Good morning Qcity! Thank goodness, it’s finally Friday! What are your weekend plans? Check out Toni’s picks in her weekly column, “On the Town with Toni.” 

Today is going to be a beautiful day in Charlotte. The weatherman is calling for mainly sunny skies with highs in the mid 60s. Tonight, expect temperatures in the low 40s.

Here’s what’s brewing in the news:

Everyone has a price. What’s yours?

How much would you charge for a first date? A new dating website allows “attractive” women to set their fees and for “generous” men to make offers on how much they are willing to pay for a first date. Some think the arrangement sounds a little too close to prostitution.

The premise of WhatsYourPrice.com is why do it (dating that is) for free, when you can get paid for it? The tag line reads “It’s done for charity - now do it for love. Buy and sell first dates.” 

This is how it works - attractive users create profiles, naming the price they want to be paid for a first date, and generous users can set a price they are willing to pay. After the initial offers are made, users can accept offers, reject offers or counter them with a different price.

In an advertisement for the website, a woman’s voice says “I have found that if a guy is willing to pay me for a first date, he is going to be much more serious than all the others who are just looking for a hook up. And if it turns out that we’re not a match, at least I get paid for my time.” Do you agree with that?

QUESTION: So what’s your price? How much do you think a first date with you is worth? $20? $50? $100?

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Diabetes, obesity linked to neighborhoods

A new study found that if low income moms from the projects want to lower their risks for becoming extremely obese or for developing type 2 diabetes, they should consider moving to a less disadvantaged neighborhood. "This research shows how important the environment can be for people's health," says the study's lead author, Jens Ludwig, a professor of social service administration, law and public policy at the University of Chicago. According to Ludwig, those living in poor neighborhoods often have limited access to safe places to exercise and well-stocked grocery stores. He says those conditions also impact their psychological stress and eating habits. The two-year study, which appeared this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed about 4,500 women with children who lived in public housing in high-poverty areas. Most of the women included were black or Hispanic. Researchers say the study proves that improving health outcomes is not just about changing behaviors. It involves creating better environments. (Read more) 
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Blacks less likely to donate kidneys to strangers

When it comes to donating kidneys, Caucasians are much more likely than African-Americans to donate to strangers, according to a study published by medical researchers at Wake Forest University. African-Americans donate almost exclusively to family members, the study found.

"African-Americans are overrepresented in the dialysis population and they are underrepresented among those who receive living donor kidney transplants, the best option for long-term treatment of kidney disease," said Amber Reeves-Daniel, lead author of the study and medical director of the Living Kidney Donor Program at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, in Winston-Salem, N.C. “The more we can understand what contributes to people's willingness to donate one of their kidneys, the better job we can do of educating potential living donors about the need and allay fears about the risks.”

In addition, the study found that African-American donors were more likely to donate to their parents compared to Caucasians, and were slightly less likely to participate in parent-to-child donation.

Reeves-Daniel said one of the most surprising findings was that the majority of African- American kidney donors were men and younger than the white donors. "Adult African- American dialysis patients are typically younger than white dialysis patients and this may explain, in part, why African-American children are more often able to donate to their parents," she said.

Got news to share with Qcity readers? Email us at editor@qcitymetro.com.
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