A NYC was killed while defending his mom singing a Chris Brown song… Bronx Man Killed For Defending His Mother’s Singing A Bronx man was shot in the head and killed Sunday night for standing up to a bunch of punks who were insulting his mother’s singing outside the building where they lived, officials said. Via NYPost reports: Verbena Burgess, 50, said she was outside belting out Chris Brown’s “Take You Down” when several young men across the street from the Morris Avenue apartment building where she lives told her to keep it down. The standoff escalated into two fights, the last one of which ended with her oldest son, Tony, shot to death on a building staircase. “The boys threw a bottle at me for singing,” Verbena said. “I said to him, ‘Why did you throw the bottle at me?’ He said, ‘Shut the f–k up.’ Then he got a piece of paper and threw it at me. I said, ‘I’m going to call 911 because you’re bothering me.’ “Then he said, ‘Call them. Call your sons.’ That’s when I rang the bell.” Moments later, Tony and two of her other sons came outside to her defense, and got into a fight with the group from across the street before chasing them off. “When we started fighting, they ran,” said Burgess’ brother Shaquille, 20. “So we came back inside the building and they came back and they got inside our building, and we started fighting again. “I was in the basement in the back with my little brother fighting one of the guys and my big brother was with two other people, fighting two guys, and one of the guys came in with the gun and he shot as my big brother was going up the stairs.” EMS rushed Burgess to Lincoln Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, officials said. ”I just feel like if you start something and a fight is what you get yourself into, a fight is what it should be,” Shaquille said. “It shouldn’t have to be you getting a gun.” Burgess’ family said he was trying to save money to get his own apartment, and had plans to get a GED and go to college. “I looked after Tony and he looked after me,” Verbena said. “That was my pride, that was my joy. That was everything to me. Tony was a good person. He’d never hurt nobody — never ever ever hurt nobody. “I was out there singing. I love to sing.” Cops said no arrests have been made, but a lobby camera might have caught some of the melee. “They killed my son for no reason,” Verbena said. “Maybe they tried to torture me for something, I don’t know. I was out there singing. I love to sing.” You can’t be serious! Just when you thought Breezy had it bad this man was killed just for defending his own mother!! SMH
Following last week’s hometown visits and elimination of Zak Waddell , it’s time for The Bachelorette season 9 men to tell all before the season’s shocking finale! Do James and Ben have unfinished business? Will Zak get the closure he wants? Will we get any hints as to which gentleman Desiree chose, if she chose one at all? The Bachelorette spoilers are abuzz with rumors of both heartbreak and engagement and we’ve got only two weeks to go before we reach the end (or the beginning) of Desiree Hartsock’s fairy tale. Let’s hear what the men had to say now! Chris Harrison introduces the special and only drops 1 “for the right reasons” and none “fairy tales.” Plus 3. Des and Chris crashed some at-home Bachelorette viewing parties. It’s…kind of weird. Des drops the words “fairy tale” and isn’t at all worried or shocked or scared at how well the women at the girl’s nights know her. Not freaked out at all. She teams up with J.P. and Ashley to crash some parties in New York. And then the Mesnicks show up. Trista’s looking…older. There have been 26 seasons of this franchise. Twenty. Six. That’s some dedication to ratings love. Plus 8 . Before the men get to tell their stories, Desiree sits down with Emily, Ashley, and Ali to get advice on how to handle the bad boys. Should she play it nice, or let them have it? I vote let them have it. The other bachelorettes do, too. Let’s do this. Now please. James and Ben get boos as the guys are introduced. Juan Pablo gets allllllll the cheers. Plus 10 . Chris starts the night by talking to Zak W., who says he had no expectations before signing up and that’s what made falling in love so easy. Plus 3. In order to tease the ladies with that awesome accent, Chris asks Juan Pablo about the camaraderie and drama among the men this season. Can we just hand him a phonebook or a dictionary or something and ask him to start reading? Michael, who cannot ever seem to shut up, chimes in with something about all the men and only one woman and he’s surprised there wasn’t more drama. Since it was his life’s work to expose some of it, that’s just funny. Minus 8 Jonathan, who was eliminated prior to the first rose ceremony for continually asking Desiree to go to the Fantasy