| By DREW BROACH | Deputy metro editor |
FAMILY TRAGEDY: Firefighters charged into a burning house near Gretna on Friday to find a 7-year-old boy unconscious at the bottom of a staircase. They carried him outside, then found and carried out his 2-year-old brother and finally found and removed the boys’ 15-year-old sister, who had been babysitting them. All three died of smoke inhalation. TIGHTENING UP: Few technical devices in oil and gas drilling may be as famous - or infamous - as the blowout preventer. The device gained notoriety in 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon rig’s blowout preventer failed to activate during a leak, causing an explosion that killed 11 people and released millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Now President Joe Biden’s administration wants to reinvigorate the safety and technical standards for blowout preventers, three years after the standards were relaxed during the Donald Trump administration. CORNERED: For more than a century, street corners in the older sections of New Orleans have been marked with names made from embedded alphabet tiles. Their provenance is not well documented, although this amateur historian has spent years trying to find out. NEW ADDITION: Catch the best local culture and history coverage with our new Essential New Orleans newsletter. Sign up to receive it every weekend at NOLA.com/essential. Welcome to the weekend. Check the latest news all day on NOLA.com. D.B. | 