Louisiana asks '60 Minutes to hold tonight's report on sinking N.Orleans

11/20/2005, 3:19 p.m. CT
The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — State officials have asked the CBS television show "60 Minutes" to postpone Sunday's scheduled segment highlighting a scientist's allegations that New Orleans is sinking and that residents should be induced to leave the city.

Tim Kusky, a professor in the earth sciences department at St. Louis University, asserts on the show that New Orleans residents should "face the fact that their city will be below sea level in 90 years."

He also recommends a "gradual pullout from the city, whose slow, steady slide into the sea was sped up enormously by Hurricane Katrina," according to a preview of the program.

In a letter to CBS, Andy Kopplin, Gov. Kathleen Blanco's chief of staff and executive director of the main panel dealing with the post-Katrina rebuilding effort, asked the network to reconsider airing it...