From the NY Times:

SILVERTHORNE, Colo. — A small group of West African men who came to the Rockies in search of economic opportunity are embroiled in a dispute with Wal-Mart, accusing it of a raft of discriminatory actions. Most say they were dismissed because supervisors wanted to give their jobs to local people in need of work.

Wal-Mart, which has a history of discrimination and labor complaints but has increased efforts to promote diversity at its stores, denies the accusations.

A spokesman, Greg Rossiter, said most of the men who had filed the complaints were part of a larger group of 90 employees of all different backgrounds dismissed last year after a management change at a store in Avon, Colo.

“These allegations just don’t accurately reflect the working environment at these stores,” Mr. Rossiter said. “We have a diverse group of associates, including many from West Africa, who are finding good career opportunities.”

In complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the 10 men said they had all worked for Wal-Mart for a few years, mostly without incident, at a variety of jobs at three stores in Avon, Glenwood Springs and Rifle.

But things changed in 2008 and 2009, when new managers took over the stores, according to the complaints as well as interviews here with four of the men, who continue to gather weekly at a cramped apartment and talk of their hopes of getting new jobs.

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ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. David Paterson on Monday lashed back at what he called a “callous and sleazy” assault on his character in statehouse rumors and media reports that include accusations about womanizing and drug use, allegations he flatly denied.

The Democratic governor told The Associated Press that the media and New York politics have hit new lows, but that the situation won’t stop him from serving in office or seeking election to a full term in the fall.

He cited as fabricated a Jan. 30 New York Post report that he was caught by state police in the mansion with a woman other than his wife. He said the room in which he was reportedly caught doesn’t even exist.

“We stand by our reporting,” Post spokeswoman Suzi Halpin said.

The rumors about Paterson’s personal conduct have been circulating in Albany – and sometimes appearing online and in newspaper reports – at a crucial moment in the governor’s career. His popularity has fallen precipitously, but he has vowed to run for re-election, even though many Democrats would prefer the state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, to run in his place.

Washington Democrats have sent a clear message that Paterson should step aside for Cuomo. They are concerned that a weak top of the ticket could hurt other Democrats, including Kirsten Gillibrand, whom Paterson appointed to fill the seat vacated when Hillary Rodham Clinton became secretary of state.

In his interview with the AP, Paterson would address most allegations only broadly but denied all sexual relationships and drug use that are among the accusations.

He said he hasn’t been involved sexually with another woman since he and his wife separated more than a decade ago, an admission he made upon taking office 23 months ago. He also said he hasn’t used drugs since his early 20s.

Paterson said the rumors have portrayed him as a fan of frequent partying, but he said that aside from fundraisers and official functions, he doesn’t go out much – and noted that he has eaten away from home or outside the executive mansion in Albany only five times in his tenure.
“For the last couple of weeks I have been the subject of what, even by Albany standards, has been a spate of outrageous rumors about me,” Paterson told the AP.

He said the rumors had been stirred up by an as-yet unpublished New York Times investigation “that spawned a bunch of speculations that are so way out that it’s shocking,” he said. He said he now fears that all reporters are “stretching the bounds of journalism” in a race to get anyone to confirm a vicious rumor about him.

New York Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty declined to comment on the governor’s remarks.

“There is an accountability that should exist in the media,” Paterson said. “How do I get my reputation back? Because I don’t believe I have done anything to deserve this kind of bashing.”

He said it has distracted him from the state’s fiscal crisis and tense budget negotiations with legislators, and from defending his veto of what he considers the Legislature’s weak ethics reforms.

He said he is unsure who pushed the rumors and wouldn’t speculate, saying “that would be just as unfair … but it is certainly serving others’ interest and not mine, and I think it’s a callous and sleazy way to treat a governor who is just trying to do his job and, in a democracy, is trying to keep his job.”

Paterson ascended to the job in 2008 when Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal. When he became governor, Paterson admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife in an attempt to head off questions about his personal life.

He said he doesn’t think he was targeted because he is New York’s first black governor, but acknowledged that the allegations played to stereotypes about black men.

State Police Superintendent Harry Corbitt said Monday that he’s unaware of any troopers, including Paterson’s security detail, who have seen the governor do anything illegal.

