Louisiana State Police Troop D will have additional troopers on patrol this Labor Day holiday.  

U.S. Senator David Vitter today called on Charlie Melancon to apologize to the large number of tea party members and voters in Louisiana for comparing them to the fringe, far-left activist group MoveOn.org.

An oil platform exploded and burned off the Louisiana coast Thursday, the second such disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in less than five months.

The U.S. Department of Education awards a 170-million-dollar grant to a consortium of 26 states, including Louisiana, to develop new common assessments for public school students.

An early morning fire Thursday in the 2200 block of Curtis Street kept Baton Rouge firefighters busy for a while. 

Baton Rouge police report that officers responded to a shooting about 3:30 Thursday morning in the 1500 block of North Marque Ann Drive where they found a black male lying in a parking lot who had been shot. 

Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms ripped though Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Missouri yesterday.  The storms flattening buildings and knocking out electricity to thousands.  An estimated two dozen homes were damaged in Indiana alone.

U.S. military commanders in Baghdad announced plans yesterday to bring an additional 12-thousand American troops home from Iraq within the next six months.  That would mean roughly 140-thousand troops would be stationed in Iraq after September.  President Obama has promised to pull all American combat troops out of Iraq by August 2010.

Police are trying to figure out if mental illness prompted a man to gun down an Illinois pastor during church services yesterday.  Terry Joe Sedlacek allegedly of entered the First Baptist Church in Maryville and fired off four shots, killing Pastor Fred Winters.  Sources say the 27-year-old may suffer from neurological damage caused by Lyme disease.

A small earthquake rattled Oklahoma City early Sunday.  The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake measured three-point-four and was centered in Smith Village, five miles east-southeast of Oklahoma City.  Residents reported feeling and hearing something similar to a car ramming into a nearby building.

A new survey that explores spirituality in America is due out today.  The American Religious Identification poll is expected to show almost all religious denominations have lost members since the survey was first taken in 1990.  For instance, the numbers indicate the percentage of Americans who label themselves as Christian has tumbled more than eleven-percent in a single generation.

The remainder of the controversial shared text messages between former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his ex-chief of staff, Christine Beatty, are slated to be unsealed today.  The newly released text messages are expected to reveal other women Kilpatrick had affairs with.  They are also likely to include conversations between the former mayor and 36th District Court Judge Ruth Carter.

The specifics of President Obama's housing rescue plan are being released today.  Lenders expect to be dealing with huge demand for refinancing plans once the rules of the new program are known.  The 75-billion-dollar Obama plan is expected to include help for about nine-million homeowners facing foreclosure.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in Washington, DC today, where he'll address a joint session of Congress.  The global economic crisis was the topic of conversation yesterday when Brown met with President Obama at the White House. 

The Coast Guard has called off its search for three boaters missing in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast.  Still missing are Marquis [[ mar-KEES ]] Cooper of the Oakland Raiders, former Detroit Lions defensive lineman Corey Smith and William Bleakley. 

Antonio Villaraigosa [[ vee-yah-ruh-GOH-sah ]] looks like he has a good chance of winning a second term as Mayor of Los Angeles.  The 56-year-old Democrat faced off Tuesday against nine other candidates in the non-partisan race to lead America's second-largest city.  He's expected to easily win the 50-percent-plus-one majority he needs to avoid a May runoff.   

The grandfather of slain Florida toddler Caylee Anthony wants to keep a suicide note he wrote in January private.  George Anthony was hospitalized in January after police found him despondent in a motel room in Daytona Beach, Florida.  Officials say Anthony had taken some pills and written a five-page suicide letter to his family. 

Britney Spears' "Circus" tour is on its way to a city near you.  The tour launched last night in New Orleans, just 90 miles from where the pop singer grew up.  About 16-thousand fans shelled out between 95 and 250-dollars per ticket for the first date in the singer's comeback tour.  The 45-date world tour continues in Atlanta on Thursday, and Miami on Saturday.
 

TransUnion has taken a close look at the credit files of about 27 million Americans and found a disturbing trend.  In the fourth quarter of 2008, the credit reporting agency says the delinquency rate on mortgages nationwide went up for an eighth straight quarter.

Coast Guard cutters and aircraft are searching for three more people who vanished off the Florida coast over the weekend.  Yesterday, the Coast Guard rescued Nick Schuyler [[ sky-ler ]] who was clinging to their overturned boat.  Two NFL players, Corey Smith and Marquis Cooper, remain missing, as does William Bleakley.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Israel and has pledged to push for the establishment of a Palestinian state.  She's scheduled for a meeting with Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who doesn't see eye-to-eye with the U.S. on the topic of a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.  He favors expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

The California Legislature has officially opposed the passing of last year's ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage.  Both the Senate and the Assembly passed resolutions yesterday opposing Proposition 8, stating the ballot measure was an improper revision of the California Constitution and that only the legislature has authority to make such a change.

The Earth had a close encounter with an asteroid yesterday.  It missed the Earth by only 41-thousand miles, a short distance by astronomical measurements.  The asteroid flew between Earth and the moon at 8:44 a.m. Eastern time Monday morning.

Residents of Portland, Oregon are singing the blues.  A new report by BusinessWeek.com says Portland is number one on a list of the "top unhappiest cities" due to the economic slump.  Researchers say they factored in categories such as suicide and depression rates, crime statistics, and economic fact