Venezuela has become a failed state

According to the International Monetary Fund's latest projections, it has the world's worst economic growth, worst inflation and ninth-worst unemployment rate right now. It also has the second-worst murder rate, and an infant mortality rate that's gotten 100 times worse itself the past four years. And in case all that wasn't bad enough, its currency, going by black market rates, has lost 99% of its value since the start of 2012. It's a complete social and economic collapse. And it has happened despite the fact that Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves. Venezuela's government is to blame. It's a gangster state that doesn't know how to do anything other than sell drugs and steal money for itself. Indeed, two of President Nicolás Maduro's nephews were arrested on charges of conspiring to bring 800 kilos of cocaine into the United States, the president's right-hand man is suspected of running a drug ring himself, and public money has a habit of disappearing into what could only be private pockets. Two ex-officials estimate that as much as $300 billion has been misappropriated the past decade. It's enough that Transparency International ranks Venezuela as the ninth-most corrupt country in the world. The only ones worse — Somalia, North Korea, Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Angola, Libya and Iraq — are a collection of rogue and war-torn nations. Venezuela is the answer to what would happen if an economically illiterate drug cartel took over a country. This corruption hasn't just enriched the few. It has also impoverished the many. That's because the government has tried to control the economy to the point of killing it — all, of course, in the name of "socialism."

An economist has suggested that a British exit from the European Union could lead to a united Ireland

David McWilliams said that if Britain votes to leave the European Union "it could start a domino effect - at the end of which is a united Ireland". McWilliams also said that he believed "unionists have now an economic incentive to join a united Ireland because the union is impoverishing them". McWilliams says that "Here is the possible scenario that will unfold if there’s a break-up of the UK. The English lead the British out of Europe. The Scottish then go to the polls again, wanting to stay in Europe. They have to leave the UK to stay in the EU, and by a small margin they vote to stay in Europe but leave the English. Not unfeasible. The rump UK becomes an entity involving a eurosceptic England, a modestly pro-European but compliant Wales and an ever-divided Northern Ireland. However it is a Northern Ireland shorn of its fraternal brothers, the Scots – in a union with the ambivalent English. There has never been the same cultural affinity between the English and the Northern Unionists. Unlike many Southerners, my bonds with that part of the world are strong. Ethnically, without Scotland, the union of Northern Ireland and a multicultural but nationalistic little England is not particularly coherent. All the while, the demographic forces are on the side of nationalism." The economist and broadcaster suggested that "the union has been an economic calamity for everyone in the North". "Well, in the distant past, there was good reason to believe that the union preserved living standards in the north, but this is a myth and has not been the case since 1990," he says. "Indeed, the end of the Troubles, which should have marked the resurgence of the relative performance of the north, has actually delivered the opposite. Relative to the south, the northern economy has fallen backwards since the guns were silenced. If there was an economic peace dividend, it went south. Now with Brexit looming and the concrete and more profound underlying changes in demography, the issue of a united Ireland may be back on the table quicker than most of us imagined - or cared to dread." He added: "Interestingly, unionists have now an economic incentive to join a united Ireland because the union is impoverishing them, but I suspect they'd prefer to get poor in a semi-detached UK rather than join a much more coherent all-Ireland economic endeavor."

Wendell Pierce, the black actor known for portraying Bunk, a world-weary detective in the television drama “The Wire,” has been arrested in Atlanta and charged with battery after a discussion about politics turned violent

According to Maggie Elena Baca, who was staying at the Loews Atlanta Hotel with two friends, Pierce struck her in the head during a confrontation that culminated at the door to her room. Pierce, also a guest at the hotel, was with his girlfriend when he encountered Baca, who was sitting with friends in a hallway on the 23rd floor, she told the police. As the two groups began to talk politics, Pierce became upset, she said. The black actor then began to push her, Baca told the police, and as she and her friends walked away to their room, Pierce followed them and tried to force his way in. In the tussle, Baca said, Pierce “began to hit her in the head and grab her hoodie, ripping the hood off.” Pierce, 52, was taken into custody at the hotel, the police said. He was booked and released on $1,000 bail. As news of his arrest rippled across the web, Pierce withdrew from plans to receive an honorary degree and deliver the commencement address at the Newark campus of Rutgers University. In addition to his role on “The Wire,” Pierce is also well known as a star of the HBO series “Treme,” set in his hometown, New Orleans, and recently portrayed Clarence Thomas in the political drama “Confirmation,” which had its premiere last month on HBO. He also plays a recurring character on the revival of the situation comedy “The Odd Couple” on CBS.

If Jews are so racially tolerant why don't they send their children to school with black and Hispanic kids?

Steve Sailer looks at Jewish flight from public schools in Los Angeles.

A Jewish teacher who fabricated a knife attack by Islamic State terrorists in France has been given a six month suspended prison sentence

Tzion Saadon, 57, told his lies in November 2015, a few days after 130 people were murdered during a single night of violence in Paris. Inviting journalists to his home in Marseille, he said that three men had assaulted him as they shouted Islamic slogans, and Death to Jews. Showing of his stomach wounds, Saadon even said that one of his attackers wore an Isis T-shirt, and displayed pictures of Mohamed Merah, the Al-Qaeda gunmen who murdered both Jews and Muslims in 2012. But there were no independent witnesses to Saadon’s ordeal, and forensic examinations later proved that he had caused the knife slashes himself. Saadon kept up his story throughout his trial in Marseille, but prosecutor Andre Ribes said: “The truth is he wasn’t assaulted in the way he says.” President Francois Hollande himself had been among those who commented on the Saadon case in 2015, saying that it was a “barbarous” example of rising anti-Semitism.

Results from the largest single study of the genetic and environmental causes of asthma in African-American children suggest that only a tiny fraction of known genetic risk factors for the disease apply to this population, raising concerns for clinicians and scientists working to stem the asthma epidemic among African-Americans

At the same time, the research also identified new genetic risk factors for asthma in these children, a critical first step toward improving diagnosis and treatment. Ongoing research is digging further into this data to investigate a link between these new risk factors and asthma severity and drug response, two major contributors to asthma mortality. "Almost all the genetic studies of asthma have been done using white patients only, but you can't assume these results will apply to other ethnic groups," said study senior author Esteban Burchard, MD, MPH, a professor in the UCSF Schools of Pharmacy and Medicine, director of the UCSF Asthma Collaboratory lab and a member of Obama's Precision Medicine Initiative. "This paper is an important first step towards truly understanding the biology of asthma in African-Americans." More work remains to confirm whether the genetic risk factors for asthma identified in previous studies are truly absent in African-Americans or merely too subtle to be detected in the current study, the authors say, but the results clearly show that the biology of asthma is different black children and previously studied groups. "This paper shows that understanding that people are different — not better or worse, equal or unequal, but different at a genetic level — can be important and should be looked at to improve health," said Oona Risse-Adams. In asthma, chronic breathing difficulties are caused by inflammation of the airways, which are thought to arise due to both environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility. Asthma is the most common chronic childhood disease in the world, and varies significantly in prevalence in different racial/ethnic populations. In the United States, childhood asthma prevalence is highest among Puerto Ricans (18.4%), followed by blacks (14.6%), whites (8.2%) and Mexicans (4.8%). Puerto Ricans and African-Americans also tend to experience more severe asthma that is harder to control with common drugs. An increasing number of suspected asthma risk genes have come to light with the advent of genome-wide association studies (GWAS), but despite the epidemic of the disease in African-American and Puerto Rican communities, less than 5% of all such federally funded research of lung disease has included any racial/ethnic minorities at all. The team analyzed data from the Asthma Collaboratory's Study of African Americans, Asthma, Genes and Environments (SAGE), which was supported in large part by the Sandler Family Foundation. The SAGE study is the largest study of gene-environment interactions for asthma in African-American children – it includes genetic and ancestry data as well as measures of local air quality, family socioeconomic status, experience of discrimination, and obesity and other health measures in a cohort of children from around the San Francisco Bay Area. The study analyzed genetic data from 1,227 SAGE participants — 812 with asthma and 415 who served as healthy controls — to identify genetic markers associated with the onset of the disease in African-Americans and to compare these markers with those already known from previous research. The team also looked for possible genetic links between asthma and obesity, which often occur together. To the researchers' surprise, 95% of known genetic risk factors for asthma from previous research could not be replicated in the SAGE cohort. The team also identified a number of new risk factors in the African-American children of the SAGE study, including a novel variant in the PTCHD3 gene, as significant risk factors for asthma. "The top three genes we identified as being associated with asthma were previously linked with both obesity and inflammation," team leader Marquitta White said. "We already knew there was a strong clinical link between obesity and asthma inflammation, and this result sheds a bit more light on the biology of that relationship in these kids." Interestingly, she said, the way the genetics panned out, it appears that these gene variants may be separately driving obesity and asthma, rather than, for instance, driving obesity which then puts kids at higher risk of asthma. But that will require further research to understand. Ongoing experiments being prepared by White and her summer students, all of whom have continued to work in the UCSF Asthma Collaboratory in their spare time, aim to address how the newly discovered risk factors predict differences in asthma severity within the African-American community and investigate why some respond poorly to common drugs. And the lab as a whole continues to dig deeper into the biology of asthma in minority communities using more precise whole-genome sequencing technology. "We want to understand why some minority communities have higher rates of disease and how they may respond differently to treatment," Burchard said. "But the risk factors we identify in these understudied populations can also point the way to new biology, which can be important for everyone."

