Psycho Stapleton: Extraordinary name given to court by man accused of shooting dead Indian student

'I'm Psycho... Psycho Stapleton: Extraordinary name given to court by man accused of shooting dead Indian student

* Kiaran Stapleton, 20, from Salford, is charged with murder
* Anuj Bidve was shot dead at point-blank range on Boxing Day



The man accused of gunning down Indian student Anuj Bidve on Boxing Day gave his name as 'Psycho Stapleton' when he appeared in court today charged with murder.

Kiaran Stapleton, 20, from Ordsall, Salford, was remanded in custody for 24 hours at City of Manchester Magistrates' Court.

A scrum of TV cameramen and photographers crowded the prison van carrying Stapleton as it arrived at court, while inside the courtroom was packed with reporters.

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Anuj Bidve, 23, was shot at close range in the Ordsall district of Salford, Greater Manchester on Boxing Day

Neo-Nazi murders, film confession shock Germany

People attend a vigil for the victims of racist violence at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, November 13, 2011.



Germany’s Interior Minister warned yesterday of a “new form of far-right terrorism” as details emerged of a grotesque film left by members of a neo-Nazi cell in eastern Germany, in which they claimed the murder of nine immigrants between 2000 and 2006.

Prosecutors said police had arrested a suspected accomplice of the group, which referred to itself in the film as the “Nationalist Socialist Underground,” and which is also thought to be behind the murder of a policewoman in 2007 and a bomb attack on a Turkish area of Cologne in 2004.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the murders were shameful for Germany.

Cameron: Multiculturalism has failed in Britain

State multiculturalism has failed and left young Muslims vulnerable to radicalisation, Prime Minister David Cameron will say today, arguing for a more active policy to heal divisions and promote Western values.

Cameron, in a speech to a security conference in Munich, will argue that Britain and other European nations need to “wake up to what is happening in our countries” as well as tackling terrorism through military operations overseas.

“It is time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past,” he will say, according to extracts from his speech released by his office.

“So first, instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we — as governments and societies — have got to confront it, in all its forms.”


His comments echo those made by German leader Angela Merkel last year and reflect a push by European governments to better integrate immigrants, given persistent domestic tensions between different cultures.

Conservative leader Cameron (picture) will also deny that cuts to defence spending as part of efforts to tackle a record budget deficit mean that Britain was retreating from an “activist” global role.

“That is the complete reversal of the truth,” he will say. “Yes, we are dealing with the deficit, but we are also making sure our defences are strong.”

Aides say his comments on multiculturalism and radicalisation give a direction of travel for future policy, and it remains unclear how the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition intend to turn his vision into a reality.

Critics point out that Western foreign policy in the Middle East and beyond, not just a clash of cultures at home, has played a big part in stirring up anti-Western sentiment.

“Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream,” Cameron will say.

“We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong ... All this leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless.”

Some members of Cameron’s centre-right Conservative party, activists in right-wing movements and some voters believe that Britain has become a safe haven for people with anti-Western political views.

Others argue this tolerant approach is the lifeblood of any open and thriving democracy, fearing a crackdown on civil liberties would undermine the kind of society the government was seeking to establish.

Cameron said it was time to replace Britain’s “passive tolerance” with an “active, muscular liberalism” to send a message that life in Britain revolves around certain key values such as freedom of speech, equal rights and the rule of law.

“A passively tolerant society ... stands neutral between different values,” he will say. “A genuinely liberal country does much more. It believes in certain values and actively promotes them.”

Multiculturalism in Germany had been a "total failure.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined her country's increasingly acrimonious debate about immigration over the weekend, declaring that multiculturalism in Germany had been a "total failure.

'America today begins to turn back to God,' Glenn Beck tells 100,000 at Tea Party rally at site of iconic Martin Luther King 'I Have a Dream' speech

One of the most controversial and outspoken figures of America's Right is under fire today for holding a rally in the exact spot where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr made his stirring 'I Have a Dream' speech - on the anniversary of the iconic event.

Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, infamous in the U.S. for his attacks on Barack Obama, insisted today that it was just a coincidence that his 'Restoring Honor' rally was being held on the 47th anniversary of Dr King's speech.

But he drew the ire of civil rights leaders, including the Reverend Al Sharpton, as up to 100,000 conservative members of the Tea Party movement - including Sarah Palin - descended on Washington, DC today.


