Thursday, May 31, 2012

A Sudanese woman, believed to be around 20, has been sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, and is being held near Khartoum, shackled in prison with her baby son

Sudan may start applying sharia, or Islamic law, more strictly following the secession of mostly non-Muslim South Sudan in 2011. The woman, Intisar Sharif Abdalla, was sentenced by the Ombada criminal court on April 22, 2012. Abdalla was illiterate and did not have a lawyer or interpreter in the courtroom, although Arabic is not her native language. Arabic is the main language in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation, though a wide range of smaller languages are also spoken, particularly in tribal areas. It was unclear where Abdalla came from. Floggings are a common punishment in Sudan for crimes like drinking alcohol and adultery. Following a 1989 coup, Sudan introduced laws that took sharia as their main source and hosted militants including Osama bin Laden. Sudan still lists death by stoning in its statutes. In 2010, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said that the country would adopt a fully Islamic constitution following the secession of the south, agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war. Most people in South Sudan are Christian or follow traditional African beliefs. In 2010, the case of Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese U.N. official, sparked international furor when she was sentenced to flogging for wearing trousers.

Y chromosomal haplogroups and cognitive ability

New research indicates that there may be a link between Y chromosomes and intelligence.

New poll finds that Obama out-polls Romney by 59% to 27% among Jewish voters

Jews prefer Obama because of his left-wing social and economic views. Jews feel that Obama is better on issues such as "economic justice" and "progressive taxation".

An Iranian professor at Sweden's prestigious Karolinska medical institute is being held in police custody for cutting off his wife's lips with a knife and then eating them in Stockholm

The Iranian flew into a jealous rage over suspicions that his much younger wife had been having an affair. The Iranian, who is 52, admitted to cutting off his wife's lips in a closed court hearing saying that it was retaliation. The assault was so brutal that the prosecutor tried to have him charged for attempted murder. But the court sought to downgrade the charge to aggravated assault. Ingela Hessius Ekman, who represents the victim, said that her client may have suffered irreparable damage. The Iranian was doing post-Doctoral research at the institute in 2010. He is now employed by a university in Tehran, but still lived partly in Stockholm, where he collaborated with his old research group at the university, and used its email services and library through a declaration of association.

The family of a Hispanic who died in a three-in-the-bed sex romp has won $3 million in damages against a doctor who failed to warn him about extreme physical activity

William Martinez, 31, suffered a fatal heart attack caused by the excitement and physical activity with a woman and another man. The married father-of-two died a day before he was due to have a heart stress test. A court in Georgia, heard that the woman involved in the sex romp was not his wife. Lawyers representing the estate of Martinez filed a medical malpractice suit against Dr Sreenivasalu Gangasani. They claimed that he had failed to warn Martinez about taking part in any physical activity after he visited him to complain about chest pains a week before the threesome. Lawyers Rod Edmond and Tricia Hoffler told a jury that Martinez had called at the CardiVascular Group in Lawrenceville after experiencing a pain his chest that shot up his arm. Martinez had high blood pressure and other tests showed that he was at high risk of having clogged arteries. The court heard that Dr Gangasani arranged a stress test for Martinez - but did not tell him to refrain from any physical activity. The lawsuit was launched after Martinez, from Lawrenceville, Georgia, died in March 2009.

Black cannibalism: A 21-year-old electrical engineering student has been charged with first-degree murder after parts of a man’s dismembered body were found in his home a week after the man first went missing

Alexander Kinyua confessed to police that he also ate his roommate’s heart and portions of the brain after killing him in their Joppa, Maryland town home. This is the second deeply disturbing report of black cannibalism to sweep the nation within a week. In the first, Miami Cannibal Rudy Eugene tore off and ate most of the face of down-and-out white homeless man Ronald Poppo. The Hartford County Sheriff's office said that they found the body parts while searching the town home on Terrapin Terrace in Joppa, Maryland, northeast of Baltimore, after receiving a tip from Kinyua's father. Police also found a human head and hands in metal tins on the house’s main floor. According to charging documents, Kinyua admitted to eating Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie’s heart and part of his brain after stabbing him to death. Kinyua then directed police to Towne Baptist Church, where they found the rest of Agyei-Kodie’s remains. Appearing in court, Kinyua’s defense attorney told the judge that the Kenyan-born student has strong ties to Maryland, with several family members in the area. However, Assistant State’s Attorney Trenna Manners said that the man has had a troubled past and committed a grisly crime. For one thing, Kinyu was kicked out of Morgan State University’s ROTC program in January 2012 following a disciplinary incident. On May 20, 2012 he was charged with first-degree assault when he beat another Morgan State student with a baseball bat and then fled into the woods. The attack appeared to be random. He was held on $220,000 bond and is in the process of being expelled from his college, according to the university. His Facebook page details a man with a troubled mind. In some posts, he wrote of how campus shootings – like that of the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech – were not tragedies at all, but ethnic cleansings.

Jewish politicians back corrupt black congressman

Rep. Charles Rangel has picked up endorsements from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Mayor Ed Koch in a re-election race shaping up to be his most difficult in decades. Rangel has locked up the support of much of the city’s political elite ahead of a June 26, 2012 primary. Among the names listed on an invitation for a June 13, 2012 fundraiser marking his 82nd birthday are three mayors (Bloomberg, Koch and David Dinkins), every Democratic member of congress from New York City except Rep. Eliot Engel, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and both the city and state comptrollers.

Study: Relatively few black or white families are relocating to an otherwise growing number of diverse neighborhoods in the United States

A team of sociologists examined the mobility patterns of black and white families that moved house between 1977 and 2005 within their own metropolitan areas. Of the 9,940 moves undertaken by black families, 43.7% were to predominately black neighborhoods, the researchers found. Among the 8,823 white families who moved, the proportion going to white areas was 56.8%. Only 17.7% of blacks relocated to multi-ethnic districts - those with populations at least 10% black, at least 10% Asian or Hispanic, and at least 40% white. Among whites, the figure was 5.6%. "We pay a lot of attention to this proliferation of multi-ethnic neighborhoods, but they are still only a small part of the overall inter-neighborhood mobility picture for blacks and whites," said lead author Kyle Crowder, a sociology professor at the University of Washington.

A population of native American Indians from Colorado has been found to have a genetic mutation typical of Ashkenazi Jews

Is this more evidence that Christopher Columbus was Jewish?

Rabbi compares being against gay marriage to supporting the stoning of children and slavery

Another Jew trying to undermine Christianity.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

One of America's most wanted fugitives accused of murdering his two daughters because they were dating non-Muslims is believed to be working as a cab driver in New York City

Egyptian-born Yaser Said fled his home in 2008 after shooting daughters Aminia, 18, and Sarah, 17, in a horrific honor killing on New Year's Day. He is now one of the FBI's most wanted criminals.

An Asian father has pleaded guilty to child endangerment after abandoning his 16-year-old daughter outside a mall over a poor grade at school

Telling his daughter to pack her bags and get in the car, Tuan Huynh, 47, said that she could not return home after no longer meeting her family's expectations according to police in Philadelphia. The girl wandered for hours outside the Cheltenham Square Mall, 13 miles from her home, before being approached by a minister. According to court documents, police said that they were already on their way to the location after hearing reports of a girl asking strangers for a place to stay. Upon their inquiry the girl refused to tell them her real name. She said that she was instructed not to tell the police who she was according to the arrest affidavit. She didn’t know where she was since she had never been to the area before. She’s lucky that somebody didn’t grab her and abduct her. An aspiring pianist, it was through sheet music found in her bag with her name on it - mixed with a blanket and a change of clothes - that revealed her identity. She later told police that it was a poor grade on a calculus test that lead to her eviction from her home. Her father has been sentenced to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service, escaping a maximum sentence of five years in jail. He was also ordered to take parenting classes before permitted to return home. The father has expressed no remorse for what he did and has said that he's free to parent his child how he chooses.

A 41-year-old black man has been arrested after he raped a 15-year-old girl he friended on Facebook and got her pregnant

Posing as a 25-year-old, Anthony Antonio Norman sent the teenager a friend request on the social networking website during the summer of 2011. The pair chatted and through Facebook the black man asked the girl, who hasn't been named, for her address so that he could meet her. But when he arrived at her Mableton home, Norman forced his way into the house and raped the girl on the foyer rug. The teenager is having the baby, and when it is born a DNA test will be conducted to determine whether Norman is the father. The girl's mother, who reported the rape to police, said she had contacted Norman through Facebook and that he had told her he would take care of the child if it is his. Police have arrested Norman and booked him into the Cobb County jail where he is being held without bond. He has been charged with rape, statutory rape, child molestation, cruelty to children and sexual exploitation of children.

Britain: A young Sikh woman has been beaten and sexually assaulted by a Muslim man

Local Sikhs are protesting because they fell that the British police are not doing enough to protect Sikh women from Muslim rapists. Of course, the British police aren't doing much to protect white women from Muslim rapists either.

Employment levels for the nation’s fastest-growing demographic groups - Asians and Hispanics - are now higher than before the recession began in December 2007, while employment for white and black workers still lags pre-recession peaks

In Ohio, total employment for Hispanics rose by 22% to 151,000 from 2007 to 2011, according to an annual report from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. By comparison, the number of employed black Ohioans fell by 13% to 491,000 over the same period, while employment for whites dropped by 7% to 4.64 million. The state does not track employment for its small Asian population.

Gay porn actor sent murdered man’s body parts to politician

The case of a torso being discovered in a Montreal neighborhood and body parts being delivered using the Canadian mail service widened when Montreal police identified a suspect in the case - Luka Rocco Magnotta. Magnotta, 29, who also goes by the aliases Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, is a former stripper and porn star with multiple websites depicting him in various photo spreads. Montreal police have obtained a videotape of the killing. The torso was discovered shortly before a senior staffer at the Conservative Party of Canada office in Ottawa partially opened a brown-papered package, which was later found to contain a severed left foot. Police tracked a second package, which contained a hand, to the Ottawa Postal Terminal and stopped its delivery. That package was addressed to the Liberal Party of Canada. Meanwhile, the Montreal police focused their attention on a second-floor apartment in the neighborhood of Snowdon, located near the alley where the torso was found decomposing in a suitcase on the curb with a pile of garbage. Magnotta was earlier cited for posting hideous videos of torturing kittens. In one, he put kittens in a bag and slowly sucked the air out of it. In another, he slowly drowned one to death.

