Until recently,JohnnyDavis III’scommute to school took allofafew minutes.
He’d walk down his streetinthe Lower 9th Ward past vacant lotsand well-tended homes, cut through the shade at Oliver Bush Playground and arrive atDr. Martin LutherKingJr. Charter HighSchool. But Johnny,16, made that shorttrek for the final time this May
The Orleans Parish School Boarddecided last year to close the“D”-rated school due to its low test scores and dwindling enrollment, leaving the recently built campus emptythisfall. TheLower 9th Ward, which neverfully recoveredfrom the devastation that Hurricane Katrina wrought 20 years ago,once againlacks a high school —just as it didfor many years after the storm.
|Staff writer
Louisiana’sonly women’sprison formally opened Thursday,afternine years of temporary housing arrangements for over 1,000femaleinmates whoweredisplacedbya devastating 2016 flood. The brand-new,$160million LouisianaCorrectional Institute forWomen, bordered by sugar canefields and the nearby Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, is designed to withstand a500-year flood like the historic inundation in August 2016, according to Louisiana Department
‘Theybroke up afamily’
Louisiana puts Voting Rights Act in crosshairs
BY ALYSE PFEIL |Staff writer
The U.S. SupremeCourt is considering acase that could fundamentally change the role that race plays in elections across the country —and Louisiana is at the center of it.
Callais v. Louisiana is, on the surface, about whether Louisiana must have acongressional map with twomajority-Black districts. But the nation’shigh court could issue aruling overturningdecades of precedentthathas governed how race can be used in redistricting.
At issue is Section 2ofthe Voting RightsAct, landmark civil rights legislation that for years hasdrivenlawsuits andcourt orders requiring states like Louisiana to draw majority-minority voting districts.
The Voting Rights Actof1965 was afederal law passed by Congress to guarantee Black people accesstothe ballotand prevent voting discrimination. In its originalform, the legislationoutlawed race-based voting tests, helped eliminate poll taxes, allowedthe federalgovernment to oversee voting in states where discrimination was happening and required states with discriminatory voting practices to get federal approval before making changes to voting laws.
The stated aim of the law was to enforcethe 15th Amendment, whichhad been approved nearly 100 years earlier and says, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be deniedorabridgedbythe UnitedStates or by any state on account of race, color,orprevious condition of servitude.”
SupremeCourt to mull race’s role in redistricting ä See VOTING, page 7A
BY SOPHIEKASAKOVEand JAMES FINN Staff writers
Louisiana Republican Gov.Jeff Landry has sent statetrooperstotamp downonNew Orleanscrime,bused its homeless residents to a state shelter and shaken up its public boards. Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill has waged fights with the
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
STAFF PHOTOSByCHRIS GRANGER
JohnnyDavis III looksatthe marquee sign in front of Martin Luther King HighSchool in NewOrleans on Aug. 4.
Before it closed,itwas the only public high school in that area.
JohnnyDavis III walks the path throughhis Lower9th Ward neighborhood that he used to taketothe now-closed Martin Luther King HighSchool in NewOrleans on Aug. 4.
BRIEFS
Rudy Giuliani injured in New Hampshire crash
Rudy Giuliani is recovering from a fractured vertebra and other injuries following a car crash in New Hampshire, a spokesperson for the former New York City mayor said Sunday Giuliani’s vehicle was struck from behind while traveling on a highway Saturday evening, according to a statement posted on X by Michael Ragusa, Giuliani’s head of security
“He sustained injuries but is in good spirits and recovering tremendously,” Ragusa said, adding: “This was not a targeted attack.”
Giuliani, 81, was taken to a nearby trauma center and was being treated for injuries including “a fractured thoracic vertebrae, multiple lacerations and contusions, as well as injuries to his left arm and lower leg,” according to Ragusa.
Prior to the accident, Giuliani had been “flagged down by a woman who was the victim of a domestic violence incident” and contacted police assistance on her behalf, Ragusa said. After police arrived, Giuliani continued on his way and his vehicle was hit shortly after pulling onto the highway and was “entirely unrelated” to the domestic violence incident, Ragusa told The Associated Press in an emailed statement.
Giuliani was in a rental car and “no one knew it was him,” Ragusa also said on X.
Lost boy on monorail line saved by parkgoer
HERSHEY, Pa A lost boy wandering a monorail line high above the crowd at Hersheypark was rescued by a park visitor who climbed onto a building and jumped onto the rails.
The child was reported missing Saturday after he became separated from his parents, according to a news release from the chocolate-themed amusement park in Pennsylvania.
While park employees were searching for him, the boy entered a secured area leading to the monorail ride. It was closed and “safeguarded by a chained closure at the entrance and barricaded turnstile at the platform,” according to the park
The boy was in the closed station for about 20 minutes before he wandered onto the tracks.
A video posted to social media shows the boy walking along the tracks as people in the crowd below start waving their arms and yelling directions at him including, “Stop!” and “Keep going!” At that point he covers his ears and begins to walk back the way he came, changes direction again, and then stops.
One man climbs onto a nearby building and pulls himself onto the tracks, scooping up the boy to cheers from below
The child was unharmed and was safely reunited with his family
Kemp endorses Dooley for Georgia Senate seat
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia Gov Brian Kemp on Saturday endorsed Republican Derek Dooley in Georgia’s 2026 U.S. Senate race, arguing an outsider without congressional experience can best critique Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s record.
“I’m a firm believer that we need a political outsider to do that, someone that can stay focused on his record, but also someone who has a vision for our state in the future,” Kemp said. “That is not a politician.” Kemp agreed to back Dooley after deciding not to run for the seat himself.
Dooley argued Saturday that Ossoff’s history of support for former President Joe Biden and his opposition to President Donald Trump disqualify him from another term.
Dooley is the son of legendary University of Georgia coach Vince Dooley and was a lawyer before he went into coaching. Derek Dooley compiled a 15-21 record with the Tennessee Volunteers before he was fired in 2012. Dooley hasn’t shied from his football past. He said Saturday that in both coaching and politics, “leadership matters.”
But other candidates argue Dooley was a failure at coaching and are underscoring his affiliation with a non-Georgia school.
Flotilla leaves Barcelona in attempt to reach Gaza
Thunberg again among activists trying to deliver aid
BY RENATA BRITO and TERESA MEDRANO Associated Press
BARCELONA — A flotilla of ships departed from Barcelona to the Gaza Strip Sunday with humanitarian aid and activists on board in the largest attempt yet to break the long Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory by sea.
This comes as Israel has stepped up its offensive on Gaza City, limiting the deliveries of food and basic supplies in the north of the Palestinian territory Food experts warned earlier this month that the city was in famine and that half a million people across the strip were facing catastrophic levels of hunger
The Global Sumud Flotilla is carrying food, water and medicine. Activists on board demanded safe passage to deliver the much-needed aid and the opening of a humanitarian sea corridor, according to a statement The almost 23-month war has killed more than 63,000 people, with at least 332 Palestinians dying of malnutrition, including 124 children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry
The maritime convoy of about 20 boats and delegations from 44 countries is claimed to be the larg-
Israel!” to send off a wide variety of boats, flying Palestinian flags, from rundown old luxury yachts to tiny wooden sailboats and industrial-looking vessels. One is more than 100 years old.
Around 70 boats are expected to take part in the final leg of the journey flotilla spokesperson Saif Abukeshek told Spanish public television after the departure.
The fleet could reach Gaza around Sept. 14 or 15, he added.
Pope demands end to the ‘pandemic of arms’
BY NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
VATICAN CITY Pope Leo XIV on Sunday called for an end to the “pandemic of arms, large and small,” as he prayed publicly for the victims of a shooting during a Catholic school Mass in the United States.
History’s first U.S. pope spoke in English as he denounced the attack and the “logic of weapons” fueling wars around the world, during his Sunday noon blessing from his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
“Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” said the Chicago-born Leo. “We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”
Two children were killed Wednesday and 20 people were injured during the shooting attack at the Church of Annunciation in Minneapolis, as hundreds of students from the nearby Annunciation Catholic School and others gathered for a Mass. The shooter fired 116 rifle rounds through the church’s stained-glass windows, and later died by suicide.
est attempt to date to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip by sea, which has now lasted 18 years. They will be joined by more ships from ports in Italy and Tunisia in the coming days, on the route from the western end of the Mediterranean to the Gaza Strip, organizers said.
Thousands of supporters flocked to the Barcelona pier, some of them wearing keffiyehs and chanting “Free Palestine!” and “Boycott
“The story here is about Palestine. The story here is how people are being deliberately deprived of the very basic means to survive,” said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg at a news conference. She is one of the most recognizable figures on the expedition, formed by hundreds of activists, politicians such as the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and journalists.
Ships carrying tons of humanitarian aid departed from the Italian city of Genoa and will join the expedition in the coming days.
It is not the first time Thunberg has attempted to reach Gaza waters this year She was deported by Israel in June when the ship she was traveling on with 11 other people, the Madleen, was stopped by the Israeli military
BY WAFAA SHURAFA, SAMY MAGDY and SAM METZ Associated Press
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip The Israeli military announced Sunday that it killed the longtime spokesperson for Hamas’ armed wing, as the country’s security Cabinet met to discuss the expanding offensive in some of Gaza‘s most populated areas.
There were no plans to discuss negotiations for a ceasefire at the meeting, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz identified the spokesperson as Abu Obeida, the nom de guerre for the person who represented Hamas’ Qassam Brigades He was killed over the weekend. Hamas has not commented on the claim.
Abu Obeida’s last statement was issued Friday as Israel began the initial stages of the new offensive and declared Gaza City a combat zone. His statement said the militants would do their best to protect living hostages but warned that they would be in areas of fighting. He said the remains of dead hostages would “disappear forever.”
Israel’s military said the spokesperson, whom it identified as Hudahaifa Kahlout, had been behind the release of videos showing hostages as well as footage of the Hamas-led attack that sparked the war The military also reiterated a threat against remaining Hamas leaders abroad.
Israel has killed many of Hamas’ military and political leaders as it attempts to dismantle the group and prevent an attack like the one on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians, in southern Israel.
Fewer than 50 hostages remain in Gaza, and Israel believes about 20 are alive.
At least 43 Palestinians were killed since Saturday, most of them in Gaza City, according to local hospitals. Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest, said 29 bodies were brought to its morgue, including 10 people killed while seeking aid.
“Where are the resistance fighters that (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu claims he is bombing? Does he consider stones resistance fighters?” said a relative of one of the dead at Shifa Hospital, who did not give her name.
Hospital officials reported 11 other fatalities from strikes and gunfire. AlAwda Hospital said seven were civilians trying to reach aid.
Witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire on crowds in the Netzarim Corridor an Israeli military zone that bisects Gaza.
“We were trying to get food, but we were met with the occupation’s bullets,” said Ragheb Abu Lebda, who saw at least three people bleeding from gunshot wounds. “It’s a death trap.”
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Leo had refrained from any political commentary about guns in America, sending a telegram of condolence that focused exclusively on the spiritual. He said he was saddened by the “terrible tragedy” and sent his “heartfelt condolences and the assurance of spiritual closeness to all those affected.”
Leo’s predecessor Pope Francis, had long railed against the weapons industry and proliferation of arms fueling wars, denouncing gun manufacturers as “merchants of death.” During his 2015 speech to the U.S. Congress, the Argentine pope asked the lawmakers why weapons were being sold purely to kill.
“Sadly the answer as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood,” he said then.
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS By EMILIO MORENATTI
Activists wave Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, from on top of a boat taking part in a civilian flotilla bound for Gaza aiming to break the Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian aid.
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JEHAD ALSHRAFI
A building in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City sustained heavy damage in an Israeli military strike that killed several people.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, right, arrives Sunday to board a
The school’s closure has been painful for Johnny, an 11th grader who said it felt like “they broke up a family.” He and his former King classmates have dispersed to different schools around the city, though notably, he’ll attend a “B”rated school Uptown that has more course options and a bigger band. It remains to be seen which school will replace King.
The closure of struggling schools like King is perhaps the central paradox of New Orleans’ post-Katrina school system. The process can create upheaval in the lives of students and families and be agonizing for neighborhoods like the Lower 9th Ward and its residents. At the same time, the test-based accountability that prompts closures is what, according to researchers, has driven New Orleans’ dramatic academic gains over the past two decades.
“It’s very clear in the data,” said Doug Harris, director of the Education Research Alliance at Tulane University and a leading expert on New Orleans schools “In some ways that’s unfortunate, because no one likes to take over a school or close a school.”
Healing a wounded community
Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ public schools ranked among the worst in the state, which ranked among the worst in the country The year before the storm, nearly half of students didn’t graduate and more than 60% attended schools the state deemed “academically unacceptable.”
But the schools were also community hubs, staffed by a mostly Black teaching force and often beloved by New Orleanians who took pride in their neighborhood schools.
Johnny’s father, Johnny Davis Jr., attended one such school, Alfred Lawless Senior High School, which would later be refashioned into King High School. Lawless earned less than 29 points out of 200 on a state performance measure in 2004 Yet Davis Jr recalled a tight-knit community where he learned on the football field and in the classroom how to solve problems without violence.
“We don’t have much across the canal,” he said, referring to the Lower 9th Ward. “That was our school, that was our happy place.”
Then Hurricane Katrina hit, washing away the school system.
Floodwaters reached rooflines in the Lower 9th Ward, destroying homes, businesses and lives. More than 70 bodies were later recovered there.
Three of Johnny’s family members perished in the flood, trapped in their attics waiting for rescue. Lawless High School was declared unsalvageable and eventually demolished.
In Katrina’s wake, the state took over all but a handful of New Orleans schools, selecting charter management organizations to run them instead of the beleaguered Orleans Parish School Board.
The first Lower 9th Ward school to reopen was Martin Luther King Elementary School, which had been one of the neighborhood’s few high-performing schools before the storm.
The school’s longtime principal, Doris Hicks, applied to run King as a charter school just months after Katrina. Even as many of the new charter schools brought in young teachers from across the country, replacing much of the city’s veteran Black teaching force, King elementary reopened with 90% of its pre-storm teachers.
“When nobody else thought that a high school or even elementary school would come back, this family — King charter — fought and fought very hard,” said Joseph Re-
and rehabilitation.
of Public Safety and Corrections officials. It can accommodate 958 incarcerated women.
Gov Jeff Landry and Warden Kristen Thomas cut the ribbon for the new facility Thursday, emphasizing the prison as a symbol of the modernization of the Louisiana criminal justice system
“It marks, I hope, the beginning of a restructuring and a rebuilding of correctional facilities around the state,” Landry said. This is the first state facility to be opened in over 35 years, so that alone makes this day very historic.” Thomas said the prison will provide women who are incarcerated opportunities for personal growth
“This is a commitment, a commitment to ensuring that every woman who enters these doors leaves better prepared for her future, a commitment to justice that is not only firm but fair and a commitment to the belief that every individual has the capacity to change,” she said.
The prison will begin absorbing inmates housed at the Jetson Center for Youth in Baker, which held about half of the original women’s prison population, and other correctional facilities over the next few weeks, according to a Department of Corrections spokesperson.
The complex is approximately 300,000 square feet and contains 15 buildings, including dormitories, a gymnasium, medical building, kitchen, postpartum wing and education center
“This facility represents prog-
casner, who taught at King before becoming the high school’s final principal.
Accountability system comes
In the years after Katrina, King became a source of hope for the battered Lower 9th Ward — “an anchor for this community,” as Recasner put it.
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama visited the school and praised students’ resilience. That same year King expanded to include the high school grades
In 2016, the high school finally moved from portable trailers into a new $39 million campus built on the former Lawless site with federal recovery funds.
While King was growing, Johnny’s mother, Amanda Henry, enrolled him in the elementary school. The tight-knit environment suited Johnny In second grade he played Malcolm X in a school play and in sixth grade he picked up the tuba, performing in Mardi Gras parades and under the Friday night lights.
“It just felt like home,” said Johnny who earned top grades at King. But by 2023, when Johnny was entering King’s high school, there were signs of trouble.
The high school received an “F” grade from the state that year and its enrollment fell to 200 students,
ress,” Thomas said. “It is designed to provide a safe, secure and humane environment while also creating meaningful opportunities for rehabilitation.”
In the career and technical education programs, women can receive training in furniture restoration, cosmetology, medical laboratory assisting, horticulture, welding and heavy equipment operation.
They can also earn a bachelor’s degree in Christian ministry through the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
Landry said the programs give women the tools to “reenter our community and be productive citizens.”
“I think it’s important that this facility also reflects the position that our administration is taking on the criminal justice system,” Landry said. “Our hope is that those who have to come into this facility do so and only are tenants one time.”
The new prison will support 58
down from 330 four years earlier, according to state data.
Many local families were using the post-Katrina choice system, which lets students enroll at any school in the city to bypass King. In 2023, just 15% of high school students living in the Lower 9th Ward chose King, district officials said.
In December, the Orleans Parish School Board voted to shut down King’s high school, citing its low enrollment and test scores and graduation rate that trail the district average. (King’s grades preK-8 school was allowed to keep operating.)
Since Katrina, New Orleans has continued to routinely shut down low-performing schools like King even as much of the rest of the country moved away from testbased school accountability, said Harris, the education researcher
“New Orleans just kept the foot on the gas and kept going,” he said, “while everybody else was turning away from it.”
After the board’s decision, Johnny and his classmates held protests and sent a letter to the superintendent pleading for her to reconsider the shutdown.
“It would disrupt and dismantle our lives and the unique support systems that MLK Jr High has built,” Johnny and his classmates wrote.
medical and mental health employees. Thomas, who is a certified Prison Rape Elimination Act auditor and victim’s advocate, highlighted the link between mental health and contact with the criminal justice system.
“We know that incarceration is not just about accountability but also about transformation,” Thomas said. “By offering mental health services, substance abuse treatment and trauma-informed care, we are addressing the challenges that too often contribute to cycles of incarceration.”
Reopening the women’s facility took far longer than state officials originally estimated.
Initially corrections officials suggested the former prison would be renovated after the 2016 flood and house inmates again after only four to eight months. At the groundbreaking in 2022, then-Gov John Bel Edwards acknowledged “the wheels can move really slowly
All to no avail. In June, the Rev. Willie Calhoun, a neighborhood advocate, watched movers load the last of the school’s desks and chairs into U-Haul trucks.
“This is how you dismantle a school, a neighborhood,” he said. Disappointment and hope
For some the empty school is another retraction of resources and a sign of the neighborhood’s stalled recovery
After the storm, Calhoun said, he and others thought that King elementary’s reopening would speed the Lower 9th Ward’s rebirth. Instead, the neighborhood today has 10,000 fewer residents than before the storm, fewer school-aged children and a fraction of the grocery stores, businesses and churches that once served the community
“The hope we had in 2006 and 2007,” Calhoun said, “in my opinion, has not been realized to bring this neighborhood back.”
The school district has not announced plans to put another high school in King’s former campus. But some are hopeful that King’s closure will allow a better school to take its place.
Danise Pruitt, founding president of the Alfred Lawless Alumni Association said she expects another school to move into the building.
“Shutting down a high school does not bring a community back,” she said. “But we see this as an opportunity for a beginning.”
Over the summer Johnny pinned his old King polo shirts and band uniform to the wall of his grandmother’s house as a sort of impromptu memorial. In August, he put on the uniform of his new school, Eleanor McMain Secondary School, before his mother shuttled him to class.
During the half-hour drive, Johnny told her that he was nervous about being the new kid in school — a first after attending preschool through 10th grade at King.
But he’s hopeful. His old band director moved to McMain. He’s taking two honors classes, which could boost his GPA. And he’s on track to graduate early, putting him one step closer to his dream of studying culinary arts at Southern University in Baton Rouge
“It’s hard and it’ll take some time to get adjusted,” Johnny said, “but I know I’ll get there.”
sometimes on recovery.”
On Thursday Landry said the former women’s correctional facility, built in 1972, was intended to “stand for generations.”
“Unfortunately, Mother Nature came calling,” Landry said. “In 2016, the great flood devastated the facility, leaving it beyond repair That required the state to look within to find the funds necessary to rebuild it because of the great history that was on this site for rehabilitating women.”
He thanked corrections leaders and officers for their contributions to the new facility
“Our mission is simple but unwavering,” Landry said “We will continue to do what’s right for our citizens, we will keep improving our correctional facilities, and we will keep working to make our communities safe.”
