New York Senate leader Skelos quits top post after arrest

View Gallery

New York Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, arrives to his office at the Capitol on Monday, May 11, 2015, in Albany, N.Y. Skelos could face a vote seeking his ouster if he refuses to step aside following his arrest last week on federal corruption charges. Skelos has so far rejected calls to resign from Democrats and a growing number of members from his own Republican Party. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Dean Skelos stepped down as leader of the New York Senate on Monday in the wake of federal corruption charges and was quickly replaced by another Long Island Republican, Sen. John Flanagan.

Skelos, who is keeping his legislative seat, is the sixth legislative leader to face criminal charges or scandal in Albany since 2008. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, stepped down from his leadership position in January.

Authorities arrested Skelos a week ago on charges that he used his position to extort payments for his son, Adam Skelos, who is also charged. Both men say they are innocent.

The resignation came after Democrats vowed to seek a vote to remove Skelos as leader. Skelos initially sought to ride out the political storm, but his support among Senate Republicans steadily eroded.

Flanagan emerged as the new leader after a three-hour closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans. Sen. John DeFrancisco of Syracuse, who had also contended for the top position, was at Flanagan's side as he announced his victory.

"We come out of this unified," said Flanagan, 54, an attorney and 29-year legislative veteran who had led the Senate education committee. "There is a lot of work that needs to get finished."

View gallery

Sen. John Flanagan, R-Smithtown, arrives to a Republican conference meeting at the Capitol on Monday …

The Senate elected Flanagan with a show of 32 hands: all 31 Republicans present and Democrat Simcha Felder, of Brooklyn, who sits with the GOP. It was the narrowest majority in the 63-seat chamber.

The 24-member Democratic Conference symbolically nominated Democratic Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. That was defeated by a voice vote, as was the nomination for Sen. Jeff Klein, head of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference.

Just before the vote, Flanagan shook hands with DeFrancisco and hugged Skelos.

Skelos, 67, was first elected to the Senate in 1984. He said Monday that he decided to step down to avoid distracting the Senate — and because a photographer last week entered his son's backyard, causing his 2-year-old grandson to fall and split his lip.

"I said, 'You know what, it's not worth it,'" Skelos said.

View gallery

Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, arrives to a Republican conference meeting at the Capitol on Mond …

Authorities said the legislative veteran traded his influence for more than $200,000 in payments to his son from a major real estate development firm and an environmental technology company. The money was paid to Adam Skelos, authorities said, with the expectation that Dean Skelos would use his position to support the companies' interests before the state.

The charges had created a significant disruption as lawmakers work toward adjournment next month. Several significant items remain on the agenda, including the renewal of the laws governing rent regulations and mayoral control of schools in New York City and a tax credit for real estate developers. Government ethics reforms are another priority for many.

"Today is not a day for celebrations, it is simply another reminder of the culture of corruption that has plagued Albany for too long and must be addressed," Stewart-Cousins said of Flanagan's election.

The charges against Skelos were unveiled four months after Silver was charged with accepting nearly $4 million in payoffs. He is keeping his Assembly seat and has pleaded not guilty.

Flanagan is a member of the Long Island Nine, the all-Republican Senate delegation from Suffolk and Nassau counties. Upstate senators had initially backed DeFrancisco before going over to Flanagan. The move angered some upstate conservatives.

"Upstate betrayed," tweeted Republican Assemblyman Bill Nojay, whose district lies south of Rochester.

After the vote, Flanagan told the Senate he was mindful of the state's geographic rivalries, saying there were "regional differences that need to be respected."

___

Associated Press writer Michael Virtanen contributed to this report.

Rich and Eric McCaffrey, at their wedding last summer, went public with a controversy at their Episcopal church — since resolved — over the baptism of their infant son. (Photo: Facebook)

A pair of gay Florida dads will have their son baptized this summer, following a soul-searching controversy within their Episcopal church that concluded with a meeting with — and the blessing of — their local bishop.

“We talked about my being a part of the baptism and I told them I would be happy to do so,” said the Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida, in a statement. “We look forward to celebrating Jack’s baptism at the Cathedral in the near future.”

