The Acadiana Advocate 05-27-2025 by The Advocate

Lawmakers struggle over split-jury verdicts

Bill to revert cases, create parole committees fails

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

Lawmakers

neys

hold a new trial, cut a plea deal or dismiss a case. But the bill died in the Senate on Wednesday on a vote of 26-9. The

vote fell along party lines, with Democrats in favor of the bill and Republicans opposed The primary opposition to the bill came from the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, which said it would be impractical to try old cases when witnesses may have died and evidence been destroyed. They also

Day program.

A Memorial Day program honored and remembered the military heroes who gave their lives in service to our country Monday by the Veterans Memorial at Moncus Park in Lafayette. After the ceremony, participants could join a peaceful, untimed run or walk through the park’s scenic paths to reﬂect, move and connect with the community

Local buyers floated for Fair Grounds Race Course

Horse racing industry thinks Benson, Bernhard have interest

BY ANTHONY McAULEY Staff writer

With Churchill Downs Inc. the Kentucky-based owner of the Fair Grounds Race Course and Slots, threatening to leave the state if it doesn’t get a public subsidy, leading ﬁgures in the local horse racing industry are eyeing two Louisiana billionaires with ties to the sport as the most likely potential buyers should it be put up for sale.

argued the cases would clog the courts.

The Promise of Justice Initiative, an organization that represents prisoners convicted by split juries and that asked Duplessis to carry the bill, disputed that notion, presenting data that suggested the association was overstating the number of cases at issue.

Duplessis said he is continuing to work with stakeholders to ﬁnd a

Shift in La. coastal strategy proposed

Project much smaller than Mid-Barataria pitched as replacement

BY ALEX LUBBEN Staff writer

Gov Jeff Landry’s plan to abandon the $3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, once considered the cornerstone of Louisiana’s coastal restoration efforts, may see the state revive an old project to replace it that his administration says will be cheaper, faster and more effective.

Not everyone is convinced

The Mid-Barataria project is on life support after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suspended a key permit for it. Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chair Gordon “Gordy” Dove is signaling a major shift in strategy that prioritizes protecting coastal ﬁsheries over the original plan that took years to develop and has already cost $500 million.

In a detailed presentation before the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday, Dove said that he supports the construction of a smaller river diversion in Plaquemines Parish called Myrtle Grove — a diversion project first proposed before Mid-Barataria was conceived. He presented it as a shovel-ready alternative to Mid-Barataria, which the state could pursue instead and save itself $1 billion in costs, all while freeing up funds to advance other restoration projects throughout the state.

But the project is in reality far from shovel-ready, while proponents of the Mid-Barataria plan question the ultimate effectiveness and cost savings of what Dove is proposing Myrtle Grove would be far smaller than Mid-Barataria. While Mid-Barataria would send 75,000 cubic feet of river water — roughly equivalent to the volume of 30 shipping containers into the basin every second, Myrtle Grove would divert between 2,500 and 15,000 cubic feet of river water per second, roughly the volume of six shipping containers.

Top of the list is Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson. A horse breeder who has had runners in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, and owns a Kentucky breeding and rehabilitation facility, Benson sought to buy the historic New Orleans horse racing venue eight years ago with her late husband Tom, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the Bensons’ past interest who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about it.

potential sale

Alongside the smaller diversion, Dove advocated for building a 24-mile tract of manmade wetlands extending across the Barataria Basin from Bayou Dosgris to Port Sulphur, which is already part of CPRA’s master plan for restoring parts of the coast.

“Congress authorized the design, engineering and construction of Myrtle Grove, with a long-distance pipeline to build land,” Dove said in an interview “Look, the best alternative is to go back to the Corps and let the Corps go ahead and move forward with it.”

Ricky Boyett, a spokesperson for the Corps, noted that the project does not

STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

The

of the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, which has a 76-day horse racing season, has been the talk of the local racing industry since Churchill Downs executives appeared at a contentious Louisiana Racing Commission meeting May 13.

Duplessis

Gov. Jeff Landry speaks during the Memorial

STAFF PHOTOS By BRAD KEMP

Lt. Col. Stephen Luebbert, right, walks with Gold Star family members Buddy, center, and Sybil Williamson to place a wreath at the Veterans Memorial in honor of their son Sgt. Patrick Williamson, who was killed in action on Oct. 27, 2009.

start the run after the Memorial Day program.

10 shot in S.C. at holiday weekend party

LITTLE RIVER, S.C. Ten people were shot during a fight that started after a private boat hosting a holiday weekend party arrived at a dock Sunday night on the South Carolina coast, authorities said.

No one died in the shooting in Little River about 9:30 p.m., although some of the wounded were in critical condition, Horry County Police said in a statement At least one person was taken to the hospital who was not hurt by gunﬁre, police said.

The shooting happened around a dock where a private charter boat leaves for cruises. The boat was docked and detectives are trying to ﬁgure out exactly where the ﬁght and shooting began, police said.

A flyer online advertised a party Sunday night with a DJ on a three-hour cruise ending at 9 p.m. A woman who answered a phone number on the ﬂyer early Monday said she was distraught seeing her friends get shot but then said she didn’t want to talk any more and hung up. Someone who answered the phone at the company that owns the boat said he didn’t want to talk to a reporter

No arrests have been made as detectives continue to investigate, police said.

Ex-police chief escapes from Arkansas prison

CALICO ROCK, Ark. — A former police chief in Arkansas who is serving decadeslong sentences for murder and rape escaped from prison Sunday state corrections ofﬁcials said.

Grant Hardin, the former police chief of the tiny town of Gateway near the ArkansasMissouri border escaped from the North Central Unit in Calico Rock, where he has been held since 2017. Corrections ofﬁcials did not provide any details about how he escaped.

They did say that Hardin had disguised himself and was “wearing a makeshift outﬁt designed to mimic law enforcement when he escaped the North Central Unit.”

The Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction are following leads with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. Hardin pleaded guilty in October 2017 to first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of 59-year-old James Appleton. According to an affidavit filed in the case, Appleton worked for the Gateway water department and was talking to his brother-in-law, then Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, when he was shot in the head on Feb. 23, 2017, near Garfield. Police found Appleton’s body inside a car Hardin, who was Gateway’s police chief for about four months in early 2016, was sentenced to 30 years in prison He is also serving 50 years in prison for the 1997 rape of an elementary school teacher in Rogers north of Fayetteville.

Egyptian archaeologists discover tombs in Luxor

CAIRO Egypt unveiled three new tombs of prominent statesman in the Dra Abu al-Naga necropolis in Luxor, ofﬁcials said Monday

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered tombs dating back to the New Kingdom period (1550–1070 B.C.) and identified the names and titles of their owners through inscriptions found within, according to a statement by the tourism and antiquities ministry.

Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement that further study of other tombs’ inscriptions is needed to gain a deeper understanding of the tombs’ owners.

The ministry released pictures of items discovered in the tombs, including artifacts and statues. The discovery comes in the lead-up to the highly anticipated full opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which is expected this summer, though a ﬁnal ofﬁcial date is yet to be confirmed. The museum will showcase more than 100,000 artifacts from Egypt’s rich ancient heritage.

Fans leave as police and emergency personnel work the scene Monday after a car collided with pedestrians near the Liver Building during the Premier League winners parade in Liverpool, England.

Officials: Man plows through soccer fans

English authorities say driver arrested

BY BRIAN MELLEY and STEVE DOUGLAS Associated Press

LONDON A 53-year-old White British man plowed his minivan into a crowd of Liverpool soccer fans who were celebrating the city’s Premier League championship Monday, as shouts of joy turned into shrieks of terror.

Police said they arrested the man, who was from the area They did not give any information on casualties. An air ambulance and other emergency vehicles swarmed the scene after reports that multiple pedestrians had been hit.

A video on social media appeared to show a gray minivan strike at least one pedestrian and then veer into a larger crowd, carving a path through the group and pushing bodies along the street before coming to a stop.

“It was extremely fast,” said Harry Rashid, who was with his wife and two young daughters as the car passed by them. “Initially, we just heard the pop, pop, pop of people just being knocked off the bonnet of a car.”

Rashid said the crowd charged the halted vehicle and began smashing windows.

“But then he put his foot down again and just plowed through the rest of them, he just kept going,” Rashid said. “It was horrible And you could hear the bumps as he was going over the people.”

Rashid said it looked deliberate.

“My daughter started screaming, and there were people on the ground,” he said.

“They were just innocent people, just fans going to enjoy the parade.”

Liverpool fans had come out in the tens

of thousands to celebrate the team winning the Premier League this season for a record-tying 20th top-ﬂight title.

Peter Jones, who had traveled from Isle of Man, said he heard the car smash into the crowd and saw at least a half-dozen people down.

“We heard a frantic beeping ahead, a car flew past me and my mate, people were chasing it and trying to stop him, windows smashed at the back,” Jones said. “He then drove into people, police and medics ran past us, and people were being treated on the side of the road.”

Merseyside Police said they were trying to establish what led to the incident and asked people not to speculate or share “distressing content online.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the scenes appalling and said he was being updated on the situation.

Liverpool’s last league title came in 2020 but supporters were denied the chance to publicly celebrate due to restrictions in place during the COVID pandemic.

This time, scarf-and-ﬂag-waving fans braved wet weather to line the streets and climb up trafﬁc lights for a view of Liverpool’s players, who were atop two buses bearing the words “Ours Again.”

The hourslong procession — surrounded by a heavy police presence crawled along a 10-mile route and through a sea of red smoke and rain. Fireworks exploded from the Royal Liver Building in the heart of the city.

The team in a short statement said its thoughts and prayers were with those affected. The Premier League issued a similar statement expressing shock at the “appalling events in Liverpool.”

Police identiﬁed the suspect as White, in a possible decision to prevent misinformation from ﬂooding social media.

Group: New aid system in Gaza has started operations

BY WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip A new aid system in Gaza opened its ﬁrst distribution hubs Monday, according to a U.S.-backed group that said it began delivering food to Palestinians who face growing hunger after Israel’s nearly three-month blockade to pressure Hamas

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is taking over the handling of aid despite objections from United Nations. The desperately needed supplies started ﬂowing on a day that saw Israeli strikes kill at least 52 people in Gaza.

The group said truckloads of food — it did not say how many — had been delivered to its hubs, and distribution to Palestinians had begun.

“More trucks with aid will be delivered tomorrow, with the ﬂow of aid increasing each day,” it said in a statement.

The U.N. and aid groups have pushed back against the new system, which is backed by Israel and the United States

They assert that Israel is trying to use food as a weapon and say a new system won’t be effective

Israel has pushed for an alternative aid delivery plan because it says it must stop Hamas from seizing aid. The U.N. has denied that the militant group has diverted large amounts.

The foundation began operations a day after the resignation of its executive director Jake Wood, an American, said it had become clear the foundation would not be allowed to operate independently

It’s not clear who is funding the group.

The organization is made up of former humanitarian, government and military ofﬁcials. It has said its distribution points will be guarded by private security ﬁrms and that the aid would reach a million Palestinians — around half of Gaza’s popula-

Ukraine: Russia launches biggest drone attack

BY ILLIA NOVIKOV and VOLODYMYR YURCHUK Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine Russia launched its biggest drone attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Monday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war On the third straight night of signiﬁcant aerial bombardments, U.S President Donald Trump lashed out at Russian leader Vladimir Putin, saying he had gone “crazy” by stepping up attacks on Ukraine.

The expansion of Russia’s air campaign appeared to be another setback U.S.led peace efforts, as Putin looks determined to capture more Ukrainian territory and inﬂict more damage. It comes after Kyiv accepted an unconditional 30-day ceaseﬁre in March that was proposed by the U.S. but that Moscow effectively rejected.

This month alone, Russia has broken its record for aerial bombardments of Ukraine three times.

Russia is also still pushing along the roughly 620mile front line, where it has made slow and costly progress, and is assembling its forces for a summer offensive, analysts say

“Only a sense of complete impunity can allow Russia to carry out such attacks and continually escalate their scale,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram on Monday “There is no signiﬁcant military logic to this, but there is considerable political meaning.”

The Russian bombardment on Sunday night included 355 drones, Yuriy Ihnat, head of the Ukrainian air force’s communications department, told The Associated Press, calling it the biggest of the war

The previous night Russia ﬁred 298 drones and 69 missiles in what Ukrainian ofﬁcials said was the larg-

tion — by the end of the week.

Under pressure from allies, Israel began allowing a trickle of humanitarian aid into Gaza last week after blocking all food, medicine, fuel or other goods from entering since early March. Aid groups have warned of famine and say the aid that has come in is nowhere near enough to meeting mounting needs.

Hamas warned Palestinians on Monday not to cooperate with the new aid system, saying it is aimed at furthering those objectives.

The Israeli airstrikes killed at least 36 people in a school-turned-shelter that was hit as people slept, setting their belongings ablaze, according to local health ofﬁcials The military said it targeted militants operating from the school.

Israel renewed its offensive in March after ending a ceaseﬁre with Hamas It has vowed to seize control of Gaza and keep ﬁghting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed, and until it returns the remaining 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war

est combined aerial assault of the conflict. From Friday to Sunday, Russia launched around 900 drones at Ukraine, officials said. Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Monday that its forces shot down 103 Ukrainian drones overnight that were flying over southern and western Russia, including near Moscow Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said 32 flights scheduled to land at three Moscow airports on Sunday and Monday had to divert amid Ukrainian drone attacks. The numbers from Ukraine and Russia could not be independently verified.

Soon after Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion, the conflict became a testing ground for drone warfare. Drones are generally cheaper to produce than missiles. Russia has received Iranian-made Shahed drones since 2022 and is now believed to be manufacturing its own version. Ukraine as well as receiving smaller battleﬁeld drones from its allies to help it compensate for a troop shortage, has developed its own longrange drones for strikes deep inside Russia. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday that there are “no longer any range restrictions for weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine — neither by the British, nor by the French or by us, and not by the Americans either.”

“That means Ukraine can also defend itself by, for example, attacking military positions in Russia. Until a while ago, it couldn’t it can now,” he said. It was not clear if Merz was referring to the easing of restrictions on longerrange weapons late last year Before becoming chancellor, Merz called for Germany to supply Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Kyiv, something his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, refused to do.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JON SUPER

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JEHAD ALSHRAFI Walaa Al-Kilani, center, mourns her mother and brother, who were killed when an Israeli military strike hit a school sheltering displaced residents, on Monday at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City

Trump honors fallen soldiers at Arlington

BY SEUNG MIN KIM

Associated Press

ARLINGTON, Va. — President

Donald Trump paid tribute to fallen service members during a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, in an address that honored the “great, great warriors” yet also brieﬂy veered into politics as he boasted of a nation he is “ﬁxing after a long and hard four years.”

Though the holiday is one that U.S. presidents typically treat with pure solemnity, Trump began it with an all-caps Memorial Day social media post that attacked his predecessor and called federal judges who have blocked his deportation initiatives “monsters who want our country to go to hell.”

Yet at Arlington National Cemetery, where more than 400,000 have been laid to rest, Trump commemorated the sacriﬁce of U.S. service members and singled out several Gold Star families to tell the stories of their fallen relatives.

“We just revere their incredible legacy,” Trump said “We salute them in their eternal and everlasting glory. And we continue our relentless pursuit of America’s destiny as we make our nation stronger, prouder, freer and greater than ever before.”

“Their valor,” he said,

“gave us the freest, greatest and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth. A republic that I am ﬁxing after a long and hard four years.”

During his remarks, Trump told the story of Navy Senior Chief Petty Ofﬁcer Shannon Kent, killed along with three other Americans by a suicide bomber in 2019 in Syria, leaving behind her husband, 3-year-old son and 18-monthold son.

The Pine Plains, New York, native was on her ﬁfth combat deployment, he said, embedded with a team hunting Islamic State group militants in Syria, serving as linguist, translator and cryptologic technician working alongside special forces.

