A scene from “Top Chef”‘s season 10 finale with hosts/judges Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi. via BravoTV.com

Season 11 of the popular Bravo cooking competition Top Chef will be taking place in New Orleans, which continues to recover from the devastation wrought by the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

To film in New Orleans, the show is getting $375,000 — $175,000 from the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation and $200,000 from the Louisiana Office of Tourism. This upset chef/TV personality Anthony Bourdain, who suggested on Twitter that the network give “$200G back to Louisiana.” Bravo’s Andy Cohen fired back about the origins of the money, pointing a finger at money that Treme has gotten for filming there, which set off that show’s creator David Simon, who says that his program has always given to charity and provides jobs for locals.

For its part, Jacque Berry, the communications director for the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, said the money is well-spent. “Our job is to get tourism through Louisiana and we recognize that lots of that starts through New Orleans. This usage (of funds) was intended when put aside. It’s to show the nation that Louisiana is in good shape and that the food and seafood are in good shape which is all true,” she told Fox.

Overall, Louisiana’s argument is that this money was previously set aside for just this purpose, and ultimately, it’s doing good for the city and the state as a whole to be used this way. As a side note, Fox points out that Seattle also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Bravo when Top Chef filmed there.

Do you think Bravo should make a point of giving back to New Orleans?

Source: AP

From BlackVoices

Gunmen opened fire on people marching in a neighborhood Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans on Sunday, wounding at least 19.

The shooting – described by the FBI as a flare-up of street violence – shattered the festive mood surrounding the parade that drew hundreds of people to the 7th Ward neighborhood of modest row houses not far from the French Quarter. Cell phone video taken in the aftermath of the shooting shows victims lying on the ground, blood on the pavement and others bending over to comfort them.

At least three of the victims were seriously wounded. Of the rest, many were grazed and authorities said that overall most wounds were not life threatening. No deaths were reported.

The victims included 10 men, seven women, a boy and a girl. The children, both 10 years old, were grazed and in good condition.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu urged witnesses to come forward with information during a news conference Sunday night at a hospital where gunshot victims were taken.

“These kinds of incidents will not go unanswered. Somebody knows something. The way to stop this violence is for you all to help,” he said.

Mary Beth Romig, a spokeswoman for the FBI in New Orleans, said federal investigators have no indication that the shooting was an act of terrorism.

“It’s strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans,” she said.

Read more on BlackVoices.com.

Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Here’s a nice twist on a celebrity owned business! Actor Wendell Pierce has opened a chain of grocery and convenience stores called Sterling Farms in his hometown of New Orleans. Sterling Farms, Jezebel reports, offers fresh and healthy food, and rides home if you spend more than $50.

According to Nola Eater, the first location opened last summer and has been expanding ever since. What else makes the chain unique, which helped boost business in the still-recovering Big Easy, is that it also caters to the special needs of low-income shoppers. “The most important thing to me is creating a relationship with the community; creating an economic engine as an opportunity for them just to have access to a decent grocery store,” Pierce, who stared in HBO’s The Wire as well as countless films, said in a press statement.

And, says Nola Eater, each month the store hosts a cookout. For the venture, Pierce teamed uo with  business partners Troy Henry and James Hatchett.

If you’d like to check out the NBC Nightly News coverage of the new grocer, click below.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Terrilynn Monette, the talented New Orleans school teacher who was credited with improving her underperforming elementary school, has been missing for almost two weeks.

Monette, the 26 year old originally from California, was last seen on Saturday, March 2 when she was out with friends celebrating being nominated for “Teacher of the Year” for her district. Apparently, Monette was feeling like she’d had too much to drink and told her friends she was going to go sleep it off in her car parked nearby.

At around 4 am her friends saw that Monette was talking to a man near her car. By sunrise both she and her 2012 black Honda Accord were missing and her cell phone had stopped emitting a signal.
The man she was seen speaking with has been interviewed and the police have ruled him out as a suspect.

Unlike many of the other missing, black men and women, Monette’s story seems to be receiving a lot of media coverage.

More than 200 people, including members of Terrilyn’s family, her coworkers and volunteers have been searching for Monette along with the police.

Before some of you attempt to blame Monette’s disappearance on her “irresponsibility,” know that this could happen to any woman, whether she’d been drinking or not.

Recently, CNN aired a piece about Terrilyn.

If you have any information about Terrilyn Monette, please let someone know.

AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

If you were looking for a reason to head to New Orleans in July for the 19th annual Essence Music Festival this year, this new lineup of theirs is sure to have you thirsty to get to NOLA. Recently announced to headline this year’s festival is the ultimate diva, Beyoncé. Adding another date to her already jam packed Mrs. Carter tour schedule, Bey will take the Superdome stage one mo’ ‘gin for fans, and everyone seems excited, including Essence Communication President, Michelle Ebanks, who says, “We are incredibly excited to welcome Beyoncé back to the 2013 ESSENCE Festival line-up. She is truly the ultimate ESSENCE woman.” Homegirl will of course headline one of three concert nights that is happening July 4-7, but her specific show date has not been pegged yet. In any case, keep those four days open in your schedule.

Ironically, Bey is a headliner, as is Keyshia Cole, who has had a lot to say as of late about homegirl’s former Destiny’s Child bandmate, Michelle Williams. Jill Scott is also a big headliner for the festival, as is my husband Maxwell, Brandy, Charlie Wilson and many more talented folks (including the very slept on Les Nubians, who are an amazing group!). Check out the many acts who have so far been slated to perform during the 19th annual Essence Music Festival come summer, and get more info on another sure-to-knock-the-lights-out-performance by Beyoncé at Essence.com.

Will you be there July 4-7, and who would you be excited to see?

Judy Eddy/WENN

Besides getting busy in the boxing ring, one thing everyone knows about Floyd Mayweather is that he loves making money and showing it off.

However, he’s now suing a New Orleans wine bistro for using his name as well as the Money Team name – his crew which includes Justin Bieber, his girlfriend Miss Jackson and possibly still 50 Cent – to lure in patrons and getting pretty big pay off during Super Bowl weekend.

In the lawsuit, Mayweather says The Wine Bistro advertised everywhere that he and the Money Team would be hosting a party with DJ Drama on February 1st. The problem is that Mayweather says neither he nor anyone from the Money Team agreed on any such appearance for the establishment. He is concerned that they made lots of money from his name and his fans will be upset with him for not appearing.

Part of the reason it seems Mayweather would not have ever appeared at this place is because he says he makes upwards of $100,000 per appearance and it’s very possible that The Wine Bistro would not have been able to afford that.

He’s asking that they not ever use his name and also for a lot of money, although the actual dollar amount has not been revealed.

You know what? We can’t even be mad at Floyd for this one. Sure, he’s cocky and extravagant but when your name is being used to make a profit and you don’t see any of it (not to mention you didn’t agree to it), it makes sense that he would take legal action. Many celebrities will take to their social media accounts to just debunk any rumors about them making appearances but they won’t take it any further if word that they will be appearing has already gone past their reach.

There’s been no response from The Wine Bar.

Leave it to those infamous Super Bowl parties to reveal which celebs have left their former lovers in the dust of the previous year and snagged up new boos just in time for Valentine’s Day. It seems that Shaq’s new years resolution may have been to get rid of his on-again,off-again former reality star fiancée Hoopz for good, as he was seen partying at a private gathering at The Hookah Lounge in New Orleans with “Entertainment Tonight” co-host Rocsi Diaz, reports Page Six.

Of course, the time Shaq and Rocsi spent together could’ve simply been some plain old platonic fun, but their fellow partygoers are suggesting otherwise.

“Shaq and Rocsi were holding hands at this private party and at a private table. They looked like an odd couple, but they seemed really into each other,” a source exclusively told Page Six.

Representatives of the “106 and Park” host aren’t exactly denying or confirming the claims.

“Rocsi was there hosting and her free time was incredibly short because of her work with ET. I can confirm they [she and Shaq] are very good friends,” said a rep from Diaz’s camp.

What’s interesting to note is that although Rocsi’s relationship with comedian Eddie Murphy is clearly over, Shaq and Hoopz were spotted in the Bahamas just last month. Reports even suggested that the two were back together. Not that it would mean much to Rocsi, as she’s earned quite a reputation for being a homewrecker over the years due to her alleged involvement with actress LisaRaye McCoy’s ex-husband during the couple’s marriage.

Whatever the nature of her relationship with Shaq, Rocsi appears to have had a great time.

“Anybody else believe today should be a national holiday ???Tired.com ,” The ET Tonight host tweeted.

Hmmm…

Do you think Shaq ditched Hoopz for Rocsi?

