NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — As people head back to work Tuesday after the long holiday weekend, beads will be flying, crawfish boiling and parades rolling in New Orleans as the city celebrates Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday, marks the climax and end of the weekslong Carnival season and a final chance for indulgence, feasting and revelry before the Christian Lent period of sacrifice and reflection. The joyous goodbye to Carnival always falls the day before Ash Wednesday. Among...

TYLER, Texas (AP) — It was an unfamiliar setting for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Monday night: walking out to the applause of supporters at his first campaign rally since the Republican announced his candidacy for the U. S. Senate 10 months ago. Paxton's appearance before about 100 supporters in a bar in east Texas is part of his stepped-up campaign to unseat four-term Republican Sen. John Cornyn and add a “Make America Great Again” devotee to the Senate, a bid that has set up one...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It is Carnival season in New Orleans. That means gazillions of green, gold and purple Mardi Gras beads. Once made of glass and cherished by parade spectators who were lucky enough to catch them, today cheap plastic beaded necklaces from overseas are tossed from floats by the handful. Spectators sometimes pile dozens around their necks, but many are trashed or left on the ground. A few years ago after heavy flooding, the city found more than 46 tons of them clogging its The...