NEWS

There’s a Battle Outside and It Is Still Ragin’

THE glittering young blonde in a low-cut gown is sipping champagne in a swank Manhattan restaurant back in the day when things were still swank. She is on a first date with an advertising man as dashing as his name, Don Draper. So you don’t really expect her to break the ice by talking about bad news. “The world is so dark right now,” she says. “One of the boys killed in Mississippi, Andrew Goodman — he’s from here. A girlfriend of mine knew him from summer camp.” Her date is too busy studying her décolletage, so she fills in the dead air. “Is that what it takes to change things?” she asks. He ventures no answer.

Six More Charged in New Orleans Danziger Bridge Shootings

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced the indictment of six current or former New Orleans Police Department officers in connection to the Danziger Bridge shootings, which occurred during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

With Help After Storm, a Chance to Give Back

NEW ORLEANS — Joycelyn Heintz spent eight months in a camper after Hurricane Katrina with her two daughters, now 20 and 12, while volunteer workers made her three-bedroom house — ruined by 14 feet of water — habitable again. She bonded with the volunteers to such an extent, she said, that when she regained the house in 2008 she joined their ranks as a liaison to other victim

Gulf’s Vietnamese-American fishermen become easy prey for legal barracudas

Before it became the single biggest environmental catastrophe in American history, BP's Deepwater Horizon was a magnet for barracudas, which endlessly circled the oil rig in the Gulf's warm waters, feeding on smaller fish. The oil plume and massive cleanup have driven away many of the underwater predators. But as a group of Vietnamese-American lawyers discovered before returning to the Bay Area from the Gulf of Mexico last week, the barracudas have come ashore.

Banned trailers used for Katrina victims reappearing along coast

VENICE, La. – Some of the trailers provided to victims of Hurricane Katrina and banned from being used for housing again are showing up back on the coast as housing for oil spill cleanup workers.

Is New Orleans’s Recovery Ever Fun to Watch?

Regardless of how you feel about David Simon’s New Orleans post-Katrina series Treme, you probably haven’t had many opportunities to talk about it. Unlike The Wire, Simon’s dramatic treatise on Baltimore, Treme hasn’t quite caught on to the point that you have to be prepared at parties to either discuss it intelligently or give some legitimate excuse—such as hysterical blindness—for not having seen it.

Halliburton Profiting on Gulf Spill Cleanup

How’s this for a business model? First, you make a bundle of cash by providing essential services to the oil majors as they undertake tricky (and risky) offshore oil and gas extraction. Then, when one of the wells you’re working on blows up, you sneak away from any possible liabilities. And finally, to bring everything full circle, you then rack up additional profits with your oil spill cleanup division.

Gulf Coast tourism officials plead for help

WASHINGTON — A $500 million marketing campaign will be necessary to combat public perceptions about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that could ripple for years, tourism officials told congressional staffers Tuesday.

Inspector general to analyze New Orleans recovery outlay

Facing several dozen residents furious about the dearth of recovery projects under way in the Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux on Thursday promised to conduct a fiscal analysis of public financing of the citywide rebuilding program.

2009 Harry Chapin Media Awards Winners announced

The winners of the 2009 Harry Chapin Media Awards were chosen by an independent panel of judges: Books: Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. Judges’ Award: Let’s Get Free: A Hip Hop Justice by Paul Butler. Television/Film: Trouble the Water by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal Newspapers: "Deadly Detention" by Nina Bernstein (The New York Times) New Media: "Childhood Poverty in Colorado" by Tim Rasmussen (The Denver Post) Periodical: "There Goes the Neighborhood" by Alyssa Katz ( The American Prospect) Photojournalism: "Open Wounds: Bhopal 1984-2009" Alex Masi (The Guardian, Time Online, Vanity Fair Italy and BBC) The panel of judges were: Albert Bozzo, senior news editor in charge of features and special reports at CNBC.com; Jonathan Curiel, journalist and author of "Al' America: Travels Through America's Arab and Islamic Roots;" LynNell Hancock, reporter and writer specializing in education and child and family policy issues, and a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism; Melanie Mannarino, deputy executive editor of Redbook; Elizabeth McDonald, Stocks Editor, Fox Business Network; Laura Silver, freelance journalist/advocate; Kerry Truemann, co-founder of Eatingliberally.org and a frequent contributor to Huffington Post; and Erica Zolberg, freelance television producer. The winners and finalists will be honored at the Harry Chapin Media Awards Ceremony, presented by WhyHunger and Mediabistro, on Sept. 28, 2010 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square, New York City.

