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A class-action settlement agreement has been reached to resolve nearly all the remaining court claims over allegations that government-issued trailers exposed Gulf Coast residents to hazardous fumes after Hurricane Katrina, a lead plaintiffs' attorney said Monday. In a court filing late Monday, plaintiffs' lawyers and several companies that manufactured FEMA trailers after the 2005 storm asked U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt to approve an expanded version of a multimillion-dollar deal initially announced in April. A separate agreement with four FEMA contractors that installed or refurbished trailers will be filed Tuesday, lead plaintiffs' attorney Gerald Meunier told The Associated Press. Nearly...

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that those law enforcement officers who barred pedestrians from crossing the Crescent City Connection in the hectic days after Hurricane Katrina will not face federal prosecution. After a review of Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's investigation into the incident, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division found the bridge had been blocked for public safety reasons and that there was no sufficient evidence to prove that the officers intentionally broke the law.U.S. Attorney Jim Letten agreed, and the case was closed. "This is not a commentary on what should have happened or how people...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a request to reopen a lawsuit that charged energy companies with contributing to the effects of Hurricane Katrina by emitting greenhouse gases. The result means victory for about 30 energy companies that were being sued by Mississippi homeowners who claimed that by emitting greenhouse gases, the companies helped cause global warming and exacerbated Katrina’s wrath. The Supreme Court was asked to step in after so many members of the 16-judge 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had recused themselves that it could not conduct a rehearing of a partially successful appeal...

ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper attacked former President George W. Bush over his comments about being called a racist by rapper Kanye West over Hurricane Katrina.Writing on Twitter this afternoon while accompanying Barack Obama on his Asian trip, Tapper wrote a series of comments ripping Bush:President Bush says @KanyWest's comments were "one of the most disgusting moments of my presidency." Really?about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck imagine if in 5 years President Obama said one of the most disgusting moments of his presidency was when Glenn Beck called him racistabout 2 hours ago via TweetDeck the dead body...

IPT News June 9, 2010 SNIPPET: "The Turkish-based charity that helped drive last week's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos has deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Hamas ties are not in question. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and IHH officials simply do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group." SNIPPET: "U.S. officials have expressed concern over the fact that "IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years," but IHH is not a designated terrorist organization in the United States. It's fair to ask, why not?"...

A bill preventing the government from seizing legal firearms during an emergency has been passed by the Hawaii Legislature. Gun-rights activists have pursued this kind of law since Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans police confiscated guns in an attempt to restore order.

The BP Spill: Tuesday on Capitol Hill, oil executives were subjected to the Senate's latest show trial. Senators did not say the accident in federal waters was a federal responsibility or that nature spills more oil every day. The morning hearing by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee chaired by Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and the afternoon session before California Sen. Barbara Boxer's Environmental and Public Works Committee prove White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's dictum that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste — especially when your goal is exploiting the Deepwater Horizon disaster...

Media Bias: As the Gulf Coast faced ecological disaster, the president yukked it up with White House correspondents. His Saturday radio address didn't even mention the oil spill. President Bush, call your office. Rarely has media sycophancy been on such sharp display as in the largely indifferent response to President Obama's own indifference to the oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The coverage has been far different from that given to President Bush's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The White House announced Saturday morning that Obama would head to the Gulf Coast on Sunday, just a...

There is a rather interesting development on the AGW front. It seems that a group has filed a class action lawsuit against energy companies for causing global warming. "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 the AFP news agency. The increase in global surface...

Yesterday on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos substitute host Jake Tapper interviewed Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Bush could not have been more gracious in praising Obama's relief efforts. In other words, he didn't try to do to Obama what Obama and the Democrats so viciously did to him. And I couldn't help but wonder: if Democrats believed their own crap about Bush and Katrina, why on earth would they be asking George Bush to lead an effort for Haitian relief now? It has now been six days since the earthquake that destroyed Haiti. Obama promised an unprecedented...

D'IBERVILLE, MS (WLOX) - It was his first official role as the new D'Iberville City Manager. On Monday morning, Michael Janus helped celebrate the opening of Newk's Express Restaurant in the new Promenade Shopping Center. "It's exciting," said Janus. "I mean, you can't imagine a better job. Within three hours on the job, you already have a ribbon cutting." Janus took the opportunity to learn new names and catch up with some familiar faces. Then it was time to head back to City Hall for a busy afternoon. "I haven't filled out my employment paperwork yet. I was wondering if...

