White Americans' majority to end by mid-century
By HOPE YEN (AP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — The estimated time when whites will no longer make up the majority of Americans has been pushed back eight years — to 2050 — because the recession and stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners into the U.S.
Census Bureau projections released Wednesday update last year's prediction that white children would become a minority in 2023 and the overall white population would follow in 2042. The earlier estimate did not take into account a drop in the number of people moving into the U.S. because of the economic crisis and the immigration policies imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The United States has 308 million people today; two-thirds are non-Hispanic whites.
The total population should climb to 399 million by 2050, under the new projections, with whites making up 49.9 percent of the population. Blacks will make up 12.2 percent, virtually unchanged from today. Hispanics, currently 15 percent of the population, will rise to 28 percent in 2050.
Asians are expected to increase from 4.4 percent of the population to 6 percent.
The projections are based on rates for births and deaths and a scenario in which immigration continues its more recent, slower pace of adding nearly 1 million new foreigners each year.
The point when minority children become the majority is expected to have a similar delay of roughly eight years, moving from 2023 to 2031.
The population 85 and older is projected to more than triple by 2050, to 18.6 million.
The actual shift in demographics will be influenced by a host of factors that can't be accurately forecast — the pace of the economic recovery, cultural changes, natural or manmade disasters, as well as an overhaul of immigration law, which may be debated in Congress as early as next year.
As a result, the Census Bureau said the projections should used mostly as a guide.
The agency also released numbers showing projections based on "high" rates of immigration — more likely if more-flexible government policies and a booming U.S. economy attract large numbers of foreigners — as well as "low" immigration, a possible scenario if U.S. policies don't change much while the economy substantially improves.
_With high immigration, the minority "tipping point" is moved up to 2040, two years earlier than the previous estimate. At that time, Asians would have a much larger share, at 8 percent, since their population growth is more dependent on immigration than birth rates.
_With low immigration, the "tipping point" arrives by 2045.
Under a purely theoretical "zero immigration" scenario in which the U.S. effectively does not take in any immigrants, whites would remain the majority in 2050, making up a solid 58 percent of the U.S. population. In such a case, the share of Hispanics would increase to 21 percent because of high fertility rates and a younger population.
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My man T.I. Is on his way to a halfway house... he will be home soon!
Rapper T.I. may be moving to a halfway house soon
By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
5:08 p.m. Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Atlanta rap star T.I. is expected to be moved to a halfway house shortly after the first of the year as he nears the end of his federal prison sentence for illegal firearms possession and for possessing a gun as a convicted felon, officials confirmed Tuesday.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., began serving his sentence of a year and a day at a low-security prison in Arkansas last May. He is expected to be released from Bureau of Prisons custody on March 23, after serving 85 percent of his sentence.
Bureau of Prisons spokesman Edmond Ross said it was customary for an inmate to transition from prison to freedom via a halfway house if there is no danger to the community and if there is space at a facility near where he is to live after his prison time.
Usually that process begins when there are 18 months remaining on a sentence, “but in this case it would have to start sooner. It’s not uncommon for inmates to be placed in community corrections for the last portion of their confinement to help with his transition.”
Harris also could spend the final month of his sentenced confined to his house, Ross said.
Harris pleaded guilty in 2008 to possessing two silencers, three machine guns, a rifle and six handguns. In total, federal officers found 24 handguns, machine guns and rifles in Harris' Range Rover and hree machine guns at his house in College Park.
Harris -- convicted Cobb County in 1998 for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute -- he also pleaded guilty to possession of a firearms by a felon.
Federal agents targeted Harris in 2007 after they arrested his body guard, who bought guns from undercover agents. He said the three machine guns and two silencers were for Harris.
Shortly after the bodyguard arrest, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents arrested T.I. when he took delivery of the weapons from the bodyguard. The arrest took place just hours before, and blocks away from where Harris was to receive two awards at the 2007 BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta.
As part of his plea deal, Harris agreed to spend 1,500 hours talking to at-risk children and teens; including 1,000 due before prison. After he is released, Harris has a year on house arrest and two more on probation. The government fined him $100,000.
By Rhonda Cook
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
5:08 p.m. Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Atlanta rap star T.I. is expected to be moved to a halfway house shortly after the first of the year as he nears the end of his federal prison sentence for illegal firearms possession and for possessing a gun as a convicted felon, officials confirmed Tuesday.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., began serving his sentence of a year and a day at a low-security prison in Arkansas last May. He is expected to be released from Bureau of Prisons custody on March 23, after serving 85 percent of his sentence.