New Jersey: NJ Transit says a Hispanic survived after he was shocked while trying to steal overhead rail wires

NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder says that the Latino fell onto the lines at Roseville Avenue in Newark around 4 a.m. The suspect has been identified as 41-year-old Eric Vega of Newark. He was taken to a hospital.

New York City: Stupid black gang caught by NYPD because of their postings on Facebook

The gang, which has members as young as 13, had members arguing over the proceeds of robberies on Facebook, which captured the attention of authorities in the 77th precinct, who sat back and watched as the dopey black gangsters basically confessed to committing multiple felonies. The black gangsters would climb fire escapes and traverse rooftops to break into Crown Heights homes during a nearly year-long burglary spree that ended in March 2012. Typically, the black crooks would take electronics, like cell phones, computers, and video games, and then pawn the items for cash. During most of the burglaries, the residents weren't home. However, during one of the break-ins, four of the gangsters - Derrin Dyson, 18; Dezhaun Samuels, 18; Christopher Scott, 17; and a 13-year-old juvenile - tied up a man and woman who lived in the apartment and threatened to kill them if they called police. The black thugs then robbed the apartment and sexually assaulted the female victim.

Around 150 people attending a service in a church in the southern city of Carcassonne had to take cover when they were attacked with stones

Four young men burst into the Saint Joseph church and started throwing stones. There were around 150 people in the church at the time. The youths were of north African descent. Some of the parishioners tried to catch the youths before they fled. The Saint Joseph church is in a sensitive neighborhood of the city with the neighboring La Conte housing estate close by.

In Florida, unmarried couples - gay and straight - are twice as likely as married couples to be interracial

When including couples in which one partner is Hispanic, the percentage nearly doubles. About one in five households in Florida includes an unmarried couple of different races or Hispanic origin - almost twice the 11% of married couples, according to figures recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Overall, the South has a lower percentage of married and unmarried interracial couples than the nation as a whole. Racial separation still exists among gays. Many blacks don't feel comfortable or accepted by the larger, white gay community. The high number of unmarried interracial straight couples may be related to short-term trial partnerships - couples experimenting with dating people different from themselves - as opposed to married couples who are theoretically choosing mates for life, the Census Bureau reports.

Maryland has became the first state in the Washington area to receive a pardon from the federal No Child Left Behind law, joining 18 other states that have sought relief from the law's stringent and unrealistic benchmarks for student achievement

In 2011, the state - whose public schools have been named the best in the nation for four consecutive years by Education Week - failed to make adequate yearly progress because not enough of its black, low-income, special education or English-language learner subgroups were proficient in math or reading, and Hispanic students did not make the mark in reading. In addition to Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Rhode Island also received waivers. The U.S. Department of Education is still reviewing waiver applications from Virginia and the District, as well as 16 other states.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A black soldier who starved his girlfriend's 10-year-old son to death as punishment for eating too many sweets faces the death penalty

In a rare move in the state of Oklahoma, the federal government is seeking the punishment for Connell C. Williams, 32, a black former private at Fort Sill. Williams is accused of withholding food from Marcus Holloway who lost half his body weight before his death on May 5, 2011. The boy died of severe malnutrition after being given just water and rice cakes while he spent months locked in a room his sister branded a dungeon. Marcus weighed just 44 pounds when he died - about 26 pounds less than the weight of a healthy 10-year-old. At Williams's detention hearing in September 2011, one physician said that the boy's malnourishment was consistent with that of concentration camp photos. The African-American suspect told investigators that he was punishing the boy for eating too many sweets. Williams lived with the boy, his sister and mother at Fort Sill housing. He was not Marcus's biological father and was married to another woman.

A British judge has jailed a British woman for engaging in free speech

In Britain, it is apparently against the law for white people to insult Third Worlders.

Two African brothers who originally migrated from Somalia have been arrested on suspicion of plotting a terror attack, Denmark's security service has said

The African men, aged 18 and 23, were suspected of being in the process of preparing an act of terror after being overheard talking about methods, targets and different weapon types, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service said. The agency, known by its Danish acronym PET, said that the brothers have been arrested — one in the western city of Aarhus and the other as he arrived by plane at Copenhagen's international airport. The suspects have Danish citizenship but are of Somali origin who have lived in Denmark for 16 years, the agency said. One of the African men had been at a training camp in Somalia run by the Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which has links to al Qaeda, PET said. The African men were charged with receiving training with the aim of committing an act of terror, in what the agency said are the first known terror-trained suspects in Denmark. The Scandinavian country has been in the cross-hairs of Islamist terror groups after the publication of newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. A Somali man living in Denmark was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years in prison after breaking into the home of one of the cartoonists with an ax in 2010. In 2011, a Chechen-born Muslim was sentenced to 12 years in prison for preparing a letter bomb that exploded as he was assembling it in a Copenhagen hotel in 2010.

The naked black man who tried to eat another man’s face before he was shot dead by police has been identified

Police sources have confirmed that the black attacker was 31-year-old Rudy Eugene. The man he attacked remains in extremely critical condition at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Much of his face was gone, the skin ripped away, the nose bitten and the eyes gouged. What remained was his goatee and little else. “We’re hoping that he pulls through, for his well-being, but also so he can tell us what happened,” said Sgt. Javier Ortiz, vice president of the Miami police union. “Only he knows.” One witness said that he was riding his bicycle when he saw a black man tearing off pieces of the victim’s flesh with his mouth. After an officer approached, Larry Vega said, “The guy just stood, his head up like that, with pieces of flesh in his mouth. And he growled.” Eugene left behind few clues as to what could have prompted the attack. According to court records, he married Jenny Ductant on Dec. 15, 2005, in Hollywood. The marriage ended in divorce after a little more than two years. “I wouldn’t say he had mental problem but he always felt like people was against him . .. No one was for him, everyone was against him,” his ex-wife said. He had one arrest for serious violence. Miami Beach police arrested him on a battery charge when he was 16, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The charge was later dropped. He was arrested seven other times over five years. Court records show that one was for misdemeanor battery, one was for vending near a school, one was for trespassing and four involved marijuana. The last case came in September 2009. Later, the charge was dropped. During the cannibalistic attack, an officer approached and told Eugene to get off his victim, but Eugene ignored the order and kept chewing, even after the officer shot him once. The officer fired again, hitting him several more times, eventually killing him. Security video from the adjacent Miami Herald building captured snippets of the violence as the two men — one dead, the other gravely injured and wearing only a shirt — lay on the sidewalk as officers arrived. The ghoulish event even spawned a Twitter account, dubbed The Miami Zombie. An emergency room doctor at Jackson Memorial Hospital said that Eugene’s attack could have been induced by bath salts, a drug nicknamed after the bathroom product it resembles. Police theorized earlier that it was “cocaine psychosis,” a drug-induced craze that bakes the body internally and often leads those it affects to strip naked to try to cool off.

Chagas disease, caused by parasites transmitted to humans by blood-sucking insects, has been named “the new AIDS of the Americas”

The dangerous spread of Chagas somewhat resembles the early spread of HIV/AIDS. Chagas is also known as American trypanosomiasis, because the bugs carry single-celled parasites called trypanosomes. (Their best-known relative, spread by tsetse flies in Africa, causes sleeping sickness.) Like AIDS, Chagas disease has a long incubation time and is hard or impossible to cure. Chagas infects up to eight million people in the western hemisphere, mostly in Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia and Central America. But more than 300,000 of the infected live in the United States, many of them Hispanic immigrants. The disease can be transmitted from mother to child or by blood transfusion. About a quarter of its victims eventually will develop enlarged hearts or intestines, which can fail or burst, causing sudden death. Treatment involves harsh drugs taken for up to three months and works only if the disease is caught early. The drugs are not as expensive as AIDS drugs, but there are shortages in poor countries. Because it is a disease of the poor, little money is spent on finding new treatments. Immigrants may not get medical treatment, making Chagas more likely to spread. Of course, one way to limit the spread of the disease would be to stop immigration from high risk areas as Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia and Central America.

Four women and two men have been sentenced to death in northern Pakistan for singing and dancing at a wedding

Islamic clerics issued a decree after a mobile phone video emerged of the six enjoying themselves in a remote village in the mountainous district of Kohistan, 109 miles north of the capital Islamabad. Pakistani authorities in the area said that local Muslim clerics had ordered the punishment over allegations that the men and women danced and sang together in Gada village, in defiance of strict tribal customs that separate men and women at weddings. "The local clerics issued a decree to kill all four women and two men shown in the video," district police officer Abdul Majeed Afridi said. "It was decided that the men will be killed first, but they ran away so the women are safe for the moment. I have sent a team to rescue them and am waiting to hear some news," he said, adding that the women had been confined to their homes. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that at least 943 women and girls were murdered in 2011 for defaming their family's honor. The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens.

Monday, May 28, 2012

A woman has spoken out about how her Orthodox Jewish husband refuses to divorce her despite being separated for four years

In keeping with strict Jewish religious beliefs, Rachel Balassiano, a 35-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, is fighting to convince her husband to give her a Jewish divorce which is known as a get. The mother of three, who has been separated from Maurice Balassiano, 50, for four years, is considered to be an agunot women, a name given to those who are chained wives. According to traditional Judaism, husbands can withhold a get from their wives for as long as they like as only men have the ability to end a religious marriage. Rachel Belassiano is just one of hundreds of North American women who are considered agunot. According to research conducted in October 2011 by The Mellman Group, a U.S. based research company, there were 462 agunot women living in North America between 2005 and 2010. If she was to remarry without receiving a get, the new marriage would be considered adultery by the Orthodox Jewish community. Any future children would be regarded as bastards. She would also never be able to marry another Orthodox Jew. Maurice Belassiano said that he is willing to grant his wife a get - but only after she agrees to a financial settlement. Rachel Nataneli, a family law attorney who specialises in domestic violence and works with many Orthodox Jewish women, said that some women feel helpless in the situation as many Jewish men use a get as a way to bargain over financial matters.

