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Film Students return to class with features Ten Commandments displayed music archive at UL Local, global artists highlighted in ‘dry Bones’

BY JOANNA BROWN

Staff writer

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

A new Louisiana law requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. A conservative group donated posters like the one pictured to every school system.

Most schools have complied; some teachers say they’re resisting

BY PATRICK WALL, ELYSE CARMOSINO and MARIE FAZIO Staff writers

Swept up in the back-to-school bustle, Sadeel Abed didn’t notice the glossy new posters until a student in her art class pointed one out. It featured a photo of a monument bearing the Ten Commandments in Gothic script.

Earlier this year, a federal appeals court cleared a Louisiana law requiring public schools and colleges to post the Biblical text in every classroom. When Abed and her peers returned from summer break to their Jefferson Parish high school last week, they found the Ten Commandments on display alongside the usual whiteboards,

world maps and American flags.

“Some kids have noticed, and they’re not happy about it,” said Abed, a senior at West Jefferson High School.

That’s one classroom, in one district. In others, district leaders say things have passed without much interest at all. In Bossier Parish, Superintendent Jason Rowland said the rollout was smooth.

“It’s just not an issue,” he said, “and we’re not going to make one out of it.”

The posters have been a long time coming.

The Republican-controlled state Legislature passed the Ten Commandments law in 2024, but it was paused after a group of public-school parents sued, arguing that the displays violated their children’s reli-

gious freedom. A federal judge declared the law unconstitutional, but in February the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s ruling.

The appeals court said the legal challenge was premature because it came before the law was enacted, leaving the door open for future lawsuits by parents and civil liberties groups now that the displays are going up.

But for now, the law has taken effect.

Some school systems quickly put up the posters. Others remained wary. But Gov. Jeff Landry directed districts to comply, arguing that students will “greatly benefit” from seeing the posters in school.

ä See DISPLAY, page 5A

What happens when you set a bunch of musicians loose in the world’s largest archive of Cajun and Creole music and folklife recordings?

You get moments when Louisiana music history becomes something new — like getting to see Nathan Williams’ family (of Nathan Williams and the Zydeco Cha Chas) re-record a song originally written by Williams’ uncle, Creole blues musician Harry Hyppolite.

The filmmakers behind Louisiana music documentary “Roots of Fire” are premiering a new project this fall called “Dry Bones” — a documentary series that follows musicians from Louisiana, Canada, the United States and Europe as they uncover gems from the Cajun and Creole Folklore Archives at UL Lafayette’s Center for Louisiana Studies.

“I was always fascinated, because you never knew what an artist was going to pick, or what they would find in the archives. It said a lot about their particular personalities and interests,” said filmmaker Jeremey Lavoi.

The series has plenty of local connections. In the first episode, influential Louisiana artists Cedric Watson and Tiffany Lamson, of The Givers, bring their musical worlds together.

Prominent artists like Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, Kelli Jones and Megan Constantin, and Joel Savoy and Linzay Young feature in other episodes, digging

ä See FILM, page 5A

Kushner has rare meeting with Hamas leader in Egypt Talks also set with Netanyahu

BY SAMY MAGDY, JULIA FRANKEL and CARA ANNA Associated Press

CAIRO — U.S. negotiator and President Donald Trump‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner held a rare meeting with the Hamas chief on Sunday in a new diplomatic effort to make

WEATHER HIGH 96 LOW 78 PAGE 10C

progress in the stalled Gaza ceasefire. Kushner will meet on Monday with Israel’s prime minister, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, U.S.backed road map.

The talks aim to Kushner salvage the plan for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian ter-

ritory shattered by war.

At stake are the lives of some 2 million people in Gaza and reconstruction of the crowded enclave now largely controlled by Israeli forces, more than 10 months since the ceasefire ended major military operations. A meeting between Kushner, fellow envoy Steve Witkoff and Hamas leaders in Egypt last year helped clinch the ceasefire, whose progress until now had been stalled over the key issue of

Hamas’ disarmament.

The more than two-hour meeting in Egypt with Hamas’ Khalil alHayya was confirmed by a regional official and a Hamas official, both speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Kushner was one of a trio of envoys meeting with al-Hayya, with officials from mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and Turkey also there.

Hamas in a statement later

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called on mediators and the U.S.created Board of Peace overseeing the ceasefire to “compel” Israel to approve the road map for next steps.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week rejected the 15-point plan in a rare public show of defiance against the Trump administration, Israel’s closest ally.

Kushner, former British Prime

ä See MEETING, page 5A

102Nd yEAR, NO. 48

2A ● Monday,August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

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FROM WIRE REPORTS

Trump orders Pentagon to scale back exercises

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon on Sunday to scale back planned joint military exercises with South Korea after the Republican president said South Korea declined to help denuclearize Iran.

Trump said in a social media post that the exercises slated to begin this week are costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, which he said “has been unthreatening and respectful” while Trump has been in the White House.

“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump wrote.

The 11 days of exercises involving 18,000 South Korean soldiers were designed to beef up readiness against North Korean threats.

U.S. and South Korean forces were expected to practice joint operations in complex scenarios, including a live-fire exercise to test joint precision targeting and maneuver, a wet gap crossing, and distribution of prepositioned military equipment, according to the U.S. military.

Nearly 300 trying to reach Ceuta arrested CASABLANCA, Morocco — Hundreds of migrants trying to reach the Spanish exclave of Ceuta by land and sea were arrested by Moroccan security forces, Moroccan state television reported Sunday, as authorities tightened security along the border following calls for a new mass crossing.

Moroccan state broadcaster Medi 1 TV said 294 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were arrested Saturday while attempting to enter Ceuta. Authorities also arrested 61 Moroccans accused of facilitating the migration attempts, the broadcaster reported.

The attempted crossings followed a surge in social media posts calling on migrants to make their way to Ceuta, a Spanish city on Morocco’s northern coast. In response, Moroccan and Spanish authorities beefed up security presence and limited movement toward the area.

The latest attempt comes two weeks after tens of thousands of would-be migrants, driven by poverty and misinformation, rushed toward Ceuta in one of the deadliest migration crises to hit the region. At least 90 people died on both sides of the border, according to official numbers, while human rights groups reported higher figures.

A senior Moroccan diplomat previously said that more than 20,000 Moroccan security personnel are deployed along the border with Ceuta each day, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. The diplomat was not authorized to be publicly named speaking about the issue and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Zimbabwe ferry disaster toll rises above 80 HARARE, Zimbabwe — Authorities on Sunday searched for more bodies from an over loaded ferry that capsized on Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe last week as the death toll in the disaster rose to more than 80 people.

The ferry capsized in strong waves on Tuesday. Police on Sunday said the death toll had risen to 84, from 72 the previous day as more bodies were recovered. Zimbabwe’s disaster management agency has said 77 people were rescued.

Estimates had put the number of passengers as high as 153 on a ferry authorized to carry 90 people, but the latest official figures now suggest the number of passengers could be even higher.

The aging ferry was traveling from the town of Kariba to rural and fishing communities in the country’s northwest, where roads are damaged and public transportation is scarce.

Among the dead are 18 children, with the youngest just 1 year old. According to police, 16 of the victims were aged 10 or younger.

Kariba is the world’s largest manmade lake by volume, created by damming the mighty Zambezi River.

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Ukraine launches large aerial attack Hundreds of drones deployed across Russia, killing at least 6

By The Associated Press Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia on Sunday, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war.

Kyiv has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones targeting military industries and energy facilities. It has also increasingly pummeled giant Wildberries depots, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise belonging to the Russian online retail giant.

Those attacks have brought the war home to the Russian public nearly 41/2 years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine also came under Russian attack, with drone strikes destroying homes and torching Kyiv’s landmark book market.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Some 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third of those destroyed over the Moscow region itself.

An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, local Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said. He also confirmed that a Ukrainian attack had

sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk.

A drone attack targeted three towns in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, local Gov. Yury Slyusar said.

The attack, with more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and sparked a forest fire.

Russian strikes kill 5 A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media Sunday. He also said that one more person had been killed in the city of Sumy.

ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest steel producer, confirmed that one of its sites had been hit in a missile attack and that operations had been partially suspended.

Elsewhere, a man and a woman died when their home was hit by a Russian strike in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, said Ivan Fedorov, the head of the local military administration.

Russian attacks also sparked fires throughout the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, wounding six people. A blaze took hold at one of the city’s largest book markets, tearing through kiosks huddled close to the Po-

ASSOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By FRANCISCO SECO

Firefighters try to put out a fire at a city book market following a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, early Sunday. chaina metro station. Firefighters fought back the flames, which sent plumes of black smoke across the capital, and picked their way through rubble where the market’s crowded pavilions once stood.

“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that it had targeted a metallurgical plant in Kryvyi Rih and several military-industrial sites in Kyiv, including a manufacturing facility for Ukraine’s Flamingo missiles.

The domestically produced missiles are increasingly key to Ukraine’s long-

range attacks on Russia, with Zelenskyy announcing Saturday that Kyiv had used the weapons to attack a rocket research and production center in Samara approximately 560 miles from the Ukrainian border.

NATO jet downs drone Romania’s Ministry of National Defense said Sunday that a Spanish Air and Space Force F-18 fighter jet shot down a drone that had entered Romanian airspace.

The drone’s entry into the NATO member’s airspace was detected by surveillance systems at 4:44 a.m., the ministry said, about 14.9 miles north of the eastern city of Galati near the border with neighbor-

ing Moldova. Moldova is a landlocked country between Ukraine and Romania.

A Spanish F-18 aircraft that was performing air policing duties “made radar contact with the target and received engagement approval,” the ministry said.

The ministry later said that drone debris was also reported in the Black Sea around 10 a.m. on Sunday, about 0.9 miles from the coastal city of Constanta.

However, Moldova’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that its Army surveillance systems had detected a Geran-type Shahed drone in Moldovan airspace, which entered from Ukraine and exited toward Romania.

Rescuers in Indonesia recover 6 more bodies

BY FIRDIA LISNAWATI Associated Press

RUTENG, Indonesia — Rescue teams in eastern Indonesia recovered six more bodies Sunday, a day after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake, raising the death toll to 53, authorities said, as thousands of displaced people spent the night outdoors in fear of aftershocks.

Rescuers dug through debris looking for anyone buried beneath landslides triggered by the quake across six regencies on Flores, a predominantly Catholic island in the Muslim-majority country.

They focused on three regencies that remained inaccessible: hardest-hit Manggarai, East Manggarai and Nagekeo.

“We have cleared most landslides and reopened roads to previously isolated villages, although communication disruptions and power outages continue to hamper search efforts,” said Fathur Rahman, head of the searchand-rescue office in Maumere, the capital of Sikka regency.

ASSOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By AQUILA HANdAyANI ABBAS

A man checks his phone near a building collapsed because of an earthquake in Reok, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, on Sunday.

More than 900 homes were destroyed and 450 more damaged in East Nusa Tenggara province, forcing about 5,000 people into temporary shelters. At least 241 homes were damaged in the Flores region alone, said Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency’s chief for disaster prevention.

The quake occurred at a depth of 6 miles shortly before 6 a.m. Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Residents fled

in panic as tsunami warnings were issued and later lifted.

Authorities have since recorded at least 995 aftershocks, but only 46 were felt by residents, said Abdul Muhari, the National Disaster Management Agency’s chief for disaster prevention, adding that 135 people were injured.

Many residents at Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo National Park, one of Indonesia’s best-

Police looking for additional people in Va. college shooting

By The Associated Press ETTRICK, Va. — Authorities were seeking additional people who fired weapons during a shooting at Virginia State University that left five people wounded, police said Sunday, as a 19-year-old suspect remained in custody and investigators sought to unravel what happened.

Investigators were trying to determine what led to Saturday’s shooting and if the others who fired did so in self-defense or if they were among the aggressors, said Lt. James Lamb, commander of the Chesterfield County Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit. He did not say how many others fired weapons.

“We don’t have specific locations that we are looking (at) yet as we are working on identifying them,” Lamb said in an email response to questions from The Associated Press.

The shooting, at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, prompted a campus lockdown and came as students were getting ready for the new school year. It happened near

the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers found five people with gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories.

A suspect was found in a dormitory closet and arrested more than 14 hours after the shooting — and several hours after university officials already had lifted a campus lockdown, saying that law enforcement did not believe there was an immediate threat.

Camron Harris, 19, of Henrico, Virginia, was being held without bond in the Chesterfield County jail. He is due in state court Monday to face four counts of malicious wounding and four counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony.

It could not be immediately determined if Harris has an attorney who could speak on his behalf, and efforts to reach his family by phone were unsuccessful.

The victims ranged in age from 17 to 23 and only one of them was a student at the university, according to police. Harris was not a student, police said.

known tourist destinations, spent the night outside because of the aftershocks.

“The shaking was terrifying, so intense that my house nearly collapsed,” said Anastasia Imad, a farmer, speaking from a makeshift green tent beside her damaged home. “We feared the aftershocks would bring it down on us while we slept.”

Landslides blocked sections of the Trans-Flores Highway, a roughly 435mile road linking communities across the mountainous island.

Meanwhile, relief workers distributed rice, readyto-eat meals, drinking water, blankets and medicine, while emergency shelters were set up for displaced residents.

Authorities said restoring electricity and communications, as well as delivering aid to remote villages isolated by landslides, were among the biggest challenges.

Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

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At least 7 have died in Indiana flooding

BY PHILIP MARCELO and OBED LAMY Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS — Days of storms and flooding in Indiana left at least seven people dead as floodwaters receded in Indianapolis’ White River and rains eased in other parts of the state Sunday.

Frank Gounder was among the Indianapolis residents assessing the damage Sunday, which also happened to be his 37th birthday.

The furniture maker, who lives on the city’s hard-hit northside, less than a mile from the White River, had been at home as floodwaters crept up his driveway until they were about 2 feet deep in the house and his workshop.

Now Gounder is left to pick through waterlogged materials and handmade furniture in various stages of completion to see what, if anything, could be salvaged.

“It’s a lot. Before the water had actually gotten into my house and I saw that it was going to happen, I started freaking out, getting mad,” he said. “But after you realize you can’t do anything about it, you kind of just have to let go and just continue, or else you’re just going to be miserable.”

Storm victims mourned A 4-year-old boy, three men and three women were among those who had died since the storms began Aug. 11, said Liz Woods, a spokesperson for the state Department of Homeland Security.

Among the latest confirmed victims was a 31-year-old cyclist found dead early Sunday in a hole that opened up on a washed-out road in Henry County, east of Indianapolis. Henry County Coroner Brian Clark said the man, James Briar, appears to have gone around a barricade and fallen into the collapsed road.

Officials in Jennings County, in the southern end of the state, said the youngest victim reported so far was killed Tuesday when a tree crashed through his bedroom during strong winds.

“This is obviously unexpected,” Cody Low, chief deputy at the Jennings County Sheriff’s Office, told the local ABC affiliate. “There’s nothing we can say that is going to make it any better. We’re going to push through this as a community.”

The other victims included a 19-year-old man whose body was recovered Saturday. Officials in Delaware County, east of Indianapolis, said Matthew Morey had jumped off a bridge into the rushing waters of the Mississinewa River with friends three days earlier.

Family and friends gathered earlier in the week at the bridge to remember the recent high school graduate, who was headed to Purdue University, and warn of the dangers of swollen rivers.

“There are no words that can ease the pain of losing a child,” Delaware County Sheriff Tony Skinner said in a statement on Sunday. “Our hearts are with Matthew’s family,

commissioners, said during a Sunday briefing. “It’s not raining, and the water is receding.”

She said the county, located just north of Indianapolis, escaped without any loss of life, though officials were assessing whether a significant bridge damaged in the flooding could be repaired or if it needed to be completely replaced.

Nearly 130,000 utility customers statewide remained without power as of late Sunday, down from a peak of around 300,000, according to the online utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

Storms brought historic flooding ASSOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By OBEd LAMy

Frank Gounder sits in his flooded backyard, where his woodshop was also damaged by floodwaters, Sunday in Indianapolis. friends, classmates, and everyone who knew and loved him.”

Skinner’s office also confirmed Stephanie Sallee and her dog were found dead in a cornfield Friday, not far from Sallee’s car. They believe the 58-year-old had been driving on a flooded road when the vehicle was swept away.

In social media posts, Sallee’s family remembered her as a sweet, kind and “spunky lady” who adored her grandchildren and other young relatives.

morning before receding, the city Department of Public Works said.

The agency reopened city floodgates Sunday, though they urged residents to be cautious as they returned to flood-damaged neighborhoods. Emergency shelters remained open after hundreds of homes along the river and its canals were evacuated. First responders used boats to rescue people stranded by rapidly rising floodwaters.

Recovery efforts were also underway elsewhere in the state.

Recovery efforts are underway “I must admit it is a good mornIn Indianapolis, flooding from the ing,” Christine Altman, president White River peaked early Sunday of the Hamilton County board of

Heavy rains hammered Indiana over the past week, causing rivers to crest and setting records as roads and bridges were seriously damaged or washed out entirely by the rushing waters.

The White River crested at more than 24 feet in the communities of Anderson and Noblesville, surpassing records set in 1913.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said the flooding was the worst the city has seen in more than 30 years.

President Donald Trump on Saturday approved Braun’s request for federal disaster assistance to help with flooding response and recovery efforts.

The drenching rains and destructive flooding were among the impacts of severe storms that have wreaked havoc across the Midwest and beyond in recent days.

Wildfires rage in Belgium, Greece

BY SYLVIE CORBET and AHMAD SEIR NASSIRI Associated Press

BY ALEXA ST. JOHN and ED WHITE Associated Press

The blaze now torching Belgium has far surpassed a 2011 fire that burned nearly 5.4 square miles in the same area and was previously the country’s largest wildfire on record, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System.

Nicolas Yernaux, a spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia, said conditions were much worse this time.

“We’re dealing with something much deeper because we have very dry soil,” he said.

René Dahmen, chief engineer at the Department of Nature and Forest, said 2 killed as fires break out on island the fire was still spreading Sunday in In Greece, two people were killed an area that was difficult for crews to in a wildfire Sunday on the island of reach.

Interior Minister Bernard Quintin Salamina, west of Athens, Greek firesaid on X firefighters managed to keep fighters said.

Liechtenstein to allow women to inherit the throne

BY GEIR MOULSON

dest son, who is now 58. ing prince has the power to European country to grant Liechtenstein, a wealthy veto referendum results, women the right to vote in nation of 40,000 people that appoint judges and fire the national elections. Male votBERLIN — Liechtenstein’s borders Switzerland and government. ers narrowly approved the The principality is tradi- change, which Hans-Adam royal house said on Satur- Austria, has an unusually day that the tiny country’s powerful monarchy by Eu- tionally conservative and had backed, in a referenrules of succession will be ropean standards. The rul- in 1984 became the last dum. changed so that a woman could in the future inherit the principality’s throne.

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A statement from the princely house specified that the change will only apply to Before LeafFilter After LeafFilter descendants of the children of Alois and his wife, Hereditary Princess Sophie, who Save up-to* + Free gutter inspection, quote are born in the future — so it good for 1 year Promo code: 285 won’t affect the line of succession for now.

Prince Hans-Adam II re*Promotional offer includes 25% off plus an additional 10% off for qualified veterans and/or seniors. Cannot be combined with other offers. See representative for full warranty details. AR 366920925, AZ ROC mains the head of state, but 344027, CA 1035795, CT HIC.0671520, DC 4.20223E+11, FL CBC056678, IA C127230, ID RCE-51604, LA 559544, MA 213292, MD MHIC111225, HIC164488, MI 262300331, 262300330, 262300329, 262300328, 262300318, 262300173, MN IR810524, MT 2661922, ND 47304, NE 50145-24, 50145-23, NJ 13VH13285000, NM 408693, NV 86990, OR 218294, PA PA179643, RI GC-41354, TN 10981, UT 10783658-5501, VA in 2004 handed over most of 2705169445, VT 174.0000871, WA LEAFFLH-763PG, WI No. 537-DCFRR WV WV056912. Promotion exp: 8/31/2026. his powers to Alois, his elAssociated Press

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Hurricane Lala weakened to a tropical storm on Sunday after its eyewall skirted Hawaii without making landfall, but it continued to punish the state with hurricane-force gusts and pounding rain, reaching a total of nearly 3 feet in places and sending raging torrents down mountainsides.

