The Acadiana Advocate 03-31-2026 by The Advocate

WILL WADE RETURNS: ‘I’M FORLSU AND LSU IS FORME’ 1C

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TSApay easeslines at airports

Wait timesstart to decrease Monday

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON The nation’s50,000

Transportation Security Administration ofﬁcers who screen passengers at airports started receiving paychecks Monday for the first time in the month since Congress held up funding in adisputeover how the Trump administration is handling immigration roundups.

Comeaux

High suit hearing delayed

Boarddecisionto repurposeschool being challenged

BY CLAIRE TAYLOR Staff writer

Ajudge on Mondaydelayed hearing testimony on arequest for an injunction andtemporary restraining order regarding the Lafayette Parish School Board’s decision to reassign Comeaux High School students to other schools and to repurpose theschool as a career center

Anew hearing date is set for 1p.m. April 13. Fifteenth Judicial District Court Judge Valerie Gotch-Garrett, in a brief hearing Monday,heard from Suzanne Lajaunie, who ﬁled alawsuit seeking an injunction and temporary restraining ordertostop the School Board from closingLafayette’sComeaux High Lajauniealleges theLafayette Parish school system and its board violated openmeeting laws, didn’t followits own policyand violated ethics rules over the Comeaux High decision.

Representing herself Monday, Lajaunie said she hired an attorney but he was unable to register in time for Monday’shearing. She requested acontinuance, saying the attorney needs time to familiarize himself with the claims and evidence.

Robert Hammonds,the attorney representing the school system, said he did not supporta continuance and was ready for court Monday

TheSchool Boardvoted March 12 to closeComeaux High at the end of the school year and reassign studentstoother highschools

ä See HEARING, page 5A

Inspection stickers, or brake tags, would still be required in some areas even if the Legislature votes to end the requirement. STAFF PHOTO By DAVID

Wait times to get through airport security,which hadexceeded four hoursinlarge airports, started to decrease Monday,according to the U.S.Department of Homeland Security

Linesthatrecently had snaked into the parking lotatLouis Armstrong New Orleans International Airportsince theshutdownbegan Feb. 13, decreased significantly Monday.MSY spokespersonErin

Burns said wait times were long in theearly morning hours, but as of 6a.m. Monday,they were back to normaland running around 15 to 20 minutes or less.

In Houston, which lastweek requireduptofourhours to clear security, the international airport reported waitsofless than 10 minutes in some of itsterminals on Monday

The Department of Homeland Security has beenunder ﬁre for some time over how federal agents rounded up people suspected of

entering the country illegally.After two American citizens were killedbyofﬁcers in Minneapolis, Democrats demandedchanges to enforcement procedures and operations. They refused to fund the department until immigration restrictionswere instituted, causing the shutdown.

After negotiationsstalled, President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Homeland Security to pay TSAagents some of the$170 billionthe department hadonhand

from last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Thedepartment also oversees otherofﬁces, suchasthe Federal Emergency ManagementAgency and the U.S. Coast Guard, which were not included in the order.And thepay for TSA officersisonly temporary and still would require Congress to approve funding for the next ﬁscal year DHS appropriations are on the agenda with no clear resolution

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Atchafalaya artwork

Postcardsdrawn by Lafayette illustrator

Aileen Bennett share local foodways present throughout the Atchafalaya NationalHeritageArea.

STAFF PHOTO By JOANNA

BROWN

Postcardscelebrate foodways,introduce people to ‘America’s foreigncountry’ BY

JOANNA BROWN Staff writer

Did you know Louisiana harvests around 17.7 million pounds of pecans each year?

Pecan comes from the Algonquin word “paccan” or “pakan,”meaning ahard nut that hastobecracked with astone. Here is another interesting fact: Louisiana cattleare most likelytobe“Brangus,” a hybridofAngus and Brahman cattle that arebetter suited for heat and humidity.

The state is the topdomestic producer of crawﬁsh, blue crabs and oysters, and pork is known as the “preferred meat”in theAtchafalaya National Heritage Area, aregionthatencompasses much of Acadiana and stretches from central Louisiana to the Gulf Coast.

Last year,the AtchafalayaNational Heritage Areaproduced aseriesof postcards with detailed illustrations and fascinatingtidbitsabout thefoodways that make up theregion,wherefoodand nature interact daily to produce one of

America’smost unique cultures. Caroline Byrne Cassagne, executive director,said the postcards areafun way to introduce people to “America’sforeign country,” one of the taglines forthe region that touches 15 parishes in the southern half of the state.

Lafayette illustrator andwriter Aileen Bennett,known forworks like“ALittle Book About Fire,” drew the cards. Her style is approachable but also realistic,

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

Drivers in most of Louisiana would no longerneed to get inspection stickers under abill advancing in the Legislature with Gov.Jeff Landry’ssupport Instead,personal vehicles would justneed asticker that lists itsvehicle

identiﬁcation number Drivers in some partsofthe state,however,would still have to get inspections. New Orleans, Kenner and Westwego

have their own rules requiring the stickers —which locals famously call “brake tags” —and thosewould “still be allowed to continue as they are,” Ofﬁce of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Keith Nealsaid. And, emissionstesting would stillbe required fordrivers in several Baton

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GRUNFELD

BRIEFS

Teams search for 27 after passenger boat sinks

PALU, Indonesia Rescue teams raced Monday to ﬁnd 27 people missing after a passenger boat sank in rough seas on its way to a remote village in Indonesia.

The boat, the Nazila 05, was carrying 27 passengers and crew members when it departed Taliabu Island in North Maluku province just after dusk on Sunday. It was bound for Kema, a coastal village in the same province, said Muhammad Rizal, who heads the search and rescue office in Central Sulawesi’s Palu city, near where the boat sank.

He said the incident was ﬁrst reported to authorities on Monday morning by the ship’s owner, Rifani Samatia, after the Nazila 05’s captain contacted him to report that the vessel’s bow had broken after it was hit by high waves during rough weather About 30 minutes later, the captain reported that the vessel had sunk.

“All 27 people aboard managed to evacuate using a longboat before the ship went down,” Rizal said. “However, their current location remains unknown.”

Gunmen kill at least 20 in Nigeria attack

ABUJA, Nigeria An attack on a community in Nigeria’s northcentral region left at least 20 people dead, residents and authorities said.

The attack occurred on Sunday night in Gari Ya Waye community in the Jos North area of Plateau state, Joyce Lohya Ramnap, the state commissioner for information, said in a statement. She did not give the number of casualties, but said there was “loss of lives” and injured.

No group has claimed responsibility, but residents said many gunmen on bikes shot sporadically into the community

Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse paintings stolen in Italy

ROME Thieves made off with three paintings worth millions of dollars from a museum near the city of Parma in northern Italy, police said Monday

The heist took place on the night of March 22-23 at theMagnani Rocca Foundation, a private museum, with thieves forcing open the entrance door police said.

The three stolen paintings are “Fish” by Auguste Renoir, “Still Life with Cherries” by Paul Cézanne, and “Odalisque on the Terrace” by Henri Matisse.

Local media reported that the thieves were able to nab the paintings in less than three minutes and escape across the museum gardens.

The museum believes a structured and organized gang was responsible for the theft, which was interrupted by the alarm, local media reported.

Trump lobs more threats at Iran

Social media post promises widespread destruction if deal not reached ‘shortly’

BY JON GAMBRELL, JOSH BOAK and MIKE CORDER Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

President Donald Trump on Monday threatened widespread destruction of Iran’s energy resources and other vital infrastructure, potentially including desalination plants that supply drinking water, if a deal to end the war is not reached shortly.”

Iran, meanwhile, struck a key water and electrical plant in Kuwait, and an oil reﬁnery in Israel came under attack. Israel and the U.S. launched a new wave of strikes on Iran, as the war raged with no end in sight.

Trump’s new threat came in a social media post. Earlier comments to the Financial Times suggested American troops could seize Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub. Trump has repeatedly claimed to be making diplomatic progress — though Tehran denies negotiating directly while ramping up his threats and sending thousands more U.S. troops to the Middle East.

Cuba to

Trump told the New York Post that the U.S is negotiating with Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf.

The former Revolutionary Guard commander, who has taunted the U.S. on social media, dismissed the talks facilitated by Pakistan as a cover for the latest American troop deployments.

In a social media post, Trump said “great progress is being made” in talks with Iran to end military operations. But he said if a deal is not reached “shortly,” and if the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately reopened, the U.S. would broaden its offensive by “completely obliterating” power plants, oil wells, Kharg Island and possibly even desalination plants.

The strait is a crucial waterway through which a ﬁfth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime.

The laws of armed conflict allow attacks on civilian infrastructure such as energy plants only if the military advantage outweighs the civilian harm, legal scholars say It’s considered a high bar to clear,

and causing excessive suffering to civilians can constitute a war crime.

The U.S. already has targeted military positions on Kharg. Iran has threatened to launch its own ground invasion of Gulf Arab countries and to mine the Persian Gulf if U.S. troops set foot on its territory Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran had received a 15-point proposal from the Trump administration containing “excessive, unrealistic and irrational” demands, while denying there had been any direct talks.

Qalibaf, the parliament speaker Trump says he is negotiating with, said Iranian forces were “waiting for the arrival of American troops on the ground to set them on ﬁre and punish their regional partners forever,” according to state media.

Twice during Trump’s second term, the U.S. has attacked Iran during high-level diplomatic talks, including with the Feb. 28 strikes that started the current war

receive a sanctioned Russian oil tanker amid blockade

BY ANDREA RODRÍGUEZ Associated Press

Clowns take to streets of Boliva to protest decree

LA PAZ, Bolivia Dozens of clowns marched through the streets of Bolivia’s capital on Monday to protest a government decree that limits extracurricular activities, threatening their livelihoods.

Wearing full face paint and their signature red noses, the clowns gathered in front of the Ministry of Education in La Paz to oppose a decree published in February The new mandate says schools must comply with 200 days of lessons each year effectively banning schools from hosting the special events where these entertainers are frequently employed.

“This decree will economically affect all of us who work with children,” said Wilder Ramírez, a leader of the local clown union, who also goes by the name of Zapallito. The clown told journalists that “children need to laugh” while his colleagues wondered out loud if Bolivia’s Education Minister had ever had a childhood.

HAVANA Cuba prepared Monday to receive a sanctioned Russian tanker carrying roughly 730,000 barrels of oil, the first such fuel delivery this year to the island that has been brought to its knees by a U.S. oil blockade. It comes a day after President Donald Trump told reporters he had “no problem” with the Russian oil tanker delivering relief to Cuba. There were conflicted reports about the exact location of the Russianﬂagged Anatoly Kolodkin. While the Russian Transport Ministry and the state-run news portal Cubadebate said the vessel had already arrived, shiptracking data showed it was still navigating Cuban waters with an estimated docking time of Tuesday Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia had previously discussed its oil shipment to Cuba with the United States. “Russia considers it its duty not to stand aside, but to provide the necessary assistance to our Cuban friends,” he told reporters. The tanker’s final destination is the port of Matanzas, a strategic hub for an island that produces

ASSOCIATED

One of two sailboats carrying humanitarian aid organized by activists with an international organization that departed from Mexico arrives in Havana on Saturday.

barely 40% of its required fuel and relies on imports to sustain its energy grid.

Experts say the anticipated shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.

Asked about Trump’s decision to allow the Russian oil tanker and not ones from other nations, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday called it “a decision that will continue to be made on a case-bycase basis for humanitarian reasons or otherwise,” adding that “there’s been no firm change in our sanctions policy.” Trump, whose government has come at its Ca-

Police: Student shoots teacher, self at Texas high school

BY JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press

A 15-year-old student shot a teacher at a Texas high school and then fatally shot himself Monday, according to authorities, who were still investigating what led to the early morning attack. No other injuries were reported at Hill Country College Preparatory High School in Bulverde, a small but growing city near San Antonio.

The teacher was taken to a nearby hospital. Comal County Sheriff Mark Reynolds said hours after the shooting that he did not know her condition

“What happened today is something no community ever wants to face, but we prepare for something that we hope never occurs,” Reynolds said

He said the student shot the teacher before turning the gun on himself Reynolds said investigators were working to understand the relationship between the student and the teacher and looking into how the ﬁrearm was obtained.

The small campus of roughly 250 students was placed on lockdown shortly after 8:30 a.m., according to the school One student told San Antonio television station KSAT that they heard loud bangs coming from a room on the second ﬂoor and then heard screaming.

Another student told the TV station that she heard ﬁve shots and yelling before her debate teacher told students to get inside a classroom. The school canceled classes for Tuesday but counselors would still be made available for students and families, Principal Julie Wiley said in a statement.

China resumes direct flights to North Korea after 6 years

By The Associated Press

BEIJING China’s ﬂag carrier resumed direct ﬂights between Beijing and North Korea’s capital of Pyongyang on Monday not long after the restoration of passenger train services between the capitals.

The Air China ﬂight was welcomed by the Chinese ambassador to North Korea, Wang Yajun, and other diplomats, according to Chinese state media.

Passenger train service from China to North Korea had resumed March 12. Flights and passenger trains to North Korea had been suspended since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. North Korean carrier Air Koryo resumed ﬂights between the capitals in 2023. China is Pyongyang’s biggest trading partner and major ally, and Chinese tour groups had made up 90% of all visitors to North Korea prior to the ban.

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ribbean adversary more aggressively than any U.S. government in recent history, has effectively cut Cuba off from key oil shipments in an effort to force regime change.

The blockade has had devastating effects on the civilians Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say they want to help The Trump administration is demanding that Cuba’s government end political repression and liberalize its economy in return for a lifting of sanctions.

Islandwide blackouts have roiled Cubans who have grappled with years of crisis, and a lack of gasoline and basic resources has crippled hospitals and slashed public transport.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By HASSAN AMMAR

Portraits of Hezbollah’s late leaders Hassan Nasrallah, right, and his cousin Hashem Safieddine are shrouded in smoke following an Israeli airstrike Monday in Dahiyeh, Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon.

PRESS PHOTO By RAMON ESPINOSA

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

A clown chants during a protest Monday outside the Ministry of Education in La Paz, Bolivia, against the government’s ban on holiday parties at schools during teaching hours.

Israel parliament passes deathpenalty forPalestinians

BY JULIA FRANKEL Associated Press

JERUSALEM Israel’sparliament on Monday passed alaw approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, ameasure that has been harshly condemned by the international community and rights groups as discriminatory and inhumane.

The law makes the death penalty —byhanging the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. It also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges— language that legal experts say effectively confines

those who can besentenced to death to Palestiniancitizens ofIsrael and excludes Jewish citizens. It will not apply retroactivelytoany prisoners Israel currently holds, including the Hamas-led militants who attacked thecountry on Oct. 7, 2023, triggeringthe IsraelHamas war in the Gaza Strip. Minutes after thebill passed, the Association of Civil RightsinIsrael said it had already petitioned Israel’shighest court to challengethe law.Itcalled thelegislation “discriminatory by design”and said the parliament hadenacted it “without legal authority” over West BankPalestinians, who are not Israeli citizens.

Spainclosesoff airspace to U.S. planes involved in Iran war

BY SUMAN NAISHADHAM Associated Press

MADRID Spainclosed its airspace to U.S. planes involved in the Iran war officials said Monday,in anotherstepbyEurope’s loudest critic of U.S. and Israeli military actions in the monthlong conﬂict.

The country earlier said that the U.S. couldn’tuse jointlyoperated military bases in the war,which Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has described as illegal, reckless and unjust Defense Minister Margarita Robles said that the same logic applied to the use of Spanish airspace.

“This was made perfectly clear to the American military andforces from thevery beginning. Therefore, neither the bases are authorized, nor,ofcourse, is the use of Spanishairspace authorized for any actions related to the war in Iran,” Robles told reporters, describing the conﬂict as “profoundly illegal and profoundly unjust.”

Sánchez has called on the U.S., Israel and Iran to end the war “You cannot respond to oneillegality with another, because that’show humanity’sgreat disasters begin,” he said earlier this month.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Spain’sleaders are “bragging” about cutting off its airspace, even as Washington has pledgedtodefend theNATOmember.He said that the trans-Atlantic military alliance is useful

for the U.S., because it “allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’tnormally have bases, and that includesin much of Europe.”