Gulf Needs Concrete Actions That Respect Residents’ Rights

CODEN, Ala. -- When Gulf Coast resident Louise Bosarge heard President Obama refer to her community as "resilient," her response was poetic: "We bounce back. We always bounce back. Bouncing hurts." Along with my daughter Mariah and a team of human rights experts from the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights, I spent the last several days in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama speaking with commercial fishermen, deck hands, restaurateurs, ecologists, farmers, service providers, marina workers, hoteliers, kids and more whose lives are directly affected by BP's toxic tsunami swamping the Gulf Coast and wiping out the fishing and tourism industries which have been the mainstays of these communities for decades. "Oil will be all that's left," lamented one long-time resident. "And with the politicians in the pockets of the oil companies, there will be more pressure than ever to drill, baby, drill."

BP Is Destroying Evidence and Censoring Journalists

While President Obama insists that the federal government is firmly in control of the response to BP's spill in the Gulf, people in coastal communities where I visited last week in Louisiana and Alabama know an inconvenient truth: BP -- not our president -- controls the response. In fact, people on the ground say things are out of control in the gulf.

In ‘Treme,’ New Orleans’ Music Is Everything

In David Simon's HBO series Treme, the music is almost as important as the people picking up the pieces after hurricane Katrina.

BP oil spill again severely affects people of color

If the BP disaster tells us anything, it is that government and corporations can’t be left alone with the public’s business.

Tropical Storm Agatha floods kill 150, cause giant sinkhole in Guatemala City

Villagers have been buried alive in Guatemala. Residents, caked in mud, have searched in the wreckage of their homes for loved ones. Aerial photos show entire swaths of the nation's coffee crop under water. Then, there's the giant Guatemala City sinkhole.

NOAA Expects Busy Atlantic Hurricane Season

An “active to extremely active” hurricane season is expected for the Atlantic Basin this year according to the seasonal outlook issued today by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center – a division of the National Weather Service. As with every hurricane season, this outlook underscores the importance of having a hurricane preparedness plan in place.

White House: Oil Spill Isn’t Our Katrina

(CBS) White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told Bob Schieffer Sunday that the United States government is doing "everything humanly and technologically possible" to stop the oil leak in the Gulf - despite criticism that it has left too much responsibility to oil company BP and needs to do more.

TN flood responders learned from lessons Katrina taught

Most of the lessons learned through Hurricane Katrina were applied this month during the Middle Tennessee floods, said the military official who was given high praise for coordinating relief efforts on the Gulf Coast.

5th officer charged in Katrina shootings cover-up

(AP) NEW ORLEANS — Another former police officer has been charged with helping cover up the deadly shootings of unarmed residents on a New Orleans bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina, prosecutors said Friday.

NYT Editorial: A New Chance in New Orleans

The Justice Department described the New Orleans Police Department earlier this year as one of the nation’s worst. There is no doubt about that. The city suffers from one of the country’s highest rates of violent crime and unsolved murders. Its police force is currently the subject of at least eight federal investigations into accusations of brutality and unjustified killings of citizens at the hands of armed officers.

Whistleblower Sues to Stop Another BP Rig From Operating

A whistleblower filed a lawsuit today to force the federal government to halt operations at another massive BP oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, alleging that BP never reviewed critical engineering designs for the operation and is therefore risking another catastrophic accident that could "dwarf" the company's Deepwater Horizon spill.