Email Haley Miller at haley miller@theadvocate.com.
STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER
Grass and vines grow around the school zone sign as Johnny Davis III walks the path through his Lower 9th Ward neighborhood that
Calhoun
BY JAIMIE DING Associated Press
LOS ANGELES Randy “Duke” Cunningham, whose feats as a U.S. Navy flying ace during the Vietnam War catapulted him to a U.S House of Representatives career that ended in disgrace when he was convicted of accepting $2.4 million in bribes, has died. He was 83. Cunningham died Wednesday at a hospital in a Little Rock, Arkansas, according to former Rep. Duncan Hunter, who spent time with him a week before his passing. He “represented the very best of American heroes who go out to meet our enemies at the gates,” said Hunter, whose served alongside Cunningham in Congress.
MAYOR
Continued from page 1A
trying to convince voters they’re best positioned to defend the city’s autonomy and traditions, while still working to show they can reach across the aisle to advance the city’s agenda in one of the country’s most conservative states and at a time when federal threats to autonomy and funding loom.
With less than two months until the primary election, Democratic state Sen. Royce Duplessis, City Council Vice President Helena Moreno and District E City Council member Oliver Thomas are all offering versions of the same pledge: They will defend New Orleans against state interventions, yet work collaboratively to drive state resources toward city priorities.
Landry has not announced public support for any candidate. His New Orleans-focused adviser Shane Guidry threw his support behind Moreno in a recent interview and cited Duplessis as a second choice before backtracking after receiving calls from candidates.
Cunningham was one of the most highly decorated pilots in the Vietnam War, becoming the first Navy fighter ace in the war for shooting down five enemy aircraft. He received a Navy Cross, two Silver Stars, 15 Air Medals and a Purple Heart for his actions during the war “With complete disregard for his own personal safety he continued his attack through a hail of cannon fire to rescue his wingman,” read the citation for his second Silver Star Cunningham went on to serve eight terms in Congress before pleading guilty in 2005 to receiving illegal gifts from defense contractors in exchange for government contracts and other favors, in what was considered at the time to be the largest bribery scandal in congressional history
a Rolls-Royce, lavish meals and $40,000 in Persian rugs and antique furniture from companies in exchange for steering lucrative contracts their way. He was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison in March 2006.
His corruption case was one of several that led to the creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics in 2008.
“In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow And now I know great shame,” Cunningham said in his resignation statement “I cannot undo what I have done. But I can atone.”
He took a less contrite tone as time went on, telling news organizations and others that he regretted his guilty plea and complaining that the Internal Revenue Service was draining his savings.
der of his sentence in a federal halfway house in New Orleans. It was the longest prison sentence for a member of Congress for taking bribes until Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson got 13 years in 2009.
His sentence also required he pay $1.8 million for back taxes and forfeit an additional $1.85 million for bribes he received, plus proceeds from the sale of a home in the highly exclusive San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. He was ordered to pay $1,500 a month in prison and $1,000 monthly after his release.
tator on military topics When he ran for office in 1990, he replaced Democratic Rep Jim Bate in a left-leaning district who had been driven from office by charges of sexual harassment.
Cunningham took an interest in military affairs while in Congress and supported socially conservative positions. He drew attention for his outbursts during a floor debate in 1995, he attacked his adversaries as “the same ones that would put homos in the military.”
The Republican congressman from San Diego admitted to accepting a luxury house, a yacht,
In December 2012, Cunningham was released from a federal prison in Arizona to serve the remain-
Cunningham was born in Los Angeles on Dec. 8, 1941, but grew up in Shelbina, Missouri, where his parents owned a five-anddime store, according to court documents. He graduated from the University of Missouri and a few years later enlisted in the Navy in 1967. He retired as a Navy commander in 1987 and gained national recognition as a media commen-
“He brought military operational expertise to the debates in Congress,” said Hunter, recalling a debate he watched Cunningham have with a colleague over the fate of a fighter jet. “He was a strong conservative, strongly opinionated, and brought a real spark of light to the U.S. Congress.”
The disgraced former congressman received one of the pardons issued by President Donald Trump in 2021 at the end of his first term.
job,” said former Mayor Marc Morial, who heads the National Urban League and served two mayoral terms from 1994 to 2002. “The mayor is not subservient to the governor, the mayor does not report to the governor, but there should be a partnership with the governor.”
Red state jumps in
Officials and longtime political watchers say a new mayor will have an opportunity to reset the fraught relationship between city and state government. They also say Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s second and final term has become so scandal-marred that she has been largely silent in the face of state intrusion.
“The next mayor should work hard to build some kind of constructive relationship with the governor, but the mayor also has to protect the integrity of the
The next mayor must work with a governor who has proved himself uniquely unafraid of tangling with New Orleans’ affairs Citing failures of local leaders, Landry launched a State Police troop in downtown New Orleans and, as Super Bowl LIX approached, shipped dozens of people out of the city’s homeless encampments to a state-run shelter in Gentilly He’s filled local boards with his preferred appointees. Meanwhile, the Legislature’s dual Republican supermajorities have pushed laws to toughen penalties for criminals and loosen restrictions on guns over New Orleans leaders’ opposition. That comes in the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s threat to send the feds to intervene in Democrat-led cities if they don’t “learn their lesson” and “clean up” crime.
Lawmakers also moved this year to block city officials from carving out an exemption in the French Quarter from the state’s permitless concealed carry rules.
Murrill has prosecuted people arrested in the city through a 2024 agreement with Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, and has issued regular public letters
and opinions on a range of local issues.
But Landry has also shown a willingness to work with local leaders. Some of his New Orleans-focused initiatives, like infrastructure fixes ahead of the Super Bowl in February, have been well-received by many locals. He forged a friendly relationship with Cantrell in the run-up to the big game, with the two officials supporting each other at public appearances and private gatherings.
Privately, some local officials even praise the work of his Troop NOLA and state agents’ swift relocation of homeless people at Landry’s order If they have any concern about the partnership between Murrill and Williams, they’ve kept it to themselves.
Through a spokesperson, the governor declined to be interviewed or provide a comment on the mayor’s race.
Guidry, a prolific political donor, said the governor has set his sights on New Orleans as local leadership has left a vacuum How long Landry’s oversight continues depends on the next mayor’s willingness to work toward real solutions, he said.
“The status quo in certain cities needs to change,” said Guidry “Whoever gets in there needs to do that job. If you do that job, the state can focus on other things in other places.”
The candidates
Moreno has held a wide lead in the race in a series of recent polls. In a WWL television-commissioned poll this month, Duplessis placed second and Thomas third.
Despite saying during Landry’s campaign that his governorship would be “dangerous” for New Orleans, Moreno in an interview last week said that she has a “good working professional relation-
ship” with Landry and that the governor “seems to be open to having dialogue and conversation.”
She pointed to collaborations with Landry’s administration on a proposed land swap that would allow the city to build a new City Hall on Duncan Plaza, and her resistance to a now-dead effort by Landry to reject $70 million for a summer food program for children. Moreno has also spoken out in opposition to the governor’s efforts to limit public records access and restrict abortions.
She blamed some of Landry’s more aggressive local interventions on Cantrell’s failure to manage the city’s affairs. A grand jury indicted Cantrell this month, accusing her of pursuing a relationship with her bodyguard on the city’s dime.
“When this city has a good mayor and a strong leader who’s taking care of New Orleans, you close that door, and then it can be more of a partnership instead of this ‘takeover’ type of initiative,” Moreno said.
a Landry transition committee on New Orleans issues. Duplessis said that’s proof that he can put politics aside to get work done
“When it comes to things like homeowners’ insurance, car insurance, I’m going to work with whoever the governor is,” said Duplessis.
Thomas, a political veteran who won his third seat on the New Orleans City Council four years ago, said that as mayor he would “work with the governor and the state Legislature amicably so we can all win” and that his approach is to “stay out of the partisan soap operas and get along with people of all parties to deliver resources.”
Thomas has publicly opposed efforts by Landry to usurp local authority over the Sewerage & Water Board, and expressed concerns to Landry about the new Troop NOLA operating in the city
“Many people across the state are eager to exploit our resources here, because New Orleans is the economic engine of Louisiana,” said Thomas. “But we need a partner, not a predator.”
Duplessis, who served in the state House before winning his Senate seat in 2022, has become known for fiery speeches on the Senate floor opposing Republican policies on criminal justice and abortion.
“I am (Landry’s) biggest opponent on issues in the Senate, there’s no question about it,” said Duplessis, who added that he’d “fight like hell to defend the city of New Orleans” as mayor including against any Trump interventions.
Duplessis has voted repeatedly against legislative efforts by Landry, like to expand private education and cut income taxes, and spoke out publicly against the homeless encampment sweeps.
But Duplessis has also secured trust from Landry, who asked him to serve on
A fine line Guidry, Landry’s New Orleans-focused adviser, said last week that Landry’s team has “had a great working relationship with Helena on all levels” and that when working with Moreno, “everybody forgot what side they came from and worked together to get things done.”
He said that Duplessis would be his “second choice” and that he hasn’t worked directly with Thomas.
Duplessis, hours after being asked through a spokesperson about his working relationship with Landry issued a statement lambasting the governor for sending Louisiana National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to aid Trump’s show of federal law enforcement and military force in the city
“Our National Guard exists to protect and serve the people of Louisiana, not to be used as pawns in a partisan stunt tied to a federal ‘crime emergency’ that does not reflect reality,” Duplessis said. The candidates’ attempts to distance themselves from Landry point to the tension they face between maintaining relationships with a leader who shapes the flow of state dollars and balancing the demands of liberal voters who may balk at leaders they view as too cozy with a Republican governor Ron Faucheux, a political analyst, said that whoever becomes mayor would need to focus on collaborating with state leaders, rather than highlighting their disagreements. That’s especially important as a Trump White House has shown its willing to involve itself directly in various cities’ affairs.
“New Orleans does not have the luxury to have a mayor who is playing politics,” said Faucheux. “New Orleans needs a mayor who will work with other officials regardless of party in the city’s interest.”
When asked about Guidry’s comments, Moreno said her record of defending New Orleans “speaks for itself.” “If people see me as that person that’s going to actually get the city elevated and back working again, I appreciate that,” she said. Shortly after a reporter asked Moreno about Guidry’s comments, Guidry texted that he has “received phone calls from mayoral candidates to clarify, I do not endorse any candidate, nor do I have a preferred candidate” and said that he would be “capable of working” with either Moreno or Duplessis.
Email Sophie Kasakove at sophie.kasakove@ theadvocate.com.
Murrill
Duplessis Moreno Thomas
Judgehalts deportation flightstoGuatemala
BY VALERIE GONZALEZ, REBECCA
SANTANA andJENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press
HARLINGEN, Texas
Afterthe U.S. government loaded children onto planes overnight to be sent back to their native Guatemala, afederal judge temporarily blockedthe flights —with the youngsters still inside —as their attorneys said authorities were violating U.S. laws and sending vulnerable kids into potential peril.
Theextraordinary dramaplayed out over predawnhours on aU.S. holiday weekend and vaulted from tarmacsinTexas to acourtroom in Washington. It was the latest showdown over the Trump administration’scrackdownonimmigration —and thelatesthigh-stakes clash betweenthe administration’s enforcement efforts and legal safeguards that Congress created for vulnerable migrants
For now,hundreds of Guatemalan children who arrived unaccompanied will stay whilethe legal fight plays out over coming weeks.
“I do not want there to be any ambiguity,” said Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan, whoappliedher ruling broadly to Guatemalan minors who arrived in the U.S.without parents or guardians Minutes after herhastilyscheduled hearing Sunday afternoon, five charter buses pulled up to a plane parked at the border-area airport in Harlingen, Texas. Hours earlier,authorities hadwalked dozens of passengers —perhaps 50 —toward the plane in an air-
Arelativeofanunaccompanied minor deported from the United States reviews the list of those deported outsideLaAurora International
in Guatemala CityonSunday
port sector restricted to government planes,includingdeportation flights. The passengers were wearing colored clothing typically used in government-run shelters for migrant children.
The U.S. government insists it’s reuniting the Guatemalan children —atthe Central American nation’s request —with parents or guardians who sought their return. Lawyers for at least some of the minors say that’suntrue and argue that in anyevent,authorities still would have to follow alegal process that they did not.
One girlsaid her parents, in Guatemala,got astrange phone call a few weeksago saying the U.S.was deporting her,saidone of the at-
torneys, Efrén C. Olivaresofthe National Immigration Law Center
The 16-year-old, who’sbeen living in aNew York shelter,said in acourt filing that she’sanhonors student about tostart11th grade, loves living in the U.S.and is “deeply afraid of being deported.”
Otherchildren saidincourt documentsthatthey had been neglected, abandoned, physically threatened or abused in their home country.
“I do not have any family in Guatemala that can take good care of me,” a10-year-oldsaid in acourt filing. A16-year-old recalled experiencing “threats against my life” in Guatemala. “IfI am sent back, Ibelieve Iwill be in danger,” the teen added.
As the developments played out in the U.S., families gathered at an air base in Guatemala’scapital, GuatemalaCity,inanticipation of the flights. Gilberto López saidhe drove through the night from his remote town after his 17-year-old nephewcalled at midnight to say he was being deported from Texas.
The boy left Guatemalatwo years ago, at age 15, to workin the U.S. and was detained about a month ago, López said.
Migrant children who arrive in the U.S. without their parents or guardians are routinely handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Officeof Refugee Resettlement. They often liveingovernment-supervised shelters or with foster care families until they can be released to a sponsor —usually arelative —in the U.S. Many of those from Guatemalarequest asylum or pursue other legal avenues to get permission to stay
An attorney with the National Center forYouth Lawsaidthe organization starting hearing a fewweeks agofromlegal service providers that Homeland Security Investigations agents were interviewing children— particularly Guatemalans —infacilities of the OfficeofRefugee Resettlement.
The agents asked thechildren abouttheir relatives in Guatemala, said theattorney,Becky Wolozin. Then, on Friday,advocates began getting word that their youngclients’immigrationcourt hearings werebeingcanceled,Wolozinsaid.
ShainaAberofAcaciaCenter
for Justice,animmigrant legal defense group, said it was notified Saturdayevening that officials had drafted alist of children to return to Guatemala. Advocates learned that theflightswouldleave from the Texas cities of Harlingen and El Paso, Aber said.
It’sunclear whether any planes actually departed. Government lawyer Drew Ensign told the Washingtonjudge that oneplane might have taken off but then returned.
The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration andCustomsEnforcementand HHS did notimmediatelyrespond to requests forcomment Sunday White House deputy chiefofstaff StephenMillersaidonXthatthe Guatemalan governmentformally requestedthe children’s return and that thejudge was“refusing to let them reunify with their parents.”
Thejudge saidshe wasawakened at 2:30 a.m.toaddress the emergency filingfrom the children’s lawyers, who wrote in bold type that flights might be leaving within the ensuing two to four hours. Sooknanan spent hours trying to reach federal attorneys and get answers, she said.
“I have the government attempting to remove unaccompanied minors fromthe country in the wee hours of themorning on aholiday weekend, which is surprising,” Sooknanan said at the midday hearing, later adding: “Absent action by the courts, all of those children wouldhavebeenreturned to Guatemala, potentially to very dangerous situations.”
Redheads from around worldmeetinNetherlands
BY MOLLYQUELL Associated Press
TILBURG, Netherlands
The south-
ern Dutch city of Tilburg is seeing more color than usual this weekend, as thousands of redheads from all over the world gather in the Netherlands for aonce-a-year festival to celebrate their flaming locks
The 2025 edition of the Redhead Days festival includes music, food trucks and workshops tailored to
particular needs of redheads, from makeup explainers to skin cancer prevention.
Organizers expect thethree-day eventtodraw several thousand attendeesfromsome80countries.
Elounda Bakker,a Dutch festival veteran of 15 years, played cards with agroup of redheaded friends fromacross theworld who meet together everyyear at the festival.
“I came out of curiosity mostly, just to seewhat it wouldbelike
not to stand out in the crowd,” said Bakker,29. “It was really an interesting first experience and Ijust keep coming because Imet some really nice friends here.”
The 2013 festival set aGuinness World Recordfor the “largest gathering of people withnatural red hair” with 1,672 people posing for thegroup photo.
Thetraditionemerged two decades ago when Dutch artist Bart Rouwenhorst put out acall for 15
red-haired models foranart project in alocal newspaper.Hegot 10 times theresponse he was expecting and brought the group together fora photo.
Theproject gotsomuchattention, Rouwenhorst organized asimilar meetupthe following year and has continued to overseethe festivalas it hasexpanded. “The festivalisreally amazing because allthe people, they resemble each other and they feel likeit’sa family,” he said.
BY AAMER MADHANI Associated Press
WASHINGTON Department of
Homeland Security Secretary
Kristi NoemonSunday said that the Trump administration will soon expand immigration operations in Chicago,confirming plans for astepped up presence of federal agents in the nation’sthirdlargestcityasPresidentDonald Trump continues to lash out at Illinois’ Democratic leadership. Noem’scomments comeafter the DHS last week requested limited logistical supportfromof-
ficials at theNaval StationGreat Lakestosupport the agency’santicipated operations. The military installation is about35miles north of Chicago. “We’ve already had ongoing operationswith ICE in Chicago but we dointend to add more resources to those operations,” Noem said during an appearance on CBS News’ “Face theNation.” Noem declined to provide furtherdetails aboutthe planned surge of federal officers. It comes after the Trump administration deployedNational Guardtroops to Washington, D.C., to target crime,
immigration and homelessness. Trump lashed out against Illinois Gov.JBPritzker in asocial media posting Saturday,warning him that he must straighten out Chicago’scrimeproblemsquickly “or we’re coming.” TheRepublican president hasalsobeen critical of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. Johnson and Pritzker have pushedback against the expected federal mobilization, saying crime hasfallen in Chicago. They are planning to sue if Trump moves forward withthe plan. Johnson hasalready signed an order barring the Chicago Police
Departmentfrom helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or anyrelated patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during thesurge.
Chicago is hometoalarge immigrant population, and both the city and the state of Illinois have some of the country’sstrongest rules againstcooperating with federal governmentimmigration enforcementefforts. That has put the city and the state at odds with Trump’s administration as it tries to carry out his mass deportation agenda. Pritzker in an interview aired Sunday on “Face the Nation”
chargedthatTrump’s expected plans to mobilize federal forces in the city may be part of aplan to “stop the elections in 2026 or,frankly,take control of those elections.” Noem said it was aTrump “prerogative”whether to deployNational Guard troopstoChicagoas he did in LosAngelesinJune in the midst of immigration protests in the California city “I do know that L.A. wouldn’tbe standing today if President Trump hadn’ttaken action,” Noem said. “That city would have burned if left to devices of the mayor and governor of that state.”
Alate Tennessee sheriff who inspired aHollywood movie about alaw enforcement officer who took on organized crime killedhis wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was killed by his enemies, authorities said Friday Authorities acknowledged that thefindingwill likely shock many who grew up as BufordPusser fans and watched 1973’s“Walking Tall,” whichimmortalized him as atough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime. The movie was remade in 2004, and many officers joined law enforcement becauseofhis story,according to Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s25th Judicial District. There is enough evidence that if Pusser,the McNairy County sheriff who died ina car crash seven years after his wife’sdeath, were alive today,prosecutors would present an indictment to a grand jury for the killing of Pauline Mullins Pusser,Davidson said. Investigators also uncoveredsigns that she sufferedfrom domestic violence. Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline Pusser’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agen-
cy director David Rausch said. Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’sversionofevents and the physical evidence, receiveda tipabout apotential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline Pusser’s body foranautopsy
“This case is not about tearing downa legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and herfamily and ensuring thatthe truthisnot buried with time,” Davidson said in anews conference streamed online. “Thetruth matters. Justice matters. Even 58 years later.Pauline deservesboth ” Evidence,story conflict
The case dates to Aug. 12, 1967. Buford Pusser got acallinthe early morning hours about adisturbance. He reported that hiswife volunteeredtoridealong with him as he responded. Buford Pusser saidthat shortly after they passed NewHope Methodist Church, acar pulled up and firedseveral times into the vehicle, killing Pauline Pusser and injuring thesheriff. Buford Pusser spent18days in thehospital andrequired several surgeries to recover The casewas built largely on hisown statement and closed quickly,Rausch said.