Suite with him, looks on the verge of vomiting while watching the playback of his limited time on the show. And then he apologizes to all of America for having to watch that. After being busted as a cheater, Brian opted not to come to the men tell-all. So the guys are opting to talk about him. Plus 9 . Kasey seems like he’s going to cry every time he speaks. Minus 3 . Juan Pablo speaking! I’m not even sure exactly what he says because I’m temporarily deafened by his hotness and who really cares anyway!! If only I could hear with my eyes! Plus 10 The first man in the hot seat? Ben. He’s wearing quite the grin during the playback of his montage and blames his reaction in the limo on the fact that he’d been battered for 8 hours. He says he’s different around girls than he is around guys and Mikey T. calls him out on that. Juan Pablo says he knew Ben would be trouble from the minute Ben said “I’m not here to make friends.” Ben doesn’t think he was ever a different guy on camera than he was off. Every guy calls that a lie. And then a guy I don’t even remember says he had a conversation with Ben’s Baby Mama in Vegas where she said he only wanted custody of Brody after he was done with the show. And then there’s more stuff. Like the fact that he got his baby mama pregnant while he was dating someone else. Yikes! Minus 20 . More cheers for Juan Pablo! Plus 8 . Ben says none of the guys know anything about him as a father and asserts that he’s a very good father. Next up in the hot seat next to Chris Harrison? James. He puts the blame for any and all comments about him becoming the next bachelor on Mikey. And then says that Mikey said stuff about introducing him to other girls. It was all Mikey. Minus 10. He doesn’t understand why the guys waited 6 days to confront him about what they overheard and thinks some of the guys there owe him an apology. But not Kasey. Or Drew. He doesn’t care what they have to say. Minus 12. Mikey finally gets a chance to speak and says that their conversation came about because Brooks kept getting roses and he was so different from the two of them. What did he have that they didn’t? He conveniently doesn’t remember who said what about becoming the next bachelor. Minus 14 . Mikey maintains that in life people have to have back-up plans. That doesn’t sit well with Kasey at all. Kasey doesn’t feel the same about Mikey as he feels about James because Mikey never professed his love for Desiree and James did. Kasey’s really, really still worked up about this and it makes me forget all about his early-season hashtagging of everything. Yay, more Juan Pablo speaking! Juan Pablo likes James but wouldn’t want his daughter or his sister to date James. Plus 10 . No one in the audience wants James to be the next bachelor. But who DO we want to be the next bachelor? Juan Pablo. He didn’t get much screen time but he definitely stole the hearts and minds of everyone who watched. The audience is crying watching him cry while talking about his daughter. Plus 20 . Chris asks him to talk about himself and his first answer is about his daughter. He doesn’t date much because he’s with his daughter on the weekends and that’s when people are free to date. He wants to settle down and have two more kids. Plus 15 . There’s an audience full of women who volunteer as tribute. And now it’s Zak’s turn to talk about his journey. I think he’s been hanging out with Ryan Seacrest’s spray-tanner since his departure. Minus 3 . I really do like him, though. Can he be the next bachelor? He doesn’t know when things changed in his relationship with Des but suspects it was because he often comes off as too bold. He doesn’t meet a lot of women where he lives and with his job, so he’s really bummed this didn’t work out. So are we, Zak! Minus 9. In addition to being bold, he’s also incredibly romantic. In the back of the journal he gave Desiree, he wrote a poem in disappearing ink and he doesn’t even know if she read it. It’s way better than anything Chris wrote. Way. Plus 20. He’s still in love with Desiree and this will be his first time seeing her since she loaded him into a limo. Desiree’s in the hot seat now and she says sending people home was tough. Jonathan apologizes for being a douche on night one and manages to drop a “for the right reasons” into it. Minus 9 for that phrase. Next she gets to confront Ben. He says he’s aggressive in going after a girl and he was no different in going after Des. She changes her tune a bit and says that early on she questioned his sincerity because she couldn’t see emotion in his eyes. That’s not exactly how she played it prior to kicking him to the curb. Minus 17 James is up next and Des says that he manipulated her on the steps before she sent him home. He doesn’t believe he did manipulate her but apologizes to her anyway