The more mixed the Sunday morning pews are, the fewer people are likely to be in them

That’s the primary finding of a new study from Baylor University. Researchers studied the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, where racial diversity doubled from 1993 to 2012, and found that, at the same time, churches with the greatest diversity growth also had the steepest declines in attendance. The study also found that rises in racial diversity were associated with declines in weekly attendance, especially in the 1990s. In addition, older congregations were more likely to see a decline in attendance and congregations in predominantly white communities were more likely to grow. The study was conducted among more than 11,000 ELCA congregations and used data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The ELCA is one of the least racially diverse denominations in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, with white people making up 96% of its membership. Only the National Baptist Convention, with 99% black membership, is less diverse.

Black males between the ages of 14 and 17 commit homicide at ten times the rate of white and Hispanic male teens combined

Blacks of all ages commit homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined, and at eleven times the rate of whites alone. In America’s 75 largest counties in 2009, blacks constituted 62% of all robbery defendants, 57% of all murder defendants, 45% of all assault defendants - but only 15% of the population. Moreover, 40% of all cop killers have been black over the last decade. Blacks make up 23% of New York City’s population, but they commit 75% of all shootings, 70% of all robberies, and 66% of all violent crime, according to victims and witnesses. Add Hispanic shootings and you account for 98% of all illegal gunfire in the city. Whites are 33% of the city’s population, but they commit fewer than 2% of all shootings, 4% of all robberies, and 5% of all violent crime. In Brownsville, Brooklyn, the per capita shooting rate is 81 times higher than in nearby Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — the first neighborhood predominantly black, the second neighborhood predominantly white and Asian. Over the last decade, an officer’s chance of getting killed by a black has been 18.5 times higher than the chance of an unarmed black getting killed by a cop.

Black African crime: A ten-year-old Swedish girl was molested by a teenage migrant in her own home, just weeks after the alleged underaged boy had been placed to live with her family

The victim was sexually assaulted after falling asleep in the family home in Eslov, southern Sweden, and awoke to find the perpetrator fondling her breasts. Isak Andai from Eritrea claims to be 15 years old, however his identity or age has not been proven and court documents state that he may be as old as 19. The victim lives with her parents and an older siblings in Eslov, 25miles north of Malmo; one of many families in Sweden who have opened up their homes to help the government house new arrivals following the refugee crisis. Eritrean Andai, who arrived in Sweden without his parents, had been placed with the family, along with with a second unaccompanied under-aged male migrant, a few weeks prior to the assault. Andai and the other migrant boy, aged 17, had been staying in the victim's bedroom, while the victim had slept in the same room as her parents in order to make room for the two boys. The victim told police how she had been spending time with Andai in the family's front room on the night of the assault. They had been sat on the sofa using their smartphones and taking pictures, Lund County Court heard. Andai had left the room, and the girl soon fell asleep on the sofa, but awoke when she felt Andai fondling and pressing hard on her breasts on top of the bra she was wearing. The ten-year-old told police that she woke up because it hurt, and when Andai saw that she was awake he jumped off, court documents state. She said that her breasts hurt for several minutes afterwards and later described how she was scared of Andai after the assault. The victim told her brother and sister, both in their 20s, what had happened, after which her mother was informed and Andai reported to police. When Andai arrived in Sweden he claimed that he had been born in 2000, based on what he had been told by his parents and what his identification had said. However as any documents of identification had been lost on the journey from Eritrea to Sweden, his identity and age could not be established, and no further tests were carried out by Swedish authorities to support his claims. During the investigation, Andai told police that he had started school when he was around ten, attended school for seven years, and then left school two years prior to arriving in Sweden, which would make him 19 years old. Andai was convicted of sexual molestation and sentenced to pay the victim 5,000 SEK (£425) in damages and to undergo ten hours of therapy.

Immigration and Jewish hypocrisy

Why is it right for Israel to protect its borders but wrong for the United States to do the same?

Scientists have found genes that show hair color can affect how likely someone is to have sex

Natural redheads – both men and women - were more likely to delay having sex until an older age than people of different hair coloring. Women who had freckles were also more likely to wait longer before their first sexual experience, although this had no effect on men with freckles.

A white South African high court judge is the subject of the latest in a series of race rows in the country after she pointed out that black South African men regarded rape as a cultural right

Mabel Jansen, a high court judge for the past three years who works in Pretoria, told commenters on a Facebook thread that "99 per cent" of her cases were "black fathers/uncles/brothers raping children as young as 5 years old", then asked one poster: "Is this part of your culture?" She said that she was “yet to meet a black girl who wasn’t raped by the age of 12”. In a series of comments, Jansen said that black mothers were “so brain-washed that they tell the children that it is the fathers’ birth right to be the first”. “In their culture (black men) a woman is there to pleasure them. Period. It is seen as an absolute right and a woman’s consent is not required,” she wrote. “Murder is also not biggy. And gang rapes of baby, daughter and mother a pleasurable pass time.”

Britain's top universities are losing ground in the world university rankings because they are forced to focus on diversity and recruiting from disadvantaged backgrounds, experts say

The country's best institutions, including Oxford and Cambridge, have been under mounting pressure to recruit more students from ethnic minorities after David Cameron attacked them for racial bias. Education experts blamed "government interference" on quotas of students from state schools, ethnic minorities and working class backgrounds was hindering Britain's top universities. Such pressure is leading universities to take their "eye off the ball" in terms of improving quality of research and teaching, universities have argued. Britain remains the second-most represented nation in the table of top educators, but has still lost considerable ground this year. Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: "The UK university system is still punching above its weight, but there are worrying signs that its global standing may be in decline. In part, this is because for immigration reasons universities have become less open to students and scholars from around the world. But it is also because of government interference. Its current polices are causing universities to take their eye off the ball of recruiting the best to comply with Government demands to increase the proportions entering and graduating from state schools, ethnic minorities and postcodes from which, in the past, few students have come. Universities in the United States dominate the rankings because the outstanding fully-independent universities set the pace and most – state as well as private - are well funded, receiving generous donations from former students." The comments come after British universities slipped down in the latest table for the world's best institutions. The University of Bristol and Durham University have fallen out of the top 100, bringing Britain's total number of top universities to 10 for 2016 - down from 12 last year. Cambridge and Oxford remain in the top five, but have both moved down two places on their 2015 ranking. The United States continues to dominate the Times Higher education (THE) reputation rankings, with the likes of Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Princeton and Yale in top places. Earlier this year the prime minister announced new laws which will force universities to disclose what proportion of ethnic minority applicants get places and in what subjects. The new rules will require publication of data on applicants, broken down by course, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background. Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of universities, said: “While league tables shouldn’t be used in isolation to make judgments about the quality of institutions, the UK has, by any measure, some of the very best universities in the world. We outperform many larger nations but this is no time to rest on our laurels. These rankings can be seen as a warning that the rest of the world is catching up with us and Asian universities, in particular, are snapping at our heels. We risk losing out on further business and overseas funding unless there is greater investment in our world-class universities and a more risk-based, proportionate approach to regulation." Phil Baty, Times Higher Education rankings editor, said: "The UK remains the second most-represented nation in this list of the most reputable universities – behind only the US – but it has lost ground this year. It claims 10 universities in the top 100, down from 12 last year, and seven of these have are ranked in lower positions. Even the country’s most prestigious institutions have slipped, with the universities of Cambridge and Oxford each dropping two places to fourth and fifth place respectively. The UK’s diminishing performance occurs as institutions in Asia rapidly rise up the table; the continent has 17 representatives, up from 10 last year."

Angela Merkel has warned that Europe risks a “return to nationalism” if it does not secure its external borders, as polls showed support for the far-Right is rising in Germany amid growing fears of Islam

“The future of Europe is at stake,” the German chancellor said in a passionate plea to preserve freedom of movement and the Schengen Agreement on border-free travel within the continent. Even as she spoke, a new poll shows that support for the far-Right Alternative for Germany(AfD) party is at its highest ever. “Europe stretches from the North Pole to the Mediterranean. We must defend the Schengen Treaty and the external borders, or we risk a return to nationalism,” Merkel said. She was speaking at a joint press conference in Rome with Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister. Both leaders spoke out against plans by Austria to close its border with Italy at the Brenner Pass, to prevent migrants entering. The AfD is riding high in the German polls on a wave of public discontent over the migrant crisis, and recorded its highest ever support less than a week after it adopted an anti-Muslim manifesto. It is now in third place on 15%, just five points behind Merkel’s main coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), who have slipped to 20%. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) remain in first place in the monthly ARD survey, with 33%. But, perhaps more worryingly for the German chancellor, a second poll found the AfD may be in step with voters with its overtly anti-Muslim stance. Only 22% of Germans believe that Islam belongs in their country, according to the poll for Bild newspaper by the Insa institute. An overwhelming 61% agreed that Islam does not belong in Germany — a central plank of the AfD’s new manifesto. The poll found attitudes had hardened considerably over the past year, which has seen over one million asylum-seekers enter Germany, the majority of them Muslim. A similar survey in Jaunary 2015 found that 37% believed Islam belonged in Germany, while 47% did not. An estimated 4 million Muslims live in Germany as citizens or permanent residents.