“She was among the first women ever to do it, and she did it better than anyone,” Trump said, calling out Kent’s family for applause at the ceremony

The crowd also heard of Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Elroy Harworth from Erhard, Minnesota, whose plane went down in enemy territory during the Vietnam War, dying while his wife was seven months pregnant

His son, who was cheered in the audience, followed his father’s path and has been in the Army for 20 years.

There was also the story of Army Cpl. Ryan McGhee of Fredericksburg, Virginia,

the 1967 Middle East War.

Israeli nationalists chant ‘death to Arabs’ during annual march

BY JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press

JERUSALEM Chanting

“Death to Arabs” and singing “May your village burn,” groups of young Israeli Jews made their way through Muslim neighborhoods of Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday during an annual march marking Israel’s conquest of the eastern part of the city Palestinian shopkeepers closed early and police lined the alleys ahead of the march that often becomes a rowdy and sometimes violent procession of ultranationalist Jews. A police officer raised his arms in celebration at one point, hugging a marcher It was blazing hot, with temperatures hitting 98 degrees in late afternoon.

Police kept a close watch as demonstrators jumped, danced and sang. Hours earlier, a small group of protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament, stormed a compound in east Jerusalem belonging to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA

The march commemorates Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war The event threatened to inflame tensions that are rife in the city after nearly 600 days of war in Gaza. Jerusalem lies at the heart of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Each sees the city as a key part of their national and religious identity It is one of the most intractable issues of the conflict and is often a flashpoint. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its eternal,

and saluted during the playing of taps. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth joined him.

The president began the day with a decidedly different tone.

undivided capital. Its annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized. Palestinians want an independent state with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Last year’s procession, during the ﬁrst year of the war in Gaza, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians Four years ago, the march helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.

Tour buses carrying young ultranationalist Jews lined up near entrances to the Old City, bringing hundreds from outside Jerusalem, including settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

After this year’s march ended, Arab shopkeepers darted outside to begin scrubbing their shops, now covered with stickers reading Gaza is ours.”

Police, who called the procession the “Dance of Flags,” said they had detained a number of people and “acted swiftly to prevent violence, confrontations and provocations.”

Speaking in an east Jerusalem archaeological park located in a Palestinian neighborhood, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to preserve a united, whole Jerusalem and the sovereignty of Israel.”

He said the government was encouraging foreign embassies to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and investing billions of shekels in the city’s development.

Volunteers from the propeace organization Standing Together and the Free Jerusalem collective, which works with Palestinians in Jerusalem, tried to position themselves between the marchers and residents to prevent violence

who enlisted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and whose mother was in the audience.

Trump said McGhee knew he wanted to be an Army Ranger since he saw the towers fall on that day did three tours in Afghanistan, then deployed to Iraq Sixteen years ago this month, the president said, McGhee died in a ﬁreﬁght, and “gave his life at 21 years old.”

Vice President JD Vance, who spoke before Trump, said the lesson of all the

gravestones is: “We must be cautious in sending our people to war.” He urged the crowd to push political leaders to treat the lives of soldiers as the “most precious resource.”

Later in his remarks, Trump pointed to a “big, big celebration” coming next year as the U.S celebrates its 250th birthday, joking that “in some ways, I’m glad I missed that second term” when he lost to Joe Biden.

“Because I wouldn’t be

president for that,” Trump said as the crowd laughed “In addition, we have the World Cup and we have the Olympics. Can you imagine? I missed that four years. And now look what I have, I have everything. Amazing the way things work out.”

Before speaking, Trump placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a somber tradition for U.S. presidents. The president paused after placing the wreath, then stepped back

In a social media message in all capital letters, Trump ranted at Biden, calling him the “scum” who spent the last four years trying to destroy the country with radical leftism and who, he said, left behind an open border That was after he posted a separate message proclaiming “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!” Wishing people a happy Memorial Day is regarded as verboten because the day is considered a somber one to honor soldiers killed in service. Vance emphasized as much when he spoke to U.S. Naval Academy graduates in Annapolis on Friday, when he said that he and Trump would “lead the most solemn occasion in our nation, Memorial Day at Arlington Cemetery

“You will learn as I have that when people say things like ‘Happy Memorial Day,’ you appreciate the sentiment behind it but know that it’s wrong because Memorial Day is not a happy day,” Vance said last week. “Memorial Day is not for those who served and came home, it is for those who served that didn’t.”

King Charles III arrives in Canada

to show the differences between Canada and the United States. The king’s visit clearly underscores Canada’s sovereignty he said.

BY ROB GILLIES Associated Press

OTTAWA, Ontario Britain’s King Charles III arrived Monday in Ottawa on a visit that Canada’s leader says will underscore his nation’s sovereignty amid President Donald Trump’s talk of the United States annexing its northern neighbor Trump’s repeated suggestion that the U.S. annex Canada prompted Prime Minister Mark Carney to invite Charles to give the speech from the throne that will outline his government’s agenda for the new Parliament.

The king is the head of state in Canada, which is a member of the British Commonwealth of former colonies.

“This historic honor matches the weight of our times. It speaks to our enduring tradition and friendship, to the vitality of our constitutional monarchy and our distinct identity and to the historic ties that crises only fortify,” Carney said in a statement.

“Canada’s strength lies in building a strong future while embracing its English, French, and Indigenous roots the union of peoples that forms our bedrock.”

Carney, the new prime minister and a former head of the Bank of England, and Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, Mary Simon, the king’s representative in Canada, greeted the king and Queen Camilla at the airport. A 25-member honor guard from the Royal Canadian Dragoons, for which the king is colonel-inchief, was also on hand.

The king, in a taupe suit and red tie, later dropped the ceremonial first puck during a street hockey game at a community event.

Spectator Norman MacDonald said he’s “proud” the king came to Ottawa to deliver a message on behalf of Canadians.

“Canada is not, obviously, for sale, and it’s not going to be bullied,” he said.

It is rare for the monarch to deliver what’s called the speech from the throne in Canada. Charles’ mother Queen Elizabeth II, did it twice in her 70-year reign, the last time in 1977.

Canadians are largely indifferent to the monarchy but Carney has been eager

After America gained independence from Britain, Canada remained a colony until 1867 and afterward, continued as a constitutional monarchy with a Britishstyle parliamentary system.

“We are different,” for-

mer Quebec Premier Jean Charest said. “If you look at why King Charles is reading the speech from the throne, then you have to then acknowledge Canada’s story.”

However, the new U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, said sending messages isn’t necessary and Canadians should move on from the 51st state talk, telling the Canadian Broad-

casting Corporation that if there’s a message to be sent there are easier ways to do that, such as calling him or calling the president.

Royal historian Carolyn Harris expects Trump to notice the visit because he has repeatedly spoken about his admiration for the royal family Trump might see how different Canada is from the U.S.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JACQUELyN MARTIN

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance salute Monday during the 157th National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By OHAD ZWIGENBERG

Israeli police scuffle Monday with young Israelis marching through Jerusalem’s Old City marking Jerusalem Day, an Israeli holiday celebrating the capture of east Jerusalem in

COASTAL

have ﬁnal authorization, and that its current design calls for using dredged sediment to build land without a pipeline Fishing vs. diversions

Mid-Barataria aimed to build 21 square miles of land over 50 years by slicing open the Mississippi River near Ironton and diverting its ﬂow and land-building sediment into Barataria Basin. The state has lost an area the size of Delaware to coastal erosion over the last century, and the rate of loss is expected to increase with intensifying hurricanes and sea level rise driven by human-caused climate change.

It was seen as the centerpiece of the state’s $50 billion plan to restore parts of its coastline, but ﬁshermen and shrimpers in coastal parishes have long opposed it on the grounds that the introduction of fresh water into brackish estuaries would destroy ﬁsheries.

Mitch Jurisich, a Plaquemines Parish Council member who owns about 16,000 acres of oyster bed leases and stands to lose business if the diversion is built, celebrated the prospect of an alternative project.

“For 15 years we’ve been ﬁghting this project because we knew it would not do the proper job,” said Jurisich, who has sued in federal court to stop the Mid-Barataria plan. “Let’s get it right this time.”

Landry sided with the fishing communities last year when he signaled his opposition to the project, saying that it would “break our culture.” He has blamed his predecessor John Bel Edwards’ administration for withholding a 500-page report from the Corps that modeled how the diversion would perform under speciﬁc circumstances, an accusation that Edwards has strongly rebutted.

The Corps ultimately suspended a crucial permit for the project last month, noting as part of its justiﬁcation that Edwards’ administration had “deliberately withheld” the report. It has also acknowledged, though that the data in question would not have affected its permit decision.

The Corps also singled out the Landry administration’s disinterest in the project as part of its reasoning to suspend the permit In a May 5 letter, Dove said he would inform the Corps of next steps within 60 days, or by July 4.

Dove also this week said publicly for the first time that the CPRA would move to cancel another planned river diversion on the east bank of the river, the Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion. Fishers and oyster growers oppose that project, too.

Outdated studies

Dove argues that the smaller diversion and landbridge projects would ultimately create more land than Mid-Barataria and do so more quickly “You would make 19,000 acres (about 30 square miles) in 12 to 14 years,” he said in an interview.

FAIR GROUNDS

Continued from page 1A

Also mentioned as a potential buyer, according to interviews with a half-dozen horse industry players, is Jim Bernhard, the Baton Rougebased founder of Bernhard Capital Partners, who has accumulated with his wife Dana signiﬁcant horse breeding and racing operations in recent years

Bernhard didn’t respond to requests for comment. Benson declined to comment on whether she would be interested in making an offer for the Fair Grounds, but her spokesman, Greg Bensel, said that “she will monitor the situation.”

“Mrs. Benson maintains a very strong and active role in the horse business (and) supports Louisianabred racing,” Bensel said. “Relative to the Fair Grounds, it is an iconic part of the social fabric of New Orleans. She has a history of supporting iconic New Orleans ﬁxtures.”

Put in play

The potential sale of the Fair Grounds racetrack, which has a 76-day horse racing season and has hosted the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival for more than half a century, has been the talk of the local racing industry since Churchill Downs executives appeared at a contentious Louisiana Racing Commission meeting May 13.

During the meeting, they said they would not proceed with the upcoming horse racing season in November unless the state replaces slot machine income it lost after a recent court ruling.

Racing commission chairperson Edward Koehl said at the meeting that the issue will now have to play out in the state Legislature over the

it on and off over the years, the last published study was issued in 2013.

“In terms of coastal restoration, 2013 is a really long time ago,” she said. “That was before Ida ripped through that basin pretty well.”

Bureaucratic hurdles

VERDICTS

Continued from page 1A

solution. But it’s unclear whether the two sides will be able to reach a compromise.

Personally, McMath said he voted against the bill out of concerns that it would force victims to relive traumatic moments at new trials.

“You’ll be around to see I’m right. You won’t be around to see whether that experiment works or not,” he added, referring to Mid-Barataria.

He appeared to be referencing a report the Corps produced in 2010, which estimated that the project, which also includes moving 2 million cubic yards of river sediment into the basin, would build 19,700 acres over the project’s lifetime.

The state’s marsh-building projects with dredged sediment typically have a 20-year life span since they erode like the rest of the coast, though the accompanying features Dove proposes may extend that.

Mid-Barataria proponents note that the larger diversion would work with nature, could continue to be a land-building tool well beyond the 50-year evaluation period and matches the scale of Louisiana’s devastating land loss crisis.

But cost is also a concern for Landry and Dove, who says that scrapping Mid-Barataria would save taxpayer money, which coastal advocates have called into question.

It’s not clear whether the more than $500 million in BP oil spill settlement funds that have been spent on Mid-Barataria will have to be returned if the project isn’t built.

“You’re going to save over a billion,” Dove insists. “It will probably be about $4 billion but I’m being conservative at a billion.”

The Corps and, eventually, Congress would also have to approve the plan Dove advocates — usually a complex and yearslong process.

Sen. Pat Connick, R-Marrero, questioned the project’s timeline at the hearing on Wednesday noting that the Mid-Barataria project had gone through a long permitting process and that Myrtle Grove would undergo the same.

He said it was “upsetting and shameful” that the state had spent so much money on a project just to “toss it away”

“Now you’re saying here today and the governor saying here today we can make it better. So that’s going to be on you,” he added. “We’ll be watching ” Simone Maloz, campaign director of Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coastal advocacy coalition that supports Mid-Barataria, notes that the studies and cost estimates that support Myrtle Grove are likely outdated.

She pointed out that a version of the Myrtle Grove project was ﬁrst considered in the mid-1980s.

In 2005, the cost of the project was estimated to be $278 million, a price tag likely far out of date, Maloz said, and though the Corps studied

next month, to see if some kind of deal can be reached before the current session ends in mid-June.

Churchill Downs’ head of racing, Gary Palmisano, said the company hoped it could work something out with lawmakers. “Churchill Downs Inc. has expressed its readiness to partner with legislators and the administration to ensure our continued operations in Louisiana,” he said via text. Churchill Downs has not publicly put the Fair Grounds on the market and there’s no indication that Benson or Bernhard have been approached or have made any formal inquiries.

Still, there are upcoming deadlines that could make continuing to own the track costly. Churchill Downs has a contractual obligation to start making upgrades to the Fair Grounds track and buildings starting in July, and to run the annual horse racing program from late November If it misses those deadlines it will start incurring daily ﬁnes.

The company said that without a public subsidy it will lose money on its Louisiana operations and won’t be able to continue.

Louie Roussel III a legendary Louisiana horse breeder who owned the Fair Grounds for more than a decade until he sold it to the Krantz family in 1990, said he advised the racing commission to call Churchill Downs’ bluff.

“If they don’t think they can make any money they should sell the track,” Roussel said in a telephone interview on Monday “I think having a local owner would be the best thing in the world.”

Long history

The Fair Grounds, which covers 145 acres near City Park, has been hosting horse races since 1838, originally under the name Union Race Course, and is one of the three oldest

The Corps, in a letter to Dove, began to lay out the process for restarting the Myrtle Grove diversion. The state would need to tell the Corps deﬁnitively that it plans to abandon Mid-Barataria and formally signal its intent to restart Myrtle Grove. Dove told lawmakers Wednesday that he has ofﬁcially informed the Corps that the state plans to restart the Myrtle Grove project.

The state and the Corps would also have to come to a financial agreement in order to restart the environmental and technical studies for Myrtle Grove. The state would likely have to foot half the bill for those studies, which the Corps estimates would take three years and cost $3 million. The total costs of construction would be determined in the course of that study

Dove said that Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement funds could be used to pay for the state’s share of those costs, but that would need to be approved by the trustees that oversee those funds.

“If the Myrtle Grove project’s beneﬁts outweigh its costs, if it’s environmentally compliant and technically feasible, then we can make a recommendation to headquarters that can recommend it to Congress,” said Boyett of the Corps. “And then Congress can decide whether to fund it for construction.”

All of that will take years.

If it is built John Day an emeritus professor of coastal sciences at Louisiana State University, is wary that the smaller diversion will build a meaningful amount of land.

“How the delta has worked the last several thousand years is you had giant crevasses,” or breaches in the natural levees that temporarily held the river in place, he said. “They ﬂowed at 10,000 cubic meters per second.”

That’s 350,000 cubic feet per second, or nearly ﬁve times the size of Mid-Barataria — and that’s what built land in coastal Louisiana.

Day advocates, instead, for harnessing sediment that gets stirred up when storms come through the Gulf to maintain and expand existing marshes.

As delays drag on, coastal groups note that Louisiana’s coast continues to erode at an alarming rate, and storms are only becoming more frequent and damaging as the climate heats.

“How long will it take to get approval from the Corps for these new ideas? What will happen over that period of time? Will we get a hurricane? Will we get two hurricanes?” said Kristi Trail, the head of the Pontchartrain Conservancy

“What you’re really hearing today is a plan for managed retreat” — the term for moving people away from the coast.

Email Alex Lubben at alex. lubben@theadvocate.com.

continuously operated tracks in the country

Churchill Downs has owned the facility since it bought it out of bankruptcy from the Krantz family in 2004. As with other horse racing venue operators around the country, it has increasingly relied on slot machine income for proﬁts and to cover the expenses of the racing operation. The company said it costs about $9 million a year to run the track.

