The first Conservative black peer has been jailed for 12 months in Britain

Lord Taylor of Warwick has become the first peer to be jailed over the parliamentary expenses scandal after a judge sentenced him to 12 months in prison for claiming more than £11,000 in false travel and overnight subsistence allowances. The 58-year-old former barrister, the first parliamentarian to stand trial over expenses, had pursued a protracted course of dishonesty and lied to the jury on oath, the judge, Mr Justice Saunders, said when passing sentence at Southwark crown court. The first Conservative black peer, who joined the House of Lords in 1996, had said that his main residence was in Oxford – while in fact his only residence was in Ealing, west London – so that he could claim for travel and subsistence when attending the House of Lords. He was convicted in January 2011 on six counts of false accounting for making £11,277 worth of fraudulent claims between March 2006 and October 2007. He told the court that he believed he only needed a "family connection" to a property to enter it as a main residence on claims forms. The Oxford property, which he had visited twice and had never stayed at, was owned by the partner of his half-nephew who knew nothing of his uncle's claims and suffered considerable distress as a result of the police investigation. As Taylor was sentenced, it emerged that about 15 fellow peers, including Lord Clarke of Hampstead, a former chairman of the Labor party, had refused to give evidence at the trial to support his defense.

Ex-CIA man says that the American relationship with Israel is a useless and unnecessary relationship

Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit, says that the conflict in the Middle East was caused by US foreign policies such as unconditional support for Israel and Zionism.

Two Iraqis living in Kentucky have been arrested on charges that they tried to send sniper rifles, stinger missiles, and money to al-Qaeda operatives in their home country

Thirty-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan and 23-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, who both have lived in Bowling Green since 2009, were charged in a 23-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. Alwan is charged with conspiracy to kill a United States national, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Hammadi is charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and knowingly transferring, possessing, or exporting a device designed or intended to launch or guide a rocket or missile.

Muslims and inbreeding

British scientist warns about the dangers of Islamic incestuous marriages but unfortunately makes no mention of the dangers of Muslim immigration.

A senior Egyptian general admits that "virginity checks" were performed on women arrested at a demonstration in Spring 2011

The allegations arose in an Amnesty International report. It claimed that female demonstrators were beaten, given electric shocks, strip-searched, threatened with prostitution charges and forced to submit to virginity checks. At that time, Maj. Amr Imam said that 17 women had been arrested but denied allegations of torture or "virginity tests." But now a senior general who asked not to be identified said that the virginity tests were conducted and defended the practice. The general said that the virginity checks were done so that the women wouldn't later claim they had been raped by Egyptian authorities. "We didn't want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren't virgins in the first place," the general said. "None of them were (virgins)." This may make sense to an Egyptian but I fail to see how the women not being virgins proves that they could not be the victims of rape or sexual assault.

Police in southern Bangladesh say a woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempt to rape her and took it to a police station as evidence

Monju Begum, 40, a married mother of three, told police that neighbor Mozammel Haq Mazi forced his way into her shanty and started assaulting her. Mazi, who denies the accusation, has been admitted to a nearby hospital. "We will arrest him once his condition gets better," police spokesman Abul Khaer said. "She said she fought back and cut off his penis and brought it to our police station in a polythene bag to prove that Mr Mazi tried to rape her," Abul Khaer said. "She has registered a case accusing him of attempted rape," he said. Monju Begum told police that Mazi, a married father of five, had been harassing her for the past six months. But Mazi denied the allegations. "We were having an affair and recently she suggested that both of us can go and settle down in Dhaka," Mazi said from the hospital. "I refused and told her that I cannot leave my wife and children, so she took revenge on me." Prof AMSM Sharfuzzaman, a senior surgeon at the Sher-e-Bangla Medical College and Hospital in Barisal town, said that it had not been possible to reattach the organ. "Police brought his severed penis several hours after the incident," he said. "We are treating him so that he can urinate normally without the penis."

An illegal immigrant from Pakistan who abducted and molested two young girls has finally been deported from Britain after a two-year legal battle

Zulfar Hussain, 48, was due to be deported after being released from prison half-way through his sentence. He had been convicted of child-sex offenses after plying two vulnerable girls with drugs and alcohol before having sex with them. But Pakistani-born Hussain, who lived with his British wife and 3 children in Blackburn, launched a legal bid to stay in Britain. Using Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which says ‘everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence’ – he argued that he should be allowed to return to his wife and children on his release from prison. But the Home Office fought Hussain’s legal application and kept him in a secure immigration removal center. After a two-year battle and a £100,000 bill for the British taxpayer he was finally sent back to Pakistan. Hussain came to Britain illegally in the late 1980s and married his wife in February 1990 before going on to have 3 children. He was granted leave to remain in September 1994, before being given indefinite leave a year later. In 2005 Hussain and an accomplice, Qaiser Naveed, 34, a fellow Pakistani national, groomed two 15-year-old girls, who were in local authority care, for sex over a period of months in his adopted home town of Blackburn. The teenagers were plied with alcohol and ecstasy pills, before the men had sex with them. Hussain and Naveed were arrested when social workers raised the alarm. They were both jailed for five years and eight months in 2007 and were both ordered to be deported back to Pakistan following their release.

In 2009, there were 49 white-on-black rapes and 386 black-on-white rapes in North Carolina

African-Americans commit 88.7% of interracial rape in North Carolina, even though they are only 21.6% of the population.

Turkish crime syndicates in Britain are thought to control up to 90% of the heroin coming into the country

These Turks are now using black teenagers from London's street gangs to carry out their killings. I guess this is one of the benefits of diversity where Turks and blacks are working together to engage in violent criminal activity.

A 28-year-old Jewish man from Brooklyn faces extradition from Israel in a hate crime against the black son of an NYPD police officer

"We have been waiting over two years," said Moses Charles, whose son Andrew Charles, 22, was assaulted in 2008. "I hope justice will finally be served." Yitzhak Shuchat - accused of beating Charles, who is black, with a wooden club - has been arrested in Israel and faces an extradition hearing. Andrew Charles was attacked in Crown Heights when a Jewish man on a bicycle doused him with pepper spray. Shuchat is accused of jumping out of a GMC Envoy and beating him in the back and arm with a nightstick, police said. A month after the attack, police released a photo of Shuchat, a member of a Hasidic Jewish civilian crime patrol named Shmira, and an arrest warrant was issued. But Shuchat escaped to Canada three weeks after the attack and went to Israel three days later. He now faces charges of second-degree assault as a hate crime. Moses Charles was enraged to learn that Shuchat was living openly outside Tel Aviv with his family. "My son has been suffering," he said. "I hope we can finally have some closure."

Across Africa, gay people are threatened, humiliated, raped, beaten, killed, jailed, outed in front-page newspaper stories and condemned by politicians and traditional leaders as un-African

Many Africans see homosexuality as a dangerous import from the west that threatens traditional African values.

Multiple sclerosis tends to be more severe in African Americans even though the disease is less common than in white populations

Scientists have established that African Americans tend to become disabled faster than whites with multiple sclerosis, more frequently having to rely on canes and wheel chairs. Part of the reason for this situation seems to have to do with differences in genetics and vitamin D levels.

A well-connected kosher slaughterhouse king convicted of fraud at his Iowa plant has rustled up a herd of New York politicians to try to win him a reduced sentence

The prominent Lubavitcher Jew from Brooklyn, Sholom Rubashkin, has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for 86 counts of financial crimes as well as lying on the witness stand. Yet the disgraced Jewish businessman has friends in high places, including Reps. Anthony Weiner, Jerrold Nadler, Eliot Engel, Carolyn McCarthy, Edolphus Towns, Carolyn Maloney, Steve Israel and Yvette Clarke, who have lobbied for a review of his case. Rubashkin has also enlisted more than 30 other lawmakers from New Jersey to California to voice outrage, along with several former U.S. attorneys general. The head of the Democratic National Committee, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, used part of her time at a recent hearing with Attorney General Eric Holder to remind him to review Rubashkin's sentence. Rubashkin is a member of a large and influential Hasidic Jewish family that ran the nation's largest kosher slaughterhouse, Agriprocessor, sending turkey, chicken and beef across the country. The Brooklyn businessman was at the pinnacle of the lucrative kosher food world, and through business and marriage is connected to huge swaths of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Jewish community, a reliable and sometimes pivotal voting bloc. Rubashkin was arrested in October 2008, five months after the Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided his Iowa plant and arrested nearly 400 illegal immigrants. An Iowa federal jury found him guilty of a $26 million financial scheme of inflating accounts and laundering money.

The average SAT score for black high school students in 2003 was 857

The average SAT score for a white high school student in 2003 was 1,026. This would make the racial gap in SAT scores similar to the one in IQ scores.

