Washington —- When Pizza Patron, a Dallas-based restaurant chain, decided to accept Mexican pesos, it created a promotional campaign featuring the Mexican flag and the slogan “Bienvenido Paisano,” or “Welcome Countryman.”

It also created an outcry.

Hosts of conservative talk radio shows and opponents of illegal immigration seized on the story, creating a buzz and major backlash.

The restaurant received hundreds of e-mails and calls a day accusing it of abetting illegal immigration and being anti-American. There were even death threats, said Andrew Gamm, the company’s director of brand development.

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If Barry Foon doesn’t get a bone marrow transplant soon, he may die. And the fact that he’s not Caucasian isn’t helping.In September 2004, as the 47-year-old Chinese-American resident was getting off the examining table following a routine physical, his doctor spotted a bulge protruding from his abdomen. Further investigation determined he had a lyphoma tumor, said his wife, Lisa Foon.

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The gap in life expectancy between African-Americans and has narrowed, according to a study to be published next week.
Researches said the study points to some progress in mitigating racial health disparities, pegged as an ongoing and major challenge for public health policy in the United States.
The report, based on an analysis of 46 million deaths over two decades, shows that white males lived on average 6.3 years longer than African-American males in 2003, a drop from an 8.4-year difference ten years earlier. Life expectancy disparity among women dropped from 5.6 years to 4.5 years over the same time period.

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Survey finds some blacks, Latinos consider early signs as a natural part of aging, not a potential disease MIAMI - African-American and Latino families who have relatives with Alzheimer’s are more likely to dismiss symptoms as part of the aging process, decreasing chances for an early diagnosis, according to a new survey.

The survey, released Tuesday morning, found that nearly 70 percent of blacks and Latinos who responded in a telephone poll said their loved one was exhibiting signs of old age, compared with about 50 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

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In one frame, a bespectacled African American, with yellow alpine skis over his right shoulder and a wide grin, strolls along Stevens Pass. Maybe he’s heading toward the lifts. Or maybe he’s already satisfied after some powder runs.

In another frame, a young African American smiles, with an Asian-American snowboarder strategically placed behind him.

If you haven’t figured where Stevens Pass is going with its “MAKE STEVENS YOUR MOUNTAIN” slideshow — prominently placed on the upper left corner of its Internet home page — here’s another hint: Its beginner’s-lesson promotional package is also printed in Spanish and Chinese.

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Minorities Are More Likely to Want Aggressive Care, Studies Show

In her last days, Marjorie Clarke Driver longed for a quiet bath in her own tub. But she never made it home.

Instead, Driver, 88, died in a hospital, attached to tubes and monitors, after doctors worked furiously for 30 minutes to revive her, even though her heart and lungs were too far gone to respond.

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FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate staked out some new territory at the FCC. Tate, who has been labeled the kids commissioner for her emphasis on issues like childhood obesity, told a Media Institute lunch crowd in Washington Wednesday she was still committed to kids, but also said that one of her goals was to push the FCC, Congress, and industry to do more to encourage media diversity.

She suggested there were informal and formal steps that could boost the participation of women and minorities both in front of the mike and behind the desk in the executive suites, pointing to statistics that while women are 51% of the population, they represent only 4.9% of station owners, with a similar disparity for minorities, a difference she called “troubling.”

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To retain minorities in science and engineering majors, culturally relevant ways to build self-confidence must be found and developed, according to preliminary results from a University of Wisconsin study.

The first-year results of the Sloan Project for Diversity in STEM Retention were presented as part of the “Wednesday Nite @ the Lab” series at the UW Biotechnology Center Wednesday. About 25 people attended the presentation of the three-year study.

The study examined the problem of low retention of African-American, Latino, Southeast Asian and American Indian students in the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and math. The study excluded Asians with backgrounds from countries outside Southeast Asia, such as China, Korea and Japan.

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WASHINGTON — African-American and Latino borrowers are paying more than whites for home loans in six areas around the country, a study released Thursday showed.

The report by the California Reinvestment Coalition, Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina and four other groups said that home loans are more expensive for minorities in Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Rochester, N.Y.

In all six areas, the report found, African-American borrowers were almost four times more likely to get a higher-cost home loan than white borrowers. In those same six areas, Latino borrowers were also almost four times as likely to get a more expensive loan, the report said.

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ST LOUIS — The federal government Wednesday sued Walgreen Co., alleging widespread racial bias against thousands of black workers throughout the nation’s largest drugstore chain.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged in a class-action lawsuit that Walgreen, based in Deerfield, Ill., makes decisions about employee assignment and promotion based on race.Most of the complaints that led to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, Ill., came from employees and former employees in St. Louis, Kansas City, Detroit and Tampa, Fla. But EEOC officials in St. Louis said they have found evidence of the same trend around the country.

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