'For too long, this country has wandered in darkness': Fox News commentator Glenn Beck at a Tea Party rally to pay respect to America's troops in Washington, DC today

Beck, pacing back and forth on the marble steps, said he was humbled by the size of the crowd, which stretched along the Washington Mall's long reflecting pool nearly all the way to the Washington Monument.

'Something beyond imagination is happening,' he said. 'America today begins to turn back to God.

'For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,' he added.

He was joined on stage by Sarah Palin, a conservative favourite and potential 2012 presidential candidate.

Neither Beck nor Palin made overtly political comments. Beck is known for his extreme views and statements. He has described Mr Obama, the first black U.S. president, as a racist.

Palin, greeted by chants of 'USA, USA, USA' from many in the crowd, told the gathering, 'It is so humbling to get to be here with you today, patriots. You who are motivated and engaged ... and knowing never to retreat.'

Palin likened the rally participants to the civil rights activists who came to the National Mall to hear King's historic speech, which came at a crucial moment in the civil rights struggle.

She said the same spirit that helped civil rights activists overcome oppression, discrimination and violence would help this group as well.

'We are worried about what we face. Sometimes, our challenges seem insurmountable,' Palin said. 'Look around you. You're not alone.'

The crowd - organizers had a permit for 300,000 - was vast, with people standing shoulder to shoulder across large expanses of the Mall.

The National Park Service stopped doing crowd counts in 1997 after the agency was accused of underestimating numbers for the 1995 Million Man March.

Civil rights leaders protested the event and scheduled a 3-mile plus march from a high school to the site of a planned King memorial near the Tidal Basin and not far from Beck's gathering.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington's delegate to Congress, said she remembers being at King's march on Washington, which she said prompted change and ended segregation in public places.

'Glenn Beck's march will change nothing. But you can't blame Glenn Beck for his March-on-Washington envy,' she said.

Beck has said he did not intend to choose the King anniversary for his rally but had since decided it was 'divine providence'.

Beck and other organizers say the aim is to pay tribute to America's military personnel and others 'who embody our nation's founding principles of integrity, truth and honour'.

In a taped presentation mixed in with his live remarks, Beck invoked King's message and said 'the fight for freedom was not easy'.

He repeatedly injected religion into the event and urged rally participants to rely on faith to help the U.S. recover from an economic recession that has given the country stubbornly high unemployment

'Faith is in short supply,' Beck said. 'To restore America, we must restore ourselves.'
Two months before nationwide Congressional elections, which could cost President Barack Obama's Democrats their majority in the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate as well, Beck's rally becomes only the latest symptom of rampant political partisanship that is splitting the country and drowning out voices of moderation.

Beck has given voice to those angry and frustrated with Obama and other Democrats this election year, especially members of the tea party movement - a loose knit coalition of conservative and libertarian activists who oppose taxes and what they perceive as government intrusion in their lives.

Many in the crowd watched the proceedings on large television screens. On the edges of the Mall, vendors sold 'Don't Tread on Me' flags, popular with tea party activists.

Other activists distributed fliers urging voters 'dump Obama'. The pamphlet included a picture of the president with a Hitler-style moustache.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, leading the civil rights march and rally, mocked the Beck production.

'The folks who used to criticize us for marching are trying to have a march themselves,' he said.

'We come because the dream has not been achieved. We've made a lot of progress. But we still have a long way to go.'

He said he wasn't seeking a confrontation with those at the Beck rally.

'We wouldn't disgrace today by allowing you to provoke us,' he said in remarks directed at the Beck followers.

'If people start heckling, smile at them,' he told fellow marchers.

People began filling up the space between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument early in the day, many waving American flags.

Beck's own Fox News colleague, Greta Van Susteren, said he should move his event. She said he should do it for sensitivity reasons, much as both she and Beck argue that an Islamic Center should not be built near the site of the World Trade Center, where terrorists struck in 2001.

'It does not help the country on so many fronts if we poke a stick in eyes,' Van Susteren wrote on her blog.


