Hate Crimes in America on the Rise--Are You at Risk?

Police reported 7,772 hate crimes nationwide last year, marking a 7.8 percent hike from 2005, according to a recent FBI report. Hate crimes are defined as violent acts against a person or property as a result of bias against a race, religion, orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. More than half the incidents were motivated by racial prejudice, but the report excluded some of the racially motivated incidents last year, including the noose hangings in Jena, La., reports The Associated Press. In 2006, police identified 7,330 offenders--58.6 percent white, 20.6 percent black, 12.9 percent race unknown and the rest other races. Read all about the Jena 6 on DiversityInc.com.

(See also: Why the Feds Won't Prosecute West Virginia Torture Case as a Hate Crime)

New Discovery May Cool Stem-Cell Stigma

American and Japanese scientists have successfully manipulated ordinary skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells, according to a report released Monday. Scientists hope the new approach will weaken the moral stigma attached to cloning, reports NPR, as this technique does not require the use of embryos.

(See also: Election Day Fallout: N.J. Voters Say No to Stem-Cell Research and President Vows to Use Veto on Stem Cells Again)

Is New Orleans 'Turning White'?

For the first time in two decades, New Orleans will have a majority-white city council that, for many, personifies the changing demographics of the city. Jacquelyn Clarkson, who is white, defeated a black candidate, Cynthia Willard-Lewis, by 53 percent to 47 percent in a contest for an at-large council seat decided largely along racial line, reports The New York Times. The election grabbed the attention of 29,700 white voters versus 22,900 black voters, according to local pollsters.

(See also: Racial Wounds Fester in New Orleans Two Years After Katrina)

Who Joined the Writers' Guild Strike?

As the Hollywood writers' strike turns three weeks old, CBS News writers are joining the fight. In a vote last week, the union said 81 percent of the 300 writers who participated gave WGA negotiators the power to call a work stoppage, reports The Associated Press. According to industry analysts, the 500 CBS News television and radio writers based in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago have been working under an expired contract since April 2005.

(See also: No More 'Housewives' or 'Grey's Anatomy'? Striking Writers Almost All White)

Subprime Market Bottoms Out--AGAIN!

Despite subprime-market improvements in September and early October, investors fear the latest market crash will be more costly than the drop in August. Economists increasingly worry that banks are suffering such massive losses that they will be forced to cut back their lending to consumers and businesses. That would slow the economy, much as the savings-and-loan crisis did in the early 1990s, reports The Washington Post. The direct losses from mortgage foreclosures will be about $400 billion, economists at Goldman Sachs estimated in a report last week.

(See also: Blacks, Latinos Remain Top Targets for Subprime Lenders and Killing Predatory Lending? What New Bill Means for Latinos, Blacks)

Football Teams Fight Over Slavery

Name-calling and trash-talking customary of most college football rivalries is different for the Universities of Kansas and Missouri. For those football fans, their 150-year-old contest begins with the Civil War--and to many on both sides of the state lines, the game is merely a proxy for a war that never really ended. Perhaps no other football rivalry in the nation pits states against each other that once fought as brutally as did Kansas and Missouri, reports The Wall Street Journal. The two teams will meet again on Saturday in the Arrowhead Stadium, home of the Kansas City Chiefs professional franchise. Nosebleed tickets are going for triple-digit prices.

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