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Some of the New Orleans city building inspectors who signed off at key points of the construction of the Hard Rock Hotel before it pancaked and collapsed on Oct. 12, killing three laborers, do not appear to have been properly certified for the work, records show. One inspector, Bryan Cowart, appears to be certified only for residential inspections. Inspector Julie Tweeter, whose whereabouts during inspections she claimed to have completed at the Hard Rock on several days last year are now under investigation, did not receive her commercial building inspector’s license until July 2018. By then, she’d signed off on...

NEW ORLEANS — The Hard Rock Hotel that was set to open on Canal Street has collapsed while under construction. Few details were immediately available from city officials but no injuries were immediately reported. The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear.

[Intro by poster topher] Two bodies still trapped under wreckage after 4 months... NEW ORLEANS — Four months after the Hard Rock hotel construction site on Canal Street collapsed, the mangled concrete and twisted steel still looms over downtown New Orleans. On the border of the collapse zone, a memorial for the three men killed in the collapse continues to grow. Advertisement The site has become a landmark, with visitors and locals stopping to take pictures and write messages on ribbons for the families of Anthony Magrette, Jose Ponce Arreola and Quinnyon Wimberley, who died when the building fell Oct....

Saying it was against building policy, a Mercedes-Benz Superdome police officer was telling LSU football players to extinguish their victory cigars Monday night in the jubilant locker room minutes after winning the national championship when he felt LSU alum and NFL pro Odell Beckham Jr. slap him on the backside. The 48-year-old lieutenant suppressed the urge to punch Beckham in retaliation, called the New Orleans Police Department a little more than a day later and told investigators he wanted to press charges, according to court records. Police by Thursday morning had obtained a warrant to arrest Beckham, 27, on a...

Phishing attempts and suspicious activity were detected on the city's network around 5 a.m., New Orleans chief information officer Kim LaGrue said during a press conference. By 11 a.m., technician investigators detected "a cybersecurity incident" and the city's information technology department began powering down servers and city computers as a precaution, the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said in a series of tweets. While ransomware was detected, no ransom has been demanded in the cyberattack, Cantrell said.

An embattled Mississippi judge's nomination to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans faces opposition from civil rights groups that claim he has a poor record on issues involving race and sexual assault—and from conservatives who claim he is not conservative enough. For the fifth time, the U.S. Senate committee in charge of advancing federal court nominees cancelled plans to hold a vote on Judge Halil Suleyman "Sul" Ozerden last month, and has not rescheduled plans to hold a vote. In an October letter, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Vanita Gupta wrote to...

New Orleans police are investigating a mass shooting along Canal Street. According to NOPD, at least 11 people were struck by gunfire in the 700 block of Canal Street just before 3:30 a.m. Sunday. Superintendent Shaun Ferguson says officers were on the block when the shooting happened. No officers were reported injured. A person was detained near the scene, however police say their involvement in this incident remains under investigation. No arrests have been made. SNIP

A construction worker who became a witness in a federal workplace safety investigation after he was injured during the collapse of a new Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans was deported by immigration authorities Friday, his lawyers said. The worker, Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, had to scramble to stay alive while metal and debris rained down and parts of the 18-story structure pancaked around him and killed three of his colleagues on Oct. 12. Mr. Ramirez Palma had raised concerns about problems with the construction with supervisors multiple times, according to his lawyers. After the building crumbled around him, he...

NEW ORLEANS - A Virginia man wolfed down 40 dozen oysters in eight minutes Sunday to win the World Oyster Eating Championship at the New Orleans Oyster Festival, the Times-Picayune reported. Darron Breeden of Orange, Virginia, topped a field of seven contestants who participated in the annual contest, which is held in a park between the French Quarter and the Mississippi River.

A popular song once told us that “One is the loneliest number that there’s ever been.” And that’s the case for Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards. Edwards is the only Democrat governor in the nation who is pro-life on abortion. He one of just a handful of pro-life Democrats elected at any major federal or statewide level — a reminder that most pro-life Democrats have become Republicans as the Democrat Party has drifted further left and become ubiquitously pro-abortion. Edwards beat pro-life Republican businessman Eddie Rispone 51.3% to 48.7% over the weekend. national pundits tried to use the victory as...

