The Times-Picayune 10-13-2025

PATRIOTS QB MAYE OUTBATTLES RATTLER IN SAINTS’ LOSS 1C

Supreme Court to hear voting rights case

Ruling could dramatically change ‘tests’used in redistricting

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON On Wednesday, the nation’sattention will be on arguments before the U.S. Supreme Courtina case that, on the surface, is about whether Louisianashouldhavetwo majority-Black congressionaldistricts, one or maybe none.

But many legal observerssay the court, with its 6-3 conservative majority,could useLouisiana v. Callais to find the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional or to dramatically change its “tests” that judges have for decades used to require states to draw congressional districts in which minorityvoters make up amajority. Such achange couldaffect elections all over the country Louisiana is arguing that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act andits tests for when majority-minoritydistricts could be used has allowed states to draw maps with race in mind, which contradicts the constitutional idea of equal treatment under thelaw “Race-based redistricting under Section 2isprincipally unconstitutional because it inherently rests on aracial stereotype: that all voters of aparticular race must —byvirtue of their membership in their racial class —think alike, sharethe same interests, and prefer the same political candidates,” the state attorney generalarguedinanOct. 3brief.

But the law’s defenders say the state is trying to gutone of the most importantcivil rights laws protecting minority voters from disenfranchisement.

“The upshot of Louisiana’sburnit-all-down approach is that it wants relief from any congressionalorjudicial scrutiny of its voting laws,” wrote the Robinson litigants, acoalition of Black voters in theirOct. 3 brief. “Let there be no mistake: That was the situation that prevailed in Louisiana and nationwidefor the100 yearsbefore the VRA.”

The Callais litigants, agroup of “nonminority” voters who arechallenging the state’scurrent map, wrote in their Sept. 17 brief: “Thirty years of such whipsawing arguments and decisions have aggrieved voters, states, and the judicial system As Louisiana’sexperience shows, the process is the punishment.”

The brief continued: “Racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us intocompeting racial factions.” The Supreme Court’srulingonthe case will be the culmination of along and winding legal battle.

Congress in 1868passedthe 14th Amendment that guarantees “due process” and “equal protection” of the laws for all U.S. citizens

ä See CASE, page 7A

Moreno stridesinto earlytransitionplans

Emphasis on improving basiccityserviceswas winning message

BY JAMES FINN Staff writer

Helena Moreno,mayor-electofNew Orleans, scored aclear victory Saturday with astraightforward message: that she will fix city streets, provide amore responsive government and end the infighting that’sbeen endemic to City Hall.

Earlyvotingperiodhas best turnoutinyears

BYSOPHIE KASAKOVE and JESSICA WILLIAMS Staff writers

HelenaMoreno’sresounding outright victory on Saturday came as New Orleans voters, hungry for change, made their strongest showing for amayoral electioninover 20 years.

Over40% of registered voters cast ballots,the highest recorded unofficial turnout for amayor’s race since Ray Nagin won the seat in 2002 and 48% of voters cast ballots. More recent elections have hovered at anywhere from 29% to 38% turnout.

About55% of those who voted in this election pulled thelever for Moreno,who vowed to ensure toptiercity services and focus on the city’s underdeveloped areas such as New Orleans East, and who led the

After four years that included an insurance crisis sparked by Hurricane Ida, apostpandemic spike in violence and asense that Mayor LaToya Cantrell had retreated from apublic leadership role amidcontroversies anda federal indictment, Moreno’spromise of change —and competence —appears to be what New Orleans voters wanted to hear,and now expect her to deliver

Moreno will be sworn into office on Jan. 12, giving her three months to select her team and build aformal transition plan.

In interviewsSunday,political analysts and former colleagues saidMorenohad demonstrated acommand of basicmeat-and-potatoes issues from her seat on the NewOrleans City Council.

That experience, coupled with aconsistent message over nearlya year of campaigning, is what createdawave of support that propelled herintothe Mayor’sOffice,and what she’ll likely rely on as she prepares to take office.

“Helena auditionedfor thejob for seven years,” said Joe Giarrusso, the term-limited District Acouncil memberand Moreno ally “I would argue that her performance day-in andday-out forseven yearsiswhatgot her elected.”

Moreno started her first day as mayor-elect by spending her morning worshipping on two ends of thecity. First, sheattendedservices at Franklin Avenue Baptist in NewOrleans East. She worshipped again with hertypical

STAFF PHOTO By JOHN McCUSKER

head to the polls

officals on

STAFF PHOTO By JOHN McCUSKER

BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS

Madagascar’s president says coup is underway

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar Madagascar’s president said Sunday that an attempted coup was underway in the Indian Ocean country, just a day after members of an elite army unit joined youthled protests against the government and called for the president to step down.

President Andry Rajoelina’s office offered no details on who was behind the attempt and no signs of violence were immediately visible on the streets on Sunday, although there was a large military presence.

A commander of the elite CAPSAT unit, Col. Michael Randrianirina, denied any coup had taken place, but the unit claimed to have taken control of all of Madagascar’s armed forces and said it had installed a new leader of the military, Gen. Demosthene Pikulas.

“We responded to the people’s call,” Randrianirina told reporters. Pikulas who spoke alongside Randrianirina, declined to say if they had asked Rajoelina to resign, but the CAPSAT army unit appeared to be in a position of authority Madagascar has been shaken by three weeks of the most significant unrest in years in the nation. The protests were led by a group calling itself “Gen Z Madagascar,” and the United Nations says the demonstrations have left at least 22 people dead and dozens injured. The government has disputed this number

The whereabouts of the president were not immediately known on Sunday His office said he “wishes to inform the nation and the international community that an attempt to seize power illegally and by force” has been “initiated.”

Afghanistan says it killed 58 Pakistani soldiers

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan said Sunday it killed 58 Pakistani soldiers in overnight border operations, in response to what it called repeated violations of its territory and airspace. Pakistan’s army gave far lower casualty figures, saying 23 troops were killed.

Earlier in the week, Afghan authorities accused Pakistan of bombing the capital, Kabul, and a market in the country’s east Pakistan did not claim responsibility for the assault.

The Taliban government’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said Afghan forces have captured 25 Pakistani army posts, leaving 30 Pakistani soldiers wounded.

“The situation on all official borders and de facto lines of Afghanistan is under complete control, and illegal activities have been largely prevented,” Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul Pakistan has previously struck locations inside Afghanistan, targeting what it alleges are militant hideouts, but these have been in remote and mountainous areas.

Community mourns factory blast victims

NUNNELLY,Tenn. — Just miles from a rural Tennessee plant leveled by a devastating explosion, the congregants of Maple Valley Baptist Church devoted Sunday’s service to the 16 deceased victims and their families.

Several of the dozens of people praying at the small church knew someone who worked at the plant owned by Accurate Energetic Systems, which supplies and researches explosives for the military and is a well-known employer in the area.

“There’s a somber kind of vibe right now in the community just because it’s so many lives that have been affected by it ” said Pastor Jimmy Andrews of the church in Nunnelly “It’s family and friends just trying to hold each other up during this most difficult time.”

Churches across many of the area’s small close-knit communities, including another one attended by Gov. Bill Lee on Sunday, did the same through vigils and services as many tried to make sense of the devastation.

“The losses are staggering,” Lee told reporters after surveying the damage by helicopter and attending Compassion Church in nearby Waverly The cause of Friday’s blast remained under investigation.

Israel awaits freeing of hostages

Gaza ceasefire continues to hold

BY SAMY MAGDY, SARAH

EL DEEB and MELANIE LIDMAN

Associated Press

CAIRO Israel said Sunday that it expected all living hostages held in Gaza to be released Monday in its breakthrough ceasefire deal with Hamas, as Palestinians awaited the release of hundreds of prisoners held in Israel and a surge of aid into the famine-stricken territory.

“In a few hours, we will all be reunited,” Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a statement.

President Donald Trump planned to visit Israel and Egypt on Monday to celebrate the ceasefire announced last week in the two-year war Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said all 20 living hostages were expected to be released at one time to the Red Cross, then driven to a military base to reunite with families or, if needed, immediately to a hospital. After the hostages are freed Israel was ready to release about 2,000 Palestinian detainees and receive the 28 hostages believed to be dead.

An international task force will start working to

locate deceased hostages who are not returned within 72 hours, said Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for the hostages and the missing. Officials have said the search for their bodies, possibly under rubble, could take time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose name was booed repeatedly Saturday night at a weekly rally for the hostages in Tel Aviv, said in a statement that Monday would be a “path of healing.” Many Israelis have accused him of drawing out the war for political aims, which he has denied.

Timing has not been an-

nounced for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. They include 250 people serving life sentences in addition to 1,700 seized from Gaza during the war and held without charge.

A Palestinian official said a Hamas delegation was in Cairo speaking with mediators about the list of prisoners. The official said Hamas is pressing for the release of Marwan Barghouti, the most popular Palestinian leader and a potentially unifying figure, along with several others serving life sentences. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the

media. There was no immediate comment from Israel, which views Barghouti as a terrorist leader Israel has warned Palestinians in the West Bank against celebrating after the releases, according to a prisoner’s family and a Palestinian official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. Israel’s military did not immediately respond to questions.

The Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid in Gaza said the amount of aid entering was expected to increase Sunday to around 600 trucks per day, as stipulated in

the agreement.

“Much of Gaza is a wasteland,” U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told The Associated Press. He said the U.N. has a plan for the next two months to restore basic medical and other services, bring in thousands of tons of food and fuel and remove rubble.

Egypt said it was sending 400 aid trucks into Gaza on Sunday for screening by Israeli troops. AP footage showed dozens of trucks crossing the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing. The Egyptian Red Crescent said the vehicles carried medical supplies, tents, blankets, food and fuel.

The United Nations has said it has about 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other aid ready to enter

The fate of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an Israeli- and U.S.-backed contractor that replaced the U.N. aid operation in May as the primary food supplier in Gaza, remained unclear

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which has the equivalent of 6,000 trucks of aid waiting in Egypt and Jordan, also had no clarity on its role. A spokesperson for the agency known as UNRWA, Jonathan Fowler, said the organization has enough food in its warehouses for Gaza’s entire population for three months.

Trump leaves for Mideast to mark ceasefire deal

BY DARLENE SUPERVILLE, AAMER MADHANI and JOSEPH KRAUSS Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump set off for Israel and Egypt on Sunday to celebrate the U.S.brokered ceasefire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas and urge Middle East allies to seize the opportunity to build a durable peace in the volatile region.

support of Israel’s decimation of Iranian proxies, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“Very excited about this moment in time,” Trump told reporters before Air Force One took off.

He said many people in both Israel and Arab countries were “cheering” the agreement, adding that “everybody’s amazed and their thrilled and we’re going to have an amazing time.”

It’s a fragile moment with Israel and Hamas only in the early stages of implementing the first phase of the Trump agreement designed to bring a permanent end to the war sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants.

Trump thinks there is a narrow window to reshape the Mideast and reset longfraught relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

It is a moment, the Republican president says, that has been helped along by his administration’s

The White House says momentum is also building because Arab and Muslim states are demonstrating a renewed focus on resolving the broader, decadeslong Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in some cases, deepening relations with the United States.

Trump’s comments as the trip began followed him saying Friday that “I think you are going to have tremendous success and Gaza is going to be rebuilt” and that “you have some very wealthy countries, as you know, over there. It would take a small fraction of their wealth to do that.

And I think they want to do it.”

The first phase of the ceasefire agreement calls for the release of the final 48 hostages held by Hamas, including about 20 believed to be alive; the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel; a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza; and a partial pullback by Israeli forces from Gaza’s main cities.

Israeli troops on Friday finished withdrawing from parts of Gaza, triggering a 72-hour countdown under the deal for Hamas to release the Israeli hostages, potentially while Trump is on the ground there He said he expected their return to be completed on Monday or Tuesday

Trump will visit Israel

first to meet with hostage families and address the Knesset, or parliament, an honor last extended to President George W. Bush during a visit in 2008. Vice President JD Vance on Sunday said Trump also was likely to meet with newly-freed hostages, too.

“Knock on wood, but we feel very confident the

Shooting at South Carolina bar kills 4, injures at least 20 others

BY LEWIS LEVINE Associated Press

ST HELENA ISLAND, S.C. — A mass shooting early Sunday at a crowded bar on an idyllic island considered to be the largest Gullah community on the South Carolina coast has left four people dead and at least 20 injured, officials said.

A large crowd was at Willie’s Bar and Grill on St. Helena Island when sheriff’s deputies arrived and found many people with gunshot wounds An estimated 5,000 or more Gullah people living on the island trace their ancestry back to enslaved West Africans who once worked rice plantations in the area before being freed by the Civil War.

Bar owner Willie Turral was inside the establish-

ment, which was packed for a high school alumni event, when he heard shots going off “in bursts” outside He described the scene: “Screaming and panic and fear.”

The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement on the social platform X that many people ran to nearby businesses seeking shelter from the gunfire.

“This is a tragic and difficult incident for everyone,” the statement said. “We ask for your patience as we continue to investigate this incident. Our thoughts are with all of the victims and their loved ones.”

Among the injured, four were in critical condition at hospitals Sunday afternoon. The victims’ identities were not released.

Turral said the bar was hosting an event for alumni of Battery Creek High School in Beaufort, about 10 miles northwest of St. Helena Island. He said people were having a good time when the shots were heard.

“It was scary from the inside,” he said, with “people not knowing what’s really going on outside, people trying to get to safety.”

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X that she was “COMPLETELY HEARTBROKEN to learn about the devastating shooting.”

Willie’s Bar and Grill advertises itself as serving authentic Gullah-inspired cuisine and describes itself on its website as “not just a restaurant but a community pillar committed to giving back, especially to our youth.”

hostages will be released and this president is actually traveling to the Middle East, likely this evening, in order to meet them and greet them in person,” Vance told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Trump then stops in Egypt, where he and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi will lead a summit in Sharm el-Sheikh with leaders from more than 20 countries on peace in Gaza and the broader Middle East.

It is a tenuous truce and it is unclear whether the sides have reached any agreement on Gaza’s postwar governance, the territory’s reconstruction and Israel’s

demand that Hamas disarm. Negotiations over those issues could break down, and Israel has hinted it may resume military operations if its demands are not met.

“I think the chances of (Hamas) disarming themselves, you know, are pretty close to zero,” H.R. McMaster, a national security adviser during Trump’s first term, said at an event hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies on Thursday. He said he thought what probably would happen in the coming months is that the Israeli military “is going to have to destroy them.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JEHAD ALSHRAFI

Palestinians walk Sunday among destroyed buildings in Gaza City, after Israel and Hamas agreed to a pause in their war and the release of the remaining hostages.

VP warns ‘deeper’ cuts aheadfor federalworkers

Shutdown enters 12th day

BY STEVE PEOPLES AP national political writer

Vice PresidentJDVance

on Sunday said there will be deeper cuts to the federal workforce the longer the government shutdown goes on, adding to the uncertainty facing hundreds of thousands who are already furloughed without pay amid the stubborn stalemate in Congress.

Vance warned that as the federal shutdown enteredits 12th day,the new cuts would be “painful,” even as he said the Trump administration worked to ensure thatthe military is paid this week and some services would be preserved for low-income Americans, includingfood assistance.

Still, hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed in recent days and, in acourt filing on Friday,the Office of Manage-

Alaska flooding carries away homes

BY KATHY MCCORMACK Associated Press

Anor’easter churnedits way up the East Coaston Sunday,washing out roads and prompting air travel delays as heavily populated areas of the Northeast experienced excessive rain, lashing winds and coastal flooding. Across the continent in western Alaska, the remnants of Typhoon Halong brought hurricane- force windsand catastrophic flooding to coastal communities, pushing entirehouses off their foundations.

Rescue aircraft were dispatched to the tiny Alaskan villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, where there were reports of up to 20 people possibly unaccounted for, said Jeremy Zidek, spokesperson for the state Division of HomelandSecurityand Emergency Management.

“Wehave received reports that people’s homes have floated away and that people were potentially in those homes,” Zidek told The Associated Press.

Alaska

More than170 people stayed overnight at acommunity shelter in Kipnuk, where the waterrose overnight 6.6 feet above the highest tide. At least eight homes were swept away, Zidek said.

Roads and boardwalks were inundated and power lineswere damaged in Bethel,Napaskiak, Napakiak,and otherYukon-Kuskokwim communities. Crews worked to clear theairport runway in Bethel, which was littered with debris from high winds. The area is among one of themostisolated in the U.S., where some communities have few roads and residents use boardwalks, boats and snowmobiles to get around, Zidek said.

“Everyeffort will be made to help those hit by this storm. Help is on the way,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy saidin astatement.

Delaware

Heavy rain fell from the

ment andBudget said well over 4,000 federal employees would soon be fired in conjunction with theshutdown. Theeffects of the shutdown also grew Sunday withthe Smithsonianannouncing its museums,research centers and the National Zoo are temporarilyclosedgoing forward for lack of funding.

“Thelonger thisgoes on, thedeeper the cuts are goingtobe,” Vance saidon FoxNews’“SundayMorning Futures.” “Tobeclear, some of these cuts are going to be painful. This is not asituation that we relish. This is not something that we’re looking forward to, but the Democratshavedealt usapretty difficult setofcards.”

Laborunions have already filedalawsuit to stop the aggressive move by President DonaldTrump ’s budget office, which goes far beyond what usually happens in a government shutdown, further inflamingtensions between theRepublicanswho control Congress and the Democratic minority

The shutdownbeganon Oct. 1after Democratsrejected ashort-term funding fix and demanded that the bill include an extension of federal subsidies for health insuranceunderthe Affordable Care Act. The expiration of thosesubsidies at the end of the year will result in monthlycost increases for millions

Trumpand Republican leaders have said they are open to negotiations on the health subsidies, but insist the government must reopen first.

For now,negotiations are virtually nonexistent.Dug in as ever,House leaders from both partiespointed fingers at each other in rivalSunday appearances on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Wehave repeatedly made clear that we will sit down with anyone,anytime, anyplace,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem JeffriesofNew York. “Republicans control theHouse, the Senate and the presidency. It’s unfortunate they’ve tak-

He pointed to fractures in the GOP,noting that Georgia Rep.Marjorie TaylorGreene publicly warnedlast week thathealth careinsurance premiums would skyrocket foraverage Americans including her own adult children —ifnothing is done.

en amy-way-or-the-highway approach.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, blamed Democrats and said they “seem nottocare” about thepain the shutdownisinflicting.

“They’re tryingtheir best to distract theAmerican people from thesimple fact that they’ve chosen apartisan fight so that they can prove to their Marxist rising base

in the Democratic Party that they’re willing to fight Trump and Republicans,” he said.

Progressive activists, meanwhile, expressednew supportfor the Democratic Party’spositioninthe shutdown fight. Ezra Levin, co-founder of the leading progressive protest group Indivisible,said he is “feeling good about the strength of Dem position.”

“Trump andGOP are rightfullytakingthe blamefor the shutdown and for looming premiumincreases,” Levin said. “Their chickens are coming home to roost.” And yetthe Republican administration and its congressional allies are showing no signs of caving to Democratic demands or backing away fromthreatstouse the opportunity to pursue deeper cuts to the federal workforce. Thousands of employees at the departments of Education, Treasury,Homeland Security and Health and HumanServices, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, areset to receive layoff notices, according to spokespeople forthe agencies and union representatives for federal workers.

Carolinas all the way north into New England.

“The greatest effectsare goingtobethe coastal floodingpotential,” said meteorologist BobOravec with the National Weather Service in CollegePark,Maryland In Delaware, emergency management officials activated the state National Guard in response to rising floodwatersand harsh winds. Avoluntary evacuationorder wasissued for thetown of Bowers Beach, wherethe Murderkill River flows into Delaware Bay In NorthCarolina’sOuter Banks,anareathat’sseen significant storm damage this season, ocean overwash spread across Highway 12 at amotel near Buxton, the Dare CountySheriff’s Office posted onlineSunday.The office urged travelers to be cautious and put property owners on alert as high tide approached Thewaves were ferocious at the Hatteras Island town of Buxton, where several beachfront homes have fallen into thewater in recent weeks. One house waslosing its pilings Sunday and appeared close to collapsing.

“The waves are crashing reallyhard into the houses and the dunes, and it’s all eroding,” saidRobert Splawn, who was watching on thebeach SouthCarolina

Flooding was widespread down the coast in Georgetown County,South Carolina,

where several motorists had to be rescued when rising waters inundated their cars, Emergency Services Director Brandon Ellis toldthe Postand Courier on Sunday

The weather service said partsofthe countyreceived up to seven inches of rain.

FurthersouthinCharleston, SouthCarolina, many downtownstreets were closed because of flooding.

Homeowner David Graubnerspent theweekend pumping out his property, hoping to avoid arepeat of Friday,whenthe high tide brought nearly afoot of water into his garage, where his new Corvette was parked.

“AndIgot all my toys in the garage and tools and stuff. So whatever helps. Even lowering the water by afew inches makes adifference,” Graubner told WCIV-

TV

Therewere several road closures in MyrtleBeach, SouthCarolina, as heavy rainoverwhelmedthatcity’s stormwater system

“Pleasebesafe and stay home, if possible,” Myrtle Beach officials posted on Facebook Emergencydeclarations

AllofNew Jersey has been under astate of emergency since Saturday night.It’sexpected to last into Monday, authorizing the state’semergency services personnel to be activated as necessary New York Gov.KathyHochul issuedanemergency declaration for eight south-

ern counties in her state as thestorm gained strength Sunday evening. She urged people to monitor forecasts and avoid travel.

Parts of thestate are forecasttoexperience moderate to major coastal flooding, inland flash flooding, winds up to 60 mph, up to 5inches of rain and high surf, potentially causing beach erosion. Somevolunteers were puttingsandbags at beaches.

The National Weather Service placed New York City, Long Island and southern WestchesterCounty under acoastal flood warning and wind advisory through at least Mondayafternoon.

Coastal areas of suburban Long Island couldsee flooding, with up to 3inchesof rainand high winds, the weather service said. Wind gusts of more than 30 mph were already being recorded in the region on Sunday morning.

Utilities in the area have added more than 1,600 workers to respond to the storm Someflight delays and cancellations were announced in airports from Washington,D.C., to Boston.

The storm was expected to moveout by Monday night

BY DARLENE SUPERVILLE and WILL WEISSERT Associated Press

ABOARD AIRFORCE ONE

President DonaldTrumpon Sunday warned Russia that he may send Ukraine longrange Tomahawk missiles if Moscow doesn’tsettle its war there soon —suggesting thathecould be ready to increase the pressure on Vladimir Putin’sgovernment using akey weapons system

“I might say,“Look: if this warisnot going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks,” Trump toldreportersaboardAir Force One as he flew to Israel. “The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon,very offensiveweapon. Andhonestly,Russia does not need that.”

