The Acadiana Advocate 07-19-2026

TheGulfiswarming twiceas fast as theworld’s oceans, andLouisiana is at ground zero

INHOT

BYALEXLUBBEN| Staff writer

Batting away snakes, Wilkie Declouet trudged through chest-deep watertoreach his front door

Hurricane Ida had flooded Ironton, asmall historic Black communitydown the MississippiRiver from New Orleans, only 10 miles outsidethe levee system that protects the city. Declouet, a61-year-old father of four, was the first to return.

His house, raised on piers, hadheld.Almost nothing else had. Aweathered white casket wasstuckupright in the tangle the flood left behind. Insideitwas aman Declouet had known.Atleast adozencaskets lay scattered around Irontonfor weeks afterthe storm.

“Ida was astorm that cameupfast,”Declouet said recently as he sat under his rehabbed house. “Andit wasone of these thingswhere they couldn’t decide whetheritwas goingtobe aCategory 3, 4or5.They couldn’t decide.”

Ida’ssupercharged winds were not afluke. The sudden force of the 2021 storm signaled much more.

The Gulf of Mexico, which the Trump administration has renamed the Gulf of America, is in the throes of a turbulent new erathatholds enormous consequences for Louisiana and theotherstatesalong its coast

It has become one of the fastest-warming bodies of water in the world, new researchisshowing. Humancaused climate changeisfusingwith cyclical weather patterns to create the newreality.

From sea levels to fisheries, deepwater drilling and storms, every vestigeoflife in the Gulfwill change as the water heats.

HotGulfwatersjuicedIda’s winds from 80 to 150 mph in the day before landfall, leaving people like Declouetand his neighborslesstime to prepare.But the changes will not belimited to hurricanes

“This is adramaticwake-up call,” said Donald Boesch, aprofessorofmarine science at the University of Maryland who previously served asthe firstdirector of the LouisianaUniversities Marine Consortium

“The people of the Gulf have long lived with the risks of living on thismarginalocean.But in recentyears, it’sbecome obviousthatit’sheatingdramatically.That has huge implications for the rapidintensification of hurricanes as well as for acceleratedsea-level rise.”

ä See WATERS, page 4A

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

For decades, one thing held true, no matterwho occupiedthe Governor’s Mansion in BatonRouge:The city of NewOrleans held aspecial place in Louisiana. Gov.Jeff Landry is sounding as if he no longer holds that belief

STAFF PHOTOSBySOPHIAGERMER

‘Ida wasa stormthat came up fast,’saysWilkie Declouet, a resident of Ironton whotrudged throughwaist-deep water to reach his home after the 2021 storm.

“The peopleofthe Gulfhavelong lived with the risks of living on this marginal ocean. But in recent years, it’sbecome obvious that it’sheating dramatically.”

DONALD BOESCH, professorofmarine science at the University of Maryland

The governor hastargeted thecitywith aseriesofactions aimed at bringing, in his view,New Orleans down to size. On Monday,healso publicly downgraded the city’simportance. “Used to be, the saying was,‘Where goes New Orleans, where goes the state,’”Landry said while announcing that Meta is dramatically expanding itsfootprint foradata centerinnortheastLouisiana. “Let me tell youwhat happenedtoday:That has changed. ‘Where goes Louisiana will determinethe fate of NewOrleans.’”

Landry said that after being asked by areporter whether he would heed the request of New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno to defuse thetensionsbetween thegovernor and mayor that have plunged the relationship between the city and the state to its lowest point in years.

Landry also indicated he is in no hurry to meet with Moreno and revive acooperative partnership with the city that has won the governor plaudits forahistoric reductioninviolent crime andthe refurbishment of New Orleans’ core areas in advanceof the 2025 Super Bowl.

Thatpartnership spiraled downward in recent weeks after the governor pushed to eliminate threejudges, five assistant districtattorneys andthe positionofCalvin Duncan, the newly elected Orleans Parish clerk of Criminal District Court, and after an OrleansParish grandjuryindictedAttorneyGeneral Liz Murrill on charges of threatening NewOrleans elected officials, including Moreno.

Shane Guidry,a business owner and key adviser to Landry on New Orleans

businesses energizing an old part of thecity

BY DEAN BOUDREAUX Contributingwriter

Street wakes up before the

of Lafayettedoes. By 5a.m., the lights are already on

Martha’sMiniMart, 2939 Cameron St.,where owner Martha Menjivar is restocking shelves before the morning rush.

Afew minutes awayonAmbassador Caffery,the smell of fresh tortillas drifts out of La Chapina YLaCatracha, where workers heading to job sites in Scott and Carencro stop for breakfast before the sun rises. Not far away from there, Christian Zmora, anative of Guatemala, andhis

ä See INTERNATIONAL, page 9A

Staffgraphic

Venezuela earthquakes deaths surpass 5,000 CARACAS The death toll from the two powerful earthquakes that shook Venezuela last month rose to 5,069 late on Friday local authorities said.

The interim government of President Delcy Rodriguez added in a statement that the number of injured remains unchanged at 16,740, as in the past 11 days.

Ongoing recovery and debrisclearing operations have led to the increase in the death toll, particularly in the coastal state of La Guaira, the hardest hit by the quakes close to the Caribbean Sea. A total of 1,331 aftershocks had been recorded by Friday

Venezuela’s government says 856 buildings are damaged and 190 collapsed completely since the 7.2 and 7.5 quakes on June 24. Hundreds of other types of structures, such as bridges and roads, were also affected.

Fire destroys more than 100 homes in Norway

DRAMMEN, Norway — The largest residential fire in modern Norwegian history destroyed more than 100 homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate authorities said Saturday

The fire in southern Norway started in a town house in the city of Drammen around 3:30 p.m. Friday, police said. It then spread through the area and into nearby forests. Firefighters on Saturday morning continued their efforts to bring the blaze under control.

The Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection said Saturday that it was the largest fire of its kind in modern times.

NRK, Norway’s public broadcaster, said hundreds of people went to an evacuation center No residents have been reported missing, police said. It was not immediately clear what caused the fire.

Drammen is roughly 21 miles southwest of Oslo. 2 arrested in kidnapping Forest Service workers

REDDING, Calif. — A father and son are expected to face federal kidnapping charges after they zip-tied two U.S. Forest Service employees and held them at gunpoint inside a trailer in Northern California near Mt. Shasta. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said the two workers were conducting routine field operations in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest when they were taken Thursday They were released early Friday morning after being held for more than 12 hours near Gunboot Lake.

“I want to say how profoundly grateful and relieved that we are, that our two employees were released safely. Their wellbeing continues to be our highest priority,” Schultz said

The 49-year-old suspect and his adult son surrendered about 2:30 a.m. Friday and walked out of the trailer carrying an assault rifle and knives. He also told authorities he had grenades.

Shortly after deputies from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s office reached the remote area around noon Thursday they deployed drones to help locate the trailer and started calling additional law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, for help.

FBI Sacramento acting Special Agent in Charge Brian Tosh said it’s fortunate no one was hurt during the standoff.

“Crisis situations like this don’t often result in everyone leaving the scene safely,” Tosh said.

U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said he plans to charge both men with kidnapping federal employees, but no charges were listed in online court records Saturday afternoon.

U.S.: 2 troops killed in Iranian strike

Officials say another hurt in attack on base in Jordan

BY JON GAMBRELL, TOQA EZZIDIN and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN

Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

The U.S military on Saturday announced its first troop deaths due to direct Iranian fire since the opening days of the war with two killed and another missing in an attack on a base in Jordan after days of intensifying exchanges of fire.

Friday’s drone and missile attack sent four other service members to hospitals, the military said. The dead were not identified. Since the war began, 16 U.S. service members have been killed and over 430 wounded.

Minutes before the announcement, Iran’s supreme leader warned of “unforgettable lessons” if the U.S. keeps attacking the Islamic Republic

The remarks read out on state TV and attributed to Mojtaba Khamenei, still unseen since the war began, also called President Donald Trump’s signature “worthless and invalid.”

An Iranian negotiator said Tehran was suspending its commitments to the interim deal signed about a month ago and aimed at permanently ending the fighting. Tehran’s declarations snapped another fragile thread as the war shows no end in sight. Now Khamenei warns of “lessons” not only from Iran but also its armed

proxies in the region, calling them the “Axis of Resistance.” The U.S. issued a global travel alert over the rising tensions.

The battle has focused on control of the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that previously carried a fifth of the world’s crude oil. The widening strikes now threaten civilians and infrastructure, including desalination plants for drinking water while the global economy again is on alert

The U.S. has violated its commitments under the deal and now Iran is “no longer implementing them,” Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister told state TV There was no new word on mediation efforts.

Growing risks

The previous recorded death of a U.S. service

member was that of a helicopter pilot who crashed in the Arabian Sea earlier this month. Early in the war, an Iranian drone strike on a command center in Kuwait killed six soldiers One soldier died after an attack on a base in Saudi Arabia. Six were killed when a refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.

On Saturday, the most significant damage from Iranian strikes occurred in Kuwait, where a water desalination plant and an oil facility were hit, according to the Kuwait authorities and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. Both declined to provide locations.

It was the second attack against a desalination plant in two days in the tiny desert nation that depends on desalination for 90% of its drinking water The strikes injured several people at

the oil facility and caused a fire at the desalination plant, forcing several power generation units offline.

Several firefighters and a worker were injured while battling two other blazes sparked by Iranian strikes, according to the Kuwait Fire Force. Kuwait briefly closed its airspace due to missile threats, and Kuwait Airways said it was rescheduling most flights to and from the capital.

Meanwhile, Iraq said it shot down attack drones over the city of Irbil. Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency said the kingdom’s air defense systems had downed Iranian missiles, while air sirens sounded multiple times in Bahrain throughout the day and in Saudi Arabia in the morning, according to their governments. The secretary general of

the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi, accused Iran of war crimes for strikes on infrastructure and civilian facilities.

U.S. strikes

The U.S. Central Command said early Saturday that its seventh straight night of strikes hit “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage, and maritime capabilities.” U.S. airstrikes hit an electricity and desalination plant in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, Iranian state TV reported. State-run news agency IRNA said the Bonji desalination plant was destroyed, cutting off water supplies to about 10,000 people, and a desalination plant on strategic Qeshm Island inside the strait was damaged. Overnight strikes damaged two tunnels and a bridge, disrupting a main highway toward Bandar Abbas, Iran’s main port that sits near the narrowest part of the strait, according to IRNA. It said three bridges were hit Saturday, including one on a route to Bandar Abbas. Iran acknowledged “attacks on power infrastructure” during the U.S. airstrikes for the first time Friday when its Energy Ministry urged people to use less power in southern provinces “experiencing extreme heat.” It did not specify what was hit. Iranian authorities said at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes in the past three weeks, including eight killed in a strike on a bridge Friday

Officials: Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 3 children, 6 adults

BY WAFAA SHURAFA Associated Press

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Saturday killed at least nine Palestinians, including three children, hospital officials said.

A strike on an apartment in the Nasr neighborhood killed at least five people, including the children between the ages of 8 and 18, said Mohammed Abu Selmiya, director of Shifa Hospital where the bodies were taken. Six other people were wounded, including four children between the ages of 8 and 16, he said

Israel’s military said it targeted Hamas infrastructure and had located Hamas militants in the area, without elaborating. Another Israeli strike hit a group of people in the Zeitoun neighborhood, killing four and wounding

Residents inspect the site of an Israeli

on Saturday in Gaza City

another critically, health officials said.

The Israeli military said it targeted a “Hamas terrorist” and it was looking into the results of the strike.

Palestinians have reported an increase in the scale of Israeli strikes across the enclave over the past few days.

Despite a ceasefire

agreement reached in October between Israel and the Hamas militant group, Israel still carries out near-daily attacks across the territory It says it is targeting Hamas and other militants who pose a threat. Hamas and Israel have traded accusations of violating the ceasefire.

At least 1,127 Palestinians, including at least 260

Ukrainian drones hit warehouses and other sites across Russia

Officials say 9 killed, more than 80 hurt

By The Associated Press

Ukrainian drones struck two sprawling warehouses, one of them just east of Moscow, as part of attacks overnight and on Saturday afternoon that killed nine people and wounded more than 80, Russian officials said.

Kyiv’s forces have pressed their relentless aerial campaign against energy infrastructure and military targets inside Russia, aiming to undermine Moscow’s war effort and make Russians feel the consequences of the Kremlin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine that is well into

its fifth year

Two sprawling warehouses of Russia’s major online retailer Wildberries, were hit by Ukrainian drones overnight, according to Russian officials — one in the town of Kotovsk in the Tambov region some 220 miles from the border with Ukraine, and another in the city of Elektrostal, about 30 miles east of Moscow

A Ukrainian drone also hit an oil depot in the city of Noginsk, just north of Elektrostal, sparking a fire and prompting evacuations of a nearby maternity hospital and a residential building, according to the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov Drone debris also hit a kindergarten building, Vorobyov said, sparking a fire that has since been put out. Seven night shift work-

ers were killed at the warehouse in Kotovsk and 25 others were wounded, Tambov regional Gov. Yevgeny Pervyshov said.

A total of 61 people were wounded in the Moscow region, Vorobyov said: 20 sought outpatient care, while 40 others were hospitalized. One person died of their injuries, he said.

One more person was killed and another wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod region on Saturday afternoon, according to local authorities. Both warehouses caught fire, Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim said, and the blaze in Kotovsk was put out. Images and footage released by Russian online outlets showed a fire raging at the Elektrostal facility with massive plumes of smoke towering over it

children, have been killed since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in that time.

The Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas-led militants that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people in Israel and saw 251 others taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 73,250 Palestinians, according to

Gaza’s Health Ministry

The ministry is part of the Hamas-led government and is staffed by medical professionals who maintain detailed records viewed as generally reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children make up around half of all deaths.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By VAHID SALEMI

A woman walks Saturday in downtown Tehran, Iran, past a mural depicting a portrait of the slain Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S and Israel strike on Feb 28

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JEHAD ALSHRAFI

airstrike

NTB SCANPIX PHOTO By THOMAS FURE Smoke rises Friday over terraced houses on fire in the Krokstadelva village in Drammen, Norway.

7,500 constructionjobs,$1.6billionfor Louisiana businesses. Up to $50,000for teacherbonuses. Part of apartnership that’sjust gettingstarted.

Tim Food truckowner

Thomasina 2ndgrade teacher

Continued from page 1A

‘Real-world experiences’

Since 1970, the Gulf’s surface has warmed twice as quickly as the combined average of the rest of the world’s oceans, federal data shows, climbing nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That might not seem like much, but it is already having wide-ranging effects.

The changes are no longer projections. They are happening in real time, and they compound. Just this month, the Gulf hit a record high temperature for early July, driven by a recent heat wave.

As water warms, it expands, speeding sea level rise along the Louisiana coast that is already climbing six times faster than the global average, largely due to land subsidence. The heat is also spreading deeper as the climate gets hotter, with temperatures rising even at the very bottom of the Gulf.

Louisiana’s coastal marshes already fading away will drown faster, and high-tide flooding in coastal communities, once an occasional nuisance, will become chronic Scientists say, with a degree of confidence that’s uncommon among skeptical researchers, that a generation of sea level rise along the Gulf Coast is essentially guaranteed, no matter how aggressively the world cuts fossil fuel emissions.

Global weather is also intertwined with the Gulf. The warming currents that flow through it have reverberating effects on climate patterns far away from Louisiana. At the same time, the problem is becoming more complicated to address.

Funding for the elaborate, networked systems that monitor the temperature of the Gulf is at risk due to cuts by the Trump administration, hampering scientists working to understand what is unfolding

The federal government has also largely abandoned its fledgling attempts to address climate change, and governors across the Gulf Coast, including in Louisiana, have followed suit. Planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions, the result of burning fossil fuels, increased last year by an estimated 2.4%, according to the Rhodium Group, an independent global policy and economic research firm.

“These are not theoretical concepts that people keep talking about. Your insurance increases, you have water damage, you have damage to your house,” said Sönke Dangendorf, a Tulane scientist considered one of the world’s preeminent experts on sea levels. “These are real-world experiences.”

The workshop

In the days before Ida, as Declouet was preparing to evacuate, Kevin Martin was on the water, deploying a buoy that would sit anchored in the Gulf, in the storm’s path.

“Ida ripped right over the buoy, ripped every solar panel off of it,” said Martin, who works out of NASA’s Stennis Space Center in a lab run by the University of Southern Mississippi, operating the buoys, gliders and other instruments that take the Gulf’s temperature

The buoy carried enough battery power to keep recording without the panels, capturing data straight through the storm. It wasn’t the first time one of the program’s buoys rode out a hurricane. During Katrina, another gathered data continuously through that storm, even as the surge dragged it and its 5,000-pound anchor roughly nine miles.

While Martin’s instruments plumb the ocean depths, his desk rumbles as engine tests for the Artemis missions take place next door to his office at Stennis. The lab spills over into room after room filled with deep-water instruments, like Q’s workshop in a James Bond film.

One device, called Eagle Ray, is a giant torpedo-shaped autonomous vessel that maps the bottom of the Gulf down to about 6,500 feet. Another, Mola Mola, the scientific name for the ocean sunfish with which it shares its shape, uses lasers to take hyper-detailed photographs of the seafloor He also has spindle-shaped gliders that navigate the Gulf’s waters, taking measurements of temperature and salinity continuously over several months before they are retrieved. The intel his autonomous robots collect contributes to global datasets, collected from thousands of networked sensors across the world.

As the waters Martin studies heat up, he has had to recalibrate some sensors after they maxed out. The lab he works for even moved the servers that store the data he collects to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, some 60 miles north of the coast, to keep them farther from increasingly strong hurricanes.

Other changes he says, are stranger and harder to explain, pointing to a tooth-shaped indentation in one of his gliders.

“I hadn’t had a shark strike in all the years I was operating gliders since 2007,” he said. “In 2024, I had two. And you have to ask yourself why.”

Martin stressed he doesn’t study sharks, but a recent study found that one species is spending more time in the Gulf as its waters warm.

None of this work is cheap. Martin’s workhorse glider model costs $250,000 One glider, he said, can “run up a $1,000-a-month phone bill,” just to transmit its location and data.

A battery pack costs $22,000. And the lab operates on grant funding. Already, he can only afford to deploy gliders during hurricane season.

“These vehicles shouldn’t be sitting here. They should be in the water,” he said. “The funding’s not there.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to pull funding from long-running programs that allow scientists to take the temperature of the world’s oceans. The president’s latest budget request would have eliminated the federal program that funds the Gulf of America Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS), the regional network to which Martin contributes, along with 10 sister networks around the country’s coasts.

Congress maintained funding for GCOOS this year Whether it will do so again is unclear

Following Trump’s lead, the National Science Founda-

tion cut funding for a sophisticated $368 million observation network. It has begun pulling up deep-sea buoys off the coasts of Alaska, North Carolina, the state of Washington and a crucial monitoring zone between Greenland and Iceland.

The amount of data collected to date is “a blip” on the timescales at which global systems change, said Renellys Perez, a deputy director of physical oceanography at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We really need many decades of data to better understand how the ocean is changing.”

While Trump has targeted the system because it contributes to the nation’s understanding of climate change, its primary role is to provide weather data, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA assistant administrator for research who oversaw it. The system is crucial, he argued, informing evacuations and storm preparations, information that he says pays for itself.

“It’s a fraction of a penny a day for what you’re getting,” he said “It’s not even the shaving of the copper on the edge of the penny.”

The deep Gulf

While Martin’s gliders largely measure the temperature of the Gulf at its surface, something equally concerning is happening at its depths.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Kevin Martin, an instrumentation specialist and ocean observing manager with the University of Southern Mississippi, uses spindle-shaped gliders that navigate the Gulf’s waters, taking measurements of temperature and salinity continuously over several months before they are retrieved.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

of sea

rise along the Gulf Coast is essentially guaranteed,

STAFF FILE PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Hurricane Ida’s wind and storm surge destroyed most of Ironton, a historic Black community in Plaquemines Parish, only 10 miles outside the levee system that protects New Orleans

Scientists have long known that the oceans absorb most of the excess heat that’s getting trapped in the atmosphere due to human-caused emissions, but they once thought that warming was largely confined to the ocean’s top layer.

But when a team of researchers tethered deep-sea thermometers to the ocean floor in the western Gulf, they measured an alarming trend: Even at the bottom — at a depth of more than 11,000 feet — it is getting warmer, at a rate of about 0.15 degrees Fahrenheit per half-century.

The creatures that live at the bottom of the Gulf the deep-sea corals and strange fishes — are precisely tuned animals, adapted to live in a high-pressure, low-temperature environment. Small changes there ripple Many of those creatures form the basis of the food chain fueling the Gulf’s mega-fisheries that power the state’s coastal economy Corals at the bottom of the ocean are particularly vulnerable to temperature changes. Even a small rise can stress corals, causing them to expel the symbiotic algae that lives inside them — giving them their color and most of their nutrients — in a process called “coral bleaching.” These corals are crucial nurseries for dozens of critical species that coastal communities rely on.

“I was on a coral reef about 500 meters down and we saw groupers down there. We saw barrel fish. We saw alfonsino. We saw spot prawns,” said Erik Cordes, a biologist at Temple University who studies corals, often using remotely operated submarines. “These are all species that are fished in the Gulf of Mexico, that spend good parts of their lives way down deep on these coral reefs.”

What happens at depth doesn’t just affect the creatures that live near the seafloor As hurricanes tear over the Gulf’s balmy waters, they draw heat from its surface. If those waters are hot enough, storms become rapidly supercharged — as Hurricane Ida did before it slammed into Ironton. In previous decades, once that heat from the surface of the Gulf was sucked up by the storm, which churns the waters like a blender as it passes over, the cooler waters below tended to slow a hurricane down.

Now even those deeper waters are warmer than they used to be.

“A hurricane can blow itself out by causing this deeper water to well up,” said Boesch. But if the Gulf’s deep waters are warm, “it just wells up more heat and intensifies.” Ocean currents

The heat trapped in the Gulf’s depths doesn’t stay there. It is connected to a massive system of global ocean currents that help regulate the planet’s climate.

A monster current flows into the Gulf between the Yucatán Peninsula and Cuba, plodding north toward Louisiana before doubling back on itself and flowing out through the Florida Straits. That stream, called the Loop Current, is a key component of the global system of water flows that forms, as Texas A&M professor of oceanography Steven DiMarco put it, “the air-conditioning of the planet,” moving heat, through water, between the equator and the poles.

“Will that change?” DiMarco asks.

The question arises because, when the Loop Current flows out through the Florida Straits, it joins the Gulf Stream, the flow of warm water that brings heat from the tropics up toward northern Europe. Those currents, taken together, are part of what scientists call the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation — a system of global ocean currents that plays a significant role in regulating the world’s climate.

All of those currents may be slowing. Scientists are now debating the possibility that the system of currents — the flows of water that have circled the globe for millennia could collapse entirely due to climate change

The likelihood of that happening is “still debated,” said Matthieu Le Hénaff, a NOAA oceanographer “There is no certainty of a collapse Some models show it. It’s highly discussed.”

If it were to collapse, the climate system would be thrown out of whack.

Parts of Europe could fluctuate between colder winters and warmer summers Monsoons would be disrupted. Wildfire risk could increase. Sea level rise would accelerate — in the Gulf and globally — and agricultural systems could be upturned.

“Just because the Gulf is partially enclosed doesn’t mean we’re not connected to everything else,” Martin said. Rising seas

While these shifting currents threaten to rewrite the global climate, the sheer volume of this warming is already threatening to redraw the map of the Gulf.

The contours of the Gulf 125,000 years ago may portend what is to come.

That was the last time global temperatures were comparable to what they are now, and the Gulf lapped against an ancient ridge that traverses the state from Mississippi to Texas, north of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas. The line is roughly where wetlands and loose mud give way to pine forests and denser soil. Generations into the future, the Gulf may eventually

return there, a recent paper from researchers at Tulane University argued, though scientists and local leaders say there are options to adapt and stave off that prospect In the meantime, extreme events will and have already — become more frequent.

Dangendorf led a study, published in June, that found that globally since 1900, coastal extreme sea levels that used to happen once a century are occurring 12 times as often, with human-driven warming quadrupling their likelihood.

Communities like Ironton may bear the brunt of the extremes.

But as the Gulf heats and seas rise, no communities along the coast will be spared the impacts of a changing climate.

Audrey Trufant Salvant, Declouet’s neighbor there, said she has seen the changes play out. Many of her neighbors have left after they were unable to rebuild

The community has shrunk.

“They are getting worse,” she said of the storms “We are ducks in the water. Every time June comes around, we wonder: Will we have to run again?”

Email Alex Lubben at alex.lubben@theadvocate.com. His work is supported with a grant from the Walton Family Foundation, administered by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

The Gulf sea-surface temperatures, 2005 vs. 2025

Two snapshots of the average August surface temperatures in the Gulf show how it has warmed in recent years. In August 2005, the month Hurricane Katrina hit, the Gulf averaged 85.9°F Twenty years later, in August 2025, the Gulf averaged 87°F, about a degree hotter. That extra heat provides more fuel for hurricanes.

“These are not theoretical concepts that people keep talking about. Your insurance increases, you have water damage, you have damage to your house. These are real-world experiences.” SÖNKE DANGENDORF, Tulane

Staff graphic

Deep heat in the Gulf

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By GERALD HERBERT

A casket that floated from its tombs during flooding from Hurricane Ida sits in a lawn of a destroyed home in Ironton on Sept. 27, 2021. At least a dozen caskets lay scattered around Ironton for weeks after the storm.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Kevin Martin, who works out of NASA’s Stennis Space Center in a lab run by the University of Southern Mississippi, examines a buoy that is used to capture water data in the Gulf.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Audrey Trufant Salvant, a resident of Ironton, says many of her neighbors left after Hurricane Ida when they were unable to rebuild.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

The Eagle Ray maps the bottom of the Gulf down to about 6,500 feet. Mola Mola uses lasers to take hyper-detailed photographs of the seafloor

BY SAFIYAH RIDDLE Associated Press

Afederal prosecutor in Texas

shared new detailsThursday evening about the moments before an immigration officer shot and killed aMexican national and longtime U.S. resident in early July.The disclosure complicatesthe government’searlier claim that the man struck an ICE vehicle before he wasshot.

AU.S. Immigration andCustoms Enforcement officer killedLorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, on July 7ashewas driving to aHouston construction jobsite with three co-workers,one of whom washis

TENSIONS

Continued from page1A

matters, said the governor has no interest in resolving the differences untilMurrill’sindictment vanishes.

“The indictment shouldn’t have happened,” Guidry said, adding, “Liz has spent alot of time and resources working for New Orleansto make it abetter place.”

Thesplit with Landry has left many New Orleans business and political leaders anxious,angryoronthe defensive, scrambling to make sense of the governor’sactions and trying to determine the best path forward

“A lotofpeople have reached out to me over the pastcoupleofweeks,” said Moreno. “I’ve reached out to acouple of others. We’re trying to figureout thepath to get together.”

Differentpolitical bases

One figure helps explain why Landry is expressing more frustration with the city and downplaying its importance now

The governor,who is up for reelection next year, won only 10% of the votein Orleans Parish when he was elected governor in 2023. It was easily his worst showing across the state,according to JohnCouvillon, aBaton Rouge-based pollster and demographer

Landry’sdismissive comments about New Orleans will help him politicallyin the rest of the state,said Roy Fletcher,aveteran political consultant in BatonRouge who works for Democrats and Republicans.

“It rallies the base, absolutely,noquestion,” Fletcher said.

Meanwhile, Moreno enjoys far morepopularity in New Orleans —she was elected last year with 62% of the vote —and her decision to not defer to Landry and Murrill will play well with her supporters in the city, said StephenPerry,who has served as alegislative aide in Baton Rouge, as then-Gov Mike Foster’schief of staff and as the chief promoter of tourism in New Orleans.

“Both are using an inflammatory incident to make sure they are completely

brother.The shooting sparked protests in the sprawling Texascity, echoing Salgado Araujo’sfamily’s calls for transparency.The family describes himasa hardworking father very close to obtaininglegal status in the U.S. after livinginthe country for 35 years.

Theshootingcamejustdaysbefore two other men in Floridaand Mainedied as part of President Donald Trump’sfederal immigration crackdown, renewing scrutiny on theDepartment of Homeland Security’slaw enforcement tactics.

Aaron Reitz, the U.S.attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said for the first time on Thursday that ICE officers were targeting twoGuatemalan menwho were potentiallysubject to deportation. He said they were driving avan similar to the one Salgado Araujo

aligned with their own political bases,” Perry said.

“That’sthe norm in state and national politics now.The losers are thepeople andthe economy.”

Landry is aRepublican in astate where Republicans now holdall the statewide elected offices and two-thirdsofthe seats in the state Legislature, while Moreno is aDemocrat in acity where virtually all thetop electedofficialsare Democrats.

Hurricane Katrina 20 years agocost NewOrleans about one-fourth of its population,althoughthe city remains the biggest in the state, and theseven-parish New Orleansregion brings in more sales tax revenue than any other region, accordingtofigures.

John Al ar io worked with seven different governors while serving 48 years in the Legislature representing Westwego.

was driving when he was killed. In an earlierstatement released the daySalgado Araujo was killed, DHSsaidhewas targeted in an immigration enforcementoperation, and he was living in the country withoutlegal permission Reitz also saidthatthe officers believed that Salgado Araujoand the passengers in hiscar fit the description of the Guatemalan men the agents werelookingfor Four officers driving two separate law enforcementvehiclesattempted to pull over SalgadoAraujo’svan using their policelights. Salgado Araujothen made aU-turn and drove over amedian to evade getting pulledover, Reitz said. Laterthat morning, the officers againencounteredSalgado Araujo’svan and for the second time triedtopull him over,thistime ef-

dard. Once he gets that base put back together,there’s not much room left (for a far right-wing challenger).”

Quality-of-lifeissues

In hersix months in office, Moreno hasoverseen a continued drop in crime and has put greater emphasis on addressing quality-of-life issues that have long bedeviled residents by filling potholes and repairing broken streetlights.

Cityleaders this week said New Orleans’ finances are trending in the right direction,with spending down and revenue up as of May 31 compared to budgetedprojections.

“They all saw New Orleans as an economic plusfor the state,” said Alario, whoserved both as House speaker and Senate president twice. “IfIcouldhave moved the Super Bowl to Westwego, I wouldhave done it.But the bigeventscome to New Orleans, andthe taxdollars circulate aroundthe state.”

The dispute between the politicalleaders comes at a time when Landry is feeling fortified after he announced July 13 that Meta will now spend $50 billion to build an even bigger datafacility in Richland Parish Landry is also comingoff apolitical win by raising money and securing support for U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow’s victory on June 27 in the Republican Senateprimary But his efforts angeredRepublicans who backedstate Treasurer JohnFleming.

With Fleming winning 43%ofthe vote, Landryhas to pull together hisfractured base and head off a potentialchallengefrom a more conservative Republican candidate, said Fletcher, whoadvised Fleming’scampaign.

“He’sgot to get 70% of the White vote in next year’s governor’srace,” Fletcher said. “That’sthe gold stan-

But Moreno is still grapplingwith ahuge budget deficitthatshe inherited from her predecessor,LaToya Cantrell. The city won state authorization last year to borrow $125million from a bank to meet payroll. Thecityrepaid that money and then sought authorization from the State Bond Commission to sell $110 million in bonds to avoid budget cuts and continued furloughs of city employees. Moreno announced last week that she was withdrawing that request in the face of opposition fromLandry’sBond Commission appointees.

New Orleans’fiscal problems have strengthened Landry’sposition as he frames adifferent relationship between the city and thestate.

“New Orleans thinks they’re so special,”hesaid on Monday,a remarkthat went viral and inspired aTshirt from alocal retailer

“That parish is going to operate exactly like the rest of this state,and thepeople of this state want that. So, when the mayor recognizes thatand when she understands that they have to get their fiscal house in order just like this state has got its fiscal house in order —we’ll have adiscussion.”

Landry expressedsimilarly blunt sentiments about New Orleanswhen he spoke to alarge group of Louisiana business, civic and political leaders last Sunday evening in the French Quarter.Gathered at Galatoire’s, and wel-

fectively surrounding the vehicle, Reitz said. Twoofthe four agents gotout of their cars andtold Salgado Araujotoput the vehicle in park. Just before he was shot, one of the agents was “partially inside the vanorimmediately next to it” when Salgado Araujo tried to reverse and then drive forward again, Reitz said. An earlier DHSstatement accused Salgado Araujo of weaponizinghis vehicle.The agency said he rammed his vaninto alaw enforcement vehicle andsaidanofficer opened fire in self-defense. The most recentstatementfrom theU.S attorney’soffice, however, didn’t mention anycollision between Salgado Araujo’svan and a lawenforcementvehicle. It also didn’texplicitly saythatthe officer feared forhis life. There are

comed by therestaurant’s andThe Times-Picayune’s owner John Georges, they heard Meta’s president, Dina Powell McCormick, outlinethe tech giant’sexpansion plans in Louisiana.

Some of the leaders from New Orleans afterward privately expressedshock and anger at Landry’sremarks about the city

Andeven as they applauded the Meta news, some also noted that Tulane’splanned transformation of Charity Hospital’svacantproperty downtownwould bringas many or more permanent jobs.

Moreno attended theevent but said she didn’tspeak with the governor

“He was on the other side of the room,” she said later Collaborationneeded

TopNew Orleans business leaders all said in recent days thatthe city and state must collaborate for the overall good and pointed to the successful partnership whereLandrycreated Troop Nola andMurrill agreed to prosecute those arrested by State Police.

“The recipe between the city and state is crime reduction,” said Gregory Ruso-

no reported injuries for the officers involved. The latest statement didn’tname theofficer who killed Salgado Araujo, nor did it specify if the officer who fired the shot was the same person who wasnext to, or partially inside, the van. Reitz also said in the statement that officers “saw in plainview severalsmall bags of awhite,crystal-like substance inside the van” and that the FBI later executed a search warrant to investigate for possible illicit substances. Salgado Araujo’sbrother,who was in the vanwhenthe shooting happened, has been in ICE detention since the incident.His attorney said the white substancewas asaltmixture that the men used as electrolytes to stay hydrated while doing manual labor in the grueling Texas heat.

vich, alongtimeleader in different business groups in NewOrleans. “The governor useshis officeand resources, andthe city acts in collaboration.”

Almost none of the business leaders contacted for this article identifiedany specific efforts to bridge the divide between Moreno and Landry.Several privately expressed concern about the governor’sreputation for exacting retribution on those who don’tsupport him.

One leader knowntobe makinganeffort to getthe twoleaders on thesamepage is Boysie Bollinger,asuccessful shipbuilderand generous philanthropist who is abig donor for Republicans andlivesinNew Orleans. Moreno asked him to arrange ameeting with Landry Bollinger said he will discuss it withthe governor Sunday night when they meet in Aspen, Colorado.

Bollinger will be staying at his house there,while Landry will hold afundraiser andattenda meeting of the Republican Governors Association.

Michael Hecht, who leads GNO Inc.,whichpromotes investment in New Orleans, laments the fractured ties

but cited several ongoing collaborations between the city andstate,including Tulane’s plans forCharity Hospital, construction underway on the Louisiana International Terminal port in St. Bernard Parish anda 1,000-room Omni Hotel to be built in the city’sWarehouse District.

“Wejust celebrated LSUNew Orleans opening up in themiddle of my district,” said CityCouncil member Eugene Green. James Carville, the famed Democraticstrategist who hasservedasanunofficial ambassador for NewOrleans, said Landry is using the city as apolitical foil to bolsterhis middling popularity.The governor had an approval rating of only 43% in March, down from 58%a year earlier,according to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy,aconservative group. “Lawyers have asaying,” said Carville,anLSU Law School graduate. “Ifyou have the law,pound the law If youhavethe facts, pound the facts. If you have neither, pound the table. If your approval rating is stuck in the 40s, pound New Orleans.” Email TylerBridges at tbridges@theadvocate.com.

Alario

EDUCATION

Innovation, data fixesfuelNativeAmericangradgain

BY SAVANNAH PETERS Associated Press

During his senior year of high schoolonthe Puyallup Reservation, Gerald Dillontraded much of his academic coursework for career training.

When he walkedinto the second grade classroom where he worked as ateachingassistant, students would rush from their seats for a fist bump or ahug.

The 18-year-old, who once found classes boring and put in only enough effort to pass,found renewed purpose to come to school every day

“It motivates me. Ilike making connections with the kids, Ilike helping them,” Dillon said It began in hisjunior yearwhen he enrolled in careertraining courses. Soon, Dillon said, his gradesimproved. He graduated in June from Chief Leschi Schools in Washington and is now considering going to college for ateaching degree.

Administrators at the school say ashift in focus to technical training and career readinessispaying off, with more students not only staying in school butgraduating on time.

Those gains are emblematic of progress across the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, whichoversees 183primary and secondary schools serving over 40,000 students. In 2015, just over half of high schoolers at BIE schools graduated within four years. That number soaredtoarecord high of 79% by 2025.

Some BIE educators attribute that surge to local innovations. Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Billy Kirkland says they reflect the Trump administration’scommitment to Native American students, including efforts to strengthen teacher training. In addition, the way graduation rates are reported

otherwise have dropped out instead enter health sciences, educationand fisheriesmanagement andfind newmotivationtostayin school.

Dillon, therecent graduate, said hands-on job training was abetter match for his learning style.

“Itwas kind of the first time Ifelt excited to go to school,” said Dillon, reflecting on histime helping secondgraderspracticereading skills and learn the life cycle of a frog.

Between 2019 and 2025, Chief LeschiSchools reported four-year graduationrates rose from 53% to 87%.

fulfill its treaty promise.”

Tribal leaderspushback

From the dismantling of the federal Department of Education to DOGE reductions that swept out longtime staffers, as well as repeated threats of deep funding cuts, tribal leaders fearthe progress that has been madecould be undermined.

In November2025, the Department of Education beganhanding off oversight of dozens of programsthatserve Native students to BIE.

across BIE schools was changed to address flawed data collection that previouslydepressedthe numbers.

But concerns loom that changes reshaping theBIE under the Trump administration —including the planneddismantling of the U.S. DepartmentofEducation and continued falloutfrom cuts instituted by DOGE —couldundermine progress and prevent struggling schools from improving.

More accurate data

The surge ingraduation rates reflects, in part,more accurate reporting rather than asudden leap in student academic improvement, accordingtoagency officials.

Foryears, school administrators across the system used flawed methods to trackgraduation rates, often counting studentswho had transferredto otherschools as dropouts.

“Wehad to come to aconsensus and set an accountability framework for our schools,” said Carmelia Becenti, the agency’schief academic officer

Beginning in 2018, BIE began standardizing data collection methods. In the years since, Be-

centi said, the data has painted a moreaccurate and encouraging picture.

An AP analysisofBIE data found that graduation rates acrossthe systemare up 55% sincenew reporting standards began rolling out, with nine of its secondary schools reporting 100% growthor higher Newapproacheshelpstudents

Less thanone-third of BIE schools are operated by the agency itself. Therest are runby tribes and receive federal funding. At some of those,educators say data collection is only part of the story

Don Brummett, superintendent of Chief Leschi Schools, saidhis staff has been working to correct a“disconnect”between the high school’sprevious laserfocus on getting studentsready for college andmanystudents’ goalsoffinding ajob upon graduation.

“Wedevaluedthe trades. That was amistake,” Brummett said. The school launched its career andtechnical curriculumin2020 with funding from the Puyallup Tribal Council. Since then, Brummett has seen studentswho might

Afocusontradesisjust oneof the ways tribal-controlled BIE schools have innovated to keep students on track. At Choctaw Central High School, aBIE school operated by theMississippi Band of Choctaw,administrators saida COVID-era experiment in virtual learning contributedtoa surge in graduation rates from roughly 70% to 93%.

“For certainkids that have more responsibilities at home, kids that need to work, we saw that (virtual learning) gave them aflexible schedule andanopportunity to earn their diploma,” said principal Alaric Keams.

When pandemic lockdowns lifted, the districtmaintaineda virtual learning option forall high schoolers.

But not alltribalgovernments havethe resources to pay for these kinds of programsortake over managementofBIE schools.

Peter Lengkeek, chairman of the CrowCreek Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, says theBIE-operated high school serving his communityischronically understaffed and crumbling underabacklogof deferred maintenance, including a gymnasium withsinking walls and arodent infestation.

It hasreported graduating fewer than 60% of students on time in recent years.

“If we wereable to, we would step in and try to remedy alot of these things,” said Lengkeek. “We have to rely on the government to

At atribalconsultationsession in February in Washington, D.C., dozens of tribal leaders spoke in opposition,sayingthe transition could overwhelm the already understaffed and stretched BIE withadditionalresponsibilities. Several accused thedepartment of ignoring itslegal responsibility to seek their input before moving forward.

“Weare here too late,” said Herschel Gorham, lieutenant governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. “The ink was dry on the agreements before the tribes were ever notified. That should never, ever happen.”

