An Indian court has ruled that state-owned airline Air India has the right to prevent its air hostesses from flying for being overweight

The Delhi high court was responding to a case filed by five air hostesses who had been grounded by the airline for being too fat to fly. The air hostesses are expected to appeal against the decision. The judges agreed with the airline's view that overweight crew present a safety and health hazard. They also said that, in the highly competitive airline industry, an air hostess's physical condition and appearance played an important role in her overall personality. Air India, whose air hostesses wear traditional Indian saris, is facing a stiff challenge from a number of private airlines with younger flight crew typically dressed in skirts or Western suits. A few years ago, during a recruitment drive for new crew, the airline said that it would not consider applicants with acne or bad teeth.

Obama and education

So how do you go about improving education in America?

The unemployment rate among Latinos is rising faster than the rate for non-Hispanic workers in the United States

Latino workers have lost nearly 250,000 jobs in the construction industry over the past year, with the foreign-born hit hardest, the report by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center said. The unemployment rate for Latino workers was 7.3% for the first quarter of 2008, compared with 6.1% for the same period last year. The rate for all other workers was 5%, up from 4.6%. For the first time since 2003, the unemployment rate for Latinos not born in the United States was higher, at 7.5%, than the rate for native-born Latinos, at 6.9%, the report found.

Hispanic workers face a greater risk of dying from work-related injuries, with one in three deaths occurring in the construction industry

Between 1992 and 2006, 11,303 Hispanic workers died from work-related injuries. This represents approximately 13% of all work-related deaths in the United States during that time, a higher rate than for white or black workers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Work-related fatalities are going down for the workforce in general, but the disparity between Hispanic and non-Hispanic is persistent and not going away," Dr. Sherry Baron, coordinator of the Occupational Health Disparities Program at the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said during a teleconference. "In 2006, the rate was 25% higher in Hispanics compared to all workers," Baron said. "Most striking is the especially high rate for foreign-born Hispanic workers. Foreign-born Hispanic workers had a 70% higher rate of work-related injury deaths compared to native-born Hispanic workers," she said.

The Michigan Education Association says the number of African-American and Hispanic students dropping out of school is staggering

A report released by Education Week magazine shows only a third of young black men in Michigan graduated in 2005.

Buchanan versus Cohen

Pat Buchanan exposes the hypocrisy of liberals like Richard Cohen over racial voting.

A four-year-old girl was repeatedly raped, allegedly by her relative at her home in South Africa

"The girl was left alone with the relative, 48, after he and other family members had been staying with her mother, after the child's father passed away," said Police Inspector Kay Makhuvele. He said that it was not clear how many times the girl had been raped, or over what period of time. "She may have been raped over a number of days, and we are still trying to find out where her mother and the rest of the relatives went when the rape was happening," he said.

A black man who told police he was nearly lynched by a group of white men actually ran into a clothesline after arguing with his wife

The man whose name was not immediately available, called the sheriff and said a group of men tried to hang him in rural Carter County after he stopped to help an elderly farmer round up straying cattle. Sheriff Ken Grace said deputies and FBI agents investigated the case, and the man told officers that he made up the false claim. "He said they accused him of stealing cattle, wrapped a rope around his neck and dragged him around and beat him," Grace said. "Later, he admitted that he was arguing with his wife at an apartment complex and went running through the yard and ran into a clothesline and got the burn on his neck. His wife confirmed that.

A Sri Lankan mother suspected of stabbing two of her children to death was lonely and depressed by her life in Britain

Police have detained Sasikala Navaneethan, 35, under the Mental Health Act over the deaths of her son, 5, and his sister, 4. Their six-month-old sister remains in a critical condition after all three children were stabbed at their home in Carshalton, South London. Police have refused to give details of the incident but sources suggested that the throats of the older children had been cut.

Dogs and Somali immigrants

Allan Wall has an interesting post on the irrational views of Somali Muslims concerning dogs.

4 Algerian Christians have been given suspended jail terms and fines for worshipping illegally

This is how Christians are treated in a predominantly Islamic country.

Two Spanish men have been arrested in Gambia accused of making homosexual advances to taxi drivers, police say

Recently, President Yahya Jammeh threatened to behead gay people at a political rally and said they had 24 hours to leave the country. He promised "stricter laws than Iran" on homosexuality and said he would "cut off the head" of any gay person. Gambia is predominantly Muslim and President Jammeh cultivates an image of being a devout Muslim. Homosexual sex is illegal in Gambia where those convicted of consensual homosexual acts face jail terms of up to 14 years.

