| By Drew Broach | Deputy metro editor
DESCENSION: Julia Dardar was 36, married, mother of two teenaged girls, an artistic sort and a car mechanic living with her family in Slidell. Somewhere along the line, however, she became addicted to methamphetamine and developed psychiatric problems, and by June, she split from her husband, eventually moving in with Benjamin Beale at his house in the 2200 block of Pauline Street in New Orleans, where police said they found a meth lab and headless human body in a freezer.
ASCENSION: Post-mayoral life has been lucrative for Mitch Landrieu, according to financial disclosures he filed with the White House last month. The former New Orleans mayor, whom President Joe Biden appointed to oversee federal infrastructure spending in November, made almost $2 million over the past two years, largely in salary from the nonprofit he heads and from his consulting firm.
INCARCERATION: After standoffs with heavily armed police in the Hollygrove and Treme neighborhoods, two of four youths who made a dramatic escape from the New Orleans Juvenile Justice Intervention Center were caught Thursday.
Thanks for starting you day with us. More news rolls out all day on NOLA.com. D.B. | 
