The Times-Picayune 09-23-2025 by The Advocate

Tulane’s housingpolicy impacts rental market

Residentswelcome quieterstreets,increased parking

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer

In the month since Tulane University students returned —and anew school policystartedthat requiresthemtolive on campus for their ﬁrst threeyears— nearby residents saylong-standing problems caused by off-campus student housing have improved, from parking shortages to late-night noise and overcrowded rentals

But the housing policyhas created a new challenge for theneighborhood: an oversupply of apartments that is leaving hundreds of units vacant and, some say,driving down prices.

“Driving aroundthe neighborhood, I

BY JAMES FINN Staff writer

Candidates for New Orleans mayor debated on live television forthe secondtimeina week Monday,going head-to-head on insurance policy, economic development and the city budget days before some voters beginto cast ballots in the October election

State Sen. Royce Duplessis maintained his attacks against consensus front-runner Helena Moreno in

“When you have hundreds of students who used to live in the neighborhood move backon to campus, it is 100% going to impact the market. It’snot even a question.”

ARTHURSTERBCOW, real estate analyst

can tell you the ‘for rent’signs are everywhere,” said Alex Meyer,a project managerwith aconstruction company whoowns three rental properties in the university area. “I’d say there are acouple on every block.

Meyer’s anecdotal observations,

sharedbyothersinthe area,are supported by data. In August, between 1,200 and 1,350 apartments were available for rentwithina1-mile radius of Tulane’s Gibson Hall, according to an analysis of listingsonthe rental website Zumper by real estate analyst Arthur Sterbcow

That’s about 15% more rental units on average thanwere listedlast August, accordingtoSterbcow,who also compared datafromZillow and Apartments. com. Thoughthe individualunit numbers varied among the threewebsites, the overall trend —10%-15% more apartments for rent —was consistent.

the debate, which aired on WDSUTV.Duplessishas ﬂung critiques at Moreno, the City Council vice president, in recent days as he seekstocut into her double-digit pollinglead in therace.

Thepunchy 30-minute debate otherwise hewed closely to policy questionsfrom the moderator, WDSU anchor Gina Swanson. The

election is Oct. 11, and early voting begins Saturday Amid ongoing debate at City Hall andonthe campaign trailabout thesizeof New Orleans’ budget deﬁcit, one of the morecontentious moments came as Duplessistried again to tag Moreno and the council as complicit in the city’sﬁnancial struggles.

Dome lease deal stalls

Negotiations over Benson Tower, otherreal estate continue

BY ANTHONY McAULEY, TYLERBRIDGES and JEFF DUNCAN Staff writers

TheSaints andthe state of Louisiana have agreed to the terms of along-term lease of the Caesars Superdome, but it hasn’tbeen signed because the two sides are still haggling over leases for Benson Tower,Champions Square and the team’s practice facility in Jefferson Parish. The stadium lease deal, whichwould run for10yearsand thengive the Saints options to renew every ﬁve years through 2055, has been ﬁnalized since last week, according to negotiatorsfor theSaints and the state, which is represented by the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, also knownasthe SuperdomeCommission.

But commissionChair Robert Vosbein and Saints spokesperson Gregg Bensel confirmedMondaythatleasesfor the other properties, most notably the Benson Tower skyscraper,are still being negotiated. And while the state has pushed to sign theSuperdome deal andthenmoveonto the other properties later,the Saints say those other agreements, which are worth millions of dollars annually,must be handled along with the Dome lease.

“The stadium deal we are ready to sign now, so that part’sthere,” said Vosbein, alawyer who was appointed last year by Gov.Jeff Landry and has been the state’s primary negotiatorwith Saints

Moreno Thomas Duplessis

“Her answer? ‘Weasked the statelegislative auditortocome in and do the job of the City Coun-

cil,’”hesaid, referring to acouncil resolution Moreno carried last week asking the state investigator review the city’sbooks. “Thatis unacceptable.”

Moreno responded that the LegislativeAuditor’s Office has done yeoman’swork in reviewingfinancial woes at other city agencies, including the OrleansParish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce. In thepast, theofﬁce’s reviews have offered clarity that in turn spurred progress on agency budgets, she said. Morenoalsotagged LaToya Cantrell’sadministration with

ä See DEBATE, page 7A

STAFF PHOTO By DAVIDGRUNFELD

More rentals are available in the university area since Tulane and Loyola students were required to move on campus.

ä See DOME, page 5A

ä See RENTAL, page 7A

BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS

Tiger kills handler during show in Okla

OKLAHOMA CITY A large tiger fa-

tally attacked an animal handler as horriﬁed onlookers watched during the end of a big cat show at a preserve in southeastern Oklahoma, ofﬁcials said Monday Ryan Easley, 37, was dead when deputies arrived Saturday at the Growler Pines Tiger Preserve near Hugo, not far from the Texas border, just minutes after dispatchers received an emergency call, said Choctaw County Sheriff Terry Park.

Park said the tiger unexpectedly started to bite and then shake Easley while the two were inside of a large cage.

“It was a big tiger,” Park said.

“This particular one, he’d had for quite some time.”

Park said Easley’s wife and young daughter were present when the attack occurred.

Messages left Monday with Growler Pines Tiger Preserve were not immediately returned.

“This tragedy is a painful reminder of both the beauty and unpredictability of the natural world,” the preserve said in a statement on its Facebook page.

“Ryan understood those risks — not out of recklessness but out of love. The animals under his care were not just animals to him, but beings he formed a connection with — one rooted in respect, daily care and love.”

All tours have been canceled until further notice, the statement said.

U.N. says 11 kids killed in drone strike in Sudan

CAIRO At least 11 children were killed in a drone strike four days ago that hit a mosque in the besieged city of el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, the U.N children’s agency said Monday.

Local aid groups and activists and the Sudanese army accused the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces of launching the attack during prayers early Friday, killing at least 70 people and leaving many others trapped under the rubble.

Initial reports indicated that at least 11 children between the ages of 6 and 15 were killed and “many more” wounded in the attack, which also damaged nearby homes, said UNICEF’s Executive Director Catherine Russell in Monday’s statement, calling the attack “shocking.”

“The people who were killed were absolutely innocent. They were people seeking shelter, people praying in a mosque. It’s an atrocious, unconscionable act,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Sudan. The strike came as the army and the RSF ﬁght increasingly intense battles as part of the country’s ongoing civil war The war has killed at least 40,000 people, according to the World Health Organization, displaced as many as 12 million others, and pushed many to the brink of famine.

Three doctors died in the attack, according to the Preliminary Committee of Sudan’s Doctors Trade Union and Sudan Doctors Network. They were among 231 medical personnel killed since the war in Sudan broke out, according to Sudan Doctors Network.

San Francisco residents jolted awake by quake BERKELEY, Calif Residents across the San Francisco Bay Area were jolted awake early Monday by a moderate earthquake that was felt widely across the region.

The 4.3 magnitude quake hit shortly before 3 a.m. just eastsoutheast of Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, according to the U.S. Geological Survey No injuries or major damage was reported, but some businesses said windows were broken and merchandise tumbled from shelves.

“Things were shaking in our newsroom,” posted Dave Clark, a news anchor for KTVU-TV “It caught everyone off guard.” Bay Area Rapid Transit trains ran with delays for several hours as crews made safety inspections of the tracks systemwide. BART said trains returned to regular service around midday People reported feeling shaking as far away as Salinas, about 100 miles to the south, according to media reports.

a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

France recognizes Palestinian statehood

Macron speaks at United Nations meeting

BY JOSEPH KRAUSS and FARNOUSH AMIRI Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS As the Gaza war rages

on, France recognized Palestinian statehood on Monday at the start of a highprofile meeting at the United Nations aimed at galvanizing support for a twostate solution to the Mideast conflict. More nations are expected to follow, in deﬁance of Israel and the United States.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement in the U.N. General Assembly hall received loud applause from the more than 140 leaders in attendance.

The Palestinian delegation, including its U.N. ambassador, Riyad Mansour, could be seen standing and applauding as the declaration was made. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, was seen applauding on a live-camera view after the U.S. government banned him from attending the U.N. gathering in person.

“True to the historic commitment of my country to the Middle East, to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, this is why I declare that today France recognizes the state of Palestine,” Macron said

The meeting and expanded recognition of Palestinian statehood are expected to have little if any actual impact on the ground, where Israel is waging another major offensive in the Gaza Strip and expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Macron announced recognition of the state of Palestine at the start of the meeting, at which several world leaders were expected to speak. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the meeting by video after he and dozens of other senior Palestinian ofﬁcials were denied U.S. visas to attend the conference.

U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres said statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward.” That appeared to push back against the Israeli government, which says recognizing statehood rewards Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack that set off the war in Gaza two years ago

The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal recognized the state of Palestine on Sunday, and the Palestinians expect a total of 10 countries to do so in the coming days. Around three-fourths of the 193-member United Nations recognizes Palestine, but major Western na-

tionvhad until recently declined to, saying one could only come about through negotiations with Israel.

Palestinians have welcomed the moves toward recognition, hoping they might someday lead to independence. “This is a beginning, or a glimmer of hope, for the Palestinian people,” Fawzi Nour al-Deen said Sunday as he held a bag on his head, joining thousands of people ﬂeeing south from Gaza City. “We are a people who deserve to have a state.”

The creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war is widely seen internationally as the only way to resolve the conﬂict, which began more than a century before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government opposed Palestinian statehood even before the war and now says such a move would reward Hamas, the militant group that still controls parts of Gaza He has hinted Israel might take unilateral steps in response, including annexing parts of the West Bank, which would put a viable Palestinian state even further out of reach.

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric brushed off such threats, saying efforts to bring about a two-state solution should continue regardless of Israel’s actions. “I think we have to be determined in achieving the goal that we want to achieve, and we cannot be distracted by threats and intimidation,” he said.

Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition to move ahead with annexation, but the United Arab Emirates the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords, in which the UAE and three other Arab states forged ties with Israel has called it a “red line,” without saying how it could affect the two countries’ now close ties.

Netanyahu said he would decide on Israel’s response to the Palestinian statehood push after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House next week, their fourth meeting since Trump returned to ofﬁce. The Israeli leader is set to address world leaders at the U.N. on Friday

The Trump administration is also opposed to growing recognition of a Palestinian state and blames it for the derailment of ceaseﬁre talks with Hamas. Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, walked away from the talks in July, and earlier this month an Israeli strike targeted Hamas negotiators in Qatar a key mediator

Russia willing to abide by nuclear arms deal for 1 year after it expires

BY VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press

MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared his readiness to adhere to nuclear arms limits for one more year under the last remaining nuclear pact with the United States that expires in February, and he urged Washington to follow suit.

Putin said allowing the New START agreement signed in 2010 to expire would be destabilizing and could fuel proliferation of nuclear weapons. His televised remarks came at a time of heightened tensions between Russia and the West, and with concerns rising that ﬁghting in Ukraine could spread beyond its borders

“To avoid provoking a further strategic arms race and to ensure an acceptable level of predictability and restraint, we believe it is justiﬁed to try to maintain the status quo established by the New START Treaty during the current rather turbulent period,” Putin said while speak-

ing from the Kremlin. He said Russia is prepared to stick by the treaty’s limits for one more year after it expires on Feb. 5 Arms control advocates long have voiced concern about the treaty’s looming expiration and the lack of dialogue to secure a successor deal, warning about the possibility of a new nuclear arms race and increased risk of a nuclear conﬂict.

Putin said maintaining limits on nuclear weapons could also be an important step in “creating an atmosphere conducive to substantive strategic dialogue with the U.S.”

The New START, signed by then President Barack Obama and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. The pact also stipulates the need for on-site inspections to verify compliance, although inspections were halted in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.

Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show to return Tuesday

ABC ends host’s suspension over Kirk comments

BY MARK KENNEDY AP entertainment writer

NEW YORK ABC will reinstate Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show in the wake of criticism over his comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, ofﬁcials with the network said Monday

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday,” ABC said a statement.

ABC suspended Kimmel indeﬁnitely on Wednesday after comments he made about Kirk, who was killed Sept. 10, in a monologue.

Kimmel said “many in MAGA land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk” and that “the MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

Kimmel has hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC since 2003 and has been a fixture in television and comedy for even longer He is also well-known as a presenter, having hosted the Academy Awards four times.

Backlash to Kimmel’s comments was swift. Nexstar and Sinclair, two of ABC’s largest affiliate owners, said they would be pulling “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from their stations. Others, including several fellow comedians, came to his defense.

Sinclair said Monday that it would not air Kimmel’s show Tuesday and would broadcast news programming instead.

“Discussions with ABC are ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return,”

the company said. There was no immediate comment from Nexstar on its plans for Kimmel’s return. An dr ew K ol ve t, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Kirk and now headed by his widow, posted on X about Kimmel’s reinstatement: “Disney and ABC caving and allowing Kimmel back on the air is not surprising, but it’s their mistake to make Nexstar and Sinclair do not have to make the same choice.”

Stephen Colbert joyfully reacted to the news during the opening of his “Late Show,” telling his audience that “our long national, late nightmare is over.”

Colbert, whose late show is being canceled by CBS after this season, said he was happy for his friend and the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” staff. Grabbing his recently-won Emmy Award for outstanding talk series, the comedian could hardly contain his glee He added, “Once more, I am the only martyr on late night!”

President Donald Trump, one of Kimmel’s frequent targets posted on social media that Kimmel’s suspension was “great news for America.” He also called for other late night hosts to be fired. He has yet to comment on Kimmel’s reinstatement. Kimmel’s suspension arrived in a time when Trump and his administration have pursued threats, lawsuits and federal government pressure to try to exert more control over the media industry Trump has reached settlements with ABC and CBS over their coverage Trump has also filed defamation lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Republicans in Congress stripped federal funding from NPR and PBS.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By yUKI IWAMURA

French President Emmanuel Macron speaks Monday during a high-profile meeting at the United Nations at U.N. headquarters in New york aimed at galvanizing support for

Trumppushesunproventiesbetween Tylenol, autism

Discredited link between vaccines,disorder also raised

BY ALI SWENSON and AMANDASEITZ Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump on Monday used the platform of the presidency to promote unproven and in some cases discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines and autism as his administration announcedawide-ranging effort to study the causes of the complex brain disorder

“Don’ttakeTylenol,”

Trump instructed pregnant women around adozen times during the unwieldy White House news conference, also urging mothers not to give their infants the drug, known by the generic name acetaminophen. He also fueled long-debunked claims that ingredients in vaccines or timing shots close together couldcontribute to rising rates of autism in the U.S., without providing any medical evidence.

Medical experts said Trump’sremarks were irresponsible.New York University bioethicist Art Caplan said it was “the saddest displayofa lack ofevidence, rumors, recycling old myths, lousyadvice, outright lies anddangerousadvice Ihave ever witnessed by anyone in authority.”

Trump announced during theeventthatthe Foodand Drug Administrationwould begin notifying doctors that theuse of acetaminophen “can be associated”with an increasedriskofautism,but didnot immediately provide justiﬁcation for thenew recommendation.

Some studieshaveraised the possibility thattaking acetaminophen during pregnancymight increase the risk of autism —but many others haven’tfound that concern, said autism expert David Mandell of the University of Pennsylvania

One challenge is thatit’s hard to disentangle the effects of Tylenoluse from the effects of high fevers during pregnancy. Fevers, especially in the ﬁrst trimester, can increase therisk for miscarriages, pretermbirth and other problems, according to theSocietyfor MaternalFetal Medicine.

Trump also urged not giving Tylenol toyoung chil-

The rambling announcement, which appeared to rely on existing studies rather than signiﬁcant new research, comes as the Make America Healthy Again movement hasbeen pushing foranswersonthe causes of autism. The diverse coalition of supporters of HealthSecretary Robert Kennedy Jr.includes several anti-vaccine activists who have long spread debunked claims that immunizations are responsible. The announcement also sheds light on Trump’sown long-held fascination with autism and his trepidation about the childhood vaccine schedule, even as the president has taken pride in his work to disseminateCOVID-19 vaccines during his ﬁrst term.

PresidentDonald

and Human

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Dr.Mehmet Oz listen.

dren, but scientists say that research indicates autism develops in thefetal brain.

Responding to Trump’s warnings, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine said they still recommend Tylenolasanappropriate option to treat fever and pain during pregnancy. The president of the American College of Obstetricians and GynecologistssaidMonday thatsuggestions that Tylenol use in pregnancy causes autism are “irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusingmessagetheysend to pregnant patients.”

Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Monday evening that theadministration “does not believe popping more pills is always the answerfor better health”and that it “willnot be deterred

TrumptomeetwithSchumer, Jeffries as shutdown risk looms

BY LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump will meet with the Democratic leaders in Congress this week ahead of alooming risk of afederal government shutdown Trump has agreed to meet with Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who are insisting on talksas the Democrats work to preserve health care programs as part of any deal to fund the government ahead of next week’sOct. 1deadline. That’saccording to two people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity because they are unauthorized to discuss it. The meet-

ing is set for Thursday,one of the peoplesaid. The chance for Trump and the congressional leaders to open talkscomes at acritical period in the government funding cycle, with just days to go before federal money runs outwith the endof the ﬁscal yearonSept.30. Trumphad left thedoor open to ameeting even as he has also suggested there may be government closures “I’d love to meet with them, but Idon’tthink it’s going to have any impact,” Trump said in an exchange Saturday with reporters Congresshas failedto pass legislation to keep the government running after having deadlockedfollowingrounds of voting late

lastweek. While the House approved aRepublican proposalto keep thefederal government fundedintoNovember, the measure failed in the Senate, wherethe rules can require ahigher 60-votethreshold that means support is needed from Republicans and Democrats. ADemocraticproposal that would have boosted health care funds also failed.

Democrats are working to protect health care programs. TheDemocraticproposalwould extend enhanced healthinsurance subsidies settoexpire at the end of the year,plus reverse Medicaid cuts that wereincluded in Republicans’ bigtax break andspending cutbill enacted earlier this year

DominicanRepublicseizescocaine from

speedboatdestroyedbyU.S.

BY MANUEL RUEDA Associated Press

in these efforts as we know millions across America are grateful.”

Tylenol maker Kenvue disputed any link between the drug and autism on Monday and saidinastatementthat if pregnant mothersdon’t use Tylenolwheninneed, theycould face adangerous choice between suffering fevers or usingriskier painkilleralternatives.Shares of Kenvue Inc. fell 7.5% in trading Monday,reducing the company’smarketvalue by about $2.6 billion.

Kennedy announced during the news conference that at Trump’surging, he was launching anew all-agency effort to uncoverall thefactors that could be contributing to autism, aquestion scientists have been researching for decades.

FDACommissioner Dr MartyMakaryalsotookthe stage to announce it was taking the ﬁrst steps to try to approve afolic acid metabolite called leucovorin as atreatment option forpatients believedtohavelow levels of

folate in the brain. That may include some people with autism. Leucovorinisused to counteract the side effects of various prescription drugs, including chemotherapy and otherhigh-dose medications that can negatively impact theimmune system. It works by boosting folate levels, a form of vitamin Bthat’scritical to the body’sproduction of healthy red blood cells. Women alreadyare told to take folic acid before conception and during pregnancybecause it reduces the chancesofcertain birth defects known as neural tube defects. In recent years ahandful of studies have suggested positive results when highdose folic acid is used to treat childrenwith autism, withresearchers in China and other countries reporting improvements in social skills and other metrics. Those small studies have been quickly embraced by some partsofthe autism community online. The theory is that some, not all, children with autism maynot properlymetabolize folate, Mandell said. But the recent studies “are really tiny,” he said. To prove an effect, “we would need an independent, large, rigorously controlled randomized trial.”

Ofﬁcialssaidthe boat was destroyed about 80 nautical miles south of IslaBeata, a smallislandthatbelongs to theDominican Republic They said the Dominican’s Republic Navy worked in conjunction with U.S. authoritiestolocatethe speedboat which was allegedly tryingtodock in the Dominican Republicand use the nation as a“bridge” to transport cocaine to the United States. “Thisisthe ﬁrst time in his-

BOGOTA,Colombia Authorities in the Dominican Republic said Sunday they have conﬁscated some of the cocaine transported by aspeedboat that was destroyed recently by the U.S. Navy,as the Trump administration carries out acontroversial anti-narcotics mission in the southern Caribbean. In anews conference, the DominicanRepublic’sNational Directorate for Drug Control said it recovered 377 packages of cocaine from the boatwhich wasallegedly carryingabout2,200 pounds of the drug.

tory that the United States andthe DominicanRepublic carry out ajoint operation against narco terrorism in the Caribbean,” thedirectoratesaid in astatement.

In August, theU.S. sent eight warships and asubmarinetothe southern Caribbean, in what theTrump administration has said was amission to fight drug trafficking. The WhiteHouse says the flotilla hasdestroyed three speedboats carrying drugs so far in separate strikesthat have killedmore than adozen people aboard the vessels.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOByMARK SCHIEFELBEIN

Trumpspeaks Monday in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, as Health

Services SecretaryRobertF.KennedyJr.,left, and

High court to decide Trump’s power to shape agencies

BY LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press

WASHINGTON The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider expanding President Donald Trump’s power to shape independent agencies by overturning a nearly century-old decision limiting when presidents can ﬁre board members.

In a 6-3 decision, the high court also allowed the Republican president to carry out the firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, while the case plays out.

The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider expanding President Donald Trump’s power to shape independent agencies by overturning a nearly century-old decision limiting when presidents can fire board members.

That decision ushered in an era of powerful independent federal agencies charged with regulating labor relations, employment discrimination and public airwaves. But it has long rankled conservative legal theorists who argue such agencies should answer to the president.

The Justice Department argues Trump can ﬁre board members for any reason as he works to carry out his agenda. “The President and the government suffer irreparable harm when courts transfer even some of that executive power to ofﬁcers beyond the President’s control,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.

dent regulators removal protections to preserve the integrity of our economy,” her attorneys said in a statement. “Giving the executive branch unchecked power over who sits on these boards and commissions would have seismic implications for our economy that will harm ordinary Americans.”

