The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE — A scientific study has found that heavily oiled areas in Barataria Bay showed twice the normal land erosion rates in the year and a half after the massive BP oil leak in 2010. The study found oil killed marsh plants and that led to the higher rates of erosion. 

A Louisiana-shot film that took top honors at this year's Sundance Film Festival is back in the state where it was made for a Hollywood-style red carpet premiere before opening in select theaters nationwide this summer.

The mythical "Beasts of the Southern Wild" follows a motherless young girl living in the marshlands of the southern Delta with her ailing father as a storm approaches. It won the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition at Sundance, and the Camera d'Or at France's Cannes Film Festival for best first film by director Benh Zeitlin.

GONZALES, La. (AP) — The Gonzales City Council has voted 3-1 to rezone an 18-acre parcel from residential to C-2 commercial so Emerson Process Management can continue with plans to build a $10 million regional campus expansion project.

Emerson Process Management refurbishes and remanufactures valves for industrial plants.

The New Orleans Hornets have a new broadcasting deal with Fox Sports, which will televise most of the NBA club's games on a rebranded Fox Sports New Orleans affiliate.

The agreement, announced Monday, replaces an expiring deal with Cox Sports Television, and is expected to substantially increase the number of homes in which Hornets telecasts will be available.

Scott Fujita, a union leader with a record of criticizing the NFL's player-safety record, sees elements of a "smear campaign" in a bounty investigation that has sullied his reputation. Some NFL players agree, and question whether Fujita's three-game suspension has something to do with retribution. 

The National Weather Service has discontinued a tropical storm warning for Louisiana after forecast models indicated that the state is under less of a threat from Tropical Storm Debby than initially thought.

Parts of Alabama and Florida remain under a tropical storm warning, however. Storm paths are generally hard to predict days in advance, and forecasters say they've been comparing several models to compile the official forecast. As of late Sunday, though, they believe the storm was less likely to make a westward turn toward Louisiana. 

CHALMETTE — In August the St. Bernard Parish Hospital is slated to open its doors seven years after Hurricane Katrina.

The Times-Picayune reports that the 113,000-square-foot hospital and an adjoining 60,000-square-foot medical office building are nearly ready.

For Wayne Landry, chairman of St. Bernard Parish's Hospital Service District, the opening is one of the last pieces of the parish's recovery.

A new development of affordable housing in Central City, a neighborhood plagued by blight and abandoned houses, is seeing a flourishing of solar panels.

The Times-Picayune reports that residents in the Harmony Neighborhood Development are putting solar panels on their homes.

The development, being built by a nonprofit, is being constructed using federal funding to convert blighted and vacant properties into the new affordable housing.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A teacher union says it is about to file a lawsuit against Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program.

Leaders of the Louisiana Association of Educators say they will lodge their challenge against the education changes Friday in Baton Rouge district court. They object to the use of the state's public school financing formula to pay for tuition to private and parochial schools.