“But if NATO is just aboutusdefendingEurope if they’re attacked, but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’snot avery good arrangement,” Rubio told Al Jazeera on Monday.“That’s ahard one to stay engaged in andsay this is good for theUnited States.So allof that is goingtohavetobe reexamined.”

After Sánchez’sgovernment denied the U.S. use of theRotaand Morón militarybases in southern Spain, PresidentDonald Trump threatened to cut tradewith Madrid. Washington made trade threats last year,too, when Sánchez saidthat hisgovernment wouldn’t increase its defense spending in accordancewith a deal agreed to by other NATO members following Trump’spressure. At the time, Sánchez’s government saidthat Spain couldmeet its military commitments by spending2.1% of grossdomestic productondefense, instead of the5% therest of the 32-nation military alliance agreed upon. Sánchez also hasbeen among the most vocal criticsofIsrael’sactions during the war in Gaza, which hasinvited criticismfrom Israel’s government on several occasions.

ActivistsinHaiti say at least30are dead in gang attack on town

BYEVENS SANON Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti At least 30 people were dead and dozens more missing on Monday after agang renewed its attack on atown in central Haiti, according to human rights activists. Gran Grif attacked Petite-Rivière de l’Artibonite early Sunday,burning homes and leaving bodies strewn on the streets. The gang attacked again on Monday,said Bertide Horace, spokesperson for the Commission for Dialogue, Reconciliation andAwareness to Save theArtibonite, an activist group. She told The Associated Press that the gang remained in control of the Jean-Denis neighborhood and set up roadblocks.

“The area is completely deserted,” she said by phone. “Only the gangs

NASA begins thecountdown

DOJsues Minn.over transgender athletes

BY STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS— The Trump administration sued Minnesota and its school athletics governing body on Monday,carrying outathreat to punish the state for allowing transgenderathletes to compete in girls sports.

Thelawsuitispart of abroader ﬁght over the rights of transgender youth. More than two dozen states have laws prohibiting transgender women andgirls from participating in certainsports and somehave barred gender-afﬁrming surgeries for minors. Courts have blocked someofthose policies.

In the lawsuit ﬁled Monday,the Justice Department alleges the state Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating TitleIX, afederal lawagainst sexdiscrimination in educational programsthat receive federal money

have control.” She saidher organization has collected at least 30 bodies andwas investigating reports ofpeoplemissing.

Antonal Mortimé, ahuman rightslawyer and coexecutivedirector of the Défenseurs Plus human rights group, told Radio Caraïbes that 70 people were believed killed, based on reports from activists on theground

Haiti’sNationalPolice said officers backed by Kenyan police leadinga U.N.-supported mission helped rescue peopleinthe Jean-Denisneighborhood butwere delayed because gangs haddug large holes to prevent policefrom entering.

Gangs control an estimated 90% of thecapital, Portau-Prince, and have seized control of swathsoflandin Haiti’scentral region

BY MARCIA DUNN AP aerospace writer

CAPE CANAVERAL,Fla. NASA began the countdown Monday for humanity’sﬁrst launch to the moon in 53 years.

The32-storySpace Launch System rocket is poised to blast off Wednesday evening withfour astronauts. After a dayinorbitaroundEarth,their Orion capsule will propel them to themoon and back. There arenostops —just aquick U-turn around the moon. The nearly 10-dayflight will endwith a splashdown in the Paciﬁc.

“Our team has worked extremely hard to getustothismoment,” said launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. “Certainly all indications are right now we are in excellent, excellent shape.” Managerssaid the rocket is doing well followingthe latestround of repairs. Forecasters said the weathershould cooperate.

NASA’s Artemis II mission should have soared in February,but was

FBI: Mich. synagogue attacker inspired by Hezbollah

BY COREYWILLIAMS

Associated Press

DETROIT— Aman who crashed his pickup truckinto aDetroit-area synagogue earlier in March was carrying outanattackinspired by the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and had sought to inflict as much damage as possible, the FBI said Monday.

Ayman Ghazali made avideo before the attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomﬁeld Township, saying he wanted to “kill as many of them as I possibly can,” saidJennifer Runyan, head of the FBIin Detroit.

Ghazali, 41, satinthe parking lotfor afew hours on March12before smashing his F150 through doors and into the hallway of an early childhood education area, striking asecurity guard. He thenexchanged gunﬁre with another guard before fatally shooting himself. No oneelse among the 150 children and staff was injured. It was a“Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorismpurposely targeting theJewish community and the largest Jewishtemple in Michigan,” Runyansaid. She cited videos andother images discovered on Ghazali’ssocial media accounts in which he embraced vengeance and Hezbollah’smilitantideology.Runyan said he searched for Michigan synagogues and Jewishcultural sites afew days before the attack before settlingon Temple Israel.

Ghazali’sFord F150 was stocked with commercialgrade ﬁreworks and containers with more than 30 gallons of gasoline.There was aﬁre in the truck’sengine but no explosion.

grounded by hydrogen fuel leaks. The leaks wereﬁxed, but then ahelium pressurization line became clogged, forcing areturn to thehangar late last month. The rocket returned to thepad 11/2 weeks ago, and its U.S.-Canadian crew arrived at thelaunch site on Friday Unlike Apollo, which sent only men to the moon from 1968 through 1972, Artemis’ debut crew includes awoman, person of color and anon-U.S. citizen.

ArtemisII’spilot Victor Glover said over the weekend that he wants young people to seethem and think, “Girl power and that’s awesome, andthatyoung brownboysand girlscan look at me and go ‘Hey,helooks like me and he’sdoing what?’”

At the same time, Glover,who is Black, looksforwardtowhen“oneday we don’thave to talk about these ﬁrsts” and exploring the cosmos becomes an all-encompassing “human history.”

NASAhas theﬁrst six days of April to launchArtemis II before standing down until theend of the month.

“The Trump Administrationdoes not tolerate flawed state policies that ignore biological reality andunfairly undermine girlsonthe playing ﬁeld,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi saidina statement.

Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called the lawsuit “a sad attempt to getattention” over an issue that has already been in litigation for months. He said he’ll keep ﬁghting.

“It is astonishing that any president would try to target, shame and harass children just trying to be themselves, letalone apresident withsomany actual problems to address,” Ellison saidina statement.

The administration hasﬁledsimilarlawsuitsagainstMaine andCalifornia,and hasthreatened thefederal funding of some universities over transgender athletes, including San Jose State in California and the University of Pennsylvania. Ellison filed apreemptive lawsuit last April, saying Minnesota’s human rights act supersedes executive orders issued by President Donald Trump last year

Have us take alook!

when the House and Senate return to Capitol Hill in mid-April.

A resolution to the funding impasse fell apart Friday Senate Republicans unanimously passed a bill that would have funded for a short time all of Homeland Security except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said on the Senate ﬂoor that it was a pragmatic way to get Homeland Security employees paid while working out the immigration enforcement issues that have held up the department’s annual appropriation.

Instead of approving the Senate deal, House Republicans narrowly passed an alternative that would fully fund Homeland Security, including ICE and CBP, without allowing any concessions to immigration law enforcement activities.

“I’m quite convinced that it can’t be that every Senate Republican read the language of this bill,”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, RBenton, told reporters Friday “Well, we actually read their bill,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday. “One of the things that we had real concerns with is it actually defunds over 25% of the baseline operations of the Department of Homeland Security — 25% at a time when we’re at a heightened threat level.” Without an agreement between House and Senate Republicans, Congress left Washington for two weeks.

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Rouge-area parishes because of a federal air quality order under the Clean Air Act. Those parishes are Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston and West Baton Rouge. Commercial vehicles and school buses would still be required to do regular safety inspections.

House Bill 838, sponsored by Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, would set a $6 annual cost for the new VIN sticker and the fee would be assessed and collected by the Office of Motor Vehicles during registrations and registration re-

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such as a hand-drawn alligator that looks both suitably prehistoric and very friendly

“Last year, the Office of Tourism was celebrating the year of food, so we started thinking about how food, especially in Louisiana, is such a broad subject. We also wanted to look at the culture and natural resources surrounding it, because that’s a big reason we’re nationally designated,” Cassagne said.

“We thought we’d step back and look at the foodway itself, instead of just one gumbo recipe. Why are these things indigenous to Louisiana? Why do you ﬁnd them in dishes here and not other places? I like the way Aileen realistically captured the subjects and included notes that look like a ﬁeld guide. For instance, a lot of people probably don’t know that there’s a very successful conservation story about Louisiana’s alligators.”

TSA agents, whose average salary is about $50,000 annually were last paid on Feb. 14. As “essential employees” they were required to work without pay during the shutdown. Most received a partial pay-

newals.

For example, someone who renews a vehicle registration every two years would pay $12 and someone who renews every four years would pay $24.

“The good thing about it is you won’t have to go get a sticker,” Bagley told members of the House transportation committee. “It’ll simplify many things.”

For most parishes, inspection stickers would no longer be required effective Jan 1. Starting June 30, law enforcement would be prohibited from issuing citations for not having an inspection sticker In the ﬁve-parish capital region that’s subject to federal emissions testing requirements, the law

check on Feb. 28, then missed both paychecks in March.

This came after they weren’t paid for 43 days when most of the federal government was shut down in October and much of November About 1,100 workers left TSA employment during that time period.

Homeland Security reports about 500 agents have quit since the February shutdown. About

would take effect once the Environmental Protection Agency approves the change.

The House transportation committee approved the bill Monday without objection.

What the new stickers would do

The new stickers would contain a QR code that, when scanned, lists the VIN.

“The only thing that’ll be in that QR code is the VIN,” Evelina Broussard, chief information ofﬁcer for the state’s Ofﬁce of Technology Service, told lawmakers on Monday

Bagley in an interview said having the 17-digit VIN accessible to law enforcement through a QR code allows them to more easily

BROWN

STAFF PHOTO By JOANNA

Postcards drawn by Lafayette illustrator Aileen Bennett share local foodways present throughout the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area.

The Atchafalaya National Heritage Area produces a new series of postcards every year with a Louisiana artist. This year, the theme is “Year of Outdoors,” and the new series will be released this October, which is Atchafalaya Heritage Month.

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in the fall. Under the plan, the campus will be renovated to house the W.D. and Mary Baker Career Center and E.J. Sam Accelerated School, and its athletic ﬁelds will be used by other schools in the district. The move is supposed to save $2 million in the general fund that is used for teacher salaries and programming. Every day of delay, Hammonds said, is costing the school system money with delayed construction to repurpose the school, delayed work on new school bus

routes and possibly the loss of experienced Comeaux High teachers who may leave for other school districts if they aren’t certain they’ll still have jobs. “Staff is anxious to go ahead and get started,” he said. The school system, Hammonds said, was under the incorrect impression that Gotch-Garrett had granted Lajaunie’s request for a temporary restraining order and had stopped preparing for the changes. Looking to the April 13 hearing Lajaunie said some people who want to testify may be unable to get time off work to testify in person. Gotch-Garrett said she would prefer hearing testimony in person, but will

accept affidavits if necessary She urged both parties to exchange affidavits and other documents with one another in a timely manner and to provide them to her by the Thursday before the hearing, if possible, so she can review them over the weekend.

After the hea ring, Lajaunie said everyone is focused on Comeaux High, but the relocation of the career center and accelerated school is another issue. The center and school are in District 4, she said, a socio-economically challenged area of the city That area needs additional investment, not disinvestment, she added.

Contact Claire Taylor at ctaylor@theadvocate.com.

12% of the transportation security ofﬁcers have called in sick or otherwise missed their shifts, causing slowdowns in the required screening of passengers before boarding ﬂights. At some airports, like New Orleans, up to 40% of the TSA workers were not on duty at some points.

White House border czar Tom Homan told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that paying TSA ofﬁcers should relieve the delays at the airport.

enter it into the systems they use for ticketing or other searches, rather than enter it manually

Landry called for eliminating inspection stickers in his “State of the State” speech to open the legislative session earlier this month.

“It’s time to eliminate the inspection sticker and stop this major inconvenience for Louisiana drivers!” Landry posted on X Monday after the bill passed out of committee.

Landry previously said the state may eventually use the sticker to display insurance coverage information.

Asked about the plan to display insurance information, Bagley said it is not currently part of the legislation, though it “possibly

“It’s good news because these TSA ofﬁcers are struggling. They can’t feed their families or pay the rent,” Homan said. “They’re sitting there right now, working very hard,

could” be in the future.

Bagley, who has served as a state representative for 11 years, said he’s been trying to pass the legislation since his second year at the Capitol.

Landry’s support of the measure is what’s made the difference this year, he said.

“He’s saying he’s going to change Louisiana for the better; we’re going to see a lot of changes,” Bagley said of Landry “This is one of them.”

Bagley said so far this year there’s been no opposition to his bill.

“Why would you want to ﬁght a ﬁrst-term governor that’s popular when you know there’s probably not much you can do?” he said.

BY HOLLYRAMER and JENNIFERMCDERMOTT

Associated Press

Vermont’seffort to make fossil fuel companiespay for damage causedbyclimate changewas tested Monday in afederalcourtroom, where the state argued that two lawsuits challenging its groundbreaking 2024 lawshould be thrown out.

Vermont became the ﬁrst state to enact aclimate superfund law, modeled on the federal superfund law that taxed petroleum and chemical companies to pay to clean up sitespollutedbytoxic waste. It took action after suffering catastrophic summer ﬂooding in 2023aswell as damage from other extreme weather,whichscientistssay is occurring more frequently due to climate change. The money it collects would be used for climate adaptationprojects, such as upgradestostormwater drainage systems,sewage treatment plants and roads.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and atop oil and gas industry trade group,the American Petroleum Institute, suedVermont over the law in December 2024, calling it

BY MICHAEL BIESECKER and JASON DEAREN Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Vermontdefends itslandmarkclimate superfundlaw

unconstitutionaland aviolation of federal law. The Department of Justice also sued Vermontand NewYorkafterPresident Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against states that may be overreaching their authority in how they regulate energy development. In suing, Bondi called Vermont’slaw and a similar one signed by New York’s Democratic Gov.KathyHochul “burdensomeand ideologically motivated” and saidthey threaten American energyindependence and national security In asking ajudge to dismiss the lawsuits Monday,Vermontargued thatithas theauthority to raise revenue, protect thehealth and welfare of its citizens and mitigate environmental harms.

Thestate also said that the law does notconﬂict with federal law or policy,regulate fossil fuel emissions or punish fossil fuel producers.

“As asovereign state, Vermont getstodocertain things that are exercises of atraditional stateauthority.The Superfund Actoperates squarely in those areas of traditional state authority,” Jonathan Rose of theVermont attorney gen-

eral’s ofﬁce said in U.S.District Court in Rutland

The plaintiffs in both cases,however,argue that Vermont can’tlegally impose liabilityorpenalties on out-of-stateenergy producers forharms arising from out-ofstate andglobalgreenhouse gas emissions.

“Thiscase is notabout Vermont’s abilitytoraise revenueand protect the healthand welfare of its residents. It’sabout Vermont’sattempt to subject global energy production activity to Vermont law,which brazenly disregardsthe constitutional division of power in thefederal government and the states,” said DOJattorney Riley Walters.

While other courtshave allowed the application of astate law to out-of-state conduct, thosecases involved direct and traceable connections between the behavior and theharm, he said.

“It’simpossible to trace in-state harm to any particular source of greenhouse gas emissions, let alone to the fossil fuel production thatiseven further down along the alleged causal chain,” he said. “Thereisnot adirect and traceable connection between oil that’s extractedinTexas or in Saudi

157 federalSuperfund sites prioritized for cleanup due to the serious risk they pose to public health and the environment. About 3million Americans live within amileofa Superfund site, while 13 million peoplelive within 3miles. Someofthe Superfund sites were found

in low-lying sites prone speciﬁcally to inland ﬂooding from heavy rain. Thereview

also found 31 sites in areas at high risk for wildﬁres. Despite theserisks, the ﬁve-year plans governing the expensive and time-consuming cleanups at the sites often failed to account for damage posed by flooding from sea-level rise and more frequent

Arabia and aﬂood or someother weather event that takes place in Vermont.”

West Virginia, atop producer of natural gas and coal,isleading two dozen states intervening in the case with theChamber and API, out of concern that Vermont will demand to recover billions of dollars from majorenergyproducers andoil reﬁners in their states.

