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LOS ANGELES — An animated short film about an adolescent gay couple has gone viral, roughly 8 million views on YouTube in just two days. “In a Heartbeat” follows an elementary school boy addressing his sexuality after falling in love with a male classmate. Filmmakers Beth David and Esteban Bravo released the film Monday online.

The short quickly began trending, gaining a particular following amongst LGBT advocates including singer Adam Lambert and actor Ashton Kutcher. The Human Rights Campaign posted the video on Twitter Tuesday afternoon and praised the film for its relatability. Hayley Miller, the organization’s senior digital media manager, said the film is a testament to saying, “Love is love.”

“We’ve all had a crush or a broken heart,” Miller wrote in an email. “Using no words, it validates this young boy’s experience and the way all LGBTQ youth should be embraced.” The filmmakers launched a Kickstarter campaign in November 2016 to fund the project, reaching the initial goal of $3,000 in three hours. A total of $14,000 was raised. “In a Heartbeat” is a semi-finalist for best animated domestic film at the 2017 Student Academy Awards. The filmmakers produced the short at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida as their senior thesis.

They did not respond to online messages seeking an interview. Paul Dergarabedian, comScore senior media analyst, said it’s not surprising the film found success through the crowd-funding website. Calling the short a picture-perfect scenario, he said the most successful Kickstarter campaigns go viral. “It shows the power of utilizing social media as a way to provide resources to realize people’s creative vision,” he said. Research shows young LGBT characters and storylines are way underrepresented in both short and feature length films. In 2016, only three out of 4,544 speaking characters in the top 100 grossing films were LGBT teenagers or younger, according to a report released Monday.

There was just one out of 4,370 in 2015, according to data compiled by the Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Project administrator Marc Choueiti said younger LGBT characters are also rarely seen in short films. In a separate study, the researchers evaluated films screening at Lunafest, a national short film festival. They found that between 2002 and 2015, 115 short films had four characters who identified themselves as LGBT teenagers.

Lead researcher Stacy L. Smith said shorts often showcase different worldviews than in top grossing full-length features. Smith said “In A Heartbeat” is an outlier along with “The Imitation Game,” “Moonlight” and the Freeform show “The Fosters” in showcasing experiences of LGBT youth. “People aren’t seeing rich, complex and compelling LGBT youth,” she said. “The short should be applauded for representing the world we live in.”

—Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2REkk9SCRn0

Two men were arrested Thursday on drug charges after St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a suspicious person complaint at Plantation Inn in Bayou Vista.

One of the suspects was also discovered to have allegedly struck a woman in the face several times, Sheriff Mark Hebert said in a news release.

—Jim Businelle, 58, of Carol Road in Bayou Vista, was arrested at 12:37 a.m. Thursday on charges of domestic abuse battery, obstruction of justice, possession of MDMA, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and vagrancy.

—Donald Rock Jr., 40, of Louisa Street in Morgan City, was arrested at 12:37 a.m. Thursday on charges of possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and vagrancy.

Deputies responded to a report of a suspicious person at the Plantation Inn on Universe Road in Bayou Vista. While searching the area, a deputy located a man matching the suspicious person’s description walking in the Place Norman Shopping Center near U.S. 90.

The deputy approached the person and observed the man reach into his pocket, take out several items, and discard them on the ground, Hebert said. The deputy stopped the person, identified him as Businelle, and retrieved the objects he dropped, including ecstasy pills and a small bag of marijuana, the sheriff said.

Another deputy located a person sitting inside a parked vehicle at the motel and identified him as Rock. Rock was wanted on a warrant for failure to appear on the charge of attempted possession of cocaine.

Based on information collected by both deputies, the Morgan City Police Department’s K-9 Unit was contacted for assistance. The K-9 indicated an odor response on Rock’s vehicle and deputies located marijuana and pipes used for smoking illicit drugs, Hebert said.

As the investigation unfolded, deputies developed information that a battery occurred at the motel. They found evidence that Businelle repeatedly struck a female victim in the face, Hebert said. Businelle and Rock were jailed with no bail set.

Hebert reported responding to 34 complaints in the parish:

—Alvin Robinson Jr., 43, of Clothilde Street in Morgan City, was additionally charged at 1:08 p.m. Wednesday on a warrant for failure to appear on the charge of angling without a license.

Robinson was already incarcerated at the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center when a correctional officer received the active warrant. No bail is set.

—Albert Soto, 57, of Marin Lane in Patterson, was arrested at 4:28 p.m. Wednesday on a charge of theft. A detective investigated the theft of an air compressor motor from outside of a business in Patterson. Working with the business, the detective developed information about a suspect vehicle and located the vehicle at a home in Patterson.

Through investigation, the detective collected evidence that Soto stole the item. The detective located Soto at a business in Morgan City.

After speaking with Soto at the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office in Morgan City, he was transported to the St. Mary Parish Law Enforcement Center for booking and released on $3,000 bail. The detective recovered the stolen air compressor motor from Soto’s residence and will return it to the business.

