“A lot of people don’t know, I was going to see Michael Jackson the day he died. I was on my way to the Staples Center that day,” Brown told an overly excited crowd of weeping, mostly female fans. “When I heard ‘Man In The Mirror,’ it just touched me. It wasn’t fake. I know people were trying to put extras on it, but everything was genuine. That was my ultimate apology, hands down.”

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: Singer Chris Brown attends the Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley welterweight fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 1, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

In his most recent letter to his fans, Lil’ Wayne brings the masses up to date on his life in prison. Weezy, who is expected to return home from a stint on Riker’s Island in November, gave shout outs to his fans, friends, family and Lohan, who was released from a brief stint in jail in early August and is now in a treatment facility.

“Hey Lindsey, glad it’s over doll,” Lil’ Wayne said in his message. “I should have written her huh?”

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: Rapper Lil Wayne performs onstage during his ‘I Am Music’ Tour featuring T-Pain at the Gibson Amphitheater on March 29, 2009 in Universal City, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Nadja Benaissa, 28, former singer in the girl band No Angels, was given a two-year suspended sentence. She was also ordered to complete 300 hours of community service with people who are HIV-positive.

The trial has been taking place at a court here in Darmstadt, south of Frankfurt.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: German pop star Nadja Benaissa waits for the vedrict in her trial in the district court house in the western German city of Darmstadt on August 26, 2010. Benaissa, a singer of the German pop group No Angels, who infected a former sex partner with the virus, walked free on August 26, 2010 after a German court handed her a two-year suspended sentence. AFP PHOTO POOL / BORIS ROESSLER (Photo credit should read BORIS ROESSLER/AFP/Getty Images)

The last time the West Orange, New Jersey, native charted as a lead artist on the tally was back in November 1999, when “Turn Your Lights Down Low,” featuring Bob Marley, peaked at No. 49. In 2006, the Method Man track “Say,” featuring Hill, charted at No. 66 after 10 weeks on the chart.

The release of “Repercussions” came on the same day the former Fugees member performed at the FESPAD Festival in Kigali, Rwanda last month and fueled the rumors that Hill is finally working on a follow-up album.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: US singer Lauryn Hill performs on stage during a concert at the Exit music festival in the Serbian town of Novi Sad, 14 July 2007. Serbia’s Exit Festival, one of the biggest music gatherings in Europe, kicked off Thursday with record number of foreign visitors, organizers said. The four-day Exit Festival, which will last from July 12-15, has been staged each summer since 2000 at an old fortress overhanging the River Danube in Serbia’s second-biggest city, Novi Sad. AFP PHOTO / ANDREJ ISAKOVIC (Photo credit should read ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/Getty Images)

Dow died suddenly Saturday morning in New Jersey, network spokeswoman Louise Bashi said. He lived in Upper Saddle River, N.J., but it wasn’t immediately clear if he’d been at home.

Dow had been a correspondent for 48 Hours since 1990. His nearly 40 years with the network also included reporting for CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and CBS News Sunday Morning.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured:  Actor Harold Dow attends the 2009 CBS Upfront at Terminal 5 on May 20, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images).

1. I met my husband, Will Smith, when I was 19 and auditioned to be his date on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. They said I was too short to play the part.

2. Four years later, Will asked me to play his girlfriend on the show, but I said no because I thought he was too tall.

3. When I turn 60 and leave the red carpet, I am going to get the tattoo arm sleeve I have always wanted.

4. I won a lip-synching contest in high school performing “Baby I’m a Star” by Prince.

5. I haven’t consumed alcohol in 13-plus years.

6. I finally love being a girl.

7. I find fame to be quite unnatural. Humans are not built for extreme adoration.

8. Jamey Johnson, Sugarland and Toby Keith are my favorite country artists.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: Jada Pinkett Smith hosts the Nobel Peace Prize Concert at Oslo Spektrum on December 11, 2009 in Oslo, Norway. Tonight’s Nobel Peace Prize Concert is hosted by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith and honours this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner US President Barack Obama. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images).

