Ludacris &, Floyd Mayweather team up for new video

Check out these exclusive pictures of Ludacris and Floyd Mayweather at their video shoot for Ludacris’s new song, Undisputed! Check Music News for the latest.

Louis Vuitton don, Kanye West talk new album

Still riding the success of his third album, Graduation, Kanye West is prepping his fourth LP, 808’s and Heartbreak, for a Dec. 16 release. Here’s more.

Beyoncé is set to release third LP

R&B songstress Beyoncé Knowles is prepping the release of her third solo project this November. BET.com/Music News has more here!

Black Muslims meet in Detroit

When most people think about Black Muslims, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is the first thing that comes to mind. But it’s the Muslim American Society and its leader, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, that is widely believed to have the largest following among African Americans. This past weekend, thousands of Black Muslims converged on Detroit for an annual convention, which met in Michigan for the first time in more than 10 years. Metro Detroit has one of the largest Muslim populations in America . Mohammed is the son of the Elijah Muhammad, the longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, who died in 1975. After his father died, Mohammed took over the Black Nationalist organization and retooled group’s message, downplaying racial separatism and preaching orthodox Islam. “He’s a superb leader,” said Nadir Ahmad, 58, of Detroit , told The Detroit Free Press “He has a sober message of good morals, but also a commonsense approach to life and religion.” Ahmad said Mohammed “has always called for cooperation between faiths.”

Blacks in the South have higher HIV rates. Blacks in the South have higher HIV and AIDS rates. Why? Read more at BET.com/Body & Soul.

Be Sickle Smart program hits major cities.

The Be Sickle Smart program is on the road, and likely will be in a city near you. “American Idol” season two Winner Ruben Studdard hosted the Be Sickle Smart Education Day in Jacksonville, Fla., last Saturday to raise awareness of the risk of iron overload, a serious condition that affects people living with sickle-cell disease. Transfusional iron overload is a serious condition that can arise from having 10 or more blood transfusions over one’s lifetime (which is common among people who suffer from sickle-cell disease). If left untreated, iron overload can lead to serious health problems, including liver and heart damage, to name a few. The nationwide Be Sickle Smart campaign is a community-based health education effort leveraging advocacy groups, churches, local media and community leaders to raise awareness of sickle-cell disease and iron overload. The program will continue in Birmingham on Sept. 13 and Chicago on Sept. 18, with other stops planned later for Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Philadelphia. More than 70,000 people in America have sickle-cell disease. One in 12 African Americans carries the trait for sickle-cell disease. For more information, go to Ask About Iron.com.

Is L.A. driving the trans fat bandwagon off a cliff?
Vital Signs: Cities and states are helping you cut the fat from your diets. Cities like Los Angeles are going as far as to stop fast food restaurants from opening in poor communities to lessen the number of unhealthy restaurants there. But do we really need that kind of help in the fat fight, or is the city going too far? Vital Signs has more.

Families are feeling the economic crunch

When it comes to the cost of living, Americans are suffering more than any time in the past 17 years, government figures show. That’s extra bad news for African Americans, because when the rest of the nation has a bellyache, Black America has stomach cancer. Of course, skyrocketing gas and food prices put the squeeze on American families, but rising job losses, falling home prices and stagnant wages and household incomes added to the economic pain, the Labor Department said Wednesday. “The government report confirms what every consumer in America has known for months now: inflation is soaring and it’s having an adverse impact on the economy,” Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, told CNNMoney.com. An earlier reading from Labor showed that the average hourly wage rose by only 3.4 percent over the same one-year period, “meaning the typical American is having trouble keeping up with the price increases,” CNN reports. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke told Congress to expect for inflation to keep the economy on shaky ground. “Rapid increases in the prices of energy and other commodities … have sapped household purchasing power even as they have boosted inflation,” he told lawmakers. In addition, he cautioned that people are spending less and, if prices continue to rise, business could follow suit, which would further stress the economy.

Family of boxing legend files lawsuit over relative’s death
The family of Vunies High, former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis’ sister, is suing an assisted-living center’s parent compnay for $75,000. High wandered outside of The Heatherwood in suburban Detroit in February and was later found dead with her face stuck to the ice. She was 92. Louis lived in Detroit after migrating from the South. He’s regarded as one of the greatest heavyweights in boxing history.

Black singer-dancer to be honored on U.S. stamp

Josephine Baker, the gorgeous Black singer/dancer whose beauty mesmerized France and the rest of Europe during the 1920s and ’30s, is the latest African American to be memorialized on a U.S. postage stamp. Baker’s movie, “Princess Tam-Tam,” is among the five images on the stamps to honor vintage Black cinema. New Jersey, the home of a Black film festival, will hold ceremonies marking to commemorate the sale of the stamps. “I guess that if she was with us today she would be very honored. At her death she was a French citizen, but she never forgot she was born in America,” her son, Jean-Claude Baker, told The Associated Press in an interview. “She would be delighted and very moved.” In addition to her acclaimed singing and dancing, Josephine Baker earned military honors as an undercover agent for the French resistance in World War II. During the 1950s and ’60s, she was active in the Civil Rights Movement, even making an appearance with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 March on Washington.