In a ruling that could leave the government open to billions of dollars in claims from Hurricane Katrina victims, a judge said late Wednesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had displayed "gross negligence" in maintaining the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, resulting in levee breaches that flooded large swaths of greater New Orleans. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval's decision, issued in New Orleans, awarded $719,000 to four of the five flood victims who sued the government in April 2006. A lawyer said 100,000 New Orleans-area residents and businesses may be eligible for reimbursement.
Did White House overplay job data?
Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees stimulus spending, said Thursday that, in its rush to take credit for saving hundreds of thousands of jobs, the Obama administration was overly confident in its job-counting. Devaney told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he could not certify the job numbers were correct. Data released last month identified more than 640,000 jobs linked to stimulus projects. The White House had said the figures proved 3.5 million jobs would be created or saved by the end of next year.
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