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ROAD CLOSINGS

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MEETINGS

• Historic building rotting in limbo
A school on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard where generations of Central City children were educated may finally succumb to the wrecking ball.

• Nagin attending meeting on Haiti
At the invitation of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin will attend the International Conference of World Cities and Regions for Haiti, which begins today on the eastern Caribbean island of Martinique, his office said in a press release.

• 1 Indian gathering interrupted by cops
While Uptown police officers won plaudits for their handling of a closely watched St. Joseph's Night celebration Friday, Mardi Gras Indians remained frustrated about another confrontation with police officers downtown.

• 4 people rescued from Tchefuncte, including toddler
Four people, including a 3-year-old child, were rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter Friday night after their boat became mired in thick mud near Madisonville.

• Indians delay Super Sunday in Central City
Residents anxious to catch of glimpse of the Uptown Mardi Gras Indians this weekend will have to wait just a bit longer. The annual Super Sunday parade in Central City has been postponed to March 28.

• Mayor in waiting cools off talks?
When developer Stewart Juneau, the driving force behind a controversial proposed restoration of the shuttered Municipal Auditorium, announced Monday that he and his partners had decided to halt negotiations with Mayor Ray Nagin's administration, he gave no explanation for the move.

• Nagin renews lucrative recovery contract
Mayor Ray Nagin's administration and MWH Americas Inc. have signed a retroactive six-month extension to the company's lucrative recovery management contract and have agreed to add performance measures to ensure accountability, even though only about three months remain until the deal expires, according to a document obtained Friday by The Times-Picayune.

• Nagin renews recovery contract
Mayor Ray Nagin's administration and MWH Americas Inc. have signed a retroactive six-month extension to the company's lucrative recovery management contract and have agreed to add performance measures to ensure accountability, even though only about three months remain until the deal expires, according to a document obtained Friday by The Times-Picayune.

• 3 men shot to death in N.O.
Three people were shot to death Thursday in New Orleans in two separate incidents.

• Alex Chilton, Box Tops, Big Star singer
Alex Chilton, the singer and guitarist who had a No. 1 hit as a gravel-voiced teen with "The Letter" and went on to influence a generation of musicians through his work with Big Star, died Wednesday in New Orleans. He was 59.

• Cameras OK'd aboard school buses
Drivers irate at the proliferation of red-light cameras and other automated traffic-enforcement devices, be warned: The New Orleans City Council has authorized use of cameras on school buses to photograph vehicles that ignore the buses' stop signs.

• FBI probing School Board contract
Jefferson Parish School Board member Mark Morgan was subpoenaed Wednesday by the FBI in connection with a company hired to cleanup six West Bank schools post Katrina and will be testifying on the matter Friday before a federal grand jury.

• Forum updates West 30s data
The turnout for Covington's West 30s revitalization project on Thursday night was thin -- only a couple of dozen attendees, and few actual West 30s residents. But the information presented showed progress and a step toward visualizing community change.

• Harahan approves tougher dog law
The Harahan City Council unanimously voted Thursday night to update the city's ordinance governing dangerous and vicious animals.

• Master plan meetings tweaked
The New Orleans City Council has announced minor changes in the schedule of its meetings on the city's proposed master plan.

• More local med students will be staying in state
In a development that could be significant for the future of medicine in Louisiana, nearly 60 percent of the graduates of LSU's medical schools in New Orleans and Shreveport learned Thursday that they will be undergoing further training in the state.

• Plant researcher bridging gap in the search for new medicines
Mark Plotkin, president of the Amazon Conservation Team, has spent much of his adult life working with South American Indian shamans, or healers, to identify plants that make people well, and then find the compounds in the plants that can be turned into new medicines.

• Sexual assault at St. Aug reported
New Orleans police are conducting a sexual-assault investigation at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans.

• Target tax incentive considered
The Kenner City Council is considering tax incentives to lure Target to The Esplanade mall.

• The Kenner City Council on Thursday:
The Kenner City Council on Thursday:

• 14 more citizen panels are revealed
New Orleans Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu continued to ramp up his big-tent approach to governing Thursday, announcing 14 more citizen panels charged with helping shape policy and priorities for the new administration that will move into City Hall in about six weeks.

• Abandoned N.O. cars go to highest bid
The city's Department of Public Works will hold an auction of abandoned vehicles today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Almonaster Auto Pound, 10200 Almonaster Ave, officials said.

