The children of Martin Luther King Jr. continue their legal sparring over the direction of the King Center for Nonviolent Change, founded by their late mother, Coretta Scott King.

Dexter King, the center’s chairman, filed a lawsuit Monday against his brother and sister, Martin Luther King III and Bernice King, accusing them of establishing foundations in direct competition with The King Center, reports the Associated Press.

The lawsuit also states that King III used the center without permission to meet with then-presidential candidate John Edwards in January 2008.

In July, King III and Bernice King sued their brother in an attempt to force him to open the books of their father’s estate.

]]> http://www.bilalaliproductions.com/celebrity-news/dexter-king-sues-his-siblings/feed/ http://www.bilalaliproductions.com/celebrity-news/master-p-making-waves-in-television-bbtv/ http://www.bilalaliproductions.com/celebrity-news/master-p-making-waves-in-television-bbtv/#comments Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:10:03 +0000 Bilal Ali master miller television assumes bbtv waves promising sitcoms http://www.bilalaliproductions.com/?p=730

After finding much success with his bawdy brew of southern fried hip-hop, Percy Miller – who officially changed his name from Master P last week – is making waves in the television arena, promising something “better.”

On Aug. 15, the former No Limits Records rap sensation announced the launch of Better Black Television (BBTV), described as a family friendly network that will provide positive content for a black and brown culture that will appeal to all races with a goal to bring people of color a choice when turning on their television.

According to a statement the content on the channel will contain a wide arrangement from health and fitness, animation, financial planning, reality TV, sitcoms, dramas, movies, responsible hip-hop music and videos, politics, sports and entertainment news, educational children’s shows as well as teen and family programming.

“Better Black Television has been a vision of mine for some years,” said Miller, who assumes the position of the channel’s Chairman & CEO. “I’ve done a lot to promote and change the way messages are relayed to our children and our families over the last few years.

Promoting positive content and positive messages is so important to educate and preserve the next generation,” he continued. “Being exposed to positive content is what changed my life. I believe that there is a market in our community for a new diverse network that provides a new brand of superior programming that caters to all aspects of television from reality to original programming.”

Production has begun and will be based out of California, New York, Louisiana and Florida.

In addition, BBTV is in the process of purchasing local cable channel affiliates across the country.

The BBTV Advisory Board members consist of actors Denzel Washington and Will Smith; business executive Jim Finkl; NAACP Executive Director Vicangelo Bullock; professional basketball player Derek Anderson (Charlotte Bobcats); media professor Sal Martino; and hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc, among others.

“I’m excited to be able to expose the urban community to a vast array of jobs in the entertainment community that they might not otherwise be privy to,” Miller added. “With BBTV, we’re spearheading the initiative to meet consumer demand for family friendly hip-hop content.”

News has confirmed Gwen Stefani gave birth this morning. We still don’t know whether it’s a boy or girl, but sources say the baby’s name is Zuma. More details to come as we get them!

Love, angel, music…baby?

An early-morning hospital run for Gwen Stefani has set tongues wagging that the pop star may finally be ready to deliver baby No. 2 with rocker hubby Gavin Rossdale.

Photographers have set up camp outside Los Angeles‘ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after the singer was spotted entering the hospital early this morning, though at least one family member said there’s no big announcement to make…yet.

“That’s not…that didn’t happen today,” the No Doubt frontwoman’s sister-in-law, Jennifer Burke Stefani, told E! News.

When that does happen, it will be the second child for the 38-year-old singer and the 40-year-old rocker, who already have a 2-year-old son, Kingston.

It’s not the first time a hospital run has set off reports of an impending delivery.

On Aug. 7, Stefani also got paparazzi in a tizzy when she showed up at Cedars-Sinai for what turned out to be a simple 30-minute checkup.

Stefani-Rossdale family members have an uncanny knack for serving as reliable mouthpieces for the couple. News of the pregnancy was first broken back in January, when Gavin’s father, Douglas Rossdale, confirmed the bun in the oven.

