Brazilian model/professional hottie Adriana Lima and NBA star Marko Jaric got engaged on Thursday night, according to Marko’s publicist.

Jaric popped the question on Lima’s birthday. How sweet!

“He asked and she said yes. They are both incredibly happy and couldn’t be more in love,” says publicist James Weir.

Newsman Tim Russert was plain-spoken and always determined to get to the truth – qualities, he often said, he inherited from his father, a Buffalo sanitation worker affectionately known as Big Russ.

In 2004, Russert, the longtime host of NBC’s Meet the Press, wrote the bestselling book Big Russ & Me, about the life lessons he learned from his dad, and how he passed those lessons on to his own son, Luke.

The journalist, who died from a heart attack at the age of 58, two days before Father’s Day, shared these poignant family stories in Big Russ & Me, and a follow-up book, Wisdom of Our Fathers:

All through my childhood, and well beyond it, my father held down two demanding jobs. But as hard as he labored and as long as he toiled, we never heard a single complaint about his heavy workload or the sacrifice he was making. He didn’t talk about it, he just got it done. And if he had to take a third job to support his wife and four kids, he would have done that, too … like so many members of the strong, silent generation who grew up during the Great Depression and went off to war, he had learned long ago that life was hard and nothing was handed to you. In fact, Dad considered it a sign of success, and even a blessing, that he was able to hold down two jobs. He could remember a time when a man considered himself fortunate to have even one.

Russert’s father, a war hero who rarely talked about his experiences during World War II, agreed to share one battle story with his son:

When I was in high school, the two of us were in the basement one day when Dad walked over to his desk, opened a drawer and took out a manila folder. He handed me a yellowed clipping from the October 27, 1944 edition of the Southport Weekly, an English newspaper. The headline read: US BOMBER CRASHES IN FLAMES IN AINSDALE, and the article described the crash of a B-24 Liberator at an Air Force Base in England. I read it quickly and zeroed in on the key lines: “When the plane crashed it broke up, and some of the airmen were thrown clear.” Dad, I realized, had been one of them.

“This is amazing”, I said.

He looked at me and said, “It was a lot tougher for the guys who died.” Then he took back the clipping and put it away without another word. The conversation was over.

Russert’s father never took a single sick day from his main job as a foreman for the sanitation department. Russert tried to pass that work ethic onto his own son, Luke:

On September 7, 1995, I took Luke, who was ten, to a baseball game at Camden Yards in Baltimore. [That was the night] Cal Ripken, Jr. was going to break Lou Gehrig’s Iron Man record just by showing up and playing in his 2,131st consecutive game. This wasn’t about something glitzy, like home runs … I explained to my son that Cal Ripken’s record was different from all the other records because this one was about loyalty, dedication, discipline, diligence and persistence.

I told Luke that night, and I meant it with all my heart, that Cal Ripken had done for baseball what my Dad had done for our family.

In Wisdom of Our Fathers, Russert wrote about his father’s reaction to Big Russ & Me:

I always go to [my father's home] for Thanksgiving, and in 2004, a few months after the book came out, we were loading up the car to drive to the airport when Big Russ came over to me to say goodbye. For as long as I can remember, Dad and I had always parted with a handshake and a half hug. But this time he gave me a huge bear hug and he said softly, “I love you” – something I had never heard him say before. I was fifty four years old, and all I could think was, Boy, I wish I had written this book thirty years earlier.

Jennifer Hawkins helped to launch the Lovables lingerie collection. I would have loved to see Jennifer in lingerie too. Since she was the M.C., she wore a very proper dress that was equipped with fake shoulder pads. Pads denote power and Jennifer looked good in her position of power, as she took charge of announcing the lingerie models. They were all beautiful models but my favorite was the one wearing black.

Do you want to be part of a Hollywood entourage? Do you want to be on a bizarre reality TV show? And most importantly, do you have a bit of a man-crush on Brody Jenner?

If you said “Yes!” to all of the above, then it’s your lucky day, boys; because Mr. Jenner is looking for a new wingman in the show “Bromance”!

Ever since losing a member of his crew (:cough: Spencer Pratt :cough:), Jenner has been feeling like something is missing–and to fill the gap, he will have his own reality TV show to find his man!

The guys in the show will be competing similarly to “Rock of Love” or “Tila Tequila” style. The guys will take part in competitions, like skydiving, as well as try to win alone time with Brody. There is even a “hot tub elimination ceremony” each week when one of the potential bros get kicked out.

…Wait…does anyone else think this sounds kind of…gay?

The show is produced for MTV by Ryan Seacrest’s production companies. Ryan himself has said,

I can speak from experience — girls can come and go, but a ‘bromance’ can last forever.

This seems to be kind of an odd thing for Seacrest to say, especially since he has repeatedly tried to deny gay rumors. So despite having hot tub eliminations, man on man alone time, and being called “Bromance”, the show is supposed to appear (almost) completely heterosexual. It’s all in the name of fun–and I guess it’s just guy-love!