During thereexamination of the case, Dr.Michael Revelle,anemergency medicine physician and medical examiner,studied
postmortemphotographs, crimescene photographs, notes made by the medical examiner at the time and Buford Pusser’sstatements He concludedthatPauline Pusser was morelikely than not shot outside the car and then placed inside it.
He found that cranial trauma suffered by Pauline Pusser didn’tmatch crime scene photographs of the car’sinterior.Blood spatter on thehood outside the car contradictedBuford Pusser’sstatements. Thegunshot wound on his cheek was in fact aclose-contact wound and not one fired from long range, as BufordPusserdescribed, and was likely selfinflicted, Revelle concluded.
Pauline Pusser’sautopsy revealed she hadabroken nose that hadhealedprior to her death. Davidson said statements from people who were around at the time she died support the conclusion thatshe wasa victimofdomestic violence.
Investigationgaveclosure
PaulinePusser’syounger brother,Griffon Mullins, said the investigation gave him closure. He said in a recordedvideo playedat thenews conference that their other sister died without knowing what happened
to Pauline Pusser and he is grateful he will die knowing.
“You would fall in love with her because she wasa people person. And of course, my family would always go to Pauline if they hadanissue or they needed some advice and she was always therefor them,” he said. “She was just asweet person. Iloved her with all my heart.”
Mullins said he knewthere was sometrouble in Pauline Pusser’smarriage, but she wasn’tone to talk about her problems. For that reason, Mullins said he was “not totally shocked.”
The TennesseeBureau of
Investigationplans to make theentire file,whichexceeds 1,000 pages, available to the public by handing it over to the University of Tennessee at Martin once it finisheswith redactions. The school will create an online, searchable database forthe case.
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MOISES CASTILLO
Airport
Aparticipant poses with acrown Saturday during the Redhead Days festival in Tilburg, Netherlands.
AP PHOTO By VIRGINIA MAyO
Trump’senvoyscausing diplomatic tensions
Butthe White Houseisn’t doing much aboutit
BY LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press
LONDON Do not antagonize one’s opponents unnecessarily, abasic principle of diplomacy says. But as the United States faces atrade war with China and various tensionsoverseas,PresidentDonald Trump’s emissariesare increasingly ticking off allied countries and being called to account. Last week, no fewerthanthree U.S. envoys scrambledtoextricate themselvesfrom diplomatic hot water Denmark’sforeign minister summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country to answer for reports
that at least three people with connections toTrump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland, aDanish territory.France summoned the U.S. ambassador,Trumpin-law Charles Kushner,over his letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country has not done enough tofight antisemitism. And the American ambassadortoTurkey longtime Trump friend TomBarrack, apologized Thursday for using the word “animalistic” while callingfor agaggle of reporterstoquiet down duringa press conferencein Lebanon.
Butin theother twocases,the Trump administration stoodpat. Kushner did not show up for his
summonsing, leaving the French to take it up with his No. 2. The top diplomat in Denmark did attendhis meeting in Copenhagen, and the State Departmentsaid a“productive conversation”ensued. But behind the scenes in Washington, the Trump administration —throughanofficial who spoke only on condition of anonymity—had afar morecasual response.
“The Danes,”the official said, “need tocalm down.”
There was much tsktsking from thediplomatic worldoverthe indelicate exchanges, whichwould perhaps have been minor on their own.
Butthey’re consistent with Trump’sblunt-spokenstyle, his “America First” approach to for-
eign policyand his attitude toward reporters —all of which appeal to broad swaths of his political base. Andthey track with the president’s recordofupending norms. Indeed, theState Department has offered little in response, except to say that it supports Kushner’sletter to Macron and that the government “does not control or direct” the actions of privatecitizens in Greenland.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed thenotion that the recent diplomatic kerfuffleshave undercut Trump’sglobal standing or dimmedhis trust in his envoys.
“President Trump has restored America’sstanding on the world stage, and his foreign policy accomplishments speak forthemselves,” Kelly said, citing Trump’s trade deals, his strike on Iran ‘s nuclear facilitiesand the freeing of Americans detainedinother countries as examples. “He has
full confidenceinhis entire teamto advance his America First foreign policy agenda.”
Thetrifectaofire againstAmerican diplomats in recent days was only the latest against Trump’s overseas appointees,several of whom raised eyebrows during the president’sfirst term. That’sin part due to the particularly American practice —inboth parties —ofhanding coveted postings to campaign donors and presidential friends regardless of their diplomatic experience.
Trump’sdiplomats have something of atrack record of annoying foreign governments. During his first term,numerous U.S. ambassadors fromIcelandtoGermany and South Africa as well as the European Union got under the skin of their host governments, prompting summonsesifnot private complaints.
Section 2ofthe Voting Rights Act in part says,“No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision in amanner which results in adenial or abridgment of the right of any citizen of the UnitedStates to vote on account of raceor color.”
“Whenitwas passed,the main concern was to facilitate Black registration and turnout,” said Charles Bullock III, apolitical science professor at the University of Georgia and experton Southern politics and elections. But by the early 1970s, the SupremeCourt hadalready interpreted the law broadly as applying to redistricting, Bullock said.
Redistricting —when state and local governments periodically redrawmaps of voting districts —can be done in away that dilutes the effectiveness of aminority group’svoting strength, denying it the chance to elect apreferred candidate. Lawsuits challenging this type of practice are known as “vote dilution” cases.
Whywas theact created?
Soon afterthe end of the Civil Warin1865, three “reconstruction” amendments to the U.S. Constitution were approved.
The13thAmendment put an end to slavery, the 14th Amendment extended citizenship and equal protection of the laws to Black Americans, and the 15th Amendment prohibitedracial discrimination in voting. But for decades, Southernstates enforced laws designedtoprevent Black people from voting —like literacy,education and moral character tests —leading to thetougher approach of the Voting Rights Act.
“It was needed because, primarily,states wouldn’t pay attention to the 14th and 15thAmendments to the Constitution,” said Kareem
Crayton, alegal scholar at theBrennan Center for Justice.
“States, particularlythose in the South, had been committed to extend Jim Crow to thepolitical space,” Crayton said.
In a1966 opinion upholdingthe new law’s constitutionality,U.S.Supreme CourtChief Justice Earl Warren noted thatSouthern states for decades had defied the15th Amendment.
“The Voting Rights Act was designed by Congress to banish theblight of racial discriminationinvoting, which has infected the electoral process in partsof our country for nearly acentury,” Warren wrote.
Howisthe actinterpreted?
Alandmark decisionina 1986 SupremeCourt case calledThornburg v. Gingles outlined three criteria that plaintiffs need to meet to challenge aredistricting planincourt and bring a vote dilution claim under Section 2.
Those three factors are whether:
n the minority group is large enough andlivesclose together enoughtoforma majority in asinglevoting district
n the minority group is politically cohesive and tends to voteasabloc, and n the majority group also votes as abloc and typically defeatsthe minority’spreferred candidate.
Oncea plaintiff can show thoseconditions are met, a court is then allowed to consider if aredistrictingplan interfereswith aminority group’sability to elect preferredcandidates in violationofSection 2ofthe VotingRights Act.
TheGingles test isthe court’s way of trying to operationalize the law in the redistrictingcontext,said Michael Gilbert,anelection law professoratthe University of Virginia.
“How do we decideif this set of districts is or is not compatible with the VotingRights Act,given that districting is very hardand complicated and the Voting Rights Act is very vague,” he said.
Gilbert saidthat, during aVoting RightsAct challenge of districtmaps, the Gingles testhelpsget at the question, “Is thereaway to takearacial minority group thatisright now situated in those districts one way,and draw aline aroundthem so that they become aseparate district andthey’re situated in another way —away in whichthey’ll have more political power?”
Louisianav.Callais case
The case Louisiana v. Callaisdealswith thestate’s six congressional districts and the fact that Louisiana’s population is roughly onethirdBlack.
After agroupofBlack voters sued over Louisiana’s congressional map, afederal judge found Louisiana’s map likely violated Section 2 of theVotingRights Actfor having justone majorityBlack congressional district outofsix total. In response, Louisianadrewa newmap and added asecond majority-Black district.
But agroup of White voters then sued over that new map. They argued the map with two majority-Black districts violates theEqual Protection Clause of the 14th Amendmentand is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander
TheWhite voters essentially argued Louisiana relied on race toomuchindeciding how to draw the new congressional map. That case is nowbefore theSupremeCourt.
The two lawsuits raise a tension between the Voting Rights Act, which allows statestouse race to help remedyracial discrimination in voting maps, andthe Equal Protection Clause of theConstitution, which says thelaw must be applied equally to all people regardless of race.
“If youhave to take race intoaccount to assure that you’re notdiscriminating, but you can’ttake race too much into account that you offend the racial gerrymandering standard, is there a path in the middle?” Crayton said. “That’sinsome ways I think what this court is asking.”
Gilbert said the basic tensionbetween the 14thand 15thAmendments and the Voting Rights Act hasbeen around sincethe law’sinception
“Onthe one hand, the14th and 15th Amendments forbid thegovernment from making decisions,including about voting, on the basis of race,” he said. “At the same time,wehavethis Voting RightsAct. Andwhat this Voting Rights Actrequires states to do undercertain circumstances is make decisions, for example about districting,onthe basis of race.
“So there’satension here. The14th and15th Amendments say don’tmakedecisions on the basis of race. And the Voting Rights Act says under certaincircumstances, youabsolutely must make decisions on thebasis of race.”
Is theact constitutional?
The Supreme Court raised thestakes in theLouisiana case in early August when it asked theparties to directly address the constitutionality of the VotingRightsAct.
The justices asked for ar-
guments on anew question, “Whether the state’s intentionalcreationofasecond majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.”
Louisiana AttorneyGeneral LizMurrill said the questionopenedthe door for Louisiana to argue what she says state leaders have long believed: Race-based redistricting under Section 2ofthe Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.
“Racial classifications imposed by ourgovernment areantitheticaltoequal justice under law,” the state argues. “Our Constitution sees neitherblack voters nor whitevoters; it sees only American voters.”
If the SupremeCourt buys that argument, it could end the use of theVoting Rights Act in redistricting.
“Louisiana is arguing, ‘Do away withSection2 of the Voting Rights Act,’”Bullock said.
“This would be tremendously significant if indeed Section 2isstruck down,” he said. “If Section 2isno
longer applicable, then it potentially makes vulnerable existing minority districts elsewhere.”
Crayton said Louisiana’s attack on the Voting Rights Act reflects the “shifting politics of the moment” and the state’shope that the court will view the law differently than it did just twoyears ago whenitupheld its constitutionality in asimilar redistricting case from Alabama.
“In the caseofLouisiana, it’skind of fascinating that the state that delivered to us Plessy v. Ferguson —apolicy endorsed by the state of Louisiana to separate races in public accommodation— takes the view that, yes, any consideration of race at all is somehow offensive to the Constitution,” Crayton said. “Tohear thestate of Louisiana tell the story,” he said, “there’snoreasontobring up anyattentionatall to race. “That is itself remarkable given Louisiana’sleading role in putting Jim Crow into place in the first place.” Email Alyse Pfeil at alyse pfeil@theadvocate.com.
Barrack Kushner
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SEPTEMBER 2025
N.O. budget deficithits$100million
Financialstrainachallenge forcityleaders
BY BEN MYERS Staff writer
New Orleans’ 2025 budget deficit exceeds $100 million, posing asignificant challenge for Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration as it begins preparing afinalannual budget that Cantrell’ssuccessor will inherit in 2026.
The deepening financial strain
—caused largely by overtime pay andnew security measures tied to the New Year’sEve terrorattack, but also by revenue estimating blunders —has causedcity officials to consider ideas that could stir controversy
These ideas include increases to residents’ monthly sanitation fee and higher taxes. No single proposal is yet being seriously ad-
vanced, at least not publicly,and thepolitical minefields involved withdoing so will likely be left to thenext mayor and council.
The spiraling deficit, now representing about13% of anticipated general fund revenue, is an abrupt turnabout from most of Cantrell’s second term, whichwas buoyedby nearly $400 million in federal pandemic aid. That money has been
spent on asmatteringofinfrastructure, technology andpublic safetyinitiatives.
“We’renot going to have the samekind of fund-balance cushionthatwe’vehad thepastthreeor four years,” said Jonathan Harris, chief of staff for the city’schief administrative office, at an Aug. 13 City Council Budget Committee meeting. “The budgetisgoing to be tighter.We’re going to have to make some hard decisions.” Council membersdidn’tdiscuss
DELIGHTFUL DECADENCE
The SouthernDecadence parade rolls Sunday through the French Quarter in New Orleans. The annual parade, which has celebrated the Crescent City’slaissez-fairelifestyle andLGBTQ+ communitysince 1972, features spectacular drag costumers, Mardi Gras dance troupes, marching clubs and music.
knowing he neededaround-the-clock care. Karla Padilla Pavon, 22, and Hovet Vela Espinoza, 49, were charged Thursday with seconddegree murder and obstruction of justice, according to Jefferson Parish court records. Padilla’sson,Cristian Rodriguez Padilla, was nonverbal, had cerebral palsy andrelied on a feeding tube, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. Vela is not Cristian’sbiological father Sheriff’sOfficedeputiesand
medical personnel were dispatchedtothe family’sMistletoeStreet homeinMetairie just before 9p.m. April 19 after the departmentreceiveda call that achild had died, authorities said. Cristian was found unresponsive, lying on his back on aliving room sofa. He was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. An autopsybythe Jefferson ParishCoroner’sOffice would later show that Cristian died of asphyxia due to suffocation and inhaling vomit.
murder
Padilla andVelatolddeputies that they’d left Cristianathome alone about 5p.m.while they drovetoBaton Rougetorun errands, accordingtothe Sheriff’s Office. The couple took Padilla’s other two children, ages 3and 5, along with them. The pair told investigators they returned to the house about 7:30 p.m. and found Cristian dead, according to authorities. Padilla and Vela were arrested and booked withnegligent
the administration’sproposals in detail at the committee, though budget Chair Joe Giarrusso suggested raising city parking rates as ameasure that might be less controversial.
“The thing we’re all trying to be sensitivetois, forthe people who live here,how do we balance services delivered versus appropriate resources? And parking feels like oneofthose things that isn’t
BY DESIREESTENNETT Staff writer
With four decades leading the Orleans ParishAssessor’sOffice under his belt, Errol Williams, one of the longest-serving elected officialsinthe city,will go up against three candidates whoare aiming to take his place on election day Challenging him are Tulane University professor and real estate development consultant Casius H. Pealer III, former professional footballplayerCoreygerard Dowden andestate lawyer Earl “Jay” Schmitt Jr
The election is Oct. 11. If Williams clears50% of the vote plus one, he will avoid arunoff. Otherwise,the twotop vote-getters will face off Nov. 15. Theassessor doesn’t set thetax rate property owners pay or collect tax revenues but is respon-
BYELYSE CARMOSINO Staff writer
through anew financial literacy course focused on real-lifescenarios, such as payingbills,applying forloans and purchasing homes. The class, whichuses an online program that lets students practice making financialdecisions, launched at ahandful
STAFF PHOTOSByJOHNMcCUSKER
Peter Trapolin, renowned N.O. architect, dies at 70
BY JOHN POPE Contributing writer
Peter Trapolin, a New Or-
leans architect acclaimed for his work in preserving buildings and designing structures that blended with their environments, died Saturday of cancer in his New Orleans home. He was 70. “He was skilled as a classical architect, and he understood modern architecture, and he brought them together,” said Tony Gelderman, a businessman and preservationist. “He understood the vernacular of New Orleans, and he brought that to his practice.”
His firm, Trapolin-Peer Architects, which he founded in 1981, has designed buildings across the Gulf Coast In New Orleans, the firm’s projects include the Sazerac House; the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation headquarters; The Historic New Orleans Collection; the Lafayette Hotel; Richardson Memorial Hall, where Trapolin studied architecture at Tulane University; and the 19th-century Warehouse District building that houses Pêche Seafood Grill.
That structure, which Gelderman and his wife, Katherine, owned, once housed the
ASSESSOR
Continued from page 1B
Errol Williams
Williams, a New Orleans native, spent the early part of his career working under former Mayor Dutch Morial’s administration, first as the director of finance and then as city chief administrative officer He later moved into his longtime role as assessor
“I think that the fact that I’ve made 40 years here is relevant, because it says that I’m doing what people expect and meeting the expectations of the public,” said Williams, a 76-year-old Democrat. “And I hope to continue to be able to do that for another four years if they have me back.”
If reelected, his focus will be on continuing to build a professional appraisal staff and working with state lawmakers to lower the tax burden for property owners.
“I’m going to make another attempt at increasing the homestead exemption and an attempt to see if I can put a cap on the amount that the assessment can be increased,” he said. Then, he’d try again to convince a lawmaker to sponsor a proposal to allow tax bills to be based on incomes, which would help out struggling residents, he said. He’s tried that before but not had success.
Williams, the only person in the race to receive formal endorsements, is supported by the Alliance for Good Government, AFL-CIO, the Independent Democratic Electors Association, New Orleans East Leadership
DEFICIT
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so bad,” said Giarrusso, who is termed out of his District
A seat and taking a job in the private sector
A $103 million shortfall
With the federal pandemic windfall gone, officials are now also grappling with personnel overruns and revenue shortfalls that appear set to continue into next year The New Year’s Day truck attack on Bourbon Street and the new special event security measures adopted in its wake are largely responsible for $72 million in unexpected overtime costs, according to the administration. At the same time, officials have been warning for months that 2025 revenue wouldn’t meet expectations, and the Revenue Estimating Conference on Wednesday officially reduced this year’s
where the culture happens. He had 45 years of expertise of modifying and updating these historic buildings and doing new construction in a historic context.”
“I think he loved the city more than anything,” said Kathryn LeMieux, a niece. “He wanted to restore and honor its history and legacy.”
“He was just a trusted adviser,” Peer said. “He was really smart, he was passionate, and he was a little bit shy He had the right to carry his ego around, but he didn’t.”
mortuary where Jefferson Davis was embalmed after the former Confederate president died in the Garden District.
Restoring it to its former glory was a challenge, Gelderman said. In addition to heavy termite damage, there seemed to be no way to tell how to proceed because an earlier owner had stripped the building of its distinctive ornamentation, including an elaborate balcony and detailed window treatments.
But luck was with Trapolin because he was given an old photograph of the structure
and the Independent Women’s Organization.
Casius H. Pealer III
Pealer a Florida native, first moved to New Orleans in 1991 for college at Tulane, where he teaches. The 51-year-old Democrat is also a real estate development consultant and a former Housing Authority of New Orleans board president
This is Pealer’s first run for office If elected, he will work to educate all the city’s residents on the role of the Assessor’s Office, because renters and homeowners are affected by property values.
“All of the questions I get about the assessor’s race start with, ‘What will homeowners think?’ ” he said.
“The truth is that renters are paying rents that are based in part on the property taxes those owners are paying as well.”
Working to understand renters might help curb the population loss the state has seen in recent years, he said. If that trend is reversed, property owners and renters will benefit.
“I think this race and this position is important to everybody who is trying to stay in the city, whether they own property or not,” he said.
He said he would also launch a “tax fairness commission” to ensure high and low value properties are assessed correctly
Coreygerard Dowden
Dowden, 56, is a New Orleans native and is also running for office for the first time. The former professional football player works with local advocacy organization Justice and Beyond. His priority would be customer service and working to streamline the public-fac-
anticipated income by $31 million
Matthew Cooper, the city’s chief economist, said new tax exemptions on construction materials and rental cars approved by state lawmakers are among many factors that resulting in his overshot revenue estimates
He also pointed to traffic camera revenue splits with other agencies that came to fruition this year although lawmakers passed those in the 2024 session. The actions by state lawmakers alone deprived the general fund of about $20 million this year, he said Additionally, business property tax collections are coming in about $11 million short of Cooper’s estimate. He blamed that on Assessor Errol Williams, who he said intentionally inflated business tax valuations by 20% to account for scofflaws who don’t submit required documentation
“What ends up happening there is our property tax
at Magazine and Julia streets.
