The Advocate 05-19-2026 by The Advocate

Senate to remove planned pay raises

Defeat of teacher pay amendment prompts move

BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writer

Proposals to give raises to pros-

ecutors, judges, legislators and other state employees are all in jeopardy after a constitutional amendment to turn a $2,000 stipend into a permanent pay raise for teachers failed at the ballot box Saturday, according to a legislative leader.

The Louisiana Senate plans to nix those measures to protect budget-related legislation from vetoes by the governor, Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said. On Monday morning, Landry declared that if teachers do not get a raise, nobody should.

“If our teachers don’t get a permanent raise this year, nobody in state government gets a pay raise,” Landry wrote in a post on X. “I mean nobody.” Since it will have to approve any Senate amendments to budget bills, the House could temper efforts to slash the pay raises. A top House member expressed a desire to move forward with at least some of them. With the legislative session ending in two weeks, lawmakers

have little time left to decide. The budget is in the Senate’s hands after the House passed a preliminary version last month.

Despite the teacher pay amendment failing, senators had planned to weigh various proposals to raise pay for workers such as assistant district attorneys, according to Henry

“That’s not an option now based on what the governor has tweeted out requiring a permanent teacher pay raise. That’s going to be very difﬁcult to do, so the ﬂip side of that is we have to make sure that we don’t pass bills that give pay raises that he would then veto,” Henry said. “We’ll address them all next year.”

ä See PAY, page 7A

High Black voter turnout affected election results

More people voted on amendments than in primaries

BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer

Inﬂamed by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling and moves by Gov Jeff Landry and Republican legislators to eliminate positions held by Black elected officials, Black voters turned out in proportionally large numbers on Saturday That led to two unexpected developments. The ﬁrst is that 46% of the voters chose to vote in the Democratic Senate primary,

instead of the Republican primary, even though only about 1.5% of the money was spent to elect Democratic candidates, and Republican Senate candidates received most of the free media coverage. The other development is that more people voted on the five constitutional amendments than in the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries combined, with many Democratic voters following the lead of progressive leaders to reject all of them. Typically, the marquee races get the most votes, and voting drops off on the down-ballot elections.

$1.7B fund OK’d in IRS deal with Trump Money would compensate allies of the president

BY FATIMA HUSSEIN, ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press

WASHINGTON The Trump administration announced Monday the creation of a more than $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies of the Republican president who believe they have been unjustly investigated

ecuted, an arrangement that Democrats and government watchdogs derided as “corrupt” and unconstitutional. The “Anti-Weaponization Fund” of $1.776 billion is part of a settlement that resolves President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. It will allow people who believe they were targeted for prosecution for political purposes, including by the Biden administration Justice Department,

ä See TRUMP, page 4A

Over 60 sex offenders in BR area arrested, Murrill says

Investigation targeted social media use

BY AIDAN McCAHILL Staff writer

Sixty registered sex offenders were arrested in the Baton Rouge area after investigators spent months tracking and inspecting their electronic devices for illegal social media use, Attorney General Liz Murrill announced Monday Known as “Operation Restricted Domain,” it is the latest result in

a coordinated, aggressive approach by her office to go after online predators in Louisiana. The multiagency investigation, which utilized secure law enforcement databases, lasted from February to April.

Murrill said 33 of the arrests from Operation Restricted Domain involved sex offenders using Facebook, 14 involved Instagram, and the rest were split between a host of other social media sites, dating apps and video game platforms offenders were using. Over the course of multiple other in-

vestigations, she said Snapchat, Instagram, Discord and Roblox were among “the top offenders” of social media sites that allow predators to target children. “Part of what we do is look at how the app works, who is facilitating and proﬁting from use of the app,” she said. “Those are questions that I have.”

Most of the individuals face charges of unlawful use of a social networking site — illegal for registered sex offenders in Louisiana

ä See ARRESTED, page 4A

Attorney General Liz Murrill announces arrests made in Operation Restricted Domain during a news conference on Monday.

STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS

Gov. Jeff Landry enters Park Elementary School in Baton Rouge before a presentation on Wednesday.

STAFF

PHOTO

By MICHAEL JOHNSON

BRIEFS FROM WIRE REPORTS

Some items allowed as evidence in murder trial

NEW YORK A gun and notebook that prosecutors say link Luigi Mangione to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson can be used as evidence at his murder trial, a judge ruled Monday rejecting a defense argument that they were seized illegally

Judge Gregory Carro’s decision, ﬁve months after he held a hearing to examine how police came upon the items, is a major win for prosecutors, enabling them to show jurors a possible murder weapon and motive. That mirrors an earlier ruling in Mangione’s federal case.

But Carro also excluded items officers pulled from Mangione’s backpack before his arrest at a McDonald’s restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He said the loaded gun magazine, cellphone, passport, wallet and computer chip resulted from an “improper warrantless search.” He also excluded some statements he made to police before he was handcuffed.

The judge did allow items found as ofﬁcers inventoried the backpack’s contents later at a police station — including a 3D-printed pistol prosecutors say matches the one used to kill Thompson, and a notebook that describes wanting to “wack” a health insurance executive. Carro said such inventory searches are an exception to the U.S. Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Police obtained a search warrant hours later.

Mangione was arrested on Dec. 9, 2024 ﬁve days after Thompson was killed outside a Manhattan hotel. Altoona is about 230 miles west of Manhattan.

Mark Fuhrman from OJ Simpson murder trial dies

BOISE, Idaho Former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman, who was convicted of lying during testimony at the OJ Simpson murder trial, has died.

Fuhrman was one of the ﬁrst two police detectives sent to investigate the 1994 killings of Simpson’s exwife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, in Los Angeles. He reported ﬁnding a bloody glove at Simpson’s home but his credibility came under attack during the trial as the defense raised the prospect of racial bias.

Under cross-examination, Fuhrman testiﬁed that he had never made anti-Black racial slurs in the past decade, but a recording made by an aspiring screenwriter showed he had done so repeatedly.

Lynn Acebedo, the chief deputy coroner in Kootenai County, Idaho, said that Fuhrman died May 12. The county does not release the cause of death as a rule.

Fuhrman retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal. He subsequently moved to Idaho with his wife Caroline and their young daughter and son and set up a 20acre farm, raising chickens, goats, sheep and llamas.

In 1996, Fuhrman was charged with perjury and pleaded no contest. He later became a TV and radio commentator and wrote the book “Murder in Brentwood” about the killings.

N.M. wildfire sparked by fatal plane crash spreads

ALBUQUERQUE,N.M.— A fast-growing wildfire sparked by the fatal crash of a small medical plane outside Ruidoso, New Mexico, has triggered evacuations for a rural area north of the Capitan Mountains and closures in the Lincoln National Forest, officials said Monday The plane was en route from Roswell Air Center to Sierra Blanca Regional Airport when it crashed before dawn Thursday, killing the four people aboard They were identified as pilots Keelan Clark and Ali Kawsara with the company Generation Jets and flight nurses Jamie Novick and Sarah Clark with Trans Aero MedEvac.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

The wildfire grew rapidly over the weekend amid dry and windy conditions, nearly doubling in size between Sunday and Monday morning to more than 19 square miles It was burning out of control in a sparsely populated area despite the efforts of more than 600 firefighters from the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and several interagency Hotshot crews Adam Turner, a public information officer for the fire, said steep, rugged terrain has made it impossible for crews to engage the fire directly

3 killed in San Diego mosque shooting

Police say teenage gunmen are dead

BY JULIE WATSON Associated Press

SAN DIEGO

Two teenage gun-

men opened fire at an Islamic Center in San Diego on Monday and killed three men before killing themselves a few blocks away, police said.

The attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego is being investigated as a hate crime, San Diego

Police Chief Scott Wahl said at a news conference at a neighborhood park across from the mosque.

He said the “circumstances that led up to this” would come out in the days ahead.

Among those killed was a mosque security guard, who police believe “played a pivotal role” in keeping the attack from being “much worse,” Wahl said.

The center is the largest mosque in San Diego County and includes the Al Rashid School that offers courses in Arabic language, Islamic studies and the Quran for students ages 5 and up, according to its website.

“All of the kids are safe,” Wahl said, appearing emotional “Our hearts go out to the families that are in this moment being notiﬁed of what has happened to their loved ones.”

Police responded within four minutes of being called, Wahl said. As they arrived, gunshots rang out a few blocks away where a landscaper was shot at but uninjured. The shooters were found dead in a vehicle stopped in the middle of a road nearby, he said.

Aerial TV footage showed more than a dozen children holding hands and being walked out of the parking lot of the center as it was surrounded by scores of police vehicles. The white mosque is in a neighborhood of homes, apartments and strip malls with Middle Eastern restaurants and markets.

Parents were directed to a nearby area to retrieve their children

Law enforcement officers carry weapons outside the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday.

The mosque’s director Imam Taha Hassane called it “extremely outrageous to target a place of worship.”

“All the places of worship in our beautiful city should always be protected,” he said.

He added that the center focused on interfaith relations and community building, and that a group of non-Muslims had been touring the mosque earlier Monday to learn about Islam.

The Islamic Center’s website says its mission is to not only serve the Muslim population but also “work with the larger community to serve the less fortunate, to educate, and to better our nation.” Five daily prayers are held there, and the mosque works with other organizations and people of all faiths on social causes.

The Council on AmericanIslamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim civil rights and

advocacy groups in the U.S., condemned the shooting.

“No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school,” said CAIRSan Diego Executive Director Tazheen Nizam in a statement

“We are working to learn more about this incident and we encourage everyone to keep this community in your prayers.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said he was being briefed.

“We are grateful to the ﬁrst responders on the scene working to protect the community and urge everyone to follow guidance from local authorities,” his ofﬁce posted on the social platform X.

Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

Congo opens more centers to treat rare type of Ebola

American doctor among newly confirmed cases

BY JEAN-YVES KAMALE, MONIKA PRONCZUK AND WILSON MCMAKIN Associated Press

KINSHASA,Congo Congo will open three Ebola treatment centers in the eastern Ituri province, and the World Health Organization is sending a team of experts to the country, following an outbreak of a rare type of the virus that has killed more than 110 people.

An American doctor in Congo is among the newly conﬁrmed cases of the virus with no approved vaccines or medicines, Congolese ofﬁcials said Monday, as details emerged about the government’s delayed response to the outbreak

The WHO on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. As of Monday, there were over 118 deaths and 300 suspected cases in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, and one death and one suspected case in neighboring Uganda. Experts say the number of cases is likely to rise as health ofﬁcials conduct more surveillance.

The Bundibugyo virus spread undetected for at least a few weeks, health experts and aid workers said Cases have now been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu’s rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo and Nyakunde.

“Because early tests looked for the wrong strain of Ebola, we got false negatives and lost weeks of response time,” said Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics. “We are playing catch-up against a very dan-

Sunday.

gerous pathogen.”

He criticized the Trump administration’s earlier decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid “the exact surveillance system meant to catch these viruses early,” he said.

The American doctor is among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in eastern Congo, said Dr JeanJacques Muyembe, medical director of the country’s National Institute of BioMedical Research.

Dr Peter Stafford had been treating patients at a hospital there when he developed symptoms, Serge, the organization he works for, said in a statement

Three others employees of Serge were working at the same hospital — including Stafford’s wife but are not showing symptoms.

Seven Americans, including the one who tested positive, are being transported to Germany for monitoring, Dr Satish Pillai of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a call with reporters Pillai said the American developed symptoms over the weekend.

ICE officer charged in nonfatal Minnesota shooting

BY HANNAH FINGERHUT and TIM SULLIVAN Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS A Minnesota county prosecutor on Monday announced charges against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ofﬁcer in the nonfatal shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Trump administration’s crackdown in the state.

The ofﬁcer, Christian Castro, is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said at a news conference. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

“Mr Castro is an ICE agent, but his federal badge does not make him immune from state charges for his criminal conduct in Minnesota,” Moriarty said, adding that Sosa-Celis never posed a threat and that her office received no cooperation from the federal government. “There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal ofﬁcers who commit crimes in this state or any other.”

Castro, 52, fired through a home’s front door and shot SosaCelis in the thigh after Castro and another officer chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived, Moriarty said, noting that both SosaCelis and Aljorna were legally in the U.S. Federal authorities initially accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the confrontation. But a federal judge later dismissed the charges, and ICE and the Justice Department opened a joint investigation into whether two immigration officers lied about what happened. In a statement, ICE said the U.S. Attorney’s Office is investigating statements from officers about the shooting and that they could face disciplinary action including being fired and criminally prosecuted. ICE called the Hennepin County attorney’s action “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt.”

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ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS By GREGORy BULL

Two men embrace Monday outside the Islamic Center of San Diego, where two shoooters opened fire, killing three men. Police say the two teenage suspects then killed themselves a few blocks away.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO A woman wears a protective mask in the corridor of a hospital in Bunia, Congo, on

Scalise backs Letlow

June runoff set in Senate race

BY MATTHEW ALBRIGHT Staff writer

U.S. House Majority Leader

Steve Scalise on Monday endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow in the race for U.S. Senate, two days after Letlow ousted Sen Bill Cassidy

“Julia Letlow is a strong conservative ﬁghter who has consistently delivered for Louisiana families, and for President Trump,” Scalise said in a news release. “Julia shares the values that make Louisiana strong, and I trust her to be a powerful voice for our state in the United States Senate.”

The quick endo rs em ent b y Scalise, the Jefferson Parish Republican who is the No 2 leader in the House, provides the ﬁrst indication that Louisiana’s Republican establishment may coalesce behind Letlow after her convincing win in Saturday’s GOP primary election.

Scalise Letlow

Letlow won 45% of the vote and will compete in a June 27 runoff against state Treasurer John Fleming, who got 28%. Cassidy got 25% of the vote, eliminating him from the race.

Letlow already has the endorsement of President Donald Trump,

who never forgave Cassidy for voting to convict him of impeachment after the 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol. Gov Jeff Landry has also publicly backed her and privately raised money for her “Leader Scalise has been a fearless conservative leader for Louisiana and our country and I’m grateful for his mentorship and support in this race,” Letlow said in the release. “Louisiana deserves a senator who will stand with President Trump, ﬁght for our conservative values, and deliver real results for our state. That’s exactly what I will do in the United States Senate.”

Major TrumpRx expansion adds more than 600 generic drugs

BY ALI SWENSON and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday announced more than 600 generic medications are being added to the government’s discounted-drug website TrumpRx, dramatically increasing offerings from one of the Republican administration’skeyinitiativestohelpAmericans struggling with high costs.

The beefed-up website is the Trump administration’s answer to criticism from Democrats who have called TrumpRx performative and noted that many of the brand-name drugs it has featured are cheaper with insurance or have lower-cost generic versions sold elsewhere.

It also marks an effort to respond to a top voter concern for November’s midterm elections: affordability Health costs are a worry for many Americans, an issue compounded by the Republican-led Congress’ recent cuts to Medicaid and the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies this year that sent some people’s premiums skyrocketing.

The expansion is made possible

by partnerships with other online pharmacies, including Amazon Pharmacy, GoodRx and billionaire investor Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs, Trump said at an event at the White House.

“’This has been the greatest breakthrough in lowering health care costs in modern history, but we’re just sort of getting started,” Trump said, calling TrumpRx the “hottest thing in medicine.”

TrumpRx is not a platform for buying medications. Instead, it’s set up as a facilitator, pointing Americans to drugmakers’ direct-to-consumer websites where they can make purchases. It also provides coupons to use at pharmacies. The site initially launched in February with over 40 medications, including weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy

Trump said Monday’s additions increase the site’s offerings by nearly seven times. He said TrumpRx has been visited more than 10 million times since its launch.

Even with generics added, experts said the potential savings heavily depend on a patient’s situation. For the vast majority of Americans who have health insurance, using that

coverage to pay for medications is still usually a better deal than paying cash through TrumpRx, said Rena Conti, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

People who are uninsured or have a high deductible to meet, on the other hand, might beneﬁt more from discounts on sites like TrumpRx, she said She noted the addition of generics would likely provide more options for those shopping the website.

Cuban, a political independent, publicly campaigned for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. But he has enthusiastically advocated for TrumpRx and the work that some in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are doing to make prescription drugs cheaper

Before Monday, Cuban had said the one thing Trump could do to make the government’s version better would be to add the drugs available on his own site.

“Everyone wants me to rip on TrumpRx,” Cuban wrote in a recent social media post. “Reality is, it’s saving patients money on IVF and a few other drugs. A lot of money.”

In Greenland, Landry does cookie diplomacy

BY MARK BALLARD Staff writer

WASHINGTON Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederick Nielson on Monday told Gov Jeff Landry, the president’s special envoy to Arctic territories, that the Danish protectorate still is not interested in joining the U.S. “no matter how many ‘chocolate cookies’ we get,” according to a Danish television network.

Landry is in Greenland for an economic development conference; he wasn’t speciﬁcally invited but bought a ticket. On Sunday, he walked around Nyuuk, Greenland’s capital city handing out chocolate doubloons and promising locals unlimited cookies if they ever visit the Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge, according to scenes captured by TV cameras.

“Our position is clear. We have our red lines, and no matter how many ‘chocolate cookies’ we get, we will not change them,” Nielsen said on TV Avisen 21, a newscast on Danish public broadcasting. Nielsen described his “courtesy meeting” with Landry as respectful.

“The Greenlandic people are not for sale. Greenlandic self-determination is not something that can be negotiated,” Nielsen was quoted by Danish TV 2 as saying after visiting with Landry President Donald Trump has frequently said the U.S. should take control of Greenland, which straddles sea routes used by Russia and China as well as being a source of rare earth metals necessary in high-tech manufacturing. In January, Trump named Landry as a special envoy U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark Kenneth A. Howery wrote on social media Monday that he introduced Landry to Nielsen and Muté B. Egede, the minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade, and Mineral Resources.

“I appreciated our frank and productive discussions,” Howery wrote on X.

The U.S. embassy announced that Landry and Howery would “meet with a wide range of Greenlanders to listen and learn with a goal of expanding economic opportunities, building peopleto-people ties, and increasing understanding between the United States and Greenland.”

Landry told DR, a Danish broadcast network, that he spoke Saturday night to Trump, who suggested he “go over there and make a bunch of friends, as many friends as we can.” The White House did not respond Monday to questions about the trip.

Back home, the Louisiana Legislature is slated to be in session until June 1 and is busy redrawing congressional districts to ensure the election of ﬁve White Republicans to the U.S. House, removing one of the state’s two majority-Black districts.

Landry’s press staff said Monday they have no information about Landry’s schedule and his purpose in Greenland, including how long he will be gone. Though largely opaque in Louisiana and the U.S., Landry’s trip is getting considerable media coverage in Scandinavian countries.

The convention Landry is attending takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday Howery is accompanying him.

The conference organizer Business Greenland, did not invite Landry but said the event was open for anyone to sign up.

Dr Joseph Griffin, a Baton Rouge surgeon, accompanied Landry to Greenland. Landry told Danish news that Griffin’s role was to “assess the medical needs” in Greenland.

Trump criticized health care system in Greenland, promising to send a hospital boat and suggesting that citizens of the island nation would be better served by the way the U.S. handles medical care.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Email Mark Ballard at mballard@theadvocate.com.

Carbon captureand storage: Awin for Louisiana’seconomy,communities, and future

Thisstory is brought to you by ExxonMobil

Carbon captureand storage(CCS) is awin-win-win forLouisiana.CCS captures carbon dioxide (CO2)from industrial sources—such as gasprocessing and steel manufacturing—and safely transports it via pipeline to permanentstorage sites deep underground.

It’sasafeand proventechnologyofover 50 years, and it deliversrealbeneﬁts to our state by:

Reducing CO2 emissions from hard-to-decarbonizefacilities

•Positioning Louisiana as aglobal technologyleader

•Strengthening our industrial economy

•Setting the stagefor decades of growth

Creating opportunityacrossLouisiana

CCS projects arebeing deployedaround the world, but its greatest potential is right hereathome.

Across Louisiana,lower-carbon projects areprotecting existing jobs,attracting new investment, and generating signiﬁcanteconomic returns forparishes and residents

A recentreport from theLouisiana State UniversityCenterfor Energy Studies (LSUCES) estimatesthatbuilding out CCSinfrastructuretoits full potential in Louisiana including the CO2 wells and pipelines needed to service existing and announced projects,could generate,overthe seven-year constructionperiod alone:

2,000 jobs annually

•$1.8billion to GrossState Product (GSP) annually

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CCS projects representmeaningful, longterm opportunity forworkers, families,and local communities acrossthe state

Protecting Louisiana’senergy leadership

Louisiana’sindustrial sector is the backbone of our state’s economy—and its future competitivenessdepends on accesstolower-carbon solutions

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ana remain atop destination for major investments and industry

In fact,the developmentof CCS infrastructure and lower-carbon energy solutions is already attracting billions of dollarsfromdatacenters,steel manufacturers, LNG producers, and other industries—representing approximately 17,000 potential newjobsand $76billion in announced investments to date

Deliveringdirectbenefits

forlandowners

In addition to taxrevenues generatedfor parishes,Louisiana residents will directly beneﬁt from CCS projects

CompanieslikeExxonMobil work closely with landownerstoestablishagreements that compensate landownersfor theuse of theirunderground porespace or CO2 pipeline right-of-way access.Theseagreements create long-term income streams whileoftennot disrupting the landowners’ useof their property.

Partneringwith firstresponders andcommunities

ExxonMobil regularlyengages with ﬁrst responderstoshareoperationalinformation and coordinate emergency response planning. We also offer specialized, all-expensepaid CO2 safety training forlocal ﬁre departmentsacrossour CO2 system

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In addition, the Louisiana Pipeline Emergency Training Course—developed by ExxonMobil in coordination with the National Association of State Fire Marshals—is now offered at River Parishes CommunityCollegeinpartnership with the Louisiana Fire Marshal’soffice. Theseinitiatives reﬂect our longstanding commitmenttocommunity investment

through scholarships,workforcetraining, emergency preparedness, charitablecontributions,and volunteerism.

Prioritizing safety

CCS builds on decades of safe,proven practices

Carbon storagehas been safely implementedinthe U.S. forover50years. In fact manyenhanced oil recovery (EOR) ﬁelds usethe same type of geologic formations as thoseusedfor dedicatedcarbon storage (ClassVIwells). ExxonMobil maintains a strong commitmenttosafetythrough:

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Today, ExxonMobil safely operatesabout 1,000 miles of CO2 pipelines along the U.S. Gulf Coast

Following our 2023acquisition of Denbury,ExxonMobil Pipeline Companyand Denbury helped lead the developmentof newindustry guidelines forCO2 pipeline emergency preparation and response—and have provided hands-on training to ﬁreﬁghters acrossthe pipeline network.

Respecting landowner rights

CCS developmentprioritizes fair,transparentengagementwith landowners.

Companies likeExxonMobil negotiate in good faith and compensate fairly. This processdoes notrequire “taking”ofland Eminentdomain is used sparingly and

only in rare caseswhereagreementcannot be reached on infrastructuredeemed critical by federal and state governments

Propertyrights areprotected by the U.S. Constitution and state law, and the rules governing CCS areconsistentwith thosealready in place foroil and gasinfrastructure.

Protecting Louisiana’s water resources

Protecting drinking wateris a toppriorityinCCS development. Under the 1974Safe Drinking WaterAct,the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana DepartmentofConservation and Energy protect public health and drinking waterthrough regulating underground injection operations.Louisiana already has thousands of regulatedinjection wells operating safely under this framework.

When it comes to CCS, ClassVIwells are subject to even morestringentstandards than traditional oil wells,including requirements for:

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Astrongerfuturefor Louisiana

CCS represents an opportunity Louisiana cannot affordtomiss.

It protects jobs,empowers communities generatesrevenue, strengthens energy leadership,and enables meaningful emissions reductions—all while building on decades of provensafetyand regulatory oversight.

By embracing CCS, Louisiana can lead the nation and the world in delivering practical, large-scale solutions thatbeneﬁt our economy, our environment, and our people.

Landry

ARRESTED

Continued from page 1A

— as well as failure to register as a sex offender A handful of individuals face charges for possession of child and animal sexual abuse material.

The arrests included that of Kenneth Allen, a Baton Rouge man, who faces 77 counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, 30 counts of possession of child sexual abuse material under the age of 13, and two counts of sexual abuse of an animal. Charles Crawford, of Gonzales, also faces 119 counts of possession of child sexual abuse material under the age of 17, 64 counts for under the age of 13, and one count of sexual abuse of an animal.

According to Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Secretary Gary Westcott, 23 of the arrests were the result of probation ofﬁcers inspecting electronic devices of over 200 convicted sex offenders in the area.

Murrill was joined at her announcement by area law enforcement ofﬁcials who are part of Louisiana’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a division of the Attorney General’s Ofﬁce’s Bureau of Investigations. Since 2024, the unit has expanded from eight to more than 80 partner agencies statewide.

Murrill said the expanded network helped law enforcement track down the exploding number of cybertips involving potential sexual exploitation of children, which grew from 3,260 in 2020 to 31,203 last year. As of May, Loui-

siana has received nearly 27,000 cybertips for 2026.

“They are the people really on the ground, in the street, on the internet, helping to ﬁnd people that are trying to exploit our children,” Murrill said.

The arrests come after the Attorney General’s Office announced in December that a task force investigation yielded more than 60 arrests for sex crimes against children in northern Louisiana. So far this year, the task force has made 292 arrests, identified 36 child victims, and rescued 32 children from ongoing abuse investigations, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

Agencies participating in Operation Restricted Domain include sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices from East Baton Rouge, Ascension, East Feliciana, West

Feliciana, Iberville, Pointe Coupee, St Helena and West Baton Rouge parishes, as well as Homeland Security Investigations, Louisiana State Police and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections Division of Probation and Parole.

Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said the state partnerships have been crucial in helping his ofﬁce make arrests due to access to more resources.

“You can’t do this alone,” he said.

“The technology they can provide for you, and the ability to reach out to these social media companies it’s vitally important.”

Murrill chalked up part of the reason for the growth in cybertips to increased online access for both children and predators, and the lack of safeguards on social media sites.

“You just look at the number of access points that have been created, and I think that gives you at least one reason why,” she said. “The business model is not conducive to limiting sex predators or anybody else who is a predator.”

Last summer, her ofﬁce sued Roblox, claiming it violated the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act, and has “created and perpetuated an online environment where child sex predators thrive.”

Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard, whose office was among the first to join the task force, joined Murrill and other officials in urging parents to pay closer attention to their children’s online activity

“Parents, this is real,” he said “If you don’t do your job and be up in (your) kid’s business, then you’re not doing your job as a parent.”

to apply for payouts, creating what acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”

“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this Department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” Blanche said in a statement that made no mention of how investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s political opponents under his watch have exposed the Justice Department to the same claims of politicized law enforcement that he said he opposed.

Blanche is expected to be pressed on the fund when he testiﬁes Tuesday on Capitol Hill about the Justice Department budget

Nearly 100 Democrats in the House of Representatives signed onto a legal brief urging a judge to block what they described as an unprecedented resolution that they said would unjustly enrich people close to the president with taxpayer dollars and open the door to meritless claims of political persecution.

“This is one of the single most corrupt acts in American history,”

Donald Sherman, the president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement.

The fund would represent not only a highly unorthodox resolution but also a further demonstration of the administration’s eagerness to reward allies of Trump who have long insisted that they have been unjustly investigated and in some cases charged and convicted. Most notably, the president on his first day back in ofﬁce pardoned or commuted the sentences of supporters who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His Justice Department since then has approved payouts to supporters entangled in the Trump-Russia investigation and investigated and prosecuted some of his perceived adversaries.

Trump’s attorneys suggested in their court ﬁling seeking to dismiss the case that the resolution would not be reviewable by a judge. But a group of 93 members of Congress ﬁled a brief teeing up a challenge.

“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House

Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.

The Justice Department did not name specific individuals who might stand to benefit from the fund, but said there were no “partisan requirements” for applicants and that anyone who believes they’ve been unfairly persecuted could seek a payout as well as an apology. A ﬁve-member commission appointed by Blanche will oversee the fund.

The creation of the fund is in keeping with Trump’s long-running claims that the Justice Department during the Biden administration was weaponized against him.

He has cited as proof the sinceabandoned criminal charges he faced between his first and second terms of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and of retaining classified documents at his Mara-Lago estate in Florida. As a condition for resolving the lawsuit, Trump has agreed to resolve administrative claims in which he sought compensation over the Mar-a-Lago investigation and a separate probe into ties between his 2016 campaign and Russia, an inquiry that unfolded during his first term in office and that he has long railed against.

At the White House on Monday afternoon, Trump was asked if individuals who committed violence on Jan 6 should receive compensation from the fund. “It’ll all be de-

pendent on a committee,” Trump said, adding, “I didn’t do this deal. It was told to me yesterday.” He said the fund was dedicated to “reimbursing people who were horribly treated.”

Merrick Garland, who served as attorney general during the Biden administration, has repeatedly denied allegations of politicization and has said his decisions followed facts, the evidence and the law His Justice Department investigated prominent Democrats too, most signiﬁcantly by appointing a special counsel who scrutinized President Joe Biden for his handling of classified information. Another special counsel brought tax and gun charges against Biden’s son Hunter

Nonetheless, Trump’s current Justice Department has actively pursued the president’s retribution campaign, bringing criminal charges against some of his political opponents and initiating a wide-ranging investigation that aims to establish a yearslong conspiracy between law enforcement and intelligence ofﬁcials against Trump.

In defending the deal, the Justice Department pointed to a fund established by the Obama administration to compensate Native American farmers who said they had experienced racial discrimination.

But that fund was not created with a goal of beneﬁting allies of the president who had been pre-

viously investigated for potential criminal conduct.

Trump alleged in a lawsuit ﬁled in Florida earlier this year that a previous leak of his and the Trump Organization’s conﬁdential tax records caused him reputational harm and unfairly tarnished his business reputation.

The president’s sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump also joined the suit.

In 2024, former IRS contractor Charles Edward Littlejohn, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense and national security tech firm, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to leaking tax information about Trump and others to two news outlets between 2018 and 2020. The outlets were not named in the charging documents, but the description and time frame align with stories about Trump’s tax returns in The New York Times and reporting about wealthy Americans’ taxes in the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica. The 2020 New York Times report found Trump paid $750 in federal income tax the year he first entered the White House, and no income tax at all some years, thanks to reported colossal losses.

In the ﬁrst sign that a settlement was coming, lawyers for the president asked a judge last month to pause the case for 90 days while the two sides work to reach a settlement or resolution.

The larger-than-expected Black turnout — and the defeat of the constitutional amendments — could signal that Landry will face a tougher than expected challenge when he runs for reelection next year

Landry won the governor’s race in 2023 in the primary without having to compete in a runoff because Black voters, who typically vote for Democrats, stayed home

Meanwhile, James Carville, the New Orleans-based Democratic political consultant, believes that Saturday’s results mean the Democratic Senate candidate this fall will have at least a ﬁghting chance.

“The Louisiana Senate race is likely to be won by Republican, but let’s put it on the watch list,” said Carville, who noted that Saturday’s election was the ﬁrst nationally following the Supreme Court’s Callais decision that invalidated Louisiana’s congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander

Jamie Davis, a Black farmer in northeast Louisiana, led the Democratic Senate primary with 47% of the vote, just short of winning the primary outright. Advancing with Davis to the Democratic runoff on June 27 is Gary Crockett, a business owner in New Orleans, who collected 26%.

On Nov 3, the winner of the Democratic runoff will face the victor of the GOP runoff on June 27.

U.S Rep. Julia Letlow won 45% of Saturday’s vote compared with 28% for state Treasurer John Fleming. The two are now competing in the Republican runoff. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy collected only 24% on Saturday and was eliminated from the contest. Immediately after the Supreme Court ruling, Landry canceled the six U.S. House elections on Saturday’s ballot. Republicans who control the Legislature are now redrawing the congressional map to turn the seat held by Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat from Baton Rouge, into a safe Republican district. In the meantime, they have decided that the House elections also will take place on Nov 3. John Couvillon, a Baton Rougebased demographer who polled for Fleming, estimated in his postelection analysis that White voters

constituted 63% of the primary electorate versus 34% for Black voters, who make up only 31.8% of registered voters. Black voters typically turn out at proportionally lower rates than White voters. The Black voter share in 2023 was 25%, Couvillon said.

As Carville noted, every twopoint increase in the share of Black voters corresponds with a two-point decrease in the share of White voters. Because about 90% of Black voters typically favor the Democratic candidate, a repeat of a proportionately higher Black turnout this fall and next year could make Democrats more competitive in a state where Republicans hold all the statewide elected positions and a two-thirds majority in the Legislature.

Amendments rejected

Of the five amendments, the biggest turnout, 811,199 came on Amendment 3, which offered teachers a pay raise by dissolving three trust funds that ﬁnance education programs It lost with 42% of the vote.

Amendment 2 received the fewest overall votes, 799,401. It sought to create a school district for the

newly established city of St. George in East Baton Rouge Parish but lost with 36% of the vote.

Progressive groups pushed for voters to reject all five amendments, just as they had a year earlier when Landry pushed four amendments that voters opposed. It was the governor’s biggest defeat.

“I voted no on all of them,” Julie Winn, a Black Democrat, said just after voting Saturday at the Dryades YMCA in New Orleans. “All are sponsored by the governor, and I don’t particularly care for him.”

Landry actually sought passage of the first four amendments with a particular focus on amendments 3 (teacher pay) and 4 (which would have allowed parishes to eliminate the property tax on business inventory).

Amanda Sloss, a White Democrat who also voted at the Dryades YMCA, said she, too, voted no on all the amendments. She said she was persuaded to do so by messages she saw on Instagram.

“I don’t like anything the governor is doing,” she said.

Landry is facing a burgeoning recall movement that sprouted up last week. People lined up to sign

it in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and elsewhere.

Collecting the 20% of registered voters — about 500,000 signatures to even put the question on the ballot is a tall task, however

At the same time, Landry is heading into his reelection campaign with at least $10 million in the bank. He is not shy about highlighting plans by businesses to spend tens of billions of dollars on industrial projects, including the Hyundai plant in Assumption Parish and the Meta data center in Richland Parish.

“Someone would have to emerge from the shadows” to challenge Landry, said Robert Collins, a professor of urban studies and public policy at Dillard. “I don’t know who that person is.”

Big turnout

While 811,199 voted on Amendment 3, 745,869 voted in the Republican and Democratic Senate primaries combined.

About 46% of those votes were cast in the Democratic primary, even though Letlow Fleming and Cassidy received virtually all of the media coverage and the three candidates — as well as outside

groups — accounted for almost all of the $36.4 million that AdImpact, a Washington, D.C., nonproﬁt, found was spent on the race. Federal Election Campaign finance reports through April 26 show that Davis, Crockett and Nick Albares, a policy analyst who ﬁnished third in the Democratic primary, had spent only $440,00 combined.

Letlow, Cassidy and Fleming — and super PACs supporting and opposing their campaigns — spent $28 million, through April 26, according to the FEC. That meant the Democratic spending was only 1.5% of the Republicans’.

That so many voters cast votes for the Democratic candidates reﬂected dissatisfaction with Landry and the state Legislature, said Collins. He pointed to the effort to erase Fields’ district, the legislation that would eliminate a criminal district court judge in Orleans Parish and passage of the bill that has kept Calvin Duncan, who is Black, from becoming the Orleans Parish clerk of criminal court, six months after he won the seat with 68% of the vote.

“There’s just a lot of pent-up anger,” Collins said.

STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER

A family leaves the Dryades yMCA polling location in New Orleans after voting together on Saturday

BRIEFS

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Investment decision made on LNG facility

A final investment decision has been made on the $9.75 billion Commonwealth liquefied natural gas export facility in Cameron Parish.

Construction is underway at the facility and operations are set to begin in 2030. The facility will liquify and export 9.5 million tons of LNG annually The ﬁrst phase of the project is expected to generate more than $3 billion in annual export revenue.

Ben Dell, chair of Commonwealth LNG, said in a statement the occasion “is the culmination of years of strategic planning, strong partnerships and commitment to delivering a fully integrated ‘wellhead-to-water’ project.”

In August 2019, Commonwealth ﬁled a formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permits to build an LNG export facility on nearly 400 acres on the west side of the Calcasieu Ship Channel where the channel meets the Gulf. The project drew the ire of environmentalists, who were concerned it would spew pollutants well above the recommended federal levels for maintaining air quality

Currently, there are four LNG export facilities in Louisiana: Sabine Pass, Cameron, Calcasieu Pass and Plaquemines. CP2 is under construction, with the ﬁrst phase set to open in the second half of 2027, while Woodside Louisiana is set to open in 2029. Oil prices, stocks keep swinging worldwide

NEWYORK Oil prices and stock markets worldwide swung through a shaky Monday with uncertainty about what will happen with the Iran war

The S&P 500 swiveled between gains and losses before ﬁnishing with a dip of 0.1%, its second loss since setting an alltime high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 159 points, or 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5% after both indexes likewise yo-yoed. Stock prices moved in the opposite direction of oil prices, which have been twitchy because of uncertainty about how long the Iran war will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and prevent oil tankers from delivering crude. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, went from a high of $112 overnight to below $107 in the morning before turning back higher

After settling at $112.10 per barrel, Brent’s price then fell back below $109 after President Donald Trump said late in the day that he would hold off on a military attack on Iran planned for Tuesday, at the request of allies in the region.

China to boost trade for U.S. beef, poultry

WASHINGTON — China has agreed to ramp up trade for U.S. agricultural products such as beef and poultry, buying at an annualized rate of $17 billion per year for 2026 and at that level for 2027 and 2028, the White House announced Sunday, two days after President Donald Trump returned from a highstakes summit in Beijing where he sought to ease the impact on American farmers from the trade war he launched last year China would restore market access for U.S. beef and resume imports of poultry from U.S. states determined by the U.S Department of Agriculture to be free of the bird ﬂu, the White House said. The deals are on top of China’s soybean purchase commitments last year

The agreements offer some hope to American farmers harmed by the trade war as they saw a major export market for soybeans and other products dry up. Farmers also are feeling new pressure from Trump administration policies — the war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran has curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade corridor that has restricted global fertilizer supplies and sent those prices soaring.

Musk’s claims against OpenAI dismissed

Court says he filed his lawsuit too late

BY BARBARA ORTUTAY Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. — A federal court on Monday dismissed claims ﬁled against OpenAI and its top executives by Elon Musk, who accused them of betraying a shared vision for it to remain a nonproﬁt dedicated to guiding artificial intelligence’s development for the good of humanity

The nine-person jury found Musk waited too long to ﬁle his lawsuit

and missed a statutory deadline. After a three-week trial, the jury deliberated less than two hours.

Musk, the world’s richest man, was a co-founder of OpenAI, which launched in 2015 and went on to create ChatGPT. After investing $38 million in its ﬁrst years, Musk accused OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and his top deputy of shifting into a moneymaking mode behind his back. The jury served in an advisory

role, but Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers accepted the verdict Monday as the court’s own and dismissed Musk’s claims. Musk posted on his social media platform X that he would ﬁle an appeal. He said the judge and jury never weighed in on the merits of the case, just “a calendar technicality.” “There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman & Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity The only question is WHEN they did it!” he wrote.

Altman and OpenAI claimed there was never a promise to keep

OpenAI a nonproﬁt forever In fact, they argued, Musk knew this and ﬁled his lawsuit because he couldn’t have unilateral control over the fast-growing AI developer OpenAI argued the lawsuit aimed to undercut the company’s rapid growth and bolster Musk’s xAI, which he launched in 2023 as a competitor Outside court Monday, OpenAI lawyer William Savitt told reporters that jurors determined the lawsuit was an “after-the-fact contrivance” that amounted to Musk trying to sabotage a competitor and ”to overcome a long history of very bad predictions about what OpenAI has been and will become.”

Pricing for big airlines has made it harder for budget airlines like Allegiant to compete solely on price. ASSOCIATED

Spirit’s collapse throws travel curveball to summer travelers

Cheaper flights becoming harder to come by

BY RIO YAMAT AP airlines and travel writer

Days after Spirit Airlines shut down in the middle of the night, a lawyer for the defunct budget carrier stood before a bankruptcy judge and apologized to the price-conscious customers who might struggle to ﬁnd affordable ﬂights in its absence.

“We apologize most speciﬁcally to those Americans who may now be priced entirely out,” Spirit lawyer Marshall Huebner said in court, thanking all the passengers who relied on the airline during its 34-year run, many of whom, he said, “could not otherwise have afforded air travel.”

Spirit’s May 2 demise is not the only curveball confronting people planning trips a week before the summer travel season has its traditional U.S launch on Memorial Day Rising jet fuel costs tied to the Iran war have pushed up airfares and associated fees across the commercial aviation industry Two of the remaining U.S. budget carriers just finalized a merger The uncertain outlook for economical air travel reflects how difficult it has become for low-cost, no-frills airlines to operate while squeezed by volatile fuel prices, inflation and increasingly fierce competition. While budget airlines appeal to customers motivated by fare prices alone, traditional carriers can more easily generate revenue to offset fuel costs through premium cabins, membership rewards, corporate travel programs, add-on

charges and pricing algorithms.

“Dynamic pricing has taken away one of the last structural advantages that low-cost carriers had,” said Shye Gilad, a former airline captain who now teaches at Georgetown University For decades, low-cost carriers thrived by offering fares that traditional airlines often couldn’t match without losing money But that edge has weakened as the “big three”

American, Delta and United got better at tailoring prices to different travelers, and as JetBlue, Southwest and other airlines that long positioned themselves as less expensive alternatives began chasing higher-paying customers.

Today, big airlines can sell a handful of bare-bones seats at Spirit-level prices while still charging more for standard and premium tickets elsewhere on their planes. That has made it harder for budget airlines to compete solely on price.

“They can’t just be the cheapest airline anymore,” Gilad said. “They have to be the smartest low-cost airline.”

Like gasoline and diesel prices, the price of jet fuel has jumped since the Iran war put a chokehold on Middle East oil shipments 11 weeks ago. The strain prompted the Association of Value Airlines, a U.S. trade group representing Allegiant Air, Avelo Air, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and Sun Country Airlines, to ask the Trump administration in late April for $2.5 billion in temporary ﬁnancial aid.

Airlines for America, the trade group for Alaska Airlines, American, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, opposed the idea, saying that federal help would give the budget airlines

an unfair advantage.

“Government intervention on behalf of those airlines would punish other airlines that have engaged in self-help in order to deal with increased costs and reward airlines who haven’t made those tough decisions,” Airlines for America said in a statement. “And, in the long-term, sustaining businesses that cannot earn their cost of capital harms competition and consumers by making it more difﬁcult for other airlines to compete.”

Transporation Secretary Sean Duffy rejected the request the day Spirit stopped ﬂying.

Even before the latest run-up in fuel costs, consolidation was already underway in the budget airline sector Alaska Airlines completed its $1 billion purchase of Hawaiian Airlines in September 2024 after the two carriers agreed to maintain the level of service on key routes within Hawaii and between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland where they didn’t face much competition.

Spirit was an unsuccessful merger target of both Frontier and JetBlue as its losses mounted after the coronavirus pandemic.

Allegiant said last week it had ﬁnalized its roughly $1.5 billion acquisition of Sun Country, a deal ﬁrst announced in January. The combined airline brings together passenger service with Sun Country’s cargo operations and charter business serving sports teams, casinos and the U.S. Department of Defense.

“Consolidation is a signal” of weakness in the industry, Gilad said. “If you can remove a competitor and improve your product offering, you might be able to eke out more proﬁt.”

N.Y. riders navigate rail strike as talks fail to reopen system

Gov Kathy Hochul. Katie Dolgow, who

graders in

already

travel from

and

said it

as more commuters turned to the region’s already notoriously gridlocked roads. But her big concern was going home. “I have to get my son at daycare by 5:30. It’s going to take me longer getting home. I’m a teacher, I’m going to have to leave work at 1:30,” she said. Unionized workers were out early picketing in front of major LIRR hubs, chanting slogans and holding up signs that read: “No contract. No work,” and “Equal work. Equal pay.”

“We’re just asking for a reasonable cost of living adjustment on our wages,” Byron Lee, a locomotive engineer, said outside Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. “People think that we don’t deserve it.” The LIRR serves hundreds of thousands of commuters who live along a 118-mile-long land mass that includes Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and the Hamptons, a summertime playground for the rich and famous. The strike started Saturday after ﬁve unions representing about half the rail system’s workforce walked off the job It’s the first walkout for the LIRR since a twoday strike in 1994.

The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and others, have said more substantial raises are warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs. The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands to raise salaries would result in large fare increases and be disproportionate to other unionized workers’ pay “With the rate of inﬂation nationally, and especially in this New York area everybody feels it,” said James Louis, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, on Monday “We’re just trying to keep their heads above water We’re not asking for anything outrageous.”

School districtsscroungingfor fundsfor raises

BY PATRICK WALL Staff writer

With Louisiana teachersfacing apossible state pay cut, school superintendentsare poring over their budgets, looking for any way to keep educators from takingahit

The scramble comes after voters rejected aproposed state constitutional amendment Saturday that would have financed permanent teacher raises. On Monday,atop state lawmaker doubleddown on his stance that there is no extra money in the state budget to give teachers raisesorone-time stipends like they receivedthe past few years.

Now,some school district leaders are trying to scrounge uplocal funds to ﬁll the gap. It’spossible that some districts will give teachers pay boosts to make up forany lost state funds, while otherscannot —widening the already large pay gaps between educators in different parishes.

In Vermilion Parish, schools Superintendent Thomas Byler said he asked his ﬁnance department Monday to calculate how much it would cost to cover the $2,000 stipends for teachers and $1,000 for

support staff that the Legislature provided this school year.The estimate was $2.3 million, an amount the rural districtcould only afford by tapping its budget reserves, Byler said.

“That’sascary decisiontomake,” he said.But “if the statecan’tcome through with anything, Idon’twant my people taking acut in pay.”

Even as localleaders digthrough their wallets, someeducators are holding out hope that lawmakers ﬁndmoney forstatewide teacher stipends, if not permanent raises.

Mark Curry-Theriot, an English teacher in St. Charles Parish, started an online petition Mondaycalling on the Legislature to pay for raises through the statebudget “I’m really hoping and praying that there are senators andrepresentatives whowill stand up for teachers,” he said, noting the recent academic gains thatLouisiana students have made. “We’ve made the leaps and strides, and it’sall because ofthe people in the trenches.”

Louisiana’s teachers aresome of thelowest paidinthe country

Thestate ranks 49th foraverage teacherpay,which was $56,785 last schoolyear,according to a

recent analysis by theNational Education Association,a national teachers union.

Stateleaders had hoped that Saturday’sballot measurewouldaddress that issuewithout dipping into thestate budget

Theproposal,known as Amendment 3, would have liquidated three education trust funds to pay off teacher retirement debt.School districts woulduse the savingsto raise teachers’ pay by $2,250 and support staff pay by $1,125.

Instead,votersshotdown that amendment and four other proposed constitution changes.Curry-Theriot, who opposed Amendment 3, said many educators did notwant the state to ﬁnance their raiseswithmoneythat otherwise would go towardprograms,including preschooland career education,that beneﬁt students.

“They pit us against our students with this amendment,” he said, adding, “I’mnot going to allow somethingtohurt my students.”

Gov.JeffLandry,who had pitchedthe amendment as away to hike teacher pay outside of the state budget, saidMondaythatno state employees should receive raisesthis year if teachersdon’t—

though he stopped short of calling on the Legislature to pay forthe raises. Senate President Cameron Henry on Monday repeated his position that, withthe Legislature already looking for budget cuts due to reduced revenue forecasts, it will be difﬁcult to ﬁnd the $200 million needed to give teachers another $2,000 stipend. But Jan Moller,head of Invest in Louisiana, aprogressive policy think tank, argued that the state has available funding it could tap. He pointed to the Revenue StabilizationTrust Fund, astate savings account withabout $2.4 billion, which lawmakers drew from last year

He said the Legislature already brokewithlong-standingprecedent in recent years when it gave teachers one-timepay bumps instead of permanent raises. If lawmakers do notprovide statewide teacher stipends this year,they will be shirking their duty to help even out thegaps between wealthier and poorer school systems, Moller argued.

“The reason it’ssoimportant to have the state play aprominent role,” he said, “isbecause there are huge economic disparities between districts.”

While lawmakers hash outthe state budget, school district leaders are looking forany way to give their teachers moremoney

The Lafourche Parish school system is using extra sales tax revenue and debt savings to give teachers a1.5% raise next school year,saidSuperintendent Jarod Martin. But that small boost, which comes out to about$900 extra for ateacher making $60,000, is nowhere near enough to maketeachers whole if the state stipends go away,headded.

Low pay hurts teachers and makes it harder for school districts to recruit andretaineffective educators, Martin said.

“Our ﬁrst, second and third priorities are teacher pay,” he said. “When you don’thave competitive pay,itaffects everything.”

But many school systems will be hard-pressed to find extra funds.Most are facing declining student enrollment andhigher insurance and fuelcosts. Meanwhile, the state has not increased the baselineper-student funding amount that schools receive through the funding formula, the Minimum FoundationProgram, since 2019.

To make the $2,000 stipend for teachers permanent, legislators would need to reallocate about $200 million in the proposed budget for the coming fiscal year,Henry said. That money wouldalso renew a$1,000 forschool support staff.

As it stands, lawmakers are already facing constraints: the Senate must trim the budget by about $100 million after state economists predicted Louisiana would bring in less tax revenue than previously expected.

“Tomakea permanent pay raise when you’re already $100 million short,” Henry said, “means you would have to cut the budget another $200 milliontodosomething that our constituents just voted not to do.”

The Senate Finance Committeewill consider budget amendments on Thursday according to Henry Aspokesperson for Landrydid notanswera questionabout whether cutting allpay raises wasthe result the governor wanted, or if he wanted the Legislature to change the budget to raise teachersalaries.

Landry is on atrip to Greenland; he was named special envoy to the island amid President Donald Trump’seffortstoacquire it earlier this year

Lawmakers could use a temporary funding source to renew the stipends for teachers, but that, too,does not seem to be in the cards

Last week, Henry said that if the teacher pay amendment failed, the Legislature would not backﬁll the $200 million. Instead, teachers appear likely to lose $2,000next year.But that could be temporary.

Henry said that in 2027 he wants to ﬁnd another way to footthe billfor the raises, this time by adjusting aformula that dictates funding for school districts so that it prioritizes teacher pay

The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education determines the funding formula each year, though it is subject to legislative approval.

Amendment 3, oneofﬁve

constitutional amendments that tanked over election weekend,wouldhave liquidated three state education trust funds and usedthat money to pay off teacher retirement debt, lowering annual debtpayments for schooldistricts. The savings would have gonetoward the payraises.

State Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, who helps steer budget deliberationsaschair of the House Appropriations Committee, said he wantstokeep pay raises for “low- to middleincome workingpeople” in the budget even though Amendment 3failed.

For example, the budget passed by the House would raiseannualpay forstate firefighters who deal with wildfiresfrom$28,000 to $38,000, McFarland said. The measure costs about $5 million, he said Questions are also swirling around the fateofsalaries forprosecutors andjudges. Thecurrent budget includes funds to renewpay raises judges received last year, andHouse Bill 324 bystate Rep.Debbie Villio,R-Kenner, wouldmake them permanent.

And though legislators have not yet set aside the money forit, House Bill660 by state Rep. PeterEgan, RCovington, would raise the base salary for assistantdistrictattorneys from $50,000 to $60,000.

Thatbill would cost the state about $7.5 million a year,accordingtoareport from theLegislativeFiscal Ofﬁce.

Hillar Moore,the district attorney for the 19th Judicial DistrictinEastBaton RougeParish,said that if raises are off the table, he hopes theLegislature will still pass House Bill 819. That bill would give the state 80 new prosecutors, with 18 going to his district.

“Wesurelyare holding on to hope that we can pass and fund at least the additional assistantdistrict attorney spots that we desperately need,” said Moore,who has told lawmakersthatalack of sufficientstaffing in his office has compromised public safety in Baton Rouge

Some members of the governor’sCabinet could also be affected by changestothe budget

In its current form,House Bill 1, akey pieceofbudget legislation, authorizes the governor to increase salariesfor certain department secretaries by as muchas $25,000, according to an addendum to thebill.

UnderHB1,the salary cap for theheadsofthe Department of Environmental Quality and of the Department of Children andFamily Services would increase from$175,000 to $200,000. Meanwhile, thetransportation secretary,who can make up to $202,000 annually,could make $225,000.

Often,people appointed as secretaries areatrisk of taking paycuts even if they are promoted from lower positions, according to McFarland, who said raising the salary caps would help prevent that.

Another measure, House Bill 1201, which wouldbe effective in 2028, now has an uncertain pathforward. It would grant state legislators more compensation and give substantial pay hikes to statewide elected ofﬁcials including the governor State Rep.JohnIllg, RMetairie, who sponsored HB1201, said he will likely strip the salary increases out of it in light of the position the Senate and governor have taken on raises.