South Africa: Innocent young girls are being kidnapped and forced to marry older HIV-positive men because of the myth that having sex with a virgin will cure them of the disease

An investigation into South Africa's rural Eastern Cape has revealed how children as young as 12, from the Xhosa people, are being pressured into premature nuptials. The tradition of Ukuthwala, translated as to pick up or to take, was used as an excuse to justify the abductions. In many cases, the kidnappings were consented to by the youngster's parents in exchange for cash. The men, who were often widowed by HIV, simply end up infecting their new brides too.

Two black Americans, one identified as dancer James Blackstone (James “King Tight” Blackstone or James Blackston), and another unnamed teen, (reported as Larry Perry) have been arrested in connection with the death of an Irish exchange student, Nicola Furlong, in Tokyo, Japan

Both black men were arrested for fondling a friend of the victim in a taxi cab. It is not clear if the men were connected to rapper Nicki Minaj, whose concert Nicola Furlong had attended. The U.S. State Department confirmed that two black Americans were arrested and a police investigation is underway. Nicola Furlong died from asphyxiation. Furlong, who attended Takasaki City University of Economics in Gunma Prefecture, died after spending a night in the Keio Plaza Hotel following the Nicki Minaj concert. Blackston has served as background dancer for Omarion and Marques Houston in Osaka. He appeared in music videos for the Black Eyed Peas, Chris Brown, and J. Lo. One of the two black suspects, a 19-year-old who identified himself as a musician, was in the room with the woman when hotel staff went up to probe a complaint about loud noise. The two black men were charged with indecent assault on the student’s 21-year-old female friend, who was in a separate room with the other man, but police suspect they were involved in the student’s death. Furlong arrived with her friend in Tokyo and after catching a concert at a club in Koto Ward the two black men approached them and invited them to a meal. After deciding to take a cab to the hotel, where both black men were staying, the two raped the Irish woman’s drunk friend inside the taxi. Upon arriving at the hotel, the musician paired off with the Irish woman and the other two went to a different room.

Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime: A 21-year-old Air Force veteran was shot and killed while visiting New York City for Fleet Week

Fabian Gonzalez was walking with his cousin and his cousin's friend in the Parkchester area of the Bronx when witnesses said that the friend got into a fight with the gunman, 18-year-old Jordan Agosto. Agosto then shot Gonzalez in the chest and his cousin in the leg. Both were taken to hospital where doctors pronounced Gonzalez dead. Police arrested Agosto, charging him with Gonzalez's murder and the attempted manslaughter of his cousin who escaped with a bullet wound to the leg. The teenager had prior arrests.

A black woman has been charged with stealing a Chicago Fire Department ambulance from St. Bernard Hospital in Englewood

Cassie Weathersby, 30, accused of taking the emergency vehicle outside the hospital. Weathersby has been charged with stealing a vehicle, driving on a suspended license and driving under the influence of alcohol. She was arrested after she fled a mile and then crashed into another vehicle. The woman wasn't injured. The motive behind the theft is unclear.

A black man remains jailed in Myrtle Beach after police charged him in connection with a stabbing that occurred when the victim walked in front of him taking a photo

Brian Terrell Strayhorne, 29, is being held pending a bond hearing on a charge of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature. Officers learned that the 26-year-old victim had been walking with his brother when he unknowingly walked in front of Strayhorne, who was taking a photograph. The men argued and fought. During the fight, the victim was stabbed with an unknown object.

Bill Kristol: No on in the GOP dares question the power of the Israel lobby

Neocon brags about how Jews control the Republican Party.

A new Gallup poll released on Memorial Day 2012 shows male veterans breaking strongly for Mitt Romney over Obama

Romney receives support from 58% of all veteran registered voters surveyed to Obama's 34%. Veterans make up 13% of the U.S. population. The breakdown of the veteran vote also mirrors the gender gap seen among all voters and male voters are seen giving Romney a solid block of support. Romney has the backing of 60% of male veterans to Obama's 32%. Among female veterans Obama holds a five-point edge, with 47% to 42%, however the size of the female veteran electorate is dwarfed by the number of male veteran voters. Twenty-four percent of all adult men are veterans compared to 2% of adult women. The age of veteran voters makes little difference with younger veterans as likely to support Romney as older veterans. For veterans under the age of 50, Romney has 59% to Obama’s 32%. For veterans aged 80 to 89, Romney posts a similar edge with 60% support to Obama at 35%. Among men, Romney leads by 8 points 50% to 42%. Obama leads among women 49% to 42%. The poll's numbers suggest that Obama’s efforts to court veteran voters and military families have failed to resonate.

New Zealand: A teenager has been shunned by many in her community because a Nepalese man raped her to force her to become his wife

Khem Gharti Magar, 38, has been jailed for 10 years at his Christchurch District Court sentencing after a trial where the jury found him guilty of abducting the woman for sex and raping her. Judge Ian Mill said that the effects on the vulnerable young victim, who had arrived in New Zealand as a refugee and spoke little English, were serious and included psychological damage. "She has been shunned by many people in her community because of what you did," the judge told Magar. He said that Magar had shown no remorse and his abduction and sex attack had been premeditated, and he had used violence. Crown prosecutor Deirdre Elsmore called for a heavy sentence, saying that the impact on the victim had been devastating and Magar showed no remorse, although he had been interviewed twice by probation staff. The offending had been premeditated, with a view to securing the woman as his wife.

Israel: 3 African immigrants subjected a teenage girl to a terrifying sexual assault, two of them repeatedly attempting to rape her in a parking lot near Tel Aviv’s central bus station while the third held the girl’s boyfriend down

Aviel Hokovai, 24, Bana Tesper Gavar, 18, both of no certain address, and 19-year-old Mungus Goitom of Ramat Gan, launched a violent and protracted sexual assault on the girl after mugging her and her friend. The three, all African migrants, are charged with conspiracy to commit a felony, aggravated robbery, aggravated attempted rape and indecent assault. The maximum penalty for raping a minor under 16 is 20 years imprisonment. Judges may hand down the same sentence for attempted rape.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

With an annual murder rate of 1,500 in a population of less than three million, Jamaica is now one of the most violent countries in the world, on a level with South Africa and Columbia

Hunter Wallace explains how black freedom has turned Jamaica into a failed state.

Black crime: A woman has been shot dead by her boyfriend at her daughter’s eighth grade graduation

Takesha Barnes was with family members at Westview High School in Avondale, Arizona for the ceremony. She had run from the hall to her car after being told that her long term boyfriend Thomas Lamont Moton was on his way to the graduation. Moton arrived, pulled up alongside her car and fired several shots through her window, hitting her in the stomach. The 33-year-old mother-of-three was flown to hospital in a critical condition and later died from her injuries.

Black singer Mary J Blige’s charity for the empowerment of women has been hit with two lawsuits - and a long list of other embarrassing accusations

The Grammy Award-winning African-American artist’s The Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now (FFAWN) is being sued by a bank over an unpaid $250,000 loan and a group of artists claiming that they were not paid for performing at one of the charity’s fundraising galas. The non-profit organization also has hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing donations and does not have an office or a valid telephone number. In addition, the charity did not file a federal tax return for 2010, which was due in November 2011.

Lady Gaga cancelled her sold-out show in Indonesia after Islamist hard-liners threatened violence, claiming her sexy clothes and provocative dance moves would corrupt the youth

Funny how Muslims never think that engaging in violence would corrupt the youth.

A black death row inmate has won a hearing on his claim of being mentally disabled and ineligible for execution for a 1987 kidnapping, rape and slaying of a Northern Kentucky woman

The Kentucky Supreme Court also granted Gregory L. Wilson, 55, a hearing on whether semen used as evidence in the case still exists and should be tested. Chief Justice John D. Minton ruled that Kentucky's procedures for determining the mental status of death row inmates does not violate Wilson's due process rights. He ordered a hearing within 180 days. "We find that Wilson's school record constitutes some evidence that he is mentally retarded," Minton wrote. Wilson is awaiting execution for the death of 36-year-old Debbie Pooley, a restaurant manager who disappeared while returning from a friend's house on May 29, 1987. Her remains were found two weeks later in a wooded area in Indiana. Wilson and 58-year-old Brenda Humphrey were convicted in the case. Humphrey is serving life in prison and, in April 2012, lost her first bid for parole. Justice Bill Cunningham filed a scathing dissent, finding that the court's majority is sending the case back for a hearing without regard to the overwhelming evidence of Wilson's guilt. "It is a sad commentary upon our judicial system that after almost twenty-five years since the crime was committed our Court today is proclaiming that we still haven't got it right," Cunningham wrote. "It is certainly no solace of the family of Deborah Pooley." Pooley's sister, Bonnie Shinkle, who lives near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said that she's disappointed with the ruling, but not angry as long as Wilson will not get out of prison. "It's frustrating," said Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders. "I feel sorry for the family and friends still waiting for justice that's been delayed yet again by a system that places little value on victims' rights." The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 ruled that executing the mentally disabled amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. Under Kentucky's law, a person seeking to be declared mentally disabled must have an IQ of 70 or below along with substantial deficits in adaptive behavior, both of which manifested during the person's developmental years. Wilson submitted school records to the court indicating that at age 14, he had an IQ of 62, was reading at a third-grade level and was performing work at a first- and second-grade level. Kenton Circuit Judge Gregory Bartlett in September 2010 rejected Wilson's claim. That ruling came just days before the state had been set to execute Wilson. A judge in Frankfort later halted the lethal injection after finding issues with the way the state carried out the process. Kentucky is now weighing whether to switch the drugs it uses to carry out an execution and has until July to either do so, or go to trial and defend the current three-drug method. Minton also ordered the trial court to determine if DNA testing should be conducted on semen found in the backseat of Pooley's car, which Wilson and Humphrey stole when they kidnapped Pooley. Minton said that the test results would be "quasi-exculpatory evidence" because it would neither exonerate nor implicate Wilson and ordered the circuit court to look at what role the semen played in Wilson's conviction. "It does not prove that Wilson did not rape the victim, but does prove that someone else's semen was in the car," Minton wrote. Cunningham also took issue with granting a hearing on the DNA testing, saying that Minton's own conclusion that the tests wouldn't exonerate Wilson which makes them pointless. "Why do we invite additional issues and litigation on the DNA examination by asking the trial court to make findings on whether the testing of the semen is warranted?" Cunningham wrote. "I strongly urge that we use this remand to go ahead and test the DNA and have this issue removed from this incredibly elongated case forever."

