Rwandan soccer officials have added a new rule to the game: no witchcraft

Under the new rules, players and coaches found to be using witchcraft to try to gain an advantage face fines and penalties. "Juju" has long played a role in African soccer. In fact, the Confederation of African Football previously banned witchcraft after Rwanda's national team was accused of burying a doll behind its net in a 2003 match against Uganda. But a soccer official in the country says that the traditional practice gives the nation a bad image. Hence, the new penalties. “Since there is no scientific way to prove the use of witchcraft, these measures will be based upon reports from match officials and anything that is deemed to incite witchcraft will be put under consideration," he says.

A woman has been beheaded by a group of armed men in Afghanistan after she entered a city without her husband

The horrific act took place in the remote village of Latti in Sar-e-Pul province, which is under Taliban control. Provincial Governor spokesman Zabiullah Amani said that the 30-year-old woman was targeted because she went out alone without her husband, who is in Iran. The woman had gone to the market to shop. Under Taliban rule women are prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative. They are also banned from working or education and are forced to wear the burqa.

The US military could soon execute someone for the first time since a soldier was hanged for raping and trying to kill an 11-year-old girl in 1961

Ronald Gray, a black ex-soldier, has been on military death row at Fort Leavenworth since 1988. Gray was convicted of killing five women — a cab driver, an Army private, a university student, a local resident, and a soldier's wife — and raping several others in 1986 and 1987 while stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. A civilian court gave him eight life sentences, but a military court sentenced him to death. All convicts on military death row must have their executions approved by a president. In 2008, George W. Bush authorized Gray's execution, but a federal court gave him a temporary stay. Recently, a judge ruled the stay was no longer in effect and denied any further stays. An execution date for Gray could be set sometime in January 2017. He would be killed by lethal injection. Including Gray, there are currently six former service members on military death row. However, Gray is the only one whose death has been approved by a president.

Capt. Niloofar Rahmani's story seems to sum up the dismal state of women's rights in Afghanistan more than 15 years after the Taliban were forced from power

The 25-year-old is the first female fixed-wing pilot in her country's air force, but says that she has received death threats both from Taliban insurgents and from distant relatives who believe that she has disgraced her family. Rahmani, who became famous in her homeland after graduating from a pilot training program run by the US-led coalition, finished another 15 months of training in the United States and has applied for asylum in the United States, saying that she would love to fly for her country, but that she's scared for her life. Rahmani, who was honored with the State Department's Women of Courage Award in 2015, says that distant relatives outraged by her career choice have tried to kill her brother and have forced her family to move several times. She says that if she's allowed to stay in the United States, she will fly either for the US Air Force or as a commercial pilot. "Everything I went through, all my suffering, was because I really wanted to fly. That was my dream," she says. She also says that she was harassed and treated with contempt by male Afghan colleagues, though a Defense Ministry spokesman accuses her of lying.

The men in the Indian village of Udaipur drink and bathe in cow urine to cure their acne

In Hindu culture, the cow is a sacred animal, and many of its followers believe that any cow byproduct has healing properties. That’s why lots of guys in Udaipur swear by the urine to not just get rid of pimples, but also eliminate all health problems. One man, Hemant Paliwal, has guzzled a warm glass of cow urine every day for the last 4 years, and regularly takes pee baths with his buddies. “I was suffering from acute lung diseases and would catch a cough and cold regularly,” Paliwal said. “I even had acne and pimples on my skin, but once I started applying urine, my face was crystal clear in just a week. Since then, there hasn’t been a single day when I haven’t drunk cow urine.” Personally, I'd rather have the pimples.

Indian police said that they have arrested four men on suspicion of raping an American tourist who came to New Delhi alone earlier in 2016, marking another incident of sexual violence to stir outrage

Police Officer Rakesh Kumar said the suspects - a tour guide and his associate, a car driver and a hotel worker - have been arrested. The woman said in her police complaint that the four men raped her after she was drugged in a New Delhi hotel room in April 2016. They denied the accusations. She also said that the four men had shot a video of the attack and had threatened to make it public if she reported the matter to anyone, police said. The woman went back to the United States and registered a complaint through an email to New Delhi's police commissioner. She returned to the Indian capital earlier in December 2016 to pursue the case because she was dissatisfied with the progress of police investigation. The case highlights the persistent violence against women in India despite tougher laws against sexual assault imposed after the December 2012 death of a young woman who was gang-raped on a bus in New Delhi.

Muslim Family Values: Jihadi mum kisses tiny daughters, aged seven and nine, goodbye - then sends them off on a suicide bomb mission

The seven-year-old girl is understood to have died in a remotely detonated bomb blast inside a Syrian police station.

The authorities have charged a black man with setting fire to a predominantly African-American church in Greenville, Miss., where “Vote Trump” was found spray-painted on the side of the building

The black man, Andrew McClinton, 45, of Leland, Miss., has been charged with arson of a place of worship in the first degree, a felony, Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said. McClinton, who is black, was a member of the church, Hopewell Missionary Baptist, at the time of the fire, Strain said. The church sanctuary was heavily damaged by heat, fire and smoke. The 200-member church has been a fixture for more than 110 years in Greenville, a Mississippi Delta city of about 32,000 that is around 120 miles north of Jackson, Miss. McClinton appeared voluntarily at the Greenville Police Department, where he made statements that implicated him in the crime, Strain said.

Diversity and Neighborhood Satisfaction: More white people, more satisfaction

Researchers investigating the impact of ethnic diversity on individuals’ overall satisfaction with and other aspects of their neighborhood found that a higher white share in the neighborhood raises overall satisfaction with the neighborhood in their sample. The researchers believe that part of the impact of diversity on overall neighborhood satisfaction may be through an effect on a fear of crime and the quality of social life.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Berlin terror attack which killed 12 people and injured nearly 50

The group's Amaq news agency said in a statement that "the person who carried out the truck run over attack in Berlin is a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the attack in response to calls for targeting citizens of the Crusader coalition." Its claim came as German police released the man that they had arrested because of lack of evidence, meaning the real culprit is still at large and armed and dangerous. Authorities urged people to remain "particularly vigilant" and to report "suspicious movement" to a special hotline.

All human eyes are brown?

It turns out all human eyes are brown — or at least various shades of it. It all comes down to melanin and how much of the pigment we have in our eyes. Blue eyes have the least amount of melanin, which explains why brown-eyed newborns can appear to have blue eyes as their melanin (melanocyte cells) forms, darkening the iris. "Everyone has melanin in the iris of their eye, and the amount that they have determines their eye color," says Dr. Gary Heitling. Melanin levels also determine our skin and hair color. While dark brown in color, melanin absorbs different amounts of light. The more light absorbed, the less light is reflected out, and the browner the iris appears. Reflected light is what we see when we gaze into someone's eyes. Blue reflects less light at a shorter wavelength of the visible color spectrum. If you think your sweetheart's hazel eyes appear amber in the sunset, you're not wrong. Eye color can indeed change depending on the light, and hazel and green eyes are in the middle of the spectrum. "It's an interaction between the amount of melanin and the architecture of the iris itself," Heitling says. This architecture is so unique, he adds, that it can act like a fingerprint. Migration from hotter to cooler climes by our ancestors could explain eye color evolution. (More melanin protects against UV radiation.) Another theory is that a genetic mutation turned off melanin production in blue eyes. But don't bet on two blue-eyed parents having a blue-eyed child; eye color is influenced by several genes. (One study found that blue-eyed people are more likely to be alcoholics.)

According to 2010 Census data, six of the 15 most common surnames in the United States are traditionally Hispanic

The 15 most common surnames in the United States are:

1. Smith: 2.4 million
2. Johnson: 1.9 million
3. Williams: 1.6 million
4. Brown: 1.4 million
5. Jones: 1.4 million
6. Garcia: 1.2 million
7. Miller: 1.2 million
8. Davis: 1.1 million
9. Rodriguez: 1.1 million
10. Martinez: 1.1 million
11. Hernandez: 1 million
12. Lopez: 874,500
13. Gonzalez: 841,000
14. Wilson: 802,000
15. Anderson: 784,000

The African nation of Niger has the highest fertility rates in the world

In Niger, women bear more than seven children on average and hunger is among the worst in the world with about 45% of Niger’s children under 5 suffering from chronic malnutrition. The population of Niger has grown from 5.2 million in 1975 to 19.9 million in 2015.

Over 1000 Muslims took to the streets of London chanting Allahu Akbar and demanding an Islamic caliphate

They also want America to be punished.

A Muslim college student who claimed that she had been attacked by apparent Trump supporters on a Manhattan subway platform on December 1, 2016 has now admitted that she made the whole thing up

Yasmin Seweid claimed that 3 young white men shouted "Donald Trump!" and called her a terrorist, followed her, and then pulled off her hijab before she got away. But after investigators couldn't verify the story or find any witnesses or video of it, Seweid ultimately confessed to fabricating it. Significant NYPD resources were used in the investigation, and Seweid is expected to be charged with filing a false report, which could be either a misdemeanor or a felony. "This isn’t something we normally like to do, but she had numerous opportunities to admit nothing happened and she kept sticking by her story," a police source said. Seweid said that she made up the story to get attention because she was having family trouble at home. "Maybe she was afraid that night. She was running late," her father speculates, adding that she went missing for several days after the incident and was found at a friend's house.

African American women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer before age 45, and are more likely to die from breast cancer at every age than white women

Race isn't just a social construct when it comes to cancer research.