He said he will leavein provisionsthatwould reimburse state senators and representatives up to $1,000 amonth in housing costs and give them daily stipends for some of the days theywork when the Legislature is not in session.

Currently,state legislatorshave abasesalaryof $16,800. That has not increased in over fourdecades, Illg said.

Because they getother types of compensation such as expense allowances, most legislators receive between $35,000 and$45,000 ayear from the state, according to reports from the Louisiana LegislativeAuditor’s Ofﬁce. Illg saidthe low pay makes it difﬁcult for people who are not rich or retired to servein the Legislature —especially for those wholive far from Baton Rouge.

“Wehave an extreme amount of turnover here,” he said. “I want agood mix of people that areyounger,

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LOUISIANA AT LARGE

Symphony Book Fair sellsprizes fora song

There is adinner bell with a long pink grosgrain ribbon on a table in aside room of anondescript warehouse off Distributors RowinNew Orleans.

It sits near stacks of cookbooks waiting to be priced. When the time comes, Nancy Landrum rings it.

Volunteers stop what they’re doing and gather at the table in the break area. They unpack lunches they brought from home, sit down together and solve the world’sproblems.

These people have ﬁgured something out.

Ispent Friday morning with them as they puttogether the 2026 New Orleans Symphony Book Fair,which runs May 3031 at the UNO LakefrontArena. For book lovers, it is an annual dream. Most paperbacksare $1. Most hardbacks are $3. The rare andold things go alittle higher —but not by much.

One thing worth knowing: On Saturday,May 30, the doors open at 9a.m. —but from 9till noon, admission is $20. That $20 buys the ﬁrst pick of the litter

The rest of Saturday and all day Sunday are free. Saturday runsuntil 6p.m. Sunday runs until 4p.m. Christopher Brown is the rare books specialist. If Central Casting needed someone to ﬁll that role,they would search high and low and eventually,gratefully ﬁnd Brown. He’sgot the glasses, the dry wit and the encyclopedic knowledge.

This year,hedonated athreevolume set of Captain Cook’s voyages, published in 1773 because his wife has pointed out that he has too many old books. The set is in good to fair condition. In excellent condition, it could fetch up to $10,000. For the book fair,hehas priced it at $300. In full disclosure, Cook was the third explorer listed, but he’sthe only one with name recognition these days.

Brown unfoldedone of the maps inside —March 1770 and said with ademeanor of someone who finds this perfectly ordinary: “It’sabargain for a collector,somebody who knows what it is.” In the art room, Ellen Goldring oversees what the volunteers call Fabulous Finds —books and art objects worth more than $25. She’sbeen doingthis for 15 years. She showed me aSalvador Dalí lithograph. There was a1913 book called “Don’tsfor Wives,” anear-first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s“ForWhom the Bell Tolls,” “The Complete Ian Fleming’s James Bond” and beautiful old sheet music galore. Goldring, who will turn 80 in August, moves efficiently.She struckmeassomeonewho has long since stopped being surprised but has not stopped being delighted.

In the pricing room —the heart of the operation, as Janet Blohowiak calls it —Landrum, whospecializes in foreign language books, and three other women sit surrounded by stacks sorted by their various expertise: cookbooks, children’sbooks,art, religion, hobbies and more. Sometimes, they ﬁnd notes, old photographs, checks or even money hidden in the books. Blohowiak is in her third year chairing the book fair,having taken the baton from Barbara Sands, who chaired the event for years. They are easy with each other the way people get easy when they haveshown up, side

ä See RISHER, page 2B

Rousse talks first180 days LSUsystempresidentweighsinonathletics challenges

BY HALEYMILLER Staff writer

Almost exactly six months after he assumed control of the presidencyatLouisiana’sﬂagship universitysystem, Wade Rousse gave acandid address to the Baton Rouge Press Club on thechallenges of his ﬁrst 180 days at the helm —fromthe now-checkered

arena projecttothe ongoing administrative overhaul.

“Serving in this role is the honor of my life,” Rousse said.“I’ve been in it forsix months,and in this business, that’slike along tenure.”

Parkview Baptist volleyball player Jana Thymes receives an awardon Mondayat The Advocate Star of Stars Sports Awards in Baton Rouge.

PHOTOSBy MICHAEL BACIGALUPI

research universities.

According to his 90-day plan, LSU“outperformed dramatically,” he said. Rousse made sweeping changes to the system’sarchitecture, crusading to reestablish the chancellor positionatthe flagship andto rework titles and reporting lines with the goalof unifying the constellation of campuses and propelling LSU into the top 50 among

But LSU has missed the markin some ways, he said —namely,in failingtoﬁll leadershippositions thatremainvacant, including the seniorvicechancellorfor academicaffairs andprovostspotin Baton Rouge.

“I, or we, have dramatically

COMING WEDNESDAY

Specialsection featuring allthe winners. INSIDE

STARSTRUCK

Baton RougeHigh wrestling star Olivia Maxie, left, is interviewedbyThe Advocate’sKelseyHigdon.

For the40thyear, The Advocate honored high school athletesfromacross theBaton Rouge metroarea as Star of Stars for their excellence in individual sports. These athletes are selectedasthe best in their sportsfor the2025-26school year based on all-district, allmetroand all-state honors, performancesatregional andstate competitions, and recommendationsofarea coaches.

PlanningCommissionapprovesPlanBaton RougeIII

Thirditeration of downtown document movesforward

BYIANNE SALVOSA Staff writer

Aplantoincrease the downtown population and draw visitors to the Mississippi Riverfrontreceived its ﬁrst in aset of approvalsneeded to setthe plan into motion. TheEastBaton RougePlanning Commission on Monday unanimously approved Plan

BatonRouge III, the third iteration of adowntown masterplan. Sasaki Principal Josh Brooks presenteda summary of the ambitious plan, which he described as aroad map to position Baton Rouge as a“riverfrontcity.”

Theplanoutlines 80 recommendationstospruce up downtown Baton Rouge overthe next decade. Those include adding a youth sports and entertainment complex, awaterside promenadeand housingtothe riverfront, referredtoasthe city’s “front porch.” Spearheaded by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation anddesign firm Sasaki, the plan sets agoal to triple the downtownresidential population by increasing the quality of life with added retail, entertainment, housing and transportation. Brooks stressed the development of the plan’suse of community input and an expectation of the plan to rake in acombined $37 million in sales and property revenue to make acasefor the plan’sgoal to improve the Baton Rouge community

“All of therecommendations position themselves withinother things that arehappening in thecontext of economic development trends, transportation

trends, land usetrends that are happening, so that what is being recommended is not an isolation, but rather something that can position Baton Rouge for the broader future, and aplan that can be for everyone, not just the residents of downtown,” Brooks said at the meeting. Michael Grace, an associate at Taylor,Porter,Brooks &Phillips representing afew property owners of land northofThe Queen casino, an area imagined in the plan as ahub with a youthsportsand entertainment

Officials: Body found ID’d as homicide suspect

on March 5.

CRIME BLOTTER staff reports

A body found Saturday in East Feliciana Parish has been identified as a man wanted on a homicide count, the Sheriff’s Office said. The decomposed remains of Shamond Sanders, 39, of Pineville, were found in an abandoned building off La. 19 Sanders was identified by fingerprints. Sanders was wanted by the Ball Police Department in a homicide that happened in Rapides Parish

An autopsy is pending.

“The preliminary investigation leads detective to believe this is likely a case of suicide,” the Sheriff’s Ofﬁce said.

Man fatally shot in Baker on Saturday, officials say

A 21-year-old man was found fatally shot in Baker on Saturday morning, ofﬁcials said.

The victim was identified by the East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner’s Ofﬁce as Javon Quat-

revingt. The shooting happened shortly before 10 a.m. in the 1100 block of Chemin Drive off Groom Road, ofﬁcials said.

3-year-old found in pool dies after airlift to hospital

A Prairieville 3-year-old was found in a residence’s pool Monday afternoon, and died later at a local hospital. An operations supervisor with Acadian Ambulance Services conﬁrmed that a call regarding

the possible drowning of a toddler came in at 3:54 p.m. Monday

Ascension Parish sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the residence on Roy Rodgers Road, located the victim, and began performing lifesaving measures, including CPR, until the arrival of an AirMed helicopter at 4:02 p.m.

The child was transported to a local hospital where they were pronounced dead.

Detectives with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Ofﬁce’s Juvenile Unit are investigating the drowning death.

Morris Bart spices things up with new venture

BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer

New Orleans personal injury

lawyer Morris Bart, who pioneered attorney billboard and television ads in the 1980s, has taken his marketing mojo to supermarket shelves, rolling out his own brand of hot sauce.

Morris Bart’s Louisiana Hot Sauce began appearing on the shelves at Rouses Markets’ 74 locations in Louisiana Mississippi and Alabama last week and so far, are selling well, Bart said Sunday. “As of yesterday, the Rouses in Baton Rouge, on the West Bank and the CBD were sold out,” he said. “Metairie had just one bottle.”

Though Rouses is the sole retailer selling the sauce for now, others could follow if demand for the product grows, Bart said. More than 30 local restaurants, including Liuzza’s, Camelia Grill, The Gumbo Shop and Alon Shaya’s

PLANNING

Continued from page 1B

complex, spoke in opposition to the plan on behalf of his clients.

new Safta’s Table, have agreed to carry it.

Bart launched the product in September as a promotional giveaway for clients Always a fan of hot sauce, he hired a food scientist and a chef to develop something that was milder than Tabasco, the industry standard bearer, and hotter than Crystal Hot Sauce, a longtime New Orleans brand.

By December, with only 300 of the initial 13,000-bottle production run remaining, Bart decided to go commercial, getting a patent and all the certiﬁcations needed to sell packaged food at scale.

Bart declined to name the chef or co-packing plant that is producing his private-labeled product but said both are local. Metairie-based Perrone & Sons is his distributor

If the initial 10,000-bottle run continues selling well, he hopes to produce more.

“People are buying it as a novelty but I think when they try it, they will really like it,” he said.

The property owners oppose the rezoning of the area for recreational use, Grace said, though Planning Director Ryan Holcomb said the plan does not rezone the properties.

Bart’s expansion into hot sauce comes as competition in the personal injury attorney space is heating up. In early 2025, Baton Rouge-based competitor Gordon McKernan moved into the New Orleans market with an aggressive billboard campaign targeting Bart.

Earlier this year, another highprofile firm, Baton Rouge-based Dudley DeBosier, sold the nonlegal operations of its business to a Connecticut private equity firm.

Bart said his hot sauce schtick is not intended to elevate his name recognition above the growing fray, though he acknowledged the ﬁeld of local personal injury lawyers is crowded.

“They’re all copying me,” he said. “But this was more of just a promotion for my clients, and they loved it so much we decided to sell it.”

Bart said he is basing the model for his budding business off Newman’s Own Salad Dressing,

which the late actor Paul Newman launched in 1982 and grew into a mission-based brand that donates 100% of proceeds to charity

Since its founding, the salad dressing company has given away more than $600 million to charitable organizations around the world, according to its website. Bart plans to donate proceeds from his hot sauce to local charities, namely Second Harvest Food Bank, which he and his wife have supported for years.

He couldn’t say how much sales of the hot sauce, currently priced at $3.99 a bottle, might generate for the charity

“I am not giving up my day job because there is not much money in hot sauce,” Bart said. “But it has been a fun venture, and we are going to see where it goes.”

Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@theadvocate. com.

Continued from page 1B

underperformed,” he said. “It’s moved a little slower than we thought in terms of putting the leadership team across the system. We’re still working hard to do that.”

In the wide-ranging speech and question-and-answer session, he also addressed the LSU arena, a project that has encountered roadblocks after the CEO of the firm that would build the arena was indicted on federal bid-rigging charges in Texas, massive administrative reform and the difficulties of leading a university post-House v. NCAA settlement, which allowed Division I universities to pay athletes directly and permitted athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness.

LSU arena

Rousse was noncommittal in discussing plans for the $400 million LSU arena, which has been mired in controversy since the indictment, as well as a lawsuit over whether the LSU Economic Development District can levy taxes without voter approval.

“The arena when I got here was a little different than what it turns out to be now,” Rousse said.

He said the economic development district, which was tied to the proposed arena, has begun collecting taxes, but the administration is evaluating how those dollars will be used.

“There is money in that account,” Rousse said. “Nothing has been spent yet. Where it’s going to be spent depends on if we end up getting an arena or not. The EDD has been earmarked in terms of structural issues that it needs to be spent on. You can imagine, if you drive our campus and see some of the potholes in our campus and concrete that is broken, that we have a lot of places to spend them.”

The Metro Council Zoning Committee will hear the plan June 17 before formal adoption into FuturEBR, the parish’s comprehensive plan.

Foundation Vice President of Civic Leadership Eric Dexter said planners will work with downtown property owners throughout the implementation of the plan, in response to Commissioner Jody Boyd asking if there is an alternative plan for the location of the proposed youth complex “Today is not about a plan on paper, but it’s one that must be true collaboration, especially with the folks that own the property that you’re talking about and everybody being inclusive here,” council member Carolyn Coleman said at the meeting.

“Just as someone that was that was born, raised here, and was educated here, that’s built a career here, has had the opportunity to serve the parish on several different boards and several different capacities. It’s exciting to have the opportunity to support a plan like this,” Commissioner Rossie Washington Jr said at the meeting.

the

Continued from page 1B

by side, for a long time. I helped unbox a cart of books. Mine were mostly about birding in Mississippi. Donations come in throughout much of the year and pile up in the warehouse. Volunteers still have many boxes to sort, price and ready for the sale

After unpacking, the Rev Susan Gaumer walked me through pricing already sorted hobby books — hardbacks start at $3, but a beautiful quilting book with full color photographs and actual patterns? We both agreed: $4.

“You’re hired,” Gaumer said.

“You’re one of us now.”

And it felt like I was — I could have stayed for a while.

The whole enterprise runs on about 5,000 volunteer-hours a year Blohowiak estimates this year’s sale could bring in between $55,000 and $60,000. After expenses — primarily the arena and warehouse rental — more than $20,000 will go to the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. The volunteers show up every Tuesday and Friday for four

hours each time, week after week. Most of them have been volunteering for years some for decades.

What they’ve built is more than a book sale. It’s a community organized around usefulness. They are good at things evaluating art, authenticating rare books, knowing whether a book titled “2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said” should go in reference or humor and they have found a place to put those skills toward something that matters.

The dinner bell rings. Landrum says, “It’s lunchtime.” They all stop and eat together

Their spirit will stay with me.

If the question is how not to be lonely these people have an answer: Show up. Do something worth doing. Bring your lunch.

The New Orleans Symphony Book Fair runs May 30, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ($20 admission 9 a.m. to noon; free after noon), and May 31, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (free), at UNO Lakefront Arena, 6801 Franklin Ave, New Orleans. The children’s bag event is Sunday, May 31, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., $5.

Email Jan Risher at jan.risher@ theadvocate.com

He added that LSU is “still looking for funding sources” for the arena. He would not want funds from the Legislature to be redirected from academics toward the venue, he said, but would welcome an additional infusion of cash for that purpose.

“If the state understands the economic development that comes with that, we’re more than willing to put up the property as long as it beneﬁts the stakeholders of LSU,” he said. System overhaul

The LSU system is continuing to restructure in hopes of reaching the top 50 of higher education research spenders in the National Science Foundation Higher Education Research and Development Survey, Rousse said.

Part of that process involves creating an “elite main campus,” while the regional institutions retain their accessibility, he said. The Baton Rouge campus recently reinstated the standardized test score requirement for admission, which it had dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As we’re building an elite ﬂagship institution, our standards must be elevated,” Rousse said.

Under his vision, students who cannot gain admission to the main campus could use a regional institution as a “pathway.”

“We will have clear, clear pathways from our regional institutions,” Rousse said. “We’re going to place you in Alexandria, for example You’re going to take your ﬁrst 24 credits there, and if you make a 3.5 GPA, you can transfer seamlessly to the ﬂagship campus if you choose.”

He added that the vacant provost position will play a key role in achieving the top-50 ranking. That search should come to a close within the next week, he said.

“It’s very intentional when you think about our model in terms of excellence and accessibility,” Rousse said. “The ﬂagship is going to be a top 50 research institution. The regional campuses are going to really focus on a shorter time frame for the workforce.”

Athletics

Rousse also called for Congress to step in to regulate the Wild West of the NIL and revenue-sharing era of college sports, saying athletics has taken up much of his focus in his ﬁrst 180 days at LSU.

“I would not be transparent if I didn’t say 20-30% of my time during the ﬁrst six months has been tied up with athletics,” he said.

He said the current model is one of constant cost escalation and argued for a clearer definition of college athlete, as well as guardrails on the transfer portal.

“That would help us with some cost metrics,” Rousse said. “Kids are moving so quickly, it’s just elevating costs, elevating costs, elevating costs.”

LOTTERY

SUNDAY,

STAFF PHOTO By JAN RISHER

Christopher Brown, Symphony Book Fair’s old book specialist and volunteer, works at a table to price stacks of old books for the 2026 Symphony Book Fair, set for May 30-31 at the UNO Lakefront Arena.

PROVIDED PHOTO

In a New Orleans warehouse, columnist Jan Risher, left, assists Symphony Book Fair Chair Janet Blohowiak with unpacking a box of books and rolling them to

pricing room.

Harold Edwards "Bo" Amos, III, age 62, of Lafayette, Louisiana passed away on April 14, 2026. Bo was born on December 4, 1963 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was preceded in death by his parents, Harold Edwards Amos, Jr and Barbara Breaux Amos. Bo is survivedbyhis sisters, Liz Autin and Lynda Leigh Rich, his nieces and nephews, Aaron Elsea, DanielElsea (Katie), Alex Autin(Rose), Anna Weilbaecher (Wyatt),and Avery Smith (Jacob), and his great-nieces and greatnephews, Jack, Amelia, Beau, and Genevieve. Bo is also survived by the most loyal friends aman could have, especially Danielle Chapman Gremillion, Doug andAngel Tettleton, and of course his dog, Happy. Bo was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, graduated Broadmoor High School in 1982, and attended Southeastern Louisiana University. He was always passionate about cars, trucks, and virtually any mode of transportation known to man. There wasn't acar or truck or any vehicle he couldn't tinker with. He was anatural born comedian and always had astory to share that would leave you in stitches.

Obituaries his wifeof57years,Dianne Causey. Adaughter, Nicolette Krauseand husband Davidand ason, Joel Causey and wife, Crystal. A sister, BrendaBrown. 2 brothers, Gary Causeyand wife, Cindy and Doug Causeyand wife, Mary. 5 grandchildren,Brittni Rayborn, Matthewand Nicholas Fugarino and Alyssa and JordanCausey, 8great grandchildren, Kearstin, Alaynah, Laniyah, T.J.,Tyson, Skye,D'Money, and D'Major and 1great greatgrandchild, Kyson Garig. He is precededin death by his parents, Frank and Sybil Causey. Your life was ablessing and your memorya treasure. You are loved beyond words and willbemissed beyond measure. Bleeding purple and goldinhis heart,he cheeredfor the Tigers, never topart. Untilwe meetagain

Falterman, Tanya Coffman

TanyaLou CoffmanFalterman, bornonNovember 18,1962, left us on May15, 2026.

graduating fromthe Elaine Mann School of Dance Immediately after receiving her BSN from LouisianaStateUniversity, she begana long career as aNeonatal ICUnurse, serving on the Neonatal Flight TransportTeamand thoroughly enjoying herroleas acare takerfor the smallest and most fragileofall patients, including ECMO neonates. Tanyacared for NICU babies in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and in NewOrleans at Charity Hospital and Ochsner. At Ochsner, she met Ken, her soulmate and love of her life,who she latermarried.

In 1991, they moved to Lafayette, where she helped Ken establish the first PediatricGeneral Surgery practiceinAcadiana.

Tanya was utterlydevotedtoher family.She deeply lovedher husband, Ken, and cherished every moment spent with her daughter, "Livie".She had aspecial love forall animals, whether her own pet or astray, especiallycats, dogs, fish, and horses. She shared this love withher daughter and allowed her to haveany petshe ever wanted. She treated them allasroyalty

Tanya, Ken and Livlovingly carried on theCoffman Family MardiGrastradition activities, especially with theKrewe of the Troubadours.

No one was astranger to Tanya! She treated everyone with kindness and respect,regardless of their stationinlife.She truly wouldgiveanyone "the shirt off of her back".

Acadiana Animal Aid, https://acadianaanimalaid .org/give/. View theobituary and guestbookonline at www.mourning.com

Martin &CastilleSOUTHSIDE, 600 E. Farrel Road,Lafayette,Louisiana 70508, 337-984-2811

McKlemurry, William D.

William D. McKlemurry, 69, aresident of St.Francisville, LA,diedonMay 17, 2026.

William liveda very simple life,hewoulddoanything he couldtohelp someone in need. He loved to hunt,fish, garden, and spend time withhis family and friends.Heissurvived by theloveofhis life, Denise; twosisters, Ivy Fooshee(Robert) and PatriciaBrashier (Robert); one brother, Eugene McKlemurry;and his twofur babies, Rubyand Zoe. He was precededindeath by his parents, James and Geraldine HobgoodMcKlemurry;one sister, Francis McKlemurry. The family wouldliketogivea special thank youtoThe Hospice of BatonRouge

Stubbs, Linda Landry

Linda LandryStubbsage 78 passed away peacefully at home on May14. Linda wasa life long resident of Baton Rouge.After graduating from Istrouma High School she marriedthe love of herlife, BillStubbs to whom she remaineddevotedtofor 61 years. Together theyhad twosons. Shewas also aloving maw maw whospent lots of time making memories with hergrandchildren. Sheissurvived by her loving husband, Bill Stubbs; sistersDarla Johnson and husbandJimmy, Nancy Ferguson,Lisa Landry, sonsDarren and wife Christine, Lance and wife Janaand thegrandchildrenBrycen,Haley,Ma-

son andJake.

Friends and family are invitedtocelebrate Bo's life at agathering to be held at The Station Sports Bar and Grill, 4608 Bennington Ave., Baton Rouge, LA 70808, on Thursday, May 21, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. Please join us to share stories, laughter, and fond memories.

Ronald L. Ronald L. Causey, aresident of Gonzales, passed away peacefullyonThursday,May 14, 2026. He was 77 years old and aUSAir Force veteran of the Vietnam War. Memorial Visitation will be at Charlet Funeral Home in Zachary on Thursday, May 21, 2026, from 5pm until 8pm. Burial will be at Louisiana National Cemetery at 11am on Friday, May 22, 2026. Ronnie was cherished and beloved by family and friends.Heissurvived by

Tanya leaves behind her devotedhusband, Dr. KennethWayneFalterman, and her beloveddaughter, OliviaLouise Falterman, who wereboth the center of herworld. Sheisalso survived by her loving sister and best friend, Carla Coffman Gossen and her husband Gregory Martin Gossen, herolder brother, Dr. VernonDaleCoffman, Jr. and his wifeElena LaFargue Coffman, and her dear younger brother, Dr. Mitchell WardCoffman; herthree nephews, Matthew CoffmanGossen andhis wifeNecia Marie Weimer,Christopher Patrick Gossen, and Grant Dale Coffman; her nieces, CullenCoffmanBarone and herhusband Grant Michel Barone, Grier Dale Gossen who was likea second daughter to her,Kendall Dale Coffman, Kristin Leigh Robertson, and her cherished grandnieces, Camille Marie Gossen, Taylor Jean Gossen, and SophieGrace Barone, andgrandnephew, Jack Michael Barone. Tanya was precededin death by herloving parents,Mattie Johnson Coffman and VernonDaleCoffman, Sr.; and herinfant daughter born sleeping, MaryElizabeth Falterman. Aproud graduate of Lafayette High School Class of 1980, Tanya was rememberedfondly as a highly motivational Captainofthe Lafayette High Mighty Lion Dance Team. Shealsopursued her lifelongpassion for dance,

Tanya will be remembered forher loving heart truly caring nature, and completely selfless devotion to others. Whether caring for family,friends, patients, animals, or even strangers, she gave of herself unconditionallyand with greatcompassion Her warmth, grace, kindness, and fiery spirit will foreverremaininthe heartsofall who knew and lovedher.

She willbedeeply missed and lovinglyremembered always. To honor Tanya'smemoryand personalrequest, thefamily encourages bright attire forthe visitation and services.The familywillhavevisitation on Saturday, May 23, 2026 at Martin &Castille's SOUTHSIDE Location from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.A Memorial Service willbegin at 3:00 PM followedbyareception held at Tanya'sfavorite place at 4:00 PM In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be madeinTanya'sname to: For The Birds of Acadiana, https://www.forthebirdsof acadiana.com/donate, WildCat Foundation, https: //wildcatfoundationla.org/ donate.html,

passedaway

May14, 2026, in Baton Rouge,LAatthe age of 68. Read thefullobituaryon ourtrusted partner websitebelow:https://www. churchfuneralservices.com /

Amos,Harold Edwards 'Bo

Whatley, ThomasRoy

Thomas

Whatley

peacefullyon

Causey,

OUR VIEWS

Turnoutdata show we all lose when voters are confused

We wish we could say that Louisiana voters deﬁed the odds on Saturday andturnedout in record numbers to make their voicesheard despite allthe confusion that accompanied the state’sﬁrst party primaries in decades.

But as the votes were tallied,one thingbecame abundantlyclear: Hundredsofthousands of voters who oncewouldhavebeen expectedto show up for an important U.S. Senate race were simplymissing. No one can sayfor sure whether it was the closed primary or the massive voterpurge or the late cancellation of House racesbyGov.Jeff Landry or some othercause that led so many to skipgoingtothe polls.There were stories about voters andsome poll workersnot understanding therules surrounding the party primaries.

But whatever the reason, large numbersof voters just didn’tparticipate. Especially in the hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen.Bill Cassidy,the data is stark.

Complete but unofficial results fromthe Secretary of State’s office show that 401 118 votes were cast in the Republican primary, where Cassidy finished third to U.S.Rep. Julia Letlow andstate Treasurer John Fleming,who are headedtoarunoff. Meanwhile, 344,751 votes were cast in the Democratic senatorialprimary where Jamie Davis,afarmer, and Gary Crockett, aNew Orleans businessman,are headed to arunoff.

Alltold, that’slessthan750,000 of Louisiana’s 2.9 million registered voters whodecided to take part in this consequential election,one that effectivelyended the career of along-tenured public servant.

