• EDITORIAL: Senator Bridezilla
If you were facing a high-profile federal trial, had been stripped of most of your official responsibilities and were under house arrest, you would likely try to show some restraint.

• EDITORIAL: Still a champion
Lolo Jones didn't get the gold medal she was expected to win in the 100-meter hurdles in Beijing.

• Jazz and Razz
JAZZ

• EDITORIAL: Rescue us from FEMA
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is supposed to help communities deal with disaster, but it seems bent on making recovery more difficult for greater New Orleans and other coastal communities.

• EDITORIAL: Can't have it both ways
Mandeville City Council members may not have had the full picture of how freely Mayor Eddie Price spent public money until the Louisiana Legislative Auditor released a wide-ranging and deeply critical audit of city finances.

• EDITORIAL: Drive-by diligence
The city's review of a troubled home remediation program was done in a slap-dash manner that missed some instances of questionable billing.

• EDITORIAL: On the side of caution
The state took the prudent route in forgoing a private contract for giving out elevation grants after it concluded the two companies seeking the job had conflicts of interest.

• EDITORIAL: Get well soon, Mike
The return of starting cornerback Mike McKenzie can't come soon enough for Saints fans.

• EDITORIAL: A $1 billion effort
There are hardly more important goals for Louisiana's long-term future than rebuilding our coast and improving hurricane protection -- and it's heartening that state officials are committing serious money to those efforts.

• EDITORIAL: Joining the modern age
After every other state in the nation outlawed cockfighting, Louisiana held onto the blood sport.

• EDITORIAL: What bid law?
If the Mandeville public works department had obeyed state bid law, LP Enterprises would never have been chosen to do $116,000 worth of drainage work on Venus Street in 2005.

• Jazz and Razz
JAZZ

• EDITORIAL: The conservative corps
Flood protection structures on both sides of the Industrial Canal are weaker than the Army Corps of Engineers thought, and that's uncomfortable news to get at the start of the most active part of hurricane season.

• EDITORIAL: Be flexible on deadline
Almost two years after the state launched the Road Home program, about 14,000 applicants remain tangled in the program's web because of pending issues about their eligibility.

• EDITORIAL: ACT on the rise
Louisiana students for years lagged well behind children in other states on just about every measure of achievement.

• Signs of recovery
-- City Park visitors can grab a bite to eat in the Casino Building again, with the recent reopening of its first-floor cafe. That's the first public access since Katrina to the historic building, which underwent $500,000 of storm repairs.

• EDITORIAL: Another highway tragedy
Seventeen Houston residents on their way to a religious pilgrimage died Friday when their chartered bus plunged off a Texas highway.

• EDITORIAL: Memo on transparency
The public needs to know whether the American Society of Civil Engineers undermined independent probes of Hurricane Katrina levee failures, as one researcher has charged, and it's reassuring that the group will release the findings from its ethics inquiry.

• Jazz and Razz
JAZZ

• EDITORIAL: Charity began at home
People are in a generous mood during the holidays, especially when it comes to children, so it's not surprising that the Mandeville Police Department's annual appeals for its Citizen's Service Fund touched a responsive chord.

• EDITORIAL: Tragedy on Blind River
Only the families of the five young men killed in a Blind River boating accident Saturday can truly understand the depth of their loss.

• EDITORIAL: Mandeville's mess
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor began scrutinizing Mandeville city finances last year when it came to light that the Police Department's toy fund for needy children had been used to buy gifts for Mandeville employees and officials -- including Mayor Eddie Price.

• EDITORIAL: A golden opportunity
New Orleanians' love for this city is legendary. Entire extended families live here, often in the same neighborhood, and before Katrina many city residents had never lived outside the area -- and didn't want to.

• EDITORIAL: State needs ghostbusters
Mandeville Mayor Eddie Price certainly wasn't trying to hide his identity when he crashed his city-owned SUV through a tollbooth gate on the Causeway in April.

• EDITORIAL: Don't wait to learn
Across the metro area, school is back in session or about to start, and that means switching gears for students and their families.

• EDITORIAL: Thank you, Mr. President
President Bush lifted a heavy burden off Louisiana Thursday, when he agreed to let the state stretch out payment of its $1.8 billion share of levee improvements.

• Jazz and Razz
JAZZ

• EDITORIAL: It's just traffic court
Traffic Court Judge Ronald Sholes says that he intercedes on behalf of traffic defendants outside of his courtroom as a matter of practicality and because he just has a soft heart.

• EDITORIAL: Dreams of gold
At the eighth hour of the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008, the Beijing Olylmpics began in a swirl of pageantry.

• EDITORIAL: Waiting for answers on NOAH
Records for a post-Katrina home-gutting program run by the city's New Orleans Affordable Homeownership agency are such a mess that it is impossible to tell who did what for whom.

• EDITORIAL: Progress report
"Most improved" isn't a category in the state's high stakes testing program, but some traditional Recovery School District schools showed impressive and encouraging gains on the LEAP test.

• Signs of recovery
-- Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in Lacombe held services for the first time since Hurricane Katrina last week. The shrine, built by Benedictine monks in 1923, is a fixture in the community and has survived two damaging storms, Ivan and Katrina.