STORY: ‘Proud Daughter’ Fighting for Two Moms’ Right to Marry

The dustup began in late April, when husbands Rich and Eric McCaffrey were scheduled to have their infant son Jack baptized at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando. But before the baptism, according to the Orlando Sentinel, the men said the church’s Dean Anthony Clark told them that it was being postponed due to objections from some members of the congregation. (There was also a reported discrepancy between Clark and the two dads as to whether the date of the baptism had actually been tentative or definite, which added to the problem.)

STORY: Kids Rejected by Religious School Because They Have Two Dads

That’s when Brewer stepped in, telling the Sentinel that he’d meet with the couple. “I want to get to know them as people and for them to get to know me. My focus has to do with them. Why is this important to them? That is what I want to know,” he said. “It has everything to do with the intentions of the parents. Whether they are active in the church and Christians in the community is far more important than whether they are gay or straight.”

The Episcopal Church is for the most part LGBT-friendly, ordaining openly gay clergy and blessing same-sex unions. But individual congregations can vary greatly when it comes to these issues. Brewer, in fact, was one of a dozen bishops to oppose a provisional approval of same-sex unions in 2012.

One of the dads, Rich, made the private back-and-forth public by posting a message about it on his Facebook page on May 2, aiming to “raise awareness to our community, and to offer perspective to a reticent institution.”

In his post, Rich noted that he and Eric have been together for 15 years and that they were married in New York in 2014, and that adopting their son Jack has been a “highlight” of their lives together. Regarding their faith, he continued, “it is important for us to provide Jack a spiritual foundation he can build on throughout his life. Baptism — the rite of Christian initiation — is a significant moment. Being a gay couple, we knew we wanted to be part of a community that would be open to and respectful of our family.” They settled on Episcopalian — a denomination that’s made “tremendous strides” toward inclusiveness over the years, according to Integrity USA, a non-profit organization of LGBT Episcopalians — and “quickly felt at home” at the Orlando cathedral. Plans for the baptism were set, he explains, but three days before it, Clark contacted them to express that some congregants were having an issue with them being gay parents — the first to have a child baptized at St. Luke.

“I was speechless, angry, and heartbroken,” wrote Rich. “Jack’s baptism turned out to be the very opposite of what it should have been. It became about Jack having two dads, rather than a community opening its arms to a joyful little soul, one of God’s children.”

In response, the Christian social justice organization Faithful Americaorganized a petition in support of the dads, which has so far been signed by more then 25,000 people.

It may be hard for some to understand the strong desire of an LGBT person to remain a part of a faith that has rejected him or her, but the pull is a common one, according to Joseph Ward, associate director of the Religion and Faith Program of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBT equality organization. “People should not have to choose between who they love and what they believe,” Ward tells Yahoo Parenting. “Faith communities are just that — community — and I think for people of faith a lot of things draw them there. It’s not any different for LGBT people.” The Episcopal Church is one of the more supportive of gay and lesbian members, he says, but no matter what faith tradition an LGBT person grows up in, “what those traditions mean to individuals is important to their wholeness, to their identity, and despite rejection, they may still feel connected in a meaningful way.”

In a press release, the Cathedral Church of St. Luke noted, “It is with great care and concern that the Cathedral and the Diocese of Central Florida mutually address this situation with all dignity and respect for the family, the child and the congregation… It is important to note that the Dean and Cathedral have always intended to baptize this child. No one, including the Bishop, “denied” this baptism. We regret the delay, apologize for it and are working with his family on a revised date that will accommodate their schedule and respect the sacrament of Holy Baptism of their child.”

As for the dads, the resolution seems to have brought a sense of closure. “We are appreciative and are looking forward to the baptism to take place this summer. At the same time we know on many fronts there is healing to be done which will take time,” Rich wrote in a Facebook update on Friday. “Some may question why we are choosing to return to the Cathedral. We are returning because we still have faith in the goodness of people, and we trust people have good intent and ultimately will do the right thing… I close with one more lesson for Jack: Aspire to live your life with grace and forgiveness. You will be better for it.”

Please follow @YahooParenting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Have an interesting story to share about your family? Email us at YParenting (at) Yahoo.com.

Wochit
Christian Share of U.S. Population Plunges

NEW YORK (AP) — The number of Americans who don't affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call "nones" the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.

Christianity is still the dominant faith by far in the U.S.; 7 in 10 Americans identify with the tradition. However, the ranks of Christians have declined as the segment of people with no religion has grown, the survey says.

