Jimmy Ellis, the lead singer of Philadelphia-based funk band The Trammps, which rose to fame with its top 10 hit Disco Inferno, has died at 74.
Jimmy Ellis passed away on Thursday, March 8, in South Carolina of complications from Alzheimer’s Disease.
Disco Inferno, which featured the catchy lyrical hook “burn, baby, burn”, was a 1976 Grammy award-winning hit for The Trammps – founded in Philadelphia by Jimmy Ellis and his friends.
Disco Inferno was immortalized on the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever, the John Travolta-fronted dance fest that helped to propel his own career into the stratosphere in 1977.
The trammps also recorded Hold Back the Night and That’s Where the Happy People Go.
Jimmy Ellis, the lead singer of Philadelphia-based funk band The Trammps, which rose to fame with its top 10 hit Disco Inferno, has died at 74
Jimmy Ellis continued to tour with The Trammps until 2010.
The band had a constantly changing line-up, but the original members played together when Disco Inferno was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame in 2005.
Jimmy Ellis was born in 1937 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He started out singing gospel music in church until he left for Philadelphia to sing with R&B groups.
Jimmy Ellis is survived by his wife, son, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
AntiSec hackers have attacked the site of a company that sells equipment to US law enforcers such as the police.
A message posted over New York Ironwork’s homepage said it was a “tribute to Jeremy Hammond”.
Jeremy Hammond has been accused of being involved in an attack on the think tank Stratfor last year and was arrested in Chicago on Monday.
This marks the second breach explicitly linked to the FBI’s swoop.
FBI also charged five other men with computer crimes, including LulzSec’s “leader” Hector Xavier Monsegur – known as Sabu – who helped officers with the crackdown after pleading guilty to 12 criminal acts.
Earlier this week, AntiSec attacked the website of the Spanish firm Panda Security, accusing it of helping police arrest other members of Anonymous, the name given to the wider hacktivist campaign. Panda Security denied the allegation.
AntiSec hackers have attacked the site of New York Ironwork that sells equipment to US law enforcers such as the police
AntiSec signaled that they intended to continue their campaign.
“We’ll fight till the end,” their message said.
“To the FBI… you have our logs, we have all those PMs [private messages] and private chats u don’t want to make public. AntiSec is still alive and well. We refuse to let some… snitch divert us from our path in life.”
New York Ironworks sells gun lasers, pepper spray holders and tactical clothing.
Its Facebook page says it “has spent well over a decade earning the respect of police officers in and around New York”.
A New York Ironworks’ spokesman said that he had no comment on the matter.
The Cyber War News blog also revealed that AntiSec had leaked the source code from Symantec’s 2006 version of its Norton anti-virus software.
An accompanying statement made reference to the recent arrests.
Symantec had said that it expected the move, having previously confirmed the theft. It said customers who had more recent versions of the software were not at risk.
Joss Wright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, said it was not yet clear what the long-term consequences of the LulzSec and AntiSec crackdown would be.
“The FBI has achieved symbolic victory, but the Anonymous group in its widest sense includes a lot of people, most of who remain unknown,” Joss Wright said.
“We can see that they are threatening more attacks on Fridays and the movement is likely to carry on. But the question is whether any potential leaders – those who help achieve the big hits by dedicating a lot of time and skill – have been scared away.”
Two people, including a senior Palestinian militant leader, have been killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, according to Israeli and Palestinian sources.
Zohair al-Qaisi, secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), was targeted because he was planning an attack, the Israelis said.
The Israeli military later confirmed a second air strike killed two more people it says were preparing to fire rockets into Israel.
The PRC, which represents a number of armed factions aligned with Hamas, has carried out several rocket and grenade attacks against Israel.
Palestinian sources said the second militant was Mahmoud Hanani, who was released from an Israeli prison five years ago and sent to Gaza.
Earlier sources had wrongly said he was among those released under a prisoner exchange deal which led to the release of the captured soldier Gilad Shalit.
Medical sources say a third man was seriously injured in the attack, near Gaza City.
Witnesses say Israeli drones were heard in the area shortly before the car burst into flames, AP reports.
The air-strike came a few hours after two mortar shells fired from Gaza landed in Israel without causing injury.
Zohair al-Qaisi, secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), was targeted because he was planning an attack
An Israeli military spokesman said Zohair al-Qaisi was behind a series of gun and bomb attacks near Israel’s border with Egypt last year, in which eight Israelis were killed.
Ten of the attackers and five Egyptian soldiers also died.
A spokesman for the PRC in Gaza vowed to take revenge on Israel for the attack.
The PRC is a coalition of armed factions in Gaza that is loyal to Hamas but sometimes operates separately.
The former head of the PRC, Kamal al-Nairab, and its military chief were killed in a similar Israeli attack last year.
The Fox drama Glee will pay tribute to Whitney Houston in an upcoming episode.
Glee is currently shooting an instalment which features eight songs from the late musician, E! Online reports.
A source claimed that the episode will “not be a typical tribute” and added that it will focus on the graduating characters struggling to deal with the changes in their lives.
“It’s using Whitney’s music as a way to say goodbye,” the source said.
“A way to respectfully say thank you for her music.”
The Fox drama Glee will pay tribute to Whitney Houston in an upcoming episode
Lea Michele, who plays Rachel in Glee, recently posted on Twitter that the cast were paying tribute to a star, saying: “Starting a new episode today. A very special tribute to one of the worlds most amazing singers. Very excited about this one.”
The actress later added that she was “singing a really great version of one of [her] favourite songs” with Amber Riley, Naya Rivera and Chris Colfer and teased: “Filming something right now that’s going to be really special.. Can’t wait for you all to see it…”
Following Whitney Houston’s death earlier this year, Amber Riley sang I Will Always Love You on Glee. The performance had always been planned but the show paid tribute to Houston by adding a title card in her memory at the end of the episode.
Glee is currently on hiatus and will return on April 10 on Fox in the US, though it is not yet clear when the tribute episode will air. The show continues on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. on Sky1 in the UK.
Joanna Krzysztonek, a Polish mother-to-be, lay almost upside down in labor for a staggering 75 days to make sure her twins survived – after another baby she was carrying was born prematurely and died.
Joanna Krzysztonek, 31, risked contracting infections that could have caused her to haemorrhage and suffered dizzy spells by lying at a 35 degree angle for more than 10 weeks.
The mother-to-be was delighted when she discovered she was expecting triplets. At first the pregnancy proceeded normally and Joanna Krzysztonek continued to go to work. But her joy turned to anguish in December when she went into labor at just 22 weeks and gave birth to one baby who was too premature to survive.
