The Times-Picayune 05-04-2026 by The Advocate

‘Living shoreline’

Pair of coastalprojects create solutionson theedge of St.Bernard Parish marsh

BY JOSIE ABUGOV

Staff writer

On the far reaches of theLouisiana marsh, afew dozen volunteers were engagedina weightlifting workout with unconventional equipment: 30-pound bagsofrecycledoyster shells.

The volunteers for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana passed theoyster bags in a line of people toward amuddy shoreline along the eastern edge of the BiloxiMarsh,the last piece of land before the Chandeleur Islands.

“Weare protecting asmall but mighty sliver of the marsh,” said Fiona Lightbody,CRCL’s program manager for oyster recycling They werebuildingwhatiscalleda “living shoreline,” agrowing tool for coastal protection across Louisiana, considered apromising nature-based strategy in the battle against land loss. By no means asolutionontheir own, especially consideringthe state’s huge coastal dilemma, such projects can, however, play ameaningful role when combined with other approaches, scientistssay And in astate that cherishes itsoysters, recycling them for coastal protection and to produce more of the beloved shellﬁsh holds special appeal. Last month’swork in theBiloxi Marsh, near asite formerly inhabited by the Chitimacha Tribe, was apearl of an example.

ä See SHORELINE, page 4A

Bags of recycled oyster shells are unloaded from aboatand placedalong the shoreline during aCoalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana event at Morgan Harbor Pass in St. Bernard Parish on April 17.

Duncan cleared to assume N.O. clerkrole

LAST GROOVE

Earth, Wind &Fire, TeddySwims and Trombone Shorty closeout Jazz Fest

Sunday

TeddySwims performs on the Festival Stageduring the New Orleans Jazz &Heritage Festival on Sunday

BY ALEX LUBBEN Staff writer

Duncan Judgeblocksstate law aiming to abolishOrleans Parish criminalcourt position

Afederal judge on Sunday blocked astate lawthatwould haveabolishedthe Orleans Parish criminal clerk of court position, clearing the way for Calvin Duncan, whowas elected tothe post lastyear, to assume ofﬁce Monday U.S. District Judge John deGravelles in Baton Rouge, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, granted Duncan’s request for atemporaryrestraining order, declaring SenateBill 256 unconstitutional andenjoining Gov. Jeff Landry and Secretary of StateNancy Landry from enforcing it Thelaw,which Gov.Landrysigned Thursday as Act 15, was settotake effect at 11:59 p.m. Sunday and would have transferred the criminal clerk’s records, staff and

ä See DUNCAN, page 4A

STAFF PHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK

3Democrats arerunning to be

Trio have varied reasons forenteringrace

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

ForJamie Davis, his decision to run for theU.S. Senate came last year after formerGov.John Bel Edwards chose to stay out of the race.

ForNick Albares, his decision to run came after President DonaldTrump and theRepublican Congresspassed abill last year that will lead to big cutsinthe Medicaid program for the working poor

ForGary Crockett, his decision to run came after seeing Sen. Bill Cassidy,House Speaker MikeJohnsonand Gov.Jeff

BY KEITH SPERA Staff writer

Has the NewOrleans Jazz &Heritage Festivaleverexperienced such polaropposite two-daycombinations as it did this weekend? The secondThursday andFriday of the 2026 Jazz Fest werevery difficult days. Rain forced the fest to shut downearly and cancel acts. Attendance suffered as aresult. But thencame the final Saturday and Sunday.Clear skies, lowhumidity and big, big crowds. Sunday didn’t repeat Saturday’ssellout. But it sure felt like another huge day Earth,Wind &Fire wastothe Congo Square Stage on Sunday what the Eagles weretothe FestivalStage on Saturday: an act that pushed that respective field’scapacity to the limit. Fans filledthe spaces betweenthe Congo craftarea’sboothsand set up across the walking path just to hear the band.

Overall, it wasapeak-level ﬁnale. Keyboardist and singer Davell Crawford brought outCharmaine

Landry repeatedly support Trump in ways that Crockett believes arehurting ordinary Louisiana citizens Davis,Albares and Crockett —all Democrats —are crisscrossing the state as each one mounts along-shot bid to be the state’s

next senator. Here’sameasure of the odds: Louisiana has not elected aDemocrat sincethen-U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieuwon reelectionin2008. Cassidy knocked her out six years later and wonreelection in 2020. He’snow facing atough reelection battle in the Republicanprimary against state Treasurer John Fleming, U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow and business owner Mark Spencer The Democratic and Republican candidates will compete in separate party primaries on May 16, with early voting running through Saturday.No-party voters will have to decide whether to vote for the Republican or Democratic slate of candidatesinall races on the ballot.

ä See RUNNING, page 8A

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

SUNDAY @ JAZZ FEST

ELECTION 2026

Albares Crockett Davis

STAFF PHOTO By CHRISGRANGER

Earth, Wind &Fire performonthe CongoSquare Stageatthe NewOrleans Jazz&HeritageFestival on Sunday.

STAFF PHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK

Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue performonthe Festival Stageon

BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS

Hoax calls prompt zoo evacuations, closures

Hoax calls involving alleged bomb threats and even claims of active shooters have prompted evacuations and closures at several zoos around the U.S in recent days, disrupting family plans and taxing public safety resources in some cities.

No explosives or real dangers have been found in the latest string of what authorities are describing as swatting incidents. The FBI considers swatting an increasing national problem. Aside from diverting resources, such calls can cost thousands of dollars per incident, endanger ﬁrst responders and the public and can lead to federal charges. In the latest case, police on Sunday swept the Akron Zoo in northeast Ohio after a threat led to the evacuation of visitors. Authorities gave the all-clear, but zoo managers opted to close for the rest of the day Just hours later, police were seen stationed outside the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo as visitors were evacuated due to a threat there. Some visitors took to social media, expressing anger that they had to leave.

The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in central Ohio was evacuated on Saturday. Zoo president and CEO Tom Schmid told television station WCMH that due to similar threats at other zoos, employees had a safety drill last week and an exercise Saturday morning that helped prepare them for the emergency evacuation.

“This is part of life now around the country, around the world,” Schmid said, noting the uptick in such threats. “And so we have to make sure we’re vigilant.” Threats also have been called in to zoos in Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida and Arizona.

Police seek 2 in fatal Texas party shooting

AMARILLO, Texas Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying assailants in a shooting at a party in Amarillo, Texas, that killed two teenagers and wounded 10 other people.

City authorities say they are looking for two people who opened ﬁre at an apartment complex about 2 a.m Saturday and are asking residents to check their doorbell and surveillance cameras for any unusual activity around that time. Details on a motive were not released Surveillance video released by police shows two people opening ﬁre outside of an apartment.

Yelling and screaming follow, then more gunshots ring out

“When I looked outside and came outside it was complete chaos,” neighbor Phillip Thrasher told KTVT-TV “I mean there was kids running everywhere, just screaming and running. They didn’t even know where they were running to, you know And then moms and dads showed up and came to their kids’ rescues. The ones that could, the ones that couldn’t were so upset I mean there was nothing you could do.”

Amarillo police said two teens, ages 16 and 17, were killed and 10 others injured. The conditions of the wounded were not released.

Fire destroys lab on university campus in Fla. ST PETERSBURG, Fla. — Fireﬁghters worked through the night to extinguish a blaze at a laboratory on the University of South Florida campus in St. Petersburg and ofﬁcials said Sunday that the building could be a total loss.

The fire Saturday night prompted evacuations and sent up plumes of billowing smoke from the marine science lab building. No injuries were reported and no hazardous materials were released, USF President Moez Limayem wrote in a message to students and staff.

The cause of the ﬁre remained under investigation. Limayem said damage assessments were ongoing, but the destruction was extensive.

“Our recovery teams are working with the College of Marine Science to prioritize key research material and equipment for salvage assessment when the building is cleared,” Limayem wrote Classes and exams scheduled for the lab building will be relocated.

Trump: U.S. to ‘guide’ ships from strait

President says operation to help stranded vessels to start Monday

BY ADAM SCHRECK, MELANIE LIDMAN and CARA ANNA Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

The United States will launch an effort on Monday to “guide” stranded ships from the Irangripped Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump said, giving few details about what could be a sweeping attempt to help hundreds of vessels and some 20,000 seafarers. Iran quickly denounced it as a ceaseﬁre violation.

Trump said in a social media post on Sunday that “neutral and innocent” countries have been affected by the Iran war, and “we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business.”

“Project Freedom” would begin on Monday morning in the Middle East, Trump said, adding that his representatives are having discussions with Iran that could lead to something “very positive for all.”

U.S. Central Command said the initiative would involve guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 service members. The Pentagon did not immediately answer questions about how they would be deployed.

Iran’s effective closure of the strait, imposed after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, has shaken global markets.

Ships and seafarers,

many on oil and gas tankers and cargo ships, have been stuck in the Persian Gulf since the war began.

Crew members have described to The Associated Press watching intercepted drones and missiles explode over the waters, and running low on drinking water, food and other supplies.

Many sailors come from India and other countries in south and southeast Asia.

“They are victims of circumstance,” Trump wrote, and described the effort as a humanitarian gesture “on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran.” But he sounded a warning: “If, in any way this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully.”

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency called Trump’s announcement part of his “delirium,” and Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission of Iran’s parliament,

said on X that any interference in the strait would be seen as a ceasefire violation.

Trump spoke hours after Iran said it was reviewing the U.S. response to its latest proposal to end the war and made clear these are not nuclear negotiations. The fragile three-week ceasefire appears to be holding.

Cargo ship attacked

Earlier Sunday, a cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz said it was attacked by multiple small craft, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center reported. It was the latest in at least two dozen attacks in and around the strait since the Iran war began, and a reminder of the risks if the new U.S. effort goes forward.

All crew on the unidentiﬁed northbound cargo ship were safe after the attack off Sirik, Iran, east of the strait, the British monitor said. Iranian ofﬁcials have asserted that they control

the strait and that ships not affiliated with the United States or Israel can pass if they pay a toll challenging the freedom of navigation guaranteed by international law Iran denied an attack, the semiofﬁcial Iranian outlets Fars and Tabnak reported, and said a passing ship had been stopped for a documents check as part of monitoring. It was the ﬁrst reported attack in the area since April 22. Tehran has effectively closed the strait by attacking and threatening ships, and the threat level in the area remains critical.

Iranian patrol boats, some powered only by twin outboard motors, are small, nimble and hard to detect. Trump last month ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines in the strait.

The British military monitor also said Sunday that ships near Ras al-Khaimah, the northernmost emirate in the United Arab Emir-

ates and close to the strait, reported receiving radio warnings to move from anchorages. It was not clear who sent the VHF messages.

Tehran reviews response Tehran is reviewing the U.S. response to its latest proposal to end the war, Iran’s judiciary Mizan news agency cited Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei as saying. But “at this stage, we have no nuclear negotiations,” Baghaei said. Iran’s nuclear program and enriched uranium have long been the central issue in tensions with the U.S., but Tehran would rather address it later Iran’s proposal wants other issues resolved within 30 days and aims to end the war rather than extend the ceaseﬁre, according to Iran’s state-linked media. Trump on Saturday said he was reviewing the proposal but expressed doubt it would lead to a deal. Iran’s 14-point proposal calls for the U.S. lifting sanctions on Iran, ending the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports, withdrawing forces from the region and ceasing all hostilities, including Israel’s operations in Lebanon according to the semiofﬁcial Nour News and Tasnim agencies, which have close ties to Iran’s security organizations.

Pakistan’s prime minister, foreign minister and army chief continue to encourage the U.S. and Iran to speak directly, according to two ofﬁcials in Pakistan who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Pakistan hosted face-to-face talks last month and has passed messages between the two sides.

2 U.S. service members missing after exercises

BY OPE ADETAYO and AKRAM OUBACHIR Associated Press

CASABLANCA,Morocco — Two

U.S. service members are missing in southwestern Morocco after taking part in annual multinational military exercises in the North African country the United States Africa Command said Sunday

The service members are U.S. Army soldiers who went missing while on a hike, a U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the issue.

“They were not actively taking part in any training. The day’s exercises had concluded, and from

our understanding, they were out on a recreational hike,” the ofﬁcial said.

AFRICOM said the U.S., Morocco and other countries participating in the African Lion exercise have launched a search and rescue operation.

“The incident remains under investigation and the search is ongoing,” it said in a statement.

The incident happened about 9 p.m. Saturday, the Moroccan military said, near the Cap Draa Training Area near Tan Tan, close to the Atlantic Ocean. The terrain is mountainous, a mix of desert and semidesert plains.

The search team includes helicopters, ships, mountain rescue units and divers, the defense ofﬁcial

told the AP

“The soldiers were last seen near ocean cliffs in the vicinity of the Cap Draa Training Area during scheduled training. When they did not return as expected, U.S. and Moroccan personnel immediately initiated a joint search effort,” the ofﬁcial added.

The war games exercise started in April and runs across four countries, including Tunisia, Ghana and Senegal. It is scheduled to end in early May

The exercise began in Tunisia with active-duty members of different branches of the U.S. military, including the National Guard, Army Reserve, Air Force, and the Marine Corps.

In all, over 7,000 per-

Officials: Buckshot from D.C. dinner attack suspect’s gun struck agent

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Authorities have determined that buckshot from the gun of the man charged with trying to storm the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in an attempt to kill President Donald Trump struck a Secret Service agent, according to the federal prosecutor overseeing the investigation.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said last week there was no evidence the agent was hit by friendly ﬁre during the incident at a Washington hotel on April 25, but she went beyond thatSundayinsayingashot from one of Cole Tomas Allen’s weapons hit the ofﬁ-

cer’s bullet-resistant vest.

“We now can establish that a pellet that came from the buckshot from the defendant’s Mossberg pump-action shotgun was intertwined with the fiber of the vest of the Secret Service officer,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It is deﬁnitively his bullet.” Allen, who remains behind bars for now pending his trial, was injured during the attack but was not shot. The ofﬁcer survived.

His attorneys on Sunday ﬁled a document with the court saying they learned he was no longer on suicide watch and sought to withdraw a motion formally seeking to remove him from such supervision.

On Thursday, Pirro post-

ed a video on social media showing the moment that authorities say a man with guns and knives attempted to storm the media gala. Questions have lingered about whose bullet struck the ofﬁcer as the suspect ran through security with a long gun toward the ballroom packed with journalists, administration officials and others.

A phone call to lawyers representing Allen went unanswered on Sunday Allen has been charged with attempted assassination of the president, as well as two additional ﬁrearms counts, including discharging a weapon during a crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of the assassination count alone.

sonnel from more than 30 nations are participating across the four host countries.

African Lion, which has been running since 2004, is

the largest U.S.

military exercise on the

tinent and usually features high-ranking military ofﬁcials from the U.S. and its top African allies.

MOROCCO

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By VAHID SALEMI

People walk under Iranian flags in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday

annual joint

con-

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Over the course of six days, CRCL placed 250 tons — over 550,000 pounds — of oyster shells to construct 1,000 linear feet of new reef, built to encourage oyster habitat and reduce shoreline erosion. They also planted 4,000 mangroves in the area.

Anyone eating oysters in New Orleans and Baton Rouge may have contributed.

The organization has collected shells from restaurants in those two cities over the last dozen years and returned them to Louisiana waters, creating thousands of feet of new oyster reef. The structures have a twofold beneﬁt: The reefs promote more oyster growth while the structures reduce shoreline erosion.

Oysters, because of the way they feed, also improve water quality by ﬁltering it, while the reefs they form are beneficial to a wide range of marine life.

Placement is important.

In the case of the new CRCL reef, it complements a nearby project built by the state’s coastal agency Pilings and poles marking the state’s Biloxi Marsh restoration project could be seen in the distance from the CRCL boats carrying the thousands of pounds of oyster shells.

“We’ve been strategically aligning our project with other work being done by the state,” Lightbody said “Because our reef, by itself, will have some value of impact, but added onto this much larger project, it’s just a multiplicative effect of ecological beneﬁts.”

From gray to green

The two coastal projects may be working symbiotically, but their methods are very different. While the volunteers planted native grasses and lined the receding marsh with oyster shells, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority used different types of concrete to build a roughly 12-mile stretch of breakwater Still, both projects are considered what scientists call a “living shoreline.” The state’s concrete breakwater will eventually be covered in new oyster reefs, too. Standing on the stern of the large oyster boats CRCL was using to build the reef, Craig Gothreaux, a fish biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, passed bag after bag of oyster shell to another volunteer waiting in the shallow water Gothreaux has volunteered for a number of CRCL’s reef

builds, which he noted replicates the traditional process of returning oyster shells to the water to create new habitat for the species. He explained that Louisiana lacks “hard substrate,” like rock, that marine organisms need to grow on.

“Both of these living shorelines represent that hard material,” Gothreaux said of the two Biloxi Marsh projects. “It’s just using different materials to achieve that.”

The causes of land loss in Louisiana are many, but shoreline erosion is an important one. That’s where living shorelines can play a role since they keep waves and

tides from repeatedly battering the marsh Louisiana Sea Grant notes that living shorelines “can combine plantings with structural elements.” In other words, that can mean oyster bags stacked along the shore such as with the CRCL project — as well as cement domes with holes for oysters to attach, like the state project.

Beyond oysters and concrete, living shoreline initiatives might also incorporate rock jetties, vegetation and recycled sand, such as in a Jefferson Parish Bucktown shoreline project.

Gothreaux explained the

spectrum of shoreline techniques ranging from the greenest — which would use vegetation only to the grayest, like a bulkhead.

“Depending on the environment and the wave energy, you kind of have to go to a grayer or a harder technique,” he said.

‘Right at the front lines’

The state’s living shoreline falls on the grayer more engineered side of the spectrum, though the agency still designed the Biloxi Marsh project to attract oysters and other marine habitat. David Chambers, a CPRA ﬁeld engineer for the proj-

ect, said that the concrete structures “serve as a kind of refuge” for ﬁsh and other sea creatures potentially hiding from predators, but also help reduce wave energy that accelerates erosion.

Completed in July 2023, the state’s $66 million Biloxi Marsh project used settlement funding from the 2010 BP oil spill to construct nearly 12 miles of breakwater and “marine mattresses,” or bags ﬁlled with rock, near the shoreline.

Unlike the volunteer project, the breakwaters don’t touch the marsh edge and sit away from the shore.

“The thing that I liked about what (CRCL) did was that it was right at the front lines of coastal erosion,” Chambers said, allowing the waves to break before reaching into the marsh.

Rudy Simoneaux, chief of engineering at CPRA, said that living shorelines are very effective at attenuating wave energy, though the structures like those in the Biloxi Marsh are historically more expensive and complex to install than rock or bulkhead.

“Living shorelines are not the agency’s primary method for shoreline protection, but they have been done before,” Simoneaux said.

The agency doesn’t currently have any large-scale living shorelines underway, Simoneaux said, but that doesn’t rule out a future scenario where implementing one would make sense. Any project that would help

the agency reach its primary goal of protecting the shoreline is a method worth pursuing, he said.

‘A house and a skyscraper’ During a lunch break from reef building, Andrew Ferris, a coordinator for CRCL’s native plants program, explained that as sea levels rise, the new oyster reefs will grow with it.

“A wall or a rock dam — these things have a discrete lifespan that a living shoreline just doesn’t have,” Ferris said. Still, he compared the difference in scale between the nonprofit project and the state agency project as “the difference between a house and a skyscraper.” The $500,000 CRCL volunteer project yields a fraction of the footage of the state project, but it also reﬂects a difference in aims, Ferris said. There is also a less visible goal associated with such projects, he said. New coastal advocates can be recruited by illustrating the connection between a night out at a restaurant with marsh protection.

“We are part of the coastal ecosystem, and we have always been part of the coastal ecosystem down here,” Ferris said. “And so part of our living shoreline projects are that we are creating a more engaged and educated base of Louisiana residents.” Email Josie Abugov at josie.abugov@theadvocate. com.

duties to Chelsey Richard Napoleon, the Orleans civil clerk of court, making her the parishwide custodian of both civil and criminal court records.

In his 49-page ruling, deGravelles wrote that by “abolishing this particular office, creating a new office to replace it, and then appointing someone for that office, all when the Louisiana Constitution requires an election,” the defendants “have violated the Plaintiff’s federally protected constitutional rights to due process and to vote.”

The judge found that the state’s stated justiﬁcations for the law, which the governor has described as part of a broader court-restructuring effort, were “likely, pretextual,” and that the record showed “the state has a minimal interest in passing SB 256.”

The ruling is a temporary one. The restraining order remains in effect for 14 days, and deGravelles set a status conference for Monday at 2 p.m. by Zoom to discuss a longer-lasting preliminary injunction.

Duncan, who taught himself law while serving a life sentence at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for a murder conviction that was

later vacated, won the November election for criminal clerk of court with 68% of the vote.

DeGravelles denied the motion in one respect, dismissing the right-to-vote claim against Attorney General Liz Murrill on sovereign immunity grounds. The judge found that Murrill, unlike the governor and secretary of state, had no enforcement role with respect to that claim. The dismissal was without prejudice.

