Reports

A proposal that might make it easier for black candidates to win posts on New Orleans' City Council now has the support of all current council members.

The council president and vice president made that announcement Wednesday evening.

The only two African-American members of the 7-member council have stayed away from recent meetings after the council deadlocked on the issue earlier this month.

There was already one vacancy on the council, so the apparent boycott by Jon Johnson and Cynthia Hedge-Morrell made it impossible to get the quorum needed to conduct business.

It remains unclear whether the two council members will return for Thursday's meeting.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Gov. Bobby Jindal is headed to North Carolina for a meeting of Republican governors.

The GOP governor's trip comes as the state's budget is mired in disputes, pieces of Jindal's agenda are stalled in the waning days of the legislative session and lawmakers are criticizing the governor for absenteeism.

Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said Jindal was traveling to Charlotte on Wednesday and will return to Baton Rouge on Friday. Plotkin said Jindal is participating in a Republican Governors' Association policy summit.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Two bills focused on deterring pregnant women from getting abortions have been overwhelmingly approved by two legislative health committees.

Sen. Sharon Weston Broome said Wednesday that her proposal gives women the opportunity to listen to a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed. The measure is based on a similar law passed last year in Texas requiring that doctors conduct a sonogram, describe the fetus and play a fetal heartbeat for pregnant women seeking abortions.

Opponents say the bill overreaches and women seeking abortions have already weighed their options.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — After months of delay over legal wrangling, a federal judge says the Army Corps of Engineers can re-start the bidding process for a $700 million contract to build pump stations at the mouths of three drainage canals in New Orleans. Two of the canals were breached during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former BP engineer charged with deleting text messages about how much oil was leaking from the company's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico is claiming that evidence federal investigators did not possess will prove him innocent. Kurt Mix has pleaded not guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice.