The Acadiana Advocate 10-27-2025 by The Advocate

BRIAN KELLY OUT

BY WILSON ALEXANDER | Staff writer

LSU has ﬁred coach Brian Kelly, The Advocate conﬁrmed on Sunday with a source familiar with the decision

The decision was ﬁnalized after the eighth game of Kelly’s fourth season with the Tigers turned into a 49-25 home loss to No. 3 Texas A&M. With that defeat, LSU fell to 5-3, losing whatever was left of its already faint College Football Playoff hopes. Kelly was owed a roughly $54 mil-

ä Kelly’s buyout: A look at how much LSU would owe him PAGE 1C

lion buyout, the second-largest in college football history, according to his contract That could be reduced by any “football-related employment” he has next, per the contract, including in coaching, administration or media. Kelly’s buyout must be paid in equal monthly installments through 2031. On Sunday, LSU leadership held dis-

cussions about Kelly’s future, sources said, including talk of a potential negotiated buyout. Those conversations will continue into the Tigers’ open date as the two parties work toward agreeing to buyout terms. Running backs coach and associate head coach Frank Wilson will be the interim head coach, a source conﬁrmed. Wilson was previously the head coach at McNeese State and UTSA.

A BULL MARKET

An inmate gets slammed into the dirt by a bull during the Angola Prison Rodeo on Oct. 12. Every April and October, the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola hosts the last remaining prison rodeo in the nation. It’s a major economic driver for the region.

Angola’s prison rodeo is a major economic driver for the region and for inmates

BY CHRISTOPHER CARTWRIGHT | Staff writer

The gospel music ﬂickers into range around mile 17 on the Tunica Trace, a trail formerly used by the Tunica Native American tribe paved into a 20-mile highway in West Feliciana Parish. As hundreds of cars pass churches releasing their congregations, the broadcast of 91.7 KLSP FM “The Incarceration Station” — sharpens.

“I’m doing the best I can; I’m doing the best I can,” the Rev. Andrew Cheairs and The Songbirds sing. “While I’m traveling, I’m traveling through this land.”

The broadcast emanates from the road’s end: the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola It’s a destination few ever leave, imprisoning around 3,900 inmates, with roughly 70% of those sentenced for life.

However, on Oct 12, the prison’s inmate-run radio station

played for thousands of people driving toward the Angola Prison Rodeo. Every Sunday in October and one weekend in April, crowds witness incarcerated men voluntarily participating in rodeo events Some are traditional bull- or horse-riding competitions, but there are also events like “Convict Poker,” where four inmates compete to be the last man sitting at a poker table with an angered bull charging them.

Inmates generally speak highly of the event, which allows them to earn money Under pavilions outside the arena, other inmates sell handcrafted items ranging from wooden swing sets to American ﬂag paintings at a craft fair The festival — the last remaining prison rodeo in the nation — has achieved a semimythic status in American

Questions linger in man’s death after Elayn Hunt release

He was found on the roadside 80 miles from group home

BY QUINN COFFMAN | Staff writer

Treylin Deville was released from Elayn Hunt Correctional Center on July 23 after being held for 10 years for an armed robbery he committed at 17. Less than 24 hours later the 27-year-old Deville was dying on a roadside in Evangeline Parish, more than 80 miles from the Baton Rouge group home where he was supposed to be, according to internal emails from Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections staff. What happened in the intervening hours is still unknown, including whether Deville, of Ville Platte, ever made it to the group home or how he traveled such a long distance, leaving his family with questions and planning a lawsuit against the DOC.

Asked about the procedure of Deville’s release, Tiffany Dickerson, communications director for the DOC, said in an emailed statement that one correctional ofﬁcer has been placed on leave and “the administrative process is ongoing.”

Deville’s family says he suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and was incapable of advocating for himself. When authorities called to tell them Deville had died, family members didn’t even know he had been released from prison, they said.

DOC ofﬁcials have not provided a time or location that Deville was last under their care and supervision, nor have they told The Advocate what the standard procedures are for releasing a mentally ill inmate.

On July 24, the day of Deville’s death, a social worker at Elayn Hunt assigned to him sent an email to the group home, asking if Deville had made it there. If the social worker received a response, it was not included in the internal emails that the DOC has released.

STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

Suspects arrested in Louvre jewel heist

PARIS Two suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, justice and police ofﬁcials said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world and sparked a massive manhunt.

The Paris prosecutor said that investigators made arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether any jewels had been recovered.

A police official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case, told The Associated Press that two men in their 30s, both known to police, were taken into custody. He said one suspect was arrested as he attempted to board a plane bound for Algeria. The official added that one of the suspects was identified through DNA traces. Beccuau said earlier this week that forensics experts were analyzing 150 samples at the scene.

The suspects can be held in police custody up to 96 hours Thieves took less than eight minutes last Sunday morning to steal jewels valued at $102 million from the world’s most-visited museum French ofﬁcials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window smashed display cases and ﬂed. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Flights to airport halted by controller shortage

The Federal Aviation Administration said flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted Sunday morning due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility

The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more ﬂights delayed and canceled in the coming days as the nation’s air trafﬁc controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. During an appearance on the Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures,” Duffy said more controllers were calling in sick as money worries compound the stress of an already challenging job.

“Just yesterday, we had 22 stafﬁng triggers. That’s one of the highest that we have seen in the system since the shutdown began. And that’s a sign that the controllers are wearing thin,” he said.

1 killed in shooting at Pa. university

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY, Pa Gunﬁre erupted during outdoor festivities at Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University late Saturday, killing one person and wounding six others as students and alumni celebrated homecoming at the historically Black school, authorities said.

A person who had a firearm was detained, and ofﬁcials are investigating the possibility that there was more than one shooter but don’t believe there is any active threat to the campus, Chester County District Attorney Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe said during a brief news conference early Sunday “We don’t have a lot of answers about exactly what happened,” he said “What I will tell you is that today we’re operating as if this is not an incident where someone came in with the design to inﬂict mass damage on a college campus.”

Authorities say the shooting took place at around 9:30 p.m. outside a large building called the International Cultural Center, where tents and tables were set up for tailgating and socializing after a football game earlier in the day

Authorities weren’t sharing details about the victims, including their conditions or where the injured were being treated

Melissa grows into Category 4 hurricane

Storm threatens Jamaica, Haiti

BY MAURICIO SAVARESE and JOHN MYERS JR. Associated Press

KINGSTON, Jamaica Hurricane Melissa strengthened into a major Category 4 hurricane, with the possibility of intensifying to a Category 5 storm Sunday night, unleashing torrential rain and threatening to cause catastrophic ﬂooding in the northern Caribbean, including Haiti and Jamaica, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The weather agency added Melissa is likely to reach the southern coast of Jamaica as a major hurricane late Monday or Tuesday morning, and urged people on the island to seek shelter immediately

“Conditions (in Jamaica) are going to go down rapidly today,” Jamie Rhome, the center’s deputy director, said on Sunday “Be ready to ride this out for several days.”

Melissa was centered about 110 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica, and about 285 miles southsouthwest of Guantánamo, Cuba, on Sunday morning.

It had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph and was moving west at 5 mph, the hurricane center said.

Melissa was expected to drop torrential rains of up to 30 inches on Jamaica and southern Hispaniola Haiti and the Dominican Republic — according to the hurricane center Some areas may see as much as 40 inches of rain.

It also warned that extensive damage to infrastruc-

ture, power and communication outages, and the isolation of communities in Jamaica were to be expected.

Melissa should be near or over Cuba by late Tuesday, where it could bring up to 12 inches of rain, before moving toward the Bahamas later Wednesday

Jamaica’s two main airports, the Norman Manley International Airport and the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, were closed by Sunday

Local ofﬁcials said they were considering enforcing an evacuation order as many residents of lowlying and flood prone areas did not heed advice to evacuate.

“The question of the mandatory movement will soon be addressed,” Desmond McKenzie, who is leading the Jamaican government’s disaster response, said in a press conference.

Melissa is forecast to reach Category 5 when it makes landfall along the south coast on Tuesday McKenzie also said all the more of 650 shelters in Jamaica are open. Ofﬁcials said earlier that warehouses across the island were well-stocked and thousands of food packages pre-positioned for quick distribution if needed.

Evan Thompson, the principal director of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, said the storm surge is expected mainly over the southern side of the island.

“There is potential (for) ﬂooding in every parish of our country,” Thompson said. “If you’re in a ﬂood prone, low-lying area, you need to take note. If you’re

near a river course or a gully, you need to take special note and ﬁnd some alternative location that you can move to should you be threatened by the heavy rainfall.”

Some foreign governments are also preparing for the hurricane’s arrival in Jamaica.

The government of Antigua and Barbuda is housing visiting students at a hotel in Kingston. As of Sunday morning, 52 of them had checked in. Students from other islands were staying at the same hotel, though it remained unclear whether they were sponsored by their governments.

“They have a better bounce back regimen here (at the hotel) in terms of standby power and water (in comparison with university dorms,” said Jewel Moore, 19, a chemistry student at UWI Mona. She and her fellow students are enjoying snacks and games before the hurricane arrives.

“The passing of the storm should be okay,” he added. “It’s getting out that will be a problem.”

The erratic and slowmoving storm has killed at least three people in Haiti and a fourth person in the Dominican Republic, where another person remains missing.

Haitian authorities said three people had died as a consequence of the hurricane and another ﬁve were injured due to a collapsed wall. There were also reports of rising river levels, ﬂooding and a bridge destroyed due to breached riverbanks in Sainte-Suzanne, in the northeast.

Officials: Russia tests new nuclear-capable missile

By The Associated Press

MOSCOW Russia tested a new nuclear-capable and powered cruise missile ﬁt to confound existing defenses, inching closer to deploying it to its military

President Vladimir Putin said in remarks released on Sunday.

The announcement, which followed years of tests of the Burevestnik missile, comes as part of nuclear messaging from the Kremlin, which has resisted Western pressure for a ceaseﬁre in Ukraine and strongly warned the U.S. and other NATO allies against sanctioning strikes deep inside Russia with longer-range Western weapons

A video released by the Kremlin showed Putin, dressed in camouﬂage fatigues, receiving a report from Gen. Valery Gerasimov Russia’s chief of general staff, who told the

Russian leader that the Burevestnik covered 8,700 miles in a key test Tuesday

Gerasimov said the Burevestnik, or storm petrel in Russian, spent 15 hours in the air on nuclear power adding “that’s not the limit.”

Little is known about the Burevestnik, which was code-named Skyfall by NATO, and many Western experts have been skeptical about it, noting that a nuclear engine could be highly unreliable.

When Putin first revealed that Russia was working on the weapon in his 2018 state-of-thenation address, he claimed it would have an unlimited range, allowing it to circle the globe undetected by missile defense systems.

Many observers argue such a missile could be difﬁcult to handle and pose an environmental threat. The U.S. and the Soviet Union worked on nuclear-pow-

USDA says no food aid will go out Nov. 1

BY ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Associated Press

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov 1, raising the stakes for families nationwide as the government shutdown drags on.

The new notice comes after the Trump administration said it would not tap roughly $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as SNAP ﬂowing into November That program helps about 1 in 8 Americans buy groceries.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the USDA notice says “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record. While the Republican administration took steps leading up to the shutdown to ensure SNAP benefits were paid this month, the cutoff would expand the impact of the impasse to a wider swath of Americans — and some of those most in need — unless a political resolution is found in just a few days.

The administration blames Democrats, who say they will not agree to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate with them on extending expiring subsidies under the

Affordable Care Act. Republicans say Democrats must ﬁrst agree to reopen the government before negotiation.

Democratic lawmakers have written to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting to use contingency funds to cover the bulk of next month’s beneﬁts.

But a USDA memo that surfaced Friday says “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” The document says the money is reserved for such things such as helping people in disaster areas. It cited a storm named Melissa, which has strengthened into a major hurricane, as an example of why it’s important to have the money available to mobilize quickly in the event of a disaster The prospect of families not receiving food aid has deeply concerned states run by both parties. Some states have pledged to keep SNAP beneﬁts ﬂowing even if the federal program halts payments, but there are questions about whether U.S. government directives may allow that to happen. The USDA memo also says states would not be reimbursed for temporarily picking up the cost. Other states are telling SNAP recipients to be ready for the benefits to stop. Arkansas and Oklahoma, for example, are advising recipients to identify food pantries and other groups that help with food.

The U.S Department of Agriculture has posted a notice on its website saying federal food aid will not go out Nov. 1

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ered missiles during the Cold War, but they eventually shelved the projects, considering them too hazardous.

The Burevestnik reportedly suffered an explosion in August 2019 during tests at a navy range on the White Sea, killing ﬁve nuclear engineers and two service members and resulting in a brief spike in radioactivity that fueled fears in a nearby city.

Russian officials never identified the weapon involved, but the U.S said it was the Burevestnik.

“We need to determine the possible uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying these weapons to our armed forces,” Putin told Gerasimov

The Russian leader also claimed it was invulnerable to current and future missile defenses, due to its almost unlimited range and unpredictable ﬂight path.

LA 70501

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MATIAS DELACROIX

People buy groceries Sunday ahead of the forecast arrival of Hurricane Melissa in Kingston, Jamaica.

U.S. warshipdocksinTrinidadand Tobago

Move puts more pressure on Venezuela

BY ANSELM GIBBS Associated Press

PORT-OF-SPAIN,Trinidad andTobago AU.S.warshipdocked in Trinidad and Tobago‘s capital Sunday as the Trump administration boosts military pressure on neighboringVenezuela and its President Nicolás Maduro.

The arrival of the USS

Gravely,aguided missile destroyer, in thecapital of the Caribbeannationisinaddition to the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, which is moving closer to Venezuela. Maduro criticizedthe movement of thecarrier as an attempt by the U.S. government to fabricate”a neweternalwar”against his country

President DonaldTrump hasaccused Maduro, without providing evidence, of being theleader of the organized crime gang Tren de Aragua.

Government officials from thetwin-island nation and the U.S. said the massive warship will remainin Trinidad until Thursday so bothcountries can carry out training exercises.

Aseniormilitary ofﬁcial in Trinidad and Tobago told TheAssociatedPress that the move was only recently scheduled. The official spoke undercondition of anonymity duetolack of authorization to discuss the matter publicly KamlaPersad-Bissessar, the prime ministerofTrini-

dad and Tobago, has been a vocal supporter of the U.S. military presenceand the deadly strikesonsuspected drug boatsinwatersoff Venezuela.

U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Jenifer Neidhart de Ortiz said in astatement that the exercises seek to “address sharedthreats like transnational crime and build resilience through training, humanitarian missions, and securityefforts.”

Thevisitcomes oneweek after theU.S.Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago warned

Americans to stay away from U.S. government facilities there. Local authorities saida reported threat against Americans prompted the warning.

Many people in Trinidad and Tobago criticize the warship’sdocking in town.

At arecent demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy, David Abdulah, the leader of the Movement forSocial Justice political party,said Trinidad and Tobago should nothaveallowedthe warship into its waters.

“This is awarship in Trini-

dad, which will be anchored here forseveral days just milesoff Venezuela when there’sa threat of war,” said Abdulah, who is also the leader of the Movement for Social Justicepolitical party

“That’sanabomination.” Caricom, aregionaltrade bloc madeupof15Caribbean countries, has called for dialogue. Trinidad and Tobago is amember of the group, but Persad-Bissessar has said the region is not azone of peace, citing thenumber of murders andotherviolent crimes.

Hamasexpands search forremains of hostages in Gaza

BY SAMY MAGDYand MELANIE LIDMAN Associated Press

CAIRO— Hamashas expand-

ed its searchfor bodies of hostages in the GazaStrip, the Palestinian group said Sunday,aday after Egypt deployed ateam of experts and heavy equipment to help retrieve them.

Under the U.S.-brokered ceaseﬁre, which took effect on Oct. 10, Hamas is expected to return the remains of all Israeli hostages as soon as possible. Israel has agreed to return 15 bodies of Palestinians for eachone Children and others watched the Egyptian equipment claw throughthe sand near badly damaged buildings in the southern city of Khan Younis. Hamas has returned the remains of 15 hostages but hasn’thanded over any in five days. Israel has returned the bodies of 195 Palestinians, many of them unidentiﬁed.

More complicated steps lie aheadunder the ceaseﬁre plan, including the disarming of Hamasand the postwar governanceoffamine-

stricken Gaza, where the U.N. and partnerscontinue to urge Israeltoallow in more humanitarian aid Internationalmedia have been barred from Gaza asidefrombrief visits with Israel’smilitary,and Israel on Sundaysaid that hadn’t changed Hamas’chief in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya,saidthe group startedsearching new areas for bodies of the remaining 13 hostages, according to commentsthe group shared Sunday. U.S. President Donald Trump warned Saturday he was“watchingveryclosely” to ensure Hamas returns more bodies in thenext 48 hours. “Some of the bodies are hard to reach,but others they can return nowand,for some reason, they are not,” he wroteonsocial media. Hamas hasrepeatedly said effortstoretrieve remains face challenges becauseof the massive destruction

An Egyptian teamwith equipment including an excavator and bulldozers entered Gaza on Saturdayas part of mediators’ efforts to shore up theceasefire, two Egyptian ofﬁcials said.

U.S.,China saytrade deal drawingcloser

Trump, Xi prep formeeting

BY CHRIS MEGERIAN, DAVID RISING and EILEEN NG Associated Press

KUALALUMPUR, Malaysia— A trade deal between the United States and China is drawing closer,ofﬁcials from the world’stwo largest economies said Sunday as they reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leaderXiJinping to aim to ﬁnalize during their high-stakes meeting. Any agreement would be arelief to international markets even if it does not address underlying issues involving manufacturing imbalances and access to stateof-the-artcomputer chips Beijing recently limited exports of rare earth elementsthatare needed for advanced technologies, and Trump responded by threatening additional tariffs on Chinese products. The prospect of awidening conflict risked weakening economic growth worldwide.

China’stop trade negotiator,LiChenggang, told reporters the two sides had reached a“preliminary consensus,” while Trump’streasury secretary,Scott Bes-

sent, said there was “a very successfulframework.” Trump also expressedconfidence that an agreement was at hand, saying the Chinese “want to make adeal andwe wanttomake adeal.”

The Republican president is setto meet with Xi on Thursday in South Korea, the ﬁnal stopofhis trip through Asia.

Bessent told CBS’“Face theNation” that thethreat of additional highertariffs on Chinawas “effectively off thetable.” In interviews on several Americannews shows, he said discussions with China yielded initial agreements to stopthe precursorchemicals forfentanyl from coming into the U.S., and that Beijing wouldmake “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural productswhile putting offexport controls on rare earths.

When asked howclose a dealwas, Trump’strade representative, Jamieson Greer, saidon“Fox News Sunday” that “it’sreally going to depend” onthe twopresidents. Meanwhile, Trumpreiterated thathe planstovisit China in the future andsuggestedthatXicould cometo Washington or Mar-a-Lago, Trump’sprivateclub in Florida.

Theprogresstoward a

Theyspoke on conditionof anonymity because they were notauthorizedtotalk to themedia.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahudefended the military’sactions after Israeli forces struck the central Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza late Saturday, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the wounded.

The military claimed it targetedmilitants associated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group who were planning to attack troops. Islamic Jihad, the second largest militantgroup in Gaza, denied theallegation.

Hamas called the strike a“clear violation” of the ceasefire agreement and

and President Donald Trumphold their documents Sunday during asigning ceremonyonthe sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia.

potential agreement came during the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in Kuala Lumpur,with Trumpseeking to burnish his reputation as an international dealmaker

Yethis way of pursuing deals has meant serious disruptions at home andabroad His import taxes have scrambled relationships with trading partners while aU.S. government shutdown has him feuding with Democrats.

