TRUMP: DEAL WITH IRAN AND OPENING OF STRAIT OF HORMUZ ‘LARGELY NEGOTIATED’ 2A
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S u n d ay, M ay 24, 2026
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ELECTION 2026
Letlow is front-runner in Senate race, vote reveals Opponents undeterred as mixed outcomes predicted
BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By BRETT DUKE
Workers with Sunbelt Roofs install a fortified roof with impact-rated shingles on a home in Jefferson on Friday. State lawmakers appear poised to pass a bill that would add more money to the grant program that gives homeowners $10,000 each toward a new fortified roof. It’s expected to help ease a crisis of high homeowners insurance rates.
La. wants more money for fortified roof grants Lawmakers see bill as a way to ease insurance rates
BY SAM KARLIN Staff writer
Louisiana may soon get a massive influx of money for a widely touted solution to ever-rising home insurance rates: Fortified roofs. State lawmakers appear poised to pass a bill that would add significantly more money to the grant program that gives Louisiana homeowners $10,000 each toward a new fortified roof. The cash would come from excess funds collected by Citizens, the state-created insurer of last resort, and is expected to net an extra $50 million for the program, enough for 5,000 additional roofs — on top of the $30 million the program gets annually. In all, the program would have enough money for 8,000 new fortified roofs this year, nearly double the number completed so far through the grant. To date, the Louisiana Department of Insurance has certified 4,800 roofs through the program. The plan would provide a longsought boost to a strategy that leaders hope will pull the state out of a yearslong crisis that has pushed homeowners to the brink and threatened their ability to afford their homes. With climate change making hurricane risk worse, stronger roofs have proved to be an antidote by lowering the risk of storm winds tearing off a roof, making it less likely insurers will have to pay out claims. As a result, most companies are offer-
Can anyone stop U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow from becoming Louisiana’s next senator? That’s the key question that has emerged in the days after Louisiana’s Senate primaries. Political experts say Letlow, R-Baton Rouge, holds a dominant position after running first in the May 16 Republican primary with President Donald Trump’s powerful endorsement and eliminating Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, Letlow from the contest. But state Treasurer John Fleming, who finished a distant second in the GOP primary, is not conceding the race to Letlow. On Thursday morning, he challenged her to three televised debates before the June 27 Republican runoff and said he wanted to discuss issues on which she was Fleming attacked during the primary. Letlow declined later that day, saying in a statement, “It’s no wonder John Fleming wants a doover after how poorly he performed in the Moon Griffon debate.”
ä See SENATE, page 5A
Rural town’s internet plans derailed again
Roofing materials sit in the foreground as workers with Sunbelt Roofs install a fortified roof with impact-rated shingles on a home in Jefferson on Friday.
“Being able to take something from the Katrina experience and apply it to the real world, present-day insurance crisis that is affecting all of Louisiana, but especially the coast, this is a silver lining.” REP. PAUL SAWyER, R-Baton Rouge ing significant premium discounts to homeowners with fortified roofs. The bill, by Rep. Paul Sawyer, R-Baton Rouge, has advanced with little opposition as legislative leaders and Gov. Jeff Landry have for months looked for ways to put more money toward the grants. In Feb-
ruary, Landry asked the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation, a state-created nonprofit similar to Citizens, to send some of its excess funds to the program, though it doesn’t appear likely to happen.
ä See GRANTS, page 6A
Federal, state funding stalled BY JENNA ROSS Staff writer
EAST CARROLL PARISH — “Celebrate,” the original poster said, “the arrival of fiber internet!” Folks were trekking to Lake Providence in the northeast corner of Louisiana from Washington, D.C., to cheer the expected expansion of highspeed internet across the small city. The head of the state’s broadband office was set to attend. The internet company, Conexon, had installed fiber optic cables in the ground, right up to the library, where the event was to be held. But by the time of the event, in early May, the celebration and the exclamation point had disappeared from the poster. A few of the speakers had, too. Instead, leaders were again answering the same question: Where’s the fiber internet?
ä See INTERNET, page 4A
La. Catholics call Latin Mass a beloved ritual Popularity grows amid controversy of it dividing church
over him. There’s ritual and mystery and choreography, and in that, Franatovich said, “there’s comfort.” “And I think people are looking for a sense of comfort these days,” Franatovich, a 29-year-old New OrBY BOB WARREN Staff writer leans real estate agent and longtime Roman Catholic, said Mass at the When Wesley Franatovich settles church. “A lot of people are searchinto a church pew for the Latin Mass ing for things that ground them in a at St. Patrick’s Church in New Or- way — a lot of people see that in the leans, he feels a sense of calm wash Latin Mass.” There’s a reverence
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about it.” Franatovich said a favorite moment comes when the congregation, together with the priest, sings the Nicene Creed in Latin: Credo in unum Deum. … “It’s powerful,” he said. The Latin Mass has been in the news lately, following Pope Leo XIV’s escalated warnings to the Society of St. Pius X that its planned
ä See MASS, page 4A
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Pope Leo XIV, left, presides over the funeral of late Cardinal Emil Paul Tscherrig in St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican on May 15. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GREGORIO BORGIA
13TH yEAR, NO. 285