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Millie Campbell (pictured), 76, and Betty Minor, 69, are a part of the group who have been blessing the city for the past six weeks. As Campbell drives with Minor in her blue Chevrolet through the 7th Ward, Campbell says:

Oh, God, we thank you for the blood of Jesus. Touch this block in the name of Jesus.

When Minor isn’t punctuating Campbell’s prayers with a number of “Hallelujahs” and “Glorys,” she adds:

Cover your children, Father God. In the name of Jesus.

While The Times-Picayune notes that a number of clergy, organizations, and youth ministries are all involved in the effort to stem the murder and mayhem that continues day by day in New Orleans, this small group believes that when a situation becomes to heavy to bear, one must take it to the Lord.

Campbell adds:

We got a problem, but we don’t know how to solve it. We’re taking it to the Spirit.

About two weeks ago, NewsOne covered the violence that raged in New Orlean’s streets, when four people were killed and 10 were wounded during a single weekend. At that unfortunate time, 11-year-old Keian Ester was shot in the back of his skull as he played Xbox in his home. Obviously, New Orleans isn’t alone in its black-on-black murder problem.

Just two years ago, the NY Post reported that the murder rate for African Americans was up 31 percent in the city of New York, with 60 percent of Blacks being the murder victims. And as if that weren’t enough, in Chicago, while all other races saw their murder rates decrease in 2010, UPI reported that African Americans weren’t so lucky:

Wesley Skogan, a crime and policing expert at Northwestern University’s Institute of Policy Research, said many African-American neighborhoods in Chicago didn’t see the decline in crime that white, Hispanic or other diverse neighborhoods enjoyed.

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Of course, you can attend a local parade today.

However, there are also concerts, special movie screenings, prayer services and many other volunteer efforts to join so you can add an educational, service and even spiritual element to however you’re planning to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy.

If you’re looking for ways to make today more than just a day off work, we’ve compiled a list of some of what’s happening in 13 major markets.

1. ATLANTA

If you’re in the Peachtree city, you can attend the King Holiday March and Rally. The march is held on Auburn Avenue from Peachtree Street to Jackson Street while the rally is held on Auburn Avenue in the King National Park Area. The areas of concern are education, technology, medical, investment, transportation, housing environmental justice, job creation, conflict resolution, interfaith, cultural exchange, peace, justice and voter registration. 1:15 p.m. Jan. 16. Sweet Auburn District, Auburn Ave N.E., Atlanta. 404-614-3233. In addition, poet Nikki Giovanni will speak and do a free book signing at 2 p.m., as part of Kennesaw State University’s annual MLK Day event at the Bailey Performance Center, 1000 Chastain Road N.W, Kennesaw. 770-423-6650. Visit the official King Week at Emory website for a full list of the school’s King Week activities.

2. BIRMINGHAM

In the Birmingham area, locals can attend the Wreath Laying Ceremony at Dr. King’s Statue at Kelly Ingram Park at 10 a.m. There’s a Martin Luther King Day Parade in Montevallo that starts at 11 a.m. at Montevallo City Hall and will end at Shiloh Baptist Church. Homeless and senior citizens can visit Boutwell Auditorium for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Love Feast at 2:30 p.m. Plus, folks in the area can participate in Hands on Birmingham’s 12th annual MLK Day of Service.Over 35 projects take place around the city from clean-ups, socializing with the elderly, and more. Various locations and times. And there’s free admission all day from 9 to 5 p.m. at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute located at 520 16th Street North.

3. BOSTON

Since King was a former Boston University student, the school will hold its annual remembrance ceremony commemorating his birthday. The event, titled “Manifest Our Destiny,” routinely draws more than 1,000 people from the area. This year’s ceremony will explore “how one person’s passion can transform the world” and will include a lineup of speakers and a jazz performance from BU students. The celebration, which will be broadcast live using BU’s channel on UStream, is open to the public, and will take place at 1 p.m. on Jan. 16 in the George Sherman Union Metcalf Ballroom.

4. CHICAGO

If you’re in the Windy City, Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet is offering an African dance class in commemoration of the holiday and the Bronzeville Children’s Museum in Chicago will have a program featuring crafts. Plus, Chicagoans can get up to speed on the “Rev. Martin Luther King’s pacifist principles” by taking a free daylong course (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) taught by certified Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies members. For more information, visit evanstonhistorycenter.org. Evanston History Center, Charles Gates Dawes House, 225 Greenwood St (847-475-3410).

5. DETROIT

Over in Detroit, there’s the 2012 Detroit MLK Day  Rally and March: Jobs, Peace & Justice. The event is a tribute to the women of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) that starts at noon at Central United Methodist Church. A march through downtown Detroit follows, with a celebration culminating in the church’s second floor at 23 E. Adams and Woodward. The University of Michigan-Detroit Center (3663 Woodward Ave., Suite 150) is hosting “It’s Going On in the Hood,” a panel discussion from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m focusing on efforts to aid Detroit’s neighborhoods. For more information, visit detroitcenter.umich.edu or call the Detroit Center at (313) 593-3584.

6. HOUSTON

The 18th Annual MLK Grande Parade starts in Mid-Town at San Jacinto St and Elgin Street. For more information about the parade and pre event activities visit www.mlkgrandeparade.org. After the parade, enjoy a day of service with the Harlem Globetrotters at Root Memorial Square Park (1400 Clay Street, Houston. ) from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

7. LOS ANGELES

Instead of watching the Lakers or Clippers on TV, locals can attend this year’s Kingdom Day Parade. The parade’s theme is ”The Dream Continues to Live and Grow.” Plus, City Year Los Angeles also sponsors a day of service at Los Angeles Academy Middle School where Angelenos can build benches and paint murals. Find more volunteer opportunities at MLKDay.gov.

8. MIAMI

South Florida Urban Ministries celebrates and honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a day of community service. SFLUM staff and a team of AmeriCorps members and other volunteers spend the day beautifying Florida City through several painting and tree planting projects. Additionally, volunteers will help beautify and revitalize four homes in Florida City. Also includes open and closing ceremonies and lunch; 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Branches Florida City, 145 SW Fifth Ave., Florida City. Free. 305-442-8306.

9. NEW ORLEANS

In the Big Easy, locals can attend the 25th annual program of the Martin Luther King Jr. Task Force Inc. of Jefferson Parish which includes a 6:45 p.m. banquet at The Four Columns, 3711 West Bank Expressway, Harvey. The theme is “Remember! Celebrate! Act! A Day On … Not a Day Off!” Tickets are $40 per person, and organizers suggest you call soon to reserve seats. Call Clara T. Byes at 504.376.2130 or 504.368.5332.

10. NEW YORK

New Yorkers have lots of options too. Locals can visit “Picture the Dream,” a free exhibit that showcases collages that echo the message of Martin Luther King, Jr., created by children living in Brooklyn public housing. BAMcafé, 30 Lafayette Ave., btwn Ashland Pl. and St. Felix St., Brooklyn. For more info, 718-636-4111. Film buffs can watch a screening of Nothing But a Man, which is playing at the Museum of the Moving Image at 3 p.m. It’s free with $12 museum admission. The film honors the push for civil rights by Martin Luther King, Jr., as it focuses on a 1960s African American railroad worker and his family’s struggle against racism. 36-01 35 Ave., at 37th St., Astoria. For more info, 718-777-6888. And Harlemites can take the Civil Rights Multimedia Walking Tour sponsored by the Harlem Heritage & Cultural Center, 1 p.m. For $25, you can watch a video presentation of Dr. King, visit the hub of Manhattan’s African American community and explore sights related to Martin Luther King, Jr. and other important civil rights figures. 104 Malcolm X Blvd., btwn 115th and 116th sts.

