LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Having the leader of the free world there supporting the bid sends a good message."
First lady Michelle Obama,
saying she's confident the presence of her husband will enhance Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics Article, this page
Secret Service checks online poll
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Secret Service is investigating an online survey that asked whether people thought President Barack Obama should be assassinated, officials said Monday.
The poll, posted Saturday on Facebook, was taken off the popular social-networking site quickly after company officials were alerted to its existence. But, like any threat against the president, Secret Service agents are taking no chances.
"We are aware of it and we will take the appropriate investigative steps," said Darrin Blackford, a Secret Service spokesman. "We take these things seriously."
The poll asked respondents, "Should Obama be killed?" The choices: No,Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.
The question was created not by Facebook but by an independent person using an add-on application that has been suspended from the site.
Clinton presses Armenia, Turkey
NEW YORK - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday pressed Armenia and Turkey to follow through on their commitment to normalize relations after decades of hostility.
In separate meetings on the sidelines of the U.N.
General Assembly, Clinton told the foreign ministers of the two countries that they should proceed apace and not get bogged down by political opposition to a deal, which they hope to seal by mid-October.
Normalization "should take place without preconditions and within a reasonable time frame," Clinton said as she met Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian.
She later delivered a similar message to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, U.S. officials said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Sunday that Turkey and Armenia would sign a deal to establish diplomatic ties on Oct. 10.
But the agreement must be approved by the countries' parliaments to take effect.
4 teens charged in beating death
CHICAGO - Four teenagers were charged Monday in the beating death of a 16-year-old Chicago honors student on his way home from school, a melee captured on a cell phone video that shows a group striking him with boards and kicking him as he lay on a sidewalk.
Derrion Albert, a sophomore at Christian Fenger Academy High School, was attacked around 3 p.m.
Thursday in the south Chicago neighborhood of Roseland, where he was walking to a bus stop, authorities said.
The violence stemmed from a shooting early Thursday morning involving two groups of students from different neighborhoods, said Tandra Simonton, a spokesman for the Cook County prosecutor's office. When school ended, members of the two groups began fighting. Albert was a bystander and not part of either group,she said.
Prosecutors charged Silvonus Shannon, 19, Eugene Riley, 18, Eugene Bailey, 18, and Eric Carson, 16, with first-degree murder, and they were ordered held without bail Monday, Simonton said.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 09/29/2009