When did the ancestors of modern Europeans lose their dark skin?

Researchers studied three genes associated with lighter skin pigmentation. Although the genes are found in all human populations, they are far more common in Europe than in Africa, and explain a significant portion of the skin-color differences between European and west African populations. By analyzing the genomes of 50 people with European ancestry and 70 people with sub-Saharan African ancestry, the scientists could estimate when the three genes – and pale skin – first became widespread in European populations. The result suggested that the three genes associated with paler skin swept through the European population only 11,000 to 19,000 years ago. An earlier analysis of ancient DNA in 40,000 and 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones, respectively from Spain and Italy, suggested that our extinct cousins had light-coloured skin and reddish hair in their European heartland. But the Neanderthals went extinct around 28,000 years ago – long before modern humans in Europe gained a pale skin. Evidently Neanderthals did not pass these useful local adaptations on to modern humans, despite genetic evidence that the two species interbred. That might seem unusual given that the two species lived cheek-by-jowl in Europe for several thousand years. But it makes sense if the interbreeding evident in the genes occurred in the Middle East, where modern humans and Neanderthals first met, says Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum, London. In that region, Neanderthals may have had darker skins, explaining why our species did not gain a pale skin after interbreeding with them. Indeed, a study earlier in 2012 of ancient DNA suggested that Neanderthals living in what is now Croatia had dark skin and brown hair.

New York City: The Hispanic pizza delivery boy accused of raping an upper West Side woman as her 7-year-old daughter slept in the bed beside her is being held without bail after admitting to the sick attack

Cesar Lucas, 16, confessed that he went in because he was feeling horny and that he took advantage of her. Lucas was delivering pizzas to another apartment in the victim’s doorman building when he took advantage of an unlocked door and found the victim sleeping with her young daughter. The young Latino also stole her iPhone. Lucas has been arraigned on charges of rape, burglary, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. He is being charged as an adult, and held without bail on Rikers Island. The Hispanic somehow kept his job at Sal’s Pizzeria on 10th Avenue after an August 2012 arrest for robbing a West 42nd Street apartment during another delivery run.

Economists think Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney would be better for the economy than Obama

Nine of 17 top economists surveyed picked Romney when asked who's election would help the economy grow more. Only three picked Obama. The remaining five made no pick, with several suggesting that neither would provide much of a lift to the sagging economy. "Romney's policies would likely be less bad for the economy than Obama's," said Bill Watkins, executive director of the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at Cal Lutheran University. Several of the economists who thought Romney would be better for the economy pointed out the flaws in Obama's record. These economists felt that there is too much regulatory uncertainty hanging over businesses and that gridlock between the White House and Republicans in Congress also is a drag on hiring and growth. "Romney might be more likely to get Congress to do something, whereas Obama has shown he can't," said David Wyss, a fellow at Brown University. Allen Sinai of Decision Economics gave the Republican challenger the most enthusiastic support of those surveyed, saying Romney's calls for "cutting growth of government outlays, lowering tax rates and closing loopholes, less regulatory uncertainty ...smaller government and entitlement reform all must be tackled."

Hundreds of Muslims in Bangladesh burned at least four Buddhist temples and 15 homes of Buddhists after complaining that a Buddhist man had insulted Islam

Muslims took to the streets in the area to protest against what they said was a photograph posted on Facebook that insulted Islam. The protesters said that the picture had been posted by a Buddhist and they marched to Buddhist villages and set fire to temples and houses.

Female politicians with stereotypically feminine facial features are more likely to be Republican than Democrat, and the correlation increases the more conservative the lawmaker's voting record

And female politicians with less stereotypically feminine facial features were more likely to be Democrats, and the more liberal their voting record, the greater the distance the politician's appearance strayed from stereotypical gender norms. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that so many lesbians are Democrats? Also black women tend to be more masculine-looking than white women which may also be a factor in female Democrats looking less feminine.

Detroit: A black man was so obsessed over toilet training that he fatally beat his 2-year-old daughter for having an accident and is now on trial for first-degree murder

D'Andre Lane is also charged with child abuse in the disappearance of Bianca Jones, whose body has never been found. Lane told police that the toddler was abducted during a carjacking. The car was found less than an hour later, but the girl wasn't in it. Lane, who has fathered seven children with seven women, is accused of beating Bianca to death with a stick with a towel wrapped in duct tape and disposing of her body. Lane told officers during questioning that he had spanked the child for wetting herself.

Even though they are just 5% of the country's population, Muslims make up nearly half of Norway's prisoners

Another example of the failure of immigration and diversity.

Researchers find that the higher a person’s proportion of African ancestry, the more likely that person reported having curly hair, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, and the less likely that person reported having facial wrinkles, rosacea and Parkinson’s Disease

Also the higher a person’s proportion of European ancestry, the greater the chance that person carries variants that are more common among Europeans than among Africans, such as those linked to HIV-resistance and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.

NAACP is angry that so few black and Hispanics are smart enough to get into elite public schools in New York City

A so-called civil rights group has filed a complaint over the admissions test at New York City's specialized high schools, among the nation's most elite public schools, citing "effective discrimination" against black and Latino students, it said. The complaint with the U.S. Department of Education focuses on eight schools, particularly Stuyvesant High and Bronx Science which boast stellar alumni including Nobel laureates, famed actors and musicians. While more than half the city's population is black or Latino, black students made up only 1.2% of the Stuyvesant student body last year, while Latino students represented 2.4%, city data showed. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which filed the complaint, said that the highly competitive, 2-1/2-hour multiple-choice admissions test was at fault for the disparity. If the department investigates and finds New York is in breach of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it can sanction the city by withholding federal funding until the breach is resolved, the group said. The city's Department of Education said in a statement that it was bound by state law to admit students based solely on an exam. What will probably happen is that the schools will be forced to dumb down their examinations in much the same way that the FDNY has done.

Britain: A Nigerian couple who tried to claim £3.8 million in a benefits scam using 1,400 stolen identities have been jailed for a total of almost 10 years

Adeola Thomas, 38, assisted by his partner, Abimbola Abiola, 34, managed to pocket £87,000 after submitting almost 2,500 handwritten applications for tax credits and benefits. The pair spent the money on designer clothing and electrical items including a 50-inch plasma television. Thomas, an illegal immigrant, was jailed for seven years while Abiola, also a Nigerian national with leave to remain in Britain, received two-and-a-half years. The judge also indicated that both Thomas and Abiola should be deported at the end of their prison terms.

Britain: Only one in every 66 people say that they are gay or bisexual, a nationwide survey has revealed

The Office of National Statistics survey found that 1.5% of men say that they are gay, 0.7% of women say that they are lesbian, and 0.4% of people identify themselves as bisexual in Britain.

Two HIV-positive gay men are accused of raping a 17-year-old boy after plying him with alcohol

The gay couple are said to have made their victim drink large quantities of vodka after taking him back to their flat. They are then accused of making him sniff an unknown substance and, when he had passed out, stripping him naked from the waist down and taking it in turns to rape him.

American consumer spending spiked in August 2012 but experts are attributing the bump to higher gas prices and say that the splurge may actually be a bad sign for economic recovery

More bad news about the economy.

The black female principal of a private daycare has been charged with 25 counts including child rape sexual battery and child abuse along with a partner

Demetria Leshe Robinson, 33, was arrested in Nashville, Tennessee. Fellow African-American Rodney Darnell Robinson, 44, was also arrested. The pair were jointly indicted on one count of child abuse, six counts of aggravated sexual battery, six counts of child rape, six counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and six counts of rape. Demetria Robinson was held on $150,000 bond at Davidson County Jail while Rodney Robinson was on $250,000.

A black New York Transport Security Agency security officer was found guilty of stealing close to $1 million worth of belongings from passenger luggage

African-American Pythias Brown says that stealing was commonplace in the TSA.

FDNY comes up with new exam that blacks and Hispanics can't fail

The exam’s pass rate was high. Of the 42,231 people who took the test, 40,426 passed with a score of 70 or above. This means that the pass rate was over 95%. With such a high pass rate, I doubt that the test was particularly rigorous. In fact, more than 42% of minority-group members earned a grade of 97 or higher which seems to indicate that anyone with an IQ of at least 85 would have had no trouble passing this exam.

Are Northern Europeans related to Amerindians?

Greg Cochran looks at this issue:

The latest wrinkle is an Amerindian-like component in northern Europeans, accounting for roughly 10% of their ancestry. The French (and the Germans, and the Dutch and Irish) are closer to pure-blooded South American Indians than Italians are. Sardinians are the least close among Europeans – they may have none of this component. Presumably pure-blooded Amerindians in North America would show the same affiliations, but we – the land of the free and the home of the brave – are too crazy to let Reich and Patterson have any samples. This Amerindian-like population must have split off from the group that settled the Americas a long time ago – 20,000 years? More? Amerindians have the East Asian skin color genes, along with some of their own – as far as I know, you don’t see these at all in Europeans. As far as I know, there is zero overlap between Amerindian mtDNA haplotypes and those found in ye olde hunter-gatherers in Europe. There _is_ a weak mtDNA link between Amerindians and modern Europeans (haplogroup X). There are signs that populations related to or influenced by Amerindians once covered much more of northern Eurasia than they do now: for example, most linguists now agree that Ket (and groups with related languages that lived along the Yenisei River in central Siberia) is related to the Na-Dene languages, such as Navaho. Along the same lines, Greenberg thought that there were deep, old relationships between Indo-European and several languages groups in north Eurasia – and with Amerind. You see lots of European-type Y chromosomes among tribal Indians in the eastern United States. The usual assumption is that it’s all recent European admixture, and likely that’s so, but it wouldn’t hurt to look real close. Were the olde European hunters part-Injun? We know that the first farmers in Belgium build log stockades. Sometimes they lost: we’ve found one where the settlers are all dead, full of arrows. Has the wheel made a full turn? If we get a decent quality autosomal DNA sample from some Mesolithic hunters, we’ll know. That should happen soon. Or maybe the Indo-Europeans were a mixed people. Their mythology hints at this: they appeared to have had three castes – warriors, priests, and farmers, and there are signs that the first two castes somehow conquered and incorporated the third. This theme recurs repeatedly in myth and legend – for example, the war between the Aesir and the Vanir.

