Bobby Brown Crying at Whitney Houston Funeral

Whitney Houston Dies: Singer Found in Beverly Hilton Hotel Bathtub

By LEEZEL TANGLAO Feb. 12, 2012

Authorities today are investigating what caused the death of legendary singer Whitney Houston who captivated audiences with her powerful voice while battling drug use and a rocky marriage with Bobby Brown.

On Saturday, paramedics raced to the iconic Beverly Hilton Hotel and found a lifeless Houston inside her hotel room bathtub, authorities said.

Members of Houston's entourage reportedly found her unresponsive body and called hotel security.

Officials tried to resuscitate the 48-year-old singer with CPR but were unable to revive her.

Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen said she was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m.

"No obvious signs of foul play and no obvious signs of a cause of death," Rosen said.

Los Angeles Coroner Office officials left with Houston's body around 1:50 a.m. PT.

An autopsy is expected to be conducted today or Monday, according to ABC News Los Angeles station KABC.

The singer's cause of death remains unknown according to her publicist, Kristen Foster.

PHOTOS: Whitney Houston Through the Years

The coroner's office declined to speculate how Houston died when asked about reports that she may have drowned.

When asked about drugs in the room, Ed Winter, with the Los Angeles County Coroner's office, said he could not comment on it.

Winter said he could not comment on the condition of the body and whether she was naked or not.

Just hours before her death, Houston's mother, Cissy Houston, and her cousin, Dionne Warwick, reportedly both spoke to the singer and said there was no indication that anything was wrong.

Warwick spoke to her over the phone to check that they were seated at the same table at Davis' party and Cissy Houston talked to her at around 3:15, TMZ reported.

Clive Davis Party Houston was staying at the hotel to attend music industry executive Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy bash. It is the same event where she was introduced to the record industry nearly three decades ago. Hours after her death, the party still went on but the scene was surreal. Whitney Houston's Death: Celebrities React

The Beverly Hills crime lab was parked outside as paparazzi camped out waiting for Houston's body to emerge. Her Final Days Her final days were marked by questions about her sobriety.

Houston's stay at the Beverly Hilton involved heavy partying, according to news reports. A duet with Grammy nominee Kelly Price at a party in a Hollywood nightclub earlier this week would become Houston's final performance.

Houston was there with her daughter having a good time.

But photos show a disheveled, bloated and agitated Houston leaving and she reportedly had blood dripping down her leg, scratches on her wrist and had to be escorted from the club.

PHOTOS: Whitney Houston's Last Photos But the people who knew her said she was simply sweating from her performance.

"There was nothing wrong. There was nothing wrong. She was singing, she was dancing, she was laughing, she was playing…" Price said. "I'm going to remember her just like that because that's the Whitney I always had the pleasure of being around." ABC News' Sheila Marikar, Cecilia Vega and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston Dead 2012: But How Did She Die?

Whitney Houston was found dead in her Beverly Hilton Hotel room on Saturday (February 11, 2012), aged 48.

The American singer and actress was cited by the Guinness World Records as the most 'awarded' female singer of all time. Police and paramedics were dispatched to the hotel at around 15.43pm local time, with medical staff attempting to resuscitate the singer in her room, without success. Whitney was pronounced dead at around 15.55pm. According to BBC News, Beverly Hills spokesman Mark Rosen said Ms Houston's entourage had taken over much of the fourth floor of the hotel for the evening. He said, "There were a number of people on scene who were able to positively identify Ms

Houston for us". Although it is too early to determine the exact cause of death, Mr Rosen said there was "no obvious signs of criminal intent". Houston's background was steeped mainly in soul and gospel music, and she became recognized as the voice of her generation after a string of multi-million selling albums. In 1992, she covered the Dolly Parton song 'I Will Always Love You' for the soundtrack of The Bodyguard - the version was a huge success and

appeared at No. 68 on Billboard's "Greatest Songs of All Time". In recent years, drug use slowly took its toll on the star and her vocals in particular, music critic PAUL GAMBACCINI explained, "She did have it all, but the record is there of the decline into drug use and the damage done from drug use".

Part of a famous family, Whitney's mother was gospel singer Cissy Houston, her cousin Dionne Warwick and her godmother, Aretha Franklin. In a short statement, Aretha said, "I just can't talk about it now.It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen".