At the summit, Thailand and Cambodia signed an expandedceaseﬁre agreement during aceremony attended by Trump. Histhreats of economic pressureprodded the two nations to halt skirmishes alongtheir disputed border earlier this year Thailand will release Cambodian prisoners andCambodia will beginwithdrawing

heavy artilleryaspartofthe first phase of thedeal. Regional observers will monitorthe situation to ensure ﬁghting doesn’trestart.

“Wedid something that alot of people said couldn’t be done,” Trump said. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet called it a“historic day,”and Thai Prime MinisterAnutin Charnvirakul said the agreement creates “the building blocks for alasting peace.”

Thepresident signed economic frameworks with Cambodia,Thailand and Malaysia,someofthem aimed at increasing trade involving critical minerals. TheUnitedStateswants to rely less on China, which has used limitsonexportsofkey componentsintechnology manufacturing as abargaining chip in tradetalks

accused Netanyahu of attempting to sabotageU.S efforts to end the war

“Of course, we also thwart dangers as they are being formed, before they are carriedout,aswedid just yesterday in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday Netanyahualsostressed

that Israel remained in charge of itsown security, afteraccusations last week that theTrump administration was dictating terms of Israel’sresponse to security concerns in Gaza. Vice President JD Vance denied any such speculation during his visit.

Israel also targeted Nuseirat on Oct. 19, after the militaryaccusedHamas militants of killing two soldiers. Israel that day launched dozensofstrikes across Gaza, killing at least 36 Palestinians, including women and children, according to local health authorities. It was the most serious challenge to the ceaseﬁre.

Over 68,500 Palestinians have diedintwo yearsof warsparked by theHamasledattack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry,which doesn’t distinguish between civilians andcombatants in itscount.The ministry maintains detailed casualty records thatare seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel hasdisputed them without providing its own toll.

Russia targetsKyiv with drones,killing 3and wounding 29

By The Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine Russia targeted Ukraine’scapital withdrones, killing three people in theirhomes, authorities said early Sunday At least 29 people were wounded, seven of them children, in the second consecutive nighttime attack on Kyiv to claim civilianlives. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko saida 19-year-old woman and her 46-year-old mother were among the killed. Russiandronescaused fires in two residential buildingsinthe capital’s Desnianskyi district. Emergency crewsevacuated civilians fromanine-story and a16-story building, put outﬂames andcleared the rubble.

Olha Yevhenivha,74, said therewas so much smoke from the fire that she couldn’tleave her apartment.

“Evenuntil nowour windowsare totallyblack from the smoke, and it was impossible to go down, so that’swhy we put wet blanketsonour doorsand balcony,” she said.

Ihor Motchanyi, asoc-

cer player,said he and his parents “miraculously survived” after adrone sparked ablaze inside their homethe day after his 25th birthday

“Mymother and Ileft. My father stayed behind in the apartment and wanted to takesome documents, themost importantthings. He couldn’tget out because there was afire, so he jumped down from the (third) floor” into anearby tree, Motchanyi told AP He saidhis family were planning to leave Kyiv temporarily,and stay with relatives in avillage. Russia attacked Ukraine with 101 drones overnight into Sunday, according to Ukraine’sair force, of which90were shotdown and neutralized. Five drones hit four locations and drone debris fell on five other places, the statementsaid.

Theattack came aday after aRussian missiles anddroneskilledfour people, including twoKyiv, prompting fresh pleas from Ukraine’sPresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Western air defense systems.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOByJEHAD ALSHRAFI

Palestinians watch machineryand workers from Egyptsearch for the bodies of hostages on Sunday at Hamad City, in Khan younis, southernGazaStrip.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MARK SCHIEFELBEIN

CambodianPrime Minister Hun Manet, from left, and Thailand’sPrime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul

President Trump arrives in Japan on Monday

For new prime minister, the key to connecting could be a Ford truck

BY JOSH BOAK and MARI YAMAGUCHI Associated Press

TOKYO President Donald Trump arrives Monday in Japan where new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is banking on building a friendly personal relationship with the U.S. leader to ease trade tensions.

One key to this strategy might lie in an idea ﬂoated by Japan’s government to buy a ﬂeet of Ford F-150 trucks, a meaningful gesture that may also be impractical given the narrow streets in Tokyo and other Japanese cities.

It’s an early diplomatic test for Takaichi, the ﬁrst woman to lead Japan She took office only last week, and has a tenuous coalition

backing her Trump instantly bought into the idea of Ford trucks as he ﬂew to Asia aboard Air Force One.

relationship that Trump shook up earlier this year with tariffs.

tional Studies, a Washington think tank.

Kelly took the LSU job in 2021 after he became Notre Dame’s all-time winningest coach across the 12 years he spent in South Bend Indiana. The Tigers played for the SEC championship in his ﬁrst year and produced Heisman trophy-winning quarterback Jayden Daniels in his second, but they have not come close to reaching the playoff in any of the four seasons he spent in Baton Rouge. In 2025, LSU lost its hopes of reaching the CFP across a stretch in which it lost three of four games, starting with a Sept. 27 road defeat to No. 7 Ole Miss. The Tigers’ offense collapsed down the stretch of a Week 8 road loss to No. 9 Vanderbilt, then let 28 second-half points go unanswered on Saturday against the Aggies. After the game, Kelly was asked to address his job security at LSU.

“That’s out of my hands,” Kelly said. “It’s impossible

QUESTIONS

Continued from page 1A

Heat exhaustion, dehydrated

During the last hours of Deville’s life, he seemed to be seeking help, police records show He was stopping at homes along rural Prudhomme Lane, outside of Ville Platte, asking for water and acting erratically.

When deputies with the Evangeline Parish Sheriff’s Office located him around 9:30 a.m. July 24, Deville was standing in the roadway, having walked through a neighboring bean ﬁeld.

Although initially able to identify himself, Deville allegedly was having trouble walking and began stripping off his clothes when he was found. He then laid down on the road, breathing but unresponsive.

EMS was called, and Deville was taken to a hospital, where about 40 minutes later, he was pronounced dead

In September, Travis Johnson, a forensic pathologist with Gulf Coast Forensic Solutions in Lake Charles, ruled Deville’s cause of death as environmental heat exposure and dehydration It was 88 degrees that day with a peak humidity of 97%, which increased Deville’s chance of heat exposure, according to Johnson.

While DOC ofﬁcials have not given a narrative of Deville’s release, his family believes he was mistakenly dropped off at the Greyhound bus station on Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge instead of at the group home where he was scheduled to report, which is about 7 miles from the bus depot

Based on a ticket they say was found on Deville’s body, they believe he then took a bus from Baton Rouge to Lafayette.

“She has good taste,” Trump told reporters. “That’s a hot truck.”

The two spoke over the phone while Trump was mid-flight on Saturday.

Takaichi stressed her status as a protege of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a favorite of Trump’s from his ﬁrst term, and said she praised him for brokering the Gaza ceaseﬁre that led to the return of hostages held by Hamas.

“I thought (Trump) is a very cheerful and fun person,” she said. “He well recognizes me and said he remembers me as a politician whom (former) Prime Minister Abe really cared about,” she said. “And I told the president that I extremely look forward to welcoming him in Tokyo.”

Beneath the hospitality is the search for a strategy to navigate the increasingly complex trade

for the head coach that’s been here for four years and 35 years of doing this to think anything else, but this is my responsibility, and we’ve got to get it turned around.”

Kelly also said he’d evaluate his program “from the inside out,” hinting at possible changes to his coaching staff. On the offensive side, LSU underachieved in both seasons it played under play caller Joe Sloan the former East Carolina quarterback and Louisiana Tech assistant who took over as offensive coordinator after Mike Denbrock left for the same job at Notre Dame following the 2023 season.

“That’s not my decision in terms of whether I’m here or not,” Kelly said, “but that’s what I will do as a head coach that’s been doing it for over three decades. When things are not going well from a football standpoint, the head football coach has to be agile enough and able to make those changes and ﬁnd out what we need to do to get out football team to play better.”

In Year 4, LSU’s offense

PHOTO PROVIDED By MORGAN BAyMAN Treylin Deville, a 27-yearold inmate at Elayn Hunt State Penitentiary, died on a roadside in Evangeline Parish.

Most distressing for Deville’s family is their theory that he then walked more than 40 miles from Lafayette to Ville Platte on the day of his death, trying to reach his childhood home where he lived with his family before his conviction Prudhomme Lane, where police found Deville, is less than 2 miles away from that house.

Morgan Bayman, Deville’s cousin, thinks that was his ultimate destination, but is unsure if he made it to the site before his death. Even if he had, she says, there wouldn’t have been any home to return to: That house was torn down in 2019. There, as a child, Deville rode horses and drove tractors for the family

“That was probably one of the only addresses that he could remember,” she said.

No idea of release

Deville’s family claims

DOC officials lost track of their loved one, a man they say needed to be in an institution that could help him transition into free life.

Trump wants allies to buy more American goods and also make financial commitments to build factories and energy infrastructure in the U.S.

The meetings in a Japan come ahead of Trump’s sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday in South Korea.

Both the U.S. and Japan have sought to limit China’s manufacturing ambitions, as the emergence of Chinese electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and advanced computer chips could undermine the American and Japanese economies.

“In light of the planned meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping shortly afterward, Trump may also be considering how he might strengthen his hand by demonstrating the robustness of the U.S.-Japan relationship,” said Kristi Govella, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and Interna-

Japan’s previous administration agreed in September to invest $550 billion in the U.S., which led Trump to trim a threatened 25% tariff on Japanese goods to 15%.

But Japan wants the investments to favor Japanese vendors and contractors.

Japan’s economy and trade minister, Ryosei Akazawa, has said his ministry is compiling a list of projects in computer chips and energy to try to meet the investment target.

“As far as I know, I’m hearing that there are a number of Japanese companies that are showing interest,” he told reporters Friday, though he did not give further details.

Japanese officials are looking at the possibility of buying more American soybeans, liqueﬁed natural gas and autos.

For Trump, the prospect of Ford trucks in the skyscrapered streets of Tokyo would be a win. The administration has long complained

struggled to convert third downs, score in the red zone, and complete passes downﬁeld.

Its defense under secondyear coordinator Blake Baker, never ﬁgured out how to slow down mobile quarterbacks — a persistent issue in his ﬁrst season in charge as well. Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia and Texas A&M’s Marcel Reed combined to rush for 207 yards and four touchdowns in their wins

Bayman said Deville was adopted by her aunt as a child. Bayman said she had considered herself his older sibling ever since he lost his 6-year-old sister in a boating accident.

Deville was showing symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as a young man before he was arrested, Bayman said.

She said she did her best to steer him in the right direction, but Deville fell in with a bad crowd before committing the crime that sent him to Elayn Hunt.

Bayman said the last time she saw him in person was several years ago when he was furloughed from prison to attend his father’s funeral.

Bayman said she was contacted by Deville’s social worker at Elayn Hunt about planning for his release. She said she knew Deville needed some kind of transition care, adding that no family members had room for Deville to live with them.

“He’s been locked up for 10 years,” Bayman said. “Things are different The home that he lived in is not even there. It’s just a ﬁeld.”

Bayman said she spent weeks researching facilities that could house Deville, keep him on his medications and eventually help him prepare for life as a free man.

In May, Bayman said, the social worker told her neither of the two transition facilities she had found for Deville would work. He needed to go to an outpatient group home, she was told.

Bayman says that on May 30, the social worker told her Deville would be released to a group home on Mollylea Drive in Baton Rouge.

According to her, that was the last time she heard from the social worker and the last update she received on Deville’s release status. When the Evangeline Par-

over the Tigers.

“I get it,” Kelly said. “There should be noise. You should be disappointed. I’m disappointed, but I have to really focus my time inside out the program so we can make sure this never happens again.”

LSU went 10-3 and defeated Alabama in dramatic fashion in Kelly’s debut season, raising the stakes for Year 2 with Daniels returning for his second year

ish Sheriff’s Office called her about Deville’s death, Bayman said, she wasn’t even aware he had been released.

Email clues

The DOC released emails among Elayn Hunt staff about Deville under a public records request.

On July 21, Deville’s social worker sent an email with an attached “discharge summary” for Deville to a list of other Elayn Hunt staff. The message omitted the address for the group home where Deville had been assigned.

On July 22 — the day before Deville was to be released — a manager at Elayn Hunt who works in

that American vehicles were being shut out of a market that is the home of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Isuzu, Mitsubishi and Subaru. In a September interview on CNBC, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Japan wouldn’t buy U.S.-branded vehicles because “Chevys” were popular with Japanese gangsters.

Takaichi may arrange for Ford F-150 trucks to be showcased in a place Trump gets to see them, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported. The government is considering importing the trucks for its transport ministry to use for inspecting roads and infrastructure, though there are concerns that the F-150 could cause congestion on narrow Japanese streets. A Ford spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Japanese media have reported that Toyota Motor Corp. Chairman Akio Toyoda could announce plans to import his company’s American-made cars back to Japan during a dinner with Trump and other business leaders on Wednesday.

as the starter Daniels not only matched but exceeded those expectations, winning the Heisman Trophy and becoming the No. 2 overall pick in the NFL Draft alongside ﬁrst-round wide receivers Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas.

The defense that trio of stars played with, however, failed to meet expectations. The unit surrendered over 440 yards per game against SEC competition, allowing 33 points per contest to league opponents. It gave up 45 points to Florida State, 55 to Ole Miss and 42 to Alabama in three losses.

Kelly responded by overhauling his defensive staff, replacing coordinator Matt House with Baker Corey Raymond returned to coach the LSU defensive backs, while Kevin Peoples followed Baker from Missouri to coach the Tiger edge rushers.

LSU’s defense improved marginally the next season.

Garrett Nussmeier took the reins at quarterback and guided the Tigers to a big win over No 9 Ole Miss at the halfway point of the year, but they began to

inmate transfers responded to the social worker’s email, requesting a phone conversation and questioning the absence of an address in the previous message.

“Records should be notified BEFORE an email is sent out regarding an inmate’s release,” the Elayn Hunt manager said. “We don’t even know where he’s going and we still have to process the release.”

Later that day, an employee who works in patient mental health sent the address for the group home on Mollylea Drive.

In the same email, the employee responded that it would be possible to reach out to the group home and change the transfer date, if

sputter soon after that. Two weeks later LSU embarked on a three-game losing streak that included defeats to Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida, then finished the year at 8-4. In three full seasons under Kelly, LSU defeated Purdue in the Citrus Bowl to end the 2022 season, beat Wisconsin in the ReliaQuest Bowl the next year and took down Baylor in the Texas Bowl to ﬁnish last season. Between its victory over Baylor and its win over Oklahoma in the 2024 regular season finale, Kelly made a bold prediction. Next year, he said, LSU would make it to the national championship game “We’re taking receipts,” Kelly said, “and we’ll see you at the national championship.”

Less than one year later Kelly won’t be making the trip to Miami — the site of the 2025 title game. LSU ﬁred him instead, ending a short-lived marriage with one of the nation’s most accomplished coaches.

Staff writers Koki Riley and Reed Darcey contributed to this report.

necessary Bayman says Deville’s death could have been prevented if she and her family had been properly kept aware of when, where and how he was going to be released.

“If you would have just called me and said, ‘Hey we released him,’ I would have did the legwork to ﬁnd him,” Bayman said. “I would have driven to Lafayette. I don’t care what stuff I had to pull to get to him.”

Bayman added that even if Deville wasn’t taken to the right group home, DOC employees should have told her so.

“Somebody would be there for him,” she said. “He had family.”

Trump

LEFT: An inmate hits the ground at the start of abull rideduring the Angola PrisonRodeo on Oct. 12.

RIGHT: An inmate rides ahorse bareback during the Angola PrisonRodeo.

BELOWRIGHT: Abull bashes into inmates wearing inflatable bubbles during the rodeo.

STAFF PHOTOS By

JAVIER GALLEGOS

Inmate Travis ‘Buckethead’ Johnson grabs the pokerchip tied in between abull’shorns, winningacash grand prize, in the Guts and Glory eventduring the Angola PrisonRodeo on Oct. 12.

RODEO

Continued from page1A

culture, with books, news reports and documentaries covering it. But at the rodeo’scenter is alargeeconomy,beginning with the monetary awards and winding outward to St. Francisville hotel reservationsand LittleDebbie bakery sponsorships.

‘Weget slammed’

Economic indicators flashed from the start.

On Oct. 12, awooden sign warnedthat all $20 rodeo tickets were sold out, while anearbybillboard advertised correctional officer positions starting at asalary of $45,437.

West Feliciana Parish historically depended on plantation agriculture that used slave and sharecropper labor.In1900, the U.S. Census Bureau data shows there were more than 2,300 farms and 146,000 acresof farmland; by 2022, that had declined to 95 farmsatjust under 37,000 acres.

The prison lies atop the former Angola plantation, which operateduntil the state purchased the land in the early 1900s. Today, the 18,000-acre penitentiary is the region’slargest employer,with more than 1,400 workers, with up to 750 people —employees and their families —living in atowninside the gates.

The penitentiary continues to use the land for ag-

riculture. Working at apay of up to 40centsanhour, inmatesraise cattle, some of which were exhibited at therodeo, and harvest crops, including soybeans and cotton. Statewide, prison agricultural sales generated around $3.8 million from 2023 to 2024.

In the parish seat of St. Francisville, theeconomy has shifted to tourism, with someremaining plantation houses now hotels.John Kean, the chairofthe parish tourism commission, said hotels are generally booked full for the rodeo.

The Francis Southern Tableand Bar justmarked its 10th anniversary,and event coordinator Casey Sanders said other restaurantsare closed on Sunday, so it brings in asigniﬁcant amount of business.

“Wekindofbase scheduling our workersaround Sundays in October because we know that we get slammed,” she said.

Cash only

On Oct. 12, the vehicle line rose and plunged over theloess hills before roundingthe ﬁnal curve andascending toward theprison. Amonumentbehind the gates welcomed theroughly 10,000 people entering with aquote from aformer inmate:“YouAre Entering The Land of New Beginnings.”

Inside, cash is king.Inmate bands sang gospel songs while otherssold crawﬁsh étouffée and funnelcakes. Children circled

on acarousel or played Dunk-A-Con, adunk tank withaninmate. Rodeoticket salesgointo the Inmate WelfareFund, which pays forinmaterecreationaland educational programs.

Attendees on Oct. 12 hailedfrom Denmark, Georgia andAlabama.

Joey andStacy Whitfield, of Greenwood, Mississippi, visited for the ﬁrst time and stayed at the nearby Greenwood Plantation.They said competitors’ lack of experience makes it more entertainingthan regularrodeos.

“I’ve been to a bunchofrodeos,” Joey Whitfield said.“It’s good It’sentertainment; it’s different.”

ahigh-quality product,” he said. “It really basically sells itself.”

Blue Bell andLittleDebbie

tenced to life for murder, said he’sgrown bolder over theyearsand that the competitions release tension for him.

minutes to seize it.

“I’ve been to abunch of rodeos. It’sgood. It’s entertainment; it’sdifferent.”

JOEy WHITFIELD Angola Prison Rodeo attendeefrom Greenwood, Miss.

Departmentof Corrections staff accompaniedThe Advocateduring interviews. At onepoint,when areporter asked an inmate how much he earned from hobby-craft sales, staff said money questions were offlimits.

Inmate Charles Grace, convicted of armed robbery, sells handmade grills andtables in thehobbycraft area. It’sintricate handiwork, with one metal table created to look like a spiderweb. He mentioned he had earned around $5,000 that day,before the prison deductedtaxes and fees.

“I’ve been out here10 years, and Itry to make just

Since ticket sales fund inmate programming, sponsors fromTractor Supply to the Louisiana Lottery payfor therodeo itself. Cornerstone Inc., aprisonequipment contractor; Gerry LaneEnterprises; and West Feliciana Hospital paid for the PremiumElitetier. The Francis restaurant was aVIP sponsor; United Equipment Rentals was Elitetier The cr owd packed into the in mat e-b ui lt arena. Eventsadvanced in quick succession. Bust Out, sponsored by Little Debbiebakery, opened the competition.BlueBellIce Cream sponsoredWild Cow Milking, whereteams of three battled to be the ﬁrst to squeezemilk intoaBlue Bell cup.