A search and rescue mission including Civil Defense, the National Guard and a Coast Guard helicopter was launched after flash floods apparently swept several occupied homes off their foundations in the coastal communities of Na’alehu and Wai’ohinu, near the Big Island’s southern tip, authorities said.

“What makes this very challenging is that there’s rushing water, there’s debris, and there’s boulders on the road and it’s dark,” Hawaii County Mayor Kimo Alameda said Sunday.

At least one person died in a vehicle wreck in the South Point area of the Big Island, Gov. Josh Green said Saturday.

Honolulu was bearing the brunt of Sunday morning’s weather as tropical storm conditions spread westward across the island chain. Honolulu Fire Department had launched dozens of weather-related responses by 2 a.m. Sunday, including 58 reports of downed trees, 39 blown roofs, 12 downed power lines, 12 arcing-wire situations and one swimmer rescue, according to a statement from the city.

Much of the state remained under a flash flood warning, though the Big

Island was downgraded to a flood advisory Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. Heavy rain, mudslides, downed trees, active flooding and downed power lines were among the biggest threats, weather service meteorologist Stephen Parker said.

“Basically, the best thing to do right now is just stay home for a bit longer,” he said. “The storm won’t last forever and once those kind of threats get cleaned up, it will be safe to be out and about again.”

Fewer than 60,000 homes and businesses were without power by 9:30 a.m., down from more than 200,000 just a few hours earlier, according to the utility tracker poweroutage.us. At least three hospitals were operating on generator power, the governor said.

Powerful waves pounded the Big Island’s coast as Lala slowly passed by.

Just missing landfall, the eyewall didn’t weaken, and its winds pounded the mountainsides. Waterways swelled with fast-moving runoff as bands of rain blew nearly sideways.

Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the islands of Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Oahu, Kauai and Niihau, raising the possibility of destructive flooding and even wildfires kicked up by strong winds on the drier sides of the islands.

The heaviest rain Sunday morning was falling on Lanai, Moloka’i and Oahu, while the highest winds were gusts over 100 mph at the towering Mauna Kea volcano on the Big Island, Parker said.

Forecasters expect Lala to regain hurricane strength midweek.

Dry conditions fuel Belgium wildfire

In France, firefighters battling a wildfire in a pine forest in the southwestern Landes region faced no major flare-ups overnight, Landes Prefect Gilles Clavreul said. Authorities estimated the total area burned at 6.6 square miles, while about 650 people had been evacuated from their homes.

It was the third major wildfire in the vast pine forests of southwestern France this summer, following two others in late July. A massive wildfire in the neighboring Gironde department burned about 162 square miles and forced the evacuation of about 220,000 people as it spread toward the Atlantic coast and the Bordeaux area.

In the U.K., emergency crews were fighting 14 wildfires in South Wales with the support of military personnel.

Authorities warned that although the heat wave is easing, drought conditions mean the risk of wildfires remains high.

Fires gutted more than a dozen homes in the West Midlands in central England this week as officials recorded the hottest day of the year on Thursday, when temperatures reached 100.6.

e

Lala a tropical storm again as it skirts Hawaii

Wildfires burn in France and U.K.

al

Water levels rise under the Wainaku Street Bridge in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii on Saturday.

the fire from spreading toward the west and toward the German town of Monschau.

In Germany, local authorities warned Sunday that the fire was just under a mile from the border.

Belgium was hit by another spell of intense heat this week, with temperatures reaching about 98.6 in parts of the country Friday.

S

HONOLULU CIVIL BEAT PHOTO By TAyLOR COZLOFF

BAELEN, Belgium — Firefighters battled a massive wildfire that scorched a nature reserve in eastern Belgium and another on a Greek island near Athens where two people were killed on Sunday as hot and dry conditions fueled fires across parts of Europe.

A blaze in eastern Belgium burned about 12 square miles in the High Fens, a large nature reserve, in one of the country’s worst wildfires in recent history.

About 600 residents in the nearby municipalities of Waimes and Bütgenbach, in Liège province near the German border, were told to evacuate on Saturday as winds shifted and smoke spread through the area. Authorities also advised tourists to leave, while a nearby gymnasium was opened to receive evacuees.

Liège provincial governor Hervé Jamar said in a statement Sunday that more than 250 emergency personnel have been deployed, including over 100 Belgian and German firefighters, as well as police and military officers and civil protection staff. Firefighting helicopters operated by Belgium’s federal police and the Netherlands also helped.

The bodies were recovered in the village of Peristeria, where strong winds fueled the rapidly spreading blaze. A second blaze was reported in the Selini area. Firefighting and coast guard vessels evacuated some 500 beachgoers in the area.

Some 260 firefighters were responding to the blazes, including 15 ground teams, 10 aircraft and eight helicopters.

The island had been placed at high wildfire risk on Sunday, with near gale-force winds. “These conditions enabled the fire to quickly reach dangerous proportions and spread rapidly within seven minutes toward nearby residential areas,” said Fire Brigadier General Vasileios Vathrakogiannis.

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With Trump, the buck stops somewhere else President tends to avoid blame when things go awry

BY WILL WEISSERT

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — It is among the most famous phrases in presidential history: “The buck stops here.” Except with President Donald Trump, it almost never does.

Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, Joe Biden, saddled him with that, he says, even though the Democrat has been out of office for 18-plus months and despite Trump once promising an immediate turnaround.

The problem-plagued revamp of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? That was marred by vandalism, the Republican president insists, even though the office of a prosecutor he put in the job has said the damage was due to shoddy workmanship.

The increasingly unpopular war in Iran that has kept oil prices high, Trump’s approval rating low and sent shock waves through the global economy? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered nearly 50 years of opportunities to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Pithy slogans aside, all modern Trump presidents shift responsibility onto others to some degree, frequently blaming the commander-in-chief who preceded them, Congress — or both. But Trump has taken it to a new level, effectively embracing a de facto political strategy of being in charge of everything but responsible for nothing when things go badly.

“Taking responsibility being a characteristic of presidential leadership — or any kind of leadership — is absolutely true,” said Nicole Anslover, a history professor at Florida Atlantic University and author of “Harry S. Truman: The Coming of the Cold War.” Trump’s tendency to point fingers at others is increasingly in the spotlight before November’s

ASSOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By RAHMAT GUL

National Park Service employees work July 29 at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington. midterm elections, when Republicans are trying to retain control of Congress. His unwillingness to accept blame sometimes leads him to deny that there are problems at all, and could leave GOP leaders in tight races with little reassurance for voters that their concerns are being addressed.

The White House c o u n t e r s t h a t Truman Trump is working to correct long-festering challenges, not simply throwing up his hands and ignoring them.

The president is “rightfully addressing the failures of his predecessors while taking action to deliver big wins for the American people,” spokesperson Taylor Rogers said, pointing to a series of policies that she said Republicans can run on, including tax cuts, efforts to lower prescription drug prices, cracking down on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border, increasing domestic energy production and a strong stock market.

as president. That came from “pass the buck,” which, according to Truman’s presidential library, dates to frontier times, when poker players would pass a buckhorn handle knife to the person whose turn it was to deal the cards.

“The president, whoever he is, has to decide,” Truman said during his farewell address in 1953. “He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”

The understanding of the phrase has broadened over the years to include taking responsibility for the outcome of tough decisions. Trump used to espouse similar beliefs, saying back in 2013 that in running a business, “Whatever happens, you’re responsible. If it doesn’t happen, you’re responsible.”

Accepting the 2016 presidential nomination, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.”

But as president, he has often suggested that the solution and blame rest elsewhere.

“The buck stops with everybody,” Trump said in 2019, during a lengthy government shutdown. In Ducking responsibility 2020, on the same day he declared Truman famously kept a “The the coronavirus pandemic a naBuck Stops Here” sign on his desk tional emergency, he said, “I don’t

take responsibility at all” for a lack of COVID-19 testing.

Anslover said Truman took full responsibility for dropping atomic bombs on Japan even though he was not informed that the U.S. was developing such weapons until his predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died.

John F. Kennedy saw his approval ratings rise after he acknowledged he was to blame for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. Ronald Reagan said he was sorry for any involvement he may have had in the Iran-Contra scandal even while saying he wasn’t sure he was to blame. “The buck stops here with me,” he said then.

Presidents before Trump “really usually take accountability,” Anslover said.

‘Inherited a total catastrophe’ The president acknowledged in a recent Punchbowl interview that voters are angry, but he said they are not mad at him but at congressional Republicans.

Trump believes his party can hold its congressional majorities after November, but he was clear that if Republicans lose, it won’t be his fault — echoing his comments before the 2018 midterms that he

would not accept blame if his party lost control of the House, which it did.

Trump’s approval rating on the economy, once seen as among his strongest issues, has fallen throughout his time in office, from 40% in March 2025 to 32% in July, according to Associated PressNORC Center for Public Affairs Research polling. About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump’s economic policies have made economic conditions worse, according to Pew Research Center polling.

Trump instead points to Biden, under whom inflation hit a fourdecade peak of 9.1% in 2022 as the pandemic was still roiling the world economy, before declining to 2.7% by November 2024. Last month, pressured by the Iran war, it was 3.4%.

“When we took office, we inherited a total catastrophe,” Trump said at a recent rally, later adding, “I inherited those high prices, just so you understand.”

Same pattern with Iran, pool The president has characterized the Iran war as “a little excursion” or “detour.” He frequently notes that U.S. wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan dragged on for years, though the Iran conflict — which he initially said would be over in four to five weeks — is now in its sixth month with no clear end in sight.

Trump has sought to shift blame to the past on the Reflecting Pool, falsely suggesting that Biden and Obama spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” trying unsuccessfully to fix it.

But Trump’s main defense has been vandalism. And, so far, at least four cases alleging that have been dropped because of a lack of evidence.

Anslover said that, after 11plus years in politics, Trump has proved he is not afraid to violate norms of presidential comportment. Lots of his core supporters do not seem bothered.

“For many Americans, it has either been a shift in how they view the presidency, or, like with so many things, they just feel empowered to say, ‘These are my priorities. My priority is not the facts,’ ” she said.

Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.

Democrats set 2028 presidential calendar Dems differ over when Democrats solidified Ne- ers are more progressive than they’re Schedule gives Black and chair, vada and South Carolina as early states given credit for” on policy but also “rebehind Iowa and New Hampshire. The alists” about what is possible.

Latino voters, union latest change is even better, he said.

“Living through Jim Crow and other “These states look more like the oppressive structures will force you to members early say

BY MIKE CATALINI and BILL BARROW

Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas — Democrats seeking the party’s presidential nomination in 2028 will need to prove themselves early on in states where Black and Latino voters and union members are key supporters, under an election-year calendar approved Saturday.

The primary lineup pushes Iowa from the traditional top spot and makes South Carolina the leadoff state, voting on Jan. 22, 2028, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia round out the early states, throughout February, according to the plan endorsed by the Democratic National Committee at its meeting in Texas.

DNC Chair Ken Martin said that to win the general election, “You have to be battle-tested in a way that you already have campaigned in front of and for the support of various communities throughout the country.” That is why the calendar designed by the party matters, he said in an interview.

Some potential candidates in what is expected to be a large field have visited early-voting states such as South Carolina. Party leaders have said the order give candidates the best shot at winning back the White House after Republican President Donald Trump’s second term.

“They have to show that they can go to the South and talk to Black voters and rural voters, as well as out west, talking ranching and mining issues, to a border state, to union members,” said party strategist Karen Finney, who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns. “Whoever survives will be battle-tested.”

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean, a onetime Vermont governor, recalled his tenure as national party

country,” as a whole, he said, “whereas Iowa and New Hampshire don’t.”

Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, said bypassing her state in the early going would sideline important voter voices and give a political edge to Republicans, who are expected to keep Iowa atop their calendar.

As the first-in-the-South primary, South Carolina was more decisive than Iowa and New Hampshire for nominees Barack Obama in 2008, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.

All three dominated among South Carolina’s large Black population, which can yield more than half the state’s Democratic primary electorate.

With Nevada and New Mexico following, that will require candidates to court more Latino voters early in the process.

Shifting from Iowa and New Hampshire does not mean little-known candidates cannot catch fire, as Pete Buttigieg did in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2020, when he was a 37-year-old former mayor. They just will not be able to do it with an almost entirely White audience.

There is disagreement over how Democrats’ split between progressives and mainstream liberals may or may not surface in the nominating calendar.

“I think our primary voters up north are probably a little different than primary voters in South Carolina,” said Boyd Brown, a former DNC member from South Carolina. “It’s not the woke ideologies that we just can’t get away from” in other places.

Nina Smith, a former Buttigieg adviser who now works closely with progressive causes, disagreed. Smith said Black South Carolinians, especially, have gravitated to more moderate candidates — twice rejecting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in favor of Clinton and Biden.

But, she said, “Southern Black vot-

be take that approach,” she said.

Smith said that with South Carolina leading off and many Southern states following on Super Tuesday soon after the early lineup concludes, progressives will have to take the time to listen and then tailor their messages.

“A lot of Black voters don’t necessarily see themselves in the ideas and arguments that progressives put forward,” she said.

Nevada has the service industry unions because of Las Vegas; Michigan has the auto industry and associated manufacturing support industries; Virginia is home to more federal workers than any other state. “Labor is still so important,” Dean said.

Beyond seeking the backing of organized labor, the campaigns and the party will look to unions for help in spreading Democrats’ message to voters and getting people to the polls.

Campaigns struggle to balance many demands such as meeting voters in person, raising money and the logistics of travel. As a result, places such as Nevada have gotten short shrift in the past because candidates, most from the eastern part of the country, have concluded the investment of time is not worth it.

An expanded calendar offers more clustering opportunities.

A swing to the West could hit two early states — Nevada and New Mexico — and include a fundraising stop in California, full of Democratic donors.

A South Carolina trip could mean fundraisers and public appearances in Atlanta, Charlotte and Raleigh, both in North Carolina. Virginia offers proximity to donors and national TV studios in Washington; the same options are available by adding a New York City stop on the way to New Hampshire.

Television ads and news coverage can spill over, as well. Markets targeting parts of South Carolina also reach portions of North Carolina and Georgia.

abolishing ICE or reforming agency

BY MIKE CATALINI Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas — Democrats on Saturday approved dueling messages on whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should be abolished or reformed, reflecting sharp opposition to President Donald Trump’s crackdown but revealing disagreement in the party ahead of the midterms.

The Democratic National Committee, gathered for a summer meeting, also signed off on a raft of policy positions, including one that calls for “concrete reforms” of ICE and another for abolishing the agency that’s been at the center of several fatal encounters.

ICE has been at the heart of a progressive rallying cry since 2018 during the first Trump administration, and has been renewed among some in the party after two recent fatal shootings by the agency in July.

Saturday’s vote isn’t binding and doesn’t set the party’s platform, which will be determined at the 2028 convention, but it reflects the party’s differing views on a major issue.

Michele Johnson, a DNC member from Louisiana who proposed the measure to abolish ICE, said it’s time for Democrats to take a stand and pointed to the dissolution of ICE’s predecessor agency, the Immi-

gration and Naturalization Service, as a precedent.

“I think one of the reasons why people are not trusting the party is because we sound so academic,” she said. “We sound focus group tested, we sound poll tested because we’re worried about saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing and not just like, just stand on business, like take a position.”

Yvonne Reeves-Chong voted against the measure, saying it would only gain support from a part of the party’s base, while drawing “fire” from another group of voters.

“I would strongly suggest we get to the business of winning races so we can make the policies that make a difference,” she said.

DNC Chair Ken Martin, who’s from Minnesota, where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot amid the immigration crackdown earlier this year, said in an interview that the takeaway is that Democrats find the administration’s handling of immigration, including by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, unacceptable.

“Clearly, the one thing that unites Democrats … is people believe that what ICE is doing right now — and CBP and the federal government — should stop,” he said. “There has to be a better way.”

BBC asks U.S. court for help in getting testimony from Trump family in defamation lawsuit

BY SYLVIA HUI

Associated Press LONDON — The BBC asked a U.S. court for help in getting documents and testimony from members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s family in connection with

his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the British broadcaster, a court document showed.

Lawyers for the BBC argued that Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump Jr. have “personal knowledge” and likely have records relevant to el-

ements of Trump’s claims against the broadcaster, according to a filing Friday in federal court in Florida.

The broadcaster has been unable to serve subpoenas because the three have Secret Service protection and other security personnel

around them, the filing says.

Trump filed the lawsuit in December seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing it of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices.

The allegations center on the way a 2024 documentary edited a speech

Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.”

The Acadiana Advocate ● theadvocate.com ● Monday, August 17, 2026 ● 5A

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MEETING

Continued from page 1A Minister Tony Blair and the Board of Peace director, Nickolay Mladenov, are to meet with Netanyahu on Monday, according to a source familiar with the plans and a diplomatic source. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting.

Several regional powers including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates issued a statement condemning Israel’s rejection of the road map, saying that “Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza.” Other signers included Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the ceasefire mediators.

The foreign ministers’ statement called on the Board of Peace and the U.S. to take “immediate and concrete measures” to keep any party from obstructing the plan’s implementation.

Kushner’s meeting with the Hamas leader aimed at ensuring the militant group’s commitment to the road map, particularly disarmament, before his meeting with Netanyahu, the regional official said.

The Hamas official said the group is committed and waiting for mediators to start the 14-day negotiation

FILM

Continued from page 1A through the archives and putting their own spin on what they find — but this series is also unique in who it brings in from the broader world.

Swedish musician Thor Ahlgren is fascinated by the relationship between Cajun music and European folk traditions, and he explores those links in his episode of “Dry Bones.” In another episode, native fiddler Nokosee Fields, who is from Stillwater, Oklahoma, brings his celebrated traditional style to the recordings. The series is about uncovering what makes Louisiana roots music special, while bringing its contemporary reso-

ASSOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By JEHAd ALSHRAFI

Palestinians remove iron from the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the war with Hamas to repair and recycle it for construction, building tents or selling it on Sunday in Gaza City. period to work out a timetable for implementation. That period requires all parties’ approval of the road map to begin.

The Hamas official also said the Hamas leader demanded that Israel halt its attacks on Gaza and withdraw to the so-called “yellow

line” dividing the territory before beginning implementation. The yellow line was never precisely defined.

Israeli forces have moved beyond it and now control about 60% of Gaza.

In May, Netanyahu said the next step was to move to 70% control, with Israel

“Dry Bones” with the Lavois.

“A lot of the musicians that came in, we were able to say, ‘Hey, do you know that you’re in the archive? Why don’t we watch some of the videos we have of you playing?’ We’ve had students come in over the years who have worked with recordings of their grandparents. It’s like having an attic, where you can store things that you don’t necessarily have room for in the living room of mainstream everyday culture.”

“Dry Bones” will premiere in Lafayette on Oct. 8 at Acadiana Center for the Arts, as part of the community programming lead-up to Festivals Acadiens et Créoles on Oct. 9-11 in Girard Park.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law in 1980, but in recent years the court’s conservative majority has been more open to religious displays in public spaces. Many legal observers expect the high court to eventually weigh in on Louisiana’s law or a nearly identical one in Texas, which the 5th Circuit recently upheld.

Louisiana’s statute requires the posters to include a statement explaining that some early American textbooks featured the Ten Commandments.

But teachers will have to navigate student questions about the commandments, including the prohibition on adultery and coveting a neighbor’s “manservant” or “maidservant.” Older students might ask how the

law squares with the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom.

Abed, the Jefferson Parish student, said students in her art class began discussing the poster as soon as they spotted it. Abed, who is Muslim, said she considers the display an endorsement of Christianity that doesn’t belong in public schools.

“Schools aren’t a place of worship,” she said, “so why do we have the Ten Commandments on every wall?”