Muslim violence: More than a dozen leaders of a small village in northwestern Pakistan have been arrested and charged with burning a teenage girl to death because she helped one of her friends elope, security officials said

The crime, which is renewing attention on Pakistan’s horrific record of protecting women and children from abuse, took place on the outskirts of Abbottabad in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Khurram Rasheed, police chief for the northern district of Abbottabad, said that the body of Ambreen Riasat was found in a burned van in the tourist resort of Donga Gali. Her exact age was in dispute. A graphic photo of the teenager’s charred remains quickly circulated online. It appeared as though the girl’s arms had been bound before she was set on fire. Initially, police suspected that she may have been raped by a scorned boyfriend or as part of a family dispute. But Saeed Wazir, the regional police chief in Abbottabad, said that the killing was a “pre-planned act” involving 14 village leaders. Wazir said that the entire village council had sanctioned the act to send a message to other minors. “They said she must be burnt alive to make a lesson for other girls,” he said. In an act of defiance against Pakistan’s strict Islamic and paternal customs, Wazir said, the victim had helped one of her friends secretly marry her boyfriend. The bride “didn’t obey her father’s will and did a love marriage at court with a guy,” he said. After the bride’s father found out, he requested that village elders investigate. In many parts of Pakistan, women and girls are expected to receive their father’s consent before marrying. According to Wazir, the village elders investigating the marriage quickly discovered that the victim had helped her friend evade her father’s will. The elders decided that the victim needed to be punished for not disclosing her role in the marriage. Several men then dragged the teenager out of her house and tied her into the van, Wazir said. “Despite the requests and pleas from her parents, villagers forcibly brought her out and set her afire while roping her to the seat of the vehicle,” he said. Both the leader of the Jirga and the father of the newlywed girl were arrested, Wazir said. A dozen other men who participated in the Jirga also were charged, he added. The case represents a troublesome expansion of mob-like tactics that women can face in Pakistan when they disobey their parents or extended family members. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 8,694 girls and women have died in so-called honor killings here between 2004 and 2015. Those crimes involved revenge killings for dishonoring a family, village or local custom. About one-fourth of those cases involved the death of a minor. Although most common in remote areas, honor killings still occur in Pakistan even in larger, more progressive cities.

Analyses of ancient DNA from prehistoric humans paint a picture of dramatic population change in Europe from 45,000 to 7,000 years ago, according to a new study led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator David Reich at Harvard Medical School

The new genetic data reveal two big changes in prehistoric human populations that are closely linked to the end of the last Ice Age around 19,000 years ago. As the ice sheet retreated, Europe was repopulated by prehistoric humans from southwest Europe (e.g., Spain). Then, in a second event about 14,000 years ago, populations from the southeast (e.g., Turkey, Greece) spread into Europe, displacing the first group of humans. Archaeological studies have shown that modern humans swept into Europe about 45,000 years ago and caused the demise of the Neanderthals, indicated by the disappearance of Neanderthal tools in the archaeological record, explained Reich. The researchers also knew that during the Ice Age - a long period of time that ended about 12,000 years ago, with its peak intensity between 25,000 and 19,000 years ago - glaciers covered Scandinavia and northern Europe all the way to northern France. As the ice sheets retreated beginning 19,000 years ago, prehistoric humans spread back into northern Europe. But prior to this study, there were only four samples of prehistoric European modern humans 45,000 to 7,000 years old for which genomic data were available, which made it all but impossible to understand how human populations migrated or evolved during this period. "Trying to represent this vast period of European history with just four samples is like trying to summarize a movie with four still images. With 51 samples, everything changes; we can follow the narrative arc; we get a vivid sense of the dynamic changes over time," said Reich. "And what we see is a population history that is no less complicated than that in the last 7,000 years, with multiple episodes of population replacement and immigration on a vast and dramatic scale, at a time when the climate was changing dramatically." The genetic data show that, beginning 37,000 years ago, all Europeans come from a single founding population that persisted through the Ice Age, said Reich. The founding population has some deep branches in different parts of Europe, one of which is represented by a specimen from Belgium. This branch seems to have been displaced in most parts of Europe 33,000 years ago, but around 19,000 years ago, a population related to it re-expanded across Europe, Reich explained. Based on the earliest sample in which this ancestry is observed, it is plausible that this population expanded from the southwest, present-day Spain, after the Ice Age peaked. The second event that the researchers detected happened 14,000 years ago. "We see a new population turnover in Europe, and this time it seems to be from the east, not the west," said Reich. "We see very different genetics spreading across Europe that displaces the people from the southwest who were there before. These people persisted for many thousands of years until the arrival of farming." The researchers also detected some mixture with Neanderthals, around 45,000 years ago, as modern humans spread across Europe. The prehistoric human populations contained 3% to 6% of Neanderthal DNA, but today most humans only have about 2%. "Neanderthal DNA is slightly toxic to modern humans," explained Reich, and this study provides evidence that natural selection is removing Neanderthal ancestry.

Improper functioning of the mitochondria, a cell's source of energy, may help account for the fact that African-American men with prostate cancer respond poorly to the same conventional therapies provided to white American men, according to research led by Dhyan Chandra, PhD, Associate Professor of Oncology in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI)

"In an earlier study, we provided the first evidence that African-American men possess reduced levels of mitochondrial genetic material in healthy prostate tissues, compared to Caucasian-American men. This new study highlights the importance of mitochondrial dysfunction as one of the main reasons for prostate cancer health disparities," says Dr. Chandra. "We conclude that the presence of severe mitochondrial dysfunction in African-American men with prostate cancer, compared with Caucasian men with the disease, would be one of the potential reasons for the increased cancer resistance to chemotherapy and the recurrence of disease." Mitochondrial dysfunction is strongly linked to chemotherapeutic resistance leading to relapse of prostate cancer, but its effects can sometimes be overcome by treatment with the small molecule dichloroacetate. In prostate cancer cells from African-American men, dichloroacetate did not restore mitochondrial function to required levels. This mitochondrial dysfunction within prostate cancer cells appears to make African-American men more resistant to current chemotherapy, putting them at greater risk for disease spread. The identification of new anticancer agents that would restore mitochondrial activity may result in better disease control, the researchers emphasize. "These findings may provide an explanation for the higher incidence and mortality rates of prostate cancer among African-American men. African-American patients might get more positive outcomes after major restoration of mitochondrial function, which could improve the anticancer effects of therapy," adds Dr. Chandra.

Muslims and gays: Murders force Bangladeshi gay rights activists underground

Xulhaz Mannan was a rallying figure for Bangladesh's marginalized but increasingly outspoken lesbian, gay and transgender community, but his brutal murder has dealt a huge blow to the movement and forced some of its leaders underground. Mannan, who founded Bangladesh's first magazine for gays and lesbians which he used to launch a vibrant rights movement in the deeply religious, Muslim-majority country, was hacked to death along with a fellow activist. Friends and fellow campaigners this week rushed to remove all trace of their activism from social media sites, fearing they could themselves become targets. A group of unidentified attackers carrying machetes and guns murdered Mannan and Mahbub Tonoy after gaining access to his Dhaka apartment. It was the latest in a series of killings of secular bloggers and liberal activists in Bangladesh that have caused global outrage, and sparked fears that the attackers are expanding their range of targets to include openly gay people. Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) has said that it killed the men, accusing them of working to "promote homosexuality" in Bangladesh. The government, however, says that homegrown Islamists were responsible. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has blamed the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist ally, Jamaat-e-Islami.

Gay politician crime: A federal judge has sentenced former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert to one year and three months in federal prison — a term above what prosecutors had recommended and one that clearly took into account the sexual abuse allegations that generated the criminal case against the Illinois Republican

Prosecutors called the sentence a “day of reckoning” for a man who was once a revered high school teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois and who ascended into the highest ranks of American politics. Even before the hearing, prosecutors had revealed in court filings how Hastert had molested or inappropriately touched five teenagers affiliated with the wrestling team he coached decades ago, and U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin forced him to acknowledge that abuse in specific terms. The hearing, in a small courtroom packed with reporters and others, was an emotional one — highlighted by a tearful statement from a victim speaking publicly for the first time and a lengthy monologue from the judge that leveled sharp attacks at Hastert. For his part, Hastert told the judge that he was “deeply ashamed” to be in court and was still “struggling to come to terms with events that occurred four decades ago.” He said that he “mistreated some of my athletes that I coached.” “The thing I want to do today is say I’m sorry to those I have hurt and misled,” he said. “They looked to me, and I took advantage of them.” Hastert, 74, who arrived at the courthouse in a wheelchair, was allowed to remain free until federal prison officials find a facility that can tend to his substantial health problems. As part of his sentence, he will have to undergo sex offender treatment. He left the courthouse without talking to reporters. Hastert did not plead guilty to any sex crimes. Rather, he admitted in October 2015 that he had withdrawn money in increments that would allow him to avoid having to report it — itself a crime carrying a maximum five-year sentence. The money, investigators would come to learn, was meant to buy the silence of a man who alleged that Hastert had victimized him as a youth. In court, though, Hastert was forced to face abuse allegations in all their dark detail. Jolene Burdge — who has alleged previously that Hastert abused her now deceased brother, Steven Reinboldt, years ago — told Hastert how Reinboldt felt “betrayed, ashamed and embarrassed” by what had happened to him. She said that she hoped by sharing his story publicly, she had become Hastert’s “worst nightmare.” “You were supposed to keep him safe, not violate him,” Burdge said. Scott Cross, 53, a married father of two, fought back tears as he told the judge how Hastert, who also is married and has two children, abused him during his senior year of high school. Cross, who wrestled on a team Hastert coached and whose brother is a former Illinois legislator, said that he “looked up to Coach Hastert. He was a key figure in my life.” But one day after practice, when Cross stayed late to cut weight, he ended up alone with Hastert in a locker room, and Hastert offered him a massage. Cross said that while he was lying on a training table, Hastert pulled down his shorts and touched him in a sexual way. “I was stunned by what he was doing,” Cross said. Cross said that he got up, left and “did not say anything to anyone.” “As a 17-year-old boy, I was devastated,” he said. “I tried to figure out why Coach Hastert had singled me out.” Prosecutors had shared the outlines of Cross’s story in sentencing papers — identifying him only as Individual D — but now marked the first time that he or any victim had shared their experience publicly. As Cross talked, Hastert sat motionless, his head tilted slightly toward the ground. Cross, who works in financial services, said that he felt “pain, shame and guilt” for years and that he confided in his brother and wife about what happened only after the criminal case against Hastert emerged. He said that he had trouble sleeping and working but that he came forward because he wanted the judge to know what happened and he wanted his children to know that “there’s an alternative to staying silent.” “I wanted you to know the pain and suffering he caused me then, and still causes me today,” Cross said. Prosecutors had recommended that Hastert face zero to six months in prison, though in court and afterward, they said that it was not a resolution that brought them any satisfaction. Defense attorneys had advocated for probation. Durkin on multiple occasions called Hastert a “serial child molester,” though he noted that he could not sentence him as such. He pressed Hastert to go beyond his admission that he “mistreated” his former students, asking him outright whether he had sexually abused them. In some cases, Hastert was hesitant. Of Cross, he said: “I don’t remember doing that, but I accept his statement.” He acknowledged abusing another victim, but hemmed and hawed about Reinboldt. “It’s a different situation, Sir,” Hastert said, before ultimately acknowledging that he had sexually abused Reinboldt. Thomas Green, Hastert’s defense attorney, said that Hastert did not seem to be “fully cognizant” of the abuse in some cases. In a statement after the hearing, he said: “Mr. Hastert accepts the sentence imposed by the court today. As he made clear in his own words in addressing the court, he takes sole responsibility for this tragic situation and deeply apologizes to all those affected by his actions. He hopes that he now can focus on addressing his health issues and on healing the emotional damage that has been inflicted on his family and friends who have shown unwavering support throughout this trying time.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Block said that prosecutors would have charged Hastert with sex crimes, or referred him to their state counterparts, if not for the statutes of limitations. And he said that they agreed to a plea deal in the case only because it spared a victim who did not want to be identified from having to take the witness stand at a trial. “Trying to respect his decision was a driving force for us,” Block said.

