The Acadiana Advocate 06-19-2025 by The Advocate

Officials fear proposed Medicaid cuts

Senate leader says special session may be

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON State Senate President Cameron Henry said he’s worried Louisiana won’t be able to cover the losses should Congress ratchet back Medicaid spending the way the U.S. Senate Finance Committee has proposed for the

One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“If this bill takes effect immediately, we’ll absolutely come back into special session, no doubt about it,” Henry said during a video conference hosted Tuesday by the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana.

“What we do there would not be pleasant, but we’d have to do it,”

the Metairie Republican continued, adding that Louisiana couldn’t afford the estimated $4 billion the bill, if passed as written, would remove from the state’s treasury Henry said he phoned U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge and a member of the Senate Finance Committee, Monday night after the panel released its recommen-

dations for Medicaid and other provisions in the massive bill that includes much of President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda. They discussed the problems Louisiana could have covering the costs and discussed strategies about “how to move forward with the changes they want to make without devastating local hospitals, rural hospitals and so forth,” Henry said. The Senate’s language has “a bunch things in it that would have significant effects on Louisiana, not in a positive way,” Henry said. About 1.8 million people in Louisiana are covered by various Medicaid programs, which is roughly 40% of the state’s population,

‘WE’RE SAD TO GO’

Breaux’s Mart closes on deal to sell after seven decades

BY ADAM DAIGLE

Acadiana business editor

Nearly seven decades of grocery business on the north side of Lafayette came to an end Wednesday

The owners of Breaux’s Mart supermarket sold the business and the building at 2600 Moss St. to an LLC registered to Lyons Market for an undisclosed amount, land records show

The store will be rebranded as a Lyons Market and become the ﬁfth store for the southwest Louisiana-based, family-owned company

The move comes after the death of longtime owner Wallace Breaux in November 2021. In 1959, Breaux started the store — for years known as Breaux’s Minute Mart — along with his dad, Master “Mac” Breaux, who died in 1990. Three of Wallace Breaux’s sons,

Breaux’s Mart opened in 1959 and was known for years as Breaux’s Minute Mart.

Philip, Karl and Wally worked in the store. In recent months, Philip’s health has declined, Karl retired, and Wally, who is the store butcher, is also retiring, store manager Chase Breaux said.

ä See SAD, page 5A

Court rules against transgender rights

BY MARK SHERMAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a jolting setback to transgender rights.

The justices’ 6-3 decision in a case from Tennessee effectively protects from legal challenges many efforts by President Donald Trump’s Republican administration and state governments to roll back protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to Tennessee’s.

Louisiana passed a law in 2023 banning doctors from prescribing hormone therapy and puberty blockers to minors, and from administering gender-transition surgical procedures Five Louisiana transgender youths asked a judge to block the state’s ban after it went into effect in 2024.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a conservative majority that the law banning puberty blockers and hormone treatments for trans minors doesn’t violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.

“This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efﬁcacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving ﬁeld. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound,” Roberts wrote. “The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these

Ban on gender-affirming care for minors upheld ä See COURT, page 6A

Application for new Plaquemines LNG terminal withdrawn

Venture says it wants to focus on expansion of existing facility

BY BLAKE PATERSON Staff writer

Venture Global, the Virginia company that has spent billions of dollars building liqueﬁed natural gas export terminals across south Louisiana, has withdrawn its application with federal regulators for a new terminal in Plaquemines Parish, saying it wants to focus instead on expanding an existing facility

Venture Global had proposed building its Delta LNG terminal

on a 1,100-acre site near Mile 54 of the Mississippi River next to its Plaquemines LNG terminal. But in a letter sent to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week, the company said, “pursuing the Delta LNG project at this particular time would not be the best use of its corporate resources or the resources of the Commission’s staff.” Instead, Venture Global said it wants to focus on an $18 billion expansion of its Plaquemines LNG terminal, saying it will produce “approximately the same quantities of LNG” as the Delta LNG project, “but on a faster schedule.” Venture Global’s “investment is being shifted, not lost, and will remain in Louisiana,” Louisiana Eco-

nomic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois said in a statement.

“In fact, we believe this strategic decision will allow the capital to come to fruition even faster and drive economic development more quickly than originally anticipated,” Bourgeois said.

Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration and Gov Jeff Landry visited the Plaquemines LNG site in March to tout the expansion, which will make the facility the largest in North America.

“Louisiana is going to become a larger exporter of liqueﬁed natural gas than any nation on earth,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright

STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRETT DUKE State and federal officials tour the Venture Global Plaquemines LNG export facility on March 6.

STAFF PHOTOS By BRAD KEMP

Store manager Chase Breaux, left, and butcher Wally Breaux stand inside Breaux’s Mart supermarket on Monday

U.S. resumes visas for foreign students

WASHINGTON The U.S State Department said Wednesday it is restarting the suspended process for foreigners applying for student visas but all applicants will now be required to unlock their social media accounts for government review

The department said consular ofﬁcers will be on the lookout for posts and messages that could be deemed hostile to the United States, its government, culture, institutions or founding principles.

In a notice made public Wednesday the department said it had rescinded its May suspension of student visa processing but said new applicants who refuse to set their social media accounts to “public” and allow them to be reviewed may be rejected. It said a refusal to do so could be a sign they are trying to evade the requirement or hide their online activity

“Under new guidance, consular officers will conduct a comprehensive and thorough vetting of all student and exchange visitor applicants,” the department said in a statement Police: Couple kept boy in room for a decade

A Texas couple is accused of keeping their adopted son locked up and without access to a bathroom for a decade, police say

A 51-year-old man and his 52-year-old wife were arrested after ofﬁcers searched their El Paso home on June 11, following allegations that their 15-year-old son was being “neglected and conﬁned,” police said in a Monday news release.

The husband was, until recently, an employee of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, the El Paso Times reported In the wake of the allegations against him, he was “immediately placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an Internal Affairs investigation,” the sheriff’s office told the outlet. However, he resigned on Monday, the sheriff’s office told KFOX.

According to investigators, the boy said “he had been routinely locked in his bedroom for extended periods.” He was let out for dinner but “immediately” forced to return after eating, police said.

The boy was not allowed to use the restroom, so he went to the bathroom in his room, police said. He told investigators he had been treated like this for 10 years, police said.

The parents were arrested Friday on charges of unlawful restraint, and their bonds were set at $100,000 each, records show Both made bail and have been released.

Michigan bear has lid removed from its neck

Michigan wildlife experts ﬁnally were able to trap a black bear and remove a large lid that was stuck around his neck — for two years.

“It’s pretty incredible that the bear survived and was able to feed itself,” state bear specialist Cody Norton said Wednesday “The neck was scarred and missing hair, but the bear was in much better condition than we expected it to be.”

The bear ﬁrst turned up on a trail camera as a cub in 2023 in the northern Lower Peninsula. After that, the Department of Natural Resources was on the lookout for the elusive animal with a hard plastic lid around the neck, Norton said.

The bear appeared again on a camera in late May, still wearing the barrel lid, and the DNR responded by setting a cylindrical trap and safely luring him inside. The bear was immobilized with an injection and the lid was cut off in minutes on June 3. The bear eventually woke up and rambled away Norton said it’s not precisely known how the lid got stuck on the bear’s neck. Bear baiting is legal in Michigan, but the hole on a barrel lid typically must be large enough to avoid what happened to this bear

The bear weighed 110 pounds, which is fairly typical for a 2-year-old.

“We were pleasantly surprised. It was still able to make a living like a pretty typical bear,” Norton said.

Kyiv rescuers find more bodies

BY JUSTIN SPIKE and ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press

KYIV Ukraine Emergency work-

ers pulled more bodies Wednesday from the rubble of a nine-story Kyiv apartment building demolished by a Russian missile, raising the death toll from the latest attack on the Ukrainian capital to 28.

The building in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district took a direct hit and collapsed during the deadliest Russian attack on Kyiv this year Authorities said that 23 of those killed were inside the building.

The remaining ﬁve died elsewhere in the city

Workers used cranes, excavators and their hands to clear more debris from the site, while sniffer dogs searched for buried victims.

The blast blew out windows and doors in neighboring buildings in a wide radius of damage.

The attack overnight on Monday

into Tuesday was part of a sweeping barrage as Russia once again sought to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles in what Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the biggest bombardments of the war Russia has launched a summer offensive on parts of the roughly 620-mile front line and has intensiﬁed long-range attacks that have struck urban residential areas.

At the same time, U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to grain traction. Also, Middle East tensions and U.S. trade tariffs have drawn world attention away from Ukraine’s pleas for more diplomatic and economic pressure to be placed on Russia.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv said the attack clashed with the attempts by the administration of President Donald Trump to reach a settlement that will stop the fighting. “This senseless attack runs counter to

President Trump’s call to stop the killing and end the war,” the embassy posted on social platform X. Kyiv authorities declared Wednesday an official day of mourning. Mourners laid ﬂowers on swings and slides at a playground across the street from the collapsed building On Tuesday, a man had waited hours there for his 31-year-old son’s body to be pulled from the rubble.

Psychologists from Ukraine’s emergency services provided counseling to survivors of the attack and to family members of those who died.

“Some people are simply in a stupor, they simply can’t move,” Karyna Dovhal, one of the psychologists, told the AP “People are waiting for their sons, brothers, uncles. Everyone is waiting.”

Valentin Hrynkov, a 64-year-old handyman in a local school who lived on the seventh ﬂoor of a connected building that did not col-

Read found not guilty of second-degree murder

Woman was accused of killing boyfriend with car

BY MICHAEL CASEY and PATRICK WHITTLE Associated Press

— A jury found Karen

DEDHAM, Mass.

Read not guilty of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges Wednesday in the 2022 death of her Boston police ofﬁcer boyfriend, a case that attracted legions of true crime followers who erupted in cheers when word of the acquittal spread outside court.

The same jury also found her guilty of a lesser charge of drunken driving after deliberating for at least 22 hours since Friday Cheers from the crowd outside could be heard in the courtroom as the verdict was read. With gleeful supporters, Read departed the courthouse with her attorneys and family

It was a huge victory for Read’s lawyers, who have long asserted that she was framed by police after dropping John O’Keefe off at a party at the home of a fellow ofﬁcer Prosecutors argued that the 45-year-old Read hit O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV before driving away, but the defense maintained that he was killed inside the home and later dragged outside.

“No one has fought harder for justice for John O’Keefe than I have,” Read said. Members of O’Keefe’s family left the courtroom with bowed heads.

The verdict came nearly a year after a separate jury deadlocked over Read’s involvement in the January 2022 death of O’Keefe and resulted in a mistrial.

Read faced charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene outside Boston. A second-degree murder conviction would have carried a life sentence She will face a year of probation for the drunken driving conviction

Read’s father, Bill Read, told reporters he felt relief and gave “tremendous thanks” to God when the verdict was read. “We need to get our life back together, and we will,” he said.

Several witnesses in the case said in a statement Wednesday that their “hearts are with John and the entire O’Keefe family.” Those who signed the statement included Jennifer McCabe, who was with Read and O’Keefe the night of his death, and Brian Albert, who owned the home where the party took place.

“While we may have more to say in the future, today we mourn with John’s family and lament the cruel reality that this prosecution was infected by lies and con-

spiracy theories spread by Karen Read, her defense team, and some in the media. The result is a devastating miscarriage of justice,” the statement said.

Outside the court, Read supporters celebrated in an atmosphere similar to sports fans reveling in a team’s championship, complete with pink confetti.

T.D. Floras, of Nashua, New Hampshire, stood next to the barrier facing the courthouse holding Lucy her chorkie, a cross between a chihuahua and a yorkie. The dog wore a sign around its neck that read “Free Karen.” Floras said she was “beyond thrilled and excited” about the outcome.

“I would do that OUI probation for her myself,” she said. “It’s been a long time coming, so let’s put this behind her now so she can have some peace in her life.”

A blogger who has championed Read’s innocence and has been charged with witness intimidation in connection with her case told the AP he was “overcome with emotion” after the verdict.

“Two and a half years of this. It’s finally over Karen Read’s free,” Aidan Kearney said. “Everything I did was worth it, and we finally have justice. We finally put this nightmare behind us.”

Read’s defense said O’Keefe was beaten, bitten by a dog and left outside a home in the Boston suburb of Canton, in a conspiracy orchestrated by police that included planting evidence. Prosecutors have described Read as a scorned lover who chose to leave O’Keefe dying in the snow after striking him with her SUV Shira Diner, a lecturer at Boston University Law School, said the verdict “gives us an opportunity to reﬂect how this case would have been different if Karen Read was not a White woman of privilege and means.”

lapse, said he and his wife woke up to the sound of explosions followed by a pause, and then another blast that rattled their own building. He said his wife had shrapnel injuries in her back and his legs and feet were cut by broken glass. The damage trapped them in their apartment for around 30 minutes before rescue workers could free them, he said. He felt an overwhelming sense of “helplessness and primal fear” during the attack, he told The Associated Press. “I was especially scared to sleep last night,” Hrynkov said. “A car drives by and I cover my head. It’s scary.”

Drones were striking every few minutes within hundreds of meters of the building hit by the missile. The continuing attack forced firefighters and rescue teams to delay the rescue operation. Relatives and friends of the destroyed building’s residents later gathered outside in shock, many crying and calling out names, hoping survivors might still be found beneath the rubble.

Death toll from strike on apartment building climbs to 23 RFK Jr.’s new panel will take on vaccine ingredient

Bloomberg News (TNS)

WASHINGTON Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan for America’s vaccines is coming into focus, with his revamped immunization advisory panel set to discuss the use of measles shots in kids next week and vote on an ingredient that’s been wrongly linked to autism. The draft agenda for next week’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting revisits old topics concerning vaccine safety raising questions that many public health experts consider long settled. Any decisions could have sweeping implications for American public health, potentially upending how vaccines are manufactured, paid for and distributed around the country

Just last week, Kennedy, the Health and Human Services secretary, overhauled the ACIP panel, ﬁring all of the existing members and putting several new people on the board who’ve been vocal vaccine critics. The group recommends which vaccines go on the childhood and adult schedules after review-

ing safety data. These decisions help determine which shots are covered by insurance.

The new ACIP members will hear a presentation about thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that is used in some adult ﬂu vaccines. The group will later vote on “thimerosalcontaining vaccine recommendations,” according to details of the agenda posted Wednesday The panel will review a presentation and proposed recommendations for the measles, mumps and chicken pox vaccines for kids under 5 years of age.

“What they are doing is launching a complete dismantling of vaccine recommendations,” said Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Disease Society of America. If the committee votes to remove thimerosal from vaccines, manufactures will have to create and ship single doses, which some manufacturers may not be able to do, she said. Ultimately, the move would “chip away access to vaccines.”

Thimerosal is currently used in three ﬂu vaccines for adults.

GETINTOUCH

Customer Service: HELP@THEADVOCATE.COMor337-234-0800

News Tips /Stories: NEWSTIPS@THEADVOCATE.COM

Obituaries: 225-388-0289• Mon-Fri9-5; Sat10-5;ClosedSun

Advertising Sales: 337-234-0174•Mon-Fri 8-5

Classiﬁed Advertising: 225-383-0111•Mon-Fri 8-5

Subscribe: theadvocate.com/subscribe

E-Edition: theadvocate.com/eedition Archives: theadvocate.newsbank.com

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS By JOSH REyNOLDS Supporters of Karen Read react after she was found not guilty of second-degree murder on Wednesday in Dedham, Mass.

Karen Read gestures to supporters after she was found not guilty of seconddegree murder on Wednesday in Dedham, Mass.

Iran’s leader rejects call to surrender

He warns that military involvement by U.S would cause ‘irreparable damage’

BY JOSEPH KRAUSS, JON GAMBRELL and JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Iran’s supreme leader on Wednesday rejected U.S. calls for surrender in the face of more Israeli strikes and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause “irreparable damage to them.” European diplomats prepared to hold talks with Iran on Friday

The second public appearance by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since the Israeli strikes began six days ago came as Israel lifted some restrictions on daily life, suggesting that the missile threat from Iran was easing.

Khamenei spoke a day after U.S. President Donald Trump demanded in a social media post that Iran surrender without conditions and warned Khamenei that the U.S. knows where he is but has no plans to kill him, “at least not for now.”

Trump initially distanced himself from Israel’s surprise attack aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, but in recent days he has hinted at greater American involvement, saying he wants something “much bigger” than a ceaseﬁre. The U.S. has also sent more military aircraft and warships to the region.

Senior European diplomats were set to hold nuclear talks with Iran on Friday in Geneva, according to a European ofﬁcial familiar with the matter The ofﬁcial, who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity to discuss matters freely, said the meeting would include high-ranking diplomats from Germany, France and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union’s top diplomat.

Separately, the U.N Security Council scheduled a second emergency meeting on the Israel-Iran conﬂict for Friday at the request of Russia, China and Pakistan Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to help mediate a resolution, suggesting Moscow could help negotiate a settlement allowing Teh-

ran to pursue a peaceful atomic program while assuaging Israeli security concerns.

“In my view, a solution could be found,” Putin said Wednesday at a session with journalists.

‘Threatening,’ ‘absurd statements’ Khamenei dismissed the “threatening and absurd statements” by Trump.

“Wise individuals who know Iran, its people and its history never speak to this nation with the language of threats, because the Iranian nation is not one to surrender,” he said in a low-resolution video.

“Americans should know that any military involvement by the U.S. will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage to them.”

Iran released Khamenei’s statement before the video was aired, perhaps as a security measure.

An Iranian diplomat had warned earlier Wednesday that U.S. intervention would risk “all-out war.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei did not elaborate, but thousands of American troops are based in nearby countries within range of Iran’s weapons. The U.S.

has threatened a massive response to any attack.

Another Iranian ofﬁcial said the country would keep enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, apparently ruling out Trump’s demands that Iran give up its disputed nuclear program.

Strikes in and around Tehran

Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Efﬁe Defrin told a news conference Wednesday that Israel launched three waves of aerial attacks in the last 24 hours, deploying dozens of warplanes to strike over 60 targets in Tehran and western Iran, including missile launchers, weapon-production sites and a facility that he said produced antitank missiles for Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military also struck the headquarters of Iran’s internal security forces, without specifying the agency or location The strike marks a shift toward targeting Iran’s domestic security apparatus, which has long cracked down on dissent and suppressed protests. Iran’s police force acknowledged

Obama says Trump actions ‘consistent with autocracies’

Former president criticizes spread of disinformation

BY CHRISTOPHER KEATING Hartford Courant (TNS)

HARTFORD Conn Former President Barack Obama never once mentioned Donald Trump by name, but the current president was never far from the conversation Tuesday night in Hartford Touching on a wide range of topics, Obama delivered a history lesson about democracy and freedom with references to the Civil War, World War II, civil rights, solidarity in Poland, and the Berlin Wall.

