An overwhelming racial gap divides public attitudes on the Trayvon Martin case and the fairness of the criminal justice system overall, marking the difficulties in the national conversation on race that Barack Obama sought last week to encourage.

By a vast 86-9 percent, African-Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll disapprove of the verdict acquitting George Zimmerman of criminal charges in Martin’s death, while whites approve by 51-31 percent. Blacks, by 81-13 percent, favor federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman; whites are opposed, 59-27 percent.

See PDF with full results and charts here.

More broadly, 86 percent of African-Americans say blacks and other minorities do not receive equal treatment as whites in the criminal justice system. Again, far fewer whites, 41 percent, share that view – a division that has prevailed, to varying degrees, in ABC/Post polls dating back 20 years.

In another measure demonstrating racial differences on the case, 87 percent of blacks in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, call Martin’s shooting unjustified. Just a third of whites agree; another third call it justified, with the rest unsure.

Hispanics align more with blacks on these issues, albeit to a lesser extent. Six in 10 Hispanics say minorities are deprived equal treatment in the justice system. Half disapprove of the Zimmerman verdict, double the number who approve. Twice as many Hispanics see the shooting as unjustified than as justified (though half feel they don’t know enough about it to say). And 58 percent of Hispanics favor civil rights charges against Zimmerman, more than double the number who oppose that step.

The U.S. Justice Department is evaluating whether to level such charges against Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida, who fatally shot Martin, an unarmed black teenager, in February 2012. Zimmerman, claiming self-defense, was acquitted in state court July 13. Demonstrators in dozens of cities protested the verdict Saturday.

Obama, in the most extensive remarks of his presidency on race relations, last week described the experiences that inform many blacks’ views on the issue and urged Americans to “do some soul-searching” on both their own attitudes and the nation’s progress on racial equality.

Given the very different starting points between racial and ethnic groups, this poll underscores the challenges in addressing the topic. In polling since 1992, anywhere from 73 to 89 percent of African-Americans have said blacks do not receive equal treatment as whites in the criminal justice system. Today’s level is just three points from the high, set in April 1992 after a jury acquitted four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King.

Views among whites on this question have fluctuated, but always have been strikingly different from those of blacks. In spring 2012, amidst a debate on whether or not Zimmerman should be charged with a crime, whites divided, 44-49 percent, on whether minorities receive equal treatment or not. Today, with the charge filed and the case tried, more whites, 54 percent, say minorities do receive equal treatment. That nearly matches the average among whites (51 percent) in eight polls spanning the past 20 years.

Whites do not broadly see Martin’s shooting as justified; rather, as noted, they divide, with about a third calling it justified, a third saying it was unjustified and a third saying they don’t know enough about it to come to a conclusion. Given the trial and verdict, however, the number of whites who see the shooting as justified has swelled from 5 percent in April 2012 to 33 percent now, while the number who feel they can’t say has plummeted by 24 percentage points.

Hispanics remain especially apt to feel they can’t say whether the shooting was or wasn’t justified; 50 percent do so. Of the rest, 34 percent call the shooting unjustified, while many fewer, 16 percent, see it as justified.

There are differences among other groups. Adults younger than 40 are more apt than their elders to doubt that minorities receive equal treatment. College-educated whites are somewhat more apt to see unequal treatment than are those who lack a college degree. And there are sharp partisan and ideological divisions: Seven in 10 Democrats and liberals think minorities are denied equal treatment; independents and moderates roughly divide, while Republicans and conservatives are much more likely to think minorities are equally treated in the criminal justice system.

Many of these divisions also are reflected in views of the Martin case, including whether the shooting was justified, views on the verdict and opinions on whether or not Zimmerman should be charged with violating Martin’s civil rights. In one striking division that reaches beyond race and ethnicity, 58 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds favor civil rights charges against Zimmerman, the only age group in which a majority holds this view. Among senior citizens, by contrast, just 25 percent agree.

METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone July 18-21, 2013, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,002 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including design effect. Partisan divisions are 31-21-37 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y.

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French Interior Minister Manuel Valls waits prior to a commission hearing at the French National Assembly in Paris, July 16, 2013, about the handling of the affair of former French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

PARIS (Reuters) - Interior Minister Manuel Valls defended on Monday France's ban on wearing full-face veils in public places after a police check on a veiled Muslim woman sparked riots in a Paris suburb at the weekend.

