Muslims sue over New York police surveillance
By Kristina Sgueglia, CNN
(CNN) – New Jersey Muslims filed a lawsuit against the City of New York on Wednesday, accusing police of using unconstitutional tactics to spy on them in the years after September 11, casting an unwarranted shadow of suspicion on the community.
"The NYPD's program targeted innocent Americans solely based on their religious identity," said Farhana Khera, president and executive director of the legal advocacy group Muslim Advocates, which filed the suit on behalf of the eight plaintiffs.
"That's why we believe it is unlawful and needs to stop," Khera said.
Muslim Advocates says it wants an end to the department's "invasive and discriminatory" surveillance program, which it claims targeted at least 20 mosques, 14 restaurants, 11 retail stores, two grade schools and two Muslim student associations throughout New Jersey. The group also wants all related records from the covert program expunged, according to the complaint.
CNN poll: Americans' attitudes toward gay community changing
Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans say they support legally recognizing same-sex marriage amid growing evidence that the public's become more comfortable with gays and lesbians, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/ORC International survey released Wednesday also indicates that the number of Americans who say they have a close friend or family member who is gay has jumped from 49% in 2010 to 60% today, the first time in CNN polling that a majority of Americans have said that. In the 1990s, most Americans said they did not know anyone close to them who was gay.
L.A. County Board to vote on repealing support of WWII Japanese internment
By Michael Martinez, CNN
Los Angeles (CNN) - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote Wednesday on repealing a resolution made seven decades ago supporting the internment of Japanese Americans shortly after Japan's Pearl Harbor attacks, which led the United States to enter World War II.
"Seventy years ago, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted itself onto the wrong side of history," Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas said in a statement in which he announced he'll introduce the motion Wednesday to repeal the board's action.
The board voted unanimously to endorse President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 in February 1942 that put 120,000 Japanese Americans, about a third from Los Angeles County, in internment camps for up to three years, Ridley-Thomas said.
The board said it was difficult "if not impossible to distinguish between loyal and disloyal Japanese aliens."
Ridley-Thomas said his motion "will seek to address a historic wrong."
Gay former NFL player Wade Davis: 'I became a great actor'
Wade Davis didn't come out as gay while he was playing in the NFL - "I became a great actor," he said - but "if I had to do it all over again, I would come out."
Davis recently told the story of his double-life to OutSports.com, and said he now realizes the positive impact an openly gay athlete could have on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. In his job now, he works with LGBT kids, he told Soledad O'Brien on CNN's "Starting Point" - and it's the best job he's ever had.
About In America
What defines you? Maybe it’s the shade of your skin, the place you grew up, the accent in your words, the make up of your family, the gender you were born with, the intimate relationships you chose to have or your generation? As the American identity changes we will be there to report it. In America is a venue for creative and timely sharing of news that explores who we are. Reach us at inamerica@cnn.com.
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