The results of the latest international student tests are out, with Mexican students continuing to languish at the bottom of the list of member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

They obtained an average score of 416 points in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, while across the OECD the average is 492. In the three areas assessed — sciences, reading and mathematics — fewer than 1% of students in Mexico achieved a top-performing level 5 or 6, a percentage that has not changed significantly since 2006. Students scored 416 points in science, on average, with a mean performance below the OECD average of 496. In reading, the average national score was 423 points, below the OECD average of 493. In the third subject, mathematics, Mexican students earned the lowest score of all 34 OECD countries with 408 points. The OECD average is 490. In a presentation of the 2016 PISA results, the OECD said “Mexico’s mean performance in mathematics has improved by five points every three years, on average, between 2003 and 2015.” “However, in 2015, Mexico’s mean score was lower than the score attained in 2009,” it said. Fifty-seven per cent of students are considered low achievers in mathematics while in science the percentage is 48 and in reading 42. In a video press conference, OECD Chief of Staff Gabriela Ramos lamented that after 15 years of PISA testing in Mexico the results continue to be disappointing, and the country continues falling behind with no significant variations in its results. “It’s not what the students of Mexico deserve,” she said, adding that the picture is “very negative” with regard to Mexico’s performance, and “not a good one of its education system.”

A teenage Afghan asylum seeker has been arrested in Germany for the rape and murder of the 19-year-old daughter of a senior EU official

Medical student Maria Ladenburger, who volunteered at a refugee home in her spare time, was found dead in the university city of Freiburg, near the border with Switzerland in mid October 2016. Her father is Dr. Clemens Ladenburger, a lawyer who works as the right hand man to the legal director of the European Commission. The suspect has confessed to the murder, according to police. He was arrested and will go before the courts in 2017. Maria was drowned after being raped, her body found in the River Dreisam on October 16, 2016.

Hundreds of terrorists could be using British benefits to fund their extremist activities after the Government admitted that it did not know the true scale of problem

There have been calls for a thorough investigation into the issue after two men were convicted of channeling thousands of pounds of fraudulent housing benefits to the Islamist fanatics behind the Paris and Brussels terrorist outrages. With more than 850 "Britons" thought to be currently fighting in Syria, counter terror experts believe large amounts of taxpayers' money is ending up in the hands of jihadists desperate to wage war on the West. Birmingham City Council has apologized and vowed to review its systems after it emerged that it had paid more than £5,400 to a "Belgian" man while he was fighting in Syria. Anouar Haddouchi moved to Birmingham from Brussels in 2009 along with his wife, Muslim convert , Julie Maes, and their two children. They lived in private rented accommodation and despite being foreign nationals, were legally entitled to child, housing and council tax benefit. Haddouchi even boasted to his friends how he was able to live "very comfortably" on the money he received from the British state. Friend, Azzedine Kaddour, told police that Haddouchi had managed to bank a large amount of cash from his benefit payments and had used the money to fund his journey to Syria where he joined Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil). He said: "Anouar Haddouchi financed his trip with money he had in his bank account. In essence he emptied his account to go to Syria. A good chunk of that came from the benefits he received in the UK." In an extraordinary blunder Birmingham City Council continued to pay his housing benefit directly into his Lloyds TSB Islamic bank account for 11 months after he had left the country, even though his landlord wrote to officials to say that he was no longer living at the address.

Swedish authorities have charged five teenagers from Afghanistan with aggravated rape for dragging another Afghan boy into a forest, threatening him with a knife and raping him

The assault took place in October 2016 in a forested area in the city of Uppsala, north of Stockholm. Prosecutor Johan Stromback said that the five suspects are 16 and 17 years old, while the boy they assaulted is under 15. Stromback said that all arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors seeking asylum. The accused were charged with aggravated rape of a minor, a crime in Sweden that is punishable by at least four years in prison for adults and juvenile detention for minors, he said. The indictment calls for all five to be expelled from Sweden and barred from returning after serving any sentences. According to the indictment, the accused punched the victim in the head, raped him and spat on him. It said that the assault "was planned and lasted for at least an hour" and left the boy with bruises, scrapes and bite marks on his back. The accused filmed parts of the assault and threatened to post clips on social media if the victim went to police.

German premier Angela Merkel called for a ban on the Burka for the first time as she launched a bid to remain in power with a dramatic shift

Sparking a standing ovation from her CDU Party, the German Chancellor threw her weight behind calls to outlaw the burqa and niqab wherever “possible”. She said: “With us, the rule is: show your face, that’s why the full veil is not appropriate, it should be banned.” The CDU party wants to ban the full face veil in courts, schools and universities as well as in road traffic and during police checks.

The graph of 8th graders in math scores on the 2015 TIMSS international test

 Hat tip, Steve Sailer!

Since 2010, the northeast has comprised 4% of the UK population, contributed just 3% of the country’s gross value added (GVA), and accounted for only 2% of the economy’s new jobs

Those figures are 11%, 9%, and 7%, respectively, in the northwest; and 8%, 6.5%, and 6%, respectively, in Yorkshire and Humberside. By contrast, London and the southeast have accounted for 26.8% of population, 37.7% of GVA, and 39% of new jobs. In fact, since 2010, half of all new jobs were created in London, the southeast, and the east. A 2016 study by University of Groningen economist Philip McCann found that the UK’s regional income gaps rival the worst in Europe. Average disposable household income in the Greater London area is 60% higher than in most other regions of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Moreover, according to the latest Eurostat data, average per capita GDP (in terms of purchasing power parity) in the Welsh and Tees Valleys is, respectively, 69% and 74% lower than the EU average, placing them below Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Overall, North England, Wales, and Northern Ireland’s per capita GDP levels are lower than Mississippi and West Virginia’s.

California has still not finished counting the votes from Election Day 2016!

Could California's slow counting skills have anything to do with its large Hispanic population?

Ohio State attacker has been identified as teen refugee from Somalia

The FBI has joined the investigation into the car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University that left nine people injured and the assailant dead. The suspect is Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an 18-year-old Somali refugee who attended the school. He reportedly left Somalia in 2007 with his family, moved to Pakistan, and came to the United States in 2014. Witnesses say that a car plowed into a group of students and the assailant then got out with a butcher knife and began stabbing people. A campus police officer fatally shot him within a minute. Federal law enforcement officials have been worried about precisely this kind of an attack because of a recent wave of extremist propaganda online encouraging the strategy. One of the victims was critically injured. "I thought it was an accident initially until I saw the guy come out with a knife," says one student. The attack happened outside Watts Hall where students were congregating outside because of a reported gas leak in the building. It was unclear whether the report of the leak was related to the attack. Another witness said that the assailant had a "crazy look in his eyes." He says that the responding officer shot the assailant because the "stabber clearly wasn't stopping."

Donald Trump won the presidency with less support from black and Hispanic voters than any president in at least 40 years

Trump was elected with 8% of the black vote, 28% of the Hispanic vote and 27% of the Asian-American vote, according to the Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll. Among black voters, his showing was comparable to the 9% captured by George W. Bush in 2000 and Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The 10 poorest countries in the world are all in Africa

Many Americans make more in a week than residents in some of the poorest countries earn in an entire year, according to a ranking of the poorest countries in the world based on gross national income (GNI). GNI includes residents' net incomes as well as the country's gross domestic product. Here are the 10 poorest countries by GNI per capita:

Democratic Republic of Congo: $680

Liberia: $683

Burundi: $691

Niger: $889

Guinea: $1,058

Malawi: $1,073

Mozambique: $1,098

Togo: $1,262

Madagascar: $1,320

Comoros: $1,361

Chicago police said that charges could be announced soon in the fatal shooting of a black congressman's grandson following an argument over a pair of basketball shoes

"First-degree murder charges are expected," a police representative said. Officer Michelle Tannehill said that two juveniles are in custody and are considered suspects in the killing of 15-year-old Javon Wilson, who was shot in the head at his home in Chicago. Javon is the grandson of longtime US Rep. Danny Davis. Police said that the shooting stemmed from a dispute over basketball shoes. Javon knew his attackers and they may have been friends at some point. Davis said that a 15-year-old boy had traded slacks for shoes with Javon's 14-year-old brother, but thought better of the trade and went to Javon's house with a 17-year-old girl. He said that the pair forced their way in the house and argued with Javon before the boy pulled a gun and fired.

Oberlin fires black professor over anti-Semitism

Oberlin College has dismissed Joy Karega, an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition, following an investigation into anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements she made on social media - including her assertion that ISIS is really an arm of Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies and that Israel was behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris. The college initially affirmed Karega’s right to academic freedom when her inflammatory statements surfaced earlier in 2016, but placed her on leave in August, pending an investigation into her conduct. Beyond concerns about anti-Semitism, which fit into larger complaints about escalating anti-Jewish rhetoric on campus, Karega’s case has raised questions about whether academic freedom covers statements that have no basis in fact. Oberlin’s Board of Trustees ultimately voted to dismiss Karega for “failing to meet the academic standards that Oberlin requires of its faculty and failing to demonstrate intellectual honesty,” the college said in a statement. The vote followed “extensive consideration and a comprehensive review of recommendations from multiple faculty committees,” and from President Marvin Krislov. Karega’s dismissal is effective immediately. Karega said that she intends to "challenge the college's decision and assault on my substantive rights through all the avenues I have available to me." She said that her Facebook posts were taken out of their original contexts and "grossly misrepresented" for political purposes. "Since the publication of the posts, I have been inundated with hundreds of hatemail filled with slurs (racial, misogynist, classist), harassment and threats," she said. "To add insult to injury, for the last eight months, Oberlin has campaigned to implicate my professional fitness using arbitrary, inequitable and discriminatory practices. Indeed, the college launched an assault on my substantive rights."

