IN THE NEWS - Immigrants, Births Put US on Way to Population of 400 Million by 2043By Brianna BlakeBroadcast: Saturday, October 21, 2006This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.This week, the national population clock at the United States Census Bureau reached three hundred million. This is only an estimate -- the next official count is in two thousand ten.But the Census Bureau says the United States is gaining one newperson every eleven seconds. Government experts based this on anestimate of one birth every seven seconds and one death everythirteen seconds.They also considered immigration. The Census Bureau says animmigrant enters the country every thirty-one seconds.The United States is the third most populous country in the world,although it is still much smaller than China and India.Some hospitals claimed they had the three hundred millionth baby. Yet the three hundred millionth person in the United States could have been an immigrant. Experts say about fifty-five percent of new population growth has resulted from immigration, including the children of immigrants.Today twelve percent of the population is foreign-born. The leading place of origin is Mexico. In the past, it was Europe.America's population reached one hundred million in nineteen fifteen. It reached two hundred million just over fifty years later, in nineteen sixty-seven.But the country has taken less than forty years to reach three hundred million people. And researchers expect a population of four hundred million in even less time.At that point, in two thousand forty-three, non-Hispanic whites could make up just over halfthe population. The Census Bureau'spopulation clock