Prominent civil-rights attorney dies at age 89

Prominent civil-rights attorney dies at age 89

NEW YORK — Percy Sutton, the pioneering civil-rights attorney who represented Malcolm X before launching successful careers as a political power broker and media mogul, has died. He was 89.

Marissa Shorenstein, a spokeswoman for Gov. David Paterson, confirmed that Sutton died Saturday. She did not know the cause. His daughter, Cheryl Sutton, declined to comment Saturday when reached by phone at her New York City home.

The son of a former slave, Percy Sutton became a fixture on 125th Street in Harlem after moving to New York City after his service with the famed Tuskegee Airmen in World War II. His Harlem law office, founded in 1953, represented Malcolm X and the slain activist’s family for decades.

The consummate politician, Sutton served in the New York State Assembly before taking over as Manhattan borough president in 1966, becoming the highest-ranking black elected official in the state.

Sutton also mounted unsuccessful campaigns for the U.S. Senate and mayor of New York and served as political mentor for the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s two presidential races.

Two face presidential runoff election in Croatia

ZAGREB, Croatia — A leftist opposition legal scholar will face off against Zagreb’s colorful mayor in Croatia’s presidential runoff elections, the state-run Electoral Commission said early today.

The failure of the ruling conservative-party candidate to make the runoff signals Croatians’ growing dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the economy and charges high-level corruption.

With nearly all votes counted Sunday, the commission said Social Democrat lawmaker Ivo Josipovic garnered 32.4 percent of votes and Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic — who ran as independent candidate — got 14.8 percent of votes.

Because no candidate got more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers must now face each other in a Jan. 10 runoff.

Both candidates are considered pro-Western and both likely will support the ex-Yugoslav country’s efforts to win entry into the European Union, possibly in 2011 or 2012.

9 ‘suspicious’ fires leave 2 dead in Mass. town

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Authorities say nine fires that left two people dead in a western Massachusetts town are “suspicious,” and they’re treating them as potential crimes.

Federal, state and local fire and police investigators are trying to determine what caused the fires, which local District Attorney Elizabeth D. Scheibel says are suspicious.

Scheibel says the fires broke out in the downtown area of Northampton between 2 and 3:15 a.m. Sunday. She says five fires were in buildings and the rest in cars.

The two victims were found on the first floor of a house that was engulfed in fire.

7 die in avalanches in Italy

ROME — Seven people, including a German teenager, have been killed by avalanches in northern Italy, officials said Sunday.

In one incident, two Italian tourists were killed when an avalanche hit them in the Italian Alps, said local Carabinieri police. Four rescuers who were looking for them were hit by a subsequent avalanche and also were killed.

The two tourists had gone missing Saturday afternoon while mountain climbing in the Trentino Alto Adige region.

In a separate incident in the same region, rescue and Carabinieri police officials said Sunday that a 14-year-old from Germany was hit by an avalanche when he was skiing with his brother and a friend. The 14-year-old was killed on the spot, police in the town of Silandro said.

Israel sees increase in immigration in 2009

JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities say 16,200 Jews moved to the country in 2009, the first yearly increase in a decade.

The quasi-governmental Jewish Agency handles immigration to Israel. In a statement, it said in 2008, almost 14,000 Jews came to live in Israel.

The statement said 7,120 immigrants came from the former Soviet Union this year, and 5,300 came from English-speaking countries. Both increased over 2008.

The overall number of new arrivals has been dropping since immigration from the former Soviet Union peaked in the 1990s. Sunday’s statement said a total of 221,000 Jews immigrated over the past decade.

Israel offers automatic citizenship to Jews who move there. About 80 percent of the nation’s 7 million residents are Jewish. Most of the rest are Arabs.

Associated Press