• Results show voters keep the faith in lawmaker
For more than three years, critics presaging Rep. William Jefferson's political demise have derived their assumptions from the nine-term congressman's mounting legal problems, which have cost him stroke on Capitol Hill and handcuffed his ability to raise campaign money.

• Many surprised at strength of Jefferson win
There was a strange mixture of stalwart support and utter abandonment at U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's election party Saturday night as the indicted congressman claimed a primary victory in his 10th election campaign for the 2nd District seat.

• Black voters backed former judge
Former judge Leon Cannizzaro did twice as well with African-American voters than his runoff competitor, defense attorney Ralph Capitelli, according to an analysis of the primary results for Orleans Parish district attorney.

• THIS OLD HOUSE
Of the two dozen Gretna buildings swiftly approved for demolition last month, the squat, one-story beige house on First Street is typical. The back wall has rotted away in the face of termites, portions of the roof are missing and much of the interior is weather-worn and moldy.

• Jefferson, Moreno to meet in runoff
Despite the dual impediments of an upcoming federal trial on public corruption charges and a slew of well-financed opponents, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson ran first in Saturday's Democratic Party primary for the 2nd Congressional District seat that he has held for 18 years.

• Cannizzaro and Capitelli will face off in DA race
After a contentious primary, former Judge Leon Cannizzaro and criminal defense attorney Ralph Capitelli will meet in a runoff for Orleans Parish district attorney.

• Grid, not Gustav, blamed for outages
After spending days in the dark, public officials, their advisers and utility operators across the state are questioning whether the biggest power failure in the state's history was caused not so much by Hurricane Gustav's wind but by the condition of Entergy Corp.'s grid.

• RESCUE BILL SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED
WASHINGTON -- Amid fears of a cascading economic crisis, the House of Representatives passed a historic $700 billion bailout package Friday in hopes of restoring order and confidence in the nation's financial system.

• ACTION HERO
When Ramos Mitchell saw the empty driver's seat and felt his school bus barreling off the highway toward a pole, two thoughts pervaded his mind: I don't want to die. And, I want to graduate.

• East Jeff goes to polls today
East Jefferson voters have a wide array of decisions to make at the polls today, stretching from a local School Board seat to a pair of races for the U.S. House of Representatives.

• Judicial races top today's ballot
Voters will begin a major overhaul of the state court bench serving St. Tammany and Washington parishes today as they decide on candidates to fill five seats opening up on the court.

• Orleans voters tackle busy ballot
Orleans Parish residents go to the polls today to cast votes in crowded 2nd Congressional District and district attorney primary races.

• Races vary across West Bank
It's election day and some West Bank voters will find lengthy ballots when they arrive at the polls.

• River Parish voters tackle ballot
If the number of ballots cast during the weeklong early voting period is any indication, there shouldn't be long lines at polling places for today's judicial and congressional elections in St. John the Baptist and St. Charles parishes.

• Many in La. yet to file for checks
WASHINGTON -- More than 77,000 Louisiana recipients of Social Security and veterans benefits haven't filed the paperwork to qualify for federal stimulus checks.

• Many yet to file for checks
WASHINGTON -- More than 77,000 Louisiana recipients of Social Security and veterans benefits haven't filed the paperwork to qualify for federal stimulus checks.

• Home values are up after review
Despite the slumping U.S. economy and dropping home values nationwide, most St. Tammany Parish residents will see 2008 property tax assessments that reflect higher fair-market prices for their homes, according to Assessor Patricia Schwarz Core.

• Jeff schools retool after storms
To recover classroom time lost to Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the Jefferson Parish public school system has cobbled together a plan that adds full and half days to student schedules, in addition to tacking minutes onto every day for the rest of the year.

• RTA board OKs new bosses
Regional Transit Authority officials on Thursday hired a management team from industry giant Veolia Transportation and said they expect various innovations, including a service that takes riders in some neighborhoods from their doorsteps directly to destinations or to main bus lines.

• SENATE PASSES RESCUE PROPOSAL
WASHINGTON -- Two of the five U.S. House members from Louisiana who voted against a $700 billion financial bailout package early this week are considering changing their votes when a revised measure comes up for a vote, most likely on Friday.