Meanwhile, the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy groupinNew England, and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont are supporting Vermont in the litigation.

Attorney Adeline Rolnick, representing the conservation foundation and farmers, toldthe judge Mondaythat granting the plaintiffs’ motions to strike down thelaw “would give the federal government this roving license to seek toenjoin any state law that it disagrees with simply by pleading preemption.

“That would be quite an expansion of the federal role in our state-federal system, and the court should instead require the United Statestoshow concrete imminent injury like any other litigant,” she said.

storms and wildﬁre,the inspector general’sreview found.

“That is abig problem because it meansthe site managers are not planning mitigation measures,” saidBetsy Southerland, aformer director of theagency’swater protection division whospent over 30 years at theEPA

“The communities living near those sites should be made aware of this planning failure and should insist on robust plans,” she said.

At locationswith little or no planning for ﬂoods, contaminants could be released intosurrounding communities and taxpayer dollars already invested in remediation could be wasted, the review found.

The EPAsaiditisreviewing the inspector general’sfindings and that the Superfund program does factor “the impacts of extreme weathereventsand other hazards as astandard operatingpractice in thedevelopment and implementation of cleanup projects.” Last year,PresidentDonald Trumpﬁred EPAInspector Gen-

Judge Mary Kay Lanthier took the motionsunder advisement and said she would issue rulings as soon as possible.

Republican Gov.Phil Scott allowed the bill to becomelaw without his signature, saying he was concerned aboutVermonttaking on theoil industry alone. Since then, the idea has gained traction elsewhere. In addition to New York, other Democratic-controlled states are also considering climatesuperfund laws, while others are seeking damages from fossil fuelcompanies in state courts for harmscaused by climate change.

“This is the ﬁrst timethat astate legislature has taken the gigantic step of pursuing pollutersand holding them accountable to clean up the mess thatthey’ve made,” said Jennifer Rushlow,interim vice president forCLF Vermont.

ADartmouth College research team estimated the world’sbiggest corporations have caused $28 trillion in climate damage. The researchers published astudy last year with the estimated pollution caused by 111 companies, with more thanhalfofthe total dollar ﬁgure coming from10fossil fuel providers.

eral Sean O’Donnell at the beginning of Trump’ssecond term,and the ofﬁce’snew review makes no mention of climate change, aterm the Republican administration has scrubbed from federal websites. But the newreports issuedbythe office’sremaining staff still lay outthe risksposed by awarming planet to the nation’smost dangerous toxic waste sites. Lara J. Cushing, aprofessor at the University of California, Los Angeles who hasstudied the effects of achanging climate on the nation’s toxicwastesites,petrochemical plants and other hazardous areas, called the new reports “noteworthy and important.”

“Although President Trumpmay wish to ignore it, the fact is the climate is changingand we need to be proactive in responding to rising seas and moreextremeweather or facethe consequences of increasinglyfrequent cascading naturaltechnological disasters that poison communitiesand local ecosystems,” said Cushing.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By DAVIDJ.PHILLIP

JanRisher

LOUISIANA AT LARGE

Costume room feelslike home

Walking into the costume room at LSU felt like timetravel. There was asmell —fabric, maybe, or sewing machineoil. Whatever it was, for amoment, Iwasn’tinBaton Rouge anymore. Iwas alittle girl in my grandmother’sgarageturned-sewing room, surrounded by fabric, jars of buttonsand arainbow of zippers on pegs. Ispent huge swaths of time there as achild —sortingbuttons and my personal specialty —coordinating prints that most people wouldn’tthink went together The room had aparticular logic and language.

So, Idiscovered, does the costume room in LSU’sSchool of Music.

Iwas there because Kyla Kazuschyk, associateprofessor of costume technology,was about to put me in akimono.

Kazuschyk had four large safety pins angled on her shirt like abrooch —practical jewelry,asitturned out. Midway through dressing me, she pulled them off one by one and put them to work on the kimono. She’sthat kind of cool. It wasn’tjust any kimono. This was Cio-Cio-San’sfirst-act costume —the one wornby the ill-fated Butterfly herself. It will be featured in Opéra Louisiane’sproduction of Puccini’s“Madama Butterfly,” performed for one night, at 7p.m. April 11 at the Raising Cane’sRiver Center Theatre for the Performing Arts in Baton Rouge.

I’ll confess Ithought it was “Madam Butterﬂy” until this recent interaction —the “a”at the endisPuccini’sItalian, not atypo.

The kimonos originatedat the Paris Opera before making their way to Virginia’s Castleton Festival. Paul Groves, Opéra Louisiane’sgeneral director,was gearing up to pick up 31 more costumes

“They’ve been beautifully cared for and steamed,” Groves told me. He paused. “They’ve also been in my ﬁshing truck.”

That’sLouisiana opera. Before Icould try it on, Kazuschyk walked me through the process. It is atheatrical kimono, she explained, which means certain traditionalsteps were skipped to make putting it on and off easier —apractical necessity for dressing and undressing during performances.

Atraditional obi, the belt portionofakimono, would be one very long strip of fabrictied in an elaborate bow in the back. For special occasions, like a wedding or other ceremony, Kazuschyk told me, women in Japan go to aspecialist to have an obi tied —the way aLouisiana woman might go to asalon for an updo. That said, in this theatrical kimono, the obi is stitched in place, and there are hooks and snaps where there would traditionally be none.

“A kimono could have 10 layers,” Kazuschyk said. This one has two. Then she asked, in the way that good teachers do, how wide Ithought kimono fabricis. I knew the answermust be interesting —orshe wouldn’thave asked. So, Iwent withvery wide because the garments are so sweeping and dramatic. Iwas wrong. Traditional kimono fabric, woven on aloom, is only 15 incheswide.Four widths stitched together make the kimono. That’spart of why they’resoexpensive.

9-mile stretch from I-10 to St.Landrylinetoberesurfaced

BY KRISTIN ASKELSON Staff writer

Stateand local leadersgath-

ered Friday in Carencro to mark the start of amajor highway improvement projectaimed at upgrading one of Acadiana’sbusiest corridors.

The Louisiana Departmentof Transportation and Development

held agroundbreaking fora $43 million resurfacing project along Interstate 49, covering nearly 9 milesfrom Interstate 10 in Lafayette Parish to the St. Landry Parishline.

Ofﬁcials said the project is designed to improve andpreserve aheavily traveled roadway that plays akey role in connecting communities.

“Onaverage, about 85,000 vehicles travel this stretch of highway every day,”said Deidria Druilhet, apublic information officer withDOTD. “Giventhe industry in this area, this project will beneﬁtmotorists, industry, aviation, multimodal transportation and economic development.”

“We’re proudit’sinthe center of District 24,betweenLafayette and St. Landry parishes, and we’re bringing those dollars back to our communities to make highways safer,improve trafﬁc

Leaders said the project’s extension into St. Landry Parish adds to its significance by strengtheninga corridor that links multiple communities.

Interstate 49 projectkicks off CRACKSHOTS

ABOVE: AustinHebert, from left, shoots at aclay target with teammates Luke Hains, Cole Hebert, Noah Harmon and Beau Harrington, all of Lafayette, behind him on Friday duringthe 4-H Southernregional shooting sports match at Bridgeview GunClub in PortAllen RIGHT: Hains shoots at a clay target duringthe competition.

TOP20UNDER 40

‘I gettodoalot of pretty amazingcollaborations’

For The Acadiana Advocate

Christopher “Tipper” Esponge is the president and owner of E& L Construction Group and mayor of Delcambre. He is also a nativeofDelcambre. What areone or two of your greatest business and/ or community achievements? My greatest community achievement is becoming the mayor of Delcambre and getting the opportunity to serve and give backtomycommunity every day. The business achievementI value most is themeaningful and lasting

ä In partnership with The Acadiana Advocate, the705 is recognizing its annual Top20 Under 40 Acadiana Leadership Award honorees, presented by Advancial Federal Credit Union. Honorees will be recognized at abanquet April 10 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Student Union Ballroom. Fortickets,visit bit.ly/20under40for2026

impact my companycreates through every project we undertake. At E& LConstruction Group, we don’tjust build structures; we contribute

Candice Dazet is assistant director of student engagement and leadership at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is a native of Metairie. What are oneortwo of your greatest business and/orcommunity achievements? Oneofmy greatest community achievements has been designing and sustaining large-scale, award-winning cultural and leadership programsthat foster belonging and connection at UL Lafayette and across Acadiana. Through initiatives such as Culture Fest, AfroFest, the Pride

Resource Fair and Greek Week, Ihave helped create inclusive, educational spaces that elevate student voices and celebrate global and local cultures. These programshave earned multiple state and national recognitions, including NACA and LACUSPA awards, while consistently engaging hundreds of students, faculty and community partners each year

Equally signiﬁcant has been my leadership in building sustainable campus-community partnerships that extend student learning beyond the university.Through collaborations such as Ragin’ Cajuns DowntownAlive with Downtown Lafayette Unlimited, alongside my workwith alumni groups,

STAFFPHOTOSByJAVIER GALLEGOS

OPINION

Exceptions to public records lawmust necessarily be narrow

We have watched in recent years apush by public ofﬁcials to use overly broad language to expandrestrictions on the public’sability to monitor what they are doing.

In the 2024 legislative session,lawmakersconsidered abill to shield records of public bodies that related to “advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising partofa process by which governmental decisionsand policiesare formulated”—inother words, anything that agovernmental body deemed essentialto its process. Thankfully,thatbill waspulledafter backlash from good governmenttypes.

Yet, in the same session, another bill passed that allowed local ofﬁcials to declareconﬁdential publicrecords involving “economic development”projects valuedat$5million or more, which could cover anything amunicipality deemedrelated to such projects.

In asimilar vein this session comes Senate Bill 289, by Sen. Mark Abraham,R-Lake Charles. This measure, which passedthe Senate andisgoing to the House, would allowLouisiana colleges and universities to exempt records related to universitysearches for presidents, coaches and other “executive” jobs frompublic records law.

The argument is that those applyingmight not want their current employer toknowthey are looking for another job.Wecan understand that reasoning. However,the bill, asoriginally written, didn’tdeﬁne the term “executive.” Academic deans were removed from thelist when the bill moved out of committee, and Abraham says he’sopentoother amendments.

This newspaper has aggressively sought records from LSU related to its operations, as taxpayer money is at stake. In 2013, TheAdvocate |The Times-Picayune successfully suedalong with the student newspaper The Daily Reveille foraccess to records related to asecret presidential search.

The rationale for this bill remains murky No one has said that LSU, which namednew presidentWade Rousse in November, or ULLafayette, which named new president Ramesh Kolluru in February,orSouthern University, which is currentlyinthe midst of apresidential search, has had trouble attracting quality candidates for these jobs due topublic disclosure requirements.

The bill also seeks to limit public accesstorecords of potential donors to universitiesortheir private fundraising arms as well as disclosure of proprietary research. ButasStevenProcopio of the Public Affairs Research Councilpointed out, the names of donors to private foundations arealready shieldedand proprietaryresearch hasnever been subject to public records law The goal of these fuzzy measures seems to be to make public records whatever ofﬁcials say they are.

Politicians often campaignontransparency because they know that it plays well with the public. When in ofﬁce, though, transparency often takes aback seat to other aims. We believe weakening public records law ultimately weakens support forwhatevergovernmental ofﬁcials are tryingtodo. Exceptions to public records can be necessary,but they should always be narrowly written.

GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’scity of residence

TheAdvocate |The Times-Picayune require astreet address andphone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor,The Advocate, P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@ theadvocate.com.

TO SEND US A LETTER SCANHERE

La.iswhathappens when politiciansfavor therich

Ron Faucheux’sop-ed “Numbers tell the story of why Louisianalags other Southern states” echoes the concerns from Faimon Roberts’ earlier op-ed, “Louisiana has amigration crisis, but it’snot theone manythink.”Inshort, people are leaving Louisiana, and that is not good for our economic outlook. The rich love Louisiana. They know they will face minimal consequences forcreating Cancer Alley and can treat working people here however they want. Louisiana’spoliticians care moreabout attracting money than attracting people. However,without working people, there is nothing to invest money in. The richest companies in the world are also found in the places with the highest taxes and most worker protections, like California and New York. These companies know that they need workers more than they need tax exemptions. That’sthe leverage Louisiana’s workers need to use. Groveling and begging therich to

share acrumboftheirhoarded billions will only empower them further.Weallow the billionaires to decide whoand what gets invested in, what is and isn’t produced. They evenget to decide who getselected. Their extreme wealth undermines theability of our society to democratically makedecisions about what we want our society to look like. When the interests of acarbon capture company are weighed equally with hundreds of Ascension Parish residentssaying no, you’ve arrived at an oligarchy.People are leaving Louisiana not because we haven’tappeased theoligarchs enough, but because the oligarchs are getting what they want, and we live or die at their whims. Ourpoliticians should invest in and empower people and communities, notgive out moretax breaks to the wealthy.Workers make Louisiana great,not billionaires.

Abetter world is possible.

BEN WENDT Baton Rouge

It’s no wonderthatconservatives discouragedfromwriting to paper

Despite its protestations of balance to the contrary,the newspaper’s March 17 opinion page contained 100% liberal opinions, to wit:

n An editorial advocating against SenateBill 123, abill that would give thegovernor (currently and likely to be in thefuture aRepublican) more power over judges.

n An opinion letter essentially advising that liberal voters temporarily register as Republicans to inﬂuence the upcoming primary elections, depriving the GOP’sactual members of the right to select itspreferred candidates free of outside inﬂuence.

n An opinion letter advocating against the (Republican) president’s policies related totaxes and foreign policy

n An opinion letter advocating against the (Republican) governor’s support of posting theTen Commandments in public school classrooms.

n An opinion letter criticizing aprevious opinion letter writer,aconservative, and claiming that conservatives

“just start makingstuff up because they want it to be true.”

n An opinion letter criticizing the president’s prosecution of themilitary action in Iran, in which sadly 13 members of the military have died, and comparing it to the Vietnam War, in which we lost 58,000.

Areader looking for balance in thenewspaper’sopinion page of St. Patrick’s Day would have had better luck ﬁnding afour-leafed clover while blindfolded, at night, on theway home from thepub. Apparently,noconservative readers submitted lettersworthy in the editor’s opinion of publication. If that is the case, it might be because days like this makethe effort of joining thedebate in this forum seem futile. Or thenewspaper receives those lettersbut afﬁrmativelychooses not to give these readers avoice. Either explanation is unfortunate. RILEY HAGAN III St. George

There’sno reason for immigration policy to be inhumane

President Donald Trump andhis supporters appear to demand nothing less thanthe expulsion of anyonewho hasenteredorremained in the U.S. without aproper visa, including those brought as children, those admitted as refugees and those with years of history working to support their families, obeying the laws andpaying taxes.

Furthermore, theydemand that even those admitted legally be threatened with expulsionifthey sayanything displeasing to Trump. Any who disagreeare said to favor open borders, violent crime waves andillegalimmigrants voting in elections.

One can support rational, humane controlofimmigration, and most do. If we aretodemandthatentrants apply lawfully,wemust provide an orderly,safeprocessfor them to apply,makeacaseand get aprompt, fair answer. No onesaysweshould not exclude those who arefugitivesfrom justice, entering for criminal purposes or without means of support. And we may require that lawful residents maintain proper contact and obey the laws where they reside. Those who do areentitled to all the protection of the Constitution and the law.

It is clearly unjust to expel those brought here as children and educated here

And it is at leastinhumane and irrationaltodenyamnesty to those in violationofthe lawinthe past, who have sincebeen lawful and productive andare willing to acknowledge their fault.

And allAmericans should be outragedatthe creation of amasked, lawless band to enforceunjust policies andthreaten the innocent with the supposedguilty

WILLIAMR.EDWARDS JR. Lafayette

Thepolitical instantreplay

In sports, the instant replay was invented and ﬁrst used by aman named Tony Verna on the Dec. 7, 1963, broadcast of theArmy-Navy footballgame on CBS.

The political “instant replay” has no single author or starting date, but its overuse has produced few resolutions of the major problems confronting the country.What it has produced is a deepening cynicism about politics and so much else.

