Two foreign Ph.D. students at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge were killed last night during what a university official described as a “home invasion” in an apartment building on the campus, according to the Web site of WDSU, a local television station. No suspects have been identified in the deaths, and in an announcement on its Web site, the university is urging people to “use caution when moving about campus this morning.”

The university said it had attempted to notify people on the campus about the homicides by sending emergency text messages, e-mail alerts, and voice-mail warnings. But according to another university announcement, not everyone who had signed up for the text-messaging system received a message. LSU said it was working with the system’s provider to deal with the problem.

In the aftermath of last April’s mass shooting at Virginia Tech, which led to criticism of how that institution had notified its campus about the emergency, many colleges have stepped up their alert systems. —Andrew Mytelka