Update: Christie unaware of subpoena for blogger Hal Turner's trial

Gov.-Elect Chris Christie said he has not yet received a subpoena to appear next month at the federal trial of North Bergen Internet radio host and blogger Hal Turner.

Christie was in Jersey City today to tour St. Lucy's Shelter and help put together Thanksgiving care packages for 13 local families.

"It hasn't been issued to me," he said after being asked about it at a press conference at St. Lucy's. "You're delivering news to me."

Michael Orozco, Turner's lawyer, said in an affidavit supporting the subpoena, that Christie, as the U.S. Attorney, knew that Turner was working with the FBI, Christie gave legal advice to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force regarding Turner, and issued a "Blanket Letter of Declination," refusing to prosecute Turner.

Christie declined to comment on Turner.

"Certainly any of the advice I gave as U.S. Attorney with regards to prosecutions, I'm not going to talk about publicly," he said.

Christie said it would be hard to testify because of the internal deliberations and other legal issues that go into the decision-making process.

"It's very difficult for a U.S. Attorney to testify," he said. "We'll see what happens during the road."

In late June Turner was charged with threatening federal judges in Chicago, stemming from an editorial on his Web site that stated three federal judges there "deserved to be killed" for a ruling they made in a lawsuit.

Turner's trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 1 in New York.

Turner, through his lawyers, has maintained that he was trained by the FBI and worked with them from 2002 to 2008 to flush out radicals before they attacked in an effort to prevent domestic terrorism.

The operation was halted when computer hackers broke into Turner's radio show Web site server and gained access to email exchanges between Turner and the FBI, Orozco said.

Over the years, Turner's blog was a forum for hate speech. Turner has made racially inflammatory comments both on his radio show and on blog posts. continues here

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Gentry Family Laid To Rest After Brutal Attack

Family and friends celebrated the lives of a family found dead inside a Garland County mobile home. The Gentry family from Pearcy, Edward Senior, his son Eddie, his wife Pam and their son Jeremy were 

laid to rest Saturday in Hot Springs. They were found shot in their home November 12th along with the body of a friend of the son Kristyn Wereneke.

Family member Scott McNeely says, "We feel like it's a dignified ending to a chaotic chapter. This last week has been surreal, surprising level of violence within a serene community. Some form of closure for the family and friends, we're very grateful for all their support." continues here

Related:

Two charged in Arkansas killings

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B.C. man shot and killed by police seems to have no family mourners

No one has claimed the property of 48-year-old Jeff Hughes, who was shot and killed by police outside his Selby Street apartment in Nanaimo on Oct. 23.

Crime-scene tape that marked off the outdoor area where Hughes died was finally removed late Thursday, four weeks after his death.

On Friday, Hughes' landlord, building owner Alex Kay, began clearing out Hughes' ground-floor suite.

Hughes had lived in the building for seven years. No family members have visited the apartment since Hughes' death, said Kay, who added that a brother in Toronto said he wants nothing to do with his brother's belongings.

Hughes' things will be recycled or trashed but the brother asked for family photos to be put aside to be picked up later.

"We contacted him to see what to do with the stuff and he said, 'No, I don't want anything to do with it,'" said Kay on Friday.

Kay said police did not disclose any information when they returned the unit keys on Wednesday. He declined to describe the contents of the apartment or allow a Daily News reporter inside.

The room was reportedly furnished with Nazi flags, stuffed animals, plants and computers, according to neighbours, who have described Hughes as a harmless man who loved the environment and dabbled in neo-Nazism.

Kay estimated it could take as long as a month for the rooms to be cleared out before the apartment will be available to rent.

Police have yet to release much information about the shooting, including how many officers were involved, how many times Hughes was shot and whether he had a weapon.

Several of the officers involved have hired lawyers to represent them during the investigation, which could take more than a year. continues here

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KKK Rally At Ole Miss: Klan Outnumbered By Protesters (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

The KKK gathered at Ole Miss today to protest the University chancellor's decision to remove "From Dixie with Love" from the school band's song list. The song had drawn controversy because some fans chanted "the South will rise again" when it was played at Ole Miss football games.

According to the AP, around twelve members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan waved flags and issued Nazi-style salutes. The AP estimated that 250 people showed up to protest the Klan's presence.