Toomany Americans now see their fellow Americans who are of a different partyorpersuasion as abiggerenemy than Iran or Russia. Long-term friendships have been destroyed over whether one loves or hates President Donald Trump. At least the sports instant replay usually leads to the afﬁrming or overturning of adecision by the referee. The politicalinstant replay solves nothing, even when the “players” are shown to be wrong. The result in too many cases has been political paralysis.

Cable news and more than afew newspapers are increasingly obsessed with the November elections,as if they will somehow change thepolitical game. We are bombarded with the “truth” that the party that controls the White House is bound to lose seats in Congress, although there have been exceptions.

Voters who are angry at Trump for whatever reason had best be careful what they wish for.

Despite his occasional bad demeanor and crude language, Trumphas succeeded whereother presidents and congresses have failed.DoDemocrats want to run on aplatform of reopening the southern border? Allowing more people from many nations and possibly terrorists to cross the border in violation of our immigration laws would also increase the number of deadly drugs that have killed thousands of Americans. Imagine the effectinstant replays of workers tearing down the wall and watching aﬂood of people pour across would have when a majority of voters say they approve of border control.

Would Democrats, should they regain House and Senatemajorities, continue to back biological males playing on femalesports teams andusing locker rooms and restrooms restricted to women and girls? Would their party continue tosupportgender reassignment surgery for prison inmates with taxpayersfooting thebill? Would their opposition to showing identiﬁcation before voting and proof of citizenship before registering continue? All of these are “80-20” issues, in some cases higher What about taxes? Would Democrats run on raising taxes when it’s the spending that needs to be cut to reduce the unsustainable $38 trillion debt?Would Democrats, whose party created Social Security,Medicareand Medicaid, lead the way in reforming these programs before they runout of money (estimated to be in seven years for Social Security) and beneﬁts substantially cut, or taxes substantially

raised,orboth? It doesn’ttake asoothsayer to predict Democrats would seek revenge on Trump by again impeaching him, possibly morethan once, though he will have fewer than two yearsleft in ofﬁce and theSenate, even with a Democrat majority,would not likely convict him and removehim from ofﬁce. The problem with political instant replays is that few,ifany,problems are solved. It’s all about the politicians, not thepeople. Ultimately,they are not completely at fault. We are, becausewekeep electing the same people, expecting adifferent outcome. Voters, especially thelow-information kind, areguiltyofcreating the political instantreplay.Aslong as we keep rerunning thetape, nothing will change.

Email Cal Thomasattcaeditors@ tribpub.com

Whereisthe arcofjustice headed?

Former President Barack Obama liked to quote Martin Luther King Jr.’sline that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Of course, whatwas an expression of optimism for themoral reformer King was more in the nature of avictory spike of the football for acompetitor in azero-sum electoral contest like Obama. More importantly,the belief that things are moving toward justice comes more naturally to believers in Americanexceptionalism, of which Obama isn’tone. He famously said that he believed in America’sexceptionalism only as much as “Brits” believe in British exceptionalism or Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

and their archaeological colleagues can describe marked declines of civilization enough for one of them to titlea book “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Edward Gibbon, listening to the monks chanting vespers on the steps of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, was inspired to write thehistory of thedecline and fall of the Roman Empire, theﬁrst volume of which came outinFebruary 1776 and is still in print today

Great Again” mantra suggests moving back to some unspeciﬁed moment in thepast.

War-making is president’s business,not Congress’

In the maelstrom of modern war, presumed certainties crumble like piecrust. Consider twoquestions asked in the wake of U.S. attacks on Iran.

In April 1943, American code breakers in the Pacific Theater decrypted flight plans of Adm Isoroku Yamamoto, whohad conducted Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.Days later,his plane was destroyed. The NewYork Times headline was: “‘Gosh!’ Says Roosevelt On Death of Yamamoto.” Wasthis targeted killing of aparticular person of military importance an assassination? Every president since Gerald Ford, whowas responding to harebrained Kennedy administration plans to kill Fidel Castro, has officially respected Ford’sfinding that assassinations violate international law,and hence disserve U.S. interests. The second question is: What is constitutionally (never mind prudentially) obligatory concerning Congress’sinvolvement in uses of military force? The answer is: almost nothing. An ethical calculus that can answer the first question is elusive. And as the war against Iran illustrates, the twoquestions are inseparable: Surprise is asubstantial military asset. If the Trumpadministration had briefed legislators in advance, could it have achieved the targeted killings crucial to its regimedecapitation objective —anobjective intended to economize violence? Less than twoyears after the targeted killing of Yamamoto, on March 9, 1945, morethan 300 B-29s leftthe Mariana Islands, bound forTokyo. There they dropped 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs that destroyed one-sixth of Japan’scapital, killing between 80,000 and 100,000 or more. Try, without experiencing moral vertigo, to disapprove Yamamoto’sassassination, which it was, in awar that included the incineration of Tokyo. In 1787, the Constitutional Convention initially was going to vest in Congress the power to “make war.” Instead, it vested the power to “declare war.” The convention did this because Congress is often dispersed, whereas presidents are on the job 24/7. And because presidents can act with moreenergy and dispatch than Congress even when it is in session. And because if the power to makewar were vested in Congress, the president might lack the power to respond unilaterally to sudden attacks. And because throughout history, warshave often been declared by the launching of them.

But British and Greek exceptionalisms look to distant pasts and encompass the idea of decline, which, if not the opposite of justice, is certainly not positive. Britons may look withpride on the British Empire, but not without atwinge of regret that it has all but disappeared. Greeks may look back on theastonishing creativityofAthens 2,500 years ago, but not without recognizing that it was held down under the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires for almost all the centuries since.

In contrast, the United States has a history that can be easily,ifperhaps oversimply,interpreted as astory of continual winning. Economic growth —the exception rather than the rule before 1800 in European lands —has been cumulative over time. Cultural progress abounds: the abolition of slavery,equality for women, and civil rights for Black people, all have advanced, though with some setbacks over the years. In such an environment,itmay seem natural to believe that, as ageneral rule, anyway,things get better.Yet the long run of history teaches different lessons. Historians of ancient cultures

Historians continue to dispute just how much and even whether the Roman Empire declined. But it seems indisputable that itsmilitaryforces dwindled, its long-distance tradepetered out, and itstechnological advances were forgotten. It took centuries for Europeans to ﬁgure outhow to build adome like that of the Pantheon in Rome, but there it is today In American politics over the last century,ithas been theDemocrats whose rhetoric proclaims them as the partyofprogress. Some of this has a Marxist base, the New Deal idea that a complex industrialized society should have an increasingly large government to protect and guide individuals To many since at least the 1980s, that argument seems antique. Biggovernment has not managed to build asinglemile of track for California’shigh-speed railline in 19 years, while the privatesector has developed artiﬁcial intelligence at astonishing rates. Note also that in this century Americans, including recent immigrants, have been moving out of big-government states like New York Illinois and California, and into smallgovernment states like Florida, Tennessee and Texas Republicans under Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes made the argument and provided some proof that market-friendly policies can produce more than big government.But President Donald Trump’s“Make America

Perhaps to the low-immigration, high-family-formation, high-churchgoing 1950s in which Trump and his baby boom predecessors, former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, grew up. In any case, Trump’s inevitable retirementleaves Republicans uncertain and probably divided on what progress and decline mean. For articulate Democrats, the focus has moved from economics —on which they make vague promises of more redistribution to theless afﬂuent —and toward cultural issues. Buton that, theirconﬁdence that the arc of justice moves theirway has encountered some turbulence. They have seen American opinion do so on some issues, notably same-sex marriage, but not on abortion or immigration.

Or,asthe liberal economistNoah Smithargues,intheir isolated communities —trendy central city neighborhoods,afﬂuent suburbs and university towns— and sycophantic media, they have failed to notice that most Americans don’tbelieve, or aren’tmoving closer to believing, that “racial preferences in hiring, leniency toward petty crime and illegal immigration, and transwomen on women’ssports teams are basic rights.”

My sense is that thearc of history moves around, andsometimes in a malign direction. Notably,among the sharply increasing antisemitism of theuniversity Left (now installed in New York’s Gracie Mansion) and in theemergence of aless numerous but equally disturbing antisemitismon thefringes of the podcastRight from Southwestoutposts to thewoods of Maine. Thereare some directions in which thearc of history should never head again.

Michael Barone is on X, @MichaelBarone.

Industrialism and conscription —nations, not just militaries, mobilized forwar —have blurred the distinction between combatants and civilians whose farms, factories and transportation systemssustain combat. Hence the wholesale destruction during Gen.William Tecumseh Sherman’s march through Georgia andSouth Carolina. Hence theWorld WarIIbombing of residential areas to “de-house” (the Allies’ antiseptic term)German and Japanese civilians. Other aspects of the modern state that have partially erased the distinction between military and nonmilitary factors are organizational bureaucracies, mobilizing propaganda and forced-draft science (e.g., the Manhattan Project).

Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” In law,constitutional and other,and in war, which is even difﬁcult to deﬁne, we should emulate Einstein. We should makedistinctions as clear as possible, but not clearer

That our nation is planted thick with lawyers is part cause and part consequence of the American yearning forrules to govern those whogovern us. Codifying behavior in order to circumscribe governmental discretion is mostnecessary,but mostdifﬁcult, regarding executive latitude in war-making. There is only one large and clear example of Congress asserting primacy: It wielded its power of the purse to end what remained, in 1975, of U.S. participation in Vietnam.

Other than among his devotees, Donald Trump has only the trust and empathy he has earned: none. It is too late forhim to prudently increase Congress’sbuy-in with his Iran policy by consulting it. So, the language and processes of law are the only arrows in his critics’ quivers. Those are, however,unavailing. Courts will not intervene where Congress is, as apractical matter,precluded by presidential nimbleness. There are manykinds of wars, and as manyways for presidents to evade Congress. Non-state actors (e.g., Hamas) can initiate and wagewars. Presidents can marginalize Congress by calling awar a“police action” (Korea, 1950).

For decades, this column has been atireless to somereaders, atiresome—critic of the swollen, often lawless, modern presidency.Now more than ever it is urgent to regard executive power as, in Daniel Webster’swords, “a lion which must be caged.” But conditions, threats and capabilities change, so moral and political imperatives do, too. Changes in modern circumstances, including technologies, often strengthen, if not the argument for, then the opportunity for, executive unilateralism

Email George Will at georgewill@washpost.com

George Will

Cal Thomas

Michael Barone

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ALEX BRANDON

President Donald Trumplistens to areporter during the swearing in for Homeland Security SecretaryMarkwayne Mullin in the Oval Office of the White House on March 24.

With the talk of looms and weaving, Itold her about the beautiful loom at my home —still waiting to be usedbecause Icannot ﬁgure out how to get it set up

My grandmother would have understood the loom and the logic of the seams. She was amaster at making something beautiful from whatever was at hand. With Kazuschyk, Ihad worn adress that day.When the moment came, Itook it off to get the full effect of wearing akimono —in for apenny,infor apound Kazuschyk draped the inner layer,then the outer, working the hooks, tucking thesash. One sleeve rests inside the other

“You don’twant anything hanging out,” she said, a sentence that applies to more situations than kimono dressing.

Yomo Li, an LSU graduate student who had tried on the kimono before me and offered an impromptu song from the April11performance, lookedatmeand said, “It fits you perfectly.” Which says something about her generous spirit. Standing there,Ithought about the character Cio-CioSan, who marries an American naval officer and builds her life around the promise that he will return. She is defined by waiting and believing —and is destroyed by both. And yet, wearing that kimono —apiece of history that traveled from Paristo Virginia to Louisiana, by way of afishing truck —I felt nothing but joy

DAZET

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festivals and local nonproﬁts, Iconnect students to experiential workforce development in event operations, marketing, hospitality,volunteer coordination and civic engagement. These efforts strengthen UL’s community presence, create professional pipelines and ensure long-term, measurable impact for both students and Acadiana.

What’syour favorite thing about what you do for aliving?

My favorite thing is the opportunity to build communities where people feel welcomed, valued and empowered while also walking closely with students as amentor and advocate. Ienjoy meeting students where they are and helping them transform their ideas into intentional programs, organizations and experiences that truly make a difference. Whether I’m advising student leaders, navigating challenges alongside them or connecting them with campus and community partners, Iget to support their growth in meaningful ways. Seeing

ESPONGE

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tomissions that matter

Each project represents an opportunity to serve those who serve or have served ourcountry and to strengthen the infrastructure that supports critical federal operations. From honoring our nation’sheroes through workwith the National Cemetery Administration to improving facilities for the Department of Veterans Affairsand supporting the readinessof the Air Force, Coast Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers,our efforts touch lives far beyond the job site. Knowing that our work helps preserve history,enhance security and improve quality of life for veterans

PHOTOSPROVIDED By LIZ PINA

KylaKazuschyk, associate professor of costume technology, dresses columnist Jan Risher in a‘Madama Butterfly’ kimono

My grandmother understood, hoping andbeing crushed,and aboutcreating beautyout ofwhatever was at hand Theroom had its own language. Turnsout, Istill speak it. Tickets for the April 11

students gain confidence, develop their leadership skills and recognize the influence they have on others is incredibly fulfilling.

Knowing that they leave these experiences more prepared, self-assured and connected totheir communitymakes this work so rewarding.

Yousupportover 10student organizations and lead major events likeCulture Fest and AfroFest. What’sone student storyormoment that reminds you whythis work matters?

With my work withcultural organizations, Iget to do alot of prettyamazing collaborations withthe International Student Council, Black student organizations,Arabic student organizations, the Spanish Club, etc. Ithink that’spretty amazing. And with those collaborations does come those special momentsduring an event or astudent impact story.There are so many student stories that Icould list,soI’ll go tothe event part We put on CultureFest, which ends International EducationWeek in November every year.The greatest thing that comes from that, fromthe student side and from my side, is seeing

and service members gives every project asense of purpose that goes beyond business. It’s about making adifference.

What’s your favorite thing about what you do for aliving?

My favorite thingabout what Idofor aliving is the opportunity to serve and give back through both my business and in my community.Every dayI get to work on projects that make areal difference, whether it’simproving infrastructure for federal agencies or my community.Knowing that my effortsmake adifference gives my work a sense of purpose that goes far beyond thejob itself

What has balancing professional life and publicservice taught you about leadership andcommunity impact?

Balancing roles as both an owner of aconstruction

LSUplans to change

materials and getting anew logo for the department.

Staff report

In the past three decades, LSUhas built itstheater program as adestination school for students seeking degrees in thediscipline.

Now it’s adding ﬁlm to the mix. The Louisiana Board of Regents on Tuesday approvedrenaming the LSU School of Theatre to theLSU School of Theatre and Film.

“At LSU, one of the deﬁningstrengths of ourFilm &Television program is its place alongside the university’soutstanding theater programwithin the College of Music &DramaticArts,” said Eric Lau, dean of the college.

This name change also reﬂects the program’sevolving role within Louisiana’s booming ﬁlm industry

LSU’sﬁlm program began as amodest initiative in 2012 with adozen enrollees. It has since exploded in popularity among students, with its enrollment of 100 nearly matching the size of the theater program.

Aprimary driver of this growth was the transition froma Bachelor of Arts degree to aBachelor of Fine Arts program, which solidiﬁedthe curriculum as production-centric and careerfocused.

Opéra Louisiane’sproduction of “Madama Butterﬂy” range from $21.50 for studentsto$151.50 for box seats and are available at operalouisiane.com.

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

theeducational pieces and getting to build that connection (because you don’t know what you don’tknow, and sometimes students have preconceived notionsofdifferent people or things they’veseen on the news or social media). To be able to break that down and have tables where studentsrepresent their culture, their country,their identities and createthat bridge wherethey can ask those questions, they can learn, get theirname written in abookmark or learn asign language wordor symbol. It gets back to basichuman connection and seeing that happen in real time. Everyyear it grows and there’smore performances, and we even do a cultural fashion show We do assessmentsurveys,and you get to see what people got out of it, and the biggest thing is that they felt seen.That’s thebiggestthing for me. They felt more connected to campus.They felt like they’vebeen able to talk to theirpeers where they might be scared before. So making sure that they feel seen,that they have a voice —thosestories matter alot.

business and mayor,it’s tough. It’s not easy,but Ido thebest Ican. At theend of the day,the decisions I makehave agreater impact on the community and the projectsthat we do. It’s not always about dollar signs. It’s not always about budgets. Every project we do, whether it’swith the business or withthe town, makes adifference. Irecognize that my actionsreverberateinamuch deeper way because it affects not only me and my business but thecommunity at large. They deﬁnitely makea difference and impact everyone. Not everyone will agree with the decisions that Imake, whether abusiness owner as or as aleader in the community,but Ido it with thebest interest in mind.

