A university degree is linked to a heightened risk of developing a brain tumor, suggests a large observational study

Gliomas, in particular, were more common among people who had studied at university for at least three years than they were among those who didn't go on to higher education, the data show. The researchers base their findings on more than 4.3 million Swedes, all of whom were born between 1911 and 1961 and living in Sweden in 1991. They were monitored between 1993 and 2010 to see if they developed a primary brain tumor, and information on educational attainment, disposable income, marital status, and occupation was obtained from national insurance, labor market,and national census data. During the monitoring period, 1.1 million people died and more than 48,000 emigrated, but 5735 of the men and 7101 of the women developed a brain tumor. Men with university level education, lasting at least three years, were 19% more likely to develop a glioma - a type of cancerous tumor arising in glial cells that surround and support neurons in the brain -than men whose educational attainment didn't extend beyond the period of compulsory schooling (9 years). Among women, the magnitude of risk was 23% higher for glioma, and 16% higher for meningioma - a type of mostly non-cancerous brain tumor arising in the layers of tissue (meninges) that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord - than it was for women who didn't go on to higher education. Taking account of potentially influential factors, such as marital status and disposable income, only marginally affected the size of the risk, and only among the men. High levels of disposable income were associated with a 14% heightened risk of glioma among men, but had no bearing on the risk of either meningioma or acoustic neuroma - a type of non-cancerous brain tumor that grows on the nerve used for hearing and balance. Nor was disposable income associated with heightened risk of any type of brain tumor among the women. Occupation also seemed to influence risk for men and women. Compared with men in manual roles, professional and managerial roles (intermediate and high non-manual jobs) were associated with a 20% heightened risk of glioma and a 50% heightened risk of acoustic neuroma. The risk of glioma was also 26% higher among women in professional and managerial roles than it was for women in manual roles, while the risk of meningioma was 14% higher. Single men also seemed to have a significantly lower risk of glioma than married/co-habiting men, but, on the other hand, they had a higher risk of meningioma. No such associations were evident among the women.

South Asian crime in Britain: 15 men have been jailed for a total of 160 years for the horrific sexual abuse of a vulnerable schoolgirl

The schoolgirl was preyed on by as many as 100 men, the majority of them of South Asian origin, during a two year period. Some took advantage because they saw her as vulnerable, others because word got round she was available. The prosecution described her as lonely, needy and seeking friendship and love, a teenager who for a long time did not understand that she was a victim of child abuse being groomed and exploited. Juries at four separate trials heard how the schoolgirl was 13 when her mother died after a long illness, by which time she had already got used to fending for herself, sometimes in a house with no electricity or food.

Gays in Africa: A Kenyan court has upheld the use of anal examinations to determine a suspect's sexual orientation, dismissing the argument that the procedure amounts to torture and degrading treatment

"I find no violation of human dignity, right to privacy, and right to freedom of the petitioners," Mombasa High Court Judge Mathew Emukule said. Two men had sought a court ruling to stop enforced anal examinations and HIV tests of men accused of being gay after they were subjected to the procedures. The two were arrested in a bar in February 2015 on suspicion of engaging in gay sex, which is a criminal offense in Kenya. They still face the charges and, if convicted, could face 14 years in jail. In their petition, the men said that the anal examinations and HIV and hepatitis B tests they were forced to have amounted to being subjected to torture and degrading treatment. The judge said that the petitioners should have used their lawyers to seek injunction orders to avoid undergoing the tests. "It's so painful when we are trying to encourage the gay community to go to court to affirm their rights; the courts are instead affirming violation of their rights," said Eric Gitari, the executive director of the Kenyan National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. The court judgment means that someone can be arrested on a rumor that they are gay and subjected to these tests, he said. "Do we want to use the nation's scarce resources on this?"

What are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death?

They are Yemen, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. It should come as no surprise that all these countries have large Muslim populations.

Genes and Education: Scientists say that up to 80% of students’ choices of A-level subjects is down to genetic influence with environmental factors such as home life, accounting for 23% of the choice at most

Scientists have found that 50-80% of subject choice is due to genetic influences. When the subjects were grouped into humanities and science, mathematics, engineering or technology (Stem) categories, the findings revealed that heritability was 50% and 60% respectively. By contrast, shared environmental factors such as family experiences had far less clout, accounting for 18% of subject choice for the humanities, and 23% of subject choice for Stem A-levels. The scientists also discovered that achievement was strongly influenced by genetics, with 59% of A-level performance found to be heritable, while shared environmental factors only explained 7% of the variation in performance. By contrast, the choice to study for A-levels at all was almost equally split between genetic and environmental factors at 44% and 47% respectively. While the specific genes linked to such influence have not been found, it is thought that thousands of tiny differences in an individual’s DNA each contribute to a very small degree.