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- In the four years since Hurricane Katrina swallowed Barbara Lambert's Gulf Coast house, her family has slowly rebuilt its life - moving out of a FEMA mobile home and to another city, finding a job for her husband and enrolling the kids in new schools. Then, the recession hit. The Lamberts and others in the hurricane-stricken region are struggling through renewed hard times as federal recovery dollars dry up and the recession chokes off jobs and charitable help. For the Lamberts, paying next month's rent is the latest worry as a federal hurricane assistance program ends....

Monday August 29 2005 Black America got her own 9-11. She was hit with an act of terrorism in New Orleans that was just as devastating if not more than what took place when those Twin Towers were felled by planes… Yes, you read that correctly.. Most people mistakenly believe that the city of New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Lets make sure folks understand this once and for all.. Much of neighboring Mississippi was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina which hit the state with its full level 5 impact. New Orleans which was initially in the path of Hurricane...

Dear Mr. President, Tomorrow we will mark the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which claimed the lives of 1,400 Louisianians and nearly killed a great American city. We will miss having you in our midst. We know you don't lack passion for our community and its recovery. Though you haven't been here as president, as a senator you visited five times after Katrina. We remember well the fervor of your speech at Tulane University on your last visit, a year and a half ago. "I promise you that when I'm in the White House, I will commit myself every day...

Energy Policy: A new study shows that Waxman-Markey will increase prices at the pump, deepen our dependence on foreign oil and shred our ability to turn crude into gasoline. Even fuel-efficient cars will still need fuel.Oil may bubble up out of the ground, but gasoline does not. It's made in those ugly little NIMBY places called refineries we are loath to build anymore because we're too busy trying to save the Earth rather than our economy and American jobs. When Hurricane Katrina shut down 20% of our refining capacity in a single day and raised gas prices in a single...

Aiming to maximize federal grant money and offer proof of his city's recovery, Mayor Ray Nagin is urging Hurricane Katrina victims still living elsewhere -- and longing to return -- to record New Orleans as their home when the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its decennial head count next spring. Problem is, that strategy doesn't mesh with census rules, federal officials say. In an e-mail response to questions about the much-anticipated count, Nagin spokesman James Ross said this week: "An area of major concern relates to New Orleanians working to return here. Many are repairing their homes, and others are trying...

If the Republican Party is in danger of being marginalized as a conservative, white male Southern enclave, is Haley Barbour — the longtime Washington power broker and current Mississippi governor — the best person to turn things around? Many rank-and-file Republicans and party leaders say yes, as the 61-year-old Barbour prepares to ramp up his national profile this month with back-to-back trips to the early presidential voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Barbour will headline fundraisers in both states, but says the visits are part of his duties as incoming chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Both states have...

In an effort to put the lingering image of a failed government response to Hurricane Katrina to rest, the Obama Administration moved Wednesday to get about 5,000 Gulf Coast residents out of FEMA trailers through $50 million in housing vouchers and, for those interested, a chance to buy a trailer for as little as $1. A joint plan announced by the Federal Energy Management Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development would make the $50 million in newly appropriated money available on a priority basis to low-income Gulf Coast residents of Mississippi and Louisiana. There will also be...

Frank Rich says this might be Pres. Obama’s Katrina moment. That would make Tim Geithner PBO’s Mike Brown. Which in turn might make some people’s blood run cold to hear the president say of Geithner, during his 60 Minutes interview broadcast this evening, that: “he is doing a terrific job.” [snip] Whereas in the case of Katrina, Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco bore much of the blame, in this case it is Geithner alone who apparently pushed to make the AIG bonuses, the ones that PBO has called an "outrage," legal. That's what the president calls a "terrific job"? View...

There are many government-led events in the United States that would infer that America might be moving in an unconstitutional direction. If AmericaÂ’s leaders were secretly moving in an unconstitutional direction, what government agency would be responsible for masterminding the creation of a police state in the United States? The possible culprit would be the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But, most Americans know very little about the operations of FEMA, except for its disastrous operations in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. However, all Americans should know just how powerful an agency FEMA is. Of course, it is...

