| By Drew Broach | Deputy metro editor
ZERO: For months now, and especially since Hurricane Ida roared through New Orleans on Aug. 29, residents along Metro Service Group's garbage collection routes in New Orleans have complained the contractor is ignoring their curbside containers. It turns out that Metro is required to provide service reports to the City Hall, and for each of the six months through July, it reported the same number of complaints every month: 0.
SUCCESS STORY: In a notable milestone for New Orleans' fledgling tech scene, Levelset, an entirely homegrown software business founded almost a decade ago, was sold last week for $500 million to a California company worth $12.5 billion. It's the kind of deal that helps establish New Orleans as a contender among smaller cities to lure investment from the leading tech hubs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and along the Boston-New York-Washington D.C. corridor.
FEEL THE HISTORY: Another homegrown success story is that of Terence Blanchard, the jazz trumpeter and composer who grew up in Pontchartrain Park. When the famed Metropolitan Opera of New York, dark since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, reopens Monday, it will be with his “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first time in the Met's 138-year history that it has presented a work by a Black composer.
Thanks for starting your day with us. Check out the rest of our coverage on NOLA.com. D.B. | 
