The LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans released a study showing that the ban on smoking in bars and casinos in Alexandria has had an immediate impact on air quality in those establishments. LSU Air Quality professor Daniel Harrington says the study shows that air inside these facilities is now 36 times cleaner. The study shows in these facilities there's been a reduction of 97 percent of particulate matters in the air.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon says a decision won't be made until next week on whether the state's property insurer of last resort will pursue a U.S. Supreme Court appeal of a $93 million judgment against the company.

LSU's 2012 recruiting class is loaded with linebackers. The Tigers signed twenty-two players. Coach Les Miles says there were plenty of talented linebackers from Louisiana to choose from.

The state Department of Health and Hospitals is standing behind its proposal to streamline data management and trim its budget by contracting out information technology services to the University of New Orleans.

A new study finds that Louisiana's second Gulf of Mexico dead zone stretches at least from the Chandeleur Sound off Louisiana to Alabama's Dauphin Island - and could be bigger.

A federal magistrate has ruled that Transocean doesn't have to make its CEO, Steve Newman, available to testify at a trial for tens of thousands of court claims spawned by the Gulf oil spill in 2010.

New Orleans police will no longer include the arrest record for victims to their news releases.

Opelousas attorney Marion Overton White wants $1.6 million in legal fees for his work in the Evangeline Parish desegregation case. His request comes as the school board anticipates an end to the 47-year-old case.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has tapped three former lawmakers to be on the pardon board.

A federal program that provided temporary housing assistance to nearly 20,000 families displaced by two 2008 hurricanes has ended.