 10-day injuredlist

BY IAN NICHOLAS QUILLEN Associated Press

WASHINGTON TheWashington Nationals placed rookie sluggerDylan Crews on the10-day injuredlistwith aleftoblique strain on Wednesday Crews, the second overall pick in the 2023 MLB amateurdraft from LSU, exited before the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s5-3 win over Atlanta, after reporting stiffnessduringa fifth-inning plate appearance. He underwent an MRIearlier Wednesday “Weknow he’sgot astrain,” Nationals manager DaveMartinez said shortlybefore Wednesday’sscheduled game against the Braves was rained out. “We don’tknowthe severity of it yet

RABALAIS

Continued from page1C

elimination.”

The question becomes this: is the SEC tournament still worth going allout to win? Johnson said yes, but added the expected qualiﬁer

“We’re going to play to win,” he said. “I would never,ever want anybody to think we aren’tdoing that. It’s atournament. It’scompetition. There’sachampionship. We wanttoplay great and be prepared to go play championship baseball. I don’tthink you can go through it as ablowitoff exercise.

“The NCAA tournament is the thingthat matters. With that, there’sanargument for(the SEC format) being the best.”

Maybe then this is the most important question: is the SEC tournament still worth ateam in LSU’sspot going all-out to win?

Ateam like Texas A&M, which came in as the No. 14 seed and ﬁghting for its NCAA tournament life,absolutely? But the Tigers, ranked No. 1for the second straightweek in all the major national polls, comeinwith amuch different agenda once they ﬁnally get to play (LSU plays the last game Fridaynight, the 16th of 16 SEC teamstoget into action).

All the national projections have LSU as atop-eight national seed, as of this writing on asurprisingly mild May 21 afternoon. Anywhere from No.1toNo. 7. Given that baseball is such an unpredictablesport, with the even the worst team able to beat thebest team on any given day, it almost doesn’tmatter where you’re ranked 1-8 when the

until the doctor sees him this afternoon.” Crews’ first majorleague injuredliststint comesafter he homered in consecutive games Sunday and Tuesday forthe ﬁrst time in his career He’shitting .196 with seven home runs —a high among rookies— and15RBIs. He said he’d been managing soreness for roughly aweek.

“It’s never apositive, you always want to go out thereand play every day,” Crews said. “But Iguess it could’ve been worse. So we’ll justget in the training room and get it right so Ican get on the ﬁeld as soon as Ican.” In acorresponding move, the Nationalsrecalled Robert Hassell III from Triple-A Rochester

NCAA tournament ﬁeld of 64 is revealed Monday

It does matter that you are one of those eight. Matters very much. Being one of the eight meansyou will get to host a regional and asuper regional at homeshould you advance, greatly enhancing your hopes of getting to the College World Series, the holy grail forevery college baseball team Is LSU safeasatop-eight seed despite what happens this week? Johnson said yes, but one wonders abit where conﬁdence ends and politics begins.

“I think we’re forsure atop-eight national seed,” he said. “I’mnot on thecommittee, though. They’re smart people who look at this thing hard andmakegood decisions. But Idon’t have adoubt in my mind that we’re atop-eight nationalseed andwe’veearnedthat.” Johnson should be right. LSU (42-13) slugged its way through ahost of SEC heavyweights (five others are in the RPI top five, the Tigers played three) to finish third with arespectable 19-11 SEC record. LSU also has a combined 20 Quad 1and Quad 2 wins, fifth-most in the country All that impressive résumé says that it shouldn’tmatter whether the Tigers go one-anddone in the SEC tournament or winthe whole thing (with the SEC’sautomatic NCAA bid attached). Their fate, apositive one, should be sealed. Still, awin or two wouldn’t hurt the Tigers’ hopes one bit. And it would be nice to lift atrophy comeSunday.But there are bigger wins, bigger trophies, to seek and find. Hoover,Alabama, isn’tLSU’s final duck pond by along way.

BUSCHER

NFL teams can continue use of tush push

League owners vote down rule 22-10 to prohibit polarizing play

BY DAVE CAMPBELL AP pro football writer

EAGAN, Minn. Facing stiff resis-

tance around the NFL, the tush push managed to move the chains and gain a fresh set of downs.

League owners narrowly failed to pass a proposal to prohibit the polarizing short-yardage strategy at their spring meetings in Minnesota on Wednesday keeping the rulebook as is — and pleasing the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

The ban on offensive players from pushing, pulling, lifting, grasping or encircling a runner was supported by a 22-10 vote, according to a person with knowledge of the proceedings, speaking on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press because the details weren’t made public That’s two votes short of the three-quarters majority required by league bylaws to pass it.