Remarkably, doctors at her neo-natal clinic in Wroclaw, Poland, were able to stop her from having the other two by administering medication to ease the contractions.
Medics, led by chief obstetrician Mariusz Zimmer, then tied the umbilical cord and put it back inside the uterus.
Joanna Krzysztonek said: “I sighed with relief that there was a chance to keep the pregnancy and to give the babies a chance to be born successfully. All the time I was thinking only about them.”
Joanna Krzysztonek, a Polish mother-to-be, lay almost upside down in labor for a staggering 75 days to make sure her twins survived
Joanna Krzysztonekeventually gave birth to baby daughter Iga and son Ignacy on February 15, 2012 via Caesarean section.
Both names derive from the Roman name Ignatius, which was in turn the name of several early saints.
Joanna Krzysztonek’s doctors said they considered her to be in labor from the birth of the first child.
“This procedure – I mean giving birth – has a beginning and an ending.”
“If the first baby was born that means the birth had started,” Dr. Mariusz Zimmer said.
Dr. Mariusz Zimmer added that it was Joanna Krzysztonek’s determination and dedication that ultimately saved her babies lives.
Human childbirth typically lasts between 8 and 12 hours, while a full-term pregnancy generally lasts around 40 weeks.
With help from her awkward positioning and medical attention, Iga and Ignacy’s term inside their mother was 32 weeks.
Iga and Ignacy remain in special incubators, but are expected to leave the hospital soon.
Joanna Krzysztonek had problems with maintaining her balance at first after leaving her unusual hospital bed but now visits and holds her babies every day.
Tiffanie Dixon, Whitney Houston’s hairstylist, says Bobbi Kristina had a hard time holding up following her mother’s passing, in a shocking new interview on The Today Show.
Bobbi Kristina Brown was so stunned by her mother Whitney Houston‘s death that she couldn’t even process it when she first heard the news, Whitney’s BFF revealed.
Tiffanie Dixon, Whitney Houston’s good friend and hairdresser, was on the March 9 episode of The Today Show, where she spoke about Bobbi Kristina and her reaction to the singer’s passing.
Tiffanie Dixon, Whitney Houston’s hairstylist, says Bobbi Kristina had a hard time holding up following her mother’s passing
“Everything kind of happened so fast,” Tiffanie Dixon said.
“We were doing a party that evening. I heard something and was instructed to call someone for help. Bobbi Kristina comforted me – she didn’t know what was going on. At that moment, all I could think about was to find someone to help.”
Tiffanie Dixon also said that Whitney Houston’s death was especially jarring given her joyful disposition in the weeks leading up to her passing.
“She was an amazing person – fun-loving and she loved people unconditionally,” Tiffanie Dixon said.
“[Prior to her death], she was happy and cheerful.”
Google’s “unbreakable” Chrome browser – the world’ second most-popular – was hacked in five minutes at a hacking conference in Vancouver by French security researchers.
Another researcher then showed off a second hack that could take over a Windows machine using an infected website – and earned a $60,000 “bounty” from Google for the hack.
Previously, Google’s Chrome has been considered almost “unhackable”.
Google paid out $60,000 for the second hack from its “prize pot” of $1 million for hackers who show off techniques for attacking its browser.
Google has since issued a patch for the browser which protects against the “exploit” used in the attacks.
The first hack, at Google’s own Pwnium hacking contest in Canada was by a French security firm, Vupen.
Vupen also demonstrated hacks that could break into Internet Explorer and Firefox – but these browsers are considered “easy meat” next to Google’s Chrome, which uses a technique known as “sandboxing” which separates it from the rest of the machine.
“We wanted to show that Chrome was not unbreakable,” Vupen’s head of research Chaouki Bekrar told ZDNet.
“Last year, we saw a lot of headlines that no one could hack Chrome. We wanted to make sure it was the first to fall this year.”
Companies such as Google now offer bounties for hackers who can down their browsers – which allows them to protect users against likely hacks.
“We have a big learning opportunity when we receive full end-to-end exploits,” Google said.
“Not only can we fix the bugs, but by studying the vulnerability we can enhance our mitigations, automated testing, and sandboxing. This enables us to better protect our users.”
Google's “unbreakable” Chrome browser was hacked in five minutes at a hacking conference in Vancouver by French security researchers
Google also paid out $60,000 to a Russian researcher who demonstrated a hack that could run unauthorized programmes on a PC – simply from anyone visiting a website.
Google has a “prize pot” of $1 million dollars to be paid out for hi-tech hacks. .
Sophos’s Graham Cluley said: “Sergey Glazunov uncovered a remote code execution vulnerability in Chrome, that could be used by malicious hackers and cybercriminals to install and run code on innocent users’ computers, just by them visiting a website.”
“Glazunov, who is no stranger to reporting bugs in Chrome, won his substantial reward as part of the Pwnium competition run by Google at the CanSecWest conference in downtown Vancouver.”
Google’s fast, simple Chrome browser will move ahead of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer by the end of this year if current trends continue, according to research from research firm StatCounter.
Over the past year, Internet Explorer fell from 46% of the worldwide market to 38.5%.
In the same period, Google Chrome rose from 15.68% to 27.27%, overtaking rival Firefox in the process.
One version of Chrome – Chrome 15 – is already the world’s most popular browser, according to research released by Statcounter on December 15.
But taken together, all versions of Internet Explorer are still ahead of Google’s sleek Chrome browser.
The open-source browser Firefox was widely expected to take Internet Explorer’s crown, but recent versions have been bloated and slow.
Over the course of 2011, Firefox’s market share has dipped from 30.68 to 25.27%.
The browser climbed slightly in December, but the overall trend is definitely downwards.
The Irish research firm’s Global Stats report shows Chrome’s share of the worldwide market is up from 4.66% in November 2009.
StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen said after Chrome overtook Firefox: “We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally.”
Aodhan Cullen noted that his company measures usage, not just downloads of the browser, which he said in a blog post “show(s) that people are actually using it to access the web”.
StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.
The Chrome browser has swiftly picked up users since Google officially released it to the public in December 2008 – much later than its rivals Firefox (2004), Apple’s Safari (2003) and Internet Explorer (1995) were released.
Simon McCoy, the BBC Breakfast show presenter, has been caught apparently asleep on his desk during this morning show.
Simon McCoy, 50, looked like he was caught napping as cameras panned to the presenter ahead of his early broadcast – a claim he later joked about.