Jason Dropik, executive director of the National Indian Education Association, said turmoil at the agency’s Washingtonoffice tricklesdowntoschools, pointing to a Trump administration executive order that aimed to turn theBIE into aschool choice system but was scaled back after an outcry from tribes.

“That caused some delays and disruptionstoservices,” Dropik said.“Whendrastic changesgo into motion without tribal consultation, there can be unintended consequences forour students.” Lengkeek worries the BIEcould be consumed by political upheaval while schools like the one serving his community continue to underperform.

“This system holds the future of our nations in its hands,” Lengkeek said. “Weneed stability.Weneed increased funding. We need infrastructure.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By LINDSEy WASSON

family opened the restaurant at 1517 Ambassador Caffery Parkway around that morning rush, opening early and serving breakfast all day because that is when their customers need them most.

Together, they are part of a wave of small, Hispanic businesses that have taken root in the northwest section of Lafayette in recent years — most built to serve a working-class customer base that keeps Lafayette’s construction boom running.

It is also bringing a level of energy that Cameron Street has not had in years

The growth is helped by two factors: the low cost of real estate in the area and the quick access it offers to the city, said Luis Mora, chair of the Asociación Cultural Latino Acadiana.

“It’s very close to Scott, a very resourceful area,” Mora said. “So that’s one thing. The other deal is prices and labor. There’s a lot of labor that lives nearby either across the canal or around the bayou between Congress (Street) and Cameron.”

It is also a visible sign of the growing international population in Lafayette Parish. According to census data released recently, 5,740 immigrants moved in between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2025. That is fourthhighest total in the state behind Jefferson, East Baton Rouge and Orleans parishes.

According to census data released in 2021, 16,000 residents in the parish identified as Hispanic, nearly five times the total from 20 years ago. That total could be as high 18,000 now, with more than half migrating from a country other than Mexico, Puerto Rico or Cuba, according to estimates from American Community Survey data.

New life on Cameron Cameron Street is one of the oldest roads in Lafayette Parish, tracing back to the Old Spanish Trail, a 2,750mile highway that once ran from the coastal town of St. Augustine, Florida, to San Diego

Local historian Lynn Guidry said the street’s commercial roots likely predate that, thanks to its location next to the railroad built through Lafayette in the 1880s.

“Perhaps a more accurate description would be to say it was Lafayette’s first commercial corridor,” Guidry said. “Or to jokingly say that it was Johnston Street before Johnston Street.” Cameron Street was a busy commercial strip through the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, anchored by the intersection at University Avenue. Restaurants, gas stations and businesses lined almost every corner

vinced the street has hit bottom yet, even as some stretches show signs of new life.

Ask Menjivar, Zmora or Hot Food Express owner Zee Baloch, who has been on Cameron Street for years now, and none of them describe themselves as reviving anything. They are just building something for the people who live and work nearby

Going international

mostly neighbors and workers passing through, and she expects her business to continue to grow

“I like Cameron Street because it’s a commercial area and is in a great location,” Menjivar said. “The hardest part of keeping the business going is the long hours involved, and in my case, the language barrier My English isn’t very good, though I’m still learning. I love Lafayette and its people. They are wonderful people.”

La Chapina Y La Catracha opened in September. The

name blends nicknames for people from Guatemala (“Chapin” and “Chapina”) and Honduras (“Catracho” and “Catracha”) and a nod to both sides of Zmora’s family origins. The restaurant leans on Guatemalan and Honduran dishes, including a chicken stew called pepián and a molcajete that has picked up a following on TikTok, alongside some Mexican dishes. What sets the restaurant apart, according to Zmora, is timing: It opens before most of the street is awake

and keeps serving breakfast well past the morning rush, catering to workers who need a hot meal before a long day of physical labor When it opened, it was among the first restaurants of its kind on that stretch of Ambassador Caffery Parkway Since then, that area has seen an increase in Hispanic businesses, including a dry cleaner and a doctor’s office.

Baloch offers a longer view. He has run Hot Food Express, 3013 Cameron St., since 2002 and remembers when the street’s reputation worked against him.

“It was very challenging at first because Cameron Street had made itself a bad name due to an increase in crime,” Baloch said. He credits repeat customers with keeping him afloat in those early years, and he pointed to 2007, 2008 and 2010 as turning points, when new businesses began opening up and down the corridor He could have moved. He didn’t.

“I decided to invest in the current location,” Baloch said.

Two decades later, Baloch said the crime that once defined the street’s reputation has mostly faded, and business is steadier than ever

“Now that it’s busy and businesses are coming to the area, we see way less crime,” he said. “Bertrand and Cameron are very safe In my 24 years there has only been one petty crime by teenagers at our business.”

Email Adam Daigle at adaigle@theadvocate.com.

Establishments like Jacob’s Restaurant, Toby’s Oak Grove and the Pat Theater were popular Rail-dependent employers like Sunbeam Bread and Lafayette Woodworks kept the corridor humming, Guidry said. That era faded once Interstate 10 opened in the 1960s and the center of Lafayette moved toward Johnston Street. Sunbeam Bread closed. State Police relocated their headquarters near the interstate. Warehouses and salvage yards moved in where restaurants and shops used to be.

Menjivar opened Mi Tierra Restaurante at the corner of Cameron Street and Bertrand Drive in 2008 with her then-husband, Julio Lopez, and took it over on her own in 2018. Last October, she added Martha’s Mini Mart — located nearby inside what was once the Freedom Biker Church — that sells international foods and drinks and other items. She said cooking Central American food for the community has been worth the long hours because she was able to achieve the goal of paying for her children’s education Her customers are

LouisianaCommunityandTechnicalColleges(LCTC) knowsthatpreparingLouisiana’sfutureworkforcestarts withlisteningtoemployers.Acrossthestate,LCTC collegespartnerwithbusinessandindustryleaders toshapeprogramsthatreflectevolvingworkforce needs,helpingstudentsinruralcommunitiesprepare forhigh-demandcareersclosetohome AtLouisianaDeltaCommunityCollege(LDCC), thatcollaborationincludesaprecisionagriculture technologyprogramdevelopedwithdirectinputfrom GoldmanEquipment,agroupof13JohnDeeredealershipsinNorthLouisiana.HunterVallee,amanager withGoldmanEquipment,saidthepartnershipreflects thegrowingneedfortechnicianswiththeskillsto servicetoday’smodernagriculturalequipment.

apprenticeshipprogramearlierthisyearinpartnership withLaitram,aglobalmanufacturingleaderwitha locationinNewOrleans,anditsaffiliatedcompany, Intralox.Twostudents,EvelynKimballandIsaac Fairburn,werehiredatIntralox’sHammondlocation whileattendingclassesatNTCC’sLacombecampus In addition to earninganhourlywage, both apprenticesreceivefulltuitionsupportwhilegaining real-worldexperienceinahigh-demandfield.The programallowsstudentstocompletetheireducationwhilebuildingtechnicalskillsinaprofessional manufacturingenvironment

Guidry said he isn’t con-

“Tobeagoodtechnician,youhavetohaveacertain mindsetandsomeexperienceworkingwiththetools andknowinghoweachmachineisdifferent,”Vallee said.“Inaddition,technicianshavetobeabletowork ondifferenttypesofequipmentdependingonthetime oftheyear.Wehavealwayshadenoughsalespeople butwehavestruggledtohaveenoughtechnicians.

LDCCalsorenovatedspaceatitsWinnsborocampus tomirrorthefacilitiesandequipmentstudentswill encounteronthejob,helpingensuregraduatesare preparedtocontributefromdayone.Thefirstcohortof studentsisexpectedtocompletetheprogramthisyear.

“I’vebeentoafewJohnDeeretrainingcentersin thecountry,andtheoneatLouisianaDeltaisupto par,”Valleesaid.“It’sexcitingtoseethestudentsget hands-onexperienceinelectricalwork,hydraulics andthefundamentals.Thatmeansthatwhenthey comeworkforus,theywillbeabletohittheground running.

TheexpansionofLDCC’sWinnsborocampus alsoincludesanindustrialelectricianprogramas wellasoneingeneralstudieswithaconcentration inagriculturescience.Together,theexpandedofferingsgivestudentsinsomeofLouisiana’smostrural communitiesaccesstocareer-focusededucation withouthavingtoleavehome

“Theseprogramsarepurpose-builttoaddressworkforcedemandsinourcommunity,”saidWinnsboro CampusDirectorMaryHoggatt.“We’reequipping studentswithskillsthatarenotonlyrelevantbutvital tothefutureofNortheastLouisiana’sagriculturaland industrialsectors. Similarpartnershipsarecreatingopportunities acrossthestate.InSoutheastLouisiana,Northshore TechnicalCommunityCollege(NTCC)servesmore than9,500studentsannuallyacrosscredit,workforceandadulteducationprogramsatitscampuses inLacombe,Greensburg,Hammond,Walkerand Bogalusa.Amongitsmanyemployerpartnerships, NTCClaunchedanewadvancedmanufacturing

AnotherkeyNTCCpartnerisTextronSystems, whichcollaboratedwiththecollegetotransformits aluminumweldingcourseintoatargetedlearning experiencealignedwithTextronSystems’methods andrequirements.Studentslearnthedisciplineneeded tofollowprocess-drivenworkaswellasfundamental aluminumweldingskillssuchaspropermaterial preparation,correctmachinesettingsandstandard weldingtechniques.

ThepartnershiphasbeensosuccessfulthatTextron SystemsisexploringsimilarpartnershipswithNTCC totrainfutureelectricians,shipfittersandoutfitters “Providing students with career pathways at TextronSystemsallowsthemtobeginacareerin theirhomecommunity,”companyleaderssaid.“In addition,theseopportunitieshavethepotentialtobuild long-termcommunitypride,strengthentheregional economyandsupportasustainableworkforcepipeline Additionally,throughourtuitionreimbursement andeducationassistanceprograms,employeescan advancetheirskills,pursuefurthereducationand growprofessionally—allwhileremainingintheir homecommunities.”

Beyonditsbrick-and-mortarcampuses,NTCC hassignificantlyexpandeditscommunityoutreach andworkforce developmentwithits Mobile MechatronicsLabandMobileSTEMLab.These mobiletrainingunitsareinstrumentalinproviding career exploration, industry certificationsand communityengagementtoa diverserange of students in theNorthshoreregion, from middle schoolersanduniversitystudentstoat-riskyouth andincarceratedindividuals Theseeffortsareexpandingtheskilledworkforce whileintroducingstudentsthroughouttheregionto careerstheymayneverhaveotherwiseconsidered FromprecisionagricultureinNortheastLouisiana toadvancedmanufacturingandtheskilledtrades intheNorthshore,LCTCcontinuestoprioritize employerpartnershipstohelppreparetheworkforce thatLouisiananeeds.LCTCishelpingstudentsbuild

Guatemalan and Honduran beers are available at La Chapina y La Catracha restaurant

A mixed fajita plate is seen at La Chapina y La Catracha restaurant.

STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK

Tereza ‘Mamita’ Larios prepares homemade tortillas at La Chapina y La Catracha restaurant in Lafayette on Wednesday.

LOUISIANAPOLITICS

Congress fearsanother federalgovernmentshutdown

WASHINGTON —Last month in theSenate chamber,then at acouple of committee hearings, on aclowder of right-wing shows, and even while campaigningin New Hampshire for aGOP senate candidate, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy predictedyet another federal governmentshutdown on Oct. 1—this time only four weeks before voters decide which partycontrols the House and Senate in 2027. AMadisonville Republican, Kennedy’sopinions were viewed as theoretical a month ago, even dismissed in some quarters as part of his push to pass legislation. But the atmosphere has changed as members of Congress remain divided and Republicans have trouble rallyingenough members to back “must-pass” legislation without help from Democrats.

The House Appropriations committee has approvedall 12 bills that authorize spending by government agencies forthe fiscal year that begins Oct.1.Onlythree have cleared the House chamber —and oneofthose took some parliamentary razzle-dazzle to get passed afterconservatives had earlier blocked aproceduralstep.

The Senate hasn’tyet agreed on what the total spending —called topline numbers —should be in the three bills, much less assign what amounts should gotowhich programs If Congress fails to approveall 12 bills, or in the alternative, aresolutiontocontinueoperations after Oct. 1, then government shuts down, services are curtailed, most employees are temporarily furloughed and essential workers stay on the job without pay.That’shappened 22 times since 1977

House SpeakerMike Johnson, R-Benton and his leadershipteam on Friday afternoon released the “Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027” that would allow the government to continue operatingfrom Oct. 1

Cannizzaronamedto judicial commission

Leon Cannizzaro,the former OrleansParish district attorney with ties to Gov.Jeff Landry and Attorney General Liz Murrill, has been appointed to the Louisiana Judiciary Commission, which investigates judicial misconduct

The news comes in the wake of alegislative session where judges came under fire by Republican leaders who say they are not punished frequently enough for incompetence. Such complaints have oftenbeen enmeshed with broader concerns from Landry and Murrill that judges aren’ttough enoughon criminals.

Cannizzaro, who spent 22 years as ajudge before serving as New Orleans’ top prosecutor from 2008-20, says he is joiningthe Judiciary Commission without a political agenda.

As ajudge, “I wanted to listen to the cases and make decisions based on what’spresented to me,” Cannizzaro said. “I will dothatin this job.”

“I’m not there for any particular cause or anything,” he added.

Cannizzaro is aDemocrat but has drawn heavy criticismfrom criminal justice reform advocates who say his prosecutorial tactics in Orleans were overly aggressive and unethical. Those

to Dec. 4, which is after theNov.3midterm elections.

It’searly going and alot will change basedonconversations with members.

But, generally,Johnson and his leadership team are looking at what is called a“clean CR,” meaning nothing but thenecessary wording to continue government operations at present spending levels past the Sept.30deadline. Leadership did not want to include anyother issues to which members might object

Thelast government shutdown, from Feb. 14toApril 30, for instance, came aboutbecause Democrats demanded and Republicans rejected —requiring federal immigration officers enforcing Trump’sdeportation efforts to remove their masks, wear their badges and follow other dueprocess standards. The shut-

same critics raised alarms about Cannizzaro’sappointment to the commission,which sortsthrough complaints against judges and recommends judges be disciplined by the Louisiana SupremeCourt.

“The LouisianaJudiciary Commission exists to uphold public confidence in the integrity,fairness, and independenceofour courts. Appointments to that body shouldreflect those same values,” AshleyCrawford, associatedirector of Vera Louisiana,a branchofthe Vera Institute of Justice, said in astatement. “LeonCannizzaro’s record as Orleans ParishDistrict Attorney was marked by deeply controversialprosecutorial practicesand longstanding concerns about accountability.”

One of thebiggestcontroversies of Cannizzaro’scareer came when theOrleans Parish District Attorney’s Office was accused underhis leadership of using fake subpoenas andthreats of jail time to pressurewitnesses and victims to cooperate.

Cannizzaro vigorously defended hisrecord,disputing the use of the term “fakesubpoenas.” Instead, his office gave witnesses “district attorney’s notices,”a practice that dated back to the 1960s, hesaid Most weregiven to cooperating witnesses who needed proof that they had been in court, according to Cannizzaro. Though some notices were labeled as “subpoenas” andindicated that defying them

down that began Oct. 1, 2025, and ended Nov.12, 2025, started when Republicans wouldn’tagree to Democratic demands to cover subsidies many workers used to purchase healthcare insurance on the private market that they now can no longer afford. GOP thinking is acontinuing resolution that is just an up-or-down vote to wardoff agovernment shutdown would makeitpolitically harder for Democrats to oppose.

Polymarket, which takes bets on events, charted Thursday that two-thirds, 66%, of its wagers on whether the federal governmentwill shut down put money on yes.

Butafter chatter Thursday that included leadership’sthinking on a“clean CR,” only 55% were betting on ashutdown by Friday morning.

Even though the deadline is twoand a half monthsaway,Johnson andGOP lead-

could carry jail time, Cannizzaro said witnesses that failed to cooperate were never arrested. Cannizzaro said his office used that tactic rarely and only in the mostsevere cases, when he worried it was the only way to keep adangerous criminal from walking away “I neverreally got a chance to sort of give my side of the story,”Cannizzaro said. “I thought we weretreated extremely unfairly by your newspaper.”

Cannizzaro’soffice stopped using the notices after the practice madeheadlines. Cannizzaro said that was adecision made by a group of district attorneys to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing and restore trust withthe public, which he described as integral to afunctioning criminal justice system Still, manycriminal justice advocates in New Orleanslook sourly upon Cannizzaro’srecord.

Cannizzaro “was responsible for some of themost egregious prosecutorial abuses in Louisiana,” said Cecelia Trenticosta Kappel, a well-known defense attorney for deathrow inmates and the deputy director of litigation at the Promise of Justice Initiative, acriminal justice advocacy group based in New Orleans.

“Appointing him to any body charged with evaluating ethics, integrity,orthe rule of law undermines public trust and eviscerates any remnant of afair

ers hope to get aCRtothe floor this week. The House is scheduled to leave Thursday and the Senate twoweeks after that, before spending the entire month of August away from Capitol Hill. They’ll be back forafew weeks in September,then return to their districts forOctober campaigning.

Creating a“clean CR” is moredifficult because Trumprepeatedly has said he won’tsign any legislation until Congress passes astricter election-security measure. The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote, identification when casting aballot and restrictions on using mail-in ballots.

The House has passed the SAVE Act several times. But it’sano-go forsome Republican senators and all of the Democratic ones. So Johnson and his team are adding SAVE Act wording on reconciliation bills in hopes that the Senate can find one instrumentthat 51 Republican senators would approve —and also to calm conservative fears by not attaching the issue to a“clean CR.”

Reconciliation allows adjustments on existing appropriations that can be approved with asimple majority in both chambers, using aconvoluted procedure that circumvents Senate rules that require 60 votes for passage.

Adownsized Reconciliation 3.0, which Johnson said would get avote this week, gives the Defense Department $73 billion forintelligence programsand to help cover unexpected expenses in the military action against Iran, along with $12 billion forfarmers and $10 billion forgrants to incentivize states to pass their own strict voter identification laws.

“It’sour best shot at enacting our party’s top priority legislation, the SAVE America Act,” Johnson said.

Email Mark Ballardatmballard@ theadvocate.com.

legal system we might have,” she added.

StateRep. Phillip DeVillier,REunice, the speaker of the house, tapped Cannizzaro to serve on theJudiciary Commission under arecent rule change that allows high-ranking state officials to makeappointments to the body, whose members were traditionally appointed by fellow judges. DeVillier did not return arequest for comment.

Both Murrill and Landry applauded the appointment, with Landry calling DeVillier’sselection “outstanding” and praising Cannizzaro’slegacy In astatement, Murrill said Cannizzaro had “a deep understanding of andrespect forthe system.” Cannizzaro’sdaughter, Laura Cannizzaro Rodrigue, is representing Murrill in arecent criminal indictment that aNew Orleansgrand jury returned and thestate’shigh court has stayed.

“He is an excellentappointment to theCommission and will join several other Commission appointees whoare likewise committed to ensuring judicial accountability and transparency,” Murrill added.

Cannizzaro did not seek reelection as district attorney in 2020; he went on to workfor the Attorney General’s Office under Landry,and then under Murrill once Landry becamegovernor Cannizzaro headed the Louisiana Department of Justice’scriminal division andretired in May

He’snot the only recent appointmentwith close ties to Murrill’s

office. Landry recently appointed John Sinquefield, another one of Murrill’stop staffers, last year to the commission as it expanded from nine to 14 members.

Hackersattempt to breachtourismsystems

Hackers attempted to breach computer systemsatLouisiana’s state tourism agency over the weekend, but they were unsuccessful, the agency said.

The hackers tried to gather user data from the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, apractice knownascredential harvesting, but cybersecurity software from the company CrowdStrike quickly recognized what was happening, shut down department computer servers in response, and prevented the attack, an agency spokesperson said.

Requests formore detailed information about the incident were referred to Louisiana State Police, which is investigating the attack.

“The Louisiana State Police Cyber Crimes Unit is investigating acyber incident involving electronic devices at the Louisiana Department of Tourism,” Sgt. Ross Brennan, aspokesperson, confirmed in astatement.

“At this time, no electronic devices have been seized, no arrests have been made, and no departmentemployees are believed to be suspects. The investigation remains in its early stages, and no further information is available at this time,” Brennan said.

Mark Ballard

Capitol Buzz STAFF REPORTS

Cannizzaro

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By JOSE LUIS MAGANA

Speaker of the House MikeJohnson, R-Benton, speaks during anewsconference last week in Washington, D.C.

Firm recallslettuce shippedto27states

Taylor Farms expands recall over cyclospora risk

BY SAVANNAH PETERS Associated Press

Taylor Farms has expanded avoluntary recall of its iceberg lettuce products

sourced from central Mexico becauseofa potential link to themultistatecyclospora outbreak that has sickened peopleacross theU.S. Productswith the potential to be contaminated with the diarrhea-causing parasite were shipped to 27 states including Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Jersey,the California-based company said in astatementFriday

“Weare actively removingthe implicated products,” the statementsaid, adding thatthe company hasstopped sourcing lettuce from an implicated lot in central Mexico. U.S. healthofficials earlier this week identifiedlettuce from asupplier in Mexico as asource of cyclosporacontamination in food served at Taco Bell restaurants in five Midwestern states.

The Taylor Farms recall announcement listed 25 shredded lettuce and saladmix productssold under eight different brand codes.Taylor Farms did not respond to an emailed request forthe full names of those brands or retailers. The recalled products were shipped as recently as Thursdayand have “best by” dates as lateasAug. 3. Sysco, thenation’s largest

food distributor,has halted distribution of all Taylor Farms iceberg lettuce products sourced from Mexico and instructed customers to destroy them Cyclospora is amicroscopic parasite that infects food that has comeinto contact with human feces, most commonlywhenproduce is irrigated or washed with contaminated water.When ingested, the parasite causes

intestinal illness marked by “frequentand sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC. In 2026, cyclospora has sickened at least 1,645 people in the U.S. and hospitalized 141, according to the CDC, which is investigating more than 5,000 additional illnesses that may be linked to the parasite. This time last year,only 249 cases had been reported.

TexasHillCountry floods test newwarning systems

BY CHRISTOPHER L. KELLER and REBECCA BOONE Associated Press

After deadly floods killed more than 100 people in Texas’ Hill Country last July, officials vowed major changes in hopes of preventingthe failures that contributed to the high death toll. They promised better flood warning systems,tighter safety rules for children’scamps and improvements to the state’swater infrastructure.

That work was far from done when anew round of storms began pummeling the state this week, triggering catastrophic flash floods in some of the same areas devastated in 2025.Atleast two people died. Hundreds needed rescue.

Butresidentsinsomehardhit areassaid ayear of preparation did make adifference. Newly installed flood sirens sounded in the darkness, warning people to get out.

Phones buzzed with alerts that weren’tsent out in last year’sdisaster Still, stories of people surprised to find their homes inundatedbyrisingrivers illustrate the challenges of trying to bolsterearly warning systems in avast, rural area known as Flash Flood Alley Proactivealerts

Over the last decade, avariety of Texas state and local agencies missedopportunities to implement flood warning systems along the Guadalupe River,the AP reported after last summer’sfloods killed 136people,including28 at asleepaway camp for girls That changed after the tragedy as lawmakersand others scrutinized alackof preparedness by government agencies and riverside camps Unlike last summer,when local officials in Kerr County said they had been reluctant to “cry wolf” and order evacuations and failed to send out wireless alerts to warnof flash floods, Kerr County issued four alerts and thecity of Kerrville issued one early on Thursday as the risk for flooding became apparent, according to an Associated Press review of available data.

They warned residents along Quinlan Creek to evacuate to higher ground, and of “extremely dangerous” flash flooding. Those alerts came alongside flood watches, warnings and emergencies sent to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones by the National Weather Service. People who signed up for the CodeRED notification emergency systeminKerr County also received text message warnings.

“Last year,wegot no alarms. We had no idea what was going on,” saidSuzanne Sutphin Gschwind, of Kerrville.

“This year,very different,” she said, with multiple texts and calls coming in from localauthorities,aweather channel and her doorbell camera. Onenight the warnings arrived “about every two hours.”

“I think we would all like to err on the side of too much,” she said.

Everyone notreached

Between the early morning hours of Tuesday and about 9a.m. Thursday, the National WeatherServicesent 38 alerts to people in certain southwest Texas communities, including 14 tornado warnings and 24 warnings that floodingwas occurring or imminent andcould be

Apolice officer walks Friday along the GuadalupeRiver after aseries of stormsinKerrville, Texas.

“life threatening.”

Those Weather Service notifications, though, often don’tcontain thehighly localized information put in alerts sometimes sent by municipal and county emergency agencies —and people in some places may not have gotten any of those local alerts, which can bemore decisive for peopleconsidering whether to seek highground.

An Associated Pressreviewofwireless emergency alert data did not find any listed as sent by agencies in Uvalde County,which was hit hardbyflooding, though agenciesin that county might have usedother means to alert the public

Jaclyn Gonzales was awakened at 2a.m. Wednesdayby afriendwho called towarn that atornado might be headed toward her Uvalde-area home. When she jumped out of bed, the floor was wet.

“It was the shock of the watertomyfeet that made me really wakeup,” shesaid.

Kat Sprawls onlylearned floodwaterswerenearing herBatesvillehomewhen a friend called her at 3:30 a.m. Friday.Ittook five or six calls before she woke up, because shehad her phone on do-notdisturb mode

“There’snowarning system at all. It’sjust like the flood in Kerrville last year —wehad no warnings,” Sprawls said.“Over half of Batesvilleisunder water now.”

ZavalaCounty Sheriff’s Department secretary Jessica Belmarez said thedepartment is updating its Facebook page with evacuation information andthat law enforcement officers were goingdoor-to-door inaffected areas, including Batesville. Sirennetwork expanding

Newly installed sirens in Ingram and in Kerr and Kendall counties were used this week to warn residents, said state Sen. Paul Betten-

court, who authored legislation in 2025 to help fund thesirens. Twenty-eight additional counties arealso eligible for floodwarning funding. Mostare in the processofputting together implementation plans for reviewbythe Texas Water Development Board.

“Between the outdoor sirens, and the cellphone alerts, theresponse was very positive in getting people outofthe way andtohigher ground,” Bettencourt said “It’sanenormous improvement over ayear ago.”

Three of six new sirens installedinKerr Countywere used to warn people to seek high ground, said Tara Bushnoe, managerofthe Upper Guadalupe River Authority The other threewere in areas withonly minor flooding, Bushnoesaid.

The small town of Comfort hadone warning siren for years. The volunteer firedepartment recently installed twomore.

“Some people just don’t want to leave —that’s our problem here,” saidDanny Morales,the assistantfire chief. “But we did setthem offtwice, probably an hour from one to another,just because we hadpeople just lingering, and not wanting to move.”

Fillingthe gaps

Ian Cunningham founded River Sentry after the2025 floods, building flood siren towers for privately owned sites like RV parks, camps andhotels. The sirens are triggered by rising water levels.

So far,the company has installed 104 sirens along the GuadalupeRiver,Cunninghamsaid, including several near the site of an RV park where more than threedozen people died in 2025.

“Weinstalled them about threemonths ago and did not expect them to be used so soon,” Cunningham said.

Hononu,whichhas developed water-level sensor technology and areal-time data network, received a state contract that will make it easier foragenciestopurchaseits flood warning technology

Watch Duty,afire-tracking appused by millions,expandedearlierthis year to help monitor floods.

‘Lives have been saved’ Texas Gov.GregAbbott saidthe lessons of 2025 ledto

abetteremergencyresponse this time.

“Everybody in Texashas been far more prepared to deal with whathas happened this year,” Abbott said during anews conference in Uvalde. “Lives have been saved.”

WhenMelvinLandrylooksbackonnearly99 yearsoflife,thememoriesspancontinents,careers andcountlessmilesofopenroad.

Atjust17yearsold,LandryenlistedintheU.S. NavyneartheendofWorldWarII.Hismilitary servicetookhimtothePacific,includingChina, HongKongandthePhilippines.Asthewarwound down,heheadedtoPanamaandCostaRica.Once peacewasdeclared,LandrywasbackintheUnited States,firstinMobile, Alabama, then to seehis NavyshipdecommissionedontheEastCoast.

“I stillrememberhow they made us load crates full of bananasfromCosta Rica to bring to Mobile,” Landry said.“It seemed like such a minorthing afterthe war, butitwas important tosomepeople.”

Landry’sNavyservicelastedabout18months Whilehisstintwasrelativelyshort,hissisterDoris Provostremembers howstressful it wasfor his familybackhomeinLafayette.

“Iwasonlyinsecondgradewhenheleft.Even though Iwas little,I remember my mother was devastatedwhenhewentintotheNavy,”Provost said.“Whenpeacewasdeclaredandthewarwas over,shedrovemetoeverychurchin towntogivethanksbecauseMelvin wascominghome.

OncebackinLouisiana,Landry tookadvantageoftheGIBilltostudy petroleumengineeringatthen-SLI andLSU.Thatcareertookhim acrossLouisianaandTexasinroles with variouscompanies andstate agencies.Whenhewas assigned to ageology camp in theWestern United States,the terrainspoke to somethingdeepinsidehim

to live outhis days in LasCruces, although he andhiswifehadnotedthattheydidn’thaveclose relativesintheregion.Lastsummer,whenLandry tookafallwhileinstallingasprinklersystem,they realizedtheirlifestyleneededtochange.Provost hadbeenaresidentofTheVincentSeniorLiving in Lafayettefor more than fiveyears,and after months of discussion,Landryand Effiemoved into thecommunity earlierthisyear.

“Iknewitwouldbeanadjustment, so I’ve been glad to be around to helpthemgetacclimated,”Provost said.“Iwentthroughthoseemotions myself five yearsago becauseI didn’t want to leavemyhouse,but IknewI couldn’t take care of it anymore.Now,Ireallyenjoybeing at TheVincent.The activities and socializationhelpalot.”

“I instantlybecameabig fanof theWest.Ilovedtheweather.Iloved thelandscapes. Iloved everything aboutit,”Landrysaid. “Mywife EffieandIendedupsettlinginLas Cruces,NewMexico.Itwasalittle townwhenwefirstmovedthereand wejustfellinlovewithit.”

Even though Landry hadfound acitytocallhome, hissense of adventurewas stillfirmly intact Beginningwitha stationwagon andeventuallyusing aseriesof campers, Landry andhis family traveled theUnitedStates, setting up tentsand spending afew days anywhere that seemed interesting. And, he neverhesitated to help othersjoinhistravels “Myhusbandhadbeendiagnosed withcancerandMelvinaskedhim, ‘Charles,what’sonyourbucketlist?’,” Provostrecalled. “Charles said he hadalwayswantedtoseetheGrand Canyon.So,Melvinsaid,‘Alright, we’regoingtotheGrandCanyon.’ WedrovetoLasCrucestomeetthem andthentookacampertoArizona. Thewholetripwasmagnificent.” Landrywouldhavebeencontent

AlthoughLandryisstilladjusting to communityliving, he is feeling asense of reconnection nowthat he livesonthe same property as hissisterand severalofhis wife’s relativesarenearby “It’sonlybeenaboutthree-and-ahalfmonths,”hesaid.“Ithinkwe’ll befullyadjustedbynextyearatsome point. I’monmythird pacemaker. Isurvivedthatfalllastyear, andit wasabout twohours before they foundme. Even with allofthat, I canstill do alot.I’vegot my eye onmakingitto100.”

TheVincent Senior Living has IndependentLiving,AssistedLiving andMemoryCareoptionsforsenior citizens.Availableservicesinclude physical therapy, housekeeping, laundry,flexiblemealplans,access toafull-servicebeautysalon,game area,library andtheater,plusa widearrayofsocialactivities.The communityislocatedat2201Verot School Road in Lafayette. Visit vincentseniorliving.comtolearn more or schedule atour.

ASSOCIATEDPRESS PHOTO By GERALD HERBERT

THE GULF COAST

Mobile unveilsboldnew plan to revinventdowntown

BY MARTHA SANCHEZ Staff writer

MOBILE,Ala.

—The river that bounds this industrial city is still busy with its usual rhythms. Cranes stack cargo at the port. Trains clank across tracks. Powerful ships keep forging toward the sea

But many leaders in Mobile, Alabama, are also embracing anew vision for the working waterway: Residents and visitors, they say,should be able to relax there too. Their plan could transform astretch of downtown Mobile’swaterfront into awalkable collection of shops, bars and restaurants. And it is one step in abold new endeavor to reinvent the city’s center and lure newcomers converging in other cities across the Gulf Coast.

“Wejust never saw our waterfront as atourist attraction,” said Spiro Cheriogotis, who was electedmayor last year. He glanced across the concrete shoreline and down the Mobile River as ahulking ship plowed for the bay

“If people were walking down here to have lunch every day,Ithink that would be incredible,” he said. “How many people, in the middle of the day,have done this?” The shore was empty “Not enough,” Cheriogotis said.

Butheisoptimistic about downtownMobile’s future. Last week,leaders celebrated news that along-stalled planto build a$3billion bridge across the river will finally begin this year.Nearby,a $300 million arenais underconstruction. So is a newinternational airport.

More than 100,000 passengers have boardedAmtrak trains that began running last summer between New Orleans and downtown Mobile. And Cheriogotisis dreaming of addingfood trucks and even arooftop restaurant near the train stop on the waterfront, which has long been lined with ajail, warehouses and salvage yards. Tourismleaders predict the new developmentswill attract more Louisiana residents for concerts andvacations. They say the boost could help raise Mobile’s annual visitor count from

about3.5 millionto5million over thenextseveral years.

Whether that happens andwhether the attractions convincemore newcomers to move downtown —could chart apath for other industrial powerhouses around the region that want to reinvigorate their cities

“Wethink that we can attract investment,”said Bradley Byrne, aformer congressmanwho leads Mobile’s chamber of commerce. “Allthings arepossible if people show up with money.”

Arena, airport, waterfront

Someprogress is imminent.Regions Arena, nestled in adowntown neighborhood, is scheduled to open early next year.Itwill hold 10,000 spectators and replace the city’sold civic center with aspace that can attract bigger headliners. It will also bring aprofes-

sional hockey team —the Mobile Mysticks —back to thecity after 25 years.

The new Mobile International Airport is set to open next spring near downtown and could bring ahalf-million moreflights to thecity over the next five years, said David Clark, president of the tourism agency Visit Mobile. It will replace the old regional airport about 17 miles west of downtown and could draw flights from Las Vegas, New York and Chicago.

“You don’tmove an airport very often,”Clark said.

“All of these investments are sparking other people to invest, and that’sa key thing.”

The largest cruise ship that has ever been based in Mobile —the 3,000-passenger Carnival Valor —will also begin service next May.And cityleaders are seeking millions in federal

grant money to redesign a major road that separates the river from the rest of downtowntomake crossing safer forpedestrians.

“Wewant people to be able to get over here easily,generally without fear of death,” Cheriogotis said along the street one recent day.Atractor-trailer and a squatted truck roared past him

Mobile is not giving up on its industries, either: A dredging project last year madethe Port of Mobile among the deepest on the Gulf Coast, which means it can welcomethe world’s largest ships. The aerospace company Airbus is expanding in the city and plans to build up to 20 planes amonth.

Leaders say the city’s industrial growth remains crucial to its success, and could also lure morebusiness travelers whoarrive formeetings with shipbuilders and manufacturers. That, in turn, could raise demand forrestaurants and boutique hotels.

Mobile is also dusting up its image by refurbishing parks and battling signs of blight.

“It’slike awhole new skyline,” Dale Liesch, acity spokesperson, said.

Mobile’s waterfront vision Challenges remain. Long lines of cars snake east each evening as thousands of employees whowork in the city return to homes across Mobile Bay.The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population in Baldwin County,home to the cities of Fairhope, Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, has gained almost 36,000 people since 2020 —agrowth rate of about 15%. Mobile County,incontrast, has lost about 3,000

people in the past five years, adecline of 0.8%.

Ellis Foster,the economic development director for the nonprofit Downtown Mobile Alliance, said interest rates and tariffs are also creating uncertainty for somemajor developments. Other leaders have said Mobile needs morewhitecollar jobs, downtownhousing and amore robust retail district. But they say they are confident moreinvestments will come.

“People don’tlook for Mobile on amap,” Foster said, “but when they come to Mobile they always say, ‘Man, this is agreat place to be.’”

“We’ve been here all along,” he added. “People just haven’tcome over and experienced it as much as they have in New Orleans.”

Cheriogotis is still thinking about possibilities. Maybe someold warehouses with little need forwaterfront access could make wayfor vibrant new restaurants. Or diners could enjoy rooftop viewsfrom adeck atop the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf,just behind the Amtrak stop. The building’sroof is still empty.But Cheriogotis walked to its railing one evening last week and faced the river,the jail and the salvage yards.

“Imagine brand new mixed-use condos, hotels, restaurants, bars,” he said. He conceded that the transformation would not happen in the next year.Itcould take several tries to secure the federal grant needed to build ariverfront pedestrian corridor,which leaders say will kickstart more waterfront investments. But he madeapromise. “This whole area,” he vowed, “will be completely different.”

Trumpshiftshis tone on JimmyCarter

President grappling with Iran,inflationand hisown legacy

BY WILL WEISSERT Associated Press

WASHINGTON JimmyCarter

used to be one of President DonaldTrump‘s favorite political targets, acatchall foil forfeckless Democrats that he could jeer at to make himself look strong anddecisive.

But lately,Trump’ssentiments on the 39th president have become more wistful as he faces some of the same challenges the late Carter did.

Those include the war in Iran with no end in sight —and now escalating as the U.S. moves to control the Strait of Hormuz —and inflation, adrag on the economy Trump hasn’t tamed despite long insisting that his business background would wipe it out

The comparison seems to be on Trump’smind, too. Askedlast month why he didn’tdispatch U.S. Special Forces into Iran to forcibly remove its enriched uranium, he responded, “I didn’tfeel like being Jimmy Carter.”

That recalled the failed 1980 raid to free U.S. hostages that killed eight American servicemen. Trump alsosaid in March that the unsuccessful mission “costthem the election” against Ronald Reagan in 1980,sounding cognizant of political realities in away he didn’twhen using Carter as apunchline.

The shift in tone coincides with Trump’sincreased focus on his personal legacy and comes as the parallels between the two presidents become harder to ignore.

“I think it is dawning on

BY MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press

BILLINGS,Mont. The U.S. Interior Department on Friday canceleda rulemeant to protect plants and animals that are determined to be threatened with extinction, thelatest step by President Donald Trump’sadministration to dismantle key provisions of the landmark Endangered Species Act at the behestofindustry

Instead of receiving automatic protections, imperiled species will need individualized protection plans once they are added to the threatened species list. That’s a potentially lengthy process in which companies could seek exemptions for oil and gas drilling, mining and oth-

him —it’sgettingthrough even histhick skull —that he’s kicked over ahornet’s nest and hispresidency might be remembered for some of the same things Jimmy Carter’spresidency is,”said Jonathan Alter, author of “His Very Best:Jimmy Carter,A Life.”

Glaringdifferences

Asked about Trump’s change in tone on Carter and thetwo facing overlapping challenges,White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said,“Trumpwillneverallow Iran to have anuclear weapon” and“remains laserfocused on implementing his proveneconomic agenda to lower costs.”

“Thepresident is aoneof-a-kind leader who will always unapologetically advance America’sinterests,”Wales said in astatement.“The only legacyhe is concerned with is making America greater than ever before.”

Kori Schake,a former member of GeorgeW Bush’s NationalSecurity Council,saidshe doesn’t thinkTrump is reassessing Carter. “He doesn’tstitch facts together and create theories,” she said Still, Trump’smore recent comments are along way from his2024 reelectioncampaign, when he routinelycalled Joe Biden “the worst”president who made Carter look “brilliant” by comparison. Trumpstill frequently mentionsCarter who died two years ago at age100, butusually to incorrectly suggest that he was wary of mail-in ballots.

Other disparities between the two are legion Carter wasmarriedtohis wife, Rosalynn,for 77 years, was deeplyreligious and pledgedto “never knowingly lie to the American people.”

Trump is twice divorced, relishes cursing publicly and offers anever-ending onslaughtoffalsehoods.

As president, Carter placed his family’speanut business in ablindtrust.

Control of theTrump Organization hastransferred to Trump’ssons,but the president took in nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year while not being shy about turning his presidencyintoamajor source of personal benefit in other ways.

Speaking in 1977, Carter declared, “Weare nowfree of that inordinate fear of communism.” Trump has seized on primary wins by progressive Democrats to constantly stokenew fears about communism.

Carteralso wonthe Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Trump hasn’t,despite declaring himselfmore deserving than any of the award’spast recipients.

Inflationand Iran

While inflation plagued both presidents, Carter had it muchworse,facing apeak inflation rateof14.7% in April1980.Consumerprices rose 4.2% this May from a year earlier —athree-year high —and though they fell sharplyfromMay to June, that decline included lower gas prices fueled by aU.S.Iran ceasefire.Thatdealis now in tatters, driving up oil

prices again.