During bareback riding, oneinmate hit the ground and lay motionless. Prison medical personnel stationed nearby rushed over; afterafew minutes, theman wasplacedona stretcherand carried out Inmates are outﬁttedwith ahelmet and padding. All those whospoke praised theevent, although some admitted they felt scared during the competitions. Christopher Bounds, sen-

“I look forward to it.Not only the money,but just the competition,”hesaid. “Being able to really just release the energy you have in you.”

The bull riding event, sponsored by Bunny Enriched Bread with prizes from local sheriffs, mixed up the only-inmate competitions.

“Wehave whatwecall ‘free bullriders’ here. We’ve got three guys that are not incarcerated here at Angola State Penitentiary,” theannouncer explained. “They’re going to be apart of the bull riding against our inmates here.”

An inmate perched on the 2,000-pound animal, waiting to be released. “Black Betty”byRam Jam —a 1977 coverofanAfrican American prison work song famously sung by Lead Belly, whowas once imprisoned at Angola —blasted from loudspeakers. The mostly White crowd stomped and clapped and shrieked, aswelling roar.The gate opened.

Guts,Glory and$500

For inmates, sometimes it pays to be wild. Five hundred dollars, to be exact. It’s time forthe ﬁnal event —“Guts and Glory,” sponsored by M&L Industries. Fifty inmates spread across the dirt while ared chip is tied between the horns of abull. The men have three

“The ﬁrst inmate to grab thatchip is going to win $500 here this afternoon,” the announcer explained. “That might as well be $5,000 here at Angola.” The charging bull is loosed upon the prisoners. Most jumponto the arena fence, avoiding confrontation. Oneman moves toward the beast. It slams him into the dirt as he struggles for the $500. It drives over him. Others try to snatch the prize and hit similar fates. Thirtyseconds remain. The animal backs into acorner Some inmates scoot on their butts, angling to getlow and close. The crowd tenses, urgent and expectant. The beastlaunchesatmultidecaderodeo veteran Buckethead, the nickname of TravisJohnson.He’srammed beneath its hulking mass, reaching forthe chip. His hand clasps it and pulls. The crowd roars, thousands stomping, standing, howlingand cheering. Buckethead rises, raising his fist and clutching the chip. Asmile bursts across his face.

The rodeo is over until the following Sunday.Everyone shuffles out, some going homeand some, like the Whitfields,driving to nearby lodging. In the arena, the inmates wait to be taken back to their cells. Email Christopher Cartwright at christopher cartwright@theadvocate. com.

ST. JAMES PARISH

High court questions ruling over unlawful land use

Decision allowed $185M expansion at Koch plant

BY DAVID J MITCHELL

Staff writer

The Louisiana Supreme Court has agreed to take a look at an appellate court ruling that found St James Parish didn’t follow its own land-use rules when it backed a $185 million expansion of Koch Methanol in 2023. In a 3-2 vote in May the Louisiana 5th Circuit Court of Appeal found St James ofﬁcials failed to apply the highest level of scrutiny called for in their ordinances associated with Koch Methanol’s plans overturning a lower court ruling that had blessed the land-use decision.

Mount Triumph Baptist Church, parish resident Beverly Alexander, and environmental groups Rise St. James and Inclusive Louisiana had previously challenged the land-use decision in state court, triggering the appellate litigation. The Environmental Law Clinic at Tulane and the Center for Constitutional Rights represent the plaintiffs.

The Koch expansion is expected to raise methanol production by 25% but will also increase annual air emissions by 50% or more in an area that federal data had shown led the state and nation in the burden residents bear from toxic air emissions and lifetime cancer risk from air pollution.

Despite the litigation, parts of the expansion have already been built and the plant is operating, company ofﬁcials have said.

After the Louisiana 5th Circuit ruling, Koch and St. James Parish both ﬁled writs with the state Supreme Court.

The high court notiﬁed them on Wednesday that it had accepted the appeals. Briefs are due later this fall, followed by oral arguments at a later date, according to court notices.

Victor J. Franckiewicz Jr., a parish attorney, said Friday the parish welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision and “looks forward to presenting” our case.

A spokesperson for Koch Methanol added the case “has signiﬁcant implications not just for St. James Parish, but for the economic growth and development of the entire state.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Friday

The state Supreme Court’s notice came two days after the U.S Supreme Court declined to take up the parish government’s appeal of a federal appellate ruling over a separate lawsuit accusing St. James of a historic pattern of discriminatory decision-making involving industrial plant sites.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision means that federal case can go forward in U.S. District Court in New Orleans after the suit had been dismissed initially on procedural grounds.

Mount Triumph Baptist Church and the environmental and legal aid groups that are on the plaintiffs’ side in the suit over Koch are also the plaintiffs in the federal case. In the Koch case in state court, a St. James Parish judge already had court proceedings and ruled for the parish and Koch.

The appellate ruling overturned the lower court, finding the parish made “arbitrary and capricious” decisions that allowed a 1,000-foot section of a new ethane pipeline connection for the plant to go through wetlands and resulted in inadequate analysis of the overall project’s benefits and costs. The parish argued it acted appropriately and that the appeals court had overstepped its bounds by finding new requirements in the law

The plaintiffs argued the parish didn’t follow its own rules in reviewing Koch.

METRO

State advocates seek to block EPA Environmental groups sue to

stop pollution rule

delays

BY JOSIE ABUGOV Staff writer

Louisiana environmental groups have sued President Donald Trump and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after the administration gave industrial facilities a reprieve from following an emissions reduction rule, arguing that the exemptions endanger the health of people living near chemical facilities and give the industry “a free pass to continue to pollute.”

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, responds to a July proclamation that gave 50 chemical manufacturers nationwide a two-year delay to comply with a 2024 rule

aimed at curbing pollution and cutting cancer risks.

The exemptions include 12 companies in Louisiana operating in the industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, and the Lake Charles area. Local advocacy organizations RISE St. James, Concerned Citizens of St. John and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and other groups are asking the court to declare Trump’s exemptions unlawful and stop the EPA from implementing them.

The groups are represented by the environmental law firm Earthjustice. Community groups in Texas and national environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club, were other plaintiffs

in the case. “We think this is an unlawful, unprecedented use of power to give industry more time to delay while EPA tries to roll back these really important protections for people’s health,” said Adam Kron, senior attorney with Earthjustice.

A spokesperson for the EPA said the agency does not comment on any current or pending litigation.

David Cresson, CEO of the Louisiana Chemical Association industry group, said the Trump administration’s exemptions enabled facilities to continue operation without shutting down or disrupting supply chains. Without these delays, the current regulations “do not provide a realistic timeline” for meeting the new standards.

Trump’s proclamation this summer cites concerns over cost, national security impacts and technological availability for chemical companies to follow the EPA’s Hazardous Organic National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants, known as the HON Rule. The exemptions delay compliance beyond the original 2026 and 2027 deadlines, the lawsuit notes.

“The HON Rule imposes substantial burdens on chemical manufacturers already operating under stringent regulations,” the proclamation states.

Industry groups similarly opposed the rule as too expensive and unsupported by science. Trump’s proclamation granted

‘Positive light’

Math instructor is the new face of Ochsner’s anti-cancer campaign

BY ASHLEY WHITE Staff writer

As an educator, Nicole Disotell never wanted to miss school. It was hard to ﬁnd time to go to the doctor

Her supervisor urged her and her colleagues to go. At 45, Disotell had her ﬁrst mammogram and soon after, in July 2024, she was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer

Disotell’s road to being cancer-free has been ﬁlled with “potholes,” but it has made her stronger

“It made me love my job more, love my family more,” she said, “and just appreciate things more.”

Throughout her treatment, Disotell has remained a “positive light,” said Dr Shaunda Grisby, Disotell’s breast surgical oncologist at Ochsner Lafayette General. It’s why Grisby nominated Disotell to be the face of Ochsner’s Breast Cancer Awareness campaign.

“I’m proud of what she’s done, and what she’s accomplished through her diagnosis and the spirit that she embodies going through it,” Grisby said.

Disotell originally wanted to be a doctor but changed her major after teaching a math class in high school She’s been a math educator for more than 20 years and spent most of that time teaching on the West Bank of New Orleans.

When Disotell, her husband and their three daughters moved to Lafayette in 2015, it was a challenge. She embraced the change, using it as a catalyst to try something different with her teaching style while at Paul Breaux Middle School.

“I dressed up. I acted like a chef and gave them problems like that. I would stand on chairs and teach them,” she said. “We did a lot of things, but we learned math.”

After three years at Paul Breaux, Disotell applied for her dream job as an

WESTBROOK

Nicole Disotell, a math instructional leader with the Lafayette Parish School System, was diagnosed when she was 45 with Stage II breast cancer

instructional math coach with the Lafayette Parish School System. The new job allows her to work with math teachers and students across multiple schools.

Every day looks a little different for Disotell, but it all boils down to ensuring teachers have what they need to effectively work with students. That can range from pulling and analyzing student data, modeling how to teach different math lessons, to ensuring teachers understand what standards need to be explained.

Disotell said the team she works with at the district is tight-knit and supportive. She was in the ofﬁce when she got the results of her breast biopsy Her colleague was right beside her, taking notes and asking questions when Disotell couldn’t.

The hardest part Disotell said, was telling her three daughters about her diagnosis.

Disotell has undergone chemotherapy, radiation and had a double mastectomy in December She received the call from

Grisby on Dec. 26 that she was cancerfree.

“It’s always exciting to be able to call a patient and tell them that their cancer is all gone,” Grisby said. “Because all the work they did, all the things they went through, all the good days and the bad days are wrapped up into one statement — ‘gone.’”

Disotell’s last chemotherapy treatment is scheduled for Thursday That’s when she’ll be able to ring the bell. She expects her reconstruction surgery will take place in February

While receiving treatment, Disotell and her family also had to navigate personal losses She felt herself “getting into a not-so-bright place” and relied on the school system employee assistance program to receive mental health counseling.

Throughout her treatment, she’s been surrounded by family, friends and coworkers who have uplifted her They’ve

ä See FACE, page 4B

Carter-backed candidates fell short in elections

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter acknowledges that three key members of his Algiers-based political organization didn’t perform well on election night in New Orleans two weeks ago. Two of them lost badly as they sought more powerful positions, and the third, an incumbent, was forced into a runoff against a newcomer

But Carter dismisses any suggestion that the results say anything about his political inﬂuence at home or his political strength ahead of next year’s midterms, when he might face a rocky road to reelection if the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates Louisiana’s congressional map.

NEW ORLEANS

“In this town, where there’s always an election, you pick people that you think are the best for the job at the time,” Carter said.

“Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But when the race is over, you move on.”

State Rep. Delisha Boyd lost her race to be an at-large city council member, and Edwin Shorty, constable for the 2nd City Court in Algiers, failed in his bid to become the sheriff. Darren Lombard the clerk of criminal district court, finished second in the primary and faces a tough battle to keep his seat in the runoff election on Nov 15.

Carter cut digital ads for all three of his candidates and cam-

paigned in person for each one.

“His organization did not do well in this election,” said Robert Collins, a political analyst who is a professor at Dillard University

Carter admitted that his candidates fell short of expectations in the Oct. 13 primary

“No doubt about it,” he said. “I have three very dear friends who had a bad night. But I’m loyal to a fault, and I stand with my friends. I had several good friends who had good nights, and I stand with them as well. But I don’t throw my friends away when they have bad nights. My loyalty means something.”

Carter also endorsed Helena Moreno, who was elected mayor, and JP Morrell, who was reelected as a city council at-large member Carter’s record in the election

“was mixed,” said veteran pollster Ron Faucheux, who served as a state representative for eight years and ﬁnished second in the 1982 mayor’s race “He had those two losses, but he did support the winning candidate for mayor And that may be more important than the other races.”

Moreno aired a TV commercial where Carter told viewers, “I’ve seen her ﬁght every day to make our community better for everyone.”

Carter noted that his political group — called the Alliance for Public Action and Change backed two other candidates who won outright on Oct. 13 (assessor Errol Williams and council member Freddie King III), while two

STAFF PHOTO By LESLIE

Examinethe real costsof theMeta deal in Richland Parish

An article by StephanieRiegel —“Tiny Louisiana parish becomes AI boomtown as Meta builds $10B data center” —was published on Aug. 20 in thenewspaper and discusses the project’s economic impacts on Richland Parish.

The piece fails to adequately addressthe potential consequences of this drastic andlikely temporary economic investment into acommunity that is already struggling. Richland Parish hasa lower educational attainment average and employment ratethan Louisiana as awhole. These factors likely contribute to thepoverty rate of 23.5%—higher than Louisiana’saverage by nearly ﬁve percentage points.

The Meta data center is not a sound investment. It is the result of areckless deal meant to appeal to corporate interests instead of creating sustainable wealth that would support Richland Parish residents.

The prospect of 5,000 new jobs becauseofthis project seems promising in aparish of just 20,000. However,Meta has not guaranteed that they willemploy locals, and only 500 jobs are expected to be permanent.

When thefacilityiscomplete and 5,000 workers leave Richland Parish, they will also take with them the business that they have provided —these brand-new RV lots, hotels, gyms and restaurants. Fivehundred employees will not be enough to sustain anewly built economy that was designed to meet the needs of aworking population 10 times as large.

This project has costs. Those costs willnot be borne by Meta, but by the residents of Richland Parish, who will be left withjunk real estate and higher energy prices

Those are not factors that encourage growth and development —infact, they encourage outmigrationand disinvestment. The newspaper should not turn away from holding Gov. JeffLandry’s administration accountable for signing off on this deal that could do further damage to an already vulnerable Louisiana parish MARIONCANDLER student, Tulane University

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR

AREWELCOME.HEREARE

YOUR VIEWS

Many questionsunansweredin proposed Toledo Bend watersale

In aguest column,H.N. Goodeaux II, chairman of the Sabine River Authorityof Louisiana,stated the proposed sale is only reallocating 5% of water that’sused for hydropower.Hedoesn’tsay this reallocation is for aTexas entity.Texas water studies show that alternative water sources are needed. A2022 legislative audit included several mattersfor legislative consideration, including arecommendation relevant to the developmentofacomprehensive water resource management plan and theregulation of surface water Louisiana has yet to conduct acomprehensive water study to project water needed for growth, alternatives to depleting aquifers supplying municipalities and agriculture, amongother things, over theproposed sale term. The Sabine River Authority of Louisiana was created to manage the water resource for Louisiana, not Texas. Goodeauxstates that just as hydropower water usage is managed to maintain lake levels, any water sale would follow safeguards. What is not said is current FERC licensing

safeguards to operate the hydropower facilitymay cease when hydropower ceases.

Correspondence between theauthority’s board and potential purchaser reveals water supplied to Texas is not obligated to maintain those safeguards, and aconstant supply of water will need to be assured, no matter the lake level.

The 99-year proposed sale starts at 200,000 acre-feet of water annually,escalating to 800,000 over 20 years. Separately,Texas has ﬁled permitsthat allow about1million acrefeet of water withdrawal. The opposition is concerned by theabsence of acomprehensive Louisianawater study over the projected 99 years. This is not fear,but facts.

The opposition is not merely about lake levels, ﬁshing tournaments and the direct correlation to property values. It is about preserving water toreplace Louisiana aquifers at risk from rapid depletion and attracting business and growth to improve the quality of life for the region.

MARK KYLE Many

Basicscience researchatuniversities should benefiteveryone, notjustindustry

Theradical dismantling of governmentfunded basic research will acceleratethe deterioration of universities’ beneﬁcent implementation of thescientiﬁc method —the greatest accomplishment of Western civilization. Since World WarII, universities have been thego-to source of innovation thatwas unhinderedbyintellectual property management. Youneed it, and it’salready yours because thepublic paid for it

faculty choices of research topics. Would studying this help everyone, or would studying this other thing lead to patentable tech?

Somewould argue that protection of intellectual property is necessary forits commercialization because competition will be too ﬁerce in thedevelopment phase. This argument was easier to accept when universitytech was developed through patents and licenses.

Column

about Republicans’ role in shutdown

Even if one disagreed with Quin Hillyer,itwas impossible not to respect his intelligence, thoughtfulness and intellectual honesty.The important wordinthat ﬁrst sentence is “was.” His column, “The Democrats absolutely are to blame forshutdown,” destroyed any respect Ihad forhis objectivity In March, ahandful of Democrats voted foracontinuing resolution, hoping that it would avoid apending shutdownand give Congress timetoamendabill that would otherwise be disastrous to millions of poorer Americans —changes that had approval of three-quarters of the public, including amajority of MAGAsupporters.

Instead, the Republicans used the timetoshoot downevery Democrat suggestion, and the administration froze billions of dollars in Congressionally-appropriated federal spending, shuttered several executive agencies, deployed military troops to major U.S. cities, weaponized the Justice Department against its critics, bullied law ﬁrms and universities and terriﬁed neighborhoods with masked, U.S. Immigration and CustomsEnforcement kidnappers acting without apparent controls.

Hillyer’smost unfortunate and misleading statement was, “This, though, is where Speaker Johnson’s consistent message has been right on target, and where Republicans in general have been on the side of angels.” Unless he meantthe fallen angels, Idonot understand. Speaker Mike Johnson’sresponse has been either early or prolonged recesses, and the administration canceled its originally scheduled meetings with the four Congressional leaders and then rescheduled a meeting at atimetoo late to do anything substantial. As soon as that meeting wasover,the White House released an AI-generated lampooning of the House Minority Leader with amustache and sombrero, thus proving it had not come to the meeting to dialogue in good faith.

Nowhere have Democrats shown any desire to extend government health care to undocumented aliens. It seemstomethat it’sthe Republicans acting in bad faith.

KEVIN CALAHAN Kenner

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 recentdecades, science has become increasingly hamstrung by theencroachment of industry into university income streams. The Trumpadministration’sdrastic reduction of government grantswill makethis worse by forcing universities to rely more on technologylicensing, start-up income and jointventures with industry.Asuniversities rush to enhance these activities, they encourageentrepreneurship by providing space, funding and administrativesupport,and by rewarding faculty with advancement and relief from their traditional duties. Faculty already experience the tension of withholding discoveriesfor the protection of intellectual propertyversus publishing discoveries for the beneﬁtofeveryone. Intellectual property culture inﬂuences

Nowadays, an almost equally common path is through astart-upenterprise, often with direct investmentbythe university.These activities encourage the proﬁt motive at the expense of public welfare and stretch the capacity of research oversight mechanisms to protect the reliabilityand reputation of science. Whereas the Trumpadministration is tearing down basic science research, it should build up basic science research that beneﬁtsall people and stimulates nonacademic entrepreneurs to invest in product development,rather than force universities to distract themselves with product development.

SAMUEL J. LANDRY DepartmentofBiochemistryand Molecular Biology, Tulane University

Maybethisyear’sstormsdidn’tget thenew Gulf map

Here it is October,and we Louisianans have been fortunateand blessed not to seea hurricanethis year Iwonder,and do you think,it’sbecause they can’tﬁnd theGulf of Mexico? I’mjust saying.

CAROLYNROUSSEAU Slidell

Don’tpunish schoolsfor truancyissues

The article on student absenteeism in public schools in arecent edition mademerealize that one important component of the problem seemstobemissing —that of parental responsibility.Itisthe parents of school-age children who are responsible forseeing that their children get up in the morning, have breakfast and get to school on time. If the family is eligible fora breakfast program,then the mother and/or father need to see that their children arrive on time. Truancy programsshould focus on including the parents in any plans. In actuality,schools have no control over whether astudent attends classes, so the school system should not be punished by having funds cut for truancy

GEORGIABRYANT NewOrleans

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID J. MITCHELL

191, which rims

WINNER: Marshall Schwartz, NewOrleans

WHO-DAT CANDY

Wow! We received arecord-breaking 1,186 entries in this week’sCartoon Caption Contest.That’s themost since this contest beganbackin2014.There’sobviously alot of frustration with the way this season hasdeveloped, but your Who Dat sense of humor has remained Super Bowl quality Theseentries arrived before Sunday’s Bucs game —but winorlose, the hope for better days is palpable in your punchlines.Well played, everyone!Asalways, when we have duplicate entries, andwealways do, we pick theearliestsent in. Greatjob! —Walt

ROBERT KOHN, RIVER RIDGE: “Frightfully unsatisfying!”

CAROLYN MCCARTY,SLIDELL: “Ifthrown will be intercepted!”

STUART CLARK, LAFAYETTE: “you can’t be booing if youkeep on chewing.”

MARIANO HINOJOSA, BATONROUGE: “Free Saints tickets inside.

BROTHER PAUL MONTERO,S.C., BATON ROUGE: “Wrapper expands to large brown bag.”

BARRI BRONSTON, METAIRIE: “Mounds of Mistakes.

RICHARD ROBBINS,NEW ORLEANS: “Once youtry,ityou’ll demand your quarterback.”

LISA WINNINGKOFF,METAIRIE: “May cause upset stomach, anxiety,and depression.”

MARYPERRAULTWILLIAMS,BATON ROUGE: “FizzleSticks.”

Toronto’sBlueJaysare Canada’s team COMMENTARY

Americans’ pockets holddigital devices delivering oceansofinformation anddistractions.But another technology that dramatically shaped thenation’s life,and hadrevolutionary consequences abroad,was aditch. Raise aglass as the200th birthdayofthe Erie Canalwas celebrated on Sunday.

LAURENGACHASSIN, NEWORLEANS: “Fuelfor fans still saying,‘We gotnext week!’ ”

DAVIA MORGAN,PONCHATOULA: “Guaranteed to slip through your fingers!”

JUDI GUTH, NEWORLEANS: “Sticks in your craw, not on your teeth!!”

DEVENDRA ALGU,GRETNA: “Warning: Hard to swallow.

RALPH STEPHENS,BATON ROUGE: “Always leavesyou wanting more.

GREGJOHNSON, JEFFERSON: “The candythat always tastes better next year!”

JEFFHARTZHEIM, FUQUAY-VARINA, N.C.: “Comes in five pieces since four quarters just ain’tenough!”

RORY STEEN, DENVER, CO: “Because heartbreak tastes better with caramel.”

KEITH SAGONA, FORDOCHE: “Full of SourPatches, Not ManySnickers, &Too

ManyButterfingers.”

ALAN SEICSHNAYDRE, METAIRIE: “I’m still ‘nuts’ about the Saints.”

RICHARD MILLER, BATONROUGE: “Sometimesyou feel likeachamp, most times youdon’t.”

JOHN CARLIN,MADISONVILLE: “Contents maycontainfalse hope.”

CINDY HARTZHEIM, FUQUAY-VARINA, N.C.: “Firstin flavor… last in the NFC South!”

MICHAEL B. RIEMER, JEFFERSON: “It’ll fill your tummy and break your heart!

JERRYDAVIS,CHICAGO: “So good you’ll forget about the losing.”

CHARLES SMITH, ST.ROSE: “Snap, crackle and flop.”

H.W.VANHORN, III, NEWORLEANS: “Potential chokinghazard.”

LAUREN GAUTHIER, KENNER: “It makes Kellen want Moore.”

MONTREAL Don’t think of them as Toronto’steam. Think of them insteadas Canada’steam. Suddenly the Toronto BlueJays, underdogs in the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, have an entire country behind them. The Dallas Cowboys may have adapted acolorful asideduring their 1978 highlights ﬁlm and made “America’s Team” their motto, but theynever were embraced nationally the way the Blue Jays are now.Besides, the Jays are Canada’s only major league baseball team.

But what really matters in the2025 World Series is that, like February’s4 Nation Face Off hockey tournament, simmeringgrievances against theUnited States and President Donald Trump have transformed asportingevent into acultural clash that’s part of amassive surge in Canadian nationalism. Now the Blue Jays are, in the words of Edward Rogers, executivechair of team owners Rogers Communications, “aninspiration for 41 million people in Canada from coasttocoast.” Trump is the bête noireofCanadian life, perhaps more prominent in daily conversation here than even in his own country.He’sthreatened steep tariffs on Canada. He’sattacked thecountry’s sovereignty by suggestingitshould be the 51st state. He denigrated former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as“Governor Trudeau.” The very fact that the Conservative leader Pierre Poilevre had asurfacesimilarity to Trumpassured that the Liberal Mark Carney would be elected prime minister in March’sfederal election Now all those tensions are focused on the World Series, which theBlueJays

won in 1992 and 1993. In truth, Trumphas prompted amajor transformation in therelations of the two countries, in effect all but severing theties that John F. Kennedy celebrated in a1961 address to the Canadian Parliament and that every Canadian politician andcommentator seems to know by heart:“Geographyhas made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics hasmade us partners. And necessity has madeusallies.”

No longer,apparently —afact of contemporary life that Canadians mourn, so much so that those draping themselves in Canadiana after theBlue Jays’ victory in the American League Championship don’thave to be Canadians at all.

ListentoGeorge Springer,whose seventh-inning homerun put theJays ahead in theseventh gameofthe American League championship game: “I’m just so happy for everybody here —our fans, our city,our country,” he said. He is from New Britain, Conn., and is married to an American softball star from Kingston,N.Y

Or to manager John Schneider,who spoke of how Canadians “have this team to grasp onto.”Hewas born in Princeton, N.J., and attended theUniversity of Delaware. Now he drinks TimHortons coffee every morning.

All but a handful of theJays are Americans. The team’sstar,Vladimir Guerrero Jr., was born in Montreal, when his father,Vladimir Sr., played for the Montreal Expos, ateam that broke the city’sheart when it committed the unforgivable sin of becoming theWashington Nationals in 2005.

So many Canadians are American even Quebec francophones who regard Toronto with the contempt Bostonians reserve for New York.

“People who care about baseball here

in Quebec are deﬁnitely behind the Jays against an American team,” said Daniel Beland,director of the McGill Institute for theStudy of Canada. “Winning might be good for national pride but this World Series also underlines how closely the two countries’ geography and cultures are intertwined.”

Even that contributes to the current passion for theJays.

Canadians have long resented how writers, artists and musicians havefelt theneed to win cultural appropriation in the United States, withactors ﬂocking to Hollywood, amere 5miles from Dodger Stadium. Just as Canadian writers such as Mordecai Richler (who wrote for The New Yorker) and Leonard Cohen (who wrote asong called “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” inspired by his romance there with Janis Joplin), swarmed to New York, Canadians such as Raymond Burr,Glenn Ford Walter Huston, Raymond Massey,Jay Silverheels and Jack Warner ﬂed to Hollywood. One of them:Mary Pickford, known, pointedly,as“America’sSweetheart.” She was born in Toronto.

Another ﬂashpoint for Canadians: Los Angeles for manyyears was the home of hockey star Wayne Gretzky,revered in Canada until it becameknown he had consorted withTrumpand was photographed wearing aMAGA hat Kyle Wyatt, aNebraskan transplanted to Torontowho is theeditor of the Literary Review of Canada, believes there are three certainties growing out of this best-of-seven series: “Toronto won’tbe invited to celebrate in Trump’sWhite House. Canada won’tcare. Andthe MAGA faithful won’tbeable to stomach that we’re the‘American’League champions.”

Email David Shribman at dshribman@ post-gazette.com.

Its363 miles —the longest previous U.S. canal extended 27 miles —were dugbyhuman muscleinthe serviceofimprovised cleverness. Improvised because America hadfew engineers to create 18 aqueducts, and 83 locks, “to overcome changes in elevation totaling 675 feet.” So writes DanielWalkerHowe in “WhatHath God Wrought:The Transformation of America, 1815-1848” in theOxford History of theUnited States. Howenotes that thecanal,“oneofthe most importantachievements of national economic integration,” was wrought —two yearsahead of schedule andunderbudget— notbythe national government, but by onestate, which the canal would transform into theEmpire State. Work beganonJuly Fourth,1817. Thatyear,the NewYork Stock Exchange’s forerunner was founded. The canal “exempliﬁed a‘secondcreation’byhuman ingenuity perfecting theoriginaldivine creation andcarryingout itspotential forhumanbetterment.”

Soon it wascarryingtwice thevalue of goods ﬂoating down theMississippi to NewOrleans. Horses or mules that could pull awagon weighing two tons could, walkingonthe canal’s towpath,pulla bargeweighing 50 tons.

From Buffalo to Albany,where it met the Hudson River, thecanal,40feet wide and4 feet deep,carried trafﬁcat4mph.But it radically accelerated social change, discomﬁting some alongits route. Thesudden disorienting growth of cities— e.g Rochester,Syracuse, Utica stirred religious intensity in what was calleda “burned-over” region.

Many NewEngland farmswere amongthe economic, cultural and emotional casualtiesof thedynamismunleashed by theErieCanal’s contribution to globalization. Americanswere, however,asHowe says, “a mobile andventuresomepeople, empowered by literacy andtechnological proﬁciency,” welcoming dynamism. Headlines announced thearrivalofLong Island oysters in Batavia,atown in western NewYork.By1850, theprice of awallclock had plunged from $60 to $3. Howe: Largelybecause of lowertransportation costs, “changes from the rustic to the commercial thathad taken centuries to unfoldinWestern civilization were telescoped intoageneration in westernNew York state.” By lessening thecommercial andpolitical isolation of prairiefarmers, thecanal helpedto populate theprairies by connecting them with Eastern markets. Andbylinking Americans living west of theAppalachianMountains to the Hudson River, it created New York City as a ﬁnancial center.One dayin1824, Howewrites, there were324 ships in NewYork harbor. One dayin1836, there were 1,241. Through thecity’s port, America exported grainand revolution. In 1986, New York’s U.S. Sen. DanielPatrick Moynihan, speaking in Buffalo,speculated that America’s19th-century tsunami of immigration was“in considerable proportion”aresult of “the huge wave of agricultural exports that began to reach Europeoncethe railroads reached our Middle West.” Moynihancited ahistorian’scalculation that at least athird of amillionEuropean farms “in alongarc from England andDenmarkthrough PrussiaonintoRussia” were shut down by competition from theAmerican prairies. Wheat acreageinEngland alonewas reduced 40% between 1869 and1887. The historian wrote: “The smallcapitalistfarmers of NorthAmerica hacked away at the economicbase of theruling landedclasses in Europemore destructively than allthe revolutionaries on thecontinent.” To markthe canal’s opening, akeg of Lake Erie water was dumped intoNew York’sharbor— the“wedding of thewaters.” The 100,000 —halfthe city’s population —who celebrated exceeded allprior American gatherings. As Howesays, theErieCanal demonstrated “what could be done by an involvedgovernment.” The example is still pertinent.

Railroads soon eclipsed theimportance of canals, but before they did, in 1849, theU.S.government granted patentNo. 6469 foraninventionthatfacilitatedthe passageofcanal trafﬁc “over bars, or through shallowwater.” The inventorwas aformer one-term congressman from Sangamon County,Illinois,who promoted canalsfor developing central Illinois. Abraham Lincolncould nothave anticipated theimportance of theErieCanal supplanting much Mississippi Rivercommercial trafﬁcand stimulatingthe Midwest’spopulation growth. This changedthe primary axis of U.S. commerce from North-SouthtoWest-East,fueling Northern economicdynamism, withconsequences seen at Appomattox. Someditch Email George Will at georgewill@washpost. com.

David Shribman

George Will

Nonprofitwants to expand arts educationinNew Orleans

BY MARIE FAZIO Staff writer

On arecent afternoon at the International Schoolof Louisiana, ﬁrst grade teacher Carolina Salgado pointedto aboot-shaped map of Louisiana, quizzing her Spanishimmersion students on the cardinaldirections and the names of neighboring states. Then, artist Paul Malbrough Jr.took over.After directing the class to draw compasses on their state maps, he and thestudents brainstormed symbols to use: an alligator, pelican or beads forNew Orleans; ared stick for Baton Rouge; ablue squiggle for the Mississippi River Malbrough is one of about adozen trained artists embedded in New Orleans-area schools through KID smART, alocal nonproﬁt that works to expand arts educationand connect students to the city’s vibrantcreativecommunity and traditions.

The “artists in residence” helpweave artintoother classes like math, social studies andscience. Students might dance through the water cycle, craft rhythms based on historical documents or draw comics about historical events. Educators say this approach, known as “arts integration,” boosts studentlearning and combats thepressure some schools face to focus mainly on preparing students for standardized tests.

Now KID smART, which has operated in New Orleans for more than 25 years,is poised to bring the arts to more students.

The group recently broke ground on anew space in the 7th Ward that willinclude training facilities, six stateof-the-art classrooms and a large performance venue. The goal is to more than double the number of students reachedeveryyear through artist residencies, teacher training and after-school and summer programs. Their mission has grown in importance as schools grapple withfundinguncertainty amid federal cuts and declining local revenues, said KID smARTexecutive director Elise Gallinot Goldman. When schools are faced with shrinking budgets, the arts are often among theﬁrst to go,she said.

“Wejust want to make sure that the arts and arts education are equitable, accessible and easily available to our community,” she said ata

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satwith herthrough chemo treatments, supported her when she shaved her head or encouraged her to take a break at workand not push herself too hard.

That network is part of what helped Disotell get throughher diagnosisand treatment.

“I’m just as strong as the people around me,” she said. “My kids could even tell the difference and the change. They would say,‘Mom, you’ve always shown your love, but now it’seven bigger.’”

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the two-year exemptions to Shell, BASF,Dow,Union Carbide, Denka, Sasol, Westlake and other companies in the state.

Cresson, whose organization represents some of the state’slargest petrochemical companies, saidthat there are not enough contractors or equipment available to meet the HON Rule’s requirements without the exemptions.

“This, in turn, safeguards local jobs and supports our state’seconomic future,”he said of the exemptions

Last year,environmental advocates hailed the new rule as amajor step in improving air quality for mi-

groundbreaking event last month

TwoNew Orleans artists, Campbell Hutchinson and Allison Stewart,founded KID smARTin 1999 to combat diminishingartseducation in public schools

The problem grew worse after Hurricane Katrina, when theschool system converted to charter schools that couldbeshutdown dueto low test scores. A2020 study concluded that New Orleans schools de-emphasized arts educationasthey faced pressuretoreach academic benchmarks. New Orleans students in grades K-8are enrolled in arts and enrichment classesatlower rates thantheir peers in similar districts, though high schoolersare enrolledatcomparable rates, according to the studybyTulane’s Education Research Alliance.

Arts offerings and emphasis vary widely across New Orleanscharterschools, whichhavediscretionover their curriculum. Overall, 1in 4city students lacked access to high-qualityartseducation, accordingto the study.

KID smARTaims to close that gap,saidGallinotGoldman.

“Schoolsstill have to live and die by test scores inmany ways,”she said. “But schools are understanding thata wellroundededucationneeds to include the arts.”

Arts integration,whichis meant to supplement,not replace traditional artsclasses, is less about teaching studentstechnical skills than about helping them become compassionate, creativeand effective communicators, GallinotGoldman said. Research has shown that the arts promote social-emotional learning, helping students develop skills such as conﬂict resolution and managing

She’salsoleaned intothe laughs, making fun of her cancer so “itknows that it hasnopowerover me.”

Disotell’s abilityto laughat her cancer and keep apositiveattitude eventhrough the low points is why Grisby saidshe nominated Disotell to be the face of Ochsner’s Breast Cancer Awareness campaign.

Grisby hopes Disotell’s story willreach peoplewho arescaredofpreventive treatment becauseofwhatit might reveal orwho need to hearthatcancer doesn’thave to be scary

“She can be an inspiration to alot of women,a lot of people,a lot of families that are going through abreastcan-

norityand poor communities that often bear thebrunt of industrial pollution

Therule required over 200chemical manufacturersaround the country to update operational practices, implement fence-line monitoring and repair their facilities, among other mandates. It put aspecialfocus on reducingemissionsof ethylene oxide and chloroprene, two chemicals linked to cancer

TheEPA said it willreduce by 96% the number of people with increased cancer risks related to air toxics in communities within 6miles of largeplants.

“Wereally can’twait,” said Shamell Lavigne, chief operating officer of RISE St.James. “Wehave family members in all of theparishes throughout Cancer

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othersare advancing to runoff electionsnextmonth. They are Holly Friedman for District A(which includes Uptown and Lakeview) and Jason Hughes for District E(whichincludes New OrleansEast).

Atough night

But political insiders say the races thatmattered mosttohim involved Boyd, Shorty and Lombard becauseofhis close personal and political relationships with them.

Orleans PoliceChief Michelle Woodfork.

Woodfork wonwith53% while Shorty captured only 21%.

Meanwhile, Lombard tried to undermine his opponent, Calvin Duncan, who had served alife sentence in prisonfor a1981killing until he was freed in 2011 after his conviction was vacated. Lombard accused Duncan of murder.Duncan has said court rulings show that he wasinnocent.

Carterhas been astrong advocate of Democratic social and economic causes while working with Republicans on selected issues. He has been named to key strategyand policycommittees within theHouse Democratic Caucus andhas quickly ascended within the ranks of the 62-member Congressional Black Caucus. He is nowthe group’s ﬁrst vice president.

emotions.

In aKID smARTsurvey of the500 teachers across15 schools that the group partnered withlastyear,100% of educators who responded reported growth in student confidence, self-expression and creative risk-taking.

“The arts play arole in shaping studentsintoresilient,empathetic thinkers,” she said, “who can thrive in our ever-changing landscape.”

An illustrator by trade, Malbrough meets with teachers at International School of Louisiana’sSt. Roch campus about once aweek to work on lesson plans. He aims for art activities that reinforce theacademic lessonsinfun and interactive ways,hesaid. He’s had students create collages or fashion plates of food out of paper

“Everybody learns differently,”hesaid, “so adding art makes learning alittle bit more accessible.”

ISL St. Roch Principal Brandon Ferguson said the school opted this year to embed Malbrough primarily in socialstudieslessons. ISL’s French and Spanish immersion teachers comefrom many cultural backgrounds and sometimes struggleto teach U.S. history,hesaid, so “we’re able to support that through arts integration.”

Salgado said the art activities sometimes help students grasp concepts that were lost in translation during her lessons, which she gives in Spanish. Theartscan also helpstudents see the materialinanew light,which is sometimes enough to make it click.

“When the artist comes to theclassroom, they have aha momentsand they can see things differently,”Salgado said. “After that, they never forget it.”

cer diagnosis,” Grisby said. “What Ivalue aboutwhat she brings is (cancer) is not something that shouldtake over you and get you down.”

As part of the campaign, Disotell’sstoryisbeing shared acrossAcadiana in adsand videos. Disotell said afriend textedthat she saw her picture in theLafayette airport

She hopes thatanyone whohears herstory will walk away knowing they are strongerthan cancer

“I don’tthink Icould have made it throughwithout believing Iwas strongerthan (cancer),” shesaid. “And that supporttellingmethat Iwas,reassuring me and being there for me.”

Alley.” The environmentalgroups see Trump’sexemptions for individual facilities as “a pretext”torelieve the chemical industry to comply with the HON Rule while the EPA tries to repeal it altogether

LOTTERY

SATURDAY,OCT.25, 2025

PICK 3: 9-3-8 PICK 4: 3-5-6-6 PICK 5: 5-9-5-0-5 EASY 5: 6-10-16-22-31 LOTTO: 16-18-26-34-

Boyd was elected to the state House in 2022 to replaceGaryCarter, whowon thestate Senateseatvacated by Troy Carter when he was elected tothe U.S. House in 2021. Gary Carter is Troy Carter’snephew

Boyd announced in December thatshe would run for thecouncil at-large seat that Moreno is givingup. In April, fellow state Rep Matthew Willard joined the race.