Do as Israel says, not as Israel does

Benjamin Netanyahu, who endlessly preaches the need for firm action against Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear arms, is not lifting a finger to stop Israeli companies and individuals indirectly trading with Iran. Nor is he acting against international companies and corporations that operate in Iran, while maintaining huge contracts with Israeli companies - including state bodies like the Electric Corporation and Airport Authority. Apparently, it is alright to deal with Iran as long as Israel profits from it.

By age 30, between 68% and 75% of young men with a high school degree or less are fathers

Almost half of all kids are being raised by at least one parent with a low educational background (high school degree or less by age 30) and a poor expected economic future. Additionally 62% of fathers with a high school degree or less earned less than $20,000 in 2002.

Taliban gunmen have killed the headteacher of a girls' school near the Afghan capital after he ignored warnings to stop teaching girls

Khan Mohammad, the head of the Porak girls' school in Logar province, has been shot dead near his home. Mohammad had received several death threats from the Taliban warning him not to teach girls. Education for women was banned by the Taliban government from 1996 to 2001 as un-Islamic. There are periodic attacks against schoolgirls, their teachers and school buildings. Women have won back some rights, including education and the right to vote, since the Taliban were toppled after the US-led invasion of late 2001. The Afghan government and its western backers have pledged to guarantee those advances, although the promise seems precarious as Afghan leaders begin a reconciliation process that includes talks with the Taliban. Development agencies fear that western governments are focusing too heavily on plans to complete a security handover from foreign forces to Afghans by the end of 2014 without cementing gains for women, such as education. Under the Taliban women were barred from access to health care and made to wear burqas covering them from head to toe, and only boys were allowed to attend school. Many of those customs are still widespread. Girls have had acid thrown in their faces by Islamists while walking to school and schools have been set on fire. In 2010, there was a spate of mysterious gas poisonings at girls' schools, including some in Kabul, in which dozens of girls fell ill.

Italian government makes a fool of itself

Italian government officials have accused the country's top seismologist of manslaughter, after failing to predict a natural disaster that struck Italy in 2009, a massive devastating earthquake that killed 308 people. A shocked spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) likened the accusations to a witch hunt. "It has a medieval flavor to it - like witches are being put on trial," the stunned spokesman said. Enzo Boschi, the president of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), will face trial along with six other scientists and technicians, after failing to predict the future and the impending disaster. This is the sort of nonsense that you would expect to find in a Third World country.

Overestimating homosexuality

A Gallup poll shows that U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, 52% estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that more than one in four are. Only 30% put the figure at less than 15%. Recently, demographer Gary Gates released a review of population-based surveys on the topic, estimating that 3.5% of adults in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, with bisexuals making up a slight majority of that figure. Gates disputes the claim that 10% of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual. Americans with lower incomes and less education give the highest estimates, on average, of the U.S. gay and lesbian population, and far higher estimates than those with higher incomes and more education. Americans aged 18 to 29 give a higher average estimate than older Americans, and women give a far higher average estimate than men. The data shows that 53% of people making under $30,000 annually believe that at least 25% of the population was gay, and 47% of those with no more than a high school education.

A police sergeant in Zimbabwe has been sent to jail for using Robert Mugabe's toilet

Alois Mabhunu may face a year in prison.

Saudi Arabia has beheaded a Sudanese man convicted of murdering a compatriot in the capital Riyadh

Sadiq Abdel Mullah was sentenced to death for the fatal stabbing of Ahmed Mohammed. His beheading raised to 22 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia in 2011. In 2010, 27 executions were reported in the oil-rich kingdom, down from 67 in 2009 and 102 in 2008. Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the Muslim kingdom's strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

Sex and eye color

Do women with blue eyes have more feminine-shaped faces? Are brown-eyed men more dominant than blue-eyed ones and do they have more masculine facial features?

A former Miss World has been awarded £70,000 in damages after suing no-frills carrier Ryanair for defamation

A jury at the High Court in Dublin has ruled that publicity by the airline implied that model Rosanna Davison, daughter of singer Chris de Burgh, was racist, xenophobic, jealous and narrow-minded. The case centered on a press release posted on Ryanair’s website in November 2008 in response to remarks Davison, 27, made the previous day in a newspaper. Asked what she thought of the lack of any Irish women in Ryanair’s 2009 charity calendar of bikini-clad cabin crew, she said: ‘If I was (organizing) it, I would have made sure Irish women were involved because it’s an Irish charity and Irish fundraising.’ The airline’s release said that the comments by Miss Davison, who was crowned Miss World in 2003, ‘bordered on racism and demonstrated an elitist attitude against Ryanair’s international cabin crew’.

A black church youth leader has been indicted on 13 charges related to sex crimes against juveniles

African-American Angelo "Doogie" Golatt, a former Pineville church youth leader, has been indicted on 13 charges related to felony sex crimes involving juveniles. The charges involved in the indictment are two counts of aggravated rape, one count of attempted aggravated rape, eight counts of sexual battery, one count of molestation of a juvenile and one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile.

An Indian mother who offered to sell her baby to a childless couple for £35,000 in a case of modern-day slavery has been jailed for seven years

The married Indian woman was ready to abandon the 11-month-old girl with the buyers in a hotel room when police swooped. A Pakistani businessman acted as a middleman, brokering the sale and promising a name-change with a fake birth certificate for the new parents. But the purchasers turned out to be undercover reporters from a Sunday newspaper, Inner London Crown Court heard. The businessman, 48, turned up with the 29-year-old mother, with babe-in-arms, for the handover after a series of taped phone conversations. The woman's 31-year-old husband, who was not the baby's father, was cleared of involvement in the conspiracy. Unknown to them, police were listening in the next room and waiting for the signal from the reporter. The mother and the businessman, who is a successful estate agent, were convicted of child cruelty and slavery over the unvetted adoption for profit. The businessman was jailed for nine years.

Jewish Attorney General goes after English-only New York town

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ordered the upstate town of Jackson to “immediately” overturn a local ordinance that made English the town’s official language, warning that the statute is “illegal” and “discriminatory.” The ordinance, which prohibits public officials in Jackson from speaking or writing in any language but English while they are carrying out their official duties, will be voted on once again by the town council on June 1, 2011 because of the intervention by the state AG’s office.

In Oslo all sexual assaults involving rape in the past year have been committed by males of non-western background

Muslim immigrants make up a large number of those committing sexual assault in the Norwegian capital city.

An immigrant cat killer convicted using DNA evidence has been slapped with a six-year sentence and will likely soon be deported

Trinidadian immigrant Angelo Monderoy said he torched his super's cat, Tommy Two Times, out of boredom. A jury found that Monderoy and his friend grabbed Tommy Two Times, took him to an abandoned apartment in their Crown heights tenement, doused him with lighter fluid and lit him on fire in the 2008 attack. The guilty verdict marked the first time that DNA evidence led to a conviction in an animal abuse case in the history of New York State and possibly the nation. Tommy was found badly burned outside the tenement and investigators were able to trace the crime back to Monderoy's lair. That evidence also helped bring more serious burglary charges, for which Monderoy, 20, got two to six years upstate. He also received the max of two years for aggravated animal abuse and up to four years for arson, all running concurrently. Because he's been jailed for more than two years awaiting trial, he's already eligible for parole, but will likely face deportation once out of prison, officials said.

A former leader of the Shia Muslim community in Trinidad has been convicted of taking part in a failed plot to blow up fuel tanks and pipelines at JFK airport in New York

Kareem Ibrahim was convicted of five conspiracy counts in the plot, which officials say was meant to outdo 9/11. Russell Defreitas and Abdul Kadir are serving life sentences after also being convicted for their roles. Ibrahim, 65, also faces life in prison. Prosecutors said that the men had wanted to kill thousands in New York and shake the U.S. economy by blowing up fuel tanks and pipelines that run under a neighborhood near the airport. The scheme was uncovered when an informant recorded a discussion about the planned attack between Kadir and Defreitas, who began preparations for the attack in 2006. Defreitas, a 68-year-old former cargo handler, and Kadir, a former member of Guyana's parliament, were convicted on conspiracy charges in August 2010.

At least 2,000 people have fled their homes in Michoacan state, in western Mexico, amid several days of fighting between gangs

The worst of the violence is centered on the town of Buenavista. Streets are deserted in some suburbs but in central areas witnesses reported bursts of automatic weapon fire. It is believed to be factional infighting within the La Familia cartel. At least three people are confirmed dead but a local newspaper journalist said that the rival gangs had removed their fallen comrades from the streets. A shelter has been set up for the displaced families from Buenavista.

A Hispanic nursing aide has been sentenced to seven years in state prison for sexually abusing a disabled and speech-impaired 61-year-old

Jose Ramos, 62, has been convicted of first degree sex abuse and second degree endangering the welfare of a vulnerable elderly person. He was also sentenced to one year in jail on one count of endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person, to run concurrently with his prison term. Upon his release, Ramos will be under post-release supervision for 10 years and will be required to register as a sex offender.