11. OAKLAND

The Allen Temple Leadership Institute with Mayor Jean Quan and City Council President Larry Reid lead the “Green Clean Up Day,” a service event which will target 20 blocks in East Oakland for cleaning, graffiti removal and trash pick up. More than 200 volunteers are expected to participate in the cleanup, which is set to take place between 8:30 a.m. and noon, primarily along International Boulevard between 81st and 98th avenues.

12. SAN FRANCISCO

It’s all about service in San Francisco too. Volunteers plan to meet at the African American Art and Culture Complex today to clean up the Bernal Heights neighborhood. The Department of Public Works is providing transportation, and volunteers will be weeding, landscaping, and cleaning up the area. Volunteers also plan to build two picnic tables, construct and install four bulletin boards, improve the landscaping of a school garden and paint  school railings and lunch tables at John O’Connell High School on San Francisco’s Folsom Street.

13. WASHINGTON, DC

In the nation’s capitol, the must-see event is a performance by Grammy Award winner Bobby McFerrin and the Let Freedom Ring Choir who’ll sing “Let Freedom Ring,” a musical tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. Plus, Clarence Jones, former King attorney and speechwriter will receive the 10th annual John Thompson Legacy of a Dream Award at the Kennedy Center, Concert Hall, 2700 F St. NW. Tickets are free to the 6 p.m. ceremony and are distributed, two per person, to those in line in the Hall of Nations starting a 5 p.m. Monday. 202-467-4600.

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“I nearly had a stroke,” recalls the 63-year-old, who moved to Atlanta after the storm wrecked his New Orleans home. “I’m totally blind. I subsist entirely on a Social Security disability check. If I have to pay this money back, it would pretty much wipe out all the savings I have.”

Many other Gulf Coast hurricane victims are in the same position, angry and frustrated at the prospect of repaying money they spent years ago as they tried to rebuild their lives.

FEMA is seeking to recover more than $385 million it says was improperly paid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. The debts, which average about $4,622 per recipient, represent slightly less than 5 percent of the roughly $8 billion that FEMA distributed after the storms. At least some of the overpayments were due to FEMA employees’ own mistakes, ranging from clerical errors to failing to interview applicants, according to congressional testimony.

But the agency says it is required by law to make an effort to recover improper payments, even if the recipient wasn’t at fault. Last week, however, Congress approved legislation that would allow FEMA to waive many of the debts. President Barack Obama signed the measure — part of a $1 trillion spending package — into law last Friday.

FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said the agency is reviewing the law’s provisions and developing a plan to implement them. It remains to be seen how many recipients of FEMA money could benefit from the change.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who sponsored the provision, said disaster victims shouldn’t be punished because FEMA was “dysfunctional.”

“They have significantly improved the process,” Landrieu said. “This is very unlikely to happen again.”

Racusen said the agency has implemented “strong protections” to avoid making improper payments, reducing its error rate from about 14 percent after Katrina to less than 1 percent for more recent disasters.

“We have also worked to significantly improve the recoupment process so that it is more understandable and provides due process for both disaster survivors and taxpayers,” she said in a statement.

FEMA’s collection efforts aren’t limited to the 2005 storms. The agency has mailed out more than 6,000 debt letters to survivors of other recent disasters, including floods.

Approximately 2,500 recipients, including 930 victims of the 2005 hurricanes, have appealed their debt notices. FEMA says about 30 percent of those appeals successfully erased at least some of the debt. Recipients also can ask for a waiver due to economic hardship or seek to set up a payment plan.

“It is important for any individual who has received a recoupment notice to know that these letters are the start of a conversation with FEMA, not the end,” Racusen said.

This isn’t the first time Bellinger has tangled with FEMA over funds he received to pay for renting an apartment in Atlanta. He was a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit over the agency’s decision to end housing subsidies for storm victims and its efforts to recover alleged overpayments. FEMA later paid more than $2.6 million to settle the claims.

That case had also delayed the debt collection process that Bellinger and other storm victims are now facing. Before the settlement, a federal judge in New Orleans ordered FEMA to suspend the effort in 2007 while it drew up new guidelines for the recoupment process. FEMA reinstituted the process earlier this year.

“What a way to celebrate Christmas, knowing I’ve got another FEMA battle on my hands,” Bellinger said last week.

After Bellinger moved to Atlanta, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development covered some but not all of his rent. He says he relied on FEMA’s aid to make up the difference. FEMA claims he received a duplication of benefits, but Bellinger said the agency is mistaken.

“The fault is theirs, not mine, and they have to suffer the consequences,” he said. “I submitted everything they required. As far as I know, I did nothing wrong.”

Lubertha Haskin, a Gulfport, Miss., resident who turned 80 on Dec. 27, received about $8,000 from FEMA to repair some of Katrina’s damage to her home and replace belongings. In October, FEMA sent her a debt letter that said her insurer had covered the same costs, a claim Haskin denies.

Haskin said she hadn’t heard from the agency in five years and never suspected she could have to pay back the money.

“I was knocked for a loop,” she said. “I don’t have that kind of money. I have a lot of doctor’s bills and other bills to pay.”

Law firms and legal aid groups have volunteered to help Haskin, Bellinger and many others challenge FEMA’s recoupment efforts.

“It’s really unfair that the government waited this long to come after this lady,” said Haskin’s lawyer, Beau Cole. “They didn’t deliberately do it, but the effect is the same.”

The New Orleans office of Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, which offers free legal aid, has fielded more than 100 calls since September from people who want to challenge their FEMA recoupment letter. Rowena Jones, a lawyer for the group, said she hasn’t seen the appeals process yield any “actual results.”

“Our clients just don’t seem to be getting a fair opportunity to contest the notices and get a hearing on it,” she said.

The provision signed into law last week allows FEMA to completely waive the debt for somebody who earns less than $90,000 a year if the money was mistakenly awarded due to an error by FEMA. A debt involving fraud cannot be waived. Racusen said FEMA is “committed to applying the law to the fullest extent possible.”

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said the recoupment process is flawed. Many debt letters have been returned as “undeliverable,” meaning some people moved and don’t even know they owe money, he said.

“Most of these individuals went through a lot of trauma,” Thompson said. “For our government to all of a sudden say, ‘We made a mistake, you owe us money,’ that’s not how it should be done.”

Anyone with questions about the recoupment process, including appeals, can contact FEMA at 1-800-816-1122.

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Federal jurors on Friday convicted officer Ronald Mitchell on one count of obstruction of justice and one count of perjury for lying about getting out of his patrol car after the September 2005 shooting and checking the pulse of 45-year-old Danny Brumfield.

Mitchell and Officer Ray Jones were patrolling near the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, where thousands of residents were stranded for days after the 2005 storm.

Mitchell shot and killed Brumfield with a single shotgun blast on Sept. 3, 2005. He was acquitted of two counts of lying about the shooting itself. Jones was also acquitted.

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According to an excellent piece in today’s New York Times, New Orleans’ murder rate in 2010 was 10 times the national average, “long before shootings on Halloween night in the crowded French Quarter revealed to a larger public what was going on in poor neighborhoods around the city every week.”

There were 51 homicides per 100,000 residents here last year, compared with less than 7 per 100,000 in New York or 23 in similar-size Oakland, Calif.

“From September of last year to February of this year,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a recent speech, after reciting a litany of killings from one city high school, “a student attending John McDonogh was more likely to be killed than a soldier in Afghanistan.”

The causes of the skyrocketing rate can be found in the economic devastation and social dislocation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Notorious corruption in the police department hasn’t helped, leading to a great mistrust between New Orleans’s citizenry and the force that is supposed to serve and protect them.

The narrower causes are less clear. There are no large organized gangs in town, nor are there major drug wars, though some killings are turf disputes over the drug market, made worse by the drastic reshuffling of the urban poor after Hurricane Katrina and the demolition of public housing projects.