By contrast, in the lastelection for U.S.Senate, where incumbent JohnKennedy wasseekingreelectionin2022, thenumber of ballots cast in aso-called jungle primary,wherevoters do not have to choose aparty, was1,383,290. The effect of nearly 640,000 fewer ballots is tooserioustodeny

That effect could be felt upand down theballot.Louisiana voters, perhaps registeringanger at stateleaders for recenteffortstochange voting rules and nullify elections, soundly rejected theﬁve constitutionalamendmentsonthe ballot, including one to raise teacher pay. And sadly,important local initiatives, like alibrary tax renewal in Lafayette and ameasure to fund schoolemployees in St.Landry,also suffered from voters’ ire.

That’swhy we argue that theeffort to confuse voters is ultimatelyalosing onefor politicians and for our stateasawhole. Voters aretoo wise andtoo weary to rewardeffortstotrickthem. So they turn againstthe system as awhole and reject anything put in front of them.

That’salose-lose proposition for allofus.

LETTERSTOTHE EDITOR

HERE AREOUR

GUIDELINES: Letters are published identifying name, occupation and/or title and the writer’scity of residence

TheAdvocate |The Times-Picayune require astreet address andphone 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.

TO SEND US A LETTER, SCANHERE

Keep LA GATORfunding in state’spublicschools

Gov.Jeff Landry is pushing thestate Legislature to double funding for the LA GATOR fund from $44 million to $88 million. State School Superintendent Cade Brumley,who also supports school vouchers, says theprogram (euphemistically called “school choice”) is becoming morepopular throughout thecountry

However,other states that have tried voucher programshave found that manyofthe voucher recipientswere already attending private schools. In Arizona, for example, 71% of voucher recipientshad not previously attended apublic school.

The voucher system has proven harmful to public schools that lose studentstoprivateschools. Public schools do not have adecline in ﬁxed costs (building maintenance, heating, electricity,bus drivers, staff) even though their revenue decreases. They are therefore unable to deliver thesame qualityofinstruction to theremaining

public school students. Furthermore, stateSen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews, D-Monroe, points out that the state pays about $5,500 per student forpublic schools while LA GATOR averages morethan $7,000 per student.

Lastyear,Senate President Cameron Henry was able to stop the expansion of LA GATOR. Let’s hope that he is successful againthis year.Our statehas manyother areas where the money can be used, rather than subsidizing parentswho arealready paying for private school tuition. We should be giving moremoney,not less, to support our public schools.

In fact, The New York Times reported in February of this year that Louisiana public schools rank No. 1inthe country in recovery from pandemic losses in reading. Why not spend the $88 million Landry wants to give to LA GATOR on Louisiana’spublic schools?

MERRYTOUPS NewOrleans

Spiralinghigheredcosts closeoff opportunities

College is often called the“great equalizer,” yet for manystudents, that promise feels increasingly out of reach. In Louisiana and across the country,rising tuition and living costs are turning higher education intoa privilege rather than an opportunity. Instead of focusing solely on academics, manystudentsare forced to worry about debt and ﬁnancial survival.

Earning adegree is supposed to reflect hard work and determination. In reality, financial background plays a major role in student success. Those from wealthier families can focus on school withfewer distractions, while low-income students often juggle jobs, responsibilities,and loans just to stay enrolled. When opportunity depends so heavily on income, the idea of equal access becomes difficult to defend.

The long-term consequences are signiﬁcant.Many minority and lowincome students begin college at adis-

Thanks to Stephanie Grace for her column May 3about how aclariﬁcation of confusing immigration rules might prevent others from suffering theinjustice and humiliation inﬂicted recently on teenage brothers from the

advantage due to limited generational wealth and access to resources. As costs rise, so does the gap. Graduates frequently leave school with substantial debt that shapes their futures —delaying homeownership,career choices and further education.

Financial aid helps, but it rarely covers the full cost of attendance. Housing, food, and transportation remain major burdens and manyscholarships are more accessible to those already advantaged. If higher education is meanttoexpand opportunity,these barriers cannot be ignored. Lower tuition, stronger need-based aid, and meaningful action on student debt are practical steps towardamore equitable system.Until then, college will continue to reﬂect inequality rather than reduce it.

NAJILA MCGEE Baton Rougehigh school student

Republic of Congo with student visas as they aspired to enlighten themselves with an American education in aMississippi classroom.

LANNY THOMAS NewOrleans

Birthright citizenship is outdated, Ihear?

Hearing the U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argue the administration’spoints on birthright citizenship waseye-opening forme.

As alifelong Democrat, though a “thinking” Democrat, Iwas enlightened by the argument of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, indicating that in 1868, when the 14th Amendment was added to the Constitution, there werefew federal laws regulating migration. Unlike today, when acomplex series of federal immigration lawsimpose stringent restrictions on migrants and prospective migrants. “Wereally didn’t have lawslike that” in 1868. My personal eye-opener was: Should we change the 14th Amendmenttomaybe reﬂect 2026, not 1868??

Further,mythoughts veered over to the much-argued Second Amendment. Written in 1791 and reﬂecting, probably accurately,the timeof 1791.

“A wellregulated Militia, being necessary to the security of afree state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Deﬁnition of militia: Amilitary force that operates only someofthe timeand whose members are not soldiers in apermanent army Are 1791 and the times then, when this amendment was no doubt necessary to protect person and property relevant? Absolutely!

But, in 2026, does it play out exactly as originally written and intended?

So, does the 14th Amendment need somecontemporary updates and rewrites? And, with the samethought, should the Second Amendment be once again revisited to reﬂect the current times of 2026 with all its larger-than-lifechanges, usages and alternative weaponry out here now and not 1791?

Imean, times have changed. In 1791, individual protective devices included riﬂes and pistols. In 2026, individual protective devices include the AK-47, Ruger,Glock, 45mm, M16, Steyr AUGand SIGSauer PATRICK DUFFY NewOrleans

2026 PRIMARyELECTIONROUNDUP

Despiterejection, Cassidy sounds like aman at peace

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy has always had an awkwardness about him, the kind that seems to come fromsaying things he doesn’t necessarily believe, or from protesting too much. Other politicians handle that better; that’sno compliment, just an observation that some are more comfortable acting against their values than others. Until this weekend, Icould think of only one instance in which Cassidy fully shed that awkwardness, when he came across as aman at peace with what he was saying and doing, fully comfortable in his own skin. It was when he voted to convict after President Donald Trump was impeached for launching the horrors we all saw on Jan. 6, 2021 —aviolent assaultonour democracy incitedbythe man who refused to accept that he’d lost an election, no matterwhat today’sruling Republican class would now have us believe.

Cassidy’sgracious andsurprisingly upbeat concessionSaturday night,onceitbecame clear that he’d been edged out in anew Republican primary designed to punish him for that 2021 vote, wasthe second. With the decision by GOP voterstoreject him despite his embarrassing yearslong effort to talk and vote his way back into the president’sgood graces (as if Trump’sgot anonvindictive bone in his body) —culminating in what had to have been an immensely painful decisive voteto conﬁrm vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy as Health and Human Services secretary—the doctor and career-long vaccine advocate from Baton Rouge ﬁnallycalled it as he saw it.

“I feel great,” Cassidy said as he congratulated runoff candidates U.S. Rep. JuliaLetlow, Trump’schoicetotake Cassidy out, and stateTreasurerJohn Fleming. “I’ve had the privilege of representing the state of Louisiana for 12 years. I’ve been able to participate in democracy,and when you participate in democracy,sometimes it doesn’tturn outthe way you want it to. But you don’tpout, you don’twhine, you don’tclaim the election was stolen …you don’tmanufacture some excuse. Youthank the votersfor the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you’ve had that privilege, and that’swhatI’m doingright now.”

There was more: “The people

who voted for me want leaders whowork for thegood of everyone, not just for themselves

Medicine teaches you that words can uplift andwords can destroy

That you have thegreat trust of apatient, butwith trust of apatientcomes great responsibility.

And still more: “And let me just setthe recordstraight: Ourcountry is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, anditisabout our Constitution,and it is the welfare of my people, and my state, and my country,and our Constitution to which Iamloyal. And if someone doesn’tunderstandthat and attempts to control othersthrough using thelevers of power,they are aboutservingthemselves.”

Cassidy didn’t name names in that remarkable rebuke. He didn’thaveto. It was telling that the biggest cheer from his supporters came when he talked of not claimingthe election was stolen. There was no mistaking what thesenator was saying and whohewas sayingitabout. So now what?

Cassidywill still be asenator through the end of the year, andhe’sstill gotthe gavel of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Freed from theimmensepressure to fall back in line, hecan trytoundo some of the damage to our country’shealth care establishment he didwhen he greenlit Kennedy Who knows,maybehecan even do somegood

Cassidy’splace in today’sRepublican Party may be lonely, but he’snot alone. He can join forces with outgoing North Carolina U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, who has asimilar cross to bear for having cast thekey vote to confirm Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsethagainst his better judgment,which he’sexpressing freely these days. Alaska’s LisaMurkowski makes no secret of her aversion to Trumpism Maine’sSusan Collins’ best hope for reelection this fall lies in doing morethan expressing periodic, hapless boutsofconcern over her party’sdirection. Rand Pauloccasionally lets his maverick flag fly.There’seven Paul’s fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, apartisan enforcer in his leadership days who agreed with Cassidy about Jan. 6but didn’t have thegutstogive his conference cover.Approaching retirement, though, he did voteagainst theKennedy confirmation. So while Cassidy’sbeen flirting with it on and off, including when he slow walked and ultimately helped kill Trump’snomination of an unqualified surgeon general, he’sgot time and reason to finally,unabashedly join the resistance.

Saturday night,hesure sounded like he’sitchingto. And honestly,what moredoes he have to lose?

Email StephanieGrace at sgrace@theadvocate.com.

It’sthe most wonderful time of the year —and Idon’t mean Christmas.

It’sthe time when Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) releases its annual “Congressional Pig Book Summary,” exposing some of the most outrageous, ridiculous and in many cases unconstitutional spendingone can imagine. Iguarantee you won’tbeableto imagine most of it. Why should you, when it’snot their money they are spendingand borrowing, which has driven the debt to unprecedented and dangerous levels. According to CAGW,the number of earmarks, which is spending that avoids going through the normal appropriations process, “totaled 140,826, costing $484 billion.” Republicans used to be against earmarks before they became for them. After an 11-year moratorium, Republicansre-

The St. George schools’ effort, the productofyears of work by supporters, is dead. Louisiana voters on Saturday trouncedaconstitutional amendment thatwould have allowed the state’s newest city to createits ownschool system, as its East BatonRouge predecessors in Zachary, Centraland Baker did in decadespast.

The amendment, the second in aﬁvefold package before voters, neededtopassstatewide and within East Baton Rouge Parish. It came close in neither: Only 36%of votersgaveitthe nod statewide, andjust 31% in the parish voted yes.

took aheavydrubbing at the ballotbox

Like then, most of this year’s amendments hadthe strong support of Gov.JeffLandry, who bears aheavyshare of the blame for the failures.

The defeat is acrushing blow for themovement’ssupporters, some of whom have worked for 15 years toward this goal,even creating acity after being told it would help themget their own school system.

Within East BatonRouge, theoppositioniseasy to understand: Allowing the St. George breakout would have made the parish’sschool systempoorer Some calledita type of new segregation. Around the rest of the state however, the opposition is not as easy to explain. The amendment was ahyperlocal question that would have zero impact on students andfamilies in Louisiana’sother63parishes.

Butvotersinonly two parishes gave it the nod: Livingston and West Feliciana. That means 62 parishes, many of them solidly Republican,voted no. Onething seems certain: Amendment 2didn’tfall solely on its merits.

Louisiana voters on Saturday were in a“no”state of mind. Not one of the ﬁve amendments on the balloteven came close. The onethat did the best, Amendment 3, would have made teacher raisespermanent;itwon only 42% of the vote. Twoofthe others barely cracked 20%

Andregardless of howone feels aboutthe St. George question,atleasttwo of the amendments —Amendment 3, mentioned above, andAmendment 4, which would have dealt with thestate’sburdensome inventory tax —weregoodideas.

It didn’tmatter.

Saturday’sresults were a near repeat of last year,when apackage of amendments also

During the run-up to the election, instead of explaining why theywere important, Landry and his allieswereracing to cancel U.S. House races in light of the Supreme Court’sdecisionin Louisiana v. Callais and drawnew district lines thatwill reduceLouisiana’smajority-Blackdistricts from two to one. Pile on topofthatattacks by him andhis alliesonelected ofﬁcials in NewOrleans, and it’snowonderthatBlack and Democratic voters were energizedtoget outand vote, as early voting data showed they did. Thattrend continued on Saturday, according to pollster JohnCouvillon.

But the oppositionisn’tjust Democrats. Plenty of heavily Republicanparishes also rejected the amendments, including classical Republicanwishlist items like Amendment 1, a reductionincivil service, and Amendment 4, which would have made the inventory tax subject to local option.

It’saninteresting thought experiment to think about what would have happenedifSt. George (and perhaps some of the otheramendments) would have gone before voters a decadeago,closer to the time when the otherdistricts in East BatonRouge were allowed to go solo

But the last 10 years have seen mistrust andanger at elected ofﬁcials ferment into something more potent. Ironically,ofcourse,Landry has his allieswho have helped distill thatsentiment, andnow they’re facing its downside from acrossthe political spectrum. So,for now, it’shard to see anyroad back for the St. George school system, social media vows to keep ﬁghting notwithstanding.

The irony is thatthe people in St. George once wanteda school systemwithout acity Aftera decadeand ahalf, the best they’ll getisa city without aschool system.

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

joined Democrats at the trough. For fun –and forquality andtraining purposes —let’sjust pickafew examples from the ﬁrst section: “$9,650,000 for two earmarks forthe Dale Bumpers NationalRice Research Center funding equipment andinfrastructure modernization and facility repairs and improvements by SenateAppropriations Committee member John Boozman, R-Ark. Sen. Boozman also added a$117,000 earmark forthe center in FY 2023, bringing the two-year total to $9,767,000.”

Got that?

To demonstratebipartisanship and common ground in action there is this: “$1,900,000 forthe University of Georgia Research Foundation,Inc. for aveterinary diagnostic laboratory pathological waste incinerator by Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee memberJon Os-

soff, D-Ga., andSen.Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. Ossoff is up for reelection. Iseriously doubt his Republicanopponent will raise the issue As atheater buff, youmight think Iwould like this one: “$1,753,000 fortwo earmarks funding theaters: $1,588,000 for renovations at theEugene O’Neill Memorial Theater CenterbySenate Appropriations Committee member Chris Murphy,D-Conn. andSen.Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.,and $165,000 forfacility improvements at theSheaTheater Arts Center, Inc. in Turners Falls (pop. 4,510) by Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. Notso. Let theater survive on ticket sales and local support. Moving forward (or in this case backward,ifyou care aboutthe ﬁnancialhealth of thecountry), I especially love this one:“$300,000 forTexasA&M University for the Feral Hog Community Cooperative Management Program.”

Nothing saysporkmore than feralhogs. It’s chump change to be sure,but as thesaying goes it eventuallyadds up to real money

This onesounds fishy: “$11,917,000for nine earmarks supporting fishing industries, including $2,000,000 foranAlaskan seafoodmodernization initiative at theAlaskaFisheriesDevelopment FoundationbySenate CJS Appropriations Subcommittee member Lisa Murkowski, RAlaska; $1,875,000 forthe Fishing for the Futureprogramatthe Coonamessett FarmFoundation by Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass.,and Elizabeth Warren D-Mass.; and$1millionfor aMississippi oyster restoration and workforce program at theMississippi Wildlife FisheriesParks Marine Foundation by Senate Appropriations Committee member Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and Sen. Roger Wicker,R-Miss. According to NOAA, theU.S.fishing industry produced $319 billion

in commercial andrecreational sales in 2023. It can go ﬁshand getbywithout thesupport of earmarks.” Go ﬁsh.

WhiteHouse EconomicCouncil

Director Kevin Hassett predicts economicgrowth of 6% this year, triple what mainstream economic forecasters have forecast. Relying solelyoneconomicgrowth to reducethe debt andcontinue prosperityisarecipe fordisaster.Remember recessionsofthe not-too-distantpast? If not, ask someonewho does. None of this will stop until big government is forced to go on adiet. Thatwon’t happenuntil we thepeople decide we are no longerentitledtoother people’s money.Read theentire PigBook report at CAGW.organd weep if youhaveany sense of personal responsibilityand accountability. Email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@ tribpub.com

PHOTO By PATRICK DENNIS

Bill Cassidyand his wife, Laura, greet supporters as he giveshis concession speechSaturday night after election returns.

Stephanie Grace

Faimon Roberts

Cal Thomas

HANTAVIRUS

BY ISABEL DEBRE Associated Press

USHUAIA, Argentina— Travelers hoping to catch a glimpse of Magellanic penguins and humpback whales havejourneyed in greater numbers every year to Ushuaia, the mainAntarctic cruise hub at the southernmost point of Argentina

The wind-lashed city that bills itself as the “end of the world”now fearsfor its future. In the last week, the remote outpost has found itself at the center of speculation about the source of a deadly hantavirus outbreak on an Atlantic cruise after Argentina’sHealth Ministry said it was examining whetherthe outbreak’sﬁrst victims, aDutch couple who died in April, contracted the rat-borne virus there.

Argentine scientists searching for the source of the outbreak arrived on Monday in Ushuaia, the capital of left-leaningTierra del Fuego Province, which has frequently clashed with the country’slibertarian President JavierMilei. Their research institute said they wouldcapture and analyze rodents over the next few dayinareas linked to the couple’sitinerary in the city

Questions surround the investigation. Authorities in Ushuaia saythey’re victims of asmear campaign. The Argentine Health Ministry says it can’trule out any destination visited by the Dutch bird enthusiasts during their monthslong road trip through Argentina and Chile before boarding the ship in Ushuaia. Despite alack of any evidence to suggest the outbreakstarted in Ushuaia, people here whose livelihoods depend on foreign visitors say they are feeling the effects. “This is aplacethat we’ve tried to promote as beingas far away as possible from all

Cruise hubfears tourismchill

the world’sproblems —war, racism,healthproblems, too,”saidJulioLovece, the formertourism secretary of Ushuaia. “There’s concern because our main attraction is clean andpurelandscapes,the imaginary idea of theend of the world.”

The arrival of winter has emptied Ushuaia save for atrickle of Brazilian tourists in puffy jacketsand big hoods bobbing downthe sleet-slickstreets like the penguins they’ve come to visit.

“Wegot alittleworried thiswas something similar to what we experienced with COVID,” said Vinícius Pezzini, 38, an investment banker from São Paulo on his honeymoon. “Butfrom what it seems, everything is functioningnormally.

As thesubpolar Patagonian wind blows in off the Beagle Channel,touroperators already are looking toward the next high season starting in October,when deep-pocketed passengers plan cruises to Antarctica.

Several travel agents said that fears about theAndes variant of the hantavirus have already caused some Americans and Europeans to scrap cruise bookings for nextseason. They declined to say how many “Wehave seen anumber of passengers canceling

trips,but my main concern is not the cancellationsbut people who werethinking about going to Ushuaia but hadtwo or three destinations to choose from and now may go to Southeast Asia or Africa,” said Ángel Brisighelli, owner of the Ushuaia-based Rumbo Sur travel agency.“That damagewon’t be visible until much later.

It’sareminderofjust how fragile the tourism economy remains, especially for cruises occupying an outsized place in thepublic imagination when it comes to infectious disease.

Some officials in Tierra del Fuego aresubscribing to the philosophy thatall press is good press.

“Wesuffered aloss of prestige, yes. But this is also achance to showthat Ushuaia is one of thesafestplaces in the world,” said Juan Pavlov,the secretary of foreign affairsatthe Tierra del Fuego Tourism Institute

Many residents of Tierra del Fuego, lured in the 1970s by taxbreakstothe rugged archipelago split between Argentina andChile,remember when Antarctic travel meant naval patrols and research expeditions. Today,the white continent routinelytopsbucketlists of vacationers from around the world.

Pelicans hire Mosley as HC

BY RODWALKER Staff writer

Jamahl Mosley didn’t stay unemployed long. Mosley, whospent the past ﬁve seasons as head coach of theOrlando Magic, will now take over in thatsame role withthe Pelicans.

According to an ESPN report, Mosley’s contract is aﬁve-year deal.

“Jamahl has earned the tremendous respect across theNBA for his leadership, professionalism and the strong relationships he developswithplayersand staff,” Pelicansexecutive vicepresident of basket-

So, at the end of acursed and bitterly disappointing baseball season, it has come down to thisfor LSU, if the reigning College World Series champion even wantsa shot at retaining the title: The Tigers must winthe Southeastern Conference Tournament and claim its automatic NCAA Tournament bid. From LSU’s woeful starting point as the No. 14 seed in Hoover, Alabama, that means winning ﬁve games in ﬁve days, starting Tuesdaynight againstNo. 11 Oklahoma. Five-and-oh. For this team, which makesthe Bad News Bears look likethe 1927 Yankees. In this conference tournament, the most stacked league in college baseball. That mountainoustask makes theMiracle on Iceinthe 1980 Winter Olympics by the underdog U.S.

hockey team seem likeacoin ﬂip. The question doesn’treally come down to whether LSUcan win the SEC title. It’ssports, so anything is possible.But considering the Tigers are just 29-27, ascarcely believable 9-21 in SEC playand have been swept in ﬁve of theirpastsix conference series …well…the odds are vanishingly small. DraftKings pegs LSU as a+5500 longshot. No, thereal question is this: Should LSU even want to win the title, or is it just best to letthis season endand setits sights on 2027?

Of course, the Tigers will give it ye olde college try LSU coach Jay Johnson made that obvious thispast

ball operationsJoe Dumars saidina statement. “He has consistently demonstrated an ability to develop young talent while establishing teamsthat compete with toughness, discipline and togetherness.”

Thedecisioncamejusttwo weeksafter the Magic ﬁred Mosley The Magic’sseason ended May 3inthe ﬁrst round of theplayoffs withaloss to theDetroit Pistons in Game 7. Orlando led the series3-1 but was unable to pull offthe upset against the top seed in the Eastern Conference.The series included alossinGame6whenthe

ä See PELICANS, page 5C

Saints GM Loomis discusses contract details

BY LUKE JOHNSON

With Organized Team Activities beginning next week andtraining camp only abouttwo months away,the New Orleans Saints know what their 2026 team will looklike —for the mostpart. But there are still somenagging questions the team will need to address soon, manyof them involving aging stars from the team’s last successful core.

Saints general manager Mickey Loomis spoke Monday morning at the team’s annual Hall of Fame golf outing and offered details on theteam’scontractstatuswithseveral players. Those details will be relevant to whethersomeofthese long-established players will be part of the team moving forward.

CrypticonAK

As the 2026 football season drawsnearer, theSaintsand star running back AlvinKamara appear to still be at somewhat of an

Jamahl Mosley

STAFF PHOTO By MICHAEL JOHNSON

LSU coach JayJohnson makes amound visit forapitching changeonMarch 29 at TigerPark. LSU will faceOklahoma in the SEC Tournament on Tuesday.

Rai leans on humble roots, work ethic

PGA Championship winner studied tapes of Woods as child

BY DOUG FERGUSON Associated Press

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Aaron Rai

stood straight with his arms behind his back, perfect posture, as he waited to be introduced as the latest — and among the most remarkable — winner of the PGA Championship.

Next to him on a small table was the Wanamaker Trophy, big and silver and shiny.

Rai couldn’t resist a quick glance at the 27-pound trophy and all those names. Jim Barnes won the first two PGA Championships in 1916 and 1919, and there had never been another winner from England until Rai won at Aronimink on Sunday And there was Tiger Woods, once a mythical figure on VHS tapes to a young boy growing up in Wolverhampton.

“We used to watch them a hell of a lot, probably two, three times a week, if not more,” Rai said of the tapes of Woods winning U.S. Amateurs and his early feats as a pro. “I just remember being in awe just watching all of the things that he could do.

“So, yeah, to have my name even with him on this trophy is incredible, really.”

Practically everything about Rai’s victory Sunday was incredible. He was among 22 players separated by four shots going into the ﬁnal round, a logjam the likes of which the PGA Championship had never seen. He was just another name on the leaderboard midway through the final round, three shots behind and coming off two bogeys in three holes.

What followed was the stuff of major champions seven consecutive one-putt greens, including a 40-foot eagle on the par-5 ninth that turned his fortunes. He was 6 under over the last 10 holes. The last time anyone did better to win a major was Jack Nicklaus in the 1986 Masters.

Rai’s ﬁrst love as a boy was Formula 1 and he dreamed of being a driver He certainly drove like one on the back nine, zooming into the lead, leaving behind the likes of Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele and Cameron Smith, Justin Rose and Justin Thomas.

Now he takes his place in golf history as a major champion, his ﬁfth career win worldwide that

his father sacrificed to buy the nicest golf clubs and then would clean the grooves with baby oil after his son was done playing. Rai has left the iron covers on since then “to remember where I came from and to respect what I have.”

worry about. And Aronimink, with its wildly contoured greens and tough pins, required so much focus that he didn’t have energy for anything but the next shot.

Tigers ace Skubal throwing two weeks after surgery

DETROIT Tarik Skubal’s multimillion dollar pitching arm feels better than it has all season. Less than two weeks after having surgery to remove a loose body from his elbow, the Detroit Tigers ace is already freely throwing bullpen sessions.

Skubal’s recovery has gone so well that he was called back from the team’s spring training facility in Lakeland, Florida, to continue his rehab program. He threw his full array of pitches “like a normal pregame bullpen” on Monday, prior to Detroit’s home game against Cleveland. It was his second bullpen session since the surgery but he didn’t throw at full velocity

There’s still no established timetable for the return of Skubal, who has won the American League Cy Young Award the past two seasons.

Braves’ Acuña set to return from hamstring injury

MIAMI The Atlanta Braves activated Ronald Acuña Jr from the 10-day injured list ahead of Monday’s series opener against the Miami Marlins clearing the way for the right ﬁelder to return after being sidelined since May 2 with a strained left hamstring.

Manager Walt Weiss was noncommittal on whether Acuña would play during Atlanta’s fourgame series against the Marlins, saying the turf at Miami’s loanDepot Park would be a factor Acuña left in the second inning against the Rockies on May 2 with hamstring tightness before an MRI revealed the strain.

The ﬁve-time All-Star and 2023 National League MVP is batting .252 with two homers, nine RBIs, 17 runs and seven steals.

Rangers place struggling Seager on 10-day IL

moves him to a career-best No. 15 in the world.

