NYPD to up presence after bias killing of gay man

Pedestrians pass a makeshift memorial for 32-year-old Mark Carson, Monday, May 20, 2013, in New York. Police said Elliot Morales yelled anti-gay slurs before shooting Carson point-blank in the face in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood long known as a bedrock of the gay rights movement. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

NEW YORK (AP) — A spate of attacks on gay men in New York, including a killing in the heart of one of its most gay-friendly neighborhoods, is stirring up anxiety, disbelief and outrage heading into what is usually a time of celebration.

In the wake of last weekend's deadly shooting on a street in Greenwich Village, officials said Monday that police would increase their presence there and in nearby neighborhoods through the end of June,gay pride month.

A group that combats anti-gay violence planned to fan out to various areas on Friday nights through June to talk to people about safety. And public schools are being asked to hold assemblies or other discussions of hate crimes and bullying, before summer break.

City officials, gay-rights advocates and others were marching to the shooting scene Monday evening to denounce a rise in hate crime reports in a city that generally sees itself as a capital of diversity and tolerance.

"I don't know why it feels like we have taken a step backward, but that is the case, and what we're going to do with that is push forward," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the first openly gay person to hold the post.

Officials and advocates can't pinpoint a reason for the recent rash of attacks, or even whether it reflects more violence or more reporting of it. Police called the killing of Mark Carson early Saturday a hate crime.

In announcing plans for additional police attention, Quinn said she thought anti-gay crime "got to a level of violence I thought was behind us."

The city and especially the Village have long been seen as beacons for gay people. The gay rights movement crystallized in the Village in June 1969, when a police raid at theStonewall Inn touched off a riot and demonstrations that came to symbolize gays' resistance to being relegated to society's shadows.

Yet gay-bashing has continued to flare up in New York at times in recent years. In one particularly sinister case, three men connected with a 28-year-old man online in 2006, lured him to a rest stop off a Brooklyn highway with a promise of a date and mugged him, chasing him into traffic; he was hit and killed.

In 2010, authorities said Bronx gang members beat and tortured four people in an anti-gay rage, two men were accused of a gay-bashing beating at the Stonewall Inn itself and a man spewed homophobic insults while throwing a punch at another Village bar — all assaults that happened within little more than a week.

Police say there has been a rise in bias-related crimes overall so far this year, to 22 from 13 during the same period last year. The New York City Anti-Violence Project, a nonprofit group that tracks police and other reports of hate attacks against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, says its numbers rose 13 percent in 2011 and 11 percent the previous year. The 2012 figures were not yet available.

Advocates see the incidents in the context of a culture that has grown more accepting of gays in some ways — 12 states have now legalized gay marriage — but doesn't universally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation; some jurisdictions do, but others don't.

"We have to ground this in the fact that, first, LGBT people still are without full equality in this country," said Sharon Stapel, the Anti-Violence Project's executive director.

Carson, 32, was followed and taunted before being shot in the face on a street blocks from the Stonewall Inn early Saturday, police said. Carson had been walking with a companion. Suspect Elliot Morales is being held without bail on charges in Carson's death. He hasn't yet entered a plea, and his lawyer didn't immediately return a call Monday.

The shooting came after other attacks fueled by anti-gay animus in recent weeks, authorities say. Those include a report last month of a man making anti-gay remarks and attacking a woman with a ketchup bottle at a Village diner; a man told police he and a friend were victims of a gay bashingoutside a subway station in Midtown Manhattan this month; and two men walking arm-in-arm near Madison Square Garden report being jumped by a group of men on May 5, police said.

"This happened in Midtown, during the day, with a ton of people around," one of the victims, Nick Porto, wrote in a Facebook posting. "... When are we safe?"

It's a question the Anti-Violence Project hopes to help answer by sending staffers and volunteers out to various neighborhoods on Friday nights, starting this week, to engage gay people and others in conversation. The message: Stay safe, but also stay proud.

"We want to give people tools that can de-escalate situations but also say, 'You need to be yourself,'" Stapel said. "We're not telling people, 'Take your rainbow sticker off.'"

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Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Thousands march in NY to protest gay man's killing

People gather around a makeshift memorial for 32-year-old Mark Carson, Monday, May 20, 2013, in New York. Police said Elliot Morales yelled anti-gay slurs before shooting Carson point-blank in the face in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood long known as a bedrock of the gay rights movement. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands marched the streets of Manhattan Monday to protest the killing of a gay man allegedly taunted with homophobic slurs — the most recent in a spate of bias attacks stirring up anxiety, disbelief and outrage in a famously gay-friendly neighborhood.

"We're here! We're queer!" and "Homophobia's got to go!" were among chants as a crowd marked the death of 32-year-old Mark Carson in Greenwich Village — not far from the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to the gay rights movement.

Christine Quinn, the city's first openly gay City Council speaker, marched along with Edie Windsor, whose pivotal case to win the same rights for gay couples as heterosexual couples is before the Supreme Court.

Carson was killed Saturday as he walked with a companion throughthe Village. Police say a man charged with murder as a hate crime shot Carson in the head in the heart of one of the city's most progressive neighborhoods.

