New Orleans

Opening for the first time in three years, the festival brings memories of 2006 when the annual celebration of music and culture went on after Hurricane Katrina.

The storm reportedly leaves about 13,000 homes and businesses without power in the three parishes around New Orleans.

The bands may be smaller this year, but students say they're prepared to keep the culture alive and entertain hundreds of thousands of revelers.

Waivers for those opposed to vaccination are easy to obtain under state regulations, and schools will work with students who aren't inoculated, the district's superintendent said.

Kenneth Polite, head of the Criminal Division since July, wants to take the most dangerous people off the streets and spend more on preventing violence.

The 7-month-old spotted beauty was rescued from wildlife trafficking and will be living alongside a 6-year-old male named Valerio. There are only 15,000 believed to be living in the wild.

The births will be the first for Menari, zoo officials say. She is expected to give deliver the twins sometime this winter.

In New Orleans, some residents are still living with the trash from Hurricane Ida, more than three weeks after the storm. Residents and city officials are outraged at the delays in trash pickups.

The Karnofsky Shop was listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its outsized impact on Louis Armstrong's life. The family that lived there encouraged him to pursue music.

New Orleans officials canceled all the Mardi Gras parades this year. But that didn't stop some residents from getting into the spirit anyway. They decorated their houses for drive-through parades.

"With COVID-19 cases increasing around the country, we will have to modify how to observe [Carnival] season," the mayor said. She's asking for alternative ideas from the public.

In 1960, she braved death threats and racial epithets to accompany her daughter to the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, desegregating the school.