The Taliban are using child sex slaves to mount crippling insider attacks on police in southern Afghanistan, exploiting the pervasive practice of “bacha bazi” — pedophilic boy play — to infiltrate security ranks

The ancient custom is prevalent across Afghanistan, but nowhere does it seem as entrenched as in the province of Uruzgan, where “bacha bereesh” — or boys without beards — widely become objects of lustful attraction for powerful police commanders. The Taliban over nearly two years have used them to mount a wave of Trojan Horse attacks — at least six between January and April 2016 alone — that have killed hundreds of policemen, according to security and judicial officials in the province. “The Taliban are sending boys — beautiful boys, handsome boys — to penetrate checkpoints and kill, drug and poison policemen,” said Ghulam Sakhi Rogh Lewanai, who was Uruzgan’s police chief until he was removed in a security reshuffle in April 2016 amid worsening violence. The insurgents are using boys as honey traps, said 21-year-old Matiullah, a policeman who was the only survivor from an insider attack in Dehrawud district in spring 2015. He said that the attacker was the checkpoint commander’s own sex slave, a teenager called Zabihullah. Late one night, he went on a shooting spree, killing seven policemen including the commander as they slept. “He brought the Taliban inside and poked all the bodies with rifle butts to see if anyone was alive. I pretended to be dead,” said Matiullah, who now works as a tailor, pointing out a gash on his forehead. Practically all of Uruzgan’s 370 local and national police checkpoints have bachas — some up to four — who are illegally recruited not just for sexual companionship but also to bear arms, multiple officials said. Some policemen, they said, demand bachas like a perk of the job, refusing to join outposts where they are not available. Horrifying abuse at checkpoints makes the boys, many unpaid and unregistered, hungry for revenge and easy prey for Taliban recruitment — often because there is no other escape from exploitative commanders. Boys have also spurred a deadly rivalry between policemen, with officials reporting incidents such as a public gunfight in 2016 between two commanders in Gezab district as one of them angrily accused the other of “stealing” his bacha. “To restore security in Uruzgan, we will first have to separate policemen from their bachas,” one of the judges said. “But if they are told to reform their ways, a common reply is: ‘If you force me to abandon my boy lover, I will also abandon the checkpoint’. The Taliban are not blind to notice that this addiction is worse than opium.” Bacha bazi, which the US State Department has called a “culturally sanctioned form of male rape”, peels away the masculine identity of boys in a society where the sexes are tightly segregated. In conservative Muslim areas women are mostly invisible in public — and often unattainable due to steep bride prices. Bachas supplant the role of women, adopting a feminine gait and sometimes wearing makeup and bells on their feet. Many in Uruzgan see bacha bazi neither as pedophilia nor homosexuality, which is forbidden in Islam. If social norms had a pecking order, violating boys would be seen as far more ethical than violating women. But the tactic appears more deep rooted in Uruzgan, where the boys are widely flaunted as a totem of affluence, with some officials openly displaying cellphone images of their “handsome bachas”. “Come see my beautiful bacha,” said Naqibullah, a police commander in Dehjawze village near Tarin Kot, boasting that he had been holding the teenager for two years. With a touch of kohl on his eyes, and bleached blond curly hair poking out of his embroidered hat, the boy sat in a corner of the checkpoint surrounded by opium farms, quietly refilling tea glasses for Naqibullah’s guests. “Commanders prowl neighborhoods for young boys. We are scared of dressing up our children or buying new clothes that will make them attractive,” said Nader Khan, a tribal elder in Dehrawud. Khan’s 13-year-old nephew was taken captive earlier in 2016 by Naqibullah, a local commander not related to the Dehjawze official, when his family sent him to deliver bread for policemen. He was released only after angry tribal elders besieged the governor’s office in Tarin Kot.

Is Florida a jihadist playground?

Michelle Malkin looks at the rise of killer Muslims in Orlando and other parts of Florida.

The West should give up on the idea of the democratization and secularization of the Islamic world

Pat Buchanan looks at the negative effects that Muslim immigrants have on the western world.

