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Ever since Thanksgiving, Michael Nohrenberg had heard nothing from his three grandchildren but pleas for SeaDoo rides.

A day ahead of a closed-door meeting in Philadelphia with President-elect Barack Obama, the nation's governors on Monday called for the federal government to enact a stimulus package that would expand the economic safety net, provide more assistance to states to cover Medicaid costs, and spend $136 billion for ready-to-go projects that would quickly put people to work repairing the nation's infrastructure.

Scores of properties in Shrewsbury are in line for a mass rezoning because the East Jefferson neighborhood is home to structures that clash with their official land-use designation.

There's no reason to believe President-elect Barack Obama cares deeply about the outcome of Saturday's contest for the 2nd Congressional District seat where indicted incumbent William Jefferson faces three relatively unknown candidates.

LAFAYETTE -- Twenty-eight months after Liz Marinello was gunned down in an Old Metairie parking lot, her estranged husband, Vince Marinello, faces the evidence against him today, a day after attorneys selected 13 jurors in the case.

The St. Charles Parish Council on Monday approved a $349,000 contract to begin repairs to the parish's east bank sewage-treatment plant, which is crumbling from a corrosive gas emitted by bacteria.

At the turn of the new year, the state district court serving St. Tammany and Washington parishes will undergo some major reshuffling.

A Coast Guard helicopter was in the process of lifting three occupants of a 90-foot boat that radioed it was taking on water about 30 miles south of the Louisiana shore near New Orleans, the Coast Guard said Monday night.

Chuck Cook / The Times-PicayuneFormer New Orleans sports caster Vince Marinello walks into the federal courthouse in Lafayette today for the first day of his second degree murder trial. He is accused of killing his estranged wife, Liz.

The murder trial of former sportscaster and talk radio personality Vince Marinello adjourned Monday evening with 13 jurors impaneled and plans to resume jury selection Tuesday morning in Lafayette.

• See archived coverage of the case

Photo providedMarcus Fleming, 22, was booked with second-degree murder.

St. John the Baptist Parish authorities have arrested a LaPlace man in connection with the fatal shooting of a 28-year-old man Sunday.

Tonight's weather conditions require all individuals to seek shelter, and in New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin's office has declared the city's Freeze Plan in effect. As a result, more temporary shelter space will be provided for homeless citizens.

ELLIS LUCIA / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEThe Slidell Police Department and Police Chief Freddy Drennan (left) in the fingerprint room with crime scene supervisor Sgt. Bobby Campbell (right) hosted a grand opening tour of the department's new 5,990 sq. ft. evidence and administrative building behind police headquarters at 2112 Third St. in Slidell Monday, December 1, 2008. The building was constructed with a $1.2 million grant from the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement.

After being without a permanent building for over three years, the Slidell Police Department's more than 23,000 pieces of evidence, and the nine employees who worked in the department's evidence room and adjoining offices, are back home.

Gov. Bobby Jindal left for Philadelphia this afternoon to meet with President-elect Barack Obama, hope in hand of loosening federal spending for hurricane recovery projects in Louisiana.

"There are literally billions of dollars that can be pushed through the pipeline that have already been allocated by Congress that have yet to come to our communities, that have yet to come to our state," Jindal said before flying out of Louis Armstrong International Airport.

The New Orleans City Council today made official its rejection of Mayor Ray Nagin's proposed 10-mill property tax increase, but many other decisions related to adoption of a balanced budget for 2009 have yet to be made.

Two years after the shooting death of Liz Marinello, the trial of her estranged husband, former sportscaster Vince Marinello, got under way this morning in Lafayette.

Vince Marinello, 71, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his 45-year-old wife.

• See archived coverage of the case

A second murder trial for a man accused of killing artist Daniel Breaux during Jazzfest four years ago was postponed today. It had been slated to get under way this morning, but was delayed at the request of defendant John Duncan's lawyers.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said today that while he had not seen a draft of the 2009 city budget that the City Council will take up during its 10 a.m. meeting, he hopes council members will take the long view as the cement the spending plan.

The Associated PressPresident-elect Barack Obama takes questions from reporters after announcing his new national security team at a news conference in Chicago today. From left to right are: Attorney General-designate Eric Holder; Homeland Security Secretary-designate Janet Napolitano; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Vice President-elect Joe Biden; Obama; Secretary of State-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.; National Security Adviser-designate Ret. Marine Gen. James Jones; and United Nations Ambassador-designate Susan Rice.

CHICAGO (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama picked a national security team headed by former campaign rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bush administration holdover Robert Gates on Monday, and said he wants to consult with military commanders before settling on a firm timetable to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq.

On paper, Anh "Joseph" Cao has an ideal life story for a political candidate.

Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Cao fled to the United States when he was 8, learned English, earned degrees in physics and philosophy, and joined the Catholic seminary. When his views on how best to serve the poor changed, Cao went to law school, began a practice specializing in immigration, settled in Venetian Isles and started a family.

Two families were displaced this morning after a fire heavily damaged a duplex in the 500 block of Behrman Highway, according to a spokesman for the Terrytown Volunteer Fire Department.

