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The Patterson Garden Club held its meeting April 23 at the home of Treasurer Iris Roy.
Member Ginger Griffin presented a program “Mixing Scents the Natural Way” using citrus, thyme, mint and vanilla.
President Evelyn Estay conducted the business meeting. Horticulture hints were highlighted, then Earth Day recycling was suggested.
Members took time during the meeting to remember the late Lennie Jackson, a long-time club member, who died in April.
Co-hostesses for the meeting were Donna Bates Ruffin and Lisa Wilson. The half-and-half winner was Daisy LeBlanc.
The next meeting is May 21. New members are welcome to join.

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook is adding a “sleep” mode to its Messenger Kids service to let parents limit when their kids can use it.
It’s the latest concession that tech companies are making as critics question whether they should be targeting kids at all. Among their chief concerns: The effects on kids are not yet known, and companies might not have children’s best interests at heart when tech for kids is such a lucrative market.
Rather than kill the services completely, as some critics want, Facebook, Amazon and Google are mostly tinkering at the edges. That leaves open the underlying questions of whether their products truly serve a need for the youngest set and if they are good for them.
Here’s a look at the changes announced this week:
FACEBOOK’S MESSENGER KIDS
In December, Facebook created a kids-friendly version of its Messenger app. It has no ads and gives parents plenty of controls over whom their children can chat with. The thinking was that while the regular apps are designed for people 13 or over, younger kids were on it anyway. Facebook saw Messenger Kids as a way to give the younger set a safer option.
—The changes: Parents can now specify the times kids aren’t allowed on — either as a one-time restriction or something recurring, such as after 9 p.m. every school night. While the app is in sleep mode, kids will get a message when they open it telling them so, and they won’t be able to use it.
—The shortcomings: Critics say that Messenger Kids isn’t responding to a need, but rather creating one. “It appeals primarily to children who otherwise would not have their own social media accounts,” states a letter signed by 100 child development experts and advocates. Merely offering time controls falls short of killing the app completely.
YOUTUBE KIDS
Since 2015, the Google-owned service has had a child-oriented app, YouTube Kids, described as a “safer” experience for finding “Peppa Pig” episodes or user-generated videos of people unboxing toys.
Nonetheless, the company has been under fire for not vetting out computer-generated, sometimes-disturbing video, such as your favorite cartoon characters having painful dental surgery — or worse.
The nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has also asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether YouTube’s data collection and advertising practices violate federal child privacy rules.
—The changes: YouTube said that it is overhauling its kids app so parents can limit video to those vetted by humans, rather than computers. With this option, kids can watch only a selection of children’s programming such as “Sesame Street” and PBS Kids.
—The shortcomings: The old automated system is on by default, meaning parents need to actively choose the human-only option. And YouTube is continuing to show ads on its kid-focused service.
It also doesn’t help that many kids (with or without their parents) use the main YouTube site for video, meaning they miss out on both human and automated controls for kids.
AMAZON’S ALEXA
Sure, it’s fun to ask Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant to fart — as many kids have discovered after parents buy an Alexa-enabled Echo speaker. But parents and childhood experts have been wondering what effects smart speakers may have on young kids, who may not quite understand whether Alexa is human and maybe learn from barking orders at her that barking orders is OK.
—The changes: Alexa will soon thank kids for shouting out questions “nicely” if they say “please,” the online retail giant announced Wednesday. The new response is part of a kid-friendly update that’s coming soon, giving parents more control over the voice assistant. Adults can also set Alexa to go silent at bedtime or block music with explicit lyrics.
—The shortcoming: This may be appeasing parents just enough to buy more Amazon products. After all, the company did not get to where it is today by missing out on new business opportunities. Amazon said it will now sell an $80 Echo Dot aimed at children, complete with colorful cases and a two-year warranty (regular Echo Dots are $50).