“Peter was able to take the photograph and convert it into very accurate drawings and convert it back,” Gelderman said. “Very few people could have done that. It was a great accomplishment that I was privileged to see.”
Such scrupulous attention to detail was a hallmark of Trapolin’s work, said Paula Peer, who succeeded Trapolin as the firm’s president “He was a steward of preservation and advocating for the preservation of our historic city,” she said. “The buildings are the place
A lifelong New Orleanian, Trapolin graduated from De La Salle High School and Tulane University He was among the first to see the potential of the Warehouse District, which before the 1980s had been a collection of industrial buildings going to seed. In fact, Peer said, Trapolin’s first office had been a flophouse.
The 1984 world’s fair drew developers’ attention to that part of the city Trapolin, who played a key role in its revitalization, bought a town house there and set up headquarters three blocks away for his firm, which employs 24 people.
A list of the firm’s local projects fills two pages on its website, trapolinpeer.com
Trapolin’s style was never dictatorial, Gelderman said “He didn’t fight with people. He guided them. He had a way of guiding you to the right results.”
His work took him to Texas, Colorado, Mexico and China. In a 2016 letter nominating Trapolin to be a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, fellow architect J. David Waggonner III praised his “innate ability for shaping and ordering the physical environment and its components into a congruent whole.”
“Whether the direction is determined to restore a historic state or to advance a more modern vocabulary, the result his work achieves is appropriate, seamless, harmonious and desirable,” Waggonner wrote. “He can be trusted to make the judgment calls vital to historic preservation.” Trapolin, who was made a fellow the organization’s highest honor — was a former president of the AIA’s New Orleans chapter and a former Preservation Resource Center board member He served on committees of the Downtown Development District, the Louisiana Landmarks Society and the Bring New Orleans Back
Commission, which was formed after Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing floodwaters ravaged the city Trapolin also was a volunteer architect with the preservation center’s Operation Comeback, which helped low-income homeowners rehabilitate homes in historic neighborhoods. A statement from his firm praised him as a “dedicated advocate who worked tirelessly to preserve the historic fabric of the city while contributing to a more sustainable and resilient New Orleans.”
Survivors include his companion, Leah Tubbs; four brothers, Miles, Edward and Neil Trapolin, all of New Orleans, and Charles Trapolin, of San Francisco; and four sisters Louise Kuzmich, of Midland, Texas; Jeanne Kuehn, of Dallas; Therese Trapolin, of Hammond; and Kathleen Trapolin Barbee, of New Orleans. A funeral will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd. Visitation will begin at 12:30 p.m. Burial will be in Metairie Cemetery
Contact John Pope at pinckelopes@gmail.com.
ERROL WILLIAMS
76. Born and lives in New Orleans.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Joseph S Clark Senior High School; bachelor’s degree in accounting from Dillard University; master’s in business administration from Tulane University CURRENT JOB, FORMER JOBS: Orleans Parish assessor PARTY, RELEVANT POLITICAL EXPERIENCE OR CAMPAIGN WORK: Democrat, Orleans Parish assessor since 1985. WEBSITE: www.errollgwilliams.com
CASIUS H. PEALER III
51. Born in Ocala, Florida, lives in New Orleans.
EDUCATION: Graduated from Forest High School in Ocala, Florida; master’s and bachelor’s degrees in architecture from Tulane University; juris doctorate from
ing work of the Assessor’s Office.
“My goal is to make this a one-stop shop,” said Dowden, who is unaffiliated with a political party Residents should be able to get everything done related to their taxes in one place, he added. That would mean asking the Department of Safety and Permits and other departments to house staffers inside the Assessor’s Office.
He would also hire supervisory “quality control” staffers who would keep track of tax breaks, work with residents who want to dispute a tax assessment and communicate across city departments and with
valuation is slightly inflated as a result of that,” Cooper said at the city’s Revenue Estimating Conference on Wednesday
But an Assessor’s Office spokesperson, Devin Johnson, said Cooper is mistaken. Business owners who fail to document their property are assessed a 20% penalty, fees Johnson said “are fully collectible by the city.”
“These are not arbitrary or inflated values — these penalties become part of the tax liability,” Johnson said in an email.
Cooper also said tax collections from Super Bowl LIX aren’t measuring up to expectations. The 2025 city budget anticipated $15 million, but Cooper said the city only received somewhere between $8 million and $10 million.
Controversial fixes
Cantrell administration officials suggested several ways to raise money including raising sales taxes
University of Michigan. CURRENT JOB, FORMER JOBS: Director of the Master of Sustainable Real Estate Development program at Tulane University, principal at Oystertree Consulting PARTY, RELEVANT POLITICAL EXPERIENCE OR CAMPAIGN WORK: Democrat WEBSITE: www.casiusfornola.com
COREYGERARD DOWDEN
56. Born and lives in New Orleans.
PARTY, RELEVANT POLITICAL EXPERIENCE OR CAMPAIGN WORK: No party affiliation WEBSITE: N/A
EARL “JAY” SCHMITT JR.
80. Born and lives in New Orleans.
EDUCATION: Graduated from John McDonogh High School; bachelor’s degree in sports management from Tulane University CURRENT JOB, FORMER JOBS: Retired NFL player
the City Council.
Assessments should also happen more frequently, such as after a major storm or when people request them, he said.
“We’re going to start a program called ‘Invite a Tax Assessor to Your Home,’ and when you invite us to your home, we will come in and give you a proper assessment,” Dowden said.
Earl ‘Jay’ Schmitt Jr. Schmitt, 80, is the only Republican in the race and practices succession and estate law for families. But he’s worked as an appraiser for private citizens, the federal government and businesses, and has taught
and permit fees. The suggestions also included two third-rail ideas: increasing the sanitation fee and property tax millages.
The $24 monthly sanitation fee hasn’t been touched since 2011, even as curbside collection costs have dramatically increased, especially after the pandemic. The Sanitation Department budget increased nearly 40% this year from $51 million to $71 million.
The existing fee only covers about 60% of the department budget, and raising it to $30-$35 could generate as much as $60 million, according to the administration. But the fee increase would come after pickups were cut from twice to once per week in 2021.
Property tax increases are another touchy subject, since the 2023 citywide reassessment raised property values by an average of 17%. Under state law, millage rates automatically rolled back to ensure the
EDUCATION: Graduated from St.Aloysius High School; Bachelor in physics and math from Loyola University; master’s degree in business administration from Tulane University; juris doctorate from Loyola University
CURRENT JOB, FORMER JOBS:
Succession and estate law, U.S Army lieutenant, NASA engineer, property appraiser, appraisal instructor, PARTY, RELEVANT POLITICAL EXPERIENCE OR CAMPAIGN WORK: Republican WEBSITE: N/A
aspiring appraisers in five states, he said. He also helped to craft state laws around appraisals and taxes as part of the state’s Constitutional Convention in 1973. If elected, he would work to raise the homestead exemption. State lawmakers would have to approve that change, and Williams and other assessors have tried and failed to make that happen for years But if Schmitt is successful, the average homeowner would see a dramatic drop in their tax bills.
“That would help young couples when they first get a home so that they have an actual cushion,” he said.
reassessment was revenue neutral and didn’t increase the tax burden on homeowners already struggling with spiking insurance premiums.
The council had the option of rolling the millages forward to previous rates to reap the additional revenue, but, with federal pandemic aid flowing, opted to keep them in place Rolling the millages forward now would raise another $25 million, city officials say The city is also weighing whether to raise the local sales tax, from 2.5% to 3%, which would raise an estimated $35 million, officials say Officials at the meeting did not discuss cutting city payroll, eliminating city offices, or other trims to address the deficit. The administration has adopted a hiring freeze.
Cooper also pointed to existential reasons for anemic growth this year and declining revenue in the future His initial general fund
Schmitt said he mostly approves of Williams and that when property owners agree with an assessment, the process runs smoothly But he said he would focus on what happens when a homeowner feels that their appraisal and the subsequent tax bill — is too high. He would call on a group of tax law professionals who would give Orleans Parish residents “professional, free advice” on tax appeals. “When problems come up, the person who is not educated always loses,” he said. Email Desiree Stennett at desiree.stennett@ theadvocate.com.
forecast for 2026 is $733 million, which is $12 million less than the downwardly revised figure for this year
“The other major trend that you’re looking at with sales tax is general longterm decline in the amount of revenue actually collected. That’s a result of many different factors, mostly to do with declining population, declining commerce, declining spending power,” Cooper said.
PROVIDED PHOTO
Peter Trapolin, a New Orleans architect acclaimed for his work in preserving buildings and designing structures that blend with their environments, died Saturday at age 70.
ORLEANS PARISH ASSESSOR CANDIDATES
Williams
Pealer
Dowden
Schmitt
NewOrleans Area Deaths
Plaquemine Parish anda residentofHarvey, LA Viola wasproud graduate ofL.B.LandryHighSchool Class of 1967, andshe con‐tinuedher studiesatthe UniversityofNew Orleans. She wasemployedasReal EstateAgent with Gardner Realtors. Violawas also a memberofthe Eastern Stars.Lovingmotherof Michele (MarkA.) Rucker and Angie(AaronJr.) Black.Devoted grand‐motherofAshleigh Michele McGill and Melvin Aaron Black. Greatgrand‐motherofLux McRaeand TaylinAaron Black. Daugh‐ter of thelateAndrewJ Summers,Jr. andViola Juanita Summers.Beloved sisterofDeborah Radcliff, Lois(Donnie)Duncan, Jan‐ice (Robert, Jr.) Fields MaxineJames,Andrew Summers III, andthe late EmmanuelSummers and Eunice Summers.Niece of VelmaMillerDavis andEva
Summers Flowers. Sisterin-lawofCarolyn Sum‐mers, JamesDavis,Horace Davis III, JoyceCotton, Janet Certain, andthe late Andre Radcliff, Dwight Joseph, andCliftonJames Viola is also survived by a hostofnieces, nephews, cousins,other relatives and friends. Relativesand friends of thefamily, also pastors,officers,and membersofAsburyUnited
MethodistChurch andall neighboring churches; members of L. B. Landry Class of 1967 areinvited to attendthe Homegoing Cel‐ebrationatDavis Mortuary Service,230 Monroe Street Gretna, LA on Wednesday, September 3, 2025, at 10:00a.m. Rev. EmilyL.Car‐roll, officiating. Visitation willbegin at 8:30a.m. until service time at theparlor. Interment: McDonoghville
Thankyou to La. delegation for supportof childtax credit
The “Big Beautiful Bill” captured headlines earlier this year and was signed by the president on Independence Day.Thatwould not have been possible without the leadership of our Louisiana delegation.
Iwant to give ahuge shoutout and thank you to Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalisefor theirtireless efforts (even into the wee hours of the morning) to achieve passage of the bill. Thanks to U.S.Sen. Bill Cassidy,U.S. Sen.John Kennedy,U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins and U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow for their affirmative votes on the bill, and particularly,their supportfor the Child TaxCredit. The final version makes permanent the credit at $2,200 per child, subject to inflationary adjustments.
In 2017, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was enacted. While the bill made sweeping changes to tax policy (including welcomed tax relief up and down the income ladder), it was the reprioritization of the family that was,inmyopinion, the most significant accomplishment We are thankful that the CTC made it to the final version and that indexing it to inflation will protect families going forward. Taxrelief empowers families to utilize their own money as their families need —from groceries to diapers to child care. It keeps their hard-earned dollarsintheir pockets.
Ihave often echoed thatthe family is the basic building block of any flourishing society.Asgoes the family,sogoes the culture For too long, this fundamental principle was more of atalking point than adriving force when it came to tax policy in Washington. Fortunately,that dynamic appears to be changing for the better! And for that, Louisiana families and I arevery grateful.
GENE MILLS president, Louisiana FamilyForum
Ourleaders’priorities areall wrong
If the country can afford millions in trips to Scotland,ballrooms,garden patios, golf outings and abillion for the plane, we can afford publicbroadcasting CATHY HIGHTOWER Metairie
What proponents of school choice miss
The latest effusion from Louisiana’santipublic school crusaders is amasterclass in bourgeoissanctimony masquerading as reform. To liken public education toSoviet grocery lines or forced medical triage is not merely absurd— it is dishonest.
Public schools are not monopolies,but manifestations of asocial contract. We fund them not because they are perfect,but because we believeall children —not just those born into affluence —deserve ashot at literacy,numeracy and civic responsibility. To siphon funds from these institutions and funnel them into private enclaves is not liberation —itisabandonment Arecentletter to the editor cloaks class warfare in libertarian velvet. Wealthy families already have “choice” —they have money.School vouchers do not create equality; they subsidize theflight of privilege while
leaving behind the rest in under-resourced classrooms. It is acruel inversion of justice: Blaming public schools for failing while actively defunding them. Anditislaughable to suggest that private schools can do better with less money —ask them to educate achild with disabilities, or one facing hunger,traumaor homelessness. Public schools do this every day, with grace and grit.
The answer is not to cannibalize public education but to fortify it. Pay teachers what they’re worth. Repair crumbling facilities. Fund music, science and libraries —not glossy propaganda.
If you truly care about children, especially poor children, then do not offer them “escape.” Offer them equity
JOHN GUZDA
NewOrleans
Duncan captures grandeur of Dome, butneeds onemorenamementioned
Ienjoyed reading Jeff Duncan’spiece extollingthe legacy of the Louisiana Superdome LikeSydney’sOpera House, theSuperdome is indeedthe defining element of the New Orleanscityscape, distinguishing it from any other city in the world. On aclear day,itis visiblewhen travelingsouth on the Causeway Bridge and from much further when approaching New Orleans by air
Thinking back 50 years, Ican still vividly remember standing in athird-floor classroom at Jesuit High and excitedly watching thesuperstructure going up, amazed at how bigitwas. The entire city was enthralled
with the construction process and excited about what it would look like once completed.
Andalthough John McKeithen no doubt deserves credit for pushing the Dome politically,the man whowas the true visionary of this magnificent building was Dave Dixon. Without Dixon, there would have been nothingtopush through theLegislature. As Gov McKeithen said, quoted by Marty Mule of this paper in 1999, “It was Dave’sconcept. Idid what Icould because Dave got me to believe in it.”
ROBERT BAUDOUIN NewOrleans
The announced closures of Planned Parenthood in Baton Rouge and New Orleans should give pause forreflection. Somemay ask, “Since the sexual revolution has been underway fortwo generations now,don’twestill need birth control and abortion?”
It might be worthwhile to question whybirth control is wrong. One of the mainreasons is that it tends to turn love into lust. There is adifference between love and pleasure. Doesthis person really love me for whoI am, or is he or she just using me? No one wants to be used by someone else. When Iamused by someone, Ifeel Ihave been lied to, have been violated.
By interrupting awoman’snatural cycle of fertility and infertility, birth control separates sex from its natural purpose, which is reproduction, and from its distinctively human purpose, the expression of love. Birth control instead establishes pleasure as the mainpoint of sexual relations. As long as Iplease my partner,heorshe continues to love me. But what happens when I get sick, or old, and am no longer so pleasing?
Somemay say,“But we’re married, so that is not an issue.” But even in marriage, birth control becomes like an invisible wedge between husband and wife.They are not quite completely united, for they are always holding something back. In the words of one philosopher,they may find themselves ending up in a“juxtaposition of two solitudes.”
So the question Ibegan with could be turned around: “Was the sexual revolution agood thing to begin with?” That is, after two generations of divorce, the death of untold millions by abortion and rampant sexually transmitted diseases. Our clergy should be promoting the timeless virtue of chastity before marriage and within marriage.
DON CAFFERY
Baton Rouge
With regards to the coastal diversion project that was recently canceled. Supporters claim those opposed to it are denying the science behind it. Yes, the river will build land. Youcan see it in the Atchafalaya delta and mostrecently at Neptune Pass in the river
Letters are published identifying name and the writer’scity of residence.The Advocate |The Times-Picayune require astreet address and phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@theadvocate.com. TO SEND US ALETTER SCAN HERE
Ihad respectfor U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy after he bravely broke ranks withthe GOPand votedtoconvict Donald Trumpwhen he was impeached. Unfortunately,Cassidy has now shown that he will do virtually anything to remain in office. Sixmonthsago, he expressed concern aboutRobert F. Kennedy Jr.’snomination as Secretary ofHealthand Human Services, but was thedeciding vote in Kennedy’s confirmation. At thetime, he said he had Kennedy’s agreementnot to dismantle the country’s preventive healthprograms. When Kennedybegan to do just that, Cassidy capitulated Now,Kennedy is endorsing Trump’sreck-
less firing of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics basedonthe false premise that she “rigged” the labor statistics,which all knowledgeable experts say is impossible. Respected economists also say that Trump’saction will underminecredibility for thegovernment’sstatisticsand thereby inflict serious damage to our economy.Asa physician and, presumably,aman of science, Cassidy knows better.Hemay get Trump’s endorsement and be reelected,but he will forever be known as acheap politician with no principles.
JOHN LANDIS NewOrleans
It’s moreaquestion of how much and at what cost to our seafood industry and fisheries. Proponents claim the diversion would build 21 square miles of land over 50 years. Asimple internet search will tell you that, depending on whose numbers you believe, we lose between 16 and 25 square miles of land per year
Even at the mostconservative estimates, we will lose 800 to 1,000 square miles of coast in 50 years. In short, 21 square milesisadrop in the bucket. Truth be told, we sealed our own fate by building levees on the river.Itwas forgood reason. But actions have consequences, and we are paying that price.
WILLIAMLEWIS JR. Denham Springs
STAFF PHOTO By JOHN MCCUSKER
Public schoolstudents returned to classrooms in Jefferson Parish on Aug. 14. At Harold Keller School principal Jessica Smith brought energytothe morning routine.
COMMENTARY
FOOTBALL RETURNS!
After months of waiting,football is finally back! With high hopes and fingers crossed, Louisiana pigskin fans arereadytojump, danceand scream.Itlooks likethis announcer is yelling about something unbelievable already!
So,what’sgoing on in this cartoon? youtellme. Be witty,funny, crazy,absurd or snarky—justtry to keep it clean.There’snolimit on the numberofentries. Thewinning punchline will be lettered into the word balloon and runonMonday, Sept. 8inour print editions and online. In addition, the winnerwill receivea signed print of the cartoon along with acool winner’s T-shirt! Some honorable mentions will also be listed
To enter,email cartooncontest@theadvocate.com.
DON’T FORGET! All entries must include your name, homeaddressand phone number.Cell numbers are best
Thedeadline for all entries is on midnight,Thursday, Sept. 4. Good luck, football fans! —Walt
Whom do ourRepublicans represent?
It’s getting hard to tell who Louisiana’smembers of Congress represent when it comes to environmentalprotection.
Traditionally,thesemembersare identified by their office followed by abrief note containing their party affiliation and— most importantly —the state they are from For example: U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. That signifies Scalise is aHouse member (Rep.), aRepublican (R) and someonewho was elected to protect the interestsofLouisiana residents (La.).
But judging by their actions protectingthose residents from threats from pollution and the swallowing of the coastal zone by the Gulf of Mexico,an editisnecessary for members of our GOP delegation.
The “La.” should be changed to “Tr.” —for President Donald Trump That’sbecause every time it comes down to achoice between what’sbest for Louisiana and what Trumpwants, they represent the latter They have given unwaveringsupport to Trump as he has unleashed ahistoric rollbackofenvironmental protections and programs addressingclimate change, which could drown ourcoastal area.
The furious pace of Trump’sdecrees makes it difficult to grasp theflood of negative impactsfacing Louisiana. But areview of some headlines charts the harm Trump is pushing, withthe silence of ourGOP delegation.
“Trump declares national energy emergencytojustify more oil andgas drilling.” There is no emergency; the U.S. now produces more oil and gas than any nationinhistory.But theorder requires theEPA to expedite permitting and approval of fossil fuel andmining projects and circumvent the Clean WaterAct, increasing the harm to Louisiana’senvironment and residents.
“Trump exempts more than 100polluters from environmental standards.” TheEPA had said one of theregulations could reduce cancer risk of peoplelivingwithin 6miles of achemical plant by 96%
“Trump wants to kill Chemical Safety Board.” This order puts residents near plants and workers at higher risk.
“Want aClean Air Act exemption?
