NEW ORLEANS -- A weaker-than-expected Hurricane Gustav swirled into the fishing villages and oil-and-gas towns of Louisiana's Cajun country Monday, delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that did little more than send water sloshing harmlessly over its rebuilt floodwalls.

Don’t look for a multitude of Mountaineers around the Valley. Unless, that is, you are hanging out at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort, where the West Virginia University football team is staying, or the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort, where the alumni and trickle of die-hard supporters have set up camp.

NEW ORLEANS - An empty intersection. A tree surrounded by hurricane debris. Ruined houses still untouched since they were flooded by roof-deep water. Now they've been joined by an outdoor stage, with actors and an audience.

NEW ORLEANS - He was king for the day, and actor James Gandolfini ruled with a doubloon-filled fist, pleasing the revelers who stood in chilly temperatures for one of the highlights of Carnival - the rolling of the Krewe of Bacchus parade.

NEW ORLEANS - Lack of airline flights in and out of New Orleans prompted Microsoft Corp. to cancel three meetings expected to bring a total of more than 30,000 people to New Orleans next year.

NEW ORLEANS - City planners who have been working independently will be brought together to develop a reconstruction plan to rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina, Mayor Ray Nagin announced Wednesday.

NEW ORLEANS - Longtime port developer Joseph Cocchiara Jr. stands between railroad tracks and old warehouses. He could walk 100 feet and fall into the murky Mississippi River, yet he’s on some of the most coveted property in the city.

WASHINGTON - President Bush is requesting $1.5 billion more to help make the levee system in New Orleans stronger than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

NEW ORLEANS - Clarence Rodriguez has ripped up the water-buckled floor tiles and is hard at work scraping mold off the walls of his home in the mostly black and impoverished Ninth Ward.

NEW ORLEANS - Nicole Guinchard left home with a fine arts degree nearly two years ago to find work in Alaska. Now she's back, hoping to land a job waiting tables at a top restaurant and support family members who lost their homes.

As a public health catastrophe unfolded Wednesday in New Orleans, hospitals in the Crescent City sank further into disaster, airlifting babies without their parents to other states and struggling with more sick people appearing at their doors.