Mills said the law is clear.

“Once the lawsuit was settled,” he said. “there was no longer any questions as to what the statute requires.”

Staff writer Charles Lussier contributed reporting.

Continued from page 1A

A low-key rollout Most of the Ten Commandments posters now hanging in Louisiana’s public schools came from the Louisiana Family Forum, an influential

Under the road map, Hamas would hand over weapons to the Palestinian technocratic committee meant to oversee daily operations in the territory. The committee has not yet entered Gaza. But Hamas has linked the surrender of its heaviest weapons to the cre-

nance to life in surprising ways, according to filmmakers Jeremey Lavoi and Abby Berendt Lavoi.

“In the Thor Ahlgren episode, it’s kind of a religious song,” Jeremey Lavoi said.

“You could tell he was very interested in Christian folk history, and how that translates across different countries and across an ocean.

He gravitated to that. Each selection really said something about the artist.”

The archive itself becomes a character in the series, with roughly 12,000 recordings and other materials dating to the 1920s.

“A lot of it is in Louisiana PROVIdEd PHOTO French, like Cajun and Louisiana Creole, but there’s also From left, Paul ‘Bird’ Edwards, Jourdan Thibodeaux, Tiffany ‘Teddy’ Lamson and Cedric other kinds of music that was Watson record for ‘dry Bones.’ recorded and that existed in Louisiana over the years. instrumental traditions, — that was here in Louisiana of the Center for Louisiana Older French songs, older American string band music too,” said Dr. Joshua Caffery, Studies, which produced

DISPLAY

The Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative group that says the Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of Western civilization that all students should be exposed to, donated some 55,000 posters. And state Attorney General Liz Murrill, whose office created poster templates and guidance, promised to defend the law against any additional challenges.

After attracting national media coverage and stoking a debate over religious liberty and church-state separation, the posters went up in most Louisiana classrooms without incident, according to school district officials and teachers. Some school systems sought to forestall controversy by installing the posters over the summer.

St. Tammany Parish Superintendent Jabbia said he had been “extremely nervous” about the rollout, adding that he wants students of all religious backgrounds to feel welcome in school. But he said he was relieved to find that students and staffers seem to have taken the posters in stride.

“I think everybody understands it’s a state law at this point,” he said, “and they’re just moving forward.”

Though the displays haven’t created an uproar in schools, they still upset some students and educators, who argue that the law promotes Christianity and restricts religious freedom.

A few teachers said they covered up the posters or took them down.

“tightening the grip” on Hamas “from every direction.”

The White House referred questions about Kushner’s meetings to the Board of Peace, which did not immediately comment. The Tony Blair Institute did not comment.

ation of a Palestinian state, something Israel’s current government rejects.

The road map involves Hamas gradually giving up its weapons while Israeli forces halt attacks and begin withdrawing from Gaza. But Netanyahu says Israel will not retreat from any position in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed.

That stance leaves other elements of the ceasefire, including reconstruction and the deployment of international forces to separate Israeli forces from committee-controlled areas, on hold.

Netanyahu faces a challenging election on Oct. 27 as he tries to hold on to power with a coalition that includes ministers taking a harsh line on Gaza, and it’s not clear whether he will take decisive steps on the ceasefire before then. Also coming up is the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that sparked the war.

Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday responded to the statement by regional powers by claiming that “Arab states want to topple” Netanyahu so that centrist challenger Gadi Eisenkot and center-left party leader Yair Golan “will give them everything they want. That will not happen.”

Collin Binkley in Washington and Sylvia Hui in London contributed.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

A copy of the Ten Commandments, similar to the one pictured, is required in Louisiana public school classrooms under a Louisiana state law. advocacy group that says it promotes biblical principles.

The organization spent nearly $100,000 in donated funds and in-kind contributions to print and deliver the posters to every public college and school system in the state, said Gene Mills, the group’s president. The nonprofit used the four poster designs created by Murrill’s office, including one with an image of Moses and a photo of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson alongside the Ten Commandments.

“Don’t kill or steal shouldn’t be controversial,” Murrill said in a prepared statement. “Louisiana public schools should follow the law.”

Some districts distributed the donated posters to schools this summer, along with instructions based on Murrill’s guidance.

The East Baton Rouge Parish school system told principals in a June memo to make sure the posters are “clearly visible to all students from their desks.”

The Jefferson Parish school district had principals sign a document verifying that they received the posters, which they were told to install in classrooms “before teachers arrive on campus.”

In St. Tammany Parish,

some School Board members objected to Murrill’s designs, particularly the one depicting Moses and Johnson. But while the board seeks other options, the district told schools to use the donated posters, said Jabbia.

Some resistance Some classrooms have yet to put up the posters, though it’s not clear that state or local officials are checking.

In New Orleans, the school district distributed the donated posters it received to more than 75 campuses, a NOLA Public Schools spokesperson said. Several charter school leaders said they hung up the posters, but a few said they are waiting on additional shipments.

Ja’Ryan Berryill, a senior at Edna Karr High School, said he is a person of faith who values the Ten Commandments, but he doesn’t think they should be in public school classrooms, arguing that “faith should be a personal choice.” One charter leader said their school had not put up the displays because it had not received tape or other mounting materials.

“I don’t know that this is a high priority for people,” said a New Orleans teacher who had not seen any of the

posters in her school.

The law does not specify penalties for noncompliance.

A spokesperson for Murrill said schools should follow the law, adding that the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is responsible for the law’s implementation. The board has added the Ten Commandments mandate to the policies schools must adhere to.

But a state Department of Education spokesperson said there is not a reporting requirement or an enforcement mechanism in either the law or the board policy.

Brant Osborn, president of the St. Tammany teachers union, said teachers still should comply.

“They’re not going to come lock you up,” he said. “But they might write you up.”

Email Joanna Brown at joanna.brown @theadvocate.com.

Email Patrick Wall at patrick.wall@theadvocate. com.

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Amtrak’s Mardi Gras line open a year Ridership numbers are high, but train faces questions over safety

BY MARTHA SANCHEZ Staff writer

The Amtrak route that carries hundreds of passengers a day between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama, is celebrating a year of extraordinary success and promise, even as its leaders confront growing questions of safety at rail crossings along the Gulf Coast.

The route, called the Mardi Gras Service, looks like a win. Since

trains began running last August, the line has more than doubled its ridership projections, boosted regional tourism and helped bring new signs of economic development to many cities where Amtrak now stops.

But the triumphs have been complicated by five deadly crashes, which have killed seven people.

All died crossing the tracks in cars, maneuvering around lowered gates at crossings or walking

along the rails as a train closed in.

The rising sense of both hope and peril is creating a test for Amtrak and its partners around the region, who say they are striving to prevent collisions and lure more passengers than ever.

“It’s been an exceptional first year,” Southern Rail Commission Chair Knox Ross said. But he added the commission — a group of regional leaders who push for more railways — will work with the Fed-

eral Railroad Administration over the next year to study how to lower crash risks.

“That’s just something we’ve got to try to solve,” he said.

It is also an urgent question around the country as train travel stages a comeback. Ridership is surging. Amtrak is expanding its fleet.

But many passengers say traveling by train on the Gulf Coast is unique.

“People are up and down and around and talking to each other,” said Kay Cox, a travel agent in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. She has taken more than 20 groups by train to New Orleans and has also become friends with the route’s crew and conductor.

“You’re not going to get on a train in New York City going to Long Island,” she said, “and have the same kind of social experience.”

The more than $200 million project took decades of persistence

ä See AMTRAK, page 4B

LAKE CHARLES

Four arrested in teen’s death

BY COURTNEY PEDERSEN Staff writer

A 15-year-old is facing a murder charge and three other youths have been arrested on weapons counts after another teen was shot during an altercation at a Lake Charles home and later died from his injuries.

Officers arrived at the scene of a reported shooting about 3:15 p.m. Aug. 4 in the 2400 block of Combre Street and found a 15-year-old boy with an apparent gunshot wound, according to news release from the Lake Charles Police Department. The officers performed lifesaving measures at the scene; the juvenile was taken to a hospital and later transferred to an out-oftown medical center, the release states.

On Tuesday, the boy died from his injuries.

Investigators said several people, including the victim, had been in a home on Combre Street where a short verbal disagreement occurred between the victim and another teen, according to the release. The other teen then produced a weapon and shot the victim, police said.

The suspect and three other youths left the residence on foot after the shooting, according to the release. Investigators determined the four who left were in possession of handguns, and they were able to identify the four juveniles, officials said.

On Wednesday, three 14- to 15-year-olds were arrested locally and booked on counts of possession of a firearm by a juvenile, according to officials.

The fourth suspect, 15, was arrested Thursday in Texas and booked on counts of second-degree murder and possession of a firearm by a juvenile, authorities said.

The investigation is ongoing, police said. Anyone with information is asked to call Lake Charles police at (337) 491-1311 or anonymously leave a tip on the Lake Charles Police Department app.

STAFF PHOTOS By BRAd KEMP

young fan Carter Malbrue, right, flashes a University of Louisiana at Lafayette hand sign Saturday after getting a ball signed by Trenton Chaney, left, with his father, Chase Malbrue, during UL Athletics Fan day at Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette.

FOR THE FANS ABOVE: Soccer player Ryan Fox signs a soccer ball.

RIGHT: Wide receiver Rahji dennis holds a signed poster.

Five Iron Golf planned for former cafe in Lake Charles Owners say indoor facility will have simulators, bars, restaurant

der, and his family decided that they wanted to bring another business to their hometown.

“Both of my sons came up with different versions of the golf stuff, and we knew that Lake Charles probably wasn’t big enough to support a Top Golf, so we started to look at different things, and Five

BY COURTNEY PEDERSEN Iron Golf is out of New York,” BenStaff writer oit said. “Their corporate headLake Charles will soon be home quarters are out of New York.

They have five or six locations in to an indoor golf and sports bar.

After spending time visiting Manhattan, and so it was kind of New York City while his daughter like our family bringing a piece was in college, Jason Benoit, the of New York to downtown Lake owner of Benoit Motors in DeRid- Charles to help revive downtown

Lake Charles, but also was something that we thought would be fun and interesting for the community.”

After deciding he wanted to bring a Five Iron to Lake Charles, Benoit reached out to Michael Boyer and asked him to operate the franchise.

“He believed in the vision, and that’s the moment where Jason Benoit removed himself from Five Iron Golf,” Benoit said. “My family does own majority, but Michael is the operating partner, and when people show up asking for the owner, it’s going to be him.”

Five Iron is officially in the process of moving into the old Blue Dog Cafe location at 607 Ryan St. and is expected to open at the beginning of 2027.

“So, Five Iron Lake Charles is going to have two levels, two pretty good-sized bars, (there’s) going to be a full restaurant inside,” Boyer said. “As far as entertainment, we’ll have duck pen bowling lanes … 10 simulators, some pool tables, darts and maybe some like just little pinball machines and stuff like that.”

However, the simulators are not just for golf, according to Boyer.

The simulators also feature games for most sports, including basketball, football and dodgeball.

Boyer said the simulators in Five Iron will be similar to other indoor golf facilities.

“I would just say this is kind of like a little bit more upscale, with a really good vibe and scene and just different things like that,” Boyer said. “So, I think it’ll separate us from (similar businesses in Beaumont and Lafayette). This is a little bit more upscale, and the menu is going to have a little bit better

ä See GOLF, page 4B

2B ● Monday,August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

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T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M/opinions

do residents get any say in SpaceX? The proposed siting of a SpaceX launch facility in Vermilion Parish should raise alarms about the impacts of this project on residents, along with the vulnerable coastal landscape that the state of Louisiana has said for decades it wants to protect and restore.

Vermilion Parish has seen shoreline erosion and land subsidence for decades, both exacerbated by measurable sea level rise underway. Those processes have not stopped. The subsidence reflects the long-known fact that Louisiana’s coastal land is deltaic soil, not limestone substrate like Cape Canaveral in Florida. There are also active coastal faults in the area. Public and private investments have been made to protect and enhance hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities at Pecan Island and surrounding marshes and waters, which lie in close proximity to White Lake, another important coastal resource.

But additional concerns arise from the attempt of the FAA under the current administration to remove administrative and scientific assessments of environmental and health impacts of the SpaceX project.

State officials have indicated that they will accede to this policy.

The citizens and residents of Louisiana are being told that they have no choice about whether these projects move forward and no say on the future of their parish and their homes.

Whether this is constitutional and legal is a fundamental question. Without the protection of the Constitution and the law, Louisiana’s future is in question.

MARYLEE ORR executive director, La. Environmental Action Network Baton Rouge

Brees belongs on a pedestal It’s time for New Orleans to rename the former Lee Circle for this city’s greatest champion: NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees.

He is not only the NFL’s GOAT quarterback, but also a New Orleans Saints Super Bowl champion and MVP. He was a leader both on and off the field. Drew was also a champion of the people of this city who needed him to be a winner as they rebuilt their homes, their lives and their spirit.

And yes, put his statue on that now-empty column!

DAN FERRARI Lacombe

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name and the writer’s city of residence. The Advocate | The Times-Picayune require a street address and phone number for TO SENd US A LETTER, verification purposes, SCAN HERE but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor, The Advocate, P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@ theadvocate.com.

COVId vaccine progress was remarkable, but not perfect The often antediluvian Cal Thomas has struck again in his recent commentary, “Fauci’s diary provides evidence of his egotism.” He attempts to offer a simple answer to a complex problem, but fails.

Were egotism a crime, President Trump would have been in prison many decades ago, joined by much of Congress.

Thomas accurately points out the starts and stops of medicine in the face of a new pandemic, with changing recommendations as new information became available.

As a practicing physician, I truly never heard that “getting vaccinated would prevent everyone from getting the virus,” as quoted by Thomas, nor is there any literature evidence available. No one in medicine would say something like that, knowing it’s not true of any vaccination upon initial use. Mitigating the disease is the first goal; totally eliminating it, if possible, follows worldwide vaccination.

The first COVID vaccines were available in January 2021, a remarkable event. Sadly, daily news conferences from the White House starred Trump either dissembling, or merely lying, about the utility of vaccinations vs. other treatment possibilities.

This proved to be disastrously awful disinformation, given statistics of the Delta surge of COVID in August 2021. An 800-plus-bed hospital in New Orleans at that time reported hundreds of sick and dying patients, of whom 80-90% were unvaccinated, some nine months after the vaccination became available.

Medical progress has always been akin to two steps forward and one step backward. Criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci for this is baseless and only tastes of political retribution, so common with the current U.S. administration.

As Thomas has an affinity for biblical quotations, I offer John 8:7: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” Cal, stop throwing stones.

ASSOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, heads to a closed-door Republican policy meeting at the Capitol in Washington in June.

Cassidy again just the latest lemming in line

So, after much reflection and deep thought, Sen. Bill Cassidy once again folded like an umbrella. (Regards for that metaphor to President Donald Trump and his U.S. Attorney General for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro.)

Our outgoing senator, relishing his big moment in the political spotlight, rhapsodized on the Sunday news shows about how significant he knew his decision would be. And for the second time this year, he went along with the other spineless sycophants (senators) unable to make decisions that agreed with what they must truly believe internally.

Instead of taking a stand, most Republican senators have chosen to get in line, and Cassidy simply became the last lemming in the lot.

Cassidy first showed his lack of morality and character when he opted to vote for the appointment of Robert Kennedy Jr. That was a vote that violated everything he stood for

as a career doctor.

In a second opportunity to “make a difference,” he proved to be just another good ol’ boy, devoid of any impregnable values or beliefs.

In so doing, he will be remembered in history not as a champion, but as the quisling he proved to be.

His votes were traitorous to his own moral and ethical values; he betrayed himself with each of these votes.

How sad it is that this learned man never learned to take a stand, regardless of any consequences.

I am old enough to recall a TV hero of the Wild West, Hopalong Cassidy. I never thought I’d see another Cassidy that would get me so emotional. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello — and goodbye — to Go-Along Cassidy!

MICHAEL B. RIEMER Jefferson

Cassidy, and the country, should heed M.L. King on conscience On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. stood in Riverside Church to speak from his conscience about the Vietnam War. The timing was less than propitious.

President Lyndon Johnson had done more to advance civil rights than his predecessors. It was not the time to tell Johnson that the Vietnam War was wrong. It was not the time to describe America as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” to declare, “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” King said, “I cannot be silent ... my conscience leaves me no other choice.”

As a constituent of Sen. Bill Cassidy, I recommend a reading of King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence,” to awaken conscience and courage.

Upon announcing his decision to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney ceneral, Cassidy offered a seemingly conciliatory message.

“People of Louisiana can be assured that I

DAVID ELIZARDI, M.D. Metairie

worked hard to understand the issue and to make the right decision,” he said.

My offering is not a criticism of his work ethic, but instead his betrayal of conscience, what seemed to seep out in his emotional pause, reckoning with his words before taking his seat, sealing the victory for Blanche.

Cassidy has only several months to serve Louisiana, but likely his reckoning will continue beyond this time.

Cassidy and the country need to be reminded of King’s words: “Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.”

Loyola’s evocative new chapel reflects the talents of liturgical consultant I read with interest the article in the newspaper regarding the newly constructed Chapel of St. Ignatius at the Gayle and Tom Benson Center on the Loyola University campus in New Orleans.

I appreciated hearing from the architects, Trey Trahan and Brad McWhirter. However, I was greatly disappointed that the writer, Bob Warren, made no mention of their colleague on this project, Dr. Marchita Mauck, a retired art history professor at LSU and the Catholic liturgist who served as the liturgical consultant for this project.

Mauck was instrumental in securing the altar and the various art pieces for the project, and she made significant contributions to the design of the chapel’s prayerful and evocative experience.

RAQUEL ROBVAIS Baton Rouge

Let’s welcome SpaceX with its jobs and spending In response to Monica Keese’s letter, it is this way of thinking that puts this state last in all the good categories and first in the bad ones (“State abandons land, rights to billionaire’s rocket ships”).

Ask the folks in Vermilion Parish how they feel about the jobs, taxes and spending coming their way thanks to the proposed SpaceX project.

This state is so narrow-minded and blind to business that it makes a lot of people wonder what we are doing and if we know what we’re doing.

As evidence, I submit Orlando, Florida — the beneficiary of Louisiana’s stupidity by running Walt Disney World away.

JAMES MUNN Zachary

THE REV. TOM RANZINO Baton Rouge

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COMMENTARY Summertime political reruns When I was younger, so much younger than today (credit The Beatles for that lyric from “Help”), television networks would rerun programs that had originally been broadcast the previous fall and spring. A few still do, like “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy,” but those are syndicated shows. Still, it can be fun to watch programs you missed, or even ones you have seen, especially if you can impress someone with “Jeopardy” answers because you know them.

Reruns that always annoy are the political Cal Thomas ads, which start before primaries and continue until the day before the November election. Only the names of the candidates change, not the attack lines. The opponent is a monster who will ruin the country. If elected, I promise to do this or that. Those promises are rarely kept. If some are kept, such as lowering taxes, the next person in office will want to raise them. No political ad I’ve seen promises to reduce or eliminate the national debt, now racing toward an unsustainable $40 trillion.

An example of how even the most fervent promises to reduce spending never work is the now-disbanded DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly headed by Elon Musk. DOGE was tasked with exposing and eliminating wasteful and unnecessary spending, including inefficient and redundant government agencies. Musk falsely claimed DOGE saved the taxpayers $110.3 billion — even if true, a drop in the spending bucket, but still something Musk bragged about. Credit DOGE, however, with reducing the size of the bloated federal workforce by hundreds of thousands of jobs.

A new audit by the Government Accountability Office says DOGE took credit for spending cuts already in the pipeline, exaggerated some claims and couldn’t provide evidence for others. GAO reported 96% of DOGE’s claimed savings on federal grants can’t be verified.

DOGE claimed it managed to get the Pentagon’s health agency to cancel a $1.7 billion technology contract, but GAO investigators said the contract was never cut or even reduced.

“There were no savings,” reported the

ASSOCIATEd PRESS FILE PHOTO

Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President donald Trump in 2025.