Bureau of Prisons spokesman Edmond Ross said it was customary for an inmate to transition from prison to freedom via a halfway house if there is no danger to the community and if there is space at a facility near where he is to live after his prison time.
Usually that process begins when there are 18 months remaining on a sentence, “but in this case it would have to start sooner. It’s not uncommon for inmates to be placed in community corrections for the last portion of their confinement to help with his transition.”
Harris also could spend the final month of his sentenced confined to his house, Ross said.
Harris pleaded guilty in 2008 to possessing two silencers, three machine guns, a rifle and six handguns. In total, federal officers found 24 handguns, machine guns and rifles in Harris' Range Rover and hree machine guns at his house in College Park.
Harris -- convicted Cobb County in 1998 for possessing cocaine with intent to distribute -- he also pleaded guilty to possession of a firearms by a felon.
Federal agents targeted Harris in 2007 after they arrested his body guard, who bought guns from undercover agents. He said the three machine guns and two silencers were for Harris.
Shortly after the bodyguard arrest, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents arrested T.I. when he took delivery of the weapons from the bodyguard. The arrest took place just hours before, and blocks away from where Harris was to receive two awards at the 2007 BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta.
As part of his plea deal, Harris agreed to spend 1,500 hours talking to at-risk children and teens; including 1,000 due before prison. After he is released, Harris has a year on house arrest and two more on probation. The government fined him $100,000.
Tiger Woods, do black women really care about his affairs?
Amid all the headlines generated by Tiger Woods' troubles — the puzzling car accident, the suggestions of marital turmoil and multiple mistresses — little attention has been given to the race of the women linked with the world's greatest golfer.
Except in the black community.
When three white women were said to be romantically involved with Woods in addition to his blonde, Swedish wife, blogs, airwaves and barbershops started humming, and Woods' already tenuous standing among many blacks took a beating.
On the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show, Woods was the butt of jokes all week.
"Thankfully, Tiger, you didn't marry a black woman. Because if a sister caught you running around with a bunch of white hoochie-mamas," one parody suggests in song, she would have castrated him.
"The Grinch's Theme Song" didn't stop there: "The question everyone in America wants to ask you is, how many white women does one brother waaant?"
As one blogger, Robert Paul Reyes, wrote: "If Tiger Woods had cheated on his gorgeous white wife with black women, the golfing great's accident would have been barely a blip in the blogosphere."
The darts reflect blacks' resistance to interracial romance. They also are a reflection of discomfort with a man who has smashed barriers in one of America's whitest sports and assumed the mantle of the world's most famous athlete, once worn by Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.
But Woods has declined to identify himself as black, and famously chose the term "Cablinasian" (Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian) to describe the racial mixture he inherited from his African-American father and Thai mother.
This vexed some blacks, but it hasn't stopped them from claiming Woods as one of their own. Or from disapproving of his marriage to Elin Nordegren, despite blacks' historical fight against white racist opponents of mixed marriage.
On the one hand, Ebonie Johnson Cooper doesn't care that Tiger Woods' wife and alleged mistresses are white because Woods is "quote-unquote not really black."
"But at the same time we still see him as a black man with a white woman, and it makes a difference," said Johnson Cooper, a 26-year-old African-American from New York City. "There's just this preservation thing we have among one another. We like to see each other with each other."
Black women have long felt slighted by the tendency of famous black men to pair with white women, and many have a list of current transgressors at the ready.
"We've discussed this for years among black women," said Denene Millner, author of several books on black relationships. "Why is it when they get to this level ... they tend to go directly for the nearest blonde?"
This tendency may be more prominent due to a relative lack of interracial marriages among average blacks. Although a recent Pew poll showed that 94 percent of blacks say it's all right for blacks and whites to date, a study published this year in Sociological Quarterly showed that blacks are less likely to actually date outside their race than are other groups.
"There is a call for loyalty that is stronger in some ways than in other racial communities," said the author of the study, George Yancey, a sociology professor at the University of North Texas and author of the book "Just Don't Marry One."
The color of one's companion has long been a major measure of "blackness" — which is a big reason why the biracial Barack Obama was able to fend off early questions about his black authenticity.
"Had Barack had a white wife, I would have thought twice about voting for him," Johnson Cooper said.
