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A Baton Rouge police officer who fought with a downtown restaurant manager over a bond election sign while off duty was fired last week, a police spokesman said Friday.

A Mid City neighborhood is targeted for a weeklong cleanup effort starting Monday that will include clearing and mowing overgrown lots, removing abandoned vehicles and other measures to spruce up the area, Mayor-President Kip Holden’s office said in a news release.

GONZALES — The Ascension Parish Council plans to vote next month whether to create a parish consolidated utilities district serving unincorporated areas east of the Mississippi River.

Parish Attorney Mary Roper issued a blistering response on Friday to Metro Councilman Chandler Loupe's recent report criticizing her management of her office.

A Baton Rouge police officer who fought with a downtown restaurant manager over a bond election sign while off duty was fired last week, a police spokesman said Friday.

The Louisiana Legislature’s top budget committee gave final approval Friday afternoon to a plan that will result in the closure of LSU’s Earl K. Long Medical Center in north Baton Rouge.

PLAQUEMINE — A Dow Chemical Co. contract worker was killed beneath the wheels of a tractor-trailer truck early Friday, Maj. Johnny Blanchard of the Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

SORRENTO — Consulting engineer Lynn Chance said a proposal to build a new mechanical sewage treatment plant would have continuing sludge removal costs that are a “significant issue” for town government leaders to consider.

Louisiana continues to amass positive rankings for business climate, economic standing and quality of life, the state's economic development department reports.

DENHAM SPRINGS — Deputies arrested three people in Thursday night’s hit and run during which a Ford Mustang slammed into a home on Colby Drive, injured two children and drove away, the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office reported today.

A judge ruled today that a jury will be allowed to hear a 911 call Baton Rouge lawyer Chiquita Tate made to Baker police in December 2007 accusing her then-boyfriend, Greg Harris, of beating and choking her.

PORT ALLEN — Police Chief Fred Smith announced this morning that an arrest warrant has been issued for one of his officers accused of kicking a handcuffed suspect several times during a March 12 traffic stop.

A visibly frustrated East Baton Rouge library board member questioned the library system’s executive director Thursday about the legality of an internal advisory committee the director formed to look at the future of the downtown River Center library branch.

The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday unanimously approved contracts for two charter schools, clearing the way for the schools to open their doors this summer. There was little discussion of the contracts, both of which have been debated at previous meetings.

Baton Rouge police are trying to identify a man who robbed a Check Into Cash, 9230 Florida Blvd., about 1 p.m. today, according to a police news release. The man used a handgun to rob the store then ran away, the release says. The robber is described as a dark-skinned black man in his 40s, about 140 pounds and about 5 feet 6 inches tall, the release says.

ST. FRANCISVILLE — The West Feliciana Parish Police Jury’s information technology manager on Thursday recommended keeping a $1 per page fee for copying records requested by the public. Robert Reinhardt said he conducted a survey of 20 public agencies before including the fee of $1 per page — for the first 50 pages — in the public records request policy the jury adopted Feb. 9

DENHAM SPRINGS — Authorities arrested a 26-year-old man who got out of his vehicle and punched and seriously injured a flagman directing traffic, the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office reported Thursday.

DENHAM SPRINGS — Two armed men robbed the Advance America Cash Center on Range Avenue Thursday, the Denham Springs Police Department reported. The men may have been the same pair that have committed armed robberies in Baton Rouge, police Lt. Steve Kistler said.

The Manship Theatre has hired Renee M. Chatelain as its new executive director.

A 16-year-old Glen Oaks High eighth-grader was arrested this morning for allegedly brining an unloaded .22 caliber revolver to school, an East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office news release says. Another student told a teacher that the boy had the gun in his book sack, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks says in the release.

Dacarius Holliday smiled Wednesday when an East Baton Rouge Parish jury recommended he die by lethal injection for beating his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son to death nearly three years ago.
 Holliday sentenced to death

State Rep. Franklin Foil has scheduled a district town hall meeting at 6:30 tonight. Foil plans to deliver a brief report on the 2009 fiscal legislative session and discuss the upcoming session before opening the meeting to a question-and-answer period.

CLINTON — The state district judge who will decide the length of imprisonment for an Ethel man in a February 2009 slaying heard testimony from a series of witnesses Wednesday, including some who hoped to influence his decision.

Jailed Texas promoter Robert Allen Stanford will remain in custody until his January trial on charges he masterminded more than $7 billion in frauds against investors in Louisiana and around the world, an appellate panel has ruled.

