The public memorial for Michael Jackson will take place on Tuesday, July 7, 2009, in Los Angeles, Access Hollywood has learned.
The “private and public memorial” will be held at the Staples Center in downtown LA at 10 AM, AEG Live president Randy Phillips told NBC News.
Phillips said all of the details would be finalized when he meets with the Jackson family Thursday afternoon.
“Everything is in preliminary stages except the place and time,” Phillips told NBC.
AEG Live is the organization which was behind Jackson’s planned 50-show stint in London.
Should capacity be reached for the nearly 20,000-seat stadium, Phillips said the overflow crowd will be able to watch the memorial on large screens at nearby Nokia Plaza.
Despite reports that the public ceremony will be a funeral, a source close to the situation previously told Access Hollywood executive producer Rob Silverstein it will actually be a memorial to the King of Pop, who died last week at the age of 50.
Source: AccessHollywoodRead more…
DETROIT (AP) — Gunmen in a minivan opened fire on a group of teenagers waiting at a bus stop near a Detroit school on Tuesday, wounding seven, the authorities said.
Five of the teenagers had just left Cody Ninth Grade Academy, where they were taking summer classes, when they were shot.
The gunmen exited a vehicle and “asked for a person by name” before they “opened fire at the crowd,” said the Detroit Public Schools police chief, Roderick Grimes.
The police were looking for two men in a green minivan, said a spokesman, Rod Liggons, adding that officers were interviewing some of the victims in the hospital.
The wounded teenagers, four boys and three girls, are ages 14 to 17, Mr. Liggons said. Two of them are in critical condition, he said.
A gas station owner, Steve Hakim, said he had seen two people with T-shirts covering their heads run across his lot toward the bus stop. Then, Mr. Hakim said, he heard about 10 gunshots, saw a boy and a girl fall and called 911.
The police were reviewing video taken from the gas station’s security cameras, Mr. Hakim said.
A schools spokesman, Steve Wasko, said there was “nothing that we’re aware of at this time” linking the shootings with any fight or dispute at the school. Mr. Wasko said the shootings happened at 2:15 p.m., about 15 minutes after summer school students had been dismissed for the day.
Imam Abdullah El-Amin, an owner of Numan Funeral Home near the intersection where the shooting took place, said drug dealing, prostitution and “hopelessness” were common in the area.
“It’s terrible that these things are just laying there, festering, in society — time bombs waiting to happen,” said Mr. El-Amin, a candidate for the City Council.
Source : New York TimesRead more…
}