So do Woods' women say something about the intensely private golfer's views on race?
"I would like to say no, but I think it garners a bit of a yes," Johnson Cooper said.
Carmen Van Kerckhove, founder of the race-meets-pop-culture blog Racialicious, said there have been frequent discussions on her site about the fine line between preference and fetish.
"Is there any difference between a white guy with a thing for blondes, and a non-white guy with a thing for blondes?" asked Van Kerckhove, who has a Chinese mother, a Belgian father and a husband born in America to parents from Benin.
She claims that Asians don't fully embrace Woods, either.
"There are two layers of suspicion toward him," Van Kerkhove said. "One toward the apparent pattern in the race of his partners, and the second in the way he sees himself. ... People have been giving him the side-eye for a while."
There's nothing wrong with wanting a mate who shares your culture, as long as it's for the right reasons, the comedienne Sheryl Underwood said after unleashing a withering Woods monologue on Tom Joyner's radio show.
"Would we question when a Jewish person wants to marry other Jewish people?" she said in an interview. "It's not racist. It's not bigotry. It's cultural pride."
"The issue comes in when you choose something white because you think it's better," Underwood said. "And then you never date a black woman or a woman of color or you never sample the greatness of the international buffet of human beings. If you never do that, we got a problem."
Except in the black community.
When three white women were said to be romantically involved with Woods in addition to his blonde, Swedish wife, blogs, airwaves and barbershops started humming, and Woods' already tenuous standing among many blacks took a beating.
On the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show, Woods was the butt of jokes all week.
"Thankfully, Tiger, you didn't marry a black woman. Because if a sister caught you running around with a bunch of white hoochie-mamas," one parody suggests in song, she would have castrated him.
"The Grinch's Theme Song" didn't stop there: "The question everyone in America wants to ask you is, how many white women does one brother waaant?"
As one blogger, Robert Paul Reyes, wrote: "If Tiger Woods had cheated on his gorgeous white wife with black women, the golfing great's accident would have been barely a blip in the blogosphere."
The darts reflect blacks' resistance to interracial romance. They also are a reflection of discomfort with a man who has smashed barriers in one of America's whitest sports and assumed the mantle of the world's most famous athlete, once worn by Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.
But Woods has declined to identify himself as black, and famously chose the term "Cablinasian" (Caucasian, black, Indian and Asian) to describe the racial mixture he inherited from his African-American father and Thai mother.
This vexed some blacks, but it hasn't stopped them from claiming Woods as one of their own. Or from disapproving of his marriage to Elin Nordegren, despite blacks' historical fight against white racist opponents of mixed marriage.
On the one hand, Ebonie Johnson Cooper doesn't care that Tiger Woods' wife and alleged mistresses are white because Woods is "quote-unquote not really black."
"But at the same time we still see him as a black man with a white woman, and it makes a difference," said Johnson Cooper, a 26-year-old African-American from New York City. "There's just this preservation thing we have among one another. We like to see each other with each other."
Black women have long felt slighted by the tendency of famous black men to pair with white women, and many have a list of current transgressors at the ready.
"We've discussed this for years among black women," said Denene Millner, author of several books on black relationships. "Why is it when they get to this level ... they tend to go directly for the nearest blonde?"
This tendency may be more prominent due to a relative lack of interracial marriages among average blacks. Although a recent Pew poll showed that 94 percent of blacks say it's all right for blacks and whites to date, a study published this year in Sociological Quarterly showed that blacks are less likely to actually date outside their race than are other groups.
"There is a call for loyalty that is stronger in some ways than in other racial communities," said the author of the study, George Yancey, a sociology professor at the University of North Texas and author of the book "Just Don't Marry One."
The color of one's companion has long been a major measure of "blackness" — which is a big reason why the biracial Barack Obama was able to fend off early questions about his black authenticity.
"Had Barack had a white wife, I would have thought twice about voting for him," Johnson Cooper said.
So do Woods' women say something about the intensely private golfer's views on race?
"I would like to say no, but I think it garners a bit of a yes," Johnson Cooper said.
Carmen Van Kerckhove, founder of the race-meets-pop-culture blog Racialicious, said there have been frequent discussions on her site about the fine line between preference and fetish.
"Is there any difference between a white guy with a thing for blondes, and a non-white guy with a thing for blondes?" asked Van Kerckhove, who has a Chinese mother, a Belgian father and a husband born in America to parents from Benin.
