Sopranos star James Gandolfini will reign as celebrity monarch Bacchus during the 2007 carnival season in New Orleans.

US President George Bush said the huge job of rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina was just beginning a year after the massive storm, but expressed hope that the $110bn (€85.8m) of help sent from Washington would be enough.

US President George Bush promised the US government will pay most of the costs of rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast in one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen.

President George Bush is spending much of his time on relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina after his administration was harshly criticised for an initial response to the storm called slow and inadequate.

US President George Bush, facing blistering criticism for his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, said today “the results are not acceptable” and pledged to bolster relief efforts with a personal trip to the Gulf Coast.

Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast pushed aside the dead to reach the living in a race against time and rising waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana’s governor ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city.

HELICOPTERS plucked frantic survivors from rooftops yesterday and officials said hundreds of people may have died in Hurricane Katrina’s attack on the US Gulf Coast, which sent a wall of water into Mississippi and flooded New Orleans.

THE United States began to come to terms with the true extent of the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina yesterday.

As dawn broke over the ravaged Gulf of Mexico coastline today, rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched for survivors of Hurricane Katrina, with fears the death toll could reach 80.

Announcing itself with shrieking, 145-mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans yesterday, submerging entire neighbourhoods, swamping Mississippi’s beachfront casinos and killing at least 55 people.

Rick Wilking, New Orleans

Hurricane Katrina smashed into New Orleans today, knocking out power and submerging part of the low-lying city in up to 6ft of water.

A man has been arrested after a hit-and-run crash which killed an Irish exchange student in Mississippi.