Murrill, Jeff Landry and Nancy Landry had argued in a Friday filing that the Louisiana Constitution gives lawmakers the authority to consolidate the clerk’s ofﬁces and that federal courts lack the power to override the restructuring Gov Landry has said the measure is not aimed at Duncan but at aligning Orleans Parish’s court structure with the rest of the state.

“This is about right-sizing the city so that we can provide the services necessary to the people of that city who need it the most,” he said in a Wednesday radio interview on WBOK.

DeGravelles rejected that framing He noted that the bill’s Senate sponsor Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, had acknowledged on the floor that an amendment accelerating the law’s effective date was sought “at the behest of the Gov-

ernor,” who wanted the bill enacted “before Mr Duncan takes office.” Morris, the ruling notes, also said the amendment was needed because otherwise the state would “have to pay him for the next four years in a job that is gonna be eliminated,” making Duncan “an immediate lame duck.”

Napoleon said in a statement Friday, before the ruling, that she would prioritize running the May 16 primary and ensuring a “stable transition that preserves the integrity of our records.”

“I did not ask for this, nor do I agree with the process,” she said. “However, as a duly elected public ofﬁcial, I have taken an oath to uphold the law and serve the people.”

That election has been, separately, thrown into turmoil. The governor declared that the primaries for U.S. House races would not proceed following a U.S. Supreme Court decision last week invalidating the state’s congressional maps. Early voting is already underway Duncan’s federal civil rights suit, ﬁled Wednesday in Baton Rouge, alleges that Landry and Murrill engaged in a “coordinated conspiracy” to prevent him from taking ofﬁce in retaliation for his criticism of the New Orleans criminal legal system during his campaign. The suit traces the dispute in part to a September let-

ter from Murrill challenging Duncan’s description of himself as an exoneree. DeGravelles said he would take up the retaliation claim at a later hearing, resolving Sunday’s motion on the right-to-vote claim alone. SB256, authored by Mor-

ris, is the first of several court-restructuring measures this legislative session to become law Two additional bills were advanced by the House Judiciary Committee this week. Senate Bill 217 would eliminate three Orleans Criminal District

Court trial judges and one juvenile court judge, and Senate Bill 197 would cut two seats from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal. Email Alex Lubben at alex.lubben@theadvocate. com.

Birds gather and take flight from recycled oyster shells placed along the shoreline at Morgan Harbor Pass in St Bernard Parish.

STAFF PHOTOS

By BRETT DUKE

Bags of recycled oyster shells are stacked along the shoreline during a Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana event at Morgan Harbor Pass in St. Bernard Parish on April 17.

BY COLLIN BINKLEY Associated Press

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump says the Pentagon is preparing to release some “very interesting” UFO ﬁles uncovered by his administration,generating amix of buzz and skepticism as he hints at new revelations around questionsof alien life.

Trumpstarted stoking interest in the extraterrestrial in February,directing federal agencies to release their records relatedtoextraterrestrial life and UFOs. Since then, he has built suspense with tantalizing updates, teasing an imminent release of documents never before shared by the U.S. government.

“We’re going to be releasing alot of thingsthat we haven’t,” Trump said Wednesday at aWhite House event celebrating NASA astronauts. “I think some of it’s going to be very interesting to people.”

Trump has relished in portraying himself as the president who spills the secrets In the ﬁrst week returning to office, he orderedthe release of records related to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.The disclosures revealed little beyond what was already known.

In the buildup to that release, Trump said “the American people deserve transparency and truth.”

Now,asheturns to the sky, the president has struck a similar tone, suggesting answers to decades-oldquestions may be on the way.His February directive on social media called for transparency around “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentiﬁed aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentifiedflying objects (UFOs).”

“The first releases will beginvery,very soon,” he told supportersinAprilata Turning Point USA eventin Phoenix. “So you can go out and see if that phenomena is correct. You’llﬁgure it out.”

Even before Trump’sdirective, the Pentagon was years into aprocess to declassify and release government documents related to UFOs, now often referred to as unexplained anomalous phenomena, or UAP Citing concerns over national security,Congress created an ofﬁce in 2022 to investigate UAPand declassify as much materialas possible. The office’s 2024 debut report revealed hundreds of new UAP incidents but found no evidence that theU.S. government had ever conﬁrmed asighting of alien technology.Asecond reportcovering more recent sightings is expected to come soon. That agency,the All-do-

main Anomaly Resolution

Ofﬁce, is now working with theWhite House to release “never-before-seen UAPinformation,” accordingtoa Pentagon statement

Theoffice’sprevious director, however,said Trump’spromises were bluster,a“shinyobject” to distractAmericans fromthe war with Iran. Sean Kirkpatrick, aphysicist andformer career intelligence officer who led theofﬁce until2023, said he hasseen thegovernment’s records andbelieves there are no bombshellrevelationstobefound

“Readers should notget their hopes up that there’s goingtobesome document with photos, interviewing thealiens when theycame down,” he said. “Because that just doesn’texist.”

Videospurporting to show alientechnology tend to have mundane explanations, he said. Modern infrared cameras used by the U.S. military often capture jetenginesand otherhot objectsina long thermal bloom, which, Kirkpatrick said, explains viral videosof speedy,pill-shaped objects.

On Capitol Hill, those types of videos havecaughtthe attention ofa small group of Trump-aligned Republicans who insist the Pentagon is holding backsecrets.

The Task Force on the Declassiﬁcation of FederalSecretshas been conducting its own investigation into reportsofmysterious aircraft near U.S. militaryinstallations, whichthe panel says posea threat to national security and the armed forces.

Last fall, thetask force heard testimony from currentand former service members who described UAP encounters. In one case,a seniorNavyofﬁcer saidhewas off the coast of California in 2023 when he sawa glowing “Tic Tac” shaped object emerge from the ocean and link up with three similar objects.They sped away in an instant, he said.

Trump’sinterest in the subject has energized congressional Republicans, including Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, an Air Force veteran who co-chairs the task force. Luna has criti-

cized what she calls “less than adequate” transparency from the Pentagon.

In aMarch letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,Luna demanded dozens of UAP videos identiﬁed by whistleblowers andlabeled with names such as “Spherical UAP in clouds.”Her deadline for Hegseth came andwent,and no videos were produced.

Trump’sentry to theUFO fray drewapplause from Luna, who last year told podcaster Joe Roganthat she has seen evidence of “interdimensional beings.”The Pentagon“can’thide from our docs request anymore!” Luna saidonsocial media after Trump’sdirective.

Trump appears skeptical aboutthe existence of extraterrestrial life. Addressing theTurning Point USA crowdinPhoenix,hesaid, “I figured this was agood crowd becauseIknow you people,you’rereally into that. Idon’tknow if Iam.”

Why he made the revelation at that event, held at a megachurch, is unclear.A day earlier,Trumphad spoken in Las Vegas, not far from Area 51, atop-secret Cold Wartest site that has fueled UFO conspiracy theories.

Vice President JD Vance has described himself as “obsessed” with UFO files. In March,hesaidhehas been trying to find time to investigate Area 51 sincehe took office.

“I’ve still got threemore years as vice president,” Vance told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson. “I will get to the bottom of theUFO files.” Invoking his Christian faith, Vance said he believes sightings reported tobealiens are actually the work of spiritual demons.

Even before Trump tackledthe topic, alienbuzzwas already in the air

It’sback in Hollywood with an upcoming Steven Spielbergmovie, “Disclosure Day.” Former President Barack Obama made a splash in February when he declared on apodcast that aliens arereal. He later clariﬁed that he had seen no evidence but that “the odds are good there’slife out there.”

Ukrainehitskey Russian oil-loadingport, 3tankers

By The Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine Ukraine on Sunday launched awave of strikes againstRussianoil targets, hitting akey loading port on the Baltic Seaand twotankersthat Ukraine alleges were illegally used to transport Russian crude.

Anighttimedrone strike sparked ablaze at Russia’s largest oil exporting port on the BalticSea, the port of Primorsk, according to Russianregional Gov.Alexander Drozdenko.

The port, operatedby Russia’s state oil ﬁrmTransneft,iscapable of handling hundreds of thousands of barrels per day. Primorsk, which was targeted multiple times in March, liesover 620 miles from Ukraine, between theRussian-Finnish border and Russia’s secondlargest city of St. Petersburg.

Local Gov.Drozdenko said thatthe drone strike did not cause an oil spill, but gave no immediate further comment regarding casualties or damage.

But UkrainianPresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainianforces destroyed several military and other targets, while also inﬂicting signiﬁcant damage on oil port infrastructure.

“One more Russian carrier of Kalibr missiles is out of action.Major General Yevhen Khmarareported on the successful destruction of targets in the Primorsk port,” Zelenskyywroteina Telegram post on Sunday

AccordingtoZelenskyy, Ukrainiandronesalsohit aKarakurt missile ship, a patrol boat, and atanker belonging to Russia’ssocalled shadow oil ﬂeet, used to evadeWestern sanctions andpricecapsonRussian energy In aseparatepostearlier on Sunday,Zelenskyy said that Ukrainianforces had struck twomore “shadow ﬂeet” tankers near the entrance of the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

BY GERALD IMRAY Associated Press

CAPE TOWN, South Africa— A suspected hantavirus outbreak on acruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean has killed three people and sickened at least three others, the World Health Organization said Sunday.

In astatement to TheAssociated Press, theWHO said an investigationwas underwaybut that at least onecaseofhantavirus had been confirmed. Hantavi-

rus, found throughout the world, is spread by contact with urine or feces of infected rodents, most often rats or mice.

Oneofthe patients was in intensive care in aSouth African hospital, the U.N.’s health agency said, adding that it wasworking with authoritiestoevacuate two other passengers with symptoms from the ship.

“Detailedinvestigations are ongoing, including furtherlaboratorytesting, and epidemiological investiga-

tions,”WHO said. “Medical careand support are being providedtopassengers and crew.Sequencing of the virus is also ongoing.” Hantavirus infections aretypically linked to exposure to the feces or urine of infected rodents, WHO said. While rare, WHOsaid they can be spread between peopleand they can lead to severe respiratory illness. There is no speciﬁc treatment or cure,but earlymedical attention can increase the chance of survival.

PHOTO PROVIDED By UKRAINIAN EMERGENCy SERVICE AUkrainianemergency crewresponds to a fire in Ukraine’s southernOdesa region after aRussian attackovernighton Sunday

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Neville, clarinetist Dr.Michael White and Rosalie “Lady Tambourine” Ashton-Washington for aﬁnal, deep-New Orleans “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” in the Gospel Tent.

Trumpeter James Andrews, accompaniedbya couple of Baby Dolls, tossed Mardi Gras-style plushies to thecrowd before leading the band through the aisles of the Blues Tent for “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Guitarist Will Murray, whose main stage set with The Iceman Special on Thursday was canceled, got to guest with guitarist Marc Stoneatthe Blues Tent on TheBand’s“The Shape I’m In” and more.

Later,abeaming Jackie Venson shredded blues-rock riffs on her Les Paul guitar in the Blues Tent TeddySwims,jazzfan

Teddy Swims, sporting the most facetattoos of anyFestival Stage performer sinceLil Wayne, showed up in aNo. 69 Saintsjerseydespitehailing fromdeep in Falcons territory.Swims wasn’t shy about expressing his love for New Orleans in generaland its music in particular

The previous night, hewas a surprise guest for the “Midnight Preserves” concert seriesat Preservation Hall. Irma Thomas was also on the bill; listening to her sing, Swimssaid, was a“lifechanging”experience.Hewenton at length about how blown away he was by PreservationHalland encouraged everyone to go check it out. Not that he wasn’tabove having alittle fun with the notion of his presence at a“Jazz Fest.” In arecurring gag, he yelled, “Jazz, b****!,” asignal for his band to embark on atriple-time instrumental excursion while he danced asort of “jazz feet” hot-foot in his blacksocks.

“We’re going to do that afew times just to make sure we’re playingsomejazz,” he said with agrin.

Between bouts of jazz feet, Swims showed offthe sort of hearty soul/R&B pipes that ﬁrst earned him afollowingfor cover songs postedonYouTube.He opened with “The Door” and showcased “Funeral,” “She Loves the Rain,” “Bad Dreams” and “Black and White.”

He credited “Some Things I’ll Never Know” to a“s- —ex-girlfriend.” Asubsequent cover of Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One,” one of his most popular YouTube numbers, was clearly not meant for the same ex-girlfriend. Barely 20 minutes after ﬁnishing his own set, he materialized at the oppositeend of the Fair Grounds on the Shell Gentilly Stage to guest with the Tedeschi Trucks Band on the Traffic/JoeCocker chestnut “Feelin’ Alright.” He delivered it without the jazz feet.

Shorty theIronMan

Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews turned up to watchT-Pain on Saturday wearing avintagelooking purpleNevilleBrothers T-shirt. Since 2013, he’s closed the fest’sbiggest stage on the ﬁnal Sunday,just as the Neville Brothers did for years. He is very much aware of that history and of the importance of honoring it. Which didn’tstop him from standing alongside his saxophonists for abrassy remake of the signature riff from Black Sabbath’s“Iron Man.”

If Teddy Swims can have jazz feet, Trombone Shortycan rock “Iron Man.” Alastlap

To lap aroundthe FairGrounds in the ﬁnal30minutes of the 2026 Jazz Fest was to experience an overload of American music.

It wasEarth Wind &Fire, in

matching sparkles, delighting with “Boogie Wonderland,” “Let’s Groove” and “September”in quick succession It was Derek Trucks reuniting withhis former AllmanBrothers Band bandmates WarrenHaynes and Jaimoeonthe Allmans classic “Dreams.”

It was Russ Forshag hammer-

Chantell Augustine hoists her son, Uzziah, 2, on her shoulder as theyparade with the 9th Ward Hunters at the New Orleans Jazz &Heritage Festivalon Sunday

STAFFPHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

ing on ahot piece of metal in the Blacksmith Demo Annexwhile facing Steve Earle at the Sheraton Fais Do-DoStage,who washammering awayontake-no-prisoners Americana music.

It was Herbie Hancock, accompaniedbyNew Orleanstrumpeter Terence Blanchard, hopping up and down while wielding ahuge

white key-tar

And it wasTrombone Shorty not quitewanting to letthe 2026 Jazz Fest go

Afterheﬁnishedhis closing set at the Festival Stage, he made his way to his backstage trailer accompanied by the New Breed Brass Band.

Fans exiting towardthe dirt track heard thebrass band and spotted Shorty as he climbedthe steps of his trailer behind aprivacy fence. Thefanscheered Shorty raisedhis arms.The fans cheered some more.

Unable to resist, Andrews started playinghis trumpetwithNew Breed, and suddenly an impromptu street party took hold. Hundreds of fans stopped to watch andrecordand dance.

Awoman elevated ayoung boy with ared trombone —aboy who looked alot like ayoung TromboneShorty— to thetop of the fence. Shorty spottedhim and pointedhim out.

They played some more. Afew minutespast 7p.m Andrews gave aﬁnal waveand disappeared into his trailer.

He’d stamped the ﬁnalnoteona memorable 2026 Jazz Fest.

EmailKeith Spera at kspera@ theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK

The crowdreflectsina plexiglass shield as the TedeschiTrucks Band performs on the Shell Gentilly Stageduring the NewOrleans Jazz& Heritage Festivalatthe Fair GroundsonSunday

STAFFPHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

James Andrews, center,walksthrough the crowd and playshis trumpet as he and the Crescent City Allstars playinthe Blues Tent at the New Orleans Jazz &HeritageFestivalonSunday.

STAFFPHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK

Herbie Hancock performsinthe WWOZ Jazz Tent during the NewOrleans Jazz& HeritageFestival at the Fair GroundsonSunday

Proposed civilservice change on theballot

La.constitutional amendmentwould give lawmakerssay over protections

BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer

Louisiana lawmakers would gain more power overthe state government workforce if voters approveAmendment 1during the May 16 election.

Amendment 1asks voters to decide whether the Legislature should be able to decide which stategovernment jobs should be at-will positions withoutcivil service protections.

Proponents say the change would be amove toward improved government efﬁciency.Opponents say it would increase political inﬂuence in government jobs that should be nonpartisan.

Under the system set up in the state constitution,there are two

groups ofgovernment workers:

“Classiﬁed” state employees with civilservice protectionsand “unclassiﬁed”at-will state employees.

Classiﬁed employees are meant to be shielded from political pressure.

They canonly be disciplined or fired for cause, with proper documentationand after achance to respond or take corrective action.They also have to be hired through an open, competitive process, meet minimum job qualiﬁcationsset by the state, and be paid according to state standards.

Classifiedemployees are also barred from supportingpolitical candidates or parties.

Unclassiﬁed employees are considered at-willand canbehired or ﬁred at anytime. They’re not subjecttosame state hiringand compensation standards.

Unclassiﬁed employees have no restrictions on political activity

Currently,state government jobsbydefaulthavecivil service protections,but thereare many exceptions.

ELECTION 2026

about27,000, or 82%,work at public colleges or universities as professors,instructors, administrators and staff.

known for political corruptionand thelegacyofformer populistGov Huey Long, who drew funding for his political campaigns from state workers.

If no candidate wins at least50% ineitherpartyprimaryintheSenate race, the top two ﬁnishers advance to arunoff on June 27 to determine who will be the party’scandidate in the November general election.

The Senate race, which is statewide, is unaffected by aU.S. Supreme Court ruling that will likely force Louisiana to postpone its elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.

The three Democratic candidates sharply criticize Trump, favor at least doubling the federalminimum wage and want to make life more affordable for struggling people.

Whytheyentered therace Davis has raised themost money of the three, has the ofﬁcial backing of the Louisiana Democratic Party andtellsaudiencesthatheisafarmer who gets his hands dirty Davis, 55,said he hopedthat Edwards, the two-term predecessor of Landry,would challengeCas-

sidy.But when Edwards decided he didn’tsee apathtovictory,Davis felt aneed to step up andbecame the ﬁrst candidate to announce in December “Democratsneeded areason to stand, and Ichose to stand,” said Davis,who farmscotton,corn and soybeans on 3,200 acres in Tensas, Catahoula, Franklin and Concordia parishes.

Albares, who has an undergraduate degree from NotreDame and amasters in public policy from Georgetown University,has the chopstotalkﬂuentlyonmostissues Albares, 39, saidwhat pushed him to run was Republicans passing the One Big Beautiful Bill that containedtax cutsweighted to beneﬁt thewealthy and up to $1 trillionin cutsover the next 10 years for the Medicaid expansion, according to theKaiser Family Foundation.

“Wehave to reverse these cuts that go into effect on Jan. 1,” Albares said. “Healthcare is on the ballot.”

Crockett,61, is the only oneof thethree who has militaryexperience, saying he spent 24 years in the Navy.Hesaid heownsﬁve compa-

Abouta dozenofthose exceptionsare listed in theLouisiana Constitution, including elected officials, members of boards and commissions,highereducation professors and staff, and staff in theLegislature,Governor’s Office and AttorneyGeneral’sOffice.

The State Civil ServiceCommission can also approve requests from stateagencies for additional unclassified employees, which it does regularlyatits monthly meetings If Amendment 1passes, the Legislaturewould also be able to determine which jobs should be unclassiﬁed.

There are roughly 71,000 employees in thestate workforce, according to April data fromState Civil Service department. About 38,000 are classified employees withcivil serviceprotection, and 33,000 are unclassiﬁed.

Of those that areunclassiﬁed,

nies with 21 full-timeemployees.

Crockett said he decided to run afterconcluding thatpolitical leaders were not serving the people.

“I saw citizens being ignored, and the same thing happening over and over again,” he said.

Crockett said he owns four companies that operate underthe umbrella of Branae Holdings. Theydo work in the fields of aerospace, construction,managementconsulting and cyber security. Afifthcompany is Mixed BagEntertainment, which he said distributesmusic films and TV shows.

Crockettsaid he grew up in Tallulah in northeast Louisiana, obtained an associate degreefrom Delgado Community College andanundergraduatedegreefromSamfordUniversity in Birmingham,Alabama. He saidhedecided to moveto New Orleans in 2019 to be closer to family

“I became quite disenchanted after moving here,” he said. “Weride on roads that are horrible,the lack of services. We hadtrash pickup twice aweek. Now it’sonce.Seeing all of this, it was like: Runorrun away.I’m running (for the Senate).”

Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe, sponsored the proposed constitutional amendment.

He said Louisiana’sstate workforce is currently controlledby theCivil ServiceCommission, whose members are appointed rather than elected and are “unanswerable to the citizens of Louisiana.”

“Allowing the Legislature to legislate regarding civil service would allow for greater ﬂexibility in thehiring andretention of employees as well as the right sizing of the number of employees needed to serve the people,” he said.

Morris saidhis ultimate vision for Louisiana’scivil service is “a more efﬁcient workforce with the skills needed to perform the functions our citizens deserve.”