• ACORN dirty laundry to be aired
Since Hurricane Katrina, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has fought to make sure that displaced New Orleanians can vote, return home, tell their stories and have a place to live.

• Debate stakes high for Palin, Biden
WASHINGTON -- When Sen. John McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, Louisiana's delegates to the Republican National Convention were euphoric.

• Groom gets feds to snap to attention
Jerome Ticker, dressed in a captain's Navy whites complete with Navy Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart decorations, was quite the striking figure at his wedding in Slidell.

• Six foes mostly avoid piling on Jefferson
Bare-knuckle attacks targeting incumbent Rep. William Jefferson, who is awaiting trial on federal corruption charges, might have seemed inevitable leading up to Saturday's 2nd Congressional District primary. But in a surprisingly low-key campaign, they never materialized.

• Charter trend expected to add more schools
Several schools in the Recovery School District are likely to become charter schools in the next few years as part of a continuing push toward school decentralization in New Orleans, which already has the highest percentage of students in charter schools of any city in the country.

• Northshore student held in report of threat
A 16-year-old Northshore High School student was arrested Tuesday in connection with last week's false report that a man with a gun was roaming the Slidell school's campus, authorities said.

• School Board takes up policy on tattoos
The St. John the Baptist Parish School Board is scheduled to consider a policy on tattoos at tonight's meeting.

• Statue of Harry Lee in heart of Metairie
Exactly one year after his death, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee made a triumphant return Wednesday morning, and his homecoming was a svelte one.

• Supreme Court won't rehear La. child rape case
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday denied Louisiana's request to rehear its decision to ban the death penalty for people convicted of raping children.

• Family fights to clear the name of slain man turned suspect
Days after Devin Legaux was killed last month, detectives from the New Orleans Police Department's 8th District pinned four months-old downtown robbery cases on the 33-year-old Slidell man. They tacked on a fifth case weeks later.

• Recovery cottages have yet to go up
BATON ROUGE -- Public officials say they have made progress on an alternative housing program in the seven months since Gov. Bobby Jindal stripped the project from the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency and gave it to the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

• Kenner tax rollback set for vote Thursday
The Kenner City Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a $2.7 million cut in property taxes designed to avoid reaping windfall revenue from higher real estate values.

• Library taking root today
Groundbreaking for the $8.4 million East Regional Library will be held today at 9 a.m. behind the East St. Charles Volunteer Fire Station near Destrehan Plantation.

• N.O. can do better on streets, watchdog says
New Orleans spends far too little money on maintaining its notoriously bad streets, but the city can do a better job even with its limited resources, a private, nonpartisan research organization said Tuesday. However, the group said, making major progress likely will require a tax increase.

• Officials break ground for federal city
Calling it the latest evolution of a military presence in Algiers that dates back more than a century, state and local officials ceremonially began construction on the federal city project Tuesday.

• Students' commute gets much shorter
Pliers in hand and hunched over a table full of electrical wires and lightbulbs in a refurbished warehouse behind Old Spanish Trail in Slidell, 18-year-old Kerwin Lawrence is working toward his future.

• HOUSE REJECTS BAILOUT PLAN
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Shreveport, said Monday's vote on a $700 billion rescue of the nation's financial markets was among the toughest he's faced in his 20-year career, ranking with war resolutions.

• Corps identifies sites for pumps
The Army Corps of Engineers prefers to build permanent hurricane surge barriers and pump stations at the mouth of the 17th Street Canal, 300 feet south of Lakeshore Drive on the Orleans Avenue Canal, and near the interim floodgates on the London Avenue Canal.

• Cause of fatal fire still unclear
At first glance, the stuffed animals strewn across the front gate of a home appear to be from the bedroom of a child.

• Federal city lease makes it official
More than five years after officials first publicly aired the idea of consolidating military and federal agencies in Algiers, the plan to create a "federal city" campus came to fruition Monday, when the Navy leased the Naval Support Activity to a city agency for 75 years.

• Harry Lee statue to be unveiled
Harry Lee has already been immortalized in song and on the highway. Now, the visage of Jefferson Parish's 27-year sheriff has been cast in a new medium: bronze.