She claims that Asians don't fully embrace Woods, either.
"There are two layers of suspicion toward him," Van Kerkhove said. "One toward the apparent pattern in the race of his partners, and the second in the way he sees himself. ... People have been giving him the side-eye for a while."
There's nothing wrong with wanting a mate who shares your culture, as long as it's for the right reasons, the comedienne Sheryl Underwood said after unleashing a withering Woods monologue on Tom Joyner's radio show.
"Would we question when a Jewish person wants to marry other Jewish people?" she said in an interview. "It's not racist. It's not bigotry. It's cultural pride."
"The issue comes in when you choose something white because you think it's better," Underwood said. "And then you never date a black woman or a woman of color or you never sample the greatness of the international buffet of human beings. If you never do that, we got a problem."
Plexico jail, not so much!
NEW YORK -- Former Super Bowl star Plaxico Burress wants to get a break from prison, but prosecutors said Tuesday they will likely try to block his bid for work release because he hasn't served enough time.
The former New York Giant applied for a work furlough -- which would let him spend some portion of his time at home -- on Nov. 25, about two months into his two-year sentence for carrying an unlicensed gun that went off and wounded him at a Manhattan nightclub. State prison system officials are expected to decide on his request next month.
Prosecutors said the bullet narrowly missed a security guard, and they insisted on at least a two-year prison term. A quick furlough would send "a very bad message," Manhattan Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Dwyer said Tuesday.
"It's too early," he said.
Burress' lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment.
Statistically, Burress' effort is a long shot. Less than 5 percent of the more than 31,500 work release applications statewide were granted last year, according to the state Department of Correctional Services.
Under state law, inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses can apply for work furloughs within two years of their release dates. Burress pleaded guilty in August to a form of attempted criminal possession of a weapon that allows him to be eligible for work release, state corrections spokeswoman Linda Foglia said.
Officials deciding on furloughs weigh factors including the inmate's crime, his prison behavior and any opposition to the release, she said.
Burress, then a Giants receiver, was at the Latin Quarter nightclub in November 2008 with a .40-caliber gun tucked into his waistband. He later said he was concerned for his safety because a teammate had been held up at gunpoint elsewhere days before. The weapon slipped down Burress' leg and fired, injuring his right thigh.
The gun wasn't licensed in New York or New Jersey, where Burress lived; his Florida concealed-weapons permit had expired.
Sentenced in September, Burress is now being held in protective custody at an upstate prison because of his notoriety.
Inmates on work release generally get to spend several days and nights each week out of prison working and reconnecting with their families; the exact arrangements vary for each inmate. Some are allowed out full-time for the last few months of their sentence, Foglia said.
It's unclear what work Burress, 32, might do if given a furlough. The Giants released him in April, and the NFL has suspended him for the duration of his sentence.
Burress, who caught the Giants' winning touchdown over the New England Patriots in the final minute of the 2008 Super Bowl, has said he hopes to play again.
The former New York Giant applied for a work furlough -- which would let him spend some portion of his time at home -- on Nov. 25, about two months into his two-year sentence for carrying an unlicensed gun that went off and wounded him at a Manhattan nightclub. State prison system officials are expected to decide on his request next month.
Prosecutors said the bullet narrowly missed a security guard, and they insisted on at least a two-year prison term. A quick furlough would send "a very bad message," Manhattan Chief Assistant District Attorney Mark Dwyer said Tuesday.
"It's too early," he said.
Burress' lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment.
Statistically, Burress' effort is a long shot. Less than 5 percent of the more than 31,500 work release applications statewide were granted last year, according to the state Department of Correctional Services.
Under state law, inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses can apply for work furloughs within two years of their release dates. Burress pleaded guilty in August to a form of attempted criminal possession of a weapon that allows him to be eligible for work release, state corrections spokeswoman Linda Foglia said.
Officials deciding on furloughs weigh factors including the inmate's crime, his prison behavior and any opposition to the release, she said.
Burress, then a Giants receiver, was at the Latin Quarter nightclub in November 2008 with a .40-caliber gun tucked into his waistband. He later said he was concerned for his safety because a teammate had been held up at gunpoint elsewhere days before. The weapon slipped down Burress' leg and fired, injuring his right thigh.
The gun wasn't licensed in New York or New Jersey, where Burress lived; his Florida concealed-weapons permit had expired.