They have suggested the Federal Reserve might be different, however a prospect expected to be tested by the case of ﬁred Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson,

It’s the latest high-proﬁle ﬁring the court has allowed in recent months, signaling the conservative majority could be poised to overturn or narrow a 1935 Supreme Court decision that found commissioners can only be removed for misconduct or neglect of duty The majority has previously indicated that the president likely has the power to remove board members at will, with some exceptions, because those agencies exercise executive power.

dissented from the decision allowing Slaughter’s firing. It comes after similar decisions affecting three other independent agencies.

“Congress, as everyone agrees, prohibited each of those presidential removals,” Kagan wrote. “Yet the majority, stay order by stay order, has handed full control of all those agencies to the President.”

The justices are expected

to hear arguments in December over whether to overturn a 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor

In that case, the court sided with another FTC commissioner who was ﬁred by Franklin D. Roosevelt as the president worked to implement the New Deal. The justices unanimously found commissioners can be removed only for misconduct or neglect of duty.

He also argued that judges don’t have the power to reinstate people Justice Neil Gorsuch struck a similar note in February writing that ﬁred employees who win in court can likely get back pay, but not reinstatement.

But Slaughter’s attorneys say that if the president can fire congressionally confirmed board members at will, regulatory decisions will be based more on politics than their expertise.

“Congress gave indepen-

The court will hear arguments unusually early in the process, before the case has fully worked its way through lower courts. The court rejected a push from two other board members of independent agencies who had asked the justices to also hear their cases if they took up the Slaughter case: Gwynne Wilcox, of the National Labor Relations Board, and Cathy Harris, of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Those cases will continue to work their way through the lower courts. The FTC is a regulator enforcing consumer protection measures and antitrust legislation. The NLRB investigates unfair labor practices and oversees union elections, while the MSPB reviews disputes from federal workers.

White House backs ‘border czar’ amid bribery scandal

Reports say Homan accepted cash during FBI probe last year

BY ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press

WASHINGTON The White House stood behind “border czar” Tom Homan on Monday following reports that he had accepted $50,000 from undercover agents posing as businesspeople during an undercover FBI operation last year, leading to a bribery investigation that was shut down by the Trump administration Justice Department. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents as an effort by the Biden administration to “entrap one of the president’s top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well

would be taking a government position.”

“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong, and he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border,” she said.

MSNBC first reported Saturday that Homan had accepted the cash during a 2024 encounter with undercover agents who were posing as businesspeople seeking government contracts that Homan suggested he could help them get in a second Trump term.

Justice Department, which shut down the probe, said the matter was “subjected to a full review,” but authorities found “no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.”

Without providing evidence, the White House criticized the Biden administration investigation as politically motivated.

“The Department’s resources must remain focused on real threats to the American people, not baseless investigations,” FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement. “As a result, the investigation has been closed.”

concerns about political interference in Justice Department matters at a time when Trump’s calls for prosecutions of his adversaries is testing the law enforcement agency’s long tradition of independence when it comes to prosecutorial decisionmaking. Trump escalated his pressure campaign on the Justice Department over the weekend, publicly calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to move forward with cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff. “See what happened to

Tom Homan, his border czar, who literally accepted a bag of cash —$50,000 — and the investigation was dropped once Trump became president,” Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said on ABC News. “There are just two standards of justice now in this country If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president you can get away with nearly anything but if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.” Homan came under Justice Department scrutiny after a target of a separate investigation suggested Homan was soliciting bribes, one of the people who confirmed details of the investigation told the AP White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Homan “has not been involved with any contract award decisions.” “This blatantly political investigation, which found no evidence of illegal activity, is yet another example of how the Biden Department of Justice was using its resources to target President Trump’s allies rather than investigate real criminals and the millions of illegal aliens who flooded our country,” Jackson said in a statement.

Two people familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to discuss a sensitive law enforcement inquiry by name, conﬁrmed the existence of the investigation to The Associated Press on Monday as well as details from it.

The Trump administration

Leavitt insisted to reporters during a brieﬁng Monday that Homan “never took the $50,000 you’re referring to,” though she did not elaborate what she meant An MSNBC spokesperson said the network stood by its reporting.

The revelation about Homan has sparked fresh

U.K. charities cut ties to Sarah Ferguson for reportedly calling Epstein a ‘friend’

BY DANICA KIRKA Associated Press

LONDON A number of charities on Monday severed ties with Sarah Ferguson, the exwife of Prince Andrew after British newspapers published an email that she reportedly wrote to the late convicted sex offender and ﬁnancier

Jeffrey Epstein, describing him as a “supreme friend.”

Press Association reported.

Julia’s House, a children’s hospice, said that the reported correspondence made it inappropriate for Ferguson, also known as the Duchess of York, to remain a patron A spokesman for Ferguson said that she sent an email on the advice of her lawyers after Epstein threatened to sue her for associating him with sexual abuse in a media interview, Britain’s

By The Associated Press

“Following the information shared this weekend on the Duchess of York’s correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, Julia’s House has taken the decision that it would be inappropriate for her to continue as a patron of the charity,” the charity said. “We have advised the Duchess of York of this decision and thank her for her past support.”

A food allergy charity, The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, and Prevent Breast Cancer, were also among the charities that cut ties in light of recent revelations. The Teenage Cancer Trust, which had an association with Ferguson for 35 years, also dropped her as a patron. The email referred to a 2011 interview with the Eve-

ning Standard newspaper in which she apologized for accepting 15,000 pounds from Epstein.

“I abhor pedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf. I am just so contrite I cannot say,” Ferguson said in the interview “Whenever I can, I will repay the money and have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.”

But the following month, Ferguson sent an email to Epstein in which she “humbly apologized” for linking him to sex abuse saying “you have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family,” The Sun newspaper reported over the weekend.

The Associated Press couldn’t independently conﬁrm that the email is authentic.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By J SCOTT APPLEWHITE

Ferguson

Homan

Officialsdenyallegations aboutICE facility

Hunger strike, inhumane conditions reported at ‘Louisiana Lockup’

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

After advocacygroupssaid

some U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees at the “Louisiana Lockup” were on a hunger strike to protestinhumane conditions, stateand federalofﬁcials havedeniedthatthe strike happened or the conditions were dangerous.

The Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition and the National Immigration Project on Saturday said detainees had started the strike last week, protesting what they said was alack of medical care and basic hygiene projects. In astatement Monday afternoon, the Department of Public Safety and Corrections deniedthe allegations.

“Recent misleading reports about detainee treatment at Louisiana Lockup and Camp 57 are

57, known as the ‘Louisiana

opened insidethe Louisiana State PenitentiaryatAngola to house ICE detainees.

unacceptable andcreatea false narrative about thefacility’s operations,” the statement said. LouisianaLockup,formally known as Camp 57, is located inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. There was no hungerstrike before news outlets reported one, officials said. On Sunday,after

thereports emerged, 17 detainees refused their meals, though only three continued to do so by Monday afternoon, thestatementsaid.

“This action appears to have been sparked by false narratives in the media that put that ideain thedetainees’ heads,”itsaid.

Southeast DignityNot Detention

Coalition, the advocacy group that reported thestrike, maintains that one is ongoing.

“The men detainedinCamp Jare bravely —and with great thought and intention —putting their lives on thelinetoadvocatefor their rights,”the group said in astatement, usingthe former name of theprison wing being used to house ICE detainees.

Camp 57 opened earlier this monthaspart of President Donald Trump’ssprawling campaign to detain and deport immigrants. Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also denied the advocacy groups’ allegations in astatement Monday “Here are thefacts: there is no hungerstrike at Louisiana Lockup. Unfortunately, this isn’tthe ﬁrst time, nor will it be the last, that the media repeats unsubstantiated, false allegations peddled by criminal illegal aliens about detention facilities,” she said. “Bythe way, this facility is housing the WORST OF THEWORST including murderers, pedophiles, and rapists.” Last week,before newsofthe hunger strike emerged,the corrections departmentreferred

inquiriesabout Camp 57 to ICE. Though Camp 57 is locatedat Angola, whichisoperated by the state, officials have said it is being run by ICE contractors, though they havenot publiclyidentified what company is doing so. LaSalle Corrections, acompany that runs multiple ICEfacilities in Louisiana,recentlypublishedjob postings in St. Francisville, near Angola. An executive for the firm did notreturn requests forcomment. Officials including Gov.Jeff Landry have promised the facility is forthe “worst of the worst.” Fifty-one detainees were moved to the facility upon its opening, according to the Department of HomelandSecurity,which oversees ICE. The agency said the detainees had been convicted of serious crimes such as homicide, rape and sexual abuse of children. Federal andstate officials have notansweredrecentquestions aboutwho else has been moved to thefacilityoverthe past several weeks.

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

representatives.

“We’re standing by but we’re not goingtogive in on the rest,” said Vosbein, referring to the real estate deals. “It’sabalance: You don’t want to lose the Saints which are an important part of this community,but at the same time you want adeal that is fair to the public.” Bensel said theSaintsare ready to finalize an agreement that “keeps the New Orleans Saints in Louisiana for generations,” helps improve the Superdomeand delivers “meaningful economic benefit to thecommunity.”

But he said that to do that, all of the leases need to be signed together,because splitting them up “creates financial and operational risks for both the team and the state.”

Thenegotiating bottlenecks stem from a2009 stadium dealnegotiated by Saints owner TomBenson when Bobby Jindal was governor and Ron Forman was chair of the Superdome Commission.

The terms of that deal were described at the time by Forbes Magazine, which closely tracks NFL team deals and valuations, as “the most complex —and lucrative —stadium lease agreements in the NFL.” That deal included provisions such as a$5million bonus for the Saints when the stadium is chosen to host aSuper Bowl. Also, a 42% share of game day food and beverage revenues, a share of non-football event revenues, ashare of the stadium naming rights, apiece of the parkingrevenue and rents from the Champions Square space.

The state alsoagreed to rent space in the Benson

Tower,the building near the Superdome owned by the Benson organization and mostly occupied by Louisiana state agencies. In 2014, Daryl Purpera, then the Louisiana legislative auditor,saidina report that the rental ratesfor thestate at Benson Tower started out above market and continued at abovemarket rates.

“Because the Benson Tower lease has aprovision that grants automatic rental increases in keeping with the ConsumerPrice Index, the 2014 cost persquare foot has increased to $25.12,” Purpura wrotethen. This meant that since 2010, “lease costs including amounts paid for vacant space have nearly doubled,” and were then morethan 30% above market rate

Those increases havecontinued, and BensonTower’s rental ratesfor Louisiana stateagencies as of March this year were $32.50 per square foot, covering almost allofthe available space, according to current Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack.Though that includes compensation for some upgradesmadebyBenson,it is still above rental rates for top of thelineofﬁce space

in downtown New Orleans, which according to consulting ﬁrm Goodwin Advisors averaged $20.67 per square foot last month.

Bensel disputed that rents for the Benson Tower are above market rate, and said that when parking, operating expenses and other concessions are included, “the effective rate tracksother downtownoffice leasesin New Orleans.”

“This is not the opinion of the team nor Forbes Magazine but instead local real estate experts that deal in this marketdaily,” he said, adding that the Saints have given the state “multiple examples” of comparable leaseagreementsinNew Orleans.

“Tying BensonTower and Champions Square to the broader stadium arrangementisnot awindfall,” said Bensel. “It is the financial backbone that makes the overall package workina smallNFL market likeNew Orleans.”

In all, theofﬁce space at Benson Tower is costing the state $10.3 million this year, according to Waguespack.

Shane Guidry,abusiness owner andclose confidant of Landry’swho has been li-

aison between the state’snegotiators and the governor, expressed frustration at the Saints’ negotiating position. “Weare ready to sign

the actual Saints extensionfor the team,”Guidry said. “They don’twant to sign the Saints lease unless they know they have a locked-inlease forBenson Tower (and) for Champions Square.”

Benson’s2009 deal included aclause that automatically renewsthe Benson Tower deal at thesame terms and for the same length of any new stadium deal.And it has terms that mean if thestate defaultsoncertainprovisions then the stadium lease defaults.

The state hasbeentrying to “decouple” those side agreements,whichrun through the end of 2029, from the stadium deal, but the Saints have stood ﬁrm “It’stwo separate pieces of real estate for different purposes,”saidWaguespack. “From an auditor’s

standpoint, it should be two separate deals, unless the package is abetter deal for taxpayers, and Idon’tthink it is.” The standoffbetween the twosideshas kept the final agreements from being signed for weeks even as they appeared to be close to adeal. In recent days, the difficulties in finalizing the leases has jeopardized New Orleans’ chances of hosting the 2031 Super Bowl because of adeadline set by the NFL. If the city can’tbid on the 2031 game, scheduling issues wouldlikelyprevent NewOrleans from hosting until 2038, though the Saints havesaid that should adeal be finalized soon,Gayle Bensoncouldseekapprovalfor the city to bid on 2031 from NFLCommissioner Roger Goodell.

STAFF PHOTO By HILARySCHEINUK Camp

Lockup,’was

BRIEFS

Nvidia will invest $100B in OpenAI

Chipmaker Nvidia will invest $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a partnership announced Monday that will add at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia AI data centers to ramp up the computing power for the owner of the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT

Per the letter of intent signed by the companies, the ﬁrst gigawatt of Nvidia systems will be deployed in the second half of 2026 Nvidia and OpenAI said they would be ﬁnalizing the details of the arrangement in the coming weeks.

“This partnership complements the deep work OpenAI and Nvidia are already doing with a broad network of collaborators including Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank and Stargate partners, focused on building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure,” the companies said in a release Those companies pledged to invest at least $100 billion in building data centers for OpenAI in January

The Nvidia-OpenAI partnership also comes about 10 days after OpenAI said it had reached a new tentative agreement that will give Microsoft a $100 billion equity stake in its for-proﬁt corporation. OpenAI is technically controlled by its nonproﬁt.

Speaking on CNBC, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the new data centers that Nvidia will build are in addition to the previously announced projects.

“Building this infrastructure is critical to everything we want to do,” Altman said Stocks set records as rally keeps rolling

The seemingly relentless rally on Wall Street drove U.S. stocks to more records on Monday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% after erasing a modest loss from the morning. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 66 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.7%. It’s the third straight day where all three indexes set an all-time high.

“Every time the market seems to be running out of momentum, it fools most of us by pushing to higher heights,” said Jay Woods chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets

Some of the market’s sharpest action was among companies agreeing to buy one another.

Pﬁzer said it would buy Metsera and its pipeline of medicines to potentially treat obesity in a deal initially valuing it at $4.9 billion. The payout for Metsera investors could go up sharply if its candidates win approval from federal regulators and achieve other milestones.

Metsera’s stock jumped 60.7%, and Pﬁzer’s edged up by less than 0.1%.

ODP, which runs Ofﬁce Depot and Ofﬁce Max, leaped 32.9% after Atlas Holdings agreed to buy it in a deal valued at roughly $1 billion.

More recalls for possible shrimp contamination

A Seattle seafood distributor has recalled more cooked and frozen shrimp sold at Kroger grocery stores across the U.S. because of ongoing concerns about potential radioactive contamination.

Aquastar Corp. on Saturday recalled nearly 157,000 additional pounds of shrimp because of possible contamination with cesium 137, a radioactive isotope. The new recall includes nearly 50,000 bags of Kroger Raw Colossal EZ Peel Shrimp, about 18,000 bags of Kroger Mercado Cooked Medium Peeled Tail-Off Shrimp and more than 17,000 bags of AquaStar Peeled Tail-on Shrimp Skewers. The products were sold between June 12 and Sept. 17 at grocery stores in more than 30 states. They include Bakers City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Foodsco, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, Gerbes, Jay C, King Soopers, Kroger, Mariano’s, Metro Market, Pay Less Supermarkets Pick ‘n Save Ralph’s Smith’s and QFC.

BUSINESS

NOLA.COM/BIZ

Oracle to manage TikTok, official says

White House says tech giant will be in charge of security

BY MICHAEL LIEDTKE and CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Tech giant Oracle will spearhead U.S. oversight of the algorithm and security underlying TikTok’s video popular platform under the terms of a deal laid out Monday by President Donald Trump’s administration. All the ﬁnal details still need to

be nailed down among several joint venture partners that will include Oracle, investment firm Silver Lake Partners and possibly two billionaires — media mogul Rupert Murdoch and personal computer pioneer Michael Dell. The U.S. administration would not have a stake in the joint venture nor be part of its board, according to a senior White House ofﬁcial. The proposal is aimed at resolving a long-running effort to wrest TikTok’s U.S. operations from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, because of national security concerns. It’s part of an agreement forged between Trump

and China President Xi Jinping while the two leaders continue to spar in a trade war that’s roiled the global economy for much of the year

For now, the two sides are progressing on a framework deal that calls for a consortium of investors, including Oracle and Silver Lake, to take over the U.S operations of TikTok in a process that might not be completed until early next year under a timeline laid out Monday by the Trump administration. That could mean TikTok’s divestment might not be completed until a year after it was supposed to be banned under a law that had bipar-

tisan support but was repeatedly bypassed by Trump. Under the current terms of the proposal, the new U.S. joint venture would receive a licensed copy of the recommendation algorithm that keeps TikTok users endlessly scrolling through clips on their smartphones. Oracle would review, monitor and secure U.S. data ﬂowing through the service. American officials have previously warned that ByteDance’s algorithm is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difﬁcult to detect.

Time running out on clean energy tax credits, incentives

U.S. residents have saved thousands, but experts say take advantage now

BY CALEIGH WELLS Associated Press

Tax incentives that saved U.S. residents thousands of dollars on home efﬁciency upgrades, clean energy installations and electric vehicles are expiring this year That means people who want to take advantage of them before they disappear have to act quickly

“There is still time, but the clock is ticking,” said Zach Pierce, head of policy at Rewiring America, a nonproﬁt focused on electriﬁcation

The Inﬂation Reduction Act that passed in 2022 includes a slew of tax credits for electric vehicles and home efﬁciency upgrades.

The credits had two main goals: to help people afford cleaner alternatives like heat pumps and electric vehicles that can save them money, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are the largest driver of climate change.

In addition to EVs, home upgrades that qualify include home energy audits, heat pumps, solar panels, water heaters, appliances, battery storage, car chargers and improvements to windows, doors, skylights, insulation and electrical panels.

Payback comes at tax ﬁling time. For example, if you buy a heat pump and qualify for a $2,000 tax credit, you document that expense on your tax return, and you owe $2,000 less in taxes that year

Some incentives have a cap. You can only get $1,200 of credit per year for most of home improvements like insulation and efﬁcient windows, and $2,000 of credit for heat pumps and water heaters. The big expenses, including geothermal heat pumps, rooftop solar and battery storage, aren’t capped. Those tax credits are 30% of the purchase price. So a new $20,000 rooftop solar system earns you a $6,000 tax credit.

Most of these credits were originally set to expire between 2032 and 2034. But the budget passed by Congress this year ends them far sooner Most of them expire at the end of this year

But there are some exceptions.

The clean vehicle tax credit worth $7,500 for new EVs and up to $4,000 for used ones expires Sept. 30.

Pierce said with a deadline that tight, people shopping for a new vehicle that qualiﬁes should get on that “as soon as you hear this message.”

Olivia Alves, senior associate with the nonproﬁt clean energy advocacy group RMI, said it’s also the one IRA credit you can typically get upfront. “You use the clean vehicle tax credit, you can work with your dealership to get that money off the day that you make the purchase. So it operates like a point of sale rebate,” she said.

The car doesn’t need to be parked in your

a lot of these types of retroﬁts,” she said. “Those are done by professionals that can help you map out what those projects would look like.”

Pierce said after that, if solar panels are in the game plan, tackle that next. But some solar installers are already booked through the end of the year

“We are seeing more bottlenecks for rooftop solar installations than we are for heat pumps, for example, but that doesn’t mean that it may not be an option for your region or your neighborhood,” Pierce said.

“Experts estimate that it takes 60 to 90 days to get a solar panels system installed, and that’s quick,” said Kate Ashford, investing specialist with the personal ﬁnance company NerdWallet. “You might be a little late, but you could look into it to see if it’s even possible.”

Alves said next, tackle smaller installations like doors and insulation. Her ﬁnal tier is major appliances like heat pumps, which are more expensive and can take longer, but may not face the same backlog as solar installations.

driveway by the deadline. A buyer simply needs to enter into a contract and make a down payment or trade-in to qualify

The credit for EV chargers, which is up to $1,000 for qualifying residents, is good through June 30 of next year Everything else expires on Dec. 31. What to prioritize

Start with the home energy assessment, Alves said.

“That is really the bread and butter for

OK, let’s say you qualiﬁed for tax credits on a home efﬁciency improvement and the amount exceeded the tax you owed. You weren’t allowed to carry that unused credit forward into a future year anyway

But credits for residential clean energy projects — think really big-ticket items like solar, geothermal heat pumps and battery storage — could be carried forward if you didn’t get the full beneﬁt of the incentive on your tax return.

Trump’s Federal Reserve appointee seeks steeper rate cuts

BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP economics writer

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump’s appointee to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors said Monday that the central bank’s key interest rate should be much lower than its current 4.1% level, staking out a position far different than his colleagues.