A 16-year-old black Bronx teenager told police that he was responsible for the death of his mother, hours after her body was found discarded in a plastic container on a nearby street

Darwin Jackson confessed to shooting dead his mother, Tihesha Savage, 34, after the two of them got into a dispute about his curfew. Her remains were discovered in a grey bin on Macombs Road in the Mt Eden neighbourhood of the Bronx. She had been shot in the back of the head, officials said. It is unclear if Jackson had an attorney; he was arrested twice in 2012 for marijuana possession. He was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and criminal weapon possession.

Sixty-five percent of American Jewish voters back Barack Obama, while only 24% support Mitt Romney, according to a new American Jewish Committee national survey

Romney has made a strong effort to attract Jewish voters, visiting Israel and maintaining that he'd be a strong ally of Israel than Obama. But he hasn't picked up Jewish support. A March 2012 survey found that 61% chose Obama and 28% for Romney. The trend follows a historic pattern. In 2008, according to exit polls, Obama got more than three-fourths of the Jewish vote.

Blacks have not only done badly under Obama — they’ve done worse than other racial groups

It is truly amazing that so many blacks will end up voting for a guy in November 2012 who has done nothing to improve their employment situation.

George Soros, the Jewish billionaire investor, has announced $1.5 million in pledged donations to a trio of super PACs backing Obama and congressional Democrats

Soros, who became nationally prominent in 2004 when he spent more than $20 million on independent groups supporting Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will give $1 million to Priorities USA Action — which is supporting Obama — and $500,000 to Majority PAC and House Majority PAC, which are running ads on behalf of Democratic candidates for Congress.

New figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey show that the typical American household’s real (inflation-adjusted) income has actually dropped 5.7% during the Obama “recovery”

Using constant 2012 dollars (to adjust for inflation), the median annual income of American households was $53,718 as of June 2009, the last month of the recession. Now, after 38 months of this “recovery,” it has fallen to $50,678 — a drop of $3,040 per household. Amazingly, incomes have dropped even more during the “recovery” than they did during the recession. In fact, they’ve dropped more than twice as much as they did during the recession. From the start to the end of the recession, the real median income of American households fell $1,413, or 2.6%. From the end of the recession to the present day, it has dropped $3,040, or 5.7%. Two of the groups hit hardest have been ones that turned out in abundance for Obama in 2008: black Americans and younger Americans (those between the ages of 25 and 34). During the first three years of the Obama “recovery,” the real median household income for black Americans dropped a whopping 11.1%. For Americans between the ages of 25 and 34, real median household income dropped 8.9%. How much worse will things get if Obama is re-elected?

Two black women have been arrested at John F Kennedy International Airport after they tried to smuggle two kilograms of cocaine into the country in their wigs and hair weaves

Officials say that the black women had the drugs resting on their scalps in form-fitting plastic packages. The packages were covered by beehive wigs and hair weaves to conceal the drugs that the pair were trying to sneak into New York from the Caribbean nation of Guyana in South America. The pair were caught when they began acting nervously as they got close to the US Customs checkpoint at JFK. Kinda Howell and Makeeba Graham were both arrested on federal drug smuggling charges. The pair arrived on Caribbean Airlines Flight 526 from Georgetown, Guyana. When officers patted the women down, they noticed strange bulges on their heads. They asked Howell to remove her weave, but she said that she couldn't because she had a package that was sewn into it. She then confessed that her boyfriend told her to bring that package under her hair weave to the United States for him. She said that she was paid $7,500 for the job. Graham, a 33-year-old resident of Harlem, New York, also claimed that she couldn't take off her hair piece, claiming it was sewn into her natural hair. The two were taken to JFK's medical clinic, where nurses removed the hair pieces, revealing the drugs inside. Howell had 996 grams of cocaine on her head. Makeeba Graham was found with 1,046 grams. Together, the packages weighed more than four and a half pounds.

Can America continue down the path Obama is taking us on, to a time soon and certain when a majority of wage-earners pay no income taxes but a majority of citizens receive federal benefits?

In 2010, some 4.4 million Americans were on welfare rolls, 22 million on government payrolls, 23 million were receiving Earned Income Tax Credit checks, 44 million were on food stamps, 50 million were on Medicaid, and 70 million wage-earners were paying no income taxes. Today, 47 million Americans are on food stamps at an annual cost of $72 billion. One in seven Americans cannot rely upon themselves or their families for their daily bread. Federal, state and local government together now consume 37% of the economy. For the first time since California entered the Union, the young and middle class are moving out, not in, heading for Colorado, Arizona, Idaho and Nevada. And California has become the destination of choice for the immigrant poor, legal and illegal - particularly Hispanics. How long can we continue like this?

Obesity in black children more severely impacts blood pressure than in white children who are equally overweight, according to a new study

Researchers examined the effect of age and body weight on blood pressure in children at an obesity clinic. While age and body weight were similar among black and white patients, black children had significantly higher blood pressure compared to their white counterparts. On average, the black children's blood pressure was 8% higher than white children. This suggests that obesity affects blood pressure more in black children.

An influential ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbi has ordered his followers to burn their iPhones, the latest move in a campaign by the insular community to encourage its members to keep the outside world — and specifically the Internet — at bay

The decree by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 84, came ahead of Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur. It said that it was forbidden to own the smart phone, and those who already had one must burn theirs. Israel’s growing ultra-Orthodox minority tenaciously guards its traditional way of life against the influence of the secular majority. Many shun TVs and computers to avoid images that break their standards of modesty and values. The iPhone prohibition comes amid a push in recent months by ultra-religious Jewish leaders around the world to steer their flock away from the temptations of the Internet. Tens of thousands of black-suited Jewish men gathered in a New York stadium in May 2012 to hear some of the community’s most famed rabbis lecture on the dangers of what they deemed immoral content accessible via computers and smart phone. The rally was broadcast live to other crowds in stadiums in London and Jerusalem. After this most recent decree, large posters sprang up throughout Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, calling iPhones “an abomination 24 hours a day.” They called on community members to kick iPhone owners out of religious seminaries, and warned them to keep their children away from the children of iPhone users. Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have stepped up their campaigns against smart phones in the lead-up to Yom Kippur, a period of religious introspection. At the entrance to Jerusalem’s outdoor vegetable market, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in traditional long black coats and black fedoras showed off their “kosher” cell phones — simple devices with Internet access and video capabilities blocked, stamped with a seal of approval by a rabbinical council. They said iPhones are dangerous. “It takes over your life. It takes over your mind,” said Yitzhak Kabalo, 46, a telemarketer for ultra-Orthodox charities.

New research shows that Irish people are more genetically predisposed to Age-related Macular Degeneration, the most common cause of registered blindness in Ireland

In the study, over 200 patients with AMD volunteered blood samples, which were compared with normal volunteers for the presence of AMD risk factors. The research by a team from Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital found that the genetic risk factors were present in the Irish population at high levels. Mark Cahill of the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital said that many people could possess the genes and never develop the disease, which means that genetic screening is not recommended. However, early detection is essential to maximise the effectiveness of treatment options. Cahill said the finding that Irish people are at an elevated risk of developing AMD was crucial to understanding the underlying cause of the condition. The researchers say that while lifestyle changes, such as ensuring a balanced diet and blood pressure control, can help prevent AMD progression, their data shows that smoking remains the primary risk factor. Smokers are four times more likely to develop the condition. AMD is believed to affect one in ten people over the age of 50. The most obvious symptoms are sudden onset of distortion and blurring in the center of a person's vision.

Pakistanis are still sexually abusing white girls in Britain

Apparently very little is being done about this for fear of generating anti-immigrant sentiment.

Minorities account for nearly half of the student population in America, and will likely become the majority within the next decade or two, but recent studies show that students across the country are still largely learning in segregated environments - along both racial and economic lines

According to a new analysis of data from the U.S. Department of Education, an overwhelming majority of Latino and black students study in racially isolated classrooms: 80% of Latino students and 74% of black students are in schools where the majority of students are not white. More specifically, 43% of Latinos and 38% of black attend intensely segregated schools where white students comprise 10% or less of the student body. The report also found that the average black or Latino student now goes to schools where low-income students account for nearly double the proportion of poor students than the average white or Asian student. Increasing prevalence of school segregation is most dramatic in the south for black students. More northern states like New York, Illinois and Michigan tend to have the most segregated schools for black students while Washington, Nebraska and Kansas are most integrated. For Latino students, California, New York and Texas have the most segregated environments. White students, on the other hand, tend to attend schools where about 75% of their peers are white. The findings come at a time when the achievement gap between minority and white students continues to widen. A January 2012 report notes that minority high school students are performing at academic levels equal to or below those of three decades ago. And the high school graduation rate for black males still trails that for white males, according to a report released recently. While the black male graduation rate has improved to close the racial gap by 3 percentage points over nine years, it would take 50 years for that rate to catch up to the white male graduation rate if it continued growing at the same pace.

Gay people are seven times more likely to take illegal drugs than the general population

And one in five show signs of dependency on drugs or alcohol. These are the findings of a report, conducted by the Lesbian and Gay Foundation (LGF) and the University of Central Lancashire, which sampled more than 4,000 people over two years. More than a third of gay, lesbian and bisexual people took at least one illegal drug in the last month, according to the study - the largest of its kind to date. This compares to 5% of the wider population who admitted using a drug in the last month in the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). According to the researchers the most widely used substances among those surveyed were party drugs such as cannabis and poppers - a liquid nitrite sold in a small bottle and inhaled. These were followed by powder cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine and amphetamines. The study found that they were 10 times more likely to have used cocaine in the last month than the wider population, and 13 times more likely to have used ketamine. Crack cocaine use was also higher in the gay community.