Only 37% of American 12th-graders were academically prepared for college math and reading in 2015, a slight dip from two years earlier

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” said that share was down from an estimated 39% in math and 38% in reading in 2013. In reading, 49% of Asian students performed at or above proficiency last year. So did 46% of white students, 25% of Hispanic students and 17% of black students. In math, 47% of Asian students performed at or above proficiency. So did 32% of white students, 12% of Hispanic students and 7% of black students.

Half of all Western European men are descendants of a Bronze Age "king" who lived 4,000 years ago

That's according to the largest ever study of global genetic variation in the Y chromosome. Researchers believe that the "monarch" was one of the earliest people to rule Europe in the Stone Age. His identity remains a mystery, but scientists believe that he fathered a group of "nobles" who then spread across Europe. They brought with them advances in technology such as metal work and wheeled transport. Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: "Genetics can't tell us why it happened but we know that a tiny number of elite males were controlling reproduction and dominating the population. Half of the European population is descended from just one man. We can only speculate as to what happened. The best explanation is that they may have resulted from advances in technology that could be controlled by small groups of men."

By 2100 Africa’s population could be three billion to 6.1 billion, up sharply from 1.2 billion today, if birth rates remain stubbornly high

This unexpected rise will stress already fragile resources in Africa and around the world. In Africa, women give birth on average to 4.7 children and the population is rising nearly three times faster than in the rest of the world. By the end of this century, demographers now project, Africa’s inhabitants will triple or quadruple. For years the prevailing projections put Africa’s population at around two billion in 2100. Those models assumed that fertility rates would fall fairly rapidly and consistently. Instead the rates have dropped slowly and only in fits and starts. The United Nations now forecasts three billion to 6.1 billion people — staggering numbers. Even conservative estimates, from places such as the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, now see Africa at 2.6 billion. The U.N. has in recent years continually raised its midline projection for 2100 world population, from 9.1 billion in a 2004 estimate to 11.2 billion today. Almost all of the unanticipated increase comes from Africa. Extreme growth threatens Africa’s development and stability. Many of its inhabitants live in countries that are not especially well endowed with fertile soils, abundant water or smoothly functioning governments. Mounting competition for nourishment and jobs in such places could cause strife across the region and, in turn, put significant pressure on food, water and natural resources around the world, especially if Africans leave their nations in droves, which is already happening. As many as 37% of young adults in sub-Saharan Africa say that they want to move to another country. Today only 29% of married African women of childbearing age use modern contraception. On all other continents the rate is solidly more than 50%. Surveys also show that more than a third of African pregnancies are unintended; in sub-Saharan Africa 58% of women aged 15 to 49 who are sexually active but do not want to become pregnant are not using modern contraception. In Niger in West Africa, one of the world’s poorest nations, the average fertility is 7.5 children per woman, and it has barely dipped since measurements began in 1950. Women and men surveyed in Niger say that the ideal family is even larger.

Are Ashkenazi Jews descended from Turks?

Persian Jews converted Turks to Judaism to create the rump of what would become today’s Jewish population, DNA research has revealed. The fascinating insight, which shows that most Ashkenazi Jews descend from Turkey, was made possible by state-of-the-art computer modelling and genetic techniques. The project, led by Israeli-born Dr Eran Elhaik, even pinpointed Iskenaz, Eskenaz and Ashanaz – three Turkish villages an ancient Silk Road route which still exist today – as part of the original Ashkenazi homeland. It is the largest genomic study ever carried out on Ashkenazi Jews, and claims that most of today’s population are the descendants of Greeks, Iranians and others who colonized what is now northern Turkey more than 2,000 years ago. Elhaik says that locals were converted to Judaism by Jews from Persia, whose empire was then home to the world’s largest Jewish communities. He said that the word Ashkenaz likely derives from Ashguza, the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian term for Iron Age Eurasian steppeland people known as Scythians. Concurrent analysis of Yiddish suggests that it was originally a Slavic language which the researchers think was developed by Jewish tradesmen travelling along the Silk Roads linking China and Europe 1,200 years ago. It was only when the Khazar Empire began to decline around 1,000 years ago that the Jewish converts headed west, into central Europe, coming into contact with German-speaking peoples. Elhaik and his team from the University of Sheffield say that their work helps settle an age-old debate about the origins of the 1,000-year old Yiddish language. “The prevalent view claims Yiddish has a German origin, whereas the opposing view suggests a Slavic origin with strong Iranian and weak Turkic substrata,” they say. “One of the major difficulties in deciding was the unknown geographical origin of Yiddish speaking Ashkenazic Jews,” they say, but their analysis “demonstrates that Greeks, Romans, Iranians, and Turks exhibit the highest genetic similarity with Ashkenazic Jews”.

African-Americans develop end-stage renal disease (ESRD) about 3.5 times more often than people of European ancestry

Greg Cochran looks at the issue of whether or not people outside of sub-Saharan Africa have more genetic load, generated by drift over a population history in which Eurasians generally had a smaller effective population size.

Several genetic differences uncovered in an analysis of data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) are biologically plausible contributing factors for the worse survival of African American patients with clear cell renal carcinoma, even in the era of targeted therapy

Clear cell renal carcinoma is the most common type of kidney cancer. These findings could help explain why African American patients with this disease have lower survival rates than white patients. This difference in survival rates is independent of age, sex, tumor stage, and other variables. “Our study suggests there are differences in the cancer biology of clear cell kidney cancer that develop in African American patients as opposed to those that develop in white patients,” said William Y. Kim, MD, a University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger member and associate professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Medicine, Genetics, and Urology in Chapel Hill, and senior author of the study. This new study involved analysis of genomic data from TCGA, including 419 clear cell renal cell carcinoma tumors from non-Hispanic white patients and 19 from non-Hispanic African American patients. The findings were validated against a set of 125 white and 10 African American patient tumors from another publicly available data set. A key finding was that African Americans were less likely to have inactivated von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) gene. Mutations that inactivate VHL can increase VEGF expression, which promotes blood vessel growth and is targeted by multiple drugs for kidney cancer. Only 17% of the African American patients had VHL mutations (2 of 17 patients), which is few compared with 50% of white patients (175 of 351 patients). Furthermore, the tumors of the African American patients had down-regulated VEGF signaling relative to those of the white patients. Another finding was an increased frequency of the molecular tumor subtype known as ccB in African American patients. The ccB subtype is associated with lower survival. It occurred in 79% (15 of 19 patients) of the African American patients, compared with 45% of the white patients. “There are clear genetic differences in clear cell kidney tumors that develop in African Americans compared to whites,” Kim said. “While we believe that these differences could impact outcomes we don't know enough at this time to suggest that African American's with kidney cancer should be treated differently, but it does underscore the need to investigate these findings further.”

