Hurricane Gustav weakened slightly to a Category 2 storm as it headed towards New Orleans today, the US National Hurricane Centre said.

Hundreds of determined Louisiana locals insisted they would stay put as their neighbours fled Hurricane Gustav’s approach by the thousands today.

Hurricane Gustav is expected to make landfall on the US Gulf coast today, three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans.

US President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will skip the Republican National Convention because of mounting concerns about Hurricane Gustav, the White House said today.

Irish people in New Orleans have been urged to keep in touch with family in Ireland and the Department of Foreign Affairs as the city braces itself for monster Hurricane Gustav.

Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, directing residents of a city still recovering from the devastation left behind three years ago from Hurricane Katrina to flee from the approaching Hurricane Gustav.

Gustav slammed into Cuba’s tobacco-growing western tip as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane while both Cubans and Americans scrambled to flee the storm as it roared toward the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

On the same day that New Orleans residents marked the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, another storm strengthened into a hurricane miles away and threatened to hit the US Gulf Coast once again.

Rescue workers were today considering evacuating New Orleans as it faced a hurricane threat three years to the day that Katrina devastated the city.

On the eve of Hurricane Katrina’s third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made preliminary plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid Katrina-style chaos.

Beyonce and Lionel Richie are among the performers at a music festival which has returned to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit the US city two years ago.

Officials in the US city of New Orleans are considering a curfew to help stem violence after at least eight killings in the city in the first week of the New Year, a senior police chief said tonight.

FEWER than 190,000 people are living in New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina, according to a door-to-door survey.

It was twice the laughs for members of the White House Correspondents’ Association and guests when President George W Bush and a look-alike, sound-alike sidekick poked fun at the president and fellow politicians.

HURRICANE Katrina turned the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into a “symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy” so far beyond repair it should be scrapped, senators said yesterday.

HURRICANE Katrina turned the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into a “symbol of a bumbling bureaucracy” so far beyond repair it should be scrapped, senators said yesterday.

NEW Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin looks to be on course to be re-elected to oversee the rebuilding of the city after topping the ballot in the first round of a poll hit by the dispersal of more than half the voters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans is better prepared for the upcoming hurricane season because of stronger flood walls and better evacuation plans after Huricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin said today.

Unheeded warnings, poor planning and apathy in recognising the scope of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction led to the slow emergency response from the White House down to local officials, a damning US government investigation says.

Former US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) director Michael Brown has placed blame on everyone from New Orleans’ mayor to Louisiana’s governor for the chaos following Hurricane Katrina. Now, he’s including himself.

THE mayor of New Orleans has apologised for saying the hurricane-ravaged city would be rebuilt as a “chocolate” city and for blaming the storm on the wrath of God over US involvement in Iraq.

New Orleans’ controversial mayor has been forced to apologise after claiming Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the war in Iraq and predicting the city would be “chocolate” again.

New Orleans’ elections for mayor and City Council, scheduled for next February, have been postponed for up to eight months because of the damage and dislocation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said today he was abandoning his proposal to create a casino district as a way of revitalising the city’s shattered economy, bitterly complaining of resistance from Mississippi politicians.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said the city was laying off as many as 3,000 employees – or about half its workforce – because of the financial damage inflicted on the city by Hurricane Katrina.

Mayor Ray Nagin said today that the city was laying off as many as 3,000 employees – or about half the city’s workforce – because f the damage done to New Orleans’ finances by Hurricane Katrina.

Officials ended their door-to-door sweep for corpses, finding far fewer bodies than once feared and school children returned to classes as New Orleans revved up efforts to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Engineers pumped much of the remaining floodwater out of New Orleans as tens of thousands of residents continued returning to dry neighbourhoods to check on houses and reopen businesses.

SOME of New Orleans’ most popular neighbourhoods officially reopened to residents yesterday, a move that could bring back about a third of the city’s half a million inhabitants.

The mayor of New Orleans today invited residents of some of the city’s neighbourhoods to return at their own risk, a move that could bring back about one-third of the city’s half-million inhabitants.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, eager to welcome back his city’s residents, says he’s fighting a national impression “that we’re tainted, we’re not ready".

A combative Michael Brown blamed the Louisiana governor, the New Orleans mayor and even the Bush White House that appointed him for his agency’s dismal response to Hurricane Katrina in a fiery appearance before Congress.

AREAS of New Orleans newly flooded by Hurricane Rita could be pumped dry within a week after levee damage is repaired, far sooner than initially predicted.

HURRICANE Rita's rains sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee yesterday, cascading into one of the city's lowest-lying neighbourhoods in a repeat of New Orleans's flooding nightmare.

Hurricane Rita roared toward the Texas and Louisiana coasts early today, a major Category 4 storm that spurred a traffic-snarled exodus toward higher ground and fears it could cripple the heart of the US petrochemical industry.

OUTER bands of rain from Hurricane Rita began falling in New Orleans yesterday and forecasts of between eight and 13 centimetres of rainfall in the coming days raised fears the patched levee system could fail and flood the city all over again.

The outer bands of rain from Hurricane Rita began falling in New Orleans today, and forecasts of between 8 and 13 centimetres of rainfall in the coming days raised fears the patched levee system could fail and flood the city all over again.

Searchers smashed through doors in New Orleans, bringing their hunt for the dead to homes that had been locked and to blocks hardest hit by Katrina’s flooding.

Hurricane Rita strengthened into a Category 3 storm with 115 mph winds early today after lashing the Florida Keys and sparking anxiety as it headed into the Gulf of Mexico.

HURRICANE Rita strengthened rapidly to a Category 2 hurricane as it lashed the Florida Keys with flooding rain and strong wind and sparked fears the storm could eventually bring new misery to the Gulf Coast.

NEW ORLEANS' mayor has the authority to let residents return to his hurricane-damaged city, but the Coast Guard official in charge of the federal disaster response said yesterday that all the information from health and environmental experts recommends against it.

NEW ORLEANS Mayor Ray Nagin announced yesterday that large parts of the city will reopen early next week, and the French Quarter the week after that. “The city of New Orleans will start to breathe again,” he said.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced today that large parts of the city will reopen early next week, and the French Quarter the week after that.

The putrid air rising from New Orleans’ slowly receding floodwaters was found not to be overly polluted, encouraging news for a mayor weighing the reopening of the French Quarter and other dry parts of the city.