Boydfaced questions after The Times-Picayune reported on Sept.24that she and agroup supporting her campaign had paid more than $39,000 in campaign money to areal estate company owned by her and her daughter. The article also reported that her homein the English Turn neighborhood was facing foreclosure in November

On Oct. 9, thenewspaper reported that Boydhad acknowledgedusing campaign funds to advertise herreal estate business apotential violation of state campaign ﬁnance laws. Willard won easily with 59% of the vote to Boyd’s 31%.

“He was the far superior candidate,” said state Rep. Mandie Landry,ofNew Orleans.

Landry’s supportshowed how Carter can alienate other elected officials when he endorsestheir opponents.In2023, Carter and Boydendorsed Landry’sopponent,Madison O’Malley, when Landry was reelected.

Shorty began his campaign late and never caught fire, although he sent out negative mail pieces on the front-runner, former New

After the election, political analysts said the results showedthatLombard’s accusation boomeranged against him, andhewon only 46%, one percentage point behind Duncan. Collins believesthe primaryelection results indicate Duncan has the edge.

“If you’re happy with your incumbent, you’ll vote fortheminthe primary, Collins said. “Iftheydon’t win in the primary,they may have hit their ceiling. Duncan is probably happy with his current position.”

Several incumbentswho failed to winthe primary lost in the runoff recently, including former Sheriff Marlin Gusman and former Public Service Commissioner Lambert Boissiere III.

“He expended alot of political capital,” said pollster SilasLee. “But he won’tbe judged eternally by aloss. Nobodyhas a100% record of always winning elections.”

Cartersaidhehas so manyfriends after years of being in politicsthat, when he backsone over the other,that “doesn’tmean that whenit’sover,the world comes to an end. It means that we just continue doing thejob that we do andthat is doing what’sbestfor the people whojointly elect us, to continuetoworkasI do every day of my life, whether it’sinthe nation’scapital ﬁghting to bring resources home, or passing laws that will makelifebetter.”

Achanginglandscape

By mostaccounts, Carter has gained respect in Democratic circles in Washington as aworkhorse since winning aspecialelection in 2021 in adistrict that’s anchored in NewOrleans andextends up theMississippiRiver intoBaton Rouge.

“He understands the politicalprocess, and he understands theimportance of relationships andhow to build relationships,” said U.S. Rep. StevenHorsford of Nevada, the immediate past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “He’s nothere forlikesand personality.He’shere because he’sreally trying to makea difference.”

Carter won his second term with 60% of the vote last year

Butnow he is facing uncertainty in next year’s midtermsbecause of alawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Louisiana’s currentcongressional map that elected Carter,U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, aDemocrat from Baton Rouge, and four Republicans. Legal observers believe theU.S.Supreme Court maynullify that map. That couldlead state legislators to drawanew map thatputs Fields and Carter in Republican-majority districts or a map that pits them against each other No matter what, Carter is conﬁdent he will win reelection.

“Rest assured, I’ve got arecordI’m extremely proud of,and we’ll stand on it seven days aweek,” he said.

Faucheuxsaidthe recent failure of Carter’scandidates hurt him among political insiders, but said, “Troy still hasa lotofallies. He’ll have the mayor of NewOrleans and JP Morrell. He still has legislators whoare friends. He hasconsiderable support among voters.”

Email TylerBridges at tbridges@theadvocate. com.

EDUCATION TheTerrebonne Parish School Board seeksanoutstanding Superintendent ofSchoolstoleadits public school sys‐temofthirty(30) schoolsand more than14,579 students.Applications for thepositionmay be obtained on the District’swebsite (www.tpsd.org) and are currentlybeing accepted. Applicants must possess, at thetimeof application, avalid Louisianateaching certificatewhich documentsSchool Superintendentasanareaofcertifica‐tion or possess aletterfromthe Louisiana Department of Education certifying theirimmediateeligibilityto

given thata sealed Requestfor Proposal(RFP) will be re‐ceivedbythe Lafayette ParishSchoolSystemby the Purchasing Depart‐mentlocated at 202Rue Iberville, Lafayette, LA 70508. Delivery to anyde‐partmentother than the PurchasingDepartment isunacceptableand may resultina non-consider‐ation of theproposal. Sealed proposalswillbe markedasfollows: IndependentAudit Services RFP#18-26 Opening: Friday,Novem‐ber 7@ 10:00a.m.CST TheRFP #18-26 is to ob‐taina proposal from qualified firmsofCerti‐fied Public Accountants for theLafayette Parish SchoolSystem. ARequest forProposal package maybeob‐tainedonthe Purchasing Departmentwebsite at https://www.lpssonline. com/site638.php. Pro‐posal informationmay alsobeviewedonline, and electronic proposals may be submittedonline atwww.centralauctionh ouse.com. Specifications willbeavailable on Mon‐day,October 13, 2025 TheLafayette Public SchoolSystemstrongly encouragesthe partici‐pationofminoritybusi‐nessenterprises in all contracts or procure‐ments letbythe Board for goodsand services Tothatend,all contrac‐torsand suppliersare encouragedtoutilize mi‐noritybusinessenter‐prisesinthe purchase of sub-contracting of mate‐rials,supplies, andser‐vices in whichminority owned businesses are available Theowner reserves the right to reject anybids for just cause. LAFAYETTE PARISH

Anyone with interest in the municipalAddress: 1400EastSimcoe, Lafayette, LA 70501 WP LOTS12-13-14BLK 8MARTINADD (74X83X100X36.3) THIS NOTICE BY PUBLICA‐TIONISNOTIFICATION THATYOURRIGHTSOR INTEREST IN THEFOL‐LOWINGDESCRIBED PROPERTYLOCATED IN LAFAYETTE,LOUISIANA MAY BE TERMINATED BY OPERATION OF LAWIF YOU DO

STAFF PHOTOSByBRETTDUKE

Paul Malbrough Jr., left, an arts integration specialist with KID smART,and teacher Carolina Salgado, right, lead amap activityduring a first grade Spanish immersionclass at the International School of Louisiana recently in NewOrleans.

Kelly’s buyout hashefty price tag NO DELIVERY

BY REED DARCEY Staff writer

LSU

ﬁred coach Brain Kelly,following an embarrassing loss to Texas A&M on Saturday at Tiger Stadium.

Following the firing,Kelly is oweda roughly $54 million buyout —anamount large enough to become one ofthe most expensivebuyouts in the history of college football.

On Sunday,LSU leadership held discussions about Kelly’sfuture, sources said,including talk of apotentialnegotiatedbuyout.

Those conversations will continue into the Tigers’ open date

Kelly was four years into the 10-year,$100 million contract he signed in 2022tosucceed Ed Orgeron as LSU’s football coach. According to his term sheet,the school’s athletic department would owe him 90% of the remainingvalue of the contract should it ﬁre him without cause at any point before the deal expires.

The current buyout cost for Kelly dwarfs the one LSUagreed to pay when it ﬁred Orgeron. The school owed him only $17million then, and it won’teven ﬁnish paying the full amount of that deal until the endof 2025. Kelly’sbuyout could have asimilar structure. His contract allows LSU to splitits total buyoutcost into equal installmentsthat it would pay monthly until 2031.

LSU could also fire Kelly without having to buy his assistants out of their contracts. All coaches on his staff signed deals with clauses that free the athleticdepartment from paying the full cost of their buyouts, whether Kelly is no longer LSU’shead coach or if they leave the program to take other jobs Still, firing Kelly comes with ahistorically large price tag. In 2023, Texas A&M agreed to pay coach Jimbo Fisher arecord $77 million whenit fired him near the end of a7-6 season.His buyout is still by far the largest everpaid in the history of the sport, though hefty

ä See LSU, page 4C

LSU has ﬁred Brian Kelly

Let those ﬁve wordssink in for amoment.

Thattheybecame realityonOct.26, 2025, is not the mostshocking thing. After Penn Statejettisoned James Franklin after athree-game losing streak earlier thisseason, anything seemed possible. But if you’d told me thenight of Aug. 30, less than twomonthsback, in theafterglow of LSU’s gritty 1710 winatpreseason No. 4Clemson, that this would be Kelly’sfate, I’dhave thought there wasnoway Ibelieved then, as most everyone whofollows collegefootball did, thatKelly’s heroes were on theirway to abig season. Surely aberthinthe College Football Playoff. Maybe much more than that

Butaswas the case with Franklin, the life of Brian at LSUunraveled at warp speed. Not with athree-game losing streak, but close —three Southeastern Conference losses in the past four games.

By thesecond one, last week’s3124 loss at Vanderbilt,Iwrotethat it seemed like awatershed moment, an inﬂection point for the Kelly era. After Saturday night’s49-25 drubbing by Texas A&M, anight ﬁlled with chants of “Fire Kelly” and chants of Aggie fans celebrating their most

Scott Rabalais

lopsided win over the Tigers in more than ageneration, you knew there was no turning back. Sunday was full of rumors and reports, smoke and ﬁre. Would Kelly survive, for now,byjust ﬁring some

coaches like offensive coordinator Joe Sloan and offensive line coach Brad Davis? Would LSU really ﬁnd the money forwhat is currently about a$54 million buyout?

By Sunday night, the newswas stark and unbelievable, but true. Kelly is gone after three seasons plus eight games with a34-14 record. That’sa.708 winning percentage. That’s26points higher than the career record of Charles McClendon, ä See RABALAIS, page 4C

Moorebenches QB Rattlerfor Shough in ugly loss to Bucs

BY MATTHEW PARAS Staff writer

If there was anything that could cheer up the Caesars Superdome crowd on arestless afternoon, it was the sight of Tyler Shough running onto the ﬁeld.

Roughly 15 minutes ofreal time earlier, Spencer Rattlerand the offense had been booed off it. Coach Kellen Moorehad seen enough. After weeks of backingthe secondyearquarterback, and after months ofresisting calls to turn to his second-round signal-caller,the ﬁrst-year coach ﬁnally made theswitchthatmanyhad been waitingto see. And when Shough was shown on the video board as he entered in thethirdquarter,the black-and-goldfaithfulcheered as loudly as they had allday The change did not lead to adifferentresult, however. Moore benched Rattler for Shough in

Sunday’s23-3 loss to the Tampa BayBuccaneers, but the Saints fell to 1-7 on aseason that has been increasingly hard to watch at thenear-halfway point. The quarterback swapcame after an ugly outing for Rattler,who had his second straight multi-turnover performance. After throwing three interceptions and fumbling once last week against the Chicago Bears, the 25-year-old fumbled on the Saints’ openingpossession andthen threw apick-6 near the team’sown goal line near the start of the second quarter And even on drives that didn’tresult in turnovers againstthe Buccaneers, Rattler (136 yards on 15 of 21 passing)was still largely inefficient.The SaintswithRattler crossed midfield on four of their six possessions —and only had three pointstoshow for it. Thatlevel of inefficiency created plenty

ä See SAINTS, page 3C

STAFF PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Saints quarterback Tyler Shough is sackedonthe last play of agame against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

Former LSUcoach Kellytalkedthe talk,but neverwalkedthe

STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK LSU coach Brian Kellycalls to his players in the first half of agameagainst Florida on Sept. 13 at TigerStadium.

STAFFPHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

LSU head coach BrianKelly walks the sideline in the second half of agame against Texas A&M on SundayatTiger Stadium. Kelly was fired on SundayfollowingLSU’s embarrassing 49-25 loss to Texas A&M.

Ex-Jets center Mangold dies of kidney disease

Pelicans rookies make early impact

BY ROD WALKER Staff writer

Jeremiah Fears is so fearless, he’s made Willie Green just as fearless.

How else do you explain Green’s willingness to throw two rookies (Fears and Derik Queen) into the ﬁre down the stretch of Friday’s overtime loss to the San Antonio Spurs?

The closing lineup in regulation consisted of Fears, Queen, Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy and Jordan Poole.

“I saw a lot of poise from both guys at the end of the game,” Green said. “Throughout the whole game, really. Their competitiveness, you can see it They want it. When you evaluate those two guys on the floor with our group, the future is bright.”

Both Queen and Fears made an impact in what ended up being a 120-116 loss. Of the nine Pelicans who played in the game, four had a positive plus-minus: Fears, Queen, Zion Williamson and Jordan Hawkins.

Fears, who scored 17 points on 7 of 10 shooting in the season-opening loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, followed that up with a 13-point, four-rebound performance. He’s made 12 of 18 shots He played a little over 28 minutes against the Spurs.

Queen’s workload was even heavier He played just over 34 minutes and finished with 15 points, six rebounds and two blocked shots against San Antonio.

“It shows that the coaching staff trusts you,” Fears said. “Especially being a rookie and playing in overtime and being able to play the last four minutes of the fourth quarter means a lot. There is still going to be some room for improvement Continuing to learn, continuing to grow It’s only the second game of the season, a long season. Stay conﬁdent.”

Fears’ productivity shouldn’t really come as a surprise. He showed ﬂashes in the preseason of why the Pelicans drafted him with the No. 7 overall pick.

Queen, however, didn’t even get a preseason He was busy rehabbing a torn ligament in his left wrist suffered in summer league play He had surgery in the middle of July and was cleared by doctors just four days before the start of the season.

“Once I got cleared, I thought I was going to be the last man on

the bench,” Queen said “Because

I haven’t had time to prove myself or do anything to show that

I’m ready I feel like the few practices I did have deﬁnitely helped.

Coach Green and everybody saw how hard I was working.”

Queen’s night included having to guard Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama.

“Everything he asks for, I just try to go out there and do it,”

Queen said.

Although Queen is only 20 and Fears just turned 19, their older teammates aren’t surprised they were on the Smoothie King Center ﬂoor during crunch time.

Murphy’s assessment of his young teammates?

“Phenomenal,” Murphy said.

“I’m not going to say I’m shocked because I’ve seen it in practice

They are fearless Him and DQ played really big tonight Their future is so bright.”

While they are getting their minutes and points, they still haven’t got their ﬁrst NBA win. They get another chance Mon-

day night when the Pelicans host the Boston Celtics The Pelicans have lost their past eight games against the Celtics. The Pels’ last win against Boston came in March 2021. Fears was 14 then. Queen was 16. Now they are rookies in the NBA making an early impact.

“They want to step on the ﬂoor and contribute to winning,” Green said. “I can’t say I’m surprised. I get a chance behind closed doors to watch how they work. I’m very pleased with their play on the ﬂoor.”

Email Rod Walker at rwalker@ theadvocate.com.

LSU men win exhibition game over UCF

BY TOYLOY BROWN III

Staff writer

The LSU men’s basketball team opened a new season with a 75-68 exhibition victory over Central Florida on Sunday at Addition Financial Arena in Orlando, Florida. While the win won’t count, it was still an impressive performance against a Big 12 team that already played an exhibition at No. 6 Duke, where it lost 96-71. Fourth-year coach Matt McMahon was able to win even without two expected rotation players: returning forward Robert Miller and 22-year-old freshman signee Ron Zipper from Israel. Miller didn’t play after “tweaking” his ankle in a closed scrimmage last week Zipper wasn’t mentioned, according to LSU. While he has practiced throughout the offseason, he didn’t participate in LSU’s open practice on Oct. 13. Here are the three biggest takeaways from the Sunday matchup. LSU’s new point guard shines Fans will soon know the name Dedan Thomas if they don’t already The 6-foot-1 lefty point guard was clearly the best player for the Tigers. The UNLV transfer had 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting from the ﬁeld and nine assists. The 20-year-old junior brought more order to the offense than at any time last year against quality opponents. His gaudy assists total doesn’t fully reﬂect how well he orches-

trated the team’s attack, as he had only two turnovers. Thomas’ most impressive pass was his second alley-oop pass to center Michael Nwoko for the slam Thomas also scored 15 of his points in the second half. His floaters deceived defenders at times, who failed to contest because they thought it was an alley-oop pass. In his 31 minutes on the court, LSU outscored UCF by 19.

Jalen Reed is back healthy

Jalen Reed played his ﬁrst organized basketball game since he tore his right ACL on Dec. 3 against Florida State. He looked healthy and finished the game with six points and four rebounds

in 19 minutes. The starting forward moved around without discomfort all game but did grimace once after being fouled toward the end of the game. Reed lightly limped to the free-throw line, made his second of two free throws and walked to the bench normally to be substituted out. The redshirt junior wore a knee brace and was notably rusty He made one of his four shot attempts, which was a 3-pointer, and also had three turnovers. None of this should be concerning since it was the first game against a quality opponent. Reed didn’t show anything to doubt that he’ll eventually look more like the player who averaged about

Nick Mangold’s long, blond hair and bushy beard made him instantly recognizable. His gritty outstanding performances on the ﬁeld for the New York Jets made him one of the franchise greats. Mangold, a two-time All-Pro center who helped lead the Jets to the AFC championship game twice, has died, the team announced Sunday He was 41. The Jets said in a statement that Mangold died Saturday night from complications of kidney disease. His death came less than two weeks after he announced on social media that he had kidney disease and needed a transplant. Mangold was diagnosed with a genetic defect in 2006 that led to chronic kidney disease. He was on dialysis while awaiting a transplant.

NHL suspends coach for season; Capitals fire him

NEWYORK The NHL has suspended Mitch Love for the remainder of the season after an investigation into allegations that arose while he was interviewing for head-coaching jobs around the league.

The Washington Capitals simultaneously ﬁred Love, who served as an assistant on coach Spencer Carbery’s staff the past two years and was placed on leave last month pending the investigation. No details have been provided about the nature of the investigation.

The NHL said Love, 41, was suspended for conduct detrimental to the league, pending what it called a thorough investigation. Love is eligible to apply for reinstatement for the 2026-27 season subject to certain conditions.

Lakers’ Doncic out with finger sprain, bruised leg LOS ANGELES Luka Doncic is expected to be sidelined for at least one week because of a sprained ﬁnger on his left hand and a bruised lower left leg, the Los Angeles Lakers announced Sunday Doncic had been off to a spectacular start to the season with back-to-back 40-point games for the Lakers, who play at Sacramento on Sunday night. He will be reevaluated in approximately one week, the team said.

Doncic scored 43 points in the Lakers’ loss to Golden State on opening night, and he racked up 49 points in a victory over Minnesota last Friday night. Doncic scorched the Timberwolves despite spraining a finger on his non-shooting hand in the opening minutes.

The Lakers also are without LeBron James due to sciatica.

NCAA ordered to pay $18M in concussion suit

ORANGEBURG, S.C. — The NCAA owes a former college football player and his wife $18 million, a South Carolina jury decided while ﬁnding college sports’ major governing body negligent in failing to warn the player about the longterm effects of concussions.

11 points and seven rebounds a season ago.

LSU is a much bigger team

After ending last season playing a four-guard lineup, size was a quality LSU desperately sought in the offseason. Against UCF, LSU ﬁnally showed it had it.

The Tigers started a front court of two 6-10 bigs and a 6-9 small forward in Marquell Sutton, an Omaha transfer They also played a pair of 6-6 guards in the game

— Rashad King and Max Mackinnon. Nwoko’s bulk was the most pronounced as he threw around his 261-pound body for six rebounds, with four on the offensive side, and three dunks. He also scored 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting, making a pair of post shots.

“I thought Nwoko was terriﬁc for us around the basket,” McMahon told reporters after the game.

“He’s a lot more skilled as an offensive player than I anticipated, and I thought you saw some of that today with his jump hooks down in the post.”

Not to be outdone in using his size was Sutton. The 22-year-old, fifth-year senior was a menace on the glass with a game-high 11 rebounds. He was physical on defense and scored 14 points.