He was seen clearly resting his head on his arms as he slumped over his desk moments before delivering a bulletin with co-host Martine Croxall.
As soon as Simon McCoy realized he was live on television, he looked stunned and bleary-eyed as he jumped up and tried to regain his composure.
But viewers took to Twitter to remark on the hilarious gaffe just before 8:30 a.m.
One user, called Vikki B, said: “Did I just imagine that? £bbcnews cuts to the news desk and fella is asleep on the desk and jumps up in shock! Haha.”
Ismat Abidi added: “Never fall asleep at your desk, especially when you’re a news anchor.”
And Hannah Lindley said: “Hahahah just showed the local news and he was asleep on the desk!”
Simon McCoy, the BBC Breakfast show presenter, has been caught apparently asleep on his desk during this morning show
BBC officials said the journalist was “caught unawares” as the cameras moved from the studio where regular sofa presenters Louise Minchin and Charlie Stayt had been quizzing guests.
On Twitter, Simon McCoy later denied falling asleep and said: “It was a long desk head-banging that wasn’t meant to be picked up in the BBC1 opt!!”
It is not the first time Simon McCoy has caused amusement on his live broadcasts.
Two years ago the BBC also apologized after weatherman Tomasz Schafernaker was caught making a rude gesture to Simon McCoy live on air on the BBC News channel.
Tomasz Schafernaker raised his middle finger to the presenter, not realizing he was still on air.
On a YouTube clip in August 2009 he is shown acting wildly and banging on his desk during a piece on stock market news.
A month earlier the prankster was held up mid-air over his desk by a floor manager as he copies a fitness instructor showing Bill Turnbull and Kate Silverton how to do a push-up.
Fellow host Martine Croxall later posted on Twitter: “Intravenous cafeine now being administered to @simonmccoy.”
Martine Croxall added: “There’s no such thing as an incident-free shift with @simonmccoy.”
Simon McCoy himself said in a bizarre tweet on the social networking site: “I was not asleep! Had just been told The Queen wanted me to cover her NEXT visit.”
His comment prompted a flurry of what appeared to be in-jokes about his recent royal coverage.
The blooper came in the same week that Fox News presenter Doug Luzader fell asleep during a broadcast on the Republican presidential candidate Super Tuesday race in the US.
The hilarious gaffe shows the journalist with his head slumped on his chest as the studio news anchor tries without success to wake him.
A BBC spokesman said: “During a live broadcast, Simon was caught unaware by a camera shot. He subsequently made a light-hearted quip about it on Twitter.”
British Chris McManus and Italian Franco Lamolinara, who were taken hostages in Nigeria, have been killed by their captors yesterday when a UK Special Forces rescue operation ended in tragedy.
Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara have been executed by gunmen as members of the Special Boat Service and Nigerian soldiers moved in on the Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists’ hideaway.
Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara had been held for ten months.
Fears for Christopher McManus’s welfare had intensified following the release of a video in August showing the 28-year-old engineer blindfolded alongside three armed men.
One of the terrorists said it would be the “last message” to David Cameron about the hostage.
Yesterday, British PM David Cameron broke the news of the execution to Chris McManus’s family in a personal phone call before making a public statement in which he appeared emotional.
It is the second time David Cameron has ordered a hostage rescue mission that has failed. Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove died when Special Forces tried to rescue her from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
David Cameron had also telephoned his Italian counterpart Mario Monti to tell him of the failed operation – but last night there was growing anger in Italy as it became clear that Rome was informed of the raid to free the hostages only once it had got underway.
Further details of the rescue bid were emerging last night, but it remained unknown whether Christopher McManus and Franco Lamolinara – a 48-year-old father of two – died before or during the operation.
There were reports the men may have been held in a house in Sokoto, a city in Nigeria’s north-west.
One witness said: “The security agencies tried to break into the house but there was resistance. The people inside the house were shooting at them and they returned fire.”
British Chris McManus (left) and Italian Franco Lamolinara have been killed by their captors in Nigeria yesterday when a UK Special Forces rescue operation ended in tragedy
None of the 20 strong British rescue force was injured and Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan said all the terrorists had been arrested.
The rescue was triggered when – after months of searching – the SBS found the heavily protected location where the men were being held.
PM David Cameron said authorities had decided to go ahead with the rescue after receiving “credible information about [the men’s] location”.
“A window of opportunity arose to secure their release. We also had reason to believe that their lives were under imminent and growing danger,” David Cameron insisted.
David Cameron said it was “with great regret’ that he had to announce Chris McManus, from Oldham, and Franco Lamolinara had lost their lives in the subsequent operation.
“I am very sorry that this ended so tragically,” David Cameron stressed, adding: “Terrorism and appalling crimes such as these are a scourge on our world. No one should be in any doubt about our determination to fight and to defeat them.”
Christopher McManus, a contract worker for an Italian construction company, was kidnapped by gunmen in May last year after they stormed his apartment in Birnin-Kebbi in the north-west of Nigeria.
Franco Lamolinara, a 48-year-old father of two of Gattinara near Turin, was also taken. A German colleague escaped by scaling a wall despite being shot and injured.
Last night Chris McManus’s parents, two brothers and sister issued a statement thanking all involved in the attempted rescue.
The statement said: “We are of course devastated by the news of Chris’s death, which we received earlier today.
“During this ordeal we have relied heavily on the support of our family and friends which has never waned and has enabled us to get through the most difficult of times.
“We are also aware of the many people who were working to try and have Chris returned to our family, and his girlfriend. We would like to thank all of them for their efforts.”
The family said they were confident “everything that could be done was being done’ during their ten-month ordeal and sent their condolences to relatives of the other dead hostage”.
Chris McManus and Franco Lamolinara had been working on building a bank in the city, the capital of the lawless Kebbi province.
In August a Nigerian group calling itself “Al Qaeda in the land beyond the Sahel” claimed responsibility for the kidnap and released the video showing Chris McManus, in a Manchester United shirt, with three men armed with Kalashnikov rifles and a machete.
Chris McManus pleaded for the British Government to answer the demands of the group to save his life. One of the kidnappers then said the British Government had failed to answer its demands and it was given two weeks to “take the correct decision”.
Yesterday, security officials said they believed the kidnappers were from a splinter group of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has links to Al Qaeda.
Sources said British Ministry of Defence officials approached David Cameron on Wednesday evening and made it clear they believed there was a “time-limited opportunity” to mount an attempt to free the men.
David Cameron took the decision to go ahead and then followed the operation “in real time” yesterday morning. A meeting of the Government’s emergency committee Cobra was convened, but word came back that the two men had been killed by their captors.
