The Times-Picayune 07-10-2026 by The Advocate

BIGLEAGUES:

HOUSINGADVANCES

The proposed sitefor the Rivana Apartmentsisseen Thursday nexttothe Shell Riversidebuilding in theRiver District of NewOrleans. The NewOrleans City Council on Thursday approvedanagreement that will exempt the220-unit affordable housing development from taxes on the propertyfor the next40years.

BY RICH COLLINS Staff writer

The River District took abig step forward on Thursday whenthe New Orleans City Council approved a tax break to help fund the planned neighborhood’sﬁrst apartmentcomplex, ahousing project that’sbeen seen as key to showing progress on the long-delayed redevelopment. In a6-1 vote, thecouncilapproved apayment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT,agreement thatwill exempt the 220-unit affordable housingdevelopment known as the Rivana Apartments from taxes on the property forthe next 40 years. In exchange, developerswill maintain rents below marketratefor the

same amount of time.

Documents show that tax savings forthe developers couldtop $30million over the four-decadelife of the deal

U.S.

Back-and-forth fire bigger than in priordays

BY JON GAMBRELL Associated Press

DUBAI,

The United States launched new airstrikes against Iran early Thursday,and Tehran responded by targeting U.S.-

N.O. leaders fear GOP retribution afterAG indictment

Moreno pullsrequest for bond fundingasLandry questionscity finances

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

Will there be moreshoes to drop?

That’sthe questionNew Orleansofﬁcials wereasking Thursday after Mayor Helena Moreno announced that the city has retracted a$110 million bond sale requestbefore the State Bond Commission rather than have the commission reject it.

Themayor said thecityappearstobefacing retribution from Republicans angered by the recent indictment of Attorney General LizMurrill by an Orleans Parish grand jury

“I madethe decision to withdraw our application before next week’sBondCommission meetingbecause it had becomeclear that denial was imminent,” Moreno said in a statement, adding, “weare hearing warnings thatsome state leadersmay pursue separate efforts to target the City’sﬁnances, including the casino lease proceeds that recently strengthened our reserves and other critical

The approvalwas one of the last hurdles for getting the ﬁrst housing development moving in the River District, anearly 40-acre tractoflandalong the Mississippi River just upriver from theErnest N. Morial Convention Center

City Council memberLesliHarris, whose District Bincludes the proposed$100 million Rivanaproject and the rest of theRiverDistrict,

allied Mideast countries in an exchange of ﬁre that threatened an interim deal intended to help end the war in the MiddleEast. Back-and-forth attacks, including aday earlier,have repeatedly threatened the ceaseﬁre. But Thursday’sappeared bigger all around, with sirens sounding at least three times in Bahrain,home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters, and missilestarget-

said thevote was awin for the city’s workersand the community overall. “Weneed amenu of options to solve the housing crisis,and we need affordable housing with aPILOT that meansitcan stay affordable for 40 years,” shesaid before thevote in council chambers. “Thisishighqualityhousing in an area where it is needed.”

The council’saction was also cheered by theRivana’sdevelopers, apartnershipbetween asubsetofRiver District Neighborhood Investors, theconsortium overseeingthe River Districtproject,and Providence CommunityHousing, atwo-decade-old nonproﬁt that has

ing Kuwait and Qatar Sirens sounded Thursday afternoon in Jordan as well, where the U.S. has stationed troops and aircraft.

An Iranianofﬁcial accused theU.S.oflaunching an airstrike later Thursday targeting the area around Iran’ssole nuclearpower plant, and other explosions werereported elsewhere in the country during the afternoon. The strikes came hours

afterU.S. President Donald Trump saidrecent Iranian attacksonships in theStrait of Hormuzsignaled theend of a fragile ceaseﬁreand threatened to escalatethe conﬂictif they didn’tstop. That raised concerns that the region could tip back into awar that would engulf several countries and could halt energy shipmentsthrough thestrait

Suit focusesonsteps board took to oust CEO

BYBEN MYERS Staff writer

The Regional Transit Authority violated state law when it took steps to oust former CEO Lona Edwards Hankins, an Orleans Parish Civil District Court judge said Thursday in aruling that doesn’treinstate Hankins but could strengthenher position in future litigation.

Hankins resignedfromthe RTAonMay 26 andsuedit aday later,alleging that the agency violated Louisiana’s open meetings law when it met on May9 behind closed doorsbefore reconvening in public to vote on atrio of resolutions affecting Hankins’ job.

Hankins

Moreno

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

World Santa Congress brings Christmas cheer

AALBORG, Denmark While Europe’s still in the throes of summer heat, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the Danish city of Aalborg.

Dozens of Santas, Mrs Clauses and elves from around the world have descended on Denmark’s fourth-largest city for the Nordic nation’s annual World Santa Claus Congress.

First staged at an amusement park near Copenhagen in 1957, the congress moved to Aalborg on Denmark’s Jutland peninsula two years ago

The event, which marks its 70th anniversary next year, was created to entertain children, but became a popular gathering for Santas who appear in stores and shopping malls during the Yuletide season.

Over the years, the annual fourday gathering has attracted Santas and Mrs. Clauses from as far away as Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States.

Fire at Chinese shoe factory kills 28

BEIJING — A ﬁre broke out at a shoe factory in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian on Thursday, killing 28 people, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping demanded “an all-out search and rescue effort,” urging a swift investigation of the incident and “strictly hold those responsible accountable.”

The blaze started in a factory at Huiteng shoe company in the city of Jinjiang, the city’s ﬁre department said in a statement.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known Jinjiang is known as China’s shoe capital.

There were 237 factory workers and two visitors in the building when the ﬁre broke out. Authorities pulled out 213 people, two of whom were pronounced dead after being taken to hospital

Another 26 missing people were later conﬁrmed dead, according to the state broadcaster CCTV.

Xinhua said the factory’s owner and others in charge have been taken into custody and the company’s accounts have been frozen

The fire started on the first level of a five-floor concretestructured building, where a workshop and a warehouse were located The burning materials included shoe components, which are highly flammable and helped the fire spread quickly, according to CCTV A local fire department official said in an interview with the state broadcaster that sole material piled up in stairwells made it much harder for the firefighters to reach the flames and put them out.

8 men indicted in planned UFC attack

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Eight men were indicted on murder and terrorism conspiracy charges Thursday for their alleged roles in a thwarted drone and sniper attack on the UFC cage-ﬁghting show staged at the White House in June.

The indictment, returned in Ohio, charges all eight in two separate conspiracies, one to provide material support to terrorists and a second to commit murder on federal government territory and to murder a federal government ofﬁcial

According to the indictment, the plot began in May, when the group began amassing money, ﬁrearms, ammunition, body armor explosives, drones medical equipment, communications equipment and other items.

On June 10, law enforcement officials learned about a possible threat to President Donald Trump’s UFC cage-ﬁghting show, four days before the mixed martial arts extravaganza.

The Justice Department announced federal charges against seven people last month from across the country, including from Ohio, Missouri, Washington, Nebraska and California. Ofﬁcials said the group members harbored fringe conspiracy theories and hoped the attack would destabilize the government.

One of the defendants told investigators they planned to ﬂy explosive-laden drones into the event and then shoot panicked crowd members as they fled, according to a federal afﬁdavit

Mexico to seek criminal charges

Government says 14 have died while in ICE custody

BY MARÍA VERZA Associated Press

MEXICO CITY Mexico will request criminal charges over 17 Mexicans who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody or during immigration enforcement operations by the Trump administration, ofﬁcials said Thursday Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco’s announcement Thursday further escalated tensions with the United States, as Mexico’s government has sharply criticized the treatment of its citizens under U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to increase deportations

The request, which carries no legal weight, will be submitted to state prosecutors’ ofﬁces and the U.S. Department of Justice, asking them to consider criminal charges against

those responsible for the deaths. It will be accompanied by civil lawsuits against the companies that operate the detention centers in an effort to put an end to human rights violations in those facilities, Velasco said.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday that Mexico decided to “move beyond diplomatic channels” and escalate its complaints after an ICE agent killed Mexican citizen Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston this week. Sheinbaum said the killing “is not only sad and regrettable, but also appears to have been targeted.”

“We are going to do everything in our power, because we cannot stand silent” in the face of the deaths of Mexicans “whose only crime is working honestly in the United States,” Sheinbaum said.

Salgado Araujo had been living in the country for decades. He was transporting a work crew to a housing construction site when he was shot His family demanded a thorough investigation into what happened.

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, agents were pursuing him because he was living in the country without legal authorization. Salgado Araujo, the department added, was shot after disregarding orders and attempting to ram an agent, who ﬁred his weapon in self-defense.

According to the Mexican government, 14 Mexicans have died while in ICE custody and three during ICE operations. Until now, the Mexican government had supported the victims’

Flooding from heavy rain in southern China kills 39

Military rescue teams retrieve trapped students, teachers

BY KEN MORITSUGU Associated Press

BEIJING Authorities in southern China

said Thursday that 39 people died in ﬂooding after a tropical storm dumped heavy rainfall, as the country’s east coast and Taiwan prepared for a typhoon expected to make landfall in the coming days.

Most of the deaths were in Hengzhou, where the partial collapse of a reservoir dam sent torrents of water into the city and claimed 26 lives, said Ding Wei, the vice mayor of Nanning city, which has jurisdiction over the area. Nine people remained missing in the broader Guangxi region.

Tropical Storm Maysak brought record rainfall to Guangxi starting Saturday, breaching reservoirs and stranding people for days in homes and other buildings. The previously announced death toll on Tuesday was six people.

A second storm, Typhoon Bavi, was at sea on a northwest track that would take it over some remote Japanese islands and then just north of Taiwan before making landfall in China’s Fujian or Zhejiang province on Saturday Fishing boats could be seen tightly packed at ports in northern Taiwan on Thursday in anticipation of heavy rain hitting the island of 23 million people.

Bavi, which brought violent winds to

Saipan and other U.S. territories earlier this week, was downgraded Thursday from super-typhoon strength but still had maximum sustained winds of 114 miles per hour, according to Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration Classes were suspended in several cities and towns in the Philippines and ships prohibited from leaving northern ports as the typhoon passed east of the northern island of Luzon.

In southern China, military rescue teams ﬁnished bringing out more than 10,000 trapped students and teachers from a cluster of schools in Guigang city, about 40 miles northeast of Hengzhou Video on state broadcaster CCTV showed the students, wearing bright orange life vests, clambering onto boats that took them away from the surreal scene of school buildings rising out of a lake of muddy water Animals were also stranded or swept out by the ﬂoodwaters.

A zoo in Guigang said more than 100 animals were missing, including two zebras, four porcupines and dozens of tropical birds. In Hengzhou, encounters with snakes that reportedly escaped from a farm prompted authorities to stock up on antivenom and advise residents what to do if they were bitten.

Drones and some 5,700 boats have been used in a massive relief and rescue operation to deliver drinking water and other supplies and bring out trapped residents. About 130,000 people have been evacuated.

Orbán allies protest in Hungary

BY JUSTIN SPIKE Associated Press

BUDAPEST Hungary Opponents of the Hungarian government’s efforts to oust the country’s president gathered for a protest in the capital Budapest on Thursday after being called to action by the former autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

The protest drew several thousand people to the presidential ofﬁces at the opulent Sándor Palace in Budapest’s Castle District, where demonstrators spoke out in defense of President Tamás Sulyok, whom the new center-right government has vowed to remove from ofﬁce with a constitutional amendment.

After defeating Orbán in a blowout election in April, bringing an end to his 16 years in power Hungary’s new proEuropean prime minister, Péter Magyar, has taken action to dismantle what he calls Orbán’s “maﬁa” by removing numerous political appointees and heads of institutions viewed as having facilitated Orbán’s autocratic regime.

The constitutional amendment, set to go to a vote next week, would end Sulyok’s term, as well as set term limits for members of parliament, implement reforms to the judiciary and create a new authority tasked with uncovering alleged ﬁnancial abuses by Orbán’s government.

But Orbán and his far-right Fidesz party, long accused of dismantling Hungary’s democratic institutions while in power, have declared that the move to remove Sulyok is an assault on the rule of law and democratic norms, and the ﬁrst steps toward a dictatorship.

One protester Krisztina Nemerkényi, said Thursday that the demonstration was not about the person of Sulyok, “but about the ofﬁce.”

“The point is not whether Tamás Sulyok is popular or not but that this is simply unacceptable in a democracy,” she said.

Magyar has argued Sulyok failed to live up to his role as president by neglecting to stand in the way of antidemocratic steps by Orbán’s government.

families, sent diplomatic notes to Washington demanding investigations, and raised the issue with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Sheinbaum earlier this year ordered consulates to regularly check in with ICE detainees, and her government even lodged a complaint with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mexico’s latest request adds to an already strained relationship with the Trump administration. Sheinbaum has cracked down more ﬁercely than her predecessors on organized crime in the wake of mounting threats by Trump to take military action against cartels. She has also sought to keep an amicable relationship with her U.S counterpart as the countries renegotiate the decades-old free trade agreement. At the same time, she’s taken a strong stance on immigration enforcement and the rights of Mexican citizens in U.S. custody

South Florida’s Palm Beach airport renamed

Airport code will change from PBI to DJT in August

The Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A

South Florida airport ofﬁcially changed its name on Thursday to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.

Signs for the Palm Beach International Airport have been removed, while new signage goes up.

“Because an entire airport transformation doesn’t happen overnight, you’ll notice a combination of both our classic look and our new brand elements coexisting while traveling through the terminal over the next several weeks,” airport officials said in a Facebook post.

“Trump Force One,” a Boeing 757 owned by The Trump Organization, was the ﬁrst plane to arrive at the airport under its new name, shortly after 5 a.m The president’s son, Eric

Trump, was one of the passengers. The Trump family regularly uses the West Palm Beach airport when they visit President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in nearby Palm Beach A stretch of road from the airport to Trump’s estate was renamed Donald J. Trump Boulevard earlier this year

“There is no person who has done more for Florida and our country, and no one more deserving of this incredible honor,” Eric Trump posted on X. “As a son, and someone who flies out of this airport nearly every day, I will forever be proud to see the initials ‘DJT’ on my boarding pass.” While the name change took effect Thursday, the three-letter airport code will change from PBI to DJT on Aug. 18. Florida Gov Ron DeSantis signed legislation earlier this year that made the name change possible. Changing the airport’s name is expected to cost as much as $5.5 million for new signs, branding and other updates.

XINHUA NEWS AGENCy PHOTO By ZHOU HUA Rescuers evacuate stranded teachers and students at Xijiang education park in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Maysak in Guigang City, south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on Wednesday.

Monroe senatorjoins race to fill Letlow’s Houseseat

StewartCathey’s entrance brings field to four

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

The campaign to replace U.S Rep. JuliaLetlowgot abit more crowdedThursday, when state Sen. Stewart Cathey,aRepublican from Monroe, joined the race.

Letlow is giving up her seat representing the 5th Congressional District to run for the U.S. Senate. Cathey is asecond-term senator with asolid conservative voting record who chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry,Aquaculture and Rural Development.

“I’m running for Congress for the same reasonI ran for thestate Senate:the people of the 5th CongressionalDistrict deserve arepresentative who shows up,tells the truth, and gets things done,” Cathey said in anews release.

“I’ve spent my career servingthis country in uniform and standing up for Louisiana families in Baton Rouge, and now I’m ready to take that ﬁght to Washington.”

Aconsultant with his father on IT issues, Cathey,45, served two tours in Afghanistanasamember of the Army Reserves Twocandidates —state Rep MichaelEchols and BoardofRe-

gents Chair Misti Cordell —have hadahead start in raising money and winning over key endorsements in the5th District because they’ve been running to succeed Letlow for months.

Cordell is from Monroe.

StateRep. Gabe Firment, aRepublicanfrom Pollock in Grant Parish, announced his candidacy aweek ago.

The four are now running in a district that was quickly redrawn by thestate Legislature in May after the SupremeCourt ruled the state’scongressionalmap was unconstitutional.The newmap turned the 6th Congressional District, represented by Cleo Fields,a Black Democrat from BatonRouge, into amajority-White district

Thereshaped 5th Congressional Districtincludes all orparts of 24 parishes —stretching from Monroe south to Avoyelles andRapides parishes and east to the Florida Parishes.Itwas designed to elect aRepublican

“The 5th District is farm country, timber country,and small-town Louisiana,” Cathey said. “These are thepeople I’veworked for every day in the State Senate. They don’twant arepresentative who is alltalk. Theywant aseat at the table, lower costs, secure borders, strong support for agriculture, and agovernment thatrespects their values.”

Cathey has raised eyebrows in theState Capitol at times forcon-

troversial bills or behavior

During the2026 legislativesession, Cathey sponsored aresolution that called on Congresstosupport changing the constitutional provision that allows members to live outside of their congressional districts.

Cathey said he was targeting state Sen.Blake Miguez, R-Erath, who was running for the5th Congressional District at the timebut didn’t live in the district. Cathey’s colleagues privately said hisresolution wassophomoric. It didn’tadvance.

In 2023, Cathey upbraidedstate Sen. ReginaBarrow,D-Baton Rouge,outside aSenate committee room just after the two dueled over abill. Cathey cussed her outand put his ﬁnger inches from her face. Barrow,who cussed him back, said no onehad ever spoken that way to her previously during her 18 years in theLegislature.

Cathey apologized to Barrow privately as soon as he saw her afterwardand also apologized toher again in front of the entire Senate. He blamed his “passion” in trying to pass thebill.

Cathey’sentrance intothe 5th Congressional District race raises the question of whether the three candidates from Monroe will split up the vote to the beneﬁt of Firment or another non-Monroe candidatewho might get in.

Candidateshavetoformally declare their entry into therace during the Aug. 5-7 qualifying period. The open primary is on Nov.3,followed amonth later by the runoff for thetop two candidates, assuming no one received at least 50% of thevote in the primary

ChallengetoTuberville’seligibility dismissed

BY KIM CHANDLER Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. Ajudge on

Thursday dismissed alawsuit alleg-

ing U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville does not meet the residency requirement to run for governor of Alabama.

Montgomery County Circuit Judge Brooke Reid dismissed the case on jurisdiction grounds after ﬁnding that she did nothave the authority to decide theeligibility of a party’snominee prior to the general election.Reid,a Democrat,wrote that she had “wrestled” withthe decision but there is no legal precedent directly addressing the dispute. Tuberville, whohas represented Alabama in the Senate since 2021, is the Republicannomineefor governor. The lawsuit argued that Tuberville does not meet the Alabama Constitution’sseven-year residency requirement to be governor of Alabama. Joe Espy,anattorneyrepresentingTuberville, praisedthe decision. JordanDoufexis, chairman of Tuberville’scampaign, calledthe residency allegation a“bogus lawsuit” pushed by allies of Democratic gubernatorial candidateDoug Jones

Unlikeany other. Undeniably forkids.

manningchildrens.org

Chart-toppingsinger Bonnie Tylerdiesat75

BY MARK KENNEDY AP entertainment writer

Bonnie Tyler,the gravelly voiced, Grammy-nominated Welsh pop star whose 1983 charttoppingpower ballad“Total Eclipse of the Heart” enchanted succeeding generations with its bombasticcharms duringsolar andlunar eclipses, hasdied. She was 75.

Tylerdied unexpectedlyina hospital in Portugal where she was being treated for an illness, herfamily said Thursday in a statement on her website. She was hospitalized in May in Faro, where she had ahome, foremergency intestinal surgery.She had been placed in an induced coma for aperiod but wasreportedly improving last month and expected to makeagood recovery

“Bonnie’sfamily and team are heartbrokentoannouncethat Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugalasaresult of theillness that shewas beingtreated for,”her family said.

Tyler earned three Grammy nods andin2013 represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in 19th. She was honored as aMember of the Orderofthe British Empire in 2022 forher services to music by Queen Elizabeth II, thanks mainly to “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” which has had morethan 1billion streams, boosted by real eclipses in 2017 and 2024.

The song spent four weeks at No. 1, and when Stereogum reevaluated it in 2020, the music outlet declared it an “extinctionlevelevent renderedinmusical form.”

“It’spop music as heart-pounding, chest-thumping, blood-gargling, heavens-falling passion explosion. It’s sheer spectacle. It’s fireworksand lasersand lightning and thunder.Itsoars and swoops and barrel-rolls,” the site said.

The song has never really gone away: it wascovered by the English singerNicki Frenchin1995, and the band Westlife in 2006. Cate Blanchett sangitwhile hitting Billy Bob Thornton with hercar in 2001’s“Bandits,” it appeared in awedding scene in 2003’s“Old School” and One Direction sang it in 2010 on aU.K. version of “The XFactor.”

GRANT

SingerBonnie Tylerperforms her song ‘BelieveinMe’ during a rehearsal for the final of the Eurovision Song ContestinMalmo, Sweden, on May17, 2013. Tyler died on Thursday

Cathey

Italianregiondefiespressureto end aCuban doctorsprogram

Calabria’s governor refusesU.S.efforts to endinitiative

BY PAOLO SANTALUCIA Associated Press

POLISTENA, Italy Italy’ssouthern Calabria region is the rare place in Europe where Cuba sends medical professionals underalongrunning program that theUnited States wants to stamp out.

Cuba’sdoctorsfor decades have worked in developingnations such as Gambia and Venezuela,skilled in providing care with scarce resources. Over 200 now staff remote hospitals across Calabria, Italy’spoorest region in the tip of the country’sboot. Ashortage of homegrown healthcare workers had forced some hospital departments to close.

“It was adisaster.Iwas keeping the emergency room open all by myself,” the chief physician of Polistena hospital, Francesco Moschella,told TheAssociated Press, recallingthe days before the Cubans arrived in January 2023.

Their presence triggereda visit this year from U.S. ofﬁcials. The U.S. has long criticized theCuban program and called it amoneymakerfor thesocialist government that the Trump administration has isolated, sanctionedand wants to see changed.

Facing U.S. pressure, someCaribbean and Central American countries have canceled Cuban missions. ButCalabria’sgovernor hasrefused. Even if Cuba’ssocialism doesn’tfit with his political views, he says the region depends on them.

Linesseveral hourslong

Despite growingtourism and astrong farming economy, Calabria symbolizes southernItaly’s lack of development comparedto the more wealthy and industrialized north. Wages are about30% lower,and its unemployment rate is double the national average.

Calabria ranks last amongItaly’s 20 regions in publichealth-

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By VALERIA FERRARO

Cuban doctor Daysi Luperon Loforte, right, helpslift up Francesco Ascone,a patient hospitalized in the emergency unit of the Santa Maria degli Ungheresi Hospital of Polistena, in the southernItalian

region,onJune 16.

care access, according to the health ministry.

Until April, Calabria had spent 17 years under special administrationdue to persistent budget deficits, which along withcorruption scandals and Mafia infiltration affected health investments. Many newly graduated doctors built careers in thenorth instead.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cuba sent doctors to several areas of Italy.Calabriacontinued employing Cubans after the pandemic ended.

Emergency medicine specialist

ZoilaYakelin ArevaloCruzlefther young son in Cuba in mid-2023. The emergency room whereshe works in Polistena town sees 30,000 patients annually,and six Cuban doctors make up halfits staff.

“For afirst-world country,Europe,wehad acompletelydifferentidea. We didn’tthink that the shortageofdoctors was so serious,” said Arevalo Cruz, 38. “In this hospital there were lines that lasted up to eight or 12 hours. Now, thanks to our work,inless than an hour adoctor visitsyou.”

During an AP visit last month, she conducted herwork in nowﬂuent Italian. She says she even pickedupsomeofthe local dialect by chatting with grateful former

patientswho swing by to say hi.

Notall countriesbow to pressure

U.S. Secretary of StateMarco Rubio hasaccused the Cuban missions of being a“form of human trafﬁcking” —areference to Cuba’sgovernment keeping most of doctors’ salaries andallegedly conﬁscating some passports.

“Cubanmedical brigades are a key source of hard cashfor the failing regime,” the State Departmenttold the AP in an emailed response to questions, adding it was sharing information withpartner nations on “the sobering realities of Cubanmedical brigades to which theymight otherwise be unaware.”

In March, Jamaica endedits 50year medical cooperation agreement with Cuba, affecting nearly 300 healthcare workers. Honduras expelled more than 150.

Mexico’sPresidentClaudia Sheinbaum in March, however, defendedthe program and said it provides vital caretounderserviced people.

Ofﬁcials in Cuba have said it has 22,000 medical personnel deployed to 55 countries in what they called a“mission of solidarity.” Neither they nor theState Department has speciﬁed which ones.

Humanitarian crisis builds in quake-hitareas

Chronicillness,diarrhea surgeinVenezuelan communities

BY REGINA GARCIACANO Associated Press

CATIA LA MAR, Venezuela Victims of the powerful twin earthquakes thatjolted Venezuelalast month as well as people spared by the destruction on Thursday ﬂooded relief servicesoffered by nongovernmental organizations in thehardest-hit areas.

The demand for help comes as the United Nationslaunched an appeal for roughly $300 millionto assist 1.3 millionpeople in urgent need of aidinthe SouthAmerican country where nongovernmental organizations until recently were targetsofgovernment repression. Mobile kitchensand clinicsaswellasﬁeldhospitals now dot public spaces in the northern stateofLaGuaira, where mostof thedevastation occurred.

“It is clear at displacement sitesthat, particularlyafter two weeks, that people are turning up because they haven’t been ableto get their other treatments,” U.N. relief chief TomFletcher told The Associated Press during his visit to Venezuela. “So, they’re not turning up with just the fractures now,they’re turning up with those longer-term health needs. Andit’svital that we’re there for them.”

Doctors treating people in that state’sCatia La Mar community on Thursday reported an increase in skin conditions and diarrheal diseases,aswellasofrequests for medications forthe treatment of chronic illnesses, including diabetes andhigh blood pressure Theemerging diseases can be tied to crowded living spaces and poor water and sanitation conditions, which in many communities predate the earthquakes. Irma Echarri showed up at a mobile unit on asidewalk across thestreet from achurch with the boxesofthe eyedrops andpain reliever she usually takes, hoping that doctors there could give her new ones. She also wantedtobe

seen for thepain shedeveloped in her nose after the June 24 earthquakes.

“It hurts alot,” Echarri, 67, said while waitingtobeseen. “Ithurts because it hurts.”

Echarri’shome was not damaged, but manyofher neighbors are living in temporary shelters or outdoors after 190 buildings collapsed and 856 others weredamaged, according to Venezuelan ofﬁcials,inthe back-to-back earthquakes that killed 3,889 people.

The government of acting President DelcyRodríguezhas estimated that the earthquakes leftabout 18,000 people without a home. The displaced are now living in schools, sidewalks, parks, plazas and other public spaces. Fletcher,the head of theU.N Ofﬁce for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told AP the United States has so far provided most of the earthquake-response aid. Much of the assistance on the ground is being delivered by local groups that have partnered with global humanitarian organizations. Among thedisplaced is Zulbey Reyes, whowent to the clinic ran by the Venezuela-based organization Paluz in partnership with the global relief agency International Rescue Committee. Reyes, who was also robbed by the earthquakes of her job as a nanny,sought treatment for the onset of chest pain.

“I thought it was my heart that was sick,”Reyes,41, said after being diagnosed and receiving medication. “But it’sanerve that became inﬂamed after the screamsthat day.”

Armando Denegri, representative in Venezuelaofthe PanAmerican Health Organization told reporters Thursday that “50% of the health professionals in La Guaira were directly affected” by the earthquakes.

“Somedisappeared, somedied, others were severely affected by thecrisis, impactingtheir families,” Denegri said without giving further details.

The United Nations Ofﬁce for Disaster Risk Reduction has estimated direct physical damage to housing and infrastructure around $37 billion.

BY MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON Aformer Olympic canoe racer pleaded not guiltyonThursday to deliberately damaging the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, apolitically charged case that his defense attorneys and other Trump administration critics have derided as an abuse of prosecutorial power

David Hearn, who competed in three Summer Olympics, enteredthe plea through one of hisattorneys during his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court. Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, was indicted lastThursday on asingle felony countof

property destruction.

Before the country’s 250th independence celebrations, President Donald Trump launched a multimillion-dollar renovation project for the Reflecting Pool, whichwas plagued by problems, including damage to its new coating. Trump, without providing evidence, has allegedthe damage was caused by vandals.

Hearn has said he reached inside thepooltoexamine the peeledsealant and let go of achunk when he was told to by apark worker.He is accused of causing more than $1,000 in damage

“Every American should be alarmed about thisprosecution,” defense attorney Norm Eisensaidafter the

hearing. “It is not acrimeto touch the Reﬂecting Pool.”

At least threeotherpeoplehave been chargedin thesamecourtwithmisdemeanors forallegedlyremoving pieces of paint from the Reﬂecting Pool,accordingtoonlinecourt records. All threepleaded not guilty during their initial court appearances Wednesday, records show

U.S. AttorneyJeanine Pirro,the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, said vandalizing thenation’smonuments and public spaces is “an affront to our shared history.”

“The law applies equally to everyone, andwhenitisbroken, there are consequences,” shesaid in astatement on Thursday

Calabria

Continued

that arecrucial forthe global economy In Iran, the two daysof American airstrikes have killed at least 14 people and wounded another 78, Iran’s Health Ministry saidThursday.Most were reportedly members of the armed forces. In Kuwait, the military said falling debris wounded one person as the nation shot down three ballistic missiles, acruise missile and10 drones. Bahrain said it shot down incoming ﬁre, without elaborating, and Jordanian government spokesman Mohammadal-Momanisaidall incoming ﬁre from Iran had beenintercepted. Iranian state TV said the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guardfired missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan. There was no immediate

word of damage in Qatar. U.S. strikesmoretargets

The U.S. military’sCentral Commandsaidithit 90 targets across Iran, releasing black-and-white footageof what appeared to be strikes on an airport runway and missile launchers. The U.S. said thestrikes were intended to “further degrade”Iran’sability “to threaten freedom of navigation” in the strait, through which aﬁfth of the world’s traded oil andnatural gas passedbeforethe war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28.