LSU’s next game will be the season opener against Tarleton State at 4 p.m. on Nov 5 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center

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

Following a civil trial that wrapped up late last week, Orangeburg County jurors awarded $10 million to 68-year-old Robert Geathers, who played at South Carolina State University from 1977 to 1980 as a defensive end. His wife, Debra, was awarded $8 million, according to a court document. A physician diagnosed Robert Geathers with dementia several years ago. Now he has trouble with day-to-day tasks such as dressing himself and helping making meals

Lapuente, Mexico’s coach at 1998 World Cup, dies MEXICO CITY Manuel Lapuente, one of the most successful coaches in Mexican soccer history, has died. He was 81. The Mexican Soccer Federation made the announcement on its social media channels on Saturday without disclosing the cause of death.

Lapuente, who was a professional footballer between 1964 and 1975, had two stints as national team coach. The ﬁrst in 1990-1991 lasted only 11 matches.

In the second, he won the 1999 Confederations Cup title with a 4-3 win against Brazil in

STAFF PHOTOS By SOPHIA GERMER

New Orleans Pelicans center Derik Queen, left, scores over San Antonio Spurs center Luke Kornet on Friday at the Smoothie King Center

New Orleans Pelicans guard Jeremiah Fears, left, scores against the San Antonio Spurs on Friday at the Smoothie King Center

STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK

LSU guard Dedan Thomas works in a drill during practice on Sep. 24, 2025, at the PMAC. The UNLV transfer had 16 points and nine assists in an exhibition win over UCF on Sunday.

TAMPA BAY 23, SAINTS 3

BY THE NUMBERS

DE Young provides spark for defense

BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer

New Orleans, Rattler 15-21-1-136, Shough 17-30-1-128. RECEIVING—Tampa Bay, T.Johnson 5-43, Otton 4-40, Egbuka 3-35, White 2-26, Shepard

1-8. New Orleans, Shaheed 9-75, Olave 8-63, Johnson 5-53, Cooks 3-22, Neal 3-11, Kamara

2-24, Vele 1-10, Hill 1-6. PUNT RETURNS—Tampa Bay, K.Johnson 1-8. New Orleans, Shaheed 1-8. KICKOFF RETURNS—Tampa Bay, Tucker 2-50. New Orleans, Neal 5-106, Tipton 1-36.

TACKLES-ASSISTS-SACKS—Tampa Bay, Dean

5-1-0, David 4-6-0, Smith 4-4-0, Dennis 4-3-1, Winﬁeld 4-2-0, Parrish 4-1-1, McCollum 2-4-0, Nelson 2-2-2, Morrison 2-1-0, D.Jones 2-0-0, E.Roberts 2-0-0, L.Hall 0-1-.5, Watts 0-1-.5, Diaby 0-1-0, Vea 0-1-0. New Orleans, D.Davis

4-7-0, Reid 4-3-.5, McKinstry 3-1-0, Sanker

3-1-0, Godchaux 2-4-0, Rumph 2-2-0, Howden

2-0-0, Riley 2-0-0 Taylor 2-0-0, C.Young 1-31.5, Werner 1-3-0, Shepherd 1-2-1, Bullard

1-1-0, Stalbird 1-1-0, Burgess 1-0-0, Bresee

0-1-0, Granderson 0-1-0, Jordan 0-1-0, Ridgeway 0-1-0.

INTERCEPTIONS—Tampa Bay, Nelson 1-3, Winﬁeld 1-0. New Orleans, None MISSED FIELD GOALS—None.

OFFICIALS—Referee Ron Torbert, Ump Barry Anderson, HL Frank LeBlanc, LJ Brian Bolinger, FJ Ryan Dickson, SJ Keith Washington, BJ Courtney Brown, Replay Kevin Stine.

Against one of the best left tackles in pro football, Chase Young recorded a trifecta. With less than a minute remaining in the ﬁrst half, the New Orleans Saints defensive end used speed and power to beat tackle Tristan Wirfs around the edge, arriving just as quarterback Baker Mayfield was cocking his arm back to throw Young knocked the ball out of Mayﬁeld’s hands, getting credit for the sack and the forced fumble. The ball bounced to the turf, and after several players failed to come up with it, Young scooped up the recovery as well. It was the type of effort the Saints must have envisioned when they signed Young to a three-year $51 million contract this offseason — a supremely talented player beating one of the NFL’s premier players to make an impact play

Young’s strip sack and recovery set the Saints up with a short ﬁeld, leading to a ﬁeld goal that represented the only points New Orleans scored. It was not Young’s only big play of the game. He split a sack with safety Justin Reid earlier in the game and made a tackle for loss as well. Young missed the first five games of the season with a calf injury, but he’s provided a spark to the Saints’ defense since his return. In three games, he’s now recorded two sacks, four quarterback hits and two pass breakups in addition to his forced fumble and recovery Inadvertent whistle

The Buccaneers appeared to take a 14-0 lead on the Saints late in the second quarter when safety Antoine Winfield scooped up a Rashid Shaheed fumble and raced 47 yards for a touchdown which would’ve been Tampa Bay’s sec-

ond defensive touchdown of the game. But after a replay review, ofﬁcials determined an inadvertent whistle had blown after the recovery thereby nullifying the return. In a pool report after the game, NFL official Ron Torbert said, “We ruled that there was a fumble. It was recovered by the defense, but there was a whistle blown from the other side of the field. The official thought that the runner was down. We were able to award the defense the ball after the fumble but because the whistle had been blown, we could not award the advance afterwards.”

First of his kind

Alvin Kamara joined a prestigious group Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with his 600th career reception, joining Larry Centers and Hall of Famers Marshall Faulk and LaDanian Tomlinson as the only running backs to reach that mark

in NFL history

But of the group, Kamara was the only one to do it all with one franchise.

Kamara ranks second in franchise history in career receptions, trailing only Marques Colston (711 receptions). He is less than 100 yards shy of 5,000 career receiving yards, and if he gets there this season, he would become the fourth player in NFL history with at least 7,000 career rushing yards and 5,000 career receiving yards. Odds and ends

Kamara led the pregame Who Dat chant With a short dumpoff to Kamara that turned into a 15-yard gain late in the first half, Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler converted his first third down of 9 or more yards this season through the air Before that pass, Rattler had completed 15 of 24 passes for 84 yards on third and 9 or longer without converting a first down this season.

of frustration within the Dome, none more so than on Rattler’s ﬁnal drive after halftime. In ofﬁcially four plays, the Saints managed to burn 1:49 off the play clock, but committed four penalties, lost a net of 7 yards and punted on a three-and-out.

If Moore went to Shough in search of a spark, the Saints did not get one.

The Louisville product went 17of-30 for 128 yards and even threw an unfortunate interception, albeit one that was snatched from an open Chris Olave’s hands as the wide receiver went to the ground

The Buccaneers, meanwhile, got just enough from their franchise quarterback as Baker Mayﬁeld threw for 152 yards and engineered a mostly efﬁcient, if unelectric, outing.

The Saints had spent the week downplaying Mayfield’s comments after the Bucs quarterback suggested New Orleans had resorted to playing dirty when facing Tampa Bay over the last few years. Moore said he didn’t need to use the trash talk as bulletin board material Linebacker Demario Davis seemed unaware of Mayﬁeld’s remarks until reporters relayed them in the locker room, and even then, the veteran linebacker was hardly moved. But once Sunday’s game started, the Saints’ defense seemed to play with an extra edge. The unit was locked in from the start, something that hadn’t always been the case this season. The Saints’ defense came up huge several times in the ﬁrst half. The unit set a tone when it record-

ed four straight goal-line stops to kill a 17-play Tampa Bay drive.

The line was able to generate a pass rush on Mayﬁeld, sacking him on three different occasions before halftime. And on one of those sacks, Chase Young stripped Mayﬁeld and recovered the fumble inside Tampa Bay territory

If there was an aspect of New Orleans’ play that wasn’t clean, however, it was the offense. On Rattler’s ﬁrst turnover, Buccaneers outside linebacker Anthony Nelson punched the ball out as

the quarterback scrambled down the ﬁeld. Though Tampa Bay did not score off the change of possession, the fumble was a sign of how much trouble the Buccaneers would cause the Saints throughout the afternoon. Following New Orleans’ goal-line stand, Rattler made his biggest mistake of the afternoon.

Near the 10-yard line, Rattler tried to force a pass to tight end Foster Moreau with Nelson right in his face only for the pass rusher to bat the ball with his left

arm, grab it with his right and take it to the house for an easy score. The touchdown gave Tampa Bay the lead, and more self-inflicted wounds would prevent the Saints from mustering a comeback. New Orleans, too, appeared to get very lucky in the second quarter when an inadvertent whistle wiped out a Buccaneers touchdown. Tampa Bay cornerback Jamel Dean forced a Rashid Shaheed fumble and ran 47 yards to the end zone, but rather than count the score, referee Ronald Torbert

said the accidental whistle meant the play would be dead at the 47yard line.

With a gift in hand, Young soon gave the Saints another present by forcing Tampa Bay’s lone turnover

But the Saints, even with generous ﬁeld position, didn’t fully capitalize. The team had to settle for a 48-yard ﬁeld goal, trailing 7-3

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

New Orleans Saints defensive end Chase young picks up a loose ball in the first half of a game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday at the Caesars Superdome.

Kelly, AD reportedly have heated meetingbeforeﬁring

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

LSU coachBrian Kelly has coached his last game in Baton Rouge, as sources told The Advocate on Sundaythat the Tigers are moving on from Kelly afterless than four seasons. But tension had reportedly started to build between LSU and coach Brian Kelly earlier in the day On Sunday,following the Tigers’ 49-25 loss to Texas A&M on Saturday,Kelly and athleticdirector Scott Woodward, accordingtoThe

LSU

Continued from page1C

severance payments have become more common because coaches across the country have commanded increasingly longer contracts and higher salaries in recent years

Penn State fired coach James Franklin on Oct. 12 —onlyfour years after the school signed him to a10-year,$85 million contract extension. Franklin’sbuyoutcould cost as much as $49 million, though aclause in his deal reportedly says that if he lands anotherjob, then Penn State would owe him only the difference between his new salary and his old one Kelly has asimilar “duty to mitigate” clause in his contract, which requires him to pursue other jobs

RABALAIS

Continued from page1C

LSU’sCollege Football Hall of Fame coach who lasted here for 18 seasons.

But patience is virtually nonexistent in college football anymore Especially at aschool like LSU Still, whywas Kelly sent packingsorelatively fast? Youcan look at his 5-11 record against top 25 opponents. Youcan say 2022, with an SEC West title coming on the heels of aTexas Bowl that LSU played with 39 scholarship players, was his high-water mark. The goodwill from that year’sthrilling overtime win over Nick Saban and Alabama was mighty shortlived. People say Kelly wasn’tafit. I’m not sure Ibuy that. Saban wasn’tafit, either,never having set foot at LSU until the day of his introductory news conference. No one was abetter fit than South Louisiana’sown Ed Orgeron, and LSU firedhim two years after leading the Tigers to their greatest season ever Kelly doomed himself in two important ways. One, he talked a big game and never quite delivered.

Athletic, got into aheated discussion regarding potential changes on staff. Woodward, per the report, approached Kelly on Sunday afternoon, requestingthathemake changes to hisstaff, including firing offensive coordinator Joe Sloan. LSU’soffense is 12th in the SoutheasternConferenceinscoringand 14th in yards per contest But, instead of granting his athletic director’s wishes, Kellyreportedly told Woodwardthat he wanted to make other staff changes that Woodwarddidn’tapprove

“with due diligence and good faith” for as long as he receives money from LSU.

Kelly,64, is already one of the most accomplished coaches in college footballhistory

Earlierthisseason, he became justthe 20th coach to win at least

200 career games at theFBS level.

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz is the onlyactiveFBS coach with more career wins.

LSU won at least nine contests in each of the ﬁrst threeseasons of Kelly’s tenure, but it still hasn’t reached the College Football Playoff since he took over in 2022.An offseason fundraising push,coupled withthe implementation of a revenue-sharing system,allowed LSUtotriple the size of its football program’spayroll before the2025 season. Kellysaid before the year kicked off that he and his staff had spentaround $18 million to build

“LSU football andLSU athletics is about being elite,” Kelly said in July at the Baton Rouge Rotary Clubmeeting. “It’sabout a standard, aTiger standard, that is ahigh bar,thatweexpect you to meet andexceed every day.” Kelly never got LSU to that standard, andthe talk of “We’ve gottoget better” wore thin.So didhis teams’ inabilitytoplay what healways preached: “complementary football.” Something was alwaysmissing from Kelly’s teams—special teams,defense, or this season,anoffense that functioned properly.All three elementsfailed LSUagainst Texas A&M, ateam that complementary footballed theTigersintoaTKO before theend ofthe third quarter

Whynow,LSU? Well, Kelly is alreadythe seventh Power Four coach to befired this season and 10th in theFBS overall. Youhave to lightupyour “Vacancy” sign early these days, though this has beenLSU’sM.O. for decades. MikeArcher,Curley Hallman, Gerry DiNardo, LesMiles and Orgeron were all fired before their final seasons ended. Thefact that LSUhas fired six of its last seven full-time head coaches is acautionary tale for the next man up.Nonetheless, I believeLSU is still agreat job.

OleMiss, Vanderbilt join top10ofpoll

of. The situationthen reportedly escalatedfurther,withKelly continuing to disagree withhis boss. “It wentbad fast,” an LSUprogram source told The Athletic. Sources had told TheAdvocate on Sundaythatdiscussions regardinghis future at LSUhad begun within the leadership at the school. Kelly’srecord at LSU was 3414 as the defeat to Texas A&M droppedthe Tigersto5-3 on the season and essentially eliminated themfrom College Football Playoff contention.LSU nevermade the CFP under Kelly

their most recent roster

But that team, because it fell to TexasA&M on Saturday,has now droppedthreeofits last four games and lost any chance it had of sneaking into the 12-team CFP ﬁeld.

LSUwill next beginanopen date then enter November with three losses for the ﬁrst timesince Kelly took over

During his tenure, the Tigers arenow 5-11 against rankedopponents. The Aggies hadn’twon in Tiger Stadium since 1994 before they blew out LSU on Saturday

“I get it,” Kelly said. “There should be noise. Youshould be disappointed. I’m disappointed, but I have to really focusmytime inside out the program so we can make sure this never happens again.”

Email Reed Darcey at reed. darcey@theadvocate.com.

It’sthe lone Power Fourprogram in atalent-rich state, with money, great facilities, ahuge stadium and tradition. There arguably isn’tanother job quitelike it. Onelast thing, and it’s avery big thing:Will athletic director ScottWoodward get to do thehiring? Woodward’sresume includes two major whiffs —Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M and now Kelly Even though Fisher was at another school, it will be interesting to see if he getsa third trip to the plate.

There is also thefact that LSU is without afull-timepresident Will that be resolved this coming week? How much will Gov.Jeff Landry,who rightly criticized LSUafter theA&M rout for its ham-handed announcement that it’sraising ticket prices for 2026, be involved?

Youcan get folks to accept ticket price increases if you get theright guy.Hope is powerful advertising.

“Will we win anational championship?” Kelly asked at the Rotaryluncheon in July.“(That) is not thequestion. It’s when are we going to win anational championship? Because we will.”

Someone will at LSU. One day It won’tbeBrian Kelly.After a whirlwind Sunday,that fact is still sinking in.

Week 9ofthe college football season had somenear-upsets, but it ended up becoming a pretty tameweekend across the country.Ifyou wanted more ﬁreworks, direct your ire to Alabamaand Texas forstaging comeback wins. But even if we didn’tget abunch of surprise results, we still have an AP poll to ﬁll out this week. Here is my AP Top25poll after Week 9.

Koki’s AP poll afterWeek9

1. Indiana, 2. Texas A&M, 3. Ohio State, 4. Alabama, 5. Georgia, 6. Miami, 7. Notre Dame 8. Texas Tech, 9. Ole Miss, 10. Vanderbilt, 11. Oregon, 12. Tennessee, 13. Louisville, 14. BYU, 15. Southern Cal, 16. Oklahoma, 17. Georgia Tech, 18. Missouri, 19. Michigan, 20. Washington, 21. Utah, 22. Houston, 23. Illinois, 24. Cincinnati, 25. Texas Just missed: Iowa,South Florida, Virginia, Nebraska

OleMissearns acriticalwin

The top 8ofmypoll remained unchanged. Three of theteams (Ohio State, Georgiaand Notre Dame) didn’teven play thisweekend, and the only team thatplayed in aclose gamewas Alabama. Therefore, Ole Miss rising to No. 9inmypoll was my first notable alteration. The Rebels took down my No.10team heading into this week in Oklahomaon theroad, losing the lead briefly but looking like the better team for most of the day Iconsideredtaking the Rebels over Texas Tech in my poll this week, but the Red Raiders’ only loss was on the road to adecent Arizona State team without their starting quarterback. And though Texas Tech doesn’thave awin that’sasimpressive as Ole Miss’ this week, it’sdominated everyone elseonits schedule while Ole Miss struggled to beat Kentucky, Arkansas and Washington State. As for Oklahoma, the Sooners have anice winover Michigan but not much else on their resume. Ihaven’tpunished them severely forthe Texas loss because of how limited quarterback JohnMateer was in that game, but this Ole Miss defeat showed how flawed the offense is around him Istill kept the Sooners ahead of Georgia Tech because the win over the Wolverines is still alot moreimpressive than anything theYellow Jackets have done this year.Georgia Tech has the No. 83 strength of schedule in thenation.

Vandykeeps winning Joining Ole Miss in my top 10

this weekwas Vanderbilt, ateam Islid past both the Sooners and Oregon, despite the Ducks taking downWisconsin on Saturday Vanderbilt’s17-10 win over Missouri on Saturday was its best win yet, but it wasn’ta wildly successful performance. The Commodores had nine fewer ﬁrst downs, were outpossessed by nearly 13 minutes and the Tigers outgained thembyover 100 yards.

Missouri also lost starting quarterback Beau Pribula in the third quarter,and despite it, had achance to winthe gameinthe ﬁnal seconds.

Iconsidered keeping Vanderbilt behind Oregon even after defeating atop-20 team forthose reasons, but the Ducks’ resume is severely lacking abig win, and a14-point winathome this weekend over one of the worst power conference teams in the country (Wisconsin) didn’tdo them any favors either

Othernotes

There was adropoffinmypoll after Georgia Tech at 17. Missouri, Michigan and Washington took the next three slots fordifferent reasons.

The Tigers may have lost this week, but they outplayed Vanderbilt anyway and they lost their quarterback. How they look moving forward, likely without Pribula forthe rest of the year,isanother story,but close losses to twotop-10 teams (the other being Alabama) is no crime in my book.

Ididn’tloveMichigan being in aclose game with Michigan State thisweek, but the Wolverines don’thave abad loss, and they have nice wins over adecent Nebraska team on the road and Washington at home last week. Speaking of theHuskies, they finally mademypoll this week after flirting with my top 25 for the openingeight weeks. Washington earned it with itsfirst good win of theyear over Illinois at home. TheFightingIllininow have three losses, but that’sstill atop-25 win in my book because Illinois beat USC andDuke on the road, qualitywinsintheirown right Houston also made my rankings for the first time after taking down ASU on the road. It was the Cougars’ first good win of the season, and given that their only loss came to Texas Tech, theywere an obvious addition to my rankings.

Texas, despite barely beating lowly Kentucky and Mississippi State, stayed in my rankings on the strength of soundly beating adepleted Oklahoma team and losing by just atouchdown to my No. 3team (Ohio State). But aloss to Vanderbilt at home next Saturday likely means the Longhorns are out of my top 25.

BY ERIC OLSON AP collegefootball writer

The Big 12 has five teams in theTop 25 for the ﬁrst timethis season, Vanderbilt earned its highest ranking in 88 years and LSU dropped out of The Associated Press college football poll Sunday following its third loss in four games.