—Herman Delco, 35, of Odile Lane in Amelia, was arrested at 2:04 p.m. Wednesday on a warrant for unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling.

A deputy assigned to the Warrants Section located Delco at the St. Mary Parish Courthouse in Franklin. Delco was jailed with no bail set.

Morgan City Police Chief James Blair reported the following arrests:

—Darrell Short, 56, of Railroad Avenue in Morgan City, was arrested at 7:07 p.m. Wednesday on charges of driving under suspension, speeding 61 mph in a 45 mph zone and open container in a motor vehicle.

Patrol officers observed a vehicle being operated in the area of La. 182 at a speed of 61 mph in a 45 mph zone. A stop was initiated, and Short, the driver, had a suspended driver’s license, Blair said.

Short was also found to be in possession of an open alcoholic beverage in the motor vehicle. Short was jailed.

—Joseph Jessie, 48, of Utah Street in Berwick, was arrested at 5:05 a.m. Thursday on charges of driving under suspension and improper lane usage.

Patrol officers observed a vehicle being operated in the area of Railroad Avenue swerving from its lane of travel onto the shoulder, almost leaving the roadway. A stop was initiated, and Jessie, the driver, had a suspended driver’s license, Blair said. Jessie was jailed.

Patterson Police Chief Patrick LaSalle reported the following arrests:

—Henry Quentin, 31, of La. 182 in Centerville, was arrested at 4 p.m. Wednesday on a charge of violation of protective orders. Quentin was jailed with no bail set yet.

—Lamonta Thomas, 21, of Mike Drive in Patterson, was arrested at 1:55 p.m. Wednesday on charges of theft by shoplifting, possession of marijuana first offense and contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Thomas was jailed with no bail set.

—Calvin Walter Griffin Jr., 41, of Gina Street in Patterson, was arrested at 10:26 p.m. Wednesday on a charge of public intoxication. Cash bail was set at $413.

Berwick Police Chief James Richard reported no arrests.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — There’s an unwanted record in the Gulf of Mexico: This year’s “dead zone ,” a largely human-caused phenomenon where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life, is the biggest ever measured.

The low-oxygen, or hypoxic , zone covers 8,776 square miles (22,720 square kilometers) — about the size of New Jersey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday. The area is more than 3 percent larger than the 2002 dead zone, the previous record.

“We predicted it would be large, and it is large,” said scientist Nancy Rabalais, who has been measuring the dead zone since 1985.

She said the area was actually larger, but the July mapping cruise had to stop before reaching the western edge.

“The structure of the water column was changing, so I’m not sure how much larger it would have been,” said Rabalais, of Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium .

Rabalais said winds from the west and southwest apparently had also compressed the eastern half of the low-oxygen area closer to shore than she’d ever seen it. Without those winds, it probably would have covered a broader area, she said.

Studies in the spring had predicted the third-largest dead zone ever — nearly 8,200 square miles (21,200 sq. kilometers).

Those studies are based on examining nitrogen and phosphorus in the Mississippi River. The nutrients, which get carried down from the river, feed plankton blooms that die and sink to the bottom, where their decay uses oxygen.

The smallest measurements were during or after droughts: 1,696 square miles (4,393 square kilometers) in 2000 and 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) in 1988.

“This large dead zone size shows that nutrient pollution, primarily from agriculture and developed land runoff in the Mississippi River watershed is continuing to affect the nation’s coastal resources and habitats in the Gulf,” NOAA said in a news release.

It noted that a NOAA-funded study led by Duke University found that the Gulf dead zone may slow shrimp growth, leading to fewer large shrimp, causing short-term disruption in the shrimp market.

A national action plan calls for reducing such runoff so that the dead zone shrinks by two-thirds, to 1,950 square miles (5,000 square kilometers) by 2035.

That would require cutting the amount of nitrogen flowing into the river by 59 percent, according to a study published online Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“While there are undoubtedly significant lag times between action on the land and changes in loads, river nitrate concentrations have not declined since the 1980s,” Donald Scavia of the University of Michigan and his coauthors wrote.

He and Rabalais said small-scale projects have shown that runoff can be reduced by practices that include planting cover crops on fields between seasons for corn or soybeans, reducing the amount of fertilizer and using feedstock other than corn to produce biofuels.

“It is time to ask what is preventing more extensive implementation of some or all of these strategies,” Scavia wrote.

James A. Williams, 56, a native of Berwick and resident of Franklin, died Saturday, July 29, 2017, at his residence.

Visitation will be Saturday at Jones Funeral Home in Franklin from 8-10 a.m. Visitation will resume at First United Methodist of Berwick from 11 a.m. until services at 1 p.m. Burial will follow in the Berwick Cemetery.

He is survived by his mother, his companion, a son, a daughter, two sisters, three grandchildren, and a host of other relatives.

He was preceded in death by his wife, his father, maternal grandparents and paternal grandparents.

Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.