Fat Tuesday in The Big Easy

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - This is a day of parades and parties in New
Orleans.
Fat Tuesday is marked by family-friendly events uptown and in
the suburbs -- and by heavy drinking and near- nudity in the French
Quarter.
Pete Fountain's Half-Fast Walking Club starts the day, followed
by the Zulu and Rex parades and the meeting of the courts of Rex
and Comus tonight.
The hotel association expects more than 90 percent of the area's
32,000 hotel rooms will be filled during the long weekend ending
tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. Some 800,000 people were on hand last
year.
Sporadic violence has been reported during Mardi Gras
celebrations this year. Police blame it mostly on drug disputes or
personal grudges. A police official says it's "the rarest of times
where actual true, good, law-abiding citizens are hurt."