LOTTERY SUNDAY,MARCH 29, 2026

“This distinctive relationship creates arich collaborativeenvironment in which students engage across disciplines, expand their artistic andprofessional horizons and prepare to lead in an evolving creative landscape.Because this model is uncommon nationally among peer institutions, the name School of Theatre and Film more accurately reflectsboth thedepth of this partnership andits signiﬁcance within the broader vision of the CMDA.”

Thenamechangewilltake effect immediately.LSU officials areordering new

“The name School of Theatre andFilm more accurately reflects both the depth of this partnership andits signiﬁcancewithin thebroader vision of the CMDA,” said Vanessa Uhlig, head of the ﬁlm program.

The film concentration was first launched under theleadershipofAssociate Deanand School of Theatre Chair Kristin Sosnowsky

Admissionhas become highly selective, with applications consistently outnumbering available spots.

Theprogram hasalso becomeapipeline to acareer in ﬁlm in all areas.

“We’ve always been a home for great storytelling,” Sosnowsky said. “By becoming the School of

Theatre and Film,we’re officially recognizing the incredible evolutionofour programsoverthe last 10 years. Whetherit’sonstage or on camera, ourstudents, facultyand staffare pushing boundaries —and now, our name does too.” LSU established its theater program within the Department of Speech in 1928. The Department of Theatre was created in 1991, followed by the founding of Swine Palace, the professionaltheater associated with LSU Theatre, in 1992. In 1998, the Department of Theatre mergedwith the LSU School of Music to createthe CollegeofMusic & Dramatic Arts, and then the ﬁlm initiative was launched in 2012.

“Seeing the school renamed to the School of Theatre andFilm conﬁrms that CMDA is supportive of students’ goalsonthe stageor thescreen,”saidJoshJackson, aformer student of the program who is now an assistant professor in sports communication in theManship School of Mass Communication. “Westarted with afew cameras, lights, and passionate students who wanted to be apart of those earlycreativeprojects. To see that love and appreciation forﬁlm grow is awonderful thing to see for the alumni who were there in the beginning.”

Smallquake reported in Gulf

BY MARCO CARTOLANO

Staff writer

An earthquake was reported in the Gulf of MexicoonSundaynight, hundreds of miles away from Louisiana’scoastline, according to the U.S. Geological Survey

Thesmall3.9-magnitude earthquake, located 220 milesfrom Venice, was ﬁrst reported at 9:22 p.m., according to USGS data

The quake was shallow, having adepth of 10 kilometers, reports showed. Gulf earthquakesare fairly uncommon, but are known to happen, Eric Jeansonne, chief meteorologist at WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi, said Sunday night. There was no tsunamithreat associated with the quake,headded. Asimilar earthquake was reported in the Gulf in 2023.

2026 CHEMICALSFOR GOLF COURSESRE-BID and will,shortly there‐after,beopenedand read aloudinthe Pur‐chasingOffice locatedat 705 West University Av‐enue,Lafayette,LA. Bids received after theabove specified time foropen‐ingshall notbeconsid‐ered andshall be re‐turned unopened to the sender.Bidders areen‐couraged to attend the bidopening virtuallyby usingthe followinglink https://us02web.zoom us/j/87480905804? pwd=5LQa3powYXd CM0UxyioteOpzNr4fth.1 MeetingID: 874 8090 5804 Passcode:937139 In accordance with Louisiana RS 38:2212. vendorsmay submit theirbid electronically at thewebsite listed above. Vendorsmay requestthe bidpackage electroni‐callyfromThomasMe‐trejeanattgmetrejean@ lafayettela.gov.Vendors wishingtosubmittheir bidelectronicallymust register online with Lafayette Consolidated Government,inorder to establishanaccount Vendorssubmittingbids electronically arere‐quired to providethe same documentsasbid‐ders submitting through themailassoon as avail‐able.Onlya bidbond, certified

SPORTS

PEAS IN APOD

Thelights went down, thefog machine kicked in and like arock star,Will Wade strode into the Pete MaravichAssembly Center with his entourage: wife Lauren andtheir daughter Caroline.

From the speakers high abovethe PMAC ﬂoor,Thin Lizzy started belting out its50-yearold classic, theappropriately chosen “The Boys are Back in Town.”

“Guess who just got back today…”

Wade is back to coach basketball at LSU. Abit older,a bitchastenedbya past that Monday still tuggedatthe elbow of his tan sportscoat,but asdeﬁantlyconﬁdentasever

“We’re coming back to make history,” Wade told afrothed-up assemblage of

LSUboosters,studentsand major domos.“We’regoing to make history one way or the other.We’re coming back to try to hang abanner,win anational championship or I’m going to be theﬁrst coach ﬁred from the same school twice. “But oneway or another,we’re going to makehistory.It’sgoing to be afun ride …ain’tnodoubt about that.”

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

Just like his previous ﬁve seasons at LSU, Wade held thePMACinthe palm of his hand. It was atotally Louisiana, classically LSU kind of moment. The coach ﬁred for violating NCAA rules andrefusing to talk to his then-supervisors about them, who went from a year’sexile to two years at McNeese Stateand one season at NC State (winning seasons, one must add) is back. All wrapped up in abig bear hug of “Son, we’ve missed you, have something to eat” Louisiana-style emotions that Wade clearly reveled in.

He knows he’sbeen excoriated in the media, from the days of beingcaught on

On Sunday,the UL baseball team stopped the bleeding with a4-0 win over UL-Monroe to get to 18-10 overall and 3-6 in Sun Belt play

Unfortunately forthe Ragin’ Cajuns, thetask doesn’tget easier thisweek. Thechallengestarts at 4p.m.Tuesday with aroadgame against McNeese State in Lake Charles

Then UL plans to ﬂy out of New Orleans earlyWednesdaymorning to begin athree-gameseries against James Madison on Thursday in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

“Itis(complicated travel), now knowing what to expect at airports these days andhavingtotaketwo different ﬂightsbecause of logistics,” UL coach Matt Deggs said.

Deggs also said Monday that he won’tjoin the team in Lake Charles on Tuesday

BY TOYLOYBROWN III Staff writer

LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry didn’thide from the facelift the LSUmen’sbasketballprogram needed when he took over for predecessor Scott Woodward.

“I came here to alot of (basketball) games lately,”Ausberry said. “Itwas half empty.”

The culture change started at Monday’sintroductory news conference for returning coach Will Wade in front of excited fans, administrators and alumni at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center

“In fact, there were more people here today,probably,than some of our last basketball games,” Ausberry said about Wade’snews conference. “Sowehad to change our culture.”

Wade is back in Baton Rouge after being ﬁred for cause by LSU in 2022 over allegations of NCAA rule infractions. Wade, the last coachtolead LSU to the NCAA Tournament, aimstoget the Tigers back to March Madness and beyond after atwo-year stint at McNeese State and, most recently,his lone season at NC State. Wade madethe NCAA Tournament in all three seasons combined at the two schools.

“Did Ithink this waspossible?” Wade said about coming back to LSU. “I mean, Iguess you never count anything out in life. But when we left here,wenever thought we’d be back. No, Iwouldn’tsay Ithought it was possible.”

Wade’sreturn cametogether quickly Traction pickedupWednesdayasLSU workedtohireMcNeese Stateathletic director HeathSchroyertobecomeits senior deputy athletic director and executive director of external relations for theLSU System.Schroyerhired Wade at McNeese in 2023 and also will reunite with LSU president Wade Rousse, who held the same position at McNeese before taking over at LSU last year

“There wasn’tsome formalinterview process,” Wade said. “Weall know each other.We’veall known each other for

BY MATTHEW PARAS

“My best friend, my hero, my dad, has been in theICU for three weeks,” Deggs said. “My sister called this morning. I’mgoing to go outthere andsee him. He’s in North Carolina.”

Theplan is for Deggstothen driveaboutfourhours to James Madison to meet theteam.

“The coaches will run it (theMcNeese game), and they’ll do agreat job,” Deggs said. The Cajuns plan on pitching JR

Tollett, whohas been slumping as of late but is still 4-1 on the season witha7.99 ERA. In 322/3 innings, the junior right-hander has allowed 36 hits, walked 10 andstruck out 32. Deggs said he expects Tollett to go as farashecan in the game

Tuesday

“Nothing against McNeese,”

Deggs said. “Obviously,they beat us last timewewent over there, and they beat us plenty over the years. That’sagood program “They can always hit, and that’s ahitter friendly ballpark, but if he (Tollett) has his stuff, it doesn’t matter whohe’sfacing. He has the ability to stay out there for along time.”

The Cowboys are 14-14 overall

ä UL at McNeese, 4P.M.TUESDAy

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Maravich Assembly

STAFF PHOTO By BRAD KEMP

second baseman Rigoberto Hernandez scores arun during the Cajuns’ 4-0 winoverUL-Monroe on Sunday

STAFF

PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

back Alvin Kamararuns up the middle against

On TV

BASKETBALL AFRICA LEAGUE

Noon DARCity vs.Al AhlLyNBATV COLLEGE BASEBALL

6p.m. Auburn at Georgia Tech ESPN2

7p.m. Campbell at North CarolinaACCN

7p.m. Kansas at Missouri SECN

WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL

5p.m.NJCAA Division IChamp.:TBD ESPNU

COLLEGE SOFTBALL

5p.m. Penn St. at Pittsburgh ACCN

5p.m. Wichita St. at Oklahoma SECN

6p.m.Girls McDonald’s: East vs.West

8p.m.BoysMcDonald’s: East vs.West

5:40 p.m. Washington at Philadelphia MLBN

8:40 p.m. N.y.yankees at Seattle TBS,TRUTV NBA

7p.m. Newyork at Houston NBC,Peacock

10 p.m. Portland at L.A.ClippersNBC,Peacock MEN’S SOCCER

10:50 a.m.Norwayvs. Switzerland FS2

1:30 p.m.Bosnia-Herzegovina vs.Italy FS1

1:30 p.m.England vs.Japan FS2

3:55 p.m.Congovs. Jamaica FS1

10 p.m.Iraq vs. Bolivia FS1

6p.m.Knoxville at Asheville City CBSSN 6p.m.U.S.vs. Portugal TNT,TRUTV TENNIS

a.m. WTAEarly Rounds Tennis

LSUrestructuresathleticdepartment

AD stressesfocus on generating revenue

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

LSU athleticswill have anew reporting structure under athletic director Verge Ausberry,he announcedMonday shortly after Will Wade’sintroductory news conference as the new LSU men’s basketball coach.

Ausberry willoversee the whole department, butherevealed that he’stabbed ahandful of administrators to lead the charge with raising money for certain programs.

“This is anew day andage,” Ausberry said. “Not thesame days of the old athletic director sitting in the ofﬁces and just dictating what you’re doing. Now we’ve got to be out there, concentrating and focusing on howwe generate revenue.”

Executive deputy athletic director and chiefoperating ofﬁcer Julie Cromer will carry on as the overseer of the football team, but she’ll also be doing it alongside deputy AD and chief revenue ofﬁcerClay Harris,who has been tasked with being the point person for raising money for the football program.

Heath Schroyer —LSU’snew senior deputy AD and executive directorofexternalrelations for the LSU System, who was hired Thursday away from McNeese State —isthe new leadadministrator for the men’sbasketball team.

Schroyer was the athletic director at McNeese before arriving at LSU, and he hired Wade at McNeese in 2023.Ausberry is optimistic that Schroyer’sconnec-

LSU athletic director VergeAusberry talks about hiring Will Wade as coach of the men’sbasketball team duringanintroductorynews conference on Mondayatthe Pete Maravich Assembly Center

tions in southwestLouisianacan open up anew stream of revenue for the athleticdepartment.

“I think that’s thething Heath does, he brings alot of new money tous, anew donor pool to us,” Ausberry said. “It givesusthe southwest part of the state where he’s from …and (he) can work some angles down there that we haven’tbeenable to gettoina long time.”

Dan Gaston, the senior associate AD for facilities operations and events, will continue to overseebaseball, butLSU also hastaskeddeputyADand chief strategy ofﬁcer Zach Greenwell with leading the charge when it comes to raising NIL money for the program. Ausberry also noted that Mir-

iamSegar,seniorassociate AD and senior woman administrator, is supervising the women’sbasketball team.

“It’sgreat alignment.Itmakes my world easier,” Ausberry said. “Like Isaid, our new alignment in ourdepartment, thoseguys, you’re not going to ﬁnd themin that ofﬁce. Mostpeople are going to be on the street,mainly raising revenue.”

In addition to announcing the restructuring, Ausberry clariﬁed that each team’spiece of therevenue-sharing pie won’t change under the athletic department’s new structure, despiteLSU’srenewed investment in men’sbasketball.

Football still will receive 75% of the $20.5 million that LSU will

be allowed to directly spend on athletes, while men’sbasketball is set to get15%,women’s basketball willcollect 5% and the remainingsports will obtain the remaining 5% to share among them.

“We’re goingtobeout there beatingthe streets,”Ausberry said. “LSUisa charity.Like (Skip Bertman)used to say,LSU as an athletic department is acharity So that’sthe waywe’re looking at this.”

LSU’sdecision to hire Wade is thelatestchapter in the athletic department’srecent spending spree. It signed Wade to aterm sheet on Friday that locks him into aseven-year,$30 million contract. The program also paid a$4million buyout to get Wade released from his contract at NC State, and it owes roughly $8 million to former coach Matt McMahon. That spendingfollows theseven-year,$91 millioncontract LSU football handed out to Kifﬁn last winter,and the $54 million buyout theprogram is on the hook for to former coach BrianKelly

Those ﬁgures don’tinclude the money LSU hasspent, or is about to spend, on itsrosters forboth sports, or the moneyforked out to assistant coaches coming and going for football andmen’sbasketball.

“Myjob is to generate revenue forthe whole department,” Ausberry said. “And make sure this department is in alignment, the president’sofﬁce, the boardand everything else,(so)thatwewin in everysport.”

Email Koki Rileyatkoki.riley@ theadvocate.com. For more LSU sportsupdates,signupfor our newsletter at theadvocate. com/lsunewsletter

True Cinderella missingfrommen’s FinalFour

BY EDDIE PELLS Associated Press

All that talent at Arizona and Michigan. All that momentum and good vibesatUConn. And somebody has to play the part of the unheralded “little guy.” At the Final Four next weekend, that role belongs, improbably,to Illinois. In asign of the times, the Illinii —aBig Tenteam with more wins in the conference over the past seven seasons than any other program —will pass for something resembling Cinderella when college basketball’sbiggestparty kicks off in Indianapolis on Saturday The first challenge forcoach Brad Underwood’steamwill be stoppinga hard-charging UConn juggernaut that came from 19 points down and got agamewinner from the logo with 0.4 seconds left from an Indy native —Braylon Mullins —tomake its third Final Four in the past four years. The past two times the Huskies reached this point, they won the championship.

“It’saUConn culture, aUConn heart,” coach Dan Hurley said. “Webelieve we’resupposed to win this time of year.”

All these teams do. Arizona, led by Brayden Burries, and Michigan, with Yaxel Lendeborg, have up to nine NBA prospects between them.

The Wildcats opened as slight favorites —atplus-165 to win the championship, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.That was ashade ahead of the Wolverines who are plus-180 after their 95-62 romp over Tennessee on Sunday But, in one of afew strange twists on the odds chart, the Wildcatsare 11/2-point underdogs to Michigan in Saturdaynight’s marquee semiﬁnal, amatchup of No. 1seeds.