The health and safety committees for both the players and the owners and the league’s competition committee all unanimously recommended the proposal, which was formally brought forward by the Green Bay Packers at the previous league meetings in Florida seven weeks ago and tabled for further discussion. Such a ban previously existed and was lifted 20 years ago because it was deemed too difﬁcult to consistently enforce.

“We don’t set a low bar,” said Atlanta Falcons chief executive ofﬁcer Rich McKay the chairman of the competition committee.

“There was a lot of support for it, a lot of discussion about it. I’ve been in that room numerous times where we’ve had these types of discussions, where one team ends up being, in their mind, more impacted than others. It still takes 24 votes, and in this case those votes

were not there.”

The Eagles brought former center Jason Kelce, one of the players who fueled the success of the tush push, to the meetings to provide a ﬁrst-hand account of the play that assigns a teammate to push the backside of the quarterback for extra power behind a tight nine-man line. Blockers on the end sometimes pivot to try to pull the ball carrier past the marker too.

Immediately after the vote, the Eagles posted a picture on social media of quarterback Jalen Hurts on the verge of a short-yardage attempt against the Packers with the caption, “Push on.” Then they posted to their YouTube page a 26-minute tush push highlight montage.

Kelce, a seven-time Pro Bowl pick who retired after the 2023 season, said recently he wasn’t as concerned about a ban of the tush push as he was about clearing up misconceptions it poses an injury

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO CAROLyN KASTER

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow speaks at a news conference on Tuesday in Cincinnati.

QB Burrow credits Peyton Manning for involvement in

BY JOE REEDY

AP sportswriter

CINCINNATI Joe Burrow’s desire for privacy might be on the same level as his drive to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL

That is why it was a surprise when Netflix announced in late March that the Cincinnati Bengals’ star was going to be featured on the second season of the hit “Quarterback” series. After joking that they “caught me on the right day I guess,” Burrow pointed out that Peyton Manning’s involvement in the series made the opportunity too good to pass up.

“I have a lot of respect for him. When that guy reaches out to you and asks you to do something, then most of the time I’m going to say yeah,” Burrow said of Manning. “I probably wouldn’t have done it if he wasn’t involved, but I have a lot of trust and faith in him to not do anything that would hurt me or the team.” Even though Burrow lamented the loss of privacy after his home was broken into last December, he did make a high-proﬁle appearance at The Met Gala in New York two weeks ago. That came on the heels of last year’s appearance for Vogue at Paris Fashion Week with friend and former LSU teammate Justin Jefferson.

“It’s a new experience. It was fun,” Burrow said about The Met Gala. “It’s about five minutes of taking pictures, and then it’s just a little dinner party So it was good people, good vibes. I was happy that I was able to go. Maybe we’ll go again. I don’t know We’ll see how we play it by ear.” Burrow led the league with 4,918

passing yards and 43 touchdowns, but had his house broken into in December while the Bengals were in Dallas facing the Cowboys in a Monday night game.

“That was deﬁnitely a curveball

I didn’t quite expect throughout the whole process, but the people involved in it, working on it day to day, were great and weren’t too intrusive,” Burrow said about the break-in and how that was handled on both series.

The Netﬂix series is a joint production between NFL Films, Manning’s Omaha Productions and Patrick Mahomes’ 2PM Productions Burrow and the Bengals were also part of last year’s “Hard Knocks” in-season series that focused on the AFC North.

Burrow added he has screened a couple of episodes of the upcoming season of “Quarterback” to provide input to Manning and producers, but likely would not watch the entire series when it is released in July

Coach Zac Taylor said that despite having two series following the team and his star quarterback around late last season, the film crews did a good job blending in.

Atlanta’s Kirk Cousins and Detroit’s Jared Goff will also be featured on the series.

“Part of the quarterback show is just behind the scenes playing quarterback. It’s not necessarily the home life and the off ﬁeld. I’m sure there’s a little bit of that, but for the most part, it’s just a respect for the game,” he said “I hope people get an appreciation of what they go through every single day of game week and over the course of the season and how their role can evolve.”

risk and was partially responsible for his decision to end his career

“I’ll come out of retirement today if you tell me all I’ve got to do is run 80 tush pushes to play in the NFL,” Kelce said on the New Heights podcast with his brother Travis Kelce.

“I’ll do that gladly It’ll be the easiest job in the world.”

Kelce declined comment as he departed the meetings at the Omni Viking Lakes Hotel next to Vikings team headquarters, where Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie led an impassioned defense of the maneuver his team developed into a nearly unstoppable play with the coinciding arrival of Hurts in 2020. The NFL has no conclusive data supporting a connection between the tush push and an increased risk of injury, as Lurie has noted. He said he was pleased by the vote result by declined further comment.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said with a laugh in a brief interview

with reporters he had to make sure he was voting against the play and not just against the rival Eagles, emphasizing his belief that the debate was good for the game regardless of the outcome of the vote.