Historic? U.S. Tea Party activists and other conservatives gather on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall for the rally today

Iconic moment: Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' address in 1963 is seen as a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. The powerful speech, one of the most celebrated in American oratory, imagined a day when the country would be free of racial discrimination

Tea Party darling: Excited conservatives take pictures of Sarah Palin as she speaks at the rally today

Time to wake up: Civil rights leaders compare Dr King to Mr Beck as they also gather on the National Mall today to commemorate his historic fight for equality

Flashpoint: Two Tea Partiers hold a flag commemorating the 9/11 attacks at the rally today

Protest: Reverend Al Sharpton (centre) has strongly criticised Glenn Beck's aims to 'reclaim the civil rights movement'

French cabinet backs ban on full face coverings

Only a tiny percentage of French Muslim women wear the veil

The French cabinet has approved a bill making it illegal to wear in public clothes designed to hide the face.

The legislation amounts to a ban on the full-face Muslim veil.Women wearing the veil in public could be fined, and men judged to have forced them to do so could be imprisoned.

Parliament needs to approve the bill and France's top legal advisory body has warned it may be unenforcable.

Parliament passed a non-binding resolution last week condemning the full Islamic face veil as "an affront to the nation's values of dignity and equality".



A law against conspicuous religious symbols effectively banned headscarves from state primary and secondary schools in 2004.
Belgian move

The proposed ban has sparked intense debate about religious freedom in a secular society, and the position of Muslims in France.

The bill puts France on course to become the second European country after Belgium to declare the wearing of such veils illegal in public places.

Opponents of the ban say it could alienate and stigmatise France's large Muslim minority.

The country's highest administrative body - the State Council - suggested it may violate the French constitution as well as the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.

But it added that rules requiring faces to be uncovered in public places could be justified for security reasons and to combat fraud.

There are several types of headscarves and veils for Muslim women - those that cover the face being the niqab and the burka. In France, the niqab is the version most commonly worn.

The interior ministry says only 1,900 women wear full-face veils in France, out of a Muslim population of more than five million.

Nigeria: Army Ordered to Quell Sectarian Clashes -Religious gang war leaves hundreds dead

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the army on Thursday to take over security in the central city of Jos to prevent further clashes between Christians and Muslims, which killed more than 460 people this week. Mr. Jonathan, left, has been empowered by a federal court to perform executive duties in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who has been in a hospital in Saudi Arabia for two months. “Let me assure all that the federal government is on top of the situation and that the crisis is being brought under control,” Mr. Jonathan said in a televised address.

Massacre: violent clashes have forced about 17,000 people to flee their homes

Mass funerals are underway in the central Nigerian city of Jos after days of fighting between Christian and Muslim gangs left hundreds of people dead.

Human rights groups estimate at least 450 people have been killed in the violence and many of the dead have been taken to mosques and churches for burial.

At one mosque alone, more than 200 bodies have been left for burial, while dozens of others have been taken to churches.

Fighting between the groups of youths began last weekend and quickly escalated into a massacre.

It is unclear what sparked the clashes, which also forced about 17,000 people to flee their homes.

The city of Jos lies in Nigeria's Middle Belt where the mainly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south and has been a flashpoint for Nigeria's religious differences for the past decade.

Hundreds of people have been killed in similar clashes in the past decade.
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Authorities in the central Nigerian city of Jos claim clashes between Christian and Muslim gangs have killed around 150 people.

Gangs of Christian and Muslim youths have been roaming the streets of Jos since the weekend seemingly intent on killing.

The fighting erupted when Christian youths began protesting about the construction of a mosque in a predominantly Christian area.

Houses and cars were set alight before the gangs began shooting at each other.
Victims of the fighting have been taken to the main mosque and workers there claim more than 150 people have been killed while more than 800 have been wounded.

Authorities fear the violence may spread and have imposed a 24-hour curfew on the city's residents.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Nigeria, Robin Waudo, says his workers in Jos have told him they are trapped indoors by the renewed fighting.

"What you have now is those people fighting still on the streets even with the curfew right now," he said.
"The main road into the city has been isolated now because of the fighting, so even our team that was leaving from Abuja this morning is not able to get into the city."

Nigeria has sent more troops to the troubled city of Jos as clashes between Muslim and Christian mobs, that have left about 300 people dead, spread to new districts.

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan ordered extra soldiers to Jos to clamp down on the violence as authorities enforced a 24-hour curfew.

The unrest erupted on Sunday over plans to build a mosque in a mainly Christian district of the city, which has riven by sectarian tensions for many years.

Mobs have set fire to buildings while many of the dead had been shot. Muslim leaders said about 200 bodies had been taken to the central mosque in Jos.

