A highly combustible situation: A small town in northwest Louisiana is continuing to be evacuated this morning and state police are starting a criminal investigation of a company after finding about 6 million pounds of explosive material used in howitzers they say was stored illegally. Boxes and small barrels of the M6 artillery propellant were found both outdoors and crammed into unauthorized buildings leased by Explo Systems Inc. at Camp Minden, the former Louisiana Army Ammunitions Plant, state police superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson says. About half the town’s 800 residents evacuated on Friday. The full story and an aerial photo of the explosives can be found here.
Head of the class? Louisiana Tech University may find out who its next president is going to be Tuesday. Les Guice, executive vice president and vice president for research and development at Louisiana Tech, has already been named the lone remaining finalist by a search committee. He will now be interviewed by the University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors on Tuesday in Baton Rouge, and the board may choose to name the university’s new president that day. More details are available in the full story here.
140 characters at a time: Benedict XVI, the pope known for authoring many volumes of theology, is now trying brevity—spreading the faith through his own Twitter account. The pontiff will tweet in eight languages starting Dec. 12 using his personal handle: @Pontifex, responding live to questions about faith during his weekly general audience, the Vatican announced today. Questions can be submitted to #askpontifex, and the pope will likely respond to three to five of those sent from around the world, the Vatican’s communications adviser Greg Burke says. Read the full story here.
Today’s poll question: Do you have a Twitter account?
