The Back To Black singer was apparently found at the property by emergency services at 3:54 p.m. this afternoon, according to sources, and her death is being treated as ‘unexplained’ by police.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: “Police were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square NW1 shortly before 16.05hrs today, Saturday 23 July, following reports of a woman found deceased.”

The singer’s well-publicized battles with drink and drugs had haunted her career. They eventually led to her losing the sultry voice she was known for as evident in numerous of her previous performances.

Her father, Mitch, was reportedly on a flight to New York when news of her death broke, and took the next plane back to London.

Crowds have arrived in front of her home with flowers and teddy bears.

A friend, Doris C. Nolan, who answered the telephone listed for his Manhattan recording company, said he died in the afternoon at St. Luke’s Hospital after becoming sick upon returning from a European trip.

“We’re all sort of shattered,” she said.

Scott-Heron’s influence on rap was such that he sometimes was referred to as the Godfather of Rap, a title he rejected.

“If there was any individual initiative that I was responsible for it might have been that there was music in certain poems of mine, with complete progression and repeating ‘hooks,’ which made them more like songs than just recitations with percussion,” he wrote in the introduction to his 1990 collection of poems, “Now and Then.”

He referred to his signature mix of percussion, politics and performed poetry as bluesology or Third World music. But then he said it was simply “black music or black American music.”

“Because Black Americans are now a tremendously diverse essence of all the places we’ve come from and the music and rhythms we brought with us,” he wrote.

Scott-Heron recorded the song that would make him famous, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” in the 1970s in Harlem. He followed up that recording with more than a dozen albums, initially collaborating with musician Brian Jackson. His most recent album was “I’m New Here,” which he began recording in 2007 and was released in 2010

Scott-Heron was born in Chicago on April 1, 1949. He was raised in Jackson, Tenn., and in New York before attending college at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.

Before turning to music, he was a novelist, at age 19, with the publication of “The Vulture,” a murder mystery.

He also was the author of “The Nigger Factory,” a social satire.

Return to NewsOne for more details as they become available.

NewsOne.com who is based only feet from the explosion, could hear and feel a the explosion from our offices.

Stanley Campbell, 51, a nearby security guard who evacuated his building told us he heard one explosion that rattled the building, followed by another a few seconds later.

“The whole building shook, and I told everybody to clear out.  When I got outside two manholes exploded one after another.”

Footage of street where manhole caps exploded off (Under cars on right side of street):

Witness speaks about the explosion (VIDEO):

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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Singer Wyclef Jean officially announced his bid to be president of Haiti to a roaring crowd of supporters on Thursday, thrusting himself into a contentious race to lead an impoverished country reeling from a devastating earthquake.

At one point the hip hop artist-turned-politician bodysurfed on the hands of bandana-waving backers in Haiti’s capital and stepped onto a speaker truck to address the crowd of hundreds. Jean had submitted his candidacy papers 10 minutes before the provisional electoral office closed.

“America has Barack Obama and Haiti has Wyclef Jean,” shouted Jean, who was born in Haiti but raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. Many in the crowd wore T-shirts distributed by supporters.

Carrying his wailing 5-year-old daughter in his arms, Jean told The Associated Press: “It’s a moment in time and in history. It’s very emotional.”

The former Fugees frontman enters a highly competitive and crowded race for a difficult and dangerous job. Only one person has completed a democratically elected 5-year term in Haiti’s history — current President Rene Preval — who is poised to do it again and hand it off to an elected successor.

The winner of the Nov. 28 general elections inherits a destroyed capital, 1.6 million homeless people and countless groups fighting over billions of dollars in international reconstruction funds pledged after a January earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people.

Continue reading after gallery…

Jean originally planned to join the coalition of Pierre Eric Jean-Jacques, former Chamber of Deputies leader. But he switched at the last minute to Jean-Jacques’ brother’s party to make room for government planner Leslie Voltaire in Jean-Jaques’ coalition.

The switch is not expected to affect Jean’s chances.

If Jean’s candidacy is approved, he will face several candidates who lack his international fame but have more political clout. Among the most formidable is ousted ex-Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis, who secured the backing of President Rene Preval’s powerful Unity party this week. Preval is barred from running by the constitution.

An eight-member board reviews would-be candidates and verifies whether they meet all the constitutional requirements, including having lived in Haiti for five consecutive years leading up to the election and never having held foreign citizenship. The list of official candidates will be published Aug. 17.