The 2010 law was brought in by conservative former president Nicolas Sarkozy and targets burqa and niqab garments that conceal the face rather than the headscarf that is more common among French Muslim women.

A police check on a couple in the southwest suburb of Trappes sparked an angry confrontation that led overnight on Friday to a police station being surrounded by several hundred people, some hurling rocks. Another building was torched in several hours of street violence that led to six arrests.

"Police did their job perfectly," Valls told RTL radio.

"The law banning full-face veils is a law in the interests of women and against those values having nothing to do with our traditions and values. It must be enforced everywhere," he said.

The suburb was mostly calm on Monday, although police who were pelted with firecrackers from rooftops overnight on Sunday made a further two arrests. The incident happened during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

France counts Europe's largest Muslim population, estimated at around five million. Yet according to interior ministry figures only between 400 and 2,000 women wear the veil and only a handful have been ordered to pay a fine for wearing it.

Critics say the law is patchily enforced as police seek to avoid confrontations in poor neighborhoods with high Muslim populations.

The rioting at the weekend was the first time the ban had let to an outbreak of violence. While Sarkozy singled out the suburbs as an area of special concern, Hollande has so far said they must be treated like any other part of France.

Valls said that while authorities would be tough in dealing with radical Islam it was not targeting ordinary Muslims.

"I'm not confusing people who follow Ramadan with the people who wear the veil," he said.

(Reporting By Nicholas Vinocur; editing by Mark John)

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A plane flies overhead as an Israeli soldier stands guard near the Israeli-Egyptian border, close to the Red Sea resort of Eilat, in this August 19, 2011 file picture. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Files

By Dan Williams

EILAT, Israel (Reuters) - An airliner full of carefree vacationers dips out of a cloudless sky on a final descent to Eilat and the desert around Israel's toehold on the Red Sea sizzles with unseen military activity.

The scene repeats every half hour or so, servicing the busy Israeli hotels squeezed into the 11-km (7-mile) sliver of coast between Jordan and Egypt. But with the threat of anti-aircraft missile attacks from Egypt-based militants increasing, security precautions are being stepped up to unprecedented levels.

High-tech electronics, hundreds of human eyes on the ground, defensive weaponry and tighter coordination with Egyptian forces in the Sinai peninsula are all part of "Operation Hourglass" - the Israeli response to an influx of weaponry and Islamist guerrillas into the sandy tracts across the border.

As well as providing Israel with a strategic Asian cargo port and naval base, Eilat's year-round sun and coral-rich blue water generate a quarter of the tourism revenue that the country counts among its prime sources of foreign currency income.

Israel has invested heavily in security around Eilat since the fall of U.S.-backed Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Earlier this year it completed a 250-km (160-mile) barrier with Egypt, stretching from Eilat's outskirts to the Palestinian Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean.

Officials have also shown Reuters a range of other measures being taken to defend against jihadists in Sinai - including an innovative, Israeli-designed missile deflector aboard planes.

This month's military overthrow of Egypt's elected Islamist president has raised expectations in Israel that Cairo will crack down harder in the lawless and craggy peninsula and Israeli commanders say it responds quickly to reported threats.

But Egyptian forces are stretched: since the July 3 takeover, militants have attacked their security checkpoints in Sinai almost daily, killing at least 20 people, and staged assaults on a gas pipeline to Jordan, a Christian priest, and on Eilat, where remains of a rocket were found in a desert area.

It was the latest in dozen cross-border attacks since the Arab Spring. Most were harmless but they included a bloody assault in August 2012 in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed in an attack Egypt blamed on militants.

Israel believes disorder in protest-riven Egypt, coupled with arms smuggled in from Libya, has increased the threat to Eilat. Security action, however, is being kept discreet to avoid scaring off the very visitors it aims to keep.

QUIET PREPARATIONS

A limited-circulation official Eilat security estimate seen by Reuters ranked an attack on an Israeli aircraft as less likely than cross-border shelling - incidents that have happened sporadically, with jihadis, apparently in a rush to flee, inaccurately firing short-range rockets that caused no damage.

Lior Ben-Simon, Eilat police spokesman, declined to discuss threat scenarios other than to say that an aviation disaster "is something we and all other relevant agencies have prepared for".

