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Jefferson Parish officials say water service was back on Grand Isle Wednesday after a temporary clamp was successfully placed on a busted line that provided drinking water to the barrier island.

The repair was made about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The Barataria Bay water transmission line was apparently damaged by a passing vessel Tuesday morning.

A federal judge denied two Houma Police officers' request for protection from adverse job treatment while they sue their department.

Capt. Milton Wolfe Jr. and Sgt. Kyle Faulk filed suit last week, alleging mistreatment after disagreeing with legislation that continued to keep the police chief position out of civil service protection.

Facing budget constraints and a growing inmate population, state officials are moving ahead with a plan to shut down two prisons, including one with a well-established addictive treatment program.

An environmental group's annual look at water quality at the nation's vacation beaches rates Louisiana's among the most contaminated.

The report by the Natural Resources Defense Council says 29 percent of water samples taken at Louisiana beaches showed elevated bacterial levels.

The national average is 8 percent.

An analysis of the report by The Times-Picayune (http://bit.ly/Ok1i3C) shows high bacteria levels were found in 44 percent of water samples collected at five Cameron Parish beaches.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser is upset that the parish wasn't notified before an apparent drill for pilots who spray oil spills dispersants. And he doesn't believe that the planes used in the drill were spraying only water, as he was told.

Parish official P.J. Hahn says fishermen called him June 13, saying low-flying planes sprayed something that turned to foam on the water and made their skin itch or burn.

Hahn says the Coast Guard told him it was a drill by the oil industry's Marine Spill Response Corp and that only water was being sprayed.

BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says the 2012 spring inshore shrimp season will close July 9 in some areas to protect developing shrimp. The announcement applies to portions of the Pontchartrain Basin and to all of the Mississippi River, Barataria and Mermentau River basins. 

Lawyers for a former BP engineer are pressing federal prosecutors to explain how their client impeded a grand jury probe by deleting text messages about the company's response to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a court filing Monday, Kurt Mix's attorneys also seek a court order requiring prosecutors to specify which deleted texts form the basis for the obstruction-of-justice charges against him.

BATON ROUGE — Officials at Louisiana's health department are looking for ways to cut $859 million from the state's Medicaid program for the poor and uninsured. It would strip 11 percent of the funding for health services. 

A Mississippi man has been found mentally competent to stand trial in August on charges he shot at three men in what prosecutors call a racially motivated attack in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Roland Bourgeois Jr., who is white, is accused of wounding at least one of the three black men he fired at with a shotgun.