Licensed racetracks with gambling operations are required to contribute a percentage of their net gambling revenues, mainly through prize money, known as purses The exact distribution depends on the number of racing days and the speciﬁc agreements between courses and the racing commission.

Churchill Downs executives argued that the Fair Grounds contributes an outsized share in Louisiana. Last year, Fair Grounds paid out $32 million in purses, representing nearly half of the state’s total thoroughbred purses though it accounted for just 27% of the racing days, they told the commission. They also said their track and off-track bets accounted for $250 million in bets last year, or half the state’s total. In 2021, the Louisiana Legislature allowed a new type of slot machine based on anonymized previouslyrun races, called Historical Horse Racing, which has proved hugely profitable for Churchill Downs. Though the company doesn’t report its HHR income locally, its revenue from the machines nationally doubled in 2023 to $768 million, or nearly a third of its total revenue. Its interest in HHR deepened further when it acquired the company that makes HHR technology, Exacta Systems, in late 2023. Stanley Seelig, a past president of the Louisiana Horsemen’s Benevo-

Meanwhile, the Promise of Justice Initiative has blamed the failure of the bill on what they describe as the association’s outsized inﬂuence on the Legislature.

An alternate plan

On Wednesday — the day Duplessis presented his bill to the Senate Chamber — the district attorneys association offered a new proposal that, instead of granting new trials to prisoners convicted by split juries, would have given those prisoners a chance for parole.

The group asked state Sen Patrick McMath, R-Covington, to carry the proposal in the form of an amendment to SB218.

The amendment would have established a special parole committee consisting of three judges, one district attorney or assistant district attorney, and one public defender or assistant public defender, all appointed by the governor Those convicted by nonunanimous juries could have applied for parole from the panel, which would have been responsible for reviewing applications and determining whether convictions had resulted in a “miscarriage of justice.” The panel would have had three years to carry out its duties.

Zach Daniels, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, said the amendment showed they were willing to work with advocates to ﬁnd a reasonable solution.

But Hardell Ward, the initiative’s director of community impact, said the proposal — which was pulled from a three-year-old bill — was not a viable one.

He noted the panel’s decision would not have been appealable, and that the amendment did not deﬁne “miscarriage of justice.”

“How can someone who’s been in jail for 30 years properly prove that there’s a miscarriage of justice not even knowing what they mean when they say that?” Ward asked And for clients who want to prove their innocence, accepting parole is “not justice for them,” he said Mary-Patricia Wray a lobbyist for the Promise of Justice Initiative, did not see McMath’s amendment as a true compromise, but instead as an old proposal that has been discussed for years and rejected, she said Duplessis rejected the proposal at the behest of the Promise of Justice Initiative, and McMath withdrew his amendment on the Senate ﬂoor

“Those who asked me to carry this legislation, speciﬁcally (the Promise of Justice Initiative) and the clients they represent, did not want the amendment, and I fully understand and accept their rationale,” said Duplessis.

Blame goes around McMath called the advocates’ rejection of the amendment “shortsighted.”

“Instead of keeping (Duplessis’) bill alive and moving and continuing to work with the other side, (the bill) ended up failing in dramatic fashion,” McMath said. “And what does that accomplish? Nothing.”

lent and Protective Association, which represents racehorse owners, trainers and other stable employees, said the Fair Grounds and the state’s other three race courses — Delta Downs, Evangeline Downs and Louisiana Downs — are all highly reliant on gambling revenue.

“At Fair Grounds, about a third of revenue came from slots (before HHR), a third from the OTB parlors and a third from betting on the horses,” Seelig said. “But at the other three, it’s about 90% from the slots. They’d have a hard time staying open without the slots.”

In March, the state Supreme Court ruled that HHR machines would have to be shut down until they were approved by a referendum in each parish in which they operate. The ruling followed a challenge by truck stop operators who had seen their video poker machines lose out to HHR, which can pay much higher jackpots.

Churchill Downs said the ruling meant its revenue in Louisiana would be down 46% and profits would fall by 74% The company wants the Louisiana Legislature to pass a law legalizing HHR or to legislate for a permanent annual subsidy for horse racing, as Florida did last year

“Any potential buyers would face the same challenges with the state and the same reality when it comes to economic viability,” said Palmisano.

The company has considered offers to buy Fair Grounds over the years, including the one from the Bensons and one from Roussel in 2014. He and two other New Orleans investors couldn’t agree terms with Churchill Downs, he said. Roussel said he’ll be 80 at his next birthday and wouldn’t be interested in having another run. Churchill Downs paid $47 million

“As demonstrated again (Wednesday) and evident in legislative sessions for years, the Louisiana District Attorneys Association (LDAA), a lobbying group, holds signiﬁcant, disproportionate power over our legislators,” the group said in a statement after the vote. “When the LDAA told lawmakers to oppose this bill, legislators listened.”

The statement points out that the bill gleaned a wide variety of support, including from hard-core conservative U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, RLafayette, and the Pelican Institute, a right-leaning public policy think tank.

Wray contended the association has a “chokehold” over the Legislature.

“They are under the thumb of their district attorneys,” she said “When will the Legislature stand up to these local elected ofﬁcials?”

McMath disputed that notion.

“I think that if the LDAA had a stranglehold on the Legislature, the bill doesn’t get out of committee, and I would applaud the LDAA for coming back to the table and offering a compromise,” he said

Daniels said district attorneys offer insight to legislators, and in doing so they “trade on one currency, and that’s the currency of our reputation.” They build that reputation through their work creating safer communities, he said

“To say that we have a disproportionate impact, or an unfair advantage in some way ignores the role that we play in the communities advocating for victims, and it renders it down to something a bit uglier and frankly frustrating to hear,” Daniels said.

Next steps

Though Duplessis’ bill failed in its current form, that doesn’t mean nothing will be done with regard to split juries this session.

Duplessis ﬁled a motion for reconsideration, meaning his bill could come up again.

The senator is exploring whether it is possible to pass legislation that would help the state to determine the scope of cases impacted by nonunanimous jury verdicts.

“At the very least, we should be able to come up with a process that allows us to agree on the size of the problem including the actual number of cases that exist,” Duplessis said.

Disagreement over how many prisoners were behind bars due to split-jury verdicts was a sticking point as SB218 moved through the legislative process. The Promise of Justice Initiative estimated that roughly 800 people would have been entitled to relief if the bill passed; the Louisiana District Attorneys Association put that number at 1,600.

Email Meghan Friedmann at meghan.friedmann@theadvocate. com.

in cash for Fair Grounds and made further acquisitions to bring the number of off-track betting operations to 13 currently The company said it has invested $200 million in total.

Horse business

Tom Benson had horse racing interests in the 1970s and 1980s and returned to the business in 2014 when he and wife Gayle co-founded GMB Racing. Their high-profile horses included Tom’s Ready who earned over $1 million and competed in the 2016 Kentucky Derby and Breeders’ Cup Mile. More recently, Gayle Benson has concentrated on breeding at Benson Farm, the 600acre breeding and rehabilitation facility near Lexington, Kentucky.

When they were interested in buying the Fair Grounds previously, the NFL had stricter policies about team owners having interests in gambling operations. It has since relaxed those rules after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 allowed states to legalize sports betting.

“She fully understands that operating a racetrack not only here in New Orleans but across the country has become increasingly difﬁcult,” Bensel said. “There are so many political constituencies that impact horse racing and gaming, that running a racetrack can be prohibitive. This is not unique to the Fair Grounds.”

For their part, the Bernhards bought their first racehorse in 2021 and a year later acquired the storied Pin Oak Stud in Versailles, Kentucky, and expanded it to 1,250 acres. They have also established Pin Oak South, a 100-acre facility in Louisiana.

Email Anthony McAuley tmcauley@theadvocate.com.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration wants to abandon a $3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project already underway.

By The AssociatedPress

WEST MONROE PhilRobertson, who turned his small duck calling interest in the sportsman’sparadise of northern Louisianaintoa big business and conservative cultural phenomenon, died Sunday,according to his family.Hewas 79.

Robertson’sfamily announced in December on theirUnashamed With the Robertson Family podcast that the patriarch of the clan had Alzheimer’sdisease. The statement on social media from Robertson’s daughter-in-law didn’tmentionhow he died.

“Thank you for the love and prayersofsomanywhose lives have been impacted by his life savedbygrace, hisbold faith, and by his desire to tell everyone who would listen the Good News ofJesus. We are grateful for his lifeon earth and will continue the legacy of love for Godand love forothers until we see him again,” Korie Robertson wrote.

Phil Robertson skyrocketed to fame in the early 2010s when the A&E network created areality show,presented like asitcom. It followedthe adventures of Robertson, his three sons —including Willie, who runs the family’sDuck Com-

PhilRobertson, the ‘Duck Dynasty’star whoturned his small duck calling interest in the sportsman’sparadise of northernLouisiana into abig business andconservativecultural phenomenon, died Sunday at age79.

mander company,their wives and a host of otherrelativesand friends

Phil Robertsonand his boys were immediatelyrecognizable by their long beardsand their conservative, Christian andfamily-oriented beliefs.

Thatgot Robertson into trouble, too. He tolda magazinereporter in 2013 that gay people are sinners

and African Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws

A&E suspendedhim from “Duck Dynasty” but reversedcourse in a fewweeks after abacklashthat included Sarah Palin.

At thetime, Robertson’s family called hiscommentscoarse, but said his beliefs were groundedin theBible andhe“is aGodly man.”

BY DEEPTI HAJELA and CEDAR ATTANASIO Associated Press

NEW YORK FormerU.S.

Rep. Charles Rangel, of New York, an outspoken, gravelvoiced Harlem Democrat who spent nearly ﬁve decades on Capitol Hill and was afounding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, died Monday at age 94. His family con-

ﬁrmed the death in a statement provided by City College of New York spokesperson Michelle Stent. He died at ahospitalinNew York, Stent said.

Aveteran of theKorean War, he defeated legendary Harlem politician Adam Clayton Powell in 1970 to start his congressional ca-

reer.During the next 40-plus years, he becamealegend himself as dean of theNew York congressional delegation and, in 2007,the ﬁrst African American to chair the powerful Ways andMeans Committee. He stepped down fromthatcommittee amid an ethics cloud, and the House censuredhim in 2010.

Buthe continued to serve in Congress untilhis retirement in 2017 Rangelwas the last surviving memberof the Gang of Four —African American political figures who wielded great power in New York City and state politics. The others were David Dinkins, New York City’s ﬁrst Blackmayor;PercySutton, who was Manhattan Bor-

‘DuckDynasty’patriarch Phil Robertsondiesat79

They also said that “as afamily,we cannot imagine the show going forward without our patriarch at the helm.”

Robertson was born in north Louisiana andspent his life in the woods and lakes that makeupthe region called Sportsman’sParadise.

Robertson played football at Louisiana Tech andtaught school. He also loved to hunt and created aduck call in the early 1970s that he said replicated the exact sound of aduck.

Thecalls were thecenterpiece of theDuckCommander business Robertsonwould grow into amultimillion-dollarenterprise before A&E came calling.

The family just didn’tsell outdoor andhunting gear,but alifestyle.

“The Robertsons face everything from beavers to business deals in theirown special way —with a twist of downhome practicality anda sharpsense of humor,”A&E wrote in itspromotionfor “Duck Dynasty.”

Appreciations forRobertson appeared on social media shortly after this death was announced, largely fromconservative politicians

Republican Sen. TedCruz, of Texas, wrote on X, “The great

Rangel dies at 94

ough president;and Basil Paterson,a deputy mayorand New York secretaryofstate.

“Charlie was atrue activist —we’vemarched together, been arrested together and painted crack houses together,” the Rev.AlSharpton, leader of theNational Action Network,saidina statement, noting thathemet Rangelas ateenager HouseDemocraticLeader Hakeem Jeffries of New York issuedastatementcallingRangel“apatriot, hero statesman, leader,trailblazer,change agentand champion for justicewho made his beloved Harlem,the City of New York and the United States of America abetter place for all.”

Few could forget Rangel after hearing him talk. His distinctive gravel-toned voice and wrysense of hu-

mor wereamemorable mix.

That voice —one of the most liberal in the House —was loudestinopposition to the IraqWar,which he brandeda“death tax”on poor people and minorities. In 2004, he triedtoend the war by offeringa bill to restart the militaryservicedraft. Republicans calledhis bluff and brought the bill to avote.

Even Rangelvoted against it

Ayear later,Rangel’s ﬁght over the war became bitterly personal with then-Vice President Dick Cheney Rangelsaid Cheney,who has ahistory of heart trouble, might be toosick to perform his job.

“I would like to believe he’s sick rather than just mean and evil,” Rangel said. After several such verbal jabs, Cheney hit back, saying Rangel was “losing it.”

#PhilRobertson passed today.He loved Jesus &hewas utterlyfearless. One of my fondest memories was duck hunting withPhil— he wasthe best shot Ievermet. And, in 2016, he recorded this amazing commercial for me. Rest in peace, my friend.”

“Saddened to hear of the passing of Phil Robertson —aman of deep faith, bold conviction, andunwavering love for his family,” wrote BenCarson, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, also on X. “I’ll never forget the timeI spent with Phil and his wonderful family at their homestead in West Monroe,LA. We rodethrough theswamp stopping at his favoriteduckblinds before being welcomed by Miss Kay witha warm, home-cooked meal, surrounded by their extended family and close friends.”

A&E shared theirown tribute to the “Duck Dynasty” Xaccount, writing: “Weare saddened to hear of thepassing of Phil Robertson,a hunting industry pioneer and the patriarch of the beloved Robertson family.Our thoughts are with them during this difﬁcult time. We extend our deepest condolences andrespect theirprivacy as they grieve.”

By The Associated Press

FRANKFURT,Germany— AGermancourt on Monday convicted four former Volkswagenmanagersoffraud and gave two of them prison sentences fortheir part in the manipulation of emissions controls, almost adecade after the scandal erupted over the company’srigging of diesel-engine vehicles. The former head of diesel development wassentenced to four and ahalf years in prison, andthe head of drive trainelectronicsto twoyears and seven months by the court in Braunschweig, German news agency dpa reported. Twoothers receivedsuspended sentences of 15 months and10 months. The scandal began in September 2015 whenthe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued anotice of violation. saying that the company had rigged engine control software that let the cars pass emissions tests while they emitted far more pollution in actual driving. The company has paid more than $33 billion in ﬁnes and compensation to vehicle owners. TwoVW managers received prison sentence in the U.S. The former head of the company’sAudidivision, Rupert Stadler, was given a suspended sentence of 21 months and a ﬁne of $1.25 million. Thesentence is still subject to appeal.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO MATT ROURKE

Rangel

JanRisher

LOUISIANA AT LARGE

More than RaisingCane’s chicken

Since October,I’ve documented adifferent Louisiana adventure every week. Friends and co-workers often pitch ideas —and I’m alwaysgrateful.

But when fellow writer Lauren Cheramie told me that Raising Cane’sGolden Birthday contest winners were visiting Baton Rouge and suggestIjoin their ride-along, Iwas skeptical.

“Really?” Isaid. “They’re coming to Baton Rouge, and they’re going to do what?”

Which is how,afew weeks ago, Ifound myself heading downtown to the company’sBaton Rouge Support Ofﬁce to meet thewinners,who turned out to be Rebeccaand Todd Hayes, of West Chester,Ohio

With aphotographer and videographer in tow,Erin Credo, with the Cane’smarketingdepartment, led us on a“tour” of the ofﬁces. We passed screens showing live shots from Cane’slocations worldwide and got aglimpse of the company’senthusiastic culture in the marketing department. Credo shared details like when employees have worked at Cane’sfor ayear,they getahard hat, “reminiscent of when Todd (Graves),our founder,was aboilermaker.”

“When you’ve been here for ﬁve years, you get asockeye salmon,” Credo said. “When you’ve been here for 10 years, you get acrystal dog.”

