Jury convicts 5 New Orleans policemen(Photos)

Five New Orleans police officers were convicted by a jury of various charges related to deadly shootings on a bridge in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The jury stopped short of finding four officers guilty of two counts of murder in the case, although it convicted

the officers of gun and civil rights charges, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported.

A fifth police officer who wasn't at the shooting was also convicted of corrupting the investigation and planting evidence.

Two people were shot and killed on the Danziger Bridge on Interstate 10 by police Sept. 4, 2005, days after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans and sent the city into mayhem. Four other civilians were wounded by police.

The four officers involved in the shootings have been in jail since their indictments and face prison sentences ranging from 35 to 60 years, the newspaper said. They all pleaded guilty to the various charges.

One more police officer, a retired sergeant, still faces trial in late September on cover-up charges.

Unease in the Miss. Delta as floodwaters spread

Officials in a small town with no local newspaper of TV stations are trying to assure residents they are doing what they can to shore up the levee to protect them from the swollen Mississippi River.

"It's getting scary," said Rita Harris, 43, who lives in a tiny wooden house in the shadow of the levee in Rena Lara, a town of 500. "They won't let you go up there to look at the water."

The uneasiness is being felt all along the poverty-stricken Delta as oozing floodwaters from the Mississippi River and its tributaries spilled across farm fields, cut off churches, washed over roads and forced people from their homes Wednesday.

Some used boats to navigate flooded streets as the crest rolled slowly downstream, bringing misery to low-lying communities. About 600 homes have been flooded in the Delta in the past several days as the water rose toward some of the highest levels on record.

The flood crest is expected to push past the Delta by late next week.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour urged people to get out if they think there is even a chance their homes will flood. He said there is no reason to believe a levee on the Yazoo River would fail, but if it did, 107 feet of water would flow over small towns.

"More than anything else, save your life and don't put at risk other people who might have to come in and save your lives," he said.

Much farther downstream, Louisiana officials were awaiting an Army Corps of Engineers decision on whether to open the Morganza spillway to take the pressure off the levees protecting Baton Rouge and, downstream, New Orleans and the many oil refineries in between.

The Mississippi Delta, with a population of about 465,000, is a leaf-shaped expanse of rich soil between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers, extending about 200 miles from Memphis, Tenn., to Vicksburg, Miss. Along the way are towns whose names are familiar to Civil War buffs, aficionados of the blues, and scholars of the civil rights era: Clarksdale, Greenwood, Greenville and Yazoo City.

While some farms in the cotton-, rice- and corn-growing Delta are prosperous, there is also grinding poverty. Nine of the 11 counties that touch the Mississippi River in Mississippi have poverty rates at least double the national average of 13.5 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The governor said the state is asking local officials to get in touch with people who might have no electricity and phones and thus no way to get word of the flooding.

"It's a tiny number, but we have to find them," Barbour said.

Late Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a disaster declaration for 14 counties in Mississippi because of the flooding. Housing and home repairs will be covered and low-interest loans to cover uninsured damage will be available.

In Greenville, Liz Jones, who is unemployed, lives on the second floor of a housing project and worries what might happen in the event of a levee break. She has no means of transportation.

"I got a baby and my mama. I don't know what we'd do about food and clothes and stuff," she said.

In Hollandale, one of the small rural towns in the Delta the governor warned might flood if the levee breaks, 62-year-old nursing home worker Geraldine Jackson fretted about what to do if she and her husband have to leave their red-brick house, where pieces of the roof have broken off and the white trim is peeling.

"I have relatives, but all my relatives live in the Delta, and the water's going to get them too," she said. "I'm just real messed up."

Swollen by weeks of heavy rain and snowmelt, the Mississippi River has been breaking high-water records that have stood since the 1920s and '30s. It is projected to crest at Vicksburg on May 19 and shatter the mark set there during the cataclysmic Great Flood of 1927. The crest is expected to reach New Orleans on May 23.

Even after the peak passes, water levels will remain high for weeks, and it could take months for flooded homes to dry out.

About 600,000 acres of cultivated row crops could flood, mainly winter wheat, corn, soybeans, cotton and rice, said Andy Prosser, spokesman with the Mississippi Department of Agriculture. Even if the levees hold, the state expects to lose $150 million to $200 million worth of crops, the governor said. Mississippi's catfish farmers could also be wiped out if the Yazoo floods their ponds and washes away their fish.