Stephen Miran, who is also a top economic adviser to Trump, said in remarks to the Economic Club of New York that

sharp declines in immigration, rising tariff revenue, and an aging population all suggest that the Fed’s rate should be closer to 2.5% instead. According to projections released last week, that’s almost a full percentage point lower than any of his 18 colleagues on the Fed’s rate-setting committee, an unusually high divergence. Miran’s comments underscore the different perspective he brings to the Fed’s deliberations over interest rate policy His appointment has been controversial because he has kept his position as the head of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers while taking unpaid leave, raising concerns about the Fed’s traditional independence

from day-to-day politics. His term on the Fed’s board expires in January, and Miran has said he expects to return to the White House after that, and is keeping his position because his Fed term is so short. But he could remain on the board until a successor is appointed. There hasn’t been a member of the executive branch on the Fed’s board since the 1930s. Concerns about the Fed’s independence are heightened because Trump has also repeatedly attacked Chair Jerome Powell and has called for the Fed to reduce its rate to as low as 1.2%. He is now seeking to fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor who has fought her removal in the courts. It is the ﬁrst

time that a president has tried to fire a Fed governor So far, courts have ruled that Cook can keep her job while her suit seeking to overturn her firing is considered. The Trump administration has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. During a question-and-answer session Monday, Miran said he would operate independently and that Trump had not pushed him to follow any specific policy

“At the end of the day I make my own analysis based on my own understanding of economics and how the economy works,” Miran said. In his conversations with Trump, the president “never asked me to set policy in a speciﬁc way.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTOS

A new $20,000 rooftop solar system can earn a $6,000 tax credit, but that expires at the end of the year

“When youhave hundreds of students who used to live in the neighborhood move back on to campus, it is 100% going to impact themarket,” he said. “It’snot even aquestion.”

Tulane has spent more than $200 million over the past five years building new dorms andreplacingold ones that now can house as many as 5,000 students, or roughly 60% of the undergraduatestudent body,on the university’sUptown campus. Students who started attending Tulane in 2023 and later are required to adhere to the new rules, which requires students to live on campus through their junior year

Loyola University alsorequires students to live on campus for their ﬁrst three years andopened anew residence hall in August

Theuniversities have said the policies are driven in part by a desire to enhance students’ oncampus experience. So far,it’s working, according to Sarah Cunningham, Tulane’s vice president of Student Affairs.

“The new residence halls are vibrant communities designed to support student wellness, foster connection and enhance academic success,” Cunningham said.“Tulane has built more than just places to live; we’ve created places where students cantruly belong, grow and make lifelong memories.”

The change was also driven by tensions with the neighborhood. Though nearby resident have lived next to Tulane students for decades, they have become increasingly vocal in recent years about the proliferation of “doubles-to-dorms” —older duplex and doubles that are converted into student housing complexes with

as manyas12bedrooms

Residents who fought theD2D phenomenon for several years— ultimately helping secure passage of azoning change that makes it harder,though notimpossible,to build D2Ds —say they’re glad to see the D2Ds sittingvacant.

“The ones on my street have been empty for months now and we loveit,”saidMelinda Alfonso, whose HillaryStreet block has three D2Ds and issurrounded on nearby streets with several others.

Debra Howell, aboard member of MapleArea Residents Inc.,

“I

DEBRA HOWELL, Maple Area Residents Inc. boardmember

which has frequently clashed with Tulane over neighborhood issues, said thequalityoflife in the neighborhood is much improved, with quieter streets, more available

parking andless trash.

But she is concerned about the long-term fallout from the glut of rental units on themarket.

“I am hoping it will revert back to just beinga normalneighborhood again, with houses that families can afford to rent or buy,” she said.

Meyer said property owners are hurting.His threerentals are traditional, two-family houses, not D2Ds. Five of his six units are leased, though one is vacant until January

“We’ve known forayear this

was coming,” he said. “But it’sa struggle and the further you are from campus,the harderitisto ﬁnd tenants.”

Meyersaidheappreciates that Tulane is trying to address longsimmering tensions with neighbors by requiring morestudents to live on campus.

“But Ialso am cognizant of the fact that students make up alot of residents of this neighborhood, and it is ashame to have so many vacancies around,” he added.

Rental rates forapartments in the area are currently averaging about $1.89 per square foot, according to Sterbcow,who said data wasnot immediatelyavailabletocompare that rate with last year’s. Also making it difﬁcult to do price comparisons is that manyD2Ds and larger student complexes are rented by thebedroom, while some apartments arerentedascomplete units. Buthesaid there is reason for property owner to be concerned, especially in asluggish real estate market that has shown little growth in recent years andisfacing escalating insurance rates.

“It’svery bad from amarket perspective, because when landlords get nice rents, they have money to repair andmaintain andupgrade their apartments,” he said. “So when they’re not collecting rent, it’sabig issue forsure.”

The situation is expected to change somewhat in the spring semester,when hundreds of Tulane’s juniors, currently spending their fall semester studying abroad, return to campus.

Tulane spokesperson Mike Strecker said while Tulane’sdorms can accommodate “many of theremaining students, once we reach capacity,somemay be allowed to live off campus.”

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

responsibility for thebudget woes.

“Sen. Duplessis should know that midyear cuts, when those come around, that’s actually the responsibility of the executive branch,” she said. She added that the council had worked to ﬁnd cuts nonetheless even as administration officials provided different estimates of the budget deﬁcits.

On aquestionabout how to inject energyinto the economy of NewOrleans East, council member Oliver Thomas,whose district encompasses that area, saidhe wouldbethe ﬁrst mayorto set up astandalone economic development ofﬁce there.

Both Moreno and Duplessis touted beneﬁts of amajor port expansion project to the area.

The televised exchange followed an even more contentious debate last Tuesday evening on WWL-TV,which marked the start of aconfrontationalnew tone of the race as Duplessis soughtto make headway by flinging attacks at Moreno

Morenohas consistently polled near or above 50% in the race, prompting analysts to wonder whether she might win the election outright on Oct. 11. Arunoff would be held Nov.15ifnecessary

Near theend of Monday’s debate, each candidatewas asked aquestion abouttheir lawmaking record Duplessis was asked whetherhestood by his voteagainst 2023 legislation to toughen the state’smaximumpenaltyfor fentanyl dealers to life in prison.

“Since I’ve beeninthe Legislature, I’ve alwaystried to focus on the rootcause, to focus on what leads aperson to usedrugs,” he replied.

“We’ve known that stiffer penalties will notsavealife. That’swhy I’ve been pushingfor more fundsfor a mental health hospital, for better services for others.”

Thomas was askedabout hisvote to support acontroversial trashcontract held by one of his supporters and politicaldonors,TroyHenry,

and thefact thatasubcontractor on that deal,Richard’s Disposal, donated $5,000 to his campaign account.

“Thatcampaign contribution will have nothing to do with howIrun my ofﬁce,” Thomas said. “I didn’tscore (the contract), Ididn’tsit on the selection committee for that contract. The people whoselected them said they won it fair andsquare in terms of the awarding of the contract. No campaign contributionwill interfere politically with howI run this city.”

Moreno was asked about a2022 ordinance she sponsored thatbarscouncil members and candidates from receiving campaign contributionsfrom anyone with city contracts awarded by the council. Swanson

asked if Moreno had violated her own ordinance by acceptinga campaign donation from aﬁrm hired by thecity in April to fixroads, CDM Smith.

Peraseparate2022 ordinance, thecouncil must sign off on professional service contracts theadministration inks that are worth more than $1 million.The council separately enters into its ownprofessional contracts, forutility consulting services,meetings management and other needs.

“The ethics ordinance is incredibly important,” Moreno replied, adding that having it in place to bar contributions by the council’s utilitycontractors are “the most important” to show there is no “interference.”

“I’m notexactly sure about the contribution that you’re talkingabout,” she added, “but obviously if there’sbeen any type of error,we’rehappy to return that contribution. That’snot aproblem at all.”

Email James Finn at jﬁnn@theadvocate.com.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By JOHN McCUSKER

Tulane Universityhas spent more than $200 millionoverthe past five years building newdorms and replacing old ones that nowcan house as many as 5,000 students.

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SEPTEMBER 2025

JanRisher

LOUISIANA AT LARGE

Aliving statue with aheart

On Friday,Idrove to the French Quarter with no plans no settime, no person to meet, no reservation. Thelack of plans was glorious.

My goal was to meet someone interesting enough to writea column about. Ihad mentioned to aco-worker that Iwould love to meet one of the painted people who pose like statues in the French Quarter. However Irealized learningtheir stories mightbedifﬁcult since their whole schtick was not moving or talking.

On Decatur Street, Itried to speak with atap dancer,but he said, “No ma’am, time is money.” Iunderstood. Undeterred, Ikept walking. Jackson Square was right around the corner.Aband was playing underatent in front of the Cabildo. Alone psychic baked in the sun. The henna artist was working on amother and daughter’s hands.

Iwalked around the corner, heading toward Café du Monde. Artists were painting and selling their wares against the wroughtiron fence. Imade it midway through and, lo and behold, there was the Gold Man, his face unpainted, just sitting in afolding chair having an 11 a.m. beer Time wasn’tyet money for him. As Ilater learned, he was waiting for the shade.

The Gold Man was more than happy to chat.

He told me his name was Tim Evans. He’s55and grew up a military brat but considers San Pedro, California, his home. He ended up in New Orleans 30 years ago when he ran out of gas.

“From running out of gas, how did you become the Gold Man?” Iasked.

“I met the silver people,” he said.“Ididn’thave ajob. Ihad no income at all. So they said, ‘Well, you could busk.’ They painted me up in gold —one of the silver people painted me. Iwas the ﬁrst, the original Gold Man.” He never gave me afullanswer on how long he works aday, but he said, “It’snot long.” He said he used to work repairing iron fences —but that the work he does now as aperformance artistiseasier and more fun

He appreciates the friends he’s made in New Orleans.

“I got alot of friends,” he said. “Everybody knows my name. It’s agood feeling to walk down the street.”

He doesn’tlive far from Jackson Square. He was homeless for awhile, but now he has ahouse witha washer and adryer

“Moving on up,” he said tothe rhythm of “The Jeffersons,” and we both sang, “to the East Side.”

His “new”Gold Man pose was born of necessity after ahalf-ton truck ran over him on Bourbon Street.

“While Iwas posing. Ididn’t see him coming,” Evans said. “Busted both my legs.” These days, Evans stands and walks as little as possible.

He said the hardest thing he does every day is walking home after work.

For his pose, he lies down on the ground (on apiece of cardboard actually,because as he explained, “The concreteishot”).

He rests his head on one beer can, painted gold, and holds another as if to drink it, while holding afootball (also painted gold) in his right hand and the tips bucket between his legs, where an unpainted, half-ﬁnished beer also rests.

Cantrell withdrawstriprequest

Move comesasher federalcorruptioncaseprogresses

BY MARCO CARTOLANO Staff writer

Mayor LaToyaCantrellwithdrew her request to ajudge to allowher tovacation in Iceland for aweek as her federalcorruption caseprogressesinNew Orleans

On Friday,U.S.Magistrate JudgeKaren WellsRoby ruled that Cantrell’stravel request was moot after shewas notiﬁed of Cantrell’sdesire to withdraw it, according to court records. The mayor’sdecision to with-

drawhertravelrequestfollowed

“several telephone conferences with the parties,”Roby wrote in herorder.

Cantrell made the request weeks after she barred from traveling abroad while the case is ongoing, unless grantedpermissionbythe court.

Cantrell would have gone on thetrip with family members fromOct. 7toOct. 13, accordingtocourtdocuments.The U.S. Attorney’s Ofﬁce and Cantrell’s pretrial servicesofﬁcerraised

no objections In an indictment ﬁled against Cantrell in August, federal prosecutors highlighted several foreign and domestictrips shetook with her former police bodyguardJeffreyVappie,who prosecutors allege she had aromantic relationship with. The federal indictment against thepair also spotlightstheir useofa cityowned apartment building and accuses themoflying to agrand jury about their entanglement. Both have pleaded not guilty

Earlystart

to the charges, and atrial is set for Oct. 19, 2026. While Cantrell hasnot spoken publiclyonthe indictment, the mayor has said thetrips were avital part of her job as the city’schief promoter, andthatVappie was present for her protection. Vappie’sattorneys have said he is being unfairly maligned by prosecutors.

Cantrell has also come under heavy criticism in the ﬁnal years of her second term for herregulartravel to forums and conferences, which cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Residents debate grainfacility’simpact

Lower9th community meeting addresses port property concerns

BY DESIREESTENNETT Staff writer

Ayear after Lower 9th Ward and Holy Cross residents learned agrain terminal was comingto the port propertyintheir neighborhood, more than 100 residents packed into acommunity meeting Monday evening ahead of thefacility’s planned openingthis fall.

As with previouscommunity engagement meetings hostedby thePort of New Orleans,neighbors opposed tothe project again gathered in protest to demand answers to questions about its impacts. Butsomeresidents were optimistic theeconomic benefit could reactivate theriverfront and bringnew life to the neighborhood.

Spreadout across ﬁverooms in theSanchez Multi-Service Center on Fats Domino Avenue,residents couldgofromone room to another to speakwith representatives from the port, Sunrise Foods International, the Canadiancompany that will operate the facility,

andNorfolk SouthernRailway, which will operate the trains used to moveseveral tons or organic grain per week.

For the ﬁrst hour,people trickled in and shared how they wanted Sunrise Foodstogive back to the community,and they heard about the publicly-accessibleair quality monitoring systemthe company will utilize.

Keisha Henry,alifelong resident of Holy Cross, said she is welcoming the project. Sunrise Foods, she said, is just one company,but if it can help bring business back to the area maybe other companies will follow “I remember when we had

15,000 peopledown here. Iremember when commerce was a thing. Iremember when they had buildings andstores, everything within the community,” she said. “Sothe factthat commerce is coming back into our neighborhoods is astep toward reactivating and bringing people back.” By 5p.m., more than 100residents —most in opposition —had packed theroomsinside theSanchez Center

With questions printed on cards, they attempted to ask for information one after another Port ofﬁcials then stopped taking

See GRAIN, page 2B

Patients warned of potentialhigher costsamidUHC negotiations

BY EMILY WOODRUFF Staff writer

UnitedHealthcare, Louisiana’s second-largest private health insuranceprovider, warned customersinaletter that LCMC Health hospitals could be droppedfromin-network coverage, forcing patients to pay higher costs, if the two sides can’t quicklyagree onanew contract.

Theletter,whichcomes as UHCand LCMCare engaged in high-stakes negotiations over how much local hospitals will receive for their services from the insurance giant, was sent earlier this month to UHC customers who were treated at LCMC facilities and enrolled in employersponsored plans. UHC toldits customers that without adeal, LCMC hospitals would be treated as

Defenseclaims Morris made ‘innocentmistake’

BY JOHN SIMERMAN Staff writer

cused of falsifying records to cover up acrash in his public vehicle. Hisattorney told ajury that Morris had made a“perfectly innocent mistake” in blaming the other driver,and that political opponentshavesince

parlayed it into acriminal case. Criminal District Judge Simone Levine swore in ajury of four women and two menabout 3:15 p.m. Monday,and alongawaited trial beganfor Morris, 39, who resigned in 2023 as executive director of the Orleans ParishCommunication District. Agrand jury indictment accuseshim of malfeasance in ofﬁce, falseimpersonation of a peace ofﬁcer,insurance fraud and second-degree injuring of public records The charges stem in part

STAFFPHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Members of the Tulane cross-countryteamcooldownafter finishing sprints during an early morning practiceatThe FlyinNew Orleans on Friday

Jefferson Parish opens Section 8 waitlist

Residents encouraged to apply for vouchers

BY LARA NICHOLSON Staff writer

Jefferson Parish resi-

dents in need of housing assistance have the rare opportunity to get on the parish’s waitlist for its Housing Choice Voucher Program, commonly known as Section 8, through Tuesday

The Jefferson Parish

GRAIN

Continued from page 1B

questions, and Harbor Police officers guarded the doors to manage the room capacity, allowing new people to enter as others left. A group of residents assembled outside in protest shouting “no train, no grain.” Dr Jas Jackson, who lives in the Lower 9th Ward, called the meeting disorganized and said she would have liked to see ofﬁcials answer questions for everyone as a group.

“I came to see if they would be accountable to having some community engagement before they put forth this grain train

Housing Services Development District has opened its online applications for the program’s waiting list until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday to provide rental assistance to eligible families, seniors and people with disabilities. The agency strongly encourages residents to apply as soon as possible, as the application period is brief and demand is expected to be high. Residents interested in applying can do so by going to the agency’s website and clicking the “Services” tab, followed by the “Wait-

in my neighborhood,” she said. “I did not get my questions answered.”

Cheryl Nicks, whose family has lived in the Lower 9th for ﬁve generations, called on Sunrise to ﬁnd another option for its location.

“What are the economic benefits to the Lower 9th Ward?” she asked, lamenting that the project only promised to bring 17 jobs. “What businesses or families are going to be attracted to an area with health concerns surrounding air pollution, noise pollution, risks to the safety of their children, reduction in property values and increased police and ambulance response time all due to trains rolling through residential neigh-

ing List” tab From there, prospective applicants can submit their information, check the status of their application or log into their applicant portal.

“The Housing Choice Voucher Program is one of our most important tools in helping families achieve stability,” Dorian Rawles, executive director for the housing agency said in a statement “Opening the waiting list gives residents a chance to access affordable housing opportunities that can truly change lives.”

The Housing Choice

borhoods?”

Norlita Parker Wells, also a lifelong resident, said she doesn’t have a problem with the grain facility. She said the soot that builds up on her home from the Domino Sugar reﬁnery already in the neighborhood is a greater concern.

“I don’t see any issues,” she said, adding that she learned that Sunrise would mitigate dust emissions and that the company would make an effort to hire from within the community.

Lower 9th Ward resident Sam Slobusky said his fear is that the neighbors who support the project might soon regret it.

“There’s no upside to this, none at all,” he said. “ There’s this hope that this

Voucher Program covers a portion of rent on privately owned apartments and has become increasingly necessary as local governments venture away from public housing.

In Jefferson Parish, the local housing authority last year closed the last of the parish’s public housing, Acre Road public housing complex in Marrero, and shifted its tenants to the Housing Choice Voucher Program instead Opportunities to join the Section 8 waitlist are exceedingly rare, too, as the demand for affordable

might bring businesses back, but heavy industry is not the same as grocery stores and pharmacies and small privately-owned businesses If anything, it’s going to depress that.”

Sunrise Foods will use the New Orleans facility to bring thousands of tons of imported organic grain — soybeans, wheat, sunﬂower meal and peas into the country

In a resolution that passed unanimously earlier this month, City Council members called on Sunrise Foods and the port to reconsider the location and instead open on port property that is not in a neighborhood. The opposition drew criticism from port

CEO Beth Ann Branch and members of the business

housing grows while the supply of units stagnates.

Rawles said in January that 4,200 housing choice vouchers were in use in Jefferson Parish out of 4,700 total vouchers available at the agency’s disposal.

In New Orleans, there are currently 6,200 people on the waitlist for a housing voucher from the Housing Authority of New Orleans.

Staff writers Joni Hess and Sophie Kasakove contributed to this report.

Email Lara Nicholson at lnicholson@theadvocate. com.

community Port officials say the Alabo Street Wharf is the most viable location for the project.

The grain terminal was initially slated to open this summer, but ofﬁcials said construction delays have pushed the start date to sometime this fall They have not yet shared a start date.

Community members who still have questions about the project can contact port staff via email alabocommunityengagement@portnola.com or call (504) 528-3544. As jobs at the facility become available, they will be posted at sunriseNOLA.com.

Email Desiree Stennett at desiree.stennett@ theadvocate.com.

RISHER

Continued from page 1B

What’s your favorite part of this job?

“The love,” Evans said. “Yeah, I’m well-respected, man. It’s a good feeling to have. Thirty years, you know? I don’t have no enemies.”

HOSPITALS

Continued from page 1B

“We are fully committed to engaging in productive, good-faith negotiations,” UnitedHealthcare said in the letter “However, if we’re unable to reach an agreement, LCMC Health may no longer be part of your health insurance’s network.” Stephen Wilson, UnitedHealthcare’s CEO for Louisiana, said in a statement that LCMC was seeking significant cost increases that would be borne by consumers and employers. The company argued that medical procedures would become more expensive for families and employers In its own statement, LCMC Health said the hospital system has “absorbed signiﬁcant increasing costs with no increases in reimbursement” over the past two years from UHC. The hospital system said it is seeking “increases over

At that point, Evans explained that he would strike his pose in about 30 minutes, “once the shade gets to there,” he said, pointing.

I said I’d come back and tried to explain a bit about this column that I write weekly on different experiences around the state.

“I live in Baton Rouge but usually come to New

multiple years to make up for chronic and longtime underpayments.”

LCMC added that adequate reimbursement does not force UnitedHealthcare to pass through those costs to its members, but is a choice the insurer makes.

LCMC operates eight hospitals in the New Orleans area: University Medical Center, Manning Family Children’s Hospital, East Jefferson General Hospital, West Jefferson Medical Center, Lakeside Hospital, Lakeview Hospital, New Orleans East Hospital and Touro Inﬁrmary United’s current contract with LCMC runs through Oct. 31. Without a deal, LCMC hospitals would be out-of-network for people enrolled in employer-sponsored commercial plans, individual family plans and UMR.

LCMC physicians, urgent care centers and ancillary providers would remain innetwork for those commercial plans regardless of the outcome, though hospital

Orleans at least once a week, but over the last month, I haven’t,” I said.

He asked why not.

I explained that we had a house ﬁre.

His entire demeanor changed.

place to be?”

from his alleged failure to submit to a drug and alcohol screen after crashing his public SUV on Elysian Fields Avenue after 10:30 p.m. on May 7, 2023 — his birthday Morris allegedly altered department policy to avoid a drug and alcohol screen and lied about how the wreck occurred on insurance documents, according to District Attorney Jason Williams’ Ofﬁce.

His resignation ended a rocky five-year tenure at the district, which handles 911 and 311 calls in the city Morris sat in a dark jacket, hands clasped at the defense table Monday beside his attorney, Ralph Whalen, over several hours of jury selection.

Whalen told prospective jurors that their verdict would hinge on whether Morris intended to deceive.

“There’s not going to be much disagreement between the defense and the prosecution about what happened,” he said.

Video evidence from the city’s Real-Time Crime Center contradicted Morris’ claim that the other driver was at fault for the crash. Confronted with it, Morris told WWL-TV reporter David Hammer the evidence was “undeniable.”

