Insider Report
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Ted Cruz Booed Off the Stage for Pro-Israel Remarks
2. Labor Force Participation Matches Previous Low
3. Google Named Students' Most Desired Employer
4. Muslim Nations Can Put Christian Converts to Death
5. 40% of US Babies Since 2008 Born to Unwed Moms
6. Small US Cities Showing Greatest Growth
1. Ted Cruz Booed Off the Stage for Pro-Israel Remarks
Speaking at a conference for Middle Eastern Christians, Sen. Ted Cruz was booed so mercilessly for his pro-Israel remarks that he was forced to leave the stage.
The Texas Republican was the keynote speaker at the gathering in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday sponsored by the nonprofit organization In Defense of Christians (IDC), The Daily Caller reported.
"Tonight, we are all united in defense of Christians," he told the sold-out audience. "Tonight, we are all united in defense of people of good faith, who are standing together against those who would persecute and murder those who dare disagree with their religious teachings."
Cruz went on to say: "Christians have no greater ally than Israel."
At that point, the crowd erupted in a chorus of boos.
"Those who hate Israel hate America," Cruz continued as the booing and calls for him to leave the stage grew louder. "Those who hate Jews hate Christians."
As the jeers filled the venue, Cruz declared: "I am saddened to see that some here, not everyone, but some here are so consumed with hate." He was interrupted by shouts of "all of us!" and "leave the stage," and one audience member shouted "you speak for yourself."
IDC's President Toufic Baaklini came out on stage to ask the crowd to quiet down, but Cruz had heard enough.
"If you will not stand with Israel and the Jews, then I will not stand with you," he said. "Good night, and God bless." With that, Cruz walked off the stage, The Daily Caller disclosed.
Several supporters of Hezbollah and the Syrian regime were scheduled to speak at the conference, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Among them were Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Rai, who has defended Hezbollah's right to attack Israel and expressed his willingness to meet with the terrorist group's leader.
Another speaker, Syriac Orthodox Church Patriarch Moran Mor Ignatius Aphrem II, has disclosed that he had a recent meeting with a "high-level delegation from Hezbollah."
Church of Antioch Patriarch Gregory III Laham, who also spoke, has blamed terrorist attacks against Iraqi Christians on a "Zionist conspiracy against Islam" designed to give "a bad image of Islam."
A few hours after he left the stage, Cruz said in an interview with the Free Beacon: "I've certainly encountered audiences that disagreed with a particular point of view. But this virulent display of hatred and bigotry was remarkable, and considerably different from anything I've previously encountered.
"The division and anti-Semitism expressed tonight by some of the crowd is not reflective of the teachings of Christ, and is in fact directly contrary to the tenets of Christianity."
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2. Labor Force Participation Matches Previous Low
A record 92.26 million Americans ages 16 and over did not have a job last month and the labor force participation rate stood at 62.8 percent, matching a 36-year low.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment figures are based on the "civilian noninstitutional population," which consists of all Americans 16 or older who are not in the military or an institution such as a prison, mental hospital, or nursing home.
Those who did not have a job and did not actively seek one in August are not considered to be in the labor force, along with retirees, students, and Americans collecting disability benefits.
Of the 155.9 million who did participate in the labor force, 146.3 million had a job and 9.5 million were out of work but actively sought a job.
The labor force participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent in six of the past 12 months, but before October 2013 it had not dipped that low since 1978.
The rate stood as high as 66.4 percent in December 2006 and January 2007, but began decreasing as the recession struck in 2007, according to the BLS.
Since the recession began, 6.9 million fewer Americans are now working or searching for work.
A report from the Heritage Foundation cited several reasons for the drop in labor force participation. For one, baby boomers are aging and more likely to retire. Also, school attendance is up, and many more Americans are collecting Social Security disability insurance — 6 percent of U.S. adults are now collecting those benefits.