American Jewish groups are fighting a proposed ban of Sharia law in the state of Oklahoma

A coalition of organizations that include the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) are backing a legal appeal against a measure that would prevent Islamic law from being used in the state's courts. The AJC filed a brief with the US Court of Appeals arguing that the ban is an attack on religious freedom. The AJC said that the provision - called the "Save our State law" by its supporters and adopted after a referendum which delivered a 70% "yes" vote - is unconstitutional, violating a clause in the First Amendment which bars a state preference for one religion over another. "In a nation that treasures religious freedom and whose constitution forbids government to have favored or disfavored faiths, the Oklahoma provision cannot stand," wrote AJC Associate General counsel Marc Stern. The Anti-Defamation League and the Union of Reform Judaism supported the brief, as did the Center for Islamic Pluralism. Stephen Schwartz, who converted to Islam as an adult and is the executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, said that both Jews and moderate Muslims are interested in protecting religious freedom. He said that American Jewish groups often work with Islamic organizations. "The AJC has organized three trips for moderate Muslims to visit Israel," Schwartz said. Once again we see Jews siding with Muslims against Christians.

More than 50 Somali-owned shops in the South African city of Port Elizabeth have been attacked and looted by local residents

Police said that four shops had been burnt down and about 200 Somalis living near the shop premises had fled the unrest. A Somali community leader said that there was some resentment in the area about the success of Somali traders. At least 62 people died in attacks on foreigners that swept the country a few years ago. In total, 52 shops were looted and three were burnt down in the Motherwell area and three shops were looted and one torched in Kwadwesi, the police said. Abdirahman Yusuf Ahmed, a spokesman for the Somali community in the Eastern Cape, said one Somali trader was in hospital after he was tied up in his shop when it was set alight.

Black Bishop Eddie Long, the Atlanta-based megachurch leader, has reached an out-of-court settlement with four young men who accused him of sexual coercion

The suits accused Long of using his position coerce the men into having sexual relationships with him while they were teenage members of his congregation. The lawsuits say Long engaged in intimate sexual acts with the young men, such as massages, masturbation and oral sex. Long took the young men on trips including to Kenya, according to the suits. He allegedly enticed the young men with gifts including cars, clothes, jewelry and electronic items.

A shootout between rival Mexican gangs has left at least 28 people dead

The gunfight took place at a crossroads near Ruiz in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit, some 500 miles north-west of Mexico City. Police found 28 men dead and four wounded when they reached the scene, which was littered with bullet shells. Nayarit state has a strong presence of one of Mexico's most powerful drug gangs, the Sinaloa cartel, which is run by the country's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman. Security forces in Nayarit had initially been investigating a reported kidnapping when they were alerted to the shooting nearby. When they reached the scene, they found 28 bodies, and four people injured. Ten vehicles had been abandoned at the site, the state attorney general's office said. It was not clear what had provoked the shooting but the Sinaloa gang has been battling two other cartels in the area, Los Zetas and La Familia. In Michoacan, officials said that 48 hours of gun battles between suspected drug gangs had forced more than 1,000 people to flee villages in the Tierra Caliente region of the state.

The skulls of Irish people who lost their lives during 16th and 17th century battles were ground up and consumed by the English aristocracy, as it was believed that they could cure illnesses and heal wounds

The claim is made in a new book "Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires", by the British academic Dr Richard Sugg, who is a lecturer at Durham University. Sugg maintains that skulls at one stage, where among the biggest exports from Ireland to Britain. The skulls most sought after were those that had been left to rot on the battlefield. If unburied, moss gathered and grew on them and when ground up with the skull was said to have a unique healing power. Dr Sugg said: "Medicinal cannibalism used the formidable weight of European science, publishing, trade networks and educated theory. Whilst corpse medicine has sometimes been presented as a medieval therapy, it was at its height during the social and scientific revolutions of early-modern Britain. It survived well into the eighteenth century, and amongst the poor it lingered stubbornly on into the time of Queen Victoria." The new book maintains that English troops massacred villagers in nearby settlements so as the dead could not be buried. Skulls covered in moss could be sold for up to 11 shillings each, which was a considerable amount in the 16th and 17th century. The skulls were also sold in chemist shops around London. Originally the wealthy English used Egyptian mummies to create such potions. The Elizabethan founder of modern sciences, Francis Bacon discovered that newer, moss-covered skulls were better and could be for retrieved from “heaps of slain bodies” which lay unburied in Ireland. Bacon got the information from the Earl Of Essex whose army killed thousands of Irish in the late 1590s. Once ground, the material could be drunk, or made into paste to heal wounds. It could also be used for the treatment of epilepsy and depression. Sugg’s research suggests that many ancestors of the current Queen of England used the corpse medicines. Charles II "more or less patented it" according to the book as the potions he created "became increasingly known as "the king’s drops". The trade of skulls was so lucrative that the English introduced an import tax of one shilling per skull known as cranium humanum.

People can pick up on male sexual orientation based solely on how men pronounce the letters a, e, i, o, and u

Researchers conducted a study to see whether strangers could tell if males were gay or straight just by hearing them pronounce single-syllable words such as "food" and "sell." Participants got it right 75% of the time once they heard a vowel. The researchers asked seven homosexual and seven heterosexual males to speak for the experiment, and although respondents couldn't guess sexuality from the first consonant in words, vowels were a dead giveaway. "This is a phenomenon that occurs every day," says the study lead. "We are constantly speaking with people we don't know on our phones, and just from this conversation, we might be able to identify personal characteristics about that person, such as their gender, age, race, or sexual orientation."

Authorities in Arizona have arrested a Hispanic deputy on the charge of aiding human traffickers and drug smugglers

Deputy Alfredo Navarrette, who had been a member of a unit targeting human smuggling, faces felony charges connected to human smuggling, money laundering and participating in a crime syndicate. He admitted going to command centers to obtain information to pass on to the drug traffickers and the smugglers. Authorities found two illegal immigrants in Navarrette's home when they served a search warrant. In addition, two Hispanic detention officers - Sylvia Najera and Marcella Hernandez - were also arrested and are accused of money laundering and having connections with drug-trafficking organizations. Hernandez had more than $16,000 in her purse when she was taken into custody.

The Jewish media in America

The biggest newspapers in the United States - the New York Times, the Washington Post, and LA Times - are all Jewish-owned. Jews make up about half of the Atlantic 50 list of most influential pundits. This helps to explain why both Republicans and Democrats constantly pander to the Jews in spite of their representing less than 3% of the U.S. population. In the United States, real power is based on money not population size.

A black woman who repeatedly stabbed her mother as she slept has walked free from court after a judge accepted that she believed that she was acting on the instructions of evil spirits

Lorraine Mbulawa, 20, attacked her mother with a kitchen knife. The 43-year-old victim saved herself by grabbing the weapon, but suffered serious face and arm injuries. Mbulawa, who was 18 at the time, was cleared of attempted murder at her trial at Leicester Crown Court but convicted of unlawful wounding. Psychiatrists said that she was not insane and that the jury agreed that she knew what she was doing. However, the black woman, who was born in Zimbabwe, escaped with a 12-month suspended prison sentence and was ordered to do 120 hours of unpaid work. Passing sentence, Justice Keith said that he accepted that the defendant had strong beliefs in witchcraft and thought that she was possessed by the spirit of her dead grandmother at the time of the attack in May 2009.

One of America’s leading ultra-Orthodox groups has reaffirmed that its followers must consult a rabbi before going to law enforcement authorities with suspicions of sexual abuse committed by community members

Rabbi David Zwiebel says that even mandated reporters — teachers, social workers and people in certain other professions who are required by law to promptly report any suspected cases of sexual abuse — should consult a rabbi before going to the police.

African-Americans and Hispanics commit around 65% of crimes in California

But only make up around 42% of the state's population which means that they are overrepresented amongst California's criminal class.

A black man has been charged with the rape and murder of his own daughter

Rodney J. McIntyre, 45, has been charged with the rape and murder of his 17-year-old daughter, Ebony Franklin, after police revealed that the father’s semen was found in the girl’s body.

Jewish professor pleads guilty in incest case

David Epstein has put in a plea of guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempted incest. The mainstream media has largely ignored this admission of guilt. I wonder if they would be so uninterested in his plea if he were a conservative Christian instead of a liberal Jew?

A Nigerian family planning expert has said that it would be difficult to implement the suggestion that Nigerians should only have three children

Isaac Ogo pointed to the tradition of polygamy and the belief that the children were seen as a "gift from God" in a male-dominated society. Recent UN figures suggest that Nigeria's population could jump to 730 million by 2100 - behind only India and China. Nigeria is a "high birth, high death" society where many people think: "I need to have as many children as I want, as I don't know which will survive." Nigeria is one of the world's worst places to have a baby, according to the UN. About 145 women die each day in pregnancy or childbirth, as do 2,300 children below five years of age.