Jean’s U.S. upbringing could be a roadblock to his candidacy, but the singer says his appointment as a roving ambassador by Preval in 2007 exempts him from the residency requirement.

The singer was born on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince but left the country as a child and grew up in Brooklyn. He gained fame as a member of the Fugees and went on to have a successful solo career. He is known for such hit singles as “We Trying to Stay Alive” and “Gone Till November.” With the Fugees, he recorded the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling album “The Score.”

In recent years, he has been active in Haiti with the charity Yele Haiti, prompting long-running speculation that he would run for president one day.

Earlier Thursday, he stepped down as leader of Yele Haiti, which faced criticism for alleged financial improprieties.

Jean helped found the charity five years ago to raise money and build awareness of the myriad problems in his impoverished homeland. It raised $9 million in the wake of the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed a government-estimated 300,000 people. Of that, it has spent $1.5 million on food, water, tents, clothes and other products for quake survivors, said Cindy Tanenbaum, a spokeswoman the musician said.

“I am not stepping down in my commitment to Haiti. On the contrary, regardless of what path I take next, one thing is certain: My focus on helping Haiti turn a new corner will only grow stronger,” Jean said in the statement.

Jean is not the only celebrity in the race.

Popular musician Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly arrived just ahead of Jean to submit his candidacy papers. He was accompanied by singer Pras Michel, who was also one of the original members of The Fugees and is supporting his bid for presidency.

Martelly welcomed Jean, a longtime friend, to the race. “I hope politics will not divide us,” he said.

Jean relied heavily on Haitian music during Thursday’s campaigning, with speakers blasting songs from Barikad Crew, a popular band that rallies thousands of Haitians with their political lyrics.

Jean also promised to bring U.S. rapper 50 Cent to perform at a campaign rally, although he did not say when.

As Jean stepped onto the speaker truck, the DJ and crowd began to sing a Haitian spiritual usually reserved for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, an ousted ex-president who was flown into African exile in 2004 aboard a U.S. plane.

The crowd replaced Aristide’s name with Jean’s.

If approved, Jean would have to deal with voters undecided on how to think about Haitians abroad. Many families are dependent on successful overseas relatives for remittances but often seem them as near foreigners. The singer’s American accented Creole and lack of French — for many things still the language of government here — will be constant reminders he did not grow up here.

During Thursday’s speech, Jean spent much of his time trying to defend his roots.

“I am not a diaspora candidate,” he said in Creole. Then he ended with the phrase: “Mwen pale Kreyol.”

The phrase, “I speak Creole,” has a double meaning in Haiti: that a person speaks the language, and that they mean what they say.

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MANCHESTER, Conn. — Omar Thornton sat calmly in a meeting with union representative and his supervisors as they showed a video of him stealing beer from the distributor where he worked.

Busted, he didn’t put up a fight, company officials said. He quietly signed a letter of resignation and was headed for the door when he pulled out a gun and started firing – “cold as ice,” as one survivor described it.

In the end, Thornton killed eight people, injured two, then turned the gun on himself in a rampage Tuesday at Hartford Distributors that union and company officials said they would not have anticipated from someone with no history of complaints or disciplinary problems.

Yet relatives say Thornton, 34, finally cracked after suffering racial harassment in a company where he said he was singled out for being black in a predominantly white work force.

“Everybody’s got a breaking point,” said Joanne Hannah, the mother of Thornton’s longtime girlfriend.

After shooting his co-workers, Thornton hid as police moved in. He called his mother, who tried for 10 minutes to talk him out of killing himself, relatives said.

“He said the company was prejudiced and they pushed him,” said Annette Levine, a cousin of Thornton’s mother. “Those were the last words he told his mom: He loved her and they pushed him over the edge.”

Authorities said they found him dead.

Thornton had said he found a picture of a noose and a racial epithet written on a bathroom wall, said Hannah, of Enfield, whose daughter Kristi had dated Thornton for eight years. Her daughter told her that Thornton’s supervisors told him they would talk to his co-workers.

Brett Hollander, whose family owns the distributorship, denied any racial bias. And a union official said Thornton had not filed a complaint of racism with the union or any government agency.

“I can assure you there has never been any racial discrimination at our company,” Hollander said.

Teamsters official Christopher Roos said, “This is a disgruntled employee who shot a bunch of people.”