Blue Ivy Carter’s First Photos: Beyonce, Jay-Z’s Baby Girl Makes Debut

For the first time, proud parents Beyonce and Jay-Z showed off their baby girl, Blue Ivy Carter, to the world.

The first photos of the superstars’ daughter surfaced today on Jay-Z’s blog, Life + Times and on a new Tumblr blog entitled “Hello Blue Ivy Carter.” Perhaps that is where we will all watch Blue Ivy grow up?

A series of five intimate images show two photos of a peaceful baby girl with a

swath of dark hair wrapped in blankets, two photos each showing Beyonce and Jay-Z by themselves holding Blue Ivy in a cream-colored onesie, and a final, touching photo of adult fingertips touching the baby’s tiny hand.

Jay-Z also included a message with the photos, which read, “We welcome you to share in our joy. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this beautiful time in our lives!! The Carter Family.” Beyonce gave birth to Blue Ivy on Jan. 8 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York.

Kevin Youkilis reportedly engaged to Tom Brady's sister

Well, it's not exactly on the level of the high-profile-celebrity pairing of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, but there's news of another Boston-related pairing with high-profile connections.

According to the Boston Herald's Inside Track, Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady are about to become brothers-in-law. Youkilis is reportedly engaged to Julie Brady, one of the quarterback's three sisters.

The website says that Julie Brady is a teacher in California and will move to Florida to be with Youkilis. They spent time together in Indianapolis to watch the Super Bowl, which Tom Brady's Patriots lost to the New York Giants. It will be Julie Brady's first marriage.

According to ESPN, Youkilis took part in a marriage ceremony with Enza Sambataro in 2008, but the two never were legally married before separating. Sambataro reportedly dated Hollywood Red Sox fan Ben Affleck.

Youkilis has been known as a gritty, hard-working player and an excellent fielder in his eight-year career with the Red Sox.

Twimmolation Alert: Roland Martin Gets His Ascot in Hot Water at CNN

By JAMES PONIEWOZIK

The broadcast of the Super Bowl inspired hundreds of thousands of tweets on Twitter, and a few of them just got analyst Roland S. Martin suspended from CNN. The political commentator was criticized by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and others for tweets he posted (some of them during the game, some on earlier days) that they argued were homophobic. Among them:

f a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl Ladies, if your man don’t like sports, send his azz back to the factory. He came to you defective! #rolandsrules I’m sorry. I’m not down with seeing dudes walking around with bags on their shoulders that resemble women’s handbags. #helltothenaw Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass After a few days of criticism, CNN Wednesday issued a statement:

Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive. Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated. We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being. OK, here’s where we’re all supposed to divide into Team Hell Yes, Fire That Homophobe and Team Come On, He Didn’t Say Anything Wrong. Go ahead, but first I have to say a few words for Team I Don’t Think People Always Have to Be Punished For Saying Things That Are Nonetheless Totally Obnoxious. (We’re a small and universally despised team. But we’re scrappy!)

First, I don’t believe CNN should have suspended Martin–just as I don’t think it should have fired Octavia Nasr and Rick Sanchez, or NPR should have cut Juan Williams. There’s a whole long casualty list by now of public figures cut loose over errant (and often dumb) public remarks, often on Twitter, and the only consistent rule behind it seems to be: “If you embarrass us enough and enough people make trouble for us, we’ll punish you.” Denounce the remarks, but as I’ve said before, I’d rather journalistic outlets, which are in the business of expression and ideas, err on the side of letting people screw up.

(Just to address the inevitable counterargument: Yes, CNN has the legal right to do whatever it wants with its employees and contractors. This is not a First Amendment issue.)

But that doesn’t make Martin’s tweets OK. They were obnoxious, small, stupid, and wrong. And if he has any sense of self-awareness, he’d recognize that and really apologize–not an “I’m sorry if you’re offended” apology–instead of going into defensive mode.

Maybe he didn’t have gay people specifically in mind when he talked about smacking up a dude for wearing pink or liking David Beckham’s underwear. I can’t read his mind. And I’ll take his word he wasn’t advocating literal, physical violence.

