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MINNEAPOLIS

‘A strong

bond’

Inside theLsU vetstudent job responsible forlivetiger mascot Mike VII

BY HALEY MILLER staff writer

The tiger stalked his caretaker, fixinghis gaze onher while her back was turned

Then he froze. Wiggled hishindquarters. Waited abreath Andboundedforward, stopping just short of the towering metal fence surrounding his enclosure.

“Sweetie, Ilove you, Ilove you,” the caretaker cooed as shetouched his muzzle through the fence.Mike VII chuffed, ahappy snorting sound to show,despitehis predator stance amoment ago, they were all friends.

The relationship between human and tiger developed withtime, care and sacriﬁce —necessary forone of the mostdemanding jobs on the LSUcampus. Baylee Weems and MadisonVicknair,students at the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, will pass the torch thisspringtothe next duo responsible for the wellbeing of the only live tiger mascot in the U.S.

“Weformedsucha strong bond,”

Weems said. “I can’t really say he’s my pet, but Ilove him as if hewere my pet.”

Though many veterinary students

express interest in the tiger keeper role, therealities of thejob tendto narrow down the candidatepool, LSU Veterinary Medicine spokesperson Ginger Guttner said. One student must always be within 30 minutes of Baton Rouge in case of an emergency.Inaddition to feed-

ing andsocializing with Mike,the caretakers pick up trash in his enclosure,managehis food andsupplies inventory and provide enrichmentactivities. The students juggle thosetasks

MINNEAPOLIS Afederal immigration officer shot and killed aman Saturday in Minneapolis, drawing hundreds of protesters onto the frigid streetsand ratcheting up tensions in acity already shaken by another fatal shooting weeks earlier Family members identifiedthe man who waskilled as Alex Pretti, a37-year-old intensive care unit nurse who had protested President Donald Trump’simmigration crackdown in his city After theshooting, an angry crowd gathered and protesters clashed with federal immigration officers, who wielded batons and deployed flash bangs. The Minnesota National Guard wasassisting localpoliceamidgrowing protestsatthe direction of Democratic Gov. TimWalz, officials said. Guard

ä Man killed in Minneapolis wasICU nurse, family says. PaGe 5a

ä see MINNEAPOLIS, page 4A

Corruption arrests cast shadow on BR politics

Four peopleindicted; sitting councilmemberimplicated

BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER staff writer

The arrests and indictments have come fast. The investigation behind them has not.

In aone-weekspan, four people have been indictedand asitting council memberhas been implicated in an investigation of allegationsthatBaton Rouge public officials accepted bribes and used their positions to funnel government funds. The recenteventscome six weeks after Louisiana Attorney GeneralLiz Murrill’soffice charged alocal developer with financial crimes related to public funds and document fraud.

see SHADOW, page 3A

Fobbs

staFFPHotosByMICHaeLJoHNsoN

MikeVII lounges in the grass at LsU’stiger habitat in Baton rougeonMonday.Daily care for the only livetiger mascot in the U.s. is entrusted to two LsUveterinaryschool students.

LsU student Baylee Weems, one of twocaretakers, takes amoment with Mike VII at the tiger habitat on Monday.

Trump says Maduro raid used ‘discombobulator’

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump said U.S. military forces used a weapon that he referred to as “the discombobulator” during the U.S. operation in Caracas to remove former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power earlier this month

“The discombobulator I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump said in an interview with The New York Post. He said the weapon made enemy equipment “not work.”

“They never got their rockets off,” Trump said, according to the Post. “They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for additional information about the weapon.

In the hours after the raid, dubbed Operation Absolute Resolve, the president alluded to a technical capability in a news conference after the raid

“It was dark, the lights of Caracas were largely turned off due to a certain expertise that we have, it was dark, and it was deadly,” Trump said after the operation.

U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife, Celia, in an earlymorning raid on Jan. 3 and sent him to the U.S. to face criminal charges.

Suicide bomber strikes wedding, kills 7 people

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan A suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest among guests at a wedding ceremony in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least seven people and wounding 25, police said The attack took place at the home of Noor Alam Mehsud, a pro-government community leader in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said local police chief Adnan Khan. He said officers transported the victims to a hospital, where some of the wounded were listed in critical condition.

The ceremony was underway, with guests dancing to the beat of drums, when the bomber struck. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. However, suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, who have carried out numerous attacks in the country in recent years. The group is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban.

TTP has been emboldened since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021 when U.S and NATO troops left the country after 20 years of war Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuaries in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover there

Apartment building gas explosion, fire kills 1

A gas explosion sent fire racing through the top floors of a high-rise apartment building in New York City early Saturday, killing one person and injuring 14 others as temperatures plunged into the single digits overnight, authorities said Firefighters responded shortly before 12:30 a.m. to the 17-story building in the Bronx, where people were seen leaning out of windows calling for help as flames engulfed parts of the top floors, officials said.

Chief of Department John Esposito said firefighters were investigating reports of a gas odor on the 15th and 16th floors when the explosion occurred. He said there was major structural damage to about a dozen apartments and fires in 10 apartments on the 16th and 17th floors

Ofﬁcials said the building had been undergoing renovations, and work on the natural gas system had been completed and inspected.

Iranian general warns Trump

revolutionary Guard commander says his forces are ‘more ready than ever’

BY ELENA BECATOROS associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates The commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which was key in putting down recent nationwide protests in a crackdown that left thousands dead, warned that his force is “more ready than ever, ﬁnger on the trigger.”

Nournews, a news outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported on its Telegram channel that the commander, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour warned the United States and Israel “to avoid any miscalculation.”

“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard and dear Iran stand more

ready than ever, finger on the trigger, to execute the orders and directives of the Commander-inChief,” Nournews quoted Pakpour as saying.

Tension remains high between Iran and the U.S in the wake of a bloody crackdown on protests that began on Dec. 28, triggered by the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, and swept the country for about two weeks.

Meanwhile, the number of people reported by activists as having been arrested jumped to more than 40,000, as fears grow some could face the death penalty

Trump’s warnings

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned Tehran, setting two red lines for the use of military force: the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the mass execution of people arrested in the protests.

Trump has repeatedly said Iran halted the execution of 800 people

detained in the protests. He has not elaborated on the source of the claim, which Iran’s top prosecutor, Mohammad Movahedi, strongly denied Friday in comments carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency On Thursday, Trump said aboard Air Force One that the U.S. was moving warships toward Iran “just in case” he wants to take action.

“We have a massive ﬂeet heading in that direction and maybe we won’t have to use it,” Trump said.

A U.S. Navy ofﬁcial, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements, said Thursday that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships traveling with it were in the Indian Ocean.

Trump also mentioned the multiple rounds of talks American ofﬁcials had with Iran over its nuclear program before Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June, which also saw U.S. warplanes bomb Iranian

Syria extends ceasefire with Kurdish-led force

BY GHAITH ALSAYED associated Press

RAQQA, Syria Hours after the expiration of a four-day truce between the Syrian government and Kurdish-led fighters

Saturday Syria’s defense ministry announced the ceaseﬁre had been extended by another 15 days.

The defense ministry said in a statement that the extension was in support of an operation by U.S. forces to transfer accused Islamic State militants who had been held in prisons in northeastern Syria to detention centers in Iraq.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces confirmed the ceasefire extension. “Our forces afﬁrm their commitment to the agreement and their dedication to respecting it which contributes to de-escalation, the protection of civilians, and the creation of the necessary conditions for stability,” the group said in a statement.

Over the past three weeks, there have been intense clashes between government forces and the SDF, in which the SDF lost large parts of the area they once controlled

Earlier in the day, the Kurdish-led force called on the international community to prevent any escalation.

The end of the truce came as government forces have been sending reinforcements to Syria’s northeast.

Syria’s interim government signed an agreement last March with the SDF for

it to hand over territory and to eventually merge its ﬁghters with government forces. In early January, a new round of talks failed to make progress over the merger, leading to renewed ﬁghting between the two sides.

A new version of the accord was signed last weekend, and a four-day ceaseﬁre was declared Tuesday. Part of the new deal is that SDF members will have to merge into the army and police forces as individuals.

The SDF said in a statement Saturday that military buildups and logistical movements by government forces have been observed, “clearly indicating an intent to escalate and push the region toward a new confrontation.” The SDF said it will continue to abide by the truce.

On Saturday state TV said authorities on Saturday released 126 boys under the age of 18 who were held at the al-Aqtan prison near the northern city of Raqqa that was taken by government forces Friday. The teenagers were taken to the city of Raqqa where they were handed over to their families, the TV station said.

The prison is also home to some of the 9,000 members of the Islamic State group who are held in northeastern Syria. Most of them remain held in jails run by the SDF Government forces have so far taken control of two prisons while the rest are still run by the SDF

Earlier this week, the U.S military said that some 7,000 IS detainees will be transferred to detention centers in Iraq.

China’s top general under investigation

By the associated Press

BEIJING — The Chinese military’s top general is being investigated for suspected serious violations of discipline and law the Defense Ministry said Saturday, Zhang Youxia, the senior of the two vice chairs of the powerful Central Military Commission, is the latest ﬁgure to fall in a long-running purge of military ofﬁcials.

Analysts believe the purges are designed both to reform the military and to ensure loyalty to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who also chairs the military commission They are part of a broader anti-corruption drive that has punished more than 200,000 ofﬁcials since Xi came to power in 2012.

Another member of the commission, Liu Zhenli, has also been placed under investigation by China’s ruling Communist Party a Defense Ministry statement said. Liu is the chief of staff of the com-

mission’s Joint Staff Department. The commission is the top military body in China.

The statement did not provide any details on the alleged wrongdoing.

Zhang, who is 75, joined the People’s Liberation Army in 1968 and is a general from its ground forces.

The Communist Party expelled the other vice chair of the commission, He Weidong, last October and replaced him with commission member Zhang Shengmin.

The Trump administration released a new National Defense Strategy on Friday acknowledging China as a military power that it said needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies.

“This does not require regime change or some other existential struggle,” the strategy said. “Rather, a decent peace, on terms favorable to Americans but that China can also accept and live under is possible.”

nuclear sites. He threatened Iran with military action that would make earlier U.S. strikes against Iranian uranium enrichment sites “look like peanuts.”

Rising death toll and arrests

Although there have been no further demonstrations in Iran for days, the death toll reported by activists has continued to rise as information trickles out despite the most comprehensive internet blackout in Iran’s history

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Saturday put the death toll at 5,200, with the number expected to increase. The group’s ﬁgures have been accurate in previous unrest and rely on a network of activists in Iran to verify deaths.

The activist agency on Saturday also increased the total number of people arrested to 40,879 — a significant jump from the more than 27,700 people in its previous update.

Heavy snow and rain kill 61, injure 110 in Afghanistan

BY ABDUL QAHAR AFGHAN associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan Heavy snow and rainfall over the past three days have killed more than 60 people and injured over 100 across Afghanistan, the country’s disaster management authority said Saturday, as authorities in the impoverished country struggled to open roads and gain access to cut-off villages. National Disaster Management Authority spokesman Yousaf Hammad said 61 people had died and 110 were injured, while 458 homes had been completely or partially destroyed and hundreds of animals had died in 15 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. The numbers, he said, could change as authorities gathered more information from the provinces. Afghanistan is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, with snow and heavy rain that triggers flash floods often killing dozens, or even hundreds,

of people at a time. In 2024, more than 300 people died in springtime flash floods. Decades of conflict coupled with poor infrastructure, a struggling economy, deforestation and the intensifying effects of climate change have amplified the impact of such disasters, particularly in remote areas where many homes are built of mud and offer limited protection against sudden deluges or heavy snowfall. The country’s eastern provinces are also still struggling to recover from devastating earthquakes that struck last August and again in November destroying villages and killing more than 2,200 people. Those displaced by the quakes are particularly vulnerable to the extreme cold and bad weather conditions In December, UNICEF said an estimated 270,000 children in the areas affected by the quakes were at “severe risk of life-threatening diseases related to the cold.”

assoCIateD Press PHoto By BaDerKHaN aHMaD

Kurdish fighters with the syrian Democratic Forces are cheered by local residents ahead of the end of a four-day truce with the syrian government in Hassakeh, northeastern syria, on saturday.

BOND

Continued from page 1a

while fulﬁlling the obligations of the last two years of veterinary school, including daily rounds and rotations through different specialties. They coordinate their schedules, so Mike is never without a caretaker

The keepers also need to get along as co-workers, Guttner said. They apply as a team and serve for two years.

“It’s probably the coolest student worker job on campus but also the one with most responsibility,” Guttner said.

Get ready with Mike Steps away from Tiger Stadium, Mike begins his day with a caretaker arriv-

ing early to the habitat to put out his breakfast and socialize. While Mike is locked in an interior area, the student cleans his habitat and plates his food.

Weems or Vicknair will also stop by in the evening to serve Mike dinner and observe the tiger’s mood and health.

“That is Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, when their little sister gets married, when their brother graduates from high school, all of those things,” Guttner said “Mike does not have a calendar.”

Weems and Vicknair attend to Mike’s daily needs, supervised by veterinarian and professor Dr Rhett Stout, but they are also a “custodian and a pool boy,” Guttner said.

One recent morning sent Weems walking across the

agent Phillip Vitter wrote in arrest warrants filed in court on Jan 21.

bouncy cable roof of the enclosure to retrieve a stray beer can that appeared overnight. Foreign objects inside the habitat can endanger Mike, she said.

“If you lose a grip, you will go rolling,” Weems said. “It’s very dangerous. We have to make sure it’s safe for him to come out.”

‘A typical cat’

A desire to work in zoos or with big cats is not a requirement to apply for the tiger keeper role. Weems, for example, plans to practice small animal veterinary medicine after graduation. The position rewards those who can handle the pressure.

Mike does not forget his people, Weems said.

“I find that Mike VI was more playful with everybody,” Weems said, “whereas he’s more just like, I have my people, I know my people, that’s it.”

The tiger’s behavior can appear similar to a house cat. He rubs his face against the fence and plays with toys in the yard. He even has weather preferences — snow and rain make him “frisky,” Weems said.

His “goofy” nature does not mean the caretakers can stop treating him like a predator, Weems said. Protocol and the construction of the habitat prevent the keepers from coming into direct contact with Mike.

“He definitely is still an apex predator,” Weems said. “He knows how to stalk, he knows how to pounce, real

quietly sneak up on you. He knows how to do all those things. But at the end of the day, he’s still a typical cat.” She said she will visit Mike regularly after graduating, but the interactions will feel bittersweet. The next caretakers will start shadowing the current pair in February

“If he spots me in a crowd and he comes running, it’ll be very difﬁcult not to be able to come in here, play with him, pet him,” Weems said. As golden hour light streamed into Mike’s yard, Weems traveled around the back of the enclosure, preparing to serve the tiger his special ground meat carnivore diet. Mike followed her along his side of the fence. He watched from a window as she began the evening routine, and then he padded inside, ready for dinner

It’s all part of a three-yearold probe that has involved both the attorney general and the FBI, according to arresting documents and sources with direct knowledge.

For some inside City Hall, the sudden burst of arrests came less as a shock than a conﬁrmation of what subpoenas and years of whispers had already suggested, and that the investigation may not be ﬁnished.

“I’d consider this case substantial,” said Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, who is not directly involved in the investigation. “From just what I’ve read in the newspaper, I really think this is going to expand beyond what we’ve seen so far.”

Years in the making

The LBI took over the probe of CATS in December 2024, documents show, but FBI agents interviewed people implicated years before. In 2022, FBI agents interviewed both Thomas and Colar

Investigators say those interviews prompted “conﬂicting answers” from Thomas and provided evidence of falsiﬁed records. They also found text messages from Colar’s phone that agents said had been altered to remove key information.

In December Murrill’s office arrested and charged Baton Rouge developer Bradly Brown on seven total counts of theft, bank fraud, money laundering and falsifying public records. The city-parish in 2021 awarded Brown a $6 million deal using federal funds to build a low-income housing complex in Scotlandville.

One in particular was a $450,000 city-parish funded rehab project on Central Road awarded to developer Jason Hughes, though LeDuff told The Advocate he was not sure if the federal probe was targeting Hughes or former City Hall staffers.

In a statement Friday, Edwards said he was unaware of all the details regarding the CATS indictments, but pointed out that the activities in question occurred in 2021 and 2022 when he was coaching high school football.

After taking office, he said he ordered a review of all federal and state projects and programs to prevent any misuse of tax dollars.

“We examined policies and procedures and made revisions where necessary to ensure compliance with laws, rules and regu-

lations,” Edwards said “I strongly believe that all individuals are innocent until proven otherwise.”

Accusations that public ofﬁcials took bribes or funneled taxpayer money through fraudulent contracts is cause for concern, city ofﬁcials say “Anytime something like this comes up, all of it needs to be investigated to the fullest extent,” said Metro Council member Aaron Moak. “If these allegations come to fruition then they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent.”

If the accusations are proven true, Moak said he is “deeply” alarmed that no vetting process was able to catch any unethical or illegal practices.

“With the taxpayer dollars, you better be able to vet every single step that you took and every single process,” he said.

Why unindicted?

Moore has been district attorney since 2009. From his limited knowledge of the ongoing case, the scope of this white-collar case is as big as any in Baton Rouge during that tenure. From what he’s read in the news, the investigation looks far from over Moore’s first assistant district attorney, Tracey Barbera, said the money involved is what sets this particular case apart.

“When white collar crime that involves public funds, to me, that just brings it to a whole different level,” she said.

Cases involving an unindicted co-conspirator — in this instance, Dunn — are relatively uncommon, and the term itself is not widely understood by the public, Moore said.

An unindicted co-conspirator means that investiga-

tors believe that person is involved in the case, Moore said, but for a variety of reason, they are not a defendant.

“They still may be working other avenues and presenting other evidence regarding that unindicted co-conspirator,” Moore said.

“Or in some cases they don’t have enough evidence at that point to indict that person.”

An unindicted co-conspirator’s words and actions can be used as evidence in a case against others charged, he added, just as if as if that unindicted co-conspirator was one of the defendants. Moore and Barbera both noted that, on occasion, an unindicted co-conspirator is cooperating with investigators and has been offered immunity in exchange for evidence or testimony

“But I don’t think that’s the case here,” Moore said.

On Jan. 14, a special grand jury indicted former Capital Area Transit System Chief Administrative Ofﬁcer Pearlina Thomas and contractor Jay Colar on multiple counts of theft, conspiracy and misuse of public funds.

Prosecutors allege Thomas conspired with an unindicted co-conspirator named in the indictment only as “C.D.” identified by a source with direct knowledge of the investigation as Metro Council member Cleve Dunn Jr — to steer a $50,000 contract to Colar’s company, Supreme Solutions.

Murrill’s office has offered few comments on either case.

“This is a continuing investigation,” spokesperson Lester Duhé said in a text Friday “Additional charges may follow.”

Not the end

For some with inside knowledge of City Hall, Brown’s arrest and the recent CATS indictments follow years of rumored subpoenas, law enforcement investigations and whispers about corruption.

Most of that money ended up in the hands of a different company identified as “C.G.,” prosecutors say which a source identified as Core Group, a company owned by Dunn.

A week after those charges were filed, Murrill’s investigation, headed by Assistant Attorney General Alex Calenda, resulted in two more people being added to that indictment. Husband and wife TJ Jackson and Erica Jackson were charged with theft and conspiracy

“W e’ve been hearing rumors for years now, and now the indictments are coming out, which lends truth to the rumors that we’ve been hearing,” said Metro Council member Jen Racca.

Most disheartening to Racca is the impact these crimes, if proven will have on the city-parish gover nment g oing forward, she said.

Racca fears it’ll breed further mistrust about the government and fuel paranoia from the public in general.

The Jacksons are accused of entering into an administrative contract with CATS but instead using that taxpayer money to illegally campaign for an upcoming tax renewal that would fund the agency

All four defendants have been charged on the same count of conspiracy to commit theft, and court records also implicate a ﬁfth unindicted co-conspirator identiﬁed as “C.D.”

According to arresting documents for the CATS charges, the investigation dates back at least to 2022 and involves the FBI and the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation, the arm of the Attorney General’s Office that conducts major investigations.

“The LBI received a request for assistance from the FBI regarding allegations of public ofﬁcials who allegedly accepted bribes and misused their positions to inﬂuence CATS procurement contracts to receive government funding,” LBI

“It also will strain relationships with my colleagues and I on the council,” she said. “It’s incredibly impactful and incredibly sad.”

An attorney with criminal defense experience, Racca also believes there is more to come.

“Based upon my knowledge of the criminal justice system and the way that the indictments are currently written, it leads me to believe that there’s more here,” she said “This isn’t the end of the story.

Top officials in MayorPresident Sid Edwards’ administration said in September that they were aware of investigations into possible misuse of tax dollars by public ofﬁcials in recent years.

Emails obtained by The Advocate at that time showed that Ofﬁce of Community Development Director Kelly LeDuff met with federal investigators and turned over records related to housing projects that preceded Edwards’ tenure.

troops were sent to both the shooting site and to a federal building where ofﬁcials have squared off with protesters daily Information about what led up to the shooting was limited, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson

Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that federal officers were conducting an operation and fired “defensive shots” after a man with a handgun approached them and “violently resisted” when officers tried to disarm him. The officer who shot the man is an eight-year Border Patrol veteran, federal officials said.

In bystander videos of the shooting that emerged soon after Pretti is seen with a phone in his hand but none appears to show him with a visible weapon.

O’Hara said police believe the man was a “lawful gun owner with a permit to carry.” Trump weighed in on social media by lashing out at Walz and the Minneapolis mayor Trump shared images of the gun that immigration ofﬁcials said was recovered and said: “What is that all about? Where are the local Police? Why weren’t they allowed to protect ICE Ofﬁcers?”

Trump, a Republican, said the governor and mayor are “are inciting Insurrection, with their pompous, dangerous, and arrogant rhetoric.

Pretti was shot just over a mile from where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ofﬁcer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good on Jan. 7, sparking widespread protests.

Video shows shooting In a bystander video of Saturday’s shooting obtained by The Associated Press, protesters can be heard blowing whistles and shouting profanities at fed-

eral officers on Nicollet Avenue The video shows an officer shoving a person who is wearing a brown jacket, skirt and black tights and carrying a water bottle. That person reaches out for a man and the two link up, embracing. The man, wearing a brown jacket and black hat, seems to be holding his phone up toward the officer The same officer shoves

the man in his chest and the two, still embracing, fall back.

The video then shifts to a different part of the street and then comes back to the two individuals unlinking from each other. The video shifts focus again and then shows three officers surrounding the man. Soon at least seven ofﬁcers surround the man. One is on the man’s back and another

who appears to have a canister in his hand strikes a blow to the man’s chest. Several officers try to bring the man’s arms behind his back as he appears to resist. As they pull his arms, his face is briefly visible on camera. The officer with the canister strikes the man near his head several times.

A shot rings out, but with officers surrounding the man, it’s not clear from where the shot came. Multiple ofﬁcers back off of the man after the shot. More shots are heard. Officers back away and the man lies motionless on the street.

The police chief appealed for calm, both from the public and from federal law en-

forcement.

“Our demand today is for those federal agencies that are operating in our city to do so with the same discipline, humanity and integrity that effective law enforcement in this country demands,” the chief said.

“We urge everyone to remain peaceful.”

Gregory Bovino, of U.S. Border Patrol, who has commanded the administration’s big-city immigration campaign, said the ofﬁcer who shot the man had extensive training as a range safety ofﬁcer and in using less-lethal force.

“This is only the latest attack on law enforcement.

Protests continue

Protesters converged at the scene of the shooting despite dangerously cold weather

At midday Saturday, the worst of an extreme cold wave was over, but the temperature was still -6 degrees. The Arctic blast hadn’t deterred thousands of protesters from marching downtown Minneapolis on Friday afternoon to call for ICE to leave the Minnesota. After the shooting, an angry crowd gathered and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home. One ofﬁcer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them: “Boo hoo.” Agents elsewhere shoved a yelling protester into a car Protesters dragged garbage dumpsters from alleyways to block the streets, and people who gathered chanted, “ICE out now,” referring to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

“They’re killing my neighbors!” said Minneapolis resident Josh Koskie.

Across the country, the men and women of DHS have been attacked, shot at,” he said. Walz said he had no confidence in federal officials and that the state would lead the investigation into the latest fatal shooting. Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said during a news conference that federal officers blocked his agency from the shooting scene, and when they returned with a signed judicial warrant, they were still blocked.

At Franciscan Missionaries of OurLadyUniversity (FranU), communityservice is much more than an extracurricularopportunity or aresumebuilder

Rather,itisa core responsibility wovenintoevery aspect of life at FranU– onethatshapesacademic programs,campusculture andthe waystudents preparefor life aftergraduation.

That philosophy hasearnedFranU national recognition throughthe 2026 Carnegie Elective Classiﬁcation for CommunityEngagement. Awardedbythe American CouncilonEducation andthe Carnegie Foundation forthe AdvancementofTeaching, the designationplaces FranUamong just 277collegesand universitiesnationwiderecognizedfordeep,sustained andinstitutionalized communityengagement. The classiﬁcationisvalid through2032.

“We’re asmall institutionthatismakinga big impact.I thinkthisrecognitionisatestament to the fact that everythingwedoismission-driven,”saidDr. RhodaReddix, FranUDirectorofService-Learning. “We’re intentionalinwhatwedo, andour work has both breadthand depth.”

That intentionality stoodout in FranU’sCarnegie application,withanemphasisonrelationship-building andlong-term impact rather than one-time volunteer efforts.Dr. Reddix said FranUnow partners with approximately160 organizationswho areworking throughout Louisianatoassistthe elderly, localyouth themedically underserved, individualswithspecial needsand thoselivinginpoverty

“Thisrecognition reflects ourcommitmentto forminghighlyskilled professionalsand integrated thinkerswhounderstandthattheireducationismeant to serveothers. Throughcommunity engagement ourstudents areformedtoleadwithexcellence, integrityand compassion in ways that transform both livesand communities,”saidFranU President andCEO Dr.David Bellar

Dr.Reddixsaidservice-learningatFranU means students work hands-on with organizationsand individualsacrossthe state. That caninclude helping performblood pressure checks andhealth screenings at area nursinghomes,conductingguided interventionswithchildrenonthe autism spectrum mentoringyouth andencouraging them to pursue higher education, packingmeals at localfoodbanks andparticipating in kidney diseasescreening and educationathealthfairs

“AllFranUstudentstakeanintroductiontotheology classwitharequiredservice-learningcomponent They cansearchfor opportunities amongour partner organizations that resonate with them,” explained RebeccaGruntz, FranUDirectorofFranciscan StudentLifeand ServantLeadership. “Oncetheyare in theirprogram of study, they determineasagroup wheretheyare goingtoserve.I’veheard from many students that themostimpactful part of theirFranU

experienceisthe serviceopportunities.”

Gruntz addedthatleaders from partnerorganizationsoften pointout that FranUstudentsgoabove andbeyondtohelpthose in need

“Through service-learning, we seeour students trulyserve theLordand others.Thatsetsusapart They areabletoshowcasetheir servantleadership heartand learnhow they cancontinuethatwork aftergraduationwhentheyare in theirprofessional ﬁelds,”she said Dr.Reddixsaidshe hasseenservice-learning transformstudents’ livesaswell. OneFranU student whowas struggling in herfaith wasassigned a projecttohelpa spirituallygroundedseniorcitizen create amemorybookfor herfamily. Throughthat experience,Dr. Reddix said thestudentregainedher faithand resumedher relationship with thechurch. In anothersituation,Dr. Reddix said aFranU studentplanned to becomea physical therapist, but facedunexpectedacademic challenges.Her service-learningproject involved workingwith children on theautismspectrum. As sheworked with anonverbalkindergartner at alocal school,the childbegan to speak for theﬁrsttime.

“The teachers kept tellingher that shetruly has a gift.She washired by aschooland todayher entire career is workingwithchildrenwithspecial needs. That wassomethingshe hadnever considered before,” Dr.Reddixsaid. “Her service-learning experience at FranUcompletelychanged herlife. Dr.Reddixsaidthe service-learningexpectation is setatFranU from theverybeginning,fromstudent orientations andadmissionstothe staffhiring process. Gruntz notedthatbecause this expectation is so interwoven into life at FranU, shehas seen students andfaculty create newopportunities to help others.For example, theStudent Government Organizationled an efforttoprepare meal kits for more than 50 students in need last Thanksgiving, with staff memberscontributing monetarily “Ourfacultyandstaffareoftenouttherevolunteering as well.Whenthe opportunity arises,theyare ready to serveside-by-sidewithour students,” shesaid. Learnmoreatfranu.edu

assoCIateD Press PHotos By aBBIe Parr

Federal agents stand near the site of a shooting in Minneapolis on saturday.

Federal agents stand near the site of a shooting in Minneapolis on saturday

By Amanda McElfresh| amcelfresh@theadvocate.com

Man killed in Minneapolis was ICU nurse, family says

BY MICHAEL BIESECKER, TIM SULLIVAN and JIM MUSTIAN associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS Family mem-

bers say the man killed by a U.S. Border Patrol ofﬁcer in Minneapolis on Saturday

was an intensive care nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital who cared deeply about people and was upset by President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in his city Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed getting in adventures with Joule, his beloved Catahoula Leopard dog who also recently died. He had participated in protests following the killing of Renee Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs ofﬁcer on Jan. 7.

“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father “He thought it was terrible, you know kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street. He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.” Pretti was a U.S. citizen, born in Illinois. Like Good, court records showed he had no criminal record and his family said he had never had any interactions with law enforcement beyond a handful of trafﬁc tickets.

In a recent conversation with their son, his parents, who live in Colorado, told him to be careful when protesting.

“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically,” Michael Pretti said. “And he said he knows that. He knew that.”

The Department of Homeland Security said that the man was shot after he “approached” Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun. Ofﬁcials did not specify if Pretti brandished the gun In bystander videos of the shooting that emerged soon after, Pretti is seen with a phone in his hand but none appears to show him with a visible weapon.

Family members said Pretti owned a handgun and had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Minnesota. They said they had never known him to carry it.

Family struggles for details

The family first learned of the shooting when they were called by an Associated Press reporter They watched the video and said the man killed appeared to be their son. They then tried reaching out to ofﬁcials in Minnesota.

“I can’t get any information from anybody,” Michael Pretti said Saturday “The police, they said call Border Patrol, Border Patrol’s closed, the hospitals won’t answer any questions.”

Eventually, the family called the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, who they said confirmed had a body matching the name and description of their son.

Alex Pretti grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he played football, baseball and ran track for Preble High School. He was a Boy Scout and sang in the Green Bay Boy Choir

After graduation, he went to the University of Minnesota, graduating in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, society and the environment, according to the family He worked as a research scientist before returning to school to become a registered nurse.

Had protested before Pretti’s ex-wife, who spoke to the AP but later said she didn’t want her name used for fear of retaliation, said she was not surprised he would have been involved in protesting Trump’s immigration crackdown. She said she had not spoken to him since they divorced more than two years ago and she

moved to another state

She said he was a Democratic voter and that he had participated in the wave of street protests following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police ofﬁcer in 2020, not far from the couple’s neighborhood. She described him a someone who might shout at law

enforcement officers at a protest, but she had never known him to be physically confrontational.

She said Pretti got a permit to carry a concealed firearm about three years ago and that he owned at least one semiautomatic handgun when they separated.

Pretti had ‘a great heart’

Pretti lived in a four-unit condominium building about 2 miles from where he was shot Neighbors described him as quiet and warmhearted.

“He’s a wonderful person,” said Sue Gitar who lived downstairs from Pretti and

said he moved into the building about three years ago.

“He has a great heart.” If there was something suspicious going on in the neighborhood, or when they worried the building might have a gas leak, he would jump in to help.

Pretti lived alone and worked long hours as a

“We had this discussion with him two weeks ago or so, you know, that go ahead and protest, but do not engage, do not do anything stupid, basically And he said he knows that. He knew that.”

MICHaeL PrettI, alex’s Pretti’s father

nurse, but he was not a loner, his neighbors said, and would sometimes have friends over His neighbors knew he had guns — he’d occasionally take a riﬂe to shoot at a gun range — but were surprised at the idea that he might carry a pistol on the streets

“I never thought of him as a person who carried a gun,” said Gitar

Passionate about outdoors

A competitive bicycle racer who lavished care on his new Audi, Pretti had also been deeply attached to his dog, who died about a year ago. His parents said their last conversation with their son was a couple days before his death. They talked about repairs he had done to the garage door of his home. The worker was a Latino man, and they said with all that was happening in Minneapolis he gave the man a $100 tip. Pretti’s mother said her son cared immensely about the direction the county was headed, especially the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations.

LouisianaOffice of Tourismhelps take NewOrleans MardiGrasglobal with live parade camcoverage

TheKrewe of Endymionrolls in NewOrleans,Saturday, March1,2025. Theparadefeaturedmorethan3,200 riders and37ﬂoats on theirtraditionalroute throughMid-Cityand downtown NewOrleans (Staff photobyBrett Duke,The Times-Picayune)

This articleisbrought to youbythe LouisianaOffice of Tourism.

MardiGrasissynonymouswithNew Orleans– thesights, sounds and pageantryofCarnivalseasonare embedded in thecity’sculture.And for millions of people around theworld whocan’t travel to Louisiana, the celebrationiswithinreach.Through theMardi Gras ForAll Y’all initiative, sponsoredthisyearbythe LouisianaOffice of Tourism, viewers canexperience themagic of theseasoninrealtimevia nola.com’s live Parade Cam.

TheParadeCam will airfootage of 2026 paradesthisyearatwww.nola. com,www.facebook.com/MardiGras.nolaandwww.youtube.com/@NOLAtp

Here's thefullbroadcast schedule:

•FridayFeb. 6(begins at 5:30 p.m.): KreweofOshun,Krewe of Cleopatra

•SaturdayFeb. 7(begins at 11:30a.m.):Krewe of Pontchartrain, Legionsof Mars,Krewe of Choctaw

•SaturdayFeb.7(begins at 5p.m.):Krewe of Freret,Knights of Sparta, KreweofPygmalion

•SundayFeb. 8(begins at 11 a.m.): TheMysticKrewe of Femme Fatale,Krewe of Carrollton,Krewe of King Arthur

•Wednesday Feb. 11 (beginsat6:15p.m.):Krewe of Druids, Kreweof Alla

•ThursdayFeb. 12 (beginsat5:30p.m.):Knights of Chaos, Knights of Babylon, KreweofMuses

•FridayFeb. 13 (beginsat5:30p.m.):Krewe of Hermes,Krewe of d’Etat,Krewe of Morpheus

•SaturdayFeb.14(begins at 11 a.m.): KreweofIris, KreweofTucks

•SaturdayFeb. 14 (beginsat4p.m.):Krewe of Endymion

•SundayFeb. 15 (beginsat11a.m.):Krewe of Okeanos, Krewe of Mid-City

•SundayFeb.15(begins at 12 p.m.): KreweofThoth,Krewe of Bacchus

•MondayFeb.16(begins at 5:15 p.m.): KreweofProteus KreweofOrpheus

•Tuesday Feb. 17 (beginsat8a.m.):Krewe of Zulu,Krewe of Rex

Throughthe MardiGrasFor AllY’all Parade Cam, viewerscan seeeach of theseparades roll down St.Charles Avenue from theLCMCStreaming Stage.Thisyear’sMardi Gras ForAll Y’allbeveragesponsor is Dr Pepper Each year,individuals sharecommentsabout howthe footagemakes them feel like they areright therewithother revelers, whethertheyare former Louisianaresidents whonow live outofstate,longtimeadmirers of MardiGrasfromafarorlocalswho prefer to enjoythe festivitiesfrom thecomfortofhome.

“Mardi Gras in NewOrleans is acelebration foundnowhere else in the world. It’s wherecenturies of culture, creativity, musicand tradition come together,and it’s oneofthe most powerful expressionsofwho we areas acityand as astate,” said LieutenantGovernorBilly Nungesser. “Every parade,every krewe, andevery moment alongthe parade route tellsthe storyofNew Orleanstothe world. TheMardi Gras ForAll Y’allParadeCam allows us to take Louisiana’sgreatest celebrationfar beyond ourborders andmakeeveryonefeelliketheyhave afront-row seat in NewOrleans.”

In addition to showcasing theCrescentCity, theLouisiana Office of Tourismisalsoproud to supportthe dozens of paradesand MardiGras events taking placethroughoutthe statethrough FatTuesday on February17, 2026.Fromfamily-oriented paradesinLafayette andAlexandria to traditional Cajuncourirs in Evangeline andSt. Landry Parishes to dog-centriceventsinShreveport, Lake Charlesand BatonRouge,there’s somethingfor everyone

“While NewOrleans maybethe most famous stage, MardiGraslives in everycornerofLouisiana.Carnivalseasonreﬂects thediversity,hospitality andpride of ourcommunities statewide. No matter whereyou celebrate, MardiGrasinLouisiana is authentic, personal,and unforgettable.” Visitwww.explorelouisiana.com/mardigras to learnmore.

ProVIDeD PHoto

alex J Pretti was shot by a federal officer in Minneapolis on saturday.

Prime Minister Carney recently announced trade deal with China

BY MICHELLE L. PRICE and ROB GILLIES associated Press

WASHINGTON — President

Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with its China trade deal, intensifying a feud with Prime Minister Mark Carney, a rising voice in the West’s pushback to Trump’s new world order

Trump said in a social media post that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”

It was unclear when Trump might impose the threatened tariff. He said in the post it would happen “immediately” if Canada made a deal with China, which Carney did a week earlier

The White House did not offer any additional details.

While Trump has waged a trade war over the past

year Canada forged ahead with its own deal to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower import taxes on Canadian farm products. At the time, Trump said that agreement was what Carney “should be doing and it’s a good thing for him to sign a trade deal.”

Dominic LeBlanc, Canada’s minister responsible for trade with the United States, said Canada and China had resolved “several important trade issues” but there was no pursuit of a free-trade agreement.

Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance. Trump had commented while in Davos, Switzerland, that “Canada lives because of the United States.” Carney shot back that his nation can be an example that the world does not have to bend toward autocratic tendencies

“Canada doesn’t live because of the United States Canada thrives because we are Canadian,” he said Trump later revoked his invitation to Carney to join the president’s “Board of Peace” that he is forming to try to resolve global conﬂicts.

Trump’s push to acquire

under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name.

The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.

The prime minister even spoke of a “rupture” between the U.S. under Trump and its Western allies that would never be repaired.

Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory In his message Saturday, Trump continued his provocations by calling Canada’s leader “Governor Carney.” Trump had used the same nickname for Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau,

and his ﬁrst use of it toward Carney was the latest mark of their soured relationship.

Daniel Béland, a politicalscience professor at McGill University in Montreal, said “there was a sense Trump showed more respect for Carney than for Trudeau. Now, after Carney’s visit to China and, even more, his widely celebrated Davos speech, which clearly outshined and upset Trump, the gloves are off.”

Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the U.S.

Trump, in his Truth Social post Saturday, also said that “China will eat Canada alive, completely devour it, including the destruction of their businesses, social fabric, and general way of life.” In a later post, the president said: “The last thing the World needs is to have China take over Canada. It’s NOT going to happen, or even come close to happening!”

Carney has not yet reached a deal with Trump to reduce some of the tariffs that he has imposed on key sectors of the Canadian economy But Canada has been protected by the heaviest impact of Trump’s tariffs by the Canada-U.S.Mexico Agreement. That

trade agreement is up for a review this year Canada had initially mirrored the United States by putting a 100% tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100% import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25% on pork and seafood. But as Trump’s pursued pressure tactics, Canada’s foreign policy has been less aligned with the U.S., creating an opening for an improved relationship with China. Carney made the tariff announcement earlier this month during a visit to Beijing. Carney has said that Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is complex and

and that Canada and China disagree on issues such as human rights.

Canada is

Trump heaps praise on U.K. troops after Afghanistan comments

BY PAN PYLAS associated Press

LONDON U.S. President

Donald Trump heaped praise Saturday on British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, in a post on social media that represented a partial reversal of comments he made this week that drew a cascade of criticism in the U.K., particularly from families of those killed and seriously injured in the conﬂict.

In the wake of a conversation earlier with British

Prime Minister Keir Starmer Trump said on Truth Social that the “great and very brave soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America.”

He described the 457 British servicemen and women who died in Afghanistan and those that were badly injured, as “among the greatest of all warriors.”

Trump added that the bond between the two countries’ militaries is “too strong to ever be broken” and that

the U.K. “with tremendous heart and soul, is second to none (except for the USA).”

Trump’s comments follow an interview with Fox Business Network on Thursday in Davos, Switzerland, when he said he wasn’t sure the other 31 nations in NATO would be there to support the United States if and when requested and that troops from those countries stayed “a little off the front lines.”

Trump did not apologize directly for those comments, nor retract them, as Starmer

had suggested in his initial response on Friday when he described the words of the president as “insulting and frankly appalling.”

Starmer’s ofﬁce in No. 10 Downing Street said the issue was raised in a conversation between the pair on Saturday in which other topics were discussed, including the war in Ukraine and security in the Arctic region.

“The prime minister raised the brave and heroic British and American soldiers who fought side by

side in Afghanistan, many of whom never returned home,” Downing Street said in a statement. “We must never forget their sacriﬁce.”

Trump’s view as expressed in the Fox Business interview stands at odds with the reality that in October 2001, nearly a month after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy alQaida, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts.

Alongside the U.S. were

troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate was triggered for the ﬁrst time after the attacks on New York and Washington. More than 150,000 British troops served in Afghanistan in the years after the invasion the largest contingent after the American one. The Italian and French governments also expressed their disapproval Saturday at Trump’s comments, with both describing them as “unacceptable.”

assoCIateD Press PHoto By VINCeNt tHIaN

Winter stormsweepsacrossU.S., groundingflights

BY THOMAS PEIPERT, JEFF AMY andDAVECOLLINS associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY Thousands

of ﬂights across the U.S. set to take off over the weekend were canceled as amonster storm started to wreakhavoc Saturday across much of the country,knocking out power andsnarlingmajor roadways with dangerous ice.

Roughly 140 million people, or more than 40% of the U.S. population, were under awinter storm warning from New Mexico to New England. The NationalWeather Service forecast widespread heavy snow,sleet and freezing rain from Saturday to Monday,stretching from the southern RockyMountains to New England. It warned people to brace for astring of frigid days.

“The snow and the ice will be very,very slow to melt and won’tbegoing away any time soon, and that’sgoing to hinder any recovery efforts,” said Allison Santorelli, ameteorologist with the National Weather Service.

President Donald Trump hadapprovedemergency declarations for at least a dozenstatesbySaturday, including Louisiana, with more expected to come.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency prepositioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

“Wejust ask that everyone

assoCIateDPress PHoto By tHoMas PeIPert

Jacob Coleman skis across skyDance BridgeoverInterstate 40 on saturdayduringasnowstorminoklahoma City.

wouldbesmart— stay home if possible,” Noem said As crews in some southern states began working to restore downed power lines Saturday, ofﬁcials in some eastern statesissuedfinal warningstoresidents.

“Weare expecting astorm the likes of which wehaven’t seen in years,” New Jersey Gov.Mikie Sherrill said Saturday while announcing restrictionsoncommercial vehicle travel anda 35 mph speed limit on highways. She added: “It’sagood weekend to stay indoors.”

Forecasters say the damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, couldrival that of ahurricane.

In Shelby County,Texas, nearthe Louisianaborder, iceweighed down on pine trees andcaused branches to snap, downing power

lines. About athird of the county’s16,000 residents lost power on Saturday

“Wehave hundreds of trees down and alot of limbs in the road,” Shelby County Commissioner Stevie Smith said from his pickup truck. “I’ve gotmycrew outclearing roads as fastaswecan.It’s alot to deal withright now.

Airplanesare grounded

More than 13,000 flights were canceled Saturday and Sundayacross theU.S., according to the ﬂight tracking websiteFlightAware. Sunday’scancellations,which are still growing, already arethe mostonany single daysince the coronavirus pandemic, according toaviation analytics ﬁrm Cirium

AllSaturday ﬂights were canceled at Will Rogers International Airport in Okla-

DOJsaysSmith’s report on Trump ‘belongs in thedustbin of history’

BY ERIC TUCKER associated Press

WASHINGTON Areport by former special counsel Jack Smith on his investigationinto President Donald Trump’shoardingofclassified documents belongsin the“dustbin of history” and should remain sealed, the Justice Department said in asharply worded court ﬁling Friday “The illicit product of an unlawful investigation and prosecution belongs in the dustbin of history.The United States will leave it there,” prosecutors wrote. The department’sposition echoes that of Trump, whose lawyers this week asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to permanently block the release of the Smith report. It adds to the likelihood that adetailed report on a criminal investigation once seen as posing significant legal peril to Trump might

ducedindictmentsthatwere abandoned by Smith’steam afterTrump’s November 2024 election win in light of longstanding Justice Department legalopinions that say sittingpresidents cannot face federal prosecution

The volume on the election investigation wasreleased in the ﬁnal days ofthe Biden administration.But Cannon, aTrump-appointed judge in Florida who issued multiple favorable rulingsfor Trump andhis two co-defendants in the classiﬁed documents case, lastyeargranted a defense request to at least temporarily halt therelease of thereport dealing with that case.That edict meant that Smith could not discuss the substanceofthatinvestigation when he testified Thursday before theHouse Judiciary Committee.

Theinjunction is set to lift on Feb.24.

But Jason Reding Quiño-

nes, the U.S. attorneyfor theSouthern District of Florida, where the case was filed,said in athree-page court ﬁling that the report should remain sealed. He and another prosecutor in that ofﬁce, Manolo Reboso, wrote that Smith’sinvestigation was “unlawful from its inception.”

Theyalso wrote that Attorney General Pam Bondi had determined that thereport was “an internal deliberativecommunication that is privileged and conﬁdential and should not be released” outside the Justice Department.

“Smith notonly weaponized the Department of Justiceagainst aleading presidentialcandidate in pursuit of an anti-democratic end, but he did so without legal authorityand while targetingconstitutionally protected activity,” the prosecutors wrote.

homa City,and all Sunday morning flights alsowere called off, as ofﬁcials aimed to restart serviceSunday afternoon.

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, amajor hub, saw morethan 700 departing ﬂightscanceled on Saturday and nearly as many arriving flightscalled off. Disruptions were also pilingupat airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, andCharlotte, North Carolina.

By lateSaturday afternoon, nearly all departing flightsscheduled to leave Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sunday had already been canceled.

Georgiaworries aboutice

Officials in Georgia advised people in thestate’s northern regionstoget off theroads by sundown Saturday and be prepared tostay put for at least 48 hours.

Will Lanxton,the senior

state meteorologist, said Georgiacould get “perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than adecade” followedbyunusually cold temperatures.

“Ice is awhole different ballgame than snow,” Lanxton said. “Ice, you can’tdo anything with. Youcan’t drive on it. It’smuch more likely to bring down power lines and trees.”

Crews began treating highways with brine after midnightSaturday, with 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said.

“We’regoing to do what we can to keep theice from sticking to the roads,” McMurry said. “This is going to be achallenge.”

After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to moveinto the Northeast, dumpingsnow exceeding 1foot, the weath-

er service predicted. The Midwest saw windchills as lowasminus 40, meaningthat frostbitecould set in within 10 minutes. The minus 36 reading in Rhinelander,Wisconsin, on Saturday morning wasthe coldest in almost 30 years.

Collegecancellations

Schoolssuperintendents in Philadelphia andHouston announced that schools would be closed Monday Someuniversities in the South canceled classes for Monday, including the University of North Carolina at ChapelHill andthe University of Mississippi’smain campus in Oxford. Around the Southeast, people usedthe cancellations to have somefun. On ahill outside theCapitol building in Nashville, adult sledders on green discs and inﬂatable pool animals giggledwith joy as they slid in the snow

Zelenskyysaystrilateraltalks endedconstructively

BY SAMYAKULLAB,ELISE MORTON and MICHELLE L. PRICE associated Press

KYIV,Ukraine Twodays of talks involving representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the United States wrappedupSaturday with “constructive” discussions on “possible parameters” for ending the war,Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Negotiators will return to the United Arab Emirates for thenext round on Feb. 1, according to aU.S. ofﬁcialwho describedthe meetings as upbeat and positive.

Thetalks arethe firstknown instance that officials fromthe Trump administration have sat down with both countries as part of Washington’spush for progress

to endMoscow’snearly4-year-old invasion.

“All parties agreed to report to theircapitalson each aspect of thenegotiations and to coordinate further steps with theirleaders,” Zelenskyy wroteonTelegram.

Themeetings covered abroad rangeofmilitary and economic matters andincluded the possibility of aceaseﬁre before adeal, said the ofﬁcial.

There was not yet an agreement on aﬁnalframework for oversight andoperation of Ukraine’sZaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russia and is the largest in Europe.

The power generated from the plant will be shared “onanequitable basis,”according to the ofﬁcial,but controlofitwas still

undecided. Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said therewas “an understanding of the need for American monitoring and control of the process of ending the war and ensuring real security.

U.S.envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner participated alongside Ukrainian ofﬁcials, including chief negotiator Rustem Umerov and Kyrylo Budanov,Zelenskyy’s chief of staff. Russia sent military intelligence and army representatives, according to Zelenskyy While Zelenskyy saidinDavos, Switzerland, on Thursdaythata potential peace deal was “nearly ready,”certain sensitive sticking points—most notably those related to territorialissues— remain unresolved.

TheU.S.ofﬁcial said Russianand Ukrainianofficials likely would need to holdfurther talks in Russia or Ukraine before there was a chance of Zelenskyy meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, or even ajoint session with President DonaldTrump.

There seemed to be momentum to reach the stageofleader meetings, according to the ofﬁcial, who spoke to reporters in Washington on condition of anonymity to describe the private talks in Abu Dhabi.

Just hours before the three-way talksbegan Friday,Putin discussed aUkraine settlement with Witkoffand Kushner during marathon overnight talks. The Kremlin insiststhat to reach apeace deal, Kyiv must withdrawits troops

from theareas in theeast that Russia illegally annexed but has not fully captured.

The second day of talks came as Russian drone attacks killed one person and woundedfour in the capital, Kyiv,according to Kyiv City Military Administration head TymurTkachenko. In Ukraine’s second-largest city,Kharkiv, drone attackswounded27people, Kharkiv regional head Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday

“Cynically,Putin ordered abrutal massive missile strike against Ukraine right while delegations aremeetinginAbu Dhabitoadvancethe America-ledpeace process,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “His missiles hit notonly ourpeople, but also the negotiation table.”

BY JUAN A. LOZANO associated Press

HOUSTON Nearly 70 years after aTexas Black man was executed in acase that prosecutors now say was based on false evidence and was riddled with racial bias, ofﬁcials have declared that he was innocent in the killing of aWhite woman in Dallas

Tommy Lee Walker was executed in the electric chair in May 1956 for the rape and murder of 31-yearold Venice Parker

At the time of the trial, prosecutorshad alleged Walker attacked Parker,a store clerk who wasonher way home, on the evening of Sept. 30, 1953.

Parker’s killingtookplace during atimeofpanic and racial division in the Dallas area as there were reports that apeeping Tombelieved to be aBlack man was terror-

izing women, according to the DallasCounty Criminal DistrictAttorney’sOfﬁce.

Butanextensive review of Walker’sconviction by the DallasCounty Criminal District Attorney’s Office, alongwith the help of the Innocence Project ofNew York

andNortheastern University School of Law’sCivil Rights andRestorative Justice Project,found multiple problems withWalker’s case.

