Is sugar the cause of many of our health problems?

Sugar may be the cause of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and even some cancers.

Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983

In 2010, just 66.8% of men had jobs, the lowest on record. Since 2000, the population of non-working adults has grown by 27 million. In addition, a quarter of teenagers were jobless in March 2011. Twelve states, including Illinois and Pennsylvania, are considering a hike in the minimum wage. While this has been the subject of a long-running debate, many economists and analysts say raising this pay bar may cause more teen layoffs. Teens typically are the first to be fired and the last to be hired back in a normal economic cycle, so this rate can be considered as a kind of leading indicator of employment. Consider that the teen unemployment rate surged to 19% in May 2008, even as the overall unemployment rate ticked only slightly higher to 5.4%. If the teen rate continues to diverge from the overall rate, then it could represent an early sign of stagnation in the overall economic recovery.

A new study on men with type 2 diabetes shows that those with low levels of testosterone may die sooner unless they are given testosterone replacement therapy

Low testosterone puts diabetic men at a significantly increased risk of death.

Pakistan's Islamic blasphemy vigilantes kill exonerated man

Mohamed Imran had been accused, jailed, tried and cleared. But his so-called crime was blasphemy. He was meant to have said something derogatory about the prophet Mohammed, so in Pakistan justice worked a differently. A couple of weeks after he returned to his small farm on the outskirts of Islamabad, his so-called crime caught up with him. Two gunmen burst into the shoe shop where he was talking to a friend. Imran tried to duck, but the gunmen found their target and Pakistan's Islamic blasphemy laws claimed another victim. Two high-profile politicians have been assassinated in 2011 for their criticism of the Muslim blasphemy laws: Punjab governor Salman Taseer and minorities minister (and Christian) Shahbaz Bhatti. Some observers see their deaths and the climate of Muslim rage around the blasphemy laws as symptomatic of a broader rise in Islamic fundamentalist tendencies in Pakistan. It's reported that more than 30 of the hundreds of people convicted under the blasphemy laws have been killed by vigilantes.

Toledo police have charged a 49-year-old black man with one count of rape involving a 14-year-old developmentally disabled girl

Ricky Jamison was arrested by members of the special victim’s unit and the Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force. He was taken to the Lucas County jail where he is being held on one count of rape. On March 3, 2011 family members reported that their teenage girl was missing. Her disappearance resulted in an all-night search by officers who went door-to-door with the girl’s photo in her South Toledo neighborhood. She was found the following afternoon near the suspect’s home. At the time, police said that the victim was ordered by two abductors to get into their vehicle. When she refused, one of them grabbed her by the throat and forced her into the car.

A black adult charged in the gang rape of a California 11-year-old pleads not guilty

The only adult charged in the gang rape of an 11-year-old California girl has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, kidnapping to commit rape and engaging in criminal street gang activity. Michael Devon Sykes, 19, also denied special allegations that would enhance the charges during a brief arraignment hearing in court. Sykes is one of at least five people charged in either adult or juvenile court in the March 10, 2011 assault. Prosecutors say that she was walking home from school when she was lured by an older girl into a park bathroom and attacked by seven teenage boys. Police have said that some of the teens are known members of a gang called the South Side Mafia, which first came to the attention of authorities in late 2008. Four of the teens, who range in age from 15 to 17, have been charged in juvenile court. Prosecutors are fighting to move those cases to adult court and cite the premeditated nature and severity of the crimes for doing so. A juvenile court judge has ordered the Probation Department to prepare a report on the teens by April 25, 2011 as he decides whether to send them to adult court.

Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro have arrested a local lawmaker on suspicion of heading a paramilitary group linked to a series of murders

They say that Luiz Ferreira da Silva runs an illegal armed group which controls 13 Rio neighborhoods. Police said that the group had been planning an attack on the city's police chief. Originally formed to offer protection from drug gangs, many paramilitary groups are now running the criminal rackets they once fought. Luiz Andre Ferreira da Silva was arrested at his home in Rio. Police said that they had been investigating the paramilitary group he ran for two years. The officers said that they had brought the operation which led to Ferreira da Silva's arrest forward after uncovering a plan to kill Rio police chief Martha Rocha and lawmaker Marcelo Freixo. Freixo led an investigative commission which uncovered the growing influence of paramilitary groups in Rio.

