Tonight: Text 360°
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AC360°
Michael Jackson passed away almost a month ago, and endless questions remain about his career, personal life, and the circumstances of his death.
In an article for Rolling Stone magazine, Claire Hoffman, describes Michael's final years and days in remarkable detail. She writes about his Diprivan use, his time spent in Bahrain, his addiction to e-bay, his debt, and motivation for a comeback tour. Hoffman reveals what insiders thought of his last tour rehearsals and how the drama unfolded within the Jackson family after his death.
Anderson will talk to Hoffman tonight about all of the surprising revelations. Do you have a question for her?
Let us know!
Send us a text message with your question. Text AC360 (or 22360), and you might hear it on air!
Photo Gallery: Black in America pre-show
Program Note: In CNN's Black in America 2, Soledad O'Brien reports on the innovative and unexpected ways people are transforming the black experience by confronting the most difficult issues facing their community. Tune in TONIGHT at 8 p.m..
Suvro Banerji
AC360° Intern
These behind-the-scenes pictures were taken last night at Times Square during the live pre-show of Black in America Part 2. It featured some of the most prominent voices in Black Radio including Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Steve Harvey and D.L. Hughley.
Walter Cronkite, a no-nonsense newshound
[cnn-photo-caption image="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/US/07/17/walter.cronkite.dead/art.cronkite.01.cbs.jpg" caption="Walter Cronkite's funeral was held today at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan."]
Tom Brokaw
For TIME
Walter Cronkite was the most famous journalist of his time, the personification of success in his beloved profession, with all that brought with it: a journalism school named for him, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and the adulation of his peers and audience.
Yet I always had the feeling that if late in life someone had tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Walter, we're a little shorthanded this week. Think you could help us on the police beat for a few mornings?" he would have responded, "Boy, oh, boy — when and where do you want me?"
Cronkite loved the news business, plain not fancy. He began as a teenage stringer for Houston newspapers and then made his way into radio before being hired by the United Press, the spunky cousin of the Associated Press. During World War II, Walter was UP's man in London, a colleague of the legendary Homer Bigart of the New York Herald Tribune, later of the New York Times; Andy Rooney, then with Stars and Stripes; and Ed Murrow, the incomparable voice of CBS News. Murrow was stunned when Cronkite turned down an offer to become one of Murrow's Boys, as the CBS all-star lineup was called. Cronkite preferred the all-news-all-the-time sensibilities of UP.
Presidential birth certificates: Modern-day 'freedom papers'?
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Arsalan Iftikhar
Founder, TheMuslimGuy.com
For those of you who are unaware, the 'Birthers' movement is a pejorative term (like the 9/11 Truthers) used by the many in American media to ridicule those right-wing polemicists who believe that President Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate is a 'fake' and because they believe that he was ostensibly born in Kenya, not the United States, he was never eligible to be president in the first place.
Seriously, all of the people in the 'birther' movement need to get a life (and a clue). They need to get out of their mothers' basements in their tighty-whities and open the front door to inhale some fresh air and a much-needed dose of reality.
Sadly, certain right-wing media commentators, including high-profile polemicists like Alan Keyes, Liz Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs have all at one point or another doubted the veracity of President Obama's 'natural-born' American citizen status to further their own myopic right-wing agenda and help to distract from the pressing American issues of health care reform, two ongoing wars in the Middle East and a recession that rivals only the Great Depression in its scope and breadth.
Harassment and Cyberstalking explained
Program note: Stalking and Harassment are prevalent both online and off. Parry Aftab, Executive Director of WiredSafety.org, is an expert on internet privacy and safety. Tune in to AC360° for Aftab's opinion on the Erin Andrews incident, and what you can do to avoid it.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/TECH/07/16/twitter.hack/art.twitter.phone.gi.jpg caption="Checking an e-mail or stealthily taking your pictures? Cell phones have become a tool in stalking and harassment."]
Parry Aftab
WiredSaftey.org
There are three different kinds of cyberstalking situations...
* Online cyberstalking and harassment that stays online
* Online harassment and stalking that ventures offline or encourages offline actions
* Offline stalking or harassment that moves online
It doesn’t make any difference whether or not the victim has even used the Internet. The distinction between online and offline is dependent on the medium used by the perpetrator.
For example, online stalking/harassing is usually defined as “…repeated unsolicited contact by electronic means…” with the intent to “…terrify, intimidate, or harass…” another. The medium in this instance can include computers, Fax machines, telephones, etc.
Documents: Full police report for Harvard scholar Gates Jr.
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caption="Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he and his attorneys are considering further actions."]
Editor's Note: Posted below is the full police report for Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. from WCVB TV in Boston. For more on the fallout from his arrest, including what his arresting officer is now saying, and the current state of race relations in this country, tune in to AC360° tonight at 10p ET.