Justemail the EPA.”Trump’s EPAissued aroadmap on how polluters slip
regulations limiting toxic emissions.
“Deadly Risk: NOAA weather budget slashes as hurricane season opens.”
Trumphas called for cutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget by 25% and closed itsOffice of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Meteorologists say this will significantly decrease theagency’sability to forecast the strength and developmentofhurricanes.Italso lost access to two critical weather satellites.
“Louisiana losing $156 million for solar energy as Trumpadministration cuts program.” This cut applies to the Solar forAll program,which provides grants to low-income homeowners to help reduce utility costs and greenhousegas emissions. This is part of Trump’seffort to kill theclimate action planofthe Biden Administration, which could send billions toLouisiana.
“New Orleans’ vital levee system will be inspected less often. Federal cuts are to blame.”
Poor andincompletelevee inspections were areason authorities missed problems that resulted in thelevee failures that caused flooding in thecity and other communities during Hurricane Katrina. The money was later restored because thethe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers transferred funds from theSt. Louisoffice —not because of pushback
from Louisiana’sGOP
There are hundreds more.
The silence of Louisiana’sGOP delegation on issues hurting Louisiana is moredamning because that group includes two of the most powerful congressional members: Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, and Scalise, its majority leader.Ifany members were able to squeeze exceptions out of Trump’srampage, surely it should have been them.
It’snot like other GOP members have not dared to protest aTrumpmove. U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Warren Davidson (Ohio), along with U.S. Sens. RandPaul (Ky.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Thom Tillis (N.C.), all voted against his Big BeautifulBill. AndU.S. Sen LisaMurkowski (Alaska) withheld her voteuntil Trumpgranted her concessions.
ButLouisiana’sdelegation quietly submitstoits Dear Leader.And the statewill suffer Surely LouisianaRepublicans canfind men andwomen who will replace that “Tr.”and put the“La.” back where it belongs
Bob Marshall, aPulitzer Prizewinning Louisiana environmental journalist,can be reached at bmarshallenviro@gmail.com.
Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina carved its place into American history —not just as one of the deadliest storms, but as adefining failure of emergency coordination. More than 1,300 lives were lost. Hundreds of thousands weredisplaced. And the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans, wasleft in ruins. At the time, Iwas serving as adeputy chief with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, and Iwas deployed to assist my home state under astate-to-state compact, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. Gov.Kathleen Blanco requested aid from California Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger,and Ijoined the early recovery efforts in NewOrleans. What I witnessed changed me forever Beyond the physical devastation, Katrina exposed the consequences of fractured emergency systems, fragile infrastructure and abreakdowninpublic trust. There was no unified command. FEMA clashed with state agencies. The response faltered at every level, causing delays, confusion and human suffering that should never be repeated.
Katrina forced America to confront a hard truth: Catastrophic disasters can overwhelm even the mostprepared communities. What happened in Louisiana could happen anywhere —amajor earthquake in California, aflood in the Midwest or aCategory 5storm along any coast. The disaster wasn’tjust about Louisiana’svulnerabilities. It wasabout anation unprepared forcatastrophe at this scale.
Since then, progress has been real. Communications systems, crippled during Katrina, have been modernized. States now embrace the Incident CommandSystem and unified command. Regional mutual aid through EMAC, which deployed me to NewOrleans, has becomeacornerstone of large-scale response.
During my timeasLouisiana’semergency management director under Gov. Bobby Jindal, we pioneered the nation’s first Business Emergency Operations Center,amodel later adopted nationally by FEMA. It ensured that supply chains, retailers and private infrastructure could be harnessed forresilience. That kind of innovation must continue.
Katrina’sgreatest lesson may be the importance of trust —between federal, state and local governments, and between institutions and the people they serve.
When Ibegan leading Louisiana’semergency management and recovery efforts twoand ahalf years after the storm,itwas clear we had to stop airing disputes in the media and start solving problemsbehind closed doors. Communities must know their leaders are working together,not against each other But trust is also personal. Preparedness is no longer just agovernment responsibility.Campaigns like Louisiana’sGet a Game Plan, which we developed and is still aprogram today,emphasize familylevel readiness: having supplies, knowing evacuation routes and caring forvulnerable neighbors and pets. Disasters reveal not just systemic cracks, but the fragility of households caught unprepared.
Today,emergency management is more professionalized, moreinclusive and more capable than it was in 2005. Yetcomplacency remains adanger
We’ve built capacity —but are we still using all the tools Katrina gave us? Business Emergency Operations Centers, for example, are underutilized. And we risk forgetting that Katrina-like events can happen again, whether from hurricanes or other catastrophic shocks.
That’swhy I’mhonored to serve on the FEMA Review Council, advising the president on major reforms to improve FEMA’s operational efficiency and responsiveness while ridding Washington, DC of unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy Katrina demanded accountability and innovation. Twodecades later,it’sour responsibility to keep pressing forward not with just plans and protocols, but with trust, unity and resolve.
Mark Cooper is amember of President Donald Trump’sFEMA Review Council. He served as chiefofstaff forformer Louisiana Gov. JohnBel Edwards.
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, makes apoint as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Benton, listens at right, during aJune news conference.
Mark Cooper GUEST COLUMNIST
Bob Marshall
with meteorologist DamonSingleton
the west coast of Africa. It has achance of developing intoatropical system.
CLASS
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at John Ehret High Schoolin Marrero
“Financial education is the foundation for lifelong success,” said OnPath CEO Jared Freeman.
The courseispart of the JeffersonParish public school system’songoing effort to comply with a2023 state law that requires all Louisiana public high school students to complete at least one financial literacy class in order to graduate. The course, which uses an online program produced by the digital curriculum company,Stukent, was designed to comply with the new requirements, officials said. The class is meant to be more engaging and give students more hands-on experience than traditional financial literacy courses, said Cavin Davis, principal of John Ehret High School. “Now, we’regettingmore into the reality of how money is used, spent and saved,” he said. Managing money
Under the law,which took effect last year,all public school financial literacy courses must teachstudents about awide range of topics, includingretirementand 401(k)s, loan applications, buying versus renting property,insurance, predatory lenders and students’ rights
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homicide as Sheriff’sOffice investigators looked further into the case Authorities determined that the couple hadn’tbeen truthful with their timeline, said Detective Eric Hymel, who testified in the case during abail hearing. For starters,the couple was gone for alot longer
as consumers. Lawmakers voted this spring to add an additional requirement that studentslearn about paying for college, including how to navigate financialaid, scholarships, student loans
than the two and ahalf hours they claimed. Padilla andVela left the home— and Cristian —just before noon anddidn’treturn to the residence until 8:07p.m., according to cellphone data and home surveillance video, Hymel said Anothercameraset up in Cristian’s room recorded video of Padilla tyingher son’s knees together and wrapping hislegsina blanketsohecouldn’tmove around before thefamily
and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid Studentswho take thesemesterlong Stukent course spend thefirst few weeks learning basic financial concepts, as wellasresearch-
left the residence, according to Hymel. They left him on abed with his feeding tube connected.
Video from thecamera recorded at 4p.m. shows Cristian still movingaround with the comforter positioned over his mouth, according to Hymel. Cristian’seyesand nose were uncovered.But by 5:45 p.m.,the boy had stopped moving, andthe comforter was completely over his head,according to
STAFFPHOTO By ELySE CARMOSINO
Jefferson Parish School Board member Derrick Shepherd asks students questions about financeduring anewsconference on Aug. 18 at John Ehret High School in Marrero. Officials announced the districtwidelaunchofanew financialliteracy course for students funded throughthe OnPath Foundation at no cost to taxpayers.
ing different career paths, said Derek Bardell, abusiness teacher at John Ehret High School whotaught the course last year.After choosinga career,students receive amocksalary, which
authorities. Investigators allege that Padilla triedcalling out to Cristian while remotelyaccessing the camera but got no response, Hymel said. Padilla and Vela are charged with obstruction for allegedly removing cameras that had been in and around the house, according to authorities.
Padilla was also charged with sexual abuse of an animal after investigators who searched her cellphone dur-
they use to create budgets, pay bills, apply forloans, invest in the stock market and purchase insurance. The program also takes students through the processofpurchasing ahomeand financ-
ing the death investigation discovered twovideosofa man sexually abusing adog, authorities said. Padilla pleaded not guilty Friday in Jefferson Parish Magistrate Court. Vela did not enter aplea because his attorney was notpresent, according to court records. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday
Email Michelle Hunter at mhunter@theadvocate. com.
ing acar
Giving studentsmock money so they can practice applying financial concepts to real-lifesituations is key to keeping them engaged, Bardell added. “That’swhatgrabs their attention,” he said. “‘Hey,if youwanttomakethis kind of money, this is what you need to do.’” Bardell said that after he taught the course for the first time last year,some of his studentswentonto start their ownbusinesses or used what they learned in classtohelptheir families becomemore financially literate. As afinance teacher,that’sone of thegoals, Bardell said. He anddistrict officials said theyhopethe program will not only better prepare teenstomanagetheir finances after graduation, butalsohelpthem build generational wealth in a district where morethan three-quarters of students comefrom low-income households.
“It takesmoney to do just abouteverything in life,” he said. “Wewantpeople to make goodfinancial decisions so that we caneliminate things like poverty, urbandecay anddecline.”
Email Elyse Carmosino at ecarmosino@theadvocate. com.
BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer
To put Act 2ofhis career intomotion,Brandon Staley tapped into hisresourcesand leanedonthe people who were at his side for both his meteoric rise and his biggest failure.
The New Orleans Saints hired StaleyinFebruary to coordinate their defense, giving him his first major opportunity as an NFLplay-caller sincethe LosAngeles Chargers firedhim as head coach in December 2023. The coach they’re getting is different from the onewho waslet go in Southern California.
He was just 38 yearsold when the Chargers tapped him to be theirhead coach inJanuary 2021. That franchise jettisoned him five days after his 41st birthday Between that time and when the Saintshired him, Staley spent an important year in San Francisco seeking the right way to reset
“What Iwas able to do was create some space to unpack all that, and thencreate anew path where there’s new energy moving forward to apply all those lessons; bothtough lessons and great lessons, because there was so manyofboth in those three years,”Staley said. To help get there, he spent alot of timelistening. Staley spoke with Sean McVay, underwhom he became oneofthe NFL’shottest head coaching candidates while coordinating aNo. 1defense withthe Rams;with Kyle Shanahan,who offered him thelanding spot he needed with the 49ers last year; with his best friend in the coaching business, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell; andwith Cardinals head coach Jonathan Gannon, who grew up withStaley and is agodfather to Staley’schildren. He talked to mentorslike John Fox andVic Fangio. He reached out to NBA champion head coach Steve Kerr.He
page 4C
Saints defensive coordinator Brandon Staleywalks on the field during rookie minicamp on May10atthe team’sindoorpractice facilityinMetairie. STAFF FILE PHOTO By DAVID
GRUNFELD
LSUmight finally have thefreedom to unleash Perkins
BY REED DARCEY Staff writer
There it was again —that old, yet familiar sight: the illusion of an open field, suddenly replaced by adarting Harold Perkins, flying through the line of scrimmage.
LSU hesitatedtodialupthe delayedblitz that decided its 17-10 winover Clemson BlakeBaker hadshown it on the previous play, but Clemsonjumpedoffsides. Didhetip hishand?The thought crossed thesecond-year defensive coordinator’smind, buthedecided to stickwith the call anyway.His defensive line would crashtothe right, and Perkins would wrap around the edge so he could chase down quarterbackCadeKlubnik.
“They executedittoperfection,”Baker said. And LSU (1-0) held on to its biggest winin years —a victory it earned on the strength of its defense.
Want to surprise an opposing quarterback by sending Perkins on awell-timed, carefully disguised blitz? Youbetter have some defensive backswho can cover receivers one-onone in high-pressure situations. The offense can’tcounter with aquick completion.
“Weweren’tinthat position last year to play alot of man,” coach Brian Kelly said. Now it lookslike LSUcan playthat kind of defense with confidence.
Against Clemson, Virginia Tech transfer cornerback MansoorDelane brokeup two passes and intercepted another,while
BY GUERRYSMITH
Contributing writer
Howcomprehensive was Tulane’s23-3 throttlingofNorthwestern?
Consider that ESPN writer Bill Connelly’s data-driven analysis gave the Green Wave apost-game win expectancy of 99.6% after it outgained the Wildcats 420-237 while winning theturnover battle 5-0. Tulane wasfar from perfect, but its effectiveness in multiple keyareas already had coach Jon Sumrall trying to guardagainstoverconfidenceone gameintothe season.
“The challenge is we’ve gotyoungguys in our locker room and everybody is going to pat them on theback and tell them how good they areright now,”hesaid. “We’ve got to makesure we understandthat every seven days in ourworld you can either be promoted or exposed, and the only way you get promoted is by working your tail off. We’llbefine.Ihavea pretty goodtalent of humbling them real quick.” He will have adifficult time finding fault with his secondary.Northwestern quar-
ä See LSU, page 5C
ä Tulane at South Alabama 6P.M.
terback Preston Stone, whohad thrownas many as two interceptions in agame only once before, tossed four.Nickelback Javion White turned in aSportsCenter top 10-worthy one, leaping with his foot barely inbounds and tapping his toe just inside the sideline as he landedfor hisfirst of two interceptions. Safety Kevin Adams undercut aroute perfectly foradiving grab. “Whenthe ball wasinthe air, ourguys played it like it was theirs,” Sumrall said. “Javion White, both of his were special plays. Kevin Adamsmadeanunbelievable play. It’s adifference-maker when you can go get takeaways that are not simple and easy ones.” The defenseasawhole madelife tough forNorthwestern. TheWavesacked Stone three times andbottledupthe running backs with the exception of one 25-yard
Newgarden win salvages IndyCar season
Win at Nashville Superspeedway is his first victory of season
BY JENNA FRYER Associated Press
LEBANON,Tenn. — Josef Newgarden
salvaged his miserable year by winning his first race of the season Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway — his home track — in the IndyCar finale.
He celebrated the recovery the exact same way he did after his two Indianapolis 500 victories
Newgarden climbed through a hole in the fence and entered the grandsta nds , where he triumphantly raised his arms in the air in front of a gaggle of friends and family
“I am just glad we got one without anything going wrong,” Newgarden said. “It’s rewarding for our team. It’s great for our team. Been a tough, tough year and good to get a win here at the end.”
His Team Penske crew sprinted from pit lane to celebrate with him on track. They had to pass Alex Palou, who clinched his fourth IndyCar title with two races remaining, as he did celebratory doughnuts in the infield grass following his second-place finish.
It was just the second win of the season for Team Penske, which along with Newgarden has had a horrific year, and it prevented Newgarden from going winless for the first time since 2014.
Newgarden benefited from issues to a multitude of drivers and took the lead for good with 21 laps remaining when teammate Scott McLaughlin slid up the track and brushed the wall as Newgarden sailed past him. IndyCar immediately threw the caution and McLaughlin didn’t seem to have any damage to his car, but he wasn’t even able to challenge
Newgarden on the restart with 11 laps to go.
Newgarden came into the race 16th in the standings, lowest of the Team Penske trio of drivers, and had only two podium finishes through 16 races. He ended the season with four total top-five finishes, one upside-down flip and — despite his win Sunday — what will likely go down as the worst of his 14 years in IndyCar
The past nine wins of Newgarden’s career are all on ovals.
McLaughlin finished third.
O’Ward crashes
Pato O’Ward started from the pole and seemed headed toward a third victory until a tire failure caused him to crash while leading.
O’Ward had already locked up second in the championship standings and wanted to give McLaren Racing a sweep of the
day after Oscar Piastri won the Dutch Grand Prix. It would have been the first time in 49 years that McLaren won the IndyCar and Formula 1 races on the same day He said he’d had a previous tire failure at Nashville during a test and had concerns about the durability of the Firestones all weekend. Earlier in the race, Palou had a tire failure not long after a breathtaking wheel-to-wheel fight with O’Ward for the lead.
“Hopefully Firestone can help us out for next year, because it sucks kind of knowing that (a tire failure) can be a possibility and multiple cars having that issue and then the guys hitting the wall at 200 mph are us,”
O’Ward said “I can tell you, you can really feel those hits, so I really hope that they can somewhat fix that and for that not to be a concern because we don’t like to go racing with that
in the back of our heads.”
Malukas helicoptered out
David Malukas has been widely rumored since the start of the season to be headed to Team Penske to replace Will Power, and if Nashville was his last race with A.J. Foyt Racing, it was rough. Malukas crashed 83 laps into the race and was helicoptered out of the track for further medical evaluation. IndyCar and his race team said he was awake and alert and being transported to another facility for further evaluation.
Malukas was racing Louis Foster, who was one lap down, and refused to give Malukas any room.
The contact between the cars sent Malukas spinning into the wall.
The medical crew had to help Malukas from the car and he sat outside it, head down, as he was surrounded by personnel.
Piastri wins Dutch GP after Norris breaks down
BY JAMES ELLINGWORTH Associated Press
ZANDVOORT,Netherlands — Lando Norris’ chances of beating Oscar Piastri to victory in the Dutch Grand Prix went up in smoke. His title chances are at risk, too.
Piastri won the Dutch Grand Prix on Sunday after teammate Norris’ McLaren broke down in what could prove a turning point in the title race.
Norris was chasing Piastri late in the race when the British driver reported a “funny” smell in his cockpit.
“I don’t know if I’m on fire or not,” Norris said Smoke poured from the back of the car and he had to stop.
Norris ended the race standing behind a barrier at the side of the track with race marshals and his broken-down car
Norris’ race engineer had tried to console him by telling him how good his pace had been.
“Doesn’t matter,” Norris responded. It was the second time this season he’s failed to finish after colliding with Piastri at the Canadian Grand Prix in June.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen passed the stricken Norris to cheers from the crowd for second place at his home Grand Prix, while Isack Hadjar of Racing Bulls took his first-ever podium finish in third.
Piastri in control
Piastri’s lead over the secondplace Norris increased from nine points to 34 with nine races remaining.
The Australian’s win required him to manage three safety car restarts, holding off Norris twice and then keeping Verstappen behind him after Norris’ breakdown.
“Obviously it was incredibly un-
Australia races during the Formula One Dutch Grand Prix
fortunate for Lando at the end,” Piastri said. “But it felt like I was in control of that (race) and used the pace that I needed to.” Verstappen had received a hug from King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands before the race and his second place was popular with the orange-clad Dutch fans.
It was Red Bull’s first
was lifted off the ground and slapped on the back by a crowd of jubilant team members as they celebrated Racing Bulls’ first podium result in four years. “That was always the target since I was a kid, so this is the first step,” Hadjar said. “My first podium and hopefully much more.”
case from atop a sand dune.
Judge ties Berra for fifth on Yankees home runs list
CHICAGO New York Yankees star Aaron Judge hit his 358th career homer in the first inning of their series finale against the White Sox on Sunday, moving into a tie with Yogi Berra for fifth in franchise history Judge drove an 0-2 cutter from Martín Pérez deep to center for a one-out solo drive. Judge’s 43rd homer of the season had a 112.6 mph exit velocity and traveled 426 feet. He finished with three hits and scored twice in a 3-2 loss. The 33-year-old Judge also connected for a solo homer in New York’s 11-inning victory at Chicago on Saturday night. Hall of Famers Babe Ruth (659 homers), Mickey Mantle (536), Lou Gehrig (493) and Joe DiMaggio (361) are on top of the Yankees’ career homers list.
Pitchers’ leaves extended due to gambling probe
CLEVELAND Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz had their paid leaves extended indefinitely as Major League Baseball continues an investigation to gauge their possible involvement in gambling during games.
Clase and Ortiz were initially set to sidelined until at least Aug. 31. MLB and the players’ union said in a news release they have agreed to extend the nondisciplinary paid leave “until further notice.” It’s possible the pitchers will be out at least until the end of the regular season, which concludes Sept 28 The Guardians recently cleared out their lockers, a sign they were unlikely to return in the final month.
Red Sox, Chapman agree to $13.3 contract for ’26
BOSTON All-Star closer Aroldis Chapman and the Boston Red Sox finalized a $13.3 million, one-year contract for 2026 that includes a 2027 vesting option.
Chapman will be guaranteed $26 million over two years if he pitches at least 40 innings next season. The team announced the deal Sunday following a 5-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Fenway Park.