and wishes her the best. Desiree got hate mail for sending Juan Pablo home. Which makes sense because hello, he’s hot. The hottest one there. Zak’s goodbye was the toughest and Desiree said she was afraid that he wouldn’t lean on her during the less happy times of their relationship together because he was always so positive. She wondered if he was using his smile as a mask. He couldn’t think of what to say when he was eliminated, so he wrote her a song. The audience is crying. But the song is kind of odd. She wishes him peace and happiness. He nods. Plus 10. And now it’s time for bloopers. These should be aired during the actual show because they’re funny and they make the guys seem human. There’s a shocking 2-part finale this season that Chris says has an ending we won’t see coming! It’s the “most emotionally intense” finale ever. We’ll find out next week when the first part airs. EPISODE TOTAL: +21 SEASON TOTAL: +410
‘I felt really just sort of like we’d known each other for years,’ Bower said during Comic-Con live stream. By Amy Wilkinson, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Viva Barcelona! Desiree and the men are in Spain, where there’s sure to be a whole lot of bull, if you know what we mean. Will Drew and Kasey’s plan cause Desiree to send James home? Or will they find themselves rose-less? You can just go read The Bachelorette spoilers or play along with our THG +/- review system! Desiree Hartsock loves everything about Barcelona, especially the churches, and says it’s the perfect place to fall in love. She’s hopeful that she’ll fall “completely,” which is better than halfway? Fresh off of helping Ben get ousted, Michael has jumped on the Anti-James Train. It’s pretty ridiculous. Minus 5 . Drew gets the first solo date card, his first solo date with Desiree. He doesn’t plan to address the situation with James unless there’s time for it. Something tells me there will be time for it. Desiree says that her relationship with Drew has moved more slowly but they’re friends, which is a great basis for a relationship. He jumps right into kissing her and gets that out of the way probably in hopes of keeping himself out of the dreaded Friend Zone. And then he just keeps kissing her every chance he gets because he’s so “crazy” about her. Drew’s hero is his dad who is a recovered alcoholic. He gets a little teary when he tells her about his dad and she gets goosebumps hearing the story. P lus 4 . Desiree says she just trusts Drew. But he hasn’t tattled on James yet, so there’s that. At dinner, she thanks him for opening up to her and he says he’s overcome with emotions which are running crazy. He ushers her away from the dinner table and they try to outrun the cameras for a heated make-out session against a wall in an alley. Plus 40 because HOT. Desiree calls Drew strong and emotional and says he has many of the qualities she’s looking for and then gives him a rose. And then he ruins the moment by telling her about James. Minus 40 because buzzkill. The next day, Drew fills Kasey and Michael in on his conversation with Desiree. Kasey is worried about balancing his feelings for Desiree with what he knows about James. Michael’s worried about his sweatband but has a list of questions ready for cross-examination, I’m sure. Juan Pablo is in his element on the group date, which is a soccer match against one of Spain’s womens’ teams. The guys seem to think they’ll have this game in the bag and completely discount the girls’ ability to play soccer. The trash talking is ridiculous. But not as ridiculous as James “playing” goalie. Dear James, GOALIE. Not GOALPOST. Don’t just stand there! MOVE. Minus 8 At the group date cocktail party, Kasey’s ready to confront James. All the guys are ready to confront James. Except Chris who goes with Desiree to her room where she tells him how athletic he is and then reads him a poem she wrote. Barf. Minus 2 . Chris and Des apparently have their own love scale. Kasey and Michael decide to confront James while Des spends time with Juan Pablo. They ambush him and ask him about his statements that if he made the final four, he could become the next bachelor. He’s shocked. Either because they think he said this or because they know he said it. While that’s happening, Brooks and Des talk about how they’re emotionally invested and in a good space. He’s glad he’s not downstairs for the conversation with James. Since part of me is Team Brooks, I’m also glad he’s not downstairs. Plus 7 Michael jumps into Attorney Mode and James starts yelling. Chris tries to shush them and it doesn’t work. James starts wagging his finger around and denies what Kasey and Drew heard. Vehemently denies. Minus 5 Michael says he sounds like he’s auditioning for the Jersey Shore. James leaves the room. Desiree asks James to stay behind