The top six was unchanged, with Ohio State holding the No 1spotfor aninth straight week followed by Indiana, Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia and Oregon.

Theidle Buckeyes received53 ﬁrst-place votes and the Hoosiers got11, six more thanlast week. TexasA&M was No. 1onone ballot. No. 7Mississippi andNo. 8 Georgia Tech swappedspots as did No. 9Vanderbilt and Miami, which is tied at No. 10 with BYU.

The Big 12’sfive ranked teams are BYU, No. 13 Texas Tech,No. 17 Cincinnati,No. 22 Houston and No. 24 Utah. The Big 12 last had five Top25teams in the Sept. 22, 2024, poll. Houston,which knocked off then-No.24Arizona State 2416 for its first road win against aranked opponent since 2017, is in theTop 25 for thefirst time since the first two polls in 2022. Vanderbilt’s17-10 win over then-No. 15 Missouri gave the Commodores a7-1 start for the

ﬁrst time since 1941 and, at No. 9, its highest ranking since it was No. 7for one week in 1937. Vandy has aprogram-record three regular-season wins over Top25opponents. LSU was

and

Koki Riley

STAFF PHOTO By HILARySCHEINUK

Former LSU coach Brian Kelly runs onto the field to call atimeout in the second half against Texas A&Mon Saturday at TigerStadium.

TROJANS35, CAJUNS 23

THREEAND OUT: KEVINFOOTE’S

OFFENSEHAD MOMENTS

1

For the game, UL’s offense outgained Troy 371-345 and was balanced, rushingfor 184 yards and passing for 187.The Cajuns were also 7-of-15onthird down.That’sall good enough on a night the defense performs well.The problem was that Lunch Winfield had139 yardsof those 184 yards rushing.Norunning back had morethan 21 yards. It was alsogoodtohaveShelton Sampson back with five catchesfor 74 yardsand a touchdown.All of that was overshadowedbyhaving to settle for three field goals and interceptions on back-to-back possessions to shiftthe momentum of the game in the second quarter

DEFENSESTRUGGLED AGAIN

2

Afterlooking poor in the Missouri and Eastern Michigan games, it looked like thedefense had perhapsturnedthe corner and returned to preseason form. Instead, Troy’s offense had its waywiththe Cajuns formostofthe night, going9-of-13 on third down to extend long driveafter long drive. The Trojans collected 21 first downs and got113 yards from Jordan Lovett. QuarterbackTucker Kilcrease rushed for twotouchdowns for the first time this season and Troy scored on its first drives of the first and third quarters for the first time all season.

3 TO TROy

INJURIES, MOMENTUM SHIFTS

It’sbeen astruggle all season forthis group. Onceagain, the offensiveline lost another starter with right guardMatt Broussard leavingthe game early and not returning.Tight end Caden Jensentook abig hit on the picksix and also didn’t return. Moreover, promising redshirtsophomore Collin Jacob gothis first start onlytosuffer abroken armand is lost forthe season.The Cajuns came out hot on offense and appearedtobecruising when thedefense forced aturnoverondowns on fourth-and-1 up 14-7. The next twopossessionsendedininterceptions and the upsetbid was thwarted.

Turnoversprove toocostly in Cajuns’losstoTrojans

TROY,Ala. The goal is no turnovers. When they happen, it’stough foranoffense playing withsofew seasoned linemen to overcome them.

turning-point play.

Once again, in Saturday’s35-23 loss to Troy,that was the differencefor the Ragin’ Cajuns.

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

TROY,Ala.— Whena team falls to 2-6 and 1-3 on the season, it’s hard to look at any bright spots. But redshirt sophomore wide receiver Shelton Sampson sure looked like the threat Ragin’ Cajuns coachesand fans thought they were getting after he transferred from LSU.

Sampson caught five passes for74yards and atouchdown in the Cajuns’ 35-23 loss to Troy on Saturday at Veterans Memorial Stadium

“Obviously, we’re excited to get himback,” UL coach MichaelDesormeaux said.

“Itfelt like he waskind of abig piece thatwehad been missing fora little while.We’re just kind of struggling alittle bit with an identity andwhatwecan do consistently andhemade some big plays forusonthird down.”

Sampson’simpact was almost immediate.

After Lunch Winfield ranfor 39 yardsonthe ﬁrst playand then connected withSampson on a 36-yard touchdown pass to tie the gameat7-7.

“I hadlike aroute acrossthe middle, and Isaw Lunch scrambling, so Ijust scrambled with him, and he foundme,”Sampson said.

“He winsonthe route, and then we scramble, and then he wins on thescrambledrill,” Desormeaux said of the touchdowncatch.

Sampson also hauled in a16yard reception on third-and-5 on UL’s ﬁeldgoal drivethat cut Troy’s lead to 21-17with1:51left in the second quarter

“I’m just out there playing, trying to do my job at ahigh level,” said Sampson, who said he feels better than he has all season. “Yeah, mostdeﬁnitely. I’mback 100%.” Winfield isn’tsurprised by Sampson’sprogress.

“I sawthis guy the whole spring, man,” Winﬁeld said. “I know what he’scapable of. He’s agreat receiver,and tonight, he showed what he could do.”

That respect wentboth ways.

Things were looking pretty good before the storm arrived Quarterback Lunch Winﬁeld had connected with Shelton Sampson on a39-yard touchdown pass on the offense’ssecond play from scrimmage. Then aCourtline Flowers interception off adeﬂection set up a1-yard Zylan Perry touchdown run for a14-7 lead Evenbetter,the defense stuffed afourth-and-one play for aturnover on downswith 9:15 left in the second quarter Then it happened.

UL coach Michael Desormeaux said earlier in the week he would give Walker Howard afew series.

On the ﬁrst play,Howard threw to tight endCaden Jensen in tight coverage. As soon as Jensen turned, Troy’sJordan Stringer put his helmet on the ball,which ﬂew into the air and teammate Jaquez White intercepted it and raced 30 yards for atouchdown.

“It’scloud coverage,” Desormeaux said. “He checks it down to the stick route, which is where the ball is supposed to go. We turn into the corner,the cornermakes agood play,popsthe ball out, and they end up picking it and returning to atouchdown.

“Thatwas kind of where it felt like we lostthe lead, obviously,and we couldn’treally get it back.” As much as he hated the result, Desormeaux didn’t question the decisions on the

“I thought it wasgood execution by the quarterback to be honest with you,” he said. “He threw the ball. He tried to throwonthe inside shoulder and when we spun out, the corner put hishelmet on the ball. When you run the quick game,it’sgoing to be tight windows…there’sgoing to be bang, bang throws.

“They ran adouble trap, double cloud, which they hadn’treally donesoit’swhere the ballneeded to go.”

As ﬂuky as such playsseem at times, it’snot really the casewith Troy.Since 2020,only Ohio State hasmorepick-sixes thanthe Trojans and only Pitt has morethis season.

As badasthatplay was, however,itgot worse whenWinﬁeld wasinterceptedbyKaleno Levine on thenext possessionaswell. The pickwas returned 34 yards to set up anotherTroytouchdown to gain the lead for goodat21-14 with 9:37 left in the second quarter

“The pick on thedeep shot, we didn’tdoareal good job on the post,” Desormeaux said. “We broke early, so the eyes go back.”

“Hefell offprettylateand he gotto it,” Winﬁeld said of Levine’s play.“That was agood play on the DB.

So it was back to catch-up mode the rest of the way forthisoffense struggling to run the ball without Winﬁeld and toadvance theball in the red zone.

Winﬁeld rushed for 139 yards on 23 carries, but BillDavis led the running backs with 21yardson nine carries.

“We’re just notgetting alot of pushupfront,” Desormeauxsaid “Wewere able to bounce it a few times, but Ididn’tthink we blockedoverly well on the perimeter.” Without Winﬁeld’sproduction, the two second-quarterinterceptions wouldn’thave been thedif-

Troy 35, UL 23 UL71033—23 Troy71477—35 First Quarter

TROY—Kilcrease 8run (Renfroe kick), 9:03

UL—Sampson 36 pass from Winﬁeld (Sterner kick), 8:27. Second Quarter

UL—Z.Perry 1run (Sterner kick),14:14

TROY—White 30 interception return(Renfroe kick), 9:42.

TROY—Kilcrease

UL—FGSterner 32,7:08

TROY—Lovett 19 run(Renfroe kick), 2:55 A—23,719. ULTROY First downs 18 21 Total Net Yards371 345 Rushes-yards42-184 39-165 Passing 187 180 Punt

Fumbles-Lost 1-0 0-0 Penalties-Yards 3-25 2-15 Time of Possession29:28 30:32 INDIVIDUALSTATISTICS RUSHING—UL, Winﬁeld23-139, Perry 9-21, Davis 9-16, Blanco 1-8. Troy,Lovett 21-113, Kilcrease 11-25, Jar.Williams 3-20, Epps 1-5, Taylor 1-5, (Team) 2-(minus3). PASSING—UL, Winﬁeld 12-22-2-187, W.Howard 0-1-1-0. Troy,Kilcrease 16-241-180. RECEIVING—UL, Sampson 5-74, Robertson 3-61, T.Miller 2-18, R.Williams 1-18, Perry 1-16. Troy,Conner 3-68, R.Thomas 3-36, Epps 3-24, Higgins 3-22, Taylor 3-16, Mothershed 1-14. MISSEDFIELDGOALS—Troy,Renfroe 48.

ference.

In addition to his rushing yards, Winfield was 12-of-22 passing for 187 yards and ascore. He did throwasecond interception on UL’s final drive of the game, but it toowas off adeflection.

“He’s giving us an opportunity,” Desormeaux said. “I thought he was pretty precise in the quickgame today.Sure, there are afew throws you want back, but he stands in the pocket, he takes hits and he runs really hard. He’sgiven us achance to move the football.”

The offense ranmore plays thanTroybythe game’send. Early on, the Trojans were up 23-2 in thatcategory.Itwas still 32-10 in Troy’sfavor after the twointerceptions.

With the game still in doubt, UL drove 62 yards on 10 plays and then81yards on 16 plays, but settled for ﬁeld goals.

“The down and distances were just alittle longer than what I felt comfortable going for it,” Desormeaux said of the red zone issues. “Wewere third and eight-ish, most of them.They were dropping eight and playing underneath coverage, so it was kind of hard to get anything in the throw game on the third downs.”

That’s where the lack of a running gamewithout Winﬁeld doing it really showed up in this game.

“Theydoagood job in the red zone on defense on third-andlong,” Desormeaux added.

The problem is the offensive line isn’tgoing to get any healthier Consequently,gettingany more wins the restofthe way is going to require staying away from turnovers and forcing more on defense.

Flowers camethrough with an interception to set up one short touchdown drive.

“I just read my keys,” Flowers said. “I was supposed to be alittle tighter actually,but the receiver ended up dropping the ball and Iwas in the right position. Iwas trying to take it to the house, but Iwas stopped alittle short.”

The defense just couldn’tget off the ﬁeld all night. Troy’soffense was 9-of-13 on third down, orchestrated by quarterback Tucker Kilcrease, whohad two rushing scores.

“They didagood job of reading their keys and ﬁnding the holes in the coverage,” Flowers said of Troy’soffense. “So we’ve got to be better there.”

Email Kevin Foote at kfoote@ theadvocate.com.

“Man, Lunch’sjust doing a greatjob,” Sampsonsaid. “He’s doing everything he can, honestly.Wejust got to pick him up, keep playing behind him, and we’re going to ﬁgure it out eventually.”

Some progress

Peeling back some more layers, Sampson wasn’tthe only bright spotinthe Cajuns’ latest Sun Belt setback.

Redshirt seniordefensive lineman Maxie Baudoin, who prepped at Ascension Episcopal and transferred from Tulane, continued to take advantage of his opportunity to perform. It was Baudoin credited with the tackle when UL’s defense stuffed Troy on afourth-and-1 early in the second quarter just before thepick-six that turned the gamearound.

Baudoin also collected aquarterback sack among hisfour tackles.

“Yes,there area lotofgood things happening, but it’sjust hard when you’re struggling,” Desormeaux said. “When you’re struggling on offense, it kind of makes you feel like you’ve got to be perfect on defense.”

The special teamsunits also played well enough if the Cajuns had avoided the game-changing turnovers.

Youdon’twant to settle for ﬁeld goals, but Tony Sterner made all three of his attempts. Also, punter Nathan Torney’s 41-yard punt to the Troy 4set up Courtline Flowers’interception that led to a quick Cajuns’ touchdownrun to grab a14-7 lead.

Torneyalsoavoided potential disaster when ahigh snaponthe final play of the first half threatened trouble. Instead, he made aleaping snag and wasable to getthe punt off to gettothe half. Also, after poor kickoff and coverage allowed Troy to start its first drive at the 33, the Trojans’field positionafter subsequent kickoffs wereatthe 25, 20, 26 and 25.

PHOTO By BENJAMIN R. MASSEy

UL defensivelinemanJordan Lawson, left,Jalen Clark,middle, andJaden Dugger,right, celebrateabig

Cajuns’35-23 loss to Troy on Saturday

Kevin Foote

NFL ROUNDUP

Barkley’s big game leads Eagles to win over Giants

By The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA Saquon Barkley

burst free for a 65-yard touchdown on his ﬁrst carry and topped 100 yards rushing for the ﬁrst time this season before he left with a groin injury, the kind of setback that could derail last season’s 2,000yard rusher just as he was playing like his old self.

Hold up, Barkley said He’s ﬁne, honest.

Barkley said he likely could have ﬁnished the game had the Philadelphia Eagles not been dominating the New York Giants — a hefty lead against his old team thanks in large part to his most proliﬁc game of the season.

Barkley ran for 150 yards and the long TD, and he caught one of Jalen Hurts’ four scoring passes as the Eagles beat the Giants 38-20 on Sunday “I don’t think there’s anything that we can’t do,” Hurts said. “It’s a matter of are we working towards it and working in it the right way?”

The answer through eight games seems to be a clear yes.

The Eagles (6-2) evened the season series against their NFC East rivals after the Giants won 34-17 earlier this month, and they put the rest of the conference on notice over the last two games that their offense has its groove back Barkley ripped off a 28-yard run on the ﬁnal play of the third quarter but shook his head as he ran gingerly back to the sideline He was checked out inside the medical tent — he called the injury “nothing crazy” — and later grabbed his helmet and jumped in celebration when backup Tank Bigsby ran for a 29-yard gain.

“I went out swinging,” Barkley said with a laugh Hurts, who completed 15 of 20 passes for 179 yards, put the game away with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Dallas Goedert to ﬁnish that drive and make it 3113. Bigsby ran for 104 yards, and Barkley has an extra week to recover with the Eagles headed into a bye.

BRONCOS 44, COWBOYS 24: In Denver, Bo Nix threw for four touchdowns, rookie R.J. Harvey scored three times and the Denver Broncos routed the Dallas Cowboys for their ﬁfth consecutive victory.

J.K Dobbins ran for 111 yards on 15 carries and the Broncos (62) also got big performances from rookies Pat Bryant and Jahdae Barron as they extended the NFL’s longest home winning streak to nine games.

Bryant scored his first touchdown and Barron picked off Dak Prescott for his ﬁrst career interception

DOLPHINS 34, FALCONS 10: In Atlanta, Tua Tagovailoa threw a season-high four touchdown passes and the Miami Dolphins ended their three-game losing streak by dominating the short-handed Atlanta Falcons.

The Dolphins (2-6) outgained the Falcons (3-4) 338-213. Tagovailoa, who threw three interceptions in each of his last two

games, was added to the injury report before the game with an illness but showed no signs of being limited.

Atlanta veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins made his ﬁrst start since a Dec. 16, 2024, win at Las Vegas. Cousins, who appeared in only one game this season in a backup role, couldn’t rescue the offense against a Miami defense determined to contain running back Bijan Robinson.

RAVENS 30, BEARS 16: In Baltimore, in what they hope will be their final game before Lamar Jackson returns, the Baltimore Ravens ﬁnally looked pretty good without him.

Derrick Henry ran for two touchdowns, Tyler Huntley made a big third-down throw late in the fourth quarter and the Ravens beat the Chicago Bears.

The Ravens (2-5) snapped a four-game skid and ended Chicago’s four-game winning streak. The Bears (4-3) dominated the

ﬁrst quarter, but managed only two field goals in that period and didn’t score again until the fourth.

JETS 39, BENGALS 38: In Cincinnati, the winless start for the New York Jets took a toll on Justin Fields. At one point in the runup to the game in Cincinnati, he found himself laying down in his closet and crying.

Helped by the support of family and friends, Fields got up. Then he rallied his team.

Breece Hall rushed for two second-half touchdowns and threw a 4-yard TD pass to Mason Taylor with 1:54 left, helping Fields and the Jets edge the Cincinnati Bengals 39-38 on Sunday for their ﬁrst win under coach Aaron Glenn.

BILLS 40, PANTHERS 9: In Charlotte, North Carolina, a little rest proved just what Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills needed.

James Cook ran for a careerhigh 216 yards and two touchdowns, Allen accounted for three scores and the Bills returned

SCOREBOARD

14, Wofford 10 Florida A&M 43, Southern U. 35 Furman 24, The Citadel 14 Georgia Tech 41, Syracuse 16 Grambling St. 26, Jackson St. 24 Lamar 41, Northwestern St. 14 Louisville 38, Boston College 24 Memphis 34, South Florida 31 Mercer 62, VMI 0 Miami 42, Stanford 7 Monmouth (NJ) 28, Hampton 10 NC A&T 28, Campbell 24 Nicholls 31, McNeese St. 7 Old Dominion 24, Appalachian St. 21 SC State 51, Norfolk St. 20 San Diego 40, Davidson 28 Southern Miss. 49, Louisiana-Monroe 21 St. Thomas (Minn.) 52, Stetson 10 Tarleton St. 31, E. Kentucky 7 Tennessee 56, Kentucky 34 Tennessee Tech 42, SE Missouri 23 Texas 45, Mississippi St. 38, OT Texas A&M 49, LSU 25 Troy 35, Louisiana-Lafayette 23 Vanderbilt 17, Missouri 10 Virginia 17, North Carolina 16, OT W. Illinois 17, Tennessee St. 16 Wake Forest 13, SMU 12 West Georgia 18, Cent. Arkansas 17 MIDWEST BYU 41, Iowa St. 27 Cent. Michigan 38, Umass 13 Cincinnati 41, Baylor 20 Dayton 35, Presbyterian 19 Gardner-Webb 48, Lindenwood (Mo.) 20 Illinois St. 21, South Dakota 13 Indiana 56, UCLA 6 Iowa 41, Minnesota 3 Kansas St. 42, Kansas 17 Kent St. 24, Bowling Green 21 Miami (Ohio) 26, W. Michigan 17

(Ramos

:59. TXAMLSU

Ret. 0-0 2-28

Comp-Att-Int 12-21-2 25-39-0

Sacked-Yards Lost 0-0 7-49 Punts 2-26.0 7-45.857

Fumbles-Lost 2-0 0-0

Penalties-Yards 6-65 5-33 Time of Possession 30:16 29:44 INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS RUSHING—Texas A&M, Reed 13-108, Owens 8-44, Morrow 3-26, Daniels 4-23, Craver 2-19, Norman 1-12, Smith 5-5, Boerkircher 1-1, (Team) 3-(minus 14). LSU, Berry 9-59, Durham 5-36, Van Buren 5-7, Johnson 1-2, Z.Thomas 1-0, Nussmeier 6-(minus 44). PASSING—Texas A&M, Reed 12-21-2-202. LSU, Nussmeier 22-35-0-168, Van Buren 3-4-0-50. RECEIVING—Texas A&M, Craver 4-42, Concepcion 3-45, Ohrstrom 2-32, Bethel-Roman 1-47, Morrow 1-24, Bussey 1-12. LSU, T.Green 6-54, A.Anderson 5-59, Ba.Brown 4-60, Parker 3-20, Johnson 3-7, Sharp 2-0, Hilton 1-10, Z.Thomas 1-8. MISSED FIELD GOALS—None Pro basketball

Conference glance

CONFERENCE

from their bye with a resounding win over the Carolina Panthers. Allen improved to 8-0 following the bye week and established an NFL record by becoming the ﬁrst player to run and throw for a touchdown in 46 games, breaking the mark previously held by former Panthers QB Cam Newton.

