As amassive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the U.S.and Louisiana on Sunday,the BatonRouge area wasexpecting very little, if any, iceaccumulation into Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Although alittle lingering iceisexpected, the NWSsaid it would only affect bridges or elevated surfaces and would melt very quickly.Monday is predicted to have alow temperature of 22 degrees and awindchill of 10.The NWSexpects temperatures in the Baton Rouge area to warm up to 38 degrees by noon. For more on forecasts and school closures, see page 6A.
Cassidy callsfor Minn. shooting probe
second fatality is ‘incredibly disturbing,’ senatorsays
BY MATTHEW ALBRIGHT and ALYSE PFEIL staff writers
Afterfederalimmigration enforcementagents fatally shot asecond person in Minneapolis, stirring mass protests, U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy called the events “incredibly disturbing” and said there should be “a full joint federal and state investigation.”
“The credibility of ICE andDHS areatstake,” the Louisiana Republican wrote on X, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.“We can trust the American people with the truth.”
On Saturday,a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen andintensivecareunit nurse.
ä LEGAL FIGHT ERUPTS OVER LATEST SHOOTING. PaGe 3a
Federal officials said officersshotPretti defensivelyasheapproached them witha gun. But videos from the scene contradict that account: They show him holding aphone, not agun, and appear to show the officer shooting him after he had already been wrestled to the ground. The shooting, which is the second since President Donald Trump’sadministration launcheda sweeping immigration
ä see PROBE, page 5A
More than athird of implicated athletes haveLouisiana ties
BY JOSEPH CRANNEY staff writer
“My immediate reaction is we need to do more in every direction on gambling, because young people are getting pulled into situations, sometimes innocently,sometimes with bad intentions,” Mizell said. “And there needs to be consequences.”
Mostofthe bets involving Louisiana teams were not actually placed in Louisiana, according to prosecutors. The scheme’sringleaders were based in Philadelphia and Mississippi. And the conspiracy also involvedcollege athletes in at least three states —Alabama, Georgiaand Texas—where sports gambling remains illegal.
While no one involved has said why so many playersfromLouisianawere allegedly recruited into
ä see GAMBLING, page 4A
Louisiana’ssports gamblingindustry has come under fire in the wake of acollege basketball point-shaving scheme unveiled this month by federal prosecutors, with more than a third of the implicated athletes having played for colleges in thestate For astate where legal sports gambling hasexplodedintoa$440 millionindustry,the indictments have prompted around of questionsastowhy the alleged sprawling conspiracy all but centered in Louisiana, and whether the state’sera of legalization played afactor Basketball players from Tulane University,Nicholls State and the University of New Orleans were indicted, accused of attempting to rig eight games between 2024 and2025. Twoothers from Northwestern State were implicated in the indictment, but not named. Sen. Beth Mizell, aFranklinton Republican and opponent of legalizing sports betting, saidinaninterview that Louisiana’s“gambling culture” where sports betting is advertised on billboards and gambling promotions aredistributed to freshmen on college campuses, is part of the problem
BY HALEYMILLER staff writer
In aplay to climb over 30 places in anational ranking of higher education’stop research spenders, major organizational change is sweeping through LSU. In December,the Boardof Supervisorsapproveda reorganization at the highest levels. It reinstated theposition of chancellor at theBaton Rouge campus andbrought the LSU AgCenter,Pennington Biomedical Research Center,LSU Health New Orleansand LSU Health Shreveport under his authority LSUSystemExecutiveVice President and Chancellor James Dalton called the unfolding transition a“merger.”
“How do we start viewing ourselves as one and start acting moreinconcert?” Dalton said. “I thinkit’sa whole gamut of things that we’ve gottoconsider, starting withtitles and thendown intothe weeds and
staFFFILePHoto By HILary sCHeINUK students walkthrough the quad on LsU’scampus in Baton rouge. LsUhas embarked on an ambitious mission to become one of U.s. higher education’sbiggest research spenders, driving major organizational and cultural changes.
into the details.” The need for theuniversity system, which maintains eight campuses across Louisiana, to start acting as onederives
not only from the philosophical promise of the “statewide university” but also froma
staFF PHotosByJILL PICKett
Mizell
Cassidy
BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS
Israel starts operation to find last hostage in Gaza
NAHARIYA,Israel Israel said Sunday its military was conducting a “large-scale operation” to locate the last hostage in Gaza, as Washington and other mediators pressure Israel and Hamas to move into the next phase of their ceasefire.
The statement came as Israel’s Cabinet met to discuss the possibility of opening Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt, and a day after top U.S. envoys met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about next steps.
The return of the remaining hostage, Ran Gvili, has been widely seen as removing the remaining obstacle to moving ahead with opening the Rafah crossing, which would signal the ceasefire’s second phase.
The return of all remaining hostages, alive or dead, has been a central part of the first phase of the ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10. Before Sunday, the previous hostage was recovered in early December
While Israel has carried out search efforts before for Gvili, more detail than usual was released about this one. Israel’s military said it was searching a cemetery in northern Gaza near the Yellow Line, which marks off Israeli-controlled parts of the territory Separately an Israeli military official said Gvili may have been buried in the Shujaiyya-Daraj Tuffah area, and that rabbis and dental experts were on the ground with specialized search teams. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing an operation still under way
Climber scales Taipei
101 without ropes
TAIPEI, Taiwan American rock climber Alex Honnold ascended the Taipei 101 skyscraper on Sunday without any ropes or protective equipment.
Cheers erupted from a streetlevel crowd as he reached the top of the spire of the 1,667-foot tower about 90 minutes after he started. Wearing a red shortsleeve shirt, Honnold waved his arms back and forth over his head.
“It was like what a view, it’s incredible, what a beautiful day,” he said afterward. “It was very windy, so I was like, don’t fall off the spire. I was trying to balance nicely But it was, what an incredible position, what a beautiful way to see Taipei.”
Honnold, known for his ropeless ascent up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan, climbed up one corner of Taipei 101 using small L-shaped outcroppings as footholds. Periodically, he had to maneuver around and clamber up the sides of large ornamental structures that jut out from the tower pulling himself up with his bare hands.
The building has 101 floors, with the hardest part being the 64 floors of the middle section the “bamboo boxes” that give the building its signature look. Divided into eight, each segment has eight floors of steep overhanging climbing followed by balconies, where he took short rests as he made his way upward.
More bodies recovered in Indonesia landslide
BANDUNG, Indonesia Improved weather on Sunday helped rescuers on Indonesia’s main island of Java recover more bodies as they dug through mud and debris in search of scores of missing in a landslide that killed more than two dozen villagers The predawn landslide on the slopes of Mount Burangrang in West Java province on Saturday buried some 34 houses in Pasir Langu village. On Sunday, 72 people remained missing, many feared buried under tons of mud, rocks and uprooted trees. About 230 residents living near the site were evacuated to government shelters.
A 250-member search team on Sunday collected victims’ remains, including body parts, in 14 body bags, bringing the total recovered to 25, said Ade Dian Permana, who heads the local search and rescue office. They will be released to relatives once they are identified by forensic experts.
Winter storm slams swaths of U.S.
a million customers left without power across the
south
BY KATE BRUMBACK and JULIE WALKER associated Press
A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the U.S. on Sunday, bringing subzero temperatures and paralyzing air and road traffic. Tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and about a million homes and businesses in the Southeast were left without electricity
The ice and snowfall were expected to continue into Monday in much of the country, followed by very low temperatures, which could cause “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” to linger for several days, the National Weather Service said.
Heavy snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread,” weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview “It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we’re talking like a 2,000-mile spread.”
President Donald Trump
had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday
The Federal Emergency Management Agency prepositioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
New York Gov Kathy Hochul said the state was bracing for the longest cold stretch and highest snow totals it has seen in years.
Communities near the Canadian border have already seen record-breaking subzero temperatures, with Watertown registering minus 34 degrees and Copenhagen minus 49, she said.
“An Arctic siege has taken over our state,” Hochul said. “It is brutal, it is bone chilling and it is dangerous.”
In Corinth, Mississippi, where power outages were
assoCIateD Press FILe PHoto By CHarLes DHaraPaK
President Barack obama awards the Medal of Freedom to Dr. William Foege, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped lead the effort to eradicate smallpox, on May 29, 2012, at the White House in Washington. Foege died saturday at age 89.
William Foege, leader in smallpox eradication, dies
BY MIKE STOBBE associated Press
ATLANTA Dr. William Foege, a leader of one of humanity’s greatest public health victories — the global eradication of smallpox — has died.
Foege died Saturday in Atlanta at the age of 89, according to the Task Force for Global Health, which he co-founded.
The 6-foot-7 inch Foege literally stood out in the field of public health. A whip-smart medical doctor with a calm demeanor, he had a canny knack for beating back infectious diseases.
He was director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and later held other key leadership roles in campaigns against international health problems.
But his greatest achievement came before all that, with his work on smallpox, one of the most lethal diseases in human history For centuries, it killed about one-third of the people it infected and left most survivors with deep scars on their faces from the pus-filled lesions.
Smallpox vaccination campaigns were well established by the time Foege was a young doctor. Indeed, it was no longer seen in the United States. But infections were still occurring elsewhere, and efforts to stamp them out were stalling.
Working as a medical missionary in Nigeria in the 1960s, Foege and his colleagues developed a “ring containment” strategy, in which a smallpox outbreak was contained by identifying each smallpox case and vaccinating everyone who the patients might come into contact with.
The method relied heavily on quick detective work and was born out of necessity There simply wasn’t enough vaccine available to immunize everyone, Foege wrote in “House on Fire,” his 2011 book about the smallpox eradication effort.
It worked, and became pivotal in helping rid the world of smallpox for good. The last naturally occurring case was seen in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated from the Earth.
widespread, Caterpillar told employees at its remanufacturing site to stay home Monday and Tuesday
“May God have mercy on Corinth, MS! The sound of the trees snapping, exploding & falling through the night have been unnerving to say the least,” resident Kathy Ragan wrote on Facebook.
On the east side of Nashville, Jami Joe, 41, had power Sunday afternoon but she feared the juice might not last long as ice-heavy limbs from mature oak and pecan trees continued to crash around her house. “It’s only a matter of time if a limb strikes a power line,” she predicted.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, officials say the weight of accumulated snow and sleet likely caused the collapse of an awning onto several houseboats. Six people
Zelenskyy:
were rescued and 22 were evacuated, Pulaski County officials said.
As of Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, Santorelli said. The number of customers without power stood at about 1 million, according to poweroutage.us.
Tennessee was hardest hit with about 337,000 customers out by midday Sunday, and Louisiana and Mississippi all had more than 100,000 customers in the dark. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were without power in Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama and West Virginia.
At Philadelphia International Airport, inside displays registered scores of canceled flights and few vehicles could be seen arriving Sunday morning. At Reagan National in Washington, virtually all flights were canceled.
Even once the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will continue, Santorelli warned.
“Behind the storm it’s just going to get bitterly cold across basically the entirety of the eastern twothirds of the nation, east of the Rockies,” she said. That means the ice and snow won’t melt as fast, which could hinder some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
Along the Gulf Coast, temperatures were balmy Sunday hitting the high 60s and low 70s, but thermometers were expected to drop into the high 20s and low 30s there by Monday morning. The National Weather Service warned of damaging winds and a slight risk of severe storms and possibly even a brief tornado.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people who died were found outside as temperatures plunged Saturday before the snows arrived in earnest, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation.
The Democrat pleaded with New Yorkers to stay inside and off roads: “We want every single New Yorker to make it through this storm.”
Some 11,000 flights were canceled Sunday and more than 14,000 delayed, according to the flight tracker flightaware.com Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey were hit especially hard.
U.S. security deal for Ukraine ready to be signed
By the associated Press
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that a U.S security guarantees document for Ukraine is “100% ready” after two days of talks involving representatives from Ukraine, the U.S. and Russia.
Speaking to journalists in Vilnius during a visit to Lithuania, Zelenskyy said Ukraine is waiting for its partners to set a signing date, after which the document would go to the U.S. Congress and Ukrainian parliament for ratification.
Zelenskyy also emphasized Ukraine’s push for European Union membership by 2027, calling it an “economic security guarantee.”
The Ukrainian leader described the talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, as likely the first trilateral format in “quite a long while” that included not only diplomats but military representatives from all three sides. The talks, which began on Friday and continued Saturday, were the latest aiming to end Russia’s nearly fouryear full-scale invasion.
Zelenskyy acknowledged fundamental differences between Ukrainian and Russian positions, reaffirming territorial issues as a major sticking point.
“Our position regarding our territory — Ukraine’s territorial integrity — must be respected,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed a Ukraine settlement with President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during marathon talks late Thursday The Kremlin insisted that to reach a peace deal, Kyiv must withdraw its troops from the areas in the east that Russia illegally annexed but has not fully captured.
Zelenskyy said the U.S. is trying to find a compromise, but that “all sides must be ready for compromise.”
Negotiators will return to the UAE on Feb. 1 for the next round of talks, ac-
cording to a U.S. official. The recent talks covered a broad range of military and economic matters and included the possibility of a ceasefire before a deal, the official said There was not yet an agreement on a final framework for oversight and operation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russia and is the largest in Europe.
Icicles form on power lines sunday during a winter storm in Nashville, tenn.
BY SARAH RAZA, JACK BROOK and STEVE KARNOWSKI associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS In dueling news conferences, federal and state officials offered starkly different messages Sunday about the immigration crackdown that has swept across Minneapolis and surrounding cities, with both claiming the moral high ground in the wake of another shooting death by federal agents.
“Which side do you want to be on?” Gov Tim Walz asked the public. “The side of an all-powerful federal government that could kill, injure, menace and kidnap its citizens off the streets, or on the side of a nurse at the VA hospital who died bearing witness to such government,” a reference to the shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday in Minneapolis.
At the same time, in a federal office building about 20 miles away, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, the public face of the crackdown, again turned blame for the shooting to Pretti.
“When someone makes the choice to come into an active law enforcement scene, interfere, obstruct, delay or assault law enforcement officer and and they bring a weapon to do that That is a choice that that individual made,” he told reporters
The competing comments emerged as local leaders and Democrats across the country demanded federal immigration officers leave Minnesota after Pretti’s shooting, which set off clashes with protesters in a city already shaken by an-
other shooting death weeks earlier
Video shot by bystanders and reviewed by The Associated Press appears to contradict statements by President Donald Trump’s administration, which said agents fired “defensively” against Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse as he approached them.
Pretti can be seen with only a phone in his hand as he steps between an immigration agent and a woman on the street. No footage appears to show him with a weapon. During the scuffle, agents appear to disarm him after discovering that he was carrying a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, and then opened fire several times. Pretti was licensed to carry a concealed weapon.
In the hours after the shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti attacked officers, and Bovino said he wanted to “massacre law enforcement.”
Bovino was more restrained Sunday, saying he would not speculate about the shooting and that he planned to wait for the investigation.
Pretti’s family said they were “heartbroken but also very angry” at authorities.
Relatives were furious at federal officials’ description of the shooting.
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand, and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed,” the family statement said. “Please get the truth out about our son.”
Pretti was shot just over a mile from where an ICE officer killed 37-year-old Re-
nee Good on Jan. 7, sparking widespread protests.
A federal judge has already issued an order blocking the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting, after state and county officials sued.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said the lawsuit filed Saturday is meant to preserve evidence collected by federal officials that state authorities have not yet been able to inspect.
A court hearing is scheduled for Monday in federal court in St. Paul.
“A full, impartial, and transparent investigation into his fatal shooting at the hands of DHS agents is nonnegotiable,” Ellison said in a statement
Drew Evans, superintendent of the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which investigates police shootings, told reporters Saturday that federal officers blocked his agency from the scene of the shooting even after it obtained a signed judicial warrant. On Sunday morning, bureau officers were working at the
Canadian PM: No plans to pursue free trade agreement with China
BY ROB GILLIES associated Press
TORONTO Canadian Prime
Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope
they leave Ice Hockey alone!
and meal and 25% on pork and seafood.
scene.
Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the lawsuit, saying claims that the federal government would destroy evidence are “a ridiculous attempt to divide the American people and distract from the fact that our law enforcement officers were attacked and their lives were threatened.”
The Minnesota National Guard temporarily assisted local police at Walz’s direction, officials said, with troops sent to the shooting site and a federal building where officers have squared off daily with demonstrators.
But Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Sunday morning on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that “it’s back to just the Minneapolis police responding to calls.”
O’Hara said he had seen no evidence that Pretti brandished the pistol, and that the crackdown was exhausting his department.
“This is taking an enormous toll, trying to manage all this chaos on top of hav-
ing to be the police department for a major city It’s too much,” he said.
Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez of New York was among several Democratic lawmakers demanding that
federal immigration authorities leave Minnesota.
In a statement, former President Barack Obama called Pretti’s death a “heartbreaking tragedy” and warned that “many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.” He urged the White House to work with city and state officials.
“This has to stop,” Obama said.
Federal officials have repeatedly questioned why Pretti was armed during the confrontation. But gun rights groups noted that it’s legal to carry firearms during protests.
“Every peaceable Minnesotan has the right to keep and bear arms including while attending protests, acting as observers, or exercising their First Amendment rights,” the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus said in a statement. “These rights do not disappear when someone is lawfully armed.”
8ofLivingstonParish,
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mills(an estimated$299,083 reasonably expectedatthistimetobecollected from thelevyofthe taxfor an entire year)onall theproperty subjecttotaxation in theDistrictfor aperiodoften (10) years, beginningwiththeyear2028 andendingwiththe year 2037, forthe purposes of maintainingand operating theDistrict’s fire protection facilities, for purchasing fire truckand other fire-fighting equipmentand paying the costofobtainingwater for fire protection purposes,including charges forthe hydrant rentalsand services? Therewas foundbysaidcount andcanvass that therewas atotal of 124 votes cast IN FAVOROF theProposition anda totalof 145 votescast AGAINST the Proposition,ashereinabove setforth Therefore, it hasbeendeclaredbythe governingauthority of theDistrictthatthe Propositionashereinabove setforth duly FAILED
isiana SecretaryofState in accordance with theprovisionsofChapter 8-A of Title 18 of theLouisiana RevisedStatutesof1950, as amended, is $6,422.71. FireProtectionDistrictNo. 8ofLivingstonParish, Louisiana
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The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the U.S and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada 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
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1%, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3% of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
BY PAN PYLAS associated Press
LONDON A row erupted Sunday within Britain’s governing Labour Party after the ambitious mayor of Manchester was prevented from trying to reenter Parliament at a special election in the city, with critics claiming that Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not want to see a potential rival back in the House of Commons.
Andy Burnham, who has been in charge of the Greater Manchester region since 2017, made a request
GAMBLING
Continued from page 1a
the scheme, the 70-page indictment filed Jan. 14 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania offers some clues.
For one, federal prosecutors say former LSU basketball star Antonio Blakeney accused of helping rig two Chinese Basketball Association games in 2023, later used his influence in Louisiana to help recruit other, younger college basketball players in the state into the fold. Blakeney, who is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, hasn’t entered a plea yet, according to online court records.
Some who helped to usher in legalized sports betting in Louisiana say that decision is not to blame.
Ronnie Johns, a former state senator who chaired the Louisiana Gaming Control Board from 2021 to
RANKINGS
Continued from page 1a
strategy to enter the coveted top 50 ranks of the National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey, officials say The informal distinction has been achieved by research powerhouses like Harvard, the University of Michigan and UCLA and LSU officials say it is key to unlocking greater federal funding and prestige for the university system.
The flagship campus in Baton Rouge ranks 83rd, with the health sciences centers in New Orleans and Shreveport at 195th and 269th.
“Part of the goal of restructuring was related to being able to report our combined research dollars, but it’s also about ensuring that we operate collaboratively, cohesively and efficiently,”
Ashley Arceneaux, the chief of staff to the chancellor, said in a statement. “We are protecting each institution’s mission throughout the process, but we anticipate there will be cost savings and shared services that could be discovered through the transformative process of knitting our campuses into an even greater Flagship.”
in U.K. Labour Party over candidate
to Labour’s governing committee on Saturday to stand as the party’s candidate in the election for the Gorton and Denton constituency, which is expected to take place by the end of February
If he ended up winning in a traditionally safe Labour seat, then he would have to stand down from his job as mayor, meaning that there would likely have to be another special election there. Burnham’s mandate ends in May 2028. The decision to block Burnham was made by a 10-strong group of Labour’s National Executive Com-
mittee, the body behind the party’s election machinery
Labour said the NEC had decided to deny Burnham permission to stand in order to avoid “an unnecessary election” for Manchester mayor, which “would have a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources.”
Burnham has not responded yet to the decision.
Labour is widely predicted to suffer a drubbing at a raft of elections in May Britain’s equivalent of the U.S. midterms. If current opinion polls are any guide, then Labour is
expected to lose power in Wales for the first time since the legislature was created in 1999, fall way short of reclaiming power in Scotland and get battered in local elections in England.
