Obama backs disputed mosque

Obama backs disputed mosque

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama on Friday forcefully endorsed building a mosque near ground zero, saying the country’s founding principles demanded no less.

“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said, weighing in for the first time on a controversy that has riven New York City and the nation.

Obama made the comments at an annual dinner in the White House State Dining Room celebrating the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

“President Obama is wrong,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. “It is insensitive and uncaring for the Muslim community to build a mosque in the shadow of ground zero. While the Muslim community has the right to build the mosque, they are abusing that right by needlessly offending so many people who have suffered so much.SDRq

Laborers’ union to rejoin AFL-CIO

WASHINGTON

The Laborers’ International Union has agreed to rejoin the AFL-CIO, sparking hopes that a once-splintered labor movement is moving closer to reuniting under a single umbrella.

Laborers spokesman David Miller declined to confirm the decision but said leaders of the 800,000-member union representing construction workers would have more to say after a meeting Sunday.

Long-shot candidate indicted in porn case

COLUMBIA, S.C.

Long-shot Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on two charges, including a felony charge of showing pornography to a teenage student in a South Carolina college computer lab.

Greene surprised the party establishment with his primary victory in June. His arrest in November was first reported by The Associated Press the day after he won the nomination.

A Richland County grand jury indicted Greene, 32, for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity — a felony — as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

If convicted, Greene could face up to three years in prison for the misdemeanor or up to five years for the felony.

490 Tamil refugees arrive in Canada

VANCOUVER, British Columbia

At sea for three crowded and grueling months, hundreds of Tamil asylum seekers from war-ravaged Sri Lanka sought refuge in Canada on Friday when their rusty, ramshackle cargo ship finally edged just after sunrise into a naval port.

The arrival of the 490 refugees raised concerns among Canadian officials that the rebel Tamil Tigers, which fought and lost a bloody 25-year war for independence that ended in May 2009, were smuggling people into Canada, home to the largest Tamil community outside Sri Lanka and India.

Waters releases papers in ethics case

WASHINGTON

A defiant Maxine Waters disputed charges that she violated House ethics rules and released documents Friday that could undercut the complaint that the 10-term California Democrat sought federal money to bail out a bank where her husband owns stock.

With midterm elections three months away and no trial date scheduled by the House Ethics Committee, Waters — like her House colleague Charles Rangel of New York — made her case in the court of public opinion.

Associated Press