AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Employees at several Austin businesses have found stickers saying "exclusively for white people" placed on their windows, sparking an investigation into their origin and condemnation from the mayor.

Mayor Steve Adler said the stickers discovered Wednesday morning were "an appalling and offensive display of ignorance in our city."

The stickers also say "Maximum of 5 colored customers / colored BOH staff accepted," apparently referring to the "back of house" operations at a restaurant. They featured a city of Austin logo and claimed to be "sponsored by the City of Austin Contemporary Partition and Restoration Program," though no such program exists. The city has said the use of its logo was unauthorized.

Austin is one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S. and is confronting increasing questions about economic and racial segregation as real estate prices skyrocket around its urban core.

Raul Alvarez, board president for the East Austin Conservancy, said the stickers are likely in response to gentrification in the area on Austin's east side.

"I certainly share the concerns about the history and culture and affordability that's being lost because of the rapid development, but our organization tends to focus on what it is we can do to preserve what makes East Austin unique and not focus on strategies that divide the community," he told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.

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Sarah Goeth, co-owner of Windmill Bicycles, stands next to a sticker that was placed on her Manor Ro …

Several business owners and employees said the stickers unnerved them.

April Jensen, who works at the Sugar Mama's Bakeshop, told the newspaper "it kind of hurt" when she read the sticker.

"I don't really understand the message behind it," said Jensen, who is African-American. "All types of customers come in here."

Bryce Bencivengo, spokesman for the city of Austin, tells the San Antonio Express-News that city officials along with the Austin police are investigating the stickers' origin.

Nelson Linder, president of Austin NAACP, called the stickers "absolutely stupid."

"Don't put signs like that on people's doors because you want to bring attention to your plight," he said.

Israeli leader backtracks from Palestinian state opposition

CBS-Newyork
Netanyahu Move Puts U.S.-Israeli Relations On Shakier Footing

JERUSALEM (AP) — Days after winning re-election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday backtracked from hard-line statements against the establishment of a Palestinian state in the face of a diplomatic backlash.

In the closing days of his campaign, Netanyahu said there could be no Palestinian state while regional violence and chaos persist — conditions that could rule out progress on the issue for many years. The comments, aimed at appealing to his nationalist voter base, angered the Obama administration, which views a two-state solution as a top foreign policy priority.

Netanyahu said in a TV interview Thursday that he remains committed to Palestinian statehood — if conditions in the region improve -- and to the two-state vision first spelled out in a landmark 2009 speech at Israel's Bar Ilan University.

"I haven't changed my policy," he said in a full interview with MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports," excerpts of which will be shown on NBC's "Nightly News" later on. "I never retracted my speech."

At the time, he said he would agree to a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state. The Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has recognized Israel as a state but refuses to recognize its Jewish character, and last year formed a unity government backed by the Hamas militant group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction.

In the interview, Netanyahu also pointed to the presence of hostile Islamic groups across the region and said that any captured territory handed over to Abbas would be taken over by militants. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas seized control of the coastal territory, ousting forces loyal to Abbas.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prays at the tunnel section of the Western Wall in Jerusal …

"I don't want a one-state solution, I want a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but for that circumstances have to change," Netanyahu said. "And every territory that is vacated in the Middle East is taken up by Islamist forces."

"You can't impose peace. And in any case, if you want to get peace, you've got to get the Palestinian leadership to abandon their pact with Hamas and engage in genuine negotiations with Israel for an achievable peace," Netanyahu said. "You have to have real negotiations with people who are committed to peace. We are. It's time that we saw the pressure on the Palestinians to show that they are committed too," he said.

A day before the election Netanyahu told the Israeli nrg news website that a Palestinian state would not be established on his watch because of the current climate in the region.

"Whoever ignores that is burying his head in the sand. The left is doing that, burying its head in the sand time after time," he said in the video interview. When asked if that means a Palestinian state will not be established if he is elected, Netanyahu replied, "Indeed."

The remarks drew heavy criticism from Washington, which said Wednesday that it was re-evaluating its options after Netanyahu's hardline comments. Relations between Netanyahu and the Obama administration were already at a low point after Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month on negotiations with Iran. The address was arranged with Republicans behind the White House's back, a breach of diplomatic protocol.

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Workers remove an election campaign billboard of the Likud party showing Israeli Prime Minister Benj …

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that White House officials were talking to their Israeli counterparts to set up a call between Obama and Netanyahu, possible later in the day.