DOJ Has ‘Boots on the Ground’ to Evaluate New Orleans Police

The Justice Department will immediately begin an evaluation of the New Orleans Police Department that will likely lead to a consent decree, federal officials announced at a news conference Monday.

Gulf oil spill: firms ignored warning signs before blast, inquiry hears

BP was aware of equipment problems aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig hours before the explosion pumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a congressional hearing was told yesterday .

Protesters Blast Haiti President’s Quake Response

Police fired tear gas outside the ruins of Haiti's national palace Monday to control 2,000 demonstrators calling for President Rene Preval's resignation in the largest political protest since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

New Orleans Asks U.S. to Help Police Department

Citing the need for “transformational change,” the city’s new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, announced on Wednesday that he was inviting the Justice Department to help restructure the troubled New Orleans Police Department.

Oil Disaster 5X Worse Than Estimated, ‘Churning Slick’ Now the Size of Puerto Rico

The catastrophe continues, as Federal authorities have banned commercial and recreational fishing in a large stretch of water off four states. The view from space indicates that the oil may be leaking at a rate of 25,000 barrels a day, dwarfing the figure of 5,000 barrels that US officials and the British oil giant BP have used in recent days.

Mitch Landrieu becomes 70th mayor of New Orleans today

Appealing to voters weary of rampant crime, a lagging recovery and a strapped city budget, Mitch Landrieu spent his campaign for mayor of New Orleans hammering home this simple message: "I know what to do, and I know how to do it."

Shades of Katrina in oil spill politics

Even before the spilled oil reaches shore, the political game of assigning credit and blame is in full swing. The White House Saturday stepped up its efforts to respond to the Gulf Coast oil slick now within days of making landfall in Mississippi and Alabama – designating a new incident commander, introducing a new website detailing their efforts and announcing President Barack Obama himself would visit the Gulf Coast on Sunday.

Former New Orleans police officer Robert Barrios pleads guilty in Danziger coverup

A fourth New Orleans police officer pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon to participating in a cover-up of the circumstances of the police shooting of six civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

In New Orleans, the Taste of a Comeback

IT is the siren call of a magnificent, broken city: “This, here, is the real New Orleans.” Spend any time sweating through a shirt and walking slow and purposeful along Magazine Street toward a Sazerac before dinner, and you’ll hear the cry, in this bar or that one. You’ll hear it on the radio, driving the high-rise bridge over the Industrial Canal, someone spinning funk on WWOZ and talking about New Orleans soul. You’ll see it in the defiant eyes of a man lurching out of a second line in Pigeon Town.

The “Femcee” Problem

Queen Latifah. Lil Kim. Lauryn Hill. Missy Elliott. There’ve been a handful of visible female rappers, but none seem to have inspired a women’s movement in hip hop. Why? We looked at the New Orleans hip-hop style known as “bounce” a few months ago, and one of the striking things about the bounce scene is how strong a female presence (and even more striking, a queer and transgendered presence) that community has.

Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism

The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation. Hate groups stayed at record levels — almost 1,000 — despite the total collapse of the second largest neo-Nazi group in America.

Days After Rig Explosion, Well Is Pouring Thousands of Gallons of Oil Into Gulf

NEW ORLEANS — Officials expect to determine today or Tuesday whether they will soon be able to stop oil leaks coming from the deepwater well near Louisiana or will need months to stem the flow of what is now about 42,000 gallons of oil a day pouring into the Gulf of Mexico.

Mud fails to ruin the fun at Jazz Fest as music lovers go with the flow

The crowds that flocked to the Fair Grounds Sunday afternoon for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell gratefully basked in the warm, sunny weather.

Mayor Ray Nagin leaves office without fulfilling his promises: to rid City Hall of corruption and la

Ray Nagin swept into office in 2002 as the embodiment of a new way of doing business at City Hall. Though the former cable TV executive shared friends and business partners with his predecessor, Marc Morial, he wasn't shy about criticizing Morial's administration and some of the deals those same insiders had finagled.