In the wake of the deadly shooting, officials said Monday that police would increase their presence there and in nearby neighborhoods through the end of June, Gay Pride Month.

A group that combats anti-gay violence planned to fan out to various areas on Friday nights through June to talk to people about safety. And public schools are being asked to hold assemblies or other discussions of hate crimes and bullying before summer break.

City officials, gay-rights advocates and others joined the march Monday evening to denounce a rise in hate crime reports in a city that generally sees itself as a capital of diversity and tolerance.

One of Carson's aunts, Flourine Bompars, was among the marchers.

"The family would like to have justice be served, so that Mark's death is not in vain," she said at a rally at the march's end. She described her nephew as "a loving and caring person."

Fabio Cotza, a gay member of an interfaith Bronx church, said the killing "really makes me scared ... especially since it happened in this area."

He said he looked around cautiously when he got off the subway train to march.

"You feel like you're making headway and then it seems like there's a backlash," he said.

The city and especially the Village have long been beacons for gay people. The gay rights movement crystallized in the Village in June 1969, when a police raid at the Stonewall Inn touched off a riot and demonstrations that came to symbolize gays' resistance to being relegated to society's shadows.

Yet gay-bashing has continued to flare up in New York at times in recent years. In one particularly sinister case, three men connected with a 28-year-old man online in 2006, lured him to a rest stop off a Brooklyn highway with a promise of a date and mugged him, chasing him into traffic; he was hit and killed.

In 2010, authorities said Bronx gang members beat and tortured four people in an anti-gay rage, two men were accused of a gay-bashing beating at the Stonewall Inn itself and a man spewed homophobic insults while throwing a punch at another Village bar — all assaults that happened within little more than a week.

Police say there has been a rise in bias-related crimes overall so far this year, to 22 from 13 during the same period last year. The New York City Anti-Violence Project, a nonprofit group that tracks police and other reports of hate attacks against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, says its numbers rose 13 percent in 2011 and 11 percent the previous year.

But officials and advocates can't pinpoint a reason for the recent rash of attacks or even whether it reflects more violence or more aggressive reporting of incidents.

Advocates see such attacks in the context of a culture that has grown more accepting of gays in some ways - 12 states have now legalized gay marriage - but doesn't universally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

"We have to ground this in the fact that, first, LGBT people still are without full equality in this country," said Sharon Stapel, the Anti-Violence Project's executive director.

Carson was walking with a companion when he was followed and taunted before being shot in the face on a street blocks from the Stonewall Inn early Saturday, police said.

Elliot Morales is being held without bail in Carson's death. He hasn't yet entered a plea, and his lawyer didn't immediately return a call Monday.

The shooting came after other attacks fueled by anti-gay animus in recent weeks, authorities say. Those include a report last month of a man making anti-gay remarks and attacking a woman with a ketchup bottle at a Village diner; a man told police he and a friend were victims of a gay bashingoutside a subway station in Midtown Manhattan this month; and two men walking arm-in-arm near Madison Square Garden report being jumped by a group of men on May 5, police said.

"This happened in Midtown, during the day, with a ton of people around," one of the victims, Nick Porto, wrote in a Facebook posting. "... When are we safe?"

It's a question the Anti-Violence Project hopes to help answer by sending staffers and volunteers out to various neighborhoods on Friday nights, starting this week, to engage gay people and others in conversation. The message: Stay safe, but also stay proud.

"We want to give people tools that can de-escalate situations but also say, 'You need to be yourself,'" Stapel said. "We're not telling people, 'Take your rainbow sticker off.'"

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Woman on Trump: 'Somebody had to stand up to him'

87-year-old woman tells jurors, 'Somebody had to stand up to' Donald Trump

Associated Press -

FILE - In this May 14, 2013 file photo, Donald Trump arrives at federal court n Chicago to testify at a civil trial where he's accused of enticing investors to buy condos at his Chicago skyscraper with promises of profit-sharing, then quietly reneging on them. On Monday, May 20, 2013, Jacqueline Goldberg, 87, who alleges Trump cheated her in a bait-and-switch scheme has told jurors she had qualms about suing the developer-turned-TV star given his power and influence. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)

CHICAGO (AP) -- An 87-year-old woman who alleges Donald Trump cheated her in a skyscraper-condo sale told jurors Monday she had qualms about suing the real estate mogul and TV celebrity. But, she quickly added, "Somebody had to stand up to him."

Jacqueline Goldberg's comment came during her second and final day on the stand at a civil trial examining her claim that Trump perpetrated a bait-and-switch as she bought properties at the glitzyTrump International Hotel & Tower in downtown Chicago.

The case pits the grandmotherly Goldberg against a New Yorker who revels in his image as a big talker with big ideas. Trump fosters his no-nonsense persona in the catch phrase he uses to boot contestants off his "Apprentice" TV show — "You're fired!"

A defiant, often agitated Trump testified for two days last week and took verbal swipes at Goldberg in comments to reporters outside the courtroom in Chicago. He asserted that he, not Goldberg, is the victim, saying, "She's trying to rip me off."