Photos courtesy of WENN

Jazmine Denise is a news writer for Madame Noire. Follow her on Twitter @jazminedenise

A member of the Krewe du Vieux at last year’s Mardi Gras. AP Photo/Jonathan Bachman

Just about everyone is anticipating the upcoming Super Bowl XLVII. Whether you are a Baltimore or San Francisco native, an overall NFL fan, a commercial aficionado, or just trying to get a glimpse of the possible Destiny’s Child reunion, millions of people will be watching.

No matter who takes home the title, one the biggest winners in this whole deal is the city of New Orleans. With the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras piggybacking each other, NOLA is expecting to see fans and party goers come out in record numbers.

USA Today reports on the lack of hotel accommodations still available in the city. According to hotel search site Trivago, city hotels are completely booked for game day. As of Friday morning, the Super Bowl fan lodging site showed that there were 10 hotels available for Super Bowl weekend, however they were all over an hour away in Baton Rouge. To get a decent rate or a room at all in the Big Easy, you’d have to wait until after Fat Tuesday.

The lack of available rooms and surplus of people is a good sign for the city of New Orleans’ economy. However, The Times-Picayune references experts who say all the money being dragged in leads to a lot of money being dragged out. It was predicted during the Super Bowl XLVII bid that the game would bring in an over $434 million boost, but economist Victor Matheson at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, who has studied decades of Super Bowls, says that after subtracting costs that number would likely be more like $30 million.

The factors he considers are, “the substitution effect,” which is when residents spend money on Super Bowl-related events they otherwise would have spent in other parts of the city. Then the “crowding out effect” takes place when tourists not interested in the game, and organizers of other events such as conventions, avoid the city because the Super Bowl dominates attention and space. And “leakages” when some of the Super Bowl spending funnels to corporate headquarters elsewhere, such as in the case of hotels that are jam-packed, but the strong profits mostly benefit their national chains.

Either way, the city stands to make some money on these back to back events and I think everyone is pleased to see New Orleans once ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, back and better than ever.

And speaking of back and better than ever, we saw this story and wanted to share: the Baby Doll Ladies are making a comeback during Mardi Gras. Moreover, a book and museum exhibit about the history of female troupes is coming soon.

WENN.com

It seems to be over before it got started.  Back in March, Lil Wayne unveiled a joint campaign he made with PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew. It was a multi-million dollar deal called the “DeWeezy Project” that the rapper announced at SXSW. And while the terms of the agreement were not revealed, it was said to be Mountain Dew’s biggest celebrity deal to date, Forbes reported.

Now, Lil Wayne is marking the end of the project with the new commercial for Mountain Dew. That clip is below.

Haven’t heard of the DeWeezy Project? When it was first announced, there seemed to be major plans, such as a possible feature film for Weezy, Forbes stated. It doesn’t look like all of the project’s goals were met.

One achievement the project did accomplish is a new skatepark in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward Village, which was  devastated  by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Lil Wayne was there for the unveiling in September. We’ve also got a clip of that below. According to a press release, the skatepark was designed and built by renowned skatepark developer California Skateparks and landscape architect Tim Duggan, of Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation, under the direction of GLU Agency. The eco-friendly skatepark was designed to mirror the landscape of the Lower Ninth Ward.

“The main floor of the indoor park represents a portion of the street grid around The Village, with a line down the center representing Caffin Avenue.  Connecting bank and quarter pipe end pieces at either end of the park represent the Mississippi River and the Bayou Bienvenue,” notes the press release.

The DeWeezy Project wasn’t just a skatepark. Through the project, Mountain Dew has also partnered with Stoked, an organization that promotes personal development, academic achievement and healthy living to under-served youth via action sports.

For the final phase of the project, Weezy reached out to teens. According to TargetMarketNews, “In collaboration with the action sports youth development agency Stoked, the program enlisted 10 teens from the NYC area to work with brand and industry executives… to co-create a :30 second television commercial. Through www.deweezy.com, fans were able to follow the teens’ journey and vote for their favorite concepts and final cuts.”

Although the project is over, there wasn’t much media coverage or even word on just how involved Lil Wayne was and how many kids participated. With the good it looks to be doing, we’re hoping it was more than just a short-lived publicity stunt.

bossip.com

Hey loves! Hopefully, you all have been enjoying the weekend and staying out of trouble (at least the “bad” kind of trouble).  The celebs tried to have quiet weekends but I found some very interesting things.  Let’s see what we came up with!

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