Then, we went into ameeting roomtochat. Rebecca Hayes sat to my immediate right, and the ﬁrst thing Inoticed was that she was wearing achunky silver necklace with aheart charm engravedwith the word “Hunter.” Something right then andthere told me the piece of jewelry played asigniﬁcant role in astory that went far beyond Cane’s. We began to chat. She quietly explained that she had entered the contest on awhim.

“I was shocked when they called and said Iwas the fourth place winner,which was atrip to Baton Rouge to see the headquarters,”she said.

At ﬁrst, she thought it was a scam but was eventually convinced it was real.

“I have ﬁve kids, um, four that are living,” she said. “My,myson passedaway last year.Wehave two older kids out of the house and on their own, and then Ihave a26-year-old that’sinmed school, starting her third-year rotations.” She added that their youngest daughter is graduatinghigh school this year Rebecca Hayes’ only request for the trip to Baton Rouge was to meet Cane III, Graves’dog

“The reason Iknow about Cane I, II and III is several years ago, my son who passed away,and my youngest daughter and Iwere in Cane’s,” she said. “Wehappened to go inside that day and were reading the walls and they had thisstory.Wehave four dogs. We love dogs —sothat has aspecial place to me too.”

We were quiet for aminute. The atmosphere felt like she wanted to talk more abouther son, so Iasked about her necklace.

“Yes, Hunter is my son’sname,” she said. “He just made people laugh. He had agreat heart,and we miss him alot. He would’ve had ablast here. He loved Cane’s. Iwould buy the sauce so that we couldhave it witheverything. He loved chicken quesadillas —so he’d have Cane’ssauce on chicken quesadillas.”

The couple said their trip to Baton Rouge was their ﬁrsttrip since their son’sdeath. They weren’tsure they wereup forit but knew they needed something light —silly even. As Isat withthem, Icouldn’t help but consider how we just

Band director takesnew role

Walker ends semi-retirementtoworkatSt. Thomas More

BY JOANNA BROWN Staff writer

OneofLafayette’smost lauded high school band directors is coming out of semi-retirement.

Scotty Walker is taking on anew role as band director at St.Thomas More Catholic High School, according to an announcement from the school on May 19. Walker retiredfrom teaching in 2023 after more than 30 years with theLafayette Par ish school system, most of which were spent as the band director at Lafayette High School.Inthat time, Walker’ssymphonic and marching bands werehonored in numerous state and national

competitions, played at Carnegie Hall and marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2018. The LHSMighty Lion Marching Band was the 17-time Grand Champion at the Louisiana Showcase of Marching Bands under Walker,and in 2011, it was named theClass AAA Grand National Champion by Bands of America in Indianapolis.

For his work in music education, Walker wasinducted into the Louisiana Music EducatorsHall of Fame in 2019. He received the Phi Beta Mu Louisiana Outstanding Bandmaster Award in 2002, 2009 and2019, andwas named the United WayHigh School Teacher of the Year in 2022.

Following his retirement from Lafayette High, Walker took a position as band teacher at Our Lady of Fatima School,arolethat

ZyDECO ZEAL

BY KEITH SPERA Staff writer

StephenWatson rantoAmerica. Thirty-one yearsago, he was a member of the University of Aberdeen’strack team in his native Scotland. Achance encounter led to an unsolicited athletic scholarship fromNicholls StateUniversity in Thibodaux So atage 19, Watson boarded a plane for the ﬁrst time to ﬂyfrom Glasgow to Washington, D.C., then New Orleans. He arrived in Thibodaux on Aug. 14, 1994.

With that, his life was set on an entirely different and unexpected course. It eventually made him not only anaturalized American citizen, buta caretakerofone of the greatest chapters in American history Since2017, Watson has servedas president andCEO of TheNational WWII Museum, one of New Orleans’ most prominentand popular attractions Over the next two weeks, the museumcelebrates its 25th anniversary Following Monday’sMemorial

TOP: Nathan Williams and theZydeco Cha Chas perform during theZydeco Extravaganza at Blackham Coliseum on Sundayin Lafayette. ABOVE: Attendees dancetothe musicof Jeffery Broussard andthe Creole Cowboys. LEFT: The drummer keeps thebeat forthe accordionist

Day commemoration, the American Spirit Awards on Thursday andFriday honor businessman “Boysie” Bollinger, World WarII veteran C. Paul Hilliard, and the museum’sfounding president and CEO emeritus, Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller At 6:30 a.m. June 6, aceremony marks the moment the D-Daylandings began 81 years ago. Apresentationonthe museum’smilestone 25th anniversary follows at 11 a.m Thatnight at the Orpheum Theater,the museum, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and historian John Monsky present “The Eyes of the World: From D-Dayto V-EDay,” amultimedia concert experience focused on the final months of the war

EvenasThe NationalWWII Museum looks back, its leadership —including itsScottish-born president and CEO —isfocused on the future.

“When Igot to the museumalmost23years ago, we had 150 World WarIIveteran volunteers,” Watsonrecalledrecently.“Nowwe have two.

“Here we are at the (museum’s) 25th anniversary,and we are quickly approaching the day whenthere will no longer be ﬁrstpersonsurvivors fromthe war. That meansthat our mission, our purpose, our responsibility,is even greater.We’re the storyteller now.”

STAFFPHOTOSByBRAD KEMP

Don’tlimit

badnursing homes

We have long voiced concerns over the quality of care provided by Louisiana’spolitically powerful nursing home industry.

Yetabill working its way through the Legislature would actuallyreduce theability of patients and their families to hold nursinghomes accountablefor some decisionsthat affect that care Senate Bill 134 by state Sen. ThomasPressly,RShreveport, would do so by expandingthe definition of health care in Louisianatoinclude administrative, staffing and custodialservices.Itwouldalsoredefine malpractice to include administrative duties, staffing and care performed in asupporting capacity

In effect, the changes wouldprevent plaintiffs from suing management companies for administrative negligence, aclaimthat has brought multimillion-dollar verdicts against nursing homes in recent years. Instead, the bill would limitoperators’legal exposure by forcing patients and their families to sue under Louisiana’sMedical Malpractice Act, which caps damages to $500,000 in total and limits them to $100,000 per individual provider.

Pressly’sbilllargelyreplicates ameasure that author Sen. Patrick McMath, R-Covington, pulled early in last year’slegislative process amidwidespread criticism from patient advocates. This timearound, though, the proposal appears tohave momentum. After passing 26-11 out ofthe Senate, it clearedthe House Committee on Health and Welfareunanimously,and will go before the fullHousesoon.

We urge House memberstothink carefully about the implications of makingthis change

Nursing homes in Louisiana rate poorlycompared to those in other states, with high ratesofpressure sores, concerns about overprescription of antipsychotic medications and major stafﬁng shortages.According to 2021 data from AARP,just 2.5%ofLouisiana’snursing home residents livedina top-performing facility,the lowest percentage in the nation. Theposter childfor irresponsible nursinghomeowners is Bob Dean, whose abhorrent management during an evacuation from Hurricane Ida allegedly led directly to ﬁve patientdeaths and indirectly to more.

The stories this paper shared from thattimewere horrific. Dean sent 843 of his elderly and infirm residents to awarehouse during the 2021 storm. Residents got little attention from staff,and urine and excrement accumulated in the facility, which did not have sufficient bathrooms. Some residents spent days in wheelchairs withoutbeing moved or receiving their medications.Many never recovered from the ordeal, enduring amputations, multiple surgeries and more.

Dean pleaded no contest to criminalcharges, and his nursing home company settled aclass-actionsuit that alleged administrative negligenceand otherfailures for $12.5million

And yet this bill —which critics havepointedly nicknamedthe “Bob DeanProtectionAct”—could well protect future bad actorsbymaking it harder to hold them responsible, when appropriate, for decisions that might notbestrictly medicalbut thatcan make all the difference between avulnerable person getting life-sustaining care, or not.

As we’ve learned the hard way,Louisiana’s nursing homeoperators could usemoreincentivetodoright by their patients. Not less.

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE AREOUR

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

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

TO SEND US A LETTER, SCANHERE

JudgeDonaldTrump by whohe is,not whoyou wish himtobe

On April 23, areader expressed the opinion that he truly believes that our current president “wants what is best for our country.” Failing to understand any rational basis for this bafﬂing statement,itinstead raised a number of questions in my mind. If this president truly loved theU.S. as claimed, then why is he wreaking such destructive havoc on our country’sinstitutions? Howcan reasonably intelligent people, regardless of political partymembership, ignore theinnumerable times this president has demeaned, and even completely disregarded, theConstitution on which our country was established?

How can any citizen paying attention to current events not be aware that this president has proven by his actionsthat he has absolutely no respect for our society’sdependence on the rule of law in order for it to function fairly and efﬁciently?

Furthermore, why did theauthor

Tort

The socialist arm of the Republican Party is hard at work, attempting to take away the rightsofLouisiana residentswith one of theirdevious practices tort reform.

Gov.Jeff Landry’sobservations are true:Tortreformdoesn’treduce insurancerates.Itnever has.Time and again, Republican-controlled legislatureshave eviscerated valuable freedoms of Louisianacitizens with tort reform’shollow promise: Insurance rateswill go down.

Look at Louisiana’shistory of tort reform. The assertion that auto insurance rateswill go down has never happened in light of numerous instances whereRepublican legislatures have “reformed” the tort system.

They’ve done away with strict liability,amended thedirect-action statute, instituted no-pay-no-play, limited recoveries and on and on, but still rates continue to climb along with insurance company proﬁts Republicans should focus on truthin advertising, passing laws regulating attorney ads that mislead about the money clients receive after attorney fees, medical bills and expenses.

of that opinion interpretthe widespread protestsbeing held by demonstrators as based on apersonal “hatred” of the president as opposed to apractical negative reaction to his policies which are causing lifethreatening harmtothem, their families and acquaintances? Given the vastnumber of times this president hasbroken his promises and contradicted himself in both words and actions, whyshould the American people trust him to sincerely care about our well-being?

Lastly,what does the author’s recommendation for patience and positive thinking achieve when the actions of the present administration are clearly eroding the mostly reliable framework of American rights to such aradical extent that our democratic system of governmentwill inevitably collapse around us?

SUE GISCLAIR Baton Rouge

During my ﬁrst couple of years in the classroom, there have been moments of joy, exhaustion and everything in between. But if there’s onething I’ve learned, it’sthat great teachersdon’t do this work alone. My guiding forcehas been Ashley Brown, amasterteacher at Lowery Middle School in Ascension Parish, who has been my mentor and cheerleader.Sinceday one, she made sure IknewIwasn’tinthis aloneand neverlet me forget my ‘why’ —that teacherschange livesbyshowing up for students everyday.She demonstratedhow the support one teacher givesanothercreates aripple effect thatimpacts everystudent who walks through ourdoors.

I’m not advocating lawyer advertisers’ First Amendment rights should be curtailed, but the current advertisersare failing to truthfully state the actual money clients place in pocket, allowing the inferences to be made thatclientsreceive $800,000 or $1 million or whatever large amount flashes acrossthe screens. We should support Sen. Patrick Connick’sbill making transparent the amount of money paid to insurance company’saffiliates and insurance and non-insurance holding companies. Sen. Connick’sproposedlegislation sheds light on theamount of money paid to an insurer’saffiliated corporation, especially when affiliated companies aresignificantly more profitable than the insurers and, in some instances, siphonoff so much money from the insurer thatitleads to the insurer’s liquidation. Contact your representative as well as your senator and tell them to vote against tort reform and its socialist agenda. Remember,corporations and insurers don’tvote.

PATRICK KEHOE Metairie

Teaching is as much about modeling as it is aboutinstruction. We model thinking, behavior and persistence for ourstudents —and in the same way,Mrs. Brown modeledexcellence for me so Icould learn ﬁrsthand best practices in the classroom. Her guidancehelpedmestrengthen my classroom practice, booststudents’ academicworkand build real connections.

One of the most meaningful lessons I’ve learned fromher is that great teaching is rooted in connection. Students aren’t amonolith; they each carry their ownstory,pace. She taught me howtomeeteach student where theyare.Not only have Iseen my students’ conﬁdence grow,79% of themimprovedtheir writing scores this year

The best teachersdon’tjust teach content —theyinspire and empower That’sexactly whatMrs. Brown has done formeand whatIhope Iamdoing formystudents. As Icomplete my two-year commitment with TeachFor America andlook forward to more time in the classroom, Iwill carry forward Mrs. Brown’spatience and wisdom. Because of Mrs. Brown, Iamabetter teacher andperson. And, my students arebettertoo.

JERICHA

RICHARDS Baton Rouge

Legislatureshouldrememberthat gumbostartswithclean water

What willlawmakers do withtheir newfound cash?

When last week’sRevenueEstimating Conference announced that Louisiana’scoffers would have more in them than previously expected, you could imagine many in the Cvapitol rubbing their hands together in anticipation Thewindfall will give the Legislature another $130 million for this ﬁscal year and $139 million more for next “We’ll take anything we can get,” said Sen Glen Womack,R-Harrisonburg, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. Competition for the money is expected to be intense: Womack then trottedout thewell-worn Louisianatrope, saying there is a“gumbo” of things that still need money I’m not sure how Womack makes his gumbo, but Iampretty sure he can’tdoitwithout one key ingredient: water I’m also guessing that he doesn’t make it in Monterey,the tinycommunity in his district that has been suffering through months of water problems so bad that some residents ﬁled suit earlier this year against the Monterey Rural Water System andthe company that operates it,JCP Management. Womack was presidentand chairman of the board of JCP in 2019 when he announced his runfor Senate, according to media reports. His name, along with aJCP email address, is listed as a“Designated Operator” of the Monterey systeminthe state’s water system database.

Oh, the irony Residents in Monterey havecomplained of water that alternately smells like bleach or rotten eggs. It sometimes runs brownand residents have been told to boil their water more times than they can count. It would be one thing if Monterey were an outlier.But it’snot. TheConcordia Parish hamlet is just the latest in agrowing list of Louisiana communities plagued by failing water systems. Their problems mostly stem from the same issue: decaying infrastructure that has largely outlived its natural life. The repairsand upgrades aresoexpensive that some of these systems simply cannot afford to pay for them. It’snot just small water systems, either.Baton Rouge, Shreveport and

Once loyal Chicagoans got over the double shock of hearing thatalocal native, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, has been named the 267th pope, some critically important, locally familiar questions came up: Which parish is he from? Sox fan or Cubs fan? And what bearing will his papacyhaveonthe GreatPizza Schism, under which the local deep-dish faithful have suffered the odium of thin-crust New Yorkers?

No problem. Pope Leo XIV, as he will be known, is very Chicago.

New Orleansare all dealing with ongoing challenges. Water problems usually makenews when there is acrisis, such as asaltwater wedge or an outage. Once the immediate problem is averted, the issue disappearsintothe background noise. The state’swater challenges don’t often getthe political attention given to AI data centers or making sure the TenCommandments are visible in schools. Butthey should. After all, it’shard to imagine highlypaid, highly-educated AI datacenter engineersmoving to aplace where they have to go to the local ﬁre station to getdistributed bottled water,ashas happened in several places around the state. Or that those same engineers would choose to puttheir kids in schools that might closebecause thewater running from the fountains was unsafe, as happened in Madison Parish, just a few miles from where theMeta data center is planned. That bringsmeback to the extra money. Noneofthe initial legislative commentsonhow to spend it mentioned water systems. Some legislators referred to “infrastructure,” but that could also include roads, bridges, drainage, sewer and ahost of other items.Manyofthose, Ishould add, are in desperateneed.

There are those who have noticed, though, andare working on the problem. Rep.Jerome “Zee” Zeringue, R-Hou-

we feel, many of us, that our history was hidden from us.

That would hardly be the ﬁrst time such history has been “hidden” in our country’s racially turbulent past.In this internet age, manyfamilies, includingmine, have uncovered mixedrace ancestry they did not knowabout.