The Italian prime minister’s office said that it had been “constantly in touch with British authorities but that the operation had got underway with the Nigerians and British forces with Italy informed once it had begun”.
Former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema said: “I want full light to be shed on why Italy was only informed once the operation had started.”
The Titanic disaster has been revealed in extraordinary detailed images after researchers have pieced together what is believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile Titanic debris field.
Researchers hope it will provide new clues about what exactly happened on that fateful night 100 years ago when the superliner hit an iceberg and plunged to the bottom of the North Atlantic, killing more than 1,500 people.
An expedition team used sonar imaging and more than 100,000 photos taken from underwater robots to create the map, which shows where hundreds of objects and pieces of the presumed-unsinkable vessel landed.
Marks on the muddy ocean bottom suggest that the stern rotated like a helicopter blade as the ship sank, rather than plunging straight down.
Explorers of the Titanic – which sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City – have known for more than 25 years where the bow and stern landed after the vessel struck an iceberg.
But previous maps of the floor around the wreckage were incomplete, said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic historian who consulted on the 2010 expedition. Studying the site with old maps was like trying to navigate a dark room with a weak flashlight.
“With the sonar map, it’s like suddenly the entire room lit up and you can go from room to room with a magnifying glass and document it,” Parks Stephenson said.
“Nothing like this has ever been done for the Titanic site.”
Researchers have pieced together what is believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-by-5-mile Titanic debris field
The mapping took place in the summer of 2010 during an expedition to the Titanic led by RMS Titanic Inc., the legal custodian of the wreck, along with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and the Waitt Institute of La Jolla, California.
They were joined by the cable History channel and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Park Service is also involved in the mapping.
Details on the new findings at the bottom of the ocean are not being revealed yet, but the network will air them in a two-hour documentary on April 15, exactly 100 years after the Titanic sank.
The expedition team ran two independently self-controlled robots known as autonomous underwater vehicles along the ocean bottom day and night.
The torpedo-shaped AUV’s surveyed the site with side-scan sonar, moving at a little more than three miles per hour as they traversed back and forth in a grid along the bottom.
The AUV’s also took high-resolution photos – 130,000 of them in all – of a smaller 2-by-3-mile area where most of the debris was concentrated.
The images were stitched together on a computer to provide a detailed photo mosaic of the debris.
The result is a map that looks something like the moon’s surface showing debris scattered across the ocean floor well beyond the large bow and stern sections that rest about half a mile apart.
The map provides a forensic tool with which scientists can examine the wreck site much the way an airplane wreck would be investigated on land.
For instance, the evidence that the stern rotated is based on the marks on the ocean floor to its west and the fact that virtually all the debris is found to the east.
“When you look at the sonar map, you can see exactly what happened,” said Paul-Henry Nargeolet, the expedition’s co-leader with RMS Titanic.
Titanic sank 100 years ago on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City after the vessel struck an iceberg
The first mapping of the Titanic wreck site began after it was discovered in 1985, using photos taken with cameras aboard a remotely controlled vehicle that didn’t venture far from the bow and stern.
The mapping over the years has improved as explorers have built upon previous efforts in piecemeal fashion, said Charlie Pellegrino, a Titanic explorer who was not involved in the 2010 expedition.
But this is the first time a map of the entire debris field has looked at every square inch in an orderly approach, he said.
“This is quite a significant map,” Charlie Pellegrino said.
“It’s quite a significant advance in the technology and the way it’s done.”
At Lone Wolf Documentary Group in South Portland, producers are putting the final touches on the History documentary. Rushmore DeNooyer, the co-producer and writer of the show, points out the different items on the map, displayed on a screen.
They include a huge tangle of the remains of a deckhouse; a large chunk of the side of the ship measuring more than 60 feet long and weighing more than 40 tons; pieces of the ship’s bottom; and a hatch cover that blew off of the bow section as it crashed to the bottom.
Other items include five of the ship’s huge boilers, a revolving door and even a lightning rod from a mast.
By examining the debris, investigators can now answer questions like how the ship broke apart, how it went down and whether there was a fatal flaw in the design, he said.
The layout of the wreck site and where the pieces landed provide new clues on exactly what happened. Computer simulations will re-enact the sinking in reverse, bringing the wreckage debris back to the surface and reassembled.
Some of those questions will be answered on the show, said Dirk Hoogstra, a senior vice president at History. He declined to say ahead of the show what new theories are being put forth on the sinking.
“We’ve got this vision of the entire wreck that no one has ever seen before,” Dirk Hoogstra said.
“Because we have, we’re going to be able to reconstruct exactly how the wreck happened. It’s groundbreaking, jaw-dropping stuff.”
Whitney Houston and her daughter Bobbi Kristina shared the same drug dealer, claims a new shocking report.
According to The Daily Star, Whitney Houston and her teenage daughter Bobbi Kristina were using a man “by the name of Jay” to purchase drugs right up until the singer’s death last month.
A family insider allegedly told The Daily Star that the man would deliver marijuana and cocaine to Whitney Houston’s home in Atlanta, and that the singer was taking drugs for “most of the last six months of her life”.
“Her regular dealer toward the end was a big black guy called Jay,” the family insider told the British publication.
“He would call at the house most evenings in the months leading up to Whitney’s death.
“And he earned a fortune from her.”
The reports claims that Whitney Houston never had any interaction with the man and rather had a friend make the deals.
“They would hand Jay a brown paper bag crammed with hundreds of dollar bills and Jay would hand back the bag with the top folded down,” the insider claims to the paper.
But while the dealings were taking place, the insider alleges that Whitney Houston’s 18-year-old daughter was also being given drugs and alcohol by that man, unbeknownst to her mother.
“He would give her drink and drugs, usually cannabis,” the source told The Daily Star.
Whitney Houston and her daughter Bobbi Kristina shared the same drug dealer, claims a new shocking report
The new report comes after numerous reports about Bobbi Kristina Brown’s past troubles.
Bobbi Kristina Brown was admitted to a psychiatric ward in 2008 after she tried to stab her mother during an argument before turning the blade on herself and trying to slit her wrists.
Whitney Houston’s daughter had apparently grown up seeing her mother doing drugs and now her family is concerned that she may follow in the singer’s footsteps in the more negative aspects of her life.
In 2011, Bobbi Kristina’s ex-boyfriend of more than two years was so concerned he spoke to Radar Online about her growing cocaine addiction that he says is due, in part, to her parents enabling her habits.
“I’ve tried to stop her, but all she said was, <<I’m just like my mother!>>,” he said.