Trafﬁchas picked up somewhat since atentativedeal last month includedopening the waterway.Maritime data companyLloyd’sListIntelligence said Thursday that preliminarydata showed at least 576 ships passed through the strait in June, compared with 233 in May More than 3,100 transited the strait in June 2025

bridges. State media reported astrike on arailway bridge in Iran’s northeastern Golestan province, and the Revolutionary Guard saidtwo bridges wereattacked on the route to Mashhad, where tens of thousands of mourners thronged wide boulevards during a funeralprocessionfor the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday

Anotherwarning to Iran

funding sources.”

Several Republicans conﬁrmed that the indictment of Murrill —which the Louisiana Supreme Court has suspended for now —has exacerbated tensions between the city’sDemocratic officials and Republicans elsewhere.

“I can’timagine NewOrleans wouldget anything they’re asking for now,” said state Sen. Alan Seabaugh, RShreveport. “And Iwouldbe very surprised if they kept everything they’ve got now.”

AddedRep.DebbieVillio, R-Kenner: “The issuessurrounding the indictment of our great Attorney General are very troubling. While —intheory —these issues standalone, they also lead to serious concerns about much larger systemic problems in New Orleans.”

Gov.Jeff Landry responded to Moreno’s statement by writing her aletter in which he ratcheted up pressureon her Landry noted that the city won state approval in November to borrow $125 million from abank that it repaid in May —but he didn’t note that Moreno inherited abudget mess from Mayor LaToya Cantrell that created the need for the short-term loan.

The governor also noted that the city received an upfront payment recently by selling the rights to future Caesars casino lease revenue. He said the deal cost thecity$50 million in future lease payments, “a decision that is tantamount to the largest‘pay day loan’ by amunicipality in recent times.”

Landry then asked how the city could “urgently” request the $110 million bond sale one day and then say the money isn’tneeded.

“The City’songoing inability to meet basic cash-ﬂow requirements is unacceptable and raises serious concerns about management and transparency,” Landry wrote.

Morenoresponded evenly Thursday night to Landry’s letter,sayingthat when city officialssought theshorttermbank loan last year, they saidpublicly it “would likely be necessary as part of the City’smulti-year financialrecovery.” She added that the Louisiana Legislative Auditor,who hasbeen working with city ofﬁcials to straighten outthe ﬁnances, acknowledged that

“Our request this year was therefore consistent with the recovery paththat had been discussed from the outset,not theresult of a neworunexpected ﬁnancial development,” shewrote.

Moreno alsoaddressed Landry’squestion on how the mayor could now say the money wasn’tneeded

Without the $110 million in bond proceeds, themayor wrote, “we are compilinga planthat defers tens of millionsofdollars in projects, implements an additional $20 million in mid-year reductions affectingCity operations, public safety and essential services, aggressivelypursing collections owed to theCity,and continue utilizing furloughs and other temporary cost-saving measures while we stabilize ourfinances. This path is achievable, but itisunquestionably more painful.”

Politicalfallout

Ron Faucheux, who spent twoterms as astate legislator from New Orleans, said he worries aboutthe fallout for New Orleans from the ongoingﬁght.

“The cityalways needs statehelp, and this fight badly hurts that effort,” Faucheux said in atext.“It also aggravates theunderlyingpartisan divide.New Orleans is abluecity in asea of red.Iworry that the next state electionswill become anasty partisan and racial war,whichwouldbeadisaster for thestate and city.”

In her statement, Moreno saidcity ofﬁcialshave concluded they can continue to provide vital services without theloan.Because thecity is shortofcashreserves, city ofﬁcials planned to use the money to help pay

Iranian statemedia reported explosionsinseveral locations, including Bushehr, home to Iran’s nuclear power plant complex, and southern port cities. The state-run IRNA news agency quoted Ehsan Jahanian,a local ofﬁcial in Bushehr,asaccusing theU.S. of strikingnear the plant around noon, hours af-

bills that aredue beforeit collectsthe taxrevenue it would use for those payments

“Fortunately,wehave identified apathtoget us through 2026 without needing Bond Commissionapprovalfor athird-party loan, but it won’tbeeasy,” Moreno said, without explaining how

The indictment is only the latest in aseries of developments in recent weeksthat have put Democratic-led New Orleans at odds with Republicans elsewhere in thestate.

New Orleans ofﬁcials were taken aback when Landry andRepublican lawmakers moved aggressively during the just-completed legislative session to eliminate nine judgeships in New Orleans, revoke funding for 10 assistantdistrictattorneys and erase the position of Calvin Duncan, the newlyelected Criminal District Court clerk.

Landry added to the friction,inthe eyes of New Orleansofficials,byvetoing $33 million worth of projects forthe city just after thesession ended.

In turn,Republicans believe that theindictment of thepopular Republican attorney general was payback by the city. In her indictment, agrand juryaccused Murrill of committing 16 felonies by sending letters to Moreno,Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williamsand ﬁve City Council membersthat threatened to removethemfrom ofﬁce for opposing thelaw that eliminated Duncan’sjob.

No evidence has emerged, though, to showthat any city ofﬁcials orchestrated the indictment.

Moreno responded defiantly to Murrill’sletter,sayingshe feltthreatenedbyit but wouldn’tback down in her criticism of theattorney general.

Butinaninterviewon Wednesday, Moreno said she played no role in Murrill’s indictment.

“I didn’teven know grand juriescould do this,” she said, speaking of theirabilitytoinvestigatecrimes.

ter Central Command said it had ended itslatest round of strikes. Asked forcomment on Bushehr,Central Command referred to anews release that detailed targets butmadenomention of the nuclear power plant

For the first time since April,U.S.strikes also appeared to targetIranian

“This is acourt thing. Overall, it’sbecoming sucha distraction,and Ijusthave to stay focusedonthe city and taking care of the city That’s thelanewhere I stand.”

‘It’sgonetoo far’

Analysts with the State BondCommission had raised questions in recent days aboutthe city’s request

The city was seeking the state’sapproval to sell $110 millionin“taxable limited tax bonds” and pay back the money over 16 years at a 7.3% interest rate, with most of the interest and principal to be paid at theend,“making it avery expensive loan,” said state Treasurer JohnFleming, who chairs theState BondCommission.

The commission and the Treasury Department “are notaparty to plans forpunitive actions,” Fleming added.

In herstatement,Moreno said the residents of New Orleans will losefrom any punishment by thestate Re-

After leaving aNATOsummitinTurkey,Trumpposted several videos on his social media site of what he said were explosions in Iran and issued another warning to the Islamic Republic.

“This is in retribution for yesterday’sbombing of ships by Iran. If it happens again, it will getmuchworse!” Trump wrote Wednesday,aday after threetankers were attacked in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said the latest backand-forth ﬁghting would not result in lengthy military action.

publican leadership.

“Targeting ﬁnances will be detrimental to city services which we are improving every day,along with public safety where we have made historic strides,” she said.

“Our murderrateisnow so low that it is comparable to levels not seen since 1969.

New Orleans is on aroll. We arefinallymaking significant progress.”

In April, city ofﬁcials cut adeal to bolster theirreserves by sellingthe next nine years of revenue from its lease with Caesars’ casino. In exchange, the city received $103 million.

The Attorney General’s Office has filed apublic records request for documents related to the deal, an administration ofﬁcialsaid. Thisrefers to the concern Moreno expressed in her statement aboutthe casino lease.

State Sen. Jimmy Harris, aDemocraticsenator from New Orleanswho has agood working relationship withLandryand Senate President Cameron Henry,

Trump also renewedhis past threats to hit Iran’scivilian infrastructure, including electric anddesalination plants, and to seize Kharg Island, through which some 90% of Iranian oil exports pass.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a key negotiator in talks seeking apermanent end to the war, wasdefiant in apost on XonThursday morning: “America still hasn’tlearned that bullying and breaking promisesare no longer costfree. Let me put it plainly: If you strike, you’ll get hit.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in apost on Telegram that he spoke by phone with his Saudi, Turkish and Omani counterparts and withPakistan’sarmychief, Field MarshalAsim Munir, who has been one of the main mediators in thewar.The outreach suggested efforts may be underway to reduce tensions.

R-Metairie,saidheisconcerned that other actions by theRepublicanleadership may ensue. “But Ihopeatsomepoint everyone can be adults,” he said. “Weall understand that politics plays into this. I get it.But when you’re now hurting the citizens you’re supposed to protect, the people who count on you, that’swhen Ithinkit’sgone too far.”

Harrissaidhewill reach out to Landry but not immediately given the high political temperatures.

Membersofthe New Orleans City Council released astatement backing Moreno ““It is disappointingthat theCity’sfinancialneeds have become the subject of political disagreement rather than collaborative problem-solving,”the councilmembers said. “New Orleansisaneconomic hub and powerhouse that anchorsrevenue forthe State of Louisiana as awhole. Simply put, whenNew Orleans wins, Louisianawins.”

APARTMENTS

built more than 3,000 units in Greater New Orleans

The partners said the PILOT was the missing piece of a ﬁnancing plan that includes funds from the city, state, the convention center and a private investor

“Like all affordable housing deals, this project is challenging because it requires so many levels of capital and subsidy,” Providence CEO Terri North told the council. “This project is perfect for the essential workers that work in the French Quarter, CBD and for the convention center itself.”

Jim Cook, the convention center’s president and CEO, said through a spokesperson Thursday that the deal “brings new energy, investment and momentum to an emerging area of the city.”

Now the developers say they can move toward signing a master development agreement with the convention center and closing ﬁnancing before beginning construction as soon as this year.

Second major project

The Rivana Apartments will be the second project to break ground in the longvacant section of the Lower Garden District, where city leaders hope to invest more than $1 billion in multifamily housing, offices, shops, museums and more. Discussions date back two decades, but the project gained momentum five years ago when the convention center selected RDNI as lead devel-

Continued from page 1A

One resolution voided a three-year extension of her contract, which was set to expire in 2028. Another allowed RTA Board Chair Ann Duplessis to negotiate with Hankins on leaving her position, and a third authorized Duplessis to start a national search for Hankins’ replacement.

Judge Omar Mason on Thursday nulliﬁed all three resolutions, agreeing that the RTA board violated state law by improperly noticing its closed-door session and by not adding the Hankins resolutions to the board’s public agenda.

But the judge denied Hankins’ request to levy $14,000 in civil penalties upon board members, saying that the board didn’t purposely violate the law

“There was at least an attempt to comply with the open records law They just didn’t comply,” Mason said while making his ruling.

It’s not clear if the RTA board will take a new vote on the contract amendment, or if the board will appeal Mason’s ruling. The RTA’s attorney, Kim Boyle, and Duplessis declined to comment on that point.

An attorney for Hankins, Bill Aaron, said the ruling won’t affect her separation from the RTA but could

oper The River District project debuted with a ceremonial groundbreaking in 2023 and news that Shell would build a new $130 million regional headquarters there while Topgolf would build an entertainment complex

The Shell building is due to be completed next year but the Topgolf deal has since fallen through Late last year, the entire project stalled when RDNI backed out of talks with the convention center after missing performance and payment deadlines. But in January, the two entities announced they had agreed to a revised deal that gave the state-

strengthen her hand in an upcoming wrongful termination suit that will seek damages tied to her employment contract.

Aaron said she will seek damages amounting to ﬁve years of her annual salary, which was about $315,000.

“We needed this ruling to say the resolution voiding the contract extension to 2031 is invalid,” Aaron said after the hearing. “That ups our damages by a million dollars.”

The relatively new RTA board adds the lawsuit to a list of its challenges as it attempts, with a push from Mayor Helena Moreno, to right an agency seen as having veered off course. The public transportation authority oversees buses, streetcars, ferries and paratransit services.

Hankins, a lightning rod during her three years atop the agency, is credited for rebounding bus ridership after the COVID-19 pandemic and securing $197 million in federal grants. But under her watch, the agency has also been criticized for faltering on paratransit improvements.

Her oversight of a controversial construction contract attracted FBI inquiries in 2024, although it’s not clear what became of any investigation Upon her resignation, Hankins repaid the $21,000 to the agency from improper excess allowances.

Meanwhile, a dozen current and former employees

sponsored agency more control and more risk.

The original Rivana development team — part of the larger RDNI group led by local real estate veteran Louis Lauricella — includes Brian Gibbs, Tara Hernandez, Michael Merideth, Shawn Barney and Nicole Webre. The five partnered with Providence in February, giving the nonprofit 51% of the project.

Together, the partners have secured funding from public and private sources, including the Louisiana Housing Corporation, the city of New Orleans, and the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Au-

ﬁled a lawsuit in April claiming workplace harassment, wage theft and First Amendment violations.

On Thursday, the question before Mason was whether the agency in May violated a state law that requires public agencies to conduct business before the public, and to provide a legally acceptable reason on meeting agendas when taking up matters in private. The May 9 meeting agenda speciﬁed the contract extension as the purpose of the executive session but the statute it cited only allowed for discussion of Hankins’ character and competence.

“The agenda item as described was false,” Aaron said.

And when voting on items not on the agenda — like the three RTA resolutions — the board must ﬁrst vote unanimously to amend the agenda. That did not happen at the RTA meeting.

But Kim Boyle, representing the RTA board, argued the agenda gave the public a reasonable idea of what would be discussed, and said the discussion was allowed under a different exception for attorney-client privilege.

She also argued that the board’s votes on May 9 don’t need to be voided because they are moot or were addressed by a subsequent vote. The termination negotiation isn’t necessary because Hankins resigned, and the national search was ratiﬁed at a later meeting,

thority, which is providing $6.5 million toward the $100 million total development. The state awarded $16.5 million sourced from a federal program that supports low- and moderate-income individuals.

Courtyard with a pool

Rivana design documents and renderings from Trapolin-Peer, a New Orleans architect, and San Franciscobased Gensler show a fourstory structure surrounding a courtyard with a pool.

The building’s main entrance will be located at the corner of Race and Tchoupitoulas streets, just upriver from the new Shell building,

Boyle said.

As for the contract extension, Boyle said that it wasn’t legally valid to begin with.

“That addendum was not properly executed and therefore void as a matter of law,” Boyle said.

The contract extension was executed by a former board chair, Fred Neal Jr., without public notice or full vote of

which currently rises alone from several unkempt empty lots. Euterpe and Race streets will be extended to connect to Convention Center Boulevard, and there will be a parking garage entrance on Euterpe with retail on the ﬁrst ﬂoor

The building will include 500-square-foot studio apartments along with onebedroom units between 650 and 750 square feet and twobedroom units topping out at around 1,000 square feet.

Next steps

A convention center spokesperson said the Rivana team continues to

toward a ﬁnancial

anticipated to be no

Test pilings for the

are

Surveys,

than

and other

has

Gibbs Construction could start driving pilings later this year, one of the developers said after the City Council meeting. While the Rivana developers and their partners celebrated the council’s decision, two council members expressed concerns about the decades-long exemption before the vote.

Jason Hughes said he was worried that the units might not go to people most in need, and JP Morrell said it’s hard to justify giving away future tax revenue at a time when many homeowners are struggling financially and still have to pay their property taxes. Hughes joined ﬁve other council members to approve the deal. Morrell was the lone no vote.

North said people who earn $15 an hour will qualify for one of the building’s 60% AMI units and pay under $1,000 for rent, which she said is half the market rate for the area. She said workers who make $25 per hour will qualify for an 80% AMI unit and pay around $1,300 a month. Through future River District developments, the RDNI consortium plans to create 900 residential units, about half market rate and the rest designated either affordable or workforce housing, which covers households making between 80% and 120% of the area median income.

the board. Neal has previously told WWL Louisiana the execution was proper because it did not increase Hankins’ annual salary

The extension, signed only by Neal and Hankins, was executed on Oct. 15, shortly after Mayor Helena Moreno was elected to succeed former Mayor LaToya Cantrell. Moreno replaced Neal, along with all of Cantrell’s appointments to the board, after taking ofﬁce in January Moreno had taken issue with the extension, and the RTA’s lawyers on Thursday argued that it was illegal, though Mason did not rule on that point.

Email Ben Myers at bmyers@theadvocate.com.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

A fence surrounds the proposed site for the Rivana Apartments on Thursday next to the Shell Riverside building in the River District of New Orleans.

PepsiCo says customers tightened budgets

NEW YORK PepsiCo reported stronger-than-expected revenue in thesecond quarter despite weaker demand in North America, where it said consumers tightened their budgets as the Iran war caused gas prices to spike.

“I think theconsumer is worse than what we had anticipated, and it’sdriven mainly by gasprices,” PepsiCo CEORamon Laguarta said Thursday during aconference callwith investors.

The food and beveragegiant said its net revenue rose6.4% to $24.2 billion for the AprilJune period. That was better than the $23.9 billionWall Street expected, according to analysts polled by FactSet

In February,PepsiCo slashed U.S.pricesonLay’s, Doritos, Cheetos and Tostitos chips by up to 15%, which boosted snack demand in the ﬁrst quarter But in the second quarter, as gas prices rose, PepsiCo’s snack sales volumes were ﬂat in North America, while its beveragevolumes fell 4%.

PepsiCo said it will continue to invest in making its products more affordable.The company is also trying to meet demandfor healthier products. In March it introduced Doritos Protein and Gatorade Lower Sugar,which has no artiﬁcial ﬂavorsorcolors.

Deere &Co., FTC settle right-to-repair lawsuit

TheFederal TradeCommissionand attorneys general from several states secured aright-to-repair settlement Wednesday withagriculture equipment giant Deere &Co. that requires the company to let farmers and independentshops ﬁx their own equipment.

TheIllinois-basedmanufacturerhas facedcomplaints for years for withholding the software needed for repairs and forcing customers to use authorized dealers instead of independentones.

This marks the secondrightto-repair settlement Deere has reached this year,following a separate $99million class-actionsettlement with farmers in April. Although the class-action compensated consumers, the FTC’ssettlement instead requires Deere to make its repair services available to equipment owners and independent shops.

The FTC and attorneys general from Arizona, Illinois, Michigan,Minnesota and Wisconsin brought the antitrust lawsuit in January 2025, arguing that Deere had illegally restricted farmers and independentshops that might otherwise service them from repairing farm equipment such as tractors. Under the order filed inIllinois,Deere will now be required to make diagnostic and repair tools available to equipmentowners and independent repairshops, not only its own network of authorized dealers. N.Y.sues over so-called forever chemicals

ALBANY,N.Y.— New York’sattorney general sued several large chemical and agricultural companies on Thursday,alleging they knowingly sold harmfulso-called forever chemicals used in cosmetics, nonstick cookware and other products.

The lawsuit against 3M, DuPont de Nemours, Chemours, Cortevaand other manufacturers is the latest legal action overPFAS, which havebeen linked to an increased risk of certain cancers and developmental delays in children

The lawsuit seeks to forcethe companiestofund environmental cleanup efforts in New York andtowarn consumersabout theirproducts. It arguesthat, in some cases, the companies were aware that the chemicals were toxic or could cause environmental damage. PFAS, or perﬂuoroalkyl and polyﬂuoroalkyl substances, are agroup of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the nation’s air,water and soil.

BUSINESS

Fedchair namestaskforce leaders

BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP economics writer

WASHINGTON Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, economist Raj Chetty andformer Bank of England governor Mervyn King are among aslate of names released by the Federal Reserve Thursday that will helpdevelop recommended changes to the central bank’s operations. They are among theco-leaders of ﬁve different task forces announced by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh last month. Theother leaders are amix of publicofficials andbusiness leaders. Warsh called for “regime change” at theFed last year while he was under consideration by the Trump administration to replace

former chair Jerome Powell. Warsh has sought tocommunicate less about the Fed’sthinking on interest ratesand has said he wants to reduce thecentral bank’s roughly $6.7 trillion in holdings of government bonds. Most of thedirectors announced Thursday areleading figures in economics and business, rather than longtime Fed critics. Warsh’s use of task forces, Fed-watchers say,suggest he wants to persuade his fellowFed officialsofany changes rather than impose them.

“The U.S. economy has changed signiﬁcantly over the last generation,and never moresothan right now,”Warsh saidina writtenstatement. “Each task force will carefully consider whether policymakers’ meansand methods, analytical toolsand policy approaches can be improved upon.”

The five taskforces will each have three co-leadersand will be

supportedbyFed staff, the central bank said. Oneofthe task forces will focus on how artiﬁcialintelligence and other new technologies will affect productivity and jobs.

To oversee that task force, Warsh has turned to executives from ﬁrms developing AI, including Andreessen, amajor investor in crypto ﬁrmsand AI technology

Asha Sharma, an executive vice president at Microsoft andCEO of its Xbox unit,will also co-lead that task force. Charles Jones, an economist at Stanford currently on leave with Anthropic, will act as the third co-chair Chetty,a Harvard economist, will co-lead atask force on evaluating the data sources used by the Fed. Chetty has broken ground by using huge data sets to track families’economic fortunes over decades andevaluate which areas of the country have seen the most

economic mobility

Doug McMillon, theformer president andCEO of Walmart, and Kevin Murphy,aneconomics professor at the University of Chicago, will co-lead the data task force.

Athird task force will examine the Fed’sbalance sheet, which has ballooned in size since the Great Recession in 2008-09. Raghuram Rajan, aformer leader of the Reserve Bank of India, and Harvard economist and former Treasury ofﬁcialKaren Dynanwill co-lead thetask force, alongwithJeremy Stein, aformer Fed governor

Greg Mankiw, atop economist in the George W. Bush administration and Thomas Sargent, aNobel laureateatNew York University, will co-lead atask force on inﬂation frameworks. King, theformer Bank of England governor,will be one of the leaders of the task force on communications.

U.S. home prices hitall-timehigh

Salesofpreviously occupiedhomes slowed in June

BY ALEX VEIGA Associated Press

Sales ofpreviously occupied U.S.homes slowedinJune,but akey measure of home prices climbed to an all-time high, addingto affordabilitychallenges forprospective homebuyers.

Existing home salesfell2.4% last month from Maytoaseasonally adjusted annualrate of 4.09 million units, theNationalAssociation of RealtorssaidThursday. Sales rose 2.8% compared with Junelast year.

Thelatest sales tally fell short of the roughly 4.21 million pace economistswere expecting, accordingtoFactSet.

Home sales have been mostly hovering close to a4millionannualpace going back to 2023, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2 million.

Sales have remained sluggish as mortgage rateshave mostly trended higher in themonths since the war between the U.S. andIran started.Expectations of higher inﬂation amid surging oil prices have pushed up thelongterm bond yields that lenders use as aguide to pricing homeloans, causingmortgage rates to climb. Still, mortgage ratesremainbelow where theywereayear ago.

Despite the lackluster sales, home prices continuedtorise nationally last month.The U.S. median sales price increased 1.8% in June from ayear earlier to $440,600, an all-time high on data goingbackto1999,NAR said.

Home prices haverisen on an annualbasis for36months in arow

First-time buyers accounted for33% of home purchaseslast month, down from 35% in May andupfrom 30% in June last year.Historically,theymade up 40% of home sales.

BY MATT O’BRIEN and JOCELYN NOVECK Associated Press

NEW YORK The New York Times, the Daily News and other media outlets are asking afederal judge to imposesanctions on OpenAI, escalatingaﬁght over artiﬁcial intelligence and copyright that could shape the future of astruggling news industry.

Thenewspapers allege the ChatGPTmaker is hiding evidence important to what could be alandmark copyrightinfringementtrial over how OpenAI and its business partner,Microsoft, built their AI technologies using millions of news articles. At issue is whether AI chatbots are unfairly competingasaninformation source,siphoning off web trafﬁc without doing the journalistic work involved in gatheringthe news.

Aﬁling ThursdayinaManhattan federal courthousealleges OpenAI

“Without adoubt, the affordability is amajor challenge for people who want to become homeowners, whichisthe reason why we need moresupply,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’schief economist.

The U.S. housing market has been in aslumpsince2022, when mortgagerates beganto climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes wereessentially ﬂat last year,stuck at a30-year low

Through theﬁrst half of this year,seasonally adjusted sales of existing U.S. homesare up only 0.7% compared to the same period in 2025.

Yearsofsoaring home prices, especially in theearly partof this decade when rock-bottom mortgage rates fueled abuying frenzy,have left many would-be homebuyers frozen out of the market. And achronic shortage of homes for sale nationally,due

partly to years of below-average new home construction, has helped prop up home prices even in amultiyear sales slump. Many of thehomes purchased lastmonth likely went under contract in April and May,when the average rate on a30-year mortgage ranged from 6.23% to 6.53% —the highest levelgoing back to late August, according to mortgagebuyer Freddie Mac.

Those who can afford to buy at current mortgage rates or pay allcash are likely to encounter buyer-friendly trends in many markets. In June, median list prices fell 2.5% from ayear earlier,the steepestannualdropon datagoing back to 2017, according to Realtor.com Still, housingmarket pricingtrends vary widely regionally and locally.Consider,since peaking in 2022 at $449,000, list priceshavecomedown7.3%in the West and 3.5% in the South,

but are up 10% in the Midwest and 12.6% in the Northeast, according to Realtor.com

Home shoppers have more homes on the market to choose from than thistime last year,although home inventory levels remain well below historical norms. There were1.56 million unsold homes at the end of last month, down 0.6% from May and up 1.3% fromJune last year,NAR said. That’sstill well short of the roughly 2million homes forsale that wastypical before the COVID-19 pandemic. June’smonth-end inventory translates to a4.6-month supply at the current sales pace. Traditionally,aﬁve-tosix-monthsupply is considered abalanced market between buyers and sellers. “Weneed to see 30%-40% growth in inventory,” Yunsaid. “We’re not seeing that, so inventory (is) still remaining relatively tight.”

“chose obstruction” over releasing datasetsand ChatGPTlogsthat could showhow theAIsystemused copyrighted news content. The plaintiffs areaskingthe judgeto penalize the company for “discovery misconduct” that could distort evidence, saying the recent deposition of an OpenAI employee contradicts the company’searlier claims.

New York Daily News attorney Steven LiebermansaidOpenAI has been “making misrepresentations” for two years about its abilitytosearch for copyrighted content in itsAItrainingdatasets and logs. OpenAI has described its limitations in sharing ChatGPT logs as ameasure to protect user privacy

“Asthe Times’ caseweakensand they’ve been forced to drop claims against us, they’re persisting with their efforts to invade the privacy of people who havenothing to do with this case, including by making these blatantly false allega-

tions,” said astatementThursday from OpenAI spokespersonDrew Pusateri. TheNew York TimessuedOpenAIand Microsoftinlate2023, about ayear after ChatGPT’s debutsparked acommercialAI boom and began changing the way people search forinformation online.The threattonewspublicationsbecame even moreapparent when Google in 2024 introduced AI-generated summariesatthe top of online search results,cutting off theadvertising dollars that come when people click alink to the information’soriginal source. The Times has since been joined by other news organizations. OpenAI andother tech companieshavearguedthe processof training their AI systemsondigitized books, online articles and other writings found on the internetisprotected by the “fair use” doctrine of U.S. copyright law OpenAI rivalAnthropic agreed

to pay book authors $1.5billion for training its chatbot Claude on their pirated works —anamount that represents asmall fraction of Anthropic’s$965 billion market valuation as it prepares to become publicly traded. TheNew York Times’ arguments are different from those brought by book authors. In its original lawsuit and an amended complaint ﬁled last month, it focused on the unfair competition of companies that “seek to free-ride on The Times’s massive investment in its journalismbyusingittobuild substitutive products without permission or payment.” The mounting costs comeasa growing number of media organizations have signed licensing deals withOpenAIand other companies that typically pay the outlet afee to be able to train AI systems on their news feeds or archives. The Associated Press wasthe ﬁrst to announce

ASSOCIATEDPRESS

Experts: China’sballistic missile

launch wasa messagefor U.S.

Weapon test draws internationalcriticism

BY HUIZHONG WU Associated Press

BANGKOK When China launched

aballistic missile into the South Paciﬁc Ocean on Monday,itwas arare test of anuclear-capable weapons system that drew internationalrebuke

Arriving two years after asimilar missile launch in international waters in the Paciﬁc, the testbythe People’sLiberationArmy caught the attention of small island nations whose leaders have increasingly urgedbigger countries tostopusing the vast oceanic region for power struggles. ButBeijing’s message was largely for just one country,experts say: the United States.

“The most important message is the PLA is becoming apowerful military with avery strongstrategic nuclear capability,” said Tong Zhao, asenior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, athink tank.

The test, launched from anuclearpowered submarine, wasademonstration of the sea-based legof China’snuclear triadcapability,which refers to the abilitytohaveland, sea, and air-based nuclear systems. Further,itshowed that China’s military has what is called asecond-strike capability,saidDominic Meagher,a research fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy in Australia. That means even if Chinawas attacked first, it still has the ability to strike back,because the ability to ﬁre could be anywhere, in the ocean or on land.

Beijing said the launch was part of annual exercises, suggesting that it may conduct similar launches in the future.

“I would see this as asystematic move, not an isolated event,” said K. Tristan Tang, nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research, in emailed comments.

The missile testing comes as China is also racing to build more nuclear-powered submarines. In the past ﬁve years,Chinahas been building these types of submarines faster than the U.S., according to areport from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank.

Launch recallsgrimhistory

However,the use of international waters, specifically treaty-protected waters where nuclear testing is prohibited, drew criticism from countries in the region.The waters of the South Pacific Ocean are contested because they’re strategically important and rich withfishers and minerals.