“Everyone playing in the ﬁeld this week has a great journey to be able to share,” Rai said. “And I’m no exception to that.”

His stands out. He wears two gloves because that’s what he did as a kid to ﬁght off the cold English winter Rai has a work ethic that rivals anyone, regardless of the temperature.

How many major champions — or any elite player — have plastic iron covers? For Rai, it’s a reminder of his roots. He once said

He never got teased because he didn’t spend much time around other junior golfers. Rai said only when he was about 12 did he graduate to starting the hole on the forward tee box instead of the fairway That was the idea of his father to get him in a place where making par didn’t feel so impossible.

“I didn’t really mix with a lot of other junior golfers, which didn’t give me a perspective of what was normal,” he said. “So I think he kind of sheltered me to be able to develop in a way that made sense for me, in a way that I guess was a little bit unique with two gloves, with iron covers

“By the time he probably allowed me to play more club golf

I felt like I was strong enough in why I did certain things to be able to continue to move that forward. I knew the reasons why I do them. I believe in the reasons why I do them.”

It’s all about respect, and the greatest respect he showed was to Aronimink.

Rai figured there were too many players too many stars — on the leaderboard for him to

The performance was worthy of a major champion. And Rai is enormously popular with his peers, and it was evident.

“You won’t ﬁnd one person on property who’s not happy for him,” McIlroy said.

Schauffele referred to him as an “all-world gentleman.”

But this isn’t just about being a nice guy Golf is loaded with those. Schauffele still remembers a late summer night in Scotland when he and his caddie went out for a putting contest. There was Rai at 9 p.m., and when he finished the Englishman was off to the gym.

“Rarely do you feel like people work way harder than you,” Schauffele said. “That’s what it’s about to be a major champion. You put the work in when nobody’s looking. Super pumped for him.”

Rai out of Byron Nelson

Less than 24 hours after winning his ﬁrst major at the PGA Championship, it was announced Monday that Rai has withdrawn from this week’s CJ Cup Byron Nelson tournament He’ll be replaced in the ﬁeld by S.Y Noh.

Scott set for 100th straight major at U.S. Open

BY DOUG FERGUSON Associated Press

Adam Scott officially is set for his 100th consecutive major next month in the U.S. Open, which added 24 players to the field from the world ranking, with more spots available through qualifiers in England and Dallas on Monday Scott effectively secured his spot among the top 60 in the world with a tie for fourth in the Cadillac Championship at Doral. He is at No. 49 in this week’s ranking, which the U.S. Open uses to determine who avoids qualifying. Others exempt from the top 60 include Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed and Alex Smalley, who tied for second in the PGA Championship to move up 36 spots to No. 42. Matti Schmid, who had the lead during the final round of the PGA Championship and wound up in a tie for fourth, earned one of five exemptions awarded to leading players in the FedEx Cup on the PGA Tour who were not already exempt. The exemptions finalized Monday means 70 players in the 156man field will go through qualifying, an unusually low number for a major that prefers that roughly half the field has to qualify The U.S. Open is June 18-21 at Shin-

necock on New York’s Long Island. Adding to the field Monday were qualifiers in Dallas and England. The 36-hole qualiﬁer at Walton Heath in England offered seven spots (and two spots for alternates). Among those in the ﬁeld

was Thomas Detry He was set to earn an exemption from LIV Golf until Lucas Herbert won in Virginia. Detry was at No. 61 going into the PGA Championship and poised to move up until missing the cut by one shot at Aronimink. He fell to No. 64. Detry left Philadelphia for

London to go through 36 holes of qualifying, and he was headed for a playoff to determine the final spots. The Dallas qualifier the first of 11 to be held in North America over the next month — featured Sergio Garcia among 14 players from LIV Golf.

Scott’s streak began with the 2001 British Open, and he has not missed one since, even going through U.S. Open qualifying when he wasn’t exempt. It’s the longest streak since Jack Nicklaus played in 146 in a row, from the 1962 Masters through the 1998 U.S. Open.

Scott’s one close call was breaking a bone in his hand before the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, but he played — grouped with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in the opening two rounds — and tied for 26th that week.

“I would rather win some stuff, and let’s celebrate winning the U.S. Open than just playing in it,” Scott said three weeks ago. “I can give myself a pat on the back for hanging in there and playing all these events. I think there’s some luck in it, but I think I’ve had generally great advice around me from a physical and training standpoint that’s kept me healthy and pretty much injury-free.”

DENVER Texas Rangers shortstop Corey Seager has been placed on the 10-day injured list because of lower back inflammation, the team announced Monday Seager, 32, did not play in last weekend’s three-game series against Houston and his placement on the IL is retroactive to Friday The two-time World Series MVP was mired in an 0-for-27 slump that included 11 strikeouts before the injury Seager — in the ﬁfth season of a $325 million, 10-year deal — is batting .179 with seven homers, 20 RBIs and a team-high 22 runs over 42 games this season.

The Rangers promoted utility player Michael Helman, 29, from Triple-A to take Seager’s place on the roster

Pac-12, Mountain West to settle poaching lawsuit

The Pac-12 and Mountain West conferences have reached an agreement in principle to resolve pending lawsuits over “poaching” and exit fees.

The conferences issued a joint statement along with ﬁve schools on Monday saying the parties agreed to stay lawsuits in California and Colorado while they “work to negotiate and ﬁnalize the settlement.”

Boise State, Utah State, Colorado State, San Diego State and Fresno State joined in on the statement.

The Pac-12 and some of the schools joining the conference ﬁled a lawsuit in California in 2024, claiming the poaching clause the league agreed to when it signed a scheduling agreement for its football teams was invalid.

Texas Tech QB who was gambling seeks eligibility

Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby, who entered residential treatment for a gambling addiction three weeks ago, ﬁled a lawsuit Monday seeking to have the NCAA restore his eligibility Sorsby had landed a multimillion-dollar deal to return to his home state for his ﬁnal college season, but his eligibility was jeopardized when he acknowledged wagering on sports.

His lawsuit asks for an injunction that would allow him to practice and play for the Red Raiders. The filing said legal action was taken because of the “NCAA’s wholesale abandonment of its obligations and duties to promote the well-being” of Sorsby

His gambling addiction, the lawsuit said is a “clinically

nosed” disorder

AP PHOTO By MATT SLOCUM

Aaron Rai waves on the 18th green on Sunday at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pa.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By CAROLyN KASTER

Aaron Rai, of England, celebrates with Ludvig Åberg, of Sweden, after his shot on the 17th green during the final round of the PGA Championship on Sunday at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pa.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MATT SLOCUM

Adam Scott, of Australia, looks at his ball on the 10th green during the PGA Championship on Friday in Newtown Square, Pa.

SugarBowl, LHSAAannounce

new6-yearsponsorshipdeal

BY CHRISTOPHER DABE Staff writer

All LHSAA championships for thenextsix yearswillinclude the Sugar Bowl branding after the announcement of asponsorship agreement that will run through the2031-32 academic year

LHSAA and SugarBowl officials announced the deal Monday at the LHSAA offices in Baton Rouge.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl has been alongstandingLHSAA partner with the Prep Classic football championships held inside the Caesars Superdome —and the new agreement reinstates the Sugar Bowl’sbranding with championshipsinall 16 LHSAAsanctionedsportsfor thefirst time since 2020.

“Ever since we had to step away from the LHSAA, whichwithout goingintoall the details, wasrelated to the ﬁnances withour involvement in our previous contractwith theCollege Football Playoffs, the Southeastern Conferenceand the Big 12 conference, kind of madeit cost prohibitive to do this sponsorship,” Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley said.

The new College Football Playoff structure has theSugar Bowl hosting aquarterfinal or semifinal annually for the next six years, plus one nationalchampionship game. Having thosehighprofile games every year hasput the Sugar Bowl on firmer financial footing.

“Right now, with NewOrleans and with the Sugar Bowl,we’re ﬁghting to keep our spot in the College Football Playoff, so we had to do what we felt was necessary to make sure we were able to compete financiallyagainst other cities around the country that have alot more population, that have alot more corporate base than we have,” Hundley said. “I think we weathered that storm for now, andthatgives us the opportunity to come and do good things like this with the LHSAA.”

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impasse—but adecisionmay soon be in the works.

Loomis continued to walk the non-committal line whenasked about Kamara’sstatus with the team for this season.

“We’re just trying to seehow he’s gonna ﬁt in ourroster, andobviously, there’saresource management element to it,” Loomis said. “We’ll get to that over the next week or two.” Asked to clarify his “resource management” comment, Loomis said it was related to Kamara’s contract.

New Orleans begins the next phase of its offseason program next week with organizedteam activities(OTAs). Players arenot mandatedtoattendthese practices, and Kamara traditionally skips them, choosing instead to train on his own.

Next week’sOTAscreate“alittle bitofadeadline, butit’snot hard and fast,” Loomis said.

These answers follow the general theme throughout this offseason from the Saints’ brass when they’ve answered questions about Kamara, who holds the franchise’s all-time marks for rushingyards,scrimmage yards and touchdowns.

The team’srefusal to make a prompt decision on one of itsmost decorated playersinhistory drew somerecentcriticismfrom retired safety Tyrann Mathieu, and it has become ahot-button issuewith the fan base as well. Last season was Kamara’sninth in New Orleans and also his least productive as aprofessional. He was limited to 11 games, and when he did see the ﬁeld, he did not contributeathis usuallevel.Kamara settledfor career lows in rushing (471), yards per carry (3.6) and touchdowns (one).

New Orleans clearly made running back apriority this offseason when it signed former Jaguars back Travis Etienne to afour-year, $52 million contract. Kamara is set to count $10.5 million againstthe 2026 salary cap in the ﬁnal year of his contract Jordan andHillupdates

It is now mid-May and Cameron Jordan, the Saints’ all-time sacks leader and potential Hall of Famer, remains unsigned. That does not mean therehasn’t

Without the Sugar Bowl after 2020, Ochsnerbecame the main titlesponsorfor LHSAA championshipsin2021.

“Ochsnerwas on withusfor aperiod of time, and they had to step outofthe partnership for whatever reason —which is ﬁne,” LHSAA executivedirectorEddie Bonine said.

“Itwas awesome to have them. I’d love to have them back someday

But the Sugar Bowl came back around, andJeffand Istayedin contact waitingfor this day.”

The new agreement will go beyond having the Sugar Bowl logo displayedatchampionship events.

“We’re also bigonproviding scholarships for young people aroundthis state,”Hundley said.

“Wehaven’tfleshed outthe details on that yet, butsufﬁce it to

Saints defensiveend CamJordan celebratesduring agameagainst theAtlanta Falcons on Jan. 4in Atlanta. Jordan, whoisa free agent for the first time,remains unsigned

at least been an effort from the team to bring himback.

Loomis said Mondaymorning that theteam has extended a contract offer to Jordan, who is a free agent for theﬁrst timeinhis career after recording 101/2 sacks with the Saints lastyear —his 15th season with the franchise.

What was left unsaid were the terms of that contract offer

Jordan made clear throughout the2025 season that he was not a fanofthe reworked contract he played on last year,which stripped away guarantees and went heavy on incentives. Jordan hit those incentives to earnback the money, buthefrequently said he’d be playing for “services rendered” on his next deal.

Jordan willturn 37 in July.His 2025 season showed he could still putupnumbersasapass rusher, but it also came on the heels of two down seasons when Jordan managed acombined six sacks while navigatinginjuryand apositional dispute.

“Cam means alot to us; he’s meant alot to thisorganization foralongtime,” said coach Kellen Moore. “Last year,hewas abigtime leader for ourprogram, and so would obviously love to have (him back)

“You kind of got to letthe busi-

ness part of it takeits process and kind ofgothrough that. Obviously we’rehopeful andsupportive, and

Rodgershitspractice ﬁeld aftersigning 1-year deal to stay with Steelers

BY WILL GRAVES AP sportswriter

PITTSBURGH AaronRodgers has spent two-plus decades keeping everyone off balance. From opponents to teammates to reporters andeveryone in between Thestart of his 22nd season was no different. The 42-year-old four-time NFL MVP made asurprise appearance on thePittsburgh Steelers practicefield Monday forthe start of voluntary organized team activities, jogging out in awhite No. 8jerseyshortly after ﬁnalizing a1-year deal to return to the club he guided to an AFC North championship last winter

Linebacker Payton Wilson admitted he was alittle “shocked” when he ran into Rodgers outside theteam’sfacility.Wilsoncalled it “awesome” to have Rodgers back while only somewhat jokingly admitting his presence will make it “a lot harder” on the defense during OTAdrills designed to be more of arefresher than a true test.

mained open during the process, with first-year Steelers coach Mike McCarthy —who spent morethan adecade alongside Rodgers in Green Bay,winning aSuper Bowl in the process making it clear to Rodgers that he was open to areunion in Pittsburgh.

Rodgersreturned to Western Pennsylvania recently andwas spotted grabbing someice cream with severalSteelersata popular shop in the northernsuburbs last Friday.Months of “will he or won’the” speculation on social media, sports talk radio, and just abouteverywhere else finally ended with the newsonSaturday evening thatcaught most of the guys he shares the locker room with off guard.

Offensive tackle Troy Fautanu found out on Instagram.Pittman saw it while scanning X.

sayweexpect thatwe’ll have a scholarship component toour partnership with theLHSAA going forward.”

The Sugar Bowl has longbeen involvedinprovidingscholarships and aidtostudentsand teachers. The Sugar Bowl’s partnershipwith theNational FootballFoundation provides $60,000 in scholarships annually to NewOrleans-areahigh school football players. Plus, more than $5 million since 2019 has gone to area public school teachers through apartnership with the College Football Playoff’s Extra Yard for Teachers initiative.

Thenew LHSAA deal givesthe Sugar Bowl another platformon which to recognize those students and teachers.

we’ll see how it all plays out.”

While there is an offer in play for Jordan, Loomis saidthe same is not truefor Taysom Hill, the Saints’ longtime multi-purpose offensive weapon.

Hill has played his entire nineyear career in New Orleans but is coming off adifﬁcult string of injuries and will turn36years old in August.

He suffered aseason-ending knee injury in December 2024 and spent the entire offseason rehabilitatingafter major surgery.Hill returned to action in Week 5last season but did not look like thesame player,averaging acareer-low 2.2 yards per carry.

Hill’sbestgame of the season came in whatmay have been his last gameinthe Caesars Superdome, when he threw a38-yard touchdown pass and also tallied 42 yards as arusher and 36 as a receiver in a29-6 win againstthe New York Jets.

He spoke after the game like a player who may be considering retirementafter theseason, but Hill has not madeanofﬁcial announcementtoward that end.

Olavedeal“notthere yet”

There are no substantive updates on thepotential timeline of anew contract for receiver Chris Olave, but thetwo sides appear to be generally optimistic aboutsomething gettingdone.

TheSaintshistorically have used this period between thestart of OTAs andthe start of theregular season to reach new contract agreements with their star players. Former right tackle Ryan Ramczyksignedhis extension on June 30, Michael Thomas signed his July 31, Pete Wernersigned his on Aug. 8and Erik McCoy signed his on Sept.8

The start of the regular season brings about someurgency in discussions,Loomis said.

“I think that’sjust the natural course of things,”Loomis said. “Obviously,we’d love to have something done sooner than that, and I’m sure Chris would as well, but we’re not there yet.”

Olaveiscoming off his best season as aprofessional, earning second-team All-Pro honors after recording career bests in receptions (100), receiving yards (1,163) and receiving touchdowns (nine). He was on track to play all 17 games beforeablood clot knocked him out of the regular-season ﬁnale.

Wide receiverMichael Pittman Jr., acquired in an offseason tradewith Indianapolis, worked out with Rodgers once while Rodgers wasstill weighing his options. Pittman hoped Rodgers would run it back one moretime, but knew better than to get ahead of himself.

“I had agood feeling about it, but you never know,” Pittman said. “I mean, Aaron’sgonna do what Aaron wants to do, right?”

Asked if his throwing session with the future Hall of Famer tipped the scales for Rodgers to come back,Pittman laughed.

“I’d like to sayyes,but probably not,” he said, later adding, “Hopefully it hadsomelittle effect on him.”

Who knows? Rodgers remains, as always, abit of an enigma who keeps his cards very close to the vest

“He’sa mysterious guy,” outside linebacker AlexHighsmith said. Rodgers said near theend of last season he would decide in “due course” while cagily not hinting at anysortofdeadline TheSteelers expressedoptimism that he would reach adecision before the start of free agency, thenkept moving the goalposts back as theweekscame andwent without Rodgers offering any ﬁrm answer one way or the other

The lines of communication re-

“He never toldmeanything,” Pittman said with alaugh. There’s plentyoftime to catch up now anyway.Rodgers return means the Steelers have effectively kicked the can down the road on the search fortheir next franchise quarterback for at least another season.

Having Rodgers in the fold meansrookie Drew Allar and second-year quarterback Will Howard will get to spend the year learning from one of the greats whowillenter theHallofFame ﬁve years after he retires, whenever that may be.

It won’tbein2026, as Rodgers opted to give it another chance after throwing for 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions during his ﬁrst season in Pittsburgh. He leaned intoplayingfor ateam whose footballroots run deep, much as he did in Green Bay,and now he’ll be back to try and help the Steelers enda playoff victory droughtthatisnearing adecade old.

Rather than wait until mandatory minicamp —ashedid ayear ago —Rodgers’ early arrival indicates asense of urgency for afranchise where the standard remains the sameeven as it transitionsfrom Mike Tomlin to McCarthy

And while it was just football in shorts in the middle of May,Pittman sawenoughtoknowimmediately thatRodgers is all-in and remains elite, even as he nears his mid-40s.

“Even the ﬁrst day,hemade a couple of great throws,” Pittman said. “And Iwas like,‘Wow, I’m really playing with Aaron.”

Former Jaguarscoach

case againstNFL team

BY MARK LONG AP pro football writer

JACKSONVILLE,Fla. Former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyerlosthis multimillion-dollar arbitrationcaseagainst the NFL team that fired him with cause in 2021, aperson familiar with the legal outcome said. Theperson spoke to TheAssociated Press on condition of anonymitybecause both sides signed non-disclosure agreements preventing them from discussing the case publicly.The personsaidthe case wassettledin2025, although On3ﬁrst reported it Monday

The Jaguars declined comment, anda message to Meyer was not immediately returned. Jaguars owner Shad Khan firedMeyer with causeinDecember 2021, hours after former Jaguars player Josh Lambo said Meyer kickedhim during practice months earlier —the latest in along listofembarrassments over Meyer’s11-month tenure in Jacksonville.

Meyer tried to handle aprofessional team like he was on a college campus. He splashed slogans and catchphrases around the facility,instilled gimmicks in practice and repeated his misguided belief that coaches coach for players and players play for coaches. He brought in motivational speakers and kept blaming assistants for the team’s mounting losses instead of the grown men actually on the ﬁeld.

One of Meyer’smostdamning decisions came following

aThursday night game at Cincinnati in late September.He chose to stay behind with family instead of ﬂying home with his team and then got caught on video thefollowing night behaving inappropriately with awoman at abar in Columbus, Ohio.

Bailing on his playersshowed just how out of touch Meyer was with NFL norms. And it was just one of many head-scratching choices for acoach whofound so much college success —a combined threenational titles —at Bowling Green,Utah, Florida and OhioState Meyer challengedthe firing, sending the dispute to arbitration. If successful, Meyer would have received the remainder of his five-year contract worth roughly $6 million annually Meyer and Lambo are still involved in acivil suit that is scheduled to go to trial in early August. Lambo voluntarily dropped the Jaguars from the lawsuit earlier this year

Lamboisseeking more than $3.5 million in salary and damages for emotional distress caused by Meyer.According to the lawsuit ﬁledinthe 4thJudicial Circuit CourtinDuval County, Lambo claims Meyer created a hostile work environment and says his performance suffered as aresult of being kickedand verbally abused by Meyer Meyer, 61, is currently working as acollege football analyst at Fox Sports and wasinducted into the College Hall of Fame in December

AP FILE PHOTO By DANNyKARNIK

STAFF PHOTO By CHRISTOPHER DABE

Sugar Bowl committee president RileyBusenlener,LHSAA executive directorEddieBonine and Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundleyare pictured at theLHSAAoffices on MondayinBaton Rouge.

Hamlin looking to stay on top of NASCAR

BY NATE RYAN

The Associated Press

Denny Hamlin was so bothered by his middling performance at Dover Motor Speedway 12 years ago that he saw a sports psychologist to restore his faith.

After winning the NASCAR AllStar Race on Sunday for his third consecutive victory at the 1-mile track, he spoke with the conﬁdence to conquer any oval in the Cup Series.

“It’s very weird and unique at this point in my career that I’m in this place,” the 45-year-old Hamlin said. “But if we’re going to a track that turns left, I expect to win every single week.”

Next up for the 21-year veteran is the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and the oldest driver on the circuit will be among the favorites for the longest race in NASCAR.

Points leader Tyler Reddick and Chase Elliott are also expected to be strong in the 600-mile event, but their combined total of 21 Cup starts at the track in Concord, North Carolina, is dwarfed by Hamlin’s career total of 34.

“I think my experience is carrying me more now than ever,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said.

Coming off his second All-Star Race victory, Hamlin seems primed for a second Coke 600 win at Charlotte, which is one of seven 1.5-mile tracks that play host to a combined 11 races this season In the past three races on 1.5mile speedways, Hamlin has a win (at Las Vegas Motor Speedway), a second ( behind Elliott at Texas Motor Speedway) and a fourth (Kansas Speedway, where he dominated until a late caution allowed Reddick to snatch an overtime win).

shares that knowledge with teammates Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs, who scored his ﬁrst Cup victory last month at Bristol Motor Speedway and leans regularly on Hamlin’s advice.

“Every Monday when we have our driver meetings, it’s kind of like a master class,” said Heather Gibbs, mother of Ty and co-owner of Joe Gibbs Racing. “Denny has so much wisdom, so much experience He’s great with giving feedback. He’s still at the top. He deﬁnitely hasn’t fallen off. We keep joking, ‘Hey, what about another year?’ To have someone step into the 11 car and win, you’re not going to have that. Denny is kind of a legend in that car I can’t even imagine thinking of putting someone else in that car.”

Hamlin is signed through the 2027 season and has indicated it’ll be his last.

Sunday’s marathon race at Charlotte will be more consequential as a 2026 title predictor. The track’s Oct. 11 race has moved from the road course to the oval for the ﬁrst time in nine years. Charlotte will be one of four 1.5mile ovals in the revamped Chase, the 10-race championship run to conclude the season.

the Indianapolis 500 race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis on Monday

Rossi taken to hospital after a crash during an Indy 500 practice

BY MICHAEL MAROT AP sportswriter

INDIANAPOLIS — Alexander Rossi was taken to a hospital for further evaluation after he crashed early in Monday’s practice for the Indianapolis 500.

Rossi spun going through the second turn on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval, hitting the outside wall before the car skidded down the track with the rear end of his No. 20 car brieﬂy dragging along the top of the wall. The trailing Pato O’Ward tried to avoid a collision but couldn’t stop in time and hit the side of Rossi’s car, and Romain Grosjean was also collected in the crash.

Rossi appeared unsteady when he ﬁrst tried to climb into a vehicle that took him to the track’s inﬁeld medical care center

O’Ward and Grosjean also went to the medical center, where they were both quickly checked and released. Track ofﬁcials initially announced that Rossi, the 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner, was awake, alert and undergoing evaluation.

Dr Julia Valzer later said Rossi had been taken to the hospital. It was the ﬁrst crash this month on Indy’s oval.

“Just wrong place, wrong time and just got collected there,” O’Ward said before Rossi’s hospitalization was revealed. “These cars don’t stop very well when you’re going at those speeds and with how you run the brakes. Obviously, I just hit the brakes and there wasn’t much I could do to avoid him, so I’m glad Alex is all right and Romain as well.”

It wasn’t clear whether the crash would impact the 33-car starting grid for this weekend’s sold-out race. Three of the eight fastest drivers in Sunday’s qualifying — Rossi, O’Ward and Conor Daly all sustained damage to their cars,

as did Grosjean, who qualified 24th

Less than 24 hours earlier Rossi came within a whisker of winning his ﬁrst Indy pole. He was bumped out of the top spot by defending 500 champion Alex Palou of Spain. Palou’s four-lap average of 232.248 mph was ahead of Rossi’s 231.990.

The Californian still wound up in the middle of the front row and is set to start from a career-best second.

O’Ward, the Mexican driver with Arrow McLaren, earned the No. 6 starting slot, the outside of Row 2, while Daly qualiﬁed eighth for his season debut with Dreyer & Reinbold Racing Now all three, plus Grosjean, will spend the next three days repairing cars they’d spent months ﬁne-tuning.

“The car was still really good again today in race trim, it felt really comfortable,” Daly said “Unfortunately, we got caught up in the Turn 2 accident in front of us and collected some damage. Hopefully the (crew) guys can get that all ﬁxed up. I am still quite happy with the car.”

The grid already has changed because two drivers, Caio Collet of A.J. Foyt Enterprises and Jack Harvey, Daly’s teammate, were sent to the back of the ﬁeld because of rules violations. IndyCar ofﬁcials said they found unapproved changes and unapproved hardware on the drivers’ equipment when they went through post-qualifying technical inspection Sunday evening.

Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden posted the fastest lap in a practice session that was abbreviated ﬁrst by the crash and then rain which washed out most of the ﬁnal hour that cars were scheduled to be on the track One more short practice will be held Friday during the annual Carb Day festivities, which include the pit-stop competition.

Hamlin, whose sterling resume includes 61 wins but no Cup title, will undoubtedly be studying Charlotte all week, hunting for ways to improve his restarts by

adapting his driving style He calls that trait his biggest strength and credits his massive Dover improvement to watching videos of Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex taming the Monster Mile.

“I just watched lap after lap after lap and said, ‘I’m going to copy that, right or wrong,’” Hamlin said. “It started working.”

The No. 11 Toyota driver now

“I want to ﬁnish like this,” he said. “I do not want to go through the regression. My ego will not allow me to be mediocre So I’m going to have to leave some on the table at some point, right? In order to know that you can win your last race, you’re going to have to go into the next year saying, ‘I’m not doing it, but I could have.’ ”

Chris Gayle, Hamlin’s crew chief, said his driver’s desire to retire on top makes it easy for the team to avoid tapering off.

“There’s not many (wins) in front of him anymore,” Gayle said.

“Every one is probably more and more sweet to him at this point.”