Bobbi Kristina Brown will sit down with Oprah on Sunday night for her very first interview since her mother’s death.
Joining her will also be Patricia Houston, Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law and one-time manager.
In the interview Oprah Winfrey asks her whether she thought drugs were the cause of her sister-in-law’s sad demise.
“The handwriting was kind of on the wall,” Patricia Houston said.
“I would be kidding myself to say otherwise.”
However, Patricia Houston thought that before Whitney’s death, the singer was somewhat safer that she was before.
“If things hadn’t changed, but things were changing, things were really changing with her, very much so,” she said.
“It wasn’t about the substance abuse or anything like that relative to the latter days or anything like that, I think it was more of lifestyle.”
“I was afraid for other things, lifestyle more so than…” she trailed off.
Not letting a tease like that go unanswered, Oprah Winfrey pressed her on what, exactly, it was about her lifestyle that seemed so threatening
“I saw her chasing a dream, looking for love in all the wrong places.”
Patricia Houston, Whitney Houston’s sister-in-law and former manager, said she feared that drugs would end the singer’s life.
In a partial transcript of an interview with Oprah Winfrey scheduled to air Sunday, Patricia Houston said she would be “kidding herself” to say otherwise.
Patricia Houston was asked if she thought drugs would end up “taking” Whitney Houston. The “handwriting was kind of on the wall,” she replied.
Whitney Houston was changing how she lived, her sister-in-law said, and “it wasn’t about substance abuse or anything like that relative to the … latter days or anything like that.”
“It was just more of a lifestyle. I was afraid for other things,” Patricia Houston said.
“I saw her chasing a dream, you know, looking for love in all the wrong places.”
Patricia Houston, Whitney Houston's sister-in-law and former manager, said she feared that drugs would end the singer's life during Oprah’s Next Chapter interview
Bobbi Kristina, Whitney Houston’s daughter with singer Bobby Brown, also was interviewed for the episode of “Oprah’s Next Chapter” airing 9 p.m. EST Sunday on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN channel.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 19, discusses how she wants her mother to be remembered, OWN said Thursday.
Whitney Houston was found underwater in a Beverly Hills hotel room bathtub on the eve of the Grammy Awards. Investigators found several bottles of prescription medication in the room, and tests were being conducted to determine the cause of her February 11 death aged 48.
Whitney Houston, whose hits included “I Will Always Love You,” had a history of substance abuse.
A report of the American State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy has for the first time identified the Vatican as a possible centre for money laundering from criminal activity.
The report lists the Vatican as one of 68 countries including Yemen, Algeria and North Korea, describing it as a “country of concern” for money laundering or other financial crimes.
According to US officials, the Vatican is on the watch list because of the “huge amount of cash” that flows into the tiny city state and also because it was still unclear how effective anti money laundering legislation introduced last year by Pope Benedict XVI had been.
The news comes just weeks after a series of leaked documents from within the Vatican and which were dubbed “Vatileaks”, revealed allegations of corruption and money laundering within the Holy See and which forced officials into issuing a series of denials.
The documents said that despite Pope Benedict XVI signing a new anti money laundering law to make it more difficult for illegal funds to be recycled through Vatican accounts, there was a massive loophole which made it impossible to take action against any offence committed before its introduction on 1 April 2011.
Prosecutors in Rome are currently investigating two transfers totaling 23 million Euros from the Vatican Bank, or the Institute of Religious Works to give it its proper name, to two smaller banks.
The transactions took place in September 2010 and as a result the head of the Vatican Bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and his chief executive Paolo Cipriani, were placed under official investigation by Rome prosecutors and the 23 million Euros was also seized as part of the investigation.
Officials were tipped off about the two suspicious transactions by the Bank of Italy, as the Vatican Bank was said to have “failed to disclose fully” all the information it was supposed to regarding the transactions as per international banking laws.
Investigators involved in the case said they have met with “a deafening silence” as they try to get to the bottom of the case, with requests for information being constantly dodged – at the time the Vatican said it was “perplexed and astonished” at the allegation and gave its full backing to Gotti Tedeschi and Cipriani.
Author Gianluigi Nuzzi, who wrote a bestselling book on financial scandals at the Holy See called “Vatican Spa” said: “This news is inevitable and the Vatican really needs to follow international rules and ensure that it is transparent when it comes to banking transactions.
“The Vatican says that it is but it is still not on the internationally recognised white list of countries and until it is there will always be suspicion surrounding its financial activities. I understand inspectors were at the Vatican a few months ago and would not be surprised if the State Department’s announcement was connected to this.
“There are ongoing investigations against the Vatican Bank but every time prosecutors try and ask a question they are met with at best half answers or at worst and more often the case, complete silence.”
A report of the American State Department's International Narcotics Control Strategy has for the first time identified the Vatican as a possible centre for money laundering from criminal activity
It also emerged last month that prosecutors in Rome have also placed four priests under investigation were aged 37, 49 and 62, with the oldest being Father Evaldo Biasini, 85, who has been given the nickname “Father Cashpoint” by detectives.
Evaldo Biasini is alleged to have laundered hundreds of thousands of Euros belonging to a corrupt businessman through accounts he opened for him at the Vatican Bank and was allowed to “keep a percentage” of the money as payment.
Meanwhile another of the priests is said to have acted as a guarantee for the transfer of 300,000 Euro to an account in Rome by a woman identified as “Maria Rossi” which later turned out to be a false name.
It is not the first time that the Vatican Bank has been linked to money laundering and criminal activities – in 1982 it was involved in a huge international scandal when its then governor, larger than life American Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, was indicted over his involvement with the collapse of Italy’s then largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano.
Banco Ambrosiano’s chairman Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under London’s Blackfriars Bridge, with bundles of cash and bricks in his pockets and at the time his death was recorded as suicide but prosecutors in Rome later said he had been murdered by the Mafia after a bungled money laundering attempt through the Vatican Bank.
Roberto Calvi, was known as God’s Banker because of his ties to the Vatican and was also known to Paul Marcinkus but the cleric refused to answer questions always claiming diplomatic immunity and he died six years ago taking the secrets of what he knew to the grave.
Heidi Klum has finally broken her silence about the demise of her marriage to Seal in the April issue of Elle magazine.
Heidi Klum, 38, has likened the split to a tornado.
The supermodel says: “I feel like I’m in the eye of the tornado. It’s emotions inside of your body that are a tornado. And then the outside world doing all this craziness – with you wanting it or not wanting it – is another tornado.
