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A federal grand jury is investigating whether city vendors gave former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gratuities ranging from plane tickets to materials and equipment for his family's granite-countertop business and also helped the firm land an exclusive installation deal with a retailing giant while Nagin was in office, according to several sources close to the probe. The federal probe is zeroing in on Nagin along three parallel tracks: luxury travel and home maintenance provided by city technology vendors; a granite countertop installation contract that Nagin's family company got from The Home Depot; and the possibility that at least two...

Testing a re-election theme, President Barack Obama is telling donors during a fundraising rich tour of three western states that the country is suffering from an economic crisis and from a political crisis. "People are crying out for action," he says. Pointing to elements of his $447 billion jobs plan rejected by Republican lawmakers, Obama said they would likely linger as campaign issues in 2012. "This is the fight that we're going to have right now, and I suspect this is the fight that we're going to have to have over the next year," Obama told about 240 donors at...

No, this wasn’t meant to be a joke. Although many believe the 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina was a colossal failure at every level of government, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin appeared on MSNBC on Friday to offer preparedness advice for those in Hurricane Irene’s path. Speaking with Martin Bashir, Nagin gave government agencies and their leaders high marks for their preparations. But he said only time will tell if the public follows their instructions.

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. — President Barack Obama is aiming to underscore his commitment to a region weary of calamity as he travels to New Orleans on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Obama ends his Martha's Vineyard vacation Sunday and heads to the Gulf, five years to the day from when Katrina roared ashore in Louisiana. Eighty percent of New Orleans was flooded when the storm tore through protective levees.

CHICAGO, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- An Illinois woman is suing a McDonald's restaurant for burns her daughter received when hot chocolate spilled on her leg, court records show. Vicki LaRocco of Northgate filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging the lid on a hot chocolate she ordered at a McDonald's drive-through window in Schiller Park was improperly secured and spilled on her daughter, causing "severe pain and scarring," the Chicago Tribune said Thursday. The suit also said McDonald's should have known the hot chocolate was too hot to drink. McDonald's declined comment on the suit, other than to say...

Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced Wednesday he is asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to send federal resources to help reform the New Orleans Police Department. Landrieu, standing beside more than a dozen community leaders, said at a news conference that he wants the Justice Department to come in and do an assessment of the NOPD and the criminal justice system. Landrieu said he anticipates that the federal assessment would eventually result in a consent decree, a move that could mean federal oversight for the troubled department. "It is clear that nothing short of a complete transformation is necessary and essential...

UPDATE, 3:20 p.m.: We’ve got so much information coming in on this story now, it’s hard to keep track of it all. So rather than craft some sort of elegant narrative of this thing, we’ll stick to bullet points. - Nobody from the New Orleans Police Department talked to Allee Bautsch at any length until Thursday of last week. - The picture at left, of which we now have several shots, is of an individual who, if he isn’t the prime suspect in the beating of Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown, sure ought to be. Bautsch told me via e-mail...

This is a copy of the police report on the Bautsch/Brown assault. The narrative begins on page 4 of the pdf. file (be patient - it takes a moment to load). The report strongly suggests that the white male perpetrators were part of the protest that evening outside of Brennan's restaurant.

Louisiana GOP fundraiser Alexandra "Allee" Bautsch and her boyfriend, Joe Brown, talk with a police officer about the savage attack on them by leftist protesters as they left a GOP fundraising event on April 9, 2010. Photo by Jack A. Neal The scandal of the aftermath of the vicious political attack on Alexandra "Allee" Bautsch, the chief fundraiser for Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and her boyfriend, Joe Brown, as they left a Republican fundraiser attended by three GOP governors (Jindal, Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi) April 9th has taken a sickening turn as a report has...

Radical anarchists and Leftwing extremists, spreading a message of violence and hate, marched directly to the scene of the crime. Their target: Gov. Bobby Jindal, his “rich” friends, and Republicans. Is it just mere coincidence, then, that the victims of this assault were Republican employees of Gov. Jindal attending an expensive fundraiser, at the exact location, and at the exact time, that the protest took place? Is it just mere coincidence that the perpetrators purposely targeted the victims and shouted insults at them concerning “money,” as Allee’s mother claims, and their being “nicely dressed,” as the police report states? I...

…you have to more or less suspend disbelief not to recognize that. But based on various agendas, it seems like that’s what’s going on. Beyond the reactions of left-wing journals, when those sources have reacted to this story at all, we notice that Allahpundit at HotAir.com and Michelle Malkin have both gone out of their way to disparage the idea that the attack had to do with politics. The attack was political. But, and I think I’ve been clear on this and hopefully in this post I’ll be even clearer, while it was political it doesn’t appear that it was...