Since winning July 2024’s general election by a landslide, Labour has seen its poll ratings tank, partly because of a series of policy missteps, which have been directly linked to Starmer’s decision-making.
Other parties, including the antiimmigration Reform U.K. and the Greens, have been the main beneficiaries of Labour’s apparent drop in
support. The prime minister’s poll ratings are particularly dire at present and many inside the party think he may face a leadership challenge if May’s elections end up being as bad as predicted.
Burnham, who served in Labour governments in the 2000s under prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has made no secret of his ambition to lead the party at some stage in the future. Burnham is widely known as the “King of the North” in reference to the television fantasy show “Game of Thrones.”
2024, noted that Louisiana was an early state to ban prop bets on college sports, a kind of wager on players’ individual statistics that critics said were especially subject to abuse.
“The legislation we ultimately passed wasn’t the cause of the point-shaving,” said former Louisiana Senate Majority Leader Danny Martiny, who supported legalization. “The point-shaving was caused by people who wanted to take advantage of this system.”
Still, others say the culture around sports betting in the state has gone too far
“There’s a notion that it’s not just acceptable, but that it’s safe,” Mizell said Money and consequences
When sports gambling was put to a referendum in 2020, the issue had broad appeal among Louisianans. Voters in 55 of the state’s 64 parishes backed legalization
The Legislature adopted the changes into law in 2021,
Faculty Senate President Daniel Tirone said top 50 status is a notable achievement in the sense that “you’re judged by the company you keep.” The ranking would signify LSU’s academic excellence to its peers, grant funders and the public, he said.
“It would be a way for us to say we are producing scholarship and engaging in research at the same level as these highly regarded institutions,” Tirone said. “It would be a way to elevate ourselves into that type of conversation.”
The road to top 50
The push to reach top 50 has been in the works for years.
In February 2024, LSU Vice President of Strategy and Public Policy Jason Droddy pitched the plan to pool research dollars to improve its ranking.
“What we plan to do is combine the data,” Droddy said to the Board of Supervisors. “The reason we can do that is it reflects the enterprise similar to other universities.”
In 2026, with new system President Wade Rousse at the helm, the goal remains an institutional priority According to their contracts, Rousse and Dalton will each receive a one-time payment
which also permitted the state to tax sportsbooks a portion of their proceeds. The industry took off quickly In one particularly high profile move, Caesars Entertainment struck a deal with LSU to become its official sportsbook and advertise on campus. LSU students received an email in 2022 offering them $300 in free bets after making a $20 wager with Caesars Sportsbook, which drew outcry on campus. LSU and Caesars have since ended their agreement.
Meanwhile, the state has reaped financial rewards from legalization.
In the 2025 fiscal year, sportsbooks collected more than $443 million in net proceeds on more than $3.7 billion in wagers in Louisiana, state records show More than $67 million of the proceeds were paid to the state in taxes.
A new law increased the
of $100,000 in the year that LSU enters the top 50 of research spending in the HERD Survey
The university established eight to 10 committees to manage different aspects of the merger, Dalton said. One consideration will be how to receive accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges as a unified system.
“As you start to peel back those layers, there’s a lot of other things you have to think about,” Dalton said. “Not only is it accreditation, but you have to think about our research programs, our academic policies, how we handle promotion and tenure and hiring.”
Dalton said he believes the recent administrative actions to centralize the university system will benefit LSU in opportunities for research collaboration in addition to finances.
“Bringing those together we gain the strength of being considered as one, but more importantly, we can bring together different groups, collaborate better incentivize collaboration,” Dalton said. “I think it’ll allow us to get cross-disciplinary research, cross-disciplinary academic programs going much more quickly and much more efficiently.”
tax that the state collects from online sports gambling from 15% to a little more than 21%. Still, some states tax online sports gambling at far higher rates, with New York and Oregon, for example, taxing them at 51%, according to the Tax Foundation.
Rep. Neil Riser, a Columbia Republican who authored the tax increase for online sports gambling, pointed to the point-shaving scandal as another example of its consequences for young or desperate people.
“It leads to things you have right now,” Riser said. “Any time you have gambling, you have the lure of easy money For young athletes, money’s enticing. It’s the ultimate appeal.”
Riser’s legislation that was signed into law last June also included an attempt to steer some of the state’s gambling revenues back to those who help bring it in — university athletic departments.
A quarter of the tax money
Impact unclear
Just how much closer the organizational overhaul will get LSU to the top 50 is an open question.
National Science Foundation spokesperson Michelle Negrón said the HERD Survey will begin data collection soon. Individual campuses in a university system must respond separately, according to Negrón.
“An individual reporting unit in the survey is defined as a geographically separate campus headed by a president, chancellor or equivalent,” Negrón wrote in an email.
Negrón said there are “ongoing discussions” with LSU following the reorganization, which attempts to add research dollars from the health sciences centers in Shreveport and New Orleans to the flagship total.
“No further information on how it will affect reporting is available at this time,” Negrón wrote.
The grand strategy is not without skeptics. Some advocates for institutions outside of Baton Rouge question what the increased centralization will mean for their research funding — and autonomy overall.
“I’m certainly not opposed to a stronger LSU and stronger research at the institu-
that the state receives from online sports betting should go to the state’s 11 public universities with Division I sports programs, which Riser estimated at around $2 million a year per school.
The money’s a boost for Louisiana’s smaller, strapped athletic departments, all of which — other than LSU — operate at a deficit and rely on the university to subsidize their operations. Now that the NCAA allows universities to pay their athletes direct compensation athletic directors of cash-strapped schools have said it’s become even more difficult to recruit top players.
With money from gambling proceeds, athletic departments can pay for scholarships, facility upgrades insurance and medical coverage.
The law doesn’t permit them to use the money to pay athletes directly
History of scandals
Johns, the former gaming
tion,” state Sen. Thomas Pressly, R-Shreveport, said. “What I am opposed to is putting us under the same umbrella for the benefit of one campus and not the benefit of all the campuses.” He said state law requires chancellor positions at the two medical schools, the heads of which were renamed to “senior vice chancellors” under the new organizational chart.
“I would expect legislation to be brought forth to this legislative session to clarify those changes, and we’ll see what the Legislature has to say about the proposed changes,” Pressly said. “In my eyes, they’re still proposed changes, because the law trumps the board rules.”
Regarding how research funding could change under the new system, Arceneaux said the bulk of research at LSU is funded through individual grants to specific researchers and research projects. In most cases, the dollars are not transferable, she said.
“What is new in this configuration is the goal of building a culture that focuses on leveraging research talent across the state and using it collectively to pursue larger, higher-dollar grants that will not only help our portfolio but will also bring greater impact to the people of our state and
board chair, noted that pointshaving in college basketball was a problem long before states legalized sports gambling, with notable scandals dating as far back as the 1950s. They include a point-shaving scandal at Tulane in the mid-’80s, when three Tulane players were indicted and three coaches lost their jobs.
Johns said it’s up to the NCAA and university athletic departments to educate players on sports gambling’s potential dangers.
“I just hope that the universities have a very proactive program for monitoring their athletes, educating them and keeping a tab on their activities,” Johns said. Martiny added that regardless of what laws the state adopts, some people will try to take advantage of the system.
“That’s what crooks do,” Martiny added. “We made bank robbery illegal, but that doesn’t mean nobody’s ever going to rob a bank.”
nation,” Arceneaux said. The effects of LSU’s pursuit of top 50 have not trickled down to the campus level yet, Tirone said “Thus far it’s really been an administrative matter,” Tirone said. “They are, I think, still conceptualizing how this is going to work in practice.”
He anticipated the top-50 ranking could influence faculty recruitment, as well as systemwide focus on the areas that receive the most federal funding. He noted biomedical and engineering research specifically
“Certainly, we wouldn’t want that to be done to the exclusion of the other disciplines,” Tirone, a politicalscience professor, said. “But I do think it is something that as we set this as an institutional goal, we would have to structure to some extent our internal prioritization to make sure that we are setting ourselves up to be able to pursue that.”
Dalton said to expect cultural shifts ahead as the system transforms into a more unified entity
“I think you’ve got to get a large, diverse group of people in the same room and think out loud about what are the challenges, what are the opportunities to become better,” Dalton said.
Michigan AG sues big oil companies
she alleges cartel-like plot to control market
BY BETH LEBLANC
the Detroit News (tNs)
LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attor-
ney General Dana Nessel on Friday filed a federal antitrust suit against the nation’s largest oil companies, arguing the businesses had acted as a “cartel” to restrain trade and slow renewable energy competition and growth
The result, the attorney general argued in a statement has been “artificially high home and transportation energy costs.” The state is “facing an energy affordability crisis” because of that restrained competition, Nessel said
“These out-of-control costs are not the result of natural economic
PROBE
Continued from page 1a
crackdown in Minnesota, led to more protests by residents demanding that immigration agents leave.
Cassidy’s call for a joint investigation comes amid deep tensions between state and federal officials in Minnesota. State officials have accused immigration agents of reckless tactics that needlessly stoke fear and confrontation; Trump administration leaders have said state officials are refusing to work with them and are inflaming anger at law enforcement.
Federal officials have so far refused to cooperate with local law enforcement investigating the shootings.
After Pretti’s death Saturday, the Minnesota attorney general filed a lawsuit, and a federal judge issued an order blocking federal agencies from “destroying or altering evidence” related to the shooting.
Other La. leaders react
On the Sunday morning CBS news program “Face the Nation,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise RJefferson, was asked about Cassidy’s statement on the events Saturday in Minneapolis.
“I don’t question the credibility of ICE,” Scalise said. The unrest in Minneapolis is due to “failed local leadership,” he said. “(Federal agents) didn’t get resistance in cities like New Orleans.”
U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, in a social media post on Saturday night, said “sanctuary city” policies, which place limits on state and local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, are to blame for the escalation of tension in Minneapolis.
“This sanctuary city BS raises stress levels in ways that it’s difficult to explain, but I can tell you that pulling the trigger will happen more frequently,” Higgins wrote.
Trump’s Department of Justice lists Minnesota as a “sanctuary state,” but Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in an interview with PBS earlier this month said it is not and has never claimed to be a sanctuary state.
U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, DBaton Rouge, condemned Pretti’s killing.
“This gentleman was executed. Period,” he said. Fields also called for the resignation of Kristi Noem, the top official at the DHS, which oversees federal immigration enforcement across the country
“She’s out of her league,” he said.
“The people of Minnesota and everywhere else have a right to be angry,” he added. “Federal law enforcement agencies have to be held accountable.”
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, DNew Orleans, said on social media that “another U.S. citizen was murdered” by federal law enforcement.
“This violence we’re seeing is sanctioned by the dangerous rhetoric and reckless
inflation, but due to the greed of these corporations who prioritized their own profit and marketplace dominance over competition and consumer savings,” the attorney general said.
The companies, the department said, have been aware of the negative effects fossil fuel dominance would have on consumers and the natural environment and have hidden that.
Over decades, the companies, through trade organizations such as the American Petroleum Institute, have coordinated an industrywide effort to delay energy transition, leaving Michigan residents with high prices and few choices when it comes to energy alternatives, the department said.
The suit, which has not yet been assigned to a federal judge in western Michigan’s U.S. District Court,
policies of Donald Trump and Kristi Noem,” Carter said. He said that last week, he voted against funding ICE’s budget.
“I refuse to support it unless it contains major reforms and strong guardrails that prevent further assault on the civil rights of my constituents,” Carter said.
Budget battle
Saturday’s shooting could complicate Congress’ attempts to pass budget bills, with a deadline looming at the end of the week to prevent another partial government shutdown.
Under the direction of
seeks a permanent injunction on the oil companies’ alleged collusion, attorney fees and costs, trebled damages for all harms suffered by the state and its residents and the repayment of all profits obtained as a result of anticompetitive behavior The American Petroleum Institute, a named defendant in the case, called the lawsuit “baseless” and part of a coordinated effort to attack fossil fuels.
“These baseless lawsuits are a coordinated campaign against an industry that powers everyday life, drives America’s economy and is actively reducing emissions,” Ryan Meyers, senior vice president and general counsel for API, said in a statement “We continue to believe that energy policy belongs in Congress, not a patchwork of courtrooms.”
The Sierra Club Michigan commended the lawsuit in a Friday statement.
“In Michigan, these companies have used their outsized political influence to preserve the status quo and pave the way for a wave of energy-intensive data center projects across the state, even as renewable energy remains the cheapest source of new power and what Michiganders deserve,” said Tim Minotas, legislative and political director for Sierra Club Michigan.
State Rep. Pauline Wendzel, chairwoman of the House Energy Committee, criticized the lawsuit, calling it an attempt to appease climate activists rather than serve Michigan residents. The factors raising energy costs, Wendzel said, are not the oil and gas companies but green energy mandates passed by the Democratic-led Legislature
assoCIateD
Protesters chant and bang on
in 2023.
“Now the arsonists are donning firefighter helmets, blaming industry for the crisis they created,” Wendzel said.
Nessel’s filing comes nearly two years after the department, in May 2024, sought proposals from attorneys and law firms willing to pursue the litigation against the fossil fuel industry The department eventually hired Sher Edling LLP DiCello Levitt LLP and Hausfeld LLP
The agencies are working on contingency, meaning that the only compensation the companies would receive would be a share of the potential relief or settlement gained through the litigation.
The suit, filed in the Western U.S. District Court of Michigan, names BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute as defendants.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, the U.S. House has passed all of the 12 individual spending bills that fund the federal government — the first time in years that Congress hasn’t relied on stopgap measures. Those bills passed with support from both Democrats and Republicans
Security and its immigration enforcement agencies without changes.
But the bills still must pass the Senate. And, after the shooting, many Democrats said they would not give their votes to a budget that kept funding for the Department of Homeland
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling — and unacceptable in any American city,” wrote Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y and the Senate minority leader “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE. I will vote no.”
ForFrances Love,the journeytoentrepreneurship beganwithasingle, unexpected gift:a spa certificateshe received as ahighschoolsenior. It washer firsttimeeversteppingfootina spa. “Fromthe moment Iwalkedin, Iwas blown away,” sherecalled. Thecalming aromas,the warm customer service, andmostofall,the massageitselftransported her. “I felt like Iwas in adifferentdimension.”
That oneexperience didn’t just sparkher love forwellness, it plantedavision. Frances knew then that shedidn’t just want to receive that levelofcare. Shealsowantedtoprovide it forothers. That sparkstayedwithher as she movedthrough collegeand into thehospitality industry,where sheworkedher wayuptoVP ofOperationsata majorhotel group. In 2016 shefinallytookthe leap.She left hercorporate role,became alicensedmassage therapist, and opened thefirstiteration of PeaceofSerenity Massage& Wellness
Thebiggest shift, however, came notfroma newbuilding, butratheranew mindset. During theCOVID-19pandemic, Frances noticeda growingdemandfor wellness in theworkplace Companieswerestrugglingwithburnout and lowmorale, andshe sawanopportunity to bring massagetherapy into corporatespaces. Theshift from servingindividualclients to partnering with businesses wasalready underway when shejoinedthe ShellLiveWireprogram,but the programgaveher theclarity,confidence,and strategy to go allin.
Oneofthe most pivotalmoments came during aLiveWiresession focusedonmarketing and branding.Together, they restructured her website:Clear messagingatthe top, simplified offerings,and arefineduserjourney.Theyalso used AI toolstostreamlineback-office tasks; somethingFrances hadnever exploredbefore. That claritypaidoff.Soonafter revampingher website, Frances finalized apartnership with a prominentdowntownNew Orleanshotel.“We’ll be theirexclusive wellness partner,”she says
proudly. Francesthenmadethe bold decision to closeher physical location andoperate fully onsite at client properties.“It wasn’t easy,” she admits.But it worked out.
Heradvicetofutureentrepreneurs entering theprogram?“Be open.Trust theprocess. ShellLiveWireLouisiana concentrates on 13 parishes in SouthLouisiana.Applicantsare accepted from Ascension, Assumption,East BatonRouge,WestBaton Rouge, Iberville Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston,St. Charles, St.James,St. John theBaptist,St. Mary,and Terrebonne Parishes andwelcomesbusinesses from allsectors.Participants in theprogram areselectedbyapplication andaninterview by apanel of judgesfromShell leaders, industry andbusinessrepresentatives,who areexperts in industry andmarketrequirements.
trash cans as they stand behind a makeshift barricade during a protest in response to the death of 37-year-old alex Pretti, who was fatally shot by a U.s Border Patrol officer earlier in the day in Minneapolis on saturday.
Scalise Johnson
Freezing temps to linger for a few days
Most schools either virtual or closed Monday
BY OLIVIA TEES staff writer
Baton Rouge was expecting very little, if any, ice accumulation into Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
“We haven’t seen any freezing rain because it’s been limited to the northern part of the parish,” NWS meteorologist Jacob Zeringue said.
Although a little lingering ice is expected, Zeringue said it would only affect bridges or elevated surfaces and would melt very quickly.
Monday is predicted to have a low temperature of 22 degrees and a wind chill of 10. The NWS expects temperatures in the Baton Rouge area to reach 38 degrees by noon. Tuesday is expected to bring a low temperature of 19 and a wind chill of 16 degrees. It is expected to warm up to 46.
West Feliciana Parish and parts of St. Francisville received freezing rain, according to the NWS. They will likely only see a couple hundredths of an inch, which will melt quickly, according to Zeringue.
“Northern portions of West Feliciana Parish could get another 10th Other than that, everywhere else would be less than that.
Most parishes in the capital region have been under a winter storm watch since Thursday, but it has now been upgraded to a winter weather advisory status.
While much of south-central and southeast Louisiana was spared the freezing rain, ice pellets and snow, north Louisiana wasn’t. Ice and winter storm warnings were in effect Sunday for the Shreveport-Bossier area and temperatures weren’t expected to rise above freezing. Shreveport is expected to see up to 1 inch of ice accumulation Sunday, according to the NWS. Two men died of hypothermia in Caddo Parish, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
President Donald Trump said Saturday he has approved a federal emergency declaration for Louisiana, along with several other states affected by the storm, according to a post from his account on Truth Social Presidential emergency declarations address impending emergencies or disasters and are issued when the president determines federal assistance is needed to help state and local governments save lives, protect property and public safety, or avoid a catastrophe, according to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
The East Baton Rouge Parish school system, the largest in the Baton Rouge region, announced it will go to virtual classes on Monday, though it is not known if they will be in-person or virtual on Tuesday Ascension, Iberville, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana parishes, as well as Central and Zachary school districts also closed schools for Monday At the higher education level, LSU, Southern University Baton Rouge Community College and FranU have announced the cancellation of in-person classes on Monday and have yet to make any announcements for Tuesday
Mayor-President Sid Edwards announced Saturday afternoon that East Baton Rouge city-parish government buildings will be closed Monday due to freezing weather
The 19th Judicial District Courthouse and the Clerk of Court’s Office announced Sunday morning that they would close their offices on Monday Offices are set to reopen Tuesday
The move was made to help protect government workers, a Saturday release said.
“Mayor-President Edwards strongly urges all residents to avoid traveling on roadways during this period and to continue monitoring official City-Parish communication channels for updates and safety information,” the release said. Mary Stein, assistant library director for the parish library system, said Friday that the Main Branch Library, 7711 Goodwood Blvd., will remain open as a warming center even if the city closes, because the site has a generator Staff writers Alyse Pfeil and Quinn Coffman contributed to this story
METRO NEWS
Barely visible
staFF PHoto By MICHaeL JoHNsoN
a misty fog obscures the state Capitol late saturday night in Baton rouge. the fog
region.
Versailles museum director tours N.O. cathedral
Famous building
‘has a personality,’ he says
BY BOB WARREN staff writer
Laurent Salomé stood outside St Louis Cathedral late Friday morning, still digesting all that he had seen inside perhaps New Orleans’ most famous building. If there’s one thing Salomé knows, it’s the weight that historic places must shoulder
“It is very beautiful,” he said of the cathedral. “It has a personality. That is important.” Iconic buildings that stand at the center of history and culture are second nature to Salomé. For the past nine years, he has been director of the National Museum of the Palace of Versailles and Trianon, overseeing much of the historical presentation of the famous palace and grounds commissioned by King Louis XIV outside Paris. One of the bestknown tourism destinations in the world, Versailles receives 10 million visitors annually
Visiting New Orleans for the first time this week, Salomé joined Christopher Wiseman, executive director of the Catholic Cultural Center of New Orleans and an expert on the cathedral, for a tour that explained many of the structure’s treasures, but also revealed some of its problems.
The cathedral, which dates to 1851, still dominates the French Quarter landscape like no other structure. But as it approaches 200 years old, the cathedral is showing its age in some spots. Supporters, led by Saints owner Gayle Benson have embarked on a fundraising campaign to cover an ambitious, 36-monthlong renovation that will be both complicated and expensive.