Not even imprisoned NFL quarterback Michael Vick is immune to today’s real estate slump. His Sugarloaf home is still on the market, and the athlete needs it to move quickly so he can fund his bankruptcy case and pay off his creditors.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cited court documents filed Monday showing that Vick seeks to retain a new real estate company – Braselton-based Funari Reality. His home, located at 2927 Darlington Run in Duluth, had been up for sale with the Waters Reality Group for $4.5 million.

Vick is said to have “substantial equity” in the home and a mortgage for $2,850,000, according to court documents. The sale of the property “would provide [Vick’s] estate with the opportunity to generate revenues for the benefit of the estate and its creditors,” according to the documents.

Funari Reality would be entitled to a four percent commission on the sale of the home, $180,000 if it sells for the asking price, according to the AJC.

The Atlanta Falcons quarterback is currently in federal prison on felony charges related to dogfighting.

While Bobby Brown is on the CMT channel trying to get his country on with Marcia Brady, his former divorce attorneys have filed a lawsuit against the entertainer claiming they’re owed $90,217 in unpaid legal fees.

Phillips, Lerner, Lauzon & Jamra say Brown signed a contract stipulating that in the event of a dispute over fees stemming from his divorce from Whitney Houston, he would submit to binding arbitration to resolve the matter.

The lawyers claimed to have notified Brown on numerous occasions, most recently in a letter dated June 29, that he was past due in paying the balance, including interest. But attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.

The suit, filed Aug. 15 in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks a court order forcing the reality star to enter into binding arbitration with either the Beverly Hills or Los Angeles bar association to settle the bill.

Usain Bolt could have hotdogged his way into history with the cha-cha, a double-front handspring or even the limbo across the finish line, but he had something better in mind this time.

Keep running.

When Bolt crossed the line, stretching his arms out in triumph, one word flashed across the scoreboard high above the Bird’s Nest.

AMAZING.

Bolt obliterated the field in an electrifying performance for the ages Wednesday night to win the men’s 200-meter gold medal in a world-record 19.30 seconds.

He eclipsed Michael Johnson’s 19.32 set in the 1996 Atlanta Games, sending the crowd of 91,000 into a frenzy.

The Jamaican sprinter cured the post-Phelps depression at these Olympics with his blinding speed and theatrics that included easing up for the last 15 meters of his world-record run in Saturday’s 100 so that he could celebrate.

Bolt became the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the prized Olympic gold double in the 100 and 200. He could earn a third gold in the 4×100 relay that begins Thursday.

“Everything just came together tonight,” Bolt said. “I just blew my mind, and blew the world’s mind.”

He also became the first man to set world records in the 100 and 200 in the same Olympiad.

Americans Shawn Crawford (19.96) and Walter Dix (19.98) took silver and bronze after disqualifications to Churandy Martina (19.82) and Wallace Spearmon (19.95) for stepping out of their lanes, but the night belonged to the entertaining Bolt, bent on breaking track’s unbreakable record.

“Michael Johnson is an incredible athlete and he revolutionized the sport,” said Bolt. “And I just changed it a little bit. I rewrote history.”

Bolt, rubbing his head and playing to the crowd before the race, delivered an unforgettable encore to his record-setting 100 performance. On Saturday he decelerated with 15 meters to go to tap his chest and claim victory to claim his first gold, but he was all business this time.

Bolt dominated from the start, bursting out of the blocks in Lane 5 and powering through the finish line.

“It was a (butt)-whuppin’ we all took out there,” said Kim Collins, who finished sixth. “He’s doing it and making it look so simple. Michael Johnson did it, and it didn’t looked that easy.”

The 6-5 Jamaican gobbled up chunks of real estate with his long, effortless strides, creating more and more space between him and the rest of the eight-man field.

“Usain Bolt is the fastest man I’ve seen in my life,” Crawford said. “I’ve watched Usain put up phenomenal times all year. I did think he had a chance to break the record, but I didn’t know if he was going to have it in his legs.”

One day before he turned 22, the long and lean sprinter had plenty in the tank as he came around the turn and went into overdrive. Bolt ran hard down the straightaway even though the outcome was no longer in doubt, leaning at the finish line to make history. Johnson simply called the run “incredible” afterward.

“I knew I could run that fast,” said Bolt, who won by the largest margin (0.66 seconds) in an Olympic 200 meters since 1900. “I thought I could get the world record in the 200 meters.”