England and Wales: Black men were over three times more likely to be arrested than white men in 2014

Black individuals account for about 3% of the total population of England and Wales yet make up about 9% of defendants prosecuted for indictable offenses. Twice as many black women were jailed for drug offenses in 2014, comparative to the rate of white women, while young black males were more than 10 times more likely than young white males to be arrested for robbery. Men from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds were also more than 16% more likely than white men to be remanded in custody.

An Hispanic police officer who shot and killed a black man during a traffic stop in suburban St. Paul, Minnesota has been charged with second-degree manslaughter

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said that St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez, who is Latino, was not justified in using deadly force when he fired seven shots at Philando Castile on July 6, 2016. Castile's death led to massive protests and dozens of arrests.

A new study into male and female reactions to childhood trauma has revealed an interesting difference between the sexes

The anterior circular sulcus — a region of the brain associated with emotional awareness and empathy — was larger in boys who had experienced trauma versus a control group who hadn't, while in girls who had experienced trauma, the same region was actually smaller than the control group. The researchers said their findings emphasized that the sexes experienced post-traumatic recovery in different ways. The study was conducted by researchers at Stanford Medical School. The researchers used structural magnetic resonance imagining (sMRI) to examine the brains of 59 children (29 in the control group, 30 in the test group) between the ages of nine and 17. With such a small, broad group, the researchers were hesitant to draw any firm conclusions, saying that further, more specific research was needed to prove a causation. Says the lead author: "Our findings suggest it is possible that boys and girls could exhibit different trauma symptoms and that they might benefit from different approaches to treatment."

U.S. Rep. Stephen F. Lynch says that it’s time for the Democratic Party to get back to its roots and refocus on speaking about the issues facing white, blue-collar workers now that the Republican Party has seized control of the White House and retained both the House and Senate

“This is a rebuilding year, I think we have to look at the results and where our weaknesses are,” an introspective Lynch said, three days after President-elect Donald Trump cruised to a surprise victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. “We are very, very progressive and sometimes we overlook that there are people in this country who struggle who happen to be white,” Lynch said. “They are going to work every day and they haven’t had a raise in a long, long time, but the Democrats don’t talk much about them.” White voters, who made up roughly 70% of the electorate, overwhelmingly supported Trump over Clinton by 21 points, according to exit polling data. Clinton also underperformed among black, Hispanic and young voters compared to Barack Obama, data shows. “We lost a lot of the white, blue-collar vote, and that’s troubling, that’s my base,” the South Boston Democrat said. “I think we need to talk about them a little bit.” Lynch said that he is not sure who will replace interim Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile, but said that he expects a national search in the hopes of finding a good person. Lynch lamented critical missteps by the Clinton campaign, including failing to put resources into Wisconsin and only mounting a last-minute push in Michigan, two states in Clinton’s so-called “firewall” that ended up going to Trump. “I don’t know who is responsible for identifying those critical states, but we missed the picture in Michigan, we missed it again in Wisconsin,” Lynch said. “Everybody has 20/20 vision in hindsight.” Lynch was one of several Bay State pols who took part in get-out-the-vote efforts for Clinton in New Hampshire, a state that she narrowly won.

Barack Obama didn't improve the lives of black Americans

Even some blacks are willing to admit that Obama was a bad president.

Michael Moore defends Donald Trump's voters

Says that it is wrong to call them racists.

Journalist Monisha Rajesh calls for Donald Trump's assassination

Will she be arrested?

Trump beat Hillary amongst white voters in New York State

Both candidates live in liberal New York, but Trump defeated Clinton by six points among whites in the Empire State. Among white men, Trump crushed Hillary 59%-36% in the state of New York.

African-Americans have more rigidity of the aorta, the major artery supplying oxygen-rich blood to the body, than whites and Hispanics, according to a study by UT Southwestern Medical Center cardiologists

The finding is important because African-Americans are the group at greatest risk of high blood pressure and organ damage caused by high blood pressure, and aortic rigidity is associated with high blood pressure. The study examined data from some 2,500 participants in the Dallas Heart Study, a multi-ethnic population-based cohort. The researchers used two methods to assess stiffness of the aorta, which is the largest artery in the body, running from the top of the left ventricle in the heart down to the abdomen. Both systems of measurement found greater stiffness in the aortas of African-Americans. "Our demonstration of ethnic differences in arterial stiffness is an important step in understanding the mechanisms that mediate ethnic differences in cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Wanpen Vongpatanasin, Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and co-senior author of the study. Hispanics in the study had an intermediate level of aortic stiffness, greater than whites, but less than that of African-Americans. The study found that both African-Americans and Hispanics had smaller diameter aortas, after adjustments were made for weight. "This finding suggests that there may be a mismatch between aortic diameter and adiposity, which contributes to the increased rigidity," said Dr. Vongpatanasin, who holds the Norman and Audrey Kaplan Chair in Hypertension and the Fredric L. Coe Professorship in Nephrolithiasis in Mineral Metabolism. Other possible mechanisms underlying the increased levels of aortic stiffness in African-Americans and Hispanics include greater sodium intake among African-Americans and Hispanics, lower intake of potassium, and genetic differences in collagen content. Collagen is a protein fiber that is a key component of connective tissue such as bone and artery walls. According to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 43% of African-American men and 45.7% of African-American women have hypertension, or high blood pressure, compared with 33.9% of white men and 31.3% of white women. "Hypertension is strongly associated with heart attack and stroke. Our study provides a potential explanation for excess risk of hypertension and resultant organ complication in African-Americans, who are at particularly high risk of cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Vongpatanasin.

A young Muslim woman claimed that she was attacked and robbed of her headscarf and wallet by two men, one of whom wore a Trump hat, but police are now saying that it was a hoax

The attack supposedly took place in Louisiana where the woman is a student. I guess we will be seeing more of this type of hoax now that Donald Trump has been elected president.

A review of vote totals in the past two elections reveals that Trump 2016 would have defeated Obama 2012 in the electoral college

Apparently, Trump's success was not entirely due to the fact that Hillary Clinton was such an awful candidate.

Black journalist blames white women for Hillary Clinton's defeat

Accuses white women of being racists.

Poll: 70% of Jewish voters favored Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, with only 25% opting for Donald Trump

The national survey, which was commissioned by J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, again showed a community that trends more Democratic than the general population. “American Jews remain a bedrock Democratic constituency, with overwhelming disdain for Donald Trump,” J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami said. Jim Gerstein, the pollster, said that Jews continued to remain unstinting in their support of the Democratic party. “They voted for Clinton more than Hispanics did, more than any other religious group, including no religion,” Gerstein said. Trump’s percentage was less than the 30% garnered in 2012 by Mitt Romney in his loss to Barack Obama, but commensurate with the 24% won by George W. Bush in 2004. The group’s national results also comported with national exit polls carried out by a consortium of major media outlets showing Jews favoring Clinton over Trump 71%-24%.

Hillary Clinton failed to win enough black and Hispanic voters

By comparing Clinton's performance to Obama's in 2012 it is easy to see that she failed to appeal to a number of key voter groups. Groups that it was predicted she would have more support from. In 2012, a majority of over-50s backed Romney for the presidency, while Obama got the support of three in five of those aged under 30. In 2016, polling was showing that Trump's support among older sections of society had improved on Romney's figure - with 49% of over-65s supporting him, compared to 29% of 18 to 39-year-olds. This was hugely positive for Trump in the key swing state of Florida. Worth 29 electoral college votes, Florida's high over-65 population was expected to back the Republican candidate leaving Clinton in need of a solid turnout among younger voters if she was to win the state. However, the exit polls showed that Clinton's popularity among younger voters was much lower than Obama's. Of those voters aged under 30 years of age, only 55% backed Clinton compared to Obama's 60% in 2012. This might have proved enough to swing Florida towards Trump and it could also be a factor behind his victory in Pennsylvania - something which there was less expectation of. Exit polls show that Clinton's support among Hispanic voters was just 65%, down from Obama's 71% in 2012 while among black voters support was down from 93% to 88%. Meanwhile support among Hispanic voters was actually higher for Trump, at 29%, compared to the 27% Romney secured four years ago.

President Trump?

It looks as if Donald Trump has won the election but there has not been any official announcement as of this time.

Update (2:36 AM): Trump now has 276 electoral college votes making him officially the winner of the 2016 presidential election.

Hispanic uncle charged in the death of a child found in a well was in the United States illegally

Smith County Sheriffs have confirmed that Gustavo Zavala-Garcia, 24, has been charged with Capital Murder for the death of Kayla Gomez-Orozco, 10. “He’s given us information from him, and we’ve been able gather enough evidence in our investigation to charge him with that crime,” said Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith. A relative of the slain little girl, Zavala-Garcia was the lone suspect in the case. He illegally entered the United States on an unknown date and at an unknown location. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers first encountered and lodged a detainer on Zavala-Garcia on October 10, 2014, after he was convicted in Smith County for assaulting a family member, which caused injury. He entered ICE custody on October 21, 2014 and was released on bond the same day. Deputies found Kayla’s body at a well that sits outside Garcia’s rental house. Kayla was last seen at a church in Bullard, 100 miles southeast of Dallas. An Amber Alert was issued for her after she disappeared from a Bullard Church that evening. A $60,000 reward was offered for her return and FBI agents organized a search party with the help of community members. They gathered in the parking lot at Bullard High School to look for Kayla. Volunteers wore bright-colored clothing during their search. The Amber Alert for the missing girl was discontinued after her body was found. Smith declined to release a cause of death or a possible motive, pending charges.

