Three stories

Three 6 Mafia: Oscar Winners

The whole process leading up to the Three 6 guys getting the award is just dumbfoundingly unlikely: young white director decides to make a movie about a pimp who wants to make crunk music, films it in Memphis instead of Atlanta or Miami or Houston, recruits legends from the local underground to write songs for the movie instead of out-of-town ringers. Said movie does well at Sundance, becomes surprise hit, quietly becomes one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year despite not really being all that great.

Oscar Winner Hits Angry Chord

Several people interviewed said they found it ironic that the academy -- praised earlier in the evening by actor George Clooney for breaking down barriers for African Americans with an Oscar to Hattie McDaniel in 1939 for her role in "Gone With the Wind" -- would glorify the travails of a man who earns his living exploiting women.

Erika Scott, 17, a Largo High School eleventh-grader, said she was a little shocked. "Growing up where I live, you see, all the time, people who are wanna-be pimps and aspire to be pimps," she said. "Knowing that there is a song that tells the world about what goes on with people like that was surprising, and I was surprised that it won. It made me wonder what the world has come to."

Area Juvenile Sex Rings Targeted Using Anti-Trafficking Laws

The teenagers testified for hour after agonizing hour about their months of prostitution, quietly describing the tricks they turned on some of the District's and Maryland's seediest strips.

They performed sex acts with men in cheap motel rooms, alleys and the back seats of cars, they said. Clients had 10 minutes or it cost extra. One girl, 14 when she was recruited, said her quota was $500 a night, with various sex acts ranging in price from $50 to $150. Every dollar she and her "

That man, Jaron R. Brice, 27, of Northeast Washington, was convicted last week of sex trafficking of a minor, transporting prostitutes across state lines, pandering and child sexual abuse -- a litany of federal charges that probably will land him in prison for decades.