It's been 7 years since 28-year-old Kanika Powell was gunned down outside her Prince George's County apartment by an unknown assailant.
Her death was the first of 2 mysterious murders involving government workers with security clearances in Prince George's County in 2008.
Pittsburgh police have a mystery on their hands. Over the last five weeks, cops have responded to 27 urgent 911 calls they say appear to be coming from inside the home of A.J. Richardson, a former candidate for the mayor of Pittsburgh.
Richardson insists the calls aren't coming from his house, according to CBS affiliate KDKA2. By law the police can not ignore the 911 calls. A constant police presence outside the home at 3056 Bergman St. has become a normal occurrence to Richardson's neighbors.
A mysterious illness that causes starfish to rip themselves apart has marine scientists baffled. The mystery condition has affected starfish up and down the west coast, mainly near Washington state.
The illness causes starfish to develop lesions on their bodies. The disoriented starfish twist their arms into knots. The arms then crawl away and rip apart from the bodies causing the insides to spill out. Without arms the starfish die within 24 hours. And, unlike most starfish, the arms don't regenerate.
Two Jonesboro, Arkansas officers are on administrative leave while police investigate how a 21-year-old man was shot in the back seat of their patrol car.
21-year-old Chavis Carter was in the passenger seat of a pickup truck that was pulled over by police before 10 p.m. Saturday night, WREG reports.
According to Officer Keith Baggett, Officer Ron Marsh found “some marijuana” and several plastic baggies when he searched Carter. A quick check turned up a warrant on Carter in Mississippi, where he lived.
The cops then handcuffed him, searched him again, and put him in the back seat of the patrol car. As officers searched the pickup truck, Baggett claims he heard “a loud thump with a metallic sound” on his trunk and saw Marsh motion to him.
In a strange but true story from the Far East, a 63-year-old woman was 'impregnated' in the mouth after eating cooked calamari (squid).
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Maryland, the unidentified woman complained of a sharp pain in her mouth after eating a piece of fully cooked squid.
The woman from South Korea took the remainder of her calamari meal to a local hospital where doctors found 12 "bug-like organisms" stuck to the mucosa (skin) lining the woman's mouth.
After examining the woman, doctors found "baby cephalopods" and the "presence of the sperm bag" attached to the inside of her mouth. "The foreign bodies were later identified as squid spermatophores."
A loyal reader, who asked to remain anonymous, writes:
DO YOU REALLY THINK ALL THESE PEOPLE WOULD KEEP UP THE CHARADE OF HER REALLY CARRYING AROUND A DOLL? JUST A QUESTION.
What do you guys think? I'm going to say that the child Beyonce is holding in the left pic doesn't look like the well-nourished baby/doll she's been carrying around. These pics only add to the mystery.
Is a movie poster-style online graphic really just a marketing ploy for a sequel to the 1981 cult classic film 'Escape from NY'? Or is it really a warning from Al-Qaeda that they have bigger plans for the big apple than 9/11?
According to Yahoo News, via the Associated Press, a mock movie poster surfaced on a website warning al-Qaida plans to return to New York City, but the NYPD says they are convinced that it's an actual threat.
I wonder what it would take to convince the NYPD of a serious threat from Al-Qaeda?
The feds -- more specifically, Homeland Security -- are all over the movie poster warning. The feds aren't taking any chances. They are monitoring the Arab-language website for any other signs of apocalyptic-style warnings.
Tongues were wagging during the touching performance of songstress Christina Aguilera's performance at Etta James tribute on Sunday. Not because she tore the roof off the place with her amazing vocals, but because she appeared to be leaking bodily fluids on the stage.
Here's what actually happened according to US Weekly:
In photos of Aguilera's incredible tribute to James -- who passed away Jan. 20 -- fans noticed odd streaks running down her legs.
"She sang her heart out. It was a memorial service for her idol and she was nervous," an insider explains to Us of the performance. (Aguilera, 31, has been covering "At Last" for years and called James "a true gift to music and a woman of great spirit and courage" on her website after James' death."
"It was her proudest moment," the source explains. "The sweat caused her spray tan to streak."
Good answer. But she doesn't appear to be "sweating" anywhere on her body -- except in the vicinity of her vagina. Do women spray tan their vaginas? 
Thanks to loyal reader mzwhang90210 for the tip!
According to TMZ.com, a North Carolina church sign was defaced by vandals over the weekend. The sign's message -- which was not authorized by the church as a message from God -- read: BEYONCE HAD HER BABY. SATAN IS ON EARTH.
The pastor at Beulah Hill Baptist Church in West End, NC tells TMZ, he discovered the vandalism yesterday after receiving numerous complaints from locals asking who this Beyonce was. The sign was removed immediately.