Kevin Cozart, a senior at the University and the coordinator for operations at the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender studies, sent in some photos along with a report from the scene:
Under an overcast sky and greeted with a wall of boos and calls to leave, a few members of the Mississippi Chapter of the Ku Klux Klan rallied on the campus of the University of Mississippi this morning... for less than ten minutes. Little could be heard of any message they attempted to convey. Dressed in the highly recognizable robes, the ten Klansmen that showed up simply stood and waved their banners of hate and ignorance from the portico of Fulton Chapel, a fitting place since it is the home of the Theatre Department's productions. The sizable crowd that had gathered to see them was extremely hostile regardless of color, race, creed or university affiliation. After all of the fanfare, bravado and planning (including the use of bomb sniffing dog around the area), the brief appearance by the Klansmen is the very definition of anticlimactic.

The real story of the day was the students, faculty, staff and alumni who gathered peacefully and read the University's creed in unison repeatedly a few hundred feet from where the Klan had gathered. Organized by One Mississippi, a student group working towards greater social integration at Ole Miss, protesters wore shirts that said "TURN YOUR BACK ON HATE... (I live by the UM Creed)" and stickers with one simple word: "Unity." Before and after the rally, they talked to fans in town for the game about their message and plan to make their way through the 10-acre, park-like Grove, passing out copies of the UM creed to fans. continues here

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Two charged in Arkansas killings

(CNN) -- Authorities have charged two people with murder in the slaying of five people in Arkansas last week, police said Friday.

A third suspect was killed in a shootout with officers, police said.

Jeremy Pickney and Samuel Conway, both 23, are charged with capital murder, aggravated residential burglary and arson related to the killings in Pearcy last week, said Lt. James Martin of the Garland County Sheriff's Department.

Martin said both are being held without bail.

The third suspect, Marvin Stringer, 22, died Thursday night after he began firing on officers who had arrived to take him into custody at an inn, Martin said. Authorities returned fire, killing him, Martin said.

Deputy Jason Lawrence was shot and remains in serious but stable condition, Martin said. A second deputy, Felix Hunter, had an undisclosed medical condition and was treated and released at a hospital, he said.

Four bodies were found November 12 in a burning home in Pearcy, roughly 55 miles southwest of Little Rock. A fifth was found in another residence on the same property, authorities said, but the second residence had not been set on fire.

All five victims had been shot.

Authorities are working to identify the four bodies in the home that had been set ablaze. They have identified the fifth as 80-year-old Edward Earl Gentry Sr. continues here

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Kennedy opened U.S. doors to Caribbeans

Were it not for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Boston’s Caribbean Carnival would be a lot smaller, if it existed at all.

The first major legislation that Kennedy ushered through Congress rewrote the nation’s immigration law, opening the country to exponentially more people from the Caribbean, who ventured out to the annual carnival last Saturday in the wind and rain, not long after the late senator’s funeral concluded on nearby Mission Hill.

That 1965 law eliminated racially tinged quotas that favored immigrants from Europe and restricted the number who could come from Asia and the countries emerging from The 1965 law took full effect in 1968. In the following decade, “West Indian immigration exceeded that of the previous 70 years,”colonialism in Africa and the Caribbean. From the entire continent of Africa, for instance, the annual limit on immigrants had been 1,400 — less than 1 percent of Europe’s quota.

In the case of Jamaica and Trinidad, which both won independence in 1962, only 100 immigrants from each were allowed every year. That was the minimum for any country.

“Most of us would not be here at all. We owe a great debt of gratitude,” said Clarence Cooper, president of Unity Sports & Cultural Club in Dorchester.

Born in Trinidad, Cooper spent two years on a work visa in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands before arriving on the mainland with an immigrant visa in 1967.

Two years later, Neil Osborne, president of Jamaican Associates, immigrated with his parents at age 5. The family was able to resettle because his father’s brother was already in the United States. Reuniting close relatives was made a priority in the 1965 law that Kennedy got passed.

“Jamaicans significantly understood how he championed immigration in a fair and equal way, and your skin color shouldn’t matter,” said Osborne, a lawyer who represents victims of job discrimination. “He made sure people from the Caribbean could come.”

Kennedy’s assistance to Caribbean immigrants did not end with that law. Community leaders this week attested to his staff’s swift and effective intervention over the years to reunite families with relatives who had been left behind.

Beulah Providence, executive director of the Caribbean Foundation of Boston, which provides home health services, said she frequently referred immigrants to Kennedy’s office for help obtaining visas for family members.