Company vice president Steve Hollander told The Associated Press he was stunned by Thornton’s rampage after a meeting in which he calmly agreed to resign instead of being fired:

“He was cool and calm. He didn’t yell. He was cold as ice. He didn’t protest when we were meeting with him to show him the video of him stealing. He didn’t contest it. He didn’t complain. He didn’t argue. He didn’t admit or deny anything. He just agreed to resign. And then he just unexplainably pulled out his gun and started blasting.”

Steve Hollander said he thinks Thornton had guns stashed in his lunch box. The executive said two people standing near him were shot in the head and killed, but he was only grazed in the jaw and the arm.

“He shot at me twice and hit me a couple times,” he said. “By just the grace of God, I don’t know how he missed (killing) me.”

About 50 to 70 people were in the Hartford Distributors warehouse about 10 miles east of Hartford during a shift change when the gunman opened fire, said Brett Hollander, Steve Hollander’s cousin.

“I was on the phone with 911 and then I saw him running outside of my office window, shooting his gun, carrying his lunch box, which must have had his weapons in it,” Steve Hollander said. “It doesn’t seem real to me now, it seems like I’m watching a movie.”

The shooting was over in a matter of minutes. The victims were found all over the complex, and authorities said they didn’t know if Thornton fired randomly or targeted specific people.

Workers had flooded out of the building as police officers raced into it, Manchester police Chief Marc Montminy told the town’s board of directors Tuesday evening.

“Some were hiding in the woods and some were hiding under cars,” he said.

State police found weapons in the suspect’s car, Montminy said, without providing details.

Thornton was not a problem employee and had not had any previous disciplinary issues, said Gregg Adler, a lawyer for the Teamsters Local 1035. He said he was not aware of how much beer Thornton was alleged to have stolen.

Kristi Hannah had been with him Monday night and had no indication he was planning anything violent, her mother said.

Joanne Hannah described Thornton as an easygoing guy who liked to play sports and video games. She said he had a pistol permit and planned to teach her daughter how to use a gun.

Police declined to release the names of those killed.

Among the dead was Bryan Cirigliano, 51, of Newington, president of Teamsters 1035, according to the union. He had been Thornton’s representative at Tuesday’s disciplinary hearing, the union said.

Another victim was Doug Scruton, 56, who had worked at the warehouse for nearly 30 years, said his wife, Mikal O’Brien. Anticipating his upcoming retirement, the couple had recently moved to a retirement home in Middleton, N.H., where he loved to visit the White Mountains and beaches. He stayed with a friend in Connecticut during the week.

“It was part of our plan for him to be able to retire in the place that he loved. But he’s never going to be able to enjoy that now,” she said. “He was just the sweetest, gentlest, kind soul, and I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Bill Ackerman, a 51-year-old warehouseman, also was killed, said his girlfriend, Stephanie Laurin.

“I was like, ‘Where’s Billy, where’s Billy?’ and they said they hadn’t seen him. And then one of his co-workers told me … that he saw the shooter go to where Billy’s room is that he works in,” she said.

Ackerman, who enjoyed playing golf and rooting for the Boston Red Sox, had worked for the company for about 20 years, she said.

The Hartford Courant identified other victims as Victor James, 59, of Windsor; Edwin Kennison Jr., 49, of East Hartford; and Craig Pepin, 50, of South Windsor.

Steve Hollander was treated at Hartford Hospital and released. Another person was being treated there, but the hospital would not comment on the patient’s condition.

It was the nation’s deadliest shooting since 13 people were killed at Fort Hood, Texas, in November. A military psychiatrist is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in that case.

In Connecticut, a state lottery worker in Newington gunned down four supervisors in 1998 before committing suicide, and six people were killed in 1974 in botched robbery at a bakery in New Britain. Two men were convicted of that crime.

The Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities said Hartford Distributors has never had any complaints filed against it.

The Hollander family is widely respected in Manchester, said state Rep. Ryan Barry, a lifelong resident. He said the family-owned Hartford Distributors sponsors local sports teams.

“Ten seconds before he started shooting, if you had asked me, does he look like he’s going to react in any way? I would have said no, he seems calm,” Steve Hollander said. “It makes no sense the people he killed. Why would somebody do such a thing? They were his co-workers, they never … harmed him in any way.

Click here to see our gallery of Top Newsmakers of 2009

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Footage of French police using apparently excessive force while breaking up an immigrant squat has prompted outrage as activists and intellectuals accuse Nicolas Sarkozy of pursuing policies that target the vulnerable while giving free reign to the police.

