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NEW ORLEANS, LA -- Louisiana pawnshop manager Dan Reese said he never thought he'd see a diaper-clad 2-year-old holding an AK-47. But that's exactly what happened inside BJ's Pawn Shop, Reese said. The toddler's father gave him the gun and proceeded to show the child how to hold, load and operate it. "He's telling the boy, 'This is how you hold it, like this. Anybody in front of you, you can mow them down. Kill everybody, soldier, because daddy's going to buy you this chopper,' repeating it over and over," Reese said. The store's surveillance video also shows the father...

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Stephanie Pedro, 27, is no Paul Kersey, the New York architect-turned-vigilante Charles Bronson played in the the Death Wish movies. But the unrelenting crime wave that has gripped New Orleans in recent months has prompted the young urban planner to consider measures that she once considered extreme. "When I walk my dog, I have a 20-dollar bill in one pocket and mace in the other," says Pedro, referring to "mugger money" she carries to hand over in hopes that an assailant will beat a quick retreat, and spray in case things turn uglier. "I've taken that initiative, but I think...

NEW ORLEANS Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (LAN'-droo) says she's blocked the Senate confirmation for the proposed head of the Army Corps of Engineers so there can be a debate on his role in rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. The Corps has been hammered by critics for installing faulty drainage pumps to protect New Orleans. Landrieu wants government auditors to find out if contracts for the work were subject to improper influence. She also wants to know if New Orleans was in danger, and what the Corps was thinking when it had them installed. The Corps has said that having some pumping...

It can portray a hurricane in stunning detail. It's powered by a supercomputer that can perform 14 trillion calculations a second. And starting in June, it should help tropical meteorologists project whether a storm will arrive as a killer or a creampuff. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It can portray a hurricane in stunning detail. It's powered by a supercomputer that can perform 14 trillion calculations a second. And starting in June, it should help tropical meteorologists project whether a storm will arrive as a killer or a creampuff. The sophisticated new forecast model could be the Holy Grail that forecasters...

Pelosi and some other Democrats silent in fight against FBI raid: Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., the target of a two-year public-corruption investigation, is finding himself with strange bedfellows. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., a former House speaker; Robert Michel, R-Ill., a former House minority leader; and Scott Palmer, the former chief of staff for Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., are among those who have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, backing Jefferson's argument that the FBI raid on his office last May was unconstitutional. "These former leaders of the House had concerns about the integrity and...

All corruption probes at stake, U.S. argues WASHINGTON -- If objections by Rep. William Jefferson's attorneys to the historic raid of his congressional office are upheld, "many, if not all, public corruption investigations" would be jeopardized, the Justice Department said in a court filing Friday. The department, which has been conducting a corruption investigation of the New Orleans Democrat for the past two years, is responding to the contention that the raid was so heavy-handed that the government should be barred from using any records taken during the May 20-21, 2006 search of Jefferson's Capitol Hill office. Jefferson has not...

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BATON ROUGE, La. -- The West Feliciana Parish school system must pay more than $1.4 million to an English teacher who was suspended and demoted after refusing to change the Ds and Fs she gave to 70 percent of her students, a federal jury has found. The jury of four men and five women deliberated almost four hours before finding that the school board, superintendent and the principal at West Feliciana High School had harassed Paula Payne, violated her First Amendment rights and retaliated against her. "This is civics in action," Superintendent Lloyd Lindsey said. "The jury has spoken." He...

Peace organizations staged a nonviolent “occupation” of the Hart Senate office building Thursday, calling on Democrats to end the Iraq war. Fellow protesters and Senate staffers looked on, leaning over railings above Hart’s ground-floor atrium, as demonstrators read personal information about U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. The demonstrators spoke from a circle of cardboard headstones, each displaying the photo of a U.S. soldier who had been killed. “The point we’re trying to make is that since January 4th the Democrats have had the chance to end the war,” said Kevin Zeese, director of Democracy Rising, a participating group. “Instead of...