Vuvuzelas - the horns used by football fans celebrating 2010's World Cup - not only cause noise pollution but may also spread diseases, say experts

A short burst on the instrument creates a spittle shower similar to a sneeze, traveling at four million droplets a second. In crowded venues one person blowing a vuvuzela could infect many others with airborne illness like the flu or TB. Critics say that they are anti-social and unsafe because of their potential to generate a din louder than a plane taking off.

Researchers have detected no African genetic signatures in Northern European populations

At the same time, they found a distinct presence of African ancestry in Southern European, Middle Eastern and Jewish populations. Modern southern European groups can attribute about 1% to 3% of their genetic signature to African ancestry, with the intermingling of populations dating back 55 generations, on average - that is, to roughly 1,600 years ago. Middle Eastern groups have inherited about 4% to 15%, with the mixing of populations dating back roughly 32 generations. A diverse array of Jewish populations can date their Sub-Saharan African ancestry back roughly 72 generations, on average, accounting for 3% to 5% of their genetic makeup. The dates of population mixtures are consistent with documented historical events. For example, the mixing of African and southern European populations coincides with events during the Roman Empire and Arab migrations that followed. The older-mixture dates among African and Jewish populations are consistent with events in biblical times, such as the Jewish diaspora that occurred in 8th to 6th century BC.

Some 32% of people in England and Wales think that Britain would be better off without Scotland in it, according to a poll

And 47% say that they are not concerned if England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland break apart through independence, the survey by Metro/Harris reveals. The Scottish National Party won an overall majority at the Scottish parliament election in May 2011 and said that it planned to hold a referendum on independence within the next five years. If Wales followed suit, 26% of Britons would support its independence, while 30% would oppose it, according to the survey.

Lenin's Jewish ancestry

Among dozens of newly released documents that have gone on display at Moscow's State History Museum is a letter written by Lenin's eldest sister, Anna Ulyanova, saying that their maternal grandfather was a Ukrainian Jew who converted to Christianity to escape the Pale of Settlement and gain access to higher education. "He came from a poor Jewish family and was, according to his baptismal certificate, the son of Moses Blank, a native of (the western Ukrainian city of) Zhitomir," Ulyanova wrote in a 1932 letter.

Vitamin D and European ancestry

Researchers have found that people with a higher proportion of European ancestry in their genes are less likely to have low vitamin D levels than people with a lower proportion of European ancestry.

An Orthodox Jewish father of four was severely burned after a religious feud led to an arson attempt, according to the victim's family

Police say that Aron Rottenberg, 43, fought off a man armed with an incendiary device and ended up hospitalized with third-degree burns covering 50% of his body. The attacker was carrying a rag soaked with flammable liquid behind the Rottenberg family home in New Square, N.Y., an all-Hasidic Jewish village. Rottenberg, a plumber, went outside to face the suspect, who police said had a device with a long, improvised fuse. In the struggle, the device caught fire, injuring both men. 18-year-old Shaul Spitzer was reportedly arrested for the attack on charges of first-degree attempted arson and first-degree assault, both of which are felonies. Rottenberg's family said that they had been targeted before because Rottenberg worshiped in his own way, apart from the main synagogue used by the community's grand rabbi. "Doing your own thing, that is not something they can take," said Rottenberg's son-in-law, Moshe Elbaum. "They don't like that, because it's showing people can do what they want to do."

Some men of African descent may have a higher genetic risk of developing prostate cancer

A genome-wide association study has found a marker of risk for prostate cancer in men of African descent, who tend to more susceptible to prostate cancer than men of non-African descent. The research turned up a novel risk variant on chromosome 17q21. The frequency of this marker is 5% in men of African ancestry but is rare in other populations. The discovery builds on findings of a risk region on chromosome 8q24, which also contains clues as to why more men in this population are likely to develop prostate cancer. The findings support the need for additional genome-wide investigations to locate risk markers that are common or rare, which may play a role in racial and ethnic disease disparities.

Jewish composer, accused of rape, commits suicide

The Oscar-winning composer, who was awaiting trial for rape while his son faced a murder rap, killed himself in his New York City apartment. Joseph Brooks, 73, was found dead with a plastic dry-cleaning bag over his head near a hose attached to a tank of helium gas. His son's murder trial is unaffected. Nicholas Brooks, 25, is awaiting trial for strangling his girlfriend, swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay, at the posh Soho House club in 2010.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics have shown that between 2001 and 2009 the population of England and Wales increased by 2.45 million to 54.8 million

However, the numbers of white British people actually fell by 36,000 in that period, while the group of people the ONS classifies as non-white British, increased from 6.64 million to 9.13 million. This group includes the Chinese, black Africans, Pakistanis and black Caribbeans. The proportion of the population in England and Wales that is from an ethnic minority group has increased from 13% in 2001 to 17% in 2009. The fastest growing ethnic minority group, in percentage terms, was the Chinese, which jumped from 233,000 to 451,000 over the period. Nearly all areas outside of London saw a dramatic change in ethnic mix. The south east, for instance, went from being composed of 8.8% ethnic minorities to 14.3% during the period.

Will Muslims turn Germany into another Egypt?

A Coptic bishop has cautioned German Christians that what happened to his country (Egypt) can happen in Europe. Coptic Christianity was the majority religion in Egypt for hundreds of years until Islam was spread by the sword and beat down Christians.

Government policy has resulted in the replacement of African-Americans with illegal Hispanic immigrants in the South Los Angeles drug trade

South Los Angeles used to be majority black; now it is majority Hispanic. In 1980, 71% of the population was African-American. According to the 2010 census, that figure has fallen to 31%, while the proportion of Hispanic residents is now 62%. One consequence of this demographic change has been that crimes that were previously committed by blacks are now committed by Latinos.

A black woman tried to draw a sword in an argument in a Pizza Hut

She was charged with disorderly conduct and menacing.

Officials in Mexico say that a senior army general who had just retired from office has been killed near Mexico City

Until his retirement, Gen Jorge Juarez Loera was the number three in the Mexican army and a key figure in Mexico's war on drugs. Officials said that the general was shot dead when he got out of his car after a traffic accident in Tlalnepantla. Until 2008, Gen Juarez Loera headed the Joint Operation Chihuahua which targeted drug trafficking in the northern states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango.

In the long run, amnesty legalization will hurt Social Security

Most illegal immigrants will become eligible for retirement benefits at age 67. Heritage Foundation research finds that an average elderly low-skilled immigrant creates a net cost (benefits minus taxes) of about $17,000 per year. (This figure includes federal, state, and local government costs for the elderly.) Over eighteen years of expected retirement life the added costs come to $306,000 per amnesty recipient. Under present law, Social Security is expected to become insolvent in 2037. Amnesty will hasten its demise.

Obama and the South Park radical Muslim

The Muslim radical convicted of threatening the lives of the “South Park” creators signed up as a volunteer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, but by the time Election Day arrived he had concluded it would be a violation of Islamic law to vote in the U.S. election, according to court records. Jihadi Zachary Chesser, 21, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison following his guilty plea to making the “South Park” threats as well as providing material support to terrorists (in this case the Somali guerilla group Al-Shabaab).

Despite the uproar over Barack Obama’s support for Israel returning to its 1967 borders, pollster predicts that Obama won’t suffer significant losses of Jewish voters in 2012

John Zogby notes that Democrats traditionally enjoy a 75% of the Jewish vote. It will take more than a little friction with the current leadership of Israel to change that dynamic. “Israel is extremely important to American Jews. But so are traditional liberal stances, particularly on social issues." Zogby also predicts that the primary impact of Obama’s Middle East speech will be to generate “a bit more enthusiasm among liberal voters,” and Muslim voters. Zogby notes that Muslim voter sympathies shifted markedly during the presidency of George W. Bush. They broke 10-to-1 for the Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry. It is estimated that nearly 3 million Muslims reside in the United States. The latest Zogby poll shows that only 41% of voters believe that Obama deserves to be re-elected, and another 10% of voters say that they’re not sure. Those numbers suggest that Obama still has plenty of work to do if he hopes to be re-elected. Hopefully, the Republicans will look at this information and see that it is foolish of them to continue pandering to the Jewish community and that further Muslim immigration will just mean more votes for the Democrats.

By the time the children of illegal immigrants reach age 2, they show significantly lower levels of language and cognitive development than the children of legal immigrants and native-born parents

This should not be too surprising since illegal immigrants - such as Mexicans and other Latinos - tend to be from the poorer, less intelligent segments of their native countries. Poor cognitive development can lead to lower school performance, which in turn can lead to higher dropout rates, an under-trained work force and lower economic productivity.

