Children of Katrina families are sickest in U.S. The children of families displaced from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have serious health and mental ailments, a new study says. In fact, the report, released Monday by the New York-based Children’s Health Fund, are among some of the sickest children in the nation. One of the most alarming findings: 41 percent of children younger than 4 were diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia, more than twice the rate of children living in New York City homeless shelters and more than twice the Centers for Disease Control’s rate for high-risk minority populations, Irwin Redlener, president of the group and the study’s author, told USA Today. These children are “the sickest I have ever seen in the U.S.,” Redlener told Newsweek. “As awful as the initial response to Katrina looked on television, it’s been dwarfed by the ineptitude and disorganization of the recovery.” More than half the kids had behavioral or learning problems. Also, 42 percent had respiratory infections and disorders that may be linked to formaldehyde and crowding in the trailers supplied by the government, but later declared unsafe. After Katrina, the Children’s Health Fund, a non-profit group that provides health care to children, set up mobile clinics throughout the Gulf Coast, including one outside Renaissance Village in Baton Rouge, then the largest Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park in the region. Heath Fund researchers came to their conclusions after reviewing the medical records of 261 children who lived in a federally funded Baton Rouge trailer park until early summer, Redlener said.  The study made some immediate recommendations: FEMA must provide contact information for these children so their medical needs can be treated and funding needs to be extended so that the Katrina children can get further medical attention.

“Stay and die” is the warning from weather officials who say that Hurricane Ike, which is steaming toward the Texas Gulf Coast, could be a deadly monster as sinister as his evil cousin, Katrina. “All neighborhoods … and possibly entire coastal communities … will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide,” the advisory from the National Weather Service said. Read more about the warning and how people are reacting here.

Study: Almost 1,000 People Died In Louisiana From Katrina

On the three-year anniversary of Hrricane Katrina, a new study says the storm caused the deaths of some 986 deaths in Louisiana either directly or indirectly, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 80 years. Find out more at Vital Signs.

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.”

Obama, McCain take different approaches to health care reform.  
Vital Signs: Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have laid out very different plans for how they’d fix the health care system, according to the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution’s estimates. Which one covers the most people, and when will the candidates actually provide details? Read more at Vital Signs.

Salmonella outbreak over, FDA says. U.S. health officials declared Thursday that the nationwide salmonella outbreak has ended and lifted a consumer advisory against eating raw jalapeno and serrano peppers grown in Mexico, reports HealthDay news. “Based on the available information and reports, it appears that this outbreak is over,” Dr. Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of foodborne, bacterial and mycotic diseases, said during a teleconference. The CDC’s announcement was based on the falling number of new cases since early July, Tauxe said. “By early August, the number of cases was down to the number of cases we would expect to see anyway in the absence of a major outbreak. There are some cases of this infection that occur every year,” he added.

It’s been three years since Katrina battered New Orleans. Get a quiz, photos and more surrounding the tragic event at BET.com News.

Residents and vacationers in the Florida Keys are bracing for a powerful storm brewing in the Atlantic that could swell to hurricane strength and pummel the string of tiny islands and Cuba before it’s through. As Tropical Storm Fay began picking up some serious steam early Sunday morning, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) urged folks to pack up and head out. But he assured the world that what happened in the Gulf Coast three years ago would not occur in Florida, saying that emergency workers, including 9,000 National Guard troops, are on standby. In 2005, the Gulf Coast was completely unprepared for hurricane Katrina as it tore the region taking lives and destroying homes and property. Officials at Miami’s National Hurricane Center say that by late Monday or early Tuesday, the storm’s winds and pelting rain could wreak havoc. “My main message today is to remind our fellow Floridians to remain calm,” Crist said Sunday afternoon at state emergency headquarters in Tallahassee. “Florida is prepared. And we are ready. And we’ll be vigilant,” he said.