By the time they reach middle school, more than half of the African American males in Oakland show signs that they'll miss high school graduation day, with suspensions and chronic absenteeism topping the list of common characteristics among them

The Urban Strategies Council report identified several risk factors facing black males and urged Oakland education officials to monitor those students closely and intervene to keep them in class and on track to graduate. Researchers found that 1 out of 5 African American boys in Oakland, more than 1,200 students, were suspended from school at least once last year and an equal number were chronically absent. The study identified the early-warning signs of a high school dropout, including an absentee rate of at least 10 days in a school year, at least one suspension, below-grade literacy and being held back a grade. More than half of the district's black males, 55%, had one or more of those red flags, according to the researchers at Urban Strategies Council, an Oakland-based nonprofit that focuses on improving conditions in low-income communities. While black males made up 17% of district enrollment, they comprised 42% of suspensions, a suspension rate six times higher than that of white males.

A Brooklyn, N.Y., rabbi is the last of five rabbis arrested in 2009 in a federal corruption sting to plead guilty in a New Jersey money laundering case

Federal prosecutors say that 60-year-old Lavel Schwartz has pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy charge in Trenton. Schwartz admitted that he and his brother, Brooklyn Rabbi Mordchai Fish, had agreed to launder what they were told were illicit funds for failed Monmouth County developer Solomon Dwek. Dwek became a cooperating witness for the federal government after his own bank fraud arrest. As part of their scheme, about $200,000 to $400,000 was moved through purported charities, with Dwek getting cash back through an underground money transfer network. Fish took a 10% cut.

Abortion: Splitting 86%-11% in favor of legality, Jews are the most pro-choice of the 33 groups Pew breaks out; more so than those who have no religious affiliation, than liberal Democrats and than those who seldom or never attend religious services

Why are Jews so pro-abortion? Could it be because more abortions means fewer gentiles?

Saturday, May 26, 2012

A US Senate Committee is poised to discuss a bill that will give Israel one of the largest aid package ever received

The United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, which is going under scrutiny at the Foreign Relations Committee, is expected to expand military links between the two countries and provide Israel with aircraft and special munitions. Reports also state that the bill will allow Israel to have access to pictures from US spy satellites and extend US loan guarantees to Israel until 2015. In return, Israel will open Israeli air space for US Force exercises. Special munitions could include bunker-busting bombs. Israel has sought an air-refuelling capacity as a means to cover the distance to Iran in the case of a strike. "This bill has received the blessing of the Obama administration, which sees it as a conciliatory gesture towards Israel in advance of the agreement with Iran, about which Israel has already begun to express reservations," a source has said. It represents a significant addition to the $1 billion for the missile defence system Israel is developing with the United States, the $3.1 billion in regular annual military aid and $70 million for procurement of Iron Dome rocket interception batteries. A similar bill has already been passed by the House of Representatives, despite the opposition of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who called it another piece of one-sided and counter-productive foreign policy legislation. "This bill will not help the United States, it will not help Israel, and it will not help the Middle East," he addressed the House. "It will implicitly authorize much more US interventionism in the region at a time when we cannot afford the foreign commitments we already have. It more likely will lead to war against Syria, Iran or both." According to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, however, who sponsored the bill, the Cooperation Act "reaffirms Israel's right to defend itself against threats and puts Congress on the record about America's longstanding commitment to the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship."

Only 33% of Americans expect that the economy will improve in the coming months and only 43% approve of the way that Obama has handled it

According to Gallup, Obama now has a higher chance of losing rather than winning the election.

A Los Angeles judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the black parents of a high school football star who sued the sheriff's department for releasing from jail a Hispanic illegal immigrant who killed their son

Superior Court Judge Charles Palmer found that the law doesn't support the wrongful death case brought by Jamiel and Anita Shaw. The Shaws claimed that gang member 21-year-old Pedro Espinoza should have been turned over to immigration authorities instead of being freed. Espinoza killed 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw II, a standout running back, after getting out of jail.

Black-on-black crime: Black male is wrongly sent to prison because a black female falsely accused him of rape

A former high school football star whose dreams of a pro career were shattered by a rape conviction burst into tears as a judge threw out the charge that sent him to prison for more than five years. Brian Banks, now 26, pleaded no contest 10 years ago on the advice of his lawyer after a childhood friend falsely accused him of attacking her on their high school campus. In a strange turn of events, the woman, Wanetta Gibson, friended him on Facebook when he got out of prison. During an initial meeting with him, she said that she had lied; there had been no kidnap and no rape and she offered to help him clear his record, court records state. But she refused to repeat the story to prosecutors because she feared that she would have to return a $1.5 million payment from a civil suit brought by her mother against Long Beach schools. During a second meeting that was secretly videotaped, she told Banks, I will go through with helping you, but it’s like at the same time all that money they gave us, I mean gave me, I don’t want to have to pay it back, according to Freddie Parish, a defense investigator who was at the meeting. It was uncertain whether Gibson will have to return the money and unlikely she would be prosecuted for making the false accusation so long ago, when she was 15.

How do we get the economy to grow more quickly?

Here are some ideas from Jeffrey Miron, senior lecturer and director of undergraduate studies in the economics department at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who advises:
• Cancel all the tax increases scheduled to take effect at the end of 2012 and provide tax stability going forward. Make (all) the Bush tax cuts permanent. Repeal the alternative minimum tax. Eliminate the health care law's increases in the hospital insurance tax. All this will stimulate in the short term and set the stage for long-term growth. 
• Reform the tax code by eliminating the misguided deductions, exemptions, credits and loopholes that distort incentives and reward special interests. These features include big-ticket items like the deductibility of mortgage interest and employer-paid health insurance premiums, plus myriad small but senseless other provisions. 
• Lower the corporate income tax rate. The U.S. corporate tax environment is one of the least business-friendly in the world. Driving investment overseas cannot be good policy. 
• Slow the growth of entitlements. The U.S. can afford a social safety net, but our current programs are not sustainable, even in a robustly growing economy. Everyone should agree, at a minimum, to cuts that are sufficient to prevent these programs -- Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security -- from bankrupting the country. 
• Embrace immigration. Despite recent difficulties, the United States is still an attractive destination for those seeking a better life. By expanding immigration for low-skill workers, we restrain labor costs and reduce out-migration of manufacturing and other business. By easing immigration for high-skill workers -- many of them trained in the United States at taxpayer expense -- we get a return on our investment and retain industrious and innovative people. 
• Scale back military involvements around the world. A strong national defense makes sense, but it must focus on protecting the United States, not paying for Europe's defense or trying to force democracy down the throats of countries that are not receptive. 
• Cease the campaign against carbon-based fuels. Green energy may have its day, but only when coal, oil and gas become truly scarce. In the foreseeable future, traditional energy is much cheaper, and subsidies for alternative energy are a waste. 
• Stop scapegoating the rich and pretending that tax-hikes on the 1% can balance the budget. Everyone knows the numbers do not add up. 
• Respect capitalism. Anti-business rhetoric, which casts all success as undeserved, and which fails to recognize the improvements in material well-being that result from entrepreneurial success, just drive away talented people and guarantee our economic demise.
I think that most of his ideas have some merit as long as we limit immigration to people from white European nations.

More than half of South Africa's children live in poverty and one in four has HIV, a damning report by the United Nations children's agency has revealed

Eighteen years after the end of apartheid, South Africa is now judged to be one of the most unequal societies in the world and its 19 million children bear the brunt of the disconnect. The Unicef report found that 1.4 million children live in homes that rely on often dirty streams for drinking water, 1.5 million have no flushing lavatories and 1.7 million live in shacks, with no proper bedding, cooking or washing facilities. Four in 10 live in homes where no one is employed and, in cases of dire poverty, the figure rises to seven in 10. Contrary to the rest of Africa, where pneumonia and diarrhoea are the biggest child killers, South African children are most likely to die from HIV/AIDS. More than five million are currently infected with HIV, and 40% die from the pandemic annually. Child support grants, introduced in 1997, now reach 10.3 million children but another one million who are eligible do not yet receive them. Aida Girma, Unicef's South African representative, said that two thirds of child deaths were preventable with simple improvements in primary care for children. She added that if "drastic" changes were not made immediately, South Africa would fail to achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goals of eradicating child and maternal mortality and malnutrition.

ADL hypocrisy

For some reason, Abe Foxman seems to be more sympathetic to anti-immigrant groups in Israel than to the ones in the United States and Europe.

