Obama’s aunt gets reprieve in asylum case

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned the G-20 summit must agree tough rules to govern banks.
A federal immigration judge says President Obama’s aunt, who has stayed in the United States illegally for years, will be allowed to remain in the country until at least next year.

U.S. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that delegates at the London summit needed to act with urgency and in unison to address the financial crisis. Obama said G-20 delegates had “a responsibility to act with a sense of urgency” and come up with “tough new rules” for managing the world economy. “We’ve passed through an era of profound irresponsibility,” Obama said. “Now, we cannot afford half-measures and we cannot go back to the kind of risk-taking that leads to bubbles that inevitably burst. So we have a choice: We either shape our future or let events shape it for us.” Brown called on world leaders to cooperate in achieving five tasks at the one-day summit, starting with restoring growth to emerging market economies and agreeing to “clean up” the global banking system.

Fact Box This week’s London Summit brings together the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economic powers, known as the Group of 20, to discuss the global financial crisis and decide new measures to set the world on a more stable economic footing.

There will be no sustainable recovery until a new regulatory system for the banks is put in place, Brown said. He also wanted countries to commit to do “whatever is necessary” to encourage growth and help the poor, protectionism to be rejected and a push for investment in the environment. However, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned they would not sign up to an agreement at the summit if the new rules were not tougher. At a joint press conference at a London hotel Wednesday night, the two leaders made clear that they were not satisfied with the proposals currently on the table. Watch more on the G-20 summit » “Germany and France will speak with one and the same voice,” Sarkozy said. “These are our red lines.” Earlier Wednesday, thousands of anti-capitalists, anarchists and environmental campaigners descended for protests in several locations around the British capital.

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The most violent demonstrations took place near the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank. People broke several dark-tinted windows of a Royal Bank of Scotland branch and crawled inside. Demonstrators also spray-painted the word “thieves” and the anarchist symbol on the side of the building. Watch more on the protests »

Three people were arrested at the bank — two for aggravated burglary and one for arson, a police spokesman said. Organizers said there would be tight security at the summit Thursday.

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N. Korea warns Japan against targeting rocket

Japan recently deployed its missile defense system in anticipation of North Korea's planned rocket launch.
North Korea says it will attack the Japanese military and "major targets," if Japan shoots down a rocket Pyongyang plans to launch in the coming days, North Korea’s state-run news service, KCNA, reported Thursday.

“If Japan recklessly ‘intercepts’ [North Korea’s] satellite for peaceful purposes, the [Korean People’s Army] will mercilessly deal deadly blows not only at the already deployed intercepting means but at major targets,” KCNA reported. Japan recently mobilized its missile defense system in response to the planned North Korean launch, Japanese officials said. The move, noteworthy for a country with a pacifist constitution, is aimed at shooting down any debris from the launch that might fall into Japanese territory. U.S. Navy ships capable of shooting down ballistic missiles have also been moved to the Sea of Japan, a Navy spokesman said. The threat of retaliation comes as North Korea has begun fueling its long-range rocket, according to a senior U.S. military official familiar with the latest U.S. intelligence on the matter. The fueling signals that the country could be in the final stages of what North Korea has said will be the launch of a satellite into space as early as this weekend, the senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.

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Other U.S. military officials said the top portion of the rocket was put on very recently, but satellite imagery shows a shroud over the stage preventing a direct view of what the stage looks like. The officials said the satellite payload appears to have a “bulbous” cover, which could indicate there is a satellite loaded on it. Such a cover protects a satellite from damage in flight. While the sources did not know for sure what the payload is, they did say there is no reason to doubt it is a satellite as indicated by North Korea. Pyongyang has said it will conduct the launch sometime between April 4 and April 8. It’s a launch that may violate a 2006 United Nations Security Council resolution. Resolution 1718 “[d]emands” that North Korea “not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile.” “It raises questions about their compliance with the Security Council Resolution 1718,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last week. “And if they persist and go forward, we will take it up in appropriate channels.” Pentagon officials worry less about the payload and more about the launch itself, saying any kind of launch will give the North Koreans valuable information about improving their ballistic missile program. “I don’t know anyone at a senior level in the American government who does not believe this technology is intended as a mask for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile,” U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday. Defense analysts say the same rocket could be used to push a satellite into space or deliver a nuclear warhead. Gates noted that while the United States believes it is North Korea’s “long-term intent” to add a nuclear warhead to any such rocket, he “personally would be skeptical that they have the ability right now to do that.”

