White firefighters in Connecticut were wrongly denied promotions because of their race, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday in its final session before summer recess. The 5-4 decision was deemed a major setback for minority advocates because it could affect places of employment across the nation. Adding to the profile of the case, the ruling nullified a decision that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor had endorsed as an appeals court judge. The high court’s conservative majority found that the city of New Haven and the courts that agreed with its nixing of an exam on which Blacks disproportionately scored poorly had acted unconstitutionally. The city had contended that it discarded the test, used to promote firefighters, to avoid a lawsuit from Blacks, but Justice Anthony Kennedy, who delivered the majority opinion, said that New Haven’s action amounted to racial discrimination. “No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race,” Kennedy said. Although it does not eliminate the employers’ ability to consider diversity in hiring decisions, it does limit recruitment and retention practices. The ruling also could make it harder for people of color to prove discrimination based solely on racial hiring or promotions, experts say. The high court decision could not have come at a worse time for Sotomayor, who along with two appeals court colleagues, had ruled the city did the right thing in tossing out the test. The nominees’ critics now have something recent to use against her in the impending Senate confirmation hearings.

Stallworth Had Pot in His System
Cleveland Browns wideout Donte Stallworth, now serving 30 days in jail for striking a man with his car and killing him in March, had marijuana in his system at the time of the accident, the athlete’s attorney acknowledged Tuesday. “Evidence leaked or released over the coming days and weeks will reflect exculpatory statements and acts by Donte’, the presence of marijuana in his blood, and it will highlight the critical issue of causation,” David Cornwell said in a statement, confirming a report in the the Miami Herald on Tuesday, based on anonymous sources, that Stallworth tested positive for marijuana. Hall of Famer Jim Brown had told a Miami radio station last month that marijuana was found in Stallworth’s system on the night he struck and killed 59-year-old Mario Reyes. Stallworth pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter and is serving a 30-day sentence, with two years of house arrest to be served after that. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Stallworth indefinitely. “The NFL’s substance abuse policy addresses the specific discipline that may be imposed for use of illegal substances,” Cornwell said. “We are confident that Commissioner Goodell will respect existing league polices and consider all of the evidence when making his disciplinary assessment.”

Pistons Fire Mike Curry
Detroit Pistons Coach Michael Curry was fired Tuesday after just one season at the helm. The once-powerful Pistons wrapped up last season with a losing record and an embarrassing first-round exit from the playoffs. A year earlier, Joe Dumars, president of Basketball Operations for the Pistons, fired Flip Saunders, who led the team to the Eastern Conference finals in each of his three seasons.

After striking for about a month, nurses in Zambia have decided to go back to work. They had been fighting for a 25 percent raise in pay and allowances, the BBC reports. The government had said they would fire any nurses who did not go back to work Monday, but, in the end it was Church leaders in the nation who mediated talks between union and government officials that ended the strike for now. “I am happy that the health workers considered the plight of members of the community,” Fabian Kabulu, Zambia’s health director for the northern part of the nation, said. But nurses are giving the government one month to come up with an acceptable deal, before they go back on strike again, the news service reports.

Again Troy Anthony Davis, the Georgia death row inmate who has escaped execution on three previous occasions, must wait until September to learn whether the U.S. Supreme Court will make a decision that could spare his life for good. The high court was scheduled to announce Monday whether it would hear Davis’ case, which has gained international support. Read more.

President Obama, despite wide-ranging criticism that he has not kept his promises to gay Americans, honored Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month Monday with a White House reception where he called for full benefits for same-sex couples. The president told the packed audience at the White House that health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples and their children, bills to strengthen laws against hate crimes and prevent employment discrimination based on sexuality, are essential. Read more.

University of Texas sack leader Sergio Kindle was treated for a concussion last week after slamming his vehicle into an apartment building while sending or receiving a text message, according to his attorney. The Longhorn linebacker apparently lost control of his car on June 24 while fidgeting with his texting device, said Brian Roark, the lawyer. “It was probably something he should not have been doing,” Roark said. That careless act caused nearly $9,000 in damage, but no one inside the building was hurt, he said. Kindle pushed his car back in the street and went home. Later, doctors told him he had a concussion but did not require hospitalization. The embarrassed linebacker told his coach about the incident the next morning, University of Texas spokesman John Bianco said. “We’re glad nobody else was hurt and he’s going to be fine,” Bianco said. Police say they are investigating, but no charges have been filed. Kindle, a senior from Dallas, led his team with 10 sacks last season. In 2007, he missed the first three games while serving a suspension for a drunken driving arrest, Sports Illustrated reports.

Zambian Nurses Still Striking
Despite receiving a government order to return to work or possibly get fired, nurses in the nation of Zambia are continuing their strike, which has been going on for three weeks. Instead of going back to work Monday, the nurses are gathered outside of the University Teaching Hospital (UTH), upset that the government hasn’t done more to work with them, reports the BBC.  The nurses are asking for a 25-percent raise as well as more uniforms, night duty and housing allowances. Zambia’s government proposed a 15-percent raise and says it will negotiate more with the nurses only after the strike ends. The strike has put a burden on the nation’s health services; student nurses are working at the University Teaching Hospital’s out-patient department.
 