Obama's America: Almost half of all Americans live in a household where at least one member received government benefits in the first quarter of 2011

Data from the Census Bureau revealed that 49.1% of the population live in a household which gets at least one kind of government benefit with many likely to receive more than one. The figure marks a steep rise in the amount of people claiming benefits, in the early 1980s only 30% of the population were in a household that got government hand-outs. In the third quarter of 2008 the figure was 44.4%. The increase in households where at least one person claims food stamps, receives unemployment benefits or where someone is enrolled in Medicaid is largely a result of the recession which began in late 2008 and carried on into 2010. The data showed that 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits in the first quarter of 2011. It was also found that 16% of the population lives in a household where at least one member receives social security benefits. The Congressional Budget Office has said that the combination of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled for January 2013 will send the country back into recession. The food stamp program was used by 43.6 million people in November 2010. Before the recession, the program was serving 26 million.

India: Gang rapes in the capital, New Delhi, are commonplace

A growing number of Indian women are buying guns to protect themselves from the increasing levels of sexual crime in the country.

Police are looking for black and Hispanic men who broke into a woman's home in North Philadelphia then sexually assaulted and robbed her

Authorities say the two non-white males entered the home of 29-year-old woman. Once inside, the minority men demanded money and sexually assaulted the victim before fleeing the scene. The suspects got away with a DVD player and an assorted amount of jewelry. The first suspect is described as an African-American male, 25-30 years-old, 5'8"-5'9" tall, weighing 200 pounds, with a medium brown complexion and a light mustache. He was last seen wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and sneakers. The second suspect is described as a Hispanic male, 23-25-years-old, 5'6"-5'7" tall, weighing 180-190 pounds, with a light complexion and medium build. He was last seen wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and jean shorts.

Washington Post-ABC News poll: Mitt Romney holds significant advantages over Obama among white voters who are struggling financially and buffeted by job loss

Asked which candidate would do more to advance their families’ economic interests, middle-class white voters who say that they are struggling to maintain their financial positions chose Romney over Obama by a large margin — 58% to 32%. Romney has a similar advantage on this question among white voters who have lost a job in recent years, or who have seen a family member or close friend face unemployment. Nonwhite voters, struggling or not, give Obama huge leads over Romney when it comes to looking after their families’ financial interests. The results underscore a continuing challenge for Obama and the Democratic Party with white voters, and particularly those without college degrees — who, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are significantly more likely to be unemployed than those with higher education. In 2008, Obama lost whites without college degrees by a big margin, 58% to 40%, according to the national exit poll. That performance among such voters was similar to John F. Kerry’s in 2004 and Al Gore’s in 2000. In the poll, Americans overall reported widespread economic pain, with more than seven in 10 saying that they have been affected directly or indirectly by unemployment in the past few years. Four in 10 report struggling to maintain their socioeconomic status, with about one in five saying that they are in the middle class and straining to stay there. Among white voters trying to stay in the middle class, Romney is considered the better candidate for that group by a 20-point margin; Obama is preferred by better than 3 to 1 among middle-class nonwhite voters, regardless of their sense of security.

African Americans have a 77% higher risk of developing diabetes than non-Hispanic white adults, with around 19% of them living with the disease

That equates to nearly 5 million people in the United States.

Mexico: A boy aged five had his eyeballs gouged out by his own mother in what officials believe to be a drug-fueled ritual

Police arrested the mother and a number of her relatives after police were called to a house in Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico. Mexico state prosecutor Isaac Acevedo said that a total of eight people had been detained and that investigators believed the mother herself gouged the boy's eyes out with her fingers. The boy's father was apparently not in the home at the time. The crime appeared to have been part of a ritual, but was not apparently related to the Santa Muerte or Saint Death cult, some of whose followers were recently charged with the sacrificial killings of two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in northern Sonora state. Nezahualcoyltl spokesman Fernando Chavez told how the boy's aunt and uncle were also apparently at the house when the adults began using some unspecified drug. Chavez said one witness told police that she had passed out under the influence of drugs and when she regained consciousness, the boy's eyes were gone. The adults have not yet been charged in the case, but are being held pending investigation. Two children and a 17-year-old were also found at the residence. In March 2012, authorities in Sonora state arrested eight people for sacrificing two boys and an adult woman as offerings to Saint Death, an idol usually depicted as a robed skeleton. Followers of the cult include criminals and drug traffickers. While statues of Saint Death are common in many poor Mexican neighborhoods, Chavez said that no altar or statue of the figure was found in the Nezahualcoyotl home. Mexico's worst case of ritual sacrifice came with the notorious narco-satanicos killings of the 1980s. Fifteen bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were unearthed at a ranch outside the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

A Japanese man who had his genitals removed seasoned them before cooking them for five paying dinner party guests

Mao Sugiyama, 22, who is asexual, had voluntarily undergone surgery to have them removed. He took his frozen penis and scrotum home from hospital and organized a grim party. He charged guests around £160 per person to eat his severed genitalia in Tokyo, Japan. They were garnished with mushrooms and parsley. Before tucking into dinner, guests sat down to listen to a piano recital and take part in a panel discussion. Mao, who goes by the nickname HC, had initially considered eating his own penis – but decided to serve them up instead. He cooked the genitalia himself as he was supervised by a chef. In a Tweet, he offered to cook his penis for a guest for £800. However, he ultimately decided to split the meal between six guests. In total around 70 people attended the event in the Suginami ward of Tokyo. While five people tucked into Mao Sugiyama’s genitalia, the rest of them ate beef or crocodile. The people who ate his genitalia were a 30-year-old couple, a 22-year-old women, a 32-year-old man and Shigenobu Matsuzawa, 29, an event planner. Sugiyama made guests sign a waiver so he was not responsible if they became ill after eating his genitalia. Guests said that the genitalia were very rubbery and tasted of very little. Suginami Police were contacted but did not launch an investigation because they said that nothing had been done which was against the law. Sugiyama has also had his nipples removed. As an asexual, his genitalia will not be replaced with artificial female ones.

Scientists in Cameroon have warned that eating monkeys and apes could cause the next HIV

They are already tracking a HIV-like virus called simian foamy virus, and fear more viruses could spread and lead to a global health crisis. Approximately, 80% of the meat eaten in Cameroon is killed in the wild and is known as bushmeat,with gorilla, chimpanzee or monkey favorites. Up to 3,000 gorillas are slaughtered in southern Cameroon every year. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), identified evidence of viruses, including simian foamy virus, in illegally imported wildlife products confiscated at several U.S. international airports, including John F. Kennedy International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental-Houston and Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International.

A black mother is in police custody after killing her 18-month-old twins by drowning and smothering them, and attempting to poison their four-year-old sister to death

Stacey Smalls, 41, is believed to have committed the crimes as she was in a jealous rage over an affair she thought that her husband was having with another family member. Smalls, who worked as a nurse at a nursing home, had apparently made attempts to take her own life by slashing her wrists. She will be charged with two counts of murder.

Black crime: Police suspect singer Wyclef Jean and activist and TV host Reverend Al Sharpton of being involved in laundering drug money, Brooklyn federal court has heard

Jean received a $60,000 loan from hip hop manager James Rosamond, who is currently on trial for drug charges, and Sharpton was given a $10,000 donation by the suspected drug kingpin.

Smart people leave Baltimore

Baltimore’s black public school students have a mean IQ of 76. Even more surprising, white inner-city public school students in Baltimore have a mean IQ of only 86. Clearly, white flight followed by black middle class departure over the past few decades has left the city with a population almost entirely bereft of human capital.

Friday, May 25, 2012

A black woman, 26, was so determined to shoplift beer, bacon, cheese, and chicken wings from a Piggly Wiggly that she punched, spat at, and pepper-sprayed store workers who confronted her as she tried to flee the supermarket

Lonneshia Shafaye Appling hid items worth $88.27 in a canvas bag. She “attempted to check out, only putting one item on the counter,” according to a worker quoted in an Athens-Clarke County Police Department report. When a Piggly Wiggly employee - who had been tipped to the pilfering by a shopper - asked Appling about the concealed items, she tried to exit the store. After worker Jonathan Orr tried to stop Appling, she “pulled out some pepper spray and sprayed him in the face.” Appling kept spraying as several workers tried to keep her from fleeing. The 340-pound Appling also punched Orr in the face and spit on the 28-year-old employee. As she successfully bolted from the Athens store, Appling “was dropping beer cans out of her purse.” Responding to a 911 call, a cop reported spotting “a very large black female in a purple dress standing there screaming at two store employees” who followed her outside the Piggly Wiggly, which was filled with a choking cloud of pepper spray. Police then arrested Appling, whose rap sheet includes several prior shoplifting convictions and outstanding arrest warrants in three Georgia counties. She has been charged with a variety of crimes, including aggravated assault, theft, simple battery, and disorderly conduct. While in police custody, Appling told a cop to add whatever charges he wanted “because she was going to plea bargain and half of the charges would be dropped anyway,” according to the report. She also asked Officer Nathaniel Franco if her arrest would make the police blotter, requesting that the cop make his report “more interesting so that her arrest would make” the department’s compendium of notable incidents. The unemployed - and now incarcerated - Appling “also commented that store personnel shouldn’t chase people like that because they could get themselves hurt.” Or shoplifters could get busted.

In Texas, nearly 7 in 10 people under age 1 were minorities as of July 2011, a slight increase from 2010

Texas became a majority-minority state in 2004, and in 2010, Hispanics accounted for 65% of the state's growth since 2000. Hispanics are the nation's largest minority group in 2011, at 52 million. They also were the fastest growing; their numbers increased 3.1% since 2010, and Hispanics now constitute 16.7% of the U.S. population. African-Americans were the second largest minority group, at 43.9 million. At 18.2 million, Asians were the second fastest-growing minority group, with a 3% increase since 2010. The nation's population younger than age 5 was 49.7% minority in 2011, up from 49% in 2010.

Predominantly black Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60% fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights

As it is, 40% of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year. Detroit’s plan would leave sparsely populated swaths unlit in a community of 713,000 that covers more area than Boston, Buffalo and San Francisco combined. Vacant property and parks account for 37 square miles, according to city planners. Detroit’s dwindling income and property-tax revenue have required residents to endure unreliable buses and strained police services throughout the city. Because streetlights are basic to urban life, deciding what areas to illuminate will reshape the city, said Kirk Cheyfitz, co-founder of a project called Detroit143 - named for the 139 square miles of land, plus water - that publicizes neighborhood issues.