Buccaneers All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs, speaking from an event in Tampa, Florida, said he was against a ban out of respect for the Eagles and their success with it.

“If it was a cheat code, then everyone would do it,” Wirfs said, “but not everybody can.”

Commissioner Roger Goodell said he didn’t take a stance and was instead simply focusing on fostering a “full discussion” of the issue of aiding quarterbacks in their plunges into the line.

The competition committee three years ago raised concern about the pushing and pulling of ball carriers further down the field, McKay said, and will em-

phasize again the importance of officials declaring dead a play that develops into a scrum even if the mass of bodies prevents them from seeing if the runner is down.

“Blow the whistle,” McKay said.

Division winners can stay home

The Detroit Lions withdrew their proposal to reseed teams for the playoffs — in order of record rather than awarding the ﬁrst four spots to division winners before a vote was taken.

Like the tush push ban, this is an issue that could well come up again in the near future, particularly if an 18-game regular-season schedule is implemented. Goodell said there was no discussion of the additional game, which players have vehemently opposed, during the meetings this week.

Onside kick tweak

In light of the drastic kickoff changes before last season that became permanent this year with some further alterations, owners approved Wednesday a tweak to the onside kick. With the goal of increasing the recovery rate, teams may now try them at any point in the game when trailing rather than just in the fourth quarter Kicking team players, other than the kicker, can also move 1 yard forward to give them a better chance at the ball.

Leadership diversity program

The NFL took some heat for recently removing from the meeting lineup the latest edition of the accelerator program designed to increase diversity in the coaching ranks, but Goodell said he wasn’t concerned about the perception that the pause might have been for political reasons.

The program will return at the spring meetings next year while league ofﬁcials examine ways to make it more effective and efﬁcient, Goodell said, including the potential for increased interaction between coaching prospects and general managers.

NFL taps Bills for ‘Hard Knocks’ debut during training camp

BY DAVE CAMPBELL

AP pro football writer

EAGAN, Minn. — The reigning NFL

MVP will be a featured attraction this season on the league’s training camp documentary, with the Buffalo Bills making their ﬁrst appearance on “Hard Knocks.”

The New York Giants will get another shot, too, after their uncomfortable debut.

The NFL announced Wednesday at the spring owners meetings that the Bills, led by quarterback Josh Allen, were selected for the behind-the-scenes show on HBO that’s in its 25th year. The five-part series will air on Tuesdays beginning on Aug. 5.

The NFC East was also picked as the featured division on the in-season show, with filming of the Giants, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Commanders and defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles set to air in December The league reached a new multi-year deal with HBO to continue to broadcast the show

The Bills, who hold their training camp off-site at St. John Fisher University outside of Rochester, New York, have entered their

SAINTS

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Thenormalrecoverytimelinefor Shaheed’s injury should have had him ready this spring, and Olave was practicing with the Saints by the end of last year The pair make up the most dynamic part of the Saints offense, and it would be good to see them back in the fold.

And, generally speaking, the receiver group will be interesting to watch. Free-agent signee Brandin Cooks adds a veteran element to the group, but he is a similar type of player to Shaheed and Olave, both intermsofstatureandwhathedoes well. The Saints also have a group of players who were pressed into larger duty last year who are looking to catch the eye of the new staff, including Bub Means, Cedrick Wilson, Dante Pettis and Kevin Austin.

It still feels possible that the Saints look to add a possession receiver to that group this summer — unless recent signing Donovan Peoples-Jones is able to recreate what he did in 2022 with the

ninth year under head coach Sean McDermott. Still seeking their first championship, having not appeared in the Super Bowl since their fourth consecutive loss following the 1993 season, the Bills have won five straight AFC East titles and qualified for the playoffs in seven of the past eight years. Allen has been a driver of that success, entering his eighth season and coming off his first MVP award. The Bills return a majority of their offense from a team that finished second in the NFL in scoring in the 2024 season. They retooled their defense, starting with the addition in free agency of edge rusher Joey Bosa.

The NFL revamped its rules last year around “Hard Knocks” appearances, previously allowing teams that made the playoffs within the previous two seasons to decline to participate. Such an opt-out is no longer an option. Teams now ineligible for selection include those with a first-year head coach, those that have appeared on the training camp version of the show in the past eight sea-

Cleveland Browns.

The small QB details

One of the more interesting comments Moore made earlier this week at the Saints Hall of Fame Celebrity Golf Classic was about his quarterbacks and how he is evaluating them at this stage of the offseason.