Magic and superstition in India leads to 4-year-old girl being dismembered

Recently, a 4-year-old girl went missing from her home in the Charaideo district of upper Assam, a mostly tribal state in northeast India. Then the child’s body was found in a forest about 75 to 90 yards from the Ratanpur tea estate where she lived with her parents. She had been decapitated and her arms had been severed. Both her arms and her head were found scattered near the body on the forest floor. The horrific dismembering was allegedly the result of a 14-year-old girl, who lived in the same village, losing her mobile phone. Wanting it back, her parents — Hanuman Bhumij and his wife, Many Bhumij — turned to black magic, police said. As Prasanta Phukan, an inspector in charge of the Sonari Police Station in Assam, said, many in the remote tribal area are uneducated and steeped in superstition. They conducted a prayer ritual that Phukan said was performed by Gul Mhammad Ali, also known as Gulam, a tantric, or black witch priest, in the village. With Gulam were his nephew Hajrat Ali and another assistant, Ariful Haqmulla. Part of the prayer ritual to retrieve the mobile phone included sacrificing the 4-year-old girl. On October 24, 2016 they allegedly kidnapped her and proceeded to horribly disfigure her, eventually killing her. Police have arrested Hanuman and Many, along with the two assistants in the ritual. Gulam, though, has fled. The 14-year-old who originally lost her phone was not arrested, since she is a minor. The family of the victim and the family that took part in the prayer ritual knew each other from living together in the same small village. Everyone involved, including the deceased child, are Adivasis, descendants of indigenous people in India who have been the objects of discrimination and exploitation in India for years. These communities tend to be poor and uneducated, generally working as laborers. Many of them tend to be deeply superstitious, and their belief systems can involve goddesses and witches. Crimes, particularly forms of ritual human sacrifice, stemming from these occult beliefs are not unheard of in more rural parts of India. One woman who was having night terrors abducted a 3-year-old on the advice of a “holy man.” She and two other men allegedly cut the boy’s nose, ears and hands off after covering him in ghee and sandalwood. They left his bleeding body in front of an image of Kali. In June 2016, to offer a more recent example, a 55-year-old man in a rural village in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India, was beheaded in what was allegedly a ritualistic sacrifice. The offering was meant to bring about a better harvest and more timely rains, police said. Police believe that the crime was carried out by the Orkas or Mudkatwa, which is an occultist group that buries human heads in paddy fields for better rains and harvest. Sometimes, though, beliefs are used to potentially cover up other motives. A week prior to the 55-year-old’s beheading, a 5-year-old was beheaded on the Rangapara Tea Estate in Assam. People living in the area blamed the crime on a tantric named Kali Puja. A mob lynched him, supposedly for this crime, though police later said that the child was killed over a monetary dispute and the lynched person was Nanu Mirdha, who was not a tantric. Meanwhile on the other side, those accused of being witches or black magic priests are often hunted and killed. In places where superstition and vigilantism overlap and small rumors can turn deadly, nearly 2,100 people accused of witchcraft have been killed between 2000 and 2012. This, though, might not come close to showing the breadth of the problem. “Like the proverbial tip of a very deep iceberg, available data hides much of the reality of a problem that is deeply ingrained in society,” stated New Delhi-based Partners for Law in Development. “It is only the most gruesome cases that are reported — most cases of witch-hunting go unreported and unrecorded.” This fear of black magic runs deeply through the community. In 2006, for example, a family of five — a tea plantation worker and his four children — were beheaded when several members of the Adivasi community at the Sadharu tea plantation became ill and died. “A trial was held to prove if Munda and his family were involved in casting evil spells in the tea garden that led to a bout of epidemics in the area,” police officer D Das said. “They said the killings would appease the gods.”

The German Interior Ministry wants to stop migrants ever reaching Europe's Mediterranean coast by picking them up at sea and returning them to Africa

In what would be a huge shift for a country with one of the most generous asylum policies, the ministry says that the European Union should adopt an Australian-style system under which migrants intercepted at sea are sent for processing at camps in third countries. The ministry's proposal calls for migrants picked up in the Mediterranean - most of whom set off from conflict-torn Libya - to be sent to Tunisia, Egypt or other north African states to apply for asylum from there. In related news, a 12-foot high barrier - higher than the Berlin Wall - is being erected in the German city of Munich to protect locals from young refugees who are set to move into the area. Locals campaigned for the wall, in the suburb of Neuperlach Süd, after authorities decided that some 160 young unaccompanied migrants will move into a large shelter which is less than 100 meters from a residential estate. Critics say that the wall is further proof of the alienation voters feel with Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy.

White children in Britain should be bussed into schools dominated by ethnic minorities to halt the rise of racial segregation, says report

Bussing was largely a disaster in the United States but leftists want to see the policy adopted in Britain.

France's interior minister has ordered the closure of four mosques that espoused a radical ideology, the latest such shutdowns among dozens since the November 13, 2015 Paris attacks

A state of emergency in France allows for the closing of places of worship where the preaching risks provoking hate, violence or acts of terrorism. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve ordered the mosques in the Paris region closed. "Under cover of religion, these places held meetings that in reality were aimed at promoting a radical ideology," the statement said. Dozens of mosques where radicalism thrived have been closed and non-citizens, including imams, expelled since the attacks that killed 130 people.

Sweden is on the brink of becoming a lawless state as the police force is losing the battle against unprecedented levels of crime and violence amid a growing migrant crisis

The Scandinavian country is facing an existential crisis with on average three police officers handing in their resignations a day. If the alarming trend continues, and police officers continue to resign more than 1,000 officers will have quit the service by New Years. Since the migrant crisis began last summer, Sweden has been hit by a series of brutal crimes and violent incidents. In 2015 alone Sweden, with a population of 9.5 million, received over 160,000 asylum applications and the country is expected to take as many as 190,000 refugees, or 2% of the population, by the end of 2016. Since the Second World War Sweden has prided itself on helping migrants who cross their borders despite some moves to the political right in recent years. But police have now admitted the force has reached breaching point as more than 50 areas in the country have now been placed on a “no-go zone” list. In February a report from Sweden's National Criminal Investigation Service announced there were 52 areas where officers would not cope with the levels of crime being committed. Sex assaults, drug dealing and children carrying weapons were just some of the incidents mentioned in the report. In September, Swedish officials were forced to add another three areas to the list. Now the Police Association have said they need at least 200 new officers to regain control in the south-east of the country. Thomas Stjernfeldt, from the region's police association, said: “We are missing extremely many officers in the operational sector, right now we need 200 more officers to be added to the force to establish a reasonable working environment in the southeast of Götaland.” Götaland is one of the regions in the country that has been hit hard by the car fire attacks, which have been occurring throughout Sweden. a number of the arsonist attacks in the city of Växjö, in Götaland, had been committed by frustrated migrants. Currently there are more than 6,000 suspected crimes that are unsolved in the area and 400 of these cases are suspected to be rapes, murder or attempted murder. Stjernfeldt said that the figures are alarming and police officers are constantly forced to work overtime in an attempt to solve the reported crimes. The Police Association admitted that it fears the public will lose faith in the force and their ability to protect citizens if the situation is not resolved. The union’s call for more resources echoes National Police Commissioner Dan Eliasson’s February warning, where he said he needed a further 4,100 officers and specialist staff to reestablish law and order in Sweden.

More than two-thirds of people in the Republic would vote for a united Ireland, a new poll has revealed

The Sunday Business Post / Red C opinion poll found that there has been a slight rise in support for a united Ireland, with a similar survey from July 2016 showing that 65% were in favor of an end to partition. In the latest survey 67% of respondents said that they would like to see Irish unity as a by-product of Brexit. The findings represent a 10% jump in support for a united Ireland since Red C first posed the question for the Sunday Times in 2010. The shock Brexit result in June 2016 sparked a renewed debate about a referendum on the Irish border.

Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing catastrophe over her failed migrant policy, according to a new report

During the first six months of 2016, migrants committed 142,500 crimes, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office. And the country has been hit by a spate of horrendous violent crime including rapes, sexual and physical assaults, stabbings, home invasions, robberies, burglaries and drug trafficking. Adding to the country's woes is the fact that thousands of people have gone missing after travelling to the country on invitation from the country's leader. Germany took in more than 1.1 million migrants in the past year and parts of the country are crippled with a lack of infrastructure. Now the true reality is hitting home ahead of next year's elections as the far right surges in the polls threatening to topple the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Merkel. According to a report by the international policy council the Gatestone Institute, local police in many parts of the country admit that they are stretched to the limit. The report states: "The rape of a ten-year-old girl in Leipzig, the largest city in Saxony, has drawn renewed attention to the spiraling levels of violent crime perpetrated by migrants in cities and towns across Germany."

Hillary Clinton's staffers knew as early as 2011 that Anthony Weiner had been messaging an underage girl, but they did nothing about it, according to WikiLeaks emails

John Podesta - now chair of Clinton's presidential campaign - and Neera Tanden, another adviser, were forwarded news of an investigation into Weiner's online contact with a 17-year-old Delaware high school student by Jennifer Palmieri, the current campaign communications director, in June 2011. At the time he was married to Huma Abedin, another member of Clinton's inner circle, who is now at the center of fresh FBI investigation into the handling of classified material while Clinton was in office. The email detailed lurid claims of private messages to an underage girl being investigated by police.

Pudgy older fathers live longer, are more attractive to the opposite sex and are better at passing on their genes than their leaner counterparts, scientists have claimed

Becoming fatter after fatherhood due to decreasing testosterone levels may not fit the “macho” ideal, but it actually prolongs lives and strengthens immune systems, according to Richard Bribiescas, professor of anthropology and deputy provost at Yale University. There is evidence that these men are less likely to suffer from heart attacks and prostate cancer, while a study in 2008 found that men with high metabolisms were around 50% more likely to die in a given year than those whose bodies burned up less energy at rest.