Trump said, “I might tell them that if the waris notsettled—that we may very well.” He added, “We may not, but we may do it Ithink it’s appropriate to bring up.”

His comments came after Trump spoke by phone earlierSundaywith Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy,and Trumpsaid he mentioned possibly sending Tomahawks during that conversation.

“Dotheywanttohave Tomahawks going in that direction? Idon’tthink so,” Trump said of Russia.“I think Imight speak to Russia about that.” He added that “Tomahawks are anew step of aggression.” His suggestions followed Russia having attacked Ukraine’spower grid overnight, part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter.Moscow also expressed “extreme concern” over theU.S.potentially providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine. Putinhimselfhas previously suggested that the UnitedStates supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine will seriously damage relations between Moscow and Washington.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILEPHOTO By ALEX BRANDON Vice PresidentJDVance speaks with reporters on Oct. 1in the James BradyPress Briefing Room at the White House in Washington.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTO By ALLISONJOyCE AFox Weather reporter films Sunday in front of ahouse at riskofcollapse in the midst of astorminBuxton, N.C.

Calif. expands privacy protections

Democratic-led states resist Trump’s immigration agenda

BY DAVID A. LIEB Associated Press

Immigrants selling food, flowers and other merchandise along the sidewalks of California will have new privacy protections intended to keep their identities secret from federal immigration agents.

The measure, signed into law this past week by Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom, comes on the heels of other recently enacted state laws meant to shield students in schools and patients at health care facilities from the reach of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement actions.

Democratic-led states are adding laws resisting Trump even as he intensifies his deportation campaign by seeking to deploy National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities to reinforce U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who are arresting people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally By contrast, some Republican-led states are requiring local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with ICE agents.

“The actions of the states really reflect the polarization of the country on this issue,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports immigration restrictions. We have seen some states move to cooperate to the greatest extent that they possibly can” with Trump’s administration and others “doing what they can to try to thwart immigration enforcement in their state.”

Across the U.S., state lawmakers this year have passed more than 100 bills relating to immigration, according to an Associated Press analysis aided by the bill tracking software Plural. The measures are divided almost evenly between those providing and denying protections to immigrants.

Immigrants comprise a significant portion of California’s urban sidewalk vendors. Some have been swept up in immigration enforcement actions, in part, because their outdoor work in public places makes them easier targets than people behind closed doors.

California’s street vendors typically need permits from cities or counties. The new law prohibits local governments from inquiring about vendors’ immigration status, requiring fingerprinting or disclosing personal information name, address, birth date, social media identifiers and telephone, driver’s license and Social Security numbers, among other things without a judicial subpoena.

The law, which will take effect Jan. 1, was prompted

on Aug. 8 outside a gas station in Los Angeles. Immigrants selling food, flowers and other merchandise along the sidewalks of California will have new privacy protections intended to keep their identities secret from federal immigration agents.

by concerns that vendor databases kept by local governments could be accessed by federal immigration agents to target people for detention and deportation.

We’re talking about really security —- security for businesses, security for human beings, security for people who have gone through so much,” said Sergio Jimenez, a street vending organizer with the nonprofit Community Power Collective in Los Angeles.

Additional laws recently signed by Newsom add immigration status to a list of protected medical information and prohibit schools from granting access to immigration enforcement officials without a court warrant.

Another new California law directs schools and higher education institutions to immediately notify staff and students or parents when immigration officials are on campus.

Upon taking office, Trump reversed a policy restricting federal immigration agents from arresting people at sensitive locations such as schools, churches and hospitals. Like California, other Democratic-led states responded with laws attempting to create safe places for immigrants.

A Maryland law enacted earlier this year requires public schools, libraries and health care facilities to restrict access for immigration enforcement officials unless presented with a court warrant. Nevada’s Republican governor vetoed a similar measure for schools that had been passed by the Democratic-led Legislature

Meanwhile, a new Colorado law allows civil penalties of up to $50,000 for public child care centers, schools, colleges, health care facilities and libraries that collect information about people’s immigration status, with some exceptions. New laws in Rhode Island prohibit health care providers and landlords from inquiring about people’s immigration status. Oregon also enacted a similar law for landlords

By contrast, Republicanled states have passed numerous laws intended to bolster Trump’s immigration policies.

New laws in Texas, Florida and Arkansas require sher-

iffs who run jails to enter into federal agreements for their officers to be trained to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement State and local participation in the federal 287(g) immigration enforcement program

— named after the section of law that created it — has exploded from 135 agreements in 21 states before Trump took office in January to more than 1,000 agreements presently in place in 40 states.

But some Democratic-led states have refused to take part A new Delaware law prohibits participation in the program, similar to statutes already in place in California and Illinois. Democratic-led Vermont also tightened its restrictions on participating in federal immigration enforcement programs, repealing an exemption that had allow it during emergencies.

A Connecticut law that took effect in October allows people to sue local governments that cooperate with federal immigration authorities in violation of the state’s “Trust Act.”

In Washington, new state laws allow workers to take paid leave to attend immigration proceedings for themselves or family members and prohibit employers from using immigration status to coerce their employees.

But some Republican-led states have enacted laws limiting benefits for people in the country illegally

A new Idaho law prohibits immigrants without legal status from receiving some publicly funded health benefits, including vaccinations, crisis counseling and prenatal and postnatal care for women. A new Louisiana law requires applicants for public benefits to be screened for legal immigration status and, if lacking it, reported to federal immigration authorities

Several Republican-led states including Florida, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Wyoming — have adopted laws invalidating certain driver’s licenses issued to immigrants in the U.S. illegally

Entering into this year, nearly half the states provided in-state tuition to public colleges and universities for residents living in the U.S. illegally But that number has dwindled since Trump took

office and the U.S. Department of Justice began suing states. The federal lawsuits assert states are violating the Constitution by providing in-state tuition for people without legal status while not offering the same benefit to out-of-state U.S. citizens. Florida repealed its decade-old law allowing in-state tuition for students lacking legal status, effective July 1. Republican-led Texas and Oklahoma both ended similar tuition policies after getting sued by the Justice Department. Kentucky, which has a Democratic governor also has taken steps to halt its policy after getting sued. California lawmakers attempted to enhance tuition benefits for immigrants with a first-of-its kind measure allowing community college students who get deported or voluntarily leave the U.S. to continue receiving in-state tuition while taking online courses from afar But Newsom vetoed the measure earlier this month, citing “significant constitutional concerns” that the tuition break was offered only to students who left the country and not also to residents of other U.S. states.

China vows to stand firm against U.S. tariff threat

BY KEN MORITSUGU Associated Press

BEIJING China signaled on Sunday that it would not back down in the face of a 100% tariff threat from President Donald Trump and urged the United States to resolve differences through negotiations instead of threats. Trump responded by taking a less confrontational approach without retreating from his demands, while his vice president seemed to warn Beijing not to react aggressively

“China’s stance is consistent,” the Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.”

It was China’s first official comment on Trump’s threat to jack up the tax on imports from China by Nov 1 in response to new Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earths, which are vital to a wide range of consumer and military products.

Hours later, Trump used his Truth Social platform to send a message to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” the Republican president wrote. “Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!”

Trump may have had an eye toward to U.S. financial markets on the eve of the new business week. The stock market will be open Monday, though bond markets will close for the Columbus Day holiday On Friday the broad S&P 500 stock market index plunged 2.7%, its worst day in about

six months after Trump’s tariff threat.

The back and forth threatens to derail a possible meeting between Trump and Xi and end a truce in a trade war in which new tariffs from both sides briefly topped 100% in April.

Vice President JD Vance said Trump was committed to protecting America’s economic livelihoods while making the U.S. more selfsufficient. He said the fact that China has “so much control over critical supply in the United States of America” is the definition of a national emergency and therefore justifies Trump’s move to impose tough tariffs.

“It’s going to be delicate dance and a lot of it is going to depend on how the Chinese respond. If they respond in a highly aggressive manner, I guarantee you the president of the United States has far more cards than the People’s Republic of China,” Vance said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“If, however, they’re willing to be reasonable, then Donald Trump is always willing to be a reasonable negotiator We’re going to find out a lot in the weeks to come about whether China wants to start a trade war with us or whether they actually want to be reasonable,” Vance continued. “I hope they choose the path of reason. The president of the United States is going to defend America regardless.” Trump has raised taxes on imports from many U.S. trading partners since taking office in January, seeking to win concessions China has been one of the few countries that hasn’t backed down, relying on its economic clout.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By JAE C. HONG

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Thomas concedes N.O. mayor’s race in fiery speech

BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE Staff writer

New Orleans City Council member Oliver Thomas conceded the mayor’s race Saturday night, but not without throwing a few final punches.

Speaking before a crowd of supporters at the Maison Blanche event venue on the Interstate 10 Service Road in New Orleans East, Thomas, who came in third place with 19% of the vote, said that Moreno’s win was the result of “different forces lined up together to get this result.”

“This movement isn’t just going to stop at this effort,” Thomas said. “Every resource, every system, every organization is at play The devil don’t want 99%, the devil want 100%.”

Thomas also accused news organizations specifically of pushing Moreno’s win, saying that “every time they did a news story every time they did an article, this was the result that they wanted.” Moreno, who won with 55% of the vote, received

congregation at Our Lady of Guadalupe

Rampart Street a few hours later Then Moreno headed to the Caesars Superdome to watch the Saints game from team owner Gayle Benson’s suite.

In a pair of interviews

Saturday night and Sunday morning, Moreno said she is already taking steps to enact her priorities She’s glad, she said, to have an extra month to start her formal planning process, because had the race gone to a runoff, the election would not have been decided until Nov 15 Moreno has begun assembling transition teams, which are typically groups of political and civic leaders who will help sketch out priorities for different aspects of city government.

The extra month, she said, gives her more time “to go and find all the right people who I want for my administration.” Without identifying potential candidates, she said she has been “overwhelmed” by people who have expressed interest in working for her administration. Moreno said she plans to lay the groundwork for her first term as mayor through her position on the City Council, where she will continue to legislate and where City Council members must work to plug a multimilliondollar budget hole for the upcoming fiscal year.

“I’m already working with this current City Council to see what we can to do put the budget in as good a shape as possible when I take office to kind of structure it in a way to benefit what I want to do, and what this City Council wants to do,” she said.

“I think she’s going to fix the streets up, plus a lot of other things,” said Barbara Hawkins, 79, who worships with Moreno at Our Lady of Guadalupe. “She’s a good person who’s going to do good for the city.”

more than $3 million in just under a year in which she was officially campaigning, according to state ethics filings.

Thomas also congratulated Moreno and said that he would respect the results But he told his supporters not to “give up the fight” and to work to hold the new administration accountable.

“We’re going to make sure that New Orleans is the New Orleans it’s supposed to be,” he said.

Thomas did not identify what New Orleans is “supposed to be” but appeared to reference the need to maintain the city’s racial demographics.

“This city is too important for us to lose it, for us to watch it be diluted,” said Thomas, who paused and added: “You got that?” Moreno is White and Hispanic and received broad backing from White political and business leaders but also drew support from many of New Orleans’ most influential Black political and commu-

nity leaders like former U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond and District Attorney Jason Williams, but also church pastor Tyrone Smith and 8th Ward Black Seminoles Chief Kenny Young.

“They cannot come to us in sheep’s clothing anymore They can’t come to us asking for our unfiltered, undying support anymore. They can’t lie to us anymore,” said Thomas, before singing a line from the O’Jays popular R&B song “Back Stabbers.”

In an email Sunday morning, Thomas took a much lighter tone, with the subject line “Sending my love.”

“I want to send my love to not just the people who supported me, but all of New Orleans,” Thomas wrote.

“My hope is that we will come together for a New Orleans where services are reliable, jobs are growing and that we invest in every neighborhood, not just a few,” the email concluded.

A long campaign

Since announcing her campaign last year Moreno was focused on convincing tens of thousands of voters to believe in that same promise, and did so on Saturday Final vote tallies showed that Moreno won 55% of the vote against state Sen. Royce Duplessis, City Council member Oliver Thomas and several lesserknown candidates. The outright victory in the primary made her only the second person to win an open New Orleans mayoral seat without a runoff, after Mitch Landrieu in 2010. Moreno, a Democrat and the current City Council vice president, had effectively been campaigning for eight

years from a perch of citywide prominence on the council, political analysts said. Four years ago, when Moreno handily won reelection to the City Council, she championed a series of progressive goals. But over her second term on the council, she tailored an image as a steadfast regulator of Entergy, someone who would provide strong oversight of city government and as a person who could provide a check on the Cantrell administration without appearing overly confrontational.

She showed up often in parts of the city where a White, Hispanic candidate might historically have found less support. And she established donor relationships that would infuse her cam-

paign with more cash than all of her opponents combined — over $3 million total throughout the 10-month campaign.

Throughout the race, Moreno brushed off attacks based on her race and qualifications. She hammered the message that a vote for her meant a vote for smoother streets and less dysfunction.

“Her win shows what an eight-year, flawless campaign looks like,” said Ron Faucheux, a veteran analyst and pollster “Raising money, putting together political support, building a strong multiracial coalition. All of it was done, generally speaking, flawlessly.”

Council approval

Moreno’s outright win

also underscored a picture painted by months of polling: that the City Council had enjoyed wide popularity through its period of conflict with Cantrell.

The bulk of attacks on Moreno in the race came from Duplessis, a Democrat who toyed for months with a mayoral bid before saying in January he would not run. Duplessis reversed that decision in late June, changing the dynamics of the race.

Duplessis attacked Moreno in his inaugural TV spot of the race in early September and, later, in a series of televised debates. He accused her of stoking “chaos” in City Hall, arguing that Moreno should bear as much blame as Cantrell for

dysfunction.

But Moreno was already broadly popular among voters, which undercut that line of attack.

Both Duplessis and Thomas congratulated Moreno on Sunday

“Thank you, New Orleans,” Duplessis said on Instagram. “I love you. Congratulations to Mayor-Elect Helena Moreno.”

“My hope is that we will come together for a New Orleans where services are reliable, jobs are growing, and that we invest in every neighborhood, not just a few,” Thomas said in an emailed statement.

Email James Finn at jfinn@theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

New Orleans City Council member Oliver Thomas addresses supporters during a watch party Saturday at the Maison Blanche in New Orleans East after losing the mayor’s race to council Vice President Helena Moreno.

on

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Gayle Benson and

for the Saints at the Caesars on Sunday

race in polling and fundraising from its start.

“People were clamoring for change,” said Ed Chervenak, apolitical-science professor at the University of New Orleans who analyzed the turnoutdata. “It wasn’tastatus-quo election This was achange election, and that motivates people to show up.”

Other analysts agreed that Moreno’smessage and record resonated with most voters.

“There was adesire for stability,addressing the critical issues of infrastructure, quality of life, publicsafety, affordability —all of those issues challenging voters stimulated ahigher voter turnout and higher voter interest,” said Silas Lee,a Xavier University professor and veteran political analyst.

State Sen. Royce Duplessis, Moreno’snearest challenger who received 22% of the votes cast,had less luck with aplatform that sought to lay blame at Moreno’s feet for “chaos in City Hall,” to appeal to some voters’ desire for aleader who is Black or native to the city, andtofault Moreno for the numerous recent city challenges that came as she led an increasingly powerful council.

CASE

Continued from page1A

Ratified in 1870, the 15th Amendment guarantees a citizen’sright to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous conditionofservitude.

Without legal oversight, White majorities for acentury passedlaws that kept African Americans from registering to vote.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed to forbid practices such as literacy tests and poll taxes that kept Black people off voter rolls. But some states continued to draw voting maps that isolatedBlack communities into districts withlarge White majorities, an effort to dilute their voting power

The 1982 renewal of the VRA added “tests” that judges could use to determine whether states hada history of discriminatory voting maps. For example: Did the state have ahistory of racially polarized voting? Did the state have cohesive minority communities that could reasonablyfitina single district? In states where those tests identified discrimination, the law allowed minority voters to file lawsuits asking judges to order the creation of districts where minorities made up the majority of voters. The last census count found that about athird of the Louisiana’s residents are Black. Louisiana is a state where aWhite majority has never elected aBlack

City Councilmember Oliver Thomas, whowas widely seen as amayor-in-waiting before he washit with federal bribery charges and served prisontime, notched just 19% of thevote with amessage that centered on acomeback story and highlighted his experience in government over three council terms.

District-level analysis

While precinct-by-precinct voting analysis was not available over theweekend, Chervenak’sinitial analysis of election day votes found that Moreno won aclear majorityof votescastin City Council DistrictsA,B, and C. She did thebest —capturing 74% of thevote— in Council District A, which covers parts of Uptown and Lakeview.InCouncil District B, she took 63%ofthe Saturdayvote. That district covers parts of Uptown and theCentral Business District.

In CouncilDistrict C, which spansfrom the French Quartertothe Bywater,and includesthe West Bank, she took 53% of the vote.

Duplessis captured only 12%, 18% and22% of the vote in district A,Band C, respectively.Thomasfared worse, getting only 8% of the vote in A, 14% inB and 21% in C. Council District D, covers Gentilly and aswell as parts of the 7thand 9th

candidate.

Complicatedcourt battles

AGOP-majority Louisiana LegislatureinMarch 2022 approved election maps that ensured five White Republicansand one Black DemocratwenttoCongress, as had the map approved a decade ago.

“It was aclear dilutionof Black votingpower to crack Black voters from around thestate and pack theminto one district,”said Sarah Brannon, deputydirector of theACLU’sVoting Rights Project

Agroup of Black voters ledbyPress Robinson, aformer East Baton RougeParish SchoolBoardmember, filed alegal challenge arguing the Legislature should create aseconddistrict with enoughminority voters to give Blacks an opportunity to elect one of their own to Congress

TheRobinsonlitigants include an activistwith Together Louisiana, aPublic Service Commission member,the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice and the NAACP Louisiana State Conference.

Sevenfederal district and appellate judges agreed and gave the Legislature adeadline to draw new maps —or thecourts would Under that threat,Gov Jeff Landry andthe Legislaturewentback tothe drawingboard.

Wantingtokeep enough White voters in the districts that elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and Rep. Julia Letlow,RBatonRouge and amember

Wards, where power brokers and political organizations rallied behind Duplessis. There, Duplessis and Thomas won morevotes combined—29% and25%, respectively —than Moreno won alone, 42%.

And Thomas notched roughly 35% of the votein District E, whereherepresentsthe East and the Lower 9th Ward. Moreno was a close second there with 32% of thevote while Duplessis trailed both of them with

29% of the vote. The city has around 263,000 registered voters, and about 142,000 —or54% —are Black. Another 96,000 —or36% —are White. About56% arefemale, and 43% are male.

Statistics on the race and gender of Saturdayvoters have notbeen released by the Louisiana Secretary of State’sOffice yet. Analysts also couldn’timmediately say how manyBlack, White, female or male voters supported various candidates. Earlyvotingmorepopular Earlyvoting trends this year wereabig indicator thatoverallturnout would be larger than usual. During aweeklong early voting period, 39,000 voters cast ballots in-personand via mail. That turnout waslarger than every New Orleans mayoral primary election dating back to at least 2010.

“Peoplenow adopted early voting as ahabit.They’ve gotten used to it,” Chervenak said, adding that candidateshavealso honed messaging to voters encouraging them to vote early

Despite higher voter turnout this year,political analyst Ron Faucheux noted that the share of voters who went to the polls is still far lower than those whodidn’t.

“Turnout continues to be lower than you would think it should be, even though yesterday’selection represented an improvement over where it was,” said Faucheux. “That’sstill 60% of people who didn’tvote that’sanawful lot of people.”

Email Sophie Kasakove at sophie.kasakove@ theadvocate.com.

of the House Appropriations Committee, legislators approved the current map in January 2024, which redrewthen-Rep. Garret Graves’6th Congressional Districtinto onethat linked Black communities from Baton Rouge to Lafayette to Shreveport.

Twoweekslater,adozen voters who describedthemselves as “nonblack”filed a lawsuit in Monroearguing that theLegislature’smap is racially gerrymandered.

Phillip Callais, of Brusly, is the first name on alist of a dozenlitigants whoinclude aconservative publisher and columnist, aPresident Donald Trumpdelegate at theRepublican Party National Convention, an Ascension Parish GOP leader and aformer congressional candidate fromLafayette.

Twoofthe three judges on afederalpanel in April 2024 ruled that the two Black majority districts amounted to aracial gerrymander that “violatesthe EqualProtection Clause”inthe 14th Amendment. The third judgesaid themapshad allowable political motivation.

The Supreme Court stayed proceedings in May 2024, thereby allowing the electionofRep. Cleo Fields,DBaton Rouge, in the disputed secondmajority-Black district.

In March, theninejustices heardargumentsonhow to balanceSection2ofthe Voting Rights Actand the Equal Protection clause, which forbids government taking actions based on race. Originally,Louisiana was defending the map.

But,rather than ruling on that question, the high court took the rare step of asking for new arguments on whetherthe Voting Rights Act violated the 14th or 15th Amendments of the Constitution. Louisiana Attorney General LizMurrill said that opened the door for Louisiana to make itsoriginal argument, which is that judges shouldn’tbeable to order states to redistrict in the first place.

Thearguments

Submitted briefs indicate

the points the three parties wanttomake before the court this week.

The Robinson litigants argue thatSection2’s “genius is itsflexibility” in that it does not demand racial targets but allows states “leeway” to create compliant districts using traditional redistricting criteria.

Louisiana countersthat the VRA unjustly broadened the idea of intentional discrimination to include vote dilution, whichitargues is not based on afinding that prejudicialtreat-

ment occurred, such as being denied the right to vote. And the Callais litigants contend that the “tests” associated withSection 2entrench race-based thinking “long after intentional discrimination withers away.” After Wednesday’shearing, it is not clear how long the Supreme Court will take to issue aruling. But it should render adecision before June.

Email Mark Ballardat mballard@theadvocate. com.

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OCTOBER

2 City Council seats head to runoff

4 races won outright, including both at-large members

BY BEN MYERS Staff writer

The New Orleans City Council is nearly set for the next four years, with three incumbents and a new at-large member seizing outright victories in Saturday’s primary. Five seats are settled, and the remaining two are headed for a runoff in the Nov 15 general election.

Plans made for Housing Trust Fund

Most of $14.6M will go to building, rehabbing rental stock

BY JONI HESS Staff writer

An advisory committee charged with overseeing New Orleans’ first dedicated funding stream for affordable housing has laid out plans to divvy up the first pot of money from the city’s budget, expected to be about $14 million.

Beginning next year, more than half of the city’s new Housing Trust Fund will be used to expand and preserve the city’s rental housing stock, under a proposed spending plan the committee released last month.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the fund last year, after it received widespread support from housing advocates, property developers and other stakeholders. Enshrined in the city’s charter, it can only be amended with unanimous council approval in emergency circumstances.

The ordinance sets aside 2% of the city’s annual budget for affordable housing initiatives each year which will be administered by the city, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and Finance New Orleans.