Trump suggested he didn’t thinkabout Americans’ financial woes when it comes to Iran,awar he startedin conjunction with Israel in February.More recently,he shrugged off inflation concerns. But resolution has proved tricky and U.S. attacks have intensified anew after Iran’sattacks on commercial ships in theStrait of Hormuz

Like Trump, Carter was also bedeviledbythe strait, declaringduringhis 1980 Stateofthe Union address thatthe situation “demands theparticipation of all those whorelyonoil from the Middle East andwho are concerned withglobal peace and stability.”

AnotherTrump-Carter parallel was theDemocrat having considered military action to seize Kharg Island,thoughheultimately decidedagainst it so as not to jeopardize thehostages. Trumptargeted the island with U.S. strikes early in thewar,looking to thwart Iranian oilexports, and has threatened it again.

Schake, asenior fellow and director of foreign and defense policystudiesat the American Enterprise Institute, noted akey difference was “while the Carter administration gave serious consideration to attacking Kharg Island, the reason they didn’tdoitwas they didn’twant to be at war with Iran.”

“And we’re already at war with Iran,” she said. Alter saidIran tried to hurt Carter’sreelection chances and raised the possibility that they may do the same to Trump’sRepublican Party ahead of theNovember midterm elections.

“These people are master diplomats, andthey proved that during the Carter administration,” Alter said.

“They’re proving that again. They’re really good at ropea-dope.”

Presidential history

The president has lately name-checked many of his predecessors, praising William McKinley ‘s support for tariffs and Teddy Roosevelt as a“great he-man.” Trump

said akey reason for reaching thenow-imperiledJune ceasefire with Iran was to avoidthe “economiccatastrophe “thatbefell Herbert Hoover

“I’m astudent of alot of history,” Trump said this week.

During his first term, Trump frequently compared his ownpopulist streak to Andrew Jackson’s. He still praises Jackson but has more recently extolled many past presidentialrecords, includingthose of Democratslike Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Trumpeven listed someof Carter’s accomplishments on the“Walk of Fame” he installed along the White House Colonnade despite displays for other Democrats, such as Barack Obama and Biden, offering biting attacks.

“Trump is thinking of his legacy,and he might have thought that attacking Iran would have enhanced it. But, in fact, it will seriously hurt,” James P. Pfiffner, aprofessoremeritus at George Mason University and author of several books including “The Character Factor: How We JudgeOur Presidents,” said via email.

After his presidency,Alter said, Carter asked Trump for adonation to help build Carter’s presidential library. Trump later wrote that Carter wanted$5million, but he didn’tanswer him.

Then, during Trump’s first term, Carter wrote the president aletter and Trump called to thankhim,eventually leaving Carter with the impression that he might serve as aspecial envoy to China —anoffer that never actually materialized.

“Ifhehad learned anything fromCarter’s experience —and listenedtopredictionsaboutthe Strait of Hormuz —hewould have hesitated,” Pfiffner said of war with Iran. “But he ignored lessons of history and geography.”

er development wherethose species live.

Opponents said it would make it harder to savewildlife that’sawaitingfederal protections and in danger of disappearing, such as monarch butterfliesand alligator snapping turtles.

InteriorSecretary Doug Burgum said in astatement that the Endangered SpeciesAct had beenused for too long“to stop almost any new project in America, driving up costsfor families, weakeningour competitiveness, and undermining our national security.”

“Success should be measured by species recovery anddelisting, notbyadding more species to thelist,” Burgumadded. Asecondchangefinalized

Friday requires officials to analyze economic impacts when deciding whether habitat is critical to aspecies’ survival.

Critics say it gives corporations an opportunity to put their thumb on thescaleso that officials will allow development in those areas.

“Ifyou’reexemptingcertain industriesthat cause habitat destruction, in many instances you’ll be exempting the main threat to those species,” said Noah Greenwald with the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity

Officialsmadesimilar changesduring Trump’s first termbut they were reversedunderformer Democratic President Joe Biden.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTOByDENNIS COOK

PresidentJimmy Carter calls for aquestion on April 10, 1980, during anationally televised news conference in the East Room of White House in Washington.

Trump

Lafayette expects $22M for ponds

State reimbursements could cover gap in project funding

BY STEPHEN MARCANTEL Staff writer

Lafayette Consolidated Government anticipates receiving $22 million in state funding to reimburse the parish for detention pond projects initiated under the previous administration.

Mayor-President Monique Boulet said Monday she was hopeful that LCG could finally cover a $22 million gap for the Bayou Vermilion Flood Control project, which began in 2021 under former Mayor-President Josh Guillory to ad-

Local musical set for Cité des Artes

‘Ms. Warbucks’ returns to Lafayette

BY JA’KORI MADISON Staff writer

Two women are bringing their locally written and produced musical, “Ms. Warbucks,” to Lafayette for its second run.

On Aug. 6-9 and 14-16, hospice worker and performer Caroline Helm Huval and theater professor Bonny McDonald will bring the musical to Cité des Artes in downtown Lafayette.

“The show is about our need for connection,” says Helm. “How can we take better care of one another as a community? What does it mean to belong?”

Inspired by Harold’s Gray’s turnof-the-century cartoon, the show is set in 1961 and follows grown-up Annie Warbucks.

In a setting where Warbucks visits her former orphanage director in a nursing home, she recognizes the same struggles she faced as a child: institutionalization, abandonment and, above all a longing for family

While working in a nursing home as a hospice social worker, Huval, a lifelong fan of the 1982 movie “Annie,” had a vision of the nursing home residents dancing to “It’s a Hard Knock Life.” When she partnered with McDonald to co-write the musical, the show took off. The team grew to include songwriters Johanna Divine and Chas Justus.

It sold out four shows at the Acadiana Center for the Arts two years ago. They are thrilled to present a revised version, with more songs and drama, later this summer

“As our population ages, more families than ever are facing hard questions about longterm care, caregiving and what it means to grow old,” said McDonald.

The authors said it is important to tell stories about our aging local communities and societal responsibility to our elders. “Warbucks” takes up questions of abandonment, resentment and forgiveness as well, the authors say.

“We hope that our show provides strong, interesting roles for older actors,” said McDonald, noting that the show features 12 senior citizens, ages 70 to 88, singing, dancing, and showcasing their talents

The return of “Ms. Warbucks” is a collaborative effort among the creators, the cast, Cité des Artes, and Performing Arts Serving Acadiana Email Ja’kori Madison at jakori. madison@theadvocate.com.

dress flooding issues in the parish.

“I don’t think this money would have ever been reimbursed if we stayed on the same track we were on,” Boulet told Parish Council members at a budget proposal meeting Monday “It would have really gutted out the parish budget.”

The money will go to reimburse the parish, which borrowed funds from a consolidated cash account, said Karen Fontenot, LCG’s chief financial officer “City funds were still used,” Boulet told council members.

“You’re just borrowing money to fill the gaps in the parish funds that were also used that the parish didn’t have.”

The Coulee Ile des Cannes and Homewood detention projects have plagued the Boulet administration since taking office.

Both were delayed after the Guillory administration failed to obtain the required federal permits. LCG also had to pay $11.5 million after failing to follow the proper expropriation process to obtain the property for the Homewood site.

Since then, Ile des Cannes has been completed and connected to the Vermilion River, with LCG receiving $6 million in state reimbursements. Homewood is still in progress with no clear completion date. LCG is currently waiting for a private gas company to abandon a pipeline that runs through the project site.

Once pipes are removed, the project can go up to bid, according to Jamie Boudreaux, LCG’s chief communication officer What to do with the extra dirt

and the remaining 300 acres of land on the Homewood site is another thorn, Boulet said. The administration is having a hard time finding buyers and sellers for the dirt, and any changes to land use would require federal approval because the project received American Rescue Plan dollars. “APRA says we can’t use it for any other purpose than the original intention, which was drainage,“ Boulet said. “We’ve got to get special permission from Treasury to do anything other than drainage “ Email him at stephen. marcantel@theadvocate.com.

SLICK SHREDDING

BY AIDAN MCCAHILL Staff writer

A young skater

of

LEFT: J.J. Menard competes in the tournament.

STAFF PHOTOS By BRAD BOWIE

similar $250 million, 30acre BESS facility near White Castle

The unanimous vote in favorofthe moratorium came during aParish CouncilmeetingWednesday,packed with residents opposed to developing the technology in their community.But neither of theprojectswas closeto breaking ground, and Parish Council Chair Steve Smith said the 2-year pause wasn’t in response to anything specific.

“But we know there are goingtobecompanies wanting to do it,” he said. “Weknow it’sanemotional subject; our constituents are concerned. We,inturn, are concerned.”

Council member Matt Jewell said both residents and the council opposed thetechnologybecause theyweren’tgiven enough information on what it actually is.

“It blew up in their faces,” he said. “People don’t trust what’sgoing on because we’ve been kept in the dark about it We have alot of questions; none of them have been answered.”

The moratorium’s language was flagged as “convoluted” by the council’s legalcounsel, attorney TimCollins, who warned itswordingcould create problems in future litigation. As written, he said, it technically bans the battery energy storagesystems used in homes, like Tesla Powerwalls.

The council chose not to follow its lawyer’sadvice.

“All these people came out to hear avote,”said council member Shalanda Allen. “We’ll give them a vote.”

Iberville Parish President Chris Daigle said the council is nowworkingto amendthe moratorium’s language. Jewell said a technical ban on residential battery systems would notbeenforced. NextEra and Entergy did not respondtorequests for comment.

Unfamiliar territory

ProponentsofBESS say the technology improves grid resiliency and efficiency by capturing electricity during periods of low demandand releasing it whendemand rises. Cleanenergy advocates also call it a“bridge technology,” since it lets solar farms andwindturbines storeenergy when it’ssun-

ny or windy and release more whenthe weather shifts.BESScan serve anything froma single home to adatacenterthe size of an airport terminal.

Texas hasbuilt around 200 battery energystorage facilities after widespread blackouts from a2021 winter storm that killed hundreds. Those facilities can now provide power to communities for hours at atime when other sources fail, Public ServiceCommissioner Davante Lewis of Baton Rougesaid

Butthe technology is unfamiliarterritory for Louisiana.Onlyone BESS facility,planned alongside aNextEra solar development in Tangipahoa Parish, has been approvedso far,Lewis said Lewis said BESS has become cheaper over time and has proven capableof loweringutilitybills while improving reliability.

“Thechallenge is,a lot of people don’t knowabout these new evolving technologies,” he said. “We wantEntergy and these power companies to be more reliable and to lower their prices, but atthe same time, we are locally opposed to the technologythat wouldmakethem morereliable and lower theircosts.”

More than 150 local governmentsacrossthe country haveissuedmoratoriums, restrictionsor bans on BESSfacilities, according to Energy Storage News,a market research outlet. In Iberville, thebacklashoverlaps withbroader opposition to large-scalesolar projects, including Entergy’s Cypress proposaland another NextEra solar farm near WhiteCastle that was rejected in 2025.

NextEra representative Jared Delrosesaid the company scaled back its plans in response to that opposition

“Rather than pursuing aproject requiring thousands of acres,weshifted to an energy storage facility on just 30 acres,”he said during Wednesday’s meeting.

But assurances from industry representatives haven’tassuaged local fears.

“It’smoving way too fast,” Gary Harrell, an Iberville resident,said during aJune 30 meeting discussingthe moratorium.Echoing broaderlocal sentiment, Harrell said he believesthe Cypress Harvest Project —which would replace sugar cane fields near Plaquemine High —will be an eyesore

that’stoo loud, will cause drainage issues, increase heat andbedifficult to disassemble when itsuseful life ends

“Weneedtoget the publicmoreinvolved in this so we knowexactly what’s going to happen,”hesaid.

The central fearofthe battery facilities is fires. When lithium batteries overheat, chemical reactions inside the cells generate their own heat, meaning thefiredoesn’t need oxygen to keep burning and can smolder for days. The smoke can also be filled with toxic chemicals.

“Do we have theinfrastructuretobeable to fight these fires when the time comes?” Savannah Morales, an Iberville Parish resident, said at the June 30 meeting.

John Walser,afire protection consultant and former Virginia-based firefighter,toldthe council Wednesday thatimproved manufacturing, added containmentsystems and tighter regulations have made the technology’s risks far more manageable. The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency has also noted that BESS fireincidencehas declined since2020.

“House fires and car fires producefar more smoke, andthe constituent gases arelargely thesamethat yousee from BESSfires,” he said.

Regulation vs investment Jewell, the Iberville council member,said he wasn’tpersuaded by the industry’sarguments.One of his main questions is howthe facilitieswould be regulated going forward He pointed to thestate’s thousands of orphanedoil wells as acautionary tale.

“There’sfive of themin thetown of White Castle leaking right now,” he said. “At one point,oil andgas washeavilyregulated;all that went away If history repeats itself,and we have no checks and balances, we’re already dead.”

Daigle, the parishpresident, said thestate plans to releaseminimum guidelines on batterystorage facilities later this summer Butthe pointofthe moratorium enacted Wednesdaywas to give his office and the council timeto consult with experts in the energy field before returning in two years to draft an ordinance tailoredtoIberville’sneeds. He said the pause will also give the parish time to adequately train firefighters.

“There is alot of research to look into. They wantedtoget it right the first time,” he said of the Parish Council.

Still, he conceded that the type of moratorium was rare.

“Thereare not many moratoriums thatare initially imposed for aperiod of two years,” said Daigle.

Those with astake in the projects, including NextEra’s Delrose andEntergy representativeKristin Zatta, pushed for ashorter, 90-day moratorium that the council could extend as needed

“A short-term moratoriummakes sense. Alonger moratoriumwill createuncertaintyand drive investment away from Iberville Parish,” said Tim Johnson, an Ibervilleresidentwhose firm,the TJC Group, hasbeen involved in one of the projects

Email Aidan McCahill at aidan.mccahill@ theadvocate.com.

LOTTERY

FRIDAY,JULY17, 2026

PICK 3: 0-6-9

PICK 4: 1-3-1-5

PICK 5: 1-3-4-1-0

MEGA MILLIONS: 22-34-45-48-55

MEGA BALL: 14

Obituaries

Franques,Patsy SueAcord

Patsy SueAcord Franques, 88, alifelongresidentofLafayette, LA, passedaway peacefullyon Sunday, July 12, 2026, in the companyoffamilyand friends.

Patsy wasa nurturing anddevoted wife, mother, andgrandmother.She is survived by herson William Franques Sr., daughter-in-law Yvette andgrandchildrenWilliam Jr., Benjaminand Madeline; son Howard Franques III,daughter-inlaw Annette,and grandchildrenMatthew and Claire;and daughterSusan Franques Flurry, son-in-law Philip, andgranddaughter Charlotte.

Patsy waspreceded in death by herhusbandof61 years, Howard Luckett Franques Jr.; mother Elaine Dejean AcordSmith; father,Francis "Toby Acord; sister,Edna "Pudgie" AcordWhatley (Donald); sister,Andrea AcordCorne Murff (Charles, Alan); andsister Frances AcordJewell(Joe).

Born on November 14, 1937, she wasa 1955 graduate of Mount Carmel High School, whereshe served as studentcouncil president andperformed as a majorette in themarching band. As ahighschool sophomore, shemet and began dating futurehusbandHoward Franques, beginninga beautifulrelationship that spanned nearly 70 years.

Patsy attendedthe University of Southwestern Louisiana before sheand Howard marriedin1959 and moved to Baton Rouge so that he could pursuean LSULaw degree.She workedinBaton Rouge as aproductionmanager for an advertising firm, and shereturnedtoLafayette with Howard as he opened hislaw practice andthey started afamily.

Patsy unselfishly embracedher rolesasa wife, mother,and grandmother, always sacrificing her needsfor the needsofothers. Howard often said that Patsy wasthe true source of strength in thehousehold,and it washer instincts, inspiration,and fearlessness that allowed thefamilytoflourish

Shewas an active member of theLafayette Junior Leagueand of AvecSouci, helpingtoraise funds for local charities. Sheproudly served as Presidentof AvecSouciin1996-97, and she workedasa board member of theAcadiana Symphony Orchestra.

Sheloved to write poetry, dabble in painting,and meeteveryTuesday for lunchinLafayette withher group of dear friends.She andHowardenjoyedtravelingthroughout thecountry, visitingAmerica's amazing sites from coast to coast.Patsy especially cherished theirtrips to mountainousdestinations, describing Jackson Hole Wyoming,asone of herfavorite places to visit. AFuneral Mass of Christian Burial celebratingPatsy's life willbeheld on Friday, July 24, 2026, at 2:00 pm in The Cathedral of St.Johnthe Evangelistin Lafayette. Visitation willbe observedinMartin & Castille's DOWNTOWNlocation on Friday afternoon from 12:00 pm untiltimeof services. Reverend Thomas Voorhieswill officiate theMass andconduct the funeral services. Inurnmentwill be held in themausoleum at St.John Catholic Cemetery in Lafayette. Honorary pallbearers will be MatthewFranques, William Franques Jr and BenjaminFranques Patsy's familywishesto thank Dr.Juan Perez; the staff of Cornerstone at the Ranch;and herincredibly kind andcompassionate sitters,Bea, Crystal, Dana, andQuansaya. In lieu of flowers, the familyrequests that donationsbemade in memory of Patsy Sue Acord Franques to either Catholic CharitiesofAcadiana- 337235-4972 -P.O. Box 3177, Lafayette, LA 70502 -https: //catholiccharitiesacadian a.org -OR- TheCathedral of St.Johnthe Evangelist337-232-1322- 515 Cathedral Street, Lafayette, LA 70501www.saintjohncathedral. org View theobituaryand guestbook online at www.mourning.com Martin& Castille Funeral HomeDOWNTOWN, 330 St LandryStreet, Lafayette, Louisiana 70506, 337-2342311

vendors maysubmit their bidelectronicallyat the websitelistedabove Bidders wishingtosub‐mit theirbid electroni‐cally must firstberegis‐tered within LCGVendor Access at thewebsite listedabove.The regis‐tration processcan take sometime; therefore, LCG recommendsregis‐teringdaysinadvance of the time that bids are due.Itisthe sole respon‐sibilityofthe bidder to ensuretheir bidisdeliv‐ered(whether electroni‐cally viaVendorAccess

p

due. It is thesolerespon‐sibility of thebidderto ensure theirbid is deliv‐ered (whether electroni‐callyvia Vendor Access, in person,orvia mail) to thePurchasingDivision priortothe scheduled date andtimeofthe bid opening. Vendorsmay requestthe bidpackage electronically from An‐toni Hoyte-Smallatahs‐mall@lafayettela.gov Vendorssubmittingbids electronically arere‐quired to providethe same documentsasbid‐ders submitting through themailassoon as avail‐able.Onlya bidbond, certified checkor cashier’scheck shallbe submittedasthe bidse‐curity Electronic copies of both thefront and back of thecheck or bid bond shallbeincluded with theelectronicbid Bids must be signedin accordance with LRS Title38:2212(B)5.A Cor‐porate Resolution or Cer‐tificate of Authorityau‐thorizingthe person signingthe bidisre‐quired to be submitted with bid.Failure to sub‐mita CorporateResolu‐tion or Certificate of Au‐thoritywiththe bidshall be causefor rejectionof bid. Copies of thebidding documentsare available at thePurchasingOffice locatedat705 West Uni‐versityAvenue, Lafayette,LA70506. Tele‐phonenumber(337) 2918263 (Attn:AntoniHoyteSmall).Bidding docu‐mentsshall be available until twenty-four (24) hoursbeforethe bid openingdate. Each bidshall be accom‐panied by acertified check, cashier’scheck or bidbondpayable to the Lafayette Consolidated Government,the

latest printing of theA.M Best’s KeyRatingGuide to writeindividualbonds up to tenpercent (10%) of policyholders’ surplus as showninthe A.M. Best’s KeyRatingGuide or by an insurancecom‐pany in good standing li‐censed to writebid bondswhich is either domiciledinLouisiana or ownedbyLouisiana resi‐dents. The bidbondshall be issued by acompany licensed to do business in Louisianaand counter‐signed by apersonwho is undercontractwithre‐siding in this state. The certified check, cashier’s check, or bidbondshall be givenasa guarantee that thebiddershall exe‐cute thecontract, should it be awardedtohim,in conformity with thecon‐tractdocuments within ten(10)days. No bidder may withdraw hisbid foratleast fortyfive (45) days after the time scheduledfor the openingofbids. Each bid shallbesubmitted only on thequotation form provided with thespeci‐fications. Bids will be evaluatedby thePurchaser basedon thelowestresponsible andresponsivebid sub‐mitted which is also in compliance with thebid documents. The Lafayette Consolidated Governmentreservesthe righttorejectany andall bids forjustcause in ac‐cordance with LA R.S. 38§2214.B. TheLafayette Consoli‐datedGovernment strongly encourages the participationofDBEs (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise)inall con‐tracts or procurements letbythe Lafayette Con‐solidatedGovernment

List of jurors randomly drawn and to serve for the term beginning on July 27, 2026:

ABAPO, PATRICK RICACHO

ABSHIRE, BRANDON O ADDEO, TYLER RYAN

ALFRED, LASHONDA RENEE

ALLEYN, EDUARDO ANTONIO

ANCONA, JASON WAYNE

ANDERSON, TERRIANA TAJNE

ANDRUS, QUENTINA RENEE

ANGELLE, LORENZO LAGREAT

ANGULO, GABRIELA C

ARAFAT,ASEEL EMAN

ARCE, BOBBIE MICHELLE ARCENEAUX, CLINTON

ARENAS, MARIO DE JESUS

AUGUST,JEANETTE YELLING

BABIN, DANIELLE M

BALLARD, JOHNANDREW GLASFRYN

BARRERAS-ROBLES, OSCAR OSWALDO

BARTON, JASON BRIAN

BATISTE, LANE BRENTON

BAUDOIN, TESSIA

BEARB, RILEY GRACE

BEGUE, CARSON GRAY

BELL, KIMBERLYANN

BENOIT,ELI MICHAEL

BERNARD, MICHAEL D

BIBBINS, KENYANICOLE

BILLEAUD, GRIFFIN PAUL

BILLINGSLEY,JOE LYNN

BLACKBURN, JILLIAN LARK

BLANCO, JIMMY J

BOGABATHINA, PADMAVATHY

BOURQUE, SIMONE MARIE

BOUTARATH,DAVID

BOUTTE, TYESHA RENEL

BOWDEN, THOMAS

BRADLEY,RAPHAEL N BRAND, AUBREY CONSTANTINE

BREAUX, GWENDOLYN S

BREAUX, JOHN BRIGGS, EVAN ANDREW

BRINKMAN, KATHERINE WALTON

BRISCO, ASHLEY NICOLE

BRISCOE, CAROLYN C BROUSSARD, ERIC ANTHONY BROUSSARD, KALEN MORAN

BROUSSARD, CLIFFORD J BROUSSARD, AMANDA ROY BROUSSARD, GRIFFIN ALEXANDRE

BROUSSARD, JOHN G BROUSSARD, RORI ELLE

BRUNET,STACEY THOMPSON BUTLER, MARYANN BYRD, MARTHA ANNE CAIN, ANNA KATHERINE CARDENASGARCIA, RODNEL MIGUEL CARNEY,BEVERLYZ CARTER, DON E CASTANEDA-HERNANDEZ, LUCIANO CASTILLE, COREY MICHAEL CASTRO, JOSE D CAYONEIII, CLIMACO TOLEDO CEDILLO, MAX JACOB CELESTINE, DONALD J CHAVARRIA, MARVIN CHENEVERT, JEREMY R CLAVIER, COLIN LUKE CLAY, BRANDI LATRICE COLEMAN, GERALD RICARDO COLVIN, TERRINEKIA SHANEA COMARDELLE, VICKIEC COMEAUX, BARBARA A COPE, ETHAN MICHAEL CORMIER, LANCE JOSEPH CRABB, JOHNNY RAY CRUTCHFIELD, BRIANMICHAEL DAIGLE, BRYCE ANTHONY DAIGLE, WAYNE P DARTEZ, MARYBETH DAWBIN, TYLER N DECLOUET,JARED BRICE DECUIR, STEPHANIE A DELAHOUSSAYE, JEFFERYC DESHOTEL, TELIA B DILLON, AMANDA LYNN DOMANGUE, ALLYSON CLAIRE

DOMINGUE, MALYSEBLAIZE

DOMINGUE, PARKER GABRIEL

DORSEY,GARRETT CHRISTIAN

DOUCET MARLIE GRACE

DREHER, JENNIFER HEBERT

DUCKWORTH, LAURI ANNELL DUGAS, MARGARET H DUGAS, JACOB JOSEPH DUHON, JOSEPH C DUHON, JUDY G DUHON, THERESA A DUPREE, CHAZ KALEB

EASLEY,SUNNIE MARIE

EDDINS, FELIX ALEX

ENNIS, JAMES JOSEPH

ESPINOZA-PRECIADO, MARIA RITA

EVANS, GREGORYD

FALL, SIDY TOKOSEL

FANNING, VINCENT GERALD

FARRAR,FRITZ DONOVAN

FAULK, MARYV

FAWVOR, KYLIECHE

FELIX, RYNIKA RANAY

FLUGENCE, RHONDA SHANTELLE

FONTENOT,CADE PAUL

FORBES, GILBERT

FOX, ROBERTC

FRANCIS, TRAYON MONTEAL

FRANCIS, LAURA FRANCIS, TERELL PAUL

NOTICE NOTICE TO BIDDERS Notice is hereby given that sealed bids will be received either electroni‐callyat https://lafayet tecsdgovla.tylerportico. com/va/vendor-access/ registration or in theof‐fice of thePurchasingDi‐vision at theLafayette Consolidated Govern‐ment Building,located at 705 West University Av‐enue,Lafayette Louisiana, until 3:00 pm CentralTimeonthe 30th dayofJuly, 2026 forthe following: 2026 OR NEWER7 YARD DUMPTRUCK andwill, shortlythere‐after,beopenedand read aloudinCityHalllo‐catedat705 West Univer‐sity Avenue,Lafayette LA.Bidsreceivedafter theabove specified time foropening shallnot be considered andshall be returned unopened to thesender. Bidders are encouraged to attend the bidopening virtually by usingthe followinglink https://us02web.zoom us/j/86006355123? pwd=JgXSaPbllhihYEZ MZR1aLMnbHho7Re.1

MeetingID: 860 0635 5123 Passcode:539979 In accordance with LouisianaRS38:2212. vendorsmay submit theirbid electronically at thewebsite listed above. Bidderswishing to sub‐mittheir bidelectroni‐callymust firstberegis‐teredwithinLCG Vendor Access at thewebsite listed above. Theregis‐trationprocess cantake some time;therefore LCGrecommendsregis‐tering days in advanceof thetimethatbidsare due. It is thesolerespon‐sibility of thebidderto ensure theirbid is deliv‐ered (whether electroni‐callyvia Vendor Access, in person,orvia mail) to thePurchasingDivision priortothe scheduled date andtimeofthe bid opening. Vendorsmay requestthe bidpackage electronically from Thomas Metrejeanat tg‐metrejean@lafayettela gov. Vendorssubmittingbids electronically arere‐quired to providethe same documentsasbid‐ders submitting through themailassoon as avail‐able.Onlya bidbond, certified checkor cashier’scheck shallbe submittedasthe bidse‐curity Electronic copies of both thefront and back of thecheck or bid bond shallbeincluded with theelectronicbid Bids must be signedin accordance with LRS Title38:2212(B)5.A Cor‐porate Resolution or Cer‐tificate of Authorityau‐thorizingthe person signingthe bidisre‐quired to be submitted with bid. Failuretosub‐mita CorporateResolu‐tion or Certificate

FRANCIS, JAHZIONEE JAH ZARI RENEA FREYOU,KRISTYN DRESSEL FUSELIER, JENNIFER SENN FUSELIER, TRACY TALLEY FUSELIER, KIMBERLYS GACHASSIN, TANGIE N GALLIEN, SIDNEY GARY,MARGARET G GASTON,MAE OLA GENTRY,REBECCA GEORGE, JEREMYJ GILLOCK,DEBRA LYNNE GLASS, PAMELA T GODEAUX, GARY J GONZALEZ, MARLI R GOODIN, ZACHARYMAURICE GREEN,ALYANA NICOLE GREENMAN,PAMELA C GUIDROZ, ASHLEY MCMINN GUIDRY,RENE DAVID GUIDRY,RONALD J GUIDRY,LUMAS GUIDRY,MICHELLE LEE GUIDRY,AUDREY L

GUILBEAUX, BRANDON ROSS

GUILLORY,JEREMY GUILLOT, EDMONDL GUINN, ANDREW ETHAN

HAMPTON,KATHRYN BALDRY

HANCHEY,CYNTHIA J HANNAN, JARED ROBERT

HARBOURT,ROBINADAMS HARRIS, ANTHONYA

HASKINS,CONNORLEE

HEBERT, EMILYANN

HEBERT, CALVIN

HEBERT, KYLE ADAM

HENRY, LORITAMARIE

HERNANDEZ, JASON RAY

HERRICK,KOVAM HIPPCHEN,BRENDA

HOWARD, SHERRI LYNN

HUGHES, CHRISTOPHER RICHARD

HUSBAND, ANNA ELISE

JAGNEAUX, SHERRYLYNN

JAGNEAUX, LANDON COLE

JAMES, TOI ROMON

JAMES, CHESTER JIM

JHAVERI,KUNAL ASHOK

JOHNSON,SHAYLA MARIE

JOICE, JAMES CARROLL

JONES, SHAKELSHA ANNJALEE

JONES, ALLISON NANETTE

JORDAN,SHIRLEYMARIE

KATELY, DANNY

KILCHRIST,ALTON JAMES

KING, WANDASIMON

KITTIRATH,SHELLYE KRISTOF,MATTHEW J KROLL, NICOLE M KRUGH, STEPHANIEANN

LABOSTRIE, JOSHUA TROY

LAMBERT, CARMEN FAITH

LANCESLIN,TAKIYAHNIANI

LANDRY, SLADE MICHAEL LANDRY, BRENNAN STANTON

LANERIE, MARGARET PITRE

LANGFORD, MARYB LASKOWSKI, KATRINAMENARD

LATOUR, FREDRICK J

LAWRENCE, CHRISTOPHER D LE, PHUC N

LEBLANC,JEANPAUL RENE LEBLANC,KENNETH W LEBLANC,ISAAC TODD LEDOUX, DEBORAH ANN

LEEHAN, TERI ELAINE

LEJEUNE, ALENA MAURISHA LOGAN, ERINANDREWS LORD, ELIZABETH ANN

MAGUIRE, JOHN D MAHONEY, MICHAEL A MAKKI,MOHAMMEDA MALIK, MELISSA GRAY

MALU, SHITAL GHANSHAM MARCANTEL, KINSLEY CLAIRE

MATURIN, WAKLEY JOSEPH

MCCARTY, ASHLEY NICOLE

MCDANIEL, SAMUELLANE

MENDELL, MAMIE JULIETTE

MENDEZ, MICHELLE

MENESES, CONNERMAXIMINO

MERLA, RAMJI V

METREJEAN,CHRISTINE C MILLER, TUCKER JOHN MILLIKEN,ISABELLA MICHELLE

MILLINER, JARRED ALAN

MITCHELL, JAN HOHIMER MONTAGUE,HOMER DONTE

MONTET,NEAL A MORALESMOCTEZUMA, JESUS A

MOUTON,RAVIN SHONTEL MOUTON,DAVID LEE

MURPHY, SHANELL MONIQUE

MYERS, MONIKA DUNKEL

NGUYEN,BICH HO NGUYEN,HENRYANH QUOC

NODURFT,STEVEN SCOTT NOEL, JACOBY RAY NUSS, AUTUMN MICHELLE

NUTTER, LESLEY L

OBERLE, LAUREN MARIE

OLESKE, MICHAEL

OZENE, ANTHONYL

PADGETT,SARAH MARIE

PALFREY,TITANIA S

PALOBLANCOPALIZADA, ESMERALDA

PALOMBO, KAMRYN MICHELLE

PATIN, ANNE M

p 7187 (Attn:Thomas Me‐trejean).Bidding docu‐mentsshall be available until twenty-four (24) hoursbeforethe bid openingdate. Bidder must be properly licensed in accordance with LA RS 32:1254 and must includevalid copy of said licenseinthe bid submittedinaccordance with LA 38:2212.8. Each bidshall be accom‐panied by acertified check, cashier’scheck or bidbondpayable to the Lafayette Consolidated Government,the amount of whichshall be five percent(5%)ofthe total bidprice.Ifabid bond is used,itshall be written by asuretyorinsurance companycurrently on theU.S.Departmentof theTreasuryFinancial Management Servicelist of approved bonding companies whichispub‐lished annually in the FederalRegister, or by a Louisianadomiciled in‐surancecompany with at leastanA-Ratinginthe latest printing of theA.M Best’s KeyRatingGuide to writeindividualbonds up to tenpercent (10%) of policyholders’ surplus as showninthe A.M. Best’s KeyRatingGuide or by an insurancecom‐pany in good standing li‐censed to writebid bonds whichiseither domiciledinLouisiana or ownedbyLouisiana resi‐dents. Thebid bond shall be issued by acompany licensed to do business in Louisianaand counter‐signed by apersonwho is under contract with re‐siding in this state. The certified check, cashier’s check, or bidbondshall be givenasa guarantee that thebiddershall exe‐cute thecontract, should it be awardedtohim,in

DBEs

prises in thepurchaseor sub-contractingofmate‐rials, supplies, services andlabor andmaterialin which disadvantaged business areavailable Assistance in identifying said businessesmay be obtained by calling2918410. PURCHASING DIVISION Lafayette Consolidated Government

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OUR VIEWS

TheGulfis gettingwarmer, so we must invest in research, solutions

It’snoexaggeration to say that Louisianais not Louisiana without its bodies of water.

The Mississippi River borders thenorthern half of the state and bisects the southern half, countless other rivers, lakes andbayous dot the landscape and the Gulf of Mexicogivesthe state its dynamic and essential coastline

This last one is the focusofanew seriesof stories in this newspaper,the first of whichwas published today.Inthe story,reporterAlexLubben takes adetailed look into the warming Gulf andits impact on our coast, ourclimate andour lives.

What he found is worrisome.

First and foremost, the Gulf of Mexico is warming faster than oceans around theworld. Over thelast half-century,the averageGulf surface temperatures have goneup roughly twice as fast as they have elsewhere, risingnearly 2 degreesFahrenheitover that span.

That’snot just some academic statistic.A warmer Gulf has ahost of knock-on effects, perhaps most notably that it can actasa supercharger for tropical storms andhurricanesthat find their way into its waters. One hasonly to look at Ida in 2021, which grew into amonster over the Gulf. Other effectsincludegreater sea level rise and deleterious effectsonfisheries.

And the Gulf’s warmer waters flow in currents out into the AtlanticOcean,helping to lift temperatures there, too.

The warming is not just asurface problem Temperatures in the Gulf’s depths arealso increasing, and since warm water expands, it exacerbates sea level rise. Warmer depths also hurt the Gulf’s overall ecosystem.

Even with drastic cuts in emissions, these trends are likely to continue for at leasta decade, Lubben found.

All of this is why it is especially importantto invest in research and data-gathering fromthe Gulf of Mexico. Before these trends andtheir effects can be clearlyunderstood, we must know exactly what’shappening andwhy

Yetthe federal government, under the Trump Administration, seems determined to do just the opposite. The administration’smostrecent budget request would have eliminatedfunding for the Gulf of AmericaCoastal Ocean Observing system, akey network of data monitoring installations and researchers. Thankfully,Congress restored that funding before approving the proposal. Additionally,the National Science Foundation has cut more than$350 million forobservation equipment and pulled up buoysinthe waters of the Pacific Northwestand off the East Coast, robbingscientists and others of keydataneeded to track these global systems.

These sortsofcutsspell troublefor Louisiana, which is on the front line of coastal issues.We hardly need to remind coastal residents of this —theyhave faced the effectsofwarmer waters severaltimes now.But even those whodon’tlive along or near the coast see these effects on our bottom line when we purchase insuranceortry to buy ahome.

More importantly,wesee it in the loss of key cultural and community resources as they flee theinexorableadvance of the Gulf.

These threats are existential for Louisiana. To meet them, we must face them head-on.And that means committing to studying and understanding what exactly is happening andhow we can mitigate it.

We might not be abletoget thecoast backto where it once was. But we should at leastwork to keep its challenges from growingworse than they already are.

An editorial on July 9erroneously stated that the consortium 1532 Tulane Holdco is still involved in overseeing renovations at Charity Hospital. Tulane University has takenoverthe entire project.

Jury duty an unglamorousbut essentialservice

There’snothing glamorous about the jury pool room on the third floor of the St.Tammany Parish Justice Center.Its off-white walls, beige chairs and fluorescent lightsare almost theplatonic ideal of bureaucratic decor Monday morning, ahundred or so people gathered there, somechatting, somestaringat phones and plentysipping coffee from one of thecarafes at theside of the room. Iwas among them, with a jury summonsinmybag and, after checking in, aclip-on nametag that read “Juror #445.”

and when it was over,our numbers had been reduced by at least athird. But that left aproblem.There were fewer potential jurors than the two judges with jury trials had requested.

Unlike many,Iwas excited to be there. I’d never been called for jury duty, and though I’ve seen plenty of trials as areporter,Ihad never been a participant St.Tammany Jury Coordinator Jeanell Landwehr spent themorning walking us through theprocess, which began withthe excuses. Folkswho wanted tobereleased from jury dutywere given index cards to fill out.Those would be reviewed by ajudge, who granted or denied the excuses.

That process took acouple of hours,

At thenewspaper,wealways disclose if we have personal or business connections with sources or subjects of news or opinion pieces. Often,there are no connections because we studiously avoid such conflicts of interest.

Butinthe rare cases they are unavoidable, lettingreaders know up front that they exist hopefully creates trust in the credibility of what we have to say Of course, we do build relationships with powerful people in thecourse of our jobs. Butthe goal is to serve thepublic first and never let those relationships cloud our judgment. That’swhy transparency is so important.Wemakeour actions public for anyone to see and to judge. Even when we have sponsors or underwriters for our content, we maintain oureditorial freedom.But we don’texpect readers to takeour word for it. We reveal the information directly Transparency has become awatch-

“That’s not going to work,” Langwehr said at one point, looking out at those of us who remained.Inthe end, they split us intotwo groups —pink and purple —and sent us home with instructions to call back that evening to see if we were needed for the next day Iwasn’t. One trial had been delayed, so thepurple group was dismissed. Pink wasinstructed to return at 9a.m. Tuesday for jury selection. Iwas disappointed. Isuspect others were relieved. Many people see jury dutyonly as ahassle to be avoided.

My summons brought me in one week after astate district judge in St. TammanyParish sent sheriff’sdeputies out onto the courthouse grounds to round up potential jurors. Such roundups, known as drafting “tales juries,” are extremely rare. But they are legal, and any eligible person whodeclines to participatecan be hit with acontemptofcourt charge.

Acourt official told this newspaper’s Willie Swett that out of some600 jury summonsissued forthat week, only a fewmore than 100 showed up. There are plenty of possible explanations: work obligations, childcare, travel, apathy or just general unwillingness. Isuspect the last twowere major factors. Yes, jury duty is boring. Yes, it could have taken an entire weekormore. Yes, Icould have been doing other, moreproductive things. But it’salso crucial. Our entire criminal justice system is based on the fundamental right to trial by jury.It’s as foundational as free speech or freedom of religion. Abraham Lincoln’sfamous line “government of the people, by the people, forthe people” —isamantra formany today.Often, we focus on the third clause. But the first twoare just as important. Our government only works when we participate in it. By voting, forinstance, or serving on ajury.Innoway glamorous, but in every way important.

Email Faimon A. Roberts III at froberts@theadvocate.com.

word not only in media but in government, too, as thepublic has reason to question themotives of insiders who seem tobenefit from sweetheart deals. And for those seeking answers, there are two powerful tools that we often use as journalists that are actually available to anyone in the public. The first of these is aFreedom of Information Act request.These requests apply to any federal agency.The law established in 1966 gives any adult the right to request information from the government.You can go to the website foia.gov to find out more information on how to file aFOIA request. The second is Louisiana’sPublic Records Act. It applies to state and local agencies. Again, any person can file arequest on atopic, and the agency is obligated to let you inspect records in their possession. There are some tricks to filing requests—they can’tbeoverly broad,

forexample —but generally,ifthere is something about which you believe an agency has answers you seek, it’sa simple matter to file apublic records request. Go to the agency’swebsite, and they should have information on filing apublic records request. Turning to our letters inbox, Ican give you the numbers forthe first weeks of July.From July 2-9, we received 43 letters. No one topic stood out, but we did receive three letters on the Senate race and two letters on the America 250 celebrations. For the week of July 9-16, we received 54 letters. The topic that drew the mostinterest is the fight between the city of NewOrleans and state officials, which prompted five letters. Youwere also interested in the ongoing debate over what terms like socialism and communism mean.That led five of you to write.