Butthose opposed to Amendment1say the strong employment protections for government workersare needed in Louisiana, astate

Wherecampaigns stand

Crockett’scampaign ﬁnance report, through March 31, shows he did not receive anycontributions. He did lend his campaign $350,000 andspent only about$12,000 of that.

Albaresgrew up in Dothan, Alabama, worked as abudgetanalyst for Invest in Louisiana, aprogressive group in Baton Rouge, worked as apolicyanalyst fortwo yearsfor Gov. Edwards andworkedfor VolunteersofAmerica’sNew Orleans ofﬁce before stepping down to campaign full time.

Edwards has endorsed his candidacy “When Ilooked at this race, I looked at the Republican side and saw candidates only focused on ﬁghting each othertosee who was closest to thepresident,” Albares said. “I felt like we needed someone who is closest to the people.”

Hiscampaign financereport showed that he had raised only $70,000 through March31, had lent his campaign $5,200 and had $54,000 on hand.

Davis said he attended LSU for

“There’sarealreason whythe classified system,the civil service system was put in place, and Idon’tthink human nature has changed any based on what Isee going on politically in Louisiana,” said Brent Frederick, arecently retired Civil Service referee, who for16yearsheard appeals over employment disputes.

Frederick said civil service offers amerit-based system, where hiring decisionsare open and competitive and ﬁring is done for cause, and employees can climb theranks without political intervention.

In exchange forthose protections, stateworkers give up their right to participate in political campaigns, Frederick said. In Amendment 1passes, there’s achancethe Legislaturecould over time do away withthe civil service system, he said.

twoyears before being put on academic probation, dropping out and returning home.

“I gotaPh.D.inpartyology,”he said. “I madeabad choice in not focusing on my school work,” he said. “I was asmall-town guy in a big city.Myfocus wasnot on education at the time.”

Davis gotfocused back home. He said he hastaken over his family’s small farm on Lake St. John in Tensas Parish and expanded his holdings into neighboring parishes.

“When Iamnot in politics, Idrive tractors, order chemicals, buy seed, order fertilizerand make dealson buying andselling grainand cotton,” he said. “I’m areal day-to-day farmer.”

Davis served aterm on the Tensas Parish Police Jury but was defeated for reelection. He also lost races to be astaterepresentative and to serve on the Democratic State Central Committee. He did win aspot on the committeebecause he chairs the TensasParish Democratic Party Davis raised $315,000, lent his campaign $10,000 andhad $141,000 as of March 31.

Auditor says city OT spending improving Report: Leave pay policy merits closer look

BY BLAKE PATERSON Staff writer

New Orleans overtime spending

jumped by 80% from 2022 to 2025, an increase that was disproportionate to the growth in payroll and stafﬁng and signals poor management inside City Hall, the Louisiana legislative auditor found Auditor Mike Waguespack issued the ﬁnding in a report that

NOPD declines acoustic gunshot contract

System’s results found to be insufficient

BY MISSY WILKINSON Staff writer

Following an eight-month trial of ShotSpotter’s acoustic gunshot detection system, the New Orleans Police Department declined to ink a long-term contract, saying the system yielded little prosecutable evidence.

Over the eight months the system was used in the Fifth District, the NOPD made one arrest for illegal discharge of a weapon due to ShotSpotter assistance. A witness also assisted in that investigation, according to the department.

Michael Harrison deputy mayor of public safety, said the city must prioritize spending on technology that produces results. “In this case, we did not have evidence to support the technology produced desired outcomes.”

As Baltimore police chief from 2019 to 2023, Harrison said he saw ShotSpotter improve response times, evidence collection and the chances of catching shooters. Baltimore is one of more than 170 agencies using the technology New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick also said she’d seen it yield positive results in two other cities where she worked.

But both agreed results didn’t translate to New Orleans.

“Just because something works in one city, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work in another,” Kirkpatrick said recently “We found that we really weren’t able to use it to the fullest extent, and that the DA’s ofﬁce was not able to get a prosecutable case from it.” Ralph Clark, president and CEO of ShotSpotter’s parent company, SoundThinking, cited another factor in the decision by a cashstrapped department currently facing civilian furloughs and curtailed overtime hours for ofﬁcers amid the city’s budget crisis.

“In follow-on conversations with city leadership we consistently heard that the decision came down to budget prioritization, not pilot performance,” Clark said in a statement.

Jefferson Parish authorities previously reached a similar conclusion. The Sheriff’s Ofﬁce stopped using ShotSpotter because it was not cost-effective, said spokesperson Sgt. Brandon Veal. The system came with a hefty price tag and the department just didn’t get a return on the money In Jefferson Parish, residents usually call in to report gunﬁre. They call in to report when someone has been injured in a shooting, Veal said.

credits Mayor Helena Moreno’s administration for reducing overtime costs while also recommending city leaders reconsider their policy allowing workers to cash in on unused sick time when they leave the job.

The auditor also said the city should keep better records of retention bonuses paid to public safety personnel.

Waguespack, in an interview

Wednesday, said City Hall under Moreno is now “on top of the overtime stuff” but that New Orleans is an outlier among municipalities in providing compensation for accrued sick leave to departing employees. He described the payouts as a “big budget uncertainty.”

Moreno administration ofﬁcials, in a letter attached to the report, said it plans to work with the Civil Service Commission “to pursue

adjustments to existing provisions to modernize and update leave accrual and payment policies.”

It said city leaders are also working with the Civil Service Commission to improve its systems for authorizing retention payouts.

Waguespack released the report last week as part of his ongoing investigation into city spending during former Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s second term. State ofﬁcials required City Hall to submit to the review as a condition of their approval in November of New Or-

leans’ request to sell $125 million in short-term revenue bonds to cover payroll costs. The report, which was sent to state legislative leaders and members of the State Bond Commission, also includes an appendix listing out the gross earnings of every city employee in 2025, though it doesn’t include workers’

Lemonade lovers

St. Tammany council eyes new sales tax

Criminal justice budget crunch looming

BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer

St. Tammany Parish voters will likely be asked to approve a sales tax this fall to pay for big parts of the criminal justice system. The Parish Council voted unanimously on Thursday to move forward with a plan to ask voters across the parish to approve a 0.3% sales tax that ofﬁcials say would ﬁll a looming $22 million gap in the parish’s general fund. The sales tax plan was selected over two other options discussed at the meeting: a property tax and a new franchise fee which the parish can charge to private utilities like Cleco for its use of public streets, sidewalks and alleys. The decision to move forward with a sales tax came after three hours of presentations, remarks

by council members and law enforcement ofﬁcials, and comments from residents.

The council vote Thursday isn’t ﬁnal and only indicated a preference to continue reviewing the sales tax plan ahead of voting for a ballot measure that would be needed to enact it. If the council wants to put the tax on the November ballot, it will need to vote to do so by June, according to council Administrator Mary Burckell.

Many details about the tax have yet to be worked out, including whether the funds it generates, expected to be roughly $22 million, would be dedicated speciﬁcally to criminal justice or would go to the parish’s general fund, which can be used for anything. Council member Joe Impastato, who introduced the motion to move forward with the sales tax on Thursday, said the sales tax must “include an offset that would be tax-neutral or better”

Youth sports

may slash programs

18th Ward facing loss of funding

BY JONI HESS Staff writer

A popular youth sports nonprofit may have to cut hundreds of kids from its rosters amid a loss of local and federal funding and a lack of facilities to accommodate growing demand. The 18th Ward, a nonprofit that offers an array of youth sports and workforce development programs for low or no cost, stands to lose over $400,000 in funding this year nonprofit officials said. That money — half of which was federal grants largely supported year-round swim and gymnastics classes and youth jobs. The organization is also in the red because a City Council grant program it once relied on was cut, and it has not received other city money it was contracted to get, officials said. “We’re not willing to ask our

families to pay what it actually costs to run our programs, because we think recreation is a service that should be provided,” 18th Ward Director Lowrey Crews said.

A $200,000 federal grant expiring this fall leaves about 1,000 kids without services, Crews added, and 4,000 more are at risk of being waitlisted when registration opens in the fall.

“The Health Department continues to seek funding to continue this successful partnership in future years,” said ofﬁcials with the New Orleans Health Department, which partners with the 18th Ward to run free swim lessons under the expiring grant.

Mayor Helena Moreno’s administration and the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission did not respond to questions about whether the organization has been paid in full for other work.

Founded in 2019 with a roster

STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

Malika Johnson and her daughter, De’ari Dixon, 2, offer eager smiles and freshly squeezed homemade lemonade at a small stand they put together on a sidewalk in Gentilly for National Lemonade Day on Sunday

ä See AUDIT, page 2B

Times-Picayune

David Cuthbert’s career at paper spanned 43 years

BY JOHN POPE Contributing writer

David Cuthbert, who wrote about entertainment for decades and never lost his enthusiasm for all kinds of show business, died Thursday at Passages Hospice in New Orleans. He was 79. He died of Lewy body dementia, a progressive degenerative brain disorder, said his daughter, Liza Rebecca Cuthbert Copping. Show business was Cuthbert’s life. During his 43 years at The Times-Picayune, he profiled a host of entertainment legends, including Lana Turner, Carol Channing and Marlene Dietrich, and he edited the weekly TV Focus magazine When he wasn’t at the newspaper, he was helping to create musicals such as “Moon Over Montevideo,” “Babes” and “Lamoura of the Islands,” which were affectionate spoofs of 1930s and 1940s movies. The show-business connection

AUDIT

Continued from page 1B

— increased by 80% from 2022 to 2025, while total payroll costs increased by just 29%. The city spent $50.1 million last year on overtime, even though the budget, which Moreno approved in her capacity as a City Council member, set aside just $57,500 for the expenses.

“Overtime got out of control and nobody was managing it,” Waguespack said. “It became a free-forall ” The report credits Moreno’s administration, which took over on Jan. 12, for reining in overtime spending With guidance from Waguespack, Chief Administrative Officer Joe Giarrusso issued a policy in January that requires departments to receive advanced approval from his office for overtime spending. Giarrusso’s office is also requiring departments to submit 90-day overtime projections and monitor that spending in real time

In the ﬁrst three months of 2026, City Hall spending on overtime decreased by 44% compared to the same time period last year, amount-

DECLINES

Continued from page 1B

In New Orleans, it would have cost about $350,000 a year to cover the Fifth District pilot area, or about $60,000 to $70,000 per square mile.

Clark challenged the use of arrest numbers as a measure of success. “We’re careful not to position the solution as an arrest machine,” Clark said.

ShotSpotter had been tested once more than 15 years ago in the Sixth District using an FBI loaner system, Clark said. Since then, the technology has undergone a “sea change.” In 2022, as interstate highway shootings surged, with 30 people shot on interstates that

Continued from page 1B

from other taxing bodies in the parish. As an example of reductions they’ve secured, officials have pointed to Mosquito Abatement District’s plan to ask voters in June to approve a 2.95-mill tax, which they say is $4 million less than the 4.2 mills voters approved in 2016, though the district has collected less than that recently: 2.27 mills in 2026 and 3.1 mills in 2025. But officials have not offered any details about what other commitments to reduce taxes they have from other taxing bodies, such as recreation districts or St. Tammany’s fire departments, which a recent report found received more taxes per capita than fire departments in economically comparable parishes.

Revenue issues

The District Attorney’s Ofﬁce, courthouse and jail all rely on the parish’s $16 million general fund because voters have rejected attempts to pass taxes for those agencies numerous times in the past 10 years.

theater writer, producer dies at 79

didn’t stop there. Chris Bynum a newspaper colleague and friend, said Cuthbert would often burst into a room belting out show tunes, even as he entered his dentist’s ofﬁce.

“He would do that in the Living section all the time,” Bynum said.

“When I was doing an interview on the phone and he’d start singing, I’m sure that whoever I was interviewing must have thought I was in a nightclub.”

This was a throwback to his childhood, when he was often on the road with his widowed father, David Cuthbert Sr who, using the stage name Phil D’Rey, had an act combining ventriloquism and magic tricks in which he toured along the Gulf Coast, Copping said.

“Backstage life road shows and movie houses shaped his imagination early and influenced his lifelong love of performance and storytelling,” she said. “He was on the road with his father and spending time in movie theaters. He was fascinated by all the glamour and

all the wonderful stories.”

In addition to providing entertainment for a young boy, the time he spent in movie houses provided an alternate existence, Copping said. “When your mother passes away from polio when you’re a young child and you’re looked after by relatives and on the road, it was an escape. His writing about movies and movie stars all ﬁts. The plays he wrote reﬂected the kind of comfort he found in movies and storytelling.”

Cuthbert was born in Chicago and attended Our Lady of Lourdes School and École Classique in New Orleans. He joined The Times-Picayune staff in 1966 as a copy boy running errands for other staffers. He was made a City Desk reporter before he moved to the Features section, where he found his niche.

“He had an exuberance,” said Millie Ball, a longtime colleague and friend. “He was one of the most creative people. He was funny and full of joy.”

During this period, Cuthbert’s interest in live theater blossomed.

“He was just the quintessential fan as well as a producer of great theatrical stuff,” said Suzanne Stouse, a Living section colleague who

ing to around $8 million in savings. Moreno administration officials said the city “has not waited to act,” adding that it spent $1.6 million less on Mardi Gras overtime compared to last year, despite a 20% increase in visitors.

The report also examined the retention bonuses that Cantrell approved in 2022 to shore up the

year seven fatally ofﬁcials ﬂoated the idea of revisiting ShotSpotter NOPD and ShotSpotter used crime data to pinpoint the Fifth District, which includes St. Roch St. Claude, Bywater the Lower 9th Ward and parts of the Marigny and 7th Ward, as the pilot site.

In June, about 150 coffee-can shaped sensors capable of detecting pops, booms and bangs were deployed to rooftops. Once those bangs were conﬁrmed as gunﬁre by first a machine classification system and then an acoustic expert, they were entered into the police department’s computer-aided dispatch system.

From June 15 to Feb. 27, ShotSpotter generated 1,399 alerts, corresponding to 1,010 incidents. About 1 in 4 resulted in a police report, according to an April report

But ofﬁcials argue that the parish’s general fund does not have enough recurring revenue to cover the budget requests of the agencies, and the one-time funds the parish has been using to make up for the funding gap have dried up. As a result, the jail, courthouse and district attorney have faced 30% cuts in funding from the parish in 2026 compared with 2025 and fear they will experience nearly 60% cuts in 2027 compared with 2025 without more r evenue.

District Attorney Collin Sims and Chief Judge Alan Zaunbrecher said Thursday that layoffs are possible if the cuts occur The money for the courthouse pays for court reporters, staff attorneys and other staff.

“In five months, if nothing changes, I’m going to start terminating people,” Sims said at a meeting about the tax plan in the council chambers on Thursday Sims’ ofﬁce could see some additional revenue from the state, depending on the outcome of a bill brought this legislative session by state Rep Peter Egan, R-Covington, though it is not expected to be enough to make up for the 60% cuts Zaunbrecher said specialty

worked with Cuthbert on several productions, including the “Native Tongues” series of New Orleansthemed monologues.

“He went to every local production that he could,” she said. “He really supported local theater and was excited by it. It was a life force for him. His innate enthusiasm for live theater was palpable.”

Wherever Cuthbert went, “he seemed to really enjoy being in the moment and telling you how wonderful whatever you were doing was,” his daughter said. “He was able to talk to anybody, to connect with people and to do it in a way that felt effortless and authentic He could always make people feel heard.”

Survivors include his wife, Linda Willette Cuthbert; three sons, Christopher David Cuthbert, Joshua Phillip Cuthbert and Asher Gabriel Cuthbert; a daughter, Liza Rebecca Cuthbert Copping; two brothers, Michael Colin Cuthbert Scobey and Kermit Vermillion Cuthbert Douse; and eight grandchildren. No funeral is planned.

Email John Pope at pinckelopes@gmail.com.

cover the expense had been largely spent

The report recommends that City Hall update its documentation to make it clearer to employees how retention payments are earned and administered. The Moreno administration said it’s working with Civil Service to “explore further standardizing and improving the system for authorizing retention payments.”

The report also says the city should more closely monitor sick leave for departing employees, as they can be a burden on the city’s budget. The auditor pointed to an unnamed ﬁre district chief who accrued more than 1,000 days of sick leave over a 45-year career and collected nearly $450,000 in “terminal leave” payments from the city after retiring last year

During 2025, 378 departing employees received leave payments totaling $4.29 million.

ranks of the New Orleans Police Department The Moreno administration had to scramble to ﬁnd nearly $9.5 million in January to make good on the $10,000 payments to officers who stayed on the force, after outgoing members of the Cantrell administration revealed that the grant money that was supposed to

Innocence & Justice Louisiana.

The results

Fourteen ShotSpotter alerts led police to life-threatening shootings. Four of those shootings three aggravated batteries by shooting and one homicide — were not reported by civilians.

“Without the acoustic alert, ofﬁcers may not have responded to these locations at all or may have responded signiﬁcantly later,” the report states.

Clark said many of ShotSpotter’s achievements aren’t quantiﬁable by the police department’s data analytics unit.

“Police don’t get measured on saving lives They get measured on making arrests,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of value to saving lives. I think there’s a lot of value to getting investigative leads

courts, such as drug and veterans courts, would likely be threatened by the cuts, as would civil jury trials. The priority, he said, would have to be criminal jury trials.

Sales tax

Though three options were presented Thursday, St. Ta mmany Parish President Mike Cooper and others focused on the sales tax as the only option that would be able to fully fund the looming gap. Ricardo H. Callender a director at PFM Financial Advisories, a consultant hired by the parish to study the options, said the average household monthly cost for the sales tax would be $6.75, versus $10.08 for franchise fee and $12.25 for property tax.

St. Tammany Parish has an average sales tax of 9.68% Callender said.

Continued from page 1B

of 40 kids, the 18th Ward has grown in the years since, and serves 14,000 youth across New Orleans The organization is an alternative, community-oriented option for families looking to avoid the high costs of youth sports, including soccer, tennis and basketball, among others.

The organization also has a workforce development program that provides coaching jobs for youth ages 14-24 who are paid between $15 and $25 an hour

The nonprofit relies heavily on grants, private donations and contracts, as most nonprofits do. But a large portion of its $3 million budget is eaten up by the cost of renting privatelyowned pools and gymnasiums to run programs, Crews said. The group has contracts at Dryades YMCA, Loyola University, the Jewish Community Center and the University of New Orleans, among others.

The cost of renting at least one of those locations runs about $8,000 a year Crews said. The federal grant the 18th Ward has long beneﬁted from is through the “Swim Safely” program, administered through the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to help battle against an excessively high number of deaths from child drownings.

Louisiana has the highest child drowning rates in the U.S., according to the state Department of Health.

The 18th Ward had also beneﬁted from one of the hundreds of grants awarded through the City Council’s Recreation and Culture Fund. Established in 2022, that fund has also been canceled after ofﬁcials halted the program indefinitely last fall in light of the city’s budget crisis.

City officials agreed in a response to the report that they needed to get a better handle on accruing sick leave, since unexpected big-dollar payouts can wreck long-term financial planning. The city’s Department of Finance and Giarrusso’s office are exploring how best to track the leave, officials said.

in the form of shell casings. I think there’s a lot of value in showing up to a community that’s been terrorized by a handful of criminal serial shooters.”

The Innocence & Justice report says police responses to four otherwise unreported, life-threatening incidents best illustrate ShotSpotter’s potential value a benefit carefully weighed by an understaffed department seeking the most effective force multipliers, said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission.

“But for every one of those incidents, officers responded to roughly 71 other alerts that did not involve a threat to a person,” the report found. Staff writer Michelle Hunter contributed to this report.

Challenges

Some residents who attended the meeting Thursday were skeptical that voters would pass a tax to fund the criminal justice system.

Eileen deHaro, president of the League of Women Voters St. Tammany, said she thinks people are fed up with paying too much in taxes and said she thought the sales tax would especially affect lowerincome people, who tend to spend a larger share of their income on basic necessities.

“I understand the need,” she said, “but I’m thinking about the people who can barely afford food.”

Others suggested the District Attorney’s Ofﬁce’s budget should be subject to greater scrutiny or that the parish should consider allowing further budget reductions for the agencies.

Sims said his budget is annually reviewed by a certified auditor approved by the state Legislative Auditor’s Office. In past years, his office has been audited by the accountant Robert A. Neilson, audits show Sims said his current auditor is Becky Hammond, of Carr, Riggs & Ingram.

Email Willie Swett at willie. swett@theadvocate.com.

The 18th Ward was set to receive $100,000 this year, money that would have primarily supported its gymnastics program the group launched to get more girls involved in sports programs. NORD CEO Larry Barabino and other recreation leaders have said that girls are underrepresented in those programs. NORD also has also agreed to pay the 18th Ward $200,000 a year to run a soccer program at several public parks, including Easton in Mid-City Harrell Playground in Mid-City, and Norman Playground in Algiers. But Crews said they are still waiting to recoup those funds. Moreover nearly a year ago, state ofﬁcials announced a $1.95 million budget allocation was headed to UNO to fund facility upgrades and $750,000 worth of youth programming through a partnership with The 18th Ward and the Boys and Girls Club. The 18th Ward was approved for $116,000 of the $250,000 they initially budgeted for after hiring additional staff. The issue prompted them to cut corners and ﬁnd additional revenue to support the new hires.