However, the plan’s $14.6 million budget is based on the city’s projected 2026 operational budget of $732 million, which could change as the city contends with a $100 million deficit, and Mayor LaToya Cantrell proposes an 11% budget cut.

The plan, proposed by the committee of housing advocates and city officials, focuses mostly on creating and rehabbing affordable rental units. A third of the money would be set aside for affordable homeownership programs for low-income residents.

To be considered affordable, housing costs are capped at 30% of a resident’s income.

As part of the plan, $7 million will go toward subsidies for developers and property owners to build new units and rehabilitate existing ones. About $4 million would go toward expanding homeownership, split between subsidizing new, for-sale affordable homes and an owner-occupied fortified roof program for low-income homeowners, according to the proposal.

The committee proposed dedicating $1.8 million to subsidize property repairs in exchange for small landlords making their units affordable for a specified period of time.

NORA would offer landlords subsidies up to $50,000 for each

State Rep Matthew Willard won the at-large seat previously held by Mayor-elect Helena Moreno, and will helm the council with JP Morrell, who won reelection to the second citywide seat Each faced two opponents: Willard won with 59% of the vote, while Morrell took 66%. They will become the first two Black politicians to serve in the atlarge posts at the same time. In cu mb en ts Freddie King and Eugene Green also won second terms outright in Districts C and D, respectively King won 64% in

a district spanning Algiers, the French Quarter, Treme and the downriver neighborhoods below Claiborne Avenue. Green, who got 67% of the vote while facing two challengers, represents Gentilly, the 7th Ward, the lakefront and

E, and both contests are headed for runoff. Two former staffers for outgoing District A council member Joe Giarrusso — Holly Friedman and Aimee McCarron will vie to take his place representing a district that covers Lakeview, Mid-City, Hollygrove and parts of Uptown. Friedman was the front-

On queue

PHOTO By

Customers wait in line to order beignets and coffee at Cafe du Monde in City Park in New Orleans on Thursday

BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer

A Kenner man faces an attempted second-degree murder charge after authorities say he spent an evening terrorizing and battering his girlfriend and their 3-month-old son. Octave Bazanac, 42, was taken into custody after police were called three times to the couple’s Kenner apartment complex on Oct. 2, the final time by a neighbor who spotted Bazanac trying to push his 25-year-old girlfriend out of a third-floor window according to Deputy Chief Mark McCormick. The women suffered minor injuries. The baby was not hurt, authorities said The girlfriend made the first

911 call just after 7 p.m. to report that she’d been attacked earlier in her parking lot by an ex-boyfriend who was armed, McCormick said. She told authorities the man pushed her, slapped her and hit her baby while she was holding the child, according to authorities. He then threatened to kill her and “break the baby’s neck,” according to an arrest report. Although the woman told officers he was an ex-boyfriend, police would later learn it was Bazanac who hit and threatened the mother and child, and accused her of infidelity McCormick said.

But during the officers’ first visit to the complex, Bazanac was standing with the woman, and she blamed that physical attack on another man, according to authorities. Officers left the complex after taking her report. But the woman called police back at 8:40 p.m., saying the ex-boy-

friend had returned to the parking lot.

In reality, the physical altercation between Bazanac and the woman had continued inside their apartment after police left the first time, McCormick said. Bazanac, still armed and threatening, wanted her to speak to police again to make sure he wasn’t implicated. “He just didn’t want to go to jail,” McCormick said “He thought she was going to blame him eventually and told her, ‘I’m going to kill you if you tell the police.’ Officers left a second time after searching the area for the “ex-boyfriend,” McCormick said.

The fight, however, flared up for a third time about 10 p.m., with Bazanac punching the victim, snatching her baby from her arms, and tossing the child approximately 5 feet away before he began trying to choke

Owner says ‘revenue potential is massive’

BY BOB WARREN Staff writer

A northshore campground that sits on 72 acres and is known for hosting motorcycle rallies and the “Redneck Cajun Olympixs” — best beer belly was indeed a category is hitting the auction block. Silver Creek Campground in Mount Hermon, in northeast Washington Parish, will be sold to the highest bidder Nov 20. Bonnette Auctions said it is an “absolute auction,” which means it will go to the highest bidder regardless of the price. Spencer Mann, whose Alabamabased JSM Property and Development owns the campground, said he expects

Morrell Willard

STAFF

JOHN McCUSKER

Crain, interim Jean Lafitte mayor, wins permanent post

BY LARA NICHOLSON Staff writer

The interim mayor for Jean Lafitte will now lead the town and its roughly 2,000 residents permanently after winning the open seat in a special election Saturday

CAMP

Continued from page 1B

bidding to go into “the seven figures.”

“It’s a rare asset. The revenue potential is massive,” Mann said.

“We feel the buyer will be a bigger type — Jellystone, KOA,” Mann said, referring to two large campground chains.

Complete but unofficial returns show Yvette Crain, who was appointed interim mayor in May, won 98% of the votes over Will Wy man, a rescue chief for the LafitteBaratariaCrown Point Volunteer Fire Department.

The seat opened up earlier this year after Timothy Kerner Jr won a special election for Jefferson Parish Council District 1, ending a five-year tenure as mayor Before that, Timothy Kerner Sr served seven terms as mayor before moving to the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Kerner Sr.’s father, Leo Kerner Jr., was the first mayor to lead Jean Lafitte after its 1974 incorporation.

Crain was town clerk for 35 years under all three

COUNCIL

Continued from page 1B

runner with 39% of the vote in a race with five contestants McCarron took 32%.

The runoff for the District E seat, which Oliver Thomas vacated in his unsuccessful run for mayor, will pit state Rep. Jason Hughes against Cyndi Nguyen, who held the seat before Thomas. Nguyen finished first in a crowded race with 46%, while Hughes took 36%. Seven other candidates split the rest of the vote.

Morrell and Willard have worked closely over the past four years on state laws affecting New Orleans, including a ban on estimated water bills. Willard said in an interview he foresees having a good working relationship with Morrell. And, with his longtime

BATTERED

Continued from page 1B

her, McCormick said. The woman scrambled to a window in their thirdfloor apartment to scream for help. She was leaning out when Bazanac tried to throw her out of the window, McCormick said. A neighbor heard the woman’s screams, saw her at the window and dialed 911. Bazanac fled when he realized police were on their way back, authorities said.

He was arrested a short time later at a business in the 4500 block of Williams Boulevard, McCormick said. In addition to attempted murder, Bazanac was booked with domestic abuse-child endangerment, domestic abuse-aggravated assault, domestic abuse-strangulation, cruelty to a juvenile, simple assault and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. Bazanac was being held Thursday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center in Gretna without bail on the child endangerment charge. Bail was set at $300,500 on the other charges.

Email Michelle Hunter at mhunter@ theadvocate.com.

mayors. Crain will oversee the completion of several major projects, including a new educational wetlands center, a bike path and a baseball park She will also oversee a new tourist commission to help boost foot traffic and economic development

Crain is also a certified floodplain manager and hopes to use the position to help residents obtain home elevation grants, disaster recovery assistance and discounts on insurance.

While Crain is the first non-Kerner to run the town, she is the sister-in-law to Timothy Kerner Sr. and aunt to Timothy Kerner Jr Wyman, whose home is still in shambles four years after Hurricane Ida destroyed it, said he ran to bring change to the town after feeling left behind by its leaders. In addition to the upcoming capital projects, Lafitte also has $87.6 million in levee projects completed or under construction, and another $106 million in projects in design through the Lafitte Area Independent Levee Board District. The previous two mayors served on the district’s board.

Email Lara Nicholson at lnicholson@theadvocate. com.

ally now in the mayor’s office Morrell is poised to hold commanding influence over City Hall priorities. But that doesn’t automatically translate to smooth sailing, since Morrell has said he will continue his efforts to limit executive power in his second term If reelected, for example, Morrell said he will seek a charter amendment with stricter requirements for moving money between departments. Moreno’s stance on that initiative could be an early test of how much she and Morrell continue to agree on issues from opposite ends of City Hall, or how they deal with each other during disagreements.

It’s also unknown exactly how the rest of the council might line up behind the council’s leaders. Green, King and Harris have all shown independent streaks over the past four years, even as Morrell and

The site off La 1055, which includes 40 undeveloped acres and nearly a mile of creek frontage, has mostly been used only for large events over the past 25 years or so, Mann said.

Mann saw the site for sale on social media last March, drove six hours from Lake Martin, Alabama, to check it out, and purchased it from Silver Creek Campground SSS LLC. He declined to say how much he spent.

“I never intended to own it long term,” he said Wednesday “We decided to flip it.”

JSM mostly develops commercial properties, including some retail and smaller RV parks, Mann said In 2021, the company also purchased Dirt Road Gourmet, an Alabama food company built on frozen casseroles that are now sold across the Southeast.

Mann said the campground has been closed since his company took ownership in July and began making renovations. The developed acreage includes 255 RV sites, cabins, bathhouses, a pool, stocked ponds and a 6,000-squarefoot pavilion.

The site originally included another 55 acres that had been used for motorcycle and all-terrain ve-

Moreno have mostly succeeded in rallying majority council support for their initiatives.

Many of those initiatives, especially those pushed by Morrell have directly challenged outgoing Mayor LaToya Cantrell and her executive power Cantrell is leaving office as the first sitting New Orleans mayor under federal indictment. She faces charges for allegedly using city resources to carry out and cover up an affair with her New Orleans Police Department bodyguard.

Moreno and Morrell have steered investigations of alleged misconduct in the Cantrell administration and established the council’s right to sue and be sued — by the executive branch.

Pitched council-mayor court battles have been a hallmark of Cantrell’s second term.

Those efforts succeeded with a reliable four-vote

hicle trails, but Mann said that was sold earlier to a neighbor

Mann said the site was well known for hosting biker rallies and had an annual Redneck Cajun Olympixs.

The campground’s Facebook page shows the last Olympixs was June 13-15 and was a series of events ranging from belching and lawn mower races to best beer belly and a competition for the most redneck campsite.

The rallies and other special events routinely drew big crowds, Mann said.

“That history is exactly what makes this opportunity so compelling,” Bonnette Auctions says in its property description. “The property has demonstrated it can

bloc that included Giarrusso and Harris. The other three council members — Thomas, King and Green — were less antagonistic toward the mayor, and they occasionally voted with her.

But Cantrell’s deepening unpopularity and provocations had a unifying effect on the council, and more recently, Thomas, King and Green have joined the others in taking anti-Cantrell stances, including three unopposed veto override votes. Whether that unity continues during Moreno’s administration remains to be seen.

Morrell has also waged scorched-earth battles against Cantrell administration officials who he views as rogue. He led a council effort to oust Cantrell’s communications director and accused City Attorney Donesia Turner of abdicating her duties At one point, he threatened to boot Turner as well, but

attract and handle crowds, but it has never been operated at its full potential.”

Mann said that RV travel is an expanding tourism market and he thinks Silver Creek is well-positioned to draw heavy bidding. He noted that the Adventures RV Resort in Robert is a multimillion-dollar park that does a booming business. And just across the St. Tammany-Washington parishes line near Bogalusa is Lake Isabel Farm, a 422-acre site that includes a spring-fed lake with clear water and a beach that is open to visitors The developers have longer-term plans to make Lake Isabel an ecotourism destination.

settled instead for a charter proposal on the Nov 15 ballot intended to strengthen the city attorney’s independence.

Morrell acknowledged in a recent interview that he’s developed a reputation in some quarters for belligerence. But he said he was elected “to speak truth to power.”

“I have been cast oftentimes as a bully, but what’s my choice?” he said. “Do I give someone a pass and not pursue an issue because of who is in front of me? Or do I do what I was elected to do?”

Willard ran on fixing “the nuts and bolts” of city government, promising pragmatic solutions to potholes, broken traffic lights and other quality-of-life nuisances that plague daily life. No one will argue with those goals, but Willard and the council are facing a harsh reality: the city is in a deep financial hole,

“RV parks are the thing now,” said Barbara Bonnette, owner of the auction company that is based in Alexandria but handles sales across the U.S. “This is a huge opportunity for someone — especially if you want to be selfemployed and love the outdoors.”

Mann declined to say exactly how much he thinks the campground will bring in, but thinks it will draw a lot of interest.

“We’re spending $30,000$40,000 in marketing to get out in front of the right people,” he said.

Bonnette said the auction will take place at the campground on Nov 20. More information is at www.campgroundauction.com/.

with dwindling reserves, shrinking revenue and critical priorities that are unfunded, like catch basin maintenance.

In her final budget, Cantrell is proposing $200 million in departmental cuts and $70 million in new taxes and fees. The cuts include the public works department, which Willard wants to staff up. The revenue proposals include raising the sanitation fee, which Willard said he is wary of doing and he also wants to return to twiceweekly trash pickups.

In his victory speech, Willard said New Orleanians “deserve better and we’re ready to do the work to get the job done.”

“We’re going to chart a new pathway towards success together, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood,” he said. Email Ben Myers at bmyers@theadvocate.com.

unit to cover fortified roofs, HVAC repairs, weatherization, windows and other issues aligned with the city’s Healthy Homes program, established in 2023 to hold landowners accountable for property upkeep.

The committee also proposed that 5% be reserved for a rainy-day fund and up to 10%, or $1.4 million, for administrative costs

Small focus

The bulk of the money for increasing the number of rentals, about $6.3 million, would be exclusively for small multifamily developments and not larger buildings and complexes. It could be used to build or substantially rehab buildings with up to four units in residential areas. The buildings also could be mixed-tenure, where a new homeowner can live in one unit and rent out the others, creating a “built-in income stream,” according to the proposal.

“Not only are we investing in affordable housing, but we’re making it possible for low-income residents to have ownership through intergenerational wealth building,” committee member Asali Ecclesiastes said. Larger developments that qualify for the federal Low

Income Housing Tax Credit have more restrictions, the proposal says. They require more money, larger lots and have more zoning restrictions. The focus on smaller developments would allow more units to be available sooner, the committee argued during a meeting last month.

But while directing funds to single-family and small rental homes is “under-

standable” in year one, some funds should be reserved for larger multifamily properties, said Vanessa Levine, executive vice president of Volunteers of America of Southeast Louisiana, which operates more than 600 apartments across the city Levine said these projects often face financial shortfalls, such as scarcity of state and federal support and uncertainty with con-

struction costs and interest rates. The average funding gap for larger properties is about $12 million, according to the proposal. Lingering issue

The city needs 55,000 new affordable units to adequately house residents because of skyrocketing housing costs amid an insurance crisis and other factors, according to the annual report

card by HousingNola, a collective of housing advocacy organizations and stakeholders. That’s up from 47,000 last year In reality, New Orleans only created 435 new housing opportunities from September 2024 to August 2025, according to the report. Dedicated funding for affordable housing has shown to be successful in other cities, such as Washington, D.C. There, the program has produced over 9,000 new and rehabilitated units from its start in 2015 through 2022, according to the city’s Housing and Community Development department. The proposed spending plan will go before the City Council for full approval. Email Joni Hess at joni. hess@theadvocate.com.

11,

PROVIDED PHOTO By SILVER CREEK

The Silver Creek Campground in Washington Parish will be auctioned off to the highest bidder on Nov. 20.

Crain Wyman

Hilliard,Yvonne

Mason, Gladys

Merritt, Eleanor NewOrleans

DW Rhodes

Mason, Gladys

Estelle JWilson

Hilliard,Yvonne

Lake Lawn Metairie

Merritt, Eleanor

Obituaries

Hilliard,Yvonne Butler

Yvonne Butler Hilliard,a beloved mother andgrand‐mother, departed this life onSaturday, October4, 2025, at theage of 90. She was born on May26, 1935 inLutcher,LA, to Sedonia Reed andClarenceButler. She worked in retail for manyyears.After retiring fromJCPenney, shefound joy in spending time with familyand friends, sharing stories,and offering her signature hospitality. Known forher warm pres‐ence, generosity,and sharp wit, shewillbetruly missed. Shewas preceded indeath by herhusband, Abe Hilliard Jr.Daughter, Maria (Denise) Hilliard El‐more, andson,RonaldAn‐thony Hilliard;parents, ClarenceButlerSr. andSe‐donia Reed;sister, Uvonne Adams,brother,Lawrence Butler. Sheleavestocher‐ish herpreciousmemories, her twosons, GregoryA Hilliard(Shari),Kenneth Ray Hilliard (Pamela); brother,ClarenceButlerJr. (Darlene);4 grandchildren Jessica AnnWhite,Oryann Aquilla White, Nicholas Hilliard, Kelsey Denise Hilliard, 3great-grandchil‐dren, Jacodi Omarion, Bria Destiny Williams and Devyn White; numerous nieces, nephews, family and friends. Relativesand friends of thefamilyare in‐vited to attend thevisita‐tionfrom9:00a.m.to10:00 a.m.followedbyCelebra‐tionofLifeService on Wednesday,October 15 2025 for10:00 a.m. at First FreeMission Baptist Church, 919 AdamsStreet, New Orleans, LA 70118 Rev.MelvinCollins III offi‐ciating.Interment:Provi‐dence Memorial Park Cemetery, 8200 AirlineDr. Metairie, La.70003 ArrangementsByEstelle J. Wilson FuneralHome, Inc. 2715 DanneelSt. NOLA 70113. Information: (504) 895-4903. To sign online guest book please visit www.estellejwilsonfh.com.

(Rodney) Bailey,Darlene (Alan)Williams, and StevenMason.She is also survivedbyten grandchil‐dren: Nia Mason, Christo‐pherMason-Williams, Quentin Mason, Gaylan Williams,Jeremy(Can‐dace) Mason, Brittney (Jared) Williams-Reese, Jared Mason, Kenan(Lau‐ren)Mason,Teresa Williams,and MasonBai‐ley;and seven greatgrandchildren: Jeremy Mason Jr., Gharri Reese, OakleyMason,Caleb Mason,Elias,Arsene Reese, andbabygirl Mason,due in December Her survivingsiblings, Ed‐mondGautier andLeonard Gautier,are also left to mourn herpassing.She was also adevoted friend and mother figure to many who were touchedbyher kindnessand love.Asshe entersGod’s kingdom, Gladysislovinglyreunited withher parents, Edmund and Irma Gautier; herhus‐band, Ronald Mason, Sr.; her belovedsecondson, GaryMason andher two grandsons,RonaldF Mason III andBernell Mason.She wasalsopre‐ceded in deathbyher sib‐lings:brothers, Leon (Vi‐vian) Gautier, Noel Gautier, and LloydGautier andsis‐ters, Doris(Nolan)Hamil‐ton,Emelda(James) Beau‐dion, andShirley (Everett) Labat.Visitationwillbe heldonTuesday,October 14, 2025, at 9:00 am at D.W. RhodesFuneralHome, 3933 WashingtonAvenue,New Orleans,Louisiana.Rosary willbegin at 9:30 am and her Celebrationoflifewill followat10:00 am andcan belivestreamedbyvisiting www.facebook.com/D.W RhodesFuneralHome/live Intermentwillbe in St Louis Cemetery No.3 Arrangementsentrusted to D.W.RhodesFuneralHome, New Orleans, LA.Please visit www.rhodesfuneral. com to sign theguestbook

Merritt, Eleanor Dessommes

Eleanor Dessommes Merritt 79, passedawayin Metairie, Louisiana on October 6, 2025.She was born in NewOrleans. LA. Shewas precededindeath by her husband Thomas "Tim" Buxton Merritt Jr. and herparents Eleanora Taormina Dessommes and RobertDessommesSr. She issurvivedbyher children Meghan Merritt Gauthier (John EllisGauthier)and Thomas "TB" Buxton Merritt III. Grandchildren Cassidy Morgan Merritt, Ella Jane Gauthierand John Ellis GauthierJr. Herbrother Robert Dessommes Jr (Terese),nephew Robert Dessommes lll, niece Andrea Dessommesand nephew John Etienne Dessommes. Eleanor was a graduateofSaint Joseph Academy,Tulane University with aBachelor of Arts and Master of Education. She was employed at Tulane University for25yearsand was a teacher in the Jefferson Parish school system for 25 years. Relatives and friends of the familyare invited to attend the Memorial Mass on Saturday, October 18, 2025 in the Chapel of Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd NewOrleans, LA at 12:00 pm. Visitationwill begin at 10:00amuntil servicetime. Interment willbeprivate. To viewand signthe family guestbook, please visit www.lakelawnmetairie.co m Mason, Gladys TheresaGautier

Gladys TheresaGautier Mason departed this life on October 2, 2025, at theage of97. Anativeand lifelong residentofNew Orleans, Louisiana,Gladyswas born onSeptember 8, 1928, to Edmund andIrmaJones Gautier,the fourth of nine children. Shewas the beloved wife of thelate RonaldF.Mason,Sr.,with whomshe shared 66 years ofmarriage, andthe de‐voted mother of sixchil‐dren, to whomshe gave her unconditionallove. Gladysgraduated from Booker T. Washington High School andwas employed asa cook at St.Josephand UrsulineCatholicSchools. She waslater recruitedby the YMCA,where she servedinthe cafeteriaand asa counselorina child displacementprogram Gladystook greatpleasure inlife’ssimplejoys, includ‐ing cooking, sewing,play‐ing cards, andtryingher luckwithscratch-off tick‐ets.Gladysissurvivedby her children,Ronald(Be‐linda)Mason,Jr.,David (Shelia) Mason, Shelia

Howtoplace an Obituary Notice

EMAIL: obits@theadvocate.com OR CALL FORMORE INFORMATION: 225-388-0289

Howtoplace a MemorialAd

To the diligent journalists who represent the voice of thestories andlives untold, Iwant to share some deeply concerning facts that have affected not only me personally but thousandsofother women and children. There is an epidemic of domestic violence in this state, but more disturbingis thelack of resources,care, solutions and protection, among other things. After surviving physical, sexual,financial and emotional abuse, compounded withthe trauma of your experiences is the trauma of the ineffectiveness of thesocalled systems and programs in place,allegedly designed tohelp women and children fleeingthe complexdynamics of domestic violence. Ihave personally been gaslit even with proof of crimes committed against me that included stalking, harassment and financial abuse. Iwas doubted, dismissed, ignored and felt the energy of disdain as if Iwas an inconvenience.

I’m infuriated and terrified for myself and other women.As someone who has acollegedegree, works hard, comes from an educated family,doesn’tdodrugs and has never been accused of even amisdemeanor,it’sstillas if I’mtreated with disgust or perhaps doubt and even worse: as if I deserved this. My best friend was brutally murderedinadomestic violence incident. I’ve almost died myself. The trauma never goes away.Itjust absorbs into your body,waiting for somethingto wake it up from its usually short hibernation.This topic is not only apublic safety concern but it’s amental health crisis, and if not addressed, many more people will unnecessarily die. We need to start believing women and making supporting survivors a priority

MARTHABARLOW NewOrleans

If leaderswon’t lead, citizens must

National Motto: EPluribus Unum.

