Lafitte News

Construction has begun on the new visitor's center at Chalmette Battlefield , officials said.

A state-hired panel of engineering and environmental experts from across the country will meet today to begin evaluating five alignments for the planned Donaldsonville-to-the-Gulf levee to block storm surge from the Barataria Basin.

As Ida gets closer to the Gulf of Mexico, flooding becomes a concern in southeastern Louisiana.

The Rev. Joe Recasner's memory of his childhood in the Lower 9th Ward is a bit fuzzy -- he has a hard time remembering exactly when his family moved to the area or how long it was before a wall separating his neighborhood from the adjacent Bayou Bienvenue was built.

A man was shot shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday at the intersection of Bienville and N. Derbigny streets .

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office announces the arrest of Jean Lafitte Police Officer Anthony J. Molinario, W/M, 27, of Luling, for the crime of simple burglary of a vehicle.

A Jean Lafitte police officer has been arrested after allegedly burglarizing a car, said Sheriff Newell Normand.

BATON ROUGE - The chief concerns Louisiana shrimpers have had about foreign shrimp involved the low prices they forced onto the market.

Several high-level Obama administration officials heard more than three hours worth of testimony Monday from environmental groups, fishing organizations, scientists and the oil and gas industry about development of a national policy aimed at protecting the oceans and streamlining government management.

Federal housing officials broke ground this morning at the B.W. Cooper, the last of the former "Big Four" public-housing developments to secure financing for construction.

The communities of Jean Lafitte and Crown Point in west Jefferson Parish have grown more vulnerable to surge flooding in recent decades as human activity and coastal erosion depleted surrounding marshes.

Aerial spraying is planned Friday night to combat mosquitoes in Kenner and the Lafitte area, Jefferson Parish officials said.

Zipping in an airboat over a thick mat of water hyacinths floating in an old oil and gas service canal in the Barataria Preserve, David Muth pointed to wispy trees lining the banks and raised his voice to be heard above the roaring motor.

The National Park Service is making a proposal to reclaim more than 20 miles of abandoned oil and gas canals inside Jean Lafitte National Historic Park and Preserve-Barataria Unit to restore marshland, reduce saltwater intrusion and reverse land loss.

Doug O'Neill, the executive editor of Canadian Living, arrived at the Schools of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau at about 2 p.m. Thursday.

Although the Housing Authority of New Orleans will remain under the control of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as it has been since 2002, a turnaround team will take over by the end of the month to try to clean up the long-troubled agency, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said Tuesday.

The Jefferson Parish Coroner's Office has released the identity of a boater found dead in the Barataria Waterway near Lafitte this morning Elphage Boudoin, 55, of Franklinton, La, was found shortly after 6:30 a.m.after being reported missing Sunday evening.

The body of a man who had been missing since he went to bring gasoline to another family member in a boat was found early Monday by Wildlife and Fisheries crews.

A pair of Jefferson Parish School Board members on Wednesday reaffirmed their commitment to consolidating and closing schools, and urged a handful of community members at a public hearing at John Ehret High School in Marrero to back the initiative.

Jefferson Parish is planning aerial mosquito spraying tonight and Friday from 7 p.m. to 9:40 p.m. The locations to be sprayed include Kenner from Lake Pontchartrain to Louis Armstrong International Airport and Williams Boulevard to the St.