New Orleans La

This city is a rarity in 2009: a place full of hard hats and big building projects and subcontractors roaring around in pickup trucks. A city where home prices have dipped only slightly, and where the unemployment rate is 5.3% -- compared with 8.1% nationwide. New Orleans, it seems, has largely dodged the Category 5 recession pummeling the rest of the country, thanks to its unique post-Katrina economy. For locals accustomed to bad luck and trouble, the good news can feel a little strange.

NEW ORLEANS -- Monday night, inside the giant eggshell known as the Superdome, a fun time was had by all. OK, a bit more fun by Louisiana State fans, whose team won the national championship by beating Ohio State, 38-24. This was college football's showcase, the BCS title game. It was No. 1 Ohio State versus No. 2 LSU, one of the ultimate big deals in sports. There were flags and bands, exuberant fans dressed in reds and grays and purples and golds. Lots of attractive sights and sounds.

Anh "Joseph" Cao, who hopes to be the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, was helping a TV host with the pronunciation of his name. It's not "cow" but "gow," he explained recently, with a hard "g." The interviewer, Eustis Guillemet -- an African American jazz bassist who also runs a local public affairs show -- practiced the name repeatedly, as if learning a new riff. "You know, 'Cao' means 'tall,' " added the Republican candidate, who stands 5 feet 2 in his loafers.

It's easy to get celebrities to show up for a cause. Follow-through is another matter. When it happens, it makes all the difference. Take Brad Pitt's yearlong effort to assist residents of New Orleans' ravaged Lower 9th Ward return to their own homes.

Seven police officers charged in deadly shootings in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina turned themselves in at the New Orleans city jail. Each of the indicted men faces at least one charge of murder or attempted murder in the shootings on the Danziger Bridge. Two people died and four people were wounded.

Lawyers representing seven New Orleans police officers charged in a deadly shooting on a bridge after Hurricane Katrina filed motions Wednesday aimed at overturning the indictments or at least getting them out of jail. "The evidence against the defendants is paltry at best," said Franz Zibilich, a lawyer for former officer Robert Faulcon, who was indicted on first-degree murder charges and was denied bail.

New Orleans police asked citizens to help quell a rising tide of homicides by providing investigators with information about the crimes. Seven people have been killed since Monday, including six in a 24-hour stretch that began early Wednesday. But New Orleans Police Department Assistant Supt. Steven Nicholas said police were getting no help from city residents in solving the crimes. "We don't have one single witness, that I'm aware of, that's come forward," he said.

Six police officers and one former officer charged in a shooting on a city bridge after Hurricane Katrina were permitted to post bail Friday, and the six still on the force may return to limited duty. The former officer, now a truck driver in Texas, may also return to work under the ruling of New Orleans Criminal District Court Judge Raymond Bigelow. "This is exactly what we had hoped for," said Michael Glasser, president of the Police Assn. of New Orleans.

A spate of killings that has swept this city in recent days -- six of them in less than 24 hours -- has terrified even some of the most crime-hardened residents and spurred a group of citizens to launch a protest aimed at forcing city leaders to "face up to the violence that is strangling our neighborhoods." An unidentified woman found shot to death in her home Friday morning became the eighth person found dead -- seven of them shot -- since the start of the new year.

About 300 residents angered and frightened by a recent crime wave gathered at a neighborhood cafe Sunday to hash out preparations for a march on City Hall this week to protest the violence and demand that local officials take action. Scores of people crammed into the Sound Cafe in the Lower Marigny neighborhood, where they perched on stools, nestled in armchairs or stood nursing oversized cups of coffee.