Bolt, who only recently picked up the 100, admitted the 200 gold meant more to him.

I’m not Flash Gordon or anything,” he said. “My name is Lightning Bolt.”

He was also one of the few unaffected by a strange chain of events that included two protests and disqualifications that weren’t resolved until nearly two hours after the conclusion of the race.

hey say Wallace Spearmon stepped out and (Martina) stepped out,” Crawford said with a laugh. “I hope Usain stepped out too. … And maybe I’ll go home with the gold.”

But nothing could spoil a night that catapulted Bolt into rarefied air as only the ninth man to pull off the Olympic double. The track and field world still doesn’t quite know what to make of the fun-loving, easygoing Jamaican, who squashed rumors that his next challenge would be to conquer the 400 meters.

For now, Bolt said he wanted to “chill out,” slip on sandals and get some well-deserved R&R.

“It’s ridiculous,” Collins said. “Come on. How fast can you go before the world record can’t be broken? How fast can a human being go before there’s no more going fast?”

After Wednesday night, there’s only one man who knows.

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the first black woman to represent Ohio in Congress, died Wednesday after suffering an aneurysm while driving her car. She was 58.

The congresswoman died at 6:12 p.m. after suffering a brain hemorrhage that caused an aneurysm that burst and left her with limited brain function, spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said.

“Throughout the course of the day and into this evening, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones’ medical condition declined,” Sheil said in a statement from the congresswoman’s family and the Cleveland Clinic, where she was hospitalized.

The liberal Democrat had been driving erratically through Cleveland Heights Tuesday night; her vehicle crossing from the northbound lanes across the southbound lanes, according to a statement from police.

An officer pulled a cruiser across the roadway to warn oncoming traffic. The officer reached her vehicle and found Tubbs Jones in medical distress, the statement said.

Tubbs Jones, elected in 1998, was one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most vocal supporters during the primaries and was to be a superdelegate at next week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.

She represented the heavily Democratic 11th District and chaired the ethics committee in the House. She was the first black woman to serve on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, where she opposed President Bush’s tax cuts and his efforts to create personal accounts within Social Security.

Janet Jackson says she hopes to have her brand new Pleasure Principle lingerie line in stores by the end of November, which is one month before the launch of her “Discipline” tour in Vancouver.

According to “Access Hollywood,” the singer has partnered with Australian fashion designer Bruno Schiavi for the line of intimates, named after the 1987 hit single from her album, “Control.”

“The collection has been carefully created with some of the finest laces from around the world. You will see a lot of satin and lace combined and rich colors such as burgundy and beige, silver and peach as well as your classic black and white,” Jackson tells host Nancy O’Dell. ”It makes you feel incredible and offers variety as diverse as the women who will wear it.”

The first collection of Pleasure Principle offers 14 designs across a combination of bra styles from balconettes, demi cups to full coverage. Sizes will range from 32A to 44G.

The line will be Jackson and Schiavi’s first domestic lingerie collection with plans to have product in stores as early as November 2008 across America, with Australia, Japan and Europe to follow.

Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana, have added another girl to the household.

“Matt and Lucy Damon had a baby girl named Gia Zavala on Wednesday, Aug. 20th. Everyone’s doing great,” Damon’s rep, Jennifer Allen, tells People magazine.

“She is a healthy baby girl.”

Baby Gia joins the couple’s other daughter together, Isabella, 2, and Alexia, 10, Luciana’s daughter from a previous relationship.

Damon, 37, and Luciana, 32, married in December 2005.

Also on Wednesday, Jennifer Garner – who’s married to Damon’s close pal Ben Affleck – confirmed that she’s pregnant with her second child.

Presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is poised to name his running mate, according to The New York Times.

While the paper reports that Obama has yet to inform his prospective vice-president of the nod, the candidate’s focus is primarily on three men: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and foreign policy expert Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware.

The Times

cited unnamed advisers to the Democratic hopeful as saying Obama had reached his decision last week while on vacation in Hawaii.

As for John McCain, the Republican frontrunner will announce his running mate on his 72nd birthday, Aug. 29, the day after Obama’s acceptance speech before 70,000 people at the Democratic Convention in Denver, reports FOX News.