Islamic Justice: Woman convicted of adultery in Qatar after reporting rape

Qatar's Article 281 makes clear that any man who has extramarital sex "with a female over sixteen without compulsion, duress, or ruse shall be punished with imprisonment for a term up to seven years." The next part of that code raises eyebrows: "The same penalty shall also be imposed on the female for her consent." And it's what has dealt a conviction to a Dutch woman trapped in the Arab country since she reported her own rape three months ago. The 22-year-old woman, IDed only as Laura, was given a one-year suspended sentence and $850 fine, Daphne Kerremans, a Dutch Foreign Ministry rep, said. Laura was accused of adultery after her drink was drugged at a Doha hotel in mid-March 2016 and she woke up in a stranger's apartment to find she had been sexually assaulted; when she notified police, she was arrested. Laura's lawyer says that she was on vacation at a hotel that permitted the sale of alcohol (liquor is mostly illegal in Qatar). A former Qatar justice minister said that defense lawyers would had to have proved "no voluntary actions" existed between the woman and the man, IDed as Syrian national Omar Abdullah Al-Hassan. He claims that the sex was consensual but that they argued after, prompting Laura to file her report; he received a sentence of 140 lashes — 100 for the extramarital sex, 40 for drinking booze, none for rape. The burden in Qatar of proving sexual assault is so strong that a man and woman walking together could be enough to convince officials that the woman gave the OK to sex later. Laura will be deported after paying her fine. "The ambassador is with her now and is making sure that she can go home as soon as possible," Kerremans said. "It was quite overwhelming for her."

A major Jewish philanthropist has been arrested and charged with paying kickbacks to the president of New York City’s corrections officers’ union

Federal agents arrested 55-year-old Murray Huberfeld, a financier who has donated millions of dollars to Jewish charities, in Manhattan. Huberfeld has been charged with fraud for a kickback he paid to labor union president Norman Seabrook, who was also arrested and charged. According to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Huberfeld in 2014 paid Seabrook $60,000 in cash in exchange for Seabrook investing $20 million from his union’s pension fund in Huberfeld’s hedge fund, Centurion Credit Management. “As alleged, Norman Seabrook and Murray Huberfeld engaged in a straightforward and explicit bribery scheme,” Bharara said. For a Ferragamo bag stuffed with $60,000 in cash, Seabrook sold himself and his duty to safeguard the retirement funds of his fellow correction officers. Huberfeld — who has homes in Manhattan and Long Island — is through his family foundation a major donor to Chabad synagogues around the world and to haredi Orthodox yeshivas and other organizations in the New York area and Israel. He also serves on the board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a California-based group that opposes anti-Semitism. Huberfeld was convicted of fraud in 1993 for having someone else take a broker license exam while posing as him and settled a civil complaint brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1998. Huberfeld’s private foundation gives over a million dollars a year to Jewish organizations, including $1.476 million in 2014, according to tax forms.

A court in the Indian capital Delhi has sentenced five men to life imprisonment for the 2014 gang rape of a Danish woman in the city

The 52-year-old tourist was robbed and raped at knife point in January 2014. Nine people, including three minors, were arrested for the crime. One of the accused died, while the minors are being tried in a juvenile court. Scrutiny of sexual violence in India has grown since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus. The five men have the right to appeal against the sentence in a higher court. The tourist had lost her way to her hotel in Delhi's Paharganj area when she approached the men to ask for directions. She gave police a detailed statement about what happened to her in the presence of the Danish ambassador before leaving the country soon after the assault. The 2012 gang rape led to protests and new anti-rape laws in India. However, brutal sexual attacks against women and children continue to be reported across the country.

What are the 10 most peaceful countries on Earth?

According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, they are Iceland, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Portugal, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Canada, Japan and Slovenia. The ranking is based on 23 factors including involvement in conflicts at home and abroad, crime, terrorist activity, political stability, levels of militarization, and relations with other countries in general. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, and Syria are the least peaceful.

There are more cases of albinism in sub-Saharan Africa than anywhere else on Earth

