WASHINGTON — Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, charged by President Barack Obama with developing a plan for the long-term restoration of the Gulf states after the BP oil spill, heads back to the Gulf next week for town meetings in all five states — two a day in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and one in Texas.

GULFPORT — A salesman perhaps best known for his work with youth sports drowned Thursday night in an accident while boating with his wife.

HARRISON COUNTY — Sheriff Melvin Brisolara said the arrests of three teenagers suspected of burglarizing 23 vehicles in less than a week points to the importance of motorists locking their cars and storing valuables out of sight.

BILOXI — BP’s head of Gulf Coast Restoration and the company’s incoming chief executive officer said South Mississippians will soon notice fewer contract workers on Coast beaches, fewer Vessels of Opportunity boats in the Gulf and less boom protecting shores and marshes.

Woman accused of shoplifting

MOSS POINT — Two area high school seniors will be winging their way to Alaska to share oil-spill experiences and other global disasters.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Baton Rouge police say a seven-vehicle wreck — allegedly caused by a drunken driver — injured five people and blocked Interstate 10 for 70 minutes during rush hour.

BAY ST. LOUIS — The Hancock County Utility Authority is looking for options other than raising customers bills to pay off a $10.6 million debt.

HATTIESBURG — On Tuesday they arrive. Thirty human cadavers to be stored in immersion tanks on the William Carey University campus.

JACKSON — Mississippi mental health officials say they may have to shut down hospitals and treatment centers that serve hundreds of people unless their budget gets an infusion of at least $44 million next fiscal year.

WALKER, La. (AP) — Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputies arrested a man who passed out while allegedly trying to break into a mobile home where an 82-year-old woman was calling 911, crowbar in hand.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Supreme Court overturned a Macon County circuit judge’s order and cleared the way Friday for Gov. Bob Riley’s task force on gambling to raid Victoryland, the state’s largest electronic bingo casino.

BOONEVILLE (AP) — Democratic U.S. Rep. Travis Childers will formally kick off his re-election campaign in state’s First District on Saturday at Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville.

LAUREL — The cigarette bandits have struck again!

JACKSON — BP is giving a Louisiana charity $100 million to hand out to oil-rig workers struggling because of the federal moratorium on new deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the company said Friday.