After testifying before lawmakers Monday, Corbett described rumors of a looming scandal as “a move afoot” to pressure the Democrat into not running for election this fall.

Corbitt, who was nominated for his post by Paterson in 2008, says the transfers last week of about 10 troopers from the executive services detail, which protects the governor and guards the executive mansion and some state offices has nothing to do with press reports suggesting women and drug use at the mansion.

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From CNN:

Los Angeles, California — Michael Jackson’s father suspects his son was murdered and that Dr. Conrad Murray is “just a fall guy” in a conspiracy.

Joe Jackson appeared on CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Monday night, just hours after sitting in a courtroom to hear Murray plead not guilty to a single charge of involuntary manslaughter in his son’s death last summer.

A Los Angeles judge set bail at $75,000, despite arguments from the prosecutor that Murray is a flight risk and needs a higher bail. Murray posted the bond and was released several hours later.

Michael Jackson’s family, including his parents, four of his brothers and one sister, filled the first two rows of the small courtroom.

“I was looking for justice, and justice, to me, would be a murder charge,” Joe Jackson told King.

Prosecutors charged Murray, who was Jackson’s personal physician, with causing the pop star’s death “without malice” by acting “without due caution and circumspection.”

Murray was with the pop star when he died on June 25, 2009.

The Los Angeles County coroner ruled Jackson’s death a homicide, resulting from a combination of drugs, primarily propofol — a powerful anesthesia — and lorazepam.

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Jackson CHOKES UP Over Son’s Death

Joe Jackson Says Michael Was EXPLOITED by His Staff

Joe Jackson suggested it was more than a doctor making a fatal judgment.

“To me, he’s just a fall guy” Jackson said. “There’s other people, I think, involved with this whole thing. But I think that he’s interrogated — he would come clean and tell everything he knows.”

Click here to read more.

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EXTRA: “Omer Bhatti IS Michael’s Son!”

NEW ORLEANS — Another jolt of Saints euphoria is on tap for New Orleans Tuesday when the Super Bowl champs board floats borrowed from Mardi Gras krewes for a victory parade through the grateful city.

The Carnival-flavored parade honoring the team’s 31-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts is scheduled to start in the afternoon at their home turf, the Louisiana Superdome. It will include 12 marching bands and one float each from 10 krewes. Float builder Barry Kern said he believes it’s the first time the groups — which celebrate Carnival season with separate parades — will combine floats in one procession.

On Monday, swarms of fans in black and gold greeted the players as they stepped off a chartered plane at the suburban airport, cheering them with “Who Dat!” chants. The Saints, cellar dwellers for decades, delivered not just their first Lombardi trophy but optimism for the city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

RELATED: New Orleans Saints Beat Colts For First Super Bowl Win, 31-17

“The Saints kept hope alive in this city that better days were coming,” said Shannon Sims, a 45-year-old criminal court administrator, as she waited for the team. She said the Saints “were the force that kept us moving forward.”

The win was not just about football for New Orleans, said John Magill, a historian at Historic New Orleans Collection.

“We’re all being told that we’re sinking, why bother rebuild it, there was so much of that attitude,” Magill said. Thanks to the Super Bowl win, he said, Americans will view the city in the positive light it deserves.

Sunday’s victory came a day after New Orleans elected a new mayor and several other city officials. But in the area newspapers on Monday there was little besides the Saints.

The New Orleans paper, The Times-Picayune, ran a 5-inch headline that said “AMEN.” The subhead read, “After 43 years, our prayers are answered.”

RELATED: Saints’ Super Bowl Victory A Symbol Of Resilience For Lower Ninth Ward

At Lakeside News, which usually sells about 100 copies a day, owner Michael Marcello said he had sold 6,000 to 7,000 by 9:15 a.m.

“I wish I had some,” he said. “I’m out again. This is the fourth time I’ve run out.”

Thousands of fans lined the road outside the airport with their Saints jerseys, “Who Dat!” chants, homemade signs, fleur-de-lis garb, face paint and Mardi Gras costumes (like the Saint-a Claus fellow). Coach Sean Payton held the Lombardi trophy aloft through the sunroof of his car, eliciting wild screams.