Happy Halloween!

2015’s 12% increase in homicides reported to the FBI is the largest one-year homicide increase in nearly half a century

The primary victims have been black. An additional 900 black males were killed in 2015 compared with 2014, resulting in a homicide victimization rate that is now nine times greater for black males than for white males. The brutality of these killings can be shocking. Over the weekend of September 16, 2016 a 15-year-old boy in Chicago was burned alive in a dumpster. More police are being killed in 2016 too. Gun murders of police officers are up 47% nationally through October 21, 2016 compared with the same period in 2015. In Chicago gun assaults on officers are up 100%. In New York City attacks on officers are up 23%. Recently, four California officers have been deliberately murdered. Officers are second-guessing their own justified use of force for fear of being labeled racist and losing their jobs, if not their freedom. On October 5, 2016 a female officer in Chicago was beaten unconscious by a suspect in a car crash, who repeatedly bashed her face into the concrete and tore out chunks of her hair. She refrained from using her gun, she said, because she didn’t want to become the next viral video in the Black Lives Matter narrative. The Chicago Police Department now wants to institutionalize such dangerous second-guessing. Its proposed guidelines for using force would require police to consider the “impact that even a reasonable use of force may have on those who observe” it. The Black Lives Matter narrative about an epidemic of racially biased police shootings is false: Four studies published in 2016 showed that if there is a bias in police shootings, it works in favor of blacks and against whites. Officers’ use of lethal force following an arrest for a violent felony is more than twice the rate for white as for black arrestees, according to one study. Another study showed that officers were three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed whites. No government agency is more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police. If the next administration continues to disregard that truth in favor of a false narrative about systemic law-enforcement racism, the next four years will see more urban violence and race riots, and more dead police officers.

The strain of H.I.V. responsible for almost all AIDS cases in the United States, which was carried from Zaire to Haiti around 1967, spread from there to New York City around 1971

From New York, it spread to San Francisco around 1976. H.I.V. was carried from Kinshasa to Haiti in the 1960s — most likely by one of the thousands of Haitian civil servants recruited by the United Nations to work in the former Belgian Congo after colonial rule collapsed. Africa has a dozen H.I.V. groups, and Haiti’s epidemic came from one of those.

Researchers have identified two new genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD) among African Americans

Despite the fact that AD is more common in African Americans than whites, the AD genetic risk profile for African Americans is more poorly understood. While more than 20 genes have been identified as risk factors for AD in whites, fewer than five have been identified for African Americans. In 2013, a genome-wide association study of AD in more than 5,500 African Americans identified two genetic risk factors for AD. This study looked at genetic variants across subjects' entire genome and compared their frequency in cases versus controls. Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) used these same subjects, but added additional AD risk information (smoking status, diabetes status, education level) to their statistical modeling to increase the power of the study. By doing so they were able to identify two new genes (COBL and SLC10A2) associated with risk of AD in African Americans. "There are currently no medications for AD that slow or stop the progression of the disease. Genes that increase risk for AD are potential targets for new disease-modifying AD drug therapies. Our study identifies two potentially "drugable" targets," explains corresponding author Jesse Mez, MD, MS, assistant professor of neurology at BUSM and associate director of the Boston University Alzheimer's Disease & CTE Center Clinical Core. According to the researchers the methodology they employed for this study allowed them to make an important discovery without investing more money in genotyping or more effort to recruit volunteers. They believe that a similar methodology could be used for many other diseases to make new genetic discoveries without new large investments.

Two studies may explain why people of African descent respond more strongly to infection, and are more prone to autoimmune diseases

DNA acquired from breeding with Neanderthals may explain why people of European descent respond differently to infection than those of African descent, two studies suggest. The findings might also offer insight into why people of African descent are more prone to autoimmune diseases caused by an overactive immune system.

A team of scientists has identified MNX1 as a new oncogene - a gene than can cause cancer - that is more active in African American prostate cancer than in European American prostate cancer

The finding suggests that genetic factors can contribute, at last in part, to the higher incidence of prostate cancer among African American men compared with men of other ethnic groups. "African Americans have about one-and-a-half times the incidence and twice the mortality associated with prostate cancer of European Americans, and the reasons for this are not clear," said senior author Dr. Michael Ittmann, professor of pathology & immunology at Baylor College of Medicine and the Michael E. DeBakey Department of VA Medical Center. Most scientists think that some of the health disparities among ethnic groups can be explained by differences in biology. The scientists discovered that, compared with normal prostate tissues, both African American and European American prostate cancer have MNX1 genes that are more active and produce more of the MNX1 protein. However, MNX1 is significantly more active in African American prostate cancer than in European American prostate cancer. In summary, in African American prostate cancer androgen and the AKT signaling pathway can increase the activity of MNX1, which in turn increases lipid metabolism. Increased lipid metabolism is a hallmark of aggressive prostate cancer, which is more common in African American men.

In the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of genetic risk factors for inflammatory bowel disease in African Americans, a research team has identified two regions of the genome (loci) associated with ulcerative colitis only in people of African descent

The study identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) - at ZNF649 and at LSAMP - with genome-wide significance in ulcerative colitis. These SNPs are very specific to sub-Saharan Africans and are not found in any other populations - making these findings unique and novel. This is the first time African- specific loci are known to contribute to inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), and these loci will be added to the already known 200+ loci in IBD to further expand the IBD genetic architecture. The team also found evidence of overlapping genome-wide associations for ulcerative colitis and IBD in African- Americans and other populations. The detection of variants associated with IBD risk in only people of African descent demonstrates the importance of studying the genetics of IBD and other complex diseases in populations beyond those of European ancestry.

German police have arrested a 19-year-old Moroccan migrant on suspicion of raping a 90-year-old woman who had been attending a church service

Dusseldorf police have announced that they had arrested the man after they had launched a search for the assailant after the daylight attack on the grandmother. The elderly woman had left in the church in the heart of the German city center when the assailant pushed her into a narrow alley between two pubs. In the alley, which is usually closed off to the public and used for storing rubbish from the pubs, the perpetrator is said to have demanded money from the woman before sexually assaulting her. Dusseldorf police were able to construct a likeness of the suspect after a police officer recognized the man at a trains station. The DNA of the man, a Moroccan migrant who had previously lived in Spain, matched the traces found at the crime scene. The man had been previously arrested for robbing a teenager in May 2016. The news comes after the chief of the German police union Rainer Wendt said that criminal migrants from north Africa were laughing at the German justice system as they are often allowed to go free after committing crimes. “They despise our country and laugh at our justice,” Wendt said. “If there is no pre-trial detention made, no imprisonment is imposed, and no deportations carried out then the police make multiple arrests and the perpetrators get away with it,” he added and stated that the migrants are often then released. Wendt also referred to the Casablanca Report that documented around 2,244 North African migrant criminals in the city of Dusseldorf and the police union leader stated that the figures were similar for other German cities around the country. Earlier in 2016 refugees burnt down a shelter for asylum seekers in the city amid claims that the fire had been started over a dispute over food.

Milwaukee: A black police officer who fatally shot another black man in August 2016, sparking several nights of unrest, has been charged with sexually assaulting a man the night after the shooting, after they watched coverage of the riots on television at a bar

Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown, 24, has been arrested. The alleged victim, unidentified in a criminal complaint, told police on August 15, 2016 that Heaggan-Brown had sexually assaulted him while off duty. Heaggan-Brown fatally shot 23-year-old Sylville Smith on August 13, 2016. Police said that he was holding a gun when he was shot after a brief chase. Police said that Heaggan-Brown is suspended and in custody and they have launched an internal investigation. Police Chief Ed Flynn said that nothing in Heaggan-Brown's pre-hiring background check suggested that he would be likely to engage in wrongdoing. Heaggan-Brown's attorney, Michael Steinle, didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Heaggan-Brown's bail was set at $100,000. He's set to appear at a preliminary hearing on October 27, 2016.

Eight members of a South Asian sex gang in Rotherham, England have been convicted of sexually exploiting teenage girls after making them suffer degrading and violent acts

ageer Hussain, 30, openly boasted that he was racist and told his distraught 13-year-old white victim: "All white girls are good for is sex and they are just sl*gs." Sageer was convicted of four rapes and one indecent assault and his elder brother Basharat, 40, of indecent assault against the same girl at Sheffield Crown Court. Six other members of the gang were also found guilty of a further ten charges of sexually abusing the three girls – and face jail when sentenced. Sageer’s victim - who is now 27 - told police, their MP and the then home secretary David Blunkett that she had been repeatedly raped by Sageer. But the allegations were dropped after men threatened to burn down the family home and gang-rape her mother.

Black women under the age of 45 are at increased risk for an aggressive form of breast cancer [estrogen receptor (ER) negative] if they experienced a high number of pregnancies, never breast fed, and/or had higher waist-to-hip ratio

Mortality from breast cancer is markedly higher in African American women as compared to white women in the United States, in part because they are more likely to be diagnosed with ER-negative tumors, which are more aggressive and difficult to treat. African American women are also diagnosed with breast cancer at younger ages.