TEXANS 26, 49ERS 15: In Houston, with star receiver Nico Collins out against San Francisco, the Houston Texans needed someone to step up to make up for his absence. Turns out a lot of different players helped do that.

C.J. Stroud threw for a seasonhigh 318 yards with two touchdowns and the Texans got off to a quick start and held on for a victory

PATRIOTS 32, BROWNS 13: In Foxborough, Massachusetts, the New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel wanted to add energy in Gillette Stadium after watching his team lose two of its first three games at home to open the season. He did it by bringing back individual pregame introductions for the ﬁrst time since 2001. It might have been exactly the boost New England needed.

Drake Maye threw three second-half touchdown passes to help the Patriots (6-2) erase an early deﬁcit and roll to their ﬁfth straight victory over the Cleveland Browns.

COLTS 38, TITANS 14: In Indianapolis, Jonathan Taylor rushed for two touchdowns and caught another in a milestone game, and Daniel Jones threw for two more scores to help the Indianapolis Colts continue their surprising start with a rout over Tennessee.

Taylor also scored three TDs against the Titans in each of their previous two meetings, making him the ﬁrst player in league history to have three touchdowns in three consecutive games against the same team.

He ﬁnished with 12 carries for 153 yards, the fourth 100-yard game this season for the league’s rushing leader

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MATT SLOCUM

Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley runs with the ball near New york Giants linebacker Abdul Carter on Sunday in Philadelphia.

Want to create afancy pumpkin?

are DOUG MacCASH’S 10 stepstosuccess

BY DOUG MacCASH | Staff writer

We’re not talking here aboutcarving an old-fashioned spooky face with triangular eyesand ajagged,toothy grin into apumpkinpatch ﬁnd with adullbutcher knife.

No, we’re talking about trying to create one of those elaborate, artistic jack-o’lanterns,withﬁne lines, authentic features, and other creative complexities.

We’re talking aboutmaking ajack-o’-lanternthe way Michelangelo would have done it. Or Banksy anyway

After tryingmaking one myself, by drawing and then carving abat that’s supposed to look like aﬂeur-de-lis (and it does,kindof), I’ve created astep-by-step guide that will lead you to certain success. Maybe.

ä See PUMPKIN, page 8C

What

Halloween is one of the most celebrated days in the United States and the second-largest commercial holiday,with Americans spending more than $6 billion annually on costumes, candy,decorations and the like.

Scary costumes and frightening decor can create anxiety or stress forsomeone with Alzheimer’sordementia. For some, “Halloween activates that sense of someone being in danger and being surprised and caught unaware,” says Dr.Lauren Cook, atherapist, speaker and author.Therefore, it is so important to organize and makeHalloween stressfree and an occasion forfun and enjoyment forthe individual with dementia.

BR restaurant ownersopening newItalian eatery

BY LAUREN CHERAMIE

Staff

Twoyears after renovating

Jed’sLocal in Mid City,restaurateursSally and Russell Davis are ready for anew venture.

Enter: Josephine’sItalian Restaurant. In the space that was formerly Roman’s Greek andLebanese Cafe on Government Street in BatonRouge, the couplewill pay homage to Russell’smaternal grandmother,the restaurant’s namesake.They will use her recipesfor meatballs, pomodoro and antipasto.

“She was pretty much thereason why Ifellinlove with cooking, andshe’s100% Sicilian,” said RussellDavis, whocalled his grandmother“Nan.” Nan’sparents, his great-grandparents, came over from Sicily,went through Ellis Island and eventually settled in Massachusetts.Growing up in Manchesterby-the-Sea, Massachusetts, he remembers hisgrandmother’s Sundaydinners, watching her saucesimmeronthe stove while she sneaked him meatballs He moved to Louisiana in 1989 when he was 23. The goal of the new restaurant is to bring thatsame intimate family feeling to Josephine’s. Russell Davis saystheyhope to open the

Think about the decorations in the house. These should be kept to aminimum.Such things as creepy plastic, hanging spiders, skeleton or monster decor,anoutdoor fake cemetery,scary and abrupt sounds, and even candles and ﬂashlights lit all through the homeshould be avoided. An individual with Alzheimer’sor dementia often experiences visual perception changes and these lights cast shadowsand eerie glowsthat can lead to anxiety.Agood rule of thumb is that if it scares a6-year-old, it will scare the affected individual. Trydecorating with traditional autumn colors and use non-threatening Halloween and/or fall decor to represent the holiday Crowded parties and/or elaborate celebrations may be too much external stimulation forthe affected individual, so try to organize opportunities forsmaller,more intimate gatherings so the individual can be included and feel more comfortable. Additionally,the constant ring of the doorbell or the knock on the door and children yelling, “Trick or treat!”, can makethe affected individual extremely nervous and anxious. Agood suggestion forthe caregiver and loved one would be to sit outside near the front door,and if the individual with dementia is willing, have them distribute the candy to the kids. This provides opportunities forsocialization and enjoyment in the community and chances to share in the excitement of little children. However,asmentioned, do be aware if the affected individual becomes anxious or agitated at seeing all the various costumes the trick-or-treaters are wearing. If behavioral expressions begin to spew, take the individual to amore comfortable, quiet place inside until they settle down. There is really no Halloween without candy,with ﬁlled candy dishes around the

and kids sharing their trickor-treat goodies with siblings and friends. It is difﬁcult

ä See JOSEPHINE'S, page 8C

Walkingafter amealhelps keep bloodsugar in check

Dear Doctors: My husband has prediabetes. Iread that going for awalk after you eat can help your blood sugar,soIalways do that But my husband says when you sitdown again, your blood sugar goes right back up, so what’s the point? Is that true? I’m not giving up on him joining me.

Dear reader: Prediabetes is a condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not yet high enough to meet the threshold for diabetes. However, prediabetes is considered awarning sign of an increased risk of developing Type 2diabetes. Type 2diabetes is when the body can’tuse insulin effectively to control blood sugar levels. Sometimes, the body can also no longer produce the required

Dr.Elizabeth Ko

Dr.Eve Glazier

ASK THE DOCTORS

amounts of thehormone. Over time,the chronichighblood sugar of Type 2diabetes cancause tissue, nerve and organ damage. More seriouscomplications include cardiovascular disease, stroke, kidney issues and blindness. All of this means it’simportant to take the prediabetes warning seriously Now let’stalk about the post-

meal walksthat you have added to your routine. Several years ago, agroup of researchers in Ireland found that taking awalk after ameal has abeneficial effect on blood sugar.This proved true even when the walk was only five minutes long and taken an hour after eating. Somepeople in thestudy had diabetes, and some did not.The beneficial effectson blood sugar occurred in all of the participants, regardless of their diabetes status. Although simply standing after ameal also improved blood sugar numbers, the resultswere far more modest. The reason apost-meal walk is good for blood sugar control lies in the muscles. Even theslight contractions, like standing up, help use up glucose available

The lavish supplies we bought to produce oneofthosefancy jack-o’-lanterns. Wait until the management sees this expense report!

PUMPKIN

Continued from page7C

1. Before attempting an artsy pumpkin,ask yourselfsome important questions.Are you crafty? Do you have time to kill? Are you able to endure the torture of your own perfectionism? If you even equivocatedwhile answering any of the above, turn back now

2. Buy an expensive pumpkin carving kit. Sure, you probably alreadyhave all the tools necessary in your kitchen drawers —aserving spoon and an old grapefruit knife wouldprobablydothe trick.But areal pumpkin carving kit is better,because all the tiny sawsand the serrated scooper will help you pretend to be a ghoulish medieval surgeon.

3. Buy,download, or draw apattern for your jack-o’-lantern before youbuy your pumpkin. That way you can ﬁnd apumpkin the right size to ﬁt the pattern. Much, much easier than enlarging the pattern.

4. Use your largebone saw to cut acircle around the stem. The hole must be big enough for your hand to go through. Remove the cap. Scrape out the pumpkin brains —all the seeds

JOSEPHINE’S

Continued from page7C

The menu will include risotto, polenta,lasagna, osso buco, pizza, pasta, apanzanella salad and localseafood.A frequentvisitor of the Red Stick Farmers Market,Russell Davisisfocused on using localfarmers in all of his restaurants. Along with Jed’s Local, the Davises also own

HALLOWEEN

Continued from page7C

high-calorie and ﬂavorful foods like sugary sweets. Trytokeep the candy in a safe place and out of sight as the affected individual oftentimes has no control when it comes to sweets Allow him or her to enjoy the celebrations and monitor intake.

andgoo —with your serrated spoon. If this is your favorite part, you really shouldn’ttell anybody.

4B.Separate the seeds from the stringy stuff, coat them in some olive oil and lots of salt, and roast them until they’re crisp. Eat them. Or just feed the whole unspeakablemesstothe birds.

5. Carefully tape your stencil to the pumpkinjust so. Since ﬂat paper doesn’treally like to wrap around apumpkin, youprobablyneed to cut some slits here andthere, from theedges toward the center,until you cantape the stencil down smoothly

6. Useasafety pin or abulletin board tack to pricktiny holes through thepaper, tracing thepattern onto the pumpkin. Take yourtime. Make lots and lotsofholes. This will be your pattern when carving. Note: Some fancy-schmancy pumpkin carvingkits come witha little pinwheel gizmothat probablymakes this easier

7. Remove the stencil. Usea nail, or the plastic poker in your jack-o’-lantern carvingkit, to pierce ahole somewhere in the negative area of thepattern (the part where goingtocut the pumpkinaway that will subsequently glow)

8. Useyour finest, narrowest, cerebral saw to carefully,

ElizaRestaurant &Bar

“We’re going to use as much local produce totry to createa marriage between Italy and Louisiana,” hesaid of Josephine’s. For dessert,“you gotta have panna cotta and tiramisu,” he said. Therestaurant will also feature daily specials. On Sundays,theywill serve brunch. “Mid City is growing in all kinds of different directions,

Aside from these precautions, Halloween can be adapted and personalizedto make ameaningful andenjoyable celebration forthe individualwith Alzheimer’s or dementia.Involve the affected individual as much as possible, like making decorationstogether,allowing forcreative self-expression, carvingjack-o’-lanterns, and building self-esteem.Keep in mind personalchoices, culturaldifferences,and

meticulously,tediously,cut out the pattern. Keep your head in thegame. Don’tsaw off apinkie. And don’tmess up thewhole project by cutting out what you’re supposed to save and saving thepart you’re supposed to cut out. Aren’tyou glad you madeplenty of holes?

8B.Next year I’m investing in the battery-operated jack-o’-lanternsaw.Yes, there really is such athing.

9.Trynot to dwellonthe imperfections. If there are places where your carving sags, you can maybe support the area with toothpicks. Note: The ears on my bat are messed up alittle. They’re supposed to be thicker and morecurvy on the inside. Butthere was no time to start over.Drat!

10. Installa votive candle, or asafe LED votive candle. Voilà, after abreezy three or four hours, your fancyschmancy jack-o’-lantern is ﬁnished. Relax. Sip a decaf pumpkin spice latte. Preparetograciously accept the praise of passersby and the envy of neighbors. Begin planning your Mardi Gras costume.

Editor’snote: Aversion of this column ﬁrstran in 2022.

Email Doug MacCash at dmaccash@theadvocate. com.

so we’re excited to piggyback offofJed’s right around the corner,” RussellDavis said. “It gives us alot of satisfaction to hear thepositive things people say,and to walk into the dining room and see abunch of smiling faces, people hanging out on dates or families together, it’sreally rewarding.”

Email Lauren Cheramie at lauren.cheramie@ theadvocate.com.

past experiences withHalloween celebrations in the life of the affected individual and honor them.

Dana Territo is an Alzheimer’s advocate and author of “What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer’s Disease.” She hosts“The Memory Whisperer.” Emailher at thememorywhisperer@ gmail.com.

after ameal.When you walk, you are using someofthe largest muscles in the body.Those are thegluteus maximus, the hamstrings andthe quadriceps. The latissimus dorsi, fan-shaped muscles in the mid-back that help support trunk andarm movement, are also working. When activated, these muscle groups use glucose, which helps prevent the spikes associated with diabetes. Managing those blood sugar spikes is an important factor in lowering cardiovascular risk. Amongpeople whowalked, the post-meal spike was not only less extreme, but the spike wasalso moregradual. There is also evidence that repeated blood sugar spikes play arole in the developmentofType 2diabetes.

Your husband is correct that blood sugar will rise again after the walk. However,the change will be gradual and less extreme than without the added exercise. Walking smooths out those dangerous spikes and lessens the risk of the health consequences we just discussed. Your husband is fortunate that his blood sugar issues were noticed at the prediabetes stage. With proper diet and exercise, he still has timetoprevent an escalation to Type 2.

Send yourquestions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla edu, or write: Ask theDoctors c/oUCLA HealthSciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd.,Suite 1450, Los Angeles, CA, 90024.

By The Associated Press

Today is Monday

Oct. 27, the 300th day of 2025. There are 65 days left in theyear

Todayinhistory: On Oct. 27, 2018, agunman shot and killed 11 congregants and wounded sixothers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in thedeadliest domestic attack on Jews in U.S. history;authorities saidthe suspect, Robert Bowers, raged against Jews during and after the rampage. (Bowers was convicted and sentenced to death in 2023.)

Also on this date:

In 1787, theﬁrst of the Federalist Papers, aseries of essays calling for ratiﬁcation of the United States Constitution, was published.

In 1962, during theCuban missile crisis, aU-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down while ﬂying over Cuba, killing the pilot,U.S. Air Force Maj. Rudolf Anderson Jr In 1995, asniper killed one soldier and wounded

18 others during an outdoor physical training sessionatFortBragg, North Carolina. (Paratrooper WilliamJ.Kreutzer was convictedinthe shootings andcondemned to death; the sentence was latercommutedtolife in prison.)

In 1998, powerful HurricaneMitchcut through the western Caribbean, pummeling coastalHondurasand Belize;the storm causedseveral thousand deaths in Central Americabeforeeventually making U.S. landfall in southwest Florida as a tropical storm.

In 2004, the BostonRed Soxwon their ﬁrst World Seriessince1918, sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in four games.

In 2019, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi diedbydetonating a suicide vest as U.S. special forces raidedhis compound in northwest Syria. He once commanded tens of thousands of ﬁghters who had carvedout aterritorialcaliphate for a time in parts of Syria and

Iraq andcarriedout a wave of atrocities. In 2023, Israel knocked outcommunications and created anear-blackout of informationwith steppedup bombardment andartillery ﬁre in the Gaza Strip. The Israelimilitary said it wasexpanding ground operations in the territory ahead of aplannedinvasionasitsought to crush the ruling Hamas militant group afterits Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack and hostage-taking in southern Israel. Today’sbirthdays: ActorcomedianJohnCleese is 86. AuthorMaxine Hong Kingstonis85. Country singerLee Greenwoodis 83. BrazilianPresident Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is 80. AuthorFranLebowitz is 75. Actor-director Roberto Benigni is 73. Golf Hall of Famer Patty Sheehanis69. SingerSimon Le Bon(Duran Duran) is 67. Internet news editor Matt Drudge is 59.AuthorAnthony Doerr is 52. Violinist Vanessa-Mae is 47. TV personality Kelly Osbourne is 41.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Work your magic, interact, participate and paint a vivid, compelling picture. It's time to stand out rather than work behind the scenes. Be bold and expressive.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Refuse to let anyone dictate or complicate your life. Emotional meddling can interfere with how you do your job or earn your living. Don't hesitate to make a change if someone is taking advantage of you.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) When opportunity knocks, open the door. Discuss possibilities and do your due diligence. What you discover will lead to interesting suggestions and the foresight to commit and make a difference.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Put more emphasis on making money and investing wisely. Enhance your skills, knowledge and experience, and navigate your way forward.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Live, learn and excel. You have more going for you than you realize. Engage in talks, listen attentively and connect with people who have something to offer in return.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) If something sounds too good to be true, it's probably false. Hard work pays the bills and helps you gain respect. Trust your instincts and see things through to completion.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Be open to suggestions and learn all you can, but do only what's in your best interest. Focus on domestic issues, lowering your

overhead and investing more time and money in personal growth and financial gain.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) A shift is taking place. Allow your mind to wander, explore and learn, and embrace the freedom to grow Ask questions and you'll gain insight into what's valid and what's fake.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Pay attention to detail and do your best in everything you pursue. You will gain ground in ways that will enhance your reputation, life or position. Protect yourself from injury, illness and emotional manipulation.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Change or let go of whatever doesn't really matter or make sense to hold on to. Engage only in pastimes that address concerns or make your world a better place. Positive actions bring peace of mind.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept 22) Communication will determine your next move. Explore the possibilities of travel, relocation or acquiring a new skill. A commitment will stabilize your life. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Emotions are on the rise. Overdoing it or spending impulsively will leave you at a loss. Protect your physical well-being and your heart from manipulative people. Practice self-love.

FAMILY CIrCUS

TODAy'S CLUE: M EQUALS R

CeLebrItY CIpher

For better or For WorSe

beetLe bAILeY Mother GooSe And GrIMM

nea CroSSwordS

Sudoku

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

Saturday’s PuzzleAnswer

La TimeS CroSSword

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

BY PHILLIP ALDER Bridge

W.C.Fieldssaid,“Aftertwodaysinthe hospital, Itook aturn for the nurse.”

This deal would put some declarers intothe hospital, metaphorically speaking. Southisinfour hearts. West leads the diamondtwo. East winswithhis ace andreturnsthe diamond eight. After ruffing, how should declarer proceed?

South’s three-heart rebid wouldusually advertise 14-16 high-card points, butthishandhassevenclear-cutplaying tricks, making it easily strong enough forthe jump. Do not be locked into highcardpoints; always think about winners. Northhadaborderlineraise,butwelove to tryfor agamebonus, especially when vulnerable.

Southhas four potential losers: one spade, one diamond and two clubs. He hasonly nine immediate winners: one spade,sevenheartsandoneclub.Declarer mustget two club tricks.

Some players would go thatfar, draw trumps, cross to dummy with aspade, and play aclub to their queen. Butwhen the finesse lost, they wouldgodownone and complain about being unlucky.

However, that was only a50percent line. Therewas a63percenter available. Along with East’s having the club king, SouthshouldalsotrytofindEastwiththe club jack and 10. Declarer should cash his heart ace, play ahearttodummy’s king, thenlead aclub to hisnine.

wuzzles

Here, it pulls out the king, ending South’sproblem. But if West could have won thetrick withthe 10 or jack, declarer wouldhave returned to dummy with aspade and played aclub to his queen, losing nothingover finessingthe queen on the first round.

Each Wuzzle is awordriddlewhich creates adisguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: NOON GOOD =GOOD AFTERNOON

Previous answers:

word game

InstRuctIOns: 1. Words must be of fourormore letters. 2. Words that acquire fourletters by the addition of “s,”such as “bats” or “dies,” are not allowed.3 Additional words made by adding a“d” or an “s” may not be used. 4. Proper nouns, slang words, or vulgar or sexually explicit wordsare not allowed tODAY’s WORD cARAPAcE: KAH-ruh-pace: Aprotective, decorative or disguising shell.

Average mark12words Timelimit 20 minutes

Can you find 17 or morewords in CARAPACE?

sAtuRDAY’sWORD —EstROnE