Those on the McCain list of possibilities are said to include Connecticut Independent Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, Alaska Gov. Sara Palin, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

The United States’ vanquishing of Australia had been over for 45 minutes, the reporters’ questions were done, and still there were four Americans mesmerized in a silent corner of Wukesong Indoor Basketball Stadium.

Chris Paul slouched on the floor, flip-flops on his feet. LeBron James sipped a bottle of Coke. Carmelo Anthony peeled back the earphones on his head. Dwyane Wade set down his shoulder bag.

Above them in the hallway, the clock pushed past 10:35 p.m., and still no one rushed to the bus waiting to whisk Team USA downtown to its five-star hotel. The flat-screen television flickered with Argentina and Greece.

“(Luis) Scola had 35 points the other night,” Anthony said.

Thirty-seven,” James said. “He had 37.”

Eyes stayed entranced, and teammates chatted over sets and plays unfolding on the floor. This was a most telling scene on a telling night at the Olympic Games. Team USA invested itself completely into this tournament, this journey, this mission. It bears itself in so many ways here. They are taking teams and preparations with a stone-cold seriousness. As much as ever, the Americans understand the fragility of international basketball tournaments, the missteps that have cost them in the past.

When Team USA could’ve been easily distracted with those Australians full of big talk and beer muscles on Wednesday, they showed a remarkable restraint. The Aussies love to talk. They talked before their 116-85 quarterfinal loss on Wednesday night and never stopped talking throughout.

They tried to lure the U.S. into a scrap with hard fouls and smart mouths. Sometimes, the Aussies are wildly entertaining this way. And sometimes, you just want to punch them in the mouth.

“They were doing a lot of talking, saying they were going to beat us and do this and that to us,” Carmelo Anthony said. “There’s a difference when they say something, and we do. If we come out and say we’re going to beat the hell out of Australia, then we are arrogant and cocky. When they say it, it’s that they’re not scared and they’re not backing down from the U.S.

“We could’ve easily went back at them and talked trash back to them today, but we let the score talk…”

The Aussies had been emboldened by an 87-76 loss to Team USA on the pre-Olympic exhibition tour and reveled over the fact that the big, bad United States did not frighten them. Once Australia gave the Americans the toughest quarter they’ve had this tournament – trailing Team USA just 25-24 – they were determined to get brasher. For the first time, the Americans struggled to force turnovers, and there were too few easy baskets on the break to balloon the score.

Even so, there is still such a sense of the inevitable with Team USA. “You just know the run can come at any second with them,” Australia’s Shawn Redhage said. “There’s just so much talent there.” And when everyone was starting to wonder whether they were going to witness the full force of Kobe Bryant’s greatness in these Olympics, Bryant popped nine of his 25 points in the first 3&nfrac12; minutes of the third quarter.

Just like that, without warning, it was 69-43, and the Aussies had lost hope, lost the game.

For those wondering whether Bryant had tired after a long season, still struggled with a torn ligament in a finger on his shooting hand, there was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player treating this like the NCAA tournament he never had a chance to play in as a teenager.

“Money,” Bryant said, “is on the line.”

As easily as Team USA destroyed Greece in a Pool B game last week, there was no sense the Americans were rooting for that return game in the semifinals on Friday night. This devastating run through the world has been all about new challenges, and the been-there-done-that with Greece hardly appealed to them.

Funny, but Bryant sat in a news conference and answered the question that coaches and players are always taught to dismiss in tournament formats: Who would you rather play?

“We want to play the best,” Bryant said. “We want to play the defending champs. Argentina is the defending champs. You want to be able to play the guys who won it the last time.”

And so, there was the core of that 2004 Olympic gold medalist, Argentina, the most successful international team of the past decade, holding on for dear life over Greece, led by the genius of Manu Ginobili. Behind the baseline, there was Kobe Bryant watching with the U.S. coaches until midnight, until he had his wish and Argentina awaited the United States in the semifinals.

All over Wukesong Indoor Stadium, there were American eyes on the team between the U.S. and the gold medal game on Sunday, between the U.S. and 40 minutes toward restoring the world order of basketball.