COLLEGE BASEBALL NOTEBOOK

Georgia Tech, UCLA, Kansas, Georgia are top seeds in conference tournaments

BY ERIC OLSON AP sportswriter

The field for the NCAA Tournament will begin taking shape this week with 28 of the 29 automatic bids to be decided in conference tournaments. Yale became the first qualifier with its 7-5 victory over Brown in the Ivy League championship game Sunday The 64-team national tournament opens with regional play on May 29. Regional hosts will be announced Sunday and the rest of the field next Monday The College World Series is June 12 through June 21 or 22 in Omaha, Nebraska.

A look at the tournaments in the power conferences:

Atlantic Coast Conference

Site: Truist Field; Charlotte, North Carolina. Days: Tuesday to Sunday

2025 champion: North Carolina.

Top seed: Georgia Tech.

Short hops: The Yellow Jackets are the top seed for a second straight year this time under ﬁrst-year coach James Ramsey Georgia Tech ended the regular season with 10 straight wins over ACC opponents. The Yellow Jackets lead the nation in scoring (10.7 runs per game) and batting average (.358). North Carolina leads the ACC in ERA (3.71) and ﬁelding (.981) and reliever Caden Glauber has an ACC-leading 1.96 ERA. Boston College (36-20, 17-13), picked last in the ACC preseason coaches’

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weekend as the Tigers were getting swept by Florida, their pitching staff shelled like a Paciﬁc atoll ahead of an amphibious assault. Johnson kept weekend starter William Schmidt off the active roster and only allowed former Friday starter Casan Evans to work in limited relief, throwing 41 pitches. The reason for that was to shove all his chips to the middle of the SEC Tournament table, saving his best arms for this desperate attempt to spark what would be an historic run to the title. Even if LSU could pull it off, what would that net the Tigers?

A No. 3 seed in a regional on the road someplace, being hosted by a top-eight national seed, and maybe at best going 1-2 there?

You can see why the purple and gold Jello shots at Rocco’s, across the street from Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska, need to be put on ice for this season. Though it looked as though

poll, had the best regular season in the program’s 80-year history Louisville’s Tague Davis leads the nation with 34 homers.

Big Ten

Site: Charles Schwab Field; Omaha, Nebraska Days: Tuesday to Sunday. 2025 champion: Nebraska

Top seed: UCLA Short hops: The Bruins (48-6, 28-2 Big Ten) set a program record for regular-season wins and conference wins and were the only program in the nation to take at least two of three games each weekend. UCLA’s 3.34 ERA is second in the nation and projected No. 1 MLB draft pick Roch Cholowsky has hit a Big Ten-leading 21 homers Nebraska enters with a Big Ten-best seven-game winning streak, is batting .314 and ranks fourth nationally in ﬁelding (.984). Catcher BurkeLee Mabeus’ squeeze bunt in the 14th inning Saturday sent Oregon to a 6-5 win over Southern California, giving the Ducks the No. 3 seed over the Trojans. USC leads the nation with nine shutouts.

Big 12

Site: Surprise Stadium; Surprise, Arizona.

Days: Tuesday to Saturday 2025 champion: Arizona. Top seed: Kansas. Short hops: This is the ﬁrst time the tournament is at Surprise Stadium, the spring training home of the Kansas City Royals

LSU was tanking late this season like a team angling for a higher draft pick — the Tigers, of course, have to make a good show of it. Even in a lost season, honor must be upheld. That said, this season is not going to end with some Hollywood “Hoosiers”-like run to LSU’s ninth CWS title. Not from this team, which is shockingly in the SEC cellar with a team earned run average of 5.86. Frankly, I’m surprised LSU’s ERA is that good. Sure, some kind of comet-rare run to the SEC title by the Tigers would be one for the books. Ultimately, of course, LSU baseball isn’t about just making the NCAA Tournament. It’s about the pursuit of that next CWS championship, something Johnson’s program has done two of the previous four seasons. For all concerned with LSU baseball, the best thing is for this season to end mercifully and start on the road to preparing for 2027. Frankly, it would be better for LSU, giving Johnson and his staff time to start working on building next year’s roster while other teams are competing in the ﬁeld of 64.

and Texas Rangers. Kansas’ regular-season championship was the Jayhawks’ first since they won the Big Seven in 1949. West Virginia leads the Big 12 in ERA (3.90) hits allowed per nine innings (7.64), shutouts (6) and ﬁelding (.981) Arizona State’s Landon Hairston has hit a program record-tying 27 homers. UCF’s 19 conference wins are its most since it had the same number in the Atlantic Sun in 2005. Oklahoma State leads the Big 12 with 137 homers, its most since 1997.

Southeastern Conference Site: Metropolitan Complex; Hoover, Alabama.

Days: Tuesday through Sunday. 2025 champion: Vanderbilt.

Top seed: Georgia.

Short hops: Georgia won nine of 10 league series, including all five on the road against ranked opponents, a first in SEC history The Bulldogs’ 147 homers are the most in the nation. Texas has recorded consecutive 40-win regular seasons for the first time since 2010-11. Gavin Lyons’ nine wins and Caden Sorrell’s 1.45 RBIs per game for Texas A&M lead the SEC. Alabama’s 18 SEC wins were its most since 2009. Florida’s Brandon Lawson averages a walk a game and leads the SEC with a .507 on-base percentage. Defending national champion LSU, the No. 14 seed in the 16team field, was 9-21 (.300) in SEC play, its worst conference record since 4-15 (.211) in 1977.

It seems a long, long road from a bad season like this one to being a championship contender in the next. But if there’s anything LSU has going for it in this case, it’s that the Tigers are competing and rebuilding in the transfer portal era. The portal failed LSU for the most part this year, with many of the Tigers’ transfers not panning out. But that could be a different story come February Coupled with whatever players make it to campus from the nation’s secondranked recruiting class after some top prospects are inevitably picked over in the major league draft, LSU’s rebound could be as swift as this year’s downfall. So, go Tigers. Try to win. Do your best to make an amazing run in suburban Birmingham. It is nicknamed “The Magic City” after all. But realistically, it’s best just to let this season slide down the Mississippi River to some sort of Viking funeral-like farewell. The 2027 season can’t get here soon enough for LSU baseball, and the best thing for the Tigers is to start it as soon as possible. Wednesday morning sounds good.

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By MICHAEL CONROy Alexander Rossi prepares to drive during practice for

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By DERIK HAMILTON

Denny Hamlin celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR All-Star race at Dover Motor Speedway on Sunday in Dover, Del.

Sky off to hot start, but injury bug bites

BY DOUG FEINBERG AP basketball writer

The Chicago Sky got off to a hot start to the WNBA season but the health of young star Rickea Jackson is foremost on their minds after she had a non-contact injury on her left knee in Sunday’s win over Minnesota.

Jackson injured her knee in the second quarter and will have imaging done on Monday The Sky went 3-1 on the season-opening road trip and will return home to face Dallas on Wednesday

“She’s in decent spirits,” coach Tyler Marsh said after the game.

“We’re waiting to evaluate everything, but she was proud of the team for continuing to ﬁght while she was out.”

The 6-foot-2 forward was acquired by the Sky in the offseason in a trade with Los Angeles She was averaging 22 points a game before getting hurt Sunday The Sky were already dealing with a handful of injuries as DiJonai Carrington (foot) Azura Stevens (knee) and Courtney Vandersloot (knee) are yet to make their season debuts. Skylar Diggins, who signed as a free agent this offseason, missed Sunday’s game with an eye injury

“We’re all extremely pleased and

PELICANS

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Magic scored just 19 points in the entire second half. Orlando was one win away from becoming just the seventh No. 8 seed to upset a No. 1 seed in the playoffs. It wasn’t enough for Mosley to keep his job, though. Mosley compiled a 189-221 record in Orlando. His teams missed the playoffs his ﬁrst two seasons, but made it each of the past three seasons. The Pelicans have never made it to the playoffs three consecutive seasons.

Orlando won the Southeast Division twice under Mosley Orlando was one of the better defensive teams in the league under Mosley the past three years The Magic ranked third in the league in defense two seasons ago and second last season. It was 11th in defense this season when it ﬁnished 45-37. Mosley, 47, had plenty of success against the Pelicans. He won the past nine games coaching against the Pelicans.

The Magic won just 21 games the season before Mosley took over. They won just 22 games in his ﬁrst season, but the win total jumped to 47 by Year 3. The 47 victories were the franchise’s most since the 2009-10 season. Mosley ﬁnished second in votes for Coach of the Year in the 2023-24 season behind Mark Daigneault of the Oklahoma City Thunder Dumars is hoping Mosley can have similar success turning

proud to come away with this road trip 3-1 and looking forward to getting back home,” Marsh said.

The Sky play their next four games at home.

Power poll rankings

Las Vegas remained the No. 1 team in the poll with the Aces winning four straight after a opening loss to Phoenix. New York was second and Atlanta third. Chicago jumped up six spots to fourth. Phoenix and Minnesota followed the Sky Washington, Golden State, Indiana were next.

Dallas, Toronto and Los Angeles were 10th through 12. Portland, Seattle and Connecticut rounded out the poll.

Stat assist

A stat correction awarded Caitlin Clark two additional assists in her game against Washington on Friday night. That gave her 10 for the game and set a WNBA record in the process. That gave the Fever star 11 career games with at least 20 points and 10 assists to break a tie with Vandersloot for most all time. Clark got her 12th on Sunday Slow start

The Connecticut Sun have lost their ﬁrst four games of the season for the second consecutive year It hasn’t helped that three of their

STAFF FILE PHOTO By DAVID GRUNFELD

Orlando Magic coach Jamahl

Mosley shouts to his players during a game against the Pelicans on April 5 at Smoothie King Center

things around in New Orleans. Mosley takes over a Pelicans team that has missed the playoffs the last two seasons and is coming off back-to-back years in which they won less than 30 games. Before taking over in Orlando, Mosley was an assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks. Mosley is the eighth head coach in New Orleans franchise history

That number doesn’t include Jeff Bower and James Borrego, who both stepped in as interim coaches after the ﬁrings of Byron Scott and Willie Green, respectively Borrego, who coached 70 games this past season after Green’s ﬁring, was also one of the candidates considered for the job. The other candidates who interviewed for the job included Darvin Ham (head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers for two seasons), former All-Star

Knicks, Cavaliers open Eastern Conference ﬁnals at Madison Square Garden

BY BRIAN MAHONEY AP basketball writer

GREENBURGH, N.Y Donovan

Mitchell and the Cleveland Cavaliers were sent to face Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks in a nationally televised season opener and again to kick off Christmas, NBA schedule makers clearly viewing that as the Eastern Conference’s marquee matchup. Good guess, it turns out.

The Cavaliers and Knicks will be back Tuesday under the same bright lights of Madison Square Garden where they began the season, this time for Game 1 of the conference ﬁnals.

“It’s go-time now,” Brunson said Monday The Knicks have been on a record-setting playoff rampage. The Cavaliers, bolstered by the acquisition of James Harden, surged late in the season and powerfully ousted Detroit, the East’s No. 1 seed, in the second round.

That sent Mitchell into the conference ﬁnals for the ﬁrst time and also sent him home. He’s a native of Elmsford, New York, just down the road from where the Knicks practice.

“Yeah it’s great I get to play at home, woo, but it doesn’t matter,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got to be locked in and ready to go, and I know we will be.”

ä Cavaliers at Knicks.

7 P.M.TUESDAy ABC

against the 60-win Pistons, including a 125-94 rout in Game 7. Jarrett Allen scored 23 points and Evan Mobley had 21 points and 12 rebounds, a reminder that the Cavs are way more than just their high-scoring backcourt. “I remember back in the day when I was with Pop Pop said you need three All-Stars to win a championship. Well, they’ve got four,” Brown said, referring to his time as an assistant to Gregg Popovich in San Antonio.

Postseasons past

The Knicks beat the Cavs in ﬁve games in the 2023 ﬁrst round, Brunson’s first season in New York, improving to 4-0 in series between the teams. New York is 12-2 against Cleveland in playoff games, also winning series in 1978, 1995 and 1996.

Familiar faces

Besides Mitchell, both coaches are going back to former homes. Brown had two stints coaching the Cavaliers, leading them to their first NBA Finals appearance in 2007. Atkinson is from Long Island and was an assistant to Mike D’Antoni with the Knicks who later got his ﬁrst head coaching job with Brooklyn.

Rest vs. rust renewed

ﬁrst four games were against New York and Las Vegas twice. The Sun embark on a ﬁve-game West Coast trip with two games against the expansion Portland Fire. Last week the WNBA approved the sale and relocation of the team to Houston next season.

Player of the week

A’ja Wilson of Las Vegas was the AP player of the week. She averaged 24.8 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.0 blocks to help the Aces win four of their first five games. She scored 45 points last Friday night in a win over Connecticut where the four-time MVP was 15-of-18 from the field, including hitting both her 3-point attempts, as well making all 13 of her free throws. It was a WNBA record fifth time that Wilson had scored more than 40 points in a game.

Other players receiving votes included Caitlin Clark of Indiana, Allisha Gray of Atlanta and Breanna Stewart of New York.

Game of the week

Dallas at New York, Sunday

The Wings have struggled in the early going and coach Jose Fernandez called out “selﬁshness” on his team after a loss to Minnesota last Thursday Sunday’s game will close out a three-game road trip for Dallas.

THE 411

NAME: Jamahl Mosley

AGE: 47

HOMETOWN: Born in Milwaukee,Wisconsin

(Moved to California at age of 6)

COLLEGE: University of Colorado

EXPERIENCE: Mosley spent the past five seasons as head coach of the Orlando Magic, leading them to the playoffs in each of the past three seasons. He went 189-221 in Orlando and won the Southeast division twice. Prior to his time in Orlando, he’s been an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Denver Nuggets. WHY IT COULD WORK: Mosley’s experience as a head coach could help.This could be a fresh start for Mosley. Despite his three straight trips to the playoffs in Orlando, some suggest he may have lost that locker room.This is a chance to establish some consistency to a franchise that has never made the playoffs three straight times. His strength is on the defensive side of the ball.

LAGNIAPPE: Mosley played college ball at the University of Colorado and was a thirdteam All-Big 12 selection in 2000. He never played in the NBA. He played professionally in Mexico,Australia, Finland and South Korea before landing his first NBA job with the Denver Nuggets. He was named Best Sixth Man in Australia in 2002.

guard Rajon Rondo and Brooklyn

Nets assistant Steve Hetzel.

But in the end, the job went to Mosley the candidate with the most head coaching experience.

“His teams reflect his coaching style through their defensive intensity, effort, preparation and commitment to playing the right way,” Dumars said.

The Knicks finished third in the East and the Cavs fourth, well behind not only Detroit but also Boston. But seven months after the Knicks beat the Cavaliers in Mike Brown’s first game as their coach, the teams have become who people thought they would be. Cleveland began the season as the East’s betting favorite, a spot it later reclaimed after acquiring Harden from the Los Angeles Clippers. The Knicks were the second choice entering the season but ascended to the top earlier in the postseason, and the way they’re playing it’s clear why New York has won seven straight games and outscored Atlanta and Philadelphia by a combined 194 points, the largest margin ever through a team’s first 10 postseason games. The Knicks reached 140 points in both series clinchers and appear likely to get a boost Tuesday as they are listing OG Anunoby as probable to play after he missed two games with a strained right hamstring.

“They’re rested and they’re a juggernaut right now,” Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson said. “I mean, it’s just what it is. It’s hard to blow out teams in the playoffs like they’ve been blowing out. Point differential means something in this league.”

The Cavs were just good enough rather than great for most of this postseason, needing seven games to get by both Toronto and Detroit. But they won their ﬁnal two road games

The Knicks haven’t played since May 10. The Cavs have one full day off between rounds. The time off helps the Knicks get healthy, with Anunoby fully practicing again after missing Games 3 and 4 against Philadelphia. But it might hurt a team that has been in such a good rhythm.

“I’ve been in both situations. I’ve been playing while the team is waiting and I’ve been waiting while a team is playing, and you can say a lot theoretically,” Brown said. “You could say that they’re going to be tired, but you can also say they have a competitive edge because they’ve been going at it for seven games and we’ve been off.”

Contributing Cavs

The Cavaliers have been getting of contributions well beyond Mitchell and Harden.

Mobley has been a force at both ends. He is averaging 17 points but leads the team in rebounding (8.0) and is tied in blocks (1.9). Allen has had two strong Game 7s but also has benefited from Harden wanting to force things closer to the basket.

Max Strus, Dennis Schroder and Sam Merrill also have provided valuable minutes off the bench. Strus had key steals in the Game 3 and 5 wins over the Pistons. Schroder is providing another veteran ball handler when Harden and Mitchell are on the bench, while Merrill has a 40.4% accuracy rate on 3-pointers.

Bickerstaff says Pistons will learn from their loss to Cavs

BY BOB TRIPI Associated Press

DETROIT The stunning turnaround season for the Detroit Pistons ended Sunday night with a harsh reminder of how difﬁcult the ﬁnal step can be.

After winning 60 games and earning the top seed in the Eastern Conference, the Pistons were overwhelmed at home by the Cleveland Cavaliers, who rolled to a 125-94 victory in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semiﬁnals.

Detroit, which forced the deciding game with a road win Friday night, never found its footing offensively and struggled to match Cleveland’s physicality and pace from the opening tip

The Pistons shot just 35.3% from the ﬂoor, were outscored 58-34 in the paint and trailed by as many as 35 points in the second half.

“It sucked,” All-Star Cade Cunningham said. “Being back home, deﬁnitely wanted to get this win for the fans. Reminded me of last year, losing on the home court.

It’s not a great feeling.

“So I hadn’t been thinking about the offseason, so my mind’s been racing now, trying to ﬁgure out what I got to do, what it’s going to look like.”

The abrupt ending came just two years after Detroit endured

one of the worst seasons in NBA history The Pistons ﬁnished 1468 during the 2023-24 season and set an NBA single-season record with 28 consecutive losses before emerging this year as one of the league’s biggest surprises under coach J.B. Bickerstaff. Despite the lopsided defeat, Bickerstaff refused to call the ending a disappointment.

“It’s not a disappointment at all,” Bickerstaff said. “Not ever will I be disappointed in these guys. These guys every single day give us what they got. So it is not a disappointment. It’s a loss, and it’s a tough loss. But that adjective will never be used.” Bickerstaff repeatedly praised the growth and resilience of a roster that rapidly developed into a contender

“This team is awesome, and they’re a special group of guys,” he said. “I couldn’t be more appreciative of how they allow us to coach them, work with them every single day The spirit they carry, their willingness to grow, their willingness to sacriﬁce. It’s a special group.” Ausar Thompson said the loss will fuel the Pistons moving forward.

“We have to get better as a team, but I’m focused on what I can do to not be in this situation again,” Thompson said “It sucks, but you can’t take it back. We already lost.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By ROSS D FRANKLIN

Chicago Sky forward Rickea Jackson, right, keeps the ball away from Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas during the first half of game on Friday in Phoenix Jackson injured her knee in Sunday’s game.

Salviasare a sureﬁreway to draw pollinatorsto your garden

Salvias are some of the best plants you can add to your garden if you want to entice pollinators to visit. With tubular,nectar-richflowers,these plants are irresistibletohummingbirds, bees andother pollinators. They’re easy on the eyes, too. Their vividly colored flowers sit on bloom spikes atop tall stems that sway with the breeze. Now,there are many salvias out there. Your local garden center might carry Salvia farinacea, or mealy sage; Salvia madrensis, or forsythia sage; andSalvia leucantha, or Mexican bush sage. Wouldyou believe that these lovely flowering selections are related to culinary sage (Salvia officinalis) and rosemary(Salvia rosmarinus)?

These are all great plants. But LSU AgCenter horticulturist Jason Stagg would liketo point you in the direction of Salvia guaranitica —which isn’tonly his preferred salvia species but also is one of his very favorite plants in general. This species sometimes is calledhummingbird sage becauseit’samagnet for the tiny birds —and anise-scented sage, areferencetoits fragrant, heart-shaped leaves. It’s tough, handling Louisiana’s hot, humid summers without complaint.

LSU AGCENTERPHOTO

By OLIVIA McCLURE

Some Salvia guaranitica cultivars have burgundy flowers, but manyothers feature blue or purple blooms.

“These hail from tropical regions of South America,” Stagg said.“But even though they’re tropical, mostofthe time, they actually will perennialize and overwinter in Louisiana, and that’sdue to their extensive root system.” That root system features nodules that resemble tiny potatoes. The plant storesenergy in these structures during winter,enabling it to regrow in spring—evenafter dying back in ahard freeze,Stagg said. Salvia guaranitica can grow quite large, so it’sbest to plant it toward the middle or back of landscape beds. After perennializing for afew years,the plant tends to become more robust with each growing season and can reach 3to4feet tall.

ä See SALVIAS, page 2D

BY MADDIE SCOTT Staff writer

Baton Rouge. The Utah-based chain began in 2010 and became known for itssoda concoctions, dubbed dirty soda Each beverage begins with afountain soda, and customers can choose to add aﬂavor of their choice (like

PLANTING THESEEDS

Acommunity garden in northBR is expanding food access while building community

BY BRIANNA MEEKS Contributing writer

For longtime Scotlandville resident Brenda Harris, the newdedicated space just outside the Jewel J. Newman Community Center in north BatonRouge is like her ownpersonal garden.

“Instead of goingtothe grocery store, Ican come here, plant my ownvegetablesand pick them when they’reready,” she said. “Whenyou grow your own food, you know what’sinit.”

That’sthe purpose of the new public gardenthatopenedApril 29 at the communitycenter:togive residents ahealthier way to grow their own food and learngardening skills

“Our vision was to create aspace forthe communitytocome, learn about harvesting and sustainability,and take what theygrowhome, said Kirsten Wright, assistant director of the community center The center also created agar-

of plants, including cucumbers, are

den club that offers workshops for adults and children, ages 5to10, to teach them how to harvest plants andtakethemhome. Thefirst workshop was held in March, with moresessions planned throughout thesummer Wright said the garden was originallyintended for children butwas later expanded into alarger community project. She enlisted her brother,GraylandThomas, to build thespace. Construction began in July and took about six months to complete. Thomas said theproject required lumber valued at about $20,000, but it was worth seeing the community come together

“Ifwecan getmoreyoung people involved, it could help bring more peace to the community,” he said.

In 2024, Tulane University reported that communitygardens have several public health beneﬁts including increased vegetable and fruit intake, access to local food, community beautification, educational opportunities andanenhanced sense of community

“Growing food in the community can reducegreenhouse gasemissions andwaste fromthe totallife cycleoffoodproduction. This is because it does notcontributeto

BYMADDIE SCOTT

green in the midcentury modern armchairs, accent wall and potted plants lining the bay window.Plenty of seating is found in the hallway,which is lined withabout adozen two-top and four-top tables. The space spans 1,750 square feet, Oral said. The menuwill include espresso drinks, teas, iced coffee and some refreshers. There’ll also be food options like pastries, tartines, croissantsandwiches, lunch sandwiches and salads, Oral said.

Rows

featured

the newcommunity garden at the JewelJ.Newman Community Center in north Baton Rouge.

PROVIDED PHOTOS

Acommunity garden wasrecently established at the JewelJ.Newman Community Center in north Baton Rouge.

STAFF PHOTO By MADDIE SCOTT Café Verdino is located at 6626 Jones Creek Road in Baton Rouge, between Dollar Tree and Purple Cow.

PROVIDED

Chatty audiencesatoutdoor concerts

Dear Miss Manners: Help! The summer concert season will soon be here in full force, and many musical groups have outdoor performances planned. At many such events in the past, people seated near me have talked throughout the concert. Do they really think that Ienjoy hearing them talk through the musical numbers?

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Once, agroup of six people chose one of the few permanent picnic tables in the concert bowl area. Hundreds of people satonbenches nearby,with another100 or so on lawn chairs. These six got out their food and proceeded to eat and talk away,as

if they were at their own dining tableathome. Soinaddition to hearing the“Magic Flute” overture and“Bugler’s Holiday”played by our wonderful pops orchestra, Iheard these people talking throughout thewhole concert. Ihave ashortfuseand am working on anger management, so Iforced myself to keep quiet and not say anything to them. Ididn’twant tocreate ascene where hundreds of people were happily enjoying the concert. Theonlything Idid was, about halfway through the concert, I stared at the manfacing me at the table and raised my ﬁnger

to my lips in a“shh, be quiet gesture. Itried to put myself in their shoes: It had been along winter and they were happy to be out and having apicnic. But still, could they please shut up during the music? What can Idotonot be so annoyed? Idoubt anything will change; there are some who just can’tbequiet at outdoor concerts. Gentlereader: Congratulations on not hittingthem withyour picnic basket Hurray for anger management. Miss Manners understands the provocation. Concert halls are one of thevenues where people most irritate one another,although not quiteupthere withgrocery store

GARDEN

Continued from page1D

polluting food production practices, and the food does not have to travelacrossthe city,state, region, or world to reach consumers,” the report stated. “Compared with commercial farms, it is easy for community gardens to avoid pesticide use, creating amore sustainable and environmentally friendly food source.”

Flowers in shadesof orange, blue and pink line the front of the wooden garden structure in Baton Rouge, while rows of plants, including cucumbers, ﬁll the space.

Wrightsaidthe center partnered with the Southern University and LSU AgCenter to support the project. Workshops were

SALVIAS

Continued from page1D

Modern cultivars don’t spread as much as wild types and early introductions.

“The breeding and the hybridizing haskept those clumps alittle smaller,but they retain that tough root system,” Stagg said.

Salvia guaranitica is drought tolerant once established and has no major insect or disease problems. It also is deer resistant; the animals are putoff by the fragrance and texture of its leaves.

Youcan successfully grow these plantsincon-

SWIG

Continued from page1D

vanilla, coconut or butterscotch) and then asplash of cream. At 14631 Village Market St., Swig will be located in the Long Farm Village,off AirlineHighway,across the street from Five Guysand nearby Rouses,accordingto Long Farm Village founder and developer Russell Mosely.Hesaid it’ll likelyopen by September

The newly constructed building spans 10,200 square feet, enough space for multiple businesses. Swig’sspace will be 2,400 square feet. This will be the third Swig location in Louisiana and the first in Baton Rouge. One

led by StephanieElwood, an assistant specialistinhorticulture with the Southern University AgriculturalResearch and Extension Center,who taught participants how to properlyplant and maintain crops. The LSU AgCenter donated vegetable seeds, including those for green beans, tomatoes,eggplantsand lima beans, along with herb seeds.

Vadel Shivers, an assistant extension agent with the LSUAgCenter, said community gardens help residents betterunderstand where foodcomes from while promotinghealthier eating habits.

