The Associated Press

New Orleans Hornets general manager Dell Demps says 7-foot reserve forward and center Jason Smith will miss the rest of the season because of a torn labrum in his right shoulder.

Meanwhile, the Hornets also say rookie forward Anthony Davis will be out for Friday night's game against the Detroit Pistons because of a left shoulder sprain which occurred Tuesday night against New Jersey and also sidelined him Wednesday night at Oklahoma City. Davis will be listed as day-to-day.

New Orleans police have arrested a 15-year-old boy accused of accidentally shooting his 11-year-old brother in the leg.

Officer Frank Robertson says the 15-year-old faces a charge of negligent injury.

Robertson said the two brothers were playing with a loaded pistol around 7 p.m. Thursday.

He says the pistol was accidentally fired.

The 11-year-old was taken to the hospital, where he is listed in stable condition.

Re-enactors based in Thibodaux will tell the history of the Bayou Lafourche region during the Civil War and demonstrate camp cooking, military drill and other aspects of life in the Union and Confederate armies this weekend.

The unit called Hellfire Stew Mess/Bouanchaud's Battery will spend the weekend encamped at the E.D. White Historic Site.

A news release from the Louisiana State Museum and Friends of E.D. White Historic Site says the event is free and open to the public.

The New Orleans mayor's office says a ribbon cutting will be held later this month to mark the consolidation of several city offices into what it calls a "One Stop Shop" for securing permits and licenses.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu's office said Thursday that the offices involved are completing their moves to the City Hall One Stop Shop this week.

Those include the City Planning Commission, Historic Districts Landmarks Commission, the Safety & Permits office, and the Vieux Carré Commission, which governs development in the historic French Quarter.

Plans to create a statewide program that would give college tuition grants to Louisiana students who graduate early from high school have been scrapped.

The scholarship program was approved by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education last year in the state's education financing formula, with expectations it would begin in the 2013-14 school year.

Fifteen people have been charged with fraud for allegedly filing bogus claims for help after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday the phony claims were worth more than $300,000 combined.

Fourteen defendants were charged in bills of information, generally an indication that they have signed plea deals. A grand jury indicted one of them.

The Coast Guard says a wellhead damaged earlier this week off Plaquemines Parish has been secured.

Ensign Tanner Stiehl says Wild Well Control crews secured the well shortly after a specialized barge arrived Thursday in Lake Grande Ecaille Bay, nine miles southwest of Port Sulphur.

The wellhead owned by Houston-based Swift Energy Co. was damaged Tuesday by one of the company's crewboats. Stiehl says skimmer boats have since collected more than 1,200 gallons of oily water. He says 4,880 feet of boom was set out to contain the spill and keep it out of marshes.

Russell Westbrook scored 29 points, Kevin Durant recorded his third career triple-double and the Oklahoma City Thunder finished a perfect three-game homestand by routing the short-handed New Orleans Hornets 119-74 on Wednesday night.

Durant had 18 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists as Oklahoma City finished a dominant four-game sweep of the season series against New Orleans, which was without starters Anthony Davis (shoulder) and Eric Gordon (knee). The Thunder led by at least 29 in three of the four meetings this season,

The chairman of the House budget-writing committee says he's feeling a bit better about coping with the state's more than $1 billion shortfall.

Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Fannin made the comments Thursday after he got a sneak peek at Gov. Bobby Jindal's spending recommendations for next year.

Fannin says the Jindal administration anticipates significant savings from privatization plans for the LSU charity hospital system, and that will help partially close the budget gap.

State highway officials say work will begin in April on a busy stretch of U.S. Highway 190 that straddles Bayou Chinchuba in Mandeville.

The Times-Picayune reports the $11.3 million project will correct what many frustrated motorists have referred to as a hiccup in an earlier road improvement effort designed to ease east-west traffic flow through the heart of the city.