Actors hold gala to support human rights

Mexico City – “Y Tu Mama Tambien” stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna said a gala dinner they are hosting Saturday will raise money to support human rights and shine light on poverty and injustice in Mexico.

The $300-a-plate meal in the capital will benefit Mexico’s Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights as well as Witness, an organization founded by singer Peter Gabriel that promotes the use of video and film to document human rights abuses.

“Documentaries show us the injustices in the country where we live, that this problem exists,” Garcia Bernal told a news conference before the dinner. “We can’t escape it.”

Luna and Garcia Bernal, who recently launched the Canana production company, also want to use documentaries to raise awareness about failures of the Mexican judicial system, including the unsolved murders of more than 300 women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.

Queen of Soul cancels show because of heat

Detroit – The Queen of Soul is cooling her heels.

Aretha Franklin announced she has canceled her hometown concert tonight at an outdoor amphitheater in suburban Detroit, citing heat exhaustion. With temperatures forecast to climb above the 90 degrees, Franklin decided to call off the show at DTE Energy Music Theatre and hopes to reschedule it at a later date.

Franklin, 65, said in a statement Friday that the heat at recent East Coast shows has been “sweltering and all but overwhelming.”

“Following the Weather Channel and the daily reports in the news via television and newspaper publications, I see that the temperatures in Detroit have been very similar,” she said in the statement. “I am exhausted from the heat and cannot tolerate heat in these extremely high numbers and being in concert simultaneously.”

Fan wants to turn Elvis’ old home into attraction

Palm Springs, Calif. – An Elvis Presley fan wants to give Graceland a run for the money by refurbishing the King’s old desert home as a tourist attraction.

Reno Fontana and his wife, Laura, bought the Palm Springs home site unseen back in November.

“I want this to be Elvis of California,” he said.

The Spanish-style white stucco home has five bedrooms and seven bathrooms, with a sunken tub and a pool. Elvis and Priscilla Presley bought the home in April 1970.

The family, including daughter Lisa Marie, lived there part-time.

After his death, Presley’s lawyer took control of the estate. It was not immediately known whether anyone lived in the house before the Fontanas bought it.

Fontana, a lifelong Elvis fan, plans to decorate it in elaborate Elvis style and build a chapel, banquet hall and recording studio to attract weddings and recording business.