“It’s going to be a lot on the process and less (about) some of the results as we go through this phase, because again, there’s not much competitiveness,” Moore said. “We will do some seven-onseven, but a lot of it is their understanding, taking it from the classroom to the ﬁeld for the ﬁrst time. Most of the decision-making factors will come in training camp and preseason football.”

Translation: Don’t put too much stock in a quarterback ripping a post route or misdiagnosing a read that leads to an interception at least at this stage of the game.

New Orleans has four quarterbacks on its roster with a combined total of seven NFL starts What Moore is saying is that the coaching staff is going to pay

sons, and those picked for the in-season version focusing on one division.

The Chicago Bears were a ﬁrsttime “Hard Knocks” participant last season during training camp. HBO and co-producer NFL Films last year added the in-season show, filming around the four AFC North teams, and an offseason version that premiered — and perhaps ended — with a focus on the Giants.

The awkward goodbye between running back Saquon Barkley and general manager Joe Schoen was a prominent part of that series, which has so far not been renewed.

Barkley, who signed with the rival Eagles and went on to win the Super Bowl, later complained that his side of the conversation with Schoen was recorded and aired without his consent.

Schoen’s informing Barkley that the Giants would not make him a contract offer or put the franchise tag on him and thus let him become a free agent became a must-see scene, along with a pained reaction from owner John Mara about losing a popular player

close attention to the smaller details — how a quarterback gets the offense in and out of the huddle, what he is doing in the classroom and how he is operating the offense — versus the highlightreel stuff that catches the eye. Also asking .

How are the offensive linemen lining up? During rookie minicamp, the Saints moved ﬁrst-round pick Kelvin Banks all over the offensive line. Will they continue to do that with Banks, a college left tackle whom some thought would be best at guard in the NFL? Will they also do it with one or both of last year’s starting tackles, Taliese Fuaga and Trevor Penning? Where does Velus Jones ﬁt in the picture?

The Saints took a low-risk flier on the former third-round pick this offseason, and though he was drafted as a receiver, he is currently listed as a running back on the Saints roster Other teams have struggled to find a role for Jones, who has 20 career rushing attempts and 14 career receptions, so it will be interesting to see what Moore has in mind.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By CHRIS SZAGOLA

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, center, and teammates run the tush push play during a playoff game against the Washington Commanders on Jan. 26 in Philadelphia.

Go Italian with pesto chicken burger on ciabatta

BY LINDAGASSENHEIMER

Tribune News Service (TNS)

Here’s aburger with an Italian touch.

Tender,ground white meat chicken patties are generously topped with fragrant, rich pesto sauce and nestled between slices of rustic Italian Ciabatta bread.The traditional pesto is made with ablend of fresh basil, aromatic garlic, toasted pine nuts, premium olive oil and asprinkle of Parmesan cheese. This vibrant sauce is readily available in jars at your local supermarket.

The ciabatta bread, hailing from the Veneto region in Italy, boastsalight, airy texture with large, soft air pockets, perfectly complementing the burger with its delicate crunch. It’s easily found at most grocery stores

For aquick and refreshing side, pair your burger witha simple coleslaw made from ready-to-eat fresh coleslaw mix available in the produce section.

HELPFUL HINTS:

n Be sure to look for ground white meat chicken breast

n Any type of thick bread can be used instead of ciabatta bread.

n Once the burger is in the skillet, do not move it for 4 minutes to allow it to form a crust.

Pesto ChickenBurger Yields 2servings. Recipe is by Linda Gassenheimer

¾ground chicken breast

4tablespoonsprepared pesto sauce, divided use Salt and freshly ground black pepper 2teaspoons olive oil 4slices ciabatta Olive oil spray

1medium sliced tomato 2lettuce leaves

1. Add ground chicken to a bowl with 2tablespoons prepared pesto sauce. Mix well to blend the two together.Add salt and black pepper to taste.

2. Shape into burgersabout 4 inches around and 1/2-inch thick.

3. Heat the oil in anonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Carefully move the burgers into theskillet. Asimple way to do this is with awide metalspatula.

4. Saute burgers for4minutes. Do not move the burgers until the4minutes are up. Turn the burgers over and saute another 4minutes. Ameat thermometer should read 165 to 170 F.

5. Meanwhile, spray cutsides of ciabatta with olive oil spray and toast in atoasterovenor under the broiler

6. Place cooked chickenburgers on cut side of 2breads. Spoon remaining 2tablespoons pestosauce on top of each burger.Place 1tomato slice on topof pesto sauce.Cover the tomato with lettuce leaves. Closewith topofroll and serve.

