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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Under pressure from a federal judge, Gov. Kathleen Blanco set an April 22 date for New Orleans elections. Though Blanco solidified the elections date Tuesday with her executive order, the state doesn't yet have all the approvals it needs to proceed with April elections in New Orleans for mayor, city council, sheriff and tax assessors. The Legislature and the U.S. Justice Department need to sign off on Secretary of State Al Ater's emergency elections plan for the city, which includes beefed-up absentee balloting and the creation of "mega-polling" sites to replace those damaged by the...

A second lawsuit was filed Tuesday trying to overturn Gov. Kathleen Blanco's decision to postpone New Orleans' scheduled 2006 mayoral and City Council elections indefinitely. The first suit was filed Friday in state court in Baton Rouge. The second, filed in federal court by lawyer Justin Asher Zitler, says that Blanco's decision was "unconstitutional . . . arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable." It asks that the originally scheduled Feb. 4 primary and March 4 runoff elections be held no later than March 4 and March 25, respectively, meaning the winners could be inaugurated on schedule May 1, as provided in the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A senator leading an investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina questioned whether post-storm requests by New Orleans city officials for golf carts, air conditioners and travel assistance were necessary. Documents released Thursday by Republican aides to a Senate committee show that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's administration also asked for hundreds of laptop computers, patrol cars, handcuffs and guns for police. The flooded city was ransacked by some looting after the Aug. 29 storm, and many of its police cars and other vehicles and equipment were destroyed. "They struck me as not the typical request,"...

For the first time, Governor Kathleen Blanco has responded to those Hurricane Katrina e-mails and documents her office has turned over to Congress and the media. They detail, in some cases, minute-by-minute staff decisions, and some of those e-mails talk about how the governor should dress and ways to make her look more commanding. The governor was forceful Wednesday when addressing those documents and didn't mince words. Working with our colleagues in New Orleans, 9 News asked her about whether she was embarrassed at an apparent focus during a crisis on how to improve her image. She told us...