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Nation briefs: Palin campaigns for Georgia senator

Compiled from news dispatches

December 1, 2008

Sarah Palin was enlisted by Sen. Saxby Chambliss to rally conservatives while Democratic challenger Jim Martin pushed to activate black voters as they grappled for advantage in a Georgia runoff tomorrow. Palin, the Alaska governor who was John McCain's vice-presidential running mate, attended private fundraisers last night and was to speak at rallies across the state today. Martin campaigned with prominent Democrats, including Rep. John Lewis, as he sought to rekindle the strong African-American showing in the general election that President-elect Barack Obama sparked. Neither Chambliss nor Martin crossed the 50 percent threshold Nov. 4.

Gay is the new black, say the protest signs and magazine covers, casting the gay marriage battle as the last frontier of equal rights for all. Gay marriage is not a civil right, opponents counter, insisting that minority status comes from who you are rather than what you do. The gay rights movement entered a new era when Barack Obama was elected the first black president the same day that voters in California and Florida passed referendums to prevent gays and lesbians from marrying, while Arizonans turned down civil unions and Arkansans said no to adoptions by same-sex couples. Said Emil Wilbekin, the black gay editor of Giant magazine. "I always have this discussion with my friends: What's worse, being a black man or a black gay man?"

Leslie Owen Collier was surrounded by cattle at a livestock auction when his cell phone rang. It was the White House. Twelve years after pleading guilty to federal charges in the deaths of three bald eagles, Collier learned he'd been pardoned by President George W. Bush. Collier, 50, was one of 14 people pardoned last week. The 1995 incident for the farmer from the Charleston area of southeastern Missouri began when he noticed an increase in wild turkeys. He put out hamburger meat laced with a pesticide to kill coyotes and protect the turkeys. The problem occurred when the eagles fed on the coyotes' carcasses. They died, too. So did a red-tailed hawk and a great horned owl, all federally protected. Collier said the crime became a felony when the second eagle died.

Laura Bush said what she will miss most about being first lady are the staff and friends who surround her. "I'll miss the people the most," she said in a televised interview broadcast yesterday. She stood out in the rain yesterday to receive this year's White House Christmas tree. A horse-drawn wagon pulled the 20-foot Fraser fir, brought up from River Ridge Tree Farms in Crumpler, N.C., to the White House.