He reiterated the White House view that Netanyahu's pre-election comments regarding a Palestinian state would mean the U.S. would have to reconsider its approach to Israel. He did not go into specifics but pointedly cited the U.N. as an example of where the U.S. has supported Israel in the past.

The tough talk was part of a last-ditch attempt by Netanyahu to spur his more hardline supporters to the polls in the final days of his campaign after it appeared he was losing voters to a more hawkish party.

On Tuesday, just a few hours before voting stations across the country shut, he warned that Arab citizens were voting "in droves" and endangering years of rule by his Likud Party. The comments drew accusations of racism in Israel, especially from its Arab minority, and a White House rebuke.

In Washington, the Obama administration said it was "deeply concerned" by the divisive language. And on Thursday, Earnest called it a "cynical election-day tactic that was a pretty transparent effort to marginalize Arab Israeli vote."

In the MSNBC interview Netanyahu said he was "very proud of the fact that Israel is the one country in a very broad radius that -- in which Arabs have free and fair elections. That's sacrosanct. That will never change," he said.

He repeated allegations he made during the campaign that external elements had funded the Joint List, a recently established alliance of four small, mostly Arab parties. Arab citizens make up 20 percent of Israel's population.

"I wasn't trying to suppress a vote; I was trying to get something to counter a foreign-funded effort to get votes that are intended to topple my party. And I was calling on our voters to come out," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington contributed to this report.

The Israeli prime minister backtracks from his hard-line comments days after winning reelection.
'I haven't changed my policy'

Paris (AFP) - Police discovered the bodies of five babies in a house in southwestern France, a source close to the case said, in what appears to be the country's worst incident of infanticide in five years.

After the body of a newborn was found in a thermal bag earlier in the day, officers "discovered four more bodies of babies during their search" at the house in Louchats, near the city of Bordeaux, the source said, confirming a report by French television channel iTele.

The source added that the four corpses were found in a freezer.

The 40-year-old father was taken into custody while the 35-year-old mother was hospitalised, the source added.

It was the father who initially found the bag containing the first corpse of a newborn baby early on Thursday at the family home, the source close to the investigation told AFP.

The mother apparently "gave birth at home alone", the source said, adding that she had been taken to a hospital in Bordeaux "for gynaecological and psychiatric examinations".

The woman "at this stage does not appear to have a history of mental illness".

Autopsies will be performed Friday to determine whether the babies were born alive, a source close to the case said.

The couple has two daughters aged 13 and 15.

The worst case of infanticide in recent French history dates back to 2010, when a mother admitted to killing eight of her babies, smothering them immediately after they were born.

Another notorious case was of a mother who was jailed in 2009 for smothering two boys born in secret at her expatriate home in South Korea, and a third child born in France, and hiding them in a freezer.

The case had highlighted the previously little known phenomenon of denial of pregnancy.

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San Francisco Catholic leaders apologize for dousing homeless

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco on Wednesday dismantled a sprinkler system it had installed at the city's cathedral during one of the worst droughts in California history to soak the alcoves and prevent homeless people from sleeping there.

The archdiocese took down the sprinklers after a barrage of criticism because the system installed at St. Mary's Cathedral was drenching homeless people at night.

KCBS Radio first reported undeterred homeless people were using umbrellas and waterproof gear, but they were still getting soaked as they slept in the doorways. The sprinklers ran for about 75 seconds, about every half hour, starting before sunset in all four doorways, soaking homeless people and their belongings, a KCBS reporter who saw the sprinklers at work reported.

The archdiocese, which supports and helps the homeless, apologized and said its intentions were misunderstood. It said the purpose was redirect homeless people to safer areas on the cathedral grounds.

"We are sorry that our intentions have been misunderstood and recognize that the method used was ill-conceived. It actually has had the opposite effect from what it was intended to do, and for this we are very sorry," said Auxiliary Bishop William Justice, rector of the cathedral.

The system had been dismantled as of Wednesday afternoon, said Larry Kamer, a spokesman for the archdiocese. No homeless people were using the cathedral's alcoves until recently, he said.

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A pedestrian walks past a bundle of blankets on a sidewalk outside St. Mary's Cathedral in San Franc …

The sprinkler system was installed two years ago, after the archdiocese learned that kind of system was being commonly used in the Financial District as a safety and cleanliness measure. Feces, needles and other dangerous items were regularly found in the doorways, Justice said.

"The problem was particularly dangerous because students and elderly people regularly pass these locations on their way to school and Mass every day," Justice said.

Homeless advocates welcomed the archdiocese's decision to remove the sprinklers, but they said they weren't surprised water was being used to get homeless people to move away from the area.

