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Welcome to our newest section “Odds & Ends” where we report on real news that looks like it could be satire but it’s really, truly, seriously not.

Potential Democratic presidential candidate and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu continues to rack up awards as he heads into the homestretch of his final term and into the spotlight of his city’s monumental upcoming tricentennial celebration.

The Aspen Institute, the organization that hosted a “security conference” in Aspen, Colo. this past August for which Landrieu famously stayed for a full day despite New Orleans experiencing significant flooding after a major rainstorm, will present the mayor with the Preston Robert Tisch Award in Civic Leadership for 2017.

The award is presented to an individual who has had a positive impact on his/her community, who embodies the broad Aspen Institute ideal of values-based leadership, and who has exemplified this ideal in innovative ways that can serve as models for other leaders.

According to The Aspen Institute:

The 2017 Robert Preston Tisch Award for Civic Leadership will honor Mitchell J. Landrieu, Mayor of the City of New Orleans. Presentation of the award will be followed by a discussion a conversation between Mayor Landrieu and Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. Mitchell J. Landrieu became the 61st Mayor of New Orleans in 2010 with a clear mandate to turn the city around following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. He was overwhelmingly re-elected to a second term in 2014. Under Landrieu, New Orleans became one of the fastest growing major cities in America, adding over 15,000 new jobs and securing more than $6 billion in private development. To combat the city’s notoriously high murder rate, Landrieu launched NOLA FOR LIFE in 2012, a murder-reduction strategy that has brought about a nearly 20% decrease in murders, the lowest level in the city in decades. Prior to serving as Mayor, Landrieu served as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana for six years and as a State legislator for 16 years, where he earned a reputation as a reformer. A graduate of Catholic University in Washington, DC, he also holds a law degree from Loyola University.

Other awards and recognition recently received by Mayor Mitch Landrieu: