Hurricane Katrina: three years later. As New Orleans braces for another potentially destructive storm, we look back to the impact and the progress made in the last three years after Hurricane Katrina here.

BET News Quiz: An HBCU gets millions; McCain gets a surprise endorsement; and Yung Berg was allegedly jumped. Test your knowledge here! 

Police are thankful for saggy pants … this time. Instead of enforcing laws against saggy pants, police departments around the country might want to start issuing pairs of the below-the-butt slacks to hoodlums. In Atlanta Wednesday, police shot and wounded a fleeing 21-year-old suspect as he allegedly turned toward officers and aimed his gun but stumbled while struggling to keep his pants up. Police said that Emmanuel Uzowihe was sprinting down one of Atlanta’s busiest streets when he was felled by officers, stopping traffic. His injuries were not life-threatening, and he was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Officers with the department’s Auto Theft Task Force pulled over Uzowihe for an undisclosed traffic violation, Sgt. Lisa Keyes told the Constitution-Journal. Uzowihe jumped from the car and ran down the sidewalk, she said. Police pursued, ordering the suspect several times to stop, she said. A witness, Trevious Grier, said she saw Uzowihe’s weapon as he ran past. “He had a long black handgun he was holding in front of him,” Grier said. “I’ve never seen a gun that big before.” But as soon as he pointed the weapon, an officer shot him twice, police said. But according to witness Darrell Jackson, Uzowihe’s baggy pants is what landed him in the hospital. “He was running pretty fast,” Jackson said. “The only thing that messed him up is he was trying to pull his pants up.” Kelly agreed, saying, “I bet he won’t wear baggy paints again.”

Obama bills are “racist,” some say. A Republican Party leader in Washington state apologized Thursday for phony $3 bill with a picture of Sen. Barack Obama wearing Muslim headgear and sporting a camel that was sold at a booth at a county fair. “I want to apologize to anyone upset or offended by seeing it,” Snohomish County Republican Party Chairwoman Geri Modrell told The Herald newspaper. Underneath the likeness of a smiling Obama is the tag “Da Man,” and there are signatures from purportedly from “Teddy Kennedy, Chief Socialism Advisor” and “Al Sharpton, New Spiritual Advisor.” Modrell said that she asked volunteers to remove them when she discovered them on Tuesday. Some visitors to the fair called the bills “racist” and “offensive.”

Filipino hate-mailer is sentenced to nearly four years

Twenty years worth of hate mail - directed at Black men who married or dated White women - got David Tuason almost four years in prison. Read more at BET.com/News.

HBCU Spelman gets $17 million gift.

Historically Black Spelman College in Atlanta got a surprise package in the form of a $17 million gift to fund an endowment for that will help acquaint its students to the rest of the world. “In the context of an increasingly global economy and a world made smaller by technology, it is more important than ever that students, faculty and staff are prepared for active engagement with the international community,” said Spelman President Beverly Daniel Tatum in a statement. She said that the anonymous gift will help the all-women’s college establish Gordon-Zeto Endowed Fund for International Initiatives, named after Nora Gordon (the first Spelman graduate to teach in the Congo) and Flora Zeto (the first Congolese student to graduate from Spelman). Also covered under the endowment is the Gordon-Zeto Dean for International Inititiatives, who will be the senior administrator of Spelman’s international programs; the Nora Gordon Scholars Program, which will support study abroad programs for Pell grant eligible students, giving first priority to those interested in studying in Africa; and a travel fund to support short-term study trips by students and faculty.

A March for Jobs and Freedom. When hundreds of thousands of people descended on the capital for the March on Washington 45 years ago this week, it was the largest political gathering the nation had ever seen. The event was later recognized as the tipping point in the fight for civil rights. See the pictures here. 

Blacks in the South have higher HIV rates. Blacks in the South have higher HIV and AIDS rates. Why? Read more at BET.com/Body & Soul.

Be Sickle Smart program hits major cities.

The Be Sickle Smart program is on the road, and likely will be in a city near you. “American Idol” season two Winner Ruben Studdard hosted the Be Sickle Smart Education Day in Jacksonville, Fla., last Saturday to raise awareness of the risk of iron overload, a serious condition that affects people living with sickle-cell disease. Transfusional iron overload is a serious condition that can arise from having 10 or more blood transfusions over one’s lifetime (which is common among people who suffer from sickle-cell disease). If left untreated, iron overload can lead to serious health problems, including liver and heart damage, to name a few. The nationwide Be Sickle Smart campaign is a community-based health education effort leveraging advocacy groups, churches, local media and community leaders to raise awareness of sickle-cell disease and iron overload. The program will continue in Birmingham on Sept. 13 and Chicago on Sept. 18, with other stops planned later for Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Philadelphia. More than 70,000 people in America have sickle-cell disease. One in 12 African Americans carries the trait for sickle-cell disease. For more information, go to Ask About Iron.com.

