Just like many businesses and organizations, gangs are using Facebook and Twitter to dessiminate information and interact with the masses.

Police are keeping tabs of suspected gang member’s Internet activities and its leading to arrests, convictions and taking illegal drugs and weapons off the streets.

From TheNewsTribune

When a gang member was released from jail soon after his arrest for selling methamphetamine, friends and associates assumed he had cut a deal with authorities and become a police informant.

They sent a warning on Twitter that went like this: We have a snitch in our midst.

Unbeknownst to them, that tweet and the traffic it generated were being closely followed by investigators, who had been tracking the San Francisco Bay Area gang for months. Officials sat back and watched as others joined the conversation and left behind incriminating information.

Law enforcement officials say gangs are making greater use of Twitter and Facebook, where they sometimes post information that helps agents identify gang associates and learn more about their organizations.

“You find out about people you never would have known about before,” said Dean Johnston with the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, which helps police investigate gangs. “You build this little tree of people.”

In the case involving the suspected informant, tweets alerted investigators to three other gang members who were ultimately arrested on drug charges.

Tech-savvy gangsters have long been at home in chatrooms and on Web sites like MySpace, but they appear to be gravitating toward Twitter and Facebook, where they can make threats, boast about crimes, share intelligence on rivals and network with people across the country.

“We are seeing a lot more of it,” Johnston said. “They will even go out and brag about doing shootings.”

DaMarcus Beasley, a US citizen playing soccer in Scotland was the victim of terrorism when his BMW was set ablaze outside his home is Glasgow.

From NBC Sports

The incident happened Monday in the Scottish city. Beasley said Wednesday on Twitter that “someone blew up my car.” He added that he was “glad no one got hurt.”

Strathclyde Police says it is treating the incident as “willful fireraising” and that inquiries are ongoing.

Henrietta Lacks, an African-American tobacco farmer is responsible for many of the of the medical discoveries of the past 60 years

From the Smithsonian

Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of how cells work and test theories about the causes and treatment of diseases. The cell lines they need are “immortal”—they can grow indefinitely, be frozen for decades, divided into different batches and shared among scientists.

In 1951, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, created the first immortal human cell line with a tissue sample taken from a young black woman with cervical cancer. Those cells, called HeLa cells, quickly became invaluable to medical research—though their donor remained a mystery for decades.

In her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, journalist Rebecca Skloot tracks down the story of the source of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell line’s impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family.

Who was Henrietta Lacks?
She was a black tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who got cervical cancer when she was 30. A doctor at Johns Hopkins took a piece of her tumor without telling her and sent it down the hall to scientists there who had been trying to grow tissues in culture for decades without success. No one knows why, but her cells never died.

Why are her cells so important?
Henrietta’s cells were the first immortal human cells ever grown in culture. They were essential to developing the polio vaccine. They went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to cells in zero gravity. Many scientific landmarks since then have used her cells, including cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.

The U.S Department of Justice will investigate the death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, said Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) during a press conference on Tuesday.

Abdullah was killed during an FBI raid last year when federal agents stormed his suburban Detroit warehouse. According to autopsy results agents shot Abdullah 21 times.

The FBI said Abdullah was the leader of a group of Black radical Muslim separatists that was involved in selling stolen goods.  Members of Abdullah’s mosque deny the allegations.

The video below is excerpts from an interview with Abdullah’s wife as well as comments from Conyers.

Shoshana Johnson, the first African-American woman to be captured as a soldier of war has a busy month ahead.

The former Army private who is now a culinary student is on a full blown media tour now as she promotes her book, “I’m Still Standing” about her experiences as prisoner of war in Iraq.

Click here to read an excerpt from her book.

The new “We Are the World” recording will debut Feb.12. Here are the names of the artists involved in the project. Proceeds from the recording will go towards Haiti earthquake relief.

