What many Americans, including many scientists, think they know about drugs is turning out to be totally wrong. For decades, drug war propaganda has brainwashed Americans into blaming drugs for problems ranging from crime to economic deprivation. In his new book High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery That Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society, Carl Hart blows apart the most common myths about drugs and their impact on society, drawing in part …

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OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – A young black man claims in court that U.S. Airways had him arrested and put in a straitjacket for wearing saggy pants that showed his underwear, but not “any inappropriate parts of his anatomy.”

Deshon Marman sued the airline; 10 of its John and Jane Doe employees, including the pilot; the City and County of San Francisco and its police Officer Calvin Tom, in Federal Court.

Marmon, a former University of New Mexico …

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Data-collecting software is riling privacy and education activists.

When you were a kid and got in trouble at school, did they ever threaten to “put it in your permanent record?” That’s a scary prospect, knowing that the information could be seen forever by anyone with access to it. But what if that record had more in it than just grades and disciplinary problems? What if it included things like when your parents got divorced, or that …

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The White House, bless them, has threatened to veto the Farm Bill if Congress passes the House version of the legislation, which cuts $2 billion a year from the food stamp program, instead of the Senate version, which contains a mere $400 in annual cuts.

The White House would prefer, if we are in a cutting mood, to cut direct subsidies to farmers and crop insurance, two longtime mainstays of the Farm Bill that have basically …

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Bank of America’s mortgage servicing unit systematically lied to homeowners, fraudulently denied loan modifications, and paid their staff bonuses for deliberately pushing people into foreclosure: Yes, these allegations were suspected by any homeowner who ever had to deal with the bank to try to get a loan modification – but now they come from six former employees and one contractor, whose sworn statements were added last week to a civil lawsuit filed in federal court …

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The lower house of Switzerland’s parliament has refused to debate a bill that would allow Swiss banks to pass client information to the US tax authorities.

The bill is the result of pressure from the US following revelations that Swiss banks had helped American account holders to evade taxes.

The US had demanded action by 1 July, but the Swiss parliament summer session ends this week.

The bill will now return to the Senate.

The lower house decided by …

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Good riddance: The end of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad era should be welcomed by all who want to see a free and democratic Iran and a peaceful resolution to the ongoing nuclear crisis with Tehran. But the election victory of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president has revived a myth as old as that of the revolutionary theocracy, itself: The myth of moderation.

The White House cautiously expressed hope that the regime now will “make responsible …

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USA Today has published an extraordinary interview with three former NSA employees who praise Edward Snowden’s leaks, corroborate some of his claims, and warn about unlawful government acts.

Thomas Drake, William Binney, and J. Kirk Wiebe each protested the NSA in their own rights. “For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens,” the newspaper reports. “They had spent decades in the …

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For the first time since the end of war, in 2002, the Angolan government has soldiers to patrolling the streets of a town and conducting house searches and arrests. Since June 15, soldiers of the Angolan Armed Forces, have been deployed in the diamond-rich town of Cafunfo, in Northeastern Angola, in the aftermath of a largely women’s protest, which took place on the same day.

More than 15,000 citizens took to the streets in protest against …

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The US is to open direct talks with Taliban leaders within days, it was revealed on Tuesday, after Washington agreed to drop a series of preconditions that have previously held back negotiations over the future of Afghanistan.

In a major milestone in the 12-year-old war, political representatives of the Taliban will shortly meet Afghan and US officials in Doha, Qatar, to discuss an agenda for what US officials called “peace and reconciliation” before further talks take …

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