Is L.A. driving the trans fat bandwagon off a cliff?
Vital Signs: Cities and states are helping you cut the fat from your diets. Cities like Los Angeles are going as far as to stop fast food restaurants from opening in poor communities to lessen the number of unhealthy restaurants there. But do we really need that kind of help in the fat fight, or is the city going too far? Vital Signs has more.

Atlanta frontrunner drops out of mayor’s race

The president of the Atlanta City Council, who most locals believe was a shoo-in to become the next mayor, shocked her fellow Georgians Monday, abruptly withdrawing from the race. She cited the need to take care of her ailing parents, who are both 75 years old. Lisa Borders, who had $232,000 in her war chest in late June and is a darling of the Atlanta business community, was the most popular candidate looking to fill the seat of Mayor Shirley Franklin, who must step down because after serving two consecutive terms. She announced recently that she would need to devote more time to take care of her parents, William Holmes Borders Jr., who is a diabetic with full kidney failure, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. “In the final analysis, you’ve got to be completely focused on becoming mayor,” Borders said Monday. “I clearly have some personal things I need to take care of. I can run for mayor at another opportunity, but I only have one set of parents.”

Police seek clues to who murdered an Atlanta mother
Investigators and family members in the Atlanta suburb of Duluth continued seeking clues Tuesday to explain why anybody would shoot to death a 40-year-old mother as she waited to pick up her daughter from work. After all, authorities say, the car that was stolen from Genai Coleman Friday night, when she was gunned down outside a Red Lobster restaurant, was an old Dodge; plus, she had no enemies anyone knew about. A stunned Geraldine Brown, who flew to Atlanta from Elkhart, Ind., immediately after hearing that her daughter had been shot, said the car certainly was “nothing worth being killed over,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They had the car, why did they have to shoot her?” Coleman, a single preschool teacher at Montclair Elementary School in DeKalb County, took in and raised three foster daughters (now ages 19, 21 and 23) at her home in Snellville, Ga., the Journal-Constitution reports. “‘Genai’ means “one who loves people,” and she did just that, her mother said.

Detroit’s Kilpatrick has some legal team

If Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has to cough up some more cash, gets booted out of office or winds up in jail behind the scandals swirling around him these days, it certainly won’t be due to a lack of legal representation. The Detroit News reports that the embattled city chief, who is “confronting legal challenges on at least six fronts, has assembled a huge team of attorneys to fight an array of civil lawsuits and attempts to remove him from office without compromising job one – defending Kilpatrick on felony charges.” Such a seemingly humongous effort, according to the News, requires at least 17 public and private attorneys. BET.com/News has more on this story. Should Kilpatrick step down, or is there a witch hunt against the mayor?

A Georgia school gets the paddles ready for the fall
To spank or not to spank … that’s the question in Twiggs County, Ga., where principals are breaking out their paddles this fall to deter misbehaving. It won’t be the first time that the school district puts the wood to students who act up. Last year, for example, a second-grader was swatted for throwing pencils, as were others who were deemed too unruly for the standard time-out or other methods of discipline, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. But the policy was rarely used. Teachers and administrators can opt out if they desire, and parents must sign a permission slip to allow their children to be paddled. Read more of what the parents and teachers had to say at BET.com/News.

They argue that the judge will work them too hard once the proceedings begin

The attorneys for an Atlanta man accused of killing four people – including his judge – during a daring courthouse escape three years ago are asking the current judge to relax the trial schedule just a bit. Superior Court Judge James Bodiford, the second judge appointed to handle a protracted legal process that has included five delays, ordered the trial of Brian Nichols to take place six days a week. Nichols was on trial for allegedly kidnapping and raping his ex-girlfriend when, prosecutors say, when he escaped from a holding cell in the Fulton County Courthouse and shot a judge, a court reporter, sheriff’s deputy and a federal customs agent victims after wresting the gun from a deputy. Nichols’ attorneys say that at least three of the defendant’s legal team is 50 years or older. “There are some young 50s and older 50s,” said Henderson Hill, Nichols’ lead attorney. “When you start burning the candle at both ends like that, there are limits.” Bodiford had little sympathy for Nichols’ team. Is there anybody on your team who is 58 years and 11 months? I’m the oldest one in here,” Bodiford said. “All I’m asking you to do is work 9 ½ hours every day.” The trial has been on hold ever since lawyers began interviewing prospective jurors in February 2007. The previous judge in the case, senior Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller, was replaced by Bodiford after stepping down amid charges that he was biased against Nichols. Fuller had stalled the trial following claims from the defense lawyers that the state was not adequately funding Nichols’ capital trial. The trial could wind up being the most costly in Georgia history. Defense attorneys’ wages and expenses have already exceed $1.2 million, and the trial has yet to begin.

