Katrina Hurricane

The Congressional Black Caucus has asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to form a new committee on Hurricane Katrina to focus more urgently on rebuilding the Gulf Coast, particularly New Orleans. "The Bush administration has turned its back on our fellow Americans, the victims of the greatest disaster on American soil in our generation," Caucus Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.) wrote in a letter to Pelosi. A Pelosi spokesman said she would consider the request.

A federal judge in New Orleans ruled that residents of areas heavily flooded when Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters were funneled down a New Orleans navigation channel can sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval rejected the corps' argument that U.S. law protects federal agencies from lawsuits when flood control projects fail.

Blair Boutte, the co-owner of AAAA Bail Bonds, said he used to feel comfortable putting up thousands of dollars to get accused criminals out of jail because he always knew how to find them. In this highly parochial city, all it typically took was a stroll through their old neighborhood -- and a trip to Momma's house. "We were bonding these guys out because Momma had been living in the Lower 9th Ward or Lakeview or Gentilly for 25 years," Boutte said.

In the 17 months since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Sharon Jasper has shuffled from place to place, including a cot at the Superdome and temporary housing in Houston. On Tuesday, she and nine other displaced residents of New Orleans' public housing projects came to Capitol Hill to tell their stories, as the House Committee on Financial Services examined the loss of affordable housing because of the storm.

The nation's largest residential insurer said Wednesday that it would stop selling new homeowners and commercial policies in storm-damaged Mississippi because of lawsuits and legislative saber-rattling over the company's handling of claims from Hurricane Katrina. The decision by State Farm Insurance is the latest by a major insurance company to reduce its risks by retreating from the nation's coastlines.

Stung by criticism that he and his administration had neglected the hurricane-tattered Gulf Coast, President Bush on Thursday made his first visit to the region in six months, proclaiming, "This is a hopeful day." Bush, standing in a muddy lot near new homes in Long Beach, Miss., said: "Part of the reason I've come down is to tell people here in the Gulf Coast that we still think about them in Washington.... Times are changing for the better, and people's lives are improving. And there is hope."

With a $77-billion claim, the city of New Orleans led tens of thousands of homeowners and businesses seeking compensation from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for losses suffered when levees protecting the city ruptured under the storm surge of Hurricane Katrina. Kathleen Gibbs, a spokeswoman in the corps' New Orleans district office, said that by Monday at least 34,500 claims had arrived by mail.

Businesses in the parishes that bore the brunt of hurricanes Katrina and Rita have made a slight rebound, but a significant number went under and many are "hanging by a thread," according a report issued Thursday. "It shows that the effects of the hurricanes were every bit as devastating to small businesses as we have anecdotally heard," said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Fats Domino broke into soft song as he stepped slowly through his gutted house in the city's flood-ravaged 9th Ward on Friday. Sometimes the Hall of Fame piano man murmured a line of his familiar lyrics. At other moments, he just seemed to be thinking out loud, with a tune. "Why such bad luck fall on me?" the 79-year-old sang, looking out a rear window into the neighborhood where he was born in 1928. In between melodies, he said repeatedly that it was time to come home. "I'm ready," he said.

When Tyra Newell got a call asking her to lead a training program for principals in New Orleans as part of an effort to overhaul the city's troubled public schools, the 31-year-old native had been away from the city for 14 years, most recently in Chicago, where she was the public school system's budget director. The opportunity to return, she said, "was like a dream come true. I knew this was a tangible way to give back to the city that had given so much to me."