The reviewfound problemswith statements from aDallas police ofﬁcer who claimed thatParker had

identiﬁedher attacker as a Black man. But multiple witnesses denied that Parker “did anything outsideofconvulse and hemorrhage exorbitant amountsofblood,” after being attacked,Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot said during a Wednesday meeting of Dallas County commissioners that was heldtoask the ofﬁcials to declareWalker innocent

During the next few months after Parker’skilling, hundreds of Blackmen were rounded up by authorities and fourmonths later, Walker,then 19 years old, was arrested.

Walker was subjectedto threatening and coercive interrogationtactics by Will Fritz, aDallas police captain who had been amember of the Ku Klux Klan, Creuzot said.

Walker later testified he confessed to thekilling becausehewas afraid for his life, Creuzot said.

At his trial, Walker’slawyers presented 10 witnesses who testiﬁed that at the time of the murder,they were with Walker andhis girl-

friend whenshe gave birth to their son, Edward Lee Smith, at alocal hospital, according to the Innocence Project.

“But this carried little weight in Jim Crow Dallas,” the Innocence Project said. Walker was convicted by an all-White jury in 1954.

“The prosecution in this case presented misleading and inadmissible evidence,” Creuzotsaid. “This case, while it has undeniable legal errors, wasriddled with racial injustice during atime when prejudice and bigotry were woventhroughout every aspect of society,including the criminal justice system.”

Creuzot credited the work of journalist Mary Mapes, whoﬁrst began investigating Walker’scase13years ago. “He paid withhis life for acrime he could not have committed,” Mapes told commissioners.

During an emotional moment at Wednesday’smeeting, Smith, Walker’snow 72-year-old son,and the victim’s son, Joseph Parker hugged each other “I’m so sorry for what hap-

pened,” Parker told Smith “And I’m sorry for your loss,” Smith replied. Smith had earlier told commissioners that his father’swrongful execution was very hard for him and his mother “I’m 72 years old and Istill missmydaddy,” Smithsaid as he cried. “She said, ‘Baby, they give your father the electric chair forsomething he didn’tdo.’” Joseph Parker told commissioners he hopes that Walker’sexonerationwill help prevent wrongful convictions in the future.

“If nothing else comes fromthis situation …it’s that we learntotry not to makethe samemistake again. The mistake being what? The mistake being the injustice, the taking of an innocent life,” Parker said. At the end of Wednesday’s meeting, Dallas County commissioners unanimously passed asymbolic resolution declaring that Walker was wrongfully convicted andexecuted andwhat happenedtohim represented “a profound miscarriage of justice.”

Slavery exhibits in Philadelphia removed

trump order affects display by Independence Hall

BY FALLON ROTH and MAGGIE PROSSER

the Philadelphia Inquirer (tNs)

PHILADELPHIA The National Park Service has started dismantling exhibits about slavery at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park.

The President’s House, which serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America, has come under increased scrutiny by President Donald Trump’s administration. The president and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. to be reviewed and potentially removed.

Around 3 p.m Thursday, an Independence Park employee told an Inquirer reporter that his supervisor instructed him to take down all the displays at the iconic site earlier that day

Two other individuals later joined the employee to help remove the educational exhibits The ﬁnal display was removed at 4:30, the whole process taking about an hour and a half. The displays were then loaded into the back of white Park Service pickup truck.

“I’m just following my orders,” the employee repeatedly said, refusing to say whether he was tasked with removing the displays because of the executive order

The demolition Thursday, with wrenches and crude crowbars, elicited questions — and exclamations, like “this is crazy” and “damn shame — from a few passersby. At least one asked if the exhibits are coming down “because of this administration.”

Jali Wicker, 74, was walk-

ing through the Mall when he stopped and asked why the exhibits were being removed. Wicker, who stopped to record as NPS workers unscrewed bolts from the brick walls, said the sight overwhelmed and disturbed him.

“You can try to erase our history, but we’re still going to survive,” Wicker said. “History has shown that, slavery has shown that. And you want to go back?”

Seeking to stop the display’s permanent removal, the city of Philadelphia on Thursday sued Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron

“Let me affirm, for the residents of the city of Philadelphia, that there is a cooperative agreement between the city and the federal government that dates back to 2006,” Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said during a press conference Friday

“That agreement requires parties to meet and confer if there are to be any changes made to an exhibit.”

Slavery is central to the site’s story, Philadelphia’s lawsuit argues: The people enslaved at the mansion included Oney Judge, who famously ran away and remained free despite Washington’s attempts to return her to bondage.

The panels came down because Trump’s order requires federal agencies to review interpretive materials to “ensure accuracy, honesty, and alignment with shared national values,” an Interior Department statement said. It called the city’s lawsuit frivolous, aimed at “demeaning our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world.”

Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition which has helped lead an effort to protect the President’s House from the Trump administration, said in an interview Thursday that the removal of the displays is an “abomination,” adding that Trump is a “monstrosity in the White House.”

“It’s a disgrace and that’s an understatement,” Coard said. “What’s going on now is absolutely unheard of in the history of the United States of America.”

The move comes in advance of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States on July 4 where Philadelphia and its historic exhibits will be in the national spotlight.

The fate of exhibits at the President’s House have been in limbo for several months since the Department of Interior signaled it would review and potentially remove

ﬂagged displays.

More than a dozen displays about slavery were flagged for the Trump administration’s review with the President’s House coming under particular scrutiny, The Inquirer reported. Removal of noncompliant displays was initially slated to come on Sept. 17. But that didn’t happen — until now Instead, Philadelphians continued to fuel their advocacy and efforts to protect the President’s House. Leading the charge is the President’s House/Slavery Memorial Alliance spearheaded by ATAC and other stakeholders who helped shape the site in the early 2000s.

Coard said Thursday that his team anticipated something like this happening and that “we have a plan.”

Elected ofﬁcials, including Gov Josh Shapiro and members of Philadelphia City

Council, also condemned the sanitization of historical exhibits. Independence Park employees were tasked with evaluating displays for content that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” according to Trump’s March 2025 executive order

A total of 13 items across six exhibits at the President’s House were flagged for the Trump administration’s review

This included parts of displays entitled: “Life Under Slavery,” “History Lost & Found,” “The Executive Branch,” “The Dirty Business of Slavery,” “The House and the People Who Worked & Lived In It,” and an illustration with the words “An Act respecting fugitives from Justice.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story

As thenumberofchildrenenteringfostercare in Louisianacontinues to climb, theneedfor Court AppointedSpecial Advocates, knownasCASAvolunteers, remainsmoreurgentthanever.

“Oneofthebiggesttrendswehaveseenstatewide is that children need care becauseone or both of their parentsare facing substanceabuse-related issues,” said Amanda Moody, LouisianaCASADirector. “The demographics do notdiscriminateatall.Wesee kids from allareas of thestate,all agegroupsand allsocioeconomicbackgrounds.”

CASAvolunteersaretrainedcommunitymembers whoseroleistoadvocateforthebestinterestsofchildren whohaveexperiencedabuseorneglect.Onceavolunteer isassignedtoachild,theybecomeaconsistentpresence inhisorherlife.CASAvolunteersmustmeetwiththeir assigned childatleast once amonth.Inbetween visits theyareexpectedtobeinconstantcommunicationwith thechild’sfosterfamily,statecaseworker,teachersand others.Thevolunteersthenturnthoseobservationsand communicationsintowrittenreportsthatarereviewed byjudges,whoultimatelydeterminethebestnextsteps for thechild

“WhatsetsCASAapartisthatweareestablished by statestatute andare an integral part of thecourt system,”Moodysaid.“CASAvolunteershaveunprecedented accesstoachild’s life andtruly arethe eyes and ears of thejudge.The true role of aCASAvolunteer is to actonbehalfofthe courttoobserve thechild’s life andprovide fact-based recommendations. That best interest advocacy andthe fact that we arespeciﬁedin statelaw makesusunique.”

DenaéHebert,the2025LouisianaCASAAdvocate oftheYear,hasworkedwithfourchildrenasavolunteer Hebertsaidthatwhileitwasinitiallyabitintimidating to have to presentobservationstoajudge in courtand workalongsidetrainedprofessionalsinthelegalsystem thosefeelingseased as sherealizedthateveryoneis workingtowardthesamegoal–givingachildconsistent positive reinforcement andastablefoundation. “I’velearnedalotabouthowtoworkwithdifferent peopleindifferentroleswhoallwanttoﬁndpermanence for thekids,”Hebertsaid. “I’veseenhow much the judgesrespectCASAasaprogramandtakeourreports

seriously. It’s very clearthattheyare readingthem and areaskingquestions basedonour observations.It’sa good feelingtoknowthatpeoplerespect ouropinions andknowthatweare thereasvolunteerstoadvocate for thechild.”

MoodysaidCASAvolunteersgenerally work on achild’s case for10to20hours permonth.Hebertsaid thatinherexperience,theworkloadﬂuctuates.Thereare slowerweekswheretherearecalls,textsandcheck-ins withthechild’sfosterfamily,mixedinwithbusiertimes for in-personvisits, drafting reportsand appearingin courthearings.

“Oneofthebiggestconcernswehearisthatpeople feeltheydon’thavethetimeorbandwidthtovolunteer However,alotofourvolunteersareworkingprofessionals andparentswhoareabletomanageitwithnoproblem,” Moodysaid.“Themostimportantthingwearelooking for arepeoplewho have aheart for children.Yes,itisa time commitment,but it is doable.”

Hebertsaidsheintentionallyscheduleshervisits with children for theweekendssoshe candedicate plenty of time for them.The activities vary depending on thechild’s ageand interests.

“I letthekidsleadwithwhattheyenjoydoing.While we’redoing an activity,Iask afew questionsand then justletthemtalk,”shesaid.“I’vefoundthatifIletthem talk long enough,theywillsay somethingthatcreates an openingfor me to digdeeper. Ilet them organically bringupthatanchorpoint,and theconversationﬂows from there.

BothMoodyandHebertemphasizedthatnoCASA volunteerworksinavacuum.EachvolunteerhasaCASA supervisorwhoprovidescoachingandanswersquestions Training,tools,resourcesandtechnicalassistanceare availableatany pointfromboththe stateassociation andlocalchapters. “Weunderstandthatsomecasesaremorecomplex thanothers,andwetrytoappropriatelypairchildrenand volunteers,”Moodysaid.“Weworkwitheachvolunteer to make sure that this work is meetingtheir needsas well.” Formoreinformation on LouisianaCASAand howtobecomeavolunteer,visit www.louisianacasa org/

PHILaDeLPHIa INQUIrer PHoto By eLIZaBetH roBertsoN

National Park service workers remove the displays at the President’s House site in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on thursday. More than a dozen displays about slavery were flagged for the trump administration’s review, with the House coming under particular scrutiny.

PHILaDeLPHIa INQUIrer PHoto By toM GraLIsH National Park service employees remove a panel titled ‘the Dirty Business of slavery’ at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia on thursday.

By Amanda McElfresh|

DenaéHebert, left,was namedthe 2025 LouisianaCASA Advocateofthe Year

EDUCATION

Education officials opening fewer sexual violence probes

against the void,” said Katie McKay, a lawyer at the New York ﬁrm

C.A. Goldberg.

“It feels like a big question mark right now,” she said “How are we supposed to hold a school accountable once it has messed up?”

BY COLLIN BINKLEY

aP education writer

WASHINGTON Before President Donald Trump’s administration started dismantling the Education Department, the agency served as a powerful enforcer in cases of sexual violence at schools and universities. It brought the weight of the government against schools that mishandled sexual assault complaints involving students

That work is quickly fading away The department’s Ofﬁce for Civil Rights was gutted in Trump’s mass layoffs last year leaving half as many lawyers to investigate complaints of discrimination based on race, sex or disability in schools. Those who remain face a backlog of more than 25,000 cases. Investigations have dwindled Before the layoffs last March, the ofﬁce opened dozens of sexual violence investigations a year Since then, it’s opened fewer than 10 nationwide, according to internal data obtained by The Associated Press.

Yet Trump’s Republican administration has doubled down on sexual discrimination cases of another kind Trump officials have used Title IX a 1972 gender equality law, against schools that make accommodations for transgender students and athletes The Ofﬁce for Civil Rights has opened nearly 50 such investigations since Trump took ofﬁce a year ago.

Even before the layoffs, critics said the ofﬁce was understaffed and moved too slowly Now, many firms that handle Title IX cases have stopped filing complaints, calling it a dead end.

“It almost feels like you’re up

An Education Department spokesperson said the office is working through its caseload, blaming President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration for leaving a backlog and rewriting Title IX rules to protect LGBTQ+ students. Trump officials rolled back those rules.

“The Trump Administration has restored common sense safeguards against sexual violence by returning sex-based separation in intimate facilities,” spokesperson Julie Hartman said. “OCR is and will continue to safeguard the dignity and safety of our nation’s students.”

The layoffs have slowed work at the Ofﬁce for Civil Rights across the board, but it has an outsize impact on cases of sexual violence.

Students who are mistreated by their schools including victims and accused students alike — have few other venues to pursue justice.

Many are now left with two options: File a lawsuit or walk away

One woman said she’s losing hope for a complaint she ﬁled in 2024. She alleges her graduate school failed to follow its own policies when it suspended but didn’t expel another student found by the school to have sexually assaulted her. No one has contacted her about the complaint since 2024.

The woman recently sued her school as a last resort. She said it feels like a David and Goliath mismatch.

“They have all the power, because there is no large organization holding them accountable. It’s just me, just this one individual who’s ﬁling this simple suit,” the woman said The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission.

We’re asKING eXPerts aCross tHe state HoW to taCKLe tHe

The civil rights office is supposed to provide a free alternative to litigation. Anyone can ﬁle a complaint, which can trigger an investigation and sanctions for schools that violate federal law

In 2024, the agency received more than 1,000 complaints involving sexual violence or sexual harassment, according to an annual report.

It’s unclear how many complaints have been filed more recently Trump’s administration has not reported newer ﬁgures. In conversations with the AP, some staffers said cases are piling up so quickly they can’t track how many involve sexual violence.

In December, the department acknowledged the civil rights backlog and announced dozens of downsized workers would be brought back to the office amid a legal challenge to their layoffs. The workers’ return offers some hope to those with pending civil rights complaints. Department of-

ﬁcials have vowed to keep pushing for the layoffs.

Before Trump was elected to his second term, the ofﬁce had more than 300 pending investigations involving sexual assault, according to a public database. Most of those cases are believed to be sitting idle as investigators prioritize easier complaints, according to staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

The details of past cases underscore the urgency of the work.

In 2024, the office took action against a Pennsylvania school system after a girl with a disability told staff she had been sexually touched by a bus driver She was put back on that driver’s bus later that afternoon, plus the next two days. The district was required to designate a Title IX coordinator for its schools, review previous complaints and consider compensation for the girl’s family

That year, the office demanded changes at a Montana school

where a boy was pinned down by other students and assaulted after a wrestling practice. The students had been suspended for three days after school ofﬁcials treated it as a case of hazing instead of sexual assault.

In another case, the ofﬁce sided with a University of Notre Dame student who had been expelled over accusations of sexual misconduct. The student said the college never told him precisely what he was accused of and refused to interview witnesses he put forward.

Cases that get attention from the federal ofﬁce are being handled under federal rules created during Trump’s ﬁrst term. Those rules were designed to bolster the rights of students accused of sexual misconduct.

Lawyers who work with accused students see little improvement.

Justin Dillon, a Washington lawyer said some of his recent complaints have been opened for investigation. He tells clients not to hold their breath. Even before the layoffs, cases could drag on for years, he said.

Others gave up on the office years ago. The LLF National Law Firm said it stopped filing complaints in 2021 in favor of suing schools directly Lawyers at the ﬁrm said the ofﬁce had become incapable of delivering timely outcomes, which was only worsened by the layoffs.

Complaints can be resolved several ways. They can be dismissed if they don’t pass legal muster Many go to mediation akin to a settlement. Some end in voluntary agreements from schools, with plans to rectify past wrongs and prevent future ones.

In 2024, under Biden, the office secured 23 voluntary agreements from schools and colleges in cases involving sexual violence, according to a public database. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, there were 58. Since Trump took office again last year, there have been none.

assoCIateD Press FILe PHoto By Jose LUIs MaGaNa

THE GULF COAST

Miss. chef racks up James Beard, Michelin nods

BY POET WOLFE staff writer

Eight hours before opening on an overcast Wednesday morning in Gulfport, Mississippi, Austin

Sumrall was already at work inside Siren Social Club, preparing for a day that would stretch across two cities and two kitchens.

He treated the day like any other, moving between his restaurants and accepting interviews like this one. But it wasn’t. Earlier that morning, Sumrall had been named one of two Gulf Coast chefs selected as semiﬁnalists for Best Chef in the South by the James Beard Foundation — the second time he has been nominated in that category

Sumrall is part of a broader culinary shift taking shape along the Mississippi Coast and the U.S. South. He opened his ﬁrst restaurant, White Pillars in Biloxi, in 2017 with a rotating farm-to-table menu that was — and remains — rare in the region. Ingredients are sourced from the Gulf of Mexico and local farms; meats are cured in-house, tomatoes blended into ketchup, dough shaped by hand into strips of pasta. A similar process guides Siren Social Club, a speakeasy-style restaurant Sumrall opened with his wife, Tresse, in 2024. Both spots were recently recommended by the Michelin Guide in its ﬁrst considerations of Gulf Coast restaurants.

Sumrall shrugs off any suggestion that his approach is new or revolutionary Food, he says simply comes from farms. Still, the philosophy stands out in a region where butter, red gravy and frying oil might as well have their own places on the food pyramid.

Along the Coast, however, the food culture is evolving and beginning to claim a place on the national culinary map. Chefs and restaurateurs like Sumrall are driving that evolution, with accolades like the James Beard recognition offering reassurance that the region is moving in the right direction

That said, none of it seemed to alter Sumrall’s Wednesday His work continued through the afternoon.

By 2 p.m., he was at White Pillars, giving a tour and scarcely mentioning the nomination as he trailed through the neoclassical white mansion overlooking the Gulf.

“This is, and always will be, my baby,” Sumrall said.

Zigzagging through hallways, dining rooms and even a basement, the tour stretched on for nearly half an hour as he chronicled the building’s history Originally constructed in 1905 by an infectious disease doctor who treated patients on Ship Island, its details span centuries, states and families.

Behind the bar sits a structure commissioned in the mid-19th century from Chicago’s Blackstone Hotel, where Al Capone was once a frequent guest. Nearby, above a grand piano, hangs an oil painting from 1650 depicting a nude woman clutching a plate of gold coins and grinning at the viewer The oldest pieces bronze menu holders dating back to 1599 — stand at the front, still in use.

The walls are covered in paintings and portraits of former proprietors, including Virginia Mladinich, who opened the original White Pillars in 1969 with entrees like stuffed crabs and seafood gumbo — family recipes once served to an older generation of coast residents but have become antiques themselves, preserved in ﬁne print on manila paper and framed in one of the dining rooms.

The restaurant closed in 1989, not because of natural disasters like many assume, but because “20 years in the restaurant business is a long time,” Sumrall said The building sat vacant until 2017 when Sumrall gave it a new life with White Pillars.

Given its name and decor, White Pillars might be mistaken for a posh, white tablecloth restaurant. Sumrall shook his head and pointed to the bare tables. There is not a dress code, and the restaurant is known for its monthly brunch where drag queens ﬂip, dance and split. Sumrall is even known to dance atop at the bar at the end of service, doling out shots of Jagermeister.

Like an avid antique collector he prefers to preserve every bit of the past — or at least tries to — reﬂecting the same way he treats cooking: a refusal to cut corners. Sumrall has followed that principle throughout his entire culinary career, beginning at the University of Mississippi. He was studying mechanical engineering but always knew he belonged in restaurants. It was in his blood — his maternal grandfather owned restaurants in New Orleans, and Sumrall grew up cooking with his family Changing his major became an omnipresent thought until he ﬁnally committed, a decision he described as his “light bulb moment.”

His parents fully supported him pursuing a degree in hotel and restaurant management, under one stipulation from his father: he had to get a job at a restaurant Sumrall worked under chef John Currence in Oxford three days a week. On his days off, he hosted dinner parties at his house.

“At that point, I just never, never

look back,” Sumrall said. “It was full steam ahead.”

After graduating college, he went to the Culinary Institute of America in New York, then worked at Cochon Restaurant in New Orleans Sumrall later moved to Birmingham and worked at Hot & Hot Fish Club, a city staple.

He paused jogging his memory then listed his mentors over the years: Currence in 2009; Stephen Stryjewski in 2011; and Chris Hastings in 2012. Two have won Best Chef in the South by happenstance. “That was not a plan,” Sumrall said. “It just worked out like that.”

PHoto ProVIDeD By tresse sUMraLL

Chef austin sumrall is a semifinalist in the Best Chef south category of the James Beard awards

staFF PHoto By Poet WoLFe White Pillars, a Biloxi restaurant, is housed in a neo-classical white mansion overlooking the Gulf.

Indonesian handprints areoldestcaveart foundyet

BY ADITHIRAMAKRISHNAN

aP science writer

NEW YORK Handprintson cave walls in alargely unexplored area of Indonesia may be theoldest rock art studied so far,dating back to at least 67,800 years ago.

The tan-colored prints analyzed by Indonesian and Australian researchers on the island of Sulawesi were made by blowing pigment over hands placed against the cave walls, leaving an outline. Some of the ﬁngertips were also tweaked to look more pointed.

This prehistoric art form suggests the Indonesian island washome to aﬂourishing artistic culture. To ﬁgure out how old the paintings were, researchers dated mineral crusts that had formed on top of the art.

Upon seeing the new study, independent paleoanthropologist Genevieve von Petzinger said she “let out alittle squeal of joy.”

“It ﬁts everything I’d been thinking,” she said.

Indonesia is known to host some of the world’s earliest cave drawings,and scientists have analyzedcountless examples of ancient artacross the globe —including simple marks on bonesand stones that go back hundreds of thousands of years. Crosshatchedmarkings on apiece of rock in South Africa have been datedtoabout 73,000 years ago

Thenew art from southeastern Sulawesi is the oldest to befoundoncavewalls

The stencils also represent amore complex tradition of rock art that could havebeen ashared cultural practice, said study author Maxime Aubert withGrifﬁth University,who published the study last week inthe journal Nature

Scientists are eager tounderstand when earlyhumans learned to make art, moving from dots and linestomore meaningful representations of themselves and the world around them. These cave drawings help ﬁrm up atimelinefor thedawnofhuman

creativity.

It’s notyet clear whose hands made the prints. They could be fromanancient humangroupcalledDenisovans who lived in the area

andmay have interacted with ourHomo

ancestors before eventually going extinct. Or theymay

Rare whaleseesencouraging season forbirths, butextinctionrisklooms

BY PATRICK WHITTLE associated Press

PORTLAND,Maine One of the world’srarest whale speciesishaving more babies this year than in some recent seasons, but experts say many more young are needed to help stave off the possibility of extinction.

The North Atlantic right whale’spopulation numbers an estimated 384 animals and is slowly rising after several years of decline. The whales have gained more than 7% of their 2020 population, according to scientists who study them.

The whales give birth off the southeastern United States every winter before migrating north to feed. Researchershave identified 15 calves this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said recently That number is higher than two of the last three winters,but the species needs “approximately 50

or more calvesper year for manyyears” to stop its decline and allow for recovery,NOAA saidinastatement. The whalesare vulnerable to collisionswith large ships and entanglement in commercial ﬁshing gear

This year’snumber is encouraging,but the species remains in peril without stronger laws to protect against those threats, said Gib Brogan,senior campaigndirector with environmental group Oceana. The federal government is in the midst of amoratorium on federal rules designed to protectright whalesuntil 2028, and commercial ﬁshing groups have pushedfor aproposal toextend that pause for even longer

There is still time left for more baby whales to be born this winter, but 50 is not areasonable expectation becauseofa lack of reproductive females in the population, Brogan said. “We’re not going tobe

able to calve ourselves to recovery,” Brogansaid. “Wealso need to be doing more to tacklethe two primary causes of right whale deaths,being entanglement in ﬁshing gear andbeing hit by boats.”

Thewhales havefared better than lastwinter, when they gave birth to only 11 calves, according to NOAA data.The whales have reached 20 calves only twice since 2010, and they gave birthtonocalves in a disastrous 2018 season.The whales areless likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are underfed, scientists have said.

The whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during theera of commercial whaling andhave been federallyprotected for decades. They remain in acrisis at the moment because there have been more deathsthanbirths in thepopulation in the past decade,NOAA said in its statement.

belong to modernhumans venturing away from Africa, who could have wandered through the Middle East and Australia around this time.

Fine details on the cave art, including the intentionally modifiedfingertips,point to ahuman hand. Other drawings discovered in the same area of the island, including ahumanfigure,a bird and horselikeanimals, were found to be created muchmore recently,someof them about 4,000 years ago.

There’slikely more artto be found on nearby islands that could be even older than thehandprints. Future studiesmay help scientists understand how these artistic traditions spread across the globeand howthey’re woven into the fabric of humanity’s early days.

“For us, this discovery is not the end of the story,” Aubert said in an email. “It is an invitation to keep looking.”

Reunion, Glenncrest at Siegen’s MemoryCareprogram, offers aclose-knit, welcomingcommunity where your loved one is truly known, valued,and supported. Every resident’s life story is honored, and each day is ﬁlled with opportunities for meaningful engagement, connection, andjoy

Our dedicated team is available 24/7, providing compassionate support throughdaily activities, social connection, and family involvement. CDP-certiﬁed staff arepart of the team,ensuringexpert guidance when it matters most.

With careatthe heartofeverything we do, youcan have peace of mind knowing your loved one is safe, supported, and surrounded by ateam who understands and trulycares. Call (225) 217-0765today to learnhow Reunion Memory Care at Glenncrest at Siegen can bring morecomfort, connection, and meaningful moments to your lovedone this newyear

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sapiens

PHoto ProVIDeD By MaXIMe aUBert

Handprints withsharpened fingertips are seen on acavewallinthe Maros region of sulawesi, Indonesia.

LOUISIANAPOLITICS

JohnsonstartsweekinU.K., ends it passingbudgetbills

WASHINGTON —Byany measure, House Speaker Mike Johnson had apretty good week. The Republican ﬁreﬁghter’sson from Benton started the week in London, where Johnson hobnobbed with parliamentarians, peers,and prime ministers and ate with silverware older than the U.S. at aspecial dinner

Mark Ballard

He topped it off Thursday night with the passage of all 12 bills that set spending for federal agencies after overcoming signiﬁcant opposition from both Republicans and Democrats.

In Washington, Democrats continue to rail against funding of the masked Immigration and Control Enforcement agents whose violence has attractedheadlines.Despite opposition to the Trump administration’sharsh immigration crackdown, the bill covering the Department of Homeland Security narrowly passed the House. It also includes an extensionofﬂood insurance until Sept. 30. The appropriations bills still need to clear the Senate this week or the federal government will partially shut down as Friday night turns to Saturday —the day Louisiana attracts national attention for staging a carnival ball that caps four days of Washington Mardi Gras festivities.

Johnson linked the spending bills, many of which Democrats support, in a way the Senate can likely

House candidates join 2026 race

approvethem. The 53 Senate Democrats will need to ﬁnd atleast seven Republicanstojoin them to stop the legislation.

House Appropriations Committee Chair TomCole, R-Okla., said Thursday he thought theHouse was sending the Senatelegislation “they think they can pass.” He praised Johnson as themain reason thebills passed.

Avisitto‘calm thewaters’ Johnson on Tuesday was the ﬁrst U.S.Speaker of the House in history to address Parliament in the United

Twopeople announced their candidacies this week for the5th congressional district seat that U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow,R-Baton Rouge,isvacating to trytounseat

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy,R-Baton Rouge. One is stateSen. Rick Edmonds, R-Baton Rouge. AChristian conservative who is a pastor,Edmonds has served in the Legislature for a decade

Kingdom. He was invited in October by U.K. House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to speak as part of America’s250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

“Wehad achance to chat over acup of tea about our ﬁrst trade dispute, the Boston TeaParty,” Hoyle said when introducing Johnson.

“Whilst it (theU.K.-U.S. relationship) began in conﬂict, over time we have rebuilt trust and developed one of the world’sclosest and most enduring partnerships,”Hoyle said. “The special relationship we

governor’smedia consultant, Brett Littleﬁeld,towork for her campaign.

“Our district feeds America and fuels Louisiana’seconomy,”

Cordell said in anews release.

know and celebratetoday is based on our shared values of democracy and the rule of law and built on defense and security cooperation.”

The “special relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom recently comeunder strain when President Donald Trumppromised to raise tariffs by10% for theeight European nations that won’t join his effort to procure thesemiautonomous nation of Greenland, which is a member of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO was established in 1949 as guarantee of mutual

in the state House.

“I’ve known Paul along time and can tell you this:he’sastough as athree-dollar steak and wakes up every day determined tomake thelives of Louisianafamilies better than they were yesterday,” Kennedy said in astatement.

Sawyer served as chief of staff to then-U.S. Rep.Garret Graves and is now theexecutive director of the Amite River Basin Commission.

defense against aggressive nations that moved against any one of 30 European nations, Canada or the U.S. U.K. Prime Minister KeirStarmer criticized the tariffs and efforts to undermine Greenland’s sovereignty

“Any decision about the future status of Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone,” Starmer said Monday.“The use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong.”

Trumpwrote Monday on social media that Great Britain acted with “great

borhoods south of Interstate 12 and north of Old Jefferson Highway

Landry uninvitedfrom dogsleddingrace

stupidity” over its returning control to Mauritius an Indian Ocean island that includes aBritish military base where Americans are also stationed.

When Trumpspoke Wednesday before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he ruled out seizing Greenland by force, then walked back threats of increased tariffs Trumpstill wants to work out someway to dominate the icebound island nation with about 57,000 people for security reasons.

In his Tuesday speech before the House of Commons and Lords in Westminster Johnson said, “I told the president that Ifelt that my mission here today was to encourage our friends and help to calm the waters, so to speak, and Ihope to do so.”

He also said he generally supported Starmer’s speech.

Johnson applauded the twonations’ shared respect forlaw and forprotecting individual freedoms. He name-checked prominent conservatives in the U.S. and U.K.,including Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.

“Wehave always been able to workthrough our differences calmly as friends. We will continue to do that. Iwant to assure you this morning that that is still the case,” Johnson said. “As proud Americans, it is as though we have returned to the spiritual birthplace of our own nation. And the history here, the weight of it is palpable.”

Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate. com.

the organization’searlier statementsaid earlier this month.

“The board is currently working closely with patrons to determine whosent invitations to foreign actors.”

As President Donald Trump ratchets up his campaign forthe U.S. to take control of Greenland, Louisana Gov.Jeff Landry, Trump’senvoy to the territory, has been uninvited from the island’smost prestigious dog sledding race.

Capitol Buzz staFF rePorts

“I have spent my life ﬁghting for children, families, and personal liberty,and Iam prepared to bring that ﬁght to Washington, D.C.,” Edmonds said in a statement.

The other is Misti Cordell, who was appointedbyGov.Jeff Landry last year to chair theLouisiana Board of Regents, which sets policies for the state’s colleges and universities.

Cordell lives in Monroe andhas been aclose friend of Landry’s for decades. She has hired the

“Our farms, ourinfrastructure, andour working families whether in Baton Rouge neighborhoods orrural NortheastLouisiana —need astrong voice.” Larry Davis, amember of the LivingstonParish Republican Parish Executive Committee, has alreadyannounced.

About half the district includes Baton Rouge and Livingston Parish, and it also includes the Florida Parishes and parishes alongthe Mississippi River up to Monroe.

In another race, Paul Sawyer haswon the endorsement of U.S Sen. John Kennedy,R-Madisonville, in the race to replace state Rep.Paula Davis, R-Baton Rouge,

Lynne Coxe Graham,amember of the Republican StateCentral Committee, is also running for theseat.

“She will bring Common Sense Conservatism to her legislative service, emphasizing creating efﬁciencies in the areas of state government that most often interface with thepublic, such as LDR and the DMV,” Graham said in a Facebook post

With Davis resigning her position this month, the primary to replace her will be held on March 14 in what will be alow-turnout special election. Early voting in that race will take place from Feb.28toMarch 7.

The district includes theneighborhoods of Old Goodwood, Tara, Broadmoor and includes neigh-

“KNQKhas been informed that thetourism company that invited Gov.Jeff Landry from the United States has unilaterally withdrawn its invitation,” the Greenland Dog Sledding Association,orKNQK, wrote in arelease Sunday.“This is reassuring forKNQK, and we takenote of it.”

Aspokesperson forLandry did not return arequest forcomment.

KNQK organizes the annual race, known as theAvannaata Qimussersua, andthe organization previouslyshared concerns after learning the governor had been asked to attend.

“The KNQK Board ﬁnds it unacceptable that political pressure is being exerted from outside,”

Trump appointedLandry as special envoytoGreenland in December,tohelpwith the president’smissionofacquiring the island. The appointment roiled ofﬁcials in Denmark and Greenland, asemiautonomous Danish territory.Theyhave made it clear thatthe territory does notwish to become part of the United States.

Trumprecently threatened tariffs against countries that don’t support his goal of acquiring Greenland. European leaders say his actions could shatter NATO, the 32-country military alliance that includes the United States and Denmark.

In anews conference Tuesday,Trumpwas asked how far he would go to take Greenland.

“You’ll ﬁnd out,” he said. But in aspeech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday morning, he said he will not use force to take the island. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Edmonds Cordell

PHoto ProVIDeDByUNIteD KINGDoM HoUse oF CoMMoNs

House speaker Mike Johnson, r-Benton, right, standsnext to U.K. House of Commons speaker LindsayHoyle as Johnson visitsthe Parliament in London last week.

Ocean acidification could make shark teeth weaker

researchers eye changes in water chemistry of the predators

BY PATRICK WHITTLE associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine Sharks are the most feared predators in the sea, and their survival hinges on fearsome teeth that regrow throughout their lives. But changes in the ocean’s chemistry could put those weapons at risk.

That is the take-away from a study performed by a group of German scientists who tested the effects of a more acidic ocean on sharks’ teeth. Scientists have linked human activities including the burning of coal, oil and gas to the ongoing acidiﬁcation of the ocean.

As oceans become increasingly acidic, sharks’ teeth could become structurally weaker and more likely to break, the scientists found. That could change the big fishes’ status at the top of the ocean’s food chain, they wrote.

The ocean will not become populated with toothless sharks overnight, said the study’s lead author, Maximilian Baum, a marine biologist at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. But the possibility of weaker teeth is a new hazard to sharks that already face pollution, overﬁshing, climate change and other threats, Baum said

“We found there is a corrosion effect on sharks’ teeth,” Baum said. “Their whole ecological success in the ocean as the rulers of other populations could be in danger.”

The researchers, who published their work in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, performed their study as ocean acidification has become an increasing focus of conservation scientists. Acidiﬁcation occurs when

oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from the air the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said. The ocean is expected to become almost 10 times more acidic than it currently is by the year 2300, the German scientists wrote.

The scientists performed their study by collecting more than 600 discarded teeth from an aquarium that houses blacktip reef sharks, a species of shark that lives in the Pacific and Indian oceans and typically grows to about 5.5 feet long. They then exposed the teeth to water with the acidity of today and the projected acidity of 2300.

The teeth exposed to the more acidic water became much more damaged, with cracks and holes, root corrosion and degradation to the structure of the tooth itself the scientists wrote.

The results “show that ocean acidiﬁcation will have significant effects on the morphological properties of teeth,” the scientists wrote. Shark teeth are “highly developed weapons built

for cutting ﬂesh, not resisting ocean acid,” Baum said. Sharks will go through thousands of teeth in a lifetime, and the teeth are critical for allowing sharks to regulate populations of ﬁsh and marine mammals in the oceans

Many sharks are also facing extinction jeopardy, as more than a third of shark species are currently threatened with extinction according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Thankfully, sharks have a number of factors that can help them stave off the negative effects of ocean acidiﬁcation, said Nick Whitney, senior scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium. Whitney, who was not involved in the study, said the scientists’ work on the shark teeth was sound. However because shark teeth develop inside the mouth tissue of sharks, they will be shielded from changes in ocean chemistry for a time, he said. And history has taught us that sharks are survivors,

Whitney said. “They’ve been around for 400 million years and have evolved and adapted to all kinds of changing conditions,” he said. Ocean acidiﬁcation could be a concern, but overﬁshing remains the biggest threat to sharks, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History Naylor and others cau-

tioned that ocean acidification is indeed going to pose many threats to the ocean beyond just sharks Ocean acidification is expected to be especially harmful to shellfish such as oysters and clams because it will make it more difficult for them to build shells, NOAA has said. It could also make fish scales weaker and more brittle. It’s tough to say now whether that could ultimately benefit the sharks

that feed on them, Naylor said. For now, ocean acidiﬁcation can’t be disregarded as a threat facing sharks, Baum said. Some shark species could come close to extinction in the coming years and ocean acidiﬁcation could be one of the factors causing that to happen, he said.

“The evolutionary success of sharks is dependent on their perfectly developed teeth,” Baum said.

As keyindustries across thestate face retirements,technologicalchangeandgrowing competitionfor skilledtalent, theLouisiana Communityand TechnicalCollege System (LCTCS)isrespondingwithjob-focused trainingdesignedtomoveresidents into sustainablecareers whilehelping employers keep pace with demand. Rather than relying onone-size-ﬁts-allacademicmodels,LCTCS institutions like BossierParishCommunity Collegeand SouthLouisiana Community Collegeare building programs shaped by industryadvisoryboards,regionaleconomic partners andreal-time labormarketdata. AtBossierParishCommunityCollege(BPCC), thesix-weekEmploymentPreparednessand Workforce Readiness (EMPWR)program wascreatedwiththe NorthLouisiana Economic Partnership to help individualswithout abackground in skilledtradesget theirfootinthe door “EMPWR wasintentionally designed to be aSwiss Armyknifeoftrainingandgivestudentsatasteofdifferent industries so that employers canthentrain them on theirspeciﬁc processes,”explained Joseph Brownlee BPCC Dean of Science,Technology, Engineeringand Mathematics. “Weintroduce them to thebasicsof manufacturing, safety techniques andthe proper use of toolsand personal protective equipment. We also introducestudentstoindustrypartnerstostartplanting theseeds that they couldbeworking at thesecompanies in as little as sixweeks.”

year,SoLAcchas launched threenew short-term workforcecredentialprograms–IndustrialMaintenance Technician,AviationSheet Metaland most recently Certiﬁed LogisticsTechnician.

Brownlee said that in developing EMPWR, BPCC

Theresultshavebeenimmediate.AllofSoLAcc’srecent Industrial MaintenanceTechniciangraduates secured employment, andthe next cohort willlaunchinMarch “Short-term, workforce-focused credentialsoffer employersa hiringpoolofqualified candidates in a shorterperiodoftime,allowingthemtoreachnewlevels ofproductivity.Forstudents,theseprogramsoffertraining in aspeciﬁc industry so they canfocus theirlearningon thecareerpathoftheir choice,allowingthemtoenter thejob market sooner andwiththe skills they need to succeed,”saidNancy Roy, SoLAcc InterimExecutive DirectorofWorkforceStudentServicesandOperations. Dr.TiffanyHoward, SoLAcc InterimVicePresident of EconomicWorkforce Developmentand Continuing Education, said theCertified LogisticsTechnician (CLT)credentialemergedfromfeedbackfromAcadiana companieswho emphasized theneedfor employeeswho seehow driving, warehousing, inventory, technology andbusinessoperationsconnect

“The CLTprogram respondsdirectlytothatneed by giving students acomprehensive understandingof transportationsystemsandpreparingthemtocontribute acrossmultipleroles within theindustry,”Dr. Howard said,addingthatstudentswitha CLTcredentialwill have opportunities to work in industries such as energy healthcare,manufacturing andretail.

officialsalsoheard from companiesthattheywant employeeswho arereliable, communicativeand able to meetallemploymentrequirements.Therefore,EMPWR is designed to mirror areal-worldworkenvironment Students must pass adrugtestbeforebeing admitted They then attend classesfrom8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each weekday for thedurationofthe program.

“Weexpectthemtoarriveatleast 15 minutesearly puttheir phones andpersonaleffects in theirassigned lockers, punchinatthe time clockand be sittingattheir desk readytobegin at 8a.m.,”Brownlee said.“We hear fromemployersthatjobattendanceamongourgraduates is notanissue,and we credit that to thestructure of the program. It is atimeinvestmentonthe students’part, buttheyknowtheyhaveguaranteedinterviewswith industry partners.Thatreallyresonates with them and showsthemthe valueofthe program.”

Meanwhile,BPCCisalsorespondingtoworkforcegaps in thetransportationindustry throughits commercial driver’s license(CDL) programatits Natchitoches campus.Thatprogram wasrevived last summer andis nowinitsfourthcohort.Thesix-week,240-hourprogram blends classroominstruction with extensivetraining on drivingsimulatorsand behind-the-wheelpractice. “Wefeelfortunate that we were able to bringthis programtoNatchitoches, becausetransportationis such acriticalindustry, andwecontinued to hear from industry partners that more people areretiringevery year,” Brownlee said.“There’sbeenconcern that there won’tbeenoughskilled driverstomeettransportation anddistributionneeds.That’sled to incredible interest from both employersand students.” SouthLouisiana CommunityCollege (SoLAcc) is taking asimilarly agileapproach. Over thepastﬁscal

“These employers consistently need workerswho understand howgoods move across warehouses,ports highways andlast-mile delivery systems,”she said “The CLTprogram addressesthatgap by preparing students for rolesadjacenttodriving,including logistics coordination,inventory control, warehouseoperations andtransportationsupport–positionsthatareessential to keepingregionalcommercemoving. With retirementsaccelerating andtechnology reshapingnearlyevery sector,Louisiana’s abilityto competewilldependonhow quicklyitcan develop skilledtalent. Acrossthe state, LCTCScollegesare workingalongside employerstodeliver trainingthat is faster,targetedand builtfor immediateworkforce demand— ensuring residents canaccesscareers that supportfamiliesand industry canaccessthe workers needed to grow

PHoto ProVIDeD By HeINrICH HeINe UNIVersIty DUesseLDorF

a blacktip reef shark swims at sealife oberhausen in oberhausen, Germany.

Wet roads a concern before freeze

travelers encouraged to check 511 for condition updates

BY QUINN COFFMAN staff writer

Forecasts remain mostly unchanged, with East Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes still under an extreme cold warning and winter storm watch from Winter Storm Fern.

But it is also unclear if the Capital Region’s current rainfall will have time to dry before freezing temperatures arrive Sunday evening, according to meteorologists with the National Weather Service’s station in Slidell. Rain is expected to continue through Sunday, but it remains

largely unlikely that Baton Rouge will fall below the “icing line” and see freezing rain, said NWS meteorologist Christian Bannan. Instead, the worry is if existing water on bridges and overpasses will freeze.

“We’re waiting to see how fast things dry and how fast the cold air gets here,” Bannan said. “We’re really not gonna be able to forecast that very well; it’s gonna be just a constant watch.”

“We will get a better idea, I think, once we start seeing the temperatures drop below freezing. That’s when we’ll be a little more conﬁdent in saying so,” Bannan said. Sunday’s highest temperatures will come between sunrise and 10 a.m for East Baton Rouge

The incoming north wind is a double-edged sword in this case, Bannan said, because it both dries roads and drops temperatures. Bannan advised those needing to travel to check with the Department of Transportation’s 511 line for highway condition updates.

Pedestrian Ronald Jackson looks around while waiting to cross the street Saturday under the cover of his umbrella in downtown Baton Rouge.

Recusal order still in place in conspiracy case

Concerns of violating procedure led to order

BY MATT BRUCE staff writer

Gervea Daquan Ferguson is a reputed leader of a notorious Baton Rouge street gang known as the Vultures, according to authorities. He has been charged in two high-proﬁle cases — one of them a shooting that left two young men dead, including his younger brother The other case stems from a multiagency investigation into the Vultures’ alleged marijuana operation. Over the past 10 days, Ferguson has been at the center of a pair of hearings to determine if 19th Judicial District Judge Louise Hines

Program helps parents address drug abuse

Victoria’s Voice offers parents, teens communication advice

BY QUINN COFFMAN staff writer

At 16, Victoria McCulley had major jaw surgery over Thanksgiving break of her junior year at Denham Springs High School. Her mother, Marilyn McCulley said she administered her daughter’s pain medication as prescribed. But the doctor’s aftercare in-

structions did not include any advice on weaning the teenage girl off the opioids.

It was 2010, and the idea of her daughter developing an addiction to a prescribed medicine wasn’t something McCulley thought she needed to be concerned about.

“We learned that, you know just a couple weeks after no more pain medication, that she’s ﬁnding opioids off the street,” McCulley said. Over the next 13 years, Victoria McCulley struggled as a drug user, facing multiple stays in both jail and rehab facilities.

When she died of an overdose

Marilyn McCulley, whose daughter died from a drug overdose in 2022, gives attendees advice on vital signs to look for regarding drug use during a drug awareness panel hosted thursday by Victoria’s Voice Foundation at Greenwell springs eBr Library. staFF PHoto By JaVIer GaLLeGos ä see PROGRAM, page 2B

Louisiana anglers reel in red snapper

2025 season saw nearly 950,000 pounds caught

BY MIKE SMITH staff writer

over quota

could not be happier about how this year’s red snapper season turned out,” state Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Tyler Bosworth said in a statement “We would like to thank all offshore anglers in Louisiana who

staFF PHoto By JaVIer GaLLeGos

Infant gorilladiesatAudubon ZooinN.O., officialssay

an infant gorilla died shortly after childbirth on Friday, the audubon Nature Institute said.

PROGRAM

Continued from page1B

in 2022 in aDenham Springs hotel, she was 29. Marilyn McCulley and the rest of her family didn’teven know Victoria had been released from her last stint in jail Be aparent

On Thursday,McCulley shared her daughter’sstory before acrowd of other parents gathered at the Greenwell Springs Road Regional Branch Library forapanel on identifyingsignsofdrug use in teenagers.

“It was just agradual change,” McCulley said. “But looking back, it’slike ‘OK, so all of those were signs that she was using.’ McCulley said there were honestly too many signs to recount, including alack of motivation in schooland extra curricular activities, and achange in who she was hanging out with.

By the time aformer friend of Victoria’swas able to tellthe McCulleys shesuspectedtheir daughter was using opioids, it hadbeen going on forthree months, McCulley said. The panel was hosted by the Victoria’sVoice foundation, an organization started by the parentsofVictoria Siegel,who also died from an overdose at the age of 18. The program, titled Vital Signs, is meant to empower parents to “identify and addressthe early signs of behavioral health issues and substance use in your child.”

Signsthat ateen might have recently startedusing

ORDER

Continued from page1B

Myers can preside over his criminal proceedings. And on Friday,District Judge Colette Greggsdoubled down on her ruling to restrict Hines Myers from presiding over Ferguson’sdrug conspiracy case.

Greggs initially recused Hines Myers from both of Ferguson’scases during an explosive Jan. 15 hearing after his attorney raised concerns about the judge’s impartiality.Greggs didn’t ﬁnd any evidenceofbiasor prejudice to warrant Hines Myers’ recusal. But she determined Hines Myers violated procedural rules when she recused herself from Ferguson’smurder case without awritten order,then reversed that selfrecusal days later without any review from aseparate ad hoc judge Prosecutors on Friday argued that Hines Myers never recused herself from Ferguson’s drugcase, so she should remain presiding over those proceedings. But Greggs determined her recusal order applies for all of Ferguson’scases.

“If ajudge is recused from one case involving adefendant, it strongly suggests grounds for recusal from all cases with that same defendant,” Greggs said. “As the ethical duty requires impartiality acrossthe board, not with just one case.”

Ties to mall shooting

Hines Myers, aformer prosecutor with the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’sOfﬁce, ﬁled indictments against Demetriyon Maquan Grim —Ferguson’s younger brother —inconnection with aFebruary 2022 drive-by shooting outside the Mall of Louisiana. Clifton Lindsey,19, and Donte Dorsey,an18-year-old

BY CHADCALDER staff writer

An infantgorilla died shortly afterchildbirth on Friday,the Audubon NatureInstitutesaid. It was the second infant to die just after being born to 18-year-old Tumani, one of theAudubon Zoo’swesternlowland gorillas. The previous instance

wasin2020, when the ﬁrst infant of Tumani and 31-year-old Okpara died aweek after birth due to an unexpected medical conditionwith Tumani. Audubonsaid at the time thatTumani was not able to sufficiently lactate to support heroffspring. Audubon announced the “sad news” Saturday morning, andnofurther details weremadeavail-

able.

“Western lowland gorillas like those at Audubon Zoohavebeenassessed by theInternational Union for Conservation of Nature as critically endangered, with apopulation decline of morethan80%, mainly due to illegalhunting, disease, habitat loss, and an increase in poaching,”the institute said. Audubon Zoo’sgorillas

are part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan, which manages 343 gorillasin49North American zoos. The program seeks to ensure genetic diversity and long-term sustainability for the species.

Email ChadCalder at ccalder@theadvocate. com.

drugs were listed on materialshanded outtoparents: behaving secretively or hidingtheir device screens, changingtheir hygiene habits,starting or ending friendships, or problems with learning,sleepingand memory

TonjaMyles, awell-known Baton Rouge sobriety advocateand founder of the Set Free Indeed Ministry,said during the panel that while herorganization works to provide opportunitiesfor recovery to drug users, and the policemake drug seizures and provide Narcan in emergencies, organizations like Victoria’sVoice work to bridge the communication divide betweenteens and their parents. “What Victoria’s Voiceis doingisthey’regiving you thetools to sit down and havethe conversation with your kids,because if you don’t, someone else will,” Mylessaid. “If you don’t, the dope boywill or theinternet will.”

Jeff LeDuff, assistant chiefadministrativeofficer with the Mayor-President’s Office and aformer Baton Rougepolice chief, was also on hand, providing“nearly five decades” of experience combating multipledrug epidemics, not only opioids. Hisadvicefor parents was simple: Be active about knowing what’sgoing on with yourchild

“Talk to your children. Communication. Don’tbe afraid to open adrawer,a closet. Don’tlet them lock you out of their rooms. Don’t be locked out of that phone. Be aparent. Ican’tsay it enough:communication and be aparent,” LeDuff said.

Baton Rouge rapperknown as TrueBleeda, died at the scene. Twoother young men were wounded.

Hines Myers argued for Grim to be chargedwithtwo counts each of ﬁrst-degree murder, attempted murderand aweaponscharge. Aspecial grand jury pretermitted the indictments, meaningitdidn’t think the state hadenough probable cause evidence to charge Grim.

During the investigation into the Mall of Louisiana shooting, detectives developed Ferguson as aperson of interest becausehis phone pinged in thearea of themall around the time of the lunchtime shootingand left the area shortly after the drive-by In an emailtoattorneys in Ferguson’smurder case last year, HinesMyers recalled that Grim’sbloodwas found in thecar used by theshooters. Thegunmen purchased the vehicle from alocal dealership aday before the shooting and abandoneditnearthe mall, she told attorneys. The shooters were then picked up from a nearby location in avehicle registeredto Chandris Ferguson —Grimand Gervea Ferguson’smother

Neither Gervea nor ChandrisFerguson were ever arrested or charged in connection to theMall of Louisiana shooting,prosecutors said.