Arnessa Garrett is Deputy Editor | OpinionPageEditor.Emailher at arnessa.garrett@theadvocate.com.

Arnessa Garrett

Faimon Roberts

COMMENTARY

Cuttingaid to Israel wouldharm, nothelp, worldpeace

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter of New Orleans unfortunately has joined the wing of the Democratic Party that treats the Israeli government as the scapegoat for troubles in the Middle East. Even if well motivated, Carter is wrong.

On July 15, Carter voted with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and 102 other House Democrats for an amendment to eliminate $3.3 billion of annual U.S. aid to Israel. Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and 97 other Democrats, including Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge, joined all other Republicans to keep the assistance flowing.

denounced the amendment for being “overlybroad.” Jeffries, another big critic of Netanyahu, agreed, opposing the amendment because “it prohibits or would limit the useoffunds for long-standing initiatives related to humanitarian aid, refugee resettlement, peace-building andU.S. Embassy operations.” In sum, passing the amendment would have been like cutting off our own nose just to spite Netanyahu’sface.

Carter is,ofcourse, right to lament civilian carnage. Yetconsidered from the long view,from amiddle view and from theimmediate perspective, he lays the blame in thewrong place.

Historically (the long view), Israel again and again, since itsbirth in 1948, has been willing to let another peaceful state emerge.

The (blessedly failed) amendment was an ill-aimed blunderbuss

Intended to punish the government of Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu, the amendment instead would have harmed U.S. interests and peace in the region while rewarding the terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

Even JStreet, the nominally Zionist butextremely anti-Netanyahu liberal advocacy group,

Carter released astatement insisting he supports “Israel’s right to defend itselfagainst Hamas and otherterrorist organizations,” but blaming Netanyahu for allegedly having “impededefforts toward peace.” He said his vote was necessitated by “the deaths of thousands of Palestinian civilians, especially women and children, the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools, and vital infrastructure, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis.”

His statement, however,didn’t address the realities identified by Jeffries, such as that theamendment would halt ongoing humanitarian efforts.

Butwhen offered the proverbial “two-state solution” by a unified United Nations in 1948, theArab nations instead immediately waged war.When thenPresident Bill Clinton insisted that Israel trade“land for peace” in the1990s, Israel provided the land but was met withmore terrorism —and Clinton himself always publicly blames the late, massively corrupt, terroristic Palestinian leader,Yasser Arafat, for ruining thebargain.

The middle-rangeview shows that in thedecades before Hamas’ murderous Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the Jewish state provided much of Gaza’s water and almost all its power while regularly facilitating massive humanitarian assistance. Just days before Oct. 7, Netanyahu’ssecurity cabinet decided to redouble effortstomaintain

peace while ramping up humanitarian aidevenmore.

Andsincethe first dayofIsrael’sexistence,Arabs who choose to remainthere enjoy more rights, by lawand in fact, within Israel’sborders than any Arabs or Muslims enjoyamong Israel’s neighbors.

Meanwhile,asIsrael’sleader for 16 of the past 17 years, Netanyahu actually hasdonemore for long-range peace than anybody dreamedpossible. As early as 2014, Netanyahu informally had in placewhatlater became the“Abraham Accords” with four Arab nations. Better yet, constructive relations exist de facto with almost every nation in theregion, built on commercial exchanges andmutual opposition to Iran. This didn’tjust happen: Netanyahu did it.Inthe annals of the Middle East, this entente is ahistoricachievement. Now for the more immediate record:Evensince the mass rapes and slaughter of that awful Oct. 7, Netanyahu’sgovernment has exercisedremarkable restraint.Yes:restraint.

Almost neverinworld history has ahorribly victimizednation, in fighting back against enemies

who literally have sworn to wipe it fromthe face of the Earth and inflictedterroronitfor decades, shown as much forbearanceas Israel. Israel usesmultiple ways to warn civilians whenstrikesare coming; creates safe corridors for civilians to move through; andrepeatedly facilitated food deliveriesand humanitarian assistance, even as Hamas thugs literally attacked the aid workers andinterdicted suppliesmeant to help their ownpeople.

Israel triestokeep civilians alive;Hamas uses them as human shields.

Troy Cartershould seethat the situationissimple: If the people in Gaza andthe West Bank will finally recognize Israel’sright to exist, andiftheywill permanently disband Hamas, there will be immediate, lasting peace. But if Israel is weakened by the U.S. withdrawing the assistance it hasgiveneversincePresident Jimmy Carter’sworld-changing Camp David Accords, the terrorism will continue,toeverybody’s detriment —through absolutely no fault of the Israelis.

Email Quin Hillyer at quin hillyer@theadvocate.com

Landry knowsdarnwellthatNew Orleansisspecial

“That parish.”

That’show Gov.Jeff Landry described New Orleans last week, as if it pained him to say its name, even though he’d just said it seconds before. As if Orleans is indistinguishable from the other 63 parishes, which was of course the point of his tirade.

“The state of Louisiana is tired. New Orleans thinks they’re so special,” Landry said. “That parish is going to operate exactly like the rest of this state. And the people of this state want that.”

Well, no disrespect to the rest of our fair state, but …seriously? Yes, every parish is unique and has residents who defend it fiercely,and many of them are seeing new economic development projects.

Yetit’sNew Orleans —which shares its boundaries with Orleans Parish —that’siconic. It’s oneofone, not only acultural hothouse butadriver of astate economy that very much relies on the city’scharms to attract visitors and investment alike.

“A unique town in the United States, not like any other town,” Mick Jagger,who’sbeen some places, said recently.“Irreplaceable,” according to the World Monuments Fund. Youget the idea. So why does Landry sayhe doesn’t? Well, it’sworth here

for amoment to talk about what prompted Landry to go off. It all started, improbably,when he backed theLegislature’s elimination of the city’sclerk of Criminal District Court. New Orleans, as Landry pointed out in his diatribe, has separate civil and criminal courts,and until recently, corresponding clerks. Whetherthat’s agood ideaisa reasonable question, but it was indisputablyunreasonable to fold one clerk’sjob into another just

as theman who’d been elected to afour-year term was abouttobe sworn in.

Next came aCityCouncil vote, with the support of Mayor Helena Morenoand DistrictAttorney Jason Williams, to say there should be an election to fill the newly created office. Then Attorney General LizMurrill threatenedtoremove them all fromofficeand have Landry appoint their replacements. Then Moreno posted avideohighlight-

ing astate law against threatening public officials.

Thencamethe strangest turn: Agrand jury —onits own,we’re told, withWilliams recused and Moreno saying shewas in the dark —indicted Murrill forallegedly violatingthatlaw

So nowhere we are, withMurrill’sallies spitting mad andtaking it outonthe whole city

After Morenopulledanapplication for amajor bond issue fromthe state BondCommission, Landry suggested that thecity hadbeen planning to use thestate as an “ATM,” as if permissionto borrowisthe sameasa handout

At the announcementofa big expansionofMeta’sAIplant in ruralRichland Parish, thegovernortookthe opportunitytolink that project to thecity’ssupposed diminished importance to the state But as Landry’spublic speeches tend to, this oneveered wayoff point

He said thecityused to have four assessors. It wasseven,but voters consolidated them in a post-Katrina civic-mindeddrive that also included reforms at the local levee board that Landryand his cronies have been busydismantling.

He complained that thesheriff is elected at adifferenttime than other sheriffs. To whichIsay: Please show me thenorth Louisianaresident who loses sleep over NewOrleans’ election calendar. And the governor said he wouldn’tmeet withMorenoto

talkuntil thecityunderstands that it needstoget itsfiscal house in order.Morenohas spenther first sixmonthsinofficefocusing on nothing but that. She’s made deep cuts, sought outextra revenue andeveninvited thestate legislative auditor to embed at CityHall.

Andthenthere’sall thestuff Landrydidn’tbring up.

Like that NewOrleanshas its own big economicprojects in the works, from anew port to service today’s giant containerships and thelong-awaited redevelopment of theold Charity Hospital Like that agovernor only gets to preside over SuperBowlsand FinalFours if they come to New Orleans. The NFLand NCAA certainly aren’t looking to hold signature events anywhere else in Louisiana

Like Landry’sown record of investing in thecity, sending the State Policeintohelpfight crime andlaunching asuccessful drive to fix infrastructure before last year’sSuperBowl “Noone hasdonemore forthe city of NewOrleansthanme!” he claimed in arecentsocial media post.

I’mnot sure that’sthe case, but he’s actually done plenty. Surelythat’sbecause he understands that NewOrleansis indeed special,nomatter what he sayswhenthe cameras are rolling.

Email Stephanie Grace at sgrace@theadvocate.com.

AreNew Orleansand judges differentorthe same?

So many of us have focusedso muchonthe Orleans Parish judicial cuts passed by the Louisiana Legislature and signed into law by Gov.Jeff Landry that Ithink most of us missed the dramabehind Act 748. Orleans Criminal Court

Judge John Fuller has challenged 748, arguing that the law that nearly everyone thought was real is afake. On behalf of his client, Fuller,attorney James Matthews insists that neither the Louisiana House of Representatives nor the Louisiana Senate had enough votes to make thecut-a-judge bill law.Matthews argues that atwo-thirds vote was required to take such an egregious action. Of the four votes taken,two in the House and two in the Senate, only one met the threshold. Don’t

believe me?

Ask Judge Tarvald Anthony Smith of DivisionAofthe East Baton Rouge Judicial Court.He agreed to enjoin local and state officials from implementing the law until after candidate qualifying ends in early August Of course, Attorney GeneralLiz Murrillsays she’ll appeal

for the state’s high court to resolve the constitutional quagmire.

Will Sutton

“As this matter impacts electionsand qualifying deadlines,wewill seek priority review to get this matter resolved quickly,” Murrill said

On Thursday,Fuller filed an emergency writ request asking the Louisiana Supreme Court to step in immediately,take the case andmake adecision as the state asks alower court to lift aruling blocking the law.

The Supreme Court granted Fuller’srequestFriday,leaving it

Fuller is relying on this sentence in Article V, Section 15(D) of the 1974 Louisiana Constitution: “The legislature may change the number of judgesinany judicial districtbylaw enacted by two-thirds of the elected membersofeach house.”

I’m not amathematician or a statistical analyst, but teachers taught me basic math. With one House tally,105 membersvoted on the measure. Those voting nay were34. Thosevoting yea were62. Two-thirds of 105 is 70, not 62. That seems ironclad. Overatthe Senate, 39 senators voted at one point. Tenvoted nay, and 25 voted yea. Two-thirds of 39 is 26, not 25. Am Imissing something?

Fuller attorney Matthews said no. State Sen. Jay Morris, R-West

Monroe, said yes. He acknowledges that the language cited by Fuller and Matthews is real, just not applicable.

Morris points to Article V, Section32ofthe Constitution, which says in part, elected officials can’t be changed by statute “Except for provisions relating to terms of office as provided elsewhere in this Article, and notwithstanding any other contrary provisionofthis constitution, the following courts and officers in Orleans Parish arecontinued, subject to change by law…” The language includes criminal, municipaland traffic and juvenile courts as well as clerks, sheriffs, constables and others.

In other words, he says the delegates to the convention made New Orleans the exception, where the number of judges could be changed by statute.

So, let me get this clear Landryand Morris say Orleans

Parish should operate like all of the other parishes —except when they want to interpret the state constitution in away that allows the state to cut however many judges they want. In other words, we’ll accept the interpretation of the constitutional language that carves out Orleans Parish as not operating exactly like the rest of the state —inorder to make it operate like the rest of the state. Orleans Parish sends the state more than $460 million in direct sales taxes and New Orleans contributes about half of the state’s$1.5 billion in tourismrelated tax revenue.

If we’re going to treat all parishes the same, we need 63 parishes to send more money so we can keep our change —and keep our judges.

Email Will Sutton at wsutton@ theadvocate.com.

Quin Hillyer

Stephanie Grace

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

Gov. Jeff Landryannounces anew investment by Meta expanding the RichlandParishdata center on July 6.

UL hopes practice keepsQB Winfield

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

Many UL football observers would point to the health of quarterback Lunch Winfield as the most important issue for the 2026 season.

During each of MichaelDesormeaux’s first four seasons as head coach,the Cajuns have needed three quarterbacks to get through each season. For four seasons, there’salways been that thought of how much more could have been achieved if the starter stayed healthy.

That’swhere Winfield comes in.The dualthreat quarterback puts himself in harm’s way far more than any of the previousopening-day starting quarterbacks.

Being physical and getting tough yards is whom he is. So while it’scritical forWinfield to stay healthy,reining in his runninggame is not an option.

That reality doesn’t mean theCajuns aren’ttaking steps to prevent another season-altering injury at the position

“We’ve focused alot on what he’snot as comfortable with,” Desormeauxsaid.

The good thing for Winfield is no one understands his temptationto runitfor the

ä See CAJUNS, page 3C

SPORTS

SEIZING THELEAD

Former LSU standout Sam Burns soarsinto firstplace at BritishOpen, 4C

T NG LEGS DO

BY JON BLAU Staff writer

NFL scouts are pained when All-Americans bust as pros,and collegecoaches grow weary whenfivestar recruits fall short of theirpotential.

Butwoe is theprivate-school coach whohas to evaluate eighthgraders who haven’tmade it through puberty

“Like, we don’thave anything,”said former OurLady of Good Counselcoach Andy Stefanelli, who jabs NFL and college personnel staff members when theybellyache.“We’relooking at momand dad, trying to project.”

StefanellireadilyadmitsDilin

Jones wasn’tthe top prospect on his list when the tallbut lanky running back arrived at the Crab Bowl,an eighth-grade all-star game in Marylandthatused to serve as Stefanelli’s best scouting opportunity Jones was theson of aUPS driver, Dimitris, nicknamedMeech,who playedhigh school ball but maxed out there.Like his dad, Dilin had asthma, which first revealed itself at 8years old on adusty football field. Luckily, Meech had an inhaler withhim.

Stefanelli nearlyoverlooked Dilin Jones,just as collegefootball writers did this spring when the mildly productive Wisconsin running back —hobbled by turf toe as aredshirt freshman —limped off to LSU to join astar-studded transfer class. Once an afterthought,Jones came out of spring practices as the Tigers’ mostbuzzed-about running back.Hedid the exact same thing at theCrab Bowl.

First series, Stefanelli called an offtackle run, his bread-and-butter play.

“You have to read the blocks, read thetackle,and then read thefullback’s block.You have to be patient,” Stefanelli said. “Assoon as it opened, Dilin just put his foot in the ground and took off north and south and outran everybody to the end zone. That’s how we train them to run. And he did it naturally as an eighth grader “I go, ‘Man, Igotta have that guy.’ ” Jones hasa habit of announcing himself, especially whenhe’s ä See LSU, page 3C

Southeastern Conference football media days start Monday in Tampa,Florida, which means in essence the2026 football seasonisupon us. In the name of NIL, thetransfer portal, conferencerealignmentand College Football Playoff expansion, it’snot amoment toosoon Talking season will finally, at least in part, transition into some talk aboutquarterbacks andoffensiveand defensivealignments And Lane Kiffin.Leave no doubt that the first-year LSU coach and collegefootball’s favorite dart board will beone ofthe main attractions. Thegross tonnage ofwordsthat will be written and spoken about Kiffin will likely be enough to fill Tampa Bay before it’sall done. And lest you think that theSEC saved Kiffin and the rest of the LSU contingent for Thursday —just before themedia days closingceremony —purely at random, think again. Attendance was apparently starting to get light on thefinalday,sothe SEC wanted to hold one of itsheadliners for last. LSU and Texas —whose coach

Scott Rabalais

BY TIM REYNOLDS AP sportswriter

EAST RUTHERFORD,N.J.— Lionel Messirarely loses. Spain never loses. That’sbeen howthingshaveworkedin recent years, anyway.Soccer’sbest player and soccer’sdominant team are set to collide Sunday in aWorld Cup final worthy of thesport’s grandest stage. Messi and Argentina will face aSpain squadthat is unbeaten in 37 consecutive matches going back to early 2024. For Spain, it’sachance at asecond World Cup title to go along with the one from 2010 andtocementitselfasthe unquestioned dominant force in the gameright now.For Argentina, it’sachance to become the first back-to-back men’sWorldCup champion

LSU running back Dilin Jones runs withthe ball in adrill during spring practiceonApril 14 at the school’s practice facility STAFF FILE PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

STAFFPHOTO By BRAD KEMP

UL quarterback Lunch Winfield gets offa pass during the spring football game in April.

Lionel Messi

Lamine yamal

4:30 p.m. NTT IndyCar:Music City Grand PrixFox

6p.m. NASCAR Cup:WindowWorld 450 TNT BEACH VOLLEYBALL Noon AVP: League Week 6CBS

1p.m. AVP: League Week 6CBSSN BIG3 BASKETBALL

1p.m.Week 5games CBS CFL

6p.m. Winnipeg at Ottawa CBSSN CYCLING

1p.m.Tour de France,Stage 15 (taped) NBC

6a.m. DP World/PGA: British Open NBC

3p.m.DPWorld/PGA: Puntacana Champ.Golf GYMNASTICS

3p.m. USGA: U.S. Classic NBC HORSE RACING Noon SaratogaLiveFS2

1p.m. SaratogaLiveFS1

3:30 p.m. SaratogaLiveFS2 MEN’S LACROSSE

2p.m. Newyork vs.Boston ABC MLB

11:15 a.m.White Sox at Toronto NBCSN

3p.m. St. LouisatArizona MLBN 6:20 p.m. L.A. Dodgers at N.y.yankees NBC

NBA SUMMER LEAGUE

3:30 p.m.Brooklyn vs.Oklahoma City ESPN

5:30 p.m.Denvervs.Toronto ESPN2

8p.m.TBD,Championship ESPN WORLD CUPSOCCER

2p.m.Spain vs.Argentina Fox SOFTBALL

11 a.m. Oklahoma City at Carolina ESPN2

7p.m.Utah at ChicagoMLBN TENNIS

4a.m.(Mon.) ATP,WTATennis

5a.m.(Mon.) ATP,WTATennis WNBA

Noon Los Angeles at Dallas ABC

3p.m.Chicago at Atlanta CBS

6p.m.Connecticut at Phoenix ESPN

BearsGThuneyanelite pass blocker

BY JOSH DUBOW Associated Press

When the Chicago Bears looked to rebuild their offensive line before the start of last season, the first big move they made was to acquire Joe Thuney from Kansas City Thuney helped turn aweakness for the Bears into astrength with his stellar pass blocking and he earned the honor of being picked as the top interior offensive lineman in the NFL by The Associated Press.

Apanel of eight AP Pro Football Writers ranked the top five players at guard and center,basing selections on current status entering the 2026 season. First-place votes were worth 10 points. Secondthrough fifth-place voteswere worth 5, 3, 2and 1points

Thuney got four first-place votes and narrowly won the voting with 42 points. Kansas Citycenter CreedHumphreygot twofirstplace votes and was second with 40 points.Denver’sQuinn Meinerz got one first-placevote and came in third, and Atlanta’sChris Lindstrom got the other first-place vote and was fourth. Indianapolis’ Quenton Nelson came in fifth.

1. JoeThuney, ChicagoBears

Thuney has been atop performer for the past decade, helping New England and Kansas City win two Super Bowl titles. He has been picked as an All-Pro thepast three seasons and is one of the best pass blockers in the game. He allowed no sacks, one quarterback hit and just 15 totalpressures duringthe 2025 season, according to Pro Football Focus helping Chicagowin its first division title in sevenyears andwin a playoff game for the first time in 15 years.

2. CreedHumphrey, Kansas City Chiefs

Thuney’sformer teammate in Kansas City has been atop center in the league since beingpicked in the second round in 2022. Humphrey has been aPro Bowler the

ChicagoBearsguardJoe

past four seasons andanAll-Pro thepast two as the anchor of the line for the Chiefs. Humphreyallowed just eight pressures, one sack and two QB hits last season,according to PFF

3. QuinnMeinerz, Denver Broncos

Meinerz made the leap from Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater to theNFL in 2021 with relative ease. He quickly established himself asone of the league’stop guards and akey part of one of the NFL’s topoffensive lines in Denver He is oneofthe game’sbest run blockers and has been named an All-Pro thepast two seasons.

4. ChrisLindstrom, AtlantaFalcons

Lindstromhas beena secondteam All-Prothe past four seasons and isakey part of the line that hashelped running back Bijan Robinson earn All-Pro honors. Lindstrom hasmade four Pro

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILEPHOTO By PETER AIKEN Kansas CityChiefs center Creed Humphreygets readytosnap the ball against the Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 23 in Kansas City,Mo.

Bowls and missedonly one game total thepast six seasons.

5. QuentonNelson, IndianapolisColts

Nelson was an All-Pro his first three seasons in the NFL from

2018-20. While his level of play hasdropped atickinrecentyears, he’sstill one of the most dependable guards in the league. He has been aPro Bowlerin each of his eight seasons and remains one of the game’stop run blockers.

Simmonsaforce on Titans’interiordefensive line

BY JOSH DUBOW Associated Press

Jeffery Simmons followed his first All-Pro season by signing a contract that made himthe highest-paid defensivetackle ever in the NFL. The Tennessee Titans believe the hefty price that included $100 million in guaranteedmoney was well worth it, and plenty of others agree as Simmons was picked as the top interior defensivelineman in the NFL by The Associated Press.

Apanel of eight AP pro football writers ranked the top five players at interior defensive line, basing selections on currentstatus enteringthe 2026 season. Firstplace voteswere worth 10 points. Second- through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2and 1points. Simmons got four first-place votes and won the voting with 53 points. KansasCity’sChris Jones got three first-place votes and was second with 39 points. Dallas’ Quinnen Williams was third, Pittsburgh’sCameron Heyward was fourth with the other first-place vote and Cincinnati’sDexter Lawrence was fifth.

1. JefferySimmons, TennesseeTitans

The 2019first-round pickhas become perhaps the best interior pass rusher in the NFL over his time in Tennessee. Simmons had acareer-high 11 sacks last season

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO By STEW MILNE Tennessee Titansdefensivetackle JefferySimmons is introduced prior to agame against the Kansas City Chiefs on Dec.21inNashville, Tenn.

when he earned his fourthPro Bowl selection. Simmons has371/2 sacks the past five seasons andisone of two players —along with Chris Jones —with at least five sacks in each of thepast fiveseasons.

2. ChrisJones, Kansas City Chiefs

Jones has been the most important piece on Kansas City’s defense during an eight-year run that featured seven appearances in the AFC title game, five Super

Bowl trips andthreechampionships. Jones has 871/2 career sacksand hasoften deliveredclutchplays in key moments in theplayoffs. Jonesisa seven-time Pro Bowler andhas been namedanAll-Pro three times.

3. QuinnenWilliams, Dallas Cowboys

The Cowboys traded afirst-and second-round pick to the New York Jetstoacquire Williams last season in the hopes he could help

Judge moved to 60-day IL,needs anotherscan

NEWYORK Aaron Judge will need another scan before amajor rampup of activity while his fractured rib heals, andthe NewYorkYankees moved theircaptaintothe 60day injured list Saturday Sidelined since May 31,Judge hada scan during the All-Star breakthatwas reviewed by Dr Gregory J. Pearl, chair of the department of vascular surgery at Baylor Hamilton Heart and Vascular Hospital in Texas.

Judge is hitting .248 with 17 homersand 38 RBIs but hadjust one homer in his last 18 games before going on the injured list.

Manager Aaron Boone said how Judge feelswill determine when he goes foranother scan.

NewYork was36-23 whenthe 34-year-old outfielder last played but is 18-20 since.

British runner Kerr breaks men’smile world record

LONDON Josh Kerr, theBritish runner whohelped stoke arevival in middle-distance drama on the track, added anew chapter Saturdaybyrunning themilein3minutes, 42.66 seconds to break the 27-year-old worldrecord forthe distance.

At aDiamond League meet in London, KerrbrokeMoroccan great Hicham El Guerrouj’smark of 3minutes, 43.13 seconds, set in Romein1999. The 28-year-old native of Edinburgh celebrated with alap of honor at London Stadium

“It was just me,myshoes and the track,” he said. “I was absolutely deaf in that last 110meters.” Kerr finished more thanthree seconds clear of American Yared Nuguse’s second-place time of 3:45.69.

Reds lockinRHP Burns with 7-year,$105M deal

DENVER Nowthis gives new meaning to acoffee break: Chase Burnssigning his new $105 million,seven-year contract was momentarily delayedwhen acup of java was spilled on the paperwork.

No matter.The Cincinnati Reds presented anew one and got the dealdonefor the23-year-old righthanded All-Star Burns spilled the beans Saturday on what happened behind the scenes.ItappearsRedsgeneral manager Brad Meador toppled over coffee as they were finishing up the final details.

“That took sometimetoprint a new one out,” Burns recounted before the Reds playedthe Rockies. “That waseasy.”

Burns’ deal is the largest guaranteed contract in themajors given to apitcher withlessthanfour years of service time.

Orioles, RHP Bradish agree to 5-year,$90M extension

HOUSTON The Baltimore Orioles have agreed to afive-year,$90 million contract extension with starting pitcher Kyle Bradish, the team announced Saturday

rebuild thelinethat wasweakened after Micah Parsons was traded away. Dallas hopes afull season with Williams will help do thetrick as he is one of the game’s top run defenders inside and also contributes as apass rusher Williams has been aPro Bowler thepast four seasons.

4. CameronHeyward, Pittsburgh Steelers

Heywardisstill going strong headed intohis 16th season, earning second-team All-Pro honors as a36-year-old in 2025. Heyward is a seven-timePro Bowlerand afourtime All-Pro forthe Steelers. He generated 55 pressures last season, accordingtoPro Football Focus, and also was strong against the run.

5. Dexter Lawrence, Cincinnati Bengals

Lawrence has established himself as the rare nose tackle who can generate pass pressure and stop therun. That made him worth the10th overall pick when Cincinnatitraded forhim from the New York Giants before the draftin hopes he can help rebuild astruggling defense. He had 21 sacksfrom 2022-24, when he madethe Pro Bowlall three seasons, but had only ahalfsack last season when he faced thefifth-highest double-team rate amongdefensive tacklesat 70.35%, according to PFF

The extension runs through the 2031 season and buys out Bradish’s final twoyears of arbitration while covering what would have been his first three years of free agency

The 29-year-old Bradish is 6-9 with a3.61 ERAin19starts this year,the right-hander’sfirst full season back from Tommy John surgery in 2024. He finishedfourth in American League Cy Young Award voting in 2023 after posting a2.83 ERA over 30 starts. He has a3.50 ERA in five major league seasons, all with the Orioles.

Clarkrewrites records with 45-point,10-assist game

INDIANAPOLIS— Caitlin Clark seemed “bouncy”toIndiana coach Stephanie White before the Fever faced the Seattle Storm on Friday The sharpshooting star nottoo farremoved fromaback injury bounced right into the record books—her own, her team’s and the WNBA’s Clark had the first 40-point game of her three-year career while helpingrally theFever to a110107 victory,scoring 45 points with 10 assists to becomethe first player with 40 or more pointsand 10 or more assists in agameinWNBA history

Clark becamethe fastestplayer to reach 200 career 3-pointers in the first half, and her 45 points scored was also afranchise record.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILEPHOTO By NAM y. HUH

Thuneyreacts as he leavesthe field after agameagainst the Newyork Giants on Nov. 9inChicago.

underestimated. He wasn’t necessarily born to run. Sheer will strengthened his lungs.

“Everything you do,” Meech told his son, “you learn to finish. At 5 years old, Dilin tailed his father on runs around the neighborhood. An energetic son was easier for Meech to handle after a couple of laps, lasting about a mile.

By the time Dilin reached Our Lady of Good Counsel’s practice field, he didn’t just run until the whistle He finished every carry in the end zone.

Every offseason workout he pushed himself to the brink.

“There were times I could hear him wheezing, and I was like, ‘Dude, you need to chill, sit back for a little bit,’ ” said Skylar Saar who headed up both the wrestling program and the football team’s strength and conditioning. “He refused. He kept pushing through it.” Jones never stopped.

He loved football. So his father signed him up for two little leagues at a time, playing running back on one team and safety on the other

He wouldn’t sub out. Once, as a 6-year-old, he passed on bathroom breaks.

“I was changing his clothes, taking his football stuff off. I asked him why his girdle was wet,” Meech said with a laugh. “He said it was sweat.” Dilin took well to his father’s lack of babying.

From the time he was 2, Dilin was called to the car by his father with a grown-up, “Let’s go, man!”

If Dilin tried to give up with “I don’t know” as they sounded or spelled out new words, Meech replied with an insistent, “Figure it out.” He had to figure out how to compete in the most unglamorous sport, wrestling, because Meech wanted him tough There were times Saar had to pull a frustrated Meech aside after matches because he thought Dilin eased up in a loss.

He hadn’t. A technical flaw was always the culprit, never effort. Saar, who coached Olympic wrestling gold medalist Kyle Snyder, believes Jones could have been a Maryland state champion as a senior if an ankle injury hadn’t sidelined him for the season.

When healthy, Jones’ competitive drive was bottomless. Stefanelli would schedule Our Lady of Good Counsel’s girls soccer team for a friendly exhibition with his squad The girls always whooped his clumsy football players.

Then Jones came out of nowhere, deftly dribbling the ball up the field, and put two in the back of the net to clinch a win.

“Dude, you play soccer, too?” Stefanelli asked.

“Yeah, coach,” Jones confirmed in his quiet, unassuming way His skills spoke loudly Jones

CAJUNS

Continued from page 1C

first down more than Desormeaux. He also was a bruising, punishing running quarterback for the Cajuns, rushing for 2,843 yards and 16 scores in 43 games.

“I get the temptation of, I can get it,’ “ Desormeaux said. “I’ve been there. And there’s times when he needs to run, but there’s also times when it’s just smarter to throw the ball and avoid the hit.”

That’s why the UL coaching staff worked exclusively on his drop-back game early in spring practice. The goal was to make the natural urge to run not be his default setting.

RABALAIS

Continued from page 1C

Steve Sarkisian has recently outpaced Kiffin in attention-grabbing comments, along with Texas quarterback Arch Manning — will close out the SEC football showcase summer event. Kiffin has been mostly in radio silence as of late. He’s done a couple of interviews, including a news conference in late May at the SEC spring meetings, but he hasn’t posted anything on his X account since May 11. In Kiffin years that’s an eternity That changes this week, of course. The Kiffin faucet will be open full throttle, including an upcoming book about him. Just don’t expect Kiffin to stand at the media days podium and start

cut blitzers in half in pass protection and tossed a half-dozen tacklers on a run. He slogged forward on a rain-soaked field and scored the game’s only touchdown in a conference title win over DeMatha.

Jones’ biggest impact was on the practice field. In time, every running back at Our Lady of Good Counsel sprinted to the end zone on every rush

“Where I’m at now, we’re doing that there,” said Stefanelli, currently the associate head coach at St John’s College High School.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, guys, I got this guy Google him, he’s at LSU. You wanna get to that level? Here’s what you need to do.’ He’s still inspiring kids and he doesn’t even know it.”

Stefanelli wouldn’t have considered Jones the prototype when he first met him. But he was perfect, every practice rep, every workout.

Saar had just one gripe in four years with Jones: He DoorDashed McDonald’s to a wrestling meet in Hagerstown. His diet wasn’t the best, but it didn’t matter because Jones burned so many calories while competing.

Even if he had to wheeze through it.

“He wasn’t just gonna show up when the lights were on. He was showing up every single day,”

Saar said, “because he had bigger dreams.”

It surprised no one when Jones, who built himself into a 5-foot-11, 210-pounder, went to Wisconsin and became the lead back as a redshirt freshman

But injuries hurt Jones’ stats, and 15 losses in two seasons weighed on his soul. That combination tanked his prestige when he left the Badgers.

Recruiting services barely ranked Jones inside their top-80 transfer running backs in January Not exactly a standout addition to an LSU running back room that returned former five-star recruit Harlem Berry and four-star Caden Durham.

But Jones emerged from ambiguity and caught Lane Kiffin’s eye in late March

He’s done that before.

“Really good feet and body control. Really smooth runner,”

Kiffin told former Tigers safety Tyrann Mathieu in May “Everybody knows about (tight end) Trey’Dez (Green) and (linebackers) Whit Weeks and T.J. (Dottery) but I think Dilin has got a real chance.”

Could an under-the-radar running back who burst onto the scene at the Crab Bowl all those years ago lead a revival of LSU’s run game?

Stefanelli wouldn’t bet against it.

“Down the road, they won’t be surprised. They’ll start expecting it,” Stefanelli said. “If he can stay healthy, it’s gonna be fun to watch. Then good for LSU, because they got more than they thought they were getting. That’s even better.”

Email Jon Blau at jon.blau@theadvocate.com.

“We’re trying to encourage the quarterbacks to throw more of the perimeter screens and throw more of the RPO stuff, just to try to get the ball out and try to get those easy yards,” Desormeaux said. “It’s kind of, ‘Hey, if it’s 5050, throw it out there.’ “

Winfield played in all 13 games last season, but the first four were mostly on isolated wildcat runs.

Over the last nine, the redshirt sophomore was 127-of-216 passing for 1,555 yards with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He was sacked 17 times.

On the ground, Winfield ran it 152 times for 667 yards with nine touchdowns.

So there’s much room for improvement in the passing game.

“That’s most of what we did

blasting away with a bunch of hot takes. That’s not his preferred medium.

LSU is the third different SEC school that Kiffin will represent at media days, following Ole Miss (stop that hissing, will you?) and Tennessee. He will be the first coach to do that, and he officially is the first man to coach three different SEC teams. Paul “Bear” Bryant technically did it by coaching Alabama, Kentucky and Texas A&M, but his stint in College Station was back in the Aggies’ days in the long-defunct Southwest Conference. While on a social-media diet, Kiffin apparently has been making his presence felt in other ways. Recruiting expert Steve Wiltfong of On3/Rivals recently predicted that LSU will flip Brother Martin’s Easton Royal the nation’s top-rated receiver and

England takes third in scoring fest vs. France

BY ALANIS THAMES AP sportswriter

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Bukayo

Saka scored three goals to lead England to a 6-4 win over France for third place in the World Cup, while Kylian Mbappé surpassed Lionel Messi’s career tournament scoring record and took the lead in the Golden Boot race with a pair of second-half goals on Saturday It was the highest-scoring World Cup game since Hungary beat El Salvador 10-1 in 1982, and the 10 goals were the most in a thirdplace match.

Saka had goals in the 37th minute and in first-half stoppage time, then added his third on a penalty in the 87th for his second career hat trick with England. The Three Lions also got goals from Declan Rice and Ezri Konsa to build a 4-0 halftime lead, and they hung on during a wild second half to secure their second-best finish in the World Cup. England won its only title in 1966.

Jude Bellingham of England capped the scoring in the eighth minute of second-half stoppage time, his seventh goal of the tournament Mbappé reached 22 career goals,

WORLD CUP

Continued from page 1C

since Pele and Brazil did it in 1958 and 1962. And for Messi, it’s a chance to write the perfect ending to what he has indicated will be his final run with his national team.

“On Sunday, we will watch a great show,” said Spain coach Luis de la Fuente, who has guided his side to a 28-0-9 record during this unbeaten run. “Two great national teams — two superteams, in my opinion — very similar in some aspects in terms of attitude, footballers’ talent. I think that it’s going to be an amazing final.” In simplest terms, the matchup looks like best player vs. best team. In actuality, it’s so much more than that.

There is history there, given that Messi was born in Argentina but spent part of his youth and most of his club career in Spain, and would have been eligible if he wanted — to play for that national team instead. Spain tried to convince Messi many times. He never wavered. Sunday will be the first time he plays against Spain since a friendly in 2010, when Argentina routed the then-reigning World Cup champions. He obviously understands the enormous stakes around this match and insists the approach will be simple regardless — spending a Sunday afternoon with some friends, kicking the ball around,

during the spring,” said Winfield, who underwent offseason ankle surgery “He (Desormeaux) didn’t really have none of the runs until like the last two weeks of spring probably It was mostly passing, passing, passing, getting comfortable with just taking the hits off.

“I got way more comfortable with most of my teammates and timing in the passing game.”

The reason Winfield didn’t win the starting job out of camp last summer was his low completion percentages in practice schemes designed for a pass-happy offense under opening-day starter Walker Howard.

That could be better managed this season with different personnel. In addition to preseason All-

No. 6 prospect overall away from Texas. That could make for an interesting encounter if Kiffin and Sarkisian cross paths Thursday Then there’s scheduling. On Friday, LSU announced that it is adding four nonconference games against in-state opponents to its schedules over the next four seasons: Northwestern State in 2027, Southern and UL-Monroe in 2028, and Tulane in 2030. Three of those games — Northwestern State next season, ULM in ’28 and Tulane in ’30 will be season openers. The lone outlier in that run will be 2029, when LSU opens against SMU at the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. That game will be a throwback to the kind of Power Four opener LSU has played, and struggled to win, since 2021. The kind of open-

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By REBECCA BLACKWELL

England’s Bukayo Saka shoots but does not score on a shot defended by France goalkeeper Mike Maignan during the World Cup third-place match on Saturday in Miami Gardens Fla.

one more than Messi. The star striker finished this World Cup with 10 goals, two ahead of Messi in the race for the Golden Boot, which is awarded to the tournament’s top scorer Messi will get one last shot at the scoring title when he and defending champion Argentina face Spain on Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey Bradley Barcola and Ousmane

albeit with 80,000 people watching in the stadium and probably somewhere around 2 billion watching worldwide.

And there’s also the incredible storyline of how Messi and Spain star Lamine Yamal, who were photographed together nearly two decades ago when Yamal was a baby, will be sharing the pitch in a World Cup final.

“We grew up playing soccer with passion, eager to play,” Messi said in his native Spanish. “We played everywhere. We played on the street. We played at school. We played with teams. We didn’t think about the pressure. It was just natural play.”

But there will be pressure Sunday, and tons of it. Win or lose, Argentina knows this is likely the end of the Messi era in blue and white.

“The best footballer that the world has seen,” Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni said.

It wasn’t always that way Go back a decade, and this run — Copa América champions in 2021, World Cup champions in 2022, Copa Américachampionsagainin2024—almost never happened for Argentina.

Messi retired from the national team in 2016, after he and Argentina lost that year’s Copa América final to Chile in penalty kicks — one of which he missed.

“I’m done,” Messi said that night at MetLife Stadium, which just happens to be the site of this World Cup final.

He wasn’t done, of course. He continued starring for Barcelona, then

Sun Belt receiver Shelton Sampson, UL has more catch-and-run receivers with Trenton Chaney and Russell Babineaux, as well as a trio of running backs with good hands.

“They’re the kind of guys that you could throw short passes and they can make a big play,” Winfield said. “Yeah, these are guys that you just got to get the ball to. Trenton, I played high school ball with him, so I know he wants the ball. He comes up to me in OTAs to get him the ball.

“All these guys want the ball to show what they can do with it.”

Dembélé also scored for France.

Both teams had said they’d rather be playing in Sunday’s final. France had enough offensive firepower to potentially win the tournament, but Les Bleus lost to Spain in the semifinals and squandered their chance at reaching a third straight World Cup final England blew a 1-0 lead against Argentina and lost 2-1 when Messi assisted on two late goals.

Paris Saint Germain, then Inter Miami. He’s the two-time defending Most Valuable Player in Major League Soccer, the star of that league’s reigning champions, someone who can still create goals in the biggest moments with virtual ease.

“He is pure history,” Scaloni said. “History A legend.” Spain is chasing history as well. La Roja are the favorites for Sunday, deservedly so after giving up just one goal in the team’s first seven matches of this tournament. Spain has not spent a single second trailing at this World Cup; Argentina has trailed for more than 100 minutes, including stoppage time. Defensive performances like this simply do not happen, even in the World Cup. There are three teams — Spain in 2010, Italy in 2006 and France in 1998 — who won the title and gave up a total of two goals in the tournament. This Spain team is in line to do even better than that.

“Argentina is far more than Messi,” Spain captain Rodri said. “They’ve proven that they’re a very complete team with top players. We are the best two teams playing in a collective manner as a group. Of course, we need to be mindful of Leo, but many other players.”

The 104th and final match of the biggest World Cup in history — 48 teams, spread out over the U.S., Canada and Mexico — comes down to the reigning champions against the heirsapparent,thebiggeststarinthe game against those who have idolized him and now can end his reign.