A multi-institutional study led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigator finds significant racial disparities in the risk that patients being treated for gout will develop a serious, sometimes life-threatening adverse reaction to the most commonly prescribed medication

The increased risk closely correlates with the frequency of a gene variant previously associated with that adverse reaction, supporting recommendations to screen for that variant in patients from those populations. "We found that Asian and black patients have a substantially higher risk of severe cutaneous adverse reactions to urate-lowering drugs than do white or Hispanic patients, which correlates with the frequency of the HLA-B*5801 gene in their U.S. populations," says Hyon K. Choi, MD, DrPH, of the MGH Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology, senior author of the report. "This risk is almost certainly due to allopurinol, the dominant urate-lowering drug in the U.S., and screening gout patients from those populations for the HLA-B*5801 variant could help increase treatment safety." Caused by excessive levels of uric acid in the body, gout involves the deposition of uric acid crystals in the joints, leading to inflammation and significant pain. Studies have associated the HLA-B*5801 variant with the risk of these reactions in particular Asian populations - Koreans, Japanese, Thai and Han Chinese - and in some Europeans; and the current study was designed to investigate whether the frequency of the HLA-B*5801 variant across races leads to significant racial disparities in the risk of severe cutaneous reactions to urate-lowering drugs in a representative U.S. population. The researchers examined data covering 2009 to 2013 from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. From that database of between 5 and 8 million hospitalizations each year, they identified 606 with a principal diagnosis of SJS/TEN related to an adverse reaction to urate-lowering drugs. While the database does not include information on specific medications, the frequency with which allopurinol is prescribed implies that most, if not all, of those reactions involved that drug, the authors note. Among patients with that diagnosis, there was a significant over-representation of Asian and black patients compared with whites. For example, while another database indicates that Asian patients represented only 2% of U.S. allopurinol users in 2011-12, they represented 27% of those hospitalized for SJS/TEN related to urate-lowering drugs. Black patients represented 13% of allopurinol users and 26% of hospitalizations, while white patients represented 81% of allopurinol users but only 29% of hospitalizations. The number of Hispanic patients in the hospitalization database with this diagnosis was extremely small. Overall the risk of these dangerous reactions was 12 times higher for Asian patients and 5 times higher for black patients compared with white patients. Those differences are closely aligned with the frequency of the HLA-B*5801 variant in those populations - a 7.4% frequency in Asians, 4% in blacks, and 1% in both whites and Hispanics. "Since no other urate-lowering drug is an established cause for these severe adverse reactions, our findings support the use of vigilance when considering allopurinol for Asian and black patients with gout," says Choi, who is a professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

A new poll has found that nearly half of Jewish Israeli high school students believe that Arabs should not have the right to vote

The poll asked Jewish Israeli high school students in grades 11-12 a variety of questions intended to probe their opinions on current affairs and political identity, among other issues. Nearly half (48%) of those polled answered “no” to the question: “Do you think Arab Israelis should be represented in the Knesset?” The figure comes amid an ongoing controversy over the suspension of Arab members of the Knesset who paid a condolence call to the families of militants who killed Israelis. That controversy has led to the proposal of a bill that would allow 90 Knesset members to suspend a fellow lawmaker who they believed undermined Israel’s existence “as a Jewish and democratic state,” incited "racism" or expressed support for a "terror group" or an enemy at war with Israel. According to the CEO of pollster New Wave, Reuven Harari, most of the figures in the poll “were not surprising,” as they matched numbers pollsters have found for Israeli adults. According to Hariri, 60% of those polled also said that they believed medical treatment should not be given to an injured "terrorist".

Mexico: Nearly half of all women over the age of 15 - 47% - have suffered some form of sexual violence, according to government statistics

And people wonder why Trump wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.

Remember the USS Liberty!

The Zionists continue their outrageous behavior on behalf of Israel.

What are the 10 states with the highest percentage of whites?

They are Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, West Virginia, Iowa, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Kentucky and North Dakota. Each of these states has a white population of more than 90%.

Black murderer, Winston Moseley, who killed Kitty Genovese, has finally died in prison at 81

Winston Moseley, who stalked, raped and killed Kitty Genovese in a prolonged knife attack in New York in 1964 died on March 28, 2016 in prison. He was 81. Moseley, a psychopathic serial killer and necrophiliac, died at the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, near the Canadian border. He had been imprisoned for almost 52 years, since July 7, 1964, and was one of the state’s longest-serving inmates. His life behind bars had been relatively eventful. Moseley was condemned to die in the electric chair, but in 1967, two years after New York State abolished most capital punishments, he won an appeal that reduced his sentence to an indeterminate life term. While at Attica Correctional Facility, in 1968, he escaped while on a hospital visit to Buffalo, raped a woman and held hostages at gunpoint before being recaptured. He joined in the 1971 Attica uprising; earned a college degree in 1977; and was rejected 18 times at parole hearings, the last time in 2015.

Jewish Power and the Supreme Court

Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court marks a continuation and deepening of the lopsided ethno-religious representation in the US judicial system. If Garland is appointed, Jewish justices will comprise 45% of the Court, even though they represent less than 2% of the overall population. Equally important the increasing power of Jewish justices on the Supreme Court is accelerating: Counting Garland, two of the last three appointments (67%) have been Jews.

Hate crime hoax: A 20-year-old woman who claimed that she was slashed and called a 'f***ing terrorist' by an attacker in Lower Manhattan has owned up to carrying it out herself

The student, of Middle Eastern descent, was walking when she said that a man appeared outside Trinity Church, near Wall Street. She alleged that he was armed with a blade and wounded her on the left side of the face. The attacker was then said to have fled as locals heard a commotion. Emergency services were called after the woman contacted her father describing her injury and ordeal. Detectives were at the scene searching for clues to what was seen as a random violent assault. But they struggled in their hunt for witnesses and evidence before she admitted to carrying out the attack on herself.

Businessman gets into trouble for noticing that different races have different body types

Apparently it is now possible to produce a racist shirt.

In a new study, Cornell University researchers explain that people who come from a line of mostly plant eaters likely carry a gene mutation used to help compensate for a lack of essential fatty acids from meat or fish

The problem is that those who have the mutation — about 70% of South Asians, 53% of Africans, 29% of East Asians, 17% of Europeans, and 18% of Americans — can actually hurt their bodies with a fatty acid overload, particularly if their diet is heavy in things like meat and sunflower oil. The result is an increased risk of heart disease, colon cancer, and chronically high inflammation. Researchers identified the mutation in the FADS2 gene when comparing 234 people from Pune, India, where populations have historically eaten a plant-based diet, with 311 meat eaters from Kansas. Some 68% of the Indians had two copies of a sequence of DNA used to regulate genes FADS1 and FADS2 — which make long-chain polyunsaturated fats like omega-3 and omega-6, used for brain development and to curb inflammation — compared to just 18% of the Americans. While the gene came in useful generations ago, "changes in the dietary omega-6 to omega-3 balance may contribute to the increase in chronic disease seen in some developing countries," researchers say. People with South Asian and southern African ancestry are particularly prone to high inflammation. (This population produces very little fatty acid.)

Scars in our genetic landscape have revealed the fertility costs of breeding with different groups of our early ancestors

Researchers have analyzed the DNA of 257 individuals from 120 different non-African populations around the world to look for traces of ancestry from Neanderthals and Denisovans — another group of ancient humans that lived at the same time — in the modern human genome. Previous studies have shown that almost all present-day non-African people possess some Neanderthal DNA, while some people, particularly people from Oceania, also have Denisovan DNA. The new analysis indicated that modern humans interbred with Denisovans around 100 generations after their trysts with Neanderthals. But hybridization may have reduced male fertility according to evidence of significantly lower Denisovan and Neanderthal ancestry on the X chromosome and near genes more highly expressed in the testes than other tissues. "They're exactly the parts of the genome that we would expect them to be deficient in if there was infertility in males who were hybrids," said study co-author Professor David Reich of Harvard Medical School. "What they would reflect is that the males who happened to carry Denisovan or Neanderthal DNA in these sections were not as successful in terms of producing offspring as others, and because of that those sections were removed in that first handful of generations after the mixture occurred."

In recent decades, rich black kids have been more likely to go to prison than poor white kids

About 2.7% of the poorest white young people - those whose household wealth was in the poorest 10th of the distribution in 1985, when they were between 20 and 28 years old - ultimately went to prison. In the next 10th, 3.1% ultimately went to prison. The households of young people in both of these groups had more debts than assets. In other words, their wealth was negative. All the same, their chances of being imprisoned were far less than those of black youth from much more affluent circumstances. About 10% of affluent black youth in 1985 would eventually go to prison. Only the very wealthiest black youth - those whose household wealth in 1985 exceeded $69,000 in 2012 dollars - had a better chance of avoiding prison than the poorest white youth. Among black young people in this group, 2.4% were incarcerated. Hispanic participants who were less affluent in 1985 were more likely to be eventually incarcerated than their white peers with similar wealth, but less likely than black participants.

Political and economic unification of Ireland could potentially deliver a €35.6 billion boost in GDP for the island in the first eight years - according to a new study

The research found that unifying both economies could bring a sizeable boost to the economy in the North with a more modest boost in the Republic. Dr Kurt Hubner, professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada and author of the Modeling Irish Unification study, said the fact that the North would benefit more from such a union is not surprising. "The Republic of Ireland would benefit quite a lot, but the benefits would be mainly accrued by Northern Ireland," he said. "And that's not really a surprise, because if you compare the two entities, then Northern Ireland is obviously the less developed economy. It is more or less confirmed across the world that the less developed entities would benefit the most, in absolute terms, as well as in relative terms."

Neocon William Kristol would rather have Hillary Rodham Clinton as president than Donald Trump

Kristol wants to create a third party if Trump wins the nomination. This would likely take away enough votes from Trump to allow Clinton to win.

Germany is about to run out of prison cells due to the unprecedented migrant influx in the country

Foreigners make up 9% of Germany’s population, but close to 30% of its prison population. Immigrants from North Africa are particularly over-represented in crime statistics.

