NEW YORK — Police busted nearly 400,000 people for carrying small amounts of pot in the last decade, making New York City the world leader in marijuana arrests, civil rights advocates said Tuesday while unveiling a study criticizing the war on drugs. Police officials — who have long argued that the low level drug arrests help drive down more serious crime — countered by saying the report’s data was flawed and its findings misleading. The study by Queens College sociologist Harry G. Levine, titled ‘Marijuana Arrest Crusade,’ accused police of purposely singling out minorities during the 10-year crackdown. It said that data provided by stat Division of Criminal Justice Services showed that between 1997 and 2007, 52 percent of the suspects were black, 31 percent Hispanic and only 15 percent white. The findings are further proof that ‘racial profiling is a fact of life on the streets of New York,’ Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told a news conference at the group’s Manhattan headquarters. Laws were revised in the late 1970s to largely decriminalize carrying small, concealed stashes of marijuana, Levine said. But he claimed police routinely ‘manufacture’ arrests for […]
WASHINGTON — President Bush lamented Tuesday that there was no magic wand to wave to lower oil prices, but there are simple steps he could take to lower the soaring price of crude. Here are some answers to questions about making oil cheaper. Q: Bush said, ‘I think that if there was a magic wand to say, ‘OK, drop price,’ I’d do that. …But there is no magic wand to wave right now.’ Is there nothing he can do? A: One step that could have an immediate impact would be to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with heavier, sour crude oil. Right now, the SPR is being partially filled by light, sweet crude, which is lower in sulfur. This is the variety most sought after by refiners and taking it off global markets and putting it into the reserve makes it more scarce, thus higher priced. About three-tenths of a percent of global supply of light, sweet crude is being diverted to the SPR. Q: What would this switch achieve? Philip Verleger, a noted oil industry analyst, believes this move could help lower the price of gasoline, and diesel fuel could fall by $1 a gallon. […]
Eating pizza topped with tomato paste can help prevent sunburn and premature wrinkles, new research suggests. A study found that volunteers who ate helpings of ordinary tomato paste over a 12-week period developed skin that was less likely to burn in the sun. Researchers at the University of Manchester found that the test subjects were 33 per cent more protected against sunlight than another group who were not given tomato paste. The effect of eating tomatoes was equivalent to slapping on a factor 1.3 sunscreen. Changes were also seen within the skin of the volunteers that counteract the appearance of ageing. Scientists think an antioxidant, lycopene, which gives tomatoes their colour, can neutralise harmful molecules produced in skin exposed to the sun’s ultra-violet rays. Damage inflicted by the free radical molecules on skin structures and DNA can lead to premature ageing and skin cancer. Previous research has shown that cooked tomatoes contain higher levels of lycopene than raw tomatoes. Tomato paste of the sort used to make pizza toppings is rich in lycopene. Skin levels of procollagen, which helps the skin stay supple and youthful, were also boosted by the tomato diet. At the […]
The monthly discomfort many women see as a curse could pay off someday as Japanese researchers say menstrual blood can be used to repair heart damage. Scientists obtained menstrual blood from nine women and cultivated it for about a month, focusing on a kind of cell that can act like stem cells. Some 20 percent of the cells began beating spontaneously about three days after being put together in vitro with cells from the hearts of rats. The cells from menstrual blood eventually formed sheet-like heart-muscle tissue. The success rate is 100 times higher than the 0.2-0.3 percent for stem cells taken from human bone marrow, according to Shunichiro Miyoshi, a cardiologist at Keio University’s school of medicine, who is involved in the research. Separate in-vivo experiments showed that the condition of rats who had suffered heart attacks improved after they received the cells derived from menstrual blood. Miyoshi said women may eventually be able to use their own menstrual blood. ‘There may be a system in the near future that allows women to use it for their own treatment,’ Miyoshi told AFP on Thursday. Using one’s own blood could solve a major […]
A new analysis concludes that the Food and Drug Administration approved experiments with artificial blood substitutes even after studies showed that the controversial products posed a clear risk of causing heart attacks and death. The review of combined data from more than 3,711 patients who participated in 16 studies testing five different types of artificial blood, released yesterday, found that the products nearly tripled the risk of heart attacks and boosted the chances of dying by 30 percent. Based on the findings, the researchers questioned why the FDA allowed additional testing of the products to go forward and why the agency is considering letting yet another study proceed. ‘It’s hard to understand,’ said Charles Natanson, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health who led the analysis, which was released early by the Journal of the American Medical Association so the data could be presented at an FDA meeting on the subject. ‘They already had data that these products could cause heart attacks and evidence that they could kill.’ An FDA official defended the agency, saying it had carefully weighed the risks and benefits of each study individually and had convened this week’s two-day meeting […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