Black crime: A convicted high-level sex offender dragged a 21-year-old woman off a park bench and raped her in a popular New York City park

African-American Jonathan Stewart, 25, a registered Level III sex offender released from prison in 2011, took a seat beside the woman in Hudson River Park before abruptly attacking her. His victim told police that he first tried starting a conversation with her then struck her in her face and attempted to strangle her, moments before dragging her into some nearby bushes. After breaking free and sending Stewart running, the young woman found a city parks police officer who notified other officers in the area. Not long afterwards, NYPD officers recognized Stewart nearby. Stewart, who was homeless at the time of the attack, was released from prison in 2011 after serving seven years for robbing and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004.

Britain: A black Sudanese immigrant rapist exposed himself to a judge when he was brought before a court to give his plea

Mawawe Ibraham Karam, 28, was due to stand trial accused of raping a 17-year-old in Nottingham city center, after he originally pleaded not guilty. But after exposing himself, he was removed from the Nottingham courtroom and could be heard shouting "I'm guilty, I'm guilty". After pleading guilty, Karam asked Judge Stokes to sentence him that day, repeatedly shouting: "Please judge, please sentence me today, please." He was later brought back before the judge and changed his plea to guilty. Karam was jailed at Nottingham Crown Court for ten years for rape and the theft of the victim's mobile phone. The court heard how Karam dragged a vulnerable girl, 17, into an alleyway and raped her in the early hours of March 25, 2012. Karam left her lying semi-naked in the street, taking her mobile phone with him. She was not found until two hours later after a passer-by heard the girl shouting for help and raised the alarm. Karam, a Sudanese immigrant, was also placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register and recommended for deportation after serving his sentence. The court previously heard that Karam came to Britain illegally, but had since been given indefinite leave to remain.

Police have arrested Bernardo Mondragon-Guzman, 41, a Hispanic illegal immigrant for Continuous Sexual Assault of a Child

Investigators said that Guzman, a coach for the Garland Soccer Association, raped a 10-year-old boy repeatedly for more than a year. The child played soccer in the organization, police said, and he might not be the only victim. "From our investigation, our fear is there are other victims out there," said Ofc. Joe Harn with the Garland Police Department. Guzman is locked up in the Dallas County Jail without bond on this charge, because he is in the United States illegally. Garland police said that the sexual assaults against the 10 year old happened four or five times in the bedroom of Guzman's Garland home and even in a car behind it in the alley. The sexual abuse started when the victim was 9 years old. Guzman kept baby wipes in the glove compartment and naked pictures under the back floor board carpet of the car. One time Guzman even used his phone to make a video of the sexual act.

California: A black father whose son was murdered execution-style in 2008 by a Hispanic illegal immigrant gangster has launched a campaign to persuade Gov. Jerry Brown to veto a bill that would have police release illegal immigrants onto the streets even when the feds want them detained

The controversial bill, which passed the legislature in August 2012, would compel local law enforcement in most cases to ignore requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold illegal immigrants if they could otherwise be released. Advocates say that it's a way for police to build "trust" with local communities - the name of the bill is the TRUST Act. But opponents warn the policy could have dangerous consequences. The bill "will have real and potentially devastating consequences for people across our state," Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose 17-year-old son was killed, said in a statement. Shaw separately put out a web video appealing to Brown to reject the bill. "Would you want that to happen to your son? ... How many have to die by people being let out into the streets from the county jail that should be deported," he said in the video. "No one should have to go through losing a child." Shaw's son Jamiel Shaw Jr., a high school football player, was killed in 2008 by a member of the 18th Street Gang hours after he had been released from a local jail. Pedro Espinoza was found guilty of the murder, in which he shot Shaw twice after mistaking him for a rival gang member. A jury recommended the death penalty for Espinoza earlier in 2012. Bob Dane, a spokesman at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said that California would be opening the door to a rampant public safety threat - as well as additional financial burden on the state - if the governor lets the bill become law. He noted that Brown could opt to take no action on the bill, allowing it to become law by default. "It's the perfect storm for complete lawlessness," he said, saying that the state would be rolling out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants and become even more of a magnet. "This is not the work of responsible custodians of the public trust," he said.

Lifespans decline for less educated whites

For generations of Americans, it was a given that children would live longer than their parents. But there is now mounting evidence that this enduring trend has reversed itself for the country’s least-educated whites, an increasingly troubled group whose life expectancy has fallen by four years since 1990. The steepest declines were for white women without a high school diploma, who lost five years of life between 1990 and 2008. By 2008, life expectancy for black women without a high school diploma had surpassed that of white women of the same education level. White men lacking a high school diploma lost three years of life. Life expectancy for both blacks and Hispanics of the same education level rose. But blacks over all do not live as long as whites, while Hispanics live longer than both whites and blacks. The five-year decline for white women rivals the catastrophic seven-year drop for Russian men in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

About 84% of human genes are active in the brain, a finding that may help explain its complexities and diseases, according to the most extensive DNA map analysis of the organ to date

In mapping the ways the genes link to the brain’s structures, researchers found that the vast majority of the 20,000 genes in the human genome play a role in the organ’s function and architecture. That’s more than in any other organ in the body.

People of African descent are more likely to carry gene variants that convert plant-based medium-chain omega-6 PUFAs found in cooking oils and processed foods to the long-chain PUFAs that cause inflammation

This is why African Americans have much higher rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, stroke, coronary heart disease and certain types of cancer than whites.

British actress finds out that her Jewish great-great-grandmother ran a brothel

Alex Kingston doesn't seem to be too upset that her ancestor was involved in such an unsavory occupation.

More than half the young black men who graduated high school in 2010 earned their diploma in four years, an improved graduation rate that still lagged behind that of their white counterparts

The Schott Foundation for Public Education, which has tracked graduation rates of black males from public schools since 2004, said that 52% of black males who entered ninth grade in the 2006-07 school year graduated in four years. That compared with 78% of white, non-Latino males and 58% of Latino males. The foundation releases its report every two years. In 2008, the black male graduation rate was 47%. The progress among blacks closed the racial divide on graduation rates by 3 percentage points over nine years to a 26 percentage-point gap. "At this rate it would take nearly 50 years for black males to graduate at the same rate as white males," said John H. Jackson, president and CEO of the foundation.

More than one in five (22.5%) young African-Americans are disconnected from work and from school, 18.5% of Latinos, 11.7% of whites, and just 8% of Asian-Americans

Globally, the United States has a higher rate of youth disconnection than many advanced nations, including the United Kingdom (13.4%), Austria (11.4%), Canada (10.5%), Germany (9.5%), Norway (9.2%), Finland (8.6%), Switzerland (6.8%), Denmark (5.7%), and the Netherlands (4.1%). Of course, the United States has more blacks and Hispanics than those other countries which helps to explain our high youth disconnection rate.

A Nigerian recycling worker smuggled young children into Britain before brainwashing them with African witchcraft to try and force them into prostitution

Osezua Elvis Osolase, 42, is accused of 13 offenses of trafficking, rape, false imprisonment and sexual activity with a child. He cast spells over his three victims, all originally from Nigeria, using juju magic rituals in order to stop them from running away, a court has heard. He also sexually assaulted the girls - who are now aged 15, 17 and 18 - and it is believed that he has many more victims. Juju refers to traditional West African religions involving objects of superstition and witchcraft. The court heard that Osolase, who lives with a German woman in Gravesend, Kent, had found his 17-year-old victim begging on the streets of Nigeria. The former security guard told her that he would take her to Britain to help her get an education.

A black teenager has been accused of shaking his girlfriend's six-month-old son to death - and then acting as if nothing had happened

Daquan Davis, 19, was looking after Yusuf E’Miy Stewart-Ali Jr. at the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Ebony Stewart, in Atlantic City, New Jersey as she worked a night shift. Stewart, 25, called Davis around midnight, and he told her that the baby was fine. But when she returned home shortly before 4 a.m., she found her son unresponsive. She said that, after the grisly discovery, Davis acted as if nothing had happened. Davis was arrested after authorities determined that the baby had been shaken, prosecutors said. Davis, who graduated from high school in June 2012, has been charged with aggravated manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. He is held on $750,000 bail. Stewart said that her boyfriend's full name is actually Da'Quon Callaway and he is not the baby's father. She met him a month ago and said that they had been living together at the apartment since.

For the very first time, scientists have demonstrated that a brain implant can improve thinking ability in primates

By implanting an electrode array into the cerebral cortex of monkeys, researchers were able to restore — and even improve — their decision-making abilities. The implications for possible therapies are far-reaching, including potential treatments for cognitive disorders and brain injuries. But there's also the possibility that this could lead to implants that could boost your intelligence.

A Moroccan national arrested by law enforcement as he was planning to detonate a bomb in the U.S. Capitol building has been sentenced to 30-years in prison by a federal judge

Amine El Khalifi, an illegal immigrant who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, has been sentenced after pleading guilty in June 2012 to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The would be Islamic terrorist originally faced a maximum sentence under federal law of life in prison, but prosecutors agreed to the 30-year prison term as part of a plea agreement. The 29-year-old El Khalifi's lawyers asked for a sentence of 25 years, saying that would be enough to deter others from pursuing similar plans, but their request was denied. The wannabe Muslim terrorist believed that he was working with al-Qaeda when in fact his contacts were undercover U.S. agents, the officials stated. The radical Islamist also was in possession of a semi-automatic weapon which he confessed he would have used to shoot people before detonating the bomb inside the U.S. Capitol Building. The illegal alien had been the subject of a lengthy undercover investigation by the FBI. They said that he had become known to them in January 2011 when a confidential source told authorities that El Khalifi met with others in Virginia and agreed with statements that the group needed to be ready for war, according to court documents. "Ironically, this man would have been eligible for Obama's new deportation policy since El Khalifi is under 30-years-old and has no criminal record in the United States until now," said former NYPD detective and military intelligence officer Mike Snopes.