• BGR calls for changes in contracting
Its previous calls for eliminating politics from the way New Orleans awards contracts for professional services seemed to fall on mostly deaf ears, but the Bureau of Governmental Research is not giving up.

• Bridge complaints are voiced
Three days into the round-the-clock closure of the Judge Seeber Bridge spanning the Industrial Canal, the state Department of Transportation and Development took questions from motorists Wednesday night at a sparsely attended community meeting in St. Bernard Parish.

• Cases heard on searches, arrests without warrants
The Louisiana Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments over whether police had the right to stop a man for peering into a Central City store in 2008 and whether officers were justified in entering an Irish Channel home last year at a neighbor's behest.

• High school has an international flavor
One of the newest Recovery School District charter schools is the International High School of New Orleans, 401 Nashville Ave. It is a college preparatory high school that offers a curriculum in international business and the International Baccalaureate Program.

• High school has international flavor
One of the newest Recovery School District charter schools is the International High School of New Orleans, 401 Nashville Ave. It is a college preparatory high school that offers a curriculum in international business and the International Baccalaureate Program.

• Second suspect arrested in double slaying in 9th Ward
Two young men wanted in a March 7 double slaying in the 9th Ward's St. Claude neighborhood have been jailed, the New Orleans Police Department announced Wednesday.

• 3 of 4 schools fall short of goal
Benjamin Franklin Elementary met all standards in academic performance and financial compliance, while the three other schools run by the Orleans Parish School Board need more students to show improvement on standardized tests, according to an annual evaluation.

• Building falls apart near cradle of jazz on Rampart
A century-old building in the 300 block of South Rampart Street was partially demolished Tuesday after its facade collapsed a day earlier.

• Drug search is called justified
New Orleans police officers had every right to search and seize crack cocaine and heroin from the pockets of Graylin Surtain during a patrol of one of the city's "hot spots" outside the Iberville public housing development, the Louisiana Supreme Court said Tuesday.

• Fake cabbie rapes woman
Investigators are searching for a man accused of kidnapping a woman in New Orleans, taking her to Baton Rouge and raping her, authorities said Tuesday.

• HANO proves audit wrong
Defying earlier predictions, the Housing Authority of New Orleans on Tuesday will submit a balanced budget and obligate all of its federal stimulus money, said David Gilmore, leader of a federally hired turnaround team that arrived in November.

• Joseph, Maxine Cassin, social worker and poet
Joseph Cassin was a New Orleans social worker who had survived the infamous Bataan Death March in World War II. Maxine Cassin, his wife, was a New Orleans poet who edited a journal that brought attention to promising practitioners of that craft.

• Judge Hatchett to speak at Loyola law graduation
Judge Glenda Hatchett, star of the syndicated television program "Judge Hatchett," will be the principal speaker at Loyola University's College of Law commencement on May 12 at 6 p.m. at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

• Miranda warning case reversed
A child protection officer did not err when she interviewed a man accused of raping a girl without first reading him his Miranda rights, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

• Mose Jefferson, Gill Pratt trial delayed
The federal racketeering trial of political operative Mose Jefferson and his ex-girlfriend, former state Rep. Renee Gill Pratt that was scheduled to begin Monday has been postponed.

• Payton, wife file suit against Houser
New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and his wife are the latest to file suit in federal court against Kevin Houser, the team's former long snapper, alleging Houser was part of an investment scam that snared several of the team's players and coaches.

• Revised zoning law is adopted
The Covington City Council on Tuesday adopted a revised comprehensive zoning ordinance, a project that began about four years ago and will conclude with the adoption of a revised zoning map now under discussion.

• Shootings send 2 men to hospital
New Orleans police are looking for the people responsible for wounding two men in separate shootings in the St. Claude neighborhood and eastern New Orleans Tuesday afternoon.

• Wanted by the Law
DIONELL

• 47 battle Carrollton fire
New Orleans firefighters -- 47 of them -- quenched a fire at a fourplex in the Carrollton neighborhood Monday night in about an hour.

• Charges dogged shooting victim
A man who was shot to death in the 7th Ward on Sunday has been identified as Dythaniel Miskell, 35, of New Orleans.

• Families can apply for tuition vouchers
Thousands of New Orleans schoolchildren can apply for private school tuition vouchers this week.

• Fiction undercuts political debate, columnist says
During a lecture at Loyola University School of Law on Monday, national columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. said that pervasive false information has strangled U.S. debate and urged students, faculty and community members not to ignore facts if they conflict with their political views.

