The ex- New York Giants wide receiver has had a troubled post-football life.
Mark Ingram, a former New York Giants wide receiver who starred in the 1991 Super Bowl, will spend the next seven and a half years behind bars for his latest crime spree that includes money laundering and bank fraud. Read more at BET.com/News.  What would make a former super star athlete jump from the limelight to the crimelight?

Jurors in accused mass murderer’s trial to be named today. In an Atlanta courtroom today, 12 jurors and six alternates will learn whether they are the ones who will decide the fate of Brian Nichols, the 36-year-old accused of shooting to death his judge, a court reporter and two law-enforcement officials during a daring escape three years ago from the Fulton County Courthouse. When - and if - the trial begins on Monday, as planned, it will begin a long-awaited march toward justice that has been stymied by a series of delays. In addition to the change in judges - from Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller to Judge James Bodiford - defense attorneys convinced the original judge that the state had kicked in far too little for a case of this magnitude, compelling him to shelve the case until it had infused more money into the public defender system. The case is expected to be the most costly in Georgia history. Already, the defense has spent an astronomical $1.2 million, and it’s still nearly a week before trial. In a recent chapter in the case, Bodiford found that Nichols’ alleged confession was not the result of his deteriorated mental capacity following his arrest. The defense is arguing that Nichols is innocent by reason of insanity. Nichols is facing death if convicted.

Nagin wants to know how his residents were treated. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin wants to know how his city’s residents were treated during the latest monster storm, Hurricane Gustav, to rock the Big Easy. As reports have surfaced that some city agencies didn’t learn from dealing with killer Katrina, Nagin has instituted a special phone hotline to gather and grade information on victims’ experiences. “If you evacuated with the city assisted-program, and if you went to a shelter where you want to report something, call our 3-1-1 number,” Nagin said in a news conference. His request came amid widespread reports of unsanitary or inhospitable conditions, mostly at shelters in northern Louisiana, according to The New Orleans Times-Picayune. But many shelter volunteers complained that evacuees threatened them “or acted in an unruly fashion during their stay,” the newspaper reported. The Times-Picayune also speculated that poor conditions at the Department of Social Services shelters could have been what led to the sudden resignation of DSS Secretary Ann Williamson earlier this week. While the city helped transport 18,000 residents out of town, all New Orleanians had the option of staying at DSS shelters.

He’s preparing to defend his Sean Bell acquittal protest

The Rev. Al Sharpton will take his public nuisance and disturbing the peace case to court Oct. 6, a Manhattan judge ruled Thursday. Sharpton, who was arrested in early May - along with scores of protestors who froze up major New York City thoroughfares as a statement against the acquittal of three police officers in the shooting death of Sean Bell - had an opportunity recently to admit guilt and avoid a trial and jail time. But the civil rights leader, who heads the Harlem-based National Action Network, wanted a public airing for a case that focuses attention back on what he and others say is the egregiously unfair freeing of the NYPD cops who shot down the 23-year-old Bell outside a Queens nightclub on the eve of his wedding day, Nov. 25, 2006. The officers shot the unarmed groom and his two friends in a haze of 50 bullets. Bell’s friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, survived but were seriously wounded. On Wednesday, Sharpton said there is nothing unlawful about a peaceful protest. “Every time they bring me back, it further exposes the disparity of justice in this city,” he said.

Kirk Douglas petitions symbolic gesture. Long-time actor Kirk Douglas is using his MySpace page to help generate support for a national apology by the United States government for its involvement in slavery. Douglas, whose talent has earned him roles in everything from old Western flicks to TV shows like “Touched by an Angel” and a voice part on “The Simpsons,” is collecting signatures. The Oscar-nominated legend plans to eventually send his petition to the president. Douglas, 91, is the father of actor Michael Douglas.

Taraji Henson provides woman with food, shelter. A Hurricane Katrina survivor has three months of rent-free housing courtesy of actress Taraji Henson. Henson, who co-starred in Baby Boy and Hustle & Flow, was in New Orleans filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button when she met the single mom and her children. “This woman lost everything during Katrina and came back and got her little apartment,” Henson says. “She had two daughters she was raising by herself and then her apartment caught on fire, so she lost everything twice. I wanted to give her something besides toys because where would they put it? They didn’t have anywhere to stay.”

Snoop owes actor Russell Crowe a favor. Rapper Snoop Dogg will have to speak to a group of Australian children as partial repayment of a favor to Gladiator star Russell Crowe. Snoop expects to tour the continent late next month after recently having his ban from the country lifted. Crowe, who lives in Australia, helped plead Snoop’s case to the government, calling the rapper a “friend.” “I submit to you that Snoop Dogg poses no threat to Australia or to any individual in this country,” Crowe wrote in a letter. “He has toured here three times before without incident and there are no reasons to assume this tour will be anything but the positive experience the last three have been. Snoop has built a stellar reputation with promoters and audiences worldwide.” Crowe added that he had a “selfish motivation” as well, saying that Snoop promised to appear at a youth charity event for Crowe’s South Sydney Rugby League Club. He wrote:  ”Some of our First Grade players will attend with him and he will deliver a powerful and positive message about rising through adversity, drawing on his own underprivileged background as an example. As you can imagine, such a visit will have a phenomenal effect.” Snoop had been banned due to his criminal record.