Illinois is a11/2-point favorite over UConn and, in reality,it’sthe Huskies, at plus-550, who are the biggest long shot in Indy Even so, the fact that Illinois the ﬂagship university in the na-

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ABBIEPARR

UConn forward Tarris Reed celebrates after theHuskies’ win against Duke in the EliteEight of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday in Washington.

tion’ssixth most populous state and aschool with an enrollment of nearly 60,000 —feelsmost like thisyear’sout-of-nowhere underdogspeaks more about the current state of college hoops than theIllini themselves. They are aNo. 3seed —the highest number at the FinalFour in twoyears.(UConn is a2.Last season, all four No. 1s made it.)

This year’s meeting of 1vs. 1 —Michigan vs. Arizona —isa heavyweight matchup of power teams from power conferences meetingwitheverything at stake.

It’safar cry from amere three yearsago,when mid-majors FloridaAtlantic(coached by Dusty May, whonow leads the Wolverines) and San Diego State crashed collegebasketball’sbiggest party Sincethen, NIL and the transferportal have reshaped the contoursofplayermovement, another spasm of realignmenthas made thebig conferences bigger (Arizona, now in the Big 12, was in the Pac-12 in 2023), and the highachieving underdogs whousedto makeMarch Madness what it is have gone into aslump. Double-digit seeds won atotal of ﬁve games in this tournament (not counting the play-in round).

Twoyears ago, they won 11 and sent oneteam (NC State) to the FinalFour.

Not surprisingly, Underwood the coach who landedonthe Illinois radara decadeago by coachingdouble-digit seed Stephen F. Austin to apair of upset wins in the tournament —views his program’s trip to theFinal Four more as destinythana once-in-alifetime story

It is, however,the ﬁrst trip for Illinois since2005, when it lost to North Carolina in the title game.

“I don’twant to sound arrogant,”saidUnderwood,whose teams have won96Big Tengames since2019-20, two morethanPurdue. “I’ve neverdoubted us getting to aFinal Fourwould happen. Ihavethought we have hadother teamscapable. ButI also know howdoggone hard it is to do it.”

The Big Tenknows all about this. Both Illinois andMichigan have achance to deliver atitle for the conference for the first time since Michigan State won it all in 2000.

Illinoisvs. UConn

TheIllini, ledbythe so-called “BalkanBloc” —a cohort of players with roots in Eastern Europe

Super Bowl heading back to LasVegas in 2029

LAS VEGAS

The Super Bowl will return to Las Vegas in 2029 for the second timeafter NFLowners votedMondaytoaward the nation’sgambling and entertainment capital the big game.

Las Vegas getting the Super Bowlback after Kansas City defeated San Francisco 25-22 in overtime in February 2024 seemed like only amatter of time. Commissioner Roger Goodell all but gave that possibility his blessing after the ﬁrst Super Bowl in a city the league long shunned because of concerns aboutlegalized sports betting.

“We’re excitedtobring theSuper Bowlback to Las Vegasand provide our fans another incredible experience in one of America’sgreatest sport and entertainment destinations,” Goodell said in astatement.

NBA Board of Governors approvessaleofBlazers

NEWYORK— The NBA Boardof Governors approved the sale of controlling interest in the Portland Trail Blazers from Paul Allen’sestate to agroupled by investor Tom Dundon on Monday

The league said in astatement it expects the deal to close this week. ESPN previously reported it was for $4 billion. In March, the Boston Celtics sold for$6.1 billion. Dundon’sgroup includes Portland-based Sheel Tyle,the co-founder of investment firm Collective Global; Marc Zahr,co-president of Blue Owl Capital; and the Cherng Family Trust, the family ofﬁce and investment ﬁrm of the co-founders of Panda Express. Earlierthis month, Dundon sold aportion of the NHL’sCarolina Hurricanes to three newminorityowners, atransaction reportedly worth $332.5 millionfor 12.5% of the team

Sun to be sold to Rockets owner,movetoHouston

The Connecticut Sun says it will move to Houston in 2027 after reaching an agreementtosellthe team to Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta in adeal worth arecord $300 million, according to aperson familiar with the sale.

The WNBA Board of Governors still needs to approve the sale and the move.

ä MEN’SFINAL FOUR No. 3Illinois vs. No. 2UConn, 5:09 P.M.

—haveapotential NBA lottery pickoftheir own in guard Keaton Wagler. Even so, the best-known name on the Illini rostermight be Andrej Stojakovic,whose father, Peja, was athree-time NBAAllStar.Illinoisisthe third school in threeyearsfor the younger Stojakovic,who spent oneseason at Stanford andanother at Calbefore joining Underwood’s crew

The task for Illinois: Figuring outwho to keyonacross aroster that has fiveplayers who averagedouble ﬁgures, led by Tarris Reed Michigan vs.Arizona

The Wildcats-Wolverines game is ahigh-powered matchup of programs that have shown there’s more thanone way to amass talent in the era of the unlimited transfer portal andbig-money name, image andlikeness deals.

Four of thefive starters for Tommy Lloyd’sWildcatsbegan their careers in Tucson; the ﬁfth, Big12player of theyear Jaden Bradley,moved over from Alabama and hasbeen withthe Wildcats forthree years.

Meanwhile,the topfour players in minutesplayedatMichigan— Lendeborg,Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara and Elliot Cadeau —all arrived from thetransfer portal.

In atwist thatmakes perfect sense these days, both coaches parlayed rootsinthe mid-majors to aspotonthe sport’sbiggest stage.Lloyd spentdecades as atop assistant for Mark Few at Gonzaga before heading to Arizona to rebuild theprogram after the ouster of Sean Millerin2021. May led FAUtothe FinalFour before heading to the Michigan program thathad thrived, then collapsed, underformer Fab Five star JuwanHoward

The team will playinConnecticutfor the upcoming season before moving to Houston and becoming the Comets again. This will end a23-year run by the team in NewEngland after the team moved to Connecticut from Orlando in 2003.

NC State reachesdeal with Vols assistant Gainey NC State has an agreement with Tennessee assistant coach and former Wolfpack player Justin Gainey to lead its men’s basketball program,aperson with knowledge of thesituation toldThe Associated Press on Monday

The deal requires approval by the school’sboard of trustees to becomeofficial, with trustees scheduling an emergency meeting forTuesday to “consider apersonnel matter.”

The school also said Mondaythat it would hold anewsconference forits next coach on Wednesday Gainey would replace Will Wade, wholasted just one season in Raleigh before leaving forLSU Gainey,49, served as the Volunteers’ associate head coach under Rick Barnes since the 2022-23 season, when he also took over as the team’s defensive coordinator

Northern Iowa’sJacobson hired as coachatUtah St. LOGAN, Utah— Utah Statehas hired longtime Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson to be itsmen’s basketball coach,the school announced Monday Jacobson, who agreed to aﬁveyear deal with the Aggies, succeedsJerrod Calhoun, who left to take over at Cincinnati.

Jacobson becomes the ﬁfth head coach in sevenseasonsatUtah State. He takes over aprogram that has reached the NCAA Tournament in four straight seasons. Jacobson spent20seasons at Northern Iowa andmadefive NCAA Tournamentappearances with the Panthers —highlighted by aSweet16appearance in 2010 as aNo. 9seed. He compiled a397259 recordatNorthernIowa and had aschool-record 31 wins in the 2014-15 season.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Wade previews plan fornextseason’sstaff,roster

BY TOYLOYBROWN III Staff writer

In one breath, Will Wade dropped aplayful quip about returning four years afterhewas ﬁred as the LSU men’sbasketball coach. Not long after,hebecamevery serious when discussing his goals in Baton Rouge.

“LSU and Louisiana deserve a winner,and that’swhat we’re going to deliver,and we’regoingto deliver that in short order,” Wade said at his introductory news conferenceonMonday at thePete Maravich AssemblyCenter

Making LSU aperennial winner is the focus for Wade, and he’ll get his shot when the transfer portal opens April 7. Before that, Wade will have to get afew assistant coaches, which he said will happen by next week. He also explained why he’snot abeliever in having a large coaching staff.

“Staffs havegotten so big now,” Wade said. “We’re not going to have the biggest staff in the world. Idon’twant to have100 people running around and walking on top of each other.But we’re going to have our shell recruiting staff in place here in hopefully by the ﬁrst of next week.” Wade didn’tmention any coaches whom he intends to hire. Once he gets his ﬁrst few assistants on staff, he said he’ll fill the other staffopenings in about six weeks.

Wade made it clearthathe’sessentially the “head coach and the general manager” at LSU right now,and any ﬁnal decision on who dons apurple-and-gold jersey will come from him.

“I’ll get input from everybody else, but it’sgoing to be me,” Wade said. “That’s my job as ahead coach. They’re not paying me all

RABALAIS

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afederal wiretap talking abouta “strong-ass offer” to arecruit to leaving NC State after just one season, reportedly via an email from his agent to the athletic director.He’shad to learn to live with opinions about him that Wade knows he helped createand likely never will change

“I long ago quit worryingabout my perception,” he said. “That part doesn’tbother me too much “I know people have beentalking about us alittle bit. Iunderstand. I’m not for everybody, and we understand that LSU isn’t for

WADE

Continued from page1C

that money to have other people make decisions on things. Ithink that I’m going to have aheavy hand in what we’re doing and decidingwho we take and what we do.”

Wade, who coached LSU (201722)tothree NCAA Tournament appearances in five seasons and an overall record of 105-51, said completinghis staff isn’tsome-

everybody. But one thingweboth understandisI’m forLSU and LSUisfor me. Make no mistake aboutthat.”

Those words go right to the heart ofwhat makes this Liz Taylor/Richard Burton rekindled romance between LSUand Wade work. LSU—already the home base of widely criticized coaches such as Lane Kifﬁnand Kim Mulkey —is comfortable playing the role of the villain. It’spractically apoint of pride. And Wade —who spent ﬁve tumultuous, NCAA-shrouded but fruitful seasons at LSU from 201722 —isthe point man for that. The poster child. If former football coach Les Miles wasthe MadHatter,Wade is the Black Hatter. He

thing he’sina rush to do.Hesaid he had182 text messages relating to people wantingtojoinhis staff the last time he checked his phone. LSU will be in thenationwide race to recruit players in the transfer portal starting next Tuesday Wade said that he’s hadconversationsabout thebudgetfor players withthe LSUathletic administration, naming athletic director

embodiesthe “Wedidn’tcome here to be liked, we came here to winand drink allyourbeer”ethos that the LSU fan base lapsup. Wade admitted he neverthought he’d getasecondchanceatLSU Now that he hasone,hesaid part of theequation for himisgiving back to theschool that gave him his ﬁrst big career break.Aschool that is doubling down on himtodo it againand even do it better

“I’ve neverconnected with a fan base andwith people likeI have with LSUand Louisiana,” Wade said. “I feel like we left the book open alittle bit. We left some chapters unﬁnished.

“Tohavethe opportunity to come back andﬁnish that off and to bring pride andjoy to people

Verge Ausberry,president Wade

Rousse and senior deputy athletic director and executive director of external relations forthe LSU SystemHeath Schroyer,who he reports to directly

Wade said he wasinstructed to craftaroster that allows LSU to win.

“It’sspend until you feel like you have agood enough team to com-

that Icareabout and people that mean alot to me,yeah, Ifeel a heavyburden towards that. That’s abig reason Icameback.

“I’m excited to represent LSU andLouisiana again.”

If you’re notfrom Louisiana, if you don’tunderstand the place and itspeople, you probably can’tunderstand why Wade and LSU ﬁt so well together Iran into Tasmin Mitchell an LSU basketball great who grew up and became ahigh school legend just across the Amite River from Baton Rouge in Denham Springs —onmyway into the PMAC on Monday Mitchell was an assistant coach and director of player personnel on now former LSU

pete in the SEC,” Wade said. It was reported by The Athletic that LSU can spend “at least $12 millionto$15 million —between revenue-sharing and NIL —on player payroll.”

Wade predicts the total cost of players in his ﬁrst season will be higherthaninfuture yearsbecause most of the roster will come from the portal.

“We’re going to have to go get abunch of newplayers, and the new players and the good players cost,” he said. “They ain’tcheap.

“The ﬁrst year,yeah, there may be some sticker shock, but we’ve got agood plan.”

Wade has conﬁdence that once aplayerisatLSU, he’llhavean easier timeretaining them

Threeplayers fromlastyear’s roster already intend to enter the transfer portal: guards Dedan Thomas andRon Zipper, andforward Jalen Reed. There are six remainingplayers on the team witheligibility, including freshman point guard Jalen Reece, who was in attendanceatWade’s news conference.

Wade said he’shad one-on-one meetings with “ﬁve or six” players. In those sessions, he brought up hisexperience coachingformerLSU player and second-round NBA draft pickSkylarMays, who stayed withthe program after his initialcoach,JohnnyJones, was ﬁred.

“Those conversationswillcontinue,” Wade said. “We’re going to support theguys,whatever they want to do.Iftheywantto stay here at LSU, we’re going to support them and find arole forthem. And if they want to go somewhereelse, we’re going to support them in that as well.”

coach Matt McMahon’sstaff. His future with his almamater is, obviously,now muchindoubt. Wade was asked about whether he would have astaff assembled in time for the April 7opening of the transfer portal window, an essential building block for Wade’sﬁrst second-time-around team, but his answer was noncommittal.

Although Mitchell’sown future is uncertain, his thoughts on the hire were deﬁnitive.

“They got the right guy for the job,” Mitchell said of Wade. “You can quote me on that.”

That tells you alot about this LSU-Will Wade thing.

“Spread the word around.

Guess who’sback in town?”

past at LSU. He said theLSU jerseyhewas given to takeapicture with, which had the No. 26 to signify theyearofhis return, should also have No. 22 since that’swhen his ﬁrst stint ended.

UL BASEBALL

Continued from page1C along time. Really,what’stoday, Monday? It really pretty much kicked into gearonWednesdayof last week. That was pretty much whenthe ﬁrst contactwas made, and that was when theprocess started. But because of everybody’sfamiliarity with each other, it moved pretty quick.”

appearances in ﬁveseasons, with an overall record of 105-51 and a Southeastern Conference record of 56-33. Wade doesn’tforesee it taking long to return the basketball program back to where he feels it shouldbe: competing fornational titles.

Ausberry saidWadewas the only coachthe university targeted and spoke to about the position Wade previously led LSU (201722) to three NCAA Tournament

“We’re goingtobuild awinning program, and we’re going to build this thing quick,” Wade said.“This is not something that’s going to take long. We’re coming back to try to hang abanner,win anational championshiporI’m going to be the ﬁrst coach ﬁredfrom the same school twice.”

Wade didn’t shyaway fromhis

SAINTS

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and 6-6 in Southland play.McNeese is expected to start sophomore lefthanderBrady Corcoran, who is0-1 with an 8.49 ERA over 11 appearances. In 112/3 innings, he has allowed 14 hits, six walks and struck out 13. Like UL, the Cowboys’ lineup hasn’tfound its stride yet, batting .257 as ateamwith179 runs,21 homers and 46 steals in 28 games. It’s an interesting time for UL to have agame without Deggs running the show.Herevealed after Sunday’swin that his Sunday morning “baseball school” session washighlighted by him accepting some blame for UL’s recent struggles.

“I think we got to acertain level, andthen I’m wantingmoreand I’m wanting to put this in and this in and we’re not ready forthat,” Deggs said. “I relieved them with some of that (Sunday morning) andtookalot of theblame and that’sﬁne. That’smyjob.

“If I’m demanding toomuchor don’thave you in agood headspace, that’sonme. At theend of the day,asa leader or acoach or teacher,whatever it is, adad, doesn’tmatter.You’ve got to understand the personality of your ballclub.”

Saints “love” Kamara and thathe means “the world to us.”

But in those sentences, therewas enough vagueness and caveatsto leave an out that makes Kamara’s return far froma guarantee.

Moore said there is afull “process” to go through this offseason, withoutprovidingany clarity on what that process entails. And though he mentioned that Kamara was on the roster,hesaiditina way that left open thepossibility that it could change.

Moore was even asked whether anything had changedwith the running back since the coach last spoke to reporterstwo weeks earlier, when he was far more vague about the situation.

“No,”Mooresaid. “No, we haven’t(talked).”

The endresultadded anew layer of confusion, onethe Saints seem content to string along. The Saints, to be fair, don’thave to make adecision now.Mandatory minicamp —let alone training camp and the start of the season —ismonths away.Kamaraalso has abig say in his future if he decides to retire

But Tuesday was not Moore doing a180 in the way he once did with DerekCarr.