Chapman, who earned his eighth All-Star selection this season, gets a $13 million salary next year If the left-hander reaches 40 innings in 2026, he gets a $13 million salary again in 2027. If not, he would receive a $300,000 buyout unless both sides accept a mutual option, which would be unlikely
The 37-year-old Chapman is having perhaps his best year, with a career-low 1.02 ERA.
Cowboys sign NFL pick-6 record-holder to extension
FRISCO, Texas DaRon Bland blossomed from a largely ignored high school recruit to a record-setting NFL cornerback without saying much along the way Now the Dallas Cowboys have given him a contract that can do all the talking. Bland signed a $92 million, fouryear extension Sunday, four days before the opener at defending champ and NFC East rival Philadelphia.
The 26-year-old, who set a league record with five interception returns for touchdowns in 2023, is getting $50 million in guaranteed money, two people told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity
The $23 million average annual value on the new deal is the sixth best for cornerbacks.
Lawrence wins his fifth title on European Tour CRANS MONTANA, Switzerland Thriston Lawrence of South Africa recovered from making bogey on his first
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By PETER DEJONG McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of
in
Netherlands,
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GEORGE WALKER IV
Josef Newgarden, front, drives during an IndyCar race Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tenn. Newgarden won the race, preventing him from going winless for the first time since 2014.
Newgarden
Pegula cruises to the U.S. Open quarterfinals
BY BRIAN MAHONEY Associated Press
NEW YORK Jessica Pegula is back in the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament, which used to be her roadblock. The way Pegula is playing at this U.S. Open, it may be just another stop on the way back to the final.
The No. 4 seed rolled into the last eight by routing fellow American Ann Li 6-1, 6-2 in just 54 minutes on Sunday She will face Barbora Krejcikova on Tuesday after the twotime Grand Slam champion fought off eight match points in a second set that ended with a 25-minute tiebreaker and beat Taylor Townsend 1-6, 7-6 (13), 6-3 Townsend was trying to reach her first quarterfinal in her 31st Grand Slam appearance.
Pegula hasn’t dropped a set this year at Flushing Meadows and only once was she even kept on court for more than 1 hour, 15 minutes.
“Probably the best match, honestly, I’ve played since, like, before Wimbledon I feel like from the start to finish. So that was encouraging,” Pegula said of Sunday’s victory “I was just hitting the ball, doing everything well, executing my strategy very well and got through it pretty quick.”
Pegula had been 0-6 in Grand Slam quarterfinals before upsetting Iga Swiatek in that round last year. She went on to reach the final, where she was defeated by Aryna Sabalenka. But she wasn’t sure her tennis was ready for a follow-up when she returned to New York.
She had lost four of her previous six singles matches coming into the U.S Open and said she played so poorly while practicing with Sabalenka a few days before the tournament that she stopped early, opting instead for an escape room with some friends and a couple of drinks.
Things have certainly gotten better since.
“Like I said, I haven’t been feeling my best on court, so to be able to come back and make another quarterfinal here is something I’m definitely proud of,” Pegula said. “Of course, I want to go further and do more and win the tournament, but I feel like just on a personal kind of goal level, I’m happy with the way I’ve been able to kind of turn some of my tennis around the last few weeks.”
The 58th-ranked Li was the highest-ranked player Pegula has faced in the tournament, but the 25-year-old was overpowered in her first appearance in the round of 16 in a major Pegula broke her all four times she served in the 25-minute first set, and she had just five winners against 19 unforced errors in the match. Novak Djokovic was on the evening schedule along with Sabalenka and Taylor Fritz, last year’s runner-up and the only American man remaining.
Osaka and Gauff meet again at U.S. Open
BY HOWARD FENDRICH
NEW YORK So much has happened for Naomi Osaka — in tennis, away from tennis — since she first played Coco Gauff at the U.S. Open back in 2019. Over that time, Osaka has won two Grand Slam trophies to raise her career total to four, helped spark a global conversation about mental health by revealing she felt anxiety and depression, taken a series of breaks from the tour and become a mother
The Gauff vs. Osaka matchup in the fourth round at Flushing Meadows on Monday serves as both a reminder — to them, to others — of that night six years ago, as well as all that’s transpired since.
“Just to be at this point of my life and to be playing her again,” Osaka said, “is, honestly, for me kind of special.”
Osaka was 21 and the reigning champion at the U.S. Open and Australian Open; Gauff was 15 and playing in only her second Grand Slam tournament and first in New York. Osaka won in straight sets in Arthur Ashe Stadium, but what was most memorable was what happened after the last point. Gauff was crying, and Osaka walked over to console her and suggest that she address the crowd — highly unusual for the loser of a match. But Osaka knew the fans would want to hear from the young American who already was showing signs of becoming the star she is today
“I remember it was a tough moment for me, because it was a hyped-up match. I remember looking back at it. I guess I put way too much pressure on myself thinking I maybe had a chance in that moment to actually do something which I definitely did,” Gauff said
Saturday, “but I think it was just I felt more expectation that I should than maybe belief.”
Osaka recalls recognizing how much talent and poise Gauff possessed for such a young player
“I thought she just handled herself really well,” said Osaka, who is seeded 23rd at Flushing Meadows and recently began working with Iga Swiatek’s former coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, “and I knew she was going to be back there.”
After winning the U.S Open again in 2020, Osaka triumphed at the Australian Open in January 2021. At the next Grand Slam tournament, she pulled out before her second-round match and explained the off-court struggles she had been dealing with, then took the first of a handful of mental health breaks.
The Australian Open, 4 1/2 years ago, was the last major where Osaka made it to the fourth round until
BY HOWARD FENDRICH AP tennis writer
NEW YORK Carlos Alcaraz hit
a behind-the-back shot at the U.S. Open to win a point in a 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-4 victory over Arthur Rinderknech on Sunday that made the Spaniard the youngest man in the Open era to reach 13 Grand Slam quarterfinals.
“Sometimes, I practice it. I’m not going to lie,” the No. 2-seeded Alcaraz said about the bit of wizardry he delivered in the first set.
“But I mean, I don’t practice it, like, too many times. Just in practice, if the opportunity is there, I will try In the match, it’s kind of the same. If I have the opportunity, why not?”
At 22 years and 3 months old, Alcaraz is about 6 months younger than Boris Becker was when he got to major quarterfinal No. 13.
Alcaraz’s opponent on Tuesday will be No. 20 Jiri Lehecka, a 23-year-old from the Czech Republic. Lehecka advanced to his second Slam quarterfinal with a 7-6 (4), 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 win over Adrian Mannarino.
Early on against Rinderknech, a Frenchman who played college tennis at Texas A&M, Alcaraz closed a love hold that made the score 2-all in spectacular fashion. Moving to his right at midcourt, Alcaraz found himself in what appeared to be a bad spot when Rinderknech wrong-footed him.
But Alcaraz wrapped his racket around his body and flicked a shot
up the line.
Perhaps startled that the point wasn’t over, Rinderknech hit a volley that landed in the net. A big smile crossed Alcaraz’s face as he looked over at his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, in the stands. Alcaraz then placed his right index finger behind his ear, as if acknowledging the spectators’ cheers.
“The people like it; I like playing tennis like this,” Alcaraz said. “My style of tennis fits pretty well to the energy here.” Alcaraz wound up taking that set in a tiebreaker Then, midway through the second, Alcaraz produced another highlight-worthy effort with a no-look passing winner, racing forward to get to a short ball and glancing down the line as though he was going to hit to Rinderknech’s backhand, but instead steering a forehand cross-court.
By the last game, even Rinderknech was smiling at other next-level strokes by Alcaraz, who has won 54 of 55 service games through four matches this year at Flushing Meadows. He claimed the title here in 2022 for the first of his five Grand Slam trophies.
Alcaraz is into his fourth major quarterfinal
By The Associated Press
NORTON, Mass. — Miranda Wang lost the lead to the No. 1 player in women’s golf and then delivered the clutch shots over the final three holes for a 2-under 70 and a one-shot victory over Jeeno Thitikul on Sunday in the FM Championship for her first LPGA title. Wang became the seventh LPGA rookie to win this year, extending a remarkable streak of no multiple winners through the tour’s first 23 tournaments of the year
“I hope this is the first of many, and I’ll keep working hard,” said Wang, the Chinese player who delivered the winning point when Duke won the NCAA team title in 2019. “This is a dream come true.”
now She was off the tour for part of that stretch while on maternity leave.
On Saturday, she spoke about “the journey getting back here.”
“I just feel happy,” said Osaka, 27, “because I feel like all of my hard work is amounting to something.”
Gauff, now 21, won the U.S. Open in 2023 and the French Open this June and is seeded No. 3 in New York while working with a biomechanics expert to retool her problematic serve.
“Naomi and I, we aren’t super close or anything, but we’re definitely friendly with each other I support her from afar in all the things that she’s done on and off the court,” Gauff said.
“It would be a cool kind of deja vu-type of situation,” she said, guessing that this rematch will be in Ashe, too, “but hopefully it will be a different result.”
Thitikul, who took over the No. 1 ranking from Nelly Korda three weeks ago, was poised to end that streak and ruin Wang’s hopes when the Thai hit wedge to 2 feet at No. 9 for her fifth birdie to go out in 31 on the TPC Boston and tie for the lead.
Wang showed some nerves when she jabbed at a 3-foot birdie putt she missed on the par-5 12th. Then she came up well short from the fairway on No 15 into a bunker, didn’t reach the green and took bogey to fall out of the lead. But she showed plenty of moxie the way she finished, and Thitikul gave her plenty of help.
Thitikul was in the collar of rough, the ball above her feet, after an aggressive drive on the 17th. She pulled her shot left of a bunker chipped through the green and had to get up-anddown from the other side for bogey “I don’t think I do anything wrong. Just technique-wise just some mistakes,” Thitikul said.
Wang missed a 7-foot birdie putt on the par-3 16th, but then hit her approach on the 17th to 6 feet behind the hole and caught enough of the cup to make birdie and regain the lead. On the par-5 closing hole, Thitikul laid up short of a ditch and her wedge landed 5 feet short of the pin and then rolled back some 20 feet. She made par for a 67. Wang laid up and hit wedge to 25 feet, two-putting for par to finish at 20-under 268. Rose Zhang, who played in the final group with Wang was among those who doused her with bubbly to celebrate becoming the 11th first-time winner on the LPGA this year Wang set the tone for her first LPGA title Thursday when, after starting on No. 10, she made eight birdies on the front nine. Her confidence only grew with the putter,
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By HEATHER KHALIFA
Carlos Alcaraz waves after beating Arthur Rinderknech during the fourth round of the U.S Open championships on Saturday in New york
AP FILE PHOTO By ADAM HUNGER
Coco Gauff, right of the United States, wipes away tears while talking to Naomi Osaka, of Japan, after Osaka defeated Gauff in the third round of the U.S Open tournament on Aug. 31, 2019, in New york.
AP PHOTO By MICHAEL DWyER Miranda Wang of China, holds
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By HEATHER KHALIFA
Jessica Pegula yells after defeating Ann Li during the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Sunday in New york.
PRESS FILE PHOTO By GENE J PUSKAR
Rodgers cutting through the noise to reshape legacy
BY WILL GRAVES AP national writer
PITTSBURGH Aaron Rodgers sits in the corner of a largely empty Pittsburgh Steelers locker room on a random afternoon late in training camp. The day might be over, but the NFL’s oldest active player is in no rush to leave.
The four-time MVP stands up and walks over to a nearby trash can, which just so happens to be in front of rookie defensive tackle Yahya Black’s stall Rodgers turns toward Black who turned 3 two days before Rodgers was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in the first round 20 years ago — and starts to chat. Their brief exchange is inaudible. Black’s laughter is not Rodgers makes his way back to his seat and plops down. He spots Mason Rudolph — who once dreamed of sitting atop the depth chart as Rodgers has for years but now is leaning into the not exactly unpleasant purgatory of career backup — out of the corner of his eye.
Another brief chat. Another burst of laughter Mason McCormick, who grew up as a zero-star recruit in South Dakota and will spend this season starting at right guard on an offensive line tasked with protecting a 41-year-old quarterback who doesn’t move as he used to, lumbers by Another spirited backand-forth.
Yet more laughter
It’s been like this from Rodgers’ first day with the club in early June Not long after signing a oneyear deal with the Steelers following months of “will he or won’t he?” speculation, Rodgers asked his new teammates to cast aside whatever they might have heard
SAINTS
Continued from page 1C
sought wisdom from legends like Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll — two men who took over big jobs at a very young age but didn’t hit their Hall of Fame stride until after their first opportunity flamed out. He was careful to find some people whose stories had some similarities to his own.
“I tried to seek out as many people as I feel like had wisdom that I could learn from,” Staley said.
“That space that I was trying to create was so that I could improve, and I could come back fresh and better than I’ve ever been.”
In a sense, Staley took the NFL equivalent of a gap year
He worked behind the scenes on the defense in San Francisco, but he also worked on himself
All of those conversations helped not only to identify where he may have misstepped but also to illuminate the ideal next move Affording himself a 30,000-foot view of his career helped Staley see the destination.
“I was so zoomed in, and I was going fast for a long time,” Staley said. “It felt good to zoom out and to reset. Then what that allowed me to do was create a path forward that I knew that I could head towards.
“I knew that I needed to be on a new mission. Just because one thing ends, it doesn’t mean that it’s over Something new is beginning, and that’s what I needed to find was that path forward, because I know
about him, whatever they might have read about him, and in the case of some, whatever they might have said (or posted) about him.
Get to know the real me and not the noise, Rodgers said, an unusual appeal from one of the league’s most recognizable if polarizing stars — just this week a betting website spammed media with the results of a poll in which it claimed Steelers fans voted Rodgers as the NFL’s most annoying player — who that felt was necessary after deciding to go radio silent as he weighed whether to return for a 21st season
That silence led others to fill the vacuum as the saga dragged on.
And while Rodgers learned long ago to tune it all out, he didn’t want to assume everyone else did, too.
A humble approach
Yes, there is Aaron Rodgers, the willing provocateur unafraid to speak his mind on any subject, no matter who it might chafe, and openly dabbles in ayahuasca and darkness retreats. There is also Aaron Rodgers, the football player who alighted in Pittsburgh after two turbulent seasons with the New York Jets because he felt it was “best for my soul.”
The man who tries to live by the credo of “be curious, not judgmental” appealed to his teammates — none of whom were even in the league when he and the Packers beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl in the 2010 season to afford him that same respect
The early returns have been eyeopening and, for some, refreshing.
Rather than stand at the front of the line during warmups, Rodgers will bounce around, well aware that sometimes the players who linger at the back are there for a reason.
Rather than gravitate toward the same group every day in the cafeteria, he will sit down with whomever to talk about whatever
Rather than dominate every meeting in the quarterback room, he absorbs information from offensive coordinator Arthur Smith and backups Rudolph, Skylar Thompson and rookie Will Howard just as generously as he dishes it out.
Becoming a ‘servant leader’
Rodgers used the phrase “servant leader” to describe the role he envisions himself filling for a team that hopes this season is the final one between its previous franchise quarterback and its next one. What that means depends on whom he’s trying to lead.
Wide receiver Roman Wilson is trying to take a step forward after sitting out his entire rookie year because of injury. While there were flashes during the preseason, Rodgers has made it a point not to let Wilson off the hook simply because he made a handful of plays that scratched the surface of his potential.
After a team-wide film session earlier this month, Rodgers pulled inside linebacker Patrick Queen aside to offer suggestions on how to attack certain looks from the offense. There is a disarming way about Rodgers, from his style — he left for the brief four-day break that players across the league enjoyed this weekend before the regular season begins wearing a T-shirt that read “Man, I’m working” that would have fit right into one of those “young homeowners becoming their parents” commercials — to a seemingly endless supply of good-natured smack talk culled from decades of experience.
that the best is ahead for me.”
Now comes the time for Staley to act upon everything he soaked up from his peers, mentors and idols.
He is a crucial part of the major shakeup within the Saints organization. Staley is effectively the head coach of the defense, allowing first-time head coach Kellen Moore to focus on the offense while also providing Moore a road map for how to navigate the challenges that come with the top job.
“It’s a phenomenal opportunity; I feel fortunate to be getting the opportunity to team up with Brandon again,” said Moore, who was Staley’s offensive coordinator for his last season with the Chargers.
“His experience as a head coach is really valuable for me. There’s plenty of little nuances and little questions that we get to discuss.”
And, Moore added, Staley’s “expertise on the defensive side is really, really next level,” which will be critical as New Orleans attempts to rebuild its franchise in the first year of a new regime. Staley arrived to lead a Saints defense that is in flux. After several years of high-end play, New Orleans sagged in its final years under coach Dennis Allen. Things cratered last year, when the Saints allowed more yards than all but two teams. The run defense was a sieve, the pass rush non-existent. Enter Staley who will implement an entirely new scheme. In the simplest terms, it will look different because Staley brought a 3-4 base defensive alignment with him But a more discerning eye will notice the way Staley’s unit
No. 13 South Carolina plays ‘Beamerball’ to to beat Virginia Tech
BY MAURA CAREY AP sportswriter
ATLANTA Vicari Swain returned a punt 80 yards for a touchdown to break open a close game, LaNorris Sellers threw a 64-yard touchdown pass to Nyck Harbor, and No. 13 South Carolina beat Virginia Tech 24-11 on Sunday in the opener for both teams.
Gamecocks coach Shane Beamer used his brand of “Beamerball” to pull away from the school where his dad, Frank Beamer, originated the style of play that emphasizes turnovers and big plays on special teams. Frank was in attendance at MercedesBenz Stadium, wearing South Carolina black. South Carolina intercepted Virginia Tech’s Kyron Drones twice — once in the red zone to halt a first-quarter drive, and again in the fourth quarter to help seal
the win. The Gamecocks led 10-8 early in the fourth when Swain fielded a punt by Nick Veltsistas, turned upfield and made several wouldbe tacklers miss on the way to the end zone. After a Virginia Tech field goal, Sellers found Harbor wide open on a deep post route to restore South Carolina’s twoscore advantage. Virginia Tech’s offense was held without a touchdown. John Love kicked three field goals, including a 56-yarder, and the Hokies’ defense contributed a safety in the first quarter when Kelvin Gilliam Jr and Kody Huisman took down Sellers in the end zone. Sellers scored South Carolina’s first touchdown on a 15-yard rush and was 12 of 19 passing for 209 yards and the TD to Harbor who had three catches for 99 yards. Harbor had another potential TD taken away by a replay review
Patricia’s Ohio St.
defense makes
a
statement in win over top-ranked Texas
BY JOE REEDY AP sportswriter
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Matt Patricia had every reason to gloat or say something about those who secondguessed his hiring as Ohio State defensive coordinator after Saturday’s 14-7 victory over top-ranked Texas.
Patricia saw no need to, however, after his players delivered their statement on the field.
The third-ranked Buckeyes held the much-ballyhooed Arch Manning in check for three quarters, but also had three pivotal fourthdown stops in the second half.
“I know what kind of a coach Matt is because I see him every day and you guys don’t,” coach Ryan Day said. “All the work you put in in the dark doesn’t come to light until this first game, and that’s sometimes a sobering thing about football.
“I thought the game plan was excellent, but the buy-in is what’s most important. It’s supposed to work, you know, plays are plays, scheme is scheme, but what matters to the guys, to the warriors on the field is believing in it, and the work that’s put in.”
Patricia was one of the top NFL assistants as Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator in New England, but his stock was down after going 13-29-1 in three seasons as Detroit’s head coach from 2018-20, followed by stints as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator in 2022 and a defensive analyst-
disguises its intention at the line of scrimmage, the way it sends rushers from any and every angle, and the way defenders are free to use their eyes and make plays.
The early reviews have been nothing but positive from the players who will play in Staley’s scheme.
“If you’re a real dog, it’s easy to buy into his system,” said linebacker Demario Davis. “... He’s one of them real ones.”
The most interesting comments about Staley have come from those who have been with him in the past. New Orleans stocked Staley’s unit with several role players who have prior experience with him edge rusher Chris Rumph played under Staley with the Chargers, Isaac Yiadom with the 49ers, Jonathan Bullard with the Bears and practice squad members Jonah Williams and Terrell Burgess with the Rams.