GAO. DOGE also claimed credit for ending 264 government leases. But 108 of them were already in the pipeline before the White House office was established.

Failure is never a reason to stop politicians from making promises they know they can’t keep, mostly because consultants have found that focus groups respond well to certain words and attack lines. Democrat ads are full of “fight Trump” and “fight MAGA” lines. Too many Republican ads (and too much cable TV) focus on cultural issues, like transgender athletes in women’s sports, which affects the tiniest of minorities.

Ads criticizing socialism and calling your opponent a communist might work for some older voters, but younger ones did not live through the Cold War, much less World War II, and most of the 20th century.

They likely can’t define fascist and know little about countries that have embraced socialism. That’s because much of their information comes from social media and the internet.

If their classes get around to these topics, they are usually taught from a

left-wing perspective. How do I know?

Consider their comments against Israel, against Jews and in favor of socialism. They appear all-in on universal health care (“Medicare for all”).

No reporter I’ve heard asks them how they would pay for it and why they have faith in government to manage health care when government does few things well.

The candidates are never asked why none of the problems they cite have not been fully, or even partially, solved, when their party held all three branches of government. There is always the promise of “change,” but from what to what? The answers are almost always generalities.

The real reason spending won’t be cut is that too many people are addicted to government. In his first inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1981, Ronald Reagan said: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

That’s one rerun I am happy to hear again and again.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com.

Peter Pan politics for sandbox revolutionaries Ronald Reagan was fond of an uncon- don’t pay a mortgage or have a landservative thought, Thomas Paine’s “We lord, because comfortable housing is a have it in our power to begin the world human right. Your retirement is pubover again.” Reagan had an excuse. licly funded.

He thought Americans “Food, education, energy, medneeded a cheerfulness infusion icine, and transportation aren’t after assassinations, urban for-profit businesses; they are riots, Vietnam, Watergate and common goods and utilities … stagflation. Today, Paine’s deluwhat if you were free to spend your time how you like without sional sense of the possible has worrying about cost or dreadresurfaced in the enthusiasm of George many young people for socialing going back to work? What Will if you didn’t have to think about ism. paying rent or loans at the end It is a longing in search of a of the month, or saving for college, or definition. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, affording groceries?”

Kamala Harris’ former running mate, In 1845-46, a philosopher not yet 30 has said socialism is “neighborliness.” sounded a similar trumpet. Socialism, Like taking a casserole to the family said Karl Marx, would allow each man that moved in next door? The “Interto “escape” from what capitalism has nationale,” socialism/communism’s “forced upon him.” Socialism would anthem since 1871, begins: “Arise ye prisoners of starvation.” But socialism end the division of labor, which Marx always means more, and less, than cas- called an “exclusive sphere of activity” and considered dehumanizing. seroles for all.

Under capitalism, he wrote, man “is Zohran Mamdani’s election helped to a hunter, a fisherman, a shepherd, or ignite 21st-century interest in sociala critical critic, and must remain so if ism, a 19th-century doctrine that had he does not want to lose his means of a deflating 20th century. Socialism, New York’s mayor says, prioritizes the livelihood.”

But in communist society nobody will “working class.” But what is that? be so confined. Socialism will enable “I think,” he told the New York Times, “if you have to work to pay your everyone to “become accomplished in any branch he wishes … to do one thing bills, I think that that is one definition today and another tomorrow, to hunt in of being a part of the working class.” the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear But if everyone with bills to pay — escattle in the evening, criticize after sentially, everyone — is socialism’s dinner.” priority, what is not socialism?

Seventy years ago, rediscovery of the The Democratic Socialists of Ameryoung Marx’s gauzy ruminations about ica, a political party, sort of, recently ending “alienation” thrilled leftists. issued its “program,” which begins by They could enjoy the frisson of naughurging readers to imagine “a future without capitalism.” You “control your tiness by calling themselves Marxists, own labor and see it going to good use. without having to plow through his turIt’s not just a job to pay the bills”: gid “mature” writings (e.g., “Das Kapi“Speaking of bills: you don’t really tal”) about the labor theory of value. have them anymore. You have no debt.

Today’s DSA program has nothing to You don’t need health insurance. You do with politics understood as the art

of the possible. DSA socialism is Peter Pan politics, the root-and-branch rejection of adulthood, understood as oppression by reality. It is psychotherapy for disappointed young people who are offended by the everydayness of everyday life — work, bills, groceries, mortgages. Yuck.

Even when the DSA ostensibly talks about politics, its extremism is merely infantilism. For example, the DSA proposes to “abolish the Senate,” which is undemocratic because large and small states have equal representation there.

Abolition would require a constitutional amendment, which 13 small states could, and more would, defeat.

The DSA’s supposedly political program (it includes dismantling the presidency and the Supreme Court) is earnest and unserious.

Because socialism shares Paine’s delusion about society’s, and humanity’s, plasticity, socialism invariably ends in disappointment. In today’s America, it begins there, with sandbox revolutionaries who think growing up is incompatible with social justice.

The New York Times reports that at a recent DSA convention in Chicago, Leon Trotsky was “talked about.”

Rightly so. He said that under socialism “the average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx.” So, socialism is Garrison Keillor’s imagined Lake Wobegon, where “all the children are above average.”

At the Chicago gathering, socialists could purchase “far-left merchandise,” including “guillotine earrings.” This is today’s socialism — naughty and fun but unlikely to begin America over again.

Email George Will at georgewill@washpost.com.

The ‘cancel Thanksgiving’ candidate lost Democratic socialist Francesca Hong lost her bid to be the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, but it’s not progressives who will be most disappointed by her defeat. It’s conservatives who will feel the pain.

They spent millions attacking Hong in ads, calling her “too liberal,” but the messaging seemed clearly designed to generate supMegan ega McArdle port for her among Democratic voters, based on the GOP theory that she’d be much easier to beat in the general election than moderate David Crowley.

It almost worked, even though Hong was, to put it mildly, not a good candidate. Democrats should feel an unpleasant, crawling sensation at the base of their collective spine when they contemplate how close they came to having her on the ticket — not just because she’s a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, but because she has a hard-to-explain history of radical pronouncements.

Hong called America “an abundance of suffering.” She said we should “cancel Thanksgiving” and suggested we should “defund then abolish” the police. She publicly wrestled with her “proximity to Whiteness,” in the person of her biracial son. None of this is a good look for someone who wants ordinary people to vote for them.

Before you ask, no, Hong was not at that time some naive college student. She was in her 30s.

Her only excuse is that for a few years this sort of thing was normal among sober adults and eminent institutions. It was like watching a clique of teenage mean girls overdosing on extra-strength Robin DiAngelo. The only difference was that many of the mean girls held tenured professorships and senior roles at prestigious publications. With so many luminaries signing up to join the fun, how was Hong to know that it wouldn’t last?

I should clarify that this is not Hong’s explanation for her remarks. But then, Hong couldn’t really give a good explanation. She tried to brush off her police abolitionism. Other tweets were dismissed as “silly” or “jokes.” The best defense came from a more seasoned progressive politician, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), who laughingly told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that “Woke 1 was crazy!”

Note that I did not say it was a good defense.

But it is apparently the best the establishment can muster, the credo of the post-bachelor party hangover: “Whew, things got a little out of hand, but what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?”

Well, no, it doesn’t, which is why conservatives pounced on Hong with such glee. She reawakened the rage they felt during those years of speech-policing, social media mobs and peremptory firings.

Their fury will not abate until there’s some reckoning with the cruelty and caprice of that era. The Democratic establishment’s hope that we can all just quietly agree to pretend it never happened is insufferably naive. After all, when President Donald Trump leaves office, and conservatives try to memory-hole his abuses and their shameful complicity, is the left prepared to let bygones be bygones? Because I’m sure not. Years of justifiable outrage will not, and should not, dissipate overnight.

It’s only natural for both sides of the culture wars to long for some justice, not just to satisfy their personal pique but to ensure that there is no Woke 2.0 or Trump sequel. That said, you can want a reckoning without expecting one.

And you should be mindful of the cost of trying to bring one about.

Republicans run on old tweets and transgender sports and spend too much time in office trying to defund and defang left-coded institutions, rather than solving problems. Democrats run on “saving democracy” and expropriating billionaires, then pour their political hearts into investigations and prosecutions.

This may work in a primary or in places that are very red or very blue, but it’s a lousy strategy in swing states and nationwide elections. For that matter, Hong couldn’t even win her primary, and that same night, election denier Mike Lindell went down in the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary.

There’s a ray of hope in that, but only a flicker, since both candidates were unusually inept.

The furious bases of the two parties will have more opportunities to nominate passionate ideologues who will at best go on to lose their general elections and at worst further destabilize American politics.

I doubt their anger will ebb soon, and I won’t even argue that it should. Sometimes you have to accept that your anger may be justified, but that doesn’t mean it can be satisfied. And once you figure that out, it’s often best to put it aside and talk about something else.

Megan McArdle is on X, @asymmetricinfo.

Email her at Megan.McArdle@washpost.com.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ARE WELCOME. HERE ARE OUR GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the

writer’s city of residence. The Advocate | The Times-Picayune require a street address and phone number for verification purposes, but that information is not published. Letters are not to exceed 300 words. Letters to the Editor, The Advocate, P.O. Box 588, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-0588, or email letters@theadvocate.com.

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YouTuber arrested after posting jaunt through Kenner mall

BY MICHELLE HUNTER Staff writer

Two days before a 17-yearold boy fell to his death while exploring the long-vacant Plaza Tower high rise in New Orleans, Kenner police arrested a Massachusetts YouTuber accused of entering the similarly abandoned Esplanade Mall and recording video that was posted online.

Stephen Pamaran, 33, was booked Thursday on a felony count of unauthorized entry of a business and misdemeanor count of unlawful posting of criminal activity for notoriety or publicity, according to Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley.

Investigators have obtained a warrant for a second YouTuber, known as RangerRickTV, who allegedly accompanied Pamaran and posted the video to his channel in September 2025,

said Kenner Police Deputy Chief Mark McCormick. Police have not yet been able to locate him, McCormick said.

Pamaran’s attorney, Barry Ranshi, declined to comment when reached by phone. An email to RangerRickTV had not been returned as of Sunday afternoon.

According to their YouTube channels, Pamaran and RangerRickTV dabble in urban exploration, also known as “urbex,” entering and recording video at abandoned buildings, structures or facilities like military bases, churches or amusement parks.

New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick said the unidentified Belle Chasse teen who died early Saturday morning at Plaza Tower was also doing “a little urban exploring” with friends when he fell from an interior stairwell without railings.

“It’s unfortunate that this

happened,” Conley said Sunday. “Our biggest concern is that somebody would get hurt doing these explorations, which are encouraged by social media influencers.”

Illegal live streaming Kenner police received a tip in June about RangerRickTV’s recorded trip into the Esplanade Mall, according to McCormick.

In the video, which runs about 1 hour and 13 minutes and had 317,000 views as of Sunday, RangerRickTV calls the building his “childhood mall” as he navigates through the empty storefronts and tries to avoid being seen by occupants of the open Target store next door.

Detectives worked to identify the two men and obtained warrants, McCormick said. Pamaran, who is known as “Steve Ronin” on YouTube with more than 1 million subscribers, turned

AMTRAK

Continued from page 1B and includes a twice-daily train that also stops in the Mississippi cities of Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and Pascagoula. And it is the first time trains have connected passengers along the Gulf Coast since before Hurricane Katrina.

Amtrak guessed about 70,000 passengers would ride in the first year. But its leaders now expect to hit the 150,000 passenger mark next week.

Most riders board in New Orleans or Mobile, and both cities are feeling the influence. Nearly 200,000 visitors from the Mobile area arrived in downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter between January and July, according to New Orleans & Company, the city’s tourism marketing agency. The number rose by 18% — or almost 30,000 people — compared to the same period last year before the Mardi Gras Service began its run.

It is a small shift for New Orleans, which gets millions of visitors each year. But Walt Leger, who leads New Orleans & Company, said he expects more international travelers and businesspeople could begin taking the train as trust in the route grows.

David Clark, who serves

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

Travelers walk to the Amtrak train in New Orleans to take the Mardi Gras line bound for Mobile, Ala., on Aug. 2. on the Southern Rail Commission and leads Mobile’s tourism agency, said the city’s restaurants, museums and tour groups are also reporting their numbers are up.

“We’re very encouraged,” he said.

The trains are dominated by leisure travelers and have become popular with social groups, including high school reunions. Cox said she also suspects more passengers are using the train to fly out of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport because their luggage keeps getting larger.

There are also new signs of economic progress. In Bay St. Louis, bars, restaurants and shops have opened in recent years steps from the train stop. In Pascagoula, an

old train depot just turned into a brewpub.

In Mobile, leaders hope a 10,000-seat arena opening next year will lure New Orleans visitors via Amtrak for concerts.

“It’s a fun thing to do,” said Tim Avegno, a New Orleanian who recently took the train with his grandchildren to explore Mobile and visit several of its museums. “We enjoyed it.”

Safety questions Avegno also raised a question: Why do trains keep hitting cars?

Amtrak trains have been involved in eight crashes along the route in the past year, according to records from the Federal Railroad Administration. A young couple died in September

himself in to police Thursday, according to authorities.

He was booked under a Louisiana law amended in 2024 by state Rep. Dixon McMakin, R-Baton Rouge, that makes it illegal for a person to live-stream or post video of themselves committing criminal acts.

McMakin introduced the amendment after seeing viral videos of people entering stores and recording themselves throwing milk jugs on the ground for online clout.

“We don’t want people to try to become famous by becoming criminals,” said McMakin, who believes one of the amended law’s first uses involved the arrests of four people who posted video of themselves riding horses into a Baker Walmart.

RangerRickTV and Pamaran’s video shows them illegally entering the Es-

planade Mall, according to Kenner police.

“It’s a business, and you can’t break into a business.

That’s burglary,” McCormick said.

when an Amtrak train hit their car as it drove over a crossing without gates in Pass Christian, Mississippi.

A mother and daughter were killed in February in Mobile, an accident report says, when they drove around lowered crossing gates.

Some collisions have also raised questions about the safety of Amtrak’s crew and passengers. Authorities said nine passengers went to the hospital one night this month after their train hit a semitruck stuck on the tracks near Waveland, Mississippi.

Amtrak officials also said several crew members were injured in April when a train hit a semitruck stalled at a crossing south of Mobile.

Many rail leaders around the region said they are perplexed by the rate of crashes on the Gulf Coast, where freight trains have been a constant for decades.

Others questioned whether the speed of Amtrak trains might add risk.

Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesperson, said train speeds vary along the route.

The maximum authorized speed for passenger trains between New Orleans and Mobile is 79 miles per hour.

Accident reports show some trains involved in the crashes were traveling close to that speed.

Freight trains also occasionally hit cars on the Gulf Coast. But accident reports from several recent freight crashes show the trains

are often moving closer to 40 miles per hour. Freight trains have led to fewer deadly crashes than Amtrak in the past two years along the route, according to FRA records.

If locals are used to slower freight trains, “that could be a factor,” said Christopher Barkan, a rail safety researcher at the University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign who leads a group of universities studying how to make railways safer.

“It’s a never-ending problem,” Barkan said. “It’s up to the motor vehicle operator to respect the fact that the train has priority at all times because they can’t stop and motor vehicles can.”

The Mississippi Department of Transportation last year finished leveling nine railroad crossings in Long Beach, Mississippi, to lower the risk of semitrucks getting stuck there. They are planning to do the same in Pass Christian. And most — but not all — rail crossings in coastal Mississippi now have gates that lower when a train is approaching.

Ross said the Southern Rail Commission is planning to use part of a $500,000 federal grant to study safety at rail crossings. Amtrak and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College this month also hosted a rail safety training for instructors who teach students entering the trucking industry.

High-risk trend RangerRickTV isn’t the first person to film an excursion into Esplanade Mall.

Urban explorers have posted video from several dilapidated properties around the New Orleans area, including Charity Hospital and the former Six Flags in New Orleans East.

“Urban exploring is a bit of trend ... but it’s a deadly one. It’s high risk,” Kirkpatrick said Saturday during a news conference about the Belle Chasse teen’s death.

In 2023, an unnamed man also fell to his death at the Plaza Tower. And in 2022, 18-year-old Anthony Clawson died when he fell five stories inside the aban-

doned Market Street Power Plant in the Lower Garden District.

New Orleans Deputy Mayor Michael Harrison warned against encouraging such explorations.

“No one, kids or adults, no one should be entering into boarded up, abandoned buildings, especially when they’re secured,” he said.

Conley called Esplanade Mall the biggest stain in Kenner when it comes to blight. The roof is collapsing in some sections, there’s a 4-foot sinkhole outside and at least one person was arrested for allegedly stripping hundreds of feet of copper from the structure, according to authorities.

“It’s an attractive nuisance,” Conley said. “My concern is that, if it’s not abated, then you will have somebody who gets hurt or injured.”

Amtrak’s future The question of safety is one of several the Mardi Gras Service is confronting. With federal help, state and local governments in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have funded the route for three years. But the Southern Rail Commission is still working with the states to secure permanent funding.

The commission is also contemplating new steps on the Gulf Coast — maybe a seasonal stop in Ocean Springs, or a bus that would take Amtrak passengers from Mobile to Pensacola.

Its leaders hope to leverage the Mardi Gras Service’s success toward other projects, including the possibility of twice-daily trains between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

“It helps make that case,” Ross said.

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Five Iron Golf will be opening in the former Blue dog Cafe at 607 Ryan St. in Lake Charles.

GOLF

Continued from page 1B

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PUBLIC NOTICE --NOTICE TO BIDDERS

you know, the lunch crowd that maybe somebody that wants to get a couple hits in after work for the downtown area, then we’ll move into like training for kids in the afternoon probably when they get out of school to be able to come train, and then to the dinner crowd.

“Then the late night crowd is going to be more of a bar scene. ... After 10 p.m., it’ll probably be no kids allowed inside, and we’ll stay open till 1 or 2 a.m.”

items. So, we’ll probably offer like steaks and different things like that.”

Five Iron will bring something new to Lake Charles for all ages, Boyer said.

“We’ll open up at 6 a.m., and usually that’s more geared toward senior citizens that want to work out; we’ll offer like a free breakfast bar, and coffee and things like that for them to come in with subscrip- Email Courtney Pedersen tions,” Boyer said. “Then at courtney.pedersen@ we’ll move more toward, theadvocate.com.

Notice is hereby given that sealed bids will be received either electroni‐ cally at https://lafayet tecsdgovla.tylerportico. com/va/vendor-access/ registration or in the of‐ fice of the Purchasing Di‐ vision at the Lafayette Govern‐ Consolidated ment Building, located at 705 West University Av‐ Lafayette, enue, Louisiana, until 11:00 am Central Time on the 16th day of September, 2026 for the following: 2027 Fiber to the Home Stock Material Bid and will, shortly there‐ after, be opened and read aloud in the Office of Purchasing located at 705 West University Av‐ enue, Lafayette, LA. Bids received after the above specified time for open‐ ing shall not be consid‐ ered and shall be re‐ turned unopened to the sender. Bidders may at‐ tend the bid opening in person, but are highly encouraged to virtually join the bid openings via Zoom using the following https://us02web. link: j

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Public Notices Bids/Proposals p zoom.us/j/81719386394? pwd=absvCF6jIc7Yza3 CI9JrhDXfCYwFF2.1 .

In accordance with RS 38:2212 Louisiana electronic Bids may be submitted on Vendor Ac‐ cess (https://lafayettecs dgovla.tylerportico.com/ va/vendor-access/ registration).

Bidders wishing to submit their bid electronically must first be registered within LCG Vendor Access at the website listed above. The registration process can take some time; there‐ fore, LCG recommends registering days in ad‐ vance of the time that bids are due. It is the sole responsibility of the bidder to ensure their bid is delivered (whether electronically via Vendor Access, in person, or via mail) to the Purchasing Division prior to the scheduled date and time of the bid opening. Ven‐ dors may request the bid electronically from Lay‐ cia Batiste at lbatiste@ lafayettela.gov.