Several hundred have been reported wounded and casualties have filled hospitals. Some clinics were reportedly running out of medical supplies.
Residents said the fighting spread during the night to areas on the fringes of Jos, capital of Plateau State.
Idris Sarki, who fled into Jos from the nearby town of Kuru Karama, said attacks are still going on in areas in the southern parts of the city including Kuru Karama, Bisiji, Sabongidan and Kanar.
"The area I came from has been sacked. All residents like me who are fortunate have left, but many, many have been killed," he said.

Other residents said they had seen the army reinforcements on the streets.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) lobby group said more than 13,500 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes since the end of military rule in 1999 in the west African country.

Syringe attacks spark new protest in XinJiang Chinese city

Chinese residents argue with Chinese riot police on the streets of Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang province, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. Chinese residents protested deteriorating public safety Thursday after reported syringe attacks in the city where ethnic rioting in July killed nearly 200 people.



Chinese paramilitary police watch as Chinese gather on the streets of Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang province, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. Chinese residents protested deteriorating public safety Thursday after reported syringe attacks in the city where ethnic rioting in July killed nearly 200 people.



Chinese police officers patrol near Han and Uighur children at a school in Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang province, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. Chinese residents protested deteriorating public safety Thursday after reported syringe attacks in the city where ethnic rioting in July killed nearly 200 people.


Chinese protesters push against a line of Chinese paramilitary police on the streets of Urumqi in western China's Xinjiang province, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2009. Chinese residents protested deteriorating public safety Thursday after reported syringe attacks in the city where ethnic rioting in July killed nearly 200 people



Hundreds of Chinese protested deteriorating public safety Thursday after a series of mysterious syringe attacks further unnerved residents in the western Chinese city of Urumqi where ethnic rioting in July killed nearly 200 people.July's rioting -- in which ethnic Muslims set upon Hans, who then retaliated with vigilante attacks -- was the worst communal violence in a decade in Xinjiang, an often tense Central Asian frontier region with valuable oil and gas deposits.

The demonstration underscored public jitters and lingering grievances despite the city's still-high police presence. It also posed a challenge for the Beijing leadership and a propaganda drive portraying Urumqi and all of China as harmonious ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule Oct. 1.

Thursday's protest came after days of rumors that gangs were roaming the city and stabbing mostly Han people with hypodermic needles. City officials and state media confirmed the attacks, saying 21 people had been detained. A report on Xinjiang TV's newscast Thursday said 476 people had sought treatment for stabbing, though only 89 had obvious signs of being pricked.

Concerns about the stabbings may be high because Xinjiang has the highest rate of AIDS virus infections in China, with the problem fueled by needle-sharing among drug users.

Zhao, the Chinese demonstrator, said anger was stoked by a perceived delay in trials for those arrested over the July riot as well as by the syringe stabbings.

"This is communal violence and people are frustrated because over 200 people were killed and almost 1,700 were injured. And of course you have friends, relatives and children who were attacked. So the people are not happy," said Bo, the politics expert.

The mostly Han demonstrators seemingly took care not to rile ethnic grievances, calling out "Maintain ethnic unity" and venting their anger on local officials. They called for the ouster of Wang Lequan, who is the Xinjiang party secretary and an ally of President Hu Jintao.

Troubles in Xinjiang are magnified by ethnic resentments. The Uighurs, an ethnic Muslim group that sees the region as its homeland, complain about being displaced by the Han, who have poured into the area in recent years. The Han resent government affirmative action policies for official jobs and university spots given to Uighurs.

Trying to head off trouble, Wang and the Urumqi party secretary Li Zhi separately talked to the demonstrators, who called for better police protection and demanded they step down, an editor at a local newspaper said, requesting his name not be used because he works for the government.

"Am I that silly? Do I not know that I should protect my brothers and sisters?" Li told them, according to footage the editor said was aired on Urumqi's TV station.

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Prof Gates send flower to Lucia Caller of 911 cause Gates arrested..Racial tension..How is things after Beer summit in white house?

The woman who made the 911 call that led to Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates' controversial arrest wasn't present at the so-called beer summit.

Sgt. James Crowley and professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. sit down with the president and vice president Thursday.

-Lucia Whalen, who called 911 to report a possible break-in, speaks to reporters Wednesday. -



-From MSNBC: Harvard Professor Gates 911 Caller Lucia Whalen Holds Press Conference-





-Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested after a break-in was reported to police. -


-Sgt. James Crowley and professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. sit down with the president and vice president Thursday-

Sgt. James Crowley and professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. sit down with the president and vice president Thursday.