Gates said that the U.S. military could shoot down “an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii … or something like that, we might consider it, but I don’t think we have any plans to (do) anything like that at this point.” He does not believe North Korea currently has the technology to reach Alaska or Pacific coast.

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VMI cadet charged with rape


A Virginia Military Institute cadet has been charged with rape and sodomy after a female cadet reported she was the victim of sexual assault.

The daytime drama’s declining viewership led to the decision, according to a CBS spokeswoman. The show, which the Guinness Book of World Records lists as the longest-running television drama, first aired on NBC radio in 1937 as a 15-minute serial, the spokeswoman said. It moved to television on the CBS network in 1952 as 15-minute drama. It later went to 30 minutes, and on November 7, 1977, it expanded to one hour and introduced the wealthy Spaulding family as foils to the show’s middle-class Bauers, who were a mainstay of the show for much of its run. In 1979, the show did a groundbreaking storyline when the character of Roger Thorpe (played by the late Michael Zaslow) raped his wife, Holly (Maureen Garrett). Among the actors who went on to greater fame after roles on the show: Kevin Bacon, James Earl Jones and Taye Diggs. The last episode is set to air on September 18, the spokeswoman said. The show is produced in New York.

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Nebraska family missing nearly two weeks

Officials are concentrating their search for the Schade family in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
A search will continue Thursday in the Black Hills of South Dakota for a Nebraska family that has been missing since March 20.

Investigators think Matthew Schade of Creighton, Nebraska; his wife, Rowena; and their two children — a daughter, 11, and a son, 8 — might have gone camping on U.S. Forest Service property in the Black Hills. Schade had visited the area in the past, and the family’s Ford Taurus was found nearby in Silver City, South Dakota, on Tuesday, March 31, by the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office. “The Forest Service property is a popular camping area, although, you usually don’t see people camping out there this time of year,” said Maj. Brian Mueller of the sheriff’s office. Two major blizzards have hit western South Dakota in the past two weeks. “The last blizzard on Monday of this week rolled in real fast,” Mueller said. The family was last seen in Knox County, Nebraska, which includes the family’s hometown of Creighton.

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Malaysia PM resigns; deputy to assume post

Outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, facing, hugs his successor, Najib Razak last week.
Malaysia will swear in a new prime minister Friday — one tasked with reuniting a multi-racial nation and shoring up an economy in dire straits.

Until now, Najib Razak had served as the Southeast Asian country’s deputy prime minister. He succeeds Abdullah Badawi who turned in his resignation after five years as leader. Both are part of Malaysia’s ruling party, the National Front Coalition, which has ruled the country since it gained independence from Britain in 1957. But last year, a loose coalition of opposition parties won 82 of 222 parliamentary seats in elections. It was only the second time in the country’s history that the ruling party failed to gain the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution. The election upset led to calls for Abdullah to step down. Various challenges await Najib: In recent months, the country has seen riots with the country’s ethnic Chinese and Indian communities who accuse the government of passing laws that favor the Malay majority.

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Najib has said he will do more to address their concerns. The country, like other nations around the world, has been severely affected by the global economic downturn. Critics are demanding Malaysia diversify its technology-heavy economy. Last month, Najib unveiled a multi-billion dollar stimulus plan for new spending, according to published reports. Najib also brings with him a whiff of controversy. Two former bodyguards are facing charges in connection the murder of a Mongolian model. He has denied all links to the killing.

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Postcard: New York’s Unemployed Olympians

Postcard: New Yorks Unemployed Olympians

Elia Roldan had just received a new lab coat with her name embroidered on the pocket. She worked as a dermatological assistant and although her doctor’s office was struggling — fewer people are getting Botoxed these days — her boss assured her that everything was fine. But that was a month ago. Now she is at Manhattan’s Tompkins Square Park at 2 pm on a Tuesday, tossing an office telephone down a measured runway in the very first, and possibly only, Unemployment Olympics. “It’s not like I have anywhere I have to be,” she says, “I mean, not anymore.” She is competing in the same white Nikes that she used to wear around the doctor’s office.