"The difficulty of finding a job drives both these changes," observes James Sherk, senior policy analyst in labor economics at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.
"The labor market remains weak not because of layoffs — which have sunk to pre-recession levels — but because job creation and new hiring have fallen."
He adds that "the government's responses have been ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst," noting that Obamacare has made hiring more expensive.
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3. Google Named Students' Most Desired Employer
A survey of nearly 50,000 undergraduate students and MBA candidates asked respondents to name the companies they would most like to work for after graduation — and Google came out on top.
The Top 100 Ideal Employer Rankings "provide a look into the minds of the emerging workforce: what companies and industries are most in demand," said Melissa Murray Bailey of Universum, which has conducted the survey for 25 years.
Students were first asked to review a list of employers customized to their major, and to select an unlimited number of those employers they would consider working for. Respondents chose an average of 23.1 employers.
From that selection, respondents chose their top five companies — their ideal employers, according to the Universum report featured as a special advertising supplement in The Wall Street Journal.
The highest priorities of students when considering their future employers were, in order: respect for their people; secure employment; a creative and dynamic work environment; professional training and development; a friendly work environment.
Google was chosen No. 1 overall. The Mountain View, Calif., company has more than 52,000 employees and had nearly $60 billion in revenue last year.
Rounding out the top five were the Walt Disney Company, Apple, EY (Ernst & Young financial services firm), and J.P. Morgan.
The FBI was No. 15, the U.S. Department of State No. 20, the Department of the Treasury No. 24, and the CIA No. 26.
Students were also asked to choose favored companies in several business categories.
In the engineering category, Boeing was tops, followed by NASA and Google.
Among computer science firms, Google was No. 1, followed by Microsoft and Apple.
For the natural sciences category, the National Institutes of Health was No. 1, followed by the Mayo Clinic and the Centers for Disease Control.
In the humanities category, the Walt Disney Company was most favored, ahead of Google and the U.S. Department of State.
And among just the MBA candidates, Google was No. 1, followed by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Amazon, and Bain & Company, the management consulting company where Mitt Romney served as CEO.
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4. Muslim Nations Can Put Christian Converts to Death
In some Islamic-majority countries, Muslims who convert to Christianity or another religion face execution, according to the State Department's most recent report on religious freedom.
The 2013 International Religious Freedom Report observes that these nations consider conversion from Islam to be "apostasy" and a capital offense.
In Afghanistan, where American troops are fighting and dying to ward off a takeover of the country by Islamic militants, Islam is "the religion of the state," and "conversion, considered an act of apostasy and a crime against Islam, is punishable by death if the convert does not recant," the State Department report states.
Non-Muslim minority groups "continued to be targets of persecution and discrimination" in 2013, according to the report.
"Blasphemy, which can include anti-Islamic writings and speech, is a capital crime under the courts' interpretation of Islamic law."
Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. ally, also has a law stipulating that conversion from Islam to another religion, as well as blasphemy against Islam, can be punishable by death.
Apostasy is also a capital offense in Qatar, although there have been no recorded punishments for apostasy since the country gained independence in 1971, the State Department noted, adding: "The law punishes proselytizing on behalf of an organization, society, or foundation of any religion other than Islam with up to 10 years in prison."
Regarding Iran, the report states that in 2013 "the government severely restricted religious freedom, and there were reports of imprisonment, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination based on religious belief.
"The government automatically considers a child born to a Muslim father to be a Muslim and deems conversion from Islam to be apostasy, which is punishable by death."
In Sudan last year, "the government prohibited conversion from Islam to another religion, denied permits for churches, closed or demolished churches built without permits, and failed to provide legal remedies for some instances of religious discrimination." The law "specifies imprisonment or death as punishment for those who convert from Islam to another religion."
In Mauritania, "only Muslims may be citizens. A Muslim convicted of apostasy who does not recant within three days may be sentenced to death and have his or her property confiscated," although the government has never imposed capital punishment for this offense.