“Our biggest challenge right now is we need democracy more than ever, and it’s probably as weak as it’s been since I’ve been alive,” Obama told a sell-out crowd of 2,800 at The Bushnell theatre in Hartford. Obama appeared at The Connecticut Forum, a longrunning speaker series that brings national figures to Hartford. In addition to the sold-out crowd, a spillover theatre was opened for a simulcast for those who could not ﬁt into the main theatre.

Saying that democracy needs judges and prosecutors to carry out the rule of law, Obama said that some recent actions by the federal government have pushed the limits of democracy

“It is consistent with autocracies,” Obama said “It is consistent with Hungary under (nationalist leader Viktor) Orban. We’re not there yet completely, but we are dangerously close to normalizing behavior like that. Let’s not go over that cliff because it’s hard to recover.”

As a one-time constitutional law professor and former U.S. senator Obama did not deliver red meat to the liber-

al crowd with any soundbite criticisms of Trump. The only person he mentioned by name was Steve Bannon, a Trump strategist who now runs a podcast and is not a member of the administration.

Instead, Obama talked about restoring the nation to its greatness and lessening the education and wealth gaps that have created tensions among some Americans.

“What really makes America exceptional is that it’s the only a big country on Earth that is made up of people from every corner of the globe,” Obama said. “The glue that holds us together is this crazy experiment of democracy When this experiment works, it gives the world a bit of hope.”

The nation, he said, has lost its shared sense of purpose with a scattered and sharply divided media landscape that stretches from journalism to entertainment.

Rather than making a long speech at a podium like the State of the Union Address, Obama appeared on stage in a question-and-answer format with liberal historian Heather Cox Richardson, who directed the conversation. Currently a history professor at Boston College who lives in Maine, Richardson holds three degrees from Harvard and has more than 2.5 million subscribers to her newsletter on Substack.

One of the problems facing America, Obama said, is the spread of misinformation and disinformation

“You just have to ﬂood the zone with so much untruth, constantly, that at some point, people don’t believe anything,” Obama said. “So it doesn’t matter if a candidate running for ofﬁce just is constantly — just hypothetically — saying untrue things. Or if an elected president claims that he won when he lost, and that

the system was rigged. But then when he wins, that it isn’t rigged — because he won. It doesn’t matter if everybody believes it. It just matters if everybody starts kind of throwing up their hands and saying, ‘Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.’ And that’s what’s happening.”

Like other presidents, Obama has been relatively low-key lately and has generally avoided direct criticism of a sitting president.

Traditionally, presidents such as George H.W Bush and his son, George W. Bush, have followed the longstanding practice of avoiding criticism in a public way

But Trump has set a different tone, ripping into Biden when he was a candidate and now blaming Biden at times when things go wrong during the Trump presidency

Obama spoke out recently on X, formerly known as Twitter, where he has 130 million followers.

“Thirteen years ago, my administration acted to protect young people who were American in every single way but one: on paper,”

Obama tweeted “DACA was an example of how we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws. And it’s an example worth remembering today, when families with similar backgrounds who just want to live, work, and support their communities are being demonized and treated as enemies.”

He added, “We can ﬁx our broken immigration system while still recognizing our common humanity and treating each other with dignity and respect. In fact, it’s the only way we ever will.”

Despite any problems facing the country, Obama remains optimistic.

“I don’t think progress goes in a straight line,” he said. “That’s been true in the United States, and it’s been true around the world. I think the good will win out.”

Trump adds flagpoles at White House

BY CHRIS MEGERIAN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press

WASHINGTON The American

ﬂag has long ﬂown from a pole on the White House roof, but that’s always been too small for President Donald Trump, who wants everything to be bigger and more beautiful.

On Wednesday, massive new flagpoles were erected on the North and South Lawns of the White House.

“It’s such a beautiful pole,” Trump said as workers used a crane to install the latest addition to the South Lawn. He returned to the same spot later in the day, saluting as the Stars and Stripes were hoisted for the first time.

the strike hours later, saying that Israel hit its central command buildings in Tehran and wounded some ofﬁcers, without saying how many

In addition, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said, Israel hit two centrifuge-production facilities in and near Tehran.

Israel’s air campaign has struck several nuclear and military sites, killing top generals and nuclear scientists. A Washington-based Iranian human rights group said at least 585 people, including 239 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded.

In retaliation, Iran has fired some 400 missiles and hundreds of drones, killing at least 24 people in Israel and wounding hundreds.

Israeli military officials said their defenses intercepted 10 missiles overnight and several more Wednesday evening as Iran’s retaliatory barrages diminished.

Some U.S. diplomats and their families at the U.S. embassy in Israel were evacuated Wednesday, according to two U.S. ofﬁcials who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic movements.

The second pole, on the North Lawn, is close to Pennsylvania Avenue. The two poles are the most notable exterior modiﬁcation to the White House since Trump returned to the presidency with grand ideas for remaking the building.

He’s already updated the Oval Ofﬁce, adding gold accents, more portraits and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Workers have begun paving over the grass in the Rose Garden, and there are plans to construct a new ballroom somewhere on the White House grounds. The changes bring the iconic building more in line with Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Florida.

The president made time to watch one of the ﬂagpole installations despite the escalating conflict between Iran and Israel, plus questions of whether the U.S. would become directly involved.

“I love construction,” said Trump, who made his mark as a New York real estate developer “I know it better than anybody.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By LEO CORREA

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles Wednesday during an Iranian attack over Tel Aviv, Israel.

Go-broke years for Medicare, Social Security pushed up

Legislation affecting benefits depleting funding faster

BY FATIMA HUSSEIN Associated Press

WASHINGTON The go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security’s trust funds have moved up as rising health care costs and new legislation affecting Social Security beneﬁts have contributed to earlier projected depletion dates, according to an annual report released Wednesday

The go-broke date or the date at which the programs will no longer have enough funds to pay full beneﬁts — was pushed up to 2033 for Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, according to the new report from the programs’ trustees. Last year’s report put the gobroke date at 2036.

Meanwhile, Social Security’s trust funds which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full beneﬁts beginning in 2034, instead of last year’s estimate of 2035. After that point, Social Security would only be able to pay 81% of beneﬁts.

The trustees say the latest ﬁndings show the urgency of needed

BY SCOTT BAUER Associated Press

MADISON,Wis.— Anxious lawmakers convened Wednesday under heightened security in Wisconsin’s State Capitol, one of the most publicly accessible statehouses in the country, days after a legislator and her husband in neighboring Minnesota were shot and killed at their home and others were targeted.

The tension playing out in Wisconsin and other states after the Minnesota killings pits those who want to keep state capitols as open and accessible as possible against those concerned about increasing threats and acts of violence against ofﬁceholders. Numerous states took action this week to protect personal information of lawmakers after the targeted shootings of two Minnesota state lawmakers. The second legislator and his wife sustained serious injuries in the shootings early Saturday A suspect, Vance Boelter, surrendered to police on Sunday Prosecutors say Boelter had dozens of additional potential targets. They included state and federal ofﬁceholders in Wisconsin.

Legislatures in most states are done meeting for the year, but those like Wisconsin that are still in session are taking emergency action to bolster security

The police chief at the North Carolina General Assembly said Monday in an email to legislators that “we are working on enhanced security plans and are doing our best to keep everyone safe.” But further details haven’t been released and there’s been no significant change seen in security on

changes to the programs which have faced dire financial projections for decades. But making changes to the programs has long been politically unpopular, and lawmakers have repeatedly kicked Social Security and Medicare’s troubling math to the next generation.

President Donald Trump and other Republicans have vowed not to make any cuts to Medicare or Social Security, even as they seek to shrink federal expenditures.

Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano, sworn into his role in May, said in a statement that “the ﬁnancial status of the trust funds remains a top priority for the Trump Administration.” A common misconception is that Social Security would be completely unable to pay beneﬁts once it reaches its go-broke date.

“Current-law projections indicate that Medicare still faces a substantial ﬁnancial shortfall that needs to be addressed with further legislation. Such legislation should be enacted sooner rather than later to minimize the impact on beneﬁciaries, providers, and taxpayers,” the trustees state in the report.

The trustees are made up of six people — the Treasury Secretary serves as managing trustee, alongside the secretaries of Labor, Health and Human Services and

the commissioner of Social Security Two other presidentiallyappointed and Senate-confirmed trustees serve as public representatives, however those roles have been vacant since July 2015.

About 68 million people are enrolled in Medicare, the federal government’s health insurance that covers those 65 and older, as well as people with severe disabilities or illnesses.

Wednesday’s report shows a worsening situation for the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund compared to last year But the forecasted go-broke date of 2033 is still later than the dates of 2031, 2028 and 2026 predicted just a few years ago.

Once the fund’s reserves become depleted, Medicare would be able to cover only 89% of costs for patients’ hospital visits, hospice care and nursing home stays or home health care that follow hospital visits.

The report said expenses last year for Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund came in higher than expected.

Income exceeded expenditures by nearly $29 billion last year for the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, the report stated. Trustees expect that surplus to continue through 2027. Deﬁcits then will follow until the fund becomes depleted in 2033.

the surface. In Arizona, more state troopers were assigned to the state Senate building, said Senate GOP Spokesperson Kim Quintero. Security bolstered in Wis Security changes for Wednesday’s meeting of the Wisconsin Legislature were mostly out of sight. Visitors to the Capitol could still enter the building without going through a metal detector, but anyone wanting to watch in the Senate’s public gallery had to go through an additional security check. Those wishing to watch the Assembly session from the gallery could do so, but they were encouraged to instead view it from another room.

In a more visible sign of force, there were state patrol ofﬁcers in the building and around both legislative chambers in addition to the usual Capitol Police. There were new security screenings for reporters attending a news conference in the Senate parlor, and the Democratic Assembly

leader’s door that is typically open was locked with a sign saying anyone with an appointment could knock to gain entry

“I feel safe in our Capitol building,” Democratic Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein said before session began Wednesday

Not everyone felt the same way

“We need to have a higher level of security,” Republican Sen Chris Kapenga told WISN-TV He supports adding metal detectors and banning guns for anyone in the building except for lawmakers. He said he always carries a gun in the Capitol.

“We should not be worried about our lives walking into that building,” Kapenga said.

Prior security concerns

Wisconsin is a presidential battleground state used to high-stakes political ﬁghts and frequent large protests both inside and outside of the Capitol.

Two years ago a man armed with a loaded hand-

A payroll tax on covered earnings provides the main funding for the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund Future expenses paid by the fund are expected to increase at a faster pace than earnings. Legislation is needed to change those tax rates.

The report states that the Social Security Social Security Fairness Act, enacted in January, which repealed the Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset provisions of the Social Security Act and increased Social Security beneﬁt levels for some workers, had an impact on the depletion date of SSA’s trust funds.

Romina Boccia, a director of Budget and Entitlement Policy at the libertarian CATO Institute, called the repeal of the provisions “a political giveaway masquerading as reform. Instead of tackling Social Security’s structural imbalances, Congress chose to increase beneﬁts for a vocal minority — accelerating trust fund insolvency.”

“It’s a clear sign that populist pressure now outweighs ﬁscal responsibility and economic sanity on both sides of the aisle,” she said.

“Pair that with a Republican reconciliation bill that increases tax giveaways while refusing to rein in even the most dubious Medicaid expansions, and the message is unmistakable: Washington is still in

giveaway mode.”

AARP CEO Myechia MinterJordan said “Congress must act to protect and strengthen the Social Security that Americans have earned and paid into throughout their working lives.” “More than 69 million Americans rely on Social Security today and as America’s population ages, the stability of this vital program only becomes more important.”

Social Security beneﬁts were last reformed roughly 40 years ago, when the federal government raised the eligibility age for the program from 65 to 67. The eligibility age has never changed for Medicare, with people eligible for the medical coverage when they turn 65.

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the benefit program, said in a statement that “there are two options for action: Bringing more money into Social Security, or reducing benefits. Any politician who doesn’t support increasing Social Security’s revenue is, by default, supporting benefit cuts.” Congressional Budget Office reporting has stated that the biggest drivers of debt rising in relation to GDP are increasing interest costs and spending for Medicare and Social Security An aging population drives those numbers.

gun came into the Wisconsin Capitol looking for Gov Tony Evers, who was not there at the time.

Wisconsin is one of seven states where concealed weapons are allowed in the Capitol, according to a 2021 report by the Council of State Governments. Thirtysix states ban concealed weapons in their capitol buildings.

There have been some visible security increases at the Wisconsin Capitol in recent months. Anyone attending oral arguments of the state Supreme Court, which meets in a room just around the corner from the legislative chambers, must go through a metal detector

That was added after a retired judge was shot and killed in a targeted attack at his home in 2022 and amid increasing threats to members of the judiciary Evers and other lawmakers were also on a list that gunman had.

No metal detectors

The Wisconsin Capitol has its own police force housed in the basement, but the building is not protected by metal detectors, screening checkpoints or X-rays. Anyone can walk in off the street between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. during the week and go straight to the ofﬁces of state lawmakers and others.

The Wisconsin Capitol is

one of 11 state capitols that does not have metal detectors, a state audit found last year It is one of 19 states without X-ray machines to scan items people bring into the building, the audit found. Metal detectors were installed at the Capitol in late February 2011 at the height of protests over then-Gov Scott Walker’s proposal, later signed into law, that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers. They were removed four months later under an agreement reached between Walker’s administration and the state employees union, which sued to get the Capitol reopened without metal detectors.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By TODD RICHMOND Staff search visitors entering the Wisconsin Senate gallery in the state Capitol just days after the killing of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband on Wednesday

The supermarket remains one of a couple on Lafayette’s north side after several closed in recent years.

“We’re sad to go,” said Chase Breaux, Wally Breaux’s son “But at the same time, we’re grateful to the community, all of our customers and our employees for making it such a special experience for us. As hard as it was to sell the store, we felt like now was the time.”

A mutual connection brought the Breaux family together with the owners of Lyons Market.

The Lyons family knew of the Breaux’s presence in that section of north Lafayette, said Jacob Lyons, whose father and uncle started their grocery careers in Lafayette.

“We’re used to operating in tight-knit communities,” he said.

“They run the same kind of thing as us. We love the loyalty of their customer base. They appreciate family-owned and their community, and that’s where we like to be.”

Lyons said several things at the store will not change, including its popular chicken salad and the store’s meat department The meat department at Lyons Markets stores is also popular, he said Lyons Market will introduce its loyalty program at a later date, he said. It will also retain the 45 to 50

employees at the store.

“It’s attention to detail, and detail takes people,” Lyons said. “And we’re aware of that.”

priations Committee. “If it happens the way we anticipate, we will go back in special. We will be making cuts because we have to.”

has stores in

licans, provided Vice Presi-

according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

Henry also contacted the U.S. House’s top two leaders, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson.

“They’re aware of it but they are also aware that the rest of the country wants changes,” Henry said.

State Rep. Vanessa LaFleur, D-Baton Rouge and part of the PAR webinar, agreed with Henry “We talked about this,” said LaFleur, a member of the Louisiana House Appro-

Some Republican senators say more spending cuts are necessary Other GOP senators already opposed to the House’s Medicaid reductions are even more adamant about the committee’s take.

Each side has numbers enough to scuttle the bill.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority, so they can only afford to lose three Repub-

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act would partially pay for increased border security more military armaments and tax cuts by reducing all manner of federal spending — but mostly Medicaid, the program that covers health care costs for 72 million lowincome Americans, roughly 19% of the country House Republicans argue that they want to remove “waste, fraud and abuse” to keep Medicaid for the people who truly need it. The tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks would energize the U.S. economy, the GOP argues. Despite a historic amount of spending reductions $1.6 trillion — the legislation as it cleared the House would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade calculates the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan arm that estimates the finances of legislation.

TERMINAL

Continued from page 1A

said during that visit.

LNG exports from the U.S. have skyrocketed over the past decade, growing from around 16 billion cubic feet in 2014 to nearly 4.3 trillion cubic feet in 2024, according to the Energy Information Administration. Louisiana has emerged as a major player in that export market. In 2023, more than 60% of the nation’s LNG exports traveled through Louisiana. In addition to Plaquemines LNG, Venture Global also operates Calcasieu Pass LNG in Cameron Parish. And last month, the company began construction nearby on a third terminal, Calcasieu Pass 2. The technology at the terminals converts natural gas into liquid form by supercooling it, allowing the fuel

to be loaded onto tankers and exported worldwide. Calcasieu Pass LNG began production in 2022 and Plaquemines LNG in December.

LNG has been billed as an important way to help developing nations transition away from dirtier sources of electricity like coal as the world moves toward renewable energy But LNG is also a signiﬁcant source of greenhouse gas emissions, and critics argue that building new export terminals will lock in gas consumption for decades to come and undermine efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.

Venture Global has also faced criticism from environmental advocates for a multitude of alleged permit violations from its Calcasieu Pass terminal.

Last year, President Joe Biden’s administration paused export permits for LNG plants, in part to study the facilities’ impact on global warming.

After taking ofﬁce in January, Trump signed an executive order lifting that pause, and in March, the U.S. Department of Energy granted Venture Global’s CP2 conditional approval to export LNG to countries that don’t have free trade agreements with the United States.

The expansion of Plaquemines LNG — which will allow Venture Global to produceanadditional18.6million metric tons of LNG per year — has yet to be approved by the energy commission.

In May, Venture Global hosted open houses to discuss the expansion, which drew around 100 people, according to a commission ﬁling. Most of the comments were related to transportation. Venture Global said it’s “considering mitigation measures to improve trafﬁc” for the expansion.

Email Blake Paterson at bpaterson@theadvocate. com.

dent JD Vance is on hand to cast the deciding vote.

The Senate Finance Committee’s recommendations include a far more aggressive rollback in federal funding than the House approved in May Much of the wording in the 549-page measure, which likely will change before the bill hits the Senate ﬂoor sometime next week, changes the formulas that determine how much the federal government pays and how much state governments pay for medical services rendered to Medicaid beneﬁciaries.

The Senate’s version would lower the amount a state can tax hospitals, clin-

ics and other health care providers from 6% to 3.5%. Louisiana and most other states use the “provider tax” proceeds to help pay the state’s matching portion. With the loss of provider tax revenues, state taxpayers would have pay more to reach the same level of federal matching funds.

Some states, including Louisiana, use part of the provider taxes to fund what is called “state directed payments.” In Louisiana that money goes to supplement hospitals in rural communities, where more patients are on Medicaid, which pays less than the medical services often cost. The Senate wants to use a different

marker that would lower the amount available. In Louisiana’s case, the state budgeted $245 million for rural hospitals in the next fiscal year If the bill passes as the Senate committee recommends, that amount would immediately drop to $211 million and would be reduced every year until it reaches about $128 million annually The state would have to pick up those additional costs or roll back services. The Senate also would require abled-bodied adults with children over the age of 14 to work or volunteer 80 hours per month. The House-passed version required work only for childless adults.