For Paciﬁc nations, nuclear testing in particular recalls historicalharm The U.S., the UK and France have all detonated nuclear warheads in the Paciﬁc,causing environmental contamination and health issues such as cancers and birth defects

Along-rangeballistic missile bursts out of the sea during atest launched from aChinese nuclear-powered submarine in the South Pacificon Monday.Beijing said the launch was part of annual exercises.

that someisland nations say they arestill recording generations later

“Those tests resulted in outrage andresulted in treaties to prevent future tests, and that includesthe nucleartest ban treaty and the Treaty of Rarotonga,said Meagher. “These kinds of missile tests haven’tbeen conducted since.”

Monday’smissile landedinthe SouthPaciﬁc Nuclear Free Zone, which was established by the 1986 Rarotonga accord,which prohibits nuclearweapons throughout the region. China ratiﬁed theprotocols in 1987 that prohibit testing nuclear weapons within the zoneorthreatening to use themagainst signatories with territory in theregion.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, speaking to reporters in theSolomon capital Honiara Tuesday, said,“Chinaisa good friend of Solomon Islands, but this is notsomething afriend does This is not…good in our region.”

While U.S. forces still conduct nuclear missile testing in the Paciﬁc, they avoid the treaty area, Meagher said.

Test conductedwithshort notice

Australia and New Zealandboth said they were not given enough priornotice about the test, andother countries likeJapansaid it was done withouttransparency. Canberra and Wellingtonare two of the South Paciﬁc’s biggestpowers and have grownanxious about Beijing’sattempts to vie for sway in the region.

Bilateral deals between China and the leaders of small Pacific nationshave prompted Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to embark onacharm offensive of his own. That has included defense andsecurity pactsinked withVanuatu, Fiji and Papua New Guinea in thepast year

On Tuesday,Albanesedecried themissile launchas“aprovocativeact by China whichdoes destabilizethe region,” when he spoke to reporters in Honiara, where he was holding talks with officials. Australia and the Solomon Islands are in theprocess of negotiating a comprehensive treaty

“The fact thatthis test took place yesterday withvery little notice is of real concern,”headded.

Chinahas defendedits actions and saiditgavecountries in the area appropriate notice. “China informed the relevant countries in advance, which demonstrates the openness andtransparency of the Chinese military,” according to a statement from itsDefense Ministryissued Tuesday Experts say that if thereisa standard, it wouldbethe HagueCode of Conduct which setsout regulations on ballistic missiles andtheir use.It expectsstatestoprovide notice at least 24 hours beforehand, but the code is not legally binding. Further, Tang said, China is not amember of the Hague Code of Conduct

Much speculation remains around what was ﬁred and when.

ThePeople’s Liberation Army is known to makevery little information public,but the secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council said on Wednesday thatthis wasaJL-2missile launched from waters offGuangdong, asouthern Chineseprovince. The JL-2 is an older ballistic missile for submarines.

Chinese state media, on the other hand, presentedexperts saying it was likely aJL-3, which has alonger range than the JL-2.“The JL-3’s range can strike atargetonthe east side of the Paciﬁcfromthe west side,” said ShaoYonglin, amilitary expert featured in an interview withstate broadcaster CCTV

By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritof SEIZUREAND SALE from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedApril 29, 2025, Ihave seized andwill proceed to sell to thehighest bidder at public auction, at the JeffersonParish Sheriff'sOfﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust 19,2026 at l k g 10 o'clock a.m. thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: THAT CERTAIN PIECEORPOR‐TION OF GROUND,to‐gether with all therights,ways, privileges, servitudes,ap‐purtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longing or in anywise appertaining, situated in the Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in VALLEY REALTY CO.Subdivision, in Square No.16, bounded by Manson Drive, Tenth Street, Farrington Driveand Eleventh Street, designated as LotNo. 121, all in accordance with thesurvey of AdloeOrr, Jr &Associates,C E.,dated July 17, 1958, which said lotcommences at adistanceof 250.03 feet from thecornerof Manson Drive andTenth Street,and measures thence 50 feet frontonManson

Ukrainiandronesbatter Russianoil facilities

BY ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press

KYIV,Ukraine Ukrainian drones hit more Russian oil facilities and set two oil tankers ablaze in theSea of Azov on Thursday,a dayafter U.S. President Donald Trumppledged to grant Kyiv alicense to manufacture the Patriot air defense systemstoprotect its cities.

Atop Ukrainianofﬁcial, meanwhile,cautioned that it could take ayear or morefor the country to produce Patriot interceptor missiles.

TheKremlinsaidthe license deal reﬂected what it calledWashington’s“ambivalence”but noted it appreciated Trump’sefforts to help broker apeace deal to end the war,whichRussia launchedover four years ago.

Ukraine’sdrone strikes on oil reﬁneries andother infrastructure across Russia havetriggered awidespread fuelcrisis with gasoline shortages and rationing in multiple regionsand motorists waiting for hours to ﬁll their tanks. Moscow has responded by intensifying its bombardment on Kyiv and other cities, exposing Ukraine’svulnerabilitytoballistic missile strikes.

Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelenskyy described the latest strikes on Russia’sinfrastructure as part of Kyiv’scampaign of “long-range sanctions” carried out in responsetoMoscow’srefusal to halt the ﬁghting.

“Wehave long proposed that Russia endthis war, andevery dayofdelay shouldbring the feeling of war to whereitall began— to Russia,” Zelenskyy said.

AUkrainian drone strike sparked aﬁre at an oildepot in

the western Russian city of Tver, according to acting Gov. Vitaly Korolyov. Oil reservoirs also were set ablaze by drones in Vyazniki, in the southern Stavropol region, said Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov,forcing the evacuation of nearby apartment buildings. In the Sea of Azov,Ukrainian drones set twooil tankers on ﬁre, according to Rostov Gov. Yuri Slusar,who said one of the ships was stillburning andits crew evacuated

It wasthe latest in aseries of strikes on oil tankers in recent days, part of Ukrainian efforts to cut fuel supplies to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. In addition to the Stavropol and Tverfacilities, Zelenskyy said Ukrainianforces hit fuel infrastructure deep inside Russia, including oneinUfa, as well as an oil-loading terminal in the Rostov region closer to Ukraine Russia’sDefense Ministry said itsdefensesdowned73Ukrainian drones from late Wednesday into early Thursday Ukraine’s air force said Russia ﬁred 94 long-range strike drones and two ballistic missiles. While 72 drones were jammed or intercepted, 19 drones andboth missiles damaged 13 locations, it said. During Wednesday’smeeting withZelenskyy on thesidelines of theNATOsummit in Turkey, Trump said the U.S. will meet alongstanding request from Ukraine and give it alicense to makethe Patriot air defense systems. He also praisedZelenskyy fordoing “an amazing job”— a sharp change in tone from past criticismsofthe Ukrainianleader But setting up domestic production of the mobile,surfaceto-air systems will take many months, said Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister

Drive, thesame inwidth inthe rear,bya depth of 100 feet be‐tween equal andparallel lines; subjectto restrictions, servitudes, rights-of-way andoutstanding mineralrights of record affect‐ingthe prop‐erty Thissaleissub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liens and privileges.

TERMS- Thefull purchase price isdue at the time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier's Check, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

BRIGHAMJ LUNDBERG Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans

beredand enti‐tled cause, datedJanuary 12, 2026, Iwill offerfor sale to thehighest bid‐deratpublic auction, at the JeffersonParish Sheriff'sOfﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust 19, 2026 at 10 o'clock a.m. thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: THAT CERTAIN PORTIONOF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings and improvements thereon, andall of therights, ways,privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, appurtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in the Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in that part thereofknown as GRETNA GAR‐DENS SUBDIVI‐SION,desig‐natedasLOT NO.3,of SQUARE 17; said Square bounded b ff d

q byStafford, Twenty-First Weyer, and Twentieth Streets; said Lot commences at a distance of 80 feet from the corner of Twen‐tiethStreet and Weyer Street,and measures thence 40 feet frontonTwenti‐ethStreet, same width in the rear,with a depth of 150 feet between equaland paral‐lellines.All in accordance with thesurveyof Mandle Survey‐ing, Inc.,dated August 5, 1981, resurveyed May 21, 1992.

Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t gages, liensand privileges. TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

MIN:1296547 WRIT AMOUNT: $408,781.06

Seized in the abovesuit, TERMS- CASH

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder

WESLEY M. PLAISANCE Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

Said measure‐mentsare more fullyshown on a plat of survey by DufreneSur‐veying & Engineering, Inc.,LandSur‐veyors,dated May21, 1996. Improvements bear theMunici‐palNo. 910 20th Street,Gretna, Louisiana70053.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐

NOTICE SALE BY SHERIFF JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT THAT CERTAIN PORTIONOF GROUND BEAR‐INGMUNICIPAL NUMBER 6642 AVENUE B, THIS CITY,INTHE MATTERENTI‐TLED:EUREKA HOMESTEAD VERSUS MELISSAJACK‐

S Case No: 2024-11266 By virtue of a Writ of Seizure andSaledi‐rected to me by theHonorable Judges of Civil DistrictCourt forthe Parish of Orleans, in the aboveentitled cause, Iwillpro‐ceed to sell by public auction, on theground ﬂoor of theCivil District Court Building,421 Loyola Avenue, in theFirst Dis‐trictofthe City on August 20, 2026, at 12:00 o'clocknoon, thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: 6642 AVENUE B NEWORLEANS LA 70124 SQUARE 68, LOTS 22-A& 23A SEVENTHMU‐NICIPALDIS‐TRICT ACQ

N.O. inmates booked with arson

June 9 blaze forced housing unit’s evacuation

BY MISSY WILKINSON Staff writer

ﬁre last month in the Orleans Justice Center that led to the evacuation of an entire jail pod resulted in counts of aggravated arson for two inmates accused of starting the blaze using a pile of mattresses, jumpsuits, blankets and Styrofoam plates.

According to court records,

Derrick Clayton, 24, and Jarick S. Bourgeois Jr., 19, were each booked with 73 counts of aggravated arson after a June 9 blaze that represented another early test for Orleans Parish Sheriff Michelle Woodfork On June 14, Magistrate Commissioner Jay Daniels found probable cause for one count of aggravated arson against each defendant and set bail at $75,000 apiece.

The incident led to one patient being taken by Emergency Medical Services to a hospital. It also resulted in staff relocating all inmates assigned to Pod 3E of the jail to a ﬁrst-ﬂoor classroom.

The incident occurred less than two months after Woodfork took over leadership of the troubled jail from former Sheriff Susan Hutson.

“The investigation has been com-

pleted and the matter has been referred to the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Ofﬁce for review and prosecution,” Woodfork said in a statement. “As this is now a pending criminal matter, the Sheriff’s Ofﬁce will have no further comment at this time.”

Also in June, Woodfork’s deputies responded to an inmate stabbing another inmate with a homemade weapon, forcing an evacuation and a shakedown of the housing unit.

According to court documents,

Clayton told deputies he set the ﬁre in Pod 3E to protect himself after multiple inmates threatened to assault or stab him.

“Clayton advised that he participated in the act out of fear for his personal safety and concerns for potential retaliation from other inmates,” a New Orleans Police Department arrest report states.

According to the report, Clayton did not provide investigators with the names, cell assignments or

ä See ARSON, page 2B

DUST ANOTHER DAY

Alternating stretches of wet and dry weather leave an athletic ﬁeld muddy enough to kick up clouds of dust while grading the ﬁeld on the campus of LSU New Orleans.

Covington man drowns saving child

Family remembers Chris Rushing as a ‘warming soul’

BY WILLIE SWETT Staff writer

The last time Ryan Rushing saw his cousin Chris was on his grandmother’s porch in Abita Springs.

“We were out there sitting on the porch, talking about the basketball team,” recalled Ryan Rushing, a coach at Covington High School.

Though they were ﬁrst cousins, Ryan said he and Chris Rushing grew up like brothers.

“Chris was real dependable. He was a warming soul,” Ryan Rushing said. “You ask Chris to help, he was more than welcome. A lot of the times you didn’t even have to ask him.” Later that day, Chris Rushing, a 38-yearold Covington resident, went with family to a popular fishing and crabbing spot near Bayou Lacombe While there, Rushing’s granddaughter fell into the water on the west side of Lake Road by the bayou, according to a statement from the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office on the July 1 incident. Rushing jumped in and tried to rescue her, the Sheriff’s Office said, but struggled

Judge appointed in Murrill indictment

hoc appointment.

BY MATT BRUCE Staff writer

The Louisiana Supreme Court has appointed retired state appeals court Judge Robert Chaisson to preside over Attorney General Liz Murrill’s intimidation case, which the court has stayed. Justice Piper Grifﬁn signed the Supreme Court’s order, which came down Thursday morning, a day after all 12 criminal court judges in New Orleans recused themselves from the case and the court’s chief judge requested an ad

Murrill, a 62-year-old Republican, is the state’s top lawyer She faces eight counts each of intimidation and malfeasance in office from an indictment handed up last week by an Orleans Parish grand jury

Chaisson, a Democrat from Destrehan, served 12 years on the Gretna-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeal before retiring at the end of 2023.

leans’ criminal court trial judges are up for reelection, thanks to a Republican-led Legislature backed by Gov Jeff Landry that shrank the city’s courts.

Murrill has described the indictments as “corrupt retaliatory meritless, and unconstitutional.” She has not entered a plea on account of the swift stay by the high court.

He inherits a volatile case that’s quickly turned up political tensions between state leaders and elected ofﬁcials in New Orleans.

The appointment comes in the lead-up to a heated election season when all of New Or-

Sources said a New Orleans grand jury launched the investigation into Murrill’s actions on its own initiative, spurred by letters she’d sent in May to Mayor Helena Moreno, District Attorney Jason Williams and five members of the City Council who voted to call a special election for a single clerk of court.

State lawmakers merged the city’s civil and criminal clerk’s duties into one office and handed it to civil Clerk Chelsea Richard Napoleon, casting aside the popular criminal clerk-elect, former life prisoner Calvin Duncan.

The grand jury leveled the bombshell criminal charges July 2. District Judge Leon Roche closed his courtroom to the public when the indictment was read, and deputies took an extraordinary step by ordering media from the courthouse. Roche later defended the move to clear his courtroom, saying he was trying to protect the anonymity of the grand jurors. In his own recusal order

Criminal court judges recused themselves ä See MURRILL, page 2B

Body of teen found dead going to D.C. for autopsy

BY POET WOLFE Staff writer

The body of 18-year-old Nolan Wells, who was found dead on Horn Island after going missing

STAFF PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

C. Rushing

Murrill

LSU to host summit on funding athletics

Top donors invited to Governor’s Mansion

BY ALYSE PFEIL and JON BLAU Staff writers

Gov Jeff Landry and LSU Presi-

dent Wade Rousse plan to host the top 40 donors to LSU sports at the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge for a presentation on the ﬁnancial future of the university’s athletics department, a university spokesperson said Thursday

The gathering will be held the first week of August, and the two leaders will unveil “a first look at an alternative revenue generating opportunity for LSU athletics that is first of its kind nationally and could quite possibly change the future of college sports in America,” according to the event invitation

The meeting was ﬁrst reported by LouisianaSports.net

Tiger Athletic Foundation President and CEO Matt Borman sent

Landry Rousse

the invitation to donors Thursday “College athletics is at financial crossroads, and we’re feeling it every day at LSU,” Borman wrote. “As someone who has contributed generously to our athletic programs to keep them operational, you know how unsustainable the budget of the athletic department looks and how hard TAF has worked with our donors to assist.”

A private event at the Governor’s Mansion hosted by Landry and Rousse will be held on either Aug. 3 or Aug. 5 at 6 p.m. for “a conversation about the future of LSU Athletics.”

Asked for additional details

about the event and what will be discussed, LSU spokesperson Meg Casper Sunstrom declined to comment.

“Athletic budgets across the country are all experiencing the same unsustainable conditions as LSU,” Sunstrom said.

A financial arms race

The meeting comes as college sports programs engage in a fundraising arms race to attract top players through name, image and likeness deals and revenue sharing.

In the 2025 ﬁscal year, LSU athletics reported just over $223.4 million in expenses, which is a 36% increase from its 2020 budget. The athletic department did generate nearly the same amount of money in revenues, but the expense category will only rise in the coming years.

The amount of revenue athletic departments can directly share with athletes will increase from

$20.5 million in the last academic year to $21.3 million in 2026-27. To remain competitive, schools have also worked to facilitate third-party NIL deals between businesses and athletes, which is a further strain on the athletics donor base.

There are ways to generate additional revenue through sponsorships, and LSU inked what is believed to be a multimillion-dollar deal with Woodside Energy to put a jersey patch on its uniforms for the 2026 season. There has also been broad discussion in college athletics about private equity investment serving as a tool to boost cash ﬂows.

The Tiger Athletic Foundation’s letter doesn’t mention any specifics about what it means by an “alternative” revenue source.

Rousse has a background in the ﬁnancial sector, serving as a policy research specialist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and founding his own investment company

23 cases of parasite reported in Louisiana

Cyclosporiasis can cause weeks of diarrhea

BY MARGARET DeLaney Staff writer

On Wednesday, the Louisiana Department of Health reported that 23 cases, including one hospitalization, are being investigated in connection to cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection that can cause weeks of watery diarrhea.

“Because many of these cases are still under investigation, this number is preliminary and subject to change,” a representative from the Health Department said “For comparison, the state has averaged 20 reported cases over the same time period during the past ﬁve years.”

Louisiana is one of 29 states investigating outbreaks of the infection. No deaths have been reported, and the source of the cyclospora infections hasn’t been identiﬁed.

Cases of cyclosporiasis typically spike in the summer months, with historically active outbreaks in Louisiana between June and

August. In the U.S., the cyclosporiasis season is considered May 1 through Aug 31, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Over the past 20 years, between 1 and 101 cases have been reported annually in Louisiana, with 73 cases reported in 2023.

“Dying from cyclospora is extremely rare,” said Dr. Obinna Nnedu, an infectious disease physician at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans. “Where people feel really bad is when they feel dehydrated.” Nationally, there have been record-breaking spikes in both Michigan and Ohio. Although Michigan state ofﬁcials ﬁrst announced the outbreak last week, they were only aware of 170 cases.

On Wednesday, Michigan reported 992 cases, including 40 hospitalizations. Ohio reported over 177 cases, with 28 hospitalizations, shortly after “I certainly don’t want (Louisianans) to start panicking,” Nnedu said. “Our Centers for Disease Control is going to be looking into these cases to see if they are linked, and speciﬁcally what the exposures are.”

What is cyclospora?

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC. The illness, called cyclosporiasis, is not usually life-threatening and is typically treated with antibiotics.

As far as epidemiologists know, humans are the only species that can contract cyclosporiasis.

The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces. In the past, people have been infected by consuming fruits or vegetables that were exposed to feces-contaminated irrigation water

The rates of cyclosporiasis cases are generally higher in developing countries, according to Nnedu, and some previous outbreaks of the illness were linked to imported produce.

The following foods have been speciﬁcally linked to previous cyclospora outbreaks in the United States and Canada:

n Bagged salad mixes and kits (pre-cut lettuce blends with romaine, iceberg, red cabbage, carrots)

n Fresh cilantro (coriander leaves)

n Fresh basil n Raspberries

n Snow peas n Green onions (scallions).

People with diarrhea that hasn’t resolved on its own within a few days should see a health provider and discuss the possibility of cyclospora, ofﬁcials say

“If a diarrhea is prolonged, that goes on for more than two days unstopped, you may want to talk with your physician,” Nnedu said.

Continue to watch out for other symptoms as well, like abdominal pain and nausea. Investigations can take months to determine where contaminated food came from and sometimes fail to find a clear source of the parasitic infection.

The best way to prevent infection with a parasite is to avoid food or water that may have been contaminated.

Fresh produce should be thoroughly washed before being eaten, especially for those immunocompromised who are at a greater risk of infection. But be aware that cyclospora can really stick to some foods, so washing may not eliminate the risk of infection.

2 arrested in fatal N.O. house party shooting

BY MARCO CARTOLANO

Staff writer

The governor’s involvement

Landry has played a prominent role in LSU sports. He made national headlines for publicly criticizing the buyout for ﬁred head football coach Brian Kelly and saying that he would not allow then-Athletic Director Scott Woodward to select Kelly’s replacement. Woodward was also ﬁred soon after Kelly was owed the remaining $54 million dollars on his contract, though LSU’s obligation could be reduced if he earns a salary elsewhere.

After LSU hired Lane Kifﬁn as the new head coach, the Louisiana governor said the experience taught him that college athletics is “broken,” and he has warned other university sports are at risk over the ﬁnancial strain caused by football programs and name, image and likeness deals.

A spokesperson for Landry declined to comment on the planned meeting with donors.

MURRILL

Continued from page 1B

Wednesday, Roche claimed Murrill’s attorney, Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue, spread “vicious falsehoods and derogatory remarks” about him and the at-large New Orleans “citizenry” in public interviews and on social media.

Roche cited an interview on courthouse steps minutes after the indictment, during which Rodrigue lamented a “kangaroo court.”

Rodrigue did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday

Less than 24 hours after the indictment was recorded, the Louisiana Supreme Court granted Murrill an emergency stay that’s frozen proceedings in the case for now Justices did not put a timeline on the stay order but granted the attorney general time to file a motion to quash the indictment, ﬁnding “considerable support” that she’s “likely to succeed on the merits” in getting the indictment tossed out on “either a legal basis or due to apparent procedural irregularities.”

Hans Liljeberg, who served 10 years alongside Chaisson on the 5th Circuit bench before becoming a Jefferson Parish Council member praised the appointment.

Two men were arrested Thursday in connection with a fatal shooting last month at a Central City house party, according to the New Orleans Police Department. Joseph Washington, 24, was arrested on a count of second-degree murder, and Cameron Thomas, 23, was booked on a count of accessory after the fact to second-degree murder The pair are accused in the June 28 shooting death of 20-yearold Shawn Mitchell.

ARSON

Continued from page 1B

physical descriptions of the inmates he claimed had threatened him Convicted of battery of a correctional ofﬁcer in 2021, Clayton had been awaiting trial on multiple charges, including possession with intent to distribute tapentadol, simple burglary, theft of a motor vehicle and identity theft, according to court records

Bourgeois was awaiting trial on two counts of attempted second-degree murder, one count of aggravated criminal damage to property and one count of discharging a ﬁrearm during a vio-

WELLS

Continued from page 1B

Authorities said Wells was last seen on Horn Island at about 3 p.m. Saturday He disappeared during a Fourth of July outing with friends on the popular barrier island, which drew large boating crowds over the holiday weekend Two days later a body was recovered near the shore. Jackson County Coroner Bruce Lynd said Tuesday that dental records had positively identiﬁed the remains as Wells. Lynd said Thursday he was unsure when the ofﬁcial autopsy

Mitchell was one of a group of roughly 20 people who were at a party in the 2200 block of Louisiana Avenue when shots rang out at around 3 a.m. He was taken to a local hospital, where he died more

lent crime.

Investigators said Clayton admitted to gathering combustible materials “from various locations throughout the housing unit” and piling them at the base of a rear stairwell.

Clayton passed a lit paper wick to Bourgeois through the trap door of Bourgeois’ mezzaninelevel cell, police said. Investigators say that after several unsuccessful attempts, the two ignited an orange jumpsuit that Clayton carried downstairs and used to set the debris pile ablaze, “causing a substantial ﬁre.”

“At the time the fire was set, all inmates assigned to 3 Echo were secured within their cells and were unable to evacuate the

results would be completed. Crump, who has represented families in a number of highprofile cases, including around the death of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, called out “many inconsistencies” in the case during his interview, saying that Wells’ parents described the teen, a standout football player, as “a strong swimmer.” He also told Lemon there was an alleged argument before Wells’ disappearance and that text messages were allegedly deleted from his phone. Jackson County Sheriff’s Ofﬁce investigators are interviewing friends who accompanied Wells

than a week later on July 3.

Washington and Thomas reportedly ﬂed the scene at the time of the shooting.

Thomas was arrested Thursday in the 7800 block of Dorsett Drive in New Orleans East and booked into the Orleans Parish Jail.

Washington was taken into custody in the 4000 block of South Dells Street in Harvey and booked into

housing unit without staff intervention,” the report said. “The resulting ﬁre produced signiﬁcant smoke and created a foreseeable risk of serious bodily injury or death to the inmates and staff present within the facility.”

It’s not clear how many inmates were in the pod at the time of the ﬁre. A pod in the jail can house approximately 60 inmates.

New Orleans EMS Capt. Bill Salmeron said one person was taken to a hospital for treatment. The New Orleans Fire Department said it had no record of responding to the jail on that date, according to spokesperson Lauren Maiden.

At a June 29 meeting of the New Orleans City Council’s Criminal

on the trip. They’ve also asked the public to come forward with information about interactions with, sightings of or statements regarding Wells; original, unedited photos taken on the northwestern tip of Horn Island, particularly those depicting alleged altercations or showing Wells; and any observed or heard arguments, disturbances or other unusual activity on the island.

“Currently there’s no information that would lead us to believe at this point that a crime has been committed, but that’s not to say something will come out with more evidence,” Jackson County Sheriff John Ledbetter said Thursday

the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center He will be extradited to Orleans Parish at a later date, ofﬁcials said.

The arrests were coordinated by NOPD, U.S. marshals and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce.

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing. Anyone with information can call the NOPD at (504) 658-5300 or Crimestoppers at (504) 822-1111

Justice Committee, Woodfork presented her ﬁrst quarterly public safety and operations update since taking ofﬁce in May

The report didn’t mention the June 9 ﬁre, nor was it discussed during the meeting Woodfork discussed efforts to harden the jail, including an ongoing upgrade of the cell door and locking system.

“The only way we are going to bring down assaults at the jail is to hire more staff and, of course, look at the infrastructure of the jail,” Woodfork said. “Right now, our priority deﬁnitely is to shore up this building.”

If convicted of aggravated arson, Bourgeois and Clayton face up to 20 years imprisonment at hard labor

Crump’s involvement in the case marks a new development following widespread online speculation about Wells’ death after photos circulated showing Wells, who is Black, with a group of friends, all of whom were White.

“His family deserves answers. They deserve the truth,” Crump said in a statement Wednesday Anyone who was on or near Horn Island on Saturday and has information is asked to call the Jackson County Sheriff’s Ofﬁce. The Criminal Investigations Division can be reached at (228) 769-3065 during business hours, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or at (228) 769-3063 after hours.

“Good man. Honest as the day is long, super fair temperament, very hard to upset,” he said of Chaisson. “It was a very wise choice by the Supreme Court, in my humble opinion.” While a self-initiated grand jury probe is unusual, it’s not unprecedented.

Baton Rouge attorney Jim Boren helped get then-East Baton Rouge Mayor-President Pat Screen out of hot water in 1987 after a grand jury indicted him and a former top aide with malfeasance in office, acting against the advice of then-Attorney General William Guste’s ofﬁce. The panel sought counsel from another lawyer before charging Screen. Legal observers at the time dubbed it a “runaway grand jury.” The grand jury in Murrill’s case was guided by a former criminal court judge, Laurie White, after Williams recused. If it wasn’t a runaway jury, Boren said the bigger anomaly was in the ﬂash freeze by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

“I have never, ever seen a case where a defendant went straight to the Louisiana Supreme Court. And without giving the prosecution an opportunity to respond, they issued a stay,” Boren said. “I would venture to say that’s never happened before. I mean, I’ve been a lawyer for 50 years. In those 50 years, that’s never happened.”

Email Matt Bruce at matt. bruce@theadvocate.com.

OperaenthusiastJosephYoung dies at 96

He steppedintosave N.O. organization

BY JOHN POPE Contributing writer

Joseph Young Jr., areal estate developerwhose unabashed love of opera led him to improve its ﬁnances by imposing abusiness structure on ahistorically expensive art form, died June28athis New Orleans home of complications from afall, said his niece, Norma Jane McClain. He was 96. Young and his wife, artist Aysen Kural Young, were avid supporters of all the arts, but opera held a special place in their hearts, said James C. “Jay” Gulotta Jr., the New Orleans Opera Association’s president.

“Opera brought together everything they loved,” Gulotta said. “In opera,you have the visual arts, the musical arts, theauditory arts. They loved talking about it.”

Butopera,whichhas been part of New Orleans’ culture since 1796, is prohibitively costly. With dozens ofonstage and backstage personnel, scenery anda full orchestra,the average cost of staging an opera is about $500,000, saidChristopherTidmore, amember of the opera association’s advisory board Young, whohad been the association’streasurer,was asked to lead the organization in 1985. This coincided with the oil industry crash,which was amajor blow to the local economy.Tomake matters worse, Gulotta said, Young wastoldhe would havetocover any deﬁcit, possibly amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, as his predecessors had done.

staffer.Young set up apermanent professional staff andanendowment, organized aseries of fundraising organizations, suchasthe Mastersigners —aplay on theWagner opera “Die Meistersinger vonNürnberg” —and the Opera Club. He stressed the importance of ticket sales and established a shop for making and repairing scenery “Weare oneofthe only theatrical organizations in the United Statesthat has its own scene shop,” Tidmore said. “It rents sets to (organizations in) 27 states andthreecountries. It supports adozen artists anda training program for set designers and electricians. It’s the only part of NewOrleans operathatmakes a proﬁt.

graduated from an arts-management program, Tidmore said.

“He had on-the-jobtraining and joined alot of organizations and triedtoserve them.Hewas always trying to improve organizations.”

And Youngnever hesitated to ask people for money, Tidmore said.“He made people feel as if theywere doing himafavor Whenheaskedyou forsomething, it was like he wassharing his passion with you. It wasn’tguile or salesmanship; it wassharing his passion. Joe had achildlike enthusiasm for what he believed in.”

Anative of Springfield anda graduateofSpringfield High School,Young came to New Orleanstoattend Tulane University andnever left after earning adegree in political science.