Many killings in New Orleans are a result of conflicts and vendettas among small, loosely organized groups, the analysis concluded, but in nearly half the cases, the experts listed the primary motive as uncertain or unknown. Only about half the homicide cases are cleared.

In the end, its not the living who pay, but the victims:

The killers and their victims are overwhelmingly young black men, according to an analysis of homicide cases by outside experts last March, and sponsored by the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance. As police officials frequently point out to the anger of some families, most victims and offenders had prior contacts with the police, often for violent crimes. Less than a quarter were listed as having a steady job.

Read More In The New York Times

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Obama stretched, jumped and marched in place before reading to the children who gathered in a classroom with their parents and teachers at the Royal Castle Child Development Center. The center focuses on preschoolers from families with moderate and low incomes.

In June, the first lady announced a new national initiative called “Let’s Move,” designed to get child care centers to promote healthy eating and exercise habits. She promoted that initiative here after speaking at a fundraiser earlier in the day for the Democratic National Committee in New Orleans.

At the daycare center, the first lady read Denise Fleming’s book titled “Lunch,” about a mouse that eats vegetables and fruit. During the reading, she asked the children to raise their hands if they liked to eat corn. Many of the children raised their hands, prompting the first lady to declare: “I love corn.”

On another page, the mouse eats green peas. “Do you know who likes these?” the first lady said. “President Obama.”

With gusto, she also read from “Where the Wild Things Are,” the children’s classic by Maurice Sendak. Her voice rose and fell with the drama of the book, which she said was one of her family’s favorites.

The first lady’s “Let’s Move” child care checklist stresses five principles:

–Provide one to two hours of physical activity daily.

–No TV or media screen time for children under age 2. Limit screen time for older children to no more than 30 minutes per week during child care, and ensure children have no more than one to two hours of quality screen time per day overall.

–Serve fruits and vegetables at every meal, eaten family-style when possible and no fried foods.

–Provide access to water throughout the day, and do not serve sugary drinks.

–Support mothers who want to breast-feed by providing mother’s milk to infants and welcoming mothers who want to breast-feed their children during the child-care day.

At the earlier fundraiser, Obama spoke to a prominent crowd of Democratic supporters, including New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. She urged the crowd to back her husband’s re-election and highlighted what she said were his accomplishments — from passing health care reform to success in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“This is going to require every single one of us to work so hard to fight so forcefully to help people understand the stakes and the choices,” she said.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, accused of building substandard levees and floodwalls that failed when Katrina swamped the Gulf Coast in 2005, has spent $56 million since then developing the initial phase of a national levee inventory as required by Congress. The Corps on Thursday was releasing a database with information about nearly 14,000 miles of levees under its jurisdiction.

But the inventory doesn’t include what is believed to be more than 100,000 additional miles of levees not covered by the Corps’ safety program. Some are little more than mounds of earth piled up more than a century ago to protect farm fields. Others extend for miles and are made of concrete and steel, with sophisticated pump and drainage systems. They shield homes, businesses and infrastructure such as highways and power plants.

The National Committee on Levee Safety, established after the Katrina disaster to evaluate the system and recommend improvements, issued a report in 2009 calling for the Corps to catalog and inspect every levee so deficiencies could be fixed. But Corps officials say Congress has not provided enough authority or money to add non-federal levees to the database, a massive undertaking that would take years.

“The reality is, we don’t know how many levees are out there,” said Eric Halpin, the Army Corps’ special assistant for dam and levee safety and vice chairman of the levee safety committee. He acknowledged the inventory presently includes only about 10 percent of the likely total.

“I think we’ve done a great job putting forward a state-of-the-art tool,” Halpin said. “It’s a first step. It will be much more powerful once we can get all the data in there.”

For each levee system, the database will include its location, design and rating following one or more safety inspections.

Inspection ratings from nearly 700 of the roughly 2,000 levee systems under the Corps’ jurisdiction have been added to the database thus far, said spokesman Pete Pierce.

Of those, 77 percent had ratings of “minimally acceptable,” meaning they have “minor deficiencies” that make the levees less reliable but are not expected to seriously impair their performance. An additional 11.6 percent were rated “unacceptable,” or likely to fail during a flood, while 11.3 percent were graded as “acceptable,” or without deficiencies.

Experts say the government is moving too slowly to complete the inventory.

“We need to be really candid with the American people,” said Sam Riley Medlock, policy counsel for the Association of State Floodplain Managers and a member of the levee safety panel. “This is yet another class of infrastructure that is aging and posing risks and we’re going to have to do something about it.”

Gerald Galloway, a former Army Corps district engineer and University of Maryland engineering professor, told a Senate committee this month the levee network has “significant” problems and received an overall grade of “D minus” from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2009. The group estimated that $50 billion worth of improvements was needed over five years.

“So today hundreds of levees, whose integrity is in question, are in place in front of communities and properties with little realistic hope of funding for inspection, repair or upgrade,” Galloway said.

Concern about the levees dates to the 1920s and 1930s, when killer floods on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers led Congress to order construction of more levees. Many were designed for the biggest flood likely to strike a particular area within 500 years or even 1,000 years.

But starting in the late 1960s, federal policies have inadvertently encouraged the building of levees according to a less protective standard, the safety committee report said. One required financially strapped local governments to help cover levee building and maintenance costs.

Relatively low death tolls from major floods in recent decades also fed complacency that ended with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the report said. Together, they killed more than 1,800 people and caused $200 billion in damages, spurring calls for a nationwide levee inventory and upgrades.

The portion of the inventory developed thus far includes data on about 13,500 of the 14,700 miles of levees covered by the Army Corps’ safety program. Data on the rest will be added by the end of the year, officials said. Many of the levees are operated and maintained by the Corps, or were built by the Corps and turned over to local officials.

John Paul Woodley Jr., who served as assistant secretary of the Army for public works during the George W. Bush administration, said the Corps has made good progress on the levee inventory but acknowledged “we’re definitely behind where everybody had hoped we’d be.”

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Danny Rogers, better known as “Lil Dee God’s Gift,” was acting out a mock robbery  armed with real, unloaded guns when someone passing by thought a real robbery was occurring and called 911.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s deputies swarmed the parking lot, arresting Rogers, Chance Gomez, Yonael Santana, Timothy Kelly and Nidal Jamhour for Criminal Mischief.  Raassan Holmes, Frank Cheffen and Terrell Hogan face a charge of Illegal Carrying of a Concealed Weapon along with Criminal Mischief.

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According to Nagin, his outspokenness made him an easy target and a scapegoat in many situations.

“I was basically the last person standing that was one of the key leaders,” he said.

“There were open discussions about changing the social fabric of the city and very bold discussions about gentrification. I had to make a very tough decision to say that everybody had a right to return to the city of New Orleans and there was a heavy price I paid for that…”

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Showers played a police officer on the cable drama.

His work also includes “The Vampire Diaries,” ”Traffic,” and the coming film, “Colombiana.”

A St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s spokesman says the 44-year-old man lived in Chalmette with his girlfriend. He said she reported him missing Tuesday after he didn’t return from a night out with a friend in the French Quarter.

The woman told police that Showers suffered from severe depression and was diagnosed in March with multiple sclerosis.

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The gap shrank from 56 percentage points four years ago to 42 points today, according to NOLA.com.

“These data represent quite nice gains,” Daria Hall, director of K-12 policy at the advocacy group Education Trust told the paper. “Obviously students are not yet where they need to be and the school system has a very long way to go to ensure that all young people are getting the education they need to be prepared for the world after high school. But this is really meaningful progress.”

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Former officer Robert Faulcon, Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen, Officer Anthony Villavaso and retired Sgt. Arthur Kaufman were convicted of charges stemming from the cover-up of the shootings. All but Kaufman were convicted of civil rights violations stemming from the shootings. Kaufman, who investigated the shootings, was charged only in the cover-up.