Many of the victims of the slowly unfolding disaster are poor people living perilously close to the water.

In the Memphis, Tenn., area, where the Mississippi crested Tuesday just inches short of the 1927 record, many of the flooded dwellings were mobile homes and one-story brick or wood buildings in low-lying, working-class neighborhoods unprotected by floodwalls or levees.

Maria Flores, her husband, Pedro Roman, and their four children ended up in a church shelter in south Memphis — some 20 miles from their trailer in the Millington area of Shelby County. They lost a trailer in last year's flood, and it happened to them again this year.

Flores, who works as a baby sitter, and Roman, an unemployed day laborer, did not have disaster insurance and suspect their trailer is a total loss. At the shelter, they were receiving clothing and three meals a day and were sleeping on air mattresses in a room with 20 other people.

Flores said she stopped going to work because it was too far and she could not afford the gas. Roman seemed almost paralyzed by the uncertainty.

"People who have money have a better chance of getting back on their feet than poorer people," Flores said. "That's our problem."

Mississippi River Flooding: La. Braces for Wall of Water

With the Army Corps of Engineers opening two additional gates at the Mississippi River's Morganza Spillway on Monday, Louisiana residents are bracing for a wall of water to barrel down on them, which is likely to swallow up their homes, their business, and their memories.

Water is now flowing into the spillway at a rate greater than that of Niagara Falls, more than 100,000 cubic feet per second.

At that rate, it would take just over an hour and a half to cover the entire island of Manhattan in a foot of water.

So far only 11 of the 125 gates have been opened and the Corps plans to open more as the river rises.

The action is intended to be the surest way to spare cities like New Orleans from another tragic flood.

But cities like Butte La Rose, La., which sits on floodplain to the south, are being sacrificed in order to prevent larger areas from massive flooding.

The Corps began flooding the spillway on Saturday, opening the floodgates for the first time in 40 years.

The goal is to divert the record high waters of the Mississippi away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, choosing to risk smaller communities in an attempt to avert disaster in the most populous cities.

"It's really heart wrenching, that we here are going to be sacrificed for others. And it's a numbers game I guess," said Guy Comier, Parish President at St. Martins Church in Butte La Rose.

The Mississippi River crest is not expected to arrive at the Morganza spillway for at least a week, and mandatory evacuations are already under way in many places.

Neighborhoods in the water's path have turned to ghost towns with sheriff's deputies and members of the National Guard going door to door telling residents to pack up and get out.

Kate Buchannan, another Butte La Rose resident, says that she certainly isn't going anywhere -- though she is shipping out her prized possessions. She stands to lose not only her home, but her business too -- Kate's Place is the one and only bar in town.

"Everybody is stoic, they understand, Buchannan told ABC News. "People in New Orleans got it a few years ago. There's a lot fewer people here. These folks are made of much sterner stuff here. We're not gonna whine and cry."

Some residents are attempting to protect their homes through a variety of do-it-yourself tactics.

One resident is wrapping his home in plastic, while Max Doucer is banking on a combination of sandbags, dirt and hope.

"People are strong here, they are going to rebuild better than ever. They love it. Its home for a lot of people, its camp for a lot of people. It's God's country. People love it here so they will be back, bigger and better than ever," Doucher said.

President Obama echoed his message of hope after he met privately Monday with families and local officials affected by the flooding in Memphis. He heard their stories and praised their resilience.

Following the meeting, Obama delivered a commencement address at Booker T. Washington High School where he spoke of the response to the series of natural disasters that have hit the country this spring.

"The success of our economy will depend on your skills, but the success of our community will depend on your ability to follow the Golden Rule -- to treat others as you would like to be treated," he said. "We've seen how important this is even in the past few weeks, as communities in Memphis and all across the South have banded together to deal with flood waters and to help each other in the aftermath of terrible tornadoes."

Evacuations in Cajun country after floodgates open

Renee Ledoux cried when the National Guard and sheriff's deputies showed up at her front door and warned her she needed to get out to avoid water gushing from the Mississippi River after a floodgate was opened for the first time in four decades.