Official Bid Documents are avail‐ able on Vendor Access (https://lafayettecsdgov la.tylerportico.com/va/ vendor-access/ registration). For ques‐ tions related to the elec‐ tronic bidding process, please call Laycia Batiste at 337-291-7173.

Vendors submitting bids are re‐ electronically quired to provide the same documents as bid‐

Public Notices Bids/Proposals

ders submitting through the mail as soon as avail‐ able. Only a bid bond, check or certified cashier’s check shall be submitted as the bid se‐ curity. Electronic copies of both the front and back of the check or bid bond shall be included with the electronic bid.

Bids must be signed in accordance with LRS Title 38:2212(B)5. A Cor‐ porate Resolution or Cer‐ tificate of Authority au‐ thorizing the person signing the bid is re‐ quired to be submitted with bid. Failure to sub‐ mit a Corporate Resolu‐ tion or Certificate of Au‐ thority with the bid shall be cause for rejection of bid.

Copies of the bidding documents are available at the Purchasing Office located at 705 West Uni‐ Avenue, versity Lafayette, LA 70506. Tele‐ phone number (337) 291(Attn: Laycia 7173 Batiste). Bidding docu‐ ments shall be available until twenty-four (24) hours before the bid opening date.

Each bid shall be accom‐ panied by a certified check, cashier’s check or bid bond payable to the Lafayette Consolidated Government, the amount of which shall be five percent (5%) of the base bid plus additive alter‐ nates. If a bid bond is

used, it shall be written by a surety or insurance company currently on the U.S. Department of the Treasury Financial Management Service list approved bonding of companies which is pub‐ lished annually in the Federal Register, or by a Louisiana domiciled in‐ surance company with at least an A-Rating in the latest printing of the A.M. Best’s Key Rating Guide to write individual bonds up to ten percent (10%) of policyholders’ surplus as shown in the A.M. Best’s Key Rating Guide, or by an insurance com‐ pany in good standing li‐ censed to write bid bonds which is either domiciled in Louisiana or owned by Louisiana resi‐ dents. The bid bond shall be issued by a company licensed to do business in Louisiana and counter‐ signed by a person who is under contract with re‐ siding in this state. The certified check, cashier’s check, or bid bond shall be given as a guarantee that the bidder shall exe‐ cute the contract, should it be awarded to him, in conformity with the con‐ tract documents within ten (10) days.

No bidder may withdraw his bid for at least fortyfive (45) days after the time scheduled for the opening of bids. Each bid shall be submitted only on the quotation form provided with the speci‐ fications.

Bids will be evaluated by the Purchaser based on the lowest responsible and responsive bid sub‐ mitted which is also in compliance with the bid The documents.

Lafayette Consolidated Government reserves the right to reject any and all bids for just cause in ac‐ cordance with LA R.S. 38§2214.B. The Lafayette Consoli‐ Government dated strongly encourages the participation of DBEs (Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) in all con‐ tracts or procurements let by the Lafayette Con‐ Government solidated for goods and services and labor and material.

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To that end, all contrac‐ tors and suppliers are encouraged to utilize DBEs business enter‐ prises in the purchase or sub-contracting of mate‐ rials, supplies, services and labor and material in disadvantaged which business are available.

Assistance in identifying said businesses may be obtained by calling (337) 291-8410.

PURCHASING DIVISION Lafayette Consolidated Government PUBLISH DATES: 8-12-26, 8-17-26 DPR 1005460 196857 Aug. 12, 17, 2t $106.40

Clemency I, JUANE HARRIS, DOC #536066 have applied for clemency for my conviction of FORCIBLE RAPE. If you have any comments, contact the Board of Pardons (225)342-5421.

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PUBLIC NOTICE --SQF, LLC is proposing to a 235-foot construct overall height self-sup‐ porting lattice telecom‐ munications structure lo‐ cated 100 Utopia Road, Duson, Lafayette Parish, Louisiana (30° 10' 27.7" N, 92° 7' 44.1" W). The pro‐ posed tower is antici‐ pated to utilize FAA Style E (medium intensity, dual red/white strobes) light‐ ing.

SQF, LLC invites com‐ ments from any inter‐ ested party on the im‐ pact the proposed under‐ taking may have on any districts, sites, buildings, structures, or objects significant in American

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g history, archaeology, en‐ gineering, or culture that are listed or determined eligible for listing in the National Register of His‐ toric Places. Comments may be sent to Environ‐ mental Corporation of America, ATTN: Anna‐ marie Howell, 1375 Union Industrial Court, Hill Suite A, Alpharetta, GA 30004 or via email to pub‐ licnotice@eca-usa.com.

Ms. Howell can be reached at (770) 667-2040 x 108 during normal busi‐ ness hours. Comments must be received within 30 days of the date of this notice.

Any interested party may request further environ‐ mental review of the pro‐ posed action under the FCC’s National Environ‐ mental Policy Act rules, 47 CFR §1.1307, by notify‐ ing the FCC of the spe‐ cific reasons that the ac‐ tion may have a signifi‐ cant impact on the qual‐ ity of the human environ‐ ment. This request must only raise environmental concerns and can be filed online using the FCC system at pleadings https://wireless2.fcc. gov/UlsEntry/pleadings/ pleadingsType.jsp or mailed to FCC Requests for Environmental Re‐ Attn: Ramon view, Williams, 45 L Street, Washington, DC 20554 within 30 days of the date of the National No‐ tice as referenced within the Antenna Structure Registration (ASR) appli‐ cation. Mailed pleadings must include a request to waive the electronic filing requirement along with an explanation of why an electronic filing cannot be made. Refer to File No. A1392427 when submitting the request and to view the specific information about the action.

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M o n d ay, au g u s t 17, 2026

1Cn

Lawyers assess Daniels’ NIL gripe

BY REED DARCEY

Staff writer

When Darren Heitner woke up and checked his phone Thursday, he was puzzled by one of the first things he saw.

Heitner, a Florida-based attorney, is one of the top legal experts in sports. Recently, he’s been helping college basketball players obtain extra years of eligibility and maintaining an active presence on X, where he weighs in on legal issues in sports — cases such as the one that flashed across his screen that morning.

“My initial reaction was, ‘Is this a real story?’ ” he said.

Yes, it was. An attorney repre-

senting Jayden Daniels had sent LSU a cease-and-desist letter, demanding the school refrain from “any further use, display, publication, distribution, promotion, commercialization or other exploitation of” his name, image and likeness. The letter was sent on Aug. 5, the day the Tigers opened their first set of preseason practices under coach Lane Kiffin.

Daniels sent the cease-and-desist letter because LSU had given his No. 5 jersey number to sophomore cornerback DJ Pickett. The former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback was “deeply disappointed and feels profoundly disrespected” by that decision, a Daniels spokesperson told ESPN.

Saints, Radunz amplify sick girl’s message

He and his family “had every reason to believe” the Tigers would no longer issue the number out of respect for what Daniels had accomplished in Baton Rouge.

But former coach Brian Kelly and his staff had once promised Pickett that he could wear No. 5.

Kiffin decided to grant that wish once he took over the program, putting LSU at odds with one of its greatest players.

What exactly is Daniels trying to accomplish? And does LSU have to do anything differently now because he sent the letter?

The Advocate asked four lawyers who practice intellectual

ASSOCIATEd PRESS FILE PHOTO By CHRIS O’MEARA

LSU quarterback Jayden daniels watches from the sidelines during the ä See DANIELS, page 3C ReliaQuest Bowl against Wisconsin on Jan. 1, 2024, in Tampa, Fla.

N F L P R E S E A S O N • S A I N T S A T R A M S • 3 P. M . S A T U R d A y • K A T C

Team shares platform to help find marrow donor, expand donor registry

BY LUKE JOHNSON Staff writer

In so many ways, 11-year-old Cate Hargett was just like any other kid in the stands watching the New Orleans Saints go through a joint practice against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday afternoon.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the big NFL players up close, and she was filled with the kind of bouncy energy kids of her age possess, hitting a pre-planned touchdown dance on request.

But Cate is not like other kids in one specific area. In fact, she’s not like many people at all. And that was why she and her family were there Thursday.

Cate has what is known as telomere biology disorder, a rare genetic condition that causes mutations in the telomeres, which serve as a sort of cap for chromosomes.

“We’ve known since Cate was about 2 months old that she has bone marrow failure, which means her marrow just doesn’t produce all the blood cells it needs for her to stay healthy,” said Jenni Hargett, Cate’s mother.

Jenni said Cate has been treated as a patient at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, for most of her life. She has undergone extensive genetic testing in her 11 years, but doctors could never isolate what the issue was — until Cate participated in a clinical study at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland this summer, where they found the gene at the root of Cate’s illness.

“It’s a previously unknown inherited bone marrow failure syndrome,” Jenni Hargett said. “They know, worldwide, of about 20 patients that have it. We had hoped that by finding the gene and the cause it would give us a direction, a better way to treat.

But instead, the scientists, the researchers,

ä See DISEASE, page 3C

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT dUKE

New Orleans Saints kicker Tanner Brown kicks the ball during a preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday at the Caesars Superdome.

Momentum shifts

Some position battles add intrigue after Saints’ preseason opener

BY MATTHEW PARAS

Staff writer

Kellen Moore indicated he still has faith in Charlie Smyth.

The New Orleans Saints coach believes the kicker has been in the NFL long enough to understand that “inevitably” a miss is going to happen.

“You just keep hanging in there,” Moore said.

Smyth, in his third year with the Saints, has no other choice. The Ireland native missed Analysis a 52-yard field goal in Saturday’s 24-20 preseason loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, marking the latest sign the 25-year-old is in a bit of a slump at the moment.

Smyth’s miss followed what had been a shaky stretch of

practices. The kicker had at least one miss in three of his last four outings — including two days in which he sailed three attempts in each session.

The struggles undoubtedly have tightened the Saints’ kicking competition. And against the Jaguars, former UFL standout Tanner Brown nailed both of his attempts from 49 and 29 yards. Throughout training camp and the preseason, Smyth is now 35 of 44 (including extra points), while Brown is 35 of 40.

Smyth “Keep going, keep going,” Moore said when asked about where the battle goes from here. “Both

ä See SAINTS, page 3C

Cajuns’ WR injuries give Babineaux shot to ascend

BY KEVIN FOOTE Staff writer

The wide receiver depth chart for the UL Ragin’ Cajuns continues to get tested in August camp.

The month began with the bad news that clear-cut No. 1 target Shelton Sampson was out with a bruised knee. The expectation is he’ll back soon, but that remains to STAFF PHOTO By BRAd KEMP be seen.

The other receiver coach Michael UL wide receiver Russell Babineaux, right, goes Desormeaux had the most confidence in through drills with coach Tim Leger, left, in was redshirt sophomore Landon Strothpreparation for the 2026 season. er. He and redshirt freshman Trenton

Chaney have been slowed by shoulder issues, and now Strother is out 4-6 weeks with a broken collarbone. Chaney remains limited in practice.

Despite the concern, the injuries afford opportunities for others in the room, including redshirt freshman Russell Babineaux.

“It’s really playing out really well,” Babineaux said. “I feel like if one guy goes down, the other guy has to step up and ... own that role. I feel like in the receiver room right now, it’s a brotherhood. So if one guy goes down, we’re over here picking the other guy up, and I feel like take

advantage of every opportunity that you could get.

“Whether it’s one rep, two reps, three reps, you have to take advantage of it and execute it at the highest level you can.”

At 5-foot-9 and 178 pounds, the former Acadiana High Mr. Everything is part of a philosophy at UL with more catch-andrun threats.

“I feel like being in a slot position, you’re all over the field,” Babineaux said.

“Whether it’s a screen, whether it’s a deep ball, a short crossing route, you have a lot

ä See UL, page 3C

2C ● Monday, August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

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Team TKN gets 3-peat in Manhattan Beach Open

Team TKN is on top again.

The duo of former LSU beach volleyball All-Americans Kristen (Nuss) Cruz and Taryn (Kloth) Brasher won their third straight title Sunday in the AVP Manhattan Beach Open in California. They defeated fellow Americans Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft 21-18, 2116 in the final. Cruz and Brasher did not drop a set in any of their six tournament matches.

The 2024 Olympians are the first women’s duo to win three straight Manhattan Beach titles since three-time Olympic gold medalists Misty-May Treanor and Kerry Walsh-Jennings won four in a row from 2005-08.

Coming into the weekend, they were tied for third in the world rankings and have three other international wins this season in addition to the AVP tour.

Commanders backup QB Mariota sprains an MCL

ASSOCIATEd PRESS FILE PHOTO By dAMIAN dOVARGANES

Former Los Angeles dodgers pitcher Tommy John praises the late dr. Frank Jobe during a memorial service at dodger Stadium on April 7, 2014.

John died on Sunday at the age of 83.

Surgery namesake Tommy John dies He was first MLB pitcher to return after elbow procedure

BY BETH HARRIS AP sportswriter

LOS ANGELES — Tommy John, who won 288 games during a 26-year big league career and became the first pitcher to successfully return after groundbreaking elbow surgery that later was named after him, has died. He was 83.

He died at his home in Bradenton, Florida, on Saturday night, agent Mike Maguire said Sunday.

He had been in hospice care.

On Aug. 8, the New York Yankees released a social media post in which John wrote that he wanted to say goodbye to everyone, including friends and fans who followed him throughout his career, saying, “I will never forget you.”

The Yankees called John “a bedrock of our rotation during his time in pinstripes and a longtime favorite of Yankees fans.”

John was a four-time All-Star with a record of 288-231 and a 3.34 ERA during a career that stretched from 1963-89. He pitched for Cleveland, the Chicago White Sox, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Yankees, the California Angels and the Oakland Athletics.

“Tommy was an exceptional

pitcher throughout his career in Major League Baseball, and his courageous role in becoming the first to have surgery that would go on to bear his name can’t be overstated,” Stan Kasten, Dodgers president and CEO, said in a statement. “His impact both on and off the field has been felt by ballplayers of all ages and will be for generations to come.”

The left-hander was 31 years old when he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow in 1974, a death knell for pitchers’ careers to that point.

John allowed Dr. Frank Jobe, the Dodgers’ team physician, to replace the ligament with a tendon from his right forearm. Jobe gave the surgery 100-to-1 odds of being successful.

The procedure had been done on others before, although it was usually performed on wrists and hands. John was the first pitcher to have it done on his elbow.

More than 2,600 big-leaguers and thousands more amateurs have since had UCL reconstructions, better known as Tommy John surgery. It’s been a godsend for many of baseball’s greatest stars, including twoway sensation Shohei Ohtani, three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander and even Philadelphia Phillies slugger Bryce Harper.

“If you put it in dollars and

cents, I think there’s no question that Tommy John is the most valuable reconstructive procedure there is,” Dodgers team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache said in 2024.

John recorded 2,245 strikeouts but never led either league in wins or strikeouts. He had the secondmost wins of any pitcher since 1900 not to be elected to the Hall of Fame.

From 1995 through 2009, John was on the Hall of Fame ballot, but he never received more than 31.7% of the votes, falling well short of the 75% required for election.

“Tommy was a wonderful person who competed to the utmost and did what no player had ever done to save his career, in conjunction with the esteemed Dr. Frank Jobe,” former Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti posted on X. “The HOF is missing Tommy John.”

Known for his longevity, John was the opening day starter for both the 1966 Chicago White Sox and the 1989 New York Yankees. He won 124 games before his UCL repair and 164 after. His final appearance came days after his 46th birthday.

In 1974 while with the Dogers, John had a 13-3 record and led the National League in victories going into the All-Star break. He was pitching against the Montreal Expos when he permanently damaged the UCL in his left arm. After a month, the injury had not improved.

During the four-hour surgery

on Sept. 25, 1974, Jobe made holes in the humerus and ulna bones of John’s left arm and used anchors to insert the tendon in a figureeight pattern.

At first, John’s left hand was shriveled and he lacked feeling in several of his fingers because of damage to the ulnar nerve. Jobe performed a second procedure to re-route the nerve that was necessary to John’s full recovery.

John’s arm was in a cast for four months. He had recovered the full range of motion in his left arm by spring training of 1975 and spent that season resting, healing and rebuilding strength in his arm.

That September he made five appearances during an offseason instructional league, working his way up to seven innings by his final game.

He resumed pitching for the Dodgers in 1976 as the fourth starter in their rotation. John made 31 start, posting a 10-10 record, a 3.09 ERA, 91 strikeouts, 61 walks and 207 hits allowed in 207 innings.

John donated the original cast from his surgery to the Smithsonian Institution in June 2022. His teammates on the 1974 Dodgers signed it, as well as Jobe and the team’s Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully.

The procedure has become so widely known that in 2019, Merriam-Webster added the term to its dictionary.

Scheffler opens PGA postseason in dominant form

BY DOUG FERGUSON AP golf writer

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Scottie Scheffler was back to his dominant form Sunday, turning a two-shot lead into a runaway in the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He closed with a 4-under 66 for an eight-shot victory, the largest in the 68-year history at the TPC Southwind.

Scheffler ended nearly seven months without winning, a season that has been marked by astonishing consistency but only one trophy to show for it from his season opener at The American Express in the California desert.

This was only close for a fleeting moment. After months of little things getting in the way, Scheffler hit a bunker shot on the par5 third that would have settled a few feet away for a tap-in birdie.

But it landed on a sprinkler head, took a hard hop and rolled through the green into the water for bogey.

“I was like, ‘Man, when is this going to stop happening?’ ” Scheffler said.

That shrunk his lead to one shot over Sungjae Im. Then Scheffler made consecutive birdie putts on the fifth and sixth holes and was on his way. Playing in the final group in stifling heat and the most wind all week, Scheffler matched the best score Sunday.

He finished at 17-under 263, eight shots clear of his Dallas

ASOCIATEd PRESS PHOTO By GEORGE WALKER IV

Scottie Scheffler, right, celebrates with caddie Ted Scott on the 18th green after winning the St. Jude Championship on Sunday in Memphis, Tenn. Scheffler won by eight strokes. neighbor Si Woo Kim, who closed with a 68. The previous record was John Cook winning at TPC Southwind by seven shots in 1996.

Scheffler now has 21 career victories on the PGA Tour, 10 of them by four shots or more.

Sam Burns, one of Scheffler’s best friends in golf, played with him in the final group and took double bogey on the par-5 third hole. He shot 73 and tied for third

with Alex Noren (69).

“I don’t think it would have mattered if I played well,” Burns said.

“He was going to be tough to beat today.”

Scheffler won $3.6 million from the prize fund, and he clinched an additional $23 million in bonus money for being No. 1 in the FedEx Cup through next week’s BMW Championship. No one can catch him. No one is particularly

close in the game at the moment, even when he’s not piling up trophies.

Scheffler now has two victories, five runner-up finishes and five other top-four finishes in another stellar year that until Sunday was marked by his lack of winning compared with previous years. The TPC Southwind was the course he had played the most times without winning, and the FedEx Cup playoffs opener had been the only postseason tournament he had yet to win. All that changed.

Im wound up with a 75 to tie for fifth, but it was enough for the South Korean to move from No. 53 into the top 50 who advance to the BMW Championship next week in St. Louis. Im kept alive his chances of reaching the Tour Championship every year since he was a rookie in 2019.

Im bumped out Keith Mitchell, who stood in the water left of the 18th fairway to play a shot from the bank as he tried to give himself his best chance. That shot tumbled into the water, he made bogey and narrowly missed out.

So did Jordan Spieth, who needed to close with four pars to reach the BMW Championship for the first time since 2023, but finished with a bogey from the water on No. 15 and three pars for a 70.

The top 50 who advance also are assured of playing all the $20 million signature events next year.

Washington Commanders backup quarterback Marcus Mariota has a sprained medial collateral ligament in his right knee, coach Dan Quinn confirmed Sunday.

Mariota, 32, will miss the remainder of the preseason, but Quinn is “optimistic that he’ll be ready for the start of the regular season.”