BATON ROUGE (AP) — Louisiana's spring shrimp season will open Monday in a portion of state inshore waters.
The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission convened a special meeting Thursday to set the date for the opening in waters from the eastern shore of South Pass of the Mississippi River westward to the western shore of Freshwater Bayou Canal. The season opens at 6 a.m.
Department biologists have been monitoring the waters since March to develop recommendations for the season's spring dates and provided the commission with projections of when a minimum of 50 percent of the inshore brown shrimp population sampled reach sizes of 100 count per pound or larger.
The commission will consider the opening dates for the remaining state inshore waters for the 2018 spring shrimp season at its May 3 meeting.

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana’s ongoing legislative session offers a reminder that trying to predict lawmakers’ behavior or votes can be a tricky endeavor.
Proposals that initially seemed like long-shots have gained unexpected momentum, while other issues that could seem like slam-dunk measures for the Louisiana Legislature have faltered since the session began March 12 or at least slowed in their progress of becoming law.
Bills to prohibit abortion after 15 weeks, lessen licensing regulations and loosen gun laws would seem likely to gain easy traction, only to find more difficult paths for winning support.
Meanwhile, in a state struggling with repeated financial woes, lawmakers have embraced measures to expand the TOPS free college tuition program. And a long-shot proposal to do away with Louisiana’s rare-in-the-nation system that allows divided juries to settle felony cases has steadily edged ahead in a surprise even acknowledged by its supporters.
Advancing - and stalled - bills provide a gentle reminder not to place bets on expectations of legislative action. Those prognostications are likely to be upended somewhere along the way. Louisiana lawmakers eagerly have passed measures to restrict access to abortion over the years. But Democratic Sen. John Milkovich has had a tougher road winning support for his proposal to enact a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, similar to a law enacted in Mississippi. He’s seen little support from traditional anti-abortion groups.
Instead, those opposed to abortion have raised concerns that Milkovich’s bill could undermine existing Louisiana laws against abortion. Others have questioned the need to embroil the state in a costly lawsuit when Mississippi already is litigating its law.
Before the Senate passed Milkovich’s ban, senators added a provision that the prohibition could only take effect if a federal appeals court upholds Mississippi’s law. Milkovich didn’t support the rewrite, which heads next to the House for consideration.
Also running into pushback is Republican Rep. Julie Emerson’s effort to lessen Louisiana’s professional licensing requirements, which are among the country’s most restrictive. Talk of cutting regulations was high heading into session, with Gov. John Bel Edwards pushing the issue as well.
Much of that agenda has been scaled back, however, and some bills have been rejected as opponents say the regulations protect public safety and health.
Winning House passage and pending in the Senate are two bills of Emerson’s deregulation package: a bid to end florist licensing and a proposal to create an annual review process of regulations governing individual professions.
Gun measures prompted by the massacre at a Florida high school also have faced resistance. It wasn’t surprising Democrats’ efforts to enact gun-control provisions were shunned in the majority-GOP Legislature, but nearly all measures offered by Republicans to loosen firearm provisions also have been rejected, with only a few still under consideration.
And while bills to rein in the TOPS program stalled as expected, measures to expand TOPS in the 2024-25 budget year are edging along, despite questions about whether lawmakers will pay full freight for students already in the nearly $300 million tuition program.
One would create a new award for TOPS students who attend community college, get an associate degree and enroll in a four-year university. The other would offer TOPS awards to students who weren’t initially eligible when they started a four-year university but meet certain criteria after two years in college.
Supporters of the bills, sponsored by Republican Sen. Mack “Bodi” White and Democratic Sen. Wesley Bishop, say the costs are relatively small and the benefits of helping students outweigh them. Financial estimates show the expansions together would cost $1.1 million in their second year, likely growing over time.
Perhaps one of the most surprising proposals to gain momentum this session is a measure by Sen. J.P. Morrell, a New Orleans Democrat, to strike a Jim Crow-era law and require unanimous jury verdicts in felony cases.
Louisiana’s one of only two states that allow some criminal trials to be resolved when 10 out of 12 jurors agree on a person’s guilt. Morrell’s Senate-backed constitutional amendment still faces a high hurdle, needing two-thirds support in the House to advance to voters on a ballot.
Melinda Deslatte has covered Louisiana politics for The Associated Press since 2000. Follow her at http://twitter.com/melindadeslatte