Amid financial uncertainty and growing demand that could drive up the cost of renting facilities, Crews said expanding their partnership with the city through NORD could reduce overhead costs by nearly 50%. But attempts to partner with NORD through use of its public pools and gyms outside of NORD programming hours have been unsuccessful, despite the organization’s willingness to pay the department’s hourly rental fees, which are signiﬁcantly lower than private institutions.

In a statement, NORD ofﬁcials said organizations interested in offering programming at their facilities have the opportunity to apply to become after-school partners, which would waive rental fees. They also said they don’t cancel existing community programming to accommodate rentals.

“NORD is committed to working with community organizations to expand access to quality programming, particularly in communities where services are most needed.”

LOTTERY

SATURDAY,

Cuthbert

Sims

Zaunbrecher

Cooper

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Mayor Helena Moreno, from left, and Annie McBride, of the New Orleans Building Corp., stand behind Legislative Auditor Mike Waguespack as he talks about the city budget during a news conference recently at City Hall in New Orleans.

Hill, Edith

Mohamed, Talaat

Picou, Leonard

Stewart, Dorothy EJefferson

Garden of Memories

Mohamed, Talaat NewOrleans

Charbonnet

Picou, Leonard

Gertrude Geddes

Hill, Edith

Majestic Mortuary

Stewart, Dorothy Obituaries

Hill,Edith Mae Harris

The esteemed Edith Mae Harris Hill,age 79, aloyal native of New Orleans, Louisiana, was rewarded eternal life on Monday April 20, 2026. Edith is a deeply cherished mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, and aunt whose vastly-respected presence brings warmth and wisdom to all who know her. A devout Catholic, she was a dedicated member of St. Teresa of Avila Church in NewOrleans and afaithful participant in the Our Lady of Guadalupe and St.Jude Novenas. Her unwavering faith remains aguiding light throughouther life and beyond. She leaves,to uphold her memory, her loving daughter, Jennifer Wells (David); her proud son, Jonathan Hill (Katrina); and her beloved grandson, Kailen Hill, along with ahost of devoted nieces and nephews. Edith has entered into everlastingpeace reuniting with her parents, Odile Raphael Harris and Hubert Harris; her sisters, Isabel Cossey Jacksonand Mary "Noony" Harris; and her brothers, Joseph "Sonny", Robert "Joe Boy", and Clifford Harris. Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend the Celebration of Life Service on Tuesday, May 5, 2026at

Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home, 2120 Jackson Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70113 at 12:00

noon. Visitation from 11:00

a.m. until 12:00 noon

Interment Providence Memorial Park, 8200 Airline Drive, Metairie, LA 70003.

Gertrude Geddes Willis Funeral Home, Inc. In Charge 504 522-2525

Dr.Talaat Hassan Mo‐hamed passedaway peacefullyathis home surrounded by hisfamily, onApril 28, 2026. Adedi‐cated healer,UnitedStates Navyveteran,and devoted familyman,heleavesbe‐hinda legacy of profes‐sionalexcellenceand pro‐found love.BornonJuly30, 1932, in Cairo, Egypt, Dr Mohamed graduatedfrom the AinShams University Faculty of Medicine in Cairo before immigrating tothe United States in 1959. Shortlythereafter, in 1962, he metthe love of his life, Betty(Logan) Mo‐hamed of Bethel,Kansas, inNew Orleans. They were married on October10, 1964, in Staten Island,NY, and resettledinNew Or‐leans in 1970, beginninga beautiful journeyofover61 years ﬁlled with shared memoriesand an enduring partnership.Dr. Mo‐hamed’s distinguished medical career spanned morethanhalfa century. Hespecialized in childand adult psychiatry andpsy‐choanalysis in private practice in NewOrleans, LA. Arespected Teaching Psychoanalyst,hewas a pillarofthe NewOrleans medical community,shar‐ing hisexpertise through long-standing afﬁliations withTulaneUniversityand LSU MedicalSchoolsand Hospitals,aswellasTouro, DePaul, RiverOaks, and Northlake Behavioral Sys‐tem Hospitals. He wasa proud member of the AmericanMedical Associa‐tion(AMA),the NewOr‐leans–BirminghamPsycho‐analyticCenter(NOBPC), and theCenterfor Ad‐vancedPsychoanalytic Studies (CAPS).His com‐mitment to service ex‐tendedacrosscontinents. Hebegan hismilitaryca‐reer as aSecond Lieu‐tenantinthe Egyptian Air Force before joiningthe UnitedStatesNavyRe‐serve MedicalCorps, where he served with dis‐tinctionand retiredasa Captain after 21 yearsof honorable service. Atrue Renaissance man, Dr.Mo‐hamed wasa passionate art collector, alifelong lover of opera, akeen stock investor,and an avid globaltraveler. On autumn Sundays,hecould oftenbe found cheering on his beloved New Orleans Saints. He lovedanimals, especially themanydogs and cats hisfamilyhad overthe years. Yet, above all thesepursuits, he con‐sidered hisgreatest achievementand deepest

joytobehis family. He was precededindeath by his father, Hassan Mohamed; his mother,Naomi Hasanin;his sister,Souad; his brothers,Musbah, Hus‐niah, andFayak;his step‐mother, Sofia; hisstep‐brothers, Salahand Sami; and hisstepsisters,Suzan and Nabila.Heissurvived byhis belovedwife, Betty LouiseLoganMohamed; his children,Nabil (Bill) Mohamed (wifeMilena), LilaMohamed,Susan Downhower,and Sally Har‐ney (husband Chris).He alsoleavesbehindfour cherished grandchildren: AlexDownhower,Kaylee Downhower,Nabil Mo‐hamed,and SofiaMo‐hamed.Hewillbedeeply missedbythe many friends,colleagues, and familymembers whose lives he so meaningfully touched.Relatives and friends areinvited to at‐tendthe funeralservices onTuesday,May 5, 2026, at GardenofMemoriesFu‐neral Home.Visitationwill begin at 10:00 a.m.,fol‐lowed by aservice at 12:00 p.m.Burialwilltakeplace immediatelyfollowing the service at Garden of Mem‐ories Cemetery.Tooffer onlinecondolences,send flowerstothe family, or plant atreeinmemoryof Dr. Talaat Hassan Mo‐hamed,pleasevisit www gardenofmemoriesmetairi e.com.

LeonardPicou wasborn in NewOrleans,LAonMay 4, 1956. Godcalledhim home to join hisheavenly Father on Saturday,April 25, 2026 at 11:42 am in Uni‐versityHospital. Thelastof ﬁve children born to the late JosephinePicou, Leonardleavestocherish precious memories,his fa‐ther,AlonzoPicou;sib‐lings, Linda, Cheryl andEu‐gene Picou(Darnell); nieces,NicolePicou, Danielle Laurent(Darnel); nephew,ElliotPellebon, Jr.; cousins, Charlesand Regi‐nald Gould, as well as a host of otherfamilymem‐bers.Inaddition to his mother,heisalsopre‐cededindeath by asister, Lorita Pellebon(Elliot,Sr.), nieces,Michelle andErin Pellebon. Leonardat‐tended FrancisT.Nicholls Senior High School and wasa retiredemployeeof theLSU School of Medi‐cine,where he worked for 28 years. He waswell-loved by thosewho knew him,

andhehad azestfor life He will trulybemissed. A Celebrationservice honor‐ingthe life andlegacyof thelateLeonard Picouwill be held in theChapelof Charbonnet LabatGlapion FuneralHome, 1615 St Philip Street,New Orleans, LA 70116 on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 10 am.Interment Providence Memorial Park Visitation 9aminthe chapel. Please sign theon‐line guestbook at www.cha rbonnetfuneralhome.com. Charbonnet LabatGlapion, Directors(504)581-4411

Stewart, Dorothy Bradford

DorothyBradfordStew‐art enteredintoreston April 25, 2026. Shewas bornonAugust3,1943, to the late JoeBradfordSr. and Carrie OlaThomas. She wasraisedinKenner, Louisiana,where sheat‐tendedand graduated fromJohnH.MartinHigh School.Dorothy wasa ded‐icatedand hardworking woman who took pridein everythingshe did. Shede‐voted many yearsofser‐vice to Intralox,where her

commitmentand strong workethic left alasting im‐pressionuntil herwellearnedretirement. Beyond her work,Dorothy truly lived life to thefullest.She was knownfor heroutgo‐ing andsociablepersonal‐ity.She couldlight up any room sheentered.She loved gettingdressedup and attendingballs,par‐ties, andsocialevents, al‐waysbringingher signa‐turestyle andvibrant en‐ergy. Shopping wasone of her favorite pastimes,and she enjoyedevery opportu‐nitytotreat herselfand others. Dorothyalsofound great joyinattending church,where herfaith re‐maineda guidingforce throughouther life.More thananything, Dorothy cherished herfamily. She loved deeply andtook pride in stayingconnected celebrating life’s moments, and creating lastingmem‐ories with thoseshe held dear. Dorothyleavesto cherish herlovingmemory her children:ElnoraBrad‐fordJoseph(Eldridge), GeorgeStewart Sr., and Dionne VarMall. Sheisalso survivedbyher beloved grandchildren:WillieVan‐ZantIII, Dore’ion Stewart, CheneaJohnson,George Stewart Jr andWenzell Stewart;and hertreasured great grandchildren: Tatyana VanZant, Rashad VanZant,AvinFrazier Jakiren Williams,Ka’den Clark,Tiana VanZant, Micah Sparks,Tania Van‐Zant, Marlee Sparks,and AmirBickham.She is fur‐thersurvivedbyher nine siblings: L.C. Bradford, GeorgeThomasSr. (Guthree),Delores Wright LonnieThomas(LindaD.), Gregory Thomas (Clara), Ronny Thomas (Patricia), JacquelineMonroe (Rickey),Earnest Chatman

(Rhonda),and Charles Thomas(Marilyn);her sis‐ters-in-law:ClaireRobin‐son,Herdasean Stewart, and DelorisBlack;along witha host of nieces, nephews,cousins,and dearfriends who lovedher dearly. Dorothywas pre‐ceded in deathbyher par‐ents, JoeBradfordSr. and CarrieOla Thomas;her husband,GeorgeStewart; her sisters, LouAnne Lawrenceand Ruby Jean Henderson (Clifton);her brothers, JoeBradford, Arthur LeeBradford, An‐drewThomas, andDonnie Thomas(Sue);and her granddaughter,NiKeisha Williams.Dorothy will be rememberedfor herbold spirit, herlovefor life,and the joyshe broughtto everyonearound her. Her presencewas trulyunfor‐gettable, andher legacy of love, laughter,and strengthwillliveoninthe heartsofall who knew her. The familyextends a heartfelt invitation to all who knew andworked withDorothy at Intralox or any of herpreviousem‐ployers,aswellasthe em‐ployers andcolleaguesof her children,tojoinusin celebrating herlifeand legacy. Services will be heldat11:00 am on Satur‐day,May 9, 2026 at Provi‐dence BaptistChurch 11509 JeffersonHwy., River Ridge,La. 70123. Visitation beginsat9:00am. Inter‐mentwillbeprivate.Pro‐fessional services en‐trusted to Majestic Mortu‐ary Service, Inc. (504) 5235872.

Dr.Talaat Hassan

Picou, Leonard

Beef up soccer coverage before U.S. hosts

WorldCup

On March31, the last of 48 teams bookedtheir place in this summer’sFIFAMen’sWorld Cup

The U.S. Men’sNational Team hosted Belgium and Portugal in some of their ﬁnal matches before the tournament starts. The stage is now ﬁnally set for what is advertised to be themost well-attended edition of themostwatched sporting event on Earth There are much more important topics to discuss right now.But,I wasdisappointed to see no mention.

Soccer is often relegated inthis publication. Full-length stories are nonexistent.Neither MLS nor NWSL scores appear.Readers are left to scrape the wire reports and peruse highschool scores. Perhaps understandably so. Louisianahas no professional team and other sports rationallydeserve attention.

But, will the content come? This summer,the United States, along with Canada and Mexico,will host the Men’sWorld Cup. The last time the United States hosted the tournament was in 1994. This golden opportunity to embrace the sport may not come again for another three decades.

Some may balk at such arequest. The sport is, relatively speaking, unappreciated in Louisiana. But, its popularityconsistentlygrows. Sources vary and aredifﬁcult to localize, but nearly as many Americans watch soccer as they do baseball.Exposure and coverage are vital to the growth of asport.Just look at the explosion of the WNBA.

This newspaper’scoverage of the last Men’sWorld Cupleft muchtobedesired. In 2018, reporter Stephen Rea passionately educated us. In 2022, however, nearly all of the coverageappeared as sports betting andprop betadvice, which minimized the sporting spectacle.

Storylines of the tournament already abound. The World Cup trophy willvisit New Orleansin May. Will the publicknow? When soccer arrives, will you inform your readers commensuratewith this once-in-a-generation chance?

MJ HERNANDEZ NewOrleans

YOUR VIEWS

Utility linesand apower pole stand on March 23 along Claiborne Avenue in NewOrleans as part of EntergyNew Orleans’ accelerated resilience plantostrengthen the electric grid

WhyruinLouisiana’s affordable electricity?

Louisiana’s electric grid is thenation’smost affordable. According to theconservative American Legislative Exchange Council, Louisianans paid an average of 8.8 cents per kilowatt hour to rank second in affordable electricity in the U.S. in 2024. While electricity priceshave increased acrossthe country due mainly to therising price of natural gas and the expense of deferred maintenance, this monthElectricChoice.com ranks Louisiana numberone for least costly for residential powerat12.44-centsper kWh in April 2026. It’s atestament to theeffectivenessofthe elected regulators of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. But the conservative Pelican Institutefor Public PolicyinNew Orleans justpublished “Shock to theSystem” calling for radical changes to themanagement of Louisiana’selectricity supplychain. In short,every change the Pelican Institute calls for would make Louisiana more like the mismanaged and moreexpensive grids

of Texas and California.

The Pelican Institute calls for breaking apart the supply chain into independent components to give consumers choices for electricity suppliers. As therankings demonstrate, every statewith so-called “consumer choice”has electricity thatcosts morethan Louisiana. These electric suppliers would buy electricity from thesame generatorsLouisiana usestoday and, of course,add markups to thecustomers.

In my home state of Texas, the retailers aren’t requiredtoprovide reliable service, andTexas consumers were forced by the legislature to paybillions of dollars to bail out the retailers following thedeadly grid failure of 2021. Why does thePelican Institute want to bring those sameunreliable retailers to Louisiana?

It begs the question, if theLouisiana grid isn’t broken, why does thePelican Institute want to ﬁx it just to beneﬁt special interests?

ED HIRS energyeconomist, University of Houston

SchulerStatuedeservesplace of honor

Iwas very disappointed with your article aboutthe Schuler Statue. It was my understanding that the statue was commissioned to honor UncleJack, not to show him as humble andsubservient. In 1926, the sum of $4,300 was asmall fortune. Statues were being made of generals andpresidents, not old Black servants. As he stood in thecircular entrance to the

LSURural Life Museum, one of the ﬁnest historical exhibitsinthis country,I took it as aplace of honor,welcoming us to the facility Now he is back somewhere in the woods where you almost have to search toﬁnd him.Let us be adultsand move him back to the entrance. I would be glad to donatetothis cause.

MICHAEL DEFELICE Zachary

Legislature’s disgracefulact in Duncan case will be remembered by voters

As avoter,watching the governor and Republicans in the Legislature race to nullify the election of Calvin Duncanfor Clerk of Orleans Criminal Court before he could even be inaugurated was painful. It is undemocratic, un-American, disrespectful to Duncanand disrespectful to all voters, including supporters of other candidates. If the powers-thatbe in Baton Rouge wantedtoconsolidate the two clerk of court offices in New Orleans because they think it is more efficient, why didn’tthey do it in 2023, or 2024, or 2025? That would have allowed timefor transition. Moreover,itwould have allowed the voters to pick who would hold that new office. Instead, it was only after Duncan won the election last fall by awide margin, no less —that the push to eliminate the office became an urgent priority.Itdoesn’thave to be this way.The bill to reduce the number of judges is timed to the end of the sitting judges’ terms. That does right by both elected officials and voters. Targeting Duncan for different treatment —Why? Because he was wrongfully convicted and later exonerated? —isshameful and unjustifiable.

We,the people, should get to vote forour local ofﬁcials —not have the governor and his legislative allies nullifyour choices. I wonder how they would feel if this happened in their city or town, or to them personally? These are the samepoliticians that supported posting the TenCommandments in classrooms. Maybe we need to post the Golden Rule in the State Capitol: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, forthis sumsupthe Law and the Prophets.”

Isincerely hope the governor and Legislature reconsider what they have done and respect the will of the voters.’

STEVENSPIRES NewOrleans

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

Data centershave moreimpacts than just on energy and water consumption. They drive an inﬂux of newcomerstoanarea, and manyof those areas are quiterural and thus unprepared in terms of infrastructure. Consider: The higher volume of trafﬁc on unequipped streetsand roads, ahighercompetition for food and goods in places already likely food deserts, the lack of enough space to accommodate public “slots” such as hospital beds or school seats,and so on This all drives up costs for locals and increases bills and the cost of living.

Iprompt the imagining of an even worse scenario: the rerouting of water and ousting

of people who can no longer afford to live and work in an area, again, often farmland in such acase, leading to less food readily available; which, again, would drive up costs, but now in agreater area, and then, given the scale of these projects, later nationwide. Idon’tmean to be an alarmist or adoomsdayer,but Iurge greater thought regarding the impacts of data centers, not just within our state, but within our nation. This is an issue that will transcend generational and geographic boundaries and needs to be taken very seriously ELISE VERHEUGEN

Metairie

Trumphas no business tellingpopeanythingabout Christianity

President Donald Trump criticized Pope Leo XIV,saying the Pope is “a veryliberal person,” “not doing avery good job”and “radical left.” Examplesofirony would be aﬁre station burning down, apsychic canceling an appointment due to unforeseen circumstance andbe-

ing stuck in trafﬁc on your waytothe gym Now top of the list: Trumptelling the pope how to be aChristian. Anonymous quote could be thepope’sresponse: “It’sOKifyou don’t like me, not everyone has good taste.” TERRYGRUNDMANN Kenner

Letter writer TiaFields bemoans the loss of judicial control of the East Baton Rouge Parish District and the number of Black criminals on death row

Twopoints should be brought up. These criminals were convicted of such serious crimes they merit the death penalty.They put themselves in this situation. It wasn’tshoplifting or parking tickets. What about the impact on the families of these victims who have lost abrother,husband or wife,father or mother? Where is their justice? Who is going to be afather or mother to achild killed by one of these criminals?

Fields worriesabout the criminals on death row? Where is the advocate for the victims?

RICHARD LEVY NewOrleans Worrymore aboutvictims than criminals in

STAFF FILE PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Duncan

COMMENTARY

THECALLAIS DECISION

TheSupreme Courtstruck down amajority Black congressional district in Louisiana on Wednesday in a landmarkruling withwide-reachingeffects across the country.

What kind ofdemocracy will we leave forour kids?

The Supreme Court’sdecisioninLouisiana v. Callais is more than alegal ruling. It is amoment that asks all of us, regardless of party or background, to reﬂecton a simple but powerful question: Who gets to be fully represented in ourdemocracy? Here in Louisiana, that question is not abstract. It is real, and it affects communities across our state. At its core, this case is about whetherevery citizen has afair chance to elect leaders who understandtheir lives, their concerns and their hopesfor the future.

tunity.When representation is weakened, those issuesdonot disappear.They simply become harder for some communities to inﬂuence.

High courtgot Louisiana redistrictingrulingright

For generations, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has servedasa guardrail. It was never meant to sit quietly on ashelf. It was designed to ensure that the right to vote leads to real representation. Over time,wehave seen those protections weakened. This latestdecisionraises serious concerns about whether that promise can still be fully realized.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter GUEST COLUMNIST

This decisionalso has implications beyond Louisiana. It signals ashift that could affect how representation is shaped in states acrossthe country That is why this moment matters, notjust to onegroup or one region, but to the integrity of our democracy as awhole. We arenow at acrossroads.We canchoose apath that strengthens participation and builds conﬁdence in our institutions. Or we can allow divisions to deepen and voices to be diminished.

Some will say this ruling movesustoward amore neutral, colorblind system. But Louisiana’shistory reminds us that policies that seem neutralcan still have unequal effects. We have seen it before Rules once defended as fair were used in ways that left many voices unheard. That is alesson we cannot afford to forget. The reality is that representation matters. When people feel seen and heard in government, trust grows. Whenthey do not, that trust beginstoerode. And when trust erodes, our entire system feelsthe strain.