President Donald Trump’sresponse when asked about how to combat the political extremism of the right and left: “I couldn’tcare less.” Only the voters can saveour country.The buck stops withus.

JOSEPH BISHOP Abita Springs

More must be donetosupport survivorsof domesticabuse U.S.

Cassidy’s supportfor vaccines too little,too late

Students walk the campus of SouthernUniversity near the John

Libraryafter

threatwas madeSept. 30,which caused the building to be evacuated and triggered alaw enforcement response.

Ourfuturedepends on strong,safeHBCUs

The recent terroristic threats and lockdowns atseveral historically Black colleges and universities should be awake-up call for many These incidents are not isolated; they underscore arisingdanger to campus safety, student mental healthand institutional stability.HBCUs already operate under financial andinfrastructural strain. Adding threats, fear and uncertainty to that burden impactsmore than just classrooms; it harms lives, community trust and opportunity In Louisiana, we know HBCUs represent far more than places of learning. They cultivate our state’sfuture teachers,doctors, engineers and public servants. They uplift entire neighborhoods by providing access to higher education for studentsfrom lowincomebackgrounds, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. HBCUs are engines of economic growth, not just throughimmediate jobsand commerce, butthroughlifetime earnings and leadership opportunities. Yetchronic underfunding has left many institutions with aging facilities,

outdated labs and limited resources forsafety,mental health and academic support.

What we see now,from reductions in government grants to cuts in civil rights oversight and overstretched safety protocols, only deepens thelong-standing deficits HBCUs have faced. HBCUs deserve morethan thebare minimum so they canensure safe learning environments, modern academic facilities and robust student services. Investing in these institutions is not afavor; it is a necessityfor equity,public safety and state prosperity.

Iurge Louisiana’selected officials and our congressional delegation to increase targeted investment in HBCUs, particularly for campus security,student support, STEM facilities and civil rights protections. Alumni, philanthropists, business leaders andeveryday citizens should hold our leaders accountable. Ourfuture depends on HBCUsnot merely surviving these threats but thriving despitethem

TRAMELLE HOWARD state director,EdTrust-Louisiana

Civicgroupsshouldnot be hampered from registeringnew citizenvoters

The League of Women Votersofthe United States has been welcoming new citizens to ournation by registering them to votesince theorganization’screation in 1920. The League of Women VotersofNew Orleanshas played animportant role in registering and educatingnewly naturalized citizens since the 1940s.

The political cartoon by Matt Davies, published on Sept. 13, playing the race card and branding ICE as racists, was both ridiculous and despicable. The disastrous immigration policy of the Biden-Harris administration fedU.S. immigration law into the shredder

OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name and the writer’scity of residence.The Advocate |The Times-Picayune require astreet address and phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@ theadvocate.com. TO SEND US ALETTER SCAN HERE

In New Orleans, theLeague participates in new citizen registration events on aweekly basisand hasregistered 1,000 new voters a year under this program. The policy announced by theU.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Aug. 29, stating that only stateand local elections officials may conduct voter registration at naturalization ceremonies, overburdens those election officials and impedes acore Leaguefunction.

The United States and our state of Louisianaare incredibly culturally diverse, as a result of waves of immigrants —somevoluntary,some fleeing persecution or brought in chains —throughout our history.Elected officials of both theRepublican and Democratic parties have championed legal immigration, while neglecting to provide fair and workable immigration policy for decades. Are these officials now prepared to pull up thewelcome mat by denying theopportunity for voter registration by groups like the League whichhave provided this service in anonpartisan manner alongside elected officials?

Registrars of voters, school boards and other government entities around the state

By

Teisha Rezende, anew citizen, registers to vote after anaturalizationceremonyatthe National WWII Museum in NewOrleans on July 3, 2024.

have enlisted League volunteers to provide nonpartisan voter registration and education around the state for decades —aservice that theLeague and other nonpartisan civil service organizations provide free of charge, so that busy election officials can concentrate on running our elections. Federal, stateand local governments should welcomegroups that welcome new citizens with information on how to exercise their core democratic rights and responsibilities as voters.

ROSALIND

COOK president, LeagueofWomen Voters of NewOrleans

Approximately 10 million illegal immigrants crossed our open border.The cost of this policy to American taxpayers was approximately $152 billion per year.The number of unaccompanied children that crossed our border was 534,980. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for finding sponsors, lost contact with morethan 300,000 of these children. More than 2million immigrants are knownas“gotaways,” evading the border patrol. There wasnotelling whothey are or if they wereterrorists, here to do harm to the country There have been consequences to this policy elsewhere. Cartels kidnapped members of caravans headed forthe U.S. and demanded ransom from their relatives. They have also trafficked humans as sex slaves and drugs across our border Remember the 50 dead found in a big 18-wheeler,who died of dehydration? Trypublishing acartoon about that.

The Darien Gap, once apristine tropical jungle area, has been turned into acesspool from caravans trooping through.

The open-border Biden-Harris immigration policy did nothing for this country except contribute to its destruction. Now,inafitofhypocrisy,some Democrats are saying they are concerned about “due process.” What ajoke. That is the same as the vice president and the head of homeland security during the Biden-Harris administration having the audacity to tell us that “the border is secure.”

This policy did not benefit American citizens. It is just another tax burden on American citizens.

HERBERT CANNON Baton Rouge

STAFF PHOTO

MATTHEW PERSCHALL

STAFF PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

B. Cade

a

Russianvictory in Ukraine couldbejustthe beginning

Operations at Munich’s airport were recently halted by drones. Several Danish airports, including Copenhagen’s, and amilitary air base where Denmark stations F-16s and F-35s, have been disrupted by drones. Denmark, whose support for Ukraine has been robust, willsoon host aUkrainian weapons manufacturer Poland and Romania have experienced harassing drones. In multiple instances, “shadow ships” (worldwide, the “shadow fleet” of ships that conceal their identities and activities numbers about 1,000) have been accused of cutting undersea cables crucial to Europe commercialand military infrastructure. On Sept. 19, three Russian MiG-31s violated Estonia’sairspace before being repelled by NATO-assigned Italian F-35s. It was the fifth Russian incursion this year.Russia says blaming it forthese provocations (andfor acampaign of assassinations and sabotage in Europe) is provocative. Read on, remembering Estonia. Vladimir Putin’spurposes probably include intelligence gathering: monitoring the military responses the targeted nations make, and how quickly they make them. He also is measuring theWest’scontinuingcommitment to noncommittal dithering.

Russia has launched this torrentof aggressions. The aggressed against still call this “hybrid” or “gray zone” war.Erase the adjectives. This is war

So, here are 119 pages of wartime reading: “If Russia Wins: AScenario” by Carlo Masala, professor of international politics at Munich’s Bundeswehr University,which serves Germany’sarmed forces. An immediatebestseller in Germany and then the Netherlands, the booklet has been published in London but not yet in America. His scenario is aliterary device to framea question: Suppose Russia’svictory in Ukraine “is only thebeginning”?

Masala’sscenario begins in March 2028, when two Russian brigades surge into Narva, Estonia’sthirdlargest city (population 57,000),on Russia’sborder.Eighty-eight percent of the residents are Russian-speaking, andmany have been supplied with smuggled small arms and machine guns.

Simultaneously,Russian soldiers disguised as tourists takeferries to seize the Estonian coastal island of Hiiumaa.The attack on thethree Balticstates, each aNATOmember,has begun. It is three years since Ukraine, pressured by China andthe United

States, signed acapitulation to Russia. Ukraine surrendered more than 20% of its territory, agreed to permanent neutrality (no NATO membership) and peacekeeping troops from many nations,including China. Theproject of bringing all Russianspeaking regions in what Russia calls the“near abroad” under Moscow’s control mimics Hitler’sprewar absorption of German-speakers(in Austria,the Sudetenland, Danzig) Afterthe victory over Ukraine, Putin resigns. His chosen 47-year-old successor is hailed in theWest as “a new Gorbachev,” draining urgency from protecting the Baltics.

To show the West itsinabilityto act,Russia’snew president mimics Hitler’s“remilitarization of theRhineland.”

In March 1936, 30,000 German troops marched across Rhine River bridges to nullify the demilitarization Germany hadaccepted in 1919. Germany in 1936 spoke soothingly of having no aggressive intentions regarding neighboring nations. Its action was accepted.

Next,Masala imagines, Russian operatives orchestrate aflotilla of migrants to inflame and distract European populations, and to draw NATO frigatesaway from the BalticSea. China,Russia’saccomplice, creates a micro-crisis with aU.S. ally,the Philippines, confident that America will not risk war over areef.

Russiaisconfident that America will notriskwar over an Estonian border town. Although there is asuspicious assassination (byaground-to-air mis-

sile) of theCEO of Germany’sleading manufacturer of armored military vehicles.And suspicious explosions at theport where Britain’snuclear submarines are based. NATO convenes, and some member nations go wobbly,saying: Estonia has not properly respected the rightsof Russian-speakers. Russia’sgoals are limited. Russia’sbehavior is reprehensible but consider the “historical context.” Isn’tthe independence of the Balticstates an “artificial construct”?

The U.S. presidentopposes NATO acting, which it cannot do without U.S. reconnaissance and transport capabilities.France and Germany,withascending far-right populist parties, are also reluctant.So, Russia’snuclear arsenal deters aconventional response to alimited regional escalation —the taking of asmall Estonian town Now,return to Masala’sscenario-asquestion:What if Russia’swinning in Ukraine were only the beginning? The beginning of the enfeeblement of the United States?

Putin strolled down Donald Trump’s red carpet in Alaska, then took none of the stepsregarding Ukraine that Trump saidwere necessary for Russia to avoid“verysevere consequences.” Instead, Putin intensified Russian attacks.

Aconnoisseur of Western dithering, Putin probably anticipated the response his currentflurry of contemptuousaggressionshas elicited. Trump has said: “I don’tlove it.” Email George Will at georgewill@washpost.com.

In the course of three days, six U.S.-based scientists have won Nobel Prizes. Every one of them studied or now works at America’s public universities. Five were affiliated with or educated by California’ssystem for higher education.

When the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in 2015, I wondered what standard they would use should polygamists appeal for similarrights. In accepting acase from Colorado Springs about whether aChristian counselorcan advise minors with gender dysphoria and samesex attractions, the Court will again face the question of free exerciseofreligion vs. theestablishment clause in the First Amendment

thought to be “unalienable” have been eroded,could find they have lost the right to influence what they believe is themoral direction of their children, should thecourt deliver what they would regard as an adverse opinion, upholding the Colorado law,and denying the therapist’sright to tell patients what she believes will be best for them.

The case involves the parents of a teenager who claims to be adifferent gender than the one identified at birth. The Christian parentssought help from acounselor whosharestheir faith. AColorado law bans“conversion therapy” for minors.The therapist, Kaley Chiles, says the lawsilences her and deprives young people of help.She further says she does nottry to convert anyone to her faith.

In familiar secular progressivefashion, The Washington Post founda person it identifies as atransgenderman, who it says tried to commit suicide in 2010. That person, says thenewspaper, called conversion therapy bad medicine. Parents, who have discovered that in many public schoolstheir rightsonce

As with abortion, thePost and other media regularly look for peoplewho will affirmtheir editorial and moral point of view They might have consulted World Magazine,a Christian publication to whichIcontribute. In October 2022, World published an article titled “Our voices cannolonger be denied.” It focused on de-transitioners,that is peoplewho have reversed or stopped their gender transition. The story profiled three women who had gone through gender transitions and later expressed regret andremorse. While the number is admittedly small (thanks in part,I think,tothe way themedia and medical profession refuse to consider the possibility of change), they do exist. Forpeople who wish to pursue a different life with its accompanying changeinlifestyle, it’scalled being born again. It’s an experience “dis-

covered” by thesecular media when Jimmy Carter announced in 1976 his own transformation. It means when one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior,that person is given thepower to live alife different from thelife he or she had been living. For thelaw to deny atherapist, or anyone else, the right to share amessage that goes back 2,000 years and has been responsible for altering thelives of billions of people —and still does today —would impose secularism as the state religion and deny individuals the right of choice, which is sacred tothe secularistswhen it comes to abortion. So long as there is no compulsion involved and the therapist acts in compliance with the wishes of the parentsof theteenager,the Court should uphold theright of the therapist and strike down lower-court rulings that seek to deny her constitutional rights. Those include the right to freely exercise her faith and that of the teen’sparents. If theSupremeCourt doesn’trecognize astandardbywhich truthand moralitycan be judged, it should remove theimageofMoses, thegreat lawgiver, from themarble frieze outside the SupremeCourt building.

Email Cal Thomasattcaeditors@ tribpub.com

President Donald Trump’s assault on universities, both public and private, targets the engines of American greatness. He pinned muchofiton the colleges’ failure to defend free speech and stop unruly student behavior, some degenerating into antisemitism. Point taken.

But it’smainly taken the form of shaking down universities. For his gentler audience, Trump frames it as “saving” taxpayer money

To quote the president: “Wewill cut funding by X$ and thereby save Y$.”

Over in the biology department, immunologists Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell are sharing the Nobel Prize in medicine with Shimon Sakaguchi. Brunkow studied at the University of Washington and Princeton. Ramsdell got both his bachelor’sdegree and doctorate from the University of California, first at San Diego, then at Los Angeles. Sakaguchi teaches at Japan’sOsaka University As for physics, three scientists, one British, one French and one American, shared the Nobel Prize. All three, however,are now associated with UC campuses at Berkeley or Santa Barbara. The American, John Martinis, earned all his degrees at Berkeley.They won the Nobel for having discovered —bear with me —“macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.”

And one of the three scientists just awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is Omar Yaghi, who occupies achair in chemistry at Berkeley.Born in Amman, Jordan, Yaghi obtained his undergraduate degree at the State University of New York’sAlbany campus. His Ph.D. camefrom the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Our colleges and universities should be sources of American pride as well as power They are areason why,ifCalifornia were its owncountry,itwould have the world’s fourth-largest economy. To think that Trump is threatening its public universities with layoffs, budget cuts and loss of federal grants. He’strying to freeze about $584 million in grants at UCLA alone. That’sinaddition to his attempted $1 billion shakedown over unrest at the UCLA campus.

With an economy larger than Japan’s, small wonder there’samove in California to take over federal funding for scientific research with its own. Specifically,state lawmakers talk about putting a$23 billion bond measure on the 2026 ballot to replace lost federal dollars. If voters passed it, that would give California the wherewithal to make grants and loans to its ownuniversities and research companies. California would in effect be bypassing the National Institutes of Health. The NIH is the world’sbiggest funder of medical research. And who did Trump put in charge of the NIH? Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., an anti-vax ignoramus (excuse me,“skeptic”) who is, mentally,many cards short of afull deck.

At least 24 University of California and California State University campuses have lost NIH training grants. UC already runs six academic health centers. If California taxpayers take over that funding, universities in other states should not expect to receive a dime of it.

That said, other states share these concerns. Washington and Oregon have joined California in setting up acoalition to review scientific data and make recommendations on vaccines. An alliance with similar goals, though probably less money,isbeing set up on the East Coast. Harvard and Yale do have impressive endowments.

What the great universities in the Trumpvoting heartland are going to do, Ican’t guess. In sum, many of the smartest people in the country are being sat on by the political dunces. How dumb can America get? Trump is testing us for an answer

Froma Harrop is on X, @FromaHarrop. Email her at fharrop@gmail.com

George Will

Froma Harrop

Cal Thomas

RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRy PRESS PHOTO

ARussian sniper fires towards Ukrainian forces from an undisclosed location last week

There

SPORTS

MAYE DAY

NewEngland Patriotswide receiver Kayshon Boutte,

halfoftheir game on Sundayatthe CaesarsSuperdome.

BY MATTHEW PARAS Staff writer

Drake Maye and Spencer Rattler were taken 147 picks apart in last year’sNFL draft. The New EnglandPatriots, searching for TomBrady’ssuccessor,selected Maye with the expectation that the third overall pickcould one day be the franchise’snext great quarterback. The New Orleans Saints,by contrast, took Rattler under entirely different circumstances. The fifthrounder,drafted 150th overall, was not expectedtobethe next Drew Brees. Rattler,once thought to be a potential No. 1overall pick, wassimply too good avalue to passon. But here they were on Sunday afternoon, engaged in abattle in which

their draft statusseemed to matter little. The ball failed to touch the ground for long stretches. The two men raced their offenses up and down the field. It wasn’tquiteashootout reminiscent of these franchises’ legendary quarterbacks, but there was enough action to keep theCaesars Superdome crowd enthralled. By theend of Sunday’s 25-19 loss to the Patriots,Rattler stood at alectern again to explain how thenow 1-5 Saintslostagame on the margins. Maye, at his own lectern on theother side of the building, answered questions about howhis team —now 4-2 —already has matched its win total from ayear ago.

ä See SAINTS, page 4C

Throw thatWeek 3game against the Seattle Seahawks out the window,and you’ll have apretty good idea of who the New Orleans Saints are. Good enough to hang around long enough to make you thinkthey will win. Butnot quite good enough to actually do so. They’ll get your hopesup, but eventually aplay or two will happen to remindyou that they werejust teasingyou thewhole time. It happenedagain in Sunday’s 25-19 losstoaNew England Patriots team whose turnaround is happeningatamuchfasterrate than the Saints’. The Patriots,who haven’thad awinning season since 2021, are

Saints provethey’re closebut notquite good enough forawin ä See WALKER, page 5C

already trending in the right direction under first-year head coach Mike Vrabel. The Saints, meanwhile, under Kellen Moore, showed once again they are still a work in progress. Any thoughts you may have had that the Saints would carry over somemomentum from the first winofthe Moore era last week against the NewYork Giants probably went away on the Patriots’ opening possession, when Drake connected with DeMario Douglas fora53-yard touchdownpass. It wasaresponse to the Saints, whoconnected on a 53-yard pass play on their opening

Rod Walker

STAFFPHOTO By BRETT DUKE

aNew Iberia native, catches the ballfor atouchdownasSaints cornerbackKool-Aid McKinstrydefendsinthe first

The Saints lost 25-19.

10:50a.m.NorthernIreland vs.Germany

7p.m.Honduras

9p.m.Costa

5a.m.ATP

5:30 p.m.

HentzESPNU

8p.m.Team V-A vs.Team Thompson ESPNU

PLAYINGFOR APENNANT

Sixstorylines to watchinthe LCS roundofplayoffs

BY NOAH TRISTER

Associated Press

There are five current franchis-

es that have never won aWorld Series. Twoofthem still have a chance to break through this year Major League Baseball’s playoffs have reachedthe two League Championship Series, which will includethe LosAngeles Dodgers and their storied history —and three other teams that are products of the sport’spost-expansion era. The Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners, both of whom began playing in 1977, meet in the ALCS. The Milwaukee Brewers, who spent ayear as the SeattlePilots before relocating to Wisconsin in 1970, face Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers in the NLCS The Mariners and Brewers have never won aWorldSeries. Seattle is the only current team that has never even won apennant. The Marinersmade it to the ALCS via ascintillating 15-inning victory over Detroit in Game 5of theirALDivision Series. They’ll

have little time to savorthatvictory.Game1 in Toronto was slated to begin less than 48 hours later on Sunday night Seattle had to use threeofits top starting pitchers —George Kirby, Luis Castillo andLogan Gilbert in that marathon Game 5against the Tigers.4 So the Mariners are set to start Bryce Miller —who had a5.68 ERAduring the regular season —onthree days’ rest in the opener against the Blue Jays.A rested Kevin Gausman takes the mound for Toronto, whicheliminatedthe New York Yankees in four games in their ALDS

Thereigning World Series champion Dodgers beat Philadelphia in four to earn areturn trip to the NLCS. That seriesstarts Monday night. Milwaukee won a five-gameNLDSover theChicago Cubs to advance.

Thetop seeds in both leagues —the 97-winBrewers and 94-win Blue Jays —are still alive. What to know aboutthe League Championship Series

n 1. The stars shined bright for Toronto and Seattle in the ALDS. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.ofthe Blue Jays went 9for 17 withthree home runs and nine RBIs againstthe Yankees. Cal Raleigh, thecatch-

er whoslugged 60 homers in the regular season for theMariners, was 6for 21 with ahomer andfour walks against Detroit.

n 2. Ohtani, the Dodgers’ twowaystar, did not have agreat series pitching or hittingagainst thePhillies, but another Japanese standout did. RokiSasaki did not pitch much during theregular season because of injury,but he hasthrown 51/3 scoreless innings in theplayoffs, including three in Game 4ofthe NLDS, when Los Angelesbeat Philadelphia in 11 innings to end that series. Sasaki could be the answer to some of theDodgers’ bullpen woes, which is important because Milwaukee’s starting pitchers produced abetterERA during the regular season than LA’s star-studded crew

n 3. Milwaukee has reached the NLCS nine monthsafter thedeath of Bob Uecker,the team’slongtime broadcaster. TheBrewers posedwith abannerwith Uecker’s signature after knockingout the Cubs.

n 4. Dodgers-Brewers is arematch of the 2018 NLCS, which went the distance. Los Angeles wonGame 7inMilwaukee to deny theBrewers their first World Series appearance since 1982. When the Braves were in Milwaukee, theDodgers beat them in abest-

of-three tiebreaker seriesfor the 1959 NL pennant. Partof thereason the Brewers finished withbaseball’sbest record this year was because they went6-0 againstthe Dodgersduring the regular season. Allofthosegames took place during an 11-game win streakthat straddledthe All-Star break in July.

n 5. Although they entered the American League at the same time,there’s notmuchhistory between the Mariners and Blue Jays. However,the proximity to Canada might make for more fans of the visiting team at Seattle home games than theMariners would like.Seattleisinthe ALCS forthe first time since 2001, whenthe Mariners won 116 games during the regular season but were beaten by the Yankees forthe pennant. Toronto madethe ALCS as recently as 2016 but hasn’twon apennant since the second of itsback-toback WorldSeriestitles in 1993.

The Blue Jays went 4-2 against the Marinersthis year,but their seasonseries was over by mid-May.

n 6. If the Mariners and Brewersreach the World Series, it’ll be thefirst Fall Classic to feature twoteams that have neverwon it before since thePhiladelphia Philliesbeat the Kansas City Royals in 1980.

Gauff beats Pegulatowin an all-U.S. final in Wuhan WUHAN,China Coco Gauffreeled offfour straight games to beat JessicaPegula 6-4, 7-5and win the WuhanOpenonSundayinallAmerican final. The21-year-old Gauff won her secondtitle of the year,having won the FrenchOpen on clay,and she now has 11 career titles.

The third-ranked Gauff served to save the second set at 5-3 down. She held and then broke the sixthranked Pegula to love for5-5. Pegula’s forehandvolleyatthe net landed wide to give Gauff a first match point and, with Pegula on secondserve,she clinchedit with aforehand winner following abrief rally It wastheir seventh career meeting and first in afinal. Pegula leads 4-3 overall against Gauff, with whomshe has won several WTAdoubles titles.