In the United Arab Emirates, the penal code requires apostasy to be punished with the death penalty.
In 2013, Brunei enacted a law dictating that a Muslim who declares himself to be a non-Muslim can be punished with death if he does not first obtain permission from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, or with imprisonment of not more than 30 years.
Not all Muslim nations can impose the death penalty for apostasy, but there is widespread approval for such practices. A Pew Research Center survey in 2012 found that 86 percent of Muslims in Egypt favor the death penalty for apostasy, as do 82 percent in Jordan, 76 percent in Pakistan, 62 percent in Malaysia, 46 percent in Lebanon, 44 percent in Bangladesh, 42 percent in Iraq, and 29 percent in Tunisia.
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5. 40% of US Babies Since 2008 Born to Unwed Moms
Thirty-six percent of the generation of Americans born from 1993 through 2012, the eldest of whom will turn 21 this year, were born to an unmarried mother.
During those 20 years, 80.83 million babies were born in the United States, and slightly more than 29 million of them were born to single women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And in each of the last six years — 2008 through 2013 — at least 40 percent of American babies were born to unmarried mothers, the CDC noted.
In 1940, only 3.8 percent of American babies were born to unmarried women, and by 1960 the figure was still just 5.3 percent.
But the percentages began to climb significantly in the mid-1960s, reaching 10 percent in 1969, 20 percent in 1983, and 30 percent in 1992.
The burgeoning rate of women giving birth outside marriage has economic repercussions. In 2012, the poverty rate for single-mother families was 40.9 percent, compared to 8.9 percent for married-couple families, according to the National Women's Law Center.
And 80 percent of homeless families are headed by single women with children.
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6. Small US Cities Showing Greatest Growth
Since 2000, small U.S. cities with a population between 100,000 and 250,000 have seen a 13.6 percent population growth rate, more than twice that of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and about 10 percent greater than the national growth rate.
The 167 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) considered "small cities" have added a net 675,000 people due mostly to domestic migration during that time period.
"Coverage of America's changing urban scene tends to focus heavily on large metropolitan areas and the 'megaregions' now often said to dominate the economic future," writes Joel Kotkin, executive editor of NewGeography.com and author of "The City: A Global History."
"Often missed has been a slow, but inexorable, shift of migration and economic growth to smaller cities."
Much of the population growth in small cities has been fueled by retirees settling there and job growth in energy-driven boom towns. To a lesser extent, it is seen in college towns and areas largely dependent on government spending.
Newgeography.com asked Mark Schill at the Praxis Strategy Group to rank the small metro areas on four factors: population growth from 2000 to 2013, job growth from 2001 to 2014, real per capita personal income growth from 2000 to 2012, and growth of regional GDP per job — a sign that the metro is adding high-value industries rather than lower-wage jobs — from 2001 to 2012.
Using those criteria, the highest-rated small MSA in the nation is The Villages, Fla., a retirement community 45 miles northwest of Orlando. It has enjoyed 99.2 percent population growth and 186 percent job growth, and now is home to 110,000 people, according to Bloomberg.
No. 2 is Midland, Texas, which, thanks to the Lone Star State's booming oil and gas industries, has seen 60 percent job growth and 30 percent population growth. Third-ranked Odessa, Texas, also has benefited from the energy boom.
No. 4 is Fargo, N.D., home to North Dakota State University. The city benefits from the oil-rich state's growing tech and manufacturing sectors.
No. 5 is Jacksonville, N.C., home to the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune.
The only MSA in the top 50 to lose population was Binghamton, N.Y., which had a growth rate of -1.7 percent, although it saw job growth of 27.1 percent, according to Kotkin's article, which first appeared in Forbes.
The largest decreases in population were in Johnstown, Pa. (7.6 percent), and Weirton-Steubenville, W.Va.-Ohio (7.4 percent), while the largest drop in jobs was in Mansfield, Ohio (16.6 percent).
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