“They called his office, and they got good help,” said Providence, who came from Dominica in 1960. “They got help with their papers.”

The Rev. Nicolas Homicil, senior pastor of the Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle in Mattapan, said Kennedy staffers helped Haitian immigrants in the same way, and also helped relatives in Haiti obtain short-term visas to attend funerals in the United States.

“The Haitian community and the minority community at large are going to miss Senator Kennedy,” said Homicil, who immigrated in 1971.

Kennedy’s staff could get results fast. Back in the 1970s, an immigrant couple who had been in the country for a couple years were having difficulty getting visas to enable their five children in Trinidad to join them, Cooper recalled.

The husband went downtown to see someone in Kennedy’s office and, by the time he returned home, consular officials were calling to say the visas would be available the next day in Port-au-Spain, Trinidad’s capital.

“You hear so many people here talking about things similar to that,” Cooper said in a telephone interview Monday.

His wife, Jemma Cooper, overheard his comment and got on the line to share her own family’s story. Thirty years ago, she said, her mother immigrated under her maiden name. Then she had a hard time obtaining permission to bring three other children from Trinidad — because she used her married name on those papers — until Kennedy’s staff straightened out the confusion.

That kind of constituent service for so many from the Caribbean has been needed only because of the transformative impact of the 1965 immigration law.

Despite the low quotas for Trinidad, Jamaica and the continent of Africa, even fewer immigrants from those places were actually entering the United States. In 1963, The Associated Press reported that no predominantly black nation was using up its quota.

The 1965 law took full effect in 1968. In the following decade, “West Indian immigration exceeded that of the previous 70 years,” author Philip Kasinitz has noted. “By the early 1980s, approximately 50,000 legal immigrants from the Anglophone Caribbean and another 6,000 to 8,000 from Haiti were entering the United States annually.”

Other factors contributed to the rise. The law’s focus on neutral criteria such as kinship ties and job skills was inspired by civil rights legislation, which made the country appear more welcoming to black immigrants. Independence also shifted the destination of most Caribbean immigrants away from the former colonial powers.

“We have discriminated against some people over others, contrary to our basic principles as a nation,” Kennedy said in opening debate on the immigration bill on Sept. 17, 1965.

The legislation was actually a Kennedy co-production. Before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy proposed a similar bill in July 1963. He specifically asked Congress to lift the quotas on Jamaica and Trinidad, limits he called “accidental discrimination against the newly independent nations of the Western Hemisphere.” continues here

'Change has come' - Barack Obama wins US presidential election

Barack Obama this morning declared "change has come to America" as he emerged triumphant from one of the most extraordinary elections in history to become his country's first black president.

There were tumultuous scenes at a victory party with 70,000 people at Grant Park in Chicago - and hundreds of thousands more outside - when TV networks simultaneously declared him the winner at exactly 11pm Eastern Time, bringing an emphatic end to the Bush years.

Projected wins in the traditional battlegrounds of Ohio and Florida - as well as Pennsylvania, on which John McCain's pencil-thin path to the White House had depended - were easily enough to give Mr Obama the Electoral College votes he needs.

A clutch of other once-Republican states, including Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Nevada and Virginia, also fell to the Democrat. North Carolina, Missouri, Indiana and even Montana are still deemed too close to call.

Mr McCain - after an often tempestuous campaign - delivered a gracious concession speech in his home state of Arizona.

But at midnight in Chicago, Mr Obama arrived to rapturous, pulsating ovation from supporters in Chicago to promise the world that a "new dawn of American leadership is at hand".

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy - tonight is your answer," he said.

In a speech punctuated by frequent chants of "yes, we can", the Democrat said the long lines of voters standing in line for hours had done so because they believed "this time must be different, that their voice could be that difference".

He added: "It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."

The immense turnout in yesterday's election was testament not only to the energy, excitement and expectations of a rejuvenated American democracy, but also the fears of a nation standing at a crossroads of history. The new president faces economic and social convulsions at home, conflict abroad.

Exit polls showed Mr Obama performing strongly among voters who regarded the economy as the most important issue, cutting a swath through the east, making deep inroads into once-solid Republican territory in the Mountain West and recapturing parts of the south for the first time in a generation

He hopes his victory, 40 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King and the start of cultural wars that have scarred American politics ever since, holds out the promise of healing his country.