Separation betweencases Gervea Ferguson, 28, was one of five men charged with second-degree murder as principalsto23-year-old

Jonathan Williams’ April 2024 killing in the 2800 block of 68th Street.Grim alsodied from multiple gunshots he sustained in that shooting. But authorities charged George Edward Applewhite with manslaughter and attempted ﬁrst-degree murder in connection with Grim’sdeath.Whiteisanallegedmember of the Bleed-

Marilyn McCulley agreed with that advice wholeheartedly.She sharedwhat worked in her home.

“I wanttosay to parents: Drug testyour kids,” McCulley said. “Let themknow ‘we will do random drug tests in this home’ …You know,drug test twice this month, once next month andfour times thefollowing.”

McCulley explained that sheinstituted this rulewith her younger daughter after Victoria’sdeath. And the tests weren’tonly to check if her daughter was using drugs. They also were arhetorical tool for her daughter to avoid peer pressure.

“Anytimeshe was around anyone that was experimenting or offered whatever it was (to her), it was such apeace of mind for her to be able tosay ‘Not in my home, I’m subject to random drug tests.’ It was her out,”

as street gang, arival crew that has been feuding with the Vultures for more than ayear.Police reportsidentify Gervea Ferguson as the leader of the Vultures.

Questions arose about HinesMyers’ involvement in Ferguson’smurder case less than ﬁve monthsafter he was arraigned on that charge. She recused herself in open court Jan.13, 2025, during asidebar discussion with prosecutors and attorneysinthe caseatthe time. ButHines Myershad achange of heart aday later after looking into the potential conﬂictfrom herrole in prosecuting theMall of Louisiana shooting. She ordered the case to be randomly allotted to another judge, but court records indicateitwas notreassignedbeforeshe had second thoughts.

“Uponfurther consideration and review of thelaw as well as the information I have pertaining tothis case, Icannotand should not recuse myself sua sponte(of one’sown volition) if no legal groundfor recusal requires it,” HinesMyers wrote in aJan.14, 2025, emailtoattorneys.“Icannot provide or seeany legal ground for my recusal as it pertains to Mr.Ferguson or anyone else charged in this case.

“I can assure you that I can and will give each individual in this case afair and impartial trial,” she added.

Fifteen days later,Hines Myers issued the order reversing herself-recusal to

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McCulley said.

Ratesofoverdose

Much of theconversation was about how theworld has changed for teenagers comparedtothe past, including moredangerous and addictive substances likefentanyl, accesstovapes andcornerstore synthetic marijuana products, andthe factthat even medical marijuanahas been genetically modiﬁed to produce much moreTHC.

Parish CoronerDr. Beau Clark said that when overdose deaths began to spike in thelate 2010s, his ofﬁce beganwarning drug usersthatfentanylwas being laced into almost any illegally sold substance.

“Wesaid ‘Hey,look, nobody’ssafe. No drug is safe.’ Youcould be hard pressedin this communitytobuy any drug and not ﬁnd fentanyl in it,” Clark said.

no objection from attorneys in the case at the time. But Sandra James Page took over as Ferguson’sdefense attorney earlierthis year and tookexceptiontowhat she described as a“pattern” of Hines Myers self-recusing then un-recusing herself from cases.

During Friday’shearing, AssistantDistrict Attorney Jacqueline Chapmansaid thatrationale shouldn’tapply to Ferguson’sdrug case because he hadn’tyet been arrestedorcharged on that matterwhen Hines Myers recused herself thenreversed therecusal.

Morethana dozenmembers of the Vultureswere arrested in June. The East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce led amonthslong probe into the gang’salleged operation of alarge-scale

Clark, Mylesand Baton Rouge Police Deputy Chief William Clarida all agreed that the increased presence of Narcan has brought overdose numbers down signiﬁcantly in the past twoyears.

“Weuse that Narcan many times,” Clarida said. “It’s well over 100 documented incidents now: They save lives until EMS can get there.”

The department faced 119 overdose incidents in 2024 compared to 56 in 2025.

Data fromthe District Attorney’sOffice shows that fatal overdoses were down almost 22% in the parish compared to 2024, from182 to 143, while nonfataloverdoses were only 3% higher than last year

Other panelists thanked Myles for her organization’s work to spread Narcan access, getting them into the hands of every BRPD ofﬁ-

marijuana distribution network. Ferguson wasone of six defendants charged in the nine-count indictment. His charges in that case includedpossessionwith intent to distributeaSchedule Idrug, conspiracy to distribute more than2.2 pounds of marijuana, soliciting membership into acriminal street gang and four counts of illegally carrying aweapon while in possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

“Judge Hines has never recusedherself fromthat case. She neverattempted to, and it’s notbeen brought up in the motion that was filed by Ms.Page,” said Chapman,who is leading the state’sprosecution of Ferguson on the conspiracy charges.

Louisiana Code of Criminal

tonjaMyles, Ceo of set Free Indeed Ministry, speaks thursday about the dangers of drug use during a panel hosted by Victoria’s Voice Foundation at Greenwell springs eBr Library.

cer on patrol. “Wehave morepeople dying of drug overdoses than we do of people getting killed on the streets,” Myles said. “But yet, we don’tcry whenthey die, because it could be anybody.”

Marilyn McCulley agreed, saying thatnoparentever expects their child to be a drug user or to face the dangers of opioids.

“You hadn’tthought aboutitbecause, listen,you haven’texperienced this. That is why Itry to take part and do what Ican do, because it’sthings that I’d have never thought about either,” McCulley said. “The drug does not discriminate. So it doesn’tmatter how educated you are, it doesn’t matter howwealthy youare, it doesn’tmatter how close your family is, how big, how small. It doesn’tdiscriminate.”

Procedure calls for judges to ﬁle arecusal order with written reasonslaying outthe basis fortheir self-recusal They must send acopy of thatordertothe Louisiana SupremeCourt’sjudicial administrator before thecase can be reallotted. Greggs determined Hines Myers didn’tfollowthose provisions and stuck to her decision to keepthe judge off both Ferguson’sopen cases. Court records show the cases have been reassignedtoChiefJudge Donald Johnson.

“A single caserecusal means that abias, prejudice, or some type of conﬂict appliesbroadly to theindividual, necessitating withdrawal from other matters involving the same defendant to maintain judicial integrity,” Greggs said.

staFF FILe PHoto By BrettDUKe

staFFPHoto By JaVIer GaLLeGos

Parish before they drop and hold steady until sunset.

By 6p.m., northern areas of East Baton Rouge, especially those bordering East and West Feliciana,will be closetofreezing, Bannan said.

“Then, it looks like most of the Baton Rouge metro will be either below or right around freezing by 8p.m. (Sunday) night, and it’ll continue to drop all night long,” Bannan said.

If water remains on bridges and overpasses by then, Bannan said “it’slikely to start freezing pretty quick.” Monday morning lows will come in around the upper teensfor the Felicianas, with warmer,southern areas like Ascension Parish in the mid-20s.

“If (temperatures)doget above freezing Monday, you’re talkingonly acouple hours,” Bannon said, which means the risk of frozen pipes will increase throughout the weekend

Thereal danger is for anyone workingortraveling outside, because temperatures will feel in the lower teens or the single digits with wind chill. Bannon said this will increase

theriskoffrostbite on any exposed skin

Most parishes in the Capital Region have been under awinter storm watch since Thursday,but Bannan said the NWS has upgraded Pointe CoupeeParish and East andWest Feliciana parishestoawinter weather advisory status. The Mayor’sOfficeannounced Saturday that city-parish buildings will be closed Monday dueto thefreezing weather.The parish library system will have all of its locations closed,exceptfor theMain Branch, which will act as a warming shelter

President Donald Trump said Saturdayhe hasapproved afederal emergency declarationfor Louisiana along with several other states affected by Fern,according to apost on from hisaccount on Truth Social.

Presidential emergency declarations addressimpending emergencies or disasters and are issued when thepresident determines federal assistance is neededtohelpstateand local governments save lives, protect propertyand public safety,oravoid acatastrophe, according to the Governor’sOfﬁce of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness

Staffwriter Alyse Pfeil contributed to this story

FILe PHoto

Louisiana private recreational anglerscaught an estimated 947,103 poundsofred snapper in 2025.

RED SNAPPER

Continued from page1B

have actively contributedto conservation and avery successful red snapperseason by participating in the LA Creel process.”

The yearly redsnapper quotas are divided up between commercial and recreational ﬁsheries. Commercial ﬁsheries are granted 51% and recreational the remainder.The recreational quota is further divided amongprivate anglers and charter boats.

The Gulf’s red snapper population declined rapidly in previous decades and hit

alow point in 1990, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Populationnumbers have since graduallyimproved, but remain below atarget number for rebuilding the stock.

Louisiana anglers target red snapper offshore, including around oil and gas rigs that act as artiﬁcial reefs.

Email MikeSmith at msmith@theadvocate com. His work is supported with agrant from the WaltonFamily Foundation, administered by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

Taken toosoon from family and friends, David Assaf,III departed this world on January 18, 2026.

He wasbornonApril 12, 1945 in New Orleans, Louisiana, second of three children of DavidAssaf,Jr. and Edith McElroy. At St. AloysiusHighSchool in New Orleans, David devoted four years to the science club, serving as its president,and also served as president of KeyClub and founder of themeteorology club.In1963, the school newspaper noted that David had his"own homeworkshopinwhich he performs experiments in thephases of science. Indeed, it wasduring high school that he began alifelong hobby as an electronicstinkerer and amateur radiooperator,aka a "ham".

Forthe rest of hislife, David would continue to keep aworkshop (affectionatelycalled "the shack") in every place he called home, chock full of radiosand electronicsin various phases of repair, especially hisfavorite Drake brand transmitters and receivers. With hisradios,his trusted Morse code keyer, athousand watts,and amodified Yagi antenna of hisown design, he would bounce radio waves offthe ionosphere to communicatewithother hamsonthe other sideof theplanet, apractice knownas"DX" in ham parlance. During Hurricane Betsyin1965, he provided emergency communication via hisamateur radio station, aservice forwhich he wasrecognized by thecity of New Orleans.

Davidmet hisfuture wife Paula Kreilkampona blind dateatLoyola University,where they were both students. They were engagedfor ayear and ahalfwhile Davidwas draftedand served in the AirForce and AirNational Guardrepairing aircraftradios at Belle Chase AFB, and while Paula volunteered with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps on the Colville Reservation in Omak, Washington. They were married at St. Dominic CatholicChurch in New Orleans on July 12, 1969. On theirhoneymoon, they watched the Apollo 11 moon landing broadcast.

The young couplesettledinBaton Rouge where David studied at LSU fora Masters in Electrical Engineering and worked twojobs:days as agraduateteachingassistant, and nightsatthe local TV stationWAFB. In 1971 they were blessed with their first child,DavidIV. Over thenext twodecades, they welcomed Bernard,Megan, William, and Rachel David began working with WilliamJ.LeBlanc in 1973 and wasmadea partner in March 1979 to form LeBlanc &Assaf Consulting Engineers,later AST. As a stampedelectrical and mechanical engineer, David led the award-winning designfor lighting and cooling the Louisiana StateCapitol in Baton Rouge, forwhich he was recognizedbythe Louisiana Congress. At his

retirement,hesaidtolawmakers thinking about changingthe electrical, lighting, and coolingsystems,"Don'tmess up my building." David also worked on electrical and/ or mechanical systemsat LSU'sold Alex Boxstadium,LSU'sTiger Stadium, St.Thomas More Church, St.Joseph Cathedral and other churches, theOld StateCapitol building, and numerous other buildings at LSU, Southern University,and hisalma materLoyolaUniversity David wasactive in the Baton RougeAmateur RadioCluband other ham clubs in south Louisiana. In hisretirement, he took his hobby to new heights by participatingin DXpeditions to exotic places and remote, uninhabited spots likeMellish Reef in theCoral Sea. These meticulously planned trips involved the construction and operation of temporary amateur radiostations forcontacting thousands of hamsall over theworld via Morse code The more isolated andinhospitablethe place, the more sought afterthe DX! Hismostmemorable trip wastothe South Georgia and SouthSandwich Islands, where at theage of 71, he helpedset up and operate aradiostationon ThuleIsland, the southernmost beach outside Antarctica andone of the most unforgiving places on Earth, where theonlypermanent inhabitants are some rather curious penguins.

Davidwas preceded in deathbyhis parents, David Assaf,Jr. andEdith McElroyAssaf,his sister Ednamary Caserta, and his beloved wife of 56 years, Paula KreilkampAssaf.He leaves behind hisbrother DennisAssaf;his children David Assaf,IV(Sydney), Bernard Assaf (Stacy), MeganAssaf (Joe), William Assaf (Christine), and Rachel Aylsworth (Jason); and eight grandchildren: Simon, Timothy, Kirby, Nathan, Elizabeth, Noah, Lauren, andJulian.

In lieu of flowers, the family requestsdonations to St. JosephAbbey (https: //www.saintjosephabbey.c om/donate) and Jefferson Performing Arts Society (https://www.jpas.org/do nate).

Funeral to be heldat Mary Queen of Peace church in Mandeville, LA on January 31, 2026: 10:00 AM visitation, 11:30 AM remembrances, 12 PM funeral Mass. To be followedby inurnment at St.Joseph's Abbey Cemetery in Covington at theSt. Anselm cremation niches.

E.J. Fielding Funeral Homehas been entrusted with funeral arrangements. Please sign the guestbook at www.ejfieldingfh.com

"One who has unreliable friendssooncomestoruin, butthere is afriend who sticks closer than abrother"Proverbs18:24. Harry "Gil"Gilbert Banta, Jr. was born on April15, 1963, and left this earthonWednesday, January21, 2026, at theage of 62. Gil was a Deputy Sheriff and dispatcher forIbervilleParish

Sheriff'sOfficefor more than 30 years whofaithfully served the residents of Iberville Parish with integrity, dedication and honor.Hewas aresident andnative of Plaquemine LA. Visitationwillbeheld at St.Johnthe Evangelist Catholic Church,PlaquemineonTuesday, January27, 2026, from 9am untilMass of Christian Burial at 12pm, celebrated by Father MartinLawrence.Entombment will follow at St.Johnthe Baptist Catholic Church, Brusly. Gil is survivedby hissisters, Roxanna Brackin andhusband Rhett, GinaLandryand husband Joey, andLaurie Peltier andhusbandLarry; nieces andnephews, MSgt Ryan Peltier and wife Jyza, Jennifer Landryand husband Dustin, andLanda Ailletand husband Spencer; great nieces and nephews, Mark andNick Peltier,Calise,Cinclare and Kennan Landry, Vivienne andBennett Aillet; former wife, Connie Rodriguez Winston;stepdaughters, Janae Jones andBrooke Verret;stepgrandchildren, Ethan Jones, Elyse, Ensley andMyles Verret;honorarybrother andbest friend, Frank Scalise; and godchild,Megan Richard Preceded in death by his parents, Harry,Sr. andVivian BuddBanta; andgodchild, Josh Landry. Pallbearers will be Joey Landry, LarryPeltier,MSgt Ryan Peltier,Frank, Jared andAnthony Scalise, Troy Joffrion, andJeffHudson. Special thanks to Hosea Anderson, Sheriff Brett Stassi, MontyMigliacio andthe entire Iberville Parish Sheriff'sDepartment. Your thoughtfulness andlove have been agreat comforttoour family. Please find full obituary andshare memories online at www.wilbertservices.com.

SandraK.Beavers, 79, passed away at St Joseph's of Harahan on January 14, 2026. Shewas thedaughterofthe late Margie Singleton. Anative of Baton Rouge,she wasa 1964 graduate of Baton Rouge SeniorHigh School, andwas amember of the BRHS band, and aU.S. Navy veteran. Shewas aresident of MetairieManor for thepast 10 years. A Military Burial and Committal ceremony will be at the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Cemetery,34888 Grantham CollegeDr, Slidell,LA 70460, on Wednesday, January28, 2026, at 1:30 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a charity of yourchoice

Baton Rouge,LA- WarrenClemensBer,92, died peacefully on Thursday, January22, 2026 at the CarpenterHouse of St Joseph's Hospice.Funeral serviceswill be held at Trinity Episcopal Church on Wednesday, January28, 2026 at 1:00pm, with Father Peter Wong officiating.Interment will follow in the Trinity Church Columbarium. Warrenwas born on January 31, 1933, in Eunice Louisiana, the eldest of fivechildren. Hisfamily later moved to NewIberia, whereheattendedSt. Peter'sCollege. After graduation,hecontinued hisstudiesatSouthwestern Louisiana Institute (now theUniversity of Louisiana at Lafayette), earninga bachelor'sdegree in accounting.Hethenjoined theUnited States AirForce serving threeyearsasa First LieutenantatLowry AirForce Base in Denver, Colorado. Upon returningto Louisiana, Warrenbecame aCertifiedPublic Accountantand built adistinguishedcareerasa longtime partner in theaccounting firmHawthorn, Waymouth& Carroll, retiringin1995. Beyond his professional life, Warren enjoyedboating, fishing, tennis, and golf. He was adevoted member of Trinity Episcopal Church for more than 55 years, serving faithfully on thevestry as treasurer andasanusher. Warrenwas preceded in death by his parents,WarrenIsidoreBer and MargeryLaFleur Ber; his brother, John Edward Ber; andhis sisters, Barbara Ber Hebert andElizabeth "Betty" Ber Waggenspack. He is survived by his belovedwife of 63 years, Frances MaddenBer;his son, WarrenClemensBer Jr.; hissister,Mary Carol LeBlancofNew Iberia; and numerousnieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, the familyrequestsdonations be made to Trinity Episcopal Church,3552 Morning GloryAvenue, Baton Rouge,LA70808.

Bienvenu,Martha Nell Sewell

MarthaNellSewellBienvenu died on Sunday, January11at3:10 AM in Houston, TX. MarthaNellSewellBienvenu was born on September 6, 1921 in Hogansville Georgia. She waspreceded in death by hermother,Genevra Louise SheltonSewell and herfather,Nathaniel Leroy Sewell,her husband of 66 years, St.Clair Bienvenu, Sr.ofBaton Rouge,son,St. Clair Bienvenu,Jr, brotherin-law Edward Bienvenu (Jean) sister-in-law Lollie Thorp(John,) brother-in-

Ber, Warren C.

Assaf III, David

Beavers, SandraK

Banta, Harry Gilbert 'Gil'

4B ■ sunday,January25,2026

law

John Bienvenu and son -in-law Rick Shinabery. She was agraduateof Florida State University

Martha spent 20 years affiliated with the Audubon Girl Scout Council, serving as 1st Vice President of the Council and as atroop leader for her daughters' troops, was amember of the Volunteers of America Auxiliary, servedasa member of the Woman's Hospital Auxiliary and was instrumental in helping to write the first by-laws of that organization. Martha was amember of the Woman's Club and was on the board of that club for 20 years, serving as President of the club for 2years. She was also a member of the First United Methodist Church.

Survived by daughter, Toni Shinabery daughter, BarbaraGrady (Joe;) and daughter-in-law Janet Brockett Bienvenu; six grandchildren, Brandon Bienvenu (Beebe,) Lindsay Brackin-Duncan (Josh,) Nathan Grady, Catherine Schroeder (Robert,) Benjamin Bienvenu (Jennifer,) and Stuart Grady (Chandler.) Martha also had five great grandchildren Adelynn Duncan, Jane Bienvenu, George Bienvenu, Grady Schroeder and Blair Schroeder. She is also survived by nephews Richard Bienvenu (Michelle) and Charles Thorp (Jeanine) and niece Jackie Womack (John). Rabenhorst on Government is in charge of arrangements. Her funeral will be at First United Methodist Church on Saturday, January 31. Visitation and areception will be in the Ory Parish Hall at 10am followed by the service at 11AM in the Aldrich Chapel. She will be interred at Roselawn Memorial Park. PallBearers will be her grandsons Brandon Baines Bienvenu, Nathaniel Edward Grady, Benjamin Shelton Bienvenu and Stuart Bienvenu Grady, son-inlaw, Edward Joseph Grady Jr. and grandsons-in-law Joshua Daniel Duncan and Robert Christopher Schroeder. Reverend Brady Whitton willofficiate.

Bishop, Jacqueline Weaver

Jacqueline Weaver Bishop passed away on Tuesday, January 20, 2026,at the age of 98. She is survived by her son, BarryB Bishop (Paula); grandchildren, Brent Bishop, Brandon Bishop, Kyle Bishop (Sarah), Brock Bishop (Melissa), and Todd Bishop; great-grandchildren, Emma Kate, Emelia, Isla Mae, Cullen, Caden, Evie and Remy Bishop; and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her husband, Jimmie M. Bishop; son, Gary Bishop; her parents, William and Gertie Weaver; and numerous siblings. Aprivate service will be held with the family at Resthaven Gardens of Memory. Family and friends may sign the online guestbook or leave apersonal note to thefamily at

www.resthavenbatonroug e.com

Campo, Edna Crowder'Diane'

Edna "Diane"Crowder Campo passedawayon Wednesday,January 21, 2026,atthe ageof75. Visitation willbeatWilbertFuneral Home in Plaquemine on Wednesday, Jan 28th, from 5to9 p.m. and again on Thursday, from 9a.m. until religious service at 11 a.m. See www.wilbertservices.com forfullobit.

Albert Castille, age88, passed awaypeacefully on January20, 2026.Heissurvived by his lovingwifeof 16 years, Mary Fritton Castille; children, Theresa Arnett (Eddie), DebbieBailey(Richard), AlbertMills (Jon), Donna Johnson, and Mandie Jarreau (Mike); grandchildren, Amanda, Melissa, Lacey, TJ,Miranda, Randall, Justin, Alisa, Tara, Josh, Gabby, Cain, and Mackenzie; numerous greatand great-great grandchildren; sister, Eula Lewis; and numerous nieces and nephews. He is preceded in deathbyhis parents, Adelous and Donathile Fontenot Castille; sons, Johnny Ray and DavidLee Castille; and siblings, Lambert,Vorris, Lawrence,Shirley,JC, and Curris.

Albert was amemberof Immaculate Conception CatholicChurch, and enjoyeddancing, listening to Cajunmusic, andspending time with familyand friends. He willbegreatly missedbyall who knew and loved him. Avisitation willbeheld at Greenoaks Funeral Home on Wednesday, January28, 2026,from9 am until funeral servicesat11 am. Burialwillfollow in Greenoaks MemorialPark. Pleasevisit www.greenoak sfunerals.com to leave condolencestothe family.

Cockerham, MarthaGray

Martha Gray Cockerham, of Lake Charlesand Baton Rouge,Louisiana,as well as of Gulf Breeze,FL passedawaypeacefully on December7,2025,atage 74. Martha wasa pioneer-

ing business owner and property ownerwith her best friend and partner Nancy Howell Branton. Their most notableendeavorwas Whistler's WalkCajun CaféinGulf Breeze, Florida. Notonly didtheycreate and serve delicious food, they also created acommunity. Martha is survived by her twochildren, Andrew Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett;her grandchildren, Avaand Clark Mountcastle; her sister, Debby Rountree;and her brothers, Michael Gray and John Gray. She was precededin death by her parents, Sidney and DorisGray; and by her brothers, Richard Gray and Bruce Gray.

Eckert,PhilipBruce

Philip Eckert, anativeof Baton Rouge,Louisiana, passed away on January 22, 2026, at theage of 91. He was bornonJune 12, 1934, to Philip A. Eckert and ElizabethBruce Eckert. Philip was agraduateof CatholicHighSchool and Louisiana StateUniversity. He proudly served his country as aCaptaininthe United States AirForce.He laterretired from the Louisiana StateDepartment of Environmental Quality and was aMan of Manresa.Heissurvived by his belovedwife,Ursula Prados Richard Eckert; his children, Bruce Eckert (Darlene), Betty Willis (Chris), BonniePerrin (Joe), and BrigitteKron (Edgar); his stepchildren, Ragan Richard (Virginia), UrsulaLaville(Thomas), StephanieRobert,and Jeanne Daniel; and his many grandchildrenand great-grandchildren, all of whom he loveddearly. Philip was preceded in death by his first wife, Gay Nell Burnett Eckert; his parents, Philip A. and Elizabeth Eckert;and hisbrother,Ronnie A. Eckert, and sister-in-law, NoraLee Eckert.Memorial services will be held at Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church on January29, 2026. Visitation willtake place from9:00 to 10:00 a.m.,followedby Mass at 10:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers,the family requests that donations be madetoCatholicHigh School.

Tim B. Elkins Sr. was born in WestFrankfurt,Illinoisin1940, to his parents, TimothyJackson Elkins and Quinton Maxine Burnett Elkins. He worked for hisfamily's newspaper, The Daily American, during his highschoolyears, continuing hisstudies at Southern IllinoisUniversity, and then enlisting in the

United States Army National Guard.In1966, Tim moved to Baton Rouge, later establishing Tim Elkins StateFarm, wherehewas diligent in serving his clients formorethan46 years. Through hisbusiness, he was honored and grateful forrelationships and friendshipsthatdeveloped.Livinglifetothe fullest, Tim traveledthe world.When he was at home, he enjoyed many sports -sponsoring and playing in softball and basketball leagues, and he was afierce tenniscompetitor, participating in several tournaments. Tim cherished histime outdoors, whether he was hunting,water skiing or snow skiing, he madethe most of every opportunity to spend time with family and friends. He is preceded in deathbyhis parents, and his sisters Linda Nadalini and Maryblye Frost. Timissurvivedby his best friend and loving wife of 48 years, Debbie Baker Elkins; his daughter KellyElkins and partner Glynn;his son Chip Elkins and wife Cindy; and his son Derek Elkins and wife Jessica of Marietta, Georgia; hisgrandchildren Trey, Ashley, Ameila and Ellie;aswellasnumerous nieces and nephews and countless friends. The familywishestoextend their heartfelt gratitude to Audubon Hospice, as well as his kind and compassionatecaregivers Doris Smith, Brenda Bates, Debra Whiteand Catherine Byrd, for providing such peace to Timand his family during his final days.Relatives and friends are invitedto attend theFuneral Service at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at Resthaven FuneralHome, 11817 Jefferson Highway in BatonRouge.A Visitation willbeheldatthe funeral home beginning at 12:30 p.m. Interment willfollow at Resthaven Gardens of Memory. Honoring Timas pallbearers willbeChip Elkins, DerekElkins, Melvyn Baker, John Langlois, Trace Langlois and JoeTimpa. For those so desiring, memorials in honor of TimB.Elkins may be madetothe charity of your choice. Familyand friends may signthe online guestbook or leave apersonal note to thefamily at www.resthavenbatonroug e.com

Albert JosephFalcon, Jr., born on November 5, 1934, in Donaldsonville,LA, and aresident of BatonRouge, LA,joined his loving wife in heaven on the 14thanniversary of her passing on Friday, January 23, 2026, at theage of 91. Heaven is a better place today. He was alovingfather, grandfather,great-grandfather, uncle, and friend. Albertis survivedbyhis three daughters, BelindaFalcon, Lisa Falcon, and TessFalcon; grandchildren, Erik Strehle and his wife Skylar, Alexander Strehle and his fiancée Elizabeth,Emily FalconAdams, and Tristan Smith;great-grandchil-

dren,Alexander Strehle, Jr Magnolia Strehle,Sadie Adams, Emmett Adams, andAlbertSmith;sister, Deanie Daigle;and numerousin-laws, nieces, nephews, and friends. Waiting to greethim in heaven are hiswife,BarbaraAnn Fernandez Falcon; granddaughters, Megan Bloom, Erikaand Veronika Strehle;parents, AlbertSr. and Nita LaGarde; andhis sister,Joyce Blanchard andher husband, Earl.Visitationwill be held at ResthavenFuneralHome, 11817 Jefferson Highway, on Saturday, January31, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. untilFuneral Service at 11:00 a.m. Entombment will follow at Resthaven GardensofMemory. In lieu of flowers, donations canbemade to St.Jude Children'sResearch Hospital.Familyand friends may sign the online guestbook or leave apersonal note to thefamilyat www.resthavenbatonroug e.com.

Robert LeeFaul, Sr passedaway peacefullyon Jan 15, 2026, at the age of 84 surrounded by his lovingfamilyand devoted wife, Tammie. Friends are invited to aCelebrationof Life whichwill be held at 8527 SHodgeson Rd, Gonzales,LA70737 at 2pm on Feb 28, 2026. To read the full obituary, please visit www.churchfuneralservic es.com.

Kenneth

KennethEmanuel Gibsonenteredinto eternal rest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on January 16, 2026 at the age of 42. ViewingatMount Zion First Baptist on Tuesday, January27, 2026 at 9:00 am untilCelebrationofLife Service at 11:00 am conducted by Pastor Rene Brown;interment at Louisiana National Cemetery.Survivors include his parents,Keith Sr.and Kathy Knighten Gibson; four siblings; two nieces; twonephews; other relativesand friends. Ar-

rangements entrusted to Miller &Daughter Mortuary.

Heroman,Susanne Comeaux Hotard'Susie'

Susanne"Susie" Comeaux Hotard Heroman left this earthly life to be with herSavior on Thursday, January22, 2026. Susie wasbornNovember 6,1943 to Robert I. and Corinne L. Comeaux in Baton Rouge andattendedSaint Joseph's Academy, graduating in 1961. Shewas the Catholic High School Homecoming queenher Junior year, andwas on the Homecoming courther Senior year.She also wasa CHS/SJA cheerleader, Class Ambassador, Class Rep, anda memberofthe volleyball team andGlee Club. WhileenrolledatLSU in 1961, she met thelove of herlife, Charles Dale Hotard, andtheymarriedon May29, 1965. Shewas a member of Delta Delta DeltaSorority, andhewas aKappa Sigmafraternity member. Susie received herbachelor'sdegree in 1965. Susie and Dale were marriedfor forty-five years untilhis death in 2010, and together they raised three sons, Jeffrey,Davis and Daniel. Susie marriedFred William Heroman on November 23, 2011 after theyreconnected,having been on the cheerleading team togetheratCHS in high school. They were marriedfor nine years untilhis death in 2020. Susie wasalso preceded in death by herparents, her brothers PaulComeaux andRobertComeaux, Jr hersisters-in-law Patricia W. Comeaux andNonaHotardBoudreaux, andher brothers-in-law Stark Davis Hotard andJude Francis Hotard. Susie is survivedbyher threesons, Jeffrey Dale Hotard, Davis CharlesHotard, andDaniel LeeHotard; herdaughter-in-law KimCaryHotard, and her grandchildren, Hannah Nicole Hotard and Hayden Jude Hotard. She is also survived by hertwo sisters, Charlene Comeaux Kennedyand Patrice Comeaux Ellis, along with many nieces andnephews. Susie is survivedbyFred's children, Leesie Greene (Michael), Freddie Heroman, Katie Houston(Jason) and Matthew Heroman, and Fred's nine grandchildren. Susie always enjoyed a goodgarage sale, andif you made hergift list, there was achanceyou wouldreceive a"gently used" item at some point. Herweekly time spentwith herRe-Kindle Bible study group, as well as her Rosary group, wascherished by Susie.She also enjoyed herneighborhood "winewalks" andorganizingmonthly SJAClass of '61 lunches. Susie wasa currentboardmember of theMartial Billeaud Foundation, served on theMagnoliaMound Preservation Foundation,and wasa foundingmember of the La Fiesta Dance Club, as well as along-time member of theJuniorLeague of Baton Rouge andthe Baton Rouge Little Theater. Visitation will take place on Monday, January26, at

Faul,Robert Lee

Castille, Albert

Gibson,

Falcon Jr., Albert Joseph

ElkinsSr.,Tim B.

RabenhorstFuneral Home

825 Government Street from 5:30 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., and then on Tuesday, January 27, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 2250 Main Street, from 9:30 a.m. until aMass of Christian Burial at 11:00 a.m. (Pending the current weather conditions, please refer to the Rabenhorstonline obituary for any updates to the services). Pallbearers will be Michael Kennedy,Dawson Ellis,Cheney Hotard, Beau Kern, Keith Comeaux and Brian Comeaux. Interment will take place at Roselawn Memorial Park, 4045 North Street, with areception following at the Sacred Heart Parish Hall.

Donations may be made to Sacred Heart Catholic Church or St. Joseph's Academy. The family wishes to thank AudubonHome Health and Audubon Hospice for the care Susie received.

Connie Ray Hodgeson, age 95, native of Galvez, Louisiana and resident of Baton Rouge, passed away on Wednesday, January 21, 2026. Connie was agraduate of Istrouma High School class of 1948. He met the love of his life, Anna, when they were just 16. Connie and Anna spent 63 happily married years together. Both were active members of Woodlawn Baptist Church. He was also amember of the Free Masons. He was an avid golfer up until the age of 92. Connie was aproud veteran of the United States Air Force, who served during the Korean War. He achieved the rank of Sergeant and was awarded the Korean Service Medal with two bronze stars,aswell as a United Nations Service Medal. During his service he joined aUSO bandwith his fellow Airmen. Connie was musically talented from ayoung age. He often enjoyed singing songsand playing guitarwith his brothers. Connie was always sharing his love of music and playing instruments with friends and family. He is survived by his son, Keith Hodgeson; grandchildren, Claire Ellen Ripoll and husband Charles Henry Ripoll II, Conner Even Hodgeson, and Brianna Rae Hodgeson; greatgrandchildren, Henry Joseph RipollIII and Charlotte Mae Ripoll. Connie was preceded in death by his wife, Anna Mae AllemanHodgeson; parents, Lihue Simon Hodgeson and Marie Leonne Bourgeois; sisters, Margie Diez, Pearlie Hale, Helen Fields, Lois Donaldson, and Eva Horace Doiron; and brothers, Lihue Hodgeson Jr., and Calvin Hodgeson. Family and friends are invited to attend theFuneral Service at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, January 30, 2026, at Resthaven Funeral Home, 11817 Jefferson Highwayin Baton Rouge. AVisitation will be held at the funeral home beginning at 12:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, please send adonation to St. Judes Children's Hospi-

tal, ShrinersHospital, or Mercy Ships. Family and Friends may signthe online guestbookorleave a personal note to the family at www.resthavenbatonro uge.com.

Louis,Philip Donald "I havefought agood fight, Ihavefinished my course; Ihavekeptthe faith,"

Philip Donald Louis, a native of New Roads, Louisiana and aresidentof Geismar,Louisiana went to be with the Lord on Sunday, January 18, 2026 at the ageof84. He wassurroundedbyhis loving family.

Philip, the son of the late Philip Louis, Sr. and MargaretLeDuff Louis was known for his zest forlife; he loved traveling, attending festivals, working on his art pieces, cookingdelicious fooddishes, helping out at the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church Food Pantry,and most of all, spending time with family. He was agraduate of SouthernLaboratory High School and Southern University. He was aretired East Baton Rouge Parish Public School teacher; he taughtspecial education and art for25+ years. Before becoming an educator, Philip was inthe United StatesAir Force. He leaves the gift of love, faith, and joytohis lovingwifeof25years, Connie S. Louis; adaughter, Stacie Fabre; twosons: Philip Louis, III and Christopher James Louis(Jennifer); two sisters: JoyceL Scottand Patricia L. Barnes;threebrothers-inlaw: Joseph Brown, Jr., Calvin Davis,Jr.,and David Shaw, Sr.,three sisters-inlaw: NedraS.Brown, Valarie S. Davis, and Dawn Shaw.

Mr.Louiswas preceded in death by hisparents, Philip and MargaretLeDuff Louisand two grandsons: Evanand ElbertLouis. ServiceswillbeTuesday, January 27, 2026, at a Mass of ChristianBurial,at St. Francis XavierCatholic ChurchofBaton Rouge, LA The family requestthat visiting hours be observed at St. FrancisXavier CatholicChurch, Tuesday from 9:00 am until time of service,at11a.m. Arosary willberecited at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning The Rev. Ugochukwu Henry Ihouma,SSJ willofficiate the service To view on-line obituary and signguestbook, go to halldavisandson.com

Hall Davis& son Funeral Service,LLC of Baton Rouge is in charge of the arrangements

Mansour, Alfred Ameen 'Al'

Dr. Alfred "Al" Ameen Mansour,Jr, adevoted husbandand father, cherished grandfather, and re-

generations to come. He was predeceased by hisparents, Judge Alfred Ameen Mansour, Sr., and MaryJoMansour;his brother-in-law, Albert "Chip" Edward Carpenter, Jr, and hisnephew, William Patrick Meek. He is survivedbyhis loving wife of 53 years, Maryetta Logan Mansour and theirfour children, Dr. Alfred Ameen Mansour, III(Danielle), Aubrey Logan Mansour (Janine), Dr. Ashton Shields Mansour (Georgia) and Margaret Mansour Salem (Dr. AndrewSalem) and his 13 precious grandchildrenCole, Cade, Brooke, Cameron, Maya, Kai, Shields,Oxford,Lorabeth, Rhodes, Sawyer, Sloan and Serena.Heisalso survived by his brother, Dr. Richard Preston Mansour (Merrial), hissister,SharonMansour Meek(Dr. Jim Meek),and his brotherand sisters-inlaw, Drs. David andPatricia Hilton,Sally Logan Carpenter, and tennieces and nephews.

Al was bornonNovember26, 1950, in Monroe, LA and spent most of his life raising his family and practicing radiology in Alexandria, LA.Fromanearlyage, he demonstratedkindness and compassion forhelping others, astrongwork ethic, and akeen focus on his family and faith that guidedhim throughout his life and career.

Al pursuedhis education with grit and determination. He graduated with thehighest honors and distinction from Holy SaviorMenard HighSchool.He went on tostudy Pre-Med at Tulane University, while also playing football, and Louisiana StateUniversity, followedbymedical school at Louisiana StateUniversity in NewOrleans, serving as thestudent body president and amember of theAlpha Omega Alpha HonorMedical Society.Aftergraduating from medical schoolin1975, he enlisted in theUnitedStates Army as aFlight Surgeon and served four years, including atour in Germany. Subsequently,hecompleted his training in Radiology at Louisiana StateUniversity, NewOrleans, and returnedtoAlexandria in 1983 to beginhis 41-year career. Last year, Al and Maryetta were thrilled to reconnect withhis classmates and spousesathis 50th-year medical school reunioninNew Orleans.

Al's commitment to excellence ledhim to adistinguished careerinradiology, where he was Head of RadiologyaswellasChief of Staff forseveral years and served as theChairman of theBoardof Trustees fortwo years. He served patients and colleagues in Central Louisiana withintegrity, humility, and care. In 1991, he was inducted intothe Committeeof100 Champions of Excellence by LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans. Over theyears, Al served on numerous boards and organizations including:President of the Alexandria Country Day School Boardfor many dedicated years, President of theRapidesGeneral Medical Society,Fellowof theAmerican Collegeof Radiology, President of the Radiological Society of Louisiana, Member and Clinical Sponsorofthe Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology,Member of theAmerican RoentgenRay Society and Member of theRadiologicalSociety of North America.

Aboveall else, Al treasured and was treasured by his immediate and extendedfamily.Hewas a loving and wonderfully supportivefather, ever

present with guidance, encouragement, and unwavering support.As"Gidy" (grandfather), he found immense joy and pride in spending timewithhis grandchildren, ages ranging from1 to 19 years old. He attended countless sportingeventsand performances, enjoyed reading stories with grandkids cuddledinhis lap,and swimming and playing games.

One of his greatest joys was vacationing withfamily and friends in places that brought both beauty and greatcuisine,including Watercolor, Florida, and thecoast of Maine. A true loverofgreat food,he never missed achance to enjoy awonderfulrestaurant,believing that agood meal was best shared with those he loved. Al willberemembered forhis generosity of spirit, his gentle strength,devout faith, and love of family.He passionately believed in hard work, lifelong learning,and treating everyone with kindness and respect. His impact reachedfar beyond his profession, touching countless livesthrough his generosity and theexample he set Visitation willbeheldat Hixson Brothers Funeral Home,Alexandria,onJanuary 31, 2026, from8:30 AM until 12:30 PM,followedby amemorial Mass at 1:00 PM at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral

The family wishes to extend their gratitude to the medical team at M.D.Andersonfor their care and support. In lieu of flowers, please consider memorial contributions to AlexandriaCountry Day School. To extend on-line condolences to theMansour family,pleasecontact us at www.hixsonbrothers.com.

Sandra FlattmannRoc‐cafortepassedaway peacefullyather home in Baton Rouge, Louisianaon Thursday,January 22, 2026 She wasbornonOctober 14, 1943, in NewOrleans to Elwood A. Flattmannand Cleon ReutherFlattmann. She attended St.Christo‐pherSchool andwas a 1961 graduate of St.Mary's Dominican High School She is preceded in death byher parentsand her brother,Bob Flattmann. Sandraissurvivedbyher lovinghusband of 64 years, Joseph"Jay" Roccaforte, Jr.;their daughters, Kim Roccaforteand Beth Me‐trailer andhusband Charles;and herbeloved grandchildren,LaurenMe‐trailer Miller,Katie Me‐trailer Matus, EmilyMe‐trailer,ClaireWigleyand TaylorWigley, who affec‐tionately called her "Honey";aswellnumerous other familyand friends. She wasanaccomplished artistand amemberofthe Baton RougeArt League She wasanactivemember and past presidentofthe Baton RougeSymphony League. In 1989, Sandra was namedone of Baton Rouge's Best Dressed. She was acompetitive tennis playeratThe CountryClub ofLouisiana.Her team won cityand statechampi‐onships,advancing to re‐gionaltournaments on severaloccasions. Sandra

wasthe consummate host‐

ess. Shefound joyindeco‐ratingand creating ahome rootedinlove, happiness and lastingmemories. She willbemissedand forever cherished.Relatives and friends areinvited to at‐tendthe FuneralMassat 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 28, 2026, at St GeorgeCatholicChurch 7808 St.GeorgeDrive in Baton Rouge. AVisitation willbeheldatthe church beginning at 8:30 a.m. A celebration of Sandra's life willfollowatThe Country ClubofLouisiana.Family and friendsmay sign the onlineguestbook or leave a personal note to thefam‐ily at www.resthavenba tonrouge.com

Rushing,Patricia Morris

Patricia Ann Morris

Rushing,89, passed away peacefully at herhomein Watson, LouisianaonJanuary 19, 2026. Born in 1936 in Kentwood, Louisiana, to HerbertBenjaminand Axie Eisworth Morris, Pat graduated from Central High School before making her home in Watson, Louisiana. Pat excelledas aseamstress and hairdresser, and waswidely known for hercommunity leadership,singing in area choirs andweddings,her unwaveringdevotion to herfamily, andmost importantly herdeeply rooted Christian faith. Pat is survived by her sons: Perry(Melanie), Joel (Jill), Dana (Jodi), and Lane (Jean); grandchildren: Shelby (Young), Ryan (Brittany), Sarah, Travis (Lauren), Molly(Daniel), Sammi (Clay), Victor (Madeline) andJulia (Trajan),and great-grandchildren: Reese, River, Campbell, Carson,Margot, Wesley, Frederick,Emory, andCecelia(with more on the way!). Sheisalso survived by hersister JanicePenn andseveral nieces and nephews. Pat waspreceded in death by herhusband of 59 years, CarlNelson "Peano"Rushing, herparents, and onesister,MarciaTinsley.

The familyextendstheir heartfelt thanks to Pat's caregivers throughouther extendedillness. ACelebrationofPat's life will be held at Live Oak Church in Watson, LA, 11am, January31, 2026, with visitation andrefreshments to follow In lieu of flowers, donationsmay be made to Home of Graceat homeofgrace.org

Susan Elizabeth Harmon wasbornonApril 24, 1948, to Derwin Kay Harmonand MadelinePeaceHarmon Shegraduatedfrom OpelousasHigh School in 1966, LSUin1970 and LSU's PaulM.HebertSchool of Law in 1980. Prior to law school, Susan was aguidance counselor andEnglish teacher at Baton Rouge High School. Afterward,she lived in NewOrleans,Lincolnton, Georgia, andmost recently Baton Rouge.She is survivedbydaughters Rachel Ferguson Shueyand Kate HarmonShuey, to whom she wasendlesslydevoted.Asa mothershe provided constant care and support spicedwith sharp wit. Therewas no getting anythingpast her. Susan wasa valuedeldersister to Doug Harmon, RachalMurphy, andLisa George,cousin to Kathy Hoggard, Myra Ortego, Steve Mead,Linda Bitter Palma Jorgensen,Bobby Going,Cindy King,Debbie Balicki, andMolly White, anda close friendofMary Grace, Catherine McKenzie, Kay Humphries, Diane Butler, and former husband JamesShuey, all of whom will miss herdearly Sheloved reading mystery books, watchinghome improvement shows,sharingher considerable knowledge of European history, and teaching everyoneshe could howto properly make aroux. She hadimpeccable tasteand wantedeveryonetoknow that herdaughters received theirbest traits from her.

Aservice in celebration of Susan's life will be held on Friday, March6th,2026 at the University United Methodist ChurchinBaton Rouge,LA. Visitation at 1pm, Memorial Service at 2pm. In lieu of flowers, donationsmay be made in her memory to the Retina ResearchFoundation, which supports researchonretinaldisease.

Hodgeson, Connie Ray

Roccaforte, Sandra Flattmann

OUR VIEWS

TheComite

River Diversion Canalis overdue, but welcome

We are heartened to seethatthere may be a real finish line for the ComiteRiverDiversion Canal project, acritical piece of capital-region flood-prevention infrastructurethat, according to theU.S.ArmyCorps of Engineers, could be finished in mid-2028.

The canal, once operational, will divert floodwater from the Comite River througha300-foot wide, 50-foot deep channel eightmilesbeforeit travels another four miles through bayous and overland to eventuallyfind itsway into theMississippi River.The flow down thecanal will be controlled by astructure at theComite River, and water will onlybediverted when riverlevels are high. If it works as planned, it will help prevent flooding of tens of thousands of residents.

But any optimism about thenew timelineis tempered in no small part by the longand torturous process it took to get it to this point.

The projectwas ﬁrst conceived in the 1960s, but no federal approval happened until 1993. Still, though, the subsequentyears broughtonly halting progress.

Fast forward to 2016, nearly ageneration after that approval, when heavy rainsacross southeast Louisiana caused record ﬂooding in the Amite and Comite River basins. Thousands of homes were destroyed andmanyresidents were out of their homes for months.

That disaster injected sense of urgencyinto the project and work really got goingin2019. Butthen came months and years of delays, roadblocks and holdups. Some of thosewere due to the project’scomplexity: It requires a number of new railroad andhighwaybridges, as well as designing and buildingintersections with at least three other bayous.

Otherswere more man-made: Several dozen pipelines and utilities needed to be moved, and negotiationswiththe owners of those sometimesdraggedon. One of the last ones,the relocationoftwo gaspipelines, was recently completed, paving theway forreal progress.

If it is finished on the currenttimeline, the35 years it will have taken to go from approvalto completionwill rival thatofthe interstate highway system, which officially kickedoff with the Federal-Aid Highway Actof1956 and wasdeclared “completed” in 1992, about36yearslater It will easily outstrip the length of time it took to dig the 51-mile Panama Canal, whichbenefited from eight years of French work in the1880s but began in earnestin1904 and opened about a decade later

We know that the people whocould beneﬁt from the Comite River Diversion Canalare anxious to seeitcompleted andoperational.We are, too. And while we would like to seethe time required to completesuch projectsreduced,we are nonetheless glad to see that when we focus on large, ambitious infrastructure projects,we can still get them done. The need forforward thinking and ambition, especially when it comes to managing Louisiana’srivers, is only likely to increase.

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE AREOUR

GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’scity of residence theadvocate |the times-Picayune require astreet address andphone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the editor,the advocate, P.o. Box 588, Baton rouge, La 70821-0588, or email letters@ theadvocate.com.

to seND Us a Letter, sCaNHere

ALEXANDRIA Roaming among tables in an expansive event room on aconverted Air Force base earlier this month,Chris Masingill was certain of one thing.

“Wewill get our opportunityfor adata center,” he said with theconviction of a revivalist preacher “It’sjust amatter of time.”

Masingill’senthusiasm has been on display anumber of times in thelast three months, as the newly minted economic development leader for a10-parish region across the state’smiddle embarked on atour that was part pep-talk, part community relations and part listening tour His message has been simple: Yes, Central Louisiana has been an economic laggard. Butaturnaround is possible if theregion unites behind asingle vision.

Partofhis message involves toutingthe region’s broad potential, but right now,heknows there are two magic words that folks want to hear: datacenter

Plenty of folks in CenLa sure hope he’sright.

Email Faimon A. Roberts III at froberts@theadvocate. com.

The recent rush across thesouth to build sprawling new server farmstofeed the ravenous AI beast has set off asilicon-rush of sorts, with each state and region competing to makeitself themost attractive to massive technology development ﬁrms. The hope, of course, is to land aproject like what is coming to Richland Parish, where asubsidiary of Metaisbuilding a$27 billion datacenter.That project, in the less than two years since itsannouncement, has already transformed a sleepy agricultural parish into ahub of construction and economic activity Central Louisiana’sleaders hunger for that sort of project Butthe economics of such projectsare changing. The really big companies, like MetaorGoogle or Amazon, are not building as many of their own data centers like theone in Richland Parish, Masingill told me. Instead, it’ssmaller companies purchasing land, building the centersand then offering them up to the bigger companies on acontract basis, he said. That’swhat appears to be happening in West Feliciana Parish, where acompany called Hut 8isbuilding a$7 billion data center Hut 8recently announced a 15-year deal with Anthropic, the company behind popular AI chatbot Claude. Central Louisiana’sturn may be coming sooner than somethought. Last month, acompany named Applied Digital purchased about 670 acres near Boyce in Rapides Parish. Applied Digital is a Dallas-based ﬁrm that describes itself as “constructing the epicenter of AI”on its website. Masingill alluded to the news in his talk to those business leaders. “You all saw the news with the land transaction, that’snosecret,” he said. Masingill told me that Central Louisiana has plenty of the things that data center developers are looking for: available land, water and power generation potential. So, even if this project doesn’tpan out, one eventually will.

We like to keep thingsfresh on the Opinion pages because we like to think our readers are eager to engage in the world of ideas. Yousee new features on these pages when we see opportunities to give fresh perspectives or if we see content we thinkdeserves awide audience. Recently,wefeatured abook excerpt in our new feature, “From the Bookshelf.” We will be periodically publishing such excerpts when we see topics that are worthwhile. We know ourreaders likely have so many sources of information at their disposal, but we like to highlight content that may ﬂy under theradar.And when we can spotlight local issues or local authors, that’s even better.Inthe case of thebook excerpt, we were also able to tell readers about an opportunity to meet theauthors at aQ&A at alocal

bookstore. So hopefully,aswecontinue this feature, it can encourage readers to ﬁnd new spaces to makeconnections in their communities and support local booksellers as well. This week, we are also starting aseries of essays in honor of the 250th birthday of our country Throughout the year,wehope to spotlight interesting insights from writers, thinkers, civic leaders and others about what this milestonemeans forour country.Many feel that we are at acrossroads in our history,sowhat better time to look back at our founding principles and assess how they are holding up today?

We are also going to be discussing how to engage more with you online, as we know manyofyou follow our websites closely.You may be wondering how we decide what to do next. When

looking fornew ways to keep our audience engaged, we get ideas from everywhere. We look to what other Opinion pages are doing, we talk with other reporters and editors about what they are seeing, and we of course listen to your suggestions. We know someofyou like the predictability of the Opinion pages, and we are committed to keeping your favorite content, but mixing it up every once in awhile can be good too.