A British university has elected a student with links to Muslim extremism as president of the student union, prompting fears that it has been infiltrated by Islamic radicals

Westminster University elected Tarik Mahri, 23, to the job of president of the union despite his links to the group Hizb ut-Tahrir which advocates the establishment of an Islamic state. His vice-president, Jamal Achchi, 26, also has links to the group, raising concerns that the university’s student union has been taken over by Islamic extremists. In the past members of the group have been accused of encouraging street violence against non-Muslims and of sexism and homophobia. The Prime Minister has said that the group should be banned as it seeks to poison young minds against Britain although the government has not yet taken action. It is, however, banned by the National Union of Students and by many student unions across the county. Universities across Britain have experienced problems with radical Muslim preachers and extremist members of Islamic Societies, but this is the first known case of individuals with extremist links being elected to senior positions in the student union. Mahri is a member of the "Global Ideas" society which was banned by the university in 2010 for inviting Jamal Harwood, a senior member of Hizb ut Tahrir, to address students. He has used the tag #bringbackkhilafah on the Twitter website and posted a rap song he wrote called "Khilafah's Coming Back" which refers to "the Kufr", a derogatory term for non-Muslims, on his Facebook page. The Khilfah refers to the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate run according to shariah law. The newly elected vice-president, Achchi, has circulated documents published by Hizb ut-Tahrir. Achchi used Scribd, a social networking site, to post Hizb ut-Tahrir memos calling on Muslims to overthrow democracy and establish the Khilafah. Shiraz Maher, a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, who is now a lecturer and journalist, said: "Hizb ut-Tahrir despises democracy and believes Shariah law must be imposed over the whole world, by force if necessary. I think unless we challenge this we are sleepwalking into a very dangerous future." A number of Islamic terrorists have studied at British universities including members of the fertilizer bomb and trans-Atlantic airlines gangs as well as Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab, the Detroit underpants bomber, and Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, the Stockholm suicide bomber.

A HIV-positive black man has been charged after, police said, he had sex with another person, knowing he had the virus

Andre Davis, 29, was charged with second-degree felonious assault. Davis is accused of engaging in a sex act with another person on March 3, 2011. During his arraignment, prosecutors said that Davis has known since 2009 that he was infected with HIV. They said that there is an ongoing investigation into Davis' actions and that there may be more victims in other jurisdictions. Prosecutors asked for a high bond and called Davis a danger to the community. Davis was given a $25,000 conditional bond and must wear an electronic monitoring device.

Gay slur costs Kobe Bryant $100,000

Bryant got ticked off at referee Bennie Adams when he got a technical foul. After yelling "Bennie!" from the bench, Bryant shook his head and mouthed the words "f*cking f**got."

A Chinese national living in California created a fake Army Reserve unit of his very own, then tricked about 100 Chinese nationals into paying for the privilege of enlisting

Yupeng Deng turned his office into a fake recruitment center in 2008 and doled out fake IDs and uniforms to those who forked over an initial $450, say police. He told recruits it was an easy path to citizenship. Deng's "soldiers" didn't do any fighting, of course, but they did march in a parade and tour the Midway museum in full uniform. Deng, who called himself the "supreme commander", faces eight years in prison on various fraud charges. Authorities also found child pornography in his home, which could add another three years to the sentence.

Four-year-old girl has a more realistic world view than her 38-year-old liberal mother

Even children understand human nature better than liberals:

Leslie, a 38-year-old social worker who counsels children with stressful life situations, found her 4-year-old daughter, Sophia, engaged in animated play with her dolls. She watched incredulously as Sophia invited the four white dolls with blonde hair to a tea party while the dark-skinned doll with black hair lay alone across the room.

“Why isn’t that doll going to the tea party?” she inquired.

“She’s dead,” replied Sophia matter-of-factly.

“Dead? How can that be? She’s just like the other dolls. Why can’t she play with them?”

“They don’t want to play with her.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she has dark skin,” replied Sophia.

Leslie’s mouth dropped to the floor as she fought back tears. How could this be? Hadn’t she and her husband worked diligently to teach her child to be inclusive? Sophia had a variety of multicultural toys and books. She was only allowed to watch progressive television shows like Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, Diego, the Backyardigans and Yo Gabba Gabba. An only child, she attended an expensive, supposedly inclusive pre-kindergarten school which included children of color.

“Sweet Pea,” said Leslie, plaintively, “you’re hurting that doll’s feelings. You’ve got to let her play with the other dolls.”

“She can’t. She’s in jail,” Sophia replied as she rationalized her decision to exclude the dark-skinned doll.

CNN survey indicates that only 53% say that Obama is a strong and decisive leader

This is down four points since the start of 2011 and down by nearly 20 points since his first year in office. And 55% say that Obama cannot manage the government effectively. Most say that they disagree with Obama on important issues.