Carlos Santana, Orianthi, Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, Sugarland, Adam Levine, Jason Mraz, Earth Wind & Fire, Natalie Cole, The Jonas Brothers, T-Pain, Brian Wilson, Justin Bieber, Nicole Scherzinger, India.Arie, Julianne Hough, Mary Mary, Melanie Fiona, BeBe Winans, Mya, Tyrese Gibson, Anthony Hamilton, Raphael Saadiq, Gladys Knight, Keri Hilson, Joel and Benji Madden, Heart, Brandy, Pink, Musiq Soulchild, Miley Cyrus, Akon, Jordin Sparks, Celine Dion, Rob Thomas, Katharine McPhee, Jeff Bridges, Randy Jackson, Patti Austin, Kid CuDi, Usher, Will.i.am, Kanye West, LL Cool J, Issac Slade (of The Fray), Snoop Dogg, Nicole Richie, Trey Songz, Ethan Bortnick, Taryll Jackson, Taj Jackson, TJ Jackson, Vince Vaughn, Drake, Freda Payne, Faith Evans, Robin Thicke, Rashida Jones, Barbra Streisand, Jimmy Jean Louis, Enrique Iglesias, Zac Brown, Lil Wayne, Tony Bennett, Josh Groban, Sean Garrett, Harry Connick Jr., Al Jardine, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony (Bizzy Bone) and A.R.Rahman.

Quincy Jones and Lionel Richie are the lead producers.

Amid criticism from PETA and other animal rights groups for wearing head to toe fur during Paris Men’s Fashion Week, Kayne West fired back at his detractors though the blogosphere.

His response really isn’t family friendly so click here to read it.

Several media outlets are reporting that former American Idol winner Fantasia may face a multi-million lawsuit by the estranged wife of her boyfriend for criminal conversion, or having a sexual relationship with a married man.

From MediaTakeOut.com

Only 7 states have what we’re referring to as the ANTI-JUMPOFF law (in legal circles it’s called “criminal conversion”), the states are North Carolina, Illinois, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, South Dakota and Utah.

But here’s why North Carolina’s anti-jumpoff law is so EFFECTIVE. Unlike the traditional “Alienation Of Affection” law, a jumpoff has virtually NO DEFENSE to a lawsuit brought under the ANTI-JUMPOFF law. For example, the jumpoff CAN NOT claim that they didn’t know the other person was married, or that the married man WAS SEPARATED from his wife, or that the wife was ALSO BEING UNFAITHFUL.

MediaTakeOut.com uncovered that under North Carolina’s law, if the wife can prove that she was VALIDLY married and that her husband had SEX with his jumpoff, then the jumpoff is AUTOMATICALLY liable for damages.

And North Carolina courts have offered BIG JUDGMENTS against jumpoffs. For example, in 2001 a jury awarded a distraught spouse $1.4 MILLION under the anti-jumpoff law.

Again, I repeat there is no lawsuit filed as of yet. We’ll keep you posted.

White House officials said critically-injured Haitians will continue to receive medical care in the United States.

The flights were temporarily suspended because of logistical issues including space to care for the injured, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Saturday to CNN.

“Having received assurances that additional capacity exists both here and among our international partners, we determined that we can resume these critical flights,” he said in a statement Sunday to the media.

The proposed 2011 federal budget will include a $98 million funding increase for historically Black colleges and universities.

In a recent television interview Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the Obama Administration wants to do what it can to help HBCU’s “thrive.”

From Black America Web

Administration officials are hoping the funding will stave off criticism from black college presidents and alumni, who complained last year the administration’s decision not to pursue renewing a George W. Bush-era HBCU funding program actually resulted in a budget cut to the cash-strapped schools.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, appearing Sunday on TV One’s “Washington Watch with Roland Martin,” announced Obama’s intention ahead of the White House’s official rollout of its estimated $3.8 trillion budget proposal.

“We have great news, that, going forward, we’re proposing in the budget an increase of $98 million annually for HBCUs, so that’s a tremendous commitment,” Duncan said in response to a question from Martin. “I said from Day One we desperately need HBCUs not just to survive, but to thrive.”

In addition, Duncan said the administration is seeking increases in Pell grants – with an eye towards doubling Pell opportunities for HBCU students – Perkins Loans and tuition tax credits.