The World Bank Approves Millions for Haiti
The World Bank recently approved a $5 million grant for Haiti. The money will go toward improving the impoverished Caribbean nation’s agriculture industry. About half of Haiti’s workers work in agriculture and the industry accounts for more than 25 percent of the gross domestic output. The industry was hit hard last year by devastating back-to-back hurricanes and fluctuating food prices.

Fearing that the potentially deadly E. coli bacterium could spread like wildfire, a Colorado company is voluntarily expanding its recall of meat, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Last Wednesday, JBS Swift Beef Company, of Greeley, Colo., recalled more than 41,000 pounds of meat. On Sunday, the company broadened that to include an additional 380,000 pounds of beef products. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced “an ongoing investigation into 24 illnesses in multiple states, of which at least 18 appear to be associated.” The good news, according to USDA spokesman Brian Mabery, is that no deaths have been reported so far. “Each of our customers will be personally informed of this recall by phone,” A JBS spokesman told CNN, declining to identify who those customers were. Sarah Klein, a staff attorney for the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, was incredulous. “That’s ridiculous!” she said. “JBS should be able to say who they sold meat to, and those companies should be able to say, ‘These are the products we created from them.’ ” The recall underscores the need for “a comprehensive animal identification system” that would allow meat suppliers to trace their products to an individual ranch, she told CNN.

 Will the nation’s highest court ponder the case of Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis before they take their annual summer recess? If not, Davis, who was convicted in the 1991 murder of an off-duty Savannah Police officer, must wait until the fall to hear his fate in the last-ditch appeal for his life. In the years since his conviction and subsequent death sentence, seven of the nine people who testified against him have recanted their testimonies. In fact, Sylvester “Red” Coles, the first person to finger Davis, now 40, in the murder, has himself been implicated. Moreover, there has never been any physical evidence linking Davis to the shooting death of the 27-year-old officer, Mark Allen MacPHail in the Burger King parking lot two decades ago. Laura Moye of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign says that even if the high court doesn’t hear Davis’ case before their break it is not necessarily a bad thing. That’s because it “buys more time for all of the advocates to get more publicity on the case,” she said. Davis’ fate essentially would be left in the hands of Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm to pursue Davis’ fourth execution warrant if the courts decide not to hear Davis’ petition. So far, Davis’ execution has been put on hold three times. Support from Davis has come from across the spectrum. Judges, politicians and international leaders have pushed for a new trial. Last month, more than two dozen jurists and federal prosecutors filed a petition saying that Davis can show “new, never reviewed evidence that strongly points to his innocence.” U.S. Rep. John Lewis wants a new trial, and former President Jimmy Carter and Pope Benedict XVI have asked that Davis be spared death by lethal injection.

Twin Brother Indicted in Racist Plot
Twin White supremacists from Illinois mailed a bomb to an Arizona official responsible for recruiting and hiring minorities in the town of Scottsdale, according to federal prosecutors. In indictment unsealed Thursday, Dennis and Daniel Mahon are charged with conspiring to blow up buildings and property in an attempt to “promote racial discord” on behalf of the White Aryan Resistance. On Feb. 26, 2004, the package exploded in the hands of Don Logan at the Human Resources Complex in Scottsdale. In addition to injuring Logan’s hand and arm, a secretary was wounded. When police arrived at the home of the suspects on Thursday, they found assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and White supremacist material, authorities said.

Some Want to Change Rhode Island’s Official Name
Did you know that the tiny state of Rhode Island officially has a very, very long name? Well, if many residents of the “State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” have their way, that elongated moniker would be reduced to one that does not conjure up the reminder of New England’s less than savory history of slavery. Last week, the state House voted 70-3 to let residents decide whether their home should simply be called the “State of Rhode Island” – minus the “Providence Plantations” part. “It’s high time for us to recognize that slavery happened on plantations in Rhode Island and decide that we don’t want that chapter of our history to be a proud part of our name,” said Rep. Joseph Almeida, an African-American lawmaker who sponsored the bill.” That bill, which permits a statewide referendum on the issue next year, now heads to the state Senate. According to The Associated Press, Roger Williams, who was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, set out in 1636 and settled at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay, which he called Providence Plantations. “Williams founded the first Baptist church in America and became famous for embracing the separation of church and state, a legal principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights a century later,” AP writes. “In 1663, English King Charles II granted a royal charter joining all the settlements into a single colony called “The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Rhode Island used that royal charter as its governing document until 1843.” Merchants in the tiny state made their fortunes off the slave trade. Slaves helped build Brown University in Providence, and a prominent slave trader paid half the cost of its first library, according to AP.