Lyons Market

Bunkie, Kaplan Mamou and Jennings. The company started about 30 years ago when Marvin

Lyons took over a Piggly Wiggly store in Mamou, but it wasn’t until about seven years ago that the stores were rebranded as

Lyons Markets. Email Adam Daigle at adaigle@ theadvocate.com.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

Venture Global has withdrawn its application with federal regulators for a new terminal in Plaquemines Parish, saying it wants to focus on an $18 billion expansion of its Plaquemines LNG terminal.

STAFF PHOTO By BRAD KEMP

Store manager Chase Breaux, right, talks to a customer at Breaux’s Mart on Monday

BY DEVI SHASTRI Associated Press

The 988 National Suicide &Crisis Lifeline will stop providing tailored support options to LGBTQ+ youth and young adults on July 17, according to astatement on afederalagency’swebsite

The decision preemptsthe Trump administration’s2026 budget proposal to cut funding for 988’sLGBTQ+youthand young adult services, and is raising alarm bells among LGBTQ+ advocates. Federal data showsthe LGBTQ+ youth program has served nearly 1.3 million callerssince it started in September 2022. The services were accessible underthe “Press

3” option on thephone or by replying“PRIDE” viatext.

The decision was was madeto “no longer silo”the services and “tofocus on serving all help seekers, including those previously served through the Press 3option,” the U.S. Department of Healthand HumanServices’ SubstanceAbuse and Mental Health Services Administration said in astatement datedTuesdayonits website.

News of the LGBTQ+service shutting down comesasthe U.S Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s banongender-afﬁrming care for transgender minors on Wednesday.

The Trevor Project saiditreceived ofﬁcial noticeTuesday that theprogram was ending. The non-

proﬁt is one of sevencentersthat provides 988 crisis support services for LGBTQ+ people —and serves nearly half of thepeople who contact the lifeline.

“Suicide preventionisabout people, not politics,” Trevor Project CEO Jaymes Black saidina statement Wednesday. “The administration’sdecision to remove abipartisan, evidence-basedservicethathas effectively supported ahigh-risk groupofyoung people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible.”

In its statement on the 988 decision,SAMHSAreferredtothe “LGB+youthservices.”

Black called the omission of the “T”representing transgender

Wednesday’sruling.

even as courtﬁghts continue.The president signed another order to deﬁnethe sexes as only male and female.

disagreements. Nor doesitafford us license to decide them as we see best.” In adissent forthe court’sthree liberal justices that she summarizedaloud in thecourtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, Idissent.”

The law also limits parents’ decision-making ability fortheir children’shealthcare, shewrote. Thedecision comes amidother federal and state effortstoregulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. InApril, Trump’sadministration sued Maine for not complying with the government’spush to ban transgender athletes in girls’sports.

The Republican presidentalso has sought to block federal spendingongender-afﬁrming medical care for those under age19— instead promoting talk therapy only to treat young transgenderpeople. And theSupreme Court hasallowedhim to kick transgenderservice members out of the military,

The debateeven spilled into Congress whenDelaware elected Democrat Sarah McBride as the ﬁrst transgender member of the House. Her election prompted immediateopposition among Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson of Benton and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, over which bathroomMcBride could use.

Severalstateswhere gender-afﬁrming care remains in place have adopted laws or state executive orders seekingtoprotect it.But since Trump’sexecutive order,some providers have ceased some treatments. For instance, Penn MedicineinPhiladelphia announced last monthitwouldn’tprovide surgeriesfor patients under 19.

The president of theAmerican AcademyofPediatrics, Dr.SusanKressly,saidthe organization is “unwavering” in its support of gender-afﬁrming care and “stands with pediatriciansand families making health care decisions together and free from political interference.”

Five years ago, the Supreme Courtruled LGBTQ people are protected by alandmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in theworkplace. That decision is unaffected by

But the justices declined to apply the same sort of analysis the court used in 2020 when it found “sex plays an unmistakablerole” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. Roberts joinedthat opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was part of Wednesday’smajority Justice Amy ConeyBarrett also fully joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize that laws classifying people based on transgender status should not receive any special review by courts. Barrett, also writing for Justice Clarence Thomas, wrotethat“courts must give legislaturesﬂexibility to makepolicy in this area.”

ChaseStrangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued thecase for transgender minors and their families, called the ruling “a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution.”

Mo Jenkins, a26-year-old trans woman who began taking hormone therapyat16, said she was disheartened but not surprised by the ruling. “Trans people are not going to disappear,” saidJenkins, a Texasnativeand legislative staffer at thestate capitolinAustin. Texas outlawed puberty blockers andhormonetreatment for minors in 2023.

Trumpadministrationremoving988 hotline

people “callous.” “Transgender people can never,and will never, be erased,” he said.

The Trevor Project will continue to run its 24/7 mental health support services, as will other organizations, andleaders of 988 say the hotline will serve anyone who calls with compassion.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were 49,300 suicidesin2023 aboutthe highest level in the nation’shistory,based on preliminary data.

Studies have shown that LGBTQ+ youthare at higher risk of suicide, including a2024 analysis by theCDC that found26% transgender and gender-questioning studentsattempted suicide in the pastyear.That’scompared with 5% of cisgender male and11% of

Tennessee’sleading Republican elected ofﬁcials allpraisedthe outcome. Attorney GeneralJonathan Skrmettionsocial media called the ruling a“Landmark VICTORYfor Tennessee at SCOTUS in defense of America’schildren!”

There are about 300,000 people between the ages of 13 and 17 and 1.3 million adultswho identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute, athink tank at theUCLASchool of Law that researches sexual orientation andgenderidentitydemographics

When the case wasargued in December, then-President Joe Biden’sDemocraticadministration andfamilies of transgender adolescents calledonthe high courttostrikedownthe Tennessee banasunlawful sexdiscrimination and to protect theconstitutional rightsofvulnerable Americans. They argued the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment in part because the same treatments that the law prohibitsfor transgender minors can be used for other purposes. Soon after Trumptook ofﬁce, the Justice Department told the court itsposition had changed. Amajor issue in the case was the appropriate level of scrutiny courts should apply to such laws. The lowest level is known as rational basis review, andalmost every law looked at that wayisup-

cisgender female students.

Young transgender people flooded crisis hotlineswithcalls after President Donald Trumpwas reelected.Trump made anti-transgender themes central to his campaign and has since rolled back manycivil rights protections and access to gender-affirming care. Trump signed the National Suicide HotlineDesignation Act of 2020 into law in October 2020. The specific 988 subprogram forLGBTQ+ youth cost$33 million in fiscalyear 2024,according to SAMHSA, and as of June 2025, morethan $33 million has been spent on theservices. TheTrump administration’s2026 budgetproposalcalledfor keeping 988’stotal budget at $520 millioneven while eliminating the LGBTQ+ services.

held. Indeed,the federal appeals courtinCincinnati that allowedthe Tennessee law to be enforced held that lawmakers acted rationally to regulate medical procedures. Theappealscourt reversed a trialcourt that employed ahigher level of review,heightened scrutiny,whichappliesincases of sex discrimination. Under this more searching examination, the state must identify an important objective andshowthe lawhelps accomplish it.

Roberts’ 24-page majority opinion wasdevoted almost entirely to explaining whythe Tennessee law, calledSB1, should be evaluated under the lower standard of review

The law’s restrictions on treating minors for genderdysphoria turn on age and medical use, not sex, Roberts wrote. Doctors mayprescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors of anysex to treat some disorders, but not those relating to transgender status, he wrote. But in her courtroom statement, Sotomayor asserted that similar arguments were made to defend the Virginia lawprohibiting interracial marriage that the Supreme Court struck downin1967.

“A ban on interracial marriage could be described in the same way as the majority described SB1,” she said. Roberts rejected the

Panel: Public defenders should keep jobs

State

official had attempted not to renew contracts

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN

Staff writer

An advisory panel has recommended that ﬁve top public defenders should keep their jobs, defying a state ofﬁcial who attempted not to renew their contracts

The full Louisiana Public Defender Oversight Board is expected to rule on that decision Monday.

Meanwhile, the board is in turmoil after two more members resigned this week — Ernestine Gray and Gerard Caswell, the board chair Their resignations come within days of three others: Ted Hernandez, Peter Thomson and Freddie Pitcher all stepped down within the last week. At least two members of the nine-member board have been re-

placed.

The resignations come amid two major conflicts: the board’s recent clash with State Public Defender Rémy Starns over a compensation plan for district defenders, and the monthslong battle between Starns and the five district chiefs he is trying to oust. That fight goes back to February, when district chiefs Michelle

AndrePont, Trisha Ward, Brett Brunson, Deirdre Fuller and John Hogue all received letters from Starns saying their contracts, which were up July 1, would not be renewed. State law allows terminated district chiefs to appeal to the board. All ﬁve did so, arguing Starns had ﬁred them without just cause and in retaliation for speaking out against him. In public hearings, the defenders had pushed back against Starn’s

proposed compensation plan and against legislation he backed that gave him and Gov Jeff Landry more power over the public defense system. Starns argued the defenders had no right to appeal for their jobs because he had not, in fact, ﬁred them. He had only chosen not to extend their contracts. An opinion from Attorney General Liz Murrill supported that decision.

A PARK REMINDER

Lafayette restaurant gets OK to move

Oil Center restaurant to open on Congress Street

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

ABOVE: Moncus Park guests attempt to catch fish at the fully stocked pond in the Lafayette park on Wednesday. LEFT: A flock of mallard ducks gathers at a large rain puddle at the park on Wednesday. RIGHT: Horticulturist

Bek Credeur tends to the daily task of weeding one of the many native plant beds at Moncus Park. STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK

Former Sunset police chief sentenced

Padilla gets five years of probation for unreasonable force

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

Former Sunset Police Chief Luis Padilla will not serve jail time for willfully using unreasonable force on a handcuffed man in December

2023, violating his civil rights.

U.S. District Judge David Joseph in Lafayette on Tuesday sentenced Padilla to five years of supervised probation and ordered him to serve the first six months under home incarceration with GPS monitoring. Padilla was not fined. A hearing is set for Aug. 26 to determine what restitution he might be or-

dered to pay to the victim, according to court documents.

In a March plea deal, Padilla pleaded guilty to a one-count bill of information charging him with deprivation of rights under color of law As part of the plea deal, he was charged with a misdemeanor, forced to resign as police chief and prohibited from running again.

Before resigning, Padilla had been police chief since 2016. While investigating a hit-andrun on Dec. 1, 2023, Padilla went to the residence of the suspect, a woman, but encountered a man outside the residence who wasn’t aware of the hit-and-run, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Louisiana in Lafayette.

ä See PADILLA, page 4B

Racetrack businesses targeted

Everyone who was taken into custody during the operation was processed for “administrative immigration violations” and were transported to the

Padilla

OPINION

Juneteenth remindsus struggle fora more perfect unioncontinues

Aversion of this editorialhas been published in previous years.

As the Civil Warcontinued, President Abraham Lincoln issued the EmancipationProclamation —effective Jan. 1, 1863 —makingitclear to Confederate states ﬁghting to keepslavery that enslaved people “shall befree.”

Though famous since that day,the proclamation was really awartimemeasure that only applied to slavesinrebel states under arms,not atotal end to slavery. It was rather speciﬁc, designating whichcountiesand parishesthe proclamation would cover.“Idoorder anddeclare that all persons held as slaveswithin said designated States, and parts of States, are, andhenceforward shall be free,” Lincoln wrote. Elsewhere in the proclamation, the presidentmadeitclear that non-Union Confederatestates werethe areas being targeted. That includedLouisiana, but 13 parishes wereexempt from theproclamation: Ascension, Assumption, Jefferson,Lafourche, Plaquemines,St. Bernard,St. Charles, St.John, St. Mary,St. Martin, Terrebonne,and “Orleans, including the CityofNew Orleans.”

Slavery was not fully abolished until the 13th Amendment waspassed by Congress on Jan.31, 1865, then ratiﬁed on Dec. 6, 1865. Still, Lincoln’s proclamation sent an importantsignal, albeit one that was slowtospread

There was no nightly news, no internet and certainly no social media to quickly andwidely share the breaking news that theEmancipation Proclamationhad been signed andslavery had ended. It took more than two years —until June 19, 1865—for enslaved people in GalvestonBay to learn that they wereamong the250,000 in Texas and 4million nationally who were freed by order of the president.

Enslaved people who were freed celebrated, starting aTexas tradition that eventually spread to other states acrossthe nation.“June” and “19th” werecombined to create“Juneteenth.”

In 2021, Juneteenth became afederalholiday, and Louisiana also made it astate holidaythat year.Today,Juneteenthisrecognizedasa holiday, observanceorremembrance in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Though June 19 fallsona Thursday this year, and that is the federal holiday,traditionally, Juneteenth has also been observed on thethird Saturday of June by many Black Americans. Opal Lee, recognized as the grandmotherof Juneteenth because she started anational effort to have the day recognized as afederal holiday when she was 86 years old, grew uplessthanan hour away from Shreveport inMarshall, Texas, before moving to the Fort Wortharea. Lee has said she envisioned the holidayasa celebration of freedom for everyone, not just those whose ancestors endured slavery On Juneteenth, we remember all thoseAmericans throughout history whohavemoved this country toward the “more perfect union”articulated by our founders. We urge everybody to celebrate the day dedicated to cherishing the freedoms that were, for many Americans, much too belatedly won.

LETTERSTOTHE

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

Having signed theletter on tenure submitted by Boydprofessors Suzanne L. Marchand and R. Eugene Turner,I would only add that, despite his dismissive tone, letter writer Kevin Kelly is probably correct in asserting that good universities tendtobeabit moreliberal than conservative. That is because bright faculty encourage students to think for themselves, to read widely and toquestion everything. Learning to think critically and to write persuasively are themarks of aliberal education. Good universities tendtoattract professors who, whatever their research expertise, have wide interests and ap-

preciatecultural diversity.Productive development of human knowledge requires thefreedom to test assumptions and theories and to askquestions that generatenew insights. Academic tenure protectsresearch from external political pressure. As an undergraduate, Iattended a very conservative collegethat set limits on what could be taught and talked about. Faculty tenure did not exist. Luckily,Ihad aprovocative English teacher who taught me to resist my own complacency.Just before his retirement, 30 years later,that professor was ﬁred for being too outspoken. Today,government is intruding into

higher education as never before, cutting research funding, intimidating foreign students and stigmatizing as “woke” any intellectual work that encourages aquestioning of national illusions. The outrageous attack on Harvard epitomizes this administration’s pervasive hostility to critical thinking, to intellect, to the aims of higher education.

May our colleges and universities survive this assault on freedom of thought and speech, and may the good people of Louisiana understand how tenure protects this crucial freedom.

J. GERALD KENNEDY Boyd professor of English emeritus, LSU

As asmall, independent contractor,I’ve watched liability premiums climb year after year,squeezing margins and stalling hiring. That’s why I’m writing to applaud Reps. Emily Chenevert, Jason DeWitt and Michael Melerine for shepherding House Bills 431, 434 and 450 to the governor’sdesk. Confronting Louisiana’sout-of-control, highly litigious culture will help curb frivolous lawsuitsand put hard-earned dollars back intoemployee paychecks and community investment.

This common-sense change will

Louisiana’ssmall businesses are thebackbone of our economy,but we are being squeezed by credit card swipe fees that have grown unchecked. That’swhy Congress must pass theMarshall-Durbin Amendmentaspart of the GENIUS Act to ﬁnally introduce real competition to thecredit card market and ease thepressureonMain Street.

Today,Visa and MasterCard control roughly 80% of the credit card market and use that dominance to impose ever-rising swipe fees. These fees —charged every time acustomer pays withacredit card —are among the highest in the world. For small businesses across Louisiana, they’re an unavoidable cost that eats into our margins and forces many of us to raise prices just to stay aﬂoat Butwe’re running out of room. Higher prices drive customers away,and thecycle continues. What

discourage frivolous suits, stabilize insurance markets andgive employers the predictability they need to invest here at home.

Gov.Jeff Landry’ssignature on these bills represents real, measurable progress toward afairer civil justice system —one that supports entrepreneurship instead of punishingit.

Thank you. Oursmall businesses, workers and responsible drivers owe you all aheartfelt thank you. VIC RICHARD Baton Rouge

we need is afairer system —one where card networks compete on cost and service, not on monopoly power.That’s exactly what the Marshall-Durbin Amendment offers. By requiring that at least two unafﬁliated networks be available to process credit card transactions, the amendmentwill break the stranglehold and give merchants areal choice.

This is not apartisan issue —it’sa practical fix to astructural problem For too long, Louisianabusinesses and consumers have paid the price while profits flowed to Wall Street. The Marshall-Durbin Amendment is our opportunity to change that.

Iurge Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy to support this reform.

Let’slevel the playing ﬁeld forLouisiana businesses and give our customersa break from rising costs.

NATALIEISAACKS president/CEO,Louisiana Oil Marketers &Convenience Store Association

Events of the past several weeks have revealed the mostmercenary foreign and domestic policies of any president in current memory.

Talk of aGolden Age, aGold Card for wealthy immigrants, and golden toilets in Qatar jets all suggest apresidential “Midas touch” blind to the curse that nearly ruined that mythical king. But beyond such displays of excessive greed antithetical to the actual Christian Golden Rule, violation of that universal moral principle truly comes with indifference to the suffering of others. Sending deportees to aSalvadoran hellhole without due process serves only as an act of cruel despotism

All branches of government should worktogether to rectifythis situation and uphold our constitutional rule of law Until that happens, the ongoing suffering of the 237 still imprisoned deportees will weigh heavily on the consciences of Americans whorevere their Constitution. One can point to someaspects of the Golden Rule tacitly embedded in aConstitution that favors equal protection under the law and human rights. The samemight be said forthe interaction of buyers and sellers whocompete in the service of self-interest under free-market conditions, rather than monopoly capitalism.And despite the checkered past of a Cold Warforeign policy that imprudently supported strongman rule in Third World countries, American softpower as expressed through USAIDhas won international acclaim forits humanitarian goals. While there’salways room forimprovementand increased transparency in such agencies, American isolationism or noncooperation has never proven beneﬁcial. WILLIAMBERTOLETTE Baton Rouge

COMMENTARY

Creating amorecivil society

Where, pray tell,iscommon ground?

Almost everybody agrees that American politics, which always havebeen rambunctious, have devolved intosuch toxicity that civil conversations appear impossible. Every reasonable person wants this to change. Indeed, a bipartisan poll released May 27 in the Washington Post shows that “an astounding 94 percent of voters agreed with thestatement that ‘It is important that both Democratsand Republicans come together to solve the problems that are facing America.’”

Meanwhile, the similarly named groupCommonGround, an afﬁliate of the internationally acclaimed Search for Common Ground, is right now recruitingvolunteers (tentative deadline: June27) for its second local project

Several conversations —plus the impressive record of the international Search for Common Ground parent group —have pretty much convinced me that there’snopre-set agenda and that the desire for respectful, constructiveendeavor is heartfelt.