NUTRITION INFO PER SERVING: 511

calories (43 percent from fat), 24.4 gfat (3.8g saturated,11.4 gmonounsaturated), 131 mg cholesterol, 47.9 gprotein,29.2 gcarbohydrates, 3.6 gﬁber,655 mg sodium.

QuickColeslaw

Yields 2servings. Recipe is by Linda Gassenheimer

2cups washed, ready-to-eat coleslaw mix

¼cup reduced fat salad dressing

1. Add coleslaw mix to abowl with the dressing. Toss well to combine all ingredients.

2. Divide in half and serve with the burgers.

NUTRITION INFO PER SERVING: 41 calories (44 percent from fat), 2.0 gfat (0.2 gsaturated,0.7 g monounsaturated), 2mgcholesterol, 1.0 gprotein, 5.4 gcarbohydrates, 1.8 gﬁber,22mg sodium.

LIVING

Forafancy picnic,try Italiansandwiches, saladand cheesecake.Bring thecloth napkins.

Wedon’thave much occasion for picnics in summer,when it seemsso hot in south Louisiana. But whether it’s in apark, your deck or on aboat on the lake, acool meal is alwaysatreat.

Thismeal makes agreat picnic, it keeps well on the go in acooler,and it is easytoserve and eat.

fins, Recipe 2D

TONGUE

The salad is sturdy and hearty.Itiscrispy, tasty and versatile. If you wanted areally simple meal, you could add boiled shrimporchopped chicken and serve salad and dessert for the picnic, and pairitwith crackers or abig loaf of your favorite bread. This Fresh and Crispy Salad also works well on abuffet.

Italian Sandwiches

Makes six.

6croissants 6ouncesjarred preparedpesto 2tablespoons chopped capers 12 thin slices of prosciutto

1. Slice the croissants open. Mix the pesto andchoppedcaperstogether. With aspoonspreadthe pesto mixture on the open sides of the croissant.

2. Add 2slicesofprosciutto to the bottom of each croissant. Add 2or 3basil slices overthe prosciutto. Add 2slices of tomato to the sandwichover the basil leaves and add 2slices of provolone on top. Topthe sandwich with the other piece of the croissant. Wrap each sandwich with plastic wrap and pack it for transport to the picnic.

TNS PHOTO By LINDAGASSENHEIMER

BYGRETCHEN McKAY

STAFFPHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

By The Associated Press

Today is Thursday,May 22,the 142nd day of 2025. There are 223 days left in the year

Todayinhistory:

On May 22, 1960, the strongest earthquake recorded struck southern Chile.The magnitude 9.5 quake claimed 1,655 lives, left2 millionhomelessand triggered atsunami responsible for over 230 additional deathsinHawaii, Japan and the Philippines.

On this date:

In 1939, the foreign ministers of Germany and Italy,Joachim vonRibbentrop and Galeazzo Ciano, signed a“Pact of Steel” committing their two countries to amilitary and political alliance.

In 1962, Continental Airlines Flight 11, en route from Chicago to Kansas City,Missouri, crashed near Unionville, Missouri, after apassenger ignited dynamite on board the plane, killing all 45occupants of the Boeing 707.

In 1964, President LyndonB Johnson, speaking at the University of Michigan, outlined the goals of his “GreatSociety,” saying that it “rests on abundance and liberty for all”and “demands an end to povertyand racial injustice.”

In 1969, the lunar module of Apollo 10, with Thomas P. Stafford andEugene Cernan aboard, ﬂew within nine miles of the moon’s surface in a“dress rehearsal” for the ﬁrst lunar landing.

In 1985, U.S.sailor Michael L. Walker was arrested aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz, two days after his father,John A. Walker Jr., was apprehended by theFBI; both were later convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. (Michael Walker served 15 years in prisonand was released in 2000; JohnWalker Jr.died in prison in 2014.)

In 1992, after areign lasting nearly30years, Johnny Carson hosted hisﬁnalepisode of NBC’s “Tonight Show.” (Jay Leno took over as host three dayslater.)

In 2011, amassiveEF5 tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, with windsupto250 mph, killing at least 159 peopleand destroying about8,000 homes and businesses.

In 2017, asuicide bomber set off an improvised explosive device that killed 22 people and injured over 1,000 following an Ariana Grandeconcert in Manchester,England.

Today’sbirthdays: Actor-ﬁlmmaker Richard Benjamin is 87. Songwriter Bernie Taupinis75. Sen. LisaMurkowski,R-Alaska, is 68. Singer Morrissey is 66. Singer JohnnyGill (New Edition) is 59. Actor Brooke Smithis58. Model Naomi Campbell is 55. Actor Sean Gunnis51. Actor Ginnifer Goodwin is 47. Actor Maggie Qis46. Olympic speed skating gold medalist Apolo Anton Ohnois43. Tennisplayer Novak Djokovic is 38. Actor Peyton Elizabeth Lee is 21.