Ugandan, Ethiopian cruise to Chicago Marathon wins

CHICAGO Jacob KiplimoofUganda and Ethiopian HawiFeysa won the men’sand women’sraces at the Chicago Marathon by comfortable margins on Sunday Kiplimo crossed the line in a personal-best time of 2hours, 2 minutesand 23 seconds. He was 1minute, 31 secondsclear of Kenyan Amos Kipruto, the 2022 London Marathon winner, whose countrymanAlexMasai was third in 2:04.37. Conner Mantz was fourth in aU.S.-record time of 2:04:43. The 26-year-old Feysa also put in astellarperformance to win in 2:14:56 in a1-2 finish forEthiopia. She was 2:22 clear of Megertu Alemu with Magdalena Shauri of Tanzania third in 2:18:03.

Sanchez is released from custody aweek after arrest

INDIANAPOLIS Former NFLquarterback andsports analyst Mark Sanchez was released from custody Sunday,about aweek after policesaidhewas stabbed during afight with atruckdriveroutside an Indiana hotel.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department confirmed Sanchez’srelease. He faces afelony battery charge, along with several misdemeanor charges, for what prosecutors have said was afight over parking.

Apolice affidavit says the 38-year-old Sanchez, smelling of alcohol, accosted 69-year-old Perry Tole,who hadbackedhis truck into ahotel’s loading docksin downtown Indianapolis on Oct. 4. Tole claims in alawsuit filed MondaythatSanchez enteredthe truck without permission, thenphysically blockedand shoved Tole, who then doused Sanchez with pepper spray

Oregon State firescoach as Beavers fallto0-7

Oregon State fired coach Trent Bray on Sunday after the team fell to 0-7, its worst start to aseason since 1991.

Robb Akey will be the interim head coach forthe rest of the season pending anational search for Bray’ssuccessor,athletic director Scott Barnes said.

“I want to thank Coach Bray for the energy and determination he broughttothe role. Aformer student-athlete, proudgraduate, and dedicated mentor,Trent’sconnection to Oregon State runs deep —hewill always be aBeaver,” Barnes said in astatement.

BY STEVE MEGARGEE Associated Press

MILWAUKEE Ending their recent runofplayoff frustration earned the Milwaukee Brewers anew nickname from their manager

Pat Murphy has referred tohis team as the “Average Joes,” a nod to their small-market status and lack of big names But after the Brewers beat therival ChicagoCubs 3-1 in the decisive fifth game of their NL Division Series on Saturday night, Murphy decided it was time for an upgrade.

“You can call them the average Joes,”Murphysaid, “but Isay they’re the above-average Joes.”

The Brewers relied on contributions from just about all of them to get past the Cubs.

Andrew Vaughn hit atiebreaking homer in the fourth inning, and William Contreras and Brice Turang also went deep. Trevor Megill, JacobMisiorowski, Aaron Ashby,Chad Patrick andAbner Uribecombined on afour-hitter,

with Uribe getting six outs for the firstmulti-inningsave of his career

“It takes every single oneof theseguys in thelockerroom, and they’ve done it,” Turangsaid. “We’ve got to keep going.”

The Brewers, making their seventh playoffappearanceineight years, earned their first postseasonseries winsince sweeping Coloradoina 2018 NLDS.Milwaukeewas on thevergeofits second World Series berth that

year before losing Game 7ofthe National League Championship Seriesathometothe Los Angeles Dodgers. Now,the Brewers get another NLCS matchup with the defending World Series champion Dodgers, who beat the Philadelphia Philliesinfour games in the other NL Division Series. Game 1isMonday at Milwaukeeasthe Brewers chase their first pennant since 1982 —back when they played in the American League.

After losing slugging shortstop Willy Adames in freeagency and trading away All-Star closer Devin Williamslast winter,the scrappy Brewers finished the regular season with the best record in the majors at 97-65.

They’ve reached the NLCS nine months after the death of Bob Uecker,who broadcast Brewers games for 54 seasons andisprobably more synonymous withthe franchise thanany player

“It was important to these guys —because it’sthe rival —tofinish the job,”Murphy said. “And they know Ueck is smiling.”

Aweek ago, OregonState fired special teams coach JamieChristian, andBarnessaid he and Bray were evaluating the program with an eye toward making immediate changes.

Former NFL quarterback Dilfer fired as UAB coach

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer was fired as UAB’scoach on Sunday,a day after the Blazers fell to 2-4 with a 53-33 loss at Florida Atlantic. UABhas lost three straight, leaving it 9-21 in 21/2 seasons under Dilfer.The Blazers were 4-8 in 2023 and 3-9 last year

“Weagree that —unfortunately —our on-field performance has notlived up to the standard of winning we have forthe program,” athleticdirector Mark Ingram said in astatement.

Offensive coordinator/QBs coach Alex Mortensen will serve as interim coach. He’sthe son of late NFLanalyst Chris Mortensen

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JOHN FROSCHAUER

Mariners players celebrate with JorgePolanco, center,after he hit the game-winning RBI single in the15th inning in Game 5oftheir ALDSagainst the DetroitTigers on Friday in Seattle. Game 1ofthe ALCSbetween the Mariners and Blue Jays on Sunday ended after press time.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By KAyLA WOLF Brewers shortstop Joey Ortiz yells withjoy after the team’s win overthe ChicagoCubs in Game 5oftheir NLDS on SaturdayinMilwaukee.

NFL ROUNDUP

Fitzgerald nails game-winner for Panthers

By The Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —

Rico

Dowdle

warned his former Dallas Cowboys teammates last week they’d better get ready and buckle up.

“They wasn’t buckled up,” Dowdle said.

The sixth-year running back went over 200 yards from scrimmage for the second straight week and rookie Ryan Fitzgerald kicked a 33-yard field goal as time expired as the Carolina Panthers defeated the Cowboys 30-27 in a wild backand-forth game on Sunday

Bryce Young completed 17 of 25 passes for 199 yards and threw two of his three touchdown passes to rookie Tetairoa McMillan to help the Panthers (3-3) improve to 3-0 at home.

Dowdle, who spent five years with the Cowboys before signing earlier this year with the Panthers, ran for 183 yards on 30 carries and caught four passes for 56 yards and a touchdown as Carolina avenged home losses to Dallas the last two seasons.

Dowdle’s 473 yards from scrimmage over the past two weeks are a franchise record. He also became the seventh NFL player in the last 20 years to post backto-back 200 yards games. His 239 yards on Sunday also set a franchise record, breaking the previous mark of 237, set twice by Christian McCaffrey

“It was personal for him and we knew that. We want to have his back,” Young said. “That’s our brother and if it’s important to him and it’s personal to him, it’s important to us.”

BRONCOS 13, JETS 11: In London, Bo Nix threw an early touchdown pass, Wil Lutz kicked a late go-ahead field goal and Denver sacked Justin Fields nine times, with the final one sealing an ugly victory over winless New York.

The Broncos (4-2) won their third in a row, but found themselves trailing 11-10 after conceding a safety in the third quarter against a Jets team that managed just 82 total net yards on offense.

Nix, who was 19 of 30 for 174 yards, led Denver on a 12-play, 65yard drive that ended with Lutz’s 27-yard field with just over five

minutes left.

Despite a horrendous offensive display, the Jets (0-6) still had the ball with a chance to drive for a potential winning score.

RAMS 17, RAVENS 3: In Owings Mills, Maryland, the Los Angeles Rams finished the first half with a goal-line stand and then Matthew Stafford guided them to a pair of touchdowns to begin the third quarter in a victory over Baltimore.

The Rams (4-2) weren’t at their best, but they didn’t have to be against a spiraling Baltimore team that was without injured quarterback Lamar Jackson for a second straight weekend. The Ravens (1-5) managed a field goal on their first drive and nothing more. It was tied at 3 late in the first half when the Ravens had firstand-goal from the 4 After Derrick Henry ran to the 1, Baltimore tried back-to-back tush push plays with tight end Mark Andrews lining up at quarterback and sneaking. Neither worked and then Henry was stopped on fourth down.

SEAHAWKS 20, JAGUARS 12: In Jack-

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JASON BEHNKEN Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Rachaad White, right, is congratulated by quarterback Baker Mayfield after scoring against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday in Tampa, Fla.

Mayfield tosses 2 touchdown passes in Bucs’ win over 49ers

BY ROB MAADDI

AP pro football writer

TAMPA, Fla. — Baker Mayfield shrugged off the “MVP!” chants the way he shook away from tacklers. Mayfield’s heroics came early in the fourth quarter instead of the final minutes as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the San Francisco 49ers 30-19 on Sunday Mayfield threw two touchdown passes and had a spectacular scramble to set up the score that sealed the win. Fans serenaded him with “MVP!” chants and many were still hailing Mayfield as they left the stadium.

“It’s Week 6, (we) have a big one next week,” Mayfield said. “It’s awesome to have support. Don’t get me wrong but we’re just getting started.” After winning four games with scores in the last minute, the fourtime defending NFC South champion Buccaneers (5-1) didn’t need a late comeback.

Up 20-19 early in the fourth, the Buccaneers faced a third-and-14 at their 41. Mayfield ducked away from a sack in the pocket, escaped another defender, scrambled out of trouble, eluded more tackles and dove headfirst, stretching the ball to get a first down on third-and-14.

I was in disbelief like everybody

else,” coach Todd Bowles said. “It happens every other week or so that he makes those types of plays an you just pray he doesn’t get hurt or anything happens to him but he has a knack. He has a knack that you can’t teach or coach. It was an unbelievable play.”

Told he looked like Michael Vick on the play, Mayfield said: “I can’t do what Mike Vick ever did.”

A few plays later, Mayfield connected with Tez Johnson on a 45yard TD pass down the middle to give the 49ers a 27-19 lead. Johnson made an outstretched leaping catch and the rookie celebrated his first career TD with an acrobatic flip.

The 49ers were driving for a potential tying score when Mac Jones threw an interception to Jamel Dean on fourth-and-5 from the Buccaneers 33 with just under six minutes left.

The turnover led to Chase McLaughlin’s 45-yard field goal that extended the lead to 30-19. Playing through knee and oblique injuries, Jones threw for 347 yards with two picks, losing for the first time in four starts filling in for Brock Purdy

“Obviously didn’t play my best,” Jones said. “I’m proud we went out there and fought. I just want to go out there and practice and see what I can do better.

sonville, Florida, Sam Darnold

threw touchdown passes to Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cooper Kupp, and Seattle dominated both lines of scrimmage on its way to a victory at Jacksonville. Smith-Njigba finished with eight receptions for 162 yards as the Seahawks (4-2) rebounded from a last-second loss to Tampa Bay at home They had few issues traveling cross-country for an early start, controlled most of the way and improved to 22-6 over the last decade in 1 p.m. kickoffs on the East Coast

The Jaguars (4-2), meanwhile, looked every bit like a team that spent the week reveling in a Monday night victory against threetime AFC champion Kansas City Jacksonville’s first three snaps set the tone: a sack, a holding penalty and a 3-yard loss.

CHARGERS 29, DOLPHINS 27: In Miami Gardens, Florida, Justin Herbert escaped the Dolphins’ pass rush and connected with Ladd McConkey for a 42-yard catch-and-run in the final minute, setting up Cameron Dicker’s fifth field goal of the

game and Los Angeles rallied to beat Miami.

The Dolphins overcame a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter and took the lead when Tua Tagovailoa threw a 1-yard touchdown pass to Darren Waller with 46 seconds remaining.

Nyheim Hines set the Chargers up at Miami’s 35 with a 40-yard return of the ensuing kickoff. On second-and-10, Herbert stepped up in the pocket, got free from the grasp of Jaelan Phillips and threw a short pass to McConkey, who broke a tackle and ran out of bounds at the Miami 17. Dicker’s 33-yard kick won it for Los Angeles (4-2), which snapped a two-game skid.

STEELERS 23, BROWNS 9: In Pittsburgh, Aaron Rodgers passed for 235 yards and two touchdowns, and Pittsburgh had little trouble with Cleveland.

The Steelers (4-1) strengthened their early grip on the AFC North by continuing their home mastery of the Browns (1-5). Cleveland’s regular-season losing streak at Acrisure Stadium hit 22 games after

another lifeless performance by its offense.

Browns rookie Dillon Gabriel passed for 221 yards but couldn’t lead the league’s second-lowest scoring offense to the end zone as Cleveland failed to crack the 17-point barrier for the 11th consecutive game.

COLTS 31, CARDINALS 27: In Indianapolis, Daniel Jones threw two touchdown passes and Jonathan Taylor ran 1 yard for the go-ahead score with 4:32 left, giving Indianapolis a victory over Arizona.

Jones finished 22 of 30 for 212 yards with one interception. He also ran for a score. Taylor had 21 carries for 123 yards, and rookie tight end Tyler Warren caught six passes for 63 yards and a touchdown.

Indy (5-1) remained perfect at home by winning its sixth straight over the past two seasons at Lucas Oil Stadium.

PACKERS 27, BENGALS 18: In Green Bay Wisconsin, Josh Jacobs rushed for two touchdowns and the Green Bay Packers held off Cincinnati for a victory in Joe Flacco’s Bengals debut.

Jacobs had a 3-yard touchdown run in the second quarter and opened the fourth by scoring on a 14-yard burst up the middle. Jordan Love went 19 of 26 for 259 yards with an interception and a 19-yard touchdown pass to Tucker Kraft.

Lucas Havrisik sealed the win by making the second of his two field goals, a 39-yarder with 1:52 remaining. Havrisik also kicked a 43-yarder a day after signing with the Packers because usual kicker Brandon McManus had injured his quadriceps.

RAIDERS 20,TITANS 10: In Las Vegas, Geno Smith passed for 174 yards and a touchdown, and Devin White led a suffocating Raiders defense as Las Vegas defeated the Tennessee Titans.

The Raiders (2-4) ended a fourgame skid, and the Titans (1-5) missed an opportunity to win consecutive games for the first time since November of 2022, a 47game stretch. Neither of the struggling teams did much on offense. They combined for 451 yards.

Bills’ Cook has TD motivations ahead of game against Falcons

BY JOHN WAWROW Associated Press

ORCHARDPARK,N.Y —Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver couldn’t help but interrupt upon overhearing a conversation running back James Cook was having regarding his college days at Georgia.

With Buffalo (4-1) traveling to play Atlanta (2-2) on Monday night, Cook acknowledged never scoring a touchdown in three SEC championship game appearances with the Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which doubles as the Falcons’ home.

“That’s crazy to believe. I don’t believe that,” Oliver said of Cook, who scored 20 times over four years at Georgia, where he was part of a formidable and crowded backfield.

“Never had one,” Cook responded. “But now I’m going to get one this week.”

Add another log to the motivational fire for Cook and the Bills following last weekend’s sloppy, three-turnover outing in a 23-20 loss to New England. Not only was the Josh Allen-led offense held under 30 points for the first time this year, Cook was limited to a season-low 49 yards from scrimmage all rushing and had his franchise-record touchdown streak end at eight games.

“Just get back to playing our football and we’re going to get back on track,” he said.

Cook’s emergence as a dual threat since taking over the starting job midway through his second NFL season in 2023 has been critical in providing the offense balance and taking the load off of Allen from having to do it all.

He has combined for 23 touchdowns (21 rushing) since the start of 2024. Following a weeklong hold-in during training camp that led to Cook signing a fouryear contract extension, he has already begun proving his value.

He enters Week 6 ranking second in the NFL with 430 yards rushing and tied for second with five TDs rushing.

ä Bills at Falcons, 6:15 P.M. MONDAy ESPN

Cook also gets to showcase how his role in Buffalo has expanded since his college days. In his freshman season, he was third on the Bulldogs’ depth chart behind current Bears running back D’Andre Swift and Elijah Holyfield. Over his final two seasons, Cook shared the backfield with now Raidersbackup Zamir White

“Same mindset,” Cook said.

“Keep doing what I do.”

Buffalo’s ground game could be key on Monday night The Falcons have been stingy while allowing an NFL-low average of 135 yards passing per outing, but rank in the middle of the pack in giving up an average 109 yards rushing.

Falcons first-year defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich is aware of the challenge ahead, especially after spending the previous four seasons with Buffalo’s division rival-New York Jets.

“There’s bags under my eyes for a reason,” Ulbrich said of devising a plan to contain Allen and Cook.

“It felt a lot better when they didn’t have an elite running back there.”

Buffalo, meantime, will have its hands full in facing Atlanta running back Bijan Robinson, who en-

ters the weekend ranking fourth in the NFL with 584 yards from scrimmage — 45 ahead of Cook.

The two are elusive runners, threats in the passing game and have similar body sizes at 5-foot11, though Robinson is 25 pounds heavier at 215.

“He’ll get going one way, make a cut on a dime, and still have the same speed,” Bills linebacker Shaq Thompson said of Robinson, after previously having to defend against him with Atlanta’s division-rival Carolina Panthers. “James is the same way But we’re playing Bijan, so we got to bring our pads. He’s one of those guys who’s not going to go down off one tackle.”

The Bills have struggled against the run, including allowing 238 yards in their seasonopening 41-40 win over Baltimore. The run defense was better in limiting the Patriots to 71 yards, though Rhamondre Stevenson scored twice on 4- and 7-yard runs.

“He tests every gap, so everything’s alive with him,” Thompson said of Robinson, before turning his attention back to Cook.

“He’s going to get one this week, for sure,” Thompson said, when reminded that Cook never scored at Mercedes-Benz Stadium “Maybe two.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By SUE OGROCKI Buffalo Bills running back James Cook celebrates his touchdown against the Saints on Sept. 28 in Orchard Park, N.y

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By RUSTy JONES

Carolina Panthers running back Rico Dowdle runs the ball as Dallas Cowboys linebacker Kenneth Murray defends on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C

PATRIOTS 25, SAINTS 19

BY THE NUMBERS

RUSHING—New England, Maye 9-28, Henderson 9-27, Stevenson 13-18. New Orleans, Kamara 10-31, Miller 8-21, Rattler 4-20, Hill 1-1.

PASSING—New England, Maye 18-26-0-261. New Orleans, Rattler 20-26-0-227.

RECEIVING—New England, Boutte 5-93, Douglas 3-71, Diggs 3-28, Henry 3-27, Hollins 2-28, Henderson 1-9, Hooper 1-5. New Orleans, Olave 6-98, Kamara 5-45, Shaheed 4-28, Johnson 2-15, Cooks 1-21, Miller 1-11, Moreau 1-9.

PUNT RETURNS—New England, M.Jones 1-6. New Orleans, Shaheed 2-21.

KICKOFF RETURNS—New England, Chism 5-129. New Orleans, Tipton 4-89.

TACKLES-ASSISTS-SACKS—New England, Spillane 5-6-0, M.Jones 4-1-1, Gonzalez 4-1-0, Elliss 3-3-0, Woodson 3-3-0, Tonga 2-2-0, Davis 1-4-0, Gibbens 1-3-0, Barmore 1-2-0, Dugger 1-2-0, Farmer 1-1-0, M.Williams 1-1-0, Landry 1-0-1, Tavai 0-3-0, Durden 0-1-0. New Orleans, Werner 5-0-1, Taylor 5-0-0, Sanker 4-1-0, McKinstry 4-0-0, Godchaux 3-4-0, Bullard 3-0-0, Bresee 2-3-0, D.Davis 2-1-0, Shepherd 2-1-0, Stutsman 2-0-0, Reid 1-2-0, Jordan 1-0-0, Riley 1-0-0, Stalbird 1-0-0, C.Young 1-0-0, Granderson 0-1-0. INTERCEPTIONS—New England None. New Orleans, None. MISSED FIELD GOALS—None.

OFFICIALS—Referee Adrian Hill, Ump Roy Ellison, HL Derick Bowers, LJ Julian Mapp, FJ Tra Boger, SJ Clay Reynard, BJ Greg Steed, Replay Bob Hubbell.

Rattler could only offer a variation of the same answer that he had been giving for weeks.

“It didn’t feel like we played poorly,” he said. “That’s the thing. But you know (we were) a few plays away, so we just have to figure out how to make those plays.”

The higher-picked quarterback prevailed, but Rattler did well to keep pace with Maye throughout the afternoon. They both threw 26 passes. Rattler completed 20, Maye 18. Rattler finished with 227 yards. Maye? He had 261.

But the biggest difference between them was the number of thrown touchdowns — Maye’s three passing touchdowns were the reason the Saints ultimately couldn’t record a second straight victory The Saints, as well as Rattler played, only found the end zone once on a 1-yard Taysom Hill run. On Sunday, the Saints’ most consistent problem this season reared its ugly head again. The offense settles for field goals, not touchdowns. That’s been a through line through the first six games. And that’s not all on the quarterback

“That’s on me,” Saints coach Kellen Moore said. “We’re not doing a good enough job. I thought we moved it at a decent rate We just didn’t take advan-

SAINTS NOTEBOOK

Hill earns 34th rushing TD

BY LUKE JOHNSON AND ROD WALKER Staff writers

Less than a year removed from a major knee injury that threatened his career, New Orleans Saints quarterback Taysom Hill scored his 34th rushing touchdown of his NFL career in the second quarter against the New England Patriots. That number is fairly significant in its own right: It moved him past NFL Hall of Famer John Elway on the all-time list for career rushing touchdowns by non-running backs into a tie for 15th place all time with Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and former Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper

It’s more remarkable when considering what Hill had to endure to get there. Hill suffered multiple season-ending injuries during his time at Brigham Young University He entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent and was 28 years old when he carved out his first real offensive role with New Orleans in 2018.

Now 35 years old, Hill is coming off a major knee injury that he suffered last December He’d only gone through six practices this season before Sunday’s game against the Patriots, but the Saints still dialed his number for a critical red-zone play

On the play, Hill lined up under center before the Saints’ entire offensive formation shifted to a spread look, with backup offensive lineman Luke Fortner lining up in the slot to the left. New Orleans motioned Kendre Miller at the snap, also to the left, creating some flow in the Patriots defense.

Hill took the snap and ran to the right, following a lead block from right tackle Taliese Fuaga into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown that cut the Patriots’ lead to 14-13.

Including touchdowns as a passer and receiver, Hill has now accounted for 56 total touchdowns in his career

Grupe’s bounce back

Blake Grupe had been struggling this season The Saints kicker entered the game having made just 10 of 15 field goals, including two misses last week in a victory over the New York Giants.

Grupe was perfect Sunday, making all four of his field goal attempts from 34, 48, 38 and 54 yards.

“That’s how you hang around in this league,” Grupe said. “High stakes, everything is very important Every point on the board, we need to get. Everybody’s put in a lot of work. That’s the least I can do is go out there and do my job.”

Grupe credited the work that he and holder Kai Kroeger and long snapper Zach Wood put in this week.

“We were working on some little stuff, and it’s nice to be able to see

tage of the opportunities.”