Mr McCain acknowledged as much, saying: "This is a special election. I recognise the great significance it must have for African Americans and the special pride they must be feeling tonight."

In his concession speech he paid tribute to Mr Obama for inspiring millions and declared the country had "come a long way from the cruel bigotry" of the past.

"There is no greater evidence of this than the election of an African American to the presidency of the United States," he said. "Let there be no reason now for any American not to cherish their citizenship of this, the greatest nation on earth."

Several times he quietened boos from the crowd in Phoenix, saying the nation needed to "come together". Mr McCain promised to help Mr Obama in any way he can "lead us through the challenges we face" and told supporters that though his campaign had fallen short: "The failure is mine, not yours".

Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama's spokesman, later disclosed that the president-elect was eager to sit down with his former rival and discuss how they can work can together. He is said to have told Mr McCain: "I need your help, you're a leader on so many important issues."

In his speech last night, Mr Obama declared: "Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look not only at ourselves, but each other."

He also paid generous tribute to his campaign team, his wife and children - to whom he has promised a new puppy - and his grandmother, who died on Sunday before seeing him win the presidency.

In the fight for Congress, Republicans suffered huge losses, but were clinging to hopes that they might just stop Democrats from reaching a filibuster-proof 60-seat "super majority" in the US Senate.

Democrats, needing nine seats to reach the 60-seat threshold, were on target to gain at least seven, but narrowly failed to pick off Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the upper chamber.

In the House of Representatives, Democrats were on course to gain at least another 25 seats, giving them their biggest majority in the lower chamber for a generation.

Hillary Clinton, who saw her own bid to become America's first woman president narrowly fail in an historically-charged Democratic primary, released a statement saying: "This was a long and hard-fought campaign but the result was well worth the wait.

"Together, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and a Democratic Congress, we will chart a better course to build a new economy and rebuild our leadership in the world."

Gordon Brown issued a statement shortly after 6am in Britain offering "sincere congratulations" to Mr Obama.

"The relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is vital to our prosperity and security," he said. "Barack Obama ran an inspirational campaign, energising politics with his progressive values and his vision for the future. continues here

The sleeping giant is awake to back Barack Obama with a Latino beat

There was only one building attracting much activity this week in Truth or Consequences, Sierra County. 

Few tourists lingered at the Exotic Cactus Ranch, and the remaining stores had all but given up looking for business in what must be the only town named after a 1950s game show. 

The office of the county clerk, however, thrummed with early voters. Pollsters like to call this “sleeping giant” country. Like other southwestern states in play in this election, New Mexico has suffered from an historically low turnout of Hispanic voters that has so far failed to reflect the raw demographic power of the fastest-growing minority in the US. 

This time there were signs that 2008 would be the year with the biggest Latino turnout. Since George W. Bush came to office Hispanics have accounted for half of the country’s entire population growth. About ten million are expected to vote this year, compared with 7.5 million in 2004. For the first time Hispanic voters will play a prominent and possibly decisive role in the election.  

“Before, people would tell me, ‘La vota no cuenta’ — the vote doesn’t count — but now they’re seeing it differently,” Bobby Rodríguez said as he delivered absentee voting forms. “This time it counts.” 

A month ago New Mexico was considered a toss-up. But massive voter-registration drives and a grassroots “Sí, se puede” campaign have tilted the race towards Barack Obama. 

Mr Rodríguez, 69, a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has been on the road every day since the primaries, canvassing. 

“This election is different. Those who left the party feeling disillusioned and disenfranchised are coming back.” Only last week, he added, they handed out 150 forms on the Thursday. “They were filled out by Friday”. 

He drove past pecan orchards and cotton fields to the home of María Chacón, a 39-year-old mother of six, in Mesquite. She said that she, her husband and her mother registered to vote for the first time despite having lived there for more than 30 years. They will be voting Democrat. 

Why now? “I have a 21-year-old daughter in the military, about to return to Iraq. I want her out,” she said. “That’s what made me change.” 

The next stop was a farm belonging to Ben Bolanos, on the edge of the Chihuahua desert. “I’m ready”, said the former rodeo rider who fought in Vietnam with his three brothers. As an Hispanic veteran he represents one of John McCain’s target groups. 

He said: “McCain, I respect the man very much. He was the same place I was, but somehow the Bush Administration just got hold of him. I know who I want, and that’s Obama.” 

