The CenterPoint Energy Red River Balloon Rally, presented by the Louisiana Office of Tourism, is the appropriately long title of the almost week-long invasion of over 30 competitors hoping to float away with the championship of this year's U.S. Team Nationals.

The reputation of Shreveport-Bossier as a center for medicine and medical research was given a boost with the June 8 opening of the Center for Molecular Imaging and Therapy by Building our Regions Future (BRF).

Conflict seems to be a common theme recently, and the Prize Foundation is capitalizing on it with a battle of its own. It’s called Taco Wars, and it’s headed for downtown Shreveport on April 30 from noon to 8 p.m. in front of the historic Municipal Auditorium.

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Barbara and Alan Sugar bought the home in the mid-1980s while it was still under construction, according to their daughter and current owner, Ashley Sugar Bates. Her parents hired a local decorator, Cindy Miciotto, to add her design talents to the project.

It’s a twist on the unity ceremony known as the Blending of the Sand that has become a fixture of some traditional weddings where containers of different colored sand are combined to create a new mixture.

A score of raffle items will be available, including jewelry by Kendra Scott, gift cards to presenting sponsors Buff City Soap and Sun Tan City, a local restaurant gift card package, a Cuban Liquor package and the wildly popular “mystery mixed case of wine.

When spring arrives each year in the Ark-La-Tex, nature’s blossoms come out in all their profusion. So, too, do the young men and women who make up the Cotillion Club Court. The Cotillion Club aims to bring the metropolitan area’s population together to stimulate interest in the greater Shreveport area while boosting the local economy.