Plastic water bottles are linked to heart disease, diabetes. The first major study of health effects in people from a chemical used in plastic baby bottles, food cans and a host of other products shows a connection between them and a higher risk for heart disease and diabetes. People who have a higher exposure to bisphenol A or BPA have a 39-percent higher risk for those diseases, the study’s authors say. And because of the possible public health implications, the results “deserve scientific follow-up,” the scientists added. But the study is preliminary, far from proof that the chemical causes heart disease and diabetes, The Associated Press reports. Two Dartmouth College analysts of medical research said the study raises questions but provides no answers about whether the ubiquitous chemical is harmful. The findings were released Tuesday to coincide with the researchers’ presentation of their findings at a Food and Drug Administration scientific advisers’ hearing. The FDA has the power to limit use of BPA in food containers and medical devices but last month released an internal report concluding that BPA exposure is not enough to warrant action. Since then, another government agency released a separate report concluding that risks to people, in particular to infants and children, cannot be ruled out. Past animal studies have suggested reproductive and hormone-related problems from BPA. The new study is the largest to examine possible BPA effects in people and the first to suggest a direct link to heart disease, said scientists Frederick vom Saal and John Peterson Myers, both longtime critics of the chemical. Dr. Ana Soto of Tufts University said the study raises enough concerns to warrant government action to limit BPA exposure. No government action has been taken so far. However, health officials recommend that you limit your use of plastic water bottles with the number 7 on the bottom, and avoid microwaving plastic containers.

Drug war is devastating Black communities. A $45 billion policy has had devastating consequences for millions of African Americans, says a drug policy expert, who is to debate his position before a London crowd. Absent fathers, orphaned children and growing numbers of HIV and Hepatitis C infections are what some African Americans are facing due to the U.S. war on drugs. Exactly 25 years ago, former president Ronald Reagan announced his zero tolerance measure to tackle what he saw was a growing epidemic of illegal drug use in the nation. Politicians believed that millions of federal dollars should be spent on prosecuting and sentencing drug users in the hope that it would reduce drug addiction and send out the message of zero tolerance. In 2005, the Office of National Drug Control stated that the federal government has spent more than $45.5 on the war on drugs, and it appears that African Americans are facing the brunt of this no-nonsense policy, reports the Voice of London. According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, African Americans make up an estimated 15 percent of drug users but they account for 37 percent of those arrested on drug charges, and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Deborah Peterson Small a former director of the Drug Policy Alliance will speak about the racism within the war on drugs policy at the conference. “The war on drugs policy has had a devastating effect on African-American communities, particularly poor communities that already suffer from a whole host of economic and social problems,” she said. Pointing to prison sentencing, Small, a New Yorker, says the mandatory-minimum-sentence policy for low-level drug offences subjects people who are low-level participants to the same or harsher sentences as major drug dealers. Currently, crack cocaine is the only drug for which the first offense of simple possession can trigger a federal mandatory-minimum sentence. Possessing 5 grams of crack with a street value of $1,000 carries an automatic five-year jail sentence. Despite the high rate of African-American drug convictions, a recently released report by Human Rights Watch, found that African Americans are not the greatest users of drugs. According to Jamie Fellner, author of the report, Whites are more likely to be drug users.

Ex-husband of Atlanta mayor dies. David McCoy Franklin, the ex-husband of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin who was a trusted adviser of former Mayor Maynard Jackson, died Sunday, according to a death notice issued by Murray Brothers Funeral Home in Atlanta . He was 65. No cause of death has been disclosed. Franklin had suffered a long illness, Angelo Fuster, former spokesman for Jackson , told The Associated Press. Fuster said that Franklin ’s political smarts were “quite valued,” AP reports.

Blacks are the target of choice for Taser-wielding Houston Police

Life can be shocking if you’re Black and life in Houston . A new study released Monday revealed that Houston Police officers have used their Tasers on African-American suspects more than any other group of people. Read more at BET.com/News.

Philly cops nab third suspect in cold-blooded murder. Philadelphia Police have netted a third suspect in connection with the slaying of a 78-year-old Korean War vet who was shot in the face last week by thugs who attempted to rob him outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post. The murder of the “sweet and gentle man,” as neighbors described him, shocked the community and the police, which launched an intense investigation into the homicide. Last Thursday detectives arrested two 18-year-olds, Karl Jarmon and Terrell Bennett. Their alleged accomplice, 15-year-old Gary Autrey, is now under arrest, according to homicide Lt. Mel Williams. The trio is being held without bail, charged with murder, conspiracy and weapons charges, police said. “We are satisfied that we took these predators off the streets and we made an arrest in a timely manner, and we were able to give the family closure,” said Lt. Williams. “It’s a tragedy whenever people prey on the old.” Enor Williams had been married to Connie Williams nearly 40 years and, according to The Philadelphia Daily News, was a devoted volunteer at the post. “I hate that [the murder] was the last thing that happened to him,” his 59-year-old widow told the newspaper. “I knew they would find him,” she said of the suspected gunman. “I don’t know how, but I did.” *

Was Obama right about Iraq?

It looks like President Bush will do just what Sen. Barack Obama has been suggesting all along; return troops home from Iraq and send more to Afghanistan. Could Bush and Obama be on the same page? Find out more at Pamela on Politics.

Condoleezza Rice: State Department needs more Blacks.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she doesn’t see enough people who look like her in the State Department.  “I have lamented that I can go into a meeting at the Department of State – and as a matter of fact, I can go into a whole day of meetings at the Department of State – and actually rarely see somebody who looks like me. And that is just not acceptable,” she said in an address Monday before the annual conference of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. She also praised Black colleges for the number of scholarships and grants students received from the State Department for things such as study abroad programs. “It’s good for the students, but it is good for America too. …[W]hen I go around the world, I want to see Black Americans involved in the promotion and development of our foreign policy. I want to see a Foreign Service that looks as if Black Americans are part of this great country,” she said.

He’s walking in the steps of LBJ and MLK, both champions of the poor

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, taking a cue from such anti-poverty crusaders as President Lyndon B. Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., says it’s time to launch a full-frontal assault on poverty. “We need to re-invest in America,” the 66-year-old civil rights leader told a crowd of nearly 300 people in Chicago during a fund-raiser for Covenant United Methodist Church. The speech attracted Democrats and Republicans, and it did not address either political party. That’s because it’s not all about politics or presidential campaigns, said Jackson, who is pushing voter registration and education. “Change has to come from the bottom up, not just the top down,” Jackson said at a news conference prior to his speech.

All grown up now, a group of hero teens are honored.

It was 50 years ago that a group of teens in Wichita, Kansas, pulled a Rosa Parks on the old Dockum Drug Store and sparked a national sit-in movement. On Saturday, hundreds turned out to honor that group of unwitting civil rights giants for their three-week resistance effort that led to copycats in other cities. It was the original Wichita resisters who helped bring about an end to segregated public accommodations. “We simply wanted to make a change and we did,” said Carol Parks Hahn, one of the original squatters. Disgusted at a policy that required Black patrons to go to the end of the lunch counter and ring a bell for service, the defiant teens marched into Dockum’s every day for three weeks and sat at the lunch counter. Of course, they weren’t served. “The owner came in one morning and said serve them I’m losing too much money. I happened to be there that day,” Parks Hahn said. “That’s how simple it was to get rid of a long history of discrimination. We changed the policy of the largest drug chain in Kansas, others in Wichita followed suit. We were very pleased we were successful.” Added Joyce Glass, another participant. “It’s a blessing to be recognized. It’s something I never dreamed of.”

Some want the Black Revolutionary War monument revived. In Virginia, some are pushing for a monument to the Blacks who fought in the Revolutionary War, saying it’s important to let the world know that everybody who fought for U.S. independence from Britain didn’t have pale skin and powdered wigs. One of those making the case for the first memorial on the mall to honor Black colonial soldiers is Maurice Barboza, a Virginian and former lobbyist, who runs something called the National Liberty Fund D.C. In the 1980s, Congress approved the concept, but poor fundraising initiative led to the demise of the project.

A report looks at what happened in the months after Bush said “mission accomplished.”History isn’t being kind to the top brass who managed the Iraq war effort after the initial invasion. A new report that examines the postwar decision to restructure and reorganize the Baghdad military command in the year and a half after May 2003, which is when President Bush announced that the mission had been accomplished and major combat operations in Iraq were over. In the almost 700-page report, “On Point II: Transitions to the New Campaign,” several military historians conclude that Gen. Tommy R. Franks’ unpopular decision to reduce staff at its headquarters and to put a newly promoted three-star general in charge was foolhardy. “The move was sudden and caught most of the senior commanders in Iraq unaware,” the military historians concluded, according to a report in The New York Times. A serious problem, says the report, which is a compilation of more than 200 interviews, was poor planning for what would happen after U.S. troops began occupying Iraq. “I can remember asking the question during our war gaming and the development of our plan, ‘Okay, we are in Baghdad, what next?’ No real good answers came forth,” Col. Thomas G. Torrance, the commander of the Third Infantry Division’s artillery, said in the report.

President says the killings are unavoidable in fight against drug dealers
More Mexican drug traffickers are killing one another, a fact, the nation’s president says, signals success in the war against drugs. “We are truly hitting crime’s operative structure. This is making it so that the gangs are fighting among themselves, and that is causing the deaths that are occurring in the country,” President Felipe Calderon told CNN. On Monday alone, suspected drug dealers killed 21 people in the state of Chihuahua, which is known as a hotspot. Since the beginning of the year, more than 1,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence, reports the news service. A top police official and four other officers died this month in a raid. Calderon believes that the violence is necessary to win the war on drugs. “It will cost human lives because we have decided to fight to rescue our country. That unfortunately will mean that some Mexicans will lose their lives,” he said. The nation has long struggled with rampant drug trafficking; Mexico has seized more money and more cocaine from cartels than any other nation and every year about 300 tons of cocaine makes its way across the border to the United States.

Nigerian oil field goes back to work after attack
Six days after being attacked by Nigerian militants, an oil field in the country continues production, reports the BBC. The Bongo oil field, run by energy company Royal Duthch Shell, produces a 10th of the oil coming out of the African nation. “We’re up and running on Bonga,” a spokesman for the company said. This comes after members of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (who claimed responsibility on the recent attack) called a ceasefire, at the urging of community elders, set to begin from midnight on Tuesday until further notice.