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Study links neighborhood environment to prostate cancer risk in men with West African genetic ancestry
West African genetic ancestry was associated with increased prostate cancer among men living in disadvantaged neighborhoods but not among men living in more affluent neighborhoods, according to a new study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The findings suggest that neighborhood environment may play a role in determining how genetic ancestry influences prostate cancer risk. The study was published Sept. 16, 2024, in JAMA Network Open.
In the United States, most Black Americans have West African genetic ancestry, the researchers noted. Previous studies have shown that West African genetic ancestry is linked to increased prostate cancer risk among Black men, whose risk is higher than that of any other U.S. population group. However, it is unclear whether additional factors play a role in determining this ancestry-related risk.
To explore how the neighborhood environment and West African genetic ancestry may act together in influencing prostate cancer risk, researchers at NIH’s Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) conducted a study with long-term follow-up that included 1,469 self-identified Black and White men from the greater Baltimore area. The researchers determined the men’s West African ancestry through genetic markers and neighborhood socioeconomic status through factors such as unemployment rate, income level, and percentage of households in poverty.
The researchers then examined the combined association of this ancestry and the neighborhood environment with prostate cancer risk and found that West African genetic ancestry was associated with prostate cancer risk among men living in disadvantaged neighborhoods but not among those living in more affluent areas.
The researchers posited that the increased ancestry-related risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods may be due to chronic stress — such as from racial profiling, housing discrimination, and exposure to violence — which can affect the immune system and cause high levels of inflammation, in turn promoting tumor growth.
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Why Does The UK Need US Backing To Send Long-Range Missiles To Ukraine?
No matter how much Ukraine asks for help from the UK, reports suggest Downing Street will only allow Kyiv to use its long-range missiles once it has the US’s support.
Though the weapons could end up being a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s ongoing conflict with Russia, here’s why the UK cannot act without the US – and why the White House is being so hesitant.
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Why does Ukraine want long-range missiles?
Ukraine has been pleading for the West’s permission to use long-range missiles to strike beyond Russian borders for some time.
Known as Storm Shadow cruise missiles, the £767,000 Anglo-French weapons can reach 155 miles and fly close to the speed of sound.
The US also has some long-range missiles, American ATACMs ,which have a superior range of 186 miles.
Ukraine does actually have some access to a few long-range missiles already.
The problem comes down to the West’s refusal to allow Kyiv to fire the missiles into Russian territory.
Kyiv’s Western allies only allow Ukraine to use the weapons to fire at targets within its own borders, as a form of defence rather than offence.
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And Ukraine has used the weapons effectively to hit Crimea, the peninsula occupied by Russia since 2014, which has made it difficult for Vladimir Putin’s troops to stay there.
But, as Kyiv has hit a wall when it comes to driving Russian troops out of the 18% of Ukrainian land they continue to occupy, it recently pivoted to a new strategy – occupying a part of Russia.
Last month, Ukraine surprised everyone by seizing the Russian region of Kursk.
Although it ended up holding just a fraction of the land Russia has seized in Ukraine, Kyiv’s actions caused fury within the Kremlin and appeared to give Ukraine more hope of winning the overall war.
In the meantime, Russia is still launching devastating attacks against Ukraine from behind Russian borders.
Kyiv says not being able to target the place these attacks are coming from is seriously hindering it.
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Zelenskyy said on Sunday: “This terror can be stopped. But to stop it, the fear of making strong, objectively necessary decisions must be overcome. Only decisiveness can bring a just end to this war. It is decisiveness that most effectively protects against terror.”
Claiming there were around 30 missiles launched at Ukraine over the last week – along with more than 800 guided aerial bombs and nearly 300 strike drones, the Ukrainian president said: “Ukraine needs strong support from our partners to defend lives against Russian terror-air defence, long-range capabilities, support for our warriors. Everything that will help force Russia to end this war.”
Ukraine has its own long-range drone programmes which have occasionally hit within Russia but they cannot carry much and are frequently intercepted.
Five former defence secretaries and former PM Boris Johnson encouraged Starmer to give the go-ahead for Ukraine to use the Storm Shadow missiles, saying a delay to Ukraine’s request will only end up helping Putin.