“I didn’thave those kinds of resources,” Young said in a2024 interview,“so Ihad to getcreative.”

Whenhebecame president, the association had only onefull-time

Young was asked in the late 1990s to lead theassociation again. Unlike many arts administrators, he didn’thave amaster’s degreeinbusiness, andhehadn’t

Aftergraduation,Young went into property management,developing housing andstrip malls throughout the New Orleans area andinDestin, Florida,saidWilliam Coe, alongtime friend.

And he met Aysen Kutalp, adesigner and theatrically trained artist who earned adoctorate in political scienceatTulane. The two married and became aforce on the New Orleans arts scene. In additiontoopera,their causes included the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the New OrleansMuseumofArt andthe New OrleansBalletAssociation, said Astra Thibodeaux, Young’s stepdaughter “Joe had acompelling belief that the arts were essential to New Orleans,”Gulotta said. “He treated it as afull-time job.” Aysen Kutalp Young died in 2022. In additiontoThibodeaux, Young’ssurvivors include astepson, Dr.Glenn Hedgpeth of Covington. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Homeisincharge of arrangements, which areincomplete. Contact JohnPope at pinckelopes@gmail.com.

BY MEGAN WYATT Staff writer

AWestlake woman was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison, with 10 years suspended, more than four years after she shother boyfriend in the head with her three childreninthe home.

Keri Buller Bradberry, 36,was initially arrested by Westlake Police in April 2022 on countsofattempted second-degree murder, aggravated second-degree battery and three counts of domestic abuse battery with child endangerment. State prosecutors later charged her with the lesser crime of illegal use of aweapon during acrime of

violence,which Bradberry pleaded nocontest to in May 2025.

During Thursday’ssentencing, which had been delayed several times, 14th Judicial District Judge David Ritchie accepted the recommendation of stateprosecutor Lea Hall for Bradberry to serveﬁve years of a15-year prisonsentence. Bradberry’sdefenseattorney, Adam Johnson,asked the judge to sentence Bradberry to only probation.

In additiontothe prison sentence, Ritchie sentenced Bradberry to ﬁve years of supervised probationuponher release to include no contactwith the victim or the victim’sfamily,noconsumption of alcohol, no contact with known drug dealers or felons, andthe completion of 200 hours of community service, adomestic violence intervention program, aparenting class andtherapy

Ritchie agreed to Johnson’srequest that Bradberry would not have to beginher prisonsentence until July 31.

The victim did not attend Thursday’ssentencing, but severalofhis family members did. Thevictim, who spent amonthinthe hospital recovering from his injury, did not want to see Bradberry imprisoned, Hall said.

The victim’sfamily members, however,wanted to see Bradberry prosecuted tothe fullest extend of thelaw,Hall noted.

In response to a“minor dispute,” Bradberry hadtaken agun out of asafe, aimed it with the intent to kill andﬁreditatthe victim’s head, Hall said.

“I do trulybelieveitwas attemptedmurder,”Hallsaid. “And Ijust don’tthink probation is appropriate.” Bradberry addressed the judge

ahead of the sentencing, saying she was “truly sorry” and that the victim has offered her moregrace andforgiveness than shedeserves, noting that she’s been in touchwith him nearly every week sincethe April 2022 shooting.

“There are no wordsthatcan undo what pain I’ve caused,” she said, later adding that she’s“the reason people go to therapy.”

Bradberry said she wants to be amother to her three children and askedthe judge to take thevictim’s wishes into account and sentence hertonoprison time.

Herdefense attorney noted that she had no criminal history and had followed allcourt orders.

“This was an anomalyofa situation,” as demonstrated by the victim’sdesire to keep Bradberry out of prison, Johnson said.

Ritchie said he’sseen alot in the 23 yearshe’sbeen on thebench,

RUSHING

Continuedfrom page1B

andwas pulled underwater.Afemale relative wasable to save the young girl. ButRushingnever resurfaced.

Firefighterswho respondedto thescene around 7:34 p.m.pulled Rushing ashore and attempted CPR. He later died at the hospital, according to Fire District No. 3

Chief Michael Geissler

The autopsy showed it was an accidental drowning, St.Tammany Coroner’sOfﬁce spokesperson James Hartman said.

Thosewho knew Rushing, an employee at Covington’sarts and culturaldepartmentwho helped organize over 100eventsevery year,said his attempt to help was an example of thealtruism he practiced daily

“That final act of courage and selﬂessnesswas simply areﬂection of the person we allknewevery day,” said Sarada Bonnett, the event department’shead. “Chris was theperson Icould always count on to be there, early,ready to work and wearing thatunforget-

including people now serving life sentences after making one horrible decision similar to the one Bradberry madeinApril 2022.

“I’veseensomany different types of cases,” Ritchie said. “This is astrange situation.”

Ritchie noted that it’snot just thevictimwho suffered because of Bradberry’sactions that night, but also the victim’sfamily.The judge said he didn’tnecessarily trust whatthe victim wasasking forinthe case because of the emotions involved in domestic abuse situations.

Ritchie also said he didn’t fully believe that Bradberry felt remorsefor heractions. Ritchie noted that “remorse is humility.”

“I saw some remorse in what you said, Ms. Bradberry,” Ritchie said. “But in theend, focusing so much on howit’saffected you tempers the remorse aspect of it.”

“It’s sad foruswho arestill here. But us knowing Chris, if he wasput in that situation 100 times, he’sgoing to do what he did everysingle time.”

RyAN RUSHING, cousin of ChrisRushing

table smile.”

Ryan Rushing said he wasn’tsurprisedthathis cousin didn’thesitate to jumpin.

“It’ssad foruswho are still here. But us knowing Chris, if he was put in that situation 100 times, he’sgoing to do whathedid everysingle time,” Ryan Rushing said.

Still, whenRyan Rushing thought back to the ﬁnal moments he saw his cousin on his grandmother’s porch, he started choking up.

“IfI’d knownthat wasthe last time, Iwould have told him how much Iloved him,and how much he meant to me and our family,” he said.“IjustwishI wouldhave savored that moment.”

Thefamilyplans to hold afuneral at 10 a.m.Saturday at the Community ChurchinCovington at 1148 N. Columbia St.

PHOTO PROVIDED By RyAN RUSHING

Chris Rushing,right, smiles with his cousin Ryan Rushing. Chris Rushing died July 1after helping rescue his granddaughter from drowning

Young

Bell Jr., Willie Birdsall, Yvonne Bowens,Alonzo Ford,Lisa

Hall, Tyrone

Hills-Holmes, Malinda

Hughes, Sonia

Jacobs,MaryAnn

Jacques, Joseph

Kendrick, Stella

Mills,Bernadette

Mitchell, Ophelia

Muse,Carrie

Sanders,Ella

St.John Jr., James

Suggs Sr., Perry

Obituaries

Willie Bell, Jr., 97, peacefully entered intoeternal rest on Friday, July 3, 2026 He was the father of Janice Duplessis (Darrell), Willie Bell III of Inglewood, California, Reginald Bell (Yarvelle) of Los Angeles, California, and Damon Bell. He also leaves to cherish his memory nine grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, his significant other, Joann Lollis, anda host of nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends. Relatives, friends, and former associates of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA), AT&T, Loyola University, and Southwest Airlines are invited to attend the Funeral Serviceat St.Mark Fourth Baptist Church, 2130 Perdido St., New Orleans, LA, on Saturday, July 11, 2026. Visitation at 9:00 a.m. Interment -Providence Memorial Park Mausoleum, 8200 Airline Dr., Metairie, LA. Please sign the online guestbook at www.charbonnetfuneral home.com. Charbonnet Labat Glapion Directors, (504) 581-4411.

Birdsall, Yvonne Meloncon

It is with deepest regrets and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of Yvonne Meloncon Birdsall. She has left this earth to spend eternal life with our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ and the family and friends whohave passed before her.

Yvonne was born in New Orleans, La. on October 5, 1935and passed away at East Jefferson General Hospital in Metairie, La.on June 5, 2026 at 3:30 p.m. She is survived by her four sons and their spouses and families: Benjamin J. Birdsall,III (Terry); Brian G. Birdsall (Karen); Barry A. Birdsall (LaDonna Albert) and Brett E. Birdsall (Fiance', Leann Giardina and family).

Yvonne was blessed with 4grandchildren: Benjamin J. Birdsall,IV (Kayla); Arianna M.A. Birdsall; Chelsey B. Casteix (Hugh Casteix, III "Trip"); Abigail B. Moroux (Dr Damon M. Moroux, Jr.) and 2Great Grandchildren Rhodes H. Morouxand Hugh Casteix, IV.

Yvonne is also survived by her sister, Beverly Monteleone (Edwin Monteleone, Sr. and Edwin Montelone, Jr., predeceased) and her children Darlene McKnight, Stephen Montelone (Kristian) and Michael Montelone (Victoria) and many other family and friends too numerous to name. Yvonne was alife long resident of the New Orleans area graduating from Redemptorist High School in 1954. She was married to the late Benjamin J. Birdsall, Jr from 1958 through 1976, dedicating her life to rais-

ing her4 sons. Whileraising her sons, Yvonne always madeher home and home cooked mealsavailable and welcome to many of hersonsfriends, earning her the affectionate nickname of "Momma B".

After Hurricane Katrinadestroyed her familyhome on Pratt Dr. in New Orleans,she moved to Metairie where she resided forthe remainder of her life. Yvonne will be fondly rememberedinthe hearts of many. Visitation and Celebration of Yvonne's life willbeheldatSaint Angela Merici Catholic Church, located at 835 MelodyDr., Metairie,La. on Friday, July 10, 2026 with visitation from 11:00 to 12:30p.m.,Eulogy /Words of Remembrance from 12:30 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Church service at 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. with repass to follow

Rev. Alonzo Morris Bowens, Sr. peacefully passed awayon Wednesday,June 17, 2026, at the age of 91. He was a member of the first graduating classofWalterL Cohen High School.A Veteran who servedinthe U.S. Army in Korea. Proud ownerofBowens Technical Cleanersfor over forty-fiveyears.Rev Alonzo servedasthe Assistant PastorofTrue Vine Baptist Church from 1996 until his health failed him. Survivedbyhis wife Gelon Simmons Bowens children: Alonda Brinston, Alonzo (Gia) Bowens, Jr., Michelle (Chad) Stokes, Gaynell Bowens, Angela Bowens and bonus childrenTraceySmith, Robin Butler,Yolanda Caliste, Marcus (Rochelle)Gasper, Monique (Theron) Egana and Maurice (Samarie) Gasper,twenty-two grandchildrenand nineteen great grandchildren.Also survived by ahost of other relatives and friends Family and friends are invited to attend the Celebration LifeService on Saturday, July 11, 2026, for 10:00a.m. at The Churchat New Orleans (CANO), 11700 Chef Menteur Hwy ,New Orleans, LA 70126. Visitation willbegin at 9:00 a.m. PastorRev.Dr. Donald C. Jeanjacques, Sr. of True VineB.C.officiating. Interment willfollow at SoutheastLouisiana Veterans Cemetery, 34888 Grantham College Drive, Slidell, LA 70460. Guestbook Online: www.an ewtraditionbegins.com (504)282-0600.Linear Brooks Boyd and DonavinD.Boyd Owners/ Funeral Directors.

LisaBreauxFord was born on January17, 1960, in New Orleans,Louisiana,to the late Martha Ann Breaux and Harrison Breaux Jr.Age 66. She departed this life on Monday, June 22, 2026. She is Survived by her Husband Gerald FordSr.,her childrenCalvinSmith, Ronica Breaux ,Gerald Ford and Terrell (Ronnie). GrandchildrenAnthony, AalijahAnn, Celisia, Ryder, Marley,CaliRae,Caeli Lynn, Mercy and Mozzi SiblingsAnita, Chris, Bobby, Michael,and Linda. LisaisreunitedinHeaven with her beloved granddaughter, Angel Breaux andher siblings,Joyce, Ronnie, Kevin,Steve, and Harrison. Relatives and friends of the family are invited to attend the Celebration of LifeService on Saturday, July 11, 2026 at Gertrude GeddesWillis Funeral Home, 2120

Jackson Avenue,New Orleans, LA 70113 at 2:00 p.m. Visitation from1:00 p.m. until 2:00 p.m. Private Burial.You may signthe guest book on www.gertru degeddeswillis.com. Gertrude GeddesWillis Funeral Home,Inc., in charge(504) 522-2525.

Hall, Tyrone

Tyrone Hall,age 67, passed away on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. He was born on September 5, 1958 in NewOrleans to thelate CoyHalland Avernell Hawthorne Williams. Tyrone was aPittsburgh Steelers fan andenjoyed a friendlyrivalry with New Orleans Saintsfans. Tyrone lovedhis sister Betty's homemadeoyster dressing and requested it forevery holiday dinner. He is survivedbyhis brothers, Herbert Hawthorne, EugeneWilliams, Coy Hall Jr., and James Williams; his sisters,Betty HallBennett, Vivian Hall German, and Jautaune Hall Harris. He is also survivedbyhis uncle, Charles H. Hall,III and other relativesand friends. He adored hisgreat nephew, Jordan and nicked named him, "Tornado" when Jordan was atoddler.Tyrone was preceded in death by his brother, Glenn Milton Hall Relatives and friendsof thefamily are invited to attend theCelebrationofLife Memorial Service on Saturday, July11, 2026 at Gertrude GeddesWillis Funeral Home,2120 Jackson Avenue,New Orleans, LA 70113 at 10:00 a.m. Familyhour from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. Private Burial.You may signthe guest book on www.gertru degeddeswillis.com. Gertrude GeddesWillis Funeral Home,Inc., in charge(504) 522-2525.

Malinda

Hills-Holmes,

Malinda Hills-Holmes entered eternal rest on Saturday, July4,2026, at theage of 84. She was a native of Zachary, LA and a resident of NewOrleans, LA.Malindaattended Chaneyville High School and was agraduateof Northwestern HighSchool. She continued her studies at Southern University Baton Rouge,obtaining both her undergraduate and law degrees. Malinda was aretired NewOrleans Assistant District Attorney and later entered intoprivate lawpractice. She was formerlyemployed as a Medical Technologistand as aAlliedHealth Coordinator with LSU Medical Center at Southern University Baton Rouge. Melindawas a member of Divine Mercy Catholic Parish, where she was alector, Louisiana StateBar Association, Zeta PhiBetaSorority,and Southern University Alumni Federation BelovedmotherofMichael D. Holmes, PyrannesF Holmes, CynthiaM Holmes, CedricT.Holmes, Christopher R. Holmes, Janine A. Holmes and the late Edward Holmes, Jr VernN.Holmes, and PatriciaD.Holmes. Grandmother of thelate Jamaal M. Holmes. Daughter of theLouVilla Hills Hollidayand thelate LeonardMoore.LovingsisterofNovelyn Askins, Moses Holliday, and the late John H. Judson, Bertha C. Franklin, BrendaWhite, AyresHolliday, and Paula HollidayWest. Mother-inlawofNancy Holmes. Sister-in-law of Melvin Holmes, SheilaHolliday, and Oradine Holliday. Malinda is also survived by 19 grandchildren, 36 great grandchildren, 5great greatgrandchildren, and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins,other relatives, and friends. Relativesand friends of the family,also priest and parishioners of Divine Mercy Catholic Parish and allneighboring churches; members of Louisiana StateBar Association, Southern University Alumni Federation, and Sorors of ZetaPhi BetaSorority Mu Zeta Chapterare invited to attend aMass of Christian

Burial at Divine Mercy Catholic Parish,4337 Sal Lentini Parkway, Kenner, LA on Saturday, July11, 2026, at 11:00a.m. Father Francis Sarpong,celebrant. Visitation willbeginat 9:00a.m. Interment: Woodlawn Park Memorial Cemetery, Westwego, LA. ArrangementsbyDavis Mortuary Service, 230 MonroeSt. Gretna, LA To view and sign theguestbook, please go to www.da vismortuaryservice.com.

Hughes, Sonia Marie

Sonia M. Hughes departed this life on Sunday, June 21, 2026 at theage of 58. Relatives and friends of thefamily are invitedtoattend aFuneralService at RayAvenue Baptist Church, 4712 RayAvenue NewOrleans, Louisiana on Saturday, July11, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Visitation will beginat9:00 a.m. Interment:English Turn Cemetery, Braithwaite, Louisiana 70040. ArrangementsbyD.W RhodesFuneralHome, 3933 WashingtonAve New Orleans, Louisiana. Please visit www.rhodesfuneral.com to signthe online guestbook.

Jacobs, Mary Ann Guccione

With deep love and cherished memories, we honor thelife of Mary Ann Guccione Jacobs,who went home to be withthe Lord on July3,2026, after a very briefbattlewith Cancer. Mary Annwas a cherished wife and a belovedmother, grandmother, greatgrandmother and friend, whose unconditional love and spirit brought laughterand joy to everyone she met.

Our Mimi was aproud Italianmatriarch who lived life fully and passionately. Nothingmadeher happier than spendingtime with her family and friends playing boardgames or dominoes or spending time with her beloved husband, dancing thenight away surrounded by friends, laughter and music. Whether it was afamily celebration or just an ordinary evening,she always found away to turn every moment into something special

Mary Ann was bornon December 19, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana to the late SalvatoreJ.Guccione and Anna AmatoGuccione. She graduated from AnnunciationHighSchool as aValedictorian.

Mary Ann married Edward L. Jacobs Sr. on November 6, 1960, and they enjoyed 65 plus years together. Mary Ann and Eddie weremembers of theVillage Church in Lacombe, Louisiana. Her life was spent participatinginMardiGras Krewes as wellasgoing to many social dances with her friends and playing in numerous groupsfor Bunco, Mahjongand Dominoes,always living life to its fullest.

Mary Ann worked at Crescent City, MRIfor over tenyears, whereshe never met astranger.She was thefriendliest, caring and most loving person, always laughing and sharing jokes. Mary Ann was an excellent cook, and her food was madewithlovefor her family and friends.

Mary Ann is survived by her husband,Edward L. Jacobs,Sr.;her daughter, BonnieJacobs Cavignac (Craig);her son, Edward L. Jacobs Jr.(Katherine); and her son, Stephen R. Jacobs, (Felicia). Mary Ann has five grandchildren, Blaire Jacobs (Kristen), Colby Cavignac (Morgan) Edward L. Jacobs III "Bryce" (Sarah), Chase

Jacobsand Chaz Cavignac (Shelby) andfourgreat grandchildren, Edward L. JacobsIV"Jax", Palmer Marie Jacobs, Hattie Ray Cavignac andBetsy Ann Cavignac Sheisalso survived by herbrothers, Anthony Guccione(thelateJoan Guccione) andSalvatore GuccioneJr. (Cathy) and onesister,the lateBrenda GuccionePeterson. Relativesand friends are invited to attendthe visitation at Lake Lawn MetairieFuneral Home on Friday, July 17, 2026 from 10:00 am-12:00 pm, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd.New Orleans, LA, 70124. A Catholic Mass will be said at 12:00 noon in thefuneral home chapel.Interment will be at AllSaints Mausoleum, next to thefuneralhome. Therewill be aCelebrationofLife Receptionfollowingthe interment in theEvent Center of Lake Lawn Funeral Home immediately after.

On Saturday, June 13, 2026, Joseph Anthony Jacques, alovingbrother uncle, andfriendpassed away at thewonderfulage of 67. He wasborntoJohn andAltheaJacques on July 15, 1958, in NewOrleans, Louisiana. Joseph wasthe youngest of afamilyof14 children.

ACelebratoryMass will be held on Saturday, July 11, 2026, 10:00AM,at Corpus Christi-Epiphany Catholic Church,2022 St Bernard Ave,New Orleans, LA 70116. Visitation will be held from9:00AM until the hour of service

Kendrick, Stella Louise Perry

Stella PerryKendrick, a homemaker, entered peacefully into eternalrest at herresidenceon Monday, June 22, 2026, at the age of 82. Shewas a native of NewOrleans,LA anda resident of Marrero, LA. Stella wasa graduate of Joseph S. Clark High School. Belovedwife of Dr. Leroy L. Kendrick. Devoted motherofLeroy L. (Demetrian) Kendrick, Jr Michelle L. Kendrick, Bryron M. Kendrick, and thelateYolandaKendrick Lewis. Daughter of thelate Frank Perry, Sr.and Irene Farve Perry. Loving sister of Dolores Russell Antionette Perry, Frances Perry, andthe lateFrank Perry, Jr.Alsocherishing hermemories are 7grandchildren, 3great grandchildren,and ahostofnieces, nephews, cousins, other relativesand friends. Relativesand friends of thefamily, also priest and parishionersofSt. Joseph theWorkerCatholic Church andall neighboring churches are invited to attend aMass of Christian Burial at St.Joseph the Worker Catholic Church, 455 AmesBlvd., Marrero, LA on Saturday, July 11, 2026, at 10:00a.m. Father SidneySpeaks III,celebrant. Visitation will begin at 8:00a.m. followed by tributeat9:00a.m. Interment: RestlawnParkCemetery, Avondale,LA Arrangements by Davis Mortuary Service,230 Monroe St.Gretna, LA To view andsignthe guestbook, please go to www.da vismortuaryservice.com.

Bernadette "Bunny" Pierre Mills(Feb. 27, 1955June 24, 2026) of New Orleanswas adevoted publicservant, community leader, wife and grandmother.A Xavier Prep and University of NewOrleans alum(B.A.,M.P.A.), she servedthe CityofNew Orleans, ledBig Brothers/ Big Sisters of Greater New Orleans, workedwith Freeport McMoRanand Loyola University's Twomey Center for Peace throughJustice,and consulted for nonprofits. A trainer in diversity and conflict resolution,she volunteered as an Extraordinary Ministerof Holy Communion. Preceded in death by several relatives, she is survived by husband Charles MillsSr.,childrenLeslie MillsWagstaffe and Charles Mills Jr five grandchildren, sister Julie Jacobs, and many loved ones. Relativesand friends of thefamilyare invited to attenda Funeral Mass at Holy Name of Mary Catholic Church,500 Eliza St.New Orleans, LA 70114 on Saturday, July 11, 2026 at 11:00 a.m. Visitation will begin at 9:00 a.m. Arrangements by D. W. Rhodes Funeral Home, 3933 Washington Ave.Please visit www.rhodefuneral.com to sign the online guestbook.

Mitchell, Ophelia K.

OpheliaK.Mitchell, age 82, departed this earthly life on Wednesday, June 24, 2026. Sheleaves to cherish hermemories hergranddaughter, TiaraKennedy; onegreat-granddaughter, Harmonie Peters; herdevotedsister,RoseWilliams (Richard); onebrother EldridgeKennedy; and a host of other relativesand friends.

Relativesand friends of thefamilyare invited to attend thefuneral service at Oakland Baptist Church 825 Rev. Richard Wilson Dr., Kenner,LA, on Saturday, July 11, 2026, at 12:30 p.m. Rev. Charles Hurst,officiant. Visitation will begin at 12:00 p.m. Intermentwill follow at Belle Grove Cemetery Kenner,LA.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Richardson Funeral Home of Jefferson, RiverRidge, LA.www.richardsonfunera lhomeofjefferson.com

Carrie Franklin

Carrie Franklinwas born on November 9, 1951 to the lateMalinda ParkerJones andAlbertFranklin. Carrie departed this life on June 28, 2026, at The Sanctuary at Passages Hospicein NewOrleans at the age of 74. Through themarriage with thelateDonald Muse, theyshared abond of 7 children. Ivory(Brandy), Kisha (Manny), LaShaun, Malinda (Moses), Ciara, Jarvis (Keva), and Gicanda. Carrie wasthe sister of the lateAlbertJr. (Bobe), the lateMichelle,Greg(Diane), Barry(Trenese), Calvin, Larry,Alcita, Annette, Tammy, Cynthia, Denise, Lisa, Albert, Michael, Robert,Nicole, andthe late Frankie.She is survivedby 19 grandchildrenand 15

Mills, Bernadette Pierre

Bowens, Alonzo M.

Bell, Willie

Jacques,Joseph Anthony

Ford,Lisa Breaux

Muse,

great grandchildren and a host of nieces, nephews, cousins and other relatives and friends. She was preceded in death by one great grandson, Zaire. Relatives and friends of the family, pastor, nurses and doctors are invited to attend Funeral Servicesat D.W. Rhodes Funeral Home, 3933 Washington Avenue on Saturday, July 11, 2026 at 11:30 am. Visitation willbegin at 11:00am. Interment: Mount Olivet Cemetery. Arrangements by D.W. Rhodes Funeral Home, 3933 Washington Avenue Please visit www.rhodesfuneral.com to sign the online guestbook.

Ella Cecelia Sanders en-

tered eternal rest at Slidell Memorial Hospital on Sunday, June 28, 2026,at the age of 78. She was a native of Decatur, AL, former resident of New Orleans, LA and presently residing in Slidell,LA. Ella was aretired hairstylist. Devoted wife of the late Wayne CalvinSanders,Sr. Belovedmother of Waynette Sanders, and the late Wayne C. Sanders, Jr., and Solomon S. Sanders. Daughter of the late Robert L. Love, Sr. and Helene Love. Sister of Christopher, Eddie, Bryant, Delores, and Cindy Love, Sandra Quick, Pamela Eaglin, and the late Irastine Keith, Belinda Love, Gilda Love, Donald Love, Robert L. Love, Jr Rev. Charles Sanders, Rev. Derrick Sanders, Pratt Sanders, and Sandra Fay Hall. Aunt of the late Sgt. Chase Love and Alfred Keith. Ella is also survived by 12 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren, anda host of nieces, nephews, cousins, other relatives, and friends. Relatives and friends of the family, also pastors, officers, members of Fischer Community Church, First Baptist Church, and all neighboring churches are invited to attend the Celebration of Life at Fischer Community Church 1737 L. B. Landry Ave. New Orleans, LA on Saturday, July 11, 2026,at 10:00a.m. Bishop James Nelson, officiating. Visitation willbegin at 8:30a.m. until service time at the above named church. Interment: McDonoghvilleCemeteryGretna, LA. Arrangements by Davis Mortuary Service, 230Monroe St. Gretna, LA. To view and sign the guestbook,please go to www.davismortuaryservic e.com.

St. John Jr., James Berry

James Berry "Berry" St. John Jr. of Springfield Virginia, died on July 4, 2026, at the age of 85 after along illness. He was born in Sanford, FL, on December 14, 1940, the son of the late James Berry St. John and Marion Appleby St. John. He is survived by his beloved wifeof62 years, Mary Ann Newman St. John; his son and daughter-in-law, James Berry "Jay" St. John, III and Stephanie Hill WilliamsSt. John of Alexandria, VA, and grandchildren Paige Elizabeth St. John and Julian HillSt. John; and his son, Matthew Rogers St. John of Kalispell, MT, and grandchildren Natalie Grace St. John and Sawyer James St. John.Berry attended the University of South Carolina on aNaval ROTC scholarship and graduated in 1962.Hewas assignedtoNavy flight training andreceived his wings of gold in 1964. He served as apilot with squadron VS-28 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp and later flew in Navy

ReserveSquadron VP-94, based at NAS NewOrleans He studiedatTulane UniversityLaw School in New Orleans and received hisJDdegreein1970. He practiced lawinNew Orleans for34years with thefirmofLiskow &Lewis, and foundedthe firm's environmentallaw section. He was arecognized authority on the Federal CleanWater Actand the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the lawgoverning offshoreoil and gasoperations, and argued cases throughoutthe countryinvolving these statutes. He served on the practitioner faculty at Tulane School of Law and was frequently listed in the publication "Best Lawyers in America" in the fields of EnvironmentalLaw and Natural Resources Law.He servedaschair of the American Bar Association's Section of Environment,Energy and Resources Law and as president of the New Orleans Bar Association. Berry had alifelong interestinaviation. He and Mary Ann owned an antique Stearmanopen-cockpit biplane, and they enjoyedmany yearsoffun and excitement flying it around the country.After Berry's retirementfrom thepractice of law, the St Johns moved to eastern North Carolina, where they enjoyed an activeretirement in the Cypress Landing golfand marina communityonthe Pamlico River. In 2019, they moved to Greenspring Senior CommunityinSpringfield, VA. Amemorialservicewill be held at Greenspring Chapel at 1:00 PM Saturday, July25. Family and friends arewelcome to agathering in Hunter's Crossing Conference Center immediatelyafter the service. Inurnment of asheswillbeheld at Arlington National Cemetery at adate and time to be announced later.Inlieuofflowers, donationsmay be made in memoryofBerry St.John to Christ the KingAnglican Church, Alexandria,VA.

Dr.ReverendPerry "Punch" Suggs,Sr. son of the late James O. and RosiaSuggs departed this life on WednesdayJune 24, 2026.Father of Sherida M. Suggs Smith (Reynauldo) and Perry Suggs, Jr.brother of James L.Suggs Sr. (Delma)and the late Terry Turner,Bobby Suggs,and Belinda Zeno. Dr.Suggs also leaves to cherishhis memorieshis granddaughters: Reyondalin,Reyana, Reylin,and Reyvon Smith, and ahost of nieces, nephews, relatives and friends. Family and Friends are invited to attend the funeral service on SaturdayJuly 11, 2026, at 10:00a.m. at Oakland Baptist Church 825 Reverend Richard Wilson Drive,Kenner, La 70062. Reverend Charles Hurst, Pastorofficiating. Interment in Zion Travelers Cemetery. Reserve,La., VisitationonFriday from 56:30pm andonSaturday from 9am until Service time.

Service entrusted to the Caring Professionals of Hobson Brown Funeral Home 134 Daisy St. Garyville,Louisiana 985535-2516

Sanders, Ella Cecelia

Suggs, Reverend Perry 'Punch'

OPINION

Aerospacecan drivebetteremploymentinLa.

