ADVOCATE THE
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
|
M o n d ay, au g u s t 3, 2026
SPAWnInG
SUCCESS
$2.00X
EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH
School system to try new bus routing software
Program has so far ‘exceeded’ officials’ expectations BY CHARLES LUSSIER Staff writer
STAFF PHoToS By SoPHIA GERMER
Scientist Solomon david holds a garfish after taking a fin clipping in Wilkinson County, Miss., on Thursday. The restoration efforts at Loch Leven, Miss., led by the nature Conservancy, supports the growth of alligator gar populations and demonstrates the importance of floodplain habitats in the ecosystem’s health.
Alligator gar, once called ‘trash fish,’ now signal a healthy ecosystem on the Mississippi River BY ALEX LUBBEN
Staff writer
LOCH LEVEN, Miss. — A cast net spread out like a spiderweb over murky waters, hung for a moment and dropped. Charles Vaughan hauled it in and found what he’d traveled 1,000 miles for: a baby fish. The alligator gar was already more than a foot long at about 2 months old, armored in hard scales with a pointed snout full of sharp teeth. The species can live for a century and grow to more than 7 feet long. “They’ve got super fast growth rates,” said Solomon David, a professor of aquatic ecology at the University of Minnesota who calls himself “the gar guy.” Under the right conditions, these fish can grow to over 2 feet long within a year. “The right conditions are basically like here,” David said. The alligator gar is what a team of researchers — Vaughan and David, along
ä See SOFTWARE, page 5A
The narrows and the Mississippi River are seen in Wilkinson County, Miss., as scientist Solomon david and his team of students collect gar on Thursday. with Gabby Gonzales and Luxi Feyereisen, all with the University of Minnesota system — spent a hot morning in July wading through the shallow waters at Loch Leven to find. And they found one, a sign that a restoration effort here is working.
At Loch Leven, a 6,000acre former farm surrounded by a levee built before the Civil War, the Nature Conservancy led a project to reconnect the waters of the Mississippi River with part of its natural floodplain, or the land that the river once flooded.
Centuries ago, the river ran through here. In 1776, it cut off the bend, leaving behind an oxbow lake — Lake Mary, which curves in a horseshoe around the property. The river kept flooding this land until the
ä See SUCCESS, page 4A
Israel says it has serious unease with Hamas disarmament Trump announces U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement
BY SAM MEDNICK Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel has shared “serious security concerns” with the White House regarding the proposed disarmament deal with Hamas, an Israeli official said as Israeli strikes overnight and into
WEATHER HIGH 94 LOW 72 PAGE 10C
With a new school year about to start, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system is gambling on new bus routing software that promises to find children and get them to school more accurately and efficiently. It’s a promise school officials heard before, and it doesn’t always come true. “A lot of times companies present something to you, and you try it, and it doesn’t do what they say,” said Transportation Director Rob Howle. The new software will get its first full test Thursday when the district’s 400-plus buses hit the road for the start of the 2026-27 school year. In 2023, East Baton Rouge purchased modern routing software from Denver-based TripSpark, but it failed to work as advertised. School officials ended up shelving it late that summer and reverted to the district’s old routing software just days before the start of school. Student transportation cratered that year, a crisis that dragged for weeks. A severe shortage of bus drivers was the biggest problem, but confusion over bus routes added to opening-ofschool confusion and exacerbated the crisis. A month into the school year, the Transportation Department quickly purchased yet another software package, this time from Canadian-based BusPlanner Inc. The district stuck with BusPlanner for the next three years even though the software often proved cumbersome and required special workarounds. Inputting and updating routes took years to complete. In a May 2025 report, an outside consulting firm found lots of out-of-whack bus routes, especially in special education. One issue is that BusPlanner could not easily sync up with JCampus, East Baton Rouge’s enrollment software.
Sunday evening killed at least 17 people, military would not withdraw from Gaza including children, in Gaza. — where it controls more than 60% of The remarks by Doron Spielthe territory — before Hamas ONFLICT disarms. man, spokesperson for Israeli CO Prime Minister Benjamin Ne- In THE “Our assessment is that if we T redeploy before Hamas is truly tanyahu’s office, were some of MIIDDLE disarmed, it will quickly expand the first public comments since EAST AST its presence throughout Gaza, rePresident Donald Trump announced the agreement. build its terrorist infrastructure, Spielman told The Associated Press once again threaten Israeli communities, that Israel’s intelligence assessment is and seek to carry out another Oct. 7-style that Hamas remains committed to re- attack,” he said, referring to the Hamas building its military rather than genuä See CONCERNS, page 5A inely demilitarizing. He said the Israeli
Challenge to new BR judge maps lingers Qualifying for elections begins this week
BY QUINN COFFMAN Staff writer
Several hopeful Baton Rouge attorneys and a handful of sitting commissioners will have the opportunity this week to register to run for one of the 15 judgeships up for election in November. Those seats were recently divided by the state Legislature into two new election “subdistricts,” with seven judge races in each subdistrict and one parishwide race. H H H H H H But as the WednesdayFriday qualifying window nears, a legal challenge to those newly drawn subdistricts is still in federal court and likely won’t see a ruling for months. The challenge came from three sitting Baton Rouge judges who sued the state on the grounds the new maps removed a majority-Black subdistrict and thus violated a federal judge’s 1990 order. Meanwhile, judge candidate Vernon Thomas is sending out mailers educating voters that this
Classified .....................6C deaths .........................7A nation-World................2A Comics-Puzzles .....3C-5C Living............................1C opinion ........................8A Commentary ................9A Metro ...........................6A Sports ..........................1B
ELECTION
ä See CHALLENGE, page 5A
102nd yEAR, no. 34