“Those are Mr Morris’ words, not mine,” Assistant District Attorney Corey Tassin told the jury in his opening statement. “I can assure you Mr Morris did in fact intend to do everything he did to cover up all the lies.”

From turning on his vehicle’s blue lights without the legal authority, to ﬁling a false insurance claim and changing agency policy for reporting collisions, Morris’ actions were laden with criminal intent, Tassin argued.

“He got caught in a lie and he knew he got caught so he tried to cover his tracks,” he said.

But Whalen told the jury that Morris’ televised admission was hardly proof of a cover-up just the contrary

“He freely admits in front of the camera, in front of a TV news station: ‘Yeah I see it. Undeniable, I was at fault.’ He’s not hiding anything,” Whalen said. “This perfectly innocent mistake gets blown up into where we are now.”

This fellow, who had been quasi-tough-gold-guy, became concerned about my family I assured him we were OK and promised to return shortly Thirty minutes later, when he saw me round the corner, he jumped up with his face and hands painted the same gold as his clothes.

facility fees and services would not be covered. Patients on Medicare Advantage or Medicaid would not be affected.

Out-of-network care is often still covered in part by insurers, but the out-ofpocket costs for patients can be signiﬁcantly higher than in-network providers, in some cases by thousands of dollars. Under some plans, out-of-network hospitals may only be covered in emergencies.

‘Playing chicken’

UnitedHealthcare said a failure in negotiations would impact fewer than 30,000 members. In interviews Monday, researchers who study the health care industry said that despite the warnings contained in UHC’s letter, these types of negotiations are common Insurers and hospitals regularly renegotiate their terms, sometimes annually

“They’re playing chicken,” said Ge Bai, a professor of accounting, health policy

“Where are you staying?” he said. Confused, I said, “I live in Baton Rouge.”

He said, “Yeah, but since the ﬁre, do y’all have a

and management at Johns Hopkins University

Walter Lane, a health care economist at the University of New Orleans, said it is not unheard of for insurers to walk away from the bargaining table, and pointed to East Jefferson General Hospital’s failed negotiations with Blue Cross Blue Shield several years ago, before the hospital became part of LCMC.

When East Jefferson terminated its contract, “all of a sudden East Jeff started losing a whole bunch of its Blue Cross customers,” he said The hospital and the insurer eventually came to an agreement.

After purchasing three HCA Healthcare hospitals in 2023, LCMC has more negotiating power than it used to. UnitedHealthcare also makes up a smaller share of the market, about 20% compared with 61% for BCBS, according to a 2024 report from the American Medical Association. “(LCMC) might be trying to flex some of their

The moment was jarring in its humanity

“The love,” he had told me, was his favorite part of the job.

He stood there painted gold from head to toe, and I understood what he meant.

Email Jan Risher at jan. risher@theadvocate.com.

muscle,” Lane said, while Bai noted that LCMC’s purchase of HCA should make it “stronger at the negotiating table” to get a bigger reimbursement from the insurer

Rising costs for patients

Regardless of what deal United and LCMC reach, health care costs are likely to keep rising for patients, as they have nationwide.

The Congressional Budget Office has said that higher provider payment rates consistently result in higher insurer spending.

In its letter to customers, UHC said most of the proposed cost increases that LCMC is seeking would fall on self-insured employers, which pay employees’ health claims directly United said about 70% of its commercial members in the New Orleans area are enrolled in such plans.

Email Emily Woodruff at ewoodruff@theadvocate. com.

Whalen claimed that Morris’ prosecution was a political hatchet job confected by “other people that are trying to make this worse than it is.” He noted Morris’ brief foray into the New Orleans mayor’s race. A judge disqualified him under a challenge to his claim on a qualifying form that he’d filed his state tax returns for the previous five years. Morris did not appear for the court hearing.

Whalen said Morris had “served the state honorably” and that no one was harmed by his actions after the crash, including the insurance company

Whalen also took aim at the government’s ﬁrst witness, Taylor Green, a district employee who said she ran into Morris before the crash at the Page Bar on North Rampart Street as he celebrated his birthday They ate together and she posted video on social media. Whalen, however, told the jury that Morris had celebrated his birthday two nights earlier On the night of the collision, at Interstate 610 and Elysian Fields, Morris had been staying up late for an early morning ﬂight out of town, Whalen said. The trial is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning and run most of the week, Levine said.

Tim Evans, the Gold Man of New Orleans, strikes his moneymaking pose near Jackson Square.

STAFF

PHOTO By JAN RISHER

and Convention Services.

Trialset in deaths of twoteeng

Driver accusedof crashing into car during pursuit

BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer

ANew Orleans woman is scheduled to head to trial on Nov.17inthe killing of two 17-year-old girls after authorities say she crashed into their vehicle while ﬂeeing law enforcement after she was caught shoplifting atLakeside mall in Metairie,according tocourt records.

Joneaka Smooth, 31, is charged with two counts of manslaughter,one count of attempted manslaughter and obstruction of justice in Orleans Parish Smooth is accused in the deaths of Giselle Smith and Semaj Morris, who were best friendsand seniors at West Jefferson High School in Harvey Giselle’solder sister was also critically injured in the crash, which occurred Dec. 11, 2024. In Jefferson Parish, prosecutors last week filed anew charge against one of Smooth’saccused co-conspirators in the shoplifting: Sherry Foucha, 41. Foucha has previous shoplifting convictions, so the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’sOffice filed amultiple offender theft charge, whichcould mean enhanced penalties She and Lisa Herring, 38, already faced two counts of theft.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office investigators saythe day’sdeadly events began at Lakeside Shopping Center when Smooth, Foucha and Herringstole merchandise fromGap Kids store and Victoria’sSecret. The trio bolted from the mall with armloads of clothing after being confronted by an employee, according to authorities.

An ParishS spotted through andr tion of their getaway Jefferso ties, w after receiv 911 call, Sheriff Smoo terstate toward ferson made but Smooth’ long gone, Jefferson JosephL The called when into Orl departm But speeding iting at enue, Orleans to negotiate endoft airborn the car Giselle thoriti Giselle dead at died of next day New detained the sc Smoot authori day.F into custo Smoot bookedi ish in Orleans Foucha witho theftr aNew occurred crash, made side ma Smoot Herring guilty cordin Email mhunte com.

STAFF PHO

The NewOrleans Fire Department responds the RoyalSonesta in NewOrleans on

RoyalSones leaves hotelc

Firefighters containlarge blazeat historic site

BY MARCOCARTOLANO Staff writer

The historic Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street will remain closed through Tuesday after afire that ignited in the building’sstorage room over the weekend forced guests to evacuate.

Guests and touristslined Bourbon Street on Sunday morning andwatchedas dozens of New Orleans firefighters contained a large blaze inside the hotel.Multiple people were rescued from the buildingand no injurieswere reported. Guests with reservations through Tuesday were relocated to an area hotel,according to the hotel’s website. Arepresentative of the RoyalSonesta’sreserva-

NewOrleans Area Deaths

DeMesméJr.,Darnell

James

Magee,

Marcello,Joseph

Menesses, Linda

Rivarde, Marilyn

tion desk hotel will as man officials fire.C on theh managemen turned NewO partment immediat request The about1 fighters under half-hou Email at marco. theadvocate.

NewOrleans

Lake

Marcello,Joseph Welch, Gwen

Lawn Metairie

Littlejohn FH

Mr. Magee was preceded in death by his first wife of 24 years GeorgeAnne RobertsonMagee; parents Shanlerand Vera Mizell Magee; grandparents James "Jim" Warren and Minnie McClendon Mizell and Henry Elton and Bertha TalleyMagee;a brother Billy Wayne Magee Sr.; father-in-lawand mother-in-law Aneesand Janet Mogabgab, Jr;a brother-in-law and sisterin-law Stephen and AnnetteMogabgab

are invited to attendservicesfor JoeonFriday, September 26, 2025 held at Lake LawnMetairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd.New Orleans, LA. Avisitation will be from9:00am until theservice begins at 11:00am. Areception is to follow and interment will be private forfamily.

Menesses, Linda Jean Vincent

Welch,

Gwen Ehrhardt

DeMesméJr.,Darnell

St Bernard

Bernard

Menesses, Linda Welch, Gwen

Obituaries

DeMesméJr.,Darnell

DarnellClaudeDeMesmé, Jr affectionately knownas“Noonie”, was born in NewOrleans Louisiana, on August 15, 1974, to Darnelle Claude DeMesmé, Sr andAn‐gelinaTheresa Dapremont. DarnellacceptedChristas hisLordand Savior and wasbaptizedbythe late Pastor Uyless D. Landry, Sr at FirstMt. Calvary BaptistChurch.Darnell waseducatedinthe New OrleansPublicSchool Sys‐tem.Hewas alaborer and amasterofmanycrafts, includingconstruction. He took greatpride in his workmanship. He hadan incredibly kind heartand loving spirit.Darnell wasa low-keypersonand didnot like beingthe center of at‐tention. He thoroughly en‐joyedgood food and spending qualitytimewith familyand friends. Darnell also enjoyedvisitingthe casino andplaying thelot‐tery (which he wasvery luckyatboth),shooting pool,and fishingoccasion‐ally.Hewas astrongbe‐liever in cleanlinessand very meticulous about keepinghis home clean andorganized.Darnell’s finaldayswerespent sur‐rounded by familythat gave himsupport,comfort andunconditional love during hisearthly journey. He transitioned to his Heavenly home on Friday, September12, 2025. Dar‐nell’s precious memories will be cherishedbyhis mother,Angelina; father, Darnell, Sr.; Sons,Darnell Earl Adams, Darryl An‐thonyDeMesmé,Darréll Claude DeMesmé, Darrell DarnellDeMesmé,Darrien Migael DeMesmé; and daughter,Teion Bannister. Sisters, Keisha (Jamal) Santiago (his confidant), Earlisia (Gregory) Williams Latasha, andOnika; Brother, JarnellDeMesmé andsix grandchildren.A host of aunts, uncles nieces,nephews,cousins, anddearfriends will con‐tinue to honorhis memory andcelebrate hislife. Dar‐nell wasprecededindeath by hissisters,Kendra DeMesmé, Monica DeMesmé, hisbiological father Earl Jackson, andhis Paternal andMaternal grandparents,devoted Aunt andUncles: Auntie Plute, UncleAlton,Uncle Coosie andUncle Man.

Magee, JamesElton James Elton MageeSr. September28, 1938September4,2025

James EltonMagee Sr., age86was born on September28, 1938, in Bogalusa, LA,passedaway on September4,2025, at Lakeview Hospital in Covington, LA

James is survived by his wife of 43 years Janet Mogabgab Magee of Mandeville, LA;a son James Magee Jr. (Laura) of Slidell, LA;daughters Jamie Magee Butts(Tim) of Isabel,LA, and Janene Hollen(Ronnie) of Isabel, LA,; brother-in-law Paul Mogabgab (Toby) of Metairie,LA; sister-in-law JudyTyrl of Mandeville, LA.; aclose cousinSue Magee Bollin(Bob); 9 grandchildrenand 24 great grandchildrenaswellas numerous nieces and nephews.

Visitationwillbeheldat Isabel Baptist Church, on Saturday, September 27, 2025, from 12:00 noonuntil theservicetime of 2:00p.m. with Bro.Ronnie Hollen officiating. Inurnment will follow at IsabelBaptist Church Cemetery Honorary Pallbearerswill be RichardStewartand Charles Sumrall.

The family wishes to extend aspecial thank youto allofthe staff of Lakeview Hospital and PAM RehabilitationHospital who took such wonderful care of Jim.

In lieu of flowers,please make adonationtoa charityofyourchoice in memory of Jim.

LindaJeanVincent Menesses, age78, passed away surrounded by her familyonWednesday,Sep‐tember 17, 2025. Mrs. Menesseswas preceded in deathbyher belovedhus‐band,Jimmy Menesses andher parents, Elmer “Howard” andDoris Vin‐cent.She is survived by her children,Wendy (Tim)Gon‐zales, James“Bubba” (Stacey) Menessesand Stacy(Robert)Campo; grandchildren, Matthew andJoshua (Bailie) Menesses, Amanda (Jarrod) Gourgues,Dalton(Tori) Gonzales,Faith (Tyler) Robertsand Brittany (Cody) Duke,Robert, Zacharyand Nicholas (Cassidy); great-grandchil‐dren,Brantley, Terry,Isla, Ava, Brody, Gage,Noah, Saylor,Ellaand Robert,Jr. Lindawillberemembered forher loving spirit andthe devotion sheshowedto herfamilyand friends. Rel‐atives andfriends arein‐vitedtoattendthe funeral. AMassofCelebration hon‐oringthe life andlegacyof thelateLinda Jean Vincent Menesseswillbeheldat St.Bernard Catholic Church,2805 BayouRoad, St.Bernard,LA70085 on Thursday,September 25, 2025 at 11 30 am.Interment St.Bernard Catholic Ceme‐tery.Visitation10aminthe church.Pleasesignonline guestbook at www.cha rbonnetfuneralhome.com. Areception will follow the burial at IversonHall. Final arrangements entrustedto Charbonnet Family Ser‐vices(504)302 1520.

Marilyn CarrAntee Rivarde wasbornonJune 14, 1937, and peacefullydepartedthis life on September 4, 2025. She wasa lifelongresident of NewOrleans,Louisiana.

Marilyn wasthe cherished daughterofthe latePeter EugeneCarrand thelate Naomi Ripoll Carr. Marilyn wasthe devotedwife of thelateRonald Joseph Antee, Sr.and thelate Louis Charles Rivarde,Jr. Shewas preceded in death by herbeloved sisters Barbara Boguille,Estelle Cuiellette, and Jennie Auclair. Hermemory will be reveredbyher children: RhondaAlexis,Ronald Joseph Antee, Jr.(Angela), and Terry A. Morrison (Milton). Shewas preceded in death by herbeloved daughter, KimA.Morris whoissurvived by her husband, Terrell Morris Marilyn also leaves behind ahostofgrandchildren, great-grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins, anddear friends whowill forever hold herclosein theirhearts.

James wasa member of First Baptist Church of Mandeville. Graduated from Enon HighSchool in 1956asa Salutatorian James graduated from LSU with aMasters Plus 30 and wasa devotedLSU fan. Enjoyedhunting and fishing. He wasa retired agriculture teacher and FFA advisoratSlidell High School for 20 years. James wasa director of marketingwith Federal Land Bank and wasa businessowner of N'awlins TradeShow

JosephC.Marcello passed away peacefully on September 17thathis home surrounded by his family.Hewas 83 years old. Joeissurvivedbyhis loving wife of 45 years, Gail McCarley Marcello;his sons, Carlos, Stevenand DeanMarcello;and his daughter, Dayna Marcello Morvant (Travis Bozeman III). He is also survived by his grandson, Jake Morvant,whom he was so proud of; and hissisters, Louise Hampton, Florence Black, Jacqueline Dugas (Preston) and many nieces and nephews. He is theson of thelateCarlos Marcello and Jacqueline Todaro Marcello. Josephattended HolyCross HighSchool and UniversityofNew Orleans. He was aprominent business person, entrepreneur, real estate investorand developer. Notablebusinesses he owned earlier in his career included thelegendary Broussard's Restaurant in theFrench Quarter, Pelican Tomato Company and Bubba's Produce. Later in life,hefocusedondeveloping and managing real estate. As amajor landowner in Jefferson Parish, Joe believed deeply in using his resources for thepublicgood. He donated land that is now the ChurchillTechnology and Business Park which houses theJefferson Economic Development Commission, thePatrickF.Taylor Science and Technology Academy,Delgado Community College'sRiver City Campus and Advanced Manufacturing Center and astate of the artconference facility.Joe enjoyed hisdaily workouts, snow skiing, playing golf, watching footballand especiallydining with familyand friends.Hewillbe remembered forhis devotion to his friends and familyand his anonymous giftsand donations. The family wouldliketogive special thankstoSt. Tammany Health System Hospice for theirspecial care. In lieu of flowers, the family asks youtoconsider adonationtoSt. Jude Children's Hospital at stjude.org or St.Tammany Health System Hospice at www.sthfoundation.org/ Giving.Family and friends

Relativesand friends are invited to attendher memorial service on Saturday, September 27, 2025.

CityChurchEastlake Campus 13123 I-10 Service Road NewOrleans,LA70128

Visitation is from 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m.

Memorial begins at 11:00 a.m. Amemorial service will be held from11:00 AM to 12:00 PM on Saturday, September 27,

GwenEhrhardt Welch passedaway peacefullyin hersleep on Friday, September 19, 2025, at the age of 77. Shewas born in NewOrleans on September 5, 1948. Shewas preceded in death by herbeloved husband, GlennP.Welch, Jr.She was also preceded by herparents Malcolm P. Ehrhardt, Jr.and Jacqueline Bourgeois Ehrhardt andher brother Malcolm P. Ehrhardt, III Sheissurvivedbyher children GlennIII (Tammy), TiffanyWelch Stutzenbecker (Brian)and Scott (Shannon), hertwo brothers, Phil (Linda) and Ken(Liz) Ehrhardt, andher threeSisters-In-Law,Pia Ehrhardt, Barbara Richoux, andCheryl Giraldi.She wassoproud andspent as much time as she could with herfourgrandchildren Megan andGlenn PaulWelch,IV, andWilliam andJack Stutzenbecker GwenattendedSt. Agnes ElementarySchool, Mercy Academy High School, and SLU. Shewas an active member of St.Angela Merici Catholic Church for herentire adult life. Gwen andher husband Glenn were Independent Distributors forThe TimesPicayunefor over 50 years. Theywerealso lifetime members of Lakeside CountryCluband Gwen spentmanyyearsthere working in theofficeand enjoyingmanyhappy times with herfamilyand friends. Shewas also a proudmember of theLLL Ladies groupwho met frequently for lunchtoenjoy eachother's company. Gwen'sfavorite thingwas spending evenings sitting on herswing at herhome on Poinsetta Dr.where countlesstimes it would turn into gatheringsof familyand friends who wouldenjoy laughterand warm conversations with wine anda coldbeer in the frosted mugsshe kept in herfreezer.Gwenwas selfless, hardworking,strong andloving, agreat listener, andquick to giggle uncontrollably(and to make othersgiggle uncontrollably). Shewill be sorely missed but always remembered for herlove, support and kindness. Relativesand friends are invited to attend aMemorialMass and Service at St.AngelaMerici Catholic Church,835 Melody Drive,Metairie, LA on Tuesday, September 23, 2025. Visitation will begin at 10 am withMass scheduled for noon.Interment will be at Hope Mausoleum, 4841 Canal St To view andsignthe Funeral Guest Book on-line, please visit www.lakelawn metairie.com. In lieu of flowers, Mass intentions in hername are appreciated

Rivarde, Marilyn Carr

Marcello, Joseph C.

Claude 'Noonie'

Reducing hazing on campuses requires amultipronged approach

Six months after the horriﬁcdeathofSouthern University student Caleb Wilson, we are glad to see state ofﬁcials discussing avariety of approaches to hazing prevention. Wilson was killed during an off-campusritual as he was pledging afraternity.Threemen have been chargedinhis death;the fraternity chapter has been expelled from Southern Hisdeath was exactly thekindofthing that the state’sMax Gruver law,named foranLSU freshman killed in a2017 hazingincident, was designed to prevent. That lawmadehazing a felony and resulted in arash of newreporting and hazing-prevention programs at colleges and universities in Louisiana Clearly,those were not enoughtoprevent what happenedtoWilson.

Last week, agroup of local, stateand education leaders gathered in Baton Rouge to discuss next steps. They acknowledged, rightly, that hazing is incredibly difﬁcult to uproot. Importantly,they alsonoted that it’s not justa problem in fraternities and sororities, butinall types of clubs and organizations.

Reducing or eliminatinghazingcannotrely solely on increasing penalties or passing new anti-hazing laws. Certainly,some legislativesolutions are good; any mechanism thatmakes it easier for students to report allegedhazing and protects them when they do is astep forward. This week is National HazingPreventionweek, which urges increased focusontransparency and education as away to attack the underlying elements that create the potential forhazing. One easy step would be to enforce rulesalready in place. Areportfrom theHazingPrevention Network noted that only 18%ofLouisiana campuses have reported hazingincidents publicly,asBoard of Regentsrulesrequire. There should be immediateand stiff penalties forthose administrationsand campuses that have failed to comply

The cultural issues that make hazingsopersistentshouldalso be addressed.All threedefendants in the Wilson case are alumni, including one who was 28 years old, andLSU Interim President Matt Leenoted that alumnioftenpush back on anti-hazing reforms.

Efforts must extend to youngerstudents,too. Almost half arrive on college campuses having alreadyexperienced some form of hazing, accordingtoareport from the Hazing Prevention Network. Attorney General Liz Murrill is right when she urges reaching out to high schoolstudents. Thepractice is unlikely to everbeeradicated. Hazing hasalonghistory and adeep allure: Some believe enduring an ordealtobecome amember of any group immediately bonds those members in away that would take far longer otherwise.

Legal remedies should establish clearboundaries and stiff penalties for when thoseboundariesare transgressed.But, as participants in last week’ssummit noted,reducing hazing further will require abroader effort that includes increased education amongstudents, transparency from administrators andbuy-in from alumni.

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE AREOUR

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TO SEND US A LETTER, SCANHERE

Make no mistake, ICE detentionisbig business

The economic underpinnings of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were clearly evident during arecent visit to theAlexandria Staging Facility andtwo ICE processing facilities in Basile and PinePrairie. Each is managed by apublicly traded corporation, the GEO Group. GEO Management, ICE ofﬁcials and other staff we interviewed at all three facilities were career employees of correctional institutions or ICE.

Signiﬁcantly,each of the two processing facilities were housed in buildings previously utilized by theLouisiana Department of Corrections or the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The ICE detention system is thus an extension of asystem of incarceration, the rate of which Louisiana leads in the U.S.And, likethe Louisiana correctional prison system,

it is amajor economic engine in areas where there are fewalternativeemployment opportunities. The subsequent local tax revenues thus affords them tremendous political power and incentive to continue and thrive.