Obama should appoint first Black woman for Supreme Court, jurists say

WASHINGTON (NNPA) — President Barack Obama needs only to turn over in his bed to be reminded of all the Black women who are powerfully qualified to be U.S. Supreme Court justices. If First Lady Michelle Obama was not his wife, some legal scholars say she would be a clear and obvious candidate for the short list to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Fourth New Orleans Police Officer Charged in Post-Katrina Shooting at Danziger Bridge

Federal investigators charged another New Orleans police officer in connection to the Danziger Bridge shootings, in which two civilians were killed and four were wounded in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The Danziger Bridge shootings are among a string of violent post-Katrina police encounters we’ve investigated in collaboration with PBS “Frontline” and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Food Access Five Years After the Storm

The best strawberry I’ve ever eaten was grown on the Gulf Coast. It was unassuming—a small, burgundy, heart-shaped thing—yet one bite was all it took. The berry was soft, not too juicy, and entirely unlike any out-of-season fruit I’d ever tasted. Thoughts of New Orleans bring to mind Mardi Gras and Bourbon Street, but few know of Louisiana’s agricultural bounty. The state is consistently one of the top 10 strawberry producers in the United States. It ranks number one in production of crawfish, shrimp, and oysters; is the second largest producer of sugarcane; and is the third largest producer of rice.

Federal civil rights chief talks about drastic options for ‘troubled’ NOPD

In an interview posted Tuesday with political blog Talking Points Memo, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division hinted at the possibility of the agency filing a civil lawsuit to prompt systemic change in the New Orleans Police Department.

After Katrina, Staying Afloat With Music

David Simon’s new HBO series is called “Treme” and the title alone suggests the difficulty of the subject. Treme doesn’t rhyme with ream; it’s pronounced truh-MAY, and it’s the name of an old New Orleans neighborhood famous for music — and, in some parts, for crime. It’s the kind of area sought out by intrepid travelers eager to bypass the tourist traps on Bourbon Street, the kind of place that guidebooks label “authentic.”

Amnesty: US guilty of Katrina-related abuses

NEW ORLEANS -- The U.S. government and Gulf Coast states have consistently violated the human rights of hurricane victims since Hurricane Katrina killed about 1,800 people and caused widespread devastation after striking in August 2005, Amnesty International said Friday.

Description of a massacre: An editorial

Police officers involved in the shooting of six civilians on the Danziger Bridge had cloaked their actions in the chaos of post-Katrina New Orleans and claimed that they were acting in self defense.

A legacy of Katrina: Green homes

NEW ORLEANS -- In this city on the mend, hundreds of state-of-the-art sustainable, energy-efficient homes are being built in lower-income neighborhoods, a trend that's outpacing most of the rest of the country.

Suspense Builds Over Census for New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS — Nobody really knows how many people live here. Ever since this city was full of water and nearly empty of residents in September 2005, the true size of New Orleans has been a matter of wild uncertainty. Even today, population estimates can swing by the tens of thousands.

Toxic FEMA Trailers To Be Auctioned Off With Warning Stickers

n the hopes of liquidating a national shame as quickly as possible, the U.S. federal government is now auctioning off most of the 120,000 toxic, formaldehyde-contaminated trailers once used to house Hurricane Katrina victims. Though the resale of the trailers had begun in earnest last year, they are now being auctioned off in bulk for a fraction of the original cost - but equipped only with stickers that deem them "Not To Be Used For Housing'' - understandably raising concerns about the effectiveness of such a lackluster safety measure.

Tainted FEMA trailers should be destroyed, not sold

The Obama administration is making a big health-care mistake. I'm not talking about the final push for comprehensive reform legislation, which is righteous and necessary. I mean the sale of more than 100,000 contaminated trailers and mobile homes -- a move that could make people sick.

In Baton Rouge, More Allegations of Police Misconduct After Hurricane Katrina

More than 200 people line up at the Baton Rouge Department of Social Services to register for emergency aid after Hurricane Katrina on Sept. 3, 2005. Baton Rouge became the most populated city in the state after taking on evacuees from Hurricane Katrina.

