'America's Most Wanted' comes to New Orleans

Cops Helping Cops was established in 2006. The organization has helped to raise money, collect materials and recruit volunteers to build homes for New Orleans police officers.

On this week’s episode of America’s Most Wanted, AMW will team up with Cops Helping Cops. The show and the organization will offer one deserving New Orleans officer a chance to rebuild a life left in ruin after Hurricane Katrina.

Also, America’s Most Wanted will help to hunt down fugitives in the New Orleans area. The New Orleans Special Edition episode of America’s Most Wanted airs on Saturday, February 23 from 9 PM to 10 PM ET/PT on FOX.

New Orleans Chef to visit Jackson bookstore

Chef Susan Spicer has been called one of the brightest culinary stars in New Orleans. Her light shines on her restaurants Bayona and Herbsaint. Fans nationwide have anticipated her cookbook, Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer's New Orleans (Knopf, $35). Co-written by Paula Disbrowe, the cookbook features recipes that have made Spicer and New Orleans famous. Now Mississippians will get a chance to meet Spicer at a book signing this weekend in Jackson.

Featuring more than 170 recipes from Let's Get the Party Started to Killer Cocktails from the Quarter, Crescent City Cooking boasts more than 80 photographs by New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer Chris Granger. The pictures alone will make you want to try the recipes but they also give you a sense of New Orleans. Each of the creative recipe's instructions are easy to follow.

N.O. Homeless Housing Plan Focuses On Shelters

The City of New Orleans was faced with two options for dealing with the homeless: One option focused on moving the homeless into permanent housing while the other option was to place them in shelters. One would think that the permanent housing option would be more feasible. Which plan do you think the City of New Orleans chose? According to the T-P, the City chose the shelters.

The city plans to partner with the New Orleans Mission, rather than UNITY for the Homeless.

While UNITY has focused on moving the homeless into permanent housing -- a relatively new tactic national experts say produces results -- the mission will employ a more traditional sheltering approach. The mission aims to provide communal housing until people can save for their own apartments.

UNITY's approach, often called "housing first," may be in vogue, but does not address the causes of homelessness, said the mission's director, Ron Gonzales.

According to the experts, what New Orleans most needs, they say, is a coordinated, long-term plan that uses field-tested methods -- like those used here by UNITY -- that have produced impressive declines in homelessness in dozens of cities, including New York, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, Dallas and St. Louis.

Do you think New Orleans made a bad decision?

9/11 Victims' Children Help New Orleans

Nineteen young people who lost a parent during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are in town this week to pitch in with volunteer work at Habitat for Humanity's Musicians Village residential development in the Upper 9th Ward.

The visit was organized by Tuesday's Children, a 9/11 family support organization, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, the Hope for Stanley Foundation and City Council President Arnie Fielkow.

The Stanley Foundation is a rebuilding support group created in honor of Stanley Stewart, who played a lead role in helping evacuate Hurricane Katrina victims from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center after the storm.

Study: More New Orleans' Felony Cases Go To Court

T-P:

The number of felony cases accepted for prosecution by the Orleans Parish district attorney grew by 63 percent from the first part of the year to the last quarter of 2007, perhaps evidence of an improved working relationship between prosecutors and the New Orleans Police Department, the Metropolitan Crime Commission concluded in a report to be released today.

The study is the third report issued by the Crime Commission looking at 2007 arrests made by police and cases prosecuted in court, tracking the performance of a criminal justice system still rebounding from Hurricane Katrina.

While the group saw improvement in the number of people who will be prosecuted for felonies at Criminal District Court and an increased conviction rate, it still identified areas that call out for policy changes by police and prosecutors, said Rafael Goyeneche, president of the commission.

Violent Crime May Be Rising In New Orleans

From the T-P:

The New Orleans Police Department released the latest crime statistics, along with an analysis that showed violent crime stayed relatively flat, on a per-capita basis, in the fourth quarter of 2007 compared to the fourth quarter of 2006. But a comparison of statistics from both full years, using the population estimates favored by NOPD, shows that violent crime has increased substantially.

Further, per-capita crime statistics for both of the past two years represent a substantial jump from per-capita crime rates before Katrina, the figures show.

State's Delegates move to McCain

Although Mike Huckabee led Louisiana's Republican presidential preference primary last week, state Republican Party officials Saturday rounded up at least 43 of the state's 47 GOP national convention delegates for rival John McCain. Huckabee may end up with no delegates at all from Louisiana.