Former Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street (pictured), who was mayor from 2000 to 2008, is under federal investigation for casting votes to push millions of dollars of work to his son's law firm from 2004 to 2007.

A federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) audit has already found that Street broke HUD and city rules as chairman of the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) by voting to give up to $29.5 million in contracts to Wolf, Block, Schorr & Solis-Cohen law firm.

Street's son, Sharif, was a lawyer at the Wolf firm and was billed $778,000 for the PHA work voted on by his father.

The former mayor and four other PHA board members resigned last week under pressure from HUD officials.

By all accounts, Kayla Henriques, 18, and Kamisha Richards, 22, (pictured) were tight. So tight, that Richards threw a baby shower for her friend and was planning a first birthday party for Henriques' son, Alex.

But the young New York City women had a falling out over $20 less than a week ago, when Henriques asked her friend for the money to buy Pampers but used the money for other items.

Over the week, the feud moved to the Internet, where the women traded insults on Facebook through the weekend.

Then it all went tragically wrong. On Monday, Henriques confessed to stabbing Richards at Richards' home in East New York. Police found a kitchen knife at the crime scene and followed a trail of blood to Henriques' nearby home and arrested the young woman, said sources.

What authorities in Cleveland knew was bad enough.

The remains of 11 women were discovered at the home of Anthony Sowell, 51, who was charged with the serial killings two years ago.

But investigators wanted to make sure there weren't other victims, so the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors office formed a cold case squad to look at old murder cases in the poor Cleveland community.

What they found rocked the entire Northeast Ohio region.

It appears that a second killer was preying on women in the mostly black and poor eastside of Cleveland.

Actress Felicia 'Snoop' Pearson (pictured) gained fame and a strong fanbase following her role as a tough drug assassin in HBO's classic series 'The Wire.'

Unfortunately, her life is mimicking her on-screen role.

Pearson was arrested this week in a drug raid in Baltimore - the same city that provided the gritty backdrop for 'The Wire.'

It appears New York's Steinway piano family may have been into something far stranger than building world-class keyboards.

A box of antique voodoo dolls and voodoo masks was found at the Steinway Mansion in the Astoria, Queens landmark by an auctioneer preparing to sell items in the home.

It isn't certain whether the last owner of the house, Michael Halberian, used the masks and dolls in rituals before his death in December at the age of 82.

What do actor and Democrat Ben Affleck and Republican Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain, have in common?

Sounds like the opening line of a bad joke, but for the people of the impoverished Democratic Republic of the Congo, the answer could provide a lifeline for a country that desperately needs one.

Affleck and McCain joined forces today to raise awareness about the suffering in the African nation and ask members of Congress' House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights to help coordinate a humanitarian response.

Affleck, who founded a multimillion-dollar nonprofit organization, the Eastern Congo Initiative, that has helped build schools and a radio station, also adds his name to other rich influential white folks helping poor and desperate people of color.

The deadline for the Race to the Top Commencement Challenge, a novel national competition that will reward a lucky high school with a presidential visit, is just five days away so interested schools need to get busy - now.

The 2011 Commencement Challenge invites public high schools to show how their school is preparing them for college and a career.

Herman Cain (pictured), former part-owner of the Godfather's Pizza chain, wants to be president; yet, the 65-year-old Atlanta man is a stranger to most Americans.

That will likely prove to be a blessing and a curse as the field of Republican challengers to President Barack Obama sorts itself out over the next year.

The fact that Republicans are giving some attention to the businessman who has done little more politically than lose while running for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia shows how desperate the GOP is in finding a torchbearer for the 2012 presidential election.

But maybe the lack of a political track record means the one-time pizza king doesn't have the baggage many other possible candidates have, getting a fair hearing from Americans if he decides to go full force for the GOP nomination.

Someone at the Detroit chapter of the NAACP didn't do their homework if they wanted a nice quiet fund-raiser this spring.

When they decided to honor local rocker Kid Rock (pictured) at the group's annual dinner in May, they forgot that Robert James Ritchie, known to the world as Kid Rock, carries some racial baggage: he likes to wave a big Confederate flag at his concerts.

As an organization, the NAACP believes that the flag is a vestige of Jim Crow racism, and as many times as the flag can be seen in footage of Ku Klux Klan rallies and cross burnings, the NAACP seems to have a good point.

But the larger question for the civil rights group is whether everyone who waves the rebel flag is an enemy of black folks.

I think not.

It's an open and shut case of what's right against what's wrong -- no Klansman, much less a founding member of the hate organization - should ever be honored.

So it is incredible to me that the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) can seriously propose that former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest get his likeness placed on license plates in Mississippi to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Somebody please tell me these Civil War nuts are joking.

Forrest fought against the Union, so he was a traitor.

Forrest was a slave trader before the Civil War, so he was an enemy of freedom.

Forrest had his troops massacre black Union Army servicemen and white Unionists who had surrendered at the Battle of Fort Pillow, so he was a war criminal.

Forrest murdered innocent blacks during the Reconstruction in the South, so he was a domestic terrorist.

Did I miss anything?