The pastor may or may not have authorized the message, but someone in his congregation did. The sign's lettering cannot be changed by outsiders without a key to open the display case.
Source: Snitch
Yesterday we told you about Beyonce attending a children's birthday party with her hubby Jay Z in Brooklyn. According to the NY Times gossip column Page Six, Beyonce's fiercely loyal bodyguard, Julius, shooed away one mom who tried to take a photo of her. Well, one of the party goers was able to sneak a pic of the singer off guard.
Here's a question for you moms: do 5 month pregnant women normally sit with their backs hunched over like that? Is her poor posture safe for her fetus (if there is one)? So many questions...
Image spotted on RWS
Thanks to loyal reader Stacy B. for giving us the heads up on Wendy Williams doing the Beyonce baby bump sit down test with two of her staffers who really are pregnant. One of Wendy's staffers is due to deliver her baby in February, 2012 -- the same month that Bey is supposedly delivering whatever it is she's carrying.
Update: after watching the video (and laughing my head off!), we decided to compare pics of what a real pregnant woman looks like when she sits, compared to bumbling Beyonce.
First of all, do you see Beyonce's awful posture when she sits? What pregnant woman sits leaning so far forward with her head down at an almost 45 degree angle to her stomach? Notice how she's not protecting her stomach when she sits the way a real pregnant woman would? We could go on and on, but you get the point.
Click the link to watch the results of Wendy's test!
His Twitter page is @Romarley and he's pretty sure that Lauryn Hill's sixth pregnancy is not of his seed.
If the baby is not Rohan's, we do know one thing: the baby daddy is somebody who is married or currently in a relationship, because that's Lauryn's steelo. I would say that a scandal is brewing, but maybe Rohan is just trying to get more followers on his Twitter page?
The body of Brooklyn jazz musician Suleiman-Marim Wright was found stuffed in a storage trunk in his home today. Wright was 62 years old. He had been reported missing a week ago. The jazzman, who was born Stanley Wright, was the father of actress N'Bushe Wright, 40, who is best known for her roles in the movies Dead President and Blade.
Police found Wright's body in his basement at 3:30am after his son, Khalil, called them to search the home on Chauncey St. in Brownsville.
He was stuffed into an old black trunk once used to store his mother's clothes.
"This is crazy?" said his great-niece, Minnie Wright. "Who would do something like that to him? He was a musician. He was a great man."
Wright was a widower, who lived alone with his two cats.
Police said a back window in the house was broken out. Relatives said Wright's car, a grey Jeep, is missing, but that several valuable instruments were left in the home.
Wright's daughter, N'Bushe, was flying to NY from the West Coast on Tuesday, her family said.
Thanks to loyal reader Nicole B for the tip!
Twitter has a new star joining its ranks. The Bronx Zoo's missing cobra joined Twitter yesterday, and he already has over 35,000 followers. Worried zookeepers don't know how the wily cobra slipped out of its enclosure in the reptile house on Friday, but the poisonous snake doesn't plan on being recaptured any time soon.
In addition to keeping the zookeepers off his trail, the cobra humorously narrates his adventures while on the loose in the Bronx.
After the Bergdorf Goodman store invited the @BronxZoosCobra to visit, it tweeted, "If I recognize a single belt..."
For its part, the zoo is working overtime to find the snake and restore confidence in an alarmed public. In a statement released yesterday, zoo director James J. Breheny noted, “We understand the interest in this story and that everyone wants us to find the missing snake. As this may take days or even weeks, daily updates should not be expected.”
The world is mourning the sudden death of Berlin's most famous polar bear. A tourist caught the exact moment when 4-year-old Knut keeled over and died in his enclosure at the Berlin Zoo.
Knut was born in captivity at the Berlin Zoo in 2006. He became an overnight celebrity when a German tabloid published a quote from an animal rights activist protesting keeping the bear in captivity. Knut's worldwide fame spawned toys, media specials, DVDs, and books.
In the video, it appears as if Knut is sick. Poisoned maybe? The video starts off with a disoriented Knut chasing his tail around in circles. Eventually, he is unsteady on his feet and loses his balance. Finally, Knut lets out a loud groan and keels over backwards into the water.
Tourists can be heard screaming in the background as Knut thrashes in the water for a few seconds before drowning. How sad.
The family of Asheley Jewell will hold a candlelight vigil for her this Saturday near the location where she was wounded in an apparent road rage incident on March 5.
Jewell, 15, was shot in the back of the head when the car she was traveling in was fired upon by someone in another vehicle on Old National Highway near Jerome Road. Asheley remains in critical condition in the ICU at Grady hospital.
Anyone with information on the incident is urged to call Crime Stoppers Atlanta at 404-577-8477.
The vigil will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday at O'Reilly Auto Parts, 5549 Old National Highway in College Park.
