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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...

Although interviewee Harry Connick Jr. was unwilling to cast blame towards any specific person or agenda over the failed response to the Hurricane Katrina in 2005, CNN's Piers Morgan thrice tried to bait him into doing so on Monday. Connick stated on Piers Morgan Tonight that "at this point, what good is it going to do to blame local or state or federal government?" Yet Morgan emphasized the "scandalously slow" response to the disaster by authorities, and even noted liberal conspiracy claims that "surreptitious racism" was involved.

On Friday's Early Show, CBS somehow thought it was appropriate to bring on former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to offer "lessons learned from other hurricanes," as Hurricane Irene bore down on the East Coast. Anchor Chris Wragge not only failed to ask Nagin about his failures in leadership in the lead-up to Hurricane Katrina, but also twice labeled his guest an "expert in the field".

Ex-New Orleans politician guilty of racketeeringPublished: Tue, July 26, 2011 @ 11:45 a.m. NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former New Orleans councilwoman connected to a corruption-tainted ex-Louisiana congressman has been convicted of conspiring to loot more than $1 million from charities run with taxpayer money. Federal jurors on Monday convicted 56-year-old Renee Gill Pratt of one count of racketeering and she faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced Oct. 26. **SNIP** Jefferson was convicted in 2009 on corruption charges over his African business ties. He’s free pending appeals. Gill Pratt insisted Monday that she is innocent. She is...

Just as his alleged victim, the 13-year-old daughter of his ex-girlfriend, was sworn in to testify, former New Orleans police officer Christopher Buckley pleaded guilty this morning to raping the girl. Buckley, 39, was arrested in October 2008 after the girl told her story to her mother, also an officer with the NOPD. The Times-Picayune is not naming the woman because of her relationship with the victim. The victim, now 15, had been sworn in and was preparing to take the witness stand when Buckley decided to take a plea. In all, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of forcible...

"I wouldn't say that this is going to be a disaster, but the modern Mississippi levee system has never been tested under flood conditions like this," he said. "It's probably going to exceed water levels not seen since the Great Flood of 1927: historically the largest ever measured."

Feds back Jefferson verdict111-page filing says jury got it right Bruce Alpert - Washington bureau Saturday, March 12, 2011 WASHINGTON -- A federal jury properly found that former Rep. William Jefferson engaged in "numerous bribe schemes" to "unjustly enrich himself and his family," so a federal appeals court should allow the jury's guilty verdict to stand, prosecutors say. In a 111-page filing late Thursday to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the prosecutors urged the court to reject Jefferson's argument that the verdict, guilty on 11 of 16 corruption charges, must be thrown out. Jefferson's attorneys argued...

New Orleans restaurants seem to have recovered after the BP oil spillBy Brett Anderson, The Times-Picayune Published: Sunday, December 26, 2010, 8:45 AM The days of explaining exotic species of Hawaiian finfish to puzzled locals have passed at Grand Isle restaurant. After struggling through months when the oyster bar would sit idle for weeks on end, supplies from Terrebonne Parish and Galveston Bay are now readily available. Grouper may still be more difficult to come by than usual, but at least it's not Chilean. Still, David Pearson, a partner in Grand Isle, a Warehouse District seafood restaurant, is not resting...

Most principals in William Jefferson case doing poorly a year after his sentencingBy Bruce Alpert, Times-Picayune Published: Sunday, November 28, 2010, 9:00 AM A little more than a year after he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for public corruption, former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson from New Orleans remains free pending an appeal that likely won't be resolved until the spring or early summer. But for some of the people and businesses caught up in what federal prosecutors called a web of shakedown schemes orchestrated by Jefferson, no appeals court ruling will reverse the bankruptcies, loss of business and...

Melvin Clay, 37, and Helaina Amrine, 21, were arrested Thursday night in connection to the stabbing death of 23-year-old Marine Ryan Lekosky in October.New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman officer Shereese Harper reported that the two were arrested by police shortly after 9 p.m. at the intersection of Dauphine Street and Bienville street, just one block from where the fatal stabbing occurred.According to Harper, Clay was charged with second degree murder, while Amrine, his girlfriend, was charged with accessory after the fact.After leaving the Marine Ball with his wife around 3:30 a.m. on October 31, Lekosky was stabbed several times when...

*snip* The Katrina chapter expresses Bush's clear frustration with then-Governor Kathleen Blanco, who refused to federalize the National Guard for the incident. “I did not need the federalization of the Guard because that would've taken police powers away from the National Guard. And goodness knows, we needed that,” she said. Bush said on Oprah, “I said to the governor, give me the authority to send in federal troops. By law, the president cannot send federal troops to conduct law enforcement without a declaration of insurrection." An insurrection declaration would've given the military police powers. “He didn't discuss that with me....

