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The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says the 2012 spring inshore shrimp season will close at 6 a.m. Saturday in most remaining state inside waters east of the Mississippi River. The closure is designed to protect developing white shrimp.

The open waters of Breton and Chandeleur Sounds will remain open, but all other inside waters will be closed to shrimping.

A policy institute at Tulane University has released its annual look at the progress and problems of public education in New Orleans.

Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein says he expects to announce by Friday how he'll divvy up $859 million in cuts to Louisiana's Medicaid program.

The cut is tied to a congressional reduction in Louisiana's federal Medicaid financing rate.

Greenstein didn't offer details Tuesday about what will be slashed. But hospitals, doctors and other health providers are bracing for cuts that could shrink the money they receive for taking care of Medicaid patients and the uninsured.

Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Catherine "Kitty" Kimball says the state's code of judicial conduct prohibits her from meeting with a group of community leaders to discuss their concerns about the court's impending debate over naming Kimball's successor.

Several supporters of Justice Bernette Johnson, who sued last week to block her colleagues from debating and voting on whether she is entitled to become the next chief justice, had asked to meet this week with Kimball.

Plans to continue the New Orleans Times-Picayune as a daily newspaper have taken a blow from its publisher. Advance Publications says it has no intentions of selling the paper.

Two Louisiana congressmen are calling on the Justice Department to respond to a complaint that one of its attorneys tried to bar a newspaper reporter from quoting or recording her comments at a public hearing in New Iberia.

The Daily Iberian contends Justice Department attorney Rachel Hranitzky became "belligerent and threatening" after the reporter, Matthew Beaton, questioned why he couldn't quote her comments during a June 12 public hearing about the New Iberia Fire Department's hiring and promotion practices.

Officials say a grand jury next week will consider the case involving the man accused of kidnapping and murdering college student Mickey Shunick.

Lafayette Parish District Attorney Mike Harson told the Associated Press Tuesday that Brandon Scott Lavergne's case will be considered by a grand jury July 18.

Lavergne was arrested Thursday and is being held without bail at the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Louisiana farmers are planting more soybeans than they have in 14 years but may tie a record low for cotton.

Changing weather patterns appeared to be a factor as the wet early spring gave way to a drier pattern. So farmers are planting more soybeans and less rice than originally expected.

The USDA's July crop report says Louisiana farmers are planting 1.14 million acres of soybeans, the highest since 1.2 million acres in 1998 and 70,000 acres more than projected in March.

New Orleans police have issued arrest warrants for two men suspected of stealing a bin of baby alligators from the Audubon Zoo gift shop.

Police say Audubon Security discovered the gift shop’s doors pried open, and a broken window near the shop’s bottom door latch, around 7:30 a.m. last Wednesday, just over three hours after receiving an alarm from the location. A check of the shop revealed 10 baby alligators missing from a tank within.

Police say two men were fatally shot as they sat in a sport-utility vehicle in New Orleans.

Officer Frank Robertson tells The Times-Picayune the shooting was reported about 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Robertson said the men, whose names and ages were not immediately available, were approached by someone who fired at them as they sat in the SUV. He said both men died at Interim LSU Public Hospital a short time after the shooting.

Police did not immediately have a motive for the shooting.