The trial was a high-profile test of the Justice Department’s effort to clean up a police department marred by a reputation for corruption and brutality. A total of 20 current or former New Orleans police officers were charged last year in a series of federal probes. Most of the cases center on actions during the aftermath of the Aug. 29, 2005, storm, which plunged the flooded city into a state of lawlessness and desperation.

The mother of 17-year-old James Brissette, one of the people killed on the bridge, said she was relieved by the verdict after “a long, hard six years.”

His mother, Sherrel Johnson, said she would now try to move on but lamented what her son would miss out on.

“For him there will be no prom, no baby, no nothing. My child will never have nothing,” she said.

The family of Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old disabled man fatally shot on the bridge, said in a statement the family had waited six years to “find out what really happened on that bridge.”

Madison’s sister Jackie Madison Brown read the statement, which also said that after an event like Katrina, “all citizens, no matter what color or what class, deserve protection.”

After the verdict was read, Justice Department prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein became emotional, hugging the families of Madison and Brissette and holding hands with two of Madison’s sisters.

Sentencing was tentatively scheduled for Dec. 14. Kaufman remains free on bond until he is sentenced. The other four officers already are jailed and face possible life prison sentences.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the verdict was critical to the city’s efforts to root out corruption. He said it sends a message that “public officials, and especially law enforcement officers, that they will be held accountable and that any abuse of power will have serious consequences.”

Defense attorney Roger Kitchens, who represented Villavaso, said he believed negative media coverage of the case tainted jurors.

“At this point, I don’t think it’s possible for a New Orleans police officer to get a fair trial in the city of New Orleans. And I don’t think they got one today,” he said.

Prosecutors contended during the five-week federal trial that officers shot unarmed people without justification and without warning, killing two and wounding four others on Sept. 4, 2005, then embarked on a cover-up involving made-up witnesses, falsified reports and a planted gun.

Defense attorneys countered that the officers were returning fire and reasonably believed their lives were in danger as they rushed to respond to another officer’s distress call less than a week after Katrina struck.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Theodore Carter said in closing arguments Tuesday that police had no justification for shooting unarmed, defenseless people trying to cross the bridge in search of food and help mere days after Katrina struck.

“It was unreasonable for these officers to fire even one shot, let alone dozens,” he had said.

Defense attorneys argued, however, that police were shot at on the bridge before they returned fire.

“None of these people intentionally decided to go out there and cause people harm,” said Timothy Meche, Villavaso’s lawyer. He said they did their best, operating under “terrible, horrible circumstances” after Katrina.

Faulcon, the only defendant to testify, said he was “paralyzed with fear” when he shot and killed Madison, as he chased him and his brother, Lance Madison. Faulcon didn’t dispute that he shot an unarmed man in the back, but he testified that he had believed Ronald Madison was armed and posed a threat.

Prosecutors contended at trial that Kaufman retrieved a gun from his home weeks after the shootings and turned it in as evidence, trying to pass it off as a gun belonging to Lance Madison. He also is accused of fabricating two nonexistent witnesses to the shootings.

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The city, which tore down all of its public housing developments in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,  has opened 900 homes so far and has plans to build another 3,100 homes for low-income New Orleans residents.

The benefit is that the new developments are in far better condition than previous ones. But some warn that this swift move could make it difficult for residents to find affordable housing.

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NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans Police Commander Eddie Selby resigned after being involved in allegations of inappropriate and racist comments.

The Grio Reports:

While giving instructions to his Special Operations Division this past Friday, Selby supposedly made some offensive comments about those attending the Essence festival, which is a predominately African-American event.While the investigation was pending, Selby was moved to Deputy Chief Defillo’s office by Superintendent Ronal Serpas. Serpas personally saw to it that the members of Selby’s team were interviewed about the supposed slurs.

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NEW ORLEANS – A Barack Obama impersonator was shown off the stage at the Republican Leadership Conference after his jokes hit a little too close to home.

Reggie Brown’s rendition of President Obama started out as a hit before he began to turn his jokes onto some potential Republican candidates for the upcoming presidential elections.

Organizers cut off Brown’s microphone and played music before he was ushered away from the podium and off the stage.

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As a new hurricane season begins Wednesday, FEMA is working to determine how much money it overpaid or mistakenly awarded to victims of the destructive 2005 hurricane season. The agency is reviewing more than $600 million given to roughly 154,000 victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and is poised to demand that some return money.

FEMA already has sent letters to thousands of victims of other disasters, asking them to return more than $22 million. Letters to victims of the 2005 hurricanes could go out in a matter of months, but it’s too soon to tell how many people will be told to repay or how much money is at stake.

The effort isn’t sitting well with victims who spent the money years ago and who could need help again if another powerful storm hits. It’s of little consolation that FEMA says procedural changes since 2005 mean future disaster victims aren’t likely to have to deal with large recalls of cash.

Government forecasters are expecting an above average Atlantic storm season, with three to six major hurricanes that have winds of 111 mph or higher. While no hurricane that strong has made landfall since 2005, forecasters have warned that residents shouldn’t count on that streak to continue.

“When you get these high levels of activity the likelihood of a hurricane striking the U.S. goes up quite a bit,” said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center in Washington.

Paul Wegener, whose New Orleans home flooded up to the gutters after Katrina, felt short-changed when FEMA gave him a $30,000 grant for a house that wound up costing more than $566,000 to rebuild. He applied for more through the state’s Road Home program but was told he didn’t qualify. The thought of having to return some of his federal aid only compounds his frustration.

“They’ll have to pry it from my dead hands if they try,” the 75-year-old said.

Under political pressure to help residents after Katrina, FEMA relaxed its safeguards and paid millions so victims could pay for food, clothing, shelter and medicine and also get started on home repairs.

But that allowed thousands of improper and fraudulent payments. FEMA employees awarded money without interviewing applicants or inspecting property and made errors that ranged from recording incorrect banking information to failing to check whether insurance had already covered damage, according to congressional testimony.

The 154,000 cases under review account for less than 10 percent of the $7 billion that FEMA has given to victims of the 2005 hurricanes through its individual assistance program. The recoupment effort doesn’t apply to other big-dollar disaster aid programs, like Road Home, which was financed by a congressional block grant.

While hundreds have been convicted of hurricane-related fraud, FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said many of the cases under review involve mistakes by agency employees or the recipients themselves. Some payments will be deemed proper, some could be referred for fraud investigations and the rest will get letters telling them to pay back improper payments caused by human error, according to Racusen.

Luisa Mejia, 28, was living in an apartment in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, when Katrina drove her family out of town.

“We left with nothing but important papers and maybe two sets of clothes,” she recalls. “We were in Atlanta with no money, living in a home with 40 people.”

All they got from FEMA was a check for $1,200, which they used to buy clothes and food. Six years later, Mejia can’t understand why FEMA would ask residents to pay for its employees’ mistakes.

“I didn’t get the type of money that would make me rich from Katrina,” she said. “For people who were honest like me, it’s crazy.”

FEMA’s attempts to collect Katrina and Rita overpayments already have sputtered once. Residents who lost homes filed a class-action lawsuit in 2007 challenging the denial of their housing aid and the recoupment process. The lawsuit argued that FEMA’s debt collection efforts were full of errors, based on vague standards and without hearings that would ensure fair treatment.

A judge ordered the agency to suspend the debt collection in 2007, while the lawsuit was pending. FEMA responded by withdrawing all debt notices sent to Katrina and Rita victims and drawing up new guidelines that the agency says will give victims clearer explanations and more opportunities to appeal.

With those guidelines finally approved this year, FEMA started reviewing its backlog of potentially improper payments.

“Under our current leadership, strong protections have been put in place to greatly reduce the error rate of improper disaster payments,” Racusen said in a statement. The agency said it has slashed its error rate involving disaster payments from 14.5 percent after Katrina to about 3 percent in 2009.

Critics say the initiative could hurt thousands still struggling to recover, and they doubt whether much of the money would be collected. They also predicted court challenges.

“People used this money to survive,” said Davida Finger, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who represented plaintiffs in the class-action case. “We don’t want people to have to give money back that they simply needed for rent and food.”

FEMA says it is bound by law to try to collect improper payments, but lawmakers have sponsored legislation that would authorize the agency to waive debts if they resulted from an error by FEMA. A Senate committee approved the bill Thursday. No vote by the full Senate has been scheduled.

“Most of the families facing recoupment are honest disaster survivors, facing incredible challenges, who used funds for legitimate and urgent disaster-related needs, and who never intended to accept money to which they were not entitled,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who co-sponsored the bill.

The FEMA letters will give individuals at least 30 days to pay back money and explain their ability to appeal, to apply for a hardship waiver or to seek a compromise.

Diane Ridgley, 56, a plaintiff in the 2007 lawsuit, recalled getting a letter from FEMA demanding repayment of nearly $17,000, money she used to replace personal belongings and pay for rent after Katrina destroyed her New Orleans duplex. FEMA told her she should have been ineligible because she listed a family friend with whom she evacuated – but did not live – as a member of her household on her application.

Ridgley claimed FEMA employees told her to list him that way, but she received a series of confusing letters and denials when she appealed. She said she believes she has finally proven she was eligible, but has kept all of her paperwork in case FEMA comes calling again.

“I don’t want nobody coming back on me telling me I gotta pay money,” said Ridgley, who recently was laid off her job as a hospital housekeeper. “I know people were doing all kinds of wrong things at the moment. It was desperate times. But that doesn’t give them the right to come back six years later.”

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Letten said the 30-year-old rapper, whose real name is Christopher Dorsey, faces two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

If convicted, Dorsey faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the gun charges and up to 20 years and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy charge.

The charges are from a 2009 traffic stop in which officers recovered three guns, two of which were reported stolen. Police said that Dorsey was arrested along with two others in the vehicle, Demounde Pollard and Jerod Fedison.

According to the indictment, Dorsey conspired with Pollard and Fedison to obstruct justice by “inducing Demounde Pollard to sign a false affidavit attesting that Dorsey did not possess three firearms on Nov. 3, 2009.”

Both Pollard and Fedison have pleaded guilty in the case and are awaiting sentencing, Letten said.

It was not immediately known whether Dorsey had an attorney and a telephone listing could not be found for him.

B.G. is probably best known for 1999′s “Bling Bling,” which was a hit by the group, the Hot Boys, of which he was a member along with rappers Lil Wayne, Juvenile and Turk.

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Hill debuted at the festival, pumping up the crowd with hits such as “Everything is Everything,” “The Sweetest Thing,” and “Lost Ones,” before moving into a segment spotlighting Bob Marley’s “Waiting in Vain” and “Is this Love.”

Angelique Dyer, of New Orleans, described herself as a fan and said Hill’s first festival performance was well worth the wait.

“She was perfect,” Dyer exclaimed after the show. “Before she got on stage I was praying she wouldn’t change the songs up too much and she didn’t.”

But another self-described fan, Melanie Bienemy, also of New Orleans, said she was unhappy that Hill’s set focused so much on rap and not enough on her vocal skills.

“I was a little disappointed,” Bienemy said. “She has such a beautiful voice and the fact that she didn’t exercise that talent as much was a letdown.”

Some of the discontent with the performance, Bienemy said, was a result of the overly-raspy sound of Hill’s voice and the fact that she appeared to rush through material. “We really couldn’t hear her that well either,” she said.

That was evident as the five-time Grammy Award winner — who now bills herself as Ms. Lauryn Hill — was a bundle of nervous energy, constantly interacting with her band to play faster, with more vigor. She also was unhappy with the stage crew, urging them to balance the audio.

Hill strongly delved into the repertoire by The Fugees, her former group, with such songs as “Ooh La La La,” “Killing Me Softly,” and “Ready or Not.” Those in the crowd sang along and Hill appeared to feed off their response.

Hill briefly and unexpectedly left the microphone toward the end of the set, prompting a bit of anxiety in the crowd. But, when she returned, a roar rose up as the first bars of “Doo Wop (That Thing)” rang into the atmosphere. When it was over, she smiled.

“Thanks New Orleans, we had a good time,” she said.

“It was great seeing you guys,” Hill said, before waving goodbye to her fans.

“Lauryn Hill’s been blowing up for years,” said Tim Anderson of New Orleans. “There must be thousands of people here watching her show, but the best part of it is watching the crowd watch her.”

“I was so fulfilled by the performance,” said Devinne James, of New Orleans. “This is what I come to jazz fest for. Her passion for what she does makes you passionate as well. She was so worth it. I feel the same way when I listen to her albums.”

Her friend, Jaune Boudreaux, of New Orleans, said she had never seen Hill perform live. “Her energy was contagious,” she said.

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NEW ORLEANS — Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is releasing a memoir in June about his experiences dealing with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and its aftermath.

He sent an e-mail and Twitter notes Tuesday about the book, “Katrina’s Secrets: Storms after the Storm.”

Nagin’s press release says the book will be released June 8 “via Amazon” and will discuss “institutional issues of race and class that secretly conspired to control and slow down the recovery.”

The Times-Picayune reported Tuesday that Nagin said in January he hadn’t decided whether to write a Katrina memoir.

Publicist Pat Heno-Smith did not immediately answer a call and e-mail.

Nagin is perhaps best-known for his desperate public plea to federal officials to “get off your asses and do something” as the city stood under water.

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NEW ORLEANS  — It’s no coincidence that the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has taken the earthquake-ravaged country of Haiti under its wing.

The city and the country share more than just a love of music and culture. They share history and are both survivors, said Richard Morse, lead singer and founder of the Haitian mizik rasin band RAM.

“I like to say New Orleans and Haiti are twin sisters separated at birth,” said Morse who recounted a bit of history behind the Louisiana Purchase during an interview.

Morse said both Haiti and New Orleans were once part of the same French Colony, but in 1803, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States after a successful black slave revolt on what is now Haiti caused him to lose the land for his empire. After his defeat, experts say Napoleon saw holding onto Louisiana as a liability and sold the land to the U.S. for $15 million.

Morse’s band is scheduled to play on the second weekend of the festival and is among several featured as part of this year’s event. Wyclef Jean performed on the fest’s opening day, while the reigning queen of Haitian songs, Emeline Michel, took the stage at Congo Square on Saturday. Others scheduled to perform include Tabou Combo, Djakout (hash)1, and Ti-Coca & Wanga-Neges.

Michael Callahan, of Portland, Ore., moved to the rhythms of Boukman Eksperyans on Sunday.

“I’m loving them,” he said of the band. “I love the dancing, the beat, everything. Did you hear what he just said? He said, ‘We have to change the system.’ Man that’s powerful. I love the politics of the music. It’s beautiful.”

On Sunday, the DJA-RaRa band paraded through the Fair Grounds Race Course drawing spectators along the route to the festival’s Haitian Pavilion where they put on a show.

“They are contagious aren’t they,” said Sabel Gipson, of New Orleans. “Their spirit and sentiment is so similar to New Orleans’ own second-lines. They so represent the culture and spirit of not only Haitians, but also the African diaspora.”

Gipson, who danced and moved throughout the performance, said the festival’s decision to promote the Haitian culture “is the best thing it’s done in the last few decades.”

“They’re also promoting social awareness and global awareness and showing the world that they’re thinking outside their locale,” she said.

Jeff Jacobs, of San Francisco, enjoyed the performance with his wife, Ghia. “They’re very authentic, high energy and lots of fun,” he said of the group. “I like that they get the audience involved.”