"It's so indicative of how dehumanizing we've become about homeless people," said Paul Boden, organizing director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, which advocates for homeless people. "If you are going to hose somebody down, they are probably going to move. Water is a very effective tool to get someone to move, and it's become a tool in addressing homeless in America today. It's pretty sad."

The archdiocese has also been criticized in recent months for wanting to add morality clauses to the faculty handbook used by teachers at four of its high schools that outline the church's teaching that sex outside of marriage, homosexual relations, abortion, masturbation and the viewing of pornography are "gravely evil."

Justice highlighted Wednesday that the archdiocese of San Francisco is one of the largest supporters of services for the homeless in San Francisco. "Every year, it helps many thousands of people through food, housing, shelter programs for people at risk including homeless mothers and families, and in countless other ways," he said.

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Yazidi villagers describe ISIS atrocities

Geneva (AFP) - Islamic State jihadists appear to be committing genocide against the Yazidi minority in Iraq, UN investigators said Thursday, calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice at the International Criminal Court.

The UN human rights office published a horrifying report describing killings, torture, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers by the extremists, suggesting they may be guilty of "war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide."

The report, based on interviews with more than 100 witnesses and survivors of attacks in Iraq between June 2014 and February 2015, especially highlights brutal IS attacks on the Yazidis.

IS, which controls a swathe of territory in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, launched a series of systematic and widespread attacks on the Yazidi minority's heartland in the northern Nineveh province last August.

The jihadists consistently separated out men and boys over the age of 14 to be executed, while younger boys were forced to become child solders and women and girls were abducted as the "spoils of war", according to the investigators.

"These attacks were aimed at destroying the Yazidi as a group," said Suki Nagra, head of investigation, suggesting IS was guilty of "genocide" against the minority.

The report, which was ordered by the UN Human Rights Council last September following a request from the Iraqi government, pointed out that some villages "were entirely emptied of their Yazidi population."

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A combination photo shows people from the minority Yazidi sect, who fled the Iraqi town of Sinjar du …

- Clear chain of command -

Many Yazidi women and girls were sold into sexual slavery or handed over to IS members as "gifts", the report said, adding that witnesses had described hearing girls as young as six screaming for help as they were raped in a house used by IS fighters.

Boys as young as eight were forced to convert to Islam and given religious and military training, including being forced to watch videos of beheadings, the report said.

"One of the most shocking thing was how organised the attacks have been," Nagra told reporters.

The Yazidis at first thought they would be given the same choice as Christians in places overrun by the jihadists: to convert to Islam, pay a tax or leave.

But then the fighters received orders via telephone, and suddenly the men and older boys were being marched off to be executed.

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Thousands of Yazidis fled across the border into Syria as the religious minority were subjected to m …

"There was a clear chain of command," she said.

According to witness and victim testimony, foreign fighters from at least 10 countries, including a couple of westerners, had taken part in the attacks, as had some people from neighbouring villages.

The Yazidis, whose ancient religion has elements of Christianity, Islam and Zoroastrianism, are considered to be devil worshippers by the Sunni Muslim militants.

- Other religious groups targeted -

Other religious and ethnic groups have also been targeted, according to the report, including Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and Shia.

"No community has been spared," said Nagra, pointing to the thousands of Christians who fled their homes last June after being ordered by IS fighters to convert to Islam, pay a tax or leave.

Also in June, IS fighters attacked the Badoush prison, dividing the 3,000 inmates into groups, freeing the Sunnis and loading the remaining 600 mainly Shia inmates onto trucks, before driving them to a ravine and shooting them.

The jihadists have also ruthlessly targeted anyone perceived to be connected with the Iraqi government, the report said, pointing to the massacre last June of up to 1,700 cadets from the Speicher army base, after they reportedly surrendered.

One witness had described how the cadets were either shot or beheaded, and said he had seen several IS fighters "kicking heads around like footballs," Nagra said.

Faced with the horrific scope and details of these crimes, the investigators urged the Iraqi government to allow the cases to be tried before the International Criminal Court.

They also called on the UN Security Council to refer the cases to the international court.

"Ensuring that there's no impunity, that there will be accountability" is of the utmost importance, said Hanny Megally, who heads the UN rights office's Middle East branch.

The investigators meanwhile said Iraqi security forces and affiliated militia had also been accused of a range of serious crimes during their operations against IS.

A separate UN investigation into the situation in neighbouring Syria has also found that IS was committing large-scale atrocities in the war-ravaged country, likely amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity.