McCain gains on Obama. Two recent polls show Sen.. John McCain is closing in on Sen. Barack Obama’s lead, which tells us negative campaigning works. Now it will be up to Obama to determine if he’ll begin hitting below the belt too. Find out more at Pamela On Politics.

Obama’s campaign readies for the vice presidential announcement

Sen. Barack Obama isn’t offering so much as a peep about his vice presidential pick, but an announcement is expected later this week. The suspense is building, and no one has been able to discover just who he’ll tap. Who do you think he’ll pick? Catch the latest at Pamela On Politics.

Why did Obama’s campaign plane make an emergency landing?

Did Obama’s campaign plane have to make an emergency landing last month? ABC News says it got hold of control tower tapes that indicate the MD-80 aircraft had to make an unscheduled landing in St. Louis because the pilot said he was having trouble controlling the pitch of the plane, asked to land, and requested that the airport have crash equipment stand by. The Federal Aviation Administration isn’t disputing the network’s report. A spokeswoman says reporters were told there was no emergency because that’s what the agency was told at the time. She also notes a pilot may declare an emergency to make sure he has priority to land and to make sure there is rescue equipment ready in case there is a real problem. Obama told reporters later that day the incident was a “little glitch.” The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident. Federal investigators say an initial check of the plane turned up no evidence of missing parts or tampering.

Exercise thwarts high blood pressure.

For people with high blood pressure, exercise can be the most important lifestyle change they can make, researchers say. Yet two-thirds of doctors don’t take the time to tell their patients with high blood pressure about the importance of exercise and physical activity, a new study finds. “Patients do follow physician recommendations to exercise when instructed to, and patients who follow exercise recommendations tend to have lower systolic blood pressures than those who do not,” lead researcher Dr. Josiah Halm, a hypertension specialist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, told HealthDay. The findings are published in the summer issue of Ethnicity & Disease. For the study, Halm’s team collected data on 17,474 people who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Among these people, 4,686 reported having high blood pressure. The researchers found that only slightly more than one-third of the people with high blood pressure said their doctor had told them to increase physical activity as a way of bringing down their blood pressure. Yet, 71 percent of patients with high blood pressure saw a drop in their blood pressure when they increased their physical activity, which means that they listened when doctors told them to exercise more, according to the report. “Non-pharmacological methods, such as exercising, are important in improving blood pressure control on a population level as this study looked at the cross-section of the U.S. population,” Halm said.

Black Americans need more sun.

There is a growing body of scientific and medical research suggesting that concerns about skin cancer may have been exaggerated and that most Americans, especially African Americans, actually need greater exposure to sunshine and the valuable vitamin D it helps to produce, reports EURWeb. The most recent in a series of studies was released on Tuesday by the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The researchers used data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to conclude that not getting enough of the so-called “sunshine vitamin” appears to increase the risk of an early death by as much as 26 percent. Johns Hopkins cardiologist Dr. Erin Michos said low levels of vitamin D appear to “confer an increased risk of dying from any cause.” For African Americans, Jean Mayer of the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston concluded in an earlier report: “Vitamin D insufficiency is more prevalent,” especially for Blacks living in the North. “Most young, healthy Blacks to not achieve optimal” levels of vitamin D from sunshine,” he says. That’s mostly because the natural pigment protection African Americans have against harmful ultra-violet rays reduces vitamin D absorption in North American environments, researchers say.  Studies show the sunshine vitamin offers a broad range of health benefits including boosting bone and muscle strength to offering protection against both cancer and diabetes. But Michos said more clinical studies were needed before that conclusion could be definitively made. Meanwhile, in 2007 a team from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., found that the lower the levels of vitamin D in a woman’s body the greater is the risk of her developing breast cancer.

Is Sen. Barack Obama too skinny to be president?
Vital Signs: Is Sen. Barack Obama too skinny to be president? Find out who thinks so at Vital Signs.

In the primaries, their candidate of choice was Hillary Clinton.

Latino Americans, who overwhelmingly backed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primary election, now appear to be flocking to Sen. Barack Obama as their choice for president. In fact, more than three in four Latinos who voted for Clinton last time – 77 percent, according to a new Pew Hispanic Center survey – say that Obama is their man in November. Fifty-five percent of all Latinos said they believe Obama is better for their people, while about one in 10 believe Sen. John McCain is a better choice. When it comes to education, Latinos like Obama over McCain 66 percent to 19 percent; on jobs, it’s Obama 65 percent to 19 percent; health care, Obama over McCain 64 percent to 19 percent; crime, Obama 50 percent to McCain 26 percent. Twice as many Latinos prefer Obama over McCain on the issue of the war in Iraq, 58 percent to 27 percent. And while Obama did not fair well against Clinton in the primaries, the fact is, Latinos overwhelmingly identify with the Democratic Party. Only 26 percent of Latinos say they identify with Republicans the Pew survey shows. Latinos comprise about 15 percent of the U.S. population but only 9 percent of eligible voters, but as their numbers in society rise, they are becoming the most sought-after political bloc.

What’s the Obamacans’ impact?

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign knows a win in November will require more than the party faithful. He’ll need to woo Republicans to his camp, and it appears the first wave of crossovers are ready to venture across the aisle. Get the latest on this story from Pamela On Politics.

There are about a quarter-million hate-group members nationwide.

Conventional wisdom suggests that racists are tossing and turning at night over the prospect of a Black man in the White house. But, word is, White supremacists are looking forward to a Barack Obama presidency, The Associated Press reports. Take Louisiana Klansman David Duke, who came within inches of being a U.S. senator in 1990. He describes Obama as a “visual aid” that other White supremacists can rally around. And the brands of White supremacists are many. In addition to a number of KKK subspecies (the United White Knights, Church of the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Imperial Klans of America Knights of the White Kamelia, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, etc.), there’s the Aryan Nation, the Nazi Party, the Skinheads, the Nationalist Movement and the average, run-of-the-mill racist who believes that Blacks are inferior. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which make a living keeping their eye on White supremacy activity, estimate that there are roughly a quarter-million active hate-group members nationwide. One of those haters, 65-year-old Richard Barrett, a member of the Nationalist Movement, believes that Obama is just the catalyst needed to get White folks to unite. “Instead of this so-called civil rights bill, for example, that says you have to give preferences to minorities, I think the American people are going — once they see the ‘Obamanation’ — they’re going to demand a tweaking of that and say, ‘You have to put the majority into office,’” Barrett told The Associated Press. Duke, in a recent essay posted on his Web site, titled, “Obama Wins Demo Nomination: A Black Flag for White America,” wrote that “Obama is a visual aid for White Americans who just don’t get it yet that we have lost control of our country, and unless we get it back we are heading for complete annihilation as a people.”

Screening vice presidential candidates is suddenly an even tougher task.

If nothing else, the revelation of John Edwards’ extramarital affair ought to serve as a serious wakeup call for Sen. Barack Obama. With the Democratic National Convention just weeks away and Obama on the verge of announcing his presidential running mate, the Edwards’ debacle is a reminder of just how important it is to have a slow, thorough vetting process. Just imagine if Obama had chosen Edwards – who we now know was creeping with Rielle Hunter, a former campaign aide – days before this story broke. Are you surprised by the news of his affair? Get the latest details at Pamela On Politics.

Clinton leads the charge for Obama. Amid reports that Sen. Hillary Clinton is still holding on to the hope of wresting the nomination from Sen. Barack Obama, she told a horde of screaming Obama supporters Friday that the Illinois senator is her candidate for president. Anybody who’s tired of the policies of President Bush, she said, should vote for Obama too. “Anyone who voted for me or caucused for me has so much more in common with Sen. Obama than Sen. McCain,” Clinton told the crowd in Henderson, Nev., her first appearance with Obama since June. Over the weekend, rumors surfaced that Clinton’s name could be called in a roll-call vote on the floor of the Democratic Convention in Denver later this month. If that did occur and Clinton was to receive overwhelming support, some speculated, she would be obligated to bow to the will of the people and head into battle as the Democratic champion against McCain. Clinton has given no such indications, at least in public appearances.” Sen. Obama needs all of us, he needs us working for him,” she said, urging folks to register. “Remember who we were fighting for in my campaign,” she said, praising “his passion, his determination, his grace and his grit,” and she reminded that “we may have started on two separate paths, but we are on one journey now.”

A 22-year-old man is being held without bail for his recent comments

A 22-year-old Maine man with a SUV wired with red and yellow flashing lights and packed with weapons – including a loaded 9 mm handgun, knives, armor-piercing ammo and a machete – body armor and camouflage clothing stood before a judge Thursday to face charges that he had threatened to assassinate Sen. Barack Obama. Raymond Hunter Geisel (above) was arrested in downtown Miami Saturday and was ordered held at the Miami Jail without bail by a federal magistrate yesterday. Geisel, who told authorities that he was originally from Bangor, Maine, but was now living in a houseboat in the Florida Keys, said his handgun was for training for the bail bondsman class; the knives were for protection; and the machete was for cutting thickets in Maine. He allegedly made the threat against Obama in a bail bondman class in Miami, calling the senator a racial slur and saying, “If he gets elected, I’ll assassinate him myself.” Geisel denies he ever made threatening comments about Obama. The Associated Press, citing court documents, said that he told the Secret Service in an interview that if he “wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking.”