More than a month after Democratic leaders announced Rep. William Jefferson’s (D-La.) appointment to the Homeland Security Committee, his chair still sits empty in the hearing room. And one member of the Democratic leadership is getting impatient. “I have made it clear that I favor Mr. Jefferson’s [appointment],” said Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.). “It is unfair to the people of Louisiana who have the right to be heard on the House floor.” Republicans earlier this month threatened to force a vote on Jefferson’s nomination, and since then, the lawmaker’s appointment has been stalled. Asked why Jefferson’s committee appointment remains...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) March 27 - The head of Oklahoma's Republican Party is asking for a recall of the states lottery. Chairman Tom Daxon says the Oklahoma Lottery has not worked out as voters were led to believe. Officials supported the lottery as a way to raise extra money for public schools and state colleges and universities. A spokesman for Democratic Governor Brad Henry says if Daxon wants the lottery recalled, quote, "he should have at it." Daxon says lottery revenue has consistently been below expectations and that shortfalls have forced lawmakers to dip into other sources to fund education....

But Landrieu, Vitter still waiting: WASHINGTON -- Louisiana's two senators said Monday that they need more information before taking a stand on whether U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should keep his job, while Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-La., criticized the nation's top law enforcement officer for not being "more open and honest." Jindal said he finds "it especially troubling that some of the statements by the attorney general seem to contradict released documents" regarding the controversial firings of several U.S. attorneys. Vitter said the "shifting messages out of the administration," about whether all the prosecutors were replaced because of performance issues...

A national inquiry into the scale of bullying should be undertaken by ministers because of fears that the problem is being downplayed by schools seeking to protect their reputations, a report demands today. New guidance is also needed to ensure that victims who dare to fight back are not suspended or expelled. A report from the education select committee singles out Catholic schools, which, it says, should be forced to make public their commitment to stop gay pupils being bullied. The Catholic church has refused to follow government guidelines urging schools to set up specific policies against homophobic bullying. The...

LA Rep. Boustany endorsed the former Mayor of New York for President Monday morning. The move is the latest in a mounting campaign that could thrust Louisiana voters into peculiar position of rendering to the most moderate of the GOP Presidential candidates a Conservative Respectability. First, David Vitter became the first US Senator and the first major statewide elected official South of the Mason-Dixon line to support Rudy Giuliani's Presidential Exploratory Committee. Now, Louisiana's Seventh District Congressman Charles Boustany has joined the campaign of America's Mayor, responding to the intensive wooing that Rudy has been doing towards the state's political...

More than two dozen of Jason Ray's family and close friends were at his hospital bedside Sunday, holding a vigil as the University of North Carolina mascot lay gravely injured after being hit by an SUV. The 21-year-old senior remained on life support and in extremely critical condition Sunday, two days after he was run down near his hotel in Fort Lee. Ray, who suited up as UNC's ram mascot, Rameses, was in New Jersey for the NCAA men's basketball tournament, a portion of which is being played at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford. Ray's father, Emmitt, who...

Windsor, Calif- A newly imposed ban on sexually suggestive dance moves prompted hundreds of teenagers to boycott a Hawaiian-themed party in their high school gymnasium. Windsor High School only sold 56 tickets to Friday night's semiformal Turnabout Dance, which usually draws as many as 500 students. It was the first dance where Windsor students — and their parents — had to sign a good-behavior contract to get tickets. The contract forbids dancers from "sexual" squatting or bending and from touching breasts, buttocks or genitals. The school bans music from the hip-hop genre "hyphy" and any move where one person's buttocks...

Climate response has barely scratched the surface on social inequity, according to James Norman. THE new millennium has seen unprecedented shifts in world politics and economics, and increasingly climate change is taking centre stage. Yet there are many aspects of global warming that we have barely begun to understand — such as its potential to exacerbate already existing social inequity on both the local and international level. The Equity in Response to Climate Change Roundtable has brought about a unique partnership between Australia's peak environment and welfare groups — the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Australian Conservation Foundation, National Welfare Rights...

ORLANDO, Fla. - Walt Disney Co.'s 1946 film "Song of the South" was historic. It was Disney's first big live-action picture and produced one of the company's most famous songs _ the Oscar-winning "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." It also carries the story line of the Splash Mountain rides at its theme parks. But the movie remains hidden in the Disney archives _ never released on video in the United States and criticized as racist for its depiction of Southern plantation blacks. The film's 60th anniversary passed last year without a whisper of official rerelease, which is unusual for Disney, but President and CEO...