At 4:02 a.m. on Sunday, units from St. Tammany Fire Protection District No. 12 were notified of a structure fire at 14115 South Lakeshore Drive in the Lake Ramsey subdivision north of Covington.

Responding units found an outer deck and boat slip at the structure heavily engulfed in flames. One of the residents had sustained burns to his feet while trying to fight the blaze with a garden hose. Firefighters quickly began battling the blaze and successfully prevented it from spreading to the residence itself.

The Richard Exnicios Campaign this morning launched www.ElectCandice.com, designed to reveal the truth about Candice Bates Anderson and why she should be considered a danger to the future of New Orleans.

The St. Tammany Economic Development Foundation today released its quarterly Trends Report, detailing economic indicators in the parish for the second quarter of 2010.

Although unemployment reached 5.6 percent in 2Q10, compared to 3.7 percent in 2Q09, the number of employed St. Tammany Parish residents reached 107,114, an increase of 1.7 percent over 2Q09. There were 21 more unemployment claims filed in 2Q10 than in 2Q09, an increase of 15.5 percent. St. Tammany’s unemployment rate continues to be well below the state and national rates of 7.2 and 9.5 percent, respectively.

CRIMEFIGHTERS, Inc., the state’s largest victims’ rights organization, held a debate Saturday evening for candidates in a number of upcoming races. Following the event, the Executive Board issued the following endorsements:

Last spring, St. Tammany Fire Protection District No. 12 received a beam from the World Trade Center in New York, a relic of the terrorist attacks that killed several thousand – including more than 100 firefighters – on 9/11/01. Now, the Fire District wants to utilize the beam to form a permanent memorial to fallen firefighters everywhere.