"The vigil is a step toward healing a family victimized by senseless violence," said Jewell's cousin, attorney Ebony Phillips. "It is also a call for justice in hopes that someone will come forward with invaluable information about this case. Although nothing can undo the events of March 5, 2011, the family is hopeful that justice will prevail."
Asheley is the daughter of Ashley "A.J." Jewell, who was briefly engaged to former Xscape singer Kandi Burruss. Jewell died in 2009 following a fight in the parking lot of a now defunct Atlanta strip club. Jewell called off his engagement to Burruss shortly before he died.
Photo provided to the AJC by the family
It was the stuff nightmares are made of...
Christopher George Latore Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls and The Notorious BIG, lost his life in a hail of bullets fired by an unknown assailant just moments after leaving the Petersen Automotive Museum in LA, 14 years ago today. He was just 24.
If you were logged on to the social networking site, Twitter.com, late last night then you saw Biggie Smalls' only daughter, T'Yanna Wallace, tweet her touching shout out to her dad.
Others tweeted condolences, photos, videos and private memories of their precious time spent with Biggie before his untimely passing.
Writer dream hampton, one of Biggie's closest friends, did all of that and more:
March 9, 1997
Los AngelesMy phone rings. It is after midnight and I am sleeping. I think it might be Biggie. He always calls late. But it is not. It is someone telling me that Biggie was shot, that he might be dead. I hang up on the person. Someone else calls. They tell me Biggie is indeed dead. I hang up on them too. But I call Puff. His cell phone is turned off. It is never turned off.
I feel the first signs of panic. I call my best friend in L.A. and she makes it to my house in Silver Lake in a matter of minutes. We drive to Cedars Sinai, where she heard he has been taken. In front of the emergency room is the Suburban he’d rented. There is police tape around it and a tightly formed pattern of bullet holes in the passenger dor, where Big would have been sitting.
The panic is real now. I call his best friend Damien. A girl answers the phone, tells me it’s true. Damien is with Faith at her hotel and he’ll meet me at Big’s hotel room. He has to make all the hard phone calls. To Un and L and Kim in New York, to Big’s girl Tiffany in Philly. To Big’s mom.
‘This nigga, who ain’t never hurt nobody,” Damien keeps saying. “I could see if it was one of us.” Cease stares out the window, unable to speak or move. In a few hours he will put his arm through the window and stitches will be required to close the wound. “One fucking bullet.” That’s how it happened. There were no last words. “I been shot mad times—niggas get shot.” Damien sounds as if he were up pacing the room, but he’s sitting on the couch, his head in his hands, exhausted. On his right arm is the psalm that Big had tattooed in the same spot a week earlier.
The hotel room is covered with Big’s clothes. Custom-made Versace, The gator loafers he bought when he came to Detroit. Big’s mother is on her way to the airport in Queens. Un is driving her. T’Yanna’s mother Jan and Mann from the neighborhood are accompanying her on the flight. She hears on the early-morning radio what she would not allow herself to believe when Damien called. The sun is beginnig to rise in Big’s hotel room. Damien needs to sleep but promises he will not, nor will he shower, until “I get my man out this motherfucker.”
When Mrs. Wallace lands at LAX it is scorching. She thinks L.A. is the cruelest, most awful place on the planet. She vows never to return, “except to look my son’s murderer in the face. To ask him ‘Why?’”
“This nigga died from one ass bullet,” Damien keeps repeating as if trying to find logic in the details of the absurd. Cease stares at the rising sun. Damien tilts his head back on the couch, covers his eyes with one arm, and lets his tears flow. “One ass bullet.”
Click the link below to watch dream hampton's rare archival footage of Biggie and his entourage (including hampton) getting kicked out of a 4-star hotel.
There was one debate that I never engaged in when it came to U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama: his birth status or whether he's eligible to be president. As far as I was concerned, Obama is an American because his birth certificate is on file in Hawaii.
But now comes word that there may not be an original birth certificate on file in Hawaii for Obama after all.
According to online reports, new Hawaii governor Neil Abercombie admits that there is no original birth document with Obama's name on it in Hawaii. This shocking news comes on the heels of Obama's lukewarm State of the Union Address last night, in which he said basically nothing that we haven't already heard.
Hawaii’s communications officer, Janice Okubo, confirmed Abercrombie’s statement by saying that the Registrar's Office maintains a public collection of birth registrations and Obama’s name appears in them. However, it has long since been proven that Hawaii’s birth registration process includes foreign births when the parents claim a Hawaiian residence. A record of registration is not necessarily an indication of a Hawaiian birth under the provisions of HRS 338-17.7 and 17.8. READ MORE
According to Jawn Murray of AOL Black Voices:
A rep for singer Omarion has confirmed to BlackVoices.com that a press release circulating on the internet claiming that he formally announced he is "bisexual" is a hoax.
