An orthodox Jewish rabbi who resigned as a city jail chaplain after reports surfaced that he had arranged a six-hour bar mitzvah party behind bars has been charged in Manhattan federal court with housing fraud

Leib Glanz, who belongs to the ultra-religious Satmar sect, and his brother, Menashe Glanz, surrendered after they were accused of a $200,000 scheme in Brooklyn. Over 15 years, according to the complaint, federal Section 8 housing benefits were paid for a duplex apartment in Williamsburg, where Menashe Glanz, 49 years old, claimed to live. That apartment was, in fact, occupied by 53-year-old Leib Glanz, according to the complaint, and the benefits were paid to the apartment's landlord, United Talmudical Academy, which employed Menashe. Until June 2009, Leib Glanz, a politically connected rabbi, was a part-time corrections chaplain at the Manhattan Detention Center in Lower Manhattan. After it was reported that he had arranged for a Jewish inmate to throw a kosher, privately catered bar mitzvah party in the facility for his son, the rabbi was suspended. He resigned after the city's Department of Investigation began probing the bar mitzvah.

Why are African Americans more likely than whites to be not only diagnosed with head and neck cancer, but also die from the disease?

A study finds that blacks are more likely to be past or current smokers, one of the primary risk factors for head and neck cancer. African Americans are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and have a worse five-year survival than whites. African Americans are more likely to be unmarried or living alone, both of which previous studies suggest have a negative impact on quality of life and survival. In terms of cancer treatment, African Americans are more than two times more likely than whites to receive radiation therapy. Often times, if the tumor is extensive or it is not feasible to completely remove it, radiotherapy is initially given to try to shrink the tumor. Fewer African Americans (43%) opted for surgery than whites (49%). African American tumors are six to seven times more likely to present with lymphocytic response, which essentially is an entourage of immune system cells. These cells behave not only as first responders against tumors, but can also produce growth factors (chemicals) that feed tumor growth, such as forming blood vessels. Compared to the tumors of whites, African American tumors were almost two times more likely to have loss of the CDKN2A (cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 2A) gene and gain of the SCYA3 (small inducible cytokine A3) gene. CDKN2A is important to cell cycle regulation, and the SCYA3 gene product has dual roles of tumor lymph node metastasis and local host defense against tumors in HNSCC.

Having many partners may help your kids perform better, even if it puts your own health at risk - if you're an African frog - new research shows

The biologists analyzed wild populations of a tree frog in a remote area of Limpopo province near the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Focusing on the African grey foam nest tree frog (Chiromantis xerampelina), the researchers sought to understand why females behave promiscuously, despite the risk of disease, injury and predation. Their hypothesis for female promiscuity is that females can increase the genetic diversity of their offspring and, in so doing, increase the chance that at least some offspring survive and reproduce. The argument for mating with multiple partners (polyandry) was that it increased genetic diversity cushions against fluctuating selective forces in challenging environments. The frog's offspring are developing in an environment that's highly unpredictable in terms of rainfall, food availability and predation risk. If the environment is fluctuating, it is very difficult for females to predict which male partner will provide genes that give her offspring the best chance of performing well in the future. So if she's mated with a range of different males it increases the probability that one of those males will provide her offspring with genes that allow those offspring to withstand the challenges of life. While polyandry did not affect the rate of development or size of offspring at maturity, it did have an effect on the average survival rate. Research has also been conducted on the Australian terrestrial toadlet, which inhabits bushland up and down the east coast of Australia. The genetic work with this species has shown that females will actually have their offspring sired by up to eight different males. This is now the most extreme case of female promiscuity in a vertebrate. I think this research helps to explain the sexual behavior of black Africans and Australian Aborigines who also tend to be very promiscuous.

A Hispanic convicted of driving a 13-year-old from her San Bernardino County home to Las Vegas to have sex with her has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison

Ivan Lopez, 23, admitted traveling to Nevada with the girl in 2010 after developing an online relationship with her over a period of several months, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. Lopez secretly arranged to pick the girl up at home once her parents had gone to bed, according to authorities. After her parents reported her missing, an Amber Alert was issued, and Lopez was arrested when his van was located outside a Las Vegas motel. In his communication with the girl, online and on the phone, Lopez asked the eighth-grader to be his girlfriend and told her that he planned to run away and have sex with her. "Lopez seemed to wear down the victim's defenses by asking her several times to send nude photos of herself, which she did after initially declining his sexual advances," the U.S. attorney's office said in a news release. Lopez told the teen that he considered her to be his wife and even bought a ring for her. In addition to his prison sentence, which was handed down in federal court in Riverside, Lopez will be required to register as a sex offender.

Hispanics are almost 1500 times more likely to be admitted to the University of Wisconsin-Madison than a comparable white, with blacks not far behind

Another example of racism being socially acceptable when it works against whites.

