• Gabby gets work! Gabrielle Union has joined Beyonce and Adrien Brody in Cadillac Records. [IESB]

• A judge just okayed a $24 million settlement to 10,000 black Walgreens employees who were discriminated against. [KCS]

• I think I'm going to have to see this non-racist tea "advert." [UKP]

• Here's some bright, sunshiny listening material to get your morning going. [NPR]

• The "who are the candidates distantly related to?" game has gotten really old. Does knowing that Barack Obama is related to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is related to Hillary Clinton do anything for you? [AP]

Rumors have been swirling that Zahara Jolie-Pitt's biological mother, whom Angelina Jolie might have thought was dead, is very much alive (maybe) and wants her daughter back. Well, besides the fact that she couldn't have Baby Z back if she wanted her, the 24-year-old woman who gave birth to Angie and Brad's child said that the rumors were false and that she is happy her daughter is under Jolie's care. She also tells a pretty grim story about being raped by Zahara's biological father.

It's apparently the cool thing to do among a certain group of "journalists" to ferret out the biological parents of famous adopted kids and get them to say that they were misled into giving their kids up. But would we expect any less from the people responsible for our weekly gossip mags?

Okay, Mary Louise Parker's new daughter is cute. Trendy, as I mentioned before. But cute and, I would assume, better off. Brad Pitt's probably already engineering play-dates, although Zahara looks like she might be really bossy during play time.

[TMZ]

This fall, as women trade out their breezy summer standards for cool weather clothes, one fashion trend remains constant: the African baby! One might say they're the new black.

Angelina's got one, Madonna's got one, and now, Mary Louise Parker of Weeds fame has acquired her very own African girl.

Mary-Louise, Brad Pitt recommends Carol's Daughter for when times get rough.

[People]

Zahara Jolie-Pitt, my favorite African child of famous white parents — David Banda Ritchie's not even a close second — might be facing surgery soon for a genetic hip disorder. Mystery of why she is always being held: solved. Well, it's maybe 10 percent her hip ailment and 90 percent the hounding paparazzi.
[SP]

Brad Pitt and little Zahara had some alone time yesterday in Central Park, where they played chase, took a carriage ride, and ate ice cream.

I feel like she looks a bit happier with Brad than she does with Angie, but maybe that's because I'm a bit biased.

[WI]

Bono, the entertainment business's resident bleeding heart, took over as guest editor for July's Vanity Fair issue and focused on his favorite continent, Africa. To commemorate this historic event, famed photographer Annie Liebovitz shot 20 different covers.

As for the covers themselves, I was wondering why it looked like Madonna was about to kiss Maya Angelou's ear and why Bush was violating Desmond Tutu's space like that until Jossip informed me that the whole thing was supposed to look like a game of telephone. I'm not sure that is readily apparent, but the covers — featuring Alicia Keys, Brad Pitt, Condoleeza Rice, Don Cheadle, and Barack Obama, to name a few — are impressive nonetheless.

[VF]

According to at least one reviewer who caught the premiere of Ocean's 13 at Cannes last night, it was pretty fun to watch. Reports say the stars in the photo above have had to defend the film to critics in Cannes who don't like its light-heartedness, even though the Ocean's 13 castmembers have spent much of their time there raising millions of dollars for amFAR and Darfur relief. They aren't allowed to laugh, too?

I really don't care what Mariane Pearl wanted. Okay, that sounded like a harsh thing to say about a victim of tragedy. Let me back track a bit. Of course I care about the plight of Mariane Pearl — the horrible death of her journalist husband, Daniel, at the hands of Islamic militants — and I admire the courage it took to write her book, A Mighty Heart, which Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie turned into a movie that premiered yesterday at Cannes. But the caring? It only goes so far.

Everyone wants to use the fact that Mariane Pearl, a biracial woman, suggested that Angelina Jolie play her in the movie as an excuse for one of our biggest white movie stars to parade around in glorified black face and a kinky wig in a major motion picture. In the year 2007! It's an excuse that doesn't fly with me. So, I repeat. I don't care what Mariane Pearl wanted — there is no way I will ever, ever, ever go see a movie in which a woman who looks like this:

plays a woman who looks like this:
.

In terms of racial fairness, I expect little from Hollywood. Still, when talented black and biracial actresses are forced to play the wife, the sexual vixen, or the ghetto buffoon because there are no real roles written for them, it kills me that a woman who counts herself as worldly as Angelina Jolie does has the gall to take a meaty part out from under them. Just because a trip to the tanning salon and a bad wig allowed Jolie to slightly resemble the woman she was playing, it's not right. This is an issue that goes way beyond the physical, but, in Hollywood, narcissism trumps common sense and decency at every turn.

If she ever decides to be an actress when she grows up, little Zahara Jolie-Pitt better watch her back. Her mom might steal all her parts.