New England Sun-Times

First there was Janet Jackson NOW Brandy will also ring in the new year with a ring on her finger! The 33 year old “Put It Down” singer, is engaged to Ryan Press. According to an insider, “They are thrilled and happy and Brandy feels this is so right.” Prior to accepting Press’ proposal, Brandy had openly expressed her desire to marry the music executive. “I keep hearing about a ring. People keep calling me, hinting to me about it, but I don’t know,” she told Sister2Sister magazine in August. “I’m going to be patient and let it happen and just let it be. . . I guess it will happen when it’s the right time. I stopped looking for love and then I ran into my boyfriend.” She continued, “He just loves me for who I am. I don’t have to camouflage anything for him or put on a mask. I can completely be myself and he loves me so much and I love him just the way he is, too.” This will be the first marriage for the “Put It Down” singer, who has a 10-year-old daughter, Sy’rai...

What has Janet Jackson’s boyfriend done for her lately? A source tells Us Weekly that Qatari billionaire Wissam Al Mana “gave her a huge, expensive ring” earlier this year. “She’s afraid it will get lost, so she keeps it locked up!” The luxury-brand mogul, 37, will spare no expense on his wedding to Miss Jackson, set for spring in Qatar. The affair “will cost millions,” reveals a second Jackson insider. “He is flying in all of Janet’s friends and family on private jets.” The L.A.-based singer has seven siblings and more than 20 nieces and nephews. Adds the source, “He wants to get a top chef to create a custom menu.” The ceremony will undoubtedly be “a circus,” another source says. The twice-wed Nutrisystem spokeswoman, 46 — who split from Jermaine Dupri in 2009 — is eager to make it official with her love of two years. “She wants kids,” says the Jackson source. “If she can’t have them, she will adopt.” SOURCE: USWEEKLY

The Oxygen network is working on a new one-hour special, “All My Babies’ Mamas”, revealing the complicated lives of one man, his baby mamas, and their army of children. The show features Atlanta rapper Shawty Low, his 10 baby mamas and their 11 kids! “Oxygen will give fans an intimate look at unconventional families with larger than life personalities and real emotional stakes,” says Cori Abraham, Senior Vice President of Development, Oxygen Media. “’All My Babies’ Mamas’ will be filled with outrageous and authentic over-the-top moments that our young, diverse female audience can tweet and gossip about.” All My Babies Mamas FINAL 10.1.12 by dm_50db96d297d08 SOURCE: OGYEN

In the pic below you can see the family of the deceased thought it would be a good idea to put the body on a motorcycle! Apparently this isn’t a first…we found another pic of the same damn thang SCOOP: GBS

According to a new study, squeezing breasts can prevent cancer. More specifically, the, research from UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that mechanical force can stop the rapid growth of cancer cells as well as guide them back to a normal, healthy growth pattern. There were no boobs squeezed in the study. It was a cell culture experiment, not an experiment on boobs or on people with breast cancer. While a study that involves boob squeezing probably sounds fun to our male readers freaks , that’s not what this study was about. The headlines all took the “boob squeezing is good,” angle, though the researchers specifically stateS: “Compression, in and of itself, is not likely to be a therapy.” The reports say “prevent breast cancer” when the study shows nothing of the sort — it shows that under cell culture conditions, application of manual forces can change the breast cancer cells. Actual breast cancer is much much more complicated...

The Brooklyn Nets have fired coach Avery Johnson. The team is 14-14 right now, clinging to the final playoff spot in the East. But they are 3-10 in December, including a Christmas Day beating at home to Boston on national TV. Johnson has been on the hot seat ever since $100-million point guard Deron Williams openly questioned his offensive philosophy last week. There are obvious reasons why the Nets are struggling a bit. They spent $330 million to bring in an entirely new group of players this summer, and they need time to play together. It also didn’t help that starting center Brook Lopez went out with a foot injury in mid-December. Were 28 games enough time to figure it out? Apparently not, according to Nets owner Mikahil Prokhorov. It was believed that Johnson would be given more time to turn things around after nine losses in 12 games against mostly winning teams. Ironically, Johnson was named Eastern Conference ...

Police said two toddlers, who died in a fire early Saturday morning, were left alone with two other children when the blaze broke out inside their Englewood home. Family and friends gathered for a vigil to honor 2-year-old Jaryiah and 3-year-old Jarvis Meakens at 8 p.m. Saturday. The two siblings were alone with two other children with the blaze ignited. Investigators are questioning their mother Tatiana Meakens, seen below. Fire officials found that a hot plate being used for heat caused the fatal fire. When the flames ignited, a relative helped two boys to safety, but Jariyah and Jarvis remained trapped inside the apartment. “They said they heard the baby crying, beating on the door but they couldn’t go back to get her cause they were choking on the smoke,” said neighbor Tiffany Williams as to what the 7 and 4-year-old boys who managed to escape the fire told her. A resident who called 911 just before 3:30 a.m. told authorities young children were trapped insid...

