UK - In 2011, 31 per cent of babies had either one or both parents born outside the UK, a significant rise on the 2000 figure of 21.2 per cent. The figures, obtained by Tory MP Nicholas Soames, also show that 18.1 per cent, or 131,288, of the total number of 2011 births had two foreign-born parents. Now a study has shown that the number of immigrants to the UK means Britain has the fastest-rising percentage of ethnic minority and foreign-born populations. The number of foreigners and non-white people living in the UK will double by 2040, making up a third of Britain, while white Britons will be a minority by 2066, according to research.
UK - Have you ever uploaded a photo to Facebook, Instagram or Flickr? If so, you'll probably want to read this, because the rules on who can exploit your work have now changed radically, overnight.
EUROPE - Environmentalists hailed a "victory for bees" today after the European Union voted for a ban on the nerve-agent pesticides blamed for the dramatic decline global bee populations.
USA - The Government Accountability Office tells Whispers it is now investigating large ammunition purchases made by the Department of Homeland Security. Chuck Young, a spokesman for GAO, says the investigation of the purchases is “just getting underway.” The congressional investigative agency is jumping into the fray just as legislation was introduced in both the Senate and the House to restrict the purchase of ammo by some government agencies (except the Department of Defense). The AMMO Act, introduced Friday, would prevent agencies from buying more ammunition if “stockpiles” are greater than what they were in previous administrations.
USA - A US lawmaker is questioning the Pentagon’s decision to use a Chinese commercial satellite to provide communications for its Africa Command. Use of China’s Apstar-7 satellite was leased because it provided “unique bandwidth and geographic requirements” for “wider geographic coverage” requested in May 2012 by the US Africa Command, according to Lieutenant Colonel Monica Matoush, a Pentagon spokeswoman. The contract “exposes our military to the risk that China may seek to turn off our ’eyes and ears’ at the time of their choosing,” Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama and chairman of the panel that oversees space programmes, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement “It sends a terrible message to our industrial base at a time when it is under extreme stress” from the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.
USA - A hidden epidemic is poisoning America. The toxins are in the air we breathe and the water we drink, in the walls of our homes and the furniture within them. We can’t escape it in our cars. It’s in cities and suburbs. It afflicts rich and poor, young and old. And there’s a reason why you’ve never read about it in the newspaper or seen a report on the nightly news: it has no name — and no antidote.
CYPRUS - Savers in the Bank of Cyprus took a hit on Sunday as 37.5 percent of their uninsured deposits were converted to equity as part of the island's €10 billion (£8.4 billion) rescue deal.
USA - Today legendary trader Jim Sinclair told King World News that today is a day of financial infamy as Cyprus depositors have now officially been flushed. Sinclair also stated that history will show this day as being as serious as the flushing of Lehman Brothers. Below is what Sinclair, who was once called on by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker to assist during a Wall Street crisis, had to say in this remarkable interview.
USA - An anti-abortion group that mounted a six-month undercover investigation has released videos this week that raise questions about what might happen to a baby as a result of an unsuccessful abortion.
BANGLADESH - More than 3,000 people worked producing cheap t-shirts for European clothing chains in the highrise sweatshop that collapsed in Bangladesh last week. Hundreds died because the facility was lacking even the most basic safety standards.
WASHINGTON DC, USA - Elderly survivors of the Holocaust and the veterans who helped liberate them gathered for what could be their last big reunion Monday at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
UK - Google is on a par with God in terms of public trust, a study has revealed. When asked to rank organisations they believe have their interests at heart, religious institutions came out on top for a very modest 17 per cent of people – exactly the same as the omnipresent internet search engine. And in a world where more people go shopping than to church on a Sunday, it seems that many now place their faith in supermarkets, as the big chains such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s were held up as most trustworthy by 19 per cent. The figures may well alarm the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Right Reverend Justin Welby, who faces an uphill struggle in reconnecting with the concerns of ordinary Britons.
USA - April has been a freakishly cold month across much of the northern USA, bringing misery to millions of sun-starved and winter-weary residents from the Rockies to the Midwest. Record cold and snow has been reported in dozens of cities, with the worst of the chill in the Rockies, upper Midwest and northern Plains. Several baseball games have been snowed out in both Denver and Minneapolis. Unfortunately for warm-weather lovers, after some mild temperatures the past few days, the chill is forecast to return as the calendar turns to May: Accumulating snow is forecast overnight Tuesday night and Wednesday in Denver and in Minneapolis by Wednesday night and Thursday, said AccuWeather meteorologist Mark Paquette.
UK - The dining table could become a relic of the past as nearly a third of Britons now confess to eating there only a few times a year. New research suggests that the number of us who now eat at our dining or kitchen table is shockingly low.
UK - Warfare may be an awful thing, but it has a habit of accelerating health technology in ways that are helpful to everyone. For example, in World War II the Allies made significant medical advances in vital areas such as developing antibiotic drugs — which the Germans didn’t possess — and performing lifesaving blood transfusions.