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Stephanie Drinkard is a single stay-at-home mom with two little girls. She moved back to Nacogdoches a month ago from Louisiana. There, she was on Section 8 housing, food stamps, and Medicaid, but she can't get that help in Texas because of a contest she won back in October. "I went online and entered," said Drinkard. "I didn't know I was gonna win it. Only like two people won - it was me and somebody else - but it's a 2006 Limited Edition Toyota Avalon and it's like a $40,000 car." And $40,000 exceeds the limit the

(AP) CHICAGO Older American teenagers living in poverty have grown fatter at a higher rate than their peers, according to research that seems to underscore the unequal burden of obesity on the nation's poor. "Today the percentage of adolescents age 15-17 who are overweight is about 50 percent higher in poor as compared to non-poor families, a difference that has emerged recently," said Johns Hopkins' sociologist Richard Miech, the study's lead author. Obesity rates among all teens climbed substantially during the study, which covered 30 years. But the great divide according to income occurred most notably among the 15- to...

Cessation of meal services, propane delivery spurs charges: The NAACP collected affidavits Friday from residents at the FEMA Renaisssance Village in Baker that contain complaints alleging lack of services, harassment and intimidation. Kwame Asanté, director of the Louisiana chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said NAACP representatives have been going to the village council meetings. “There are a lot of people who feel that their rights have been violated,” Asanté said Friday afternoon. About 1,650 hurricane evacuees have been living at the 572-unit trailer park on Groom Road since it opened in October. Most residents...