A 29-year-old Hispanic has been arrested for biting off a man's eyebrow during a fight, chewing it and spitting it out

Luis Miguel Aguilar was arrested by detectives, is being held in the Buena Park Jail and is expected to be arraigned on one count of felony mayhem at the North Justice Center in Fullerton. The victim, a 41-year-old man, will require reconstructive surgery as a result of the fight that broke out at a party. The two men did not know each other.

African-Americans with prehypertension develop high blood pressure a year sooner than whites

Blacks with prehypertension also have a 35% greater risk of progressing to high blood pressure than whites, according to health records of 18,865 adults 18 to 85. Prehypertension is blood pressure ranging between 120/80 mm Hg and 139/89 mm Hg. Hypertension is 140/90 mm Hg or higher. Previous research has shown that coronary heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure are more common among blacks than whites. The fact that African-Americans progress faster to hypertension has a direct link to the higher prevalence of hypertension and its complications, such as stroke and kidney disease, in blacks than whites. The study results suggest a strong need for more aggressive early interventions and lifestyle changes for African-Americans with prehypertension. One possible explanation may be based on African Americans' greater dietary intake of salt during a lifetime.

Researcher apologizes for pointing out that black women are less attractive than women of other racial groups

Satoshi Kanazawa, reader in the department of management at the London School of Economics (LSE), caused an uproar when he wrote a blog posting on the US-based website Psychology Today titled: "Why are black women less physically attractive than other women?" The Japanese evolutionary psychologist based his findings on a survey in which white, Asian, black and Native American men and women were asked to rate each other's attractiveness based on photographs. Black women scored lowest, Asian women highest. Kanazawa, who has worked at the LSE since 2003, said that this was because black women had higher testosterone levels than others and therefore had more masculine features.

Census figures from 2010 show that nearly 43,000 children under 14 years of age are living with a partner in Brazil

Brazil’s penal code prohibits marriage with children under 14 and defines sex with them as statutory rape. It is not uncommon for families to ask the court for permission to marry off a daughter younger than 14. Many are unaware that it is against the law. The states in which these unions are most common have Brazil’s lowest per-capita income.

Social media users who denounce drug cartel activities along the Mexican border received a brutal warning when two mangled bodies were found hanging like cuts of meat from a pedestrian bridge

A woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. Attackers left her topless, dangling by her feet and hands from a bridge in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. A bloodied man next to her was hanging by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply the bone was visible. Signs left near the bodies declared the pair, both apparently in their early 20s, were killed for posting denouncements of drug cartel activities on a social network. "This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet," one sign said. "You better (expletive) pay attention. I'm about to get you." The gruesome scene sent a chilling message at a time when online posts have become some of the loudest voices reporting violence in Mexico. In some parts of the country, threats from cartels have silenced traditional media. Sometimes even local authorities fear speaking out. Bloggers who specialize in sharing news about trafficking have been threatened in the past, but this could be the first time users of such social networks have been targeted.

Reading, race and SAT scores

In reading, while white students’ average score was 528, it was 451 for Latino students, down from 454 in 2010. For African-American students, it was even at 428. In math, whites in 2011’s cohort had a mean score of 535, while Latino students’ scores were up from 462 to 463 and blacks were even at 427. Writing dropped for blacks from 418 to 417, for Latinos from 446 to 444, and the mean score for white students was flat at 516. All changes were statistically significant.

The nation's second-largest Native American Indian tribe said that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls

The reaction follows a letter the tribe received from Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as "Cherokee Freedmen," are not allowed to vote. The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on their plantations in the South. By the 1830s, most of the tribe was forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma, and many took their slaves with them. The so-called Freedmen are descendants of those slaves. After the Civil War, in which the Cherokee fought for the South, a treaty was signed in 1866 guaranteeing tribal citizenship for the freed slaves. The U.S. government said that the 1866 treaty between the Cherokee tribe and the U.S. government guaranteed that the slaves were tribal citizens, whether or not they had a Cherokee blood relation. The African Americans lost their citizenship when the Cherokee Supreme Court voted to support the right of tribal members to change the tribe's constitution on citizenship matters. The change meant that Cherokee Freedmen who could not prove they have a Cherokee blood relation were no longer citizens, making them ineligible to vote in tribal elections or receive benefits. Besides pressure from the BIA to accept the 1866 Treaty as the law of the land, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is withholding a $33 million disbursement to the tribe over the Freedmen controversy. Attorneys in a federal lawsuit in Washington are asking a judge to restore voting rights for the ousted Cherokee Freedmen in time for the tribal election for Principal Chief.