He was born at Mercy Hospital in Chicago’sBronzevilleneighborhood, making him the ﬁrst American to ever be elected by the conclaveinthe church’s2,000-year history

He was an altar boy at St. Mary of the Assumption Church on theSouth Side next to suburban Dolton,graduated from Villanova Universityand Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982 and was ordainedasapriest for the Order of Saint Augustine. It also is worth noting that at least one researcher,The Historic New Orleans Collection’sJari C. Honora,a noted genealogist and historianwho has done research for the TV show “Finding Your Roots” with historian Henry Louis Gates Jr., says the pope is partially descended from Creole people of color,although familymemberssay theyhavenot identiﬁed as suchinrecent generations.

“It would be so fabulous to have someone who has some connection to our people, who give us therecognition we deserve,” Lolita Villavasso Cherrie, 79, aretired teacher,told the NewYork Times. “I hate to say it,but

AndCreoles are hardly new to theChicago region, considering how thecity’s ﬁrst non-Indian settler,trader Jean Baptiste PointduSable, was Haitian Creole.

Yet, PopeLeo has not had to go backinhistory to ﬁnd controversy

Before his election as pope, he shared social media postscriticizing President Donald Trumpand Vice President JD Vance for their immigration stance.

One now-famous post from Feb.3 referred to an article in the National Catholic Reporter titled “JD Vance is wrong:Jesusdoesn’task us to rank ourlovefor others.”

Whichbrings us back to thequestion of whyittook the Vatican so long to getaroundtoselecting an American pope.

Iunderstand how manywere concerned that an American pope would have atendency to dominate proceedings too much, whatever that might mean, although thepower of the pope is such that excessive dominance challenges the imagination.

But themore Ihave learned about Robert Prevost, themore Iamreminded of what people in alot of Chicago neighborhoods call a“reg’lar guy.”

That’sthe sort of jolly person the Cambridgedictionarydeﬁnes as “a normal manwho is liked and trusted.”

ma, thechair of the Water Sector Commission, has helped get a$100 million allocation into the budget passed by theHouse. That’sa bumpfrom $75 million last year

Another bill, this one by Marksville Republican Daryl Deshotel, would dedicatesome funds collected through atax on telecommunications to helping rural water systems such as Monterey’s. Neither of these stepsiscertain: The $100 million still must clear the Senate and the governor’sdesk. Deshotel’s bill has madeitout of the House Appropriations Committee, but has yet to be heard by thefull House. Itsfuture is not clear

These moves areagood start. But theneed is so much greater.The state got $750 million afew years ago to ﬁx water systems. Butwhen local providers applied for the aid, there were $2.2 billion in requests. Adding in local matches brought thetotal to about $5.5 billion in needed work.

In that light, ashare of ameasly $130 million may not seem like much.But given theexpanding scale of the problem, money spent now probably saves far more later

So, yes, there is a“gumbo” of needs. Butone of those is actual gumbo, cooked low and slow and chock full of chicken and sausage (notomato for me). Buttomake it, Louisianans need good water

Faimon A. Roberts III can be reached at froberts@theadvocate. com.

Pope Leo XIV sounds like aman who can be trusted,but he is also ﬁlling theshoes of apontiff who was bothwidely loved and widely viliﬁed for his perceived departure from traditional Catholic teaching on certain moral issues.

In carefully worded apostolic documents, PopeFrancis softened the church’sattitudes towarddivorced and remarried Catholics, same-sex couples and the validity of other faiths in God’seyes. These positions, along with his personal modesty and steadfast advocacy for the poor and immigrants, endeared him to political progressives theworld over but also inspired asigniﬁcant conservative backlash, bothwithin the church and without.

AmongFrancis’ mostvociferous critics were “traditionalist” American Catholics. Bishop Joseph Strickland, of Tyler,Texas, was something of a ﬁgurehead of the backlash, noted for his MAGA-inﬂected vitriol (heonce darkly alluded tothe Vatican’s “deep state”).Strickland was investigated and asked to resign. When he refused, he was removed by theVatican’sDicastery for Bishops, led by then-Cardinal Robert Prevost.

Leo is anew pope, but he will face ahost of old controversies. Some see him as Francis’ heir,while others see signs of doctrinal conservatism.Many will project their own political preoccupations on him, but his preoccupation will be with serving thenearly 1.4 billion Catholics around the world.

At themoment, Leo seems to have thesympathy of the world behind him. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Email Clarence Page at clarence47page@gmail.com.

PHILADELPHIA When Nature designed Kevin Bethel, it had apolice commissioner in mind. Physically, he ﬁlls his uniform with embodied authority.Temperamentally,heisphlegmatic, avirtue welcome in his ofﬁce in this city.Five decades ago, the commissioner wasaproblem

Will

Bethel, 61, rose from Philadelphia’sBlack community to become, in 2024, the top cop in the nation’sseventh-largest city.This wasnearly 60 years after Frank Rizzo —a6-foot-2-inch, 240-pound high school dropout and self-described “toughest cop in America” —was rising toward the police commissioner’sofﬁce, then twoterms in the mayor’sofﬁce. The 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles presaged urban unrest nationally and aPhiladelphia majority embraced Rizzo, whopromised, “I’m going to makeAttila the Hun look like af****t.” After alerting the media to a1970 raid on the Black Panther Party,his police strip-searched party members. The front page of the next morning’sPhiladelphia Daily News featured aphoto of anaked Black man One evening, hearing of ariot, Commissioner Rizzo leftablack-tie dinner,tucking anightstick into his cummerbund and saying “mymen, my army” were going to work.

“The department wasvery brutal,” Bethel says. The police ethos was “take no prisoners, ask no questions. You’re the biggest gang in the city; have at it.” The Great Migration of Southern African Americans to Northern cities came late to Philadelphia, as did police professionalization.

Today,Bethel’sforce is armed with computer guides to crime hotspots and drones that can be over acrimescene in twominutes. No aspect of American governance —not housing, not health care, not welfare, certainly not K-12 education has achieved successes as dramatic as policing has.

The beneﬁts have accrued disproportionately to communities with average incomes below the national median, below the national average of intact families (twoparents in the home), above-average unemployment, and below-average years of schooling. Because crime is often minorities preying on minorities, if youask whatresidents in those communities want regarding policing, the answer often will be: more. Hence the injustice, as well as the political lunacy of the “Defund the police” clamor that boomeranged on the leftfrom which it emanated.

Police have often felt as if they are bailing oceans with thimbles. Forty-three years ago, however, they got someassistance from academia. In 1982, social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling published in the Atlantic their essay on “broken windows” and crime.

Broken windows, if not repaired, will, they said, proliferate. Abandoned cars, litter-strewnvacant lots, public urination: Quality-of-life offenses produce amenacing sense of spreading disorder.This atomizes communities, dissolving the glue of mutual regard and obligations of civility.People stay indoors, surrendering public spaces to marauders. The urban doom loop accelerates. Sophisticated scientificresearch has confirmed what grandmaknew (about exercise, rest and nutrition). Wilson and Kelling confirmed what did not look like common sense until they articulated it concerning the social incubation of crime. Bethel says “broken windowspolicing” works only if employed by officers whopractice the subtle craft of police work: by not making their attention to obnoxious behaviors obnoxious.

“Overpolicing” —“going after everything” can, Bethel warns, “boil the city.” The key to what he calls “resetting norms” is the elusive, crucial ingredient in all of life: judgment.

It is, Bethel says with intense terseness, “not normal”for children leaving school to see “someone sticking aneedle in his arm” or forpeople to come out on their porch “and see someone defecating on their lawn.” He meanssuch things should not be normal. It is, however,normal in the Kensington neighborhood, with its notorious open-air drug market.

The invention of automobiles gave criminals mobility,and the interstate highway system has exacerbated Bethel’sproblems: I-95, anorth-south drug trafﬁcking corridor,passes not farfrom Kensington, bringing customers and product to what has been called “the Walmart of heroin.” And of even worse drugs, such as xylazine, ahorse tranquilizer that produces necrotizing wounds: ﬂesh-eating bacterial infections. (See Charles Fain Lehman in the Manhattan Institute’swinter 2025 City Journal.)

Bethel is authorized to have 1,200 moreofﬁcers than the 6,300 he has to police 142 square miles. Recruiting people to cope with Kensington is a challenge.

In the mid-1890s, the well-publicized midnight rambles of New York’s36-year-old police commissioner,Theodore Roosevelt, fueled his political ascent. Frank Rizzo, too, used publicity to propel himself into politics. Bethel, knowing that crime cannot be eliminated, only contained, likes the job he has. There it is: judgment.

Email George Will at georgewill@washpost.com.

George

STAFF FILEPHOTO By IANMCNULTy

Having clean water is an important part of anygumbo recipe.

Clarence Page

Faimon Roberts

BAND

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Alife-changing opportunity

Watson, who turned 50 on the same day this month his daughter graduated from high school, still sports traces of aScottish accent. His heritage sometimes comes into playunexpectedly,aswhen Better Than Ezra singer/guitaristKevin Grifﬁn called him onstage at arecent leadership conference to sing Scottish duo the Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).”

“That,” Watson said of his public singing debut,“wasa one-time experience.”

HisScottish roots connect to World WarII. His grandfather served in the RoyalAir Force, training pilots in what is now Zimbabwe.

“It was atransformative and complicated timefor him,” Watson said. “Here was akid from rural Scotland who’dprobably never been more than 50 miles away from home. Eighteen months later,he’sacertiﬁed instructor ﬂying aircraft in Africa.”

As ateenager,Watson visited Normandy’sD-Day beaches, but his primary focus was running. In his senior year of high school, he was the Scottish national 5K champion

He continuedrunning at the University of Aberdeen. On the lastday of his ﬁrstsemester,hebumped into Drew Sharkey,afellow runner who had just accepted atransAtlantic track scholarship to Nicholls State. Watson wished him well.

Twomonths later,aPriority Mail envelope arrived at his dorm. Inside was aNicholls State scholarship offer and anote —which Watson still has —instructing him to be near the dorm lobby phoneat 7a.m.

On the line were theNicholls track coach and Sharkey, who had threatenedtoleave Thibodaux unless afew fellow Scotsmen joined him there. Hence the surprise scholarship for Watson.

“It was just one of the moments where you’re like,‘If Idon’ttake this opportunity, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.’ And boy,what alife-changer.”

His Thibodaux welcome was warm in more ways than one. The people were kind, but the south Louisiana summertime wasn’t. The Scots are not swamp people.

“I had never experienced heat and humidityinmylife,” Watson said. “I would say it was a‘transitional period’for the ﬁrst few months.

“But pretty early on, Icommitted to stay and ﬁnish my degree. After afew years, I decided, ‘I don’twant to go back. This is home, and this is where Iwant to be.’ Nicholls is aspecial place. Ihad agreat experience there as arunner,agreat experience academically.”

He earned abachelor’sdegree in marketing, thenan

MBA.Hespent four years working in membership and development at NewOrleans public radio station WWNO 89.9 FM. In 2002, he becamemembership coordinator at what was then theNational D-Day Museum, which had opened two years earlier “It felt like acalling,” he said. “There wassomething drawing me to itsmission.

I’m not ascholar,I’m nota historian. ButI’ve always had akeen interestinWorld War II, always had thefamily connection.”

Museum memberships areoften purchasedtosave money on admissions. But Watson quickly realized “we hada causeand amission that was relevant in every corner of this country.Wehad to think of membership not in the transactionalsense,but in themission andcausesense.”

The retooled approach was wildly successful. In 18 months,D-Day Museum membership rocketed from 3,000to60,000. Most of those new members were outside Louisiana

In the wakeofHurricane Katrina,membership dues helped keep the museum afloat. “Had it notbeen for that membership base,”Watsonsaid, “I don’tknow that we would have madeit.”

Fillingbig shoes?

The museum was the brainchild of University of New Orleanshistorian andauthor Stephen Ambrose and his friend and colleague Nick Mueller.Mueller becamethe driving force following Ambrose’s death in 2002.

After Muellerretired in 2017, Watson, who had advanced to executive vice president and chief operating ofﬁcer,was promotedtoCEO and president.

“There is no WWIIMuseum without Nick Mueller —full stop,”Watson said. It was a privilege to work for him for 15 years…tohave agreat leader and mentorthat saw something in me and gave me opportunities

“Youdon’t ﬁll theshoes of Nick Mueller.You’vejust got to getyourown pair andget real comfortable in ’em.”

Watson overseesbudgets andbuildings andhosts dignitaries and donors, but also must be comfortable soliciting millions of dollars.

“I believe we’redoing something important. When youvalue whatyou’re doing, and youbelieve in it, and you alsobelieve that you can execute whatyou’re telling people, it provides youaquiet conﬁdence that what you’re asking for isgoing to have a positive impact.”

Resources“give usthe ability to make importantthings happen.”

The museum’s collections nowinclude300,000 artifacts and more than12,000 personal accounts of thewar.InAugust, the10millionth visitor passedthrough. Amultiyear,$400 million capitalcampaign expanded

the campus from oneexhibit hall to seven pavilions across 7acres,topped by the skylinealtering Bollinger Canopy of Peace. The afﬁliated Higgins Hotel &Conference Center opened in 2019.

The Liberation Pavilion, opened in 2023, fulﬁlled the original master plan from Mueller’stenure as CEO. Still, Watson said, “there’smore to do. Now we’re going back to the beginning and redoing a lot.”

The museum’soriginal, 25-year-old D-Day exhibits will soon get arefresh, as will “Beyond All Boundaries,” the 4-D movie narrated by Tom Hanks.With technology and multimedia, “you can’t wait 25 or 30 or 40 years to update them. It’samuch shorter cycle.We’llalways be working on something.”

Programs, including popular WorldWar II educational tours and cruises in Europe, are constantly expanding. An “education corridor” is beingdevelopedonMagazine Street. The new Peggy &Timber Floyd EducationPavilion will serve as a“support center” for themuseum’scollections and house aleadership training center Buildings recently donated by the Meraux Foundation will likely be used forstaffing and storage needs. “We’re still working through exactly what that will be,” Watson said, “because it literally just happened.”

Taking theoath

He knowsaswell as anyone that achieving something profound takes timeand effort. Becoming anaturalized American citizen was acomplicated, yearslong process that culminated in Watson acing the citizenship exam

“I completely overstudied forit, which my team would probably say is my general approach to many things. But there were nerves. It wasa high-pressure moment,” he said.

He and 50 other new citizens took the Oath of Allegiance at The National WWII MuseumonJuly3,2015. He realized his personalAmerican dream against abackdrop of American history on “one of thegreatestdaysofmy life,something Iwill always cherish.

“Going through that processasanadult,thinking about what it means to be a citizen andwhat this country stands for,was really meaningful.”

Beforethe museum opens in the morning, he sometimes walks through the exhibits alone, letting the stillness and silence amplifythe sacriﬁce those exhibits represent.

“It reminds you why we’re here, and what we’re doing,” he said.

“We’ve been blessed over the last 25 years to have great supporters. But the work will never be done.”

Email KeithSpera at kspera@theadvocate.com.

he will continue as STM band director.Heisalso serving as the executive director of the Louisiana Music EducatorsAssociation,and is theassociate director of the Lafayette ConcertBand. As Lafayette High’sband director,Walker said his goal was to build his students’ workethic and conﬁdence while helping them become excellent performers.

mance,” Walker said in 2019. “It’show we get to the end product, and not just the end product. We appreciate(theawards) andwe celebrate them, but it’snot what deﬁnesour program and our students.”

“For all our performances,it’sreallyabout the celebration of thework that goes into that perfor-

Email Joanna Brown at joanna.brown@ theadvocate.com.

RISHER

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never know someone else’s story.Ithought Iwas going on alighthearted adventure that turned out to be about something much bigger than expected. This wasn’tabout Cane’s; it was about parents grieving and trying to ﬁgure out how to put thepieces of their lives back together again.

As we walkedout of the ofﬁces, Rebecca Hayestoldmethattheir two older children were originally fosterchildren, whomthey adopted. The two middle children, including Hunter, were biological —and the youngest? They adopted

her from China. Iexplained that my husband and Ialsoadopted our younger daughter from China. Remarkably our daughtersare from the same city in China. We had taken separate journeys, at different times, but we had all been to this same faraway place.

