It's being called a "landmark decision." A federal judge ruled November 18 in favor of New Orleans residents and one business, the plaintiffs, and against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a Hurricane Katrina flooding lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge Stanwood R. Duval, Jr, decided that the Corps failed to maintain the levees that breached during Katrina, flooding St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. The case involved six plaintiffs, two of which are in the same household, and the court awarded $720,000 in compensation to the remaining four.

CNN and bloggers report that the body of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis of Fayetteville, NC, has been found. Earlier today 200 people searched for the child's body after police received a tip that she was dead, say news sources.

Updated 10:20 p.m. CST: Army statements at Fort Hood shooting news conference declare the alleged shooter, Major Malik Nadal Hasan, a U.S. soldier and psychiatrist, was not killed during today's shooting spree on the Texas military base. A new source reports the following:

UPDATE: At 10:07 pm, the Newark Star-Ledger announced over its live stream that the Associated Press has called the New Jersey Governor's race for Chris Christie.

Last year during national Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and I mean exactly one year ago on October 28, 2008, I wrote about one of the most disturbing cases with a connection to domestic violence the nation had seen in a while. A tale of horror unfolded, the murders of the mother, brother and young nephew of acclaimed actress and singer Jennifer Hudson. The alleged perpetrator, her sister's estranged husband William Balfour, was later arrested.

Its fairly obvious that there's a massive change brewing in the depths of the GOP. Although the Tea Partiers and the "grassroots" have made it clear that Obama is their primary enemy, there's another front that's come to light in this war; the mainstream conservatives are now taking on the tough job of purging their party of big-government bureaucrats from within. Nowhere is that more evident than the battle taking place in NY-23.

Police in Richmond, California say a 15-year old girl was gang raped at school, during Homecoming. Let me repeat that. Gang raped AT SCHOOL. CNN has the details:

[Updated to add below new related links to stories about India and climate change]

When the news broke about the missing "balloon boy" last week, I was attending Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. More specifically, I was a panelist and focused on my presentation - far away from television but I was connected by twitter. As tweets scrolled by with #balloonboy, I tried to piece together what was going on with this trending topic. From what I gathered, 6 year old Falcon Heene was in a hot air balloon being persued by authorities and at some point it seemed as if the child had fallen out of the balloon.

For Part 1 of this post, which lays a foundation giving context for those who need clarification on meanings of the word "racism" and "racist," please click this link.So, given what happened recently in my state of Louisiana, the Justice of the Peace admitting he won't marry interracial couples and the words he used to defend his views,

I'm with Colleen from Chasing Ray: A whole lot of crazy has converged on us this week, and it's enough to drive us both insane!

Julia Grovenburg is pregnant with Jillian.And Hudson.And they weren't conceived at the same time.But they might be born at the same time.But if they were actually born on their due dates, they'd be born in different years. One this year, one in 2010.It's called "superfetation."My head hurts.HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?Apparently, it happens all the time to rabbits.