A recent Gallup poll has found that 70% of US Jews still support Obama, while the GOP's candidate, Mitt Romney, has only 25% support – similar to the support that Jews gave to John McCain in 2008

Romney's best chance for winning the election is to maximize the white Protestant and white Catholic votes. The GOP should stop pandering to Jews, blacks, Hispanics and other ethnic riffraff as the majority of these voters will vote for Obama.

African-Americans aged 18-34 have the lowest employment rate (54%) since the government started tracking in 1948

African-American youth unemployment is 39.3% (ages 16-19) and is nearly double the 20.9% unemployment rate for whites in the same age demographic. Total African-American unemployment is 14.1%, while overall national unemployment now stands at 8.1%. Two point five million African-Americans are currently looking for work but can't find a job. African-Americans make up a disproportionately large share of the unemployed and long-term unemployed. They account for roughly 19% of the total unemployed population, 23% of those unemployed for more than six months, and 26% of those unemployed for 99 or more weeks. The typical unemployment spell lasts roughly seven months (28.4 weeks) for an African-American worker, compared to less than five months (19.2 weeks) for all workers. African-Americans are more likely to be unemployed than the overall population across all levels of educational attainment. While the unemployment rate for African-Americans without a high school diploma was 21.7% in August 2012, the overall unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma was 15.0%. Likewise, 6.6% of African-Americans with at least a bachelor's degree were unemployed, 50% higher than the overall unemployment rate for those with a 4-year college degree. The median income of African-American households was $32,068, a decline of 3.2% from 2009. The last decade has seen a significant erosion of income for African-American households; from 2000 to 2010, real median household income declined by 14.6%. Since 2007, African-American median household income has declined by 10.1% - the largest decline of all major racial and ethnic groups.

Gay actor comes out against homosexuals being parents

He was seen as a champion for gay actors when he decided to come out of the closet two decades ago. Now Rupert Everett finds himself in a somewhat less enviable position. The 53-year-old actor has been rounded on by gay rights groups after saying: "I can’t think of anything worse that being brought up by two gay dads."

The dismembered bodies of 17 men have been found on a farm in central Mexico in what police believe was a targeted drug killing

Jalisco state prosecutor Tomas Coronado Olmos said that the bodies were dumped by a highway in the town of Tizapan el Alto near the border between Jalisco and Michoacan states. Michoacan is known as the home to the notorious La Familia cartel and its offshoot, The Knights Templar, which have been mired in a bloody struggle for control of the area. Coronado Olmos did not reveal the identities of the victims, but said that the bodies were naked, mutilated and stacked with chains around their necks in what appeared to be a targeted drug killing and that the bodies also had gunshot wounds.

On 9/14/12, 1,200 rabbis appealed to Barack Obama to release long-imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard

The request came during a conference call Obama held with rabbis and Jewish community leaders in advance of the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashannah – the Jewish New Year. At the start of the call, a delegation of the rabbis presented to Obama a joint request for Pollard's release. He is currently completing his 27th year in prison for the crime of passing classified information to a foreign country. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in the 1980s for passing classified information to Israel.

People who bear the genetic mutation for Huntington's disease learn faster than healthy people

The more pronounced the mutation was, the more quickly they learned. It is possible that the same mechanisms that lead to the degenerative changes in the central nervous system also cause the considerably better learning efficiency.

Africa and multiregionalism

Dienekes discusses the origins of the human species:

In my opinion, it will slowly become apparent that the way to harmonize our picture of human origins is to accept a substantial degree of archaic admixture in Africa. Such admixture cannot be detected directly, because there are no archaic genomes from Africa, and the hot climate throughout much of the continent may make preservation of DNA more difficult than in northern parts of Eurasia (where Neandertal and Denisovan individuals were from). Nor can it always be detected with LD-based methods, since LD decays exponentially and really old admixture is indistinguishable from an excess of mutation in a large population size. But, its acceptance will simultaneously solve the riddle of excess polymorphism in Africans, remove the need for an Out-of-Africa bottleneck of biblical proportions, and resolve the discrepancy between autosomal and uniparental evidence.

A black woman who is an exotic dancer and paralegal and was accused of spending nearly $24,000 worth of federal aid on plastic surgery, a car stereo system and a pink paint job for her car has been jailed for food stamp fraud

Appearing in Florida courtroom, Brenda Charlestain, 28, testified to being homeless and unemployed when she applied for the aid to help her and her five children. Thanks to her later work dancing, however, she made over $85,000 a year in tips. Charlestain argued that of the accused total a large portion were gifts from male customers at various adult entertainment clubs in Southern Florida. She said $9,187 was gifted to her for cosmetic enhancements and $1,100 for a sound system for her 2008 Dodge Charger - made a bright pink with government money according to prosecutors. Between March 2010 and June 2012, court records show that she received $900 to $1,100 in government aid every month. She said that out of her aid and tips she paid $1,200 a month in rent and $326 in monthly car payments. Having pleaded guilty to the federal fraud charges earlier in 2012, as well as in providing a firearm to a convicted felon, her husband, she has been sentenced to 1 1/2 years in a federal prison. Begging for leniency from the judge, Charlestain asked for a downgraded sentence to house arrest while stressing various obstacles she has overcome in life, starting with her father's death when she was 10 and becoming pregnant at the age of 14. She said that despite her rough childhood she went on to become a paralegal, though it was a job she said she lost with her criminal charges. Two days after her firing she said that she obtained a new one working as a receptionist at a medical office. Her attorney earlier in 2012 also fought for her right to get back to work dancing during her trial, while wearing an ankle monitor if needed. According to prosecutors though, they said that the environment was no place for her having previously struck another dancer on the head with the heel of a heavy high-heeled shoe while at Sugardaddy's Adult Cabaret. Charlestain has also been accused of threatening a federal employee in a phone call. Charlestain said that she was only warding off a Voodoo attack her priest had suspected had been placed on her now jailed husband Josny Charlestain, 28, by one of his ex-girlfriends.

Britain: Chief Rabbi accuses atheist of making a “profoundly anti-Semitic” remark by criticising the Old Testament

Lord Sacks claimed that a remark in Prof Dawkins’s best-selling book The God Delusion, likening God as portrayed in Jewish scriptures to a fictional villain, was based on centuries of prejudice. He said that although Prof Dawkins does not believe in God, he was nevertheless a “Christian atheist” as opposed to a “Jewish atheist”. Prof Dawkins, an Oxford evolutionary biologist, dismissed the allegation as “ridiculous” and said he was not “anti-Jewish” just “anti-God”. Just goes to show that, to some Jews, everyone is an anti-Semite even "Christian atheists" which sounds like the ultimate oxymoron to me.

Illinois: Counter-terrorism agents for the FBI had been working for nearly a year on the case of a west suburban man who planned a personal jihad aimed at killing as many Americans as possible in a Muslim terrorist attack

Adel Daoud, 18, of Hillside, was initially detected as a potential threat in October 2011, according to federal agents who make routine patrols of jihadist Internet chat rooms. The FBI made contact with Daoud using undercover operatives, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. The teenager, an American citizen, is accused of plotting an attack during the past few months. He provided FBI informants with a list of potential targets in metro Chicago according to the FBI, including military recruiting centers, bars, malls, and other tourist attractions. In perhaps the most jarring aspect of this case, federal authorities say that Daoud relied on a magazine produced and distributed by al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula. The publication, Inspire, is a virtual manual for budding terrorists. "The point is in this magazine they encourage Muslims in the West especially in the USA to attack IN America" stated Daoud in one post to a jihadist web site. "i hate the oppression of the USA and i would love to do something that would hurt it from the inside (sic.)" Inspire magazine featured the Chicago skyline as a backdrop for an article encouraging personal jihad. Among the techniques recommended to would-be jihadists was the use of vehicles to ram and kill pedestrians on downtown street corners. The magazine also provided recipes for car bombs and instructions on how to effectively carry out such attacks on U.S. soil. The weapons of mass destruction charge against Daoud states that he opted to detonate a vehicle bomb near a downtown Chicago nightclub because he believed that they wouldn't kill any devout Muslims due to liquor sales at the site. Alcohol consumption is prohibited under Islamic law. "It's a bar, it's a liquor store, it's a concert. All in one bundle" Daoud is quoted as having told FBI operatives. Finally, federal investigators say that "Daoud brought up the question of how they could make sure the bombing would be known as 'a Muslim terrorist attack'." It was determined that a statement would be issued after the attack on "behalf of Al-Qaeda," stating that "we are responsible for this attack." And the statement would conclude "that if the United States does not stop killing [Muslims] ...more attacks will come."

A black suspect sought by the NYPD after being accused of raping a woman he met at an Occupy Wall Street protest has been arrested

He also faces charges of raping a young teen in August 2012. Police said that 44-year-old Jackie Barcliff forced the 56-year-old woman to accompany him to the elevated level of the new Pier 15 overlooking the East River in lower Manhattan before raping her. Authorities said that after the rape, Barcliff threw the woman over the second-story railing to the ground below, causing her pelvis to break. The victim was in Manhattan to participate in Occupy commemoration protests. Police said that she recognized the suspect at other OWS gatherings. Barcliff, who is homeless, has been charged with attempted murder, rape and criminal sex act. In addition, Barcliff has also been charged with the August 12, 2012 rape of a 14-year-old girl in Midtown. Barcliff offered the victim a place to stay for the night and, during the night, raped her. Barcliff was arrested for assault and resisting arrest in December 2011 at Liberty Plaza, one of the Occupy protest sites. He has frequented other Occupy protests in the past.