In Malawi, a violent sidebar to this phenomenon has emerged over the past year and a half. People there with the hereditary condition — marked by a reduction or faulty distribution of melanin, which lends pigment to one's eyes, skin, and hair — have been raped, harassed, and slain, with at least 18 albinos murdered during that timeline (four, including a baby, were killed in April 2016 alone) and five albinos still missing. And, in a gruesome twist, the body parts culled from these murders are often sold to witch doctors and others to feed superstitious beliefs, fetching as much as $75,000 for a "complete set" (including all four limbs, ears, nose, tongue, and the genitals), per the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This macabre practise and treatment of albinos overall arises from the rampant superstition surrounding the condition: A dangerous belief that having sex with an albino woman can cure HIV has led to rapes, while another myth centers on albino bones containing gold, magical traits, or medicinal properties. And what is local law enforcement doing to protect the albino population in Malawi? Not much, per Amnesty International, which claims in a new report that the government and police are doing almost nothing to educate citizens or keep the albino population safe from "albino hunters." The problem is getting so bad, that one albinism expert says that she fears the worst: albino extinction in certain areas of southern Africa, a possibility even put forth by the UN. Meanwhile, albinos continue to live in daily fear. "Why should people hunt me like they're hunting for animals to eat?" a board member of an albinism advocacy group in Malawi says. (Tanzania has suffered from the same issue.)

Economically, the United Kingdom has been a disaster for all the people of Northern Ireland

If we go back to 1920, 80% of the industrial output of the entire island of Ireland came from the three counties centered on Belfast. This was where all Irish industry was. It was industrial and innovative; northern entrepreneurs and inventors were at the forefront of industrial innovation. By 1911, Belfast was the biggest city in Ireland, with a population of close to 400,000, which was growing rapidly. It was by far the richest part of the island. Fast-forward to 2016 and the collapse of the once-dynamic Northern economy versus that of the Republic of Ireland is shocking. Having been a fraction of the North's at independence, the Republic's industrial output is now 10 times greater than that of Northern Ireland. Exports from the Republic are €89bn while from the North, exports are a paltry €6bn. This obviously reflects the presence of multinationals, but it also underscores just how far ahead the Republic's industrial base is. The total size of the Republic's economy is now four times that of the North, even though the labor force is not even two and a half times bigger. In terms of income per head, the Republic is now almost twice as rich per person as the North. The average income per head in the Republic is €39,873, while it languishes at €23,700 up North. The differing fortunes of North and South can be easily seen in the fact that, having been smaller than Belfast at the time of partition, the population of the greater Dublin area is now almost three times bigger than the greater Belfast metropolitan region.

What are the top 10 good countries?

Sweden beat out 162 other nations to win the overall top spot in the "Good Country Index," a ranking of the world's countries. The list is based on 35 various indicators from sources such as the World Bank and the UN, separated into the categories of culture, science and tech, prosperity and equality, world order, international peace and security, planet and climate, and health and well-being. The United States just missed making the top 20, coming in at No. 21. And in last place — Libya. "A good country is one that successfully contributes to the good of humanity," British policy adviser Simon Anholt, who established the Good Country Index, said. "Of course, it must serve the interests of its own people, but never at the expense of other populations or their natural resources: This is the new law of human survival." The other countries in the top 10 are Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Canada, France, Austria and New Zealand.

Black men with a high degree of West African genetic ancestry have less central adiposity

Among black men, those with more genetic variants descended from West Africa may have a relatively lower risk of being overweight, obese and diabetic, according to a new study out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Arizona. Obesity affects women and men of every ethnic group in the United States with strong gender and racial disparities. "We know that many factors, environmental, cultural and biological, can affect one's level of fatness," said David Allison, Ph.D., director of UAB's Nutrition Obesity Research Center and co-author of the study. "Researchers and pundits alike often consider one factor at a time, yet such explanations do not seem to account for the complex patterns of obesity risk we see — such as the fact that black women have a much greater risk of obesity than do white women, yet black men and white men have rather similar rates of obesity." Although socioeconomic factors, access to health care, healthy food and safe places to exercise have been associated with obesity and other racial disparities in health, black and white men do not have significantly different rates of obesity, according to the CDC. Investigators from UAB and the University of Arizona analyzed genetic data from 4,425 healthy black men and women between the ages of 45 and 85. The data originated from two cohort studies sponsored by the National Heart Lung Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study and the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Genetic ancestry, or the proportion of one's ancestors who hailed from one part of the world versus another, for each participant was estimated by looking at 3,000 variants or markers in the genome, which differ between people from West Africa and Europe. The fraction of one's ancestry from West Africa varies considerably among African-Americans due to genetic admixture from other ancestral populations, such as Europeans or Native Americans. Black men with a high degree of West African genetic ancestry tended to have a lower waist circumference and waist-hip ratio, indicating they have less central adiposity or abdominal fat than did black men with a lower degree of West African genetic ancestry. In contrast, such associations were generally not observed among black women. "The African-American gene pool may contain one or more gene variants, originally inherited from West African ancestors, that may give men partial protection against central adiposity," said Allison, Quetelet Endowed Professor of Public Health. "As we move forward in prevention and treatment of central obesity, it may be helpful to identify these gene variants and the mechanisms through which they operate."