Looking at ourLetters inbox for the week of Jan.15-22, immigration was the toptrending topic, prompting six letters. Next, some of you were concerned aboutPresident Donald Trump’sthreat to take over Greenland, leading to four letters. Lastly,there were threeletters commenting on our Opinionpages

Email Arnessa Garrett at arnessa.garrett@theadvocate.com.

Arnessa Garrett

Faimon Roberts

ProVIDeD PHoto Crews work at the Meta aI data center site in richland Parish.

COMMENTARY

Trumpseeks to make U.S. Senate race abouthim

There are 2,965,470 registered votersin Louisiana, and last Ichecked, Donald John Trump was not one of them. Yetthe question before those actual voters is nowthis: To what extent does the president get to determine who represents the state in the United States Senate?

Last week, U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won Trump’scoveted nod in the Republican primary,but it wasamost unusual entry into amajor race.

Trump led, by announcing on Truth Social that he’d support her if she decided to challengethe twoterm incumbent of their own party, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy —reportedly without giving her aheads-up. Letlow followed dayslater when she broke the news that wasbythen not news at all: She would indeed be acandidate

She’s also anarguably imperfect avatar forTrumpism. Letlow votes with the president and compliments him whenever she gets the chance. But she is also professional and polished, not pugnacious and certainly notvulgar.

This timeline positions Letlow not just as the Trump-endorsed candidate, but the Trump-branded candidate. Sheisthe instrument of his vengeance against the gastroenterologistfrom Baton Rouge who, despite ayear’sworth of cringycapitulations to the president’sinsatiable ego and terrible judgment in hiring Robert F. Kennedy Jr.toleadthe Healthand Human Servicesdepartment, will alwaysbethe guy who (rightfully) voted to convictTrump for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol at impeachment. That’snot to say that she wouldn’t be a legitimate contender on her own. Letlowentered Congress following acareerasa highlevel university administrator,and in the most sympathetic way possible: She won thenortheast Louisianaseat after her husbandand thefather of her twoyoung children was elected but died aftercontracting COVID. In Congress she’s advocated for young families and focusedonrural issues important to her district, and sits on the important Appropriations Committee.

Now that she’s tied herself so closely to him, howwill she respond when asked about Trump’stransgressions and unpopular policies? Will she go after Cassidy personally,asstate Treasurer John Fleming and state Sen. Blake Miguez, who are also running under the MAGA brand, have already shown themselves willing to do? What will she do if they stay in the race —we’ll know once qualifying comes around next month—and they aim theirﬁre at her too?

Forhis part, Cassidy said that Letlow was polite in informing him that she’d decided to jump in.

“Congresswoman Letlow called me this morning to say she was running. She said sherespected me and thatI had done agood job,” he posted.

If that’sanaccurate portrayal of their conversation, she wouldn’tbethe only major Louisiana Republican to feel that way Consider thereaction of Baton Rouge business leader Eddie Rispone, whoseplatform in his2019 gubernatorial campaign basically boiled down to “I’mwith Trump.”

“I don’tunderstand the president’s deal, Rispone told my colleague Tyler Bridges afterTrump issued his preemptive endorsement.“Ithink it’s pretty ridiculous. You have agreat guy making adifference. He chairs amajor committee and is on the FinanceCommittee. She’sobviously asmart person, but she’snot even aseasoned congresswoman.”

On apreliminary basis, some other GOP bigwigs have also touted Cassidy’srecord and hisseniority, and said they’ll stickwith him. The stateparty, which was quick to

U.s. rep. Julia Letlowanswers aquestion while attendinganevent at the City

rougeonoct. 21, 2024, in Baton

censureCassidy after his impeachment vote, may not endorse in this intraparty showdown, LaPolitics Weekly is reporting. Cassidy is also reaching out to nonparty voters who can participateinthe GOP primary—many of whom arefurious over his RFKvotebut some of whom might think aTrump-sponsoredchallenger would be worse In fact,now thatit’sclear thatkissing up didn’twork, Cassidy has one more chance to assert his independence, hold his head up high, continue to support Trump whenhe genuinely agrees but also act as aguardrail againstthe president’s —and, importantly, Kennedy’s—worst behavior.

It may not be enough to overcome Trump’sdecision to put his ﬁnger on the scale on Letlow’sbehalf, not to mentionher own performance on the campaign trail in her ﬁrst genuinely contested election. That’suptoLouisiana’svoters, at least those able to participate in anew primary system that was designed to empower Cassidy’scritics.

But at least it would give those voters a clear choice.

Because ultimately,this decision really is theirs, not Trump’s, to make.

EmailStephanie Grace at sgrace @theadvocate.com.

Cassidyrightly pressuresNEA on left-wingorthodoxy

In giving the National Education Association aJan. 29 deadline to answer pointed questions about “allegations of antisemitism” he calls “deeply troubling,” Republican Sen. BillCassidy,ofLouisiana, is showing that his watchdog role extendsbeyond health policy

Cassidy also is showing that the NEA is acting far more as aleftwing power group than abargaining agent for school workers, much less agroup whose ﬁrstpriority is helping students excel in reading, writing and arithmetic. Cassidy is chairman of theSenate Committee on Health, Education, Labor,and Pensions. It is the “education” and “labor” parts of the committee’spurview that precipitated his lengthy Dec. 18 letter to NEA President Rebecca Pringle. Therein, he cited four major categories of alleged NEA antisemitism. Several involvedresolutionsapprovedby vote at the 2025 NEA RepresentativeAssembly or by the NEA board. One pushed aboycott of the Anti-Defamation League, which for decades has provided widelyadmiredHolocaust educationmaterials.Anotherapproved something called “Palestinian Nakba Education,” which teaches students about the so-called “forced,violent displacement and dispossession of at least 750,000 Palestinians from theirhomeland

in 1948 during the establishment of the State of Israel,” thus adopting an extreme anti-Israel viewpoint devoid of the context that Israel was created by theUnited Nationsand that it offered almost all those 750,000 the option of remaining in place.

One example involved an Oct. 8email to some 3million membersthat celebrated “indigenous lands” which —get this —literally erased Israel from themap and replaced it with a territory it called “Palestine.” “Even worse,” Cassidy wrote, the emailed material “recommended resources linked to terror-supporting organizations, who have expressedsupport of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israeli civilians.”

Cassidy also cited widespread complaints ofharassment and abuse experienced byassembly delegates who happened to be Jewish. In doing so, he referenced aletter to theexecutive committee from the NEA’s Jewish AffairsCaucus that outlined ahost of examples of hateful behaviors that union ofﬁcials allegedly did nothing to rein in, including clothing that advocated “verbal and physical violence against Jews.”

And much, much more.

In all, Cassidy demanded answers from Pringleto31speciﬁc questions, mostof which also included several sub-questions.

He noted that the NEA is speciﬁcally chartered by Congress, and wrote, tellingly, that “the NEA has lost sight of its original purpose, becoming entrenched in political and activist causes far outside its area of expertise and failing to advance our children’slearning. In essence, Cassidy is limning twodifferent issues. Oneisthe importanttopic of antisemitism, an evil which has no place in any decent universe. The second is the left-wing political activism of the NEA in realms far removed from education. Cassidy asked why an education union is veering so heavily into“foreign policy,and environmental and social justice causes.”

His point is valid. Aperusal of NEA’s website and its links to recommended (and presumably endorsed) other sites and materials leadsone down various rabbit holes of left-wing causes ranging from transgender advocacy toclimate-change activism to endorsement of the13principles of Black Lives Matter that —inthe cause of embracing “villages” of “collective care” —explicitly says “we are committed to disrupting theWestern-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement.”

Again and again, the website,NEA handbook and NEA 2024 strategic plan focus on political activism, on how to “build power”and how to advance “racial and social justice” while adopting an “of-

fensive strategy to counter and defeat right-wing social attacks.” This includes “partnering” anddonating lots of money to ahostofoutside groups —including the “terror-supporting organizations” mentionedinCassidy’sletter.These documents do contain occasional statements against antisemitism, but theyare usually anodyne andalmost always paired with warnings against “anti-Muslim” bias, whereas the more numerous expressions of,and advocacy for,what critics call antisemitism arealmost never leavened by anyexpressedsympathy for Jews. I did askNEA President Pringle, via direct email, forcomment, but did not hear back by this column’sdeadline.

In sum,it’sone thing forapolitical action group to take voluntary donations forideological activism. It’s another foraneducation association chartered by Congress to use union dues forpower plays faroutside the educational realm.Especially when, as Cassidy noted, American schools continue to perform terribly on academic measurements —aproblem the NEAshould focus on, not on foreign policy It is unclear what Cassidy would do if he doesn’tlike NEA’sanswers. For now,it’s good that he’sasking relevant questions.

Email Quin Hillyer at quin.hillyer @theadvocate.com

In anation as diverse as ours, immigration enforcement inevitably testswhether equal protection means what it says.Some tribal leaders in theUpper Midwest say that test is being failed in thewakeofthe killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. By the end of the week,claims of aggressive immigration enforcement actions, including door-to-door operations in some neighborhoods, pouredinofagents not onlytracking down those without legal status to reside in the U.S. but also questioning and detaining others, whether they werelegal residents or citizens or not. Social media platforms were ﬁlled with videoclips notonly of Good’skilling but also of federal agents doing sidewalk and parkinglot interrogations of Black, Latino and other non-White residents. Masked and kittedout forcombat, the agents give the impression of being law unto themselves as they demandto seeidentiﬁcationpapers

ing recentevents that took place in Minneapolis, and around the country involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents.”

That vigilance was not misplaced.

On Jan. 10, the tribal governingboardof theLac Courte Oreilles BandofLakeSuperior Chippewa Indians,based in northern Wisconsin, stated it was “closely monitor-

On Jan.9,Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Outstated on Facebook that ICE had detained four homeless membersofhis tribe in Minneapolis,asCBS reported. The DepartmentofHomeland Security disavowed any knowledge of detaining members of theSioux nation, and Star Comes Outdid not give the full names of thedetained men. DHS told The Wall Street Journal it could notverify that any tribe members were arrested. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reportedthat JoseRoberto “Beto” Ramirez, 20, adescendant of the Red LakeNation of Ojibwe in Minnesota, was pulled out of acar in aTwin Cities suburb, roughed up, handcuffedand detained at ICE’sheadquartersinMinneapolis.

Last year at this time, Navajo Nation ofﬁcials were reporting that tribal citizens were being detained in Arizona and New Mexico.

For me, this reporting is not abstract. As an African American man,ithas hit me like ablast from America’spast: the bad old days of Jim Crow segregation. It also reminded me of thebad old days of being areporter in South Africa in the mid-1970s during the era of racist apartheid before Nelson Mandela wasreleased and elected president.

As areporter who looked undeniably Black,Iprudently carried my U.S passport in my pocket just in case Iwas stopped by theauthorities for the crime of reporting-while-Black.

Worse, as alongtime police beat reporter, Iamappalled by thebehavior of somefederal agents Ihave seen. The worst appear to be moreinterested in fulﬁlling quotas than ﬁghting crime.

Andthen there’sthe gaslighting by the Trumpadministration. Leave aside the question of whether ICE agent Jonathan Rossfelt he was in danger when he pulled thetrigger to kill Good. Administration ofﬁcials immediately set about characterizing Good as aterrorist, portraying other activists monitoring ICE actions as “paid,” and claiming that the door-to-door raids are really about investigating “fraud, hu-

man smuggling and unlawfulemployment practices.”

Racial proﬁling has long been afeature of law enforcement in the United States, and it persists despite periodic attempts to root it out. Idon’tneed to detail here the stress, anxiety and other ill effects it is knowntocause (including post-traumatic stress disorder). These are well known. What needs to be said is that these psychological wounds —the fear,alienation and mistrust they inspire in the victims— appear to be acentral objective of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security at the moment. Civil-rights advocates argue that the SupremeCourt’sstay in Noemv.Vasquez Perdomo effectivelyallowsimmigration agents to resumepractices that critics call racial proﬁling, intensifying concerns about unchecked enforcement.

Such raids are agrave threat to half a century of progress toward racial peace and understanding in this country,and an insult to the people whowere on this land ﬁrst.

Email Clarence Page at clarence47page@gmail.com.

staFF FILe PHotoByMICHaeL JoHNsoN

Club of Baton

rouge.

Stephanie Grace

Quin Hillyer

Clarence Page

Hogs too much for LSUdown stretch

thomas scores 18 points in second game back

BY TOYLOYBROWN III staff writer

Aroad win is difﬁcult to come by in the Southeastern Conference It was especially challengingfor LSU, which faced back-to-back ranked opponents away from homethis week. In the second contest, the Tigersbattled butfell to No.20 Arkansas 85-81 at Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas

Dedan Thomas had 18 points and ﬁve assists; Mike Nwokohad 14 points andfour rebounds; andPablo Tamba registered 12 points and 10 rebounds for theTigers.

LSU (13-7, 1-6 SEC) maintained asingledigitleadfor themajorityofthe ﬁrst half, leading by as many as eight points. Arkansas (15-5, 5-2)heated up thankstoits star Darius Acuff, who had acareer-high 31 points and six assists. The 6-foot-3 freshman took over with 24 points on 10-of-11 shooting in the second half.

“Wetried to throw the kitchen sink at him,” LSUcoach Matt McMahon said of Acuff on the LSU sports radio network. “Wecouldnot rattle him, especiallyinthe last 10 minutes.” Asigniﬁcant part of the defeat was LSU’s poor 3-point shooting, as itwent3 of 15 comparedtoArkansas’ 10 of 22.

“Wedid enough thingswelltogive ourselves achance,” McMahon said.“Iloved ä see LSU, page 4C

aP PHoto By MICHaeL WooDs

LsU guard Dedan thomas drivespast arkansas guard Darius acuff during agame saturdayinFayetteville, ark. LsU lost 85-81.

Saints SReid broadens horizons at Pels game

Justin Reid checked another box Wednesday night.

If you know anything aboutthe NewOrleans Saints safety,that shouldn’tcome as asurprise.He’sthe walking deﬁnitionofapolymath,or aperson with an intense desire for continual learning. Once Reid puts his mindto something, you best believe he’sgoing to get it done.

As thetransferportaldustsettles, gettoknowthe newLSU football roster

Name tags,please

BY WILSON ALEXANDER staff writer

Earlier this week,head coach LaneKiffin claimed thatonceLSU wasfinishedadding transfers, it wouldhave “the best portalclass in the history of college football.” That can be debated,but Kiffin has support for hisargument

LSU signed theNo. 1class for thesecondstraight year,according to 247Sports. It has three of thetop players at their position with quarterback Sam Leavitt, offensive tackle Jordan Seaton and defensive end Princewill Umanmielen.Italsohas depth, and LSU’s transfer classreceived thesecond-highest pointtotal from 247Sportsbehind only Southern Cal in 2022, aclassthatincludedfuture Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Caleb Williams.

“There’salot of worktodoonce they get here,” Kiffin said at an event hosted by theGreater Baton Rouge Business Report,“but to assemble that talent, you could not do that anywhere else.”

Aftersigning Seaton lateFriday night, LSU is notexpected to add anymoretransfers. It brought in 42 newplayers as theroster underwent amakeover,especially on offense. LSU had 34 players transfer out, and16others eitherexhausted their eligibility or entered theNFL draft.Only 10 players are returning on offense. Youmay be wondering who’son

the team after so much change,so we broke down every position heading into next season:

Quarterback

Transfers: Sam Leavitt (Arizona State, R-Jr.), Husan Longstreet (Southern Cal, R-Fr.), Landen Clark (Elon,R-Soph.)

Earlierthismonth,LSU didn’t have ascholarship quarterbackon the roster.Thatwould be adisastroussituation in thepre-transfer portal era, but now teams can reﬁll entire positions within acouple of weeks. LSU, which had not signed ahigh school quarterback in either

of the past tworecruiting cycles,is suddenly in good shape. It landed oneofthe toptransfers regardless of positionwith Leavitt, andit found its potential quarterback of thefutureinLongstreet, aformer ﬁve-starrecruit with four years of eligibility.Clark adds an intriguing developmental option.

Runningback

Returning players: CadenDurham (Jr.), Harlem Berry (Soph.)

Transfers: Dilin Jones (Wisconsin, R-Soph.), Raycine Guillory (Utah, ä see LSU, page 5C

The Dutchtown High grad is not just atwo-time Super Bowl champion who just completed his eighth NFL season. He’sanavidgolfer He’sachess player,ranking somewhere in the75th percentile of competitive players. Oh,and if the Saintsare ever in acrunchand need an emergency kicker, Reid can handle that,too. He made an extrapoint andbarelymissed a44-yard ﬁeld goal last summer in trainingcamp Reid ofﬁciallyadded “photographer”to

ä see WALKER, page 5C

BYMATTHEWPARAS staff writer

The New Orleans Saints seem to have found their quarterback. Now they need better playmakers around him

Tyler Shough had success throwing the ball to wide receiver Chris Olave and tight end Juwan Johnson, while wideout Devaughn Vele emerged as an important contributor,too.

But general manager MickeyLoomisand coach KellenMoore wouldn’tbeblamed if they conclude the offense needs more juiceheading into next season. With practices forthe Senior Bowlnext week, draftseason is just around the corner —and ﬁndingnew weaponstoboost Shough’s supporting cast should be atop priority

As well as Shough playeddown thestretch,the offense lacked the explosiveness that’sneeded to become one of the league’sbetter units. When Shough took over as thestarteroverthe back half of the season,13.6% of the Saints’ completionsendedinan “explosive”—deﬁnedasa pass of 16 yardsormore. That ranked only 17th in the NFL. For the year,the Saints ﬁnished with an explosive pass percentagerate of 10.2% —the third-worst markinthe league.

That’snot theonly way the Saints lacked juice, either.Let’sdig in.

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Toppin, Tech halt Houston’s streak

the associated Press

LUBBOCK, Texas — JT Toppin had 31 points and 12 rebounds for his 44th career double-double and Donovan Atwell hit consecutive 3-pointers late to put No 12 Texas Tech ahead to stay in a 90-86 win over No. 6 Houston on Saturday, ending the Cougars’ 11-game winning streak. Freshman Kingston Flemings had a season-high 42 points with six assists for the Cougars (17-2, 5-1 Big 12), who had won their past 16 true road games — all conference games — since a loss at No. 8 Kansas two years ago. That was a school record and the nation’s longest active streak Texas Tech (16-4, 6-1) had 10 made 3s in the first half when scoring 55 points against a Houston team that coming in ranked second nationally allowing only 60.1 points. The Red Raiders made only two from beyond the arc after halftime, Atwell hitting the goahead 3 with 5:55 left and adding another 34 seconds later Emmanuel Sharp had 20 points for Houston.

Toppin’s 44 career double-doubles are the second most for active players behind Michigan’s Yaxel Lendeborg (48). Toppin has 32 in 52 games with Tech since transferring from New Mexico after his freshman season.

No. 1 ARIZONA 88, WEST VIRGINIA 53: In Tuscon, Ariz., Brayden Burries scored 22 points, Koa Peat added 17 and Arizona remained undefeated. The Wildcats (20-0, 7-0 Big 12) dominated the Mountaineers (137, 4-3) while building a 20-point halftime lead and didn’t let up for the program’s best start since opening 21-0 in 2013-14.

No. 2 UCONN 75, VILLANOVA 67: In Hartford, Conn., Solo Ball had 24 points, including a key 3-pointer in overtime, and Alex Karaban had all of his 17 after halftime for UConn. Silas Demary and Tarris Reed each ﬁnished with 10 for UConn (19-1, 9-0 Big East), which won its 15th game in a row No. 11 ILLINOIS 88, NO. 4 PURDUE 82: In West Lafayette, Indiana, Keaton Wagler scored a career-high 46 points, making nine 3-pointers, as Illinois beat Purdue. Wagler, a freshman guard, shot 13 for 17 overall, 9 of 11 from 3-point range and 11 of 13 on free throws. David Mirkovic added 12 points and eight rebounds for the

texas

forward

Illini (17-3, 8-1 Big Ten).

No 5 DUKE 90, WAKE FOREST 69: In Durham, North Carolina, Cameron Boozer scored 32 points to lead fifth-ranked Duke’s dominating interior play that helped the Blue Devils beat Wake Forest.

The star freshman big man made 11 of 20 shots to go with nine rebounds and four assists. And with the 6-foot-9, 250-pound forward in charge, Duke (18-1, 7-0 ACC) outscored its longtime instate league foe 48-16 in the paint.

No 7 NEBRASKA 76, MINNESOTA 57: In Minneapolis, Pryce Sandfort scored 20 of his 22 points in the second half and grabbed 10 rebounds for Nebraska, helping the Huskers remain unbeaten by surging past Minnesota.

Sam Hoiberg had 14 points and seven assists and Jamarques Lawrence added 14 points for the Huskers (20-0, 9-0 Big Ten), who maintained sole possession of ﬁrst place in the conference and matched the program’s best start in conference play since the 1965-66 team began 9-0 in the Big Eight.

No. 9 IOWA STATE 84 OKLAHOMA STATE 71: In Stillwater, Oklahoma, Milan Momcilovic scored 29 points, and Iowa State defeated Oklahoma State.

Momcilovic made 8 of 12 ﬁeld

pass

goals, including 5 of 9 3-pointers, and all eight of his free throw attempts.

Joshua Jefferson added 20 points for Iowa State (18-2, 5-2 Big 12) which led by 30 at halftime.

Kanye Clary and Jaylen Curry each scored 19 points for the Cowboys (14-6, 2-5). No 10 MICHIGAN STATE 91, MARYLAND 48: In East Lansing, Michigan, Jeremy Fears had 17 points and a career-high 17 assists and Coen Carr scored 14 points while adding to his highlight reel of dunks for Michigan State.

The Spartans (18-2, 8-1 Big Ten) jumped out to a 24-4 lead and didn’t let up in the second half, scoring 15 straight points to lead 71-34 with 11:11 to play No. 13 BYU 91, UTAH 78: In Provo, Utah, AJ Dybantsa scored 43 points to break BYU’s freshman scoring record, leading the No. 13 Cougars over Utah.

Dybantsa went 15 for 24 from the floor and 9 for 10 from the free throw line for his first 40-point game. He surpassed Danny Ainge’s record for points in a game by a BYU freshman and added six rebounds, three assists and blocked a shot. No. 22 NORTH CAROLINA 85, NO. 14 VIRGINIA 80: In Charlottesville, Virginia, Caleb Wilson scored 20 points, Jarin Stevenson added all of his

17 in the second half and No. 22 North Carolina rallied for a big ACC road victory Trailing by two with 3:50 to play, Carolina got three-point plays from Stevenson and Seth Trimble to build a 78-74 lead, then hung on. The Tar Heels outscored the Cavaliers 18-9 over the ﬁnal 5:25. No 15 VANDERBILT 88, MISSISSIPPI STATE 56: In Starkville, Mississippi, Tyler Tanner scored 24 points and Duke Miles added 17 as Vanderbilt snapped a three-game losing skid.

AUBURN 76, No. 16 FLORIDA 67: In Gainesville, Florida, Keyshawn Hall scored 24 points, including 22 in Auburn’s dominant and stunning ﬁrst half, and the Tigers upset Florida for the program’s ﬁrst win in Gainesville since 1996. No 18 CLEMSON 77, GEORGIA TECH 63: In Atlanta, Jake Wahlin and Nick Davidson scored 13 points apiece and No. 18 Clemson got hot from long range, beating Georgia Tech.

TEXAS 87, No. 21 GEORGIA 67: In Austin, Texas, Dailyn Swain scored 26 points, Tramon Mark added a season-best 23 and Texas overwhelmed Georgia. No. 23 LOUISVILLE 85, VIRGINIA TECH

71: In Louisville, Kentucky, Mikel Brown returned from an eightgame absence and scored 20 points to lead Louisville to a victory over Virginia Tech.

Carnegie-led Georgia upsets No. 11 Kentucky

By the associated Press

LEXINGTON,Ky.— Dani Carnegie and Rylie Theuerkauf scored 19 points each and Georgia led nearly wireto-wire in a 72-67 victory over No. 11 Kentucky on Saturday A 3-pointer from Kaelyn Carroll gave the Wildcats their only lead of the game, 42-39 with 5½ minutes remaining in the third quarter. Georgia scored the next seven points and went on to lead 52-50 heading to the fourth. The teams combined to make 10 3-pointers in the quarter, six of them by Kentucky The Bulldogs led 60-55 with 5:45 remaining before defense took over and neither team scored in the next three minutes. Mia Woolfolk’s jumper gave Georgia a seven-point lead with 2:34 remaining then Amelia Hassett’s 3 got the Wildcats within 62-58. It was the

last made basket before another 3 by Hassett got Kentucky within 70-67 with eight seconds to go. Carnegie finished off the win with a pair of free throws for Georgia. The Lady Bulldogs made 18 of 20 free throws. Woolfolk had 11 points and 13 rebounds and Trinity Turner scored 14 points for Georgia (183, 4-3 SEC).

No. 1 UCONN 92, SETON HALL 52: In South Orange, New Jersey, Sarah Strong scored 17 points, reserve Blanca Quinonez added 16 points and Azzie Fudd broke out of a brief shooting slump with 14 points as UConn beat Seton Hall. UConn ran its winning streak against Seton Hall to 43 games. The Pirates last beat the Huskies January 5, 1994 Allie Ziebell scored 11 points for the Huskies, who received 45 bench points. Mariana Valenzuela led Seton Hall (14-6, 8-3 Big East) with 18 points and eight rebounds. Savannah Catalon added 11

points for the Pirates, who had their four-game win streak halted. No 8 LOUISVILLE 85, BOSTON COLLEGE

56: In Louisville, Kentucky Mackenly Randolph tied her careerhigh with 13 points to lead Louisville over Boston College. The Cardinals (19-3, 9-0 Atlantic Coast) extended their winning streak to 12 games and have won 15 of their past 16 games. Tajianna Roberts added 11 points and six assists, and Skylar Jones also scored 11 for the Cardinals. Louisville shot 54.7% from the ﬁeld, its second-best performance this season despite going just 4 of 15 in the fourth quarter No. 9 TCU 67, UCF 50: In Orlando, Florida, Olivia Miles scored 17 points to lead TCU to a victory over UCF TCU won for the fifth time in six games and rebounded from its second loss of the season, a 71-69 decision against No. 12 Ohio State on Monday that snapped a fourgame winning streak.

Ramírez agrees to $175M extension with Guardians All-Star third baseman and American League MVP finalist José Ramírez has agreed to a seven-year, $175 million deal to remain with the Cleveland Guardians, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Saturday

The 33-year-old native of the Dominican Republic has played his entire 13-year career in Cleveland. He was signed through the 2028 season. He had three years and $69 million remaining on the extension he signed in 2022, but will now average $25 million over the next seven years. The extension also includes a notrade clause and performance bonuses related to his finish in MVP balloting. Ramírez has finished in the top five six times. He was third last year and fifth in 2024.

Pitino savors 900th win as a college head coach

CINCINNATI St. John’s rallied from a 16-point deﬁcit in the second half to defeat Xavier 88-83 on Saturday as Rick Pitino reached a career milestone.

The 73-year-old Hall of Fame coach became the fourth Division I men’s basketball coach to reach 900 victories. He is 900-316 overall in 38 seasons as a head coach in college. It began with six games as an interim at Hawaii in 1976. He is the only coach to win an NCAA title at two schools (Kentucky and Louisville) and the ﬁrst to take three schools to the Final Four (Providence, Kentucky and Louisville).

Win No. 900 came at the expense of his son, Richard, who is in his ﬁrst season coaching the Musketeers.

Scheffler, teen 1 shot back at American Express

LA QUINTA, Calif. — Blades Brown handled the scariest tee shot at PGA West to an island green like a seasoned pro Saturday in The American Express.

The 18-year-old goes into the final round one shot behind Si Woo Kim another teen prodigy from a generation ago — and tied with none other than Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world. Kim quietly went about his business at La Quinta Country Club with a 6-under 66 to grab a oneshot lead, a good day to be at one of the easier courses when the wind finally arrived in the Coachella Valley Kim was at 22-under 194. Scheffler and Brown were on the tough Stadium Course at PGA West and each shot a 68.

Reed leads by 4 shots at Dubai Desert Classic

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Patrick Reed will take a four-stroke lead into the ﬁnal round of the Dubai Desert Classic after shooting 5-under 67 on Saturday, as Rory McIlroy’s chances of a recordextending ﬁfth title virtually disappeared.

Reed, the former Masters champion who now plays on the LIV Golf circuit, tapped in at No. 18 for his seventh birdie of the third round at Emirates Golf Club to move onto 14-under 202 for the week.

Leading the chase was David Puig, another LIV player, who shot 66 to jump to second place. A further shot back was Viktor Hovland, who had a 65 that tied the lowest round of the day, and Andy Sullivan (71).

Donovyn Hunter scored 12 points and Taylor Bigby added 11. Marta Suarez ﬁnished with eight points, seven rebounds and two steals, while Clara Silva added eight points, 10 rebounds and four blocks. Mahogany Chandler-Roberts led the Knights (10-10, 2-7) with 17 points. No.19TEXASTECH 77,UTAH 49: In Salt Lake City, Snudda Collins scored 28 points off the bench, and Texas Tech rolled past Utah.

Collins had 20 points by halftime, going 4 for 4 from behind the arc in the first half as the Lady Raiders built a commanding 39-20 lead. Texas Tech shot 52% from the ﬁeld and 45% from 3-point range while holding Utah to 33% shooting and just 3 of 16 from deep.

Texas Tech put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring the Utes 25-12 to push the margin past 30. The Lady Raiders led 6432 entering the fourth and never allowed Utah to threaten.

Shiffrin finishes third in World Cup giant slalom SPINDLERUV MLYN, Czech Republic Mikaela Shiffrin is back on a World Cup giant slalom podium after two years. And she could have hardly picked a better moment to do so. The American star ﬁnished third on Saturday in the last GS before the Milan Cortina Olympics. Reigning Olympic champion Sara Hector held on to her opening run lead for her ﬁrst victory since January 2025.

Shiffrin, the 2018 Olympic GS gold medalist, trailed Hector by 0.23 seconds. In second place was American Paula Moltzan,

Shiffrin

assoCIateD Press PHoto By aNNIe rICe

tech

Jt toppin looks to

while Houston center Chris Cenac, right, attempts to guard on saturday in Lubbock, texas. toppin scored 31 points and had 12 rebounds in the red raiders’ 90-86 win.

OUTDOORS

Beating this drum

young stevenBrumfield had abig time catching this giant black drum near Pointe-auxChenes in lowerterrebonne Parish. Fishing with hisfamily,including his younger brother Bryson, left, the olderBrumfield battled the 37-pound giant for what seemed likeanhour before getting it to thenet and,with all smiles, showingoff his memorable catch.

CALENDAR

LOTTERYHUNT

MONDAY

RED STICK FLYFISHERS FLYTYING SESSION:

7p.m., BluebonnetRegional Library,9200 Bluebonnet Blvd., Baton Rouge.Opentothe public. Materials and tools available for beginners. Website: www.rsff.org

MONDAY-WEDNESDAY

GULF COUNCILMEETING: Hyatt CentricFrench Quarter, New Orleans. Final action on increasing redgrouper catch limits &splitting the shallow-water groupercomplex into two groups. Also discuss mandatory recreational reporting programfor deep-water grouper &consider regional managementofgreater amberjack. Public commentWednesday, 9:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Webinar available. Website: gulfcouncil.org

TUESDAY

LAKE CLAIBORNE PUBLIC MEETING: 7p.m., LakeClaiborne State Park ConferenceCenter, 225 State Park Rd., Homer. Agenda: ﬁsh-stocking plans, update on ﬁsh populations. State Wildlife &Fisheries’ Inland Fisheries staff.

HUNTING SEASONS

DUCKS/WEST ZONE: Through Jan.25, includes coots &mergansers; Jan. 31-Feb. 1, veteransonly special weekend.

DUCKS/EAST ZONE: Through Jan. 31, includes coots &mergansers.

DEER/ARCHERY: Through Jan. 31, StateDeer Areas 1, 2&4.Either-sextakeallowed.

DEER/PRIMITIVE FIREARMS: ThroughJan. 31, State Deer Areas 1, 4&6,either-sextakeallowed; State Deer Areas5&9,bucks only

WOODCOCK: Through Jan. 31, statewide.

GEESE/WEST ZONE: ThroughFeb. 1. Includes Canada, blue,snow&Ross’ &specklebellies Take of Canada geese prohibitedinportions of Cameron &Vermilionparishes.

GEESE/CONSERVATION ORDER: Feb. 2-March 15, West Zone; Feb. 8-March 15, East Zone Limited to takeofblue, snowand Ross’ geese only.Nodaily nor possession limits. Hunters allowedtouse electronic calls andshotguns capable of holdingmorethan threeshells

GEESE/EAST ZONE: Through Feb. 7. Includes Canada, blue, snow&Ross’ &specklebellies

DEER/ARCHERY: Through Feb. 15, StateDeer Areas 5, 6&9,either-sex takeallowed. QUAIL, RABBITS&SQUIRRELS: Through Feb. 28, statewide, private lands only

SNIPE: Through Feb. 28, statewide.

Arctic blastshould help duck hunters

BY JOE MACALUSO

Contributingwriter

Thelatest Waterfowl Study survey shows there areducksinLouisiana,more in the southwestern parishes than in the southeastern parishes and an abundance of ducks and geese in the northeastern parishes.

Now,it’suptoduckand goosehunters to use some common sense.

Ourstate’s West Zone hunting season ends Sunday(Jan.25). The East Zone runs through Saturday,then there’s more goose-season days before the ConservationOrder season on blue, snow and Ross’geese.

Beginning Monday morning, temperatures are predicted to plummet intothe 20s in the interior parts of the state and intothe low 30s along the coast.

Lots of us diehard duck hunters have been in blinds during freezingconditions —but usuallynot forlong. Allduck hunting trips into ourmarshes andswamps have alevel of built-in hazards, but you can double, even triple that for Monday and Tuesday

Get wet and you’re in trouble. Get stranded and you’re in bigger trouble.

Be careful, andifyou don’thave the proper clothing and equipment to stand up to frigid conditions, then please don’tgo.

About fish

With everyarctic blast like the one invading our state, there’sthe possibility of ﬁsh kills.

If there’s any goodnews

YOUTH RABBIT HUNT: Jan. 30 application deadline for ﬁveyouth hunters(ages 1017) on Dewey Wills WMAFeb. 21. Youths must have huntersafety certiﬁcation, have 20-gauge or .410 shotgun &wear Hunter Orange. Other rules &details, email Cliff Dailey (WMA supervisor): adailey@wlf.la.gov

AROUND THECORNER

FEB. 4—JUNIOR SOUTHWEST BASSMASTERS

MEETING: 7p.m., Seminar Room, BassPro Shops, Denham Springs. Boys &girls agegroup bass tournaments for ages 7-10, 11-14 & 15-18 anglers.Call Jim Breaux (225) 772-3026. FEB. 5—LA. WILDLIFE&FISHERIES COMMISSION MEETING: 9:30 a.m.,Joe Herring Room, state Wildlife and Fisheries headquarters, Quail Drive,Baton Rouge.

FEB. 6-7—HOMEWATERS FEST: Municipal Building, Murfreesboro, Arkansas. Free. Fly tying demos,ﬁshing seminars, biologist reports &vendors.ArkLaTexOma Fly Tiers event. Website: www.arklatexomaﬂytyers.com.

FEB. 7—NSCA REGISTERED SPORTING CLAYS: Bridge View Gun Club, Port Allen.

FISHING/SHRIMPING

SHRIMP: Outside waters open statewide; fall inshoreseason closed in Zones 2&3& portions of Zone 1except Breton/Chandeleur sounds.

OPEN RECREATIONAL SEASONS: Flounder; lane,blackﬁn, queen and silk snappers& wenchmenamongother snapper species; all groupers except closed for goliath &Nassau groupers in state/federal waters.

CLOSED SEASONS: Redsnapper;greater amberjack; gray triggerﬁsh;blueﬁntuna; gag, goliath &Nassau groupers in state/federal waters. Commercial greater amberjack seasonclosed.

LDWF UPDATES

CLOSED: Waddill Wildlife Refuge (Baton Rouge)closed Wednesdayfor hunter education conference.

CLOSED: All roads on BogueChitto WMA (ﬂooding); Hope Canal Road/boat launch (Maurepas Swamp WMA, levee construction) ROAD CLOSURE: SectionofLa. 975 through Sherburne WMAclosed through June 12, 2026 (replace bridge) access from U.S. 190 and I-10open.

DRAWDOWNS: Underway on Henderson Lake, LakeBistineau,Saline,Kepler, Iatt, Black&Clear lakes, Clear-Smithport Lake&LakeMartin.

EMAIL: jmacaluso@theadvocate.com

FISHINGRESULTS

in the weather forecast it’s thattemperaturesalong the coastalmarshesare predictedtoremainabove freezing, which meanswe are notlikelytosee thekind of ﬁsh kills we saw last year and three years ago.

Yet, with north winds arriving on this coldfront, water levels in marsh ponds will drop and that means somestranded ﬁsh and possible localized ﬁsh kills.

Ducks

Louisiana duck and goose hunters should beneﬁt from the frigid temperatures, with snow andice invading the Midwest andpushing through Arkansas and eastern Oklahomaand Texas.

Yes, the West Zone is closed Monday,but East Zone hunters should see ducks.

Fogdelayed JasonOlszak and his Waterfowl Study staff’searly January surveyofour agriculture ﬁelds and marshes, and theirlatest estimates issued Friday camebeforethiscurrent weather forecast.

What did they ﬁnd?

How about 2.46 million ducks in the southwest, southeast andLittle River Basin areas, andanother 1.447 million ducks in the northeastern parishes describedasthe “Mississippi AlluvialValley.”Pintails (148,000), spoonbills (134,000) and gray ducks (118,000) dominated that count.

Otherwise, this latestestimate in the three survey ar-

eas wasupbyslightly more than200,000 ducks comparedtothe January 2025 surveydespite lower numbers of mallards —17,000 in 2025 to 6,000 this year —and an 82% decrease in thenumberofringnecks— 565,000 in 2025 to 100,000 thismonth. For goose hunters, the northeast surveyholds“an estimated 763,000 geese which consisted of 6,000 white-frontedgeeseand 757,000 light geese,”a count that’s233% higher than this timelast year

Redsnapper

The ﬁnal 2025 estimate of thetakeduring theeightmonth private recreational red snapper season is in 947,103 pounds. Because that number is 5.8% over our state’s 894,955-pound annual allotment, Louisiana annual allocation for 2026 will be 891,439 pounds, which is ourbaseline annual allocation of 943,587 pounds less the 2025 overage of 52,148 pounds. Full detailsofthe weekby-week landing estimate areavailable on theWildlife and Fisheries’ website: wlf.louisiana.gov/page/redsnapper

Shrimp closure Wildlife and Fisheries will close the remaining portion of Zone 1atsunset Monday for the fallinshore shrimp season,exceptthe open waters of Breton and Chandeleur sounds will remain open. Zones 2and 3, and parts of Zone 1were closed last last year

ProVIDeD PHoto

staFF FILe PHoto By MICHaeL

16 points on saturday, but southern fell to UaPB 75-74.

UAPB men rally late to knock off Southern

BY CHARLES SALZER

Contributing writer

Arkansas-Pine Bluff brought a three-game losing streak into Saturday’s game at Southern, but the Golden Lions ﬁnished like a team that knows how to win.

In a game that had six ties and 10 lead changes, it was UAPB that had the ﬁnal say as it edged the Southern men 75-74 in Southwestern Athletic Conference action at the F.G. Clark Activity Center Southern (7-13, 3-3) took the game’s final shot, a 3-point try from the left wing by Fazl Oshodi with two seconds left. The shot was wide right and missed the rim entirely as the clock ran out.

The final sequence began with Michael Jacobs dribbling into the lane. Three UAPB defenders converged on him to force a kick-out pass to the left side Oshodi, who had already made ﬁve 3-pointers, had an open look before misﬁring on the last shot.

“I was disappointed in the way this one unfolded because of the bench play,” Southern coach Kevin Johnson said. “We’re awfully disappointed in the bench.”

Aside from Malek Abdelgowad, who scored 16 points and pulled

down 12 rebounds, the Jaguars reserves were ineffective by going a combined 1 for 8 from the ﬁeld Johnson also mentioned the absence of guard Cam Amboree, who missed his fourth straight game with an ankle injury

“When you’re down a playmaker, it allows the other team to converge on (Jacobs),” Johnson said “We needed other guys to make plays.”

Oshodi led Southern with 17 points, and Jacobs had 15 after a foul-plagued ﬁrst half in which he scored only three points. The Jaguars also got 10 points from A.J. Barnes, but he went 0 for 6 from 3-point range.

UAPB (7-13, 4-3) had dropped its previous three games, including two close home losses to Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman. The Golden Lions came together at the end of Saturday’s game.

“I thought we did a really good job of executing at the end,”

UAPB coach Solomon Bozeman said. “Our last two games, we had those games won and we didn’t finish them out. Today we had good execution down the stretch, and that’s why we came out with the victory.”

For Southern the disappoint-

ment hit hard after it led by eight points with seven minutes left to play

Trevon Payton brought the Golden Lions back to within two points with a pair of long 3-pointers. After that, Quion Williams went to work by scoring 12 of UAPB’s ﬁnal 14 points.

Williams had two three-point plays in the ﬁnal stretch and went on to score a game-high 23 points Payton, who made a season-high six 3-pointers, had 22.

“Pine Bluff is the best 3-point shooting team in the league so we knew we would have to defend that,” Johnson said. “We knew Quion Williams was a good player, but we were still one stop away from getting this game. We have to have better production from the bench.”

Southern opened the game hot from 3-point range. Oshodi made three long-range shots and the Jaguars took a 17-7 lead after ﬁve minutes of play Scoring was harder to come by as the half progressed.

Jacobs picked up two fouls and finished the 1 of 4 from the field for three points. Overall, the Jaguars shot 25% from the field, and UAPB came all the way back to force a 31-31 halftime tie.

Sinner survives cramps, heat at Australian Open

BY JOHN PYE aP sportswriter

MELBOURNE, Australia Limping and desperately trying to stretch out cramps in his arms and legs, Jannik Sinner had just gone down a break in the third set when the extreme heat rules saved him. Play was suspended for eight minutes while the roof was closed on Rod Laver Arena on Saturday afternoon, and the twotime reigning Australian Open champion returned a revitalized man. After being on the verge of an unlikely exit — one of his coaches, Darren Cahill, was urging the 24-year-old Italian just to stick it out for a few more games

Sinner won ﬁve of the next six games to take the set against No. 85-ranked Eliot Spizzirri. Another 10-minute “cooling break” between the third and fourth sets followed — an allowance under the extreme heat policy and Sinner returned for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory

“I struggled physically today. I got lucky with the heat rule,” Sinner said, agreeing that the cooler indoor conditions suited him much more than the energy-sapping heat of the ﬁrst two sets. “I try to stay calm even in a moment like this. If he keeps playing the way he was playing, maybe I was dropping a little bit, maybe my tournament was over today I don’t know.”

Spizzirri was magnanimous about it, adding: “That’s the rules of the game, and, you know, you got to live with it.”

Djokovic: 1st to 400 Novak Djokovic became the first player ever to notch 400 match wins at the majors when he beat Botic van de Zandschulp

6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (4) in a night match. The 24-time major winner improved his win-loss record to 10210 at the Australian Open, equaling Roger Federer’s career haul for the most-ever match wins at the season’s ﬁrst major Osaka out

Two-time Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka withdrew because of an abdominal injury before her scheduled thirdround match against Australian qualiﬁer Maddison Inglis. That sent Inglis into a fourthround match against No. 2-ranked Iga wi tek, who had a 6-1, 1-6, 6-1 win over Anna Kalinskaya. No 4 Amanda Anisimova beat Peyton Stearns 6-1, 6-4 in an allAmerican encounter and will next face Wang Xinyu, who upset No. 13 Linda Noskova. No. 5 Elena Rybakina advanced to a fourth-round match against No. 21 Elise Mertens.

Cheers, Stan

The 40-year-old Stan Wawrinka lost 7-6 (5), 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 to No. 9 Taylor Fritz and then grabbed two beers from a courtside ice box, cracked the cans with the tournament director and bid farewell to the crowd.

“Cheers everybody!” he said. Fritz will next face No. 5 Lorenzo Musetti, who held off Tomas Machac 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 to become the third Italian man to reach the fourth round.

No. 8 Ben Shelton beat Valentin Vacherot of Monaco, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (5) on Margaret Court Arena and said having the roof closed “just ampliﬁed the noise.”

The 37-year-old Marin Cilic, U.S. Open champion in 2014 and Australian Open runner-up four years later, lost in four sets to Casper Ruud.

Southern women use inside game to beat UAPB

Led by Porter, Jaguars dominate action in the paint

BY CHARLES SALZER

Contributing writer

DeMiya Porter scored a seasonhigh 19 points to lead the Southern women’s basketball team to an 8065 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Saturday at the F.G. Clark Activity Center Porter did most of her scoring close to the basket, where Southern dominated the action. The Jaguars scored 50 points in the

paint, a key factor as they withstood every run by the Golden Lions.

Southern (10-8, 6-1 SWAC) led by as many as 22 points. Pine Bluff (6-12, 3-5) never got closer than 11 points in the second half.

“We took some good shots,”

Southern coach Carlos Funchess said. “We still missed some that we should have made, but we’re getting better It was better than what we’ve done the last couple of games.”

Overall, Southern made 34 of 65 shots (52.3%). Also impressive, the Jaguars handed out 27 assists, their most in SWAC play this season.

Olivia Delancy also had a pro-

ductive afternoon, making three 3-pointers on her way to 16 points. Jocelyn Tate had an allaround game with 10 points, 10 rebounds, two steals and three assists.

Southern used 11 players in the game, and all of them scored. The Jaguars bench outscored their Lions’ counterparts 37-17.

“We have a solid bench,” Funchess said. “I was happy that they were playing together Nobody was taking bad shots. That’s what you have to do to win.”

Pine Bluff made a run at Southern in the third quarter Khaniah Gardner scored inside, and Jailah Pelly converted a three-point play leaving Southern with a 43-32

lead. Sparked by Delancy’s threepoint play, the Jaguars responded with a 7-0 spurt.

Southern led 60-44 entering the fourth The closest Pine Bluff could get was 77-65 with less than two minutes remaining. The Lions missed chances at the free-throw line, where they made 14 of 25 for the game.

Indiya Bowen scored 15 points to lead the Lions. Pelly and Jayla Cornelius each added 14.

UAPB made 7 of 15 3-pointers.

“They weren’t a good 3-point shooting team coming into the game,” Funchess said. “That was big for them. It kept them in the game. We would push it up to 20, and they would cut it back down.

Hats off to them.”

The first half featured 10 3-pointers, five by each team. Pine Bluff made two in the first minute of play, and took a 6-3 lead From there, Southern stepped up its defense and held the Lions to five points over the next 11 minutes of game time.

The Jaguars led 23-11 after one quarter, and extended their lead to 17 points early in the second to ﬁnish off a 24-5 run Pine Bluff got going again with 3-pointers from Indiya Bowen and Jayla Cornelius helping the Lions close to within 30-25.

The Jaguars responded by scoring eight of the last 10 points to take a 38-27 halftime lead.

Continued from page 1C

our effort on the glass Turnovers down to nine, still a couple bad ones that hurt us, but at the end of the day, they hit 10 3s We only made three. We couldn’t make up that 21-point difference there behind the 3-point line.” Thomas re-entered the starting lineup in his second game back from a left lower-leg injury he suffered on Jan. 2. With Thomas running the offense, the Tigers resembled the version of themselves that had one loss during nonconference play They played with a faster tempo and attempted a higher percentage of looks around the hoop. LSU had five players make at least two field goals in the first half and scored 20 of its first 30 points in the paint. The Tigers had five

double-figure scorers, including Marquel Sutton with 11 points and Max Mackinnon with 14. What also helped the Tigers lead for the majority of the ﬁrst half, entering halftime with a 37-33 edge, was their focus on rebounds The biggest reason for LSU’s 18-point loss to No. 16 Florida on Tuesday was its failure to crash the glass, losing that battle 50-30. Sutton and Tamba led the charge on the glass early against Arkansas. Tamba reeled in seven ﬁrsthalf rebounds, including three on the offensive end. Sutton had three of his four rebounds come on offense as well. LSU outrebounded Arkansas 21-14 at halftime and won that battle 36-28 for the game.

Thomas moved nimbly not showing any ill effects from his injury

But he was cold from the field, finishing the first half with two points on 1 of 7 from the field. He ended the game 7-of-20 shooting.

comfortable,” McMahon said of Thomas. “He’ll shoot a better percentage moving forward.”

A 5-0 run by Arkansas cut its deﬁcit to 18-15 with 12:36 left in the ﬁrst half. The Razorbacks grabbed three offensive rebounds that resulted in a corner 3-pointer for D.J. Wagner

On the next play, Meleek Thomas intercepted a Nwoko pass and threw an alley-oop pass for a dunk to Malqiue Ewin to take a 20-18 lead, forcing McMahon to call his first timeout. LSU couldn’t find its 3-point range as it closed the first half 0 of 8. That cold stretch was snapped by 3-pointers from Mackinnon and Tamba to start the second half. That success didn’t continue. Mackinnon, who entered shooting 43% on 3s, finished the game 1 of 7 beyond the arc.

(89.8) and 16th in 3-point shooting percentage (38.5%). It made 67.7% of its field goals and 6 of 10 3-pointers in the final 20 minutes. The Razorbacks followed the lead ofAcuff,whoenteredaveraging19.6 points and 6.2 assists per game. The point guard made four of his first five shots in the second half to get his team ahead 55-54 with 12:06 left.

always made the right play,” McMahon said. “We went zone, he hits a big 3 at the buzzer We just could not get enough stops there.” LSU continued fighting as Nwoko got a three-point play on a putback. The next time down, Thomas made a pull-up 3-pointer his first in conference play, to cut LSU’s deficit to 79-75 with 3:47 left. Thomas brought the team within two points at 81-79 after a midrange shot over Acuff with a little more than 90 seconds left in the game. He then buried an elbow jumper to cut LSU’s deficit to 8481 with 36 seconds remaining, and Acuff missed a pair of free throws. But with a chance to tie the game, Thomas couldn’t find space for a 3-pointer and missed a runner in the paint. Nwoko couldn’t grab the offensive rebound and touched the ball last as it went out of bounds. LSU’s next game is against Mississippi State at 6 p.m Wednesday at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center LSU

“I thought he looked a lot more

Arkansas showed why it’s one of the most lethal offenses in the country in the second half. It entered the game 14th in points per game

LSU leaned on Thomas, who enjoyed his own scoring forays. He made three of his first four shots after halftime, including an andone runner with his nondominant right hand. With the game tied 66-66, LSU played a 2-3 zone defense for the first time with seven minutes remaining. That didn’t bother Acuff, who drained a 3-pointer He sped to the hoop for a layup the next time down, and that was followed by an and-one finish by guard Billy Richmond, giving Arkansas a 7466 edge with 5:49 remaining. “Whether we trapped, (Acuff)

JoHNsoN

southern forward Malek abdelgowad, center holds onto the ball as Prairie View forward Corey Dunning right, tries to knock it away in the first half on Jan. 5 at the F.G. Clark activity Center abdelgowad scored

assoCIateD Press PHoto By Dar yasIN Jannik sinner, left, of Italy walks off the court with eliot spizzirri of the U.s. after winning their third-round match at the australian open in Melbourne, australia, on saturday.

his resume Wednesday night as he sat on the baseline at the Smoothie KingCenter to take pictures and shoot video for the New Orleans Pelicans’ social media team for the game against the Detroit Pistons.