A woman trying to avoid an Air Force deployment to Asia had her black husband shoot her before lying to investigators that an intruder was to blame

Staff Sgt. Judy Groomes, 25, was treated for wounds on both of her legs from one round from a handgun fired by her husband, Staff Sgt. Christopher Tyquan Groomes, 26. Both are active military based at nearby Barksdale Air Force Base. Maj. Bryan Purtell, 2nd Bomb Wing Public Affairs officer, said that Judy Groomes is assigned to the 2nd Logistics Squadron Inbound Receiving Section and was scheduled to deploy to Southwest Asia in the coming months. Groomes' husband is assigned to the 548th Combat Training Squadron. Both have been at Barksdale for nearly four years. Groomes claimed that an intruder shot her while her husband and two children slept. She told investigators that the intruder fled out a back door on foot. An investigation found that she convinced her husband to shoot her to avoid military service. Christopher Groomes was later arrested on a gun charge and booked into the Bossier City Jail. Judy Groomes was issued a summons on a criminal mischief charge for filing a false police report.

Just five genes could determine what type of face you have that may lead to new ways of producing police mugshots, a new study has found

Five regions of the genetic code associated with different facial shapes have been identified which suggests the involvement of five specific known genes. One, PAX3, has been linked to a minor disfigurement in which the nose is unusually broad. Another, PRDM16, is believed to play a role in cleft palate and other facial defects. Scientists can already predict from DNA certain eye and hair colors with quite high accuracy.

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has infuriated Jamaican men by labeling them chronic drunkards and unambitious pot smokers

He claimed that they had no interest in higher education and were always drunk, during a speech at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. Jamaica is the largest producer of marijuana in the Caribbean.

A black man who was a fugitive for almost two weeks after fleeing his trial a day before being convicted in the repeated group sexual assault of an 11-year-old Texas girl, smiled as he was led into court to be sentenced to 99 years without parole

Dressed in a red jumpsuit, handcuffed and with a chain around his waist and legs, Eric McGowen was formally sentenced in the same courtroom from which he had fled on August 29, 2012. McGowen was one of 20 black men and boys who repeatedly sexually assaulted the girl on at least five occasions from mid-September through early December of 2010. He was the first defendant to stand trial in the case. He has been convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and was sentenced him in absentia. Before his trial, all six juveniles and two of the 14 adults charged had pleaded guilty. Since McGowen's conviction, four other adults have pleaded guilty and are set to be sentenced on September 21, 2012.

In the course of Obama’s presidency, people saying that they are in the lower classes have risen from one-quarter to one-third of the adult population

According to the Pew Research Center, Americans who say that they are in the lower-middle or lower-class has risen from 25% to 32% in the past four years, in the national survey of 2,508 adults. Not only has the lower class grown, but its demographic profile also has shifted. People younger than 30 are disproportionately swelling the ranks of the self-defined lower classes. The shares of Hispanics and whites who place themselves in the lower class also are growing. Among blacks, the story is different. The share of blacks in the lower class has not changed in four years, one of the few demographic groups in which the proportion in the lower classes did not grow. As a consequence, a virtually identical share of blacks (33%) and whites (31%) now say they are in the lower class. When it comes to political affiliation, more Democrats than Republicans place themselves in the lower classes, but those of the GOP saw a sharper rise over the past four years. Some 23% now call themselves lower class, up from 13% in 2008. Among Democrats, 33% now call themselves lower class, compared with 29% in 2008. The survey finds that hard times have been particularly hard on the lower class. Eight-in-ten adults (84%) in the lower classes say that they had to cut back spending in the past year because money was tight, compared with 62% who say that they are middle class and 41% who say that they are in the upper classes. Those in the lower classes also say that they are less happy and less healthy, and the stress they report experiencing is more than other adults. Looking ahead, a bleak future is predicted by many. Many in the lower class see their prospects dimming. About three-quarters (77%) say that it’s harder now to get ahead than it was 10 years ago. Only half (51%) say that hard work brings success, a view expressed by overwhelming majorities of those in the middle (67%) and upper classes (71%). According to Pew, while the expectation that each new generation will surpass their parents is a central tenet of the American Dream, those lower classes are significantly more likely than middle or upper-class adults to believe that their children will have a worse standard of living than they do.

Philadelphia: A black man mercilessly taunted a barely conscious woman he had raped, telling her that he had just infected her with HIV

Philadelphia police are now searching for the black suspect who jumped the victim from behind, pushed her into an alley, beat her unconscious and then repeatedly raped her, in northeast Philly shortly after midnight on August 29, 2012. The victim was beaten and was barely conscious when she was raped repeatedly over what could have been a period of several hours. Police are now turning to the public to help find the suspect, who is described as a thin, black man in his 20s around 5 feet, 9 inches tall.

Florida: Minority students in Broward continue to trail their white peers in academic indicators such as graduation rates

Black students in Broward’s public schools — particularly black male students — continue to struggle when compared to their peers, according to a report released by Broward school district leaders. When it comes to academic performance indicators such as graduation rates, Hispanic students trail their white classmates, and black students are even further behind. During the 2010-11 academic year, the graduation rate among white, non-Hispanic male students was nearly 85%; for Hispanic male students it was roughly 76%; and for male black students it was less than 60%. Female students graduated at higher rates, but there were still discrepancies between races: 89% of white female students graduated, while more than 82% of Hispanic students graduated, and about 71% of female black students graduated. The results are only slightly different from the previous year, but the gap between white and minority students is growing: white students’ graduation rates are inching up, while black and Hispanic students’ graduation rates are slightly down. Broward is hardly alone in having student achievement gaps — districts around the state and the nation are struggling with similar issues. Still, Broward’s 59.6% graduation rate among black male students is lower than Miami-Dade’s 65.9% graduation rate, and Florida’s 64.3% rate.

The latest NYPD statistics show that crime is centered overwhelmingly in minority-group neighborhoods

These statistics buttress a key argument Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly makes to justify his stop-and-frisk policy. Citing an NYPD analysis of statistics for the first six months of 2012, Kelly said that 96% of shooting victims are black or Hispanic — and in 97% of all shootings, the trigger was pulled by other blacks and Hispanics. Kelly has repeatedly said that minority-group leaders and civil liberties advocates complain about stop-and-frisk tactics but do nothing to help combat crime in minority neighborhoods.

Britain: A screening of a controversial documentary on the history of Islam has been cancelled on security advice after its presenter was threatened

Historian Tom Holland's Channel 4 film Islam: The Untold Story sparked more than 1,000 complaints when it was broadcast. Holland was threatened online with a torrent of abusive messages on Twitter. A Channel 4 spokeswoman said: "Having taken security advice, we have reluctantly cancelled a planned screening of the program Islam: The Untold Story." The investigation into the origins of the religion claimed that there is little written contemporary evidence about the prophet Mohammad. It examined claims that rather than Islam's doctrine emerging fully-formed in a single text, the religion instead developed gradually over many years with the expansion of Arabic empires. Holland, the writer of best-sellers Rubicon and Persian Fire, said that Islam is a legitimate subject of historical inquiry. The Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA) accused him of making "baseless assumptions" and engaging in "selective scholarship". Iranian state media suggested that the broadcast was an "insult" to Islam. One message sent to Holland read: "You might be a target in the streets. You may recruit some bodyguards, for your own safety."

"British" people of South Asian, African or African Caribbean descent are significantly more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than their European counterparts

Half had developed the disease by the age of 80 in a study of 4,200 people living in London - approximately twice the figure for Europeans. Losing control of blood sugar levels increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and amputations. People from South Asian backgrounds can often be living with the condition for around 10 years before they are diagnosed, which increases the risk of complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and amputation.

Hollywood film director says that incest is the same as being gay

I agree with him. They are both unnatural and people who engage in either activity should be seen as sick and perverted.

Black political crime: Federal authorities arrested Trenton, New Jersey Mayor Tony Mack and more than half a dozen other people in connection with an ongoing corruption probe

Mack faces federal charges including conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion. Joseph "JoJo" Giorgianni, a top campaign contributor, and six others were also taken into custody. Mack, an African-American Democrat, faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted on extortion charges, prosecutors said. In recorded conversations, Giorgianni said, "I can be bought," "We want this," "I like to do it the Boss Tweed way, you know, Boss Tweed ran Tammany Hall," and "Tony knows when I'm in for a penny I'm in for a pound," according to a criminal complaint. During the conversations, Giorgianni referred to Mack using the code name "Napoleon," the complaint said. Mack and the others arrested were brought to the FBI office in Hamilton for processing and were scheduled to appear in federal court. The arrests are the latest development in a federal investigation that began in 2010 into corruption within Mack's administration, which has been marked by accusations of nepotism and reckless spending. In July 2012, FBI agents searched offices in Trenton City Hall a day after raiding the mayor's home. They also searched the home of his brother, Ralphiel Mack, and that of Giorgianni. In the first of two criminal complaints, Tony and Ralphiel Mack and Giorgianni were charged with conspiracy in connection with a parking garage project. The complaint says that cash payments intended for Mayor Mack were made by a cooperating witness to Giorgianni inside his restaurant. In the second complaint Giorgianni and eight others, not including the Macks, were charged with conspiracy to obtain and fill prescriptions for oxycodone-based pain medications, and to distribute the pain medications. Federal prosecutors said that Mack and his co-conspirators were willing to let city property go for a fraction of its worth. "Neither selling one's oath of office or illegally selling prescription medication is acceptable on the streets of Trenton or anywhere else in New Jersey," U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. Mack's administration has been in turmoil from Day 1, staggering from one crisis to another. A housecleaning of staff at City Hall opened the door for Mack's own appointees, who quickly turned it into a revolving door. Some left over questions about their credentials, others to face criminal charges. In Mack's first year in office in Trenton, a city of 85,000, he ran through a string of business administrators. The first resigned after a month, saying that the mayor didn't believe in good government. Another resigned just ahead of pleading guilty to embezzlement at another job. Mack's housing director quit after it emerged that he had a theft conviction. His chief of staff was arrested trying to buy heroin. His half-brother, whose authority he elevated at the city water plant, was arrested on charges of stealing. Questions have also been raised about how he financed his campaign for mayor. A former longtime city employee sued the mayor late in 2011. The parks department employee said that she was let go after refusing to dole out jobs for the mayor's friends, refusing to give federal grant money to people who didn't apply and for inquiring about city funds that were missing. The ex-employee was also replaced by a Mack supporter who never showed up for his $40,000-a-year job.