Usain Bolt spotted the TV cameraman, darted over and raised his index finger for millions of viewers to see.

“I am No. 1,” he said. “I am No. 1.”

His boast qualifies as an understatement.

.Wednesday night, when Bolt cemented his status as the world’s No. 1 sprinter, he also emerged as track’s Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan. Anyone who disputes that the Jamaican star belongs in that transcendent class better brush up on track history and prepare to lose the argument.

In a space of four days here, Bolt became the first man to break the world record in the 100- and 200-meter sprints in the same Olympics since the Games resumed in 1896. It’s worth noting who doubted it would happen, too.

Michael Johnson, who set the world record in the 200 when he ran it in 19.32 seconds at the 1996 Olympics, spoke to reporters before the finals Wednesday and explained why he thought Bolt was not yet ready to break his record.

“To run a 19.3, he’s going to have to run the curve a lot better, he’s going to have to hold that speed for a very, very long time,” Johnson said. “That’s not the most easy thing to do, even for him.”

Chances are, Johnson was spot-on with his assessment – even though Bolt went out hours later and broke Johnson’s record when he covered 200 meters in 19.30 seconds. Bolt can improve his speed on the curve, which will only fuel his astonishing progression.

Already, Bolt has broken three world records in less than three months.

In May, he lowered the 100 record to 9.72 seconds from 9.74 seconds – less than six months after he started running the event as a professional. He then broke that record in Sunday’s final, winning in 9.69 seconds despite coasting for the final 20 meters. Up against the world’s top sprinters, Bolt looked like he was competing against schoolchildren.

“It was the most impressive athletic performance I’ve ever seen in my life,” Johnson said.

During the 200 final, there was no early celebration. This was Bolt at top speed from start to finish. This was Bolt competing less against the seven helpless other sprinters entered in the race than against Johnson’s 12-year-old record.

With no one within five meters of Bolt down the stretch, there he was, arms still pumping, legs still driving, straining to sustain his speed. He leaned as he reached the finish line, glanced at the clock on his left and thrust his arms in the air.

The record was Bolt’s, one day before his 22nd birthday. With that, he became the first man to simultaneously hold the world records in the 100 and 200 since Don Quarrie held both in 1979, and he became the first man to win the gold in the 100 and 200 at the same Olympics since Carl Lewis in 1984.

“Michael Johnson is a great athlete and he revolutionized the sport,” Bolt said after the 200 final. “I just changed it a little bit.”

Despite all of his showboating, Bolt’s assessment fails to capture what he has done – and can do – for sprinting.

At 6-foot-5, Bolt has defied conventional wisdom that he was too tall for the 100. He has learned to burst out of the starting blocks as fast as the smaller and more compact sprinters, and his long stride gives him a sizable advantage. He needs only 40 to 41 strides to cover 100 meters whereas most 100-meter sprinters need 46 to 47 strides.

Bolt’s turnover – the speed with which his feet hit the ground – is as fast as smaller sprinters, meaning he’s virtually impossible to catch.

“He’s been able to take the long stride he has and been able to coordinate that and achieve a very long stride,” Johnson said before the 200 final. “That combination is deadly, as the people in (the 100 final) found out.”

Is Usain Bolt the best sprinter ever? As the Games approach a close, let the debate begin. But one thing is beyond debate: You can feel comfortable mentioning his name in the same breath as Gretzky, Jordan and Woods.

Dave Matthews stood in front of a sold out crowd on Tuesday night to pay tribute to his fellow bandmember and co-founder, LeRoi Moore, who died at the age of 46.

“It’s always easier to leave than be left,” Matthews said. “We appreciate you all being here.”

LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, died Tuesday of complications from injuries he suffered in an all-terrain vehicle accident, his rep said.

On June 30, Moore crashed his ATV on his farm outside Charlottesville, Va., but was discharged and returned to his Los Angeles home to begin physical therapy. Complications forced him back to the hospital earlier this summer.

The band went on with its show Tuesday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where lead singer Dave Matthews dedicated the entire show to Moore.

At the Staples Center concert in L.A., Matthews told the audience: “We all had some bad news today. Our good friend LeRoi Moore passed on and gave his ghost up today and we will miss him forever.”