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Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said she learned all she needed to know about Sen. Mary Landrieu by watching her work to get funding for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Clinton recalled she and Landrieu's experience in the U.S. Senate together during a get-out-the-vote rally at the Sugar Mill in New Orleans on Saturday. She touted Landrieu's leadership and how she prioritized Louisiana's women and families while urging the crowd to vote Tuesday. Clinton and Landrieu served in the Senate together from 2001-2009. Clinton said her greatest memories of Landrieu came in the aftermath of Katrina. She remembered Landrieu...

It was not hard for me to make the connection between the tragedy in Ferguson, Missouri, and the catalyst for my work to stop the climate crisis. It was all over the news in August: images of police pointing military-grade weapons at unarmed black people with their hands in the air. These scenes made my heart race in an all-too-familiar way. I was devastated for Michael Brown, his family and the people of Ferguson. Almost immediately, I closed my eyes and felt the fear I have for my own family. In the wake of the climate disaster that was Hurricane...

Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is asking for leniency ahead of his July 2 sentencing. New court filings say Nagin is looking at a minimum of 20 years in prison, based on federal sentencing guidelines. That's a "virtual life sentence" for the 58-year-old former two-term mayor, defense attorney Robert Jenkins wrote in a Friday filing to U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan asking her to hand down a lighter term.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made headlines and raised eyebrows Monday when he said that while Hurricane Katrina was deadlier than Hurricane Sandy, the latter storm was “more impactful” over all and “affected many, many more people and places than Katrina.” Mr. Cuomo added that Hurricane Sandy had a greater economic impact, destroyed or damaged more units of housing, affected more businesses and caused more customers to lose power. For our part, City Room decided to undertake a little truth-squadding. While apples-to-apples numbers for the two storms are very difficult to come by, especially given that Hurricane Sandy’s costs are still...

In an emergency evacuation, there will always be people who stay behind to protect their personal belongings. People who ignored evacuation warnings had to be rescued and some lost their lives in one of the worst storms in the history of natural disasters in the United States.The biggest challenges were hunger and cold because of electrical outages. More than 8.1 million homes and businesses lost power.In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, city leaders across the country are asking how their city would respond to a similar disaster and examining their preparedness and self-reliance needs. Sandy would have resulted in much...

President Barack Obama is pivoting from diplomacy on the world stage to the intimate and delicate domestic task of acting as healer-in-chief to a devastated community. The president travels to tornado-wrecked Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, a day after returning from a six-day European tour of Ireland, England, France and Poland. After days of focusing on the U.S. relationship with the rest of the world, he'll turn to an even more critical connection: his own, with the American people. The president will visit with survivors and family members of the worst tornado in decades, a monster storm that tore through Joplin...

People talk about wanting to get the money out of politics, but fundraising totals can tell us a lot about who's hitting their stride and who will soon be hitting the bench. We are now within striking distance of November 2, so much so that Muse’s “Uprising” is my ringtone. “Rise up and take the power back/It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack … .”As we get down to the wire, polls matter, block walks matter, enthusiasm matters — and money matters. In fact, money tells us a lot about the health of a candidate and where he...

NEW ORLEANS -- Five years after he documented the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, Spike Lee returned to New Orleans with his new movie showing the city's agonizing efforts to return to normal. The premiere Tuesday included hours one and four of the HBO documentary, "If God Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise." "The first hour was very, very emotional," said Sharon Starks, 53, who said she had a purse full of tissues after seeing the first Lee film on the hurricane. "But the second hour I was just angry. It was about the BP oil spill and I just felt...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Four more New Orleans police officers have been charged in the deadly shootings of two people in Hurricane Katrina's chaotic aftermath and could face the most serious punishment yet - the death penalty - for the killings that have brought down a string of other officers. Six current or former officers are charged in a 27-count indictment unsealed Tuesday. Five former New Orleans police officers already have pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings on the Danziger Bridge....

Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu is the next mayor of New Orleans. The city is two-thirds black, and he will be the first white elected to the office since 1970, when his father, Moon Landrieu, won the seat. The election was a true post-racial moment. Four and a half years after Katrina, black voters decided competence trumped race. The prospect of a white mayor would be “an earth-shaking event,” a politically active black lawyer told a New York Times reporter before the election. In January 2006, when the first post-Katrina election was held, Mayor C. Ray Nagin took the occasion...

Just months after leaving New Orleans, former recovery czar Ed Blakely gave a television interview lambasting the city, saying its people are racists, its city workers are unsophisticated and its residents lazy.

In Norway they may think that President Barack Obama has a great knack for peace, but around here his forte seems to be stirring up strife. New Orleans is mad because Obama's visit tomorrow will be little more than a whistlestop. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is mad because New Orleans gets all the attention, such as it is, while the lingering effects of Katrina over there are ignored. And from southwest Louisiana comes the cry, "What about Rita, Gustav and Ike? The president really needs to take a look at Cameron Parish." Obama is also being denounced for an apparent...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A jury is scheduled to hear closing arguments Wednesday in the bribery trial of a former Louisiana congressman .. William Jefferson, a Democrat .. is accused of receiving more than $400,000 in bribes .. Jefferson's attorneys argue that their client was essentially acting as a private business consultant and never violated bribery laws.

The decision by Mayor Ray Nagin's administration to delete virtually every e-mail sent and received by Nagin last year was not only an apparent violation of the state public-records law, it also flies in the face of a detailed policy recommendation prepared less than a year ago by the mayor's own technology office.

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...

A federal judge has refused to dismiss bribery charges against Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.). Jefferson is accused of orchestrating a complicated, and multi-layered scheme to receive bribes from companies seeking business in Western Africa. Proving bribery against a lawmaker is difficult because prosecutors must show that the defendant provided an “official act” such as a voting a certain way or sponsoring legislation in return for money or items he received. His lawyers argued that Jefferson didn’t do anything in his capacity as a congressman that could be considered a bribe. U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III turned that legal...

<p>NEW ORLEANS -- The bloodiest city in the country in 2006, reeling from crime in its struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina, got even worse in 2007.</p> <p>New Orleans registered 209 homicides last year, a nearly 30 percent increase from the 161 recorded in 2006.</p>

NEW ORLEANS - Fed up with crime and political corruption, New Orleans' business leaders in 1952 organized to flush out the twin poisons they believed were harming economic development. It was a time when illegal gambling and the Carlos Marcello crime family operated openly in a city that was a bustling business hub. Fast forward 55 years. Gambling is legal and the mob has faded into obscurity. The city's economy is a shadow of its former self, thanks to the 1980s oil bust, an exodus of big businesses and the shattering blow of Hurricane Katrina, which ran off at least...

"You owe us you no good cracker! 50 billion dollars ain't enough!"

Jefferson tries to get case thrown outBy: John Bresnahan Nov 12, 2007 07:35 PM EST Jefferson has been indicted on a litany of federal charges, including bribery. Photo: AP Who says lawyers aren’t creative? Attorneys for indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) are citing new Senate legislation designed to make it easier to prosecute corrupt pols as a reason to throw out parts of the bribery and corruption case against the lawmaker. Jefferson has been indicted on a litany of federal charges, including bribery, in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va. His trial is set to start in mid-January, but...