Prehistoric man may have executed rivals from neighbouring tribes to steal their women, research has found

A study of 7,000-year-old skeletons, led by Durham University scientists, found that one of the burial groups consisted only of men and children. This indicated that the women were spared and their capture could have been the motive for the attack. The findings, from a burial pit in Talheim, Germany, are published in the journal Antiquity. The 34 skeletons were discovered in the 1980s, but new studies of different types (isotopes) of atoms in their teeth show that they came from three groups - locals, cattle-herders and a "family" of a man, woman and two children. All the skeletons bore marks to the left side of the skull showing that they were hit in the head with an axe, indicating they were executed while bound. The scientists concluded the absence of local females meant they were captured instead. Dr Alex Bentley, from Durham University's Anthropology Department, said: "It seems this community was specifically targeted, as could happen in a cycle of revenge between rival groups. Although resources and population were undoubtedly factors in central Europe around that time, women appear to be the immediate reason for the attack. Our analysis points to the local women being regarded as somehow special and were therefore kept alive." Dr Bentley added: "It looks like tribal warfare on a small scale. It's crucial for a group which has a very small population to have access to mates."

A police officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham, England

The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph. Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming the officer infringed their right to profess their religion. Mr Abraham said: "I couldn't believe this was happening in Britain. The Bishop of Rochester was criticised by the Church of England recently when he said there were no-go areas in Britain but he was right; there are certainly no-go areas for Christians who want to share the gospel."

Nearly three decades after Seattle Public Schools integrated almost all its schools through busing, that racial balance is long gone

Leschi Elementary, about evenly divided between white and minority students in 1980, has a nearly all-minority population once again. The same is true for Brighton Elementary, Dunlap Elementary, Van Asselt Elementary — and all but two of the 26 schools that, the year before busing started, were considered racially imbalanced. Today, a total of 30 schools — close to a third of the district's buildings — have nonwhite populations that far exceed the district's average of 58 percent. In 20 of them, nonwhite enrollment is 90 percent or more. Seattle schools don't look exactly like they did before district wide busing began in 1978. There are fewer nearly all-white schools. Minority students are not as concentrated as they once were in the central part of the city. But Seattle Public Schools, like many districts across the nation, has slowly, steadily resegregated. "We like to think of ourselves as these enlightened, liberal folks," says School Board member Harium Martin-Morris. "But the fact is our schools aren't the way that people really think they are."

More than two million foreign nationals have moved to Britain in recent years and nine in 10 of them came from outside Europe

MigrationwatchUK has calculated that a net 2.3 million immigrants arrived in Britain between 1991 and 2006, the majority of them from developing economies in Africa and Asia. Only 205,000 came from the East European nations that have joined the European Union since 2004, according to Migrationwatch's analysis of official population statistics.

Immigrant leaders make threats against South Africans

Immigrant leaders in South Africa have said that thousands of refugees frustrated at miserable living conditions were on the point of retaliating against a wave of xenophobic attacks. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been forced to take refuge at temporary shelters around the country after mobs began attacking migrants in squatter camps three weeks ago, killing at least 62 people. "The tension is there, already, for a war," Deo Kabemba Bin Ngulu, a refugee leader from the Democratic Republic of Congo, told reporters.

A mass study found that deaths of children fathered by over-45s occurred at almost twice the rate of those fathered by men aged between 25 and 30

Scientists believe that children of older fathers are more likely to suffer particular congenital defects as well as autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy. The study was the first of its kind of such magnitude in the West, and researchers believe the findings are linked to the declining quality of sperm as men age. A total of 100,000 children born between 1980 and 1996 were examined, of whom 830 have so far died before they reached 18, the majority when they were less than a year old. The deaths of many of the children of the older fathers were related to congenital defects such as problems of the heart and spine, which increase the risk of infant mortality. But there were also higher rates of accidental death, which the researchers believe might be explained by the increased likelihood of suffering from autism, epilepsy or schizophrenia.

The educational progress of Mexican-Americans does not improve over the generations

Steve Sailer blogs about the sad reality that despite 60 years of political and legal battles to improve the education of Mexican Americans, they continue to have the lowest average education levels and the highest high school dropout rates among major ethnic and racial groups in the United States.

Islamic terrorists may be targeting mentally disturbed or disabled people in Britain in a bid to form a new brigade of home-grown suicide bombers

MI5 and police say the case of Nicky Reilly, who is being held over a nailbomb attack in Exeter, may indicate a new strategy of targeting vulnerable people with mental health problems to carry out attacks. A counterterrorism official said MI5 was investigating the extent to which Reilly had been manipulated by a “charismatic” Al-Qaeda recruiter. “It is a grotesque concept but they are using people who are clearly mentally subnormal,” the official said. “We know they have clever radicalisers who will take advantage of anyone they think they can manipulate, whether they have an IQ of 60 or 140,” he said. Reilly, 22, is a Muslim convert who has spent time detained in a mental health hospital. He has been described as a shambling introvert with the mental age of a 10-year-old. He is believed to have Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, and may also suffer from schizophrenia. Security officials say Al-Qaeda appears to have exported the tactic from Iraq, where disabled “foot soldiers” have been used to devastating effect. They point to a case in February when a suicide bomber in a wheelchair killed an Iraqi general in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Earlier, two women, initially thought to have Down’s syndrome, acted as couriers for a bomb in Baghdad, killing almost 100 people.