In response, all across thecountry, groups are springing up with thegoal of re-teaching people how to communicate with each otherfor mutual beneﬁt even amidst differing philosophies, ideologies and cultures.

It’stough to tell whether these groups will do any good, but anyone of goodwill should hope they do— and, where possible, help them.

It so happensthatatleast twogroups in New Orleans and one in Baton Rouge are active in such endeavors. Last week, this newspaper reported on the Baton Rouge outlet of anational group called Braver Angels, which aims at getting the political Left and Right “to change how they think about one another.”

In New Orleans, agroup aboutthree years old called the Neutral Ground (not to be confused withKaare Johnson’sexcellent local radio show of the same name) hosts biannual “robust” forums with subject-matter experts on speciﬁc public-policy issues, such as school choiceand incarceration. It now is planning its fallevent,this one on the prosand cons of state taxincentives forbusiness relocations.

“Wehave arelentlessfocus on elevating the conversation around civil discourse,” said founderJohnLandrum.

INTELLIGENT LIFE

Theﬁrst project,cleverly namedReconstructing Reconstruction, partnered in 2024 with areconciliation-focused group called the Plessy and Ferguson Initiative to commemorate the corridor of Black businesses and residences that was displaced when Interstate 10 was built.

The second initiative, for now called “the Collective Memory Project,” is designed to “examine Greater NewOrleans’ histories through the lens ofseveral regions: New Orleans East, New Orleans’ 6th and 7th Wards, and theRiver Parishes.” The project seeks volunteers of multiple cultural andpolitical persuasions to gather monthlyfor two- to three-hour sessions (complete with meals) to do historical research and design aproject or projectsto“usethe stories of the past to shape the future to where we can all belong andthrive.”

All of which sounds abit jargon-y

And,tobehonest, jargon-y in apolitical left-leaning sort of way.Bynow,almost everyoneofatleast acertain educational status has experienced some dogooder “training” that self-advertises as away to promote “dialogue,” only to findthatthe dialogue actually runs in only one direction, pushing an agenda or viewpoint that isn’t exactly copacetic with anyone even remotely right of center After some due diligence, I’m fairly confidentthis is not what Common Groundisabout. Its New Orleansdirector,Krystal James, reached out to me specifically to help get theword out that they wantmore conservatives to participate. Her sincerity is palpable.

Experts predict artificial intelligence will soon be abig partofeverydaylife on Earth If there’sintelligent life on other planets, what would theysay about all this? you tell me. Be witty,funny, crazy,absurd or snarky —justtry to keep it clean.There’sno limitonthe number of entries.

The winning punchline will belettered into the word balloon and runMondayinour printeditionsand online. In addition, the winner will receiveasignedprint of the cartoon along with acool winner’sT-shirt!Some honorable mentions will alsobe listed.Toenter,email entriestocartooncontest@theadvocate.com

All entries must include your name, homeaddress and phone number.Cell numbers arebest.The deadlinefor all entriesismidnight on Thursday.—Walt

“Their [only]agenda was to pull together agroup of local people who had in interest in New Orleans, to see who we wanted to honor with historical markers,” said Jodie Manale, areal estate associate broker who participated in Reconstructing Reconstruction. “The process was done in avery open and equitable way.”

“It really isn’tasuccessful project without all the viewpoints being heard and respected,” said James, thelocal director James said Common Ground is in the midst of hosting several Zoom meetings for people to learn moreabout the new project and decide if they want to volunteer for the year-long adventure. (Contact her at kjames@sfcg.org.)

There’snoway to know if these and similar approaches across thecountrywill bear fruit, but only the most hard-hearted cynic would belittle the attempts. Here in Louisiana, there were several decades in which our congressional delegation “modeled” such behavior,with legendarily gracious Democratic Rep.Lindy Boggs setting atone of “across theaisle” collaboration that was taken up by thelikes of Democratic Sens. BennettJohnston and John Breaux and Republican Reps. Dave Treen and Bob Livingston, among others.

Amore respectfulcivic life isn’tjust somepie-in-the-sky fantasy.Well-intentioned politicians, and well-intentioned citizens, really can make it apractical, productive approach.

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

Peak absurdityoncampaignfinance reform

Developments in recentdecades reﬂectdiminished respectfor the First Amendment. These include campus speech codes, political pressure for censorship on social media platforms, and asociety-wide “cancel culture” that inspires self-censorship lest “harmful” speech “trigger” offendedhearers. The most serious speech-regulation began half acentury ago, under theantiseptic rubric of “campaignﬁnancereform.” This month, the Supreme Court can begin removinganother shackle reformers have clamped on politicalspeech.The court will consider taking acase about whether the First Amendment is violated by limits on what political partiescan spend in coordination with their candidates’campaigns

to politicians’ issue positions, not the other way around. Teachersunionsgenerally support Democrats for the same reason opponents of gun restrictions generally supportRepublicans: the parties’ preexisting beliefs

Proctor &Gamble ($17.6 billion)and PepsiCo ($11.6 billion).

Melissa Hortman, the former Minnesota House speaker felled by an assassin’sbullet at her homeonSaturday,really did understand what democracy looks like.

It is emphatically not about the vile arrogance of extremists so certain of their superiority that they bestow on themselves the right to snuffout the lives of their political foes.

Hortman lived her highly constructive lifeinpolitics in the knowledge that achieving change democratically requires painstaking work: planning, coalition-building, persuasion, conciliation, vote-counting. She achieved farmore using these humble, but ultimately exhilarating, tools of self-government than any violent fanatic ever will.

Even before Iknew the identities of the victimsofMinnesota’sseemingly politically motivated shootings, Ishared with manyasense of mourning and horror over yet another episode of brutality in amoment already marked by too much of it. Then, Ilearned that Hortman and her husband, Mark, had been shot dead while another Democrat, state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife,Yvette, wereseverely wounded. With Hortman’sdeath, the story suddenly became morepersonal. Almost exactly two years ago, Ihad an enlightening interview with her foracolumn Iwas writing about what progressives around the country were calling the “Minnesota Miracle.” It was an outpouring of legislation madepossible by the Democrats’ narrow control of both houses of the state legislature and the governorship under TimWalz. Ican’tdofull justice here to all that Hortman and her colleagues achieved, but alengthy partial list can give you asense of just how much they got done. The miracle included legislation forpaid family and medical leave, sick leave, transgender rights protections, driver’slicenses forundocumented residents, abortion rights and voting rights.

Also on the list were background checks for private gun transfers, red ﬂag laws, legalized recreational marijuana, expanded education funding, and free breakfast and lunch forall Minnesota K-12 students.

As someone whose politics lean in aprogressive direction, Icheered these achievements. But what should be stressed about Hortman herself is how deeply she realized that nothing like any of this could have been accomplished without careful attention to the broad range of viewsamongher colleagues.

Howdid such an anodynepractice become problematic? This is how: In the 1970s, reformers, using the Watergate scandals as apretext, restricted campaign giving and spending. This was supposedly to prevent “corruption” —quid pro quo transactions —or the appearance thereof.

Reformers regulated “hard” money given to particular candidates; then “soft” money,given to parties for organizing and advocacy.Next, they targeted independent groups’ “express advocacy” of the election or defeat of identiﬁable candidates. Reformers also restricted such groups’ advocacy for or against issues clearly identiﬁed with particularcandidates. Earlier thismonth, peak absurdity reached the Supreme Court.It mustdecide whether acompelling government interest is served by limiting“coordination” betweenparties andtheir candidates. Lest the parties corrupt their own nominees?

Actual quid pro quo corruption involving donors is rare. Abundant research conﬁrms what common sense suggests: Political contributionsmove

published. Letters are not to

All laws regulating political competition involve government stipulatingthe permissible quantity of speech about the government’scomposition.All campaign ﬁnancelaws are written by members of the political class —by incumbent legislators. Such laws require askeptical squint: look for evidence of class interest. It is easy to see: Incumbency confers enormous communication advantages; challengers mustspend alot to match this. So,limits on political giving and spending protect incumbents.

Formodern mugwumps bent on removing the politicsfrom politics, the maddening “problem” is that people affected by governmentkeep trying to affect the government’scomposition

The reformers —including an exhorting and aself-interested media —fret about the “problem” of “too much money” in politics. The complaint necessarily is that there is too much political speech, because allcampaign spending is to fund, directly or indirectly, the dissemination of political advocacy to large constituencies.

How much, andbywhatmetric, is there “too much” money in politics? In the 2023-2024 election cycle, candidates for federal ofﬁces (president, House, Senate)spent atotal of $5.5 billion. To support them, political parties spent $2.6 billion, and political action committees spent $15.5 billion.(Reformers produced the dominance of PACs with regulationsthatdivertedpolitical contributions away from parties.) This $23.6 billion is less than the $29.2 billion of advertising spending in the same 24 months by just two U.S. companies,

For reformers, another “problem” is too much political participation:Political contributions are howmillionsof citizens participate. And by supporting the rationing of political speech, the mediaenhancethe dominance of their unregulated speech. Campaign “reforms” threaten the core speech protected by the First Amendment: political discourse. Today, many progressive intellectuals have decidedthe First Amendment is a “loophole” that endangers theiragenda of regulating everything, speech emphatically included. Public support for free speech might be weaker nowthan at anytime sincethe First Amendment was addedtothe Constitution in 1791. In 2014, 54 senators, all from the Democraticcaucus, voted to weaken the Bill of Rights’ protectionsby amending the First Amendment to permitpeople like them to ration speech aboutpeople like them. Theythereby acknowledgedthatthe amendment’s clear text(“Congress shallmake no law …abridging the freedom of speech”) forbids the campaignreformers’ desires.

Today’spolitical hygienists still have ametastasizing agenda for government regulation of thequantity of campaign speech. (And the contentofit: avoid “express advocacy.” And the timing of it: nottoo closetoanelection.) The result is arococo regime of speech restrictions, andhairsplitting exemptions therefrom.

The court can reafﬁrm the First Amendment’scrystallinesimplicity, the wisdom of whichisasself-evidentas this: No compelling government interest is servedbylimitingthe ability of partiestocoordinate with theircandidates’ political speech. Email George Will at georgewill@washpost.com.

She thus worked to bring together Democratic legislators from the metro Twin Cities, many on the left, and those closer to the center from rural and small-town areas. Preparing forefforts to enact progressive tax reform, Hortman told me, she appointed astaunch progressive from Minneapolis to chair one of the House’s tax committees and amoderate from the increasingly conservative Iron Range to chair the other.“If we couldn’tget both of them on board, then it wouldn’tbesomething our caucus could do.” That’sapractical politician speaking. Hortman also knew that to be sustainable, the program needed to be ﬁscally responsible. She noted to me that abudget surplus of $17.5 billion had set expectations “very high” forwhat Democrats could achieve. But fully $10 billion of that was “one-timemoney,” meaning that programshad to be funded and revenue raised forthe long term

And in an era when we have becomenumb to the claims of politicians —one in particular comes to mind —that they alone can repair what ails the country,Hortman was insistent on the centrality of working with others.

These killings should makeusthink hard about the contrast between what an effective, serious and —I stress, again —democraticwith-a-small-d politics entails, and the profound dangers of movements and individuals so certain of their own righteousness and so convinced of the evil of their political adversaries that they are prepared to overturn all the rules, normsand obligations that undergird political decency.Itspeaks to their state’srobust civic health that the entire Minnesota congressional delegation quickly issued ajoint, bipartisan statement decrying the shootings.

Many years ago, Lawrence O’Brien, whowas aclose aide to President John F. Kennedy and later became commissioner of the NBA, wrote amemoir with awonderful title: “NoFinal Victories.” He paid tribute to the fact that in ademocracy,there are no ﬁnal victories, which also meansthat there are no ﬁnal defeats. Hortman used the opening she had to accomplish alot because she knew the opportunity to do so might not come around again fora while —and she fully accepted the right of her opponents to winthe next time. Whatever her killer’spolitical or personal motivations turn out to be, his actions show that he understood none of these things. We can never allow this approach to politics to prevail.

E.J. Dionne is on X, @EJDionne.

George Will

E.J Dionne

Quin Hillyer

The Louisiana Public Defender Oversight Board appointed acommittee to look into the matter.After meeting in April, that panel sided with Starns. But after afiery board meeting on Monday,the committee decided to reconsider They met again Wednesday.There, the district chiefs and other defense advocates argued statestatute guaranteed continuity in theirjobsand didnot allow Starns to nonrenew contracts. He could only terminate them for good cause, the defenders argued.

“Rémy Starns does not

PADILLA

Continued from page1B

Padilla allegedly aggressively approached the man andplaced him in handcuffs, according to the newsre-

MOVE

Oil Center

have the discretiontoignore thelaw,” saidHogue “He must, as the law states, continue to contract unlessthereisavacancy due to demotion, resignation, termination, retirement or death.”

The contracts must be continued unless adefender is terminated for just cause, he said.“No justcause has ever been alleged by Mr Starns and none exist,” Hogue added.

Thedefendersalsocited quotes from legislators who indicated that the statute governing the state public defender was written to protect local chiefsfrom arbitrarilylosingtheir jobs

PauldeMahy,who chaired the advisorycommittee, said the evidencepresented changed hismind. He be-

lease. The handcuffed man didnot resist or pose athreat to himself or any ofﬁcers.

While theman was in handcuffs,Padilla allegedly poked himinthe chest and neck area andyelledinhis face, threatening to show himthat he was “a bad man,”

lieved Starns needed cause to nonrenew the contracts, he said. At the committee’slast hearing Starns did not“give any cause, and of course he’snot here today, so that leads me to believe thathe’s unable to produce cause for failing to renew contracts of allofthe individuals involved,”deMahy said.

Thecommittee, which also included members PhyllisKeaty andAdrejia Boutté,unanimously reversed itsearlier decision that had sided with Starns. Starns did notappear at thehearing, nor did anyone from his ofﬁce testify.But he haspreviously argued state lawgives him power over contracts with district defenders.

“I nonrenewed contracts.

the news release states.

Padilla then said, “Letme show you how bad Iam,”and forcefully twisted the man’s left wristand thumb, causing him pain.

The handcuffed manwas taken to the Sunset Police Department and was released

There’sbeen alot of loose language thrown outhere today aboutterminations No suchterminations ever took place. They have a term, term is expired,” StarnssaidduringMonday’sboard meeting. Starns did notimmediatelyreturn arequest for comment.

Also this week, theLouisiana Public Defender Oversight Board clashed with Starns over pay for district defenders. Though state law gives the board the authority to seta compensation plan for district chiefs, Starns has included his own separate plan in contracts for chief public defenders.

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

without being charged.

Federal court records show avideo was introduced as part of the case.

TheFBI investigatedthe case against Padilla.

Email Claire Taylor at ctaylor@theadvocate.com.

thecityofLafayette.

Landry, Dr. Nathan

AMemorialMass will be held on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 1:00 PM in Holy CrossCatholic Church in Lafayette for Dr.Nathan Landry, age, 67, who passedawayonTuesday, June 17, 2025 at hisresidenceinLafayette. Private Inurnment will be held in St.Joseph Cemetery in Milton. Reverend RaviJampangi will be theCelebrant of the Memorial Mass and officiate theservices. Survivors includehis belovedwife of 45 years, Robbie Landry; two children,Melissa Regan and herhusbandJeffand CarolineWelty and her husband Ryan;six grandchildren, Grant Regan, Luke Regan, Ellie Regan, Owen Welty, Anna Welty, andAbigail Welty; mother, LaurenceC.Landry; three sisters, NatalieLovett and herhusbandKenneth, Nancy Tardiff, andNanette Talbot.

took great pride in his craft. Dr. Landryespecially loved

with his familyand treasured every moment with hisgrandchildren. He foundpeace andjoy at hiscamp, surroundedbynature. Dr.Landrywill be rememberedfor hiskind heart, strongworkethic, andlove for both hisfamily andhis patients. Urnbearer willbeJeff Regan. Honorary Pallbearers will be Ryan Welty, Grant Regan, Luke Regan, and Owen Welty.

neighborhood and this city.”

The Lafayette City Council on Tuesday voted 4-1 to rezone the house and property at 903 Myrtle Place from aresidential mixed neighborhoodtoa mixeduse neighborhood with certain conditions. Council member Andy Naquin cast the only no vote. The council also approved aconditional-use permit for the property allowing it to be used for arestaurant and prohibiting other uses, including asmall hotel, animal hospital, convenience store and medical ofﬁce

The house has been for

sale more than 329 days. Potential buyers often sayit’s tooclose to Congress Street, whereasmanyas21,000 vehicles pass daily Five Mile Eatery would be allowed to operateonly from 6a.m. to 3p.m. daily Parking and ingress/egress will be via Congress Street, with no accesstoMyrtle Place. Eighteen parking spots will be allowed

Co-founder Sarah Trotter said preliminary plans were revised over the past monthorso, reducing the maximum seating to about 60 people. Alcohol willnot be sold andonly breakfast andlunch will be served, shesaid “Welive here. We work here,” Trotter said. “We care deeply about

Myrtle Place resident Stephanie Cornay Dugan still was opposed to the restaurant.

“Weare notdowntown. We are not theCajundome. We don’twant to be them,” shesaid. “Welikethe restaurant. We just don’tlike it in this particular location.”

Several Myrtle Place residents expressed concern that arestaurantwill cause trafﬁc problems and open up adoor to additional commercial businesses in theneighborhood.

The mixed-useneighborhood zone is the most sensitive to neighborhoods of all commercial zones,said Cathie Gilbert,planning

PROVIDED By U. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and la the

Continued from page1B arrested on Tuesday.The releasestatesthatMoreno “illegally entered the U.S four times, wasconvicted twice for driving under the inﬂuenceaswell as once for cocaine possession and illegal reentry.”Inadditionto Moreno, ICE also arrested a40-year-old from Mexico who had previously been arrested forcriminal conspiracy,aggravated battery with adangerous weapon, sexual battery and video voyeurism, according to the release The operation was con-

in Vinton on Tuesday.

ductedafter authorities received informat catingthat the bus operating at the racetrack stableswereemp unauthorized workers. Calcasieu Parish Ofﬁce, Lake Charles Department and Louisiana StatePolice helped investigation.

EmailCourtneyP at courtney.peders theadvocate.com

Mixed-use zoning is in placealong Congress Street, where there already are several businesses just blocksfrom MyrtlePlace, including adentistoffice andauto care shop between West St.Mary Boulevard and the Cajundome.

The Assessor’sOffice classiﬁes Congress Street in thatareaasa commercial corridor,Realtor Michelle Ezell said.

The next step,Gilbert said, is for theowners to go through thecity’scommercial plan review process.

Email Claire Taylor at ctaylor@theadvocate.com.

He wasprecededin death by his father, Richard Landry; and mother-in-law, ShirleyLandry.