Asked about the festival’s decision to spotlight Haiti, Jacobs said, “It’s definitely an opportunity to provide insight into the Haitian culture.”

Lynn Selby lived in Haiti when the deadly earthquake struck in 2010. “I look at that year as a lost year,” she recalled. “I was pulled from the rubble after my house collapsed on me.”

Selby, who is pursuing a doctorate in social anthropology, said the Haitian culture is one of “strength and resilience.”

“I find it amazing that they still find the space to be loving and kind to each other despite everything that’s happened,” she said. “That’s the spirit that’s conveyed through these kinds of performances.”

Didier Civil, a paper mache artist from Jakmel, Haiti, who now lives in New York, said his festival experience so far has been “one of a kind.”

“It’s definitely a good opportunity for Haitians to show their talents and to show their works to the world,” he said.

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The Los Angeles Times reports:

Caracter was detained and booked under several charges: one count of battery for hitting the employee, one count of public intoxication and one for resisting arrest. He was later released from jail after bond was posted. Caracter, 22, reportedly grabbed and shoved a cashier at an IHOP restaurant on Canal Street, according to New Orleans police.

The account, issued in a police news release Monday morning, said the Lakers rookie forward had been refused service at the IHOP because he was “obviously drunk, unruly.” A police officer was summoned to try to defuse the situation. Backup arrived after Caracter would not cooperate.

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The New York Times reports:

It was the largest percentage drop in history for any American city with more than 100,000 residents, apart from the unique situation of New Orleans, where the population dropped by 29 percent after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College.

The number of people who vanished from Detroit — 237,500 — was bigger than the 140,000 who left New Orleans.

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“Our findings show that the problems facing the NOPD are wide-ranging, systemic and deeply rooted in the culture of the department,” Thomas Perez, an assistant attorney general, said at a news conference.

The inappropriate lethal force cited by the report includes officers who fired their guns or turned police dogs on people.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked for the Justice Department review shortly after he took office in May 2010. Landrieu has said he would welcome a federal consent decree ordering changes. The police chief appointed by Landrieu, Ronal Serpas, has also said he endorses reform of the department.

The department had been plagued by scandal for decades, including shootings of unarmed people in the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Several officers recently pleaded guilty to their roles in the case.

Several other federal investigations are underway. However, the Justice Department said the investigation that led to Thursday’s report was not related to current criminal prosecutions.

The federal report outlined a myriad of problems in the department.

“NOPD’s canines and their handlers were so poorly trained that handlers were not able to adequately control their canines, substantially increasing the risk that canines would bite individuals, even after those individuals were complying or trying to comply with officers’ orders,” the report stated.

The report said there were many questionable officer-involved shootings, often involving gunfire at moving vehicles in violation of department policy.

And the report raised questions of racial bias.

“NOPD use of force data also shows a troubling racial disparity that warrants a searching inquiry into whether racial bias influenced the use of force at NOPD. Of the 27 instances between January 2009 and May 2010 in which NOPD officers intentionally discharged their firearms at people, all 27 of the subjects of this deadly force were African-American,” the report stated.

A review of “resisting arrest” reports that documented use of force over the same period found that blacks were the subjects of use of force 81 out of 96 times.

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The student Eugene Allen, 14, took pictures while inside the cage, and later told his mother Latreshia Davis that he and other students were left unattended in the empty imprisonment.

WSDU reports that they have requested comment from the New Orleans Charter Schools Foundation and the Recovery School District, and have yet to receive a response.

Read entire story at WSDU.com

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NEW ORLEANS — Revelers bared flesh and threw beads on Bourbon Street until the sun rose on Mardi Gras to mark the annual pre-Lenten celebration that takes on so many shapes in New Orleans, from early morning parades to gay costume balls and second-line dancing of Mardi Gras Indians.

The festivities began shortly after sunrise, as members of the traditionally African-American Krewe of Zulu boarded floats at the Louisiana Superdome in preparation for their annual parade through the city.

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Soon to follow would be the parade of Rex, King of Carnival. Entertainer Pete Fountain’s marching club hit the Uptown streets shorttly after 7 a.m. on its trek through downtown and into the French Quarter.

Gray skies hung over the city and there was a threat of rain. But spirits, at least so far, didn’t appear dampened.

On Bourbon Street, the rain turned the garbage remaining from Monday night’s revelry into mush.

But that didn’t keep the tradition of costumes that lampoon current events from popping up.

Strolling down Bourbon with family members, Allen Logue, 58, was clad as a one-man oil spill clean-up crew.

Logue, an oil field consultant from Barataria, La., who said he did work for BP in Alaska, didn’t have to do much shopping to build his costume. He already had a hard-hat helmet and BP branded sweat shirt.

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“The only I had to shop for was the Jim Beam and that was to ease the pain of the oil spill,” Logue said.

As part of his costume, Logue carried super-absorbent kitchen napkins to clean up any kind of mess he might encounter, though the most likely spill on Bourbon Street would be beer and not crude oil.

This year, Carnival has seemed bigger and more brash than in recent years since Hurricane Katrina, perhaps because this year it falls during spring break.

“Since it seems that we’re going to have the largest crowd that we’ve had in a few years, I just hope the crowds are having a good time,” said Anthony “Tony” Barker, king of Zulu.

People were having a good time.

“No matter the weather, we’re going to have some fun,” said Henry Youngblood, a 78-year-old second-liner and retired praline salesman.

The city was in a triumphant mood.

“We’re back all the way, and we’ll continue climbing,” said Herschel Abbott Jr., the king of Rex, the holder of the keys to the city during Carnival.

The triumph was not without reason. New Orleans – America’s poster child of disaster – has come a long way since Hurricane Katrina. Its beloved New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl last year and it has largely overcome the disaster of the BP oil spill.

This year, the sheer timing of Mardi Gras helped. It fell later than usual and coincides with spring break for college students. Students have been out in force – giving a bit more punch to this annual pre-Lenten celebration.

Ali Miller, 23, an early childhood major at the University of Southeastern Louisiana, was jubilant as she walked home Mardi Gras morning after a long night of drinking in the French Quarter and throwing beads from a balcony on Bourbon Street.

“There is nothing like New Orleans,” she said. “I would never ever want to grow up anywhere but here! And Mardi Gras is the craziest time you could ever have in life – I don’t know what else to say.”

Mardi Gras officially kicked off Monday evening when Rex was given the keys to the city by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in a blowout on the riverfront that included fireworks, music, a fly-over by Dolphin military helicopters and Rex’s pronouncement that “all commercial endeavors be suspended and that pleasure may rule day and night.”

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NEW ORLEANS — Data reported by the Census Bureau on Thursday shows that the city of New Orleans is 29 percent smaller than it was a decade ago.

The Census Bureau reported on Thursday that 343,829 people were living in the city of New Orleans on April 1, 2010, four years and seven months after it was virtually emptied by the floodwaters that followed the hurricane.

The numbers portray a significantly smaller city than in the previous census, in 2000, though it should be said that New Orleans had been steadily shrinking even then. In 1990, it was the 24th-biggest city in the country, in 2000, the 31st, and now it has surely dropped from the top 50.

The latest figure is lower than estimates cited widely by many here in recent months. It is lower, by roughly 10,000, than the official census estimate in the summer of 2009.

“It’s not an unqualified good thing to have big numbers,” said Mark VanLandingham, a professor at Tulane University who has expressed frustration with frequent calls from local officials, sometimes successful, for the Census Bureau to raise the city’s population estimate. “It made it very difficult to figure out what was actually going on.”

Read more at NYtimes.com

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New Orleans once had more than 23,000 trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency since the August 2005 storm, and for many people still living in them, they are akin to permanent homes. These residents say they will find it hard to make the city’s deadline.

