Louisiana

Friday, February 29, 2008 7:47 AM CST

Terry Morse chose a leaping frog theme for the cake served during the Leap Year birthday party Thursday at The Daily Star.

Party attendees commented on the cake’s decoration as well as its taste.

Morse, bakery manager at Bohning’s Robert Supermarket, said she learned cake decorating by the trial-and-error method.

“I started at Bohning’s in Ponchatoula and had two weeks of working with another decorator there before she left to go to school,” Morse said. “I would look at the photos in the books we get, and I would figure out how to do them. Then I started getting special requests for scenes that weren’t in the book.

(Read the full post about ‘Bohning’s designs cake for Leap Year Birthday Party’…)

Thursday, February 28, 2008 11:54 AM CST

The city of Hammond received its second payment Tuesday of fourth quarter video bingo revenue.

The city received a total of $209,501 in video bingo taxes between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, with the Louisiana Children’s Discovery Museum taking home 25 percent. The museum collected $52,375 for the quarter, leaving the city with $157,126.

Collections are down slightly from the previous quarter when the city collected $222,777 in video bingo taxes.

Each quarter, the two parlors - Cypress Palace Bingo LLC and Hammond Bingo Palace - pay the city a 20 percent tax on their net wins.

(Read the full post about ‘Who gets video bingo money’…)

The bodies of Lakeisha Williams and her estranged husband, Terrence Williams, have been sent to Little Rock, Ark., for autopsies.

Monroe police said they are still investigating Wednesday’s murder-suicide in a southern Monroe neighborhood.

 
Maj. Don Bartley, chief of Monroe police investigations, said all unnatural death cases are investigated, and a report will be forwarded to the District Attorney’s Office.

“They both have been sent off for an autopsy,” Bartley said. (Read the full post about ‘Shooting victims sent for autopsies’…)

Vantage Health Plan, a Monroe-based insurance provider, has been notified by the Louisiana Office of Group Benefits that it can offer its Medicare Advantage HMO plan to all eligible retired state employees, the company’s chief executive said late Thursday.

Dr. Gary Jones, Vantage’s top executive, said the decision will lead to 10 new jobs for every 1,000 people who choose his company.

 
“It’s great for Vantage because this is one of our primary products,” Jones said.

(Read the full post about ‘Vantage offers Medicare HMO to retired state employees’…)

Monroe police are searching for two men who walked into a Garden District business and robbed the lone worker.

Officers responded shortly after 10:30 a.m. to the 400 block of Hudson Lane at Smith Blind and Awning Co. Inc.

 
Maj. Don Bartley, chief of investigations, said two black males entered the building and forced a female worker into a closet.

The two men indicated they were armed, but the victim never saw a weapon, Bartley said.

The men then took an undisclosed amount of money from the business and fled the area.

The worker called 9-1-1 on her cell phone from the closet and police arrived less than a minute later.

She was not injured.

“This is going to be a robbery,” Bartley said.

(Read the full post about ‘Officers search for suspects in recent robbery’…)

Former assistant parish administrator Woodson McGuffee will be back in district court for resentencing after prosecutors lost an appeal to have his original jail term reinstated.

Late last week, the state Supreme Court rejected a request from the 4th District Attorney’s Office to overturn an appellate court ruling that found McGuffee’s three-year sentence excessive.

 
No date has yet been set for the second sentencing hearing.

McGuffee was convicted of malfeasance in office in February 2006 for having a Public Works employee remove trees from his property in Union Parish in 2000. (Read the full post about ‘State Supreme Court: McGuffee sentence too harsh’…)

The Farmerville High School ninth-grade student at the center of a recent threat at the school will face a “superintendent’s hearing” to determine whether he will be allowed to return to the school.

The student, his parents, the principal and the superintendent’s designee will meet next Wednesday and determine the student’s future.

 
Possible outcomes include expulsion, placing him in an alternative school setting or allowing him to return to the school on a probationary basis.

The school was forced to take protective measures following a threat by the student of a “big war” that was to take place at the school on Tuesday.

“We hit it hard,” Superintendent Steve Dozier said.

(Read the full post about ‘Hearing set for student involved in ‘war’ threat’…)

STARHILL, La. — Traffic is flowing again on a section of U.S. Highway 61 in West Feliciana Parish after highway crews finished work on a replacement bridge for a span that closed February 4.

The state Department of Transportation and Development finished the concrete replacement bridge over the West Fork of Gray’s Creek ahead of schedule.

The old bridge’s embankment failed, forcing its closure and causing long detours for motorists traveling the highway north of Baton Rouge.

The new bridge was expected to take six to eight weeks to complete, but DOTD crews completed the job in less than four weeks.

KENNER, La. — There is confusion among accountants and even Internal Revenue Service officials about how to tax two large groups of people who received grants from the Road Home program, which provides buyout or repair money for victims of the 2005 hurricanes.

There are about 5,500 taxpayers who sold their homes to the Road Home in 2007 and about 38,000 Road Home recipients who collected additional compensation grants for low- to moderate-income families during the year. (Read the full post about ‘Confusion Surrounds Road Home Grant Taxes’…)

MONROE, La. — A bail bondsman from Mississippi was arrested while surrendering his client to the Monroe Police Department after officers discovered he was reportedly carrying a stolen concealed weapon inside the building.

Jimmy Logan of Byram, 39, Mississippi, was charged Thursday with illegal possession of stolen things and carrying a concealed weapon.

According to the police report, officers witnessed Logan take a gun from his vehicle and place it into his pocket before entering the police station’s booking area. (Read the full post about ‘Mississippi Bondsman Arrested In Monroe’…)