Ludacris &, Floyd Mayweather team up for new video

Check out these exclusive pictures of Ludacris and Floyd Mayweather at their video shoot for Ludacris’s new song, Undisputed! Check Music News for the latest.

Louis Vuitton don, Kanye West talk new album

Still riding the success of his third album, Graduation, Kanye West is prepping his fourth LP, 808’s and Heartbreak, for a Dec. 16 release. Here’s more.

Beyoncé is set to release third LP

R&B songstress Beyoncé Knowles is prepping the release of her third solo project this November. BET.com/Music News has more here!

Jordin Sparks is to be praise, and criticized for her stand on abstinence. Jordin Sparks made a bold statement when she stood up at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Monday for the Jonas Brothers’ right to wear promise rings, a symbol of their pledge to abstain from sex until marriage. But she also unwittingly chastised any teenager who happens to be sexually active. How? Vital Signs has the details. 

New York City shows largest decline in infant deaths. New York City has made the biggest improvement of all major cities in lowering its infant death rate, according to new numbers from the city’s Health Department. New York’s infant mortality rate fell again in 2007, reaching the lowest level ever recorded. The 2007 rate - 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, down from 5.9 in 2006 - marked the sharpest one-year decline since 2001, when the city’s rate dropped to 6.1 from 6.7 per 1,000 live births. Of the 128,961 babies born in New York City in 2007, 697 died before reaching a year old, 43 fewer than in 2006. The city’s infant mortality rate remained significantly lower than that of the nation, which was 6.7 deaths per 1,00 live births in 2006, the most recent year on record. The number of local births surged by 3,455 during 2007, and births to Asian women accounted for half of the increase. News reports suggest that many Chinese couples timed their pregnancies to coincide with the Year of the Golden Pig, a particularly auspicious year in the Chinese lunar calendar. Here’s how the numbers break down by ethnic group: The infant mortality rate was 9.8 per 1,000 live births among Blacks, 6.3 among Puerto Ricans, 4.3 among other Hispanics, 3.9 among Whites, and 3.1 among Asian/Pacific Islanders. “We are heading in the right direction, but substantial disparities remain,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City health commissioner. “Infant death rates remain unacceptably high among Blacks and Puerto Ricans and in low-income neighborhoods. We need to expand services for these groups and communities, and we also need to work to reduce inequities that persist in income, education, health care, safe neighborhoods and access to healthy affordable food and regular physical activity.” How did the city improve its numbers? Health officials say the department has been working on many fronts to help women stay as healthy as possible before pregnancy, obtain quality health care during pregnancy, and provide the care and support their babies need to thrive. Its key initiatives include breastfeeding education, safe-sleep education, cribs for families that can’t afford them, and nurse home-visiting during pregnancy and early childhood.

Lil Wayne will return to New York tomorrow. Having missed an earlier court date on a weapons charge, due to a dental issue, Lil Wayne returns to court tomorrow on a continuance. The rapper took a red-eye flight from Hollywood to New York after his Video Music Awards performance and win for Best Hip-Hop Video, in order to appear Monday. Weezy was arrested last summer after cops stopped his tour bus and searched the vehicle, allegedly finding a .40-caliber pistol. He’s charged with criminal possession of a weapon.

Actor is confirmed to play ancient Egyptian ruler.
Will Smith will portray Last Pharaoh. Will Smith is set to take on one of his most challenging roles in the film The Last Pharaoh. After earlier reports surfaced of his interest in the role about the ancient Egyptian ruler Taharqa, Variety.com confirms that Braveheart writer Randall Wallace is taking on the screenplay at Smith’s behest. Taharqa ruled Egypt from 690 B.C. to 664 B.C. and became known for his fierce battles with Assyrian king Esarhaddon.

Shhhh! Not while he’s trying to sing!
Actor hushes fans at performance. Terrence Howard takes his newfound music career seriously, according to Web reports. The Oscar-nominated actor whose new CD, Shine It Through, was recently released reportedly shushed a couple of fans at his New York performance last week. The star appeared at “The Beat of Chic,” an event for special invited guests at Bloomingdale’s department store, and was reportedly annoyed by the constant chatter of two women in the front row. “Obviously you two are talking about something that’s more important than my music,” Howard is said to have announced. “Why don’t you share it?” After the man who rapped the words “whoop dat trick” in the film Hustle & Flow stuck the mic in their faces, the ladies apparently decided to shut it up. But it’s not only the two front-row spectators who’ve been underwhelmed with Howard’s musical debut: Fan feedback on the CD has been less than favorable.