The other factor that could work in UL’s favor is the health of the offensive line. Throughout those final nine games, Winfield was playing behind a makeshift line because of a litany of injuries.

er LSU will play this season when it hosts Clemson on Sept. 5. Kiffin likes those kinds of high-stakes openers as much as he likes a dirt-stained visor Clearly it looks like LSU is building out a string of openers to his liking. By the way, when Kiffin was at Ole Miss, the Rebels lost their 2020 opener to Florida 51-35 when SEC teams played a conferenceonly 10-game schedule because of the pandemic. After that, Ole Miss beat Louisville 43-24 in Atlanta, then Troy 28-10 in 2022, Mercer 73-7 in 2023, Furman 76-0 in 2024 and Georgia State 63-7 in 2025. You can see where this is going. As for the opponents, LSU has shown a preference for keeping the guaranteed money in state as much as possible, so these games make sense. But frankly, I didn’t think the Tigers would play Southern again after what looked

Theoretically, a more stable offensive line could increase Winfield’s chance of playing 12 games.

“That was just a freak thing,” Winfield said of the line. “That’s not going to happen again.”

Winfield is still a young quarterback with less than a year’s experience as a starter and even less experience behind him. Daniel Beale has completed 42 of 84 passes for 395 yards with one score and four interceptions and ran it 17 times for 17 yards. Coleman Carter hasn’t played yet.

“We’re going to be good,” Winfield said. “I’m ready we’re all ready to go.”

The Cajuns hope they can get some injury luck to go along with him.

like a one-off in 2022, and I didn’t know whether LSU ever would play Tulane again after last facing the Green Wave way back in 2009.

Younger LSU fans never have seen their team lose to Tulane, with an 18-game winning streak for the Tigers since a 31-28 upset loss in 1982. I think it’s great to see another meeting on the books against LSU’s oldest and once most-played rival (Mississippi State now has that distinction), especially since Tulane reached the CFP this past season, losing to Ole Miss. But those are games to focus on later The attention is on what may well be the most anticipated LSU football season ever — where it should be.

For more LSU sports updates, sign up for our newsletter at theadvocate.com/lsunewsletter

DannyHeitman

AT RANDOM

‘Stopbeing oneperson’ an answer to broken times

In the depths of another Louisiana summer,Iknow that no living thing will last long if it lingers on ascorching sidewalk. Which is why,asIstroll my neighborhood each morning, Istoop to collect stranded earthworms on the pavement and return them to the grass. While they inch through the lawns along my street, some of the worms find themselves on thehard, hot walkway,destined to die as the sun bakes them alive. Although Ican’t save them all, Ihelp the few that Ican.

My summers on earthworm patrol, Isuspect, must give the folks who live aroundme something to wonderabout.I find myself wondering, too.

Am Ireally doing anything by coming to the aid of an earthworm?

At such moments, Ifind myself thinking about “The Star Thrower,” along-agoessay by author and scientist Loren Eiseley about his encounter with someone who had assigned himself an equally unusual mission. Eiseley was walking along the shore one day when he spotted aman throwing starfish into thesea. They’d been beached by the tide and were sure to die unlesssomeone returned them to the ocean. The self-appointed Good Samaritanwas lifting them from the sand and hurling them back to the water “The stars,” he told Eiseley, “throw well. One can help them.”

Eiseley nicknames his acquaintance “the star thrower,” andhedoesn’tquite know what to makeofhim. But Eiseley decides to join his new acquaintance in his strange errand of mercy and become astar thrower,too.

“He is not alone any longer,” Eiseley writes of the star thrower.“After us there will be others.”

What Eiseley seems to say is that we’re touched by a

ä See AT RANDOM, page 4D

As the schoolyear starts,we’re thinkingabout thepeoplewho stand at the front of the room, who open classroom doorswith asmile. Sometimes astranger in August becomes the person a student never forgets.

Certain teachers saysomething on arandom October afternoon and studentsrepeat it for decades to come —orateacher mayleadbyexample and give in waysthat changes lives.

We invite readers to tell us about thatteacher who made all the difference: write aletter directly to the teacher and send it to us. Or tell the story plain:a name, aclassroom andthe moment that stuck. We’relooking for the lessons that have outlasted the chalkboard(or the dry erase board,as the case maybe). Send your letter or story,includingthe name of the teacher, name of school, city and year to jan.risher@ theadvocate.com by 2 p.m.July 28. Photos of theteacherare also welcome.

toAhairdayremember

BY CLAUDIA LAWS Staff writer

Back in 2022, Claudia Laws shared the story of how her 40/40 bucket list came to be. She made alist of 40 things that were importanttoher.The goal was todo each of them before she turned 40. When she aged out of that goal, she made anew list of 50 things to do before she turns 50. Today,at47 years old, she has accomplished 42 items on her 50/50 list. But there was one item on the40/40 list that she finally accomplished this year: Shear asheep.

Shear asheep

Ihave been trying to do this for over adecade:I’ve placedclassifiedsads,asked friendsand family and cold-called ranches and shearers—lots of false hope and no actual shearing. Then awoman at yoga clockedmysheep tattoos and, while talking, said she knew someone who had been to sheep shearing school. Ding ding ding. Of course, there is training for this! Iquickly learned there are few trainingprograms anda dearth of shearers; schoolsare scarce and competitive. Isigned up fornotificationsfor schools across the country.Most do it just once ayear,during the spring shearing season.

The sheep trailer in Roseburg,Oregon, was ahiveofactivity

Iapplied to aschool in Oregon

Youhad to physically mail the application. Idon’tknow if it was the sheep stickers on the envelope, the answers Iprovidedorjust that I maileditout thatvery day applications opened, but Igot accepted. Twomonthsout, they emailyou more information: sheep fasting times, clothingneeds, the pattern you shave and aphysical training program. Itried to memorizethe fasting times.I practiced theholds on my cats, and Itook up running

anddid ab workoutsthreedaysa week. Ibought Carhartt pants and overalls andmadesuremyshirts were long enough to cover my back when Ibent over Friends and family rallied.

Four friends made me asheepembroideredtoiletrykit andfilled it withthings likepain-relieving lotion, wet wipes and about adozen other comfort items. They also embroidered asheep on my new

BR frozen yogurt shop openinga food truck

Construction is near completion on Counter Culture’snew truck.

BYMADDIE SCOTT Staff writer

STAFF PHOTOSByByCLAUDIA LAWS

Babysheep runaround aranch in Roseburg,Oregon. Forsafety,sheep have to fast prior to shearing, so theyare separated into the barn the

Debut novel explores La. oil industry, home loss and identity

Lake Charles native dives into meaning of home

BY RIEN FERTEL

Contributing writer

“Should the Waters Take Us,” by Stephanie Soileau, Doubleday, 336 pages.

In “Last One Out Shut Off the Lights,” her wickedly titled 2020 short story collection that didn’t receive its just laurels — perhaps blame the pandemic — Stephanie Soileau offered a fiercely piercing portrait of life in Louisiana’s southwest coastal parishes.

There, as in real life, the area’s subservience to the petrochemical industry gloomily bobbed in the background. Families frolicked on beaches within sight of inshore oil rigs, formaldehyde-infused interior furnishings welcomed home workers forced to remove their toxin-tainted uniforms before settling in for the evening. In “Should the Waters Take Us,” her equally well-titled debut novel, Soileau places Louisiana’s oil industry front and center, with mixed results.

As in her first book, Soileau, a Lake Charles native who teaches in the University of Chicago’s creative writing program, is primarily interested in the meaning of home when home loses all literal, tangible, standing-on-solidground meaning. Using a kaleidoscopic approach, featuring shifting viewpoints spread over the past four centuries, Soileau focuses her story on Wilford “Boy” Broussard.

es Father Dakolo back to his youth and the arrival of construction crews planting pipelines that swallowed up and poisoned his homeland.

“This pinprick in the earth has released a relentless, merciless swarm of demons, an ancient evil,” he reflects. “A plume? A spill? A leak? It is a holocaust.”

Many of the book’s chapters take up the shared plight of Boy’s aunt and uncle, Rosa and Jacot Terrebonne, and their orphaned grandson, Jamie. Boy covets a marsh-mired work camp, a “muddy, private Eden” he grew up on owned by Jacot. But his uncle, who’s leased out the property’s drilling rights for decades, stubbornly clings to the land while it slowly succumbs to rising tides.

In one of the book’s best sections, a New Orleans lawyer patiently explains the difference between navigable waterways and waterways that are navigable to Jacot. A flooded driveway could be a temporary waterway that is navigable, but that wouldn’t make it a navigable waterway — by law belonging to the State of Louisiana.

STEPHANIE SOILEAU EVENTS

6 p.m., Monday: Garden District Book Shop 2727 Prytania St., New Orleans

Boy is Pelerin Parish’s resident rascal, a young man wise in the antiquated ways of Cajun trapping and still living on the MREs handed out five years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Living in the back bayous, he “shoots or fishes for what he wants, wherever he wants, as long as he can eat it or sell it,” including the alligator eggs, stolen straight from the nest, he hawks for 10 bucks a pop. Enter his old flame, Mandy, with Lee, their tween daughter, in tow Needing money and, a reader suspects, an excuse to flee the confines of parenthood, Mandy has taken an offer to work on an offshore oil platform. Boy, no man, demurs at his former paramour’s request to take Lee. Then to get the plot moving along, he agrees It’s obvious, knowing the timeline the novel lays out in its early pages, what comes next. Remember the long summer of 2010 in Louisiana?

6 p.m.,Tuesday, Cavalier House Books, 302 Jefferson St., Lafayette

Jacot’s land the lawyer clarifies, began the slow process of transferring to the state after he allowed the oil industry to “cut an easement canal across the parcel, which let the salt water in, which killed the marsh grass, which made the canal grow.” Though this sort of literary legalese might lack the crash bang wallop of the largest marine oil spill in history, it tells a more patient story of how the waters continue to take our Louisiana land. I wanted more. In a novel that often feels overcrowded, its narrative drowning under the weight of its own structure, Soileau adds an interesting narrative scaffolding to the mix: a scattershot of chapters tracing the Broussard-Terrebonne clan’s search for home.

It’s a centuries-long odyssey that takes them across the Atlantic to establish North America’s first permanent French settlement at Port Royal in 1606; through their brutal exile to stake a claim in a new Louisiana homeland 150 years later; to the 1940s, when oil derricks began replacing orange groves and a young Jacot pocketed three dollars a day helping Texan oilmen pour over plat maps while looking to round up homeowners who “didn’t know the first thing about property rights and leases and deeds.”

BETWEEN THE PAGES WITH LAUREN HENLEy

Historian investigates the La. story of a Black female serial killer

BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer

Lauren Henley’s first book, “Inquisition for Blood: The Making of a Black Female Serial Killer in the Jim Crow South,” explores a series of gory ax murders of Black families along the Sunset route of the Southern Pacific railroad from 1909 to 1912. The notorious killer was known as “the Axman.” Henley looks critically at southwestern Louisiana and Texas in the early 1900s and how newspapers and police handled the murders.

Henley is an assistant professor of leadership studies at Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, whose research focuses on violent crime in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“Inquisition for Blood” won the Jules and Frances Landry Award, an annual award presented to an LSU Press book that the press deems the year’s most outstanding achievement in the field of Southern studies.

This interview was edited for length and clarity

What is your connection to south Louisiana?

My ancestors lived in Baton Rouge and then moved up to Chicago during the Great Migration. My husband is from Baton Rouge. I have family scattered throughout, like in New Iberia and Breaux Bridge.

Growing up, I was taught these jokey, one-off stories that made Louisiana seem distinct from the rest of the U.S. There was a joke whenever my parents would get into a disagreement that my dad had been “voodooed” into listening to my mom.

Growing up with this lore of Louisiana and Creole food, I just remember thinking, “What a cool place.”

”Inquisition for Blood” focuses on female serial killer Clementine Barnabet. How did you come to learn about her story?

In undergrad, I was helping my adviser do a project on infanticide, so we were cataloging Black women who, in theory, killed their own children. She wanted to find as many Black women as possible across different periods of U.S. history and at that time, the best way to do this was to send everything to a shared Google drive, which is where I found Clementine. I started doing Google searches, and all of the stuff that was public at that point was really sensational.

I got fascinated by the intersection of criminal history and Black women’s history I wrote about the Austin Servant Girl Annihilator, who killed Black female domestic servants in Austin, Texas, while I was at UT for graduate work. That gave me a vantage point to travel the route of the Southern Pacific, and I would find myself back and forth between Baton Rouge and Austin.

What was the writing process like for this book?

What is the significance of local newspapers and national journalism in “Inquisition for Blood?”

One of those rewrites was to focus on the local newspapers. Think of it as a jawbreaker, where the news circles out and gets more and more distorted the further away from the epicenter News wires were relatively new to the scene. The boosterism of late 19th century in Louisiana, New Orleans specifically, trickled westward and said Louisiana was this exotic place. Clementine was such a national figure for a period of time, so how did she get lost in the collective American memory?

Her April 1912 confession is the most famous of them, but that confession came two weeks before the Titanic sank. When we tell the history of early 20th-century America, it’s the Titanic, World War I. You can see a very clear moment where Clementine goes from being front-page news to the Titanic. It flips overnight. Another element behind why the story is forgotten is that it’s uncomfortable. I appreciated that you went into detail describing the murdered families prior to their deaths. How did you approach that?

In an earlier iteration, I was very uncomfortable, because I felt like I was describing families at the moment of death, and I didn’t want that for every family It has to be there for the first family in part for the literary appeal, but also because I don’t know that much about them beyond their living arrangements.

I went back through all of my records and thought, “What little bits of daily life can I glean from these same sources? How can I understand these people as full people who have lives, hopes, dreams, friends and family?”

I made a concerted effort to try to reach out to descendants of all the families. What did you learn about investigative police work at the time compared to modern investigation work today?

There was no framework for serial murder at this point.

“A black plume roils across a gray sky above a darker sea,” Soileau writes. “The world ending, somewhere.”

Much like a pair of novels published in 2024 — Joselyn Takacs’s “Pearce Oysters” and Sharon Wishnow’s “The Pelican Tide” “Should the Waters Take Us” uses the same maritime disaster to explore its rippled effects on a small-town coastal community.

Most interesting among this network of characters is Fabian Dakolo, a Catholic priest in the local diocese. Born in a Nigerian fishing village not unlike south Louisiana the Gulf oil spill flash-

It’s these chapters that made me eager to keep reading, that should entice readers who feel inundated by all this water, water, water everywhere — and wonder what it means for our Louisiana home. In the book’s final pages, Soileau poses an old hurricane hypothetical: “If you had to leave your home, maybe forever, if there was no home to come back to, what would you take?” Important documents? Irreplaceable photographs? I recommend you pack a book, maybe even this one, that might remind you of the place that may not be there when you return.

Rien Fertel is the author of four books He can be reached at rienfertel@ gmail.com.

The research started in 2012 and continued intermittently the whole time. It was my dissertation, but I rewrote the whole thing from cover to cover five times for various reasons. Some of the rewriting came about with new sources.

Digitization efforts of newspapers has gotten better because I’ve been able to go grab more. Part of it has been thinking intentionally about how records are created.

Historians are told, “Gather all of the stuff that you possibly can and have this omnipotent world view about the past.” I find that really disingenuous to serial murder because there’s no way people in the past could have known what was coming next.

What did people know at that time? What did they know in November 1909 versus in October 1912? Different knowledges were circulating. They were living through a level of panic and uncertainty

It’s good that we have the intellectual framework these days to go back and find cases that clearly evince a pattern. At that point, people couldn’t know that. There were no investigative strategies. It seemed logical to think, if someone shows up murdered, somebody wanted them dead — not as a random killing.

Why do you think that the story of Clementine and the Axman murders matter today?

As I say in the book, we should believe Black women, and if we do, then what things are open to us? What things are possible, good, bad or indifferent?

I’m not out to glorify serial killers, but I am out to add nuance and say this trope of hyper-intelligent White men does a disservice. That doesn’t mean I’m for more policing, but it does mean anybody can commit really violent crimes.

Email Joy Holden at joy.holden@ theadvocate.com.

“Murdoku” by Manuel Garand 9. “Want to Know a Secret?” by Freida McFadden

“Dear Debbie” by Freida McFadden

Henley

Soileau

TRAVEL

Involveyourchildrenintravelplanning

‘Kid-fluenced’trend growing in popularity

BY JESSICA PUCKETT TravelPulse (TNS)

For family travelers in the know, anew league of travel influencers is emerging —and notonsocial media.

Rather,parents are following their children’slead when it comes to choosing destinationsand planning trips. It’spart of the larger “kid-fluenced”travel trend that has been growing in popularity among family vacationers in recent years.

Aside from pleasing kids and potentially avoiding tantrums,involving children in travel planning has additional benefits

According to the 2025 U.S. Family Travel Survey,84% of parents said helping with travel plans makes their children more adaptable and open to new experiences.

Plus, 61% of parents said involving kids with planning had a“positive impact on their child’shappiness and engagementduring the trip.”

Travel experts agree that looping children into the process brings more excitement before atrip and can make the travel experience morepositive for the whole family

“Includingthe kids in travel planning is agreat way to help them feel invested in thetripand take ownership of the experience,” says Rachel Lipson, afamily travel expert who writes the Substack newsletter The Point. “Doing researchtogether ahead of time can calm anxious nerves,let achild know what to expect, and give the whole family plans to look forward to.”

Here are afew easy ways to get kids involvedinplanning your next family getaway

Setexpectations

Formanyyoung kids,helping out their parents and sharingtheir opinions can be reallyexciting. But it’s importanttoframe the con-

TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER

By ChristopherElliott

According to the 2025 U.S. Family Travel Survey,84% of parents said helping withtravelplans makes their childrenmoreadaptable and open to newexperiences.

versation around travel planning the right way to help keep children from becoming overwhelmed and to manage everyone’sexpectations.

Oneway to keep the conversation ageand skill-level appropriate is to start with broader questions, Lipson advises “For kids onthe youngerside, offeringachoice ofbeach, city, or country can beagood start—and a greatopportunity to find outwhat atmosphere they enjoy most on a trip,” she says No matter your children’sage, it’simportant to let them know that they rehelping and not taking control of the entirevacation. Lipson advises parents to makeit clear that they value their kids’

interests and opinions, but the ultimate destination selection must work for the entire family

“I recommend letting the kids know theadultswill makethe final choice, but theirinput is appreciated,” Lipson says. “This way they don’tget too attached or disappointed if their pick doesn’twork out.”

Getthe ball rollingonplanning

Onceyou’ve started the conversation, you can involve your children in identifyingand researching potential destinations.

“Visit the travel section of your locallibrary or bookstoreand see what piques their interest,”Lipson says. Youcan encourage them to dive deeper by asking them what

they might like to do in each place. “Research kid-friendly activities together and makeillustrated lists of things to do,” Lipson says.

Parents and children can also sit down together to book specific tours and activitiesbefore vacation.Infact, an increasing number of families seem to be doing this, according to recent data from Tripadvisor,which showsa 40% increase year over year in children’s tickets for heritage tours and a 47% jump in children’stickets for cooking classes.

But that doesn’t mean parents should feel pressure to plan elaborateoutings or lengthy tours in order to get their children interested in travel planning. Even small stepscan geta childinvolvedand

grow anticipation for an upcoming trip.

“For somefamilies, the best placetostart maybescoping out gelato spots anddrawing ice cream cones on amap,orfinding playgroundsnear already booked accommodations,” Lipson says. When in doubt, keep it simple. Any opening to discuss what avacation might be like and what your child might like to do there is a step in the right direction.

Destinationselection process

Onceit’stime to choose avacation spot, you can include your little ones in that phase of planning, too.

Lipson advises offering alimited number of destinations that have been vetted and approved by the adultsinthe group, andopenthe conversation up with your kids. “Start witha listofthree places, andashortlist foreach with topattractions that matchtheir interests and see where the conversation takes you,” says Lipson.

Trytobeasconcrete and visual as possible to help children understand the details. This will help guide the conversation and keep kids engaged. “Offering practical options and showingkidsphotos of the different possibilities can give them achancetomakeaneducated choice.”

Evenifthe childrendon’t get their topdestination, parents can still plan simple and affordable activities that keep them interested during the vacation. “Make ascavenger hunt or treasure map —end at acandy store!—with stops the kids are interested in along the way,”Lipson advises.

Overall, thegoal is to getkids interested in travel, help them get better at identifying their opinions and preferences, and even build a sense of gratitude along the way.

“Whenkids gettoexperiencethe process, they becomemore aware of the work that’sbeing done for them,and it teaches them how important it is for everyone to do their part and be grateful,” says Lipson.

Ibooked aroom with twoqueen beds through Booking.com at ahotel in Brooklyn, N.Y.I needed the queen beds, andthe room wasclearly advertised as such.

goodwillcredit. Idisputed the chargeonmy credit card. Capital One initially credited the $922 chargebut thenrebilled it after the merchant responded to thechargeback.

Could you have avoided this?

dations. The answer,thankfully, wasno.

I’ve sent all my photoand video proof to all three parties, andyet I’mstill out almost a thousand dollars for aservice Inever used. What can Idotoget my full refund? —Rebekah Singleton,Alexandria,Va

Christopher Elliott

However,when Ichecked in, the beds were obviously smaller —Ilater measured them to be approximately 50 inches wide, which is afull-size, nota queen.To makematters worse, the room wasdisgusting.The sheets had grease stains, hair and what looked likesuspicious red stains.

Iasked for anew room, but the second one wasworse, featuring aclear splatter of red stains across the floor Ididn’tfeel safe or comfortableand left that night, finding another hotel.I immediately contacted the hotel and Booking com.The hotel denied my request for a full refund. Booking.com gave me the runaround for weeks and offered amere $106

This is an infuriating bait-andswitch case compounded by a gross disregard forpublic health and safety.The hotelfalsely advertised accommodations with two queen beds andthen gave youaroom with smaller beds and alarming,unsanitary conditions, includingsuspiciousred splatters. Ugh

Despite yourexhaustive paper trail documenting multiple attemptstoresolvethe issue with the hotel and Booking.com —includingseveral long phone calls—

bothcompanies refused afull refund. The hotel simply denied your photographic evidence, and Booking.com attempted to settle thematter with ameager credit, claiming your valid health and safetyconcerns were merely a matter of opinion. With thehotel refusing to budge and Booking.com failing its duty to ensure accurate listings and customer satisfaction, your most direct pathwas to resubmit a comprehensive dispute to Capital One, focusing on the clear contract violation of the room and bed size. This documented patternofdeceit and poor customer service should have ultimately won your chargeback. Incredibly, it didn’t. Your credit card company sided withthe hotel, claiming you had “used” the services. I thinkit’stime for you to switch to adifferent credit card.

Maybe. Reviewing the hotel’sratings might have kept you away It currently has 2 1/2 stars out of 5, and the first review warns, “You are going to regret booking this hotel.” (I asked you about this,and you said at the time you booked the reviewswere “a mixed bag but nothing completely egregious.”)

In asituation like this, you have options. Youcan escalate your complaint to Booking.com —I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of key Booking. com executives on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. Or you could ask aconsumer advocate for help.

Youchose door number two, and Ireached out to Booking.com on your behalf to find out if it really planned to force you to pay $922 for these shoddy accommo-

“After afull review of the case, our customer service team has engaged directly with both the guest and the accommodation to resolve the situation,” arepresentative told me. “Given the concerns raised around room conditions and the customer’soverall experience, we’ve issued afull refund.”

Iasked Booking.com if the hotel would be removed from the platform,and it said it would work directly with the property to make improvements. Iguess everyone deserves asecond chance, maybe.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy,anonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him on his site. Askedfor twobedsand aclean

They’reondisplay in hishometown of Salzburg

BYPHILIPP JENNE Associated Press

SALZBURG, Austria Visitors to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s hometown cansee thecomposer —and hisdog —inminiature as Salzburg celebrates the 270th anniversary of his birth. But they shouldn’twait too long.

The Mozarteum Foundation on Wednesday unveiled 300 gold-colored statuettes of Mozart, which are less than 20 inches tall. They were designed by German concept artist Ottmar Hörl. Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756, in the Austrian city,where the Mozarteum Foundation offers concerts, maintains Mozart museums and supports research on him. “I didn’twant to do amonument of Mozart. There are already enough of these. But Iwanted to

show his human side, that he was anormal human being despite his genius,” Hörl told The Associated Press. To give thestatuesahuman

touch, Hörl depicted the composer withhis favoritedog, Pimperl. Mozart and his family were known to take long walks with their dogs in the Mirabell Garden,

next to where theylived.

Themini-Mozarts populate not only the garden, but also Mozart’s former living quarters as wellas severalpavilions. In all,400 statuesweremade, but only 300 are on display at present. The rest are being kept in reserve in case of theft.

“Two already got stolen within the last fewhours,” Linus Klumpner of the Mozarteum Foundation said. But the statues are meant to attract abroader range of visitors and get them hooked on Mozart’smusic.

“You come here, maybe you see thesmall golden heads shimmering in thesun on thehorizon. And people become curious,” Klumpner said. “ And then aprocess begins which is verymuchinour interest. That is to bring newpeople in contact with Mozart.”

For Hörl, the theft of his artworksinnothing new.Ataninstallation in Bayreuth, Germany, acomplete array of statues of Richard Wagner was stolen within 10 days.

“That’sjust the nature of public space. Thatmeanswhenyou work as an artist in apublic space, you mustn’tcomplain about whatis happening there,” Hörl said. “It ranges from destruction to theft. That’sjust howitis.”

The Mozart statuesare scheduledtoremainondisplayuntil Aug. 30. People who would like to own one but would prefer not to steal it can purchase onefor $114 —while supplieslast.

Hörl is knownfor his sculptures made from polymer.

In 2010, he displayed 10,000 plastic owls in Athens.

A“Homage to Dürer” showcased oversized plastic copies of AlbrechtDürer’share at the Daegu artmuseum in South Korea.

In 2009, German prosecutors decided against investigating Hörl over aseriesofgoldengarden gnomes doing theHitlersalute, under alaw that forbids using insignia forbidden by the German constitution. Hörl himself intended the gnomes as satire against the Nazis’ ideology.

TNSPHOTO By ROBERT KNESCHKE

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MATTHIAS SCHRADER German artistOttmar Hörlfrom Nuremberg walks through his installation comprising of 400 gold-colored Mozartsculptures for the 270thbirthday of composer Wolfgang Amadeus MozartinSalzburg,Austria.

Stacks of wax packs, now obsolete, summon joy of baseball-card childhoods

BY HOWIE RUMBERG Associated Press

NEWYORK The anticipation. The

chase. The powdery, sugar-coated board of gum! For generations of baseball card fans, there was nothing like scrounging up some change and sprinting to the store to buy a wax pack.

Some tore the slightly tacky paper wrapper open and flipped through the cards in an insatiable instant (hence the popular phrase “ripping wax” for opening card packs even today, about 35 years since use of actual wax wrappers ceased). Others did the slow reveal: one card at a time, peeking out of a corner of the pack, or maybe upside down and reversed. However you did it, it was the right way

“There is something inherently magic about peeling away the paper of the wax pack. There’s something visceral about it, taking the pack to your face and smelling it,” says Brian Pirrip, owner of collectible business

M1NT “It’s something about the mix of all these scents — the wax, the gum, the cardboard — that transports you back to a different time.”

Collecting and trading cards has been part of the baseball ecosystem since the 1860s But the wax pack emerged as the delivery method in 1951 by Topps. Opening a pack was thrilling. Who were you going to pull?

Whether it was Hall-of-Famer-

to-be Brooks Robinson or Sixto Lezcano, a “common” card, the feeling was the same: “an innocent joy,” Pirrip says. You’d then scale them or flip ’em, turn that pack of 15 cards into 20 through some clever trades. The cards went with you everywhere.

Fueled by history, statistics and mythmaking, baseball card collecting rode the nostalgia craze of the 1980s into big business and overproduction of cards. While saturation of the market brought down prices, the abundance of fan favorites has driven a resurgence of interest in opening wax packs.

Sure, you can open modern foil wrappers and chase high-value autos, refractors or other gimmicky cards, But there’s nothing like tearing open a wax pack and chomping on the thin pink rectangle.

Pirrip has taken his love of collecting to 47 states. He has seen countless faces light up when a favorite card surfaces.

On a recent night at Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, Pirrip pulled out a box of 1987 Topps cards and had guests rip some wax. Nolan Ryan, Don Mattingly, Roger Clemens and Kirby Puckett drew gasps But it was all smiles, even for names not uttered in years.

“It instantly transports people to a happier time,” he says. “You can’t get that with anything else.”

FOOD TRUCK

Continued from page 1D

truck should be up and running by late August or early fall, Dunn said “I went a little overboard and added a giant sound system and programmable LED lights and underlighting,” Dunn said “It’s literally a massive, bright, rolling billboard wherever it goes.” Where it’s going

With Baton Rouge as its home base, the food truck will travel across southeast Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast for festivals and pop-up events. Dunn is currently starting the permitting and inspections process for other parishes so the truck can participate in large-scale events

“I get asked to do large events all the time, and the logistics of trying to move the yogurt machines and the oven it just doesn’t work very well,” he said. “Now we have all that stuff in a completely mobile platform ” Dunn plans to ride the truck in Mardi Gras parades, hence the purple, gold and green colors

The truck will also come in handy for pop-ups at Baton Rouge businesses and participation in fundraisers, something the brick-andmortar already does.

AT RANDOM

Continued from page 1D

common impulse to root for life wherever we find it. I first learned about Loren Eiseley and the star thrower from Kathleen Dean Moore, an author and thinker who connected with me a few years ago when we collaborated on a magazine project. She sees Eiseley’s story as a parable about the power of joining with others to do good in ways large and small. Moore was at a public event when a listener mulled over the world’s many problems and asked, “What can one person do?” For Moore, the answer was clear: “Stop being one person.”

Sheep

out in the

knee then softly on the ground onto the sheep’s rump

BUCKET LIST

Continued from page 1D

overalls. Another friend, who lives in Oregon, bought me groceries so I wouldn’t have to (And when I say groceries, I mean she raided snack aisles, cut up and packaged veggies and local Oregon strawberries and made sure I had enough food for every meal.)

The kindness and support of my friends overwhelms me even now

So I headed to Portland, got my rental car and drove south to a lovely dinner with friends — where I picked up the above-mentioned groceries — then headed to Roseburg, Oregon, and my quaint Airbnb.

I unpacked, set my alarm, laid out a shearing-appropriate outfit, packed my lunch and went to sleep.

I awoke completely excited. You know when you just feel it in your stomach, the feeling of anticipation, joy and fear rolled into one? That was me. Wrapped in my Taylor Swift sweatshirt, the only one I had brought — I thought it would be warmer I headed to the ranch about 15 minutes outside town.

PROVIDED PHOTO

Claudia Laws stands in a shearing trailer after shearing her first-ever sheep. While none of the sheep had names, most of them were deemed ‘Sweet Girl’ or ‘Baby’ during the shearing process.

they weren’t comfy by trying to escape. And they were rather successful at it.)

your body to control the sheep, keep it calm and to get yourself in the right position. You shear the sheep in a specific pattern. And at the end, the sheep is bald. You have long wool cut in one pass to make yarn with, and the sheep is in a position to leave the trailer easily Simple. Good shearers do it in about 2 minutes. I think my first one took just shy of an hour

This was not simple for any of us. What’s not supposed to happen:

n Multiple passes of the shearer over the same part of the sheep, creating wool that is trash because it’s too short and can’t be made into yarn.

n Not holding the sheep right, so she is uncomfortable and gets away/kicks you.

n Nicking the sheep (I know this sounds horrible, but mostly it’s small nicks like a man might make shaving his face. Not great, but not terrible).

n Crying because you can’t do any of it (positioning, bending over holding the sheep right, handling the cutter, remembering the pattern, getting a long cut of wool). I cannot describe how hard it was emotionally, physically and mentally And how I had no starting reference for any of it.

Counter Culture

“We do a lot with St. Jude, MS Society, Make-a-Wish Foundation,” Dunn said. “So the truck will allow that capability to expand outward as well.”

Menu rundown

Equipped with two frozen yogurt machines, the truck will offer most of the items served at the local brick-and-mortar

Their most popular dish will be on the menu: The Humphrey, a frozen yogurt dish topped with bananas, strawberries, grapes, granola and local honey In total, there’ll be four rotating frozen yogurt flavors with about 30 different topping options, plus a selection of shakes.

On the food side, the menu includes hot and cold sandwiches such as the hot melt, a handheld with a choice of protein, served on a wheat or jalapeño cheddar sourdough bun with lettuce, tomato, avocado, Swiss cheese and chipotle mayo. Other hot sandwiches include the hoagie, classic BLT, grilled cheese and the pizzaletta, which is like a muffuletta between slices of flatbread.

There’s also the smoked turkey, a cold sandwich fully dressed with sprouts on sliced honey wheat bread. Other cold sandwiches include the avocado delight, chopped chicken, chicken salad and tuna salad.

She was affirming the basic truth that challenges seem smaller when they’re shared. “There’s joy in that — joy to be in alliance with people who care about the living things you care about,” Moore writes. I felt some of that joy recently when my wife and I joined other community volunteers to replant a neglected public flowerbed in our neighborhood Our sense of shared purpose seemed like a comforting answer to the cynicism of the times Maybe, in an anguished year for the country and the world, “Stop being one person” should be the theme of the season.

Email Danny Heitman at danny@dannyheitman.com.

I drove through the rolling hills, lush green fields on either side of the road. Soon sheep started to dot the hillside, and as I started down the last hill before my turn off, Noah Kahan blasting on the stereo, the sun came out, shining on the light fog coating the valley below It was like a scene from a film. Magic was about to happen.

Bumping along the ranch’s driveway goats, horses and cattle appeared.

As I parked, the sheep appeared as if out of nowhere: some running about the fields, some in the barn, little babies running around crying. Sheep do something to me. They just unleash this feeling of pure joy when I see them It’s a feeling of excitement that makes your mouth move into a giant grin and your chest feel full.

One sheep alone makes me feel that; seeing (and hearing) hundreds so close to me was overwhelming.

I found my way to the trailer that would become my home for the next four days Seeing everyone 11 other students, the instructor, ranch owner, former rancher assistant and another part-timer Oh man, was I out of place.

My clothes weren’t quite right, my Carhartts so glaringly new, my makeup, though subtle, was the only makeup in the room. Even the words they were saying didn’t make sense to me. I would soon find out I was the oldest, most out-of-shape student with the least (meaning no) animal husbandry experience.

I don’t know this for a fact, but my guess is the folks running it make a real or silent bet on who will drop out. I’m pretty sure I was everyone’s first pick.

There was the normal chaos of everyone getting settled and meeting one another all backed by a constant euphony of baas.

First up, shoes. You shear flatfooted in special moccasins. We laced those up and tried to get used to them. Then the singlet. Basically, it looked like a wrestling tank top. It keeps the sweat off you, but it’s also an extra layer on your lower back, which makes a huge difference in managing back pain. Mine was bright pink. Then the instruction. So much information. We learned the New Zealand method, the most humane way to shear a sheep. And if you do it right, the sheep are pretty relaxed and comfortable. (Please note: None of us did this right to begin with. They let us know when

The instructor and owner went over shearing a million times. They taught us why it’s imperative and healthy for the sheep. How owners make (very minimal) money off the wool, but only if the shearer does it right This is often the only time of year sheep get a close inspection, so even though we are not veterinarians, we need to pay attention and learn the things we should flag to the owners.

The passion and devotedness these folks have for their craft was overwhelming. For me, this had started as a lark, but now it was a serious endeavor You can hurt the sheep, you can cost the owners money, and you are doing a really hard job that is so important. It was incredibly humbling.

Shearing is a dance. Get the sheep in the right position, hold their skin taut, push here to straighten their leg, hold them here for comfort, use your calf here your thigh here, your toe points this way or lifts at this point. It’s a carefully choreographed routine.

And then, with all those emotions and responsibilities running through us, they paired us up randomly and gave us shears.

They let the sheep in the chute and told us to get one out.

I did not know how to do that. This is apparently sheep 101, but I hadn’t even taken the prerequisites. To my partner I said, “Do you wanna go first?” Really, I wanted to watch her and others get it out of the chute. She took the bait, and I studied. As the assistant, I was responsible for turning the shears off and on, making sure the shears were out of the way when sheep got feisty to help control the sheep if they got away, keep an eye on our neighboring shearers and to help remember what the hell we were doing. I was not a terrible assistant. Part of it was also cheerleading: both to your partner and to the sheep.

Just under three hours in, I was handed a shearing machine. I wrestled a 150-pound ewe out of the chute. I ended up being surprisingly good at this. And while I say wrestle, when you do it well, you use your full body and knee to softly sit the sheep down on their rump. (You put your thumb in the edge of the sheep’s mouth when you do this, which is such a silly feeling that I laughed every time I felt the inside of their mouth.)

Then you shear

I can’t explain how hard this is. You use every little movement of

The days were 10 hours The people are incredibly supportive. The sheep were very kind to us.

When I got back to the Airbnb, I could barely grab dinner, pack lunch and shower before crashing out. I slept like the dead. My thighs ached, and my back cracked with every movement. I nicked a sheep on a vein. It was awful. She had to be stitched up. She was so tough and seemed to barely notice. Meanwhile, I cried.

The instructors hurriedly finished shearing her so she could go, but I asked my partner if I could do another one because I knew if I didn’t do one right, then I wouldn’t ever again. My body was so tense, and I was so scared that by the time I finished, it felt like I had run a marathon. I cried again. My partner hugged me.

I was terrible at shearing. I got better slowly but was always at the bottom of the class. The last day, my partner did two sheep for every one of mine.

We went out to dinner together on our last night. I was chatting with our instructor, and I was talking about how tricky it all was and how bad I was. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “But you’re still here, Claudia.” I might have cried again in that restaurant attached to a bowling alley

In four days, I sheared 13 sheep.

I learned about machinery and blade sharpening, sheep care basics and that cuts of meat are actually terms we use to refer to parts of a sheep’s body and, yes, I can tell you how to shave the brisket.

I learned that in New Zealand, you have to be able to shear 32 sheep in an hour (including swapping out blades) to keep a job as a shearer I learned why fasting matters, how to shear ewes, rams, lambs, weathered (neutered) sheep and sheep with horns.

I learned that knots on your head from banging into machinery last over a week, that bruises from kicking sheep last more than three weeks and that my back was somehow both stronger and more fragile than I thought.

I learned that strangers could be oh so kind and supportive, and that I need more of that in my life.

I learned that putting myself in uncomfortable and hard situations is gratifying.

I got to hold and pet and coo to hundreds of sheep. I learned how to shear a sheep. And I graduated.

STAFF PHOTO By CLAUDIA LAWS

hang

chute waiting to be sheared The chute is about 2 feet off the ground To remove them, one sticks their thumb in the sheep’s mouth, turns their head, pushes down the thin board and flips the sheep onto the shearer’s

STAFF PHOTO By LAUREN CHERAMIE

The turkey hot melt on jalapeño cheddar bread from

LOUISIANABAKES

Foryournextbrunch, trythese easy,go-to recipes

Monkey bread, crawfish braidare crowdfavorites

Few cities are as deeply connectedtofood as New Orleans.

In south Louisiana, recipes are more thaninstructions for ameal —theyare family heirlooms carrying the history,culture and traditions of generations. Gumbo on acool afternoon, agrandmother’sbread pudding, or atreasuredcrawfish étouffée recipe are part of thefabric that makes this area unique.

After Hurricane Katrina devastated NewOrleans in 2005, manyfamilieslost far more than their homes andbelongings. Handwritten recipecards, communitycookbooksand cherished family recipes were swept away in thefloodwaters. In the aftermath of thestorm, preserving these culinary treasures became an importantpart of preservingthe cityitself. “Cooking Up aStorm: Recipes Lost and Found from The Times-Picayune of New Orleans” emergedfrom that effort.

The cookbook was inspired bythe newspaper’s popular recipe exchange, where readerssought to replace beloved recipesthathad beenlostduringthe disaster. Through thegenerosityoflocal chefs, home cooks and communitymembers, recipes were rediscovered andshared, helping restore asmall but meaningful pieceofwhatthe storm had taken away

The book is overflowing withquintessential south Louisiana recipes andheartfelt storiesfrom readerswriting to the paper aboutthe important role eachdish held in their lives, households and family traditions. Not only does the cookbook stand as atestament to theresilience of NewOrleans, but it is also atrue example of theenduring power of food to bring people together

This summer,food writers for TheAdvocate and The Times-Picayune were challenged to cook from “Cooking Up aStorm,” an easy task forme, as the cookbook is in steady rotationinmyhome. Iwas immediatelydrawntorecipes that would work well for alarge gathering,especially a weekend brunch.

The first recipe for monkey bread is afamily favoriteand an easy way to involve children in thekitchen.The original recipe includesnuts; I have always baked this dish without. The second, crawfish braid, is an ode to thecrawfish bread served at the New OrleansJazz andHeritage Festival. This popular dish is rarely available outside of Jazz Fest, so here is yourchance to make it at home.For addedflavor,use crawfish tails left over from acrawfishboil.

TODAYINHISTORY

By The Associated Press

Today is Sunday,July 19, the 200th day of 2026. There are 165 days left in the year

TodayinHistory: On July 19, 1848, the first “Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious conditionand rights of Woman”convened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y Also on this date: In 1812, during the Warof 1812, the First Battle of Sackets Harbor in Lake Ontario resulted in an Americanvictory as U.S. naval forces repelled a British attack.

