Amber Alert for Chicago IL...Julian King

MySpace.com: "Missing From:
This is Jennifer Hudson's Nephew...help find this kid!!!

7019 S Yale, Chicago, IL
Missing Date:10/24/2008 12:00 AM


Contact:Chicago Police Department
911


Circumstances:The Chicago Police Department have a confirmed child abduction that occurred at 7019 S Yale, Chicago, IL. Julian King is a male black, 7 years old, 4 feet 11 inches, 130 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes, wearing a brown polo shirt with stripes and khaki pants. Suspect vehicle is a white 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, Illinois registration, X584859. Anyone with information should call 9-1-1 and advise they have an Amber Alert report. This concludes this Amber Alert issued by the Illinois State Police.



Missing Child Name: Julian King
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Skin Color: Black
Age: 7YO
Height: 4FT11
Weight: 130LBS
Gender: Male
Description: Wearing a brown polo shirt with stripes and khaki pants




SuspectName: Unknown Unknown


Vehicle Information
Make: Chevrolet
Model: Suburban
Color: White
License State: IL
License Text: X584859"

Battles in Lake Co. Indiana may decide Indiana race

Battles in Lake Co. may decide Indiana race
By TOM COYNE, Associated Press Writer Tom Coyne, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 25 mins ago

CROWN POINT, Ind. – An Indiana county still recovering from a primary night black eye is embroiled in a new election-year drama that could determine whether Democrats win Indiana's presidential contest for the first time in more than four decades.

Weeks after questions arose over suspect voter registrations, a Republican lawsuit seeks to close early voting sites in three heavily Democratic Lake County cities: Gary, East Chicago and Hammond. Democrats say the GOP is trying to suppress minority voting. Four judges have already weighed in on the case, which is headed to the state's Court of Appeals.

The flaps have cast renewed suspicion over the heavily Democratic county that former Attorney General Robert Kennedy once called one of the nation's most corrupt.

"The amount of political corruption that takes place in this county is amazing, for a lack of a better word," said Marie Eisenstein, an assistant professor of political science at Indiana University Northwest in Gary. "There's a lot of it, so people have a right to be suspicious."

Local election officials are scrambling to assure voters that they aren't engaged in familiar political shenanigans in a gritty area dominated by steel mills and oil refineries along Lake Michigan.

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay accuses Republicans of using scare tactics by raising the specter of voter fraud in an attempt to make it harder for people in the county's northern communities — many with large minority populations — to cast ballots.

"That is a smoke screen by the Republican Party to slow down, stop and disenfranchise people in Gary, Indiana, and the north end of the county," said Clay, the county's Democratic Party chairman.

Barack Obama needs a strong showing in Lake County if he is to win the state, which no Democratic presidential candidate has done since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Indiana's second-largest county is friendly territory for the senator from neighboring Illinois. It has gone for the Republican presidential candidate only once since 1960 — Richard Nixon in 1972 — and its population is Indiana's most diverse, at 26 percent black and 14 percent Hispanic. The city of Gary, which overwhelmingly supported Obama in the primary, is 85 percent black.

Many polls show the race between Obama and Republican John McCain is a tossup in Indiana.

The pre-election squabbling is "embarrassing to me and embarrassing to the county," said Terry Stanton, 25, a financial analyst from Hobart.

Memories are still fresh of the late vote tallies that delayed results of the May primary. Clay and Democratic Mayor Thomas McDermott of Hammond sniped at each other in late-night appearances on CNN, and the nation waited well past midnight to learn that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had defeated Obama.

In 2003, the state Supreme Court threw out an East Chicago mayoral primary because people were paid to cast absentee ballots. In 1999, millions in city money was spent paving East Chicago sidewalks and driveways to curry favor with voters in the mayoral primary.

Clay insists that's in the past.

"This is the first time in a long time that Indiana's become a battleground state in the presidential election and Lake County is in the battle," he said.

Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita said some of the problems in Lake County, including questionable registrations submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, are occurring in other states as well.

"I'm not sensing this is being done by any local machinery there," Rokita said of Lake County.

A record 4.5 million voters are registered in Indiana this year, and Rokita has encouraged early voting to ease congestion on Election Day. More than 221,000 absentee ballots had been cast statewide as of Oct. 24.

Early voting was delayed by more than a week in the three Lake County communities after Republicans on the county election board voted against opening satellite sites in them.

Republicans contend a single site in Crown Point, in the county's southern portion, is sufficient. They fear additional centers would increase the risk of fraud — even though Indiana has one of the nation's toughest voter identification laws.

Democrats say it's unfair to limit early voting to Crown Point, a predominantly white community not easily accessed by poor, minority residents in other parts of the county who require public transportation.

"I think what they know is that minorities are supportive of Barack Obama," said Democratic state Sen. Earline Rogers of Gary.


Most Popular Posts this Week...
Do you like to ski?
Help Find this missing girl!
Read this alone
The Affiliate X Factor Program
Do you want to write a book? tips and tricks on getting started.

Jennifer Hudson's nephew still missing after slayings

Jennifer Hudson's nephew missing after slayings
By RUPA SHENOY, Associated Press Writer Rupa Shenoy, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 40 mins ago

CHICAGO – Authorities investigating the shooting deaths of Jennifer Hudson's mother and brother were searching for the missing 7-year-old nephew of the Oscar-winning actress.

A suspect in the deaths was in custody Friday night, but young Julian King had not been seen since the bodies of Darnell Donerson, 57, and Jason Hudson, 29, were found Friday afternoon.

A family member entering Donerson's South Side home Friday afternoon found the woman shot on the living room floor. Responding officers later found Hanson shot in the bedroom, police said.

At least one of the victims suffered defensive wounds, said authorities who described the shooting as domestic violence.

William Balfour, a man suspected in the deaths, was arrested Friday but had not been charged, law enforcement sources told the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.

Police spokeswoman Monique Bond said investigators were talking to "a number of people in custody" but she declined to elaborate. An Amber Alert issued Friday said Balfour was a suspect in the double homicide.

Records from the Illinois Department of Corrections show Balfour, 27, is on parole and spent nearly seven years in prison for attempted murder, vehicular hijacking and possessing a stolen vehicle. Public records show one of Balfour's addresses as the home where Donerson and Jason Hudson were shot.

The Cook County medical examiner's office said autopsies for Donerson and Jason Hudson were pending.

Balfour's mother, Michelle, said her son had been married to Hudson's sister, Julia, for several years, but they were separated. She also said Donerson had ordered him to move out of the family's home last winter.

Jennifer Hudson's personal publicist, Lisa Kasteler, said the family wanted privacy.

The tragedy comes as Hudson, who grew up in Chicago, continues to reach new heights in her career. Her song "Spotlight" is No. 1 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop charts and her recently released, self-tiled debut album has been a top seller. She was featured in this year's blockbuster "Sex and the City" movie and is also starring in the hit film "The Secret Life of Bees."

She won an Academy Award for best supporting actress in 2007 for her role in "Dreamgirls." In an interview last year with Vogue, Hudson credited her mother with encouraging her to audition for "American Idol," which launched her career.

The singer, whose father died when she was a teenager, described herself as very close to her family. In a recent AP interview she said her family, which includes older siblings Julia and Jason, helped keep her grounded.

"My faith in God and my family, they're very realistic and very normal, they're not into the whole limelight kind of thing, so when I go home to Chicago that's just another place that's home," she said. "I stand in line with everybody else, or, when I go home to my mom I'm just Jennifer, (so she says), 'You get up and you take care of your own stuff.' And I love that; I don't like when people tell you everything you want to hear, I want to hear the truth, you know what I mean."

Hudson recently announced her engagement to David Otunga, best known for his stint on VH1's reality show "I Love New York."

Hudson's representatives would not disclose her whereabouts Friday. She had been scheduled to appear Monday in Los Angeles to collect an ensemble cast honor at the Hollywood Awards for "The Secret Life of Bees" with co-stars including Alicia Keys, Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning.

_____

AP Music Writer Nekesa Moody in New York and AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.



Most Popular Posts this Week...
Do you like to ski?
Help Find this missing girl!
Read this alone
The Affiliate X Factor Program
Do you want to write a book? tips and tricks on getting started.