The African immigrant population in the United States has grown from 80,000 in 1970 to 1.8 million in 2013

Between 1965 and 2000, the highest number of immigrants (4.3 million) to the United States came from Mexico, in addition to some 1.4 million from the Philippines. Korea, the Dominican Republic, India, Cuba and Vietnam were also leading sources of immigrants, each sending between 700,000 and 800,000 over this period. The immigrant population from Middle Eastern countries grew from 235,000 in 1980 to 1.02 million in 2013 according to the census.

Incompetent black parents cause death of gorilla

A four-year-old black boy, Isiah Dickerson, was with his mother Michelle Gregg at Cincinnati Zoo, Ohio, when he somehow made his way through a barrier, into a moat - and was lifted up by Harambe. Within minutes the 17-year-old 450lb silverback was killed by zookeepers who feared for Isiah's safety. But the decision has sparked a backlash, with calls for the boy's parents to be prosecuted. Isiah is recovering from minor injuries and his mother has not been seen at the Cincinnati home where she lives. His father, Deonne Dickerson, 36, has also not been seen since the killing of the gorilla. He was not with his partner and their four children at the time. The black boy's father has a significant criminal history, with offenses including burglary, firearms offences, drug trafficking, criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and kidnap. In 2006, he was sentenced to one year behind bars for a drug trafficking conviction. Many social media commentators have criticized the boy's parents and said that they should be held accountable. More outraged animal lovers took to social media declaring that the western lowland gorilla's life was unnecessarily taken, and more than 4,000 have already joined the "Justice for Harambe" group. More than 115,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for the mother and father to be held accountable for their actions of not supervising their child.

Pakistan: A constitutional body has put forth legislation that would legally require men to “lightly beat” their wives should they decline sex

The 160-page draft enumerates several other instances that would call for “limited violence,” such as a wife’s failure to wear clothes to her spouse’s liking; failure to bathe following intercourse or during menstruation; failure to wear a hijab; giving money to someone without permission from her husband and speaking too loudly.

Brazilian police are searching for more than 30 men suspected of gang-raping a 16-year-old girl in a Rio de Janeiro slum

Police only became aware of the crime after two men posted photos and videos of the naked and unconscious victim online, along with jokes about what happened to her. One man bragged that "more than 30 impregnated her." The photos and videos received hundreds of likes and supportive comments online. Police have identified only four of the suspects — including the victim's 19-year-old boyfriend — and are asking for the public's help in finding them and identifying others. The first suspect was arrested while 70 military police worked their way through a Rio de Janeiro slum. He hasn't been identified. The victim told police that she arrived at her boyfriend's home. The next thing she remembers is coming to in a different home surrounded by 33 heavily armed men. "I feel like trash," the victim was quoted as saying. "It's the stigma that hurts me the most...I want people to know that it is not the woman's fault.” Brazil's interim president called the attack a "barbaric crime." Many blamed the victim after reports of the attack surfaced. Violence against women is a huge problem in the country. Nearly 50,000 rapes were reported in 2015 in Brazil. There were a reported 13 per day in Rio de Janeiro alone. When asked if the victim was in danger of reprisals from her attackers, the city's police chief responded, "That would be a subjective answer. Who isn't at risk in Rio de Janeiro?"

Migration and European ancestry in African-Americans

Led by a team at McGill University in California, researchers looked at genetic data from 3,726 African Americans in three groups, representative of the population across the country and across social and economic groups. From their analysis, they were able to show that the genetic ancestry of these populations were on average 82.1% of African origin, 16.7% European and 1.2% from the Americas or Asia. Interestingly, samples from individuals in southern states tended to have a slightly higher percentage of African genetic ancestry than individuals living in the north. The researchers claim that increased European ancestry correlated with increased likelihood of migration.

A 70-year-old Christian woman has been stripped naked, beaten and paraded through the streets by a mob of around 300 Muslim men in a village in southern Egypt

The mob also burned down seven homes belonging to Christian families, according to an unusually outspoken statement issued by the local Orthodox Coptic church, after rumors circulated in the village that a Christian man was having a relationship with a Muslim woman.

Black Canadians are the fastest growing group in federal prisons in Canada

While African-Canadians make up 3% of the general Canadian population, they account for 10% of the federal prison population.