Dr.Nathan Landrywas a caringand skilledphysician whodedicated hislife to helpingothers. He earnedhis undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, wherehestudiedfrom 1975 to 1979. He then went on to receive hisDoctor of Medicine degree from Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleansin1983. Following medical school, Dr.Landrycompletedhis internship and residency at E.A. Conway Memorial Hospital in Monroe, Louisiana. He became Board Certified in FamilyPractice andwas a

ARosarywillberecited on Friday, June 20, 2025 at 11:30 AM in HolyCross Catholic Church in Lafayette. Thefamilyrequeststhat visitation be observedon Friday, June 20, 2025 from 10:30 AM untiltimeofservicesinHoly Cross Catholic Church in Lafayette. In lieu of flowers donationscan be made in Dr NathanLandry'sname to Catholic Charities of Acadiana, P.O. Box 3177 Lafayette, LA 70502. View theobituaryand guestbook online at www.mourning.com Martin& CastilleSOUTHSIDE, 600 E. Farrel Road,Lafayette, Louisiana 70508, 337-984-2811

Advertising Lookingtopromote your services or find anew hire?Deliver your classified message statewide foras littleas$265 perweek throughthe LouisianaPress Association’s Classified Network. Pre-payment required To learnmore, email advertising@lapress.comorcall 225-344-9309.

Miscellaneous INJUREDINANACCIDENT?Don't accept theinsurance company's ﬁrst offer. Many injured partiesare entitled to majorcashsettlements Geta free evaluation to seewhat your case is really worth. 100% Free Evaluation.CallNow:1-833-466-1630. Be readywithyourzip codeto connect with theclosest provider. Donate your car, truck, boat,RV and more to support ourveterans! Schedule aFAST, FREE vehicle pickup and receivea toptax deduction! Call VeteranCar Donationsat1-844-742-5188 today! (LA_SCAN) Health andWellness DENTAL INSURANCEfromPhysicians Mutual InsuranceCompany Coverage for400 plus procedures Real dental insurance- NOTjusta discount plan.Donot wait!Call now! GetyourFREEDental InformationKit with allthe details! 1-855-268-0108 www.dental50plus.com/morning #6258 Home andGarden PROFESSIONAL LAWN SERVICE: Fertilization, weed control, seeding, aeration and mosquito control. Call nowfor afreequote.Ask aboutour ﬁrst applicationspecial!1-833-4661808 Eliminateguttercleaningforever! LeafFilter,the most advanced debris-blocking gutterprotection. Schedule aFREELeafFilter estimate today. 20% offEntirePurchase. Plus

1-855-654-8207 MedicalEquipment ATTENTIONOXYGENTHERAPY USERS! Discover Oxygen Therapy That MoveswithYou with Inogen Portable Oxygen Concentrators. FREE informationkit.Call1-833-6614164 Don’tlet thestairslimit your mobility! Discover the ideal solution foranyonewho struggles on the stairs,isconcerned abouta fallor wantstoregainaccess to their entire home.Call AmeriGlidetoday! 1-844-855-4978

PHOTO

Delta Downs Racetrack

SPORTS

Physical challenge

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

UL junior point guard JamyronKeller isn’tunder any delusions about what he signed up for in CajunCountry Keller decided to transfer to UL from Oklahoma State to play for aformer point guard in coach QuannasWhite knownfor challenging those whoacceptthe task

“I know the type of coach (that) coach Qis, so Iknow it’sgoing to be hard work every day,” Keller said.“Ifeel likethat’s going to take not onlymyself butmy

BY TIM REYNOLDS AP basketball writer

INDIANAPOLIS Difﬁcult as it may seem, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is desperately trying to not think about what may awaitthe Oklahoma City Thunder

The MVP,scoring champion and Thunder star doesn’twanttothink about the end of the NBA Finals. Or how the Larry O’Brien Trophy will feel in his hands if he gets to hoist it as achampion. Or what the celebration will look like, sound like, be like.

The Thunder is one win from a title, and it could come when it visits the potentially shorthanded Indiana Pacers in Game 6ofthe NBA Finals on Thursday night. It is not just another game, but Gilgeous-Alexanderistryingto

JAMyRON

teammates to awhole other level, because we’re abouttoget ready to work like we’ve never worked before.”

At 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds,Keller has the stature to be atough, physicalpoint guardlikeWhitewas in his playing days

at St. AugustineHighand laterOklahoma.Keller alsoisconﬁdent he can handle themental standards.

Keller’sexpectationsfor his first

BY JEFF DUNCAN Staff writer

Twoofthe best defensive backsin club history,Brett Maxie and Tracy Porter, arethe newest inductees to the Saints Hall of Fame, ofﬁcialsannounced Wednesday Ofﬁcials also announced that former Saints special-teams standout Steve Gleasonwill receive the inaugural CourageAward, andformerWGNO sports director Ed Danielsisthe 2025recipient of the Joe Gemelli “Fleur de Lis” award. The new inductees were introduced at anews conference at theSaints’ facilityonWednesday.The induction ceremonywill be held during the Dec. 1314 weekend, whenthe Saintsplayhost to the Carolina Panthers at the Caesars Superdome.

Porter is the13thmemberofthe Saints 2009 Super Bowlchampionship team to earn induction. He joins Jabari Greer (2023) andRoman Harper(2021) as membersofthe 2009 secondaryto earn black jackets. Porter’sfourth-quarterinterceptions against Brett Favre and Peyton Manning in the 2009 NFC championshipgameand Super Bowl, respectively,are widely regarded as two of the mostmemorable playsinSaints history.His 74-yard interception return for atouchdownsealed the Saints’ 31-17 victory against the Indianapolis ColtsinSuper BowlXLIV He interceptedFavre to thwart alastsecond scoring threat by the Minnesota Vikings andforce overtimeinthe NFC championship game, which the Saints eventually won 31-28. In four seasons with the Saints, Porter started 39 games and recorded seven interceptions, four forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and 37 pass breakups while making 227 tackles (178 solo). Maxie is the eighth memberand the second defensivebackfromthe famed Dome Patrol defense to be inducted (Dave Waymer was the ﬁrst). He started 72 games in nine seasons from 1985-93 and recorded 438 tackles, 15 interceptions and five fumble recoveries. He returnedthree of his interceptionsfor touchdowns. His fourth-down, goal-line tackle sealed a20-16 victory against the Steelers in 1987 andhelpedsecure the ﬁrst winning season in franchisehistory Porter and Maxie are the seventh and ä Thunder atPacers, 7:30P.M.THURSDAy,ABC

make it seem that way

“The cusp of winning is not winning,” Gilgeous-Alexandersaid

“The way Isee it, winning is all that matters. It hasn’tbeen fulﬁlled. We haven’tdone anything.”

TheThunder leadsthe NBA Finals 3-2, hasposted83winssofar this season andjust found away to hand Indiana its ﬁrst setofbackto-back losses inthree months.

TheThunder,just as it did against Denver in Round 2, has bounced back from series deficitsof1-0 and2-1.

“Wewant to winthe game tomorrow,but the most important thing we needtodotowin the game tomorrow is prepare today

Good Luck in Omaha!

and prepare tomorrowand play the first possession really well, then the next possession, then the next possession,” Thundercoach Mark Daigneault said Wednesday

“That’s how we try to approach a game,how we try to approach the playoff series, how we trytoapproach every single day and let that win the day.”

The Pacers expect acrazedatmosphere forwhatwill be their finalhome game of the season; if they forceaGame7,it’ll be in Oklahoma CityonSunday. What the Pacers don’tknow is whether Tyrese Haliburton will play because of astrained right calf.

“I think that’sall we can do, right? Think aboutthe next game,” Pacers forward PascalSiakam

BENJAMINR.MASSEy/UL COMMUNICATIONS

Panthers get another Stanley Cup

Team-first mentality helps Florida secure repeat championship

BY STEPHEN WHYNO AP hockey writer

SUNRISE,Fla.— Aleksander Barkov

hoisted the Stanley Cup, skated with it for a few moments and then handed it to a grinning Nate Schmidt, in his first year with the Florida Panthers and raising hockey’s hallowed trophy for the ﬁrst time. Before any repeat winner touched it, every Panther who never had before got the chance. There’s a lot of guys, they play a ton of minutes that are huge contributors to this group, and they bypassed them and said: ‘We had it last year We’ll never not cherish this moment,’” Schmidt said “It was amazing.”

It also personiﬁed the Panthers, who did not have the best player in the ﬁnal, not facing Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers again. They may not have even had the second-best with Leon Draisaitl there, too, but Florida repeating as champions showed exactly why hockey is the ultimate team sport.

“We just have so much heart, so much talent: Heart meets talent,” said winger Matthew Tkachuk, who played through a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle.

“Our team was a team. When things were getting hard for them, they looked to one guy But our team, we do it collectively.”

The Panthers had 19 non-goalies on the ice over six games against the Oilers; 15 registered a point and 11 scored at least once. Coach Paul Maurice said the team is “just really deep — unusually so,” making the point that he essentially had three ﬁrst lines to roll out at any given time.

“A very talented group of guys, so when you bring somebody in, we’re going to play you with a really good player,” Maurice said General manager Bill Zito, who inherited Barkov, defenseman Aaron Ekblad and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky built the rest of the

The Florida Panthers raise the Stanley Cup after defeating the

in Sunrise, Fla., on Tuesday.

roster to win in the playoffs. With Maurice and his staff in charge, players who were adrift or simply mediocre elsewhere thrived in Florida.

“For the most part, every guy who’s come here has had the best season of their careers,” Zito said.

“From that perspective, it’s gratifying to think that we can create an environment where the guys can do that, but it’s the team. It’s that room It truly is.”

Fourth-liner A.J. Greer is one of those players after nearly giving up on his NHL dream a few years ago. He, Zito, Conn Smythe Trophy winner Sam Bennett and so many others use the word “culture” to explain the Panthers’ greatness, and it translates into results on the ice.

The forecheck is never-ending, the harassment in the neutral zone relentless — and the offense burgeoning with talent.

“Everyone levels their game up here — every one of us,” Greer said. “There’s a sentiment of greatness but of just like wanting to be as good as you were yesterday.”

Tkachuk, acquired by Zito in a trade from Calgary in the same summer of 2022 when Maurice was hired as coach, shook his head when asked about scoring the Cup-clinching goal in Game 6. He wanted to make a point that it doesn’t matter who scores.

“I don’t care about personal stats,” Tkachuk said. “I don’t care. Our team doesn’t (care) about that. That’s what makes us a team, and that’s why we’re lifting the Stanley Cup right now because we’re a team and not a bunch of individuals.”

McDavid, who had seven points in six games in the ﬁnal, had nothing but praise after a second straight loss to the Panthers on the NHL’s biggest stage.

“They’re a really good team,” McDavid said. “Very deserving. They were really good.”

Florida was in the final for a third consecutive year, and the only loss during this stretch came to Vegas in 2023 when injuries ravaged Tkachuk, Ekblad and others.

That was the start of the winning blueprint that has made the

LOUISIANA SPORTS HALL OF FAME

Panthers so successful for so long.

“There’s a way that we do things here, and it’s not easy,” said Bennett, who led all players in the playoffs with 15 goals. “We don’t play an easy style of hockey It demands a lot of you Every single guy’s bought into it When some new guys came in, they instantly bought into what we do here and the commitment to being great, to winning. Every single guy just really bought into that.”

Schmidt found that out quickly He played for Maurice in Winnipeg, got bought out last summer and just wanted to get his game back. That happened quickly, and the Stanley Cup was the reward after going through another long grind as a team.

“It’s the system It’s the group. It’s just completely selfless,” Schmidt said. “Guys just play one way, and they say, ‘Hey, this is how we do things’ and you’ve got to jump on board. Guys, once they mold themselves into the game, you just become another cog in the wheel here. That’s just the way it runs. It’s just a well-oiled machine.”

Guilbeau did not shy away from varied career

BY SCOOTER HOBBS

Contributing writer

This is an entry in a proﬁle series of inductees for the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025. The induction ceremony is set for June 28 in Natchitoches.

College athletes do a lot of bouncing around from school to school these days It turns out the transfer portal is not just for athletes. Take Glenn Guilbeau, for instance. The Metairie native was living the portal life long before it became fashionable. It is now ofﬁcially a Hall of Fame journey, as Guilbeau will be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame during an induction ceremony June 28 in Natchitoches.

Few on the journalism side took a longer and more winding road there, although most of it has been

based in Baton Rouge, covering the LSU sports scene. He first tested the portal in college, attending LSU as a freshman in 1979-80, UNO for a year, then transferring to Missouri, then back to LSU and finally finishing at Missouri in the summer of 1983 Diploma in hand, the bouncing around began. It started back in Baton Rouge working for Tiger Rag before moving on to the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Slidell Sentry News, Alexandria Town Talk, Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register, back to Baton Rouge at The Advocate, then Gannett Louisiana (based in

Baton Rouge) covering LSU for the chain’s numerous state newspapers. Then he became a national columnist at OutKick/FOX News, and, ﬁnally, back where it all started at Tiger Rag.

“It has always been a lot of fun and adventure to leave a job, preferably on your own, and start a new one,” Guilbeau said “First you get a going-away party then you’re the new guy Everything’s fresh.”

Most of the jobs were based in Baton Rouge, and there is one constant throughout his varied career It doesn’t matter where he works or which team or sport he covers, readers are going to get Guilbeau unﬁltered.

It doesn’t always endear him to fans, but he knows no other way What he sees is what he’s going to write.

“I always wanted to be a columnist more than a reporter,” he said. “Writing opinions doesn’t lend itself to long relationships with people at the school or on the team.”

Translation: If the home team messes up, he’s going to point it out.

If the coach made a bad gameday decision, that coach will read about it the next day Guilbeau ﬁgures the teams have tryouts for cheerleaders, none of which he signed up for “I believe that for every 10 fans who get pissed, there is one who loves it,” Guilbeau said. “LSU fans — more than any other fan base, I believe — have more of an edge to them. They’re always on the brink of turning on the Tigers because LSU historically has had so many ups and downs and football coaching turnover.”

Buss family to sell controlling stake of Lakers to Walter

BY TIM REYNOLDS AP basketball writer

The Buss family has agreed to sell the controlling stake of the Los Angeles Lakers to TWG Global CEO Mark Walter, doing so with a franchise valuation of $10 billion the most ever for a professional sports franchise, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Wednesday As part of the deal, Jeanie Buss — whose family has had control of the Lakers since her father bought the team in 1979 intends to remain as team governor, said the person, who

spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because neither side immediately announced details It is not clear how much more of the Lakers that Walter is acquiring. He was part of a group that bought 27% of the Lakers in 2021. Walter and TWG Global already had the controlling interest in the Los Angeles Dodgers, Premier League club Chelsea, the Professional Women’s Hockey League, and — through TWG Motorsports — owns several auto racing teams including Cadillac Formula 1

The agreement for the sale of the Lakers comes about three months after Bill Chisholm agreed to buy the Boston Celtics with an initial valuation of $6.1 billion — that topping the previous mark of $6.05 billion sale for the NFL’s Washington Commanders. And now, $10 billion not just a record, but a total smashing of the previous mark. The Lakers have been in the control of the Buss family for 46 years, the longest of any current NBA franchise. Herb Simon bought the Indiana Pacers currently in the NBA Finals — in 1983, the second-

longest current ownership of an NBA club. Jerry Buss bought the Lakers for $67.5 million and left the club to his family when he died. The franchise has won 17 championships, second-most in NBA history, and has seen some of the game’s most storied players wear its uniform — Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, George Mikan, Elgin Baylor, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and NBA all-time points leader LeBron James just some of the icons who have played for the Lakers.

Mabrey’s foul on Clark upgraded to Flagrant-2

The WNBA has upgraded the technical foul on Connecticut’s Marina Mabrey for shoving Caitlin Clark to the ﬂoor during Tuesday’s night game against Indiana to a Flagrant-2, a person familiar with the situation said Wednesday on condition of anonymity

Any ﬂagrant foul comes with an automatic ﬁne.

The person also said the league has ﬁned the Fever’s Sophie Cunningham for her role in the oncourt melee that occurred after she fouled Jacy Sheldon with 46.1 seconds left.

Cunningham received a Flagrant-2 Tuesday night.

There will be no further penalties for on-court actions during the game, the person said. The WNBA doesn’t disclose the amount of money players are ﬁned.

Nabers ready for camp after sitting out in spring New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers should be available to practice for the start of training camp next month after sitting out during the spring with a toe issue, an issue he’s had since his college days.

Coach Brian Daboll said Wednesday that the former LSU receiver was “doing good” and he had no concerns that the injury would affect his availability Nabers didn’t practice in the sessions open to reporters during OTAs and minicamp, but participated in some of the team’s walkthrough periods. Nabers, the sixth overall pick in the draft last year caught an NFL rookie-record 109 passes last season while setting the franchise mark for most receptions in a season.

Ravens sign cornerback Alexander to 1-year deal

Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson stood at the podium after a practice Tuesday and exhorted general manager Eric DeCosta to “go get” free agent and two-time Pro Bowl cornerback Jaire Alexander

On Wednesday, Alexander, who spent his ﬁrst seven seasons in the NFL with the Green Bay Packers, signed with Baltimore, the team announced.

It’s a one-year, $4 million deal worth up to $6 million, according to a source with direct knowledge of the contract.

Alexander’s addition bolsters a Ravens pass defense that ranked 31st in yards allowed per game (244.1) and was 17th in interceptions with 12. He also adds depth to the secondary

Ruggs apologizes to family of woman he killed in crash Former Raiders wide receiver

Henry Ruggs, on special release Tuesday night, spoke at a Hope for Prisoners event in Las Vegas and apologized to the family of a woman he killed in a car crash nearly four years ago.

Ruggs drove his sports car at speeds up to 156 mph in the city on Nov 2, 2021, slamming into a vehicle that killed driver Tina Tintor and her dog, Max. Tintor was 23.

Ruggs was asked at the event what he would say to Tintor’s family

Ruggs, a former first-round draft pick, pleaded guilty in May 2023 to felony DUI causing death and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter He was sentenced in August 2023 to a 3- to 10-year prison sentence.

Tampa Bay Rays in talks about a potential sale

The Tampa Bay Rays say they are in “exclusive discussions” with a Florida investment group for a potential sale of the team. The Rays are valued at $1.25 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Stuart Sternberg bought the Major League Baseball club for $200 million in 2004.

The potential sale comes at a precarious time for the Rays and their home ballpark. They are playing this season at the spring training home of the New York Yankees in Tampa after the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg was heavily damaged during Hurricane Milton last October In March, Sternberg said the club was withdrawing from the $1.3 billion agreement for a stadium development next to

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By NATHAN DENETTE

Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final

Guilbeau

McConnellready to providePacers whatever they need

BY MICHAEL MAROT AP sports writer

INDIANAPOLIS IndianaPacers

guard T.J. McConnell keeps doing the unthinkable.

At 6-foot-1, he repeatedly backs his way into the paint and outmaneuvers the NBA’s giants for scores. At age 33, he still runs the court with aspeed opponents struggle to contend with. And defensively,heoften harasses some of the league’stop stars intomiscues.