Williams was an undrafted rookie free agent on the 2020 Rams defense that finished No. 1 in both scoring and total defense, vaulting Staley into the national conversation as an up-and-coming head coaching candidate. He said, “Staley is still Staley — he knows how to command a room,” but he’s noticed subtle differences in the way Staley is teaching. It may be because he has experience in the scheme, but Williams sees Staley making things simpler for his players while maintaining the illusion of complexity for opposing offenses.
“Before, we had a lot more (defensive) front adjustments,” Williams said. “We still have those ad-
turned-defensive play-caller with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2023. He didn’t coach last season. Day tabbed him after Jim Knowles left Ohio State for Penn State, where he became college football’s highest-paid defensive coordinator
“I mean honestly, I’m Northeast Italian, so I’m kind of always a little bit skeptical, but everyone’s just so welcoming and kind,” Patricia said when asked if he heard the criticisms of his hiring.
Patricia inherited a defense that lost eight starters from last season’s national championship team, including the entire defensive line. However, he did have players who saw plenty of snaps the past two or three seasons, along with All-American safety Caleb Downs, considered by many to be the top prospect on defense in next year’s NFL draft class.
“I think we showed the country that we didn’t go anywhere,” said cornerback Jermaine Mathews, whose third-quarter interception set up Ohio State’s second touchdown. “We lost a lot of guys, some first-round guys and some that have been here for three or four years. It was our test to show the world what we can do.”
In a game defined by four plays, Ohio State’s defense came up big on three of them.
Midway through the third quarter, Manning was stuffed at the 1-yard line on fourth-and-goal by Caden CurryandLorenzoStylesJr onaQB sneak to keep the Buckeyes up 7-0.
justments, but he tries to make it so there’s a lot more variations for offenses to see. It’s harder for the offense to know what we’re in, but easier for us to line up. So it makes us play faster.”
Staley is quick to point out that a lot has happened since that breakout 2020 season and Burgess noted that, because of the pandemic, Staley had to teach his defense through a Zoom room. Coaches have to adapt and adjust, or they won’t last long
“The NFL demands that from you,” Staley said. But some of the way he’s teaching and coaching now relates to his experience in Los Angeles, to the lessons learned, and all the conversations he’s had in between.
Next Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals, Staley will take his first official step of the second act of his career The coach who takes the Saints sideline won’t be the same as the one who was dismissed from the Chargers.
“There’s this saying: You don’t need to be old to be wise, but you can’t have wisdom without experience,” Staley said. “That certainly applies to me. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn about how to avoid those and how to create a path specifically for the players, because they’re the most important thing.
“I love coaching players, and I love the game. I’ve been able to get those points across better because I know who I am, I know who I need to be, and I think that comes with more time.”
Email Luke Johnson at ljohnson@theadvocate.com.
STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRETT DUKE
Saints defensive coordinator Brandon Staley, right, greets safety Julian Blackmon on July 31 at training camp.
ASSOCIATED
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, center, wide receiver DK Metcalf, left, and quarterback Will Howard participate in the team’s training camp on July 24 in Latrobe, Pa.
Strong running game bolsters offense
BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer
CLEMSON, S.C. LSU’soffensive struggles in 2024 could be boiled down to one thing: the lack of a running game.
LSU’sinability to consistently churn out yards on the ground put fifth-year senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier andthe offense in trouble on numerous occasions last season. As promising as Nussmeier’sfirst season as a starter was, there were too many occasions where his team needed him to be Superman.
“I think we all knew what we needed to be betteratfrom last year,and that was arunning game that allowedGarrett theopportunity to be acomplete player,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “We couldn’tjustbea one-trick pony and throw the ball over the yard.” But, on Saturday night at MemorialStadium against No.4 Clemson in the season opener, LSU didn’tneedNussmeiertobe superhuman to upset the reigning ACC champions 17-10 on the road. This time around, LSU had arunning game.
Not including lost sack yardage, LSU had 120rushing yards. Sophomore running back Caden Durham led the way with 74 yards on the ground on 17 attempts, while senior wide receiver Zavion Thomas chipped in with three carries for 26 yards. Even Nussmeier had himself a10-yard run.
“When you played really good teams, you have to shorten the game in some instances,” Kelly said. “And Ithought tactically,we didagreat job. (Offensivecoordinator Joe Sloan) did agreat job
calling plays, sticking with runs, creative runs, differentruns.”
Between Durham’sshiftiness and Thomas’ speed, LSU has the athletes to turn open space into yards. It was still LSU’soffensive line that needed to createthat space in the first place.
“Wecontrolled the second half with our offensive line,”Kelly said. “And that’s areworked offensive line.”
To label LSU’soffensive line as “reworked” may be an un-
derstatement. LSU had five new starters on the line, electing not to start returning starter and redshirt sophomore DJ Chester at left guard.
Kelly and offensive line coach Brad Davisturnedtoredshirt sophomorePaul Mubenga instead of Chester.Theyalsogave redshirt freshman Coen Echols snaps at left guard. Chester only entered thegame at left tackle, replacing redshirt sophomore Tyree Adams for afew snaps as
he tended to aleftleg injury
Even with allofthose newpieces and rotations, LSU’s line was able to move Clemsonoff the ball andprovide room for Durham and others to operate.
“I thought theydid an unbelievable job,” Nussmeier said. “What acrazy way,a crazyenvironment for afirst start for some of those guys. And those guys are young and having their first opportunity in this kindofenvironment, I’mso proud of them.”
LSU’s ability to control the line of scrimmage allowed the offense to control the clock. The offense, despite squandering opportunitiestoscoremorepoints, held the ball for20:33 in the second half. That helped LSU’sdefense limit Clemson to just 9:27 of possession time during that same span of time
“We’ve been working on that sinceJanuary,” Adams said in regard to the running game. “And we know physicality is key. Physicality is everything. So once we really started pounding the ball... Ilike to say, if it ain’tbroke, don’t fix it.Sowejust kept going, kept going, kept going, andweeventually broke them.”
An efficientrushing attack led to amoreefficient attack overall. Besides winning the timeofpossession battle, LSU also earned 12 more first downs thanClemson (25-13), gainednearly 100 more yards andaveragedmore than a half ayardmoreper play
There’snoquestion that LSU’s defense shone the brightest on Saturday. Holding atop-5 team on the road to 10 points andunder 275 yards is an achievement that LSU fans couldn’thavedreamed of heading into the night.
But it would have been amuch tougher feat to accomplishifit weren’tfor LSU’s rushing attack, whichallowedthe offensetoeat up the clock andkeep the defense well-rested throughout the night.
“The real difference here offensively,” Kelly said, “was the ability to carve out arunning game against areally good defense.”
Alabama hasn’t looked the same since coach Nick Saban’sretirement. It raises speculationabout thefuture of his replacement Kalen DeBoer
The eighth-ranked Crimson Tide has dropped threeofits past four games following a31-17 loss at FloridaState on Saturday,a game in which the Seminoles bullied Alabama on both sides of the ball. The Tide is now 2-5 away from home during DeBoer’s14-game tenure —with four of those losses coming as adouble-digit favorite.
“Not going to live in regret,” DeBoer said. “Wegot to go fix it and be better because of it and evaluate the film and move on.”
FloridaState quarterbackTommy Castellanos said this summer that Saban wasn’taround“to save Alabama,” and he didn’tsee the Crimson Tide stopping the Seminoles. After racking up 230 yards rushing, Castellanos andFlorida State clearly backed up his bold statement.
Coupled with managing just 87 yards on the ground, there were plenty of questions about Ala-
Continued from page1C
allowing only onecatch on eight targets, per Pro Football Focus. Five-star freshman DJ Pickettwas targeted only onceon20coverage snaps. The Tigers landed thoseplayers, in part, because an offseason fundraising push allowed them to invest in their secondary Now there’smore talent, experience and depth at both safety and cornerback,which mayhelpLSU finally crack the Harold Perkins code —and solve ariddle that has trailed Kelly and his staff for the last two years. On Saturday,Perkinslooked like the disruptive player that burst onto the scene in 2022. The middle linebacker experiment is over Now the senior plays the Baker defense’sStar position —ado-itall hybrid role that allowsLSU to line him up anywhere.
Perkins spent 29 snaps of the Clemson wininpass coverage, according to PFF,and 13 in pass rush. LSU dropped him into the box on 30 snaps and lined him up over the slot on 20 plays. He worked as an edge rusher for five snaps and even moonlighted as adefensive back —for one play at outside corner and another at safety By the end of the night, Perkins had tallied five tackles, including 1.5 for aloss, to pair withasack, ahit and two hurries. Oneofthose pressures came on the last play of the game, when he forced Klubnik
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By PHELAN M. EBENHACK
Alabamacoach Kalen DeBoer leavesthe field after a31-17 loss to Florida StateonSaturday in Tallahassee, Fla. The eighth-ranked Crimson Tide has dropped three of its past four games.
bama’sseemingly downward spiral.The lossatVanderbilt last October was shocking. But then the Tide played even worse in losses to two more unranked opponents: Oklahomaand Michigan. Andthen the latest one,which came at the hands of arevamped FSU squadthat had
to flutter athrow well short of its intended target.
“He does things thatalot of humans can’tdoonthis earth,” Baker said.
“There’salot to get better at, and he’llbethe first one to tell you that, but his effort, his intensity, the way heled on the sideline all game was second to none.”
Remember, Perkinstore his ACL 11 months ago.
That injury ended thesecondofhis two mostly unsuccessful attempts to play inside linebacker.LSU first moved him to that spot ahead of the 2023 season,and thedecision dulled the havoc-wreaking tendencies that allowed Perkins to frustrate offenses like Arkansas, Ole Missand Alabama as afreshman. In LSU’s2023 season-opening loss to FloridaState,Perkins didn’trecord a single tackle forloss or ahurry.Across the four games he playedin2024, he recorded just four hurries, per PFF,and only 1 5tackles for loss.
dropped 11 of itsprevious 13. Nowthe Tide looks like it needs arebuild, having gone 5-5 since beating Georgia 11 months ago. Simply put, Alabamalooks like it has asmall margin for error.The Tide faces Louisiana-Monroe and Wisconsin before abye week. And
him to play.SoBaker tried again.
“I said, ‘No, Harold. What do you want toplay?’” Baker said on Aug. 11.
“He said, ‘Coach, Ithink I’ll be best at Star.’”
So, Perkins began preseason camp, once again, at anew position.Glimpses into practice showed that he lookedcomfortable and disruptive
“There’salot
to getbetter at, and he’ll be thefirst one to tell you that,but hiseffort, hisintensity,the
wayheled on the sideline all game wassecond to none.”
BLAKE BAKER, LSU defensive coordinator,on linebacker Harold Perkins
The injuryallowed Baker some time to think, and it gave Perkins achancetorest. At some point duringPerkins’ recovery,Baker sat down with the senior and asked him whichposition he wanted to play in 2025.Perkins said he’d play whatever position the team wanted
Then thegame against Clemson proved it
LSUtrusted its defensive backs to play mancoverage with the game on the line
Thenitlet Perkins loose, freeing him to use thespeed and instincts he first flashed in 2022. There was that old, familiar,and elusive sight.
And it helped LSU scorewhat could be one of its most consequential wins in recent program history
“It’sjusta different roster with different players,” Kelly said, “anditallows (Baker) now thetools necessary to utilizeHarold in themanner that he can best impact thegame.”
Email Reed Darcey at reed.darcey@theadvocate.com. For more LSU sports updates, sign up for our newsletter at theadvocate.com/lsunewsletter
then, yes, aroad trip to Georgia to open the Southeastern Conference slateonSept. 27. Does the season-opening loss put pressure on Alabamaplayers?
“‘Feel the pressure’ is not necessarily theway Iwould put it,” Alabama center and team captain Parker Brailsford said. “I would say, the urgency to go out and do the right things, but Ialready felt that.”
The matchup against Florida State, which was coming off a2-10 season,appeared to favorAlabama. TheCrimson Tide features veteran, experienced linemenon both sides of the balland was a 131/2-point favorite.
ButFlorida State was the aggressor, andAlabamaended up playing from behind again. DeBoer said going into the game that jumping outtoa good start was crucial.
After agame-opening, 16-play,75yard touchdown drive, Alabama failed to get into the end zone until thefourth quarter
TheTidewas stoppedthree timesonfourthdown,eachof them in theSeminoles’ territory.
On afourth drive, quarterback Ty Simpson was sacked on third down that forced Alabama’sConor Talty
TULANE
Continued from page1C
gaininthe third quarter.Itwas the fewest points Tulane has allowed in an opener against an FBS opponent since shuttingout Boston College in 1972.
“A year ago, we had five(defensive) guys start Game 1that showed up in Mayand were trying to duct tape it together,” Sumrall said. “Everybody that started today washereinJanuary.They’ve had time on task.”
Thekickinggamewas sharp, too. Patrick Durkin, whomissed hislast two field goalsin2024 andwas foiled by abobbled snap on athird,went 3of3 on 22-, 41- and 31-yard efforts. Transfer Alec Clark averaged 48.8 yards on fivepunts, finished with abooming 70-yarder that carried into the end zone and anifty 45-yarder that Armani Cargo downed at the 1. The offense was inconsistent after acrisp eight-play,52-yard openingtouchdown drive, with its lone touchdown therestof the way coming on quarterback Jake Retzlaff’s untouched 69yard scramble. Wide receiver Bryce Bohanonand running back Maurice Turnerdropped consecutive passesinthe end zone on one series. Wideout Anthony Brown-Stephens and Turnerhad throws go through their hands as Tulane went three-and-out on itssecond series. Turner mishandled athird oneinthe secondhalf, andTre
to attempt a53-yard field goal that came up short.
“That’sthe thing that is frustrating,” DeBoer said. On defense, Alabama allowed Florida State to pick up 4.7 yards a carry.The Crimson Tide also gave up big plays, fromJaylin Lucas 64-yard catch to SquirrelWhite’s 40-yard reception andMicahiDanzy’s32-yard touchdown run. WhileFlorida State’sskillwas impressive, Alabama’stackling waspoor,too.
“They did anice job going sideline to sideline, alot of things with thoseflysweepsthatweworked on,preparedfor,” DeBoer said “You get1on1,you get in space andyou gota find away to get them on the ground.”
If there’soptimism for Alabama, it’sthe same story forprograms like No. 1Texas and No. 4Clemson that are dealing with seasonopening losses. One loss, especially on the road, does little to knock ateam outofcontentionfor the College FootballPlayoff. Butit certainly raises questions.
“We’rebehind the eight ball, Brailsford said.“We gottogo1-0 and strive to be our best dayinand day out.”
Shackelfordjoined the drops parade on aball thrown behind him.
Retzlaff, in only his38th day with theteam, threwharder than necessary at times and was not always on target, but he still accounted for265 yards passing and rushing with zero interceptions.
BrendanSullivan, who was neck-and-neck with Retzlaff before hurting his ankle in camp, could have abigger role next Saturday at South Alabama. He wasused as adecoy in motion on one play in the first half before Sumrallsenthim in to take two knees at the end.
Sullivanplayedfor Northwestern for threeyearsbefore transferring to Iowa last season.
“Wedidn’tfeel like he was in the best spot to put him out there,” Sumrall said. “The plan if he had been fully healthy, would have probably beento playboth.I’m notsaying it would have been aquarterback shufflethe whole game,but if Brendan’sback,you areprobably going to see us playing two guys some.”
Lagniappe
BrotherMartinproductGarrett Mmahat, aformer walk-on quarterback turned scholarship receiver whopracticed with the first team formuchofcamp,sat out with adeep thigh bruise he sustained in practice this week. …South Alabamabeat FCS opponent Morgan State 38-21 in its opener,outgaining the Bears only 367-340.
AP PHOTO By JACOB KUPFERMAN
LSU running back Caden Durham, left, runs withthe ball against Clemson on SaturdayinClemson, S.C. Durham led theTigers with74rushing yards on 17 attempts.
“Technologycan maketravelers feel powerless. It’s happening now We’veseen everything from automatedrental car damageclaims to a suspicious surgeinairfaredriven by dynamic pricing algorithms.”
RAyMOND yORKE, Redpoint Travel Protectionspokesman
TRAVEL TRAPS
RAPS LIVING
BY CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT Travel Troubleshooter
Worried about every littledingonyour rental car? Do youalways go into “anonymous” mode on yourweb browser before booking airline tickets?
If youdo, then youprobablyhaveAI anxiety Travel companies arequietly deploying artificial intelligencesystems, creating an invisible web of automated billingthat can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars —often without your knowledge or consent. From Hertz’scontroversial AI vehicle scanners tohotel vapor detectors that fine guests when their hairdryers overheat, to airlinepricingalgorithms
that jack up fares based on your browsinghistory,these systems operateinthe shadows while your wallet takes ahit.
“Technology can make travelersfeel powerless,”says Raymond Yorke, a spokesman for Redpoint Travel Protection.“It’shappening now.We’ve seen everything from automated rental car damageclaimstoa suspicioussurge in airfare driven by dynamic pricing algorithms.”
Butitdoesn’thave to stay that way
Thetechnologypromisesefficiency andfairness, but travelersare discoveringthatAIoften acts morelike adigital pickpocket than an impartial assistant. The systems flagfalse positives, make decisions without human oversight, and shiftthe burden of proofontocustomers
who have to defend themselves against algorithmic accusations.
Rentals have become ground zero for AI overreach. CompanieslikeHertz are using technology from acompany called UVeye that can reportedly detect paint inconsistencies and minor damages down to amillimeter level.
Butcritics say these systemscan’t always distinguishbetween existing scratches, dirt or lighting changes,and genuine new damage. Andcar rental companies bill customers automatically,with limited avenues for appeal.
Legal consultant and AI specialist NicolaCainnotesthathuman intervention
Football andFallon
BY STEPHENBATTAGLIO
Los Angeles Times (TNS)
“Tonight” host Jimmy Fallon is hoping to score new viewers thisfall with some help from TV’stop-rated program. NBC said Thursday that thelatenight franchise will get special airings following the four “SundayNight Football” games and late local newscasts during the upcoming season. Twoof the NFL games will feature the Kansas City Chiefs, which will be pop culture spectacles thanks to tight endTravis Kelce’sengagement to TaylorSwift
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will air Sept. 21 following the Chiefs’ contest with the New York Giants. Episodes will also air after the
Oct. 26 game between the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, the Nov.16gamewiththe Detroit Lions and Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, and the Chiefs’ Dec. 7meeting with theHouston Texans. The program will aim to book highprofile guests for theSundayairings Matthew McConaughey and Eric Church are scheduled to appear on Sept.21. When Fallon’sprogram aired an episode after “Sunday Night Football” last season, it scored its best ratings of the year.NBC hascommittedtomore at atimewhenlate-night TV is in crisis.
CBS’decision to cancel “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” because of financial losses highlighted how one of TV’smost enduring genres is strug-
gling. Decliningratings andr —due to the erosion of appointment TV viewing in the streamin have hurtall late-night shows, ing “Tonight.”
The lame-duck status and tual departureofColbert late night in May presents an portunity for “Tonight” to ga viewerswho arestill in th habit of watching the desk-andsofa festsat10:35 p.m.
“We’re hoping topickup some of those eyeballs for our show,” said Katie Hockmeyer, executive vice president of late-night programmingfor NBC.
ä See FALLON, page 2D
Transference andwaysfor caregivers and patients to deal with it
Is transference harmful forAlzheimer’spatients?
According to PsychologyToday.com, the concept of transference emerged from Sigmund Freud’spsychoanalytic practice in the 1890s. Freud believed that childhood experiences and internal conflicts formed the foundation forone’sdevelopment and personality as an adult.
Psychoanalysis aims to uncover those unconscious conflicts that may be responsible forcurrent patterns of emotion and behavior
Transference is one method through which those conflicts may be recognized and, hopefully,resolved. Transference, in psychology,refers to the phenomenon where aperson redirects emotions and feelings from one person to another,often unconsciously It’s acommon dynamic in therapy,but it also happens in everyday relationships.
Examples include viewing a therapist as aparental figure or feeling overly protective of afriend whoreminds you of asibling. In the person affected by Alzheimer’s disease, transference can include the affected individual viewing one of their children as the spouse or parent, or acting out acharacter from a television show
The affected individual may have positive transference to someone whoreminds them of the mother or spouse, because they loved and adored him.However,the affected individual could also have negative transference when someone, such as acaregiver, reminds them of an abusive or overbearing parent.