Thegardenisalsopartof abroader effort to improve food access in the area.

“Scotlandville is afood desert, and manyresidents don’thave access to fresh or healthyfood options,” said councilmember Anthony

Kenney,who represents the district andmaintains an ofﬁce at the community center

He said the project aims to provide residentswithtools to grow their own food within their community.Thomas said plans are underway to expand the garden in the coming months.

To Harris, thenew public gardenand plannedexpansion is valuable.

“It meansthat Scotlandville is growing in apositive direction,” she said.

This story wasreported and written by astudent withthe support of the nonproﬁt Louisiana CollegiateNews Collaborative, an LSUled coalitionofeight universities funded by the Henry Luce and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur foundations.

tainers as well.

“Like mostsalvias, they’ll bloom best in full sun,” Stagg said. “But I’ve noticed they do enjoy alittle protection from the intense, hot afternoon sun.”

Youcan choose from numerousSalvia guaranitica cultivars and hybrids. Most have blue or purple ﬂowers, with afew leaning moretoward burgundy Somefeature ﬂowers that emerge from black calyxes, creating astriking visual contrast.

For blue ﬂowers, Stagg recommends Black and Bloom, BlueEnsign and Bodacious Rhythm and Blues. If you like purple, tryPurple and Bloom, Amistad and Bodacious Smokey Jazz.

opened in Lafayette last year, followed by anotherin Youngsville. The menu will include customizable sodas and specialty drinks such as the Princess Peach, made with Dr Pepper,peach flavor and coconut cream. Agood summer sip is the Endless Summer,with Mountain Dew,pomegranate flavor, grapefruit ﬂavorand alime wedge. There are also refreshers such as theStrawberry Breeze, made with water, sugar-free coconut flavor, sugar-free vanilla flavor, strawberry puree, frozen strawberry and coconut cream.

For folks who want a snack, themenuhas afew optionsinthe form of sugar cookies, mint chocolatechip cookies and pretzel bites.

CAFE

Continuedfrom page1D

Hours will be 6a.m. to 4p.m. Mondays through Fridays, andhourswill vary on theweekends, he said. Saturdays will open at 7a.m. and Sundays at 8a.m.

lines. And, as you point out, outdoor concerts confuse people into thinking they are just lounging around in the sunshine (or moonlight) with somenice background music.

Youdid the right thing. The idea is to appear sympathetic to wellmeaning people whose attention lapsed momentarily,forgetting that their picnic spot was also a concert venue. Hard to swallow, isn’tit?

Youmight practice accompanying yourstare with the polite please-shut-up look —tilting your head and raising your eyebrows, thegeneral expression forshowing low-key sympathy forminor troubles. Dear Miss Manners: Iam36years

old with awonderful husband and ﬁve wonderful daughters. Iam graduating from college with my bachelor’sofbusiness management. We are having agathering forfamily and friends to congratulate me. Can you tell me how to word the invitations to let everyone know gifts are appreciated?

Gentle reader: “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”

Sendquestions to Miss Manners at herwebsite, www missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mailtoMiss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City,MO 64106.

By The Associated Press

Today is Tuesday, May 19, the139th day of 2026. There are 226 days left in the year

Todayinhistory: On May 19, 1920, 10 people were killed in a gunbattle between coal miners, who were led by alocal police chief, and a group of privatesecurity guards hired to evict them for joining aunion in Matewan, West Virginia.

Also on this date:

In 1536, Anne Boleyn,the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded at the Tower of London after being convicted of adultery

In 1883, William Cody held theﬁrst of his “Buffalo Bill’sWild West”shows in Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

In 1943, BritishPrime Minister Winston Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the WhiteHouse, where the two leaders agreed on

May 1, 1944, as the date forthe D-Dayinvasion of France (expansion plans forthe invasion caused the date of the landing to be delayed by amonth).

In 1962, ﬁlm star Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during aDemocratic fundraiser at New York’sMadison Square Garden.

In 1974, Hungarian architecture professor Erno Rubik debuted the Rubik’s Cube, his multicolored invention that would make the leap from classroom teaching tool to aglobal phenomenon with over 450 million of the 3D puzzles sold.

In 1991, Croatians voted overwhelmingly forindependence in apublic referendum, triggering aformal breakup from Yugoslavia in June and awar leading to widespread ethnic cleansing and thousands of deaths.

In 2018, Britain’sPrince Harry wedAmerican actor Meghan Markle in St. George’sChapel at Windsor Castle. In 2024, ahelicopter

carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’sforeign minister and other ofﬁcials crashed in Iran’snorthwest mountains. Their bodies were recovered a day later after hours of searching in afog-shrouded forest.

Today’sbirthdays: TV personality David Hartman is 91. Musician-composer Pete Townshend (The Who) is 81. Singer-actor Grace Jones is 78. Former

PROVIDED PHOTO

The JewelJ.Newman CommunityCenter hosted aribbon cutting April 29 for its new community garden at the center in Baton Rouge

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Focus on what you are trying to accomplish, not bickering over something you have no control over. Stick to the people you know you can trust and depend on for backup, support and good advice.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Change your words to meet demands. Read the room, and articulate what you can do to help. The art of reframing your skills and experience will put you in the upper tier of your competitive group.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Whether you decide to update your look, venture into a pastime that offers social interaction or broaden your horizons through educational pursuits, the likelihood of personal growth and satisfaction looks good.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Plant your feet firmly on the ground, and put your time and effort into gaining experience, learning and being open to unique alternatives. Distance yourself from rigidity and conflict.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Stop worrying about what others are doing. Follow your instincts and do what you do best. Challenge yourself, and you'll come out on top. Don't let a change of attitude someone displays dismantle your thoughts and actions.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23) Network, learn something new, associate with people who share your interests and take the initiative to tidy up loose ends. Protect your reputation and ideas.

SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22) See what's available, and focus on budget, truthfulness

and the best way to fill your heart with joy and your soul with peace. Expand your relationship with someone who touches your heart.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21) Stick to your budget, control your emotions and focus on healthy living and being kind. Use your intelligence to bring about positive changes,andtalktothoseyouwanttoget to know better.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Stick to what's important to you. Look for the truth, and stand by your word. Refuse to let what others do play with your mind or tempt you to get involved in something you shouldn't.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) It's up to you to build the foundation that pleases you and allows you to follow your heart, your interests and to find the peace and joy of doing what's best for yourself.

PISCES (Feb. 20-March 20) Listen, but don't believe everything you hear. Distance yourself from anyone pushing their views on you. Don't give control to someone else; be the master of your destiny.m

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Let the creativity flow, but when communicating, stick to the facts and keep your emotionsincheck.Ahostilegesturewillhave ramifications that will be hard to reverse.

FAMILY CIrCUS

Cipher cryptograms are created from quotations by famous people, past and present. Each letter in the cipher stands for another.

TODAy'S CLUE: E EQUALS R

CeLebrItY CIpher

beetLe bAILeY

Mother GooSe And GrIMM

SherMAn’S LAGoon

bIG nAte

Sudoku

InstructIons: Sudoku is anumber-placing puzzle based on a9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers1 to 9inthe empty squares so that each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. Thedifficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday.

Yesterday’s PuzzleAnswer

THe wiZard oF id

BLondie

BaBY BLueS

Hi and LoiS

Puzzle Answer

BY PHILLIP ALDER

This week, we are looking at strong jump shifts. The opener bids one of a suit and responder makes a single jump in a new suit. Responder shows 13-16 high-card points and either a one-suiter with an excellent suit (in principle, with a play for at most one loser opposite a low singleton), or a two-suiter with at least nine cards divided 5-plus - 4-plus in the responder’s suit and the opener’s suit.

In the old days, a strong jump shift promised some 17-19 high-card points This was not a good idea. First, a hand that strong almost never came up; and second, with that amount of power, responder did best to make a quiet response to learn as much as possible about the distribution and strength of his partner’s hand before naming the final contract.

In today’s deal, responder’s second jump showed that his suit was completely solid. North, after rebidding two no-trump to find out which hand-type his partner had, used Blackwood before signing off in six hearts.

After West leads the club queen, how should South proceed?

Declarer is faced with three losers in his hand: one diamond and two clubs. He does not have time to play a diamond to

establish a discard, because East would win with his ace and cash the club king. South must win with dummy’s club ace, play a heart to his ace, and take the three spade tricks, discarding his diamond loser. Then declarer gives up a club. In a moment, he ruffs his final club with dummy’s heart eight and claims. © 2026 by

By Andrews McMeel Syndication

toDAY’s WoRD — MEssIAH: meh-SY-uh: The professed or accepted

some hope or cause.

Average mark 15 words

Time limit 25 minutes

Can you find 21 or more words in MESSIAH?

thought

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of May, 2026 anduponwhich thefore‐going ordinancewas read in full,the roll was called on theadoption thereof, andthe Ordi‐nancewas adopted.

DavidMcDavid,Mayor ATTEST:

KarenBurdetteClerkofthe City Council

Brandy WestmorelandMayorPro Tempore Ordinance2026-05 PRE‐SENTED TO THEMAYOR PURSUANT TO HRC§ 211(A),this_ dayof 2026 at ____: _M

KarenBurdette Clerkofthe City Council IDOHEREBYACT TO ADOPT/ ____VETO ORDINANCE2026-04, this dayof 2026 at ____: _M,bymy signaturebelow

DavidMcDavid,Mayor 187911 May19, 1t $47.56 p y g vested or contingent in‐terest

Authorizing the Metropolitan Counciltodeclarethe following properties previously adjudicated

CLASSIFIEDS WORK

Lot

Lot 21, Square23, Hickey Town

23rdStreet

Lot 8, Square89, Istrouma Gernesia

Lot 1-A-1, Square20-A, Scotland AdditionNakeya

STATEOFLOUISIANA ORDINANCEPERTAINING TO CONDITIONALUSE PERMIT APPROVAL OF PLACEMENTOFMANU‐FACTURED HOME ON LOT 7-BOFTHE ZACHARYES‐TATESSUBDIVISION WHEREASthe applica‐tion andrequest for a conditionaluse permit pertaining to thepro‐posedplacement of a manufacturedhomeon Lot7-B of theZachary Es‐tatesSubdivision on property locatedinSec‐tion 58, T-4-S, R-1-W, G.L.D. at 9400-9500 Mun‐sonRoad, Zachary, LA 70791 wassubmitted by Applicant, Glen Lane designated as CUP4-26; WHEREASthe City Coun‐cilfor theCityof Zachary received favorablyand approved theconditional usepermitatits March 24, 2026 meetingwith certainconditions; WHEREASthe City Coun‐cilnow hereby docu‐mentsand memorializes said approval; BE IT ORDAINED that Councilherebyapproves theissuanceofa condi‐tional usepermittoAp‐plicanttopermitthe placementofa manufac‐turedhomeonLot 7-Bof theZachary EstatesSub‐division,onpropertylo‐catedat9400-9500 Mun‐sonRoad, Zachary, La 70791, subjecttothe con‐ditionsthatthe manufac‐turedhomematch or meet thesubdivision it is in,withexteriorbuilding andmaterialstandards This Ordinanceshall be‐come effectiveatthe ex‐piration of ten(10)calen‐dardaysafter publica‐tion by theCityCouncil forthe City of Zachary unless thereferencedor‐dinanceshall specifyan‐othereffective date,all pursuant to §2-10(C) of theHomeRuleCharter adoptedbythe electors forthe City of Zachary. INTRODUCED FORADOP‐TION by theCityCouncil of theCityofZachary as aregular meeting of the id il h ld h PUBLIC NOTICE Recquisition 11297751 NOTICE OF SALE OF ADJUDICATEDPROPERTY WilliamL.Fontenot, Rhea B. Fontenot,and MarvaL.Fontenot THIS NOTICE BY PUBLICA‐TION IS NOTIFICATION THAT YOUR RIGHTS OR INTEREST IN THEFOL‐LOWING DESCRIBED PROPERTY LOCATEDIN EAST BATONROUGE PARISH,LOUISIANA MAY BE TERMINATED BY OP‐ERATIONOFLAW IF YOU DO NOTTAKEFURTHER ACTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH LAW: Lot21, Square B, Craw‐ford Addition Improvements thereon believed to bear on Mu‐nicipalNo. () Dalton Street By virtue of theprovi‐sionsofLouisiana Re‐visedStatute 47:2201 et seq. andMetropolitan CouncilOrdinance num‐ber19795, theParishof East BatonRouge has been authorized to sell this property as adjudi‐catedproperty. Youhave been identiﬁed as a party who might have a d i i

REQUISITION 11297749

OFFICIAL PUBLIC NOTICE OF THE METROPOLITAN COUNCIL OF THE PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE AND THE CITY OF BATON ROUGE

Notice is hereby given to all citizens of the City of Baton Rouge, Parish of East Baton Rouge and to all other interested persons, of the introduction at theregular meeting of the Metropolitan Council of the City of Baton Rouge andParish of East Baton Rouge, held on May 13, 2026 of the proposed resolutions/ordinances, the titles of which areset forth hereinafter,and that public hearing will be held thereon by the Metropolitan Council at 4:00 P.M., Wednesday,May 27, 2026, in the Council Chambers (Room 348) on the third floor of the City-Parish Governmental Building in this City,these proposed resolutions/ordinances being entitled as follows: RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalf of the Baton Rouge Police Department, to amend the 2026 current expense budget to appropriate an amount not to exceed $1,700,000.00 from the Police Department fund balance for the purchase of essential police vehicles. By Police Chief. RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute aCooperative Endeavor Agreement between the City of Baton Rouge/Parish of East Baton Rouge and the Bayou Fountain Economic Development District for the purpose of promoting economic development in the Bayou Fountain Economic Development District; and providing for related matters. By Councilwoman Jennifer Racca.

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Finance Director to refund sewer user fees paid in excess due to the erroneous billing of sewer user fees on ameter serving an irrigation system, in the amount of $172,075.23, to Baton Rouge GSA LLCfor the period January 2023 through March 2026, with the cost of such refund to be charged against sewer user fee revenues. By Finance Director ORDINANCE

Amending Title 12 (Nuisances), Chapter 6-Miscellaneous, Sec. 12:405Maintenance of Property,soastoprovide for an increase in the penalties and fines for violations. By Development Director.

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute aProfessional Services Agreement with Stantec Consulting Inc in the amount of $300,000 to provide engineering services and appropriate interest earning from the Capital Improvement Fund for said purpose. By Transportation and Drainage Director RESOLUTION

AResolution approving an annual Payment in Lieu of Taxtothe Sheriff of East Baton Rouge Parish in an amount not to exceed $12,281.09 in accordance with aMemorandum of Understanding

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalf of the Office of Community Development, to amend Contract No. 800007360 with Set Free Indeed Ministry to extend the contract term from June 30, 2026, through December 31, 2026, and to execute all related documents. By Community Development Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalf of the Baton Rouge Police Department, to accept agrant sub-awardfromthe

the Mayor-President to accept, enter into, and execute a $1 million-dollar grant, on behalf of the Purchasing Division, awarded by the US Housing andUrbanDevelopment’sEconomic Development Initiative(EDI) Project B24-CP-LA-0914. By Purchasing Director. RESOLUTION

Authorizing

fora totalcontract amount not to exceed $85,533.59. By Development Director RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalf of the Office of Community Development,toexecutea Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the City of Baton Rouge/ParishofEast Baton Rouge and the Division of Human Development and Services in an amount not to exceed $600,000.00 for the administration of Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) Short-Term Rent, Mortgage, and Utility (STRMU) assistance. By Community Development Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalfofthe Office of Community Development,toexecuteAmendment No.1for service provider PSA No.800007443 between the City of Baton Rouge, Parish of East Baton Rouge, and UnitedBRLLC, increasing the contract amount by $50,000.00 for anew total nottoexceed $250,000.00, funded by Louisiana Opioid Abatement Settlement funds, in addition to modifying the contract end date from October 31, 2026 to June 30, 2027, and, further authorizing the execution of allnecessary documents. By CommunityDevelopment Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalfofthe Office of Community Development,toamend Contract No.800007374 with ECO Behavioral Health Coalitiontorevise the Scope of Work by removing the reference to “rental assistance” from the Eternal Crisis budget and to extend the contract term from May31, 2026, through December 31, 2026, and to execute all related documents. By CommunityDevelopment Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute an amendment to Resolution 57140, on behalf of the Baton Rouge Fire Department, to add $7,400.00 annuallytothe contract with First Due/LocalityMedia for RMS and Scheduling Services. This amendment will add invoice management and payment processing solutions for arevised total nottoexceed the annual amount of $146,500.00 in 2026. The contract renews annuallythrough 2029 with a5%escalator.The amended agreement has been approved by the Office of the Parish Attorney as to form and legality. By FireChief.

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute an agreement with Cornerstone Governmental Affairs in the amount of $156,000 for federal governmental relations services and the optionfor one-year renewal contingent upon available budget. By Mayor’sOffice.

RESOLUTION

Authorizing The Mayor President, On Behalf Of The City Of Baton Rouge And Parish Of East Baton Rouge, To Enter Into ALease Agreement With Admiral Land, LLC, For The Lease Of Space At 445 N12th Street, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802 for aterm of five (5) years at arate of $13.59 per squarefoot,based on 5,355 squarefeet,With The SaidLease Agreement And AllAssociated Documents To Be Prepared By Or Reviewed By The Parish Attorney’sOffice. By Parish Attorney RESOLUTION

Authorize the Mayor-President to execute Contract for Appraisal Services with Alpha &Omega Appraisal Services, LLC, for services associated with MOVEBR Capacity Project Mickens Road (Hooper Road to Joor Road) -City-Parish Project No.22-CP-HC-0024, in an amount not to exceed $61,120.00. (Account No.9217100088 4371.00000-0000000000651160). By Transportation and Drainage Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute Contract for Appraisal Services with BDS Enterprises, Inc.,for services associated with MOVEBR Capacity Project Mickens Road (Hooper Road to Joor Road) -City-Parish Project No.22-CP-HC-0024, in an amount not to exceed $61,120.00. (Account No.9217100088 4371.00000-0000000000-651160). By Transportation and Drainage Director RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute amendments to the contracts with AshBritt, Inc.,CrowderGulf, LLC and DRC Emergency Services, LLC for Disaster Street-Clearing, Debris Collection, Removal, Processing, Disposal and Management Services being City-Parish Project No.A21005 to extend the contract time through May31, 2027. By Environmental Services Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President to execute Contract for Acquisition and Relocation Services with Diadem Appraisals, LLC, for services associated with MOVEBR Capacity Project Mickens Road (Hooper Road to Joor Road) -City-Parish Project No.22-CP-HC-0024, in an amount not to exceed $117,120.00. (Account No.9217100088 4371.00000-

0000000000-651160). By Transportation andDrainageDirector RESOLUTION

Authorizingsettlement of the Pre-Litigation Claim of Cheryl Woods for damages resulting from an automobile accident, for atotalamount of $17,000.00,whichshall be paid from the account designated “Insurance –Auto Liability” (1000. 4700. 10. 0550. 0000. 0000. 000000.644120). *This mattermay be discussed in Executive Session. By Parish Attorney. RESOLUTION

Authorizingthe Mayor-President to execute SupplementalAgreement No.2tothe contract with Mougeot Architecture, LLC for additionaldesign services in connection with their contract for the Pride FireDistrictNo. 8 Indian Mound Station, being City Parish Project No. 21-ASD-CP-1443 in an amount not to exceed $14,086.38.(Account No. 4652-1000-20-10080000-0000-000000-652000). By Building andGrounds Director

RESOLUTION

Authorizing the Mayor-President, on behalf of the Baton Rouge Police Department, to accept agrantaward from the UnitedStatesDepartment of Justice, Office on ViolenceAgainst Women, FY 2025 Demonstration ProgramonTrauma-Informed, Victim-Centered Training for Law Enforcement(Abby Honold Program) in the amount of $500,000 for a period of thirty-six (36) months, andtoexecute anyand alldocuments necessary to implement andadminister said grant. This grant will fund comprehensive trauma-informed, victim-centeredtraining for BRPD detectives andpatrolofficers whorespond to sexual assault cases,in partnership with STAR (Sexual Trauma Awareness &Response)as required victim service provider.This grant is 100% federally fundedwith no local matchrequired. By PoliceChief.

RESOLUTION

Recognizing June 2nd as NationalMississippi River Day, andurging allpeople to celebrate, protect, andrestorethe Mississippi River and its watershed. By Mayor-President Sid Edwards, CouncilmanRowdy Gaudet, CouncilwomanCarolyn Coleman, &CouncilmanBrandon Noel.

RESOLUTION

Receiving areport from the Employees’ RetirementSystem on plan design andchange recommendations. By CounciolmanDarrylHurst.

CONDEMNATION INTRODUCTIONS

Monique MarieKornbacher,Devika Kornbacher,EdwardJamek Kornbacher,Jarde Niekel Mellion, The EstateofEdwardHarold Kornbacher,and The EstateofMurielDenise Jones 434 Lorri Burgess Ave. (Formerly East Washington St.- IncludesCovered Storage Area &Abandoned Truck), Lots 4, 5, &7,Sq. 8 South Baton Rouge Subdivision -Council District 10 -Coleman

Rodney Harris, Linda Harris, Joyce Howard Metoyer, Patricia Howard Louis 1376 DanielWebsterSt. (House, AbandonedVehiclesand Rear Shed), Lots 30 &32, Sq. 177 South Baton Rouge Subdivision -Council District 10 -Coleman

Michael Thomas, EddieThomas, andDeshun Thomas 2226 and2230 MarylandSt.,Lot 9, Sq. 40

sionsofLAR.S.47:2201 et seq. Your interest in the property will be termi‐nated if youdonot re‐deem thepropertyby making allrequiredpay‐mentstothe taxcollec‐torlistedbelow or ﬁle a lawsuitinaccordance with lawwithin SIXTY (60) DAYS of thedateof the ﬁrstpublication of this notice,orthe record‐ingofanact transferring ownership, if later. Taxcollector: East BatonRouge Parish Sheriff 222 St.Louis Street 2NDFloor BatonRouge,Louisiana 70802 (225) 389-4810 187965 May19, 26, 2t $81.02

THIS NOTICE BY PUBLICA‐TION IS NOTIFICATION THAT YOUR RIGHTS OR INTEREST IN THEFOL‐LOWING DESCRIBED PROPERTY LOCATEDIN EAST BATONROUGE PARISH,LOUISIANA MAY BE TERMINATED BY OP‐ERATIONOFLAW IF YOU DO NOTTAKEFURTHER ACTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH LAW: LOT9 SQUARE 4 NORTHBATON ROUGE Believed to bear Munici‐palAddress () Fairchild Street,Baton Rouge, Louisiana By virtue of theprovi‐sionsofLouisiana Re‐visedStatute 47:2201 et seq. andMetropolitan CouncilOrdinance num‐ber19074, theParishof East BatonRouge has been authorized to sell this property as adjudi‐catedproperty. Youhave been identified as a partywho mighthave a vested or contingent in‐terest in said property whichwas assessedin thenameofJames E. Gordon,etal.,and was adjudicatedtothe Parish of East BatonRouge in theyearof2017 forun‐paid taxesfor theyearof 2016. Thesalewilltake placeinaccordancewith theprovisionsofLAR.S 47:2201 et seq. Your inter‐estinthe property will be terminated if youdo notredeem theproperty by making allrequired payments to thetax col‐lector listed belowor file alawsuit in accordance with lawwithin [60days] of thedateofthe first publicationofthisnotice, or therecording of an act transferring ownership, if later. Taxcollector: East BatonRouge Parish Sheriff 222 St.Louis Street 2NDFloor BatonRouge,Louisiana 70802 (225) 389-4810 187968 May19, 26, 2t $83.06

PUBLIC NOTICE Recquisition 11297751 NOTICE OF SALE OF ADJUDICATEDPROPERTY Mississippi Land Co Inc. THIS NOTICE BY PUBLICA‐TION IS NOTIFICATION THAT YOUR RIGHTS OR INTEREST IN THEFOL‐LOWING DESCRIBED PROPERTY LOCATEDIN EAST BATONROUGE PARISH,LOUISIANA MAY BE TERMINATED BY OP‐ERATIONOFLAW IF YOU DO NOTTAKEFURTHER ACTION IN ACCORDANCE WITH LAW: Sec. 0, WD 3, 0.52 Acres Improvements thereon believed to bear on Mu‐nicipalNo. () Magnolia Road By virtue of theprovi‐sionsofLouisiana Re‐visedStatute 47:2201 et seq. andMetropolitan CouncilOrdinance num‐ber19800, theParishof East BatonRouge has been authorized to sell this property as adjudi‐catedproperty. Youhave been identified as a partywho mighthave a vested or contingent in‐terest in said property whichwas assessedin thename(s) MISSISSIPPI LAND CO,etal.,and was adjudicatedtothe Parish of East BatonRouge in theyearof2004 forun‐paid taxesfor theyearof 2003. Thesalewilltake placeinaccordancewith theprovisionsofLAR.S 47:2201 et seq. Your inter‐estinthe property will be terminated if youdo notredeem theproperty by making allrequired payments to thetax col‐lector listed belowor file alawsuit in accordance with lawwithinSIXTY (60) DAYS of thedateof the firstpublication of this notice,orthe

EzekielJohnson THIS NOTICE BY PUBLICA‐TION IS NOTIFICATION THAT YOUR RIGHTS OR INTEREST IN THEFOL‐LOWING DESCRIBED PROPERTY LOCATEDIN EAST BATONROUGE PARISH,LOUISIANA MAY BE

nicipalNo. () Gassie Street By virtue of theprovi‐sionsofLouisiana Re‐visedStatute 47:2201 et seq. andMetropolitan CouncilOrdinance num‐ber19792, theParishof East BatonRouge has been authorized to sell this property as adjudi‐catedproperty. Youhave been identiﬁed as a partywho mighthave

Commercial (CN), on propertylocated at 2335 Church Street &4747 Newell Street, Zachary,La70791. Mayor McDavidopened the PUBLICHEARING at 6:45 p.m. Poke Anders, 4410 Cypress St withLane Regional Medical Center was theretospeak in favorofthe rezone. Therebeing no one else to speak in favororagainst the rezone, Mayor McDavidclosed the PUBLICHEARING at 6:46 p.m.