Marijuana may double the risk of testicular cancer among young men, particularly tumors that are more severe

"This is a very consistent finding now that marijuana seems to be associated with the worst kind of testis cancer that occurs in young men ... (it) may well be causal," says Victoria Cortessis, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. The rates of testicular cancer in men are increasing– as much as doubling every 20 to 30 years, Cortessis said. At the same time, marijuana use has increased, often in young males. "It may be that marijuana use is actually interfering with hormonal signaling in a way that disturbs function of the testis," she said. "That's a possibility - that's something that we can now formulate specific hypotheses about and try to understand."

A South Asian officer with the Miami-Dade police department has been arrested by federal authorities for stopping female drivers for no other reason than to initiate sexually suggestive conversations

Prabhainjana Dwivedi,33, has been arrested by FBI agents inside police headquarters for pulling over female drivers to look at their breasts.

United States: The real unemployment rate is about 22%

The official rate of 8.1% does not include discouraged workers or those have been unemployed for over a year. Most of the jobs being created in the United States are actually low paying ones. In fact, 52% of the new jobs created in this country are lowly paid waitresses, bartenders, practical nurses and hospital orderlies. Highly paid manufacturing jobs are in decline.

Amal Ahmed Abdullahi, a 29-year-old employee of Dell in Nashville, has been arrested for warning a co-worker that as an infidel he deserved to die and she was just the Muslim to blow him away

Abdullahi is a Somali immigrant. Abdullahi told the co-worker that “her people were dying for Allah every day; that she was ready to die for Allah; that this whole country will be Muslim soon; that this country is full of non-believers and that this place (her work place) is full of non-believers; that all unbelievers should die; that her life starts after death; that her life is not here, nobody pays attention to her and she should pick up a gun and shoot all these people.” Abdullahi has been charged with attempted terrorism.

How many people are out of work but not counted as unemployed because they hadn't sought work in the past four weeks?

Eight million. This is the sort of distressing number that turns up when you look beyond the headline number. The alarming numbers proliferate the deeper you look: 40.7% of the people counted as unemployed have been out of work for 27 weeks or more — that's 5.2 million "long-term" unemployed. Fewer Americans are at work today than in April 2000, even though the population since then has grown by 31 million. We are still almost five million payrolls shy of where we were at the end of 2007, when the recession began. Think about that when you hear the Obama administration's talk of an economic recovery. In short, Obama's ill-designed stimulus program was a failure. For all our other national concerns, and the red herrings that typically swim in electoral waters, American voters refuse to be distracted from the No. 1 issue: the economy. And even many of those who have jobs are hurting, because annual wage increases have dropped to an average of 1.6%, the lowest in the past 30 years. Adjusting for inflation, wages are contracting. Layoff announcements have risen from year-ago levels and hiring plans have dropped sharply. People are not going to swallow talk of recovery until hiring is occurring at a pace to bring at least 300,000 more hires per month than the economy has been averaging for the past two years. Furthermore, the jobs that are available are mostly not good ones. More than 40% of the new private-sector jobs are in low-paying categories such as health care, leisure activities, bars and restaurants. We are experiencing, in effect, a modern-day depression. Consider two indicators: First, food stamps: More than 45 million Americans are in the program! An almost incredible record. It's 15% of the population compared with the 7.9% participation from 1970-2000. Food-stamp enrollment has been rising at a rate of 400,000 per month over the past four years. Second, Social Security disability — another record. More than 11 million Americans are collecting federal disability checks. Half of these beneficiaries have signed on since Obama took office more than three years ago.

Why is this election even close?

John Hinderaker deals with a topic that I have wondered about myself:

On paper, given Obama’s record, this election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn’t it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programs–not to mention enormous numbers of public employees–we may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

The fact that over 25% of the population is black or Hispanic also helps to undermine our once great nation. In addition, we have a Jewish controlled media that seems to be working night and day to destroy our country by advocating suicidal government policies. Finally, a significant minority of our female population seems to believe that the universe revolves around abortion and birth control pills. For these women, access to contraceptives is more important than issues such as jobs and crime.

Muslim says that the time of the white Protestants in America is over

Unfortunately, I think this also means that America's time is over. The United States became a great nation because of its white Protestant population. In other words, we became great because of our lack of diversity. As our nation becomes increasingly non-white and non-Protestant, we will probably become more and more like Africa, Latin America and the less advanced parts of Asia. If diversity is such a good thing for a country then why is China doing so well economically?

With 14 million Americans unemployed, why do we need legal immigrants?

The case that Mitt Romney should make in order to win white working class votes.

From January 2009 to August 2012, immigrant employment rose 1.359 million while U.S.-born employment fell by 1.479 million

Since Obama became president, immigrants have gained jobs in the United States while people actually born in the country have lost jobs.

Britain: Three vicious black robbers dubbed the Nappy Valley stranglers have been jailed for a crime spree that targeted wealthy young mothers

The black trio singled out vulnerable women as they walked their children in pushchairs along the street in daylight. Disguised with motorcycle helmets, hoods and balaclavas, they crept up on victims from behind and stripped expensive rings from their fingers after throttling them until they blacked out. Some of the victims, including one who was seven months pregnant and walking a 17-month-old baby, feared they would be killed. Detectives believe that the black males made more than £100,000 by selling the jewellery to a corrupt businessman in London’s Hatton Garden district. The career criminals, responsible for hundreds of violent offences between them, spent the cash on overseas holidays and shopping sprees for designer clothes. Judge Richard Southwell labelled the crimes gratuitous and motivated by pure greed as he jailed the black males for a total of 46 years. Speaking at Kingston Crown Court, he said all three black males roamed as predators and posed a significant danger to the public. Perrie Williams, 26, terrorized the affluent Battersea, Clapham and Fulham areas of South West London – known as Nappy Valley because of its high number of families with young children – with his school friends Christopher Byom, 29, and Anton Lord, 33. After stalking their victims on motorcycle or by car, they strangled them with a potentially deadly grip on the carotid artery in their necks. Some of the women were punched and kicked, including one who needed reconstructive surgery to her jaw. The black robbers, all on licence and bail for other crimes, lived on benefits and Williams even applied for a taxpayer-funded loan just a month before he travelled to Miami. They were convicted of nine robberies but detectives suspect that they were behind dozens more. Byom, of Clapham, was jailed for 21 years; Williams, of Wandsworth, was jailed for 17 years and Lord, of Croydon, who pleaded guilty, was jailed for eight and a half years. It can now be revealed that Williams’s life of crime began when he kidnapped a 13-year-old boy in an attack that shocked Britain and was compared to the killing of James Bulger. He and two accomplices abducted Michael Servante and strung him up by his feet before beating him to within an inch of his life in 2000 when he was just 15. But he has never been named publicly in connection with the crime because of an anonymity order imposed by an Old Bailey judge. It has emerged that he began strangling and robbing minicab drivers within a month of his release from the seven-year jail term in December 2006.

Puerto Rican Democrat says that she would like to kill Romney

During an interview at the Democratic National Convention, Julia Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican-born delegate from New York, says while brandishing a Puerto Rican flag that Romney will destroy the country and that she would like to kill him.

Chicago: Some members of Kenwood Academy High School student Muhammed Kebbeh’s Gambian-immigrant family say that they are considering moving back to Africa after he became the city’s 370th murder victim in 2012 and second of his six siblings to be gunned down on the South Side in the last six months

Muhammed, 19, was sitting with his girlfriend when he was shot dead by masked gunmen in a drive-by shooting in the 8100 block of South Ingleside recently. Relatives say that they had been especially worried about him ever since his 23-year-old brother Omar Kebbeh became Chicago’s 68th murder victim of 2012 back in February. Muhammed moved out of the family apartment — just a few blocks from the spot where Omar Kebbeh was killed as he walked home from work — soon after to stay with friends and wouldn’t come back, despite repeated entreaties, his brother Hajie said. Police sources say that Muhammed was a member of the Gangster Disciples street gang and his brother said that was probably true. “He said he had a beef and he didn’t want to come back and put the family in danger,” Hajie Kebbeh said. “I asked him two times but the only time he came to me was when he needed money or something else. We were all very worried.” Mohammed hung out on the corner at 71st and South East End with his pals and was staying with friends near where he was killed, his family said. He was the first member of his family to be born in the United States but was always conscious of his African roots, his family said. He sometimes attended mosque with his mother, Mariana, and he had attended the first day of school at Kenwood just hours before he was killed, relatives said. “It’s very difficult for our mother,” Momadu Kebbeh said. “Now she has lost two sons.” Police have not made arrests in either of the Kebbeh brothers’ murders. Muhammed’s killing means that Chicago’s murder rate is now 27% higher than it was at the same point in 2011. Though the increase was as high as 40% earlier in 2012, it is still on track to top 500 murders for the first time since 2008.

The parents of black Olympic gold medalist Tianna Madison have sued her, saying that she spread stories that they had been selfish and bullying and cheated her financially

Robert and Jo Ann Madison filed the libel, slander, and defamation lawsuit in Cleveland. They say that they've been loving, supportive, and generous parents. Tianna Madison was on the winning 4x100-meter relay track team at the Summer Olympics in London. She won the gold with Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight, and Carmelita Jeter in world record time. The lawsuit also names her husband, John Bartoletta. The parents' lawsuit seeks more than $25,000 each in compensatory and punitive damages.