Two South Asian Muslim men who raped a teenage girl from a care home have been jailed

The pair drove their victim, a resident at a Manchester home, to a secluded spot before launching their attack. They had picked up the girl – whom they had never met before – after seeing her in a drunken state outside the home as they drove around the city. Hussnain Ahmed and Omar Ali, both 24, were each sentenced to 11 years' prison at Manchester Crown Court. They were found guilty of raping the girl in June 2010 after a trial.

Obama and college graduates

A recent informal survey of 500 post-grads primarily between the ages of 22 and 28 — 83% of whom voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 — found that just 27% of Obama’s previous youth supporters plan to vote for him again. That’s a drop of almost 60 points. In contrast, of those who voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008, a vast majority — 80% — said that they would vote GOP again. An 80% majority of those newly disillusioned by Obama said that they would consider voting for a Republican in 2012, too.

The World Health Organization estimates that one in three Somalis have suffered from some kind of mental illness, a rate that is among the highest in the world

Somalia is also among the worst places on earth to have a mental illness. Resources are so limited that many are simply chained up without medication. The country has just three psychiatrists at its main mental health facilities nationwide.

A black immigrant on trial for rape claims he was forced to have anal sex with his victim against his will, accusing her of stealing his sperm so she could have a mixed-race baby

When asked by the Crown whether he thought that pregnancy could result from anal sex, the man replied: "I'm not in the medical profession." The trial of Hilaire Ndyat, 42, has wrapped up in Winnipeg, with Justice Gerald Chartier reserving judgment on whether he will find the man guilty of one count of sex assault. Ndyat, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo who moved to Winnipeg in 1996, is executive director of the Winnipeg Afro-Aboriginal Cross-cultural Association and is also involved with numerous inner-city and cultural organizations and committees. Ndyat is accused of raping a female acquaintance inside his apartment in March 2008, with the Crown suggesting that he may have drugged the woman's beer before raping her. However, while testifying in French at his trial, Ndyat claimed that it was the woman who forced herself on him and that he didn't resist because women are revered in his culture and he didn't know how to react to her advances. Ndyat testified that he only resisted when the woman removed his condom and tried to force anal penetration. "I found that disgusting. I pushed her away and ran to the bathroom to wash up," he said. "In my culture, anal sex is taboo." Ndyat said he became concerned when he later discovered his used condom was missing and remembered the woman had told him of her fondness for mixed-race children. "I thought she wanted a black man's sperm as she mentioned earlier during the conversation that she'd like to have a mixed child, (she was) using me as a sperm donor by stealing sperm from me," he wrote in a 2008 statement to police and his employer. When asked on the stand whether he knew that anal sex doesn't lead to pregnancy, Ndyat said that he is not a doctor. "His version of the events insults our intelligence and defies common sense," prosecutor Lisa Cupples told court during closing arguments. "His testimony makes no sense."

Black man licks his shoe on New York City subway train

As disgusting as it is unbelievable.

A white female prosecutor and her brother are stabbed and almost beaten to death by her black ex-boyfriend, who is also a lawyer

Apparently, he did not like being rejected by a white woman.

The black illegal immigrant who carried out a horrific sex attack on Gabrielle Browne molested at least ten other women and committed burglaries, theft, arson, and drug crimes

Mohamed Kendeh, an African immigrant from Sierra Leone, has been committing crimes in Britain since he was a teenager. In fact, he has bragged that he carried out sex attacks on 11 women, including four when he was 15.

A 60-year-old black substitute teacher in Georgia has been busted for urinating in a trash bin while horrified fourth graders looked on

African-American Coleman Eaton is also accused of exposing himself to the 30 students in the classroom, police said. Eaton has been charged with two counts of child molestation.

A Haitian woman has pleaded guilty to setting fire to her young daughter during a voodoo ritual by pouring flammable liquid on the child’s head and igniting it

The little girl has been left with permanent scars across her body. The woman, Marie Lauradin, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault to pouring the liquid on her daughter, then 6, in 2009. She faces up to 17 years in prison and possible deportation to her native Haiti. Prosecutors said that Lauradin poured the accelerant on her daughter’s head and in a circle on the floor at her home as part of a voodoo practice involving a “loa,” or spirit.

Among black women, half of first marriages end in divorce, a rate that is far greater those for white, Hispanic and Asian women

As with divorce, marriage rates vary with race and ethnicity. Seven out of 10 black women in their 20s have never married. The percentage of never-married black women 55 and older rose to 13% in 2009. This suggests that many more black women than white women will never marry.

Researchers have found conclusive evidence that bacteria residing in the gut influence brain chemistry and behavior

This may mean that some psychiatric disorders are caused by bacteria.

New research shows that African Americans with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) had a higher antibody response to influenza vaccination than European American patients

Researchers have reported that African American patients are 3 times more likely to be high responders to the flu vaccine than European Americans.

A white teenage mother has been stabbed to death and her body dumped in a canal after having a baby with a married South Asian Muslim

Laura Wilson, 17, had a brief relationship with Ishaq Hussain, 22, who lived close to her before giving birth to their daughter in June 2010. Sheffield Crown Court was told that Hussain failed to acknowledge the child as his own and did not offer any support, leading to friction between Laura, her family and Hussain. Things came to a head in October 2010 when she went to Hussain's house and told his family he was the father of the child. Hussain and his friend, who also had an affair with her and was said to be her first love, plotted to kill her. They sent a flurry of text messages to one another. They adopted the language of the cult British film 'Four Lions' about Islamic terrorists and mounted a 'mission to kill Laura Wilson'. Asghar sent a text message to Hussain which said: 'I'm gonna send that kaffir bitch straight to hell.' He later told a friend that Laura and her friends had brought trouble to his door and he was 'very angry'. Asghar sent text messages to the friend using words to the effect of 'I'm going to kill Laura.' The teenage student went missing from her home in Holmes and her body was found two days later in a canal.

Race and physical attractiveness

Are black women less attractive than women of other races?

There were fewer white people living in California in 2010 than there were in 2000

The number of non-Hispanic whites in California has fallen by 850,000 from 15.8 million in 2000 to 14.95 million in 2010.

Illegal immigration and affirmative action

Illegal immigrants get preferential treatment over U.S. citizens when it comes to college admissions.

A 30-year-old illegal immigrant is behind bars for abducting a 9-year-old girl from her home as she slept, sexually assaulting her and trying to kill her

Jose Wilson Rojas Guzman, a former roommate of the girl's mother, has been booked on suspicion of attempted murder, kidnapping with the intent to rape and aggravated sexual assault on a child. The Mexican national was turned over to federal immigration enforcement agents for detention. Police obtained a DNA sample from the suspect, and tests confirmed that it matched DNA collected from the girl and crime scene. Guzman is being held in lieu of $1 million bail. The victim was treated for serious injuries at Parkview Community Hospital. She's recovering at home. The 9-year-old, whose identity was not released, was asleep with her older brother and younger sister in a second-story apartment when she was forcibly taken.

Nicotine is less addictive for smokers who have a particular genetic variant

Researchers have found that a particular gene called OPRM1 contains instructions for building a type of receptor that allows opioids – including drugs like heroin and morphine as well as opioids produced inside the body – to make their presence known in the brain, triggering release of the feel-good chemical dopamine. Nicotine prompts the body to produce more of its own opioids, which in turn releases more dopamine. At a particular location on the OPRM1 gene, many people inherit an A (short for adenine) from both parents. But some people inherit a G (short for guanine) from at least one parent. That small difference can affect whether smokers become addicted to nicotine – and the cigarettes that contain them. Researchers have found that having a G version of the gene made nicotine less appealing and easier to give up compared with having the double A version of the gene.

Two genetic letters out of the 3 billion in the human genetic alphabet may spell the difference between a genius and an idiot

A genetic analysis shows that a tiny variation - just two genetic letters within a single gene - determines the intelligence potential or lack thereof of a human brain. In normal brain function, convolutions, the deep fissures of the brain, increase the overall surface area, one of the primary determinants for intelligence. Deeper folds in the brain allow for rational and abstract thought. A team of researchers have analyzed a Turkish patient whose brain lacks those characteristic convolutions in part of his cerebral cortex, a sheet of brain tissue that plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness. The cause of this drastic cerebral deformity was pinned down to a gene called laminin gamma3 (LAMC3) with similar variations discovered in other patients with the same medical condition. The folding of the brain is seen only in mammals with larger brains, such as dolphins and apes, and is most pronounced in humans. These fissures expand the surface area of the cerebral cortex and allow for complex thought and reasoning without taking up more space in the skull. Such foldings aren't seen in mammals such as rodents or other animals with smaller brains.

Jewish philosopher defends Jewish rapist

Bernard-Henri Lévy defends fellow Jew Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Lévy is apparently appalled that someone as important as Strauss-Kahn can be accused of committing a crime and treated like a criminal. Another Jew, Ben Stein, is also defending the rapist.