Pompeii's burial not its first disaster Sid Perkins From Denver, at a meeting of the Geological Society of America Recent excavations reveal that the ancient city of Pompeii, famed for its burial by an eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, suffered through several devastating landslides in the centuries preceding its volcanic demise. About three-fourths of Pompeii has been excavated, says Jean-Daniel Stanley of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. However, most of the digs in the city have extended down only to the ground level of dwellings that were standing in the 1st century. In...

Here is the situation on the ground. Before the campaign really heated up, Cao actually led the polls by a wide margin, because his hard work and sincerity have made him very popular among all races and ethnicities in the New Orleans area. Once the campaign heated up and he was re-identified in the black community as a Republican, he dropped behind. But internal polls -- and my own anecdotal sources, as a native New Orleanian and veteran of New Orleans politics -- show him now within a typical survey's margin of error. He also has momentum. National Democrats, thinking...

Two New Orleans city officials have crossed party lines to endorse Republican U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao. District B City Councilwoman Stacy Head and Assessor Erroll Williams have thrown their support behind Cao, despite being Democrats. Cao faces Democrat State Rep. Cedric Richmond in the Nov. 2 election for the 2nd Congressional District seat. Head said Cao has gotten a lot done during his two years in Washington, like cutting through FEMA red tape. And she said she believes he has his constituents' best interests at heart. "While I don't agree with all of his decisions, with all of this votes,...

President: I’ll ‘make sure we get the job done’In interview with NBC News, Obama rejects critics of federal response to oil spill, says Gulf Coast on the road to recovery after Katrina updated 8/29/2010 6:54:42 PM ET **SNIP** Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, was widely criticized for his administration’s response to Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people and laid waste to this city and much of the surrounding Gulf Coast. As BP struggled for weeks to cap the well that began gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April, Obama came under similar pressure from environmental activists...

All video - WATCH: Leadership Amidst Tragedy - Former Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin reflects on Katrina. WATCH: Heroes of Katrina - Remembering those who cared for the helpless and rescued the stranded.

Lauer to Laura Bush: Is It 'Painful' to Be in New Orleans, Since So Much Blame Is Laid At Your Husband's Feet? Today co-anchor Matt Lauer traveled to New Orleans, on Friday, to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and interviewed the likes of former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, former FEMA Director Mike Brown, current Democratic Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, but saved any sort of direct shots at George W. Bush for his interview with Laura Bush.

Louisiana officials and business owners told the Senate Small Business Committee this week how deeply the Obama administration's ban on deepwater drilling is affecting the state's economy -- offering a persuasive case against the ill-considered blanket moratorium. Leslie Bertucci and her husband own a business that leases equipment used on offshore rigs. "We employ 14 people,'' she told the committee. "Those 14 people have families to take care of -- 42 spouses and children to be exact. In addition, we have more than 40 vendors that we order supplies and services from every month.'' She put a face on the...

WASHINGTON –Six officers with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) were charged today in connection with the federal investigation of a police-involved shooting on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department announced today. The incident resulted in the death of two civilians and the wounding of four others. The indictment charges four officers – Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso – in connection with the shootings, and charges those four officers and two supervisors – Arthur “Archie” Kaufman and Gerard Dugue – with helping to obstruct justice during the subsequent investigations. The...

We’ve just spent years listening to ungenerous, miserable people excoriate President Bush for calmly taking 7 minutes, after learning of the attacks of 9/11, to allow his Secret Service to do their thing and to–with a great deal of composure–take his leave from a classroom without managing to scare the children or give an impression of fear that would be put before the nation and the world. After watching President Obama take six weeks to process the terrible news he was given–pressing forward with golf, vacations, parties and fund-raisers in order to not scare the nation–even if that it meant...

NEW ORLEANS — Mayor Mitch Landrieu has sent a letter to FOX Sports President Ed Goren demanding an apology from broadcaster Chris Myers for his disparaging remarks about the victims of Hurricane Katrina. On the Dan Patrick Radio Show on Monday, Myers talked about the flood victims in Tennessee pulling together to help themselves, instead of standing on roof tops and blaming the government — an obvious reference to Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.(continued)

UPDATE, 10:35 p.m.: It’s possible we may have found out who “D-Bloc” is. If you’ll recall, “D-Bloc” is the lead blogger on the Iron Rail Book Collective’s web site. He’s the guy who has bragged about vandalizing banks in the French Quarter and he was the guy who boasted on Gambit Weekly’s Blog Of New Orleans that on April 9 the protest went well because: Tons of direct confrontation. New Orleans bared its teeth and snarled, and the rich plutocrats shat themselves in fear. Also in the same comment section, D-Bloc posted a few days later, when the blogosphere began...