Mariota was injured during Washington’s preseason opener against Miami on Friday night.

Starter Jayden Daniels did not play against the Dolphins.

Quinn said the Commanders don’t plan on bringing in another quarterback at this time. The only other QBs on the roster are Sam Hartman and rookie Athan Kaliakmanis.

Djokovic taken down

by Tirante in first round

MASON, Ohio — Novak Djokovic’s stay at the Cincinnati Open was a short one.

The 24-time major champion fell to Thiago Agustin Tirante 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday in a match that took 2 hours, 44 minutes in hot and humid conditions.

A 25-year-old from Argentina, Tirante is ranked No. 50 in the world. Djokovic — a three-time Cincinnati champion and No. 5 in the rankings — was playing for the first time since his loss to topranked Jannik Sinner in the semifinals at Wimbledon.

Djokovic appeared to struggle physically in the heat and had his 10-match winning streak in Cincinnati snapped. The 39-year-old told reporters that an unspecified health condition made it difficult for him to play in hot and humid weather.

Englishman Whaley beats Leng to win U.S. Amateur

ARDMORE, Pa. — Jack Whaley of England used double gloves, needed an umbrella and was stung by a wasp at rainy Merion Golf Club and still pushed through to hold off Jay Leng to win the U.S. Amateur on Sunday.

The 22-year-old English amateur sank his final putt to clinch the 36hole final 4 and 3.

Whaley made a rapid rise from NAIA star to Florida State to amateur champion. He now has an exemption into the 2027 U.S. Open, the 2027 British Open at St. Andrews and the Masters, should he remain an amateur.

Whaley won the seventh U.S. Amateur held at Merion and is the first English amateur to win since Matt Fitzpatrick at Brookline in 2013.

Hip impingement puts A’s OF Soderstrom on IL

The Athletics lost another slugger when they placed outfielder Tyler Soderstrom on the 10-day injured list on Sunday with a left hip impingement.

The 24-year-old Soderstrom is batting .245 with 19 homers and 56 RBIs. He set career highs with 25 homers, 93 RBIs and a .276 batting average last year.

The Athletics already were playing without first baseman Nick Kurtz and catcher Shea Langeliers. Kurtz is on the IL with a right thumb injury that could sideline him for the rest of the year. Langeliers had season-ending surgery on his right knee last month.

Also Sunday, the A’s claimed left-hander Joe Rock off waivers from the Chicago White Sox and optioned him to Triple-A Las Vegas.

The Acadiana Advocate ● theadvocate.com ● Monday, August 17, 2026 ● 3C

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DISEASE

“It’s a 30-second cheek swab on each side. Then if they’re called to donate — and it’s rare to be matched with a patient — but if you are matched, that process is like donating plasma. It’s an afternoon. It’s no longer the invasive process that it was years ago.”

Continued from page 1C the doctors, they’re going to learn from patients like Cate that are the first to come through with it.”

While Cate and her family are navigating their journey, they also hope to help people who are going through something similar by raising awareness and increasing the number of people in the National Marrow Donor Program registry.

That was why the Hargett family was at Saints camp Thursday, and it is why players such as Saints guard Dillon Radunz offered his time and platform to get the word out.

Radunz was one of several players from both the Saints and Jaguars who made time to visit with Cate after practice Thursday, but he also submitted his own sample to the donor program — a simple process that required him to swab his cheeks for 30 seconds.

“Obviously it’s heartbreaking,” Radunz said. “Any of these diseases that pop up and need a lot of research, need a lot of help, obviously it’s sad, and it’s more sad when it happens to children who are completely innocent. You hear about a story like that and you immediately want to help.

“Anything to promote this, to promote people being registered to be donors to help people like Cate, I want to do my part to help.”

One of the main obstacles the Hargetts have encountered is education. When people think about

SAINTS

of those guys, I am proud of those guys. You go through some bumps sometimes, and you just keep going. Just keep going through training camp and through this preseason.”

Here are the other positions most affected by what happened on the field Saturday.

Quarterback Will Zach Wilson get an opportunity with the second team?

After Wilson outplayed Spencer Rattler, Moore was noncommittal about whether Wilson would see reps with the second unit rather than the third. Moore did reveal that the starters likely won’t play in next week’s preseason game against the Los Angeles Rams, creating an opportunity for him to swap Rattler for Wilson if the coach decides to shake things up.

The Saints have said there’s a competition taking place for backup quarterback, but Rattler and Wilson have yet to rotate reps since camp began July 29. Wilson’s performance against Jacksonville showed that it could be worth exploring.

The former second overall pick went 11-of-16 passing for 145 yards and a touchdown, while Rattler mustered only 42 yards on

Continued from page 1C

property, sports and NIL law to weigh in on the unusual case.

Put No. 5 aside No, Daniels does not have a legal right to the No. 5, and he cannot prevent LSU from issuing it to one of its players. That’s not what his cease-and-desist action is demanding of the school.

Daniels can exercise his legal right to stop LSU from using his name, image and likeness (NIL) in certain ways. David Fleshman, a former LSU basketball player who now practices sports law in Baton Rouge, said the school could expose itself to a potential lawsuit if it uses Daniels’ NIL in a “very clear commercial purpose.”

“It’s not a blanket prohibition against any use of his name, image and likeness,” Fleshman said. “It’s only the commercial use.”

LSU had an agreement with Daniels that, presumably, outlined the ways in which the school could use his NIL after he moved on to the NFL. Adam Kenner, Daniels’ attorney, referenced that contract at the top of the cease-and-desist letter, where he said that LSU had a 180-day “grace period” in which it could use Daniels’ NIL after his collegiate career ended.

It’s unclear what exactly the deal allowed LSU to

STAFF PHOTO By BRETT dUKE

New Orleans Saints offensive lineman dillon Radunz poses for a photo with Cate Hargett, 11, after a joint practice with the Jacksonville Jaguars on Thursday in Metairie. bone marrow, they assume the donor process will be difficult or time-consuming.

“It’s a 30-second cheek swab on each side,” Jenni Hargett said.

“Then if they’re called to donate — and it’s rare to be matched with a patient — but if you are matched, that process is like donating plas-

ma. It’s an afternoon. It’s no longer the invasive process that it was years ago.

“Once people know, it’s an easy yes.”

Because of Cate’s situation, she needs a 100% match from a donor to have the best chance of surviving the disease.

not be room if the Saints have only five wideouts on their initial 53man roster. And even if the Saints keep six receivers, Means would have to beat out someone like Austin, who is ahead of him in the pecking order as of now.

Elsewhere, Ronnie Bell (zero catches, one target) surprisingly had a quiet night given he had been having a productive camp.

And Jalen Cropper (three catches, 49 yards) found his way to the ball, despite limited reps in practice.

Running back Moore might not have quite the same philosophy as former Saints coach Dennis Allen, who would often say that a player can’t make the team if they’re stuck in the training room.

But Kendre Miller (back) and Devin Neal (hamstring) need to make sure they’re doing all they can to return to the practice field sooner rather than later because the battle to become the third running back arguably has intensified more than any other position in camp.

Audric Estime followed a strong week of practice with a 9-yard touchdown on his first run against Jacksonville. Estime finished with 28 yards on five carries, good for an average of 5.6 yards per attempt.

The unfortunate part is Estime got hurt. He left early with an ankle injury, which Moore said was being further evaluated. Does that open the door for Ty Chandler? The former Vikings running back also has had a solid camp and dazzled with an 86-yard kickoff return to open the Jaguars game.

Linebacker

STAFF PHOTO By dAVId GRUNFELd

New Orleans Saints running back Ty Chandler, center, runs the opening kickoff back 86 yards during a preseason game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday at the Caesars Superdome.

yards) and Kevin Austin (three catches, 24 yards) could be the most logical candidates to fill that spot, though neither delivered the kind of statement against Jacksonville to say the battle has reached a conclusion. There’s also rookie Bryce Lance, who didn’t play Saturday because he’s been Wide receiver dealing with “bumps and bruises.”

The Saints don’t have a clear The race for WR4 is wide open.

Barion Brown (four catches, 53 fourth receiver after Ja’Lynn Polk

do with Daniels’ NIL both before and after the grace period ended, something Tulane law professor Gabe Feldman pointed out after he was asked what he thought Daniels was trying to accomplish.

“The question is,” Feldman said, “what are the specifics of the contract they had? What did it allow them to do? What did it not allow them to do, and then, more importantly, maybe, what did they actually do? What is he complaining about?”

Feldman suggested Daniels could be “stating a legitimate claim,” but because his attorney did not offer specific evidence that LSU had violated the terms of the contract, then the letter he sent could merely could be an example of “public posturing.”

Heitner echoed that sentiment. He said it was “rather sloppy” for Daniels’ lawyer to make those claims and demands “without any legal basis whatsoever.”

“It seems like it’s retaliatory,” Heitner said. “It’s purely a reaction to not getting his way with respect to retirement of his jersey number.”

What has to change?

The short answer is not much. LSU does not have to scrub Daniels from its record book, and it can keep displaying images of him in Tiger Stadium, its football operations building and other parts of campus.

If LSU wants to sell Daniels’ jersey, though, it could

registry since they began searching for a match in December of last year.

Jenni Hargett described herself as someone who leans toward being cynical, but she said this process has restored her faith in humanity.

“I’ve heard directly from eight people who have been called as matches for other patients — those are patients that otherwise would not get a life-saving stem cell transplant,” Jenni Hargett said. “So it’s really been a beautiful thing to be a part of that.

“We’re obviously ready to find Cate’s match and be able to breathe a little easier, but it has been really amazing to know this has grown into something that is helping so many people.”

Those who are interested in joining the donor registry can find more information at my.nmdp.org/ join.

Cate’s parents work as a schoolteacher and farmer in Greenwood, Mississippi. Neither has a large social media following to get the word out. Still, because of organizations such as the Saints sharing their megaphone, Jenni Hargett said they’ve been able to add al- Email Luke Johnson at most 10,000 people to the donor ljohnson@theadvocate.com.

8-of-11 passing. Rattler was also sacked twice, one of which led to a fumble that Jacksonville recovered inside the Saints 10-yard line.

Continued from page 1C

DANIELS

JENNI HARGETT, mother of Cate Hargett, on joining the marrow donation registry

run into some problems.

Fleshman said that use likely would be a black-andwhite violation of Daniels’ NIL rights.

“The gray area, I would say,” he said, “is really around how is this video, how is this image or how is this highlight video being used?”

The purpose matters.

Feldman thinks LSU can use photos and videos of Daniels in TV commercials; radio, print or streaming ads; and social media posts so long as they’re being used only to promote the football program. Things get murkier if LSU football attaches one of its corporate sponsors to images of Daniels.

“Let’s say they have a signed football,” Feldman said, “and then they put a picture of that signed football in an ad for something.

Then you can say, ‘Well, maybe they’re now using it for commercial purposes.’ ” Could promoting LSU athletics be a commercial purpose? Kansas City attorney Mit Winter, a lawyer who practices sports law and intellectual property law, thinks Daniels could have a right to object if the Tigers use his likeness in basic promotional materials.

Therein lies the gray area.

“If they wanted to keep using his NIL to promote LSU athletics,” Winter said, “they would need to enter into another agreement with him for that, and presumably Jayden Daniels would ask for some money to do that.

That’s just an assumption on

The Saints made a statement by who they didn’t play. Beyond shelving their starters, New Orleans also withheld a few key backups — including second-year linebacker Danny Stutsman.

Stutsman has been competing with Pete Werner for a starting spot opposite Kaden Elliss, and it’s worth wondering whether the decision to rest Stutsman indicates that battle is truly neck-and-neck.

Fourth-year linebacker Jaylan Ford also has taken occasional reps with the first team, and he made sure not to be forgotten with a standout performance against the Jaguars.

Ford had seven tackles and an interception, picking off Jacksonville quarterback Nick Mullens in the red zone.

retired earlier in camp. And if rookie Jordyn Tyson, who is dealing with a hamstring injury, has to miss significant time, whoever wins that job likely will be elevated to the third receiver behind Chris Olave and Devaughn Vele.

There’s also a question of how many receivers the Saints keep.

Bub Means (four catches, 77 yards) made a case that he’s de- Email Matthew Paras at matt. serving of a spot, but there might paras@theadvocate.com

my part.”

What’s next?

As of Sunday, LSU still lists some signed Daniels’ merchandise for sale on LSUshop.net, but it does not appear to have any Daniels jerseys available for purchase.

That small change could be the only tangible thing that comes as a result of Daniels’ cease-and-desist letter, the four lawyers said. That, and the possibility that other schools across the country use the case to reexamine the ways they’re using their former players’ NIL rights.

“I wouldn’t recommend betting on this,” Feldman said, “but if I were to choose a side, I would say right now it looks like LSU, probably, has very little to worry about.”

Fleshman and Heitner agree. They’re both surprised that Daniels and his camp even took the unusual step, a move that had Heitner questioning if he had fallen for a fake news story on social media.

“Unless LSU had plans to embark on some sort of massive commercial effort to sell a product or service in association with Jayden Daniels’ name, image or likeness,” he said, “this is all a very pointless exercise.”

Email Reed Darcey at reed.darcey@theadvocate. com. For more LSU sports updates, sign up for our newsletter at theadvocate. com/lsunewsletter

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Continued from page 1C

It’s a little more accumulated on those guys that are practicing.”

For Babineaux, it’s more than just catching the ball. The physical side of the game at the collegiate level is often a chore for smaller receivers.

“I feel like that’s a major step I took, whether in a position room, in a meeting room,” Babineaux explained. “I feel like coach (Tim) Leger’s done a great job to give me that position to be the best that I can on the field, whether it’s getting off of press coverage in a slot position, whether it’s playing catch at 5 yards, I feel like coach has done a great job to give me a good position to execute that play, execute anything that I have to do to win my rep.”

Redshirt junior KeDarius Wade currently tops the depth chart of healthy receivers, but he had only two catches for 25 yards last season.

“Whether it’s a freshman or it’s a vet guy, I feel like everybody’s stepping up and owning their own role as a unit,” Babineaux said. “Whether he has these amount of reps, like I said, we’re all owning everything. We’re all taking advantage of every opportunity that we get.

“I feel like that’s the biggest thing coming into this year — any guy could play anywhere.”

of roles in that position. So you can be anywhere.”

Like so many players in their second year in the program, Babineaux feels more capable with the playbook.

“I feel like just the play speed of it,” he said. “The game has slowed down for me, just learning a playbook, learning my job, owning my role, just getting to the ins and outs of it, whether it’s a route coming behind me, right in front of me, what I have to do in a slot position. I know my job, know what I have around me.

“It slowed down a whole lot for me, from one year to the next.”

In a perfect world, prospects such as Babineaux can develop slowly, but that doesn’t appear to be the case this season.

Without Sampson and Strother, the most accomplished returning receiver is Jaydon Johnson with six catches for 51 yards last season.

“Shelton, honestly, is the biggest concern because he was limited in spring,” Desormeaux said. “So we’re going to have to do a good job with him.

Truthfully, the concern becomes the guys who do practice, if that makes sense, because the work that’s spread out now, you Email Kevin Foote at spread it a little bit less. kfoote@theadvocate.com.

4C ● Monday, August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

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PREP FOOTBALL SEASON PREVIEW 2026 SCHEDULE Date

Opponent

Sept. 4 Sept. 10 Sept. 18 Sept. 24 Oct. 2 Oct. 8 Oct. 16 Oct 30 Nov. 6

KAPLAN ACAdIANA RENAISSANCE Northside Jeanerette CENTERVILLE Westminster-LAF HANSON MEMORIAL Vermilion Catholic CENTRAL CATHOLIC

Ascension Episcopal

PLAYERS TO WATCH Austin Adams DB, 5-9, 175, Sr. The ballhawk intercepted three passes in the No. 6 Blue Gators’ 38-7 quarterfinal win over undefeated Hamilton Christian, returning one for a touchdown. “We’re a little short on guys this year, but everyone is really committed,” Adams said.

HOME GAMES IN CAPS

Braxton Woodring LB/TE, 5-8, 170, Sr. Woodring plays much bigger than his size and has a nose for the football.

“We have a lot of leadership from the seniors,” he said. “I like the way it’s going.”

PAST FIVE YEARS 2025: 11-2 2024: 9-2 2023: 7-5 2022: 6-6 2021: 8-4

PROJECTED STARTERS Offense WR Jack Boudreaux, Senior* WR Carson Collette Sophomore WR Austin Adams Senior TE Lucus Cormier Junior OL Merritt Kawkins Senior* OL Andrew Clement Junior* OL Rhodes Perry Junior* OL Beck Trahan Junior OL Colin Perry Sophomore QB Eli Gros Sophomore RB Owen LeBlanc Senior Defense dE david Kennedy Senior* ILB Owen LeBlanc Senior* ILB Braxton Woodring Senior* OLB Aiden Johnson Junior* dB Austin Adams Senior* dB Sport Gros Senior* dB Rive Trahan Junior dB Michael Gayle Senior * RETURNING STARTER

COACHES Head coach: Jay domengeaux Assistant coaches: dusty Collette, Rob Segura, Brandon Mitchell, Gus Maraist, Scott McCullough, Zach Morgan, and Keith Calvert.

Jack Boudreaux WR, 5-10, 175, Sr. Boudreaux was first-team all-district last year and will be targeted often with the graduation of Preston Peebles and Andrew McCormick. “A lot of teams are going to outnumber us, so we’re going to have to grind,” he said.

PHOTO By MIKE COPPAGE

Ascension Episcopal offensive players include, front row from left, Jack Boudreaux and Carson Collette. In the back row from left are Owen LeBlanc, Merritt Hawkins, Rhodes Perry and Eli Gros.

as a starting receiver, both could take snaps at QB. Jack Boudreaux is the leading returning receiver, while The back seven of the defense will be the most LeBlanc is the feature back who will be counted on to help experienced group for Ascension Episcopal, which offset the loss of a combined 1,700 yards rushing and 20 made a run to the division IV select semifinals before touchdowns from Andre Abshire, Mitchell and Kelly. losing to champion Riverside Academy last season.

Lucas Cormier will play tight end and linebacker for district defensive MVP Braxton the Blue Gators, who will have more players going both Woodring and all-district pick Owen ways than usual.

LeBlanc return at linebacker, as well “The question mark is health,” domengeaux said. “Can you as Aiden Johnson (second-team allfinish with the same number you go into the season with? district) on the outside.

With a 30-man roster, there’s not a lot of room for error.”

“The back seven on defense is where How we see it the most experience lies,” coach Jay Domengeaux domengeaux said.

The Class 1A Blue Gators always schedule larger Both of the starting safeties return in schools in nondistrict, and this season is no exception Sport Gros (all-district) and Austin Adams (second-team with Class 3A Kaplan and Class 4A programs Acadiana all-district). They’ll be joined by cornerbacks Rive Trahan Renaissance and Northside. and Michael Gayle, who saw plenty of action last year.

Ascension Episcopal and ARCA, which is in its first official domengeaux was pleased with the commitment from year of football, should be natural rivals as their campuses his 31-man roster during the summer. Those who didn’t are separated by only 1.2 miles in youngsville. miss a day got a gold stripe on their helmet, while The Blue Gators, who went undefeated in district last players who missed two or fewer got a silver stripe. year, expect a tough league with surging Westminster “The roster is a little smaller, but the kids have been Christian-Lafayette, formidable Vermilion Catholic working their butts off,” said domengeaux, who handed and Central Catholic, as well as newcomer Jeanerette out eight gold stripes and one silver. “The chemistry (division IV nonselect semifinalist). is really, really good. I expect the seniors to keep the “Jeanerette has a lot coming back with talent and chemistry and for us to grow as a team every week. speed,” domengeaux said. “Westminster got better and “Everybody wants to win district and do well in the better last season. you could see the improvement. you playoffs. Everybody wants all that stuff, but we also know VC is going to play hard.” recognize what’s important: That’s the commitment Ascension Episcopal, which will face Erath in the from these guys, and they’ve done that.” jamboree, has won 20 games over the past two years.