In 2013, a black was 6 times more likely than a non-black to commit murder and 12 times more likely to murder someone of another race than to be murdered by someone of another race

In 2013, of the approximately 660,000 crimes of interracial violence that involved blacks and whites, blacks were the perpetrators 85% of the time. This meant a black person was 27 times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa. A Hispanic was eight times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa.

Denmark is the world's happiest country while Burundi is the least happy, according to a new survey

The fourth World Happiness Report also found that countries where there was less inequality were happier overall. Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland, which like Denmark have strong social security systems, made up the rest of the top five. The United States was the world's 13th happiest country, Britain was 23rd, China was 83rd and India was 118th. At the bottom of the 156 countries on the list was Burundi, which is experiencing severe political unrest and the threat of violence. It scored worse than Syria, where a civil war has killed more than 250,000 people over the past five years. The survey found that Syrians had a better healthy-life expectancy and were also seen as being more generous than Burundians and people in the three other nations - Togo, Afghanistan and Benin - making up the five least happy countries. Northern America, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe were the happiest regions overall. South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa were the only regions where the average rating for well-being was less than five out of 10.

The Jewish war on free speech: University of California officials are proposing to include “anti-Zionism” as a form of discrimination that is unacceptable on campus, according to a long-awaited draft statement on intolerance

The inclusion immediately drew sharply divergent reactions, with pro-Israel groups hailing it as a needed step to protect Jewish students from hostility and those supporting Palestinian rights criticizing it as a naked attempt to suppress criticism of the Jewish state. Scholars were similarly divided over whether a statement meant to express the UC regents’ principles against intolerance should include Zionism — historically an international movement to establish a Jewish homeland and now viewed as the belief in Israel’s right to exist. And although the statement provides no sanctions, calling on university leaders to “challenge” bias, [Judith] Butler wondered whether those singled out as criticizing Zionism would be denied faculty research funds, promotions or other benefits. “To include anti-Zionism as an instance of intolerance and bigotry is actually to suppress a set of political beliefs that we actually need to hear,” she said. “It saddens me and strikes at the heart of the task of the university.”

Australian research into the academic performance of twins in NAPLAN tests has revealed that skills in maths, reading and spelling are up to 75% genetic

Genetics also had a 50% impact on writing skills. In stark contrast, the influence of teachers and schools on students was only found to be around 5%, when looking at why children performed better or worse than their peers. The research has been conducted by Emeritus Professor Brian Byrne and colleagues at the Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders, and the University of New England. Byrne and his colleagues were allowed access to around 3000 sets of twins and were able to look at their academic performance in literacy and numeracy NAPLAN tests in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Families, teachers and schools had a much more modest contribution when explaining the difference in academic performance of children in the same grade or class. The majority of difference between students’ abilities in literacy and numeracy were instead attributable to their genetic make-up. Writing skills were the least influenced by genetics – only about 50%. Genetic influences on reading, spelling and mathematics abilities were found to be between 50% - 75%. “Genes are the things that are, for the most part, driving differences among children, and not different teachers or even different schools,” Byrne said.

The increase of foreign-born children in Swedish schools has played a part in the country’s overall decline in educational achievement and test scores in recent years, officials report

The number of teenagers who failed to qualify for upper secondary school in Sweden increased from 10% in 2006 to more than 14% in 2015. A report by the Swedish Education Agency has concluded that 85% of the increase was explained by immigrant students unable to catch up with Swedes of the same age. Over the past decade, Swedish test scores on the OECD’s so-called PISA ranking of school performance among 15-year-olds has seen the most dramatic drop out of all the countries taking part in the survey. At the same time, the percentage of students in Swedish schools who had arrived in the country after the age of seven jumped from 3% in 2006 to 8% in 2015. The report, entitled The Importance of Immigration for School Results, defines immigrant students as children who are either foreign-born or whose parents are both born outside Sweden. It concluded that as immigrant students now arrive in greater numbers and at an older age, they had less time to learn Swedish and catch up in vital subjects before leaving Year 9. As a result, an increasing number of foreign-born students fail to obtain the grades needed to move on to Swedish upper secondary school – equivalent to A-levels or High School. "We already know that immigrant students on average have lower performance in school," said Education Agency Director Anna Ekstrom. "Now we know more about how much the increasing proportion of immigrant students has affected overall performance."

Nearly half of African-American adults are at risk of developing hypertension, a rate significantly higher than that of any other group in the United States

Hypertension-related ailments, such as strokes and end-stage renal disease, account for 20% of all deaths among African-Americans. Then there are the lesser-known facts - such as the inherent differences between blacks and whites in blood pressure regulation both during rest and exercise. These disparities exist even among healthy, non-hypertensive blacks. African-Americans respond differently to different forms of physiological stress, such as exercise, cold and other acute forms of stress. Researchers are looking at mechanisms to help explain theses differences. A thorough understanding of biological mechanisms associated with hypertension could have significant ramifications for all racial and ethnic groups. There appears to be less of an ability to defend against hypersensitive challenges and increases in blood pressure among African-American participants.

In a long-term study of the 8th grade class of 2004, only 13% of blacks or Hispanics, compared to 29% of whites, had obtained any post-secondary credential 11 years later

About one-third of both black and Hispanic children in Texas live in poverty, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s encyclopedic Kids Count project. That’s triple the share for Texas whites. In every major Texas city, minority children are vastly more likely than whites to attend schools where most of their classmates qualify as low-income. Fewer than one-in-five Texan African American and Hispanic students score as proficient in 8th grade reading on national tests — less than half the level for whites.

A 16-year-old Danish Muslim girl has been charged with planning attacks on two schools, one of them Jewish

The girl, who was 15 when she was arrested in January 2016, allegedly planned bombing attacks on a Jewish school in Copenhagen and another school in Denmark. She had acquired chemicals to create the explosives, according to Danish prosecutors. A friend, 24, who prosecutors said provided the bomb-making manuals, was charged as an accessory. Both of the suspects, who have not been named, maintain their innocence. The girl recently converted to Islam and her friend had fought with the Islamic State in Syria.

Nearly half of Israeli Jews want Arabs to be expelled from Israel and many have lost hope in a two-state solution to the Palestinian question, according to a survey

The poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank, found that 48% of Israeli Jews support the idea of moving Arabs out of Israel, where they make up 19% of the population of 8.4 million. Up to 71% of Jews who consider themselves ultra-Orthodox, religious or “traditional” and 36% of the secular community agree. In addition, about eight in 10 Arabs complained of heavy discrimination in Israeli society against Muslims, the largest religious minority, while 79% of Jews questioned said that Jewish citizens deserved preferential treatment.

Poll: 61% of Americans agree that continued immigration into the country jeopardizes the United States

The degree of concern is remarkable considering that the question was about all immigration, including the legal kind. A belief that immigration jeopardizes the United States was common across age groups, although highest among baby boomers (65%) and lowest among millennials (55%). By education, it was highest among those with just a high school education or some college (65%), and by region it was highest in the South, including Texas (66%).

A powerful Pakistani religious body that advises the government on the compatibility of laws with Islam has declared a new law that criminalizes violence against women to be un-Islamic

The Women's Protection Act, passed by Pakistan's largest province of Punjab, gives unprecedented legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence. It also calls for the creation of a toll-free abuse reporting hot line and the establishment of women's shelters. But since its passage in the Punjab assembly, many Islamic clerics and religious leaders have denounced the new law as being in conflict with the Muslim holy book, the Koran, as well as Pakistan's constitution. "The whole law is wrong," Muhammad Khan Sherani, the head of the Council of Islamic Ideology said at a news conference, citing verses from the Koran to point out that the law was un-Islamic. The 54-year-old council is known for its controversial decisions. In the past it has ruled that DNA cannot be used as primary evidence in rape cases, and it supported a law that requires women alleging rape to get four male witnesses to testify in court before a case is heard. The council's decision in January 2016 to block a bill to impose harsher penalties for marrying off girls as young as eight or nine has angered human rights activists. The new law establishes district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse, and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders. It also sets punishments of up to a year in jail for violators of court orders related to domestic violence, with that period rising to two years for repeat offenders. Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan's largest religious parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam, said that the law was in conflict with both Islam and the constitution of Pakistan. "This law makes a man insecure," he said. "This law is an attempt to make Pakistan a Western colony again." In 2013, more than 5,800 cases of violence against women were reported in Punjab alone, the province where the law was passed, according to the Aurat Foundation, a women's rights advocacy group. Those cases represented 74% of the national total that year, the latest for which data is available.

Research from an investigator at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and colleagues from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other facilities, shows differences in a certain type of small protein vary by race and may contribute differently to the development of lung cancer in African Americans and European Americans

African Americans have a higher chance of developing lung cancer and have lower lung cancer survival rates as compared to European Americans, which research shows may be due to differences in genetics as well as other factors. Identification of biomarkers that would uniquely distinguish African Americans at a high risk of lung cancer may help to bridge the gap in lung cancer racial health disparities. The research looked at cytokines, which are small proteins released by cells that affect communication between cells. The research team hypothesized that a difference in serum cytokine levels between the two populations may yield some answers. They analyzed the levels of ten serum cytokines in blood samples from over 450 African-American and European-American lung cancer patients or healthy adults. They found that the levels of six cytokines were significantly higher among European Americans than African Americans. The levels of two cytokines were associated with lung cancer in both races, but other elevated cytokine levels were associated with lung cancer only in African Americans. These findings suggest that cytokine levels in the blood vary by race and may contribute to lung cancer differently between African Americans and European Americans.

