Month: November 2021

President Joe Biden has chosen former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu as supervisor of his $1 trillion infrastructure plan. As New Orleans mayor, Landrieu pushed the city into recovery after the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. The White House said on Sunday that Landrieu will be tasked with coordinating across federal agencies to work on roads, ports, bridges and airports. Biden is expected to sign the infrastructure bill into law on Monday.

The 61-year-old Landrieu was formerly the Louisiana lieutenant governor and took over as mayor of New Orleans in 2010, five years after Katrina hit the city. He secured billions in federal funding for roads, schools parks and infrastructure, and turned New Orleans “into one of America’s great comeback stories,” the White House said in a statement.

Landrieu said in the statement: “I am thankful to the president and honored to be tasked with coordinating the largest infrastructure investment in generations,” “Our work will require strong partnerships across the government and with state and local leaders, business and labor to create good-paying jobs and rebuild America for the middle class.”

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Nearly one week after the tragedy at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, a 22-year-old college student has died – marking the ninth person killed in the tragedy. The family attorney of the victim announced Thursday that Bharti Shahani, a student at Texas A&M University studying computer science, died at an intensive care unit surrounded by her family around 7 p.m. Wednesday night.

Shahani has two sisters, one of whom was at the festival with her. Her father said at a news conference Thursday: “Now, I am worried about my two daughters and my wife. What will be the impact on them after we lost our precious angel?” Her mother, Karishma, said, “Bharti is love – I won’t be able to live without her. It’s impossible.”  Bharti’s younger sister Namrata, who was with her at the festival, said she was holding her sister’s hand before they got separated in the crowd surge. Namrata said her sister was like a second mother to her:  “It feels like she meant everything to me. We were always together, always doing things together. The last thing Bharti said to me was, “Are you OK?” 

Nine people, including two teenagers, were killed and dozens more were injured during a crowd surge at the Astroworld festival last Friday. The exact cause of death for the other eight victims has not yet been determined, Houston police chief Troy Finner said on Wednesday. A 9-year-old boy remains in critical condition.

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A federal appeals court on Thursday granted former President Donald Trump’s request to temporarily block the National Archives from giving his White House records to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A three-judge panel granted Trump an administrative injunction and set arguments for the case for Nov. 30, writing: “The purpose of this administrative injunction is to protect the court’s jurisdiction to address appellant’s claims of executive privilege and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.”

The National Archives was expected to start turning over the documents Friday, releasing them over the next several weeks. Trump asked the court to “maintain the status quo” until their expedited appeal can be heard. In the documents, committee members expect to receive call logs, visitor logs, drafts of speeches, memos and even handwritten notes from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and others. Trump’s attorneys have said additional time is needed to properly go over the issues in question.

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