ICE facilities are economic and political plumsincreasingly in the South. Lauded by Gov. Jeff Landry, aunit at the Louisiana State PenitentiaryatAngola is now in operation, thus expanding not only ICE, but theLouisiana Correctional System GOPcongressional ofﬁcials have allocated $76.5 billion to expanding ICE’scapacity

The growth of the ICEeconomic sector of our economycan only be expected to be explosive.

The costs to human lifeand to our nation’sfuture willcontinue to be shamefully evident.

BARBARA LAUGHLIN NewOrleans

LongueVueCapital haslonghistory in region

As CEO and co-founder of LongueVue Capital, Iread with great interest your Aug. 22 article, “Local private equityﬁrms areputting south Louisiana on themap of big-time investors.” While we appreciatethe coverage of our region’sgrowing private equitypresence, thearticle gave only cursory mentiontoNew Orleans-based LongueVue Capital, despite our ﬁrm’slong track record and national recognition.

Founded in 2001, LVCisone of Louisiana’soldest and most established private equity ﬁrms, backed by some of the nation’slargestuniversity endowmentsand pension systems. Our third fund, LVCIII, was ranked theNo. 1growthfund in the country

Chris Rosehas done it again. He still has his touch.

Rose’slove letter was compelling, amusing and heart-wrenching all at once. It does seem as though the countless cliches fail to capture the gravitas of Katrina and its aftermath.But somehow Rosestill does He is still the “literary avenging angel of the 504.”

in its vintage of funds under $500 million by the Bloomberg League Tables, adistinction that underscores our consistent and exemplary investment performance.

We chosethe name “LongueVue Capital” to reﬂect both our NewOrleans heritage and our patient, “buy andbuild” investment philosophy Overmorethan two decades, our talented and dedicated team has worked tirelessly to build businesses, createvalue and represent Louisiana on the national stage. These accomplishmentsare notonly worthy of mentionbut also apoint of pride for our hometown.

JOHN C. MCNAMARA CEOand

co-founder,LongueVue Capital

Rosespoke to my ninth grade summer school classatDeLaSalle High School during the summer of 2000. He mainly spoke about Britney Spears (which my students loved). Such atransformation,ﬁve (and 25) years later Here’stothe Dead Man Walking. KEVIN FITZPATRICK NewOrleans

How does it taste drinking Nebraska and Iowa’s leftovers?

When you turn on the tap in New Orleans, are you just sipping on achemical cocktail shaken up by upstream agribusiness and stirred by industrial runoff?

Do you thank the Corn Belt for the nitrates in your groundwater, or should you be sending them a bill?

How manygallons of hog waste, fertilizer sludge and “mysterious foam” does it take before our rivers start looking less like water and morelike ascience experimentgone wrong?

Isn’titimpressive how pollutants can cross state lines faster than any regulation can?

Do regulators think we won’t notice because it’sinvisible or because it doesn’tcome with awarning label?

Are we supposed to believe that giant feedlots and mega-farms upstream are really “environmentally responsible,” or are we just too polite to ask where the algae bloomscame from?

Is NewOrleans the ﬁnal rinse cycle in the Midwest’sindustrial washing machine?

How manyagexecs upstream drink from their own runoff— or is that just foryou downstream folks?

If “weall live downstream,” shouldn’tsomeone upstream act like it?

And ﬁnally,isanyone tired of pretending this is ﬁne? Just asking.

STEVENRITZDORF Omaha, Nebraska

Can the upcoming trial of LaToya Cantrell be moved to the Smoothie King Center or the Caesars Superdome? I, along with manyother people, would pay good money to watch the court proceedings in person.

DAVID BOHNET Slidell

Goingup, notout

HowHurricane Rita tested aculture knownfor ‘uncanny ability to adapt’

In the wakeofHurricane Rita, the storm that struck southwest Louisiana,just a fewweeks after itsmore infamous sister Katrina, many residentsofVermilion, Cameron and Calcasieu parishesfound themselves faced with theoption of movingaway or rebuilding.

Those who chosetorebuild were faced withthe additional challengeofﬁnding ways to do so despitegovernmental and insurance agencies that were trying to convince them to leave. In thewords of one resident, “This is home. I’m not getting out, I’m going up.” In theyears since then, many have improvised vernacular solutions basedonthe needtoelevate their houses above ﬂood levels. These improvisations have changed theway entire neighborhoods andeventownslook

At the same time, they representa continuoustradition of creolized solutions in the vernacular architecture of south Louisiana. The process of cultural improvisation that previously produced porchesis now producing new functional and social spaces under raisedhouses.

Iinitially went to Delcambre, Erathand into the nearby countryside, throughBayou Tigue, Henry,Esther, IntracoastalCity, Pecan Island, and intoCameron Parish, to document, in photographsand interviews, the devastation caused by Ritaand its effects on the community

Moving themud

Immediately following thestorm, Iwas first drawn to Delcambre because of my friends Moisey andLouella Baudoin.Their home was flooded in the tidalsurge,and my family and Iwent to helpthemclean up and save as much as we could of their belongings. When we arrived, we found them sitting on lawn chairs in their driveway They seemed dazed.Moisey told me about the water pouringover the railroad tracks. He was insistent that this was something no one remembered everseeing before, including his 87-year-oldboss Lane LeBlanc. The water receded quickly after Rita, causing at least as much damage as the risingtide. The floor of their homewas coveredwithsludge.Weoffered to start cleaning up abit, but they said there was no water pressure. There was also no electricity, andthey would soon lose allthe food in their five well-stocked freezers. Anticipating this common post-hurricane problem, we had brought along every ice chest we owned andothersthatwehad

borrowed, and we started unloading the freezers to transfer the food to space we would commandeer in the freezers of friends and family back home.

My son François found alarge squeegee in the shed and began pushing mudout of thehouse. This simple gesture seemed to reactivatethe Baudoins, and the cleanup started. By the next day,hehad found a tile setter and arranged for new floors to be installed. We also brought afew boxes full of their waterlogged family photoalbums to see if anything could be salvaged. (People who have lost everything in fires or floods often insist that the pictures are what they regret losing the most.)

Barrenlandscape

Afew weeks later,when theBaudoins’ electricity was restored and their home was cleaned, we returned to deliver their frozen food. Moisey took me around town and into thecountryside to show me the devastation caused by thestorm. Throughout thearea, Isaw numerous houses that had been washed off their foundations, rammed into tree lines or electrical poles or fences or ditches.

We stopped totalk with some of the people who were already millingabout, cleaning up and assessing the damage.

The brick home of one of his neighbors in south Delcambre had been seriously damaged. Theentire south wall hadbeen washed out. When we arrived, we found theowner repacking the bearings on his rice cart. He had already gotten his school

bus and two tractors running again. He showed us theinsurance settlement check he had just received. It wasfor $1,640. He declared, as he put it back into his shirt pocket,that he would frame it or ﬂush it before he cashed it.

Anew outlook

Itook afew photographs in an instinctiveeffort to document the devastating effects of the storm on the community.AsI continued to return to the area to visit Moisey on many occasions, Inoticed that the community was responding to the storm in fascinating ways, not only cleaning up and rebuilding but reimagining how they might live in this vulnerable environment.

Icontinued to photograph these communities to capture the remarkable vernacular solutions that were being improvised. Several homeowners were frank about having been lulled into forgetting the lessons of the past, building their homes according to contemporary trends, as though they didn’tlive near the marshy coast. Now they were not only repairing and rebuilding their homes, but rethinking themaswell, based on arevived sense of history and common sense.

This vernacular response is yet another example of the improvised socio-cultural solutions that have long been an integral part of the constantly evolving Cajun and Creole communities, which have been inspired by bothadversity and opportunity and an uncanny ability to adapt to survive and even thrive.

Barry Jean Ancelet, professor emeritus of Francophone studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, is widely knownfor hisresearch on Cajun and Creole culture. He helped found Festivals Acadiens and Créoles in Lafayette in 1974 and is the author of several papers and books that explore the unique linguisticand cultural traditions of Louisiana. After Hurricane Rita, he edited the book “Second Line Rescue: Improvised Responses to Katrina and Rita” with CarlLindahl and Marcia Gaudet. This essayisadapted froma paper he delivered at the AmericanFolklore Society

Throughout August and September,weare featuring reﬂections on the 20th anniversary of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, two storms that changed Louisiana forever

STAFFFILE PHOTOByCHRIS GRANGER

Newhouses began sprouting up on Holly Beach in 2007, twoyears after Hurricane Rita

PROVIDED PHOTO By BARRy ANCELET

Raised houses are changing the look of townsthat dotthe coast where Hurricane Rita hit in 2005.

SPORTS

BADMEMORY

Debacleagainst Seahawks will stickaroundfor alongtime

Remember when legendaryR&B band Earth, Wind &Fire asked, “Do you remember,the 21stnight of September?” For the 2025 New OrleansSaints,the answer is “yes.”

The night of Sept. 21 is when the Saintstook the longﬂightback to New Orleans from Seattle and reﬂectedon oneofthe most embarrassing lossesin franchise history.

“Weare at ajuncture where we have to be as critical as we can be right now,” Saintsdefensive endCam Jordan said Nobodyexpectedanyone to have to be this critical of ateam with aﬁrst-year coach just three games into theseason, but here we are

The scoreboardatLumenField read: Seahawks 44, Saints13.

It felt even worsethanthat.

The Saints, who for thelast twoweeks often talked about how “close” they are, showed that they aren’t. Forthe ﬁrst time in the brief Kellen Mooreera, the Saints didn’tlook likeanNFL team

This looked more likeone of those “moneygames” in college footballwhen the hapless FCS school travelstoface

BY WILSON ALEXANDER Staff writer

LSU coach Brian Kelly updated the status of four injuredplayers Monday heading into theNo. 4Tigers’ game this weekend against No. 13 Ole Miss. Kelly said sophomore running backCaden Durham (anklesprain) is “day-to-day,” senior linebacker West Weeks (calf strain) is probable, sophomore tight end Trey’Dez Green (sprained MCL) will play and sophomore defensiveend Gabriel Reliford (shouldersubluxation) is out.

LSU plays Ole Miss at 2:30 p.m. Saturday on ABC. Durham suffered an ankle sprain nearthe end of the second quarter in LSU’s56-10 winSaturday against Southeastern Louisiana and did not return to the game. LSU’sleading rusher this season, Durham has52carries for213 yards and two touchdowns.

Dumars: Murphy, Jonesat full speed forPels

BY RODWALKER Staff writer

Twokey players forthe NewOrleans Pelicans have worked their way back to the court.

Trey Murphy and Herb Jones, who both suffered season-ending shoulder injuries last season, will be suited up when thePelicansplaythe Memphis Grizzlies in the season opener Oct. 22.

“These guys have been fully cleared to go,” JoeDumars, the Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operation, said Monday

“It’s no holds barred for those guys. They are ready to go.” Murphy andJones have spent the past few weeks scrimmaging at theteam’spractice facility

abig-time program from aPower Four conference and receives alarge check to helpits athletic budget in return.

The Seahawks didn’twritethe Saints acheck. All they gave them was aheavy dose ofreality about just how far the Saintshavetogototurn thingsaround.

Seattle is alittle more than 2,500 miles away from New Orleans. The chances of theSaints being agood team this season are even further away

They are one of six 0-3 teams in the NFL, joining the Houston Texans, Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans, and boththe New York Jetsand Giants. The Saints play all of those teams this season except the Texans, so we’ll ﬁnd out

Saints cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstryasSeahawkswide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba lookson

Kelly said “early indications are that he’sgoing to be able to play,” but Kelly didn’twant to be deﬁnitive yet. He added “it was positive” when Durhamwent through aworkout Monday morning “He was better than we first thought,” Kelly said. “Doesn’t show thesigns of ahighankle (sprain),so he’s anxioustogiveit ashot and play. But we’ll monitor himthroughout theweek.” Weeks suffereda calf strain in LSU’s win Sept. 13 over Floridaand didnot play aweek later against Southeastern. He is LSU’s second-leadingtackler with 25 tackles, including two for aloss.

My ﬁrst reactions to LSU’s three annual opponents as part of the Southeastern Conference’s new scheduling format?

“I’veseen those guys get knocked down, crash to the floor,everything,”Dumars said. “So those guys have been back on thecourt full speed forseveral weeks now.” Jones,selected ﬁrst-team NBAAllDefense in the 2023-24 season,played in just 20 games last season. He injured the shoulder on Jan. 8against the Portland Trail Blazers and underwent surgery in the middle of February

“He is one of the pillars of our team and one of our leaders,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said at the time. “So we wanthim to heal quicklyand progress as he goes through this.”

Jones averaged 10.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and3.3 assists last season, but his presence on the defensive end of the court wasmissed the most.

Murphy injuredhis shoulderMarch 17 while diving foraloose ball in aloss to theDetroitPistons. In themidstof what wasthe best season of his career, he was diagnosed with atorn labrum and partial tear of the rotator cuff in his right shoulder. He underwent surgery on March 26. Murphy averaged a career-high in points (21.6), rebounds (5.2) and assists (3.6).

Predictable. Sensible. Alittle meh. The Tigers will get Ole Miss, Texas A&M and Arkansas, according to multiple reports. Nothing ofﬁcial until thebig reveal at 6p.m. Tuesday on ESPN2/SEC Network, but bank on these being the teams LSUwill play the other 12 SEC teams on arotating basis, playing everyone within two years and everyone home and away within four years. There are alot of things to react to, but we’ll start withthe Tigers’ three annual opponents First,Ole Miss. It’sinteresting timingfor theTigers and Rebels that the long-awaited schedule format is being revealed early in their gameweek. It’salways a big deal when LSU and Ole Miss play,but this year’sshowdown (2:30 p.m. Saturday,ABC) takes on added importance because of

both4-0 teams’ lofty rankings. LSUisNo. 4inthe AP poll and Ole Miss No.13. Remarkably,it’s

theﬁrst time both teams meet unbeaten and untied since No. 1LSU (7-0)

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Scott Rabalais

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOSByLINDSEy WASSON

Seattle Seahawks safety CobyBryant, center,reacts after tackling Saints wide receiver Rashid Shaheed on SundayinSeattle.

STAFF FILE PHOTOByMICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU wide receiverAaron Anderson dives overArkansas defensive back DoneikoSlaughter after acatchinthe first quarter Oct. 19 in Fayetteville,Ark. Arkansas is one of three annual SEC opponents for LSU starting next year

Seattle Seahawksrunning backKenneth Walker jumps over

Sunday in Seattle.

Rod Walker

Murphy Jones

6 p.m.

Ryder Cup prep underway in NY

Team USA pays tribute to victims, heroes of 9/11

BY DOUG FERGUSON Associated Press

FARMINGDALE, N.Y

The Ryder Cup had moments of inspiration in vastly different forms during a quiet Monday start to golf’s most chaotic week. There were tears for the Americans as they gathered on the ﬁrst tee at sunrise and a strong reminder for Europe as it goes after a rare road win.

U.S. captain Keegan Bradley had his entire team on the ﬁrst tee before the gates opened, no one in the massive grandstands that come Friday will be packed with ﬂag-waving fans.

He had Chris Mascali, a New York ﬁreﬁghter whose father died during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, speak to the team. Mascali brought his uniform, along with the helmet of his father, Joe Mascali. Those now are in the team room for the Americans.

Brian Robinson from FDNY Ladder 16 sang the national anthem as the large video board showed great moments in Ryder Cup history

“I had this vision of doing that for about a year,” Bradley said. “And to be out there and see it, and see how emotional the guys got, was a really special time for our team.”

The Americans walked solemnly across the bridge from the ﬁrst tee complex, headed to the practice area, then played 18 holes of the Black Course.

Team Europe, which spent two days at Bethpage Black a week ago and then dispersed some to American homes, others playing some of Long Island’s best golf courses until returning to Bethpage for what it expects to be a big challenge.

The Americans have lost at home only four times since the Ryder Cup began in 1927 European captain Luke Donald had his team wear salmon-colored pull-

“That’s motivating to the guys that it can be done, it has been done, and again, we’re here to try and do it again,” Donald said.

Europe is coming off a resounding win at Marco Simone and returns 11 of the 12 players from the Italy matches in 2023 — the exception is Rasmus Hojgaard, the identical twin of Nicolai Hojgaard, who played in the last Ryder Cup.

But the Europeans lost by nine points in 2021 at Whistling Straits, by six points at Hazeltine in 2016 and by ﬁve points at Valhalla in 2008.

weeks ago in Napa, California.

Ben Griffin, one of four Ryder Cup rookies, was with Bryson DeChambeau, who was not in Napa because he’s with LIV Golf and thus ineligible for PGA Tour play

Scottie Schefﬂer was with Russell Henley — they formed a tough partnership in the Presidents Cup last year at Royal Montreal — along with U.S. Open champion

J.J. Spaun and Harris English.

The final group had Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, partners for most team matches over the past six years, along with Sam Burns and Collin Morikawa who won a fourballs match in Marco Simone at the last Ryder Cup.

Schauffele and DeChambeau have gone about a month since last competing. DeChambeau ﬁnished the LIV season on Aug. 24, and Schauffele missed the Procore Championship while at home with a newborn son.

As tense as the Ryder Cup has become, the goal is to enjoy the week not knowing if the opportunity will come up again.

Bradley played in two Ryder Cups, the last one in 2014. He has not been back in any capacity until the 39-year-old who played college golf at St. John’s was named captain last year

He felt that sentiment as his team gathered on the ﬁrst tee to listen to Mascali.

Lawson named coach of U.S. women’s hoops team

Kara Lawson helped the U.S. women’s basketball team win an Olympic gold medal as a player 17 years ago. Now she’ll have a chance to lead it to another as the coach in the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

Lawson was announced as the head coach for the women’s team for the next four years by USA Basketball on Monday Lawson’s first chance to coach the team in a major competition will be at the World Cup next September in Germany The Americans will play next March in a qualifier for that tournament, but that’s right before the NCAA Tournament, which would make it difficult for Lawson to coach the U.S. because she also leads the Duke women’s basketball team.

UCF O-line coach, former App. St. coach, dies at 50 ORLANDO, Fla. UCF offensive line coach Shawn Clark died Sunday at 50 years old nearly two weeks after he was hospitalized with a medical emergency, the school announced.

Clark suffered the medical emergency on Sept. 9 and had been away from the team. He was said last week to be stable at the hospital.

Clark joined UCF’s staff this season after ﬁve seasons as head coach at Appalachian State. He went 40-24 in ﬁve seasons there and was 3-1 in bowl games, including a win in the 2023 Cure Bowl. He led Appalachian State to a 10win season in 2021.

Clark was a two-time All-American and three-time all-conference offensive lineman at Appalachian State before moving into the coaching ranks.

overs or sweater vests, a subtle reminder of what can be done.

That was the Sunday color for the European team in 1987 when it stunned the Americans at Muirﬁeld Village to win its ﬁrst Ryder Cup away from home. Europe has won three more times on U.S. soil since then, the most recent 13 years ago in what became known as the “Miracle at Medinah” because of the Sunday rally

“I think it’s always important to rally around something,” Donald said. “We always have things that we come up with that are important to us. History and our unity and celebrating what we’ve done in the past and the legends that have kind of come before us is really important. “This is going to be a difﬁcult challenge.”

There were not many surprises in the way Bradley grouped his three groups of four players for the only full practice round they play this week.

Justin Thomas and Cameron Young were together, as they were in the Procore Championship two

“It was a powerful moment,” Bradley said. “You’re looking around and seeing all the guys staring at what we were doing and so into it in such an emotional way. A lot of people have worked really hard to get to this point in their lives.

“Sometimes in your life and in your career, you have to take stock in what’s happening around you,” he said. “I think one of my biggest regrets earlier in my career wasn’t enjoying things more. And for that moment out this morning, guys were really taking that in and enjoying it, and that was a beautiful thing.”

Cantlay brings clutch putting, reputation

BY DOUG FERGUSON Associated Press

FARMINGDALE, N.Y Patrick Cantlay, often better at asking questions than giving answers, had one question as he walked up the ﬁnal hole at Marco Simone two years ago at the Ryder Cup Why is everyone waving their hats?

“I knew they were yelling at me,” Cantlay recalled in a recent interview “I couldn’t make out what they were saying I didn’t know anything about the false media story until I was ﬁnished playing. I had no idea what was happening. I just knew it was happening.”

The story to which he referred was a report based on anonymous sources by Sky Sports that Cantlay chose not to wear a hat during the Ryder Cup in Rome out of protest for not getting paid. “That’s the furthest thing from the truth,” Cantlay said that day Lost in the hat-waving was the performance. Cantlay was the prime American target of heckling from fans at Marco Simone during the last fourballs match with Wyndham Clark against Europe’s beloved Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick.

The Americans were one down with three holes to play when Cantlay made a 10-foot putt on the 16th to stay alive, an 8-foot birdie putt on the par-3 17th to square the match and a 45-foot birdie putt on the 18th that won it. It gave the Americans some hope — but only until Europe won another Ryder Cup and burnished his reputation as “Patty Ice,” a clutch putter impervious to the moment, whether from pressure, criticism or noise. A lot of noise. Cantlay was like that at Caves

Valley in 2021 during a stunning rally to beat Bryson DeChambeau in the BMW Championship — three clutch putts to end regulation, three more during a six-hole playoff when he never looked like the winner until he won.

“If you had to hand-select someone to hit a big putt on your team, I think Pat would come to a lot of people’s minds,” said Jim Furyk, the Presidents Cup captain last September and an assistant to Keegan Bradley for this Ryder Cup

Just don’t look for a big fist pump. “Patty Ice” also refers to his emotions It’s usually little more than a pinch of the bill of his hat, assuming he is wearing one. “The best way to engage a

crowd in the Ryder Cup is by making birdies,” he said ﬂatly

Bethpage Black ﬁgures to be a big test on a lot of levels, starting with the noise. The crowd at this public course on Long Island is notorious for being rowdy

“He does an amazing job of staying focused on what he needs to be a professional the right way and he’s done that since he was a little kid,” said Jamie Mulligan, his coach since Cantlay was a boy at Virginia Country Club in Long Beach, California. But it’s more than just the verbal noise at this Ryder Cup.

