Wealth Gap Between Oldest And Youngest Is Widest Ever

WASHINGTON — The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt.

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

Black, Asian Teens Have Lowest Rates Of Drug And Alcohol Use

Nov. 7 — Black and Asian teenagers in the U.S. are less likely to use alcohol or drugs than adolescents of other races, a study found.


The survey of 72,561 teens found that American Indian youth had the highest level of drug or alcohol use, with 48 percent reporting they had used the substances in the past year. That was followed by 39 percent of whites, 37 percent of Hispanics, 36 percent mixed-race teens, 32 percent of blacks and 24 percent of Asians, according to the research published today in Archives of General Psychiatry.

Wireless Service Taxes Hit D.C., Maryland The Hardest

Did you know: Maryland (11^th) and the District of Columbia (15^th) are among the top 20 states with the most expensive wireless services?

A special report released by Tax Analysts, a non-profit provider of tax news and analysis, offers a detailed picture of the problem. If you live in Maryland, the combined federal-state local tax rate on your wireless services is 17.28% – and in D.C. the combined rate is 16.63% (as of July 2010). Wireless taxes in Maryland are about 6.3% higher than the national average and in D.C. about 2.3% higher.

Police Beat Teenage Black Girl For Riding Bike

A Majority Of Black Jobless No Longer Receiving Unemployment

A majority of Black unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.
In early 2010, 75 percent of Black unemployed were receiving benefits. Now, only 48 percent receive unemployment, a shift that highlights the nation’s issues with long tern unemployment.

Supreme Court to look at life in prison for juveniles

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether juveniles convicted of killing someone may be locked up for life with no chance of parole, a follow-up to last year's ruling barring such sentences for teenagers whose crimes do not include killing.

The justices will examine a pair of cases from the South involving young killers who are serving life sentences for crimes they committed when they were 14.

Both cases were brought by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala. The institute said that life without parole for children so young "is cruel and unusual" and violates the Constitution.

The group says roughly six dozen people in 18 states are under life sentences and ineligible for parole for crimes they committed at 13 or 14.

Who Killed Biggie Smalls?

A retired LAPD detective who worked on the case says he knows.

Investigations into the shocking murders of hip-hop stars Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls was shelved prematurely, according to a retired LAPD detective who said he knows who is responsible.

His new book "Murder Rap" points the finger at hip-hop mogul Suge Knight as responsible for ordering the hit on Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls.

"This is the definitive account," said author and retired LAPD detective Greg Kading. "I think that right now is the time when this should be looked at to promote prosecution"

Kading retired in 2010 to write the book.

"At the time, I realized these cases were both shelved, and there was no proactive effort to solve them," Kading said.

A Bright Economic Outlook: Kool Smiles Plans to Hire Nearly 100 South Carolina Residents in the Next 12 Months

Increased Patient Demand Fueling Expansion Plans for Leading Dental Health Provider

ORANGEBURG, S.C., Nov. 7, 2011 -- – While the monthly news from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reports slow – if any – job growth, Kool Smiles is pleased to announce plans to hire nearly 100 new employees for its South Carolina offices within the next 12 months. A leading

dental health provider for children and adults, Kool Smiles has seen an increase in patients through positive patient referrals and will continue to expand to meet the growing demand.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/07/4036071/a-bright-economic-outlook-kool.html#ixzz1d4Lwq4bX

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/07/4036071/a-bright-economic-outlook-kool.html#ixzz1d4LPIGry

FBI Joins Search for Missing 2-Year-old Washington Boy

The FBI has joined the search for a 2-year-old Washington state boy who was last seen by his mother inside a parked car.

Sky Metalwala was reported missing Sunday morning after his mother discovered him missing from her car in Bellevue, Wash.

The child's mother, Julia Biryukova, told police that she had run out of gas and left the boy buckled into his car seat while she and her 4-year-old daughter walked to a Chevron gas station, about a mile away.

Conrad Murray guilty in death of Michael Jackson

Cardiologist Conrad Murray has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the drug-overdose death of Michael Jackson. Prosecutors accused him of administering a fatal dose of the powerful anesthetic propofol to the King of Pop.

The judge ordered Murray held without bail until sentencing Nov. 29.