Walter Abbott, doing the reporting that most others in the blogosphere and the mainstream media refuse to do, has broken a story at the Lincoln Parish News Online that the host of the Republican governors fundraiser which Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's chief fundraiser Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend Joe Brown had attended before they were brutally attacked just blocks away says that he and his party fled the fundraiser after twice being targeted by protesters:In an interview this afternoon, Louisiana GOP Chair Roger Villere, Jr. told Lincoln Parish News Online he and several others were pursued by protesters last Friday...

Last Friday night, Allee Bautsch, the chief fundraiser for Louisiana's Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, was violently assaulted, along with her boyfriend, outside of a famed New Orleans restaurant. Initial reports on the incident were murky, but Yahoo! News has learned that the attacks appear to have been politically motivated.

I just had a very interesting and somewhat confusing conversation with New Orleans Police Department Public Information Officer Bob Young. Mr. Young confirmed to me that the New Orleans police had indeed taken statements from both of the victims, Jindal aide Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend, Joe Young. He confirmed that in those statements, the victims reported that their assailants had indeed hurled “insults” at them, and the “insults” were, and I quote, “of a political nature”. Describing the entire attack, he went on to say “it was of a political nature”. I then repeated what he told me, and...

<p>Our betters in the blogosphere and mainstream media have spent the afternoon tut-tutting those of us who suspect a political angle to the savage attack on Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's chief fundraiser Allee Bautsch and her boyfriend Joe Brown last Friday night after a fundraising dinner in New Orleans.</p>

VICTIMS of Hurricane Katrina from Mississippi are seeking to sue carbon gas-emitting multinationals for helping fuel global warming and boosting the devastating 2005 storm, legal documents showed. The class action suit brought by residents from southern Mississippi, which was ravaged by hurricane-force winds and driving rains, was first filed just weeks after the August 2005 storm hit. "The plaintiffs allege that defendants' operation of energy, fossil fuels, and chemical industries in the United States caused the emission of greenhouse gasses that contributed to global warming," say the documents, seen by AFP. The increase in global surface air and water temperatures...

New Orleans police Tuesday night were investigating the shooting of two women in the 300 block of Bourbon Street.

Making his first visit to Louisiana since becoming the nation's 44th chief executive, President Barack Obama told a spirited crowd at the University of New Orleans on Thursday that he will help build a stronger Gulf Coast than the one Hurricane Katrina and broken levees wrecked four years ago. "I promise you this -- whether it's me coming down here or my Cabinet or other members of my administration -- we will not forget about New Orleans," Obama said. "We are going to keep on working. . . . Together, we will rebuild this region, and we will build it...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, who accused former President George W. Bush of leading a government "that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns," is hearing directly from New Orleans residents who have struggled to rebuild their city since the 2005 hurricane season. Obama arrives in New Orleans Thursday on his first presidential trip to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. About 1,600 people were killed in Louisiana and Mississippi by Hurricane Katrina, which caused $40 billion in damages and displaced 1 million people from their homes.

A Florida contractor hired by the Housing Authority of New Orleans to oversee its finances embezzled more than $900,000 during the past three years, according to charges filed Monday by the U.S. attorney's office. Separate public records show that during the same time period the fiscal manager, Elias Castellanos, 43, bought a $1.6 million mansion in Davie, Fla., just north of Miami, and five late-model cars -- including a Lamborghini Gallardo worth more than $200,000, a Ferrari F430, a Porsche 911 and two Mercedes-Benzes. Federal prosecutors charged Castellanos with one count of embezzlement Monday through a bill of information, indicating...

New Orleans is once again the nation's murder capital after briefly losing the title. Fresh FBI statistics show that with 64 killings per 100,000 people in 2008, New Orleans had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation, well ahead of second-place St. Louis, which had 47 murders per 100,000 people.

A 24-year-old man was arrested in connection with Saturday's execution-style triple murder in Terrytown, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office announced.Dayshawn Young, of 916 East Monterey Court, Apartment D, in Terrytown, was arrested after investigators identified Young as one of the two suspects believed to be involved in the killing, said Col. John Fortunato, JPSO spokesman. He was booked on three counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted first degree murder. The identity of the second suspect in the shooting remains unknown to investigators, Fortunato said. Four Overstreet, 6, Domonique Sterling, 19, and Sterling's 23-month-old son, Robert Claiborne...

<p>TERRYTOWN, La. - Gunmen in dark clothes kicked down an apartment door in a troubled New Orleans-area neighborhood and opened fire, killing two children and a woman, authorities said.</p> <p>A third child was in critical condition after the shooting around 4 a.m., and investigators were searching for suspects, said Jefferson Parish Sheriff's spokesman Col. John Fortunato.</p>

Throughout the week, police detectives and on-edge residents were looking for a man impersonating a police officer who burglarized and threatened residents in three home invasions, forcing some of them to strip. On Friday morning, New Orleans police announced they had found their man, and it turns out he wasn't an impostor. Rather, he is a rogue rookie cop who used his badge while off-duty to victimize Hispanic men and women in the Mid-City area, authorities said.Darrius Clipps, 36, a patrolman of almost one year, appeared for work as scheduled Thursday evening, showing up at roll call for his night...