The Israelis do not want to embarrass Egypt by publicly demanding tougher safeguards in Taba, the Sinai town closest to Eilat and which would be the likely launching ground for the shoulder-fired missiles, also known as man-portable air-defense systems or MANPADs. Their ranges rarely exceed 5 km (2.5 miles).

"The risk to our planes is being taken into account but with much necessary discretion, given the importance of preserving our peace with Egypt," said Asaf Agmon, a retired Israeli air force brigadier-general who runs the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, a think-tank near Tel Aviv.

Since 2011, Agmon said, Israel has frequently rerouted planes so that they land in Eilat from the north, rather than the standard southern approach skirting the Egyptian frontier.

When the latter path is taken, planes bank sooner and more steeply over the Red Sea gulf to reduce their exposure to Taba.

In emergencies or rare low-visibility weather, Israel can redirect Eilat-bound aviation to Ovda, a semi-military airport 60 km (38 miles) inland. It also plans to open a new and bigger airport in Timna, 19 km (11 miles) to the north, by 2017. That would allow for the closure of Eilat's cramped airport, whose sole runway hugs a tight strip of luxury beachfront resorts.

NO BLIND LUCK

Israel had a galvanizing brush with MANPADs when al Qaeda tried to shoot down a planeload of its tourists over Kenya in 2002. Those two missiles happened to miss, but the Israelis scrambled to find a technological alternative to luck.

The result was C-Music, a bathtub-sized undercarriage pod designed by Elbit Systems Ltd.(ESLT.TA) which "blinds" incoming missiles' heat-seeking warheads with a laser. As of last month, C-Music was being fitted on select jets from national carriers El Al, Arkia and Israir, with the Israeli government footing the $1.5 million unit cost, a security official said.

C-Music can be rotated among aircraft "in less than an hour, with the turn of a few screws", the official said. That would allow Israel to decide at short notice whether to protect Eilat-bound flights, depending on the level of danger seen from Sinai.

"Yes, Eilat is a high priority, but there are other high-priority destinations," the official said. "Much of the preventive work is being done by the forces on the ground."

That referred to the hundreds of Israeli army lookouts, some in camouflaged ambush positions and others perched before surveillance screens in hi-tech bunkers, who strain to spot any unusual presence just over the border in Egypt whenever aircraft approach Eilat. Liaison officers free up telephone hotlines that might be needed for urgent calls to their Egyptian counterparts.

The Israelis assume MANPADs would be fired by two- or three-man crews, a presence hard to hide, though the towering and deeply fissured red buttes around Taba might provide some cover.

To overcome that, troops closely patrol the 5-metre (yard) high razor-wire border fence, guided by cameras that peer far into Egyptian territory with thermal imaging to spot body heat at night. Eilat is rowelled with 70 meter (210 foot) hilltop radar masts that help map out the frontier and movements there.

Israel has also occasionally deploying its Iron Dome aerial defense system in Eilat over the past few months.

The Sinai is largely demilitarized under the 1979 accord but Egypt, in coordination with Israel, has been increasing the troop presence there to tackle jihadis and arms traffic to Palestinians in the neighboring Gaza Strip.

Top Egyptian army officers say they are liaising with Israel on Sinai. One senior army officer said: "the Egyptian army is prepared to handle a (major) operation against militants there but is delaying it until the internal situation calms on fears that such a move could trigger militant attacks in Cairo and other cities witnessing unrest".

The Taba area's sparsely distributed watchtowers and largely empty roads facing Israel suggest it has not received many reinforcements from Cairo. But Israeli commanders voice satisfaction with the responsiveness of Egyptian counterparts who, they say, quickly deploy to intercept anyone suspicious.

"Usually it takes no more than three phone calls (between the sides) and the problem is dealt with," said one colonel.

An Israeli general, who like other army officers would not be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, told Reuters that Egyptian authorities were taking preventive action because they "understand that any fire on Eilat would do it terrible damage".

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh in Cairo; editing by Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher)

EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) — The soul-searching has begun in and around Cleveland — again — as the chilling details emerge from the latest missing-women case to send a shiver through the metropolitan area.

A registered sex offender was charged Monday with murder and kidnapping in the slayings of three women whose bodies were found in plastic trash bags in a run-down East Cleveland neighborhood. It is the third major case in four years of multiple killings or abductions to haunt the Rust Belt metropolis.