But she got a shot of kindness and a taste of gratitude from Gates himself.

Lucia Whalen received a bouquet of flowers at her office from Gates, according to Whalen's attorney, Wendy Murphy.

"She described them a as amazing, and appreciated them very much," Murphy said of the bouquet.

The attorney described the flowers as being a beautiful assortment of what she believed were different colored roses.

An officer responding to a report of a possible break-in at Gates' Cambridge, Massachusetts, home arrested the professor on July 16 for disorderly conduct. The charge was later dropped.

The arrest sparked a national debate about race and police relations.

Whalen said an older woman with no cell phone told her that she was worried someone was trying to break into the home, and decided to call 911.

Whalen never referred to black suspects when she called authorities about the suspected break-in.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama -- who had weighed in on the controversy, saying initially that police acted "stupidly" -- sat down for a beer at the White House with Gates and the officer who arrested him.

The meeting has been called the "beer summit."

After the meeting, Obama said in a statement he was thankful to Gates and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley for joining him at for "a friendly, thoughtful conversation.

"Even before we sat down for the beer, I learned that the two gentlemen spent some time together listening to one another, which is a testament to them," the president's statement said

Obama's initial comments on the incident drew criticism and later he softened his stance, saying, "I could've calibrated those words differently."

Murphy told CNN that Whalen has been receiving other apologies and accolades from people all over the world, but so far, no beer.

At the time, it seemed a throwaway pleasantry when the president ankle-deep in anger about his "acted stupidly" comment.

"My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved," President Obama said of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley in opening a July 24 press conference.

On a Cambridge, Mass., front porch on July 17, race brought out indignation and frustration. Beginning with Mr. Obama's "beer summit," however, the nation has gotten perhaps the better measure of the professor and police officer.

For a president looking for "teachable moments," it is an instructive and cautionary tale: Race can sometimes bring both the best and the worst out of "two good people."

The worst is already well known. Gates lost his temper, alleging that police suspected him of breaking into his own home because he was black. Crowley overreacted, some police say, arresting a Harvard professor with a cane on his own property.

The best began the first moment that Gates and Crowley saw each other after the charges of disorderly conduct were dropped. In a post-meeting press conference, Crowley said: "The professor and I encountered each other while we were both on individual tours of the White House, and the professor approached me and introduced his family, I introduced my family, and then we continued on with the tour, but as a group."

A photographer caught this image of Crowley helping Gates down the steps at the White House.

--

In his first public appearance since sharing a beer at the White House on Thursday with the officer and President Barack Obama, Gates said the national debate over racial profiling sparked by his arrest shows that issues of class and race still run "profoundly deep" in the United States.

Gates appeared at the festival to promote his 2009 book, "In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past." The book traces the family trees of black celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Chris Rock.

"They have not been resolved at all," he said, speaking to a crowd of more than 150 who came to see him at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival.

Gates was mostly light-hearted during his speech and even poked fun at himself after a man in the crowd told him he admired his sense of humor.

Gates was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge at his Cambridge home after police responded to a 911 call about a possible burglary.

The officer who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, said Gates became belligerent and called him a racist after he asked for identification. Gates accused police of racial profiling and called Crowley a "rogue cop."

The charge was dropped.

Obama stepped into the fray during a White House news conference when he said Cambridge police had "acted stupidly." He later said he should have chosen his words more carefully and invited the two men to the White House for a beer.

Gates said that the night before he went to the White House, he dreamed about getting arrested there.

When the two first came face to face in the White House, Gates said that both he and his family and Crowley and his family "looked like a deer caught in headlights."

He said Crowley looked "so relieved" when he shook his hand, and the two were able to find humor in the media frenzy unleashed by his arrest.

Gates said he and Crowley discussed meeting again privately — either going to lunch or taking in a Boston Red Sox or Celtics game — or having their two families go out to dinner together.

"I offered to get his kids into Harvard if he doesn't arrest me again," he said, drawing loud laughter from the audience.

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How Cambridge police stared down a president

Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, far left, listens as a multiracial group of officers and union leaders, including Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Union President Steve Killion, foreground right, hold a news conference in Cambridge, Mass. Friday, July 24, 2009 to show support for Crowley, who was the arresting officer of Harvard Prof. Lewis Gates at his home. At center is Sgt. Leon Lashley, who was with Crowley at the scene of the arrest, said later he supports "100 percent" how Crowley handled the situation.