• Panel picks school district plan
To applause and boos from parents, a committee charged with drawing boundaries for the new high school near Mandeville approved a recommendation for the district alignment in a split vote.

• Sheriff seeks to extend tax for jail
New Orleans voters on Saturday will be asked to extend an existing tax to raise $63 million for infrastructure improvements in the criminal justice system that backers say will reshape inadequate jails, courts and other buildings that have languished since Hurricane Katrina.

• DEUCE'S HIGH
It seemed like old times at the Superdome on Sunday -- or at least 2006.

• N.O. drug raid ends in lawsuit
The raid on Russell's Tire Shop had the look of a successful garden-variety drug bust.

• Traffic stop echoes elements of raid
Had it gone to trial, the civil suit filed by three New Orleans men arrested in the 2002 drug raid would have cited a separate police episode they say featured striking similarities.

• QUESTION MARKS
School officials in St. John the Baptist Parish are getting a crash course in what to do when self-expression via body art collides with a dress code policy.

• Race for justice has new landscape
Three appellate judges, in the hunt to replace longtime Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Pascal Calogero after he retires Dec. 31, are running in a district whose political landscape has changed since Calogero was last re-elected.

• THE PRESIDENCY UP FOR GRABS
WASHINGTON

• Storm rages over Gustav response
Six days after Hurricane Gustav's winds died down, dozens of regulars bellied up to the bar at Bruno's in Uptown New Orleans, enjoying air conditioning, football and the feel of normal life returning.

• LaBruzzo known to talk before thinking
BATON ROUGE -- Long before he suggested that the state should consider paying poor people to be sterilized as a means of fighting "generational poverty," state Rep. John LaBruzzo had earned a reputation among colleagues for proposing bills with little chance of becoming law -- some because of their controversial nature and others because they seemed to spring up suddenly without much thought or preparation.

• Local races revving up after storm hiatuses
After weeks of fighting for voters' attention amid the distractions of hurricanes, presidential politics and the nation's economic crisis, candidates in a host of races across the New Orleans area hope to finally claim center stage in the days leading up to Saturday's election.

• Green Wave gets whole lot greener
Five months before Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans, Tulane University set out to raise $700 million.

• Jason Williams: From defense to offense
Unlike his three competitors in the race for Orleans Parish district attorney, Jason Williams never worked for former District Attorney Harry Connick. In fact, he has never spent any time in the courtroom as a prosecutor.

• City's crime camera contract exposed
Unbeknownst to the New Orleans City Council and the public, a company with close ties to the Mayor's Office of Technology has been paid nearly $3 million this year to maintain and improve the city's system of crime surveillance cameras, a price tag substantially higher than the cost of the cameras.

• Hospital needs an ally, council told
In a meeting with Parish Council members, St. Charles Parish Hospital administrator Federico Martinez said the 59-bed hospital needs to find a partner because it simply isn't big enough to thrive in today's health-care marketplace.

• MISSION COMPLETE
When Hurricane Betsy swamped Peter Gomez's home in Arabi in 1965, all it left was a sturdy wooden coffee table.

• Moving scores unfair, some say
Labeling it "pure deception" and a "sham," the head of a statewide think tank is calling on the Jefferson Parish public school system to eliminate its practice of attributing some students' standardized test scores to schools they don't attend.

• GET HOUSE-HEALTHY: CUT BACK ON TOXIC CHEMICALS
Most of us have taken the first steps toward going green: We use a reusable bag for groceries, we recycle, we try to buy local produce.

• Arrest made in death of Betsy's owner
For months, it was the news that the family, friends and customers of Betsy McDaniel waited for: Someone had been arrested in her murder.

• Jeff man booked in dad's death
Lon Adams put his ailing father to bed one day and, authorities said, never checked on him again.

• Ralph Capitelli: Experience at the helm
In early 2006, Ralph and Linda Capitelli could have found themselves preoccupied with their flooded Lake Terrace house or any of the myriad problems facing New Orleans residents. But in those perilous months after the storm, the couple found themselves repeatedly returning to impassioned discussions about the disarray in the criminal justice system.

