The Associated Press

The LSU Athletic Department is making a $4 million contribution to the university to help with budget challenges in the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The transfer is the single largest contribution from Athletics to Academics in school history. Director of Athletics Joe Alleva says being able to make such a contribution is a "real credit to LSU's fans and alumni who support the Tigers."

State officials want to know exactly when ExxonMobil Chemical Plant staff knew that the amount of released naphtha, which includes benzene, was much higher than originally reported in the wake of a June 14 spill at the Baton Rouge facility.

The Advocate reports the Department of Environmental Quality issued a compliance order and notice of potential penalty against plant that in part states the facility did not notify the state and other agencies when estimates of a leak amount June 14 substantially changed.

Chef John Folse is taking a taste of Louisiana and the "Spirit of the Gulf Coast" to what he calls the "ultimate" stage.

Folse is leading the "Team USA" of the culinary world — eight chefs from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida — to the Olympic Games.

Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards says deputies are investigating the death of a man found stabbed inside a residence in Hammond.

Edwards, in a news release Monday, said the body of 55-year-old Elias Balnez Azua, of Tickfaw, was found early Sunday. Edwards says the victim had been stabbed numerous times.

Investigators believe the victim may have known his killer. The sheriff says they're asking anyone with information about the case to contact CrimeStoppers toll-free at 800-554-5245.

The Louisiana Supreme Court is giving its justices an extra month to weigh in on a debate over naming the court's next chief justice.

Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball had set a July 31 deadline for the justices to file briefs on which colleague is the "oldest in point of service" under terms of the state constitution.

Kimball amended her order on Friday to move the deadline to Aug. 31.

Scientists studying long-term effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are looking for 15,000 more people who worked on the cleanup, even for one day.

Nearly 25,000 people already have signed up for what the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says is the largest study ever of long-term effects in oil spill workers.

Lead researcher Dale Sandler tells The Courier that it's been hard to find people who helped with the cleanup, because many have moved and changed phone numbers.

The History Channel TV show "Swamp People" is looking for new alligator hunters. They can be individuals, groups or families, but must have a license and at least 50 tags for the September alligator season in Louisiana.

The show is going into its fourth season, and has featured different hunters each year.

It held casting calls Sunday at restaurants in Baton Rouge and in Beaumont, Texas. Others are scheduled this Saturday in Houma and in Webster, Texas, and on Saturday, Aug. 4, in Lafayette.

The LSU AgCenter will hold a field day Aug. 16 at the Sweet Potato Research Station in Chase, La.

AgCenter research and extension faculty members will lead tours highlighting the foundation seed program as well as breeding, production and pest management research.

Resident coordinator Tara Smith says the breeding program will highlight two varieties released earlier this year.

Other field day topics include improving production efficiency, the best growing practices for the fresh and processed sweet potato markets and production economics.

Almost 60 years since it opened, the Southeast Louisiana Hospital — a psychiatric facility that gained national notoriety in 1959 when then-Gov. Earl Long was briefly committed there — is preparing to close down its daily operations.

The Times-Picayune reports that the hospital's closing is part of an $859 million cut to the state's federal Medicaid program.

The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals hopes to send all 176 beds occupied at the hospital to other public and private hospitals in the state.

The idea of creating a statewide DWI tracking system is gaining steam again.

The Advocate reports that the 2004 death of an ambitious Louisiana project called the Integrated Criminal Justice Information System dashed hopes for a statewide DWI tracking system that was to be tied to it.

But interest in reviving that program may be growing.

The state Legislature recently requested that the mothballed Integrated Criminal Justice Information System policy board reconvene and report its progress to state lawmakers during the 2013 regular session.