But so what? The problem with fixating on whether the comments were literally, deliberately, provably homophobic is that that implies that belittling someone for being “unmanly”–not liking football, having overly nice underwear, liking Broadway musicals, whatever–is fine as long as he’s straight. And it’s not. The real problem with remarks like Martin’s boneheaded comments is that they, and blatant homophobia, exist on a continuum that’s all about setting rules for masculinity and punishing anyone who’s outside them. It’s no good for gay men, or straight men, or women for that matter; the undertones of the tweets are as much about sexism—this stuff is for girls, this stuff is for boys—as about homophobia. Smacking up a straight guy for wearing pink may not be a hate crime, but I’d hope we’re not cool with it anyway. (Full disclosure: I am not a football fan, I carry a shoulder-bag and I own at least two items of clothing in persimmon.)

Of course, it is gay people who have been particularly singled out for getting (literally) smacked up for deviating from the norm, and–again if Martin has a lick of sense–he should see why someone wouldn’t see it as harmless fun for a CNN personality to sit on his couch on Super Sunday and crack about slapping “dudes” who like an underwear ad.

A while back, Martin defended Tracy Morgan when the comedian got in trouble for a routine in which Morgan said he’d stab his son if he came out as gay, and I suppose Martin might defend his remarks as being like those of an edgy comedian. And the fact is, “What does it mean to be male?” is a completely legitimate topic for jokes; look at sitcoms like New Girl, some of whose best material deals with the differences between heterosexual-but-metrosexual Schmidt and his male roomies.

The difference between making a joke and being a jerk is hard to quantify, but it’s all about attitude and relative power. If you’re a TV personality cracking tweets that are all about setting you up as the definer of manhood, laughing at dudes who wear pink and telling ladies to send their football-hating man back to the man factory–that are all about you pointing out people’s differences from the norm and setting yourself up as superior–you’re pretty safely in being-a-jerk territory.

A suspension, more than anything, is corporate damage control, and any apology it forces is likely to be perfunctory and insincere. (That is, more or less, the point; not changing any attitudes, but making a public statement and moving on.) What guys like Martin need above all is public shaming and mockery, like the comment from a Buzzfeed reader on Martin’s macho-fashion-arbiter tweets: “This coming from a man who wears ascots.”* He does (see picture, above); ironically, he even sells them, some of them in a shade of dare-I-say-it pink. You can see some of his line of neckwear here. I may never be able to pull that look off, but that doesn’t make me any more of a man.

*Update: Reader Irin Carmon took exception to this line on Twitter, saying, “I don’t think the response to genderbaiting should be more genderbaiting.” I don’t think Martin should be mocked for wearing ascots, which I think are frankly awesome, but for his hypocrisy—surely someone who rocks a dandyish fashion accessory should be able to recognize that there are all kinds of way to be correctly masculine. They’re no more inherently womanish than a shoulder bag or not caring about the NFL. I may not wear ascots, but let me be clear: I fully support them.

Powerball: $310 million jackpot, record cash

By Peter Mucha Inquirer Staff Writer

Powerball's jackpot rose Wednesday night to $310 million for the annuity and a record $193.4 million for the game's cash payout.

No one hit all the numbers drawn: 17, 28, 38, 39 and 51, with a Powerball of 33.

New Jersey, though, sold one of five tickets worth $1 million for matching the first five numbers. The others were sold in North Carolina Georgia, Missouri and Nebraska.

(This story will be updated if the location of the Jersey seller becomes known today.)

The $310 million jackpot, payable in 30 yearly payments, is the Powerball's fifth biggest ever, and the 12th biggest for any U.S. lottery.

All the records could fall if this jackpot rolls over.

Powerball has gone up $110 million in just one week, fueled in part by the doubling of the cost of a ticket to $2 on Jan. 15.

It's helped that rival Mega Millions has been relatively small. It went up to $41 million, $30 million cash, when no one matched all the numbers drawn Tuesday night: 17, 23, 30, 37 and 45 with a Mega Ball of 4.

The record for any U.S. annuity jackpot was $390 million, set in March 2007 by Mega Millions. A Cape May County, N.J., couple and a Georgia trucker split the cash: $233.1 million.

Only one drawing ever paid more cash: Mega Millions paid out $240 million (less taxes) to two winners, in Idaho and Washington State, who hit on Jan. 4, 2011. That drawing had the second biggest annuity ever, $380 million.

Powerball's biggest annuity ever, $365 million, won in February 2006 by food-plant workers in Nebraska, set the all-time record for a win by a single ticket.

But the cash the winners collected - $177 million - is no longer Powerball's high mark.

The new estimated lump-sum payout has soared well beyond that to $193.4 million.