NEW ORLEANS — Two members of President Barack Obama's cabinet said Thursday they are disturbed by the extent of damage that remains 3 1/2 years after Hurricane Katrina and pledged to speed the pace of rebuilding across the Gulf Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced creation of new federal-state review teams to resolve funding disputes and a five-year, $50 million housing program. "What we have seen today makes us disturbed, angry even, to see some of the families living the way that they have," Donovan said from a 9th Ward housing...

Cape Girardeau County emergency management director Dick Knaup and three volunteers took advantage of Tuesday's good weather... "We took the pieces of the antenna damaged by the storm off the tower and installed one new antenna and one old one," said Phil Nash, who volunteers for emergency management duties ... Amateur radio operators — nicknamed "hams" — are critical members of the communications process during an emergency. They are able to set up and operate off generators when telephones and other devices are not functioning. Knaup said amateur radio operators have a reputation for finding ingenious ways of creating a...

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...

Houston Mayor Bill White used a Web video to announce his plan to run for U.S. Senate today.... He cites turbulent economic times, a rising federal deficit and high unemployment rates in the video, saying "this may be an opportunity for our nation to do things it has only dreamed of before..." White previously worked as deputy secretary in the U.S. Department of Energy under President Clinton and as chief executive of the Wedge Group, a Houston-based holding company with interests in oil-field services, engineering and real estate. In comments today, he also highlighted signature domestic issues such as health...

The museum area of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies features interactive displays for learning about marine life at the new facility in Gulfport. Marine Life post Hurricane Katrina New research, rehab facility features museum GULFPORT -- Dolphin lovers at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies are flipping over their new state-of-the-art museum and research facility expected to open in the next few weeks. IMMS President Dr. Moby Solangi, a marine biologist who spent more than two decades working with dolphins at Marine Life Oceanarium, said the new 12-acre Center for Marine Education and Research will open as soon...

Housing finance company Freddie Mac plans to put $1 billion into mortgages and home-repair loans in areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina, an effort praised by critics of the company as Congress considers legislation to increase regulation of Freddie and its larger rival, Fannie Mae. In Baton Rouge, La., yesterday, Freddie Mac chairman and chief executive Richard F. Syron and members of the Louisiana congressional delegation announced Freddie Mac's plan to buy $1 billion worth of bonds from state and local housing finance agencies. By accepting a below-market rate of return on the bonds, the purchase will allow cut-rate financing for...

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn were in New Orleans Wednesday doing their part to help rebuild the Gulf Coast. Video: Watch the Story Carter was among dozens of volunteers helping Habitat for Humanity rebuild a home in the Upper Ninth Ward. Carter and his wife were in the area last May when the 100th home was built – now they are back to celebrate another milestone: the 25th anniversary of the Carter Work Project.

GENEVA (AP) — Two human rights experts for the United Nations on Thursday criticized a plan by New Orleans authorities to raze public housing projects, saying it will force the predominantly black residents into homelessness. They charged that demolition would harm thousands of people by denying them a place to live in a city where housing already is scarce since Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005. The joint statement was not a U.N. finding, but only the individual views of Miloon Kothari, a special investigator on housing matters for the U.N. Human Rights Council, and Gay McDougall, a lawyer who...

When Woodrow Wilson went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war in 1917, the U.S. Army was ranked 17th in the world, behind Portugal. On Armistice Day, 19 months later, there were 2 million doughboys in France, where they had helped to break the back of Gen. Ludendorff's theretofore invincible army in its final offensive, and 2 million more in the United States ready to march on Berlin. No other nation could have done that. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, FDR demanded that a disarmed America "build 50,000 planes" -- a seemingly impossible number, but one...

HOUSTON -- In a cramped guard booth on the edge of a community of luxury townhouses, the sense of helplessness that has become so familiar to Gregory Sam since Hurricane Katrina uprooted him from his home town of New Orleans can become all-consuming. "I'm struggling," said Sam, 29, a college graduate who took an $8-an-hour post as a security guard after more than 20 job interviews led to nothing. "I feel like I'm isolated in the country somewhere . . . in a time warp." For the nearly quarter-million people such as Sam who were evacuated to Texas after the...

