AP - Harold Hansford didn't make it home for Christmas. He just visited. Hansford spent part of Christmas morning wandering around the gutted house in the New Orleans suburb of Arabi that he, his wife and son called home for the past 17 years.

AP - Jessie Murphy rebuilt her wrecked home after Hurricane Floyd dumped rain that overran levees and inundated her historic hometown. Today she wonders if she should have bothered. And she worries that the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans will someday feel the same way.

AFP - Residents and disaster workers in New Orleans, facing curfews and power shortages, struggled on Christmas morning to get into the holiday spirit nearly four months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

AP - Karen Conway looks up from the muscular cup of coffee she is nursing at the French Quarter landmark Cafe du Monde and raises both eyebrows, her green eyes going wide. This, she says, is the look she got from friends back home in Florissant, Mo., when she told them she planned to visit New Orleans with her husband - her small contribution to the epic rebuilding of the city.

AFP - Christmas is bittersweet this year for thousands of New Orleans residents still homeless four months after their city was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

AP - The city is ready to demolish some 2,500 houses deemed threats to public safety because of damage from Hurricane Katrina, but opponents said Saturday they will sue to stop the work to make sure homeowners' rights are respected.

AP - President Bush called nine U.S. service members deployed from Japan to the Persian Gulf on Saturday to recognize their service to the nation and wish them holiday cheer.

AP - On Saturday evening, the Mississippi River in bayou country will look much as it has in more than a century of Christmas Eves - with miles of massive bonfires on the levee tops showing Papa Noel, the south Louisiana Santa Claus, the way to children's homes.

Reuters - Now New Orleans has really gone to the dogs.

Reuters - Much of New Orleans lies abandoned and destroyed after Hurricane Katrina struck nearly four months ago, but for Latin American immigrants the storm-ravaged city has become a land of opportunity.

Reuters - Cuba said on Thursday it would donate its revenues from a world baseball tournament to Hurricane Katrina victims if the Bush administration reverses a controversial decision to bar Cuba's participation.

AP - The last of the nearly 115,000 hurricane evacuees who fled to shelters in Texas packed up their belongings Thursday and parted ways as the state's final goverment-run shelter closed its doors.

AP - Congress pushed a pile of unfinished work into the new year, even after delivering a couple of presents to President Bush before leaving for the holidays.

Reuters - The House of Representatives passed a $453.3 billion defense spending bill on Thursday, which included $50 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and funding for other needs including rebuilding from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

AP - An aid package to help the Gulf Coast rebuild after Hurricane Katrina will be siphoned from a dwindling FEMA disaster fund, leaving agency officials wondering Thursday whether they will need more money to help storm evacuees beyond next spring.

AP - Congress on Thursday approved $1.6 billion in hurricane relief for schools and colleges, including private-school aid that critics assailed as a national voucher experiment.