The motionwas made by Councilman LeBlanc

The motionwas seconded by Councilwoman Westmoreland To approve RZ-01-26 (Lane Family Practice) —Torezone Lots3 &4 of the Marita Terrace, 1st Filing &Lot 5ofthe Marita Terrace,

B. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

C. OPENINGPROCEDURES

1. ROLL CALL MAYOR David McDavid COUNCIL MEMBERS Brandy Westmoreland –District 1 JohnLeBlanc– District 2 AmbreDeVirgilio –District 3 James Graves –District 4 Jennifer Landry –District 5

2. READING OF CITY POLICY RELATIVE TO OPEN MEETINGS Before proceeding with the meeting, Mayor McDavid read a statement into the recordregarding the Open Meetings Law,and citizens’ right to participate in public meetings. The statement sets forth general rules of conduct of the public meeting and outlined the process through which acitizen can have items placed on the Council agenda. Acopy of the rulesisavailable at City Hall, Mayor’sOffice or by calling the Clerk of the City Council. The rules will also be available at every Council meeting.

3. CHANGES/ADDITIONS TO AGENDA

The motion was made by Councilwoman Westmoreland The motion was seconded by Councilman LeBlanc To amend the agenda to move item N2 to item G1b.

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS:None ABSENT:None

ABSTAINED: None

D. READING OF THE MINUTES

1. Approval of Minutes April 14, 2026, regular meeting,and approve them as written.

The motion was made by Councilwoman DeVirgilio

The motion was seconded by Councilwoman Westmoreland To approve the of Minutes April 14, 2026, regular meeting,and approve them as written.

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS:None

ABSENT:None

ABSTAINED: None

E. HONORS, RECOGNITIONS, AND INTRODUCTIONS

F. CONTRACT ITEMS/CONTRACTS OR ITEMS RELATING TO PROJECTS

1. Street/Road Projects

2. Sewer

3. Subdivision Inspections

4. Water and Gas Projects

5. Other Projects

G. PRESENTATION OF DELEGATIONS

1. Request to Speak a) Desiree Harris from Entergy to speak on hurricane awareness. Matter passed.

b) Special Event Permit for May Market at The Pointe at Americana on May 9, 2026. Ms. Lindsay McCurnin came to speak in favor of the permit.

The motion was made by Councilwoman DeVirgilio

The motion was seconded by Councilman LeBlanc

To approve Special Event Permit for May Market at The Pointe at Americana on May 9, 2026.

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS:None ABSENT:None ABSTAINED: None

c) Elizabeth Lockhart of 20483 Plank Rd., Zachary,LA, addressed the Council regarding apossible hardship waiverto place atrailer on her property so she can carefor her brother The Council advised her to first contact Planning and Zoning for assistance with the required paperwork. Calesia Anderson informed the Council that Mrs. Lockhart had already met with Planning staffthe previous week andthat staffare currently assisting her

2. Hardship Waivers

3. Other Variances

4. Exceptions of Regulations H. ACTION MANDATED BY HOME RULE CHARTER

I. PLANNING &ZONING MATTERS

1. Receive Minutes of the Regular meeting of April 06, 2026 of the Planning Commission and the Minutes of the Regular meeting of April 06, 2026, of the Zoning Commission. The motion was made by Councilman Graves The motion was seconded by Councilwoman Westmoreland To approve receiving minutes of the regular meeting of April 06, 2026 of the Planning Commission and the minutes of the regular meeting of April 06, 2026, of the Zoning Commission.

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS:None ABSENT:None ABSTAINED:

2nd Filing from Suburban Residential (RE) to Neighborhood Commercial (CN), on propertylocated at 2335 Church Street& 4747 Newell Street, Zachary,La70791.

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS: None

ABSENT: None

ABSTAINED: None

5. Zoning Matters NOT Requiring Public Hearing

6. Other Matters

a) Introduction of Ordinance 2026-05 -ORDINANCE PERTAINING TO CONDITIONAL USEPERMITAPPROVAL OF PLACEMENTOFMANUFACTURED HOME ON LOT 7-B OF THEZACHARYESTATES SUBDIVISION.

The motionwas made by Councilwoman DeVirgilio

The motionwas seconded by Councilwoman Westmoreland To approve Introduction of Ordinance 2026-05 -ORDINANCE

PERTAINING TO CONDITIONAL USEPERMIT APPROVAL OF PLACEMENTOFMANUFACTURED HOME ON LOT 7-B OF THE ZACHARY ESTATES SUBDIVISION

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS: None

ABSENT: None

ABSTAINED: None

b) Resolution 2026-06 -ResolutioninAccordance with the UDC to Direct the Planning &Zoning Commission to Hold aPublic Hearing and Make Recommendations Regarding Restaurant Alcohol Sales and Related Matters

The motionwas made by Councilman LeBlanc

The motionwas seconded by Councilwoman DeVirgilio

To approve Resolution 2026-06 -ResolutioninAccordance with the UDCtoDirect the Planning &Zoning Commission to Holda Public Hearing and Make Recommendations Regarding Restaurant Alcohol Sales and Related Matters

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio,Graves, Landry

NAYS: None

ABSENT: None

ABSTAINED: None

c) Public Hearing –Removal of Planning &Zoning Commission Member,District 4, Jason Floyd. The Mayor opened the PUBLICHEARING at 6:52 p.m., Attorney Wilsonaddressed the Council regarding the rules forthe public hearing. The following persons provided testimony: Mr.Jason Floyd, Planning and Zoning Commissioner.Mr. DonaldPete Charlet, 1161 Memorial Square, Zachary, LA, came to speak against the removal of Mr.Jason Floyd from hisCommissioner position. Therebeing no one else to speak in favoroforagainst the removal of Mr.Jason Floyd, the Mayorclosed the PUBLIC HEARING at 7:39 p.m.

The motionwas made by Councilwoman Landry

The motionwas seconded by Councilman Graves To approve the removal of Planning &Zoning Commission Member,District 4, JasonFloyd.

YEAS: Graves, Landry

NAYS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio

ABSENT: None

ABSTAINED: None

d) Discussion on Planning and Zoning rules and regulations, attendance, bylaws, and communication with Planning Staff. Councilman Graves discussed concerns with Planning and Zoning bylaws, poor communication, and lack of transparency between staffand commissioners. Councilman Graves and Councilwoman Landry said the bylaws areoutdated and information is difficult to obtain. Councilwoman Westmoreland agreed bylaw updates are needed but stated council should not control Planning and Zoning stafformicromanage the commission. Councilwoman DeVirgilio said the issue is notwith any one person, but with turnover in council, administration,and staff.

e) Update report from Planning and Zoning Chairpersononthe city’sMaster Plan. Councilwoman Landry read an email from the Planning and Zoning Chairpersonregarding progress on the draft Master Plan. The Chairpersonstatedthat revisions have been underway since the recent Master Plan workshop, and the Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposed changes May4,2026. Following that vote, the revised final draft will be advertised for a30-day public review period, with apublic hearing and adoption set forJuly 6, 2026, Planning and Zoning meeting.

J. RECEIVE RECORD OF PAYMENT OF ACCOUNTS PAYABLE

1. Receive the balance sheet and income statement as of April2026 and the natural gas bill when it is received. The motionwas made by Councilwoman DeVirgilio The motionwas seconded by Councilwoman Westmoreland

To approve to receive the balance sheet and income statement as of April2026 and the natural gas bill when it is received.

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry

NAYS: None ABSENT: None

ABSTAINED: None

K. BUDGET AND FINANCIAL MATTERS

L. OLD BUSINESS PENDING FOR FINAL ACTION

M. OLD BUSINESS PENDING N. NEW BUSINESS

Public Hearing and Adoption of Ordinance

Zachary Public Cemetery

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry NAYS: None

ABSENT:None ABSTAINED: None

3. Approvaland ratification of LegalServices Contract for Olinde LawFirm (ZPD) The motion wasmade by CouncilwomanDeVirgilio The motion wassecondedbyCouncilwomanWestmoreland To approve the Approvaland ratification of LegalServices Contract for Olinde LawFirm (ZPD)

YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry NAYS: None

ABSENT:None

ABSTAINED: None

4. Introduction of Ordinance 2026-06 –ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF ZACHARYTOIMPLEMENTTHE GENERAL FUND, UTILITY FUND,SPECIAL REVENUE FUND AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT FUND BUDGETS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR COMMENCING JULY1,2026 AND ENDINGJUNE 30, 2027. The motion wasmade by CouncilwomanWestmoreland The motion wassecondedbyCouncilmanLeBlanc To approve Introduction of Ordinance 2026-06 -ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF ZACHARYTOIMPLEMENTTHE GENERAL FUND,UTILITY FUND, SPECIAL REVENUE FUND AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT FUND BUDGETS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR COMMENCING JULY1,2026 AND ENDINGJUNE 30, 2027. YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry NAYS: None

ABSENT:None

ABSTAINED: None

5. Setting of public hearing on 2026-2027 Budget andpublishing of noticeofthe same in the Official Journal. The Council approvedsetting of public hearing on 2026-2027 Budget andpublishingofnoticeofthe same in the Official Journal. With the date andtime being Wednesday, May 13, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. –4700 MainSt.,Zachary,LA 70791, City Hall

O. CONDEMNED BUILDINGS –PUBLIC HEARINGS OR OTHER ACTION REGARDING BUILDINGS BEING CONSIDERED FOR CONDEMNDATION 1. Receive the minutesfromthe January 26, 2026, Condemnation Boardmeeting. The motion wasmade by CouncilwomanWestmoreland The motion wassecondedbyCouncilwomanDeVirgilio To approve receiving the minutesfromthe January 26, 2026, Condemnation Boardmeeting. YEAS: Westmoreland, LeBlanc, DeVirgilio, Graves, Landry NAYS: None

ABSENT:None

ABSTAINED: None

P. REPORTSFROMDEPARTMENT HEADS

Q. COUNCIL DISCUSSION OF BUSINESSNOT ON AGENDA (No Action May Be Taken UnlessDeclared an Emergency) AttorneyWilson informedthe Council of upcoming millage rate discussions, whichwill be addressed during the 2026–2027 budget public hearing May 13, 2026. The Mayor also provided an update on condemnation

R. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 8:09 p.m.

Karen Burdette Clerk of City Council CITYOFZACHARY PARISHOFEASTBATON ROUGE STATEOFLOUISIANA CERTIFICATION

KarenBurdette DavidMcDavid,Mayor Clerk of the City Council CITY OF ZACHARY PARISH OF EAST BATON ROUGE STATEOFLOUISIANA

I, KarenBurdette,dohereby certify thatI am the duly appointedClerk of the City Council for the City of Zachary, Parish of East Baton Rouge Louisiana Ifurthercertify thatthe above andforegoing is atrueand correct copy of the minutesofthe regularmeeting of the Mayor andCouncil of the City of Zachary,Louisiana,heldonTuesday,April 28, 2026, aproper quorum being there andthenpresent.

KarenBurdette, Clerk of the City Council

approximately 102 acres.

NOTE: This acreage is entirely within the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin Legal Area.

2,056,954.52

2,038,474.52

in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formedbyaccretion or by reliction, where allowed by law,excepting tax adjudicated lands, and not presently undermineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in St. Martin Parish,Louisiana, and moreparticularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X=

1,968,763.81 and Y =468,071.40; thence East 14,270.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =468,071.40, thence South9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =458,831.40, thence West 14,270.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,968,763.81 and Y =458,831.40, thence North 9,240.00 feet to the point of beginning (This tract includes only waterbottoms claimed and owned by the state and specifically excludes any portion of the above described tract thatlies inside of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area), containing approximately 869 acres.

NOTE: This acreage is entirely within the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin LegalArea.

TRACT 46069 -St. Martin and St. Mary Parishes, Louisiana All of the lands now or formerly constituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to whichtitle is vested in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formedbyaccretion or by reliction, where allowed by law,excepting tax adjudicated lands, and not presently under mineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in St. Martin and St. Mary Parishes, Louisiana, and more particularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,971,248.81 and Y =458,831.40; thence East 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =458,831.40; thence South9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =449,591.40; thence West 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,971,248.81 and Y =449,591.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to the point of beginning (This tract includes only waterbottoms claimed and owned by the state and specifically

TRACT 46070St. Martin Parish, Louisiana All of the lands now or formerly constituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, whereallowed by law,exceptingtax adjudicated lands, and not presently under minerallease on June 10, 2026, situated in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana, and moreparticularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,001,514.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence North 18,480.00 feet to a point having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =458,831.40; thence East 14,415.21 feet to apoint on the boundary of Operating Agreement A0406 having a Coordinate of Y= 458,831.40; thence along the boundary of said Operating Agreement A0406 the following courses: South 00 degrees 26 minutes 16 seconds East 548.02 feet, South 00 degrees 46 minutes 43 seconds East 3,947.70 feet and North 89 degrees 09 minutes 47 seconds East 4,007.39 feet to apoint having a Coordinate of X= 2,001,514.52; thence South 14,043.19 feet to the point of beginning, (This tract includes only wate rbotto ms claimed and owned by the state and specifically excludes any portion of the above described tract that lies inside of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area), containing approximately 1,067 acres.

NOTE: This acreage is entirely within the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin Legal Area.

TRACT 46071Assumptionand St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana

All of the lands now or formerly constituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, whereallowed by law,exceptingtax adjudicated lands, and not presently under mineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in Assumptionand St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana, and more particularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =458,831.40; thence South 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,019,994.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence North 14,224.22 feet to apoint on the boundary of Operating Agreement A0406 having a Coordinate of X= 2,019,994.52; thence along the boundary of said Operating Agreement A0406 the following courses: North 89 degrees 33 minutes 16 seconds East 171.76 feet and North 00 degrees 31 minutes 15 seconds West 4,254.62 feet to apoint having a Coordinate of Y= 458,831.40; thence East 18,346.93 feet to the point of beginning, LESS AND EXCEPT that portion, if any,of the above described tract that may lie within

of the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin, containing approximately 210 acres.

TRACT 46072Assumptionand St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana All of the lands now or formerly constituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, whereallowed by law,exceptingtax adjudicated lands, and not presently under mineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in Assumptionand St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana, and more particularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =458,831.40; thence South 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,019,994.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence North 14,224.22 feet to apoint on the boundary of Operating Agreement A0406 having a Coordinate of X= 2,019,994.52; thence along the boundary of said Operating Agreement A0406 the following courses: North 89 degrees 33 minutes 16 seconds East 171.76 feet and North 00 degrees 31 minutes 15 seconds West 4,254.62 feet to apoint having a Coordinate of Y= 458,831.40; thence East 18,346.93 feet to the point of beginning, LESS AND EXCEPT that portion, if any,ofthe above described tract that may lie outside of the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin, containing approximately 58 acres.

NOTE: This acreage is entirely within the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin Legal Area.

TRACT 46073Assumptionand St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana All of the lands now or formerly constituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, where allowed by law,exceptingtax adjudicated lands, and not presently under mineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in Assumption and St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana, and more particularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,056,954.52 and Y =458,831.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,056,954.52 and Y =449,591.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =449,591.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =458,831.40; thence East 18,480.00 feet to the point of beginning, containing approximately 2,417 acres.

TRACT 46074St. Martin Parish, Louisiana All of the lands now or formerly constituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the State of Louisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, whereallowed by law,exceptingtax adjudicated lands, and not presently under minerallease on June 10, 2026, situated in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana,

and moreparticularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,019,994.52 and Y =436,819.63; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,001,514.52 and Y =436,819.63; thence North 17,574.96 feet to apoint on the boundary of Operating Agreement A0406 having a Coordinate of X= 2,001,514.52; thence along the boundary of said Operating Agreement A0406 the following courses: North 89 degrees 09 minutes 47 seconds East 1,306.70 feet, North 89 degrees 29 minutes 49 seconds

East 5,327.54 feet, North 89 degrees 29 minutes 58 seconds

East 5,308.02 feet, North 89 degrees 21 minutes 47 seconds East 5,373.43 feet and North 89 degrees 33 minutes 16 seconds East 1,165.22 feet to apoint having a Coordinate of X= 2,019,994.52; thence South 17,755.99 feet to the point of beginning, (This tract includes only wa te rbottoms claimed and owned by the state and specifically excludes any land which the state may claim or own and to which the mineral rights arevested in the state), containing approximately 189 acres.

NOTE: Thisacreage is entirely within the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin Legal Area.

TRACT 46075Assumption and St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana

All of the lands now or formerlyconstituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the StateofLouisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, whereallowed by law,excepting tax adjudicated lands, and not presently under mineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in Assumption and St. Martin Parishes, Louisiana, and more particularlydescribed as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,056,954.52 and Y =449,591.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,056,954.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =440,351.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 2,038,474.52 and Y =449,591.40; thence East 18,480.00 feet to the point of beginning, LESS AND EXCEPT that portion, if any,ofthe above described tract that may lie within of the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin, containing approximately 2,266 acres.

TRACT 46076St. Mary Parish, Louisiana All of the lands now or formerlyconstituting the beds and bottoms of all water bodies of every natureand description as to which title is vested in the StateofLouisiana, together with all islands arising therein and other lands formed by accretion or by reliction, whereallowed by law,excepting tax adjudicated lands, and not presently under mineral lease on June 10, 2026, situated in St.Mary Parish, Louisiana, and moreparticularly described as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,959,463.10 and Y =449,591.40; thence East 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,971,248.81 and Y =449,591.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,971,248.81 and Y =440,351.40; thence

West 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,959,463.10 and Y =440,351.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to the point of beginning, (This tract includes onlywaterbottoms claimed and owned by the state and specifically excludes any portion of the above described tract that lies inside of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area), containing approximately 46 acres.

NOTE: This acreage is entirely within the boundary of the Atchafalaya Basin Legal Area.

AT TA KAP AS WILD LIFE MANA GE MEN T AREA TRACTS (Tract Nos. 46077 through 46087 inclusive, herein cannot specify a lease primary term exceeding three (3) years).

TRACT 46077

-Iberia Parish, Louisiana Alllands now or formerlyconstituting the beds and bottoms of water bodies of whatever description and natureowned by the StateofLouisiana and located within the geographical boundaries of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area and not presently under mineral lease by the State of Louisiana as of June 10, 2026, the area being set forth as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =495,791.40; thence South 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 and Y =477,311.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 and Y =477,311.40; thence North 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 and Y =495,791.40; thence East 18,480.00 feet to the point of beginning, (This tract includes only the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area and excludes any portion of the above described tract that lies outside of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area), containing approximately 111 acres.

NOTE: This tract is located in the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area under the jurisdiction of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries which has promulgated rules and regulations for the protection of game and wildlifeon the aforesaid Tract and, therefore, shal be subject to said rules and regulations, acopy of which may be obtained from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. In addition to the specificrules and regulations applicable, the following shall apply regarding operations under this mineral lease:

1. No activities will be allowed without written authorization from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Allprojects will be coordinated and approved by the appropriate WMA Manager prior to any activities on the wildlife management area.

2. Proposed projects will be evaluated on acase by case basis. Modifications to proposed project features, including, but not limited to, access routes, spoil placement, well sites, flowlines and appurtenant structures may be requiredbythe Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

3. Compensatory mitigation willbe requiredtooffset unavoidablewetland impacts.

4. Removal of al structures, facilities and equipment willbe

required within 120 days of abandonment unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

5. No activities will be allowed during the hunting season unless approved by the Department

6. Compliance with the said WMA regulations will be required unless otherwise specified by the Department

7. Prior to submitting applications for wetland permits to Federal and State permittingagencies the leaseholder shallcoordinate project detailswith the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Contact person for the Department will be Mike Perot at (225) 765-3978.

TRACT 46078 -Iberia Parish, Louisiana Alllands now or formerlyconstituting the beds and bottoms of water bodies of whatever description and natureowned by the StateofLouisiana and located within the geographical boundaries of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area and not presently under mineral lease by the State of Louisiana as of June 10, 2026, the area being set forth as follows: Beginning apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,952,768.81 and Y =486,551.40; thence East 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 and Y =486,551.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 and Y =477,311.40; thence West 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,952,768.81 and Y =477,311.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to the point of beginning, (This tract includes only the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area and excludes any portion of the above described tract that lies outside of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area), containing approximately 853 acres.

NOTE: This tract is located in the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area under the jurisdiction of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries which has promulgated rules and regulationsfor the protection of game and wildlife on the aforesaidTract and, therefore, shall be subject to said rules and regulations, acopy of which may be obtained from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. In addition to the specificrules and regulations applicable, the following shall apply regarding operations under this mineral lease:

structures maybe required by the Department of Wildlife andFisheries.

3. Compensatory mitigation will be required to offset unavoidable wetland impacts.

4. Removal of all structures, facilities andequipment will be required within 120 days of abandonment unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the Department of Wildlife andFisheries.

5. No activitieswill be allowedduring the hunting season unless approved by the Department.

6. Compliance with the said WMA regulations will be required unless otherwise specified by the Department.

7. Prior to submitting applications for wetland permits to Federal andState permitting agencies the leaseholder shall coordinate project details with the Department of Wildlife andFisheries. Contact person for the Department will be Mike Perotat(225) 765-3978.

TRACT 46079IberiaSt. Martinand St.Mary Parishes, Louisiana All landsnow or formerly constituting the beds andbottoms of waterbodies of whatever description andnatureownedby the State of Louisiana andlocated within the geographical boundaries of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area andnot presently under mineral lease by the State of Louisiana as of June 10, 2026, the area being set forth as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,952,768.81 andY =477,311.40; thence East 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 andY =477,311.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 andY =468,071.40; thence West 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,952,768.81 andY =468,071.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to the point of beginning, containing approximately 2,500 acres.

NOTE: This tract is located in the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area underthe jurisdiction of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries whichhas promulgated rules andregulations for the protection of game andwildlife on the aforesaidTract and, therefore, shall be subject to said rules andregulations acopy of whichmay be obtained from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. In addition to the specificrules andregulations applicable, the following shall apply regarding operations underthis mineral lease:

1. No activitieswill be allowedwithout writtenauthorization from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife andFisheries. All projects will be coordinated and approved by the appropriate WMA Manager prior to anyactivitiesonthe wildlife management area.

2. Proposedprojects will be evaluated on acase by case basis. Modifications to proposed project features, including,

but not limitedto, access routes, spoil placement, well sites, flowlines andappurtenant structures maybe required by the Department of Wildlife andFisheries.

3. Compensatory mitigation will be required to offset unavoidable wetland impacts.

4. Removal of all structures, facilities andequipmentwill be required within 120 days of abandonment unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the Department of Wildlife andFisheries.

5. No activitieswill be allowedduring the hunting season unless approved by the Department.

6. Compliance with the said WMA regulations will be required unless otherwise specified by the Department.

7. Prior to submitting applications for wetland permits to Federal andState permitting agencies the leaseholder shall coordinate project details with the Department of Wildlife andFisheries. Contact person for the Department will be Mike Perotat(225) 765-3978.

TRACT 46080Iberiaand St.Martin Parishes, Louisiana All landsnow or formerly constituting the beds andbottoms of waterbodies of whatever description andnatureownedby the State of Louisiana andlocated within the geographical boundaries of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area andnot presently under mineral lease by the State of Louisiana as of June 10, 2026, the area being set forth as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 andY =477,311.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,983,034.52 andY =468,071.40; thence West 18,480.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 andY =468,071.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,964,554.52 andY =477,311.40; thence East 18,480.00 feet to the point of beginning, (This tract includesonly the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area andexcludes anyportion of the above described tract thatliesoutsideof the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area), containing approximately 770 acres.

NOTE: This tract is located in the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area underthe jurisdiction of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries whichhas promulgated rules andregulations for the protection of game andwildlife on the aforesaidTract and, therefore, shall be subject to said rules andregulations, acopy of whichmay be obtained from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. In addition to the specificrules andregulations applicable, the following shall apply regarding operations underthis mineral lease:

1. No activitieswill be allowedwithout writtenauthorization from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife andFisheries. All projects will be

coordinated and approved by the appropriate WMA Manager prior to anyactivitiesonthe wildlife management area.

2. Proposedprojects will be evaluated on acase by case basis. Modifications to proposed project features, including, but not limitedto, access routes, spoil placement, well sites, flowlines andappurtenant structures maybe required by the Department of Wildlife andFisheries.

3. Compensatory mitigation will be required to offset unavoidable wetland impacts.

4. Removal of all structures, facilities andequipmentwill be required within 120 days of abandonment unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the Department of Wildlife andFisheries.

5. No activitieswill be allowedduring the hunting season unless approved by the Department.

6. Compliance with the said WMA regulations will be required unless otherwise specified by the Department.

7. Prior to submitting applications for wetland permits to Federal andState permitting agencies the leaseholder shall coordinate project details with the Department of Wildlife andFisheries. Contact person for the Department will be Mike Perotat(225) 765-3978.

8. Additionally,the Department will requireaMinimum royalty for years 1-3 of 18.5% (rate will run for 3years on 1st production). After 3 years of production, royalty will increase to 2% over the accepted bid rate. Production must begin within 24 months after execution of lease; otherwise royalty will increase to 4% over the accepted bid rate. TRACT 46081 -St. Martin and St.Mary Parishes, Louisiana All lands now or formerly constituting the beds andbottoms of waterbodies of whatever description andnatureownedby the State of Louisiana andlocated within the geographical boundaries of the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area andnot presently under mineral lease by the State of Louisiana as of June 10, 2026, the area being set forth as follows: Beginning at apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,956,978.10 andY =468,071.40; thence East 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,968,763.81 andY =468,071.40; thence South 9,240.00 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,968,763.81 andY =458,831.40; thence West 11,785.71 feet to apoint having Coordinates of X= 1,956,978.10 andY =458,831.40; thence North 9,240.00 feet to the point of beginning, containing approximately 2,500 acres.

NOTE: This tract is located in the Attakapas Island Wildlife Management Area underthe jurisdiction of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries whichhas promulgated rules and regulations for the protection of game andwildlife on the aforesaidTract and, therefore, shall be subject to said rules andregulations, acopy of whichmay be obtained from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. In addition to the specificrules andregulations applicable, the following shall apply regarding operations underthis mineral lease:

1. No activitieswill be allowedwithout writtenauthorization

Rouge, as containedin andmadepartofthe “Uniﬁed Development Code “, as amendedso as to change thezoning on thepropertylocated at 5956 and5986 Stum‐berg Lane To rezone from RuraltoLight Commer‐cial Three(LC3) on prop‐erty locatedonthe west side of Stumberg Lane northofJefferson High‐way, on property nowor formerly knownasLot N andLot KofStokes Place. Section57, T7S, R2E, GLD, EBRP,LA(Coun‐cilDistrict8 -Amoroso) CASE 15-26 ORDINANCE Amending theCompre‐hensiveZoningMap of theCityofBaton Rouge andParishofEastBaton Rouge, as containedin andmadepartofthe “Uniﬁed