| By DREW BROACH | Deputy metro editor |
VOYAGE PARISIEN: Mayor LaToya Cantrell has said her $43,000 summer trip to France carried a legitimate public purpose: She formed a partnership with a city of 76,000 on the Mediterranean Sea, a deal she says will help boost New Orleans’ international profile and spur economic development. What hasn’t been widely discussed is one-day side trip to Paris with three staffers, which included airfare from the south of France and lodging near the Eiffel Tower at a hotel that averaged $726 a room, according to records obtained by The Times-Picayune. ON THE WATERFRONT: One of the largest urban waterfront projects in the United States was approved Wednesday by the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center board, which sealed its River District deal with real estate developers for almost 2,000 new housing units, retail, office space, hotels, entertainment venues, a soccer stadium and a civil-rights museum. Some think it will attract more than $1 billion of investments over the next decade. ABORTION EXCEPTION: The difficulty of interpreting Louisiana’s new law against terminating pregnancies has been starkly illustrated by the case of Nancy Davis, the Baton Rouge woman who was denied an abortion by Woman’s Hospital even though her fetus is developing without a skull. But now the sponsor of the law, state Sen. Katrina Jackson, and 35 other legislators say it’s clear to them that Davis is entitled to an abortion because the fetus is “medically futile.” The hospital did not say whether it’s changing its position. Thanks for starting your Thursday with Morning Headlines. D.B. | 