The Unemployment Olympics are the hastily planned brainchild of Nick Goddard, a gangly, angular man in small glasses and a navy blazer who runs from one event to the other, herding the 30-some-odd contestants around like an inexperienced babysitter at a children’s birthday party. The former computer programmer has been without a job for less than two months and says the idea for the four-event competition — Telephone toss, Payday piñata, Pin-the-Blame-on-the-Boss and the “You’re Fired!” race — just popped into his head one night. “Normally you think of things like this but never do them,” he says, “but I have so much free time right now, I decided to go for it.” He built a rudimentary website, contacted local news outlets, and then watched in amazement as his email’s inbox filled with hopeful participants.

Unemployment Olympians must show proof of their unemployment in the form of a New York State unemployment card, a termination letter or other evidence of job loss. They register for events at the “Unemployment Office,” a lopsided cardboard stand that looks like a recession-weary version of Lucy’s “Doctor is in” leomonade stand from Peanuts.

Most of the Olympians have college or graduate degrees and worked in white-collar Manhattanite jobs from which they did not expect to be booted. They range in age from the 23-year-old fired from his very first job to the 61-year-old garment industry worker who blames the Chinese for putting her fabric company out of business. They have been unemployed for an average of four months and most of them showed up alone. “Who am I going to bring” asks Erika Garcia, an out-of-work contract lawyer. “My friends still have jobs.”

But despite the event’s bleak inspiration, things at the Unemployment Olympics are generally cheerful. Contestants yell and clap and egg each other on, and no one seems upset when the Payday piñata breaks on the very first try — revealing Payday candybars. With New York easing its way into spring, being outdoors under a blue sky is almost as refreshing as the chance to stab a thumbtack into a fat, balding, caricature of a boss.

A blindfolded research analyst spins around in circles and inaccurately pins the tail on “The Feds,” — one of the eight economic culprits scrawled on an oversized poster board alongside the boss caricature. A former hedge fund manager pins his thumbtack somewhere between “The Economy” and “Consumer Spending” while a few yards away, a laid off videographer for media gossip site Gawker tosses a telephone wrapped in electrical tape just shy of the 100-point mark, as designated by circle drawn with sidewalk chalk. Prizes are awarded, mostly in the form of gift certificates to local restaurants and bars — Goddard had advertised a month of free medical insurance, but found it difficult to follow through. “For some reason, medical insurance companies don’t like to give away insurance to strangers.” he says. Some people exchange business cards but the group’s careers are so diverse — at one point, an unemployed opera singer gives an impromptu performance — that for the most part, they just talk about the competitions and how little money they have in their bank accounts.

“This event is making me nervous,” says Katina Garrard, a quiet, pale woman watching the phone toss. Garrard was a legal ethics assistant at International Paper in Memphis, Tennessee until three months ago, when her company announced extensive layoffs. Memphis is a small city and none of the major corporations were hiring, so Garrard picked up for New York, where she thought the opportunities would be — “well, not plentiful, but at least they would exist.” She attended a job fair earlier in the day, but it just depressed her. “There were lines and lines of people hoping for a job when only a few companies showed up. It’s just so disheartening.” She says she’s not athletic enough to participate in the unemployment games, plus she doesn’t want to risk getting a telephone in the face now that there’s no employer to pay for her insurance.

The Unemployment Olympians are laughing, but they are not okay. They have moved in with friends, downsized apartments, and asked their parents for assistance. Three people say that they’ve cut back on groceries so significantly that they’ve actually lost weight. Some are thinking about leaving the city altogether. They’re tired and frustrated and bored, but on this last afternoon in March they are making light of their situation. Lauren Diamond, a victim of advertising agency layoffs shrugs as she waits in line for the games, “I’m seriously sad,” she says. “But at least I’m not from Lehman Brothers.”

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Older Workers, Hurt by Recession, Seek New Jobs

Older Workers, Hurt by Recession, Seek New Jobs

— In these scary economic times, older workers are putting off their retirement and hanging on to a paycheck.

Some retirees struggling to make ends meet are scanning help-wanted ads for the first time in years.
About a week ago, Jeff Rollison, a 60-year-old employee at the General Motors Corp.’s plant in Lordstown, Ohio, told the automaker he was retiring. Now, he’s changed his mind.
Rollison is worried that something could happen to his retiree health benefits before he would become eligible for Medicare at age 65. Rollison is the sole breadwinner for himself and his wife. But he also is concerned about his grown children, including a son with three kids who is being laid off at a neighboring GM plant. “If something would happen with General Motors and our health care would go away, which has happened to a lot of companies here, I would have to wait five more years to be Medicare-age,” said Rollison, a member of United Auto Workers Local 1112. “There’s a lot of uncharted waters out there and we have questions that can’t be answered by anybody right now on how well the company will do in the short term.”
An AARP survey of 1,100 people conducted in December indicated that 16 percent of people 45 and older had postponed retirement because of the economic downturn. But the percentage of people planning to delay retirement shot up to 57 percent among respondents who were working or looking for a job and had lost money in the market during the past year. Consumer confidence held steady in March, with a slight blip upward halting three months of declines as slivers of hopes about the economy buoyed consumers. But Americans are still feeling gloomy about their future given mounting layoffs and shrinking earnings.
Robert Dobkin’s last day on the job as spokesman for Pepco, a utility company in the District of Columbia and Maryland, was supposed to be April 1. Now, it’s delayed indefinitely. “I felt that I was in a good position to retire until the market kept going down and down and the economy ground to a halt,” said Dobkin, 67. “I just figured there’s no point in retiring in this time of uncertainty until I have a better feel for where the economy is going.”
The average retirement age, which was between 62 and 63 for men and women last year, is on the rise, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. For instance, the percentage of 63-year-old men who were in the work force rose from 44 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2007, according to the institute.
The recession is not the only reason people are working longer. Life expectancy rates are going up. So, too, is the age at which workers are entitled to receive full Social Security benefits.
Mark Lassiter, a Social Security Administration spokesman, said that while some older people stay on the job during economic downturns, others turn to Social Security because their jobs are eliminated. The agency reported a nearly 9 percent increase in retirement claims between the 2008 budget year and 2009, which ended Sept. 30.
An increase was expected because baby boomers are starting to retire, but the jump was higher than anticipated because of the recession, he said.
Some companies are looking to cut costs and keep younger, less-expensive workers. Yet some businesses are happy to keep experienced workers. “Experienced workers produce more per hour with less supervision than youngins’,” said William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business and an economics professor at Temple University. “The elderly may, in fact, be cheaper than teeny boppers” because they require less training, seek part-time work and will accept lower wages.
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How Good Are GM and Chrysler Warranties?

How Good Are GM and Chrysler Warranties?

President Barack Obama made clear at his press conference on Monday that the U.S. government would stand behind warranties on cars purchased while the automakers restructure. “Let me say this as plainly as I can: If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired just like always,” Obama said. “Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty.”

That surely boosted the confidence of prospective car buyers and sent a strong message to the United Auto Workers union and bondholders that the government is dead serious about implementing a major restructuring of both companies — and won’t wince at bankruptcy if that’s what is required to get the job done. GM’s new CEO, Frederick A. Henderson, basically repeated that message at his Tuesday-morning press conference, even going so far as to say that bankruptcy was now “more probable,” though not desirable.

But for many current and future GM or Chrysler car owners — and more than a few car dealers — the government promise is a bit of a head spinner. For example, if you’re the happy owner of a GM or Chrysler car now, does the new government backing pertain to you If you purchase a GM or Chrysler car today, are you covered Last week And if you buy while either company is in bankruptcy

Under the plan, called the Warranty Commitment Plan, both Chrysler and GM will contribute money to a special purpose company that will ultimately hold enough money to cover 125% of potential warranty claims. GM and Chrysler would contribute 15% of the required funds, and the Treasury would put in the rest. This special company would be separate from the automakers and would continue to pay for warranty service in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation. It does more: if Chrysler were liquidated in bankruptcy, for example, the warranty company would find a new service provider to oversee warranty-related body work.