Mayors, rabbis arrested in corruption probe
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/CRIME/07/23/new.jersey.arrests/art.cammarano.bust.jpg caption="Hoboken, New Jersey, Mayor Peter Cammarano III is among those arrested in the public corruption probe."]
CNN
At least three New Jersey mayors, other public officials and rabbis were among 44 people arrested Thursday in a federal investigation of public corruption and money laundering.
Hoboken, New Jersey, Mayor Peter Cammarano III and New Jersey Assembly members Daniel Van Pelt and L. Harvey Smith were among those arrested, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Newark, New Jersey.
Federal officials also accused five rabbis, including the national leader of the Syrian Jewish community, of laundering more than $3 million, said acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra Jr.
In total, people paid more than $650,000 in bribes to New Jersey public officials, he said.
Investigators charged one man with conspiring to broker - for a fee of $160,000 - the sale of a human kidney for transplant.
Levy Izhak Rosenbaum of Brooklyn, New York, offered to obtain a kidney - in return for the fee - for an undercover FBI agent and confidential witness working for authorities, a criminal complaint said.
The arrests for public corruption and money laundering underscore "the pervasive nature of corruption in this state," Marra said.
Financial Dispatch: Dow back above 9,000
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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer
Corporate earnings are the name of the game on Wall Street this week, and today’s onslaught is giving stocks a lift.
The Dow is back above the 9,000 mark for the fist time in more than six months, thanks to better-than-expected results from components AT&T and 3M.
The Dow and S&P 500 ended lower Wednesday, but the Nasdaq managed an 11th straight session of gains for its longest win streak since September 1996. Better-than-expected results from Apple and others led the tech-heavy average higher.
Ford Posts a Profit
Adding to the overall positive tone to the trading day, Ford Motor Co. reported a surprise net profit of $2.3 billion in the second quarter thanks to efforts to reduce its debt.
With 'Med Pot' Raids Halted, Selling Grass Grows Greener
Program Note: For more on the medical marijuana controversy, tune in to America's High, an AC360° special program, on Friday, July 24 at 11pm ET.
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Justin Scheck and Stu Woo
Wall Street Journal
Sellers of marijuana as a medicine here don't fret about raids any more. They've stopped stressing over where to hide their stash or how to move it unseen.
Now their concerns involve the state Board of Equalization, which collects sales tax and requires a retailer ID number. Or city planning offices, which insist that staircases comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Then there is marketing strategy, which can mean paying to be a "featured dispensary" on a Web site for pot smokers.
After years in the shadows, medical marijuana in California is aspiring to crack the commercial mainstream.
"I want to do everything I can to run this as a legitimate business," says Jan Werner, 55 years old, who invested in a pot store in a shopping mall after 36 years as a car salesman.
State voters decreed back in 1996 that Californians had a right to use marijuana for any illness - from cancer to anorexia to any other condition it might help. But supplying "med pot" remained risky. The ballot measure didn't specify who could sell it or how. The state provided few guidelines, leaving local governments to impose a patchwork of restrictions. Above all, because pot possession remained illegal under U.S. law, sellers had to worry about federal raids.
But in February, the Justice Department said it would adhere to President Barack Obama's campaign statement that federal agents no longer would target med-pot dealers who comply with state law. Since then, vendors who had kept a low profile have begun to expand, and entrepreneurs who had avoided cannabis have begun to invest.
Minority execs ready to step up and lead
Program Note: In CNN's Black in America 2, Soledad O'Brien reports on the innovative and unexpected ways people are transforming the black experience by confronting the most difficult issues facing their community. Tune in on Thursday, July 23 at 8 p.m.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/23/art.bia2.mia.jpg caption="Mia Jackson is a recent graduate of Rice's Management Leadership for Tomorrow, a program that trains future minority leaders in business."]
John Rice
Special to CNN
President Obama has challenged all Americans to participate in the volunteer service movement and to support initiatives that help solve the problems that plague our communities.
He recently introduced the Social Innovation Fund, intended to help increase the impact of the most effective and innovative nonprofits in our communities. This is a tremendous step in the right direction, but in order to expand these initiatives, we need a broader pool of leaders with a deep understanding of the communities they are serving and who have the skills, experience and relationships required to succeed in leadership roles.
According to the Bridgespan Group, a leading nonprofit consulting firm, the number of vacant senior manager roles in the nonprofit arena is ever increasing, with 24,000 positions available in 2009 alone. Over the next 10 years, this sector will need to attract and develop more than two times the number of people currently employed in order to fill these roles. This next generation of leaders must come from within the communities that struggle most, as these leaders are the most passionate about making change and have the most to gain if successful.
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