1. WILL ANYONE BUDGE Top congressional leaders will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House in a last-ditch effort to bridge the fiscal divide, but there’s no sign a deal is taking shape.
2. WHAT’S IN A NICKNAME To many, retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf will always be “Stormin’ Norman,” the no-nonsense Desert Storm commander. But the general who died Thursday preferred a lighter sobriquet: “The Bear.”
3. WHO SHOULD HAVE GUNS IN SCHOOLS The NRA envisions armed volunteers to protect schools from attacks like the one in Newtown, Conn. School safety experts say trained police are needed.
4. TRYING TO KEEP A LID ON THE INTERNET China passes rules aimed at tightening controls on Internet following online postings about graft and abuses that rattled the ruling party.
5. CLOSING THE DOOR ON ADOPTIONS Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signs a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children.
6. WHAT’S THREATENING TO CRIPPLE PORTS If 14,500 longshoremen strike, ships that move much of American commerce would be unable to use most major ports on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico.
7. ANOTHER TRAGEDY ON THE TRACKS Police in New York City were seeking a woman seen fleeing a subway station after a man was pushed onto the tracks and killed by an approaching train. It was the second such fatality this month.
8. WHEN RONALD REAGAN SOUGHT FASHION ADVICE Confidential documents released by Britain’s National Archives reveal the inner workings of the government led by Margaret Thatcher, including a query asking what former President Reagan should wear to go riding with the Queen. 9. PAVING THE WAY HOME WITH MUSIC Voices of Valor, a pilot program helping veterans re-enter civilian life, uses music to ease the way.
10. BUSH SENIOR STILL IN HOSPITAL As former President George H.W. Bush remains in intensive care at a Houston hospital, a longtime aide says, “put the harps back in the closet,” Bush is in good hands.
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to offer shares of its stock to the public for the first time.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.