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE/TNS PHOTO By GRETCHENMCKAy Ham, Cheese and ChiveMuffins

Ham, Cheese and Chive Muffins

Recipe is adapted from “You GotThis”byDiane Morrisey

2cups all-purpose flour

1tablespoon sugar

2½ teaspoons baking powder

1teaspoon garlic powder

½teaspoon baking soda

¼teaspoon salt

¼teaspoon smoked paprika

1cup buttermilk

4tablespoons unsalted butter,melted 1largeegg,lightly beaten

1tablespoon Dijon mustard

1½ cup grated or shredded Gruyere cheese

1cup chopped ham

¼cup finely chopped chives,or1 scallion, white and green parts, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Line 18 standard mufﬁn/cupcake cups or one 6-cup jumbo mufﬁn tin with paper liners.

3. In medium bowl, whisk together ﬂour,sugar,baking pow-

MUFFINS

Continued from page1D

temperature, and can be frozen in freezer bags for up to 2 months —just microwave until thawedand warm. This recipe is as versatile as it is satisfying. If you don’tlike Gruyere (a hard, nutty Swiss cheese), use sharpormild cheddar or another semi-hardcheese like cantal. Youalsocould swap out the ham for bacon or even make the mufﬁns completely vegetarian by adding chopped bell pepper instead.

Thehostpaysfor theparty, especiallyifthey’re theboss

Dear Miss Manners: One co-worker likes to host office parties with food-themed potlucks. She will suggest adish that she will cook and bring to share,such as trays of chicken wings or seafood pasta. Generally a lunch would have eight to 20 people. As she likes to make these meat- or seafoodbased dishes, she will then askfor financial contributions to pay for theingredientsand keep her own costs down. Everyone else is welcome to additionally make or bring something to share Co-workers aren’thappy with her asking for money AND afood contribution tothese lunches. They feel if theydoeither,that it fulfills their participation for the occasion, and thatshe should not be asking for money to make her dishes.

cover costs forher food;they feel thatshe’sunjustlyenrichingherself on their ﬁnancial contributions.

We’retalking $5 to $12 per person for contributions to ofﬁce parties in general; she’s asked for$7to$10 on a few occasions forher food. What’sthe proper thing that should be happening?

increase their contributions is grotesque.

der, garlic powder,baking soda, salt andsmoked paprika.

4. In aseparate bowl,whisk together buttermilk,melted butter, eggand mustard

5. Make awell in the center of thedry ingredients, pour in the wet ingredients and stir just until barely combined —itshould be a little lumpy

6. Add gratedorshredded cheese, chopped ham and chives, andfoldthem in. Do not overmix!

7. Divide thebatterevenlyin acupcake pan. (I had todotwo batches.)

8. Bakeuntil they’re golden and atoothpick inserted in the center comesout clean, about 25 minutes forstandardmufﬁns or 30 minutes forjumbomufﬁns.

9. Let cool in pan for 5minutes, and remove from cupcake pan.

While they’reprobably considered breakfast food, mufﬁns can also can makeadecent light lunch served with soup and salad. Itried them several differentways—slathered with butter,drizzled withalittle hot honey andstuffed with afried egg to make aheartybreakfast sandwich. It’stough to say which was best since they allwent down easy Don’thave buttermilk? It’s easy to make at home. Simply pour 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice into ameasuring cup, then ﬁll the cup with regular milk. Stir to combine, and let the mixture rest for at least 5minutesbefore using.

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Gentle reader: Why does Miss Manners feel anaggingcuriosity about your place in all this —asifyou have aposition of more authority in the group than you have mentioned?

If you ask because you are the boss —orHR—and werelooking to solve the problem,you are in luck: Youcan pay forthe party out of ofﬁce funds.

Dear Miss Manners: Whensitting at atable thatcan accommodateone persononeach side,whatisthe best way fortwo friends to sit? Is it different fora couple?Sitting acrossfromeach othermakes conversationeasier, but Ihavebeen told it is more “confrontational.”

Idon’thave aproblem with paying her money andcontributing food of my own.I’ve often even added more to have abetter party, because people do love a heartyplate.

But some co-workers have refused to participate in any way because theyresent her asking to

She agrees with the co-workers who are refusing to participate —but not forthe reasons they give. Her belief is that if the boss wantstoreward workers forajob well done, then they should either pay them more, send them home early (where they can socialize with their actual friends and family), or,ifthere must occasionally be an ofﬁce party,pay forthe refreshments out of ofﬁce funds.

