Holiday cheer turned bloody on Christmas Eve in MidCity. At 1:18 AM, New Orleans Police responded to an Aggravated Battery by Cutting on the normally placid 2800 block of Bell Street. What began as a derigeur holiday argument between two individuals became violent, when one party unsatisfied with rhetoric alone, grabbed a knife.

In SoLa,, music has its own seasons also. We have songs for the Saints, songs for Mardi Gras, and of course, we have songs for Christmas. NoDef's staff took to the YouTube to dig out a few of our favorites for y'all this Noel. Representing the Cajun tradition, we found Vin Bruce's "Christmas on the Bayou." Of course, December 25th can not pass without at least one play-through of Aaron Nwville's "Louisiana Christmas Day." Rounding out our selections is a contemporary classsic with 9th Ward flair: Benny Grunch & the Bunch's "12 Y'ats of Christmas." Click through to hear them all.

by Shay Sokol

Just after 1:00 PM, Keith Dusko, co-owner of the restaurant Chiba, was prepping for the day when a casual glance at his surveillance cameras revealed a theft in progress. The booty was none other than Dusko’s own bicycle. The chase that followed was worthy of Vittorio DeSica, but the statement on crime was, sadly, all NOLA.

While the recently announced NOLA Hiphop Archive project has already raised a few eyebrows, founder Holly Hobbs can’t stop, won’t stop. As a PhD student at Tulane University and a budding ethnomusicologist, Hobbs hopes to change the way people think and write about hiphop. She’s starting by keeping it local, exploring the scene that she first got involved with when she moved to New Orleans nearly four years ago. This month’s social media launch is Hobbs’ first step in realizing her ultimate goal: a collection of New Orleans’ hip-hop history housed in its own museum or library space.

In a place where the collective experience of parades, boomer musician curtain calls, and Cape Verdean storm systems already occupy a huge portion of private life, the events of the past year caused all New Orleanians to speak with a single guttural noise. From Causeway to Gulf, there rang out a booming “Who Dat” as the little football team that a few people pay attention to gave us deliverance.

NOLA storms D.C.! Well, not exactly, but yesterday Prez Obama announced that Tulane Prez Scott Cowen has been appointed to serve on the White House Council for Community Solutions. The purpose of this council is to orchestrate partnerships between the government and different groups, organizations, and independent citizens to come together and find solutions for pressing local issues. 

Hola Nola, and hola the slew of year-end-music roundups that consume each month of December and distract from the albums that have yet to surface before the ball drops. 

Most New Orleans mayors wait at least 100 days to give a public speech on city government, but Mayor Mitch and the Hype Machine are gnawing off their own limbs to roll out today's State of the City Address. And who can blame them? The budget is short $62 million, the FBI is sniffing around, and oil is inching closer to the city limits. Landrieu said he'll announce big changes, inducing the achingly familiar dread across the NoDef newsroom that he'll probably cast an optimistic gaze onto the city's horizon. But as the media starts to fawn and your stomach starts to churn, allow us to remind you what this address was like a year ago.

Young, fit bicyclists looking to score some extra cash can salivate now.  A deal that could bring pedicabs to the French Quarter is making its way through official channels. With New Orleans' pancake topography, the Quarter's thin streets, and downtown hotels located just outside of lesiurely strolling distance from some of the main attractions, it seems like anyone willing to pedal around a rickshaw could make a mint. But, proving that everyone has an interest group, the bicycists have run into consistent opposition from taxi drivers and those annoying guys always trying to get you to go for a horse-drawn carriage ride. Monroe Coleman of Coleman Taxi Co. said pedicabs would cause congestion. And cars are keeping the streets clear, right Monroe?