PORT ALLEN — West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Mike Cazes confirmed Wednesday that his office is investigating two separate misconduct allegations concerning Port Allen Police Department officers.

Mayor-President Kip Holden’s top aides warned Metro Council members in private briefings today that local government is going to have to tighten its belt as sales tax col-lections plunge below projected levels, a participant in the meetings said.

A 23-year-old Baton Rouge man pleaded guilty today to manslaughter and a weapons charge in the 2008 slaying of a man on Jade Avenue near Gardere Lane and was sentenced to 50 years in prison, District Attorney Hillar Moore said.

After 90 minutes of deliberations, a jury recommended that Dacarius Holliday should be put to death for the 2007 killing of his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son.

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s state-licensed casinos shook some of their economic doldrums last month, winning 10 percent more from gamblers than in January.

Jurors are now deciding whether to recommend the death penalty or a life prison sentence for a 32-year-old St. Louis man they convicted Sunday of fatally beating his Baton Rouge girlfriend’s 2-year-old son in 2007.

Odom Graves, a former sheriff of Livingston Parish and father of current Sheriff Willie Graves, died this morning, his son said.

Robert L. Stevens is the 10th person charged in the continuing federal investigation of corruption in Baton Rouge city and state district courts.

Robert L. Stevens was charged today for alleged participation in a conspiracy to fix criminal and traffic cases in Baton Rouge City Court. Stevens, 61, of Baton Rouge, is the 10th person charged in the continuing federal investigation of corruption in both city and state district courts.

PLAQUEMINE — Iberville Parish residents should know by summer whether they’ll have a new hospital or not, parish President Mitch Ourso said. There hasn’t been a hospital operating in the parish since last year.

SORRENTO — A former minor league baseball player and Sorrento-area community figure died after his tractor was rear-ended on La. 22 westbound, police and others said.

ST. GABRIEL — A two-vehicle wreck on La. 75 that left one dead and the other under treatment in a hospital remains under investigation, the St. Gabriel Police Department reported Tuesday.

Some downtown Baton Rouge streets in the area of Third and Convention streets will be closed to traffic today for the filming of the movie “The Ledge,” the Mayor’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.

Louisiana's state-licensed casinos shook some of the economic doldrums last month, winning 10 percent more from gamblers than in January. State police say the 13 riverboat casinos, Harrah's Entertainment's New Orleans casino and the four race track casinos took in $208.7 million in February, up from $189.7 million in January.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana's Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of a tax law that was being fought by several interstate natural gas pipeline companies. The companies challenged state law that allows them to be taxed on property assessed at 25 percent of its market value, while some companies that transport gas only within state lines are taxed based on a 15 percent assessment.

Amanda Coon testified today at the penalty phase of her 2-year-old son’s killer’s trial that she no longer celebrates her birthday because it is the day after little Darian Coon was beaten to death by her then-boyfriend. “I don’t have anything to celebrate. I go to my son’s grave site,’’ an emotional Coon said.

The first woman to serve as Louisiana’s transportation chief says there is a simple reason she got into engineering. “I love the math,” said Sherri LeBas. “That is what drove it.” LeBas, 47, was named interim secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development, called DOTD, on Feb. 5.

A 30-year-old Baton Rouge man pleaded not guilty Monday to vehicular homicide charges stemming from a fiery Interstate 10 crash that killed five members of a Georgia family in October.

The Baton Rouge Police Department will offer a free self-defense program for women beginning in April. The program, called The Equalizer, will be offered in two sessions. The first session will be held April 13, 15 and 20. The second session will be held May 4, 6, 11 and 13.

The Baton Rouge Police Department will offer a free self-defense program for women beginning in April.

Louisiana ranked second in the nation on a deadliest roads list, in which Readers Digest noted the state’s roads in general, but singled out Interstate 55 and Interstate 12 east of Baton Rouge as particularly dangerous. The piece, which appears in the publication’s April edition, ranked Montana first, with South Carolina, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Wyoming, Alabama and Nevada rounding out the top 10.

An LSU graduate student from India died late this morning after falling from the roof of the six-story Life Sciences Building on campus, school officials confirmed this afternoon.

Police are looking for Tremon Foster, 24, who is a suspect in the Sunday shooting death of a 22-year-old Baton Rouge man in a BREC park, according to a Baton Rouge Police Department news release issued today.

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