Minn. Senate recount could take weeks

ST. PAUL, Minn., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between Republican incumbent Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken may be undecided for weeks, officials said Friday.

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said the recount should be completed in the middle of December, The New York Times reported. That result can still be challenged.

Late Friday, Coleman was ahead of Franken by only 239 votes. Under state law, any margin less than .5 percent of the vote total triggers an automatic recount.

Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, said he is not throwing in the towel.

"This is the closest race in Minnesota history, the closest Senate race and the closest race anywhere in the country. This is just part of the process to make sure every vote is counted," Franken said in an interview on Minnesota Public Radio. "Candidates don't get to decide when an election's over -- voters do."

In Georgia, Sen. Saxby Chambliss will have to defend his seat again in a runoff with Democrat Jim Martin because he failed to win 50 percent of the total vote. In Alaska, the race between Sen. Ted Stevens and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is still undecided.

Wright: Obama's win 'incredibly powerful'

EVANSTON, Ill., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's former Chicago pastor, says Obama's election Tuesday was "incredibly powerful."

Wright, whose fiery sermons at his former church, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, were used by Obama's opponents against him, largely stuck to uncontroversial topics in his first speech since the election, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Wright appeared Friday at Northwestern University at the invitation of a black students club, saying, "I come here today, three days after the incredibly powerful election of the nation's first African-American president."

Wright exhorted students to remember the struggle black students faced in the 1960s, saying, ""We need to teach our children to take everything ? that we learn here, take it out there," the Chicago Tribune reported.

Wright retired from Trinity before the election, before Obama severed his 20-year relationship with the church when controversial clips of Wright's fiery past sermons surfaced on the Internet and were seized upon by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Three bodies found in elderly woman's home

EVANSTON, Ill., Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Police in the leafy Chicago suburb of Evanston, Ill., say they have found a 90-year-old woman living with the bodies of three dead siblings in her house.

The bodies, two of which were described as skeletons and another as badly decomposed, were identified as brothers and sisters of the unidentified woman, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

They were identified as Anita Bernstorff, born in 1910, Frank Bernstorff, born in 1920 and Elaine Bernstorff, born in 1916. The dates of their deaths were to be determined by the Cook County Medical Examiner.

Police told the Sun-Times that Anita Bernstorff was last seen alive in May 2008, Frank Bernstorff was last seen alive in April 2003 and Elaine Bernstorff was last seen alive in the early 1980s. Authorities believe all died of natural causes but have yet to determine why the surviving siblings never reported any of the deaths.

Neighbor Caroline Carlton told the newspaper she saw the 90-year-old on Halloween passing out candy, but added she had never been inside the house.