The bump that Obama received after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan has vanished completely, according to the Gallup Tracking poll

Obama's approval rating is now at 46%, equal to his approval rating in the last tracking poll conducted before Obama informed Americans of bin Laden's death. The poll also shows that 44% of Americans now disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president. According to the Gallup poll, Obama's approval rating crested at 52% after the bin Laden killing. His disapproval rating never fell lower than 40%. Obama's bounce is smaller in magnitude and shorter in duration than the bumps enjoyed by other presidents over the past 70 years, according to a study by Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies. For example, George W. Bush received a 15-point bump after the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 - a bounce that lasted seven weeks.

Kenyan Olympic marathon gold medalist Sammy Wanjiru leaped to his death from the balcony of his apartment following a heated argument with his wife

Wanjiru, 24, had been drinking when his wife found him with another woman in their home in Nyahururu, said police. Efforts to revive him on the scene failed, authorities said. Police are questioning both women about events leading up to the tragedy. The marathoner had a history of domestic problems. In 2010, he was charged with wounding a bodyguard with a rifle and threatening to kill his wife. Wanjiru became the first Kenyan to win a gold medal in a marathon, beating an Olympic time record in the Beijing games.

Two Muslim women in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh helped each other use ropes to choke the life from their daughters after the two young women married Hindu men

The mothers claim that the daughters brought shame to their communities.

Jews and white identity

Steve Sailer reviews Jared Taylor's new book:

Nevertheless, an explicit white identity movement is unlikely to be tolerated. It’s not so much that blacks, Asians, and Hispanics don’t want this to happen. None of these groups are really all that powerful. Blacks tend to be colorful but not too competent; East Asians competent but colorless; Latinos culturally lethargic and unenterprising.

No, the much more serious roadblock to the emergence of white identity politics: more Jews don’t want it to happen than do want it to happen.

Many Jews have strong reasons for their aversion to white identity politics, either irrational (the Cossacks are coming!) or rational (what’s in it for me?).

Perhaps Taylor can persuade enough Jews to get onboard to make white identity respectable in the MSM and thus with the media’s consumers, the public. He’s striven manfully and graciously over the years to make Jews feel welcome in his movement and many Jews have written for American Renaissance.

Recall that neoconservatism emerged in the late 1960s, largely due to Jewish shopkeepers’ fear of black crime and Jewish civil servants’ fear of being fired by black politicians. Brilliant Jewish intellectuals like Nathan Glazer and Norman Podhoretz took their relatives’ complaints seriously.

Still, over time, Jews mostly figured out it was simply easier to move away from blacks and get better jobs where they didn’t have to deal with many blacks. Let other whites deal with them.

Thus Commentary lost interest in complaining about quotas, and neoconservatism morphed into mostly being an Israel Fan Club.

The fundamental question for 21st Century white identity politics is the same as for Armenians, just two or three orders of magnitude greater in media influence: What’s in it for Jews?

Taylor has worked out strong justifications for why a white identity movement would be good for average, and particularly good for below-average, whites. But not many Jews are below the white average.

Jews are generally praised in the press for engaging in Jewish identity politics. So why would they instead want to engage in disreputable white identity politics? What’s in it for them?

The decapitated bodies of 25 men and two women have been found near Guatemala's border with Mexico

The bodies were discovered at a ranch in Peten province, 310 miles north of the capital. The chief of police said that the killings were probably linked to a battle between rival drug gangs fighting for control of the area. Northern Guatemala is an important transit point for drugs smuggled from South America to the United States. Officials said that the victims appeared to have been ambushed by gunmen. They are investigating whether the deaths were related to the Zetas drug gang, which has been expanding its operations into Guatemala from Mexico. There are also suspicions that the massacre was linked to the killing of Haroldo Waldemar Leon in the same area. He was the brother of drug trafficker Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon, who was shot dead by the Zetas in 2008.

Muslim terrorists and porn

Islamic societies have some of the highest rates of pornography usage in the world.

Asian and African ancestry in European populations

Dienekes looks at genetic research that tries to assess the level of Asian and African admixture in western Eurasian populations.

Almost half of Zimbabwe's civil servants are either not qualified or are not working, according to a World Bank report

It is estimated that $15m of state money is being lost each month paying such workers. Auditors found that one ministry appointed nearly 7,000 people on one day ahead of the 2008 election run-off. Either the civil service is incapable or state funds are used for political ends. The audit was carried out by Ernst and Young India in 2010 and covered the period 2007-9. This was a period when Zimbabwe's economy was in meltdown - because of run-away inflation, the monthly salary of a teacher hardly paid for a single bus fare. This might partly explain why on the day of the audit, some 13,000 public workers were absent - from a total of 180,000. It found that 75,000 state workers did not have the qualifications needed to do the job. Since the power-sharing government was set up in 2009, an extra 40,000 civil servants have been employed.

Piracy off the Somali coast costs the international community up to $8.3bn a year

That sum could reach $15 billion by 2015. A Somali pirate can earn up to $79,000 a year.

Alleles known to be associated with greater height are found at higher frequencies in Northern Europeans

Examining genetic factors that may explain height differences between northern and southern Europeans.

A black contender for the Miss USA title has dropped out of the pageant after being charged with identity theft

African-American Shaletta Porterfield, who was set to appear as Miss Wisconsin USA, resigned from the beauty contest after being charged with three counts of stealing someone's identity for financial gain. The Madison beauty told investigators that she had forged signatures of business owners on advertising contracts while working for a marketing company. But business owners got wind of the scheme when the marketing company asked them to proof some ads they hadn't agreed to buy. Robert Nagel, Porterfield's lawyer, said that the beauty queen hatched the bogus plot because she was under a lot of pressure from the company to hit her commission goals. Porterfield's troubles are only the most recent black spot for the annual pageant. The 2010 winner, Rima Fakih, embarrassed pageant officials after a local radio station in her hometown in Michigan reveled her pole-dancing past. Fakih, the first-ever Arab-American Miss USA, had won the radio station's "Stripper 101" contest by sexing it up on a stripper pole at a Detroit gentleman's club in 2007.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Jewish head of the International Monetary Fund, has been arrested and accused of a sex attack on a Times Square hotel maid

Port Authority officers were acting on information from the New York Police Department, whose detectives had been investigating a brutal attack on a female employee at the Sofitel New York. The 32-year-old woman told police that she entered Strauss-Kahn's room and he emerged from the bedroom naked, threw her down and tried to sexually assault her. She broke free and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened and who then called the police. When New York City police detectives arrived, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his mobile phone and other personal items. "It looked like he got out of there in a hurry," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

Two South Florida imams and a third family member have been arrested on charges of providing support to the Pakistani Taliban

In addition, three others in Pakistan were also indicted on the same charges. FBI agents have arrested Hafiz Khan and his son Izhar Khan in South Florida. Another of Hafiz Khan's sons, Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles. Also charged are three Pakistani residents: Ali Rehman, Alam Zeb, and Amina Khan. Amina Khan is Hafiz Khan's daughter, and Zeb is his grandson. The four-count indictment alleges that all six defendents conspired to provide material support to a conspiracy to kill, injure and kidnap people abroad, and that they provided support to the Pakistani Taliban. Hafiz Khan is the imam at Flagler Mosque in Miami. Izhar Khan, is an Imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, Florida.

Women who gave birth to twins outperform their peers who only ever had one child at a time

On average, they live longer after menopause. They give birth more frequently, and over the course of their lives, they raise more children. They have children later on into their lives, and over a longer part of it. These advantages held even after adjustments were made to account for things like the women’s age, when they gave birth to their first child, whether their husbands or children died, and their religious affiliations. This contradicts the idea that twins harm the health of the mother. Instead, it is quite the opposite. The twin-bearers live longer and raise more children. They even tend to have more singletons than other mums, which means that even excluding their twins, they would still end up with larger families. In addition, mothers of twins tend to be taller than singletons.

Police in Mexico have found eight decapitated bodies in the northern state of Durango

Among the dead was the deputy governor of Durango's prison, who had been recently abducted. Gerardo Galindo's head was found next to a wall bearing a threatening message by a local drug gang. Prison officials are increasingly being targeted by drug gangs, whose jailed members often continue to run their businesses from behind bars. In February 2011, the security chief of a prison in the northern city of Monterrey was murdered. His dismembered body was found in a plastic box inside a car abandoned near the prison where he worked. Officials have not yet identified the remaining seven bodies found in Durango. Forensic experts also uncovered another eight bodies in mass graves in Durango city, the state's capital, bringing the total discovered recently to 196. Durango state governor Jorge Herrera Caldera said that he thought most of those buried in the mass graves had fallen victim to a "settling of scores" between drug gangs. The state's murder rate has risen steeply in recent years as rival gangs battle for control of the drugs trade in the area.

