AP - The Bush administration has shown little progress — and in some cases backtracked — on its pledge to do a better job in awarding contracts to small, Gulf Coast businesses for Hurricane Katrina work, a congressional analysis shows.

AP - The Federal Emergency Management Agency has stopped donating and selling disaster trailers while it studies reports that people living in them after hurricanes Katrina and Rita got sick from formaldehyde exposure.

AP - The Bush administration on Thursday defended its efforts to award lucrative government contracts to small, Gulf Coast businesses for Hurricane Katrina recovery work, and pledged improvement in the coming months.

AP - Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

AP - The ousted director of the National Hurricane Center wants to return to his job and told superiors in a letter that they illegally retaliated for his criticism of an aging weather satellite.

Reuters - A tropical wave in the eastern Caribbean might still become a tropical cyclone, though conditions for its development are less favorable than they were, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Thursday.

AP - Tropical Storm Erick formed in the open Pacific early Wednesday, but is miles from land and not expected to become a threat, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Reuters - A federal court ruled on Thursday that three major insurers are not responsible for flood damages in New Orleans -- even if "negligence" caused a dam collapse that inundated the city during 2005's Hurricane Katrina.

AP - Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

AP - The Bush administration on Thursday defended its efforts to award lucrative government contracts to small, Gulf Coast businesses for Hurricane Katrina recovery work, and pledged improvement in the coming months.

AP - The five major hospitals and hospital systems in the area have hemorrhaged money since Hurricane Katrina as the cost of utilities, insurance and labor have all risen sharply, hospital officials said Wednesday.

AP - Louisiana's attorney general, denied an indictment against a doctor he alleged murdered patients at a New Orleans hospital days after Hurricane Katrina hit, asked a judge Wednesday to unseal documents that he says back up his claims.

Reuters - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday that three major insurers are not responsible for flood damages in New Orleans -- even if "negligence" caused flooding that inundated the city during 2005's Hurricane Katrina.