Palm Beach County Democratic Party Chairman Mark Alan Siegel has resigned, two days after he told an interviewer at the Democratic National Convention that pro-Israel Christians want to see Jews slaughtered

Apparently to Jews like Alan Siegel even Zionist Christians are anti-Semites.

The unemployment rate for August 2012 dropped to 8.1% from 8.3%, but in this case with declines in both the labor force (-368,000) and the household-survey measure of employment (-119,000)

With labor force participation falling back to a new cycle low of 63.5%, the drop in the unemployment rate should not be reported as good news. Non-farm payrolls increased by only 96,000 in August 2012, the Labor Department said, versus expectations of 125,000 jobs or more. The manufacturing sector lost 15,000 jobs. The labor participation rate is now at its lowest level since September 1981. If the labor force participation rate was the same as when Obama took office in January 2009, the unemployment rate would be 11.2%. The Labor Department also said that 41,000 fewer jobs were created in June and July of 2012 than previously reported. The broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes part-time workers who want full-time work, is at 14.7%.

Scientists have discovered how much chickens favor good looks in the opposite sex - after finding that the hen with the largest comb gets more attention from roosters

And ironically, this hen attraction can be blamed on humans - for it is our desire for eggs which led to the ingrained behavior. Researchers say that our methods of breeding hens in pursuit of the perfect egg gives us more influence over chicken genes than natural selection. Over generations of favoring chickens which lay more eggs, this has influenced the size of the domestic fowl. Compared with the original wild jungle hen, domestic hens have larger combs as well as denser bones. This influences egg-laying, as the hen's bone tissues provide calcium for the eggshells - so the greater the bone mass, the more eggs she can lay. After spotting a clear correlation between comb size and bone mass in chickens from a cross between red jungle fowl and domestic chicken, the research group set up a study where such chickens were crossed for several generations. The researchers were able to identify two genes connected to each other that influence several characteristics simultaneously. By regulating the production of cartilage, these genes influence combs (which consist of cartilage throughout) as well as bone growth (where cartilage is the base material) and, ultimately, egg production. The original hens had smaller combs, thinner legs, and laid fewer eggs. When people bred for the characteristic of laying many eggs, the comb grew automatically. In nature, the comb is an example of a sexual ornament. Individuals with the most impressive ornaments are favored by the opposite sex, thereby obtaining more numerous offspring than their competitors.

Africa: Thousands of bare-breasted young Swazi women paraded themselves in front of their king in a lavish ceremony to celebrate chastity and unity

Dressed in beaded skirts, clutching machetes and mobile phones, women and girls danced and sang tributes to the king and queen mother - also known as the Great She-Elephant - in a traditional Umhlanga Reed Dance to celebrate womanhood and virginity. The extravagant celebrations took place in one of Africa's poorest countries, ruled by the continent's last absolute monarch. King Mswati III, who has at least a dozen wives and a personal fortune estimated at $200 million, faced unprecedented protests in 2011 when his appointed administration ran out of money after a 2009 recession in neighboring South Africa. Despite the tough economic climate, the royal household has shown few signs of wanting to tighten its belt. In July 2012, three of Mswati's wives joined a 66-strong royal entourage heading to Las Vegas on a shopping spree. In the past, the king has used the ceremony to choose a new wife, and some girls still hoped to catch the king's eye. New royal wives have often received a BMW and their own palace, fuelling criticism in a country where more than two-thirds of its 1.4 million people live in abject poverty. Women's groups and political opponents say that Mswati's penchant for multiple young brides is out of touch in a country with the world's highest rate of HIV/AIDS.

Prostate cancer in African-American men is associated with specific changes in the IL-16 gene

A new study establishes the association of IL-16 with prostate cancer in men of both African and European descent. Previously identified changes in the gene for IL-16, an immune system protein, were associated with prostate cancer in men of European descent. But the same changes in the gene's coded sequence - called "polymorphisms" - did not confer the same risk in African Americans. Doubt was cast on IL-16's role in prostate cancer when researchers were unable to confirm that the IL-16 polymorphisms identified in whites were also important risk factors in African Americans. Researchers used a technique called imputation - a type of statistical extrapolation - that allowed them to see new patterns of association and identify new places in the gene to look for polymorphisms. They found changes elsewhere in the IL-16 gene that were associated with prostate cancer and were unique to African Americans. Polymorphisms result from DNA mutations and emerge in the ancestral history of different populations. People of African descent are much more genetically diverse than whites making the search for polymorphisms associated with disease more difficult. Although the effect of the particular changes to the gene appear to be different in men of African versus European descent, it is likely that several of the polymorphisms in the gene alter the function of the IL-16 protein.

Black congresswoman believes that slavery in the United States persisted under the Dutch as late as 1898

Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) botched American and Brooklyn political history during a recent appearance on "The Colbert Report". Colbert was quizzing Clarke on the history of her borough. "Some have called Brooklyn’s decision to become part of New York City 'The Great Mistake of 1898,' " Colbert said. "If you could get in a time machine and go back to 1898, what would you say to those Brooklynites?" "I would say to them, 'Set me free,' " Clarke said. Pressed by Colbert what she would be free from, the black congresswoman responded, "Slavery." "Slavery. Really? I didn’t realize there was slavery in Brooklyn in 1898," Colbert responded, seemingly looking to give the lawmaker a chance to catch her error. "I’m pretty sure there was," Clarke responded. "It sounds like a horrible part of the United States that kept slavery going until 1898," the late-night comedian then quipped. Colbert pressed on, asking, "Who would be enslaving you in 1898 in New York?" At that point, Clarke responded, "The Dutch." Of course, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery in 1865, the Dutch lost control of Brooklyn in a treaty with the British in 1674, and American sovereignty over the colonies was recognized by the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

In each year since Obama took office, the government has borrowed, or is projected to borrow, well over $1 trillion, pushing the government's total debt to $16 trillion, or about $121,000 per household

One more reason to vote Obama out of office in November 2012.

Prosecutors believe a Latino in Philadelphia put heroin and methadone in his infant son's bottle to quiet him but instead killed him, two days before his first birthday

Orlando Rosado will face a third-degree murder trial after waiving his right to a preliminary hearing. Rosado, 45, told police that he accidentally put drugs in the bottle during a 3 a.m. feeding in May 2012. But Assistant District Attorney Lorraine Donnelly plans to argue that the drug mixture - though not baby Christopher's death - was intentional. "He admits putting it in the bottle. His version is, It must have been accidental because he was high," Donnelly said. "My theory is the baby was fussy, and he was trying to put him to sleep." The baby's mother has described Christopher as fussy, and he was at the bottom of the standard weight range for his age, the prosecutor said. Rosado remains in prison after a judge refused to lower his $1 million bail. He had served a year in prison in a 2006 drug case and has prior arrests for robbery and other crimes in New York, Donnelly said. No trial date has been set in the infant's May 11, 2012 death. Rosado is also charged with involuntary manslaughter, drug delivery causing death, child endangerment and other charges. Rosado was in a methadone treatment program for addicts trying to kick heroin but duped the program into thinking he was clean, according to Donnelly. She said that he was using an eye dropper containing someone else's urine for drug tests. Rosado has said that he bought 60 milligrams of heroin and put half in Christopher's bottle, Donnelly said. Police found a significant amount of heroin in both the baby's blood and in the leftover contents of the bottle, she said.

Hebrew graffiti, including the phrase "Jesus is a monkey," was daubed on the walls of a Christian monastery near Jerusalem in what police suspect was an attack by pro-settler Jewish extremists

Jewish vandals torched the wooden door of the Latrun Monastery and spray-painted the graffiti on the holy site's stone walls, Israeli police said. And the Jews are supposed to be our allies in the Middle East?

Black parade violence: Two are fatally stabbed and two are shot as violence follows West Indian parade in New York City

And this was not the first year that people have been killed because of this particular parade.

Even after the deaths of two children and the injuries of many more, a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis say that if a proposed law requiring parental consent for an ancient circumcision ritual is enacted they will defy it

In the ancient "metzitzah b'peh" ritual, a "mohel" or a Jewish person, usually a rabbi, trained in the practice circumcision removes the foreskin and draws blood from the circumcised penis with his mouth. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a statement that at least 11 infants in New York are believed to have contracted herpes from the practice, including two of whom died and two of whom have irreversible brain damage. However, the ultra-Orthodox leaders insist that the 5,000-year-old ritual is safe, refuse to tell parents of the health risks and are lashing out at the city's "evil plans" ahead of the Board of Health's upcoming vote. Around 200 rabbis have signed a proclamation claiming that the Health Department "printed and spread lies . . . in order to justify their evil decree," according to The Yeshiva World News. "It is clear to us, that there is not even an iota of blame or danger in this ancient and holy custom," the letter states. While most modern mohels remove blood from the baby's wound using a sterile pipette, some Orthodox Jewish parents want their child to undergo an ancient "suction by mouth" ritual called metzitzah b'peh. If the law is passed, it would mandate that mohels distribute consent waivers, and explain the oral suction procedure and its risks, including the possible transmission of herpes simplex virus. Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg, said that no one will comply with the law, even if it is passed. "For the government to force a rabbi who's practicing a religious act to tell his congregants it's dangerous is totally unacceptable," Niederman said. "You're forcing the mohel and the parent to sign a piece of paper that contradicts their religious convictions." Niederman said that there is not enough evidence to link herpes to the religious ritual. Political consultant Michael Tobman, who is working with several large Hasidic communities, said that the waiver will have a huge impact on the Orthodox community. "It warns parents that the city suggests a link between the practice and serious health worries, [and] it would undoubtedly have a chilling impact," Tobman said. "City government shouldn't be doing that." However, the city health department argues that parents should be informed of the risks of the ritual before making the decision, and said in a public notice that it has received "multiple complaints from parents who were not aware that direct oral suction was going to be performed as part of their sons' circumcisions," since 2004. The controversy over metzitzah b'peh erupted in March 2012 after an infant died September 28, 2011 at Brooklyn's Maimonides Medical Center from "disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction," according to the death certificate.

