Blacks More Likely Than Other Groups to Identify as Gay

A recent study shows blacks in the U.S. are more likely to identify as gay than other ethnic groups; saggy pants have become illegal in a Florida city; meanwhile, Mitt Romney’s work for big tobacco is at odds with his professed Mormon beliefs. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

Study: Blacks most likely to be gay Blacks are more likely to identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender than any other racial or ethnic group in the nation, according a poll by Gallup.

The Myth That Screwed Up 50 Years of U.S. Foreign Policy U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s skillful management of the Cuban missile crisis, 50 years ago this autumn, has been elevated into the central myth of the Cold War.

What Really Happens When a City Makes Its Transit System Free? When Jean-Francois Mayet became mayor of Châteauroux in 2001, the town’s transit system was descending into irrelevance.

A Gay Athlete in the World’s Most Macho Sport It is the wee hours of the morning of October 21, and the featherweight Orlando Cruz (19-2-1) defeated Jorge Pazos (20-4) by unanimous decision.

How Workers Are Using Globalization Against Walmart The recent Walmart strikes — beginning first among warehouse workers in California, then spreading to others in Elwood, Illinois, and finally to Walmart retail stores across the United States — raise the possibility that workers may be able to crack the anti-union wall at the country’s largest employer.

Court Unseals Potentially Devastating Testimony — Romney Said Stocks Sold at 1/10th of Eventual Value Was ‘Good Price’ The Boston Globe reports: “Mitt Romney testified under oath in 1991 that the ex-wife of Staples founder Tom Stemberg got a fair deal in the couple’s 1988divorce, even though the company shares Maureen Sullivan Stemberg received were valued at a tenth of Staples’ stock price on the day of its initial public offering only a year later.

What Are the Odds That Israel Just Attacked Sudan? It’s not often that a government eagerly announces a military facility in its capital city has been destroyed in a stunning and audacious sneak attack, even in light of plausible evidence to the contrary.

Obama moves to make the War on Terror permanent Complete with a newly coined, creepy Orwellian euphemism – ‘disposition matrix’ – the administration institutionalizes the most extremist powers a government can claim.

Saggy Pants Outlawed By Florida City A Florida city passed a legal ordinance intended to crack down on the saggy pants menace threatening many U.S. communities.

Romney-linked Voting Machine Company Will Count Votes in Ohio and Other Crucial Swing States Voting machine provider Hart Intercivic will be counting the votes in various counties in the crucial swing states of Ohio and Colorado and elsewhere throughout the country come November 6—even though it has extensive corporate ties to the Mitt Romney camp, and even though a study commissioned by the state of Ohio has labeled its voting system a “failure” when it comes to protecting the integrity of election.

Mormon Mitt in Bed with Big Tobacco Mitt Romney’s religious hypocrisy and lack of moral scruples are most tellingly exemplified by his personal involvement in Bain Capital’s work for big tobacco – which included hooking millions of Russians on the drug that is anathema to Mormons.

The Terrifying Rise of Greece’s Nazi Party Gulam Hussein, a 20-year-old Afghan with a bushy brush cut, hates Greece.