President Bush carried New Mexico by 6,000 votes in 2004. However, latest polls show that Mr Obama leads his Republican rival by 51 per cent to 44 per cent in New Mexico. The margin widens among Hispanics, suggesting that Mr Obama is winning over supporters of Hillary Clinton. 

Pablo Martinez, the state director of LULAC, said that many Hispanic voters felt betrayed by Mr McCain, a former champion of immigration reform, after conservatives derailed the comprehensive immigration Bill he put before Congress in 2006. “It will be a long time before Hispanics can trust Republicans again,” he said. 

Mr Martinez put the blame for Mr McCain’s failure to connect with this huge, disparate group, which includes Puerto Ricans and Cuban-Americans, on the ugly undertone of “otherness” in the speeches of his running-mate. 

“McCain has also been a friend of Latinos but as soon as Sarah Palin started saying, ‘He’s not one of us’, it brought back a lot of memories . . . If she feels this way about an African-American, is she going to say the same about us too?” he asked. 

Mr Obama’s lead in New Mexico, where 42 per cent of the population is Hispanic, is being credited to a brilliant grassroots campaign. Four years ago John Kerry opened six field offices in the state. Mr Obama has 39. 

At the local Democratic Party headquarters in Las Cruces, impossibly cheerful college students man the telephones, tallying up the numbers of “houses knocked on” and “calls made”. Voter registration has been a priority, with the party claiming to have surpassed its target of registering more than 30,000 new voters during a 30-day push. “We’re hoping that is what is going to win it for us,” one volunteer beams. continues here

US whites 'to be minority sooner'

White people are projected to no longer be in the majority in the United States by the year 2042 - eight years sooner than previous projections. 

The US Census Bureau's latest figures - based on birth, death and immigration rates - suggest that minorities will soon make up 55% of the population. 

Hispanics who now make up about 15% will, it says, account for 30% by 2050. 

It is projected that black people will make up 15%, a small increase, while Asians will grow from 4% to 9%. 

White non-Hispanics currently make up about two-thirds of the population, but only 55% of those are aged under five. 

'Aging baby boomers' 

It has long been said that the US is a nation of immigrants but in the past the influx has mainly come from white Europeans, the BBC's Jonathan Beale reports from Washington. 

By the middle of this century, that group will be in the minority for the first time, he notes. 

It is likely that the demographic changes will be experienced right across the country - and no longer confined to urban areas as in the past. 

Overall, the US population is expected to rise from 305 million people to 439 million by the year 2050. 

The white population will also be ageing. The number of people over 85 years old will triple in the next 40 years. 

"The white population is older and very much centred around the aging baby boomers who are well past their high fertility years," William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution think tank, told the Associated Press. 

"The future of America is epitomised by the young people today. They are basically the melting pot we are going to see in the future." continues here

Poll reveals America is still divided over race relations as country gears up for election

Sixty per cent of black Americans think race relations are still bad in the United States more than 40 years after their struggle for equal rights gained worldwide prominence, it emerged yesterday.

The results of a poll showing America is still sharply divided by the issue came as it gears up for an election that could put the first black president into the White House.

While the majority of blacks and whites believe the country is ready for a black leader, the consensus ends there.

Each group holds vastly different views on Democratic Senator Barack Obama and the state of America's race relations. 

The survey for the New York Times and television station CBS News revealed that 83 per cent of blacks had a favourable opinion of Obama, compared to just 31 per cent of white people. 

Asked if race relations were generally bad, almost 60 per cent of blacks said yes, compared to 34 per cent of whites. 

Those figures have not changed since a similar survey eight years ago revealed that few Americans experienced integrated workplaces and neighbourhoods or had regular contact with people from other races. 

Obama, 46, the son of a black Kenyan man and white mother, has fired up an enthusiasm for politics not seen since the Sixties. 

Dubbed the black John Kennedy, he faces Arizona Republican Senator John McCain in the election on November 4. 

Two-thirds of all those polled said they believe America is ready for a black president and overall 31 per cent said they thought race relations would improve if Obama was elected. 

But almost 40 per cent of blacks said there had been little progress in getting rid of racial discrimination in recent years, while just 17 per cent of whites agreed. 

Meanwhile, just over 25 per cent of whites said too much had been made about problems facing black people, while 50 per cent of blacks said not enough had been done to bring down racial barriers. continues here