New Orleans

Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines, causing the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Waters flowing over or through shattered levees flooded an estimated 80% of New Orleans, driving out more than half the population and devastating the local economy. Scenes from the flood are being replayed across television networks and websites this week, reminding Americans about the multiple governmental failures that helped cause and prolong the suffering.

Suspended New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma filed a defamation lawsuit Thursday against NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell , claiming the league's top executive made false statements that tarnished Vilma's reputation and hindered his ability to earn a living playing football. The suit in U.S. District Court in New Orleans claims Goodell, "relied on, at best, hearsay, circumstantial evidence and lies" in making comments about Vilma while discussing the NFL's bounty investigation of the New Orleans Saints.

The first time Paul Harris was in the Louisiana Superdome, he was living side by side with more than 20,000 people he has found impossible to forget. It was during Hurricane Katrina, and everybody who was nobody in New Orleans was there: elderly people so frail they could barely walk, mothers with sweaty babies on each arm, budget tourists whose hotels had closed, down-and-out citizens who didn't have cars — people with no prayer of getting out of town and no shelter but the massive, 27-story stadium that became, for six awful days, a sweltering cesspool of human misery.

In the days and weeks after Hurricane Katrina made landfall and the dark waters rose in late summer 2005, it didn't take long for people outside New Orleans to begin inquiring -- not just about the safety of loved ones or the state of the infrastructure but something larger -- as distinct as it was amorphous. The concern was not simply what would be physically erased in the wake of disaster -- and forced diaspora -- but what would happen to the culture. Its "ways" -- the music, the language, the rituals and rhythms -- all of what animated this unique piece of our nation's history and identity: the country's conversation piece.

reporting from new orleans I drive alongside the grassy slope of the Mississippi River levee and turn east at Magazine Street, traveling past Audubon Zoo toward downtown. It's a narrow, bumpy street shaded by giant oaks, their roots upending great chunks of sidewalk. But nobody seems to mind. This is New Orleans. I'm on a quest to find the best snowball in a city filled with stands. Don't mistake a snowball for a snow cone. The former is soft like powder snow, the latter crunchy like hard pack.

New Orleans-area nonprofits looking for home-building volunteers: Habitat for Humanity, www.habitat-nola.org Preservation Resource Center, www.prcno.orgCatholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, www.ccano.org St. Bernard Project, www.stbernardproject.org Project Homecoming, www.projecthomecoming.net, (504) 942-0444 Lowernine.org, www.lowernine.org, (504) 278-1240 Historic Green, www.historicgreen.org AmeriCorps, www.americorps.gov/about/programs/hurricane.

New Orleans We enjoyed a fabulous meal at Herbsaint in the business district: baked crab cakes with eggplant, creamy corn and rice cakes, okra, sweet potato fries and doughnuts with ice cream. Herbsaint Bar & Restaurant, 701 St. Charles Ave., (504) 524-4114; http://www.herbsaint.com . Open 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 5:30-10 p.m. Saturdays. Small plates from $11; main courses from $26. Cheryl Kohr Redondo Beach

It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Bloody Marys are being downed before breakfast. Bands are on the march, revelers on the revel. Nobody's at work but the cops and the jailers down at Central Lockup, waiting for this year's crop of knuckleheads who let their bon temps rouler beyond even the generously stretched bounds of decorum that the day provides. For the rest of us, it's just Tuesday. To dull the pain, here is a quick-and-dirty Mardi Gras 101 playlist: First up is the late piano genius Professor Longhair with “ Go To the Mardi Gras .” The lyrics read like a Fodor's Guide entry set to Fess' shuffling mambo-rumba-boogie beat.

Kirsten Brydum pedaled away from the Howlin' Wolf club into the darkness of another American city that she didn't know very well. It was 1:30 a.m. She rode a black cruiser bicycle with a basket on the back, borrowed from friends of friends. In nearly every city she had visited on her 2-month-road trip, it seemed someone was willing to lend her an old bike. The Rebirth Brass Band was on the bill that night. Brydum, 25, had danced for a while outside the club in her flip-flops.

An undetermined amount of oil spilled into the Mississippi River early Friday morning near New Orleans after an oil barge collided with another vessel, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Many of the details of the accident were not available early Friday morning. Coast Guard Petty Officer Elizabeth Bordelon said that a five-mile stretch of the Mississippi about 50 miles upriver from New Orleans had been closed to river traffic as pollution investigators and other officials responded.