“But as hard as it is, so is life. And sometimes I think a curve-ball just comes at you. Instead of something straight that you catch, it hits you in the head from the side that you didn’t expect.”
Heidi Klum admits that, though it appeared they had an idyllic, fairytale romance, their seven-year marriage was rife with problems that they tried to keep private.
She says: “To the outside world, you don’t really share all the things that happen. You kind of share just the most amazing sides.
“But I don’t really want to get into any of that stuff. With my life, my family, my business – I want to go forward.
“I feel like already there are so many things being said about us — about him, about me. I’m not going to comment.
“Otherwise it makes you angry. You can’t always call and say, ‘This is not true, but this part is true.”
Heidi Klum has finally broken her silence about the demise of her marriage to Seal in the April issue of Elle magazine
Seal, 49, has been airing the couple’s dirty laundry non-stop while promoting his latest album, and though Heidi Klum refuses to admit she’s angry, she does acknowledge that the situation is tough.
Heidi Klum says: “He’s a grown man. I can’t tell him what to do and what not to do. It’s hard.
“People don’t need to know who did what. I don’t want to talk positively or negatively about the ups and downs that we had.
“Every couple goes through things. Unfortunately, we’re in the public, so the highs are out there.”
Heidi Klum and Seal have four children together, and she wants to protect them.
The German model says: “I’m a lioness. I have four cubs. I’m a mom. I want to take care of my kids and protect them. I don’t want to talk about them, or him, or me.”
She adds that the separation has caused her endless amounts of pain, saying: “I’m not a robot. I’m not made of stone.”
Heidi Klum and Seal announced their split in late January after seven years of marriage.
Seal spoke out two days after announcing the split.
The singer said: “I think we were shocked. You go into these things with the greatest intentions when you say <<I do>> and you say <<Till death do us part>>.
“Those vows hold value. They are not just words.
“These things happen. The thing that I’m most proud about is this great woman who I married – and I really do mean that from the bottom of my heart – is that together she has given me four incredible gifts, four beautiful children.”
Coca-Cola and Pepsi decided to change the recipes for their drinks to avoid putting a cancer warning label on the bottle, to comply with California laws.
The new recipe for caramel coloring in the drinks has less 4-methylimidazole – a chemical which California has added to its list of carcinogens.
The change to the recipe has already been introduced in California.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo say rolling out the new recipe across the US makes the drinks more efficient to manufacture.
“While we believe that there is no public health risk that justifies any such change, we did ask our caramel suppliers to take this step so that our products would not be subject to the requirement of a scientifically unfounded warning,” Coca-Cola representative Diana Garza-Ciarlante told the AP.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi decided to change the recipes for their drinks to avoid putting a cancer warning label on the bottle, to comply with California laws.
The chemical has been linked to cancer in mice and rats, according to one study, but there is no evidence that it poses a health risk to humans, said the American Beverage Association, which represents the wider industry.
The US Food and Drug Administration claims a person would need to drink more than 1,000 cans of Coke or Pepsi a day to take in the same dose of the chemical that was given to the animals in the lab test.
Coca-Cola and PepsiCo account for nearly 90% of the fizzy drink market, according to industry tracker Beverage Digest.
Dan Emmett, a former U.S. Secret Service agent has launched a stinging attack on the Clinton administration staff he used to protect – branding them arrogant and claiming that ex-First Lady Hillary Clinton was aloof.
Dan Emmett has laid bare a series of anecdotes about the inner workings of the White House in a controversial book.
The former Secret Service agent tells how Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State, never said “thank you” to agents, unlike her husband, Bill, and their daughter, Chelsea.
This trait, Dan Emmett added, was found in even greater measure among the young White House personnel, whom he said displayed “fundamental traits of rudeness and arrogance” which, at times, bordered on dangerous.
“Most of these youngsters were from wealthy families and many viewed Secret Service agents as the hired help,” Dan Emmett he wrote in the autobiography Within Arm’s Length.
One unnamed Clinton employee treated a Russian KGB agent on one presidential visit “as if he were dealing with a Wackenhut security officer in Toledo”.
Dan Emmett has laid bare a series of anecdotes about the inner workings of the White House in a controversial book “Within Arm's Length”
Dan Emmett also accuses Bill Clinton of putting his own life and those of his agents at risk by insisting on a “totally pointless photo op” on the North Korea-South Korea border.
During the trip in 1993, Dan Emmett said the former President Bill Clinton went too far along the bridge separating the two nations, according to the Washington Examiner.
“No-one seemed to know if President Clinton grasped how potentially dangerous this stop on the bridge was,” Dan Emmett writes.
“The Secret Service obviously believed this move unwise.”
Dan Emmett added: “Nevertheless, he was POTUS and he wanted to stand on the bridge, so stand on the bridge he would do.”
In another account, Dan Emmett said Bill Clinton “dealt us this nightmare” by insisting on jogging in public.
Agents tried to change his mind and even went as far as building a quarter-mile track inside the White House confines.
Bill Clinton was unpersuaded and asked the presidential protective division to come up some routes outside the grounds, it was reported on Chicago Tribune News.
“The worst thing for the Secret Service is to take a sitting president into public when no one has been swept and anyone could be out there,” he said.
Dan Emmett, who also served under George H.W. Bush and now works as a teacher, has been criticized by the service for publishing his tell-all.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told the Washington Examiner: “It causes concern because we don’t want to erode the trust that we have with our protectees.”
Yesterday in Atlanta, Whitney Houston’s family went into probate court and named Pat Houston, Whitney’s sister in law and manager, as executor. Mother Cissy Houston is now a trustee.
The Forbes site presented the current codicil and statement.
If the 2000 codicil had stood, Whitney Houston’s other sister-in-law, Donna, and her husband, Michael, would have been trustees and Whitney’s old lawyer, Sheldon Platt, would have been the executor.
Kenny Meiselas of Grubman Indursky Shire and Meiselas P.C. has confirmed that in Fulton County Probate Court in Georgia, Marion P. Houston (Pat Houston) was appointed as Administrator of the singer’s estate
Kenny Meiselas of Grubman Indursky Shire and Meiselas P.C., long term media and entertainment attorneys for Whitney Houston, has confirmed that today in Fulton County Probate Court in Georgia, Marion P. Houston (Pat Houston) was appointed as Administrator of the Estate of Whitney E. Houston. Bobbi Kristina Brown is the sole beneficiary.
Whitney Houston’s last will and testament revealed the details on how Bobbi Kristina Brown will inherit her mother’s legacy.
Whitney Houston made provisions for her daughter before her death last month.
