Reuters - Marcos Hernandez barely speaks Spanish. He grew up listening to Barry Manilow, the Temptations, Michael Jackson and U2. And on his debut album, "About Me," he sings soulful R&B -- in English.

Reuters - Hip-hop's mainstream status is getting a double boost.

A blogger resists pressure to remove videos lampooning Bill Cosby from his site. The Cosby legal team is bearing down, but Andy Baio says it's discrimination against amateur web creators -- mainstream shows (The Simpsons, Mad Mag, SNL) have parodied Cosby over the years.

Reuters - For more than 100 years, mainstream Hollywood movies largely shunned gay subjects, which were either disregarded, closeted or dealt with by independent filmmakers.

The Motley Fool - Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL - News) CEO Steve Jobs turned 51 on Feb. 24. While the mercurial man behind the Macintosh may have received gifts last week, he's apparently poised to give the Apple faithful a few this Tuesday. Will the "fun new products" that Apple has promised to unveil at a Feb. 28 media event be more of the same, or will it be the next step in Apple's transformation from niche computer maker to mainstream home-entertainment company?

Reuters - President George W. Bush on Wednesday urged India to produce a plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear programs to bring its civilian plan into the international mainstream.

FT.com - A seismic shift is underway in the telecommunications world where Voice over Internet Protocol has begun to make its inevitable move from the consumer realm into the mainstream as an enterprise service, and is beginning to consign traditional telephony to the dustbin of history.

AP - Republican national chairman Ken Mehlman on Friday outlined a political strategy for 2006 to portray Democrats as too weak to protect the country and to bypass the mainstream media to spread the GOP message.

AFP - Moderate Muslim groups in Britain said they will stage a rally in London this weekend to counter angry protests by extremist elements in the ongoing row over depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.