News

Paintings that are part of the Kasten Art Collection go on display today at the R.W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport. The Kasten Family of South Carolina has amassed works by British and European painters completed between the 1860s and 1920s. The Norton’s Emily Young said 32 pieces are on display in two galleries. It’s the second stop of a nationwide tour. She says the works – many impressionistic  – have a common trait: paintings within paintings.

Hundreds of middle and high school students are preparing for regional and state competitions this month in their shooting sports program. In Texarkana, the Arkansas High School Razorbacks trap team will advance 60 students to the regional competition in Lonoke, Ark. Head coach John Wilson started the team six years ago. The 68-year-old is a volunteer and he said the sport is run by people just like him. He said grants keep the program going.

Commentator Gary Joiner remembers the day that the surrender of Germany was announced. May 8, 1945, officially ending the European phase of World War II.

An iconic airplane of World War II, the B-17, will touch down at Shreveport Downtown Airport on Friday, May 3, and be open for tours and flights around Shreveport/Bossier.  It’s owned by the Gulf Coast Wing, a unit of the Commemorative Air Force. Historian Christopher Ebdon of Houston said this B-17 is one of three still in existence, and the only one still flying. It was used by the Navy for early warning radar. Ebdon said it came off the assembly line, along with another B-17, that is displayed on the flight line at Barksdale Air Force Base.

The national chimpanzee sanctuary in Keithville, La., is making accommodations to care for 111 newly-retired government-owned chimps that were used in medical research over the years. To date, Chimp Haven has taken in 50 of the chimps from the New Iberia Research Center. Chimp Haven President Cathy Willis Spraetz said the remaining 61 will not be relocated to the sanctuary until September.

“We will delay the transport of those chimpanzees until the fall because the brutal summer can be really devastating, particularly for an elderly chimpanzee," Spraetz said.