Now,McConnell faces his biggest challenge: Potentially replacing two-time All-Star Tyrese Haliburton on Thursday night as the Pacers try to extend their season against Oklahoma City in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

Haliburton said Wednesday he will try to play through the strained right calf because of the stakes. Coach Rick Carlisle called his catalyst agame-time decision, an indication that at the very least McConnell could log moreminutes than usual.

Either way,McConnell promises he’ll be ready

“I’ve just got to injectenergy, like Ialways do,” McConnell said after Wednesday’spractice. “Our starters have willed us here,and we’ve just kind of got to go in there and. inject energywhere it’sneeded and do our jobs.”

So far,hehas thrived in the spotlight. While McConnell’saverages of 9.0 points, 4.0 assists and 2.9 rebounds in 16.7 minutes look ordinary,his presence has been extraordinary He became thefirstbench player in NBAFinals history to record five assists andfive steals in one game, and he helped the Pacers cut a16-point second-half deﬁcit to two while Haliburton struggledinMonday’s120-109 loss that gave the Thunder a3-2 lead.

But it’sthe way he playsthe game that has made McConnell such afan favorite in abasketball-lovingstate that prefers toughness and defense to stars or point totals.

The truth is, this is how he learned the game fromhis father Tim, alongtime prep coach from suburban Pittsburgh who has become aregular in thecrowd during this playoff run.

“Everyone knows what they’ve got to do when they’re on the ﬂoor with T.J.,” Pacers forward Obi Toppin said. “Weexpect him to get in

“I’ve just gottoinjectenergy, like Ialwaysdo. Our starters have willedushere, and we’ve just kind of gottogointhere and inject energywhere it’s needed and do our jobs.”

T.J. MCCONNELL, Pacers guard

the paint. We expect him to move theball.Weknow what he’s doing when we’re out there, so it makes our job easier.”

Toppin, McConnelland BennedictMathurin haveformed atight bond onthe court despitetheir differing backgrounds and styles.

Toppin, the 2019-20 College Basketball Playerofthe Year,and Mathurin, the ﬁrst Canadian-born playertoattendthe NBA’s Latin AmericaAcademy, were lottery picks.

McConnell went undrafted out of Arizona —the same school Mathurin attended —and hashad to repeatedly reprove himself.

McConnell’sstrong preseason in 2015 promptedthe Philadelphia 76ers to keep him for thenext four seasonsbeforeletting him test free agency and land with the Pacers. Then early last season, it appeared McConnell’scareer might be teetering

Carlisle told McConnell early last season he wouldn’tbeinthe regular rotation, adiscussion Carlisle describedasone of the toughest he’s ever had. McConnell wasn’tdiscouraged.

“I think coaches in the league have atoughjob because you can’tpleaseeverybody, so sometimes you’re theodd man out,” he said. “So you can put your head down andsulkabout it andmake excuses or you can put your head down and go to work. Ichose the latter.”

ThePacers couldn’tbehappier with the results.

McConnell played so well during last year’s breakout playoff run that Indianagavehim afour-year, $45 million contract extension. He’splayedeven better during this year’srun to the Eastern Conference title.

Can he help save theseason Thursday night?Don’t count him out.

“We’ve been in this position before,” McConnell said. “So we just, youknow, we can’tﬂinch. We’ve got to be ready for the challenge because they’regoing to come out ready and, like Isaid, we just have more work to do.”

SAINTS

Continuedfrom page1C

eighth defensive backs to receive the honor. Theyjoin Greer,Harper,Sammy Knight (2011),Dave Whitsell (1996), DaveWaymer (1996) andTommy Myers (1989). Gleason was aspecial-teams standout with theSaints from 2000-07. He is believedtobethe club’sall-time leader in blocked puntswithfour and was ateam captain formostofhis career He remains oneofthe club’s career leaders in special-teams tackles with98. Hisiconic blocked punt against the Atlanta Falcons in the 2006 reopening of the Superdomeafter Hurricane Katrina remains one of the most iconic plays in franchisehistory Since his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)diagnosisin 2011, Gleason has ledglobalefforts to raise awareness of the disease andsupport people living with ALS through Team Gleason,

the nonprofit organizationhe founded in 2011, andAnswerALS, another locally based nonprofit focused on finding acure. Team Gleason has provided morethan $55 million in technology,equipment, adventure and care services to peopleliving with ALS, while Answer ALS hasraisedmorethan $45 million toward the scientific quest for acure.Collectively,he and the staffatTeam Gleason and Answer ALS have helpedraise more than $100 milliontobenefit those living with ALS.

Gleason’sefforts have been recognized worldwide. He wasthe ﬁrst professional football player to receive the Congressional Gold Medaland also was honored with ESPN’sArthurAsheAwardfor Courage andthe George Halas Award (Pro Football Writers of America) forhis perseverance anddedication.

Daniels served as the sports directoratWGNO-TV from 19922024 and was the longest-tenured sports broadcaster in New Orleans for much of his time in the

city.ANew Orleans native who graduated from Rummel High School and Loyola University New Orleans, Daniels created and hosted WGNO’spopular “Friday Night Football” program, which wasdedicated to high school sports. He also served as aradio color analyst for the Saints preseason radio broadcasts from1995-99, andwas an original member of the Saints Hall of Fameselection committeebeginning in 1988. Daniels was recognized for his work by receiving theLifetime Achievement Award from the Press Club of New Orleans in 2014and wasthreetimes named the Louisiana Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters andSportswriters Association. He died in 2024 after suffering aheart attack while in Los Angelestocover Saintstraining camp at theUniversity of CalIrvine. He was 67.

EmailJeff Duncan at jduncan@ theadvocate.com.

said. “It’s agreat opportunity in frontofour fans.I’m sure it’s goingtobeahuge moment for ourfans. They’regoingtobesuper excited. We have achance at home, NBA Finals. It’sagood opportunity.That’sall it is.”

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle has been stressing twokey points: fewer turnovers (Indiana had23 for 32 Oklahoma Citypoints in Game 5) andlimitingOKC’soffensive rebounding. Those areas must be cleaned up whether Haliburtonplays or not.

The Pacers trailed New York 3-2 in the second round last season, came home and won Game 6, then wenttoMadisonSquare Garden and wonGame7.Winning from this positionispossible, and Carlisle knows it.

“Whatweneed to do is buckle down. Stand strong. Ianticipate oneofthe best crowdsinthe history of Gainbridge Fieldhouse,” Carlisle said. “We’ve got to ﬁnd away.The ultimateistoget to a Game 7. That is theultimateprivilege. It’s the ultimate experience in sports. Butwe’vegot to take care of home court tomorrow to do that.

Afterscoring 40

Thunder guard Jalen Williams, whohad 40 points in Game5, didn’tget aton of calls and texts after the highest-scoring playoff game of his career

Then again, his friends know he’snot on the phone muchright

now

“Honestly,Itry nottoanswer my phone as much, even though that probably sounded like I’ma jerk,”Williams said. “There’sjust alot of highs and lows throughout the series. Youdon’t getasmany texts if youdon’t play well. Itry to keep that in perspective, too.”

On thebrink

Since 2000, teams are 25-13 in games where they can winthe NBAtitle.

The Thunder is aiming to go 1-0 in such games this year,something 20 teamshave done in the

last 25 seasons. The NBA’s most recent champion, Boston,needed two triesatitlastseason before ousting Dallas.

Seeking84

If the Thunder wins Game 6— or Game 7—itwould push Oklahoma City’swin total forthe season to 84, including the playoffs. That is rare air. Only three teamshave won84ormore games in aseason:the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors won88(and lost in the NBA Finals), the 1995-96 Chi-

KELLER

Continued from page1C

season at UL are alignedwith his new coach.

“I know whatever his expectations are is what my expectations are,” Keller said. “That relationship between coach and player is deﬁnitely very vital.

“I feel like if you work hard enough, the weight andthe stipulations that anybody can put on you, that doesn’tmatter.Aslongasyou work and you know what you’re going to putininthe gym and get out, Ifeel like all the weight is just another thingyou’ve got to do.”

Once he visited UL, Keller did not check out any other schools.

“I wish Icouldput it into words …itwas just like agenuineconnection,” Keller said.“CoachQ and his staff —from the top all the waydownto the managers and the

GAs —everybody is justgenuine and you can deﬁnitely feel it. You can feel thelove in thisprogram. Youdon’tﬁnd agenuine love everywhere.” It’searly on, but Keller feels comfortableinSouth Louisiana “Man, there’salot going on, but thepeople are great,” he said. “I’m from South Carolina, the south, so this remindsmealot of South Carolina. The southern hospitality is good, Ilove it. The food is good thefood is great. The facility here is nice and some good food in the cafe, so Ifeel like Icouldn’tbeat abetter place.”

Although aSouth Carolina native,hemoved to Texasafter his mother got married and brought great success to Ellison High. He finished as the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,284 points andled theprogram to its first statetournament title in 31 years on his way to being named the Class 5A Player of the Year

He originally chose Oklahoma Stateover Kansas State, Old Dominion, SMU, VCU,WichitaState andWyoming.

His transition was filled with ups anddowns. He averaged 6.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 25 games as afreshman. Last year,Keller averaged 5.2 points, 2.4 rebounds and1.3 assists in 20.3 minutesper game.

Much of his scoring in high school came fromhis physicality

“At the basket, either too quick for the defender or toobig,”Keller said. “It transferred very well (in college). With thesizeIhave, I’m able to playthrough physicality

That’s my wholething, getting into your body and making you feel what you’reguarding.”

He learned avaluable lesson during his time at Oklahoma State.

“The area that Istruggled in was consistency,” Keller said. “I think thebiggest thing forahigh school kid jumpingtoDivision I, espe-

cially in aleague like the Big 12, you have to stay consistent.

“Asan18-year-oldkid,you’renot fully grasping thefact that you’re going to have to be consistentday in and day out —same effort, same everything —asmuch in practice as the games, absolutely.”

He’sready to live outhis longtime quest of practice being much more difﬁcult than thegames

“Stacking days of hard work, that’swhatisgoing to getus there,” Kellersaid.

His twoyearsinStillwateralso taught him valuable leadership skills.

“Being around abunchofolder guys with alot of college basketball experience taught me the ins andouts of college basketballand how to be successful,”hesaid.

While learning White’ssystem, Keller alsowillmentor freshman point guardMichael Collins from Texas. White likes what he’sseen from

Keller

“Jamyron and Mike are going to be good,” White said. “They just havetolearn how hard it is to win andhow hard it is to be consistent day in and day out. Both of them are strong, physical guards. Jamyron has great experience. He’splayed in the Big 12 for two years, so that’sgoing to help us.

“He can lead thoseguys,but it’s alearningcurve forhim too becausehe’snever played for me, andhe’snever been required to play as hard as he’sgoing to be required to playright now.”

Keller said he planstobethe kind of point guard “that does whatever it takes to winthe game.”

“But Idon’twant to speaktoo early,” he said. “I wantthe game to do thetalking.”

Email Kevin Footeatkfoote@ theadvocate.com.

STAFF FILE PHOTO

This Tracy Porter interception of aBrett Favre pass in the fourthquarter of the 2009 NFCchampionship game is one of the most famous defensiveplays in Saints history.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By KyLE PHILLIPS Indiana Pacers guard T.J. McConnell shootsasOklahomaCity Thunder forwardKenrichWilliams, left, defends duringthe second half of Game 5 of the NBAFinalson MondayinOklahoma City

LSU’sSEC home games

to include Alabama, Ky.

BY TOYLOYBROWN III Staff writer

LSU men’sbasketball’sconference schedule for the season is set, the SoutheasternConference announced on Wednesday At thePete Maravich Assembly Center,coach Matt McMahon‘s team will face Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky,Mississippi State,Missouri and Oklahoma. On the road, the Tigers will take on Auburn, Florida, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas and Vanderbilt.

The Tigers will have home-andhome matchups against Arkansas, Texas A&M and South Carolina. LSU went 14-18overall and3-15 in the SEClastseason. Itsthree victories came against Arkansas, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

The Tigers didn’tbeat any team in the top nine of the SEC standings. Next season’sSEC play will begin Saturday,Jan. 3, and continue through Saturday,March7

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU forward JalenReed dunks the ball againstAlabama State on Nov. 10 in the Pete MaravichAssembly Center. The Tigers will trytoimprove on lastseason’s14-18 record, which included a3-15 SECmark.

TheSEC will set dates and times for conference games at alater date.

LSUalready announcedtwo nonconference games. It will play one contest at BostonCollege in December and aneutral-site game against DrakeinNovember in the Emerald Coast Classic.

Email Toyloy Brown III at toyloy.brown@theadvocate.com

CoastalCarolinastartsfast, earnsits waytoCWS

BY ERIC OLSON AP sportswriter

OMAHA, Neb.— Coastal Carolina advanced to the College World Series finals witha11-3 victory over Louisville on Wednesday,scoring five of itssix first-inning runs before making an out and extending its win streak to 26 games.

The Chanticleers (56-11)will play LSUorArkansas in thebestof-three ﬁnals starting Saturday They are going for their second national championship in their two appearances in Omaha. They won their ﬁrst in 2016.

Louisville (42-24) started lefthander Colton Hartman, primarily arelieverwho hadn’tappeared in agame since May 17. He didn’t last long.

CadenBodine singledleading offand Sebastian Alexander and BlakeBarthol were hit by pitches to load thebases. Walker Mitchell punched aball into right ﬁeldto bringintwo runs,and then Hartman issued afour-pitch walk. Out went Hartman(2-1) and in cameJake Schweitzer.Colby Thorndyke greeted him with his second bases-clearing double in twogames to make it 5-0. Thorn-

CWSGLANCE

lina is 43-0 when leading after six innings.

dyke camehomeonTyDooley’s one-out single and finished 3for 4 with five RBIs. The Chanticleerspadded their lead with Pete Mihos’ two-run triple in the fifth andtwo more runs in the sixth. Coastal Caro-

SCOREBOARD

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOByJOANNA CHAN

Britain’sJack Draper hits areturntoAustralia’sAlexei Popyrin during their singles match at theQueensClub grass-courtchampionships on WednesdayinLondon. Draperwon the Wimbledon-prep match 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (5).

San Diego (Bergert 1-0)atL.A. Dodgers (Yamamoto 6-5), 9:10 p.m. AmericanLeague Leaders BATTING Judge, New York, .372; Ja.Wilson, Athletics, .360;Aranda, TampaBay 323; Ramírez, Cleveland, .319; Peña, Houston, .317; M.Garcia, Kansas City, .312; Kirk, Toronto, .310; O’Hearn, Baltimore, .306; Goldschmidt, New York, .304; Kwan, Cleveland, .298. RUNS Judge, New York, 65;Devers, San Francisco,47; Raleigh, Seattle, 47; Rooker Athletics, 46; Goldschmidt, New York, 44; Ju.Rodríguez, Seattle, 44;Butler,Athletics, 43; B.Lowe, TampaBay,43; Peña, Houston, 43; Ramírez, Cleveland, 43. RBIS Raleigh, Seattle, 60;Judge, New York, 60; Devers,San Francisco,58; Greene, Detroit, 51; Ward,Los Angeles,49; Torkelson, Detroit, 47; Caminero, TampaBay,46; Soderstrom, Athletics, 45;Paredes, Houston, 44; Wells,New York, 43. HITS Judge,New York, 100; Ja.Wilson, Athletics, 98; Peña, Houston, 89;Ramírez, Cleveland, 83; Bichette, Toronto, 82; Ja.Duran, Boston, 82;M.Garcia, Kansas City 81; Rooker,Athletics,81; Goldschmidt, New York, 80; Witt, Kansas City, 80.