But by the 5 p.m. deadline Sunday, the 44-year-old Ledoux and her boyfriend Billy Hanchett decided to ride it out one more night on air mattresses inside the empty home in Krotz Springs. They have a camper they plan to stay in on a friend's property outside the flood zone.

"We really don't want to go," Hanchett said. Ledoux added that she felt blessed that they had the camper because a lot of others have nowhere to go except shelters.

Deputies all over Louisiana Cajun country were warning residents to head for higher ground and most heeded it, even in places where there hasn't been so much as a trickle, hopeful that the flooding engineered to protect heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge would be merciful to their way of life.

Days ago, many of the towns known for their Cajun culture bustled with activity as people filled sandbags and cleared out belongings. By Sunday, some areas were virtually empty as the water from the Mississippi River, swollen by snowmelt and heavy rains, slowly rolled across the Atchafalaya River basin. It first started to come, in small amounts, into people's yards in Melville on Sunday. But it still had yet to move farther downstream.

The floodwaters could reach depths of 20 feet in the coming weeks, though levels were nowhere close to that yet in the towns about 50 miles west of Baton Rouge.

About 11 miles north of Krotz Springs in the town of Melville, Mary Ryder, her fiance and her fiance's father were loading up a trailer with as many belongings as they could fit to drive over the levee to stay with relatives on the other side of town. Ryder lives in a mandatory evacuation area, where water is starting to creep into backyards. They worried about what might happen if a broader evacuation is ordered.

"They say we have to leave town. We have nowhere to go," she said. "What are we going to do? I have no idea. We need help up here."

The spillway's opening diverted water from the two major Louisiana cities — along with chemical plants and oil refineries along the Mississippi's lower reaches — easing pressure on the levees there in the hope of avoiding potentially catastrophic floods.

That choice angers John Muse, who drove from Lafayette to Melville to help his 86-year-old father-in-law Clovis Cole move his belongs. He said officials seem to be paying more attention to the concerns of Baton Rouge and New Orleans than people who live in the basin.

"They hurt a lot of feelings by putting that water in here like they did," he said. "What's happening here, I'll tell ya, it's not fair."

In Butte LaRose, some 50 miles downstream from where the Morganza spillway was opened, Chalmers Wheat, 54, was among the few left — and even he was headed for his father's home in Baton Rouge outside the flood zone. He and his twin brother, Chandler, were making a few final preparations to protect his home with plastic lining and sandbags.

"It's almost like a ghost town," said Wheat.

It will be at least a week before the Mississippi River crest arrives at the Morganza spillway, where officials opened two massive gates on Saturday and another two Sunday. There are 125 in all. The Mississippi has broken river-level records that had held since the 1920s in some places.

The Army Corps of Engineers has taken drastic steps to prevent flooding. Engineers blew up a levee in Missouri — inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes — to take the pressure off floodwalls protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

The Morganza flooding is more controlled, however, and residents are warned each year that the spillway could be opened. A spillway at the 7,000-foot Bonnet Carre structure in Louisiana also has been opened.

Just outside Krotz Springs, 23-year-old Jake Nolan said National Guard troops knocked on the door of his home in a subdivision to tell his mother of the evacuation order. He said they advised her to have white towels and have access to the roof if they planned to ride it out — presumably in case of a rescue — though that didn't appear to be part of any official instructions. And besides, he didn't need an order to leave with his wife and three children.

"I don't want to be stuck here if the water does get bad," said Nolan, who planned to stay with a sister in Port Barre.

It seemed animals didn't want to be stuck anywhere: Deer, hogs and rabbits have started running from the water flowing near the floodgates, said Lt. Col. Joey Broussard of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. An electronic sign on Interstate 10 warned of a possible animal exodus: "Wildlife crossing possible. Use caution," it read.

Despite the mandatory evacuation order, Krotz Springs town clerk Suzanne Bellau said it was unlikely the sheriff's office would force people to leave. For most, the worst part was wondering what may happen. National Guardsmen were building a second levee to bolster protection for the town.

"It's the unknown, that's the problem," Bellau said. "Is it going to come into their homes or not? And the people who are leaving, what are they coming back to?"

Mississippi River spillway opened as towns brace for floodwater

Authorities could open two additional floodgates Sunday, sending water from the swollen Mississippi River gushing toward homes and farmland in an effort to spare Baton Rouge and New Orleans from severe flooding.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened one floodgate on Saturday for the first time in nearly 40 years.