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Indeed Russia has already started to build up its defences in case the West does agree to the request, moving bombers, missiles and infrastructure further from the border so Storm Shadows cannot reach it.
via Associated Press
Why does the UK need the US to allow Ukraine to have it?
The UK has already indicated that it is considering a shift on its stance on long-range missiles. But it all rests on the US.
The Times has been told the UK will not go “alone” in providing these weapons to Ukraine because the American guidance systems are crucial to making sure the missiles hit intended targets such as airfields and oil depots.
Foreign secretary David Lammy did not say this specifically, but he told the BBC that it was important to have a “shared strategy” among Ukraine’s allies.
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Why is the US being hesitant?
Biden and Starmer met in Washington last week, but did not announce any new plans to issue long-range missiles.
The US is particularly worried about escalating the Ukraine-Russia war into an international conflict – or a nuclear battle.
If, say, Putin decided to attack Poland, that would turn it into a Russia vs Nato conflict.
The US has allowed Ukraine to use missiles to target occupied parts of its land, including the areas Russia has illegally annexed and claims as it’s own – however, these regions are not internationally recognised as part of Russia.
Putin also claims that Ukraine cannot use long-range missiles without Western specialists’ support.
He said the “only servicemen of countries can input flight missions into these missile systems”.
The Russian president also claimed if Ukraine used the West’s long-range missiles would put the defence alliance “at war with Russia”.
He claimed Kyiv needs the West’s satellite intelligence, which neither the West nor Kyiv have commented on.
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But the White House has shrugged off these threats so far.
Biden told reporters on Friday: “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
The US could end up changing its mind over the permissions surrounding the long-range missiles later this month, when UN general assembly meets in New York.
What Is The Immigration Deal Italy Has Struck With Albania That Keir Starmer Might Copy?
Keir Starmer today declared that he was bringing back “British pragmatism”.
But does that stretch to copying the approach of Italy’s hard-right prime minister when it comes to tackling illegal immigration?
Starmer laughed and joked with Giorgia Meloni when the pair met in Rome.
The PM praised the “remarkable progress” the Italian government has made in reducing the number of migrants entering the country illegally.
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In the past year, there has been a 60% drop in boat crossings from north Africa to Italy – a record that Starmer, and his predecessor Rishi Sunak, could only dream about as large numbers of asylum seekers continue to come across the Channel from France.
So how has Italy done it? And what are the chances of the UK government following suit?
Money Talks
Italy has struck financial agreements with countries like Tunisia and Libya to stop the boats setting off in the first place.
The cash is designed to boost economic growth in Africa, as well as limiting the number of migrants trying to reach Italy via the Mediterranean Sea.
Sunak agreed a similar arrangement with France, but it seems to have had little impact so far in stemming the flow of boats reaching British shores.
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Figures released by the Home Office showed that more than 1,000 migrants arrived on 20 boats over the weekend.
Meloni’s Albania Agreement
The Italian PM wants to go even further by processing asylum applications in a third country, namely Albania.
Under a deal struck with the government in Tirana, anyone making it to Italy would be sent to Albania to have their claims for asylum dealt with.
Any successful applications would return to Italy, but those who fail will be returned to their own country.
At her press conference with Starmer in Rome today, Meloni said she hoped the scheme would be up and running in weeks.
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What’s more, she said the PM was “very interested” in how it worked during their discussions.
Asked earlier in the day whether he would consider seeking a similar agreement to deal with asylum seekers in Britain, Starmer said: “Let’s see. It’s early days, I’m interested in how that works, I think everybody else is. It’s very, very early days.”
Isn’t That A Bit Like Rwanda?
The idea of deporting asylum seekers to a third country is very similar to the Rwanda scheme drawn up by the last Tory government and dumped by Labour as soon as they took office in July.
There is one major difference, though. Under the Rwanda deal, the asylum seekers would not have been able to come back to the UK, regardless of whether their asylum claim was granted or not.
Heaping praise on Meloni’s approach, Starmer told her: “You’ve made remarkable progress working with countries along migration routes as equals to address the drivers of migration, of source and to tackle the [smuggling] gangs.”
And in a strong hint that he may well follow her example of how to deal with the issue of illegal migration, the PM said: “We are pragmatists, first and foremost. When we see a challenge, we discuss with our friends and allies the different approaches that are being taken, look at what works, and that’s the approach that we’ve taken today. And it’s been a very productive day.”