WASHINGTON (AP) — FEMA is investigating allegations of cronyism and other misconduct at its hurricane recovery office in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS – Six people, including a one-year-old boy, were injured on the parade route in a shooting on Fat Tuesday, according to spokesman EMS spokesman Jeb Tate.

Actually, that would be Chocolate City II. Spike Lee is heading to "Chocolate City" for the Inauguration of the post-racial president:

Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust. The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla. “Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed,” Miller told the survivors. “They died from abject neglect,” retorted community activist Leah Hodges. “We left body bags behind... The people of New Orleans were stranded in a flood and were allowed to die.” Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said...

As we thankfully near the end of the Nagin administration, everything seems to be falling apart at City Hall. Therefore, it is interesting that there are sources reporting this morning that Ray Nagin is being considered for the position of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the new Obama administration. According to one leading Democrat, Nagin is on the short list for the job because of “his experience leading New Orleans during the post-Katrina period.” While there has been significant rebuilding in New Orleans including a major revitalization of the public housing developments in the past three year, there...

Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest. Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation’s first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence. Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following...

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city beginning 8 a.m. Sunday morning but urged residents to consider escaping "the mother of all storms" before then. New Orleans residents leave Friday via Interstate 10 westbound ahead of Hurricane Gustav. 1 of 3 more photos » "You need to be scared," Nagin said. "You need to be concerned and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now. This is the storm of the century."

The Mayor has been jailed do to violating the terms of his bond. He went to Windsor without permission and the Judge Giles had him sent to jail

Census Bureau says New Orleans is the fastest-growing large city in the nation, recovering from being wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After being pummeled by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans is showing signs of recovery - ranking as the fastest-growing large city in the nation, according to a government report released Thursday. The Census Bureau said New Orleans' population rose 13.8%, to 239,124, in the year ended July 1, 2007. That was a faster growth rate than any other city with a population of 100,000 or more.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin refutes the findings of the latest UNO Quality of Life Study that show his approval rating has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent. "I think UNO needs a little more money in its budget. The sample size was pretty small, as well as, the margin of error was at 10 percent in Orleans Parish, which is unusual for somebody trying to assess the approval rating of a political leader. Nobody does that," said Nagin in an exclusive interview with Rush Radio 99.5 WRNO. According to the UNO poll, 49 percent of black respondents approve...

Laura slaps down an idiot racist on the factor. This is a direct link to the video but they have a commercial at the beginning. Link

SILVER SPRING, Maryland (Reuters) - Director Spike Lee, whose movies often cast a sharp eye on U.S. racial politics, predicted a presidential victory for black Democrat Barack Obama that would mark a "new day" for the United States. "It's going to be before Obama, 'B.B.,' and after Obama -- 'A.B.' -- and some folks need to get used to this," Lee said. "And I'm going to be at the inauguration -- getting my hotel reservation now." Lee said that like Katrina in 2005, the levee breaches now flooding the Upper Midwest were a sign of misplaced priorities by the national...

Still bitter from his spanking at the hands of Clint Eastwood (background here), conspiracy nut and race-monger Spike Lee is clinging to Barack Obama for revenge. He told a film festival crowd this week that he has gathered 1,000 hours of footage of his Obamessiah on the campaign trail and will produce a documentary about the candidate. The dour director instantly cheered up. Via SilverDocs, Lee gloats: Discussing his Hurricane Katrina epic When the Levees Broke, Lee referenced the current flooding in the midwest and said, “The infrastructure of this country is crumbling, and money’s going elsewhere.” He paused, then...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin recently pronounced himself "disgusted" with apathy among city residents, saying it was "unacceptable" that only about a quarter of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot in the Oct. 20 primary. Turns out the mayor himself has skipped a few elections, according to state records. Nagin did not vote in the October primary, or in two citywide elections in March and May, according to Secretary of State Jay Dardenne's office. Turnout in the Oct. 20 primary -- when Nagin could have had a say in electing key officials he would work with, including the governor,...

NEW ORLEANS—District Attorney Eddie Jordan disclosed plans to resign Tuesday amid a $3.7 million discrimination verdict against his office and a rising murder rate since Hurricane Katrina. Jordan's spokesman, Dalton Savwoir, said the district attorney told his staff he would resign on Wednesday. Jordan lost the discrimination lawsuit against dozens of his former employees in 2005. The white former employees said they were fired by Jordan, who is black, because of their race. Jordan has consistently lost the appeals in that case and earlier this week, a federal judge refused to delay payment of the judgment. That opened the door...