Speaking to a meeting of the Television Critics Association on Saturday, Lee said journalists should expose what he called the real story. He argued that it’s unlikely that “abracadabra, presto chango” the vast majority of the oil has vanished from Gulf of Mexico waters and coastal wetlands.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: Director Spike Lee looks on during Game Six of the 2010 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center on June 15, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images).

The study, which appears online today in the journal Pediatrics, looked at 3,063 infants admitted to 39 different pediatric hospitals with traumatic brain injuries not related to car accidents. The researchers compared the race and economic status of families with the subsequent diagnosis of child abuse after traumatic brain injury. Black families and families with governmental insurance were more likely to come under scrutiny than white families and families with private insurance.

“These results show a need for the development and implementation of standard guidelines regarding who gets evaluated for abuse and neglect so we avoid these biases,” said study leader Joanne N. Wood, M.D., M.S.H.P., a pediatric researcher at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The concern is that we may subject children who are not getting abused to unnecessary tests and also miss actual abuse cases.  We know from other studies that when physicians fail to recognize and diagnose abuse, children may suffer further abuse that results in more injury or even death.”

Infants under one year of age are mostly likely to experience and die from child abuse and neglect.  About one in 45 infants were victims of child abuse and neglect in the U.S. in 2007 and more than 700 died that year as a result.

In the study, a little more than one-third of the infants received a diagnosis of child abuse. Black infants and publicly insured or uninsured infants were more likely to undergo tests such as skeletal surveys. However, white children were more likely to receive a diagnosis of child abuse once a skeletal survey was ordered.

“These results raise concerns that different thresholds for suspicion of child abuse were being used for children of different races and economic levels,” said David Rubin, M.D. , MS.C.E., a pediatric researcher at Children’s Hospital and a senior author on the study. “Recognizing that racial disparities exists is the first step toward health care providers correcting those discrepancies.”

The authors had no information on the race or other characteristic of the physicians who ordered the skeletal surveys or reported the suspected abuse. While past studies have shown these biases exist at one or a few hospitals, this is the first study to look nationally and show similar results from a wide network of pediatric hospitals.

The authors suggest the finding may be limited because they were unable to examine the records of each child to determine the true likelihood of abuse. And, the study could wrongly classify a case based on inaccuracies in the medical chart.

Other study authors are Samantha Schilling, M.D., and Ron Keren, M.D., M.P.H.,  of Children’s Hospital; Matthew Hall, Ph.D., of the Child Health Corporation of America in Shawnee Mission, Kansas; and Nandita Mitra, Ph.D., of The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

“Disparities in the Evaluation and Diagnosis of Abuse Among Infants with Traumatic Brain Injury,” Pediatrics published online August 16, 2010. http://www.pediatrics.org.

“Now that you have someone that has her own style and does her own thing I feel like people are gravitating towards her. That’s what makes her stick out,” said rapper Ludacris, who features her on his “My Chick Bad” track off his latest “Battles of the Sexes” album.

When Nas declared hip-hop was dead a couple of years ago, it was partially because there were no femcees dominating the game, according to Queen Latifah. “Part of the reason hip-hop was dead is because there were no female MCs, like in the forefront of hip-hop, playing on the radio in the day time, every day,” she said.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: Musician Nicki Minaj performs onstage during the 2010 BET Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on June 27, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

She had been declining in health for the past year.  Her death was confirmed by friend and filmmaker Carol Friedman, who has been working on a documentary on Lincoln’s life.

Lincoln made records and acted in films in the 1950s and ’60s, then saw her career surge again in the 1990s when she found new voice as a songwriter.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: American jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln, wearing a bowler hat and fishnet gloves with a blazer, sings into a microphone during the Chicago Jazz Festival, Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Tad Hershorn/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Greene, who won 59% of the Democratic primary vote on June 8 despite having not done any traditional campaigning or fundraising, was arrested in November for allegedly showing obscene photos to a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab.

