Residents of Jefferson and St. Charles parishes questioned Army Corps of Engineers officials Thursday about a $1 billion plan to raise hurricane protection levees in both parishes. Read More and Discuss

In a letter to President Bush, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has criticized FEMA’s plan to move people living in travel trailers with possibly unsafe levels of formaldehyde into apartments and hotels. He said it could cause “a second great displacement” of New Orleanians and seriously harm the city’s economy. Read More and Discuss

(NEW ORLEANS) — Louisiana’s highest court waded Tuesday into a high-stakes legal debate spawned by the insurance industry’s refusal to pay for water damage from the failure of levees in greater New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Read More and Discuss

For thousands of Louisiana hurricane victims still battling their insurers over policy interpretations, Tuesday is the biggest of judgment days, with millions of dollars and, possibly, the future of the state’s insurance landscape at stake. Read More and Discuss

The New Orleans City Council took two actions Thursday intended to strengthen the city’s procedures for fighting blight. Read More and Discuss

Many of Hurricane Katrina’s victims were senior citizens who became trapped by floodwaters and drowned in their homes, according to a newly released accounting of the 2005 storm. Read More and Discuss

Allstate Corp. will restore insurance coverage for hundreds of customers and pay $250,000 to resolve disputes over cancellation of south Louisiana homeowner policies after Hurricane Katrina, the company said Wednesday. Read More and Discuss

The nation’s highest court dealt a blow Tuesday to property owners who want insurance companies to pay for damage from levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina, but the Louisiana Supreme Court is poised to tackle the issue later this month. Read More and Discuss

Levees along the eastern border of St. Bernard Parish and southern edge of eastern New Orleans will be raised as much as 11 feet—up to a height of 29 feet in some spots—to protect from storm surge flooding created by a 100-year hurricane, Army Corps of Engineers officials said Thursday. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — Unlike a year ago when he was roundly criticized for failing to mention Hurricane Katrina recovery, President Bush gave Louisiana prominence Monday night in his farewell State of the Union address. Read More and Discuss

IN THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA (AP) — Service canals dug to tap oil and natural gas dart everywhere through the black mangrove shrubs, bird rushes and golden marsh. From the air, they look like a Pac-Man maze superimposed on an estuarine landscape 10 times the size of Grand Canyon National Park. Read More and Discuss

The detail-oriented, high-octane chief of staff to Louisiana’s past two governors ended his tenure Monday as executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, after more than two years of lobbying Washington for sufficient recovery resources and of engineering a never-ending string of complex decisions about how to distribute the money when it did come. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Katrina’s victims have put a price tag on their suffering, and it is staggering — including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS — In a sign of continuing recovery from Hurricane Katrina, a group that tracks Mississippi River traffic says more deep-draft cargo ships entered the river in 2007 than the year before. Read More and Discuss

FOREST PARK, GA.—The gruff, cigar-chomping general who led federal troops in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is convinced that the United States hasn’t learned its lesson from the storm. Read More and Discuss

Tens of thousands of people whose property was destroyed when Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed New Orleans’ protective levees have filed claims demanding the government pay astronomical sums that would be enough money to make multimillionaires of everyone in Louisiana. Read More and Discuss

Gov. Kathleen Blanco leaves office Jan. 14 still questioning why Hurricane Katrina happened on her watch. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS — The way Mayor Ray Nagin sees it, 2008 is a tipping point in the recovery from Hurricane Katrina, the year a stronger, better New Orleans begins to rise in earnest from the ruins. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — Before Congress adjourned for the holidays on Wednesday, an Alabama senator put the brakes on legislation that would have freed another $1.2 billion for Louisiana’s Road Home program Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS (AP)—The Road Home aid program has met a target of 90,000 closings with homeowners whose properties were damaged in the 2005 hurricane season, an official said Monday. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON (AP) — Louisiana appears to be rebounding from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, gaining 50,000 residents in the year ending July 1, according to new Census Bureau state population estimates released Thursday. Read More and Discuss

The House on Wednesday unanimously passed legislation making it a crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison to fraudulently seek disaster assistance. The bill also increases fines to $1 million for mail and wire fraud when those methods are used to get bogus disaster aid, placing the offense on par with bank fraud. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A week after Hurricane Katrina, a FEMA official in charge of streamlining the flow of disaster aid issued a directive that would have cut through the red tape and expedited a staggering 1,029 rebuilding projects and $5.3 billion. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS - Air-quality tests on the government-issued trailers housing thousands of Gulf Coast hurricane victims are scheduled to begin by next Wednesday, nearly two months after the Federal Emergency Management Agency postponed them. Read More and Discuss

Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal said Wednesday that he will work quickly to replace Louisiana Recovery Authority Executive Director Andy Kopplin. Read More and Discuss

Outgoing Gov. Kathleen Blanco bid a fond farewell Tuesday to the Louisiana Recovery Authority that she created in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but her former chief of staff who has led the LRA since its inception stole some of her thunder by announcing his departure. Read More and Discuss