This is not just about maps orlines onpaper.Itisabout whether communitieshave ameaningful voice in decisions that shape their daily lives. It is about health care, education, jobs, publicsafety and oppor-

Ibelieve Louisiana is better than that. Ibelieve our country is betterthan that. The promise of America has always been rootedinthe idea thatevery voice counts. Thatpromisehas never been easy, and it hasnever been automatic. It requireseffort, vigilance and ashared commitment to fairness

While Ivehemently disagree withthis decision, Iremain committed to the work ahead. That meanscontinuing to engage, to listen and to seek solutions that bring peopletogether rather than pull them apart.

At the end of the day,this is not just about one ruling. It is about the kind of democracy we want to leave for the next generation.

And that is something every Louisianan hasa stakeinprotecting.

Troy Carter represents Louisiana’s second district in the U.S. Houseof Representatives

After theSupreme Court decisionin Louisiana v. Callais, state legislators must return to the congressionalmap drawing board. This time,don’t use race. The Supreme Court struckdownthe congressional maps, saying that states may notredistrict to achieve racial purposes. When legislative sponsors in Baton Rouge were asked during debateonthe now-overturned mapswhy theydrew theoffending map in Callais, they were honest: They wanted districts based on skin color Vice Chair of the House and Governmental Affairs Committee Rodney Lyons, D-Marrero, saidthey wantedto“createtwo majority Black districts.” WhenRep BerylAmedee, R-Houma, askedcommittee chair and mapsponsor Rep. Beau Beaullieu, R-New Iberia, if the bill was intended to create Black districts, he responded: “yes ma’am.”

moral side of history.Myorganization’samicus brief on behalf of eight legislators, including Rep. Amedee, stakedout the moraland historical imperative of treating people equally andwithout regard to race. The authors of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitutionprohibitedthe use of race to allocatepolitical power.It was arainbowafter the storm. The amendment containedthe promise thatvoting rights and powerallocation should never be leveragedbased on race. Since1870, ournation has struggledtofulfill the raceblind promisesinthe Constitution. Separate wasn’tequal. Soon afterpassage, the dream of the Fifteenth Amendment began to wither in state capitals, registration offices andinthe gunfire of the White League on New Orleansstreets.

The legislative record is full of explicit statements from lawmakers about how they deliberately created congressional districtstoallocate power by race. It was 1960 all over again —but the racial gamesmanship was reversed. It is immoral and wicked to give one person power because he is Black, just as it was to give others power a century ago because they were White. The courtheld that Section 2ofthe Voting RightsAct is alive and well, and sometimes remedial districts must be drawn after aplaintiff satisﬁes an extraordinary burden. The Supreme Courtdecision is on the

Thenthe pendulum swung toofar the otherdirection, with racial setaside districts, seemingly endless court battlesand thenthe brazen racial gerrymandering like the Supreme Court struckdowninCallais. With this decision, the dignity of everyAmerican wasprotected. Place this opinionalongside other great moments of courage from the high court —like Brown v. Board, Loving v. Virginia andStudents for Fair Admissions vHarvard.

J. Christian Adams is the president and general counsel for the Public InterestLegal Foundation and serves on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Louisiana voters should defeat Amendment1 at thepolls

Consider this hypothetical. Anew governor takes officealong with asubstantially new legislature. On day one, thegovernor fires hundreds of attorneys, engineers and other state employees. Mostof those dismissed are longtime classified government workers who have developed expertise in matters related to state contracts, procurement, administrative procedure and, in thecase of engineers, road and bridgedesign and construction practices. All of the new employees hired to replace them are paid substantially more than their predecessors. Most have made campaign contributions to the governororwell-placed legislators. Far-fetched? Improbable? Unlikely? Not if Amendment 1onthe May 16 ballot is passed by voters statewide Currently almost 90% of stateemployees are classified and cannot beremoved at the whim of an elected official. They cannot engage in political activity either.This is afair trade-off. Unclassified employees, on the other hand, are “at will” workers answerable only to theofficial appointing them. They can be politically active.Many typically supportthe political campaigns of the individuals for whom they work. They also generallyare paid ahigherwage than their classified counterparts.

Proponentsofthe proposed amendment argue that it is toodifficult to fire bad employeesand thatthe state has difficulty attracting good talent. The latter is often true, but it will not be remedied by passage of this amendment

Jay Dardenne GUEST COLUMNIST

It is correct to saythat thereisa process for firing aclassified worker.Itcan take moretime than firing an unclassified employee and it certainly takes documentation, but this is precisely what managers must do. They mustmanage their workforce, provide counseling when needed and properly record deficiencies thatultimately may justify termination. Ispent almost 20 years running three departments of Stategovernment: the SecretaryofState’soffice; the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and the Division of Administration. Iwas authorized to hire alimited number of unclassified employees and supervised thousands of classifiedemployees,the vast majority of whom were hard working, dedicated publicservants. Ialso fired anumber of individuals, some unclassified but most classified. Under the regimes of Huey Long, Earl Long and others, therewas no classified civilservice system.This changed with reform governors suchasSam Jones and Bob

Kennon. During the latter’s single term, the Department of Civil Service obtained constitutionalstatus. Gov.Jones implemented early vestiges of acivil service program only to seeitrepealed during asubsequent Earl Long term. Until Gov.Kennon made it afocal point of his 1952 campaign andsaw it enshrined in thestate constitution, political spoils werethe order of the day.The civil servicesystem created an opportunity for workers to obtain employment with the securityofknowing thatthey could notbe fired, without cause, for political reasons. In 2025, Gov.Jeff Landrysought to reclassify 394 attorneyslots and 506 engineer positions from classified to unclassified. The proposal would not have affected anycurrent employees.However,ifthose positions had been reclassified, thedoorwould be opened for politics to inevitably impactthe hiring process. The constitutionally created Civil Service Commission, which is the human resourceentityfor state government, properly refused this request. Thereafter, this proposed constitutional amendment passed the Legislature.

Stateemployees are subject to pay scales that allow for advancement and raises, but they typically earn far less than comparable positions in theprivate sector.This is as it should be. State employees are protected from political abuse andben-

efit from astrong retirement system and benefits package. Numerous studies have been undertaken to makestate pay more competitive, but it will never nor should it exceed that in the private sector.Itis inconceivable that well paid professionals will leave the private sector to enter unprotected employment with the state unless unclassified salaries go up dramatically

The ballot language is deceptively simple:

“Doyou support an amendment to allow the legislature to remove or add ofﬁcers, positions, and employees to the unclassiﬁed state civil service?”

Without any details identifying potential next steps, it will be lefttoamajority of the Legislature to provide the proverbial “devil in the details.”

The passage of Amendment 1would be ahuge step backward forLouisiana at a timewhen we need manyforward steps to improve our overall economy and to make government moreresponsible and efficient. Converting classified jobs to unclassified jobs will not do so.

JayDardenneisa former Louisiana state senator,secretary of state, lieutenant governor andcommissioner of administration

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTOByRAHMATGUL

J. Christian Adams GUEST COLUMNIST

Derby win pitted brother vs. brother down the stretch

BY JON HALE

Lexington Herald-Leader (TNS)

LOUISVILLE,Ky.— Brotherjockeyshavesquared off against each other in the Derby 11 times, but never before has a family rivalry played out like the 152nd Run for the Roses. Down the stretch, brothers Jose and Irad OrtizonGoldenTempoandRenegade,respectively, both came charging from the outside As the pair passed leader Ocelli, it appeared eithercouldwin,butGoldenTempogainedthe edge, eventually winning by a neck.

Neither brother had won the Derby in a combined 19 starts. Now, Jose, the younger by a year can walk away with familial bragging rights in addition to the careerdeﬁning victory “Good for him, he ran second,” Jose said of his brother with a smile “Hopefully, he

gets the opportunity to win it one day. But it wasn’t today.” Of the 11 previous matchups between brother jockeys in the Derby, Jose and Irad accounted for eight. They had squared off in each of the past ﬁve Derbys, but neither had ﬁnished in the money since 2019.

That year Jose finished third on Tacitus and Irad finished fourth on Improbable in the previous best combined finish for brother jockeys. Jose finished second on Good Magic in 2018, but Irad finished seventh on Hofburg.

Entering Saturday, Irad appeared to have the better shot at the win. Renegade was the morning-line favorite and went off at 5-1. Golden Tempo was a long shot at 23-1.

ä See RIVALRY, page 5C

Good for him, he ran second. Hopefully, he gets the opportunity to win it one day. But it wasn’t today.”

JOSE ORTIZ Jockey on his brother Irad Oriz Jr

Healthy pitching lifts LSU past S.C.

Tigers earn first sweep of season in SEC play

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

LSU’s pitching was in a bad place last week.

The Tigers had lost their Friday starter less than an hour before the game. Their Saturday starter was already out for the year with an elbow injury, and their bullpen had struggled for much of the season. Those issues resulted in LSU getting swept on the road against Mississippi State. But even without sophomore right-hander Casan Evans for another week, this weekend against South Carolina (22-27, 7-17 SEC) back at Alex Box Stadium was a completely different story LSU (28-21, 9-15) took down the Gamecocks 7-0 on Sunday thanks to another lengthy outing from senior right-hander Zac Cowan. The Tigers only needed four pitchers to get through 18 innings during Saturday’s doubleheader before Cowan tossed six innings to start the series ﬁnale.

Sunday’s victory completed a series sweep over South Carolina, LSU’s ﬁrst of the season in Southeastern Conference play “It’s great to sweep a series,” LSU coach Jay Johnson said. “Taking a look at the names that aren’t on the roster, this is a pretty good accomplishment for this group.” Cowan, in his second start in six days, allowed just two hits and didn’t give up a run. He threw a season-high 82 pitches after tossing 73 pitches (his season-high before Sunday) on Tuesday. After surrendering a two-run walk-off home run last weekend at Mississippi State, Cowan has 14 strikeouts in 10 shutout innings this week.

“(He) should be hands down SEC pitcher of the week,” Johnson said. “I’ve talked about him for two years, how important he

ä See LSU, page 5C

in Sunday’s series finale against South Carolina.

Green Wave drops to bottom of American Conference

Tulane falls to 8-13 in conference play following series loss to Charlotte

BY GUERRY SMITH Contributing writer

In the midst of ﬁnal exams at school, the Tulane baseball team ﬂunked what on paper was one of its easiest tests.

It was more than just a rough weekend in Charlotte. It was horrible. Instead of moving up in the standings against the last-place team in the American Conference, the Green Wave plummeted to a three-way tie at the bottom while getting swept by the composite score of 24-5. Charlotte (23-24, 8-13), which had lost 14 of its previous 16 games, trailed only twice in the series and never at the end of an inning.

“Obviously not a great weekend,” Tulane

coach Jay Uhlman said “It was a conglomerate of things. We’re not getting calls and we’re not getting breaks.”

After falling 6-3 on Sunday Tulane (2326, 8-13 American) suddenly is in serious jeopardy of missing the eight-team league tournament, which it won in 2022 and 2024 before losing in the championship game a year ago. The Wave hosts the other cellar dweller tied for eighth, South Florida, in its ﬁnal home series next weekend before traveling to Rice to end the regular season. This one was a shocker coming off backto-back victories against conference-leading Texas-San Antonio and 12th-ranked Southern Miss. The weekend began miserably with Tulane’s ﬁrst run-rule loss of the season — 10-0 in seven innings — got only marginally better in Saturday’s 8-2 defeat and ended with a tepid four-hit performance. Charlotte, which had a league-worst ERA of 7.37 in conference games before the se-

ries started, allowed four earned runs in 25 innings. The Wave had three hits in the opener and went 1 for 12 with runners in scoring when it managed eight hits on Saturday “That was the problem early in the year,” Uhlman said. “We’re not capitalizing on our opportunities.”

Tulane’s chance to salvage a Sunday finale for the third straight time came and went in the fifth and sixth innings. Jason Wachs gave the Wave a 2-1 lead with a two-out, twoRBI single in the fifth, but Charlotte first baseman Cody Gunderson snagged a line drive from Trent Liolios that was ticketed to score at least one and maybe two more runs. Wave reliever Jack Brafa surrendered back-to-back singles with one out in the bottom half, prompting the coaches to turn to Julius Ejike-Charles for his highest-leverage outing of the season.

TULANE, page

Golden Tempo ridden by Jose Ortiz, left, wins the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby followed by Renegade ridden by his brother Irad Ortiz Jr on Saturday at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky AP PHOTO By ABBIE PARR

FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL BACIGALUPI

LSU pitcher Zac Cowan warms up in a game against Texas A&M on April 19 at Alex Box Stadium. Cowan tossed six innings

PROVIDED PHOTO By TULANE ATHLETICS

Tulane outfielder Jason Wachs runs to base during a game against Charlotte on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C. Wachs led the offense with a hit, a walk, and two RBIs.

Young finishes off wire-to-wire win

BY TIM REYNOLDS Associated Press

DORAL, Fla. The only person who gave Cameron Young any trouble on Sunday was, well, Cameron Young.

He called a one-stroke penalty on himself while playing the par4 second hole, after he caused his ball to move in the fairway And then he made par anyway It was that sort of week: Young was unflappable and unbeatable. He went wire-to-wire alone on the lead at the Cadillac Championship, a final round of 4-under 68 getting him to 19 under for the week and six shots clear of world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler (68)

“When the golf course is difﬁcult, when the conditions are difﬁcult, that tends to make it easier for me mentally,” Young said. With President Donald Trump in place to watch most of the round at Trump National Doral, Young picked up $3.6 million for the second-biggest payday of his career He made $4.5 million earlier this year for winning The Players Championship.

Trump arrived with several members of his family — including granddaughter Kai Trump, who plans to play at the University of Miami when she enrolls later this year — shortly after noon and remained until the tournament was over He stood for the ovation as Young walked up the 18th hole, as a number of fans in attendance were allowed to move into the fairway for a look at the ﬁnal putts of the week. And when it was over, Young got a thumbs-up from Trump, followed later by a quick handshake.

“It’s very unique. He’s nothing if not a very, very interesting man,” Young said. “He’s very powerful and it’s an honor to get to play in front of him.”

A bit more than an inch of rain fell on the course in the early morning hours Sunday delaying a planned 7:30 a.m. start (which had already been rescheduled Saturday in anticipation of bad weather) to the ﬁnal round by two hours. And the Blue Monster was

no longer a monster, not with everything softened by the rain.

The average scores in the first three rounds were between 71 and 71.6. The average score Sunday, with preferred lies, was 69. There were nine birdies — total — on the par 18th in the first three rounds and 12 at the finishing hole on Sunday alone.

Scheffler finished second for the third consecutive start, after finishing a shot behind Rory McIlroy at the Masters and losing a playoff to Matt Fitzpatrick at Hilton Head. Those were near-misses; this one wasn’t.

That’s how good Young was. Even the best player in the world never had a real chance on Sunday

“Some good takeaways from this week,” Schefﬂer said. “Cam played fantastic golf all week. I played with him three out of the four days and he was hitting a lot

of quality shots and making putts from anywhere. He was going to be to be a tough man to beat this week.”

Young called the violation on himself with his ball in the middle of the fairway on the second hole it moved at address, something he said has happened to him before — and said he didn’t hesitate to do the right thing.

“Your heart sinks when you see it move,” Young said. “But it moved. That’s part of what’s golf about. There’s no one who’s going to give me a penalty there but myself.”

Ben Griffin (68) was third at 12 under, while Si Woo Kim (70), Sepp Straka (66) and Adam Scott (64) tied for fourth at 11 under Scott likely clinched a spot in the U.S. Open which would be his 100th consecutive major start, assuming he starts in the PGA Championship later this

month — after shooting 66-64 on the weekend. Scott ﬁnished at 11 under, meaning he should remain comfortably inside the top 60 in the world ranking and qualify for the U.S. Open.

“To win a major I’m going to need to put four days together, not just a weekend coming from behind,” said Scott, who was the winner of the World Golf Championships Cadillac Championship until this week, the most recent PGA Tour event at Doral — in 2016. “I feel like my game is there. I’m doing all the things that I think I need to do to be in that kind of contention.”

Young can say the same. The world’s No. 4 player was 67th in those rankings at this time last year, and is already over the $11 million mark in earnings in 2026.

“I think the self-belief just continues to build,” Young said.

LSU men’s tennis falls short in regional ﬁnal

Tigers miss out on super regional for first time since 2005

BY CHARLES SALZER

Contributing writer

There was no margin for error

Saturday evening when the LSU men’s tennis team faced Pepperdine on the second day of their NCAA regional.

For an LSU team that had earned the right to host the regional with its best season in more than 15 years the margin was too much to overcome.

After winning the doubles point, LSU got off to a slow start in the singles competition and eventually fell to Pepperdine 4-3 as every set of every match need-

ed to be completed to determine the winner LSU (26-7) fell short of reaching the NCAA’s final 16 for the ﬁrst time since 2005 The Tigers’ win total was their highest since 1999. Pepperdine (19-9) advances to face Baylor, which defeated Auburn 4-1 in the Waco regional ﬁnal.

“We got off to a good start,”

LSU coach Danny Bryan said.

“We haven’t lost a match after winning the doubles point all year We didn’t play our best in the ﬁrst sets on a lot of courts, but we did a really good job coming back at the start of the second sets.”

LSU’s only ﬁrst-set win in singles came from Erik Arutiunian, who defeated Lasse Poertner 6-1, 6-3 at No. 2. Pepperdine tied the team match 2-2 with wins at No. 5 and No 6, but LSU edged back

ahead when Olaf Pieczkowski ﬁnished off a 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 win over Edward Winter at No. 1. That left two matches, both of which went three sets, to decide the winner LSU was up a break early in the third set of both matches, but Pepperdine rallied each time. At No. 4, Gustavo Almeida dropped the ﬁrst game on his serve before storming back with a 6-1 victory in the third set of his match with LSU’s Matias Ponce De Leon.

LSU’s Andrej Loncarevic battled through muscle spasms to tie up his match with Aleksa Pisaric at No. 3. Pisaric broke Loncarevic’s serve to take a 4-2 lead, then won the next two games to close out the team win for Pepperdine.

“It was a match of momentum swings,” Pepperdine coach Andy Schaechterle said. “Coming in, I

thought we had the advantage in doubles and to lose that, it took a little of the wind out of our sails. Our guys did an amazing job responding to win the five first sets and take the momentum back but then I thought LSU did great for about 45 minutes and flexed on us.”

LSU opened the match with a win at No. 2 doubles as Arutiunian and Ponce De Leon defeated Almeida and Poertner 6-4. The Waves then got a 6-4 win from Maxi Homberg and Pisaric at No. 3.

The Tigers secured the doubles point when Sasa Markovic and Loncarevic edged the Waves’ top duo of Winter and David Fix 6-4.

“Going into the match, we knew it was going to be very tough,” Bryan said. “I don’t feel like we played our best in singles. It’s tough to process it right now.”

LSU women’s tennis advances to super regional

BY CHARLES SALZER

Contributing writer

In a match that felt closer than the ﬁnal score indicated the LSU women’s tennis team got past an inspired performance by Rice to take a 4-1 win in the Baton Rouge regional on Sunday at the LSU Tennis Complex

The win moves 10th-seeded LSU (21-9) into a super regional matchup with No. 7 Virginia. The Tigers and Cavaliers will play in Charlottesville, Virginia, at 1 p.m. Saturday The super regional appearance will be the second straight for LSU. Virginia advanced out of its regional by defeating both St. Francis and Washington by scores of 4-0. Against Rice (18-10), LSU picked up the doubles point

with wins at the No. 2 and No. 3 spots. Cadence Brace followed that with a straight-set win over Rice’s Darya Schwartzman at No. 1 singles to give LSU a 2-0 overall lead before the match tightened up.

“The score did not indicate at all how competitive that match was throughout,” LSU coach Taylor Fogleman said. “Rice pushed us in every which way I knew that they would.” Rice earned its only point of the day with Ema Mravcova’s 2-0 win over Kinaa Graham at No. 6 singles, leaving LSU with a 2-1 edge. Meanwhile all four of the other matches split their ﬁrst two sets as Rice refused to go away LSU ultimately made its way to four points with wins from Ella McDonald at No. 3 and Carolina Kuhl at No 5. Both players won

two straight sets after losing the ﬁrst. “It was a very tough match,” said Kuhl, whose 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over Nithesa Selvaraj clinched LSU’s fourth point. “I felt like I had to get used to the conditions at the beginning of the match. It was not easy to play her I managed that well in the second set, and I was just happy that I was able to come back and ﬁght through it.”

When the match ended, Rice led that match at No 2 singles while LSU had the advantage at No. 4. The ﬁght displayed by Rice did not come as a surprise to Fogleman, who served as assistant to Rice coach Elizabeth Schmidt from 2014 to 2017. “I knew that they would push us,” Fogleman said. “That was

Sinner wins record fifth straight Masters 1000 title

MADRID Top-ranked Jannik Sinner cruised past Alexander Zverev in the final of the Madrid Open to win the tournament for the first time and become the first man to win five consecutive Masters 1000 events.

Sinner beat the third-ranked Zverev 6-1, 6-2 on Sunday for his 23rd straight win. He had already won Master 1000 tournaments in Monte Carlo, Miami and Indian Wells this year, and in Paris last year “I think there is a lot of work behind it,” Sinner said.