To continue that tremendous pace, they’ll need to stay What we don’t know The Blue Gators will have a new quarterback after the healthy and for the youth at quarterback to quickly develop. graduation of Branon Mitchell, who was 72-of-124 Two-way lineman david Kennedy is expected to play a passing and a 500-yard rusher last season. huge role.

Then the projected quarterback starter for this season, “He’s a mainstay at strong-side defensive end who will have dJ Kelly, transferred to Teurllings Catholic. to do a lot of work at offensive tackle,” said domengeaux, “It’s tough,” domengeaux said of replacing Mitchell, “not just who has three returning starters on the offensive line in athletically, but he was a kid they looked up to in the huddle.

Rhodes Perry (all-district), and Merritt Hawkins and Andrew That’s the biggest thing is leadership in the huddle. When Clement (both second-team all-district). times are tough, someone else has to carry that torch.”

What we know

Sophomores Eli Gros and Carson Collette, who is listed

Sport Gros WR/DB, 6-1, 165, Sr. A future college baseball pitcher, Gros will roam the secondary at strong safety and should be among the receiving leaders. “We have less people on our roster, but because of that, we’ve gotten closer,” said Gros, the older brother of quarterback Eli. Owen LeBlanc LB/RB, 6-0, 195, Sr. LeBlanc should get a lot of carries while the quarterback position gains experience. He’s also a staunch defender with classic linebacker size. “Look for a fast, dedicated team that flies to the ball and never takes a play off,” he said.

Mike Coppage

SCOREBOARD Odds

Pro football

Sports Betting Line MLB

NFL Glance Thursday’s Games

Monday

American League FAVORITE LINE at TAMPA BAY -167 at KANSAS CITY OFF National League FAVORITE LINE at CINCINNATI OFF at PHILA -240 at CINCINNATI OFF at N.Y METS -125 LA Dodgers -251 Interleague FAVORITE LINE Detroit -122 at BOSTON OFF Atlanta -125 at CHI CUBS -173

UNDERDOG Baltimore Athletics

LINE +132 OFF

UNDERDOG St. Louis Miami St. Louis San Diego at COLORADO

LINE OFF +190 OFF +102 +196

UNDERDOG LINE at PITTS -101 Arizona OFF at MINNESOTA +102 Chi White Sox +139

Pro basketball

Friday’s Games

Denver 27, Atlanta 7 Tampa Bay 24, N.Y. Jets 16 Washington 20, Miami 7

Saturday’s Games

Buffalo 29, Carolina 14 Chicago 34, Cleveland 10 Minnesota 13, N.Y. Giants 10 Jacksonville 24, New Orleans 20 L.A. Rams 20, Kansas City 12 Baltimore 24, Philadelphia 7 Dallas 17, Seattle 7

Thursday, Aug. 20

Las Vegas at Houston, 7 p.m.

San Francisco at L.A. Chargers, 9 p.m.

Friday, Aug. 21

WNBA EASTERN CONFERENCE Indiana Atlanta New York Washington Chicago Toronto Connecticut

W 22 21 22 20 12 10 8

L 12 12 14 14 22 23 25

Pct GB .647 — .636 ½ .611 1 .588 2 .353 10 .303 11½ .242 13½

x-Minnesota Golden State x-Las Vegas Dallas Portland Phoenix Los Angeles Seattle

W 29 24 24 20 14 13 12 7

L 7 9 12 15 20 22 22 29

Pct GB .806 — .727 3½ .667 5 .571 8½ .412 14 .371 15½ .353 16 .194 22

WESTERN CONFERENCE

x-clinched playoff spot Saturday’s Games

New York 82, Connecticut 75 Washington 80, Los Angeles 70 Minnesota 92, Las Vegas 87

Sunday’s Games

Chicago at Seattle, 4 p.m.

Indiana at Atlanta, 4 p.m.

Portland at Phoenix, N

Monday’s Games

Cincinnati 16, Detroit 14 Pittsburgh 28, Green Bay 9 Indianapolis 13, New England 13 Arizona 27, Las Vegas 14 L.A. Chargers 27, Houston 7 Tennessee 19, San Francisco 13

Dallas at Golden State, 9 p.m.

N.Y. Jets at Pittsburgh, 6 p.m.

Carolina at Jacksonville, 6:30 p.m.

Green Bay at Denver, 8 p.m.

Saturday, Aug. 22

Washington at Detroit, 11 a.m.

Atlanta at Indianapolis, noon Baltimore at Minnesota, noon Buffalo at Cleveland, noon N.Y. Giants at Miami, 3 p.m.

New Orleans at L.A. Rams, 3 p.m.

Chicago at Cincinnati, 6 p.m.

Philadelphia at New England, 6 p.m.

Kansas City at Tampa Bay, 6:30 p.m.

Dallas at Arizona, 9 p.m.

Sunday, Aug. 23

Seattle at Tennessee, 7 p.m.

Golf FedEx St. Jude Championship Sunday

At TPC Southwind Memphis, Tenn.

Purse: $20 million Yardage: 7,288; Par: 70 Final Round 68-61-68-66—263 Scottie Scheffler Si Woo Kim 70-68-65-68—271 Sam Burns 67-70-62-73—272 Alex Noren 71-66-66-69—272

-17 -9 -8 -8

Wyndham Clark 69-66-70-68—273 Sungjae Im 66-66-67-74—273 Tommy Fleetwood 66-68-68-72—274 Jake Knapp 65-70-67-72—274 Hideki Matsuyama 66-70-67-71—274 Xander Schauffele 67-72-68-67—274 Ludvig Åberg 68-65-74-67—274 Patrick Cantlay 69-66-70-70—275 Bud Cauley 66-72-70-67—275 Nicolas Echavarria 68-66-71-70—275 Matt Fitzpatrick 70-67-69-69—275 Tom Kim 69-72-63-71—275 Kurt Kitayama 65-73-66-71—275 Adam Scott 66-70-69-70—275 Pierceson Coody 71-66-70-69—276 Viktor Hovland 68-64-72-72—276 Maverick McNealy 68-70-69-69—276 Patrick Rodgers 67-69-71-69—276 Jordan Spieth 65-69-72-70—276 Ryan Gerard 70-70-68-69—277 Harry Hall 72-68-68-69—277 Max Homa 73-67-69-68—277 Jackson Koivun 71-70-66-70—277 J.T. Poston 71-68-66-72—277 Alex Smalley 68-68-72-69—277 Jacob Bridgeman 69-70-68-71—278 Chris Gotterup 66-70-69-73—278 Brian Harman 70-64-69-75—278 Russell Henley 71-70-67-70—278 Rickie Fowler 68-73-66-72—279 Nicolai Højgaard 73-70-68-68—279 Keith Mitchell 69-66-72-72—279 J.J. Spaun 71-69-67-72—279 Sepp Straka 68-73-72-66—279 Justin Rose 73-70-73-64—280 Nick Taylor 69-68-69-74—280 Cameron Young 69-69-72-70—280 Michael Brennan 73-70-67-71—281 Harris English 68-75-71-67—281 Ben Griffin 73-71-69-68—281 Sam Stevens 69-71-70-71—281 Gary Woodland 66-71-70-74—281 Corey Conners 71-71-70-70—282 Matti Schmid 73-70-67-72—282 Justin Thomas 70-67-72-73—282 Michael Thorbjornsen 65-75-72-70—282 Sudarshan Yellamaraju70-65-76-71—282 69-70-71-73—283 Ryo Hisatsune Shane Lowry 69-72-72-70—283 Collin Morikawa 71-69-71-72—283 Michael Kim 65-72-74-73—284 Min Woo Lee 67-71-75-71—284 71-73-67-73—284 Jordan L. Smith Eric Cole 72-72-70-71—285 Ryan Fox 73-73-72-67—285 Kristoffer Reitan 72-71-73-69—285 Alex Fitzpatrick 71-74-70-71—286 Aldrich Potgieter 71-71-72-72—286 Ricky Castillo 72-74-68-73—287 Matthew McCarty 73-72-71-71—287

-7 -7 -6 -6 -6 -6 -6 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -5 -4 -4 -4 -4 -4 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -3 -2 -2 -2 -2 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 E E E +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +2 +2 +2 +2 +2 +3 +3 +3 +4 +4 +4 +5 +5 +5 +6 +6 +7 +7

Aaron Rai

72-66-71-78—287

+7

East Division

Major League Baseball American League East Division Tampa Bay New York Boston Baltimore Toronto

W 74 69 66 61 61

L 49 55 57 63 65

Pct .602 .556 .537 .492 .484

GB — 5½ 8 13½ 14½

Chicago Cleveland Detroit Minnesota Kansas City

W 65 60 60 60 50

L 58 64 64 65 74

Pct .528 .484 .484 .480 .403

GB — 5½ 5½ 6 15½

Houston Texas Seattle Los Angeles Athletics

W 63 61 58 49 48

L 61 63 66 75 75

Pct .508 .492 .468 .395 .390

GB — 2 5 14 14½

Central Division

West Division

Saturday’s Games

Chicago White Sox 4, Detroit 3 Toronto 4, N.Y. Yankees 1 Baltimore 4, Tampa Bay 3, 10 innings Cleveland 6, San Diego 1 Seattle 10, Houston 5 Boston 4, Pittsburgh 0 Philadelphia 9, Minnesota 1 L.A. Angels 1, Kansas City 0 Texas 5, Athletics 3

Sunday’s Games

Baltimore 10, Tampa Bay 2 Pittsburgh 8, Boston 3 Chicago White Sox 7, Detroit 5 N.Y. Yankees 4, Toronto 3, 10 innings Philadelphia 7, Minnesota 5 Kansas City 3, L.A. Angels 0 Athletics 5, Texas 2 San Diego 5, Cleveland 0 Seattle at Houston, n

Monday’s Games

National League

Baltimore (Young 9-3) at Tampa Bay (McClanahan 9-6), 5:05 p.m.

Detroit (Valdez 7-8) at Pittsburgh (Mlodzinski 6-5), 6:05 p.m.

Arizona (Bratt 1-1) at Boston (TBD), 6:10 p.m.

Athletics (Barnett 1-3) at Kansas City (Wacha 5-8), 6:40 p.m.

Atlanta (Pérez 8-6) at Minnesota (Ober 7-4), 6:40 p.m.

Chicago White Sox (Castillo 4-9) at Chicago Cubs (Imanaga 8-9), 7:05 p.m.

Atlanta Philadelphia Miami Washington New York

W 74 67 64 60 56

L 50 58 61 66 69

Pct .597 .536 .512 .476 .448

GB — 7½ 10½ 15 18½

Milwaukee Chicago St. Louis Pittsburgh Cincinnati

W 76 72 62 60 59

L 48 52 61 65 64

Pct .613 .581 .504 .480 .480

GB — 4 13½ 16½ 16½

Pct .597 .532 .528 .415 .398

GB — 8 8½ 22½ 24½

Central Division

West Division Los Angeles San Diego Arizona San Francisco Colorado

W 74 66 66 51 49

Saturday’s Games

L 50 58 59 72 74

St. Louis 8, Chicago Cubs 4 San Francisco 7, Colorado 1 N.Y. Mets 5, Washington 4 Miami 8, Cincinnati 4 Cleveland 6, San Diego 1 Milwaukee 4, L.A. Dodgers 1 Boston 4, Pittsburgh 0 Philadelphia 9, Minnesota 1 Arizona 10, Atlanta 3

Sunday’s Games

Atlanta 5, Arizona 3 N.Y. Mets 4, Washington 3 Pittsburgh 8, Boston 3 Miami 7, Cincinnati 1 Philadelphia 7, Minnesota 5 St. Louis 11, Chicago Cubs 4 Milwaukee 6, L.A. Dodgers 2 Colorado 13, San Francisco 7 San Diego 5, Cleveland 0

Monday’s Games

St. Louis (Pallante 12-6) at Cincinnati (Lowder 4-8), 12:40 p.m., 1st game Miami (Junk 6-7) at Philadelphia (Sánchez 15-4), 5:40 p.m.

St. Louis (TBD) at Cincinnati (TBD), 5:40 p.m., 2nd game Detroit (Valdez 7-8) at Pittsburgh (Mlodzinski 6-5), 6:05 p.m.

Arizona (Bratt 1-1) at Boston (TBD), 6:10 p.m.

San Diego (Buehler 7-5) at N.Y. Mets (McLean 8-8), 6:10 p.m.

Atlanta (Pérez 8-6) at Minnesota (Ober 7-4), 6:40 p.m.

Chicago White Sox (Castillo 4-9) at Chicago Cubs (Imanaga 8-9), 7:05 p.m.

LIVING

T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M

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M o n d ay, au g u s t 17, 2026

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A 4-foot-6 woman with the ‘greatest arms’ you’ve seen

RIGHT: This print, ‘New Orleans — Spring meeting on the Metairie Race-Course,’ published May 4, 1872, in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, shows a group of jockeys and horses during a race at the Metairie Race Course track in New Orleans. This was the same course where enslaved horse jockey Abe Hawkins rode the racehorse Lecomte to victory over Lexington in 1854.

PROVIdEd IMAGE FROM THE HISTORIC NEW

ORLEANS COLLECTION

Meet Matt Damon’s stunt double in ‘Odyssey’

BY ANTHONY SOLORZANO Los Angeles Times (TNS)

If he wasn’t the first Black professional athlete,

Hawkins definitely was the most popular

BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer

At the end of the race, everyone in the stands was chanting his name.

“Abe! Abe! Abe!” Not the racehorse Lecomte’s name, not the name of the horse’s owner, Thomas Jefferson Wells of Smith’s Landing, but the name of the jockey, Abe Hawkins.

While this detail might not sound remarkable now, in 1854, it was extraordinary. Hawkins was a Black man when he rode Lecomte to victory over the legendary 19th-century racehorse Lexington at the Metairie Race Course.

The year was 1854, and Hawkins was a slave on Ash-

IMAGE FROM THE PUBLIC dOMAIN

Though photography was being used in the mid 19th century, there are no photographs or drawn images of Abe Hawkins. This artist’s rendering of how Hawkins may have appeared sometimes is used with histories written about him. land Plantation. His job was to ride planter Duncan Kenner’s racehorses, along with others to which he was leased.

Hawkins wasn’t the youngest rider, but his body shape and size were perfect to be a horse jockey.

He was good at it — and he

A hand-colored print from the 1920s of Louisiana racehorse Lecomte, which Abe Hawkins rode to victory over the racehorse Lexington in 1854.

PROVIdEd IMAGE

was paid well too.

Was Abe Hawkins the first?

Which prompted Phyllis Hall to delve into Hawkins’ status in the world of professional sports.

“I recently learned of Abe Hawkins’ story, and I heard that some historians consider him the first Black professional athlete in the United States,” the Catahoula reader said. “Is this true or were there other Black professional athletes before him in the 1800s?”

Well, Hawkins wasn’t exactly the first.

“I think it would be reasonable to say he was among the first in Louisiana,” said Nick Weldon, director of publications at The Historic New Orleans Collection. “He certainly

There’s this piece in the newspaper in 1866, and the writer says he went to the Jersey Derby. ... And he said he shook Abe’s hand. So, here was this White man who stuck out his hand to shake the hand of a Black man, and it’s 1866.

That’s how famous Abe was.”

KATHERINE C. MOONEy, author of “Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack.”

ä See CURIOUS, page 6C

Extreme heat is reshaping Italy’s wine industry

BY COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press

CORTE FRANCA, Italy — Workers fan out before dawn to clip clusters of grapes destined to be transformed into Italy’s prized Franciacorta sparkling wine a full 10 days earlier than anticipated, as scorching temperatures brought the fruit to maturation earlier than ever.

Climate change is narrowing the window for harvesting wine

grapes, forcing winemakers to make quick decisions when even a few days can mean the difference between a good vintage and a bad one.

“These are delicate, frantic moments, and everything has to work perfectly,” said Berlucchi CEO Arturo Ziliani, whose father, Franco, and estate owner Guido Berlucchi became the first winemakers in the northern Italian

ä See WINE, page 6C

Workers unload crates of wine grapes on a tractor during the harvest in Corte Franca, northern Italy, on Aug. 6.

AP PHOTO By ANTONIO CALANNI

LOS ANGELES — Stuntwoman Devyn Dalton never stops training. Her workouts typically consist of strength exercises, mixed with martial arts and outdoor activities like hiking and running. The only things that change are the structures of her workouts, depending on the role she’s getting ready for.

“When I am (preparing) for a role specifically, I’ll definitely figure out what I need for that (character),” she said.

Sometimes it requires increased agility.

Sometimes she needs to focus on athletic training.

Regardless of Dalton the role, she has to be mentally sharp and completely submerge herself into the character, to the point of invisibility.

Her latest challenge: standing in for Matt Damon in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” In a scene where Odysseus and his crew come into contact with the Laestrygonians, a tribe of maneating giants, Dalton, who’s 4-and-a-half-feet tall, doubled for Damon. The filmmakers used the height difference to help create the illusion of the ginormous Laestrygonians.

In a recent appearance on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Damon gave his stunt double credit for having “the greatest arms” he’s ever seen.

“It was almost 100% my arms in the movie, but you gotta give it up where it’s due,” Damon said.

Dalton’s job isn’t just creating a character based on a different actor’s movement, her job is to blend in so seamlessly that the audience doesn’t even know it’s not Damon’s arms in battle, or that she’s the one tackling Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys in the climactic scene in 2025’s “Weapons.”

That type of invisibility starts with the script itself. Before dissecting a scene, Dalton studies the character within the story. She looks at their emotions and motivations behind each movement.

Once she understands the character, Dalton examines how the actor portrays the words on the page. She pays attention to how the actor’s mannerisms change when they are in action — how they walk, which foot they lean on and other subconscious physical gestures.

Then, she disappears into the spectacle of the film.

“That’s when you know you’ve done your job as a stunt double,” she said. “(The audience) should just see the character and it doesn’t take them out of the film.”

As a stunt double, she is often put in dangerous situations that require extra focus. The butterflies never go away, Dalton said, and an adrenaline rush right before a physically demanding stunt is inevitable.

In situations where she is doing a new stunt for the first time, Dalton tries to visualize everything that can go wrong and prepare to react to it.

“You have to take a leap of faith and trust that the work you’ve put in is there for you,” she said.

Stunt performers are also finally getting recognition from

ä See DOUBLE, page 6C

6C ● Monday, August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

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WINE

TODAY IN HISTORY

By The Associated Press Today is Monday, Aug. 17, the 229th day of 2026. There are 136 days left in the year.

Today in history: On Aug. 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton gave grand jury testimony via closed-circuit television from the White House concerning his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; he then delivered a TV address in which he admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong” but denied previously committing perjury (Clinton was subsequently impeached by the House of Representatives, but acquitted in the Senate).

Also on this date: In 1807, Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat made its first voyage, heading up the Hudson River on a successful round trip between New York City and Albany.

In 1863, federal batteries and ships began bombarding Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor during the Civil War, but the Confederates managed to hold on despite several days of shelling.

In 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Georgia, lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, whose death sen-

tence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment. (Frank, who had maintained his innocence, was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 1986.)

In 1945, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed independence for Indonesia, setting off the Indonesian National Revolution against Dutch rule.

In 1945, the George Orwell novel “Animal Farm,” an allegorical satire of Soviet Communism, was first published in London by Martin Secker & Warburg.

In 1959, trumpeter Miles Davis released “Kind of Blue,” regarded as one of the most influential jazz albums of all time.

In 1978, the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight ended as Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman landed their Double Eagle II outside Paris.

In 1999, more than 17,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck the Kocaeli Province of Turkey.

In 2019, an accident during repair work at Russia’s largest hydroelectric plant killed at least 10 workers and left dozens missing after an engine room was

suddenly flooded. The accident occurred at the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant in southern Siberia.

In 2017, a van barreled down a busy walkway in central Barcelona, swerving as it mowed down pedestrians in the picturesque Spanish tourist destination.

Thirteen people were killed and 100 were injured in what authorities called a terrorist attack.

