Kate Archer Kent

Over the past few weeks, a number of small film crews have taken to the streets of Shreveport. They’ve been shooting all around northwest Louisiana, like in a vacant former restaurant in the Highland neighborhood. They’re making short films – that must be shot locally – to enter into this year’s Louisiana Film Prize contest.

"The Bone Lady" – forensic anthropologist Mary Manhein of Baton Rouge – is one of the featured speakers in the adult science series “Looking Under the Lens” that begins Tuesday, June 11, at Sci-Port: Louisiana’s Science Center in Shreveport.

Manhein head’s up LSU's Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services Laboratory. She also directs Louisiana’s repository for missing and unidentified people – a database of 250 unsolved cases. Manhein is called on by law enforcement agencies in Louisiana and around the country to identify remains.

The Gardens of the American Rose Center in Shreveport will reopen later this month. The center lost 37 trees and sustained roof damage to all its buildings when an EF-1 tornado struck on the afternoon of May 16.

The headquarters of the American Rose Society is humming these days with the sound of chainsaws from tree removal contractors taking down the mostly pine and mature oak trees. Executive director Jeff Ware said  tornado warnings are common, but this one was different. The staff huddled in their administrative building away from windows.

Delta Air Lines announced this week that it will close its Memphis, Tenn., hub after the summer travel season. This means Shreveport Regional Airport will lose its two, daily nonstop flights to Memphis after Aug. 30. Shreveport Airport Authority spokesman Mark Crawford said Delta plans to increase daily flights to Atlanta to make up the difference, so he doesn’t anticipate a loss of seats. Delta is in the process of reducing its fleet of 50-seat regional jets, Crawford said, and replacing them with larger, more economical Boeing 717s.

A Mooringsport, La., World War II pilot has a new memoir that he calls "spot checks" on the war. On this anniversary of D-Day, when Allies invaded Western Europe 69 years ago, the 93-year-old Cochran reflects on his experiences in the Central Pacific theater.