FEMA sells off Hurricane Katrina trailers tainted with formaldehyde

In a giant auction, the federal government has agreed to sell for pennies on the dollar most of the 120,000 formaldehyde-tainted trailers it bought nearly five years ago for Hurricane Katrina victims.

Hurricane Katrina wars continue

Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco is taking umbrage at statements in a book by Karl Rove, political adviser to former President George W. Bush.

A bad shoot Gradually, the story emerges of what happened on the Danziger bridge

A WEEK after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, on September 4th 2005, the police shot six civilians as they were crossing the Danziger bridge across the Industrial Canal. Two were killed; the others were seriously wounded, one losing an arm. On February 24th a high-ranking officer with a long police career pleaded guilty to orchestrating a vast cover-up of what took place there. It is likely to be only the start of a traumatic reckoning for the city’s long-troubled police department.

Alternative Spring Breaks Combine Service, Learning

Instead of relaxing on white, sandy beaches this spring break, thousands of college students will travel around the globe to volunteer for a variety of social justice causes. Known as "alternative spring breaks," these are public-service-oriented trips, planned and led by students, that focus on volunteerism and education about social justice issues in the United States or overseas. From rebuilding homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina to tutoring students in a remote village in Ecuador, these trips can open students' eyes to issues both close to home and far away.

Charges Filed in Katrina Inquiry

On Sept. 4, 2005, with floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina still standing in much of the city, Lt. Michael J. Lohman of the New Orleans Police Department arrived at the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans. A group of police officers had rushed there just ahead of him in response to a radio call for assistance.

Ex-officer pleads guilty in Katrina killing probe

A former police lieutenant pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring to obstruct justice after federal officials say he helped cover for officers who killed two people on a bridge in the chaos following Hurricane Katrina.

HANO Under Scrutiny In New Federal Report

NEW ORLEANS -- Federal officials have issued a scathing review of the agency that oversees public housing in New Orleans.

Post-Katrina shootings by police get federal attention

Federal agents have broadened their investigation of the New Orleans Police Department and are now looking into three post-Katrina police shootings detailed in a news series published in The Times-Picayune in December.

New Orleans Mardi Gras going strong on Claiborne

Brisk early morning tempartures weren't slowing down crowds streaming along Claiborne Avenue towards Orleans Avenue, as New Orleans natives and vistors came together at one of the traditional gathering spots for African-Americans in the city to celebrate Mardi Gras.

SPLC Seeks Justice in Police Shooting of Elderly Louisiana Man

Many African Americans in this town figured a racially charged tragedy was inevitable, given what they say has been a long history of racial profiling and harassment by the local police.

Haiti: A Creditor, Not a Debtor

If we are to believe the G-7 finance ministers, Haiti is on its way to getting something it has deserved for a very long time: full "forgiveness" of its foreign debt. In Port-au-Prince, Haitian economist Camille Chalmers has been watching these developments with cautious optimism. Debt cancellation is a good start, he told Al Jazeera English, but "It's time to go much further. We have to talk about reparations and restitution for the devastating consequences of debt." In this telling, the whole idea that Haiti is a debtor needs to be abandoned. Haiti, he argues, is a creditor--and it is we, in the West, who are deeply in arrears.

New Orleans; Back in the game

NEW ORLEANS is used to big weekends, but the last one stood out. On February 6th voters elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, in a landslide more dramatic than any in memory. The next day the city’s beloved football team, the Saints—famous mostly for bumbling—won the Super Bowl for the first time in their 43-year existence.

Fluor agrees to pay Katrina workers back overtime

Fluor Enterprises has agreed to pay $1 million in back overtime wages to 154 workers who inspected temporary housing trailers during the Hurricane Katrina cleanup. Fluor's agreement resolves a lawsuit the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division filed against the company and its subcontractor, Houston-based Universal Project Management.

