WHITE SUPREMACIST CONVICTED IN MURDER PLOT

White supremacist convicted in murder plot
CHICAGO -- Anti-discrimination groups are warning that the conviction of a white supremacist charged with seeking to have a judge murdered won't stifle those who preach hatred.
"These people simply scatter for a while until they find other groups to latch onto. The hate's always going to be out there," said Ian Sigel, Midwest director of the Jewish Defense League. "All we can do is remain vigilant."
Matthew Hale, whose gospel of "racial holy war" was linked to a follower's deadly shooting rampage five years ago, was found guilty Monday of trying to have U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow killed.
Prosecutors said Hale was furious after Lefkow ordered him to stop using the name World Church of the Creator because it had been trademarked by an Oregon-based religious group that has no ties to Hale.
Hale's group was founded in 1973 and has had at most a few hundred members in about 22 states, experts say.
University finds housingfor homeless student
NEW YORK -- A college student who says he spent eight months sleeping in a library basement because he couldn't afford campus housing has been relocated to a free dormitory room, New York University officials said.
Sophomore Steve Stanzak, 20, said he began spending six hours a night in the sub-basement of Bobst Library at the beginning of the academic year after he was unable to pay a $1,000 housing deposit. He slept on library chairs and carried vital belongings -- a laptop computer, books, clothes -- in his backpack.
University officials eventually discovered an online journal Stanzak kept about his experiences and relocated him to a free dorm room last Tuesday.
Scores of students read about Stanzak's daily adventures on his Web journal, www.homelessatnyu.com, and he became something of a campus celebrity.
Although he works four jobs and has several student loans, Stanzak said he received no financial assistance from his family and had only enough money to cover tuition, about $31,000 a year for full-time undergraduates.
Conviction overturned
LOS ANGELES -- A man convicted of killing the Oscar-winning actor who appeared in the movie "The Killing Fields" has had his conviction overturned by a federal judge.
Tak Sun Tan was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery in the Feb. 25, 1996, murder of Haing Ngor, a Cambodian doctor who lived through the terror of Cambodia's mass killings in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge. Ngor was found shot to death in a carport outside his apartment in Los Angeles.
According to court filings revealed Monday, U.S. District Judge Margaret Morrow approved the recommendation of a federal magistrate judge, who found the prosecutor in Tan's trial misrepresented evidence and played on jurors' emotions by stressing the hardships Ngor faced under the Khmer Rouge.
California heat wave
LOS ANGELES -- A spring heat wave blistered California with record temperatures Monday as firefighters kept a close eye on dry brush, power officials monitored electricity use, and residents sought refuge at beaches and in swimming pools. Hundred-degree or greater highs were reported in coastal cities as well as through inland valleys and into the desert. Long Beach topped out only four degrees under Death Valley's 105.
The National Weather Service reported 99 degrees in downtown Los Angeles, shattering the record of 91 set in 1972. Other records included 100 in Santa Maria, 91 in San Francisco, which usually averages 65 degrees this time of year, and 93 in San Jose.
10 years of democracy
PRETORIA, South Africa -- President Thabo Mbeki was sworn in for a second term today as South Africa celebrated 10 years of democracy and an end to the brutal apartheid system that denied the most basic of rights to the vast majority of its people. Presidents, monarchs, diplomats and hundreds of invited guests watched as Mbeki took the oath at the Union Buildings, the seat of government where white minority leaders devised and administered decades of racial repression. Mbeki's second inauguration came on Freedom Day, the holiday that commemorates the day in 1994 when South Africans of all races voted together for the first time, bringing a miraculously peaceful close to almost half a century of oppressive white minority rule.
Associated Press