For those that don’trecall, Moore

Oneword that was repeated by multiple people Mondaywas “alignment ”Rousse connected the success Wade had at McNeese with what he believeswill occurat LSU.Wade led McNeese (2023-25) to regular-season andSouthland Conference Tournament championshipstoearnanNCAATournament berth in each of histwo seasons there.

“The way Ilook at this is what we had at McNeese, we did it on a

regional scale,” Wade said. “We cantake that same formula with more resources and moresupport just because of theﬁnancial aspect of it all …and movethat to LSU, andwecan make us a national force.”

There’salso alignment from the notion Wade simply ﬁtsLouisiana culture with his spirit and attitude.

“I understand, I’m not for everybody,and we understand also that LSU isn’tfor everybody,” Wade said. “Butone thing we both understand is I’m for LSU and LSU is for me, and make no mistake about that.

“This is home. Iwasn’tbornin Louisiana, but Louisiana is home

was equally noncommittal about the quarterback’s future when Moorewas hiredbythe Saintsin February2025. Then, weekslater at the combine, Moore was seemingly on board withCarr.

“Wefeel fortunate to have Derek here,” he saidback then. (The Saints’ plans obviously changed when Carr later retired thatoffseason)

Until then,Kamara’sfuture remains up in the air.The saga continues evenafter theSaintstook measures to addressthe 30-yearold’scontract. Earlierthis month, New Orleans used acreative accounting trick anda little-known salary-cap rule to alter Kamara’s cap hit rather than aconventional restructure. Themovelowered

Kamara’s cap hit to $10.4 million and cleared $8 millionincap space. But then the Saints signedEtienne and new questions emerged. ESPN, for instance, reported that teams wondered whether the Saints would be open to trading Kamara, while the NFL Network reportedothers wondered whether Kamara could retire. As of now, theSaintshavethe mostsalary-cap dollars and overall cash committed to their running backs across the NFL in 2026. NewOrleans structured Etienne’s four-year,$52 million contract in away that makes the ﬁrst year of his cap hit ($5 million) palatable. Would having Etienne andKamarabemanageable if

for me and my family.”

Wade said he wants to bring joy back to thePMAC andnot have the men’sbasketball programbe a“stopgap” between football and baseball seasons.

“Wehave alot of work to do, but Ipromise youwe’regoing to get this programback to theNCAA Tournament and back to the top of the SEC in short order,” he said. “I’m honored to be your coach and represent this state and this great school. It’sthe honor of alifetime to be back.

“You neverget secondchances in life, but we get one here and we’re going to make this better than the ﬁrst time.”

they were both on the books for $16 million —$2millionlessthan Kamara’soriginal cap hit for 2026? Even then, Kamara is coming off the worst season of his career, and it’sworth wondering whether he can bounceback.Hehad career lows in severalcategories —including rushing yards (472) and yards per attempt (3.6) —and missedthe ﬁnal six games because of knee and ankle injuries. It’salso fair to wonderabout how Kamarawillco-exist with Etienne. Kamara, to his credit, hasbeen at his best whenhe’shad another legitimate threat to managethe workload. But Etienne and Kamara share similarskills, particularly in how they can be afactor in the passing game.

On that front, Moore was willing to acknowledge thathealready had envisioned how the two could complement each other “Both of them obviously have the explosive, elusive ability to playinall threephases, which is beneﬁcial,” Moore said. “I feel like our running back room is areally healthy room right now,with just the depth and the experience and all the guys that are in there.” Pick apart Moore’swords close enough, and even that might have containeda caveat.Right now? Does that mean the room is subject to change?

The lack of concrete answers just widens the guessing game.

STAFF FILE PHOTOByDAVID GRUNFELD

Saints running back Alvin Kamara goes down during the ﬁrst half of the game againstthe Atlanta Falcons at the Caesars Superdome on Nov. 23.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU presidentWade Rousse, left, and athletic directorVerge Ausberry,right, holdawin bar as they introduce newmen’s basketball coach Will Wade during anewsconference on Mondayatthe Pete MaravichAssembly Center

Is your citrus tree still alive—or just therootstock?

All

or two of

peratures in the teens to wipe out an unprotected citrus crop, especially in the case of cultivars that are more sensitive to the cold, young trees and those in containers With spring —and warmer weather —upon us, you may be noticing new growth sprouting from acitrus tree that sustained damage this winter.It’s important to ﬁgure out whether these shootsare coming from the citrus cultivar you wanttogrow or the rootstock. Aquick lesson on graftingis in order.The vast majorityof modern citrus trees are grafted, which means asection of wood from adesirablecultivar, called ascion, is cut and joined with aseparate species known as rootstock.

PROVIDED PHOTO

The fruit of trifoliate orangetrees tends to have alot of seeds

This creates anew tree —one that produces fruitonthe scion wood on top and that has ahardy,more vigorous root system. Rootstock allows citruscultivars like lemons, oranges, satsumas and kumquats tobetter thrive in our climate and handle other stresses such as diseases. While most kindsof citrus are stillquite vulnerable in cold temperatures,they’d be even less hardy if grown on their own roots. Rootstock also canhelp maximize the quality and quantity of fruit.

Trifoliate orange (Citrustrifoliata) is one of the most common rootstock species used in the citrus trade. Flying Dragon (Poncirus trifoliata ‘Flying Dragon’) is popular for dwarf citrus trees.

ä See TREE, page 6C

‘Tea

‘TEA PARTY HATS’

“Tea PartyHats: TheLouise FertittaCollection” in conjunction with ‘Finding Alice: Artists Exploring Wonderland featuring Abelardo Morell.’ WHEN: April11-May24. Hours are10a.m.-4:30 p.m.Tuesdaythrough Saturday and 2-5 p.m.Sunday. l WHERE: West Baton RougeMuseum,845 N. Jefferson Ave., Port Allen l ADMISSION: $4, adults; $2, seniors, military,students. l VISIT: westbatonrougemuseum.org

Teatimebegins onApril 11 when theWestBaton RougeMuseum opensits exhibitof‘TeaParty Hats’

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

The hats won’tbe on exhibit in time for Easter,but that wouldn’thavemattered to Louise Fertitta. She didn’tneed aholiday to dictatewhen she would or could wear ahat

“She would always have ahat on when Isaw her,” saidLauren Davis,curator of the West BatonRouge Museum. “And everyone who knew her,knew about her hats.”

The museum is opening “Tea Party Hats: TheLouise Fertitta Collection,” on April 11. The exhibit, asampling of the late PortAllen resident’shat collection of hundreds, will coincide

PROVIDED PHOTO FROM THE WEST BATONROUGE MUSEUM

Late Port Allen businesswoman

Louise Fertitta was knownfor wearingadifferent hat every day. She ownedhundreds of them and donatedalarge selection of her collectionto theWest Baton RougeMuseum.

with themuseum’straveling exhibit, “Finding Alice: Artists Exploring Wonderland featuring Abelardo Morell,” which ä See HATS, page 6C

‘Tea

BY MADDIE SCOTT Staff writer

STAFF PHOTO By ROBIN MILLER

Samples of hats from the West Baton RougeMuseum’sLouise Fertitta Collection are set outinpreparation for installation of the exhibit,

PartyHats: TheLouise Fertitta Collection,’openingApril 11.

STAFFPHOTO By ROBIN MILLER

The West Baton RougeMuseum’s

PartyHats’ will coincide with its exhibit ‘Finding Alice: Artists Exploring Wonderland featuring Abelardo Morell.

By The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, March 31, the 90th day of 2026. There are 275 days left in the year

Today in history:

On March 31, 1968, at the conclusion of a nationally broadcast address on Vietnam, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned listeners by declaring, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.”

Also on this date:

In 1492, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain issued the Alhambra Decree, an edict expelling Jews from Spanish soil, except those willing to convert to Christianity In 1854, Japan and the United States signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened two Japanese ports to American vessels and marked the beginning of Japan’s transition away from isolationism.

DINING

Continued from page 5C

noodles, ramen, chicken wings, dumplings, pig ears and more.

DiGiulio Brothers

Italian Cafe

n 2903 Perkins Road

Since opening in 1987, this restaurant has served pizza, pastas, sandwiches, soups, salads and desserts.

Its outdoor patio area was renovated in September 2025 to add mahogany French doors, red umbrellas and greenery The doors can be propped open on days with beautiful weather, and this sunroom area also has air conditioning units and TVs.

Drago’s Seafood

Restaurant

n 10111 Perkins Road

The Louisiana-born seafood restaurant reopened its Baton Rouge location in August 2025, and the covered front patio overlooks Perkins Rowe’s Town Square. On nights when there’s live music in the square, this patio can feel like dinner and a show

The menu features dishes like their signature charbroiled oysters, Fleur de Lis Shrimp, gator tacos, gumbo and crawﬁsh étouffée.

SoLou

n 2112 Perkins Palm Ave

This restaurant has a large outdoor patio with views of winding oak tree branches and green landscaping. Lounge on the cushioned patio furniture with a beverage or sit at the table and share an appetizer with friends. The menu includes soups, salads, burgers, sandwiches and plates like chicken and wafﬂes, chili glazed salmon and fettuccine Alfredo.

Modesto Tacos Tequila and Whiskey n 3930 Burbank Drive, Baton Rouge

Last year, Modesto expanded into the Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux test kitchen to open its “Mezcaleria,” but if it’s nice out, the patio is where it’s at Try the wide range of tacos on Tuesdays, when the restaurant offers $4 tacos and $10 dip trios There are also enchiladas, fajitas, a smash burger and tortas on the menu. Try the brunch menu on Saturday and Sunday, which features huevos rancheros, steak and eggs,

In 1889, the Eiffel Tower in Paris opened for dignitaries; at 1,024 feet, it was the world’s tallest building (the tower would open to the public the following May) In 1931, Notre Dame college football coach Knute Rockne, 43, was killed in the crash of a TWA plane near Bazaar, Kansas. In 1993, actor Brandon Lee, 28, was accidentally shot to death during the ﬁlming of a movie in Wilmington, North Carolina, when he was hit by a bullet fragment that had become lodged inside a prop gun In 1995 Tejano music star Selena, 23, died after being shot by Yolanda Saldívar, the president of Selena’s fan club, who was found to have been embezzling money from the singer (Saldívar was later convicted of ﬁrstdegree murder and sentenced to life in prison.)

In 2004, four U.S civilian contractors were killed by Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq; frenzied crowds then

breakfast tacos and apple empanadas.

Magpie Cafe n 3205 Perkins Road

This Mid City coffee shop has a quaint outdoor patio packed with greenery and plants. Some of the potted plants are usually for sale, too.

Grab some coffee from their new spring menu or a breakfast sandwich, quiche or frittata. The wide assortment of pastries include gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan options.

Barracuda Taco Stand n 2504 Government St., Baton Rouge

This New Orleans-born taco chain has outdoor seating with plenty of shady, covered spots to cool off over tacos, chips and dips or a bowl. At night, the glow from the string lights bring a warm energy, great for a nighttime taco and margarita pairing with friends.

Poor Boy Lloyd’s n 201 Florida St

This longtime po-boy restaurant has been sitting beside the Mississippi River since 1967. In fact, the menu has around 20 different poboys as well as other Louisiana dishes like red beans and rice, fried pickles and seafood plates. The bulk of the seating is inside, but on beautiful days, the few umbrella-covered patio tables in front of the restaurant let customers feel the breeze and gaze at the river

Luna Cocina n 3109 Perkins Road

This modern Mexican restaurant has a covered rooftop bar and lounge, serving drinks, tacos, salads, chips and dips and Tex-Mex. At night, the rooftop glows from the stringed lights, offering a cozy atmosphere under the night sky.

BRQ

n 10423 Jefferson Highway

BRQ’s outdoor patio, The Backyard, features a full outdoor bar and seating options in both shade and sun with outdoor fans to cool

dragged the burned, mutilated bodies and hanged two of them from a bridge.

In 2005, Terri Schiavo, 41, died at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed in a wrenching court battle that began in 1998.

In 2022, scientists announced they had ﬁnished fully sequencing the human genome, the full genetic blueprint for human life. Today’s birthdays: Actor William Daniels is 99. Actor Shirley Jones is 92. Musician-producer Herb Alpert is 91. Actor Christopher Walken is 83. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, is 82. Former Vice President Al Gore is 78. Actor Rhea Perlman is 78. Rock musician Angus Young (AC/DC) is 71. Hockey Hall of Famer Pavel Bure is 55. Actor Ewan McGregor is 55. Actor Brian Tyree Henry is 44. Filmmaker Chloé Zhao is 44. Musician-producer Jack Antonoff is 42. Singersongwriter Dounia is 29.

customers off. The menu features barbecue, seafood, sandwiches, salads and daily lunch specials

Frankie’s Dawg House

n 2318 Cedardale Ave

This gourmet hot dog spot serves hot dogs, burgers and fries. There’s also a small bar serving drinks. Arguably, the main dining area is technically inside, but the rustic ambiance gives a shack-like sunroom kind of vibe, still great for enjoying spring’s weather Plus, there are some picnic benches that are actually outside in front of the restaurant.

Mid City Beer Garden

n 3808 Government St., Baton Rouge

The open-concept beer garden is the perfect place to enjoy nice weather, not to mention the extensive beer and cocktail menus. The food menu includes everything from cheese fries to gumbo to blackened chicken Alfredo and bread pudding.

Pelican to Mars

n 2678 Government St., Baton Rouge

The neighborhood bar, Pelican to Mars, always has an array of events on its patio. From silent book club to trivia nights to outdoor live music, grab a cocktail or mocktail and enjoy it all in the great outdoors. The food truck in the parking lot often hosts rotating vendors, including Louisiana Sandwich Co. In the mornings, grab a coffee from House Brew, located inside the bar

The Chimes Restaurant & Tap Room n 3357 Highland Road, Baton Rouge

This restaurant has served patrons for more than 25 years, and the rooftop dining area offers a great atmosphere for some beer, spinach and artichoke dip and a fried shrimp po-boy Both reservations and walkins are welcome.

Tsunami n 100 Lafayette St., Baton Rouge

Many will argue that Tsunami’s outdoor dining area on the roof of the Shaw Center for the Arts offers the best views of the Mississippi River and downtown Baton Rouge.

The restaurant focuses on sushi with Japanese and Eastern ﬂare while marrying it to Southern roots.

Features coordinator Lauren Cheramie contributed to this report.

HATS

Continued from page 5C

opened on March 21. Both shows will run through May 24.

Alice and the Mad Hatter

“We were thinking about Alice and the Mad Hatter’s tea party, and we knew the hats would be a perfect ﬁt,” Davis said.

Fertitta donated a large selection of her hat collection to the museum before her death in 2020. She was the owner of Louise’s Flower Shop in Port Allen and a member of several West Baton Rouge Parish charitable and social organizations. She also served as the queen of Port Allen’s Good Friends of the Oaks Mardi Gras Parade.

But the community nicknamed her the “Queen of Port Allen” because of her hats.

“I don’t know the exact number of hats that she had,” Davis said. “I’m not sure she knew I just know there were hundreds and hundreds Some of the hats belonged to her mother and maybe even her grandmother They gave their hats to her, and she continued collecting hats.”

Some date back well into the early 20th century

Some may be older

“She didn’t know which one was the oldest,” Davis said “But the sweet thing about this story is before her death, she gave her hats to women in the community who wanted them, along with family members and, of course, the museum.”

Never the same hat

Legend has it Fertitta was never seen in the same hat twice.

The exhibit will be a mix of hats from the museum’s collection and some on loan from family and friends. Davis has begun sorting through the hats to choose which ones will be displayed in the museum’s Brick Gallery

And Davis is right about this show being the perfect complement to the “Alice in Wonderland” theme in its main gallery Alice did, indeed, sit down to a tea party with the Mad Hatter, so tea and hats seem to be a natural match.

Visitors can walk through the “Tea Party Hats” show before moving to the main gallery to see the Mad Hatters’ tea party in “Finding Alice,” which is being toured through Mid-America Arts Alliance’s Exhibits USA national touring exhibition program

“Finding Alice” spotlights artist Abelardo Morell’s photographic compilations incorporating Lewis Carroll’s illustrations to tell Alice’s story

“So, all of the art on the walls is as Morell’s, and then we borrowed a couple of Walter Anderson’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ pieces from the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs for this show,” Davis said.