Edwin Weber Jr., 62, lives with his brother in a trailer crammed with stuff. He was seething at a “notice of violation” letter taped to his door shortly before Christmas.

The letter said he would be fined — up to $500 a day — unless he took “immediate action” to move out. He said the notice was “worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge himself.”

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TRENTON — St. Louis overtook Camden, N.J., as the nation’s most dangerous city in 2009, according to a national study released Sunday.

The study by CQ Press found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, compared with a national average of 429.4. That helped St. Louis beat out Camden, which topped last year’s list and was the most dangerous city for 2003 and 2004.

Detroit, Flint, Mich., and Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top five. For the second straight year, the safest city with more than 75,000 residents was Colonie, N.Y.

The annual rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI. Some criminologists question the findings, saying the methodology is unfair.

Greg Scarbro, unit chief of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, said the FBI also discourages using the data for these types of rankings.

Kara Bowlin, spokeswoman for St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, said the city actually has been getting safer over the last few years. She said crime in St. Louis has gone down each year since 2007, and so far in 2010, St. Louis crime is down 7 percent.

Erica Van Ross, spokeswoman for the St. Louis Police Department, called the rankings irresponsible.

“Crime is based on a variety of factors. It’s based on geography, it’s based on poverty, it’s based on the economy,” Van Ross said.

“That is not to say that urban cities don’t have challenges, because we do,” Van Ross said. “But it’s that it’s irresponsible to use the data in this way.”

Here Are America’s Most Dangerous Cities

1. St. Louis, MO
2. Camden, NJ
3. Detroit, MI
4. Flint, MI
5. Oakland, CA
6. Richmond, CA
7. Cleveland, OH
8. Compton, CA
9. Gary, IN
10. Birmingham, AL
11. Baltimore, MD
12. Memphis, TN
13. New Orleans, LA
14. Jackson, MS
15. Little Rock, AR
16. Baton Rouge, LA
17. Buffalo, NY
18. New Haven, CT
19. Hartford, CT
20. Dayton, OH
21. Kansas City, MO
22. Washington, DC
23. Newark, NJ
24. Cincinnati, OH
25. Atlanta, GA

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The CP3 Afterschool Zone is set to work with local schools, libraries, recreation centers and other facilities to provide dynamic afterschool grams that tap into each child’s interests, from arts and crafts and music to sports and help with homework

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COVINGTON, La. – Police in Louisiana say a woman stripped in the back seat of a cab, demanded the driver take her to her home state of Michigan and when he refused, stole his cab. Covington Police Capt. Jack West told The Times-Picayune that the driver picked up 29-year-old Jennifer Gille of St. Clair Shores, Mich., about 1 a.m. Sunday. West says Gille refused to get out when they reached their destination, stripped and demanded the cabbie take her home.

West said the driver went to a police station for help and when inside, Gille drove off.

Police found the cab parked about a block away and Gille was still naked. Police booked her on charges of unauthorized use of a movable vehicle and obscenity.

She was released from jail late Tuesday on a $75 signature bond. No phone listing for her could be found in either state.

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The Justice Department says it will not seek the death penalty against four current or former New Orleans police officers charged in deadly shootings on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina.

Prosecutors disclosed the decision in court documents Friday. They did not say why they were not seeking the death penalty.

Less than a week after the 2005 storm, two people were killed and four others were wounded by police on the Danziger Bridge. The shootings led to a widespread investigation of the police department.

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to charges they helped cover up the shootings. Prosecutors have said police fabricated witnesses, falsified reports and plotted to plant a gun to make it appear that the shootings were justified.

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BP PLC plans to move ahead with replacing the blowout preventer that sits atop the well that unleashed the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, despite failing in attempts to remove pieces of drill pipe stuck inside the device, the federal oil-spill response chief said Friday.

Preparations for the blow-out preventer’s removal will begin Friday and last through the weekend, and the new blow-out preventer should be in place Tuesday or Wednesday, retired U.S. Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen told reporters in a conference call.

If the operation is successful, responders could begin the final step to kill the well, which involves pumping mud and cement down the area between the well and the rock formation that surrounds it, on Sept. 7, he said. That operation could take as many as 96 hours, according to Mr. Allen.

The plan coincides with previous projections that the well would be officially dead by the week after U.S. Labor Day, Sept. 6. Mr. Allen said, however, that the timeline is dependent on current conditions, and that changes in weather or developments in the field could push it out. The timelines “are as good as the next observation we find out,” he said.

Read more at WallStJournal

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DC’s Vertigo comics has released a new comic book based on Hurricane Katrina. Brian Young at The Huffington Post writes:

Written by Mat Johnson and drawn by Simon Gane, Dark Rain tells a story of opportunists trying to exploit the plight of New Orleans in the days after the hurricane. At times it’s alternately funny and moving, but it’s always focused on a very sharp but simple story.

It tells the tale of a man desperate for money who wants to rob a bank in the chaos of the flood and enlists the help of a reluctant ex-con who could use the money to help with his child support. Things go from bad to worse when they realize they’re racing against an evil Blackwater type outfit of mercenaries to the bank. Very reminiscent of a Third Man type story set in New Orleans, this is a book very much worth checking out.

Read The Whole Story At The Huffington Post

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Every year around this time, we hear voices from the right talking about the lessons of 9/11. To hear right wing politicians and pundits tell it, the lessons of 9/11 are: Bomb Arab countries before they bomb us, racially profile people of color, the world is separated into good and evil and either you’re with us or against us.
I’d like to think that the lessons of 9/11 would be: Be extremely cautious about domestic terrorists, don’t train militant religious fanatics to fight your enemies, because they might come back to bite us and treat all threats against our country seriously.
While people in the media talk about the lessons of 9/11 very often, it is rare to hear pundits and politicians talk about the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. While 9/11 left 2,998 people dead or missing, Hurricane Katrina left 2,536 people dead or missing and displaced over one million people.
But 9/11 changed several ways the government operates in terms of foreign and domestic polices, while Katrina changed very little. After 9/11, we invaded two countries , started the patriot act and changed airline travel as we know it.

Katrina has caused no significant changes in US policy. What the world saw after Katrina, was a natural disaster inflamed by poverty, segregation and racism. While the government may not have been able to stop the hurricane, the U.S. could have definitely prevented the racism and poverty that made Hurricane Katrina way worse than it should have been.
Hurricane Katrina was an embarrassment to the United States. Despite it’s great wealth, the U.S. could not take care of its own. After Katrina, George Bush’s approval rating was 45%, half of the 90% it reached after September 11th.
Hubert Humphrey once said, “A nation is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Congress should not ignore the plight of our nation’s poorest and sickest beneficiaries any longer.”
The judgment on George Bush from his reaction to Katrina both domestically and internationally is part of his legacy forever. Still, it seems as if the lessons of Katrina have been lost on the Republican party.
Imagine if instead of only training our army to kill they were trained to help and rescue people from disasters both man made and natural. Imagine how many lives the U.S. Army could have saved in the south asian tsunami, or the Haitian earthquake? Would the Arab world hate the U.S. if Air Force planes were used to save people from the floods in Pakistan rather than to bomb villages in Afghanistan?
Protecting our citizens and keeping our country safe is no just about bombing countries that we think our threats. Not all threats come from Islamic extremists. Hunger, poverty, crime, natural disasters and diseases also threaten the safety of our country and citizens. If we can spend billions of dollars to invade other countries to keep our country safer, we should sacrifice to make the country safer for all of our citizens from natural disasters and diseases.
It is time to heed the lessons of Katrina. We are one country and all of our citizens are important, rich and poor, black and white. When a government gives an every man for himself attitude towards disease and natural disasters, it reflects badly on our country. It is the duty of our country to, not only protect its citizens against terrorist attacks, but against natural disasters and diseases as well. If America is serious about being the world’s police man, they should also think about being the world’s fireman too. The money that was supposed to be used to fix the levees in New Orleans was used to drop bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine if our tax payer money was used for disaster relief rather than to create more disasters.
The lessons of Hurricane Katrina is that a military cannot save its people from disasters if they are only trained to kill. America has not been invaded in 300 years yet we invest more money into our military than we do anything else. Rather than being a destroyer, American needs to be a savior, of both its own people and its fellow citizens of the world.