According to the legal document, Bobbi Kristina Brown, who is the beneficiary of Whitney Houston’s estate which has been placed into a trust, will receive money at the ages of 21, 25 and 30-years-old.
Whitney Houston, who passed away on February 11 aged 48, first set up the will in 1993, it was later amended in April 2000.
While Bobbi Kristina is not named, the singer stipulated that “any child of mine who survives” will receive all furniture, clothing, personal effects, jewellery and cars, as well as the balance of the estate.
Whitney Houston’s last will and testament revealed the details on how Bobbi Kristina Brown will inherit her mother’s legacy
If Bobbi Kristina dies, the estate would go to her relatives and her ex-husband Bobby Brown – who would have to decide between themselves how to divvy items up.
If the group couldn’t decide how to split the assets they would be sold and the cash would be distributed.
As well as staggering access to the trust Whitney Houston also stipulated that her trustees can release funds to Bobbi Kristina depending upon the circumstances and it is up to the trustees to allow to release the funds or not.
Presumably these would include if the teenager wanted to start a business, or pay for college.
It will no doubt come as a relief to the family that even though Whitney Houston’s former husband Bobby Brown is named in the will – he will not receive anything.
Whitney Houston’s last will and testament first pageWhitney Houston’s last will and testament second pageWhitney Houston’s last will and testament third page
Whitney Houston’s mother Emily Cissy Houston is the executor of the will and her brother and sister-in-law are trustees.
Her brother Gary Houston, who was named in the will as one of family members who the estate would be divided between if Bobbi Kristina dies, has spoken out about the document.
According to TMZ, Gary Houston said: “I don’t concern myself with any of that [will stuff] … All I know is my sister’s gone.”
The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was not so happy when he was questioned about his own diet in Australia this week.
Jamie Oliver, 36, bristled when asked by a female reporter if he had gained a few pounds recently and called her a “b****”.
When he was questioned on whether he had filled out a bit, Jamie Oliver replied: “I don’t know. I am very healthy.
“Are you from a tabloid? Thank you for noticing, you b****.”
It wasn’t clear whether or not the father-of-four was joking during the outburst.
However, Jamie Oliver admitted he tried to watch his weight and worked out twice a week, but said there was room for improvement.
Jamie Oliver explained: “I do my best. Working in the food business is quite hard when someone is constantly asking you to try things.
“I eat fresh. I train twice a week. I could definitely do better, but I am trying to do my best like most people when they hit 30.”
The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver was not so happy when he was questioned about his own diet in Australia this week
Jamie Oliver’ spokeswoman Kimberly Yorio insisted her client’s weight remained the same.
Kimberly Yorio told Australia’s ABC News: “I can say for a fact he hasn’t gained any weight. They were bad pictures.”
At the Q&A session on responsible eating on Tuesday, Jamie Oliver admitted he was not thinking straight after “a few drinks” the night before.
The celebrity chef said: “I went out last night and had a few drinks after a very long day, (and) my brain did not quite understand that question.”
So they may go some way to explain his unguarded and candid response.
Jamie Oliver is in Australia to launch his second Ministry of Food, in partnership with The Victorian Government and the Good Foundation, to attack state-wide obesity.
The new scheme will see AU$5 million put towards helping teach cooking techniques and nutrition to participants in a larger attempt to attack obesity as a whole in the country.
Hollywood studios are calling on the courts to force the popular file-sharing site Hotfile offline following similar action against Megaupload.
Court papers unsealed this week reveal that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has filed a motion for a summary judgement.
If approved, the move could lead to action against the service without the need for a lengthy trial.
Hotfile says it removes copyright-infringing files on request.
Details of the development were revealed by Mediapost News and the Torrentfreak blog.
It marks the latest step in the Hollywood’s year-long legal effort to have Hotfile shut down.
The court papers name Disney, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros as the plaintiffs.
They claim that “Hotfile actively fosters the massive copyright infringement that fuels its business”, adding that “more than 90% of the files downloaded from Hotfile are copyright infringing, and nearly every Hotfile user is engaged in copyright infringement”.
The studios claim that Hotfile’s business model is “indistinguishable” from that of Megaupload and draw attention to its affiliate programme.
This offered users payments based on how many times their files had been downloaded. The studios claim this encouraged “the uploading of <<popular>> [i.e. infringing] content”.
Hollywood studios are calling on the courts to force the popular file-sharing site Hotfile offline following similar action against Megaupload
Panama-based Hotfile has claimed safe harbor protections under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
These offer sites immunity if they take down illegal material when asked and protect services such as YouTube from being forced offline if a member uploads someone else’s video.
However, the studios claim Hotfile does not qualify because it did not identify, keep track of or “terminate” repeat offenders. The movie makers say their own efforts to identify repeat offenders found that some had received 300 or more infringement notices.
The studios add that nearly all of Hotfile’s top affiliates who had received payments “were egregious repeat offenders”.
Hotfile website notes that it has made changes to “facilitate the identification of repeat infringers” and goes on to say it has become “more aggressive” about terminating accounts.
Hotfile adds that it has installed new “fingerprint” technology to block copyrighted files from being uploaded and has also changed the way its affiliate payments are calculated.
Although the case against Megaupload has yet to go to trial, the Media Industry Blog’s Mark Mulligan said the fact the site had been taken offline had given copyright holders fresh impetus to target other digital locker services.
“These lockers are the easiest target to hit to take out a very sizeable chunk of the piracy market,” Mark Mulligan said.
“If the service providers are serious about wanting to heed the industry’s concerns then instead of assuming that all of the content is legitimate until found otherwise, they should actually assume that most of the content is illegal and take action.
“Much of the content on these service is very high quality video files – how many consumers genuinely create large high definition videos of their own and upload them?”
However, Mark Mulligan warned that even if the studios succeed in shutting other lockers down – the victory might be short-lived.
“Closing such sites down will undoubtedly be a body blow to piracy, but the history of music piracy shows us that every time you close something down it’s like a game of digital whack-a-mole – another one pops up.”
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who stayed on the dementia drug Aricept had a slower decline in their memory.
The new research suggests that thousands of patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease could benefit from drugs.
Aricept (donepezil) tends not to be prescribed once sufferers progress beyond moderate symptoms.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the drugs regulator in UK, said its guidelines supported continuing treatment where there were benefits.
The patent for the medicine Aricept, which is used to treat Alzheimer’s disease, expired recently. Much cheaper versions under the generic name donepezil are already available for about £12 ($19) a month.
The researchers say their new evidence could lead to twice as many Alzheimer’s sufferers worldwide being given medication.