The largest study of genetic variation in the human Y chromosome has revealed that half of all western European men are descended from an individual male thought to have lived 4,000 years ago

The team of researchers believe that this man was one of the earliest people to rule Europe in the Bronze Age. The study also shows explosive rises in male population numbers between 55,000 and 4,000 years ago. Using data from the 1000 Genomes Project, the study analyses the sequence differences of 1,244 human Y chromosomes from 26 populations around the world. Analyzing the Y chromosome of modern men can help us discover the history of our ancestors. The Y chromosome, which is only passed from father to son, is linked to male characteristics and behaviors. The team of 42 researchers involved in the study used the data from the 1,244 Y chromosomes to build a tree that reveals how the men are related to one another genetically. All the men studied were proven to have descended from a single man who lived approximately 190,000 years ago. Lead author Dr Yali Xue from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said that this pattern tells us that there was an explosive increase in the number of men carrying a certain type of Y chromosome, within just a few generations. They only observed this phenomenon in males, and only in a few groups of men. One of the scientists involved in the study, Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, said that genetics can't tell us why it happened but they know that a tiny number of elite males were controlling reproduction and dominating the population. With half of western Europe descending from just one man, there can only be speculations as to why these increases in population happened. The results reveal that the earliest explosions in population occurred 50,000-55,000 years ago, across Asia and Europe, and a later explosion occurred 15,000 years ago in the Americas. The researchers believe this increase in population may be due to the movement of humans out of Africa and settling in Europe and Asia, where there were plenty of resources allowing the population to thrive. The study states that there was a notable increase in the number of lineages outside Africa around 50,000-55,000 years ago, perhaps reflecting the geographical expansion and differentiation of Eurasian populations as they settled the vast expanse of these continents. Later explosions in population occurred between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, South Asia, and East Asia. The later population increases are thought to be explored by advances in technology. The best explanation is they may have resulted from advances in technology that could be controlled by small groups of men. Wheeled transport, metal working and organized warfare are all candidate explanations that can now be investigated further. The data used in this study was gathered from the 1000 Genomes Project, which ran between 2008 and 2015, creating the largest public catalogue of genetic variation in the human Y chromosome.

If the Black Lives Matter crowd really cared about black lives they would work to convince their "brothers" to stop shooting each other, since that is overwhelmingly where most blacks are killed

They might also think a bit about reducing the horrific levels of violent crime that seems to be part and parcel of their manhood ritual, which is why police target them in the first place. Whatever credibility BLM has is wasted when they embrace the cause of thugs like Michael Brown, a six-foot-four 265-pound monster who robbed a convenience store and beat up a clerk before trying to wrestle a gun away from a cop.

A Mexican judge who presided over appeals by drug cartel figures including Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has been assassinated while jogging outside his home

Judge Vicente Bermudez, 37, was executed by a gunman who ran up and shot him in the back of the head. The killing happened in Metepec, 40 miles from Mexico City, and was captured by a surveillance camera. The judge had dealt with legal challenges brought by lawyers representing Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. The judge had also dealt with appeals by lawyers on behalf of Miguel Trevino, ex-leader of the Zetas cartel. Trevino is being held at the maximum security Altiplano jail which is close to the judge's home. Guzman's lawyers have filed numerous legal challenges aimed at preventing his extradition to the United States.

Five men and a woman have been found alive on a road in western Mexico with their hands amputated and their foreheads marked with the words "I'm a thief"

The victims were mutilated by a criminal group linked to drug trafficking, which also left a dead man on the road and two bags with the severed hands in Tlaquepaque, near Guadalajara, Mexico's second biggest city, police said. "They're in a delicate state of health," local police commander Roberto Larios said. "Their stumps were wrapped in plastic." Drug cartels often leave the dismembered bodies of victims on roadsides in Mexico, making the discovery of six mutilated people alive all the more unusual. The dead man, 39, was apparently beaten to death and his hands were not cut off. He was married to the woman, who is 44. The other men are aged between 25 and 43. Authorities suspect that the gruesome crime is linked to drug dealing. Two of the victims have rap sheets. Witnesses say that the victims were driven to the site in two vehicles and abandoned there with a note that said "this happened to us for being thieves." The message, signed "anti-thief elite group," also threatens thieves and those who abuse women or children. The western state of Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located, has seen horrific acts of violence in recent years linked to the powerful Jalisco New Generation drug cartel.

Female journalist raped by knife-wielding migrants at Jungle camp in Calais, France

A female interpreter working on a documentary about the plight of vulnerable refugee children has been raped at knife-point in the Calais migrant camp, French police have revealed. The terrified 38-year-old was robbed by three armed men from the Jungle, one of whom raped her whilst the other two threatened her colleague with a blade. The unidentified woman, who was helping a journalist from a French news broadcaster, was attacked in the early hours of this morning at the entrance of the notorious shanty town. French prosecutors have confirmed that they had proof the woman was raped and have collected DNA evidence to help them find the attackers. The trio are believed to be from Afghanistan, and are now on the run from the police. The woman was living in Paris, although originally from Afghanistan, and had been employed to interpret for migrants speaking the Pashtun language which is common in her homeland and neighboring Pakistan. The shocking incident is just the latest example of the extreme violence plaguing the Calais migrant camp, and comes just a day after journalists from Sky News were attacked by asylum seekers hurling rocks.

The European Union has been urged to prepare for the arrival of jihadists if the Islamic State (IS) is driven out of its Iraqi stronghold, Mosul

Security Commissioner Julian King said that even a small number of militants would pose a serious threat. Some of the Islamic militants involved in the deadly Islamic State attack on Paris in November 2015 had recently returned from Syria.

A Jewish mother made a bomb threat to a synagogue and tried to pin it on another parent after a row over a children's party invite escalated into a viscous harassment campaign

Claire Mann, 48, bombarded Roz Page with abusive messages and tried to blame her for the hoax by sending similar texts to her own phone. As part of the campaign she sent a text to the local synagogue claiming that there was a bomb in a hotel where Israeli guests were staying, Wood Green Crown Court heard. Page claims the harassment began because Mann believed her eight-year-old daughter had been snubbed when she didn't receive a birthday party invitation. Mann was convicted of two counts of intending to pervert the course of justice. The first relates to the bomb hoax and harassment between July 1 and July 21 2013, while the second relates to a separate claim at the Family Court that she was a qualified psychologist.

Blacks in London are nearly five times more likely to be homeless than white people

African and Afro-Caribbean people are 4.6 times more likely to have been accepted as “homeless and in priority need” by their local authority compared to white Londoners. The three worst London boroughs are Haringey, where black people are 9.5 times more likely to be homeless, Kingston-upon-Thames (9.2) and Harrow (7.5). The research, using 2015-16 local council data, also found that Asians in London are 1.5 times more likely to be homeless and in priority need — the highest category of homelessness.

Potatoes and cereals increase the risk of heart disease while high fat dairy products cut the risk, according to a new study which rejects accepted wisdom on a healthy diet

The research, which looked at dietary habits in 42 European countries over 16 years, conflicts with current government nutrition guidance and has led to calls for new advice to be issued. The work examined food consumption, heart disease and cholesterol levels in the most up-to-date international statistics and raised questions about the reliability of traditional data, much of which was carried out decades ago. Dr Pavel Grasgruber, a sports scientist and lead author of the study, from Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, called for current dietary advice to be overturned. He said: “Current heart disease risk is based on flawed data. This study flies in the face of accepted wisdom on diet. It is quite clear consumption of dairy products and meat is not linked with heart disease risk, as was traditionally believed. The biggest problem are cereals, wheat and potatoes, which increase the risk of heart disease. "I can responsibly recommend people change their diets and to lower their carbohydrate load.” Dr Grasgruber said that red meat appeared to have no direct effect on heart disease risk. However, high fat dairy products such as cheese seem to have a protective effect, which is also supported by recent evidence. He recommended high consumption of citrus fruit, walnuts, olives, fish, vegetables and dairy for low heart disease risk and longevity. Leading cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra said: “This modern day study supports the growing view that the real dietary factors driving heart disease are the consumption of excess carbohydrate in the form of rice, wheat and potato.” Dr Malcolm Kendrick said: “The rate of heart disease goes down with a high cholesterol diet which suggests any link between fat, cholesterol and heart disease can now be refuted.” Dr Trudi Deakin, a leading nutritionist, said: “The 1983 dietary guidelines came in the absence of any rigorous trial data to show saturated fat caused cardiovascular disease and were based on flawed science from the 1950s and 1960s.”

Black South African student rejects science because it discriminates against witchcraft

She wants to restart science from an African perspective. How do you restart science from an African perspective? Apparently by practicing black magic.

An 87-year-old woman repeatedly up before the courts for denying that the Holocaust took place – has been handed down a new 11-month term behind bars in Germany

Ursula Haverbeck-Wetzel remains free while she appeals the latest sentence meted out at a court in Germany. A court in the German spa town of Bad Oeynhausen found her guilty of breaking Germany's strict post-war rules making the denial of Nazi war crimes an imprisonable offence. In this instance, she denied in published articles that the Holocaust happened and that the death factory of Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland was nothing more than a labor camp. The court heard she also wrote to the Central Council of Jews in Germany claiming that the mass murder of six million Jews had never taken place. It is the seventh time Haverbeck-Wetzel has been sentenced for denying the Holocaust, the third time she had received a jail sentence. In 2004, she founded a group that campaigned against the Holocaust having taken place - a group that the government banned six years later. In Germany, anyone who publicly denies, endorses or plays down the extermination of Jews during Adolf Hitler's regime can be sentenced to a maximum of five years in jail.

