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.

 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.

Troy Anthony Davis, the convicted cop killer from Georgia whose life was spared three times so far, was denied a fourth bid to stay alive when a federal court rejected his latest appeal. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, ruled that Davis had not established by clear and convincing evidence that a jury would not have found him guilty of gunning down a Savannah, Ga., police officer 20 years ago. Read more.

Rap label goes for $18 million.  Rap label Death Row Records has been auctioned for the second time since last year this week, landing in the hands of Canada’s Wide Awake Holdings for $18 million. The bankrupt company went to a wealthy hairdresser at auction last year, but funding-related issues undermined the deal’s completion. Among actual souvenirs that remain up for sale at a second auction next week are Source magazine awards that hung in the office, cigars that belonged to label boss Suge Knight, original paintings, computers and office furniture that adorned the space once frequented by Dr. Dre, Tupac and Snoop Dogg.Jennifer Hudson will perform at NFL championship. Fans of Oscar-winning singer Jennifer Hudson will get a treat next month at Super Bowl XLIII when she hits the public stage for the first time in months. Hudson, who was falsely rumored to be a singer at Barack Obama’s inauguration, returns to the spotlight for the NFL championship after suffering a family tragedy. Hudson’s mom, brother and nephew were all found shot to death in Chicago last fall. The singer’s estranged brother-in-law has been charged with the crimes and has pleaded not guilty. Hudson will perform the National Anthem as part of the big game’s superstar entertainment lineup.

Troy Davis’s life is spared again

. Troy Davis, a Black American who has spent 17 years on death row for the murder of a White policeman, was Friday granted a stay of execution, three days before he was scheduled to die. “Upon our thorough review of the record, we conclude that Davis has met the burden for a provisional stay of execution,” said the decision taken by three judges sitting on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the southern state of Georgia. Davis, 40, was to be put to death today (Monday) at 7 p.m. by lethal injection for the 1989 killing of 27-year-old White Savannah, Ga., Police Officer Mark Allan McPhail. He has repeatedly claimed he did not kill McPhail, and seven out of nine witnesses who gave evidence that was at the backbone of the prosecutor’s case at his trial in 1991 have recanted or changed their testimony. There was no murder weapon, fingerprints or DNA linking Davis to the crime. Other witnesses have since identified another man as the shooter. The appeals court on Friday gave Davis’ lawyers 15 days to file documents showing that Davis is being wrongfully held in prison. The court will then have 10 days to decide if the case should go back before a lower court, which could order a new trial. Friday’s stay announcement was the third for Davis, who was originally sentenced to die in July of last year, only to be granted a last-minute stay of execution then by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole. Last month, the same parole board denied Davis clemency, restarting the clock toward Davis’ execution. 

A human rights group wants Nigeria to stop executing people immediately, because hundreds on death row might actually be innocent, reports the BBC. According to a report by Amnesty International, many of Nigerian prisoners on death row did not have a fair trial; in addition, many confessions came after officials tortured the suspects, and they were able to use that confession alone to sentence people to death, which is against the law. “The judicial system is riddled with flaws that can have devastating consequences,” Aster va Kregten, a spokesman for the rights group said. “It is truly horrifying to think of how many innocent people may have been executed and may still be executed,” he said in a statement. A staggering 80 percent of prisoners say they’ve been beaten, threatened or tortured while they have been in police custody, says the report. Nigeria’s State prosecutor, Williams Ashu, says the report brought important issues to light. “We’re working on trying to resolve the problem,” he told the BBC. He also suggested the nation’s prison workers are not as well trained as they can be. “The work they are doing is very hard work that some of them are not adequately trained for it,” Ashu said. Many prisoners also said that when the police arrested them, they asked for money to let them go, says the report.

Could there be another Darfur war in Sudan? Disputes in another region of Sudan could grow into another war as big as the one in Darfur, a group warns. “South Kordofan is a Sudan in miniature, with heavily armed African and Arab tribes living side by side,” a spokesman from the International Crisis Group told the BBC. The international community, as well as the country’s political parties, need to intervene in the crisis before elections next year. Southern Kordofan borders Darfur and was contested during the north-south war. While the Sudanese government and rebels signed a peace agreement saying they will share power and oil profits, leaders of the two factions (President Omar al-Bashir’s NCP and an ex-rebel) have been “dangerously engaged in ethnic polarization” ahead of next year’s elections, says the report. “There is frustration everywhere; there is frustration among the Arabs; there is frustration among the Nuba tribes; and with all this frustration, there is no adequate responses to it – they can all converge and [be] expressed through violence,” a spokesman told the BBC. If they want to calm the situation in the region, they still have time if they act now, says the group. The conflict in the western Sudan region of Darfur, where government-backed militias known as Janjaweed killed hundreds of thousands of people and made millions homeless, started more than five years ago.

World Lens: Colin Powell comes out for Africa, Dominican model hits the runway, Obama fever heats up the Caribbean. See pics.

Supreme Court halts Troy Davis’ execution.

In dramatic fashion, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday night halted the execution of Troy Anthony Davis, the 39-year-old Georgia man whose life everybody from the Rev. Al Sharpton to Pope Benedict XVI had pleaded with the state to spare. The NAACP, Amnesty International, South African Nobel Prize-winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a host of other international human rights leaders and organizations had argued that it was the state of Georgia, and the United States in general, that actually was on trial. Although convicted in 1991 of killing a 27-year-old Savannah, Ga., police officer and sentenced to die by lethal injection, several of the prosecution’s lead witnesses have since recanted their stories, leaving the state with a conspicuously flimsy case to justify execution. Read more at BET.com/News.