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Young Katrina Survivors Still Suffer From Major Emotional Issues

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More than one in three children studied – those forced to flee their homes because of the August 2005 storm – have since been diagnosed with mental health problems. These are children who moved to trailer parks and other emergency housing.

Nearly half of families studied still report household instability, researchers said.

“If children are bellwethers of recovery, then the social systems supporting affected Gulf Coast populations are still far from having recovered from Hurricane Katrina,” the researchers said.

The study was published online Monday in the journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.

Lead author David Abramson of Columbia University said researchers were astonished by the level of distress.

Children are “a bit of canary in a coal mine in that they really represent a failure or a dysfunction of many, many other systems in the community,” said Abramson, who is with Columbia’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

About 500,000 people, including more than 160,000 children, weren’t able to return to their homes for at least three months after the storm hit on Aug. 29, 2005.

At least 20,000 of those children still have serious emotional disorders or behavior problems, or don’t have a permanent home, the report suggests.

“Five years after Katrina, there are still tens of thousands of children and their families who are still living in limbo with a significant toll on their psychological well-being,” said co-author Irwin Redlener, also with the Columbia center. In addition, he is president of the Children’s Health Fund, an advocacy group that paid for the study.

Without significant government help, Redlener said, these children are likely to have even greater problems as adults.

Psychologist Joy Osofsky of Louisiana State University’s Health Sciences Center agreed, but said it was important to note that children in general are much more resilient than those from the extremely poor families Redlener is studying.

Osofsky, who has been working with children at St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Orleans parish schools since the storm, said Redlener’s study shows the effects of poverty, the trauma of Katrina and what followed.

Redlener’s group has been periodically studying 1,079 families in Louisiana and Mississippi since February 2006, six months after the storm struck. The latest interviews, from November 2009 through March, involved families with children between ages 5 and 18.

Over the five years, 38 percent out of 427 children have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression or a behavior disorder since Katrina. That’s almost five times more likely than children from similar families evaluated before the hurricane.

The percentage of newly diagnosed children has declined in each round of interviews but the numbers are still almost double the national average, Abramson said.

Almost half of the households either were living in transient housing or had no guarantee that they’d be in their current quarters for more than a year.

In separate research, Osofsky has looked at about 5,000 fourth- through 12th-grade children screened last year in St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Orleans parish schools. Of that group, 31 percent showed some symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress, but only 12 to 15 percent asked for individual or group counseling. The school-based program doesn’t diagnose children, she said.

Redlener wants more mental health services available to children, government action to get the families into safe and stable housing, and more support for the families. He also says governments need to quickly collect information about children and families hurt by disaster and to ensure they can be helped as long as they need it.

“We know governments, state and federal, are dealing with a very deep recession…,” he said. On the other hand, he said, “It’s pay now or pay later – and the ‘later’ is extraordinarily expensive.”

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Spike Lee Screens New Post-Katrina New Orleans Documentary

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NEW ORLEANS – Spike Lee screened portions of his follow-up documentary about Hurricane Katrina in front of a big crowd at Mahalia Jackson Theater in New Orleans.

The premiere Tuesday included hours one and four of the HBO documentary, “If God Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise.” It airs on Aug. 23 and 24. Among those attending were Mayor Mitch Landrieu and New Orleans Hornets star guard Chris Paul.

Lee also produced “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” after Katrina struck in August 2005.

In the new movie, Lee returns five years later to see how plans to rebuild New Orleans have played out.

It also touches on the Saints’ Super Bowl victory and details the impact of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill on people who have yet to fully recover from the hurricane.

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Spike Lee Bashes US Report On Vanishing Oil In Gulf

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WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans on Aug. 29.

The White House says Obama will speak at Xavier University. Other administration officials who have worked on Katrina recovery efforts will also be in the region to mark the anniversary.

Obama made his first trip to New Orleans since taking office in October, holding a town hall with local residents. He returned to the city again this year to assess efforts to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

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Federal scientists said last week that nearly three-quarters of the oil from the BP oil debacle has been removed by various artificial or natural means, but that the spill’s effect on wildlife will long continue. Filmmaker Spike Lee says that the U.S. government report is a “lie.”

He then said journalists should expose “the real story” while speaking at a meeting of the Television Critics Association on Saturday.

Lee argued that it’s unlikely that “abracadabra, presto chango” the vast majority of the oil has vanished from Gulf of Mexico waters and coastal wetlands. While we understand that Spike Lee is not a scientist, common sense would suggest that those numbers relative to the reported amount of devastation and spillage are a little suspect.

Not to mention the constantly changing information during the actual spill. We’re not understanding the controversy, since Lee basically said what a lot of people are thinking.

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Spike Lee To Obama: “Go Off” On BP About Oil Spill

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ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) — BP claimed a key victory Wednesday in its effort to plug its blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico while the government said the vast majority of oil from the worst offshore spill in U.S. history was already gone.

Declaring it a milestone, BP PLC said mud that was forced down the well was holding back the flow of crude and it was in a “static condition.”

Also, White House energy adviser Carol Browner said on morning TV talk shows that a new assessment found that about 75 percent of the oil has either been captured, burned off, evaporated or broken down in the Gulf.

“It was captured. It was skimmed. It was burned. It was contained. Mother Nature did her part,” Browner told NBC television. On ABC television, she said about 25 percent remained.

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In the Gulf, workers stopped pumping mud in after about eight hours of their “static kill” procedure and were monitoring the well to ensure it remained stable, BP said.

“It’s a milestone,” BP PLC spokeswoman Sheila Williams said. “It’s a step toward the killing of the well.”

The next step would be deciding whether to cement the well, Williams said.

The pressure in the well dropped quickly in the first 90 minutes of the static kill procedure Tuesday, a sign that everything was going as planned, wellsite leader Bobby Bolton told The Associated Press. Bolton said Tuesday night that the procedure was going well. “Pressure is down and appears to be stabilizing,” he told the AP then.

Browner told NBC it was good news that the static kill was working but that “we remain focused on the relief well.”

The static kill — also known as bullheading — involved slowly pumping the mud from a ship down lines running to the top of the ruptured well a mile below. BP has said that may be enough by itself to seal the well.

But the mud that was forced down the broken wellhead to permanently plug the gusher is only half the story. To call the mission a success, crews working on a flotilla of vessels on a desolate patch of water need to seal off the well from two directions.

An 18,000-foot (5,500-meter) relief well BP has been drilling for the past three months will be used later this month to execute a “bottom kill,” in which mud and cement will be injected into the bedrock 2½ miles (4 kilometers) below the sea floor to finish the job, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.

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A 75-ton cap placed on the well in July has been keeping the oil bottled up inside over the past three weeks, but is considered only a temporary measure. BP and the Coast Guard want to plug up the hole with a column of heavy drilling mud and cement to seal it off more securely.

Before the cap was lowered onto the well, 172 million gallons (651 million liters) of crude flowed into the sea, unleashed by the April 20 explosion aboard the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 workers. A previous, similar effort failed in May when the mud couldn’t overcome the unstemmed flow of oil.

BP won’t know for certain whether the static kill has succeeded until engineers can use the soon-to-be-completed relief well to check their work.

The task is becoming more urgent because peak hurricane season is just around the corner, Allen said. Tropical Storm Colin formed then dissipated far out in the Atlantic on Tuesday, but early forecasts say it will travel toward the East Coast rather than the Gulf.

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