Wiseman estimated the cathedral work will cost around $45
million.
But Salomé, who has watched any number of restoration projects sputter and churn at one of the world’s iconic palaces, knows the devil is in the details — especially those details that don’t reveal themselves until midway through a project.
“It always is lasting a few more years and costing a few more millions,” Salomé said with a knowing grin. “It is a permanent job. It is never ending. You finish one and you start another.”
Wiseman said the renovation work could begin as soon as this summer The expectation at this point is 18 months of work on the exterior, followed by 18 months of work on the interior
N.O.’s most famous building
Few structures in New Orleans compete on the world stage as well as St. Louis Cathedral.
The seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in New Orleans and the oldest continuously operated cathedral in the U.S., the building’s three-story façade, central steeple, Doric columns and arched windows are a beacon to tourists and Catholics alike. Flanked on one side by the Cabildo and on the other by the Presbytere, the trio of historic structures are a commanding presence across from Jackson Square.
The building that is so recognizable now — the popular backdrop to untold thousands of photos is actually the newest church building on the site. The story goes that Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, after founding the city, touched his sword to the ground in what is roughly now the location of St. Louis Cathedral, Wiseman told Salomé, noting the historical uncertainty of the story
An early church was at the location by 1722, but it was destroyed by a hurricane. It was replaced by the first permanent church in 1727, the archdio-
cese says. That church was also destroyed, consumed by the French Quarter fire of 1788.
A new church was completed and consecrated in 1794. But population growth spurred an ambitious renovation in the 1840s that, complicated by construction mishaps, resulted in the church being substantially rebuilt. The new church was completed in 1851.
It was designated a basilica by Pope Paul IV in 1964, but the formal name “Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France,” never resonated among New Orleanians, Wiseman noted. As Wiseman led Salomé on Friday’s tour, he acknowledged the building’s trouble spots aren’t always obvious.
“That’s one of the things that hurts us (in gaining awareness),” he said. “It looks pretty good. But there are problems.” Those problems range from water damage and plaster damage to cracks in walls. According to the fundraising website ourcityyourcathedral.org, the restoration work will include masonry and stucco repairs, enhancing lighting and security and extensive improvements to the roof, which is covered in slate tiles.
The repairs and restoration work won’t only be enormously expensive, it will also require a delicate touch, Wiseman said. All the stained glass will be restored and the main ceiling will be redone, which includes carefully extracting and then reinstalling the murals, the website noted.
Wiseman said the mural on the ceiling, which dates to the late 1800s, was originally painted directly onto the plaster.
“And that just didn’t work in New Orleans,” he told Salomé, noting the region’s off-thecharts humidity
A couple decades later, Wiseman said, another painter lined the ceiling with a type of can-
One dead in Virginia Street shooting
BY QUINN COFFMAN staff writer
A 32-year-old was killed in a shooting Friday evening on Virginia Street Baton Rouge police said in a statement.
vas that was then painted on. Removing that canvas on which the mural is actually painted, he said, will be an exacting task. Benson, who has pushed the campaign to restore the iconic building, brought together a host of historians, architects and engineers to form a plan and find the resources that plan will require. In 2023, Benson took a group of experts to Paris to get an up-close look at the massive restoration of the 700-year-old Notre Dame Cathedral that had been devastated by a fire in 2019 Notre Dame was reopened in 2024 and has returned to hosting thousands of tourists each day. The importance of buildings Though expensive, the care and upkeep of places like Versailles and St. Louis Cathedral is vitally important, Salomé said. “The history The passion. The uniqueness,” he said.
Salomé said his visit to New Orleans included a few presentations on Versailles and lots of museum visits and sightseeing. “We have stories to tell,” he said of his efforts to entice more people to make the trip to France for a visit to Versailles.
Pat Morrison, a New Orleans resident and cathedral supporter who helped coordinate Salomé’s visit, said exposing the “magnificent building” to someone of Salomé’s stature can only help its cause.
Rebecca Mackie, director of the Louisiana State Museum who provided Salomé a tour of the Presbytere before his cathedral visit, said an application has been made to UNESCO to designate St. Louis Cathedral, the Presbytere and the Cabildo as a World Heritage Site.
Perhaps Salomé will have some influence there, Morrison said. “Museum directors have a strong voice,” Morrison said.
Rouge Police Department patrol officers were called to the 2100 block of Virginia Street around 10 p.m. Friday, where they found Lathan Wheeler 32, dead from an apparent gunshot wound. A motive or suspect is not yet known. The investigation is ongoing.
Email Quinn Coffman at quinn. coffman@theadvocate.com.
made visibility difficult in the capital
Iran muralwarns of retaliationifU.S.strikes
BY ELENA BECATOROS
associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates— Iranian authorities unveiled anew mural on agiant billboard in acentral Tehran square on Sunday with a direct warning to the United States to not attempt amilitary strike on the country, as U.S. warships headtothe region.
The image shows abird’seye view of an aircraft carrier with damaged and exploding fighter planes on its flight deck. The deck is strewn with bodiesand streaked with blood that trails into the waterbehind the ship to form apattern reminiscentofthe stripes of the American flag.Aslogan is emblazoned across one corner: “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.”
The unveiling of the mural in Enghelab Square comes as the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraftcarrierand accompanying warshipsmovetoward the region. U.S. President Donald Trump has said the ships are being moved “just in case” he decides to take action.
“Wehave amassive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won’thave to use it,” Trump said Thursday Enghelab Square is used for gatherings called by the state and authorities change its mural basedonnational occasions. On Saturday, the commander of Iran’s
assoCIateD Press PHoto By VaHID saLeMI
abillboarddepicting adamaged U.s. aircraft carrier withdisabled fighter jets on its deck and asign readinginFarsi and english, ‘If yousow the wind, you’ll reap the whirlwind,’ is displayed sundayatenqelab-e-eslamisquare in tehran, Iran.
paramilitaryRevolutionary Guard warned thathis force is “more readythanever, fingeronthe trigger.
Tensionbetweenthe U.S. and Iran has spiked in the wakeofabrutal crackdown on nationwide proteststhat saw thousands of people killed and tens of thousands arrested. Trump hadthreatenedmilitary actionifIran continued to kill peaceful protesters or carried out mass executions of those detained. There have been no further protests for days and
Trump claimed recently that Tehranhad haltedthe planned execution of about 800 arrested protesters —a claim Iran’s top prosecutor called “completely false.”
But Trump hasindicated he is keeping his options open, saying on Thursday thatany military action would make last June’sU.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites “look like peanuts.”
U.S. Central Command said on social media that its Air ForceF-15E Strike Eagle now has apresencein the MiddleEast, notingthe
fighterjet “enhances combatreadiness andpromotes regionalsecurity and stability.”
Similarly,the U.K. Ministry of Defense saidThursday that it deployed itsTyphoon fighterjets to Qatar “in adefensive capacity.”
The protestsinIran beganonDec. 28, sparked by the fall of the Iranian currency, therial, andquickly spreadacross the country They were met by aviolent crackdownbyIran’stheocracy,which does not tolerate dissent.
U.S. completesits withdrawalfromWHO
By the associated Press
NEW YORK
TheU.S.has finalized its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, one year after President Donald Trump announced America was ending its 78-year-old commitment, federal officials said Thursday Butit’shardlyaclean break. The U.S. owes about $280 million to the global health agency,according to WHO. And Trump administration officialsacknowledge that they haven’tfinished working out some issues, such as lost access to data from other countries that couldgive America an early warning of anew pandemic.
The withdrawal will hurt the global response to new outbreaks and will hobble the ability of U.S. scientists
and pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines andmedicines against new threats, saidLawrence Gostin,a public health law expert at Georgetown University
“In my opinion, it’s the most ruinouspresidential decisioninmylifetime,” he said. The WHO is the United Nations’ specialized health agency and is mandated to coordinate the response to global health threats, such as outbreaks of mpox Ebolaand polio. It also providestechnical assistance to poorer countries; helps distributescarce vaccines, suppliesand treatments; and sets guidelines for hundreds of healthconditions, including mental health and cancer
Nearly every countryin the world is amember
U.S.officials helped lead the WHO’screation, and America has longbeen among the organization’s biggest donors, providing hundreds of millions of dollarsand hundredsofstafferswith specialized public healthexpertise.
On average, the U.S. pays $111 million ayear in member dues to theWHO and roughly $570million more in annual voluntarycontributions, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In an executive order issued rightafter taking office, Trumpsaid the U.S. was withdrawing from WHO due to the organization’smishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and otherglobalhealthcrises. He also cited theagency’s “failure to adopt urgently needed reforms” andits
“inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate politicalinfluence of WHO member states.”
WHO, like other public healthorganizations, made costly mistakes during the pandemic, including at one point advising people against wearing masks. It alsoassertedthat COVID-19 wasn’t airborne,a stance it didn’tofficially reverse until 2024.
AnotherTrumpadministrationcomplaint:None of WHO’schief executives— therehavebeenninesince the organization was created in 1948 —have been Americans. Administration officials view that as unfair given how much the WHO relies on U.S.financialcontributions and on U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personnel.
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.
Roccaforte, Sandra Flattmann
Sandra FlattmannRoc‐cafortepassedaway peacefully at herhomein 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, Emily Me‐trailer,ClaireWigleyand TaylorWigley, whoaffec‐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 several occasions. Sandra was theconsummatehost‐ess. Shefound joyindeco‐ratingand creating ahome rooted in love,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
By the associated Press
PARIS French President
Emmanuel Macron says he wants his government to fast-track the legal process to ensure that aban on social media for children under the ageof15can enter intoforce in September at the start of thenext school year
In avideoreleased late
SaturdaybyFrench broadcaster BFM-TV,Macron said he hadasked his governmenttoinitiateanaccelerated procedure so that the proposed legislation can move asquicklyaspossible and bepassed bythe Senate in time.
“The brains of our childrenand our teenagers are not for sale,”Macron said “Theemotions of our chil-
drenand ourteenagers are not for sale or tobemanipulated. Neither by American platforms, norbyChinese algorithms.”
Macron’sannouncement came just days after the British government said it will consider banning young teenagersfrom social media as it tightenslaws designed to protect children from harmful content and excessive screen time. According to France’s healthwatchdog, one in two teenagers spends between two andfive hours aday on asmartphone. In areport published in December, it said thatsome90% of children aged between 12 and 17 usesmartphones daily to access theinternet,with 58% of them using their devices for social networks.
Ber, Warren C.
Families leaving becauseLa. lettingthem down
Louisianahas become one of the nation’sprimary exit states. I’m not surprised. Ireturned home a decade ago to teach, determined to invest in my community. Today,many of the people Iworked with left for other states.Sodid my childhood friends. So did my mother Sure it’seasier to leave when you’re up against skyrocketing insurance costs and limited economic opportunity. But the ones who feel it most: our children Staffing shortages mean fewer teachers in classrooms, fewer caseworkers responding to abuse reports and fewerprofessionals able to intervene before harm occurs. Years ago, as aclassroom teacher,Iwitnessed how turnover hollowed out schools —not just classrooms, but institutional memory.Each departure meant teachers stretched thinner,fewer mentors, fewer advocates, fewer resources and fewer adults who knew the students and thecontext well enough to provide equitable, transformative educationalexperiences. During my years in the classroom, Imade anumber of reports and claims to the Department of Childand Family Services. One child was so afraid to return home, she urinatedonherself as she walked to the bus during dismissal. The DCFS caseworker andsocial worker assigned to her case provided stabilization resourceswithin the hour Knowing that today,that same systemmay notrespondatall or in time —chills me. We’re in the middle of acrisis and choosing to emigrateisadecision with consequences. Istayed because Ibelieved staying mattered. Istill do. But belief alone cannot sustain a system stripped of the people who serveits children. If Louisiana wants families like mine to remain rooted here —and if we want ourchildrentobesafe, supported and seen —we must choose to invest in those who serve them.The cost of doing nothing is one our children will pay.
JULIENNE LOUIS-ANDERSON Neworleans
YOUR VIEWS
Changesinvaccine schedule notinbestinterestofkids
Iamquaking in my bootsasa pediatrician because ofthe recent overhaul of our country’schildhoodvaccine schedule, eliminating recommendations for six important vaccines. In fact it should alarm all of us, left or right, because vaccines arethe mostimportant public health measure we have.
Rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease and hepatitis Aand Bare all serious diseases that can be deadly,and fortunately are all either preventable or made less dangerous by vaccines.And yet each of them has been eliminated as requirements on our updatedvaccine schedule. This doesn’thave anybasis in safety or good medicine. Vaccines have alwayshad to meet strict standards for safety and effectiveness, including the six that have been eliminated. Andweknow theydo not cause autism; however much it may tug at thefears of good parents, that idea has been thoroughlydebunked.
It’sunlikely to be thelast blow to our health
in the next few years —itcertainly hasn’tbeen
thefirst.Measles had once been eradicated in the U.S., but this year has seen over 2,000 cases of it, some of which killed, all thanks to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’sfearmongering about vaccines in an official capacity
This may not be deliberate— Kennedy seems to believe in what he preaches. But regardless of intent,these actions have already led to terrible consequences, and continuing to weaken our greatest bastion against disease is sure to bring moredisaster
Let’sbebetter than this. Call your elected officials to tell them how important vaccines are and urge them to do everything in their power to protect them. Make sure youand yoursare fully vaccinated. And have those difficult conversations with your loved ones who are on the fence about vaccines. The stakes are high.
MICHAELCAFFERY,M.D Kenner
scalise, Johnsonfailedtoput social security on agenda
Well, anotheryear has passed and the two most powerfulRepublicansinCongress, Majority Leader Steve Scalise andHouse Speaker Mike Johnson, have done nothing to address the upcoming crisis in Social Security benefits. For years, the trustees of theSocial Security Trust Fund have warnedthat without action from Congressthe fund would run out of money to pay the full benefit to which recipientsare entitled. The newdatetosee a23% reductionin benefits is 2033, justseven yearsfrom now. Roughly onehalf of people over the age of 65 rely on SocialSecurityfor 50% of their income andaquarterofall Americans rely on it for 90% percentoftheir income. There are many optionstofixthe system,byraising the ceiling on wages subject to the tax, or boosting taxes
that both employers and employees pay,but in spite of being in power Scalise and Johnson have not authored asingle bill to fix the system. Why? Because they don’tcare. They have cushy pensions and lifetime health care. They are too busy increasing thenational debt and denying healthcare to millions of Americans.
If you are receiving Social Security benefits that you earned or hope to receive those benefits when you retire, then you must vote Scalise and Johnson out of office in 2026 and elect people who do care and who will fight to fix theSocial Security problem which is getting worse every year nothing is done. The clock is ticking and the time to fix theproblem is now ROBERT W. BECKER Neworleans
Back in college in the 1970s, my contemporary English literature class taught me aword: juxtaposition. Ididn’tquite understand it then. Lifehas since provided avery clear example. Juxtaposition is Rep. Steve Scalise cowering behind thenSpeaker Nancy Pelosi’sdress in an undisclosed room in the United States Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021 —and then, five years later,standing quietly behind Donald Trump, as he insisted with a straight face that it was apeaceful demonstration. LISA SINGERSANDERS Covington
assoCIateDPress FILePHoto Minneapolis Public schools families,educators and students holdsignsonJan 9during anews conferenceatLakeHiawatha Park in Minneapolis,demanding Immigration and Customs enforcement be kept out of schoolsafter the shooting of renee Good by afederal agent.
argument in Minn.shooting doesn’tadd up
The Justice Department, Homeland Security and the White House all seem to agree that the actions of the agent in Minneapolis who killed the driver of an SUV wasjustified because it was a“clear case of selfdefense.”
Will someone please explain to me how firing agun into avehicle that you are standing mere feet in front of can be considered selfdefense? Even if, as in Minneapolis, the driver is killed, the vehicle continues to cover that few feet in the same direction and at the same speed whetherthe driver is dead or alive. It will either hit you or miss you, period. The bullet’sonly effect was to take alife; it had no chance of stopping amoving vehicle.
OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name and the writer’scity of residence.the advocate |the times-Picayune require astreet address and phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the editor,the advocate, P.o. Box 588, Baton rouge, La 70821-0588, or email letters@theadvocate.com. to seND Us aLetter sCaN Here
Lawyer’s contribution overlooked in McGincheystaffordstories
Regarding several stories authored by Stephanie Riegel andother writers about the dissolution of the McGlinchey Stafford law firm,it seems they really missed the impact of Donald Mintz’scontribution. As afounding partner he was very instrumental in growing the firm In fact, hewas theclassic “rainmaker” for business development andthe go-toguy for
making things happen. He wasatake-charge person who earned thenickname “Nails” by being atough litigator.Mintz’scontributions to thefirm and tothe greater NewOrleans community are immeasurable. Regretfully,he passed away at 53.
MARK BONNER Mandeville
Venezuelan drugsposed national security threat to U.s.
Amajor fact is being overlooked in the recentmilitary action in Venezuela.
Thedrug smugglers were addicting millions of potential military-age men.This would greatly compromiseour abilitytodefend against an enemy.The government of Venezuela did absolutely nothing to stop the smug-
glers. Itsfailure to act makes it complicit in what can be considered an act of war.Thus, our military response was necessary.Itshould be noted that they went there to capture, not kill, theenemy.
TOBY J. RUSSO Chalmette
As they say,hindsight is 20/20, but standing in front of avehicle containing someone you want to interrogate is at best apoor choice and at worst, adeath wish. Ialso have to question when using acellphone to capture police actions on video replaced hands-free bodycams? Wielding acellphone and ahandgun at the same time seems pretty unsafe and extremely unprofessional to me.Whenever your handgun is drawn, it should have your full attention and both of your hands. Unlike asuspect with afirearm who is still athreat if their first shot misses, if the weaponisavehicle that misses, it is no longer athreat and should not be fired upon. Rememberthat the agent who shot the womanhad already videoed her license plate so, she could have easily been found and booked with fleeing afederal officer.Instead, she’sdead. SAL RAGUSA old Jefferson
staFF FILe PHoto By BILL FeIG
rolling up his shirtsleeve,a fourth grader in east Baton rougeParish takes the flushot in stride as registered nurse Nurse Gail Lamb,left, administers the vaccine.
this sceneofthe second Continental Congress working on the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphiais fromanupcoming exhibition about the americanrevolution at the HistoricNew orleans Collection. the augmented reality experience is produced and designed by Histovery,a French technology firm.the image was created in collaboration with arthistorians, period experts and developers.
We stillholdthese truths to mark country’s250th birthday,let’s look to ourroots
By Walter Isaacson
We’ve got abig birthday coming up this year.Our 250th. Here’s my birthday wish: Let’suse this anniversary to unite our nationaround our shared values.
We have becomesopolarized and poisonousinour politicsthat we are not in the best moodfor aparty.Everything seems to divide us, includingour viewsofour history.
Butperhaps wecan use this opportunity,the way a fractious family might use an important birthday party to come togetherlike we did for our bicentennial after the fraughtyears ofVietnam, Watergate, urbanriots and assassinations
second sentenceofthe Declaration of Independence, our Foundersbalancing therole of divine providence andthat of reason in determining our rights.
each group blended withthe others while retaining some of itsown texture and flavor
ABOUTTHE IMAGE
One way is by reflecting on our fundamental principles, the ones proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence’sgreat secondsentencethatserves as our nation’smissionstatement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these arelife, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness.”
These truths becamethe creed that bounda diverse group of pilgrims and immigrantsintoone nation. For apeople with many different beliefs and backgrounds, it defined our common ground and aspirations. The concept of “common ground” has always been part of humanity’sstruggle to createagood society.Its simplest manifestation was aphysical space: the land thatwas designated as “the commons.” In England, thatwas the land wherethe commoners—yes, that’swherethe word“commoners” comes from —could all grazetheir herds. When thefirst English settlerscametoAmerica, this space was set aside in their towns, suchasBoston Common and the Cambridge Common.
Across Louisiana, hurricanes remind us of abasic fact,which is that we areall in the same boat. At our best, we know how to share what we love and to nurture commonrituals: catching go-cups at parades, celebrating or suffering withour Saints, sucking theheads and eating king cake after Twelfth Night.
This makes our politics and civic discourse (usually) alittle less poisonous and divisive thanexists in Washingtonand therestofthe nationthese days. We can disagree, but we know how to share theneutral ground, literally and figuratively
Many of us knowthatsentencealmost by heart, but rarely do we stop to savor and appreciate whateach word means tous.
In June 1776, the Continental Congress appointed acommittee to draft the declaration. Back then, Congress knew how to creategreat committees. It had Thomas Jefferson, BenjaminFranklin and John Adams onit. I’ve just written alittle book, “The Greatest SentenceEverWritten,” that looks at howthatcommittee went through four drafts of this great sentence.
“Wehold these truths to be sacred …” Jeffersonwroteinthe first ofthe drafts.