"I do think we have to ask ourselves as a community the larger question: Why here, and what can we do to better understand the conditions that fostered this savage behavior?" said Dennis Eckert, a political and urban-policy consultant and former Cleveland-area congressman.

Some civic leaders say the explanation lies in the disintegration of neighborhoods and people's connections to one another, plus a general mistrust of police — conditions that make it easier for a predator to kill without others noticing anything or reporting their suspicions.

Cleveland was a robust steel town for generations but has struggled for decades, ever since manufacturing went into a decline in the 1970s. Today it regularly ranks among the poorest big cities in America.

Per-capita income is just $17,000 in Cleveland and even lower, at $16,000, in next-door East Cleveland, where the bodies were found Friday and Saturday.

Greater Cleveland lost more jobs than other big city in the U.S. between May 2012 and this past May, at a time when hiring was finally picking up again in many parts of the country.

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Michael Madison is brought into court for his arraignment in East Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, July 22 …

Last year, Cuyahoga County, home to both Cleveland and East Cleveland, topped the list of foreclosures in Ohio with 11,427, according to Policy Matters Ohio, a Cleveland think tank.

A walk down almost any street in East Cleveland brings the crisis home. Boarded-up houses and ramshackle apartment buildings are a common sight.

On Sunday, volunteers scoured 40 of those homes, looking for any additional victims of Michael Madison, the man charged in the latest slayings.

A foul odor reported by a neighbor led to the discovery of the bodies and the arrest of Madison, 35, who served four years in prison for attempted rape and a drug offense.

At a court hearing Monday, Madison was ordered held on $6 million bail. He did not enter a plea.

The medical examiner has yet to establish the victims' cause of death; two were too badly decomposed to identify.

Authorities over the weekend said the victims were killed six to 10 days earlier. But the charges read in court specified a wider time frame for the alleged crimes — days or months before the bodies were found.

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Michael Madison is brought into court for his arraignment in East Cleveland, Ohio on Monday, July 22 …

In May, Cleveland was electrified by the discovery of three women who authorities say had been held captive for a decade in a house in a rough neighborhood dotted with boarded-up homes on Cleveland's west side.

Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver, has been charged with nearly 1,000 counts of kidnapping, rape and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty. Many questioned how he could have held the women for so long without someone noticing something wrong.

Four years ago, Cleveland was shocked by the arrest of Anthony Sowell, who stalked and killed 11 women on Cleveland's east side and hid the bodies around his house and yard. He was found guilty in 2011 and sentenced to death.

Many of Sowell's victims were drug addicts who were never reported missing. Law enforcement authorities were accused of fostering an environment that made residents, many of them black, reluctant to call police.

That mistrust led to the creation of insular islands in poor neighborhoods that make it easy for predators like Sowell to operate, said James Renner, a Cleveland investigative reporter, film producer and author of "The Serial Killer's Apprentice," about 13 unsolved crimes in Cleveland.

"Human predators work very similarly to predators in nature," Renner said. "They will go to the place that they have the highest rate of success, where they can stalk without being caught or seen or reported."

This week's news comes at a time when Cleveland is in many ways reinventing itself.

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This undated photo provided by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff Department show Michael Madison. Authorit …

The city just opened a $465 million convention center and exhibit hall. The Horseshoe Casino has opened in a former department store, bringing scores of visitors. And parts of downtown are bustling with a vibrant restaurant scene and the first new apartments in decades.

Across the street from the new convention center, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is hosting an exhibit on the Rolling Stones. The Cleveland Indians are in second place in the American League's Central Division.

And next year, the city hosts the Gay Games, expected to attract 30,000 visitors.

This week, the city is filling up with 11,000 older athletes competing in the National Senior Games. But the lead headline in The Plain Dealer that greeted many participants Monday was: "Discovery of three bodies again raises issue of violence against women here."

The crimes are affecting the image people have of Cleveland, said East Cleveland resident Ali Bilal.

"They're thinking it's one of those places that you don't want to go," he said. "It's like a horror show."

Yet ask other people in East Cleveland about the long-term effect of this latest tragedy, and many return to the same thing: At least it's bringing people together.

"Maybe after all this, maybe this will bring a change to East Cleveland," Vanessa Jones said Sunday as she watched investigators search a vacant lot near where the bodies were found. "Hopefully. Pray for that."

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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus. Associated Press writer Thomas J. Sheeran contributed to this report.