Ournext stopwas the apartment where Graves lived when he started Cane’s— now restored to its 1996 glorywith huge desktop computers, the same bedspread, the same cereal boxes on top of the refrigerator and the same beer inside.

Ithought about all the wayswetry to hold onto the past—topeople, to moments,tothe ones

we’veloved and lost. Icamefor astory about fried chicken. Ileft with a story about love, lossand the strange and beautiful waysour paths cross. Andmaybe that’sthe real heartofany good adventure—not just where it takes you, but whoyou meet along the way

Email Jan Risheratjan risher@theadvocate.com.

PHOTO By GUSSTARK

Todd Graves, from left, Raising Cane’sfounder,and Cane III sitwithToddHayes and Rebecca Hayes, of West Chester,Ohio, winners of the Raising Cane’sGolden Birthday prizetrip to Baton Rouge.

STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

The National WWII Museum President and CEO Stephen Watson standsinfront of awall filledwith the faces of

SPORTS

No doubtabout it

BY REEDDARCEY Staff writer

If any doubt that LSU baseball had done enough to earn anational seed lingered into Monday,the NCAA selection committee put it to rest

ä Little Rock at LSU.

2P.M. FRIDAy,SECN

The Tigers, according tocommittee chair and Southeastern Louisiana athletic director JayArtigues, are clearly one of the country’s eight best teams. They simplyhave too many overall wins (43), too many Southeastern Conference wins (20) andtoo many high-level contributors to fall outside thatselect group.

“You lookattheir lineup,” Artigues said. “You look at their Friday-Saturday guys, whomight be thebest1-2 punch maybe in the country,when youtalk about both of those guys. So, they re a team that deﬁnitely,in my mind andthe committee’smind, was deserving of a top-eight seed.

“Where they fell in there, that’swhen you can really start splitting hairs. But Idon’tthink there’s aquestionthey’re deserving of atop-eight seed.”

LSU, the No. 6overall seed, is hosting Dallas Baptist, Rhode Island and Arkansas-Little Rock in the Baton Rouge regional. The team that advances through

thatgrouping will thenface either No. 11 seed Clemson or oneofits threeregional opponents —West Virginia, KentuckyorSouth Carolina Upstate —in abest-of-three NCAA super regional series.

Lastyear, theTigers had to ﬁght just to make the64-team tournament ﬁeld. This season, they earneda top-eight

seed without much suspense. LSU had —relatively comfortably— built arésumé beﬁtting of anational seed by thetime the NCAA selection committee unveiled itsbracket on Monday Coach Jay Johnson saidthought his team haddonesoevenbefore he took

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

LSU baseball earned the No.6 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and will host No.2 Dallas Baptist, No. 3Rhode Island and No. 4Little Rock starting this weekend at Alex Box Stadium LSU’s ﬁrst game in the Baton Rouge Regional will be against Little Rock at 2p.m.Friday.The game will be available to watch on SEC Network. Dallas Baptist and Rhode Island will square off at 6:30 p.m.Friday on ESPN+. The winnerofthe regionalwill face the winnerofthe Clemson regional which includes No. 1Clemson, No. 2 West Virginia, No. 3Kentucky and No. 4SCUpstate. With LSU earning the No. 6overall seed, they’ll get the chance to host asuper regional in Baton Rouge if they win their regional. This season marks the 28thtime that LSUhas hosted aregional, andthe ninth time it has earned the distinction since 2012. LSUhas also hosted 12 superregionals in its history.Ithas hosted seven super regionals since 2012 and last hosted one in 2023, taking down Kentucky twicetoadvance to Omaha, Nebraska, and eventually winits seventh national championship. The Tigers were oneofeight Southeastern Conference teams selected to host aregional. Texas, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Auburn, Ole Miss and Tennessee also earned host bids. Email Koki RileyatKoki.Riley@ theadvocate.com.

Going into Selection Monday there wasatleast some measure of doubt as to whether the LSU Tigers would get one of theeight golden tickets to be atop-eight national seed in the NCAA tournament. Not only did LSU manage that, being awarded theNo. 6national seed But the Tigers got about as favorable as path to Omaha, Nebraska and the College World Series that they could have asked for once the64team ﬁeld was announced How favorable? LSU’s ﬁrst opponent, the Little Rock Trojans, are 24-32 overall and comeinwith the worst RPI of any teaminthe

ﬁeld at No. 243. Little Rock, which ﬁnished eighth in the 10-team Ohio Valley Conference withan

8-16 leaguerecord,snagged the last berthinthe OVCtournament, got hot atthe right time and won thetrophy Good for theTrojans,who will be making just their second NCAA tournament appearance and first in 14 years. And they can claim to beone of the hottest teamsinthe country, having won five gamesinfour daysatthe OVC tourney to claim theleague’s automatic NCAA bid. Butheat of adifferent sort awaits when they deal with either KadeAndersonorAnthony Eyanson, whicheverace pitcher coach Jay Johnson decides to start. Or heatinthe form of Jared Jones or Derek Curiel’sbats. If this was the NCAA men’s basketball tournament,Little Rock would probably be aFirst Four team fighting foraNo. 16 seed to get toplay a regional No. 1. Overall, LSU’sregional has the highestcombined RPI(meaning worst) of any of the16NCAA regionals:341. LSUisNo. 10 in

RPI, Dallas BaptistNo. 20, Rhode Island No. 68 and Little Rock’s aforementioned 243. Even just counting the top three seeds in theregional (98), their RPI is higher than all but one regional top three (Auburn, 100)

The regional LSU’sispaired with doesn’texactly promote stomach-churning anxiety. Clemson is hosting as the No. 11 national seed, facing West Virginia, Kentucky and the artist known as SouthCarolina Upstate. Surprisingly,LSU has never played Clemson, afairly regular CWS participant, though the Tigers did host Kentucky in the 2023 Baton Rouge super regional en route to Omahaand their seventh national title. If the super does indeed end up being LSU and Clemson, what an unlikely but delicious appetizer tothe LSU-Clemson football season opener Aug. 30 at Clemson. There is along way to go to such amatchup, to be sure. Baseball being theunpredictable

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON LSU pitcher Kade Anderson, wholeads the nationwith 145 strikeouts, is abig reason the Tigers gota No.6 national seed

STAFF PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

LSU left fielder Derek Curiel, right, celebrates teammate Jared Jones after hitting aleadoffhome runagainst SoutheasternonApril 29 at Alex Box Stadium

Scott Rabalais

Former LSU QB, coach Amedee dies

BY SCOTT RABALAIS Staff writer

Lynn Amedee, who quarterbacked LSU in the early 1960s and went on to a lengthy football coaching career on the high school, college and professional levels, died May 20. He was 83. A native of Baton Rouge, Amedee started his football career at Istrouma High

School before embarking on a three-year career as an LSU quarterback from 1960-62. He won Southeastern Conference championships in football and baseball, as a pitcher, in 1961

After playing for the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League in 1963-64, Amedee began his coaching career at his high school alma mater Istrouma in 1965 where he coached offensive and defensive backs.

Amedee then became head coach at Baker High from 196769, and also had high school head coaching stints at Northeast, New

Iberia and Opelousas.

Amedee took his his ﬁrst collegiate coaching job at Northeast Louisiana in 1970. He then went to Tulane for two seasons in 1971-72 before joining the New Orleans Saints in 1973 as offensive backfield coach. He then spent a year coaching with the Birmingham Americans of the now defunct World Football League before returning to LSU in 1975 as quarterbacks coach through 1978.

Amedee, who worked one season as the UL offensive coordinator in 1982, also served as

LSU’s offensive coordinator in 1993-94.

Amedee was head coach at Tennessee Martin in 1980-81. He had assistant coaching staffs at a host of SEC schools: Vanderbilt, Texas A&M, Florida, Texas and Mississippi State.

Amedee is survived by his daughters, Rene Graphia and Lee Hattaway, four grandchildren, one great-grandchild and two brothers.

Visitation will be 9-11 a.m. June 3 at Resthaven Funeral Home, 11817 Jefferson Hwy in Baton Rouge.

Alcaraz andSwiatek off to good starts

Reigning French Open champs get straight-set wins

BY HOWARD FENDRICH

AP tennis writer

PARIS Iga Swiatek, who has struggled lately, and Carlos Alcaraz, who has not, got off to good starts in their French Open title defenses Monday, recording straight-set victories to reach the second round.

Swiatek was up ﬁrst in Court Philippe-Chatrier and defeated 42nd-ranked Rebecca Sramkova 6-3, 6-3. Swiatek compiled 25 winners and 17 unforced errors in the 1-hour, 24-minute contest.

Alcaraz needed only about a halfhour more than that for a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 win over Giulio Zeppieri, an Italian qualiﬁer who is ranked 310th. Alcaraz won all 14 of his service games, saving the three break points he faced, at Court Suzanne-Lenglen.

“It was really, really solid,” Alcaraz said. “Really proud about my start.”

Both Swiatek and Alcaraz sat in the Chatrier stands a day earlier to watch the farewell tribute to 14time champion Rafael Nadal and both active players wore the rustcolored T-shirts that read “Merci Rafa” distributed to spectators. Swiatek has often talked about her admiration for Nadal; Alcaraz is considered the 22-time Grand Slam champion’s heir apparent.

“For sure, there were tears,”

said Swiatek, who faces 2021 U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu next. “It was amazing ceremony, and I’m happy that Roland Garros did this for Rafa. I’m happy that also the whole tennis world had an opportunity to kind of come together and just thank him. He’s a GOAT, so I’m happy that I was there.”

Alcaraz is seeded No. 2 behind Jannik Sinner — who advanced Monday night with a 6-4, 6-3, 7-5 victory over 75th-ranked Arthur Rinderknech — and is coming off a clay-court title at the Italian Open a little more than a week ago. Alcaraz beat Sinner in the ﬁnal there.

Monday’s result gave Alcaraz 28 wins in his past 30 matches on red clay, including going 7 for 7 a year ago at Roland-Garros. One of the losses came against Novak Djokovic in the gold-medal match at last year’s Paris Olympics, held at the same site as the French Open. Swiatek has slipped to No. 5 in the rankings, her first time out of the top two spots in about three years. She hasn’t reached a final at any tournament since collecting her third consecutive championship — and fourth in five years in Paris in 2024.

The 23-year-old from Poland extended her French Open unbeaten streak to 22 matches and is trying

to become the ﬁrst woman with four trophies in a row at the tournament in the professional era, which began in 1968. Monica Seles and Justine Henin also won three straight titles at Roland-Garros. What else happened

Two highly seeded Americans who made career-best runs at the U.S. Open last September bowed out quickly in Paris: No. 4 Taylor Fritz, the runner-up to Sinner in New York, and No. 9 Emma Navarro, a semifinalist at Flushing Meadows. Fritz lost 7-5, 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 to 66th-ranked Daniel Altmaier of Germany The big-serving Fritz was broken five times and saw the end of his 15-match Grand Slam winning streak against opponents ranked outside the top 50. Navarro was eliminated 6-0, 6-1 in just 57 minutes by Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain. Bouzas Maneiro’s biggest win of her career also came in the first round at a Grand Slam tournament: She beat reigning champion Marketa Vondrousova in the first round of Wimbledon last year

Also on the way out Monday: Fourtime major champion Naomi Osaka, who was in tears after her three-set loss to No. 10 Paula Badosa.

Who is playing Tuesday?

The Day 3 schedule includes past major title winners Djokovic, Coco Gauff, Daniil Medvedev and Soﬁa Kenin, and runners-up such as Alexander Zverev and Jessica Pegula.

Chastain goes from worst to 1st to win Coca-Cola 600

BY STEVE REED

AP sportswriter

CONCORD, N.C. — Ross Chastain stood on top of his No. 1 Chevrolet in his white ﬁre suit and held a watermelon above his head as the crowd at the Charlotte Motor Speedway roared with delight in anticipation.

Then, with sense of ferocity, Chastain slammed it to the track, smashing it to pieces

Chastain began smashing watermelon as a way to uniquely honor his family’s legacy as eighthgeneration watermelon farmers

The tradition began after his ﬁrst NASCAR Cup Series race and has continued after every win as his own unique way to celebrate his strong ties to watermelon farming.

But this win was extra special, his ﬁrst at crown jewel event.

“This thing is fresh from Florida,” Chastain said with a laugh

“It just came up from our family farm Man, for the Florida watermelon industry, that’s your watermelons you’re getting right now, so y’all better go buy a dang watermelon to celebrate. I want to see videos of smashed watermelons flood the socials. I want to see it. Florida watermelons are in season.” Chastain passed two-time Daytona 500 winner William Byron with six laps left and won the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, capping a remarkable comeback and becoming the first driver to win the event after starting at the back of the field.

NASCAR said he’s the ﬁrst driver to win from an ofﬁcial starting position of last since Bobby Allison at the Richmond Fairgrounds in 1969.

William Byron won the first three stages and led 283 laps, but surrendered the lead to Chastain, who started in 40th place and led just eight laps in his ﬁrst NASCAR Cup Series victory of the year

It was a huge boost to Trackhouse Racing, and a bitter disappointment for Byron, the Charlotte native who had signed a four-year contract extension Friday with Hendrick Motorsports. Byron has ﬁnished in the top three in the last three Coca-Cola 600s without winning Chastain said his crew stayed up all night to build him another car after a crash in practice on Saturday

“To drive on that final run in the 600 and pass two cars that had been better than me all night, wow,” said Chastain, who celebrated by standing on his car and slamming a watermelon down on the track as has become his tradition following a victory “Holy cow! We just won the 600.”

Chastain said the plan was the ﬁx the original car after the wreck, but NASCAR intervened. It might have been a good thing they did.

“We thought we were going to have to ﬁx the primary and NASCAR said, no, there is something bent (so) go build another one,” Chastain said “That’s how we did that.”

Chastain’s crew chief, Phil Sur-

ASSOCIATED

Ross Chastain celebrates after winning a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday in Concord N.C.

gen, said it was “deﬂating” when a tire went down and Chastain crashed during practice because their original car had been running so well, finishing fastest among the ﬁeld in 10-, 15- and 20lap averages But he said more than 30 employees came into the nearby race shop to work on the car, with nearly a dozen staying until 2:30 a.m. to get it ready to race. The car they used was slated to be a backup car at the Nashville race, but didn’t have an engine and needed several other additions.

“This group of guys I have got is relentless and no doubt everybody was going to give it their best,” Surgen said. “Guys were at concerts and ballgames and dropped what they were doing to come in and help.”

Trackhouse Racing owner Jus-

WNBA star Clark to be sidelined with quad strain

INDIANAPOLIS Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark will be out at least two weeks with a left quad strain, the team announced Monday The Fever did not say when Clark suffered the injury. The team said further updates will be provided after she gets another evaluation. Clark had 18 points and 10 assists in a 90-88 loss to the New York Liberty on Saturday Clark is averaging 19.0 points, 9.3 assists and 6.0 rebounds this season.

“Obviously, she wants to play and, obviously everyone wants to see her play,” White said following Monday’s practice. “But for me, it’s about maintaining perspective. It’s making sure that we address this that doesn’t affect the long term, that we take care of it and don’t overpush, don’t overexert.”

Indy 500 runner-up Ericsson penalized

INDIANAPOLIS Indianapolis 500 runner-up Marcus Ericsson was penalized to the rear of the 33-car field along with Andretti Global teammate Kyle Kirkwood on Monday after their cars were found to have unapproved modifications in the post-race inspection that could have helped their aerodynamic efficiency Ericsson finished second to Alex Palou on Sunday when he was unable to make a winning pass in the closing laps. He now will be credited with a 31st-place finish while Kirkwood, who had finished sixth, has been relegated to 32nd. IndyCar said the modifications made by Andretti Global were to the Energy Management System covers provided by Dallara, the company that provides the chassis for the series. The rulebook states that those parts must be used as supplied.

