CHICAGO – With the city’s gun ban certain to be overturned, Mayor Richard Daley on Thursday introduced what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the United States.

The measure, which draws from ordinances around the country, would ban gun shops in Chicago and prohibit gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or garages, with a handgun.

Daley announced his ordinance at a park on the city’s South Side three days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Americans have a right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live. The City Council is expected to vote on it Friday.

“As long as I’m mayor, we will never give up or give in to gun violence that continues to threaten every part of our nation, including Chicago,” said Daley, who was flanked by activists, city officials and the parents of a teenager whose son was shot and killed on a city bus while shielding a friend.

The ordinance, which Daley urged the City Council to pass, also would :

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The iconic Grand Ole Opry House stage sat under 2 feet of water at the peak of deadly floods that ravaged Tennessee last weekend, but there was finally a bit of good news for residents facing a relentless grind of death and destruction.

Even as rising water lapped around their knees, a group of 10 to 15 workers moved some of the hall’s most precious music memorabilia out of harm’s way and Opry officials said Friday they are optimistic they can restore much of what has been damaged.

“It breaks your heart, but it’s our responsibility to be sure that that building comes back to life, and it will,” Opry president Steve Buchanan said.

The outlook for other devastated areas of Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky looked more grim: The death toll climbed to 31 with the discovery of a missing kayaker’s body in Kentucky. Twenty died in Tennessee alone.

Mayor Karl Dean raised the damage estimate for Nashville alone to $1.5 billion Friday, with 17 percent of Davidson County still to be checked. Already officials know 9,300 properties have been damaged and almost 2,000 of those are residences. Dean said the damage total will go up because it doesn’t include damage to roads, bridges or the contents of the buildings.

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FRANKLIN, Tenn. – Dumpsters dot the Cottonwood subdivision with ductwork, insulation, mattresses and kitchen sinks piled in front of houses. The sound of hammers ripping up sodden floors and fans set at high hum through the air.

Yet the fetid smell filling the neighborhood hits the hardest.

Nashville, where the Grand Ole Opry flooded along with parts of the downtown, has been the focus since weekend storms killed at least 30 people in three states, 20 of them in Tennessee. But the record-shattering torrential rains that pushed the Cumberland River out of its banks to flood the tourist spots also pushed the rivers and creeks throughout Middle and West Tennessee to levels not seen in decades, if ever.

Adam Johnston has bags of lime stacked up to use to dull the smell once he cleans out the 4 inches of sewage and sludge under his house, where volunteers wore masks as they worked to clean up the devastation left when the Harpeth River rushed out of its banks and through this neighborhood.

“Whatever gets rid of the smell,” Johnston said.

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JACKSON, Miss. – Days after a tornado obliterated their home and delayed their wedding, a Mississippi bride and groom say they feel blessed by the kindness of strangers, including the gift of a wedding dress from a jilted bride in Kentucky.

“I think it’s great, because I never really expected this much help,” Morgan Hayden said Wednesday from a hotel in her hometown of Yazoo City.

Hayden, 27, and her 31-year-old fiance, Josiah Moton, huddled in their bathroom with three relatives Saturday when a tornado blew apart the house the couple had helped build a few months ago in a wooded area just outside town. The storm left them homeless — but uninjured.

The National Weather Service said the tornado was 1.75 miles wide — a record for Mississippi. It killed 10 people, injured at least 49 and damaged about 700 homes as it plowed nearly 150 miles through state.

Left with few belongings beyond the clothes they were wearing, Hayden and Moton delayed their plans to go to Little Rock, Ark., on Monday for a small, informal wedding. Hayden said she had not purchased a wedding dress but was planning to wear something from her closet.

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