• HANO sends out Section 8 numbers
After months of delays, the Housing Authority of New Orleans will begin mailing out Section 8 lottery numbers on Friday, officials said.

• Master plan hearings are set
Starting with a meeting Thursday in Algiers, the New Orleans City Council this month will hold public meetings in each council district on the city's proposed master plan.

• N.O. master plan hearings are set
Starting with a meeting Thursday in Algiers, the New Orleans City Council this month will hold public meetings in each council district on the city's proposed master plan.

• P. Paul Breaux, 86, Breaux Mart founder
P. Paul Breaux, founder of Breaux Mart Supermarkets, died Monday in New Orleans. He was 86.

• State moves to issue coastal bonds
BATON ROUGE -- Louisiana officials on Monday took a small step toward issuing bonds to help finance the state's share of levee and coastal restoration costs based on money the state will receive from offshore oil production after 2016.

• Teen, man hurt in N.O. shootings
A 15-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man were wounded in shootings Monday in two New Orleans neighborhoods.

• Videotapers testify against police
A federal jury began hearing testimony Monday in a civil lawsuit by a pair of men who say they were arrested in February 2007 by New Orleans police officers after one of them videotaped an officer grabbing a woman by her hair and pushing her to the ground during a Carnival parade.

• Man fatally shot in 7th Ward
New Orleans police are investigating the fatal shooting of a man Sunday night in the 7th Ward, authorities said.

• Xavier supplies medical students
For the 16th consecutive year, Xavier University sent more African-American students to medical schools than any other institution of higher education in the country, according to university data.

• Police seek missing man
New Orleans police were searching Saturday for a mentally disabled man who was last seen Friday night at a local hospital.

• 2010 Beliefnet awards mirror Oscars
The 2010 Beliefnet awards for best spiritual films mirror many of this year's Oscar nominees, including "Up," "Precious" and "The Blind Side."

• 3-day conference set for Charismatic group
The annual Southern Regional Conference of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, a three-day program of prayer, worship, guest speakers and special sessions for teenagers and priests, opens Friday at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner.

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Way of the Cross rite for couples is scheduled

• DA gets dinged in some races
In the run-up to the just-completed campaign season in New Orleans, there was plenty of buzz about the role that Leon Cannizzaro, the city's popular district attorney, would play in some of the high-profile races.

• Early voting begins today in St. Bernard
The early voting period for the March 27 elections in the parishes of Jefferson, St. Bernard, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany begins today and runs through March 20.

• New mosquito control building near UNO approved
Despite the outspoken opposition of some nearby residents, the New Orleans City Council has approved plans for a new city Mosquito, Termite and Rodent Control Board building at 2100 Leon C. Simon Drive, just south of the campuses of the University of New Orleans and Benjamin Franklin High School.

• Rockie Charles, 67, soul guitarist, singer
New Orleans soul guitarist and vocalist Rockie Charles, called the "President of Soul," died Friday of cancer.

• Roger Swenson, pastor, educator
Monsignor Roger Swenson, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Metairie for 11 years, died Tuesday at his rectory of lymphoma, the Archdiocese of New Orleans said. He was 73.

• Seminar will link health, spirituality
Presentations by two Christian and two Muslim health professionals form the heart of a seminar on links between spirituality and good health next weekend in New Orleans.

• Voting in Mandeville, Slidell races begins
The early voting period for the March 27 elections in the parishes of Jefferson, St. Bernard, St. John the Baptist and St. Tammany begins today and runs through March 20.

• Big check for Zulu is deemed a loan
When Mayor Ray Nagin handed Zulu king Jimmie Felder an oversized check for $800,000 during the krewe's annual Lundi Gras celebration, it looked as if the Carnival organization landed a windfall at the expense of local taxpayers.

• Big check to Zulu deemed a loan
When Mayor Ray Nagin handed Zulu king Jimmie Felder an oversized check for $800,000 during the krewe's annual Lundi Gras celebration, it looked as if the Carnival organization landed a windfall at the expense of local taxpayers.

• Clerk expects arrest soon
An attorney representing a former employee of the Orleans Parish Clerk of Court's Office said Thursday that her arrest appears "imminent" but that she did nothing inappropriate while handling judges' approval of granting free bonds for suspects awaiting trial at Criminal District Court.

