Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Go or stay?

It is a question people in and around New Orleans ask themselves every time a threatening storm lurks in the Gulf: a major hurricane like Katrina, which devastated the area in 2005 when levees failed, and now Tropical Storm Barry , which forecasters said was unlikely to become a ferocious hurricane but could still bring historic levels of rain and devastating floods.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Thousands of Louisianans broke out sandbags or fled to higher ground Thursday as Tropical Storm Barry threatened to turn into the first hurricane of the season and blow ashore with torrential rains that could pose a severe test of New Orleans’ improved post-Katrina flood defenses .

National Guard troops and rescue crews in high-water vehicles took up positions around the state as Louisiana braced for the arrival of the storm Friday night or early Saturday.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A storm swamped New Orleans streets and paralyzed traffic Wednesday as concerns grew that even worse weather was on the way: a possible hurricane that could strike the Gulf Coast and raise the Mississippi River to the brim of the city’s protective levees.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Kamala Harris can’t forget the older black woman she met in Iowa while campaigning for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama before the state’s 2008 caucus.

“I remember her saying to me, ‘They’re not going to let him win,’” Harris recalled. “She did not want to go to the caucuses. She didn’t want to be disappointed.”

For Harris, it was a revealing moment, one she says illustrated the limitations many Americans, including black Americans, place on who is considered electable for the nation’s highest office.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is proposing $100 billion in federal grants to pay for down payment and closing costs to help close what she says is a racial wealth gap and address historical discrimination in homeownership against black families.

Harris announced her plan Saturday at the Essence Festival in New Orleans, where the California senator was among several of the 2020 White House candidates attending the largest annual gathering of black women in the country.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Police continued Sunday to investigate a shooting at a Baton Rouge nightclub that left seven people injured, even as officials in Louisiana’s capital city pledged to do more to fight gun violence after several high-profile shootings.

Local news outlets report gunfire strafed the inside and parking lot of the Stadium Ultralounge & Bar early Saturday, apparently after a fight in which video footage showed one man breaking a bottle over another man’s head.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Crews are working around the clock at a NASA rocket factory, intent on meeting a new fall 2020 deadline to test launch a mega-rocket designed to propel astronauts to the moon and beyond, a space agency official said Friday.

“I came out here in the middle of the night ... talking to people who were working on the engine section, working hard through the night,” NASA Deputy Administrator James Morhard said on a press tour at New Orleans’ Michoud Assembly Center .

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — The white man charged in the burnings of three Louisiana black churches faces a mountain of evidence tying him to the crimes, documenting the fires on his cellphone and an interest in arson on Facebook, the state fire marshal said Monday at a hearing that offered new insight into how officials tracked their suspect.

Holden Matthews bought a gas can and oil rags similar to those found at the site of the fires, he recorded a conversation with a friend in which he talked about using gasoline to burn churches.

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — The white suspect in three recent arson fires that destroyed African American churches in Louisiana is scheduled for a bond hearing.

The clerk of court’s office in St. Landry Parish says the hearing for 21-year-old Holden Matthews is scheduled for Monday morning before state District Judge James Doherty.

Matthews, the son of a St. Landry Parish sheriff’s deputy, was arrested Wednesday on three charges of arson of a religious building.

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Authorities said he had no known criminal record. A friend described him as an introverted animal lover who showed no animosity toward any race, and a talented, if frustrated heavy metal guitar player and singer. A fellow musician called him “a really sweet guy.”