Drinking alcohol primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember better

Scientists have found that repeated ethanol exposure enhances synaptic plasticity in a key area of the brain. This is further evidence toward an emerging consensus in the neuroscience community that drug and alcohol addiction is fundamentally a learning and memory disorder. In an important sense, alcoholics aren't addicted to the experience of pleasure or relief they get from drinking alcohol. They're addicted to the constellation of environmental, behavioral and physiological cues that are reinforced when alcohol triggers the release of dopamine in the brain. People commonly think of dopamine as a happy transmitter, or a pleasure transmitter, but more accurately it's a learning transmitter.

Police have arrested an Asian man in connection to the disappearance of a young girl

Benjamin Trinh, 28, was arrested at his home in Tacoma. He is accused of abducting an 8-year-old girl. The girl disappeared while playing outside Olympic View Elementary School in Federal Way. Her mother reported her missing, triggering an Amber Alert. "When the Amber Alert was sent out, a clerk at a major retail outlet store here in Federal Way saw the picture of this young lady and knew that she had seen her in the dressing room area with the man that matched the description of the Amber Alert suspect. This woman immediately contacted 911," said Federal Way police spokesperson Cathy Schrock. The two were at Target, and the man had the girl try on clothes he later bought for her, investigators said. When police arrived at the store, however, the pair had already left. But the alert was canceled just hours later when the girl walked home. The girl claimed that she was alone while missing, but investigators believe that she was with the man who'd only been known to local parents as "Ben." The Asian man had recently been seen lurking around an area park and taking photos of children. Witnesses said the man took photos of the girl before the two vanished together. "He started playing with her and playing with her," said David Rodriguez, a boy who witnessed the pair together. Detectives were interviewing Trinh. The Asian man has one prior conviction for second-degree theft.

Police on Staten Island are questioning a Jewish man whose wife was found dead inside her home

Eva Rubin, 63, was discovered inside her home in Willowbrook, police said. According to published reports, she was found face-up on a bed with bruises and marks on her neck. Rubin was a 4th grade teacher at the Yeshiva Merkaz on Staten Island. Her husband, 64-year-old photographer Arthur Rubin, is now being questioned after he gave himself up during a manhunt. According to a police source, he turned himself in to his rabbi 18 hours after he fled the couple's home. "It's just something where we just have to make peace with it," said Rabbi Saul Eisner. "It reflects what's happening in the world." Police were notified after Rubin had texted "sorry" and that "he couldn't take it anymore" to his son-in-law, who found the dead woman. Many who knew the couple were incredulous, "We know them as a couple. We went to Israel with them," said Norman Koller. He is currently being held at the 122nd precinct, according to police.

A naval officer from the United Arab Emirates has been busted for keeping an unpaid servant while living in a tony Rhode Island neighborhood

Col. Arif Mohamed Saeed Mohamed Al-Ali was arrested as he attempted to board a flight out of New York's JFK airport. He has pleaded guilty to charges that he kept a Filipino servant confined to his home in the United States and didn't pay her. The servant escaped and is now in hiding. A lawsuit has been brought against the officer by a defense organization charging human trafficking violations. Al-Ali was in Rhode Island attending the Naval War College there and living with his wife and 5 children.

Scientists claim the age of a girl’s mother – not her diet – has the biggest influence on when she starts her first period

A study shows that genetics explains more than half of the variation between women’s ages when menstruation began. Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research, a college of the University of London, found that a woman’s age of menarche - when periods begin - was significantly linked with that of her relatives, including her mother, older sister, grandmother or aunts. They used mathematical modelling to find that genetic factors accounted for around 57% of the variation in the age of menarche of women. The age at which menstruation begins is important because it has been linked to a risk of number of chronic diseases including breast cancer. Risk of breast cancer gradually increases with a progressively younger age at first period, and older age at menopause, possibly because women are exposed to female sex hormones for a longer period of time.

The crisis in the Ivory Coast is due to a huge influx of Muslim immigrants

It is difficult to find evidence of any country benefiting from Islamic immigrants. Once they arrive in a nation they tend to become social and criminal misfits who then blame the host population for their inability to successfully adapt.

Black and South Asian workers are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers in Britain

The figures show that the unemployment rate for black and South Asian workers increased from 10.2% in October-December 2007 to 13% in the same quarter in 2010 (a figure almost twice as high as the 7.1% unemployment rate for white individuals). The research reveals an even bleaker picture for young people from ethnic minority backgrounds, with the unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds leaping from 20.1% in 2007 to 30.5% in 2010. In contrast, the unemployment rate for white youngsters stands at 16.4%.