By Alan Duke , CNN A sniper who ambushed volunteer firefighters in upstate New York on Monday, killing two and seriously wounding two others, left a note saying he hoped to burn down his neighborhood and kill as many people as possible, police said Tuesday. A charred body, believed to be his sister's, was found in the burned house she shared with him Tuesday, police said. William Spengler, 62, used a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle, the same kind of weapon used in the assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School, Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said. "He was equipped to go to war," Chief Pickering said. The shooter, who was convicted of killing his grandmother decades ago, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours later. Read more: N.Y. man who shot dead 2 firefighters killed grandmother in 1980 Pickering, at a news conference Tuesday, read a sentence from the three-page typewritten note that detectives believe Spengler's le...

Houston cops say a man was shot in the head and then crashed a car Friday after two people demanded his newly purchased Nike Air Jordan gym shoes. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office says the man suffered life-threatening injuries Friday. His condition was not released. Authorities say he and his friend bought several pairs of sneakers at a Houston mall and went home. Authorities say an armed man got out of another car, demanding the shoes. The suspect shot at the driver, who was not hurt, as he ran to a neighbor’s house for help. Authorities say another suspect shot the passenger, who tried to drive away before crashing. At a Fort Worth mall, pepper spray was used on an unruly crowd waiting to buy the re-release of the famous red and black Michael Jordan shoes. The latest style of the popular court shoe, Air Jordan XI “Bred,” was released in stores Friday morning. Some people stood in line for hours to buy them. The shoes retail for about $185. Meanwhi...

As we all know, smartphones are terrific tools—but in the wrong hands they can become weapons capable of mass murder, Vanity Fair reports. Terrorists already use them to trigger bombs, but tech-security experts are finding that phones can also shut off pacemakers, make cars crash, hijack houses, exhaust batteries in hospital equipment, and take over electrical systems. “If I’m a bad guy, I’ll wait till there’s a major snowstorm or heat wave,” says Stuart McClure, chief technical officer at McAfee. “Then kill the heat or A/C” so that “the elderly die very easily.” All you need to undermine an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD), apparently, is a custom-built transmitter that makes a smartphone function like a wireless device used by doctors. Such a phone could signal an ICD to spit out 830 volts—a lethal zap. Equally vulnerable are the tire-pressure monitoring systems in cars, which could be wirelessly told to inf...

A woman in Argentina is being called “psychologically ill” by her mother for announcing her intention to marry the man convicted of murdering her twin sister. This drama started three years ago, when Johana Casas was killed just days before her 20th birthday. The man convicted of the crime, her ex-boyfriend Victor Cingolani, had been dating her sister Edith at the time. Despite being sentenced to serve 13 years in prison, Cingolani maintains his innocence, claiming Marcos Diaz — who was Johana’s boyfriend when she died — is the real killer. Edith has stood by Cingolani, much to the heartache of her family, who called her decision to marry the man a “terrible betrayal.” The 22-year-old insists that she is in love and that her fiance “is not a violent person” and “would not hurt a fly.” A local judge, however, has sided with Edith’s family, and blocked her marriage to Cingolani citing mental health concerns. Edith was ...

The Iowa Supreme Court recently ruled that employers in the state can legally fire workers they find too attractive. In a unanimous decision, the court said that a dentist did not violate the state’s civil rights act when he terminated a female dental assistant whom his wife considered a threat to their marriage. The dental assistant, Melissa Nelson (seen below), who worked for dentist James Knight for more than 10 years and had never flirted with him, according to the testimony of both parties, sued, saying she would not have been fired if she were a man. At trial, Knight testified he had complained to Nelson on several occasions that her clothing was too tight, revealing and “distracting.” But sometime in 2009, he also began exchanging text messages with Nelson. Most of these were work-related and harmless, according to testimony. But others were more suggestive, including one in which Knight asked Nelson how often she had an orgasm. She never answered the tex...

The father of an army sergeant who was shot in the head on Valentine’s Day last year has taken the investigation into his own hands. 24 year old LaShawn Evans, of Queens, New York, was killed after discovering that his soldier wife was having a lesbian affair with another officer. His father , 52 year old Kevin Green, has now filed papers in Brooklyn Federal Court demanding mobile phone and text messages from devices belonging to Evans be preserved, according to reports. The papers also demand messages be kept from devices which belonged to his wife Florinda Evans and his mother-in-law from January 1, 2011, to September 1, 2011. The US army initially ruled Evans’ death a suicide but the crime was reclassified as a murder six months later. And Mr Green now wants to know the full circumstances of his son’s death. Mr Green, who operates 2 not-for-profit shelters for homeless veterans in upper Manhattan and Brooklyn, says ” I made my son a promise that I would ...

A man convicted of killing his grandmother decades ago ambushed firefighters on Monday, fatally shooting two of them as they arrived to battle a blaze in upstate New York, police said. Two other volunteer firefighters were wounded in the attack in the Rochester-area town of Webster. A police officer from the nearby town of Greece suffered minor shrapnel wounds when his vehicle was hit by gunfire. Investigators say that William Spengler, 62, deliberately lured firefighters to the house fire. Investigators believe the suspect, William Spengler, 62, set the original fire, then likely set himself up on a berm with a clear view of the scene and started shooting. "It appears that it was a trap," Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said. "There was a car and a house that were involved in flames, probably set by Mr. Spengler, who laid in wait in armament and then shot the first responders." Authorities d...