"As the river needs it, we'll open it," said Col. Ed Fleming, the Corps' New Orleans district commander.

Fleming said that depending on water levels, the Corps may open more than two gates.

The opening of the Morganza spillway prompted the National Weather Service to revise its flood forecasts for the lower Mississippi River.

The revised forecasts have lowered projected cresting levels in some Louisiana cities and towns, according to the weather service.

The Morganza spillway is about 115 miles northwest of New Orleans.

The spillway's opening has also moved up the dates the river was previously predicted to crest in those cities.

In Baton Rouge, where the weather service had previously predicted the Mississippi would crest at 47.5 feet on May 22, the latest forecast shows the river will top out at 45 feet on Monday.

In New Orleans, the river is now expected to reach its crest at 17 feet on Sunday, instead of 19.5 feet on May 23, according to the weather service. The New Orleans levees are built to withstand 20 feet.

The river is also predicted to crest Sunday near Arkansas City, Arkansas, at 53 feet -- 16 feet above the flood stage, the National Weather Service noted on its website.

In Vicksburg, Mississippi, the river is expected to crest at 57.5 feet Thursday, which is significantly above the flood stage at Vicksburg of 43 feet.

Residents near Vicksburg counted on a levee for protection. In addition to the mainline levee along the river, starting near Vicksburg and extending northeast for more than 20 miles, a so-called backwater levee offers shelter.

The backwater levee is designed to keep water from backing into the Yazoo River delta and is designed lower than the mainline levee so that water can flow over it.

"We estimate that every home built on the river side of the levee from Memphis all the way to the Louisiana line is flooded," said Mike Womack, executive director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

Flood stage is the level at which the river may begin flowing over its banks. That crest, or high point of water, has been moving slowly and steadily southward for several weeks.

No storm systems that could reverse the lowered cresting forecasts are expected to pass through region within the next five days, said Royce Fontenot of the National Weather Service.

Fleming said the difficult decision to open the spillway, and similar ones made in recent weeks, was done to address a historic excess of water in the Mississippi River system, including its tributaries. While the opening of the spillway is expected to divert water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, parts of low-lying south-central Louisiana will be flooded.

By Saturday afternoon, all those "within the first 24 hours" -- meaning, those who should see flooding caused directly by the spillway's opening -- had evacuated, Fleming said.

The opening came after several days of warning as residents in the flood zone prepared to move to save their lives.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the high water resulting from the Morganza spillway opening could affect 3,900 people and 2,600 structures.

"Right now, a lot of people are real nervous about it. It's sad," said Larry Doiron, a resident of Stephenville, a town facing flooding because of the spillway's opening.

"We need to have protection so that they don't flood us."

He said his subdivision would likely be fine because it was built at a relatively high elevation, but his neighbors were building additional levees and putting out sandbags.

Seven Louisiana parishes -- Pointe Coupee, St. Landry, St. Martin, Iberia, Iberville, St. Mary and Terrebonne -- will likely be affected by the first opening of the spillway since 1973, according to the Corps.

Fleming said Saturday that the spillway will likely be open for weeks, and it will be at least that long before those who have evacuated can safely return. It will take considerable time -- in some cases, weeks -- before the river falls back below the flood stage.

Morgan City, which sits on the banks of the Atchafalaya River, is also among those communities expected to see rising water.

"Really, we're just waiting," said Evie Bertaut, who has lived in the city for 50 years.

Officials believe that the levees will protect the city from flooding, but some are taking preliminary precautions, she said. At Sacred Heart Church, where Bertaut works, people spent the day Friday moving important documents such a baptismal, marriage and financial records to the second floor.

"Most people are getting their photographs together, things that you can't replace in case you have to go," she said.

The river's slow pace has given emergency responders more time to prepare, forecasters said.

Across the South and lower Midwest, floodwaters have covered about 3 million acres of farmland, eroding for many farmers what could have been a profitable year for corn, wheat, rice and cotton, officials said.

Farmers who have crop insurance and whose crops have been damaged by the flooding will be eligible for crop insurance in accordance with their policies, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.