Today’s birthdays: Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton is 90. Actor Robert DeNiro is 83. Businessman Larry Ellison is 82. Film director Martha Coolidge is 80. Filmmaker/author Julian Fellowes is 77. Tennis Hall of Famer Guillermo Vilas is 74. Singer Belinda Carlisle is 68. Author Jonathan Franzen is 67. Actor Sean Penn is 66. Singer/ actor Donnie Wahlberg is 57. College Basketball Hall of Famer and retired NBA All-Star Christian Laettner is 57. Rapper Posdnuos (De La Soul) is 57. Tennis Hall of Famer Jim Courier is 56. Soccer great Thierry Henry is 49. Rock climber Alex Honnold is 41. Actor Austin Butler is 35. Singersongwriter Phoebe Bridgers is 32. Actor Lexy Kolker is 17. Actor Kayden Tokarski is 17.

CURIOUS

Continued from page 5C was a professional athlete, given that he won his freedom later and won money as a professional racer, but there were Black jockeys before him.”

Still, Hawkins stood out, often called “the best rider on the continent,” as noted in Weldon’s Jan. 11, 2019, article for The Historic New Orleans Collection’s First Draft blog.

“He was the first Black man on a racehorse identified by name in a newspaper as a jockey,” said Katherine C. Mooney, author of the 2014 book, “Race Horse Men: How Slavery and Freedom Were Made at the Racetrack.” “Jockeys who had not been as important to the story started getting named in news stories, so they became a part of the story.”

References to Hawkins as simply “Abe” or “Old Abe” began appearing in local New Orleans papers as early as 1851. His surname was added when he began riding on such Northern tracks as the Saratoga Race Course in New York, where he won the Travers Stakes.

In the forefront of racing All those newspaper mentions helped move Hawkins to the forefront of the sport.

“The thing that’s striking to me is he gets named in the newspapers even when he loses,” Mooney said. “So, it’s not like, ‘Oh, Famous Horse has won this race.’

It was, ‘Famous Jockey was riding Famous Horse.’

He’s the first jockey I’ve ever seen who gets named where he’s news no matter what happened, which is important because of the time frame in which he’s famous.”

That’s not to say there weren’t other Black celebrities at the time. Frederick Douglass probably topped the list.

“People knew who Frederick Douglass was, because he was in the news,” Mooney said. “And he was not a celebrity in a way that necessarily had to do with the fact that he was enslaved. He had been enslaved, and he was talking about abolishing that.”

But Hawkins’ celebrity was different. He was a star of an exciting sport that attracted spectators from near and far. His athleticism could stir a grandstand crowd into a fever pitch.

“Abe Hawkins shows up on the scene, and everyone knows him,” Mooney said.

“He’s riding in Saratoga during the Civil War, which, to me, is wild.”

An interest in horses Mooney, a New Orleans native, is a professor of

Continued from page 5C region of Franciacorta to produce sparkling wine using the “classic” method famously employed by France’s Champagne makers.

“We did not expect such an early harvest or such an acceleration in ripening,” Ziliani said.

Predawn picking Weeks of temperatures reaching highs between 99 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, combined with below-average rainfall, have pushed some winemakers in Franciacorta to record the earliest start on record — 10 days earlier than last year and about a month earlier than three decades ago.

Berlucchi, the oldest producer of Franciacorta, which is made using the traditional method of secondary fermentation in the bottle, began harvesting Aug. 2 as part of an industrywide effort to preserve grape quality in the face of increasingly extreme weather.

Experts say several factors combined to push Franciacorta’s harvest so early this year. A relatively mild winter meant the vines produced buds earlier, while hailstorms damaged some of the yield, lightening the fruit and bringing it to earlier maturation.

Even in late July, Berlucchi was targeting an Aug. 10 harvest date, but it quickly became clear that Pinot Nero used for sparkling blends and rosé was ready to be picked, signaled by rapidly rising sugar lev-

AP PHOTO By ANTONIO CALANNI

A hot worker picks wine grapes during the harvest in Corte Franca, northern Italy, on Aug. 6.

els. Within two days, workers were mustered and the presses were readied.

The midday heat has been so extreme that workers are forced by regional labor rules to stop between 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., but winemakers say it has been too hot for the afternoon shift. To gain time and bring grapes to the presses before they are overheated, Berlucchi last week started the harvest at 4 a.m., with Winemakers adapt workers picking under the “Climate change and the blaze of floodlights.

African weather systems settling over Europe are Complex calculations bringing extraordinary It is not just Franciacorta temperatures and forcing that is starting early. Sicily early picking, not only in began the wine harvest for Italy, but also in France and still wines in late July. Small Germany,” said Paolo Casparts of Tuscany also start- telletti, secretary general ed picking, as well as most of the Italian Wine Union trade organization. sparkling wine regions.

With earlier harvests beThe calculation is most complex for the makers of coming a trend, winemakChampagne-style sparkling ers say they will have to wines, which require a deli- begin monitoring the fields cate balance of much high- even earlier to make sure er fixed acidity, much lower they don’t miss the best harpH and lower sugars than vesting moment. for still reds and whites.

“A good oenologist can “Early-ripening varieties manage situations like this. such as Chardonnay re- I can say with confidence quire great care, because that wine quality is not a delay of just a couple of compromised. It simply days can leave you with requires a different organigrapes unsuitable for spar- zation of work than in past kling wine. Sugar rises too years,” Castelletti said.

DOUBLE

PROVIdEd PHOTO By PAUL FLEd/HISTORICAL MARKER dATABASE

A state historical marker commemorating enslaved horse jocky Abe Hawkins stands on Ashland Road or La. 3251 in Geismar, less than a mile east of River Road. history at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

She grew up riding horses, which fueled her interest in racehorses.

“I didn’t ride racehorses, but I watched horse racing on TV,” she said. “I was a baby historian in graduate school, and I was supposed to be picking a topic for (my) thesis.”

That’s when she discovered author Ed Hotaling’s 1999 book, “The Great Black Jockeys: The Lives and Times of the Men Who Dominated America’s First National Sport” in a used bookstore.

“He has a chapter on Abe in the book, and I think I read that book in two days,” Mooney said. “I was glued to it, because I had no idea about any of this. I started looking around for sources, and I found out that so many of the archive collections you would need for this are at LSU.” Mooney quickly discovered that past historians didn’t write about Southern Black jockeys and horse trainers, because they viewed racehorse training as a plantation hobby.

“Well, when you look it up in the archives, there are reams of stuff about jockeys and trainers and racehorses,” she said. “And I sat there for three days (and) realized how important horse racing was to the people who owned these horses.”

The archival material included Kenner’s itemized list for Ashland, which included a tiny coat for Hawkins.

“I was beside myself,” she said. “And the more I looked, the more I found.

There was this whole world where these guys rode horses, and we’ve, we’ve basically forgotten it. And yet the world we live in now, and the way we treat famous Black athletes today is part and parcel of all that.”

Hawkins continued riding Meanwhile, Kenner left Ashland for Paris for the duration of the war while Hawkins continued riding horses in races throughout

the country. Hawkins technically still was a member of the enslaved jockey population.

All were leased out to ride horses and were able to travel. Hawkins’ eventual freedom came with the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery in the United States, on Dec. 5, 1865.

“There’s this piece in the newspaper in 1866, and the writer says he went to the Jersey Derby, and one of the people he saw was Abe Hawkins,” Mooney said. “And he said he shook Abe’s hand. So, here was this White man who stuck out his hand to shake the hand of a Black man, and it’s 1866. That’s how famous Abe was.”

Meanwhile, Weldon writes that Hawkins developed tuberculosis in 1867 and returned to his wife and children at Ashland, where he died in May of that year.

He requested to be buried by the training race track on the plantation grounds.

His age is unknown.

A story circulated at the time of Hawkins’ return that the jockey offered some of his winnings to Kenner to alleviate Ashland’s wartime financial losses.

“I think if that story is true, I think it more that Abe was offering Kenner a loan,” Mooney said.

Back to the 1854 LecomteLexington matchup at Metairie Race Course, it’s no wonder Hawkins revved up the crowd. Not only did his 4-mile heat on Lecomte set a world record at 7 minutes and 26 seconds, but Hawkins also finished it with showmanship.

“He rode that horse home with one hand in the air,” Mooney said. “And the crowd was chanting, ‘Abe! Abe! Abe!’ ” Do you have a question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your question to curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and the city where you live.

quickly and acidity falls too quickly,” said Attilio Scienza, a professor emeritus at the University of Milan.

High outdoor temperatures require the grapes to be cooled before being gently pressed in stainless steel machines to extract the highest quality freerun juice, a crucial step in sparkling wine production that cannot be rushed.

Berlucchi operates up to 24 presses a day, often late into the night, to process the unusually early harvest.

Berlucchi remains Franciacorta’s largest producer, making about 4 million bottles annually, about 20% of the Franciacorta consortium’s total production of about 20 million bottles.

About 90% are sold in Italy, with the remainder exported to markets including Germany, Switzerland, the United States and Japan.

at the 2028 ceremony for achievement in stunt design.

Continued from page 5C “It’s about time,” Dalton said.

“I’m so excited for stunts the Academy of Motion to be recognized at that Picture Arts and Sciences. high level because of the In 2025, the organization an- amount of skill it takes to nounced that the Oscars will execute these stunts and introduce a new category all these films. ... I hope one

day I get to be in that room as well,” she added.

The dream just gets bigger after working with Nolan and the cast of “The Odyssey,” one of the highestgrossing films of 2026.

“Everyone’s coming together to tell the same story,” she said.

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FrAnK And erneSt

roSebUdS

zItS

zodIAC LEo (July 23-Aug. 22) If you explore creative ideas, you'll hone your skills. Make up your mind, then follow through with your intentions. Be brave, make the first move and don't apologize for being true to yourself and your desires.

VIRGo (Aug. 23-sept. 22) Recap the past in order to assess the present. Don't change anything until you have a sense of what you want and know what you can achieve.

Consider your skills and attributes and how you can put them to the test.

LIBRA (sept. 23-oct. 23) Dig in and take pride in what you do. Focus on helping others and schmoozing, using charm and intelligence to lure those who have something you need or want in return. scoRPIo (oct. 24-nov. 22) Put your time and effort into learning. What you know will determine how much you achieve.

Be willing to go the extra mile to ensure you leave any competition far behind. sAGIttARIus (nov. 23-Dec. 21) Step up and take over. No matter the situation, making yourself available and offering your skills and experience will turn into a platform to promote what you can do. cAPRIcoRn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Take a direct route. If you stop to talk or let something or someone sidetrack you, you will fall short. Keep the momentum flowing and your interactions to a minimum.

AQuARIus (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Direct your attention to legal and medical issues.

Focus on health, nutrition, exercise and maintaining good relationships with those you share space, expenses and concerns with.

PIscEs (Feb. 20-March 20) Consider how you can make your space cost-efficient and conducive to what you want to achieve. Comfort and convenience will lead to a successful outcome. Don't bypass what matters most.

ARIEs (March 21-April 19) You have too much to lose if you don't concentrate on what you want to achieve. The sky's the limit if you stay focused and are ready to take advantage of whatever comes your way. tAuRus (April 20-May 20) Distance yourself from volatile situations. Precision matters, and by eliminating outside interference and dedicating your attention to finishing what you start, you will overcome any unexpected changes that take place.

GEMInI (May 21-June 20) If you take the path that offers insight into interesting pastimes, you'll connect with someone who can offer insight into new possibilities. Expanding your circle of friends will also change how you spend your time. cAncER (June 21-July 22) Put your emotions aside and your mind on what matters. Having discipline and working hard will help you make a difference in how you live. Set your mind on connecting with people who have something to contribute.

The horoscope, an entertainment feature, is not based on scientific fact. © 2026 by NEA, Inc., dist. By Andrews McMeel Syndication

For better or For WorSe WonderWord

peAnUtS

SALLY Forth

beetLe bAILeY CeLebrItY CIpher Celebrity Cipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present. Each letter in the cipher stands for another.

toDAy's cLuE: H EQuALs L

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

SherMAn’S LAGoon FAMILY CIrCUS

dooneSbUrY

8C ● Monday,August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

CurTiS

Hi and LoiS

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Sudoku InstructIons: Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers.

The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

Saturday’s Puzzle Answer

BaBY BLueS

BLondie

THe wiZard oF id

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La TimeS CroSSword

The Acadiana Advocate ● theadvocate.com ● Monday,August 17, 2026 ● 9C

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B.C.

Bridge

By PHILLIP ALDER Raymond Teller, presumably talking about Penn Jillette, said, “We did not start as friends, but as people who respected and admired each other. Crucial, absolutely crucial for a partnership.”

That is an excellent starting point for a bridge partnership. In particular, you need to be able to trust your partner’s bids and plays. But there are times when, on defense, one partner is not sure which way to turn. Then, the other partner should try to signal the right road — as in this deal. How should East-West card to defeat three spades after West leads his singleton club?

Note South’s jump to two spades, which promised some 9-11 points by an unpassed hand. West’s three-diamond rebid was aggressive, but it worked well here. First, it pushed the opponents up to three spades. Second, if East had gone on to four diamonds, that contract would have made.

East knows that the opening lead is a singleton or the higher card from a doubleton. And especially if West has led a singleton, he is wondering how to get East on lead to receive a club ruff.

This is where the suit-preference signal comes in. If East has the diamond king, he should play his lowest club at trick one — the low card keying to the lowerranking of the other two side suits. Here,

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Pearls Before swiNe

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though, East should play his highest club to tell partner that he has something useful in hearts.

South will take the first trick and play a trump, but West will win and shift to a heart. Then, in the fullness of time, the defenders will take two spades, one heart and two diamonds for down one. © 2026 by NEA, Inc., dist. By Andrews McMeel Syndication

wuzzles Each Wuzzle is a word riddle which creates a disguised word, phrase, name, place, saying, etc. For example: NOON GOOD = GOOD AFTERNOON

PiCKles

Previous answers:

mallard fillmore

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 — scuttLEs: SKUT-uls: Destroys; scraps.

Bizarro

marmaduKe

Average mark 17 words Time limit 20 minutes Can you find 17 or more words in SCUTTLES? sAtuRDAy’s WoRD — GLAMoRous glamour glom gloom glum goal gram groom guar gular loam logo

loom alms also alum amorous amour marl maul mogul molar moola

moor moral mural oral osar ours roam room slam slog slug

slum slur smog smug soar solar solo sora soul sour sugar

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loCKhorNs hidato Yesterday’s Puzzle Answer

today’s thought “But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear him, which after he has killed has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, Fear him.” Luke 12:5 Fear the Lord! We are accountable to him. — G.E. Dean

10C ● Monday,August 17, 2026 ● theadvocate.com ● The Acadiana Advocate

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TODAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

A t-storm around in the p.m.

A t-storm around in the p.m.

A stray afternoon thunderstorm

A t-storm around in the p.m.

A shower in the afternoon

An afternoon t-storm or two

HIGH

LOW

HIGH

96° 78°

LOW

HIGH

95° 78°

LOW

94° 77°

Beaumont 96/76 Port Arthur 96/77

Baton Rouge 99/77

Lake Charles 97/78

New Orleans 97/80 Houma 94/76

Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.

0s

Hattiesburg 100/77

Alexandria 101/77

Lafayette 96/78

10s

20s

30s

40s

50s

LOW

HIGH

LOW

94° 76°

YESTERDAY

TODAY

REAdING 53 MAIN POLLUTANT Particulates

MAIN POLLUTANT Particulates

Lafayette through 5 p.m. Sunday

Jackson 101/78 Many 101/74

HIGH

95° 77°

TEMPERATURE

Longview 105/77

-0s

LOW

Monroe 104/78

Shreveport 104/78

-10s

HIGH

96° 76°

The extreme heat warning that we’ve been under all weekend has been reissued for today. It was reissued because, once again, heat index values could rise to 110 degrees or higher this afternoon while the actual temperatures are in the mid- to upper 90s. We are under either a major or moderate heat risk, so heat illnesses are a real possibility. don’t forget about the UV index. It’s at the very high level, so wear your hat, shades and sunscreen. Be sure to hydrate and take breaks.

60s

70s

80s

90s 100s 110s

High/low Normal high/low Last year’s high/low Record high Record low

Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today FIRST

AUG 19

City

Shown are areas of precipitation and high temperatures for the day.

97°/80° 93°/75° 93°/73° 101° in 1951 61° in 2004

TODAY’S TIDES Lake Pontchartrain (Tchefuncte River) Shell Beach South Point, Marsh Island Cypremort Point Grand Isle (Barataria Pass) Mississippi River (Southwest Pass) Wine Island

Austin Boston dallas Fairbanks Honolulu Las Vegas Louisville Miami Nashville

24-hour total Month to date Normal month to date year to date Normal year to date

HIGH

12:12p 6:21a 7:22a 8:37a 2:00a 1:11a 3:08a

6:36 a.m.

7:47 p.m.

11:33 a.m.

10:37 p.m.

FULL

LAST

AUG 27

Hi

103 73 103 66 88 104 87 97 97

TODAY Lo

76 70 82 51 76 85 68 80 74

NEW

SEP 4

W

s r s sh sh s t t t

SEP 10

Hi

102 78 102 61 88 107 86 97 93

MOdERATE

PRECIPITATION

TUE. Lo

77 67 81 50 75 86 68 81 67

W

s pc s r pc pc s t pc

FT.

0.5 1.3 1.6 1.5 1.0 1.1 1.2

LOW

11:51p 3:04p 12:59p 3:27a 12:51p 11:17a 1:53p

0.00” 1.18” 3.08” 41.97” 40.50”

FT.

HIGH

0.2 0.4 0.3 1.1 0.4 0.5 0.5

SOURCE: LOUISIANA dEQ ANd AIRNOW.GOV

FT.

--- ----- --10:26p 1.6 --- ----- ----- ----- ---

LOW

FT.

--- ----- ----- --4:18p 0.5 --- ----- ----- ---

The solunar period schedule allows planning days so you will be fishing in good territory or hunting in good cover during those times. Major periods begin at the times shown and last for 1.5 to 2 hours. The minor periods are shorter.

MAJOR MINOR MAJOR MINOR

Today Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

City

New Orleans Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh Raleigh St. Louis San diego Tampa

3:38a 4:27a 5:16a 6:05a 6:53a 7:39a 8:25a

Hi

97 97 88 111 80 97 84 79 94

9:49a 10:39a 11:28a 12:17p 12:40a 1:27a 2:13a

TODAY Lo

80 79 73 91 61 75 68 70 81

4:00p 10:12p 4:51p 11:02p 5:40p 11:52p 6:29p ---7:18p 1:05p 8:05p 1:52p 8:51p 2:38p

W

t s c s sh t pc pc s

Hi

96 93 89 111 81 94 88 79 93

TUE. Lo

80 78 70 90 64 73 71 70 81

Weather (W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow flurries, sn-snow, i-ice.

Wake up with me every morning

P U acadiana wake

presented by

Every morning.

Everything you need to start your day

Meteorologist Damon Singleton

GOOd

W

t t s s s t s pc t

MISSISSIPPI Memphis Vidalia-Natchez Red River Landing Baton Rouge donaldsonville Reserve New Orleans OHIO Cairo COMITE Near Olive AMITE Near darlington denham Springs Port Vincent TICKFAW Montpelier Holden ATCHAFALAYA Simmesport Melville Krotz Springs Butte La Rose Bayou Sorrel Morgan City

FLOOD STAGE

34 48 48 35 27 22 17

SUN. 24-HOUR STAGE CHANGE

2.40 18.80 21.60 7.90 4.50 3.50 2.80

+1.20 +0.26 +0.30 +0.10 +0.30 -0.21 +0.23

40

22.99

+0.85

19

-1.64

-0.11

18 29 8

-1.23 9.99 1.27

-0.01 -0.01 -0.09

13 15

1.40 0.79

none -0.02

47 34 29 20 12 6

7.78 4.92 3.68 4.02 2.90 2.22

-0.41 -0.30 -0.26 none none -0.30

data as of 7 a.m. Sunday

Forecasts and graphics, except for damon’s Outlook, provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2026