One of the Anderson pieces depicts the Mad Hatter’s tea party, where he and Alice are joined by the March Hare and sleeping Dormouse to celebrate 364 unbirthdays at a table where it’s always 6 p.m. — tea time.

“We also include ‘Alice in Wonderland’ books with illustrations by a variety of artists from all over the world,” Davis said. “So, you’ll see some books in different languages. And as for Morell, I think he was ﬁrst inspired by his daughter and her resemblance to Alice. It wasn’t necessarily a physical resemblance but one of curiosity as she grew up. He later did another series during COVID, and the story resonated with him during that time because we were living in this kind of upside down, topsy-turvy world.”

Which makes sense when considering how Alice had to reach Wonderland by way of a rabbit hole.

Carroll’s original title for Alice’s journey was “Alice’s Adventures Under

Continued

Ground.”

Hats for all occasions

Visitors don’t have to dive into a rabbit hole to experience the West Baton Rouge Museum’s Wonderland, nor are they required to adhere to the Mad Hatters’ speciﬁed tea time while mingling among the tea party hats. In fact, they can look beyond tea parties when it comes to the hats. After all, the Kentucky Derby, with its over 150-year hat tradition, is coming up on May 6, and spring weddings are already in play

“Louise didn’t need a reason to wear her hats, but sometimes she wore some that were more costumey,” Davis said. “She wore purple, green and gold hats at Mardi Gras.”

She had Easter hats, too.

“And she had some funny hats,” Davis said. “She had one with a little $1.98 price tag that she called her Minnie Pearl hat.” Minnie Pearl, whose real name was Sarah Ophelia Colley, was a comedian who gained fame on the Grand Ole Opry The trademark piece in her country girl dress attire was a flowertopped straw hat with a dangling price tag.

“We don’t have that hat in our collection, but her son sent me a photo of her in that hat the other day,” Davis said. “The show will include several photos of Louise in her hats.”

Fertitta’s friends called her “Weez,” and some of those friends even honored her by wearing their own hats.

“She would often come to a lot of the museum’s exhibit openings, always wearing a hat,” Davis said. “I knew her from being in West Side Women’s Club, which was kind of an educational-social group for women. We had a special tea party for her one year, and everybody wore a hat in honor I can say that she was a beloved member of the community.”

Email Robin Miller at romiller@theadvocate. com.

PROVIDED PHOTO By WEST BATON ROUGE MUSEUM

Louise Fertitta owned hundreds of hats and wore a different one every day. The Port Allen resident donated a large selection of her hats to the West Baton Rouge Museum before her death in 2020. The museum will open an exhibit of the hats on April 11.

STAFF PHOTO By MADDIE SCOTT Pork bowl from Barracuda Taco Stand

ARIEs (March 21-April 19) Take a moment, breathe deeply, relax your mind and body and rethink your next move. Start with baby steps and adjust as you go.

tAURUs (April 20-May 20) Whatever you choose to reveal will impact your life, work and friendships. An unexpected change will turn out to be more advantageous than you anticipate.

GEMInI (May 21-June 20) The people you meet will offer insight and connections to those who can help you further your agenda. Don't sit idle when you have some bridges to burn and others to build.

cAncER (June 21-July 22) Beopen,discuss the possibilities and rely on experts and the facts and figures. Participation will reconnect you to the people and things that make a difference to you.

LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) Take a walk and consider the changes you can make and the outcomes that will follow. Your relationships will be tested if you let divisiveness interfere.

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Seize of any chance you get to move ahead. Refuse to let self-doubt or competition stop you from giving your all and pursuing your dreams. Show passion, desire and the will to come out on top.

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) Too much of anything will weigh you down. Shed your burdens and focus on what you can achieve. Believe you can do it, and

you'll convince the powers-that-be to support your efforts.

scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Let your mind wander, listen to what others say and pick what works best for you. Combining all the skills you have accumulated will help you make a splash.

sAGIttARIUs (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Get your papers, finances and health in order Start discussions that can help regulate how you run your personal and business interests. Try your best in all things.

cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Deception will result in confusion. Observation, research and forging an authentic path forward are the way to go for you today. Monitor your time, money and health to avoid shortcomings.

AQUARIUs (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Take better care of yourself. Protect, prepare and promote what you want to achieve, and turn your thoughts into a reality. Out with the old and in with the new.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Indulge in something that puts a smile on your face and makes you look and feel your best. Get active, have some fun and include loved ones in your interests.

Andrews McMeel Syndication

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

toDAy's cLUE: s EQUALs G

CeLebrItY CIpher

For better or For WorSe

And erneSt

SALLY Forth

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

SherMAn’S LAGoon

bIG

Sudoku

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

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

THewiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

Bridge

By PHILLIP ALDER

George Orwell claimed, “One does not establish adictatorshipinorder to safeguard arevolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish adictatorship.”

At the bridge table, one sometimes establishesawinner in order to safeguardacontract —asinthis deceptive deal. Southreaches four hearts. What shouldhedoafterWestleads the diamond king?

North’s three-diamond jump-cue-bid belowthreeofpartner’ssuitwasaMixed Raise.Itshowedfour-cardheartsupport, 7-9 high-card points and nine losers: a hand too good for apre-emptive jumpraise to three hearts and tooweak for a game-invitational two-diamond cue-bid raise.

Theoriginal South wonwithhis diamond ace, drew trumps and played a spade to dummy’s 10. East wonwithhis jack and returned adiamond. Declarer ruffedand took asecond failing spade finesse. Later, he losttwo club tricks to go down one.

Agreed, it was unlucky that all four key cards were offside, but South could have survived. After drawing trumps, declarer should have attacked clubs. Westwouldhavewonwithhisqueenand shiftedtoaspade, but South wouldhave takenafinesse.Eastwouldhavewonand led back adiamond.South would have ruffedand played the club king.

West could have won this trick or the next and ledaspade, but declarer would havewonwithdummy’saceanddiscardeddummy’slastspadeonhisfourthclub. Then, finally, Southwould have ruffed his third spade. He would have taken one spade, five hearts, one diamond, two clubs and that spade ruff on the board. ©2026 by NEA,Inc., dist. By

Andrews McMeel Syndication

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

Previous answers:

word game

InstRUctIons: 1.

Average mark16words Time

kom-BUSTS: Burns.

Can you find 21 or morewords in COMBUSTS?

today’s thought

“Unless your law had been my delights, Ishould then have perished in my affliction.” Psalms 119:92

wuzzles

loCKhorNs

God’s Word cansee us through the toughestoftimes. G.E. Dean

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C.

PiCKles

mallard fillmore

BRIEFS

FROM WIRE REPORTS

Stocks swing through another shaky day

NEW YORK U.S. stocks swung Monday as oil prices kept climbing because of uncertainty about when the war with Iran could end.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.4% and deepened its loss since the war began to pull 9.1% below its record set early this year

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 49 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.7%.

Caution was prevalent throughout ﬁnancial markets. After jumping to an initial gain of 0.9%, the S&P 500 quickly erased nearly all of it before seesawing lower Stock indexes rose in Europe but fell sharply in some Asian markets, while the price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 3.3% to settle at $102.88

The mixed movements followed a whirlwind of action in the war over the weekend, including an entry into the ﬁghting by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Shortly before the U.S stock market opened for trading Monday, President Donald Trump said on his social media network that “great progress has been made” with “A NEW AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran.”

But he also threatened the possibility of “blowing up and completely obliterating” Iranian power plants if a deal is not reached shortly and if the Strait of Hormuz, an integral waterway for the ﬂow of oil, is not opened immediately.

Sysco to buy Restaurant Depot in $29B deal

NEW YORK Sysco, the nation’s largest food distributor, will acquire supplier Restaurant Depot in a deal worth more than $29 billion.

The acquisition would create a closer link between Sysco and its customers, who right now turn to Restaurant Depot for supplies needed quickly in an industry segment known as “cash-and-carry wholesale.”

Sysco, based in Houston, serves more than 700,000 restaurants, hospitals, schools and hotels, supplying them with everything from butter and eggs to napkins.

Those goods are typically acquired ahead of time based on how much trafﬁc restaurants typically see. Restaurant Depot offers memberships to mom-and-pop restaurants and other businesses, giving them access to warehouses stocked with supplies for when they run short of what they’ve purchased from suppliers like Sysco.

It is a fast-growing and highmargin segment that will likely mean thousands of restaurants will rely increasingly on Sysco for day-to-day needs.

Restaurant Depot shareholders will receive $21.6 billion in cash and 91.5 million Sysco shares. Based on Sysco’s closing share price of $81.80 as of March 27, the deal has an enterprise value of about $29.1 billion.

Air Canada CEO to retire following crash

TORONTO Air Canada announced Monday its CEO will retire later this year after Michael Rousseau was criticized for his English-only message of condolence following this month’s deadly crash in New York.

Canada’s largest airline, based in French-speaking Quebec, said Rousseau told the board he will leave by the end of the third quarter Canada is an ofﬁcially bilingual nation, and Prime Minister Mark Carney said Rousseau’s decision to retire is “appropriate.” “It is essential that the next CEO of Air Canada is bilingual,” Carney said. Carney had said the Englishonly message showed a lack of compassion and judgment. Quebec’s premier and others called on the airline executive to resign.

that they have

BY MICHAEL CASEY Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Federal Re-

serve Chair Jerome Powell said Monday that it is important to closely monitor inflation amid a spike in energy prices from the Iran war Powell, who spoke before nearly 400 students at Harvard University as gas prices inched toward an average of $4 per gallon in the U.S., said there wasn’t a lot Fed policymakers could do since energy shocks “tend to come and

go pretty quickly” and monetary maneuvers work over the longerterm. But a series of energy shocks, nevertheless, could be concerning.

“You have to carefully monitor inﬂation expectations because you could have a series of big supply shocks and that can lead, you know, the public generally, businesses, price setters, households to start expecting higher inflation over time. Why wouldn’t it?” Powell said. In wide-ranging remarks, Powell acknowledged young graduates were entering a challenging job market. He noted the role of artiﬁ-

cial intelligence and that while employment is historically low, there is very little job creation right now The U.S. job market has been lackluster for the past year Employers added fewer than 10,000 jobs a month in 2025 — the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002. This year began with a strong 126,000 new jobs in January but the United States whipsawed to 92,000 job losses the following month. Economists refer to a low-hire, low-ﬁre job market in which companies are hesitant to add staff but don’t want to let go of the workers

That’s made it especially hard for young people to ﬁnd employment.

There’s some concern that artiﬁcial intelligence is taking over entry-level work that previously would have gone to young jobseekers, or that companies are reluctant to make hiring decisions until they better understand how they are going to use AI. Powell said he was optimistic over the medium- to long-term, noting that history has shown that technological innovations have repeatedly raised living standards and increased production. Largelanguage models, he said, make people, including himself, more productive.

BY DEE-ANN DURBIN and MATT SEDENSKY AP business writers

Leslie Sherman-Shafer, an Uber driver in the San Francisco Bay Area, likes to start each shift with a full tank of gas. It used to cost her around $25 to fill up her Toyota Corolla. She’s spent closer to $40 since the Iran war began and pushed up the average U.S. price for a gallon of regular gasoline by $1. Sherman-Shafer, a retired dental office assistant who picks up Uber passengers five days a week, said she’s putting in extra hours to cover the difference.

“We don’t get reimbursed for gas. We rely on the generosity of the tip,” Sherman-Shafer said. Some passengers have tipped more to compensate for higher gas prices, but most don’t tip at all, she said.

Driving a car, van or truck is a big part of many Americans’ workdays Nearly 27% of civilian workers cited driving as a physical demand of their jobs last year, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics Millions of drivers use personal vehicles for their work, from delivery and ride-share providers like Sherman-Shafer to self-employed electricians, nannies, home health care aides and real estate agents.

As the war enters a ﬁfth week and continues to disrupt global oil supplies, many of those workers are now scrambling to make ends meet. The national average price for gas reached $3.99 per gallon on Monday, up 34% from a month earlier, according to AAA.

“With everything going up, it’s impossible to save a dime,” Sherman-Shafer said.

Some companies compensate employees for using their own vehicles, including the cost of gas. In the U.S., the Internal Revenue Service sets a standard mileage rate every year that businesses and private contractors can use to calculate tax deductions Alpine Maids, a housekeeping company based in Denver, pays cleaners the 2026 federal reimbursement rate of 72.5 cents per mile for the distance they drive to clients’ homes.

But with gas prices spiking, that money is not going as far said Chris Willatt, a former geologist who now runs Alpine Maids.

“Our maids drive their own cars, so it’s kind of like their paycheck got smaller,” Willatt said “They’re all upset.”

Willatt said he reduced how often maids must report to the ofﬁce, from daily to once a

week, and rejiggered cleaning assignments so employees aren’t driving as far between clients If gas prices climb further, he said he might increase what he charges customers so he can pay workers more.

Molly Keneﬁck, the owner of Doggy Lama Pet Care Inc. in Oakland, California, said she recently raised her gas reimbursement rate to 80 cents per mile for 15 employees who use their own vehicles to pick up dogs and take them for hikes around the Bay Area. The rate increase will stay in place until gas prices in their area drop below $5 for at least a month, she said.

Keneﬁck said she planned to raise prices for the company’s services in May But she doesn’t want to increase them too much because she’s worried she’ll lose clients So Keneﬁck is also dipping into her savings to pay for gas.

“The economy is hard for people Everybody’s under strain,” she said. “I can take some of the load and the company can take some of the load, provided this doesn’t go on too long.”

Ride-hailing and food delivery platforms that rely on gig workers don’t reimburse drivers for gas, but some are offering temporary incentives in response to rising gas prices. DoorDash, Uber, Lyft and Instacart are providing more than the usual cash back on gas purchases for drivers who use company-branded debit cards. DoorDash and Instacart are giving a weekly fuel payment

to drivers who travel 125 miles or more making deliveries.

Sarah Noell, who spends about 20 hours a week making deliveries for DoorDash in Lynchburg, Virginia, said the measures help somewhat. But she said she’s noticed more customers declining to add tips to their orders as gas prices have increased. Noell has started refusing any order that won’t average out to $1 per mile, including the $2.50 per order she gets from DoorDash. That cancels out many users who aren’t tipping or give only small tips.

“It takes nearly double the cost to ﬁll my tank,” Noell said. “Ten dollars used to get me a decent amount. Now it only gets me 3 gallons.”

Owners of diesel-powered vehicles have seen even steeper fuel price increases since the war started on Feb. 28, affecting drivers around the world. Drivers of diesel-powered “jeepneys” in the Philippines went on strike for two days last week to protest their higher costs. In France, dozens of buses and trucks drove slowly on the Paris ring road Monday to demonstrate their concerns about rising diesel prices.

“The major difﬁculty right now is ﬁnding our balance in our business since we sold services with the vehicles at a certain price for diesel that was much cheaper And we’re not going to ask customers to pay that difference,” said Sarah Bahezre, manager of a bus transportation company

BY CERYS DAVIES Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Global streaming revenue surged to $150 billion last year, driven largely by an increase in prices by Netﬂix and other streamers, according to a new report. In 2025, global streaming subscription revenue grew by 14%, reaching a total of over $157 billion, the report from Ampere Analysis found. In the last ﬁve years, revenue has tripled from the $50 billion seen in 2020. Streamers continue to dominate the digital distribution market with rising monthly subscription fees, more consumers choosing sub-

scriptions with ads, and platforms expanding their global reach.

“As the streaming market matures, the emphasis is no longer on pure subscriber growth but on extracting greater value from existing audiences,” said Lauren Liversedge, a senior analyst at Ampere Analysis. She noted that the growth is happening “particularly in the most competitive markets.” Over the next ﬁve years, Ampere Analysis estimates subscription revenue will grow by another 29%, potentially reaching over $200 billion worldwide by 2030. The U.S. is the largest driver of this revenue growth, as the country accounts for 50% of 2025’s global

streaming subscription revenue, per Ampere Analysis. Netflix accounted for the largest revenue share in the U.S at 14%. Last week, the company also announced a price hike, where its premium

ASSOCIATED

ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHOTO By GEORGE WALKER IV

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