Black politician insults Polish people

D.C. Council member Marion Barry stepped up his campaign to mend relations with the Asian community, apologizing again for disparaging remarks he made about Koreans and Filipinos and pledging to work to improve ties between them and African Americans. Yet on his way toward racial harmony, Barry (D-Ward 8) committed another faux pas — this time directed at Polish people — and presided over a sometimes raucous community meeting at which African Americans repeated complaints about the way Koreans maintain carry-out shops. Representatives of the Korean, Filipino, Chinese and Japanese communities attended the meeting, held at a church in Southeast Washington. “Korean stores are filthy,” a woman could be heard saying at the meeting. The woman, who is black, later identified herself as Geraldine Hall and said she lives in the District. “Inside and out, they are filthy,” she said, speaking of Korean-owned businesses, as she left the meeting. Referring to Barry, she said, “He stirred me up.” At a news conference after the meeting, Barry and several Asian American leaders sought to present a united front, saying that the dialogue is an important step toward defusing long-standing tension between blacks and Asians. Asked about the underlying sources of the conflict, Barry said the United States “has had racial tensions since it was founded.” “The Irish caught hell, the Jews caught hell, the Polacks caught hell,” Barry said, invoking a word that Polish people have viewed as disparaging. “We want Ward 8 to be the model of diversity.” Asked later about his reference to “Polacks,” Barry at first denied using the word, then retracted it, saying, “I meant Poles.” His remark prompted a demand from Gary Kenzer, executive director of the Chicago-based Polish American Association, that Barry “apologize to the Polish American community of this country.” “You wouldn’t say a derogatory statement to an African American, a Jewish American, and we deserve the same respect,” he said. Recently, Barry infuriated Asians with two separate statements. After winning reelection, he pledged to “do something about these Asians coming in, opening businesses, those dirty shops. They ought to go.” Later, he offended Filipinos when he pointed out that an increasing number of nurses have come here from the Philippines. “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses,” he said, “so that we don’t have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kind of places, having to hire people from somewhere else.” The remarks prompted criticism from Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D), Barry’s council colleagues and an array of Asian civic leaders, including the Philippine ambassador in Washington. Asian advocacy groups started a “Say Sorry, Barry” petition, which collected 700 signatures.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Smiling as they pose for Facebook photographs, two black men have been charged with murdering two Chinese students

Pictures of Bryan Barnes, 20, and Javier Bolden, 19, emerged as they appeared in court accused of killing electrical engineering students Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23. The second-year graduate students were gunned down during a botched robbery near the University of Southern California campus. Barnes and Bolden, who are also charged with the attempted murder of another man, could face the death penalty if convicted.

A HIV-positive Muslim soldier who was forced to wear a surgical mask in court to prevent him from trying to infect others has been found guilty of involvement in a plot to blow up a Texas restaurant full of soldiers

Jurors in the U.S. District Court in Waco deliberated for around an hour before finding Naser Jason Abdo guilty of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempted murder of U.S. officers or employees, and four counts of possessing a weapon in furtherance of a federal crime of violence. He faces up to life in prison. Abdo is believed to have been in contact with the influential U.S born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi who was killed in a drone strike in 2011. Abdo, who was born in Texas and grew up in a Dallas suburb, became a Muslim when he was 17.

A trainee witch has admitted beheading her three-year-old nephew on the orders of a dark arts teacher in Nepal

The 25-year-old was told her skills would only be complete after sacrificing her nephew and eldest son. Police in Nepal arrested the suspect in the town of Samanpur, south of the country's capital Kathmandu and charged her with sacrificing a child. Officers said that Mahadevi Yadav beheaded Nitesh Kumar Yadav and has confessed to the crime. Yadav then threw the boy's head into the Bagmati river while she buried the torso in her pooja room. Police have exhumed the body and taken it to Gaur near the border with India for a post mortem. According to Yadav, her guru further demanded that she sacrifice her eldest son as well. An Indian couple was arrested recently for attempting to bury her child alive on the orders of a guru.

Dramatic new details have emerged about the Hispanic who has confessed to killing six-year-old Etan Patz in 1979, as police have announced that he was been arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder

In a press conference, New York police chief Raymond Kelly revealed that Pedro Hernandez, who was aged just 19 at the time, claims to have lured the boy away from his bus stop by promising him a soda, but then took Etan into the basement of the bodega where he worked and strangled him. Hernandez then wrapped the boy's body in a plastic bag and disposed of it near the store in New York's SoHo district. Hernandez was just 12 years older than his six-year-old victim in 1979 when he lured him with candy and stabbed him to death, before chopping his body to pieces. Now aged 51, he has finally only come forward after being diagnosed with cancer. Hernandez's wife Rosemary, 51, took out a restraining order against him but recently allowed him to move back in with her and their daughter, who is in her early 20s. Hernandez's family are originally thought to have come from Puerto Rico.

More than half of Australians want the country's borders closed and immigration ended

New research reveals a dramatic swing against border issues, with 51% in favor of saying no to all migrants - a 10% jump since 2005. Fears over falling job security and the burgeoning population putting more strain on infrastructure are two reasons for the shift in attitudes. The federal opposition said that the anti-immigration sentiment was due to rising public anger about the number of asylum seekers attempting to enter the country. Just a third of the 2000 people questioned by Quantum Market Research for AustraliaSCAN believed overseas migration made Australia a more interesting and exciting place, down from almost half in 1995. Almost two thirds said that they believed migrants should try to adopt the Australian way of life when they arrived. The number who believe that the country has room to accommodate more people also plunged to less than a third, down from 42% a decade ago. Monash University migration expert Bob Birrell said that the results showed public opinion about immigration had moved into new territory. "I think they are right to be worried, we have record levels of immigration and as a consequence we are allowing 100,000 migrants to enter the workforce at a time when employment growth is at a level lower than that," Dr Birrell said. "People are concerned that the present rate of population growth is not sustainable and is going to make Australia a poorer place to live rather than a better one." The government's immigration and refugee program for 2012-13 is expected to reach a record 203,000 people, similar to the mass migration intakes of the 1960s. Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison blamed Labor's border protection policies for public hostility to migration. "So long as Labor continue to crash confidence as a result of their failures on our borders, they will continue to crash community confidence in our immigration program," he said. "That's why the Coalition will reinstate proven border protection policies to stop the boats, getting our borders back under control and restoring the integrity in our immigration program."

Asians are the most highly educated group of Americans, with more than half with a bachelor's degrees or higher, the Census Bureau has reported

Among groups of Asian Americans 25 and older, 74% of Taiwanese and 71% of Indians had at least a bachelor's degree, the agency said as part of its release of American Community Survey data on hundreds of racial, tribal and Hispanic groups. The comparable figure for the U.S. population overall is 28%. Several Southeast Asian groups fell behind the overall U.S. rate for a bachelor's degree or higher. They included Vietnamese at 26%, Cambodian and Hmong at about 14% and Laotian at 12%. Among all groups surveyed, Salvadorans had the lowest percentage with a bachelor's degree or higher, at 8%.

Some 1,000 Jewish protesters rallied in Tel Aviv's Hatikva neighborhood and called for the ousting of African asylum seekers from Israel

Jewish demonstrators attacked Africans while others lit garbage cans on fire and smashed car windows. Another group of Jewish demonstrators stopped a shuttle taxi and searched for migrant workers among the passengers, while banging on the windows. The Jewish crowd cried "The people want the Sudanese deported" and "Infiltrators get out of our home." Likud MK Miri Regev participated in the protest and said that "the Sudanese were a cancer in our body." The Jewish protesters expressed their dismay with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the government's dealings with the "problem" of asylum seekers. Some people carried signs in support of Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who called for the detention and expulsion of all asylum seekers. Following the protest, hundreds of people assembled in the main street of the Hatikvah neighborhood. Several Jewish protesters smashed the windows of a grocery store that served the migrant workers community, broke the windows of a barber shop and looted it. Police arrested 17 people during the protest, with some of them detained while beating Sudanese migrants. Those arrested will be brought in before the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court for an extension of their remand. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said that he supported the mass deportation of South Sudanese migrants if an investigation finds that they are not legally entitled to refuge. Weinstein will argue before the Jerusalem District Court that there is no legal obstacle to the expulsions since individual checks will establish that none of them face any threat to their lives in South Sudan. The Jerusalem District Court recently issued a temporary order prohibiting the migrants' deportation until it rules on a petition filed by five human rights organizations against the state's intent to deport the refugees. Weinstein, who has expressed support for sending migrants from South Sudan back home, will ask the court to lift the temporary order preventing their expulsion. The Foreign Ministry recently outlined its position regarding 700 South Sudan nationals staying in Israel; the government says that there are as many as 3,000 in Israel. The position is based on a report by Ambassador Dan Shaham, who was sent to South Sudan in April 2012 to examine the situation and see if it was suitable to return the migrants. The document says that returning the South Sudanese nationals in general would not constitute a breach of international law, which prohibits a state from expelling foreign nationals if returning them to their home country presents a clear and immediate danger to their life.

Aaron Joseph Zindani, one of the leaders of the tiny Jewish community in Yemen, has been stabbed to death in the capital, Sanaa, by a Muslim resident who claimed that Zindani had been practicing sorcery

The Muslim stabber was someone familiar to the victim's family and had claimed that Zindani had ruined his business with magic.