In 1969, Apollo 11 and itsastronauts, Neil Armstrong,Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins,went into orbit around the moon. In 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that werelinked in orbit for two days separated. In 1979, the Nicaraguancapital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country In 1980, the Moscow Summer Olympics began, minus dozens of nations that boycotted the games because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.

In 1989, 111 people were killed when United Airlines Flight 232, aDC-10 that sustained atail engine failure and the loss of hydraulicsystems, crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City,Iowa; 185 other people survived.

In 1990, baseball’sall-time hits leader,Pete Rose, was sentenced in Cincinnati to five months in prison for tax evasion.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced apolicy allowing gays to serve in the military under acompromisedubbed “don’task, don’ttell, don’t pursue.” In 2006, prosecutors reported that Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked or otherwise tortured scores of Black suspects from the 1970s to the early 1990s to try to extract confessions from them.

In 2005, President George W. Bush announced his

Monkey Bread

Monkey Bread

Makes approximately 10 servings. Recipe is adapted from “Cooking Up aStorm: Recipes Lost and Found from TheTimes-Picayune of New Orleans.”

1/2 cup unsalted butter,melted

1cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup lightbrown sugar

1to2teaspoons ground cinnamon

2cans refrigerated biscuits, each biscuit cut into quarters

1. Preheat theoven to 350 F.

2. Generously grease a10-inch tube pan withbutter or baking spray

3. Pour the melted butter into ashallow bowl.

4. In aseparate bowl, mix thesugars and cinnamon.

5. Roll each quarter of abiscuit into aball.

6. Dip 4or5 balls at atime in the melted butter and roll each in the sugarmixture.

7. Loosely arrange each ball in thetube pan. Repeat, layering the sugaredballs of dough over each layer

8. Sprinkle any leftover sugar mixtureontop of the rolls.

9. Bakeuntil golden brown, approximately 45 minutes to 1hour.Ifthe top getsbrown tooquickly,cover loosely with foil for the remainder of the baking time.

10.Turn thebread out of the pan onto the serving platter as soon as it is removed from the oven or the sugar may harden and stick to thepan. To do this, place theplatter on top of the tube pan and invert.

11.Pull thebread apart and serve warm

Notes:The original recipe calls for 1cup of chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts). If using nuts, sprinkle them between each layer of the cinnamonsugar biscuit dough.

choice of federal appeals court judge John G. RobertsJr. to replace SupremeCourt Justice Sandra DayO’Connor. (Roberts ended upsucceeding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist,who diedinSeptember 2005; Samuel Alito followed O’Connor.)

In 2013, in arare and public reflection on race, President Barack Obama called on the nation to do some soulsearchingover the death of Black teenager Trayvon Martin and theacquittal of his shooter, GeorgeZimmerman,saying Martin “could havebeen me 35 years ago.”

In 2018, aduckboatpacked with tourists capsized and sank in high winds ona lake in the tourist town of Branson, Missouri,killing 17 people.

In 2021, PaulAllard Hodgkins, aFlorida manwho breached the U.S.Senate chamberonJan. 6, 2021, received an eight-month prison term in the first resolution of afelony case arisingfrom theU.S. Capitol insurrection. (In 2025, President DonaldTrump pardoned, commuted theprison sentences or vowed to dismiss thecases of all 1,500-pluspeople charged with crimes in the riot.)

In 2022, Britain shattered itsrecord for thehighest temperature ever registered amid aheat wavethatseared swaths of Europe; theMet Office weather agency registered areadingof104.5 degrees at Coningsby in eastern England. Today’sBirthdays: Civil rights activist andeducator Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball’s Jackie Robinson,is104. Blues singer-musician LittleFreddie Kingis86. Singer-musician Alan Gorrie (AverageWhite Band) is 80. International TennisHall of Famer Ilie Nastase is 80. Rock musician Brian May (Queen)is79. Rock musician Bernie Leadon is79. Movie director Abel Ferrara is 75. Moviedirector Atom Egoyan is 66. Actor Campbell Scott is 65. Actor AnthonyEdwards is 64. Ukrainian politician and former boxingchampion Vitali Klitschko is 55. Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is 50. TV chef Marcela Valladolid is 48. Actor Trai Byers (TV:“Empire”) is 43.

Crawfish Braid Makes 8-10 servings. Recipeisfrom “Cooking Up aStorm: Recipes Lostand Found from TheTimes-Picayune of New Orleans.”

3to31/2 cups allpurpose flour 1tablespoon

1. In alarge mixing bowl, combine 11/2 cups of the flour,yeast, sugar,salt, thyme, oregano, basil and onion powder.Gradually stir in thewarm water andoil.

2. Beat for 2minuteswith an electric mixeratmedium speed, scraping the bowl occasionally.Increase the speed to high and beat foranadditional2minutes.

3. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make asoftdough. Knead the dough on aflouredworksurface until smoothand elastic about 5minutes.

4. Place the dough in alarge bowl greased with agenerousdrizzle of olive oil, turning to grease the topofthe dough. Coverand letrise in awarm, draft-freespot until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes.

5. Punch the dough down. Place the dough on aflouredworksurface and roll into a14-inch-by-10-inch rectangle.

6. Scatter the crawfishlengthwise over the centerthird of the dough. Topwith the pimientos, green onions, and cheese.

7. With asharp knife, make slashes from the filling to the dough edges along the length of the rectangle at 1-inchintervals. Alternating sides, fold strips of dough at an angle acrossthe filling fora braided effect.

8. Place the bread on agreased baking sheet. Cover and let rise in awarm, draft-freespot until doubled in size, 30 to 45 minutes.

9. Preheat the oven to 400F

10. Brush the loaf with the beaten eggand sprinkle with sesame seeds.

11. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until golden. Serve warm.

Agoodhostiskey to adinnerparty

Dear Miss Manners: When Imoved to the U.S., Ifound quite abit of difference in thedinner party etiquette compared to my home country.When an American co-worker invited me and other friends for dinner with his family at home, it turned out to be extremely stressful, as I was moreconcerned about avoiding acultural faux pas thanenjoying thedinner In my home country,unless asked by thehost, the guests are not expected tobring gifts, dishes, wine, etc. During asit-down dinner, the hosts would serve everyone elsebeforeserving themselves, and it is considered extremely rude to start eating beforethe guests. It is also frowned upon for the guests to help themselvestomultiple servingswithout getting acue from the host.This means it is important for thehosttoperiodically coax the gueststotake asecond or third serving and ensureeveryone has had achance to tryevery dish. During the dinner Iattended, I never got theopportunitytotry out all the dishes, as the host never mentioned them or they werekept at the other end of the table. How

do Iapproach such ascenario?

When everyone is busy talking and eating, is it appropriate to yell out to the person closest to the dish to pass it over?

Also, during the dinner, we ranout of gravy.Would it have been appropriate to ask the host to refill it? I have been invited over for dinner by another friend, and don’twant to offend the host accidentally GentleReader: The dinner party etiquette you cite is not peculiar to your home country.Itisageneral standard for being agood host. If there is acultural element in opposition, Miss Manners’ guess would be an Americanbias against being “tooformal.” But as you and she have noticed, the impending result is not casual, just thoughtless. Agood host should always be looking out for the guests’ comfort: refilling glasses, making sure everyone is served everything, offering morewhen plates are empty But even aproficient host cannot seeeverything, so guests are allowed such polite prompts as, “Oh, dear,weseem to be out of gravy,” “Pleasepass the creamed spinach”

and even, “This steak was delicious …” in hope of getting more. The key is to state these things helpfully and not as arebuke. Although perhaps in your co-worker’scase, the latter mayhave been warranted.

Dear Miss Manners: When people sit on machines at the gym that others want to use, texting and reading their phones, they mayjust be taking abreak between sets. Usually there are three sets of 10 to 12 reps, and they rest their muscles for afew minutesinbetween. Sometimes people are willing to alternate with someone else during their rest period.

Gentle Reader: OK …? If you are one of those people, and do not mind asking tactfully whether they are pausing or finished, do so. But those who are, perhaps, more timid and just want to do their workouts maynot be quite so understanding about having to wait forothers to post their stories before they can use public machines. Miss Manners will therefore continue to support them —while you continue to wait.

Email dearmissmanners@gmail. com.

Dear Heloise: Itotally agree with not answering aspam call because they usually askfor our personal information. But just as aheads-up: Ireceived ablocked call back to back, and Ididn’tanswer the first few times But when Idid answer,itwas from the emergency room in amajor hospital. The doctor was trying to inform me of my fiancé’sdeath. However,because of HIPPA,bylaw,they couldn’t tell me this information over the phone. The doctor justsaid, “He’s very sick. Can you please cometo the hospital?”

AfterIcollected myself at the hospital, Iaskedwhy the call was blocked. Iwas told thatsometimes, the numbers from certain businesses, hospitals, and even doctor’soffices may comeacrossas blocked, spam and/or unavailable.

Now this happened in 2008, and right at this moment, Ihave a relative in amajor hospital. Phone numbers have comethrough normally and sometimes blocked. So, yes, ignoring calls maywork because none of us wants to be questioned or set up for ascam,but Ijust wantedtoshare my own personalexperience for awareness.

Felicia P.,inHouston

Olderpetsfor seniors

Dear Heloise: Recently,you ran a brief letter about the concern of elderly people adopting young animals and the pet being abandoned when the pet parent dies. There are severalgroups who rescue senior pets in crisis, and there are groups who adopt out senior pets for senior people. Some even help with vet bills for senior citizens. Please let your readers know about them! They can just google “senior pets for seniorpeople” or something similar, and they’ll find several lo-

cal groups. Ithink it’sawonderful option. —Lynda H., via email Lynda, thank you for this hint. There’snothing sadder than dumping ahomeless pet somewhere and driving off. It’saliving creature that needs food, water,shelter,and aloving home. It gave its former owner love and comfort, so return the favor by making sure that the animal has agood future with people who’ll provide care to it Heloise Watersaver

Dear Heloise: Our shower takes awhile forthe water to heat up. Instead of watching the water go downthe drain, my husband had agreat idea to put abucket under the running water until it gets warm. We use the cold water for the birds and plants outside. Easy and awin-win! —Paula and Barry,in Omaha, Nebraska

Email heloise@heloise.com.

Hints from Heloise

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Olivia Regard

PHOTOSByOLIVIAREGARD

Crawfish Braid

Onequiet evening at Vaughan’s Loungeinthe Bywater,the bartenderpulleddown abottleof Traiteur Amarofrom the top shelf,next to the Southern Comfort, and poured two glasses of the dusky-dark spirit over ice.

DINING SCENE

and video producer,astoryteller

The story of their amaro started with atrip to Italy to visit relatives in the Emilia-Romagna region. They wereenamored with the town’slocal amaro, made from the local green walnut harvest. It lit aspark forexploring the roots of the drink.

“I started to understand amaro as something that goes back millennia in the hands of village healers,” Andrea said.

Complex and aromatic,pleasingly bitter and balanced by a streak of sweet, the amaro had the earthy-vanilla essence of sassafras, familiar from New Orleans kitchens, and brought a gentle tingly sensation to the tongue. The bottle drew interest around the bar too, andaspatrons admired the label, the bartender explained that this amaro’s makers are neighbors.

Just upriver at the Marigny bar Anna’s, arequest for the same bottle produced similarstories about itslocal connection. Uptown at Cure, the upscale cocktail lounge, bartenders use it in acocktail called Roll Call,anupdate on the classic Bee’sKnees.

Traiteur is listed now alongside global amaro brands on drinkmenus at prominent New Orleans restaurants, including MaMou, Acamaya and Zasu, while pop-ups for ice cream and cocktails feature it as aspecial ingredient.

This is how,injust amatter of months, Traiteur Amaro has begun to build not just amarket niche, but aplace in the cocktail and bar culture of New Orleans.

That culture is up for more attention this week as the Talesof the Cocktail conference returns July 19-24, bringing professionals from the world of bars and spirits to town. NewOrleans will be filled with special events and many cocktail professionals exploring the city’sbars and restaurants. At more of them, they’ll find

this new, local expression of adrink with astrong sense of place.

The“bartenders’handshake”

The term “amaro” contains a universe ofvariety.It’sa type of bitterliqueur made with amixture of herbs, flowers, barks and spicessteeped in alcohol. It has ancientroots in Italy,where it was first used as acurative, and there are innumerable brands, often basedonalocal harvest. It’shad amassivesurge in popularity in recenttimes, not least among bartenders themselves.

The“bartenders’ handshake,” theterm for adrink gifted from onebartender to another as anod of professional respect, is very often an amaro. Fernet Branca is the best known for this role nationally.But in New Orleans, increasingly,Traiteur is the hyperlocal pick bartenders are pouringfor theirown. It’sa true New

not just aproduct madeelsewhere with afleur-de-lis slapped on the label. Namedfor the Cajun French term forfaith healers, it relates to regional traditions and draws from Louisiana culinary elements.

Traiteur is the first release from Mamou Spirits, the company started last year by Bywater couple Andrea andErik Morningstar They named it foraplant used by traiteurs as aremedy (and also a town on the Cajun prairie).

The couple makes, bottles and labels the amaro themselves in an old warehouse shared with aMardi Gras float den near the Press Street railroad tracks, where the clang and rumble of train cars is audible through the metal walls.

Erik has worked as adistiller for close to 20 years, starting in his homestate of Michigan before moving to NewOrleans adecade ago after avisit for Tales of the Cocktail. Andrea is afilmmaker

They saw parallels to the Louisiana tradition of the traiteur,who uses plants and prayer to alleviate ailments.

Rather than replicate an existing amaro back home, they created one with flavors that resonate in Louisiana, going back to the locality embedded in the original idea of amaro.

That includes sassafras leaves, which are ground forfilé powder to thicken gumbo. Chicory is another,asisprickly ash, which gives agentle tingling sensation (which is whyit’salso called a “toothache plant” and has been used by traiteurs fordental ailments).

These join morethan adozen other ingredients, which are steeped in aneutral Italian wheat alcohol, blended with asyrup madefrom Louisiana cane sugar and aged to create the final product.

Local wine shops and groceries have been stocking Traituer,and morerestaurants and bars now list it as adigestif or among their cocktail ingredients.

Since debuting in December, the amaro has been winning awards and high rankings in national blind tastings and contests. For the Morningstars, though, the highest validation has been seeing their product worked into the rhythmsand rituals of bars in their own backyard.

“There’sacultural currency in this forus, and away to connect with community,” said Andrea. “It’sopened alot of doors.” Email Ian McNultyatimcnulty@theadvocate.com.

Orleansamaro,

STAFFPHOTO By IAN MCNULTy

Traiteur AmaroismadeinNew Orleans and has caught on at local

MADE IN LOUISIANA $40M tarp empire startedwithcoffee

STRENGTHIN

NUMBERS

PROVIDED

BY RICH COLLINS Staff writer

Tristanand Emily Babinmoved from the New Orleans area to Houstonin2022to follow Tristan’s jobinthe energy industry After the birth of their fi rst ch ild, though, the couple discovered thechallenges of living in agiant Texascitywhereeverywhere you need to go —from the pediatrician’soffice to afriend’shouse —isatleast ahalf-hour drive away So,lastyear, they came home.And they’ve got no regrets about thedecision.

“Ittakes avillage to raise afamily,but it’s hard to do that in Houstonbecauseofthe way it’s laid out,” Tristan Babin said. “Everything is beautiful, new and modern, but certainparts are just endless concrete.”

TheBabins’ story no doubt is musictothe ears of Louisiana economic developersworking to lureinvestors, businessesand young professionals to thePelican Stateinthe

hopes of reversing adecades-long trend of population stagnation But it’salso an anomaly Since the turn of the century,Louisiana has laggedbehind itsSouthern neighbors in economic and populationgrowthasits reliance on oil and gas suffered from global economic changesand the industry’sconsolidation in Texas. An increase in weather-related risk and costs exacerbated the state’sproblems,con-

tributingtothe “braindrain”that drawsmanyyoungLouisianians out of state in search of opportunity. The result? Louisiana’spopulation hasgrownjust 3% since 2000 —from roughly4.5 millionto4.6 million people. South Carolina, by comparison, hasaddedmorethan 1.5 million people —a nearly40% increase —inthatsame span

ä See POPULATION, page 2E

Statewidehousing

sold for more than $600,000 each.

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL and ADAM DAIGLE Staff writers

New Orleans-area real estate agent Donna Chandler is busier this summer than she’sbeen in years. She and her colleagues are fielding more calls from potentialbuyers and sellers, and she’sselling more houses. In thepastmonth, she’sclosedthree deals, including two homesinMetairie that

“There is definitely more activity,”said Chandler,anassociate broker withReMaxAffiliates. “It feelslikethingsare startingto normalize after the post-COVID slump.” Data appears to back what Chandlerisexperiencing.After three anemicyearscaused by interest rate increases and soaring insurance premiums, housing markets across southeast Louisiana are showing faint signs of recovering. Duringthe firstsix months of the year,the number of sales across the10-parish New Orleans region increased nearly 7% over the same period ayear ago, according to the NewOrleans Met-

ropolitan Association of Realtors In theBaton Rouge area, they were up almost 4%, figures providedbythe Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors show.And in theLafayette area,theywere up 5% fortheirsecond straight year andare at theirhighest totalsince2022,according to Bill Bacque, with Market Scope Consulting. Market watchersattributed theuptick to acouple of factors. Ahandful of newinsurers have startedwriting homeowners policiesinthe state, pushing premiums slightly lower.Also,buyers aregettingused to interest

NewOrleans broker Charlotte Dorion, with Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices Preferred, who specializes in high end and luxury properties Uptown, saiddemand for houses in the ‘$3 million and up’ rangefar outpaces supply.

STAFF FILE PHOTOBy CHRIS GRANGER

PROVIDED PHOTOByTRACIE MORRIS SCHAEFER

Rebecca Mowbray,from left, president and CEO of the Bureau of Governmental Research, interviews Annalisa Kelly, avice president at JEDCO; Walter J. Leger III, CEO of NewOrleans &Co.; and JeffreySchwartz, deputy mayorofeconomicdevelopment forNew Orleans on July9atthe NewOrleans Saints training facility

ABOVE: The Babin family movedfrom the NewOrleans area toHouston in 2022 and returned last year

PHOTO BELOW: Beyond the StateCapitol lies amix of industrial plants, a vibrant downtown and neighborhoods. Louisiana’spopulation has grownjust 3% since 2000 —from roughly 4.5 millionto 4.6 million people.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

ACADIANA INBOX

will facilitate.

Fifteen Acadiana business

leaders were selected for the 2026 Acadiana CEO Roundtable Program hosted and facilitated by One Acadiana in collaboration with Louisiana Economic Development.

Participants include:

n Chad Courtois, Advantaged

Assets

n Sarah Lopez, Awardmaster

n Wade Boudreaux, Bayou Holdco

n Sonja Fredieu, Cane River Pecan Co.

n Jason Hornback, Chart Construction

n John Chase, Chase Marshall Architects

n Eli Ramirez CWM Planning

n Christopher Laderer, FrostBarber of Louisiana

n Monica Montero, KourCo Environmental Services

n Missy Rogers, Noble Plastics

n Hunter Thevis, S1 Technology

POPULATION

Continued from page 1E

It’s a long-term trajectory that is not sustainable, which is why economic development experts and policy leaders have stepped up their focus on how best to grow the population. It’s not a new conversation, but it’s one that has taken on a new sense of urgency as study after study shows Louisiana continuing to lose ground to peer states. Experts know that jobs, ultimately, drive population growth. That’s why Louisiana Economic Development officials point to $150 billion in new industrial projects they have attracted to the state including Meta, Hyundai and LNG plants — as the best way to lure more people to the state.

But the same experts also say that the efforts must go beyond jobs to create communities that offer what young families want in a place to live: good schools, affordable housing, a safe environment and amenities like public parks and bike paths.

“To bring and keep more people here, we have to fix insurance affordability, increase educational access and invest more in communities,” said Allison Hotard, executive director of the Young Leadership Council in New Orleans.

‘People vote with their feet’

The crowd in the cafeteria of the New Orleans Saints training facility on a Wednesday morning earlier this month was noticeably less physically fit than usual.

That’s because, instead of professional football players, the space was filled with a few hundred businesspeople, political leaders and pol-

REAL ESTATE

Continued from page 1E

rates that have been holding steady at around 6.5% for more than a year after spiking in 2023 and 2024.

“This is one of the busiest times I’ve had in a long time,” said Ron Barden, owner of Mandeville-based Barden Real Estate, as he drove between video shoots for four listings on Tuesday Still, while sale activity is up, a couple of other key measures suggest the south Louisiana housing market has not fully recovered from its post-pandemic funk. The amount of time properties spend listed for sale in the two largest metros is continuing to increase it’s up to 71 days in the Greater New Orleans area and to more than 80 days in the Baton Rouge metro — though the rate of increase has slowed and in Lafayette Parish, it’s dropped from 80 days to 75. More significantly, median home sale prices in most parts of the state, though generally higher, are barely keeping up with inflation, which averaged 3.5% in the first six months of 2026.

n Dane Burnette, Turbo-Chem International

n Mateo Atwi, US Frame Factory

n Scott Russo, WaterBoys H2O

n Jheri Corb Workforce Delivered

The Acadiana CEO Roundtables bring together key decision makers from local small businesses for collaborative, growth-oriented sessions to explore challenges and best practices in a trusting environment.

The 10-month program features peer-to-peer learning through discussion, interaction and the sharing of experiences that allow participants to learn from each other’s achievements and mistakes.

Maggi Bienvenu, One Acadiana’s director of business and education connections,

The Acadiana Center for the Arts named four members to its board of directors and seven members of its newly elected executive committee.

Appointees include Mary Besse Guidry, Lafayette market president for Investar Bank; Jeannine Lanoux, CEO of Lanoux Learning; Michael D. Soileau, LFT Fiber director; and health care consultant J’annine Sullivan Executive committee appointments include:

n President: Nanette Soileau Heggie, owner and branch manager of Heggie Investment Partners

Davis, financial adviser with Northwestern Mutual

n Treasurer: Jessica Swiney Allain, partner with Jones Walker

n Secretary: Adrian King, vice president and assistant general manager with Evangeline Downs n Member at large: Robert K. Chevalier, attorney n Member at large: Carolyn Doerle Schumacher, chair and managing director of Provisions Energy & Marine Support

n President-elect: Melissa Maeker, community volunteer

n Past president: O. Taylor

The executive committee will steer the organization along with director Samuel Oliver, now in his seventh year Lafayette Utilities System director Jeffrey Stewart was elected to a threeyear term on the American

area from 1,440,000 next year to 1,512,000 in 2032.

The group endorses efforts to “double down” on sectors of the Louisiana economy with the best growth potential based on global trends and the state’s strengths. Areas of focus include energy, defense, aerospace and trade.

Hand in hand will be efforts to “destroy dissatisfiers” by investing in public safety, flood control, homeless policy and education while combating the inflated cost of living by advocating for more public support for fortified roofs and national hazard insurance.

Public Power Association’s board of directors. Stewart will be one of three board members representing Region 4, which encompasses Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

APPA represents community-owned, not-for-profit electric utilities nationwide. The board consists of utility leaders, regional representatives and industry partners who oversee the key areas in the industry

Brett Fontenot w as named senior director of operations for Safety Management Systems, a division of Acadian Cos.

haircut on salary or job title to be in a place that they enjoy,” he said.

Fitzgerald attributes the growth of Ascension and Livingston parishes to their combination of efficient governments, strong public schools, new parks and relatively new housing that’s still affordable, especially compared to a larger metro area like Houston or Atlanta.

Fontenot will oversee the company’s operational strategies and growth across all service lines. He brings nearly 20 years of extensive experience in the oil and gas industry to this role, with 18 of those years devoted to SMS.

Paul Eason was named to the board of directors at CLB The Community Bank. Eason, a graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana, founded Eason Advertising, a Lafayettebased marketing and public relations firm, and is currently board chair for Billeaud Companies in Broussard. CLB The Community Bank is based in Jonesville but has an office in Lafayette and Scott and is planning another in Carencro.

icy wonks gathered to hear a panel of experts talk about ways economic development can help the region grow.

Participants in the hourlong conversation hosted by the Bureau of Governmental Research talked about strategies to boost jobs as a way to grow the population.

Jeffrey Schwartz, New Orleans deputy mayor for economic development and community development, touted the city’s plan to revive New Orleans East. It involves courting investment related to the Port of New Orleans’ proposed container terminal in St. Bernard Parish and the growth at the existing Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East.

“Nearly every rocket that has ever taken a human from U.S. soil into outer space has been built in New Orleans,” he said. “If we are not telling that story, how do we expect folks graduating from our 13 higher ed institutions to stay in this region?”

Panelists acknowledged the well-documented chal-

Signs of recovery?

lenges of life surrounding a city of 360,000 residents that is now roughly half its peak size.

Speakers said the factors driving people away from south Louisiana include high insurance costs, bad roads, subpar public transportation, public safety concerns and a perceived lack of economic opportunities.

“People vote with their feet,” Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans & Co., told the crowd. “When communities provide educational opportunities and affordable housing, people move to those locations and they stay there.”

Setting goals

BGR isn’t the only organization focused on population growth Greater New Orleans Inc., the regional economic development nonprofit, is preparing to launch an initiative called “5x5” in January that seeks to grow the metro area’s population by 5% over the next five years boosting the number of people in the metro

“Growing population comes down to four interrelated imperatives: economic opportunity, quality of life, affordability and brand,” said Michael Hecht, who will transition from GNO Inc. CEO to an emeritus role next year

Hecht said the state is already making historic economic gains in the energy, maritime, defense and aerospace sectors, and that quality of life can be improved via low-cost policy and advocacy He cites the NOLA Coalition, an anti-crime alliance formed in 2022, as a successful example of the strategy

GNO Inc. also plans to garner support from the business community to fund a national marketing campaign.

“We have a strong story to sell,” Hecht said.

Attracting Gen Z

Andrew Fitzgerald, an executive at the Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnership, said the conventional wisdom that people follow jobs has evolved.

“Polling shows millennials and Gen Z work to live instead of living to work, so they’ll be willing to take a

period a year ago, while the median sale price was up nearly 2.5% to $280,500. Both Livingston and Ascension parishes saw a 6% jump in closed sales and slight increases in the median sales price.

New construction in the Acadiana region continues to drag down prices of existing homes due to the incentives from builders that make the increased price tag easier to swallow for buyers, according to Jim Keaty, owner of Keaty Real Estate in Lafayette.

“Those and other amenities are really important to young talent,” he said. “They’ve just had a great time for four years and they want to continue that after college as well.”

Companies, too, are looking for appealing places — not just whoever offers the biggest tax break. They want locations that will make it easier to attract and retain top talent.

“Growing population comes down to four interrelated imperatives: economic opportunity, quality of life, affordability and brand. We have a strong story to sell.”

last week. “Looking for funding dollars for schools and roads becomes a difficult equation unless you are bringing in more economic activity and tax revenue.” Bourgeois said what’s happening in Richland Parish, where the new Meta data center is under construction, is showing the power of investment, as her team tries to leverage that tentpole project to attract clusters of related industries Now, nearby Monroe is showing signs of economic growth.

The future Hyundai steel plant in Donaldsonville could provide another example.

MICHAEL HECHT, Greater New Orleans Inc. CEO

“When Hyundai Steel announced its $6 billion facility in Ascension, it made sense in terms of incentives and land availability, but dozens of their executives from South Korea plan to move there as well, so they care about the community,” Fitzgerald said.

‘Chicken and egg’?

Ultimately, Louisiana’s economic developers wrangle with a “chicken or egg” dilemma: Do people come to a community for jobs, or do jobs gravitate to desirable communities?

“One doesn’t happen without the other,” LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois said during a phone interview

Preferred, who specializes in high end and luxury properties Uptown, said demand for houses in the “$3 million and up” range far outpaces supply Sellers with milliondollar homes are getting above their asking price — provided the house is newly renovated.

“Things are going off (the luxury) market fast,” Dorion said. “It just has to be the right location, the right price and in mint condition.”

“You can bet that their public services should be much better once they start collecting that sales tax and property tax,” Fitzgerald said. “Then the ‘chicken and the egg’ becomes the virtuous cycle: A company puts more money in people’s pockets, generating tax revenue, and that creates an attractive community.”

Activity related to those two projects and others like them might also be contributing to Louisiana’s increase in labor force participation, according to Bourgeois, and the state’s modest population growth for the second year in a row, particularly among 18- to 30-year-olds. “Those are really good markers, and it’s really important to that fundamental shift,” she said.

Email Rich Collins at rich. collins@theadvocate.com.

So far in 2026, it’s been 1 out of almost every 10 homes, due to inflation and a smaller pool of first-time homebuyers, experts said.

“Overall, I wouldn’t call the improvements substantial,” said Scott Brannon, an associate broker with Compass Real Estate in New Orleans. “But it’s definitely better than it was.”

‘Downward pressure’?

Within the three metro areas, there were differences among the parishes — and some inconsistencies. In the New Orleans metro area, St Tammany Parish

Across metro New Orleans, the median sale price rose by less than 2% to $285,000 in the first half of the year In the Baton Rouge area, it was up 3.8% to $275,000. In the Lafayette area, it inched up 1.5% to $257,000.

had a 14% increase in sales during the first half of the year, though the median home sale price was flat at $300,000. Jefferson Parish sales activity was essentially unchanged, with two fewer sales in the first half of 2026 than the year before, though the median sale price was up nearly 4% to $275,000. Orleans Parish, meanwhile, saw a 5% jump in the number of closed sales and a 2% increase in the median home sale price to $285,000. East Baton Rouge Parish sales activity was virtually unchanged over the same

“Never in history have we seen new construction at a higher price and more affordable than existing homes,” Keaty said. “It’s putting downward pressure on the price (of existing homes). New construction, which is always higher is more affordable on a monthly basis That’s the interesting story.”

Highs and lows

Another interesting trend across south Louisiana, according to residential brokers, is the disparity between the luxury home market, where all-cash buyers are still engaging in bidding wars in some neighborhoods, and the market for more affordable and starter homes.

New Orleans broker Charlotte Dorion, with Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices

Brannon, who recently was shopping for houses Uptown for a client looking in the $850,000-to-$2 million range, said homes in top condition in the “sweet spot” between Magazine Street, Audubon Park, and St. Charles and Napoleon avenues were “flying off the market.” Brannon eventually found him a “beautifully renovated home” Uptown near the river that cost more than $1 million.

Lafayette’s luxury market also is thriving. A home in River Ranch last week sold for more than $3 million, land records show Another in River Ranch, the one-time home of oilfield tycoon Mike Moreno, is expected to close soon after being listed for $12.5 million. The lower end of the market, meanwhile, is evaporating. In 2019, nearly 1 out of every 4 homes in Lafayette sold for $150,000 or below

“If there’s anything of concern that I have about the Lafayette Parish market, it’s that affordability aspect,” Bacque said. “We’ve lost a certain segment of the marketplace that I’m not sure we can replace.” Chandler has seen a similar dynamic in the New Orleans area. Among her clients is a seller in Metairie with a three-bedroom cottage in a good neighborhood with an assumable mortgage at 3.5%, which is rare. The house was listed for $215,000, about $250 a square foot, and didn’t move after a month on the market. The seller lowered the price by $10,000 and it’s still sitting.

“With a 3.5% mortgage, this house should have flown off the market,” said Chandler, who serves as president of the NOMAR board “Meanwhile, you have bidding wars over $3 million properties.”

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” she said. Staff writers Timothy Boone and Grace Mayer contributed reporting to this story

Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@ theadvocate.com.

Heggie

Fontenot

TALKING BUSINESS

ASK THE EXPERTS

Social work was foundation for skincare maker’s vision

BY IANNE SALVOSA Staff writer

Skincare company Saint Crewe started with a “no.”

Erin Piper, a mother of two, brought her 9-year-old daughter along to a store while she was purchasing beauty products, but some advanced skincare caught the eye of the girl.

It was an easy no from Piper, due to the dangers of anti-aging ingredients like retinol for children, but she could see other moms around the store saying “yes,” with shopping baskets filled to the top with skincare products for their children.

Piper has a social work practice in Baton Rouge

Seeing a need for skincare products safe for young skin, she teamed up with Laura-Lucia Carothers, her friend’s sister and a former executive at Skinceuticals, to launch the clinically tested, luxury skincare brand in March of last year She said Saint Crewe is intended for college-age adults though it’s not harmful if children get their fingers into it.

“It’s the social worker in me,” Piper said “I don’t want a young girl or a young boy that worried about their appearance at such a young age. On the flip side, you want to give them something that’s safe to do with their friends, if that’s all the craze.”

Young girls have taken a large interest in skincare in recent years, largely due to the popularity of the products on social media and “get ready with me”-style videos where content creators take viewers through

“I don’t want a young girl or a young boy that worried about their appearance at such a young age. On the flip side, you want to give them something that’s safe to do with their friends, if that’s all the craze.”

ERIN PIPER, founder of Saint Crewe

their beauty routines. U.S. teens spend a collective $1.7 billion each year on skincare and make up 10% of the beauty consumer market, according to Boston Consulting Group. Piper runs a small team of three full-time employees, with other part-time hire in sales and consulting. She declined to share the company’s first-year revenue. In just a year the brand has inked partnerships with well-known beauty com-

pany Revolve and trendy women’s clothing retailer Anthropologie and is available online on the Saint Crewe site.

Saint Crewe has developed an ambassador program geared toward college students to promote the brand and also has a scholarship.

The program awarded $2,000 to three college students who have displayed resilience after facing a challenge.

Q&A WITH ERIN PIPER FOUNDER OF SAINT CREWE

They’re just getting started, Piper says, aiming to stock with more retailers and eventually expand internationally in the future.

In this week’s Talking Business, Piper discusses the skincare market, growing her brand and running a business in Louisiana.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

How would you describe the market at the time of launch?

This is a really saturated market, as we all know

When I had this idea, I knew I needed to get to market quick because it was exploding, and I knew I would not be the only one who had this idea and who had the ability to get products to market.

We got to market in a little less than 18 months, which is sort of unheard of. We launched with four SKUs. It’s a very simplified line. I wanted to really focus on quality over quantity and really get those ingredients exactly right.

I’d love to hear the story behind the name.

You’re probably thinking Mardi Gras krewe. Saint is part of my mother’s maiden name Her maiden name is St. Clair, and I’ve always loved the maiden name St. Clair

I took Saint from that, and then Crewe is actually the last name of the protagonist in one of my favorite books is a child, “The Little Princess.”

She embodies resilience and kindness and generos-

ity and grit and all of the things that I teach in my practice and in the way I aim to parent my children. Revolve and Anthropologie are such big names. Given that your company is so young, how did you go about cultivating those relationships with those brands?

Revolve reached out to us

They just reached out to me on Instagram because they saw the saw the line and loved the way it looked, and we immediately signed on with them very quickly We reached out to Anthropologie and they pretty quickly reached back out and said “sold.”

I’ve been lucky because the line really speaks for itself. People go to our Instagram and they sort of see I hate the word vibe — but they see the vibe and they love it.

What are some of the largest challenges you’ve faced?

We’re a small company

We don’t have a huge marketing budget and we can’t go spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to get the marketing out there, to get the messaging out there, to do these huge, beautiful in-person activations that these brands are doing.

We’ve had to come up with some really creative ways to get our messaging out there. That’s why I think we’re so proud of the ambassador program because that’s been such a great way to get content out there

These girls are loving receiving products and being able to make videos. It’s a culture now

What’s kept you here, and do you plan on keeping the business and yourself here in Baton Rouge for the long run?

That’s always the plan.

This is my home. I’m Louisiana through and through, and I love this place

There’s a lot of things that we have going for us, and there’s a lot of things that we don’t have going for us. There’s so much potential here. My hope is that we continue to move forward as a state in a way that makes people want to stay here. Because it makes me very sad knowing that we’ve got these brilliant kids coming out of high school, and people are leaving for a multitude of reasons. How can the state improve to make things easier for business owners and founders to start and grow their

PROVIDED PHOTO By SAINT CREWE

ACROSS THE REGION

Shreveport’s Frymasterturns up theheatonexpansion

BY LIZ SWAINE Staff writer

On the Frymaster website, a large red bar reads: “Trusted Worldwide. Built in Shreveport.”

The manufacturer that has called Shreveport home for 91 years could be one of the area’s best-kept secrets If you’ve eatenataBurger King, Popeyes, Taco Bell or aRaising Cane’s, you have likely had food fried by Frymaster equipment. Kathryn Childs, director of operations, saidshe has heard that 30% of all of the fried food consumed every day is prepared by aFrymaster fryer While most have heard of the big companies, there are hundredsofindependent restaurants usingFrymaster products, too, said Wendell Hays, Frymaster’s vice president of new business and products

On avacation to the Virgin Islands, he went to asmall island accessible only by boat. After ameal at one of the two restaurants there,“Iwent to see what theyhad in their kitchen and there were two fryers made righthereinShreveport, sitting in there. I’m like, ‘That’sreally awesome that my fryersended up here.’”

Restaurants on the island are using products that did not get their start with executives sitting around atableina corporate office, said Hays.

“You don’tunderstand the real needs of the business until yougo get in the kitchen and youwatch the workflow,the 17-year-old kid that was trained for 10 minutes on how the fryer works and see the challenges they facetryingto do their job,” he said. “So you really have to figure out ways todumb it down,make it intuitive.”

Assemblers work on aproduction line at the Frymaster

whostaffthe factory sevendaysa week.

Hays said he got that perspective when he was working at a Bonanzasteakhouse andhad gotten “fiveminutes”offryer training. “My boss came in and theoil was black, and the food looked terrible, and it was smoking and he said, ‘Son, when was the last time you changed thisoil?’ And I said, ‘I didn’tknow Ihad to change the oil. Nobody told me.’ Iwould have cooked in that stuff forever because Idid not know what Iwas doing. And, you know,I’ve always looked at that as like,that’s who we’re designing our product for,” he said To help, Frymaster is nowusing touchscreens insteadofthe intimidating bank of buttons that Hays said, “scared people to death.”

“Wehad somebody tell us that that thinglookslike the cockpit of the 757, and somebody else is like, you know,I think it’scalled the 3,000 because there’s3,000 buttons on it.And my favorite was somebodywho hadsaid, ‘Whoever designedthis thing has neverworked

in akitchen.’”

In response,in2014, Frymaster becameone of the first restaurant equipmentmanufacturers to move from buttons to touch screens. The new technology has added benefits.

Through thefryer’sinternet connection,Hayssaid he can see at aglance if there are equipment problems. He thinks artificialintelligence could prove to be very helpful.

Soon, Hays said he believes smartkitchen systems will be able to build predictivealgorithms on howmuchfood should be cooked even before theorders comein.

Outofsight,not topofmind

In December,Frymaster signed acontract on an adjacent 57-acre building. NorthLouisianaEconomic Partnership CEO Justyn Dixon said theproperty acquisitionsenta strong message that the company plans “to continue their success for years to come.”

Earlier this year,Frymaster was

running 13 different production linesinits 270,000-square-foot facility at 8700 Line Ave. The plant adds another50,000 square feet for storage and upward of 100,000 square feet forproduction. Thereare 600 employees who stafflines that run seven days a week.

Because the Frymasterfacilities, which include the two Line Avenue locations and the partner Lincoln Foodservice in the Shreve ParkIndustrial Campus, are mostly out of sight, they are also back of mind. Frymaster President Oscar Villa said it’simportant that residents know the investments made and jobs created by thecompanies, whichare both part of the multinational Ali Group.

“Wedofeel like we have been alittle bit neglected by thelocal community because we’ve been here for such along

time. And you know,weare kind of taken for granted in away,” Villa said.

He said thecompany hasmade avariety of capital investments from newequipment andfabrication to anew building. He said they are also hiring and investing in their employees,improving compensation and adding morecareer opportunities.

“We’re goingtobehere fora long time,” Villa said. “Weare going to grow, andthere arelotsoflongterm opportunities.

“You know,I see someofthe otherpeople,theycome in, they make abig splash,and then maybe they’re gonna be gone in afew years, or they overpromise and maybeunderdeliver,right?I feel likewe’re alittle bit theopposite. We’re aprivate company,sowe don’tneed to show off or do any big proclamation or,you know,come up with any crazy plan, but we are very consistent.”

Email Liz Swaineatliz.swaine@ theadvocate.com.

As partofthe celebration of the250th anniversaryofthe Declarationof Independence,the WorldMonuments Fund has createdan“Irreplaceable America”list, which designatesthe topten sites in America thatare unique andindispensable

Thereisonlyone city on thatlist: NewOrleans.