On the stand Monday, Goldberg said Trump wooed her into buying two condos for about $1 million apiece in the mid-2000s by dangling a promise to share profits in the 92-story building — only to snatch that offer away after she committed to buy.

"I felt like I have been conned," she told jurors.

When she learned in 2008 that the profit-sharing was no longer part of the overall deal she thought she had bought into, Goldberg said she was dismayed.

"I didn't want to be in business with someone who would cheat me," she said. "How could I know he wouldn't do it again?"

Goldberg is seeking the return of a $500,000 deposit and other damages, including profit she says she would have reaped had Trump stuck to his offer.

During her first day on the stand Friday, Goldberg told jurors it was Trump's star power and perceived business acumen that initially drew her toward investing with him. But it was the profit-sharing proposal that, for her, sealed the deal, she said.

In his testimony, though, Trump balked at the idea Goldberg didn't know what she had gotten into. He told jurors a provision in a purchasing contract she signed gave Trump the right to cancel the profit-sharing offer and that she bought the condos anyway.

"And then she sued me," he boomed, raising his arms. "It's unbelievable!"

Testimony at the week-old trial was expected to wrap up Tuesday, after which lawyers would deliver their closings before jurors began deliberations.

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Follow Michael Tarm at http://www.twitter.com/mtarm

Wave of attacks kills at least 57 in Iraq

Associated Press/ Nabil al-Jurani - Iraqi security force members inspect the site of a car bomb attack in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)

Civilians react at the site of a car bomb attack in front of a crowded popular restaurant in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)

Iraqi security force members and civilians gather at the site of a car bomb attack in front of a crowded popular restaurant in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)

BAGHDAD (AP) — A string of car bombs and shootings killed at least 57 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, escalating fears of a return to widespread sectarian bloodletting in the country.

The attacks, some of which hit market places and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, pushed the death toll in Iraqsince Wednesday to more than 200. The bloodshed over the past week has been reminiscent of the retaliatory attacks betweenSunnis and Shiites that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006-2007.

Tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. The mass demonstrations, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.

Iraq's Shiite majority, which was oppressed under Saddam Hussein, now controls the levers of power in the country. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.

But the renewed violence in both Shiite and Sunni areas since late last month has fueled concerns of a return to sectarian warfare.

The worst of Monday's violence took place in Baghdad, where nine car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 33 people and wounding nearly 130, police officials said.

The surge in bloodshed has exasperated Iraqis, who have lived for years with the fear and uncertainty bred of random violence.

"How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?" asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim. "Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before."

"We're fed up with them and we can't tolerate this anymore," he added.

The predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq was also hit Monday, with two car bombs there — one outside a restaurant and another at the city's main bus station — killing at least 13 and wounded 40, according to provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul-Karim al-Zaidi and the head of city's health directorate, Riadh Abdul-Amir.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but such large-scale bombings bear the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The violence also struck Sunni areas, hitting the city of Samarra north of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold.

A parked car bomb in Samarra went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni militia who were waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13, while in Anbar gunmen ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight policemen, police and army officials said.

Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 dead bodies in a remote desert area, officials said. The bodies, which included eight policemen who were kidnapped by gunmen on Friday, had been killed with a gunshot to the head.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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Associated Press writer Nabil Al-Jurani in Basra contributed to this report.

US names envoy to combat anti-Semitism, warns of rising incidents

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday appointed a special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism as a new State Department report warned about incidents in Venezuela, Egyptand Iran.

Secretary of State John Kerry named Ira Forman, a long time director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, as special envoy citing a "troubling trend" of anti-Semitism around the world. Forman succeeds Hannah Rosenthal, who stepped down last year.

The 2012 report on religious freedom said an increase worldwide in anti-Semitism was "of great concern."

"When political leaders condoned anti-Semitism, it set the tone for its persistence and growth in countries around the world," the report said. "Of great concern were expressions of anti-Semitism by government officials, by religious leaders and by the media, particularly in Venezuela, Egypt and Iran. At times, such statements led to desecration and violence."

In Venezuela, the report said state-controlled media published numerous anti-Semitic statements, in particular aimed at opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, a devout Catholic who has Jewish ancestors.

Capriles was narrowly defeated by President Nicolas Maduro in the April 19 vote and is contesting the result in the nation's top court. Capriles' maternal grandparents, the Radonskis, fled anti-Semitism in Poland.

The report said anti-Semitic sentiment in the media was widespread and cited anti-Semitic comments by Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi and officials from the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Iran, the government regularly vilified Judaism, the report said. It said vandals desecrated several Holocaust memorials in Ukraine, and in May vandals painted swastika on a St Petersburg synagogue's fence and on a synagogue in Irkutsk, Russia.

In addition, the report also singled out China, North Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia and Syria for undermining or attacking religious freedom. Criticism against Myanmar, also known as Burma, comes as its President Thein Sein visits Washington.

Kerry said the annual report was an attempt to make progress in the fight for more religious freedom around the world "even though we know that it may cause some discomfort".

"When countries undermine or attack religious freedom, they not only unjustly threaten those whom they target; they also threaten their country's own stability," he added.