BAINS — West Feliciana Middle School sixth-graders left school last Tuesday with laptop computers and words of encouragement and caution. The students are participating in “Turn on to Learning,” a $5 million initiative to put Apple MacBook computers into the hands of more that 3,500 sixth-graders and their teachers across the state. West Feliciana’s students received their computers last fall, and Tuesday was their first opportunity to use them at home. “I think the kids are so excited about it, that they’ll take care of them,” Principal Darryl Powell said. “The parents are excited, too. They’re so proud their kids...

Tom Kauffman thought that once a storm blew over people could go home, clean up a few things and return back to normal, everyday life. But two mission trips to Biloxi, Miss., changed his thinking. People are still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. "A storm doesn't just blow over and people don't go back to their homes the next day," said Kauffman, 69, of Manchester Township. "There's a lot of pain and suffering and a lot of waiting. I opened my eyes up." Kauffman plans to return to Biloxi a third...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The National Rifle Association has hired private investigators to find hundreds of people whose firearms were seized by city police in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to court papers filed this week. The NRA is trying to locate gun owners for a federal lawsuit that the lobbying group filed against Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley over the city's seizure of firearms after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane. In the lawsuit, the NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation claim the city violated gun owners' constitutional right to bear arms and left them "at...

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about the wonderful people of Rescue Task Force who are headquartered in San Diego, who have been operating in the disaster area in New Orleans, and use that discussion about them to reflect on all the great private efforts and public efforts to help the victims who have been created by this incredible disaster in New Orleans. Rescue Task Force is a small group. It is headed...

President Bush has shown that he can be empathetic, sensitive and decisive. But those qualities eluded him for days after Hurricane Katrina . . . He didn't cancel his vacation until two days after Katrina struck and didn't visit the region until four days after the storm. -- "A compassionate Bush was absent right after Katrina", USA Today, 9-9-05 USA Today's broadside is typical of the MSM criticism leveled at Pres. Bush for his failure to visit New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. So, now that President Bush has announced that he will be visiting California on Thursday while the wildfire...

Talk about your bigotry of low expectations . . . Brian Williams has defended armed looting during Katrina as the work of heads of family providing for their own. The NBC Nightly News anchor is in New Orleans on the second Katrina anniversary. He appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" at 7:30 A.M. EDT. Williams first passed along a predictable race-and-classed based explanation of the botched relief efforts. BRIAN WILLIAMS: That's when human life started to degrade. That's when people ran out of of bathroom facilities and started having to use the entire [Superdome]: no power, no circulating air, and worse,...

BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) - Officials from the Federal Reserve on Saturday warned of dangers from a rising tide of trade disputes and the harmful impact on what one otherwise termed a "resilient" United States economy. Three regional Fed presidents steered clear of current economic or monetary policy topics at a panel discussion on the southern U.S. economy at the Southern Governors' Association conference. The presidents of the St. Louis, Dallas and Atlanta Feds, respectively, mostly focused on the dangers of protectionism and the need for an educated and flexible work force to cope with rising foreign competition. The governors convened...

(CNN) -- A New Orleans grand jury that declined to indict a doctor on charges that she murdered patients in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina never heard testimony from five medical experts brought in by the state to analyze the deaths. All five concluded that as many as nine patients were victims of homicide. In detailed, written statements, the five specialists -- whose expertise includes forensic medicine, medical ethics and palliative care -- determined that patients at Memorial Medical Center had been deliberately killed with overdoses of drugs after Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005. The grand jury had...

Francois de La Rochefoucauld had a point when he said, in his frequently quoted formulation, that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. In the case of John Edwards, however, hypocrisy is simply a way of life. The infamous $400 haircut — actually, some of his hairstyling sessions ran as much as $1,200 all told — wasn’t a freak embarrassment for a candidate so self-righteously devoted to the poor. It was part of a pattern so pervasive that it has become the defining aspect of Edwards’s candidacy. When he lambasted hedge funds for incorporating offshore to avoid or...

Embarrassed presidential hopeful John Edwards promised yesterday to take millions of dollars of his own fortune out of a hedge fund tied to subprime lenders who foreclosed on victims of Hurricane Katrina. The populist candidate - who has denounced such lenders - invested $16 million of his $30 million in assets in Fortress Investment Group. The Wall Street Journal reported that 34 New Orleans homeowners struggling to overcome Katrina's aftermath faced foreclosure suits from subprime-lending units of Fortress. Yesterday, the red-faced Democratic candidate vowed to remove from his portfolio any Fortress funds that have a stake in those lender units....