Rather than highlighting asingle landmark, thenominationframesNew Orleans as an irreplaceable living cultural landscape: aplacewhere historic neighborhoods,vernaculararchitecture,publictraditions,water,culture, and daily lifeare inseparable.The local nomination wasinitiated by Kristin Gisleson Palmer,ExecutiveDirectorofthe Preservation ResourceCenter (PRC), who made thecase thatthe entire city -not asingle monument, building,ordistrict -isthe irreplaceable site. PRCworked with theHistoricPreservationprogram in Tulane’sSchool of Architecture andBuilt Environment, theLouisiana LandmarksSociety,The Ella Project,and TheWater Collaborativetodevelop thesubmission andhighlight therelationship among architecture, culture, water, community stability, andtraditional skills.

World Monuments Fund TopTen “Irreplaceable America”Sites

•Bartram’s Garden,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania -The oldestsurviving botanical garden in theUnitedStates, Bartram’sGarden helped shape American natural history andglobal plant exchange

•Black Mountain College StudiesBuilding, NorthCarolina -Atthe heart of Black Mountain College,this building represents oneofthe most influential experiments in American artand education.

•AfricanMeeting House,Boston, Massachusetts -The oldestsurviving Black church in theUnitedStates, theAfrican MeetingHouse helped anchor theearlyabolitionistmovement.

Working

•CityofNew Orleans, Louisiana -Shaped by Indigenous,African, European,and Caribbean influences, thehistoricneighborhoodsofNew Orleans form oneof America’s most distinctivecultural landscapes.

•Colonial Homes of Newport, Rhode Island -Newport’s extraordinary concentrationofcolonial-eraarchitecturesurvives as aliving neighborhood,not amuseum

•Dallas City Hall, Texas -Designed by I. M. Pei, Dallas CityHall is oneofthe most significantworks of civic architectureand modernism in America.

•Mission Churches of Acomaand Laguna Pueblos,New Mexico -Built by Pueblo communities in the aftermath of Spanish conquest andstill active today, these Pueblo-Franciscan mission churches remain vitalcenters of spiritualand cultural life.

•New York’s Smallpox Hospital Ruin,RooseveltIsland, NewYork -The first U.S. facility built to treatepidemic disease, this nineteenth-centurysmallpox hospital, designed by architect James RenwickJr.,remains ararelandmark in thehistory of medicine.

•Watts Towers,Los Angeles, California -Italian immigrant Simon Rodiaspent more thanthree decadesbuilding thesesoaring sculptures by hand, producing oneofthe most singular worksoffolkart in American history

•Wright Brothers Sites in Dayton,Ohio -Inthe workshopsand fields of Dayton, Wilburand Orville Wright developed thetechnologythatmade poweredflight possible

Childs

Hays

Villa

STAFF PHOTOSByJILL PICKETT

factoryinShreveport. The plant has 600 employees

AvintageFrymaster fryersits in the lobbyofthe company’sfactory.

Michael Hecht President &CEO GNO Inc.

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Environmental group bashes automakers for EV pullback

Ad campaign highlights gas price struggles

BY GRANT SCHWAB

The Detroit News (TNS)

WASHINGTON — A prominent environmental group is launching an ad campaign faulting automakers for consumer struggles with high gas prices.

“We need to put the blame for this unaffordable economy where it belongs. Automakers have the technology that could help America break the cycle of oil price shocks,” said Dan Becker director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign.

“This is auto mechanics, not rocket science. Automakers can build and sell affordable EVs in other countries, but they’re just not building them for us,” he added. Becker’s group is spending $100,000 to place ads in major publications like the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg with the aim of reaching business-minded readers and capitalizing on frustrations with energy price hikes caused by the United States and Israel’s war with Iran.

“Laws required electric vehicles. Car companies promised to make them,” one of the ads says in all capital letters. “Then they lobbied to scrap the laws.”

“So we pay more because they kept us hooked on oil,” it adds, showing logos for Ford, General Motors and Toyota. “We need affordable electric vehicles. For energy security, for healthier communities, for a better future.”

The ads reference the ongoing war in Iran but do not directly mention President Donald Trump who led the United States into the conflict and has championed efforts to gut past environmental policies.

Political messaging around electric vehicles was common in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, when Republicans frequently bashed Democrats over so-called “EV mandates.” Thencandidate Trump often wielded the term on the campaign trail as Democratic opponents struggled

to grapple with rocky EV adoption.

The Biden administration never explicitly required automakers to sell more vehicles with allelectric powertrains, but it did set aggressive tailpipe emissions targets that would have been impossible to achieve without EVs and in 2022 significantly expanded federal EV tax credits.

The topic has since faded from the airwaves after Trump took office.

Amid changing political tides under the GOP leader four of

Michigan’s Democratic lawmakers joined Republicans last year in backing a measure to roll back influential California rules that would have required EV sales in some states.

Becker, asked why his group was sponsoring an EV ad campaign in the current political environment, said times have changed since 2024.

“I’ve always said the biggest single step to saving money at the pump, and cutting our oil addiction, and protecting us from global warming is making cars

go farther — or not at all — on a gallon of gas. I don’t think there’s a change there,” Becker said in a phone interview

“What has changed is the time,” he added. “Our sense was that people who are paying through the nose at the gas pump may be willing to stop for a minute and say, ‘Oh yeah, there aren’t tax credits anymore. But this is what we really need.’”

Toyota and GM declined to comment on the ads. GM is the second-leading EV seller in the United States behind Tesla. Toyota, meanwhile, has significantly expanded its all-electric lineup in the past year Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Other groups on both sides of the EV debate previously ran ads on the topic in 2024 but have not done so yet ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

EDF Action, the advocacy partner of the Environmental Defense Fund, ran ads in Michigan that year promoting EVs but has no plans for a national advertising campaign this year.

“We’re unlikely to see more ads, given the Trump administration rollbacks of federal support for EVs, which have pushed the issue back to the states, such as the recent developments in California,” Jack Pratt, associate vice president at EDF Action, said in a statement.

He was referencing California’s recent efforts to launch its own EV tax credit program now that the federal credit ended.

The oil and gas group American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers ran ads opposing Bidenera EV policies in 2024 but did not immediately respond to a request for comment on 2026 midterm messaging plans.

“I’ve always said the biggest single step to saving money at the pump, and cutting our oil addiction, and protecting us from global warming is making cars go farther — or not at all — on a gallon of gas. Our sense was that people who are paying through the nose at the gas pump may be willing to stop for a minute and say, ‘Oh yeah, there aren’t tax credits anymore. But this is what we really need.’”

for Biological

BECKER, director of the Center

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Thebottomline is to plan ahead.Clear policies reduce confusionand supportafasterrecovery.

SULLIVAN

A Nissan electric car charges at a Charge Point EV charging station in San Anselmo, Calif The Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport Campaign promotes EV adoption and criticizes major automakers for not producing more battery-powered models.

JacobPritt

Jane Heidingsfelder

NATION &WORLD

Billionairesare bettingonLas Vegas’ future

BY DAVID DANZIS Las VegasReview-Journal (TNS)

When billionaireTilman Fertitta offered $17.6 billion to take Caesars Entertainment private, industry observers viewed it as abold move by alongtimecasino operator seeking control of one of gaming’slargest companies.

Less thanone week later, another billionaire made an even bigger bet.

Media mogul Barry Diller’sPeopleInc. proposed aroughly $18 billion acquisition of MGM Resorts International, amove that, if completed, wouldremove the largest operator on the Strip from public markets. Neither transaction is finalized, and both proposals must navigate months of due diligenceand secureapprovals from gaming regulators in Nevada and dozens of other jurisdictions, including Louisiana and Mississippi, before they can close. Caesars has also established aspecial committee to evaluate Fertitta’sproposal, while MGM has not publicly endorsed Diller’sunsolicited offer Taken together,however, thedeals representsomething larger than two highprofile acquisitions. If approved, they would remove two of the gaming industry’smost recognizablecompanies from Wall Street, ending years of

Public companiesanswer to shareholders every three months. Executives spend significant time preparing earnings reports, responding to analysts and defending short-term financial performance.

Private companies face no such obligation.

“When they go private, they’re not subject to quarterlyreports,” saidStephen Miller, research director at CBER. “They can look more into the longer run in terms of their planning. They don’t have to meet everyquarter’s certain expectation.”

That flexibilitycould allowmanagementtopursue investments that may take years to pay off rather than focusing on thenext earnings report.

ertiesafterselling much of its real estate in previous transactions. Adding acquisition debt could increase pressure to streamline operations, refinance existing obligations or divest assets, Wood said. “Itwouldn’tsurprise me if you see some streamlining and someassets reduced off their balance sheet,” he said, emphasizing that any prediction remains speculative. “Caesars, acouple years from now,might look alittledifferentthan it looks today.”

MGM, by contrast,appears more likelytocontinue pursuing itsexisting strategywhile benefiting from the flexibilityprivate ownershipprovides, he said.

quarterly earnings scrutiny while placingbillions of dollars innew acquisition debt on their balance sheets.The transactionsalsocontinue abroader trend of gaming companiesabandoningpublicmarketsafter years of consolidation,followingrecenttake-private deals such as Golden Entertainment andInternational GameTechnology. Economistssay the shift could fundamentally change how the companies make decisions,investintheir properties andcompete for customers, thoughnot necessarily in thesame ways. Although theproposals differ in size and structure, both are examples of leveraged buyouts. In atraditional acquisition, abuyer pays for acompany primarily with cash or stock. In aleveraged buyout, rather than financing an ac-

quisition outright,buyers relyheavily on borrowed money,withthe acquired company’sfuturecash flow helping repaymuch of the debt over time. The acquiredcompany typically assumes muchofthat debt after the transaction closes. Thestrategy can amplify returns forinvestors if the company continues generating strong cash flow.But it also leaves the business with significant debt obligations during economic downturns or periodsofslowing growth.

Those tradeoffs areparticularlysignificantin LasVegas, where tourism spending has moderated afteryears of post-pandemic growth while borrowing costs remain elevated

“I think what I’m watching here is what the new ownership is signalingabout the strengthofthe gaming mar-

ket in general and where we are in the cycle,” said Andrew Wood, director of UNLV’sCenter for Business and Economic Research.

Las Vegashas remained near 40 million annualvisitors for years, while inflation-adjusted gaming revenue has largely plateaued, Wood said.Thatdoes not necessarily indicateweakness, but it does suggest theStrip has matured intoa market wherefuture growth may require different strategies than simply attracting moregamblers.

Instead, casino operators areincreasinglyrelyingon entertainment, sports, conventions and digital gaming to generatenew revenue.

“The industry is …needing abit of ashake-up,” Wood said.

The biggest change may notbefinancial. It may be philosophical.

Diller alludedtothatphilosophy in announcing his proposal, saying MGM’s leadership has built “the world’spremiergaming, hospitality and entertainment company” and that private ownership would allow management to continue executing its long-term strategy away from the pressures of public markets.

Wood believes those comments reveal an important distinction between the two proposals.

With MGM, he sees investors expressing confidence in the company’s existing direction.

“Theyare still convinced that their strategy is the right strategy,but they need space from public markets,” Wood said.

Caesars, however, presents adifferent picture.

Unlike MGM, Caesars already carries substantial debt and must make approximately$1.4 billioninannual lease payments to Vici Prop-

“I getthe sensethere is more confidencethatthe current strategy will work given time,” said Wood. The effects of private ownership maynot be immediately visible to visitors.

Casino floors will still operate. Hotel roomswill still be cleaned. Showswill continue. Over time, however, guests couldnotice changes.

Private ownership gives companiesgreater freedom to introducenew amenities, experiences and longterm investments without worrying about howthose decisionsaffectthe next quarterly earnings report, Miller said.

“They can be innovative in the sorts of new services they offer,” he said.

Butthe opposite also remains possible.

“The downside …the corporation maybeinterested in trying to raise revenue by parking fees and resort fees, and those could go up,” Miller said.

STAFF FILE PHOTO By CHRISGRANGER

Issued July 8-14

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Is semiconductor giant

Nvidia’s(Nasdaq: NVDA)

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ButNvidia still reigns supreme in the GPU space, with a94% market share, according toone research report.

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2former quick-serve

restaurant sites sold

Twocommercial properties that once housed quickserve restaurants along the Evangeline Thruwayhave been sold.

The former Café Coachella building, 1224 N.E. Evangeline Thruway,was soldtoLafayette attorney Anthony Eaglin, Elifin Realty reported. Eaglin’s purchasecame ayear afterhebought the building next door that recently housed Shisha HookahLounge,landrecords show.The seller for both properties wasagroup led by commercial property owner Michael Hamner Attempts to reach Eaglin were unsuccessful.

The Café Coachella buildinghas been vacant since the restaurant closed in 2024, aboutthree years after undergoing extensive renovations from its previous use as aTaco Bell location.

Catalyst Bank’scorebanking system is scheduled forNovember. Untilthen, Lakeside’scustomers will continue banking as they do today while receiving regularupdatesinpreparationfor thetransition to CatalystBank’sdigital banking platform.

“By combining our strengths, we are creating astronger institution with expandedcapabilities while preserving the local connection andpersonal relationships that have defined both banks,” Catalyst president and CEO Joe Zanco said.

State certifies 20 acres in Broussard A19.91-acre site in Broussard in St. Martin Parish hasbeen certified for economic development under the state’scertified sitesprogramincoordination withOne Acadiana’s Site Development Program.

Its shares have recently pulled back abit, but there remain excellent reasons to invest in Nvidia. Nvidia’s bears point to increased competition in the graphics processing unit market They argue that hyperscalers —the company’s biggest customers—are increasingly relying on internally developed custom artificial intelligence chips, which could reduce their reliance on Nvidia’s

Furthermore, the company is launching anew,powerful platform, Vera Rubin: Rubin is the GPU, while Vera is acentral processing unit.That should help Nvidia mitigatethe threat from custom artificial intelligencechips, since one of their appeals is that theyoffer better priceto-performance ratiosfor specific workloads.

Finally,Nvidia is tapping into anew opportunitywith the Vera CPU, as the shift to agenticAIwill bring about increasing demand for CPUs. Nvidia thinks this market could be worth $200 billion.

Nvidia’sAI-related tailwind appears to be far from over Andinthe coming years, thestock could generate above-average returns. (TheMotley Fool owns shares of and recommends Nvidia.)

Ask the Fool: Funds or stocks?

Ireally don’twant to lose money So should Ionly invest in mutual funds and not stocks? —K.T Biddeford, Maine Mutual funds can lose money,justasstockscan, particularly fundsthat investinstocks. Mostinvestments carry some risk. The leastrisky (such as U.S Treasury bonds) will often grow veryslowly Stocks have awide range of risk.Established blue-

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The adjacent building, 1216 N.E. Evangeline Thruway, earlier was thehome aused car dealership, but foryears it was the home of aBurger Tyme location, archives show.Itmay have been first built as the home of D’Lites of America restaurant.

Catalyst, LC bank merger complete

Catalyst Bank completed its merger with Lake Charles-basedLakeside Bank, bank officialsannounced.

The dealextends Catalyst Bank’spresence into Lake Charles, Sulphur and Moss Bluffwhile strengthening its ability to serve customers throughout southwest Louisiana.

Catalyst Bank now operates 10 branchlocations withapproximately$620 million in assets, $390 millioninloansand $478 million in deposits.

Theoperational conversionofLakesideBankto

Thesite, referred to as the Five Sisters Site, is above the 100-year flood plain andissuitablefor commercial,warehousing, distribution and light industrial development with access to U.S.90and the Lafayette regional transportation network, One Acadiana officialsannounced. The site is St. Martin Parish’ssixth certified site and Acadiana’s35th, totaling nearly 3,000 acres.

“Through diligent site development efforts, Acadiana continues to demonstrate that we are aregion readyfor business,”One Acadiana President and CEO Troy Wayman said. One Acadiana’ssite development program is designedtoincreasethe region’sportfolio of marketable, development-ready sites by certifying land within the nine-parish regionthrough partnerships withlocal economicdevelopment partners, LED and landowners.

Motley Fool

MADE IN LOUISIANA

Tangipahoa Parish company has

BY JONAH MEADOWS Staff writer

The tarps rolled onto fields during rain delays at major league ballparks, the massive grain covers that protect mountains of freshly harvested grain across the Midwest and the wrapping on the scaffolding at the U.S. Capitol ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration have one thing in common: They were manufactured in Tangipahoa Parish by J&M Industries.

The family-owned business and its 120 workers specialize in custommaking giant tarps — some as large as football fields for a variety of industries, cutting, sewing, grommeting and heat-sealing them, oneby-one, from a 280,000-square-foot Ponchatoula plant

J&M also distributes smaller items to customers from Galveston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama, including the distinctive blue tarps that dot roofs across the Gulf Coast after a storm, crawfish sacks, hair nets and its own brand of gel ice packs called Cajun Ice.

Together the manufacturing and distribution sides of the business have enabled the 53-year-old firm to grow into an approximately $40 million annual operation with plans to expand out of state in early 2027.

The key, according to J&M’s president and managing owner, Maurice Gaudet IV is focusing on work that cannot be cheaply outsourced and using specialized equipment to create one-of-a-kind covers on demand without the long lead times of importing internationally

“We operate in a lot of niche markets,” said Gaudet, 74. “We’re always looking for things that are attached or similar to what we do where we can use our strengths to succeed. One reason why we’re here is we’ve adapted over time.”

Covering growth

J&M began in a New Orleans garage in 1973, when Gaudet’s father, Maurice III, and a partner named Jake the “J” to the elder Maurice’s “M” — repurposed used coffee bags for offshore oyster sacks, among other uses. Jake left after the

first year, but the name stuck.

The company expanded in the 1980s by buying out or merging with other local bag companies, and several of Gaudet’s uncles joined the business.

In the 1990s, it moved to Ponchatoula, shifted its focus from bags to tarps and opened a distribution center in Rayne. Just over a decade ago, it expanded the plant, which was followed by the creation of four subsidiaries for the company’s different areas of focus.

The manufacturing arms account for about 70% of company revenues, while the distribution side of the business makes up nearly 30%.

JMI Legacy Manufacturing, its heavy industry arm, makes custom canvas, vinyl and polyethylene tarps for construction, sandblasting and petrochemical, plus shade cloth for outdoor venues, greenhouse roofs and row covers for crops.

JMI Covers handles the largest, heavy-duty tarps, used for covering mountains of grains, wrapping landfills and lining retention ponds. This branch of the company also makes custom athletic field tarps — like the Reynolds Wrap-themed cover that’s rolled out at Wrigley Field.

The company’s distribution arm, JMI Packaging Solutions, supplies a sprawling catalog of everyday items — custom and stock — used by a range of industries to protect and transport their products.

“We are one of the most wellknown distributors in the area for

crawfish sacks,” said marketing director Tracey DeSoto.

J&M also has a consumer-facing ecommerce storefront, Tarps America, where online shoppers can buy tarps and covers directly from the company Old school vs. new school

On a mid-June visit to J&M’s Ponchatoula facility, bales of disaster relief tarps were stacked almost to the ceiling — about $4 million worth — ready to be shipped out upon the arrival of a destructive major storm.

“At this point, we have so many FEMA tarps we don’t know what to do with them, but we have to have them ready to go if something happens,” DeSoto said.

When Hurricane Helene hit in 2024, the whole company sprung into action to load up trucks and get the tarps out the door

“We had as many forklifts as we could,” DeSoto said. “It was all hands on deck, literally.”

A short walk away, workers were preparing for the harvest season.

From about March to August, J&M constructs the enormous custom tarps for grain producers and stacks them inside until shipping starts in July

The largest ones are measured to fit a specific pile, some as much as 1,200 feet long, and assembled, usually from four to eight pieces that are fused together J&M makes several million square feet of grain covers a year, accounting for about

dent’s import duties were invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

a third of its business.

They’re finished using hot-air welding on 500-foot-long travelers machines that roll along rails fusing together fabric panels, sealing seams as an operator walks the length of the building

On the other side of the factory, workers operate from pits below floor level, allowing the heavy fabric fed through industrial sewing machines to remain level. Across the room, other workers cut and finish the smaller tarps by hand.

“I call one old-school and one newschool,” Gaudet said. “It’s a totally different operation.”

Broadening the focus

The biggest recent challenge the company has faced has been the uncertainty around national economic policy, which has wreaked havoc on J&M’s margins, Gaudet said Tariffs have cost the company about $600,000 since last year, though about a third of that has so far been recovered after the presi-

J&M has also fought a lengthy legal battle over its intellectual property. After suing a larger, publicly traded company over violating a patent on a grain tarp strapping system, it spent five years in federal court and millions of dollar in legal fees before prevailing in 2021. But the company is growing and, for the first time, expanding beyond Louisiana’s boundaries. It recently acquired an 11-acre site in Alabama near the Florida and Georgia borders and plans to break ground in February on a 50,000-square-foot building, with room to expand. The new facility will enable the company to extend the packaging business further east and stage disaster relief tarps closer to the markets that buy them.

Gaudet said the move is part of a broader push into disaster relief that could eventually include selling cots, medical kits and meals, not just tarps, to governmental clients. A certified public accountant for years

STAFF PHOTO By JONAH MEADOWS

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THE PROMISE OF

PEPTIDES

Treatments claim to help with more than weight loss. Researchers are still deciding if they deliver.

BY IAN FAUL | Contributing writer

Spend enough time in wellness circles, biohacking forums or men’s health clinics, and peptides begin to sound less lik of molecules and more like the new language of the healthy Its expanding vocabulary includes obscure-sounding names like GHK-Cu, BPC-157, PT-141 and semax — marketed online as the “beauty peptide,” “Wolverine peptide,” “date-night peptide” and “focus peptide.”

A quick social media search yields videos of animated, artificial intelligence-generated peptide vials cheerily explaining their benefits and of influencers demonstrating self-injection with hypodermic needles, followed by long comment threads about sourcing. These videos are usually accompanied by disclaimers that the content is “not medical advice” and appeals to moderators not to remove the posts.

Peptides are not new in medicine. The peptide hormone insulin, for example, has been used to treat Type 1 diabetes since its discovery over a century ago.

The current craze can be traced back about a decade to members of CrossFit and other workout communities, who began experimenting with peptides as alternatives to anabolic steroids.

Then came the unprecedented success of weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and We whose key ingredient the naturally occurring GLP-1 — and the explosion of the “looksmaxxing” movement of the 2020s. There have also been high-profile endorsements, including from U.S Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr who extols peptide use, claiming to have injected some himself and proposing to loosen restrictions on compounding pharmacies’ ability to manufacture them.

“(A peptide) is basically an amino acid telling your body how to … correct a mistake — it’s just sending that signal to do it — whereas most medications are blocking pathways.”

SHAWN GAB, manager at Gameday Men’s Health in Metairie

ä See PEPTIDES,

Strategy session

Role-playing game night helps neurodivergent players learn to socialize

BY RACHEL MIPRO

Contributing writer

Come to the Nerd Lair Game and Hobby Store in Westwego on the right night and you’ll find a new crowd: a group of autistic players exploring role-playing and tabletop card games.

Called Games and Gathering, the program is meant to foster a sense of connection and community for a variety of neurodivergent people, as well as give participants a way to practice turn-taking and sportsmanship, among other skills

“You’re looking at teamwork and using your imagination for problem solving,” said Alicia Dardar, owner of the Nerd Lair “There’s lots of communication that needs to happen, and you have to really have flexible thinking. These are all really great lessons to learn, but in a structure that doesn’t feel like you’re being taught something.”

The program has been in operation since January, following an earlier test program, and is the result of a partnership between the Autism Society of Greater New Orleans, Prism Behavioral Consulting and Nerd Lair Games and Gathering offers tabletop card games like Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering, alongside role-playing adventure games. The sessions are split by age; Prism Behavioral Consulting hosts ages 8-15 while the Nerd Lair group welcomes those who are 16 and older and have low-support needs.

“It’s not just the Autism Society, it’s not just the Nerd Lair, it’s not just Prism,” said Claire Tibbetts, executive director of the Autism Society of Greater New Orleans. “We all worked together to make the program work.”

Younger ages play the prewritten adventure format Venture Society while the older group plays Dungeons & Dragons. Role-playing games are narrative-driven, with each player choosing a character and deciding their character’s choices to move the gameplay forward. The Nerd Lair’s game master — “dungeon master” in D&D terminology — works at a special needs

ä See GAMES, page 3

A player makes a move during a Games and Gathering session at Prism Behavioral Consulting

Drones eyed for organ transport

NASA Langley study gauges technology’s efficiency

BY GAVIN STONE The Virginian-Pilot (TNS)

Drones could be a viable way to make transportation of potentially lifesaving donated kidneys more efficient, according to a recent study conducted at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

On June 5, researchers had drones take human kidneys on two 15-minute flights in loops around NASA’s testing range beyond line-of-sight for about 7.5 miles each time, reaching a peak height of 250 feet. Based on biopsies of the kidneys before and after the preliminary findings show no sign that the flights negatively affected the kidneys, according to the researchers.

Organs are typically transported using a mix of ground transportation by a medical courier, and charter or commercial aircraft, but it’s always a race against time. Organs only last for so long before the health outcome for the recipient is impacted, though advancements in technology have allowed organs to survive longer trips.

Drone transportation could address challenges like traffic congestion and other bottlenecks, and expand access to patients in more remote locations, according to Doug Wilson, executive vice president of Virginia Beach-based LifeNet Health, which provided the kidneys used in the study and helped to assess their status before and after the flights.

“The goal is not necessarily to replace existing transportation methods but to explore whether drones could complement them in situations where speed, reliability, or access are critical,” Wilson said in an email.

Currently, 3,000 Virginians and 100,000 people nationwide are waiting for a lifesaving transplant, according to Wilson. Thirteen people die every day waiting for an organ transplant, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration, a federal agency

The study was funded by NASA and conducted in partnership with LifeNet and the Richmond-based

PEPTIDES

Continued from page 1

This June, staff scientists at the Food and Drug Administration delivered a blow to Kennedy’s proposal, citing a lack of evidence for their efficacy The evidence is expected to be reviewed again by a second committee later this month, which will make a final recommendation. What will become of today’s most talked-about molecules?

What is ‘peptide therapy?’

The human body produces thousands of peptides, which are short chains of amino acids and the precursors to proteins. Peptides act as hormones, neurotransmitters and cellular signaling molecules, and many of their functions in the body are still being discovered.

The term “peptide therapy,” however, encompasses a more diverse collection of compounds A small number of these — including GLP-1 peptides, sermorelin, tesamorelin and thymosin alpha-1 — have undergone extensive clinical testing and received regulatory approval for specific medical indications.

A larger number remain investigational compounds supported by limited clinical data.

Because peptides lack approval, some users turn to the “gray market,” seeking peptides labeled as “research chemicals” from foreign manufacturers.

The rapid expansion of the peptide marketplace tends to blur distinctions, placing FDA-approved medications, experimental therapeutics and a holistic medicineinspired treatment philosophy under a common conceptual umbrella.

“It’s not really a drug in the way we looked at drugs in the past,” explained Shawn Gab, manager at the peptide and testosterone replacement therapy clinic Gameday Men’s Health in Metairie. “(A peptide) is basically an amino acid telling your body how to correct a mistake — it’s just sending that signal to do it — whereas most medications are blocking pathways.”

In some fitness communities the word “drug” has a negative

United Network for Organ Sharing. UNOS described the study in a news release as “groundbreaking,” and it was the first time NASA had tested whether human organs can be transported beyond line-of-sight by drone, according to John Koelling, director of NASA Langley’s Aeronautics Research Directorate.

Koelling said Hampton Roads is the perfect testing ground for this new means of transporting organs because “every problem you’re going to face in trying to make this a reality is all right here,” noting the presence of military installations, nuclear power plants, densely populated urban areas, and a major port.

To be adopted widely, Koelling said they would need to show that drones could safely handle the weight of the organ on flights

beyond line-of-sight and significant regulatory hurdles with the Federal Aviation Administration would need to be cleared.

“This is sort of proof of concept for us,” Koelling said. “The technology to do this is pretty much largely in place.”

The drone used in the study was an Alta X quad-rotor drone made by Freefly, which has the highest maximum payload of any drone in NASA Langley’s inventory, according to Jim Burgess, an unmanned aircraft systems engineer who was the flight-test team lead for NASA. The Alta X can carry a maximum payload of about 33 pounds, according to the company’s website.

Past studies have shown drones can carry organs safely but in those cases people had to be on rooftops to maintain line-of-sight,

connotation, stemming from an association with illegal performance-enhancing anabolic steroids.

Peptides are seen as a natural alternative, even though commercially available peptide products may differ substantially from naturally occurring molecules: Some must be chemically modified in a lab to increase their stability in the body, and some are mixed with other compounds or contain impurities.

Increasing interest in medical autonomy and distrust of medical authority in the post-COVID years may also explain the cultural shift toward “natural” medicines and supplements, said Mariana Craciun, a medical sociologist at Tulane University.

The turn toward natural medicine reinforces an inclination to reject medical expertise, she said.

“We want to be the ones who are the intermediaries between this expert knowledge and our bodies, rather than letting a doctor be that intermediary.”

Evidence, regulation, practice

For researchers like Dr Frank Greenway, chief medical officer of the Clinical Trials Unit at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, the central issue is not whether a compound is natural but whether its risks and benefits have been rigorously evaluated.

Greenway’s own research focus-

es on characterizing the pharmacological properties of everyday foods and herbal supplements, with the goal of discovering novel obesity treatments.

“I (went) into medicine because I really want to help people and when I do something, I don’t hurt them more than I help,” Greenway said. “When you go by people who are influencers or people who don’t really have medical knowledge you’re certainly not assured that the risks are outweighed by the benefits.”

Perhaps the most researched peptide is MOTS-c, a so-called “exercise mimetic” that regulates metabolism After promising studies in animal models, it was taken to a Phase 1 clinical trial, but was ultimately nominated to the FDA’s do-not-compound list for its potential to trigger immune system reactions. It has since been withdrawn from the list, pending a formal safety review Other popular peptides, such as BPC-157, have even sparser clinical evidence to date.

Despite many reported benefits related to speeding up muscle repair, healing ulcers, regenerating nerves and slowing neurodegenerative disease in cell and animal models, no controlled human trial

according Burgess. “It’s not necessarily scalable to always have spotters up on rooftops,” Burgess said. The kidneys used in the study were donated for research because they were not accepted for transplant, according to Kaitlin Swanner, senior policy analyst for UNOS.

They were kept in a container similar to how organs are typically packaged for transport, put on pumps to help keep them healthy before and after the flights, and the researchers monitored vibrations and pressure throughout the flights.

Swanner said drones would likely be used to help with the “first mile, last mile” part of the organs’ journey, from the donor hospital to the airport and from the airport to the patient’s hospital.

“Most organs are traveling pretty far so that makes it more logistically challenging to get the organs from the donor to the patient,” Swanner said “We think (drones) will be particularly helpful in areas where there’s a lot of traffic congestion.” The majority of the donor organs Sentara receives are from farther than 250 miles, according to Karl Neumann, program manager for Sentara’s transplant clinic.

Neumann said any improvement in the efficiency of organ transportation would mean greater confidence that the organ is going to work for the patient. While this research is promising, Wilson said the most immediate way to help save lives is for more people to register to be an organ donor

of the peptide has been published in the 30-plus years since its discovery Even among supporters of peptide therapies, concerns about sourcing and quality control are common. Dr Thomas Bond, an orthopedist who has incorporated peptides into his regenerative medicine practice in Lafayette for more than a decade, recalled treating patients hospitalized after obtaining peptide drugs online.

“I had three hospital admissions for acute pancreatitis for people that got stuff online,” he said.

There have been a number of reports of people being harmed after taking unknown peptides. At the Revolution Against Aging and Death Festival last year, two women who received injections at a conference booth were taken to the hospital with swollen tongues, elevated heart rates and trouble breathing, and had to be intubated.

Bond acknowledged the reality of medical self-experimentation but urged peptide users to consult with a medical professional to ensure they would not have contraindications.

“I am a big fan of peptides, but peptides done the right way — as an adjunct to a medical or surgical procedure,” Bond said.

“They’re not the panacea hype that is all over social media. It’s really even beyond irresponsible

in my opinion. I think it’s reckless and dangerous.”

Looking ahead

The second upcoming FDA advisory committee review this month will consider whether compounding pharmacies should be permitted to manufacture seven peptide compounds.

Among those under review are BPC-157, which has been investigated for inflammatory bowel disease and tissue repair; TB500, promoted for wound healing; MOTS-c, studied experimentally for metabolic disorders; KPV for inflammatory conditions; semax for neurological disorders; emideltide for opioid withdrawal and insomnia; and epitalon for sleep-related indications. The committee’s recommendations could influence how readily these compounds remain available outside the traditional pharmaceutical approval pathway Half the committee’s members have professional ties to clinics, pharmacies or companies involved in peptide therapies. They include executives from wellness providers, physicians who prescribe peptide-based treatments and pharmacists with experience in compounding.

“All committee members underwent the same ethics review and vetting process required of all FDA advisory committee members.

Candidates that could not meet existing ethics requirements were removed from consideration,” an HHS spokesperson said.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

The Louisiana Health section is focused on providing in-depth, personal accounts of health in the state.This section looks at medical innovations, health discoveries, state and national health statistics and re-examining tried and true methods on ways to live well.

Health editions will also profile people who are advancing health for the state of Louisiana.

Do you have a health story? We want to hear from you. Email margaret.delaney@ theadvocate.com to submit health questions, stories and more.

Greenway

Bond

TNS PHOTO By ANDy JACOBSOHN

A drone sits at a Wing facility in Frisco, Texas. As the technology continues to advance, researchers are studying the possibility that it could be used to transport organs.

GETTy IMAGES PHOTO By HUANG ZHIGANG

A Chinese quality control worker inspects a batch of peptide.

Eat FitLiveFit

Pickle juice, cottage cheese and whatreally helps cramps

Mydadis86,asomewhatregular featureinthiscolumnandoneof myfavoritesourcesofpractical nutritionquestions.

SoaftermyJuly6hydrationcolumn onelectrolytereplacers–theoneswe canaddtoourwaterbottles,including LMNT,TransparentLabsandUltima–he hadfollow-upquestions.“Youdidn’ttalk aboutLiquidI.V.Whataboutthat?”And then,morespecifictohisownroutine: “Whataboutpicklejuice?Whatabout cottagecheese?”

Hydrationandcrampingarefrequent conversationsbetweenus.Sometimeshe’s talkingaboutamiddle-of-the-nightcharley horsethatjoltshimawake.Sometimesit’s crampingafterfishingorworkingoutsidein Louisianaheatandhumidity.Eitherway,his routineincludesashotofpicklejuicewhen thecrampstarts,andcottagecheeseas partofhisregularelectrolyte-richlineup.

WhyPickleJuiceWorksSoFast

Let’sstartwithpicklejuice,whichIthink ismorefascinatingthanitsounds. Foryears,manyathletessworeby picklejuicetostopcrampinginstantly Manyhealthprofessionalsdismissedit asplacebo:Afewsipstostopcramping withinseconds?Howcouldthatbe? Thesodiumcouldn’tpossiblymovefrom thestomachintothebloodstreamand replenishelectrolyteslostinsweatthat quickly.Thatskepticismwasfair;itdid seemtoogoodtobetrue.

Alittlebackground:Thereare multiplecausesofmusclecramping. Onecommonculpritismusclefatigue, whennervesthathelppreventovercontractingbegintomisfire.Themuscle contractstightly,bunchesupand doesn’twanttoletgo.Thisiswhere picklejuicecomesin.

Thekeybehinditseffectiveness appearstobeaceticacid,thevinegar-

likecompound thatgives picklejuiceits notoriousbite. Aswesipit, thataceticacid triggersnerve receptorsin ourmouthand throat.Those receptorssend signalsthat canhelpquiet thecramping responsealmost immediately–fasterthanthe traditionalroute ofdigestionandelectrolyteabsorption.

Inotherwords,picklejuicemay helpstopthecrampnotbecauseit instantlyreplacessodium,butbecause itinterruptsthenervesignaltellingthe muscletokeepcontracting It’snotacure-all,andit’snotforevery typeofcramp.Thestrongestevidence isforexercise-relatedmusclecramps especiallyduringorafteractivitywith fatigue.Somepeoplealsofindthatithelps withnighttimelegcrampsorrestless-legtypesymptoms,thoughtheresearchisnot nearlyasstrong.

Still,forasuddencramp,anounceor twoofpicklejuiceisareasonableoption formanypeople.Thesodiumloadiswhere

weusecommonsense:afewsipsare differentfrommakingpicklejuiceago-to beverage.

ElectrolytesBeyondSportsDrinks Now,ontoDad’scottagecheese question.

Thisfallsunderthebiggerideathatwe cangetelectrolyteswithouteversipping asportsdrink.Sweatismostlywater andsodium,withpotassiumandsmaller amountsofcalciumandmagnesium Sodiumistheprimaryelectrolytelost throughsweat,whichiswhycottage cheesecanmakesense.

Ahalfcupof2%cottagecheesehas roughly390mgsodiumand130mg potassium–aboutwhatyou’dgetin

MollyKimball,RD,CSSD,isaregistereddietitian withOchsnerHealthandfounderofOchsner’sEatFit nonprofitinitiative.Formorewellnesscontent,tuneinto Molly’spodcast,FUELEDWellness+Nutrition,andfollow @MollykimballRDand@EatFitOchsneronsocialmedia. Emailnutrition@ochsner.orgtoconnectwithMollyor scheduleaconsultwithherteam.

BY THENUMBERS

a20-ouncePowerade–plus calciumandprotein. Otherelectrolyte-richoptions canbejustassimple:analmond flourorwholegraintortillawith cheese,avocadowithasprinkle ofsaltoraturkeyandcheese sandwichonwhole-grainbread. Noneareflashy,butpairedwith plainwater,theyofferelectrolyterichhydration.

WhatAboutBananas?

Anytalkofelectrolyte-rich foodsusuallybringsabanana question.Here’sthething–bananasarefine.They’reportable, familiarandagoodsourceof potassiumandcarbohydrate.Butifyou’re losingloadsofsaltysweat,bananaswon’t replenishsodiumlosses.

BacktoLiquidI.V.

Andyes,toanswerDad’sfirstquestion, LiquidI.V.canbeagoodoption.Itjust wasn’toneoftheproductsIfeatured.I’d choosethesugar-freeversionformost peoplegettingcarbohydratesfromfood.It containsallulose,alow-caloriesweetener thatcancausestomachupsetifoverdone.

TheBottomLine

Picklejuicemayhelpstopacramp throughnervesignaling.Sportsdrinksand electrolytepowderscanbeuseful,with sodiumrangingfromverylowto1,000 mgperserving.Talkwithyourdietitianor healthcareprofessionalaboutwhatfits yoursodiumneedsandhealthstatus. Butsportsdrinksarenotessential.We canalsogetelectrolytesthrougheveryday foods–wejustneedtobestrategic,and makesurewe’redrinkingplentyoffluids alongtheway.

ONLy 6LA. PARISHES HAVE LUNG CANCER RATESBELOW

U.S. AVERAGE

In Louisiana, lungcancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women.

In the United States, lung cancer is the second-most common cancer and theleading cause of cancer death. An estimated 229,410 newcases arediagnosed annually,resulting in approximately 124,990deaths in 2026, theAmerican Cancer Society reports.

Therate of newlung cancer cases in Louisiana is 61.1 per 100,000 people, significantly higher than the national rate of 52.8.

Louisiana ranks 40th among all states. Only six parishes have lung cancer incidence rates lowerthanthe national average: St. Charles, Lincoln, East Baton Rouge, Orleans, St. John the Baptist and Tensas.

These parishes hadthe highest rates of lung cancer per 100,000 people between 2018and 2022:

n Evangeline Parish with 88.8 cases; n East Carroll Parish with 84.5 cases; n Iberville Parish with 82.9 cases; n Bienville Parish with 80.5 cases; n WashingtonParish with 79.2 cases; n RichlandParishwith 78.5 cases; n Livingston Parish with 77.6 cases; n Franklin Parish with 77.4 cases;

GAMES

Continued from page1

school and has years of experience as adungeon master.Staff atthe Nerd Lair helped teach the Prism team how to play the games for these sessions. Dardar described one session at the Nerd Lair,where the dungeon master had used props and sound effectsfor asmall group of D&D players. “There were definitely two people who were just not comfortable,

n Caldwell Parish with 77 cases; n Terrebonne and West Carroll parishes with 75.6 cases;

n Vernon Parish with 75.4 cases; n Winn Parish with 75.2 cases; n and Jackson and Red River parishes with 74.4 cases.

These parishes had the lowest rates of lungcancer per 100,000 people between 2018 and 2022:

n St. Charles Parish with 49.1 cases; n Lincoln Parish with 49.7 cases; n East Baton RougeParishwith 50.2 cases;

n Orleans Parish with 50.4 cases;

n St. John the Baptist Parish with 51.8 cases;

n Tensas Parish with 51.9 cases;

n St. Helena Parish with 52.8 cases;

n Madison Parish with 53.3 cases;

n Pointe Coupee Parish 53.8 cases; n Catahoula Parish with 54 cases; n Jefferson Parish with 54.8 cases; n Concordia Parish with 55.7 cases; n Ouachita Parish with 56 cases; n LafayetteParishwith 56.7 cases; n Rapides Parish with 57.1 cases; n and St.Tammany Parish with 57.9 cases.