Police have arrested a 41-year-old black man after he called 911 and told officers that he was not given the correct change after buying crack cocaine from a drug dealer

The North Charleston Police Department arrested Dexter White for disorderly conduct. It all started when White called authorities and told officers that he had given $60 to a drug dealer for crack and only got back $20 worth of drugs. White said that the drug dealer refused to give him $40 back. According to a police report, White then walked away from the drug dealer, smoked the crack he purchased and called 911. White was locked up at the Charleston County Detention Center.

Interracial rape in Alabama

Black males are 13.1% of the population of Alabama but commit 91.7% of the state's interracial rapes. In other words, 12 white women are raped by black men for every 1 black woman who is raped by a white man. Black men are consistently a majority of rapists in Alabama and are more likely to commit rape than white men.

Race and rape in Georgia

Blacks make up 30.2% of the population of Georgia but commit 50.4% of the state's rapes.

An Orthodox rabbi has been convicted of fondling an Israeli Army officer on a plane and sentenced to 60 days in jail

Brooklyn Magistrate Ramon Reyes considered numerous letters written on behalf of Gavriel Bidany, but when it came time for the rabbi to speak for himself, he sat in stony silence. "Rabbi Bidany committed a serious crime, touching a young sleeping woman on her private parts," Reyes said. "Such conduct cannot be tolerated." The judge also praised the 23-year-old victim, a lieutenant in charge of a missile defense unit, for having the courage to come forward about the assault on a transatlantic Delta flight from Israel. Bidany, 48, a marriage counselor, faced up to six months in prison for the misdemeanor crime of sexual touching without consent. He had been found guilty by Reyes after a two-day bench trial in Brooklyn Federal Court. Bidany, married and the father of 11 children, had submitted letters to the court from two sons and a daughter who feared his incarceration would jeopardize their matchmaking and marriage prospects.

An Islamic faith healer in Nigeria has married 107 women

He now has 86 wives, the youngest is 19 and the oldest is 64. Nine have died and 12 of them he divorced (for disobedience). Apparently, he had a religious vision in the 1970s involving a visit from the archangel Gabriel. The angel instructed him to take wife after wife after wife. He has fathered 185 children with 133 still living. The youngest is only 1 month old.

A Sri Lankan fund manager has been convicted of insider trading

Hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam was recorded getting inside information from hired experts. After the jury heard the wiretapped conversations, they convicted him of all 14 counts of insider trading and conspiracy. Rajaratnam had maintained that the trades he made for the Galleon Group, which once managed as much as $7 billion, resulted from a “mosaic” of publicly available information. However, the jury, which convicted him of 9 counts of insider trading and 5 counts of conspiracy, listened to FBI wiretaps of Rajaratnam receiving information from corporate insiders, including a director of Goldman Sachs. The Sri Lankan native is expected to appeal the legality of the wiretaps. He is free on $100 million in bail and must wear an electronic monitoring device around his ankle.

An average of 48 women and girls are raped every hour in the Democratic Republic of Congo

A study has found that 400,000 females aged 15-49 were raped over a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007. Sexual violence has long been a dominant feature of the continuing conflict in eastern DR Congo. The highest numbers of rapes were found in war-ravaged North Kivu, where an average of 67 women out of 1,000 have been raped at least once. However, the report said that sexual violence was also widespread outside the conflict zones of eastern DR Congo. The study is in line with earlier reports that found sexual violence was spreading outside of war zones and into DR Congo’s civilian society.

South Africa’s firebrand youth leader Julius Malema has hit out at officials for building open-air toilets

He was in a township run by the ANC in Free State province where there are some 1,600 toilets with cisterns and pipes but no surrounding wall. The toilets can often be seen from several houses in the area. Top ANC officials, including Malema and Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula, toured Rammulotsi township in the central Free State province where residents showed them the toilets. The residents said that the ANC-led council had told them that they could not afford to erect enclosures.

A 12 year old Kenyan girl is several months pregnant

She’s a member of the Samburu tribe, living in a small village in a remote part of Isiolo in Kenya’s Eastern Province. The pre-teen, whose identity is being protected, claims she had sex with a relative – a rape sanctioned by the Samburu, through a practice called beading. Intricate beaded necklaces are a symbol of the Kenyan nation. But to young Samburu girls, the necklaces are a symbol not of national pride, but something much darker, that can lead to rape, unwanted pregnancies – and even the deaths of newborns. In beading, a close family relative will approach a girl’s parents with red Samburu beads and place the necklace around the girl’s neck. Effectively he has booked her. It is like a temporary engagement, and he can then have sex with her. Girls are also beaded as an early marriage promise by non-relatives. Some girls who are beaded are no more than 6 years old. Samburu culture dictates that girls be engaged to a relative and they are allowed to have sex with him. But they are not allowed to get pregnant and there is no preventative measures. At the end of the day, most girls get pregnant and these infants end up dying or being killed or being given away. When they reach adulthood, Samburu girls will marry outside of their village, but taboo dictates that the girls will never be able to marry if they keep their babies resulting from beading. Some girls undergo a crude abortion before their pregnancy advances. Others hide their condition until it is too late for that. They let them give birth, but only to kill these babies. If the girls are lucky, their babies are given away to strangers. Most of these girls are traumatized and some get infections from the crude abortions.

Obama has not been so good for black male employment

The percentage of African-American men with a job has dropped to its lowest level since records began in 1972. Even as the economy added a better-than-expected 244,000 jobs, the percentage of black males over 20 who are currently employed dropped slightly to 56.9, the Labor Department’s April 2011 report shows. For whites, the equivalent figure is 68.1%. Before this recession, the percentage of black adult men with a job had never dropped below 60%, according to Labor Department statistics. And among blacks, it’s not just men who are suffering. Just 51.5% of African-Americans across the board — compared to 59.5% of whites — have a job, the numbers show. That’s the lowest level for blacks since 1984.

New York police have arrested two North African men after they bought a hand grenade and guns wanting to attack synagogues, kill Jews and blow up the Empire State Building

Algerian Ahmed Ferhani, 26, and Mohamed Mamdouh, 20, a Moroccan-born U.S. citizen, were arrested after they bought three pistols, ammunition and an inert grenade from an undercover officer, concluding a seven-month sting operation. “In addition to discussing the bombing of synagogues one after another, Ferhani also expressed interest in bombing the Empire State Building,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. New York has remained a target for al Qaeda and police went on heightened alert following the raid in which U.S. special forces killed Islamic terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Homosexual men are more likely to have had cancer than heterosexual men

Gay men are twice as likely to have been diagnosed with cancer as straight men and, on average, it happened a decade earlier. The difference in the numbers could be down to the higher rate of anal cancer in homosexual men or HIV infection, which has been linked to cancer. HIV can cause certain types of cancer, and gay men are at a greater risk of HIV than straight men. Another factor potentially having an impact is Human Papilloma Virus, which can lead to anal cancer in gay men. In addition, smoking is more common in homosexual men and women than in heterosexual people and this may lead to higher cancer rates. Lesbian and bisexual women are more than twice as likely as heterosexual women to say that they were in fair or poor health.

The incidence of out-of-hospital fatal pulmonary embolism (PE) is more than three times higher in black people than in white or Hispanic people

Black and Hispanic people with fatal PE also died at a significantly younger age than white people with the same cause of death. The majority of deaths (58.2%) were among black people, followed by white people (25.1%), and Hispanic people (15.6%). The race-adjusted incidence rate of out-of-hospital fatal PE (per 100,000 people per year) was more than three times higher for black people than for white and Hispanic people, at 3.73 versus 1.15 and 0.93, respectively. Those with fatal PE were between two and 10 times more likely to carry the prothrombin G20210A mutation than ethnically matched controls, which suggests that this mutation might be associated with a higher risk for developing acute fatal PE.

White women in their 40s are more likely to be childless than Hispanics

Just 12% of Hispanic women from 40 to 44 are childless, compared with 20% of whites, 17% of blacks and 16% of Asians.

Only 37% approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, while 58% disapprove

Also, just 31% believe that the economy will improve in the next 12 months, compared with 43% who think it will stay the same and another 25% who say it will get worse.

Black postal worker on trial in string of Chicago rapes

A woman, then 16, was standing at a bus stop on her way to a shopping mall when a black man suddenly grabbed her by the arm as he brandished a screwdriver. He said, "Get in the car or I will kill you." As he drove through an alley, she pleaded with him to let her go. He promised he wasn't going to rape her, but he soon stopped the car and sexually assaulted her. African-American Tommie Naylor, 43, is the former postal worker accused in the rape. Naylor is on trial for a separate attack of a 15-year-old girl in 2008. He is charged in five rapes of teenage girls. Three of the victims testified under an Illinois statute allowing evidence that demonstrates a defendant has a propensity to commit sex offenses. Naylor was arrested in 2009 at the south suburban mail-sorting facility where he worked. Detectives had matched his vehicle to a partial license plate number from one victim. DNA matched him to each of the five sexual assaults.