Hispanic Republican admits that he prefers Joe Biden to Donald Trump

Former RNC Chairman Mel Martinez says that he wishes Joe Biden was running so he could vote for him instead of Donald Trump. And people wonder why so many white Republicans despise the GOP leadership.

Jewish neocons would rather have Hillary Clinton as president than Donald Trump

Leading Jewish neocons — people who promoted the Iraq War, detest Putin and consider Israel’s security non-negotiable — have said that Trump would be a disaster for U.S. foreign policy and vowed never to support him. So deep is their revulsion that several even say that they could vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump in November 2016. “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” said Eliot Cohen, a former top State Department official under George W. Bush and a strategic theorist who argues for a muscular U.S. role abroad. Trump’s election would be “an unmitigated disaster for American foreign policy,” Cohen said, adding that “he has already damaged it considerably.” Cohen - an Iraq war backer - said that he would “strongly prefer a third party candidate” to Trump, but added: “Probably if absolutely no alternative: Hillary.” Max Boot, a Jewish military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations who backed the Iraq War and often advocates a hawkish foreign policy, said that he, too, would vote for Clinton over Trump. “I’m literally losing sleep over Donald Trump,” he said. “She would be vastly preferable to Trump.”

Jewish leaders back Ted Cruz, saying that he's the best hope for the survival of Israel

Ted Cruz has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to Israel and the Jewish people, which he said began long before he became a senator and a presidential candidate. Cruz vowed that as president, "I will stand unapologetically with Israel, prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons" and "move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem" among other executive actions.

Half of black Americans born into poverty stay poor

Upward mobility from the bottom of the income distribution is much less likely for black than white Americans: 51% of the black Americans born into the lowest fifth of the earnings distribution remain there at age 40. Downward inter-generational social mobility from the middle to the bottom is much more common among black Americans. Seven out of ten black Americans born into the middle quintile fall into one of the two quintiles below as adults. In some ways, this is an even more depressing fact than the poor rates of upward mobility. Even black Americans who make it to the middle class are likely to see their kids fall down the ladder. Race gaps in wealth – already wide – widened further during the Great Recession. The median wealth of white households is now 13 times greater than for black households – the largest gap in a quarter century, according to analysis by the Pew Research Center. Black median wealth almost halved during the recession, falling from $19,200 in 2007 to $11,000 in 2013.

France: A rabbi who told police that he had been assaulted by Jihadists has been arrested on suspicion that he lied about the attack

Rabbi Tsion Saadon was taken into custody following the discovery of inconsistencies in his account of the alleged November 18, 2015 attack, which prompted passionate condemnations by police and even by President Francois Hollande. The rabbi claimed that he was stabbed by a man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the symbol of the Islamic State terrorist group, who shouted anti-Semitic profanities at him with two other men. Saadon, a history teacher at the Marseille’s Yavne Jewish day school, displayed what appeared to be minor injuries. One of the two men whom Saadon said did not assault him physically showed him a picture of Mohammed Merah, the killer of four Jews in Toulouse in 2012, on his cell phone during the attack, he told police. But the injuries that Saadon showed police as resulting from the incident were inconsistent with the version he gave. Saadon is suspected of giving a false deposition and may be indicted.

An Egyptian court has handed down a life sentence that would be longer than most if carried out: The alleged criminal is only 4 years old

The strange case involves little Ahmed Mansour Qorany Sharara. A military court found him and 115 others guilty of killing three people and damaging state property during a protest in support of ousted President Mohamed Morsi in 2014. Ahmed would have been 16 months old at the time. After the verdict and the ensuing uproar over Ahmed's fate, the military admitted a case of mistaken identity. But Ahmed's fate is unclear, and his parents are worried because police have been inquiring about his whereabouts.

About half of gay and bisexual black men will be diagnosed with the AIDS virus in their lifetime, according to new government estimates

Overall, for the average American, the odds of an HIV infection is 1 in 99 and has been declining. But the risk varies widely for different groups. For example, the projection is 1 in 2 for gay black men but fewer than 1 in 2,500 for heterosexual white men. HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is spread mainly through sex and sharing needles for injecting drugs. In the United States, infections have long been most common in men who have sex with men. Gay and bisexual men have the highest risk, but there are racial differences within that group. For gay white men it's about 1 in 11 — a significantly smaller proportion than the estimate for blacks and Hispanics. Among heterosexuals, blacks are far more likely to be infected than other racial groups. For example, 1 in 49 black women compared to 1 in 1,083 white women.

Researchers led by Adam T. Hirsh of the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis report that black and white Americans cope with pain differently and that blacks employ pain coping strategies more frequently than whites

The IUPUI review and analysis of 19 studies is the first to examine the entire published literature and quantify the relationship between race and the use of pain-coping strategies. "Coping" is broadly defined as the use of behavioral and cognitive techniques to manage stress. Pain coping is the specific application of these techniques for pain management. Hirsh, an assistant professor of psychology, and graduate students Samantha M. Meints and Megan M. Miller conducted the evidence-based review and analysis of clinical and experimental studies that included a total of 2,719 black and 3,770 white adults. Blacks were significantly more likely to use praying and hoping as pain-coping strategies than whites. Blacks were also more likely than whites to think about their pain in a catastrophic manner. "Our findings suggest that blacks frequently use coping strategies that are associated with worse pain and functioning," said Hirsh, a clinical health psychologist. "They view themselves as helpless in the face of pain. They see the pain as magnified — the worst pain ever. They ruminate, think about the pain all the time, and it occupies a lot of their mind space. This catastrophic manner of coping is frequently labeled by health providers as a negative or maladaptive approach to pain and has been associated with poor functioning," Hirsh continued. "But it may also be a potent communication strategy — it tells others in a culture with a strong communal component that the person is really suffering and needs help. Thus, it may be helpful in some ways, such as eliciting support from other people, and unhelpful in other ways. In future studies, we will give this more nuanced investigation." Ignoring pain rather than allowing it to interfere with the task at hand, known as task persistence, was the only coping strategy employed by whites more than blacks. Numerous investigations have found that differences in coping strategies are associated with differences in pain intensity, adjustment to chronic pain, and psychological and physical functioning. For example, several of the studies reviewed by the IUPUI researchers found that ignoring strategies are associated with less pain, whereas praying and hoping and catastrophizing are associated with higher pain levels. Blacks report higher levels of pain than whites for a number of conditions including AIDS, glaucoma, arthritis, post-operative pain and lower-back pain. Blacks also experience greater pain in both clinical and experimental studies. Blacks report less-effective pain care, are unable to return to work for a longer time and have worse functional outcomes. These race differences may be partly due to differences in pain-related coping, according to Hirsh. Chronic pain is a leading cause of work disability and costs the United States more than $600 billion annually in medical treatment and lost productivity, according to the Institute of Medicine report "Relieving Pain in America." Understanding how different racial groups cope with pain may inform chronic pain care and support individually tailored treatment.

Black Lives Matter supports racial segregation

Nashville Public Library tells Black Lives Matter activists that meetings welcoming only black people are not allowed on their premises. Enraged, Black Lives Matter activists accuse the local government of "white supremacy".

Studies show that heart failure disproportionately affects African Americans, with incidences roughly double that of whites

This population is also at greater risk of developing the condition at younger ages and dying from it. Hispanics have the second-highest risk of developing heart failure and are more likely to be younger, have diabetes or high blood pressure and be overweight/obese. Studies also show that Hispanics with heart failure have higher rates of hospitalizations and readmissions for heart failure. Numerous studies point to higher rates of modifiable risk factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity as the reason these groups are more likely to have heart failure.

Islamic barbarism: A teenage boy has been beheaded by ISIS for simply listening to Western music

Ayham Hussein, 15, was arrested by Muslim militants after allegedly being caught enjoying pop tunes on a portable CD player in the group's Iraqi capital Mosul. He was dragged before a Islamist kangaroo court which sentenced him to death in a public execution.

New research has identified common genetic variants predominantly found in African Americans that double their risk for blood clots

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a disorder characterized by blood clots that form in the deep veins of the legs that can travel to the lungs and become fatal. Those who suffer from VTE often have one or several alterations in their DNA that affect normal function of the blood's clotting process. Genotyping individuals to identify these genetic variants can help predict their risk. Researchers reports that the one-size-fits-all approach of looking for the same variants in all populations does not serve minorities, and the scientists conclude that African Americans clearly require a specific approach when their risk for VTE is assessed. In the United States, African Americans are 30% to 60% more likely to suffer from VTE than any other U.S. population. Despite this higher incidence, well-known genetic risk factors for VTE, such as factor V Leiden, are common in whites but occur infrequently in African Americans with the disorder. This realization led researchers to hypothesize that there might be undiscovered genetic variants more specific to African Americans. "While African Americans have a high risk for VTE, previous studies have not specifically focused on this population," said Minoli Perera, PhD, of the University of Chicago. "If we are not looking for the correct genetic mutations when we run a laboratory test, we are doing a disservice to minority populations." To understand the genetic risk factors for VTE specific to African Americans, a team of researchers led by Dr. Perera conducted a genome-wide association study in which they genotyped DNA samples from 578 African Americans, 146 of whom had a history of unprovoked VTE. Next, they confirmed the variants deemed highly prevalent in the first group by genotyping the DNA of an additional group of 159 African Americans, including 94 with VTE. Based on their analysis, researchers identified a link between VTE and three variants in a chromosome associated with decreased expression of thrombomodulin, a protein that regulates clotting: rs2144940, rs2567617, and rs1998081. Investigators suggest that the presence of one of these three variants doubles the risk for VTE. Approximately 36% of African Americans have at least one of these variants. Surprisingly, these variants were found in much lower frequency in other ethnicities from previous studies. "This study not only brings us closer to understanding the cause of VTE in African Americans, it demonstrates the importance of conducting population-specific research in precision medicine," said Dr. Perera. "Our next steps will involve investigating the predictiveness of these risk factors for VTE with the goal of reducing the high prevalence and burden of VTE in this disproportionately affected population."

