NEW ORLEANS – The search for Hurricane Katrina victims has ended in Louisiana with a death toll at 964, but more searches will be conducted if someone reports seeing a body, a state official said Monday.
State and federal agencies have finished their sweeps through the city, but Kenyon International Emergency Services, the private company hired by the state to remove the bodies, is on call if any other body is found, said Bob Johannessen, a spokesman with the state Department of Health and Hospitals.
Mississippi’s death toll remained at 221.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continued pumping water out of New Orleans’ lower Ninth Ward. Efforts to rebuild the levees that breached, causing water to cascade into the city, remained under way.
Electricity had been restored to about 36 percent of New Orleans customers and to about 99 percent of the customers in neighboring Jefferson Parish, said Entergy Corp. spokesman Chanel Lagarde.
N.Y.: Tour boat lacked crew
A tour boat that capsized on Lake George on Sunday, killing 20 people, did not have the required number of crew members aboard, leading state regulators to suspend licenses for all five vessels belonging to the company that operated the tour, officials said Monday. Any commercial boat that carries 21 to 48 passengers must have two crew members, said a spokeswoman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Authorities have said the only crew member aboard was Capt. Richard Paris.
Alabama: Monument judge to run
Roy Moore, 58, who became a hero to the religious right after being ousted as Alabama’s chief justice for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse, announced Monday that he is running for governor in 2006 as a Republican.
Montana: Thousands seek bison
More than 6,000 people, most of them Montana residents, have applied for 24 licenses to hunt the state’s bison for the first time in 15 years, wildlife officials said Monday. Last month, wildlife commissioners approved a three-month hunt of bison that leave Yellowstone National Park and enter southern Montana. A drawing will be held next week.
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