“Desperate Housewives” star Marcia Cross was involved in a car accident on Wednesday in Los Angeles, Joynews has exclusively learned.

Cross was driving her Lexus RX near Wilshire and Berry in West LA around 2 PM when her vehicle collided with a sedan.

While the damage appeared minimal to Cross’ Lexus, the other driver sustained significant front-end damage, as evidenced by photos from the scene.

Both cars were removed from the scene by a tow truck.

Cross’ newborn twins were not with her at the time of the accident.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, no police report was filed.

And since no injuries were sustained, the officer who responded to the scene only had the two parties exchange information, police told Access.

No further details on the crash were immediately available.

Copyright 2008 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Miley Cyrus is reportedly dating her 22 year old back up dancer, Marshall — remember peeps, Miley’s only 15!

Perezhilton.com is reporting that Miley has been seen kissing and hugging Marshall… and her mom, Tish, is not to happy about it. Tish is now trying to regain control of her teenage daughter by taking away her computer privileges. According to Ginger Marks of the National Ledger, “She’s now put the brakes on her out of control daughter’s bad attitude, snotty comments, and online flirting with boys and older men.” (Tish suspected that Miley was using the Internet to flirt with older men and boys.)

A friend of the Cyrus family told Star Magazine that, “Miley is getting too big for her britches and had to be taken down a notch.” And apparently inappropriate language can be added to the list of Miley’s wrong doings as well. A source close to the family stated that Tish is tired of the inappropriate language and wants Miley to have “respect for their religion.”

Scandalous photos, controversial photo shoots, dating older men, and inappropriate language what will Britney Spears Miley Cyrus do next? And where is Billy Ray during all of this? Oh yeah, he is to busy cashing in on his new found fame that Miley has brought him.

In the wake of Us Weekly’s cover story that Jessica Simpson’s controlling father was the main source behind her May split from Tony Romo, Joe Simpson tells “Extra” he’s not the controlling father he’s made out to be.

“The media says that I try to plan everything - If I had half of the power they give me…They [Ashlee and Jessica] don’t call me and ask me. They call me and tell me.”

He adds that Jessica “… is as happy as I’ve seen her in years.” and gushes about the Dallas Cowboys quarterback, “He’s a great guy. I love Tony to death….He’s just a good kid….”

Us reports in the current issue that Joe asked Romo, 28, to let him help represent him. As tension grew, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback gave Jessica an ultimatum: Tell dad to back off!

Joe tells “Extra” that the public has many misconceptions about him as his daughters’ manager. “For all those people thinking I’m sipping Piña Coladas on the beach and enjoying millions of dollars and having this great life – Bull..I work seven days a week, 24/7.”

Simpson, who officiated daughter Ashlee’s wedding to Pete Wentz, says, “I love Pete to death…He has a patient spirit and a kind heart…I’m honored to have Pete as my son-in-law.”

Although Simpson tells “Extra” that the sex of Ashlee’s baby, which will be his first grandchild is unknown, “I would love to have a boy, but I know how to raise girls so I’m good with that.”

What you’d expect from Sandler, with the twist of satirizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It takes no time at all for the first (and then second) butt-crack joke in Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.”

Frolicking naked on a beach, the Israeli super spy Zohan (Sandler) entertains a bevy of scantily clad babes, but in his heart - as we know from the ads - he wants to be a Manhattan hairdresser.

Somehow, during this transformation - filled with Sandler’s usual broad (sometimes infantile and potty) humor - “Zohan” takes an unlikely tack of satirizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When Sandler’s Zohan tells his parents he’s tired of fighting, tired of the war and wants to cut hair, his mother tries to placate him with, “They’ve been fighting for 2,000 years; it can’t be much longer.”

Faking his death after a battle with an Arab terrorist known as the Phantom (John Turturro), Zohan flees to the Big Apple. He stows away on a flight with a couple of dogs (Scrappy and Coco) on which he practices his new craft. But since the styles he cuts are from an old Paul Mitchell book that hasn’t been used since “Luke and Laura got married,” the former commando can’t find work.

He does find a place to live - above the apartment of the mature woman (Lainie Kazan), who he thanks for dinner with a romp in the bedroom. Like his stylebook, the Israeli’s sense of cool is out of the swinging disco era, and Zohan’s nonstop libido and the giant codpiece he wears become two of the film’s running gags.

Eventually, though, as Scrappy Coco he lands a job sweeping hair at a salon run by a Palestinian woman named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui). It’s located on a street where Arab and Jewish immigrants live - if not in harmony at least without being at each others’ throats. But his expertise with scissors and willingness to, uh, thank his elderly female clientele in the salon’s back room make him a hit, and soon there are lines out the door.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is headed: romance/conflicts with Dalia, battles between Arabs and Israelis, the reappearance of the Phantom, a grudge over a goat and Mariah Carey singing the national anthem at a hacky-sack contest. (The film is filled with cameos.) Sandler and co-writers Robert Smigel, from “Saturday Night Live,” and Judd Apatow (”Knocked Up” and “40-Year-Old Virgin”) stick or - is it shtick - to the maxim: If you don’t like this joke, wait for the next.