Not being afan of forced socialization at work, she is even less afan of making the workers pay for it. That one co-worker is now demanding that her co-workers

It seemsmany romantic couples prefer to sit to the side of each other.Ordoes any of this even matter?

Gentle reader: Assuming both people stay moreorless in their own seats, Miss Manners is indifferent to whether they wish to gaze fondly into their beloved’seyes or ear during the soup course.

Sendquestions to Miss Manners at herwebsite, www missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mailtoMiss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City,MO 64106.

Mascarpone CheesecakeinaJar

Makes six half-cup mason jars of cheesecake.

1½ cups graham cracker or shortbread cookie crumbs

3tablespoons melted butter 18-ounce packageofmascarpone cheese at room temperature

1teaspoon almond extract

1pint heavy whipping cream sweetened with 2tablespoons sugar,whipped to soft peaks

12 tablespoons of agood prepared jam, I likestrawberry jam ½cup toasted sliced almonds

1. In abowl mix thecookie crumbs with the melted butter.They should be similar to wet sand. If it feels toodry,add another tablespoon of

Fresh and CrispySalad

Serves 4to6

1cup peeled fresh edamame

1cucumber,seeded and chopped (You may peel the cucumber if you prefer)

1pint cherry heirloom tomatoes, each sliced in half

1jar artichokehearts in oil, drained and chopped coarsely

1fennel bulb chopped (reserve the leafy tops for another use.)

1cup fresh babyspinach leaves, chopped coarsely

2cups coarsely chopped fresh green cabbage

½cup chopped nuts

1cup avocado dressing (see following)

1. Mixtogether theedamame, cucumber,tomatoes, artichokehearts, fennel, spinach, and cabbage in a large bowl.Ifyou are preparing to eat this away fromyourhome, package these things together in aportable bowl with alid.Otherwise place them in asalad bowl.

AL FRESCO

Continuedfrom page1D

TheItalian sandwiches are ironically madewith aFrench roll, a croissant. Thelaminated rolls don’t get soggy,they remain tender and absorb the ﬂavors well. Theﬂavors meld together,especially with the capers added to the pesto. Even wrappedfor hours, theyare tender andmemorable sandwiches.

The dessert is just plain fun. Youcan make the cheesecake differently every time, by choosing adifferent jam or jelly or even marmalade. Youcan use thejars over and over,sodon’tdiscard them even if you serve everythingonpaper plates.

If you are going on apicnic, be sure to pack all the partsand pieces on ice. Ilike to bring asecond cooler with ice and drinks. Youcan decide whether to use disposables, but sometimes it’s fun and feels more sophisticated to at least use plastic or metal plates. It is easy these days to ﬁnd nice-looking plastic wine glasses. Bringbottled water,including sparkling water.Cloth napkins and atablecloth or blanket can makeiteven morefestive.

Liz Williamsisfounder of the Southern Food &Beverage Museum in New Orleans.Listen to “Tip of theTongue,” Liz’s podcast about food, drink and culture, wherever you hear podcasts. EmailLiz at lizwillia@ gmail.com.

melted butter

2. Divide the cookie crumb mixtureinto6 and place it in the bottom of each jar.Tamp it downwith amuddler or thebottom of asmall glass that ﬁts into the jar.Set them aside.

3. Place the room temperature cheese into amixing bowl Addthe almond extractand 1⁄3 of the whipped cream.With a whisk, gentlymix thewhipped cream and almond extract and the cheese. Thenadd therest of the whipped creamand fold it together gently.Divide the mixture evenlyamong thejarsover

the cookie mixture. Replace the lids andplace the jars into the freezer. After 2hours, place the jamina microwave safe bowl and heat for 1minute on high. Remove the containerand check to seeif the jam is melted. Add another 30 seconds if it is not, then check again. Remove the jars from the freezer,remove the lids, and add 2tablespoons to each jar. Spread the jam over the top. Return the lids to the jars andreturn the jars to the freezer 4. When ready to serve, sprinkle the tops of each jar with afew sliced almonds.

Liz Williams servesafresh and crispy salad.

2. If you are taking thiswithyou, package the preparednuts in asmall sandwich bag. Place the Avocado Dressing in ajar.Bring more than acup in case anyone wants extra dressing.

3. If you are serving it on your patio or even at the dining room table, add the nuts and dressing and toss well. Serve extra dressing in asmallpitcher on thetable.

Avocado Dressing

Makes about 2cups.