Louisiana has an opportunityto compete for thousands of highpaying jobs in one of the fastestgrowing industries in theworld: aerospace.

While aerospace may be receiving more headlines today,this is not anew conversation for Louisiana. Since 2022, we have worked with aerospace leaders, built workforce partnerships and helped position Louisiana to compete for the investment and jobs now making front-page news.

Billy

Nungesser GUEST COLUMNIST

At the second National Lieutenant Governors Association (NLGA) Aerospace Committee meeting, we heard from theFederal Aviation Administration, Space Foundation, the Advanced Air Mobility Multi-State Collaborative and higher education institutions. We alsomet with NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and his team. The common theme was workforce needs. Louisiana is uniquely positioned to capitalize on aerospace industry growth. We alreadyhave astrong manufacturing base, world-class energy expertise, strategic military assets,growing educationalpartnerships and aworkforce eager to learn new skills. But this opportunitydid not

appear overnight. Four years ago,Iattended a meeting in Alaska andlearned howaerospace technology intersects with issues deeply important to Louisiana, from hurricane forecasting and coastal restoration to nationaldefenseand advanced manufacturing. Isaw what this industry couldbringtoour state, which ledtomebecoming chairman of thatgroup.

Ihostedtheir meeting in Louisiana during my term in 2024 and welcomed elected leaders and industry professionals from across thecountrytoNew Orleans. Attendees touredNASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in NewOrleans Eastand Stennis SpaceCenterinMississippi and heard fromleading experts about thefuture ofthe space industry

This inspired me to ask the NLGA to help advance this industry in thestates, so we created the committee. Each lieutenant governor appointed two advisers from their state. Louisiana’sdelegation included Dr.Tina Tinney of Nunez Community College and arepresentativefrom Louisiana Economic Development. Together,wehighlighted Louisiana’s growing workforce efforts,includingNunez’s Aerospace Manu-

facturing Technology Program, which has awarded 330+ credentials for high-demand, high-skill careers.These programs provide Louisianans with pathways to well-paying jobs without relocation or years of additional education

Nunez Community College is seeking $9.2 million torenovate adonated building and expand training capacity.These are the kinds of investmentsLouisiana must support to remain competitiveinaerospace and show the

Republican voterregistrationis finallycatchinguptoreality

Louisiana is experiencing ahistoric political milestone. According to voter registration data from the SecretaryofState’sofﬁce, for the ﬁrst time in the state’s modern history,the number of registered Republicans now exceeds the number of registered Democrats

industry that we will have the workforce they need.

Many of the issues discussed by thecommittee werereﬂected in legislation passed this year to create astronger business and legal environment foraerospace companies in Louisiana. Reports suggest that SpaceX is already paying attention.

I’m pleased to see Louisiana creating policies to attract aerospace investmentand help our workforce, but tax incentives and grants alone will not determine

our success. Workforce availability will play amajor role. States like Alabamathat train students as early as high school in aerospace manufacturing techniques are dominating the industry

The aerospace, aviation and defense industries are poised to create thousands of highly skilled, high-paying jobs in the coming years. States beneﬁting the mostwill be those providing the trained workers aerospace employers need.

These opportunities extend beyond engineers, astronauts and pilots. Current projections estimate the country will need an additional 1.5 million civil aviation professionals, 400,000 maintenance technicians and 71,000 air trafﬁc controllers over the next decade. Additional demand will exist in administration, communications, marketing, logistics and related ﬁelds.

We need our Legislature to support policies and investments that attract these businesses and help our citizens gain the skills to claim these jobs. The aerospace industry is growing rapidly.Louisiana’schallenge is not whether the opportunity exists but whether we can seize it.

Billy NungesserisLouisiana’s lieutenant governor

Ed Chervenak

GUEST COLUMNIST

While Republicans have been the dominant party in state government for anumber of years, the partisan realignment of the electorate reﬂects the ﬁnal piece in the structural consolidation of Republican dominance in Louisiana’spolitical landscape.

Louisiana, like other former Confederate states, maintained astrong allegiance to the Democratic Party from Reconstruction through the mid-20th century.During this period, the Democratic Party functioned not merely as apolitical organizationbut as the primary institutional expressionofSouthern political identity and governance, exercising near-hegemonic control over state and local institutions.

This alignment began to unravel in the 1960s following the national Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rightsand voting rights legislation. These policy shifts fundamentally altered the party’srelationship with its traditional White Southern base.InLouisiana, as in muchofthe South, White voters increasingly shifted their support to Republican candidates while often remaining formally registered as “legacy” Democrats.

While voting patterns in Louisiana have long signaled ashift in political preference toward the Republican Party,the change in voter registration has been slower to follow.This lagging indicator of registering and identifying as aRepublican now appearstohave caught up with the leading indicator of voting forRepublicans, thereby completing the state’spartisan realignment. Although Louisiana is considered ared state based on electing Republicans to office, it can now be officially recognizedasa truly realigned state, as votersare no longer merely casting ballots for Republican candidates; they increasingly perceive and define themselves as Republicans

The partisan reshufﬂinghas been driven overwhelmingly by the realignment of White voters. Registration data illustrate the scale of the transformation. In 1960, approximately 99%ofWhites were registered Democrats. That ﬁgure fell below 90% by 1979, at which point 6% of Whites were registered Republi-

While voting patterns in Louisiana have long signaled ashift in politicalpreferencetoward theRepublican Party, the changeinvoter registrationhas been slowertofollow.

cans.

The Democratic share of White registrants continued to declineinthe following decades. The last time amajority of Whiteswere registered as Democrats was 2001, compared to 31% registered as Republican. By 2023, Republicans attained majority status among White voters, while only 21% were registered Democrats. The most recentdata showthat 54% of Whites areregisteredasa Republican, while 18% are registered Democrats.

At the same time,White voter registration has also shifted toward the nonpartisan category.Overthe past 50 years, theshare of Whites registered as “No Party” has grown substantially,increasing from 3% to 28%.

Taken together,these ﬁguresshow that the long-term partisan transformation is not simplyastory of Democratic declinebut of a structural realignment in whichWhite voters have moved away from theirhistoric partisan home.

This shift reﬂects deeper institutionaland behavioral transformations drivenbythe steady migration of White voters into theRepublican Party.Consequently,electoral competition has increasinglydeclined, andDemocratic capacity to conteststatewide powerhas weakenedconsiderably.

The endresult is apolitical environment in which Louisiana can nowbecharacterized less as acompetitive two-party systemand more as areliably Republican state where diminished Democraticinstitutional strength limits the prospects for meaningful partisan competition

Ed Chervenak is the director of the LSU New Orleans Survey Research Center

John was caught in the unyielding cycle of addiction. Over time, the disease cost him his job, his family and his home. Surviving on thestreets of New Orleans, he sought shelter from theelements in an abandoned building. When thepropertyowners discoveredhim,they called thepolice. Under our traditionalsystem, this is where thetrap snaps shut.The police arrest John for criminal trespassing. He is detained in acell, experiencing theintense trauma of sudden, unmanaged detox behind bars. Released afew days later with abrand-new criminal record, he is back on the street more destabilized than before. Deep in his addiction, John misses his court date. Awarrant is issued. Aminor survival tactic has blossomed intodeeper systemic involvement and an even higher barrier to recovery This story is lived and relived every day by individuals in crisis, ofﬁcers without options and concerned community members.

Butimagine adifferent path. When thepolice arrive, they recognize that John’strespass is asymptom of homelessness and substance use, not malicious intent. Instead of handcufﬁng him and driving to the local jail, ofﬁcers utilize Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD). They conduct a “warm handoff” toaLEAD case manager right on the street.

There, John is met with immediate, client-centered harm-reduction support.The case manager helps him secureemergency housing, connects him to medical care to manage withdrawal safely and begins thelong-term work of rebuilding his life. Because no criminal charges areﬁled, there are no missed courtdates,nowarrants and no employer-barring record. John is given the structuralsupport to heal, proving that public safetyand public health are most powerful when they work together

John’sstoryisamicrocosm of asystemic crisis unfoldingacross our nation.The intersectionofunaddressed behavioral healthconditions, poverty and structural gaps turns our streets

AdrienneTobleristhe LEAD Project Manager at Travelers Aid Society (TAS) and Travers Kurristhe BehavioralHealthSpecial Projects Coordinator forthe NewOrleans HealthDepartment. Forhomelessaddicts,treatment

into waiting roomsfor jail, while the costs in officer time, detention and emergency room visits rack up. We do not have to accept this cycle as inevitable. Today,New Orleans has a proven roadmap. LEAD offers acompassionate, evidence-based alternative that connects individuals to community support instead of funneling them into the criminal legal system.The results speak for themselves: Data from LEAD New Orleans showsthat programmatic enrollment slashes overall time spent in jail by 72% and reduces subsequent participant arrests by 53%. Every avoided arrest frees up valuable officer timetofocus on serious public safety threats and reduces strain on our courts, the Sheriff’sOffice and local emergency departments. This is not apartisan issue. It is apublic safety issue, afiscal responsibility issue and ahuman dignity issue. Louisiana’s congressional delegation has long recognized the importance of innovative responses to behavioral health and substance use challenges. Senators Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy wereinstrumental in supporting federal funding opportunities for LEAD,and lawmakers from both parties have championed approaches that reduce recidivism while improving outcomes. Nowisthe timetobuild on that success. Congress should continue investing in programsthat have demonstrated increased public safety and public health, and LEAD is one of those programs. The question is not whether LEAD works but whether we are willing to invest in expanding amodel that makes communities safer,saves taxpayer money and gives people agenuine opportunity to heal and rebuild their lives.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By CHRIS GRANGER

Crewswalk alongside the Artemis III core stageasitisslowlyrolledout of the Michoud Assembly Facility in NewOrleans on April 20.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

COMMENTARY

ISSUE OF THE WEEK RED SCARE

As Democrats in recent elections have chosenincreasingly left-leaning candidates, some whobear the label of Democratic Socialists, Republicansare taking the opportunity to paint the party as too radical.

President DonaldTrump in aspeech last week at Mount Rushmore warned of the dangersofcommunism andsaid that Americansshould reject such ideologies. Has the left embraced policies that are antithetical to American values or is the right stoking fears just to win in the midterms? Hereare twoperspectives:

What to make of move from redhatstored hate

Donald Trump has gone from redhats to red hate.

With his popularity stuck below 40%in most polls, the presidentknows thatifthe fall elections become areferendumon hisrecord, Republicans will lose. Sohe’s turned to his favorite strategies of fear and falsehood.

Trump has long pitted Red America against Blue America anddonned acrimson cap to symbolize his tribal loyalties. But after far-left candidates won Democratic primaries in New York and Colorado, he quickly transformed red from arevered color to areviled one.

“There is now aresurgence of the communist menace in our land,” the president said at arally in South Dakota. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty.”

exported by an insidious international conspiracy to poison theAmerican character

The political situation is complex because theclash between Trumpand his rivals is not purely an ideological rightversus-left conﬂict. For one thing, the president isn’tareal conservative in many ways, championing federal power over states’ rights in areas like voting rules and violating traditional normssuch as the power of Congress to spend federal money

Trump’santi-communist manifestoisnosurprise

President Donald Trump hadtwo messages in his speech at Mount Rushmore on the eve of July 4. The ﬁrst, expected, message was atraditional celebrationof thenation’s250th anniversary.The second, less expected message was awarning about a“resurgence of the communistmenace” in the UnitedStates.

Steve Roberts

Red-baiting is adeeply dangerousand despicable strategy,but it has been acentral part of American politics for more than acentury,since the Bolshevik Revolution transformed Russia in 1917. Andit keeps resurfacing because it works, which is why Democrats face acritical dilemma.

The successful insurgents, some of them Democratic Socialists, have excited and engaged primary voters, especiallyyoung ones. And they’ve introduced innovative campaign tactics using social media that amplify their appeal.

However,ideas that win primaries in safe blue districts don’talways translate to Middle America. Control of Congress won’tbedecided in urban centers like Brooklyn or Berkeley,but in swing districts such as the suburbsofPhiladelphia and the farming towns of California’s Central Valley

The New York Times summarized the Democrats’ problem: “Theinsurgents, often campaigning on progressive platforms, have injected new energyintoa party still recovering from acrushing defeat in 2024. But they havealso concerned some in the party establishmentwho worry that voters are choosing candidates with narrower general-election appeal or politically toxicpositions that could hurt Democrats in November.”

Red-baiting comes easily to Trumpbecause it enables him to targettwo of his favorite enemies, liberals and foreigners, and throughout history,every outbreak has taken the same tone: Communism is demonized as alethal ideology, like an infectious disease or debilitating drug,

In addition, theDemocratic insurgents arepromotinggenerational change, not just policy differences, andcapitalizing on visceral dislike of Trumppersonally.“Fighter” and “outsider” are not ideological concepts.

But some of their ideas can be both ideological and unpopular,from abolishing ICE and denouncing Israel to nationalizing healthcare. Even moredamagingcan be “woke” cultural tropes, especially those concerning gender identities.

That’swhy MattBennett, co-founder of Third Way, acentrist Democratic think tank,told theTimes that primary triumphs by far-left candidates were “dangerous” for Democrats nationally.“What we’ve seen Republicans do very successfully before is weaponize thecraziest ideas of the activist left,” he said. “And now theammunition they’ve got is much,much more powerful.”

What alarms Democratic realists is simplepolitical math. The “majority makers” from marginal districts, as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls them, are particularly vulnerable to thoseGOP weapons, and agroup of moderate House Democrats felt compelled to issueastatementsaying, “Weare capitalist, not socialist.”

Oneofthem,Rep. TomSuozzi from the NewYork suburbs, argued in theTimes that Democrats were “nevergoing to win themajority by just appealing tothe extreme base” and added: “The Republicans are always going to get 40%. The Democrats are always going to get 40%. It’sthe ﬁght over that 20% in the middle.”

Trump has madeamajor blunder by ignoring, even denigrating, thereal-life economic concerns of ordinary Americans. ButDemocrats are fully capable of blowing their chances if they misread the meaning of afew far-left victories

EmailSteven Roberts at stevecokie@ gmail.com.

“As we approach this magniﬁcent anniversary,wesee our American identity underarenewed attack, agenerationafter we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism,” Trump said. “There is now aresurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our greatsuccess. Theseare not merepolitical disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations.Communism is amortal threat to American liberty.”

the country Now,Trump is on record calling the whole DSA group communists. On one hand, it’sremarkable that so far there really hasn’tbeen much outrage and pushback from mainstream Democrats. On the otherhand, why would they push back?Manyview the DSA contingent as invaders who used the Democratic Party’sstructure to powertheir campaigns —for the purpose of defeating incumbent Democrats.

Trump’smove wasn’ta complete surprise. After theJune 23 Democratic primaries in New York —the one in which Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani emerged as akingmaker by backing far-left candidates who upset progressive Democratic House incumbents— Trump quickly branded those far-left candidates as “communists,” and not as socialists, as they styled themselves

“As you saw with the communists elected in New York City recently they’re communists, they’re notsocial Democrats —they want to completely destroy thetraditional American way of life,” Trump toldthe Faith &Freedom Conference in Washington, D.C., on June 26. The Democratic Party,Trump said, is “becoming acommunist party.These are not social Democrats, these are hardcore, godlesscommunists. They’re godlesscommunists. All communists are godless. They don’tbelieve in God. This is themost serious threat to our country since itsexistence, in my opinion, 250 yearsago.”

By thenext week,whenTrump delivered the Mount Rushmore speech, more Democratic socialists hadwon Democratic Party primaries, one in Colorado, and one in Washington, D.C. What some non-socialistDemocrats hadhoped that theDemocratic Socialists of America victories would remained localized in New York City —instead spread across

Anotherreason for the quiet is that, for some of the DSA winners, the communist label either ﬁts or comes uncomfortably close. Mamdani, of course, has speciﬁcally denied being acommunist. But he hasspokenofthe “warmth of collectivism” and“each according to their need,each according to their ability” —his paraphrase of Karl Marx. Also, at aDSA conferencein2021, Mamdani discussed goalslike canceling student debt, Medicarefor all and “seizing the means of production.” If you are talking about“seizing the means of production,” thenyou should notbetoo surprised when people think you are acommunist. But it’snot thatway for the otherDSA candidateswho wonrecently —Claire Valdez, MelatKiros, Janeese LewisGeorge andothers.

On the otherhand, allofthem are members of the Democratic Socialists of America, andthe word “socialist” has always been akey part of the vocabulary of communism, in the 20th century andtoday.Soone could say that Trump’s accusationisreasonably true for some of the DSA comrades who have defeated Democratic candidates and at least adjacenttothe beliefs of some others. In otherwords, it’sclose enough for a political campaign.

Thatsaid, Trump is absolutely on the money aboutcommunism, the ideology thatled to so much death, deprivation anddestructioninthe Soviet Union, Eastern Europe,Communist China, Cuba andelsewhere. “Communism is aloser,and it always will be,” Trump said in his July 4speech, the dayafter he spoke at Mount Rushmore. “Communism is the enemy of free people everywhere, everywhere in the world. Never works.”

Byron York is on X, @Bryon York

Byron York

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTOByMATTGADE

An attendee wearing a250 shirtlistens as President Donald Trump speaks at Mount Rushmore National Memorial,near Keystone, S.D.

with meteorologist DamonSingleton

Summer League blues continue

Pelicans fall in opener to Timberwolves, drop 12th straight summer game

BY ROD WALKER Staff writer

NotevenasplendidperformancefromKobe

Bufkin was enough to stop the New Orleans Pelicans’ Summer League woes Thursday

Bufkin poured in 30 points, but the Pelicans fell to the Minnesota Timberwolves 105-92 in the Summer League opener in Las Vegas.

The Pelicans have now lost 12 straight games in Summer League play Their last win in Summer League play was in their next-to-last game in 2023.

Bufkin, who has the most NBA experience on the Pels’ Summer League roster, scored 21 of his points in the ﬁrst half. That included three 3-pointers. In the game, he knocked down ﬁve of nine 3-pointers to go with his six rebounds and two assists.

Bufkin was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks with the No. 15 overall pick in the 2023 draft He spent his ﬁrst two seasons in Atlanta and played last season with the Los Angeles Lakers, appearing in 16 games.

Pelicans’ coach Jamahl Mosley spoke Monday about what this opportunity means for Bufkin.

“I think it’s great for Kobe,” Mosley said “He’s been excellent in his communication with the coaches in what he’s trying to do and what we’re asking of him to do. Just be

See PELICANS, page 3C

SPORTS

KER TIGER

A look at LSU’s draft-eligible players heading into

the MLB Draft

BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer

It’s hard to argue with LSU coach Jay Johnson’s track record of getting players to professional baseball. Since arriving in Baton Rouge, Johnson has helped Paul Skenes, Dylan Crews and Kade Anderson become top-three picks in the MLB Draft and developed Gage Jump, Luke Holman and Tommy White into second-round picks. Under his watch, Jacob Berry also became a ﬁrst-round pick after one season at LSU. That trend of Johnson getting Tigers to the big leagues as high-round picks is expected to continue this summer, with Derek Curiel and Jake Brown expected to be selected in the ﬁrst two rounds of the draft.

To help preview the draft, The Advocate spoke with six MLB scouts about LSU’s incoming high school class and its own draft-eligible players to paint a clearer picture of what may happen on Saturday and Sunday They spoke to The Advocate conﬁdentially This story is part three of a threepart series of scouting reports, draft predictions and analysis on every LSU player and signee.

Here’s what you need to know about LSU’s draft-eligible players heading into the draft.

Derek Curiel, CF Draft rankings: No. 8, The Athletic; No. 10, ESPN; No. 12, MLB.com Breakdown: It would be a big surprise if Curiel didn’t land in the first round He hit .359 with a .957 on-base-plusslugging percentage over two seasons with the Tigers and was a Gold Glove Award-winning center fielder as a sophomore. After playing left field as a freshman, Curiel proved this year that he has a chance to stick in center in professional baseball.

“He hit the ball harder this year and showed he could play center, and he puts good at-bats together,” one scout told The Advocate. “I would say he probably just kind of proved overall that he can do all of those things.” Scouts, however, are more split on whether Curiel is worthy of being a ﬁrst-round caliber player One scout who spoke with The Advocate said he wouldn’t pick him until the beginning of the second round. Another

ä See LSU, page 5C

Judge grants injunction for basketball players suing NCAA

Ruling allows athletes in the lawsuit an opportunity to enter transfer portal

The Associated Press

CINCINNATI An Ohio judge has granted a preliminary injunction for 24 men’s and women’s college basketball players suing the NCAA for eligibility, claiming the new age-based model unfairly shuts them out of further competition.

Judge Christopher Wagner said Thursday the NCAA eligibility rules have been applied to 2022 high school graduates in an arbitrary and capricious manner, adding the plaintiffs would suffer “irreparable injury” without an injunction.

“We hope the NCAA reconsiders its position and allows all other similarly situated athletes from the high school class of 2022 to compete for remaining roster spots in all sports,” attorney Ryan Downton said

Wagner’s ruling allows the athletes in the lawsuit an opportunity to enter the transfer portal. He scheduled a conference for Aug. 4 to prepare for a trial.

“While we will seek to overturn this ruling, it is now apparent that Congress must act swiftly to restore stability, uniformity, and fair competition in college athletics,” the NCAA said in a statement.

The Protect College Sports Act has moved forward with Senate committee approval in June. However, the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences oppose the bill designed to stabilize college sports and are seeking revisions.

Downton has ﬁled similar lawsuits against the NCAA on behalf of nearly 30 men’s and women’s basketball players.

The lawsuit in Cincinnati was ﬁled shortly after the NCAA Division I Cabinet approved a monumental change in eligibility rules last month

“When each plaintiff completed their fourth season of competition during the 2025-26 academic year, they had every rea-

son to know it was the end of the line and time to make way for the next generation of college athletes,” the NCAA wrote in a ﬁling.

The plaintiffs are seeking to be eligible to play a ﬁfth year during the upcoming season, representing athletes who graduated from high school in 2022 and began their college sports careers that autumn and never redshirted.

“Each plaintiff was harmed each time he or she competed in a basketball game against a fifth or sixth-year player without being offered the same opportunity to compete in a fifth season themselves,” Downtown wrote in a filing.

The NCAA now allows athletes five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

The move will all but eliminate waivers or redshirt years for extended eligibility except for religious missions, pregnancy

STAFF FILE PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Pelicans guard Micah Peavy takes a shot during a game against the Detroit Pistons on Jan. 21 at the Smoothie King Center Peavy hopes to make strides in his shooting during Summer League play in Las Vegas.

AP FILE PHOTO By FRANK FRANKLIN II

forward Jayden Ross, left, defends

forward Filip Borovicanin during

Derek Curiel

Jake Brown

MLB DRAFT INTEL

McIlroy tied for lead in Scottish Open

BY DOUG FERGUSON AP golf writer

NORTH BERWICK, Scotland Rory McIlroy began getting into the mood for the final major of the year by taking advantage of the par 5s at The Renaissance Club for a 5-under 65, giving him a five-way share of the lead Thursday in the Genesis Scottish Open. Patrick Cantlay made a little noise in an otherwise quiet year for the American with five birdies in 10 holes and then a collection of tough par saves at the end that felt just as valuable. He also was at 65, along with Tom Kim, Bernd Wiesberger and Rasmus Hojgaard

Hojgaard was the only player of the leading ﬁve to play in the afternoon, when the wind began to calm. He was at 6 under with four holes to play but found a bunker off the 16th, went into the rough and took double bogey

Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world searching for his ﬁrst win since January, made three straight birdies around the turn and was slowed by a long three-putt bogey on the 11th, followed by a drive into a bunker that kept him from reaching the green at the par-5 12th. Schefﬂer failed to birdie any of the three par 5s in his round of 68.

“Wish I could have gotten a few more shots out of it,” Schefﬂer said. “I like to keep a clean card, so two bogeys hurt. Maybe could have played the par 5s a little bit better But overall, nothing crazy Just a decent day.”

McIlroy felt about the same. He was tied for the 18-hole lead for the ﬁrst time since the Masters, but this didn’t feel like anything special except for seizing on the easiest scoring chances.

McIlroy holed an 18-foot eagle putt on the par-5 ﬁrst hole he started his round on No. 10 — to go along with a pair of birdies on

the other two par 5s at The Renaissance Club. That made his round and his scorecard feel a little better

He has been away the last two weeks since a pedestrian performance in the U.S. Open, though the brand of golf doesn’t feel entirely different. Shinnecock Hills might be as close to links golf as any course in America. The Renaissance Club has the look of links, though it is not links turf.

The real test is Royal Birkdale next week for the British Open.

“I felt like I drove the ball particularly well, and I started to see that at Shinnecock, as well,” McIlroy said. “A continuation of putting the ball in play, and then once I do that, I feel like I can attack courses and I can set up scoring opportunities. I did that today.”

Cantlay hasn’t won in nearly four years and slipped to No. 37 in the world after missing the cut in the U.S. Open, his lowest ranking in more than eight years. He’s had three top 10s and four other

finishes in the top 20. It hasn’t been horrible, but he has lacked a spark and might have found one.

He went to a slightly heavier putter to account for the slower greens this week and next, and it paid off in birdies and pars. Most impressive was his finish. He found a pot bunker off the tee on the par-5 seventh and could only get that back to the fairway, leaving him 261 yards for his third shot. He wound up getting upand-down and saving par with a 13-foot putt.

He saved par with a 5-foot putt on the eighth and then got up-anddown from just inside 100 feet off the ninth green to keep a clean card.

“I’ve been putting in some hard work with my team, and have got some important golf the rest of the year,” Cantlay said.

The Scottish Open is co-sanctioned by the European tour and PGA Tour the ideal place to be for those wanting to get acclimated for the British Open, whether

it’s the seaside air the time zone or a slightly slower set of greens. It’s also a last chance for the likes of Michael Thorbjornsen, among those at 67. The leading three players not already eligible get a spot at Royal Birkdale. Thorbjornsen is fourth alternate. Brooks Koepka, who appears to be past that mysterious nerve issue in his left hand that caused him to pull out of the Canadian Open when he was off to a good start, felt that putting is all that has slowed him this year That much was evident when he missed four putts from 7 feet or under, one of them from 20 inches. He also rolled in three birdie putts from outside 20 feet and was among seven players at 66. Nearly half of the 156-man ﬁeld broke par “It could have been a very, very good round. But then again, I’m happy with the way I battled back,” Koepka said. “That was solid. So hopefully take that into tomorrow.”

Scheffler gets last shot at a major in 2026

The British Open is set to begin on July 16

BY DOUG FERGUSON AP golf writer

The oldest championship in golf has become the last major on the calendar

The British Open has 166 years of history behind it, so it doesn’t need a catchy slogan — the PGA Championship was “Glory’s Last Shot” when it was last in the lineup for Scottie Schefﬂer and everyone else to know it will be eight months before the next major

“We look forward to them so much, we build our schedules and the year around them, and then they’re over like that,” Justin Thomas said “It sucks when they’re done.” And for the 153 players who have their last chance at winning a major this year? The pressure is not necessarily any greater, nor is there greater urgency to win one before the season is done.

“But every year you don’t is another year you haven’t,” Thomas said. The 154th edition of The Open Championship returns to Royal Birkdale on July 16-19 along the Lancashire Coast in northwest England, an area rich with links golf — three British Open venues are about 60 miles (96 kilometers) apart. The Royal & Ancient is expecting upward of 300,000 fans.

It will be the last chance for Scheffler to make it three years in a row winning a major In the modern era of majors that dates to 1934, only seven other players have done that Peter Thomson, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka.

Schefﬂer became the “Champion of the Year” at Royal Portrush last summer with another command

performance on golf’s biggest stage He is not one to look back on all the trophies he has won in the last ﬁve years, but the 30-year-old Texan has caught himself glancing at all the names engraved into the base of that silver claret jug.

Schefﬂer is the last of 10 names added to the base of golf’s oldest trophy since Rory McIlroy last took possession in 2014. McIlroy the back-to-back Masters champion, is keen to get a seventh major and join Harry Vardon with the most majors by anyone from the Old World.

English hopes lie with Tommy Fleetwood, who grew up a short walk from Birkdale and Matt Fitzpatrick, whose three wins this year are more than Schefﬂer’s and McIlroy’s combined.

McIlroy hasn’t seriously contended for the British Open since 2022 in St. Andrews. His lone appearance at Royal Birkdale was a tie for fourth in 2017, though he ﬁnished seven shots behind. But he loves the course and the challenge off the tee it presents, which typi-

cally is his strength.

“The one thing that I like about Birkdale is there’s usually sets of bunkers on both sides of the fairway. So you’re always having to challenge one set of bunkers to get to where you want your ball to ﬁnish,” he said.

McIlroy cited the 10th hole to illustrate. To play it safe and stay short of the bunkers doesn’t leave a good view of the green with a midiron. To challenge the bunker on the left, and stay short of the bunker on the right, allows for a good chance at birdie with a wedge in hand.

This is not exactly the same Royal Birkdale that last hosted the British Open in 2017 because of changes to some five holes. The most noticeable might be the par-4 ﬁfth, shortened to 321 yards with more bunkers and the green shifted to the left to tempt players to drive the green

The most significant change is eliminating the par-3 14th hole where Jordan Spieth began his remarkable rally in 2017. Now the 14th is a par 5 that used to be No.

Iwai leads in first round of Evian Championship

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France Aki Iwai shot an 8-under 63 for a two-stroke lead on Thursday in the ﬁrst round of the Evian Championship, the fourth women’s golf major of the season, as top-ranked Nelly Korda struggled.

The 24th-ranked Iwai had eight birdies and no dropped shots in the sun-splashed lakeside town that three weeks ago hosted the G7 summit of world leaders.