“I’m having ablast,”Reid said at halftime. And no, this wasn’tsomegimmickfor clicks and likes. The Saints and Pelicans take their social media content seriously

“He was anatural,” said Alex Restrepo, senior director of social media for both franchises. “From video, photo and helping shoot the courtside broadcast angle, he proved he has agreat eye for content.” Reid, who wants to go into broadcasting, became interested in photography awhile back when he was looking at his Instagrampage.

“My content on my pageneeds to get better,” he told himself.

Reid had attended the NFL’s broadcast boot camp and the league’ssocial media and marketing boot camp two years ago. That led him to buying anice camera. But the door really opened during the seasonwhen he injured his knee in the ﬁrst quarter of the game against the Miami Dolphins and missed the following two weeks.

“I turn everything into an opportunity,”Reid said. “Sowhen Igot hurt, that’sa negative. I turned that extra time into a positive by going to hang out with the Saints production team. Ihad about 10 people feeding me information. ‘How do Ido this? How do Idothat?’ They poured into me and gave me a head start.” Reid was inquisitive, wanting

to be just as thorough about his newhobby as he isabout studying game ﬁlm. He’saStanford graduate,sohim catching on quicklyshouldn’tsurprise anyone. Andifhedidn’tunderstand something, he asked questions. Lots andlots of questions.

Just ask social media member MeganKottemann

“Oh, God, did he ask questions,” Kottemann said. “Hewas in full Stanford brain, where he’s askingsuch intelligent questions. He made me question myself. Sometimes Ihad to bring himtoother peoplethat have a deeper knowledge.”

Reid got achancetoput his knowledge to the test Wednesdaywhenhegot hisﬁrst assignment at thePelicansgame.

“After the ﬁrst ﬁve minutes, I started to get afeel for it,” Reid said. “Pictures. Videos.And then Igrabbed the big-boy camera andwas doing thelive feed.”

Sittingonthe baseline sometimescan bescary.Not that Reid was ever worried about Zion Williamson or any of theother players crashing into him.

“I would’vejust tackled him,” Reid said with agrin.

He’sprobably right.Reid tendstotackle anything he wants to tackle, including this latest venture.Eventually when hisfootball career is over,he wants to beinfront of thecamera instead of behindit.

“I felt like knowing this production sidewould be useful because you havemore high-level conversationswith people in gettingthings done,”Reid said.

Reid wenttosocial media to express just how pleased he was with his ﬁrst real gig.

“Emergency kicker,emergency camera man, emergency whatevayou need!” Reid posted on X. “Sidequest complete.” It was followed,ofcourse, by a greencheck mark.

Newlineup, stronger ﬁnish both encouragingfor Pels

BY RODWALKER staff writer

James Borrego usedastarting lineup Friday night that he had never used before.

formance by Bey. He scored 19 of his season-high 36 points in the ﬁnal quarter that began with the Pelicanstrailing 101-93.

cidedtobring rookie point guard

a Pelicans game against the Pistons on Wednesdayat the smoothie King Center

staFF PHoto

LSU

Continued from page1C

R-Fr.), Rod Gainey (Charlotte, RSoph.), Stacy Gage (Central Florida, R-Soph.)

After Kewan Lacy re-signed withOle Miss, LSU persuaded Durham to withdraw from the transferportal. That was probably the best decision for both sides basedonwhat was available at the time. Durham and Berryare both talented players, and they could have breakout seasons on abetter offense. It was apriority to keep Berry.Meanwhile, LSU added much-needed depth from theportal. The most proven transfer is Jones, who rushed for 300 yards and two touchdowns last season

Wide receiver

Returningplayer: Phillip Wright (R-Fr.)

Transfers: JayceBrown(Kansas State, Sr.), Jackson Harris(Hawaii, R-Jr.), TreBrown (Old Dominion, R-Jr.), Eugene Wilson (Florida, R-Jr.), Malik Elzy (Illinois, R-Jr.)

Roman Mothershed (Troy,R-Jr ), Tyree Holloway (West Florida, R-Jr.), Josh Jackson (McNeese State, R-Soph.), Winston Watkins (Ole Miss, Soph.)

Incoming freshmen: Jabari Mack, Corey Barber,Brayden Allen Wright is the only returning LSU wide receiver,and he had one catch for 2yards as afreshman. The rest of the position is completely new.Kifﬁnand his staff seemed to prioritize two traits: lengthand explosiveness. All of the receivers now except for Wilson andWatkins are at least 6-foot,aclear shift after LSU lacked much height on the outside the past two seasons. And ﬁve of the transfers averaged more than 14 yards percatch last year

Tightend

Returning players: Trey’Dez Green (Jr.), JD LaFleur (R-Fr.)

Transfers: Malachi Thomas (Pittsburgh, Jr.), Zach Grace (Oregon, R-Jr.)

Incoming freshman: JC Anderson Green was one of the few offensive players that LSU needed to keep, and it re-signed him to

anew deal enteringhis junior season.Green had asolid year with 33 catches for433 yards and seven touchdowns, but he hasthe potentialtoreachanother level. LSUadded Thomasand Graceto complementhim.Thomas caught 13 passes for 192 yards andtwo touchdowns last season, andGrace primarily blocked as afullback andtightend Offensiveline

Returning players: Braelin Moore (RSr.),Weston Davis (R-Soph.), SolomonThomas (R-Fr.), Bo Bordelon (R-Sr.), Brett Bordelon (R-Fr.)

Transfers: Jordan Seaton(Colorado, Jr.),Aliou Bah(Maryland,R-Sr.), Sean Thompkins (Baylor,R-Jr.), DevinHarper (Ole Miss, Soph.), William Satterwhite (Tennessee, R-Soph.), Darrin Strey (Kentucky, R-Fr.), JaKolby Jones (CopiahLincoln CC, Jr.), Ja’Quan Sprinkle (NC Central, R-Jr.),Ja’MardJones (Nicholls State,Soph.)

Incoming freshmen: Brysten Martinez, Ryan Miret

The significance of adding Seaton cannot be overstated. LSU got aplug-and-play lefttackle who’sathletic and useshis hands well to move defensive ends. It’s noweasytosee Seaton at left tackle, Mooreatcenter and Bah at guard. Bah started24consecutive gamesatMaryland. LSU will need to figure out the other twospots, but it has options after signing so many newoffensive linemen. While it could have pieced things together without Seaton,landing himsolidified one of themostimportant positions on thefield.

Defensivetackle

Returning players: Dominick McKinley (Jr.),Shone Washington (R-Sr.), Brandon Brown (R-Fr.)

Transfers: Stephiylan Green (Clemson, R-Jr.), Malik Blocton (Auburn, Jr.),Achilles Woods (South Alabama,R-Soph.)

Incoming freshmen: Richard Anderson, Deuce Geralds

Afterlosing four of its top ﬁve snap-getters at defensive tackle, LSU needed to add some experience to go along with its young talent. Green andBlocton did not stuff thestatsheet at their previous schools, but they both played

Don’texpecthim to changeit anytimesoon as long as everyone stays healthy

The starting ﬁve of Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy,HerbJones, Saddiq Bey and Derik Queen delivereda 133-127 victoryoverthe Memphis Grizzlies.

It wasamuch-needed win in a season where wins have been hard to come by.The Pelicansimproved to 11-36, avenging two earlier losses to the Grizzlies (18-25).

Now Borrego is hoping what he saw in theFedEx Forum on Friday transfersover to SanAntonio’s FrostBank Center for Sunday’s 6p.m.game against theSpurs. Particularly what he saw in the fourth quarter when thePelicans outscored the Grizzlies 40-26.

“Our group just decided to guard,” Borrego saidabout the fourth quarter.“There was aphysicalityabout us, an energy about us. We ﬁnally took astand. It’sgoing to be hardtowatch the ﬁrst three quarters defensively honestly Maybe I’ll just watch the fourth.”

Whenhewatches thefourth, he’ll alsowitness abrilliantper-

Beywentontwo personal 7-0 runs in the fourth quarter.Heburied a3-pointerfromthe corner with58.4seconds left that was prettymuchthe dagger, putting the Pels ahead 128-123. He finished the night knocking downsix 3-pointers.

“I’mjust grateful,” Bey said. “Trying to help the team as much as Ican. Every possession, every game, Itry to make the most of it and make God proud.”

The Pels also welcomed back Jones. Good things happen for the Pelicans when he is in the lineup, and Jones suited up for the first time sinceJan. 6. He hadmissed the previous eight games and 15 of the last 16.Since Borrego took over as interim coach, the Pelicans are 6-6 withJones and 3-20 without him.

“Herb is definitelythe anchor of our defense,” Bey said. “We’ve been missing him forweeks. When he comesinand defendslikehe does —and playing point guard today —hejust does so manythings thatdon’tshow up in the stat sheet. Ilike that lineup. Everyone came in and contributed and played well.”

With Jones back, Borrego de-

Kentucky on oct.

withLsU during

more than300 snaps last season and have made double-digit career starts. McKinley, aformerﬁve-star recruit,needs to be ready for abigger role. LSU will be in good shape if the highly rankedfreshmen can contribute right away,but there are some unproven players here.

Defensiveend

Retuning players: Gabriel Reliford (R-Soph.),DamienShanklin (RFr.), Kolaj Cobbins (R-Soph.), Dylan Carpenter (R-Jr.)

Transfers: PrincewillUmanmielen (OleMiss, Sr.),Jordan Ross (Tennessee, Jr.),JaylenBrown (South Carolina, R-Soph.)

Incoming freshmen: Lamar Brown, Trenton Henderson Last year,LSU signedthree transfer defensive ends with one more season of eligibility.That meantLSU would need to go back into thetransfer portal, and it did. Umanmielen was theNo. 1defensive lineman on themarketafter recording nine sacks and131/2 tack-

les for loss last season. He gives LSU an immediate upgrade to its pass rush, andRoss has potential as aformer ﬁve-star recruit. With apromising group coming back andtwo highlyrankedfreshmen, there’salot to like about the present and future of the position.

Linebacker

Returning players: Whit Weeks(Sr.), Davhon Keys (Jr.), Tylen Singleton (R-Soph.), Charles Ross (Soph.), Jaiden Braker (R-Fr.), Keylan Moses (R-Fr.),Zach Weeks (R-Fr.)

Transfers: TJ Dottery (Ole Miss, R-Sr.), Theo Grace (North Dakota State, R-Fr.)

LSU accomplishedone of its top goals by bringing back Whit Weeks, butitneeded astarting linebacker from the transfer portal to pair with him. It found one in Dottery,who ledthe SEC with 98 tacklesthis past season for the Rebels. Keys will have arole after leading the team with 92 tackles last year,and the rest of the line-

Jeremaih Fears off of the bench. It wasFears’ ﬁrst time notstarting since the second game of the season. But he ended up giving the Pelicans some valuable minutes, scoring 12 points to go with four assists and two rebounds.

“Jeremiah hada very good second half and he impacted that game,” Borrego said. “His defense to me is what’sstanding out. On the ball. His aggression. Creating disruption. Chasing down rebounds andloose balls.He’sbeen phenomenal.”

Murphy scored 32 points, while Williamson ﬁnished with 24 points and 11 rebounds. Williamson also had acouple of hustle plays in the fourth quarter that led to his two steals.

The Pelicanshad 29 assists and just 10 turnovers.

“That’sthe goal,toshare it every night,” Borrego said. “This group is an unselﬁsh group and Ithink you saw it tonight.”

Anew starting lineup coupled withan“it’s abouttime”fourthquarterﬁnish were refreshing to see.

“It’sgoing to take multiple efforts,” Borrego said. “Itdoesn’t come as easily as we’d like. We’ve gottostickwith it.I think that’sthe blueprint that we saw in the fourth quarter.”

backers could continue to develop behind those top three.

Cornerback

Returning players: DJ Pickett (Soph.), PJ Woodland (Jr.), Ja’Keem Jackson (R-Jr.), Michael Turner (RSoph.), Aidan Anding (Soph.)

Incoming freshmen: DezEllis, Havon Finney,EmariPeterson

LSU did not see the need to target any transfer cornerbacks with Pickett and Woodland returning next season.Theyboth played morethan 500 snaps last year,and they’llbethe projected startersafter star cornerback Mansoor Delane exhausted his eligibility

Safety

Returning players: Tamarcus Cooley (R-Jr.), DashawnSpears (Jr.),CJ Jimcoily (Soph.), JhaseThomas (R-Fr.)

Transfers: Ty Benefield (Boise State, Sr.), Faheem Delane (Ohio State, Soph.), Mason Dossett (Baylor, R-Soph.), TreylanJames (Southern, R-Jr.)

Incoming freshmen: Aiden Hall, Isaiah Washington, Jackson Williams Benefield wasone of the top defensive backsinthe transfer portal.Hehas started 33 career games, made ateam-high 107 tackleslast season and earned ﬁrst-team All-Mountain West honors. With him, Cooley and Spears, LSU has asolid top three heading intothe spring. Delane, aformer top-100 recruit, also could ﬁnda role after playing in 13 games his freshman year at Ohio State.

Specialteams

Returning players: GrantChadwick (P,Jr.)

Transfers: Scott Starzyk (Arkansas, K, Soph.); Hayden Craig (Florida, P, R-Fr.); Mack Mulhern (LS, Florida, R-Fr.)

Chadwick stuck around even though LSUbrought in another punter,sotheycan compete going into next season. Craig has not puntedina game yet, while Chadwick averaged 45.7 yards per punt in his ﬁrst year at LSU.Starzyk went 14 of 18 as afreshman last season withtwo ﬁeld goalsofmore than 50 yards. LSU also could have someother long snappers on the roster

assoCIateD Press FILe PHoto By Gary MCCULLoUGH Florida wide receiver eugene Wilson runs withthe ballafter acatch against

19,2024, in Gainesville, Fla.Wilson signed

the transfer portal period.

Justin reid, right, sits on the sideline as he and staff photographer enan Chediak photograph the second half of

DaVID GrUNFeLD

aP PHoto By BraNDoN DILL

Pelicans center Derik Queen drives to the basket between Memphis Grizzlies center Jock Landale, left, and guard Camspencer on FridayinMemphis, tenn.

Broncos quarterback Jarrett stidham warms up before a playoff game against the Buffalo Bills, on Jan. 17 in Denver.

aP PHoto By JaCK DeMPsey

Broncosbackup QB no stranger to Patriots

BY ARNIE STAPLETON

aP pro football writer

DENVER If any opponent is familiar with DenverBroncos ﬁll-in quarterback Jarrett Stidham,it’s the New England Patriots, who drafted him in 2019 to serve as TomBrady’sbackup.

When Josh McDanielstookthe head coaching job of the Las Vegas Raiders,hetraded for Stidham, who backed up DerekCarr for two years before signing with Denver,where he servedasRussellWilson’sNo. 2, then as Bo Nix’s right-hand man.

After McDaniels returned to New England for his third stint as offensive coordinator last offseason, the Patriots were interested in areunion with Stidham,but he chose to stay in Denver With Nixrecovering from surgery after breaking his right ankle on Denver’sgame-winning drive in overtime againstBuffalo last weekend, Stidham steps in Sunday when the Broncos (15-3) host Drake Maye and the Patriots (163) in the AFC championship game.

Although Nix was integral to Denver’ssuccess this season —he engineered six comebacks inthe fourth quarterorovertimeand led Denver to an NFL-best12-2 record in one-score games —his coaches and teammates insist they’re equallyconﬁdentStidham can lead them to the Super Bowl.

“We’re lucky to have him,” right tackle Mike McGlinchey said, “because not everybody has aquarterback waiting in the wings as talented as Jarrett.”

Although the Patriots brass knows Stidham well, defensive tackle Milton Williams didn’t mincewordswhen askedwhat he knew about the sixth-year QB who hasn’tthrown apass in twoyears.

“Nothing. Iain’tgoing to lie,” he said. “Nothing. We’regoingto watch the tape on him and ﬁgure out what he likes to do.But they

SAINTS

Continued from page1C

Long drives stall

The Saints and Dallas Cowboys led the league in drives of at least 10-plus plays with39. But there was akey difference between thetwo teams. The Cowboys, who had two elite wideouts in CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens, scored touchdownson17of those drives, third-most in theNFL.The Saints?They had just 12, putting them in the middle of the pack (tied with six teams for 14th).

On one hand, being able to string togetherlengthy drives highlights Moore’s sharpplay-calling and quarterback play.But too often, the Saints didn’thave the difference-makers who could finish those long series in the end zone. TheSaints ended up kicking 16 field goals on drives that lasted at least 10 plays, the second-most in the league. Long drives aren’tnecessarily abad thing. The Denver Broncos, San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans finished right below the Saints, Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals andstillmade the playoffs. But breaking up those series every now and then with an explosive play can change agame, and that was missing from the 2025 Saints. Lack of 3-pointers Throughout Moore’sfirst season, the coachlovedhis basketball analogies. Moore wanted his team to play with pace,similartothe NBA’sIndiana Pacers. Quarterbacks were told to take “3-pointers and layups,” which were basically deep shots or easy completions. But in this analogy,the Saints weren’tavery good

ä Patriots at Broncos.

2P.M.sUNDay,CBs

didn’tlike him over Bo.”

Of course, no team likes their backup QB more than their starter,but Broncos coach Sean Payton insists Stidham could start for any numberofother NFL teams

Stidham maynot havequitethe resume of Nix, but he’snoslouch, said Patriots cornerbackChristian Gonzalez.

“He’sin theNFL for areason,” Gonzalez said. “They believe in him, they brought him up, so we’ve got to prepare and be ready forhim. They’reinthis game for areason, too. They’ve got alot of weaponsonthe offensive side.”

Stidham won’thave running back J.K. Dobbins alongside him.

The Broncos ruled Dobbins out after he returned to practice for the first time since undergoing foot surgery in November

Maye had an MVP-caliber seasoninhis second year in the league and ﬁrst under McDaniels’ tutelage. But he’shad apuzzling postseason,gettingsacked 10 times, throwing two interceptions, fumblingsix timesand losing halfof them while still beating the Chargers andTexanshandily

“Really impressive,” Payton said. “He’sextremelyfastand those comefromobviouslypocket scrambles, buthecan run. We had that challenge aweek ago. It seems likeevery third week you have that challenge of someone thatyou have to make sure your pocket rushesare on point.”

TheDenver defense led the league in sacks with68but it had a dearth of takeaways until collecting ﬁve againstthe Bills lastweek.

Thatdefense and agood ground game could make adifference for Stidham in thebiggestgame of acareer that features just four startsand one victory on Dec. 31, 2023, against theChargers.

PHotoBy DaVIDGrUNFeLD saints quarterback tyler shough, center,calls aplay from the huddle during thesecond half of agame against the tampaBay Buccaneersonoct. 26.

3-point shooting team. Early in theyear,defenses were cautious of Olave and Rashid Shaheed beating them over the top, leaving quarterbackSpencerRattler to take whatwas in frontof him. Though Shough showed more aggression aftertaking over and Olave started to torch defenders anyway, the Saints still didn’thit on deep shots at the rate that Moore would havepreferred Shough was excellent on intermediatethrows of 1019 yardswith acompletion percentage of 67.9%, but he was just9 of 36 on throws thattraveled at least 20 yards through theair,according to Next Gen Stats That 25% completion rate ranked ﬁfth-worst among33 qualiﬁed passers. Although Shough needs to improve in that area, some data suggests he could use additional help. The rookie was pressured on 47.2% of his deep throws, the seventh-highest rate in the league. Rattler was above that, facingapressure rate of 51.7% (fifth) on deep throws.Shough’scompletion percentage on those throws was 12.5percentage points worse than expected, behind only Atlanta quar-

Seahawks,Ramsmeetagain, this time forSuper Bowl spot

BY ANDREWDESTIN associated Press

RENTON, Wash. To some extent, Seahawks defensive lineman Leonard Williams was anticipating thatthe NFC championship gamewould shake out this way, withSeattle facing the divisionrival Los Angeles Rams for athird time this season.

Williams, akey contributor on the league’s top-ranked scoring defense, has seen ﬁrsthand how talented the Rams’top-ranked offense is. The Rams racked up 581 yards against Seattle in December in agamethe Seahawks ultimately won 38-37 in overtime.

Williams feelsgood aboutthe players around him and how they will respond Sunday in Seattle.

“I was just expecting it to happenthis way,” Williams said. “I thinkit’sinteresting that the only twoteamsweplayed in what feels like over amonth is theNiners and the Rams. But Ithink it’s a testament to how good this divisionhas been this year.A lot of respect for bothofthose teams,but Ihaveevenmore respect formy team and conﬁdence in my team, and just theway we make it about us is special to me.”

Just over amonth after that epic overtime game,the Rams have a shot at redemptionagainst the top-seeded Seahawks with aSuper Bowl berthonthe line.

“We’re notimmune to understanding the circumstances and what the game means to theoutside world, and whether or not we get to continue to keep playing footballornot, (but) from adaily standpoint,weoperate as normal and get ready to play,” said Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, a ﬁnalist for The AssociatedPress 2025 NFLMost Valuable Player award.

The Rams took theﬁrst meeting of the season in November,led by adefense thatintercepted Seahawksquarterback SamDarnold four times in the21-19 victory

Seattlegot thebetter of Los Angeles in the second game in December with afourth-quarter comeback and becamethe first NFL team to win on an overtime two-point conversion.

“I think everyweek obviously, no matterhow many times we’ve played them, we’retrying to ﬁnd new ways to attack themand ways to get after them,” Williams said. “Atthe same time Ithink our team does agreat job making it

terbacks Michael Penixand Kirk Cousins.

An explosive passing game is instrumental for ateam’ssuccess.TheNew England Patriots (18.4%, first), Seattle Seahawks (16.9%, third) and Los Angeles Rams (15.9%, sixth) all ﬁnished top six in explosive pass play percentage. Thosethreeare playing in conference championships this weekend.

Runtonowhere

Astrong running game obviously helps aquarterback. The Saints didn’thave one in 2025.

Beyond ranking 28th in rushingyards and31stin expected points addedper rush, there was alack of explosiveness in New Orleans’ rushing attack. Just 8.1% of theSaints’ runs went longer than 12 yards, which counts as an “explosive.” That number crept up to 10.1% when Shough became thestarter, but it was still below the league average of 10.7%.

TheSaints hadjust five runs that gained at least 20 yards, ahead of only the Raiders, 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs. Shough and Taysom Hill —two quarterbacks —accounted for threeofthose ﬁvebig gains. Devin Neal, asixth-round rookie,and Audric Estime, whodidn’t receive acarry until December,had the other two.

Alvin Kamara, the normal starter,had his longest run of the season in Week 1— an 18-yard touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals. Kamaramissed the last six games of the season with a kneeinjury.Kendre Miller, akey backup, was lost to a tornACL on Oct. 19.

TheSaints notonly need arunning back withnoticeable burstbut also an offensive line that can create theholes forthe runner to sprint through.

about us every day.”

Coaching clash

One dayafter his 40th birthday, Ramscoach Sean McVay will attempttowin theNFC title for the third time with the Rams. Theyoungest coach to win aSuperBowlwas profoundly frustrated after his team blew that late16-point lead in Seattle last month, but he doesn’twant his playersthinkingtoo much about these teams’ tworecent thrillers during their preparationsfor the rubber match.

“You want to be careful not to chaseghosts,”McVay said.“It is about good executionand good fundamentals. They’re agreat team and they’re great in allthree phases.We’dlike to think when we’rehumming andwe’re at our best,we’re pretty good too.”

Theoffensive wizard reached theSuper Bowlinhis second season with the Rams. Mike Macdonald would match that achievement Sundayifthe defensive guru can lead theSeahawks to the franchise’sfourth Super Bowl.

Kupp’s reunion

The Ramswill be facing their Super Bowl56MVP on Sunday when Cooper Kupp squares off against his former team again. Kupp won the2021 AP Offensive Player of theYear awardand the receiving triple crown during that championship season in his eight proliﬁc years with the Rams.

Kupp had thesecond-fewest receiving yards of his career for Seattlethis season,yet he stayed healthy nearly all year after injury struggles contributed to his releasebythe Rams last year andhe ledSeattlewithﬁve catches for60 yards last weekendinits playoff winover the San Francisco 49ers.

“It’scrazy to think (of) all of the things he’saccomplished, and the way he comes to work and the way he leads,” said Seahawks practice squad running back Cam Akers, whowas Kupp’steammate on the Ramsfor alittle over three seasons.

Stafford’s tenacity

Stafford’sstatistical performances in theRams’ first two playoff games didn’tmeasure up to his MVP-caliber regular season, yet he led the fourth and ﬁfth game-winning drives of his playoff career under extraordinary road pressure.

While Darnold has demonstrated his skills and moxie during two strong seasons with the Vikings andSeahawks, theRamscould have adecided advantage Sunday in experience and poise behind center: Stafford’sseven postseason victories are morethan twice as many as the three other startingquarterbacks in theplayoffs’ ﬁnal four combined.

“I feel likeI’m getting pretty repetitive about just how cool, calm and poised he is, and that’swhat it takestowin games over time,” said Ramsreceiver Davante Adams, who will attempt to win an NFCtitle gamefor the ﬁrst time in ﬁve tries.

McCarthy is returningto hometown to coachSteelers

BY WILL GRAVES

associated Press PITTSBURGH Mike McCarthy is cominghome. The Pittsburgh Steelers announced Saturday the club hasreached averbal agreement with McCarthy to replace Mike Tomlin as head coach McCarthygrew up in the Greenfieldneighborhood, just acouple of miles away from the team’spractice facilityonthe city’s southside. The 62-year-old McCar-

thyis185123-2 (playoffs included) across 18 seasons, 13 withGreen Bay whichbeat the Steelers in the Super Bowl following the 2010 season —and ﬁve with Dallas. He was New Orleans’ offensive coordinator from 2000 to 2004.

Hispotential hireisjust thefourth by theSteelers since1969 anda marked

departure fromhis predecessors, Tomlin and Hall of Famers Chuck Nolland Bill Cowher. Allthree were largelyunknown assistants/coordinators.McCarthyishardlythat. McCarthywould replace Tomlin, who steppeddown earlier this month after his 19th season ended with a seventh straight playoff loss, this oneathome to the Houston Texans. Tomlin’s surprise departure came as he was undercontract for2026 with aclub option for2027. McCarthy

When youneed thenews. Wherever youreadthe news

Pitchers Paz, Rizy,Moore shineinearly scrimmages

BY KOKI RILEY staff writer

LSU was limited to three days of scrimmages last week (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday)because of the weekend weather,but coach JayJohnson still learned alot about his team through the opening week of practice games. Here areafew takeaways from LSU’sﬁrst few scrimmages of the year

Paz, Rizy flashpotential

Despite missing his entirehigh schoolsenior season because of Tommy John surgery, Marcos Paz excelled in hisﬁrst appearance for LSU in 2026. The freshmanrighthander didn’t allowanearned run in 12/3 innings, striking outﬁve batters and surrendering onehit on Thursday Paz showcased apowerful

fastballwith tailing movement, a slider and acurveball. His commandcould use morepolish, but fora pitcher whohasn’tthrown in acompetitive game in ayear

LSUBASEBALLNOTES

and ahalf, he showed good control thanks to asmooth delivery

BesidesPaz, also throwing on Thursday was MavrickRizy.The 6-foot-9 sophomore right-hander allowed one earned run with ﬁve strikeoutsin22/3 innings, showing improved command and asmoother delivery than last season.

Johnson said Friday that Rizy worked withstrength and conditioning coach Chris Martin during the offseason to improve his delivery

“Coach Martin hasreally emphasizedhow much better he is moving down themound,” Johnson said.

“Toreally know what he’sdoing in the weight room and how that would translate to moving well on themound with his delivery.I thinkhe’sgot that together.”

Mooreaimsfor rotation role

Cooper Moore was the ﬁrst pitcher to toethe rubber thispreseason, and the junior right-handed transfer from Kansas didn’tdisappoint, tossing four scoreless innings with ﬁvestrikeouts.

His best weapon was his changeup, apitch he showed supreme commandofand produced alitany of swings and misses. To complement the changeup, Moore also threw asweeper,afour-seam fastball and acurveball.

Of thefour offerings, the curveball needed the mostwork. But Moore’spersistent strike-throwing and changeup make him astrong candidate to enter the rotation at thestartofthe year

“He’sgoing to be at thefront of this thing,” Johnson said.

“He’sgoing to throw aton of innings.

Second base update

LSU’sthree leading contenders to start at secondbase allhad strong moments through the ﬁrst weekofscrimmages.

Fifth-year senior Tanner Reaves hadtwo hitsFriday anda home run Thursday. Seth Dardar,another fifth-year senior,drove in three runs andhit ahomerWednesday Senior Brayden Simpson went 2for 3 on Wednesday

None of them emerged as aleading candidate to start once Friday’sscrimmage cametoaclose, but each hitter spent time working at positions other than second. Reaves played some left ﬁeld on Friday.Simpson spent several inningsatthird base,and Dardar got workatﬁrst and third.

Email Koki Rileyatkoki.riley@ theadvocate.com.

Prarieville,8.19. 3. Terry Matthews, ARCA, 8.26. 4. Fayden Brown, Scotlandville, 8.38. 5. Ali Carrier, Beau Chene, 8.39. 400: 1. Kaleb Bigwood, Hamilton Christian 49.52. 2. Henry Mensman, Catholic High

49.52. 3. Harrison LaLande, Catholic High, 49.87. 4. Kodi Clement, Kaplan, 50.60. 5. Jaylen Babineaux, Carencro,50.93.

800: 1. Bryaden Berglund, Mandeville, 1:55.96.2.Cohen Aucoin, Thibodaux, 1:59.63.

3. Trevin Lebouef, Central Lafourche, 2:00.30

4. Julian lee, Belle Chasse, 2:00.53. 5. Patrick Kelly,Catholic High, 2:01.20. 1,600: 1. William Decuir, CatholicHigh, 4:22.82. 2. Brayden Berglund, Mandeville, 4:23.04.3.Jayden Williams, Airline, 4:28.34

4. Rhys Grant, Jesuit, 4:28.61. 5. David Quintana, Jesuit, 4:28.73 3,200: 1. Augustine Juneau, Catholic High, 9:29.05. 2. Joe Accardo, Jesuit, 9:34.03. 3. Rowan Silk, Denham Springs, 9:38.58. 4. Andrew Watts, Parkview Baptist,9:45.62. 5. Andrew Nimmo, Jesuit, 9:46.25. 4x200 relay: 1. Rummel, 1:30.84.2.Catholic High, 1:31.22. 3. McMain, 1:32.82. 4. Zachary 1:32.87. 5. Glen Oaks, 1:33.33. 4x400 relay: 1. Catholic High, 3:34.34. 2. Hammond, 3:35.05. 3. McMain, 3:35.74. 4. Lafayette, 3:35.86. 5. Scotlandville, 3:36.04. 4x800 re;au: 1. Episcopal, 8:19.40. 2. Catholic High, 8:19.78. 3. Central Lafourche, 8:19.97. 4. Jesuit, 8:22.98. 5. Lafayette, 8:26.57. Field High jump: 1. Keshaun Tone, EastFeliciana, 6-04.75. 2. TravonJames, Ellender, 6-02.25. 3. Brandon Mitchell, AscensionEpiscopal, 6-02.25. 4. Eric Buddecke, Southside, 6-00. 4. Brody Diel, Central, 6-00. Long jump: 1. William Plaster, LakeCharles College Prep, 22-07.75. 2. MilesTorres, WarrenEaston, 22-01.75. 3. Jamarion Meady Prairieville, 22-00.25. 4. Keshaun Toney East Feliciana, 21-09.50. 5. Branon Mitchell, Ascension Episcopal, 21-07.25. Pole vault: 1. BlakeGuidry, E.D.White, 1403.25. 2. John Henry Overton, Catholic High, 14-03.25. 3. Gordon Gros, Loranger,14-03.25. 4. Jack Evans, Fontainebleau,13-07.25. 5. Kolson Toups,Berwick, 13-07.25. Shot put: 1. Joseph Rivet, Alexandria, 57-05 2. Jack Torrance, Catholic High, 55-02.3 Dar’ReyusScott, Denham Springs,53-05. 4. Christian Ferguson,Denham Springs,52-10. 5. Justin Suire, HighlandBaptist,51-06.50. Triple jump: 1. Bre’Jon Melancon, North Iberville, 47-04.25. 2. GenardGreen, Scotlandville, 45-00.25. 3. Damien Richard, Destrehan, 44-07.50. 4. Malik Brown, Ponchatoula, 43-07.25. 5. Chandler Hartman, Ellender 42-11.50.

Girls

Track results 60 meters: DestinyHarrison, Liberty, 7.79. 2. Dai;Jah Robertson, Warren Easton, 7.82. 3. Nyla Riggins, Walker, 7.84.4.Kynnedi Morris, Warren Easton,7.86. 5. NiaBrown, Brusly 7.89. 60 hurdles: 1. Serenity Early,Zachary,8.80.

2. Makayla Miller, Madison Prep, 9.08. 3. Khai Brown, John Curtis, 9.12. 4. Mackenzie Hayes, Mandeville, 9.29. 5. Kelsey Bomersbach,Vermilion Catholic,9.32. 400: 1. Jaleyia Woods, Woodlawn, 56.51.2 Tay’lee Crump, Lafayette, 58.83. 3. Lauren Vessel,Zachary,59.25. 4. Destiny Harrison, Liberty,59.55. 5. Lailah Perry,Zachary 1:00.06. 800: 1. RileySiner, Lafayette, 2:18.63.2 Grace Keene, Northshore, 2:18.79. 3. Aaryam Saleh, Teurlings Catholic, 2:18.82. 4. Georgia Theriot, Parkview Baptist, 2:20.53. 5. Coco Alvarado, Country Day, 2:20.55. 1,600: 1. Grace Keene, Northshore, 5:05.90. 2. Lucy Thomas, Baton Rouge High, 5:07.59. 3. AbigailLeger, Teurlings Catholic,5:09.05. 4. VarenkaZhuk, CountryDay,5:10.25. 5. Kaitlyn Sawyer, Hathaway,5:10.27

3,200: 1. Lucy Cramer, Parkview Baptist, 11:09.61. 2. Emma Aldana-Huegla, Willow School,11:11.87. 3. Molly Cramer, Parkview Baptist,11:17.01. 4. Lila Silk, Denham Springs, 11:34.94. 5. Lucy Thomas, Baton Rouge High, 11:38.27. 4x200: 1. Lafayette, 1:45.06. 2. St. Joseph, 1:45.60. 3. Zachary,1:46.38. 4. Warren Easton, 1:46.94. 5. John Curtis,1:48.56. 4x400: 1. Lafayette, 4:01.24. 2. St. Joseph, 4:08.28. 3. Parkview Baptist, 4:12.73. 4. CountryDay,4:12.81. 5. Mandeville, 4:14.59. 4x800: 1. St. Joseph, 10:00.38. 2. Country Day, 10:04.00. 3. Northshore, 10:16.63. 4. E.D.White, 10:18.95.5.Sacred Heart New Orleans,10:50.71 Fieldevents High jump: 1. Emma Smith, Delcambre, 5-08. 2. Kennedy Papillion, St. Joseph’s,5-08.3 Addilyn Dufrene, John Curtis, 5-05. 4. Kaylei Long, Ponchatoula, 5-00.25. 5. Andi Smith, Denham Springs,5-00.25. Long jump: 1. WeslyLipari, St. Joseph’s,1705.50. 2. Zoey Hodges,Episcopal, 17-00.50. 3. TreasureMatthews, ARCA,16-11.25. 4. Kenli Addison, Madison Prep, 16-10.5.Alayah Stanley,West Feliciana, 16-08.50 Pole vault: 1. Olivia Woods, St. Thomas More, 12-06. 2. Miranda Weeks, Mount Carmel,11-05.75.3.Rachel Owens, ARCA,1011.75. 4. Annabelle Grifﬁn, LiveOak, 9-10. 5. Makenzie Davis, Highland Baptist, 9-10

Shot put: 1. KaiRichard, Zachary,43-06.50. 2. Jelani Jonson, Donaldsonville,34-09. 3. Chelzi Bellock, Plaquemine,33-07.25. 4. ChideraAjoku,St. James,33-07.25. 5. Azyria Garrison, Berwick, 33-05.75. Triple jump: 1. Alaysia Titus,Lafayette Christian, 36-09. 2. BethanyLong, Lafayette, 36-04.25. 3. Diamond Peck,West Feliciana, 35-10.75. 4. Marley Duplessis, Morris Jeff,3510. Emoiree Rogers, St. Joseph’s, 35-09.25 Wrestling Greater Baton Rouge championships

Boys Team scores: 1. Catholic High, 253.5. 2. St Amant, 207.5. 3. Dutchtown, 183. 4. East Ascension, 179. 5. Baton Rouge High, 159.5. 6. Zachary,144.5. 7. Brusly,125.5. 8. Walker, 112. 9. Live Oak, 81. 10. Prairieville, 56. Individual ﬁnals 106 pounds: P. Evans,Catholic HighoverL Deleon, St. Amant MD (11-2) 113: A. Thai, Dutchtown overI.Keller,East Ascension MD (16-5)

120: M. Hanemann, Catholic High over J. Scott, Zachary F(1:11)

126: C. Kirk, Catholic High over K. Cowen, Baton Rouge HighMD(19-5)

132: A. Sonnier, Catholic High over P.

B. Ebling, Brusly over J. Sejour, LiveOak

150: D. RIcks, Brusly over T. Abington, St Amant TF (4:28)

157: K. Scott, Catholic High over J. Caronna St. Amant F(0:28)

165: B. Stewart, East Ascension over M. Asevada, St. Amant F(3:01)

175: B. Cowen, Baton Rouge High over W. Kersten,Dutchtown DEC(9-4)

190: K. Pearson, St. Amant over E. Trahan, Dunham F(3:59)

215: B. Edmonston, LiveOak over J. Stewart, Dutchtown F(1:55)

LIVING

Louisiana Crossroads series amonth of musicand conversation

“Keep taking deep breaths,” Ikept telling myself. “It’ll slow my heart rate.”

Usually interviewing musicians on stage is as easy as eating cake and ice cream.But this interview was with Irma freakin’ Thomas. In my decades as amusic writer,Inever met the Soul Queen of New Orleans, easily one of my favorite artists. Four songsinto her set at Louisiana Crossroads in Lafayette,toppedoff by the hand-holding, belly-rubbing classic, “It’sRaining,” Queen Irma was ready.Myshaking legs brought me to her side, as she sat center stage before a sold-out audience.

Iturned into afull-ﬂedged fanboy.I begged friends inthe audience—anyone— to take our picture.

Ithanked Queen Irma for her music, her voice and quipped, “’It’sRaining’ is responsible for my children!” The audience roared. Queen Irma even blushed. And Nov.14, 2024, will forever reign as acareer highlight.

staFF FILe PHoto By DaVID GrUNFeLD Irma thomas performs the national anthem before the saints host the Giants at the Caesars superdomein2025.

Ipromise not to turn into a fanboy again in the new season of Louisiana Crossroads. This music and conversation series with homegrown music legends takes place at theAcadiana Center for theArtsin downtown Lafayette. This year kicks off my third season as host. There’snoIrma Thomas encore, but the lineup remains stellar There’smore New Orleans ﬂavor in the Jan. 29 opener with John Boutté.The Crescent City singer carries the soul, jazz,gospel and blues music of his hometown in his voice, which the world experienced in the HBO series “Treme.”

Guitarist Chris Thomas King, still enjoying fame as bluesman Tommy Johnson in thehit movie “O Brother,Where Art Thou?,” visits Feb. 20. King, son of Baton Rouge blues icon Tabby Thomas, raised some eyebrows regarding the music’sorigins in his 2021 book, “The Blues: The Authentic Narrative of My Music and Culture.”

ä see SERIES, page 4D

Behind sagging bulkheads, the leveesloughs off into the river at the site of ‘cave’at the head of elmira avenue in algiers in this file photo taken on Nov. 20, 1892, 20 years after the amish settled in and around this location.

Home grown

500-plus

BY COLETTEDEAN

Contributingwriter

TheLouisianaNative Plant Society is celebrating amilestone more than 500 landscapesacross thestate have been designated as a“LouisianaCertiﬁed Habitat.”

TheLouisiana CertifiedHabitatprogram recognizes the efforts of Louisianaresidents, schools and organizationsthathaveincreased and protected the ecological value of their landtobenefit wildlife and natural systemsbyplanting native plants. The society is astatewidenonprofit organization dedicated to protecting, educating andpropagating the state’sdiverse nativeflora.

Residents concerned aboutthe environmentare learning they can act in their own yard.

PhyllisGriffard andTammany Baumgarten, LNPS board members, helpedspearheadthe certiﬁcation project. Since2020, individual homeownersfrom all areas of the statehave applied on the LNPS web-

site to have theiryardscertiﬁed. Habitat certiﬁcation levels are determined by the numberofnative plantspecies on aproperty: Bronze level is 25 native species or 25% native plants,silver is 50 native species or 50% native plants, andgold is 75% native species or 75% native plants. Certification levels can be upgradedfor freeat anytime by resubmitting an up-

STATECONFERENCE

the 2026 Louisiana Native Plant society state Conference is scheduled for8 a.m. March 6-8 at acadian Baptist Center, 1202 academy road, eunice

dated species list via email.

Afterasite visit by aLNPSvolunteer to identifyplants and answer questions, homeowners are bestowed a9-inch-by-12-inch metal sign with the appropriate bronze, silver or gold decal for display.The designations allow opportunities for both small patios and large acreages to qualify for certiﬁcation.

“Like manyofus, we wereinspired by themessageofDoug Tallamy,thathomeownerseverywherecould plant native plantsto help our environment and promote wildlifehabitats,” Griffard said.

Tallamy,anentomologyprofessor,author and conservationist, wrote “Bringing Nature Home” over adecadeago in which he discussed theimportance of native plants. In his follow-up book,“Nature’sBest Hope,” he urged private homeowners to take environmental

BY ROBIN MILLER staff writer

Almosteveryone has thesame reaction when hearing about it:“No

New Orleans?’ But now I’mwondering if it’strue.” So, is it? Yesway! The Amish settlement was small, lasting only 26 years, between 1846 and1872, documented in Amish historian

staFF PHoto By LesLIe WestBrooK Indian blanket blooms at the Lafayette home of stephen and Jen Fournet on Jan. 15.

Herman Fuselier

FILe PHoto

staFFPHoto By CHrIs GraNGer aLouisiana NativePlant society NativeHabitat certified yard on allentoussaint Boulevard in Neworleans

Griffard

Baumgarten

ProVIDeD PHotos

Baton Rouge Chapter DAR

Gathered at the Baton rougeChapter of the Daughters of the american revolution’s centennial luncheon are, from left,Carrie Fagerandrepont,second viceregent;alice Wynn Welch Fresnia, regent; Louisiana society Darstate regent Katherine ‘Katie’ allison Collins; Mayor-President sid edwards; and InaGremillion Navarre, parliamentarian and immediate past regent.

DARBaton Rouge Chapter celebrates 100years

The Baton Rouge Chapterofthe Daughters of the American Revolution marked its 100th anniversary witha centennial luncheon at the CityClub.

As the oldest DAR chapter in the region and adesignated Lantern Chapter,it helped establish other chapters, including Canary Islands, Halimah, HeiromeGainesand John James Audubon.

Chapter Regent Alice Wynn Welch Fresina welcomed guests, with apatriotic musical prelude by member Marian WilsonHarden.Guests viewed displays honoring the 1925 charter members and their patriots, as well as current and past ofﬁcers. Patricia F. “Pat” Reed was recognizedasthe only currentmember descended from afemalepatriot, Catherine Majer Rentz.Proclamations from Lt. Gov Billy Nungesser and Mayor-President Emile “Sid”Edwards were presented, with Edwards offering personal congratulations Ceremonial duties included an invocation and benedictionbyChaplain Judith R. Burch, Ph.D.; pledges led by NedraSue DavisHains, Carrie FagerAndrepont andIna MaeGremillion Navarre, and music led by Elizabeth “Beth” Boyles Forster O’Quinn, accompanied by Harden. Fresina later presented abrief chapter history

Apatrioticcake was served, and table arrangements consistedofred,white andblue ﬂorals with lanterns.

Dignitaries in attendance included Zora Olsson, Katherine “Katie” Allison Collins, Rachel Reardon Shaw,Erah Jane Harper,Sarah Grace Brooks,LillianTheresa Dunlap, Rachel AustinGrace,Helen “Geni”Newman, Christie Webre, Alisa Janney,Janet Pittman, Vina Berry,Debra Bridgeman,Louise Ganucheau and Sons of the AmericanRevolution representative Jason Creech Other chapter leaders and supporters included Susan Dixie Riley Smith, Janis Sue Lowe, Carol Louise Steinmuller,Lelia“Lea”MarieCantey Evans, Debra Lynn McNeil Cowart, Alice Rezzie” AbadieMeyer,Nancy Theisen Bennett, KathyRichards Bordelon,MondraJune Rose Fazely,Katherine Frances Fresina andAmi Marie Gremillion Riente Founded during BatonRouge’searly growth, the chapter was chartered underthe leadership of Virginia MerwinWilkinsonTucker.Originalofﬁcers included Nina McQuigg Buck, Margaret Fairley Dalfreres,Margaret Lovelace Pettit Brandon,Augustine Reynaud Barrow,Eleanore Kline Groves Rathbone and Nellie Johnson McLaughlin Over the years,the chapter has promoted historic preservation and civic engagement. Projects includetree plantingsatBaton Rouge High and LSU,ﬁve historical markersaround the city and anew oneplannedfor Fort Bute. The chapter has supportedOakley House, Magnolia Mound: Museum +Historic Site and the Old Arsenal Museum, andhelped establish the state’slargest genealogicallibrary,led by former Regent Annie Laurie Roumain Moody

COMMUNITY

the

Associated Women in the Arts

the associated Women in the arts met Jan. 13 at the Walden Clubhouse for ‘Get-r-Done Day.’Members brought artpieces in progress to work on during the five-hour gathering.the artist of the month winnerswere, from left, Becky olivera, second; Dana Mosby, third, and Frances Durham first.

COMMUNITY GUIDELINES

the Community column runs sundays in the Living section and acceptssubmissions for news of eventsthat have taken place with civic, philanthropic,social and religious auxiliaryorganizations, as well as academic honors.

submissions shouldbesentbynoon Monday to run in the upcoming sundaycolumn. Because of space limitations, organizations that meet monthlyormore are

went

AtticTrash& Treasure

Past presidents of attic trash &treasure held theirquarterly luncheon on Jan. 13 at Mansurs on the Boulevard. shown are, fromleft, seated, Keigh Ballard, Bobbie stiglets,J’onBlumberg alice Greer,Melissa deGeneres and Iris eldred; standing,Linda Montagnino. Virginia Bogan, Chris Jackson, sandra Campbell, Kathleen Howell and susan Lipsey.

GFWC Lagniappe Woman’sClub

Linda and timManes entertained at theGFWC Lagniappe Woman’sClubJanuarymeeting.Linda Manes played piano and sang songs frommovies, accompanied by her husband on trumpet. shown are, from left, sylvia schwarzenbach,Pat Quartararo, Linda Manes, DebbieHarris, LanaMerliss and timManes

limitedtoone photo per month. If submitting digitally, we preferJPG files300KB or larger.Iftaking aphoto of a group, have themstand or sit shoulder-to-shoulder. If more than six people are in the photo, arrangethemonmultiple, distinct rows.avoid strong background light sources.

Identify those pictured by first and last names as viewed fromleft to right, rowbyrow.Weprefer emailedCommunity column submissions to features@theadvocate.com.We also accept submissions by mail at P.o. Box 588, Baton rougeLa70821.aphone number must be included.

WBR Garden &Civic Club

WBr Garden &Civic Club met on Jan. 13 at the WBrCareer academy in Port allen, then

on aguided tour of the school. Gathered are, from left, alice tullier,Debra eidson, President Kim Callegan, culinaryinstructor stephanie White, academystaff member Jill edwards and Kali Marionneaux.

TRAVEL

Bransonafun travel destinationfor allages

BY ELIZABETHDEAL staff writer

Looking for aplace to escape for along weekend? Don’tmiss Branson, Missouri. The cityand the surrounding area has something that will interestjust about everyone. Ithought visiting Branson would be all about seeing nostalgic shows of live music, but Iwas surprised. The area has evolved into amecca of indoor and outdoor entertainment for all ages. The city’sreputation as the place for live entertainmentwas born in 1959 by the Mabe brothers,who called themselves the Baldknobbers. In 1963, another local musical family, the Presleys, began playing shows and built the ﬁrst live music theatre on Highway 76 in 1967 —Branson’s original country music theater

This area is now the heart of the Entertainment District and generations of Presleys still perform at Presleys’ Country Jubilee. But there is more than country music in Branson —there’sa huge variety of live music from the 1960s to the 1980s to “SIX” to “MJ” to “Legends in Concerts,” which is promoted as the world’s greatest livetribute show. In addition to music, there’sentertainment like the Shanghai Circus Amazing Acrobats, DollyParton Stampede, magicians, comedians and award-winning dance troupes.

The region is more spread out than Iexpected, stretching from historic downtownBranson to the entertainment district andfurther to Table Rock Lake. Historic downtownBranson has afree trolley for exploring the quaint streets and shopping, including the long-running Dick’s 5and 10 generalstore at 103W Main St., overﬂowing withretro toys, old-fashioned candy and more. The Branson Landing is full of retail stores and restaurants and sits along Lake Taneycomo. There is amoderately priced Hilton Promenade in thispart of town.

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

By Christopherelliott

Theentertainment andtheater district, “the strip,” is West 76th CountryBoulevard, lined with restaurants and attractions like the TitanicMuseum, Hollywood Wax Museum, The Track Family Fun Park featuring the Branson Ferris Wheel and The Butterﬂy Palace rainforest adventure.

The city is also hometoBranson’sWild World animal adven-

ture park and aquarium and The Shepherd of the Hills adventure park featuring Missouri’shighest and fastest zip line, the Inspiration Tower scenic overlook, indoor and outdoor shows and restaurants. There are several economy-priced hotels along the strip.

In Branson, the food options are limitless, from donuts to diners, family-friendly to steakhouses,

locally owned places to familiar chains. Ifound an authenticIndian restaurant —one of my favorite cuisines —and hadlunchatthe India Clay Oven Fine Indian Cuisine at 2005 West 76th St. Iordered my favoritedish: lambkorma with rice, naan bread and raita sauce. It was some of the best Indian food I’ve eaten.

For outdoor recreation, Table Rock Lake is great forboating, ﬁshing, waterskiing, tubing and more. Boat and other rentals are available at various marinas. Lodging options include private rentals andafew resorts. Branson has plenty forthe golfer.There are at least adozen golf courses in the city,several courses designed by renowned golfers like TomFazio, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

For an upscale experience any time of year,Big Cedar Lodge, about 15 minutes south of Branson, is your best bet. The Osage Restaurant at Topofthe Rock on theproperty is phenomenal, with ﬁne cuisine, awarm setting and scenic views of the valleyand the lake. They have aspecial sunset

ceremony, whereaCivil Warcannonerupts and everyoneraises theirglass foratoast.

The lodge bills itselfas“America’sPremierWilderness Resort” andoffers cabins, cottages and lodge rooms. Some of theamenities includeswimming pools, aﬁtness center,spa,marina,lake cruise, six golf courses, several restaurants andFun Mountain, 50,000 square feet of action-packed activities. Child care is available.