Baton Rouge, LA (LifeNews.com) -- Just one day after a grand jury decided not to indict Dr. Anna Pou on charges that she allegedly euthanized patients in the dreadful aftermath following Hurricane Katrina, the state's attorney general will not drop the case. Attorney General Charles Foti has asked a state judge to release previously sealed documents. Foti wants the judge to release documents that has been used in the investigation of the deaths at Memorial Medical Center. The documents were sealed when Foti gave Judge Calvin Johnson the search warrants, subpoena requests and other records in January 2006. Judge Johnson...

NEW ORLEANS, July 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New Orleans grand jury decided Tuesday not to indict Dr. Anna Pou, a doctor who was accused of murdering four patients during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Pou had been charged by Louisiana's attorney general on 10 counts, including second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder. Earlier this year two nurses who had admitted to administering lethal doses of medication to patients at the same medical center were offered immunity in return for their testimony before the grand jury. Pou and the others have consistently claimed that while they did administer...

BILOXI, Miss. — This seaside gambling resort along a stretch of the Gulf Coast, sometimes called the “redneck Riviera,” has 40 percent fewer hotel rooms and only two-thirds as many slot machines as it did before Hurricane Katrina. A major bridge that connects the casinos in this popular tourist destination to Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and other points east remains closed, and Mayor A. J. Holloway estimates that as many as 15 percent of the city’s pre-Katrina residents still have not returned. Yet business in the gambling halls of Biloxi has reached all-time highs in recent months, so much so...

It's been two years since Hurricane Katrina and Rita ripped through the belly of the South, and survivors, along with various scholars and activists, are seeking to hold the US government responsible in a tribunal court hearing scheduled for this August. On Tuesday (July 17), New York City Councilman Charles Barron and former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney met at Manhattan's Center for Constitutional Rights for a press conference to discuss the upcoming trial. The tribunal will target President Bush, the US government, State of Louisiana, State of Mississippi, and various other agencies who were involved in the Katrina and Rita...

It is just after Christmas in 2003 and John Edwards is running hard for president of the United States. He is in Iowa, with the caucuses about three weeks away. Pundits, guided by a massive disinformation campaign, have decided that Howard Dean is going to win Iowa. Edwards remains undiscouraged. A highly effective stump speaker, Edwards always gets a laugh by saying, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." Edwards is a product of the American middle class. His father worked in a textile mill, and his mother ran an antique refinishing business and then became a...

NEW ORLEANS, June 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, who have admitted to administering lethal doses of medication to patients during the hurricane Katrina disaster, are being offered immunity from prosecution by the Louisiana Attorney General. CNN reports that in two weeks the two will testify before a Grand Jury that four patients died after being administered what Louisiana's Attorney General, Charles Foti Jr., called a "lethal cocktail" of drugs.In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane that devastated New Orleans in late August 2005, rumours began to fly around the internet world that patients were...

Stand atop any levee in the New Orleans area, and one question will offer itself, unbidden, to the mind: Is this pile of dirt tall enough to stand up to the next storm? The answer is complex, and a wary city has been waiting to hear it. After the New Orleans hurricane protection system failed under the onslaught of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Army Corps of Engineers rethought the way it assesses hurricane risk. It devised new, flexible computer models and ran countless simulations on Defense Department supercomputers to help it understand what kind of storms the region can...

Houston-based KBR, formerly the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton Co., has a contingency contract in place with the Department of Homeland Security to construct detention facilities in the event of a national emergency. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed yesterday in a telephone interview that the KBR contract for $385 million was awarded initially in January 2006 for a one-year base period with four one-year options. It has been extended into 2007. KBR held a previous emergency detention contract with ICE from 2000 to 2005. Zuieback told this writer the primary intent of the KBR...

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 says "If talk, bureaucracy and promises were enough" New Orleans would have been rebuilt three times over by now. The Democratic presidential candidate spoke to graduates at Dillard University in New Orleans today. She says rebuilding New Orleans is an "American obligation." One she says the Bush administration has failed to meet. The historically black college was heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Clinton says she has a plan that would speed the pace of recovery and assess progress in shoring up levees. Nearly two years after the hurricane, about 40% of the city's population remains displaced.