Geologic Faults Threatening New Orleans Levees, Study Says
A new study raises another possible threat to rebuilding efforts in Louisiana: active geologic faults are causing levees, flood walls, bridges, and homes to sink.
Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans
-
The Boston Globe
→
-
The Washington Post
→
New Orleans Levee Work Still Rife With Problems
A close look at ongoing failures and compromises in the Army Corps of Engineers' work to repair and strengthen the levee system protecting New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
-
The Washington Post
→
In New Orleans, a Frantic Race Against the Clock
Reporting on the mounting pressure and engineering challenges facing New Orleans as hurricane season approaches and levee reconstruction remains incomplete.
-
The Seattle Times
→
Faulty Pumps Knowingly Put in New Orleans
Investigation into how defective pumping equipment was installed in New Orleans' flood control system, despite officials knowing about the flaws.
-
The Seattle Times
→
New Orleans Neighborhood Survives Katrina, but Not Urban Renewal
A working-class neighborhood that rallied after the flood — only to be bulldozed for a $2 billion hospital district. The story of a community erased in the name of progress.
-
Houston Chronicle
→
Engineers Society Accused of Disaster Probe Cover-Up
The American Society of Civil Engineers faces accusations of covering up engineering mistakes in post-disaster investigations, including the New Orleans levee failures following Hurricane Katrina.
-
Insurance Journal
→
AP: New Orleans Repeating Deadly Levee Mistakes
An investigation into how New Orleans continues to make the same structural and engineering errors that contributed to catastrophic flooding during Hurricane Katrina.
-
Associated Press / Yahoo News
→
AP Impact: Deficient Levees Found Across America
A nationwide investigation revealing that structurally deficient levees protecting millions of Americans from flooding are found in every region of the country.
-
Northwest Asian Weekly
→
Tainted Chinese Drywall Shows Up in Katrina Homes
Homeowners rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina discover their new homes have been constructed with defective Chinese-made drywall that emits harmful gases and corrodes metal.
-
NBC News
→
Beloved 'Father Red' Among Those Missing 5 Years After Katrina
Five years on from Hurricane Katrina, the story of Father Arthur Ginart — the beloved parish priest who refused to evacuate — and the tight-knit fishing community he served on the Louisiana coast.
-
Associated Press
→
Gulf Eats Away at Coast Outside Levee-Protected New Orleans
Ten years after Katrina, the small fishing towns and villages outside New Orleans' levee system are losing their battle with the sea — a slow-motion disappearance of land, community, and a way of life.
-
The Miami Herald
→
New Orleans Marks 10 Years Since Katrina
A decade after the storm, New Orleans reckons with how far it has come and how much remains unfinished — in its neighborhoods, its levees, and its sense of itself.
-
The Weather Channel
→
Katrina's Empty Lots: New Orleans' Unhealed Wounds
Seven years after the flood, block after block of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward remains a ghost of itself — empty lots, overgrown grass, and a neighborhood still waiting to come back.
-
The Boston Globe
→
Louisiana Indian Village Holds Out Against Plea to Move
A Native American community on Louisiana's disappearing coastline refuses to abandon its ancestral home despite rising seas and the relentless erosion of the wetlands that sustain it.
BP Oil Spill & Gulf of Mexico
-
Associated Press / Yahoo News
→
2 Years Later, Fish Sick Near BP Oil Spill Site
Two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, fish populations in the Gulf of Mexico continue to show signs of illness and distress in areas near the BP oil spill site.
-
Associated Press / Yahoo News
→
Coast Guard Steps Up Inspections of Towboats
Reporting on increased federal oversight and safety inspections across the inland waterway towboat industry in the wake of maritime disasters in the Gulf.
New Orleans — Culture & People
-
Christian Science Monitor
→
In New Orleans, the Saints May Go Marching Out
A dispatch from New Orleans examining the uncertain future of the NFL's Saints franchise and what their potential departure would mean for the city's identity.
-
The Seattle Times
→
A Story of Love and Books in Bohemian New Orleans
The story of Jon and Gypsy Lou Webb — two eccentric, broke, and passionate publishers who ran Loujon Press out of a New Orleans apartment and helped launch the careers of Charles Bukowski and Henry Miller.
-
Mail & Guardian
→
Bogart's 'Secretary and Mistress' Dies in New Orleans
The death of Verita Thompson, Humphrey Bogart's long-time confidante, hairstylist, and secret lover — who spent her final years running a French Quarter piano bar called Bogie and Me.
-
Texas Monthly
→
Monkeys, Humans Camped Out in RV Near Texas-Louisiana Border
A Vietnam veteran and his wife flee Louisiana with their four pet capuchin monkeys and hide out in a Texas motorhome — terrified that wildlife agents will seize the animals they've raised for a decade.
Sicily & Italy
-
Courthouse News Service
→
Mafia Buried, Palermo and Sicily Breathe Fresher Air
How decades of anti-mafia work transformed Palermo from a city held hostage by Cosa Nostra into a place where civic life and culture are cautiously flourishing again.
-
Courthouse News Service
→
Dirty Steelworks in 'City of the Dead' Tests Italy's New Rulers' Promises
In Taranto — long nicknamed the city of the dead for its catastrophic pollution — residents wait to see if Italy's new populist government will finally shut down Europe's largest and most toxic steel plant.
-
Krytyka Polityczna
→
Castelbuono: The Sicilian Town Where Young Africans Are the Hope for the Future
In a mountain town in northern Sicily facing rural depopulation, a new generation of young African migrants is becoming part of the community — and, many locals believe, its best chance of survival.
-
Olive Oil Times
→
Where the Olive Trees Are Dying: A Front-Line Report on Xylella
A ground-level report from Puglia on the xylella fastidiosa epidemic devastating centuries-old olive groves — a slow-moving catastrophe reshaping the landscape, livelihoods, and identity of southern Italy.
-
Associated Press
→
Start the Presses: Newcomers to Italy Make Olive Oil
After moving to a small farm in the mountains of northern Sicily, a first olive harvest — grueling, comical, and ultimately triumphant — yields 70 liters of dark green oil and a deep new attachment to the land.
Europe & The Mediterranean
-
Courthouse News Service
→
Traumas of War Haunt Balkans Long After the Shooting Stopped
More than two decades after the end of the Bosnian War, mass graves are still being found, alleged war criminals remain free, and the wounds of ethnic conflict have never fully healed.
-
Associated Press / Daily Mail
→
Tunisian Medina: A Maze of Courtyards, Craftsmen and Carpets
A journey through the ancient medinas of Tunisia, where traditional craftsmen, carpet weavers and artisans still ply their trades through labyrinthine courtyards unchanged for centuries.
-
Associated Press / Daily Mail
→
Wattle Fences: Weaving Branches Takes Time, Yields Rewards
From a small farm in the mountains of northern Sicily, a personal account of reviving the ancient craft of wattle fencing to protect a garden from wild pigs — and discovering a meditative connection to the land.