Hurricane Gustav visited New Orleans but left it relatively unscathed

Eager to get back to the Big Easy, thousands of residents poured back into New Orleans following the city’s encounter with Gustav. But Mayor Ray Nagin was forced to back down from his own decree - that New Orleanians wait until checkpoints were officially lifted before returning - as traffic flooded the Causeway toward the city. By midnight, the surge was seemingly unstoppable for homesick residents, and eight hours later, Nagin gave up. “No one will be turned back if you have an identification card that you live in this area,” Nagin said in a radio interview. “This is not the best time for them to return, but so be it.” The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “Nagin’s unexpected decision caused confusion among motorists and law enforcement agencies in both Jefferson and Orleans, who were helping manage reentry traffic.” There were several reasons that officials wanted to prevent residents from returning to New Orleans so soon after Gustav, including downed power lines, flooding, and no power or running water in some areas. Even at that, the destruction wasn’t even close to that of Hurricane Katrina three years earlier.

Black preacher sues Klan store on his church’s property. A Black South Carolina church has sued a Ku Klux Klan store, which is selling robes and pointy hoods, racist T-shirts and other anti-African American paraphernalia from the space it rents from the house of worship. The Rev. David Kennedy, pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church in Laurens County, S.C., acknowledges that a clause in the deed entitles John Howard to run the store from the building until he dies. But Kennedy says that a Klansman, who was clashing with fellow members of the hate group, transferred property rights back to the church more than a decade ago. Kennedy is seeking to shut the store down. As it stands now, he says he can’t even inspect the store, even though it’s on his property. “We’ve been outright denied,” he told The Associated Press. “Right now what we’re focusing on is removing this cloud of doubt and this whole lie that we are not the real owners of the Redneck Shop building.” If Kennedy is successful, his church will be deemed the owner of the property. It would also preclude Howard and his cohorts from continually trying to transfer the property to various members of the Klan. “We think the actions they did were willful,” Kennedy’s attorney, Rauch Wise, told AP. Howard says he’s a former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon for South Carolina and North Carolina. In addition to the Klan garb, his shop features pictures of burning crosses and of men, women and children in Klan clothing. “Martin Luther King said this: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,”‘ Kennedy said. “It’s going to be a good day to see them in court.”

It marks the first time in 50 years a U.S. leader goes to the North African nation.
Secretary Rice will visit ex-enemy Libya. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads to Libya this, it will mark the first time a U.S. secretary of state has visited the former enemy in more than a half-century. It’s a historic stop,” spokesman Sean McCormack said, noting that Rice will be the first secretary of state to visit Libya since John Foster Dulles in 1953 and the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit since then-Vice President Richard Nixon in 1957. “In that period of time, we’ve had a man land on the moon, the Internet, the Berlin Wall fall, and we’ve had 10 U.S. presidents.” The trip to the oil-rich North African nation is designed to open a new era of U.S.-Libyan relations at a time when the United States is desperate for new sources of petroleum. The State Department removed Libya, once dubbed by President Ronald Reagan the “Mad Dog of the Middle East,” from the international terrorist list after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi began renouncing terrorism and owning up to the infamous bombings, such as that of Pan Am Flight 103, for which he compensated the families of victims $3 billion. While in Tripoli, Rice is expected to raise the case of Fathi al-Jahmi, 67, a seriously ill political prisoner, who has been jailed or held in a hospital for the past six years. His brother, Mohammed, lives in Boston and has been prodding Bush administration to get involved in securing his release.  Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Physicians for Human Rights have sent Rice a deluge of recent letters urging her to raise Jahmi’s case and other human rights issues when she meets with Gadhafi, The Washington Post reports. “We have followed this case,” said Assistant Secretary of State C. David Welch. “We have been discussing it for some time with the Libyan government. We expect it to be discussed [by Rice] in forthcoming meetings in Tripoli.”

Patrick Ewing Jr. traded to Knicks

Patrick Ewing Jr., whose famous dad was a star in New York basketball for years, has joined the Knicks squad after a recent trade. The younger Ewing was swapped from the Rockets, in exchange for Frederic Weis. “Coming to the Knicks, and hopefully being able to contribute, means a lot to me,” Ewing Jr. said in a statement. “It has always been my dream to play for this team. My goal is to show the coaches that I can play and do all that I can to help the team win some games.” The elder Ewing, who’s set to join the NBA Hall of Fame next week, wishes his son “a long and productive career” in New York.Browns receiver recovers from bizarre foot injury. Braylon Edwards will start in Cleveland ’s high-profile opener this week versus Dallas after returning to his team’s line-up Monday. Edwards had been sidelined since Aug. 9 when he was gashed in the back of his foot by a teammate’s cleats as they raced after practice, Edwards in his socks. The player hasn’t spoken to media about the circumstances of his injury and won’t be available for questions until Wednesday. He received stitches for the gash and stayed overnight at a hospital after the incident. The banged-up Browns have suffered in the pre-season without their star receiver and quarterback Derek Anderson. “I missed ya’ll, man,” Edwards told teammates Monday.