High water everywhere: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it’s keeping a closer eye on Mississippi River levees as the river continues to rise. The twice-weekly checks are a precaution because the water is expected to remain high for a while. The corps says patrols began this week for levees along the east bank of the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge to Bohemia and on the west bank from Donaldsonville to Venice. It says inspections will continue until the water level drops below 11 feet at the Carrollton gauge. The current level there is 11.9 feet, and the National Weather Service says it’s expected to crest at 12.7 feet on Wednesday. A similar round of inspections ran from late December into early January.
Ambassador for preemies: Shaquille O’Neal will serve as the official March of Dimes’ 2012 March for Babies spokesperson, the March of Dimes Foundation has announced. In this role, O’Neal will participate in a satellite media tour, attend a March for Babies event, and engage his Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Learn more about the March of Babies here.
Twit for tat: A request for an injunction to stop Twitter users from alerting drivers to police roadblocks, radar traps and drunk-driving checkpoints could make Brazil the first country to take Twitter up on its plan to censor content at governments’ requests. Twitter unveiled plans last month that would allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws. “As far as we know, this is the first time that a country has attempted to take Twitter up on their country-by-country take down,” says Eva Galperin of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. The Associated Press has the full story here.