Franklincrossedout “sacred,” using the heavy backslash marks he had often usedasaprinter, and wrote in “self-evident.” The declaration they werewritingwas intended to herald anew type of nation, one in which our rights are based onreason, not the dictates or dogma ofreligion But then thesentence invokes the “Creator.” In Jefferson’sfirst draft, he wrote thatmen arecreated equaland “from that equalcreation they derive rights.” That phrase is crossed out, this time with adifferent pen, and replaced with “endowed by their Creator” with rights. That was probably the editofAdams, whose views on religionwere abit more conventionalthanthose of Jefferson. Thus we see, in the editing of the
The idea of thecommons was not just about land. Societies have alwaysput certain basic goods intothe commons:schools,libraries, parks, some healthcare, police, national defense and fire protection. These are calledthe communiter bona, the goods in common.
Both freedom and economic growth require that we allow individuals to reap the benefits that comes from theirlabor.Our system does, and should, give ample rewards to builders and entrepreneurs and those who work hard, takerisks and even just have goodluck.
Butindoing so,weshould keep in mind the moral and practical value of thecommons.Having arobust commonground can help stabilize asociety with disparities of wealth by giving people astakeinthe social order. The benefitsand services and ritualsthat we share help temper resentmentsand political polarization.
In New Orleans,werecently celebrated our tricentennial. So perhaps we have some wisdom to impart to ournation on its mere 250th. Bred into our town’s DNA is the creative culture thatarisesfromits racial and ethnicdiversity.Ever since Bienville setupaFrenchoutpost among the Chitimacha Indians, New Orleans hasbeen enriched by waves of new arrivals:Americans and Creoles of varying hues, slaves and freed slaves andgens de couleur libres,Spaniards andHispanics, Irish and Italians andJews,Haitians and Vietnamese. At its best,New Orleans was not so much amelting pot as agumbo pot:
At the official signing of the Declaration, John Hancock wrote his name withhis famous flourish. “There mustbenopulling different ways,” he insisted. “Wemustall hang together.” Franklin replied, alluding to what would happentothemiftheir revolutionfailed, “Yes,wemust, indeed, all hang together,ormost assuredlyweshall all hang separately.”
As Franklin pointed out,our life-ordeath challenge as anation, whether it be in 1776 or 2026, is this: When there aresomany forces dedicated to dividing us, how can we best hang together? What policies can we adopt,what balances can we strike, thatwill strengthen our common ground?
In an era without universal military service, what institutions can instill asenseofshared patriotic service across class lines? What policies can help give everykid an equal opportunity? And when it comes to our media and our daily discourse, how can we create news outlets,social media platforms, public discussions, personal conversations, algorithms and chatbots that seek to connect us rather than inflaming our resentments, engaging us through enraging us and harvesting clicks through sensationalism?
One way to do it is by reflecting on our fundamental principles,the ones thatdefine our common aspirations to life, liberty and thepursuit if happiness. That restoration of our common ground is not,alas, going to begin in Washington or at the national level. It will have to arisefrom people who love their communities. Louisiana in 2026 can be among those thatlead the way
WalterIsaacson is abest-selling biographer and aprofessor at Tulane University.From1976 to 1979, he was areporterfor this newspaper
the imageabove features ascene from “american revolution,”which makesits United statesdebutat the Historic Neworleans Collection on March 20.thisfree, interactive experience utilizes360-degree augmentedreality to immersevisitors in 20 defining moments of thenation’s founding,from the sparks of theBoston teaParty to the victoryatyorktown Developedbyleading historians and scholars, this exhibition celebrates the figures whoshapedthe United states and sharesthe revolution in afresh waythat speaks to the hearts and minds of the american people today. the exhibition will serveasa focal point of the Louisiana america 250 commemorations and coincideswith HNoC’s60thanniversary.
ABOUTTHE HNOC
over the last six decades, HNoC has become avital communityinstitution, preserving the world’slargest collection of materials relatedtoNew orleans and the Gulf south. Locatedinthe heartof the French Quarter, its campus spans 14 historic buildings which serveas acatalyst fordialogue and historical understanding “american revolution” is producedand designed by Histovery with promotional support from Neworleans& Company and Louisiana america 250.the exhibitionoffers afresh, technologically driven waytoexplore the americanstory. Planyour visitathnoc.org
For more information on events near youcommemorating america’s 250th birthday, visit america250la.org.
Walter Isaacson GUest CoLUMNIst
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Davis, Olavetop PFFgradeslist
BY JEFF DUNCAN staff writer
The seemingly ageless Demario Davis was the New Orleans Saints’ highest-gradeddefensive player for the 2025season, according to Pro Football Focus, aCincinnati-based analytics company used byNFL teams And Chris Olave was theSaints’highestgraded offensive playerfor the 2025season, according to Pro Football Focus. Davis’ grade of 80.3 ledthe Saintsdefense and ranked fifth among NFL linebackers who played 50% of their team’s snaps.
In his 14th NFL season, Davis recorded a career-high 143tackles, whichled theSaints
andranked 12thinthe NFL. Davis, who turned 37 last week, also ranked among the Saints’ team leaders in tackles for loss (six) andforced fumbles (two), all while playing ateam-high 1,079 defensive snaps.
APFF gradeof80.3 is considered very good. It typically reflects aplayer in the upper tier of starters during agivenseason, just below aPro Bowl level.
ThePFF grading scaleconsiders players at 90-or-aboveaselite, 85-89.9 as ProBowl level, 70-84.9asstarter level, 60-69.9asaverage or backuplevel, and below 60 as below average or replacement level.
ers with grades of 78.0 and 76.0, respectively.Jordan (10.5) andYoung (10.0) le dt he Saints in sacksthis season.
Second-year cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry was the highest-graded defender in the secondaryat69.5. He led the Saints with three interceptions.
Linebacker DannyStutsman was the highest-graded rookie at 71.5, but he played only 205 snaps. Rookie classmates, safety Jonas
ä see SAINTS, page 5B
LsUguard MiLaysia Fulwileyraces up courtwiththe ball during agameagainst texasinthe
THEX-FACTOR
BY REEDDARCEY staffwriter
Youmay have penciledMiLaysiaFulwileyintothe LSU women’sbasketballteam’sstarting lineupbefore the season, but coach Kim Mulkeydid not. She doesn’t make promises. So Fulwiley’srunning with the reserves —like she did at South Carolina. She’salsochanging thecomplexion of games. Like she did at South Carolina. Thejunior guard did so as recently asThursday, whenshe was asked after ablowout win over Texas A&M how she thinks her first year with the Tigers has gone so far.
“I feel like it’sbeen going good,” Fulwiley said. “I mean, not perfect. Not the way Iprobably would want it to.But I’m gettingbetter.”
The No. 6Tigers (18-2, 4-2 SEC) can win afifthstraight game at 6p.m. Mondaywhentheyhost Florida (SECNetwork), and Fulwiley is alarge reason why.She struggled in LSU’sfirst two SECcontests —both losses. But she’s since rebounded and strung together afew productive outings,which suggeststhatthe prized SouthCarolina transfer is starting to settle into arole withthe Tigers. Fulwiley’sjob is to come off the bench and jolt LSU’s transition offense.She’s the X-Factor.She won’tscore more than20pointsevery night moving forward, but when she does, theTigers will be tough to beat. The challenge now —for Mulkey and her staff —isto figure out how to put Fulwiley in aposition to deliverthat kind of scoring punch as frequently as possible.
LSU‘disappointed’following loss to Arkansas
tigersare 1-6inseC play as NCaa tournament nears
BY TOYLOYBROWN III staff writer
With each passing loss,LSU’s chances of making the NCAA Tournament shrink. The Tigers’85-81 road defeat toNo. 20 Arkansas on Saturday didn’thelp, which is why the team’sreactioniswhat many would expect.
“Obviously,we’re incrediblydisappointed by the result, coachMatt McMa-
honsaidonthe LSUsportsradio network, “but we’ll build on alot of the thingsthat took place here today.” Thefourth-year coachwants histeam to reclaim its team identitynow thatpoint guard Dedan Thomas returned to the startinglineup. With itsdynamic passer, LSU (13-7, 1-6 SEC) wants to return to a team that gets high-qualitylooksinthe paint,crashes the glass, and has theversatility to play fast-paced and methodically
The program demonstrated its vision against atalented foe. It led most of the first half, nevertrailed by double digits and forced 13 lead changes versus Arkansas, which beat five ranked teams.
Despiteoutrebounding Arkansas by eight for11more second-chancepoints andhittingits target of at least40paint points, LSU’sinept 3-point shooting led to its demise.
“I loved our effortonthe glass,” McMahon said. “But at the end of theday, theyhit 10 3s, and we only made three.
ä see LSU, page 4B
LSU football’smassive transfer portal haul —and the key players retained from the 2025 team —has led to amassive question about the Tigers’ first team under Lane Kiffin. Aquestion that is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in your Tiger Stadium suite, scarfing up all the sliders. It’s impossible to avoid, so let’sask it: Has LSU bought itself a national championship team forthe 2026 season? Hyperbole? Probably.But so is this transfer portal class. Aclass that is 42 players strong, the No.1-rated portal class according to On3.com by the width of the Mississippi River over wouldn’tyou know it? —Mississippi. We think Kiffinand LSU are done, but with the self-styled “Portal King,” you can never be certain. Here’ssomething else you can’tbecertain of: that money will buy success. Just ask Brian Kelly (if he takes your call) about that after LSU spent $18 million to sign last year’stop-rated transfer portal class. Or ask Jimbo Fisher what the bestever recruiting class in 2022 at Texas A&M got him besides apink slip. Eighteen million. How quaint. No one at LSU is saying yet, but conventional wisdom suggests the program spent north of $25-30 million on luring transfers and on roster retention. Making sure it hung onto core players like tight end Trey’Dez Green, running back Harlem Berry,center Braelin Moore, cornerbacks DJ Pickett and PJ Woodland, and of course linebacker WhitWeeks. The gameisno longer about signing afistful of high school five stars —though LSU got its share of those too with players like U-High’sLamar Brownand Edna Karr’sRichard Anderson. It is about filling the needs of your roster with proven and/or promising college players to try to ignite immediate success. On second thought, there’snoneed to query BK or Jimbo about past recruiting classes and their potential pitfalls. Better
see RABALAIS, page 5B
saints LB
Demario Davis
PHoto
Scott Rabalais
staFF PHoto By MICHaeL JoHNsoN
thirdquarter
Sabalenka beats Mboko
top-ranked sabalenka raises her game, rolls into quarterfinals
BY JOHN PYE
aP sportswriter
MELBOURNE, Australia TikTok influencer and top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka is having to work her way through some rising teenage stars in her bid for a third Australian Open title in four years. Sabalenka, who has drawn praise from fans and other players for her posts on the social media platform about matters on and off the court, held off 19-year-old Vicky Mboko 6-1, 7-6 (1) at Rod Laver Arena on Sunday. She’ll play 18-year-old Iva Jovic in the quarterfinals.
The 29-seeded Jovic overwhelmed Yulia Putintseva 6-0, 6-1 in 53 minutes at John Cain Arena — with six service breaks and winning the first 10 games — to secure a spot in the last eight of a Grand Slam for the first time.
“Obviously, she’s No. 1 for a reason and had so much success at this tournament,” Jovic said of Sabalenka “But that’s what I want — I said it last year, I hope to be
able to play her this year, because you definitely want to play the best and see how it goes.”
Coco Gauff, who was still a teenager when she won her first major title in 2023, is back into the quarterfinals in Australia for the third consecutive year after a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 win over No. 19 Karolina Muchova. She’ll next face No. 12 Elina Svitolina, who closed play on Day 8 with a 6-2, 6-4 win over 18-year-old, eighth-seeded Mirra Andreeva.
No. 1-ranked Carlos Alcaraz is also in the last 8 for the third straight year, continuing his bid for a career Grand Slam at age 22 with a 7-6 (6), 6-4, 7-5 win over No. 19-seeded Tommy Paul.
He’s never gone past the last eight at Melbourne Park, the only one of the four Grand Slam venues where he hasn’t won the title. That’s a statistic he’s determined to rectify, to the point where he’s reworking his serve to a look a little bit more in style with 10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic.
He’s unlikely to have the crowd behind him in the quarterfinals, where he’ll meet local hope and sixth-seeded Alex de Minaur, a 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 winner over No. 10 Alexander Bublik No. 3 Alexander Zverev, the runner-up in Melbourne last year,
beat Francisco Cerundolo 6-2, 6-4, 6-4 and will next meet 20-year-old Learner Tien, the youngest men’s quarterfinalist in Australia since Nick Kyrgios in 2015. Tien, who needed treatment for a bloody nose after the third game, beat three-time Australian Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev 6-4, 6-0, 6-3.
Djokovic’s Walkover
The 38-year-old Djokovic got a walkover into the quarterfinals after Jakub Mensik withdrew 24 hours ahead of their scheduled fourth-round match with an abdominal injury
Djokovic’s influence
Jovic has been getting some good advice from Djokovic, a 24time major winner, during the tournament. He said he’s been happy to help an up-and-coming star with Serbian heritage.
Jovic made it clear last year that she wanted a chance to play the World No. 1 Now she’ll get that chance.
Sabalenka, who has joked about waiting for a formal invitation to partner Djokovic in mixed doubles at a major, breezed through the first set in 31 minutes against Mboko but had some difficulty in the second.
Mboko saved match points and played well enough to beat many
players, but not the two-time Australian Open champion.
“What an incredible player for such a young age,” Sabalenka said of Mboko. “It’s incredible to see these kids coming up on Tour I can’t believe I say that. I feel like I’m a kid!
“She pushed me so much, and I’m happy to be through,” Sabalenka added in her on-court TV interview Sabalenka led the second set 4-1, and then failed to convert three match points while leading 5-4. Mboko slowly took momentum and forced a tiebreaker only for Sabalenka to dominate.
It was the 20th straight tiebreaker victory a record for Sabalenka.
“I try to — not to think this is a tiebreak and play point by point,” said Sabalenka, who won back-toback titles in Australia in 2023 and ‘24 before losing last year’s final to Madison Keys. “I guess that’s the key to consistency.”
Doubling up
Jovic and Mboko combined later Sunday in the doubles and had match points before the No. 4-seeded Elise Mertens and Zhang Shuai duo clung on in the super tiebreaker to win 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (10).
“They’re both very young, very talented,” Mertens said. “It was a really tough match.”
Reed wins in Dubai Desert Classic
the associated Press
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Patrick Reed kept everyone at bay and closed with an even-par 72 on Sunday for a four-shot victory in the Dubai Desert Classic, his first European tour title that moves him back into the top 30 in the world for the first time since he joined LIV Golf. Reed also made enough money from the Rolex Series event that it should cover his European tour fines for playing in the Saudibacked rival league, assuming he can sort out a new LIV contract.
“Win early and that will take care of it,” Reed jokingly said Saturday on the topic of European tour fines that LIV Golf no longer pays on the players’ behalf. Reed revealed he is still negotiating a new contract to play on LIV, which starts on Feb. 4 in Saudi Arabia. The 35-year-old American, who is playing the European tour next week in Bahrain, said he fully expects to be with LIV and a contract may already have been
sorted out. His focus was only on golf this week, and he took care of business.
Any drama at Emirates Golf Club didn’t last long.
Reed seized control with middle rounds of 66 and 67 to build a fourshot lead over David Puig of Spain going into the last day. Reed said he found himself getting too conservative no birdies, one bogey over the front nine — and the lead was cut in half when the Spaniard made birdie on Nos. 8 and 9.
“Instead of just keeping the foot on the gas early, I tried to protect that lead,” Reed said.
He said his caddie told him it was a dogfight and Reed responded. The lead remained at two shots after Reed and Puig each started birdie-bogey on the back nine, and then it turned quickly — a birdie for Reed on the par-5 13th and a bogey for Puig.
The lead was back to four and Reed coasted from there, finishing on 14-under 274 for his 12th title worldwide nine on the PGA Tour, one each on the European
tour, Asian Tour and LIV Reed has won two World Golf Championships and the Masters that count toward his European tour tally
Puig, meanwhile, tumbled to a tie for seventh when he was penalized two shots when it was determined he grounded his club in a bunker on the 18th. He closed with a 75, the penalty costing him about 15 spots in the world ranking. Andy Sullivan of England had a 71 to finish alone in second, with Julien Guerrier of France (69) another shot behind. Rory McIlroy was never in the mix from his opening 73. He finished with another 73 to tie for 33rd his first time to finish out of the top 30 since he missed the cut in the Canadian Open last June. The victory was worth more than just $1.5 million (E1.3 million) to Reed His move into the world ranking all but assures he will remain high enough to be exempt for all four majors this year
“It’s always nice to lock up the majors,” said Reed who was not at the U.S. Open or British Open
PGA Champions POY Cink opens 2026 with victory KA’UPULEHU-KONA, Hawaii Stewart Cink won the PGA Tour Champions’ season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship on Saturday, closing with an 8-under 63 for a three-stroke victory
The 52-year-old Cink finished at 23-under 193 at Hualalai. He won his second straight event after closing last season with a victory in Phoenix in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship. He has five senior titles.
Ángel Cabrera was second after a 66. Retief Goosen shot a 64 to finish third at 18 under and Ernie Els (67), Thomas Bjorn (66) and Freddie Jacobson (70) were 17 under Sixty-six-year-old Fred Couples was 15 under after a 70. The win is Cink’s fifth in 37 starts on PGA Tour Champions and his first in this event.
Ramírez,
Guardians agree to 7-year, $175M deal
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 person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal was pending a physical and had not been announced. The 33-year-old native of the Dominican Republic has played his entire 13-year, big league career in Cleveland He was signed through the 2028 season. He had three years and $69 million remaining on the contract he signed in 2022, but will now average $25 million over the next seven years.
Injured defender Foyth set to miss World Cup
MADRID — Argentina defender
Juan Foyth has ruptured his left Achilles tendon while playing for Villarreal in the Spanish league and is set to miss the World Cup. Foyth was injured in the 23rd minute of Villarreal’s 2-0 loss to Real Madrid on Saturday Villarreal said Sunday that tests confirmed the injury
The club said it will “provide further information in due course regarding the surgical procedure he will have to undergo.”
Recovery time for such injuries can be up to a year, meaning the 28-year-old central defender likely won’t be able to play in the World Cup that begins in June. Foyth has had long-term knee and shoulder injuries in the past. He recently had his contract with Villarreal extended until 2029.
James wows crowd, wins fifth straight Winter X title
Snowboarder Scotty James parlayed a never-before-landed trick combination into his fifth straight X Games title on the halfpipe on Saturday and tied Shaun White with eight overall gold medals at the biggest event this side of the Olympics In the final major contest before next month’s Milan Cortina Games, the 31-year-old Australian capped off his winning run with two straight backside 1440-degree jumps. That’s two tricks spinning with his back facing down the hill to start, one while riding forward, the other riding backward — or “switch.” They are among the toughest on the halfpipe.
James is looking like the favorite heading into the Milan Cortina Olympics. James has Olympic silver and bronze medals.
last year “Any time you go ahead and get a win, it’s special. To sit there and have as little amount of events that I’ve played to be in the top 30 is something that shows that my golf game is still where I want it to be.”
Reed has been banned from the PGA Tour since joining LIV in 2022. The U.S. tour recently offered a pathway back to LIV players provided they won a major or The Players Championship since 2022. Reed won the Masters in 2018 and would not be eligible.
He is an honorary lifetime member of the European tour with his Masters title, and he can stake his claim as perhaps the most global player in golf, willing to travel without the guarantee of big appearance money But he faces fines when he plays LIV events held the same week as European tour events.
“I’d rather just tee it up and play,” Reed said Saturday “And if it costs me this (or) that, whatever, I’ll go play.”
Skippylongstocking rallies to win Pegasus World Cup HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. White Abarrio’s bid to become the first back-toback winner of the $3 million Pegasus World Cup was thwarted Trainer Saffie Joseph’s bid was not. And finally, jockey Tyler Gaffalione is a Pegasus winner, too. Skippylongstocking is finally the winner of Gulfstream Park’s richest race, rallying in the stretch to beat White Abarrio in the Grade 1 Pegasus on Saturday Skippylongstocking had been in the Pegasus three other times, finishing seventh in 2023, not finishing in
assoCIateD Press PHoto By DIta aLaNGKara
aryna sabalenka of Belarus plays a forehand return to Victoria Mboko of Canada during their fourth-round match on sunday at the australian open in Melbourne, australia. sabalenka advanced to the quarterfinals.