At this point, the promise is grand but vague. Warranty administration is a subspecialty in the auto business that relies on precise language. When carmakers say three years and 36,000, they mean exactly three years and 36,000 miles. Any changes or extensions, while not uncommon because of pressure from state lemon laws, are reviewed by senior management. Dealers get some leeway but not much, and taking a car to an unauthorized repair center can effectively negate the warranty. “None of this is clear,” said one dealer, referring to the many nuances of warranty work that are yet to be defined in the government’s plan. He also
noted that if GM is forced into bankruptcy, dozens of dealerships could close and consumers would be left guessing as to where to take their vehicles.

Indeed, if bankruptcy occurs, many existing GM and Chrysler owners still under warranty face an as-yet-undefined level of support. So if you’re sitting in your 2008 Chevy Tahoe and wondering where all this talk of bankruptcy and government-backed warranties leaves you, the answer is, nobody’s quite sure. And that may not be the best place to leave a loyal GM customer who bought when few would.
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Congress Launches Opening Gambits on Global Warming

Congress Launches Opening Gambits on Global Warming

President Barack Obama loves to talk about the great promise of energy reform, but all it takes is one glance down Pennsylvania Avenue to get a sense of the pitfalls of such ambitious designs. That was especially clear on Tuesday, as Congress ran both hot and cold on legislation to fight global warming.

The House produced a long-awaited bill to regulate 85% of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions, anteing up for what promises to be long, high-stakes negotiations with the Senate and business groups alarmed at the $1 trillion price tag that some estimate such an effort could entail. The effects of the already intense lobbying were felt across the Capitol, where the Senate the same afternoon passed by an overwhelming margin an amendment resolving that any energy legislation should not increase electricity or gas prices. As it stands now, energy-price hikes are unavoidable under most of the climate-change plans swirling around Congress, including the draft introduced Tuesday by House Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and Representative Ed Markey, chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.

The sweep of the Waxman-Markey bill, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, is massive. It includes provisions to require that a quarter of U.S. power production be based on renewable energy by the year 2025; investments to facilitate mounting those new energy sources onto the grid; incentives for green buildings, appliances and vehicles; and an ambitious schedule to reduce greenhouse gases 20% below 2005 levels by the year 2020. The goals are even more ambitious than those in Obama’s plan, which calls for only a 14% reduction in the same period — and that may well be the point. While it’s hard to envision such a unabashedly liberal climate-change proposal passing Congress in the current climate, it could provide some much needed cover for the Administration by making its goals seem modest by comparison.

“I don’t think what [Waxman] is proposing will get 60 votes in the Senate,” said Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Independent who has championed global-warming legislation for years. “The early targets are high — higher than the Senate will accept and higher than what we can do, because they impose too much of a burden, particularly on people in states that burn a lot of coal or produce a lot of electricity.”

Recognizing that their bill was just an opening gambit, the two House Democrats notably left open one of the most controversial questions: whether, under a carbon cap-and-trade system, to auction off pollution credits to companies, as Obama’s plan would do with 100% of them, or to give away some or all at no cost. If even a portion of the credits are auctioned off, the scheme could produce hundreds of billions of dollars in revenues, since almost every big company in America would need to buy the credits to initially comply with the more stringent standards. But most Republicans and many Democrats are demanding those potential funds be returned directly to consumers to help offset higher energy bills as utilities pass along to them the cost of modernizing. The Obama plan, however, envisions using 20% of these funds to pay for investments in green technologies and green jobs. “My first priority is that the money goes back to help those who will see their costs increased, whether it’s consumers or manufacturers,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who voted for the amendment Tuesday.

At the same time, the Senate is also expected this week to consider other energy amendments to the budget resolution being crafted. The House version of the budget, which is just a rough, nonbinding blueprint for Congress’ spending priorities in the coming fiscal year, includes a provision that would allow health-care legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes. Democrats have uniformly said they have no intention of piggybacking an energy bill in the same way, though the provision is sufficiently vague to allow for such a move. Just in case Democrats change their minds, an amendment being offered this week by Nebraska Republican Mike Johanns would bar the inclusion of climate-change legislation in the final budget.