Japan’s Iwai made birdies at three of the last four holes, including the par-5 18th, and led by two shots from Perrine Delacour, whose 6-under 65 included an eagle at the par-5 15th and a pair of bogeys toward the end of her round.

Korda was 11 shots back with a 3-over 74, including a doubly bogey six at the ﬁrst hole.

Soccer star Pulisic fractured his leg during Belgium loss

U.S. star Christian Pulisic fractured his right leg during the Americans’ World Cup loss to Belgium and will be sidelined for several weeks.

Pulisic has a bone bruise and a microfracture of his tibia and ﬁbula, the U.S. Soccer Federation said Thursday The diagnosis was made after an X-ray and MRI on Tuesday

He would not have been able to play during the remainder of the tournament had the U.S. advanced.

Pulisic is expected to resume training before AC Milan’s Serie A opener at Torino on Aug. 23.

Pulisic hit a leg of Belgium captain Youri Tielemans while attempting a shot in the 52nd minute of Monday’s 4-1 round-of-16 loss at Seattle.

Commanders to retire Hall of Famer Riggins’ No. 44 ASHBURN, Va. — The Washington Commanders are retiring John Riggins’ No. 44 during the upcoming NFL season, the team announced Thursday The Hall of Fame running back will be honored in a ceremony at halftime of the team’s game against the Los Angeles Rams on Nov 8.

“There are certain players whose impact goes far beyond statistics, championships and accolades: They become woven into the identity of a franchise,” controlling owner Josh Harris said in a statement.

Riggins is the organization’s all-time leading rusher with 7,472 yards and 79 touchdowns on 1,988 carries and helped the team win the Super Bowl in the 1982 season.

15, only it’s 60 yards longer (602 yards), has been shifted to the right and now has 12 bunkers.

The 15th is a newly created hole that measures 241 yards Adam Scott was asked to give a short assessment and replied, “too long.”

McIlroy said he was “undecided,” which didn’t sound all that encouraging when he added, “I think it’s going to be a big talking point during the week.”

It’s a beautiful links course set among dunes off the Irish Sea, one of only two on the British Open rotation where the ninth and 18th holes return to the clubhouse.

And it has a rich heritage despite not hosting the Open until 1954.

Of the nine previous champions (Thomson won twice) all but one are in the World Golf Hall of Fame or certain to be there when eligible. Those nine champions have combined to win 37 majors.

Links golf on any course can produce some quirky bounces, when seemingly good shots turn bad and sometimes — though not as often — the other way around.

“You can tell why golf was invented here,” Schefﬂer said. “You can hit a lot of clubs from off the green It’s not the same club every time, and it gives you an option. You can get some funny bounces sometimes. But it’s also a pure and raw way to play golf.

“The conditions change pretty quickly and that could have an effect on tournament. But when you have similar conditions over four days, it’s a pretty true test of golf.”

Harris English was the runnerup to Schefﬂer last year at Royal Portrush. He was asked what trait an Open champion needs to conquer links golf. “Super gritty,” he replied.

And when it’s over, another name will be added to the base of the claret jug. And then golf’s best players will have to wait 263 days until the next major

Wichita joins Dayton as host cities for NCAA Tournament

The opening round of the expanded men’s NCAA Tournament will be split between Dayton, Ohio, where those early games traditionally have been played, and Wichita, Kansas, for at least the next two years.

The NCAA said Thursday that both cities would host six games apiece in the enlarged 76-team ﬁeld.

“Like Dayton, Wichita is a basketball-crazed community that we expect will embrace the reimagined start of the tournament,” Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill, the chairman of the NCAA’s Division I men’s basketball committee, said in a statement.

The NCAA approved the expansion of the tournament from 68 teams in May

Red Sox pitcher Suarez out of All-Star game due to injury CHICAGO Boston Red Sox pitcher Ranger Suarez will miss next week’s All-Star Game after he was placed on the 15-day injured list on Thursday with a left groin strain.

The IL stint for Suarez was made retroactive to Monday, a day after he left with two outs in the third inning in Boston’s 7-5 victory at the Los Angeles Angels. The lefthander is 4-3 with a 3.15 ERA in 17 starts in his ﬁrst season after signing a $130 million, ﬁve-year contract with the Red Sox in free agency The 30-year-old Suarez was scheduled to pitch again on Saturday at the New York Mets. Tracy said the team is considering several options for the start at New York, including Brayan Bello, who was

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MALCOLM MACKENZIE

Rory McIlroy plays from a bunker on the ninth fairway in Thursday’s opening round of the Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick, Scotland.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By JON SUPER

Scottie Scheffler speaks at a news conference after winning the British Open on July 20 at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland.

LSU target Spears Jr. commits to rival SEC program Texas

BY TOYLOY BROWN III Staff writer

One of LSU’s top targets on the 2027 recruiting trail is no longer available.

Marcus Spears Jr., the No. 1 player in the class of 2027, committed to Texas and reclassiﬁed to the 2026 class, according to ESPN.

The 6-foot-9 lefty forward turned 17 in April and will have to spend two years in college before being eligible for the NBA draft. He is the son of former LSU football and NFL defensive lineman Marcus Spears, now an ESPN analyst. His mom is also former LSU women’s basketball center Aiysha Smith, who started all 64 games in her Tigers career

“Marcus Jr grew up in Texas, and there’s nothing like playing for your home school and winning,” Spears told ESPN “I experienced that growing up in Louisiana at LSU. This is his decision and his future.”

Spears Jr. was re-offered by LSU coach Will Wade on May 21 after being initially recruited by former coach Matt McMahon. The star Texas commit was also heavily recruited by Kentucky and Arizona. Spears Jr told Sam Lance of the Field of 68 on May 29 that he was in contact with assistants on Wade’s coaching staff but hadn’t spoken to Wade.

“I haven’t talked to coach Wade yet, but I’ve been in contact with the assistants,” Spears Jr said. “I seen what coach Wade did at NC State.

FILE

Dynamic Prep forward Marcus Spears Jr drives the ball against Prolific Prep during a game on Jan. 19 at the Hoophall Classic in Springfield, Mass. On Thursday, Spears Jr committed to Texas.

He obviously did good, so I’ll be looking into it.” Spears Jr., who will now be the No 4 player in ESPN’s top 100 rankings, has been playing AAU basketball this summer for the Texas-based program Drive Nation. In 11 games, he averaged 20.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.2 steals per game. He also shot 59.3% from the field and 52.6% from the 3-point line on 1.7 attempts per game. The only commitment Will Wade has in the 2027 recruiting class is Ahmad Hudson,

the No. 26 player in the country, according to ESPN. The 6-foot-7, 239-pound four-star forward is also committed to play football for Lane Kifﬁn. Hudson, a Ruston native, is the No. 1 tight end in the country and said this summer he’s going to play both sports.

Hudson earned Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year honors as a junior, averaging 19.7 points, 13.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 3.0 blocks. He led Ruston (23-4) to the Division I nonselect state tournament championship game.

game.

Prep doubleheader at Superdome includes Karr, St. Augustine

BY CHRISTOPHER DABE

Staff writer

Edna Karr and St. Augustine will both return to the Caesars Superdome this season — in a regular-season doubleheader to be played on a Saturday

Two-time reigning state champion Karr will face Ruston, a state finalist the past four seasons, in the ﬁrst game set for 3 p.m. on Sept. 19, followed by St. Augustine’s matchup against East

PELICANS

Continued from page 1C

a facilitator and attack the basket when he needs to. Defensively, can he pick guys up full court? Can he make it harder for the other team’s point guard? It’s a great opportunity for him, but it’s a great opportunity for all these guys to show what they are capable of doing.”

While Bufkin was the most experienced player, the Pelicans also got big contributions from the smallest guy on the court Markquis Nowell, a 5-foot-7 guard, ﬁnished with 20 points, six assists, ﬁve steals and four rebounds.

Ascension Karr won the Division I select state title in December by defeating St. Augustine in the Dome, St. Aug’s ﬁrst state ﬁnals appearance since 1979.

last season. Karr defeated American Heritage (Florida) in an overtime game that ended after midnight, while Rummel toppled University High.

BY ANDREW DAMPF AP sportswriter

LONDON Coco Gauff had just the shot she was looking for Seven years after her breakthrough at Wimbledon, the American player was on the verge of reaching her ﬁrst ﬁnal at the All England Club.

All she needed to do was execute what appeared to be a manageable put-away on her ﬁrst match point.

The thing is, it’s never that simpleinaGrandSlamsemiﬁnal, especially toward the end of a decisive super tiebreaker on Centre Court — the sport’s most hallowed venue.

Gauff ﬂuffed a forehand drop-shot attempt into the net and her opponent Karolina Muchova went on to see out a drama-ﬁlled tiebreaker to win 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (10) on Thursday

On the match point, Gauff hit a well-placed serve down the T on the ad court and Muchova’s weak forehand return bounced before the service line right in Gauff’s attack zone. But Muchova’s shot had some topspin on it and kicked up higher than Gauff was anticipating.

“The bounce kind of caught me off guard,” Gauff said. “I just panicked a little bit.”

After the miss, Gauff ran her non-hitting hand over her face and practiced a full-swing forehand that perhaps she would have preferred in hindsight.

“People who don’t watch tennis are going to be like, ’Why did you do that?” Gauff said. “At the end of the day, that’s the choice I made. Was it the right one in that moment? Maybe not. But then also, if I make it, everyone’s going to say how clutch of a shot that was.

“That’s just tennis. You lose some points off margins.

A ‘roller coaster’

Muchova also lost a match point before she came out on top when Gauff hit a forehand into the net.

“It was such a big ﬁght,” Muchova said. “It was a

NCAA

Continued from page 1C

or active-duty military service. Extensions will no longer be considered for athletes who are injured.

Athletes whose eligibility expired by spring 2026 under the traditional model — four years of competition over ﬁve years will not be allowed a fifth year of competition under the new rules that go into effect this fall.

The Division I Cabinet has said in a statement posted on X that it was aware of

roller coaster.”

Muchova will meet Linda Noskova in an all-Czech ﬁnal on Saturday after Noskova beat Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-4, 6-4.

Clearly ﬂustered after her miss, Gauff called for a ball to serve again before she realized it was time to change ends since it was 9-9.

“I’m going to think about it tonight,” Gauff said.

“I look at Roger (Federer, in the 2019 ﬁnal) lost match points here, Jannik (Sinner) obviously at Roland Garros (in last year’s ﬁnal). Every great champion has this happen in their career,” Gauff added. “Maybe this is something I need to be on their level.”

Tracy Austin suggested on the BBC that Gauff looked like “she changed her mind three times as to where to hit that ball.”

But Gauff said, “Honestly, I didn’t change my mind too much. I feel like if I had to do it over, I probably would have gone for a slice forehand down the line.

“It’s a learning experience,” Gauff added “I know I can do better and improve on that and going with a higher-margin shot in a pres-

legal action challenging its decision and that “we do not intend to change course.”

Three basketball players, including Xavier forward Filip Borovicanin of Serbia, and three coaches, including Xavier coach Richard Pitino, along with an agent testiﬁed at a hearing in Cincinnati earlier this month, while the NCAA did not call any witnesses. Wagner appeared to be critical of the NCAA in his written ruling, saying the governing body resembles “a highly proﬁtable professional sports league,” more than its argument of being a voluntary association.

sure moment, for sure.”

Diving like Boris Becker

On the point after Gauff’s miss, Muchova produced a lob winner to set up her first match point, which she lost when she slipped to the grass and a passing shot from Gauff sailed by her But Muchova quickly set up another match point and produced a series of shots to the corners. Gauff, on the full run, reached the last ball but her forehand response landed in the net and Muchova covered her hands in disbelief

“You’re up and down in 10 seconds. You have a match point, then match point down. It’s no time to think, but very nerve-wracking,” Muchova said. “I’m really kind of shaking and trying to sink it in.”

Earlier in the tiebreaker, Muchova produced a diving forehand volley winner at full stretch that brought back memories of the way three-time Wimbledon champion Boris Becker used to play She ended up face down on the grass, her racket lying next to her as the crowd roared.

“The court ﬁnds, by clear and convincing evidence, that plaintiffs will suffer irreparable injury if the preliminary injunction is not granted,” Wagner said. The NCAA said the decision was wrong. “We will immediately seek all avenues for reversal, including a stay of the court’s order pending appeal,” the NCAA said “The court disregarded over a century of precedent and substituted its own judgment, on a limited factual record, for the collective expertise of the nation’s leading higher education institutions.”

Ruston, a Division I nonselect state ﬁnalist last season, has reached the state ﬁnals four years in a row winning once in 2023. The Week 3 doubleheader comes one year after Karr and Rummel played separate doubleheader games

Micah Peavy, who played in 61 games for the Pelicans as a rookie this past season, scored 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting. He shot 2-for-4 on 3-pointers, a vast improvement from his rookie year when he shot just 25.9 % from long distance. Making strides in his shooting was an area Peavy wanted to improve during Summer League play “I’m going to go out and show what I’ve been working on and what this new coaching staff has been putting in place,” Peavy said Monday “Mainly, I can show just how many shots I’ve been putting up. My conﬁdence is there.” The Pelicans selected Peavey in the second round

Ruston announced the start time and date for this year’s game on its social media accounts this week St. Augustine coach Robert Valdez on Thursday conﬁrmed the day and location for his team’s Dome matchup against East Ascension.

of the 2025 NBA Draft.

Jaron Pierre, the New Orleans native and the Pels’ second-round pick in June, scored just two points in his 12 minutes of play Solomon Washington, also a New Orleans native, did not play He was one of ﬁve players on the roster who didn’t play Center Hunter Dickinson ﬁnished with 12 points and six rebounds He was 2-for4 on 3-pointers. Collectively, the Pelicans shot 42% (14-of33) on 3-pointers. The Pelicans will try to end their 12-game summer skid Saturday against the Charlotte Hornets.

Email Rod Walker at rwalker@theadvocate. com.

PHOTO By GREGORy PAyAN

STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRETT DUKE

St. Augustine coach Robert Valdez, left, and Edna Karr coach Brice Brown speak after a Division I select state championship game on Dec. 13 at the Caesars Superdome. Edna Karr and St. Augustine will return to the Superdome for a regular-season

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By KIRSTy WIGGLESWORTH Coco Gauff reacts after losing a point against Karolina Muchova in a Wimbledon semifinal singles match on Thursday in London.

WORLDCUP 2026

TODAY’SGAMES SPAINVS. BELGIUM 2p.m., FOX, Peacock

Mbappé leads France past Moroccoinquarterfinal

BY KYLE HIGHTOWER AP sportswriter

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. Kylian Mbappé had agoal and an assist after missing aﬁrst-half penalty kick, Ousmane Dembélé scoredthe otherand Francebeat Morocco 2-0 Thursday in the World Cup quarterﬁnals.

Mbappé’sgoalinthe 60th minute was the 20th of his World Cupcareer and came in his 20thmatch at the tournament, moving him one behind Argentina captain Lionel Messi. Dembéléscored hisfifth goal of the tournament in the 66th

Mbappé wastaken down in the 76th minute and was taken offfor asubstitute aminute later.Hewas then shown sitting on the bench with an ice pack on hisright ankle After the match and with both shoes on, Mbappé ran and jumped in celebration with his teammates.

France will face either Spainor Belgium in the semifinals in Dallas on Tuesday France beat Morocco by the same score in the semifinals of the 2022 tournament in Qatar when the Atlas Lions became the first African team to make it thatfar.France now remains on track to become only the third nationtoplay in thefinal of three consecutive World Cups Mbappé got his goal with aperfectly placed shot just inside the far post after Morocco failed to clear theball. He received the balljust outside the area, took acouple steps

forward and then sent his shotsailing into the net. He extended both arms and ran to the sideline to cel-

Stutter-step technique canmakeWorld Cup’s best playerslookcool

BY STEVE DOUGLAS

AP sportswriter

It’stheatrical. It canbemaddening. It makes the world’stop soccer players look verycool or very silly

The stutter-step penalty has been afeature of this World Cup, with the leading adopters of the technique being superstars Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane and Neymar. Let’ssay it’shad varyinglevels of success. It hassent France throughto the quarterﬁnals and contributed to Brazil’sexit. Messididn’teven hit the target when he tried one in group play As for Neymar,aconverted stutter-step penaltyproved to be his parting gift to international soccer And that feels poignant.

PopularizedbyPelé

The stutter-step penalty— where aplayer feints, sometimes repeatedly and almost to the point of stopping, keeping his eyes on the goalkeeper during their runup to the ball —iswidely believed to have been spawned in Brazil in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Nicknamed the “paradinha,” Portuguese for “little stop,” it was made famous by Pelé and continuedbyayoung Neymar when he was being hailed as an heir to the three-time World Cup winner In 2010, at the ageof18, Neymar took the stutter to extremes whenhescored apenalty for club team Santos by dancing up to the ball, coming to astandstill after placing his standing foot next to the ball, and then stroking it home, having made the goalkeeper commit adive already It forced soccer’slawmaking ofﬁcials to changethe regulations ahead of the World Cup in South Africa that year,instructing referees to show ayellow cardto penalty-takers who feintas they are about to strike the ball andto disallow those goals. The law has been reﬁned again since then, with players allowed to feint during their run-up but not after completing it before shooting.

‘Sophisticated’ butrisky

The main idea of the stutter-step penaltyistobefuddlegoalkeepers so much in this battle of wills over 12 yards (11 meters) that they commit early and offer an easy path for ashot into the net. This “goalkeeper-dependent

technique”—as it’scalled by experts —isnot for the fainthearted.

“It is very sophisticated and hard to perform when thepressure is truly on,” explains Geir Jordet, professor at theNorwegianSchool of SportSciences and author of thebook“Pressure:

Lessons from the Psychology of the Penalty Shootout.” “If you’re competentatexecuting this technique, this will effectively delete therisk factor of thegoalkeeper going in the right direction and your odds suddenlygoing down.”

However,Jordet added: “You need to have avery high clarity in your head to be able to do that.”

Most everyone is doingit Whenitcomestopenalties, there will alwaysbetraditionalists in the head-down-and-hit-it-hardcamp. There was also fleetingly ahopskip routine, used notably by PortugalmidﬁelderBruno Fernandes and former Italy international Jorginho, that enjoyedsome success around sixorseven years ago. Nowadays, most penalty-takers have the stutter-steptechnique in theirarmory, even if they don’t use it all the time.

Messiusedit— and failed for his spot kick that drifted wide against Austria in the group stage. He changed course by doing anormal run-up for apenaltyagainst Egypt in the last16onWednesday and this time saw his kick saved.

In England’sgroup-stage win over Croatia, Kanehad apenalty saved after astutter-step run-up, only forthe referee to order the spot kicktoberetaken because thegoalkeeper stepped off his line too early.Kanescored his second attempt after astraight run-up to the ball. Successful kicks using that technique have been delivered by Mbappé to secure France’s1-0 win over Paraguay in the round of 16, Ronaldoin Portugal’s 2-1win over Croatiainsameround,while Neymar —now aged 34 —rolled back the years to score from one in the lastsecondsagainst Norway.Heretired from international play after thematch. Possibly thebest at it is Mexico striker Raúl Jiménez, whoused repeated stutter steps on his way to converting apenalty in the3-2 loss to England onSunday.Heis statistically thebesteverpenalty-taker in the Premier League, having scored on all 14 of his kicks.

ebratewithhis teammates France’ssecond goal came after Mbappé took apass and tapped it

back for Dembélé. Mbappé kept running forward and took defenderswithhim,opening space for

ROUND OF 16 Saturday, July4

Canada 0, Morocco 3 Paraguay0,France1 Sunday, July5 Brazil 1, Norway 2 Mexico 2, England 3 Monday, July6 Portugal 0, Spain1 United States 1, Belgium4 Tuesday, July7 Argentina 3, Egypt2 Switzerland 0, Colombia 0, Switzerland advances 4-3onpenalty kicks QUARTERFINAL Thursday, July9 France2,Morocco 0 Friday, July10 Spainvs. Belgium, 3p.m. Saturday, July 11 Norway vs.England, 5p.m. Argentina vs.Switzerland, 9p.m.

Dembélé’sshot.

Franceheld a21-4 advantage in shots on goal and 8-1 edge in shots on target for the game.

Mbappé also hadthe ﬁrst shot on goal of the game, just missing wide right in thefourth minute. Then,in the 25th, he was running up the left sidewhen he was chopped down in the boxbyMorocco defender Noussair Mazraoui. Referee Facundo Tello quickly pointed to the penalty spot. Mbappé linedupwaiting for his attempt but was held up by alengthy video review.Hewas finally cleared to shoot in the 28th minute, but after ahesitation, Mbappé’sshot toward the right corner was corralled by goalkeeper Yassine Bounou,who guessedthe directionofthe shot correctly

Spainmeets star-powered

Belgium in theWorld Cupquarterﬁnals

BY GREGBEACHAM AP sportswriter

INGLEWOOD,Calif. Spain hasn’tlost andhasn’t even conceded asingle goal at this year’sWorld Cup. La Roja is unbeaten in 36 straight competitive matches since March 2023.

This lofty standardofplay clearly doesn’tscare Belgium,which is on asurging trajectory of itsown heading intothe teams’World Cup quarterﬁnal match on Friday

While Spain has been Europe’s mostconsistent winner for the past 31/2 years, Belgium has played its way intoposition for what could be theﬁnalchancefor its full golden generation to do something spectacular together

The tantalizingclash at SoFi Stadium matches apre-tournament favorite and the reigning European champions against Belgium, whichhas neverquite reached itsfull potential despite thebigmoney starsacrossits roster. Yet goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois says Belgium realizes the opportunity it has after blowing out the co-host United States 4-1 on Monday in its best performanceofthe tournament and extending the Red Devils’own unbeaten streak to 18 matches acrossall competitions.

“I thinkthey’re one of the favorites to win it, so obviously we start as theunderdogagainst them,” said Courtois,who has been at Real Madrid since2018. “But in football, everything is possible, and Ibelieve that we can win, with all respect. Butobviously they are thefavorite.”

While Spain hasstruggled to score occasionally over thepast month, itsdefensehas remained perfect,with Rodri orchestrating theeffortsuperblyfrommidﬁeld.

Goalkeeper Unai Simón has played aWorld Cup-record609 consecutive minuteswithout conceding, racking up another World Cup record of sixstraight clean sheets dating back to the2022 tournamentinQatar

Simón has only had to makesix savesinﬁve World Cupmatches, but Belgium has enough offensive talent to make any goalkeeper work —including Kevin De Bruyne, Youri Tielemans, veteran striker Romelu Lukaku, playmaker Leandro Trossardand Charles De Ketelaere, whohad two goals against theAmericans. Despite awealth of good players around teenagesensation Lamine Yamal,Spain hasn’tscored with as much ﬂair as Belgium in this tournament, gettingseven of its nine goals at the World Cup in two routs of overmatched Saudi Arabia

and Austria. La Roja managed only Mikel Merino’s clutch injury-time goal whilebeating Portugal 1-0in theround of 16.

“Ultimately we have been very focused on the defensive aspect, but we’ve also historically scored alot,” Spaincoach LuisDeLa Fuente said Thursday.“Ithink we have the most attempts on goal (in this World Cup).Perhaps alittle bitmore efﬁcacy,and we might also be the squadthatscores the most. But we’re so good on the attack that it givesthe opponent little opportunitytocome theother way.” Striker Mikel Oyarzabal scored two goalsinSpain’sﬁrst appearance at SoFi Stadium last week, leading Spain to a3-0 rout of Austria.

“I think we’ve managed to build areally solid core group,” Oyarzabal said. “Regardless of whether things go well or badly,or who’splaying, the team responds, andIthink that’scrucial. We’ve achieved something very difficult: creating that kind of unity within thenational team.” Belgium has been to the World Cupquarterfinals more recently than Spain.The veteranBelgian stars were youngsters eight years ago when the Red Devils madethe semifinals in Russia, while Spain hadn’twon aknockoutmatch since winning theWorld Cup in 2010.

Yamal’stime?

Yamal still hasn’tbrokenout in his ﬁrst World Cup, scoring only one goal for Spain. His teammates andcoaches say they’re quite satisﬁedwith his overall tournament performance, which began with limited playing time in the group matches while he returned from a hamstringinjury incurred in April

with Barcelona.

“Maybe he hasn’tcontributed goals, but he brings all the attack,” midfielder Gavi said. “He’sincredible. Ihope that now if we win, hopefully in the semifinals or the final, too, if we win, then he scores goals so people understand what he does forus.”

De La Fuente praised Yamal foranexcellent two-wayperformance against Portugal. The coach even credited Yamal for thefact that Nuno Mendes, who wasattempting to markYamal, had to leave early in the second half with an injury

“He’s very motivated,” De La Fuente said. “(Yamal) wants to do so much, and we knowthe best version of him,the attacking Lamine, is something we haven’tseen yet in this World Cup. He hadtowork on thedefensive sidequite abit because we were facing apowerhouse of arival. Ithink this wasan exercise in maturity forLamine He’s goingtoperformonthe attacking front, that’sclear.He’sgot incredible potential, andit’sgoing to come.”

Injury concerns forBelgium Belgium lost midfielder Amadou Onana to aknee injury this week, forcing atactical change to preserve its defensive structure. That change might simply be the return of De Bruyne,who likely didn’tplay against the U.S. to keep himintop condition forFriday’s match. Winger JérémyDoku is thought to be healthy now,but hasn’tconsistently played well at the World Cup.

Nico Williams is expected to be ﬁt after being limited earlierinthe World Cup, and Spain otherwise appears to be in good health.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MARTIN MEISSNER

France forward Kylian Mbappé celebrates after defeating Morocco in aWorld Cupquarterfinal match on ThursdayinFoxborough, Mass.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTOByTONy GUTIERREZ Spain players celebrate after MikelMerino scored agoal during aWorld Cupmatchagainst Portugal on MondayinArlington, Texas.Spain will face Belgium on Friday

PitcherLatzloneAll-Starfor Rangers

BY STEPHENHAWKINS AP baseball writer

ARLINGTON,Texas

JacobLatzwent to spring training with the Rangers competing for aspot in their rotation. He instead became an All-Star closer,even after his ﬁrst appearance forTexas this seasonwas as astarter and he didn’thave asave until late April.

Latzisthe only Rangers player named to the American League All-Star team for Tuesday’sgame in Philadelphia. That is also where they opened the season, and he threw four no-hitinnings while starting their second game on March 28, only after two-time Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom wasa late scratchbecause of neck stiffness

This season has certainly been an unexpected twist for the 30-yearold left-hander who has longed to be abig league starter.Heisexcelling in aﬁrst-time role, with 18 saves in 20 opportunities and a1.71 ERA in 33 games.

“When Ididn’tget the starting role Iwas hurt in the moment, forsure,”Latzsaid. “ButIknew that therewere good things ahead because of the work Iput in during the offseason. Ididn’tknow it would show up this way.”

That spot start for Latz inPhiladelphia came only days after being told he didn’tmake the rotation. He instead went into abullen without a designated closer,and he didn’tget his ﬁrst save until April 25.

Latz was named AL reliever of the month in June after his 11 saves set afranchiserecord for the most in any single month. Hisother appearanceinJune wasaperfect

LSU

Continued from page1C

believed that his valuebelonged moreinthe thirdorfourthround.

Athird scout said he’d be comfortable with taking him in the back half of the ﬁrst.

Curiel isn’taperfect player. He only hit 13 home runs in college, and scouts question whether he has the tools to ever become an All-Star-caliber player in the big leagues. But the divisive nature of his draft value among scoutshad less to do with who Curiel is as a player and more to do with how they value aplayerlike him

“He’skind of like one of those in the eye of the beholder type of players, because there are some people that will point to the contact skills and say,‘Hey, we can make swing changes to get him into more power,’ one scout said.

“And there’ssome people who will say, ‘He’s justnot going to hitthe power.’

“There’speople withinour organization that do thinkhe’sa deﬁnite ﬁrst rounder.”

Aplayer that scouts have often comparedCurieltoisCleveland Guardians left fielderSteven Kwan. Like Curiel,Kwanisan excellent contact hitter with little power and an elite left ﬁelder who can play center in apinch.

“I think (Curiel’s) like aGold Glove left fielder and acompetent center fielder,” another scoutsaid “And now you’re putting him in the Steven Kwan bucket. As good aplayer as Steven Kwan is, he wasn’tdrafted in the first round.”

Despite these concerns about his power (or lack thereof) and ceiling, mock drafts have consistently pegged Curiel as aﬁrst-round pick. One scout —who believed he was closer to being asecond-round type of player —theorized that his draft stock is as high as it is because of the makeup of this year’s draft class.

“I think he ends up going in the top-15,” the scout said. “And it’sbecause how conﬁdentare you in any hitter in this college class? Everyonestruck out.”

If Curiel dropped out of theﬁrst round, the chances of his return to school could rise signiﬁcantly,for two reasons.He’srepresented by Scott Boras, an agent who often won’tallow his clients to sign for a salary he believes is less than what they’re worth. Curiel also holds negotiating leverage over teams as a draft-eligible sophomorebecause he couldreturn to LSU next year with two years of eligibility remaining

“I think if he had stayed struggling, Ithink there wasa good chance he goes back (to school),” one scout said. “Because as asophomore eligible (player), he could go back and it wouldn’thurt.”

LSU, however,doesn’tseem to believe that Curiel or Jake Brown could end up back at school. LSU has added three outﬁelders from the transfer portalthis summer all of whom have the pedigree and

ninth inning in agame that went to extra innings.

Hisonlysave in the big leagues before this yearwas pitching the final three innings of a10-2 win over Baltimore last season, when as aswingman he started eight of his 33games.

“He’salways super even-keeled.

The qualitiestobeacloser,the temperament, the moundpresence and thestuff, he’sgot allof those,”ﬁrst-year Rangers manager

talenttostart right away

Tulane’s Jason Wachs, Oregon’s Angel Laya andNotreDame’s Bino Watters all made the top-60 of ESPN’sportal rankings. Laya and Watters cracked the top-15.