• Council bars felons from city contracts
It took a couple of hours and a flock of amendments, but the New Orleans City Council on Thursday finally reached unanimous agreement on an ordinance intended to stop the city from awarding contracts or grants to people convicted of public corruption in the past five years.

• Federal probes add urgency to search for NOPD chief
Citing integrity and a commitment to community policing as among the chief qualities they want in New Orleans' next police chief, dozens of city residents repeatedly returned to the pall cast over the department by ongoing federal corruption and brutality investigations during a public meeting Thursday night at the Superdome's Claiborne Club.

• [From The Times-Picayune]
Joe Louis Caldwell, a tireless teacher who became the first African-American chairman of the University of New Orleans' history department, died Monday of congestive heart failure at Ochsner Baptist Medical Center. He was 67.

• LRA prepares to close down
The Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state agency established in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to oversee billions in rebuilding aid for parishes and individuals, is four months from shutting down.

• Man guilty in deaths of N.O. teen, girl
Almost eight years after New Orleans awoke to learn that an 11-year-old girl and her 16-year-old uncle were killed by gunfire when another child opened the family's front door, a jury convicted Billy Ray Lewis of their murders.

• Man guilty in shooting outside club
After about three hours of deliberations Thursday, an Orleans Parish jury convicted Nathaniel Payton of manslaughter for the August 2008 killing of a man outside a French Quarter nightclub.

• Outpatient mental care clinics touted
During last year's political struggle to close an Uptown mental health facility for youth and adults, state Health Secretary Alan Levine insisted repeatedly that his proposed action was a redistribution of services, rather than a cut.

• Rule on failing schools OK'd
Principals, assistant principals and teachers could be subject to dismissal or transfer if their schools consistently fail to meet required accountability growth targets under a measure approved Thursday night by the Jefferson Parish School Board.

• Rule on failing schools OK'd
Principals, assistant principals and teachers could be subject to dismissal or transfer if their schools consistently fail to meet required accountability growth targets under a measure approved Thursday night by the Jefferson Parish School Board.

• Stabbing victim identified as Honduran native
Orleans Parish coroner's officials on Thursday released the identity of a man found stabbed to death in the St. Bernard neighborhood six days ago.

• Archbishop agrees to publicize priest's name
Archbishop Gregory Aymond said he will heed an advocacy group's call to alert New Orleans area Catholics that the Rev. Robert Poandl, a priest who lived in New Orleans in the early 1970s, is now under indictment for sexual abuse in West Virginia.

• Deadline today for Road Home grants
As Road Home recipients rush to meet today's deadline to apply for separate reconstruction, elevation and storm-proofing grants, confusion over the state's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program is intensifying.

• EPA official has qualms on levee
Building a levee across the Barataria Basin to protect communities in lower Jefferson Parish is a "high-stakes gamble" that could cause major ecological damage and hinder coastal restoration efforts, a federal environmental official told a panel reviewing five potential alignments for the Donaldsonville-to-the-Gulf levee.

• Executive's body pulled from Mississippi River
An intensive four-day search for a missing Houston energy company president ended Tuesday when authorities discovered his body under a Mississippi River steamboat's pier at the edge of the French Quarter.

• Images of rape suspects released
Police are circulating images of two men they say raped women during the past week in New Orleans.

• Landrieu vows hands-on schools approach
Reiterating his campaign pledge to "be a champion for education reform,'' Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu vowed Tuesday to scrap City Hall's longstanding tradition of taking a largely hands-off approach to how schools operate in New Orleans.

• N.O. council balks at paying bill
The city of New Orleans has owed $1,348,926 since Jan. 15 to GE Capital Public Finance. Come July 15, it will owe the company another $1,348,926.

• Teen hurt in shooting
A teenager injured by gunfire Tuesday night in Gert Town called in his own shooting as he limped away from the crime scene to the Magnolia Discount strip mall on South Carrollton Avenue.

• Trial starts in deaths of kids
Prosecutors opened the second-degree murder trial of Billy Lewis, accused of gunning down an 11-year-old girl and her 16-year-old uncle in 2002, with a dramatic narrative culminating in the dying man's alleged last words: "Billy shot me."

• 2 teens arrested in Waggaman shooting
A triple shooting at a Waggaman playground Sunday night left two teenagers dead and another person wounded, and the family of one of the victims said they have no idea why he was killed.

• 2 teens arrested in Waggaman shooting
A triple shooting at a Waggaman playground Sunday night left two teenagers dead and another person wounded, and the family of one of the victims said they have no idea why he was killed.