With the official release Monday of $3 billion from the federal government to plug the Road Home gap, Louisiana’s hurricane recovery leaders can finally dole out a half billion to local governments they have been holding on to just in case. Read More and Discuss

A listing of various signs of recovery in and around the New Orleans area. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted Tuesday to increase fines and clarify federal jurisdiction over cases in which people fraudulently obtain emergency disaster funds. Read More and Discuss

Congress should rewrite the federal disaster-aid law because it largely ignores communities such as Baton Rouge that harbor disaster evacuees, the mayors of four of the cities that took in hurricane evacuees in 2005 told U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu at a committee hearing Monday in Baton Rouge. Read More and Discuss

Public housing advocates and Hurricane Katrina survivors had a special delivery for Sen. David Vitter, R-La., on Tuesday: a turkey with his face on it and more than 130,000 signed petitions urging him to drop his objections to a housing recovery act they say would let them return home. Read More and Discuss

With her victory Saturday night in the special election to fill an at-large seat on the New Orleans City Council, Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson reversed two long-standing council realities. Read More and Discuss

When members of the National League of Cities convene in New Orleans this week to discuss the most effective ways to run local governments, they will use the city as a living laboratory for an issue of paramount concern: how to prepare for and recover from disaster. Read More and Discuss

NEW ORLEANS — Merci beaucoup! That’s what Mayor Ray Nagin wants to say to New Orleanians for their commitment to rebuilding their homes and the city following Hurricane Katrina. Read More and Discuss

Just as the number of temporary trailers and blue roofs in Jefferson Parish plummeted in the second year after Hurricane Katrina, the storm’s imprint on the government’s financial outlook has faded but not disappeared. Read More and Discuss

Gov. Kathleen Blanco highlighted her administration’s accomplishments during a northwest Louisiana visit that included sit-downs with local media and people pushing for a Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City on Monday and Tuesday. Read More and Discuss

Speaking to a national audience for the first time as the Louisiana governor-elect, U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal downplayed the historical significance of his primary victory and instead emphasized the state’s continued needs for federal aid to bolster hurricane recovery and coastal restoration. Read More and Discuss

BATON ROUGE—As the California wildfires continued to rage Thursday, so too did the political feud between President Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco that has smoldered since the federal government’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Read More and Discuss

Louisiana is undergoing a major political realignment fueled in part by population losses after Hurricane Katrina, political analysts said. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — When President Bush called Bobby Jindal to congratulate him on Sunday, the governor-elect immediately asked the chief executive for a meeting to discuss hurricane recovery efforts. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON—Republican Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal should find congressional Democratic leaders responsive to his requests for additional help with hurricane recovery efforts despite their party differences, officials and observers said Monday. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON—Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has put a hold on a flood insurance overhaul bill because he says it doesn’t raise coverage limits or expand the program to provide wind-damage coverage to address a shortage of affordable policies in Gulf Coast communities devastated by hurricanes in 2005. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Thursday that Louisiana and the Bush administration are getting closer to agreement on funding the up to $4.5 billion shortfall in the state’s Road Home rebuilding program. Read More and Discuss

Two years ago, economist Loren Scott wouldn’t have believed it possible, that Louisiana — ravaged by $200 billion in hurricane damage — would return to its pre-Katrina job level so soon. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON—Despite objections from Gulf Coast lawmakers, a Senate committee has unanimously voted to overhaul of the National Flood Insurance Program without adding optional coverage for wind damage. Read More and Discuss

BATON ROUGE—The population of Louisiana voters who might go to the polls Saturday is different in several ways from the electorate in the previous gubernatorial statewide election four years ago, and those shifts could have an impact on the primary, according to voter registration data and election observers. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — Gov. Kathleen Blanco will meet with Bush administration officials today to request up to $4 billion to bail out the state’s troubled Road Home rebuilding program. Read More and Discuss

Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. faces two rivals in his re-election bid, with his pursuit of criminal charges against a New Orleans doctor in the deaths of patients after Hurricane Katrina figuring prominently in the race. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON—Despite a threat to delay an emergency spending bill until 2008, Democratic congressional leaders say there is still a chance this year to fill the gap in Louisiana’s Road Home program before money runs out. Read More and Discuss

WASHINGTON — Louisiana was shortchanged in funding for a pilot program to build so-called Katrina Cottages as a disaster-housing alternative, the investigative arm of Congress concluded. Read More and Discuss

A long-awaited audit report on the troubled Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. found evidence of fraud and abuse on Monday by the state-sponsored insurer of last resort, which did not have enough money to pay claims after Hurricane Katrina. Read More and Discuss

With Bobby Jindal conspicuously missing, the other major candidates for governor spoke at a forum in a New Orleans Baptist church Sunday that was devoted primarily to addressing education, crime and housing problems affecting African-Americans in the city’s post Katrina era. Read More and Discuss

The state’s “Road Home’’ program for homeowners with severe or major damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita will run out of money by the end of the year without additional federal dollars, the head of the Louisiana Recovery Authority said Tuesday. Read More and Discuss