Increasing number of South La. residents seek emergency food assistance

A study released last week by Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana (GNOA) and Feeding America, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization, reports that more than 262,800 people, including 82,000 children and 40,000 seniors, receive emergency food assistance each year through Second Harvest Food Bank and its 235 faith-based and nonprofit member agencies. Second Harvest Food Bank reaches approximately one half of the population in poverty in the 23 south Louisiana parishes it serves, stretching from the Mississippi border to the Texas state line.

New Orleans Saints are Super Bowl XLIV champions

MIAMI GARDENS, FLA. - After the confetti had dropped, after the tears were shed, after they stood in front of the cameras and the microphones and tried to put the greatest night of their professional lives in perspective, Sean Payton and Drew Brees shared a quiet moment together.

New Orleans Chooses First White Mayor In 32 Years

Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu has been elected mayor of New Orleans, replacing term-limited Ray Nagin and becoming the majority-black city's first white mayor since 1979.

Majora Carter: “We Have to Dream Bigger”

Education Secretary Duncan, Rahm Emanuel both apologize

Education Secretary Arne Duncan apologized Tuesday for asserting that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans," calling the remark "a dumb thing to say."

Workers who helped rebuild after Hurricane Katrina offer advice to their compatriots in Haiti.

Though both disasters were tragic, destructive, and heartbreaking, there are big differences between the situation in post-earthquake Haiti and life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. While the destruction from Katrina was intense, displacing tens of thousands of citizens, the earthquake in Haiti destroyed almost the entire city of Port-au-Prince, leaving almost 100 percent of the city's population homeless. Katrina made landfall in a wealthy, industrialized nation; the earthquake hit the capital of an impoverished country already struggling to survive. "Katrina was different because [many aid workers] were from outside and had no emotional ties to the community," says Andre Filiatrault, a structural engineering professor at the University at Buffalo. Filiatrault worked in New Orleans after Katrina and is currently providing support in Haiti. "Here, the people who are providing help, the U.N. members themselves, have lost family members. Over 150 U.N. employees have been killed, and people providing health care have to cope with their own loss as well. It is a very difficult situation."

Racing against the Super Bowl clock

It is almost a dream of a weekend to come. The Saints in the Super Bowl on Sunday, and Mardi Gras parades rolling down St. Charles Ave on Saturday afternoon, as people tailgate and celebrate the big game the next day. It would be easy to forget about another dream for which so many of our ancestors fought and often died. Amidst the revelry, joy, and anticipation on Saturday, February 6, 2010, as we prepare for a 40-year NFL dream deferred, please do not forget much older and more important dreams finally realized. The power to speak. The power to choose. The power to vote.

Bridge blockade lawsuit dismissed by federal judge

A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a New Orleans couple who claimed the decision by Gretna and Jefferson Parish police to bar them from walking across the Crescent City Connection and out of Orleans Parish after Hurricane Katrina violated their constitutional rights.

Education Secretary Duncan calls Hurricane Katrina good for New Orleans schools

Education Secretary Arne Duncan called Hurricane Katrina "the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans" because it forced the community to take steps to improve low-performing public schools, according to excerpts from a television interview made public Friday.

Katrina on Film and Canvas

David Bates since 1982: From the Everyday to the Epic. David Bates, a Texan by birth and still a Texan by choice, makes art. In a way, Bates’ art is like the city of New Orleans: both can mean different things to different people.

Ex-FEMA worker, cousin plead guilty to $721K Hurricane Katrina fraud

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) � A former Federal Emergency Management Agency worker and her cousin have pleaded guilty to orchestrating one of the biggest Hurricane Katrina scams to become public since the 2005 storm.

Aid after Haiti earthquake: Faster, but will it be bigger?

Americans gave more aid to Haiti in the first four days than for any other disaster, including hurricane Katrina.

FEMA ordered to pay $474 million for Charity Hospital

New Orleans - A FEMA arbitration committee has reportedly decided to award LSU more than $474 million for damages caused to the school�s Charity Hospital during Hurricane Katrina, according to a spokesman with LSU. LSU had been asking for $492 million for damages.

