New Edition

The New Kids on the Block aren’t the only man band from Boston still wooing fans across the country. On Sunday, the local boys of New Edition - including Bobby Brown - were in New Orleans to headline the Essence Music Festival, which also featured Trey Songz , Mary J. Blige , and Kanye West .

Bobby Brown says it took him a long time to come out with a new album because he's spent so much time trying to get his life on track. Now on tour with bandmates New Edition, Brown says he's ready to return to his solo career with the album "Masterpiece," due out June 5. "It's what I've been through throughout my life, and just trying to heal myself through my music," the 43-year-old singer said in a recent interview. "Masterpiece" is Brown's first album in 14 years.

While R&B crooner Brian McKnight made the ladies swoon with his smooth, sexed-up set at the Bank of America Pavilion on Wednesday, the crowd and the night belonged to hometown heroes New Edition. Their high-energy performance showcased 20 years of sweet pop confections and had the audience in a frenzy. During his short, seamless set, McKnight -- who also has nearly two decades of material to draw on -- clearly relished the extremely vocal devotion of his female fans. Promising to reveal the secrets of the recently divorced, 30-something, successful black male, he flirted and teased his...

Roxbury's Bobby Brown will marry his manager, Alicia Etheridge , when New Edition performs in Hawaii next month, according to TMZ. The celebrity website says the wedding will take place the weekend of June 15. The local R&B act has a show in Honolulu scheduled for the 17th. Brown proposed to Etheridge on stage in Florida two years ago. The couple has a son named Cassius . Brown was previously married to the late Whitney Houston .

Bobby Brown says it took him a long time to come out with a new album because he's spent so much time trying to get his life on track. Now on tour with bandmates New Edition, Brown says he's ready to return to his solo career with the album "Masterpiece," due out June 5. "It's what I've been through throughout my life, and just trying to heal myself through my music," the 43-year-old singer said in a recent interview. "Masterpiece" is Brown's first album in 14 years.

Roxbury's Bobby Brown will marry his manager, Alicia Etheridge , when New Edition performs in Hawaii next month, according to TMZ. The celebrity website says the wedding will take place the weekend of June 15. The local R&B act has a show in Honolulu scheduled for the 17th. Brown proposed to Etheridge on stage in Florida two years ago. The couple has a son named Cassius . Brown was previously married to the late Whitney Houston .

Whitney Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, briefly appeared at her funeral. Brown arrived as the Saturday service began. He walked to the casket, touched it and walked to the back of the church. He says in a statement that he and his children were seated but asked repeatedly to move. Brown says he left because he didn't want to create a scene. As he left, Brown appeared upset. Later Saturday, Brown performed in Connecticut with New Edition. He appeared energetic and smiling.

Roxbury's Bobby Brown has pleaded not guilty to charges that he drove drunk in Los Angeles last month. According to the New York Daily News, Brown's attorney Tiffany Feder entered the not guilty pleas on the New Edition singer's behalf. (Brown and New Edition are scheduled to hit the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence this Friday.) Brown, 43, the ex-husband of the late Whitney Houston, was arrested on March 26 and charged with three misdemeanors, including driving with an illegal blood-alcohol content and a suspended license.

After appearing briefly at ex-wife Whitney Houston's funeral in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon, Roxbury's own Bobby Brown traveled to Mohegan Sun where he performed with New Edition and hung out with friends from Boston, according to People.com. Just hours after he released a statement explaining that he left Houston's funeral early because security kept asking him to move and prevented him from seeing his and Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina, Brown appeared onstage with his locally bred guy group and said in front of the audience, pointing to the...

Officials in Southern California say Bobby Brown has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Harris says Brown was arrested around 12:20 p.m. Monday in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. He failed a field sobriety test and was booked on suspicion of DUI. Harris says the R&B singer was pulled over after an officer saw him talking on his cellphone without a hands-free unit and noticed he appeared to be impaired.

Roxbury's Bobby Brown has pleaded not guilty to charges that he drove drunk in Los Angeles last month. According to the New York Daily News, Brown's attorney Tiffany Feder entered the not guilty pleas on the New Edition singer's behalf. (Brown and New Edition are scheduled to hit the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence this Friday.) Brown, 43, the ex-husband of the late Whitney Houston, was arrested on March 26 and charged with three misdemeanors, including driving with an illegal blood-alcohol content and a suspended license.

Officials in Southern California say Bobby Brown has been arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Harris says Brown was arrested around 12:20 p.m. Monday in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. He failed a field sobriety test and was booked on suspicion of DUI. Harris says the R&B singer was pulled over after an officer saw him talking on his cellphone without a hands-free unit and noticed he appeared to be impaired.

Nuance Communications Inc., a Burlington company specializing in voice-recognition technology, said Wednesday that it has agreed to buy Transcend Services Inc. for $300 million as Nuance looks to become a bigger presence in the small- to mid-size hospital market. A publicly traded company based in Atlanta, Transcend provides medical transcription and speech editing services. The acquisition would augment existing voice-recognition and transcription services that Nuance has developed for the health care industry.

After appearing briefly at ex-wife Whitney Houston's funeral in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon, Roxbury's own Bobby Brown traveled to Mohegan Sun where he performed with New Edition and hung out with friends from Boston, according to People.com. Just hours after he released a statement explaining that he left Houston's funeral early because security kept asking him to move and prevented him from seeing his and Houston's daughter Bobbi Kristina, Brown appeared onstage with his locally bred guy group and said in front of the audience, pointing to the sky, "I want to give...

Whitney Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown, briefly appeared at her funeral. Brown arrived as the Saturday service began. He walked to the casket, touched it and walked to the back of the church. He says in a statement that he and his children were seated but asked repeatedly to move. Brown says he left because he didn't want to create a scene. As he left, Brown appeared upset. Later Saturday, Brown performed in Connecticut with New Edition. He appeared energetic and smiling.

The Rev. Arthur T. Gerald Jr., senior pastor at Twelfth Baptist Church, couldn't help but smile when he talked about Whitney Houston yesterday. Last January, Houston sang at the funeral of Bobby Brown's mother, Carole Brown, in the Roxbury church. Houston's performance of "Precious Lord" brought joy to everyone in earshot, Gerald told us. "She lit up the sanctuary," he said. "She just lit the place up. " Gerald told us yesterday afternoon that Houston - who divorced Roxbury-bred Brown in 2007 - was discussed during his church's morning service, and that people were...

The publisher Scribner stirred debate in literary circles this summer when it published a new edition of Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast.’’ Scribner called it “restored.’’ Among the matters under debate is whether a classic should be reworked. The story behind the new edition is tangled up in Hemingway’s personal life. When he committed suicide in 1961, he was working on a memoir of Paris in the 1920s. His fourth wife, Mary, prepared the “Moveable Feast’’ manuscript for publication.

The future of prediction: Leon Neyfakh on how our increasing ability to crunch numbers is making prediction easier and easier: "'We are at a different place in analysis than we were before. We know how to find trends, we know how to handle data in [new] ways," said Thomas Wallsten, a psychologist at the University of Maryland at College Park who is helping to develop a cutting-edge model for prediction that relies on crowdsourcing. He added, "We've become much more systematic.'" The question is, how much do we want to know?