At least five people are dead and many are injured after storms hit the nation's southeast. South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi were all slammed by the severe weather and suspected tornadoes. Thousands remain without power. Derrick Becker, a public information officer for South Carolina Emergency Management, talks about what his organization is witnessing.

The Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers continue working around the clock to prevent massive flooding to major cities in the South. But even as they open floodgates and break through levees, the Mississippi River continues to rise. If it rises above 18.5 feet — two feet higher than it was on Saturday — access to parts of the river could be limited or temporarily shut down.

Long before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, officials in Congress were concerned about the "cozy" relationship between federal regulators and the oil industry and the failure of regulators to spend funds on safety measures, according to documents recently acquired by The New York Times. The documents were acquired through the Freedom of Information Act, and include emails between Congressional officials and the Minerals Management Service. Was the M.M.S. "stonewalling" all along? And how will Gulf residents take the news?

Since the financial crisis began in 2008, hundreds of banks have folded and federal regulators have become more cautious about the banks they approve to go into business. Hartie Spence is the President and CEO of Lakeside Bank in Lake Charles, La. He explains how Lakeside Bank became the only truly new bank to open this year.

It's been five years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast, ripping the footing out from under the residents of New Orleans. Many of those residents were musicians, who not only had to rebuild their homes but find their creative spirit after the devastation of the storm. Terence Blanchard, Grammy-winning jazz musician, says he's learned how to set his ego aside when composing music in the aftermath of the hurricane. 

BP has pledged to give $20 billion in compensation to victims of the devastating Deepwater Horizon oil gusher. So far, $300 million has been distributed, but many are concerned that some portion of this money has gone to people scamming the system.

For many politicians along the Gulf Coast, the oil spill has had an unexpected positive spillover effect – increased exposure and popularity. With the clear exception of BP and its doomed CEO, Tony Hayward, the oil spill has given politicians the opportunity to bond more closely with their constituents along the Gulf Coast.

Over 130,000 people have filed for damages due to the Gulf Oil Spill. They include shrimpers, realtors, deckhands, rig workers, restaurant owners and fish distributors from every Gulf State, and seven states beyond. Getting their checks from BP has been difficult. Only a third of the 130,000 claims against BP have been paid out. The rest are stuck in an whirlpool of red tape.

Yesterday, a Time Magazine article suggested the damage from the Gulf oil spill may have been exaggerated, and that some of the marsh areas important to the Gulf's life cycle may have escaped disaster. But can we know the full extent of the damage caused by the spill, just two weeks after the leak has been capped? The impact of the sheer volume of oil – which on its long journey to shore from the spill site loses some of its toxic qualities in the ocean – has yet to be determined. How can we better understand the complexity of the spill, and the road to recovery?

Six current and former New Orleans Police Department officers were indicted yesterday in connection with the Danziger Bridge shooting five years ago, amidst the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The indictment charges that NOPD officers shot at unarmed civilians as they crossed the bridge on September 4, 2005, leaving four people wounded and two dead: 17-year-old James Brissette and Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man who was shot in the back and, allegedly, kicked and stomped while dying, laid out on the ground.

Perhaps the only disaster equal in magnitude to the oil spill in the Gulf is the public relations disaster BP has on its hands for causing the spill. After weeks of embarrassing gaffes from BP executives, namely CEO Tony Hayward, BP is struggling to regain its footing. With the announcement that the maladroit Hayward is stepping away from overseeing daily operations related to the spill, BP is launching a media blitz in an attempt to mend their public image.

The centerpiece of that PR campaign is Darryl Willis. Willis is BP's vice president for resources who is now overseeing BP's claims process in the Gulf coast. He's also the star of a new ad campaign that seeks to portray him and the company as more caring and sincere than the steely Hayward. Part of the selling point of that strategy is the fact that Willis is a Louisiana native. 

A federal judge in New Orleans has overturned a moratorium on deepwater oil drilling, instituted by President Obama at the end of May. The judge said the Interior Department's decision to suspend drilling in the Gulf was arbitrary. Obama, on Tuesday, vowed to appeal the decision.

Since the start of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, neither BP nor politicians nor the smartest engineers and technicians in America have been able to cap the well and contain the damage.

Some Americans say we are looking to the wrong people for answers, and should instead be directing our requests to a higher power.

For 57 days, oil has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, following an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. That's 57 days of trying to determine what the leak looks like, how big it is, who it's affecting and where the oil has hit land. In other words: 57 days to get pretty creative.

Jeff Warren is a student and fellow at the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT. He's working on mapping the Gulf leak using digital cameras tied to balloons and kites. Here are some of the photos Warren and his colleagues have taken, using cheap digital cameras, kites, garbage bags, and tanks of helium.

"You take each image and you stretch it on a map and then every pixel of the location is a place in the real world," says Warren.

Lauren Craig is a master's student at Tulane and a photo volunteer. She's one of the people attaching a camera to a balloon and taking thousands upon thousands of photos.

After the jump, a short video by Jeff Warren in which he describes the project.

It's Monday, which means it's time to check what's on the agenda this week. Marcus Mabry, associate national editor for The New York Times, and Dan Gross, senior editor and finance expert at Newsweek, look at what's ahead for BP; what unemployment numbers, due out on Friday, will say of the economy; and court hearings for two accused home-grown terrorists, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspected Fort Hood shooter, and Faisal Shahzad, the accused Times Square bomber.

Amid criticisms about slow response times and an unclear chain of command, the question has been asked, "Is This Obama's Katrina?"  In a press conference yesterday - his first since the gulf oil leak five weeks ago - President Obama sent a clear message: I take responsibility.  This is my job.  And things should have moved faster.

Some of the workers who have been hired by BP to help clean up the massive Gulf oil spill say they’re getting headaches, dizziness and nausea after coming in close contact with oil and other chemicals from the spill.

Thousands of gallons of oil are still spewing each day from leaking pipes at the Deepwater Horizon's wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil has touched land along the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi and is headed for other coastlines along the Gulf. The amount of wildlife affected has been minimal so far, but more damage seems inevitable.

President Obama traveled to Louisiana yesterday for a first-hand briefing on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The "Deepwater Horizon" oil rig exploded on April 20th, rupturing its well and eventually sinking into the Gulf. An estimated 200,000 gallons of oil are gushing into the Gulf each day, as federal government and BP officials frantically explore options to contain the spill.

At least ten state and federal wildlife refuges are in the path of the river of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf Coast is one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life and commercial fishermen are bracing for the worst.