Ramon Antonia Vargas, a reporter at The Times-Picayune, rolled out of bed at 5 a.m. on April 21 to check the local news and came across the press release from the Coast Guard. The press release said the previous night an oil drilling rig, known as the MODU Deepwater Horizon, had exploded and caught fire at 10 p.m. in the Gulf of Mexico, about 45 miles southeast of Venice, La.

“It was about a minute after I had woken up and I had already made my first call to the Coast Guard,” said Vargas.

A concerned community of St. Bernard Parish residents, fishermen and local officials attended a town hall meeting between BP representatives on Monday night at the Frederick J. Sigur Civic Center.

Ryan Reynolds will play the lead character of the 70-year-old comic series, Hal Jordan, a test pilot charged with defending the universe. Blake Lively, Tim Robbins, Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett and Mark Strong are also in the cast.

Visitors to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie on Friday received more than an education about the marine research center. They also got to hear the state’s governor explain why they could not go to a popular nearby beach.

Thick, brown oil continued to make its way along the Louisiana shore, touching southeast Louisiana parishes Wednesday, according to satellite and high altitude images.