The congressman, the rabbi and the pornographers

Information continues to trickle out about the unusual links between first-term Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY) and a prominent Israeli Rabbi, Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto. After tapping the rabbi’s followers for money, Grimm received money from several individuals involved in porn distribution businesses. One of the rabbi’s closest aides, Benzion Suky, owned a company that distributed porn videos and has settled lawsuits by adult film studios who accused him of selling bootlegged DVDs, according to court records. Suky and his wife gave a combined $9,600 to Grimm’s 2010 campaign and a real estate partnership that lists Suky as its managing member gave $4,800, according to Federal Election Commission records. Another big donor was Rafi Maman, proprietor of companies in North Bergen, N.J., that distribute adult films and sex toys. He also has settled lawsuits accusing him of bootlegging, including two which also named Suky as a defendant. Maman, his wife and a real estate partnership that he listed as his employer gave $19,200 to Grimm’s campaign. That total includes $7,200 in individual contributions from Maman, or $2,400 more than is allowed by law. A third Grimm contributor, Eli Halali, is listed in business records as the agent of another company that distributed pornographic movies. His name also appears on at least one such video, “Blonde & Beautiful Vol. 1,” as the keeper of records verifying that the film’s performers were over age 18. He gave $4,800. Two apparent relatives, Bluria Halali and Jaclyn Halali, each contributed $4,800. The FBI has been looking at Grimm’s fundraising since at least January 2012, due to concerns about the role that an Israeli named Ofer Biton, an aide to Pinto, played in Grimm’s campaign. Grimm, a former FBI agent, has acknowledged receiving between $250,000 to $300,000 from Pinto’s supporters but has denied knowledge of any wrongdoing. “My campaign and I followed the fundraising rules, and took reasonable measures to vet the contributions received by my campaign,” Grimm said in a statement. “Indeed, I relied on Rabbi Pinto’s status as a clergyman and holy man when agreeing to meet with individuals associated with his congregation.” FEC records show that Suky has donated tens of thousands of dollars to committees controlled by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) in the 2008 cycle. (The top seven donors to Cantor’s 2008 campaign were followers or associates of Rabbi Pinto.) Halili donated several thousand to former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) in 2010. Pinto’s organization, Mosdot Shuva Israel, controls millions of dollars in assets.

An influential Brooklyn rabbi and onetime chaplain in New York City’s jails who drew notoriety for arranging a lavish jailhouse bar mitzvah for an inmate’s son has pleaded guilty to making false statements in connection with a federal housing fraud scheme

The rabbi, Leib Glanz, a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic sect, and his brother, Menashe Glanz, had been charged with stealing more than $220,000 over 15 years in housing subsidies from the Section 8 program, which is intended to assist low-income people. Rabbi Glanz, 54, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count that carries a maximum one-year sentence; his brother Menashe Glanz, 50, also pleaded guilty to a theft charge that carries a maximum 10-year term. The city’s Department of Investigation had said that the scheme was the largest individual case of tenant fraud it had investigated.

Hispanics are now the largest minority on college campuses, making up roughly 16.5% of all U.S. college students

This does not strongly translate to a higher completion rate at four-year colleges. In 2010, only 9% of Hispanics enrolled in a four-year college or university earned a bachelor's degree, compared to 10% of black students and 71% of white students who earned their bachelor's degrees that year.

A majority of voters believe the country is worse off in 2012 than it was in 2008 and that Obama does not deserve reelection, according to a new poll

Fifty-two percent of likely voters say that the nation is in worse condition now than in September 2008, while 54% say that Obama does not deserve reelection based solely on his job performance. Only 31% of voters believe that the nation is in better condition, while 15% say that it is about the same, the poll found. Just 40% of voters said that Obama deserves reelection.

A woman's race may determine whether vitamin D helps her to conceive through IVF

The sunshine vitamin is famed for its benefit to bones and the immune system, but it also plays a role in conception. Now, evidence suggests that the vitamin's benefits may only apply to certain racial groups – while white women can boost their IVF success rates with vitamin D, the opposite appears to be true for Asian women. Researchers have found that white women who were vitamin D replete were four times more likely to have a successful pregnancy than women of the same race who were deficient in the vitamin. Surprisingly, the reverse was true for Asian women – those with the lowest vitamin D levels were most likely to get pregnant. Researchers aren't sure why the difference exists, but they think it might have something to do with the enzyme that deactivates vitamin D. There are also ethnic differences in the gene for the vitamin D receptor, which may affect the link between vitamin D and conception.

Promiscuity and the immune system

Scientists have found that promiscuous animals tend to have stronger immune systems in comparison to more monogamous ones.

Labor Day 2012: A record one in seven Americans is on food stamps thanks to Barack Obama

Under Obama, 6.4 million Americans are living below the poverty line and there is a record number of Americans living in deep poverty. Obama’s policies have been such failures that the median household income has declined more during the so-called recovery than during the recession itself. During Obama's entire tenure in the oval office, median household income has declined by 7.3%. In January, 2009, the month he entered office, median household income was $54,983. By June, 2012, it had spiraled down to $50,964. That’s a loss of $4,019 per family, the equivalent of losing a little less than one month’s income a year, every year. And on our current course that is only going to get worse not better. Three years into the Obama recovery, median family income had declined nearly 5% by June 2012 as compared to June 2009. That is nearly twice the decline of 2.6% that occurred during the recession from December 2007 until June 2009. For household income, in other words, the Obama recovery has been worse than the Bush recession. Obama has failed the poor as well as the middle class. The Census Bureau reported more Americans in poverty than ever before in the more than 50 years that the Census Bureau has been tracking poverty. In fact, the poverty rate is on track to rise to the highest level since 1965, before the War on Poverty began.

African Americans have higher blood levels of a protein associated with increased heart-disease risk than European Americans, despite higher "good" HDL cholesterol and lower "bad" triglyceride levels

This contradictory observation now may be explained, in part, by a genetic variant identified in the first large-scale, genome-wide association study of this protein involving 12,000 African American and Hispanic American women. Specifically, the researchers looked for genetic signposts associated with elevated levels of C-reactive protein, or CRP - a marker of inflammation that is linked with increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. Most previous studies examining the genetic determinants of elevated CRP have focused on tens of thousands of white individuals of European descent. Since minorities - African Americans and Hispanic Americans in particular - tend to have higher CRP levels than other U.S. racial and ethnic groups, it's important to understand whether genetic factors might contribute to these differences. The researchers identified several genetic factors linked to CRP that are relatively specific to African Americans. They found a variation in TREM2, a family of genes on chromosome 6p21 that are expressed in white blood cells and appear to be important for regulating the degree of inflammation generated when white blood cells respond to infection or tissue injury. TREM genes were recognized relatively recently to be involved in inflammation and autoimmune disorders. The finding adds further support to the importance of this gene family in generating and regulating inflammatory responses.

A new study shows that the gap in life expectancy between blacks and white has widened since 1990, especially for those with lower educational levels

Researchers, who crunched mortality numbers in key databases from 1990-2008, found that white men in the United States with 16 years or more of schooling had life expectancy at birth of 14.2 years longer than African American males with fewer than 12 years of education. The gulf between well-educated white women and black women with low educational levels was 10.3 years. The gap between black women of high versus low educational levels was 6.5 years, and for Latinas the difference was 2.9 years. For males the longevity gaps were 12.9 years among whites, 9.7 years among blacks and 5.5 years for Hispanics. What’s more, the picture for those with fewer than 12 years of education has grown notably worse for whites, says the study. In terms of educational status whites at the bottom are losing ground at a faster pace than those at the top. The gulf between white women is especially wide, says the report. Those with 12 years or less of education were living just over a decade (10.4 years) less than white American females with at least 16 years of schooling. While those with higher levels of formal learning are gaining longevity dividends every year, those least educated have had life expectancy linger at mid-20th century levels. Although blacks have added years slightly overall, among those with the lowest education, longevity for African American men is stuck at the average life expectancy the United States reached in 1954. For other groups with the least education, black women linger at the 1962 level, white women hover in 1964, and poorly schooled white men only live as long as Americans did in 1972. And the ethnic disparities in education are sharp. On the one hand, among those age 25 or older in 2008, the researchers found, more than one-third of Latinos had less than a high school education, compared with one in six African Americans and only one in 12 whites. On the other hand, says the study, among those who enjoy the health and longevity benefits of a college or post-graduate degree, about one-third are white, one-sixth are black and one in eight are Hispanic. Latino immigrants tend to be healthier than subsequent U.S.-born generations of Hispanics. Second- or third-generation Hispanics born in the United States experience higher mortality risks and die 10% - 20% earlier than their immigrant parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

Pakistani police say that a Muslim cleric planted evidence to link a Christian girl to blasphemy

The imam, Khalid Jadoon Chishti, will himself face blasphemy charges for tearing pages out of a Quran to use as evidence against the girl, Islambad police chief Bin Yamin said. The latest development may make it easier for the girl, 14-year-old Rimsha, to be released on bail at her next court hearing. Police arrested Rimsha after a neighbor accused her of burning pages containing texts from the Muslim holy book, the Quran. Insulting Islam provokes widespread and immediate reaction in Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim nation. Its controversial blasphemy law makes the crime punishable by death. Critics have said that the legislation is being used to entrap minorities. Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer, who criticized the law, was shot to death by his security guard in 2011. A Pakistani court then suspended the guard's death sentence. In Rimsha's case, about 150 people gathered on August 17, 2012 - the day she was arrested - in the area where the neighborhood's Christian population lives and threatened to burn down their houses, police said. Her relatives have gone into hiding.