D.A.: Conrad Murray unlikely to serve 'appropriate' sentence

It is unlikely that Dr. Conrad Murray will serve a lengthy stint behind bars, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said Monday after the physician’s conviction in the death of Michael Jackson.

Cooley said legislation that calls for some state prison inmates to be returned to county jails will probably mean that Murray -– who was handcuffed and taken into custody after his conviction -– will probably not serve “an appropriate sentence.”

Murray faces a maximum term of four years in prison when he is sentenced Nov. 29.

SC's new voter ID law could hit GOP seniors

BLUFFTON, S.C. -- South Carolina's new voter ID law could affect an unlikely group: older white voters who have higher incomes, are reliably Republican and live in retirement homes and gated golf communities along the state's southern coast, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

There are roughly 217,000 active voters in the state who do not have a driver's license or state ID card, election officials said. Of those, almost a third are 65 or older, and nearly 1,600 of them live in precincts in Beaufort County's Sun City retirement community or affluent neighborhoods nearby, according to AP's analysis.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/07/4036882/scs-new-voter-id-law-could-hit.html#ixzz1d4Qt4Nxe

The Corporate Welfare State

The Occupy Wall Street protesters aren't good at articulating what they want, but one of their demands is "end corporate welfare." Well, welcome aboard. Some of us have been fighting crony capitalism for decades, and it's good to have new allies if liberals have awakened to the dangers of the corporate welfare state.

Corporate welfare is the offer of special favors—cash grants, loans, guarantees, bailouts and special tax breaks—to specific industries or firms. The government doesn't track the overall cost of these programs, but in 2008 the Cato Institute made an attempt and came up with $92 billion for fiscal 2006, which is more than the U.S. government spends on homeland security.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/07/4036882/scs-new-voter-id-law-could-hit.html#ixzz1d4QRSWb7

New census measure shows aid programs are helping poor children

A new, more accurate way of measuring poverty shows that antipoverty programs are working to keep children from falling into absolute deprivation.

The U.S. Census Bureau released a supplemental poverty measure Monday that shows children's poverty is at lower levels than previously calculated, thanks to food stamps and other programs aimed at helping families survive.

"It looks like the programs are targeted well at families with children, bringing many up out of poverty," said Kathleen Short, the Census Bureau economist who wrote the report.

At the same time, the report shows that the number of elderly living in poverty is much higher than previously calculated.

49.1 million people are poor, new Census estimates show

The ranks of America's poor are greater than previously known, reaching a new level of 49.1 million — or 16%— due to rising medical costs and other expenses that make it harder for people to stay afloat, according to new Census estimates.

Based on the revised formula, the number of poor people exceeds the record 46.2 million, or 15.1%, that was officially reported in September.

Banning Sodas At School Not Enough, Say Experts

Although children are not buying sugary drinks at school because of state bans, their overall consumption of such beverages does not seem to have dropped, researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago reported in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine after carrying out a study involving nearly seven thousand pupils in 40 US states.

Emergency warning test coming to every radio and TV in the nation

This is only a test. Seriously.

That's what the Federal Emergency Management Agency wants the public to know about the first nationwide test of the emergency alert system, scheduled for Wednesday.

The decades-old warning system is often tested locally, but it’s never been tested on every radio and TV station in the country at the same time, according to FEMA.

The agency is trying to get the word out about the test to avoid unnecessary alarm like, say, the panic caused by Orson Welles’ 1938 radio broadcast of a fictional Martian invasion in New Jersey.

Officials also want to prevent the test from tying up 911 phone lines.

"We have alerted our 911 call centers about the possibility for increased call volume during the Nov. 9 test,'' Alisa Simmons, a spokeswoman for the 911 network in Tarrant County, Texas, said in a statement appealing to the public not to call to inquire about the exercise.

Wednesday's 30-second test, which will sound and look like the familiar local tests, will begin at 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST). Some 30,000 radio and TV operations will participate in the test.

Federal officials considered a three-minute test but decided on 30 seconds "to reduce any potential disruptions to the American people, while still maintaining our ability to test the system's nationwide capabilities," said FEMA spokeswoman Rachel Racusen.

Woods: Williams apologized over racial slur

Tiger Woods says he has received an apology from former caddie Steve Williams over a racial slur, and the two met and shook hands Tuesday at The Lakes Golf Club ahead of the Australian Open.

