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NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- More than 3,000 lots flooded by Hurricane Katrina and bought with federal money in an emergency bailout sit idle across this city - a multimillion-dollar drain on federal, state and city coffers that lends itself to no easy solution. An Associated Press examination of the properties sold to the government by homeowners abandoning New Orleans after the catastrophic 2005 flood has found that about $86 million has been spent on 5,100 abandoned parcels. *** "Right now nobody on those 3,000-plus properties is contributing. It's costing the city and state government to maintain them. Police got to...

While in office, Mayor Ray Nagin accepted a $50,000 payoff and shipments of free granite from city vendor Frank Fradella, and after leaving City Hall, he became a highly paid consultant to Fradella, according to court documents filed this morning. Fradella was in federal court to plead guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe Nagin, described in court documents as "Public Official A." The government's description of that public official, as well as other clues, make clear that it is Nagin. Nagin has not been charged. He has not responded to an email...

Covington businessman Frank Fradella has been charged in a new bill of information that appears to implicate former Mayor Ray Nagin, who has been under investigation for months by a federal grand jury. Federal prosecutors this afternoon charged Fradella with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to bribe a public official. The new documents do not name the official -- rather, they call him "Public Official A." But the official is clearly Nagin; the document describes him as an agent of the city of New Orleans from May 2002 through May 2010. That coincides with Nagin's...

All of which lends a certain pungency to something Sarah Palin said recently at a conference of conservative activists in Las Vegas. "Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be," she said. According to Politico, she was quoting Matt Drudge. Ordinarily, you would dismiss it as just another silly thing Sarah Palin said. There is no shortage of those.

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...

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...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When the Federal Emergency Management Agency mailed out 83,000 debt notices this year to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other 2005 storms, one of the letters showed up in David Bellinger's mailbox. Bellinger, who is blind, needed a friend to read it and break the news that FEMA wants him to pay back more than $3,200 in federal aid he received after Katrina.

Since Katrina, the Hispanic population in the New Orleans metro area has skyrocketed by more than 33,000 people. That's a 57-percent increase in the past decade, much higher than the national average. They came for the construction jobs — and they've chosen to stay. Often, you can find about a dozen Latino men hanging out near a home improvement store looking for work near a mostly black neighborhood. Yohanni Castillo, 38, a carpenter from Honduras, says he's been here since the early days of Katrina. "Carpentry, demolitions, any kind of construction," he says. But lately, he says there's been less...

Late last week we were preoccupied with LSU and other things, so we didn’t get an opportunity to be more timely in showing our appreciation for disgraced former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, whose trail of tears likely leads to the federal pen after getting indicted on 33 counts of payroll fraud Thursday. It’s satisfying to see, as Broussard’s time in office made him almost surely the single most disgustingly corrupt public official in the state. He first showed up as a bright green blob on our radar after Katrina, when he concocted a flamingly dishonest story about dead old...

A federal grand jury today indicted former Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard on charges of manipulating the parish payroll to boost his ex-wife's salary. Also charged were Karen Parker, who divorced Broussard in October 2009, and former Parish Attorney Tom Wilkinson as part of a sweeping, two-year investigation of the parish government under Broussard's watch. The indictments come nine months after the trio received letters from prosecutors suggesting they could be charged with crimes. Broussard had resigned in January 2010, Parker was fired a month later and Wilkinson quit a month after that. The charges are wire fraud and conspiracy...

Progressives are on the move once more. Wisconsin lit the spark, as workers, students, teachers and farmers occupied the state’s capitol in February and launched recall elections that sobered conservative Republican Gov. Scott Walker and his legislative allies. Occupy Wall Street turned that spark into a conflagration that swept the nation. Last week, in Ohio and Maine and even Mississippi, voters overwhelmingly rejected efforts to trample worker rights, constrict the right to vote and roll back women’s rights. These electoral victories have led pundits to wonder whether Occupy Wall Street will imitate the Tea Party and stand candidates for office....

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.

"Why did it take Bea, van Heerden, and Garzino to shed light on this story?The Army Corps of Engineers, as an institution, is not very receptive to criticism, from inside or outside. It dominates the market for engineering certain kinds of projects, mainly to do with water. So the engineering profession is filled with people whose attitude is, "Better not rock the boat." And inside [the corps], it's arguably worse. It exists in a bubble of impunity. Because, as we lay out in the film, Congress likes the corps the way it is, and it doesn't really give it effective...

Whether you believe that man has ruined the earth’s climate or not we can all agree that Washington’s bickering about emergency FEMA funding does nothing to fight the effects of global climate change. According to the New York Times, Hurricane Irene earlier this year was the first US catastrophe of the Obama administration to make the top 10 list, joining the insurmountable Bush catastrophes of Katrina and 911. Climate experts Bill McKibben and Al Gore agree that Obama has failed with only half hearted efforts to reverse the rising oceans. A search at usaspending.gov (Sponsored by Senator Obama under the...

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".

On the eve of Hurricane Irene making landfall, CBS News turned to disgraced former new Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and referred to him as an "expert." Nagin used the opportunity to plug his "self-published" book.

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.

MAP OF THE DAY: New York City Hurricane Evacuation Zones Dina Spector Aug. 25, 2011, 1:44 PM As hurricane Irene barrels toward the east coast, thousands of residents have already been evacuated from the coastal villages off North Carolina. Now New York, New Jersey, and Delaware officials are preparing for the possibility of mass evacuations. New York city officials are still monitoring the storm and won't make any calls until Friday afternoon at the earliest whether to evacuate areas of the city susceptible to flooding, including Battery Park City in Manhattan, Coney Island in Brooklyn and Far Rockaway in Queens....

World history tells us of tyrants and dictators that have deprived the populace of their God given rights, especially the right to keep and bear arms. The Jewish Defense League (www.JDL.org) has advised that everywhere in World history where genocide has been committed, the genocide was always preceded by disarming the population. The party or government responsible for disarming may not always be the same party or government that committed the genocide, nonetheless, genocide was committed on the disarmed and defenseless. There are even certain modern evils in the United Nations that must be monitored with vigilance lest the sovereignty...

<p>NEW ORLEANS — A federal jury convicted five current or former police officers Friday of civil rights violations in the deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina, but decided they were not guilty of murder.</p> <p>On the Web, your face can tell everything about you . NBC News What's behind all the deaths at Yosemite? . Reuters A Silk Road culture pushed to the brink . No double dip, but economy stuck in low gear Getty Images stock Child a handful? Laid-back parenting can make matters worse . ..All five officers were convicted Friday of charges stemming from the cover-up of the shootings. The four who had been charged with civil rights violations in the shootings were convicted on all counts.</p>