Over at Pajama's Media, Scott McKay, whose Hayride blog has been tirelessly cataloging the story of a brutal assault on a young Republican operative and her boyfriend outside a New Orleans fund-raising dinner earlier this month, summarizes his findings. Though initially reported as a straight fight, there is increasing evidence that the attack was political, perpetrated by a group of (get this) anarcho-communist agitators who had broken away from a larger protest at the nearby SRLC. The victim, Allee Bautsch, tentatively identified a member of a group called thee Iron Rail Book Collective, as the chief perpetrator of an attack...

UPDATE, 10:55 p.m.: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Allee Bautsch’s boss, gave WWL-TV in New Orleans a no-comment comment this evening… Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday he isn’t going to comment further on the investigation into the recent French Quarter attack that left his chief fundraiser and her boyfriend injured. Allee Bautsch, 25, suffered a broken leg, and her boyfriend suffered a broken jaw, nose and concussion. When asked about the incident on Monday, Jindal said the couple is now recovering at home after receiving “serious” injuries. “We’re going to refrain from commenting on it. We certainly keep her in our...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday he isn't going to comment further on the investigation into the recent French Quarter attack that left his chief fundraiser and her boyfriend injured. Allee Bautsch, 25, suffered a broken leg, and her boyfriend suffered a broken jaw, nose and concussion. When asked about the incident on Monday, Jindal said the couple is now recovering at home after receiving "serious" injuries. “We're going to refrain from commenting on it. We certainly keep her in our thoughts and prayers,” Jindal said. “I know she appreciates many people asked about her. She is...

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...

Friday, Allee Bautsch’s mother Della Berning appeared by phone on Fox News to speak about the events of last weekend on behalf of Allee and her boyfriend. Video of that interview follows: Earlier today, Yahoo! News posted a story with another interview with Ms. Berning in which her confirmation of a political cause for the attack on her daughter and her boyfriend is more explicit: Contrary to our initial report, the NOPD is now saying that it does not know whether or not the attacks were politically motivated and the police report lists the motive as unknown. However, Allee Bautsch’s...

…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.

A New Orleans police officer who fired his gun at civilians on the Danziger Bridge a week after Hurricane Katrina pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday, offering a chilling account of what transpired on the bridge that early September day in 2005. Michael Hunter, 33, became the first officer who actually participated in the shooting to enter a guilty plea. Two investigators have already confessed to playing roles in a wide-ranging cover-up of the police shooting, which injured four unarmed civilians and left two men dead. Hunter, who resigned last week after he was charged in federal court, contends that...

'Price was twelve, bruh.' 'Say bruh. Them twelve hundred was for eight pieces.' A deal's going down, yeah. But not the sort we're used to witnessing between black men on a television show set in an American city. Certainly not a David Simon drama on HBO. Yet before even a word of dialogue is uttered come clues. A saxophonist licks, then adjusts his reed. Valve oil gets applied to a trombone. Soldiers and cops stand guard. Two little kids dance to a faint parade rhythm, which is soon supplanted by the bass booming from an SUV. An unseen trumpet sounds...

NEW ORLEANS - A second ex-New Orleans officer charged in an alleged conspiracy to cover up a deadly police shooting of unarmed residents after Hurricane Katrina is expected to plead guilty. A person familiar with the case unsealed Tuesday against former detective Jeffrey Lehrmann said his guilty plea is expected later this week in federal court. The person was not authorized to discuss the plea negotiations and asked not to be identified. Lehrmann faces a charge of misprision of a felony, which means misconduct.

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.

NEW ORLEANS -- John Wesley Colvin Jr., a former state legislator from Alabama, deserves 60 years in state prison for ripping off six New Orleans families in a post-Katrina modular home scam, an Orleans Parish judge ruled today. Colvin, 63, had already pleaded guilty to six counts of theft over $500 for bilking about $240,000 from people desperate to return home after the Katrina disaster flooded their neighborhoods in 2005. His victims, including two elderly people who asked their children to testify for them, filled one half of the courtroom today. "I'm still not in my home," Annette Rainey testified....

Attempts to locate a statement or press release from Senator John McCain concerning Climategate have, so far, met with negative results. Senator McCain’s website indicates that his most recent press release (Oct 19) was a joint statement issued with Senator Russ Feingold (D.WI) that begins: "A day after a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers displayed 'gross negligence' that contributed to the breaching of the levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ), who have led efforts to reform the Army Corps of Engineers, released the following...

Note: The following text is a quote: Jury Convicts Defense Department Official of Unlawful Communication of Classified Information and Making False Statements James Wilbur Fondren Jr., was convicted by a federal jury today on charges involving providing classified information to a man working with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and lying to the FBI about it. Fondren was convicted of one count of unlawfully communicating classified information to an agent of a foreign government and two counts of making false statements to the FBI. He was acquitted of two unlawful communication of classified information, one count of conspiracy to...

Almost nine months into 2009, at least 219 New Orleanians have attempted to take their own lives; 47 of them have succeeded. The number and rate of suicides is higher than in previous years and approaches twice the national rate.

ACORN, a social justice organization with roots in [New Orleans], battles a string of scandals. The announcement stuck to a wall outside the entrance to ACORN's local office in the 2600 block of Canal Street quietly signals the trouble afoot. In English and Spanish, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now tells walk-up clients that ACORN's housing office has shut itself down for two weeks to immerse itself "in an intensive training program." The sign is a symptom of a tumultuous week in the history of a controversial poor people's social justice movement -- one founded by a New...

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...

President Barack Obama said his administration remains focused on rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, that anything less "would be a betrayal of who we are as a country, " and that he plans to visit New Orleans by the end of the year. "Well, keep in mind I've been in New Orleans multiple times, and I intend to be back in New Orleans before the year is out because I want to see first-hand where progress is being made, and where it is not, " Obama said.

Brad Pitt hasn’t thrown his hat in the ring to be mayor of his adopted hometown, New Orleans. Others have done that for him, launching a grassroots campaign complete with nifty T-shirts touting "Brad Pitt for Mayor" But he's more than willing to serve, the actor told TODAY's Ann Curry with a self-deprecating laugh. "If chosen, would you run?" Curry asked in the prerecorded interview that ran Thursday. "Yeah," Pitt said. "Would you serve?" "Yeah. I'm running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform," he joked.

FBI agents have been in New Orleans City Hall since Friday collecting data from computer-network servers and backup tapes, according to a city official familiar with the investigation. Five federal agents have tied up the work of management information systems employees as they comb through the data stored on the servers. The agents are expected to be in City Hall all week, said the source, who wished to remain anonymous because the investigation has not been made public. The agents came bearing federal subpoenas seeking information and met with Chief Administrative Officer Brenda Hatfield, the source said. City spokeswoman Ceeon...

The Vatican for the first time in the city's history today appointed a New Orleans native to head the Catholic church here, naming Bishop Gregory Aymond of Austin, Texas the 14th archbishop of New Orleans. He will replace Archbishop Alfred Hughes, who retires after seven of the most tumultuous years in the 216-year history of the New Orleans church. Aymond, 59, grew up in Gentilly and spent his entire career in New Orleans until his departure for Texas nine years ago. The Archdiocese of New Orleans said Aymond would take office after an installation Mass Aug. 20. The church was...

Oh and get this one: When I was at ORD (Chicago O’hara) waiting for D----- to clear Immigration we were overrun by a very pushy, b******y demanding lady who had on a t-shirt which said she was with a REFUGEE NGO – who would even approach me and tell me that I was standing in the wrong place – (she was irritating the kind Customs Police and making them crazy) In any event all of the IRAQ REFUGEES which she was HERDING AROUND ( I use this term do to their total lack of English Skills and the large numbers...

The French have an odd notion of boycotts. My good friend Scott Johnson at Power Line discovers this video of a “boycott” action in France organized, apparently, by Europalestine.com, or at least publicized by them. Take a look at the uniformed thuggery that takes place in a French grocery store: [video at link] Boycotts are perfectly legitimate free-market forms of protest — but this isn’t a boycott at all. A boycott is an organized effort to stop buying products or services from some offending source. This is an organized theft ring and nothing more. Unless they’re paying for those groceries,...

A Metairie resident is recovering after a stranger bit a chunk of flesh out of his arm and swallowed it Saturday afternoon. Joseph Lancellotti, 67, told authorities he did not know the suspect, later identified as Mario Vargas, 48, or why he was attacked in his front yard. Lancellotti was gardening at his home in the 4400 block of Kawanee Avenue about 2 p.m. when he noticed a man walking toward his house, shouting angrily, the report said. Lancellotti said he couldn't understand the man because he was yelling in Spanish. But when the man got within two feet, he...

BATON ROUGE -- One out of every 55 Louisiana residents is behind bars, a higher incarceration rate than any other state, according to research released today by a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group. One in 26 Louisiana adults is under correctional control, if probation and parole are included, the group found. The Pew Center for the States study of 2007 U.S. Census data found that Louisiana's incarceration rate spiked by 272 percent since 1982. That rate of increase is far from the nation's highest of 357 percent in North Dakota, and not far from Mississippi's 256 percent increase. Neighbor states Texas...

A man reported to have been kidnapped in Jefferson Parish last night and was being held in a house nearby on Majestic Place in Algiers. He struggled with one of his two kidnappers and shot the man, who ran and later died at the house on Pacifiic.