WINTER OLYMPICS
For NHL stars, competing in Cortina Games is ‘cherry on top’
BY STEPHEN WHYNO aP hockey writer
Jack Eichel in the fall of 2021 still did not believe he and the rest of the world’s best hockey players would be going to the Olympics in Beijing a few months later, even after the NHL reached an agreement to do so.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Eichel said at the time. His skepticism proved to be prescient, as pandemic scheduling issues led the league to withdraw
Eichel is part of a generation of NHL stars who have never gotten the chance to play in the Olympics Unlike players of the past before the league allowed its stars to take part — Eichel, fellow American Auston Matthews, Canadians Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon and many others of their vintage grew up expecting to go to the Games. The NHL, after all, played in five consecutive Olympics from 1998 2014
Owners opted against sending players in 2018, and missing out in 2022becameasadresultofcircumstances largely out of stakeholders’ control. The 12-team tournament in Milan is a moment many have been waiting their entire careers for
“It’s awesome,” Eichel said before this season, perhaps willing to exhale. “It’s something that we’ve wanted for a while.”
Delays bring more questions
Not so fast, Jack.
Outofhiscontrolareconstruction delays at the main hockey arena, a longstanding worry NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman began raising concerns all the way back in 2023, beforethedealwasreachedtosend players in 2026 and ‘30
“We have been given assurances that the building will be ready,” Bettman said in February 2024. “We’re relying on those assurances. There’s a lot of construction that remains to be done on that building. I think they only recently started. But we’re being told by everybody not to worry But I like to worry, so we’ll see.”
Those worries have persisted, and work continues on locker rooms and other facilities at Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, which is set to host the majority of the
men’s games beginning Feb. 11.
The women’s tournament begins there Feb. 5.
Test games in January left league and players’ union officials pleased about the condition of the ice, though even that has been a matter of consternation after rinks were made more than 3 feet shorter than NHL players are used to That will change aspects of play but won’t keep the NHL out of the Olympics as long as everyone involved agrees the surface is safe.
What players missed out on Connor Bedard, the 2023 No. 1 pick who just missed out on making Canada’s roster for Milan, is so young at 20 that he does not even have a favorite Olympic memory He was 4 when idol and fellow countryman Sidney Crosby scored the “golden goal” to win on home ice in Vancouver in 2010 and 9 when T.J. Oshie gave the U.S. a shootout victory over host Russia in Sochi in 2014.
Canada’s Macklin Celebrini, drafted first in 2024 and at 19 the second-youngest men’s hockey player at the Olympics, has only gotten to dream about the possibility of representing his country on this stage.
“That’s the pinnacle, just the best onbest,allthespecialmomentsthat havehappenedattheOlympics,the history,” Celebrini said. “There’s just a little bit more energy around it. It’s bigger than yourself.”
In all, 12 NHL players are back at the Olympics after participating in the 2014 Games, the last time the league went and it was a true best-vs.-best tournament.
The group includes Crosby and Drew Doughty for Canada; Gabriel Landeskog, Erik Karlsson and Oliver Ekman-Larsson for Sweden; Mikael Granlund and Olli Maatta for Finland; Radko Gudas and Ondrej Palat for Czechia. There are no Americans on that list.
“It’s a cherry on top of athletic life,” Gudas said. “Twelve years ago when we went to Sochi was such a great experience that I wish I can do that again. I was that much more sad that we couldn’t go the last two times, so for me I think it’s a great feeling to be able to do that.”
A league of her own
Kim’s journey to a third olympic gold is facing unexpected challenges
BY EDDIE PELLS aP national writer
COPPER MOUNTAIN, Colo. — Chloe Kim’s third run to the Olympics started with the usual questions: How will she handle the pressure? Can she enjoy the journey? How does being famous elevate or diminish the experience? And, of course, will she win her third straight gold medal?
Now, comes one that nobody saw coming: Will America’s best snowboarder, one of the major attractions of next month’s Milan Cortina Games, even make it to the halfpipe? If she does, will she be anywhere near 100%?
A shoulder injury during training has turned the buildup to the Olympics into a scramble for the 25-year-old Kim, whose catalog of tricks outclasses everything else in this high-risk, high-reward sport
“Obviously, I’m really disappointed that I can’t snowboard until right before the Olympics, which is going to be hard,” Kim said in a recent update on Jan. 13, four weeks before the start of the women’s halfpipe contest “I haven’t gotten nearly the amount of reps that I would have liked, but that’s OK.”
The question of Kim’s health will hover over the one of the marquee contests of the Olymipcs and over the result itself.
If she wins, it will mark another stunning accomplishment for the California kid who took over the halfpipe 10 years ago — a smiling 15-year old who loved the mall, her dog Reese and the first day of any month because that’s when her mom paid out her allowance.
If she doesn’t — and someone like Gaon Choi of Korea or Sena Tomita of Japan wins well, that might be chalked up to the best snowboarder not being at full strength.
“To some level, I think (the shoulder) is something that will be in her mind if she does decide to com-
pete,” said Shaun White, the threetime gold medalist who dealt with big injuries in the lead-up to his last two Games. “But, also, she’s in a league of her own trick-wise.”
The gold standard
For everything she has accomplished — the record eight Winter X Games golds, the three world championship titles and the tricks she does that nobody else even attempts the Olympic gold medal is the benchmark in this sport. For Kim, gearing up to take her game up another notch every four years makes the mental gymnastics almost as difficult as the physical ones. It’s a reality that a few years ago forced her to restart her search for joy in a sport that, over time, has turned into something different than fun and games.
“When you have the level of fame that she has reached, it gets to be a lot more like a job,” said her longtime coach, Rick Bower “Some of that love you had when you were younger gets lost a little bit. One of the biggest things she’s worked on over the last few years is just finding that spark of why she actually does this.”
Scattered among her dozens of social-media posts that show her peddling products, heading to the gym, talking about her driving acumen and making matcha was a revealing take on why she keeps going out there.
“I feel like I love the adrenaline and the pressure I feel when I am snowboarding,” she said. “I find it very rewarding, too. There’s nothing that can compete with the feeling of accomplishing something you once thought was impossible, and pushing yourself and being able to see the result of all your hard work.”
Her career is full of those moments.
Last January, Kim became the first woman to land a double-cork 1080 in a competition (that’s two head-over-heels flips while spinning 360 degrees).
She is approaching the 10th anniversary of the date when she became the first woman to do backto-back 1080s, three spins in one jump above the pipe.
In 2024, during a victory lap at the Winter X Games, she added a half spin to her 1080 and became the first woman to pull off a 1260. She had tried, and failed, to pull off a 1260 at the 2022 Olympics in China. In a world that only Kim and a few others can understand, that had no impact on her winning the gold medal she did that easily with her second-best run — but made all the difference in how she viewed the day
“It’s unfair to be expected to be perfect,” she said that day, “and I’m not perfect in every way.”
More than the gold medal, Kim said, she found her joy in the quest for progression, the favorite word of any great snowboarder Nobody has progressed women’s snowboarding more than she has over the past decade.
“You’re going to see someone designing a whole new run that’s never been done before,” said Kelly Clark, the 2002 Olympic gold medalist who befriended Kim when she was starting out. “There’s a creativity and individual expression that makes it so cool.” Mental and physical risks
Creativity and progression come with risks. The best, after all, are supposed to win. By not playing it safe, Kim puts that in jeopardy Clark, who has Olympic gold and two bronze, is among the rare few who can relate to what the current Olympic champion is feeling.
“I didn’t find it very sustainable when you did things for external purposes,” she said. “If you did things just because it was an Olympic year, I usually found that involved a lot more pressure.”
If these musings sound familiar about Kim struggling with fame, struggling to rekindle her love of snowboarding, struggling with it all — they are. In 2018, about a month after winning her first gold, she conceded fame was different from what she imagined. It included everything from paparazzi following her to fans watching her eat in restaurants to an ugly spate of anti-Asian trolling that has been a steady, disturbing through-line over the career of a California native whose parents are Korean.
Figure skating became a comfort zone for LGBTQ+ community
BY DAVE SKRETTA
aP sportswriter
The moment Amber Glenn stepped onto the ice at figure skating’s world championships, fans began to wave American flags, from the lowest rows inside TD Garden to the highest rafters, where the jerseys of Boston’s sporting greats hang in honor It seemed a fitting backdrop to her program: Glenn is the three-time reigning U.S. champion, one of the current faces of figure skating, and as the daughter of a police officer and a proud native Texan, patriotism flows through her as thick as oil. Yet the stars-and-stripes weren’t the only flags flying high that night Scattered throughout the sellout crowd at the last worlds before the Milan Cortina Olympics were the equally conspicuous rainbow flags
that for nearly 50 years have signified pride within the LGBTQ+ community They started popping up at Glenn’s competitions a year earlier when she carried one across her shoulders in celebration of her national championship.
“I saw them,” Glenn acknowledged later, long after her performance, “and I was proud to see both of those flags flying.” Glenn, who identifies as pansexual, never sought to be an icon within the queer community In fact, she didn’t come to grips with her own sexuality until she had been through the wringer, including a stint in a mental health facility spent working through depression, anxiety and an eating disorder Glenn didn’t come out publicly until letting it slip during an interview a half-dozen years ago, and then thought with horror,
“I haven’t even told my Catholic grandma yet!”
Yet as the 26-year-old Glenn reflected on her journey in an interview with The Associated Press, she expressed a profound sense of gratitude for having experienced it within the tight-knit figure skating world For decades, the sport has provided a progressive sort of safe space for those within the LGTBQ+ community, some of whom still may be trying to realize their authentic selves.
The long and winding road
It hasn’t always been that way in figureskating,asportwheresuccess and failure is quite literally a judgment call, and looks, attitude and mannerisms all matter in the scores. Throughout the 1900s, and even into the ‘80s and ’90s, women often were encouraged to be more effeminate,
and male counterparts were told to embrace their masculinity It wasn’t until Rudy Galindo came out in a book released shortly before he was crowned U.S. champion in 1996 that walls began to crumble. Three-time U.S. champion Johnny Weir, now a lead analyst for NBC’s coverage of the Olympics, said later that Galindo gave him the confidence to come out in 2011, and ultimately embrace who he was both on the ice and off. Eventually, other prominent skaters came forward, some of whom had never publicly acknowledged their sexuality Each had their reasons, whether personal, political or simply the desire to give back to the community
As the U.S team was preparing for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, former Olympic champion Brian Boitano was picked to be a part of
the delegation At the time, the Russian government was under fire for an anti-gay “propaganda” law passed in June 2013, and Boitano told the AP that he never considered coming out until he was chosen to represent his country again. Success on big stages
While LGBTQ+ athletes compete in just about every sport, what might set figure skating apart at least, presently has been their success on the biggest stages, whether they be international competitions, the world championships or even the Olympics. In 2018, former U.S. champion Adam Rippon not only became the first openly gay man to make the Olympic team but the first to capture a medal at the Winter Games, earning bronze as part of the team event.
aP FILe PHoto By CHrIstINNe MUsCHI United states’ Jack eichel skates in to celebrate the empty net goal over Canada by teammate Jake Guentzel during the third period of a 4 Nations Face-off game on Feb 15 in Montreal.
assoCIateD Press PHoto By GreGory BULL
Chloe Kim jumps during the women’s halfpipe finals on Feb 13, 2018, at the 2018 Winter olympics in Pyeongchang south Korea.
assoCIateD Press PHoto By CHrIsWatKINs
Auburn coachPearl gets signaturewin
BY MARK LONG aP sportswriter
GAINESVILLE,Fla. Steven Pearl’s signature win came at an unlikely venue and against one of hisclosest friends.
Pearl and Auburn stunned No. 16 Florida 76-67 on Saturday to notch the program’sfirst victoryin Gainesville since 1996.Pearlhad lost all four trips to the O’Connell Centersince joining hisfather’s staff in 2017, and Bruce Pearl was winless in six visits over 11 seasons on the Plains.
“If you look back at Auburn basketball history,that mightbethe best road win we’ve ever had as a program,” said Steven Pearl, who beat longtime buddy Todd Golden to get it done. It surely will resonate with the NCAA Tournament selection committee in March. The Tigers ended a15-game skid in the series, snapped Florida’s16-game home winning streak, took ahuge step forward in their rebuild and provided ablueprint on how tohandle the defending national champions.
Auburn packed the paint, forcing the Gators to settle for jump shots and preventing them getting offensive rebounds. It helped that 6-foot-7 forward Keyshawn Hall, atransfer from UCF,was close to unstoppable in thefirst half. He scored 22 points in the first 20 minutes thanks mostly to three 3-pointers and five free throws.
“When he makes acouple shots, the basket just gets really big for
LSU
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We couldn’t make up that21-point difference behind the 3-point line.” After makingseven or more 3-pointers in five SEC games, the Tigers finished 3of15compared to Arkansas’ 10 of 22. What madethe perimeter shooting insurmountable was the brilliance of Razorbacks star freshman DariusAcuff.
The 6-foot-3 projected NBA draft pick had acareer-high 31 points and six assists. He had 24 points on 10-of-11 shooting in the second half alone for Arkansas (15-5, 5-2) The disappointment does have a silver lining: Thomas. McMahon was pleased with how the lead guard performed in his return to the starting lineup in the second game backfrom the lower leginjuryhesuffered on Jan. 2. LSU’sbestplayerhad 18 points on 7-of-20 shooting, five assists, four rebounds and three turnovers in 31 minutes. The threeself-created scores he had with under four minutes were what LSUlackedin other close losses. Thiswas progress from his two points on 1-of-8 shooting and three assists in 17 minutes against No.16Florida on Tuesday
“My number one takeaway from Tuesday was he was abletoget to his spots on the court,” McMahon said. “He was moving pretty well. Ithought he was even better today Had his first two practices in three weeks, and Ithought he looked a lot more comfortable. He’ll shoot a better percentage moving forward. Some of the timing on acouple of those lobs wasn’tthere like it had been, but Ithink his recovery has been phenomenal, and agreat credit to hishard work and our
him,”Pearl said. “Hekind of carriedour offense and gave us the confidence we needed to obviously hang in there.”
Hall andAuburn built a15-point lead at halftime thatthe Tigers stretched to 18 early in the second half. It providedenough cushion that theywereablewithstand Florida’ssecond-half rally.The Gators tied the game twice in thesecond half, but Auburn tightened up on the defensiveend andpulled away down the stretch Florida missed11consecutive shots —most of them contested aftertying thegameat56with 8:09 to play.
“Ourguys just responded and didagreat job of taking that team’s punch,”Pearl said.“Threeweeks ago, our team would have folded andlet all that pressure get to us.”
The Tigers (13-7, 4-3 Southeastern Conference) have won three in arow and four of five. Seven losses might look bad on paper, but fourofthemcameinnonconference play against top-10 teams Houston,Michigan, Arizona and Purdue, and the other threecame against teams in thetop half of the SECstandings.
Still, Auburntraveled to Gainesville as an 11 1/2-pointunderdog, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.
TheTigers left having opened eyes by holdinga thirdconsecutive opponent under 70points
“In my opinion, it’sbeen the effort on defense,” said forward KeyShawn Murphy,who finished with 16 points, ninerebounds, two
blocksand two steals. “Like our coaches say,nothing we do works without it. Lately we’vebeenputting more effort intoeverything we do, showing up in practice, just thesmall details.”
Pearlinherited aretooled roster from his retiring father in late September. Auburnhad to replaceall five starters from last year’steam, including SEC playerofthe year JohniBroome, that lost toFlorida in the regular season and in the Final Four.
But the NCAA transferportal offered theTigers the ability for aquick rebuild. Hall led theBig 12 in scoring last season, and Murphy camefrom Mississippi State with years of SEC experience. Throw in returning guard Tahaad Pettiford, former Texas Tech forward Kevin Overtonand Division II transfer ElyjahFreeman, andPearl had thepieces.
Getting them to play together has been partofthe process, one that appears to be finally coming together
“It just speaks toour growth as ateam, ourgrowthasastaff and our kids’ willingness to stick together and really lock intothe details and the things thatwe’ve been harping on every single day in practice,” Pearl said. “We’ve just continuously gotten better as agroup. Forus, it’s aboutwhat we do from here If we letthis thingaffect us in away that can distract us from the next one, thenitreally doesn’tmean anything.”
LsUforwardMikeNwoko,left, and arkansas guard
fight for arebound during the second half of agamesaturday in Fayetteville, ark
“Overall, you know,pleased with our energy, our effort, our competitive spirit.Wegot to getbetter, and wegot to be prepared to win on Wednesday, when we comeback home to play Mississippi State.”
Matt McMaHoN, LsU coach
medicalteam.” Ahealthy Thomas means LSU is complete, not including redshirt juniorJalen Reed, who hada second straight season-ending injury in the sixth game of the season. Before McMahon’steam can wonder how Selection Sunday will panout, LSU’s immediate goal is to rackupwins with Thomas back,
starting with Mississippi State at 6p.m. Wednesdayatthe Pete MaravichAssemblyCenter
“Overall, you know,pleased with our energy,our effort,our competitive spirit,” McMahonsaid. “Wegot to getbetter,and we gotto be prepared to win on Wednesday, when we comeback home to play Mississippi State.”
UConnbeats Seton Hall for43rdstraight winoverthe Pirates
BY EVERETT MERRILL associated Press
SOUTHORANGE,N.J.— Sarah Strong scored 17 points, reserve Blanca Quinonez added16pointsand Azzi Fudd broke out of abrief shooting slumpwith 14 points as No. 1UConn beat Seton Hall9252 on Saturday UConn ran its winning streak againstSeton Hall to 43 games. The Pirates last beat the Huskies January 5, 1994.
Quinonez was 7for 9from the field and had five rebounds and four assists forUConn (21-0, 11-0 Big East). Allie Ziebell scored 11 points forthe Huskies, whoreceived 45 bench points.
Mariana Valenzuelaled Seton Hall (14-6, 8-3 Big East) with 18 points and eight rebounds.Savannah Catalon added 11 points for the Pirates, whohad theirfour-game win streak halted Fudd, whoshot 5for 23 from
3-point distanceinUConn’s three previous games, started the game 4for 4from the field. She didn’tmiss her first shot until there was 5:54 left in the first half.She was3of4from beyond the arc.
Huskiescoach Geno Auriemma restedFudd andStrong in the fourth quarter with UConn ahead 73-41.
The Huskies’ pressure forced 27 turnoversleadingto37points. UConn recorded 25 assists, markingthe 20th straight game with at least 20 assists.
The Pirates’ last lead was 15-13 with4:55left in the first quarter after aValenzuela 3-pointer
The Huskies closed the first half on a13-4 run and led 50-28 at the half. UConn shot 61% (20 of 33) from the field in the opening quarters.
The gamewas moved to Saturday from Sunday due to the forecast of awinter storm expected to hit the Northeast.
FULWILEY
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Against Kentucky on Jan. 1, Fulwiley missed fiveofthe six shotsshe took and needlessly put herself into foul trouble Then—when she started for the first and only time this season against Vanderbiltthree days later —she tallied13points, sevenrebounds and six assists. But she also turned the ball over fivetimes and missed akey defensive assignment late in the fourth quarter,giving up an open 3-pointer that the Commodoresused to re-take the lead. LSU dropped those games primarily because it grabbedtoo few rebounds andcommitted toomany turnovers. Fulwiley, though, had ahand in the losing efforts. Shechipped in only 15 pointson7-of-19shooting across the two contests.
Now,Fulwiley’scontributing about that muchoffense, on average, every night. In LSU’s last four games, she scored 15.8 ppg on 44% shooting. She also averaged 3.3 steals and broke out of a3-point shooting slump.
Fulwiley missed all11longrange shots she took in the eight contests the Tigers played from Dec. 16 to Jan. 18.Then, on Thursday,she drained three of those looks just in the first quarter of a44-point winover the Aggies—amatchup that turned
in LSU’sfavor the moment she checked in.
“She’sgonna always give you aspark,” Mulkey said. “God blessed herwithunbelievable speed and quickness, and if you’re gonna be on the floor with her, youbetter be ready to get up and go.”
That trait —Fulwiley’saffinityfor attacking in transition —iswhat makes her such agame-breaking force. Anda natural fit forLSU’s preferred play style. Mulkey cuts her ballhandlers loose, letting them push thepace, butshe holds them to ahigh standard as well. They have to minimize their turnovers, take smart shots, play sound defense and avoid silly fouls—toname afew key responsibilities. Fulwiley didn’tcheck enough of those boxes against Kentucky and Vanderbilt. She hasn’tbeen perfect, as she said Thursday Butshe thinks she’smade strides since then. They’ve just happened to coincide with LSU’s four-gamewinning streak.
“I see my growth in areas that don’tshow up on the stat sheet,” Fulwiley said, “so I’m just proud of myself and how far Icame and how Ijust continue to try to get better each and every day.”
Email Reed Darcey at reed. darcey@theadvocate.com. For more LSUsports updates, signupfor ournewsletter at theadvocate.com/lsunewsletter
assoCIateD Press PHoto By MICHaeL WooDs
Karter Knox,right,
auburncoach stevenPearl watches from the sideline during the second half of agameagainst Floridaon saturdayinGainesville, Fla.