Between 2007 and 2014, when Pew conducted two major surveys of U.S. religious life, Americans who described themselves as atheist, agnostic or of no particular faith grew from 16 percent to nearly 23 percent. At the same time, Christians dropped from about 78 percent to just under 71 percent of the population. Protestants now comprise 46.5 percent of what was once a predominantly Protestant country.

Researchers have long debated whether people with no religion should be defined as secular since the category includes those who believe in God or consider themselves "spiritual." But the new Pew study found increasing signs of secularism.

Last year, 31 percent of "nones" said they were atheist or agnostic, compared to 25 percent in 2007, and the percentage who said religion was important to them dropped.

Greg Smith, Pew's associate research director, said the findings "point to substantive changes" among the religiously unaffiliated, not just a shift in how people describe themselves. Secular groups have become increasingly organized to counter bias against them and keep religion out of public life through lawsuits and lobbying lawmakers.

View gallery

The United States is becoming a little less Christian, and a little more unaffiliated to any faith, …

The growth of "nones" has political significance as well. People with no religion tend to vote Democratic, just as white evangelicals tend to vote Republican. The Pew study found a slight drop — about 1 percent — in the evangelical share of the population, which now comprises a quarter of Americans. But the overall number of evangelicals rose to about 62 million people.

Pew researchers said Christian losses were driven by decreases among mainline, or liberal, Protestants and Roman Catholics.

Mainline Protestants declined by about 5 million to 36 million between 2007 and 2014. Pew found 13 percent of U.S. adults are former Catholics. The study put the number of Catholic adults at 51 million, or just over one-fifth of the U.S. population, a drop of about 3 percent over seven years. In 2007, Catholics made up about one-quarter of Americans.

However, Pew researchers acknowledge those conclusions differ from those of some other major studies that found only slight declines or even a slight uptick in the numbers of Catholics in the last couple of years. Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which tracks American Catholicism, puts the U.S. adult Catholic population at 61 million.

Regarding other religions, Pew found an increase in membership of non-Christian faiths, driven mainly by growing numbers of Muslims and Hindus. Despite the increase, their numbers remain small. Muslims and Hindus each comprise less than 1 percent of the U.S. population. The number of Jews rose slightly over the period, from 1.7 percent to 1.9 percent of Americans.

View gallery

US remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world but percentage of the populat …

Overall, religious groups have become more ethnically diverse along with the broader population. Latinos now comprise one-third of U.S. Roman Catholics, although fewer U.S. Latinos identify as Catholic overall. One-quarter of evangelicals and 14 percent of mainline Protestants are racial minorities. Membership in historically black churches has remained relatively stable over the period.

The survey of 35,000 people, titled "America's Changing Religious Landscape," was conducted in English and Spanish from June 4 through Sept. 30 of last year and has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points.

___

Online:

America's Changing Religious Landscape report: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

LANGKAWI, Malaysia (AP) — A ship carrying hundreds of Rohingya Muslims sent out a distress call asking to be rescued Tuesday, saying they were abandoned by their captain without fuel and have been without food or water for three days.

Chris Lewa, director of the nonprofit Arakan Project, which has been monitoring the movement of fleeing Rohingya for more than a decade, says she spoke by phone with one of the migrants on board the Thai vessel.

"They asked to be urgently rescued," she said, adding there were an estimated 350 people on board, 50 of them women.

"They are not sure exactly where they are, possibly near Langkawi," Lewa said, of the Malaysian resort island that has been the dropoff point in recent days for more than 1,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis. "They say they can see shore."

Malaysia's maritime commander for the northern region, Tan Kok Kwee, said there have been no sightings so far of any other boats packed with migrants.

Some 1.3 million Rohingya live in Myanmar, but they are denied citizenship by the Southeast Asian country's government. They have been labeled by the United Nations one of the world's most persecuted religious minorities. Tens of thousands risk perilous journeys at sea every year in search of a better life.

Most are trying to reach Malaysia, but many have been stranded at sea as governments in the region have begun cracking down on human trafficking.