There are just under 37,000 children in failing schools in Alabama and more than 34,000 of those children are African American

Of course, it isn't really the schools that are failing but the students. Unfortunately, in today's politically correct climate, it is almost impossible to hold blacks accountable for their own lack of academic achievement.

According to National Science Foundation data, African Americans overall earned just 4% of doctorates awarded in 2014 but the figures are far less in the sciences and mathematics — just 1.8% in the physical sciences, 2% of the Ph.D.s in mathematics and 1.7% of those awarded in engineering

In some fields not a single doctorate was awarded to an African American.

Nevada, which is more than a quarter Latino, was one of the states worst affected by the 2008 financial meltdown, with hundreds of thousands of families unable to pay their mortgages and forced to move in a crisis that by some estimates hit minorities twice as hard as whites

Las Vegas, Nevada’s biggest city, has seen some of the country’s highest foreclosure rates since 2008, hitting No. 1 among more than 200 U.S. metro areas from 2009 to 2011, according to RealtyTrac, a provider of real estate data and analytics. Even now, the city and its surrounding area rank No. 17. Latinos make up almost 32% of Las Vegas.

What did Gandhi really think of black South Africans?

“The white race of South Africa should be the predominating race,” said Mahatma Gandhi. He also said, of himself and his followers, “We believe as much in the purity of race as” white South Africans. He called black South Africans “kaffirs,” which is South Africa’s equivalent of “n***ers,” and objected to blacks living among South African Indians: “About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians, I must confess I feel strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population.” He wrote that “Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized. . . . The reader can easily imagine the plight of the poor Indian thrown into such company!”

Jewish politician being investigated for assaulting woman

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer is being investigated by the NYPD after allegedly assaulting a woman at the ritzy Plaza hotel, sources said. Sources said that after Spitzer allegedly attacked the woman at the Fifth Ave. hotel near Central Park, she tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists. Spitzer, 56, resigned in disgrace in March 2008 after he was embroiled in a prostitution scandal.

The rise of Trumpism

Charles Murray explains the rise of Donald Trump and why so many Americans are embracing his candidacy.

Pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC is mostly backed by Jewish donors

At least eight of the top 12 donors to the pro-Clinton Priorities USA Action are Jewish — and one more is married to a Jew. Jews have contributed over half of the $41 million raised so far by the super PAC. Though the group had planned to save its money for the general election, Priorities will now spend millions in upcoming primaries to promote early voting among groups likely to back Clinton, and to run pro-Clinton ads in South Carolina. Nearly half of Clinton's financial sector donations appear to come from just two wealthy Jewish financiers, George Soros and Donald Sussman. Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire investor, and Sussman, a hedge fund manager, are just two members of an elite group of just over a dozen Jewish mega-donors who have given a total of $25 million to Priorities USA Action, more than half of what the group has raised so far this cycle. Clinton has helped Priorities raise money and has met with the group’s donors. Those donors are overwhelmingly Jewish. Other major Jewish donors to the group include “Power Rangers” super-mogul Haim Saban, who has given $2.5 million (his wife Cheryl, who is not Jewish, gave another $2.5 million); Herbert Sandler, former owner of a large savings & loan association called Golden West, who gave $1.5 million, and Slim-Fast billionaire S. Daniel Abraham, who gave $1 million. Also on the 2015 Priorities USA Action donor rolls are Jewish Hollywood figures Steven Spielberg, who gave $1 million, his former DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave $1 million, and Star Wars director J.J. Abrams, who gave $500,000. (Abrams’s wife Kathleen McGrath gave another $500,000.) Since its creation in 2011, Priorities USA Action has been something of a Jewish shop. Among its largest donors in the 2012 cycle were Katzenberg, Abraham, Spielberg, and Qualcomm founder Irwin M. Jacobs.

Over the past decade, according to FBI data, 40% of cop killers have been black

Police officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police.

Researchers have found that despite the complexity of the US population, individuals know their ancestral origins, and that self-reported ethnicity and race is a reliable indicator of genetic ancestry

In one genetic study, 98.7% turned out on their DNA test to be primarily what they self-identified as and among those who identified as non-Hispanic white, 427 out of 430 had their self-identifications confirmed by the genome analysis as of European ancestry.

The first study to look at dementia risk in a population representing the diversity of the United States finds dementia incidence to be highest in African Americans and lowest in Asian Americans

The rate of occurrence of dementia in African Americans was found to be 65% higher than Asian Americans. The scientists compared dementia incidence across six racial and ethnic groups – Whites, Asian-Americans, Latinos, African Americans, American Indians/Alaskan Natives, and Pacific Islanders. "Most research on disparities in dementia includes only one to two racial and ethnic groups, for example only Whites and African Americans," said study first author Elizabeth Rose Mayeda, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "Our study is the only work that compares dementia for these six racial and ethnic groups representing the aging demographic of the United States in a single study population. It is also the first study to look at incidence of dementia in Pacific Islanders and American Indians." The researchers found that dementia incidence over the 14-year study period ranged from an average annual rate of 26.6 cases of dementia per 1,000 people for African-Americans, and 22.2 cases per 1,000 people for American Indians/Alaskan Natives, to 15.2 cases per 1,000 people for Asian-Americans. In between were Latinos and Pacific Islanders with an average annual rate of 19.6 cases per 1,000 people, and whites with 19.3 per 1,000. Using the observed dementia incidence rates and a widely accepted method of calculating a person's lifetime risk for developing a disease, the researchers estimated the percentage of individuals free of dementia before age 65 in each racial and ethnic group who can expect to be diagnosed with dementia over the next 25 years. The projections were 38% of African Americans, 35% of American Indians/Alaskan Natives, 32% of Latinos, 25% of Pacific Islanders, 30% of Whites, and 28% of Asian Americans.

An Iraqi migrant raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna and told police that it was a "sexual emergency" because he hadn't had sex in months

A 10-year-old boy was so brutally raped by an Iraqi migrant in a swimming pool cubicle that he had to be hospitalized for his injuries. A lifeguard immediately called an ambulance after the boy went to him in floods of tears, while the Iraqi was entertaining himself by repeatedly jumping off the three-meter diving board. Police arrested him on the spot at the pool in Vienna, and during an interrogation, he told them that it was a "sexual emergency" as he had not had sex in four months. The migrant, who had entered the country through the Balkans on September 5, 2015 official records show, said that he could not help himself as he had an "excess sexual energy".

DNA evidence lifted from the ancient bones and teeth of people who lived in Europe from the Late Pleistocene to the early Holocene - spanning almost 30,000 years of European prehistory - has offered some surprises

Perhaps most notably, the evidence shows a major shift in the population around 14,500 years ago, during a period of severe climatic instability. "We uncovered a completely unknown chapter of human history: a major population turnover in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age," says leading author Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. The researchers pieced this missing history together by reconstructing the mitochondrial genomes of 35 hunter-gatherer individuals who lived in Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, and Romania from 35,000 to 7,000 years ago. Mitochondria are organelles within cells that carry their own DNA and can be used to infer patterns of maternal ancestry. "There has been a real lack of genetic data from this time period, so consequently we knew very little about the population structure or dynamics of the first modern humans in Europe," Krause says. The new data show that the mitochondrial DNA of three individuals who lived in present-day Belgium and France before the coldest period in the last Ice Age - the Last Glacial Maximum - belonged to haplogroup M. This is remarkable because the M haplogroup is effectively absent in modern Europeans but is extremely common in modern Asian, Australasian, and Native American populations. The absence of the M haplogroup and its presence in other parts of the world had previously led to the argument that non-African people dispersed on multiple occasions to spread across Eurasia and Australasia. The researchers say that the discovery of this maternal lineage in Europe in the ancient past now suggests instead that all non-Africans dispersed rapidly from a single population, at a time they place around 50,000 years ago. Then, at some later stage, the M haplogroup was apparently lost from Europe. "When the Last Glacial Maximum began around 25,000 years ago, hunter-gatherer populations retreated south to a number of putative refugia, and the consequent genetic bottleneck probably resulted in the loss of this haplogroup," explains first author of the study Cosimo Posth of Germany's University of Tübingen. The researchers say that their biggest surprise, however, was evidence of a major turnover of the population in Europe around 14,500 years ago, as the climate began to warm. "Our model suggests that during this period of climatic upheaval, the descendants of the hunter-gatherers who survived through the Last Glacial Maximum were largely replaced by a population from another source," says Adam Powell, another senior author at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. The researchers say that the next step is to construct a more comprehensive picture of the past by analyzing the complete genomes of these ancient individuals along with additional specimens representing more times and places.

Police shootings account for a much smaller share of homicides in the black community than in other communities: 4% of black homicide victims are killed by the police, compared with 12% of white and Hispanic homicide victims

Though they made up 15% of the population, in America’s 75 largest counties in 2009, blacks constituted 62% of all robbery defendants, 57% of all murder defendants and 45% of all assault defendants. In New York City in 2014, blacks committed 75% of shootings and 70% of robberies — as reported by the victims of and witnesses to those crimes — but represented only 23% of the population. In contrast, whites committed less than 2% of shootings and 4% of robberies in New York City in 2014, though they are 34% of the city’s population.