• Assessors choose interim replacement in New Orleans
Connell Vallette Jr., a longtime chief deputy assessor for Algiers, will replace Betty Jefferson as 4th District assessor through the end of the year.

• Assessors pick Jefferson's replacement
Connell Vallette Jr., a longtime chief deputy assessor for Algiers, will replace Betty Jefferson as 4th District assessor through the end of the year.

• Cowen report endorses school reforms
New Orleans educators have successfully reduced animosity between charter and traditional schools, and significantly raised student expectations and results across the board. But they still must do more to increase transparency and repair the relationship between the locally elected School Board and the state-run Recovery School District, according to an annual report released Monday by Tulane University.

• Death row inmate to get new trial
The decision, which derailed the first death penalty verdict in Orleans Parish since 1997, took into account the fact that District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office did not provide the defense with the two-hour videotaped interview prosecutors made in 2007 with Torrie Williams.

• Double slaying caps brutal weekend
A double homicide Sunday night in the St. Claude neighborhood capped a violent weekend in New Orleans that included another slaying and several stabbings.

• Double slaying caps violent weekend in New Orleans
A double homicide Sunday night in the St. Claude neighborhood capped a violent weekend in New Orleans that included another slaying and several stabbings.

• Double slaying tops violent N.O. weekend
A double homicide Sunday night in the St. Claude neighborhood capped a violent weekend in New Orleans that included another slaying and several stabbings.

• FROM GREEN TURF TO RED CARPET
ow gridiron kings, several past and present members of the New Orleans Saints were treated like Hollywood royalty Monday night at the Prytania Theater.

• Guidry offers no olive branch to Batt
Susan Guidry had no conciliatory words for Jay Batt as she celebrated her decisive victory Saturday night following a bruising, bare-knuckle runoff for the District A seat on the City Council.

• Interim assessor chosen in N.O.
Connell Vallette Jr., a longtime chief deputy assessor for Algiers, will replace Betty Jefferson as 4th District assessor through the end of the year.

• Interim assessor replaces Jefferson
Connell Vallette Jr., a longtime chief deputy assessor for Algiers, will replace Betty Jefferson as 4th District assessor through the end of the year.

• Johanna Schindler, 53, local journalist
Johanna Schindler, director of communications and publications for the University of New Orleans and a former member of The Times-Picayune's community-news staff, died Sunday at Tulane University Hospital of complications from a brain aneurysm. She was 53.

• LaPlace shooting suspect arrested
A LaPlace man has been arrested and booked with attempted second-degree murder after another man was shot following an argument early Sunday morning, St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff's deputies said.

• Recovery officials crossed swords over contract
The departure last week of a key recovery official from City Hall appears to have been the final act in a protracted power struggle between two top aides to Mayor Ray Nagin over the proper way to spend emergency recovery money.

• Report applauds school reforms
New Orleans educators have successfully reduced animosity between charter and traditional schools, and significantly raised student expectations and results across the board. But they still must do more to increase transparency and repair the relationship between the locally elected School Board and the state-run Recovery School District, according to an annual report released Monday by Tulane University.

• Report applauds school reforms
New Orleans educators have successfully reduced animosity between charter and traditional schools, and significantly raised student expectations and results across the board. But they still must do more to increase transparency and repair the relationship between the locally elected School Board and the state-run Recovery School District, according to an annual report released Monday by Tulane University.

• Slidell candidates generally concur
Weighing in on a variety of issues including drainage, staffing and trees, Slidell City Council hopefuls agreed more often than not during a candidates forum Monday, but sought to draw differences for voters going to polls March 27.

• Slidell strangling trial begins
A Lakeland, Fla., man is standing trial this week in Covington accused of participating in the killing a Slidell area tree-cutter in 2006.

• Spring likely to be colder then usual
New Orleans area gardeners walked into the Green Parrot Nursery over the weekend with visions of flowering plants on their mind.

• Spring may be more of the same
New Orleans area gardeners walked into the Green Parrot Nursery over the weekend with visions of flowering plants on their mind.

• This year's spring may be a dud, forecasters say
New Orleans area gardeners walked into the Green Parrot Nursery over the weekend with visions of flowering plants on their mind.

• Trip to Cuba costs $29,000
An October fact-finding trip to Cuba that Mayor Ray Nagin took with a gaggle of New Orleans officials cost taxpayers nearly $30,000, records provided Monday by the city show.