At first he said, “I ain’t telling if it’s a boy or a girl.” However, Usher recently confirmed that he and his wife, Tameka Foster, are adding additon to their family on Dec. 15 — another baby boy.  Speaking to reporters backstage at his Wednesday night concert at Los Angeles’ Club Nokia, the singer said, “It’s one of the best Christmas gifts there is.”  The 30-year-old singer and his wife welcomed their first child, Usher Raymond V, into the world a year ago.

A Motown songwriting legend dies at age 65.The man who wrote such timeless hit songs as “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “War” and “Just My Imagination” has died. Norman Whitfield, who helped Motown acts achieve star status through his moving, poetic lyrics, suffered from complications due to diabetes. Whitfield had come out of a coma before his death on Tuesday. His Temptations-performed hit “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” won a Grammy Award. Whitfield was 65.

Damon Dash hasn’t seen teenage son in weeks. The mother of rap label founder and entrepreneur Damon Dash’s 16-year-old has a warrant for her arrest. Linda Williams, son of Damon Jr., has allegedly refused to return the child to his dad for several weeks. Dash has full legal custody of the teen. An attorney for Damon Jr. and Williams has said that Damon Jr. wants to remain with his mother.

Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who for many years led the nation’s largest contingent of Muslims and steered Islam away from the more separatist doctrine of his father, the late Elijah Muhammad, died Tuesday at his home near Chicago, The Washington Post reported. A spokesman for the Cook County Medical Examiners Office in Illinois told The Associated Press that the 74-year-old former head of the American Society of Muslims died of heart disease. Find out more about Mohammed’s life and death at BET.com/News. Send your condolences below.

There are relatively few details available

The son of rap legend and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre was found dead at his home on Saturday.  BET.com’s Entertainment Spotlight has the latest.

 

The young mother dialed 911 the day before her son was shot to death.
The day before Stephanie Thompson’s 4-year-old boy was shot to death, she called police to say that there was a man riding a bicycle around her Camden , N.J. , neighborhood with a machine gun. When police finally did show up, Brandon Thompson lay dead on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. He had been shot in the head. “I watched my baby get shot,” Stephanie Thompson, 21, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “I couldn’t get to him fast enough. I called 911 and told them. He was just riding around. It wasn’t like he was hidin’ it. This could have been avoided if they had done their job. Police acknowledge that Stephanie Thompson had called police about the man with the machine gun, but they are questioning whether that was the weapon used to kill Brandon , the Inquirer reports. Police also say that the boy ran into crossfire and was killed. Stephanie says that her son was playing in the street when the alleged shooter, Donald Lindsey, showed up with his machine gun. Stephanie Thompson told authorities that she heard a series of short, staccato blasts and ran to find her son. As she rounded the corner, she saw Brandon running toward her on the sidewalk, the Inquirer reports. The man on the bicycle saw him, took aim and shot him down, according to Stephanie Thompson. “I went to go pick him up and he had blood coming from everywhere. I just held him and told him to get up,” she said. “But he wouldn’t get up. He was only 4. And he was trying to run to his mommy. I couldn’t get there in time.” Camden arrived a few minutes too late. “The cops came and took my baby to the hospital and we wasn’t even there 5 minutes and he died,” she said. “He (Lindsey) looked me dead in my face when my son got shot. He knew he shot my son and he looked at me,” she said.

Barack Obama has distanced himself from a new Ludacris track which supports the Presidential hopeful. In the song called Politics (Obama Is Here) the rapper is critical of Sens. Hilary Clinton and John McCain while calling current president George Bush ‘mentally handicapped.’ The chorus of the song goes “The world is ready for change cos Obama is here,” but even that wasn’t enough to win over the Democrat. In a statement released by his team said: “This song is not only outrageously offensive to Senator Clinton, Reverend (Jesse) Jackson, Senator McCain, and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear.”

Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick’s troubled son could affect a tight race for her seat. In a city like Detroit, which is facing record unemployment rates, rapid home foreclosures and decreased city services, the last thing Motor City voters should consider is sending a rookie to Washington to watch their backs. But as the race for Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick’s seat heats up, it’s becoming clear that her troubled son, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, has opened the door for the longtime congresswoman’s rivals to overtake her in the race to Capitol Hill.