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On July 7, 1846, a contingent of Marines raised the American flag over Monterey, California, to mark a proclamation by U.S. consul Thomas Larkin that the territory was being annexed as a consequence of the war with Mexico. Much of the future state had already been taken from Mexico's nominal control by an uprising of American settlers under the Bear Flag. Victory in the Mexican War meant that the country gained Texas, California, and everything in between, comprising most of what is now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. Next to the War of Independence and the Civil...

Robert Francis Prevost, who was selected as the Catholic Church’s first American pope Thursday and took the name Leo XIV, has a family history that some were celebrating as uniquely diverse, with one genealogist claiming he has ties to “free people of color” in New Orleans. Key Facts The maternal side of Pope Leo XIV’s family can be traced back to at least the 1840s among “free people of color” in New Orleans, according to Jari C. Honora, a genealogist with the Historic New Orleans Collection, a research center documenting the city’s history. Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., who represents New...

NEW ORLEANS — The first American Pope has a family history with deep ties to New Orleans.

Robert Francis Prevost, now Leo XIV, was named the first American pope of the Catholic Church on Thursday — and his lineage traces back to New Orleans, according to Jari Honora, a local genealogist and historian. When Honora heard the last name "Prevost," he started digging, on the odd chance Leo XIV's paternal line might be French Canadian or Acadian with Louisiana ties. What he found, to his surprise, was that Prevost's mother, Mildred Martinez, was the one with familial cords to the city. In less than an hour, Honora — who works as a historian for The Historic New...

When Congress passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in March 2021, it allocated $350 billion in assistance to state and local governments – providing the largest infusion of cash to local governments since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. For New Orleans, that money represented a desperately needed lifeline. The city had been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. It was an early hotspot for the virus. And Black residents, who comprise about 60% of the city’s population, were disproportionately impacted, accounting for more than 75% of COVID deaths in the first few months of the pandemic. As...

A suspected ISIS member was arrested in connection with the Jan. 1 attack on Bourbon Street that killed 14 people and injured at least 57 others, Iraq's judiciary said Sunday. Following a request from the U.S. for assistance in the investigation, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said the individual “was arrested for inciting the Jan. 2025 truck attack in the United States," according to Al Arabiya News, a Saudi state-owned international Arabic news channel. The unnamed suspect is “a member of the external operations office of the Daesh terrorist organization" — the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group known ISIS....

Being a radio talk show host for the last 26 years has been a true privilege. It has allowed me the opportunity to express my views on the air, exchange ideas with listeners and interview some of the most powerful and interesting guests in the world. After starting on the radio, I was fortunate enough to be able to launch a television show, a political comedy show, a weekly column and eventually author a book. All these activities were done to communicate important ideas with the public and attempt to influence our nation’s political environment in a positive way.

Deep in your heart you knew there are tax-payer’s money wasted somewhere in the whole Russian spy drama. Why did the Obama administration and the Russian government wanted to get rid of them so fast? We may never know. However we can prove that USAID funded the agro- and eco-tourism project in 2004 run by the company 4Vlast for which Anya Chapman and Vasily Kushchenko worked at the time. As you know from the previous research Chapman was the London contact person for the 4Vlast firm, Kushchenko was running their tourism firm and worked for the 4 Vlast Mrs. World...

The NFL 'immediately' sent a letter of apology to Lil Wayne after announcing last year that Kendrick Lamar had been chosen to perform the Super Bowl halftime show. Lil Wayne was denied the chance to headline this year's halftime show in New Orleans, a move which sparked outrage given his famous association with the Big Easy - where he was born and raised. And to add to the controversy, Kendrick's performance at the Superdome was heavily criticized by viewers who were left underwhelmed on Sunday night. The Not Like Us rapper, who included his famous diss track about bitter rival...

Former NFL star Adam "Pacman" Jones appeared at a Super Bowl LIX party wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat in apparent support of President Donald Trump. Jones spoke to Fox News Digital on the carpet ahead of "SI The Party" in New Orleans on Saturday night. He said he was "all for" Trump’s potential visit to Caesars Superdome to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Philadelphia Eagles. "Love it. Love it. I’m all for it," Jones said, adding he believed Trump has "got the best thing for us." Trump’s expected appearance at the Super Bowl has been...

