DETROIT – Chrysler paid back on Tuesday $7.6 billion in loans from the American and Canadian governments, paving the way for its Italian partner, Fiat, to increase its control over the Detroit carmaker.

The repayment of loans and interest owed to the United States Treasury and Export Development Canada is a significant milestone in Chrysler’s methodical comeback from bankruptcy in 2009.

Now the company’s revival will enter a new phase that depends heavily on its alliance with Fiat, which on Tuesday increased its stake in Chrysler to 46 percent, from 30 percent.

Fiat will most likely increase its ownership to 51 percent by the end of the year. Terms of Chrysler’s federal bailout allow the Italian company to gain an additional 5 percent interest when a prototype of a new fuel-efficient compact car is ready for production in the United States.

Sergio Marchionne, who is chief executive of both auto companies, said the new car should be completed by December and would be produced beginning next year at a Chrysler plant in Illinois.

‘It’s my intention for us to have the car ready by the fourth quarter,

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More than just a tool for predicting health, modern genetics is upending long-held assumptions about who we are. A new study by Harvard researchers casts new light on the intermingling and migration of European, Middle Eastern and African and populations since ancient times.

In a paper titled ‘The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines and Jews,’ published in PLoS Genetics, HMS Associate Professor of Genetics David Reich and his colleagues investigated the proportion of sub-Saharan African ancestry present in various populations in West Eurasia, defined as the geographic area spanning modern Europe and the Middle East. While previous studies have established that such shared ancestry exists, they have not indicated to what degree or how far back the mixing of populations can be traced.

Analyzing publicly available genetic data from 40 populations comprising North Africans, Middle Easterners and Central Asians were doctoral student Priya Moorjani and Alkes Price, an assistant professor in the Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology within the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Moorjani traced genetic ancestry using a method called rolloff. This platform, developed in the Reich lab, compares the size and composition of stretches of DNA between two human populations […]

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NEW YORK — Shares of American International Group’s long-awaited stock sale priced at $29 apiece late Tuesday to raise $8.7 billion, leaving the U.S. government with a tiny profit on the offering, the company and Treasury Department announced.

AIG will sell 100 million shares, while Treasury, the bailed-out insurer’s biggest shareholder, will offer 200 million.

The price is just a stone’s throw from $28.72 — the breakeven point for the nearly 1.7 billion shares held by the U.S. government. It is also at the low end of AIG’s planned range of $29 to $30 a share.

Earlier this month, the company’s board considered postponing a long-planned sale of its stock. But in the end, AIG (AIG, Fortune 500) and Treasury decided to move forward with the offering, although at much less than it had hoped for.

Back in 2008, the government agreed to help the giant insurer get back on its feet with a $180 billion lifeline.

AIG has been slowly working toward paying back that loan.

The company sold its life insurance division, Alico, to MetLife (MET, Fortune 500) for $16 billion. It also raised $20.5 billion through an initial public offering of its AIA life insurer, and sold two Japanese units to Prudential Financial […]

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The way you vote may reflect the way you eat. Liberals prefer thin-crust pizza, hard to pronounce pastas, such as gnocchi and fusilli, and a glass of wine with dinner, while conservatives enjoy deep-dish pizza, McDonald’s French fries and a can of coke with their meal.

A new study by Hunch.com – a site that makes recommendations based on preferences, ranging from which car you should drive to which vacation or college choice is best for you – suggests your political views say a lot about the food choices a person makes.

However, the web-based survey is not as scientific as truly objective polls because, among other limitations, it was not based on a representative sample of the population.

Hunch used 80 million answers to questions that it asked its 700,000 members, in order to predict particular demographics, personality and other characteristics based on their food choices. They then compared all that against the political views they associate themselves with. Overall, 43 percent of participants said they tended to support liberal politicians, 17 percent indicated they supported conservative politicians, and 23 percent said they were middle of the road. [Read: Conservatives Happier Than Liberals]

Some other findings from the survey include:

[…]

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Republican David Prosser and his Democratic challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg practically had more twists and turns than Bush v. Gore.

Click here for LB background on the nail-biter race that was considered a proxy for the state electorate’s views on the recent legislation limiting the rights of unions to organize.

The final vote tally last month left Prosser ahead by about 7,300 votes. After a recount, Prosser’s lead fell to 7,004 votes, out of 1.5 million votes cast, prompting the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board today to certify Prosser the winner, AP reports.

‘I look forward to taking the oath of office and continuing to serve in a fair and independent manner as a member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,

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