The American team is getting a $200,000 stipend this year — there was talk about it all going to charity — feeding into

the “Pay for Play” dialogue that ﬁrst surfaced in 1999. The report from Rome and the hat-waving at Cantlay turned out to be a big focal point. No chance of it dying out this week, especially when Cantlay showed up Monday for the ﬁrst day of practice wearing a hat That is sure to stoke more speculation about his motives. If he hears about it, odds are he won’t care.

“I don’t read or spend any time on social media,” said Cantlay who prefers Ayn Rand or Marcus Aurelius or the Winston Churchill trilogy “I’m aware that people are on there all the time. I’ve never been that interested in spending time on that.”

ACC fines Syracuse for feigning injuries in win CHARLOTTE,N.C The Atlantic Coast Conference has fined Syracuse $25,000 and issued a public reprimand for the Orange feigning injuries in Saturday’s 34-21 win over conference opponent Clemson. Syracuse issued a statement Monday saying it accepted the reprimand and ﬁne.

Play was stopped several times for injuries to Syracuse players during the game at Memorial Stadium in Clemson.

The ACC pointed to one incident in particular with 9:25 remaining in the fourth quarter saying the Orange violated NCAA Football Rule 3-3-6-b, which addresses the feigning of injuries by players, declaring it “unethical and contrary to the spirit of the rules.”

MLB owners approve sale of Rays to Zalupski group

NEW YORK Major League Baseball owners voted unanimously Monday to approve the sale of the Tampa Bay Rays to a group headed by real estate developer Patrick Zalupski, allowing the transfer from Stu Sternberg’s group to close. The Rays said on Sept. 17 they expected the sale to close within two weeks.

Sternberg took control of the team from founding owner Vince Naimoli in November 2005 and rebranded it the Rays from the Devil Rays after the 2007 season.

The Rays in March withdrew from a $1.3 billion project to construct a new ballpark adjacent to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, citing a hurricane and delays that likely drove up the proposal’s cost

Two-time MVP Nash joins Suns as senior adviser

PHOENIX Former Phoenix Suns

star Steve Nash is joining the franchise as a senior adviser, owner Mat Ishbia announced Monday

“Steve Nash was an amazing player and exactly what the Phoenix Suns are all about,” Ishbia wrote on social media.

Nash had some of his best seasons as a player with the Suns, winning back-to-back MVPs in 2005 and 2006. The eight-time All-Star was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018.

Nash, 51, was also the coach of the Brooklyn Nets from 2020 to 2022, finishing with a 94-67 record before being fired following a 2-5 start in 2022. The Suns finished 36-46 last season and rebuilt their roster in the offseason,

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MICHAEL SISAK

Ryder Cup European captain Luke Donald, center, speaks to British media on Monday at Bethpage Black in Farmingdale, N.y. The European team wore salmon pullovers in memory of its stunning 1987 victory at Muirfield Village.

AP PHOTO By MIKE STEWART Team USA captain Keegan Bradley, giving a thumbs up at the Tour Championship on Aug. 23, arranged a sunrise gathering for his team at Bethpage Black.

FRIDAy USA

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

Patrick Cantlay celebrates after holing his putt that led to him winning his afternoon fourballs match in the Ryder Cup on Sept. 30, 2023, at the Marco Simone Golf Club in Guidonia Montecelio, Italy.

Grupe‘frustrated’by string of missed FGs

BY RODWALKER Staff writer

BlakeGrupe was arguablythe New Orleans Saints’ most impressive player before theseason began. Thethird-year kicker missed just one ﬁeld goal throughouttraining camp and preseason. But three games into theseason, he’smade just 4of7 ﬁeld goal attempts. He’s hadamiss in all three games, including a52-yarder in Sunday’s44-13 road lossto theSeattle Seahawks.

“Obviously it sucks,” Grupe said about his slow start. “I’ve had some ups and downs in mycareer, but Idon’tfeel like Ihave been as frustrated as Iamwith whereIam right now.That’sjust duetohow well Iknow Iamhitting the ball and how that showed throughout OTAs and camp and the preseason. It hasn’tcarried over theselast three games.” Grupe, whomade27of31ﬁeld goalslastseason,isn’t pressingthe panic button.

“Itwouldbereal easy to freak out and try to change some stuff,”

Grupe said.“Ifeel like part of what it takes to continue down your path and continuetogrowinthe league is to trust what you know you do well and trust the routine that got you here. It’s real easy to freak out and go loony over threebad reps on theyear when each kick has its own story.”

Sunday against Seattle at Lumen Field was Grupe’sﬁrst game outdoors this season. He’ll be outside again Sunday when the Saints play theBuffaloBills at Highmark Stadium.

“It’snot going to get any easier kicking in Buffalo this week,” Grupe said. “That’swhat makes this job the best. You’ve got to step up to theplate.”

Punt team woes

Grupe’smiss wasn’tthe only special teams miscue Sunday.The biggest errors came earlier in the game when theSaintsgave up a 95-yard punt return and had apunt blocked.

After reviewing the ﬁlm, Saints coach Kellen Moore gavehis assessment Monday on what went wrong

“Onthe blocked punt, we’ve

got to executeata higher level,” Moore said. “We’ve got to communicate. We are not all on the same page. When you’re not all on the samepage, that’swhen afree runner shows up. Ifeel like we have a lot of control on that. On thepunt return, we have acouple shots down thereand we don’tget him, then we lose leverage.”

Sigh of relief

After each of the ﬁrst two games, theSaintsfound outtheyhad lost a player because of aseason-ending injury.After the season opener,it was safety Julian Blackmon who discovered when he got home that he had aseason-ending shoulderinjury.Last week, it was rookie defensive tackle Vernon Broughton with ahip injury

This week, Moore said the team cameout of the game ﬁne health wise.

“Nothing to note that should impact our game this week,” Moore said. “That’sgood based off the ﬁrst couple weeks we had acouple (injuries) show up on Monday.We should be headed in the right direction.”

WALKER

Continued from page1C

over the next three months just how bad the Saints are. Are they the worst team in the league, which is what many predicted they would be before the season began? It’stoo early to say,but they sure looked likethe frontrunner for that titleSunday

The special teams —which allowed apunt return for a touchdown, saw apunt get block, yielded a60-yard kickoff return to set up anotherscore and had BlakeGrupe miss aﬁeld goal —were abysmal. All of that happenedinthe ﬁrst half.The Saints have prided themselves on special teams play over the past twodecades, so to see the team fall apart in that area was shocking.

So wereall the penalties (11) that haunted the team again

There probably aren’tenough hoursinthe weekfor Moore to ﬁx it all as his team preparesfor reigning MVP Josh Allen andthe Buffalo Bills. Chances are, the Bills will be the bestteam the Saints face all season. The Seahawks could be aplayoff team, but theyaren’tateam that should be beating the Saints this badly

The Saints now have lost seven straight games, thesecond-longest active losing streak in the league behind the Titans (nine). None of the Saints’ previoussix losses were quite this bad. “It’satest of adversity,” Moore said. “It’show you respond. This is going to be areally valuable lessonfor us. Our guys are goingto learn from this.” They’d better Sundaywas another reminder

NinersDEBosatears ACL, outfor season NFLNOTEBOOK

The Associated Press SanFrancisco star defensive end Nick Bosa tore the ACL in his right kneeand will miss the rest of theseason. Bosa hurt his kneeinthe ﬁrst half of awin over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday and didn’t return to the game. Bosa gave a thumbs-down to someone in the crowd after the injury,but initial tests did notshowatorn ACL. More tests weredone Monday showingthat Bosa had torn his ACL and his season was done.

“Obviously,he’sbummed, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “ButNickcan handle anything and he’sgoing to handle it like he always does, which will be great. But obviously he wasbummed outfrom it, not being able to ﬁnish out this year,especially how good of ayear he was having so far.”

Shanahan said there was no damage to themeniscus or other ligaments, which bodes well for his rehabilitation.

This is thesecondtimeBosa has gone down with aseason-ending ACL tear early in the season. Bosa tore theACL in hisleftknee in Week 2ofthe 2020 season and missed the rest of that season.

That marked the only time in Bosa’sfirst six seasons in the NFL that he didn’thave at least nine sacks in aseason.Bosa has made thePro Bowl in all ﬁve of his healthy seasonsand wonthe AP NFLDefensive Player of the Year award in 2022, whenhelead theleague with 181/2 sacks.

Cowboys WR Lamb likely to miss some time: The Dallas Cowboys say CeeDee Lamb suffered ahigh-ankle sprainina 31-14 loss to Chicago, an injury that ﬁgures to sideline thestar receiver at least one gameand possibly more.

Club executivevicepresident of personnel StephenJones revealed the extent of the injury on his radio showMonday, andhe indicated it would be difﬁcult for Lamb to play Sunday when Micah Parsons andthe Green Bay Packers visit.

“Certainly,he’sgot ahigh-ankle

sprain and every one of those are different,”Jonessaid.“We’d love to have him back forGreen Bay, butatthe same time we’vealso got to understand the injury is what it is and we’ll play it out.” Lamb was injured the ﬁrst time he touchedthe ball against the Bears. He linedupatrunning back and took ahandoff running right when his feet got crossed up andhis left legbuckledunder the leg of linebacker Noah Sewell,who dropped Lamb fora 1-yard loss.

The 2023 All-Pro limped to the sideline, got the ankle taped and triedtocome backinthe second quarter.Lamblasted just one play,going in motion before pulling up lame in the middleofa route. He signaled to the sideline as if to sayhecouldn’t play any longer

The injuryendedLamb’s fourgame streak of 100-yard showings going back to last season. It was the longest active streak in theNFL andtiedthe longest of his career Bears

Topcornerback to have surgery:Chicago Bears star cornerback Jaylon Johnson will have groin surgery, but the team isn’truling out areturn this season,coach BenJohnson said Monday

The two-time Pro Bowler indicated last week he might have a season-ending operation, though Ben Johnson saidthere’sa chance he returns this year Jaylon Johnson left ablowout loss at Detroit in Week 2after he washurt breaking up apass. He saidthe next day in hisweekly appearance on WSCR-AM that the groin “as awhole just needs to get repaired” and that he was “trying to see what’sthe best option.”

Johnson missed training camp, the preseason and the season opener because of agroin injury But he saidhesuffered anew one, in adifferent part of that region, in that 52-21 loss to Detroit. It happened early in the second quarter,when he broke up apass intendedfor Amon-RaSt. Brown. The Bears placed him on injured reserve on Saturday

Falconsstickingwith

QB Penix, coachsays

BY CHARLES ODUM AP sportswriter

ATLANTA RaheemMorrisusually offers generous doses of words and smiles in his sessions with reporters. The second-year Atlanta Falcons coach was not in asmiling mood after Sunday’s30-0 loss at Carolina. He offered only one word— aterse “No” —when asked whether he was opening the quarterback positionfor competition this week.

Morris maynot have liked the question,which became relevant after MichaelPenix was removed from the game in the fourth quarter andreplaced by former starter Kirk Cousins. The coach deﬁnitely did notlike thetwo interceptions thrown by Penix, including onereturnedfor atouchdown. Morris saidPenix,the 2024 first-round pick in his first full season as theAtlanta starter, didn’tdeservefull blame for the loss.

to navigate aplay-from-behind plan, which is notsuited to his short passing game.

For the second time in three weeks, the Falcons lost when too muchofthe offensive burden was placed on Penix. The loss left Atlanta 0-2 in the NFC South while providinganother reminder the passing gameshould be a complement to Robinson and Tyler Allgeier

Penix completed 18 of 36 passes for172 yards with the twointerceptions. The Falcons trailed 27-0 when Cousins entered the game. Penix was plaguedbya lack of accuracy and an admitted inabilitytorecognize tightcoverages. On his pick-six, Penix looked right, thenbackleft, and had ample time to identify Carolina’sChau Smith-Wade but still forced an ill-advised sidearm throw intended for Robinson. Smith-Wade’s11-yard interception return gave thePanthersa 17-0 lead.

“I didn’tsee him,” Penix said of Smith-Wade. “Good play.”

of theSaints getting left behind. And that’snot just what we saw in Seattlebut also around the NFC South. The Tampa Buccaneers rallied late for awin andimprovedto3-0.The CarolinaPanthers, divisiondoormats in recent years, blastedthe Atlanta Falcons 30-0. Turns out, that Falcons’ loss wasn’t the division’sworst of the day. Thatdubious distinction belongs to the Saints, whoone-upped their divisionrivaltolose by 31. It was agut punchthatthe Saints andtheir fanswon’t soon forget. Twenty years from now, fanswill talk aboutthisgame. So yes, Earth, Wind &Fire. The 21st dayofSeptember is aday the Saints alwayswill remember But it’saday they’d much rather forget.

Email RodWalker at rwalker@ theadvocate.com.

“Wedid not play well on any phase, andhedid notplaywell as well,” Morris said. “Wedidn’t play well around him, and we’ve got to play better across the board.” Morris took action Monday by ﬁring wide receivers coach Ike Hilliard.Passing gamecoordinator T.J. Yatesnow will coach the receivers. The staff changes cameafterMorris, when askedabout the slow start by wide receiver Darnell Mooney,said: “We’ve got to get to the point that we’ve got to go out there and play the right way.But, no, he’snot playing, we’re notplaying the brand of football we need to play with Mooney,and we’re capable of so much more, without adoubt.”

The Falcons (1-2) should rely on their strength, the running game ledbyBijan Robinson. Three turnovers forced the offense to lose its balance and rely on Penix

Morris said his decision to take Penix outwas tied to himalso bringing in backups at running back and wide receiver

“The game is out of hand,” Morris said. “They got us.”

AddedMorris: “I don’tworry about Mike’sconﬁdence.”

Robinson had 13 carries for 72 yards and ﬁve receptions for 39 yards. He averaged 5.5 yards per carry

The game ﬂowprevented Falconsoffensive coordinator Zac Robinson from carving apath for Robinson to match his 22 carries for143 yards in Atlanta’s 22-6win at Minnesota on Sept. 14. Robinson has had 12 and 13 carries in Atlanta’stwo losses. The obvious challenge is to ﬁnd away to utilize Robinson as theclear strength of theoffense despite defenses gearing their game plans to stopthe run andmake the Falcons winwith Penix.

STAFF PHOTO By BRETTDUKE

NewOrleansSaints kicker BlakeGrupe kicks a field goal during the second half against theArizona Cardinals on Sept.7 at theCeasars Superdome. Grupe has missed three field goals this season.

LSU’s three annual SEC foes revealed

BY WILSON ALEXANDER Staff writer

LSU’s three annual opponents have been set when the Southeastern Conference goes to a ninegame conference schedule in 2026.

The Tigers will play Ole Miss, Arkansas and Texas A&M, multiple sources conﬁrmed Monday morning with The Advocate. That means LSU will not play Alabama every year Instead, the Crimson Tide has Mississippi State as one of its annual opponents for the 2026-29 seasons.

Under the new format, the annual opponents will be reevaluated every four years to possibly make adjustments based on competitive balance and other factors, so changes could be made going into the 2030 season.

In the new nine-team league schedule, every school will have three annual opponents and six rotating opponents. Every SEC team will play one another at least once every two years and every opponent home and away in a four-year span. The SEC will announce the football opponents for every school for the next four years Tuesday at 6 p.m. on the SEC Network and ESPN2. Dates for the games in 2026 will be announced in December Two years ago, sources told The Advocate it was expected that one

of LSU’s three annual opponents would be Alabama. At the time, former Alabama coach Nick Saban objected to the idea that the Crimson Tide should play Tennessee, Auburn and LSU every season because he believed his team would have a more difﬁcult schedule than

Coach Smart ﬁnally draws a home game for Georgia against Alabama

BY CHARLES ODUM AP sports writer

ATHENS, Ga. — Kirby Smart has had

to wait 10 years for his Georgia team to play at home against Alabama. Saturday night’s visit by No. 17

Alabama to No. 5 Georgia gives Smart, the former Crimson Tide defensive coordinator, a longawaited opportunity to have the home-ﬁeld advantage in the highproﬁle Southeastern Conference rivalry

While waiting on this home game Georgia has struggled to a 1-6 record against Alabama under Smart.

One of Smart’s highlights of his decade leading the Georgia program is beating Alabama in Indianapolis on Jan 10, 2022, to win the national championship, ending a 41-year title drought for the program. Georgia added a second straight national title the following year. Otherwise, Alabama is 6-0 against Georgia in the Smart era

The Crimson Tide beat the Bulldogs 41-34 in Tuscaloosa last season in Kalen DeBoer’s first SEC game as Alabama’s coach. It was Alabama’s second home win over Smart’s Bulldogs. Alabama’s other four wins over Smart and Georgia have come in Atlanta, including three SEC championship games and the 2018 national championship game. Can Georgia’s home-ﬁeld advantage end Alabama’s run of success against the Bulldogs?

“Playing at home, it helps,” Smart said Monday “The atmosphere helps, the crowd noise helps, being familiar with your surroundings and all that stuff helps, but at the end of the day, you have to go play football. It comes down to matchups, it comes down to who blocks and who tackles the best, who executes and does things

in the key moments of the game.

So, certainly glad it’s at home, but we’ve still got to play well.”

Georgia (3-0, 1-0) gained momentum for the visit from Alabama by beating Tennessee 44-41 in overtime on Sept. 13 in another important SEC game. Alabama (2-1, 0-0) beat Wisconsin 38-14 on Sept. 13.

The Bulldogs and Crimson Tide were off last week

Georgia’s ﬁrst two home games were wins over Marshall and Austin Peay Smart wasn’t happy to see fans leaving in the third quarter of the runaway 45-7 victory over Marshall on Aug. 30, and a weather delay helped put a damper on the crowd in a sluggish 28-6 win over Austin Peay on Sept. 6.

There would be a signiﬁcant difference in the Sanford Stadium atmosphere for any visit from Alabama. That edge could be intensiﬁed by the prime-time kickoff.

Georgia’s crowd noise is known to peak for high-proﬁle night games.

“I would agree with that statement, that it’s louder at night than day,” Smart said. “. I think the crowd has a little longer to get prepared for it, and they’re louder I mean, they’re not as taxed, not as much heat So the games I’ve coached in, played in, been a part of, night games are a little more rowdy.”

Georgia players used last week’s extra practice time to begin getting excited about the big game.

“The talent they have and the talent we have, any time you get two elite programs going head to head, it results in some good games that we’ve all seen in the past,” punter Brett Thorson said. “So obviously we want to win the SEC and we know Alabama is always going to be a tough team in the SEC. So any time that game comes up, you know it’s going to be a good challenge really to test where we’re at and where we’re going this year

And it’s exciting

the rest of the league.

Alabama’s annual opponents for the next four years are Auburn, Tennessee and Mississippi State, according to multiple reports. Alabama’s two biggest rivals are Auburn and Tennessee Its campus is 83 miles from Mis-

sissippi State. “I’m fine with the way it’s set up because within four years, you’re going to play them home and away,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “You might not get them every year, but you’re going to get them enough where it continues

to take the big-game approach to playing Alabama.”

LSU has a long-standing rivalry with Ole Miss. The teams played for the ﬁrst time in 1894, and they have faced each other every year since 1945. LSU leads the all-time series 64-43-4 with two vacated wins going into their next game at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Oxford, Mississippi.

Geographically, Texas A&M is one of the closest schools to LSU in the conference. They ﬁrst played in 1899, and two years after Texas A&M joined the SEC, the league put LSU-Texas A&M on the last weekend of the regular season from 2014-23. They are not expected to play on rivalry weekend moving forward because of Texas A&M’s annual game with Texas. After not playing for decades, LSU and Arkansas have played every year since the Razorbacks joined the SEC in 1992. LSU leads the all-time series 43-23-2 with two vacated wins in the Battle for the Golden Boot trophy

The SEC announced in August that it would begin playing a ninegame league schedule in 2026 after playing eight conference games every year since 1992.

“The way the schedule is set up,” Kelly said, “I feel really good about what it looks like and all the teams we’re going to get a chance to play in the SEC.”

RABALAIS

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LSU and Ole Miss have played every single year since the end of World War II in 1945 and more than 100 times all told, with tons of classic meetings in their history So this was an annual border skirmish that needed to be preserved.

Texas A&M also makes a lot of sense. The Tigers and Aggies have played off and on since 1899, with a big series in the 1980s and 90s and every year since A&M joined the SEC in 2012. In terms of geography and fan bases that are in well-mixed proximity to each other from Slidell to College Station, you can see why the SEC decided these two should also play annually

Still, the Texas A&M series doesn’t do a whole lot for me It would have been more intriguing for LSU to keep playing Alabama or Florida or renew the annual series with Auburn, but there were several reasons those weren’t happening.

Arkansas is the “a little meh” part of this equation, but it almost has to be there because of the logistics of SEC scheduling. In short, LSU needs someone to play Thanksgiving weekend to end the regular season. This year and in 2024, that team has been Oklahoma, and it could have been the Tigers and Sooners going

INJURIES

Continued from page 1C

Kelly said Weeks ran well Sunday, so he is trending toward playing.

“I think we got him at 90%,” Kelly said, “so I would say that he is probable for this game leading into it.”

Reliford hurt his right shoulder against Southeastern, and his arm was in a sling the rest of the game. A key member of a rotation at defensive end, Reliford has eight tackles and one tackle for loss.