DOUBLES Witt, Kansas City, 24;Butler Athletics, 23; Volpe, New York, 20;M.Vargas, Chicago, 19;Bichette, Toronto, 18; Devers, San Francisco,18; Ja.Duran, Boston, 18; M.Garcia, Kansas City, 18;Perez, Kansas City,18; Bregman, Boston, 17;Greene, Detroit, 17; Judge, New York, 17 TRIPLES Ja.Duran, Boston, 8; McKinstry, Detroit, 7; Bellinger,New York, 3; Buxton, Minnesota, 3; Isbel,Kansas City,3; Ju.Rodríguez, Seattle, 3; Waters, Kansas City,3;Witt, Kansas City, 3; 12 tied at 2. HOME RUNS Raleigh, Seattle, 27;Judge, New York, 26; Ward,Los Angeles,18; Caminero, TampaBay,17; Torkelson, Detroit, 16; Paredes,Houston, 15;Devers,San Francisco, 15; Greene, Detroit, 15;Rooker,Athletics, 15; O’Hoppe, LosAngeles,14; B.Lowe, TampaBay,14; Soderstrom, Athletics, 14. STOLEN BASES Caballero, TampaBay 25; Robert, Chicago, 21; Witt, Kansas City,21; Ramírez, Cleveland, 20; Simpson, TampaBay,19; M.Garcia, Kansas City,15; Peña, Houston, 15; Arozarena, Seattle, 14; Ja.Duran, Boston, 14;Mateo, Baltimore, 14 PITCHING Fried, New York, 9-2;H.Brown, Houston, 8-3;Rodón, New York, 8-5; Skubal, Detroit, 7-2; Ryan, Minnesota, 7-2; Mize, Detroit, 7-2; Bassitt, Toronto, 7-3; Valdez, Houston, 7-4;deGrom, Texas, 6-2;Hoffman, Toronto, 6-2. ERA— H.Brown, Houston, 1.88; Fried,New York, 1.90; Bubic,Kansas City,1.92; Skubal, Detroit, 1.99; deGrom, Texas, 2.19; Crochet, Boston, 2.24; Mahle, Texas, 2.34; Rasmussen, TampaBay,2.55; Ryan, Minnesota, 2.93; Rodón, New York, 3.01. STRIKEOUTS Crochet, Boston, 117; Skubal Detroit, 111; Rodón, New York, 107; H.Brown, Houston, 105; Valdez, Houston, 96;Flaherty Detroit, 90; Fried, New York, 90; Warren,New York, 90; Ryan, Minnesota, 89;Pepiot, Tampa Bay, 84. National League leaders BATTING F.Freeman, LosAngeles, .333; W.Smith, LosAngeles 330; Donovan, St. Louis 323; Machado, San Diego, .316; T.Turner, Philadelphia, .308; Naylor, Arizona, .302; Alonso, New York, .296; Ohtani,Los Angeles, .296;Edwards, Miami 295; Pages LosAngeles 293 RUNS Ohtani, LosAngeles, 73; E.De La Cruz,Cincinnati, 58; Carroll, Arizona, 56; Tatis,San Diego, 55;Crow-Armstrong, Chicago, 52;Soto, New York, 52;Schwarber, Philadelphia, 51; T.Turner, Philadelphia,51; Tucker, Chicago, 50; Betts,Los Angeles, 48; Machado, San Diego, 48. RBIS Alonso, New York,63; Suzuki, Chicago, 61;E.Suárez, Arizona, 58; CrowArmstrong, Chicago, 58; Schwarber, Philadelphia, 53; Flores, San Francisco,51; Wood, Washington, 51; T.Hernández, LosAngeles 50; E.De La Cruz,Cincinnati,50; Perdomo, Arizona, 49; Pages, LosAngeles, 49; Naylor, Arizona, 49. HITS T.Turner,Philadelphia, 90; Machado, San Diego, 86; Ohtani,Los Angeles, 85; Donovan, St. Louis, 83; Alonso, New York, 81; Chourio, Milwaukee, 81; Naylor, Arizona 81; Riley, Atlanta, 81; Bohm, Philadelphia, 78; F.Freeman, LosAngeles, 78; Lindor, New York, 78. DOUBLES Alonso, New York,22; Donovan, St. Louis,21; F.Freeman, LosAngeles,21; Chourio, Milwaukee, 19; Machado, San Diego, 19; Suzuki, Chicago, 18; Wood, Washington, 18; Castellanos,Philadelphia,17; Hoerner, Chicago, 17; J.Lee, San Francisco 17; Naylor, Arizona, 17. TRIPLES Carroll, Arizona, 8; J.Lee, San Francisco,5;Moniak,Colorado, 5; Ohtani, LosAngeles,5;J.Beck, Colorado, 4; Tucker, Chicago, 4; 11 tiedat3 HOME RUNS Ohtani,Los Angeles, 25; Schwarber, Philadelphia,22; E.Suárez,Arizona, 21; Carroll, Arizona, 20; Crow-Armstrong, Chicago, 19;Wood, Washington, 18; Suzuki, Chicago, 18;Alonso, New York,17; E.De La Cruz,Cincinnati,16; Pages, LosAngeles, 15. STOLEN BASES— On.Cruz, Pittsburgh, 25; Crow-Armstrong, Chicago, 23; E.De La Cruz, Cincinnati, 21; V.Scott, St. Louis, 19; T.Turner, Philadelphia, 19; Tucker,Chicago, 18; Turang, Milwaukee, 16; Tatis, San Diego, 15; Abrams, Washington, 14; Frelick, Milwaukee, 14; Hoerner,Chicago, 14. PITCHING Ray, San Francisco,8-2;Pfaadt, Arizona, 8-4; Wheeler, Philadelphia,7-2; Gray,St. Louis, 7-2; Pivetta, San Diego, 7-2; Taillon, Chicago,7-3;C.Holmes, NewYork 7-3; Senga, New York,7-3;Singer, Cincinnati 7-4; Abbott, Cincinnati,6-1 ERA— Senga, New York,1.47; Skenes, Pittsburgh, 1.78; Webb, San Francisco, 2.58; F.Peralta,Milwaukee, 2.60; Peterson, New York, 2.60; Yamamoto, LosAngeles, 2.64; Ray, San Francisco,2.68; Wheeler, Philadelphia,2.76; Boyd,Chicago, 2.79; Sale Atlanta, 2.79. STRIKEOUTS Gore, Washington, 119; Wheeler, Philadelphia,110; Sale,Atlanta, 107; Cease, SanDiego, 105; Webb, San Francisco,105; Luzardo, Philadelphia,97; Ray, San Francisco, 97; Skenes, Pittsburgh, 97; G.Holmes, Atlanta, 92; Schwellenbach Atlanta, 92. Pro hockey Stanley CupFinals (Best-of-7;x-ifnecessary)

The Sun Belt champion Chanticleersmadeanimpressive run through their CWS bracket, beating Arizona 7-4and OregonState 6-2before eliminating the Cardinals. Theyled or were tiedall the way through except for ahalfinning against Arizona. Riley Eikhoff(7-2), making his second start in theCWS, heldthe Cardinals scorelessuntil Tague Davis drove an RBI double into the right-center gap in the sixth. Matthew Potok, Hayden Johnson and Dominick Carbone combined for32/3 shutout innings of relief Cardinalsace Patrick Forbes, who pitched 51/3 innings in a4-3 loss to Oregon State on Friday hadaskedtobethe starteragainst theChanticleers on four days’ rest, ESPN reported. Coach Dan McDonnell planned to hold him back for apossible second bracket ﬁnal against the Chanticleers on Thursday or use him for one inning if needed Wednesday.Hartman’sdisastrous start allbut endedLouisville’s hopes of forcing awinner-take-all game.

Denmark,def. Mackenzie McDonald, UnitedStates, 2-6, 6-1, 6-1. WTARothesayOpenNottingham At Nottingham TennisCentre; Nottingham, GreatBritain Purse: $275,094; Surface: Grass Women’s singles Round of 16 Dayana Yastremska, Ukraine,def.Antonia Ruzic, Croatia, 6-2, 2-6, 6-4. Rebecca Sramkova,Slovakia,def.Yulia Putintseva(4),Kazakhstan, 6-1, 4-6, 6-4. Linda Noskova(7),Czechia,def.Francesca Jones, Britain, 6-1, 6-3. LeylahAnnieFernandez(5),Canada,def. Cristina Bucsa,Spain,6-3,6-4 WTABett1 Open At Am Rothenbaum Rot-Weiss TennisClub; Berlin Surface: Grass Women’s singles PaulaBadosa(8),Spain,def.Emma Navarro, United States, 7-6(2),6-3 OnsJabeur, Tunisia,def.Jasmine Paolini(4) Italy, 6-1, 6-3. Liudmila Samsonova,Russia,def. Jessica Pegula(3),UnitedStates,6-7 (8), 7-5, 7-6(5) ATPWorld Tour TerraWortmann At Gerry WeberStadium; Halle, Germany Surface: Grass Men’ssingles Round of 32 KarenKhachanov(8),Russia,def. Zizou Bergs, Belgium, 7-5, 6-3. AlexanderZverev(2),Germany, def. Marcos Giron, United States,6-2,6-1 Round of 16 Daniil Medvedev (3), Russia,def. Quentin Halys, France, 6-2, 7-5. Alex Michelsen, United States, def. Stefanos Tsitsipas,Greece, 7-6(5),7-5 Transactions BASEBALL Major League Baseball American League BALTIMOREORIOLES— OptionedLHP Grant WolframtoNorfolk(IL).RecalledLHP Trevor Rogers from Norfolk. BOSTON REDSOX —SentRHP Tanner Houck

Go Italian with simple swordﬁsh andsalad

BY LINDAGASSENHEMIER

Tribune News Service (TNS)

Tender swordﬁsh, seared on astovetop grill with avibrant salad of tomatoes,olives, cucumbers and red onion, makes for alight and ﬂavorful

pan briefly to let it finish cooking gently with steam. The resultismoist fish with asatisfying sear.It’s served over orzo, arice shaped pasta, spiced with turmeric.

HELPFUL HINTS:

n Any thick ﬁsh such as tuna canbe used instead of swordﬁsh.

n Orzo is asmall rice shaped pasta. Any short cut pastacan be used instead of orzo. n Green olives can be used instead of black olives.

n Askillet can be used instead of agrill pan.

Italian-style Swordfish with Tomato, Olive and Cucumber Salad

Yields 2servings. Recipe is by Linda Gassenheimer

1. Heat agrill pan overmedium-high heat and spray witholive oil spray.Sprinkle both sides of theswordﬁsh with alittle salt and pepper

2. Place swordﬁsh in thegrill pan and cook 3minutes. Pick up swordﬁsh steaks with atong or spatula and rotate them diagonally to make crisscrossgrillmarks

3. Cover the pan with alid or saucepan and cook 3more minutes. Flip the swordfish over and cook, coveredfor 2more minutes.

4. Meanwhile,add the onion, tomatoes,cucumbers andolives to alargebowl. Addthe olive oil and toss all together making sure all the vegetables are coated withthe oil. Add salt and peppertotaste

5. Test the swordﬁsh —a thermometer should 130F.Place one swordfish each on top of the cooked orzo. Spoon thevegetables on the top and sides of the ﬁsh. Sprinkle parsley leaves on top.

NUTRITION INFO PER SERVING: 351 calories(43 percent from fat), 16.9 gfat (3.3 gsaturated, 8.0 g monounsaturated),66mgcholesterol, 36.3 gprotein, 14.1 g carbohydrates, 3.9 gﬁber,363 mg sodium.

Turmeric-Spiced Orzo

Yields 2servings. Recipe is by Linda Gassenheimer

4ounces orzo

2tablespoons reduced fat salad dressing 1teaspoon turmeric Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Place alarge saucepan

3/4 filled with water on to boil. When boiling, addthe orzo. Boil10minutes or accordingto packageinstructions. Drainand place in abowl.

2. Add the dressing, turmeric and salt and pepper to taste. Divide in half and place on the middle of two dinner plates. Serve the swordfish andvegetables on top.

NUTRITION INFO PER SERVING: 227 calories (7 percent from fat), 1.9 gfat (0.3 gsaturated, 0.4 gmonounsaturated), 1mgcholesterol, 7.7 gprotein, 44.3 gcarbohydrates, 2.2 gﬁber,8mgsodium.

flour fly andlearn howto make homemade shells,withadvice from an expert

BY APRIL HAMILTON Contributing writer

Welcomingsummer

reminds me of my days leading cooking camps for kids in arented church kitchen. Hungry to learn, these 8- to 12-year-olds would race into thekitchen, tie on their aprons and scrub up for the day’s lessons.

With thanks to social media, I have enjoyed watching these little ones helptheirfamilies with meal prep and occasionally take over to make the whole menu with momordad as their sous chef and cleanup crew.Ihave also seen them graduate from college and start their bright futures. I have virtually followed as ﬁve of these young women navigate med school. Iinquire if their programs offer aculinary medicine track.

ä See PASTA, page 6C

Salad with

BY GRETCHEN McKAY Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

TNS PHOTO By LINDAGASSENHEIMER

Dear Heloise: Justwanted to mention that Ialways leave the top open after washing clothes for at least aday to make sure the machine dries out

This way,Iavoid any bad washing machine odors

It’snever agood idea to close up anything that is wet or moist inside. —Liz Nass, via email

Findingyourcar

Colorado Springs, Colorado Garage sale hint

Hints from Heloise

Dear Heloise: Iwanted to addon to the discussion about ﬁnding your car in aparking lot.Ialways pick aparking spot near an easily recognized landmark,like alight pole with anumber on it If this is unavailable, Itake alook at my surroundings and pick another type of landmark (a sign of the business, aclump of trees, etc.) that can help me narrow down my search. Ialso take aquick picture of thearea around my car —Jim Schlagheck, in

Dear Heloise: Making agarage sale more enjoyable was atopic in arecent column.During the third dayofher yard sale, my daughterput up signs saying “donations only today,” and all money/donationswent to alocal cat rescue organization. She made aconsiderable amount for her cause! —GailPowell, via email Is this fried?

Dear Heloise: Your readers should be aware: If an item on a menu is described as “crispy,” “crunchy,” “browned,” “breaded”or“golden,”you can bet your bottom dollar it’sfried. Delores, in Dallas

Send ahint to heloise@heloise. com. So freshand so clean

TODAYINHISTORY

By The Associated Press

Today is Thursday,June19, the 170th day of 2025.There are 195 days left in the year.This is Juneteenth.

Todayinhistory:

On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil Warwas over andthat all remaining enslaved people in Texas werefree —an event now celebrated nationwide as Juneteenth.

Also on this date:

In 1910, the ﬁrst Father’sDay in the United States was celebrated in Spokane, Washington. (President Richard Nixon would make Father’sDay afederally recognized annual observation through aproclamation in 1972.)

In 1953, Julius Rosenberg,35, and his wife, Ethel, 37, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union,were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York; theywere the ﬁrst Americancivilianstobe executed for espionage.

In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova completed her historic ﬂight as the ﬁrst woman in space, landing safely by parachute to conclude the Vostok 6mission.

In 1964, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was approved

by theU.S. Senate, 73-27, after surviving alengthyﬁlibuster

In 1975,former Chicago organizedcrimebossSam Giancana was shot to deathinthe basement of hishome in Oak Park, Illinois; the killing has neverbeen solved.

In 1986, UniversityofMaryland basketball star Len Bias, the ﬁrst draft pick of theBoston Celtics two days earlier,suffered afatal cocaine-induced seizure.

In 1987, theU.S.Supreme Court, in thecase Edwards v. Aguillard, struck down aLouisiana law requiring any public school teaching the theory of evolution to teach creation science as well.

Today’sBirthdays: Hall of Fame auto racer Shirley Muldowney is 85. Nobel peace prize laureate AungSan SuuKyi is 80. Author Tobias Wolff is 80. Author Salman Rushdieis78. Actor Phylicia Rashad is 77. Rock singer Ann Wilson (Heart) is 75. Actor Kathleen Turner is 71. Singer-choreographer-TV personality Paula Abdul is 63. TV host LaraSpencer is 56. Actor Jean Dujardin is 53. Actor Robin Tunney is 53. Basketball Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki is 47. Actor Zoe Saldañais47. Rapper Macklemoreis42. Actor Paul Danois41.

Tortellini Salad with Spring Veggies

Serves2,with leftovers. Recipe is from Gretchen McKay,Post-Gazette.

½poundthin asparagus, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces

8ounces packaged dried cheese or spinach tortellini

½cup vegetable or olive oil

Juice of 1lemon, plus more forserving 1shallot, minced

1clove garlic, minced

Handful of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved Handful of fresh arugula or spinach, optional

Handful of chopped fresh basilor parsley,orcombination

½cup grated Parmesan cheese

¼cup toasted pine nuts, optional Red pepper flakes, forgarnish,optional

1. Bring alarge pot of salted water to aboil. Fill abowl with ice water

2. Add asparagus to boilingwaterand cook until it’scrisp-tender, about 60-90 seconds, dependingonthickness. Remove with a slotted spoon and immediately transfer to the ice bath. Letcool, then dry with apaper towel and

SALAD

Continued from page5C

inexpensive if you buy bagged, dried tortellini instead of the fresh pasta you ﬁnd in therefrigerated section. For this salad recipe, we do just that —toss bagged tortellini with bite-sized pieces of asparagus and juicy cherry tomatoes in an entree salad with alemony, Parmesan-heavy dressingthat literally takes seconds to whisk together

Be sure to plunge the asparagus into an ice bath after it’s been blanched so it doesn’t overcook and stays bright green

Before we get into the recipe, we need alittle bit of backstory on tortellini, which is oneof the most beloved pasta types in NorthernItaly

Some say Castelfranco Emilia in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy gave birth to this tender pastastuffed with everything from ground beef to prosciutto to

Child’sparty must includethe neighbor

Dear Miss Manners: My daughter is turning 9soon, and we will be having asmall partywith four of her closest friends. We are hosting the party at the clubhouse facility in our condo complex. There is aﬁfth girl we know “Kiara,” who alsolives in thecomplex, with whom my daughter sometimes plays. Iconsider her mom somewhat of afriend, though we do not spend time together without the kids. Ourolder sons are friends, as well. However,mydaughter does not wish to inviteKiara to her birthday party because she does not feel as close to her as tothe four friends we’ve invited. Iasked my daughter if she would at least consider inviting Kiara, as she lives directly across from the clubhouse, and she will most likely see the guests and recognize them from school. She will also hear about the party through her brother

right to choose her guests, but I don’twant to exclude Kiara from aparty of people she knows, happening right outside her door.To my way of thinking, that makes US rude! Please let me know how you would handle this. Gentle reader: Is it too late to move?

ﬁcult proposition.

set aside.

3. Return water to aboil and adddried tortellini. Cook according to package instructions (about 10 minutes),stirringoften. Drain tortellini and rinsewith cold water. (This will prevent it from clumpingtogether.) Drainagain, leaving it just thetiniest bit damp.

4. Make vinaigrette: Whisk oil, lemon juice, shallot and garlic together.Season to taste with salt and pepper

5. Prepare salad: Place cooked tortellini in alarge serving bowl. Addvinaigrette and toss well to combine.

6. Add tomatoes, arugula or spinach, basil, grated Parmesan, pine nuts and cooled asparagus. Toss to combine,then season again with salt and pepper and extra lemon juice if you want some additional zing. Youalso can add afew pinches of dried redpepper,ifdesired.

7. Servewarm, chilledorat room temperature.

amix of cheeses (the city holds an annual festival on the second SundayinSeptember). But Modena to the west and Bologna to the east also claim it as their own. Whatever its geographical origins, tortellini (which means “little cake” or “littlering” in Italian) havebeen feeding the masses forcenturies. In 1570, arich pastadish called tortelletti —madewith capon breast, cow udder,beef marrow,fresh ricotta andwarm spices like cinnamon —appeared in Italian RenaissancechefBartolomeo Scappi’s cookbook, “Opera.”

The curved shape of thepasta also is open to acouple different interpretations. One of the most popularisthat itwas inspired by thecontours of abeautiful woman —perhapsVenus,the Roman goddess of love and beauty— who apeepingtom-innkeeper saw when he peered through a keyholeasshe undressed. Therecipethat follows is much easier than Scappi’stortelletti to rustle up after work, and awhole lot cheaper

Judith Martin

MISS MANNERS

My daughter still refuses, saying Kiara has been “rude” at past events. Iwant to respect my daughter’s

Miss Manners sees two problems, not one. The ﬁrst is that Kiara should be included, forthe reasons you mention. It would be best if you had explained this to your daughter from thestart —that you understandand sympathize with her reluctance to include Kiara, but that it will still be a wonderful party and everyone will have agreat time. Kiara lives right across the hall and we do not want her to feel leftout. Nine-year-olds are old enough to understand, but young enough to moveonifthey realize the point is settled. Which brings us to the second problem:your having leftthe decision up to your daughter.Now you will have to makeclear what theright decision is —amore dif-

Dear Miss Manners: Ihad been giving thoughtful and sometimes expensive birthday and holiday gifts to aclose relative. We are both adults in the sameage group. Istopped giving gifts ayear or twoago because Idid not receive agiftoreven acard formany years. Icontinued to send cards. My relative is now complaining that she doesn’thear from me. This is not true. Ibelieve she is reacting to not receiving gifts. I wish to be kind. Should Iresume the gifts?

Gentle reader: Youmay be right that your relative’scomment is a subtle complaint at the suspension of gifts, but if so, it is too subtle for Miss Manners. Certainly it is no reason to resume giving gifts to someone who neitherreciprocates nor acknowledges them.

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

SummerTomato-Basil Salad (with

or without

mozzarella)

Garden-fresh tomatoes Extra-virgin olive oil Fresh basil, leaves rinsedand dried and rolled together into atight cylinder,then sliced crosswise verythinlyfor achiffonade Coarse salt Fresh mozzarella

1. Cut your tomatoes into bite-sized wedges and place in aserving bowl.

2. Drizzle with alittle olive oiland toss in apalmful of basil chiffonade. Sprinkle in alittle coarse salt. Addmozzarella as desired. Serve without hesitation.