UConn guard allie Ziebell shoots against seton Hallforward savanna Jones during the first halfofagame on saturday in south orange, N.J.
Rose has number retired with Bulls
BY ANDREW SELIGMAN
aP sportswriter
CHICAGO Derrick Rose figured he would experience all sorts of emotions when he saw his banner hang from the rafters. They started flowing long before the moment arrived.
The Chicago Bulls retired his No.
1 following their win over the Boston Celtics on Saturday night And the kid who went from growing up in a rough South Side neighborhood to starring for his hometown team was ready for the moment.
“I had someone or a journalist ask me, ‘Man, did you cry?’ I told him I cry every day,” Rose said. “And he asked about what Being joyful, knowing where I grew up, knowing my coming back here, my being practical with knowing the economy, with me being there, and the neighborhoods And you just know
“That’s one of the reasons why I came back, is to curate things and to employ people.”
Rose joined Michael Jordan (23), Scottie Pippen (33), Jerry Sloan (4) and Bob Love (10) as the only players whose numbers have been retired by the team.
He shed tears during emotional speeches by former teammates Taj Gibson, Luol Deng and Joakim Noah and by coach Tom Thibodeau. He got choked up when he addressed his mother and older brothers as well as his wife, two sons and daughter There were hugs and smiles, too, when the banner was unveiled.
Rose had already gotten a glimpse at it. On Friday, the Bulls posted video on social media of him seeing it for the first time.
Rose said seeing the banner was “unreal.” But it hadn’t really sunk in.
“All this, the moment, I’m still trying to take in, I’m still trying to
process in real time,” he said. “And yeah, and just feeling grateful, you know what I mean? Like knowing the weather conditions out there, knowing that it’s a Chicago thing to even show up here, to fight through that and still go to an event. It’s huge, so it’s something that I’m grateful for.”
The video the Bulls posted shows a wide-eyed Rose walking out to center court He lets out a “wow, are you serious?” as he gazes at the unfurled banner in front of the
scorer’s table. He squats, walks over and touches it, rubbing his hand over the No. 1. He’s then joined by his family as well as former teammates Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson and Kirk Hinrich.
Noah says in the video seeing Rose’s number raised to the rafters “is our championship moment.”
On Saturday, there were black Rose jerseys at each seat. The Bulls posted video from Jordan and Pippen congratulating him. Rose left roses from his flower
shop Rose’s Flower Shop in both teams’ locker rooms before the game.
“He instilled that heart, he instilled that trust in us and that made us come out and fight for you every single night,” Gibson told the crowd.
Former coach Tom Thibodeau called Rose “a basketball savant” whose humility is what really made him stand out.
“The next stop, in my opinion, is the Hall of Fame and there is no
McCarthy will offer more of the same for Steelers, and
BY PAUL ZEISE Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (tNs)
PITTSBURGH Mike McCarthy is a really good football coach, and we have established that already He is also a Pittsburgh guy, grew up in Greenfield and went to Bishop Boyle, coached at Pitt. We have all heard and read the story over and over, so I don’t need to continue down that path.
I like McCarthy’s resume, which includes a Super Bowl title, 11 playoff wins, eight division titles and four appearances in the NFC championship game He was impressive getting the dysfunctional Dallas Cowboys to three consecutive 12-win seasons
The man can coach, which is why all of the immediate reaction and backlash from Steelers fans is silly because it is all based on expectations. They all convinced themselves they were getting a young, energetic whiz kid, and instead they ended up with a twice-fired retread who is 62.
McCarthy will work fine, I am sure, and the Steelers will continue down the path of winning seasons and competing for the playoffs He will get them to the nine- or 10-win
SAINTS
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Sanker and cornerback Quincy Riley, received grades of 62.4 and 61.1, respectively Defensive tackle Bryan Bresee was the lowest-graded defensive player at 52.9. Veteran defensive tackles Davon Godchaux and Jonah Williams were also ranked near the bottom of the roster with grades of 50.5 and 41.6, respectively although neither played more than half of the unit’s snaps.
On offense, Olave’s grade of 78.0 led the Saints and ranked 20th among NFL receivers that played 50% of their team’s snaps.
Olave enjoyed the best season of his four-year NFL career, leading the Saints with 100 catches for 1,163 yards and nine touchdowns Rookie quarterback Tyler Shough was the second-highest-graded player at 74.6. His grade ranked 15th among quarterbacks with 50% of their team’s snaps but was best among rookie quarterbacks. Jaxson Dart of the New York Giants (68.4) and Cam Ward of the Tennessee Titans (58.5) were next Shough’s 2025 draft classmate, left tackle Kelvin Banks, had a grade of 73.3, making him the only other Saints offensive player to play half or more of the team’s 1,075 snaps and record a grade of 70.0 or higher
COMMENTARY
mark more often than not, and they will play meaningful games in December and early January
The thing I don’t understand is why the Steelers went this route, other than Art Rooney II is more interested in playing it safe than making an inspired hire that might have upside.
Mike McCarthy’s resume reads like this:
— 18 seasons, 174-112-2, 12 playoff seasons, eight division titles and one Super Bowl
You know who that resume is almost identical to?
Mike Tomlin And it is actually uncanny 19 seasons 193-114-2, 13 playoff seasons, eight division titles and one Super Bowl In other words, they replaced Tomlin with basically the same coach who just left, and that tells me they aren’t interested in getting back to the next level of championship football.
Rooney played it safe He opted for the coach who has a track record of some success because he wants to keep this string of “non-
28 in Nashville, tenn.
this season. Banks led the offense with 1,066 snaps played. Devaughn Vele (72.7) and Spencer Rattler (70.0) had starter-level grades while falling just short of the 50% snap minimum. Running backs Audric Estime and Kendre Miller had grades of 75.8 and 74.0 but played just 181 and 113 snaps, respectively Guard Dillon Radunz was the lowest-graded offensive player at 48.5. Alvin Kamara and Cesar Ruiz were next at 51.7 and 55.1, respectively Overall, the Saints offense ranked 27th in the league with a grade of 67.8. The Los Angeles Rams offense graded the highest at 96.1 while the Cleveland Browns were the lowest at 55.6.
losing seasons” intact and knows that is what he has in McCarthy This should have been a place where the Steelers were able to do a total reset of the organization. Instead it is going to be more of the same. The reason Tomlin was kept around was because he kept the Steelers at a level of “just good enough,” and that’s the new standard, apparently I don’t know if any of those young guys would have worked out better, but I will say that there is an upside with those hires that doesn’t exist with McCarthy McCarthy will keep the Steelers in a pro-style offense and — despite being an offensive-minded coach will allow the team to continue to be led by the defense because he is old school. He will run a good offense. He is a good developer of quarterbacks And the Steelers will be structured, organized and schematically sound.
There is actually a good chance he will convince Aaron Rodgers to dust himself off and squeeze one more season out of his aging body, too. That would be ridiculous because, again, the goal should be to move forward, and all that would do is push the actual rebuild and re-
RABALAIS
Continued from page 1B
to ask Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, who judiciously used the portal to build a national champion led by Heisman Trophy-winning transfer quarterback Fernando Mendoza. Whether or not something similar to what Indiana did this past season will be accomplished at LSU this coming season is, of course, an unanswerable riddle. What is knowable is that it can be done. Exhibit A: Indiana. Exhibit B: Kiffin’s old Ole Miss team. The Rebels rode their own star transfer quarterback, Mr.-straight-out-of-themiddle-of-nowhere Trinidad Chambliss, and came within a breath of beating Miami in the Fiesta Bowl to earn the right to play the Hoosiers for the College Football Playoff championship. While LSU’s 2025 transfer portal class was stocked with a lot of talent — players like Moore, unanimous All-American cornerback Mansoor Delane and wide receiver Barion Brown — in hindsight, there were holes. LSU’s offensive line, Moore aside, was woeful Well, the Tigers have signed nine linemen out of the portal,
doubt about that,” he said. This isn’t the first time the team honored Rose. The Bulls did it when they played New York on Jan. 4, 2025, symbolizing the date as well as the numbers he wore with the Bulls as well as the Knicks and Chicago’s Simeon Career Academy That same day, the Bulls announced they would retire Rose’s jersey
Rose, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft, went from being Rookie of the Year to an AllStar to NBA MVP in his first three seasons. He remains the league’s youngest MVP winning it when he was 22.
A major knee injury during the 2012 playoffs forced him to miss almost two full seasons and he contemplated stepping away from the game several times following other injury issues.
Rose averaged 17.4 points and 5.2 assists in 723 regular-season games. He averaged 21 points per game before the ACL tear 12 years ago and 15.1 per game in the seasons that followed. But he doesn’t dwell on what might have been. At 37, Rose is more focused on his family and business interests, like an online flower shop and employing people from the city Or his work promoting participation in chess, particularly among at-rise youngsters He’s not all that interested in working in basketball.
“Everybody thinks the the path or the motif was, ‘All right, after you get done, you gotta go back and be around basketball,’” he said. “I didn’t want that. I wanted to curate things or be in lanes that nobody was in. Coming from Chicago, when you tend to enter lanes that people are in, you step on toes and certain things can happen.
“So with me having that in mind, I wanted curate things so that I don’t have to worry about any competition.”
that’s disappointing
set one more season down the road.
But is there anybody out there who thinks McCarthy has a ceiling higher than where Tomlin had the Steelers the last decade? Is there anybody who thinks McCarthy will become the first coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl for two different franchises?
I am not saying Chris Shula and Co. would definitely get the Steelers to the Super Bowl, but they are untested, young and hungry, and that is the profile of the coach the Steelers have hired in the past.
A guy like Shula is high-risk but also potentially high-reward, and the Steelers should be bold, reaching for the sky They should be taking that risk on a Shula-like coach to see if they can strike gold in a coaching hire for the fourth time in a row What they said in hiring McCarthy is that the status quo is now good enough. It is now acceptable to play it safe and make sure you can win just enough to convince yourself that you are close to being a contender every year
That is probably the difference between Dan Rooney and Art Rooney II, as the former is one of the best football executives in the
led by the most recent acquisition, Colorado’s Jordan Seaton, seemingly a plug-and-play starter at left tackle. LSU needed quarterbacks — plural — because the room emptied out of scholarship signal callers after the Texas Bowl. Kiffin not only signed Arizona State’s Sam Leavitt, the No. 1 or 2-rated QB in this year’s portal cycle, but also former five-star Husan Longstreet of USC (On3.com’s No. 7 transfer quarterback) and Landen Clark of Elon.
Retaining Blake Baker as defensive coordinator was another Kiffin coup, but Baker’s defense was not very good at generating a pass rush without blitzing. So Kiffin got him edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen from Ole Miss — a consensus top-five portal prospect along with Leavitt and Seaton and former five-star edge rusher Jordan Ross of Tennessee. In all, LSU signed nine players from the On3.com top 100 list of portal prospects. With LSU baseball season rapidly approaching, it is appropriate to say that Kiffin and his staff have covered every base.
The issues facing LSU now change, from literally not having enough players in meeting rooms, like quarterback and offensive line, to making this
NFL because he was willing to take risks and be cutting edge in his thinking. He hired Tomlin when nobody outside of Tomlin’s family and maybe a few Vikings fans knew who the heck he was. He took a chance and it paid off with two Super Bowl trips in four years and 19 seasons of winning football. It was clear, though, the last few years it became stale under Tomlin and it was time for a change. The team had reached its ceiling and wasn’t ever going to take the next step no matter how many chances they gave Tomlin to get it right. Now, instead of hitting the reset button and really making a change, Rooney opted for more of the same — barely above .500 seasons, old-school football philosophy and lack of advancing in the playoffs I hope I am wrong, as it is always so much fun to cover teams that win and make Super Bowl runs, but I fear I am right. This is the safest hire the Steelers could have made, which is why I am shocked they did it. But safe and uninspired is a great way to describe the Steelers under the direction of the current ownership.
team a team. By the subjective standards of recruiting sites and services, Kiffin has pooled a superb collection of talent. Championship conversationworthy. Certainly, CFP berthworthy But collections of talent don’t win titles. Teams win. Something Indiana also proved. Between transfers and high school players, there will be at least 56 newcomers on LSU’s roster that come running out beneath Tiger Stadium’s north goalposts Sept. 5 to face Clemson. That’s a lot of guys to get on the same page. To build chemistry with. To foster trust in each other Oh, and is that a raised hand in the back of the room? No, it’s Leavitt’s right foot. The one that required season-ending Lisfranc surgery The one that will almost certainly keep him out of spring practice. LSU’s depth is still not deep at a lot of positions, and health will go a long way to determining how much the Tigers win in 2026. All that said, the prospects are tantalizing for LSU, without question. The Wright Brothers, aka Kiffin and Krewe, have assembled the pieces of one sleeklooking airplane.
Just how far can it fly?
Email Scott Rabalais at srabalais@theadvocate.com
assoCIateD Press PHoto By Matt MartoN
Former Chicago Bulls player Derrick rose, left, fist bumps fans before a game against the Boston Celtics on saturday in Chicago. rose’s jersey was retired after the Bulls’ win saturday
Baton Rouge Weather
SCOREBOARD
Patriots and Broncos battle in AFC Championship game
n Super BowlLIX Sunday, Feb. 8 At Santa Clara. ConferenceChampionships winners 5:30 p.m. (NBC/Peacock)
At Melbourne Park Melbourne, Australia Purse: AUD111,500,000 Surface: Hardcourt outdoor Men’s Singles Fourth Round Carlos Alcaraz (1), Spain, def. TommyPaul (19),United States, 7-6(6),6-4,7-5. Alexander Zverev (3), Germany, def. Francisco Cerundolo (18),Argentina, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4. Learner Tien (25),UnitedStates, def. Daniil Medvedev (11), Russia, 6-4, 6-0, 6-3. Alex de Minaur(6),Australia,def. Alexander Bublik (10),Kazakhstan, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1. Women’s Singles Fourth Round Aryna Sabalenka (1), Belarus, def. Victoria Mboko(17),Canada, 6-1, 7-6(1) IvaJovic (29), United States,def.Yulia Putintseva, Kazakhstan, 6-0, 6-1. Coco Gauff (3), United States, def. Karolina Muchova (19), Czechia,6-1,3-6,6-3. Elina Svitolina (12),Ukraine,def.Mirra Andreeva(8), Russia, 6-2, 6-4. Men’s Doubles ThirdRound Marcel Granollers, Spain, and Horacio Zeballos (3), Argentina, def. Robert Cash and James Tracy (14),United States,6-3, 3-6, 6-3. Fabien Rebouland SadioDoumbia(12) France, def. Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Camilo UgoCarabelli, Argentina, 7-6(7),6-7 (6), 6-1. Christian Harrison, United States, and Neal Skupski (6), Britain, def. BoticVan de Zandschulp and TallonGriekspoor, Netherlands, 5-0, ret. Luke Johnson, Britain, and JanZielinski, Poland, def. John-Patrick Smith, Australia, and Adam Pavlasek, Czechia,6-3,6-4. Women’s Doubles Second Round Zhang Shuai, China, and Elise Mertens (4), Belgium, def.VictoriaMboko, Canada,and IvaJovic,United States,7-5,4-6,7-6 (10) Women’s Doubles ThirdRound Taylor Townsend, United States,and Katerina Siniakova(1),Czechia,def.Miyu(1994) Kato, Japan, and FannyStollar(15),Hungary, walkover. EriHozumi, Japan, and Fang-HsienWu, Taiwan, def. Demi Schuurs,Netherlands,and Ellen Perez(8), Australia,6-2,6-2 GabrielaDabrowski, Canada, and Luisa Stefani (5), Brazil, def. Nicole MelicharMartinez, United States, and Cristina Bucsa (9), Spain, 6-4, 6-3. AleksandraKrunic,Serbia, and Anna Danilina (7), Kazakhstan, def. Storm Hunterand Maya Joint, Australia,7-5,7-6 (6). MixedDoubles Second Round Kristina Mladenovic and Manuel Guinard, France, def. AndreGoransson, Sweden, and Erin Routliffe, New Zealand, 6-4, 7-5. Anna Danilina, Kazakhstan, and James Tracy,United States,def. Olivia Nicholls and HenryPatten (7), Britain, 6-2, 6-3. AleksandraKrunic,Serbia, and Mate Pavic (5), Croatia, def.MatthewEbden andTalia Gibson, Australia,7-6 (2), 0-6, 10-6. Matthew Christopher Romios and Maya Joint, Australia, def. Gabriela Dabrowski, Canada, andLukeJohnson, Britain,6-2, 6-7 (2), 10-7. MixedDoubles ThirdRound John Peers and Olivia Gadecki, Australia, def. EdouardRoger-Vasselin,France, and Laura Siegemund, Germany, 6-3, 3-6,
LIVING
WW W
BY CHEYANNE MUMPHREY | associated Press
At atime when productivitymeans optimizing every second and screens blurthe linebetween work and home, somepeople are slowing down and disconnecting bylooking to communication devices from the past
“I feel as though my penpalsare my friends. Idon’t think of them much differently than if Iwerechatting withafriend on the phone, in a coffee shop or at another person’s house,” said Melissa Bobbitt, 42, adevoted letter-writerwho corresponds with aboutadozen peoplefrom her home in Claremont, California,and hashad up to 40 pen pals at one time “Focusing on one personand really reading what they are saying, and sharingwhat’s on your heartisalmostlike atherapy session.” AS SCREENSBLURTHE LINE BETWEENWORK ANDHOME, SOME PEOPLE ARESLOWING DOWN ANDDISCONNECTING BY LOOKINGTO COMMUNICATION DEVICES FROM
Tactile activities rangingfrom writing letters andtypewriter clubs to TikTok communities showcasingcalligraphy skills and wax seals are giving retro writing instruments aresurgence. Morethan quaint throwbacks,the pursuits provide their enthusiastswith opportunities to reduce their technologyuse, be moreintentionalwith time and build meaningful connections with others.
Is there nowultrasound technology that can clear the brain of abnormal amyloid plaquesinAlzheimer’sdisease?
The formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles are thought to contribute to the degradation of the nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain and the subsequent symptomsofAlzheimer’sdisease. One of the biggest markers of Alzheimer’sdisease is the accumulation of amyloid plaques between these nerve cells in the brain. Amyloid is ageneral term forthe protein fragments that the body produces normally.Abeta-amyloid is asticky protein fragmentthat has been cut from an amyloid precursor protein (APP). In the brain of ahealthy individual, these protein fragments are broken downand eliminated, but in Alzheimer’s disease, the fragments accumulate to form hard, insoluble plaques.
Researchers at the Queensland Brain Institute in Australia have been studying ultrasound technology to clear the amyloid plaques. The technique usesa particular type of ultrasound called a “focusedtherapeutic ultrasound,” which noninvasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue.The fast oscillations of sound waves gently open up the blood brain barrier, the layerofthe brain that protectsitagainst bacteria andstimulates the brain’s microglial cells to activate. These microglial cells are basically waste-removal cells, so theyare able to remove the beta-amyloid clumps thatare responsible for the hallmark symptoms of Alzheimer’sdisease. The study found that by using this ultrasound technology on test mice, a75% memory function was fully restored, with zero damage to the surrounding brain tissue. Researchers found that the treated mice displayed improved performance in three memory tasks: amaze, new object recognition, and atest to get the mice to remember the places they should avoid.
HarryStylesannounces 2026 global tour
BY MARIA SHERMAN
Styles’tour
and many New York dates begins Jan. 30. The last New York dates, Oct. 10 to 31, will go on sale Feb. 4. Styles is no stranger to residen-
cies. During his “Love on Tour” in 2022, he dida15-night stint at Madison Square Garden, which Ticketmaster labeled “the highest-grossing single engagement in the venue’shistory.” The “Together,Together” tour news arrivesaweek after Styles revealed his long-awaited, fourth studio album will arrive March 6.
ä see STYLES, page 2C
Researchers were pleased with early outcomes to the new innovative, non-drug therapeutic approach to finding prevention or cure forthe disease. While using the term “breakthrough” is cautionary,the researchers did feel that the outcome of the study fundamentally changes the understanding of how to treat the disease. While the use of ultrasound technology is avery promising method to treat the disease, moreresearch and study need to be performed.
Dana Territo is an Alzheimer’sadvocate andauthorof“What My Grandchildren Taught Me About Alzheimer’sDisease.” Shehosts “The Memory Whisperer.” Email herat thememorywhisperer@gmail. com.
Getty IMaGes ILLUstratIoN
Thedifferencebetween acoldand the flu
Dear Doctors: My wife started getting sick afew days before Halloween. We were worried that it was going to turn into abad respiratoryillness, but it stayed in her nose and throat. That’sa common cold, right? Why is havinga cold so different from when you get the flu?