Have you started your International Jazz Day shopping yet? A global collaboration among the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Herbie Hancock and the Thelonious Monk Institute, the first International Jazz Day is scheduled for Monday. Envisioned as a day of education and performance, the celebration actually begins Friday with a concert in Paris that features jazz luminaries such as Hancock, Hugh Masekela and Terri Lyne Carrington. The day itself aims to deliver 24 hours of jazz around the world, including in Los Angeles with a jazz session at Herb Alpert's club Vibrato in Bel-Air on Monday night featuring a variety of local artists, including Anthony Wilson, Bob Sheppard and Peter Erskine.

While Louisiana state police and the FBI started a wiretapping probe into the New Orleans Saints and General Manager Mickey Loomis , assistant head coach Joe Vitt called allegations that Loomis had his Superdome booth wired so he could listen to opposing coaches "ludicrous. " "It's absolutely ludicrous. It's impossible," Vitt said Tuesday. "I've never heard of it before. That's something from 'Star Wars.' When I first heard something about it being a wiretap, I thought they were talking about Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano or something.

When: 6:30. Where: Staples Center. On the air: TV: Prime Ticket; Radio 980,1220. Records: Clippers 39-24, Hornets 20-43. Record vs. Hornets : 1-1. Update: The Clippers had their five-game winning streak snapped Thursday night at Phoenix. New Orleans' Eric Gordon, the former Clipper who was a part of the Chris Paul trade, is healthy after missing most of the season following right knee surgery. Gordon is available to play against the Clippers for the first time since the trade was made.

They all knew that locking up home-court advantage for a first-round playoff series was in their sights, that all the Clippers had to do Sunday night was defeat a New Orleans Hornets team that's going nowhere. But then the Clippers got down by 13 points in the fourth quarter and things looked tenuous. That was until Chris Paul took the controls with help from Randy Foye, both of them coming up big in the fourth quarter, lifting the Clippers to a 107-98 victory over the Hornets.

Blake Griffin's 6-foot-10, 251-pound body stood erect, his shoulders square, his movements ginger as he turned side to side to address more questions about the physical attacks he has endured. Each time Griffin answered a question after practice Saturday, he moved his entire body in that direction, a sign that his neck was stiff and still sore from the flagrant-two foul committed against him by Phoenix center Robin Lopez during Thursday night's game. "It still hurts a little bit," said Griffin, who plans to play Sunday when the Clippers host the New Orleans Hornets in their regular-season home finale.

NEW ORLEANS - Pianist Jon Cleary has lived in this city all of his life: Even when he didn't. Long before he saw it. And even when he was in forced exile from it. A musician by trade, a storyteller by consequence, Cleary has deeply absorbed New Orleans' pace and idiosyncrasies and, over time, its distinctive stories and sound. "My ambition," he says, "has always been to come to New Orleans. " Cleary, whose genre-bending style is steeped in early traditional New Orleans R&B, soul and funk, is not a household name but he's recorded and toured with marquee artists such as Taj Mahal and Bonnie Raitt (with whom he worked for more than a decade)

Shooting has just wrapped for the season on HBO's "Treme," and Khandi Alexander is packing up, trying to fit Zulu parade coconuts and Mardis Gras beads into her boxes along with an overflow of bittersweet memories. "What we've gone through down here in the past few months — it seems surreal. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it," says the actress, whose inner fire and sharp-etched strength have helped make her character, New Orleans bar owner LaDonna Batiste-Williams, one of the standouts in the new show from David Simon, creator of HBO's "The Wire."

Some things to watch for when the Lakers (35-22) visit the New Orleans Hornets (15-41) Monday at New Orleans Arena. 1. The Lakers will be without Kobe Bryant. For the second consecutive game, Bryant will sit on the bench because of a sore left shin . Long term, it's better that Bryant actually rests. There's no need to force him to play since it would make his injuries worse only nine games before the playoffs. With Bryant remaining fourth in the league in minutes played (38.4)

NEW ORLEANS -- Kobe Bryant missed another game because of a sore left shin but the Lakers survived the first half against New Orleans ... barely. Pau Gasol had 15 points and five rebounds as the Lakers took a 44-43 halftime lead Monday at New Orleans Arena. Bryant is being called day-to-day by the Lakers, who finish a three-game trip Wednesday in San Antonio. Trainer Gary Vitti re-evaluated him earlier Monday and detected improvement in the shin but not enough to let him play.