Police in Alabama have arrested four black men in connection with the beating of a white Alabama high school student who had posted pro-Blue Lives Matter Comments in support of cops

In a statement, Sylacauga Police Chief Kelley Johnson says that four recent Sylacauga High School students were arrested following the September 30, 2016 attack against 17-year-old Brian Ogle. Ogle's mother, Brandi Allen, says that her son responded to students wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts at his school with Blue Lives Matter. He was hospitalized with serious head injuries. Two of the four suspects, 20-year-old Quartez Walker and 19-year-old Bobby Brown, were taken into custody at Stillman College. La Noah Ealy Jr, 18, was arrested at Auburn University in Montgomery, while 20-year-old Daveon Nix was arrested in Sylacauga. Walker was booked on a first-degree assault charge and his bond was set at $20,000. The other three suspects face charges of second-degree assault and are being held on $15,000 each.

Black immigrants, on average, earn more money and use less welfare than blacks born in the United States, raising doubts about the reach and impact of systemic racism

In fact, 30% of black immigrants have college degrees, compared with less than 20% of American-born blacks.

An illegal immigrant from El Salvador is charged with kidnapping a 6-year-old girl from her Texas home and sexually assaulting her

He’s been identified as Edis Moya Alas of El Salvador. Police say that they found the girl with Alas at Titus Park, not far from her home. They made the big break thanks to a neighbor who reported hearing screams in the area. “The young child immediately saw police officers and ran towards us. She was very scared. She was very nervous,” Fort Worth PD said. “We owe a great debt to the citizen that actually heard the screams and notified us to go into that field area.” The girl’s parents woke up around four o’clock Saturday morning to find their front door open and their daughter gone. Alas is charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child and aggravated kidnapping.

Indian teen dies after 68-day fast

For more than two months, a 13-year-old in India took part in an extreme religious fast. Recently she called off that fast, but she fell into a coma two days later and died of cardiac arrest and now her parents, well-off jewelers in Hyderabad, and other family members have been charged with homicide. Aradhana Samdariya's relatives insist that she chose to embark on the 68-day fast of her own volition as part of a ritual in Jainism, an ancient Indian religion that believes "the way to liberation and bliss is to live lives of harmlessness and renunciation" and whose foundation lies in the "concern for the welfare of every being in the universe." But others, including the children's rights group that filed the complaint against Aradhana's family, say that the young teen was coerced, perhaps in the misguided belief it would make her father's business more profitable. Aradhana's grandfather notes that it's not the first time the girl had fasted: He says that she had pulled off an eight-day fast and a 34-day fast, and so was determined to go even longer this time. Apparently the father's business was faltering and the family's guru suggested having Aradhana fast for good luck. According to some accounts she lived on nothing but boiled water during her starvation. Psychologists say that children are especially vulnerable to the guilt that may lure them into such dangerous practices. "The child is made to believe it is for the good of the family," one expert says. "What is sacrificed is the health of the minor."

Despite the concept of a united Ireland being at the core of Irish political debate since partition in 1921, it is astonishing how little in-depth study has been done exploring what it would be like

How would the administration work? Would it involve any major societal changes? Would it be an economic success or basket case? A team of academics from Canada, Switzerland and the US have now tackled the economics question, and have modelled how a 32-county Ireland might fare economically. Their conclusions? Surprisingly good. Reunification could deliver a boon to the enlarged island state worth over €35 billion in eight years. And the North would benefit enormously, with more modest gains for the South. Dr Kurt Hübner from the University of British Colombia in Vancouver led the project, entitled Modelling Irish Unification. Hübner, originally from Germany, received his academic qualifications from the University of Berlin and is an expert on European affairs. He outlines the basis of the research that concluded that a united Ireland would be a winner on the economic sphere. The study required modelling to foresee how the dual economics might combine and that work was done by Renger van Nieuwkoon from Switzerland. Hübner and his colleagues were able to avail of their familiarity with similar work that had been done in Germany after reunification.

‘Birth of a Nation’ flops in opening weekend at box office

“The Birth of a Nation” flopped at the box office in its opening weekend, cementing its place among the steepest falls from grace in recent Hollywood history. The biopic about slave rebellion leader Nat Turner was thought to have the makings of a commercial and critical hit when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016. Ten months later, it opened to an estimated $7.1 million in sixth place with its awards prospects severely hampered, even though it opened in more than 2,100 locations, an unusually wide rollout for a low-budget film. Renewed scrutiny of rape allegations leveled against its director and star, Nate Parker, have completely overwhelmed the movie’s rollout and sparked public debates about whether seeing the movie was a tacit endorsement of its creator.

Mexican man accused of raping eight-year-old ordered to buy her father beer

A 55-year-old former pastor in Mexico was accused of sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl. His punishment? He had to buy her father two crates of beer. The Mexican was only arrested and charged with aggravated rape after media coverage of the incident drew outrage. The sexual assault took place in the "remote indigenous community" of Santiago Quetzalapa, which is ruled by a system known as "traditions and customs." The system allows indigenous people to maintain traditions, but it also allows their leaders to make decisions based on belief instead of the law. The head of a human rights organization in Mexico says that under traditions and customs many sexual violence cases "are settled this way: with a bottle of liquor."

Yawning doesn't mean you're bored, it just means you've got one big, hot brain in your head, according to a new study

Researcher Andrew Gallup had his students go online to collect videos of animals yawning. He then found that he was able to predict the yawn length of various animals based on their brain weight and the number of brain cells in their cortex. “We were just really blown out of the water,” Gallup said. “It’s such a strong predictor.” Perhaps surprisingly, body and mouth size had nothing to do with yawn length. The explanation for brain size correlating to yawn length comes from a theory first proposed by Gallup in 2007. He argues that animals yawn involuntarily to cool their brains. If that's true, it stands to reason that larger brains would require a larger yawn to cool. And it explains why humans' yawns, at 6.5 seconds, are the longest yawns in the animal kingdom, beating out those of gorillas, lions, elephants, and more. However, not all scientists are convinced yawning serves a cooling function, pointing to its contagiousness as evidence of a sociological function. Gallup isn't swayed. “Whether yawning functions specifically to cool the brain can still be debated, but there is no debate on whether yawning has thermoregulatory consequences," he says.

Race and crime in New York City: Of the 1.8 million arrests, tickets and stops in 2015, between 80% and 95% depending on the category involved blacks and Hispanics

The numbers cited include all felony and misdemeanor arrests, juvenile arrests, stops, criminal court summonses, moving traffic violation tickets and transit summonses. The number of stops, tickets and arrests was actually 6.7% lower in 2015 — 1,783,414 compared to 1,913,015 in 2014.

Blacks commit over three-quarters of all shootings, even though they are only 23% of New York City’s population

Add Hispanic shootings to black shootings and you account for 98% of all shootings in New York City. Whites are 34% of the city’s population but they commit less than 2% of all shootings.

A new report presented by Gil Troy of McGill University in Canada, shows that 50% of donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign come from Jewish contributors

The study also found that 25% of donations to the Republican Party come from Jewish donors. Troy says that this is why presidential campaigns are aimed at Jews even though they only make up 2% of American voters. Professor Troy also stated that the electorate system is preferential towards states that have large Jewish populations like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. In those states, there isn’t a clear winner for either candidate but they have large Jewish electorates and that makes the Jews very powerful. Troy estimates that 70% of Jews will vote for Clinton in November 2016, which is similar to the percent of Jews that voted for Barack Obama in the last election. According to Troy, in meetings with Republican officials, Jewish contributors still mostly support the Democratic Party, despite the unwavering pro-Israeli policies of the Republican Party.

An Indian-origin lawyer with apparent Nazi sympathies went on an early morning rampage in Houston, shooting at nine people before he was killed by police

Nathan Desai was wearing military-style clothing with Nazi symbols during the shooting spree when he fired at passing cars. Police said that they did not know why Desai went on the rampage hitting people at random. Desai's name was written with the 's' capitalized in media reports in Houston, making it sound European, but his father has been identified as Prakash Desai.

The Census Bureau has reported that incidents of violent crime — and murders in particular — were up around the United States, but which cities are worst?

Here are the top 10, on a per-capita basis: 1. St. Louis, Missouri, 2. Detroit, 3. Birmingham, 4. Memphis, 5. Milwaukee, 6. Rockford, Illinois 7. Baltimore, 8. Little Rock, Arkansas, 9. Oakland and 10. Kansas City, Missouri.

Babies with big heads are more likely to be clever and have successful futures, a study has shown

Research carried out by UK Biobank has strongly linked higher intelligence with large head circumferences and brain volume. Half a million British people are being monitored by the charity to discover the connection between their genes, their physical and mental health and their path through life. The UK Biobank, launched in 2007, is a major long-term investigation into the respective contributions of genetic predisposition and environmental exposure in the development of disease. The latest evidence is the first finding to emerge from the study that aims to break down the relationship between brain function and DNA. Researchers found highly significant associations were observed between the cognitive test scores in the UK Biobank sample and many polygenic profile scores, including intracranial volume, infant head circumference and childhood cognitive ability. The researchers tested the participants in a variety of ways - looking into their verbal and numerical reasoning, reaction time, memory and educational attainment. Professor Ian Deary, of Edinburgh University, who is leading the research, said that gene variants were also strongly associated with intelligence. In addition to there being shared genetic influences between cognitive skills and some physical and mental health states, the study also found that cognitive skills share genetic influences with brain size, body shape and educational attainments, according to Deary. The researchers looked at 17 genes which affect brain function and impact mental and physical health. The new evidence is so accurate experts claim that it could even predict how likely it was that a baby would go to university based on their DNA. This builds on evidence from a study by the same team which found that clever people are more likely to be healthier than those with a lower IQ. This is due to a genetic link between how our bodies manage diseases and intelligence. The researchers analyzed data from around 100,000 people held in the UK Biobank. They compared each person's mental test data with their genome and found that traits linked to disease and thinking skills shared the same genetic influences.