Lewa is an advocate for Rohingya who is considered an authoritative voice on migrant boat departures and arrivals. She has tracked about 6,000 Rohingya and Bangladeshis who have gotten on large and small trafficking boats in the region in recent months, but have yet to disembark. Based on her information, she believes the migrants and the boats are still in the Malacca Strait and nearby international waters.

They have been prevented from disembarking, in some cases for two or more months, because a crackdown on human trafficking networks in Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh has sent agents and brokers into hiding. In some cases captains are abandoning their vessels, leaving men, women and children to fend for themselves.

Lewa said the boat calling for a rescue Tuesday was up until recently operated by Soe Naing, widely known as Anwar, who arrested by Thai police earlier for his alleged role in a brutal trafficking network in southern Thailand.

The majority of those on board were from Myanmar's troubled state of Rakhine, home to almost all of the country's Rohingya, she said.

CBSTV Videos
Kerry to meet with Putin on Syria and Ukraine

SOCHI, Russia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to ease badly strained relations over the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, but the tone ahead of the meeting didn't augur well for a breakthrough on any of the many issues dividing the two powers.

On his first trip to Russia since the Ukraine crisis began, Kerry held more than four hours of talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a hotel in the Black Sea resort of Sochi before seeing Putin at his presidential residence in the city. Putin is in Sochi meeting with Russian defense officials for a week.

The top U.S. diplomat plans to test Putin's willingness to make pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine comply with an increasingly fragile ceasefire agreement, according to U.S. officials traveling with him.

Kerry will also seek to gauge the status of Russia's support for embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose forces have been losing ground to rebels, and press Moscow to support a political transition that could end that war, the officials said.

In addition, Kerry will make the case to Putin that Russia should not proceed with its planned transfer of an advanced air defense system to Iran.

Kerry's trip comes at a time when relations between Washington and Moscow have plummeted to post-Cold War lows amid the disagreements over Ukraine and Syria.

View gallery

U.S Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, watch as members …

In a sign of the considerable strains, the Kremlin would not confirm Kerry's meeting with Putin until just an hour before he arrived in Sochi, a full day after U.S. officials had announced it. And Russia's Foreign Ministry had previewed the talks by blaming Washington for the breakdown in relations.

Putin's spokesman welcomed Kerry's decision to travel to Russia but with a point. "We have repeatedly stated at various levels and the president has said that Russia never initiated the freeze in relations and we are always open for displays of political will for a broader dialogue," Dmitry Peskov told journalists in Sochi.

The rhetoric signaled there would be few breakthroughs if any on the many issues dividing the U.S. and Russia. Nevertheless, both sides stressed the importance of trying to work through some of the rancor that buried President Barack Obama's first-term effort to "reset" ties with Moscow.

Kerry began his short visit to Sochi by laying a wreath at a World War II memorial with Lavrov, with whom Kerry has had a warm personal relationship despite tensions over policy.

At a working lunch, Lavrov presented Kerry with tomatoes and potatoes that were "distant" descendants of the two Idaho potatoes that Kerry gave him last year, a spokeswoman for Lavrov said. For his part, Kerry "presented the Russian side with a list of quotations from the Russian media that in his view don't reflect the real potential of broad Russian-American relations, which he is convinced need to be improved," spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Facebook page.

View gallery

A Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel fighter fires his weapon towards forces loyal to Syria's …

Improving ties, however, hinges largely on violence decreasing in Ukraine, however.

The Western-backed government in Kiev continues to be embroiled in a sporadic conflict between government and separatist rebel forces despite a cease-fire agreement sealed in mid-February. Russia was party to that deal; although the U.S. was not, one State Department official said it is important for Putin "to hear directly from the United States that we are firmly committed to (its) implementation."

Western nations say Russia supports the separatists with arms and manpower, and even directs some battlefield operations — all claims Moscow denies. In return, the Russians bristle at Washington's provisions to Ukraine of military assistance in the form of hardware and training.

Diplomats in Moscow and Washington are also at odds over an announcement last month that Russia would lift a five-year ban on delivery of an air defense missile system to Iran, drawing a hasty rebuke from the United States.

The White House said the missile system would give the Islamic republic's military a strong deterrent against any air attack. The Kremlin argues that the S-300 is a purely defensive system that won't jeopardize the security of Israel or any other countries in the Middle East.

On Syria, Russia has defied a chorus of international condemnation to remain allied with Assad.