Kelly said Reliford suffered a subluxation of his shoulder, which is a dislocation. LSU will have to determine whether he needs

forward. But LSU to OU is a long haul. Instead, OU and Missouri likely will play annually in a border matchup with old Big 12 ties. Arkansas, OU and Mizzou are the only SEC teams other than LSU that don’t have a big rival to play to end the season (OU and Oklahoma State aren’t playing again any time soon). LSU and Arkansas are border rivals, they play for The Boot, and they’ve played 80 times since 1901. This is a win for Arkansas, which was bummed when LSU started playing Texas A&M to end the regular season from 2014-23. For LSU, it’s a game it expects to win nine times out of 10. Why not Alabama as an annual opponent? Well, Bama was no doubt going to get Auburn and its game with Tennessee is also huge. The SEC wasn’t going to give the Crimson Tide three potential heavyweights with LSU as well. Why not Florida? Looking at all the reported annual opponents, the SEC was intent on preserving rivalries and took geography into account. There are a ton of annual games here with old SEC West schools playing each other and old SEC East schools playing each other

Why not Auburn? Auburn has Alabama, and it also has the South’s oldest rivalry with Georgia. The SEC wasn’t going to saddle Auburn with LSU as well, so it gets Vanderbilt, no easy out at the moment.

surgery

“We certainly want to respect the fact that in this situation, a defensive lineman, you want to make sure he’s healthy and able to pass rush,” Kelly said. “If he can’t compete at the level he needs to, then we’ll look at the options that are in front of us and surgery could be an option. Without Reliford, LSU will have to adjust its defensive end rotation behind senior transfers Patrick Payton, Jack Pyburn and Jimari Butler. Kelly mentioned redshirt sophomore Dylan Carpenter redshirt freshman Kolaj Cobbins, redshirt freshman CJ Jackson or freshman Damien Shanklin could get playing time.

“We think we have some really good options for that fourth position,” Kelly said. “We’ll miss Gabe

Overall, the SEC did a pretty equitable job of parsing out the annual opponents. Now there’s the immediate matter of the 2026 schedule.

LSU is going to get some of the opponents from the SEC’s heavyweight class: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. I don’t know how that will shake out, but the SEC should do what’s right by LSU and make sure it sends Texas here next season.

The Longhorns did not return LSU’s 2019 win in Austin in 2020 as planned because the SEC played a conference-only pandemic schedule, so the Tigers are owed one. In fact, Texas hasn’t played in Tiger Stadium since 1953, with the teams meeting just three times total since 1962. On top of that, the prospect of Arch Manning — the current banner carrier for the New Orleans-based football dynasty that never has had anything to do with LSU quarterbacking the Longhorns in Baton Rouge is the deﬁnition of appointment viewing.

One last thing: Expect LSU to get just four SEC home games in 2026 and ﬁve in 2027. With Clemson and LSU’s two other nonconference games in Tiger Stadium next season, that’s likely how the math will work for everyone.

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this week, certainly, until we decide what his fate is moving forward relative to the shoulder But we feel really good that we’ll be able to ﬁnd that fourth guy.”

Green has not played in LSU’s past two games after suffering a sprained MCL in Week 2 against Louisiana Tech. He went through pregame

in full pads with a brace on his right knee before LSU played Southeastern. He then changed into sweatpants.

“He was pretty good in pregame,” Kelly said, “and then we felt like we could hold him back for another week.”

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warmups

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU linebacker Whit Weeks, right, intercepts a pass by Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green, middle, on Oct. 19 at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Ark.

AP PHOTO By GEORGE WALKER IV

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart celebrates the team’s overtime win after a game against Tennessee on Sept. 13 in Knoxville, Tenn.

THE VARSITY ZONE

CLASS 5A AND 4A

1. Edna Karr (3-0): The three-time reigning District 9-5A champions are 18-1 in district games over the past three seasons and will begin district play Saturday against Holy Cross.

2. St. Augustine (3-0): QB Vashaun Coulon threw seven touchdown passes last week as the Purple Knights — with 180 points scored over three games — begin district play against Warren Easton.

3 Brother Martin (3-0): The Crusaders won their first three games for the second year in a row and would like nothing more than to avenge the 17-5 loss to Jesuit last season when those teams meet Friday at Tad Gormley Stadium.

4. John Curtis (2-0): The Patriots have twice topped 50 points and rushed for more than 1,000 yards combined in two games — but will face their stiffest challenge yet in the district opener against Rummel.

5. Destrehan (1-2): The Wildcats begin district play against East St.

John after losing for the second time against a state-ranked opponent this time against Alexandria after facing Catholic-Baton Rouge in Week 1.

6. Jesuit (3-0): Senior quarterback Taylor Norton is expected to play after he sat out the 52-0 win against Bonnabel that included two touchdown passes from sophomore backup Sully Sullivan and two rushing scores by Gavin Palmisano.

7. Rummel (2-1): The Raiders leaned on junior running backs Jaden Terrance and Coryan Hawkins in their two wins against University High and Shaw — and will try beat Curtis for a third year in a row.

8. Holy Cross (3-0): The Tigers move into the rankings on the strength of three quality wins — the latest one avenging last season’s loss to Chalmette after previous wins against E.D White and De La Salle.

9. Lakeshore (3-0): The Titans trailed only briefly for the first time this season and overcame that

early deficit against Northshore by scoring the next three touchdowns.

10. St. Charles (3-0): The Comets have three wins against schools that have appeared in the state rankings this year — with the next game coming against De La Salle.

CLASS 3A AND BELOW

1. Kennedy (1-2): The Cougars keep this spot amid their run of five consecutive Class 5A opponents to start the season — with St. Paul’s up next.

2. Riverside (2-1): Jaden Obiekwe ran for three touchdowns in his first game since the former East Jefferson all-district running back transferred after last season.

3. Northlake Christian (1-1): The Wolverines would like nothing more than to avenge last season’s loss to state-ranked Lakeshore.

4. De La Salle (0-3): All three losses are against Class 5A teams that have a combined 8-1 record this season — and with St. Charles and Shaw up next.

5. South Plaquemines (2-1): The Hurricanes can rebound from

a lopsided shutout loss to Belle Chasse when they face winless East Jefferson this week.

6. Pope John Paul II (1-2): Two losses to larger-enrollment schools should do little to diminish the Jaguars’ outcome Ben Franklin is next on the schedule

7. Newman (0-2): The Greenies will face a high-scoring Willow team that is averaging better than 50 points per game when the teams meet at Newman.

8. Young Audiences (3-0): Devon Hayes scored the winning two-point conversion after Caleb Jackson ran for the second of his two touchdowns against Livingston Collegiate.

9. Livingston Collegiate (1-2): The Wolves overcame a large deficit and led late against young Audiences before the final touchdown and twopoint conversion.

10. St. Martin’s (1-2): A one-point win over Patrick Taylor included a last-minute stop of a two-point conversion attempt.

Christopher Dabe

Jones and Murphy were both members of the Pelicans’ 2021 draft class and have become essential building blocks for the franchise.

Their return to start the season is a big lift for a team looking to rebound from last season’s 21-61 ﬁnish, the second-fewest wins in franchise history The Pelicans likely will have to wait a bit longer for the return of point guard Dejounte Murray and rookie forward Derik Queen.

“Those guys are deep into their rehab,” Dumars said. “Obviously they are not back yet. I can’t give a specific date right now, but those guys are really deep into their rehab. My conversation with the medical (staff) here has been real good over the summer about the process these guys have been going through.”

STAFF PHOTO By JOHN MCCUSKER

Rummel senior Chris Parker returns a fumble recovery in the first quarter against Shaw last Friday in Marrero The Raiders will try beat John Curtis for a third year in a row on Friday.

Auburn basketball coach Pearl is retiring

His son will take over program

The Associated Press

AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn coach

Bruce Pearl announced his retirement Monday less than six months after ﬁnishing the Tigers’ best season in program history with a trip to the Final Four Pearl’s 38-year-old son Steven Pearl, who has been on his father’s coaching staff for all 11 seasons at Auburn, will take over as coach.

“I just feel when I can’t give 100% it’s time to pass the torch,” Bruce Pearl said in a 14-minute video posted on social media.

Pearl, 65, is the school’s winningest men’s coach and took the Tigers to their only two Final Four appearances. He will move into an ambassador role as an assistant to the Auburn athletic director He said he isn’t going into politics after rumors had circulated about a potential Senate run.

“Many of you know that I thought

and prayed about maybe running for United States Senate, maybe to be the next great senator from the state of Alabama,” said Pearl, who was a college head coach for more than 30 seasons with four schools.

“That would have required leaving Auburn, and instead the university has given me the opportunity to stay here and be Auburn’s senator I need to focus now on being a great husband, being a great father, being the best grandfather I possibly can be.”

Pearl advanced the Tigers to their first Final Four in 2019, defeating Kansas North Carolina and Kentucky in successive games. They lost to eventual champion Virginia by one point.

Last season, led by All-American Johni Broome, the Tigers earned the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament and had a schoolrecord 32 wins before losing to Florida in the national semiﬁnal.

Pearl had a 246-125 record at Auburn, but the school recognizes only 232 of those wins after vacating games from the 2016-17 season because of NCAA infractions involving former assistant coach Chuck Person. Pearl received a two-game suspension for failure to monitor his assistant and ad-

equately promote compliance.

Tennessee had fired Pearl in 2011 after the NCAA charged him with unethical conduct and then additional violations surfaced. He was 145-71 and made the NCAA Tournament all six seasons with the Volunteers from 2005-11, getting to the Sweet 16 three times, and advancing to their first regional final in 2010.

Auburn hired Pearl in March 2014, when he was in the final months of his show-cause penalty, to take over a program that hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2003. The Tigers went six times, all in the past seven seasons Before his two SEC stops, Pearl won an NCAA Division II national championship in 1995 with Southern Indiana while going 231-46 in his ﬁrst head coaching job from 1992-2001. He then was 86-38 in four seasons at Milwaukee, going to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2005 before getting hired by Tennessee.

Steven Pearl played 101 games for his father at Tennessee from 2007-11. He was a medical sales representative for three years before joining the Auburn staff in 2014. He was promoted to associate head coach before the 2023-24 season.

LSU women’s hoops set for different type of team

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

Many of the faces on the LSU women’s basketball team will be unrecognizable when it begins its ﬁfth season under coach Kim Mulkey Most of the players who helped the Tigers reach the doorstep of the Final Four in the last two years have moved on. Only one contributor from the 2023 national championship team remains. Just two are left from the squad that advanced to the Elite Eight in 2024 and lost to Caitlin Clark’s Iowa team.

Mulkey and her staff already have overhauled the roster Now it’s time to see how all of the new pieces ﬁt.

Here’s a primer for the LSU preseason, complete with all the questions to answer and storylines to watch ahead of the 202526 season, which will tip off Nov

4. The Tigers’ first practice is Tuesday in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, and it’s open to the public.

1. An overhauled roster

National championship hopes now rest on the shoulders of Flau’jae Johnson, Mikaylah Williams and a brand-new supporting cast. The roster has only four returners and eight newcomers ﬁve freshmen and three transfers. The Tigers haven’t experienced this much roster turnover since 2022, when Mulkey and her staff built the team that won the 2023 title. Will history repeat itself? It’s possible, especially if transfers MiLaysia Fulwiley and Kate Koval take steps forward.

2. How does Fulwiley fit?

Fulwiley is one of the country’s most athletic, dynamic players, but South Carolina preferred to bring her off the bench. Now the junior guard plays at LSU, and it looks like she’ll have a chance to earn starter’s minutes. Will she play point guard? Hailey Van Lith was in a similar position two years ago and discovered that running point in Mulkey’s system wasn’t for her Fulwiley could encounter the same issues, but LSU also could give her a different role.

3. Will freshmen crack rotation?

No team in the country is adding a more highly rated freshman class than LSU, which landed four of the top-35 recruits in ESPN’s 2025 rankings. Forward Grace Knox and guard ZaKiyah Johnson are two of the nation’s

SCOREBOARD

RUSHING_Kansas City, Pacheco 10-45, Hunt 10-34, B.Smith 2-13, Remigio 1-11, Mahomes 5-2. N.Y. Giants, Skattebo 10-60, Tracy 7-29, Wilson 5-27, Singletary 4-11, Dart 1-3. PASSING_Kansas City Mahomes 22-37-0-224. N.Y. Giants, Wilson 18-32-2-160. RECEIVING_Kansas City, Thornton 5-71, Smith-Schuster 4-55, Brown 4-42, Kelce 4-26, Gray 3-17, Hunt 1-10, Pacheco 1-3. N.Y. Giants, Skattebo 6-61, Slayton 4-30, Nabers 2-13, Tracy 2-7, Robinson 1-26, T.Johnson 1-10, Manhertz 1-7, Bellinger 1-6. MISSED FIELD GOALS_Kansas City Butker 40. Pro basketball WNBA Playoffs (x-if necessary) Semiﬁnals (Best-of-5) Minnesota 1, Phoenix 0 Sunday’s game: Minnesota 85, Phoenix 69 Tuesday’s game: Phoenix at Minnesota, 6:30 p.m. (ESPN) Friday’s game: Minnesota at Phoenix, TBD (ESPN2) x-Sunday, Sept. 28: Minnesota at Phoenix

(ESPN2) x-Tuesday, Sept. 30 Phoenix at Minnesota

10 best prospects. Guard Divine Bourrage is a top-20 recruit, and guard Bella Hines is a fringe top30 prospect. They can all contribute in some capacity this season, but will any of them start? And will any of them play signiﬁcant minutes once Mulkey tightens her rotation for SEC games?

4. What about other returners?

Don’t forget about guards Kailyn Gilbert and Jada Richard Gilbert hit a couple of gamewinning shots last year and Richard improved as the season went along, flashing potential as a 3-point shooter One of the challenges Mulkey will face during preseason practices and the nonconference slate is ﬁnding the right roles for the guards behind Fulwiley Johnson and Williams. She may have to make some tough decisions.

5. Life after Reese, Morrow Rebounding is important to Mulkey Each of her last three LSU teams have ﬁnished its season with one of the ﬁve highest rebounding averages in the country But here’s the problem: All of those squads had either Angel Reese, Aneesah Morrow or both. Now LSU’s rebounding needs fall on its brand-new frontcourt. Koval and Amiya Joyner are the transfers. Knox and Meghan Yarnevich are the freshmen.

6. One nonconference test

LSU has won both of the ACC/ SEC Challenge games it’s played during Mulkey’s tenure. One of those matchups is back on the nonconference schedule this year, and this time the Tigers are playing Duke — at Duke. Last season, the Blue Devils won the ACC Tournament and reached the Elite Eight, where they lost a close battle with South Carolina. LSU is only set to play as many as two nonconference games against high-major opponents this year, so as always, it’s important that it makes the road game against Duke count.

7. Johnson’s last ride

Flau’jae Johnson could have declared for the WNBA draft in the offseason, but she decided to return to Baton Rouge for her senior year It was an important move, not only because it could set up LSU for a run to a Final Four but also the fact Johnson was the first major recruit to choose the Tigers after Mulkey took over the program. She means quite a bit to LSU, and now she can bookend her impressive career with national titles. She’s developed into one of the best players in the country

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By BRyNN ANDERSON

Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl celebrates with a net after an Elite Eight victory against Michigan State on March 30 in Atlanta.

BY JULIA GUILBEAU

Staff writer

Activist Ruby Bridges joined a handful of other civil rights leaders over the weekend to celebrate fashion and Black history at Actively Black’s New York Fashion Week runway show

Bridges took the stage along with Dr Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of Malcom X; and Hassie Benjamin Haith Jr., creator of the Juneteenth ﬂag.

The 71 year old, who at 6 became one of the first Black students to integrate schools in New Orleans, strutted across the stage at Sony Hall recently in a hoodie dress made by the Black-owned athleticwear company.

As a ﬁrst-grader in 1960, Bridges — along with other “New Orleans Four” members Tessie Prevost, Gail Etienne and Leona Tate — blazed the path for desegregating schools in the Crescent City She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2023 and honored the same year with a monument on the Louisiana Civil Rights Trail.

Before she emerged on the runway last week, fashion show organizers played footage of Bridges being escorted into William Frantz Elementary by federal marshals on her ﬁrst day at the school. Actively Black, founded by Lanny Smith and Bianca Winslow, aims to celebrate Black culture

with their clothes while also uplifting the Black community, according to the brand’s website. Their 2025 show was themed, “This is Not a Fashion Show.”

The show also featured a live performance from Fast Life Yungstaz, a tribute to the Harlem Globetrotters and an appearance from AJ & Free, hosts of “106 & Park,” according to BET Magazine. Email Julia Guilbeau at jguilbeau@theadvocate.com.

“The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions. There are no quotas for diversity; the winners list simply reflects it as a natural process.” BEFORE COLUMBUS FOUNDATION, in a statement on American Book Awards recipients

Notable ﬁgures win at annual book awards

BY HILLEL ITALIE AP national writer

Civil rights leader Ruby Bridges shines onstage END IN SIGHT?

In Season 5, the future of the building itself is at stake in ‘Only Murders in the Building’

BY NINA METZ Chicago Tribune (TNS)

The visually rich and lore-ﬁlled Upper West Side abode

can’t

NEW YORK Former MSNBC host Joy Reid and authors Percival Everett and John Edgar Wideman are among this years’ recipients of the 46th annual American Book Awards, which celebrate diversity in American art and culture. The awards are presented by the Before Columbus Foundation, the nonprofit that author-playwright Ishmael Reed helped found in 1976. Reid, who left MSNBC in February soon after the network canceled her prime time show “The ReidOut, was awarded the foundation’s anti-censorship prize. Wideman, an acclaimed fiction and nonfiction writer since the 1960s, has won a lifetime achievement award. Honorees for current works include Everett for “James,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”; Kaveh Akbar for “Martyr!”; Danzy Senna for “Colored Television” and Claire Messud for “This Strange Eventful History.”

Other recipients announced Monday ranged from Amy M. Alvarez for her poetry collection “Makeshift Altar” to Sarah Lewis’ nonﬁction “The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America.” Penguin Random House editor Erroll McDonald, whose authors have include Wideman and Nobel laureates Toni Morrison and Wole Soyinka, won the editor/ publisher award.

“The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions,” the foundation’s announcement reads in part. “The award winners range from wellknown and established writers to under-recognized authors and first works. There are no quotas for diversity; the winners list simply reﬂects it as a natural process.”

Previous winners include bell hooks, Dave Eggers and the new poet laureate,

Selena Gomez, from left Steve Martin and Martin Short star in ‘Only Murders in the Building.’ | DISNEy/TNS PHOTOS By PATRICK HARBRON

N.O. activist walks runway at New york Fashion Week show

RIGHT: Selena Gomez, from left, Steve Martin and Martin Short try

Seatingquestionsymbolicofdivide

Dear Miss Manners: Please settle an ongoing dispute with my wife. When we attend aconcert or showwithopenseating, is it polite to sit directly in front of someone already seated when there are plenty of other seats available that don’tblock someone’sview? Both of us are rather tall, and Ibelieve it’smore polite for us to sit toward the back —oratleast not in front of others when possible. She says we should just sit anywhere we like.

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Gentle reader: That you have limited your question to theater seating is an enormous relief to Miss Manners. Becausewhatyou have here are two fundamentally opposed ways of approachinglife, and shehopes this does not lead you two into worse conﬂicts. Oneapproach is that our only job is to look after our own interests; others can look after theirs. Theother is that it is in everyone’sinterest to avoid unnecessarily annoying others. Admittedly,this can lead to difﬁcultchoices. Always deferring to others is as badachoiceasnever doingso. Butinatrivial situation,when you can spare inconvenience to others with almost no cost to yourselves? Miss Manners sides with you. Butshe also worries aboutyou.

est friends to participate. Iﬁnd extremely large wedding parties distasteful, and think that being an attendant in awedding should be reserved for those you’re closest to.

My ﬁancé is adamant that his female cousin be included as one of my bridesmaids, although he could care less whether his own sister is included. Idon’tpersonally care for either one of these ladies, but I’m willing to compromisewith him on this because I would like my own brother to be included as agroomsman. And to be honest,this isn’tworth the massive ﬁght that would inevitably result if Irefused.

Dear Miss Manners: My boyfriend andIhave just started planning ourwedding and asking our dear-

My concerns are twofold: 1. Is it inappropriatetoinclude his cousin in the wedding party but exclude his sister? 2. If either of these

Choosing yourself at last

Dear Annie: Ihave been married nearly 30 years. Imet my husbandwhen I was 20, and since then, my life has revolved around caring for our children, two of whom havedevelopmental disabilities, and for him. He has long struggled with mental health issues and has been unable to work for most of our marriage.

ladies are in the wedding party,I would ratherrestrict attendance to bridal gown shopping and similar eventstomyclosest friends; would that be an insult to them? I feel the forced camaraderie would be awkward for all of us.

For therecord, Isuggested we just have coed wedding parties and was shot down.

Gentlereader: Shot down? Why?

People are so conscious of gender roles nowadays that after dealing with abride’squestion about when to write letters of thanks, Miss Manners was inundated withdemands to know why she didn’ttell the bridegroom to write them.

The answer: because it was the bride who asked.What does Miss Manners care which of them writes as long as the letters get written?

In forming awedding party,it is ridiculous to feel that gender is moreimportant than the relationship. Traditionally,the genders were divided only because it was thought that respectable single people did not have friends of the other gender

The relevant tradition is that the bride and bridegroom each choose whoshould stand up for them.And now is the timefor you to stand up foryourself.

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

Employees take advantage

During these decades, Ihave carried the responsibility of supporting our family emotionally,ﬁnancially and practically.Myhusband, meanwhile, has received disability beneﬁts, inheritance money and tens of thousands of dollars from his relatives, yet he has kept every bit for himself. He also battles agambling problem. Around the house, he contributed very little and in the past, he was physically abusive. That abuse once resulted in arestraining order and ayear of separation after he spent

anight in jail. For more than 10 years, Ihave dreamed of taking an extended vacation in Europe. Iwant to bring the whole family,oranyone whowishestojoin. But my husband refuses to go. He insists his anxiety makes travel impossible, and he will not consider alternative arrangements. He has no friends he couldstay with,and he cannot relyonhis familyfor support. Ifeel trapped between hislimitationsand my own longing for freedom. Here is my struggle: I feel like lifehas passed me by.Ihave given my entire adultlifetocaring for everyone else and missed out on so many experiences. Iamrunning out of time, and Iamdesperatefor this chance. Am Iwrong to go without him? Woulditbe cruel to leave him behind, even just for awhile? Part of me fears being selﬁsh, but another part says I

have already givenmore than enough. —Desperatefor Time Dear Desperate forTime: Selfish? Notatall. Thatguilty feeling is exactlywhatan abuserwants youtocarry so you will keep putting yourself last. For 30 years, youhavehelda family together,raisedchildren with specialneeds, and managed ahusband who gambled, hoarded money and, at times, was violent. Thatisnot selﬁshness. That is sacriﬁce. Youdeservejoy.Take the trip. Eatthe croissant. Let yourself live.And please, do notdismiss the abuse youhaveendured. Even past abuse leaves scars. Call the National Domestic ViolenceHotline at (800) 799-7233 forguidanceand support.

Youhavecarried more than your share.Now it is time to carry apassportfor yourself.

Send your questions for Annie Lane to dearannie@ creators.com.

Howto starttraveling solo

Dear Heloise: Ihave an idea for the person who was wondering about traveling solo. Itraveledwith friends for over 30 years, but I decided Ihad other places that Iwanted to visit. Istarted witha trip that had a purpose, like agraduation to see family or friends who would be there. Idid add in afew days on my own before the event to get the feel of traveling alone. Irecently suggested this to afriend who was flying solo for the first time. She flew nine hours to avery large citytosee family.She did great! Iamalmost 80, and Ihave traveled solo for years.I am not afraid to strike up conversations, which is important when traveling solo. Ihave met wonderful people who have become friends. Ihave enjoyed places like England, Africa, Iceland, Norway and more alone. Ihave joined very small tours, but usually I

like to addindays on my own before or after atour.

DEAR HARRIETTE: Summer is over,but Ifeel like my staff is still working at less than full capacity.Every year,Igive them time off during thesummer,which usually includes half days off on Fridays and shorter hours. The expectation is always that they will crank it up when thefall comes. It seems, though, that everyone is asleep at the wheel, so to speak. Iask for projects to be completed or for someonetofollow up on somework, and Iﬁnd myself asking three and four times before gettinga response. This is frustrating. It feels like I’m being penalized for giving them somemuch-needed time off this summer.How can I get them to crank up their energy? —RampItUp

ByThe Associated Press

Hints from Heloise

Safety is my top priority. Start small, and gain independence andconﬁdence. Good luck! —Grace LeBlanc, via email Cookingfor two Dear Heloise: In response to “Tearing My Hair Out,” in Delaware: I, too, am awife cooking for two. Iﬁnd that when Imake thingslike chili or spaghetti sauce, Imake the same amount (as Ialways have).Then Iput half in a freezer bag,squeezeout anyexcess air,and freeze it. It makesfor aquickmeal acouple weekslater When Ibrown ground beef, Idothe same.Brown thebeef, drain it well, freeze half, then continue on with theremaininghalf that Ineed for whatever I’m cooking!Thisprocess has been alifesaver for late afternoonswhen Ihave the grandkids. Always makesure that

TODAYINHISTORY

Today is Tuesday, Sept. 23, the 266th day of 2025. There are 99 days left in the year

Todayinhistory: On Sept. 23, 1952, Sen. Richard M. Nixon, R-Calif., salvaged his vice presidential nomination by appearing on television from Los Angeles to refute allegations of improper campaign fundraising in what became known as the “Checkers speech for its reference to his family’scocker spaniel. Also on this date: In 1806, the Lewis and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis, more than two years after setting out for the Paciﬁc Northwest.

In 1955, ajury in Sumner, Mississippi, acquitted two White men, Roy Bryant and J.W.Milam, of killing Black teenager Emmett Till. (The two later admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine.) In 1957, nine Black studentswho entered Little Rock Central HighSchool in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a White moboutside In 2002, Gov.Gray Davis signed alaw makingCalifornia the ﬁrst statetooffer workers paid family leave. In 2018, capping acomeback from four back surgeries, Tiger Woodswon theTour Championship in Atlanta, the80th victory of hisPGA Tour career and

you writethe dateonthe freezer bags and what’s inside. Once, Iplanned for spaghetti but ended up with chili! —Marcia B.,inCypress, California

Freezing leftovers

Dear Heloise: Iread the letter from thewoman who saidthat her husband doesn’tlike leftovers. We live alone as well, and I love to makethings that I can freeze! Imakeabig batch of chili, then freeze theextra portions. Imake aregular lasagna and a Mexican lasagna (a recipe with tortillas) in a9-by-13inch pan, then cutupthe portionstofreeze. This way,when I’m stumped for what to make, Ican just pull acontainer out of the freezer.Ialways label the packages with the item and date. Surely,there must be other main dishes that freeze just as well. Jackie, via email Send ahinttoheloise@ heloise.com.

his first in morethan five years. In 2022, Roger Federer played his final professional match after an illustrious career that included 20 Grand Slam titles Today’sBirthdays: Singer Julio Iglesias is 82. Actor/singer Mary Kay Place is 78. Rock star Bruce Springsteen is 76. Director/playwright George C. Wolfe is 71. Actor Rosalind Chao is 68. Actor Jason Alexander is 66. Actor Chi McBride is 64. Singer AniDiFranco is 55. Producer-rapper Jermaine Dupri is 53. Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is 52. Actor Anthony Mackie is 47. Actor Skylar Astin is 38. Tennis player Juan Martín del Potrois37.

Do your best not to chastise them forbeing uninspired. That will make them less interested in getting energized. Your job as the leader is to motivate them to want to workharder.Ifyou have the budget and inclination, you may want to add incentives, such as the ﬁrst person to reach a particular goal gets agiftcertiﬁcate to a favorite restaurant or something else that they value. If they can’tturn it around, perhaps you’ll need to consider changing your policy on summer hours next year

DEAR RAMPITUP: Host a cheerleading session with your team. Highlight good thingsthat occurred this summer,including time off to enjoy the season. Point out what’sahead, including projects, pitches and anything else that is on the horizon. Connect thedots by lettingthem know that they are integral to the success of the business and you are counting on them to give it their all.

‘BUILDING’

Continuedfrom page1D

Lester’suntimely death is an opportunityfor “Only Murdersinthe Building” to do what it does best: Pausing for lovely littleportraits of New York that may not be essential to the plot, but aresome of the most fulﬁlling storytelling moments on the show.This one is an ode to theprofession of doorman itself, which is increasingly becoming athing of the past. Thirty-two yearsago, Lester was astruggling actor who took the job as away to earn aliving until he landed his big break. Along the way,his acting dreams fell away and “doorman” became his deﬁning roleinlife. He was invested in thelives of the residents, some of whom were more appreciative than others, but what are ya’ gonna do? Such is the fate of auniformed doorman, who is forever there and yet largely unseen. In thecourse of their investigation, Mabel, Charles and Oliver uncover aritzy secret casino that has been operating out the basement of the Arconia. The world’srichest people have astake in it,asplayed by Renee Zellweger (as avaguely MarthaStewart-esque lifestyle queen andhotel magnet), ChristophWaltz (whose riches are derived from AI and who is, perhaps not surprisingly, weirdly robotic himself) and Logan Lerman (a

DEAR HARRIETTE: My uncle recently crashed my car while borrowing it. Thankfully,noone was hurt, but the car has signiﬁcant damage that will be expensive to repair.I expected him to help cover at least part of the cost, but he refuses, insisting that since it wasanaccident, he shouldn’tberesponsible. This has put me in atough ﬁnancial position, and I’m stressed about how I’ll pay forthe repairs. On top of that, the situation is causing tension in the rest of the family; relatives are taking sides, and now no one wants to get together Iwant to handle this

fairly and maintain agood relationship with my uncle, but Ialso feel like it’sunreasonable for me to cover everything alone. I’ve tried bringing it up calmly,but he brushes me off or makes excuses. Idon’twant this to affect our relationship in the long term, but Ialso don’twant to be taken advantage of. How can I approach him about taking responsibility without escalating the conﬂict or creating more tension within our family? —Bad Uncle DEAR BAD UNCLE: Get an estimate forthe cost of repairs to your car and present it to your uncle. Tell him you need him to split the cost with you as he is the one whohad the accident with your car Honestly,heshould be paying forthe whole thing as he wasdriving your car If he refuses, you may have to take seriousaction by taking him to smallclaims court. He should bear responsibilityfor this expense. Evenifheorother family members getangry do your best to force himto help payfor thedamages. Sendquestions to askharriette@ harriettecole.com or c/oAndrewsMcMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St.,Kansas City,MO 64106.

fake-laid-backheirtoa family fortune derived from unethical business practices). Theywantthe podcasters to keep their nosesout of their business. That’snot going to happen. There wouldn’tbe ashow, otherwise Evenso, something aboutthis season feels like astepdown. I’ve always been drawn to the heartfelt human connections thatexist amidthe droll wordplay andzaniermurdermystery shenanigans. And yetasthe seasons have progressed, there have been fewer opportunitiestosee the central threesomeinteract just as friends, even when they aren’t “ona job.”Their dynamic doesn’tfeel like it’s being furtherdeveloped. That’snot unusual with whodunits. Jessica Fletcher was fully formed from the first episode of “Murder, She Wrote,” never becoming more complex over time,and it worked beautifully.But abig part of the appeal of “Only Murders in the Building” arethe relationships. And the sense of wistful regret andmelancholy that these relationships generate. Also,Mabel still appears to have no job. She’snot independently wealthy,so what is hersourceofincome? That’sa big thing to hand-wave away! Well, details-schmeetails. The jokesalways land. “One of the reasons I playcards here is because it’sthe murderbuilding, andthatisall because of you,” oneofthe rich casino jerks says. “Well, we give alot of credit to the murderers,” Charleshumbly sarcastically replies. Later, when his friends graba utensil fromhis kitchentobetterexamine acorpse,heexclaims: “Notthe Sur La Table tongs!” The showalso has some fun with hammy mafia cliches. The team tracks down the mobster’swidow, who is mother to several grown sons who say “Nice to meet yous” andwant to do apodcastcalled “Aye,I’m Tawking Here!” Olivertakes onelookat the siblings anddeems themreadyfor acommunity theater auditionfor “Grease.” Musical theater is always on the mind for Oliver, who recalls thatin 1982 he wrote amusical riffing on “NewYork, New York” called“Newark, Newark” with the tagline: “If youcan make it there, turns outithas no bearing on whether or notyou can make it anywhere.” But the more pressing questioniswhetherornot the Arconia will make it. “What’shappening to our sweet little murder building?” Aridiculous but heartfelt sentiment.

Harriette Cole SENSE AND SENSITIVITy

Annie Lane

DEAR ANNIE

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) Recognize your worth, and present what you can do. Stop wasting time trying to do the impossible, and start moving forward in a way that brings you emotional gratification.

scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Put your ego aside, keep your emotions to yourself and focus on facts, what's possible and how to turn your plans into reality. A kind word or gesture can generate favors.

sAGIttARIus (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Let your creative imagination determine your lifestyle. Your emotional well-being affects how you look and feel. Doing a stellar job, both personally and professionally, will pay off.

cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Err on the side of caution today. Say no to temptation and yes to taking care of responsibilities, as well as anything related to partnerships or joint ventures.

AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Lifestyle matters. Whether you are dealing with financial, health or legal issues, it is best to stay informed. Your life, your choices; refuse to let anyone talk you into something you don't agree with or want.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Share your thoughts, ask questions and make your demands clear and contingent on what you discover moving forward. Opportunity will present itself if you network.

ARIEs (March 21-April 19) A rich imagination will carry you through the day. A

change in vocation, plans or lifestyle can lead to improved finances. Partnerships look promising and can help lower your overhead.

tAuRus (April 20-May 20) Establish what you represent and are willing to offer to avoid being misled by false claims or unnecessary demands Conflicts between work and home are likely if you don't manage your time well.

GEMInI (May 21-June 20) Participate in social events that offer insight into what's happening in your community. New beginnings await if you keep an open mind and are willing to try something different.

cAncER (June 21-July 22) Temptation, indulgence and overreacting to what's happening around you will be hard to resist. You'll meet with opposition if you are argumentative or hostile. LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) You are heading in the right direction, but take precautions when addressing domestic issues. Open discussions will help alleviate setbacks if you get approval before you begin a project.

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Take action to put your responsibilities behind you. The quicker you take care of business, the sooner you can enjoy your day. Don't take risks with your money or your health.

Celebrity Cipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present. Each letter in the cipher stands for another.

toDAy's cLuE: D EQuALs F

FAMILY CIrCUS

CeLebrItY CIpher For better or For WorSe

beetLe bAILeY Mother GooSe And GrIMM

bIG nAte

Sudoku

InstructIons: sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with several given numbers. Theobject is to place the numbers 1to9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. Thedifficulty level of thesudoku increases from monday to sunday.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

Bridge

By PHILLIP ALDER

George Orwell said, “Who controls the past controlsthe future. Whocontrols the present controls the past.”

At thebridge table, though, who controlsthepresentoftencontrolsthefuture. In this deal, how should the defense go against four spades after West leads the diamond king?

North, apoint-count addict, made a three-spade, game-invitational limit raise withahand that is worth agameforcing raise. Apply the Losing Trick Count.The North hand has only six losers: two spades (because you deduct one loser fora10-card or better fit), one heart,twodiamondsandoneclub.Alimit raise showseight losers; agame-forcing raise promises seven or fewer.

East wondered about intervening with four hearts, butknew that it was highly dangerous.However, note that five hearts goes down only one, which is very cheapiffourspades is making. Those double fits are delicious

At trickone, East should pause for thought.From where might four defensive trickscome? He can seethe spade ace and presumably two diamonds,but what is number four?

Right —aclub ruff in the East hand.

However, if Eastplays adiscouraging diamond four at trick one, West will probably shift to the heart queen. East musttake control. He overtakes the diamond king with his ace and switches to hissingleton club.

East winsthe next trick withhis spade ace and returns the diamond four. West takesthatandgiveshispartnerthelethal ruff. If you can see how to defeat the contract, grab the steering wheel ©2025 by nEa,inc., dist. By andrews mcmeel syndication

Each Wuzzle is awordriddlewhich creates adisguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: nOOn gOOD =gOOD aFTErnOOn

Previous answers:

word game

InstRuctIons: 1. Words must be of fourormore letters. 2. Words that acquire fourletters 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, or vulgar or sexually explicit wordsare not allowed toDAy’s WoRD AntonyMs: AN-toh-nims:Words of opposite meaning.

Average mark 12 words

Timelimit 35 minutes

yEstERDAy’s WoRD —cEMEtERy

Can you find 21 or morewords in ANTONYMS? creme

remeet remet

wuzzles

loCKhorNs

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C.

PiCKles

hidato

mallard fillmore

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

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

ken ken

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

WiShinG Well

the number of

Scrabble GramS

Get fuzzy

jump Start

roSe

DuStin

Drabble Wallace the brave

breWSter rockit

luann

MILNEBLVD. $2,400/mo Excellent

ADVERTISEMENTFOR BID

Sealed bids will be re‐ceived at theUniversity of NewOrleans Purchas‐ingOfﬁce,Administra‐tion AnnexBldg, Room 1000G,New Orleans, LA 70148. Thedeadlinefor receiptofbidsis 2:00 PM on October9,2025,at whichtimebidswillbe publicly opened forthe following: FOR: MaestriField Turf Renovation –East Campus PROJECTNUMBER: BTB2899 SP5310

Complete BidDocuments forthisproject areavail‐able in electronic form Printedcopiesare not availablefromthe De‐signer,but arrangements canbemadetoobtain them throughmostre‐prographic ﬁrms. Plan holdersare responsible fortheirown reproduc‐tion costs. Questions aboutthisprocedure shallbedirectedtothe Designer at: SimpsonSports Engineering, LLC 4241 Little FarmsDr. Zachary, LA 70791 jsimpson@simpsonspor tseng.com

Allbidsshall be accom‐panied by bidsecurityin an amount of ﬁve per‐cent (5.0%) of thesum of thebasebid andall al‐ternates.The form of this security shallbeas stated in theInstructions to Biddersincludedin theBid Documentsfor this project.

ThesuccessfulBidder shallberequiredtofur‐nish aPerformance and PaymentBondwrittenas describedinthe Instruc‐tionstoBidders included in theBid Documentsfor this project.

AMANDATORY PRE-BID CONFERENCE WILL BE HELD at 10:00 am on Septem‐ber29, 2025 at Maestri FieldBaseballOffice Room 111 Bids shallbeaccepted from Contractorswho arelicensedunder LA R.S. 37:2150-2192 forthe classification of Building Construction 1. Bidder is required to comply with provisions andrequire‐mentsofLAR.S 38:2212(B)(5). No bidmay be withdrawnfor ape‐riod of forty-five (45) days after receiptof bids,exceptunder the provisions of LA.R.S 38:2214.

TheOwner reserves the righttoreject anyand all bids forjustcause.Inac‐cordance with La.R.S 38:2212(B)(1), theprovi‐sionsand requirements of this Section; andthose stated in thebidding documentsshall notbe waived by anyentity. University of NewOr‐leansisa participantin theSmall Entrepreneur‐ship (SE) Program(the Hudson Initiative)and theVeteran-Owned and Service-ConnectedDis‐abledVeteran-Owned (LaVet)Small Entrepre‐neurshipsProgram.Bid‐ders areencouragedto

q Q tionsabout thisproce‐dure should be directed to CENTERLINE(phone 504-291-5738, email: bid‐connect@centerline.co) Complete BiddingDocu‐mentsfor this projectare beingdistributed in elec‐tronic form on behalf of theOwnerbyCENTER‐LINEBidConnect. They maybeobtainedwithout charge andwithout de‐positfromthe Public Plan Room at www.cen terlinebidconnect.com Printedcopiesare not availablefromthe Owner or Designer butarrange‐mentscan be made to obtain them through most reprographic ﬁrms. Plan holdersare respon‐siblefor theirown repro‐ductioncosts ANON-MANDATORY PREBIDMEETINGWILLBE HELD AT 2:00PM CDTON SEPTEMBER30, 2025 VIA ZOOM WEBCONFERENCE Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom us/j/86034670263? pwd=59mGU0nhBLNJXPz ear8mK7vlUoS7za.1 MeetingID: 860 3467 0263 Passcode:129567 Interested Partiesare strongly encouraged to attend thenon-manda‐tory SITE VISITat 10:00am on October1 2025 at theproject job‐site Bids shallbeaccepted from Contractorswho arelicensedunder L.A. R.S. 37:2150-2163 forthe classiﬁcation of BUILD‐INGCONSTRUCTION. Bid‐derisrequiredtocomply with provisions andre‐quirements of LA R.S.38:2212 (A)(1)(c).No bidmay be withdrawn fora period of ninety days (90) days after re‐ceiptofbids, except under theprovisionsof LA.R.S.38:2214. SplitSecondFoundation reserves theright to re‐ject anyand allbidsfor just cause. In accordance with LA.R.S.38:2212 (A) (1)(b), theprovisionsand requirements of this Sec‐tion,those stated in the advertisementbids, and thoserequiredonthebid form shallnot be consid‐ered as informalitiesand

theSupplierPor‐tal, search “Open Events.” Thankyou foryourinter‐estindoing business with theCityofNew Or‐leans. JamesC.Simmons Jr ChiefProcurement Ofﬁcer AdvertisingDates: September16, 23 and30, 2025 NOCP 8639 158504-sept 16-23-30-3t $115.38

AdvertisingDates: September9,16and 23, 2025 NOCP 8620 156911-SEP9-16-23-3T $115.38

dumpostedbythe Bu‐reau of Purchasing on theCity’ssupplierportal. If this solicitation is fed‐erally funded,prospec‐tive bidder/respondent must payparticularat‐tentiontoall applicable laws andregulations of theFederal government andthe Stateof Louisiana. TheBureauofPurchas‐ingusescommodity codestonotifysuppliers of therelease of asourc‐ingevent andsubse‐quentmodiﬁcationsvia addendum. Note that you

Bu‐reau of Purchasing on theCity’ssupplierportal.

If this solicitation is fed‐erally funded,prospec‐tive bidder/respondent must payparticularat‐tentiontoall applicable laws andregulations of theFederal government andthe Stateof Louisiana.

TheBureauofPurchas‐ingusescommodity codestonotifysuppliers of therelease of asourc‐ingevent andsubse‐quentmodiﬁcationsvia addendum. Note that you wouldreceive thosenoti‐ﬁcationsifyou selected thefollowing commodity code(s)beforethe re‐leaseofthe sourcing event: COMMODITYCODE(s): 968-90

TheCityofNew Orleans strongly encourages mi‐nority-ownedand women-ownedbusi‐nesses, socially andeco‐nomicallydisadvantaged businessesand small businessestorespond to this solicitation,orto participateinsubcon‐tracting opportunities pursuant to this solicita‐tion Formoreinformation aboutthissourcing event, go to www.nola. govand clickon“BRASS SupplierPortal” under “BIDS& CONTRACTS” Once on theSupplierPor‐tal, search “Open Events.” Thankyou foryourinter‐estindoing business with theCityofNew Or‐leans. JamesSimmons ChiefProcurement

of asourc‐ingevent andsubse‐quentmodificationsvia addendum.Notethatyou wouldreceive thosenoti‐ficationsifyou selected thefollowing commodity code(s)beforethe re‐leaseofthe sourcing event: COMMODITY CODE(s): 600-72 Formoreinformation aboutthisevent,goto www.nola.gov andclick on “BRASS SupplierPor‐tal” under “BIDS& CON‐TRACTS”. Once on the SupplierPortal, search “OpenEvents. Thankyou foryourinter‐estindoing business with theCityofNew Or‐leans. JamesSimmons ChiefProcurement Officer

AdvertisingDates: September9,16and 23, 2025 NOCP 8622 157437-sep9-16-23-3t $146.70