“Morris Chestnut And Wife”Morris Chestnut Wife

“Morris Chestnut And Wife”Morris Chestnut Wife: Who knew that celebrity hearthrob Morris Chestnut was married? Well he is and has been for 11 years. In addition, Morris Chestnut has two children:a daughter,9,and a son,10

“Morris Chestnut And Wife”Morris Chestnut Wife:Who knew that celebrity hearthrob Morris Chestnut was married? Well he is and has been for 11 years. In addition,Morris Chestnut has two children:a daughter,9,and a son,10. In a recent December 2007 interview with Essence.com,Morris talks about his married life,divorce,and his kids.

Essence.com: So[staying at home] is that the secret to ensuring your privacy?

M.C.: Most definitely. To be quite honest, a lot of celebrities want their home life and what they do off-set to be public because people strongly believe that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, in other words, any publicity is good publicity. I always wanted my personal life to be private and my work life to be public.

Essence.com: You have a daughter, 9, and son, 10. Have either of them been bitten by the acting bug?

M.C.: My daughter is expressing interest but she’s too young. This industry is tough for adults to deal with, let alone children, so she’s gonna have to wait until she’s done with high school before I would really let her pursue.
Morris Chestnut and wife Pam Byse in 2004

Essence.com: What’s the wildest rumor you’ve heard about yourself, and how did you confront it?

M.C.: I heard I was getting divorce. People were calling me from all across the country telling me about it. A local radio DJ said it and I called into that station and just set the record straight.Essence.com: How did the missus take it?

M.C.: (Laugh) She didn’t really care for it too much. I tried to explain to her that you can’t really confirm or deny every single rumor, but I definitely spoke out on that one.

“United Commercial Bank”

“United Commercial Bank”: Toppled by loan losses and misstated financial reports, San Francisco’s United Commercial Bank was shut down by regulators Friday night and immediately sold to Pasadena’s East West Bancorp, creating by far the largest U.S. bank focused on the Chinese American market.

“United Commercial Bank”:Toppled by loan losses and misstated financial reports, San Francisco’s United Commercial Bank was shut down by regulators Friday night and immediately sold to Pasadena’s East West Bancorp, creating by far the largest U.S. bank focused on the Chinese American market.

The combination also will be the largest bank based in Southern California, surpassing City National Bancorp.

East West agreed to assume all of United Commercial’s deposits, so no depositors will lose money, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said. The bank’s 63 U.S. branches, including 17 in Southern California, will reopen Saturday as branches of East West Bank.

United Commercial, a unit of UCBH Holdings Inc., was the fourth-largest bank to fail this year. That position was formerly occupied by California National Bank of Los Angeles, which failed last week and was acquired by U.S. Bancorp of Minneapolis.

Regulators also seized on Friday one bank each in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri, bringing to 120 the number of failures this year.

United Commercial’s collapse may cause a greater-than-usual stir because a year ago the federal government invested $299 million in bailout funds in the bank in exchange for preferred stock, which was made worthless by the failure.

In addition, the FDIC said the collapse would cost the federal deposit insurance fund an estimated $1.4 billion.

East West raised $500 million in new capital to support the takeover, most of it from mutual funds and other existing shareholders, said Dominic Ng, chairman of the Pasadena-based lender.

The privately placed stock sales will enable East West to proceed slowly as it integrates the two banks, then have plenty of capital later next year to consider additional expansion by adding branches or making more acquisitions.

The takeover will greatly expand the reach of East West, which has concentrated on Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to 69 California offices, East West has full-service branches in Houston and Hong Kong.

United Commercial not only has dozens of branches in California but also has locations in key Chinese American areas, including New York, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta and Houston.

What’s more, because of its 2007 acquisition of a Shanghai bank, United Commercial also has a banking license in China — a “rare and hard-to-come-by” asset that makes it easier to operate and expand in that country, , said RBC Capital Markets analyst Joe Morford. It has full-service offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shantou, China.

United Commercial, East West and Cathay General Bancorp of Los Angeles have vied for years to become the largest of the banks focused on the Chinese American market.

East West, which had $12.5 billion in assets at last report, agreed to acquire $10.2 billion of United Commercial’s $11.2 billion in assets. That would put the combined bank, at almost $23 billion in assets, ahead of L.A.-based City National as the largest bank based in Southern California. At last report, City National had $18.4 billion in assets.

The FDIC agreed to absorb most of the expected losses on about $7.7 billion of the United Commercial assets acquired by East West.

Like its Chinese American rivals, United Commercial was burned by commercial lending losses, especially loans to developers and home builders during the housing boom. But it also was tainted by a financial scandal that resulted in a shake-up of its top management.

more details:http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bank-failure7-2009nov07,0,2745693.story

Toni Braxton And Trey Songz Kiss,Toni Braxton

Toni Braxton And Trey Songz Kiss,Toni Braxton: The night opened with a memorable performance by Toni Braxton featuring Trey Songz singing “Yesterday” that was sealed with a kiss .

Toni Braxton And Trey Songz Kiss,Toni Braxton:

The night opened with a memorable performance by Toni Braxton featuring Trey Songz singing “Yesterday” that was sealed with a kiss.
Toni Braxton and Trey Songz performed during the taping of the 2009 Soul Train Awards in Atlanta, Georgia, November 3, 2009. While doing so, they took. … Dang consider me a hater, I would have loved to kiss Trey so I aint mad at Toni, HELL I’ll kiss Toni too.
Academy Award-nominated actors Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard, the night opened with Toni Braxton featuring Trey Songz singing “Yesterday” that was sealed with a kiss.

Then Howard and Henson welcomed the audience with a rendition of Peaches and Herb’s “Reunited.” Other performances were given by Keri Hilson, Robin Thicke, Ryan Leslie, Raheem DeVaughn featuring Ludacris, Chrisette Michele, Mario featuring Sean Garrett, and many more.

A Motown Records musical tribute featured a medley of Motown hits performed by Henson as a Supreme, Boyz II Men, Chico DeBarge, Johnny Gill, Estelle, Vita, Mike Phillips and Melanie Fiona.

Charlie Wilson and Chaka Khan, recipients of the evening’s Icon Award, were both honored in musical tributes.

Keith Sweat, Ginuwine, Raheem DeVaughn, Kandi Burress and Brian McKnight paid homage to Charlie Wilson and The Gap Band with renditions of their hits, including “Outstanding” and “Yearning for Your Love.” Following the tribute, Wilson, himself, graced the stage to perform two songs: “Burn Rubber” with K-Ci & Jo-Jo and Bootsy Collins and “There Goes My Baby.”

Erykah Badu, Melle Mel, Ledisi, Fantasia, and Angie Stone paid homage to Chaka Khan with such hits as “Through the Fire” and “Tell Me Something Good.”

The evening also included skits, dance sequences and throwbacks to the infamous Soul Train scramble board and Soul Train line. Monica, Tamia, Deborah Cox, Kelly Price were among the presenters.

All we can say is whaaat? Essence.com is reporting that Grammy Award winner Toni Braxton and her husband, Keri Lewis, formerly of Mint Condition, have separated after eight years of marriage. The couple has two sons.

We have no idea what prompted the split, but we do know that Ms. Braxton, 43, had tongues waggin’ over the, er, “tonguing” that she and singer Trey Songz, 25, gave each other on stage in front the whole world including her husband at the recent Soul Train Awards. (See photo below.)
Seriously, inquiring minds definitely wanna know what that was all about.

So if either Braxton or Songz all of a sudden start sportin’ bruises and broken bones and stuff, we’ll at least have a good guess as to why.