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BySeannaAdcox, Jeffrey Collins and Meg Kinnard The Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Monday the Confed- erate flag should be re- moved from the grounds of the state capitol, revers- ing her position on the divi- sive symbol amid growing calls for it to be removed. The Republican's about- face comes after nine black church members were gunned down, allegedly by a young white man who embraced the flag as a sym- bol of white supremacy. "150 years after the end of the Civil War, the time has come," Haley said af- ter rousing applause, sur- rounded by Democrats and Republican lawmakers. "That flag, while an inte- gral part of the past, does not represent the future of our great state" The flag has flown in front of the state capitol for 15 years after being moved from atop the Statehouse dome. U.S. Sens. Lindsay Gra- ham and Tim Scott, an Af- rican-American appointed by Haley, were standing with Haley during her an- nouncement. When she fin- ished, she hugged Scott and South Carolina's only other black congressman, Demo- cratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. The announcement came after state lawmak- ers met urgently with each other and the governor. The head of the Republican Na- tional Committee has also called for its removal. State House Speaker Jay Lucas said in a statement that last week's "terroriz- ing act of violence shook the very core of every South Carolinian." "Moving South Carolina forward from this terrible tragedy requires a swift resolution of this issue," he said earlier in the day. A growing number of re- ligious and political leaders said they would push for the flag's removal Tuesday dur- ing a rally in the capitol. The White House said President Barack Obama respects the state of South Carolina's au- thority to decide the issue, but believes the flag belongs in a museum. "The flag got appropri- ated by hate groups. We can't put it in a public place where it can give any oxy- gen to hate-filled people," said Charleston Mayor Jo- seph P. Riley Jr., a Democrat. But the conservative pol- iticians who have led South Carolina for a quarter-cen- tury have rebuffed many previous calls to remove the flag. The last governor to take this political risk, Re- publican David Beasley, was hounded out of of- fice in 1998 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and they made sure his politi- cal career was over thereaf- ter. Their influence doomed Beasley's front-runner campaign for U.S. Senate, a seat later won by Repub- lican Jim DeMint. The group announced Monday that it will vigor- ously fight any effort to re- move the flag now. Sen. Darrell Jackson, D-Columbia, helped bro- ker a compromise in 2000 that moved the Confed- erate flag from the State- house dome to a Confed- erate monument outside. That deal made it very dif- ficult to make any other changes: A super-major- ity of two-thirds of both houses is required. "It is my opinion — as someone who's fallen on that sword before and shed blood and had the scars to prove it and the threats to prove it — I think the House should do it first. That's the largest body. If the House is serious, send us a two-thirds 'sine die' amendment, and I think the Senate will do the right thing," Jackson said. The compromise has kept the Confederate flag flying high outside the Statehouse since the shooting, even af- ter state and U.S. flags were lowered to half-staff to honor the victims. It also means that when the state aims Wednesday to honor Emanuel's slain senior pastor, state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, by wel- coming thousands of peo- ple to file past his coffin inside the Statehouse, the mourners will likely see the Confederate flag on their way in or out. This symbolism has an- gered many, particularly now that photos surfaced showing Dylann Storm Roof burning one Amer- ican flag and stepping on another, while waving and posing provocatively with Confederate banners. "Do not associate the cowardly actions of a rac- ist to our Confederate Ban- ner," South Carolina Com- mander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans Le- land Summers said in a statement. "There is abso- lutely no link between The Charleston Massacre and The Confederate Memo- rial Banner. Don't try to create one." CHARLESTON SHOOTING South Carolina governor joins call to remove Confederate flag CURTISCOMPTON—ATLANTAJOURNAL-CONSTITUTION Kearston Farr hugs her 5-year-old daughter Taliyah while visiting a memorial in front of the Emanuel AME Church on Friday in Charleston, S.C. By Eric Tucker The Associated Press WASHINGTON Confront- ing extremists, law enforce- ment in the U.S. has been focusing on aspiring jihad- ists who align with the Is- lamic State, overshadow- ing longstanding concerns about avowed racists, neo- Nazis and anti-government militias. The South Carolina shootings, experts say, are a reminder of the persis- tent dangers posed by disaf- fected people who are bent on violence but whose state- ments before they act may skate below the radar of po- lice and federal authorities. The killings at a black church in Charleston ap- pear to fit a grim pattern of violence fueled by hate- filled ideology, joining other attacks by extremists in the past five years that have tar- geted Jewish and Sikh cen- ters, federal government buildings and police officers. While the number of Americans professing ex- tremist ideologies fluctu- ates, the election of Pres- ident Barack Obama, coupled with a national eco- nomic downturn, has in re- cent years intensified an- ger among white suprema- cists and anti-government groups to levels not seen since the time of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, said Mark Pitcavage, di- rector of investigative re- search at the Anti-Defama- tion League. 