A number of gags fall flat - unless you’re a teenage boy (butts are probably still funny in that demographic). Some of the jokes might seem funnier if you went to Hebrew school. (Zohan speaks with a decidedly Israeli accent while claiming to be from Australia-Tibet.) But the Sandler team never lingers long on anything, and there are times you can’t help but laugh, even if some of it is pretty tasteless.

Throughout are some broadsides (emphasis on broad) at the seemingly endless cycle of violence and deadlock in the the Mideast. This may strike you as either daring or foolhardy, considering the real blood being shed on both sides. Politics and comedy can work. Ernst Lubitsch’s “To Be or Not to Be” brilliantly and sophisticatedly skewered the Nazis. This, however, is modern Hollywood and an Adam Sandler film to boot, so you can forget sophistication.

“Zohan” skirts any real issues, but maybe crass and messy is more reflective of the times and situation.

Early on, Zohan battles with a Palestinian who tries to engage him in a debate over the age-old conflict. But the Israeli wants no part of it.

“I’m just saying,” the Palestinian says as he flies off a balcony. “It’s not so cut and dried!”

R. Kelly’s attorney guided his electric scooter down a hallway outside the courtroom where his client is on trial for child pornography, exclaiming as he sped past several reporters, “In the morning, we attack!”

That battle cry last week from Ed Genson, who suffers from a neurological disorder that makes it difficult for him to walk, was apt: After two weeks of prosecution testimony, the R&B star’s lawyers have a lot of ground to regain.

After launching their defense days ago, Kelly’s lawyers are endeavoring to breathe life back into several key claims when the case continues this week, including that a mole on Kelly’s back proves his innocence and that a sex tape at the heart of the case could have been doctored, possibly as part of an extortion plot.

Kelly, who won a Grammy Award in 1997 for “I Believe I Can Fly,” has pleaded not guilty to child pornography for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with a female prosecutors say was at young as 13. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Defense attorneys say neither Kelly nor the alleged victim are on the videotape, pointing to what they said in opening arguments was the absence of a fingernail-sized mole on the man’s back in sex tape. Kelly, they noted, has such a mole.

But the mole defense took a hit when a prosecution witness froze frames on the tape that showed a spot on a man’s lower back — located in the same place as a mole on Kelly’s back as it appears in 2002 police photos.

On Thursday, however, the defense played their own frame-by-frame footage of the man’s back for jurors.

“Do you see a mole?” Kelly attorney Marc Martin asked defense witness Charles Palm.

“I see a black mark but it doesn’t appear to be a mole,” the video expert replied.

Palm also told jurors the spot appeared only intermittently — proof, he said, that it was likely a mere glitch on the tape.

Kelly, who at times appeared dejected as prosecutors presented their case, seemed more at ease as the defense got into the thick of their case, even occasionally nodding his head in agreement as witnesses spoke.

He seemed particularly buoyed by three relatives of the alleged victim who took the stand for the defense to say they didn’t recognize her as the female on the graphic tape. Four relatives testified earlier for the prosecution to say it was her.

“It definitely wasn’t her,” one relative, Shonna Edwards, told jurors emphatically on Wednesday. Edwards said she saw the tape for the first time a few days before, saying the female’s body in it was too developed to be her relative at the time.

Among the most surreal testimony of the trail to date came when Palm, the defense video expert, sought to counter testimony that doctoring the nearly half-hour video — 100,000 frames on the entire footage — would be practically impossible.

To demonstrate it was doable, he played an excerpt he digitally altered where just the heads of the man and woman disappeared as they had sex. At other points, their bodies fade in and out completely, as if they were ghosts.

“I created most of that over a couple of spare hours,” he said. Asked in cross-examination if anything indicated the tape had actually been fabricated, Palm conceded, “Nothing jumps out at me at being obviously faked.”

When they continue their case this week, Kelly’s lawyers were expected to call a witness who came forward after the trial began to claim he could discredit Lisa Van Allen, the last witness for prosecutors before they rested their case Monday.

In her potentially damaging testimony, the 27-year-old told jurors she engaged in three-way sexual encounters with Kelly and the alleged victim on several occasions, including once on a basketball court.

She also described how Kelly allegedly carried a duffel bag stuffed full of homemade sex tapes. “Wherever he was at, the bag would follow him,” she said.

The defense has already begun trying to impinge her potentially devastating testimony.

A law clerk for the defense, Jason Wallace, told jurors Wednesday that Van Allen’s fiance sought $300,000 from Kelly in exchange for her silence. Van Allen also has admitted she once stole Kelly’s $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.