Zverev lost to Sinner in the semiﬁnals of each of those tournaments. He won in Madrid in 2018 and 2021, and was runner-up to Carlos Alcaraz in 2022.

Korda crushes in Mexico, nabs third win of season

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico Nelly

Korda delivered an early knockout punch Sunday and stretched her lead to as many as seven shots before cruising to the ﬁnish line with a 3-under 69 and a four-shot victory in the Riviera Maya Open at Mayakoba for her third win of the young season.

Korda went 60 consecutive holes without a bogey She finished at 17-under 271, four shots ahead Arpichaya Yubol of Thailand, who celebrated her 24th birthday with a 70 to finish alone in second. Yu Liu of China (69) was another shot back. Arkansas senior Maria Jose Marin, who delighted the crowd with her Augusta National Women’s Amateur title last month, had a 69-69 weekend to finish fifth. The top 10 would make her eligible for next week at the Mizuho Americas Open, but she has finals.

Cink adds another senior major with a 3-shot win

BIRMINGHAM, Ala Stewart Cink pulled away with consecutive birdies early on the back nine Sunday that stretched his lead to four shots, and he closed with a 3-under 69 for a three-shot victory in the Regions Tradition for his second major this year on the PGA Tour Champions.

Cink, who won the Senior PGA Championship two weeks ago in Florida, became the second player in two years to capture the ﬁrst two majors on the 50-and-older circuit.

Angel Cabrera won the Senior PGA and the Tradition last year in consecutive weeks. Scott Hend (65) was the runnerup.

Lindberg notches his first European tour victory

ANTALYA,Turkey Mikael Lindberg closed with a 3-under 69 to win the Turkish Airlines Open on Sunday for his ﬁrst European tour victory that earned him a spot in the PGA Championship by leading the tour’s Asian swing. Lindberg has three birdies on a four-hole stretch on the front nine at National Golf Club to take control, and he added consecutive birdies on the back nine. He two-putted for par on the last to finish at 10-under 278 and win by two over Daniel Rodrigues (71) and Guido Migliozzi (70). The PGA Championship, to be played May 14-17 at Aronimink, set aside spots for three players from the Asian swing. Lindberg will be joined by Bernd Wiesberger and Jordan Gumberg.

Song tops Cho to prevail in playoff in South Korea

my old boss, and I don’t think anybody does much of a better job at getting their team ready to compete, especially at this time of year.”

LSU opened the afternoon by taking the doubles point. The Tigers got a 6-2 win from Kenna Ericson and McDonald over Francesca Magunia and Mravcova at No. 2. Kuhl and Addison Lanton were next to ﬁnish when they beat Divna Ratkovic and Daniela Chica 6-4 at No. 3.

“If you can nudge yourself ahead (with the doubles point), I think it is very difﬁcult to ﬁnd four singles when you’re playing very good teams,” Fogleman said “To get that point, and then to get a relatively quick win from Cadence at No. 1 (singles), it gave us a little bit of breathing room.”

SEONGNAM South Korea Minhyuk Song shot 1-under 70 and defeated Mingyu Cho with a par on the first playoff hole Sunday to win the GS Caltex Maekyung Open on the Asian Tour Cho was poised to win, leading by two shots, until missing a 3-foot bogey putt on the 18th for a 70 to fall into a playoff. Adding to the drama was Inhoi Hur closing with a 64 to also finish at 11-under 273, only for officials to assess a twoshot penalty from an incident in the third round that kept him from playing for the title. Hur hit a wild tee shot on the seventh hole on Saturday, and then a provisional in case it was not found. A spotter picked up the ball out-of-bounds, but that led to questions whether it was beyond the boundary

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By DAVID J PHILLIP

Cameron young holds the trophy after winning the Cadillac Championship on Sunday in Doral, Fla.

THE VARSITY ZONE

Red-hot Riverside softball wins state championship

‘Studying’ helped lift top-seeded Riverside over St. Frederick

BY CHRISTOPHER DABE Staff writer

SULPHUR Still sore after she threw 135 pitches and struck out 14 in a semiﬁnal, Kamryn Cancienne returned to the pitcher’s circle the next day feeling conﬁdent — not only in herself, but also her highscoring softball lineup.

Top-seeded Riverside scored double figures in runs in all four postseason games on the way to winning an LHSAA Division IV select state championship, the latest victory by an 11-1 margin in five innings against No. 14 St. Frederick in the state final Sunday at Frasch Park.

One day after scoring five runs in the first inning on the way to a semifinal rout of No. 4 Ascension Catholic, Riverside (22-8) scored four runs in the first against St. Frederick (20-14).

“The thing we’ve been saying all

season is to pull on the same side of the rope,” Cancienne said. “This whole season, we really have. Especially in the playoffs. It showed at the end.

Cancienne doubled and scored during the four-run first. The Rebels added two more runs in the second. Another run scored in the fourth. The game ended with Makenzie Granier’s three-RBI double in the bottom of the ﬁfth.

No. 8 hitter Karyn Milazzo hit a two-RBI double in the ﬁrst inning.

No. 7 hitter Layla Price led off the ﬁfth with a home run.

Riverside won with a lineup that included four seniors on the inﬁeld with Jace Bordelon at ﬁrst, Granier at second, Olivia St. Pierre at shortstop and Sophie Milioto at third, along with Cancienne in the circle.

“We knew it was an opportunity for us to get a title,” Riverside coach Thomas Hymel said. “I’m

so proud. They put their minds to it. They came to work each and every day Just hats off to those girls. They earned it.”

Riverside scored 11 runs in all four postseason games. Sophomore Bayli Menancon’s three-run home run highlighted the 11-2 semiﬁnal win against Ascension Catholic.

“We really did a lot of studying on the pitchers and we knew what they would throw,” Bordelon said. “We got on them quick. It really helped us.”

Riverside drew nine free passes with seven walks and two hit batters. Six of those runners scored.

St. Frederick won three playoff games against higher-seeded opponents, including Saturday’s 4-1 semiﬁnal against No. 2 Glenbrook. Riverside put an end to that streak Sunday

Contact Christopher Dabe at cdabe@theadvocate.com

John Curtis falls to Pineville in ﬁnal

BY CHRISTOPHER DABE Staff writer

SULPHUR The first time Jadin Basco came to bat with ﬁrst base open, John Curtis intentionally walked her and Ava Moore followed with a two-RBI double to right-center ﬁeld.

The next time the Pineville cleanup hitter came to bat with ﬁrst base open, Curtis elected to pitch to the junior, and she belted a three-run home run down the line in left.

No matter the strategy against the Rebels’ hottest, most dangerous hitter, second-seeded Pineville did damage to the tune of a 12-1, six-inning victory in the LHSAA Division I select state championship Sunday at Frasch Park — the school’s first softball state title since 1998

Basco’s two-day tear at the state tournament started with two home runs and seven RBIs in a 13-1 semiﬁnal win against Chapelle that ended after ﬁve innings.

Her big blast in the third inning against No. 4 Curtis came on a 2-2 pitch.

“I was sitting changeup, and I knew I was going to crush it,” said Basco, whose three home runs at state raised her season total to 11. Basco had 16 home runs as a sophomore, but lower back surgery in the summer kept her off the ﬁeld until January

“We weren’t even sure she was going to be out on the field this year,” Pineville coach Allison Frye said. Moore, who had the two-RBI double in the ﬁrst inning ended the game with a grand slam that triggered the 10-run rule in the sixth inning, earning her the LHSAA outstanding player award. Pineville hit six home runs over the two games at state.

“We knew from the very beginning that our offense has to be good,” Moore said. “We have Chelsie (Simpson at pitcher) and she’s amazing, but we knew we had to score some runs to win.” Curtis reached the state final when pitcher Mikayla Escude allowed only five hits over 10 innings in a 2-1 semifinal win against Mount Carmel. Pineville (29-9) stayed patient against Escude’s changeup. After the first intentional walk to Basco in the first inning, Moore drove a high changeup to right-center field for a double to make the score 2-0.

“Coach Allison had been scouting, and I knew she was going to throw the changeup, and she was

Hahnville softball earns state crown

DI nonselect state final ends with close play at home

BY CHRISTOPHER DABE Staff writer

SULPHUR Rylee Villasenor

raced around the bases and came home for a collision that had her and the catcher lying ﬂat on their backs — causing the crowd to go silent with concern as one team’s state championship celebration got put on hold. Only after Villasenor and the catcher each returned to their feet could it be made official:

Hahnville had won the Division I nonselect softball state title Villasenor ran from ﬁrst base when Jordyn Chaix’s single short-hopped the Live Oak left ﬁelder and caused enough of a bobble for Villasenor to motor around third She slid under the tag at home for eighth-seeded Hahnville’s 6-5 victory Sunday at Frasch Park.

For Villasenor, the close play capped what had already been a memorable afternoon. The sophomore third baseman homered twice — first for a 3-2 lead in the first inning and then for a 5-3 advantage in the fifth. With the score tied in the seventh, Villasenor walked on four pitches with one out. She remained at first when the next batter popped out. Chaix worked the count full, which had Villasenor running on the pitch.

“I saw Jordyn hit the ball and I was going. I was not stopping. I was running probably as fast as I could ever run,” Villasenor said. “Whenever I saw (coach Jeremy) Duplantis waving me at third and I saw the catcher getting (the ball), I was going

St. Charles

“I saw Jordyn hit the ball and I was going I was not stopping I was running probably as fast as I could ever run.”

RyLEE VILLASENOR, Hahnville sophomore

through her I was not risking getting out.”

Hahnville players poured from the third-base dugout in celebration, only to be ushered back by coaches as they tended to the two players lying on the turf.

“It kind of dulled the moment right there because both the catcher was down and Rylee was down for a second,” Duplantis said “They both seem to be OK.” Duplantis, in his second season at Hahnville (24-12), coached the school to its second state title — the ﬁrst since 2011 Villasenor belted a pair of inside pitches for home runs. She nearly hit another home run on an outside pitch in the third inning, which she thought might have caused No. 10 Live Oak (2315) to come back inside for her second home run.

“Rylee has a lot of power,” Duplantis said. “Shows it in the weight room. It all got displayed today When she squares it up, the ball is going to get hard.” Hahnville’s playoff run included multiple comebacks. In the semiﬁnal, the Tigers squandered a lead against St. Amant and won with two runs in the top of the seventh.

“As we’ve worked through the season and we started trusting each other and believing in each other, when we got down, it was just a matter of fight,” Chaix said. That ﬁght continued through to the end, with Chaix’s clutch single bringing Villasenor home for a state title-clinching play at the plate.

going to throw it a lot,” Moore said.

For Curtis (21-12), speedy leadoff hitter Gabby Fabacher had three hits. The Patriots’ best scoring chance came with runners on the corners and one out in the sixth inning. Karsyn Christoffer scored on a ﬁelder’s choice, and the next batter ﬂied out.

“We didn’t come here to play and say we made the finals,” Curtis coach Jerry Godfrey said. ‘I really thought we had a chance, and I really felt good about it. Coming into today, we just didn’t have our very best and we ran into a better team.”

Contact Christopher Dabe at cdabe@theadvocate.com

BY SPENCER URQUHART Staff writer

St. Charles Catholic senior Dax

Pregeant came to the plate with his team down by a run in the top of the second against E.D. White, and the Comets never trailed again after his second at-bat.

Pregeant didn’t wait long to get a hit, blasting a ﬁrst-pitch triple to deep right with two runners on to give St. Charles a one-run lead. The Comets scored nine more runs in a 13-8 win over E.D. White on Sunday at St. Charles to sweep a best-of-three Division II select quarterﬁnal series.

No. 2-seeded St. Charles (28-9) advances to face No 3 Teurlings Catholic in a best-of-three semifinal series next week. The Comets return to the semifinals after getting swept by E.D. White in last season’s quarterfinal round.

“(The triple) was huge by Dax (Pregeant),” St. Charles coach Wayne Stain said. “I have the utmost respect for E.D. White and impressed with how wellcoached they are We’re excited for the opportunity to compete (against Teurlings).”

After a 4-3 extra-innings win in Saturday’s game one, St. Charles found more hitting success in game two, totaling 10 hits and 11 RBIs.

Pregeant and senior Brooks Monica combined for five hits and six RBIs in game two. Pregeant was 2 for 4 with a team-high ﬁve RBIs, and Monica ﬁnished 3 for 5 with an RBI.

“They were throwing me a lot of changeups, so I had to sit on it (for the triple),” Pregeant said “It was really the guys before me getting on base to where all I’ve got to do is put a ball in play to score some runs.”

“I was just sitting there hunting fastball,” Monica said. “I hammered it when I got it.”

Monica delivered a walkoff hit in the eighth inning of game one, which saw junior left-hander Bryce Waguespack pitch eight innings. St. Charles had another complete game on the mound in game two, as senior Brayden Cortez pitched seven innings on Sunday Cortez gave up a three-run home run to E.D. White senior Grant Barbera in the top of the ﬁrst, allowing six earned runs on nine hits and two walks but managed to throw two straight scoreless innings to seal the win.

“(Cortez) has been dominant all year,” Stein said. “His last six outs, he was just lights out. I’m proud of him for really gutting out that victory.”

Monica led off the top of the second with a single, with Kole Hurst and Briggs Anderson also recording base hits in the fourrun inning before Pregeant’s triple. A two-RBI single by senior Gabe Kugler put the Comets up by ﬁve in the top of the fourth. E.D. White responded with four runs in the bottom of the fourth to cut the lead to one. Carter Douglas, one of eight Cardinals’ seniors, ﬁnished 3 for 4 with two runs scored.

“I’m proud of the effort from our guys,” E.D. White coach Matt Plitt said. “I thought we fought until the very end. (The seniors) grew up to become some really good young men.” St. Charles added four insurance runs at the top of the seventh. Singles by Pregeant and junior Landree LeBlanc resulted in 2 RBIs each.

Email Spencer Urquhart at surquhart@theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

John Curtis pitcher Makayla Escude delivers a pitch against Pineville in the third inning of the LHSAA Division I select state championship on Sunday at North Frasch Park in Sulphur

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Riverside raises the championship trophy after defeating St. Frederick in the LHSAA Division IV select state championship on Sunday at North Frasch Park in Sulphur

Monica

Pregeant

NBA PLAYOFFS

Pistons win their ﬁrst playoff series in 18 years

BY DAVE HOGG Associated Press

DETROIT Cade Cunningham had 32 points and 12 assists, Tobias

Harris added 30 points and the Detroit Pistons beat the Orlando Magic 116-94 in Game 7 on Sunday to win a playoff series for the ﬁrst time in 18 years.

Cunningham averaged 32.4 points for Detroit, which last won a postseason series by beating Orlando in the second round in 2008. The Pistons advance to play the winner of Sunday evening’s Game 7 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors. Game 1 will be Tuesday at Little Caesars Arena. The Pistons became the 15th team in NBA history to overcome a 3-1 deﬁcit and the second in the last two nights, after the Philadelphia 76ers came back to eliminate Boston.

They trailed by 24 points in Game 6 in Orlando before rallying to take the series at home. Orlando only scored 113 points in the ﬁnal six quarters of the series an average of 18.8 per period.

Cunningham and Harris became the first Pistons teammates to score 30 points in a playoff game since Bob Lanier (33) and Howard Porter (30) against the Golden State Warriors on April 17, 1977.

Paolo Banchero scored 38 for the Magic.

Each team needed a second scoring option in Game 7. Cunningham had carried the Pistons while Banchero was Orlando’s only weapon after Franz Wagner was injured in Game 4.

Harris filled that role for Detroit, but Orlando only had one other player reach double figures in the first three quarters, as Desmond Bane had 10.

The Pistons also got a big game from All-Star center Jalen Duren He was outplayed by Wendell Carter Jr in the ﬁrst six games, but put up his ﬁrst double-double of the series with 15 points and 15 rebounds.

Harris scored 17 points in the second quarter as the Pistons ﬁnished the half on a 9-2 run to take a 60-49 lead.

The Pistons’ surge continued into the second half, as they opened the third quarter with a 11-2 run to go up 71-51. Nine of the points came from Cunningham and Harris.

The Magic finished the third quarter with 15 points the third time in their last ﬁve periods they couldn’t reach 20 points.

Daniss Jenkins hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to give Detroit a 8364 lead going into the fourth, and the Magic never threatened down the stretch.

Wembanyama, Gobert set to match wits as Spurs, Timberwolves meet

BY TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer

Rudy Gobert knew long before the rest of the world.

Victor Wembanyama was only 13 when Gobert ﬁrst heard of him. It didn’t take long for Gobert to see the enormous potential in his French countryman. When they would talk, Wembanyama asked the questions and Gobert gave him the answers.

“And the rest is history,” Gobert said. The basketball world is now fully aware of what Gobert saw in Wembanyama years ago. A French center will be headed to the NBA’s Final Four in a couple of weeks; which one it’ll be hangs on the outcome of a Western Conference semiﬁnal series between Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs and Gobert’s Minnesota Timberwolves Game 1 is Monday night in San Antonio.

“I’m very, very proud and I’m very excited to watch him grow every day, to see his work paying off,” Gobert said. “Outside of the talent, he’s someone that has a very unique soul, a very unique mind and nothing is an accident. It’s not an accident that he’s having the success that he’s having.”

There’s never been a playoff series that is entirely about a 1-on-1 matchup, though it’s easy to understand why so much attention will be devoted to the Wembanyama vs. Gobert element of these games. It’s reasonable to think many basketball fans learned of Wem-

ä Timberwolves at Spurs.

8:30 P.M. MONDAy, NBC

banyama when the now-infamous video of a 2-on-2 game featuring he and Gobert came out six years ago

The ﬁrst three baskets on the clip were Wembanyama making two jumpers over Gobert, then cutting free for a dunk

Wembanyama is now a defensive player of the year and MVP

finalist, a bona fide superstar But he’s still asking Gobert for advice — including a recent query about what water filter Gobert uses in his home. A small detail, sure, but an illustration of how Wembanyama’s thirst for knowledge remains in place.

“He’s meant a lot as a role model,” Wembanyama said. “There’s lots of (ways) that he inspired me and I think he should inspire more people in terms of taking care of your body He should be a model for all big men. So, I would say that’s the main thing.”

Minnesota is trying to reach the Western Conference finals for the third consecutive season, while San Antonio is bidding for its first trip there since 2017. The Timberwolves found a way to defeat third-seeded Denver in Round 1, finishing that off even after Donte DiVincenzo tore his Achilles and Anthony Edwards was sidelined with a knee injury

DiVincenzo is lost for the season; Edwards is lost for the short-term and the belief is that he’ll have a chance to play at some point in this series — possibly as early as

Celtics star Tatum heads into offseason with no regrets

BY KYLE HIGHTOWER AP sportswriter

BOSTON Jayson Tatum believes he would have been able to play if the Boston Celtics advanced to the second round of the NBA playoffs. But when the Celtics star experienced stiffness in his left knee before his team’s Game 7 home loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday, it was a sign he had to put his body ﬁrst.

That was a decision he stands by, even if his absence ultimately played a big part in Boston’s unexpected run to the No. 2 seed in the East ending with its earliest exit from the playoffs since the 2020-21 season. The Celtics lost a playoff series for the ﬁrst time (32-1) when leading 3-1.

“I just experienced some tightness back there (in his knee). It was justunfortunatetiming,butIguess itwasalittlebittobeexpected,”Tatum told reporters Sunday Just 10-plus months removed from Achilles tendon surgery Tatum’s return on March 6 and how well he played in 16 games to end the regular season turned a Celtics team that had overachieved withouthimintoa56-gamewinnerwith championship aspirations.

Though this latest ailment relegated Tatum to the role of a spectator during Saturday’s loss, the good news it was on the opposite leg as his surgically repaired Achilles tendon.

“I was away for 10 1/2 months and then I came back and I’m playing every other day And I was playing 36 to 40 minutes. So it’s not unusual that something would come up,” Tatum said. “It’s

just tough because rehab was going well the entire time. I guess it was inevitable at some point I was going to have to deal with something. It just kind of came at the worst possible time.”

What Tatum said he wasn’t feeling, though, was regret. It’s just unfortunate. I worked really, really, really, really hard to come back in the fashion that I did and play at the level that I was playing at. So for it to end the way it did was a really tough pill to swallow.”

That disappointment is also tempered with how much Tatum believes he proved to himself, still not even a year since he ruptured his Achilles in Boston’s conference semiﬁnals loss to the New York Knicks.

“All things considered, for me to even be able to come back and play at the level I was playing at –even at 80-85%, right? One of my legs is still smaller than the other one,” Tatum said. “So now that I get a long offseason to really get back to 110%, I guess that’s the silver lining of it all.”

The biggest barrier he overcame this season was a mental one, he said.

“I’m proud of the fact that I was able to prove to myself that I could play this game at a very, very high level,” Tatum said “Even not being 100% of myself or what I’m capable of. So now, checking that box off mentally, because that was a question in my head and there were doubts of will I be able to be the same player? Will I be able to play at a high level after this injury? Now I’ve proven it and showed that, even at 80-85% of myself.”

