July 2, 2009

THE SOUTHLAND

 Gay Iris Parker Succumbs

Gay Iris Parker, a well-known publicist in the entertainment industry, passed away June 24 in Pasadena. She was 60.

She cultivated and sustained a diverse audience base for main stage productions at the Pasadena Playhouse, also creating for them the popular “Conversations With…” programs with such guests as Tony and Emmy Award-winner Leslie Uggams, Golden Globe winner Regina Taylor, and many others.

She started Gay Iris Parker Productions, producing and promoting numerous cultural arts and theatrical productions and was an audience development consultant for the Geffen Playhouse, Center Theatre Group, Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts and the Ebony Repertory Theatre. 

Her memorial service was held in the chapel of Woods Valentine Mortuary June 27 Pasadena. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the Bone Marrow Transplant Center, City of Hope in Duarte, Calif.

 Attorney: Promoters Owe Jackson Doctor Money

(AP) — An attorney for Michael Jackson’s doctor says the cardiologist is owed $300,000 by the promoter of the star’s planned concerts in London.

Houston attorney Edward Chernoff said June 28 that AEG Live is two months behind on paying Dr. Conrad Murray to serve as Jackson’s personal physician during the run of the shows. The doctor was with Jackson when he died.

Randy Phillips, CEO and president of AEG Live, says the contract to pay Murray required Jackson’s signature. Phillips says Jackson didn’t sign the agreement before his death June 25.

Phillips says the firm had been negotiating to pay Murray $150,000 a month. He says the company was only advancing the money to Jackson, and the doctor’s claim may now be against the singer’s estate.

No Sign Of Deal To Close Calif. Deficit

SACRAMENTO (AP) — The California Senate on June 29 approved a Democratic budget-balancing plan that faced a certain veto from Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the state headed toward issuing IOUs for the first time since the 1990s.

The plan would use a combination of spending cuts and tax and fee increases to eliminate a $24.3 billion budget deficit, but Schwarzenegger repeated his vow to veto it.

“I think that they know I will never sign those kinds of things so why waste the time, why run out of time and then all of a sudden we have to hand out IOUs?”  Schwarzenegger told reporters.

But Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said Democrats would not accept the deep cuts in college aid, health care and welfare programs sought by Schwarzenegger.

“We have made cuts in those areas, but we are not cutting deeper,” he said. “Hear us loudly: It’s not where we will go.”

The Senate met after the Assembly approved many of the same bills the night of June 28 following hours of debate.

THE NATION

Supreme Court Delays Troy Davis Decision

SAVANNAH, GA (AP) — Death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis got another legal break June 29 when the U.S. Supreme Court recessed for summer without acting on his latest appeal, likely delaying any developments in his case until fall. Earlier in the day, his supporters presented Savannah’s district attorney with 60,000 petition signatures urging him to reopen the case.

Davis has spent nearly 18 years on death row after his conviction for killing an off-duty police officer, and his case has become a rallying point for death penalty opponents worldwide. His attorneys say Davis is innocent of killing officer Mark MacPhail and deserves a new trial after several prosecution witnesses reconsidered testimony given at his 1991 trial.

Davis has been spared from execution three times since he was first scheduled to die by lethal injection in 2007, as various courts have weighed and ultimately rejected his appeals.

Davis’ attorneys filed his latest appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their request for a new trial in April. The Supreme Court had not decided whether it would hear Davis’ appeal when justices recessed for the summer on June 29. They won’t reconvene until September.

Jena 6 Case Wrapped Up With Plea Bargain

JENA, La. (AP) — Five members of the Jena Six have pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery and were sentenced to seven days probation and fined $500 plus court costs.

It was a far less severe end to their cases than seemed possible when the six students were initially charged with attempted murder in a 2006 attack on Justin Barker.     They became known as the “Jena Six,” after the central Louisiana town where the beating happened.

Later, charges against Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery.

The only member of the group to serve jail time was Mychal Bell, who pleaded guilty to second-degree battery and was sentenced to 18 months.

A civil hearing is also scheduled today to settle Barker’s lawsuit against the group.

White Firefighters Win Supreme Court Appeal

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled June 29 that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

In Monday’s ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions.” He was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters “understandably attract this court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them.”

THE DIASPORA

Zimbabwe’s Ex-Opposition Mulls Break With Gov’t

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s former opposition party said June 29 it would boycott the next Cabinet meeting and was considering disengaging from a troubled, four-month-old unity government with President Robert Mugabe.

The Movement for Democratic Change has complained about continued harassment and arrests of Mugabe’s opponents and his unilateral appointments of top officials.

MDC Vice President Thokozani Khupe said the latest irritant came June 29, when Mugabe rescheduled the weekly Cabinet meeting from Tuesday to Monday because he was going to be out of town for an African Union summit in Libya. At a news conference, Khupe depicted that as a snub to Tsvangirai, her party’s leader, saying he should have chaired the meeting in Mugabe’s absence.

Mugabe’s party “has not welcomed MDC as an equal partner,” said Khupe, a deputy prime minister in the unity government.

Khupe said her party would boycott the rescheduled Cabinet meeting, but remained “committed to the (coalition) agreement in the interest of our people” despite “clear evidence of the absence of a reliable and honest partner.”

She did not say when MDC ministers would resume attending Cabinet meetings.