Sentenced in September, Burress is now being held in protective custody at an upstate prison because of his notoriety.
Inmates on work release generally get to spend several days and nights each week out of prison working and reconnecting with their families; the exact arrangements vary for each inmate. Some are allowed out full-time for the last few months of their sentence, Foglia said.
It's unclear what work Burress, 32, might do if given a furlough. The Giants released him in April, and the NFL has suspended him for the duration of his sentence.
Burress, who caught the Giants' winning touchdown over the New England Patriots in the final minute of the 2008 Super Bowl, has said he hopes to play again.
Ron Artest I used to drink Hennessy at halftime
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/10463220/Artest:-I-used-to-drink-Hennessy-at-halftime?GT1=39002
Tisk, Tisk, Tisk Sheila Dixon Convicted
(CNN) -- A jury convicted Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon on Tuesday of embezzlement for improperly using gift cards intended for the needy, the chief investigator for the state prosecutor's office said.
She was found guilty of a single misdemeanor count of fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary. She could be removed from office because it is a theft-related crime, James I. Cabezas said.
Dixon solicited several cards for her own use from two developers, including Patrick Turner, who testified this month that Dixon asked him to donate gift cards from retailers and have them delivered to her office. He said he spent $1,000 total -- $500 for a Best Buy gift card and $500 for a Target one, according to the Baltimore Sun newspaper.
No date was set for sentencing. Cabezas said Dixon, Baltimore's first black female mayor, faces up to five years in prison. She was indicted in January.
The 55-year-old mayor was acquitted of two counts of felony theft and one count of misconduct in office in connection to allegations that the Democrat misused gift cards sponsored by the mayor's office and to various stores.
In a statement, Dixon said she would continue with her work. "The jury's verdict today does not impact my responsibility to continue serving, and I remain focused on keeping Baltimore on course in these trying economic times," she said.
Her spokesman, Scott Peterson, told CNN that the verdict was confusing, since she was also found not guilty of stealing the gift cards.
"I don't know how to deal with that," he said in a telephone interview.
Jurors deliberated more than six days before reaching their verdict. A second trial is scheduled for March to address Dixon's alleged financial disclosure violations and perjuries, Cabezas said.
"The city will still continue to move forward. ... We won't miss a step," Dixon said outside the courthouse after the verdict.
Turner "has a significant development project in progress now," Cabezas said.
The investigation into alleged wrongdoing at City Hall began in March 2006, when Dixon was on the City Council. Several other people related to the case already have been convicted, Cabezas said.
Dixon was president of the City Council when she became mayor in January 2007, after then-Mayor Martin O'Malley was elected governor. She was serving a four-year term in November of that year.
She was found guilty of a single misdemeanor count of fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary. She could be removed from office because it is a theft-related crime, James I. Cabezas said.
Dixon solicited several cards for her own use from two developers, including Patrick Turner, who testified this month that Dixon asked him to donate gift cards from retailers and have them delivered to her office. He said he spent $1,000 total -- $500 for a Best Buy gift card and $500 for a Target one, according to the Baltimore Sun newspaper.
No date was set for sentencing. Cabezas said Dixon, Baltimore's first black female mayor, faces up to five years in prison. She was indicted in January.
The 55-year-old mayor was acquitted of two counts of felony theft and one count of misconduct in office in connection to allegations that the Democrat misused gift cards sponsored by the mayor's office and to various stores.
In a statement, Dixon said she would continue with her work. "The jury's verdict today does not impact my responsibility to continue serving, and I remain focused on keeping Baltimore on course in these trying economic times," she said.
Her spokesman, Scott Peterson, told CNN that the verdict was confusing, since she was also found not guilty of stealing the gift cards.
"I don't know how to deal with that," he said in a telephone interview.
Jurors deliberated more than six days before reaching their verdict. A second trial is scheduled for March to address Dixon's alleged financial disclosure violations and perjuries, Cabezas said.
"The city will still continue to move forward. ... We won't miss a step," Dixon said outside the courthouse after the verdict.
Turner "has a significant development project in progress now," Cabezas said.
The investigation into alleged wrongdoing at City Hall began in March 2006, when Dixon was on the City Council. Several other people related to the case already have been convicted, Cabezas said.
Dixon was president of the City Council when she became mayor in January 2007, after then-Mayor Martin O'Malley was elected governor. She was serving a four-year term in November of that year.