The trial involved 295 Alzheimer’s patients in England and Scotland who had been taking Aricept.
One set were given placebo tablets while another set stayed on Aricept. A third set were given another drug, Ebixa (memantine), which is usually prescribed only in the later stages of Alzheimer’s.
The fourth batch of patients received a combination of both drugs.
The researchers assessed each group for a year, looking at their cognitive scores on factors like memory, and also at how well they coped with everyday tasks such as dressing and eating.
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that patients who stayed on the dementia drug Aricept had a slower decline in their memory
Both drugs were unable to halt the decline of patients, but they slowed it down.
The study’s lead author, Professor Robert Howard from King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry, said: “For the first time, we have robust and compelling evidence that treatment with these drugs can continue to help patients at the more severe stages.
“Patients who continued taking donepezil were about four months ahead in how they were able to remember, communicate and perform daily tasks than those who stopped taking the drugs.
“It means a lot to doctors and carers to see differences like that. These improvements were sustained throughout the year.
“It’s fair to say that both drugs have independent, positive effects at this stage of dementia. I’m advising hospital colleagues to continue patients on donepezil, when it’s tolerated, and to add in memantine.”
About 500,000 people in the UK are thought to have Alzheimer’s disease – with only about 10% who are in the earlier stages currently on drug treatment.
Bobbi Kristina Brown’s first interview since the death of Whitney Houston is set for Sunday, March 11, but members of the 19-year-old’s family have concerns about the timing of the one-on-one chat with Oprah Winfrey.
“There is still no resolution and there has been nothing concrete on the cause of [Whitney Houston’s] death, and they were hoping for that,” a Houston family friend tells People magazine.
“There were members of the family who weren’t keen on [the interview] going down at this time.”
The source says some of Whitney Houston’s close relatives wanted Bobbi Kristina to hold off on speaking publicly this close to her mother’s death.
“There are people who just want her to stay out of the limelight for a while,” says the friend.
“This is a little girl who just needs some time.”
Whitney Houston's close relatives wanted Bobbi Kristina to hold off on speaking publicly this close to her mother's death
The next step for Bobbi Kristina Brown – who currently is spending time with her aunt Patricia Houston and Whitney’s brother Gary Houston – is up in the air.
“She’s so very young and impressionable,” says the source.
“She has to start finding herself as a woman on her own as opposed to defining herself as Whitney’s daughter and Whitney’s support. It’s kind of interesting to see what’s going to happen to her from here on in.”
The source, who says Bobbi Kristina Brown “has definitely wanted to walk in her parents’ footsteps,” and pursue singing and acting, would have a tough act to follow. The source explains that “she will always have to deal with the constant comparison.
“I think she needs to find her own niche,” says the source.
Bobbi Kristina Brown’s interview, which also features Oprah Winfrey’s interviews with Patricia and Gary Houston, airs Sunday, March 11 on OWN’s Oprah’s Next Chapter.
Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston’s cousin, appeared on Good Morning America Thursday morning to talk about the late singer, who died last month.
“She basically was the little girl I never had,” Dionne Warwick told the show’s host Robin Roberts about her close relationship with Whitney Houston, who died at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on February 11.
“I’m heading toward being OK,” Dionne Warwick said.
“I have not had the opportunity to really mourn, to completely break down, which I will do, I know that. I think the comfort comes from knowing she’s in good hands now. She’s in the best hands now.”
Dionne Warwick, who spoke at Whitney Houston’s funeral, also gave an update about the singer’s mother, Cissy.
“I am so proud of her. She is really holding up so very well. She has her moments, of course, and she’ll continue to have her moments. But I think she’s come to terms with it just about now, the realization that it happened.”
“It’s not an easy thing for a parent to lose a baby,” Dionne Warwick added.
Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston’s cousin, appeared on Good Morning America Thursday morning to talk about the late singer, who died last month
Dionne Warwick recalled how she spoke to Whitney Houston the day she died and that she flew out to Los Angeles from New Jersey in order to attend Clive Davis’ annual party before the Grammys.
“She was so up and ready and happy,” Dionne Warwick said of Whitney Houston, hours before she died.
“She had everything in the world to live for. She had a new film, that was an absolute dream to make and do, and completed that, thank God. She was getting ready to go back into the studio to record, she was getting her vocals together.”
“It’s very, very surreal,” Whitney Houston’s cousin added.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
It was revealed Wednesday that Whitney Houston’s estate will go to her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, and Dionne Warwick gave a short update on how she’s doing since her mother passed away.
“That’s the one thing I love about my family: We are a family, so she has the support that she actually needs,” Dionne Warwick said.
Whitney Houston allegedly called Jermaine Jackson in the wee hours of the morning about five years ago, confessing that she was leaving then-husband Bobby Brown to marry him.
According to a source, Jermaine Jackson, who was then married to his second wife, Alejandra, considered Whitney Houston’s offer, the New York Daily News reported.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Jermaine Jackson and Whitney Houston enjoyed a year-long affair in the early ’80s while Jackson was married to his first wife, Hazel Gordy.
Whitney Houston allegedly called Jermaine Jackson in the wee hours of the morning about five years ago, confessing that she was leaving then-husband Bobby Brown to marry him
Another source, who knew the late Tupac Shakur, said that the rap icon was also obsessed with Whitney Houston.
The source said that Tupac Shakur, who was murdered in 1996, asked her to track down Whitney Houston’s cell phone number.
“He told me that if a brother with money like him stepped to her she would leave Bobby,” the source said.
Pakistani authorities charged Osama Bin Laden’s three widows with illegally entering the country.
According to Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the women, reported to be two Saudis and a Yemeni, had been charged but did not say when the hearing took place.
The three women and about 10 children were taken into custody last May when US commandos raided their compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The women had been living in the compound in Abbottabad that Navy Seals attacked, killing Osama Bin Laden.
Rehman Malik told reporters in Islamabad that “only the adults had been charged” and the children were free to return to their native countries if their mothers agreed.
Legal experts say the maximum term the women could get is five years.
Pakistani authorities charged Osama Bin Laden's three widows with illegally entering the country
It is not clear if these three women are Osama Bin Laden’s only widows – it has been reported that he had up to six wives.
In June 2011, a Pakistani commission was charged with investigating how the al-Qaeda leader had managed to stay in Pakistan undetected.
The commission said his wives should not be allowed to leave the country until they had been interviewed.
Despite having a $25 milliom bounty on his head for his role in organizing the 9/11 attacks on the US, Osama Bin Laden managed to live in the Abbottabad compound with his wives and children for nearly five years.