A grand jury in Richland County, S.C., indicted Greene on one felony charge of disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent, according to a statement from the county solicitor’s office.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

As a result, these communities represent more than half of all foreclosures, with 48% of foreclosures on Latinos and 8% on African Americans.  These borrowers were more likely to receive higher-cost subprime mortgages with loan terms that typically increased the risk of default, compared with safer loans made to similarly situated non-Hispanic white borrowers.

The report, Dreams Deferred: Impacts and Characteristics of the California Foreclosure Crisis, analyzed more than 600,000 foreclosures in the state and also found that over three-quarters of all California foreclosures were on relatively modest properties, not “McMansions” as often believed.  Additionally, while major cities like Los Angeles and Sacramento have suffered the greatest number of foreclosures, communities in the Central Valley and Inland Empire have been severely harmed by high concentrations of foreclosures.

“Whether we are from Los Angeles or Modesto, all Californians are severely impacted by the foreclosure crisis,” says Paul Leonard, director of CRL’s California office.  ”We need solutions now that ease the pain everywhere.” The CRL California office has been at the forefront of efforts to respond to the state’s foreclosure crisis.

CRL’s latest research is the first to rigorously examine the geographic and demographic dimensions of California foreclosures as well as characteristics of foreclosed properties.  The key findings are:

• Latino and African-American borrowers in California have experienced foreclosure rates 2.3 and 1.9 times that of non-Hispanic white borrowers.  Given the high foreclosure rates for loans made in recent years and the large number of loans to Latinos in those years, almost half of all California foreclosures have been of Latino borrowers.
• The concentration and volume of California foreclosures differ dramatically by region.  The Central Valley and Inland Empire have the highest concentrations of foreclosures, while the volume of foreclosures is highest in major cities, such as Los Angeles.
• Contrary to some claims, most foreclosures have not been on sprawling “McMansions” but rather on modest properties that were typically valued significantly below area median values at origination.

“NCLR has sounded the alarm for the last two years about the devastating impact foreclosures have had on communities of color, but this report reveals a shocking level of concentration among Latino homeowners in California,” said Janet Murguia, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza.  “Dishonest brokers peddled their high-cost loans, steered our families into risky products designed to fail and now Latinos and all of California are paying the price.”

The report also outlines policy recommendations to reduce unnecessary foreclosures:

• Require servicers to complete the review of loan modification applications before beginning the foreclosure process.  This is the central feature of California bill SB 1275 which will be considered by the full California Assembly this week before being sent to the governor.  
• Incorporate principal reduction into loan modification programs, especially where housing prices have contributed to a lack of affordability.
• Lift the ban on judicial modification of principal residence mortgages by bankruptcy judges.
• Expand funding and capacity of housing counseling agencies and legal aid providers.

“We are thrilled to kick off our fall lineup with this fresh, new docu-series and provide our viewers a window into the often overlooked world of aspiring minority and female NASCAR drivers,” said Loretha Jones, President of Original Programming for BET Networks.

Narrated by award-winning rapper and actor Ludacris, CHANGING LANES chronicles the search for the next generation of minority and female racecar drivers in America’s most-watched form of motorsports. The eight episode season follows a group of hopefuls vying for a spot on Max Siegel’s NASCAR Revolution Racing team.

“This has been an historic year on-track from Revolution Racing and NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program. CHANGING LANES positions viewers to experience the road which led to this landmark success,” noted Max Siegel, CEO of Revolution Racing and Creator/Executive Producer of CHANGING LANES. “We knew when creating this show that there was nothing like it on television because NASCAR is a unique and specialized world.”

The contestants are part of NASCAR’s leading driver development program, Drive for Diversity, which provides opportunities for minority and female drivers to compete in one of NASCAR’s highest levels of professional racing.

“The partnership between BET and NASCAR is unique and exciting and breaks new ground for both properties,” said Marcus Jadotte, Managing Director of Public Affairs for NASCAR, who oversees the sanctioning body’s diversity programs. “We believe the stories of these aspiring young drivers captured in the show will resonate with the NASCAR audience and BET viewers alike.”

“One of NASCAR Media Group’s main objectives is to expose the wonderful sport of NASCAR to new and diverse audiences,” added Jay Abraham, COO of NASCAR Media Group. “Working on a project like CHANGING LANES with a top-notch organization like BET has been a great experience and we’re excited about bringing the enthusiasm and passion of racing to the Network’s loyal viewers.”