The Saints are also in a constant position to need touchdowns in part due to how the defense has started these games For the fourth straight game, New Orleans’ defense gave up back-toback touchdowns on its opening series. And on Sunday, the Saints faced a quarterback they couldn’t afford to let get going.

Maye may only be in his second year, but he was still polished enough of a quarterback to exploit a young Saints’ secondary Fresh off the biggest win of his career — an upset victory to hand the Buffalo Bills their first loss of the season Maye carried that momentum into New Orleans. He saw a streaking DeMario Douglas completely fool cornerback Quincy Riley on a post route, hitting him for a 53-yard touchdown.

Maye also wasn’t fazed when a 60yard touchdown was overturned on a curious offensive pass interference penalty, rallying the Patriots with a 25-yard touchdown to former LSU standout Kayshon Boutte.

Maye was so sharp that his first incompletion, a throwaway under pressure, didn’t come until 6:39 left in the second quarter — an hour of real time into the game.

“He stayed calm and collected,” Saints safety Justin Reid said.

us go out there and take care of business and see results.”

Returns to health

Saints defensive end Chase Young made his season debut after missing the first five games with a calf injury Young finished with one tackle in the game. He didn’t record a sack, despite getting close to Patriots quarterback Drake Maye several times.

“It felt great to be out their running around with the guys,” Young said. “There’s nothing like it.”

Young said after the game that his calf felt great.

Young wasn’t the only Saints player making a return to the starting lineup. Right guard Cesar Ruiz returned after missing last week’s game with a high ankle sprain. Ruiz, like Young, didn’t feel any effects from the injury that sidelined him.

“It felt like I had fresh legs,” Ruiz said. “I felt great being back out there.”

Rookie gets on the field Playing time has been hard to come by for Saints rookie linebacker Danny Stutsman this year, but he got on the field in the first half against the Patriots.

Stutsman entered the game in the second quarter in place of linebacker Pete Werner He played one defensive series, making a tackle on a first-and-10 run play and playing a part in the lone Saints’ defensive drive that kept New England off the scoreboard in the first half. Werner checked back in on the ensuing drive.

The Saints put Stutsman back on the field for a series in the third quarter Before Sunday’s game, Stutsman had only played four defensive snaps this season. The third-round

With the way Maye was playing, the Saints needed Rattler to keep pace — and for a while, he did just that. Fresh off the first win of his career — a victory over the New York Giants — Rattler also carried his momentum into Sunday’s contest against the Patriots. On the very first play of the game, Rattler saw the corner blitz and hit Chris Olave for a 53-yard strike. He also found a rhythm, with only one incompletion in his first 10 passes. But football is a team game. And as accurate as Rattler was early on, the Saints sent out Blake Grupe

too many times for field goals — including three plays after Olave’s big gain. Grupe hit four kicks total, two under 40 yards. The field goals didn’t allow the Saints to seize control of the game, even when Grupe’s 38-yarder gave them a 16-14 lead with 1:51 left in the first half. Maye and the Patriots instantly answered back with a textbook two-minute drill that ended with a 29-yard touchdown to

pick out of Oklahoma had primarily been used in special teams, where he has played 63% of the snaps. Odds and ends

Saints linebacker Demario Davis typically handles the pregame hype speech, but Sunday he turned it over to tight end Foster Moreau to close things out Saints safety Justin Reid, a Louisiana native, led the pregame Who Dat chant After releasing Velus Jones from the active roster this week the Saints gave kick return duties to wide receiver Mason Tipton, who finished with four returns for 89 yards Rookie left tackle Kelvin Banks briefly left Sunday’s game with the athletic training staff early in the second quarter, but he returned to the field before the drive was finished Mayorelect Helena Moreno was present for Sunday’s game, watching in team owner Gayle Benson’s suite.

Boutte. Tack on a successful twopoint conversion, and the Saints trailed 22-16 at the half. And maybe then is when the differences in quarterback play came to haunt the Saints. Even after the Saints held the Patriots to only a field goal in the second half, Maye was still able to seal the game with a precise 21-yard, third-down conversion that let the Patriots run out the clock. Rattler lacked that kind of signature throw But that could also be considered an overreaction. The Saints missed pivotal chances to take the lead, even when Rattler had been precise. Juwan Johnson fumbled at midfield with 8:43 left. Olave’s second-down drop also loomed large on the following and final Saints possession; it could have given New Orleans a first down but instead led to a three-and-out. Afterward, Rattler was asked if he felt he had proven anything by going toe-to-toe with a member of his draft class. The 25-year-old seemed to agree with the premise of the question, telling reporters that his goal is to “put my best foot forward every game as best I can, every chance I can.”

Then he resorted to a familiar talking point.

“We’re better than our record is saying right now,” Rattler said “We’ve got to figure out a

to

these games out.”

Email

STAFF

PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler runs against the Patriots defense during the first half of their game on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

New Orleans Saints tight end Taysom Hill spikes the ball after scoring on a 1-yard touchdown against the New England Patriots during the first half of the game on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

PATRIOTS 25,SAINTS19

THREEAND OUT: JEFF DUNCAN’S TOPTHREE TAKEAWAySFROMSAINTS’ LOSS

RED ZONE STRUGGLESCONTINUED

IT WAS MAYE’S DAY

1The Saints had no answerfor DrakeMaye, especially in the first half.The second-year quarterback from North Carolinalooked likethe best playeronthe field for most of the day, completing 18 of 26 passes for 261 yards and threetouchdowns He also ran for ateam-high 32 yards. Maye’s biggest passwas his last one, a21-yard dime to Kayshon Boutte on third-and-11 to seal the game andkeep the Saints fromattemptinga game-winning touchdown driveinthe finalminutes. Maye did most of his damageinthe first half, when he strafed the Saints’ defense on 11-of-13 passing for 185 yards andthreetouchdowns. His passer rating was aperfect 158.3 in the first half.

CONTROVERSIAL CALL

2

Juwan Johnson’slate fumble wasa killer forthe Saints and did not occurwithout controversy. Officials originally ruled Johnson wasdownbefore losing the ball after his14-yard catch with 8:50 left. But theyreversed the call after a replayreviewand ruled thatJohnson fumbled, giving NewEnglandpossession at its own49. Ultimately,the Patriots had to punt, buttheywere able to runvaluable time off theclock and punt the Saints deep in their own territory because of the ruling. Kellen Moorewas not happywiththe decisionand advanced 20 yardsonto the field to dispute the ball with officials, to no avail. It was only the Saints’ second fumble of the season.

3

Thegamebox score shows that the Saints were 1for 2inthe red zone, but theyalso failedtoscore atouchdown on twoother tripstothe NewEngland 27- and 20-yard lines. Theirlone touchdown in the scoring zone came on ashortrun by tight end Taysom Hill in the second quarter of their game at the Superdome.As aresult of their shortcomings in the red zone, the Saints settled for four BlakeGrupe field goals. It was Grupe’s best game of the season aftersomeearlierstruggleswith accuracy,sothat’sa good thing.But the Saints need more touchdownsiftheywant to record more winsand reverse their 1-5start.

Rattler backsOlave aftercrucial drop

BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer

With achance to lead ago-ahead drive late in the fourth quarter,New Orleans Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler felt pressuretohis left, rolled to his right and saw his top receiver come freedownfield.

On the run, Rattlerfired astrike that hit Chris Olave in the handsnear the midfield line. But it did not stay in his hands. The ball dropped to the turfincomplete, adrop in acritical moment. Had the play been made, the Saints would have had anew setofdowns pushing into NewEngland territory with about fourminutes lefttoplay trailing 25-19.

But the Saints experienced theother end of the what-if scenario.Rattler’s ensuing third-down pass sailed incomplete, New Orleans punted the ball away and never got it back

There were plenty of dirtyhands in the Saints’ 25-19lossSunday. Tight end Juwan Johnson fumbled the ball near midfield on the possession before Olave’sdrop. NewOrleans converted just three of its nine third downs. The Saints defense couldn’tget off the field in the closing minutes and generally had no answer for Patriots rising star quarterback Drake Maye. All of those things, not one play,added up toaloss.

“It’sthe NFL; the margins are really, really small, really tight,” said coach Kellen Moore. “They have good players;wehave good players. It’s amatter of taking advantage of the opportunities that are presented.

“We’renot getting it done.We’re not getting it done in those situations when we have opportunities. For myself,I have to figure out away to get us there.”

But Olave’smissed opportunities stood out because he is supposedto be the guy making the big plays when it matters.

Olave was not in the locker room for comment after the game, buthis quarterback said the drops won’taffect whether the Saints go his way with the game on the line in the future.

“I’m not worried about him,”Rattler said. “He’sone of our best guys. Our top guy.And we’re going tokeep getting him the ball. We rely on him, and our confidence is high in him.”

Statistically,Sunday’sgame against the Patriots was the best of Olave’sseason by asignificant margin. He finished with six catches for 98 yards, and he

Continued from page1C

possession as well. The Saints ended up settling for afield goal, while the Patriots cashed in.

That’sbeen the Saints’ story much of the season. Their inabilityto make the most of their opportunities. Far too often, they have settled forfield goals instead of scoring touchdowns. And before Sunday,even those field goals weren’tsure things. But credit to kicker Blake Grupe for making all four of his field goals aftermaking just 10 of 15 coming into the game. But as is often the case with the Saints, they couldn’tget allthree phasesofthe game to play well in the same game. “We’re close, knocking on the door,” Moore said. “But we’re not opening it. Ihavetofind away to get better.”

The line between wins and losses in the NFL is athin one. The Saints are learningthat lesson the hard way They are now 1-5. It’stheir worst start after six games since 1999, Mike Ditka’sthird and final season as head coach. Making this start even more frustrating is the Saints have been close in games. Sunday was their third loss by seven points or less.

“Wedon’tlive in aleague where we get moral victories for being close,” said Saints safety Justin Reid. “That isn’twhat the NFL is. The NFL isn’tabout points. It’sabout W’sand L’s. We only have one Wso

got off to agreat start

The Patriots sent acorner blitz on the first play from scrimmage, sending Carlton Davis from the far left flank of the New England defense. New Orleans hadthe perfectplay ready for theblitz. Davishad been lined up over Olave, andwithnobodyinfront of him, Olave ran deep andraced past Patriots safety Kyle Dugger,hauling in a53-yard pass from Rattler on the Saints’ first play of the day.

The catch matchedOlave’scareer long, which he’dset in his 2022 rookie season against the Los Angeles Rams.

It was awelcome beginning for Olave, who was averaging just 7.4 yards percatch coming into thegame, well below his career average (12.5). Beforehehauled in that bomb to start thegame, his season long was 17 yards He followed that up with some nice

catches that moved theSaints into scoring range lateinthe first half. Aftera failed Patriotsfourth-down conversion,the Saintstookover at New England’s47, and Rattler peppered Olave with quickpasses, hitting him for 9, 5, and8 yardstopushNew Orleans to the Patriots 20. On third-and-4, the Saints dialedOlave’snumberagain on aplaythey’d been working on in the week leading up to thegame.

Olave startedinthe slot and ranunderapair of in-breaking routesfrom his teammates, effectively running a wheel routetothe pylon. As intended, Patriotscorner Marcus Jones was slowed down by the traffic presented by the Saints receivers, andOlave flashed open. Rattler lofted apass toward the pylon, Olave ran under it and he could not quitehaul it in, with the ball glancing

far.Itisa bit frustrating. Everyman in the building knows what it takes to win. We’ve just gottogoout there and execute better.”

TheSaints’ defense, which forced five turnovers lastweek, struggled to stop Maye andCompany.Ifyou wanted areason to party in the Dome for thesecondweek in arow,you’ll have to wait until Thursday for Breezy Bowl (theconcert by R&B star Chris Brown). Thestar on this day was Maye,who threw for 261 yards and three touchdowns. Twoofthose were caughtbyNew Iberia native Kayshon Boutte. Boutte also hauled in a21-

yard reception on third-and-11 that was the final nail in theSaints’ coffin. While thePatriots were able to count on their key receivers, the Saintsweren’t. Chris Olave was unable to reel in what would have been atouchdown in thesecond quarter Andhealsohad adrop lateinthe fourth quarter that would have extended adrive. Andtherewas the costly fumble by tight end Juwan Johnson. It all added up to another loss for a team trying to findits way “Weknow we are abetter team than what our record says,” Rattler said.

off his fingertips at the goal line. The Saints ultimately settled fora field goal.

“I thought it wasawell-executed play,”Rattlersaid. “It’sa toughone We worked that all weekand felt great aboutit. It wasthe right look,and almostmade the play.”

Mooredid notcomment on Olave specifically after the game, choosing instead to take amore global approach when asked about Olave’sdrops.

“Obviously,we’ll look at the film to evaluate all the details of it, but we had some opportunities in the passing game,” Moore said. “Wedidn’tget it done. Those are challenging plays. I getit. We just have to find away collectively as agroup to come up with moresuccess.”

Email Luke Johnson at ljohnson@theadvocate.com.

“Wehave to findaway to winthese games that are one-score games.”

It’s the difference between being 1-5 and 4-2.

“Ifweeliminate the mistakes, we have achance against anybody,” Reid said. “Seriously.But we don’tstand a chance if we keep shooting ourselves in the foot. It’s just too manymistakes across the board.”

Reid, in his eighth NFLseason, says his role as aveteran is to makesure the accumulation of losses doesn’t fracture the team.

“We’re not going to let this turn into something where we’re going to start pointing fingers at each other,” Reid said. “I know the internet and everything is going to be wanting to tear us apart. The mostimportant thing is that the team stays ateam inside of the building. As long as we stay together,we’ll always have achance.”

The Saints had achance again on Sunday

“Wekeep putting ourselves in advantageous positions, but we keep drawing the wrong card,” said tight end Foster Moreau. “Wekeep drawing the adversity card. All we can do as ateam is keep putting ourselves in advantageous positions, and then when it’stimetogomake plays, that’s what we’ve got to go do. Follow the schemes. Then when it’syour turn, go makethe play.”

The Saints haven’tbeen able to do that.

They have a1-5 record to prove it.

Email RodWalkerat rwalker@theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By BRETTDUKE

safety Craig Woodson, left, recovers aball fumbled by

Johnson in the second half of their game Sunday

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Saints wide receiver Chris Olave drops apass that would have converted to a first down to help keep adrive alive in the fourth quarter against the NewEngland Patriots on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

LSUTEGreen shines againstSouth Carolina

Despitekneeinjury, sophomore tightend hascareer-highnight

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

On first and goal at theSouth Carolina 6-yard line, Trey’Dez Green lined up alone on theleft side of the formation.

LSU’s6-foot-7 sophomore tight end had just one mantobeat: Cornerback Judge Collier.Green’s eyes immediately lit up at theopportunity

“The defensive back wasplaying inside leverage, too,” Green said. “So Iwas like, ‘Yeah.’ “ Once the shotgun snap reached Nussmeier’shands,hedidn’thesitate. The fifth-year seniorquarterback threw the ball up to thebig tight end’sback shoulder,allowing him to make an easy grab for the touchdown.

It was LSU’sfirst time in the end zone on the night, but it wouldn’t be thelasttimeGreen made abig impact on the game. Green caught acareer-high eight catchesfor 119 yards in LSU’s20-10 win over South Carolina on Saturday He was abrightspot in an ugly game where LSU scored just three points on three trips to the goal line.

“Clearly,he’samismatch, right?”

LSU coach Brian Kelly said. “You can throw fade ballstohim. He can catch the ball in quick game. He’saunique talent, andweneed to continue to featurehim in our offense.”

His big performance included six catches that went for at least 11 yards. Green’sfinal grab was a 24-yard catch that set LSU up at the South Carolina 1with 3:13 remaining in the game.

His effort ledtoashort field goal that handed the Tigers a20-10 lead,

essentially ending the contest with less than two minutes left to play

“See ball, getball,” Green said. “I feel like, versus anybody,meoneon-one, I’m going to take myself every time.”

Green’sbig night camedespite notbeing 100% healthy.After Saturday’swin, Green saidthat

his right knee is only at 80%, five weeksafter he suffered asprained MCL against LouisianaTech.

LSU’soff-week helped him rest andrecover,allowing him to make cuts as arunner moreeasily now than before theTigers’ open date.

“I gota chance to really heal up a lot,”Green said.“So likeIsaid, I’m

probably aboutlike 80% this week

I’m gonna take sometimeand heal up to 100%. Youall might see me without the knee brace.”

Without redshirt juniorwide receiverAaron Anderson,who didn’t play on Saturday because of an assortmentofailments, including a knee injury,LSU needed weapons

to step up in his place. Anderson entered Saturday’s gameleading the Tigers in receiving yards.

Green wasLSU’s answer.Besidesredshirt sophomore wide receiver Kyle Parker,noother Tiger hadmorethan twocatches on Saturday. Parkerhad five receptions for75yards, including a43yard touchdowngrab in the third quarter

Senior wide receiver Barion Brown, wholed LSU in receptions heading into Saturday, only had twocatches for22yards.

“Of course, Aaron is abig part in what we do in this offense,” Green said, “so Ihad to step up and make those plays.”

Green’semergence Saturday came at agood time forLSU’soffense,which ranthe ball more effectively against the Gamecocks than it had all year (166 yards) and featured aquarterback whoappeared to be healthier this week than he ever had been this season. The potential forabig gamewas always there for Green, aformer high school basketball star and LSU forward. Saturday was the firsttime theTigers fully unlocked it.

“He’spretty good at football,” Kelly said. “I don’tknowabout the basketball thing. I’ll let Matt (McMahon, LSU men’s basketball) decide that.”

Lagniappe

Kickoff time and TV network forLSU’sgame next Saturday at Vanderbilt are finally set.

The Southeastern Conference announced late Saturday night that the LSU-Vandy gamewill kick off at 11 a.m. in Nashville, Tennessee. The gamewill be shownonABC. It will be the Tigers’ earliest kickoffsofar this season.Five of LSU’s first six games werenight games andits game at OleMiss kickedoff at 2:30 p.m., also on ABC.

BY ERIC OLSON

AP collegefootball writer

Indiana moved up to No. 3in The Associated Press collegefootball poll Sunday for its highest ranking in program history and Texas was among five teams enteringthe Top 25 after eight ranked teams, three of them previously unbeaten, lost over the weekend. Ohio State and Miami remained the top two teams whilethe Hoosiers earned afour-spot promotion for their 10-pointwin at then-No 3Oregon. No. 4Texas A&M and No. 5Mississippi traded places after the Aggies’ 17-pointhome win over Florida and theRebels’ three-pointhomewin over Washington State.

The Buckeyes strengthened their hold on No. 1with asolid road win against then-No. 17 Illinois and received 50 first-place votes, 10 more than last week. Miami, which was idle, earned 13 first-place votes and Indiana got the other three. Alabama moveduptwo spotsto No. 6and was followed by Texas Tech, Oregon, Georgia and LSU. Oregon dropped five spotsand has its lowest ranking in 20 polls since it was No. 8inSeptember 2024. Indiana’sgroundbreaking run under second-year coach Curt Cignetti has been one of the biggest stories in college football since lastseason. The Hoosiers went into the Oregon game 0-46 on the road against top-five teams and, before Sunday,had never been ranked higher than No. 4. Their threefirst-place votes are their most in apoll since they got the same number when they were ranked No. 6on Nov. 5, 1945. Oklahoma plunged eight spots to No.14with itsfirstloss,23-6 to Texas. The Longhorns were thepreseason No.1team, but aseason-opening loss at Ohio State and Week 6loss at Florida dropped themout of theTop 25 In beating the rival Soooners, they held atop-10 opponent without atouchdown for the first time since 1979 andre-enteredthe poll at No. 21. Missouri, which started5-0, fell twospots to No. 16 after its threepoint home loss to Alabama.

Excitement continuesinWeek8

Three ranked SEC games highlight the slate next week as No. 10 LSU heads to No. 17 Vanderbilt, No. 9Georgia hosts No. 5 Ole Miss and No. 11 Tennessee

J’Mari Monnette, bottom, celebrates after winning agame against Oregon on SaturdayinEugene, Ore.

GeorgiaTechstill buzzin’

Georgia Tech improved to 6-0 on Saturday with a35-20 winagainst Virginia Tech.

The Yellow Jacketsimproved to No. 12, their highest ranking since coming in at No. 8inthe final poll of the2014 season. Quarterback Haynes King continued to shine, completing 20 of 24 passes for 213 yards and atouchdown while tacking on 60 rushing yards and two rushing scores. King’s60rushing yards were the thirdmostonthe roster behind Jamal Haynes (69) and Malachi Hosley (129).

TexasTechlands at No.7

travels to Tuscaloosa to face No. 6Alabama. No.20USC and No.13Notre

Damesquareoff in ahistoric rivalry,this time in Irish territory, where the Trojans haven’twon since 2011. Notre Dame won the last twomatchups, most recently beating USC 49-35 in late November

Over in the Big 12, an undefeated BYUteam takes on Utah.It’sthe 103rd faceoffbetween thetwo teams, with Utah holding theoverall crown 52-30-4.

TexasTech earned its highest rankingsince November2008, coming in at No. 7after aconvincing 42-17 win against Kansas.

Starting quarterback Behren Morton exited the game early with an injury forthe third time this season. Backup Will Hammond finished thegame at signal-caller What the RedRaiders lacked in theair they made up for on foot.In all, 372 of Texas Tech’s505 yards from

Colorado fans storm field afterwin over No.22IowaState

BY PATGRAHAM AP sportswriter

BOULDER, Colo. The mass of Colorado fans spilled out of their seatsand onto the field after a2417 victory over No.22Iowa State on Saturday It was asight that Buffaloes coach DeionSanders loved to see. It may very lead to areprimand, fine or both.Eitherway,it’sthe secondstraight home game with an incident involving the crowd at Folsom Field.

The school drew a$50,000 fine and arebuke by the Big 12 for derogatory chants toward the BYU crowd on Sept.27. TheBig 12 may takeahard look at this episode, too, given that conferences are cracking down on students rushing the field.

“Is it afine?” Sanders asked after thegame. “Comeon, man. That ain’tright Iwanttosee thekids rush the field. Iabsolutely love it.”

Acrowd began gathering near the railing of theend zone with “Colorado” printed along the sloped bank as the clocked approached zero. The publicaddress announcer warned the fans that entering the field could result in afine for the school andpossibly arrests for them.

But when quarterback Kaidon Salter took afinal knee to end the game, the crowd headed toward themidfield logo.

“I mean, hats off to oursecurity team. They do agood job ushering me in (tothe locker room),” saidSanders, who notchedhis second win over an AP Top25 team sincetaking over in Boul-

der.“But Ilove to see it. Ireally do.”

Sanders noted the school lowered the goalpost so it didn’tgo homeasasouvenir

“What are you going to do with the fieldgoal if you takeitdown anyway? Whatare yougoing to do with it?” Sanders said. “Put it in your front yard? Your frat house? Then you’re telling on yourself.I don’tunderstand that, but Ilove it.”