Also at BigCedar is the Top of theRock Lost Canyon Cave andNature Trailand theAncient OzarksNatural History Museum, which hasone of themost signiﬁcantcollectionsofNative American andCivil Warartifacts, plusa woolly mammothfrom Siberia. Big CedarLodge is located at 190 Top of the Rock Road, Ridgedale, and forafee, non-guests can take advantage of someofthe amenities. Helpfultipsfor visiting Branson

n Determine how you want to spend your timeinBranson, whether that be outdoor recreation, theatre showsand attractions or shopping, etc. before choosing your lodging to limit travel around the city

n Be prepared fortrafﬁc. There are mainroutes through the city, but with all of the attractions, it can becomequickly congested. n Wear or carry comfortable walking shoes. Once landing in an area like theBranson Landing, historicdowntownBranson or the entertainment district, you’ll likely park andwalkaround to shops, restaurants andattractions.

ExploreBranson.com is theofficialwebsite of theBranson Conventionand Visitors Bureau,where those interested can findinformation to showsand attractions and purchase tickets. Be aware that the numerousbrick-and-mortar businesses with“visitor center” type signage are notaffiliated withthe official visitors center but are independently owned travel agencies. Email Elizabeth Deal at elizabeth.deal@theadvocate. com.

Simple carrentalcancellationturns into $52annoyance

ized for following the rules.

Christopher Elliott

Irecently booked aHertz rental car through Expedia for pickup at FargoAirport.Thereservation clearly stated that Icould cancel at any time before pickup with no penalty.Three days before my rental,Icanceled the reservation through Expedia and received an email confirming my cancellation with no cancellation fee Imagine my surprise when,aweek later,Hertz charged me a$52 no-show fee.Iimmediately contactedExpedia and arepresentativetold me that my reservation did not include acancellation fee. But then the responses gotconfusing: One Expedia agent claimed there wasacancellationfee in my reservation (which Iknow isn’ttrue),another toldmetodeal with Hertz directly,and yet another said Hertz had agreed to refund me —but the refund never arrived.

At one point,Expedia even issueda refund to my credit card,only to reverse it and sayitwas amistake.

I’vefollowed all the advice fromyour columns,including appealing to theexecutive contacts listed on your site.Theonly replies Igot were generic and didn’tanswermy specificquestions.Iasked Expediatoprovide written proof that my cancellationwas sent to Hertzbefore the pickup time,soIcould appeal to Hertz directly,but theynever provided it.I even visited the Hertzcounter at Fargo Airport,but the manager never gotbacktome, and the staff there said it lookedlikeExpedia didn’tsend the cancellation in time. Howcan Iget my $52 back? —ToddBrueshoff,Chicago

Let’sget one thing straight: When youbook arental car through an online travelagency like Expedia, it’s theonline travel agency’sjob to make sure your cancellation goes through and that you’re not penal-

Expedia should have promptly processed your cancellation, conﬁrmed it with Hertz, and provided you with written proof that the cancellation was received by Hertz before your scheduled pickup.

If your reservation termsallow for afree cancellation, and you cancel within the allowed window, you should not pay ano-show fee. If Expedia failed to transmit your cancellation to Hertz in time, that’s on Expedia —not you.

Ireviewed your correspondence withHertzand Expedia, and it looks like you did this by the book. Youcanceled in advance, kept all the documentation, and escalated your case through the proper channels, even appealing to executive contacts. Ipublish the names, numbers and email addresses for the

higher-ups at Expedia andHertz on my consumer advocacy site, elliottadvocacy.org

Youmaintainedadetailedpaper trail, which is exactlywhatI recommend. If thishappens to anyone else, I’dadd: Always double-check thatyou receiveacancellation conﬁrmation emailand, if possible, contact the rental agency directly to conﬁrm receipt —especially if you’re close to thecancellation deadline.

Expedia issued afull refund of your $52 no-showfee.

Christopher Elliott is the founderofElliott Advocacy,a nonproﬁtorganizationthathelps consumers solvetheirproblems. Email himatchris@elliott.org or get help by contacting himat elliottadvocacy.org.

Youdid everything right,and you even went theextra mile —literally —byvisiting theHertz counter at Fargo Airport. The staffthere suspected that Expedia didn’tsend the cancellation in time, which would explainwhy Hertz saw you as ano-show.Expedia,meanwhile, bounced you between departments, issued and then reversed arefund, andultimatelyfailedtoprovide thedocumentation youneeded to resolve theissuewithHertz. It turnsout there wasmore to this story.After Expedia issued a credit andthenwithdrew it,you ﬁleda credit card dispute, which youlost. Once your bank sideswith amerchant, youonly have tworealisticoptions:anoutside advocate or atriptosmall claims court. You chose me and Icontacted Expedia on your behalf.

the Hollywood WaxMuseum is partofBranson’sentertainment and theater district.

staFF PHotosByByeLIZaBetH DeaL

agiant octopus welcomes visitors to the Branson aquarium in Branson,Mo.

WHY GROW NATIVE PLANTS?

Planting native plants supports local ecosystems by providing essential food and habitat for wildlife, conserving water and money due to low maintenance needs like less watering fertilizer and pesticides.the effort also helps combat climate change by sequestering carbon, ultimately creating healthier, more resilient landscapes.

Native plants are the primary source of nectar, seeds, fruits and shelter for native insects, birds and animals that have co-evolved with them.

GARDENS

Continued from page 1D

action into their own hands by turning their yards into wildlife

He explained if American landowners would make it a goal to convert half of his or her lawn to productive native plant communities — approximately 20 million acres — this restored ecosystem would be larger than all United States national parks combined. He calls this the “Homegrown National Park ” Griffard said there are other states that offer types of habitat certiﬁcations, but one unique goal for the Louisiana certiﬁcation is to include personal connections with native plant gardeners in their area.

“We decentralized the program, so there is opportunity for gardeners to continue to connect with like-minded people who live near them” she said.

CURIOUS

Continued from page 1D

The chapter on New Orleans is short but well-researched

Weather is a hazard

As Ohio historian and journalist Kevin Williams points out, the Amish’s short-lived time in New Orleans had more to do with climate than conﬂicting lifestyles.

“The biggest thing that keeps the Amish from settling in Louisiana and Mississippi for that matter and anywhere in the South — is the heat, because they don’t have electricity, and it’s just stiﬂing in the summer,” Williams said.

“That’s why you have the largest concentration of Amish in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, because you don’t want be where it’s either too ice cold or too stiﬂing hot.”

An even bigger problem in 1846 was the lack of money Luthy writes that the Amish left their native Alsace and Lorraine in France in 1840 and migrated to the U.S. through the Port of New Orleans.

“Many of the numerous Amish immigrants who migrated from Europe to central Illinois after 1840 landed in America at the Port of New Orleans,” Luthy writes.

“There they boarded steamboats for the rest of their journey up the Mississippi River and into the Illinois River.” Others didn’t have the money to move forward.

“Perhaps, too, some had not even been able to completely pay for their ocean passage,” Luthy writes. “Thus, a small community of stranded Amish settlers is said to have existed in New Orleans. Of course, at that time it was not the huge city it is today However, it was not a farming community either.”

Spoke the same language Still, the Amish didn’t feel completely out of place.

The residents of New Orleans were mostly French speaking, and the Amish migrated from France, so it’s possible that they felt more at ease in Louisiana than at the

Conservation partners with the LNPS program who help provide the volunteers to assist in certifying yards include the Native Plant Initiative of Greater New Orleans, the Acadiana Native Plant Project and LSU Hilltop Arboretum. Peggy Coates has been helping to certify yards through Hilltop.

“It’s been so wonderful to meet all these gardeners,” she said. “Some of them start with the very minimum and after that, they get the bug and want to get the gold. It’s very exciting for them.”

Photos and stories of homeowners who have received certification are celebrated and are posted on the Facebook pages of LNPS and conservation partners, as well as chapters of Wild Ones, a national organization promoting native landscapes. Wild Ones chapters are in Baton Rouge, the Pontchartrain Basin and Western Gulf Plain.

A statewide map on the LNPS website pinpoints where the

certiﬁed habitats are located.

“We continue to grow our database for organizations and resources that advocate for native plants in Louisiana,” Baumgarten said.

So far the largest number of certiﬁed yards are in the New

Orleans area, closely followed by Acadiana and Baton Rouge. Griffard and Baumgarten said they were recently honored to share the success of the Louisiana program at a national conference in Cullowhee, North Carolina.

“We do have several yards in the far western and northern parts of the state,” Baumgarten said. “We look forward to seeing more. It gets to be competitive.”

For more information visit lnps.org.

English-speaking ports of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

“At any rate, New Orleans was an unusual place for an Amish community to exist,” Luthy wrote.

“And that it did, indeed, exist as evidenced by just enough bare facts to make us very curious.”

Luthy traced the community through letters, along with written accounts by traveling out-of-state Amish who were readily welcomed by the New Orleans community He also gathered stories from some of the New Orleans Amish’s descendants.

One letter revealed that New Orleans’ Amish settled along Elmira Avenue at Algiers Point.

“An Amishman, Christian Oswald, who likely emigrated from Alsace, is said by his descendants to have crossed the ocean with his family ‘with just enough money to land in New Orleans,’” Luthy writes. “The family stayed there seven or eight years during which time Christian undoubtedly found a job, and his wife ‘would bake fancy cookies, cakes, and bread, then sell them to the people around New Orleans.’ By about 1860 they had saved enough money to continue their migration to central Illinois.”

Then there was an account by Amish bishop Peter Naffziger,

who told his family that he twice walked from his settlement in Butler County, Ohio, to New Orleans to minister to its small Amish congregation. Another Amish bishop, Joseph Maurer, emigrated from Alsace in 1855. Luthy wrote that, in 1856, Maurer settled in the Partridge Creek settlement in Woodford County, Illinois. On his way to New Orleans in 1867 he died and was buried along the banks of the Mississippi River in an unmarked grave.

Finally, Luthy cites a Christmas Day letter written to Mennonite periodical Herald of Truth detailing the visit of Jacob Kauffman of the Melvern Amish community in Osage County, Kansas. It was published in 1871, the year before the New Orleans community faded out of existence.

“They undoubtedly by that time had lost many of their traditions by exposure to urban life,” Luthy wrote. Amish in Louisiana today

These days, no Amish communities exist in Louisiana, though there is a longstanding Mennonite community in DeRidder

But there is an Amish community that exists in Texas, according to Kevin Williams, a historian and reporter for CNBC and The New

York Times.

In his July 18, 2025, article, “Where Are the Amish In Louisiana?” for Amish 365 (amish365. com), Williams not only explores why there are no settlements in the state but also what the state would have to offer the Amish, including agricultural opportunities, religious freedom and family values.

“I consider myself a journalist ﬁrst, but I spent a number of years researching Amish culture before I dove back into journalism full-time,” Williams said, speaking from his home outside of Cincinnati. “I spent years visiting Amish settlements, literally from Maine to Montana, and I learned a lot during that period about them.” Through his research, Williams discovered that hurricane season often creates a strong Amish presence in Louisiana. The Mennonite Christian Aid Ministries in Ohio send teams of Amish and Mennonite volunteers to help in disaster relief and recovery Williams says they are often known as the last to leave a disaster area.

He points to Hurricane Rita, which hit southwest Louisiana only weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. For years after Hurricane Rita, Amish teams settled in Louisiana and brought their traditional cooking and food styles.

And, Williams said, they often learn and incorporate local cooking traditions into their own.

“There’s a lot of culinary exchange, so you better believe they brought gumbo back to Ohio with them,” he said. Williams predicts a return of the Amish to Louisiana.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see the ﬁrst settlement in Louisiana within the next three years,” he said. “There’s a growing Amish population in Arkansas, and northern Louisiana is very rural and affordable, so it has a lot to offer.”

Do you have a question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your question to curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and the city where you live.

SERIES

Continued from page 1D

“The Medicine Show Legacy” on March 19 celebrates the 15 years of the Tommy Comeaux Chair in Traditional Music at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Slide guitar wizard Sonny Landreth and friends, who helped establish the fund in a series of legendary concerts, return for the anniversary On May 14, the Atchafalaya Reunion assembles original members of the legendary Cajun rock band. In its heyday, Atchafalaya entertained legions of fans from Thibodaux to Turkey After a summer break, Crossroads returns Oct. 1 with “The Creole Continuum: Transcending Tradition,” featuring Terrance and Marcella Simien. Terrance is a two-time, Grammy-winning zydeco musician whose daughter Marcella performs her own spiritual and cultural interpretations. Crossroads wraps up Nov 19 with “Twenty Years of Valcour Records,” at musician Joel Savoy’s studio near Eunice. Savoy turned the spot that held his grandfather’s outdoor kitchen into a recording destination with multiple Grammy nominations, including the heralded “A Tribute to the King of Zydeco.”

Again, I pledge no fanboy behavior this year But I can’t wait to eat more musical cake and ice cream at Louisiana Crossroads.

Herman Fuselier is executive director of the St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission. A longtime journalist covering Louisiana music and culture, he lives in Opelousas. His “Zydeco Stomp” show airs at noon Saturdays on KRVS 88.7 FM.

staFF PHoto By LesLIe WestBrooK Fannie raber, left, and Verna yoder prepare a meal inside a temporary kitchen used by amish volunteers as they aid in hurricane recovery in 2022 in Lake Charles.

corridors.

staFF PHoto By LesLIe WestBrooK a native blueberry bush grows in stephen and Jen Fournet’s Lafayette garden.

staFF PHoto By CHrIs GraNGer a Louisiana Native Plant society Native Habitat certified yard on allen

toussaint Boulevard in New orleans

the yard of Cheryl and William reinhardt in Baton rouge features swamp sunflower, boneset and goldenrod, among other native plants.

ProVIDeD PHoto

LOUISIANACOOKS

Soul-satisfyingbut simple familyhit

Ground beef andpotatoesa hearty favorite

BY DEBRA TAGHEHCHIAN Contributing writer

“Momma, I’m coming home,” said my daughter who lives in Houston.“Can you pleasecook?” No sweeter words havebeen spokentothisCajun momma.

“What are you hungry for?” I asked.

“I just want something soul-satisfying. Make it simple,” she said “Weate so many rich foodsduring theholidays, and Ijust want simple, delicious home cooking.”

Well, that is exactly my style of cooking, so this was an easy task. Ithought back to my farm days and tried to remember what my momma would cook when we justwanted that soul-satisfying, hearty meal with no pretense simple but good.

Our go-to was ground beef and potatoes. In other parts of the country this might be considered apotato hash. We grew ourown

potatoes on the farm and stored and used them throughout the year. My mommathrew this simple dish together to feed her hungry family.Ihavecarried on this tradition and it is thedish my family requests when they return from traveling,havejustrecovered from an illness, or just want an uncomplicatedmeal. Iusually serve it over rice with asimple salad, andweusually pair it with saltine crackers or sliced white bread.

My children, grown now and with their own families, have modiﬁedthisrecipetotoday’s cookingtrends. My son likes to swapthe beef and white potatoes for groundturkeyand sweet potatoes.

Givethe recipe atry and put your own spin on it.It’sglutenfree, inexpensive and generally enjoyed by even thepickiest eater

Ground Beef and Potatoes

ground beef. Allow to cook undisturbed until beef is deeply caramelized. Stir and continue cookinguntil all beef is caramelized. 4. Addchoppedonion and chopped bell pepper.Cook 5minutes. Addminced garlic and cook for2minutes.Add potatoes and cook for 5minutes

5. Add1cup ofwater.Bring to a boil, reduce heattomedium-low and cover.Cook for approximately 20 minutes. Check for doneness andadd more water if needed untilthe potatoes areforktender

6. Taste for seasoning and adjustasneeded

Whyyou need dental insurance in retirement.

ManyAmericans arefortunate to have dental coveragefor their entire working life,through employer-provided benefits. When those benefits end with retirement, payingdental bills out-of-pocket can come as a shock,leading peopletoput offoreven go without care. Simplyput —without dental insurance, there may be an importantgap in your healthcarecoverage.

Whenyou’recomparing plans ...

 Look forcoveragewithnodeductibles. Some plans mayrequire you to pay hundredsout of pocket before benefits are paid.

 Shop forcoveragewithnoannual maximumoncash benefits.Some plans

Medicare doesn’tpay for dental care.1

That’s right. As good as Medicare is,itwas never meanttocover everything. That means if youwant protection, youneed to purchase individual insurance.

Early detectioncan prevent small problemsfrom becomingexpensive ones

The best way to preventlarge dental bills is preventive care. The American Dental Association recommends checkupstwiceayear.

Previous dental work canwearout

Even if you’ve hadqualitydentalwork in the past, youshouldn’t take your dentalhealth forgranted. In fact, your odds of havinga dentalproblemonly go up as youage.2

Treatment is expensive especially theservicespeople over 50 often need

Consider these national average costsof treatment. $274for acheckup $299 for afilling $1,471 foracrown.3 Unexpected bills likethiscan be areal burden, especially if you’reonafixedincome.  Look forcoveragethat helps pay formajor services. Some plans maylimit thenumber of procedures —orpay forpreventive care only.

PHoto By DeBra taGHeHCHIaN

Ground Beef and Potatoes can be servedoverrice with asimplesalad and paired with saltine crackers or sliced white bread.

BETWEEN THEPAGES

Plotting suspense in southLa.

shreveport author brings twists andturns

BY JOYHOLDEN staff writer

Monroe native Ashley Elston

author of six young adult novels andtwo adult novels,lives in Shreveport with her family Elston was aweddingphotographer who started writingbooks as acreative outlet after pausing her photography business when her third son was born. She published her ﬁrst book, “Rules for Disappearing,” in 2013. Her last book, “First LieWins,” gained national acclaim through Reese Witherspoon’sBook Club. Her new book, “Anatomy of an Alibi,” cameout Jan. 13 andis available at all local bookstores.

“Anatomy of an Alibi” is asuspenseful mystery that is set in St. Francisville and Baton Rouge.

One woman, Aubrey Price, agreestotake on Camille Bayliss’ identity for aday so Camille can investigate her husband Ben’sunusual behavior.The plan involves muchmore than what is originally agreed upon when Ben turns up murdered the next morning.

The two women get caught up in adecades-old secret that involves them both.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity

What drew you to Baton Rougeand St. Francisville as the setting for your new book?

All of my books have been set in Louisiana, and I’ve done some in Shreveport and some in madeup towns. We weredown in St Francisville acouple of years ago. It was just so cute, so quaint,so fun. And Iwas like, “I shouldset something here.”

Then we ended up going tothe Angola rodeo, and Ithought I had to use this in abook somehow.That’show Iwanted toitbe in St. Francisville. Then Ineeded

ProVIDeD PHoto

ashleyelston is the shreveport author of ‘First Lie Wins’ and ‘anatomyofanalibi.’

abig town, and Baton Rouge is the closest bigtown,sothat worked to allbe what Ineeded it to be

What wasyour process in getting to know the area?

I’ve been to Baton Rouge aton.

Ifelt pretty comfortable with Baton Rouge, andI do feel like, in general,there’salot of similarities between Baton Rouge and Shreveport Icame back toSt. Francisville last year when Iwas editing it, justtoride around again and makesure that what Iwas saying felt right for the place. Then Imade some tweaks and changes. That’sthe fun partofwriting. “Anatomy of an Alibi” hasmanycomplicated twists and turns, involving legaland business issues. How did you develop a plot likethat? It takesalot of different drafts for me. Idon’treally think of all thatatthe start. The ﬁrst draft

La.poetDavid

In the author photo for“Time Will Tell,” his newly collected poems, David Middleton greets readers with apen in his left shirt pocket, which reminded me of his fellow poet, Wendell Berry of Kentucky

I’ve seen many pictures of Berry in which he, too, totes a pen above his heart, poised to record whatever he seesbeyond his desk. For both of these poets, the work of words is aportable enterprise —acallinginwhich inspiration is more likely to strike in aﬁeld or along aroadway than withinthe cloister of a writer’sstudy Middleton, apoet-in-residence emeritus at NichollsState University in Thibodaux who’snow in his 70s, also invites comparisons with Berry becausethey’ve both been hailed as champions of the Southern Agrarian literary tradition. It’sasmuch asensibility as aphilosophy,evident in poems deeply informedbyearth and sky

One notable example is “The Farmer’sAlmanac,” aMiddleton poem in which he muses on those

old-fashioned farm and garden manuals that bloom from store shelves at this time of year.With their quaint etchings evoking an ancient past,the covers of these almanacs depict apioneer culture in which land promised not only practical wealth, but emotional and spiritual sustenance, too.

Middleton, with typical grace, puts it more succinctly: “Such pictures bear fair witness to atime /When heart and mind could know the world as one.

But for Middleton, almanacs offer more than mere nostalgia In their scrupulous attentionto the seasons, thesehumble texts still provide “news of what’s too precious to be news.”

In other words, the kind of

is typically abit morestraightforward. When Iknow whereI’m trying to go, what I’m trying to do, Iask,“How can Igotwist it up?”Then Iusually go back in and really look at each sceneand go, “How can Imake this better and dig alittlebit deeper?”

The characters in “Anatomy of an Alibi” are complex. What inspires you to create ambiguous characters?

That’swhat Ilove when I’m reading. When I’m writing, I hope to get acrossthat everybody’sabit complicated. Everybody is not just black or white.

Sometimes you’rebad, but you have good qualities,and sometimes you have great qualities, but you have acouple bad moments. Ithink that makes it so much more realistic and natural.

Ienjoy acomplicated character,and Ilike that you can’t decide whether youlike them or not

Just as the characters are multidimensional, the plot has manylayers. How did you getthat deep into the weeds of what the actual truth was?

Ispent alot of time thinking about those characters and how they would react, thethings they would do. Alot of it is just editing, revising, digging deeper, thinking pastthe surface to motivations

That’swhy it takes me along time between books —because Idospend alot of time trying to get as deep as Ican.

“First Lie Wins” received alot of national recognition. Were there anyexpectations for ”Anatomy of an Alibi”?

It’scrazy,especially because they’re my seventh andeighth books,and alot of people think it’s my ﬁrst and second. I’ve had books that come outthat nobody knew about —noattention and sales were abysmal. Istill think they’re as good as these books They just didn’tget the marketing dollars.

truth one is unlikely to ﬁnd on cable TV

“Time Will Tell” is necessarily aretrospective book; any volumethat collects more than 300 pages of poemsfrom several decades cannot help indulging a backward glance.

But these manypoems, mostly inspired by Louisiana locales,

Ithink also,though, thatallowed me to really appreciate what Idid get, because Ihave been on thatotherside.I’m so verywell awareofwhat that other side feels like,soitjust made this even sweeter What are you most proud of with“Anatomy of an Alibi?”

Finishing it. It wasextremely hardtowrite abookafter all of theattentionof“First Lie Wins.”

Ifelt like “First Like Wins” was

hispoems fromseveral decades. Middleton is poet-inresidence emeritus at Nicholls state University in thibodaux.

still crackle with the vitality of agreen and evolving world yet within our grasp —ifonly we take the time to look. These po-

like lightning in abottle. And I just thought, “Why would Ieven attempt to try to write something else?” So,I struggled, just wondering if it wasgoodenough. I secondguessedmyself in away thatIhad neverdonebefore. So,Iammostproud thatI actually ﬁnisheditbecause it was the book Iwas most scared to write.

Email Joy Holdenatjoy holden@theadvocate.com.

emshelp us see what endures, even among the ravages of change.

They’re shaped as muchbythe eye as the ear,and for good reason. Middleton describes himself as “a poet who paints with words,” the result of achildhood in his father’sart studio.

“Tomethe smell of oil paint is an aromaofthe soul, and my love of vivid images in poems comes from that art,” he writes in abrief afterword.

Examples of Middleton’spainterly eye abound. In “Toward North Louisiana,” he recounts a long drive past old farms: “Beside whose lonely houses lately placed /Satellite dishes whiten toward Orion.”

It’svintage Middleton, the commonplace and the cosmic keeping close company Time,welearn in this collection, does tell. These poems afﬁrm that for both Middleton and his readers, the years have been arevelation.

Email DannyHeitman at danny@dannyheitman.com.

Krewe of Iduna ‘travels to Wonderland’ for ‘mad’ time

Members of the Krewe of Iduna had a curiouser and curiouser time for their 65th annual Mardi Gras ball on Saturday at the Raising Cane’s River Center Exhibition Hall

Ball Captain Susan Bennett Lindrew represented “The Mad Hatter” and presided over the evening event, which took the theme “We’re All Mad Here.” Also reigning over the festivities were King Bragi LXV Brian George Aydell and Queen Iduna LXV Catherine Tomoko Poss. Attending court was “Lady-inWaiting” Lucy Ann Cheek. Pages Evelyn Reynolds and Amelia Baldridge attended the queen. Esquire to the court was Emmerson James Ford. Attending the king were pages Thomas Fletcher and John-Malcolm Green.

The maids, representing various characters of Wonderland, were presented to members and guests.

Emily McIntyre Parnell represented the “Queen of Hearts.” Her father, Eric Parnell, was her duke and escort.

Hollie Elizabeth Johnston was the “March Hare.” Her grandfather, Beryl “Bo” Stepp, served as her duke and escort.

Emma Lynn Smith represented the “Caterpillar.” Her duke and escort was her father, Michael Smith Mary Camille Naquin depicted “Alice.” Her father, Richard Naquin, was her duke and escort Addison Elizabeth Wolfe represented the “White Rabbit.” Her grandfather, Mic Clary, served as her duke and escort.

Elia Danielle Nassif was costumed as the “Cheshire Cat.” Her father, Gregory Nassif, was her duke and escort.

Master of Ceremonies Larry Rosendahl presented the whimsical tableau along with performances by the members of the krewe. Ladies I performed to “Crazy Train” and Ladies II danced to “Stray Cat Strut.” Krewe couples danced to “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Choreography was by Powell Moise

School of Dance. Ball Captain Lindrew designed costumes for herself and the royal court. Royal court costume execution was by D&D Creations of Kenner Camilla Ford of Ga-

briella Rothschilds designed and executed the royal crown. Following the tableau, The Bucktown Allstars of New Orleans entertained the krewe and guests with pop, oldies, blues, funk and soul music.

‘Stadium Tour’: Achilles turns 69th annual Carnival ball into live concert

The Mystic Krewe of Achilles celebrated its 69th annual Carnival ball on Saturday at the Raising Cane’s River Center

The krewe reveled in the excitement of the “Stadium Tour” theme, which gave them a live concert featuring “the greatest musical artists of all time.” The festivities commenced with the presentation of King Achilles LXIX Ryan Whittington and Queen Achilles Kristen Spring.

After the royal promenade, the royalty took their seats to be entertained by the tableau.

Achilles Ball Captain John Buzzell opened the show as “Backstreet Buzz,” performing the hit song “Everybody,” while accompanied by the Achilles professional dancers.

Royalty, krewe and guests were then entertained by the tableau members: Dr Christian Hall as Axl Rose, April Setliff as Gwen Stefani, Ryan Dimaggio as Harry Styles, Stephanie McCandless as Rihanna Dr Martin Setliff as Blake Shelton, Allyson Sadler as Pink, William Biossat as Post Malone, Jamie Hernandez as Sabrina Carpenter, Rebecca Klar as Taylor Swift, and Steve Maher as Freddie Mercury

John Herbert Boydstun III, Kirby Elaine Boydstun and Katharine Elizabeth Boydstun, children of Sarah and John Boydstun were pages to the king. Pages to the queen were Em-

ProVIDeD PHotos By aaroN HoGaN/eye WaNDer PHoto

royalty for the Krewe of achilles for 2026 are, from left, King ryan Whittington, Queen Kristen spring and Ball Captain John Buzzell.

malyn Smith and Addison Smith, children of Natalie and David Smith.

Mystic Krewe of Achilles ofﬁcers for 2025-2026 are Patrick B. Hall, president; M. Scott McKnight, president-elect; David Faulk, vice-president; Steve Maher, secretary; Pete Martinez, treasurer; Judson Sanders, tableau director; Jody Montelaro, assistant tableau director; Jeremy Vasquez, head committeeman; and John Ross Buzzell, immediate past president. Keith Dixon and Sarah Klocke directed the tableau, which was choreographed by Teresa Whitaker with special assistance from Leonard Augustus. Makeup for the tableau was provided by Sarah Bess Brown, of Kiss & Makeup, and hair styling was by Grace Genre.

Southdowns ‘vacations in the tropics’ for 39th annual Mardi Gras ball

The Krewe of Southdowns fastened its seat belts, prepared for takeoff, and celebrated its 39th annual Mardi Gras ball at De La Ronde Hall on Saturday The 2026 parade’s “Vacation” theme extended to the ball as well.

Southdown’s King Austin Staples and Queen Katherine Gladney arrived via catamaran to their tropical celebration, accompanied by Dr William Gladney, parade founder and Ball Captain Amy Moore. The grand marshal is Dr Beverly Gladney Staples is captain of the Lost Boys Krewe and has been a member of the Krewe of Southdowns since 1999.

Queen Gladney is the daughter of Dr and Mrs. William W. Gladney and has been a lifelong member of the krewe. She is also cofounder of the Krewe of Shrimp, and is a junior at LSU.

Guiding the 2026 royalty to their throne were 2025 King Keith Bonnette and Queen Cathy Raborn.

Bonnette, the master of ceremonies and cruise director, kicked off the onboard entertainment of the royal tableau with the royal bagpiper Stanley Masinter’s traditional melodies. First to arrive was Parade Captain Mike Raborn, followed by Flambeaux Corps ofﬁcers Hudson Chasteen, John Hogan and Kevin Stuart arriving in their newly refurbished 1950s Chevrolet Corvette convertible driven by former king and crown prince Jesse Gladney Krewe Solicitor Joe Simmons escorted royal treasury ofﬁcers Terri DuCote and Elizabeth Delaney from their taxi.

Dancing Girls Captain Ky Burke led her dancing troupe from the tarmac into the fes-

reigning

and

tivities with their tropical dances. Krewe Wizard Mim Aretsky lounged by the pool. Next to arrive were diplomatic ambassadors of far-off lands. Stranger Krewe, Lost Boys and Shrimp facilitated trade agreements. Meanwhile, Loose Krewe, Pigs, Gleaux and Yazoo showcased arts from their countries. All dignitaries presented postcards of their lands along with souvenirs to the 2026 royalty

As the sun set over the sea, travelers gathered at the tiki bar for happy hour before dinner catered by Rufﬁno’s at the resort. After the welcome feast, the revelers danced to the music of The Remnants.

and co-Captain Lance

Krewe goes ‘Live at the Apollo’ for 44th bal masque

The Krewe of Apollo–Baton Rouge celebrated its 44th annual Mardi Gras Bal Masque on Saturday at the Raising Cane’s River Center Ballroom.

More than 1,000 guests attended the event, which carried out the theme “Live at the Apollo.”

During the evening, Channing Gauthier was crowned King Apollo XLIV, and George Adam Graves, appearing as Madyson A Valentine, was named Queen Apollo XLIV

The evening began with a performance by The Petty Betty Band, followed by a welcome and presentation from President Gauthier, who shared updates on the krewe’s charitable efforts.

In 2025, the organization raised $27,408.85, assisted 22 individuals with $20,668.91 in aid, and awarded four scholarships totaling $8,000 through the AIDS-Crisis and KD Linkous-Smith Memorial Scholarship Fund.

As is tradition, last year’s royalty, King Apollo XLIII Timothy Cody Evans and Queen Apollo XLIII Benjamin Woods, appearing as Adriana Alexander, returned to reign over the evening.

Ball Captain Corey Tullier entered as Elvis Presley, while coCaptains Alvin McGee and Lance Martin performed as Whitney Houston and Sir Elton John, with support from the Baton Rouge BeignYAYS.

The tableau featured tributes to music legends, with Lester Mut as Bette Midler, Brittany King and Patrick Lebas as The Judds, John Deshotel Jr as George Mi-

chael, Eric Collier as Adele, Joe Boniol as Frank Sinatra, Justin Joseph and Trevor Rabalais as Lady Gaga, Shane Linkous-Smith as Prince, ﬁrst-time presenters Tam Leger and Ternelle Cross as Diana Ross and the Supremes, and Josh Richardson as Aerosmith.

A tribute to the late KD Linkous-Smith, a former krewe president who died in October, followed.

Other “music legends” included Aelisa Ockmand as Doug Kershaw, Trent Romero, winner of Apollo’s Lip Sync Battle, as Michael Jackson, Scot Aidt as the B52s, Lance Parker as Frankie Valli, ﬁrst-time costumers Neil Watkins and Casey Hebert as Shania Twain and Orville Peck, Trace Hollier as The Smiths, Tammi Aidt as Blondie, Da’Marquis Atkins as Patti LaBelle, and Wayne Walker as Dolly Parton.

A trumpet fanfare announced the arrival of Apollo’s new royalty

Their crowns and scepters were designed by Double D Jewels, and their backpieces were created by Josh Richardson and decorated by the royalty themselves. Trains and ﬂags were made by Shirley Kyle of Kyle’s Draperies, with additional embellishment by Ronald Doherty and the queen’s court. The evening concluded with the grand march, during which krewe members threw beads to guests, followed by callouts of special guests and the open court ceremony

ProVIDeD PHotos By LayNe PHotoGraPHy

King of Iduna royalty for 2026 are, from left, King Bragi LXV Brian George aydell, Ball Captain LXV susan Bennett Lindrew and Queen Iduna LXV Catherine tomoko Poss.

addison elizabeth Wolfe, from left, Mary Camille Naquin and elia Danielle Nassif served as maids in the Krewe of Iduna ball.

also serving as maids for the Krewe of Iduna are, from left, Hollie elizabeth Johnston, emily McIntyre Parnell and emma Lynn smith.

Performing in the achilles tableau were, from left, Jamie Hernandez, rebecca Klar, William Biossat, allyson sadler, steve Maher, stephanie McCandless, Christian Hall, ryan Dimaggio, april setliff and Martin setliff.

ProVIDeD PHoto royalty and leaders for the Krewe of apollo’s 44th annual Mardi Gras ball are, from left, Captain Corey tullier Queen apollo XLIV George adam Graves, King apollo XLIV Channing Gauthier, co-Captain alvin McGee

Martin.

ProVIDeD PHoto By PeterseN PHotoGraPHy

over the Krewe of southdowns’ 39th annual Mardi Gras ball were King austin staples

Queen Katherine Gladney.

Newspapernot thesameonlaptop

Dear Heloise: Iagree wholeheartedly about reading physical newspapers! My city had amorning and eveningpaper; Isubscribed to the evening paper.Then they decided to start publishing just one paper: the morning edition. Then the paper cut out the Sunday edition and combined it with Saturday’s. Long storyshort, I’m now on aroute that has the paper delivered through the United StatesPostal System due to the lack of aroute driver

So, Ireceive the morning paper in the afternoon when my mail comes and when USPS is on aholi-

Knock Knock holds ‘I Have ADreamDay’

Knock Knock Children’sMuseum in Baton Rouge celebrated thelifeand legacyofDr. Martin Luther King Jr.atits annual “I Have aDream Day” on Jan. 19 With special Monday hours, the museum welcomed more than 700 guests from across the community through special activities.

Students fromEastBaton Rouge’sspecial Talented Theater Department recitedaportion of King’sfamous “I Have aDream” speech, instructed by talentedtheaterdirector Fabiola Reno, representing Brownﬁelds Elementary Baton Rouge Center for Visual and Performing Arts and McKinley Elementary schools.

Children completed an “I Have ADream”reflection exercise and explored personal character traits likecourage, perseverance and compassion. Childrenalso learned about community service by assembling toiletry kits, which Knock Knock staffwill donate to those in need. Guests also “marched” through the museum to learn about King’s focus on peace and non-violence.

Cinéma Français

airing Sundays on LPB

Louisiana PublicBroadcasting’s ongoing showcase of Frenchheri-

day.I’m supposed to get it withthe next mail delivery,but it doesn’t always happen. Or the newspaper delivery person who drops the bundles off doesn’tactually drop then off. But Ienjoy reading aphysical paper.I’m waiting on afew editions to come back! Reading the newspaper isn’tthe same on my laptop!

—Vicki,in FortWayne,Indiana

Identifyingsocks

Dear Heloise: My solution to identifyingnavysocksversus black socks is to always turn black socks inside out. Just remember: “Blackout!” Thanks for all your hints! —Dean, in BatonRouge

Shopping safety

Dear Heloise: Iread ahint about

FYIBR staff reports

tage and language, Cinéma Français, is now showing at 10 p.m.Sunday nights. The program is hosted by Dr.William Arceneaux, the founder of La Fondation Louisiane and director of The Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting. The following ﬁlms will be featured: n “Madame Rosa” on Jan.25. Set in the working-class neighborhoods of Paris, this deeply humane drama followsanelderly Jewish woman devotedto caringfor thechildren of prostitutes.

n “L’Armée des Ombres” (Army of Shadows) on Feb. 1. In Nazi-occupied France, asmall group of Resistance ﬁghters moves in secrecy between safe houses and covert missions, bound by loyalty and haunted by betrayal.

n “La Banquiere” (The Lady Banker) on Feb. 8. Inspired by a true story,this historical drama traces the rise of EmmaEckhert from modest beginnings to ﬁnancial prominence between 1914 and1938.

n “Police Python 357” (The Case Against Ferro)onFeb.15. Aseasonedpolice inspectorbecomes ensnared in adeadlyweb of corruption when asecret relationship ends in murder

n “Un Coeur en Hiver” (A Heart in Winter) onFeb. 22. Set in the world of classicalmusic, this subtle drama follows agifted violinist

what alady did with her purse when she went shopping. Iwanted to add one additional safety measure. When Igoshopping, I usually carry anotebook with a pen attached that has my shopping list.Ialso carry my phone, which has amagnetic case and amagnetic wallet attached that carries my ID, acouple of credit cards, and $20; this all ﬁts in a jean pocket If Imust carry apurse, Ihave it in acart in front of me. Iuse thechild safetybelts to strap in my closed purse. If someone decides that they want my purse enough to walk off with it, they won’tget too far without my noticingbecause they cart will be going along withthem and make

drawn to areserved violin maker whose emotional distanceproves bothalluring and impenetrable.

100 Strong Baton Rouge chooses nominees

100 StrongBaton Rouge, founded by SaundraLane, Holly Andrews and Amy Andrews, is kickingoff the new year at 6p.m.Jan. 27 at Oak Lodge Reception and Event Center, 2905 Westfork Drive, BatonRouge. Three local nonproﬁts will present their causes to be the recipient of the 100 Strong donation: the Capital Area Autism Network,Booksfor Bootsand Metanoia Manor

TheCapitalArea Autism Network is an organization that finds solutions to address the needs of the autistic and neurodivergent community in the Capitalarea by hosting networking and educational events, collaborations and summits.

Booksfor Boothsisa volunteer nonproﬁt organization that provides new and gently used books, movies, music CDs, puzzles, craft items and moretomembers of the military, includinginjured recruits in basic training to veterans and children of military families.

Metanoia Manorwas foundedin 2018 by FatherJeffery Bayhi and is afaith-based residential facility that offers aplace of refuge to female adolescentvictims of humantrafﬁcking in which to heal physically and mentally

aracket. Ilove reading your hints daily —Janet Kumm, in Sioux City,Iowa Immediatestain removal

Dear Heloise: Like manyothers, I have enjoyed andused the hints from your column. Afew years ago, while we wereeating at our local sushi restaurant, my husband dripped somesoy sauce on his whitedress shirt. The sushi chef noticed it and told my husband to take alemon slice and rub it on thestain. It “erased” thestain immediately.Wewere amazed. —KathyMudrak,via email Avoiding drybread

Dear Heloise: When removing bread slices from abagged gro-

By the associated Press

cery store loaf,it’sbest to leave the heels in place and only take regular slices. The heels protect the rest of the loaf from drying out. —Jim R., in Houston Newuse forturmeric

Dear Heloise: To get rid of unwanted facial hair,Indian womenrub their faces with adiluted paste of turmeric powder before taking ashower.There’snoneed forrazors or harsh chemicals. —Vittal P., in Berwyn, Pennsylvania Vittal, does turmeric stain the skin? I’ve never heard of this method of hair removal before. Heloise Sendahinttoheloise@heloise com.

TODAYINHISTORY

andconspiracy in the 1969 slayings of sevenpeople,including actor SharonTate.

Today is Sunday,Jan. 25, the 25thday of 2026. There are 340 days left in the year

Todayinhistory: On Jan. 25, 2004, NASA’s Opportunity roverlanded on Mars and sent its ﬁrst pictures of theplanettoEarth; originally planned as a90-day mission, the rover remained operational for over 15 years, traveling atotal of 28 milesacrossthe planet’s surface. Also on this date:

In 1924, the ﬁrst WinterOlympic GamesopenedinChamonix, France.

In 1945, the World WarII Battleofthe Bulge ended as theGerman army concluded its ﬁnal offensive on the Western Front; approximately 19,000 U.S. soldiers were killedduring theﬁve-week campaign.

In 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the ﬁrst city to add ﬂuoride to its public water supply

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy held the ﬁrst live televised presidential news conference.

In 1971, Charles Manson and three of his followers were convicted in LosAngelesofmurder

In 2011, Egyptians began nationwide protests that forced longtime autocrat Hosni Mubaraktostepdownamid the ArabSpring uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa.

In 2021, President Joe Biden signedanorderreversing a Pentagonpolicythatlargely barredtransgenderpeople from military service.

In 2024, Alabama conducted the nation’sﬁrst execution using nitrogengas,putting to deathKenneth Eugene Smith for his conviction in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of apastor’swife

Today’sbirthdays: Football Hall of Famer Carl Elleris84. Actor Leigh Taylor-Young is 81.ActorJeniferLewis is 69.Hockey Hall of Famer Chris Chelios is 64. ActorAna Ortiz is 55. Actor Mia Kirshner is 51.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is 48. Soccer manager and former playerXaviis46. SingersongwriterAlicia Keys is 45. Football Hall of Famer Patrick Willis is 41. Actor-singerAriana DeBose is 35. RapperLil Mosey is 24.

PARADE

‘Everybody throws aparty now’:Growing cultural event hasbecomeanetworkingﬁxtureinthe nation’s capital

BY RICH COLLINS staff writer

On aweekday evening in early February 2023, RickyTempletwas visiting with friends and colleagues in the lounge of the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington,D.C Templet,then aJeffersonParish Council member,and his wife, Christine, had checked into the hotel thatday to attend events related to Washington Mardi Gras, an 8-decade-old celebrationofLouisiana culture that now draws more than 3,000 people to the nation’s capital to mingle with Louisiana’sfederal, state andlocal leaders As he waited for Christinetojoin him, Templet struck up aconversation withDavid Cresson, then the head of the Coastal Conservation Association of Louisiana,

BY ANTHONY McAULEY staff writer

For more than acentury, Fidelity

Orleans’ financial landscape, acommunity institution that weatheredwars,recessions and the long decline of the American savings and loans industry.Now,after agreeing to sell the mortgage subsidiary that onceanchored its expansion ambitions, the 115-year-old bankﬁnds

aboutanartiﬁcial reef project in hisdistrict. The discussion lasted only afew minutes, but it paid offbig. Templet said Cresson connected him with acorporatepartnerthatultimately pickedup most of the reef project’snearly $500,000 tab It might have been achance encounter, but in many respects, thatconversation—and countless others like it —are the reason that Washington Mardi Gras has become abigger andbigger draw for anyone doing business in the state.

“It’s the premier networkingevent forthe state of Louisiana,” Templet said in aphone interview last week. “It’sachance for all 64 parishestomeet with representativesand

ABOVE: U.s. rep troy Carter,D-New orleans, chairofthe 2025 Washington Mardi Gras, passes through acrowd of revelers on acart drivenbyJefferson Parish sheriff Joe Lopinto at athursday night party leading up to last year’sevent. LEFT: the rebirth Brass Band leads a second-lineatthe 2022 Washington Mardi Gras. ProVIDeD PHotos

Both newand used cars areexpensive debt traps

The affordability crisis in America is not ahoax. Just ask anyone in the market for acar

WASHINGTON

Continuedfrom page 1e

their peers, hear aboutthe best new ideas and move projects along.”

Whether it’snew or used,landing avehicle with amanageable monthly payment is increasingly difﬁcult. According to the car-shopping site Edmunds, more than 20% of new-car buyers are locked into monthly payments of $1,000 or more. That’s1in5 and an all-time high. But here is the truly troubling part: Holding down car ownership costs used to be arelatively simple call buy used, not new —but that advice is losingutility as prices for pre-owned vehicles soar

According to Edmunds,6.3% of used-car buyers face monthly payments of at least $1,000 based on fourth-quarter data. Shoppers,onaverage, are ﬁnancing nearly $30,000 of that purchase, stretching thosepayments out over 70 months.

For most Americans, acar isn’ta luxury; it’sarequirementtoget to work and keep the lights on, food on the table and aroof over their heads. But these numbers show that buying acar —new or used —has become adebt trap for many.The average monthly payment in the fourth quarter was $772 for new and $570 on used with interest rates of 6.7% and 10.6%, respectively “Combine super-high prices of these vehicles with interest ratesthat we haven’t seen since 2007, 2008, and we have this perfect storm of where you’re borrowing alot of money, expensively,” said Joseph Yoon, aconsumer insights analyst for Edmunds If you’re looking for avehicle, be realistic about what you can afford. Here are some critical questions you should ask yourself long before you start shopping.

What is the total cost of ownership?

Dealers want you to focus only on the monthly payment to deﬂect from the high interest rates available now and an extended loan term.But you have to look at the interest paid over the life of the loan, money that could be invested for retirement. Remember that new cars typically carry higher insurance premiums And keep in mind that the higher the car’sprice, the more salestax you will pay.

Tools like Edmunds’scar affordability calculator can be incredibly helpful. Use the calculatorbefore you start any car shopping.

What’smymonthly budget?

It used to be that housing or rent was ahousehold’sbiggest expense far exceeding any vehicle-related cost, Yoon said. “But now thosethings are neck and neck for alot of people.”

If your monthly car payment is starting to look like your rent or mortgage check, you’re probably overextended. To maintain ahealthy ﬁnancial balance in your budget, aim to keep it between 10% and 15% of your net pay

“Your total budget for transportation, including the loan and insurance payments, gas, and maintenance costs, should not exceed 20% of your net monthly income,” according to advice from Kelley Blue Book, which also has an affordability calculator How long can Iafford to go?

Afour-digit monthly payment is

FIDELITY

Continued from page1e

shareholdervalue,” Ferris said in an emailedresponse to questions. He described the transaction as “strategic,” allowing Fidelity to concentrate on business lending, which he said offers better longterm proﬁtability than mortgage origination.

Cuttingcosts,jobs

The terms of the NOLA Lending sale are yet to be set. Fidelitysaid the ﬁnal value of the transaction will be determined by an independent evaluation by the Feb. 28 closing date. NOLA Lending’sassets primarily consist of eight leased, stand-aloneofﬁcesand anetwork of roughly 85 mortgagebrokers, along with whatever value is assigned to the brand.

The sale also comes as Fidelity works to stabilize its ﬁnancial performance following its public debut. Despite modest loan growth, the bank has posted net losses since going public. FB Bancorp reported anet loss of $6.2 million for 2024. Results improved somewhat last year,with the loss narrowing to $2.7 million for the trailing 12 months ending Sept. 30. Cost cutting has been acentral part of that effort, including job cuts. TwoFidelity employees with knowledge of the situation who

obviously“shocking,”Yoon said. “But you have to realize we have that number becausethe average monthly payment is almost$800. And we’re not talking about extravagant, luxurious vehicles.Weare talkingabout cars that familiesare buying.”

Four-year auto loans wereoncethe norm. Now,toease the ﬁnancial sting of steep vehicleprices andhigherauto-loan interestrates, car buyers are extending theirloan terms to seven years or longer.Willwesoon have a 10-year autoloan?

The larger the loan payment, the more likely it will compete with other essentialsaving goals. Keep theloan term as short as possible. Don’tjustdefault to the longer termsthe dealer may suggest to get you into the car

If you havetoextend the loan past sixyears, which is already along time, it’saclear sign youprobably can’taffordthe car Will Ibecar poor?

An increasingnumberofconsumers with auto loans wereupside-down, meaning they owed more on the vehicle than it was worth.

According to the latest report from Edmunds, 28.1% of trade-ins applied toward anew-vehiclepurchase had negative equity,arecord high. The average amount owed on an upsidedown loan reached an all-timehigh of $6,905 in the third quarteroflast year.

More alarmingly,24.7% of these drivers owed more than $10,000, and 8.3% owed morethan $15,000.

Here’swhy this can become aproblem. Borrowers who lack thecash to payoff their previous loan often roll that negativeequity into the new one. That’show somecar buyers endup with monthlypayments of more than $1,000.

“Ifyou have avehicle right now, and you’re shopping for another car forwhatever reasonitmay be,please, please, please, make sure that you’re not underwater,” Yoon said.

Can Ikeep my current car longer?

Your car’satthe repair shop. The service agent calls with an estimate that makes you wanttoscream.

After the initial shock, you might look up yourcar’s value andsee it’s less than the repairbill. Youstart wondering whetheritwould be better to just replace it.

But is it better?

A$2,000 transmission repair is far less expensive than borrowing for a $30,000 used car

However,atsome point, if your car is becoming unsafe or so unreliable that you areconstantlystranded, replacing it makes ﬁnancial sense

In this case, Yoon said, be sure to get an independent quote for thevalue of your vehiclebefore yougotothe dealership.

Is the purchase awant or aneed?

Be honest withyourself

Do you really need to buy a$60,000 SUVwhen a$25,000 used sedan with the samesafetyfeatures will do?

Do you need that third roworextended cargo space for theoccasional times you need to move furniture?

Affordability is increasingly difﬁcult in today’scar market because so much is out ofyourcontrol.But by doing the math, youcan ensure your next vehicle purchase doesn’t become aﬁnancial anchor that weighs down your budget for thenextdecade.

Email Michelle Singletary at michelle.singletary@washpost.com.

were not at liberty to speak on the record said roughly40positions —justover 10% of the workforce —have been eliminated since the conversion. Ferris declined to commentonspecific joblosses, saying they were not yet public information, but acknowledged the broader push for efﬁciency “We’ve takendeliberate steps to improve efﬁciency across the organization,” he said. “These actions allowustooperatemore effectively while continuing to invest in our clients and the value we deliver to shareholders.”

Despite its long history,Fidelity remains small by modern banking standards. FB Bancorp’s market capitalization is about $224 million, and Fidelity Bank holds nearly $1.3 billioninassets.Byway of comparison, Hancock Whitney often considered amidsized Gulf South regional bank —has roughly $35 billion in assets.

That imbalance reﬂectsanational trend.Since theearly 2000s, the number of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.-insured banks in the U.S. has fallen sharply,asrising regulatory costs, technology investments and competitive pressures have favored scale. While there are occasionalsuccess stories —such as TABBank of Utah, which evolved from aniche “mobile bank”for truckers into atechforwarddigital lender —those cases are rare. Academic research led by LSU

At this year’sD.C.MardiGras, Tuesdaythrough Feb. 1, there will be more of thosebusiness networking opportunities than ever beforeasmore groups host receptions, schedule panels and setuphospitality suites in the hopesofcapturingmoreofthat deal-making magic.

It’s all happening because recent history showsthat, despitethe event’sboozyand festiveatmosphere,it’sa timeand placewhere acriticalmassof decision-makersget together to make dealshappen.