• Road Home fix falls short
As soon as Louisiana homeowners could take stock of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, thousands of them had to turn their attention back to the Road Home program and their ongoing efforts to collect grants to repair damage caused three years ago by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

• LaBruzzo welfare views out of sync
State Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, says the government should consider cash incentives for poor people to undergo reproductive sterilization, because society is careering toward a day when those on public assistance outnumber taxpayers and the economy collapses. A look at Louisiana welfare numbers suggests his fear is unfounded.

• Leon Cannizzaro: A risky mission to serve
Judge Leon Cannizzaro had nothing left to prove.

• Brazilier Island bought by trust
A 2,027-acre sliver of marsh in easternmost New Orleans was bought this week by the Trust for Public Land for $1.1 million and will be resold to Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge for the same price in about a month.

• Guardrail project gets green light
The state Department of Transportation hopes to go out for bids for a cable guardrail along Airline Drive in St. Charles Parish sometime in the next 18 months, according to agency spokesman Mark Lambert.

• Man found guilty in boy's killing
A St. Tammany Parish jury deliberated for an hour Wednesday before finding a Slidell-area man guilty of second-degree murder in the 2003 death of a 4-year-old boy who had been beaten and burned.

• Donors pump up campaign coffers
A host of political contributors, many of them representing a who's who of the New Orleans business and political leadership, are digging into their wallets to help candidates trying to oust embattled U.S. Rep. William Jefferson.

• LaBruzzo: Sterilization plan fights poverty
Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.

• SHRINKING SEASON
At the height of the fall shrimp season, nets are dry and hulls are empty on the scores of boats that line Bayou Grand Caillou.

• Linda Bizzarro: Career prosecutor's touch
Linda Bizzarro came to New Orleans in the 1970s as an idealistic law student, drawn to Loyola University's law school because of an innovative criminal defense clinic she thought would provide experience defending the innocent.

• Judge weighs fate of waste site
A state judge, after hearing more than an hour of arguments from attorneys Tuesday, took under study a suit by a citizens group contesting the legality of a St. Tammany Parish zoning permit for a solid-waste transfer station north of Covington.

• N.O. courts handling cases faster
New Orleans' criminal courts have improved markedly at resolving cases in the past two years, but wide discrepancies remain in the efficiency levels of judges, according to a report to be released today by the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

• Parents fight magnet school plan
A small but vocal group of parents of Hazel Park Elementary School students on Tuesday night blasted a revised magnet school plan that would convert the River Ridge campus into an advanced studies elementary school.

• Serial killer given 8 life terms
A Terrebonne Parish man suspected of killing as many as 23 men in south Louisiana over nearly 10 years -- including six in St. Charles Parish -- pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight counts of first-degree murder.

• In Manchac, Lafitte and Houston, restaurateurs with New Orleans ties are picking up the pieces from Hurricane Ike
Three years after Hurricane Katrina brought the local restaurant industry to its knees, Hurricane Ike has delivered a crippling blow to three New Orleans area restaurant families.

• Four vie for seat in PSC election
BATON ROUGE -- A surprise open seat on the Oct. 4 primary ballot for Public Service Commission has put four candidates in a heated battle to represent a New Orleans area district on some of the major energy regulation issues facing Louisiana.

• Storms force new housing strategy
Fearing that federal recovery dollars for Hurricanes Gustav and Ike won't fully cover residents' crucial home repair needs, Louisiana officials are devising a new state strategy for housing relief.

• Family grieves for promising student killed in shooting
At just 18, Darielle Rainey had grown accustomed to funerals.

• In-demand debris haulers win increase in their fee
Amid intense demand to collect storm debris stretching across two states, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said Monday that he has raised the price the administration pays contractors for hauling.

• St. Charles OKs plan for water treatment
The St. Charles Parish Council on Monday accepted a $26.45 million bid for a new east bank water-treatment plant and approved a new zoning plan for the Ama community that reduces the amount of land where mobile homes would be allowed.

• St. Tammany is sued over permit for waste site
A newly formed citizens group is suing St. Tammany Parish, contending that the parish illegally issued a zoning permit for a solid-waste transfer station north of Covington.