NEW ORLEANS – Work crews are finalizing preparations for a controlled demolition that will take down twin tower cranes that have been swaying precariously over the ruins of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site since a fatal collapse one week ago. If all goes to plan, the cross beams of the cranes, which each weigh 145,000 pounds, will collapse where they stand, according to New Orleans Fire Department chief Tim McConnell.

Multiple people were reportedly injured Saturday morning when part of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans collapsed. STORY: Multiple injuries reported after Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans collapses This is a developing story. See the photos below. https://www.nola.com/multimedia/photos/collection_ba89561c-ed02-11e9-8934-378c4f7317af.html#1

One person has died and another injured after they were shot in New Orleans on Saturday night in the Desire area, pushing the total of gunshot victims this weekend in the city to 13. According to New Orleans police, this latest shooting happened in the 3400 block of Louisa Street, when an individual in a black Cadillac drove by and began shooting. A 17-year-old was killed and five others were wounded in a shooting Friday night on City Park Avenue. Four people were shot in the St. Claude neighborhood late Saturday morning, according to police. A number of shots were...

State Sen. Wesley Bishop, a Democrat from New Orleans who recently announced he would not seek re-election after eight years in the Legislature, is under federal investigation for possible payroll abuse, records show. Bishop serves as associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at Southern University at New Orleans. In a series of stories last year, WVUE-TV Fox 8 reported that Bishop had been paid for 122 days of sick leave at SUNO while attending hearings in Baton Rouge in his capacity as a lawmaker. The station raised questions about whether the roughly $50,000 in sick leave payments were legal or...

An award-winning local TV news anchor in New Orleans died in a plane crash while working on a story about a stunt pilot. Nancy Parker, 53, was killed along with the pilot, Franklin J.P. Augustus, on Friday when the plane crashed into a field near the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. The cause of the crash in under investigation, local officials said. Parker, who earned five Emmy Awards for her work as a journalist, was a fixture in New Orleans and at the station she worked at for 23 years, her station said. Her colleagues choked back tears as they shared...

Upon information and belief, the Defendant CITY OF NEW ORLEANS was informed in 2013 of the presence of radioactive materials in the subsurface soil located at or near Lowerline Street and Edinburg Streets in New Orleans, Louisiana. This discovery was made while scanning for security threats in preparation of hosting the 2013 Superbowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. Despite having knowledge of the presence of hazardous radioactive materials in the subsurface soil located at or near Lowerline Street and Edinburg Streets in New Orleans, Louisiana, the City took no action to warn and/or to protect Plaintiffs, other residents or other business...

Major cities run by Democrat policies for the past forty or so years all have one thing in common, a decaying inner core where buildings are rotting, property values are tanking and jobs are non-existent. President Trump has put the spotlight recently on Baltimore and it appears to be making headway out in the rest of the country that yes, there is a problem, one that has been long standing yet virtually ignored. How do you reverse this trend? Sinking more and more government led solutions hasn't done the trick. Perhaps it's time to let private enterprise take a shot...

You’re not in Louisiana anymore. A new deputy police commissioner in Baltimore got a firsthand lesson in the city’s crime problems — getting robbed at gunpoint while out with his wife, according to reports. Deputy Commissioner Daniel Murphy had only started with the force in April after being brought in from New Orleans to help lead sweeping reforms, according to the Baltimore Sun. He was robbed at 9 p.m. Friday by four men in a white SUV near Patterson Park, according to the Sun. Two of the men, said to be about 18, jumped out and approached Murphy and his...

Two members of a police department in a New Orleans suburb were fired Monday — one for a Facebook post calling U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a “vile idiot” and suggesting that she be shot, the other for “liking” the post. Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson announced the terminations Monday. Officer Charlie Rispoli was fired for a post saying Ocasio-Cortez “needs a round” and not “the kind she used to serve” — an apparent reference to her having once been a bartender. Officer Angelo Varisco was fired for “liking” the post. “It’s very disappointing,” Lawson said, adding that the Gretna department...

Neighborhoods across New Orleans were inundated with floodwaters Wednesday morning, with more than 7 inches of rain falling in some areas ahead of the storm forecasters now predict will become Hurricane Barry by the end of the week. In addition to the torrential rains, which left residents stranded or forced to rely on boats to get down flooded streets, the storm also brought lightning and thunder. Power was knocked out to 19,000 Entergy customers and a water spout was spotted over Lake Pontchartrain. As of noon Wednesday, the extent of the damage to homes, businesses and cars was still difficult...