“If you madealist of thethousand most inﬂuentialpoliticians and privatesector leaders in Louisiana—CEOs, elected ofﬁcials, lobbyists, subject matter experts, you name it —they are all there,” said Susan Bourgeois,secretary of Louisiana Economic Development,a state agency thatisincreasing its presenceatD.C.MardiGras this year.“There’s no denying the effectiveness of attending.

‘Target-rich environment’ Templet’s coastalrestoration windfallisfar fromthe only successfuldeal to come outofspurof-the-moment conversations at Washington Mardi Gras.

What could become thebiggest outside investment in Louisiana history, the Meta Hyperion data center in north Louisiana, was partially conceived during interactions at the2024 gathering, when executives from Entergy, thestate’sbiggestutility, tipped off leaders at LED that Meta was on thehuntfor alocation for its massive project.

On asmaller scale, but still transformational, the$200 million redevelopmentofthe former Cortana Mall site in Baton Rouge intoanAmazondistribution center also traces its roots to WashingtonMardi Gras, when execs of thetech company struck up adialogue with members of theBaton Rouge Area Chamber,according to Adam Knapp, the chamber’sformer CEO who now leads Leaders for aBetterLouisiana, the state’s business roundtable

“Wescheduled ameeting in the hallways at the Hilton to brainstorm site selection,” Knapp said. “They had some fulﬁllment centers at that point but hadn’t yetbuilt large distributionfacilities in the state.”

Hoping to createmore moments like that, Louisiana business champions arecreating more opportunities fornetworking. That means an event that began in 1945 as apartyfor homesick politicos has evolved into amore decentralized business gathering thathas programming for plenty of people whomay not even attend eventsproduced by The MystickKrewe of Louisianians,the privatesocialorganization thathosts the Saturdaynight ball andother parties. In the WashingtonHilton —the event’sepicenter —businesses,

ﬁnance professor Rajesh Narayanan has shown thatdeclining relianceonphysical branchesand the growing efficiency of large bankingnetworkshaveaccelerated consolidation, particularly since 2010. As digital banking reduced the economic valueof dense branchfootprints, larger institutions gained astructural advantage.

Louisianahas followed the same trajectory.FDIC data show asteady decline in thenumber of banks headquarteredinthe state over thepastdecade, with mergersfar outpacingnew charters and leaving asmaller group of institutions controlling alarger share of assets.

GuyWilliamson, CEO of Gulf CoastBank &Trust,saidthe consolidation mirrors broader economic realities in Louisiana.

“The banking sector reﬂects the underlying economy,” Williamson said. “Louisiana has faced alot of challenges in recent years.”He pointedtoimproving momentum from anew city administration in New Orleans and recent state tax reforms, but said those positives are counterbalanced by higher interest rates and persistently high insurance costs.

Fidelity’sown history mirrors many of those broader shifts.

Founded in 1908 as FidelityHomestead Association, the institution was created to promote thrift and homeownership, amission typi-

nonproﬁts,chambers andothers pay for hospitality suites that welcome visitors and meetings throughout theweek.A Friday economic development lunch has becomeaparticularly indemand gathering.

“Everybody throws aparty now,”saidRuthLawson,president of the Jefferson Chamber, whichhas hosted events for nearly two decades. “You could be at adifferentevent every 10 minutes.”

Three yearsago,Greater New Orleans Inc., the south Louisianaregional economic development nonproﬁt, began co-hosting events at the Hilton as well.

Jasmine Brown DeRousselle, who oversees GNO Inc.’sannualbrunch, said she’sseen an increase in business events just in the four yearsshe’s attended.

“That’swhy we started ourseries,” she said. “A lot of people didn’tknow how to be apart of the moment without being in the krewe.” LED is revving up newprogramming this year,too, debuting what Bourgeois calls a“hospitality suiteonsteroids” at the Hilton. The space, modeled after atent theagencyset up in downtown New Orleansbeforelast year’sSuperBowl,will host panels on the energy and logistics industries, and aconversation focusedoninnovation

Bourgeois, who plans to spend the entire week in D.C.,saidmost of her senior staff is attending the event as well because “there is no moretarget-rich environment for theworkwedo.”

Beyond theHilton

Washington Mardi Gras programming has long since outgrown the Hilton,where oneof the lounges is temporarily renamed “The 65th Parish” forthe occasion andrumorhas it that the weekendsetsrecords forliquorsales For thelastthreeyears, the New OrleansChamber has hosted ahospitalitysuiteand receptionacross the street at The Churchill Hotel. Thechamber has a40-room block to accommodate anyone whowants to be close but not too close to the action across the street. The Thursdaynight reception,expected to draw several hundred people, attracts elected officials and business leaders from allover the state who want to make connections withtheir counterparts in New Orleans. A10-minute drive away,The WillardHotel hasbeen home to D.C.Mardi Gras-related events for morethana decade. There, Leaders for aBetter

cal of early savings and loans. For decades, it was closelyassociated with the Andry family,which guidedthe bank across multiple generations through muchofthe 20th century.Overtime,Fidelity evolved alongside the industry, changing itsname, expanding its productofferings and ultimately shedding the“homestead” designation altogether

The 2014 acquisition of NOLA Lending marked one of its most ambitious growth bets. Adecade later,the decision to sellthat unit underscoreshow much the banking environment has changed.

Sharebuyback rationale

Forinvestors, oneofthe most telling signals may be how Fidelityisdeploying its capital. Shares of FB Bancorp have mostly traded above their initial $10 offering price andwere around $12.50 in mid-January.Gavin Magor,ananalyst at Weiss Ratings, noted that the company has spent about $25 million buyingback roughly10% of its own shares at an average price of $12.725.

“Typically,whena company buys back its own shares, it’ssaying it would ratherreturn money to shareholders than invest it in growth,” Magorsaid. FB Bancorp is categorized as an “emerging growth” company on Nasdaq, but Magor said its behavior suggests otherwise. “Banks of this size nowadays

Louisiana (formerlythe Committee of 100 and Council for aBetterLouisiana) hosts amembersonly conferenceofthe state’s top CEOs on Wednesday and Thursdaybefore theWashington Mardi Gras ball. Several hundred members attend daytime policy briefings, meetings on Capitol Hill andplentyofparties “Credit to my predecessors, who sawanopportunitytodo morethan the economic development lunch,” saidKnapp. “So many business leadersare there alreadythatit’sanopportunity to give them more contentabout big issues.”

Throughout the week,other businesses and organizations host events in Capitol Hill ofﬁces, corporate lobbies, embassies and other locationsaround town. Entergy is afrequent host, as aretrade groups representing the state’senergy,petrochemical andportindustries.

It all can test the average human’scapabilityfor schmoozing, but Gray Stream,the Lake Charles-based businessman who is serving as theceremonial king of this year’sevent, said he’smaking apoint to attend as many events as possible to help promote thestate.

He’s also spending big to host aking’slunch of his own, meaning he and his family have been planning invitations, menus and other details formonths.

“My wife is calling the whole thing ‘Gray’swedding,’” he said. Newperspective

Bryan Jones, an executive at thenational infrastructure ﬁrm HNTB, has anew perspective on the event that he’s attendedfor roughly 15 years.

Amember of the krewe that hosts it,Jones said he andhis wife usedtotreat the gathering like aweekendgetaway,leaving the kids homewith their parents. Now thathe’sbeenpromoted to HNTB’s Washington, D.C.,ofﬁce, where he oversees thecompany’sMid-Atlanticfootprint,he has to balance the party with getting home in time to make lunches and help with homework, but he sees the business value more than ever

“Washington Mardi Gras allows forpeople to gettogether outside of Louisiana,haveconversations about business and politics, build those relationshipsand then come back home andsee thosedealsthrough,”he said. “Someofmyclosest business relationships over the years have been forgedthere.”

Email RichCollins at rich. collins@theadvocate.com

are either going to be acquiring or they’re waiting to get acquired,” he said. “Clearly,they’re not in a position to be acquiring andseem more likely to be positioning themselves to be acquired.”

Fidelity has indicated it plans to continue repurchasing shares.

“A buyback allowsustodeploy excess capital in away that enhances long-termshareholder value,” Ferris said. “Just as important,itunderscores ourconﬁdence in Fidelity Bank’sstrategy and future growth.”

Big investment groups, including Principal Global Investors and BlackRock, own large chunks of FB Bancorp shares, though the majority is owned by small investors. Fidelity employees own just under10% andseniorexecutives, including Ferris, ownabout 4%. Ferrissaidthatgrowth remains part of the bank’sstrategy.Fidelity recently opened anew ofﬁce in Lafayette, andhesaidearly results there have been encouraging.

“The early success of our new Lafayette ofﬁce reinforces our beliefthat our community-banking model travelswellwhen we stay focusedonwhat we do best building local relationshipsand delivering personalized service,” Ferris said. “At the same time, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to expand geographically.”

Email Anthony McAuley tmcauley@theadvocate.com.

staFFFILe PHotoByCHrIs GraNGer 2024 KingDrewBrees, center,carries his saints helmet scepter at the Washington Mardi Gras Ball at the Washington Hilton.

Michelle Singletary

tHe CoLor

oF MoNey

Bourgeois

AREYOU A LOUISIANA BUSINESS?

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TALKING BUSINESS

ASK THE EXPERTS

Networking group helping founders become better leaders

BY RICH COLLINS staff writer

Marie Powell’s art degree

helped prepare her for the creative demands of running her 15-year-old advertising ﬁrm, Brew Agency, which has created campaigns for clients that include Delgado Community College, The Boot and a new state-funded nonproﬁt.

But, as Powell’s Baton Rougebased venture has grown, she has had to learn on-the-job the business skills required to run a company that now has more than 10 employees and annual revenues of more than $1 million. For help, she’s turned to networking groups and training opportunities like the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program and the CEO Roundtables organized by the Louisiana’s economic development agency

But, Powell said, she found something uniquely helpful after joining the local chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization, a global, peer-to-peer network designed to help business founders learn to be better leaders and grow their companies.

Powell joined the group in 2021 and, four years later, became president of its Louisiana chapter, which includes more than 80 local business owners, some of them among the region’s most high-proﬁle startup founders. The group includes Franziska Trautmann, co-founder of the recycling company Glass Half Full; Conway Solomon, whose tech company WRSTBND was acquired by a huge entertainment company two years ago; and Christa Cotton, owner of the El Guapo brand of cocktail bitters and syrups, which just made it onto Walmart shelves. In this week’s Talking Business, Powell explains how Entrepre-

“Running

founder of Brew agency and president of the

neurs’ Organization works, why she signed on to lead it and how the group’s business accelerator program is designed to create future members. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity

You’ve run the Brew Agency for more than a decade. What is one of your notable campaigns?

We ran the public launch of LA Wallet, which made our state the ﬁrst in the U.S. to fully launch a digital ID At the time, no one

knew what it was There were zero users We had to get the public and businesses to understand how it worked and that it was a legally accepted form of identiﬁcation. To date, more than 75% of Louisiana drivers use the app. We were responsible for strategy and execution of the initial marketing campaign.

What is Entrepreneurs’ Organization and how did you get involved?

EO is a nonprofit, global community of nearly 20,000 members

in more than 80 countries. There are individual and regional chapters. We’ve got about 90 people in Louisiana, all with businesses that make at least $1 million in annual revenue. Running a business is hard. It’s not for the faint of heart. EO offers a community and support system for business leaders to learn and grow together

How and why did you join?

I got involved because I was a business owner and was looking for a community and network of other business owners that I could talk to. I was recruited by Mark Lewis, who runs the CEO roundtables for Louisiana Economic Development.

No one ever really taught me how to run a company I just knew how to do the work and slowly got clients and continued to grow

I started doing a variety of different networking groups, but there is nothing like EO, which focuses on the whole of the entrepreneur It’s not just about business strategies, growth, HR and legal issues. It actually gets into the personal side of the entrepreneur as well.

EO produces local educational events, and members have the option to attend big national and international gatherings, but it sounds like the most important work happens at your regular “forum” meetings. What are those about?

There are usually seven or eight members in a forum and within that group we share experiences talk about the highs and lows and share what’s going on in our personal lives because, as entrepreneurs, our business lives kind of bleed into everything that we do. We take the work home with us.

There’s training that’s involved. They teach us how to communicate. We don’t give advice; we don’t tell each other what to do. But we share experiences that resonate. It sounds like therapy.

We say it’s not therapy, but it’s therapeutic And we say forum is a gym, not a spa. You’re there to

work, and the stuff we talk about, it’s pretty deep. You’re with these people once a month for years. Why don’t you give advice?

Most people, and especially entrepreneurs, don’t like to be told what to do. They know their company better than anybody else.

It’s a leadership skill to be able to have a conversation with somebody and have them express what they’re going through and then not immediately give advice.

What’s the EO vibe? Who joins?

If you are the smartest person in the room, you don’t belong in EO.

If you are somebody who can use every circumstance and every situation to learn and grow from the people around you, that’s a good ﬁt.

Conﬁdentiality is hugely important. We’re talking about very personal things about our businesses, so trust and respect is essential. We’re all a little eccentric. Everybody’s got big personalities and are somewhat fearless. I think that’s a commonality among people who start businesses and are able to be successful.

I think the median age is probably in the early 40s, but there also are younger people and there are certainly some that have approached retirement and that have even sold their businesses.

Do you talk about challenges that are specific to being entrepreneurs here in Louisiana in 2026?

We talk about anything and everything that’s relevant to our businesses, including tariffs, other issues and how we’re working to get through them.

Within one forum, there may be people that have very different political views, might have very different religious views, might have very different styles of communication. But all the things you think we might disagree on, all that goes out the window and we really just truly connect on a fundamental level.

Email Rich Collins at rich. collins@theadvocate.com.

ProVIDeD PHoto By Bret LoVetro

MarIe PoWeLL,

ACROSS THE REGION

Robots to do ‘dull,’ ‘dangerous’ jobs, developers say

st. Bernard-based company to build humanoid welders for industrial uses

BY RICH COLLINS staff writer

Humanoid robot welders are coming to St. Bernard Parish.

On Thursday, Louisiana’s economic development agency and St. Bernard-based SSE Steel Fabrication announced an agreement with Houston-based tech startup Persona AI to launch a pilot program at SSE to develop humanoid robotics for industrial uses. Greater New Orleans Inc., southeast Louisiana’s economic development nonproﬁt, also is participating.

The pilot program is scheduled to begin in the ﬁrst quarter of this year at SSE’s Violet facility, about a 30-minute drive from downtown New Orleans. The company is a woman-owned steel fabrication contractor that specializes in structural fabrication for commercial, industrial and municipal projects across the United States.

Under the terms of the nonbinding agreement, Louisiana Economic Development will commit up to $50,000 to cover the cost of Persona employees traveling to Louisiana from the company’s headquarters in Houston and its ofﬁce in Pensacola, Florida

If performance thresholds are met, LED also will negotiate in good faith for a lease of two humanoid robots from Persona for operational testing and deployment at SSE.

Persona views the pilot as a chance to collect data and gain real-world validation ahead of wider deployments of the machines. For local business champions, it’s a chance for the state to get ahead of technological changes that could affect legacy industries and a ﬁrst step toward becoming a proving ground.

“The only way to see if technology is a net positive or negative is

Grady Fitzpatrick, from left, chief business development officer

PHoto

steel Fabrication; Mindy Nunez airhart, sse Ceo; and Jonathan reichel, Persona’s principal marketing architect, take part in an announcement of a pilot program to develop humanoid robotics for industrial uses.

to test it,” Josh Fleig, LED’s chief innovation ofﬁcer, said in a phone interview. “We want to get our hands dirty and ﬁnd out of these things can weld effectively in a Louisiana steel fabrication facility If it works, we’ll try to capture some of that value.”

The memorandum of understanding, signed last week, lays out a three-phase rollout of the machines in Louisiana.

First, Persona will send engineers to SSE to study the behavior of human welders, some of whom will be wearing motion capture suits as they work. The goal is to gather data that will help the company build hardware and software, which will be deployed slowly and incrementally until it can eventually take over tasks, working alongside tradespeople.

In the second phase, LED will lease two of the robots for testing

at SSE under Persona’s supervision. If the robots are a success, the state could lease more robots to use at other facilities around the state.

“This collaboration allows us to explore emerging technologies where they matter most, on the shop ﬂoor not in a lab,” Justin Airhart, chief operations officer of SSE Steel Fabrication, said in a statement.

‘Declining’ jobs?

Launched in 2024 by Nicolaus Radford, Jerry Pratt and Jide Akinyode, Persona aims to develop intelligent humanoid robots designed for industrial use.

After working for nearly eight years in NASA robotics labs and founding a separate venture, Nauticus Robotics, Radford said he created the new company to ﬁnd realworld uses for the machines He

Beyond Boundaries.

Thehealthcareindustryhas asingle constant:change.

As thefastest-growing sector of theAmerican economy, thehealthcareindustryisalwaysinastate of change in response to macroeconomic forces, thepublic’sdemand forhigh-quality andaccessible healthcare,and ﬁscal constraints. We help ourclients successfullynavigatea challenging andconstantly evolving business andregulatory landscape as they create andrespond to newdeliverymodelstomeet thesenew challenges.

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thinks industrial applications make more sense than the “household” prototypes that have drawn laughs on social media and late-night talk shows as they are seen in videos struggling to load a dishwasher or washing machine.

Persona’s rugged humanoid platforms are being designed to operate in environments originally built for humans rather than the existing ﬁxed industrial robots that operate in settings purpose-built for automation. The hope is that the humanoid machines will be able to use existing tools, navigate uneven terrain and adapt to changing conditions the same way a person would.

Radford and his co-founders are building machines to perform what they call “dull, dirty dangerous and declining” jobs. Radford said the machines will augment, not replace, human workers as they take

on high-risk or hard-to-staff tasks while experienced tradespeople move into supervisory and quality assurance roles.

“Three or four years ago, humanoids were still just really research things you’d see in YouTube videos,” Radford said during an interview recently after a signing ceremony at SSE. “Now, with modern AI, they are becoming really usable and something you can build a business around. That’s why there’s a gold rush.”

Last May, Persona signed an agreement with HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering and HD Hyundai Robotic with the goal of delivering prototype humanoid robots capable of performing complex welding tasks by the end of this year The deal says Persona will develop the hardware and artiﬁcial intelligence software, while another company creates the welding tools.

The Louisiana pilot program that will precede that project came together when SSE’s Airhart, whose wife, Mindy Nunez Airhart, is SSE’s CEO, reached out to Persona to suggest a collaboration after seeing stories online about the company

On Jan. 16, Radford, the Airharts and state and local ofﬁcials gathered for a photo opportunity and signing ceremony at SSE. A couple of Persona employees carried a foam mockup of the welding robots across the facility’s gravel parking lot as stakeholders hopped into cars to drive to downtown New Orleans for a second signing ceremony

The pilot comes as tech companies are making progress developing humanoid robots worldwide, though the machines still aren’t in widespread use.

“Our position is not AI is good or AI is bad, but AI is coming so we’d better jump in and ﬁgure what kind of value it brings to Louisiana,” said LED’s Fleig. “We’re dispassionate about it, although I personally geek out on the tech.” Email Rich Collins at rich. collins@theadvocate.com

Although pandemic-eraflexibilities have largely expired, telemedicine anddigitalhealthremain integral to thecountry’s healthcare delivery. Regulatory uncertainty, fundingcuts, and fragmentedstate laws create compliance pressure,while artificialintelligence(AI) integrationacceleratesdiagnostics and workflowoptimizationbut raises apprehension around bias,liability,and cybersecurity. However, global initiativesreinforce digital health’s importanceworldwideand venture capitalremainsstrong forclinicallyvalidated solutions,signaling resilience despiteeconomic volatility.Ultimately, success hingesonrobust complianceframeworksand balanced regulation to sustain access,efficiency,and qualityinanevolvingtelemedicine and digitalhealthcarelandscape

Ourﬁrm is proudtohelpleadthe wayforwardfor Louisiana healthcare providersand supportcompanies as they undergo digitaltransformationand adapttoa dynamicand intricatelegal andregulatoryenvironment.

ProVIDeD

at Greater New orleans Inc.; Madeline trudeau Kawanaka, Louisiana economic Development’s director of innovation programs; Josh Fleig, LeD’s chief innovation officer; Nic radford, founder of Persona aI; Justin airhart, chief operating officer at sse

Nadiadela Houssaye

staff report

South Louisiana businesses and nonproﬁt groups recentlyannounced the following promotions and new hires.

BatonRouge

Adams &Reese announced it has hired nine attorneys andfour professional staff members from McGlinchey Stafford, doubling the size of its Baton Rouge ofﬁce.New hires

include RudyAguilar, Jean-Paul“J-P”Perrault, Zelma MurrayFrederick Marshall Grodner

Aukse Joiner, Elisabeth LeBlanc, Kristi Wagley

Richard, Patrick Riley and Michael Rubin

Tanger Outlets Gonzales announced the hiring of JimmyFredrick as its marketing director.Frederick, whospent 25 years as aradio and television sportscaster,previously worked as communications director for the Coalitionto Restore Coastal Louisiana and chief marketing ofﬁcer for Knock Knock Children’sMuseum.

Investar Bank announced several promotions in December

Jeff Blum,has been promoted to chief banking ofﬁcer.Hepreviously served as executive vice president and regional president of the Western Division.

Jeffrey Martin was named chief risk ofﬁcer after astint as executive vice president and chief credit ofﬁcer

Corey Moore was promoted from executive vice president and chief ac-

Fool’sTake: Powering artificial intelligence

Nvidia (Nasdaq: NVDA) may be themost well-known artiﬁcial intelligence and semiconductor stock on theplanet

PEOPLE IN BUSINESS

counting officer to deputychief financial officer

Renee Graff,who hasworkedfor the bank for morethan 15 years, was promoted from treasurertochief accounting ofﬁcer

Byron Breaux was promoted to executive vice president and will serve as the western regional president

Paul Judice,the C&Igroup manager, has been promoted to Baton Rouge marketpresident

MaryGuidry was promoted from commercial group manager to Lafayette market president and will continue as directorofpublic ﬁnance

Beau Phares,the C&I marketmanager for Lafayette, will now supervise more employees in theEvangeline and Lake Charles markets

The Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnershipnamed 40 members of itsLeadership BatonRouge Class of 2026: RobbyAbboud,Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnership; Marcus Alexander,GulfCoast Social Services; Victoria Armstrong,Thrive Foundation; Trey Bartholomew,JonesWalker LLP; Robyn Bentley,University View Academy; Christina Boudreaux,ConnectlyRecruiting; Sharneitha Bradford,MaryBird Perkins CancerCenter; Dorcas Brandon TheRed Shoes; Fran’Cee Brown-McClure, LSU Division of Student Affairs; and Rebekah Brumfield,JeanEllen Home and Lifestyle Collection. Also, Chaz Cooper,Baton Rouge General; Ashley Cox Coates,Louisiana Department of Health; Amrika Dass,Ochsner

and net incomeclimbing by doubledigits yearoveryear in recent quarters.

Health; AliciaDavidson,Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance; Dr.Michelle Dennis,FranciscanMissionariesof Our LadyHealth System; JulieDonald, Covalent Logic; Erin DougetCook,CysticFibrosis Foundation; Maegan Dunn, Woman’s Hospital; Crystal Ellis,Rouxted Growth Co.; and Monica Guient,LSU Also, Dexter Jackson,MidCity Redevelopment Alliance; I’TyonnieJackson, Southern University Law Center; Paul Jackson,Scotlandville Magnet High School; Carrie LeBlanc Jones,Breazeale, Sachse &WilsonLLP; Lacey Kelly,Baton Rouge Community College TRIO Educational Opportunity Center; Josh Landry,YMCA of theCapital Area; Kelsey Livingston,Baton Rouge Gallery; John Nettles,Entergy; Liz Pfifer,Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank; and Devan Richard,Collegiate Academies. Also, ShantéHarvey Robins,East Baton Rouge ParishDistrict Attorney’s Ofﬁce; Dana Schlotterer,Young Entrepreneurs AcademyofBaton Rouge; Lois Smyth,Louisiana Policy Institute forChildren; Caitlin Springer,Mauldin &Jenkins; Ashlee Summers,Emergent Method; Leah Taylor,Baton Rouge Area Foundation; Porcha Thompson,Baton Rouge Police Department; Matthew Vicknair,LouisianaBlue; Latoria Williams, b1BANK, Talent DevelopmentOfﬁcer;and Chris Yandle,Louisiana Board of Regents.

NewOrleans

JoeAnn Lawrence,the deputy district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration Louisiana, is retiring.

and retreated in 21.

Lawrence worked forthe SBA for 51 years, including morethana decade as deputy district director

The nonproﬁt Pontchartrain Conservancyannounced its 2026 board, including Chair NatalieRobottom,Vice Chair ElizabethEllisonFrost,Secretary Danielle Bourg and Treasurer BriceHoward.Other directors include JenniferArmentor, LaurenAverill, Derek Bessler

Do you have personnel changes to share or other ideas forour businesscoverage? Drop us aline at biztips@theadvocate.com. Robottom

The nonprofit Daughters Beyond Incarceration announcedanew

The tech giant makes the graphics processing units that fuel top AI tasks such as the training of large language models,or inferencing whenanAImodel applies that training to answer aquestion or solve aproblem. Nvidia’searly entrance intothe AI market gave it ahugeadvantage, andits focus on innovation has kept it in the top spot

All of this has led to enormous gains in earnings, with revenue

Nvidia has powered the early phases ofthe AIboom,but the company is also well positioned to drive the next chapters. This is because it has tailored its chips to serveinferencing —seen as the next big growtharea for AI and expanded its offerings into a variety of products andservices to suit customers’ AI needs.

Nvidia has also made smart strategic moves, such as partneringwith Nokia to develop AI for telecom

Just recently,it acquired the inferencing technology of chip startup Groq. Nvidia is likely to continue growing brisklyasthe AI story unfolds. With areasonable valuation at recentlevels, it’swell

worth consideration by longterminvestors. (TheMotley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia.)

Fool’sSchool: Expect volatility with stocks Investorscan get rattled when thestock market —oraparticular stock —pulls back sharply Butifyou’re going to invest in the stock market,you must expect volatility. Fortunately,volatility is generally not abad thing, as long as you expect and prepare for it. After all, over many decades, thestock market has kept going up and settingnew records —despite occasional big and small pullbacks.

Per Hartford Funds, over the 88 years including 1937 through 2024, stocks advanced in 67 years

Over the 84 ﬁve-year holding periods in that sametimeframe, stocks were up 90% of the time and 97% of the timefor 10-year holding periods.

Meanwhile, the stock market, as measured by the S&P 500 index of 500 of America’sbiggest companies, has averaged annual total returnsofclose to 10% over nearly 100 years.

Those returns vary widely, though: The S&P 500 advanced by double digits each year from 2019 through 2025, except fora double-digit loss of morethan 19% in 2022. In any given year, thestock market could jump by 30% or plunge by 35% or post a gain of 1%

This unpredictability is why you shouldn’tput any money you might need within ﬁve years (or

10, to be moreconservative) into the stock market.

But forlong-term dollars, it’s hard to ﬁnd abetter waytobuild wealth than alow-fee index fund; you just need to invest meaningfulsumsregularly and stay the course from year to year

Like the broader market, individual stocks in great companies can have bad years —but as long as they remain promising, if you hang on formany years, you can do well.

Market pullbacks tend to last just afew months, and relatively fewlast morethan ayear (though amultiyear slumpisalways possible).

So expect volatility and don’t panic. Instead, try to grab some shares of great companies when they’re on sale —ormore shares of solid index funds.

Motley Fool

BY JONAH MEADOWS staff writer

Family-owned businesses form

the backbone of Louisiana’s economy, from agriculture to manufacturing to retail to hospitality

Many of the state’s longest-lived companies are family affairs that have passed down a shared culture and institutional knowledge from one generation to the next.

But running a business with relatives also presents potential pitfalls, as personal relationships intersect with day-to-day management, long-term strategy and ﬁnancial decisions

In this installment of One Big Question, we ask: What is the key to managing the unique challenges of running a family-owned business?

JUSTIN ALFORD

Co-owner, Benny’s car wash and convenience stores, Baton Rouge (third generation)

It can be very tough and challenging. Everybody has their own opinions of how things should be done. It’s not that one is right and the other wrong. Everybody has the good of the company in mind. But a lot of times they can go in different directions.

The key to getting through it is communication. We try to have meals together and talk things out. We’re also really focused on the next generation. My daughter Helen, a CPA, is now the fourth generation to join the business, along with my father and brother and I. I have a niece and nephew, still in high school, who may want to be a part of it, too. So we are trying to do a lot of succession planning now and really think about how we can hand this off to the next generation, as long as they are willing to do it.

HUGH RAETZSCH

President and CEO, Lyons Specialty

Co., Port Allen (third generation)

From a very young age, I put a lot of pressure on myself to set an example, because I felt like ev-

ONE BIG QUESTION

ily business, then maybe you’re not approaching it the right way, because you should feel like you are being graded differently until you earn the respect from the other team members.

BETTY CHENIER

Co-owner, Chenier Farms, Opelousas (ﬁfth generation)

going to sell it.

TODD ANDREWS

CEO, Tasc Performance, New Orleans (co-founded with parents and siblings)

The most important thing is communication — sharing financial information and strategy, as it relates to the entire business, from inventory to operations to overall marketing.

Also important is to be fully transparent to everyone — our family and our investors — as to our strategy and where we’re applying investments across the board to support growth for each channel of our business. They’re all involved, they have the opportunity for input and ideas, so it’s more of a conversation.

CHRIS TUCKER

President, Chauvin Brothers, Chauvin (ﬁfth generation)

It’s kind of a weird dynamic. Me and my father ran the lumber portion of our business, and for a long time, we were in our own building. So unless it came to stuff like, “Hey we need more money for this,” I’ve never really had issues with anyone since I’ve been there, which is going on 35 years. We’ve always gotten along.

erybody was watching what I was doing as a family member coming into the business. If you don’t feel the pressure of working in a fam-

A lot of people require their kids to go work other places before they come work in the family business. I didn’t do that, but I did require them to graduate from college. I never wanted the family business to be a fallback. The other key part to family businesses succeeding is everybody having a role and each person respecting that role. I’ve been fortunate with my kids coming in that they all have different interests in the business. That helps because you’re not stepping on top of each other It’s also important to make sure each person is pulling their weight. Things start to unravel when one person feels like they’re doing more than the other

You deﬁnitely have to treat it like a business. You have to lay out all the rules and regulations, just like as if it were Walmart or any other company, and everyone needs to be on board, whether it’s your son, your sister-in-law, whoever You have to have the right family members involved in the business. You just can’t have family members that don’t like this type of work, especially with farming because it’s so different and labor intensive.

In our case (my husband, son and myself), we’ve been doing it for so long, we know what to expect and what not to expect — from each other I’m 64, my husband’s 71, but he works like he’s 25 or 30 out in the ﬁeld. I am the one who’s kind of like the boss. I’m more or less the manager of what to plant, how much to plant and where we’re

My cousin Tommy Chauvin, (now an adviser) just retired as president the ﬁrst of the year He was really from the old school. I have a lot of that in me, but I can stay away from the ofﬁce more. I can bring a laptop to a hunting camp, where he probably wouldn’t.

My wife, she’s my general manager She came from another industry, and she kind of has to watch out for our employees, point things out to me She’ll say, “You’re not noticing this because you were brought up in this business — this is all you’ve truly ever really done and you’ve got to worry about their feelings.” Tommy and I never had that issue because we’re just from the same mold — you get up, you go to work. And me and him made it work. Email Jonah Meadows at Jonah. Meadows@theadvocate.com.

Gallagher: LessonsinResilience

On the recent 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the Gallagherteam has been looking backat theexperienceand howitshaped today’sinsurance industry.

NancySylvester is an area executive vice presidentatGallagher,based in Baton Rouge. Sherecentlysharedher story of Hurricane Katrina, the challenges the insuranceindustry facedand howresilienceshaped the path forward.

With damages exceeding USD200 billion, Katrina notonly altered the city’sphysical landscapebut alsoreshaped global perspectives on disasterpreparednessand response.Today, 20 yearsafter Hurricane Katrina struck NewOrleans, its impact remains deeply felt acrossthe affectedcommunities as the costliestand one of the ﬁvedeadliesthurricanes in US history.

Q: Take us back to Augustof2005. Howdid youexperience the landfall of the hurricane?

IliveinBaton Rouge,70milesfromNew Orleans. That weekend, my oldestson wasﬁshing in the Gulf of Mexicoand when we urged him to come back inland, whatshould have been an hour’s drivetook about 12 hoursdue to the worseningconditions. The news reports initiallysaid things were under control, butby lunchtime on Monday, the levees began breaking and things quickly spiraled out of control.

Q: What were the ﬁrstdayslikewhen family andfriendssought shelter at your home,far from the mostaffectedareas?

Iwelcomed my family from NewOrleans,expectingittobe manageable,but soon found myselfhosting 26 people.Islept undermydining room table,the only privatespaceleft. Wandering into the kitchenatnight, I’dmeetstrangers saying, “I work foryour cousin. He said it would be OK.”Ireassured everyone,“Yeah, everything’s ﬁne.”

Q: Howwas daily lifeimpactedinthe aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

My usual 15-minutedrivetothe office would takehours due to the crowds seeking refuge in BatonRouge and justtrying to get somewhereelse. Schools also faceda suddensurge in students, andthe schoolofficeswould announcewherepeople could ﬁnd food.

Blackhawk helicopterswereconstantly ﬂying overhead, transporting the injured from NewOrleans to Louisiana State University(LSU), where the athletics departmentbecame a makeshift emergency hospital. TheLSU studentbody even donatedclothingtothose in need, and youcouldsee people wearing purple andgold, thecolorsofthe university. It wasa touching displayofhumanity after Hurricane Katrina, with everyone welcomed and cared forasbestaspossible

Q: Howhaveyour clients’ perspectives on extremeweather risks evolved since Hurricane Katrina?

BeforeKatrina, redundancies were oftenviewedasunnecessary expenses. Today, having backups is understood as essential. Clients nowprioritizestrengthening buildings to ensuretheir facilities can enduresevereweather,addressing all potential exposures on supply chains or backup power, forexample Everyoneisfocused on preventing businessinterruptionclaims and avoiding closingtheir doorsbecause, once theydo, theymay neveropen again. We knowthatFEMA [Federal Emergency ManagementAgency] has stated 40%ofcompanies don’t reopen after adisaster, and another 25% fail within oneyear

As acommunity, we’realso massively investing in roof resilience to withstand strong winds and preventpiercings. When damage or lossoccurs, my clientsaren’tinterestedinjustrebuilding what wastherebefore; they’refocused on constructing to newercodes and following thehighestbuildingstandards

TIMDUBNANSKY

HANCOCKWHITNEY

225-252-6976 •Tim.dubnansky@hancockwhitney.com

hancockwhitney.com/tim-dubnansky •NMLS82027

JUDE BRIDWELL

HANCOCK WHITNEY 225-603-1777 •Jude.Bridwell@hancockwhitney.com hancockwhitney.com/jude-bridwell •NMLS 92661

JEREMYWEIMER

HANCOCKWHITNEY

225-978-2592 •Jeremy.Weimer@hancockwhitney.com hancockwhitney.com/jeremy-weimer •NMLS 175288

BILL HOLT

HANCOCKWHITNEY

225-229-8783 •Bill.Holt@Hancockwhitney.com hancockwhitney.com/bill-holt •NMLS 148394

ANGEL LEWIS

HANCOCK WHITNEY

225-413-6094 •Angel.Lewis@hancockwhitney.com hancockwhitney.com/angel-lewis•NMLS 700876

MICHAELHEBERT

HANCOCKWHITNEY 225-715-1133 •Michael.Hebert@hancockwhitney.com hancockwhitney.com/michael-hebert •NMLS 79769

respondmay result in legal matterproceedinginyourabsence 174872-1/24-25-26-3t $217.00

ADMINISTRATIVE ClerkofCityCourt/ Judicial Administrator

TheCity-Parish Government hasan openingfor ClerkofCityCourt/Judicial Administrator. This is afulltime, un‐classified professional courtadminis‐trative, supervisoryand record keeping /managementpositioninthe Baton RougeCityCourt.The full jobdescrip‐tion canbefound at: https://city.brla.gov/dept/hr/ occdesc.asp?GetTitle=7930 DesirableQualifications: JurisDoctorate Degree andatleast six yearsofprogressively responsibleex‐perience in an administrative/profes‐sional capacity;oranadvanceddegree andten yearsofprogressively respon‐siblecourt administration experience includingseven yearsofsupervisory experience in acourt system.A certi‐fied courtmanagementcertificate may be substitutedinlieuofminimum ex‐perience andtraining. LouisianaLi‐censed Attorney preferred. Salary: $73,836 -$123,392 ExcellentBenefitsPackage ApplicationInformation: Applications accepted through5:00 p.m. January 2- February 27,2026. Sub‐mitcover letterwithresumeshowing educationand judicial /court adminis‐trationexperience, including3 refer‐encesto: Dept of HumanResources Recruiting Division 1755 FloridaStreet BatonRouge,LA70802 Off

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recognizechanges in apatient con‐dition andprovide safe treatment. Awarenessofpotential exposure to communicablediseasesina health‐care setting

Work Schedule: Full-timeorPart-time; Monday –Friday. Clinic hoursasre‐quired to meet theneedsofthe clinic Flexibilitya must Please visitthe website, pcgh.org,to complete and submit theapplication form Applicationdeadline: February 6, 2026

TheDiocese of B.R. Child NutritionPro‐gram is seekingFTschoolCafeteria Mgrs., Cooks, &Porters.HSDiploma or Equiv. andBGCheck req. Applyat www.cnpbr.org/employment

LOUISIANA

a coloring sheet and array of colored pencils are seen at

CREATIVE HEALING

BY MARGARET DeLANEY

staff writer

Aruna Moudgil has always loved art

She crochets She paints She draws. She makes things.

“Anything you can give me, I’ll make something out of it,” she said. In 2019, Moudgil lost her husband to an aggressive cancer Before he died, he was in and out of the hospital for a year — sometimes weeks at a time. They often spoke about art.

“In the hospital, observing all that was going on around us, made us feel sad and down. We needed something to uplift us,” Moudgil said. “That’s why we talked about — when he got better we would do art together.”

But Moudgil’s husband died before they had the chance to create together Moudgil now has a new life mission. As a volunteer she leads the art therapy program at Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Center, creating art and prints for cancer patients to color during chemotherapy treatments. The focus is on mindfulness, reﬂection and expression, not artistic skill

La. expert: New food pyramid ‘confusing’

BY MARGARET DELANEY staff writer

New dietary guidelines ﬂipped the food pyramid upside down, making changes to the recommended American diet including smaller portion sizes, more protein and fewer whole grains.

On Jan. 7, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and U.S Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued the 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, required by law to be updated every ﬁve years. The guidelines provide the foundation for federal nutrition programs and policies. The new, inverted pyramid is made up of three sections, rather than the six from the previous food pyramid. The new food groupings include:

n Protein, dairy and healthy fats: targeting 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day that’s around 80 to 100 grams of protein for a 150-pound adult.

n Vegetables and fruits: targeting three servings of vegetables per day and two servings of fruits per day

n Whole grains: targeting two to four servings a day

ancient art practice quiets the mind, reduces stress for cancer patients

‘Healing powers’ of mandala art

When Monica Mullooly received chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer this year, while sitting in a comfortable blue chair with an IV drip in her arm, she picked up a white sheet of paper The paper had circles

and squiggly lines and suns and ﬂowers and triangles. She started to color inside the lines. Without knowing it, Mullooly was participating in Moudgil’s goal: to help cancerpatientstaketheirmindofftheir

ä see CREATIVE, page 4X

“In my opinion, the (original) food pyramid never caught on I think people were confused and could never really grasp what they should eat,” said Catherine Champagne, a nutritional expert at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge and developer of the acclaimed DASH diet. “It’s going to be even more confusing for people upside down.”

Rather than a pyramid, Champagne prefers the MyPlate because it is simple and easy to follow showing people how much of a plate should be filled with fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy and protein.

“My overall take on this is that the pyramid is not a good educational mechanism to teach people how to eat,” Champagne said. “But, I am happy that we are talking about making whole foods a part of the diet and decreasing the consumption of ultra-processed foods.”

A clear message: Eat real food

The guidelines take a new stance on “highly processed” foods, and refined carbohydrates, urging consumers to avoid “packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat or other foods that are salty or sweet, such as chips, cookies and candy.”

That’s a different term for ultraprocessed foods, the super-tasty, energy-dense products that make up more than half of the calories in the U.S. diet and have been linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity

“We’re not talking about all processed foods,” Champagne said. “Even cheese has to be processed from milk.”

ä see FOOD, page 4X

Champagne

Volunteer aruna Moudgil talks about her program at ochsner MD anderson Cancer Center

staFF PHotos By HILary sCHeINUK

ochsner MD anderson Cancer Center recently in Baton rouge.

HEALTH MAKER

Mental health support essential for Olympians

sleep strategies crucial for athletic performance

BY STEPHEN WADE associated Press

If winning gold medals were the only standard, almost all Olympic athletes would be considered failures.

A clinical psychologist with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Emily Clark’s job when the Winter Games open in Italy on Feb. 6 is to help athletes interpret what it means to be successful.

Should gold medals be the only measure?

Part of a 15-member staff providing psychological services, Clark nurtures athletes accustomed to triumph but who invariably risk failure.

The staff deals with matters termed “mental health and mental performance.” They include topics such as motivation, anger management, anxiety, eating disorders, family issues, trauma, depression, sleep, handling pressure, travel and so forth.

Clark’s area includes stress management, the importance of sleep and getting high achievers to perform at their best and avoid the temptation of looking only at results.

“A lot of athletes these days are aware of the mental health component of, not just sport, but of life,”

Clark said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“This is an area where athletes can develop skills that can extend a career, or make it more enjoyable.”

Redefining success

The United States is expected to take about 235 athletes to the Winter Olympics, and about 70 more to the Paralympics. But here’s the truth.

“Most of the athletes who come through Team USA will not win a gold medal,” Clark said. “That’s the reality of elite sport.”

Here are the numbers.

The United States won gold medals in nine events in the last Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. According to Dr Bill Mallon, an esteemed shoulder surgeon

and Olympic historian, 70.8% of Winter and Summer Olympic athletes go to only one Olympics. Few are famous and successful like swimmer Michael Phelps, or skiers Mikaela Shiffrin or Lindsey Vonn.

Clark said she often delivers the following message to Olympians and Paralympians: This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance Focus on the process. Savor the moment.

“Your job is not to win a gold medal, your job is to do the thing and the gold medal is what happens when you do your job,” she said

“Some of this might be realigning what success looks like,” she added “And some of this is developing resilience in the face of setbacks and failure.” Clark preaches staying on task under pressure and improving through defeat

“We get stronger by

pushing ourselves to a limit where we’re at our maximum capacity — and then recovering,” she said “When we get stressed, it impacts our attention. Staying on task or staying in line with what’s important is what we try to train for.”

A few testimonials

Kendall Gretsch has won four gold medals at the Summer and Winter Paralympics. She credits some of her success to the USOPC’s mental health services, and she described the value this way

“We have a sports psychologist who travels with us for most our season,” she said. “Just being able to touch base with them and getting that reminder of why are you here. What is that experience you’re looking for?”

American figure skater

Alysa Liu is the 2025 world champion and was sixth in

the 2022 Olympics. She’s a big believer in sports psychology and should be among the favorites in Italy

“I work with a sport psychologist,” she said without giving a name. “She’s incredible — like the MVP.”

Of course, MVP stands — not for Most Valuable Person or Most Valuable Player for “Most Valuable Psychologist.”

“I mean, she’s very helpful,” Liu added.

‘I just did it myself’

American downhill skier Vonn will race in Italy in her sixth Olympics. At 41 she’s coming off nearly six years in retirement and will be racing on a knee made of titanium.

Two-time Olympic champion Michaela Dorfmeister has suggested in jest that Vonn “should see a psychologist” for attempting such a thing in a very dangerous sport where downhill skiers reach speeds of

80 mph. Vonn shrugged off the comments and joked a few months ago that she didn’t grow up using a sport psychologist. She said her counseling came from taping messages on the tips of her skis that read: “stay forward or hands up.”

“I just did it myself,” she said. “I do a lot of self-talk in the starting gate.”

On sleep

“Sleep is an area where athletes tend to struggle for a number of reasons,” Clark said, listing issues such as travel schedules, late practices, injuries and life-related stress.

“We have a lot of athletes who are parents, and lot of sleep is going to be disrupted in the early stages of parenting,” she said. “We approach sleep as a real part of performance. But it can be something that gets de-prioritized when days get busy.”

Clark suggests the following for her athletes and the rest of us: no caffeine after 3 p.m., mitigate stress before bedtime, schedule sleep at about the same time daily sleep in a dark room and get 7-9 hours. Dani Aravich, a twotime Paralympian — she’s been in both the Summer and Winter Games will be skiing in the upcoming Paralympics. She said in a recent interview that she avails herself of many psychological services provided by the USOPC.

“I’ve started tracking my sleep,” she said, naming Clark as a counselor. “Especially being an athlete who has multiple jobs, sleep is going to be your No. 1 savior at all times. It’s the thing that — you know — helps mental clarity.”

Ditto Clark.

“Sleep is the cornerstone of healthy performance,” she added.

LSU Health New Orleans to study stimulant disorders

The Integrated Health Clinic at University Medical Center New Orleans with LSU Health New Orleans is one of only six teams nationally to participate in the American Hospital Association Health Research and Educational Trust’s Opioid Use Disorder, Stimulant Use Disorder Linkage and Retention Learning Collaborative.

The award includes a $20,000 grant that will aid in expanding the medical center’s life-saving services and “strengthening referral pathways for patients,” the hospital said in a release.

Pennington welcomes interim executive director

Dr Jennifer Rood, who began her career at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in 1993, began her term as interim senior vice chancellor and executive director of the center Jan 1.

Rood staff report

Rood is working closely with LSU leadership to identify and search for a new executive director in an international search. A new full-time leader is expected later this year according to a release from Pennington.

Ochsner researches new cancer detection test

Ochsner is testing the perfor-

HEALTH NOTES

mance of a new research study: the Galleri multi-cancer early detection test. This innovative blood test analyzes DNA patterns in healthy individuals to detect cancer signals and predict their origin — offering a transformative approach to early cancer diagnosis.

FranU opens renovated health professions building

Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady University celebrated the completion of its newly renovated School of Health Professions Building, a $2 million venture for the university

The updated building includes student-centered classrooms, advanced laboratories, a rehabilitation gym, a Research and Innovation Laboratory and collaborative study spaces that support holistic student formation.

Tulane pioneers gene therapy for hemophilia

The Louisiana Center for Bleeding and Clotting Disorders is the first facility in the state to administer gene therapy for hemophilia A, treating Jacob Beard, 26, at its Metairie clinic.

Located within the Tulane University School of Medicine, the center holds clinics at University Medical Center-New Orleans,

Lakeside-Metairie, Villas at Angel Point-Lafayette and Alexandria

This new blood disorder therapy offers the potential for a life free from the risk of spontaneous bleeding and the need for frequent intravenous infusions of clotting

PHoto ProVIDeD By FraNU

Franciscan Missionaries of our Lady University recently celebrated the completion of its newly renovated school of Health Professions Building, a $2 million venture for the university

assoCIateD Press FILe PHoto By LUCa BrUNo

olympic rings are seen in the snow at the stelvio ski Center the venue for the alpine ski and ski mountaineering disciplines at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter olympics, in Bormio, Italy

Icomfortably then that Living lessons and curiosity, who earned appreciate Ay And test and 50, about We can take how to follow-up at takeaway sure your tell what long “Year accomplishm quieter would making. should,” not

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BY THENUMBERS

1IN20aDULtsINtHe U.s.

rePort CoroNary HeartDIsease

Coronaryheartdisease is the most common heart disease in america. It killed 371,506 people in 2022 with about 1in20adults over 20 reporting coronaryheart disease.

Coronaryheartdiseaseis atype of heartdiseasethat occurs when the arteries of the heartcannot deliver enough oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle due to narrowing from the buildup of fatty deposits called plaque. In 2023, Louisiana had the fifth-highest death rate for heartdisease in the U.s., according to data from the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention. In Louisiana, the averagepercentageof adults whoreporteverbeing told by adoctor,nurse or other

healthprofessional that they hadanginaorcoronaryhearth disease in 2023was 6.9%. these parishes had the lowest percentageofadults withanginaorcoronaryheart disease in 2023, according to data from the CDC: n ascension,st. Charles and st.tammanyparishes at 5.6%; n West Baton rougeParish at 5.8%; n east Baton rouge, Lafayette and st.James parishesat 5.9%; n Bossier andJefferson parishes at 6%; n Cameron, Livingston, orleans,Plaquemines and West Feliciana parishes at 6.1%; n Calcasieu and st.John the Baptist parishes at 6.2%; n and Beauregard, east

Feliciana and Lasalle parishes at 6.4% these parishes had the highest percentageofadults with angina or coronaryheart disease in 2023, according to data from the CDC:

n east Carroll Parish at 9.5%;

n Claiborne Parish at 8.7%;

n Madison Parish at 8.6%; n tensas Parish at 8.1%; n Bienville and Concordia parishes at 8%; n avoyelles and Morehouse parishes at 7.8%; n Caldwell and Webster parishes at 7.7%; n Catahoula, Franklin and red river parishes at 7.6%; n evangelineand st. Landry parishes at 7.5%; n and allen and st. Helena parishes at 7.4%

BY MARGARETDELANEY staff writer

The largest artery in the body the aorta, begins at the heart and runs through the chest and abdomen. This one artery is responsible for supplying oxygenatedblood to the rest of the body

But, this artery canalso burst without warning, often referredto as a“silent killer” in thevascular medical community

An aortic aneurysm is aballoonlike bulge that canoccur anywhere in the aortic artery.These bulges increase the risk of atear in the inner layer of the wall of the aorta. Whenthese bulges burst, it causes sudden, intense pain leading to massive internal bleeding.

“You can imagine, when aballoon gets too big —you blow it up too

much —itcan pop,”said Dr.Dean Yamaguchi, director of the aortic center at Ochsner Health. “That’s the majorproblemthat we’re trying to avoid with aneurysms. There are two types of aortic aneurysms abdominal aortic aneurysms(in the belly) and thoracic aortic aneurysms (inthe chest). Abdominalaortic aneurysms are significantly more common, with 200,000 people in the U.S. diagnosed each year— the 15th leading cause of deathinthe country and the 10th leading cause of death in men older than 55, according to the American Societyfor Vascular Surgery

In many cases, aortic aneurysms are slow-growing and asymptomatic, often coming as asurprise and when it is far too late for address.

Treatments for aortic aneurysms are possible,ifthe conditionis caught early

Care options for patients tend to vary: some patientsneed surgery immediately, others are monitored for growthofthe aneurysm.

“Once (the aneurysms) gets around ﬁveorﬁve and ahalfcentimeters, or if it’sgrowing rather rapidly,wetendtooffer repair to those patients,” Yamaguchi said.

Open surgery to treat aortic aneurysms involves apolyestergraft sewn intothe part of the aorta that has dilated, or blown-up slightly Since this option is alarger operation,involving more healingand hospitalstay,Yamaguchi says he recommendsthisprocedurefor younger patients. Advanced vascular surgery,and the surge of noninvasive proce-

dures, led the way for stent grafts to treat arteries. These fabric-coated stents, delivered via acatheter, create anew channel in the aorta andprevents excess bloodflow from going into blood vessels including leg arteries, kidney arteries and more.