The cholera strain that has claimed more than 4,500 lives in Haiti closely resembles strains currently circulating in South Asia, a UN report has found

The investigation followed accusations that UN peacekeepers from Nepal had introduced the disease into Haiti, prompting violent anti-UN riots.

Happiness gene

Scientists believe that the 5-HTT gene releases happy chemicals into the brain as well as helping the nerves to control a chemical called serotonin which has been linked to depression and moods.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper will not include pictures of women

The Jewish newspaper, Der Tzitung, removed Hilary Clinton from the White House photo involving the killing of Osama bin Laden.

A South African gold mining company owned by members of the Mandela and Zuma families is accused of exploiting its political connections to avoid punishment over its abuse of workers

The company is also accused of profiting from selling mine assets it does not own. Aurora Empowerment Systems, took control of two gold mines just outside of Johannesburg around 18 months ago. South Africa's mining unions claim the company owes its workers more than $1.8 million in unpaid salaries. The managing director of Aurora is Zondwa Gadaffi Mandela, grandson of Nelson Mandela. The chairman is Khulubuse Zuma, nephew of President Jacob Zuma. Another board member, Michael Hulley, is the personal legal adviser to the president. Despite having no previous experience in the mining industry, a high court-appointed liquidator gave Aurora control of two gold mines after the previous owner went bust. Aurora outbid seasoned mining firms with an offer of $92 million. Since then, the company has been at the center of huge controversy in South Africa, with critics claiming that the company has committed multiple legal and regulatory infringements, but has escaped any kind of sanction because of the significant political connections of its senior management. It was recently revealed that Aurora's chairman had made a private donation of $151,000 to the ANC, when his company is yet to pay outstanding wages to its workers. Since taking over operations in 2009, Aurora has never secured the financing to buy the mines outright as it had planned. This is despite company chairman, Khulubuse Zuma, boasting to South African media that the company had "deep pockets" promising profits of "5 to 10 billion dollars" in the first 10 years of business.

Robots and kin selection

Researchers show that robots evolve to look out for their own kind.

Blacks and the modern Left

Hunter Wallace reports that not all SWPL-types believe that the problems experienced by black people are the result of racism.

Sheryl Cwele, the wife of South Africa's intelligence minister, has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for drug trafficking

Cwele, married to Siyabonga Cwele, was convicted of recruiting women to smuggle drugs into the country. Her accomplice, Nigerian national Frank Nabolisa, received the same sentence. Allegations of drug trafficking surfaced in 2009 after the arrest of a South African woman caught in Brazil with cocaine worth $300,000. Tessa Beetge is currently serving an eight-year jail sentence in Sao Paulo. She was found with 22lb of cocaine in her luggage. There was a solemn atmosphere at the Pietermaritzburg High Court when the pair arrived for sentencing. Delivering the sentence, Judge Piet Koen described their offenses as serious. They could have received up to 15 years in prison.

Nigerian immigrants in Maryland

Dennis Mangan looks at a string of carjackings committed by Nigerians.

Which is more important: intelligence or motivation?

Steve Sailer looks at recent IQ research.

A 24-year-old who was stabbed to death in South Africa is the victim of "corrective rape"

A "corrective rape" is a crime in which men attack lesbians in an attempt to reverse their sexual orientation. Noxolo Nogwaza was attacked in April 2011 after dropping off her girlfriend in Kwa-Thema township near Johannesburg. She was raped, stabbed with broken glass several times and her face pummelled with rocks, Human Rights Watch said. The use of the term "corrective rape" started after the rape and murder of Eudy Simelane, a well-known soccer player who lived openly as a lesbian.

April 2011 death toll highlights trauma of Mexican bloodbath

More than 1,400 gangland killings were clocked, by one newspaper's count, giving April 2011 the highest death toll of the 53 months since President Felipe Calderon unleashed the military and federal police against the country's crime syndicates. The toll includes more than 300 bodies pulled from mass graves near the South Texas border and in other northern Mexican states. Many of the graves' victims were killed weeks, even months earlier. Still, nearly 40 people a day were slain in April 2011, according to Milenio, the newspaper that tallied the 1,402 deaths. In the last week of April 2011 alone, gunmen abducted 11 city police officers, including the force's chief, in a Monterrey suburb.

Hundreds of albinos are thought to have been killed for black magic purposes in Tanzania and albino girls are being raped because of a belief they offer a cure for AIDS

At least 63 albinos, including children, are known to have been killed, mostly in the remote northwest of the country. "We believe there are hundreds and hundreds of killings in Tanzania, but only a small number are being reported to the police," Peter Ash, founder and director of Under The Same Sun (UTSS), said. "There is belief that if you have relations with a girl with albinism, you will cure AIDS. So there are many girls with albinism who are being raped in this country because of this belief, which is a false belief." Around 1.4 million Tanzanians among a population of 40.7 million have the HIV virus that leads to AIDS. Albino hunters kill their victims and harvest their blood, hair, genitals and other body parts for potions that witchdoctors say bring luck in love, life and business. Ernest Kimaya, head of the Tanzania Albino society and a sufferer of the pigment disorder, said that social stigma prevented many girls from reporting rape, making it difficult to say how many albinos had been sexually abused. Activists recently reported the murders of three teenage albino boys from the same family in northern Tanzania, who were poisoned and their bones later robbed from their graves.

An Orthodox rabbi is standing trial for groping a female Israel Defense Forces officer during a flight aboard a commercial jetliner bound for New York City

Gavriel Bidany, 48, a father of 11 children, was traveling on a Delta flight from Tel Aviv and seated next to the young woman, who had fallen asleep. The woman has testified in Brooklyn federal court that she awoke to find the man's hand massaging her crotch and then her breasts. The rabbi pretended to be dozing and feigned innocence. The woman, a 23-year-old career military officer who holds the rank of lieutenant, then stood up and reported the assault to a flight attendant. Bidany fled to the back of the plane, and the attendants found him there. Bidany took the stand in his own defense, replying through a Hebrew-language interpreter.

While heart transplant patients are living longer now than in years past, African Americans are still faring worse than patients of other races

Researchers found that of just over 39,000 Americans who had a heart transplant between 1987 and 2009, the percentage of recipients who died within one to five years gradually dipped over time. However, African Americans had higher death rates than white recipients, and the gap held steady over the two decades. Overall, 36% of black patients died within five years of their heart transplant. That compared to 26.5% of whites, 29% of Hispanic recipients, and 26% of recipients of other races and ethnic groups. When the researchers accounted for things such as age, type of heart disease and health insurance, only African Americans were at a higher risk of dying than whites. Immune system suppression - with drugs designed to keep the body from rejecting the donor heart - may not be working as well for black patients. The researchers found that black heart recipients were more likely than others to die because the donor heart failed or due to other heart problems and some of those complications could have been due to inadequate immune system suppression. Black patients were also more likely to be hospitalized within two years of their transplant, including for episodes of organ rejection. On the other hand, patients of other races were more likely than African Americans to die of infections or cancer - which could be due to over-suppression of the immune system.

Obama only experiences an 11 point increase in his approval rating following the killing of Osama bin Laden

In all, 57% said that they now approved of Obama’s job performance, up from 46% in April 2011. More than half said that they disapproved of his handling of the economy

Controlling immigration saves money

Denmark's strict immigration laws have saved the country 6.7 billion euros, according to a government report. Let us hope that some American politicians read this report.

Genes and happiness

The biggest single determinant of well-being and happiness appears to be genetic inheritance: studies of identical twins reared apart show that over 40% of variation in happiness is attributable to the genes that we inherit from our parents.

The genetics of Europe

Dienekes continues his excellent genetic research into the similarities and differences between various European, Asian and North African populations.

Young black males who have sex with males have twice the number of new HIV infections as young Hispanic and white men who have male partners

This may have something to do with black males' views on masculinity.

Osama bin Laden is dead and we got scammed by Pakistan

Steve Sailer has a series of posts pointing out how our so-called "allies" in Pakistan have been protecting Osama bin Laden for years while taking money from the United States in order to help us find him. How should we punish this Islamic nation for its treachery? Nuclear war? How about cutting off all Muslim immigration from South Asia?

Humans and learning

One reason that humans are more intelligent than chimpanzees seems to be that humans lack part of a gene that stifles the growth of brain tissue.

The organizer of the Cinco de Mayo parade is in prison for raping his daughter

Juan Cáceres, a Mexican immigrant to the United States, is locked up on Rikers Island. In March 2011, a jury convicted him of second-degree rape of his own daughter, from the time she was 11 until she was 14. He was also convicted of endangering the child's welfare and of criminal contempt. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.