An Atlanta jury took less than two hours to determine that Chiman Rai was guilty.

A 69-year-old Asian-Indian businessman who hired a hitman to kill his son’s Black wife will spend the rest of his life in prison. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Chiman Rai, arguing that he was so irate about his son, Ricky, marrying an African American that he paid two contract killers $10,000 to waste her. Chiman allegedly believed the marriage was an embarrassment to the family. Ricky returned to their apartment in April 2000 to find his 22-year-old wife strangled with more than a dozen stab wounds. Their daughter was not harmed. It took jurors in an Atlanta courtroom less than two hours to return a verdict of guilty for felony murder, burglary. Chiman Rai moved his family from India to Mississippi in 1970 and taught mathematics at Alcorn State University for about 10 years before opening a supermarket and a hotel in Kentucky. “This particular murder was outrageous, wantonly vile,” prosecutor Sheila Ross told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.”

Mr. Get Silly, aka V.I.C., shows us his spiritual side

Known for his silly antics, V.I.C. opens up about his spiritual side as well as his serious side. More at BET.com/Music.

Shawn Carter hops on Estelle’s “American Boy” track.

President Carter takes time out from his UK excursion to hop on Estelle’s smash hit, “American Boy.” Listen right here.

Atlanta’s No. 1 Radio personality preps movie project and album
Greg Street speaks to the people! With the No. 1 radio show in Atlanta, Greg Street is ready to take his success to different platforms. Check out what he had to say about his new album and movie project here.

She is an advocate for missing and exploited children
Kristen White, a 27-year-old Atlanta woman who works to raise awareness about exploited children, is the new Miss Black USA. White became the 21st African-American young woman to hold the honor when she was crowned Monday night in Las Vegas. Her reward includes $20,000 in scholarship money, a walk-on role in Tyler Perry’s sitcom “House of Payne” and a weeklong trip for two to the Bahamas. White is a national spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The justices ruled that such a punishment is cruel and unusual
Those people who rape children can no longer be executed, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. “The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in the 5-4 opinion. Joining him in the decision that the executions for such a crime violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment were the four more liberal members of the court – John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. No one has been executed for a crime that did not involve the death of a victim for some 44 years. The landmark case revolved around the Patrick Kennedy, a 43-year-old Louisiana man who was sentenced to die for raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Another Louisianan was also condemned to death for rape. Executions for adult female rape victims was banned 31 years ago. During the Jim Crow era, Black men – even those falsely accused – were frequently executed by lynch mobs after being charged with rape. All but five states ban the death penalty for rape; the rest allow death for child rapists. If you’ve been previously convicted of raping a child in Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas, you could be sentenced to death. Dissenting in Wednesday’s ruling were Clarence Thomas, Samuel Anthony Alito, Antonin Scalia and John G. Roberts, Jr. “The harm that is caused to the victims and to society at large by the worst child rapists is grave,” Alito wrote in the dissenting opinion. “It is the judgment of the Louisiana lawmakers and those in an increasing number of other states that these harms justify the death penalty.” But, Kennedy said, the fact that very few states allow execution for rape proves “there is a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.”

Atlanta courthouse murder suspect wants the death penalty off the table
The Atlanta man accused of going on a killing spree during his daring courthouse escape three years ago is blaming the DA of covering up misconduct by the prosecutor and wants the death penalty taken off the table. Brian Nichols, whose defense is that his was mentally incapacitated when he allegedly snatched a deputy’s gun and shot to death a judge, court reporter, deputy and an immigration agent, is also asking that certain evidence be thrown out. Nichols was at a hearing on earlier rape charges when he managed the escape. He argues that the former prosecutor in that initial case, Gayle Abramson, who is likely to testify in the murder case, indulged in misconduct. Nichols’ defense team, however, has not divulged the alleged misconduct to the court, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. In a statement to the newspaper Tuesday, Abramson and her husband, Rand Csehy, also a Fulton prosecutor, said that Nichols’ attorneys are attempting to kill the case by smearing her with a wiretap conversation involving another murder investigation, the Journal-Constitution reports. “Not only is this document factually inaccurate and filled with intentional falsehoods, but it is incomplete,” the couple said of the complaint. Nichols accuses Abramson of socializing with a murder suspect and his friends while on a trip to California.