While there have been other reality series to delve into motorsports, CHANGING LANES is the first show to focus exclusively on minority and female drivers. The series kicks off at NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity Program Testing and Evaluation Combine, where thirty drivers experience a rigorous application process.  The ten drivers selected for the team compete through several elimination style contests with four finalists winning the opportunity to qualify for the Toyota All Star Showdown in Irwindale, CA.  

CHANGING LANES is executive produced by Jay Abraham, Jim Jorden, Ken Mok and Max Siegel along with BET Networks, NASCAR, NASCAR Media Group, 10 x 10 Entertainment and The 909 Group.

Pictured: Contestant Darrell Wallace, Jr. gears up for a race. (PRNewsFoto/BET Networks, PictureGroup, Courtesy of BET Networks)

That being said, it was with much interest that I and likely several of you viewed Slate’s article “How black people use Twitter” last week. Upon first read, I have to admit that I really wasn’t offended by anything that the author Farhad Manjoo had written. After being a writer on the Internets for the past three years, I had long accepted that most people who comment on facets of blackness are often not black themselves. It was for this reason that I didn’t even flinch when Manjoo described himself as a “non-white person” in what can only be described as an attempt to identify with African-Americans yet be an exception towards the audience of those non-black persons for whom “Late Night Black Twitter” is an obsession.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

On Twitter, people append hashtags to categorize their messages—the tags make it easier to search for posts on a certain topic, and they can sometimes lead to worldwide call-and-response conversations in which people compete to outdo one another with ever more hilarious, bizarre, or profane posts.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

He says Evans was held for a few hours and released on bail Sunday morning. Her car was impounded.

The R&B singer is the widow of rapper Christopher Wallace, also known as the Notorious B.I.G. She won a Grammy in 1998 for the song I’ll Be Missing You.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: Singer Faith Evans performs on stage during the 20th Annual ‘Midsummer Night’s Magic Awards Dinner’ on July 13, 2005 at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images).

Eighteen percent of the American population said that they thought Obama — a Christian — is Muslim, up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009, according to the poll by the non-partisan Pew Research Center and its affiliated Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

The number who correctly said he is a Christian dipped to 34 percent, down from 47 percent two years ago. But the largest share of people, 43 percent, said they were uncertain of his faith, up from the 32 percent in late 2008.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: US President Barack Obama speaks at a reception for the Florida Democratic Party at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, Florida, on August 18, 2010. AFP PHOTO/Jewel Samad (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)

At the bottom, it said “Available to Negroes.”

It was the 1950s in segregated New Orleans, Louisiana, and the promise of a slice of suburbia for black Americans lured hundreds to the new community.

That included Meldon Woods, an Air Force corporal who had been given a home loan for his military service through the GI Bill. He and his wife, Audrey, a schoolteacher at the time, purchased a two-story home in 1957 where they raised their four children.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured: New homeowner Robert Green (R) looks on with graddaughters Shaniya Thomas (L), Shamiya Thomas (2nd L), and Mama Selah outside Green’s home constructed by the Make it Right foundation in the Lower Ninth Ward November 28, 2009 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prospective homeowners must have lived in the Lower Ninth Ward when Hurricane Katrina hit. Brad Pitt�s foundation plans to construct 150 green, storm-resistant homes in the neighborhood. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images).

“I couldn’t ask to be in a better place right now,” Swizz, who was previously signed to Universal Motown, said in a statement. “Both Everest and the Atlantic/Warner team have been great and I’m looking forward to sharing this project with true fans of good music.”

The partnership will not only mark the release of Swizz’s upcoming album, but it’s also the first musical release for Everest, which is most known for producing films including Sony Pictures Classics “Mother and Child” and Fox Searchlight’s upcoming comedy “Win Win.”

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Pictured:  Recording artists T.I and Swizz Beatz perform during the 2008 BET Hip-Hop Awards at The Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center on October 18, 2008 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for BET)