A Haughton man faces aggravated battery charges for spanking his children with a belt. Arndra Lee Stephens, 35, of the 100 block of Reba Lane, also is accused of hitting the mother of the children as she attempted to step in, said Ed Baswell, spokesman for Bossier sheriff's office. Deputies say Stephens got a belt and began to strike the children - ages 5, 10 and 11 - for playing with his cell phone. One child was hit in the face, another one was hit on the left arm and a third child was hit on the leg, Baswell said. Stephens was booked into the Bossier Maximum Security Facility on four counts of aggravated battery and three counts of cruelty to a juvenile.

The Shreveport Urban Policy Summit will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Little Union Baptist Church, 1847 Milam St.

Registration for 2008 National Night Out parties in Shreveport ends today.

GONZALES, La. (AP) _ A man armed with a rifle apparently committed suicide Thursday, ending a police standoff that lasted hours after he shot and killed his estranged wife. Bobby Dickerson, 49, fatally wounded his 32-year-old wife, Consuelo, about noon outside his home in Gonzales before he went inside and blocked atempts to arrest him. Police Chief Bill Landry said that when negotiations broke down with Dickerson around 6:30 p.m., police and Ascension Parish sheriff's deputies fired nonflammable tear gas rounds into Dickerson's home. When no activity was detected inside, authorities entered the house and found Dickerson dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, Landry said. Consuelo Dickerson was shot to death as she went to the residence to collect some belongings, said June Mackie, of Sorrento, who identified herself as Dickerson's aunt. The victim and her husband had been separated for about three months.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Keryn Goynes has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for lies she told to a Baton Rouge credit union and Port Allen bank in order to obtain more than $2.8 million in business loans. Federal officials say one of those loans resulted in a loss of more than $500,000 to American Gateway Bank in Port Allen. Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard L. Bourgeois Junior asked U.S. District Judge Ralph E. Tyson to limit Goynes’ prison time to four or five years because she helped obtain a conviction against another defendant, Lonnie Fetter. But Tyson noted that the 49-year-old Goynes has two previous bank fraud convictions. Tyson ordered her to pay $505,008 in restitution to American Gateway.

Ray McDaniel's 18-year-old daughter was raped 10 days after moving into a nursing home — by a registered sex offender who also lived there. No one was required to tell McDaniel that the 43-year-old sex offender was a resident of the nursing home where his daughter was admitted in 2005 because she is mentally retarded and has schizophrenia. The resident who attacked her pleaded guilty and is serving three years in prison. His daughter's case led to an Ohio legislative proposal to require nursing homes to post notices if sex offenders live there. The bill has been adopted by the Ohio House and awaits a Senate hearing. Every state, McDaniel says, should require facilities to "tell people if there is a sex offender in this nursing home." Ohio is one of several places reviewing notification procedures for sex offenders living in long-term care facilities. The issue is drawing attention as overall nursing home populations drop and some facilities see an influx of residents with mental illnesses, says Beverley Laubert, president of the National Association of State Long Term Care Ombudsman Programs, which help protect patient rights. While the majority of nursing home residents are older than 65, it's not unusual for younger people with medical problems to live in long-term care. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Washington | California | Florida | United States Senate | Minnesota | Illinois | Tampa | Hillsborough County | Health Care Association | McDaniel | Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry | Ohio House This week, the House small business investigations subcommittee in Washington, D.C., held a hearing on sexual offenders in the long-term care facilities. "As the daughter of a mother in a nursing home, I'm very concerned about this issue," says Rep. Mary Fallin, R-Okla., the subcommittee's top Republican. She is considering whether legislation is needed to require law enforcement and social service agencies to inform long-term care facilities about sex offenders. Legislation passed Among recent actions to increase notification: • In June, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry signed a law that directs the state health department to seek proposals from private firms to open a long-term care facility just for sex offenders. • Last year, Hillsborough County, Fla., which includes Tampa, barred sex offenders from long-term care facilities unless their status is disclosed to the facility, which must also separate them from other residents. • From 2005-06, several states, including California, Illinois, Minnesota and Oklahoma, passed laws requiring that long-term care homes receive notice about sex offenders who are admitted to their facilities. Sex offenders become nursing home residents in several ways. Some are discharged there from prisons if they need long-term care. Others have lived in communities for years but become homeless, aged or need medical oversight, so families or social service agencies admit them to care facilities. A U.S. Government Accountability Office report in 2006 found at least 700 registered sex offenders living in long-term care facilities, many of them far younger than most other residents. On any given day, about 1.5 million people live in long-term care facilities, reports the American Health Care Association, the industry's trade group. Many nursing home operators were hesitant to tell residents and their families that some patients had criminal pasts, in part because they feared violating federal privacy rules, the GAO report says. What the law leaves out Federal law requires every state to register sex offenders — and to release information on their whereabouts when deemed necessary to protect the public. The law does not specify how — or to whom — states must give notice. Some states require notification of schools, churches or neighbors when a registered sex offender moves into an area. Fewer specify that nursing homes be informed when a sex offender is admitted. The GAO report looked at laws in eight states and found half did not require notification of nursing home operators or residents. Rep. Courtney Combs, a Republican who introduced the Ohio bill, says nursing home residents should have the same notification rights as people living in their homes. "If Grandma lives in a nursing home, she would never know there was a sexual offender next to her," Combs says. Wes Bledsoe, an advocate for better notification, says he documented more than 50 crimes allegedly committed by 44 sex offenders and other convicted criminals living in long-term care facilities from 2002 to 2006, including sexual assaults, rapes and four murders. "There are still a lot of people who have no clue this is happening," Bledsoe says. His Oklahoma-based group, A Perfect Cause, advocates for background checks on residents and public notification when a sex offender is admitted to a facility. Not all residents with criminal pasts are going to cause problems, Laubert says. "The degree of risk and the degree of the problem will be related to how well the facility is managed."

Special Olympics will hold its state aquatics competition in Shreveport and its Unified Bowling event in Bossier City on Saturday. In Unified Sports, athletes without intellectual disabilities are partnered with Special Olympics athletes to compete. The program was introduced in the mid-1980s to provide more challenge for higher ability athletes and to promote equality and inclusion. Unified Bowling will be held at Holiday Lanes, 3316 Old Minden Road in Bossier City starting at 9 a.m. Saturday. The state aquatics competition will start at 9 a.m. Saturday at the LSUS Physical Education Building. The events are free and open to the public. The organization welcomes volunteers. Volunteers can register for both events at 8 a.m. Saturday. Call Renee Starret at (318) 218-7547 for more information about volunteering with Special Olympics.

"The Wiggles" Discounted tickets available at the Barksdale tickets and tours office in the arts and crafts center. Event is 6:30 p.m. July 30, CenturyTel, CenturyTel Center, 2000 CenturyTel Center Drive, Bossier City. Call 456-1866.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ Here are the winning numbers selected Thursday in the Louisiana Lottery: Pick 3 3-9-6 (three, nine, six) Maximum prize $500 Pick 4 6-7-2-4 (six, seven, two, four) Maximum prize $5,000

A northwest Louisiana native and more than 20 of his fraternity brothers will stop in Shreveport early this afternoon as part of their cross-country bicycle trip for charity.