At a caddies' awards party last week, Williams talked about a television interview he gave following his new employer Adam Scott's win at the Bridgestone Invitational, saying "it was my aim to shove it up that black a---."

Woods said Tuesday the comment "was hurtful ... the wrong thing to say, and something that he has acknowledged. Stevie is not racist."

The world is talking, are you listening?

Global Voices is an international community of bloggers who report on blogs and citizen media from around the world.

Live in South Carolina?  Read "Breaking the Pavement of Enslavement!"

Amber Alert issued for 11-year-old Maryland boy after his mother was found dead

An Amber Alert has been issued for a missing 11-year-old boy from Germantown, Maryland after his mother was found dead from an apparent murder inside of her

apartment Wednesday night.

The 11-year-old is described as approximately 5-feet tall and weighing 85 pounds. A vehicle registered to Jane McQuain is also missing and William McQuain could be with the vehicle. It is described as a black, 2011 Honda CRV with Maryland tags 5AG9405.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/amber-alert-issued-for-11-year-old-maryland-boy-after-his-mother-was-found-dead#ixzz1afQQQjv5

Our news partner ABC2 News spoke with Montgomery County Police early Thursday morning, which said that 11-year-old William McQuain was last seen on Sept.30 in the 13100 block of Briar Cliff Road.

Around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, police found the child’s mother, Jane McQuain, dead inside her apartment in Briarcliff Terrace. Detectives are treating it as an apparent homicide after officers found trauma to her body.

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/amber-alert-issued-for-11-year-old-maryland-boy-after-his-mother-was-found-dead#ixzz1afOfdRF0

Read more: http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/amber-alert-issued-for-11-year-old-maryland-boy-after-his-mother-was-found-dead#ixzz1afNe1AF8

Please Find Her! Chicago Police Search For Missing Black Teen Girl

Police are searching for Soulchartirya Terry who was last seen in her military uniform leaving Phoenix Military Academy on Campbell Ave in Chicago.

Terry is African-American, 5’10″ tall and 184 pounds. She has brown eyes, sandy-brown hair and a light complexion. Terry wears black rimmed glasses and was carrying a brown Coach messenger bag when she was last seen.

Anyone with information about Soulchartirya Terry’s whereabouts is asked to call Chicago police at 312-747-8385. 

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Read More At The Huffington Post

ACLU sues to stop new S.C. law

A coalition of immigrants and groups who work with them filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against South Carolina’s immigration law, saying it will encourage racial profiling and violate people’s constitutional rights.
The law, which is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, requires law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone they detain, including people pulled over during traffic stops. It also creates a statewide Illegal Immigration Enforcement Unit that would be under the direction of the S.C. Department of Public Safety.

“Individuals perceived as ‘foreign’ by state or local law enforcement agents will be in constant jeopardy of harassment and unlawfully prolonged detention and arrest,” the lawsuit states.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/10/12/2007090/federal-lawsuit-filed-against.html#ixzz1afHmOGkN

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2011/10/12/2007090/federal-lawsuit-filed-against.html#ixzz1afHdMT1s

Georgia's independent hospitals hurting

“There is a strong move toward consolidation here in Georgia,” said Holly Lang, director of the Hospital Accountability Project at Georgia Watch, a statewide consumer organization. “It can be both a positive and a negative thing. It depends on how the hospitals go about this and whether they consider the patients in what they are doing.”

Latest Freemason Conspiracy: Recruiting Younger Bros

No self-respecting secret society can get by without a Facebook fan page anymore.

That's transparently true of the Freemasons, renowned for their medieval blood oaths, their often-alleged plot to create a New World Order, their locked-door conclaves of U.S. presidents and power brokers and their boring pancake breakfasts.

A menagerie of 19th-century civic and social brotherhoods, and their attendant sisterhoods, lives on around the globe: the Elks, the Moose, the Lions, the Odd Fellows. Freemasonry is the oldest of all, still the biggest, and—in the public mind—about as penetrable as the mythic crypt beneath the ninth vault of Solomon's Temple.

Cops Say Bus Driver Was Stabbed By Masturbating Passenger

Authorities say the driver was picking up passengers at the Silver Spring station when he was told by several patrons that a man in the back of the bus had exposed himself and was masturbating.
As the bus approached the Wheaton station, police say the man got into a confrontation with a woman on the bus. The driver intervened and later realized he had been stabbed.