At the airport, 37-year-old courier Aaron Washington said “the dawn of a new day” had come. A brass-band version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” blared from his car stereo.

“This team has allowed us to get past Katrina and look forward to better things,” Washington said. He watched the game with dozens of friends and relatives on a big-screen television in front of a home in eastern New Orleans that was rebuilt after the 2005 hurricane flooded it with 9 feet of water.

From RaceWire:

Besides Afghanistan and Iraq, there is no other military policy that raises as much controversy as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT.)

Yesterday Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a panel of Senators that they supported President Obama’s proposal to repeal the 1993 Clinton era law forbidding gay men and women to be open about their sexuality while serving in uniform.

This story has made headline news across the world. But what we haven’t heard is, who’s really being affected by this?

From The Task Force study, Black same-sex households in the United States: A report from the 2000 Census:

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been used to kick Black women out of the military at a much higher rate than other groups. In fact, Black women are discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” at three times the rate that they serve in the military. Although Black women make up less than one percent of servicemembers, they comprise 3.3% of those discharged under the policy.

Click here to read more.

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From USA Today

A Washington state soldier is accused of holding his 4-year-old daughter’s head under the water in the kitchen sink mock “waterboard-style” because she would not recite the alphabet, The News-Tribune reports.

The Tacoma newspaper says Thurston County authorities filed a charge of second-degree assault of child against Joshua Ryan Tabor, 27, from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The News-Tribune said Tabor, according to court records, told a Yelm police officer that he and his girlfriend had “held (his daughter) down on the counter and submerged her head into the water three or four times until the water came around her forehead and jawline.”

He said that she was face-up during the ordeal, which she was forced to undergo for  “refusing to say her letters.”

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From MSNBC:

The horrific destruction and human suffering in Haiti exert an almost irresistible pull on U.S. Christian missionaries eager to help. But as the jailing last week of 10 missionaries from a small Baptist church in Idaho illustrates, best intentions don’t always translate into good deeds in the chaotic aftermath of the monster earthquake.

Many mission groups provide essential services for Haitians — indeed some have evolved into key service providers, working alongside nonprofit groups and the U.N. to fill gaps that the Haitian government can’t fill.

But other missions, even when well-meaning, risk running afoul of Haiti’s culture and laws.

“There’s an issue that is coming up a lot right now,” said Laurent Dubois, a professor of history and romance studies at Duke University and an expert on Haiti. “It’s the difference between wanting to help and being able to do good. Most don’t speak any Creole, or have the cultural knowledge. … (As a result) they are going to be very surprised by what they see in Haiti.”

Click here to read more.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Jackson’s doctor was charged Monday with involuntary manslaughter, capping an exhaustive investigation into the pop star’s stunning death last summer and setting up the prospect of another sensational celebrity courtroom drama.

Dr. Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who was with Jackson when he died June 25 at his rented Los Angeles mansion, is accused of acting “unlawfully and without malice” in bringing about Jackson’s death, according to a complaint filed by prosecutors.

The complaint said Murray acted “without the caution and circumspection required” when he administered a powerful sedative to Jackson in an effort to help him sleep.

The charge was expected, and Murray’s attorney, Ed Chernoff, said his client planned to surrender to authorities later Monday.

“We’ll make bail, we’ll plead not guilty and we’ll fight like hell,” Chernoff said before the charge was filed.

Jackson hired Murray to be his personal physician as he prepared for a series of strenuous comeback concerts in London. Officials say the singer died after Murray administered the powerful general anesthetic propofol and two other sedatives to get the chronic insomniac to sleep.

Los Angeles investigators were methodical in building a case against Murray, wary of repeating missteps that have plagued some other high-profile celebrity cases, most notably O.J. Simpson and actor Robert Blake, both of whom were acquitted of murder.

After reviewing toxicology findings, the coroner ruled Jackson’s death at age 50 a homicide caused by acute intoxication of the powerful anesthetic propofol, with other sedatives a contributing factor.

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Propofol is only supposed to be administered by an anesthesia professional in a medical setting, because it depresses breathing and heart rate while lowering blood pressure.

Murray appears to have obtained the drug legally and its use is not in itself a crime. To show the doctor was negligent in his care, detectives spoke to more than 10 medical experts to see if his behavior fell outside the bounds of reasonable medical practice.