The jockeying around these amendments in the Senate — which are nonbinding, like the overall budget plan — speaks to how intense the energy-reform maneuvering is already. The fact that the amendments — several more of which are in the pipeline — are coming through the Senate shows the impatience of members of the upper chamber, since the Senate will most likely wait for the House to act rather than draft its own bill. And there remain many holes to be filled in the House bill. The Waxman-Markey bill, for instance, doesn’t tackle nuclear power, a key issue for Republicans. And it doesn’t set specific timetables for greenhouse-gas reductions or address international concerns about how the U.S. would handle climate change across borders.

“I think the process here will be informed to some extent by what happens in the House, and we’ll learn from what they’re trying to get done,” said Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat and longtime sponsor of climate-change legislation in the Senate. “My hope and belief is, by the time we break for August recess, we’ll have had the opportunity to bring the bill to the [Senate] floor and hopefully start debating it.”
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Type A Personalities Have the Edge in Procreating

Type A Personalities Have the Edge in  Procreating

Throughout most of human history, you didn’t get some unless you had some. More precisely: it was wealthy, powerful men who scored the most sexual mates and, therefore, fathered the most offspring. Men with less wealth and low standing, meanwhile, died disproportionately childless.

Many evolutionary scientists believe that those thousands of years of human behavior are no artifact: modern men still strive for status partly because it is an evolutionary advantage for improving reproductive success. But other researchers have disputed that theory by citing data showing that wealthier, higher-status men do not in fact have more children than their less moneyed, lower-status peers.

Now a new study in the Journal of Personality offers another theory: it is not necessarily wealth that facilitates procreation but a more basic and deeply ingrained evolutionary trait — having a Type A personality. The study finds that adolescents who say they always take charge, tell others what to do, anger quickly, get into fights easily, and walk, talk and eat fast end up having more kids than others when they grow up. That’s true regardless of the kids’ performance in school.

This is terrible news for nerds, since it implies that in the end, even if they go on to invent software or write Lost episodes or produce great books, the bullies and jocks will win in a far more primal way: they spread their genes to more little bullies and jocks. Call it the ultimate victory of Attila the Hun.

The authors of the study, psychologists Markus Jokela and Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen of the University of Helsinki, interviewed 1,313 Finnish men and women who were participating in a long-term study on an separate topic . The participants underwent psychological assessments first when they were young and then again 18 years later. Those young people with more Type A personality traits ended up having significantly more children by age 39.

The research suggests that leadership qualities like taking charge and being competitive have an evolutionary advantage even if high socioeconomic status no longer does. “Perhaps the idea of having children is most attractive to individuals who prefer to act as leaders and to influence other people, including their own offspring,” the authors write. The theory is that evolution genetically predisposes Type A’s to like having kids because thousands of years ago, people with Type A personalities accrued more resources to guarantee their kids’ survival.

The paper offers new insight into an evolutionary conundrum posited in 1986 by Daniel Vining Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Vining pointed out that in contemporary societies, rich couples have the same number kids than poor ones. The article suggested that human reproductive behavior was entirely learned, not inherited.

The most notable challenges to that perspective have been put forth in recent years by sociologist Rosemary Hopcroft of UNC Charlotte and evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa, who now teaches at the London School of Economics and Political Science . In a 2006 article in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, Hopcroft showed that after you account for children born to mistresses and second trophy wives, rich men do have more kids than poor men. And Kanazawa, in a 2003 Sociological Quarterly paper, noted that even if wealthy men don’t have more kids within marriage, they have more sex partners total — and more sex with each partner — than poor men.

Today’s moguls, then, differ only in degree from the prolific breeders of the past, such as Moulay Ismail the Bloodthirsty, Emperor of Morocco, who produced at least 700 sons and an untold number of daughters before he died in the early 17th century. One big reason today’s powerful men don’t have as many kids as they could is a relatively new invention that our reproductive instincts haven’t had time to adapt to: contraception.

The new paper shows that the debate over Vining’s theory may be beside the point, since it is not wealth per se but a forceful, take-no-prisoners personality that has the genetic advantage. To be sure, many Type A’s turn out to be wealthy, but we all know plenty of Type A’s who live average lives

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