In New York City, blacks are 31-times more likely than whites to be arrested for murder

Hispanics are 12.4-times more likely than whites to be arrested for murder in New York City. If New York City was all white, the murder rate would fall by 91% and non-fatal shootings would drop by 97%.

Can software used by the police to identify suspects be racist?

Algorithm for predicting likelihood of re-offending is biased against black people, claims left-wing group ProPublica.

South Korea: the country where the rape of foreign women is ignored

When Australian Airdre Mattner was drugged and raped while on vacation, she had no idea that her ordeal had only just begun. The 25-year-old realized that the only way to find justice in South Korea was to run her own campaign. In doing so, she exposed a culture where violence against women, particularly foreigners, is often accepted. Her fight has led her to other victims of sex attacks who have been ignored by the authorities to tell their stories. Airdre, who teaches English in Japan, was visiting Seoul with her boyfriend and a friend in September 2015, and decided to stay on a few days alone. Like many Australians, she believed that the South Korean capital was safe, and joined a pub crawl advertised on Facebook to get to know the city better. After just three drinks, things went hazy and she found herself in a taxi with a stranger, she wrote on her GoFundMe page, which has raised almost A$18,000. She was violently sick, but managed to plead with the driver to take her to her hostel, showing him the address on her phone. He ignored her. "The next thing I recall is being on a bed in a hotel room," she said. "The man was on top of me. I struggled and tried to push him away but was again too heavily drugged to manage anything. I woke up the next morning completely naked. All my money was gone. My clothes and belongings were torn and strewn across the room." CCTV footage shows three men were involved in the attack. After they half-carried her into the motel, in a place called "Hookers Hill", one spent an hour in the room with Airdre before the next man went in. The young Australian enlisted the help of her hostel manager and a friend and went to the police station. She endured ten hours of invasive treatments, tests and questions, still in shock and feeling the effects of the drugs. She was asked what she was wearing and it was repeatedly insinuated that she was drunk. Later, she discovered that the authorities had not followed proper rape procedures and had not even obtained DNA evidence. When Airdre received a friend request from her rapist on Facebook, she took screenshots and sent them to the police, but was told that couldn't be the perpetrator because he wasn't in the country. Eventually, she was forced to launch her own investigation, and discovered that the report had been falsified. "Her treatment by police was as traumatic as the night before," 60 Minutes reporter Alison Langdon said. "There's a culture of victim-blaming, if you go out and drink or dance. They have this culture where they don't take sex crime seriously. When the victim and perpetrator are not South Korean, police care even less." Western women are even known as "white whores" in some circles, added Langdon. After an international outcry when Airdre went public, police were forced to respond, and a Nigerian man was arrested for her rape. But he's being prosecuted for sexual harassment rather than rape or even assault, because she was unconscious and therefore cannot prove she didn't consent, says Langdon. Airdre's case has brought to light South Korea's poor record on sex crime. In March 2016, the country made numerous amendments to outdated laws, leading to a spike in sex crime reporting, arrests and prosecutions. Reports of sexual assaults against foreigners have risen 40% in South Korea since 2008, and attacks on foreign women in neighboring Japan are on the rise, too. Less than 10% of rapes in South Korea are reported, less than 2% go to trial, and only around 10% of those found guilty face jail-time, said Langdon. Most hospitals don't have rape kits and there are even websites where people can live stream rapes of unconscious women, and ask to join in. South Korea may be a safe country when it comes to murder and robbery, but if you're a visiting woman, it's incredibly dangerous.

The real message of O.J. Simpson’s life: During the second half of the 20th Century, white Americans became extraordinarily favorably disposed toward black Americans, but blacks kept letting whites down

Why do so many on the left want to see black criminals as victims?

Charles Wade, a prominent Black Lives Matter organizer and co-founder of Operation Help or Hush, has been arrested and charged with human trafficking and prostitution

Wade was arrested at a Howard Johnson Inn in College Park, Maryland, on April 25, 2016. He was residing in a motel room where he pimped a 17-year-old girl. Wade was held on seven counts relating to felony human trafficking and prostitution. He was bailed out shortly after his arrest. He was arrested as part of a sting operation in which an undercover officer responded to an ad Wade placed for a 23-year-old woman on backpage.com, a website frequently used by sex traffickers and prostitutes. Investigators said that the woman, who turned out to be a 17-year-old girl, called Wade her manager. She said he knew that she was a minor but wasn’t worried because of her upcoming birthday. She also told investigators that she provided all the money she earned to Wade.

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.”