Nationally, the murder of black Americans outpaces that of whites — 7,039 African-Americans were killed in 2015, compared with 5,854 whites

That is in a nation where 13% of Americans identify solely as African-American and 77% identify solely as white. In 2014, 698 more blacks were killed than whites, according to the FBI. In 2015, 1,185 more blacks were killed than whites.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is demanding a full-scale investigation into the rape of at least 11 women at the hands of Mexican police during a crackdown on protesters in 2006 — a crackdown ordered by now-President Enrique Peña Nieto

Peña Nieto was the governor of the state of Mexico when hundreds of people took over a town square to protest police stopping vendors from selling flowers at a nearby market. More than 40 women — vendors, students, and activists — were violently arrested. The commission found that at least 11 women were "raped, beaten, penetrated with metal objects, robbed, and humiliated, made to sing aloud to entertain police." The government initially accused the women of making it up but eventually acknowledged the rape and abuse. Regardless, no police were ever prosecuted. Instead, the women were prosecuted, with five of them spending more than a year locked up on minor charges, such as blocking traffic. While Peña Nieto was not directly accused of wrongdoing by the commission, any thorough investigation would involve looking into his involvement in ordering the crackdown. It's yet another scandal for a president whose approval ratings have been tanking amid accusations of corruption and violence. In total, two protesters were killed and another 207 were "victims of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" in the 2006 incident.

Authorities have released their first wanted name in connection to the recent Manhattan bombing

The FBI is looking for 28-year-old Ahmad Khan Rahami, who is described as a naturalized US citizen born in Afghanistan. His last known address was in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where five more devices were found. The development comes after five people were detained as authorities try to determine whether recent blasts in New York City and New Jersey are related.

Researchers have found that intelligence is always linked to chess skill no matter the age of the participant

If you were hoping to become a chess master by practicing 10,000 hours, think again. Contrary to the theory that expertise at chess is based on intensive training, researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded based on a meta-analysis of 19 studies that hard work is important but not enough. In this game, if you're not smart, you're probably sunk. "When it comes to expertise, training and practice certainly are a piece of the puzzle," psychology professor Zach Hambrick says. "But this study shows that, for chess at least, intelligence is another piece of the puzzle." The researchers found that intelligence is always linked to chess skill no matter the age of the participant, though the link appears strongest in younger players or those at lower skill levels. It's possible, the team suggests, that this is because upper-echelon players are all pretty bright anyway.

Recent census data shows that the most common age for Hispanics is 47 years younger than it is for whites

In the 1995-1996 California school year, whites made up 40.42% of students and Hispanics trailed with 38.74% of the student population. Fast forward 20 years and Hispanics make up 53.97% of California’s student population, and whites represent just 24.10%. The demographic shift seen in California public schools was even more significant in Texas. In the 1994-1995 school year, Hispanics made up 36.1% of students statewide, and another 46.9% were white. Twenty years later, Texas public school students are 29% white and 52% Hispanic. Texas, as a whole, is 38.8% Hispanic and 43.0% white. New York Department of Education figures show that between the school year ending in 2000 and 2014, public schools statewide got 9.2% less white, and 6.7% more Hispanic. The state during this same time period became just 5.4% less white, and 3.7% more Hispanic. In all three of these states, the proportion of black students remained relatively consistent. For the first time ever in 2014, minority babies outnumber white ones so the American school children population will continue to get less white.

The anti-white political agenda of the Jews is beginning to bite them in the ass

Jews are finding out that many leftists hate Israel almost as much as they hate the United States.

Animal sacrifices as part of the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha have combined with rain in Dhaka to form rivers of blood in the streets of the Bangladeshi capital

Poor drainage in the city makes flooding a regular fact of Dhaka life. But the problem is rarely illustrated as vividly as it was recently, after thousands of sheep, goats and cows were slaughtered. One of the two holiest events in the Muslim calendar, Eid al-Adha commemorates the willingness of the prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son at God’s request. Authorities in Dhaka said that they had established hundreds of designated sacrifice spots in the run-up to the festival to make it easier to clean away blood and animal carcasses. But local media said that most residents eschewed the special areas, preferring to make sacrifices in their garages or on the streets outside their homes. The result was a nightmarish blending of blood and water that filled streets and narrow lanes across Dhaka. “I felt I was walking through a post-apocalyptic neighborhood,” said Atish Saha, a Dhaka-based artist. “To be honest, I was scared. It was an image of mass violence that shouldn’t ever be experienced.” Particularly jarring was said to be the sight of families, including infants, wading into the flood in celebratory “Eid day” moods. “It made me speechless,” he said.

The majority of people who didn’t vote in the 2012 presidential election were white, middle-income and middle-aged

Among voters with little education, African-Americans are 1.7 times more likely to vote than whites. Black voters, particularly women, have the highest turnout rates over all. The turnout gap with whites is most pronounced at lower levels of income and education. Experts give several explanations for high black turnout, which has increased by nearly 20 percentage points since the mid-1990s. The presidential campaigns of Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama encouraged more African-Americans to register to vote, and black churches have played a strong role in mobilization. African-Americans are also more reliable partisan voters — more than 90% voted for President Obama in 2012 — so Democrats may be more likely to put resources toward getting them to turn out than other groups. Turnout rates for Hispanic voters are much lower over all. Language barriers and weaker connections to the political system are part of the explanation, said Melissa R. Michelson, a professor of political science at Menlo College in California. “There’s this idea that even if you are legally entitled to vote, you don’t see it as something that matters to you and your community,” she said. But Hispanic voters are not a homogeneous group. Hispanics who are naturalized citizens are more likely to vote than those born in the United States. Immigrant communities perceive a higher stake in election outcomes, Professor Michelson said. “Being an immigrant has become a politicized identity, and there’s a very clear connection between your identity as an immigrant and what’s going on in the political areas,” she said.

A prominent Satmar Hasidic rabbi from Israel and one of his followers have been arrested and charged in New York with plotting to kidnap and kill a man who refused to give his wife a religious divorce

Rabbi Aharon Goldberg, 55, and Shimen Liebowitz, 25, were charged in Manhattan Federal Court, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement, one day after their arrest by the FBI. They recruited an unnamed man and paid him more than $55,000 to murder the recalcitrant husband. Though Goldberg is based in Israel, both men are said to be prominent members of the Kiryas Joel community in upstate New York. The paid hitman contacted the FBI in early July 2016 to report that he had been recruited to kidnap the recalcitrant husband in order to torture him and force him to issue a “get,” a religious Jewish divorce, to his wife. The kidnapping would take place either in Pennsylvania or in Uman, Ukraine, where the husband was scheduled to travel to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. The hitman was advanced $25,000 in order to plan the kidnapping, according to the FBI. Later meetings and conversations, in which the rabbi discussed the possibility of also killing the intended victim, identified as a taxi driver, were recorded. In a final conversation in September 2016, the rabbi told the hitman that he also wanted the husband killed. “As if the plan to kidnap the victim and force him to divorce his wife in this alleged conspiracy wasn’t bad enough, the plotters allegedly decided halfway through the arrangement to go a step further and add murder to the list of their planned crimes,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney Jr. said in the Justice Department statement. “Our country protects freedom of religious beliefs and practices, but no one is allowed to plot a kidnapping and murder regardless of their motivation.” Goldberg and Liebowitz are charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, and one count each of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, which carries a maximum prison term of 10 years.

Indo-Japanese woman Priyanka Yoshikawa, who was recently crowned Miss Japan 2016, is now facing the ire of the purist Japanese, for being a haafu or only half-Japanese

While many people supported her and portrayed her as the icon of the racial diversity of Japan, some took it to social media to question her ethnicity of being a haafu, the Japanese word for “half,” used to represent a mixed race person. Many people supporting the haafu argument raised questions whether people from mixed-race backgrounds were given preference over racially pure Japanese in beauty contests. “I don’t mean to discriminate against races or appearances, but are the haafu people given preferential treatment in beauty contests these days?” tweeted a user going by the Twitter handle @cyokuri. Some people went on to say that the contest should have been won by a racially pure Japanese. This is the second year in a row, that a bi-racial person is winning the Miss Japan beauty contest. Last year, Ariana Miyamoto, a 22-year-old half-African was crowned as Miss Japan and she represented the country on the world stage. Born in Tokyo to an Indian father and a Japanese mother, Yoshikawa is a trained kick boxer and holds an elephant trainer’s license. Despite raising questions about her ethnicity, Yoshikawa has decided to fight against the racial prejudice. “Before Ariana, haafu girls couldn’t represent Japan. That’s what I thought too. I didn’t doubt it or challenge it until this day. Ariana encouraged me a lot by showing me and showing all mixed girls the way,” Yoshikawa said. Yoshikawa has gone through many bad experiences in Japan because of her racial background. She was bullied because of her skin color when she returned to Japan after spending about 10 years in the United States and in India. “We have problems, we’ve been struggling and it hurts. When I came back to Japan, everyone thought I was a germ,” she said about the struggles of bi-racial people in Japan. Multi-racial children make up only 2% of those born annually.

British MPs have urged China’s ambassador to intervene in a row over racist comments issued by a Chinese airline about ethnic minority areas of London

An image of text from an inflight Air China magazine posted on social media prompted outrage after it warned passengers that “precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians, Pakistanis and black people”. The text, tweeted by Beijing-based producer Haze Fan of US news channel CNBC, added: “We advise tourists not to go out alone at night, and females always to be accompanied by another person when travelling.”