Some fans sell free T-shirt honoring Nadal PARIS A day after the French Open honored Rafael Nadal, dozens of spectators began selling the claycolored “Merci Rafa” T-shirts handed out at Sunday’s tribute — with some listings reaching up to $540. The shirts, marked with the French phrase for “Thank You Rafa” and the date “25.05.2025,” were given to fans attending the ceremony on Court PhilippeChatrier to celebrate the 14-time French Open champion. Distributed in varying shades of clay, the T-shirts were part of a coordinated tribute. Fans were asked to wear them, creating a giant mosaic in the stands that spelled out “RG14,” a nod to Nadal’s 14 titles in Paris.

Florida trio out for NHL playoff game

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Sam Reinhart was ruled out by the Florida Panthers for Game 4 of the Eastern Conference ﬁnals on Monday, the second consecutive game he has missed since getting hurt earlier in the series against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Also out for Florida: Niko Mikkola, who scored two goals in Game 3, and A.J. Greer All are listed as day to day, coach Paul Maurice said.

Florida leads the series 3-0, with a chance to clinch on Monday If Carolina wins, Game 5 will be Wednesday in Raleigh, North Carolina. Reinhart left Thursday’s Game 2 in the ﬁrst period after a low hit by Carolina’s Sebastian Aho. The Panthers aren’t concerned at this point that it’ll be a long-term absence.

Cornell beats Maryland to win lacrosse championship

tin Marks called it a “master class” effort by the team. Byron left the track disappointed over his inability to maintain the lead.

“He was catching me and I was trying to defend and I was getting a little tight,” Byron said. “He got a run on me and was able to get to the bottom of the track off of two. It’s disappointing to lead that many laps.”

Byron became the first driver to sweep the first three stages at NASCAR’s longest race, but found himself in a battle with Denny Hamlin the final 100 laps. They exchanged lead a few times before both drivers pitted with 52 laps for one final fill up on gas. But Hamlin didn’t get enough fuel in his car and would have to pit again, falling out of contention. He would finish 16th.

FOXBOROUGH Mass CJ Kirst scored six goals, Ryan Goldstein added four and Cornell, the first NCAA lacrosse champion, ended a 48-year drought with a 13-10 win over Maryland on Monday for the Big Red’s fourth national championship.

Kirst scored the ﬁnal goal into an empty net with 50 seconds to go. It was his 82nd of the season, allowing the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer (247) to tie the single season record of 82.

“We knew if (No.) 15 got going we were going home with hardware and by god if he didn’t ﬁnd it and ﬁnd it in a big way,” said coach Connor Buczek, a former Big Red All-American. “He pulls the best out of everyone around him.”

This was Cornell’s first championship since 1977 when the Big Red defeated Johns Hopkins 16-8.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By THIBAULT CAMUS Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz reacts after winning a point against Italy’s Giulio Zeppieri during their first-round match of the French Open on Monday in Paris.

Amedee

PRESS PHOTO By MATT KELLEy

Vanderbilt draws No. 1 overall seed for NCAA tournament

BY ERIC OLSON AP sportswriter

OMAHA, Neb Vanderbilt, which gave up just three runs over three games in the Southeastern Conference Tournament, was awarded the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament on Monday and was among a record 13 teams from the conference to be selected to the 64team ﬁeld.

The tournament opens Friday with 16 double-elimination regionals. Winners advance to eight best-ofthree super regionals. Those winners move on to the College World Series in Omaha beginning June 13. Vanderbilt has won eight straight games and 13 of its past 16 to earn the No. 1 seed for the second time, and ﬁrst since 2007

“It’s amazing, it’s cool, it’s great, I love it,” shortstop Jonathan Vastine said. “The team was excited about it. After today that No. 1 seed kind of goes out the door because anything can happen.”

The Commodores, who play Wright State in the opener of the Nashville Regional, are in the tournament for the 19th straight time for the longest active streak.

“We understand we have a goal at the end of the year to get to the middle of the country,” pitcher JD Thompson said, referring to Omaha. “You can’t de-value anybody coming into a regional like this. It’s all good teams so you respect everybody If we play good baseball and keep the trend of what we’re doing right now, then

RABALAIS

Continued from page 1C

at No. 9, and Coastal Carolina at No. 8, both had arguments. But Clemson got the 10 seed and Coastal the 13. LSU’s starting pitching, its potentially lethal though at times hot and cold lineup, and defense make the Tigers a team that passes the critical eye test for a national champi-

LSU

Continued from page 1C

it to Hoover, Alabama, for the Southeastern Conference Tournament. There, he threw his top two pitchers on Friday in a quarterﬁnal game against Texas A&M in part because he was already imagining how he’d approach a regional at Alex Box Stadium. That decision hurt LSU’s chances of winning a semiﬁnal on Saturday

we have a good chance.”

The national seeds following Vanderbilt (42-16) are Texas (42-12), Arkansas (4313), Auburn (38-18), North Carolina (42-12), LSU (4314), Georgia (42-15) and Oregon State (41-12-1). Those eight teams would be in line to host super regionals if they win their regionals.

Seeds Nos. 9 through 16: Florida State (38-14), Ole Miss (40-19), Clemson (4416), Oregon (42-14), Coastal Carolina (48-11), Tennessee (43-16), UCLA (42-16) and Southern Mississippi (44-14).

The last four teams to get at-large bids, in alphabetical order, were Arizona State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Southern California.

The first four teams left out were Southeastern Louisiana Troy UConn and Virginia.

The SEC’s 13 teams in the tournament are two more than its record 11 that made it in 2024.

The Atlantic Coast Conference has nine teams in the ﬁeld followed by the Big 12 with eight and the Big Ten with four The American Athletic, Big West, Conference USA and Sun Belt all have two teams in the tournament.

First-year SEC member Texas, which opened 38-5 overall and 19-2 in conference play appeared to be a lock for the No. 1 seed before finishing 5-7 with a loss to Tennessee in its conference tournament opener Arkansas won 20 SEC regularseason games for the third straight year and set a program record with 110 homers. Auburn’s No. 4 national

onship contender Playing a regional and super regional at home is no guarantee LSU will get to Omaha. But not getting a national seed and likely having to play a super regional on the road would have stacked the odds high against the Tigers. Four times since 1999 LSU has played super regionals away and lost them all.

That won’t be the case in 2025. As long as the Tigers are alive, they will sleep

But it likely gave the Tigers all they needed to lock down a national seed: their 20th conference victory Only two SEC teams have collected more. “The SEC tournament is a little bit different than some of the other tournaments,” Artigues said. “A lot of those teams go into it knowing they’re in the tournament, or pretty sure they’re in a tournament, and they’re all playing for some of that seeding. “Winning that first game like they did, and getting to the next day, I thought they

seed ties the 2003 team for the highest in program history

Been there, done that Texas is in the tournament for a record 64th time. Miami, which lost six of its past seven games, is making its 50th appearance. Florida State will be a regional host for a Division I-record 37th time.

The longest active streaks behind Vanderbilt belong to Florida (17), LSU (13), Oklahoma State (12) and Dallas Baptist (11).

First timer

USC Upstate (36-23) is the only team that will be making its first appearance in the Division I tournament.

The Spartans had played in three straight Big South championship games before breaking through to beat Charleston Southern 14-2 Saturday to clinch the league’s automatic bid.

Home sweet home, finally Oregon State earned home ﬁeld for regionals and potentially super regionals as the No. 8 seed after having to play 35 of its 54 games away from Corvallis. The Beavers are 17-2 at home.

Hot Huskies

Northeastern (48-9) has the nation’s longest win streak at 27 games after winning the Coastal Athletic Association Tournament. The Huskies lead the nation in shutouts (17), win percentage (.842) and ERA (2.92), among other categories.

Losing, but winning

Two teams enter the tournament with losing re-

in their own beds, occupy their home dugout, ﬁeld the ball in the friendly and familiar conﬁnes of Alex Box Stadium.

That is, of course, until and unless LSU makes its annual intended goal of reaching the College World Series in a place Tiger fans have come to regard as Alex Box North.

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

did a great job most of the season being very, very consistent to put them in that position.”

LSU, in its illustrious program history, has won 11 of the 12 regionals it’s hosted as a national seed. Now, because Johnson’s Tigers earned their second topeight seed in four seasons, they can begin pursuing Alex Box’s 13th super regional.

That chase will start at 2 p.m. Friday against Little Rock (SEC Network, ESPN+).

Oklahoma eyes 5th straight national title at Women’s CWS

BY CLIFF BRUNT AP sportswriter

OKLAHOMA CITY Oklahoma could extend its record run of consecutive national titles to ﬁve at this year’s Women’s College World Series.

Patty Gasso’s secondseeded Sooners will face No. 7 seed Tennessee in their WCWS opener. Oklahoma beat Alabama on Saturday to win the Norman Super Regional.

Action in the eight-team double-elimination bracket begins Thursday at Devon Park. The ﬁnal two teams will play for the title in a best-of-three series starting June 4. Gasso, who will coach the United States at the 2028 Summer Olympics, has led the Sooners to eight national titles, including six of the past eight and seven of 10. This was Oklahoma’s ﬁrst season as a member of the Southeastern Conference.

cords.

Little Rock (24-32) won five games in four days to win the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, and its reward is a first-round game at LSU. The Trojans, at No. 8, became the lowest seed to win the conference tournament. They’re in NCAAs for the first time since 2011.

North Dakota State (2032) won the Summit League Tournament for its ﬁrst appearance since 2021 and will play Arkansas The Bison have the No. 1 nonconference strength of schedule, having gone 1-10 against teams that made the tournament.

In other opening-day matchups, third-seeded Florida will play No. 6 seed Texas, No. 9 seed UCLA meets No. 16 seed Oregon and No. 12 seed Texas Tech will face unseeded Mississippi.

Oklahoma will face Tennessee star pitcher Karlyn Pickens, who broke her NCAA record by throwing a 79.4 mph pitch during Saturday’s win over Nebraska. Pickens then shut out the Cornhuskers 1-0 on Sunday Nebraska’s loss means Oklahoma won’t be facing former Sooners pitcher Jordy Bahl, who transferred to her home-state Cornhuskers after being named the Most Outstanding Player of the 2023 World Series with Oklahoma. Although No. 1 over-

all seed Texas A&M was knocked out in regional play, the SEC has five teams in the field — Oklahoma, Tennessee, Florida, Texas and Ole Miss. Florida beat Georgia in three games to advance. The Gators won national titles in 2014 and 2015 and lost to Oklahoma in the semifinals last year Texas has reached the best-of-three championship series in two of the past three seasons, with both losses coming to Oklahoma. The Longhorns are also in their first season in the SEC. Texas Tech and Ole Miss are first-time qualifiers. Texas Tech beat host Florida State in a super regional. Pitcher NiJaree Canady last year’s USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, led Stanford to the national semifinals two straight years before transferring to Tech. She led the Red Raiders to their first Big 12 regularseason and tournament titles. Ole Miss is the only unseeded team remaining. The Rebels beat Arizona twice to win the Tucson Regional

add color to shaded areas in the late spring and early summer

Three hydrangea species staplesin La.gardens

Hydrangeas have long been astaple of Southern gardens, and it’snowonder why These beloved ﬂowers,with their unique clusters of delicateblooms, offer alate-spring and early-summer splashof color to shaded areas —something that’s not always easy to ﬁnd. Hydrangeas are deciduous shrubs. Like most shrubs, it’sbest to plant them in the fall.But you can appreciate theirbeautiful blooms right now —orsoon There are many species of hydrangeas out there, butin Louisiana, you’re most likely to encounter three. Each has its own unique characteristics, care requirements and bloom times.

Bigleafhydrangea

This is what most people think of at the mention of the word “hydrangea.” With large, rounded flower heads,which are technicallyknown as corymbs, this hydrangea is native to East Asia. It’ssometimes called French hydrangea, garden hydrangea and mophead hydrangea, and its Latin name is Hydrangea macrophylla. The bigleaf hydrangea can grow well in both acidicand alkaline conditions. For many cultivars, soilpHdetermines the color of blooms. Acidic soil yields shadesofblue, and alkaline soil prompts pinks and purples. White-flowering cultivars are available, too, and aren’tinfluenced by pH. Flowers typically emerge in May and last for afew weeks. This plant does best in full shade. Some sun in the morning is OK, but it definitely needs to be shadedduring the intense heat of the afternoon. Water regularly,especially during the intense heat of the summer

Most bigleafcultivarsreach 4to6feet tall and typically don’trequire much pruning

But if you have an established shrub that you feel has become unrulyorifyou need to remove damaged wood, be sure to prune immediately after ﬂowering ends in latesummer Don’tprune at other times of year,asthe bigleaf hydrangea blooms on old wood. This means it sets ﬂower budson the previous year’sgrowth. Newer bigleaf cultivars are being bred with heat resistance and color stability in mind Some evenrebloom throughout the growing season.

Oakleafhydrangea

Unlike the familiar bigleaf hydrangea, the oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) is native to the southeastern United States. In nature, it’s an understory shrub in forests that also can be found along high stream banks.

This hydrangea has afew things in common with the bigleaf hydrangea —likeits

HERE ARE7TIPSTOHAVE THEBESTLAWNTHISSUMMER

BY MARGARETDELANEY Staff writer

ill Afton often spends his days working with community members on how to get their lawns, vegetable gardens andfruit trees in healthy shape.

As ahorticulturistwho now works as thecounty agent, or agriculturaland natural resource agent, for St. Tammany Parish, he does presentationsatlibraries, garden clubs, social groupsand Master Gardener training to teach people about horticulture.

Here are his seven tips to have the best lawn in the neighborhood this summer Know thegrass Warm season grasses workbest in Louisiana’stemperate climate (with longsummers).

The four common types of grasses that cangrowthroughoutthe stateand grow well in Louisiana’s climate include: Centipede, St. Augustine, Bermuda and Zoysia grasses. Zoysiagrass is “the hot species”that is alittlemoredisease resistant and insect resistant, according to Afton

“Weneed to try to identify what youhaveout there, becausethen you can research information on howtoproperly take care of it,” Afton said. “There’safew different things for each different type.

Centipede andSt. Augustine

When taking asample for testing,get soil frommultiplesites in agrowing area and mix them togethertoformacomposite sample

grasses are the most common, and most people in south Louisiana have amixture of both growing in the same yard. If large trees or two-storyhouses cast large shadows over alawn, these grasses will be thebest bet to thrive. Bermuda and Zoysia, although fast-growing and ideal for the state’s climate, need full sun constantly

“If you’ve gotall day full sun in your lawn, Bermuda is areally easygrass to grow,” Afton said.

“It’s got areally fine texture to

it.Itlookslike agolfcourse-type grass.”

Test thesoil

Good grass has good roots. Good roots need good soil.

LSU AgCenter does soil testing, at $11 persoilsample plus shipping, in ordertoevaluate the properties of thesoil—looking at acidity and levels of phosphorus, potassium, calcium,magnesium, sodium,copper and zinc.

ä See MOWING, page 6C

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

AGCENTERPHOTO

0LIVIA McCLURE

Bigleaf hydrangeas

PHOTO By TOMKOSKE

By The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday,May 27, the 147th day of 2025. There are 218 days left in the year

Todayinhistory

On May 27, 1937, the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and MarinCounty,California, was opened to pedestrian trafﬁc(vehicles began crossing the next day).

On this date:

In 1941, the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck off France, killing over 2,000 German sailors.

In 1942, Doris “Dorie” Miller, acook aboard the USS West Virginia, became the ﬁrst African-American to receive the Navy Cross for displaying “extraordinary courage and disregard

MOWING

Continued from page5C

“Webasicallylearn how to fertilize your speciﬁclawn,” Afton said. “There are 16, arguably 17, nutrients that plants need to grow and develop properly.”

The ideal pH level for most grass lawns is between 6.0 and 7.0, slightly acidic to neutral. This pH range allows for optimal nutrient availabilityand absorption by the grass. Afton likes to grab soil samplesfrom different areas of the lawn, and then he mixes them into one soil sample test.