As 76ers-Knicks rematch returns, star pleads with fans not to sell tickets

BY BRIAN MAHONEY AP basketball writer

GREENBURGH,N.Y Finally ﬁnished with Boston, a trip to New York came quickly for the Philadelphia 76ers. So did the memories.

The Eastern Conference semiﬁnals are a rematch of a tight series between Atlantic Division rivals from nearby Northeast cities, a Knicksvictoryinsixgamesin2024. Jalen Brunson and Tyrese Maxey delivered unbelievable performances. Both teams made unimaginable rallies.

ä 76ers at Knick. 7:P.M. MONDAy NBC

were going punch for punch,” Josh Hart said after the Knicks practiced Sunday “When you think about that, you always think of the good games, so you guys can guess what games those are But you know that you’ve got to turn the page. Those are memories. They don’t affect tomorrow but they’re fun memories.”

Game 1, after Minnesota listed him as questionable with his left knee injury And the Spurs insist they won’t have any false sense of security just because Minnesota’s typically starting guards are either out or hurting.

“They guard. They’re physical. They try to impose that will and impose their will and their competitiveness on you,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “And they’ve got a lot of individuals that take pride in that.”

The series

Minnesota went 2-1 against San Antonio this season, and Edwards was certainly among the biggest reasons why — he averaged 36.7 points in the three games on 58% shooting, 52% from 3-point range.

The Spurs blocked only seven shots against the Timberwolves, by far the lowest total they had against any Western Conference opponent this season. Wembanyama appeared in only two of those three games, but that’s still a sign of how Minnesota probably picked the right shot more often than not.

“It’s going to be decisions that you make in the paint,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said.

“It’s going to come down to them.” Wemby vs. Gobert

The French centers have gone head-to-head eight times in the regular season, and both can claim bragging rights.

Gobert’s teams have gone 6-2 in those games Wembanyama has scored 20 or more points in ﬁve of those meetings.

Knicks fans were deafening inside Madison Square Garden — and in Philadelphia. (And no, Joel Embiid hasn’t forgotten).

When it was over, the Knicks had outscored the 76ers 650649. They start up again Monday night, believing this series can be even better

“I expect nothing less. Actually more,” Maxey said. “That was a ﬁrst-round matchup. This is a second-round matchup. So I think both teams are going to come out there and be extremely competitive. It’s going to be a dogﬁght, it’s going to be a chess match and I’m just ready to get started.”

The Knicks had a few days to rest after finishing off Atlanta with a 140-89 victory on Thursday in Game 6, setting an NBA postseason record by building a 47-point halftime lead. The 76ers have only one full day to recover after completing the NBA’s 14th comeback from a 3-1 deficit by beating the Celtics 109-100 on Saturday Philadelphia became the first No. 7 seed to beat a No. 2 since the first round became a best-of-seven format.Thatwasthematchupwhenthe 76ersandKnicksmettwoyearsago. The 76ers were on the verge of tying that series in Game 2 before the Knicks came from five points down with under 30 seconds remaining. Brunson scored a Knicks playoff-record 47 points in Game 4 and New York was poised to wrap it up at home in Game 5 before Maxey scored seven points in the final 25 seconds of regulation and the 76ers won in overtime.

“Man, that was a fun series. We

Embiid returned midway through the Boston series after an appendectomy and was limping late in Game 7 after a player fell into his knee. He appeared in worse shape in the series two years ago, dealing with lingering problems from a surgically repaired left knee and having been diagnosed recently with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis.

“I had a lot going on at that time, so hopefully everything is good this time,” Embiid said. “We’ve got a much better team than we had at that time, so it’s going to be a fun series.”

The Knicks also appear better, having since acquired All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns and Mikal Bridges. They are in the second round for the fourth straight season and the No. 3 seed surprisingly ended up with home-court advantage in it thanks to Philadelphia’s ﬁrst-round rally

Now the Knicks have to deal with the Embiid-Maxey duo that’s clicking.

“If we expect to be who we are,” coach Mike Brown said, “we’ll ﬁgure it out.”

Embiid’s plea

Brunson received booming “MVP! MVP!” chants in the Game 4 victory in 2024 after Knicks fans poured into Philadelphia, and Embiid expressed his disappointment with 76ers fans after the game. He implored them not to let the noisy New Yorkers take over again.

“Last time we played the Knicks it felt like this was Madison Square Garden East. So we’re going to need the support,” Embiid said. “Don’t sell your tickets. This is bigger than you.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By DUANE BURLESON

Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham drives against Orlando Magic forward Jamal Cain during the first half in Game 7 of a first-round playoffs series on Sunday in Detroit.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By LM OTERO

Chase Elliott celebrates afterwinning aNASCAR CupSeriesrace on SundayinFortWorth, Texas.

ElliottwinsTexas,becomes second multiple-win driver

BY STEPHENHAWKINS AP sportswriter

FORT WORTH, Texas ChaseElliott went low,got apush from his Hendrick Motorsports teammate and held on to become only thesecond NASCAR Cup driver with multiple wins this season. Elliott stayed ahead of Denny Hamlin for theclosing four laps after afinal restart at Texas on Sunday for his second victory thisyear. He finished just ahead of Hamlininbothof those wins. On that final restart at the 11/2mile Texas track, Elliott took the bottom line and had teammate Alex Bowman behind him. He cleared Hamlin going onto the backstretch and remained in front to the checkered flag.

“I just felt like, man, if Ididn’t get clear off of (Turn) 2, Iwas going to be in alot trouble,” Elliott said. “So fortunately Alex gave me agreat push. Iwas able to execute Turns 1and 2, get clear,and then just kind of manage thelast few laps.”

Elliott, voted NASCAR’smost popular driver each of the past eightseasons, got his 23rd career win and his second at Texas, wheretwo years agoheended a42-race winlessstreak.Heled five times Sunday for arace-high 87 laps, finishing 0.407 seconds ahead of Hamlin, closer than the 0.565-second margin when they finished 1-2 at Martinsville in late

RIVALRY

Continued from page1C

Golden Tempohad used his closing style to win the Lecomte Stakes in his ﬁrst raceasa 3-yearold but finished third with the same strategy in the Risen Star Stakes and Arkansas Derby inhis lasttwo racesbeforethe Derby He waslastofthe 18 horses, more than 3/4 of amile into the Derby

“It’snot like we really didanything different that he hadn’tdone in his previous starts,”trainer Cherie DeVaux said. “There was a lot of speed on tap, on paper,and that materialized. Iwatched Jose come up and get himself in position going into the ﬁnal turn, and at about the 3/16 pole, Ithought we’re probably going to win this.”

The Derby win capped ahistoric weekend for Ortiz, who also wonthe Kentucky Oaksaboard Always aRunner on Friday.Heis justthe ninth jockey to win bothof Churchill Downs’signatureraces in the same year

He won six races across Friday andSaturday

“When you’re riding in azone, it’s very good,” he said. “It seems like youmake every right move. You moveattherighttime.I’mgladIhad thatthisweekend.Someothertimes, every move you make is wrong.

“I’m 32. I’m hitting kindofprime for ajockey.…Ithink I’m young still, but I’m very experienced. I’mcalm, trust my horses. Part of remaining calm is to have the conﬁdence of the trainers Iride for,who believe in me, trust me,trust my judgment and let me ride the horse theway Iwant to ridemyhorses.”

Ortizwon the Eclipse Award for outstanding jockey in 2017. That year,hewon his ﬁrstTriple Crown race on Tapwrit in the Belmont Stakes. He won the Preakness Stakes on Early Voting in 2022. He has won six Breeders’ Cup races, including the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Mile on More Than Looks,

March.

Bowman,whose spin brought out acaution on lap 93,ﬁnished third.

Tyler Reddick was fourth after winningﬁve ofthe ﬁrst 10 races this season for Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing

Hamlin said the late push Elliott got fromhis teammate was the difference in Texas.

“It was just enough to slow my momentum and pick his momentum up,” Hamlinsaid. “Good,decentday,just one (spot)short.”

Elliott, who started 14th, had already taken the white ﬂagwhen

John Hunter Nemechek wrecked in thebackofthe ﬁeld aftercontact with Kyle Busch. The caution flag never came outsince Nemechek was able to get his car to the apron

Chris Buescher was fifth, his first top-10 finish in 17 starts at track less thananhour from his hometown of Prosper Carson Hocevar,the polesitter at Texasfor thesecondyear in a row,ﬁnishedseventh, aweek after his breakthrough win at Talladega. He also won the Truck Series race in the Lone Star State on Friday night. He finished aspotbehind Daniel Suarez, his Spire Motorsportsteammate.

Hocevar led the ﬁrst 22 laps last year,three more than he did at the start of this 267-laprace, though he didget back in frontfor 18 more laps later Sunday

Corey Heim, in only his third start this year for 23XI Racing,

led 69 laps, but with 11 laps left brought out the ﬁnal caution of the day,the fourthbecause of asinglecar spinout. The 23-year-old Heim was theTruck Series champion last year

Bell rung outofthe race

Christopher Bell, an Oklahoma native who considers Texashis home track, led22lapsand was still near the front on lap69when he got clipped by Todd Gilliland, whospun ahead of him

Bell bobbled and then slammed hard into the outside wall along the frontstretch, doing significant damage to the front right of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. He finished last in the38-car field.

“I thought that Icould shoot the gap on the bottom,” said Bell, who had led only six laps total his ﬁrst seven starts in Texas. “I thought I did shoot the gap on the bottom but Igot clipped.”

Pitroadcrashes

Joey Logano, whowon at Texas last year,was going about180 mph when he just avoided hitting the spinning car of Byron on lap 93.

Going much slower on the ensuing yellow-flag stop,the front left of Logano’scar was crushed when he was unable to avoid contact when Cole Custer stopped on pit lane with Ty Gibbs pulling out ahead of him. That knocked outLogano, whose winlessstreak is now 36 races.

Jr atop Renegade

Kentucky Derbyresults Saturday’s 152nd Kentucky Derbyresults with jockeysand odds. Surface: dirt.Race length, track: 11/4 miles, dirt.Winning time: 2:02.27. 1. Golden Tempo-JockeyJoseOrtiz (Odds 23-1; Win:$48.24, Place: $19.14, Show: $11.90)

2. Renegade-Irad Ortiz Jr. (5-1; Place: $7.14, Show: $5.45)

3. Ocelli-Axel Concepcion (7-1;Show: $36.34); $2.00 Exacta (19-1, $278.86);$1.00 Trifecta (19-1-22, $11,250.78);$1.00 Superfecta (19-1-22-12, $94,489.95) 4. Chief Wallabee-John Valazquez (7-1) 5. Danon Bourbon-Ryusei Sakai (14-1)

6. Incredibolt-Flavien Prat (27-1)

7. Commandment-Tyler Gaffalione (7-1)

8. Wonder Dean-Luis Saez (20-1)

9. So Happy-Frankie Dettori (6-1)

10. Emerging Market-Joel Rosario(11-1)

11. Further Ado-Brian Hernandez Jr. (7-1)

12. Potente-Juan Hernandez (23-1)

13. Six Speed-Junior Alvarado (40-1)

14. Robusta-Julien Leparoux (50-1)

15. Albus-MannyFranco(50-1) 16. Intrepido-Paco Lopez (55-1)

17. Litmus Test-Umberto Rispoli (34-1)

18. Pavlovian-Javier Castellano (52-1)

who was also trainedbyDeVaux. As one of thetop jockeys in the world, Ortiz likelycould have found hisway onto aDerby horse with better odds than Golden Tempo. DeVauxadmittedtosomeapprehension when she called Ortiz’sagent to conﬁrmhe would be available to rideGolden Tempo in the Derby

LSUfootballadds JUCO CB Williams

“Wealwaysknewthis horse had alot of ability, buthe’sverylazy, as youcan see early in the race,” Ortiz said. “...(DeVaux) has been very loyal to me, so Ifeel like Ishould give thatback. Iknew always Golden Tempo was gonna be my mount.”

That confidence served Ortiz wellwhenGoldenTempoappeared out of contention almost as soon as theracestarted.He pointed to moreexperience in recent years at Churchill Downs as being key in identifying the pointsonthe track when he needed to make his move.

Knowing his brother’shorse was acloser who should be in contentionfor the win didn’thurt either JoseidentifiedRenegadeasone of the horses he should follow and imagined he wouldbebattling his brother at some point, even if he didn’texpect it to be for thewin.

When Irad and Renegade moved to the outside, Jose took Golden Tempoeven farther outside.

“Wecame ﬂying late,” Irad said. “But the winnerjust gotthe jump on me.”

Tigers land five-star 2027

commitment

BY REED DARCEY and KOKI RILEY Staff writers

Coach Lane Kifﬁnand his staff were looking for cornerback depth, so they dipped into the junior collegeranks to ﬁnd it.

LSU’snewestdefensive back is Lavonte Williams,aGeorgia Military Academy cornerwho told Rivals on Saturday that he’s moving to Baton Rouge.

Williams,aSouth Carolina native,appeared in 11 gameslast season, his ﬁrst in junior college. He recorded17tackles, an interception and ﬁve pass break-ups. Now he’lljoinacornerback room at LSU that was in need of an extra player.Inaspring scrimmage, sophomore Aidan Anding suffered atorn Achilles while intercepting apass. He was expected to play areserve rolein2026, behind starters DJ Pickett andPJWoodland.

AfterAnding was injured, LSU’ssecond-teamcornerbacks wereJa’Keem Jackson and Michael Turner In previous years, the Tigers could’ve addeda transfertoreplenishtheir depth, but this offseason, thetransferportal will notreopen in the spring. So they recruited ajunior college cornerback instead. Williams is expected to enroll this summer,Rivals reported.

LSUadds five-starcommitment

Five-star tight end and Class of 2027 recruit Ahmad Hudson has committedtoLSU football, he announced on social media Sunday Hudson is the No. 1tight end in thenation andthe No.18player in the country,according to the

TULANE

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He was not up to the task, issuing afive-pitch walk to load the basesbeforegivingupa tying single on afull count. Jude Abbadessa (2-3)replaced him and walked in the go-ahead run with two outs on aborderline 3-1 pitch that led to general manager Curtis Akey’sejection. TheWavetieditinthe sixth on Kaikea Harrison’ssacrifice fly,but Charlotte went ahead for good in the bottomhalfonJohnny Sutryk’stowering leadoffhomer The49ersaddedinsuranceona jammed,RBI bloop single down theright field line andanother solo home run off Caden Tarango in the seventh. Tulane’shittingissueswere team-wide all series. Even Wachs, who was hitting .350 entering the week, finished1 for12whenhe took acalled third strike for the final out on Sunday The Wave wasted asterling per-

LSU

Continued from page1C

is to our program and to me. That was awesome.

“Super proud of him. Pitching staff all weekendwas great, and no outing wasbetter than that one today.”

Hisouting further preserved a Tigers staffthat used 20 pitchers at Mississippi State. This weekend, sophomore right-hander WilliamSchmidt tossedsix innings in Game1onSaturday,and freshman right-handerMarcos Paz got through ﬁve innings in Game 2.

“It started on the mound,” Johnsonsaid. “That’saheck of alot closer to the standard we wantto pitch at.”

Thehealthy pitching plan allowed LSU’soffense plenty of time to build leadsonSaturday andSunday, when theTigers jumpedout to a6-0 advantage just before Cowan exited the contest.

LSU added two runs in the thirdinning on atwo-run home runfrom freshman Omar Serna, scored twicemoreinthe fifth on asac fly and arun-scoring single, andtooka6-0 advantageonfreshman Jack Ruckert’sbase-hit that eventuallydroveinfreshman William Patrick because of an error and Serna’sground ball fielder’s choice that allowedRuckert to touch home. SophomoreCadeArrambide and Ruckert finished with two

STAFFFILE PHOTOByJAVIER GALLEGOS

LSUcoachLane Kiffinwatches histeam rundrills during spring practice on March 24 at the team’spractice facility

247Sports Composite. He attends Ruston HighinRuston andis listed at 6-foot-6 and 239 pounds. He’salso astar basketball player with scholarshipoffers from LSU,Alabama, Nebraska, Texas A&M and Ole Miss, among others. Nebraska wasthe otherﬁnalist in his football recruitment.

Hudson is the ﬁfth high school recruit to join LSU’s2027 class, joining five-star edge rusher Jaiden Bryant, four-star quarterback PeytonHouston, fourstar athlete Braylon Calais and four-star widereceiverAh’Mari Stevens.

With Hudson committedto LSU, the Tigers now have pledges from three of the top-10 players in Louisiana’s 2027 class, perthe 247Sports Composite. Hudson is the No. 3playerinLouisiana,only trailing five-star wide receiver andTexas commitEaston Royal and five-star interior offensive lineman Albert Simien.

formance from closer SamLarson in his first start. He struck out seveninthreeinnings andwas unlucky to give up arun, which came largely because abatter reached first base after swinging at awild pitch for athird strike before James Agabedis failed to cover third on agrounder to Harrison at shortstop foralikely force-out, forcing Harrison to hold on to the ball. Larson took on thenew role because regularSundaystarter J.D.Rodriguez (5-1)moved up to Friday in place of the strugglingTreyCehajic.The change backfired whenRodriguez gave up eight runs and 10 hits in three innings, settingthe tone forthe miserable weekend.

Tulane plays LSU at Alex Box Stadium on Tuesdayfor theﬁrst timesince 2022 in its ﬁnal nonconferencegame. The Wave hopes to have catcher Hugh Pinkney back after he missed this serieswhile underconcussion protocol after getting hit in the head by astray throw during warm-ups on Tuesday

hits apiece. Serna drove in three runs, and LSU’s leadoff hitters ﬁnished the day going 6-for-8. “Weneeded this, not only to boostour chances in thepostseason and everything, but we needed this as ateam to feel confidence goingforward,” Arrambide said. “Our next two weekends are against really good teams.”

LSU faces Tulane in its final nonconference midweek game of theseasononTuesday.First pitch from Alex Box Stadium is set for 6:30 p.m.,and thegamewill be available to stream on SEC Network+

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GEORGEWALKER IV Jockey Jose Ortiz, left, is congratulated by his brother,jockey Irad Ortiz

after riding Golden Tempo to victory in the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON LSUcatcher Omar Serna puts his helmet on during agame against Kentucky on March 29. Serna hit atwo-run home runinSunday’s winoverSouth Carolina at Alex Box Stadium.

CLOSE TO HOME

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

The story of theorphanage was relegated to amention on page eight of theMorningAdvocate’s Aug. 12, 1926, edition, downpage from aﬁery story about gangster outﬁts battling it outin Chicago.

“Protestant OrphansWill Get New Home,” theBatonRouge headlineannounced.“Plans are now being made by theboard of the ProtestantOrphans Home for the erection of anew home on the site of the North Streetorphanage property in the near future.”

Anew homefor orphaned girls was news in thecapitol city, but not the kind that warranted front page headlines. Ayear later,next to the silentmovie listingsfor the downtown Columbia, Louisiana and People’stheaters, the

Anew calling

Farfromthe original in Philadelphia, thesefanshuntfor theLiberty Bell replicaineachstate

BY ALLEN G. BREED AP national writer

RALEIGH, N.C.

Want to seethe

Liberty Bell this semi-quincentennial but don’thave the time or cheese forapilgrimageto Philadelphia? Have no fear: Chances are, there’sone at a state Capitol, museum or even aﬁre station near you. It won’tbethe original, but it’ll be adead ringer For asavings bond drive in 1950, the Treasury Department commissionedcopies of the famously broken bell, one for each U.S. state and several territories. Exceptfor theserial numbers, they were faithfulreplicas —right downtothe Pass and Stow trademark and a faux crack. There’sasmallbut growing group of “bell hunters” who’ve dedicated themselves to visiting as many of the replicas as possible.Iftheywereagang, TomCampbell would be the ringleader “It was acasual thing that turned into an obsession,” Campbell, agraphic designer,said.

Letfreedom ring!

Although Fort Collins, Colorado, is now his home, Campbell was born andraised in Philadelphiaand visitedthe original Liberty Bell as aboy Ordered for the Pennsylvania State House, now known as IndependenceHall, thebellcracked on its ﬁrst test ring in the 1750s, wasmelted down and cast anew There’snoevidence it was even rung on July 4, 1776;abolitionists rechristened it in the 1830s forthe Bible verse encircling itscrown,“ProclaimLiberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.”

No oneknows exactlywhen or how the bell cracked again, but the last major attempt to restore it to ringing condition was in the 1840s. Campbell didn’tknowabout the replicas until he moved to Denver in the late 1990s.

“I was wandering around, meetinga friend at abar fora drink, and cutacross the Capitol lawnand saw afull-size Liberty Bellsitting there,” he recalled. He read about the bond drive on asmallbronze plaque, and a quest was born.