1avocado, pitted and peeled

2anchovy fillets

¼cup gratedParmesan cheese

1cup basil leaves

½cup parsleyleaves

3cloves garlic

Zest of 2lemons Juice of 2lemons

1scallion, roughly chopped 1cup olive oil

½teaspoon salt ¼teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1. Place allofthe ingredients into ablender and blend until smooth. If it is too thick, adda tablespoon or 2ofwater

2. Place in ajar and refrigerate until readyto use.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Go with the flow and make the mostout of every interaction. Don't let uncertainty ruin your rhythm or send you down apath that leads to failureand littlegain.

cANcER (June 21-July 22) Caution is necessarywhendealingwithcontracts,investments andprofessional moves.You may desireachange, but you should take a pass unless you receive an ironclad offer or incentive

LEo(July 23-Aug. 22) Letyourimagination runwild, and your creativity and energy will carry you forward. Put acap on your spending and concentrate on what you want to achieve. Associate with people motivatedbyyour words.

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Takethe high road regardless of what others do. Letting others decide for you will leave you vulnerable. Think and act for yourself, learn from your mistakes andset an example forthe people you careabout.

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) Discover what works bestfor you. Expand your mind and explore the possibilities. Don't fear change or taking the road less traveled. Followyourintuition's lead, and you'll discoverwhatresonates with you.

scoRPIo(oct. 24-Nov. 22) Pay attention to detail, and you'll find the quickest way to master your skills. Professional gain is apparent, but contracts will be complextonegotiate.Don'tagreeto anything without expert input.

sAGIttARIus (Nov.23-Dec. 21) Plan to have fun or get thingsdone. Your energy is mounting and will help you reach your

destination if you focus on your goals. Rely on your intelligence and vigor to get you whereyou want to go.

cAPRIcoRN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Watch and wait. Observe how othershandle similar situations and consider your options Refuse to let anyone convince you to make amove or decision if it doesn'tfeel right or will take you out of your comfort zone.

AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Keep pushing forward. Initiate the changes that will make your life easier.It's time to get physical and mix socializing with activitiesthatmakeyou think andact quickly.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Revise your schedule to meet your needs.Take care of responsibilitiesswiftlyand move on to something you find engaging. Be selective; if you try to jam too much into your agenda, you'll fall short ARIEs (March 21-April 19) Be careful how youhandleothers. Patience is required whendealingwithpeoplewhodon'tshare your beliefs.Focus on the good in every situationtohelpkeepthecommunication flowing without controversy.

tAuRus(April 20-May 20) Decisive action is your key to success. Keep your emotions in check and your mind on what's realistic and essential to your long-term plans.Spend more time at home.

Celebrity Cipher cryptograms are createdfrom quotations by famous people, past and present. Each letter in thecipher stands foranother.

toDAy'scLuE:y EQuALs P

FAMILY CIrCUS

CeLebrItY CIpher

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

bIG

Sudoku

InstructIons: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1to9inthe empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS Hi and LoiS

By PHILLIP ALDER Bridge

Alija Izetbegovic, the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said, “We play an active role andtry to influenceour destiny; we have our own trump cards andweuse them.”

So far this week, we have been looking at defenses in no-trump contracts aided by placing declarer’s high-card points based on thebiddingand play. Suitably assisted, one defender has known which suit to attack to gain sufficient tricks to defeat the contract. Now let’smove to trumpcontracts. Southisinfour spades. Westleads the heartace. Howshould East planthe defense?

The auction given is usingStandard. If you have adopted two-over-one gameforcing, North would rebid three spades because the opener’shandstrength is undefined. Then South would bid four spades to indicate aminimum.

East does not want his partner to shift, so should signalwith his heart nine at trick one. West cashes the heart king andplays his third heart. After Eastwins with his queen, what does he do next?

East shouldcount the points. South showed 12 to 14, thedummy has13, West has already producedseven, and East has seven. Since all four jacks are onview,Westcannothaveanotherhonor card. The only chance forafourth trick lies in thetrump suit.

wuzzles

East must lead his last heart.Here, when Westruffs with the spade nine, it uppercutsdummy’squeenandpromotes aspade trick forEast.

When you have taken every possible side-suit trick, give aruff-and-sluff. It might result in atrump promotion or an uppercut.

By Andrews McMeel Syndication

Each Wuzzleisaword riddle which createsadisguisedword, phrase,name, place, saying, etc. For example: NOON GOOD =GOOD AFTERNOON

Previous answers:

word game

INstRuctIoNs: 1. Words must be of four or more letters. 2. Words that acquire four lettersbythe addition of “s,”such as “bats” or “dies,”are not allowed. 3. Additional words made by adding a“d” or an “s” may not be used. 4. Proper nouns, slang words, or vulgar or sexually explicit wordsare not allowed.

toDAy’sWoRD LIMELIGHt: LIME-lite: Thecenter of public attention.

Average mark 22 words Time