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Nation in brief

New Orleans will delay home demolitions after protests from residents

By wire services
Published January 7, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - The city agreed Friday to wait two more weeks before beginning the wholesale demolition of thousands of storm-damaged homes while a federal judge decides whether to hear a challenge from community activists.

However, the city reserved the right in the meantime to clear away perhaps 100 smashed homes that were pushed by the floodwaters into the streets.

The city says as many as 5,500 homes and businesses on the east bank of the Mississippi River may need to be razed because hurricane damage has made them unsafe. Mayor Ray Nagin has said the city can demolish homes without the owners' consent if they pose an imminent danger to the public.

But community activists filed a lawsuit last month, disputing the city has such authority.

A federal judge will hold a hearing Jan. 19 on the city's request to move the case from state court to federal court.

NASHVILLE - A newly elected Democratic senator would take her seat at least temporarily under the speaker pro tem's recommendation to continue investigating voter fraud allegations.

The seating of Ophelia Ford is being contested by her opponent Terry Roland. Ford was certified in September as the 13-vote winner of a special election in Memphis to fill the state Senate seat left vacant when her brother John Ford resigned after his arrest on federal corruption charges.

The votes of at least two dead people, several convicted felons and others who don't live in the district were counted in the election, Roland said.

The ballots cast in the name of registered voters who died weeks before the election were uncovered during an investigation by the Commercial Appeal newspaper of Memphis.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A 4-year-old disabled boy was hungry but uninjured when his baby sitter took him along on a 30-hour binge of smoking crack cocaine, authorities said.

According to the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, the trouble began Tuesday when the boy's father, Reginald Moore, asked his girlfriend, Dianna Johnson, to take the boy to day care.

After trying unsuccessfully during the day to reach his girlfriend's cell phone, Moore reported the boy missing Wednesday morning. The boy, who has limited hearing, didn't have his hearing aids, authorities said.

Johnson called Moore on Wednesday afternoon to say she and the boy were parked in a Memphis driveway, where they were picked up by authorities.

The boy was returned to his father, who officials say did not know Johnson was a drug user.

Johnson was being held without bail on a charge of especially aggravated kidnapping.

[Last modified January 7, 2006, 01:25:29]