Dear reader: Both of the illnesses you mention in your letter —the flu and acold —fall into thebroad category of upper respiratory infections. Because different types of viruses cause each one, the body’sresponse can vary alot
Dr.Elizabeth Ko
Dr.Eve Glazier asK tHe DoCtors
The flu can cause serious illness and can lead to hospitalization and even death. The common cold,by comparison, is shorter in duration, with symptoms that arenot as bad. Having acold isn’t funby anymeans, butit’snot aserious threat to health. To understand why, we need to take acloser look at themicrobes involved. Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is caused by specific subtypes of the influenzavirus. Most often this is influenza Aand influenza B. Thefluhitshard and fast due to the nature of the influenza virus. People shed theinfluenza
TODAYINHISTORY
By the associated Press
Today is Monday,Jan. 26, the 26th day of 2026. There are339 days left in the year
Todayinhistory:
On Jan. 26, 2020, NBA legend Kobe Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and sevenothers were killedwhentheir helicopter plunged into asteep hillside in dense fog in Southern California; the former Lakers star was 41. Also on this date: In 1887, groundbreaking began for the construction of the Eiffel Tower;the tower would be completed
just over two years later In 1905, theCullinan Diamond,at 3,106 carats thelargest diamondever found,was discovered in SouthAfrica. In 1998, President Bill Clintonforcefully denied having an affairwith aformer White House intern, telling reporters, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” In 2023, Israeli forces killedatleastnine Palestinians and woundedseveral othersinalarge-scaleraid on theJenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the deadliest singleopera-
Ink, paper and other tools that once were the onlyway to send amessage from afar are continuing to bring people together from around the world. Below,some of them explain the appeal of snail mail and giverecommendations for getting started.
Writingcan be an escape In asociety shaped by constant availability,hands-on hobbies like writing letters and scrapbooking require focus and patience. The act of picking up apen, sealing an envelope with wax and laying out pages may yield aesthetically pleasing results, but it also createsa space for reflection.
Stephania Kontopanos, a 21-year-old student in Chicago, said it can be hard to put her phone and computer away,especiallywhenit seems all of her friends and peers are on social media and her classes and personal life revolve around being online
“There are times when I’m with my friends and at dinner,I’ll realize we are all on our phones,” Kontopanos said, adding that shetries to put her phone downatthose moments.
Kontopanos alsounplugs consciously by sending postcards to her family and friends, scrapbooking, and junk journaling, which involves repurposing everyday materials like tickets and receipts to document memories or ideas. She says going to the post office has become an activity she does with her mother back home in Kansas and includes sharing stories with the postal workers, people she would not have routinely encountered.
Fosteringcommunity
Writing and sending letters is nostalgic for KiKi Klassen, who lives in Ontario, Canada.The 28-yearold says it helps her feel more connected to her late mother,who was amember of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, whichrepresents mail carriersand other postal employees.
In October 2024, Klassen launched the Lucky Duck Mail Club, asubscriptionbased monthly mail service
STYLES
Continued from page1C
Titled “Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasion-
virus through dropletsprimarily spread by coughing or sneezing. When others inhale thefluvirus, it absorbs through their mucous membranes. Then thefluvirus penetrates deep intothe tissues that line the airways. The virus can evade early immune detection by shielding itself from the sentinel cells of the immune system. By thetime the immune system finds this invader,the viral infection has grown, so the body triggers apowerful inflammatory responsetofight it The common cold, by contrast, is amilder infection. Symptoms usually start gradually over a day or two. Colds are mostoften caused by rhinoviruses. These viruses tendtostay in theupper airways and trigger fewer and
tioninthe territory in two decades.
Today’sbirthdays: Actor David Strathairn is 77. Football Hall of Famer Jack Youngblood is 76. Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams is 73. Singer Anita Baker is 68. Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky is 65. Musician Andrew Ridgeley (Wham!) is 63. Gospel singer Kirk Franklin is 56. Actor Gilles Marini is 50. Basketball Hall of Famer Vince Carter is 49. Actor Sara Rue is 47. Race car driver Sergio Pérez is 36. Prowrestler Mercedes Moné is 34. Actor Joseph Quinnis32.
assoCIateD Press FILe PHotosByCHarLes KrUPa Penpal letters aredisplayedoutsidethe sullivan County HealthCarenursing home in Unity,N.H., in 2020.
thatsends participants a piece of herart,aninspiring quote and message. Shesays her membership includes more than 1,000 people across,atmost, 36countries.
“When Isit down, I’m forced to reflect and choose my words carefully,” Klassen said. “It also lends itself to vulnerability because it is easier to write down how you are feeling. I’ve had people writemeback and I’ve cried hearing so many touching stories. Ithink for alot of people paper creates asafe space. Youwrite it down, senditoff and don’t really think aboutitafter.”
ForBobbitt, who has corresponded by mail for years, there is a“grand excitement” when she opens her mailbox and finds something that is not abill or advertisement.
“Ifweall filled eachother’s mailboxes with letters, we would all be kinder and, at the very least,won’tdreadchecking ourmailboxes,”she said.
Bobbitt saysshe first joined apen palclubinsecondor third grade and later was connected to more writers through Postcrossing,anonline project that partnerspeople around theworldtosend and receive postcards. She says some of the postcards turnedintoletters as friendships grew between her and some other regular writers.
It’sasimilar feelingof connection that inspired DJ Robert Owoyele, 34, to create CAYA,amonthly “analog gathering” in Dallas. Owoyele launched the event less than ayear ago and has since organized evenings with letter writing,coloring, vinyl listening sessions and other activities.
“Welive in adigitalage that fosters afalse senseofconnection, but Ithink truecon-
less intense immune responses. The immune system also recognizes theinfection earlier,sothe body has aslower and moremeasured inflammatory response.
An interesting fact: There are several types of rhinovirus that can cause the common cold. That’swhy it’spossible to have two colds in arow.You aren’t catching the samecold twice, but respondingtotwo separate rhinoviruses. Medical care for acold and the flu also differ.Treatment for acold focuses on managing your symptoms.Usually,over-the-counter meds help ease pain and relieve sinus and nasal congestion. Getting plentyofrest helps, as does drinking lots of fluids to replace what the body uses to produce mucus.
For amild case of the flu, asimilar treatment, along with cough medicine, can be enough. But for serious flu symptoms, you want to check with your doctor.They mayrecommend aprescription of antiviral medications. Starting these medications in the first two days of an influenza infection can shorten the illness. If someone with the flu has worsening symptoms, including chest pain or high fever,they should seek immediate medical care.
Sendyour questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla. edu, or write: Ask theDoctors c/oUCLA HealthSciences Media Relations, 10880 Wilshire Blvd.,Suite1450, Los Angeles, CA, 90024.
Reader sounds off on cursive
Dear Heloise: Ijust have to comment about the lack of needing to teach cursive writing in the letter as described by the retired educator from Montana. No wonder our country is in such sad shape with this kind of thinking. When you can’tread cursive writing, you cannot read important papers that were written by our Founding Fathers, as well as many other past important papers. All family histories are written in cursive by thegenerations of the past. Iunderstand that Ken Burns is producing adocumentaryseries on the Revolutionary War. How in the world would he have been able to get all this information without being able to read cursive? Adumbanswer tothis question is to “Google it ”Someone who could read cursive might have put this info into Google, but you don’tknow if they got it right
An additional benefit
nectionhappens in person,” he said. “Whenweare able to touch or see something, we are more connected to it naturally.These analog activities are arepresentation of that.”
Howtoget started
Whilewritingletters and engaging in other vintage pursuitsmight seem accessible, it is not alwayseasy to get involved. For many people, carving outtimeto slow down can feel like another obligation in aschedule filled withto-dos.
Kontopanos says she decideditwas importantfor hertoreprioritize her time.
“The older Iget, themore I realize how much time had been wasted on my phone,” shesaid. Creating spaceto explore allowed her to discover thehobbiesshe loved doing enough to make them apriority, she said.
There are manyhobbies to consider,some of which don’trequire expensive tools or hours of freetime. Frequenting spaces where communities centered around these hobbies gather can be away to learn about thedifferent activities.For example,participating in typewriter clubs such as Type Pals,attending events like the Los Angeles Printers Fair hosted by theInternational Printing Museum in California, andengaging with social media communitieslike the WaxSeal Guild on Instagram andThe Calligraphy Hub on Facebook
Klassen says thatbased on postsshe’sseeing on her social media feeds, reviving vintage writing instruments and small tactile pleasures might be on the verge of becoming trendy
“The girls aregoinganalog in 2026,” she said.
Thecover for “Kiss Allthe Time.Disco, Occasionally”
to cursive writing is the development of fine-motor skills —not like driving a car but being able to use your hands/fingers to hold small items and perform tasks like using ascrewdriver,using nail clippers, etc. …The list can go on and on. It’s hard to stop my indignation regarding thelack of needing to learn cursive writing —Brenda R.,in Fremont,Nebraska
Brenda, Ifind it avery lazy approach to teaching, and judging from the letters we get here in our offices, so do most schoolteachers, parents and students. It’s asimple skill, and if teachers can’t teach it or aren’tallowed to teach it, then parents need to step in and teach their children how to write cursive. —Heloise Heatingpad warmsfood
Dear Heloise: Last week, I madebiscuits and muffins to take to asenior morning group. Iwanted them to stay warm, but Ididn’t
have aheating tray,soI took along aheating pad. I set the pad on high, and the muffins stayed warmbeautifully! Ilove reading your hints here in Connecticut. —Mary, via email Mary,this is aclever idea. We all must have a number of itemsathome that serve double duty Readers, write to me and let me know what you use that does morethan it was designed to do. —Heloise Forwhomthe bell tolls
Dear Heloise: Ienjoy reading your column daily
Regarding the letter about “recognizing friends versus foes,” Ionly have asmartphone now.I attach aname to each of my friends’, family members’ or favorite business’ phone number.When my phone rings, Ijust have to look at whothe caller is. Having a specific ring tone is probably handy if you don’t have the phone beside you often. —Terry,inGore,Virginia Sendahinttoheloise@ heloise.com.
Hints from Heloise
AQuARIus(Jan.20-Feb. 19) Rearrange and move things around to better accommodate yourplans. Put some thought into money managementand howyou useyourskills for your personal benefit.
PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Change that youmake for the right reasons will benefityou. Don'tlet ego or emotions drive your decisions. Take care of businessfirsthand for best results.
ARIEs (March21-April 19) Emotional situations will arise if you set unreasonable expectations or trytohelp someone who isn't willing to help themselves Others will be too eager to take advantage of you if you let them.
TAuRus (April20-May20) Taking on too much will taxyou mentally andphysically. Rearrange your space to make life easier, and adjust your routine to ensure you haveenough time to rest and rejuvenate.
GEMInI (May 21-June 20) Study and plan, and execute your next move. If possible, asecretiveapproach is favored. Followyour heart.Don't be in ahurry to announce yourself or your intentions.
cAncER (June 21-July 22) Putalittle elbow grease into the mix, and you'll reach your goal. Discipline and hard work will lead to resultsyou can be proud of. Avoidemotional spending or paying forsomeone else's mistake.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Keep your eyes fixated on what's meaningful. Put relationships first and refusetolet outsid-
ersinterfere with your personal life. When in doubt, observe. Time is on your side.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Learning is your path to positive change. Consider what makes you happy and head in thatdirection. Gravitate toward people who share your beliefs.
LIBRA (sept. 23-Oct.23) Putinextra hours, work from home and promote a productive week. Make plans to incorporate ahealthy schedule, including time for exercise and to address your dietary needs.
scORPIO (Oct. 24-nov. 22) Reserve judgment. Take the time to observe and consider situations fully. Your perspective aboutwhat's right for you may not sit well with those facing similarsituations.
sAGITTARIus (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Walk away from disruptive situations. Put your time, energy and thought into work-related matters, investments andpursuits that offer thehighest returns.
cAPRIcORn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Pay attentiontodetail, use your skills creatively and focus on domestic issues to maintain acalm and productive environment.How you nurture your mind, body and soul will determine how your day unfolds.
InstructIons: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 gridwith several given numbers. The objectistoplace the numbers 1to9inthe empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 boxcontainsthe same number onlyonce. Thedifficulty level of the Sudoku increasesfrom Monday to Sunday.
Saturday’s Puzzle Answer
nea CroSSwordS La TimeS CroSSword
THewiZard oF id
BLondie
BaBY BLueS
Hi and LoiS
CurTiS
By PHILLIP ALDER Bridge
In 2013, this deal was chosen by the International Bridge Press Association panelfor itsKeri Klinger Memorial Declarer Play of the Year award Appropriately, it was playedbythe top-rankedplayerinthe world, Fulvio Fantoni. He was born in Italy, but now represents Monaco.The journalist prize went to Toine van Hoof from theNetherlands.
Howdid Fantonimake six hearts after West led the club queen to declarer’s ace?
Fantunes (as Fantoniand hispartner ClaudioNunes,areknown)playanunusualsysteminwhichone-levelopeningbids are natural and unlimited. North’s threeheart raise waspre-emptive. East then producedarevealingtakeoutdouble South made two control-bids (cue-bids), and North jumped to theslam.
Fantoni feltthat East had4-0-5-4 or 4-04-5 distribution withthe fourhonors he actually held. Trusting his reading of the position, at trick two, Fantoni played a low heart to dummy’s seven! When Eastdiscarded adiamond, declarer continued with theclub 10, pitching adiamond from his hand. West won with his jack andreturned atrump. South won with dummy’s 10 and led the
Each Wuzzle is aword riddlewhich createsa disguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: NOON GOOD =GOOD AFTERNOON
Previous answers:
InsTRucTIOns: 1. Words mustbeoffour or moreletters. 2. Wordsthat acquire four letters by theaddition of “s,” such as “bats” or “dies,” are not allowed. 3.
explicit words arenot allowed.
TODAy’s WORD ITALIcs: eye-TAL-iks: Atype style with slanted characters.
Average mark 13 words
thought “The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshedme, and was not ashamedofmychain:” 2Timothy 1:16
marmaduKe
Bizarro
hagar the horriBle
Pearls Before swiNe
garfield
B.C.
PiCKles
MINUTES CITY COUNCIL MEETING CITY OF BAKER PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE STATEOFLOUISIANA
COUNCIL CHAMBERS
3325 GROOM ROAD, BAKER, LOUISIANA 70714
www.youtube.com/@bakerforward January 13, 2026 -6:00 p.m.
The City Council of the City of Baker,Louisiana, metinregular session on January 13, 2026, with the following members in attendance at the meeting: MAYOR Darnell Waites
COUNCIL MEMBERS Desiree Collins Rochelle Dunn Cedric Murphy Dr. Charles Vincent Robert Young
CALL TO ORDER –Mayor Waites presided.
The invocationwas given by Council Member Murphy
The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Council Member Young. *** Public commentswill be allowed on all agenda items. Such commentsshall not exceed 3minutes and shall be confined to the agenda item and any proposed dispositionthereof.***
DISPOSITION OF THE MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
The motionwas made by Council Member Vincent, seconded by Council Member Murphy to approve the minutes of the meeting held on December 16, 2025.
The mayorcalled for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None
ABSTAIN: None
The motion passed with avote of 5-0. RECOGNITIONS
PLANNING ANDZONING MATTERS
RESOLUTIONS AND PROCLAMATIONS
1. Proclamation declaring January 2026 Cervical Health Awareness Month in the City of Baker (Vincent)
The proclamation was read by Aneatra Boykin.
The motionwas made by Council Member Vincent, seconded by Council Members Dunn/Murphy to accept the proclamation.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Admon McCastle initiated discussion regarding funding as aresultofDr. Vincent’sefforts.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None ABSTAIN: None
The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
2. Proclamation declaring February 2026 Black History Awareness Month –“ACentury of Black History Commemorations” in the City of Baker (Vincent)
The proclamation was read by Aneatra Boykin.
The motionwas made by Council Member Vincent, seconded by Council Member Collins to accept the proclamation.
Council Member Vincent invited everyone to attend the 2026 installment of his February series, “Heroes in African American History,”onthe first black elected officials in Louisiana. The themefor Black History Month this year is “A Century of Black History Commemorations.” The program will be held on Saturday,February 28, 2026, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Baker Branch Library.Council Member Vincent will autograph copies of his publication “Black Legislators inLouisiana During Reconstruction” published by SouthernIllinois University Press following the program.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None
ABSTAIN: None
The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
Council Member Vincent provided an overview of Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s contributions to the establishment of the study and our current understanding of African American history.Dr. Woodson is known as the “Father of Black History.”
NEW BUSINESS
1. Introduce Ordinance 2026-1Sales &Use Tax(Mayor) AneatraBoykin read the title of the ordinance.
The motion was made by Council Member Murphy,seconded by Council Members Dunn/Vincent to introduce Ordinance 2026-1.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None
ABSTAIN: None
The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
2. Introduce Ordinance 2026-2 Insurance License Tax(Mayor) Aneatra Boykin read the title of the ordinance.
The motionwas made by Council Member Murphy,seconded by Council Members Dunn/Vincent to introduce Ordinance 2026-2.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young
NAYS: None
ABSENT:None
ABSTAIN: None The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
3. Introduce Ordinance 2026-3 Occupational License Tax(Mayor) Aneatra Boykin read the title of the ordinance.
The motionwas made by Council Member Murphy,seconded by Council Member Young to introduce Ordinance 2026-3.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for
YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None ABSTAIN: None The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
4. Introduce Ordinance 2026-4 Chain Store License Tax(Mayor) Aneatra Boykin read the title of the ordinance.
The motionwas made by Council Member Dunn, seconded by Council Member Murphy to introduceOrdinance 2026-4.
Themayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None
ABSTAIN: None The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
5. Introduce Ordinance 2026-5 Alcoholic Beverage Tax(Mayor) AneatraBoykin read the title of the ordinance.
The motionwas made by Council Member Dunn, seconded by Council Member Murphy to introduceOrdinance 2026-5.
Themayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young NAYS: None
The motion was made by Council Member Murphy,seconded by Council
Member Young to introduce Ordinance 2026-6.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Discussion regarding property taxes in the City of Baker was held.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins,Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN:None The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
7. Introduce Ordinance 2026-7, an ordinance to amend, supplement and re-enact City of Baker Code of Ordinances Article V, Section 44 concerning Civic Center and Municipal Building lease/rent fees and to provide for other matters regarding the same (Mayor)
Aneatra BoykinreadSection 1ofthe ordinance.
The motion was made by Council Member Murphy,seconded by Council
Member Collins to introduce Ordinance 2026-7.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Vote was called for.
YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young
NAYS:None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN:None The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
PUBLIC MEETING 1. Adopt Ordinance 2025-23, an ordinance providing for the levy of a sales and use tax of one percent (1%) withinthe Baker Main Street EconomicDevelopment District for the City of Baker,Louisiana; and for other matters with respect theretoonall taxableproperty (Murphy) (Introduced 12/16/2025)
Public meetingwas held.
Dante Bidwell, Lead Consultant –EconomicDevelopment, provided an
overview of the proposed ordinance, and the organization’svision and goals, as wellasanexplanation of how these things aretobeimplemented.
Council Member Vincent,president of the Baker Economic Development District and Convention Center board, made amotion to abstainfrom voting on this agenda item
ShawntellParker,1018 Sherron, initiated discussion by asking that the boardand city be transparent about the funds generated by the tax and how they will be used.
Extensive discussion regarding the concerns and comments made by residents and Baker Main Street Economic Development District board members followed.
Council Member Vincent stated he wished to abstainfromvoting on this agenda item and provided an explanation as to why he is choosing to do so.
The motion was made by Council Member Dunn, seconded by Council Member Collins to allow Council Member Vincent to abstain from voting on this agenda item
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Discussion regarding Council Member Vincent’s request was held.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins,Dunn, Murphy,Young NAYS: None ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN:None The motion passed with avote of 4-0.
The motion was made by Council Member Murphy,seconded by Council Member Young to adopt Ordinance 2025-23.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins,Dunn, Murphy,Young NAYS: None ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN:Vincent The motion passed with avote of 4-0.
ANNOUNCEMENTS/COMMENTS
1. Orange cones on Lavey Lane, etc. (Vincent)
Council Member Vincent stated he has constituents who inquiredasto why thereare still orange cones or Lavey Lane and said he thought the reason is the project has not been entirely completed. He went on to say that the contractors have done awonderful job with their work on the road. Council Member Vincent saidsome residents of Parkwood Terrace feel the contractor needs to come back and address the unevenness at the entrance of the subdivision. Council Member Vincent saidhehas constituents who have expressed concerns regarding agroup home in District 1. The mayor asked that he set up ameeting with himtodiscuss this matter.Heagain thanked the mayor for the work done on Lavey Lane.
APPOINTMENTS TO BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS
ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS
The mayor reminded everyone of the Martin Luther King, Jr.program on Monday
The mayor invited everyone to the Chamber of Commerce lunch being held Thursday,January 15, 2026, at 11:30 a.m. at Greenwood Park to hear the state of the city address.