Haiti: Obama’s Katrina: Many post-quake deaths could have been prevented

Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe.

To help Haiti’s earthquake victims, change U.S. immigration laws

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, one of the principal ways its victims helped themselves was by leaving. Katrina prompted one of the biggest resettlements in American history. Who would have blocked Interstate 10 with armed guards, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to suffer in the disaster zone, no matter how much assistance was coming in from outside? We wouldn't have done that, because it would have made us collectively responsible for their continued suffering.

Haiti: A Reading List

By now we all realize that poverty, not just the Richter Scale, contributed to the devastation in Haiti. Even after donating to the relief effort, many of us feel helpless as we sit comfortably in safety and privilege. How might we continue to help? Well, once the rebuilding begins, Haiti will need us, and to do our part, we can start by acquiring an understanding of the country�s history, culture, religion, and mores.

Mayor Ray Nagin recommends slate of changes in federal disaster recovery act

The executive committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday approved a white paper calling for sweeping changes in the federal Stafford Act authored by a task force of two dozen mayors led by Ray Nagin of New Orleans and Kevin Johnson of Sacramento.

Aid Groups Focus on Haiti�s Homeless

Aid flowed into the ravaged Haitian capital on Thursday, and relief workers began shifting their focus to longer-term challenges, primary among them providing shelter for as many as a million people displaced by last week�s earthquake.

US Mercenaries Set Sights on Haiti

We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans, and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about "looters." After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight. Banks, wealthy individuals, the US government all hired private security. I even encountered Israeli mercenaries operating an armed checkpoint outside of an elite gated community in New Orleans. They worked for a company called Instinctive Shooting International. (That is not a joke).

New Orleans� Heart is in Haiti

New Orleans and Haiti are connected by geography, history, architecture and family. News of mass devastation and loss of life in the island nation has hit hard in the Crescent City. Almost every hurricane that has hit the Gulf Coast first brought devastation on our neighbors in Haiti. We are linked not just by a shared experience of storms, but also by first-hand understanding of the ways in which oppression based on race, class and gender interacts with these disasters.

Ten Martin Luther King Jr. quotes

Martin Luther King Jr. quotes on love, justice, and human purpose changed the way America � and the world � thought about race and demonstrated the power of nonviolence to overcome even the most entrenched prejudices.

Haiti’s history as first black republic creates a special bond with many African-Americans

A terrible earthquake anywhere in the Caribbean would have hit a sympathetic nerve in most Americans. But as the first black republic of the West, born when slaves overthrew white rulers, Haiti holds a unique place in the hearts of many American blacks.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM:  New and Old, US Groups Forge Broad Alliances

With civil society gearing up for the 2010 World Social Forum, and later this summer, the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, Michigan, activists here say new alliances created at the first USSF in 2007 are going strong.

New Orleans shares culture, and tragedy, with Haiti: Jarvis DeBerry

When my cousin Cequita visited the Creole cottage I rented in Treme, her boyfriend came with her. It was Garry's first visit to New Orleans; yet, somehow, he'd seen so much of it before. He'd seen our architecture. The shape of my house -- built in the 1830s -- evoked memories of his past. What about the other houses in the neighborhood, those bedecked in the loudest, most outrageous colors from the paint store? That was familiar, too. To Garry, it all looked like Haiti. It all looked like his home.

Ten Things the US Can and Should Do for Haiti

One. Allow all Haitians in the US to work. The number one source of money for poor people in Haiti is the money sent from family and workers in the US back home. Haitians will continue to help themselves if given a chance. Haitians in the US will continue to help when the world community moves on to other problems.

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Supplies begin to arrive in Haiti as aftershocks shake stunned nation

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Rescue workers dragged corpses from collapsed buildings, dazed homeless wandered the streets and the death toll climbed Wednesday as dozens of aftershocks from a massive earthquake rattled this capital city.