“Withstents, we can treat a whole broader range of patients withshorter hospital stays, less intensive care unit time andquicker return to daily activities,”Yamaguchi said. Finding an aorticaneurysmbeforeitruptures offers the best chance of recovery, but themedical community is still at aloss as to how,and why,these aneurysms develop.

As an aorticaneurysm grows, although thesymptoms often go unnoticed, possible warnings include:

n difﬁculty breathing or shortness of breath, n feelingfull even after asmall meal, n pain wherever the aneurysm is growinginthe neck, back, chest or abdomen, n painful or difﬁcult swallowing, n and swellingofthe arms, neck or face.

“While (the symptoms) are not causative, they are associated with aneurysm growth,” Yamaguchi said. “Weoften times counsel our patients to do the best they can to monitor therisks.”

Both family history and lifestyle can play arole in the risk of developing an aortic aneurysm.Aortic aneurysmsoccur most often in people whoare over the age of 65, are male,are smokers or have high blood pressure or hypertension.

Molly Kimball

CREATIVE

Continued from page1X

“I’m hoping while I’m drawing that my hair is going to come back,” Mullooly said. “I still have alot of things I’m working on as a patient.” Mandala art is acircular design symbolizing balance and focus. The repetitive patterns help quiet the mind and support meditation offering acalming activity during stress, anxi-

FOOD

Continued from page1X

Champagnesays one primary concern are snacks, like chips and other ultraprocessed items “that have ingredients lists that take up half the page.”

Ultra-processed food: What is it and how bad is it?

These foods are typically high in energy density dueto their sugar and fat content, according to CandidRebello, director of the nutrition and chronicdisease program at PenningtonBiomedical Research Center.Processed foods lead to excesscalorie intake within and across meals.

“The guidelines promote an inadvertent reductionin calorieintake, an approach that hasbeenclearly shown to lower overall food intake andbodyweight,” Rebello said.

ety or longtreatmentdays. Mandalas are ancient, dating backtoﬁfthorsixth century B.C.E. They represent theuniverse in its ideal formand have long beenusedtorepresentand inspire healing.

A2024 study inthe NationalLibrary of Medicine looked at 84 male veterans diagnosed withposttraumatic stress disorder Oneveteran groupcolored mandala designs, the other group colored squares freely.The study concluded that the happiness scores were “signiﬁcantly higher”

recommendation for americans. treatments.

in the mandala coloring group.

Moudgildraws allofthe designs herself, oftenstaying up late or waking early whena design ideastrikes. Each symbol within the circle design means something. An upward triangle is good energy and good ac-

tion. Acircle is wholeness, integrity andconnectivity

Dots are focal points of one’sconsciousness. Bells are the openings of the mind. Spirals are changes andgrowth.

Jenny Delgado began creating art after spotting Moudgil in the hallway

while she was receiving her treatment.

“It is veryhelpful,” Delgado said. “It takes your mind offthe 50,000 things that youmight have.You worry unnecessarily during thetreatments —and the hearthelps.”

Moudgil hosts abimonth-

the old (1995) and new(2026) food pyramids showa

Proteinand more protein

Thenew guidance backs away fromrevoking longstanding advice to limitsaturated fats, despite signals from Kennedy and Food and Drug CommissionerMarty Makary that the administration wouldpushfor more consumption of animal fats to end the “war” on saturated fats. Instead, the document suggests that Americans should choose whole-food sources of saturated fat —such as meat, whole-fat dairy or avocados —while continuingto limit saturated fat consumption to no more than10% of daily calories.

Theguidancesays “other options can include butter or beef tallow,” despite previous recommendations to avoid those fats.

The previous recommended dietary allowance called for 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, about 54 gramsdaily for a150-pound person —the equivalent of about one large 10-ounce steak. The new recommendation is 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein perkilogramofbody weight, 108grams daily for

a150-poundperson —that’s nearly twice the previously recommended limit —the equivalent of about four hamburgerpatties or about 12 ounces of peanut butter or more than fivecups of cooked lentils, according to protein contentestimations from Johns Hopkins Center for Bariatric Surgery

Champagne has aproblem with theemphasis onprotein

She saysthe real number to reach thenew recommendedprotein levels is be toomuch. Proteins require more energy to metabolize than sugars.Increasing protein intake mayput unneeded stress on metabolism.

“(Americans) are probably alreadygettingenough protein,” Champagne said.

New guidelines also stress the consumption of red meat. However, according to Champagne, the saturated fat associated withred meat can be arisk for cardiovascular disease.

“Some of that high-level historicalresearch isnot being addressed in saturated fat and animal proteins, par-

ticularly red meats,” Champagne said.

Theguidelines additionally adviseavoiding or sharply limiting added sugars or nonnutritive sweeteners, saying “no amount” is considered part of ahealthy diet

No onemealshouldcontain morethan10grams of added sugars, or about 2teaspoons, thenew guidelines say.Ingeneral, most Americans consume about 17 teaspoons of added sugarsper day, according to the U.S. Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention.

Alcohol limits removed

Thenew guidelinesroll back previous recommendations to limitalcohol to one drink or less per day for womenand two drinks or less per day for men

Instead, the guidance advises Americans to “consume lessalcohol for better health.” They also say that alcohol should be avoided by pregnant women, people recovering from alcohol use disorder andthosewho are unable to control the amount

they drink.

Changing over 45 years

The dietary guidelines, required by lawtobeupdated everyﬁve years, provide a templatefor ahealthy diet. But in acountry where more than half of adults have adiet-related chronic disease few Americansactually follow the guidance, research shows.

The new document is just 10 pages, upholding Kennedy’spledgetocreate a simple,understandable guideline.Previous editions of the dietary guidelines

have grown over the years, from a19-page pamphlet in 1980 to the164-page document issued in 2020, which included afour-page executive summary: n The first threefederal dietary guidelines, 1980, 1985 and 1990

n ,encouraged eating avariety of foods, avoiding saturated fats and cholesterol, getting adequate fiberand limiting “too much” sugar and sodium. They included how manycalories per hour aperson loses forvarious physical activities —including ballroom dancing, clean-

ly arttherapy session at 10:30a.m.to3 p.m. on the ﬁrst and lastWednesdays of everymonth at the Ochsner MD AndersonCancer Center in Baton Rouge.

Email Margaret DeLaney at margaret.delaney@ theadvocate.com.

ing house,cross-country skiing and shoveling snow

n The n 1995 n dietaryguidelinesintroduced the “food guide pyramid” with an emphasis on bread, cereal, pasta and rice. Grains were recommendedasthe “foundation” of all meals.

n In n 2000, 2005 and 2010 n ,the guidelines mentioned obesity as an “epidemic” for the first time. Thesethree guidelinesalso put significance on measuring body mass index, or BMI,and how to use the ﬁguretoadjustdietary needs with an emphasis on counting calories.

n In n 2015, the dietary guidelinesaddressedunhealthy beveragesand sugary drinks. In 2020 n ,the guidelines took “budgetary” and “cultural” choices into consideration in the recommendations.

n The guidance will have themostprofoundeffecton the federally funded National School Lunch Program, which is required to follow the guidelines to feed nearly 30 million U.S. children on a typical school day n The Agriculture Department will have to translate the recommendations into specific requirements for school meals, aprocess that can takeyears, said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokespersonfor theSchoolNutrition Association.The latest school nutrition standards were proposedin2023 but won’tbefully implemented until 2027, she noted.

GraPHICs ProVIDeD By U.s. DIetary GUIDeLINes

transition from ahigh-carbohydrate diet to ahigh-protein diet

staFF PHotosByHILary sCHeINUK

Patient Guillermo Delgado worksonacoloring sheet at ochsner MD anderson Cancer Center recently in Baton rouge.

Patients Monica Mullooly,left, and JennyDelgado talk about their experiences at ochsner MD anderson Cancer Center recently in Baton rouge.

Ochsner’sessential list: Tophealth screenings adults need to schedule in 2026

By Amanda McElfresh amcelfresh@theadvocate.com

This storyisbrought to you by OchsnerHealth.

As2026 begins,Ochsner Health physicians recommend adults takeaproactive approach to preventivecarebyscheduling health screenings designed to detect diseases early,often beforesymptoms appear.Fromcardiovascular and metabolic assessments to cancer and age-relatedexams,manyevaluations play a critical role in improvinghealth outcomes

“Wewanttoﬁnd anyunderlyingissues so we candotimely interventions with medications,lifestyle changes or a combination,beforea person experiences seriouscomplications,”said Tyler Perrin-Bellelo,MD, FACP,D-ABOM, a primary care and obesitymedicine specialistatOchsner LafayetteGeneral Internal Medicine. “It’sokayifsomeone hasn’tbeen to adoctor in awhile. We want to motivate them and support them in theirhealth journey.”

Heart Health

Dr.Perrin-Bellelosaid screeningsfor blood pressure,cholesterol and A1C givedoctorsabaseline foreach individual. Ideally,thesescreenings beginatage 20,although they are recommendedfor peopleofall ages,and especially forthose age40and over. Thesemeasurements helpphysicians identifyearly signsofhypertension,heart diseaseand diabetes,which cancause damageifleft undetected.

eata healthydiet, maintain theirroutines andtakepart in activities thatwork the brain.

Visionand Hearing

Routine vision exams areimportantfor all ages,but acomprehensiveeye exam should be done yearly forpeoplewith diabetes or high blood pressure.Adults over 65 shouldhave avision exam everyone to twoyears to screen forcataracts glaucomaand macular degeneration

Abdominalaorticaneurysmscreeningisaone-time screeningultrasoundformenbetweentheagesof 65-75whohaveahistoryofsmoking.

TylerPerrin-Bellelo,MD,FACP,D-ABOM

“Manypeople don’trealizetheyhave high blood pressurebecausetheydon’t have anysymptoms.Their ﬁrst symptom maybeastrokeora heart attack. That’s whyit’ssoimportanttoget those baselines and setgoals so we canintervene earlier,” Dr.Perrin-Bellelo said. “Everyone has adifferentcardiovascular risk profile. We look at their family history andother conditions that mayput them at ahigher risk forheart disease. We alsolook at whetherthe patient has obesity or smokes.Iftheyhaveany of thoserisk factors, ittells me we need to be alittle more aggressive.

Genetic Wellness Assessment

Ochsner also offersa GeneticWellnessAssessment —a quick questionnairethatreviews your personal and family cancer history to help determine whether youcould beneﬁt from agenetic consultation or testing.

With your family history on hand, thisquestionnaire should takeyou lessthan 10 minutes to complete.Adults interested in taking the assessment canvisit Ochsner.org/ GeneticWellnessSurveytocompleteit at no cost

Brain andbonehealth

Older adults mayalsosuffer from hearing loss, which is a leading causeofdepression as we ageand canbemistaken for anumber of other conditions.Avisit to the audiologist to test hearing candetermine if thereisablockagesuch as waxor sensorineuralhearingloss,whichisrelatedtonervefunction

Cancer Screenings

Forpeople of all ages,cancer screeningsremain one of the most impactful components of preventivecare, offering the opportunitytodetect disease at its earliest and most treatable stages

National guidelines recommend thatadults of average risk begin colorectal cancerscreeningsatage 45,reﬂecting an increaseincases in younger adults. However, individuals withafamily history or other riskfactorsmay needtobegin screenings earlierorhavethem more often, said Lingling Du, MD,ahematologyoncologist at Ochsner MD Anderson Cancer Center in NewOrleans

Dr.Dusaidacolonoscopyisthe best screening method becausedoctorscan often remove anypolyps,thereby immediately reducing therisk of cancer

Prostatecancerscreeningisrecommendedatage45, andmenshoulddiscussavailableoptionswiththeir primarycaredoctororurologist.Screeningusually consistsofabloodtestthatmeasuresbaseline prostate-speciﬁcantigen(PSA)levels.

Forwomen Mammogramstoscreenforbreastcancerbegin atage40,orsoonerifthereisapersonalorfamily historyofbreastcancer

Cervicalcancerscreeningbeginsatage21.Thetypical screeningintervaliseverythreetoﬁveyearsbased onage,riskfactorsandpastpapsmearresults. Bonemineraldensitytest(DEXA)startsatage65or earlierbasedonriskfactorssuchashysterectomy, steroiduse,tobaccouseorhypothyroidism.

LinglingDu,MD Hematologyoncologist

JosephHeneghan,MD

As adults age, preventivecareexpands to include screenings thatcan help preservemobility, independence and brain health. Joseph Heneghan, MD,a primary care physician at Ochsner Health Center –Prairieville, said bone densityexams arerecommended forolder adults,particularly smaller womenage 65 andup with fair skin and blue eyes as well as men with certain risk factors, such as having a shorter than averagestature

“Our bones and teeth become brittle as part of the normal aging process,”Dr. Heneghan said.“Thedensityscans give us abetterpictureofthe skeletal structure and allowusto giverecommendationstopatients.”

Dr.Heneghan said regular exercise, especiallywalking, canhelp improve bone density, as well as eating ahealthy diet high in vitamin Cand calcium, using over-the-counter supplementsortaking aprescriptionmedicationifthe bones areespecially thin.

“Wewanttopreserveasmuch bone density as we canto preventfalls, becausethosecan have dangerousoutcomes especially if someonebreaksahip,” Dr Heneghan said. “Health often declines greatly as we losemobility. That puts us at ahigher risk of bloodclots. We want to step in before anythinglikethathappens.”

Cognitivescreeningsare equally important, as memory changes canbesubtle.Dr. Heneghan said Ochsner uses astructured evaluation to determine if thesechanges are part of the normal aging processor a sign of aserious condition,suchasAlzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Each patient is also screened fordepression, whichcan affectmemory and concentration.

“Theseevaluationshelp us discern what is goingonand create apersonalized treatmentplan,”Dr. Heneghan said. “Nomatterwhatthe screenings show,theseare agoodopportunityfor us to remind patients to get plenty of sleep,

“In general, acolonoscopyisrecommended every10years. If one polypisremoved, the doctor may suggest anothercolonoscopyinfiveyears. If there aremanypolyps,theymay recommend the screening again in oneorthree years,”Dr. Du explained.

Consistencyisalsokey formammograms,which should begin at age40for women of averagerisk, said Melanie Sheen, MD,abreast medical oncologist at Ochsner MD AndersonCancer Center in NewOrleans While monthly self-exams canhelp womenunderstand their physiologyand stayalert forany changes,yearly mammogramsgo much deeper,often detecting small cancersthatareotherwiseinvisibleandcause no symptoms

“It’ssoimportant to not skip amammogram becausethe breastschange and become lessdenseovertime,”Dr. Sheen said.“Somethingthatwasnot visibleayearagomaybecome visiblenow.Ifyoumissayear thatabnormalitymay notbe detecteduntil it is larger and potentially more dangerous.”

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cervicalcancers,”Dr. Valente said. “Morethan 50 percent of women will have HPVatsomepointintheir lives.Some peoplecancleariteffectivelyandneverdevelopcancer.Other patients cannot,soHPV resides in thosecervical cells fora prolonged period of time and causes changes thatcan lead to cancer.” Across all specialties,Ochsner physicians emphasize thatpreventivecareworksbestwhen patients feel supported and empowered. Dr.Valente encourages women to ﬁnd an OB/GYN with whom theycan have an openand honest relationship,especially when discussing sensitiveareas of the body.Similarly,Dr. Heneghan has found thatpatients are moreforthcoming about health concerns when theybuild a rapport with theirdoctor andunderstandthatthe goal is to improvetheir overall health andhelp them livelonger.

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Roomsthatremember

L. Kasimu Harrisand theworkthatbrought ‘Vanishing Blackbars’ into theframe at MoMa

BY JANRISHER staff writer

In 2025, when the Museum of Modern Art acquired photographs forits permanent collectionbyNew Orleans-based artistL.Kasimu Harris, the moment carried institutional weight. Not because Harris was an outlier,but because his work reﬂects abroader,overduecorrection in how American photography is seen and valued.

Fordecades, photographyfromthe American South, especially work rooted in Black communities, lived largely outside thewallsofmajor museums Harris’workhas been featuredin MoMA’s “New Photography 2025:Lines of Belonging,” the show closed Jan. 17, 2026.

Journalism,Katrina andethics

Harris was in graduate school studying writing and journalism at the University of Mississippi whenKatrina hit his hometown in 2005. He workedon campus as awriter at the Daily Mississippian.

Atripbackhome45daysafter Katrina, combined with pressure from an Ole Miss professor to returnto campus withworkinhand, launchedhis focus and ultimately his career

“Anything that would catch my eye while Iwas at homeduring thebreak Iwould stop and photograph,” Harris said. Over time, he startedpayingcloserattention to what was happening in New Orleans, particularly withBlack bars and the gentriﬁcation happening as the city rebuilt itself. He decided he wanted to talk to Whitebar ownersand Black bar owners for his graduation project, but none of the White bar ownersagreed to participate.

“The way Isaw it was Iwanted to tell afair and balanced story,” Harris said With access to Whitebars denied, he decided to focus solely on Black bars.

“It almost felt likeIwas an investigative journalist,”Harrissaid. “I felt that it was alot of parachutejournalism that happened afterward.Mylonger-term project was aresponse to that—like, let’sdoadeep dive in that. …IfI’m doing something in journalism, it’sgonna be facts. But when I’m doing art, Ican arrive at the truth in anumberofways.

Preserving what disappears Harris is aphotographic culture bearer.His “Vanishing Black Bars and Lounges” photographyseries is about more than Black barsclosing. It is about more than New Orleans

“Even when Istartedthis project, even thoughNew Orleans was the inspiration,

Ialways saw it as something bigger,” Harrissaid.“So theﬁrst place Igot to do this work outside New Orleans was Pittsburgh.”

He continued photographing Black bars in Clarksdale, Mississippi, then Chicago, Detroit,Los Angeles and South Africa. One thing, he says, is certain.

“You can tell aBlack bar from aWhite barbywhat they drink,” he said.

He says he can recognizeaBlack bar simply by thesignage outside —and that thereare other subtle and not-sosubtle cues. White bars generally do not sell pints, astaple of older New Orleans Black bars, according to Harris.

“The pints are for the setup. Asetup is, youget your pint —you can share it, you can drink it and you get abucket of ice and you get some chasing,” he said.

His familiarity with New Orleans culture gives hima shorthand of understanding that does not always translate elsewhere. Thatfamiliarity didn’tease his nervesinDetroit, even though people

hadtold him it was alot like New Orleans.

He comparesentering unfamiliar Black bars in new cities to starting school in January instead of August —hehas to walk adelicate balance. Deeper than it seems

Harris’ wife, ArielWilson-Harris, sees the layered approach her husband takes as centraltothe work’spower

“You wouldn’tnecessarily thinkabout allofthis when youthink abouta bar,” she said. “Tojust go so much further and deeper into thecommunity andthenit connecting on aglobal scale —I think thatiswhy this work is so important, not only to the cityofNew Orleans, buttothe African diasporaasa whole.”

BrianPiper says he ﬁrst became acquainted withHarrisand his photography in 2018 when the New Orleans Museum of Art showed some of Harris’ work in an exhibition called, “Changing

ä see HARRIS, page 2Y

JanRisher

Singing praisesof roller bag

On morethan one occasion last week, Isounded alot like an infomercial.

As I’ve brought up the object of my admiration multiple times, several people in the newsroom have asked where the studio audience is —and whyI’m not pointing at atoll-free number Ironically,all my cheerleading is forsomething Ididn’teven know Iwanted. My over-the-top enthusiasm is foranitem that I bought formyolder daughter for Christmas and didn’treturn. Granted, Ididn’treturn it because Itried it and could tell that this thing had the potential to be life-changing. Iwas right. She had asked foraroller bag forChristmas —not asuitcase, but abag that she could use to roll her groceries from her car and up the elevator to her apartment, or downthe street to the corner store. She broke her right arm about ayear ago. Even though it’smuch better,she is limited on what she can carry.She thought the rolling bag could be agreat solution.

So, Iresearched roller bags and found that abag by acompany called “Hulken” was generally considered to be among the best. The bags are not cheap —even on sale. On Black Friday,I bought amedium-sized one for$97 which is still alot of money,but this daughter rarely asks for anything. Iwanted to give her something that would makedaily lifealittle less tiring, alittle easier and maybe alittle less frustrating. On Christmas morning, she opened the giftand seemed delighted. Later,I learned that she had already bought adifferent (less expensive) rolling bag. Itold her Iwould give her the money and send this one back.

And, like Isaid, then Iused it. This is where the story turns, morally speaking. It has changed my life. For all of my days, I’ve had a problem of forgetting to bring things with me in the morning on my way to school or work. With this giant, impossible to miss bag, whenever Ithink of it, Ijust place the item inside. The bag, which holds up to 66 pounds, is so lightweight that Ihave no problem transporting it up and down stairs —after all, this is the stuff Iwould typically be carrying in my arms.

What Ididn’trealize until now is how much low-grade stress I carry around trying not to forget things —and how much lighter lifefeels when that stress rolls beside you instead of hanging from your arms.

And the rolling! Honestly,sometimes Iﬁnd myself smiling because it rolls so smoothly Irealize the absurdity of my enthusiasm forthis product, but when Iﬁnd something like this that improves the quality of my lifetothe extent that this one has, Iwant to share it.

Yes, there are dupes and copycats —and Ican’tspeak to them Idon’tknow if their wheels are madeofwhat must be acombination of fairy dust and butter.If NASA ever needs help moving equipment, Ihave asuggestion. With alittle research, Ilearned that the bag was invented by the father of aSwiss musician named Yoni Sheleg —aman whospent a lot of time schlepping gear from place to place.

staFF

L. KasimuHarrisreflects into aphotograph on the wall of his studio recently in Neworleans.

Harris’ work reflects abroader,overdue correction in howamerican photography is seen and valued.

ASK THE EXPERTS

Running the show at La.’s Old Governor’s Mansion

BY JOY HOLDEN staff writer

In 2024, Sinella Aghasi was named the executive director of the Old Governor’s Mansion, a museum under Secretary of State Nancy Landry that preserves and showcases Louisiana’s political history and architectural heritage. Aghasi partners with statewide tourism and economic development agencies to increase the impact of the historic landmark.

Born in Iran, Aghasi moved to California in 2010 to attend university and study the violin. She moved to Baton Rouge in 2016 to pursue her doctorate. She serves on several boards and foundations in her pursuit to support and uplift the community

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

How did you get involved with the Old Governor’s Mansion?

I came to LSU to get my doctorate degree in music and nonproﬁt management. For so long, I was teaching, performing and involved with a lot of nonproﬁts. I would see the success and the challenges, but I really didn’t know what makes a difference for one to be successful and the other not. This is my calling.

I followed that journey with a lot of nonproﬁt organizations in the arts sector I wasn’t thinking that my next journey would be in a museum, but I know myself as a capacity builder who’s very passionate about education and creat-

HARRIS

Continued from page 1y

Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories.”

Piper is the Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints and Drawings at the New Orleans Museum of Art.

“One of the things that has always impressed me is how it (Harris’ photography) transcends what we might call traditional genres of photography,” Piper said. “It blends documentary It blends storytelling. It blends sort of a theatrical view of things.”

Piper says that Harris has evolved in as “a picture maker,” using his eye for story and for narrative to get at the essence of a subject or place and distill it down to a powerful image.

“He is very attuned to the importance of African-American culture and history here in New Orleans, as a son of the city, but also as someone who has looked at these things around the world, especially when it comes to Black social spaces,” Piper said. “In his ‘Vanishing Black Bar’ series, he’s thinking about similarities, both in terms of the vibrancy of those spaces and in the threats to them from factors like gentriﬁcation.”

Michelle Schulte, chief curator of collections and exhibitions at LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, says that since 1998 there has been more emphasis on people of different backgrounds telling their stories.

“But we’re still missing that view of people from African American

ing accessibility. When I saw the opportunity, it seemed like a wonderful ﬁt, and this is the happiest that I’ve ever been in my professional life.

What is it that makes the Old Governor’s Mansion a fulfilling job and place?

It’s a beautiful mansion and historic landmark, but I see it as an opportunity that has been underutilized. There are so many people that don’t know about it or have only visited for an event, when we have our museum side closed.

It’s been a very fun and wonderful opportunity to slowly but surely change that perspective.

We have almost nearly doubled our attendance from last year We are working closely with Visit Ba-

ton Rouge and other leadership communities. We have joined First Free Sundays, which is a wonderful opportunity that has shifted availability for locals and visitors. We are doing more outreach and targeting different grades and school groups for educational programming.

With that comes a lot of opportunity and weight that I take seriously to make sure that it is preserved in the best possible way Since it was built in 1929, we are almost getting close to our 100year mark.

What can you tell us about the new “Three Decades of Change” exhibit that focuses on the tenures of nine Louisiana governors?

I’m proud of it. My ﬁrst days at this job were at the Southeastern Museum Conference, so I had the opportunity to interact with a lot of museum professionals. I asked a few of them to come to the mansion and give me their thoughts, and one really sticks with me. There are nine governors who have lived in the mansion, and some lived here longer than others, so we have more items on display or more information on them, but that is our focus.

One person brought to my attention that we should connect these stories — to each other and to the people that are living within the community That talk stayed with

Lounges’

backgrounds,” Schulte said “For a museum like MoMA to recognize Kasimu and this photography from New Orleans that’s a big deal.

He’s real — a nationwide voice.”

Learning the system

Harris’ understanding of institutions has also been shaped by service

He has served on the board of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art for several years, an experience he says taught him as much about how museums function as about art itself.

“The art is paramount but museums can’t operate without money,” Harris said. “Being on the board, you start to see how things really work capital campaigns, strategic planning, even basic things like what happens when the air conditioner goes out.”

He acknowledges the tension between the ﬁnancial realities of museums and the desire to make them more accessible and less intimidating.

That institutional fluency has helped him navigate his own career more deliberately

“When MoMA asked for a hold, I knew what that meant,” he said “That’s an intent — a proposal. Like ‘I want to marry you’ an intent to buy All those things have helped me navigate my artistic career more seamlessly.”

That awareness has also sharpened his understanding of how intimidating museums can feel to people who do not know the rules or who have rarely seen themselves reﬂected on the walls.

Roots and responsibility

Harris’ mother, Eartha Har-

me as we were looking at the gaps that we have not told and want to make sure that we’re accurately telling the history

Our curator, Joseph Ricci, created “Three Decades of Change,” which focuses on 1929 to the early 1960s. A lot of things happened inside and outside of Louisiana that truly affected people around the nation, like the Great Depression, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement.

How does your music career as a concert violinist transfer into your current role?

I played with the symphonies in Baton Rouge, Acadiana and Lake Charles until a few years ago. I was constantly driving back and forth, but my board engagements have increased substantially over the last couple of years. I play small gigs here and there, but I decided I would dedicate more time to this job and community work.

Part of the way it transfers is perfectionism. I don’t give up. There is a drive for excellence that I think sometimes drives my staff crazy There’s never a “No.”

We have to ﬁgure out how to do it, if not now, later If not this way, then another way.”

Also, teamwork and being a good listener Let’s tune in on what people are wanting to see and adjust. Just as a musician adjusts

ris, grew up uptown on Chestnut Street in New Orleans. She died in 2015, but her fascination with culture continues to inform his artistic practice.

“My mom was just a tenacious person,” he said. “Like she got fired from a job on Friday and showed back up to the same job on Monday. They were like, ‘What are you doing?’ And she’s like, ‘I got kids.’”

She later owned Le Earth Flowers, a ﬂoral shop that Harris says was well-known in the Black community

Work before recognition

Ben Hickey, now executive director of the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts in Buffalo New York, says Harris’ work reflects advocacy and cultural awareness. Previously, Hickey was curator and interim director at The Hilliard Museum in Lafayette, where he curated a solo exhibit for Harris called “Vanishing Black Bars and Lounges” at the Hilliard Art Museum in 2022.

Hickey says Harris’ work comes from a place of love.

“It exudes it in every pixel, in every drop of ink in a print,” Hickey said “That inherent quality is what drew me to him.”

Whether working inside institutions or photographing spaces far from them, Harris approaches both with the same concern: understanding the rules well enough not to mistake them for the point. His photographs are shaped less by outcome than by intention by choices made before the shutter is ever released.

with the conductor with the ﬂow, being ﬂexible enough to shift and say, “How can we respond to the growing needs of the Baton Rouge downtown? And as a museum?” is important.

What would you say to yourself as a little girl growing up in Iran, that one day you would be leading a museum in an almost 100-year-old mansion in Louisiana?

One thing that always pushed me forward was my hope and my faith. As an Assyrian in Iran, I was a religious minority With that comes a lot of limited opportunities as a musician and as a woman. We learned from very early ages to always ﬁght for what is taken for granted in a lot of places. And from that, I think I got a lot of resiliency I never envisioned that I would not be in my country. All I knew was studying music I didn’t think of myself as leading an organization or being even in a museum space. Moving in different cultures, leaving so much behind and starting from absolutely ground zero in a country that you don’t know many people and barely speak the language, develops ﬂexibility, vision and drive to make a difference. I truly want to make something that shows that, through all of these hardships there was a reason. I’m making an impact, wherever I am. Baton Rouge is home, so I’m proud to make it here. Email Joy Holden at joy.holden@ theadvocate.com.

Continued from page 1y

His father built him a rolling bag to make life easier During COVID, Sheleg and his wife, Alex Schinasi, turned that solution into a company The sweetness that it was a father who was trying to make his son’s life easier is not lost on me.

I get that my excitement about this thing may make little sense to those who haven’t had the pleasure of pulling one of these bags.

But the delight is real. This week, I’ve said to people — including a complete stranger who commented on my oversized rolling bag: “You have to pull it to see how smooth it glides!”

Then, I convince them to try rolling it so they can share in my awe.

Maybe part of getting older is recognizing when brute force isn’t the best option anymore — when there’s a smarter, kinder way to move through the world. I didn’t buy this bag for myself, but it turns out I needed it. And if you see me smiling while pulling an oversized silver rolling bag down the street — no need to worry I’m ﬁne. I’ve just discovered the quiet joy of not carrying everything the hard way anymore.

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

staFF PHoto By soPHIa GerMer

L. Kasimu Harris’s shows photos that are part of his ‘Vanishing Black Bars &

series at his studio recently in New orleans.

ProVIDeD PHoto

sinella aghasi, executive director of the old Governor’s Mansion.

Lafitte Greenway to get a little more green

Volunteers plant pockets of forest to provide eventual shade

BY SAM KARLIN staff writer

It’s been more than a decade since workers cleared out space for the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans, a nearly 3-mile long multiuse path connecting Mid City with the French Quarter Next to a city sign and signal facility, a clearing alongside the path sat empty for years.

On a recent Saturday, 50 volunteers waited out torrential rain before descending on the site They hacked through clay and rock and got to work planting 100 trees.

“We realized there was a big beautiful bioswale here,” said Jason Neville, head of the Laﬁtte Greenway Partnership.

“We should do something with it.” When complete the site will serve as a small but key example of what Neville and the nonproﬁt Saving Our Urban Landscape (SOUL) want the greenway to become. In recent years, the group has planted a wide variety of trees, creating pockets of forest that should eventually create a canopy for parts of the path.

Susannah Burley, head of SOUL, said the group has already amassed over 800 trees along the greenway By the end of the year, they’ll reach 1,000.

The trees provide obvious beneﬁts for users of the greenway: shade, beauty and eventually a canopy expected to shape the greenway’s appearance. But Burley and Neville are hoping their efforts will do more. They hope rainwater that pools on nearby streets will eventually be funneled into bioswales like this one, alle-

viating ﬂooding.

As New Orleans gets hotter because of climate change the trees should cool the span. They expect ongoing experiments with many of the trees will help determine which root-manipulation techniques help trees grow stronger

“We want to build a big canopy,” Burley said New Orleans has few trees in several pockets of the city that are barren and blanketed in concrete, making summers especially hot. Summers in the city are getting dangerously hot due to climate change, and trees are an obvious solution — and also can help soak up ubiquitous stormwater

Funding and difficulties coordinating who plants and cares for trees have long caused problems for the groups working on reforesting the city

Neville and Burley see the greenway effort as a way to demonstrate how simple solutions like planting trees can help New Orleans become more livable.

About 50 volunteers worked for several hours planting the trees, with funding support from Entergy and Parks and Parkways through the Greater New Orleans Foundation Among the volunteers was Mike Karam, head of the city’s Parks and Parkways department. Karam previously said the city and nonproﬁt partners are about halfway to a 40,000-tree goal laid out in the city’s climate action plan, though certain pockets of the city have been developed with narrow streets and concrete that makes planting difﬁcult.

Neville, of the Laﬁtte Greenway Partnership, took a break from hacking through old stumps to drive his golf cart down the greenway, waving at regulars walking their dogs.

The rain had cleared up, and hundreds of trees plant-

ed at various points over the past three years soaked up the water next to the path.

Neville pointed out a burgeoning forest between the path and a playground. Further down, saplings planted a few months ago lined the greenway Behind a new football ﬁeld, cypress trees were slowly rising to form what should eventually be a barrier shielding the sprawling urban park from the interstate and its pollution.

SOUL is testing out various methods when planting the trees, including scoring and rubbing the roots to stimulate better growth, as well as enriching the soil when planting. They’re monitoring which trees had

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A nonproﬁt called Louisiana Green Corps has put its students to work planting many of the trees, part of a broader effort to improve the prospects of underserved young people in the city

With many large-scale efforts to build green infrastructure languishing with bureaucratic delays, Neville said he’s embraced smaller projects on the greenway as a way to show what can be done at a larger scale.

“The new strategy is to do smaller scale stuff that demonstrates the concept,” he said.

soUL’s Molly Powell, program and field coordinator, left, and ellen rogers, communications and volunteer coordinator prepare a tree to be planted.

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staFF PHotos By saM KarLIN

Mike Karam, director of the city’s Parks and Parkways agency, right, helps volunteers as part of a project to plant 100 trees along the Lafitte Greenway.

FAITH & VALUES

Quieter vigils are a growing voice of protest

Demonstrators find a way to avoid campus limits

BY TANYA RAGHU Contributing writer

Judith Lynn, who has lived close to Columbia University for two decades, marched beside pro-Palestinian students when campus protest against the war in Gaza erupted two years ago. “I was right there yelling with those beautiful students, but to see that squashed,” she said. “I’ve been finding ways to go beyond the protest.”

She has found her voice, she said, in silent vigils.

On either side of Columbia University’s main entrance on Broadway and 116th Street in Manhattan, Lynn, 74, stands with a large group dressed in black. Some of the group hand flyers to the steady foot trafﬁc in and out of the campus. Others hold a steady gaze into the middle distance. On this day, Lynn clutches a black-and-white portrait of Yunseo Chung, an international student from Korea detained by immigration agents in March “It is solemn and elegant,” Lynn said. “It is a direct statement, but because it is silent it is very powerful.”

The vigils, organized by CU Stands Up, have taken place every Monday at noon for more than nine months, drawing dozens of faculty and staff in addition to students and Upper West Side neighbors. “By being silent, we are maintaining the spotlight on the portraits we are holding,” E.Y Zipris, a doctoral student and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said. “The focus is on the fate of these students.”

Across the United States, vigils have been adopted as a way to build community around a principle or to grieve outside of expressly political or religious gatherings organized by institutions While religious language or symbols are not necessarily present, the rituals are unmistakably spiritual.

In Rio de Janeiro in 2013, an estimated 2 million people inundated Copacabana Beach for a Saturday night vigil before Pope Francis said Mass on Sunday In South Korea three years later, some 12,000-30,000 marchers held a candlelight vigil in the streets in Seoul to protest government corruption, leading to the president’s impeachment. On New Year’s Day, hundreds gathered near the Constellation bar in the Swiss resort village of Crans-Montana to mourn those who died in a ﬁre.

Improved well-being

BY MICHAELA HAAS

Contributing writer

Editor’s note: This story, created by Michaela Haas for Reasons to be Cheerful, is part of the Solutions Story Tracker from the Solutions Journalism Network a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous reporting about responses to social problems Louisiana Inspired features solutions journalism stories that provide tangible evidence that positive change is happening in other places and in our own communities — solutions that can be adopted around the world As soon as John Seigel-Boettner invites passengers onto his black trishaw a three-wheeled electric bicycle with two extra seats upfront, downtown Santa Barbara, California, seems to smile. Pedestrians wave and call out greetings. Children stop midstride. With his silver mustache, a cheerful “Mr Rogers” T-shirt and his favorite motto on his chest — “Believe there is good in the world” Seigel-Boettner is a familiar sight in this coastal city

He has been coordinating the local chapter of Cycling Without Age (CWA) since 2019. Effortlessly charming and still ferociously ﬁt at 70 years-old, he gives rides at least twice a week

Though the people who ride upfront don’t pedal, he doesn’t call them “passengers” but “riding partners” to emphasize the program’s spirit of companionship

“Cycling Without Age is about connection,” Seigel-Boettner says. “It’s about the conversations between pilot and partner and the connection with everyone we meet along the way.”

On this particular morning, his front-seat companion is 97-yearold Elizabeth Wright, a spry and witty resident of a local senior home who has been riding with him for many years.

“My name means I’m always right,” she says as she introduces herself Winding past palm trees, through a leafy neighborhood, and out toward the beach, she waves to her favorite street musician and recalls moments from her long life as a caregiver, activity coordinator, poet and writer

“This is where I bartended,” she says with a broad grin, pointing to a coastal pub, and tugs her blanket close in the morning breeze, her thin hands knotted with age. The ocean glints ahead. For a moment, she seems to fold

CU Stands Up, the vigil organizers at Columbia conceived of its protest in April, when students began to be detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Faculty and staff felt a sense of urgency, according to Jennifer Hirsch, a professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, who co-founded CU Stands Up.

The group considered several responses but was inspired to hold a weekly vigil in part by the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who for years held silent vigils holding photos of sons, fathers and others who had been imprisoned by the government. Rules about organizing on campus did not allow the group to register the event as a vigil; without a religious ﬁgure present, it could only be a protest.

But they kept the vigil format, said Hirsch, because it would attract more people. “It was pow-

and social

erful because people who came wouldn’t have necessarily come for an action they saw as more explicitly political,” Hirsch said. “People showed up just to express our horror, dismay, and lack of institutional action.”

Charmaine Willis, a political science professor at Old Dominion University who has studied vigils as a form of protest, said that candlelight vigils especially have become an important part of the protest repertoire because, as opposed to a traditional march or protest, vigils can be “softer.”

“Vigils not only boost your numbers in terms of the protest, but also get more support from people that are not typically protesting,” Willis said, adding that the recent interest in candlelight vigils could be attributed to their power and ubiquity on social media.

The earliest vigils can be

traced back to the Greco-Roman era. The Rev James Sabak, a Franciscan friar who is director of divine worship for the Diocese of Raleigh, in North Carolina, and the author of a book on vigils, said the classical-era rituals were celebratory, all-night affairs. As the former Roman Empire was Christianized, vigils were absorbed into the Christian tradition but retained their joyous, dusk-to-dawn outlines.

That changed during medieval times, when vigils became reserved for the priestly class, said Sabak. “We lose out on what that festive nature of a vigil is; it becomes this solemn, evening moment that you begin to endure. It kind of destroys the real powerful nature.”

The Middle Ages are also when vigils gained power as a way to remove sins In many ways this is the version that gets adopted by modern society

“Whether it be Christian or not, society and culture adopts the word as something that is done at night and has a seriousness to it and is connected with something sad,” Sabak said. “It gets connected to these moments of grief and tremendous suffering or pain experienced in society.”

But the somber tone of vigils is also an effective way to get people to focus on an issue, said Hirsch.

“It’s funny to get people’s attention without talking, because ordinarily you would yell at them to get their attention,” Hirsch said. “Particularly, a bunch of faculty not talking — that’s what we do. For faculty and staff to be out there in silence, it’s supposed to be arresting as you walk by You see the juxtaposition of faculty standing in silence and these dark portraits and you think to yourself, ‘What is going on in my country right now?’”

connections from bicycle outings

into her younger self.

CWA was born in Copenhagen in 2012, when Danish management consultant Ole Kassow borrowed a rickshaw on a whim and offered an elderly gentleman from a care home a ride. Kassow had watched his father, who lived with multiple sclerosis, grow increasingly isolated. As his formerly extrovert father’s world shrank, so too did his sense of connection. When Kassow later worked in a care home, he saw a lot of the same issues his dad had been struggling with.

“Elderly people come into a nursing home,” Kassow says, “and their world gets smaller and smaller and smaller until they just sit inside within their four walls.”

From that one act of kindness a movement spread, first across Denmark and then across the world. Today the nonprofit CWA spans more than 3,600 chapters and 50,000 volunteers in 41 countries, including in 25 U.S. states. It works in bike-friendly Copenhagen as well as in New York City Each chapter operates somewhat differently according to local needs, but all share five

guiding principles: Generosity, slowness, storytelling, relationships, without age. A visually impaired passenger called the initiative the “right to wind in your hair.” The trishaws cost anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 each, some modiﬁed to ﬁt wheelchairs. “When you consider the impact of one trishaw and think about how much money people otherwise spend on elder care — beds and wheelchairs and what not — it’s actually not a lot,” Kassow points out. He calls each ride “a bubble where magic happens.” Some chapters operate with support from their municipal communities, but most depend entirely on local fundraising and volunteers. While anybody can ride for free, CWA prioritizes riders with limited mobility SeigelBoettner’s youngest rider was a 5-year-old boy on a feeding tube who wanted to ride to school with his friends. “We provided that,” he says, “and it made him very happy.”

Seigel-Boettner loves cycling so much that he spent his honeymoon cycling with his wife, and he pedaled his newborn sons

home from the hospital. He used to be a middle school teacher and took his students on long bike rides across the country At least once a week, he still pairs a middle schooler with a senior for a ride on a trishaw, to spark conversations across generations that wouldn’t otherwise happen:

“They talk about life, music, what’s changed. The bike isn’t the end, the bike is the means to see the world from the riding partner’s perspective.”

Now he doesn’t consider himself retired, but “rewired for new experiences.” While people might think he’s feeding his karma bank by doing something good, he explains, “I come back from each ride completely changed. Society is missing a bridge between older people and everyone else — and this,” he says, tapping the trishaw frame, “is that bridge.”

Sometimes, his riders have lost their ability to speak at all. When Seigel-Boettner rides with someone experiencing memory loss, the words might fade away, but not the emotional resonance. The vibrations, the breeze, watching the passing world together become their shared language.

“They see a ﬂower, or the ocean, or a bird, and suddenly a memory surfaces,” Seigel-Boettner says.

CWA is much more than a lovely idea. A 2020 study found that participants experienced measurable improvements in mood and well-being after rides. In Canada, a 12-week observational study of long-term care residents showed that cycling signiﬁcantly increased immediate happiness and maintained overall quality of life without causing fatigue or pain. Another evaluation in Scotland of a pilot program linked CWA rides with reductions in social isolation and noted beneﬁts for both residents and volunteers. The most comprehensive evidence comes from the “When Movement Moves” study, a three-year multi-method evaluation by the National Institute of Public Health and University of Southern Denmark. Researchers measured a striking shift in before-and-after self-rated life satisfaction — an improvement greater than that of the world’s happiest nations. The study also noted lasting gains in emotional resilience, social connectedness and sense of purpose. Beyond data, thousands of personal stories reveal the pro-

gram’s subtle transformations, cross-generational exchange and renewed agency During the pandemic, SeigelBoettner trained caregivers to become pilots, ensuring residents could still feel the sun on their faces. Some care homes have since incorporated rides into their regular activities “It changed their relationships,” Seigel-Boettner attests. “Caregivers became companions again and also experienced much more appreciation from the families.” CWA has since participated in memorials, weddings and Christmas parades. The trishaws roll wherever community life unfolds.

As Seigel-Boettner navigates a gentle stretch of coastline road and divulges a local’s secret spot for buying the freshest ﬁsh, Wright leans forward, her blue eyes bright. A soft wind tugs at her white, chin-length hair under her straw hat. A jogger gives her a thumbs-up; a toddler waves. “I had my birthday picnic on the beach here,” she remembers, pointing to the sand. She is no longer bound to her walker, but ﬂying along the coast, reconnecting with her own narrative.

Seigel-Boettner pedals steadily, electric-assist humming beneath his seat. He listens as she talks about a childhood holiday in her native Illinois, her children and grandchildren. The city drifts by in slow motion, laughter from a passing cyclist, birdsong, the surf’s distant roar In this unhurried space, conversation ﬂows across decades. The pilot becomes a companion; the rider a storyteller The trishaw excursion is a chance to be seen again, not as a diagnosis but a person, not a burden but a being alive in the world. For pilots, each ride is a mirror, a reminder of what it means to age, to hope, to connect. For both, it’s a moment when time loosens its grip. At the end of the ride, SeigelBoettner helps Wright from her seat. She lingers at the threshold, turning to him. “Thank you,” she says. “That was the best part of my day.” He waves and she waves back before she heads inside.

For Seigel-Boettner, the ride was the best part of his day, too. “I’ve ridden through downtown 5 million times, but with Elizabeth it was completely new,” he says. “Carpe diem seize each day like it’s your ﬁrst.”

ProVIDeD PHoto By taNya raGHU

Demonstrators organized by CU stands Up hold a silent vigil near Columbia University in New york City

ProVIDeD PHoto By BaroN sPaFForD

John seigel-Boettner a lifelong cyclist, heads out on the road with a riding partner

SUNDAY, JANUArY 25, 2026

CURTIS / by Ray Billingsley

SLYLOCK FOX / by Bob Weber Jr

GET FUZZY / by Darby Conley

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE / by Chris Browne

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM / by Mike Peters

ZIGGY / by Tom Wilson

ZITS / by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

SALLY FORTH / by Francesco Marciuliano & Jim Keefe

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE /byStephan Pastis

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

word game

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

todAY's Word — oBeisAnce: oh-BEsens: A movement made in respect or submission.

Average mark 43 words Time limit 60 minutes

Can you find 58 or more words in OBEISANCE?

ken ken

instructions: 1 -Each rowand each column must contain thenumbers 1through4 (easy) or 1through6 (challenging) without repeating 2 -The numbers within the heavily outlinedboxes, called cages, must combine using thegiven operation (inany order)toproduce the target numbersinthe top-left corners. 3 -Freebies: Fillinthe single-boxcages withthe numberinthe top-left corner

instructions: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 gridwith several given numbers. The object is to placethe numbers 1to 9in theempty squares so that each row,each column and each 3x3 boxcontains the same number only once. The difficultylevel of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday

directions: Complete thegridso that numbers 1–132 connect horizontally, vertically or diagonally

Sudoku

goren Bridge

Where is the king?

West’s heart lead was most annoying. The slam would be cold on any other lead, making 12 tricks regardless of who held the king of diamonds. A losing diamond finesse would still create a discard for dummy’s losing heart. Now declarer had to use his best judgment and hope that was enough. Who was more likelytoholdthekingofhearts?If West has it, South should play the queen from dummy at trick one But is that likely? Leading from a king against a slam might be a good idea when the opponents stretched to reach the slam. You might need to set up a trick for your side before it’s too late. This however,wasapowerslam North clearly has a very good hand and leading from a king would be dangerous South decided to play East for the king of hearts

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

super Quiz

Take this Super Quiz to a Ph.D. Score 1 point for each correct answer on the Freshman Level, 2 points on the graduate Level and 3 points on the Ph.D. Level.

SUBJECT: BRITISH AUTHORS

(e.g., Preacher and author of the allegory “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Answer: John Bunyan.)

FRESHMAN LEVEL

1. His works include “A Christmas Carol,” “Oliver Twist” and “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Answer________

2. She created Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Answer________

3. Author of “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma” and “Mansfield Park.”

Answer________

4. She created Harry Potter

Answer________

5. His novels and short stories are about Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.

Answer________

GRADUATE LEVEL

8. His books include, “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

Answer________

9. Scottish novelist of “Treasure Island” and “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.”

Answer________

10. His most famous novel was “Brave New World.”

Answer________

PH.D LEVEL

11. His “Women in Love” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” were the subject of censorship trials.

Answer________

12. Called the “Father of Science Fiction,” he wrote “The War of the Worlds.”

Answer________

13.

South played low from dummy at trick one, winning in hand. He drew trumps in two rounds and cashed his three top clubs, discardingalowheartfromhishand. He ruffed dummy’s last club and then exited with a heart and was pleased to see East win the trick. East had to lead a diamond or give up a ruff-sluff 12 tricks eitherway regardless ofwhoheld the king of diamonds. Had West shown up with the king of hearts, South could still try the diamond finesse. Very well judged!

Tannah Hirsch welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency inc., 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, Ny 14207. E-mail responses may be sent to gorenbridge@ aol.com. © 2026 Tribune Content Agency

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Take your time. You may feel anxious to reach your destination but the risk of overlooking something essential is high if you neglect the details. Protect your possessions and be wary of scams PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Muster up energy and ingenuity and bring aboutchange.Attendeventsthatcan open doors to greater opportunities. Follow your intuition and market yourself astutely, and an interesting offer will come your way ARIES (March 21-April 19) Be careful what you offer Someone will take advantage of you if you are too

accommodating. Say no to temptation and indulgent behavior Protect your home, possessions and reputation.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Observe, assess and adjust your life to fit your needs. Make choices that help eliminate emotional distress and anger Feed your intelligence, and do whatever serves your mind and keeps your body strong.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) You’ll solve problems and initiate change, but you’ll also attract interference and people who try to take advantage of you. Make yourself clear and get what you want in writing.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Overreaction and exaggeration will tempt you Be careful not to overextend yourself or to promise more than you can deliver Focus more on personal growth.

6. His works include “The Jungle Book.” His poems include “Mandalay” and “Gunga Din.”

Answer________

7. He is best known for his James Bond series of spy novels.

Answer________

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) You have more wiggle room than you realize. Keep the momentum going, and generate the excitement and enthusiasm needed to get everyone on board.Youcanmakeadifferenceby stepping up and doing your part.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Tidy up and move along. Cut your losses, abandon what isn’t working and channel your energy and enthusiasm into something that excites you. You are overdue for a change and will benefit from trying new things.

LEO(July23-Aug.22)Choosegoalsand push forward. A change of attitude about certain people will encourage decisions about who you spend time with. Align yourself with those who have as much to contribute as you do. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Be inquisitive. The more interest you show in how and what others are doing, the easier it will be to get the help you require to get what you want. A show of admiration will help you gain acceptance and support.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Consider what’s essential to reaching your goal. A lifestyle change will put you inabetterfinancialpositionandhelp you attract interest in your plans.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Choose your battles carefully Get your facts straight and don’t let your emotions cost you in the heat of the moment. Strive to remain calm and ask direct questions.

SCORING: 24 to 30 points —congratulations, doctor; 18 to 23 points—honorsgraduate; 13 to 17 points —you’replenty smart, but no grind; 5to12points —you really shouldhit the booksharder;1point to 4points —enroll in remedial courses immediately; 0points who reads thequestions to you?

Saturday's Cryptoquote: Alot of people like snow.Ifind it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.—Carl Reiner

1. Charles Dickens. 2. Agatha Christie.3.Jane Austen. 4. J.K. Rowling. 5. Arthur Conan Doyle. 6. RudyardKipling. 7. IanFleming.8.Roald Dahl. 9. Robert Louis Stevenson. 10. Aldous Huxley 11. D.H. Lawrence. 12.H.G. Wells. 13. C.S. Lewis. 14. Joseph Conrad. 15. G.K. Chesterton. Crossword