In this photo taken by a neighbor Thursday July 16, 2009, Henry Louis Gates Jr. center, the director of Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research, is arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass. Cambridge police officers attending are, Sgt. James Crowley, right, and Sgt. Leon Lashley, front right.



President Barack Obama smiles as he talks to the media in the briefing room at the White House in Washington, Friday, July 24, 2009.




FILE - This Aug. 23, 2006 file photo shows Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., during a book signing moments before the screening of a segment of the Spike Lee documentary called "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard.


President Barack Obama pauses as he talks to the media in the briefing room at the White House in Washington, Friday, July 24, 2009.







President Barack Obama gestures as he talks to the media in the briefing room at The White House in Washington, Friday, July 24, 2009.



President Barack Obama pauses as he talks to the media in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, Friday, July 24, 2009.




Cambridge Police Sergeants James Crowley (L) and Leon Lashley stand together at a news conference with representatives of various police unions in Cambridge, Massachusetts July 24, 2009. Sergeant Lashley was on the scene last week when Sergeant Crowley arrested prominent black scholar and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. after responding to a call about a break-in at Gates' home in Cambridge.

The police union's combative press conference Friday was an example of how the profession closes ranks in times of trouble.

Mere hours after the police union of Cambridge, Mass., brazenly demanded an apology from the president of the United States, it – in essence – got it.

While President Obama's unscheduled appearance at a routine White House press conference was not an explicit apology, Mr. Obama acknowledged that he now regretted his choice of words in a Wednesday night press conference. He had said that Sgt. James Crowley "acted stupidly" for arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. on his own front porch.

Hours earlier, a multiracial group of police officers had stood with Crowley in Massachusetts and said the president should apologize.

Obama conceded his words had been ill-chosen, but he stopped short of a public apology. He personally telephoned both Gates and Sgt. James Crowley, hoping to end the rancorous back-and-forth over what had transpired and what Obama had said about it. Trying to lighten the situation, he even commiserated with Crowley about reporters on his lawn.

Knocked off stride by a racial uproar he helped stoke, President Barack Obama hastened Friday to tamp down the controversy. Obama, who had said Cambridge, Mass., police "acted stupidly" in arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., declared the white arresting officer was a good man and invited him and the professor to the White House for a beer.

t was a measure of the nation's keen sensitivities on matters of race that the fallout from a disorderly conduct charge in Massachusetts — and the remarks of America's first black president about it — had mushroomed to such an extent that he felt compelled to make a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room to try to put the matter to rest. The blowup had dominated national attention just as Obama was trying to marshal public pressure to get Congress to push through health care overhaul legislation — and as polls showed growing doubts about his performance.

"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," Obama said of the racial controversy. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."

"The fact that this has garnered so much attention, I think, is testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America," Obama said.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody's been paying much attention to health care," the president said.

There were signs both that Obama's statement had helped to ease tensions and that his critics were not about to let that be the end of it: A trio of Massachusetts police organizations issued a statement thanking the president for his "willingness to reconsider his remarks." And a Republican congressman from Michigan, Thaddeus McCotter, said he would introduce a House resolution calling on Obama to apologize to Crowley.

He said the police officer "wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn."

"I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn," Obama joked.

The case began on Monday, when word broke that Gates, 58, had been arrested five days earlier at the two-story home he rents from Harvard.

Supporters including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson called the arrest an outrageous act of racial profiling. Public interest increased when a photograph surfaced of the handcuffed Gates being escorted off his porch amid three officers, two white and one black.

Cambridge police moved to drop the disorderly conduct charge on Tuesday — without apology, but calling the case "regrettable."

Meanwhile, the police union and fellow officers, black and white, rallied around Crowley, a decorated officer who in 1993 tried to give lifesaving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Reggie Lewis, a black Boston Celtics player who collapsed at practice. Lewis could not be revived.

Crowley, 42, had been selected to be a police academy instructor on how to avoid racial profiling.

A multiracial group of officers and union officials stood with Crowley on Friday at a news conference to show support and to ask Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is black, to apologize for their comments. Patrick had called Gates' arrest "every black man's nightmare."

Obama's take on the situation: "My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in a way that it should have been resolved."

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