In 2022,the most recentyear of data available for this report, the COVID-19

they were not into it, so when it was their turn, she toneditdown alittle bit, so that they’d be more comfortableastheyplayed,” Dardar said.

Whenshe checkedonthe session about halfanhour later,Dardar already saw achange: one of the players that had been uncomfortable had started relaxing. The game master started to play more sound effectsfor thatcharacter

“By the end of that night that person, who was really very uncomfortable in the beginning, was like requesting the sound effects fortheir turn,” Dardar said. “I just

pandemic continued to disrupt access to medical care, including delaysand reductions in cancer diagnoses and screening,according to the American Lung Association.This led to

thoughtthatwas really cool to see howjustinone session of D&D (her) shell kind of broke alittle bit.Even if just for that onesession, she got to letgoand have fun, that wasreally cool.” Dardar has previously been involved with theAutism Society of Greater New Orleans in some capacityfor nine years, serving as an event coordinator and thenasapast board president. When she opened the Nerd Lair,she and Tibbetts saw an opportunity for connection. “Our motto has always been to be where you are celebrated, not toler-

ated,” Dardar saidofthe NerdLair. “So it’sjust kind of theperfect fit with theAutism Society.Neurodivergent, neurotypical, doesn’tmatter, everyone can enjoy games the same way.” There’sa strong network of neurotypical and neurodivergent players who meet frequently,Dardar said, and she hopessome of the Games andGathering participants can find communityinthese circles. The society itselfhas been apresenceinthe New Orleansscenesince the 1980s,although it only became andofficialgroup in 2016, serving

nine parishes. Tibbetts, working alongside one otherstaff member helps promoteprojects andinitiatives and helps families find the resources they need “There’s always goingtobea challenge of helping people learn that being disabled is not abad thing, and that even the term disabled is notnegative,”Tibbetts said.“Ithink that in general, there’sa lotmoreacceptance andunderstanding of autistic individuals. …It’sjust alittle easierthese days, Ithink, to show people that being disabled is just another waytostay human.”

BRO UGH TT OY OU BY

Molly Kimball RD,CSSD

Changing Lives ThroughCareand Connection

Community Purpose in Action

Partnershipwith Purpose

AtOchsnerHealth,ourmissionistoserve,heal,lead, educateandinnovate.OurpartnershipwithSpecial OlympicsLouisianabringsthatmissiontolifebysupporting anorganizationthatempowersthousandsofathletes withintellectualdisabilitiesandspecialneedsthrough year-roundsports,competitionandacommunitywhere everyonebelongs.AvitalpartofthatworkistheHealthy Athletesprogram,amultidisciplinaryeffortthatdelivers freehealthscreeningstoathleteswhotoooftenface barrierstocare.

Eachyear,athletesqualifythroughregionalevents beforecomingtogetherattheStateSummerGameson SoutheasternLouisianaUniversity’scampus,wherethey competeandcelebratethededicationthatbroughtthem there.Ochsnerisproudtosupportthisworkbystaffing theseeventsandrecruitingvolunteerproviderstogive athleteshealthscreeningstheymaynotreceiveanywhere else.Manyathletesfacehealthcareinequitiesbecauseof theirintellectualdisabilitiesorspecialneeds.Forsome,this istheonlytimeallyeartheycanaccessthislevelofcarein oneplace,completelyfreeofcharge.

SupportingAthletes

AcrossLouisiana,SpecialOlympicsLouisianachangeslives bygivingathletesaplacetocompete,connectandthrive. Thatimpactreachesfarbeyondtheplayingfield.Through

ThehumanimpactofSpecialOlympicsLouisianais profound.OneyoungmanfromLivingstonParishhad beenturnedawaybyprovidersbecauseof hisintellectualdisability.ThroughaHealthy Athletesscreening,hewasfinallyconnected withaproviderwhounderstoodhisneeds andcoulddeliverthecarehedeserved.For athleteAiden,whotestifiedbeforeCongress, SpecialOlympicsprovidedsomethingjust asmeaningful:atruesenseofbelonging.He sharedthattheorganizationgavehimhispeopleandhis community,aplacewherehefinallyfelthefitin.Therewas notadryeyeintheroom.Thesestoriesreflecttheheart ofSpecialOlympicsLouisianabyopeningdoorstoaccess, dignityandbelongingforathletesacrossthestate.

Committed to Care

250 athletes received careatthis pastyear’s Summer Games

Thispartnershipispoweredbycommitment.Atthe StateGames,20to25volunteers,manyofthemOchsner employees,dedicatetheirtimeandexpertisetoserving SpecialOlympicsLouisianaanditsathletes.Ochsner’s supportstrengthenstheorganization’sreachacross thestatebyfundingtraining,travel,equipmentand logistics.ThatsupportallowsSpecialOlympicsLouisiana tocontinuegrowingandbringitsprogramstomore athletesinunderservedregions.

Bob’s1953 postcard yields Louisiana mystery

Bob wrote only 26 words. Somehow,73years later,when Ishowed the postcard around the newsroom,five young womenactually swooned.

In full disclosure, Idid too.

On the back of aTimes Square postcard, Bob wrote:

“Dear Janie, Just came downfrom the Empire State Bldg, naturally my head is still up in the clouds —no wonder Ithought of you. Bob” Despite punctuation issues, Bob’smessage packs apunch. Bob had serious game. The postcard was postmarked 8:30 a.m. on April 24, 1953. Isuspect Bob had visited the Empire State Building the day before. The weather was perfect —sunny,75degrees, with alow of 56. Bob may have been so smooth that the sun was always shining. I’mnot exactly sure how or when Ireceived the postcard. It’s small. It’s yellowed. It’s printed on linen-finished cotton paper.A similar one is forsale on eBay for $17.50. It wasmade by aBoston company called ColourPicture Publication, which madepostcards from 1938 to 1969.

BY JENNA ROSS Staff writer

In aparking lot near City

Park in New Orleans on a recent evening, just before the light would turn gold, the bikes were out and their wheels were up Big wheel BMX bikes, street bikes and e-bikes with adirt-bike feel. On them, kids, teens and adults; Black, White and Latino; from New Orleans, Kenner and even Biloxi, Mississippi. Some leaned on handlebars, chatting, while others popped casual wheelies, their slow speed itself aphysical feat.

When Tommy Richard spoke, just after 7p.m., they quieted.

“Yo! Yo!” he shouted, straddling his own bike. “Let’sgo!” Then they took off, dozens of bikes rolling down Esplanade Avenue, with Richard leading the way Each Thursday,ifweather allows, this group called 1Up BikeLife rides across thecity, doing tricks, filming videos and having conversations often whilebalancingona single wheel.

It started in 2020, when Richard rallied friends for one ride, then thenext,convincing the occasional BMX star to come through. Zipping acrossNew Orleans neighborhoods, no permits, no rules, “I felt likea kid again.” And the kids! So many of them showed up, from all over the city,riding bikes pieced together from otherbikes.

“I call them Frankenstein bikes,” Richard, 32, said, “because it’snot aWalmart bike —it’sthree Walmart bikes put together to make one.” Over the years, 1Up BikeLife hasbecomea kind

of mentorship program, a positiveforce in thelives of dozens of kids.But callingit aprogram wouldn’texplain how cool it is. How rogue it is. The group meets kids “doingthe things they would be doingontheirown,” Richard said, riding bikesdownDesire Street. Richard, Josh Norris and other friendswho organize the group, mostly through Instagram, have resisted formalizingitintoa nonprofit,as another weekly ride-turnedfoundation did. But they’re doing good work, including gifting pricey bikes to kids whoshowpromise.

Oneofthose first bikes wenttoSiah Pajeaud, who

was 15 when he saw on Instagram that 1Upwas bringing Dblocks, apro rider sponsored by SE Bikes, to New Orleans. He begged his mom to ride, “all day asking her 1,000 times.”

“She didn’tknowanything about it,” said Pajeaud, now 21. “I didn’teither,but Iwas ready togo.”

Until then, Pajeaud had been riding asmall, 20-inch BMXbikeinempty church parking lots and on the streetsofhis Upper 9thWard neighborhood. When his mom, Niesha Victor,picked him up after the ride with Dblocks, Pajeaud was testing out a29-inch SE bike.

“Showyour momwhat

you can do!” sheremembers Richard saying.

“He was so smallthen,” she said, “and the bike just looked so big.”

But Pajeaud could handle it, leaning back, back, back. Thoseearly days were filled with such moments, some of them posted toInstagram wherePajeaud is now @1upsiah, doing tricks andsplaying cash. Richard, Norris and others would notice akid practicingcombos, posting decent grades and staying out of trouble. They’dmessagethe growinggroup chat, share the Venmoaccount andgather

Five summers of coordinating the Postcard Project have leftme with boxes of postcards —new handmade and decades old. I never know quite what to do with them,but every now and then, one turns out to be atreasure. The goal of the Postcard Project is to get postcards from all 50 states and as manycountries as possible.

Bob’spostcard wasaddressed to Miss Mary Jane Gagnier at Marygrove College in Detroit. Itsmessage was enough to send me downarabbit hole. Who was the woman whocould inspire a young man to be so poetic and thoughtful? Iwanted to know her! Finding her didn’ttake long. Mary Jane Gagnier Gelpi lived the last twodecades of her lifein Baton Rouge. She died on the first day of April this year.Her obituary confirmed that she attended Marygrove College in Detroit. Then, my search led me to Facebook, where Irealized that three years ago, she had sent me afriend request. Maybe that waswhen she gathered her old postcards and sent them my way.She and Ihad other mutual friends. Istarted talking to people whoknew her and learned that she was as delightful as Iimagined. One distant relative described

Rance Jefferson rides in the Rouses parking lot in the Central Business District in NewOrleans while 1UpBikeLife participants stop of snacks andwater beforecontinuing on duringtheir June 11 ride..

A1Up BikeLife participant pops awheelie at CityPark in NewOrleans.

Lafayette professor conquers highest point in U.S.

BY JA’KORI MADISON Staff writer

For this University of Louisiana at Lafayette finance professor curiosity led him somewhere no Louisianan had gone before.

For 29 days, Linus Wilson hauled more than 200 pounds of food, fuel, and survival gear across glaciers, up icy slopes and through subzero temperatures on North America’s tallest mountain.

When Wilson stepped onto Denali’s 20,310-foot summit on June 17, he accomplished more than reaching the highest point in North America.

He became the first known Louisiana resident to stand on top the highest natural point in all 50 states, a milestone few even hope to achieve. But surprisingly this only became a personal goal a few years ago.

Before climbing became his passion, Wilson’s outdoor interests centered on distance running, marathons and long-distance sailing.

He even sailed around the world aboard a 31-foot sailboat, crossing the South Pacific after passing through the Panama Canal.

That journey came to an abrupt pause after the pandemic stranded his sailboat overseas, so Wilson turned to exploring the United States by road instead. While visiting South Dakota, Wilson climbed Black Elk Peak, which is the state’s highest natural point. That hike in-

spired him to start climbing the highest point in every U.S state. By the end of 2023, Wilson had climbed fewer than 10 state high points. Soon afterward, though, he committed himself to reaching them all.

“I was just surprised,”

Wilson said after learning he had become the first known Louisiana resident to complete the challenge “It makes sense because most people who do this are from places like Colorado or Washington.”

His final summit was Denali in Alaska, which he said had been by far the most difficult. The expedition lasted

29 days.

Unlike many of the world’s other famous climbs, like Mount Everest, Denali doesn’t offer any outside assistance. There are no porters to carry equipment, no stocked camps waiting with food or water and no shelters along the route, Wilson said. Everything needed to survive tents, sleeping bags, fuel, food, and emergency gear must be carried onto the mountain.

Wilson estimated he brought more than 200 pounds of equipment, hauling roughly 150 pounds to the 14,000-foot camp before making multiple trips high-

er up the mountain.

“The biggest issue is just moving the gear,” he said “There’s no food. There’s no water There’s no shelter waiting for you. You have to take all of that with you.”

The conditions only added to the challenge.

Temperatures often dropped to 40 degrees below zero, even in June. Water vapor froze on Wilson’s beard as he stood on top of the summit and at times, snowstorms forced him to stop moving altogether

Other days were spent making repeated trips between camps to position food, fuel and equipment higher on

the mountain before advancing.

“There were days when the weather wouldn’t let you move,” Wilson said. “You just try to do what you can do that day and control what you can control.”

Preparation began months before Wilson arrived in Alaska.

Knowing Denali would demand more than cardiovascular fitness, he shifted part of his training toward strength, adding weightlifting. He also traveled to Mount Rainier in Washington to practice pulling expedition sleds, camp on snow and complete crevasse rescue training.

While many climbers focus primarily on endurance, Wilson said strength played an equally important role on the mountain because every pound of gear had to be moved by hand.

“The summit is halfway,” Wilson said. “So once you reach it, you get your pictures and videos, get something to drink, eat something and then go back down.”

Back home, he learned just how rare his accomplishment was after the Highpointers Club confirmed he had completed all 50 state high points, making him the first known Louisiana resident to do so.

His climbing experiences have also influenced his academic work. In addition to teaching finance at UL Lafayette, Wilson has authored travel books documenting

his adventures and published academic research examining the difficulty of reaching state high points and climbing trends on Denali.

Long before Alaska, Wilson had already completed several of the country’s most demanding climbs. Wyoming’s Gannett Peak and Montana’s Granite Peak each required weeklong expeditions through remote wilderness, testing both endurance and logistics. Although he has completed one of the nation’s rarest mountaineering achievements, Wilson isn’t finished exploring. His next climbing goal is Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest mountain in the Americas. He attempted the climb in 2023 but did not reach the summit Beyond mountaineering, he also hopes to return to sailing by completing the Great Loop, a boating route that circles much of the eastern United States through rivers, canals, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. For anyone inspired to pursue state high-pointing or mountaineering, Wilson encourages climbers to build experience gradually, joining clubs like Highpointers, and tackling smaller peaks before attempting mountains like Denali.

“I think anybody can kind of start the high-pointing journey,” Wilson said. “It’s something amazing to see when you visit a state.”

Volunteers in Nashville relay calm info during storms

BY TRAVIS LOLLER Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

— Anyone who has watched an episode of “9-1-1: Nashville” could be forgiven for thinking the city is constantly beset by tornadoes that turn outdoor concerts into scenes of carnage and blow scooter-riding tourists onto the tops of water towers.

That may be a TV exaggeration, but tornadoes and other dangerous storms do hit the city regularly When they do, many people here turn to Nashville Severe Weather

This group of dedicated volunteers can be found on social media, calmly explaining the storm movement, advising when to take cover and giving the “all clear.” The coverage by Will Minkoff, Andrew Leeper and Tom Johnstone draws tens of thousands of viewers who interact with them in real time. It’s a service that evokes the early promise of the internet, before the rise of the influencer

This is happening at a time when many people no longer watch local news and weather reports. Yet Kevin Trowbridge, who teaches strategic communication at Belmont University in Nashville, says an informal survey of his students found many are tuning in to Nashville Severe Weather

“The millennials and Gen Z — and teaching college students, I know this all too well — their source of information is that handheld device,” he says. “It’s not turning on a TV And it’s not even looking at a traditional media outlet’s online pres-

RISHER

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her as “pure sunshine.” Seemed appropriate.

I was able to track down her son, Dr Greg Gelpi in Baton Rouge. I knew, based on the details of her life I had learned, that she didn’t meet and marry his father for several years after Bob sent this postcard in 1953. Still, asking about a parent’s old romance takes a certain sensitivity Explaining the postcard to him turned out to be trickier than I expected. Bob had written it to Janie. When I read that version of the card to Dr Gelpi, he didn’t register the connec-

ence. It’s finding sources that provide them quick information when they need it.”

‘Prepared, not scared’

The rise of Nashville Severe Weather is a modern case study in multiple areas — a shifting Tornado Alley, a changing climate, the prevalence of social media and the value of instantaneous, hyperlocal information that can save the day or save lives.

The initiative has evolved over more than a decade from its origins as a Twitter feed and blog. Today volunteers livestream on their YouTube channel whenever Nashville or surrounding counties face severe weather Because Leeper Minkoff and Johnstone all live here, they are facing the same threats as their audience.

“There’s something about Nash Severe Weather that’s different from the hobbyist enthusiast,” Trowbridge says. “I think that’s why people are following them. That’s why they are trusting them. That’s why they’re tuning in and turning to them It is authentic and real.”

Leeper, a church pastor, has a soothing voice and a sign on a shelf behind him that reads “prepared not scared.” He has had to leave the stream to wake up his family and hunker down in their safe space. He did so calmly, modeling the behavior of his motto. After the threat passed, he rejoined the stream.

Katherine Moffat, who works as the executive director of the Tennessee Academy of Physician

tion.

“Well, I don’t know either of those people,” he said at first. I then explained that it was addressed to his mom and, apparently, whoever Bob was had called her “Janie.”

Oh.

“Nobody really called her ‘Janie,’ but she might have been called that when she was at Marygrove or something,” he said. He explained that in his mother’s last days, she told him she had been engaged to someone else before she met his dad. Was it Bob?

rare, if they ever happen,” he says.

A ‘volunteer heart’

The popularity of Nashville Severe Weather defies much of the received logic about how to build an audience on social media. There’s nothing fancy or highly produced about their livestreams. They don’t try to play up danger or excitement. They certainly don’t try to chase down tornadoes or run around outside in hurricane-force winds.

Assistants, says local TV weather can be “a little over-the-top” when storms are threatening. Nashville Severe Weather, she says, is different.

“They’re a little more calm and telling it to you straight,” she says. “They don’t get people overly excited.”

Tornado Alley has shifted

The need for their service has never been greater “Tornado Alley” has been shifting from the Midwest plains to states further east, says Johnstone, a meteorologist who joined the group last year after 33 years with the National Weather Service.

“The mid-South, especially down through Alabama, Mississippi, and into Tennessee and western Kentucky, has been where tornadoes have been most frequent and people have been dying in the highest numbers,” he says.

Michelle Stewart gets all

her weather information via push notifications from Nashville Severe Weather on her phone. It’s a service she found invaluable during an ice storm that left much of the city without power or internet service for days.

“They are very informative about, not just what to expect, but how to be prepared, and just giving everybody the lay of the land without it being too sciencey. You know, it kind of feels like you’re talking to your neighbor,” says Stewart, a project manager at a healthcare research company “They are so calming to me during those live events.”

Brett Withers, a former Nashville city councilman who saw two people die in his district during a 2020 tornado that killed 24 people in Tennessee, calls Nashville Severe Weather a “godsend.”

“We have so many people moving to Nashville, and they might move from places where tornadoes are

We’re not certain. I told Dr. Gelpi that everyone I spoke with who knew his mom said that she was an incredible human. In 1967, she was working on the cutting edge of comput-

erization. At the age of 91, she earned her Life Master

Their streams are visually dominated by weather radar Minkoff, Leeper and Johnstone, sometimes joined by other volunteers, each stream from their own homes and appear in little boxes at the bottom or side of the screen. Graphics, when they have them at all, look like they could have been drawn by a 5-year-old.

Take the beloved “Dry Air Monster,” a stick figure with an huge head and chomping Godzilla jaws.

Nashville Severe Weather co-founder David Drobny drew this to explain how dry air could “eat” snow that was headed toward Nashville. In a Southern town that usually sees snow on the ground only a few days each year, many people look forward to it as a mini-vacation The monster’s motto is “No Snow for You.”

Hyperlocal focus

Their hyperlocal focus allows Nashville Severe Weather to fill a niche left open by the local TV meteorologists who have to report on dozens of counties.

“One of the things that Nash Severe can do that

status in bridge. I regretted not knowing her I said, “She must have read that I was looking for postcards.”

That made sense, he said.

“All the way up to her death, she was very hyper

She had 10 million things going on with the dietetic stuff and her food service career,” he said. “That would make sense that if she saw you were collecting cards.” I solved only half the mystery Without more than “Bob,” I didn’t have enough to go on — no last name, no college. One postcard carried me into the life of a woman I never met and a man whose name I may never know That’s the magic of post-

even the TV stations have trouble doing is really bring it down to intersection level, school level, church level to let people know where the danger and the threat is,” Johnstone says. Their coverage is a twoway street. Audience members provide photos and video showing on-the-ground conditions and comment in the chat. Nashville Severe Weather shares that information with the National Weather Service and TV meteorologists. They also try to answer people’s questions as they stream. Leeper remembers a day when schoolchildren were sent home because of a tornado threat. When one child commented in the chat about being home alone, his heart sank.

“We just stopped what we were saying on the stream, and I said, ‘Hey It dawns on me that we’ve got a bunch of kiddos at home that are maybe by themselves. Hey Here’s what you do’,” Leeper recalls. “I love those moments where we can just sort of put everything else aside to talk to the people who are listening, in whatever situation they’re in.” It’s moments like that that help them stay grounded. In 2023, a tornado killed a mother and young child here who lived in a trailer Leeper didn’t know them, but he attended the visitation.

“It just creates a whole other emotion when you walk into a funeral visitation for hurting families when it’s a weather event that you covered,” he says. “It’s not all action and adventure. It really affects people’s lives forever.”

cards they can outlive moments they were meant to preserve. Sometimes they outlive the people who wrote or received them. Nine states remain unclaimed in the 2026 Postcard Project. New, old or handmade postcards are welcome. We are missing: Connecticut, Hawaii, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Vermont. The 2026 Postcard Project ends on Labor Day If you’d like to participate, send postcards to Jan Risher The

PROVIDED PHOTO

University of Louisiana at Lafayette professor Linus Wilson became the first Louisianan to summit the highest natural point in all 50 states.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GEORGE WALKER IV

Andrew Leeper left, Will Minkoff and Tom Johnstone, right, of Nashville Severe Weather look over weather data on April 20 in Nashville, Tenn.

THERE’S GOOD NEWS, TOO

STORIES OF GLOBAL PROGRESS, COMPILED By FIX THE NEWS

OREGON CUTS BEE DEATHS RELATED TO PESTICIDE

In 2013, the state of Oregon set up a Pollinator Health Task Force and trained around 13,000 licensed pesticide applicators to reduce the number of pesticide-related bee deaths And it worked. Since 2020, the state has not recorded a confirmed pesticide-related bee kill, according to researchers at Oregon State University as reported by Jefferson Public Radio

The program helps professionals recognize high-risk situations that harm bees, like adjusting spraying practices.

“Andony Melathopoulos, an Oregon State University associate professor of pollinator health, said the training helps applicators balance pest management needs with pollinator protection,” Jefferson Public Radio reported.

And while pesticide poisonings have declines, honeybees still face threats from Varroa mites, viruses and poor nutrition. Beyond honeybees, though, researchers with the university are documenting Oregon’s wild bee populations through the Oregon Bee Atlas, which has identified more than 560 species so far

VACCINE DOSES GIVEN TO KIDS IN HORN OF AFRICA

The International Rescue Committee reported in February that the Reaching Every Child in Humanitarian Settings consortium administered 9 million vaccine doses to children living in “humanitarian and conflictaffected regions” across the Horn of Africa protecting against diseases like measles and diphtheria.This effort marks a milestone in trying to reach children who previously lacked access to routine immunization.

The main target group of the initiative — funded by Gavi, the

Vaccine Alliance, and led by the International Rescue Committee — is “zero-dose children,” or children who have never received a vaccine shot. Data shows that, worldwide, 21 million children remain underimmunized, including 14.5 million who have received no vaccines at all. Since launching in 2022, REACH has expanded its footprint.The consortium increased humanitarian access from 16% of its 156 target communities to 96%, using mobile clinics, community outreach units, geospatial mapping and local partners to deliver vaccines where existing government health systems cannot operate.

“Moreover, in low and middle-

Powering Progress

income countries the costs for vaccine delivery range from less than US$1 to US$11 per dose; Gavi and IRC estimates that to date REACH has delivered at an average cost of US$4 per dose in the Horn of Africa, at a lower and cost-effective end of the range,” the International Rescue Committee reported.

Dr Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, told the committee that it’s essential to build on this progress in the Horn of Africa as Gavi looks to its next five-year strategic period.

GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT LEAD POISONING

New research presented at the Center for Global Development‘s

Second Annual Research Conference on Global Lead Exposure suggests food may be the largest single pathway for lead exposure potentially accounting for about half of all human exposure The conference included 40 presenters from 14 countries who examined sources of lead exposure and policy solutions. Other sources include battery recycling adulterated spices, water in lower-income countries, pots and pans, edible clays and kohl eyeliners. Studies linked leafy vegetables in Nairobi to emissions from battery recycling plants, while surveys in India found high levels of adulterated turmeric in some regions.

But there’s also progress. Efforts to stop adulteration in Bangladesh has been “sustained over five years and has reduced blood lead levels by 25%.” Researchers at the conference also discussed advances in blood lead surveillance, new methods for identifying enforcement points for lead regulation, the prospect of a new, safe chelation pill to treat lead poisoning and more.

Fixthenews.com is a solutions journalism newsletter that finds stories of progress and shares them with readers from across the world. Acclaimed author Steven Pinker calls Fix the News “the best source for positive news on the internet.”

With thousands of Shell men and women across thestate,we areworking everyday to reduce emissions, while increasing efficiency in ouroperations

Our tomorrowdepends on what we do today. Together, we arepoweringprogressfor abrighter future. Louisiana is whereweliveand we’reproud to call it home

STAFF FILE PHOTO By By JILL PICKETT

Since 2020, Oregon has not recorded a confirmed pesticide-related bee death, according to researchers at Oregon State University, as reported by Jefferson Public Radio.

Robotic elephants draw crowds, controversy in India

Use at some Hindu temples causes contention

BY DEEPA BHARATH Associated Press

CHALAKUDY, India The lifesize robotic elephants in Prasanth Prakashan’s backyard workshop have ears that flap, tails that swish and trunks that squirt water

But that’s about all they have in common with their real-life counterparts revered across India as manifestations of the divine. The animatrons, crafted from fiberglass, iron and rubber, are intended to take the place of live elephants in Hindu temples.

The change pleases animal welfare activists but upsets those who passionately believe real elephants are inextricable from the temple rituals and festivals where they are bestowed superstar status.

The animal welfare group PETA and other nonprofits have donated about 40 robotic elephants, costing about $6,000 each, to Indian temples to replace live elephants.

A robotic elephant is much lighter and lacks the fluid grace of the majestic pachyderm. Electric motors move its head and eyeballs. Body parts are pliable in an attempt to make them lifelike.

Prakashan, who holds a mechanical engineering degree, knows his elephant is far from the real thing.

“You can’t create an original elephant just as you cannot duplicate a human,” Prakashan said. “But we try to capture the majestic animal’s essence as much as we can.”

One thing his elephants can’t yet do is walk.

“But they will,” Prakashan said, smiling. “I’m working on it.”

Symbols of divinity

Venerating elephants is not a concept unique to Kerala or Hinduism.

Buddhists believe el-

RIDES

Continued from page 1y

$600 to $1,000 to give a kid a new SE bike. No grants, no foundations. With their own money they’d replace tubes and fix chains. On the rides, stopping at a corner market or grocery store, they’d buy the kids snacks and drinks.

“Being in that space was something sacred,” Norris said. “Everybody was looking out for everybody.”

The ride itself works that way, too. On a recent Thursday, Richard rode in front, looking left and right, front and back. Riders came to him with problems — a flat tire, a bad back. Young people on e-bikes flew alongside and ahead of the group, navigating streetlights and streetcars. Parents held up the back, protecting the pack.

The youngest riders rode in the center, testing new tricks.

On Esplanade Avenue, Khloe Rodrigues, 6, stepped onto the seat of the e-bike moving beneath her, balancing for one second, then five. Rodrigues’ mom expected her to wear dresses and bows, said father Joshua Rodrigues, also along for the ride. Instead, her long blonde hair streams behind her bright green helmet as she zooms down the street on her Razor electric dirt bike, her “most favorite thing in the world.”

“She inspires,” her dad said.

These days, 1Up attracts all types, from Rodrigues, who lives in Metairie, to a 15-year-old from the Upper 9th Ward But for years, it attracted mostly Black teen boys. Takwon Edwards, who goes by Kwon, trekked to City Park from Avondale each week, a trip that involved a ferry ride. He now lives in Houston.

“It’d be therapy for real,” he said, “therapy for life.” Quickly Edwards grew close to the regulars: “We’re

ephants are Buddha-like, symbolizing patience, wisdom and enlightenment. In Kandy, Sri Lanka, 100 decorated elephants parade the streets, the largest carrying the Buddha’s tooth relic in a golden casket.

In Kerala, festivals with live elephants are crowdpullers. The Thrissur Vadakkunnathan temple’s annual Pooram parade features about 100 elephants adorned in golden headgear and colorful silk caparisons. The elephants are escorted by handlers who fan them with peacock feathers and yakhair whisks.

About 40 miles away, the Guruvayur Sree Krishna Temple houses nearly 50 elephants. The temple also holds an annual elephant race and a feeding ritual where, following prayers, the animals are given rice, ghee, jaggery, fruits and vegetables.

Elsewhere in Kerala, St. George Orthodox Syrian Church in Kunnamkulam and the Pattambi Mosque in Palakkad district routinely feature elephant parades during their festivals.

Some temple elephants are celebrities.

An elephant named Thechikkottukavu Ramachandran has close to 150,000 fans on Facebook. Guruvayur Keshavan, arguably the most celebrated temple elephant who died in 1976, has been memorialized with a life-sized statue near the temple he served; his life story has been the subject of a film and a television series.

Andrea Gutierrez, a University of Texas professor who researched captive elephants in South Asia, said Kerala’s temple elephants are male, which poses a problem. Adult males go through musth, a periodic condition that heightens their aggression. It’s a dramatic surge in testosterone up to 60 times their normal levels.

“But people want these huge impressive tusks, which almost feels like a military presence,” Gutierrez said.

Despite tighter restrictions on owning and maintaining elephants, nearly 400 animals are still captive in Kerala, out of about 2,500 across India. That count is down by about half since 2010.

Perfecting the robots

Khushboo Gupta, vice president of policy at PETA India, said the aesthetic appeal of live elephants doesn’t justify shackling, beating and separating them from their families. Stressed elephants can also be deadly For example, nine people died in 2024 from elephant rampages at Kerala temple festivals.

“These elephants are forced to stand there for hours in the heat, with large crowds, drums and fireworks,” Gupta said. “Any trigger could cause them to go on a rampage.”

Prakashan, who builds animatronics for malls, parks and carnivals, got PETA’s attention in 2023 with a viral video of robotic elephants at a Dubai festival.

Gupta contacted him and Sooraj Nambiat, another Kochi-based artist who makes elephant sculptures, about

all brothers.” They attended one another’s birthday parties and graduations and, too often, funerals. A 1Up kid named Rickey Hamilton was 17 years old when he was shot and killed in 2024 while sitting in a car on Freret Street

“We’ve lost three, four kids to gun violence,” Richard said.

“It’s just crazy what they have to combat compared to 15 minutes up the road.”

Richard, who is White, grew up 15 minutes up that road, in River Ridge. With 1Up, he’s often understanding while Norris, who grew up with a single parent in north Louisiana, is more likely to be strict.

“I know how to interact with the kids who are maybe choosing that street life,” Norris said.

Together, they offer guidance rather than rules and act as brothers rather than parents.

Victor was grateful that her son, Pajeaud, “found something out of the neighborhood to do,” she said. In those early years, on Father’s Day, Victor texted Richard: “Happy bike dad day.” He and Norris attended Pajeaud’s graduation from Eleanor McMain Secondary School. “Here’s this blonde, curly haired guy cheering for him as he crossed the stage.” A photo of that day shows them with their arms around Pajeaud, in cap and gown.

“They were like proud big brothers,” Victor said. Richard, Norris and Pajeaud speak of that era of 1Up with nostalgia. They’re

making a robotic version for temples. Prakashan’s elephants were immediately in demand.

His first was encased in rubber, but he’s moved on to more durable fiberglass molds. The moving rubber parts are shaped by artists who pay close attention to minute details, from the animal’s wrinkly skin to the veins that pop from its fanning ears. The entire process from mold making to animating the elephant now takes Prakashan and his crew about 15 days.

But being a pioneer comes with challenges.

“It was something we had to figure out on our own,” Prakashan said.

Embracing the robots

Prakashan’s first robotic elephant, Irinjadapilly Raman, came to the Irinjadapilly Sree Krishna Temple in 2023.

On a recent afternoon outside the temple in central Kerala, Raman stood motionless as two children played, giggling and hugging its trunk.

Rajkumar Namboothiri, the temple’s head priest, said children would never

be able to approach a live elephant so freely

He said tantric texts, which spell out the rules for daily rituals in Kerala temples, don’t require live elephants. He believes the practice came about when elephants were a part of kings’ cavalries and palaces a few centuries ago.

“They had trees and forests before,” Namboothiri said “Now, we have concrete jungles, heat and noise. Elephants are tortured and abused. It’s not right.”

The animals were also chosen as vehicles for deities during processions because of their height. But, that could be accomplished with portable palanquins and chariots, Namboothiri said.

P.C. Subhash, a temple devotee, said he is in favor of upholding tradition with live elephants in larger temples, but believes robotic elephants are more feasible for smaller temples, given the steep costs, including liability insurance coverage.

“I really hope more people come to accept them,” Subhash said.

K.I. Purushottaman, pres-

ident of the Cheekamundi

Sri Mahavishnu Temple in Thrissur, said their robotic elephant has brought him peace of mind because he and other administrators feared the possibility of a fatal elephant attack.

“With a robotic elephant, we don’t have that fear,” he said. “That’s a big relief.”

Resisting the change

Still, many traditionalists don’t believe robotic elephants belong in temples.

K. Mahesh rents out his real elephant for festivals about 45 days a year He believes elephants are holy

“If you don’t believe elephants are sacred, what’s the point of a robotic elephant in a temple?” he asked. Mahesh has had his elephant for 25 years and says the animal “is like a family member or a pet” who brings joy to all, provided it is treated with care and caution.

Several temple administrators have denounced robotic elephants for rituals and festivals.

Nambiat, the artist, said he can’t attend temple festivals anymore because many resent his work.

“This is my trade I’m not out to ruin their tradition,” he said “But, if we don’t stop treating elephants like commodities, future generations won’t have them.”

P.S. Easa, a Kerala-based wildlife biologist and elephant expert, helped draft the state’s captive elephant regulations. While hard to enforce, they have helped protect elephants to some extent, he said.

“Sadly, there’s a lot of money to be made with elephants,” he said. “It’s not about spirituality or even tradition. It’s religious tourism.”

Easa is not sure if robotic elephants will be accepted in his lifetime.

“You cannot change centuries-old tradition anytime soon,” he said. “But who knows? Maybe if these robotic elephants can start walking.”

figuring out what’s next for the Thursday rides, how to continue the giveaways, and if it makes sense to formalize the group. They’re taking dozens of kids to the X Games League this month. Over a year, a pair of filmmakers shot a documentary about the rides, which is now in postproduction. Pajeaud, now 21, still rides. On that night in early

June, he zipped along on an e-bike, steering the group around the Superdome, then onto Canal Street. An older woman in a

Tommy Richard talks to Jose Fuentes, 15, before 1Up BikeLife rolls through the city at City Park in New Orleans.

STAFF PHOTOS By SOPHIA GERMER

Landon Landry rolls down Girod Street near Caesars Superdome as 1Up BikeLife rides through New Orleans on June 11.

Khloe Rodrigues, 6, stands on her motorbike as 1Up BikeLife rolls up Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.

Siah Pajeaud poses in the parking lot of Rouses in New Orleans as riders of 1Up BikeLife take a break to get snacks and water

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By AIJAZ RAHI

Prasanth Prakashan, a mechanical engineer stands on May 22 in front of a robotic elephant at his backyard workshop in Chalakudy, in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

SUNDAY, JUlY 19, 2026

CURTIS / by Ray Billingsley

SLYLOCK FOX / by Bob Weber Jr

GET FUZZY / by Darby Conley

HAGAR THE HORRIBLE / by Chris Browne

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM / by Mike Peters

ZIGGY / by Tom Wilson

ROSEBUDS / by Supr Dee

ZITS / by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

SALLY FORTH / by Francesco Marciuliano & Jim Keefe

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE /byStephan Pastis

grams

directions: Make a 2- to 7-letter word from the letters in each row Add points of each word, using scoring 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.

word game

instructions: 1. Words must be of four or more letters. 2. Words that acquire four letters by the addition 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 — eLectors: e-LEKters: People qualified to vote in an election.

Average mark 36 words Time limit 60 minutes

Can you find 59 or more words in ELECTORS?

ken ken

instructions: 1 -Each rowand each column must contain thenumbers 1through4 (easy) or 1through6 (challenging) without repeating 2 -The numbers within the heavily outlinedboxes, called cages, must combine using thegiven operation (inany order)toproduce the target numbersinthe top-left corners. 3 -Freebies: Fillinthe single-boxcages withthe numberinthe top-left corner

instructions: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 gridwith several given numbers. The object is to placethe numbers 1to 9in theempty squares so that each row,each column and each 3x3 boxcontains the same number only once. The difficultylevel of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday

directions: Complete thegridso that numbers 1–132 connect horizontally, vertically or diagonally

Sudoku

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

By rebecca goldstein

Surprising play

Gabriel Chagas has been Brazil’s greatest player, winning several World Championships over the past 50 years. He was South in today’s deal. Aggressive bidding by Chagas got him to a poor slam. Could he find a way to make it?

wuzzLes

super Quiz

Chagas won the opening spade lead and led a club to his queen. He had to risk the heart finesse so he led a heart to dummy’s jack. First hurdle cleared. He cashed the king of hearts, led a club to his jack, and discarded a spade from dummy on the ace of hearts. He ruffed his remaining spade and had to make a play in the diamond suit. He led a low diamond from dummy and played the nine from his hand! West won but had to concede a ruff-sluff and Chagas’s diamond loser disappeared. Why this play rather than the expected ace of diamonds and a diamond to the queen? Chagas reasoned that West, to avoid giving a ruffsluff, would have to lead a dia-

mond if he had one and give Chagas a chance to play the queen from dummy This was just a free extra chance that paid dividends on this lie of the cards. Well done!

Tannah Hirsch welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency inc., 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, Ny 14207. E-mail responses may be sent to gorenbridge@ aol.com. © 2026 Tribune Content Agency goren Bridge

lifestyle. Do the legwork instead of relying on someone else.

dreams and having conversations with someone who makes you realize your potential will help you take a step toward a lifestyle change that offers convenience.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Reviewyour financial situation. What comes in and goes out may require an adjustment if you intend to maintain your

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Do something that sparks your imagination and brings you closer to the people you love, and the personal growth you experience will give you the push necessary to follow your heart.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) The process of recognizing your feelings and what you want and following through with a plan and a budget you can sustain — will help build confidence and encourage you to reach for higher goals.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) You have choices. Ignoring the problem solves nothing, but telling it like it is will help you eliminate a discrepancy you have with someone causing you grief.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Talks can help you alleviate stress. Nothing will change if you don’t share your thoughts and feelings and offer compromises and incentives to ensure a better future.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) A healthy attitude can help you achieve what you set out to do, but negativity and letting outside influences take over

will set you back. Don’t be afraid to embrace change and to do things differently

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Interacting with people you can relate to will help you see your personal situation better and offer insight into the changes necessary to achieve peace of mind.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Consider the cost involved before you start a project or decide to spend on entertainment, projects or loved ones. Cap your spending. Look for deals, and oversee any costly changes you wish to pursue.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Working on self-improvement projects and surrounding yourself with people who encourage you.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) You’ll be torn between temptation and what you should actually do. Don’t let lovers, children or those you constantly try to please talk you into something questionable.

The horoscope, an entertainment feature, is not based on scientific fact. © 2026 by NEA, inc., dist. By Andrews McMeel Syndication

Answers to puzzles

super

1. Spain.2.Nepal. 3. Cuba. 4. Iran.5.Chile 6. Peru. 7. Chad.8.China.9.Kenya.10. Ireland 11. Oman.12. Norway.13. Malta. 14. France. 15. India

SCORING: 24 to 30 points —congratulations, doctor; 18 to 23 points—honorsgraduate; 13 to 17 points —you’replenty smart, but no grind; 5to12points —you really shouldhit the booksharder;1point to 4points —enroll in remedial courses immediately; 0points who reads thequestions to you?

CryptoquoteAnswer word

Saturday's Cryptoquote: It's asuresign of summer if thechair gets up whenyou do. Walter Winchell

sudoKu Answer jumble Answer

CrosswordAnswers

sCrAbble Answers wuzzles Answers

Ken Ken Answers hidAtoAnswers

jeFF mACnelly’sshoe/ by Gary Brookins &Susie MacNelly

FoXtrot/ by BillAmend

dustin /bySteve Kelley&JeffParker