Hispanic mayor uses his position to help Latino criminals

One evening in northern Massachusetts, Marco Tejeda knocked on the front door of a single-family home. When the homeowner answered, Tejeda hit the man over the head with a baseball bat, then struck him repeatedly as he lay on the floor. Tejeda seized some cash and some prescription medication before fleeing. Tejeda was a legal immigrant - his father works for the Dominican consulate. Fortunately, the police arrested Marco Tejeda quickly, and the judge ordered him held without bail. Tejeda submitted to the court a character reference from William Lantigua, Mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the most influential Hispanic politician in the state. The letter, written on mayoral stationary, was addressed “To whom it may concern” and described Marco Tejeda as “a hardworking individual with a strong set of values and high ethical standards.” This was not the first character reference that Mayor Lantigua had written for a criminal constituent. Lantigua also vouched for the character of a man charged with armed robbery, and another man charged with assaulting and robbing his own mother. Moreover, these character references were written immediately after the men were arrested for their crimes.

Black children in New York die from injuries at double the rate of other city kids

Those are the findings of a Health Department study of child mortality that looked at the fatal injuries of 470 kids up to age 12 between 2001 and 2009. The report says slightly more than six of every 100,000 black children die of injuries in the city, while the rate for white, Hispanic and Asian kids is closer to three. Health Commissioner Thomas Farley says that the disparity may be rooted in circumstance: black children are more likely to live in low-income neighborhoods with housing hazards such as missing window guards. Black and Hispanic children also have high rates of homicide or suicide, which are included with injury deaths.

A majority of Americans don’t believe that Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan will help lower the unemployment rate

The downbeat assessment of the American Jobs Act reflects a growing and broad sense of dissatisfaction with Obama. Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy by 62% to 33%, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted Sept. 9-12, 2011 shows. The disapproval number represents a nine point increase from six months ago. The poll hands Obama new lows in each of the categories that measures his performance on the economy: only 36% of respondents approve of his efforts to create jobs, 30% approve of how he’s tackled the budget deficit and 39% approve of his handling of health care.

Hispanics have seen one of the sharpest rises in poverty, with more than 1 in 4 now living below the poverty line - that's more than double the poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites

The Hispanic poverty rate went up 1.3% in 2010, the sharpest annual rise of any group except blacks. More than a quarter of Hispanics – some 13.2 million people – were living below poverty level, more than double the 9.9% rate of non-Hispanic whites, according to a new report from the US Census Bureau. The median household income for Hispanics dropped from $38,667 to $37,759 – a decrease of 2.3%. Hispanic household wealth fell a whopping 66% between 2005 and 2009, according to a Pew analysis. There are now 6.1 million poor Hispanics under the age of 18 – more than any other single group. The percentage of blacks living below the poverty line is 27.4%. The number of blacks living under the poverty line — which is $11,139 for an individual in 2010 — rose to 10.7 million, up 1.6%. The median income for black households in 2010 was $32,068, down 3.2% from $33,122. The median income for white households also dropped, to a lesser degree, from $52,717 to $51,846, a decline of 1.7%. Asians, including Indian Americans, were the lone exception as the number of poor in the United States rose for the fourth consecutive year across all racial and ethnic groups in 2010. In the case of Asians, poverty levels remained at 12.1%. Of course, if our immigration rates were lower, our poverty rates would probably be lower as well.

A black vegan couple who only fed their newborn son soy milk and apple juice have lost out in their bid to have their murder convictions overturned

Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, had appealed against their conviction over the death of their six-week-old son who starved to death. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of the couple who claimed that they were sticking to their beliefs over food. An autopsy found that his death was due to extreme malnourishment or starvation. When police searched the couple's home, they found a soy milk bottle, an apple juice bottle and a rancid-smelling baby bottle caked with debris. Prosecutors said that an investigation revealed the two, who lived a vegan lifestyle and ate no animal products, only fed their baby soy milk and apple juice, and had failed to seek medical treatment when their young son was wasting away. According to authorities, the child died of bronchopneumonia due to extreme malnourishment or starvation. The couple were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Criminals and drug dealers were caught in an undercover sting after police officers posed as staff in a fake hip hop music shop

A total of 37 armed criminals and drug dealers, including 30 gang members, have been jailed for a total of more than 400 years following the sting operation in the shop, called Boombox, in Edmonton, north London. Codenamed Operation Peyzac, the £500,000 operation involved undercover officers kitting out as a fully-operating rap and hip hop music store, with a private back room which was used to carry out deals with drug and gun sellers, and the store was wired with CCTV and recording equipment. The shop operated for more than 12 months and officers, who were trained in the sort of music they were selling, were able to film the trading of firearms, ammunition and drugs. It should not be too surprising that most of those arrested were black.

Which state has the best blacks?

According to Steve Sailer and Audacious Epigone, it is Hawaii. The worst blacks apparently live in Wisconsin.

A national report by financial aid guru Mark Kantrowitz finds that minority students are less likely to win private scholarships or receive merit-based institutional grants than white students

The analysis, based on 2003-04 and 2007-08 data for hundreds of thousands of students from the National Post-secondary Student Aid Study, found that nationally, white students are 40% more likely to win private scholarships than minority students. Unfortunately, the analysis does not distinguish between Jewish and gentile white students.