No rain,noproblem

If there’sno“substantial” rain for two to four weeks, it is important to waterthe lawn. When Louisiana gets heavy rainfall, the soil is loaded up withwater.Water will penetrate theground and bring nutrients to the soil in thegrass and itsroot system. Going without wateris stressful on any plant, according to Afton, because that limits the ability of nutrients to circulate through the plant. Acommon marker that alawn needs watering is wilting grass, or if the individualbladesofgrassare starting to roll in on itself.

Time self-irrigation just right

The best time to water the lawn is before dawn for 30 minutes once or twice a week.

“A lot of people will set their systems to come on 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon, every day,” Afton said. “The water is not going down that far,and the plant roots will get used to that and just grow in the top couple of inches.”

It’simportant to let the soil dry in between wateringso that the water percolates through the soil.

If you water the grasstoo much, or too often, it could have anegative effect on the rootsystem.

“Wedon’tever want to keep it wet,” Afton said. “Sometimes we have waterlog situations that can predispose plants to adisease Ihaven’t seen it alot in the past couple of years because it’sbeen on the dry side.”

Watering for 30 minutes and allowing the soil to dry out coaches the roots to

Continued from page5C

preference for shade and pruning requirements. But there are some important distinctions. For one, good drainage is crucial for the oakleaf hydrangea. Toomuch water will spell trouble for this plant, whichisparticularly susceptible to root rot. Oakleaf hydrangea ﬂowers appear abit earlier, starting in lateAprilin some parts of Louisiana. The foliage offers great red-and-orange fall color in northernparishes.

This species can reach well over 10 feet tall in perfect conditions —but in cultivation, it usually stays in the range of 4feet

for his own personal safety”during Japan’sattack on Pearl Harbor In 1968, the U.S.Supreme Court, in United States v. O’Brien,upheldthe conviction of David O’Brien for destroying his draft card outsideaBoston courthouse, ruling that theact was not protected byfreedomof speech. In 1993, abomb set by the Sicilian maﬁaexploded outsidethe Ufﬁzi Gallery in Florence, Italy; 5people were killed and 48 wounded, anddozens of centuriesold paintingswere destroyed or damaged In 1998, Michael Fortier, the government’sstar witness in theOklahoma City bombing case,was sentenced to 12 years in prison after apologizingfor not

warning anyone about the deadly plot.(Fortier was freed in January 2006.) In 2006, amagnitude 6.4 earthquake struck theIndonesian island of Java near the cityofYogyakarta, killing morethan 5,700 people. Today’sBirthdays: ActorLee Meriwether is 90. Actor BruceWeitz is 82. Musician BruceCockburnis80. Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater is 75. Football Hall of Famer Jackie Slater is 71. Actor Richard Schiffis70. Singer Siouxsie Sioux is 68. Musician Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House) is 67. Actor PeriGilpin is 64. Comedian AdamCarolla is 61. Actor Todd Bridges is 60. Baseball Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell is 57. Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas is 57. ActorPaul Bettany is 54.

Aworker steadies their mowerastheywork to mowthe grass in the medianofAirline Highwaynear the Fairgrounds on April 8inBaton Rouge.

grow as expansive as they can in search of water

Mowing thelawn

Mowing the lawn at the correct height is,byfar, one of thebest management strategies that can be implemented in alawn maintenanceroutine.Not onlyisitcost effective, but mowing at thecorrect height will help to reduce theamountofpesticides needed to maintain abeautiful lawn, according to the LSU AgCenter When alawn is mowed too short, often called scalping, it creates an open canopy to thesoil layer beneaththe lawn. When sunlight can easily reach this soillayer, weed seeds have agreater chance of germinating.This is because most seeds of weeds that occur in our lawn needsunlight to germinate.

“It’salso not agood idea to mow alawn after you’ve watered,”Afton said Instead, it’sbesttowait until thedew dries in the morning before mowing. It may be inconvenient, as early morningisthe coolest timetomow,but early morning lawn mowing may not be thebest for thehealthofthe lawn.

Sharpenthe blades

The most important thing to have, by way of equipment,issharp bladesonthe lawn mower

“You gottomake sure you’re providing anice, clean cut,”Afton said.

“Those dull blades kind of tear at theblades of grass, and you’re left with anasty wound.The grass loses alot of water that way.”

Generally speaking, peopleshould mowtheir lawns

to 8feet. Its cone-shaped, bright white ﬂower clusters make astatement in shaded areas. They contrast nicely with theshrub’slarge, lobed, textured,green leaves that resemble oak tree foliage.

Paniclehydrangea

The panicle hydrangea (Hydrangeapaniculata),a nativetoAsia, is quitedifferent from the bigleaf and oakleaf species. It craves sun —although it can still beneﬁtfrom some afternoon shade in ourclimate. It’smuch larger and grows more vigorously. Older cultivars can reach 15 feet tall and higher;neweronesgrowto between 3feet and 8feet tall in the Deep South The panicle hydrangea also bloomslater,with the

Dear Heloise: My “resourceful mom” has nothing on my Texas friends who make“Pols.” They save their leftovers and put it in the freezer.When the tubofleftovers is full, they heat it all together and serve it as “Pols.” Pols spelled backward is “slop!” —Tom, in Santa Ana, California Beef fatfor birds

so thata third of the grass plant is cut off each timefor mostofthe growing season (between March and July in Louisiana) —that’s probably once aweek, according to Afton

However, if thestate gets heavier rain, especially in the summertime, the grass will grow alot faster,and mowing twice aweek follows that one-third rule

Additionally,eachgrass type has an optimal length of growth:

n St. Augustine grass should be mowed at 2to3 inches.

n Centipede grass should be mowed at 1to2inches.

n Bermuda grass should be mowed at ½to¾inches.

n Zoysiagrass should be mowed at 1½ to 3inches.

Unwelcomevisitors

Insectsand diseasescan greatly damage alawn. One of the more common diseases is brown patch, which strikes during mild weather and occursprimarily on St. Augustine grass in late March or April.

If the lawn greens up normally and thenbegins to have rapidly enlarging areas of brown grass, it is likely brown patch. Active brown patch can be treated when it occurs with afungicide, according to the LSU Ag Center

Ahealthy lawn is more resistant toweeds and pests, like chinch bugs in the summer.Italsowill recover more quicklyfromstress. Fertilizing andmowing regularlyare essentialelements to keep grass healthy Email Margaret DeLaney at margaret.delaney@ theadvocate.com.

first flowersusually emerging in late May to June. The cone-shaped flower heads or panicles,onmany cultivars are initially greenish and later turnwhiteand thenpinkish. The blooms can stayonthe plant for months as they cycle through the different colors. This plant should be watered regularly during establishment and times of excessive heat and drought. Butaslong as you don’t overwater,this species is less particular about watering than others. While other hydrangea species bloom on old wood, thepanicle hydrangea sets flowers on new wood. That meanspruning can be done in latewinter or early spring. Pruning helps keep these robust plants’ size and shape in check.

Hints from Heloise

Dear Heloise: Please tell your readers that beef fat is not agood substitute for feeding birds suet, which is rendered beef fat from around the organs. Beef fat can affect thebirds’ feathers and waterproofing. Youcan make your

RODRIGUE

Continuedfrom page5C

of resilience and creativityofthe world-renowned Cajunartist whotoldthe story of his exiled ancestors through brushstrokes.

Lots of interviews

“BLUE” alsooffers arich, in-depth look at George Rodrigue’slifeand work through new,candid interviews withhis family,curators, critics, collectors and suchnotable admirersas chef/restaurateur Emeril Lagasse, former New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, political strategistJames Carville, former New Orleans mayor and President of the National Urban League MarcMorial, artist James Michalopoulos. Along with Jacques Rodrigue andhis brother,Andre, the ﬁlm alsofeatures their mother —George Rodrigue’s ﬁrstwife —Veronica HidalgoRedman; and the artist’ssecond wife, Wendy Rodrigue-Magnus.

Viewerswill see rare footage, unseen for nearly 50 years, offering an up-close look into Rodrigue’s reﬂections on hisroots and artistic inspirations.

“I hope audiences see‘BLUE’asatributetoGeorge Rodrigue’s enduring impact on art and culture in Louisianaand around the world,” O’Malley said. “His story as an artistislayered and deeply inspiring. From his majesticoak trees andevocative Cajun portraitstothe iconic Blue Dog, his masterworksweaveanextraordinary narrativeand serve as apowerful testament to his perseverance and the deep impact he andhis art have had on so many lives.”

ownsuetbycooking it or buying it very cheaply from abutcher. Commercial blocksare OK but are notofgreat quality And never give them bacon grease, which has preservatives in it. Suet can be offered to birds year-round, but be careful that it doesn’tmelt! —Gail Schirm, via email

Draining waterheatertank

Dear Heloise: Draining ahot water tank can be dangerous. One way to do it safely is to turn off the breaker to the water heater,then take along shower.When the water starts to feel lukewarm, you know that all the water in the tank is

PROVIDED PHOTOFROMTHE GEORGE GODFREy RODRIGUEJR. FAMILyTRUST GeorgeRodrigue’s1991 painting,‘Loup Garou’

Walking Back to New Orleans,” ‘A Tribute to Toussaint” and“Irma Thomas: The Soul Queen of New Orleans.”

Howitstarted

The artist often told the story of his introduction to art through the gift of a paint-by-numbers set when he wasconﬁned to bed with polio in the third grade.But, he opted to forgo the numbers forthe back of thecanvas to create his own work.

He laterstudied artat the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the ArtCenterCollege of Design in Los Angeles, then returned hometo document the fading Cajun culture first through aseries depicting oak trees with mossladen limbs then moving on to paintings that showed Cajun people.

at asafe temperature to drain. —KarenCameron, in Post Falls, Idaho

Cemetery markers

Dear Heloise: Iwas told this hint from avet at an American Legion while purchasing amarker formy father’sgrave: Take acoffeecan, ﬁll it with cement, and place the marker in it to dry.When it’sdry,dig ahole large enough for the can and bury it at the grave. Idid this 30 years ago, and it is still in place. Unfortunately,there are those whowould steal markers if they’re not buried like this. —Linda SaenzTroiano,via email

Sendahinttoheloise@ heloise.com.

works as his 1971 piece, “The Aioli Dinner,” and “Jolie Blonde” in 1975.

Cajuns celebrated

“The moreI stayed in Los Angeles (for art school), the more Irealized how differentIwas,” George Rodrigue says in arestored 1970 interview in the ﬁlm. “Louisiana is different. The people aredifferent. Iwanted to paint my early childhood feeling. We had a different food,wehad different music. There was nobody to record thelast 200 years whywewere here.” He also wanted to depict his culture’sresilience in hardship.

“They (the Cajuns) had to go to live in theswamps, you know?” George Rodrigue said. “Theywere notallowed in NewOrleans. They were not allowed in the populated areas. This is what Iwant to show: thepain, thesuffering of all these people.”

In the1960s and1970s, critics in the art world dismissed or struggled to understand George Rodrigue’s paintings. Museums and galleries wouldn’t show his artwork.

“Herealized early on that you can’tlisten to what critics say as long as you’re painting what’sinyour heart and believe in the public,” JacquesRodrigue said. “He believedthe public would respond.”

“BLUE”isproduced by WLAE NewOrleans’ 6th Street Studios, in association with O’Malley Productions.

O’Malley,aNew Orleans native, and writer Jeannine O’Malley,are theforces behind O’Malley Productions, which also produced documentaries “Fats Domino—

“He was painting Cajun people before Chef Paul Prudhomme’sCajunrevival,” Jacques Rodrigue said. “This was when the Cajun culture really wasn’tathing to be celebrated. Youknow if you’d told my grandmother that she was Cajun, she may have slapped you, because the Cajuns were considered ignorant, uneducated and didn’tspeak proper Frenchand weren’taproper culture. But formydad’s generation, this wasathing to be celebrated.”

So Rodrigue celebrated through such evocative

Finally, theone-hour film explores theorigins of the Blue Dog, first painted in 1984 and inspired by the Loup-Garou —a“crazy werewolf dog” from Cajun lore —and was modeled after Rodrigue’sfamily canine, Tiffany What started as aghost story illustrationevolved into aglobal pop icon in the early 1990s, featured in presidentialportraits, high-profile ad campaigns for Absolut Vodka, Neiman Marcus, and Xerox, and acquired by such celebrity collectorsasSylvester Stallone and Whoopi Goldberg. For moreinformation, visit wlae.com/rodriguebluedogfilm

Email RobinMillerat romiller@theadvocate. com.

O’Malley

STAFF PHOTO By HILARySCHEINUK

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Voice youropinion, take astand and make adifference. Opportunity comes when you believe in and promote yourself. Dedicatemore time to home, family, health and love.

CANCER(June 21-July22) Review the details thoroughly before making a change.Refuse to let pressure tactics jeopardize your situation. Payattention to investments andlegal matters,and question the motives of others.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Listentoothers, but refrain from lettinganyone push you in onedirection or another. What you choosetodohas to comefrom theheart Apartnership that isn't in sync needs to be reevaluated.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Nothing will be as it appears.Question, dig deep and scrutinize your findings. Participating in something for the wrong reason will put you in avulnerable position.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Travel,education and communication will pay off. Talk to expertsandpeoplewithsharedinterests; the feedback will help point youinthe right direction.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Be careful what you wish for. Aggressive behavior, snap decisions and pressure tacticswill send the wrongmessage. Take your time, observe andlet thechips fall where they may. Time is on yourside.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) You've got the starsonyour side. Opportunitiesare apparent if you open your eyes and visualizewhatyou want to achieve. Refuse to sit back when you are best offenthusias-

tically pushing forward. surroundings, make amove andset agoal that excites you.

CAPRICORN(Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Youmay relish change, but it's best to weigh the pros and cons before you step into something iffy or costly. Temptationand emotions will steer you in the wrong direction. When doubtkicks in,take apass.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Jump into action and keep the momentum flowing. Push forward andfix up your surroundings.Make changes at home that support family funand romance or put you in yourcomfort zone.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Take amoment to rethink your journey. Don't act until you feel comfortable making achange. When inundated with toomuch information, you should start fact-checking and deliberating.Focus on your needs.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Dreambiganddo your best to make it areality.Set abudget,fine-tune your plans and gather support to ensure success. Letyour actions speak for you,and your dedicationwill encourage others to followyour lead.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Achange will give you theboost you require to get ahead.Approaching what you do best in auniquemanner will grab thespotlight Don't be shy; trust your instincts and focus on what matters.

FAMILY CIrCUS

For better or For WorSe

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

nea CroSSwordS

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS CurTiS

BY PHILLIP ALDER Bridge

Richard Cobden, a19th-century Englishpolitician,said,“Anewspapershould be the maximum of information and the minimum of comment.”

Ifyougetthemaximumofinformation at the bridge table anduse it wisely, you will make theminimum of errors.

First,though, let’s look at the auction. What should South bid on the second round?

He should rebid twohearts, guaranteeingatleast asix-card suit and 12-14 points,aminimum opening. Withonly five hearts, Southwould show asecond suit, bid no-trump, or raisespades(perhaps with only three).

Then North, knowing aboutaneightcard fit, raisestofour hearts.(Note that four spades by Northfails if East leads a low diamond and West shifts to the club jack.)

After West leads the club jack, what should South do?

First,heshould countlosers by looking at his 13 cards and taking dummy’s winnersintoaccount. He hasfour: one spade,two diamondsand one club.

Second, he counts winners. Here, he enjoys10:twospades,sixhearts,onediamond andone club. So, he can get home as long as he does notlosefour tricks.

To eliminate that spadeloser, declarer must establish his diamond winner.

Suppose South tries dummy’s club queen, captures East’s king with his ace, draws trumps, and leads adiamond. The defenders can win, cash aclub, and shift to spades,but South wins in his hand and plays another diamond. With the spade ace still in the dummy, he has 10 winners. ©2025 by NEA, Inc.,dist.ByAndrews McMeel Syndication

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

Previous answers:

InsTRucTIons: 1. Words must be of four or more letters. 2. Words that

today’s thought “Therefore allthings whatever youwould that men should do to you, do youeven so to them: for this is thelaw andthe prophets.” Matthew 7:12

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C. PiCKles