As Campbell and his wife, DawnPutney, traveled the country,they began building bell trips into their itinerary One day,she surprised him with hisown website: tomlovesthelibertybell.com

BY IRIS KWOK

$31 million for the fashion department’soperations, exhibitions, publications andacquisitions. The2026 galawill be theﬁrsttotakeplace at the museum’snew Condé M.

Institute. Last year’sgala collected arecord

often showupinworks across the museum, including the “Naked Body,” “Classical Body,” “Pregnant Body” and“Aging Body.” The gala dress code is “Fashion

“Itwas just akindofa fun goof,” he said. Butthree decades after he stumbled on that first bell, Campbell has become the go-to expert on these pieces of Americana.

From France,avecamour The replicas were cast by the Paccard Foundry,run by afamily who’ve been making bells in southeastern France since 1796.

STAFF PHOTO By ROBIN MILLER

The redbrick house, built as the Protestant Orphanagein1927, as it appears todayat1328North St. in Baton Rouge

AP PHOTO By JENNy KANE Aperson walks by aLiberty Bell replicaatthe Oregon state Capitol on April 14 in Salem, Ore.

By The Associated Press

Today is Monday,May 4, the 124th day of 2026.There are 241 days left in the year

Todayinhistory: On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened ﬁre on student demonstrators during an anti-war protest at Kent State University,killing four students and wounding nine others.

Also on this date:

In 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, alabor demonstration for an eighthour workday turned into adeadly riot when abomb exploded, killing seven police ofﬁcers and at least four civilians.

In 1904, the United States took over construction of the Panama Canal from France. In 1961, the ﬁrst group

CURIOUS

Continued from page1D

newspaper announced the building’scompletion on page 12 in its Sept. 15, 1927, edition.

“The new home is of red brick with white pillars in front giving acolonial effect,” the articlestates.

“Moderncomforts have been provided within the building, which include a hot water heating system asmall inﬁrmary and other equipment.”

Total construction cost was $42,000.

Which answers Dee Jeffers’ question about the grand red brick building standing atopahillat1328 North St.

What’s thestory?

“I grew up in Branch, Louisiana, so Iwasn’tfamiliar with the house’shistory,” she said. “A friend told me it was onceanorphanage, but from the street, it just looks like abig house. What’sits story?”

The house is actually the conclusion of the orphanage’sstory,which was said to have been established in 1847 as the Female Orphan Asylum.

But reporter Orene Muse’sNov.19, 1939, front page feature for the Morning Advocate offered up a comprehensive history that uncovered orphanage records from as early as 1845.

“The ‘asylum’ was formed here at least 95 years ago,” she wrote. “For in the ﬁles of the orphanage are musty old documents, brittle with age and slightly yellow now,which tell of the days of 1845. There is no mention made of the founding of the institution, so it is presumed that its inception must have ante-dated 1845.”

Late author Mark T. Carlton, best known as the Louisiana history professor at LSU, wrote in his 1981 book, “RiverCapital, An Illustrated History of Baton Rouge,” that the ﬁrst buildings of the asylum were built before 1854 with contributions from Baton Rouge ladies who supported the home with dues, money and donated items. Yetheprovided no deﬁnitive location.

Orphanage’sthird home

Muse’sstory points out that the red brick house was the third home for the orphanage, its ﬁrst being the “Bird Building,” which stood on the 500 block of Main Street in downtown Baton Rouge. It was rented out in 1870 to the Louisiana Schoolfor the Blind, now known as the Louisiana Schoolfor the Visually Impaired, and the orphans moved to a“conveniently located” cottage on Main Street. Where on Main Street?

Again, no deﬁnitive address is provided, but what is known is that the orphans were living in this cottage when their North Street home was completed. According to The Morning Advocate’s Sept. 15, 1927, article, once the orphans moved out, the “old home facing Main Street will be offered for saleand will be torn down by the successful bidder.” So began the storyofthe North Street house. These

TODAYINHISTORY

of “Freedom Riders” left Washington, D.C., to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses andinbus terminals.

In 1998, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynskiwas given fourlife sentences plus 30 years by afederal judge in Sacramento,California, underaplea agreement that spared himthe death penalty In 2023, former Proud Boysleader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were convicted of orchestrating aplotto attack theU.S.Capitolseeking to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election. (Tarrio was later sentenced to 22 years in prison but was pardoned by Trump when

he began his second elected term in January 2025.)

Today’sBirthdays: Jazz musician Ron Carter is 89. Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator George Will is 85. Actor Richard Jenkins is 79. Country singer Randy Travis is 67. Comedian AnaGasteyer is 59. Actor Will Arnett is 56. Basketball Hall of Famer Dawn Staley is 56. Rock musician Mike Dirnt (Green Day) is 54. Designer and TV personalityKimora Lee Simmonsis51. Sportscaster/ TV host Erin Andrews is 48. Singer Lance Bass (NSYNC) is 47. Actor Ruth Negga is 45. Golfer Rory McIlroy is 37. Singer-songwriter Rex Orange County is 28. Actor Navia Robinson is 21. Soccer player Kenan Yildiz is 21.

Oneofthe bedrooms as it appeared when thetwo-story, red brick house at1328 NorthSt. wasthe Protestant Orphanage. Volunteers from the community redid the room for the oldest girls in the Protestant Orphanagewith bright paintand newdraperies andspreads in 1963

days,the house isobscured by trees on an otherwise pristine lawn. It stands abouta block from U.S. Interstate 110, where North Street ﬂows into Spanish Town,the city’s oldest neighborhood. The concrete steps the girlsclimbedeach day stretch from the street level sidewalk to theentrance’sFrench doors.

Accommodated 25 girls

Accordingtothe GenealogyTrails History Group’s website, genealogytrails. com, thehouse accommodated 25 girls, and thestaff consisted of asuperintendent,two matrons, acook and laundress.

“According to journals and letters, thehome also provided and paidfor weddings, camps extendededucation to business schools andLSU,” the genealogy site continues. “Records provide apowerful insight as maintenance of this orphanageand its orphans was not your ordinary ‘orphanage.’Great lengths were taken to provide a natural home environment for the children,one that was kind and understanding with always thewelfare of thechild its priority.Itis noteworthy that the home was alwaysaprivate institution,and at one time was paid by theDepartmentof Welfare $60 per monthper child to house their children until they were found foster homes. Thechildren were accepted on acase by case basis subject to theapproval ofthe association’s board and were expectedto live by therulesset upby the association.”

The genealogysite is correct— the Protestant Orphanage was ahappy environment forits occupants. Advocate reporterCarol Anne Blitzer found proof of this in Anna Bryant Hingst’s memoir,“Memories ofa Louisiana Girlhood,” in the Lousiana State Archives’ permanent collection. Blitzer included excerpts from Hingst’smemoir in herApril24, 2000, feature for TheAdvocate. Ahappy place

Though Hingst lived in theorphanage when it was in the Main Street cottage, hermanuscriptdescribes the orphanageasa happy place

“Born in Lottie in 1901, Hingst andher two sisters were moved to thehome on June12, 1912, after theirfather,arailroad worker,fell from arailroad bridge and

Adapting to thetimes

Dear Heloise: Ialso missthe paper version of the news, but after gettingthe e-edition for awhile, Iﬁnd that theone big advantage of it is the ability to zoom in for larger print and to print out crossword puzzles. And Ican also go back to older issues and revisit atopic. I enjoy your column. —Dennis W.,inVirginia Dennis, we had alarge number of people who wrote in and said that they missthe paper version of the news, but they are learning to adapt to ereaders. Many mentioned that they learned to read from theSunday funny papers (sodid I), and there were very fond memories attached to newspapers.

Heloise

Hair-brushinghints

Dear Heloise: Iremember when the 100-strokes

BELL

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They weigh thesame as theoriginal— 2,080 pounds —but differ from the OG bellinoneveryimportantrespect:metallurgicalmakeup.

According to the National ParkService, theoriginal was 70% copper,25% tin and“smallamountsoflead, gold, arsenic, silver, and zinc.” In abell, those other metals amount to “impurities,” said AnnePaccard,the foundry’scommunications director andchief for “art of sound” projects, like sculpturesthat feature bells.

drowned in theAtchafalaya River,” Blitzer writes. “There was no assistance at that time from the government for widows and orphans,and therailroad company provided no compensation.”

Hingst wrote that each of theolder girls were given asmaller child to care for, and each of the orphans attended Sunday School in thedowntown church of her original denomination, followed by services at one of the four downtown Protestant churches.

Blitzer also shared Hingst’s recollection of how she and agroup of girls broke into“hard-to-control laughter” when they realized they could see theminister’sundershortsthrough his whitelinen suit.

“I had to hide on theﬂoor and found it hard to keep from laughing out loud!”

Hingst wrote.

By 1969, only two orphans lived in the house, and the orphanage’sboard couldn’t maintain its “home atmosphere” while meeting all of the state and federal governments’ rules and regulations.

The orphanage’sassets were liquidated with part of themoney divided among theCancer Radiation and Research Foundation, Capital Area United Givers Fund and the Methodist Children’sHome in Ruston. The remainder of the funds were placed in atrust with theannual incomegoing to theBaton Rouge Area Foundation.

“In 1970, attorneys Bill Beck and Joe Thompson purchased the home,” Blitzer writes. “In 1983, Beck bought out Thompson’sinterest in the building. Beckhad his law office in the matron’s suite on the first floor from 1983 until 1996. Afterrenting the remainder of the building to several organizations, Beck decided to convert it to nine apartments.” Today,a“Private Property” sign is posted on one of the entrance’sFrench doors.

In theend, Blitzer writes, “nearly 1,000 children had lived at the home, with manystaying10years or longer.”

Do you havea question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your questionto curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and thecitywhere you live.

“I must say that theoriginal Liberty Bell is avery poor qualitybell, metallurgically speaking,”she told The Associated Press in a recent email. “The bells we delivered in 1950 aremade of aspeciﬁc alloy of bronze called ‘airain’:78% copper, 22% tin, nothing else.”

The Treasury bells toured the country on thebacks of flatbed Ford trucks equipped with loudspeakers and festooned with redwhite-and-blue banners.

“You could buy asavings bond, ring the Liberty Bell, haveaparty,”Campbellsaid.

At drive’send, Treasury gifted the bells to the 48 states andthe then-territories of Alaska, Hawaii, the U.S.Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The District of Columbia and theTreasury Department each got one as well. (Three others went to Tokyo, achurch in Paccard’s hometown andthe Harry S. Truman Presidential Library andMuseum in Independence, Missouri, giving that state two bells.)

Trouble is,they came with no guidance and no funds to preserve them.

“A local or statehistorian described it to me as an ‘unaccessioned artifact,’ Campbell said. “Not every state wanted them necessarily,and not every state knew what todowith them.”

Virginia held acontest, andthe people voted to send the bell to Thomas Jefferson’sMonticello. It later went into astorage shed until finally finding ahome outside alocal fire station.

More than half have spent most of theirlivesoutdoors. Time, neglect and exposure

MET GALA

Continuedfrom page1D

Is Art,” with guests asked to explore their relationship to fashion as an embodiedart formand celebrate depictionsofthe dressed body throughout art history

Who are the chairs?

Beyoncé—returning after a10-year hiatus—Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour will co-chair this year’sgala.

The host committee, cochaired by Yves Saint Laurent creative directorAnthony Vaccarello andZoë Kravitz, includesSabrina Carpenter,Doja Cat,Gwendoline Christie, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, ElizabethDebicki, Lena Dunham, Paloma Elsesser, Lisa,Chloe

Hints from Heloise

method was recommended for awoman’s hair at night. Well, if you still practicethis advice, pleasestop. This was apopular method of distributing oilfromthe rootstothe ends when women only washed their hair once everytwo or threeweeks. You’re actually stripping your hair’s outercells andcausing split ends by brushing too much. Anature bristle brush is best, but pleaseremember to use awide-toothcomb instead of abrush on wet hair.Metal andplastic combsgenerally have sharp edgestothem and aren’t recommendedfor fragile hair.Also, wash

to the elements have taken their toll.

Some of the painted-on cracks have faded or disappeared completely.Others bells are displayed without theirclappers and/or yokes, or in steelframesthat prevent them being rung.

“At thatpoint, it really transitions to more of a monumentthana functional bell,” Campbell said. “And, to me,that’skind of sad.”

But as the nation prepares to celebrate 250 years of liberty,some of those orphan bells are getting anew life.

Just like new. sort of Kansas’ bell languished, disassembled, for yearsina Capitol parking garageuntil state Sen. Elaine Bowers got involved. In October,the reassembled bell —resting on aheated concretepad and supported by acustommade wooden yoke, but still sans clapper —was given a place of honor outside the newDocking State Office Building.

“Itjustbelongs here,” said abeaming Bowers as she stood beside bellNo. 21. “It’s afascinating piece of artwork, but also history that we allshould be proudof.”

The Alabama and Idaho bells were shippedtothe Bell Foundry Christoph in Charleston, South Carolina, for restoration andare expected to be homeintime forthe Fourth. Several other bells have also received recent touchups.

Campbell doesn’t set out to guilt states into ﬁxing up and displaying their bells. But if hiswebsitehappenstonudge them abit,“maybeI’lltake a littlecreditfor that.”

He’salso helped inspire a newgenerationofbellhunters.

By age4,Zoe Murphy of Morris County,New Jersey, knew all the state capitals and their flags. At 5, she saw her ﬁrst replica in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Now a14-year-old high school freshman, she has her ownwebsite zlovesamerica.com. She’svisited39 of the bells over the years, from AlabamatoWyoming and even far-off Alaska.

Zoesaystraveling the country has givenher a deeperappreciation for America’s“collective mix of people and our culture.” Meanwhile, Campbell’sre-

Malle,Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor,LaurenWasser,Anna Weyant, A’ja Wilson, Yseult, Adut Akech, Angela Bassett, Sinéad Burke, Rebecca Hall, Aimee Mullins, TschabalalaSelf, AmySheraldand Chase Sui Wonders.

Who else is on the guest list?

The guest list is always a tightly guarded secret,but frequentguests include LadyGaga, Zendaya, Blake Lively,Sarah Jessica Parker,Gigi and Bella Hadid, members of the KardashianJenner family and Rihanna, whorevealedher thirdpregnancy at last year’sgala. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos andhis wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, are expected to attend, as lead sponsors of the event. Saint Laurent andCondé Nast are also sponsors. Anne Hathaway,Meryl

your combsand brushes at leastonceevery two weeks to onemonth, depending on howoily your hair is. —Dayna R.,inYpsilanti, Michigan

Babyfoodstain removal

DearHeloise: How do Iget rid of baby food stains? Youalways knowhow to do these things, but as a19-year-old ﬁrst-time mother,I’m lost! —Carol E., in Stowe, Vermont Carol, to remove stains thatare left behind, try a paste of unseasoned meat tenderizerand water.Rub the paste onto the stain, thenrollupthe itemand wait afew hours before washing. This should remove the stain, but if it doesn’t, repeat the method —Heloise

Sendahinttoheloise@ heloise.com.

cent visit to Arizona’snewly restored bell —whichwas touring the state, complete with arope forthe tugging —brought his toll up to 40. Why does the Liberty Bell resonate with him?

“The fact that acracked bell is the symbol of the United States is really the perfect symbol of an imperfect union,” he said. Nothingtosee here

Tryasthey might, it’ll be nearly impossible for theseLibertyBellfansto check all the replicas off their list. Three replicas remaintotallyunavailable to the public this anniversary year,asfar as Campbell can tell. Ironically,one of them is Pennsylvania’s. For many years, the Treasury bell was the centerpiece of amuseum in the former Zion’sReformed Church of Allentown, where the originalwas brieﬂy hiddentoprevent theBritish redcoats from melting it down for munitions. But the building changedhands in 2023, and the bell is no longeraccessible to the general public while the churchis being renovated. (Local ofﬁcials are placing alighter, taller replica in front of the church for theanniversary.)

LastJune,NorthCarolina’s bellwashoistedfromitsspot across fromthe Legislative Building in Raleigh amid a multiyear renovation of the state history museum. When the AP asked to see it, the request waspolitelydenied.

“Our Liberty Bell is in asecure storage facility,” spokeswoman Mary Huntley said. The only replica that’s truly lost is the one sent to Washington,D.C.,which went missing from storage in the early 1980s. Campbell suspects it’s long since been melted down.

“That’s2,080 pounds of bronze,” he says. “So, that has ascrap value.”

Butifanyone hasinformation about the capital bell, feel free to give Campbell aring.

Associated Press writer John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas;and video journalists Thomas Peipert in Fort Collins, Colorado; and TedShaffrey in Mount Olive, NewJersey, contributed to thisreport.

Streep and Emily Blunt, stars of the fashion extravaganza “The Devil Wears Prada2,”mayalsoattendthe gala.Thesequelhitstheaters afew daysbefore thegala. There aretypically 400 to 600 attendees.Lastyear individual ticketscost $75,000, according to CBS. In abreak from tradition,New York CityMayor ZohranMamdaniand wife RamaDuwaji will not be attending. Howcan Iwatch the livestream? Vogue will livestream the Met Gala starting at 6 p.m. Eastern across its digital platforms, including YouTube and TikTok. The livestream will be hosted by AshleyGraham, La La Anthony and Cara Delevingne, and inﬂuencer Emma Chamberlain will return as red carpet correspondent.

FILEPHOTO

tAuRus (April 20-May 20) Choose your wordswisely.Focusonself-improvement, not trying to change others. Refuse to letstubbornness be your downfall.

GEMInI (May 21-June 20) Concentrate on creating partnerships, learning and keeping busy. The less time you focus on whoand what you don't like, the easier it will be to let go of the past.

cAncER (June 21-July 22) Think matters through. Sizedown,not up, and protect your rights,possessions and reputation. Stick to thetruth and do what you can to be of help. Stress will require apositive outlet.

LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) It'swhat you do that counts. Honor promises, mix business with pleasure and be kind to those you encounterthroughout your day. Go out of your way to lend ahelping hand and to offersupport to those whoneed it most.

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Observe what's happening in silence and make small adjustments to counter any fallout that might put you in avulnerable position. Letkindness and practicalitylead the way.

LIBRA(sept. 23-oct. 23) Learn from the experiences you encounter. Taking a bold step in adirection that offers others insight into what you can do will also make you fully aware of whoyou can andcannotcount on for backup.

scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Think matters through before you say something you regret.Revealing personal information

will put you at adisadvantage. Askquestions and show interest in what others think and do.

sAGIttARIus(nov.23-Dec. 21) Stop procrastinating;put your ideas into practice. Make domestic changes that will add to your convenience and comfort, andsignupfor activities that will encourage looking and feeling your best.

cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Asimple lifestyle will help you handle any trials and tribulations that surface. Keep your communicationshonest andbrief, and refuse to let anger and impatience seep into your dialogue.

AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Stick close to home.Focus on personalmoney management and how you can generate more cash or lower your overhead. An interview will go better than anticipated.

PIscEs (Feb.20-March 20) Erraticbehavior can lead to miscommunication Think before you speak, and search for akindand helpful agreement without putting your health or financial wellbeing in jeopardy.

ARIEs (March 21-April 19) Focus on what you can do, not the impossible. Happiness comes from doing what's best and right for you. Speak up, ask questions, show interest and give back.

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

Sudoku

InstructIons: sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1to9inthe empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. Thedifficulty level of the sudoku increases from monday to sunday.

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

Bridge

By PHILLIP ALDER

Percival, one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, supposedlysaid, “One hour of thoughtful solitude may nervethe heart for days of conflict girdingupits armor to meet themost insidious foe.” Many play far too quickly at the bridge table. True, taking one hour wouldbe considered excessive. Buta minute or so is perfectly acceptable. And if someone complains to you, reply, “You have just ruined my train of thought.Iwill have to start all over again.”

In this deal, West leads the club ace against four spades. How should he plan thedefense? North’s auction showed four spades andgame-going values. So South, who also hadfourspades, corrected from three no-trump to four spades. Many would cash theclubking at trick two, thenlook around for thenext step. Butthat would be toolate. West needs to realize that his partner has only one heart. (South showed four, dummy has three andWest holds five.) Westmust also hope that his partner has aspeedy trump entry At trick two, West shifts to aheart. Declarer wins on the board and plays atrump, but East winswith his ace and returns aclub. West takes the trick with hiscarefully conserved entry,the king, andgives his partner the lethalheart ruff.

Finally, notethat if North had raised one no-trump to threeno-trump,West probably wouldhave led the heart nine, topofnothing. Then, when East gotin with his spade ace, he wouldhave had to findaclub shift to defeat the contract Pause to think —you will defend and play better.

Each Wuzzle is aword riddlewhich creates adisguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. Forexample: nOOngOOD =gOOD aFTErnOOn

Previous answers:

word game

InstRuctIons: 1. Words must

Average

wuzzles

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls BeforeswiNe

garfield

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

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer ken ken

InstructIons: 1 -Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1thorugh4(easy) or 1through 6 (challenging) without repeating. 2 -The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes called cages mustcombine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners. 3 -Freebies: Fill in the single-box cages with the number in the top-left corner. HErE is

WiShinG Well

Scrabble GramS

roSe

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