Authorities scuttle skinhead plot to assassinate Obama.

 Two neo-Nazi skinheads are in jail today after law-enforcement officials broke up their plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or behead 99 Black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said Monday. Authorities disrupted the plans of the two would-be assassins to rob a gun store and target a predominately African-American high school in a murder spree that was to begin in Tennessee, federal officials said, in court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. All together, the two men planned to kill 88 people, including 14 African Americans by beheading, said Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF’s Nashville field office. Read the rest here, and watch the video below.

Tens of thousands sought shelter outside of the Bayou State

With three-year-old Katrina still fresh on their minds, tens of thousands of Louisiana residents fled the wind-whipped, water-soaked Bayou State Monday seeking safer ground in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. As an angry Hurricane Gustav barreled down on their homes, businesses neighborhoods, they traveled by car, train, bus and plane, determined not to be the ones seen on TV waving for helicopter rescue squads to deliver them. As many as 82,000 Louisiana residents crammed into shelters spread across eight states, according to Christina Stephens, a spokeswoman for the state. She told CNN that the Louisiana Department of Social Services had set up two shelters, including two in Shreveport, one in Bastrop and one more in Monroe - holding 10,000 people. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hooked up with the Red Cross to administer services from shelters in Shreveport and Alexandria - holding 5,000 people. According to Mississippi state officials, some 12,400 Louisiana residents had flowed into the state. Officials set up a phone registry so that people can find out where their relatives and loved ones are located. The number is 1-800-258-9822. State officials want residents to stay in their homes - even after Gustav passes by. “They’ll let people know when it’s safe to return,” Stephens said. This is important, she said because there are still dangers from threats posed by downed power lines and trees, floodwater and debris. “It’s really crowded, and everybody’s just trying to do their best,” Kesha Harlow, who was there with her daughter, 8, and her son, 2 months. “We’re just waiting for the storm to blow over.” New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has appealed to those who fled to stay put until the end of the week, which will give workers time to secure weakened levees and downed power lines and drain flooded streets.

Darren “Bo” Taylor gave up his life with the Crips to foster harmony
Darren “Bo” Taylor, a one-time gang-banger who survived the mean streets of Los Angeles to bring about peace between rival gangs following the 1992 L.A. riots, lost a battle with cancer on Monday. He was 42. The former Crips member was perhaps the most unlikely peace activist. “Through his UNITY One organization, Taylor worked painstakingly to reduce street violence and to teach life skills to inmates. You don’t find many in the gang-intervention world who can be effective in the street, effective in the courtroom, effective at City Hall and effective in the prisons,” civil rights attorney Connie Rice told The Associated Press. “He could calm everyone down and make us work together.” Survivors include his wife, Marlene Oglesby-Taylor, and mother, Charlene Taylor. (Photo/ Los Angeles Times).

Don’t count on Jesse or Colin in Denver.

Secretary of State Colin Powell downplayed reports that he’d be standing next to Sen. Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention in Denver later this month. During the primaries, Powell had kind words for Obama, stoking speculation that the first African-American secretary of State might throw his support behind potentially the first African-American president. Go to BET.com/News for more..

Second noose is found on Tennessee construction site. For the second time this month construction workers at the BlueCross BlueShield building site in Tennessee Thursday found a noose at the worksite in Cameron Hill. It was constructed of plastic building material, FBI Agent in Charge Ed Galloway told The Chattanooga Times Free Press. He said his office is investigating. Skanska, the company in charge of the construction project, is offering diversity and sensitivity training, the newspaper reports. “We’ve added a tremendous amount of security at the site,” John Reyhan, general manager for the project, Reyhan said. “And at our job-wide meeting every morning we are encouraging anyone to come forward with any reports of intimidation.” The first noose was found last week.

Latinos, Blacks squeezed hard in tight job market.

As the nation’s job market grows tighter, Latinos and Black workers are suffering disproportionately, according to employment specialists and figures from the Department of Labor. While employment shrank by 51,000 jobs in July and nationwide joblessness rose to a four-year high of 5.7 percent, Latino unemployment was 7.4 percent last month, according to the Labor Department. Black joblessness was 9.7 percent in July. It was 9.2 percent in June. The overall teen jobless rate was 20.3 percent in July. It was 27.3 percent for Latino teens and 32 percent for Black teens. Analysts attribute much of the Latino job loss to ongoing contraction in the construction industry. A Labor Department report said the construction industry “has shed 557,000 jobs since its September 2006 employment peak, with nearly three-quarters of the decline occurring since October 2007.” A Pew report and other studies have found that for Black workers and their families, the picture is especially bleak. An Aug. 1 report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress said that one in four Blacks lived in poverty in 2006. Black lost 55,000 jobs since December and wage growth continued its stall. “During the 2000s’ economic recovery, African American workers’ inflation-adjusted wages grew at an annual rate of only 0.2 percent, after having grown four times as much (0.8 percent) per year during the 1990s recovery,” the congressional committee reported. Between 2000 and 2006, median Black family income fell by 2.9 percent to $39,367, according to federal statistics.

Widow of slain Atlanta judge gets $5 million settlement. The widow of the Atlanta judge who was allegedly shot to death by a defendant during a daring escape from a courtroom three years ago will be paid more than $5.2 million by Fulton County. Under a settlement made public Thursday, Claudia Barnes, the wife of slain judge Rowland Barnes, the county will $5 million to settle lawsuits against itself and Sheriff Myron Freeman. The county will also pay a one-time annuity of $246,000 in a separate benefits case filed by Barnes, a former Fulton County employee. “I miss my husband every day, and this won’t take that away,” Barnes said Thursday. “I’ve had so many irons in the fire. This just closes another chapter of things I have to do.” Rowland Barnes was shot in March 2005 as he presided over a hearing involving convicted rapist Brian Nichols. The defendant allegedly wrested a sidearm from a deputy and shot to death the judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s sergeant and, later, a federal agent. Nichols’ capital trial for the three deaths has been delayed several times. “Now I can focus all my attention on the criminal trial,” Barnes said.

Even the Klan ads didn’t help the Black challenger win. A nasty Democratic primary came to a close in Tennessee Thursday as the White incumbent congressman had a runaway win against his African-American challenger in a majority-Black district. Rep. Steve Cohen took an astounding 79 percent of the vote, compared with 19 percent for Nikki Turner, a Black lawyer, who throughout the campaign tried to convince voters that they should stick with their own race. In a particularly controversial campaign moment, Tinker ran an ad linking Cohen, a Jew, to the Ku Klux Klan. Sen. Barack Obama even entered the mix on that one, condemning the ad, which juxtaposed Cohen’s picture with that of a hooded Klansman. Cohen has long civil rights record. Just last month, he introduced a resolution to get Congress to issue an apology to African Americans for this nation’s imposition of slavery and Jim Crow.