Miranda Devine @mirandadevine Hunter Biden will be in the Philadelphia Eagles box with his stepmother Jill Biden at the Super Bowl today. What a cheek. 12:13 PM · Feb 9, 2025

A Louisiana woman with a history of drugging men and stealing their credit cards was arrested in connection to the death of a Kansas City Telemundo reporter while he was in New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl, police said Friday. Danette Colbert, 48, of Slidell, was busted after she was captured in surveillance camera footage leaving journalist Adan Manzano’s hotel room, then allegedly using his credit card at stores around the Big Easy, NBC News reported. She was captured in surveillance camera footage leaving the 27-year-old reporter’s hotel room in the suburb of Kenner before going on the alleged...

Adan Manzano, a sports reporter covering the Chiefs, died Wednesday while on assignment for Super Bowl 2025 in New Orleans for Telemundo Kansas City and Tico Sports, KGKC general manager Steve Downing said in a statement Thursday. A cause of death wasn’t immediately made available, and Downing said in his statement that the network was “cooperating with law enforcement as they investigate this tragic event.” “As KGKC’s Sports Anchor & Reporter, Adan was a true professional and a rising star, who exemplified excellence in his work,” Downing continued in his statement. “We will deeply miss Adan and his passion for...

**SNIP** Those busts included dozens of members of the vicious Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang — as well as multiple MS-13 gang members — at least five “career criminals” nabbed by the Drug Enforcement Administration and scores of others wanted for murder, kidnapping, child molestation and more. ICE has shared daily “enforcement updates” on X since Jan. 23, outlining their daily arrest totals, as well as detainers lodged — formal requests for inmates to be held until they can be picked up by immigration officials. Through Tuesday, officials made 5,537 arrests and lodged 4,333 detainers, giving authorities a running...

Tubi will stream Super Bowl LIX in February for free on its platform using FOX’s feed of the game, the company announced. Viewers will be able to watch the game on Feb. 9 when they sign up via email registration. There will be no Multichannel Video Programming Distributor authentication or credit card sign-up needed to be able to watch it. The FOX Sports pregame show will also be available for fans tuning in to watch the game. A second stream on Tubi will also include the Tubi Red Carpet event, hosted by Olivia Culpo at 3:30 p.m. ET, and the...

Newly released police bodycam footage captured the shocking moment the New Orleans terrorist was shot and killed by police in the New Year's Day attack. The footage showed how heroic cops sprang into action to kill ISIS terrorist Shamsud-Din Jabbar after he plowed through a crowd of revelers and shot at police and bystanders. The video shows three New Orleans police officers surrounding Jabbar's Ford F-150 and ordering him out of the car, which had been used to kill 14 people and injure dozens more. A fourth officer whose bodycam footage was released, named as officer Luis Robles, then ran...

Celebrating the day that Andrew Jackson (Trump's Political hero) drove the British from the US for good.

Motta, her fiancé, Sean Alfortish, who is a disbarred lawyer, and several others all took part in the complex conspiracy in which individuals orchestrated car accidents, including intentionally colliding with 18-wheelers, around the New Orleans area, prosecutors alleged, according to reports. The drivers, known as the slammers, would cause the crash, and then flee the scene with the help of another getaway driver, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The slammer’s passenger would then claim to be operating the vehicle leading up to the car wreck, the feds said. The scheme also involved individuals...

Proposition: Human flourishing will not be advanced at the upcoming meeting of the Modern Language Association, which begins next Thursday in New Orleans. Evidence: The conference program includes among its listed sessions the following gibberish, gossip, and complaint: “Contemporary Astrological Media of Minoritarian Self-Making”; “The Queer Conspiracy of Illegibility”; “Against Resilience: Laziness as Refusal”; “How to Be a Woman Though Male: On Uncertainty and Trans Pedagogy”; “Embracing the Low Road? Hating ‘Men’ in Manifestos”; “The (In)Visibility of Claudia Rankine’s and Donald Glovers’s Public Responses to the 2015 Charleston Shooting”; “‘Just a Young Boy in the Hood’: Imaginative Cartographies of the...

A terrorist attack at 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day exposed to the world the deadly consequences of the dysfunctional leadership of New Orleans. The Crescent City has been controlled by the Democratic Party since 1872, when the last Republican Mayor left office. The current Democrat Mayor, LaToya Cantrell, is thankfully in the final year of her second term in office. She has been enmeshed in controversy from the beginning of her tenure as Mayor.