The internet was abuzz Saturday afternoon when several online blogs posted what appeared to be a press release serviced on behalf of Omarion (real name: Omari Ishmael Grandberry) addressing his sexuality.
The unedited press release read: "I pride myself in being an honest, God Fearing, respectful man. I have kept my personal life private and wanted to keep it that way. Unfortunately, other's are interested in profiting from my anguish; so before they can do that, I will clarify things. I am not at all what certain ex-band members are trying to paint me as, I am however a respectable, mature, proud, bisexual man."
The fake press announcement was attributed to Sharron Wright at Sony Music; however BlackVoices.com reported exclusively on April 19, 2008 that the singer was no longer affiliated with the label. (See: ''O' No: Singer Omarion Dropped By Record Label')
The 26-year-old former B2K member's rep, Francoise Blachette of The Purple Agency, promptly responded to BlackVoices.com inquiry for comment on the matter.
"The previously released statement regarding Omarion is false and was generated for negative publicity by an unknown person. Omarion will not contribute to anything negative said or done against him. Omarion respects all of his fans, no matter religion, sexuality, or race," she said in a statement.
Omarion then took to his Twitter page to respond as well. (See below)
When thousands of dead birds fell from the sky over Beebe, Arkansas just before midnight on December 31st, the government was already on the scene with a ready-made excuse for the carnage. The news media arriving on the scene were told by EPA officials, wearing hazmat suits and gas masks, that fireworks was the culprit.
According to online reports, 500 more dead birds fell from the sky hundreds of miles away in Louisiana on Monday. Some believe this is a sign of a major Extinction Level Event.
For the past 48 hours the government has insisted that "loud noises" from a distant fireworks display frightened the birds to death. That's their story and they are sticking to it.
Fireworks have been bursting in air since way before I was born. There is nothing in the sky louder than thunder. Yet I have never seen birds dropping dead after a thunder storm.
Birds own the sky. They've navigated around the sky for millions of years. By now they should be acclimated to a little noise in the air. Even if they were blind, birds fly using sonar (echolocation) and the gravitational pull of the earth. They don't have to see well to get where they're going.
But yet the government lies continue -- and they use the Obama-friendly, left wing media to spread that lie. Obviously the government doesn't have a very high opinion of the intelligence level of Americans.
Click link to read more
Everyone's talking about the thousands of fish and fowl that are turning up dead in two small towns in Arkansas.
Like a scene out of Hitchcock's classic movie 'The Birds,' 5,000 dead birds literally dropped out of the sky just before midnight on New Year's Eve in Beebe, Arkansas.
Was it a sign of Biblical proportions?
As news of the strange occurrences swept around the world, experts floated theories as to what they believe may have killed the birds:
"There were multiple thunderstorms that night and for several days that week," said Dr. George Badley, state veterinarian for the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission. "Red-winged blackbirds fly in large groups and if they got pulled into a thunderstorm, likely lightning struck them. That would be my best guess." 1
Others say fireworks could be the culprit.
But Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Game and Fish Commission, told Reuters that he had yet to see any sign of injury on birds that were collected.
That's not all: there's the 100,000 dead fish that floated to the surface of the Arkansas River near a town called Ozark last week.
Certainly such a massive fish kill couldn't be the result of hail or fireworks. And even if it was -- as some experts call it, "a stress event," how weird is it that the birds and fish all died in the same geographical area?
This might be a good time to get right with God...
Teena Marie's autopsy was completed yesterday, but Los Angeles County Coroner Ed Winter says her cause of death remains unclear.
According to the Atlanta Journal, investigators say the 54-year-old R&B singer's autopsy results revealed no signs of trauma. This conflicts with rumors that Marie suffered several fractured ribs from a fall during a seizure she had weeks before she died.
Marie's daughter, Alia Rose, found her mother's body in their Pasadena home one day after they celebrated Rose's 19th birthday.
There were reports that Marie died in her sleep after suffering a grand mal seizure. But there are people who experience seizures every day and they don't die.
Also unclear is why Marie had seizures in the first place. Did she have epilepsy or were the seizures drug induced?
Winter said no illegal drugs were found in the family's home where Marie died on December 26. But police removed a bottle of Valium from the scene. Valium is often prescribed for people with anxiety, panic attacks and to control seizures.
Marie reportedly stopped taking the drug due to its serious side effects, which include drowsiness, fatigue and constipation.
Teena Marie's planned concert appearance on New Year's Day at the Fox Theater in Atlanta will instead be a tribute to honor her career. Scheduled performers include MAZE and Frankie Beverly, along with Johnny Gill and Stephanie Mills.
Tickets can be purchased online or at the Fox Theater box office. Refunds are available at the point of purchase.