Council Member Collins reminded everyone of the GBRInteract meetings held every Monday in the civic center at 6:30 p.m. She saidthe meetings provide ACTprep, community service initiatives, and facilitate college tours, all free of charge, and areopen to all interested high school students. Council Member Collins stated the most recent ACTscores of some of the participants have shown asix-point growth, going from a scoreof13toa scoreof19.
Council Member Young stated he recently attended an Interact meeting and both the program and the kids areamazing.
CONDEMNATIONS
REPORTS ON BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS
1. Planning and Zoning Commission 2. Annexation Review Committee 3. EconomicDevelopment Team
ADJOURN
The motion was made by Council Member Vincent seconded by Council
Member Dunn to adjourn.
The mayor called for public comments or questions.
Shawntell Parker,1018 Sherron, asked that the proposed budget for 2026 and the actual budget for 2025 be posted on the city’swebsite.
Vote was called for YEAS: Collins,Dunn, Murphy,Vincent, Young
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN:None
The motion passed with avote of 5-0.
CITY OF BAKER
PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE
STATEOFLOUISIANA
I, Angela Canady Wall, certify that IamClerk of the Council for the City of Baker,Louisiana, and that the above and foregoing is acopy of the minutes of aregular meeting of the Council for the City of Baker,Louisiana held on January 13, 2026.
Angela Canady Wall, LCMC Clerk of Council MINUTES BOARDOFCOMMISSIONERS
PARISH OF EASTBATON ROUGE
STATEOFLOUISIANA 3325 GROOM ROAD BAKER, LA 70714 January 13, 2026
The City Council of the City of Baker,Louisiana, sitting as the Board of Commissioners for NormanE.“Pete”Heine Memorial Gardens, met in regular session on January 13, 2026, with the following members in attendance at the meeting:
COMMISSIONERS
DesireeCollins Rochelle Dunn Cedric Murphy Dr.Charles Vincent Darnell Waites Robert Young
CALL TO ORDER –Commissioner Waitespresided.
DISPOSITION OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
The meeting wascalledtoorder andthe motion wasmade by Commissioner Waites, seconded by Commissioners Murphy/Vincent to approve the minutesofthe meeting held on December 16, 2025.
Commissioner Waitescalledfor public comments or questions.
ADJOURN Therewas no other business to come beforethe commission.The motion wasmade by CommissionerWaites, seconded by CommissionerDunn to adjourn.
Commissioner Waitescalledfor public comments or questions.
Vote wascalledfor YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy, Vincent, Waites, Young NAYS: None ABSENT:None ABSTAIN: None The motion passed by avote of 6-0.
CITY OF BAKER PARISH OF EASTBATON ROUGE STATEOFLOUISIANA
I, Angela Canady Wall, certify thatIamClerk of the Council for the City of Baker,Louisiana, andthatthe above andforegoing is acopy of the minutes of aregularmeeting of the Board of Commissioners for the Hillcrest Memorial GardensheldonJanuary 13, 2026.
Angela Canady Wall, LCMC Clerk of Council
MINUTES BOARDOFCOMMISSIONERS
BAKER CONSOLIDATED UTILITIES SYSTEM CITY OF BAKER PARISHOFEAST BATON ROUGE STATEOFLOUISIANA 3325 GROOM ROAD BAKER, LA 70714 January 13, 2026
The City Council of the City of Baker,Louisiana, sitting as the Boardof Commissioners for the Baker ConsolidatedUtilitiesSystem, met in regular session on January 13, 2026, with the following members attending:
COMMISSIONERS DesireeCollins Rochelle Dunn Cedric Murphy Dr.Charles Vincent Darnell Waites Robert Young
CALL TO ORDER –Commissioner Waitespresided.
DISPOSITION OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING
The meeting wascalledtoorder andthe motion wasmade by Commissioner Waites, seconded by CommissionerVincenttoapprove the minutesofthe meeting held on December 16, 2025.
Commissioner Waitescalledfor public comments or questions.
Finance Director Mary Sue Stagessubmitteda financialreport.
The motion wasmade by CommissionerWaites, seconded by Commissioner Vincenttoaccept the financialreport.
The mayor calledfor public comments or questions.
Vote wascalledfor YEAS: Collins, Murphy, Vincent, Waites, Young NAYS: Dunn
ABSENT:None ABSTAIN: None The motion passed by avote of 5-1.
2. OtherReports
3. Items Requiring Action
ADJOURN Therewas no other business to come beforethe commission. The motion wasmade by CommissionerWaites, seconded by Commissioners Dunn/ Murphytoadjourn
YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy, Vincent, Waites, Young NAYS: None
ABSENT:None
ABSTAIN: None
The motion passed by avote of 6-0.
CITY OF BAKER PARISH OF EASTBATON ROUGE STATEOFLOUISIANA
I, Angela Canady Wall, certify thatI am Clerk of the Council for the City of Baker,Louisiana, andthatthe above andforegoing is acopy of the minutes of aregularmeeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Baker Consolidated Utility SystemheldonJanuary 13, 2026.
Angela Canady Wall, LCMC Clerk of Council
174911-609336 Jan.26,
President PublicationDate(s): TheAdvocate: Monday,January 26, 2026 Monday,February2,2026 Monday,February9,2026 174562-jan26-feb2-9-3t $143.41
such amannerthatitis received no laterthan 2:00pm CentralTimeon Wednesday, February 18, 2026. Late submissionswillnot be accepted Proposersmusthavean active registration in the System forAward Man‐agement(SAM.gov) and possess avalid Unique Entity Identifier (UEI)at thetimeofsubmission. Smalland/orminority owned firms, veteran owned firms, and women’sbusinessenter‐prises areencouragedto apply.
p y Tableauof Distribution showingthe proposed paymentofdebts and distribution of remaining fundsinaccordancewith Louisianalaw I. ASSETS a. Sale Proceeds(1340 HermosaDrive,BR, LA) $157,082.09 TOTALASSETS $157,082.09 II. FEES ANDCOURT COSTS a. Attorney fees ($4,500.00 advanced) $ 29,449.00 b. CourtCost1,520.00 c. Future CourtCost(est.) 1,500.00 d. EBRSheriff (2024 EBR Property Tax) 281.67 e. Administrative fee (2.5%) 3,927.05 f. TheAdvocate1,262.22 TOTALFEE ANDCOURT COSTS($37,940.75) III. DEBTSAND EXPENSES a. DeltaUtilities 666.39 b. BatonRouge WaterCo. 1,617.18 c. Entergy1,702.09 d. Home Depot(repairs) 501.00 e. Lowes(repairs) 97.15 f. Alpha& OmegaAp‐praisalServices425.00 g. IHomeMaintenance LLC185.00 h. JessieSmith (mainte‐nanceand Lawn service)
1,550.00 i. JimmyJarvis(grass cutting) 40.00 j. CharlesMooreRoofing 6,400.00 k. Nittiline Electric 2,595.00 l. Angela Thompson (House Cleaning)500.00 TOTALDEBTS ANDEX‐PENSES ($ 16,278.81) IV.NET BALANCEFOR DISTRIBUTION TotalAssets $157,082.09 TotalExpenses-54,219.56 NetEstate$102,862.53 PRESCILLACHISHOLM SMITH, ADMINISTRATOR SWORNTOAND SUB‐SCRIBEDBEFOREMETHIS 16THDAY OF January, 2026, BATONROUGE,LA. NOTARY JANICE MONTAGUEMYLES LSBA#18356 175005-jan24-26-2t $96.54
SUCCESSION OF MAMIEBLACKMORE CHISHOLM PROBATENUMBER P-113923 SECTION“23” NOTICE OF FILING OF TABLEAUOF DISTRIBUTION Notice is hereby given that PRISCILLA CHISHOLM SMITH, the duly appointedAdminis‐trator of theabove-cap‐tioned succession,has fileda TableauofDistrib‐utioninthe record of theseproceedings Anyoppositiontothe TableauofDistribution must be filedwithin seven(7) days from the date of publicationof this notice,pursuantto La.C.C.P.art.3304. JANICE MONTAGUEMYLES 23445 Railroad Avenue Plaquemine,LA70764 225-687-2822 175004-jan24-26-2t $54.76
FOR THE LEVY OF ASALES AND USE
PERCENT (1%) WITHIN THE BAKER MAIN STREET ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT FOR THE CITY OF BAKER, LOUISIANA; AND FOR OTHER MATTERS WITH RESPECT THERETO ON ALL TAXABLE PROPERTY
BE IT ORDAINED by the City Council for the City of Baker,Louisiana: Section 1. DEFINITIONS
As used in this ordinance, the following words, terms and phrases shall have the meaning ascribed to each in this Section unless the context clearly indicates adifferent meaning. Other words, terms and phrases used in this ordinance, but not defined in this section, shall have the meaning ascribed by Louisiana Revised Statute 47:301 as applicable.
a. “City” means the City of Baker as is now or as may hereafter be constituted under The Charter and Ordinances for the City of Baker in the Parish of East Baton Rouge.
b. “Collector” means the Director of Finance (“Director”) for the City of Baker,Louisiana),designated as the single sales and use tax collection office for City of Baker,orhis duly authorized assistants or employees.
c. “Taxing Jurisdiction” means the City,as herein defined, as may be appropriate.
d. “Uniform Local Sales TaxCode” meansthe setofstatutes in Title 47, Chapter 337 which was enacted by Act No. 73 of the 2003 Regular Session of the Louisiana Legislature
e. “Verifiable Records” means documents sufficient to independently support claims of sales and purchases.
Section 2. UNIFORM LOCAL SALES TAXCODE TO APPLY
TheUniform Local Sales TaxCode,LouisianaRevised Statutes Title 47, Chapter 337, and as it may be amended, shall apply in the assessment, collection, administration and enforcement of the taxes levied herein, the provisions of which arehereby incorporated by reference.
Section 3. CREATION, PURPOSE AND GOVERNING AUTHORITYOF DISTRICT
Pursuant to the provisions of Part II of Chapter 27 of Title 33 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes of 1950, as amended, thereishereby created aspecial taxing district to be known as the “Baker Main Street Economic Development District” (the “District”) for the City of Baker,Louisiana. The geographical boundaries of the District shall be as set forth in Exhibit A attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference.
The purpose of the District is to provide for cooperative economic development between the City and private entities, to encourage commerce, industry,and overall economic growth, and to fund infrastructureimprovements, public facilities, and other initiatives supporting economic development within the District.
The District is governed by the City Council of Baker,Louisianaacting as the governing authority of the District. The Council exercises all rights, powers, and authority as provided under Louisiana law for economic development districts.
Section 4. LEVY OF SALES AND USE TAX
Thereishereby levied within the District, effective April 1, 2026, for a five (5) year period not to exceed January 31, 2031, asales and use tax of one percent (1%) upon the sale at retail, the use, the lease or rental, the consumption, the distribution and storage as defined in Louisiana Revised Statute 47:301, and upon the storage, lease or rental of tangible personal property,and on sales of services within the District at arate of one (1%) percent, all as defined by Louisiana law and the UniformLocalSales Tax Code (La. R.S. 47:337.1 et seq.).
Section 5. EXEMPTIONSFROM TAX
The following transactions areexempt from allthetaxes imposed by this ordinance.
a. All exemptions specifically mandated to include municipalities or parishes by the provisions of Louisiana Revised Statutes 47:337.9 and 47:337.11.
b. Any exemption or exclusion specifically mandated to include municipalities or parishes by the provisions of Louisiana Revised Statutes 47:301 or 47:305 -305.71, et seq.
c. Under the provisions of Louisiana Revised Statute 47:301(10)(a)(ii), for purposes of the imposition of the sales and use tax levied by a political subdivision or school board, “retail sale” or “sale at retail” shall mean asale to aconsumerortoany other person for any purpose other than for resale in the form of tangible personal property, or resaleofthoseservices defined in LouisianaRevised Statute 47:301(14) provided the retail sale of the service is subject to sales tax in this state, and shall mean and include all such transactions as the collector,upon investigation, finds to be in lieu of sales; provided that sales for resale be made in strict compliance with the rules and regulations. Any dealer making asale for resale, which is not in strict compliance with the rules and regulations shall himself be liable for and pay the tax. The Collector shall accept aresale certificate issued by the Department of Revenue, provided the taxpayer includes the parish of its principal place of business and local sales tax account number on the state certificate.
Section 6. LIMITED EXEMPTIONS FROM TAX
a. The sales at retail, the use, the consumption, the distribution, and the storage to be used or consumed in the taxing jurisdiction of qualifying food and prescription drugtransactions identified in Louisiana Revised Statute 47:305(0)(1)(j)-(u) as exempt from state sales and use tax shall be exempt from the taxes levied under the provisions of Section 2(c), 2(d), and
Section 8. RETURNS AND PAYMENT OF TAX
In accordance with Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.18, except as hereafter provided, the taxes levied by this ordinance shallbedue and shall be payable monthlyonthe first day of the month. For the purpose of ascertaining the amount of tax payable, alldealers shall transmit, on or beforethe twentieth (20th) day of the monthfollowing the month in which this tax becomes effective, to the Collector,upon forms prescribed, prepared, and furnished by the Collector, returns showing the gross sales, purchases, gross proceeds from lease or rental, gross payments for lease or rental, gross proceeds derived from sales of services, or gross paymentsfor services, as the case may be, arising from alltaxable transactions during the preceding calendar month. Thereafter,like returns shall be prepared and transmitted to the collector by all dealers on or beforethe twentieth day of each monthfor the preceding calendar month.
These returns shall show any further information the collector may require to enable him to correctly compute and collect the taxlevied. These returns shall be signed by the dealer filing the same and his signaturethereon shall constitute awarranty on the part of the dealer that he has read and examined the returns and that to the best of his knowledge andbelief, thesamearetrue, correct and complete. Every dealer,atthe time of making the returnrequired hereunder,shall compute and remittothe collector the required taxdue forthe preceding calendar month, and failure to so remit such tax shall cause said tax to become delinquent.
Section 9. USE OF TAXPROCEEDS
Allfunds derived from the imposition of the sales and use tax within the District shall be dedicated and applied solely to economic development purposes, including but not limited to:
•Publicinfrastructureimprovementsand capital projects;
•Incentives to encourage commerce, mixed-use developments, and business retentionorexpansion;
•Programs supporting workforce development, public facilities, and district services;
•Payment of any bonds or indebtedness issued in furtherance of the District’s economic development purposes.
•Support the hiring, compensation, and retentionofDistrictstaffand employees;
•Payments to contractors, consultants, and other laborproviders whose services further the goals, operations, and development initiatives of the District.
Use of tax revenues for these purposes shall be subject to annual budget approval by the District’sgoverning authority and in accordance with all applicable procurement and employment policies.
Section 10. EFFECTIVE DATE
ThisOrdinance shall take effect immediately upon adoption, publication, and compliance with applicable statutory waiting periods.
Under the authorization of Louisiana Revised Statute47:337.4, the taxing jurisdictionmay set, through adoption of anordinance, the penalty,interest and attorney fees due on the delinquent payment of sales and use tax as well as the rate of vendor’scompensationallowed.
a. If the amount of tax due by the dealer is delinquent, interest upon said delinquent amount will be due under the provisions of Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.69.
b. If the amount of tax due by the dealer is delinquent under the guidelines of Section7,penaltyupon said delinquent amount will be due at a rate not to exceed twenty-five (25%) percent, calculated at five (5%) percent of the tax owed for each and every thirty-day period after the returnwas required to be filed or the taxwas required to be remitted, under the provisions of Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.70.
c. All taxes, interest and penalties imposed under this ordinance shallbe paid to the taxing jurisdictioninthe form of remittance required by the Collector.
d. Allpenalties and interest imposed by this ordinance shallbepayable to and recoverable by the taxing jurisdictioninthe same manner as if they werepart of the tax imposed. If the failuretopay such tax when due is explained to the satisfaction of the Collector, he may remitor waive payment of the whole, or any part of the penalty in accordance with Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.71.
e. For the purpose of compensating the dealer in accounting for and remitting the tax levied by this ordinance, each dealer shallbeallowed one (1%) percent of the amount of tax due and accounted for the taxing jurisdictioninthe form of adeduction in submitting his sales and use tax reportand paying the amount due by him, provided the amount due was not delinquent at the timeofpayment, as authorized by Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.18(A)(3).
Section 12. RECORDS
The Uniform Local Sales TaxCode specifies the guidelines formaintenance of records by adealer in Louisiana Revised Statutes 47:337.29 -31, et seq. Allrecords pertaining to taxes levied by this ordinance shouldbe maintained in accordance with the Uniform Local Sales Taxstatutes, as amended.
Section 13. COLLECTOR’SAUTHORITY TO EXAMINE AND AUDIT
The Uniform Local Sales TaxCode specifies the authority of aCollectorto audit adealer in Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.36-40, et seq. Audits
initiated relative to taxes levied by this ordinance will be performed under the authority of the Uniform Local Sales Taxstatutes, as amended.
Section 14. COLLECTOR’SAUTHORITY TO DETERMINE THE TAX
The Uniform Local Sales TaxCode specifies the authority of aCollector to determine the amount of tax due in certain cases in Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.28 and 47:337.48. Taxestimates or other determination of liability of
Section
All
Section 19. AUTHORITY TO HIRE EXPERTS
as otherwise provided by law, the recordsand filesmaintainedpursuant to atax ordinance, excluding ad
andadvalorem property taxassessmentrolls, of anypolitical subdivision areconfidential andprivileged, andnopersonshall divulge or disclose
obtainedfromsuchrecordsand filesexcept in the administration and enforcementofthe taxlaws of this state or of apolitical subdivision of this state.
The Collector may, on behalf of the taxing jurisdiction, contract with and hireexpert consultants for the purpose of evaluating andappraising equipment andmachinery andrelated work necessary in connection with sales anduse taxaudits by the FinanceDepartment. Any such contracts of employment shall be subject to the approvalofthe City Council.
Section 20. AUTHORITY FOR INSTALLMENT AGREEMENTS
The Collector mayenterinto aformalinstallment payment agreementwith ataxpayer for the collection of past due tax, penalty andinterest, when in his opinion it is in the best interest of the taxing jurisdiction to do so.
Section 21. CLAIMS FOR REFUND
a. Whenever the unpaid balance of an account due to the dealer for the purchase of tangible personal property or the sale of services subject to sales taxation hasbeen found to be bad in accordance with Section 166 of the UnitedStatesInternal Revenue Code andhas actually been chargedoff for federal income taxpurposes, the dealer shall be entitledtoreimbursement of the amount of taxpreviously paid by the dealer on such amounts, in the mannerprescribed by Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.34(B).
b. In the case of apaymentoftax, penalty or interest when none was due; the excessofthe amount of tax, penalty or interest paid over the amount due;orthepayment of apenalty thatislater waivedor remittedbythe Collector,shall be refundedbythe Collector in the mannerprescribed in Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.77.
c. In accordance with Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.78, before refunding anyoverpayment, the Collector may first determinewhether the taxpayer who made the overpaymentowes anyotherliability underany ordinanceadministered by him. If such be the case, the Collector maycredit the overpaymentagainst such liability andnotify thetaxpayer of the action taken.
d. The prescriptive period in whichaclaim for refund or creditoftaxes overpaid can be made is defined in Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.79.
e. Interest shall be paid on refunds or credits in the mannerprescribed by Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.80.
f. If adealer wishestoappeal adenialofa refund, he maydosointhe mannerprescribed by Louisiana Revised Statute 47:337.81.
g. Claims for creditorrefunds as mentionedhereinwithout council approvalwill be limitedto$50,000 in accordance with the City Parish Code of Ordinances Title 1, Chapter 4, Part I, Section 1:507.
Section 22. DEALER LIABILITY
The Uniform Local SalesTax Code addresses the personal liability of Collectors, officers or purchasers of ongoing businessesinrelation to delinquentinsales anduse taxes in Louisiana Revised Statutes47:337.46 and47:337.21. Delinquent sales anduse taxes levied by this ordinance will be collected underthe authority of the Uniform Local SalesTax statutes, as amended.
Section 23. CRIMINAL PENALTIES
Criminalpenaltiesmay be levied against adealer for failing to account for local taxmoniesorfor evasionoftax in the mannerprescribed in Louisiana Revised Statutes47:337.83 and47:337.84. Any criminalpenalties pursued relative to taxes levied by this ordinancewill be collected under the authority of the Uniform Local SalesTax statutes, as amended.
Section 24. SEVERABILITY
If anysection, subsection, sentence, clause or phrase of this ordinance be held invalid, such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of the ordinance. The Baker City Council hereby declares that it would have passed this ordinanceand each section, subsection sentence, clause, andphrase thereof, irrespective of the fact thatany one or moresections, subsections, sentences, clauses, or phrases may be so declared invalid.
This Ordinancehaving been submitted to avote;the vote thereon was recorded as follows: YEAS: Collins, Dunn, Murphy, Young NAYS: None ABSENT:None ABSTAIN: Vincent
