Mayor defends NOLA after outage

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans’ mayor defended his city days after a power outage plunged the Super Bowl into 34 minutes of darkness, while authorities still baffled by the cause announced they were bringing in a consultant to help investigate.

The outage that embarrassed New Orleans as it sought to showcase its rebound from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina happened despite hundreds of thousands of dollars of improvements to decaying utility lines, documents show.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu sought to put an upbeat spin on the matter at a news conference Tuesday, saying the city’s performance as...