Twoweeks ago at Folsom Field, fans directed expletives and religious slurs toward Mormons as BYU beat Colorado 24-21. The school was issued a$50,000 fine, alongwith Big 12 Commissioner BrettYormarkcondemningthe chants.

Sanders apologized, too, saying at the time:“Our student body, ourkidsare phenomenal, so don’t indict us just based on agroup of young kids that probably was intoxicated and high simultaneously.”

Last November, the Big 12 fined Arizona State$25,000 andissued areprimand following apremature field storming by ASU’s fans that took roughly 15 minutes to clear before BYU heaved afinal Hail Mary that fell incomplete. Colorado received a$25,000 fine last season whenthe crowd rushed the field during an overtime win over Baylor in agame where the Buffaloes tied it up on aHail Mary Sanders seemed shocked when told Saturday thefine forstorming the field could be $50,000.

“How is it $50,000 for rushing the field?” Sanders said. “Wow Shoot.I’m sorry.Wow,fifty grand.”

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU tight end Trey’Dez Green spinsthe ball after scoring against South Carolina in the second quarter on SaturdayatTiger Stadium

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By LyDIA ELy

COLLEGEFOOTBALL

LSUdefense proves it cancorralamobileQB

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

As long as Blake Baker is coordinatingLSU’s defense, it willalways be vulnerabletoquarterback runs. The Tigers play too much mancoverage andsendtoo many blitzes not to find themselves on thebusiness end of along scramble or two. That conventionalwisdom— which served as an explanation for at least acouple of the losses LSU suffered last season —isless truenow,after atransfer-portal splurge infused the defense with more talent. Just ask LaNorris Sellers, the South Carolina star who ran all overthe Tigers in 2024 and struggled to find open field when he faced their defense again in 2025.

“He felt us today,” coachBrian Kelly said on Saturday after LSU’s 20-10 win. “He felt our football team. He felt our defense, and we made it toughfor him. We made it aphysical game where we got after him. And he did some really good things as well,but at the end of the day,weheld them to 10 points, and Ithink that’swhat we were hoping for.” LSU’srevitalized defensehas nowprovenitcan contain mobile quarterbacks —animportant box to check ahead of thenext two games on its schedule. Both Vanderbilt and Texas A&M have signal-callers whocan run.Diego Pavia gained nearly 1,000yardson the ground last season for the Commodores, and Marcel Reed rushed for threetouchdownstodefeatthe

Tigers in 2024 for the Aggies.

Quarterbacks aren’tbeating LSU that way this season. With sacks removed,Clemson’sCade Klubnik, Ole Miss’Trinidad Chambliss and Sellers combined to pickup only 170 rushing yards in their matchups against the No. 10 Tigers (5-1). Noneofthem have used their legs to find theend zone —or even break off arun longerthan 12 yards.

Last season, LSU let Sellers run free, giving up long rushes thatexposed flaws in the first defense it built during Baker’s tenure.

Baker’ssecond defense is much stingier.OnSaturday, theTigers limited Sellers to 74 yards on 17 carries. They tookaway his open receivers. They sacked him five times and forced him into two drive-killingintentionalgrounding penalties.

South Carolina became the fifth LSUopponent to score 10 or fewer points this season,eventhough LSU, according to ProFootball Focus, missed 24 tackles —more than double its defense’sprevious season high (11). Sellers forced 12 of those misses.

“Great quarterback,” star cornerback MansoorDelanesaid.

“Great athlete. CoachBaker preached, ‘Make him play quarterback. Make himthrow the ball.’

LSU wasn’tperfect. In the first quarter, it let South Carolina running back Matt Fuller loosefor a72yard touchdown run. On thatplay pre-snap motion moved linebackers West Weeks and Harold Perkins out of position, opening arushing lanefor Fuller.All he needed to do

wasclimb to thethirdlevel of the defense and break atackle attempt by safety Tamarcus Cooley, who was too flat-footed to take the correct angle and make astop

Last season,the Tigers made a habit of allowing those kinds of plays. No SEC defense allowed moreruns of 40, 50 and 60 yards in 2024 than LSU, whichfinishedthe year ranked 11thamong league teams in total defense.

Now the Tigersrarely allow chunk rushing plays. Through six games, they’ve given up only two runs of at least 20 yards —one to SouthCarolina and another to Southeastern Louisiana.Just five FBSteamshave allowed fewer this season.

“We’ve got to do somethings better on defense as well,” Kelly said. “Some coveragethings. Some fits.”

But LSU is still playing elitedefense. Only four FBS teamsare allowing fewer pointsper game (11.8) than theTigers, whorank 21st nationally in both total defense (297 yards per game) and rushing defense (102.5). LSU also leadsthe SECinpass break-ups (28),and it’stied for theleague lead in interceptions (eight).

It’sclear that the Tigers defense is better —way better And so aretheir chances of slowing down mobile quarterbacks.

“If we clean up thosethings,” Delane said, “if we cut those things, then every (game) we play fromnow on is gonna getbetter and better andbetter,sowehave to keep cleaning those things up, and thenwe’llbethe defense we want to be.”

Penn Statecoach firedamidfreefall

BY TRAVIS JOHNSON Associated Press

STATECOLLEGE, Pa.— From the day he was hired morethan adecade ago, James Franklin stressed the importance of creating afamily atmosphere at Penn State.

Over the course of 11-plus seasons in Happy Valley, that approach helped the Nittany Lions churn outpros anddouble-digit victory seasons with regularity

Yetitalsonever translated into Penn State beating the programsitconsiders its peers with regularity, either. Andwhile the stakes kept getting higher,the resultstook on acertain sameness. Until the last three weeks, anyway,when one tough loss turned into anotherimprobable loss turned into one unforgivable loss that ended up costing Franklin his job PennState firedFranklin on Sunday,lessthan24hours after a22-21 home upset at thehands of Northwestern allbut ended whatever remote chance the preseasonNo. 2teamhad of reaching the College Football Playoff. Terry Smith will serve as the interim head coach forthe rest of the season for the Nittany Lions (3-3, 0-3 Big Ten), whobegan theyear with hopes of winning thenational title only to have those hopes evaporate by early October with three consecutive losses, each one more stinging than the last.

Penn State, whichreached the CFPsemifinals 10 months ago, fell at home to Oregon in overtime in late September.A road setback at previously winless UCLAfollowed. Thefinalstraw came SaturdayatBeaver Stadium, where the Nittany Lions let Northwestern escapewitha victory and lost quarterback Drew Allar to injury for the rest of the season Franklindeflected questions about his job security afterward, as alwaysturning his attention towardthe players. It didn’tstop the administration from making the very expensive decision that it couldn’twait any longer to act.

Penn Stateswallowed anearly $50 millionbuyout to part ways with the coach who put the program back on the national map Franklin went 104-45 during his 11-plus seasons at Penn State. Yet the Nittany Lions often stumbled against top-tier opponents, going 4-21 againstteams rankedinthe top 10 during his tenure.

Hired in 2014 in the wake of Bill O’Brien’sdeparture forthe NFL, Franklin inherited ateam still feeling the effects of unprecedented NCAA sanctions in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Armed with relentless optimism and an ability to recruit, Franklin’sprogram regularly churnedout NFL-leveltalent, from Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley to Green Bay Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons. Franklin guided the Nittany Lions to the 2016 Big Tentitle and a seemingly permanent spot in the rankings.

There was hope this fall might be the one whenPenn State would finally break through and win its third national championship and first since 1986. Yetafter three easy wins duringalight nonconference schedule, the Nittany Lions crumbled.

Athleticdirector Pat Kraft said the school owes Franklin an “enormous amount of gratitude” for leading the Nittany Lions back to relevance. YetFranklin’s inability to finish the job led to his ouster

“Wehold our athletics programs to thehighest of standards, and we believe this is the right momentfor new leadership at the helm of our football program to advance us toward Big Tenand national championships,” Kraft said.

Smith now will be tasked with tryingtostop thebleeding on whathas becomeadisastrous season.Hewill have his work cut out forhim:Penn State’snext threegamesare at Iowa on Saturday,atNo. 1Ohio State on Nov. 1and homeagainst No. 3Indiana on Nov. 8.

Indiana’ssignaturewin over Oregon was the biggest headline in aweekend filled with notable results around the world of college football. After all of the dust settled, here’swhere Ilanded with my AP Top25poll this week.

Koki’s poll afterWeek7

1. Miami, 2. Indiana, 3. Texas

Oregon not only proved that Indianaisprobably heading back to theCollegeFootball Playoff, but it also has achance at winning the whole darn thing

A&M,4.Ohio State, 5. TexasTech, 6. Alabama, 7. Georgia, 8. Notre Dame, 9. Oregon, 10. Oklahoma, 11. Tennessee, 12. Ole Miss, 13. Southern Cal, 14. Missouri, 15. LSU, 16. South Florida, 17. Texas, 18. Mississippi State, 19. Utah, 20.Illinois, 21. Michigan, 22. Nebraska, 23. Cincinnati, 24. Vanderbilt, 25. Georgia Tech. Just missed: Washington, BYU, Virginia, Louisville.

Indiana’sbig leap

What the Hoosiers havedonein aseason and ahalf under coach Curt Cignetti is nothing short of remarkable.Saturday’s win over

This was notaflukyresult. Indianaearned ninemorefirst downs, had nearly100 more total yards andwon the time of possession battle on theroad against what heading into the weekend was the No. 2team in my poll. Combined with theblowoutwin over Illinois, it was obvious that theHoosiers deserved to crack my top 5. The question was where they belonged within that elite hierarchy Placing them over Texas Tech and Ohio State was relatively easy.The Red Raiders have been extremely impressive, but they haven’tfaced atop-15 team this season, let alone anyone as talented as Oregon.The Buckeyes, on the other hand, earned adominant win over Illinois this week, but the victory still wasn’tasgrand as what Indiana did to theFighting Illini. Also, theOregon win for Indiana is stronger than anywin Ohio State has on its resume. Thereal debate began at No. 2. Indiana’swin over Oregon is

slightly stronger than what Texas A&M accomplished on the road against Notre Dame. The Irish are the No. 8team in my poll, but theAggies won that gamebyjust apoint, and Indiana faced agreater time zone disadvantage by having to travel to the West Coast Butthe rest of the Aggies’ resumeisvery impressive. They earned dominant wins over Auburn, Mississippi Stateand Florida, three programsthat have shown they can stick around with almost any team in thenation.Indiana has theIllinois win, obviously,but it hasn’tfaced the samedepthofcompetition. It also should be noted that the Hoosiers struggled to beat amiddle-of-theroad Iowa team last week. Basically,atleast in terms of resume, the margin between these two teams is almost nonexistent. ButIultimately landed with the Hoosiers over the Aggies this week because of how good quarterback Fernando Mendoza and theIndiana defense have played. Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed has improved, but neither he nor theTexas A&M defense has controlled contests as consistently

well as Mendoza or the Hoosiers defense.

ATrojanhorse

Quietly,USC has pieced together astrong resume, with dominant wins over Purdue, Michigan Stateand now Michigan. The Trojans’ only loss came to a qualityIllinois team in agame that started at 9a.m. Pacific two weeks ago. It’sfair to note that this week USC had thetime-zone advantage against Michigan. But USCstill has one of thebest offenses in the nation, and its winover the Wolverines this weekend wasmore impressive than anything Missouri or LSUhas done this season. LSU’sbest winiseither at Clemson or over Florida at home, and neither victory wasbymore than 10 points. Missouri took down Kansas by 11 and hung around with Alabamathis weekend, but quarterback Beau Pribula looked unimpressive in his first start against an above-average defense this week.

Othernotes SouthFlorida’sblowout win

over undefeated North Texas was astatement winfor ateam that had already beaten Florida and blownout Boise State. The Bulls’ only blemish this season is alopsided loss to my No. 1team. Their victory over the Gators on the road was abig selling point in comparison to Texas, which lost to Florida away from home just aweek ago. That result, combinedwith Texas’ uneven resume, is why Igave the nodtoSouth Florida,which has been the much more consistent team on offense against strong competition.

The bottom of the poll was a messagain this week, but Virginia and BYU dropped out of it fordifferent reasons.

The Cavaliers wereoff this week, but their winover Florida State has only lost significance as the Seminoles are now 0-3 in ACC play.BYU beat an improved Arizona team on the road in double overtime this week, but the Cougars still lack aquality win despite being undefeated.

Email Koki RileyatKoki.Riley@ theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU linebacker HaroldPerkins, left, chases South Carolinaquarterback LaNorris Sellers, center, in thesecond quarter on SaturdayatTigerStadium.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTOBySAM BALKANSKy James Franklin watches the fieldfollowing Penn State’sgame against NorthwesternonSaturdayinState College, Pa.The NittanyLions lost 22-21, and Franklin was fired as head coach on Sunday

Koki Riley

Schauffele wins in Japan at Baycurrent Classic

By The Associated Press

YOKOHAMA, Japan Xander

Schauffele picked up another meaningful win in Japan, this coming after a frustrating year filled with injury He closed with a 7-under 64 for a one-shot victory in the Baycurrent Classic, his first title in what likely is his last PGA Tour event of the season.

Schauffele built a two-shot cushion over Max Greyserman with a birdie on the 17th hole at Yokohama Country Club. Greyserman needed to hole out from about 190 yards to have any chance, and his 7-iron stopped inches away for a tap-in birdie and a 65.

Greyserman was runner-up in Japan for the second straight year

Schauffele won the PGA Championship and British Open last year, but a rib injury cost him two months of the season and he never regained full form He missed the Tour Championship for the first time in his career He also became a father for the first time

Schauffele now has 10 career tour titles. It was his second big win in Japan, where his mother and mother-in-law grew up. He won the Olympic gold medal in Tokyo in 2021.

LPGA Tour

In Shanghai, Jeeno Thitikul came from four shots down with five holes to play to force a playoff with Minami Katsu, winning on the fifth extra hole to claim the Buick LPGA Shanghai and become the first two-time LPGA

Xander Schauffele, of the U.S. poses for a photo with his parents, Chen Ping-yi left, and Stefan

after winning the Baycurrent Classic at the yokohama Country Club in yokohama, near Tokyo on Sunday It was Schauffele’s second big win in Japan, where his mother and mother-in-law grew up.

winner of the season.

The top-ranked Thitikul closed with a 9-under 63 and finished on 24-under 264 Katsu had a two-shot lead at the start and was still four ahead with five holes to play until the Thai made her charge, capped by an eagle on the 17th.

Katsu missed a birdie putt for

the win in regulation and shot 65.

Thitikul also won the Mizuho Americas Open in May Until Sunday, the LPGA had different winners in its previous 25 official tournaments this year

Korn Ferry Tour

In French Lick, Indiana, Chan-

dler Blanchet birdied his opening three holes closed with a 6-under 66 to win the Korn Ferry Tour Championship and be among 20 players who earned PGA Tour cards for 2026. There was little drama at French Lick Resort on the final day of the season with 20 cards at stake,

down from 30 cards awarded a year ago. No one moved into the top 20, with Pontus Nyholm of Sweden finishing at No. 20 with room to spare.

Barend Botha of South Africa came into the week at No. 54 and had to win to move into the top 20. He had the 54-hole lead and was one behind playing the 17th when he failed to save par from short of the green. He shot 70 and finished two shots behind.

Johnny Keefer tied for 12th, but finished atop the points list. He will have full status all of next year on the PGA Tour and earns a spot in the U.S. Open.

PGA Tour Champions

In Cary, North Carolina, Alex Cejka birdied his final two holes for a 1-under 71 to turn a tight lead into a three-shot victory over Ernie Els in the SAS Championship Cejka won for the fourth time on the PGA Tour Champions, but this was his first victory that was not a senior major

Ernie Els had a 68 to put some pressure on Cejka, but the German never wavered. He finished at 9-under 207 and moved to No. 10 in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. Els stayed at No. 4 as the circuit now moves into its three-tournament post season.

Bernhard Langer, the 68-yearold German who has won every year since becoming eligible for the PGA Tour Champions in 2007, played in the final group and started three shots behind but closed with a 75.

Seattle at Toronto, n Monday: Seattle at Toronto (Yesavage 1-0), 4:03 p.m. (FOX/FS1) Wednesday, Oct. 15: Toronto at Seattle, 7:08 p.m. (FOX/FS1) Thursday, Oct. 16: Toronto at Seattle, 7:33 p.m. (FOX/FS1) x-Friday, Oct. 17: Toronto at Seattle, 5:08 p.m. (FOX/FS1) x-Sunday, Oct. 19: Seattle or Detroit, 7:03 p.m. (FOX/FS1) x-Monday, Oct. 20: Seattle or Detroit, 7:08 p.m. (FOX/FS1) National League (TBS, truTV, HBO Max) Los Angeles vs Milwaukee Monday: Los Angeles at Milwaukee, 7:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max) Tuesday: Los Angeles at Milwaukee, 7:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max) Thursday, Oct 16: Milwaukee at Los Angeles, 5:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

Friday, Oct. 17: Milwaukee at Los Angeles, 7:38 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

x-Saturday, Oct. 18: Milwaukee at Los Angeles, 7:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

x-Monday, Oct. 20: Los Angeles at Milwaukee, 4:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

x-Tuesday, Oct. 21: Los Angeles at Milwaukee, 7:08 p.m. (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

Chicago Cubs

19 Sacred Heart 32, Howard 14 SOUTH Abilene Christian 30, West Georgia 13 Alabama A&M 45, MVSU 25 Alcorn St. 42, Lincoln (CA) Oaklanders 0 Appalachian St. 41, Georgia St. 20 Bethune-Cookman 45, Southern U. 14 Campbell 38, Hampton 21 Cent. Arkansas 49, North Alabama 21 Coastal Carolina 23, Louisiana-Monroe 8 E. Kentucky 34, Austin Peay 20 ETSU 45, VMI 10 FAU 53, UAB 33 Georgia 20, Auburn 10 Georgia Tech 35, Virginia Tech 20 Illinois St. 46, Murray St. 32 Jackson St. 38, Alabama St. 34 James Madison 24, UL 14 LSU 20, South Carolina 10 Mississippi 24, Washington St. 21 NC Central 45, Florida A&M 7 Pittsburgh 34, Florida St. 31 SC State 22, NC A&T 16 St. Thomas (Minn.) 57, Davidson 13 Stetson 21, Morehead St. 14 Tennessee 34, Arkansas 31 Tennessee Tech 27, Charleston Southern 13 Texas Southern 21, Grambling St. 20 The Citadel 38, Valdosta St. 14 UT Martin 32, W. Illinois 31 Villanova 29, Elon 21 W. Carolina 52, Furman 7 Wofford 31, Norfolk St. 14 MIDWEST Alabama 27, Missouri 24 Bowling Green 28, Toledo 23 Cincinnati 20, UCF 11 Dayton 41, Valparaiso 10 E. Michigan 16, N. Illinois 10 Gardner-Webb 21, E. Illinois 10 Iowa

-19

-14 Takumi Kanaya

14 Alex Smalley

-14 Nicolas Echavarria

13 C. Bezuidenhout

Min Woo Lee

Keith Mitchell

Matt Wallace

Rasmus Hojgaard

11

-11

11

-11

10

Nicolai Hojgaard 68-70-72-64—274 10

Matthew McCarty 75-65-74-60—274 -10

Collin Morikawa 71-68-72-63—274 10

William Mouw 68-69-75-63—275 -9

Kazuki Higa

8 Kevin Yu

9

-8

Brian Campbell

8 Sungjae Im

-8

Herbst, Toyota, 267, 20. 18. (4) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 267, 25. 19. (20) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 267, 18. 20. (17) Daniel Suárez, Chevrolet, 267, 17. 21. (30) Todd Gilliland, Ford, 267, 16.

Van Gisbergen, Chevrolet, accident, 245, 4. 34. (10) Ty Gibbs, Toyota, accident, 244, 9. 35. (36) Cody Ware, Ford, accident, 243, 2. 36. (5) W. Byron, Chevrolet, accident, 235, 19.

D.Hamlin 214-217; C.Hocevar 218-219; B.Keselowski 220-221; W.Byron 222231; K.Larson 232-240; C.Briscoe 241-243; J.Logano 244; C.Briscoe 245-263; D.Hamlin 264-267 Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Led, Laps Led): K.Larson, 4 times for 129 laps; C.Briscoe, 3 times for 57 laps; W.Byron, 3 times for 55 laps; D.Hamlin, 3 times for 9 laps; C.Hocevar, 2 times for 6 laps; B.Wallace, 1 time for 5 laps; B.Keselowski, 1 time for 2 laps; T.Reddick, 1 time for 1 lap; J.Logano, 1 time for 1 lap; T.Gilliland, 1 time for 1 lap; C.Custer, 1 time for 1 lap. Wins: D.Hamlin, 5; S.Van Gisbergen, 5; C.Bell, 4; R.Blaney, 3; K.Larson, 3; W.Byron, 2; C.Briscoe, 2; C.Elliott, 2; J.Logano, 1; B.Wallace, 1; R.Chastain, 1; A.Cindric, 1; A.Dillon, 1; J.Berry, 1. Top 16 in Points: 1. D.Hamlin, 4036; 2. R.Blaney, 4034; 3. K.Larson, 4032; 4. W.Byron, 4032; 5. C.Bell, 4028; 6. C.Briscoe 4018; 7. C.Elliott, 4018; 8. J.Logano, 4008; 9. T.Reddick, 2187; 10. B.Wallace, 2177; 11. R.Chastain, 2172; 12. S.Van Gisbergen, 2142; 13. A.Bowman, 2110; 14. A.Cindric, 2094; 15. A.Dillon, 2092; 16. J.Berry, 2078. NASCAR Driver

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By HIRO KOMAE

Schauffele,

“I’ve neverseenanything grow this fast.” TONy SCOTT,onhis giant pumpkin

PUMPkings

BY ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN and SHELBY LUM AP science writer

WAPPINGERS FALLS,N.Y.— The pumpkin in Tony Scott’sbackyard weighsalmost as much as asmall car

He’sbeen tending to it for months, feeding it fertilizer and covering it with ablanket at night to keep itata stable temperature. Arollofmeasuring tape wrapped around thepumpkin gives him arough estimate of its size

“I’ve never seen anything grow this fast,” said Scott, asemiconductorengineer from upstate New York. Every year,growers like Scott push their pumpkins to the limit.Theycompete in annual weigh-offs with colossal fruits that are well over 2,000 pounds. Scott’spumpkin took third place this year,cominginat1,931 pounds.

Pumpkins aren’tthe only crops that canget giant.Other membersof the gourd family like squashes,cucumbers andwatermelons are capable of asimilar feat. But the orange behemoths are especially massive and have earned aplace of honor at fall festivals and Halloween fairs.

Howtogrowagiant pumpkin

Agiant pumpkin starts off asthe perfect seed. Growers choose seeds that have yielded large pumpkins

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By ERICRISBERG Apumpkin called ‘Michael Jordan,’isdisplayedalongsidemanyothers before being weighed at the Safeway50th annual WorldChampionship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, Calif., in 2023.

in the pastortest new ones.Scott andmany other growers rely on the tried-and-trueAtlanticGiant pumpkinseeds.

Afterthat, it comesdowntothe right combination of water, nutrients and care. Giant pumpkins can guzzle hundreds of gallons of water in aday

‘YOU JUST HAVE TO ROLL WITH IT’

BY KELVIN CHAN Associated Press

BRANTFORD,Ontario Wearing protective gloves and earplugs, aworker feeds lengths of wood into amachine that makes an earsplittingwhine as it automatically cuts agroove into the end of each piece. Nearby,stacks of wooden wedges wait to be slotted into those grooves to form thebegin-

Reducing

caregiver stress starts with self-care

What can caregivers do to de-stress?

Though caring forsomeone with Alzheimer’sorother dementias can be rewarding at times, it can also be terribly stressful forcaregivers and families.

It is critical that the caregiver takes frequent breaks to step away from caregiving, taking deep breaths, stretching and exercising even forafew minutes. Ashort walk outside or time sitting in aquiet space can offer ahelpful reset forthe mind and body.Additionally, if the caregiver has access to respite care, they should consider using these services as it allows time forthe caregiver to recharge while their loved one is in asafe and comfortable care setting. Pay attention to self-care when trying to lower stress levels. Caregivers should set aside some“me time” —even if it’sashort period —todo something that helps them unwind. Watching afavorite television show,reading, taking abath, or enjoying aspecial hobby are all waystoreduce stress and put the caregiver in abetter frame of mind. Adequate sleep is crucial for emotional and physical wellbeing. Caregivers should set relaxing nighttimebedtime routines, such as going to bed at aspecific time, turning off cellphones or other devices, drinking decaffeinated hot tea, or just listening to softmusic. Self-care also includes regular physical activity,even if it is 15 minutes aday.Daily walks, yoga and other formsof exercise can reduce stress and elevate mood

andmake their own food from sunlight just like regular-sized plants do Theirinternalplumbing system is more robust, allowingthemtodrink up sugary water and nutrientsfaster As theleafy patchbegins to expand, growers remove smaller pumpkins

ä See PUMPKINS, page 2D

hockey stickfactory skates

hockey sticks in Canadain Brantford, Ontario.

AP PHOTO

By

KELVIN CHAN

Caregivers should pay attention to good nutritional choices. Nourishing the body with healthy food can increase energy levels and improve the caregiver’shealth and ability to better cope with the stresses of daily responsibilities. Socialization is also important in reducing stress forthe caregiver.Leaning on friends and loved ones can offer emotional support or even assistance with caregiving needs or tasks. Additionally,many caregivers find it helpful to join support groups where they can share experiences with those whoare going through similar challenges. Further,caregivers may choose to seek professional help to manage their stress and to learn and develop coping strategies.

There are various stressreduction techniques that caregivers can try to reduce stress. Mindfulness and meditation techniques can help the caregiver to stay grounded and reduce anxiety.Breathing and progressive muscle relaxation exercises are also stressreduction techniques forthe caregiver

When caregiving responsibilities get too overwhelming, caregivers can consider,if financially feasible, to hire professional sitters to assist in certain tasks. Accepting free help from family members and friends is often difficult

Tony Scott stands with the pumpkin he grew in his Wappingers Falls, N.y., backyard.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By SHELBy LUM

Bipolardisordermay have uncommon connection

Dear Doctors: My 22-year-old son is severely bipolar,which impacts his life terribly.Ihave keptup with the studies that have shown success in treating bipolar witha fecal transplant. Do you know of anyopen studies right now that might take my son? We would travel anywhere to get it done. Dear Reader: Bipolar disorder is amental health condition that is marked by extreme swings in mood, energy,thoughts and behaviors. These repeated shifts fromintense elation to crushing depression can disrupt sleep, impede judgment and interfere with the ability to think clearly.As with many conditions that affect mental health, bipolar disorder existsonaspectrum. Thatmeans each case is unique, and symptoms vary in severity,frequency and presentation. But eveninits

HOCKEY

Continued from page1D

The operation has origins that date back to the 1800s and has survived decades of trade globalization to hang on as the last North American commercial manufacturer of traditional wooden hockey sticks. Now it’sfacing fresh headwindsfrom the trade war launched by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has ripped up free tradedeals in North America andimposed tariffs on Canadian exports.

The uncertainty is making life aheadache for Roustan

“You never know” what Trump will do, said Bo Crawford, the factory’sgeneral manager.“Youjust have to roll with it and the president of the U.S. can change his mind day to day,week to week, hour to hour.Soyeah we have to dealwith it the best we can,” he said.

Roustan has spent months dealing with U.S. customer worries and navigating the trade challenges.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian imports, though many goods have ultimately remained exempted because they’re already covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement negotiated during his first term.

Then, in late August, the Trump administration eliminated awidely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 that resulted in newuncertainty over cross-border trade, said owner and CEO Graeme Roustan.

“Even if somebody buys one or two or five or 10 sticks and it’s under $100,they’re going to be affectedbythe tariffs, so the jury is stillout on how that’sgoing to impact business,” Roustan said.

Roustan Hockey’s factory churns outabout 400,000 wooden hockey sticks ayear under the Christian, Northland and Sherwoodbrands, with about 100,000 exported to the United States. It also makes plastic-bladed road hockey sticks and foam-core goalie sticks.

Crawfordsaidshipments to the U.S. have beenheld up for manual inspections at the border,where they’ve been hit with surprise tariffs, which the company’s customs broker has managed to get waived. It’snot just sticks. Shipments of goalie pads, which Roustan manufactures at a separate factory in Toronto, were recently flagged for

PUMPKINS

Continued from page1D

so all the water and nutrients funnel into asingle fruit.

“That helps make it extra big in away that youmight not see in the wild,” saidAleca Borsuk, aplant scientist at theNew York Botanical Garden. Because of gravity,giant pumpkins grow wide but not tall. They often resemble lopsided, lumpy pancakes. Scott’s pumpkin is also lighter in color because he covers it with atarp during the day,protecting it from sunlight which can ripen and harden the skin. He waters it using an over-

Dr.Elizabeth Ko

Dr.Eve Glazier ASK THE DOCTORS

milder forms, bipolar disorder can significantly impair qualityoflife. It is commonfor thefirst indicationsofbipolar disorder to emerge in late adolescence andearly adulthood. Diagnosis includes amental health assessment, medical history and physicalexam. Oncediagnosed, treatmenttypically combines medications, such as mood stabilizers and perhaps antidepressants, with individual, group or

family-focused psychotherapy Due to the unpleasant side effects of someofthe medications,treatmentcan be challenging. The cause of bipolar disorder is not yet clearly understood. Previous research has suggested links to amix of heredity, mental health and environmental factors. More recently,though, growing awareness of aconnection between the gut microbiome and thebrain is leading researchers in an intriguing new direction. This connection, known as the gut-brain axis, is abidirectional communication systembetween the trillions of microbes in thegut and the brain. An imbalance in the gut microbiome has been found to contribute to inflammation, immune system dysfunction and the production of harmful metabolites This imbalance, known as gut

an unexpected 200% tariff, which company managers said they’re trying to resolvewithnew formsfrom their shippingcompany

Thedisruption underscores the broader trade turmoil that’sleft theCanadian economy reeling Canada’seconomyshrank 1.6% in the second quarter,inthe first contraction since 2023 and the biggest decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.Exports slumped 7.5%, as uncertainty over tariffs andtrade pummeled exports to thecountry’sbiggest trading partner,the United States. Those figures overshadow the longer-term decline of Canadianmanufacturing.

Some 37,800 manufacturing jobs were lost in the year to August, accordingtoofficial data.

Real investment in industrial machinery and equipment fell in the second quarter to the lowest level since records began in 1981, experts at the National Bank of Canada pointed out in a recent research note.

“How did we gethere?

Yearsofexcessiveregulation, and achroniclack of ambition by successive governments in promoting domestic transformation of our naturalresources— recently made worse by Washington’sprotectionist agenda,”wrote economists Stéfane Marion and Matthieu Arseneau. “That failure haseroded Canada’s manufacturing base and left us at riskofbecoming irrelevant in global supply chains.”

The Roustan operation started life in 1847 as an agricultural workshop, 20 years before Canada became acountry and70years

head sprinkler system.

Howlongcan they grow?

“The answer is no,” Borsuk said. No matter howbig apumpkin gets, it’ll eventually matureand its natural agingcycle will kick in.

Scotthas nurtured giant pumpkins for eight years. It still blowshis mind watching them inflate, putting on around40poundsto50 pounds aday.Hesets up reflectivepanelsand even a fake wolfcutout to ward off hungry deer and other intruders looking for an orange-colored snack. Woodchucks have nibbledonthe pumpkin’s vines in previous years. Afterthe all-important weighing competition, Scott shows off the giantpumpkin

before theNational Hockey League was created.

It’sall that survives of the golden era of North American wooden hockey stick manufacturing in the1970s and’80s when there were numerous workshops in Ontario and Quebec, as well as U.S. production centeredin Minnesota.

Roustan,abusinessman whoalsoowns TheHockey News and once attempted to buy the Montreal Canadiens, acquired the operation in 2019 —bythen named Heritage Wood Specialties —and moved it from aging facilities in the town of Hespeler, 20 miles north of Brantford, hometown of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky

Nowadays,global production amounts to about 5millionhockey sticks ayear,but wood makes up only about a tenth.NoNHL player has regularly useda wooden stick in well over adecade, underlining the sport’sembrace of newer technology

Composite sticks, madeof carbon fiber and other lightweight advanced materials, are now far more popular and preferredbybothamateurs and professionals. But composite sticks are pricier becauseofthe advanced manufacturingprocesses involved.

Meanwhile,overthe years, Canadianand U.S. production consolidated or moved to Asia and Mexico amid awider global shift by Western consumer brands in search of cheaper manufacturing overseas.

“It’s very hard to compete against some of the Asian markets and some of ourcompetitors that are in other countries,” said Crawford. “But our qualitykind of stands for itself.”

at various themed events and drives it around on a trailer.Eventually,hedonates it to be displayedor carved.

On the way to events, he often getsstopped by people who ask what he’sgot in the back.

“The first question they ask is, ‘Is it real?’ ”Scott said. “Where would you buy afake pumpkin this big?”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from theHoward Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Educationand the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for allcontent

dysbiosis, has been linked to a range of neurodegenerative diseases.These include Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’sdisease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. As you have pointed out, there is evidence thatgut dysbiosis mayplay arole in bipolar disorder as well. It is not suggested that gut dysbiosis is the sole causeofthese diseases. However,some researchers believe modulating the gut microbiome may have therapeutic benefits. This may be done through diet, the use of specific prebiotics and probiotics, and fecal transplants. This is when aperson’scolon is infused with asolution containing fecal matterfrom ahealthy donor Afew small studies have reported successinlessening the symptoms of severe bipolar disorder through fecal transplants.

We searched at clinicaltrials. gov,the United States National Institutes of Health’sclinical trials database. At this time, there do not appear to be any new or ongoing investigations into the use of fecal transplants to manage bipolar disorder.However,several bipolar studies are exploring probiotics. Youmay find it useful to browse all of the studies listed on the site associated with bipolar disorder.Even if none are right foryour son, they are an excellent way to keep abreast of new directions in research.

Sendyour questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla edu, or write: Ask theDoctors, c/oUCLA HealthSciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd.,Suite1450, Los Angeles CA, 90024.

Keepingvaluables safe

Dear Heloise: During an insurance review,Idiscovered that our homeowners’ policy only covered up to $5,000 for jewelryand cash combined. This limit can get exceeded quickly.For an additional rider, Icould increase the limit to $10,000, but anything above this would require an individual appraisal of the items that need to be covered.

Asafety deposit box is thecommon solution to this problem, but with fewer bank branches around, there’snot always abank right around the corner.Plus, it is subject to restricted access in the case of one of the owners’ death.

Unlessyou need to store some really valuable or oversizedassets,aDIY wall-mounted safe is a practical (andeconomical) option. It might not deter a professional safecracker, but it is adequateenough in caseofarandom break-in.

Of course, when you discover that your house was built withstuds on a12inch center instead of 16 inches (like Idid), theinstallation becomes alittle morecomplicated. —Kim F., in North Plainfield, New Jersey Left or right?

Dear Heloise: Inever understood the “left loosey, rightytighty” nonsense to tighten or loosen some-

By The Associated Press

Today is Monday,Oct.13, the 286thday of 2025. There are 79 days left in the year

Todayinhistory:

On Oct. 13, 2010, 33 men were rescued from acollapsed Chilean mineafter being lifted one by one in capsules 69 days after they were trapped 2,300 feet underground.

Also on this date:

In 1792, thecornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House, was laid by President George Washington during aceremony in the District of Columbia.

In 1932, President Herbert Hoover and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes laid the cornerstone for the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington.

In 1943, Italy declared war on Germany,its onetime Axis partner In 1972, aUruguayan chartered flight carrying 45 people crashed in the

SELF-CARE

Continuedfrom page1D

as caregivers feel like they need to do everything themselves. Accepting help can prevent burnout, especially when the caregiver gives specific necessary tasks to others. Caregivers go through arange of emotions from guilt and frustration to

thing. Ialways use the term clockwise to tighten something and counterclockwise to loosen something. To use this method, Ijust look at the top of the item whether it is anut, bolt or jar lid. There is no left or right when dealing with circles. Chuck S.,via email Junk mail junkie

Dear Heloise: Ilove looking through junk mail! Ha ha, not really,but Idoopen every piece of mailthat comes out of my mailbox. When there is aflyer or astandard “ToWhom It May Concern” letter that is blank on the back, Iuse it as copy/print paper forall of my business statements, contracts and billings that are sent to me online. This allows me to print whatever Ineed. Ialso keep all the return “window”envelopes that come in any of the mailed billings since Ipay for these online; then Ireuse them formypersonal mailings. What an assortment of sizes I’ve accumulated! It feels like I’mgiving them purpose instead of just adding to the landfill. Joanie,inNorth Carolina Mixitall together

Dear Heloise: Like many people, Idrink alot of coffeeathome, and so do my wife and adult children. My wife and Iprefer milk

TODAYINHISTORY

Andes. In order to stay alive, survivors resorted to feeding off the remains of someofthe dead; 16 people were rescued morethan twomonths later

In 1999, in Boulder, Colorado, the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury was dismissed after 13 months of workwith prosecutors saying there wasn’tenough evidence to charge anyone in the 6-year-old beauty queen’sslaying.

In 2011, Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund billionaire at the center of one of the biggest insider-trading cases in U.S. history,was sentenced by afederal judge in NewYork to 11 years behind bars. He was released early,in2019.

in our coffee, and occasionally Iadd sugar to mine. By midday,the messy stir spoons would pile up in my kitchen and makeme crazy.Itwas like Iwas always out of spoons, and coffee spills wereall over the counter Then Igot the idea of putting the milk or sugar in the cup first before pouring my coffee, and voila! It mixes up together perfectly! No spoons are needed. This eliminates messes at home, and if you use this method when you’re at arestaurant or aworkplace with plastic stirrers, it’sbetter forthe environment, too! —R.J in Burbank, California Appmakes shopping easy

Dear Heloise: Ihave seen alot of people saying that they take pictures of their shopping list. Idon’t have to! Idownloaded the AnyList app. Youcan create ashopping list for every store you shop at, and you can have your partner download the app and share lists. If my husband is at the store, and I remember something that Ineed, Iadd it to the list while he is there. If you have your phone, you have your list! This is my mostused app! Iabsolutely depend on it almost daily! Inever forget my list! —Sunnie S.,via email Sendahinttoheloise@ heloise.com.

In 2021, Hollywood’s Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner,blasted into space aboard aship built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company; the “Star Trek” actor and three fellow passengers reached an altitude of 66.5 miles during aflight lasting just over 10 minutes. Today’sbirthdays: Gospel singer Shirley Caesar is 87. Singer-musician Paul Simon is 84. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is 83. Singer-musician Sammy Hagar is 78. Model Beverly Johnson is 73. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., is 67. Singer/TV personality Marie Osmond is 66. NBAcoach Doc Rivers is 64. Actor T’Keyah Crystal Keymah is 63. Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice is 63. Comedian and actor Matt Walsh is 61. Baseball Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffmanis58. Actor Kate Walsh is 58. Actor Tisha Campbell is 57. Olympic silver medal figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is 56. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen is 54. Olympic gold medal swimmer and TV personality

sadness and even anger These emotions are very normal; however, it’simportant forthe caregivers to acknowledge and process them as bottling up feelings can cause undue stress. Overall, caregivers should focus on the aspects of caregiving they can control and throw perfection out the window.Taking one day at atime, setting boundaries, knowing lim-

its, and creating aroutine are all waystoreduce overwhelming feelings, anxiety and stress levels. Dana Territo is an Alzheimer’sadvocate and authorof“What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer’sDisease.” She hosts “TheMemory

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTO By KELVIN CHAN

Aworker makes wooden hockeysticks at the Roustan Hockey factory, which is thelast majormanufacturer of hockey sticks in Canada, inBrantford, Ontario.

Hints from Heloise

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Focus on your health, wealth and security, and how you can look, feel and do your best. Change may be calling your name, but clever moves are the key to success.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Forge ahead with aplan.Amotivatedattitude, alongside intelligence, persistence and relentless courage, will your opponents takeastep back.

SAGITTARIUS(Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Proceed with caution.Hidden agendas and false information will put you in avulnerable position. Ask questions and be aware of whatotherswant before making a commitment.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Overthinking, letting emotions lead the way and taking on too much will be your downfall. Youhave plenty to gain if you focus on what you do best.

AQUARIUS (Jan.20-Feb.19) Be agood listener, and you'll gain insight into how to handle people you encounter. A domestic change that lowersoverhead and stimulates growth will pay off.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Interacting with otherswill enhance your ability to grow, reinvent yourself and chart your next steps.It's time to trynew things, meet interesting people and stretch your imagination.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Concentrate on doing what's bestfor you while taking care of what concerns you most. Your

input can lead to progress, new friendships or additional income.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Domestic changes you implement will bring you closer to people you deal with regularly. Alittle give and take will go along way to foster tolerance and reduce prejudice.

GEMINI(May 21-June 20) Aphysical change will be uplifting and encourage you to get out and do more. Socializing will lead to interesting encountersand prompt you to rethink how you want to spend your energy.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Think big, but don't overspend in the process. It'scrucial to be forward-thinking to accommodate your long-termplans.Don'tlet denial stand in the wayofprogress.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Don'tlet anger set in when realization and courage are your tickets forward. An innovative approach to what works bestfor you will lead to comfortand joy.

VIRGO (Aug.23-Sept. 22) Interact, share ideas andutilize the information you receive to adjust how you live your life. It's time to make changes that suit your needs rather than accommodate others.

The horoscope, an entertainment feature, is not based on scientific fact ©2025 by nEa, inc., dist. By andrews mcmeel syndication

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

Sudoku

InstructIons: sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle basedona9x9 grid with several given numbers The object is to place thenumbers1 to 9inthe empty squares so that each row, each column andeach3x3 boxcontainsthe same number only once. Thedifficulty level of thesudoku increasesfrommonday to sunday.

Saturday’s PuzzleAnswer

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

Bridge

BY PHILLIP ALDER

Harold Wilson, whowas theBritish prime minister for two separate terms said, “I believe the greatest asset ahead of state can have is the ability to get a good night’ssleep.” It does not pay to be sleepy at the bridge table, which is why many players consumecaffeinateddrinks. Today’s deal, though, is about declarer making the most of his assets, the cards. Southisinfourhearts.Westleadsalow spade. How should declarer proceed? North getsthree points for his singleton,soitiseasilyworththreehearts.(His hand also has eight losers.) The North hand has few assets, but it is important to make the most of them. Southmustnot call for dummy’s spade king at trick one. It is so unlikely that West is underleadingthe ace. And, here, if East does take the first trick with his ace over dummy’s king, declarer will lose two spades, one heart and one diamond. Instead, letdummy play low. After East wins the first trick withhis 10, what does he do next?

If East cashes the spadeace, declarer will discardhis diamond loser on the spade king, ruff his club three on the board, and lose only twospadesand one heart. SupposeEast does not take his ace, shiftingtoaclub. Then declarer winsinhis hand; draws one round of trumps;casheshistwotopclubs,sluffing dummy’s remaining spades; and, to get communication between thetwo hands, plays two rounds of diamonds. Whatever happens now, South can draw asecond round of trumps, ruffhis last spade on theboard,ruffadiamondinhishand,and ruff theclub three to gethome.

©2025 by nEa, inc dist. By andrews mcmeel syndication

wuzzles

EachWuzzle is aword riddle which creates adisguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: nOOn gOOD =gOOD aFTErnOOn

Previous answers:

word game

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

toDAY’sWoRD LYMPHoMA: lim-FOH-muh: Ausually malignant tumor of the lymph node tissue.

Average mark 10 words

Time limit 20 minutes

Canyou find17ormore words in LYMPHOMA?

sAtuRDAY’s WoRD —BLustER

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C. PiCKles

dIrectIons: make a2-to 7-letter word from the letters in each row. add points of each word, using scoring directions at right. Finally, 7-letter words get 50-point bonus. “Blanks” used as any letter have no point value. all the words are in the Official sCraBBlE® players Dictionary, 5th Edition. For more information on tournamentsand clubs, email naspa

ken ken

InstructIons: 1 -Each row and each columnmust containthe numbers 1thorugh 4(easy) or 1through 6 (challenging) without repeating. 2 -The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, mustcombine 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 withthe number in the top-left corner.

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer

WiShinG Well

HErEisaplEasanT liTTlEgamEthat will

numericalpuzzle designed to spell

the number of letters is

is yourkey number. start at theupper left-hand

bers, left to right. Then read

Scrabble GramS

Getfuzzy

jump Start

roSe iS roSe

p tal files documenting compliance with Execu‐tive Order11988, as amendedbyExecutive Order13690, areavail‐able forpublicinspec‐tion,reviewand copying upon requestatthe timesand location delin‐eatedinthe last para‐graphofthisnoticefor receiptofcomments. Thereare threeprimary purposes forthisnotice. First, people whomay be affected by activities in the floodplain/wetland andthose whohavean interest in theprotection of thenatural environ‐ment should be givenan opportunity to express theirconcernsand pro‐vide informationabout theseareas.Second, an adequate public notice program canbeanim‐portantpubliceduca‐tional tool.The dissemi‐nation of information andrequest forpublic comment aboutthe floodplain/wetland can facilitate andenhance Federalefforts to reduce therisks andimpacts as‐sociated with theoccu‐pancyand modification of thesespecial areas. Third, as amatteroffair‐ness, when theFederal government determines it will participateinac‐tionstakingplace