Metro Bus Driver Stabbed Near Wheaton Station: MyFoxDC.com

Parents Smoking Mad Over Pot-Shaped Candy

 Would you buy your child a marijuana leaf-shaped (but totally drug-free) lollipop? One aghast Buffalo parent most definitely would not—and after she alerted the City Council to the controversial candy, city leaders and anti-drug activists started working to get it off shelves. “It's the whole idea that it promotes drugs and the idea that, here, you'll look cool if you use this—which is what gets these kids in trouble in the very first place,” says one treatment center supervisor. But the president of Kalan LP, which distributes the candy, insists this is the first complaint he’s gotten.

Social Entrepreneurs Look For The “Double Bottom Line”

Aiming to uplift urban communities through businesses that believe in economic empowerment as well as social responsibility, Rutgers University is hosting the first New Jersey Social Entrepreneurship Summit on October 19, 2011 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

The event, sponsored by PSE&G and Rutgers and Hosted by the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and
 Economic Development at Rutgers Business School (CUEED), is an opportunity for businesses and entrepreneurs to share ways to create what they call a “double bottom line,” which measures a business’s fiscal performance as well as its social contributions.

Content from the event will be posted on the summit’s Website and tweeted throughout the day.

Big Dreams! NBA Players Consider Starting Own League

Players have discussed starting an alternate league, if the current NBA lockout forces a cancellation of the season, according to New York Knicks star Amar’e Stoudemire.

It looks like the players in the NBA aren’t going for the okey-doke on the recent lockout by team owner.  While there are some who have gone to play overseas, some players are wondering why they can’t be owners themselves.  This would be a major move in the land of the NBA athlete.

Silenced! Civil Rights Icon Denied Chance To Speak At Occupy Atlanta

Occupy Atlanta, a protest inspired by the Occupy Wall St. demonstrations in
New York, made news this past weekend after civil rights legend John Lewis was denied the chance to speak to protesters.

Educated Black People Are More Likely To Marry Whites

 The more education African-Americans have, the more likely they are to marry white people, a new study conducted by the Journal of Marriage and Family suggests.

Blacks who have completed higher levels of education are more likely to marry whites because they have a greater chance of interacting with them in school, the workplace and neighborhoods where they live — a fact that has been true for other groups for a while but not for blacks, Qian says.
“This doesn’t imply that we’ve moved into a post-racial society,” says Daniel Lichter, director of the Cornell Population Center and study co-author. “Even though there’s been a rapid increase (in black-white unions), it’s still very low.”

Only 3 “Good” Black Men For Every 100 Black Women

The chances of a Black woman finding a “Good” Black man are extremely slim, according to a study by Best Black Dating Sites.

The study claims that only about 3% of Black men fulfill the criteria of being a good, qualified partner.

Gonorrhea Becoming 'Incurable'

STD mutating so fast that antibiotics can't keep up

The clap is mutating so quickly that there is a real danger that it will become incurable unless new treatments are developed, British doctors warn. 

"Our lab tests have shown a dramatic reduction in the sensitivity of the drug we were using as the main treatment for gonorrhea. This presents the very real threat of untreatable gonorrhea in the future," an expert at Britain's Health Protection Agency says. "This highlights the importance of practicing safe sex, as, if new antibiotic treatments can't be found, this will be only way of controlling this infection in the future."

Tavis Smiley And Cornel West Clash With O’Reilly Over Poverty

O’Reilly believes that people bare a personal responsibility for their own poverty, while West and Smiley argued about the government factors that contribute to it.

Fight! Smiley, West Engage In Heated Debate With CNN Host

Disgusting! N-Word Products Are Common In China

These products are becoming more and more noticeable as more African Americans travel to China on business.

What is “n-word-oil”? Well, it turns out that this medicinal remedy is for muscle pain and a host of other ailments the Chinese have been using for a very long time. It’s ubiquitous in Chinese medicine shops worldwide, including in the U.S.

Another product — a tanning oil — also is known as “n-word oil” in Chinese. I asked a Chinese friend, who’s 53, about this oil and he hadn’t heard of it. In fact, he didn’t believe it was called that until I showed him the picture, and he said he found the name offensive, and that if blacks knew about it they would find it very offensive.