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I Just Learned Why We Say ‘Spill The Beans’ And I Would Never Have Guessed
We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about why we say “o’clock” and “pardon my French.”
We’ve debunked common misconceptions around why we say “night night, sleep tight” too.
But “spilling the beans” ― a phrase the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as relating “sometimes questionable or secret information of a personal nature” ― is a mystery to us.
After all, “spilling the tea,” which has its origins in Black drag culture, refers to the “tee,” “tea,” or “T” of the first letter in “truth”, so that makes sense.
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But what have beans got to do with anything, and why spill them?
It likely goes back to Ancient Greece
According to the Scholastic Dictionary Of Idioms, it had to do with an old-school voting system.
In ancient Greece, societies would place either a black or a white bean into a jar.
Black beans meant “no,” while white beans meant “yes.”
“The beans were supposed to be counted in secret, but if somebody accidentally (or purposefully) knocked over the jar and spilled the beans, the secret vote would be revealed,” the book reads.
Some fraternal clubs still use a black and white ball voting system; that’s why we have the term “blackballed” (per Dictionary.com).
Reader’s Digest says that the Ancient Greek origin may have inspired the use of the phrase in 1900s America, which is how it’s stuck around ’til today.
“He just walked off the reservation, taking enough insurgent Republicans with him to spill the beans for the big five,” a 1908 entry into American publication The Seven Points Journal reads.
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This definition, close to meaning “upset the apple cart”, is the same as the current one.
Why are “beans” in so many sayings?
To my disappointment, neither the Greek nor the American origin seems to have anything to do with the disparaging term “bean counter” sometimes used to refer to accountants.
As for using the word “bean” to mean “head” or “brain”, arts and culture publication The Smithsonian says that’s a little harder to track down.
It’s been traced back to the late 1800s and might have something to do with the fact that beans are a bit brain-shaped (sophisticated).
The Scholastic Dictionary Of Idioms adds that 1200s slang saw “bean” mean “information.”
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Zelenskyy Urges West To Overcome Its ‘Fear’ And Let Ukraine Fire British Missiles Into Russia
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on the west to overcome its “fear” and let Ukraine fire British long-range missiles into Russia.
The Ukrainian president urged its allies to show “decisiveness” after Moscow launched fresh attacks on the city of Kharkiv.
Posting on X, he said: “The world must help us defend ourselves against Russian military aircraft and the dozens of guided aerial bombs that claim Ukrainian lives every day.
“This terror can be stopped. But to stop it, the fear of making strong, objectively necessary decisions must be overcome. Only decisiveness can bring a just end to this war. It is decisiveness that most effectively protects against terror.”
His comments came after talks between Joe Biden and Keir Starmer in the White House broke up without any agreement on whether Ukraine will be allowed to use British-made Storm Shadow missiles on Russian soil.
Vladimir Putin has warned that such a move would lead to war between Russia and Nato.
He said: “We won’t be bullied by Putin’s shameless grandstanding.
“What he should now do is cease his aggression and leave Ukraine, that’s what he should do.
“But the UK and our public should be absolutely confident that we are supporting Ukraine in their struggle.”
Trump Declares Hatred For Taylor Swift After Harris Endorsement
Former President Donald Trump spent his Sunday morning on social media blasting those supporting Vice President Kamala Harris for president in November ― including pop superstar Taylor Swift.
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” the Republican candidate posted on his Truth Social platform, immediately after another post where he calls “rich, job creating people” who support Harris “STUPID.”
Swift, who was once known for avoiding public talk about politics, announced her much-anticipated endorsement of Harris just minutes after ABC News’ presidential debate ended on Tuesday night.
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The endorsement came in the form of an Instagram post featuring the 14-time Grammy Award winner with one of her cats ― a nod to Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, who received widespread backlash after trying to belittle Democratic women who have kids as “childless cat ladies.”
In her massively influential endorsement of the Democratic ticket, the singer said Harris “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift continued, adding that she was “heartened and impressed” that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was chosen to be the candidate’s running mate because she said he has been “standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
Swift’s Democratic endorsement was partly in response to Trump sharing AI-generated images of women wearing “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts. The singer’s
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This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