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin (D) has decided against running for governor of Louisiana. Notorious for his inaction during the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of his city, Nagin was advised that his slogan “not everyone who could’ve died did” was not the confidence inspiring catchphrase he thought it was.

Baton Rouge, La. (AP) -- Keeping speculation alive until the very end, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin opted not to join the Louisiana governor's race Thursday — a decision that became clear only when the qualifying deadline passed. Many in Nagin's city were surprised he was even considering a run, with more than 2 1/2 years left in his second term, a painfully slow hurricane recovery effort in the city and a gubernatorial candidate — U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal — who has held a commanding lead in polls. Thirteen candidates qualified for the Oct. 20 ballot, most notably the Republican...

Aide to New Orleans mayor describes chaos after storm in new book — NEW ORLEANS — After Hurricane Katrina inundated his city with floodwaters, leaving in its wake a wave of human suffering and lawlessness, Mayor C. Ray Nagin surveyed what already was being called the nation’s worst natural disaster from the window of a sweltering hotel suite he’d commandeered. “Are you OK?” his press secretary, Sally Forman, asked. “This was God’s plan for me, Sally,” Nagin said. “What was?” she asked. “To rebuild New Orleans.” That exchange is one of the many insights into the man and the chaos...

New Orleans (AP) -- The vice president of the City Council, once thought to be a likely candidate for mayor in 2010, pleaded guilty Monday to a federal bribery charge. Oliver Thomas entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance, and prosecutors were to discuss details of the case later Monday. Bond for Thomas was set at $25,000.

Hershey Co., the nation's largest candy-maker, said yesterday that its profit tumbled 96 percent in the second quarter as it spent heavily to begin transforming its production lines and revive flat sales. The company also slashed its earnings estimate for 2007, sending its stock price down almost 3 percent. Separately, it announced that it would make a major entry into the fast-growing market for premium chocolate with Starbucks Coffee Co.-branded chocolates. Hershey said it earned $3.6 million, or a penny a share, for the three months ended July 1. That compares with a profit of $97.9 million, or 41 cents...

NEW ORLEANS: Ben Maygarden is only half-joking when he wonders whether he should wear a bulletproof vest to City Hall, where he works for one of the city's seven tax assessors. New Orleans is wrapping up a mandatory, citywide reassessment of property values for the first time since Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. The reassessment could lead to big property tax increases for some homeowners at a time when many already are being hit with soaring insurance premiums in Katrina's aftermath. "People are going to be upset," said Maygarden, chief deputy to Assessor Nancy Marshall....

New Orleans (AP) -- Mayor Ray Nagin, in his first State of the City address since Hurricane Katrina, said Wednesday that New Orleans is a city on the mend, despite broken promises from the state and federal governments. "New Orleans is coming back, whether you like it or not," Nagin said to applause from the crowd of city workers and community members gathered at the National World War II Museum. "And you might as well deal with it." Nagin called on President Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco to do more to help speed the city's recovery from the August 2005...

I've been hearing rumors for a couple of weeks now that New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin is considering running for Governor. I finally found a news outlet that confirms this rumor, thanks to freelance journalist Jason Berry, who appeared on Informed Sources last night to predict that Nagin will run for Governor. Hat tip to Library Chronicles. As an aside, is this Jason Berry the author of Amazing Grace, an account of Charles Evers' run for Governor in Mississippi back in 1972? But back to the issue at hand - Ray Nagin running for Governor of Louisiana. This makes...

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday rebuilding New Orleans is an "American obligation" the Bush administration has not met since Hurricane Katrina struck. "If talk, bureaucracy and promises were enough, we would've rebuilt New Orleans three times over by now," the Democratic president candidate told graduates at Dillard University, the historically black school devastated by the storm in August 2005. "What you do need is action, action supported by our federal government but driven right here in New Orleans and in the surrounding parishes by people who understand the reality on the ground, action that leads to real, measurable improvements, not...

a few questions: Is anyone on FR a resident of New Orleans, live nearby, work in New Orleans or commute there often? Is there a New Orleans ping list? Who on FR lives in Louisiana in general and is there a Louisiana ping list?

A new study by a Tulane University professor says New Orleans? murder rate as the highest in the country. The report estimates the city?s 2006 murder rate at 96 per every 100,000 people. A key factor in New Orleans vault to the top of the ratings was the large decline in the city?s population following Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin called the study results ?bittersweet.? ?Everybody wants to be number one at something,? Nagin said. ?We?re not in the running for the high prestige titles like ?cleanest? or ?best educated.? In fact, we?re on the bottom of those...