and talk to her and tells all of the guys that she’s not handing out a rose to anyone but she’ll walk them out. Plus 3 for being a good hostess. She feels “blindsided” and decides to grab the bull by his horns to get her answers. He tries to interrupt and she just keeps talking. He tries to put everything on Mikey T. He puts everything on the guys and says they’re only trying to ruin what he and Desiree has because they’re jealous of his connection with her. He starts to cry. She starts to cry. He says it’s tough. She says it’s tough. She needs the night to process and he’s emotionally exhausted. And now I’m exhausted watching the faux-drama unfold. Minus 10 . Michael’s still wearing his Attorney cape while they sit around talking about James as James is riding up in the elevator. They didn’t expect him to walk back in the door. The next morning, James is sitting on the roof all by himself and Zak is preparing himself for his one-on-one date with Desiree. She’s feeling depressed, which means Zak is the perfect guy to go on a date with today. He’s always happy. Plus 10 . They’re going to spend the day doing “artistic” things. So descriptive. They take a sketch class and end up drawing each other. He apparently studied at the Picasso school of Des drawings but it makes her laugh. Plus 12. Their second model is male. And nude. And Des says “I feel like I do heads bigger than they’re supposed to be.” And THAT is the line of the night. Plus 15 . And let’s go ahead and give Zak another Plus 25 for those excellent faces when the model dropped trou. He gets another plus 20 for dropping his OWN trou to make her laugh even more. Zak and Des eat dinner in a cave. It’s actually a wine cellar, but it’s also kind of a cave. He wants a relationship just like his parents have. They’ve been married for over 30 years. But he also wants to continue to experience adventures. He believes his need to explore is why he’s still single. His joy and infectious spirit gets him the date rose. Plus 4. They make out in the pathway that leads back out of the cave. Back at the suite, James asks to speak to Drew. James keeps saying that what he said was that if he made it to the top four and Des cuts him, the worst thing that could happen to him would be that he becomes the next bachelor. Uhhh, James? I’d say the worst thing that could happen to you is that you go home and continue to live a life of obscurity and no one ever knows you were ever on this silly show, but hey, I understand words and apparently you don’t. Drew tells him that even having that thought means that he’s not really here for Des, and while I don’t necessarily agree with Drew, I don’t think James is really here for Des. So. All of the guys except James are sitting around chatting and James walks in. He sits next between Juan Pablo and Michael on the couch and Michael bristles. Brooks scoots over to give Michael a little more room. Minus 5 Des shows up and takes James out to finish their chat from the night of the group date. She believes she needs to send him home but also believes they had something and needs to talk to him about it. Go with your gut, Des. Go with your gut. He talks non-stop for what feels like an eternity and says she’s beautiful and he’s there to fall in love with her and all she hears is everything he’s had an entire day to rehearse. He says this has been hard and he feels more alive than he has and she starts to cry. He does the man thing and says “please don’t cry.” BECAUSE THAT WORKS, DUDE. Minus 8 They start to laugh and she leans into him and they’re sort of snuggling and all the wind is sucked out of Drew’s sails as he sees it. Chris asks James what he and Des talked about like he doesn’t already know. James laughs and says “exactly the situation that occurred.” Except, you know, probably not exactly. Chris is not happy at all. Not at all. You know the two coming out of this smelling like, uh, roses? Juan Pablo and Zak. The two of them have said nada about this entire situation. Plus 9 . Finally, it’s time for the rose ceremony. Finally. No cocktail party. Just straight to the good part. Zak and Drew both received roses on their one-on-one dates. Joining them to continue on to the next leg of this journey are: Chris Brooks Michael And with that, Kasey, Juan Pablo, and James head back to reality. Juan Pablo thought he and Des had a connection and he’s sad. There are legitimate tears. Drew and Michael are more excited about the fact that James is gone than they are anything else and Michael actually says “case dismissed.” Michael, Des? Really? Weird. EPISODE TOTAL: +66 SEASON TOTAL: +326
It’s Sheerios vs. Echelon in MMM’s title game … and voting is now open to determine who reigns supreme. By James Montgomery Thirty Seconds To Mars’ Jared Leto and Ed Sheeran Photo: Getty Images