A Chalmette man and his granddaughter who failed to return home Sunday from a jet skiing trip in Chalmette were found alive and in relatively good shape Monday morning after spending a cold night under a piece of tarp in Bayou Bienvenue, according to St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Office spokesman Steve Cannizaro.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama is filling his Cabinet at record speed, choosing loyal friends and one-time foes to guide his wartime foreign policy decisions. Obama plans to appear at a morning news conference Monday in Chicago to announce Democratic primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton as his secretary of state and say that President George W. Bush's defense secretary, Robert Gates, is staying on.

The Associated PressIn this undated photo provided by Chabad.org, Rivkah Holtzberg, left, co-director of the Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, India, opens a newly renovated ritual bath in 2006. Holtzberg and her husband Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg were killed in Mumbai on Nov. 26.

Chabad Lubavitch of Louisiana will hold a memorial gathering today to remember Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, along with the more than 180 others killed in the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, including others who were with the young couple in their Nariman House Jewish community center.

The memorial will be at 7:30 p.m. at Chabad Jewish Center of Metairie, 4141 West Esplanade Ave., Metairie. It is open to all who have been touched by the tragedy.

Don't leave home without a coat or jacket today. Morning temperatures throughout the area are in the 40s, and the highs will only reach the upper 50s, according to the National Weather Service.

Susan Poag/The Times-PicayuneVince Marinello, left, walks into the Jefferson Parish Courthouse in October with his attorney Lee Faulkner Jr. His murder trial begins today in Lafayette.

The high profile murder trial of Vince Marinello, accused of killing his estranged wife in 2006, gets underway this morning in Lafayette and could last as long as two weeks, authorities have speculated.

• See archived coverage of the case

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneTate Lefort, Sr. works to remove debris after a Gustav-generated tornado tore through his business in Westwego.

Another active, frightening and costly hurricane season has drawn to an end, with dozens of Louisiana coastal communities still picking up the pieces from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and dreading what future storm seasons may promise.

The state Department of Economic Development in September estimated the two storms caused insured and uninsured losses of between $8 billion and $20 billion in Louisiana alone. That is much higher than early estimates, which pegged insured losses from the two storms in all states at $10 billion.

Separate shootings in the Lower Garden District and the Carrollton neighborhood sent two unidentified men to the hospital Sunday night, the New Orleans Police Department said.

A model Mississippi Katrina cottage.

BATON ROUGE -- Almost two years after the federal government promised Louisiana $74.5 million to build alternative post-disaster housing units, not a single one has been built. And now two deadlines are approaching, one that could force the state to seek extensions or risk losing unspent money.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency official who oversees the four-state Alternative Housing Pilot Program insists that he has no worries about whether Louisiana can meet a key September 2009 deadline to build "Louisiana Cottages" with its share of the $400 million program.

Unable to locate any relatives of a man who was shot to death late Wednesday in Kenner, investigators released his identity Sunday in hopes of finding clues leading to his killer.

Bertha Norman remembers how her son-in-law Vince "Vinnie" Marinello kept copious notes, listing talking points he gathered from news sources in preparing for his radio talk shows.

BATON ROUGE -- The contractor who helped the Louisiana Department of Social Services carry out an emergency food stamp program after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike said the state's lack of planning made the firm's bill to taxpayers about 70 percent higher than it could have been.

After months of dickering and false starts, the centerpiece in New Orleans' strategy of clustering people in viable neighborhoods is finally off the ground with forgivable loans for first-time homebuyers.

The scandal-plagued Mandeville Citizen Service Fund is no more, and the police chief who ran it has been forced into early retirement.

BATON ROUGE -- Don't tell the folks at the Louisiana Public Service Commission that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

A week after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's Iowa visit, political junkies are still abuzz, wondering aloud about a possible Jindal presidential run in 2012.

In fact, it's only a matter of when, not if Jindal will occupy the White House, according to one pundit quoted Saturday in a story published online by the Washington Post.

An unidentified male motorcyclist was killed in a single-vehicle accident Thursday night in Lafitte, police said.

Chris GrangerSix-foot-long, 4-foot-high streetcar artwork greets passers-by on Decatur Street beside Cafe du Monde. The Vieux Carre Commission voted 6-0 to allow the streetcar sculptures to be installed through May.

To the Vieux Carre Commission, some public artworks are more equal, or at least more acceptable, than others -- and the more original they are, it seems, the more problematic they become.

Two months after the commission rejected the Arts Council of New Orleans' proposal to install two original public art projects on French Quarter sidewalks, it has agreed to allow another organization to install four individually decorated but basically identical sculptures on other walkways.

There was a heaviness in Rabbi Yossie Nemes' voice Friday, a sadness heaved up by violence half a world away.

Curtis Jones

A New Orleans Police Department reserve officer died early Saturday morning after a one-vehicle crash on Interstate 10.

Curtis Jones, 74, was driving east on the Interstate in a New Orleans Police Department unit when his car veered right, traveling off the road just before the Oak Harbor exit. He drove another 150 feet until the car hit a tree, according to a Louisiana State Police news release.