Barack Obama has been handed two more embarrassing near-defeats in the Democratic primaries held in Arkansas and Kentucky

In the Arkansas primary, challenger John Wolfe won nearly 42% of the vote, and in Kentucky 42% of Democrats selected “uncommitted” over Obama. So far, four states — Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Oklahoma — have given over 40% of their primary vote to someone other than Barack Obama. All of these races were closed primaries, meaning that only Democrats were eligible to vote in them.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

One in three American Indian women have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape, according to the Justice Department

Their rate of sexual assault is more than twice the national average. And no place, women's advocates say, is more dangerous than Alaska's isolated villages, where there are no roads in or out, and where people are further cut off by undependable telephone, electrical and Internet service. Native American women say that few, if any, female relatives or close friends have escaped sexual violence. "We should never have a woman come into the office saying, 'I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,'" said Charon Asetoyer, a women's health advocate on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, referring to the morning-after pill. "That's what's so frightening - that it's more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women." Women say the tribal police often discourage them from reporting sexual assaults. Reasons for the high rate of sexual assaults among American Indians are poorly understood, but explanations include a breakdown in the family structure, a lack of open discussion about sexual violence and alcohol abuse. Rape, according to American Indian women, has been distressingly common for generations, and they say that tribal officials and the federal and state authorities have done little to help halt it, leading to its being significantly under-reported. In the Navajo Nation, which encompasses parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, 329 rape cases were reported in 2007 among a population of about 180,000. Five years later, there have been only 17 arrests. Women's advocates on the reservation say that only about 10% of sexual assaults are reported. Nationwide, an arrest is made in just 13% of the sexual assaults reported by American Indian women, according to the Justice Department, compared with 35% for black women and 32% for whites. In South Dakota, American Indians make up 10% of the population, but account for 40% of the victims of sexual assault. Alaska Natives are 15% of that state's population, but constitute 61% of its victims of sexual assault. The Justice Department did not prosecute 65% of the rape cases on Indian reservations in 2011. Despite the low rates of arrests and prosecutions, convicted sexual offenders are abundant on tribal lands. The Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, with about 25,000 people, is home to 99 Class 3 sex offenders, those deemed most likely to commit sex crimes after their release from prison. The Tohono O'odham tribe's reservation in Arizona, where about 15,000 people live, has 184, according to the Justice Department. By comparison, Boston, with a population of 618,000, has 252 Class 3 offenders. Minneapolis, with a population of 383,000, has 101, according to the local police. In the Navajo Nation, Caroline Antone, 50, an advocate for the reservation's victims of sexual violence who has herself been raped, said that sexual assault was virtually routine in her community. "I know only a couple of people who have not been raped," she said. "Out of hundreds."

Black man convicted of child rape bolts from courtroom

When Judge Robert Ervin announced that sentencing for Bobby Gene Jolly’s rape conviction would happen in two hours, Jolly bolted. The 61-year-old man abruptly stood and, with a high-pitched scream, made a dash in the direction of the jury room. Shouts and sobs erupted from spectators in the courtroom. Some family members jumped over benches, grabbing at each other. One woman who had been sitting on the defense side of the courtroom collapsed to the floor, wailing loudly. Amidst the chaos, several sheriff’s deputies rushed toward Jolly, grabbing and holding the convicted man as he stood a few feet away from the woman who had accused him of raping her. A jury had just convicted Jolly of multiple counts of sexual offenses, including rape. The woman who said that Jolly had abused and raped her from the second grade through high school, sat on the floor of the courtroom, in tears, surrounded by family. Jolly was sentenced to 4 consecutive life sentences, 6 years following the life sentences and another 20 to 24 years after that.

The 17-year-old black male accused in a violent home invasion and rape has surrendered to police

Sources say that Gregory Hodge turned himself in. Investigators say that he forced his way into a home, then raped and robbed a 23-year-old woman inside at gunpoint. The victim's boyfriend said that he knows Gregory Hodge extremely well. He says that he previously mentored Hodge, and he believes that Hodge sexually assaulted his girlfriend in retaliation because he wouldn't give him money. As police searched the area for clues, witnesses led them to Hodge. Just hours after the crime, the boyfriend said that he was frustrated that reaching out to help Hodge and other neighborhood children led to this incident. The non-profit, Harvest Hands, has helped disadvantaged youth for five years, and neighborhood mentors are all over town. Hodge is behind bars at a juvenile detention center. Along with aggravated rape and robbery, Hodge could face additional charges.

Boston University researchers found that sarcoidosis accounts for 25% of deaths among women in the Black Women’s Health Study who have the disease

Sarcoidosis causes inflammation in the lungs, lymph nodes, liver, skin and other tissues and stems from unknown causes. Patients affected are typically between the ages of 20 and 40 years old and are more likely to be affected if a close blood relative has the disease. It is most often associated with debilitating lung illness like pulmonary fibrosis. Although it can affect any age and race, black women tend to have a higher incidence of sarcoidosis, as well as a more severe course and higher mortality rates.

Researchers have analyzed genetic material of more than 32,000 African-American smokers and non-smokers to see if certain genes predicted when they began smoking, how many cigarettes they smoked and how easily they were able to quit

According to the new study, a variant in a nicotine receptor gene predicts about one extra cigarette smoked per day. This same general location has been implicated in smoking behavior among white Europeans. Among African-Americans, the new genetic marker appears on a different spot on the same gene. Smoking behaviors differ among ethnic groups. For example, African-Americans typically start smoking at later ages than their counterparts of European descent and smoke fewer cigarettes each day. But they have a higher risk for lung cancer and are less likely to quit smoking.

A disgruntled black man broke into WIBW-TV and fought with employees before he was taken down

The black man called into the front lobby receptionist to be allowed access into the station. WIBW receptionist, Lynda Janes, asked the black man to wait while she got News Director Jon Janes to talk with him. The black man told Janes via a front lobby phone that he was upset by the way the VA was handling his case. Janes explained to the black man that he needs to discuss the issue with the VA and that WIBW couldn't help him at this time. The black man left the building. Janes says about 10 minutes later he came back, agitated and demanded access again. Lynda Janes and Rob Pepper called police when he started removing a sofa in the entryway, unplugged a lamp there and smashed the glass front doors with it. He then chased Lynda Janes and Rob Peppers down the hallway toward the newsroom. Several employees exited the building. "He told me to hit him," said Dylan Schoonover, who saw the black man coming down a hallway near the newsroom edit bays. Schoonover slid out a side door unharmed and convened with other staff outside. Master Control Operator Joe Garrett saw the black man walk down a hallway after Lynda ran by alerting everyone to the situation. "As I turned and came back into master control to call the 911 operator, I saw an African-American male, roughly 5'8", walk by master control with a black and green backpack slung over his shoulder." A few moments later, Garrett watched on the security camera - still on the phone with 911 - as several employees tackled the black man near an east exit of the building. Someone noticed the suspect had pulled a knife. He stabbed Sales Manager Roger Brokke in the leg and also cut sales associate Greg Palmer in the leg. Brokke was also bitten on the ear by the black man. About eight employees held the suspect down until police arrived. The black man was heard yelling, "I'm going to f**kin' kill you all!" Topeka Police arrested the suspect, who was taken to a local hospital for treatment. He has been identified as Ray Miles. TPD says that he will be booked into the Department of Corrections after he is treated at the hospital. Brokke and Palmer were taken by ambulance to be treated for minor injuries. Brokke said that he was told he would need to get a tetanus shot. Jon Janes says that he has spoken with Miles once before, on March 22, 2012 when he came to the station to see about having a story done on the VA mistreating him. Janes also sent him away at that time and Miles became angry and left.

Indian abortion doctors are feeding female fetuses to dogs to cover up rampant infanticide by parents who prefer boys

The sickening practice was exposed in the town of Beed, in Maharashtra - the state with the worst child sex ratio in India. So-called gender genocide was blamed for 2011's appalling census figures, which showed that just 801 girls were being born for every 1,000 boys. By keeping dogs, doctors can get rid of bodies without having to dispose of them through official channels. It means that the true extent of illegal sex-selection abortion in the town - and elsewhere in India - is being hidden. The shocking revelation was made by Varsha Deshpande of Lek Ladki Abhiyan, a charity working against the practice. She said that her organization had conducted a sting operation on Dr Sudam Munde in 2010, in which he openly talked about how he was aborting female fetuses and feeding them to his five dogs. Suresh Shetty, the public health minister for Maharashtra - India's second most populous state - also admitted that he had heard of fetuses being thrown to the dogs in Beed.

More than 120 girls and three teachers were admitted to an Afghanistan hospital after being poisoned in their classes with a type of spray, a Takhar provincial official has said

The incident occurred in the provincial capital of Talokhan, in the Bibi Hajera girls school, said Dr. Hafizullah Safi, director of public health for the northern Afghanistan province. Forty of the 122 girls were still hospitalized, he said, with symptoms including dizziness, vomiting, headaches and loss of consciousness. Blood samples have been sent to Kabul in an effort to determine the substance used, he said. "The Afghan people know that the terrorists and the Taliban are doing these things to threaten girls and stop them going to school," said Khalilullah Aseer, spokesman for Takhar police. "That's something we and the people believe. Now we are implementing democracy in Afghanistan and we want girls to be educated, but the government's enemies don't want this." There have been several instances of girls being poisoned in schools in recent years. In April 2012, also in Takhar province, more than 170 women and girls were hospitalized after drinking apparently poisoned well water at a school. Local health officials blamed the acts on Islamic extremists opposed to women's education.

New York City: Blacks are 66% of all violent-crime suspects, according to the victims of and witnesses to those crimes, even though they are only 23% of the city’s population

Blacks commit around 70% of all robberies and about 80% of all shootings in New York City. Add Hispanic shooters, and you account for 98% of all shootings in the city. Whites, by contrast, were only 5% of all violent crime suspects in 2011 even though they are 35% of the city’s population. According to victim and witness reports, they commit barely over 1% of all shootings and less than 5% of all robberies.

In Danish youth prisons, 70% of inmates are Muslim

Muslims have little reason to adjust to European culture, despite great efforts on the part of governments to convince them, since the immigrants get everything for free without any effort on their part.