Prediction: First round, likely top15

Jake Brown, RF

Draftrankings: No. 41, The Athletic; No. 59, MLB.com;No. 64, ESPN

Breakdown: Brown had an excellentcareer at LSU. He hit .304 with a.951OPS over threeseasons,won anational championship as asophomore andshowcaseddangerous pull-sidepower as aleft-handed hitter in hisfinal year in Baton Rouge.

He arrived at LSU as an excellentathlete drafted outofhigh school as apitcher.Henow enters the draft withthe same athletic upside, but as aright ﬁelder who can potentially play center and has abig arm

“He hit for more power,and then, Ithought he didbetter against lefties this year,” one scout said. “Because last year they really didn’t expose him to many, but Ithought he didalittle better job.”

Brown was on track to potentially become aﬁrst-round pick after a hot start to theseason, but adownturn in production in Southeastern Conference play andabrokenhamatebone in his right hand at the endof theyear added some question marks to his proﬁle.

One scout toldThe Advocate that theinjury could affect Brown’s draft stock.Hebelieves theLouisiana native needed three full seasons as ahittertoprovehecould do it at ahigh level in professional baseball.

“Him missingthat muchofhis junior year,”the scoutsaid, “probably hurts him more than just aboutevery player.”

Twoscouts who spoke with The Advocate said that Brownwill land in the second round. Between Brown and Curiel, onescoutsaid that he thought Brownhad abetter chance of endingupback at school thanCuriel, despite Curiel better ﬁtting the proﬁleofaplayerwho could return to school as adrafteligible sophomore.

Prediction: Second round

DevenSheerin,RHP

Draftrankings: No. 145, MLB.com; No. 163, ESPN

Breakdown: Sheerin’send-of-season numbers don’taccurately reﬂect howgoodhewas through most of his onlyhealthy campaign at LSU.

At 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, Sheerinhas afastball that’supto 98 mph and adelivery that makes him especially difﬁcult for righthandedhitterstoface. Those traits allowed himtostrike out 58 batters in 372/3 innings

“You can seethe deception,the stuff, thesize,” one scout said. “I would say it’sall that stuff.”

Sheerin also throws aslider that could use some sharpening, and he missedall of last season witha torn ACL. The injury,one scout said, mayhave affectedhis conditioning

Skip Schumakersaid. “I still think

he could be areally good starter

That’show good he is. Ihave no ideawhathis future’sgoingtolook like,but having All-Staronhis resume no matter what is pretty sweet.”

Schumaker, an adviserfor Texas lastyear,and Latz met for lunchin California during the offseason to talk aboutwhatthe pitcher needed to do to prepare to compete for a rotation spot.

They had what Schumaker called “a really challengingconversation”late in spring training. Latz responded that he wanted to pitch high-leverage innings.

“You earn those innings, you’re notjust given those innings. He absolutely earned it two, three weeks into the season,” Schumaker said. “Long storyshort, that conversation in the offseason at lunchwas amazing,thendisappointment, then back to amazing.”

in the second half of this year

Despite theinjury,ESPN still has Sheerin as one of the top relievers in thedraft. Butbecause of his future as areliever,don’texpect Sheerin to be pickedinthe first few rounds of the draft.

“Relievers are so hard to peg,” one scout said. “But Iwould guess he goes somewhere (fourth round to 10th round), somewhere in that range.”

Prediction: 3rd-5th round

Santiago Garcia,LHP

Draft rankings: N/A

Breakdown: Garcia’slone season at LSUhad itsups anddowns, but theleft-handed reliever possesses afew traits that shouldappealto major leagueteams

He has aclean delivery,agood breakingballand afastballthat can get into themid-90s.Consistently throwing strikes wasanissue for Garcia —which likely limits his ceiling to being areliever but his best traits should still allow him to be drafted.

“I thinkatthe end of the day,his breaking ball, once again,provides him aﬂoor of alefty reliever,” one scout said. “And if he’sgoing to throw 93, 94, touch 95, then that’s not bad.”

The same scout said he’d be willing to pickGarciainthe seventh round and prefers him to Sheerin, despiteSheerin’spedigree as one of the top relievers in thedraft

“You’ll probably laugh,” the scout said. “But Ithink there’s moreupside and Iwill always take alefty over arighty.”

Prediction: 7th-10th round

GavinGuidry, RHP

Draft rankings: N/A

Breakdown: After fourseasons with theTigers, Guidry didn’tfully close the book on areturn to Baton Rouge for aﬁfth year,but he did express awillingness to move on to professional baseball in an interview with104.5 ESPN after this season. Guidry,who began his collegiate career as an inﬁelder and missed alloflast year with aback injury,

Latz has ﬁvesaves when pitching twoinnings,and hisMLB-leading nine saves getting at least four outs are the most for aRangers pitcher since Francisco Cordero had nine the entire 2004 season.

“This is aplayerwho hasdeveloped alittle bit later in his career, but it’snot for alack of determination and work ethic. This guy is as committedasanybody I’ve seen in the game, and he’snot afraid of the moment,” saidRangers president of baseball operationsChris Young, aformer big league pitcher Texas took Latz in the seventh round of the 2017 draft afterhe pitched only 81/3 innings over three college seasons. He missed his freshman season at LSU in 2015 because of astressreactioninhis left elbowthatrequiredsurgery, then pitched in only seven games in 2016. He then went to Kent State but was unable to play there because of NCAA transfer rules.

Latz made his big league debut by starting his only game forthe Rangers in 2021 before the transition to the bullpen.Hedidn’t pitch in the majors again until three relief appearances in 2023, andhemade46morethe following season.

“Just incremental steps along theway.Itwas atough climbto getback frommycollege career to where we are at right now,” he said. “Little by little, Itried to solidifymyself as amajor league player,and lastyear wasabig step forward, just growingthe conﬁdence. It wasn’ttruly linear but learned alot along theway And Ithink it deﬁnitelymakes it alittlemore meaningful doing it this way.”

that’snoway to pitch.”

Benge has afastballthat sits in the mid 90s and agood slider Control has been an issue for him and he doesn’thave the size to be astarter,but he has “enough stuff to be drafted,” as one scout put it.

Prediction: Rounds 11-20

ZacCowan,RHP

Draft rankings: N/A

Breakdown: Cowanhad astellar collegiate career,becoming akey arm on anational championshipwinning team and developing into an ace at Wofford before transferring to LSU Cowan’sprospects in professional baseball, however,are more muted. His fastball hasnever reached the mid-90s,helacks a plus breakingballand he doesn’t offer much deception with hisdelivery His changeup and command are both excellent, but his ceiling is relatively low as asenior

consistently struggled to avoid hard contact, allowing 10 home runs in 432/3 innings. His issues came as asurprise following two campaigns in which he was one of LSU’s best arms outofthe bullpen.

“I am afan of Guidry.I thinkhe should have signed last year with the hurt back and all,” one scout said. “I did talk to his agent during thesummer, and he just decided he wanted to go back,whichisﬁne.I don’treally know what they’re looking for ﬁnancially,but he probably ought to just take it and move on, do something else.”

The same scout believed that much of Guidry’sstruggles this season originated from LSU’s coaching staff notputting him in theright positions to succeed consistently

“I don’tthink he’spitching right,” thescoutsaid. “I don’tthink his fastball has enough on it to pitch upstairs like he is. But once again, he has agood slider.The slider gives him aﬂoor as areliever

“You’re asinker/slider guy.Go with it, because you’re going to have more successthatway than what you’re doing right now.”

Guidry isn’tguaranteed to be drafted this weekend, and he went to the Cape Cod Baseball League this summer to help raise his draft stock. Buthis slider andtrack recordbefore this season suggest that he deserves ashot in professional baseball.

Prediction: Rounds 11-20

Connor Benge, RHP

Draft rankings: N/A

Breakdown: Benge didn’tpitch much in two seasons in Baton Rouge,throwing only 23 innings. Thatsmall sample size wasfrustrating for onescout whospoke with The Advocate.

“With all those guys, it’shard to pitch when you’re looking over your shoulder right whenyou get in thegame,”the scoutsaid. “I don’tknow howJay didn’tknow that, but if you throw one ball, and you’re like, ‘Okay,I’m already going to be out, here’sthe next guy.’ I just think, as someone who played,

“I guess you’re hoping you can get him to throw harder,” one scout said. “But if he hasn’tbynow,that’s probably going to be it.”

Prediction: Rounds 11-20

GrantFontenot, RHP

Draft rankings: N/A

Breakdown: Fontenot pitched more than he ever had before this year as aﬁfth-year senior, posting a4.18 ERA over 321/3 innings andsporting afastball that reached 98 mph at the start of the season. His slider could use some work, andhedidn’thaveareliable third pitch, but Fontenotthrewmore strikes thisseason after appearing in just six games in 2025.

“He got to pitch more this year than he ever had,” one scout said. “So it kind of told you they believed in him more.” Fontenot pitched well enough this season to potentially be drafted, but one scout questions whether he’llactuallyget picked up by ateam.

“He’sayear older and really the samekid,” the scout said. “So why didn’tanyone sign him last year?”

Prediction: Rounds 11-20

ChrisStanfield, OF

Draft rankings: N/A

Breakdown: Stanﬁeld’sseniorseason was definedbyinjuries. He broke his hand diving into home plate in the second gameofthe year,and then hurt his hamstring during the back half of the season and never fully recovered. When healthy last year,hestarted in center field for theeventualnationalchampions and hit a career-best .298 with an .818 OPS. But despite those impressive credentials, three scouts told The Advocate they don’texpect him to be drafted this weekend.

“Small possibility,” one scout said. “Ifitdoes (happen), it will be late.”

Prediction: Undrafted

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

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU pitcher GavinGuidry throws the ball during drills before agame against Oklahoma on March 21 at Alex Box Stadium.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOByLyNNE SLADKy

TexasRangers relief pitcher Jacob Latz throws during the ninth inning of agameagainst the MiamiMarlinson

June 22 in Miami. Latz is the only Rangers playernamed to the AL All-Star team

ESSENCE BEST

The sharp-dressed the Rev.Al Sharpton and Idon’tshare the same fashion sense, but we do have one thing in common.We’ve both attended everyEssence Festival of Culture since its1995 inception.

The 2026edition still felt like Essence Fest,even as different owners, operators and managers haveimplemented changes over the decades. Daytime events at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center are ahuge part of the overall Essence experience. My focus is on the three nights of Caesars Superdome concerts. What went right at the Dome last weekend? What can be improved? Until the Rev.Sharpton weighs in, here are my thoughts.

Concertattendance

Overall concert attendance increased this year compared to 2025’sturnout, reportedly oneof

thelowest in thefestival’shistory No night was asellout.Friday came closest; approximately 32,000 or so of the40,000 avail-

Sunday wasthe leastattended nightbut most eclectic lineup

BY KEITH SPERA Staff writer

Atlanta rapper T.I. and the LouisianaPhilharmonic Orchestra supplied allthe “Motivation” necessary to stick aroundfor the 2026 Essence Festival of Culture’s conclusion late Sunday night at the Caesars Superdome. Pumped up by strings, brass, woodwinds and drums, T.I.’s 2004 song “Motivation” hit even harder than the original recorded version. It was one of many high points in an orchestral/hip-hop hybrid that topped an especially eclectic Essence roster Between the T.I./LPO closing and George Clinton’sopening with dozens of musicians and guests, farmore people stepped onstage SundaythanonEssence’sﬁrst two nights. Conversely,Sunday’sshow wasthe leastat-

able seats were occupied. Attendance dipped to around 25,000 on Saturday and was even lower on Sunday.Most of the ter-

tended.Approximately 20,000 people were reportedly in the Dome. More seats, especially in the terrace and loge levels, were emptythan occupied.

That was especially true when George Clinton andhis sprawling Parliament Funkadelic crew kickedoff exactly at 7p.m., when many attendees were just arriving. If Clinton, who turns 85 on July 22, was discouraged, he didn’tshow it. He and his band of merry pranksters plunged right in, cheered on by acluster of hardcore fans down front. From thesinger wearing a Marie Antoinette wig with ﬂashing lights, a leopard-print bikini and sparkling platform shoes tothe shirtless guitarist withmetallic angel wings and a crown, the band was on brand. So was the music, an up-tempo, unrelenting swirl of electric guitar and groove-powered funk.This wasn’tthe slinky,spartan funk of New Orleans’ Meters; this was throw-it-all-in funk

race level,which contains nearly athird of allavailable seats in the Dome, was empty Sunday ASunday drop-offistobeexpected, as manyout-of-towners travel home to go to workthe next day.But this past Sunday’s attendance was precipitously low AndSaturday wasn’tthe sort of blockbuster night it should be.

Idon’tknow how manytickets Essence needs to at least break even. Sponsorships, VIPenhancements andsubsidies from the city and state cover achunk of the costs.

Butorganizers deﬁnitely want morethan 20,000 people in the Superdome.

TheAunties

As ﬁrst-timeoverall curators of Essence, actress/singer Teyana Taylor and her creative collective

The Aunties came up with fresh ideas that enhanced the overall experience.

Chief among them was the entertainment between mainstage acts. The Aunties showcased New

Orleans acts in ameaningful way, including bounce rapper HaSizzle and Flagboy Giz. Deploying adozen or so Zulu Tramps to cavort in the crowd was another nice touch. Attendees from Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles and New York —judging by the DJs’shoutouts, these cities all sent sizable contingents to the Superdome— likely had no idea what to makeof the Tramps in their feathers and face paint.

But the Tramps couldn’ttake twosteps on the Dome ﬂoor without being stopped forselﬁes, which then becamepostcards for New Orleans culture.

The mainstage emcees and DJs did agood job as well. They understood that “swag surﬁng” is asureﬁre crowd-pleaser.Cameos by the likes of “Barbershop” heartthrob Michael Ealy were also fun.

Conversely,comedian Kountry Wayne —who is not from New

STAFF PHOTO By KEITHSPERA

ATramp from the Krewe of Zulu poses with attendees at the 2026 Essence Festival at the Caesars Superdome on Saturday. The Tramps were popular withthe crowds.

STAFF PHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK

GeorgeClinton and members of Parliament Funkadelic performinfront of their newmothership during the final night of the 2026 Essence FestivalonSunday.

PHOTO By BENNETT RAGLIN/GETTy IMAGES FOR ESSENCE Cardi Bperforms during the 2026 Essence Festival’sopeningnight on Fridaybefore the biggest crowd of the weekend in the CaesarsSuperdome.

Keith Spera

PHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK GeorgeClinton performs on Sundayatthe Essence Festival.

PHOTO By JOSH BRASTED/GETTy IMAGES FOR ESSENCE Normani, from left, Ryan Destiny, Mya, Chlöe and Sevyn Streeter performduring the Aaliyah tribute on the final night of the 2026 Essence Festivalatthe Caesars Superdome on Sunday

Orleans — and his brand of humor may not have set the right tone as the lead-in to the Aaliyah tribute.

In search of a Superlounge

Teyana Taylor was intimately involved with Saturday’s onenight revival of an Essence Superlounge on the Dome’s second level It hosted performances by Raheen DeVaughan, Lil Mo and Teedra Moses. If you didn’t know about the Superlounge, you’re not alone. Essence only alerted subscribers, even though it was open to everyone. The concept of a speakeasystyle secret Superlounge is intriguing. But if you’re going through all the trouble to make it happen, why not let more people know?

Changing tastes

Rapper Cardi B headlined this year’s most attended night. The undercard included another contemporary rapper, Latto. Essence has always catered to the “grown and sexy” demographic, i.e., music fans who are responsible adults in their 30s and older But that demographic’s tastes and timelines have shifted. In the festival’s early years, the Essence audience was nostalgic for the music of the 1960s and ’70s. Thirty years later, “nostalgia” at Essence means the music of the 1980s, ’90s and even the early 2000s.

Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, who wrote and produced dozens of contemporary R&B hits in the ’80s and ’90s while also singing his own, is to Essence now what Smokey Robinson, who wrote and sang many hits in the ’60s and ’70s, was in the festival’s early years I don’t think Essence wants

CLOSES

Continued from page 1D

Visually and sonically, the show was a nonstop spectacle. The musicians romped through “We Want the Funk” and “Get Off Your Ass and Jam,” essentially their theme song Nona Hendryx, who recorded “Lady Marmalade” alongside Patti LaBelle, took a turn on lead vocals.

So did gospel singer Kim Burrell. Big Boi from OutKast joined in. Veteran P-Funk guitarist Michael Hampton carved out searing solos during the instrumental “Maggot Brain.”

In 1976, Clinton debuted his famed Mothership prop at New Orleans’ Municipal Auditorium.

Fifty years later a new replica of the original spaceship descended from the stage rigging. The shiny capsule’s lights ﬂashed as the band pulled out “Flashlight.”

Acclaimed tap dancer and actor Savion Glover, as the character Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk, broke into a bout of frenetic tapping ahead of “Atomic Dog.”

Omega Psi Phi fraternity brothers — Clinton is an honorary member — danced onstage alongside other friends and guests. Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and Big Freedia were nearly lost in the scrum.

A Fresh hit parade

By contrast, Doug E. Fresh, the human beatbox and Essence Fest favorite, is essentially a one-man show. His beatboxing is like Glover’s tap-dancing: a remarkable show of dexterity, speed and skill. Fresh has no trouble commanding a room the size of the Superdome because he knows the Essence audience well. Cueing up the late Rob Base’s “It Takes Two,” he knew, would go over huge. So did his surprise guests, from Scarface to MC Lyte to Tevin Campbell, who sang his hit “Can We Talk?” Rapper Too Short

the younger, rowdier crowd that, say, NBA Youngboy draws. But changing tastes and demographics need to be considered.

On time

Essence made huge strides to correct the punctuality and production problems that contributed to Lauryn Hill playing to an empty Superdome at 3 a.m. in 2025.

This year each night proceeded more or less on schedule. Essence even got George Clinton, with his ﬁlm clips, dozen-plus bandmembers and spaceship, rolling right at 7 p.m.; he ﬁnished at exactly 8:30 as scheduled

Brandy and Monica wrapped up at 2 a.m. Saturday night, the latest

of the three nights. Much of the crowd had already left by then. That was partly because their show wasn’t particularly compelling. But maybe 2 a.m. is just too late for many people.

Essence cut back from eight acts per night in 2025 to ﬁve this year Kirk McDonanld, CEO of Essence parent company Sundial Media & Technology Group, has suggested that four acts nightly might be the sweet spot.

He’s probably right. If the show starts at 7 p.m. and ends at 1 a.m., no one should feel shortchanged. Six hours is still a lot of music. What time is it?

Essence needs to address its frustrating habit of waiting until

hours before the doors open each night to reveal exactly when each act will perform. Those times need to come out sooner That would require conﬁrming the performers earlier and allotting the proper amount of time for each.

This year, two hours was at least 30 minutes too long for Brandy and Monica — especially when their scheduled start time was 11:25 p.m. (It was midnight when they actually started). And 40 minutes was at least 20 minutes too short for Patti LaBelle, who delivered one of the most consistent performances I’ve ever seen her deliver at Essence.

chopped up his 20-year-old track

“Blow the Whistle.” Gospel singer Marvin Sapp brieﬂy took the crowd to church.

“Thank you my brothers and sisters,” Fresh exclaimed. “I hope you had a good time!”

It’s hard not to when Doug E. Fresh is on the microphone.

Today is Friday, July 10, the 191st day of 2026. There are 174 days left in the year Today in History: On July 10, 1940, during World War II, the Battle of Britain began as the German Luftwaffe launched attacks on southern England. (The Royal Air Force was ultimately victorious.) Also on this date: In 1509, theologian John Calvin, a key ﬁgure of the Protestant Reformation, was born in Noyon,

Less lights

Some years, the main Essence Stage featured more LED screens and scrolls than Times Square.

In what was likely a cost-cutting measure, this year’s staging was barebones by comparison.

But all the Times Square ﬂash could be a bit much. As long as the LED screens are large enough so the folks sitting in the upper reaches of the Dome see the action, that’s ﬁne. And the row of movable uplights running the length of the lip of the stage was a nice touch.

Calling superstars

If the free daytime events at the Convention Center and elsewhere were well attended, that means a large number of Essence fans speciﬁcally decided not to go to the nighttime concerts.

The music lineup was certainly a factor

Overall, the lineup wasn’t bad; Sunday’s roster was especially diverse and interesting. But no night boasted a stadium-sized superstar along the lines of Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Usher, Janet Jackson or Chris Brown.

Additionally, Saturday headliner

Brandy & Monica had just performed at the Smoothie King Center in December Many locals may have opted to not see them again. Booking superstar talent is not easy especially when many of them are more inclined to embark on tours promoted by Live Nation or AEG Presents instead of playing at independent festivals such as Essence.

But superstars are necessary to drive Essence ticket sales.

If I’m an Essence producer I’m sending ﬂowers to Sade every week until she agrees to launch a comeback tour at the 2027 Essence Festival. That would be a sellout.

Email Keith Spera at kspera@ theadvocate.com.

lar to Aaliyah’s.

After a brief video retrospective about Aaliyah, who died in a 2001 plane crash at age 22, a full band arrayed on cubed stage risers backed the singer Mya on Aaliyah’s “Back & Forth;” Mya later returned for “At Your Best (You Are Love).”

Ryan Destiny delivered “If Your Girl Only Knew.” Normani handled “Try Again” and “Rock the Boat.” Chlöe delivered “More Than a Woman.” Sevyn Streeter sent a “4 Page Letter.” Winding down at midnight, the tribute was a respectful remembrance of an artist who passed way too young. T.I. finale

Public Enemy’s power

Nearly 40 years after “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” introduced Public Enemy’s brand of politically charged rap, the band’s principals and principles are still in place.

At Essence on Sunday crown prince Chuck D worked the front

Picardy, France. In 1890, Wyoming was admitted as the 44th U.S state. In 1925, jury selection began in Dayton, Tennessee, in the trial of John T Scopes, charged with violating the law by teaching Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. (Scopes was convicted and ﬁned, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality.) In 1929, American paper currency was reduced in size as the government began issuing bills that were approximately 25% smaller

In 1951, armistice talks aimed at ending the Korean War began at Kaesong. In 1962, the first active communications satellite, Telstar 1, was launched by NASA. In 1985, the Greenpeace protest ship Rainbow Warrior was sunk with explosives in Auckland, New Zealand, by French intelligence agents; one activist was killed. In 1991, Boris N. Yeltsin took the oath of office as the first elected president of the Russian republic. In 1991, President George H.W

of the stage with clown prince Flavor Flav Members of the S1Ws, the military police-style security team, moved in crisp, choreographed steps.

Enlivened by a live band, Chuck D and Flavor Flav bounced back and forth between classic and contemporary anthems. They stormed through “Can’t Truss It,” “Shut ‘em Down” and the 2025 single “Public Enemy Comin’ Throooo.” Chuck D gave a shoutout to the Meters and that band’s “Cissy Strut.”

“911 Is a Joke” and “Fight the Power” threw back to Public Enemy’s classic “Fear of a Black Planet.” Their set was strong, but it was a tough sell to an audience more primed to party thanks to Doug E. Fresh.

Remembering Aaliyah

Hip-hop icon Missy Elliott curated Sunday’s tribute to her late friend and collaborator Aaliyah but didn’t perform. Instead, she coordinated ﬁve guest singers whose vocal styles are more simi-

Bush lifted U.S. economic sanctions against South Africa. In 2002, the U.S. House approved a measure to allow airline pilots to carry guns in the cockpit to defend their planes against terrorists (President George W. Bush later signed the measure into law). In 2015, South Carolina pulled the Confederate battle

T.I. occupied the Sunday night Essence closing slot that belonged to the late Frankie Beverly for years. A mass Electric Slide didn’t break out during T.I., as it inevitably did during Beverly and Maze. But T.I., in a sharply tailored double-breasted black jacket, brought his considerable charisma to bear in a compelling set. The orchestra locked in with him for the rolling cadence of “ASAP.” He introduced a swaggering “Stand Up” with, “To do this with an orchestra seems like a full circle moment.”

T.I. held a much higher percentage of the late-night crowd than Monica & Brandy did on Saturday Such energetic anthems as “Whatever You Like,” with its sing-song melody and call-andresponse engagement, helped. So did the big drums in the chorus of “Bring ‘em Out.” His current single, “Let ‘em Know,” was one last crowd-pleasing blast of symphonically enhanced hip-hop.

T.I. was likely the ﬁrst LPO collaborator to urge audience members to raise their middle ﬁngers. But the unlikely pairing worked. As Public Enemy also demonstrated, a rap performance is almost always enhanced by a band. Or, it turns out, an orchestra. Email Keith Spera at kspera@ theadvocate.com.

The Associated Press

(Pet

LeVox (Rascal Flatts)

Actor Thomas Ian Nicholas is 46. Singer/ actor Jessica Simpson is 46. Actor

Skeggs is 36. Pop singer Perrie Edwards (Little Mix) is 33. Actor Isabela Merced is 25.

PHOTO By BENNETT RAGLIN/GETTy IMAGES FOR ESSENCE

Chuck D and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy perform Sunday on the final day of the 2026 Essence Festival.

STAFF PHOTO By ENAN CHEDIAK

Trombone Shorty, right, performs with George Clinton during the Essence Festival on Sunday

STAFF PHOTO By KEITH SPERA

Most of the Caesars Superdome had emptied out by 1:38 a.m. as Brandy and Monica continued to perform late on the second night of the 2026 Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans on Saturday

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Reach out, get the lowdown and do what you can to help. The response you receive will change how you feel about yourself and what you want to pursue. Look for original ways to improve your profile.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Take the road less traveled. Look for new opportunities to put your attributes to good use. Engage in events that reflect something you want to pursue in life.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Listen to your inner voice, not what someone else is prompting you to do. Don't be a tagalong when you have dreams of your own to pursue. You don't need to change to please others.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Focus on values, and set a course to embark on what moves you most. Take the path that allows you the freedom to breathe easy and satisfy your soul. A domestic adjustment will open your eyes.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) Trust your instincts when dealing with others. Be resourceful, research, ask questions and determine what's most likely to support your long-term plans. An emotional situation will help mold your perspective.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Easy does it. You'll be manipulated if you let your heart lead the way. Stay focused on what's happening in your relationships and how you can ensure equality.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Physical activity will help you blow off steam. Protect yourself against those trying to

part you from your money or encourage you to take a risk with your physical or emotional well-being.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Pay attention to what's happening at home or to those you love. Compensations are necessary when at a crossroads or embarking on a lifestyle change. Stop worrying about what went wrong PISCES (Feb 20-March 20) Listen to your heart, not what others try to lead you to believe. Be resourceful and engage in activities and events that require your intellect and experience, and you will outperform those who challenge you

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Opportunity begins with you. Don't hide when it's necessary to put yourself out there and connect with people who can spark your imagination and inspire you to make changes to how you earn your living.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Engage in events that bring you in contact with like-minded people Home improvements that make your life easier will turn into viable solutions to whatever is lacking in your life.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Change may be haunting you, but acting in haste will send you on a wild-goose chase. Slow down and rethink every move; time is on your side.

FAMILY CIrCUS

Sudoku

InstructIons: sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with severalgiven numbers. Theobject is to place the numbers 1to9inthe emptysquares so that eachrow,eachcolumn andeach3x3 box contains the same number only once. Thedifficulty levelofthe sudoku increasesfrom monday to sunday.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

THe wiZardoFid

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

CurTiS

Bridge

BY PHILLIP ALDER

Hesiod, an early Greek poet, said, “Observe due measure,for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”

Thatappliestomanybridgecontracts, either to make or to break them. This deal gives bothsides achance for good timing once North-South push into four hearts.

West leads the spade two. How can Eastdefeatthecontract?HowcanSouth gethome if East wins the first trick and tries to cash asecond spade winner?

The bidding was difficult. When one spadecamearound,Norththoughtabout makingatakeoutdouble,butwasrightly nervous about having only two hearts. After North balanced with two clubs, South might have passed, but advanced withtwohearts,knowingthathispartner would remember that he had not immediatelymadeatwo-heartovercall.North cue-bidtwospadestoshowastronghand and ask his partner to bid no-trumpwith aspade stopper. (Five clubs can be defeated after atrump lead.)

Eastbeatsfourheartsifheshiftstothe diamond queen at tricktwo. This gives thedefenders the tempo to collect one spade, two hearts and one diamond. But that is not clear-cut.

If East tries to cash asecond spade trick, South should ruff andbewilling to give thedefendersone spadeand two hearts. He shouldignore the trump finesse andcashhis top hearts. Then he turns to theclubs and gets hisdiamond losers awayintime.

Each Wuzzle is aword riddle which creates adisguised word,phrase, name, place, saying, etc. Forexample: nOOn gOOD =gOOD aFTErnOOn

Previous answers:

word game

InstRuctIons: 1. Words mustbeoffour or more letters. 2. Words that acquire four letters by theaddition of “s,” such as “bats” or “dies,” are not allowed. 3. additional words made by adding a“d” or an “s” may not be used. 4. proper nouns, slang words, or vulgar or sexually explicit words are not allowed.

toDAY’s WoRD MAtRons: MAY-truns: Marriedwomen, usually marked by dignifiedmaturity or social distinction.

Average mark 23 words

Timelimit 45 minutes Can you find37ormore words in MATRONS?

YEstERDAY’s WoRD—BAnIsHEs

so shall it not be amongyou: but whoever will be great among you, shall be your minister:” Mark 10:43

wuzzles

marmaduKe

Bizarro

hagar the horriBle

Pearls Before swiNe

garfield

B.C.