The caregivers, when faced with negative emotions, may not know how to respond or how to express their experience. The interactions may ignite guilt, shameand other intense emotions. These feelings may not be identified at first, given the expectations within the caregiving experience. The
Jimmy Fallon
Microplasticscan accumulate in body
Dear Doctors: The more Iread about microplastics, the moreI want to do something to lower my family’sexposure to them. Any thoughts? Also, what is so much worse about microplastics than dust or pollen?
Dear Reader: For those whoare not familiar,the term “microplastics” refers to tiny particles of plastic that range in size from smaller than agrain of sand to microscopic.
Some of these particles are added to awide range of products to act as thickeners or exfoliants, or to add structure and texture. However,the majority enter theenvironment when products made with plastic undergo wear and tear
It is estimated that between 10 and 40 metric tons of these minuscule pollutantsare released into the environment eachyear Researchers have found micro-
Dr.Elizabeth Ko Dr.Eve Glazier ASK THE DOCTORS
plastics in fresh snowfall in Antarctica, in thecloud vapor around Mount Everest and in theMariana Trench —the deepest region of theocean we know.They have even been foundinmeconium, which is thefirst bowel movement of anewborn infant.
Unlikenatural materials, plastics do notdecomposeordegrade. Instead, they split, break, shatter andthen crumble into ever-smaller particles. These particles become small enough to be
TRAPS
Continued from page 1D
By The Associated Press
Today is Monday,Sept. 1, the 244th day of 2025.There are 121 days left in the year
Todayinhistory:
On Sept. 1, 1985, aU.S.French expedition located the wreckage of the Titanic on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland
Also on this date:
In 1715, following areign of 72 years, King Louis XIV of France died fourdays before his 77th birthday; he was succeeded by his 5-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV
In 1897, the first section of Boston’snew subway was opened,creating the first undergroundrapid transit system in North America.
In 1914, the passenger pigeon, once one of the most abundant bird species on earth, went extinct as the last known example, named Martha, died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo.
In 1923, the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by an earthquake that claimed some 140,000 lives.
In 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, an event regardedasthe start of World WarII.
In 1964,pitcherMasanori Murakami of the San Francisco Giants became the first Japanese baseballplayer to play in aMajor League Baseball game.
In 1969, acoup in Libya brought Moammar Gadhafi to power In 1972, American Bobby Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, as Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union resigned before the resumptionof their 21st and final game.
In 1983, 269 people were killed when aKorean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by aSoviet jet fighter after the airliner entered Soviet airspace.
In 2004, Islamicterrorists took more thanathousand people hostage in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia; the siege would endthree days later in gunfire and explosions, leaving 334people dead —more than half of them children.
In 2015, invoking “God’s authority,” RowanCounty, Kentucky,Clerk Kim Davis denied marriage licenses to gay couples again in direct defiance of the federal courts and vowed not to resign,even under the pressure of steep fines or jail. (Davis would spend five days in jail as aresult, and is currently appealing aruling ordering her to pay hundreds of thousands of dollarsinrelated legal fees.)
Today’sbirthdays: Attorney and law professor Alan Dershowitz is 87. Comedian-actor Lily Tomlin is 86. Singer Barry Gibb is 79. Talk show host Dr.Phil McGraw is 75. Singer Gloria Estefan is 68. TV host-author Padma Lakshmi is 55. Actor Ricardo Antonio Chavira is 54. FashiondesignerRachel Zoeis
54. Actor Scott Speedman is 50. Composer-producerLudwig Göransson is 41. Actorsinger Zendaya is 29.
only happens when acustomer raises acomplaint, meaning the AI’sjudgment stands unless you fight back. It should be the other way around,she says.
“Human oversightneeds to be built into the process,” she adds.
Hotel chains are installing sophisticated sensor networksthat go far beyondtraditionalsmoke detectors. These systemsmonitor vapor particles,noise levels, occupancy counts and even Wi-Fi usage patterns.
The systemsare far from perfect. Ruth Cruz recently got hit with a $250fee for smokinginher hotel room. She says theAIregistereda false positive.
“I successfullydisputed the charge by explaining thetechnical limitations of their detection system,” says Cruz, who edits atechnology website in San Jose. (These types oferrors are easy to find with alittle sleuthing. Hers involved a quick online search.)
Airlines are perfecting the art of AI-powered price manipulation. For years, their systems have tracked your search history,location,device type, loyaltystatus, and dozensofother signals to predict your willingness to pay premium prices. AI is supercharging that practice.
Thomas O’Shaughnessy,a marketing executive from St. Louis, has noticed prices jumping dramatically when he researches flights.
“The price increases weren’trandom,” he says.“Ibelieve they were caused by an AI model thatchanges prices based on demand, the time of booking,and eventhe user’ssearch history.”
No wonder travelers have AI anxiety.The question is,what can they do about it?
Howto fightthe AI
“The key to fighting back is understanding that these systems prioritize speed and automation over accuracy,” explains Frank Harrison, regional security director for theAmericasatWorldTravel Protection.“They’redesigned to extract maximumrevenue while hoping customers won’tchallenge algorithmic decisions. But armed with theright documentation and strategies, travelers can levelthe
FALLON
Continued from page1D
The ratings decline in network prime time hasdraggedlate night down withit, depriving the suited hostsoftheir oncepowerful leadins.
“Sunday Night Football” has defied that trend, averaging 21.6 million viewers on TV and streaming last season,according to Nielsen and Adobe Analyticsdata, its best performance since 2015.“SNF”has
ALZHEIMER’S
Continued from page1D
revelation of the negative feelings expressed bythe affected individual to thecaregiver may occur in a hiddenorprivate environment
At times the patientmay engage in verbally abusivelanguage or physical aggressionthatwould be unacceptableinany other setting. When acaregiver is thereceiver (orreceptacle) of negative emotions, this often evokes unresolved past issues. Given the intenseemotional re-
swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through theskin. They are also able to penetrate cell membranes, enter the bloodstream and even cross the bloodbrain barrier.This is due to their chemical properties and their minutesize —often mere nanometers—which is far smaller than the dust and pollen you asked about.
The chemicals contained in microplastics have been shown to accumulate in bodily tissues. This can lead to bioactive effects, including causing inflammation, changing hormone interactions, altering immune response, disrupting thegut microbiome and causing physical damage.
Microplastics also easily bond to heavy metals,endocrine disrupters and so-called forever chemicals, and they can carry them into the body
To start reducing themicroplas-
tics around you, avoid single-use water bottles and food containers. They not only shed microplastics into their contents, but they also become amajor source of environmental pollutants when discarded. Even to-go cups in coffee shops are lined with plastic, so bringing anonplastic cup can reduce that exposure. Many of us rely on plastic bags and wraps forfood storage; however,these also transfer microplastics into their contents. And don’tuse plastic wrap in the microwave as this causes chemicals to leach out. Youmight consider investing in agood water filter,and in stainless steel or microwave-safe glass containers forfood storage. Speaking of food, you’ll find fewer microplastics in fresh and unprocessed foods, and in those that sit lower on the food chain.
Even our clothes —many of which contain synthetic fabrics —shed microplastics when we wearthem and when we wash them.Opt fornatural fabrics when shopping, like cotton, linen and wool.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency is agood resource forguidance about products that are free of microplastics, at www.epa.gov/saferchoice. And remember,aswith any change, it’seasiest to undertake in increments.
If any readers have suggestions, let us know.Wewould love to hear and to share them
Send yourquestions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla. edu, or write: Ask theDoctors c/oUCLA HealthSciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd.,Suite 1450, Los Angeles, CA, 90024.
ASSOCIATEDPRESS FILEPHOTO
Artificial intelligence technologypromises efficiencyand fairness, buttravelersare discovering that AI often acts more likeadigital pickpocket than an impartial assistant.
playing field.” Here are some strategies that will help you fight AI: Renting acar? Channel your inner Sherlock. Do acomprehensive walk-around and take photos of your carfromall angles.Focus on areas AI commonly flags, like bumpers, wheel wells androof surfaces. Email thesevideos to yourself immediatelyfor proof of when they were taken.
Document everything —every scratch, every dent,every imperfection —before accepting any rental. And remember,you can alwaysrequest adifferent vehicle if the one you’re renting has toomany dings or dents. Don’tlet ‘emtrack you. Useprivate browsingorincognito mode when you book flightsorhotels. Clear your cookies between searches. Use aVPN (Virtual Private Network) to shift your location. “I’ve seen price differences of $200 or more for the sameflight just by appearing to browse from different cities,” says Joey Martin, an AI expert. Also, search for fares on multiple devices andcompare prices across platforms.AIpricingalgorithms often show different rates to smartphone users versus desktop browsers, or
been themost-watched prime-time series for 14 straight years.
While “Tonight” and “LateNight With Seth Meyers” face the same business challengesas“Late Show,” NBCsays it remains committedto itsprograms, which have arich history.Both Fallon and Meyersare signed through 2028.
“Tonight” goes back to theearly days of television, andFallonperforms on the same floor of NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters as JohnnyCarson didwhenhehosted theprogramout of New York. David Letterman expanded the audi-
sponses evoked by these issues, it may be difficult for thecaregiver to come forward regarding these behaviors, seeing theaffected individual as ill or “not himself.” Additionally,these emotional responses may trigger negative behaviors and thus cause physical outbursts, which may be harmful to theindividual and/or caregiver The environment around the affected individual also can trigger transference. For instance, particular television shows can produce anxietyornegative emotions as the individual “transfers” those images and happenings intotheir everyday life. Watching atelevision show
to logged-in loyaltymembersversus anonymoussearchers. Open your hotelwindow, if possible Don’t touch anything with aprice tag. It’s true,AIismonitoringthe air you breatheand thelocationofevery Coke in your minibar.You already know what to do:Don’t touchthe itemsinyour minibarand keep your hotel room ventilated. If asurprisebill arrives, respond immediately and assertively.Ask for the original AI scan data, sensor logs or algorithmic decision records that supposedly justify the charge.Most companies will struggle to provide concrete evidence that withstands scrutiny Bear in mind that these strategies will evolve. AI adjusts to consumer behavior,and you’ll have to make some course correctionsalong the way,too.
StartofanAIarmsrace
In travel, AI is an imperfect technology,registering false positives anderroneously billing consumers. It raises prices by hundreds of dollars perticket, believing you’ll happily pay extra foryour airfare because of your location.What’s more, these systems are ablack box, so when you ask forproof that
ence for comedyinthe timeperiod when “LateNight”debuted in the 11:30 p.m. slot in 1982.
Hockmeyerdeclinedtodiscuss thefinancial state of “Tonight,” but noted that NBC’slate-night programming hasvalue beyond the ratings. Theyprovide aplatform to tout properties throughout NBCUniversal, such as films from Universal Pictures, programming on NBC and the streaming service Peacock, and coverage of major sporting events such as the Olympics.
“I think we have to remember that theseshowsare amazing eco-
suchas“Law and Order” maybe entertaining forthe individual; however,the individual maytransfer those images and stories from the showand become frightened in the night,thus disrupting sleep and triggering negative behaviors. Also,agitation, noncompliance, attempted discharge against medical advice and wandering fromthe facilitymay all result.
Erotic transference is often overlooked because it is difficult for caregivers to view the elderly and debilitated as sexual. Affected individuals may eroticize caregivers and claim that they are making sexual advances to them. They of-
youdamaged acar or removed something from aroom, they can’t always provide it. In short, this is nothing more than adigital money grab, and your AI anxiety is completely justified. We’reatthe beginning of an AI armsrace. Travel companies are using machine learning to maximize their revenue. It’stime to fight back. What happens next? The travel industry is busy deploying AI everywhere. Soon, systems could monitor carry-on luggage to ensure you’re paying forevery bag. Hotelscouldfind ways of automatically billing youfor every missingtowel or bathrobe. Car rental companies couldturntheir AI resources to car interiors, earning moremoney from stains or messy upholstery.And don’teven get me started on cruise lines!
Assume AI is tracking your every move—because it probably is.
Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate, and journalist. He founded Elliott Advocacy anonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. If you need help with aconsumer problem,you can reach him by email at chris@elliott.org.
systemsthat help promote things within the company,” Hockmeyer said.
NBC’saffiliates pay the network for the programs. They are taken into considerationwhenthe network negotiates carriage fees from satelliteand cablesystems that carry its stations. Thenetwork’ssales department also uses the programstosell product placements in which brands are embedded into comedy bits.
Copyright2025 TribuneContent Agency
ten accuse their caregiver spouses of infidelity Education and skill training can improve the relationships between the caregiver and the affected individual. Redirecting to another activity or playing music can assist in distracting the individual if they are presenting negative transference.
Dana Territo is an Alzheimer’s advocate and author of “What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer’sDisease.”She hosts “The Memory Whisperer.” Email her at thememorywhisperer@ gmail.com.
VIRGo (Aug.23-sept.22) Take amoment to rethink your long-term plans. You may cravechange and want to try a differentprofessional direction, but consider howpractical this is and what you might loseindoing so
LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) You can make adifference if you participate in a causeyou honor. Take the initiative and adjust your approach and priorities to free up time for thethings that matter most to you.
scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov.22) Pay attention to money matters. Networking, makingcoldcalls and adaptingyour skills to meet today's market needs will help open doors.
sAGITTARIus(nov. 23-Dec.21) Don't sell yourself short. Speak from the heart and let your passion and persistence be thekey to your success. Leave nothing to chance or in someone else'shands
cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Payattention to detail. Apremature move will cost you. Don't share too much information,orsomeone will steal your ideas. Don't limit your expectations; expand your vision.
AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb.19) Set abudget andlivewithin your means. Achange can saveyou money and easestress. Keep an open mind, and you'll discover you have moretooffer than you realize.
PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Rethink your motives, conditions and how you want to navigate your way forward. Refuse
to let your emotions interrupt your intentions. Be wary of joint ventures or shared expenses ARIEs (March 21-April 19) Let your creative imagination run wild and see where it takes you. Delve into aproject that gives you free range to testyour skills and raiseyour awareness.
TAuRus (April 20-May20) Not everything or everyone willbeforthright regarding their intentions.Don'tplay withfire; when in doubt, take apass. Don't be afraid to move forward on your own.
GEMInI (May 21-June 20) Stick closeto home and make domestic adjustments thatwill addtoyour comfortand joy. Acreative approach to setting up your space will go hand in hand with your success.
cAncER (June 21-July 22) Think before you speak or act, and consider ways to compromisetoensureyou hold your ground without losing face. Get the facts andsummarize your endgoal beforelaunching an attack.
LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) Payattention to how youpresent yourself to others. An opportunity to achieve both personal and professional growth is within reach. Think positively and engage in activities that lead to victory.
InstructIons: sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place thenumbers 1to9 in the empty squaressothat each row, each column and each 3x3 boxcontainsthe samenumber only once. The difficulty level of thesudoku increasesfrommonday to sunday
Saturday’s PuzzleAnswer
THe wiZardoFid
BLondie
BaBY BLueS
Hi and LoiS
CurTiS
Bridge
By PHILLIP ALDER
Daniel Radcliffe, who becamefamous playing HarryPotter,said,“Ithink any guy whosays, ‘I’ve never had an awkward momentwith agirl’ is aliar.”
Any bridge playerwho says he’s never hadanawkwardmomentatthe tableisa liar.The winners, though, find away to survive when faced with difficult decisions. This week we are going to study hand-dealt layoutsthat produced problems for the players. First, look at theSouthhand in today’s diagram. Whatwouldbeyour opening bid?
Hands with 4-4-4-1 distribution can be anuisance. But with this one, agood general guideline is to treat king-singleton as if it were king-doubleton. So plan on bidding no-trump. It would not be unreasonable to open two no-trump if youwould be promising agood 20, 21 or 22 points. But Ithink you should upgrade because of all theaces and kings. Opentwo clubs, planning to rebidtwo no-trump. Here, whatever you do, you should end in three no-trump. West leads his fourth-highest diamond five: seven, three(lowest froma tripletonwhen unable to play anine or higher) king. Whathappens afterthat?
You have only sixtop tricks: two spades, oneheart, one diamond and two clubs. It wouldbenice to find thespade finesse winning, but you need to get into the dummy.
EachWuzzle is aword riddle which creates adisguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: nOOngOOD =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,”such as “bats” or “dies,”are not allowed. 3. additional words made by adding a“d” or an “s” may not be used. 4. proper nouns, slang words,orvulgar or sexually explicit words are not allowed.
sATuRDAy’s WoRD —DEFERMEnT
ToDAy’sWoRD cAPIcoLA: cap-ih-KOH-la: Seasoned Italian pork that is cured in acasing. Average mark11words Time limit 30 minutes Can you find 19 or more words in CAPICOLA? deem deer deet defer deferent deft dent deter emend enter entered entree erne feed feeder feet fend fender ferment fermented fern fete free freemen fret redeem reed reef reefed rend rent rented meet mend mentee mere mete meter metered need nerd teem teemed teen tend tender term termed tree trend
today’s thought “These things haveyou done,and Ikept silence; youthought that Iwas altogether such an oneasyourself: butI will reprove you,and setthem in orderbefore your eyes.” Psalms 50:21
loCKhorNs
marmaduKe
Bizarro
hagar the horriBle
Pearls Before swiNe
garfield
B.C.
PiCKles
hidato
dIrectIons: make a2-to 7-letter word from the letters in each row. add points of each word, using scoring directions at right. Finally, 7-letter words get 50-point bonus. “Blanks” used as any letter have no point value. all the words are in the Official sCraBBlE® players Dictionary, 5th Edition. For more information on tournaments and clubs,email naspa –north american sCraBBlE playersassociation: info@scrabbleplayers.org.Visit ourwebsite:www.scrabbleplayers.org.For puzzle inquiries contact scrgrams@gmail.com. Hasbro andits logo sCraBBlE associated logo,the design of thedistinctivesCraBBlE
and the
ken ken
InstructIons: 1 -Each row and each column must contain the numbers1thorugh 4(easy) or 1through 6 (challenging) without repeating. 2 -The numberswithin the heavily outlined boxes called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners. 3 -Freebies: Fill in the single-box cages with the number in the top-left corner.
Saturday’s Puzzle Answer
WiShinG Well
HErEisa plEasanT liTTlE gamE that will give you amessageeveryday.it’s a numerical puzzle designed to spell outyourfortune.Count the letters in yourfirst name. if thenumber of letters is 6ormore, subtract4.ifthe numberislessthan 6, add 3. Theresult is your key number. start at the upperleft-hand cornerand check each of yourkey numbers, left to right. Then read the messagethe checked figures give you
Scrabble GramS
Get fuzzy
jump Start
roSe iS roSe
animal crackerS
DuStin
Drabble
Wallacethe
luann
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PUBLIC NOTICE CIVILDISTRICTCOURT FORTHE PARISH OF OR‐LEANS STATEOFLOUISIANA NO:2025-01889 DIVISION “L SUCCESSION OF SIMON CRIER, JR FILED: DEPUTY CLERK
NOTICE OF FILING FIRST TABLEAUOFDISTRIBU‐TION NOTICE IS GIVENtothe creditorsofthisEstate andtoall otherinter‐estedpersons,that a FirstTableau of Distribu‐tion hasbeen filedby TaifaSt. Julien,the duly appointed, qualified suc‐cessionrepresentativeof thesuccessionofSimon Crier, Jr with herPeti‐tion Filing FirstTableau of Distribution praying forhomologationofthe Tableauand forratifica‐tion of thepayment of theliabilities of theSuc‐cessionlistedtherein,for authoritytopay there‐mainingadministrative expenses of theSucces‐sion,and forauthority to distribute thetestamen‐tary bequests as listed thereon; andthatthe FirstTableau of Distribu‐tion canbehomologated after theexpirationof seven(7) days from the date of thepublication of this notice Anyopposi‐tion to thePetitionmust be filedprior to homolo‐gation NewOrleans,Louisiana this 28thday of August 2025. SUBMITTEDBY: GORDON J. KUEHL HOFFMAN NGUYEN & KUEHL, L.L.C ATTORNEYSFOR SUCCES‐SION OF SIMONCRIER,JR. 156458-SEP1-1T