The video, filmed by a member of the social housing charity Droit au Logement (DAL), shows officers roughly handling women and children as they break up a group of 150 squatters who were evicted from a tower block in La Courneuve, north-east of Paris.

 At one point, a woman is shown being pulled by her legs across the ground, her baby – which she had been carrying on her back – dragged along the concrete after her.

Click here to read more and see video at guardian.co.uk

Click here to see gallery of children and violence

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Sculptor Daniel Edwards has created a bare-chested bust of first lady, Michelle Obama, that has raised some eyebrows.

The bare-shouldered sculpture, called Michelle Obama’s Makeover for America, highlights Obama’s ethnic African roots while casting her as a US patriot with an American flag etched on her upper right chest.

Text continues after gallery …

The Michelle Obama bust is scheduled to be unveiled at the Leo Kesting Gallery in New York City on October 1st.

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More than a half a dozen police cars surrounded Lorenzen Wright’s ex-wife’s, Sherra Wright’s, now a suspect in his murder. On Sunday, August 1, 2010, detectives searched inside and out for clues into the murder of Wright’s ex-husband, a former Memphis Tiger and Memphis Grizzlies. 

The bullet-riddled body of the NBA free agent was found in a field in Southeast Memphis on Wednesday, July 28, 2010. His mother reported Wright missing on July 22nd, saying she suspected foul play. Sherra Wright was the last person to see him alive, telling the authorites she saw him leave her house in Collierville on July 18th.

Click here to read more from myeyewitnessnews.com

Click here to see gallery of 2009 athlete deaths

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Relatives and friends of Lorenzen Wright gathered Wednesday and grieved for the former NBA player who has been missing for 10 days, as police investigated the discovery of a man’s body outside of Memphis.

Wright’s uncle, Curtis Wright, told The Associated Press that police called the player’s father, Herb Wright, Wednesday afternoon with the news he had died.

Sgt. Alyssa Macon-Moore of the Memphis Police Department wrote in an e-mail to the AP that police were investigating the death of an unidentified man beside a wooded area about 15 miles south of downtown Memphis. Asked if the man was Wright, she wrote they could not confirm the victim’s identity Wednesday night.

The family issued a statement through a cousin of Lorenzen Wright, Camella Logan: “Lorenzen’s family has come together to mourn his loss and honor his legacy. We appreciate your thoughts, prayers and condolences as they are comforting at this very difficult time. Additionally, we ask that you please respect our privacy as we try to cope with his sudden loss.”

Wright’s mother, Deborah Marion, arrived at the scene Wednesday night with a handful of family members. She crossed the crime scene tape and tried to talk to police when she was told to move back. She sat in a TV van before returning to the tape. Two officers then let her through.

The distraught Marion then started running down the road toward the crime scene before being stopped by an officer. She spoke with officers, then walked back past reporters without speaking straight to a van.

The 34-year-old Wright was last seen July 18 when he was expected to fly out of town. His family filed a missing person report July 22.

Wright played 13 years in the NBA for the Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings and most recently the Cleveland Cavaliers with 17 games in the 2008-09 season. Wright left the University of Memphis early for the NBA, and the Clippers made him a lottery pick with the No. 7 selection overall.

He averaged 8 points and 6.4 rebounds in 778 career games.

By nightfall, nearly 200 people had visited the road blocked off by police while TV news helicopters showed investigators scouring the grounds for evidence. Police brought in a mobile command center that further blocked off the scene.

Former NBA star Penny Hardaway, who played at Memphis two years before Wright, said he heard the news from a friend and went to the scene near where the body was found.

“I cried. The emotions hit me immediately. It’s just sad because we lost a good person and a brother,” Hardaway said.

Elliot Perry, another friend and former Memphis player, also was at the scene. Wendy Wilson, who once worked as Wright’s personal assistant, also was there and said Wright often used the road police had cordoned off as a shortcut to his mother’s house.

“He was a good person. He did not deserve to die this way. God is not pleased with this,” Wilson said.

Memphis Grizzlies majority owner Michael Heisley issued a statement late Wednesday saying, “We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of Lorenzen Wright. We lost a member of the Grizzlies family. Lorenzen delighted fans on the court with his passion and off the court with his generosity in a Memphis community that watched him grow throughout his playing career …”

Click here to see gallery of sports related deaths of 2009

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