PiCKles

hidato

mallard

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. Formore information on tournaments and clubs,emailnaspa

ken ken

InstructIons: 1 -Each row and each column must containthe numbers 1thorugh4(easy) or 1through 6 (challenging) without repeating 2 -The numbers within the heavily outlinedboxes, calledcages, must combine 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.

Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

WiShinG Well

HErE is aplEasanT liTTlE gamEthat will give

the number of letters is

bers, lefttoright. Then read

Scrabble GramS

roSe

NO:868-191 PLANET HOME LENDING, LLC VS

By virtue of and inobedience to a Writ of SEIZURE AND SALEfromthe 24thJudicial DistrictCourt ParishofJeffer‐son,State of Louisiana,inthe above num‐beredand enti‐l d

bered and enti tled cause, dated August 28, 2025, Ihave seizedand will proceed to sell tothe highest bidderatpublic auction,atthe Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Ofﬁce Complex,1233 WestbankEx‐pressway, Har‐vey,Louisiana, 70058,onAu‐gust19, 2026 at 10o'clock a.m. the following described prop‐ertytowit: ONECERTAIN PIECE OR POR‐TIONOF GROUND,to‐h i h ll

gether with all the buildings andimprove‐ments thereon, situatedinthe CityofKenner, ParishofJeffer‐son,State of Louisiana, in HIGHWAY PARK SUBDIVISION (PopePark) in SQUARENO. 515, bounded by Illi‐noisAvenue (formerly Pine Street), 22nd Street (side) (formerly 2nd Street), Idaho Avenue (for‐merly Elm Street)and 21st Street (formerly WestMetairie Avenue), which id l i d i

) said lotisdesig‐nated as LOT Q",and com‐mencesata dis‐tance of 216.40 feet from the corner of Illinois Avenue and 21st Street and measures thence 50 feet fronton Illinois Avenue samewidth in the rear,and front on a15 foot alley, in therear, by a depth of 120 feetbetween equal andparal‐lel lines, allin accordance with thesurvey ofJ.L.Fontcu‐berta, Surveyor, d d

y , datedMay 31, 1965; subjectto restrictions, servitudes, rights-of-way andoutstanding mineral rights ofrecord affectingthe property.

Theimprove‐ments thereon bearthe Munici‐pal No.1909 Illi‐noisAvenue Kenner, Louisiana70062.

This sale is sub‐jecttoall supe‐riorsecurityin‐terests,mort‐gages,liens and privileges.

TERMS -The full purchaseprice isdue at the timeofthe sale

NOTE:All funds mustbe Cashier's Check, Certiﬁed Check, Money Order, or PersonalCheck withBankLetter ofCredit.

CANDACEA COURTEAU

Attorney for Plaintiff JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14,2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

VS CYNTHIA CARTER WEB‐BERA/K/A CYNTHIA CARTER BOOTH WEBBER AND FERNAND GEORGE WEBBER,JR. Byvirtueofand inobedience to a Writ of SEIZURE AND SALEfromthe 24thJudicial DistrictCourt, ParishofJeffer‐son,State of Louisiana,inthe above num‐bered andenti‐tledcause dated Septem‐ber29, 2025, I h i d d

have seized and willproceed to selltothe high‐est bidder at publicauction, atthe Jefferson ParishSheriff's Ofﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Expressway, Harvey Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust19, 2026 at 10o'clock a.m. the following described prop‐ertytowit: ACERTAIN PIECE OR POR‐TIONOF GROUND, to‐getherwithall the buildings and i

improvements thereon, andall of therights, ways,privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, appurtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in the Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in that part thereofknown as BrenvillaSubdi‐vision,asshown on plan of re‐subdivisionby AdloeOrr, Jr

C.E. & Associates datedApril 25, 1962, registered in COB553, folio 556, recordsof Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, des‐ignatedasLot 49-C. Allinac‐cordance with a survey by Dading,Mar‐ques &Associ‐ates,Inc., dated February 27, 1996, acopyof which is annexedtoact no.96-11857 and made apart hereof;subject to restrictions, servitudes, rights-of-way andoutstanding mineralrights of record affect‐ingthe property

Forinforma‐tional purposes only:Improve‐mentsthereon bear Municipal No.612 Sophia Street, RiverRidge Louisiana70123

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

CANDACEA COURTEAU

Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

time of thesale.

g g privileges.

together with allthe buildings andimprove‐ments thereon, andall of therights, ways,privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, appurte‐nances and advantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in thePARISH OF JEFFERSON, STATEOF LOUISIANA, in SQUARE “E”of BELMONT PLACE, bounded by Bel‐montPlace,N Line of Subdivi‐sion, KennerN.O. Interstate Highway, Jeferson Drive Subdivision, N. Turnbull Drive and33rdStreet, designated as LOT NO.2 on asur‐veymadeby Gilbert, Kelly & Couturie, Inc. Surveyor,dated May30, 1974, revised July 1, 1983, a copy of which is annexedtoan ActofMortgage dated August 1, 1983 by actpassed before Gerald Wasserman,No‐tary Public, recorded in MOB888, Folio 264, andaccord‐ingthereto,said LOTcommences at adistanceof 360 feet from thecornerof BelmontPlace and33rdStreet, measures thence 60 feet frontonBel‐mont Place, same width in therear, by a depth on the sideline nearer to 33rdStreet of 100.92 feet,and adepth on the opposite side‐line of 101.20 feet Andaccording to asurvey made by S. Z. S. Consultants datedDecem‐ber7,1993, theabove-de‐scribedprop‐erty hasthe same location, designationand dimensions as hereinaboveset forth.

Improvements thereonbear theMunicipal No.2509 Bel‐mont Place, Metairie Louisiana70001

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

PENNY M. DAIGREPONT Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedDecem‐ber8,2025, I have seized and will proceed to sell to thehigh‐estbidderat public auction, at theJefferson Parish Sheriff's Ofﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Expressway, Harvey, Louisiana, 70058, on Wednesday,Au‐gust 19,2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: REAL PROPERTY IN THECITYOF METAIRIE, COUNTY OF JEF‐FERSON,STATE OF LOUISIANA, DESCRIBEDAS FOLLOWS: LOT3,SQUARE 5, CHATEAU PARK SUBDIVI‐SION,MORE FULLYDE‐SCRIBEDAS FOLLOWS: THAT CERTAIN PIECEORPOR‐TION OF GROUND,TO‐GETHER WITH ALL RIGHTS,WAYS, SERVITUDES, APPURTE‐NANCES AND ADVANTAGES THEREUNTOBE‐LONGINGORIN ANYWISE AP‐PERTAINING SITUATED IN THE PARISH OF JEF‐FERSON,STATE OF LOUISIANA, IN THAT SUBDI‐VISION KNOWN AS CHATEAU PARK,BEING A RESUBDIVSION OF PLOTS340, 341, 330, 331, 328, 329, 316, 317, 318, 319, 304, 305, 306, 307, 294, 295, ANDPARTOF 292 AND 293, HESSMER FARMSSUBDIVI‐SION,ASPER SUBDIVISION PLAN OF WILLIAM MAIER, DATED415-70, RECORDED IN THEPARISHOF JEFFERSON UNDER ORDINANCENO. 10331INCOB 745, FOLIO 390. ACCORDING TO SAID PLAN LOT3 OF SQUARE 5IS SITUATED IN THAT SQUARE BOUNDEDBY CHATEAUDRIVE ANDWESTES‐PLANADEAV‐ENUE, HESSMERAV‐ENUE AND7TH STREET.LOT 3 COMMENCESAT ADISTANCEOF 116.07 FEET FROM THE COR‐NEROF CHATEAUDRIVE ANDWESTES‐PLANADE AVENUE,MEA‐SURESTHENCE 60 FEET FRONT ON CHATEAU DRIVE, THE SAME IN WIDTH IN THEREAR, BY ADEPTH OF 96.27 FEET ON THE SIDE LINE NEARESTTO WEST ES‐PLANADEAV‐ENUE,AND A DEPTHOF96.92 FEET ON THEOPPOSITE SIDE LINE. LOT3 OF SQUARE 5 LIES WHOLLY WITHIN WHAT WASORIGINAL PLOT 295OF HESSMER FARMSSUBDIVI‐SION.ALL AS MORE FULLYSHOWN ON THESURVEY OF JAMESF LUMSDEN, C.E., DATED3-20-72 AND7-23-72 (FINAL).

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

WILLIAMS TEBBE Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III

Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:874-262

PNCBANK, NATIONAL AS‐SOCIATION VERSUS AMANDA HERG‐ERTLACHNEY AND JULESJOSEPH LACHNEY

ACERTAIN LOT OF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings andimprove‐ments thereonand all therights, ways, privileges, servitudes,ad‐vantages and appurtenances thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in the PARISH OF JEF‐FERSON,STATE OF LOUISIANA, in that part thereofknown as GREATERHOLLY HEIGHTSSUBDI‐VISION,SEC‐TION 3, allin accordance with thesurvey of J.J. Krebs& Sons,Inc.dated June 29, 1971, ﬁledin Plan Book 74, folio 20, and also according to asurveyby J.J. Krebs& Sons dated December 17, 1971, said Prop‐erty is more fullydescribed as follows,towit:

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is due at the time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

RADERJACKSON

Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III

Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:870-835

WILMINGTON SAVINGSFUND SOCIETY, FSB, NOTINITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY BUT SOLELY AS OWNER

TRUSTEEOF CSMC 2018-SP3 TRUST VERSUS AHMADQ SIDDIQUI AND GULNAZ QAVI SIDDIQUI

7/25/97. THEIMPROVE‐MENTS THEREONBEAR THEMUNICIPAL NO.4409 RUEST. MARTIN,KEN‐NER, LOUISIANA 70065.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

KATE SOTO‐LONGO

Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III

Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

more fully shownona sur‐veybyGilbert, Kelly &Cou‐turie, Inc.,dated December 14, 2003; subjectto restrictions, servitudes, rights-of-way andoutstanding mineralrights of record affect‐ingthe prop‐erty

Thebelow is for informational purposes only: Theimprove‐mentsthereon bear theMunici‐palNumber:681 FERRIDAY COURT, HARAHAN, LA 70123.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

ELIZABETH CROWELLPRICE Attorney for Plaintiff

tates"On the Lake", as more fully shownon a plan of Cleve‐land Estates "Onthe Lake", Section 43, T12S-R10E, Jefferson Parish,LA, by Ronald Clement, P.L.S.,dated Au‐gust 03, 2018, andas supplemented by aplanofresubdivisionof Lots M-9, M-10, M-11 & M-12, andKhan CourtintoLots M-94, M-10A,M11A,M-12A,and Khan Court(Lot M-18),Cleve‐land Estates "Onthe Lake Subdivisionlo‐catedinSection 43, T12S-R10E,Jef‐ferson Parish, LA,byRonald Clement, P.L.S., datedSeptem‐ber29, 2020, registered at COB3445, folio 918, in the ofﬁcial records of theclerk of courtfor theParishof Jefferson, State of Louisiana.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests,mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

ALLASMORE FULLYSHOWN ON SURVEY OF DADING,MAR‐QUES & ASSOCIATES, INC. DATED9-161998

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe

LOTNO. 12 of SQUARE M, and said Square Mis bounded by RancherRoad, CascadeBoule‐vard,Sessions Lane andthe Northboundary of thesubdivi‐sion Section3;and Lot12com‐mences at adis‐tanceof797.06 feet from the corner of RancherRoad andSessions Lane andmea‐suresthence50 feet fronton Rancher Road,same width in the rear,bya depth of 100 feet be‐tween equal andparallel lines.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages,liens and

ONECERTAIN LOTOFGROUND, TOGETHER WITH ALLTHE BUILD‐INGS AND IMPROVEMENTS THEREON, AND ALLOFTHE RIGHTS,WAYS, PRIVILEGES, SERVITUDES APPURTE‐NANCES AND ADVANTAGES THEREUNTOBE‐LONGING OR IN ANYWISE APPERTAINING SITUATED IN THEPARISHOF JEFFERSON, STATEOF LOUISIANA, IN THECITYOF KENNER,IN THAT PART THEREOF KNOWNAS PLACE PONTCHAR‐TRAINSUBDIVI‐SION,AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEPLAN OF SUBDIVISION BY J.J. KREBS& SONS INC., DATED FEBRUARY,4, 1993, REVISED MAY24, 1993 ANDJUNE30, 1993, APPROVED BY THEKENNER CITY COUNCIL BY ORDINANCE NO.668, REGIS‐TEREDIN COB2873, FOLIO 814, SAID LOTIS DESIGNATED BY THENO. 28, AND MEASURES 75.00 FEET FRONTON RUEST. MARTIN SAME WIDTHIN THE REAR,BYA DEPTHOF130.00 FEET BETWEEN EQUALAND PARALLEL LINES ALL AS MORE FULLYSHOWN ON SURVEY BY DADING,MAR‐QUES & ASSOCIATES, INC.,DATED

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT 24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:869-753 FREEDOM MORTGAGE CORPORATION VERSUS BRUCEB MILLER,JR. AND NICOLE MILLER AKANICOLE GRAY MILLER By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritof SEIZUREAND SALE from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedOctober 23, 2025, Ihave seized andwill proceed to sell to thehighest bidder at public auction, at the JeffersonParish Sheriff'sOfﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust 19, 2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: THAT CERTAIN PIECEORPOR‐TION OF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings andimprove‐mentsthereon, andall of the rights,ways, servitudes,ap‐purtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in the PARISH OF JEF‐FERSON,STATE OF LOUISIANA, in that part des‐ignatedas HICKORYRIDGE ESTATESon a plan of resubdi‐vision by Krebs, LaSalle, LeMieux Consultants, Inc.,dated April 1, 2003, desig‐natedasLOT 11 andisdescribed as follows: LOT11mea‐sures70feet frontonFerri‐dayCourt,same width across therear, by a depth of 138 feet between equaland paral‐lellines.All as shownonplan of subdivisionfor HickoryRidge Estatesby Krebs, LaSalle, LeMieuxConsul‐tants, dated April2,2003, registered with theClerk of Courtfor the Parish of Jeffer‐son. Allas

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III

Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT 24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:874-912

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit COREYJ.GIROIR

Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III

Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:875-717

GITSIT SOLUTIONS, LLC, NOTINITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY BUT SOLELY IN ITSCAPACITY AS SEPARATE TRUSTEEOFGV TRUST2026-1 VERSUS ANNBEVAN FRAICHEAND THOMAS J. FRAICHE

son, Stateof Louisiana, in METAIRIE HEIGHTS bounded by Metairie HeightsAvenue, W. Esplanade Avenue, Metairie Court Parkway andPoplar Street andLake Pontchartrain, designated as LOTS NOS. 869 and871, on thesurvey made by Gilbert, Kelly &Cou‐turie, Inc.,Sur‐veying &Engi‐neering, datedMay 15, 1976, acopyof which is an‐nexedtoanact of purchase reg‐isteredin COB866, folio 171 andaccord‐ingtosaidsur‐vey, said Lots Nos. 869 and871 adjoin, andmeasure each 25 feet fronton Metairie HeightsAvenue, or atotal of 50 feet front on Metairie HeightsAvenue same widthin therear, by a depthof120 feet,between equaland paral‐lellines.Lot No 859 formsthe corner of Metairie HeightsAvenue and W. Esplanade Avenue andhas adepth and frontonW.Es‐planadeAvenue of 120 feet (“Prop‐erty”)

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges. TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

U.S. BANK NATIONAL AS‐SOCIATION, NOTINITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY,BUT SOLELY AS OWNER TRUSTEEOFTHE NEWRESIDEN‐TIAL MORTGAGE LOAN TRUST2024NQM2 VERSUS KEVINMMAHAT A/K/AKEVIN P. MMAHATAND GINA TEDESCO MMAHATA/K/A GINA T. MMA‐HATA/K/A GINA MMAHAT By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritof SEIZUREAND SALE from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedApril 21, 2026, Ihave seized andwill proceed to sell to thehighest bidder at public auction, at the JeffersonParish Sheriff'sOfﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058, on Wednesday, Au‐gust 19, 2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: Acertain piece or portionof ground,to‐gether with all thebuildings andimprove‐ments thereon, andall therights, ways, means, privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, appurte‐nances and advantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, located in theParishof Jefferson, State of Louisiana, or in anywiseap‐pertaining,lo‐catedinthe Parish of Jefferson, State of Louisiana, designated as LotM-11-A, ClevelandEs‐

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit CANDACEA COURTEAU Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐

VERSUS

RAMBEAU, SR By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritof SEIZUREAND SALE from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the

ONECERTAIN CONDOMINIUM UNIT,together with allim‐provements thereon

includingsaid Unit's appur‐tenant undi‐videdinterestin theCommonEl‐ements, situated in the Stateof Louisiana, Jef‐ferson Parish, designated as Unit 1in

DEVONSHIRE CONDOMINI‐

UMS,ascreated by Condo‐minium Declara‐tion dated September 24, 1981 recorded as COB1017, folio 664, entry no.: 997745 as amendedon January21, 1982 recorded as COB1019, folio 65, entryno.: 1000395.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

EMILYA MUELLER Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10,2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:821-168

GIRODTITLING TRUST VS REGINALD D. WAYNEAND REGGIE WAYNE ENTERPRISES, LLC

p Drive, 100 feet in width in therear, by a depth of 126.74 feet on the Northsideline anda depth of 136.46 feet on theopposite sideline.All in accordance with aplanby J.J. Krebs& Sons,Inc dated August 31, 1981, ﬁledinPlan Book 108, Folio 31-Bapproved by OrdinanceNo. 15014 adopted by theJefferson Parish Council on January6, 1982, registered in COB1019,Folio 674, EntryNo. 1001764, Parish of Jeffersonon February 5, 1982, registered in COB1031, folio 53.All as more fully shownonsur‐vey by J.F. Ruello Land Surveyor, datedJuly20, 1983. Said measure‐mentsare more fully shownon Plat of Survey by Wilton J. Dufrene, Land Surveyor, datedMay 25, 1990,a copy of which is an‐nexedtoact of Cash Sale datedJune 13 1990, recorded at COB2332, Folio234, Entry No.9024382, of‐ﬁcial recordsofJef‐ferson Parish Louisiana, and according theretosaid square is bounded by Lake Aspen East Drive, Lake AspenNorth Drive, Lake Tim‐berlaneDrive, Lake AspenSouth Drive, Lake Kristin Drive, Parcel Band Lake Louise Drive. Improvements thereonbear municipalad‐dress3621Lake AspenDrive East,Gretna, Louisiana700568302.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

SCOTTR CHEATHAM Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058,onAu‐gust19, 2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit:

THEFOLLOWING DESCRIBED PROPERTY IN THEPARISHOF JEFFERSON, STATEOF LOUISIANA: IN THAT PART THEREOF KNOWNASUNI‐VERSITYCITY, AS PERPLANOF RESUBDIVISION BY RENE A. HAR‐RIS, DATEDFEB‐RUARY3,1972, APPROVED IN COB759, FOLIO475 AND DESIGNATED AS LOTT,SQUARE 13, BOUNDED BY WEST LOUISIANA STATEDRIVE, WEST TEMPLE PLACE, LOYOLA DRIVE WEST AND WEST STAN‐FORD PLACE ANDLOT T (SOMETIMES ERRONEOUSLY REFERREDTOAS LOT7)COM‐MENCES 160 FEET FROM WEST TEMPLE PLACEAND WEST LOUISIANA STATEDRIVE ANDMEASURES 50 FEET FRONT ON WEST LOUISIANA STATEDRIVE, SAME WIDTHIN THEREAR, BY A DEPTH BETWEEN EQUALAND PARALLEL LINES OF 110FEET

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges. TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit AMYR.ORTIS Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT 24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:865-302

ACERTAIN LOT OR PORTIONOF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings and improvements thereonand all of therights, ways,privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, appurtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining situated in the Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in that part for‐merly designated as Parcel F, Or‐leansVillage CorporateTract aportion being resubdivided into Parcel F-1; said Parcel F-1 beingresubdi‐videdwith a portionof Parcel Einto Parcel F-1A;said Parcel F-1A,now beingknown as LINCOLNSHIRE SUBDIVISION, SECTIONIII (3), in accordance with aplanof subdivisionby J.J. Krebs& Sons, Inc.,dated Feb‐ruary24, 1982, approved by Or‐dinanceNo. 15100, registered in Cob1024, Folio 275, as amendedby that plan of re‐subdivisionby J.J. Krebs& Sons, Inc.,CE& S, datedMay 11, 1982, approved by theJefferson Parish CouncilbyOrdi‐nanceNo. 15201, registered in Cob1028, Folio 726, underEntry No 1021497, accord‐ingtowhich plan,saidlot is describedas follows:

LOT20A, SQUARE 27 is bounded by Rue LouisPhillipe, Fernando Court, Gentry Road andCon‐stantine Drive, andcommences at adistanceof 326.74 feet from the intersection of Gentry Road andConstantine Driveand mea‐suresthence40 feet frontonCon‐stantine Drive, same in width in therear, by a depth of 95 feet between equaland paral‐lellines.All in accordance with asurveyby Gilbert, Kelly & Couturie, Inc.,dated July 29, 1988.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

AKAROSHANDA LYNN ALEXANDER BLUE

ACERTAIN PIECEORPOR‐TION OF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings and improvements thereon, andall of therights, ways,privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, appurtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in the Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in that part thereofknown as Ranch Acres Subdivision, which said pieceorportion of ground is shownonthat certainsubdivi‐sion plan by AlvinE.Hotard, C.E.,dated April 15, 1960, ap‐proved by OrdinanceNo. 4567 of theJef‐ferson Parish Counciladopted May12, 1960, registered CDB 507, folio 402, andisfurther describedinac‐cordance with thesurvey of J. J. Krebs& Son, Inc.,dated September24, 1976, resur‐veyedNovem‐ber 30, 1976, to show improvements es Lot5 of Square 18, which said lot commences200 feet from thein‐tersection of Colorado Drive andSierra Street,and measures thence 50 feet fronton Colorado Drive, same width in therear, by a depth of 125 feet each; subjecttore‐strictions,servi‐tudes, rights-ofwayand out‐standing min‐eral rights of record affecting theproperty.

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT 24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:853-663 DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY, AS TRUSTEEFOR FIRST FRANKLIN MORTGAGE LOAN TRUST 2006-FF9, MORT‐GAGE PASSTHROUGH CERTIFICATES SERIES 2006-FF9 VS PATRICIA AMAYAMORGA HERNANDEZ AKAPATRICIA ARACELY HERNANDEZ AMAYA, CAMILA ALEXANDRA HERNANDEZ ANDSEBASTIAN DAVID HERNANDEZ

y Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

ASHLEY E. MORRIS Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:862-741

signed February 17, 1994.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit L. GRAHAM ARCENEAUX Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026

Jul10-aug14-2t

Kenner,onDe‐cember 20, 1965, said lotisdesig‐natedasfol‐lows:

ONECERTAIN LOTOFGROUND, together with allthe buildings andimprove‐ments thereonand all of therights, ways,privi‐leges, servi‐tudes, advan‐tagesand appurtenances thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in theParish of Jefferson, Stateof Louisiana, in STONEBRIDGE SUBDIVISION (formerlya part of ParcelsFF-9and FF-10, Lake Tim‐berlaneEs‐tates),in SQUARE 7 thereofdesig‐nated as LOTNO. 169, which lotmea‐sure 100.48 feet frontonLake Aspen East i

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:852-232

REGIONSBANK VS BRET M. PENNISON (A/K/A BRET PENNISON)

WELLSFARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS TRUSTEEFOR STRUCTURED ASSETSECURI‐TIES CORPORATION MORTGAGE LOAN TRUST 2007-OSI VERSUS MARY LOUISE BUTLER

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

EMILYA MUELLER Attorney for Plaintiff

Theimprove‐mentsbearthe municipalad‐dress2516 Col‐oradoDr, Mar‐rero Louisiana70072.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III

Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit

LAKEVIEW LOAN SERVICING, LLC VS CRISTI JOFFRION A/K/ACRISTI GEISENDORFF ANDTHE UNOPENED SUCCESSIONOF CHRISTOPHER CELESTIN A/K/A CHRISTOPHER AARON CELESTIN DECEASED By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritof SEIZUREAND SALE from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedApril 27, 2026, Ihave seized andwill proceed to sell to thehighest bidder at public auction, at the JeffersonParish Sheriff'sOfﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust 19, 2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: THAT CERTAIN LOTORPARCEL OF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings and improvements thereon, andall therights, ways, privileges, servitudes,ap‐purtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐tainingsituated in theState of Louisiana, Parish of Jeffer‐son, in that part thereofknown as Lake Timber‐lane Estates, Section 4, in accordance with theplanof resubdivisionby J. J. Krebs& Sons,Inc., Civil Engineer &Sur‐veyors,dated December 8, 1989, approved by the JeffersonParish CouncilonFeb‐ruary14, 1990 by Ordinance No.17929, recorded March15, 1990, under EntryNo. 90-10219, in COB 2305, folio 207, said portionof ground is desig‐natedasLot 16, Square Dand more fully de‐scribedasfol‐lows:

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:863-183 PENNYMAC LOAN SERVICES, LLC VS TAREKA.FADL ANDMELODY STUART ISMAIL A/K/AMELODY STUART RICCIARDO ISMAIL FADL

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

JUDICIAL ADVERTISE‐MENT

24THJUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT PARISH OF JEFFERSON STATEOF LOUISIANA NO:866-959

PLANET HOME LENDING, LLC VERSUS ROSHANDA L. ALEXANDER

ZACHARYGAR‐RETT YOUNG Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson

TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t

By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritof SEIZUREAND SALE from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedJune4 2024, Ihave seized andwill proceed to sell to thehighest bidder at public auction, at the JeffersonParish Sheriff'sOfﬁce Complex, 1233 Westbank Ex‐pressway,Har‐vey, Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust 19, 2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: THAT CERTAIN PORTIONOF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings and improvements thereon, andall therights, ways, privileges, servitudes,ap‐purtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated in theParishof Jefferson, State of Louisiana, in SQUARE NO 101 TERRYTOWN SUBDIVISION, NO 6, boundedby Glouster Place, Gibson Street (side),Goucher Street (side), GrapePlace (side) and Glouster Place (side),desig‐natedasLOT NO.5,com‐mences at adis‐tance of 325 feet from thecorner Glouster Place andGibson Street,mea‐suresthence60 feet fronton Glouster Place, awidth in the rear of 60.32 feet by adepth on thesideline nearer Gibson Street of 112.50 feet and adepth of 106.25 on the opposite side‐line.All as more full shownon survey of Gilbert, Kelly & Couturie,Inc., S&E, datedOc‐tober12, 1991, which as thead‐dressof744 Glouster Place, Gretna, Louisiana70056; subjectto restrictions servitudes, rights-of-way andoutstanding mineralrights of record affect‐ing theproperty.

Square Dis bounded by JupiterStreet Sutherland Place, Pem‐brokeLaneand ParcelsA-1 and A-2.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges TERMS -The full purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or

Lot16com‐mences 915.00' from thecorner of JupiterStreet andSutherland Place, measures thence 60' front on Sutherland Place, same widthinthe rear by adepth of 125' between equaland paral‐lellines.All as more fully shownonsur‐veybyJ.J Krebs& Sons, Inc, redatedand

LOTNO. 7forms thecornerof Northwestern Driveand John HopkinsDrive and measures thence 65.26 feet fronton John Hopkins Drive, 53.95 feet In widthin the rear,bya depth alongNorth‐westernDrive of 110.58 feet and adepth of 110 feet on theopposite sideline.All in accordance with survey by J.J. Krebs& Sons,Inc dated August 18, 1975, resurveyed and certiﬁed correct December 10, 1976; subjectto restrictions, servitudes, rights-of-way andoutstanding mineralrights of record affectingthe property

TheImprove‐mentsthereon bear Municipal No.94JohnHop‐kins Drive, Ken‐ner, LA 70065.

This sale is sub‐ject to allsupe‐rior security in‐terests, mort‐gages, liensand privileges.

TERMS- Thefull purchase price is dueatthe time of thesale.

By virtue of and in obedienceto aWritofFIERI FACIAS from the 24thJudicial District Court, Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in the abovenum‐beredand enti‐tled cause, datedNovem‐ber5,2025, I have seized and will proceed to sell to thehigh‐estbidderat public auction, at theJefferson Parish Sheriff's Office Complex, 1233 Westbank Expressway, Harvey, Louisiana, 70058, on Au‐gust19, 2026 at 10 o'clocka.m thefollowing describedprop‐erty to wit: THAT CERTAIN PIECEORPO‐TION OF GROUND,to‐gether with all thebuildings andimprove‐mentsthereon, andall of the rights,ways, privileges, servitudes, appurtenances andadvantages thereuntobe‐longingorin anywiseapper‐taining, situated In the City of Kenner Parish of Jeffer‐son, Stateof Louisiana, in UNIVERSITY CITYSUBDIVI‐SION,SQUARE NO.80, which said square is bounded by Kilgore Place, North‐westernDrive, John Hopkins Driveand Tu‐lane Driveand accordingto a plan of subdivi‐sion by theof‐fice of Surveys, Inc, datedNo‐vember 4, 1960, revisedon December 31, 1960, February 20, 1961, andas furtherrevised October13, 1961, copy of which is on file in therecords of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, and inaccordance with aresubdi‐vision of apor‐tion of Univer‐sity City Subdivisionby Rene A. Harris datedNovem‐ber15, 1965, ap‐proved under Ordinance No.881, City of

NOTE:All funds must be Cashier'sCheck, Certiﬁed Check, MoneyOrder,or Personal Check with Bank Letter of Credit BRIGHAMJ LUNDBERG Attorney for Plaintiff

JOSEPH P. LOPINTO, III Sheriff Parish of Jefferson TheNew Orleans Advocate: July 10, 2026, August 14, 2026 Jul10-aug14-2t