CNN Wire Service
Jan 25 2013

Billboard Music Awards

This year's Billboard Music Awards should be a funky good time, thanks to the magazine's decision to recognize Prince with the Billboard Icon Award.
 
Prince will receive the honor on May 19 during the ceremony's live broadcast from Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena that will air on ABC. The hit-maker is also expected to offer a performance during the show.
 
Last year, Stevie Wonder received the Icon Award, which was presented with a tribute led by Alicia Keys.
 

Jan 25 2013

The Super Bowl is the second largest food consumption holiday in the nation

(CNN) -- Are you ready for some football?

You may not be as ready as you think if you're planning to have folks over to watch the Baltimore Ravens face off against the San Francisco 49ers in New Orleans on February 3.

All any Super Bowl party needs is a television, chips and dip and a cooler full of brewskies, right? Well, don't start Kaepernicking in victory quite yet.

While event planning professionals agree those are key ingredients, they say that trinity is not necessarily all it takes to throw a party worthy of a touchdown dance.

Jan 24 2013

Filing fraudulent data is all too easy

NEW YORK—Just because they’re already behind bars doesn’t mean they aren’t making out like bandits.

Prisoner tax fraud has ballooned in recent years. In 2010, more than 91,000 inmate returns claimed $758 million in fraudulent refunds, a new audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration finds. That’s more than double the previous year.

While the IRS stopped the vast majority of fraudulent refunds from actually getting into the hands of prisoners, $35 million still slipped through the cracks.

Jan 24 2013

Athlete blames dead girlfriend hoax on Palmdale man

Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker at the center of an online hoax involving his non-existent girlfriend, will sit down for his first on-camera interview this week with Katie Couric, the talk show host said Sunday.

Couric announced on her Twitter account that Te’o and his parents would take part in the interview airing today on the “Katie” show. No other details were given.

Jan 24 2013

Projects expected to create 650 contruction jobs

MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Warren Buffett’s conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, has purchased two solar power projects in a deal valued at between $2 billion and $2.5 billion.

MidAmerican, the electric utility, said Wednesday it has purchased the Antelope Valley Solar Projects from SunPower Corp.

Based in Los Angeles and Kern in California, the projects convert energy from light into electricity. The companies said the combined projects are the largest solar photovoltaic power development in the world.

Jan 23 2013

In ABC interview, Te'o admits, again, to lying about fake girlfriend

(CNN) -- Notre Dame star linebacker Manti Te'o has admitted lying again, marking at least the second time he has acknowledged knowingly spreading falsities in the saga of his fake, dead girlfriend.

In an interview with ABC News' Katie Couric, set to air Thursday evening, the Heisman Trophy runner-up says he fibbed to the media -- albeit briefly -- after learning that the death of Lennay Kekua was a hoax.

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.