According to court documents, Murray told police he administered propofol just before 11 a.m. then stepped out of the room to go to the bathroom.

There is some dispute about what happened next. According to court filings, Murray told police that upon his return from the bathroom, he saw Jackson was not breathing and began trying to revive him.

But an ambulance was not called until 12:21 p.m. and Murray spent much of the intervening time making non-emergency cell phone calls, police say. The nature of the calls, which lasted 47 minutes, is not known.

Murray’s lawyer has said investigators got confused about what Murray had told them, and that the doctor found his patient unresponsive around noon.

The investigation included several agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the district attorney’s office and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Many witnesses have been interviewed by police, including those who were present during Jackson’s last days, those who worked with him in preparation for his series of comeback concerts, “This Is It,” and members of his personal entourage, including his security guard and personal assistant.

———————————-

Michael Jackson Death Case To Be Filed Monday

LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson’s doctor wanted to seek his day in court Friday by surrendering before being charged in the singer’s death, but prosecutors upstaged the plan by announcing that no case would be filed until next week.

District attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons released the plan less than two hours before Dr. Conrad Murray and his attorneys were going to show up at an airport-area courthouse in an effort to force the prosecution’s hand while avoiding having the physician arrested and handcuffed.

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Gibbons’ statement did not mention Murray, but said information on charges will be released after the case is filed on Monday.

A news conference that had been scheduled Friday afternoon by Murray’s defense team in lieu of his surrender was canceled an hour before it was to begin at a park near the courthouse.

RELATED: Documentary On MJ Doctor Conrad Murray Planned

Murray’s attorneys have said they expect the Texas cardiologist to be charged with involuntary manslaughter for administering drugs to Jackson before his death on June 25. It was not immediately clear if Murray would return to Houston, where he has a practice, or remain in Los Angeles through the weekend.

Lead defense attorney Ed Chernoff spoke Thursday with prosecutor David Walgren and was told to be at the courthouse at 1:30 p.m. PST (2130 GMT) Friday, only to have the county sheriff’s department, which handles court security, publicly say hours later that it was called off, defense team spokeswoman Miranda Sevcik said earlier Friday.

“What does it take to surrender in L.A.?” Sevcik said. “I feel like Ed should show up in the courthouse with a big white flag.”

Walgren declined to comment Friday.

The legal gamesmanship over Murray’s surrender followed several days of negotiations in which his lawyers tried to arrange with prosecutors for the doctor to surrender for booking and arraignment.

Those plans were derailed by haggling between prosecutors and law enforcement officials over whether the physician should be arrested or allowed to turn himself in.

“It seems ridiculous to us that it’s been dragging on this long,” Sevcik said. “We’ve been here all week long, for God’s sake. What’s the holdup? To us this is showmanship and we are just done.”

In the seven months since Jackson’s sudden death at 50 while rehearsing for a major comeback concert series, Murray has largely stayed out of view. His lawyers have spoken very little. And prosecutors and investigators have been tightlipped.

RELATED: Janet Jackson Says She Blames Conrad Murray For MJ’s Death

Sevcik said prosecutors told Murray on Thursday he’d face one count of involuntary manslaughter.

Murray became the focus of the probe into Jackson’s death shortly after he called paramedics on June 25 to report that the singer wasn’t breathing. Murray told police he gave the Jackson a powerful anesthetic and other sedatives that were blamed on his death.

The doctor maintains nothing he gave Jackson should have killed him but sees a charge as inevitable, Sevcik said.

“We know he’s going to be charged with involuntary manslaughter and we are ready with a counter argument,” Sevcik said. “He’s not guilty — that’s our argument.”

Various factors weighed into the desire of the Los Angeles Police Department to arrest Murray, including the possibility he might flee before arraignment, just as O.J. Simpson did, a law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press.

Top brass at the LAPD, which spent the past seven months investigating Murray, were unhappy with the idea of him surrendering because it could appear Murray was being given special treatment, according to the official who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

The official said the district attorney’s office opposed an early plan for detectives to make the arrest Friday morning.

Watch video of Joe Jackson discussing how MJ’s staff exploited him:

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