PASTA

Continuedfrom page5C

Now,Iget to be thebright-eyed cooking student as Iwork on my certiﬁcation as aculinary medicine specialist. This “teach health care professionals to cook and spread the information to their patients” program began at Tulane Medical School in 2012 and has expanded across thecountry Iamfresh from along-weekend culinarymedicine conference, immersedwithexpertsacrossmedical platforms and culinaryprowess. Eachday was rich withfascinating speakers helping guide us all toward“healthmeets food.”

Hundreds of participants gathered from AlaskatoMiami,New EnglandtoNew Orleans, in pursuit of acommon goaltohelpour patients with the complex how-to of nutrition. Choosing from the list of kitchen sessions was as difﬁcult as orderingfrom themost tempting restaurantmenu.For my breakoutsessions, it was an eeny-meenyminey-moe-pick-two among the knife skills,olive oiltasting, bounty of whole grains, stocking your kitchen, ﬂavorful steaming andhandmade pasta classes. Iwent with knife skills even though Istarted wieldinganassortmentofkitchen knives long before Icould write my name. Professional guidance is golden

AglioeOlio Sauce for Pasta

Toss your hot pasta with this ﬂavorful oil in alarge pasta serving bowl. Add spoonfuls of the reserved hot pasta cooking water as desired. The classic formula relies on agood garnish of fresh Italian parsley.Shower the whole bowlwith freshly grated Parmesan, passing more at the table.

1⁄3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4plump cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced crosswise ¼to½ teaspoon red chili flakes

3tablespoonsfresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped Freshly gratedParmesan forserving

1. Heat the olive oil in asmall

saucepan over medium-low until it thins out abit.

2. Add the garlic and chili flakes and swirl together off theheat to gently cookthe garlic.Add theparsley and toss the olive oil sauce with your pasta.

3. Serve with Parmesan on top and moreonthe side.

April Hamilton shapes freshdough into noodles

when it comes to sharp things and efficiency in the kitchen. Since Ihave yet to makeittoItaly,I chose the handmade pasta formy second course, and Iamdelighted to share thelove of blending good flour withwater and shaping bits of the dough into fingertip-sized pastashells. The satisfaction of transforming simple ingredients into edible art is contagious. Chef Luca Donofrio served as our instructor forthis pasta in minutes session,describing himself as plastered with as many logos as astock car,including an imported brand of milled flour Rather than tout his sponsors, he urged allofustosource unbleached, unbromated flour Here Iused flour from Hayden

Mills —ablend of wheats, including durum wheat. Notethat different types of flour have different absorption and water ratios. This is the quantity that worked formytype of flour.Heprovided us each with aball of dough and pinballed around the room checking each student’spasta shapes, giving approval even if they were less than perfect. In our one-hour session, each student’sball of dough becamefour or moreservings of little shells. Release your inner child, tie on your apron and let the flour fly Cooking can be messy.I call it happy kitchen chaos, which Iembrace with healthy gusto. Gather manyhands at the counter and join the fun.

STAFF PHOTOSByHILARy SCHEINUK

Summer Tomato-Basil Salad (withmozzarella)

GEMInI (May21-June 20) Alittle charm will go alongway when dealing with authority figures and bureaucracy. Statingfacts andoffering backup will put others at ease and turn youintothe go-to person in your circle.

cAncER (June 21-July 22) Focus on somethingworthwhile. Positive change will result from investinginyourself.Develop what you enjoy doing most andturn it into aprofitable endeavor.

LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) Pay attention and refuse to let anyone sidetrack or take advantageofyou.Partnerships require equality to run effectively. Communication andhonesty are your ticket to a better future

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Go the extra mile andmakealastingimpression. Physical activity will give youanoutlet for pent-up energy and help youeliminate whatever stops you fromreaching your goal.

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct.23) Rethink your relationships and consider who reciprocates andwho doesn't. Don't wait foropportunities to cometoyou;make things happen and takecredit where credit is due

scoRPIo (oct.24-nov.22) Be observant, not chatty. Give what's happening around you achance to settle down before youfigure out your best route forward.Connect the dots, study the outcomes and redesign howyou want to move forward.

sAGIttARIus (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Take a closer look at your surroundings. Map

outaplan to redistribute what youno longer need.Stop carrying emotional andphysical baggage.It's timefor a reinvention.

cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Stick close to home,address matters of concern anddeal with relationships that need an adjustment. Achange will be uplifting even if it initially requires some discomfort.

AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Moneymanagement is essential. Go over your investments andreduceyouroverhead. Pursue outlets that enhanceyourhealth andemotional well-being.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Astringent approach to saving money will help your stateofmind andencourage you to avoid pitfalls. Be open with those trying to tempt youintodoingthings that aren't within your budget.

ARIEs(March 21-April 19) Setboundaries andbudgets, andadopt aminimalist attitude.Keeping your life andneedsinperspective will save youtime andmoney Choose peace of mind instead of adding more stress to your daily routine.

tAuRus(April 20-May 20) Get thefacts; if youjump to conclusions, you'll make a mistake. Work toward your goal behind closed doors to avoidoutside interference. Someonewill takeadvantageof youifyou let them

McMeel Syndication

CelebrityCipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present. Eachletter in the cipher stands for another.

toDAy'scLuE:P EQuALs J

CeLebrItY CIpher

For better or For WorSe peAnUtS

And erneSt

SALLYForth

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

SherMAn’S LAGoon

bIG nAte

Sudoku

InstructIons: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 gridwith 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.

Puzzle Answer

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS Hi and LoiS

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

By PHILLIPALDER

This week we are looking at various aspectsoftheStaymanconvention.What is the fewest number of points you need to use Stayman?

Normally, responder will have at least enough points to invite game.So, opposite aone-no-trump opening thatshows 15-17 points, responder will have nine high-card points (or eight with afivecard suit in aminor).

However, assuming that you employ transfers into the majors, it is possible to use Stayman with zero points —what is called garbage Stayman. You may have 4-4-5-0distribution,whenyouplantopass whatever opener rebids. Or you have(in principle) at least 5-5 in the majors. If opener rebids two of amajor, you pass, knowingitisa nine-card fit. Or, if opener rebids two diamonds, you continue with two hearts. Then, opener passeswith three hearts (as in thisdeal), or corrects to two spades with three spades and two hearts. Against twohearts, West leads the trumpqueen.How should Southcontinue? Note that one no-trump should be defeated.

South should plan to ruff aspade on the board. He should winthe first trick and call for the spadeking. East should win with the ace and return his second heart. But South wins on the board, plays

aspade to his queen, and leads athird spade. If West ruffs, it is with his trump trick,andSouthcanruffthefourthround of spades in the dummy to make an overtrick.IfWestdiscards,Southruffsonthe board and finishes with eight tricks: two spades, one spade ruff, four hearts and one club.

McMeel Syndication

Each Wuzzle is aword riddlewhich creates adisguised word,phrase,name, place, saying, etc. Forexample: NOON GOOD =GOOD AFTERNOON

Previous answers:

word game

InstRuctIons: 1. Words must be of four or more letters. 2. Words that acquire four letters by the addition of “s,”

toDAy’sWoRD FunERARy: FYOO-nih-rare-ee: Associated with burial.

Average

yEstERDAy’s WoRD— stAGnAtE

today’s thought “I will sing to the Lord, becausehehas dealtbountifully with me.”Psalms 13:6

wuzzles

loCKhorNs

TheLordputs asong in the heartofHis people. G.E. Dean

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

PearlsBefore swiNe

BRIEFS

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Wall Street ends mixed after interest rate news

NEW YORK

U.S. stocks drifted to a mixed finish on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve indicated it may cut interest rates twice this year, though it’s far from certain about that. The S&P 500 finished nearly unchanged and edged down by less than 0.1% after flipping between modest gains and losses several times. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 44 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1% Treasury yields also wavered but ultimately held relatively steady after the Fed released a set of projections showing the median official expects to cut the federal funds rate twice by the end of 2025. That’s the same number they were projecting three months ago, and it helped calm worries a bit that inflation caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs could tie the Fed’s hands. Cuts in rates would make mortgages, credit-card payments and other loans cheaper for U.S. households and businesses, which in turn could strengthen the overall economy But they could likewise fan inflation higher So far, inflation has remained relatively tame, and it’s near the Fed’s target of 2%. But economists have been warning it may take months to feel the effects of tariffs.

Honda recalls more than 259,000 cars

NEW YORK Honda is recalling more than 259,000 of its cars across the U.S. due to a problem that can cause the brake pedal to shift out of position, potentially interfering with a driver’s ability to stop or slow down

According to documents published by the National Highway Trafﬁc Safety Administration, the recall covers certain Honda Pilots between model years 2023 and 2025 as well cars under the auto maker’s luxury Acura brand: 2021-25 Acura TLX and 2023-25 Acura MDX vehicles.

The NHTSA’s recall report notes that the brake pedal pivot pin in some of these vehicles was not secured properly during production. That can lead the pedal to shift out of place and “may lead to unintended application,” the report notes, increasing crash risks “The issue could also cause an abnormal brake pedal feeling during operation, illuminate the brake malfunction light in the instrument cluster, or cause the vehicle’s brake lights to remain lit even when the brake pedal is not applied,” America Honda said in a statement Wednesday FDA clears twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV

WASHINGTON The U.S. has approved the world’s only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, maker Gilead Sciences announced Wednesday. It’s the ﬁrst step in an anticipated global rollout that could protect millions although it’s unclear how many in the U.S and abroad will get access to the powerful new option.

While a vaccine to prevent HIV still is needed, some experts say the shot — a drug called lenacapvir — could be the next best thing. It nearly eliminated new infections in two groundbreaking studies of people at high risk, better than daily preventive pills they can forget to take.

“This really has the possibility of ending HIV transmission,” said Greg Millett, public policy director at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research Condoms help guard against HIV infection if used properly but what’s called PrEP — regularly using preventive medicines such as the daily pills or a different shot given every two months is increasingly important. Lenacapavir’s sixmonth protection makes it the longest-lasting type, an option that could attract people wary of more frequent doctor visits or stigma from daily pills.

Fed leaves interest rate unchanged

BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP economics writer

WASHINGTON Federal Reserve ofﬁcials expect inﬂation to worsen in the coming months but they still foresee two interest rate cuts by the end of this year, the same as they projected in March.

The Fed kept its key rate unchanged for the fourth straight meeting Wednesday, and said the economy is expanding at “a solid pace.” Changes to the Fed’s rate typically — though not always inﬂuence borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and business loans

The central bank also released its latest quarterly projections for the economy and interest rates. It expects noticeably weaker growth, higher inﬂation, and slightly higher unemployment by the end of this year than it had forecast in March, before President Donald Trump announced sweeping tar-

iffs April 2. Most of those duties were then postponed on April 9. So far inflation has continued to decline this year while some cracks have appeared in the economy particularly in housing, where elevated borrowing costs are slowing sales and homebuilding. And Trump, earlier Wednesday, renewed his condemnation of Chair Jerome Powell for not sharply reducing borrowing costs.

Yet Powell underscored that the Fed does expect Trump’s sweeping tariffs to push up prices by the end of this year and the central bank wants to hold off on any moves until the impact of the duties becomes clearer “We have to be forward looking,” Powell said. “We expect a meaningful amount of inﬂation to arrive in coming months and we have to take that into account. Because the economy is still solid, we can take the time to actually see what’s going to happen.”

Fed officials see inflation, according to their preferred measure, rising to 3% by the end of this year, from 2.1% in April. It also projects the unemployment rate will rise to 4.5%, from 4.2% currently Growth is expected to slow to just 1.4% this year, down from 2.5% last year

Some Fed policymakers have expressed particular concern that the duties could boost prices, creating another surge of inflation just a couple of years after the worst inflation spike in four decades. Many economists say that without the higher import taxes, the Fed would likely be cutting its rate further

Yet so far, inflation has cooled this year to just 2.1% in April, essentially back at the central bank’s target of 2%. Core inﬂation, which excludes the volatile food and energy categories, remains elevated at 2.5%.

At a news conference after the

Fed released its latest policy statement, Powell said, “Increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.” He added, however, that the extent of the impact depends on the size and duration of the tariffs. The “pause” Trump put in place on many of the tariffs is set to end on July 9, pending any deals the administration strikes with its trading partners.

“We don’t yet know with any conﬁdence where (the tariffs) will settle out,” he said.

Trump has pointed to the mild inﬂation ﬁgures to argue that the Fed should lower borrowing costs and has repeatedly criticized Powell for not doing so. On Wednesday he called Powell “stupid” and accused him of being “political” for not cutting rates. Powell continued to stress that the current strength in the economy allows the Fed to be patient as he spoke with reporters.

Amazon hopes to deliver 10K robotaxis annually

BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP technology writer

HAYWARD, Calif. — Amazon is gearing up to make as many as 10,000 robotaxis annually at a sprawling plant near Silicon Valley as it prepares to challenge self-driving cab leader Waymo. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also vying to join the autonomous race. The 220,000-square-foot robotaxi factory announced Wednesday heralds a new phase in Amazon’s push into a technological frontier that began taking shape in 2009, when Waymo was launched as a secret project within Google Amazon began eyeing the market ﬁve years ago when it shelled out $1.2 billion for selfdriving startup Zoox, which will be the brand behind a robotaxi service that plans to begin transporting customers in Las Vegas late this year before expanding into San Francisco next year.

Zoox, conceived in 2014, will be trying to catch up to Waymo, which began operating robotaxis in Phoenix nearly five years ago then charging for rides in San Francisco in 2023 before expanding into Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Waymo says it has already more than 10 million paid rides while other would-be rivals such as Amazon and Tesla are still fine-tuning their self-driving technology while tackling other challenges, such how to ramp up their fleet

Amazon feels like it has addressed that issue with Zoox’s manufacturing plant that spans across the equivalent of three and a half football ﬁelds located in Hayward, California — about 17 miles north of a factory where Tesla makes some of the electric vehicles that Musk believes will eventually be

able to operate without a driver behind the wheel. Since moving into the former bus manufacturing factory in 2023, Zoox has transformed it into a high-tech facility where its boxy, gondola-like vehicles are put together and tested along a 21-station assembly line. For now, Zoox is only making one robotaxi per day, but by next year hopes to be churning them out at the rate of three vehicles per hour By 2027, Zoox hopes to making 10,000 robotaxis annually in Hayward for a ﬂeet that it hopes to take into other major markets, including Miami, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Although Zoox will be assembling its robotaxis in the U.S., about half of the parts are

imported from outside the country, according to company ofﬁcials. Waymo is also planning to expand into Atlanta and Miami and on Wednesday took the ﬁrst step toward bringing its robotaxis in the most populous U.S. city with the disclosure of an application to begin testing its vehicles in New York. Although Zoox will be lagging well behind, it believes it can lure passengers with vehicles that look more like carriages that cars with seating for up to four passengers. Waymo, in contrast, builds its self-driving technology on to cars made by other major automakers, making its robotaxi look similar to vehicles steered by humans. Zoox isn’t even bothering to put a steering wheel in its robotaxis.

Will employers be targeted for hiring undocumented workers?

BY CAROLINE PETROW-COHEN Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Federal authorities have arrested hundreds of potentially undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles this month, targeting day laborers at a Home Depot, factory workers at a downtown apparel company and cleaners at car washes across the city

But the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents aren’t going after the business owners who may have illegally hired these workers.

President Trump’s crackdown on immigration has spared small and large U.S. employers that rely on thousands of undocumented employees, even though hiring undocumented workers can be a criminal offense.

“There are some instances of criminal prosecutions of people for knowingly hiring unauthorized workers, but it is extremely rare,”

said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. “There’s not an appetite for that kind of enforcement.”

Instead, the recent raids have affected rank-and-ﬁle workers, most of whom were detained suddenly and face deportation

Here’s what experts say about whom ICE targets and why: Who relies on undocumented labor?

Laborers without legal authori-

zation to live and work in the U.S. make up a signiﬁcant portion of the workforce, especially in industries such as agriculture and hospitality, said Jean Reisz co-director of the USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic.

“The U.S. has always relied on immigrant labor, and has always relied on undocumented immigrant labor,” Reisz said. “That’s just a reality, and when you have these big enforcement actions, there’s always going to be some tension.”

Last week, Trump acknowledged on his social media platform Truth Social that his immigration policies were harming farmers, hotels and restaurants. Shortly after, he temporarily paused raids on those businesses in a likely effort to keep company leaders in his corner Targeting the employers themselves, some of whom Trump relies on for support, would be counterproductive to his agenda, Reisz said.

“If the administration were to say they’re going to come down on every business owner who has hired someone in violation of U.S. law, I think that would politically be a bad decision,” she said. What consequences could employers face?

Although it’s not regularly enforced, a 1986 federal law made it a crime to knowingly hire someone without authorization to work in the country Before that, a stipulation known as the Texas Proviso cre-

ated a loophole that gave a pass to employers to hire noncitizens.

Violating the Immigration Reform and Control Act could mean fines and even incarceration, depending on the number of violations, Arulanantham said. But violators are rarely prosecuted.

“There’s a very long history of immigration enforcement agents not pursuing employers for hiring undocumented people, but very aggressively pursuing the undocumented people themselves,” Arulanantham said. “Most employers get zero consequence, not even a minor criminal conviction.”

While it’s unlawful to work in the U.S. without documentation, doing so isn’t a criminal offense.

“Civil consequences can be far more severe than criminal consequences,” Arulanantham said. “Especially if you’re being deported after you’ve lived here for a long time and you’re going to be separated from your family.” How can employers tell who’s authorized to work in the U.S.?

A federal program called E-Verify makes it easy for employers to validate the status of potential hires and ensure they aren’t unknowingly employing someone without proper authorization. But the program is widely underused, especially in California, where only about 16% of employers are enrolled.

Participation in the program is voluntary for everyone except

federal contractors and other businesses that receive money from the government, Reisz said The program is largely ignored because many companies are dependent on undocumented laborers and don’t want to be forced to reject their services.

Employers told The Los Angeles Times last year that requiring the use of E-Verify would devastate their businesses, unless other overhauls to immigration policy allowed them access to more workers. Why aren’t employers facing consequences?

Historically, it’s been in the country’s best economic interest to allow undocumented labor, experts say There are not enough workers to ﬁll all the jobs a healthy growing U.S. economy generates, especially in low-wage industries. Workers who fear deportation are less likely to organize to demand better conditions or wages, said Arulanantham.

It wouldn’t make sense for Trump to arrest the business owners he wants as allies, Reisz said, and wouldn’t align with his stance on immigration. “It doesn’t fit the narrative to penalize employers,” Reisz said. “The narrative surrounding immigration enforcement under the Trump administration is that there are dangerous criminals coming across the border and taking our jobs.”

PROVIDED PHOTO By ZOOX

Zoox robotaxis are assembled at a 220,000-square-foot factory located in Hayward, Calif.