There is almost no white family in South Africa whose members have not fallen victim to the post-1994 reign of terror

Out of the approximately 40,000 white farmers at the time of the end of Boer rule, more than 3,000 (almost 10%) have been murdered. The murder rate for white South African farmers is 313 per 100,000, making farming the most dangerous occupation in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. By comparison, the murder rate for residents of Detroit is 34 per 100,000, and it’s also rising. The characteristic modus operandi of the black killers is to rape wives, regardless of age, in front of their husbands and then bludgeon, stab, hack, or beat both to death. The conviction rate in ANC-ruled South Africa is 8%, as opposed to roughly 75% in the United States. Under the Afrikaners, South Africa was stable, prosperous, and safe. Under apartheid, the economy achieved a continuous growth rate and attracted thousands of black immigrants from other African countries. The country's black population rose from 8.6 million in 1946 to 28.3 million in 1991. During the much maligned Afrikaner regime, the life expectancy for South African blacks skyrocketed from thirty-eight to sixty-one years. (Under black rule, it has plunged again by a whole nine years). Just twelve years after the start of Afrikaner rule in 1948, the rate of literacy among the Xhosa (the majority tribe in South Africa) was already higher than that of any other African blacks and even surpassed that of India. The black school population grew by a whopping 250% during the first decades of apartheid. Furthermore, the Boer government engaged in a campaign of income redistribution from whites to blacks. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the black share of personal income doubled. By the end of Boer rule, South African blacks received more in government revenue than they paid in taxes. Present day outrages like the mass rape of infants and ritual killing, which are based on tribal beliefs, were simply not allowed to happen in Afrikaner-ruled South Africa. The majority Xhosa tribe (which includes both Mandela and his successor, Thabo Mbeki) are themselves relative newcomers to South Africa. The Xhosa came from the lands to the north and engaged in a campaign of genocide and displacement against the San (known in the West as Bushmen) and the Hottentot people. In Botswana, a country adjacent to South Africa, the Bantu majority has banned the Bushmen from claiming their ancestral lands. Post-apartheid South Africa is a warning for Americans. Even a highly successful, economically vibrant country like pre-Mandela South Africa can be dismantled in a matter of years and turned into a chaotic, blood-drenched wasteland.

A pizza chain that made waves in 2007 for accepting Mexican Pesos for payment has come up with a new way to generate some buzz for itself, offering free pizza to anyone who orders in Spanish

Dallas-based Pizza Patron will be offering free pizza on June 5, 2012 from 5 to 8 pm to anyone who places their order in Spanish. The company is calling the promotion Pizza Por Favor. Pizza Patron has over 100 locations nationwide.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Forensic evidence found on property belonging to a missing California teenager led authorities to a Latino suspected of kidnapping and killing her

Sierra LaMar, 15, has been missing since March 16, 2012 when she left her mother's home to walk to her school bus stop. Police have arrested Antolin Garcia-Torres, 21. He faces charges of murder and kidnapping in LaMar's disappearance. Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said that investigators believe LaMar is dead, although they have not located her body. "We continue to pray until she's found," LaMar's mother, Marlene, said. "Our search still is not going to end." She implored Garcia-Torres to "come forward and say where she is." Smith said that Garcia-Torres has not been forthcoming with authorities. "We have gained some value from our interviews with him, but nothing substantive," she said. LaMar's purse and phone were found at different locations on the side of the road within two miles of the house. The purse had clothes neatly folded inside. Forensic evidence was found "in multiple places" on LaMar's possessions, Smith said. She would not divulge the nature of the evidence. Physical evidence also links LaMar to Garcia-Torres' vehicle, which was seized on April 7, 2012. Garcia-Torres was identified on March 28, 2012 after forensic evidence was run through a law enforcement database. Garcia-Torres was in the database because he had a prior felony arrest for an assault. Forensic evidence has also linked Garcia-Torres to one of three unsolved assaults in March 2009.

Israel suffers from being the only first-world country with a well-to-do economy and decent social services having a land border with Africa

Recent figures from the Interior Ministry are that there were 55,000 African illegal immigrants as of January 2012 in Israel. That number is double what was recorded 18 months earlier in July 2010. More recently, officials said that there are now 60,000 illegal African immigrants in the country. Among Israel's problems in dealing with the immigrants are the unsettled nature of the countries which supply the bulk of the immigrants (Eritrea, South Sudan, and Sudan), which hinder efforts to repatriate them, the lack of diplomatic relations with Sudan, and the unwillingness of African countries to accept individuals who arrive in Israel with no documents showing nationality.

A black woman arrested in the daytime stabbing deaths of two Canadian tourists near an Atlantic City casino laughed, frowned, grimaced and repeatedly asked where her lawyer was as she was charged with murdering the women, one of them 80 years old

Antoinette Pelzer stabbed the women as they were walking in an area where most of the city’s casinos have their entrances and parking garages, authorities said. Pelzer’s aunt said that she has long suffered from mental illness. Superior Court Judge Michael Donio read from a criminal complaint that said Pelzer, 44, stabbed the 80-year-old woman and tried to steal her pocketbook. "When the victim would not relinquish, the suspect stabbed her additional times," he said, reading from the complaint. The judge said that the older woman was stabbed in different parts of her body with a 12-inch butcher knife, and that the younger woman, 47, was stabbed in her lower body, hands and shoulder when she tried to help. Autopsies showed that the older woman died from being knifed in the heart, while the 47-year-old woman bled to death.

Obama's grades and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores may have been even lower than those of George W. Bush

Is Obama really as intelligent as his supporters say he is?

From 2007 (the year the recession started) to 2011, Latinos workers' wages in the state and local public sectors declined more than the wages of whites and African Americans

The median wage of Hispanic employees declined 5.2%, compared with a decline of 1.9% for African Americans, and 0.7% for whites. Just about everyone on Main Street has been hurt by the decline in the share of good jobs, but Hispanic men have been hit the hardest. From 1979 to 2008, the share of Hispanic men in good jobs declined 15.5%. For white and black men respectively, the declines were 12.8% and 9.3%. A third of Hispanic children are living in poverty, nearly three times the rate for white children. Since the start of the recession, Latino child poverty has increased the most of the major racial and ethnic groups. Hispanics lead in the share of workers earning wages that cannot lift a family out of poverty. In terms of benefits, Latinos are also in a dire situation. Hispanics have the lowest share of workers with employer-sponsored health insurance. Given that Latinos are underrepresented in good jobs that provide a retirement plan and overrepresented in jobs that do not provide enough for savings, it is not surprising that Latinos are very weak on measures of retirement security. The fact that Latinos have lost a significant amount of wealth over the recession does not improve the situation. This shows that the increasing diversity that we have seen in the United States thanks to Latino immigration has lowered wages for everyone including Hispanics.

More than a decade after the City University of New York ended open admissions to its four-year colleges, a marked shift has occurred at its top institutions as freshman classes now enter with far better academic credentials and also a different demographic mix

The changes began in 2000, with new minimum requirements for test scores for college admission, continued as academic standards were raised in stages over the years and accelerated sharply with the recent recession, as CUNY’s bargain prices beckoned far more applicants. At the university’s five most competitive four-year colleges — Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens — nearly 12% of freshmen entering in 2001 had SAT scores of 1,200 or more. In 2007, for the last pre-recession class, the figure was up to 16%, and by fall 2011, it had jumped to 26%. At the same time, black representation among first-time freshmen at those colleges dropped, to 10% in fall 2011 from 17% in 2001. Over the same period, the Hispanic share rose slightly for several years, then fell once the recession began, to 18%, while the white portion fell slightly, to 35%. Asians are now entering the top colleges in the greatest numbers, composing 37% of those classes, up from 25% a decade earlier. The ethnic changes at CUNY’s top colleges confirm the predictions made during the battle over ending open admissions, one of the city’s most charged political disputes of the 1990s: Proponents said that the colleges would rise in status, while opponents said that black and Hispanic enrollment would fall. “We’re not condemning CUNY; we just don’t think they’ve taken into account the long-term effects of what’s happening,” said David R. Jones, the president and chief executive of the Community Service Society of New York, an antipoverty group, which has just completed a study of the changes. “If you’re taking a lower percentage of blacks and Latinos out of high school, you should try to make sure this doesn’t continue.” The changes at CUNY mimic, to some extent, changes in the city’s top public high schools, which admit students solely on the basis of an entrance exam and have become steadily more Asian and less black in recent years. The shift is evident in the faces at Baruch College in Manhattan, where the enrollment is almost half Asian and about 10% black, a regular topic of discussion, said David Mayomi, 33, a black student who studies international business and lives in Brooklyn. “This is our city, and we represent a large part of the community, but we represent a small percentage of the people here,” he said, questioning whether the college gave preferential treatment to Asians. Another student, Joyce Chan, 21, said that when Asian students chose to attend a CUNY college, their parents often pushed for Baruch because of its specialty, business education. A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science whose parents are immigrants, Chan was initially accepted into Baruch’s honors program, which offered her a free computer, an iPod and a travel stipend, in addition to complimentary tuition, she said. But a recent F grade in a math class forced her to withdraw from it. “Our parents want us to have jobs that are stable,” said Chan, who is majoring in public affairs. “They want us to have jobs that are better than what they have. Business and medicine and law are stable.”

In 2011, there were more immigrants to Israel from the United States than Israeli emigrants heading for the United States

Fewer than 3,850 Israelis migrated to the United States in 2011, the lowest number since 2003. In 2006, the most recent year for which emigration statistics exist from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 7,472 new immigrants arrived from the former Soviet Union, while 7,400 emigrated from Israel, mostly to Canada, the United States, and Europe. A 2008 survey by the Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that nearly 60% of Israelis had inquired about or applied for citizenship and/or a passport from a foreign country. Government statistics estimate that between 800,000 and 1 million Israelis live abroad. The Immigrant Absorption Ministry launched a campaign in 2010 promising benefits to Israelis who return to Israel, and the Finance Ministry is also trying to create incentives that would encourage Israeli expats to return.