LOUISIANA
Judge: Corps' failure led to Katrina flooding
NEW ORLEANS - A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina.
U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with five residents and one business who argued the Army Corps' shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn't be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where one of the plaintiffs lived.
Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, but the decision could eventually make the government vulnerable to a much larger payout. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.
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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Thanksgiving travel to increase, AAA says
WASHINGTON - A leading auto organization is projecting a 1.4 percent increase in Thanksgiving travel this year, although fewer people will travel by air because of budget concerns, reduced airline capacity and added charges.
AAA said Wednesday that it expects 38.4 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more away from home over this year's holiday weekend, compared with 37.8 million last year. The number of automobile travelers is expected to be 33.2 million, compared with 32.5 million last year - an increase of 2.1 percent.
Air travel, however, is projected to decline 6.7 percent, or 2.3 million travelers this year, compared to 2.5 million in 2008. AAA said the share of Thanksgiving travelers journeying by air has been declining for a decade.
MICHIGAN
Relative: Boy pleaded with dad for his life
HIGHLAND PARK - A 37-year-old father irate over hearing his 15-year-old son had sexual contact with a 3-year-old girl made the teen strip at gunpoint, marched him to a vacant lot and shot him to death despite pleas from the boy and his mother, a relative said.
Michigan authorities filed a first-degree murder charge Wednesday against Jamar Pinkney Sr. in the shooting death Monday of Jamar Pinkney Jr. in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park. Defense attorney Corbett O'Meara said prosecutors should consider evidence of the father's state of mind over the sex abuse report.
CALIFORNIA
Energy standards for TVs are adopted
SACRAMENTO - California regulators adopted the nation's first energy-efficiency standards for televisions Wednesday in hopes of reducing electricity use at a time when millions of American households are switching to power-hungry, wide-view, flat-screen, high-definition sets.
The 5-0 vote by the California Energy Commission is just the latest effort by the state to secure its place in the forefront of the environmental movement.
California represents such a big consumer market that environmental groups hope the new standards will lead manufacturers to make energy-saving TVs for the rest of the nation, just as California's stringent fuel standards for cars and trucks forced automakers to produce more efficient models for all of the U.S.
The commission estimates that TVs account for about 10 percent of a home's electricity use. The fear is that energy use will rise as people buy bigger, more elaborate TVs, put more of them in their homes, and watch them longer.
Wire reports
