After waiting nearly 5 years, the possibility of a hospital has finally become a reality.

Councilman Wayne Landry says the Hospital Service Board and the Meraux Foundation have now agreed to the language in the donation documents.

Landry says, "Those documents, once they're signed will be forwarded to the state and we will be waiting for them to literally say go ahead and we can start building our hospital."

Construction could begin in as soon as 2 weeks on the 11 and half acres donated by the Meraux Foundation.

Phillip Wendling is the project executive. He says the new hospital will be a state of the art facility with an electronic medical recording keeping system and all digital equipment.

Wendling says, "This is going to be a 2 story 40 bed hospital. It will be about 104,000 square feet."

Tens of thousands of residents have not returned to the parish since the storm. Some believe a new hospital will give people a reason to come home.

Rita Gue with the Meraux Foundation says, "We're so excited about this becoming a reality. We really want to thank Parish President Craig Taffaro and Danny Dysart for their support on the project."

The lead investigator in the Michael Anderson capital murder case is the same NOPD officer to agree to plead guilty in a cover up at the Danziger Bridge shooting.

A judge ordered a new trial for Anderson earlier this week, but with the lead investigator's credibility in question, any re-trial would be a vastly different case.

A large part of the capital murder case against anderson was put in place brick by brick by then NOPD investigator Jeff Lehrmann.

"He was the lead detective. He is the one who arrested Michael Anderson. He is the one who interviewed Torrie Williams, the supposed eyewitness. He's the one who got the version out of her that she then contradicted when she was interviewed by the DA's office. He is the one who rejected the FBI investigation that pointed to Telly Hankton. His credibility is central," says Anderson's attorney Richard Bourke.

Bourke thinks the involvement of the former NOPD officer about to plead guilty to turning a blind eye to the alleged Danziger Bridge cover-up, plus political pressure are responsible for Michael Anderson's conviction for killing 5 Mid-City teens in 2006.

"This is how wrongful convictions happen. This is what happens. You have a corrupt investigation. You have a trial corrupted by prosecutorial misconduct because of the political pressure to bring a prosecution. The re-indictment of Michael Anderson after the case was dropped was a political decision, not a legal decision," Bourke says.

With multiple DA's and multiple office moves after Katrina, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro hailed the Anderson conviction as marking a turn around for the city's criminal justice system.

"There was no political pressure, I disagree with that as far as the political pressure. We have been trying to establish a confidence in our criminal justice system and when law enforcement officials get indicted and they plead guilty, it hurts that confidence," he says.

Cannizzaro won't talk specific strategy in the Anderson case, but says generally, when a witness' credibility is questioned, you call in other witnesses or investigators to make the same claims.

"It hurts the case there is no question about that. It is not devastating to the case. It is not a reason in which we would say we cannot go forward with this case," Cannizzaro says.

Asked if a questionable lead investigator will make his office dramatically rethink the case or look at other suspects, Cannizzaro says his office is convinced that Michael Anderson is responsible for the 5 killings.

Lehrmann was an NOPD officer for one year, but served with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office for almost a decade.

He is due to be arraigned in federal court tomorrow morning.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Kevin Durant scored 29 points, Russell Westbrook added 17 points and came up just shy of a triple-double, and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the injury-depleted New Orleans Hornets 98-83 on Wednesday night.

The Hornets got off to a hot start in their latest return to the building they called home for two seasons following Hurricane Katrina, but it was short-lived with Peja Stojakovic joining All-Star point guard Chris Paul on the team's injured list.

Stojakovic is expected to miss at least two weeks with a lower abdominal strain.

Oklahoma City took the lead for good in the second quarter and never got much of a challenge in the second half as New Orleans shot 43 percent.

David West scored 33 for the Hornets, who recorded their highest total of the season two days earlier in a 135-131 shootout win against Golden State, but struggled to get anything going except when their power forward had the ball.

West hit his first six shots and was able to maneuver inside for baskets with regularity, but little else was working for New Orleans. By the time West was lifted with 7:41 to play and the Hornets down by 18, he had scored 33 of his team's 69 points.

Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton, the rookie tandem that kept the Hornets competitive despite Paul's absence following knee surgery last month, combined for 19 points on 7-for-27 shooting in the team's seventh loss in the last nine games.

Collison has scored in double figures in all but two of the 27 games he's started in place of Paul - both meetings against the Thunder. He also had his streak of seven straight games with at least 18 points and nine assists snapped. It was the longest string by a rookie since Oscar Robertson set an NBA record with eight in a row in 1960-61.

Oklahoma City had lost 10 in a row against New Orleans before winning the last two with Paul on the sidelines.

Westbrook also had nine assists and eight rebounds, and had those totals entering the fourth quarter. He didn't add to either in 4½ minutes of playing time before being pulled with the game out of hand. He has two career triple-doubles, one each of the past two seasons.

Reserve Serge Ibaka added 12 points and nine rebounds for the Thunder, and Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic scored 10 apiece.

Thornton had 11 points and Julian Wright, staring in place of Stojakovic, scored 10.

New Orleans scored 11 of the game's first 13 points and maintained its nine-point lead halfway through the first quarter while riding West's 6-for-6 start from the field. Oklahoma City then reeled off 10 straight points to go up 20-19 on Westbrook's jumper.

The Hornets took a brief 33-32 lead after Wright's driving layup early in the second quarter, but the Thunder charged right back to take the lead for good. Oklahoma City built its own nine-point following an 8-0 run that included Emeka Okafor airballing a pair of free throws for New Orleans.

Durant's driving, right-handed jam put the Thunder up 48-39.

NOTES: Hornets coach Jeff Bower said the two-week prognosis for Stojakovic's return was a "minimum timeframe." He expressed hope that Wright, a 2007 first-round draft pick, could use the extra playing time to build on his game. "It's full of energy and athleticism and full of possibilities," Bower said. "What we need to do is turn those possibilities into production." ... D.J. White, recalled by the Thunder from the NBA D-League a day earlier, played for the first time since Dec. 14. He had surgery to repair a broken right thumb in January. ... Attendance was 18,203 as Oklahoma City recorded its 18th sellout in 31 home games. That matches last season's total, when the Ford Center's capacity was 19,163.

(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

New Orleans - The former Orleans Parish School Board President who admits she took bribes, will face sentencing tomorrow.

Ellenese Brooks-Simms could get up to five years in prison for taking cash in exchange for supporting a school computer software program.

Brooks-Simms sentencing has been delayed for over two years.

Her attorney has not said why the sentencing continues to get pushed back, only that she has cooperated with the feds from the beginning.