'Majorresurgence' "We're actually about six years into a major resur- gence of right-wing extrem- ism, the largest we've had since the mid to late 1990s," Pitcavage said. The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgom- ery, Alabama, says it has counted more than 30 acts or plots of domestic terror- ism or hate-driven ram- pages since 2010, an in- crease from the five years before that. Those include the killings in Kansas last year of three people outside a Jewish com- munity center and Jewish re- tirement home; a 2011 bomb plot that targeted the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Washington; an assault-rifle attack on a Mexican consul- ate and federal courthouse in Austin, Texas; the mur- ders of six at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and the slay- ing of two Las Vegas police officers by a couple with anti- government views who left behind a swastika and a yel- low flag bearing the words "Don't Tread on Me." The culprits are often in- dividuals with little or no association with organized hate groups, acting on their own. In the Charleston case, 21-year-old Dylann Roof has been charged with nine counts of murder. He is ac- cused of opening fire inside a Bible study last Wednes- day night in the Emanuel African Methodist Episco- pal Church. The Justice De- partment is investigating the killings as a hate crime. Roof, currently held on $1 million bond on a gun charge, had displayed on his Facebook page the flags of past white-led regimes in Africa and complained that "blacks were taking over the world" and that "some- one needed to do something about it for the white race," according to a friend who spoke with the FBI after seeing him on surveillance images. His erratic behav- ior in the months before the shootings included show- ing up dressed in all black at a shopping mall and pos- ing questions in stores that aroused suspicions — such as asking employees how many people were working and when they closed. Manifesto An online, hate-filled manifesto purportedly writ- ten by Roof surfaced days after the shooting and is being reviewed by the FBI. But tracking violent ex- tremists before they act is difficult, in part because spouting hateful viewpoints isn't by itself a crime, and many of those who do com- mit violence aren't leaders of a movement but are dis- affected individuals on the periphery of it, said Pit- cavage. To some extent, law enforcement faces the same challenges in keeping tabs on Islamic State sym- pathizers seeking to travel to Syria or commit acts of terror at home — investiga- tions in which the FBI dis- sects social media commu- nications for evidence of in- tent to commit a crime. "They tend not to be ac- tively engaged with the movement," Pitcavage said of lone extremists. "They're not joining organized groups. They're not exten- sively interacting online. They're not going to events and meetings." Ron Hosko, a former FBI assistant director and cur- rent president of the Law Enforcement Legal De- fense Fund, said that when it comes to investigating would-be domestic terror- ists, the FBI has long faced the challenge of not tread- ing on free speech rights while trying to make the right call about when hate speech is about to cross the line into illegal action. Shootings a reminder of ho me gr ow n ex tr em is ts CHARLESTON MASSACRE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, center, calls for legislators to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds during a news conference in the South Carolina State House in Columbia, S.C., on Monday. By Mike Groll The Associated Press BELLMONT, N.Y. Items re- covered from a remote hunting cabin might be linked to a pair of con- victed killers who escaped from a nearby prison more than two weeks ago, au- thorities said Monday as searchers swarmed rugged woods in the hamlet in far northern New York. State Police Maj. Charles Guess said at a news con- ference that authorities had "specific items" from the Adirondack cabin some 20 miles west of the prison and sent them to labs for DNA and other testing. He would not elaborate on the items but characterized the latest search effort — one of many over the past 17 days — as a confirmed lead. "There are a number of factors that make this a complex search: the weather, the terrain, the environment and frankly the vast scope of the north country of the Adiron- dacks," Guess said. He urged residents and seasonal camp owners to call police if they notice any- thing out of place or capture footage on trail cameras of suspicious activity. Acting Franklin County District Attorney Glenn MacNeill had told WPTZ- TV on Sunday that a hunter had reported seeing a per- son fleeing from a camp in the area. Terry Bellinger, owner of nearby Belly's Mountain View Inn, said the hunter told him he saw a man run into the woods as he ap- proached the camp Satur- day on an ATV. When the hunter went into the cabin, he noticed two things out of place: a jug of water and an open jar of peanut but- ter on a table. Bellinger said the hunter went to his restaurant, where he talked to police for several hours. "He was visibly shaken. He wanted a glass of wa- ter," Bellinger said. Inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped June 6 from the Clinton County Correctional Facil- ity. Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without pa- role for killing a sheriff's deputy. Matt, 48, was do- ing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnapping, torture and hacksaw dismember- ment of his former boss. Prison worker Joyce Mitchell remained in cus- tody on charges she helped the two men escape by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools. She has pleaded not guilty. Authorities say she had talked to the inmates about killing her husband, Lyle, who also works at the prison. Andrew Wylie, Clinton County district at- torney, said Joyce Mitchell told authorities that she and Matt discussed having Matt and Sweat go to her house after they escaped to kill Lyle Mitchell. Monday's search area is about 20 miles east of Mitchell's home in Dickin- son Center. Busloads of officers, search dogs and helicop- ters began arriving in the Adirondack hamlet of Bell- mont late Sunday as a par- allel search more than 350 miles away from the prison wrapped up with no sign of the inmates. The search had been fo- cused over the weekend on two towns in Allegany County along the Pennsyl- vania state border. An un- confirmed but credible re- port came in that two men resembling the prison- ers had been spotted near a railroad line that runs along a county road. New York State Police said Monday morning that the search in the towns of Amity and Friendship in western New York had con- cluded. Since Sweat and Matt escaped from the prison in Dannemora, more than 800 law enforcement offi- cers have gone door-to-door checking houses, wooded areas, campgrounds and summer homes. Officials said a cor- rections officer has been placed on administrative leave as part of the inves- tigation. Attorney Andrew Brock- way told Plattsburgh televi- sion station WPTZ that the officer, Gene Palmer, was completely forthcoming during 14 hours of ques- tioning Saturday. "I can 100 percent con- firm that he did not know they were planning on breaking out of the prison," Brockway said. 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