Hispanics

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich dueled for Florida's Latino voters as they raced across the state Friday -- with Romney netting the backing of Puerto Rico Gov. Luis G. Fortuno and Gingrich announcing his support for legislation allowing children brought into the country illegally to earn citizenship by joining the military. The two men outlined their views on Latin American policy during back-to-back speeches before the Hispanic Leadership Network gathering in Miami-Dade County, where three-quarters of Republican voters are Latino.

Hispanic women may be at higher risk of dying from breast cancer compared with white women, a study finds. The study ws presented this week at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center-American Assn. for Cancer Research San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium . Researchers looked at survival rates among 577 Hispanic and white women with invasive breast cancer who were part of the New Mexico Women's Health Study. They discovered that Hispanic women had about a 20% higher risk of dying from breast cancer compared with white women.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has declined a request to intervene on behalf of Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in his showdown with Major League Baseball, Rep. Charles Gonzalez said Friday. Gonzalez (D-San Antonio), the chairman of the CHC, met Friday with MLB lobbyists. He said he had requested a meeting with Commissioner Bud Selig to discuss issues of concern to the Latino community but said the CHC would not stand with McCourt in his battle against Selig. "We can't take sides in a business dispute," Gonzalez said.

The two lines begin forming outside the Crystal Cathedral before 9 on Sunday mornings. It is a mostly immigrant crowd -- Mexicans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, among others -- and they stand patiently, unfurling umbrellas against the sun. When the doors open for the 9:30 English-language service, the lines don't budge. It isn't for a lack of seats inside -- so few people are there that cameramen have trouble finding crowd shots for the "Hour of Power" television program, which has been broadcast from the Garden Grove megachurch since 1970.

A months-long campaign by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the National Hispanic Media Coalition to protest the Liberman Broadcasting Inc. talk show "Jose Luis Sin Censura" has picked up steam, with two large companies agreeing to pull their commercials from the program. The organizations said Thursday that Time Warner Cable and AT&T Inc. have withdrawn advertising from the show, which is produced in Burbank and runs on Liberman's Spanish-language EstrellaTV network, including on the network's flagship station, KRCA-TV Channel 62 in Los Angeles.

Compared with other ethnic groups, Hispanic adults spend very little time engaging in leisure time activity. And their lack of playtime may be contributing to their kids' sedentary habits--and excess weight, says new research . The authors of the study, published this week in the journal Pediatrics , note that compared with non-Hispanic white kids, Hispanic kids between age 6 and 17 are much more likely to be physically inactive ...

The Hispanic population in the United States grew by 43% in the last decade, surpassing 50 million and accounting for about 1 out of 6 Americans, the Census Bureau reported Thursday. Analysts seized on data showing that the growth was propelled by a surge in births in the U.S., rather than immigration, pointing to a growing generational shift in which Hispanics continue to gain political clout and, by 2050, could make up a third of the U.S. population. "In the adult population, many immigrants helped the increase, but the child population is increasingly more Hispanic," said D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer at the Pew Research Center.

After two years of declines, the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. was virtually unchanged last year, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center . The annual report, relied upon by both sides in the contentious immigration debate, found 11.2 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., statistically identical to the 11.1 million estimated in 2009. The number peaked in 2007 at 12 million and dropped steadily as the economy collapsed. "It seems the decline has halted as of 2010," Jeffrey Passel, one of the report's authors, said in a conference call with reporters.

Young black and Hispanic women may be screened at higher rates for the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia than young white women, a study finds. The study included 40,000 young women ages 14 to 25, and researchers looked not only at screening rates, but also at what types of health insurance the study participants had. More black and Hispanic young women were tested for chlamydia compared with white young women -- the numbers were 65%, 72% and 45%, respectively. Black young women were 2.7 times as likely and Hispanic women were 9.7 times as likely to be screened for the diseased as their white counterparts Insurance also played a role in who got screened.

President Obama and Latino lawmakers agreed Tuesday that chances are dimming for passage of an immigration overhaul that would provide a path to legal status for millions of illegal residents, according to people familiar with the private session. Instead, the president and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus concurred that, until after the 2012 election, a more realistic goal would be to stave off legislation targeting illegal immigrants. That said, Obama told the group, he was not giving up on an immigration overhaul, which he promised to accomplish during his 2008 presidential campaign.