BP sues Transocean over Deepwater disaster

British energy group BP said Thursday it was suing Deepwater Horizon oil rig owner Transocean and parts manufacturer Cameron International over last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The maligned oil giant confirmed it was to sue the firms for $40 billion (27.4 billion euros) in damages at federal court in New Orleans over their alleged role in the fatal explosion.

BP claimed in a statement that Swiss-based company Transocean "missed critical signs that hydrocarbons were flowing up the riser and failed to take appropriate actions".

"As the owner and operator of the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean is a 'responsible party' under the Oil Pollution Act and should therefore contribute to addressing economic and environmental damage sustained in the Gulf Coast," it added.

The British group said in a separate statement they were also suing US firm Cameron International, the makers of a blowout preventer (BOP) which BP believes failed in the lead up to last year's spill.

According to a BP statement, one of the BOP's "blind shear rams", which was meant to cut the faulty drill pipe and seal the well, failed to close fully due to a piece of trapped drill pipe, precipitating the April 20 disaster.

"The Presidential Commission and BP's internal investigation found that the Deepwater Horizon accident was the result of multiple causes involving multiple parties including the BOP's failure," the statement said.

Cameron has filed counter-claims and maintains its equipment was not to blame.

The blast killed 11 people and sent some 4.9 million barrels of oil gushing into the Gulf over a three-month period, wreaking havoc on the region's environment and economy.

BP vowed to make the people affected by the Gulf oil spill "whole" and created a 20-billion-dollar trust fund, its quasi-independent claims facility has paid 3.9 billion dollars to 177,000 claimants.

NFL to mull kickoffs from 35

Reducing injuries behind proposal to move tee 5 yards up

The NFL's competition committee will propose several interesting rules changes to owners at the league's spring meetings that begin Monday in New Orleans.

The committee recommends moving kickoffs to the 35-yard line from the 30 and bringing out touchbacks to the 25 instead of the 20. It also wants to outlaw any wedge on returns and make it illegal for any player other than the kicker to start more than 5 yards behind the ball.

The idea is to reduce injuries.

Altanta Falcons president Rich McKay, who chaired the committee, said Wednesday that too many injuries are happening on kickoffs.

"The injury rate on the kickoff remains a real concern for us and for the players," McKay said, adding the proposed rules would be "a pretty major change to the kickoff play itself."

Other touchbacks wouldn't be changed. For instance, a punt going into the end zone would be brought out to the 20.

Another change the owners will vote on involves a modification of instant replay. All scoring plays will be reviewable to the replay official upstairs. If the replay official thinks it warrants a review by the referee, he will call down, and the referee will look at it.

As it stands now, the replay official is used in the last two minutes of the first half, the end of the game and overtime.

"The coaches wouldn't need to challenge," McKay said. "All those (scoring) plays would be confirmed (by the replay official). If the replay official decides that play should be reviewed, then the referee would continue to have the supervision of review.

"We would also propose in conjunction with that change the elimination of the third challenge. It hasn't been used very much at all in the last four years."

The committee also is making a recommendation involving player safety.

If the rule is passed, there will be eight categories of a defenseless player: the quarterback in the act of or just after throwing a pass; the receiver attempting to catch a pass, which includes the receiver who hasn't completed a catch or had time to protect himself; a runner who's already in the grasp of a tackler and whose forward progress has been stopped; a kickoff or punt returner attempting to field a kick in the air; a player on the ground at the end of a play; a kicker or punter during the kick or during the return; a quarterback at any time after a change of possession; and a player who receives a blindside block.

"We just want to be sure that we write the rules very clearly and that all eight of those categories have the exact same protection," McKay said.

Tornado kills 1, injures 11 in La.

A tornado slammed a southwestern Louisiana town Saturday, killing a woman and injuring 11 other people. More than 100 homes were damaged, many of them destroyed, authorities said, and about 1,500 people were forced out because of natural-gas leaks.

The 21-year-old woman was killed when a tree fell on her house, said Maxine Trahan, a spokeswoman for the Acadia Parish sheriff. Debris was littered throughout Rayne, a town of about 8,500 people, after a line of thunderstorms moved through the area.

Trahan said the natural-gas leaks, which were later fixed, delayed damage assessments.

The system that hit Rayne quickly moved east and drenched New Orleans, where several Mardi Gras parades either were delayed, started earlier, or canceled because of the weather.