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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.