Haiti devastated by massive earthquake

A massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake has struck the Caribbean nation of Haiti. The extent of the devastation is still unclear but there are fears thousands of people may have died.

Haiti: Some Ways To Help

Many of us are looking for ways to help the people of Haiti, even from far away. Here are some resources:

The New Orleans music scene: A decade in review

January 2010 marks not only the first month of a brand new year but the start of a new decade. Like everything else in life, the New Orleans music scene had its ups and downs since 2000 and was hard hit by Katrina and the resulting flood caused by the levee breaches.

Black coalition pushes for ‘unified’ 2010 Census tally

The campaign to get blacks to participate in the 2010 Census has forged an unprecedented bond between two groups that have not traditionally shared common goals: African Americans and black immigrants.

Activists call on White House to use its �bully pulpit� for Black economic progress

As 2009 ended with Black unemployment rates at 15.6 percent - more than twice the rate of a decade ago, a dramatic five points more than a year ago, and twice the White unemployment rate - civil rights leaders are calling on President Obama to pointedly use his 'bully pulpit' on behalf of African Americans.

EPA chief’s quest for environmental justice traces back to New Orleans roots

More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, the single-storey brick rancher in Pontchartrain Park where Lisa Perez Jackson grew up stands empty. Floodwaters long ago ate away the walls of her corner bedroom, where the current head of the Environmental Protection Agency once hung Michael Jackson and Prince posters and studied her way to the top of her high school class.

Judge dismisses Miss. NAACP suit on Katrina funds

WASHINGTON - A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the Mississippi NAACP and others trying to stop the state from diverting Hurricane Katrina housing money to a Gulf Coast port project.

Katrina negligence lawsuit has implications for all hospitals

Once the power blinked out, Althea LaCoste's lungs were on their own. She struggled to breathe without the help of a respirator, and even a team of nurses hand-bagging air into her ailing lungs couldn't save her, according to court documents. LaCoste, 73, died before she could be evacuated from Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.

Will the New Orleans mayoral race turn into an all-white showdown?

This year will mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina -- a disaster that brought dramatic changes not only to the physical landscape of the Gulf Coast but also to the region's politics. Some of those political changes are apparent in the current race for mayor of New Orleans, where it's becoming increasingly likely that the election could turn into a battle between two white candidates -- a scenario that the city's daily paper describes as "unthinkable" pre-Katrina.

Dambusterbusters: Some clever, new ways of stopping rivers flooding

THE destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed the importance of keeping levees�the artificial banks that contain the flow of partly canalised rivers�in tip-top condition. In practice, though, that is hard. Levees fail for many reasons, not all of them associated with violent storms, and there are so many of them (100,000 miles-worth in America alone) that keeping an eye on all of them is an almost impossible task. It is good, therefore, to have a backup plan to block up unexpected holes before they can cause too much damage.

Louisiana homeowners insurance is nation’s third-most-expensive, study says

Louisiana remains the third most expensive homeowners insurance market in the nation behind Florida and Texas, according to newly released data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

The New Katrina Flood: Hospital Liability

Three years before Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans, a senior executive at Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital assessed its vulnerability to the sort of flooding that had been long feared there.

The Year in New Orleans News [2009]

New Orleans has always been out of step with the rest of the country — we march to brass bands and second lines, not John Philip Sousa — and this year it paid off. The recession swept across the nation and the overall unemployment rate hit 10 percent, but in New Orleans it never went above 7.8 percent. While states were looking for a share of the Obama stimulus plan, our recovery was already almost four years going strong with construction booming — yes, Eddie Blakely, there really are cranes in the sky.

In Katrina�s Aftermath, Still a Struggle to Help

When Renaissance Village, the vast trailer park that housed Hurricane Katrina evacuees outside Baton Rouge, was closing down in May 2008, Theresa August was one of the last to leave. Babbling, singing and wearing a baby�s onesie on her head, she had to be coaxed into packing up the clothes and trash that crammed the trailer she called home.