The Associated Press

Lockport's annual Main Street Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 16 at the Bayouside Park.

The Daily Comet reports the market will include artisans selling clothing, jewelry, pottery, lawn ornaments, purses, wood crafts, art and other novelty items. Food and drink will be available at the nearby Bayou Lafourche Folklife and Heritage Museum.

Proceeds benefit the museum.

A Texas company that built the frame for L'Auberge Baton Rouge has sued the casino's parent company and two executives for $1.9 million.

In a lawsuit filed in Livingston, Texas, Postel Industries Inc. claims money budgeted by Pinnacle Entertainment Inc. to pay Postel was kept or used for other purposes. The lawsuit names as defendants the company along with Chief Executive Officer Anthony Sanfilippo and Senior Vice President of Construction Kirk England.

Southern University in New Orleans has reached an agreement to exchange students and faculty members with a university in the West African nation of Ghana.

SUNO Chancellor Victor Ukpolo tells The Advocate the long-distance partnership will create opportunities for students to pursue international study.

Officials of SUNO and Central University College of Ghana signed the agreement this past week.

The pact allows the universities to begin working out details of the exchange program.

A $4 million freshwater diversion project will pump water from the Red River into depleted Red Bayou, offering farmers along the nine-mile-long waterway in northwest Louisiana summertime relief for their fields.

Water is most needed in the last months of the growing season, when as much as half of the bayou's channel is dry. Farmers currently use wells for nearly all irrigation.

By next summer, river water will pour into the bayou, providing irrigation for cotton, corn and soybeans.

LSU's hospitals chief says employees of the public hospital system are quitting in higher numbers than expected as the Jindal administration and university leaders privatize management of many LSU-run facilities.

Frank Opelka, vice president for health affairs and medical education, said Friday he's concerned about the workforce drop because the not-for-profit corporations taking over operations of many of the university's hospitals need the employees to stay.

The New Orleans Saints are getting a $5 million payment from the state because the Big Easy is hosting the Super Bowl.

The incentive was included in the 2009 deal between Gov. Bobby Jindal and Saints owner Tom Benson to keep the Saints in Louisiana through 2025.

The money is owed to the NFL team by June 30. Lawmakers will be asked to budget the payment in their upcoming legislative session.

The Jindal administration says the Super Bowl payment to the Saints won't come from the state's general fund at the expense of items like health services and education programs.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is heading to her 2014 re-election bid with $2.5 million in her campaign account, more than twice what she had at this point in her last campaign.

The figure was disclosed in campaign documents filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission detailing money raised and spent through the end of 2012.

But a possible Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, isn't far behind. Cassidy, a Baton Rouge doctor who hasn't said whether he'll seek the Senate seat, reported to the FEC that he has $2 million in his campaign account.

The board that oversees New Orleans' bonded indebtedness has agreed to sell $40 million in public improvement bonds, more than half of which will be used for street repairs and the rest for upgrading playgrounds, libraries and other public buildings.

The city will get the money March 1.

On Wednesday, The Times-Picayune reports the Board of Liquidation, City Debt accepted the bid of 4.678 percent "true interest cost" from Raymond James & Associates. It was the lowest of five bids, which ranged as high as 5.16 percent.

A record number of passengers flew into and out of Lafayette Regional Airport in 2012, marking three consecutive years of record-breaking passenger activity.

A total of 459,119 travelers flew into and out of the airport in 2012, topping the previous number of 455,730 set in 2011.

The Advertiser reports Mike Burrows, the airport's assistant director of aviation, credited the soaring activity to increased marketing efforts through the Fly Lafayette campaign.

A 25-year-old Baton Rouge man admits he used the Internet, an imaginary company and nonexistent supplies of frozen chicken feet to swindle a combined total of $166,000 from 13 wholesalers.

Chicken feet sometimes are processed into animal feed in this country, but people in China and other Asian countries consider the crunchy items a dining delicacy.

Terence Ndangoh was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on seven counts of wire fraud. The Cameroon national signed a plea agreement in August.