Marijuana has accounted for nearly half of all total drug arrests in the US for the past 20 years, according to the FBI's crime statistics. And according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), a large portion of the US illegal drug market is controlled directly by Mexican cartels. The DOJ's National Drug Intelligence Center, which has since been shut down, found in 2011 that the top cartels controlled the majority of drug trade in marijuana, heroin, and methamphetamine in over 1,000 US cities.

Now, those cartels and their farmers complain that marijuana legalization is hurting their business. And some reports could suggest that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is more interested in helping to protect the Mexican cartels' hold on the pot trade than in letting it dissipate.

Edward Bernays once famously promoted the "conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses" through the use of propaganda, which he considered an "important element in democratic society".[1] Today's so-called "liberal democracies" are testament to Bernays' assertion. The "father of public relations" demonstrated early on that propaganda can be used for many different purposes, from selling cars to selling wars. Especially the latter has become the primary task of media in the United States and other NATO countries in recent years.

With Iraq still burning, Western media played a decisive role in turning Libya and Syria into failed states as well. The propaganda was never particularly sophisticated. After "Saddam has weapons of mass destruction" came "Gaddafi is killing his own people" and eventually "Assad is like Hitler". But mainstream media reporting got even worse during the Ukraine crisis and this could have unforeseen consequences for those in power.

In Ukraine bloodthirsty neo-Nazis became peaceful protesters, pro-Russian protesters became FSB agents and black became white. Anti-Russian propaganda is all-pervasive and the Western media narrative about events in Ukraine is more often than not diametrically opposed to the facts on the ground. NATO has been doing its best to provoke a new Cold War and the Obama administration, apparently believing its own spin, wants to pursue "an updated version of the Cold War strategy of containment" towards Russia.[2] This begs the question of what this is all about. Why is Washington determined to take on Russia?

A train carrying oil has derailed in Colorado; six tank-cars have rolled over, Associated Press reports Saturday. The train consisted of 100 tank-cars. The incident occurred at 8:00 local time (18:00 Moscow time) near the town of La Salle, about 70 kilometers North of Denver. Part of oil has spilled; rescuers are liquidating the consequences of the incident.

Crews from Union Pacific Railroad worked to clear a six-car oil train derailment that leaked some crude into a ditch Friday in northern Colorado.

State and local emergency officials determined that one car of the 100-car train was leaking after the 8 a.m. derailment near LaSalle, about 45 miles north of Denver.

The cause of the derailment was under investigation, said Micki Trost, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Division of Emergency Management. Crews had contained the spill to a ditch away from any waterways, Trost said.

A vein on an Oklahoma inmate "exploded" in the middle of his execution Tuesday, prompting authorities to abruptly halt the process and call off another execution later in the day as they try to figure out what went wrong.

The inmate, Clayton Lockett, died 43 minutes after the first injection was administered -- according to reporter Courtney Francisco of CNN affiliate KFOR who witnessed the ordeal -- of an apparent heart attack, Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said.

That first drug, midazolam, is supposed to render a person unconscious. Seven minutes later, Lockett was still conscious. About 16 minutes in, after his mouth and then his head moved, he seemingly tried to get up and tried to talk, saying "man" aloud, according to the KFOR account.

Shocking allegations by former child actor Michael Egan against openly "gay" "X-Men" director and producer Bryan Singer have stunned Hollywood into relative silence.

I say "relative silence" because, unless he's a Catholic priest, the relativist left's false narrative is that a "gay" man is always the victim and never the victimizer.

Nonetheless, this latest episode has once again shined the spotlight on the long-established link between the homosexual lifestyle/movement and pedophilia - a link that, despite "progressive" denials to the contrary, is hiding in plain sight.

The FBI is investigating the armed standoff on federal land between the U.S. government and Southern Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters, CNN has confirmed.

The government is looking into the possibility that federal laws were broken in the April 12 standoff, including threats against law enforcement officers and the use of illegal weapons. Federal authorities are also concerned about the possible involvement of anti-government groups.

While authorities are interested in not inflaming the situation, reports of people pointing weapons at law enforcement need to be investigated, a federal official told CNN.

International human rights advocacy group Amnesty International on Friday accused the Nigerian government of knowing hours beforehand of the threat to hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls still missing but not taking action to protect them ahead of their abduction.

"Amnesty International has confirmed through various sources that Nigeria's military headquarters in Maiduguri [130 km from the kidnapping] was aware of the impending attack soon after 7:00 p.m. on April 14, close to four hours before Boko Haram began their assault on the town," the group said in a release. But the military was unable to muster enough troops to take on the militants with the Boko Haram terrorist group who were closing in on the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok. "The small contingent of security forces based in the town - 17 army personnel as well as local police - attempted to repel the Boko Haram assault but were overpowered and forced to retreat," Amnesty says, adding that one soldier was reportedly killed in the fight.

Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine said Thursday they would go ahead with a referendum on secession set for Sunday, defying Russian President Vladimir Putin's call to postpone it and dashing hopes of dialogue with the government in Kiev.

Western capitals had already been skeptical of Mr. Putin's surprise appeal Wednesday, a change of tone that included a claim that Russian troops had pulled back from the border. With the decision by separatists in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions at the heart of the insurgency, the conflict again appeared to be escalating.

In Kiev, the Foreign Ministry said the decisions confirmed fears that Moscow was just trying "to whitewash its aggression in the eyes of the international community" by appearing to endorse dialogue. Ukrainian officials rejected Moscow's demands that they end their military operation in eastern Ukraine and negotiate with the rebels.


Kiev and its Western allies say the separatists are led by Russian agents and are part of Moscow's plan to undermine the pro-Western government, which took power in late Feburary after a Moscow ally, President Viktor Yanukovych, was toppled by months of street protests centered in the capital.

Previous diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis have failed, often buying time for Russia and its allies to strengthen their position on the ground. (Track conflict along the border in an interactive map.)

The decline of religious belief in the West and the growth of secularism has "opened the window" to black magic, Satanism and belief in the occult, the organisers of a conference on exorcism have said.

The six-day meeting in Rome aims to train about 200 Roman Catholic priests from more than 30 countries in how to cast out evil from people who believe themselves to be in thrall to the Devil.

The conference, "Exorcism and Prayers of Liberation", has also attracted psychiatrists, sociologists, doctors and criminologists in what the Church called a "multi-disciplinary" approach to exorcisms.

Giuseppe Ferrari, from GRIS, a Catholic research group that organised the conference, said there was an ever growing need for priests to be trained to perform exorcisms because of the increasing number of lay people tempted to dabble in black magic, paganism and the occult.

The controversy surrounding Justina Pelletier and her family has expanded its scope in recent months, and has now become a general public scrutiny of Massachusetts's Department of Children and Families.

On April 29, State Governor Deval Patrick gave a press conference in which he announced the resignation of DCF Commissioner Olga Roche.

I think there's a very real risk of confusing some issues here. The sad fact is that, despite the enormous strides we have made as a society, there are still a great many children who are abused and neglected. Every state in the US has a social services department, one of whose statutory responsibilities is to investigate reports of abuse and/or neglect. The case workers who conduct the investigations are required to follow set procedures. Often they find that the allegation is unfounded, and the investigation is terminated. When they do find probable cause, they are required by law to present their findings to a judge, who scrutinizes the evidence in accordance with the normal judicial procedures. The social services department, the parents, and the child are usually represented by attorneys.

A wide range of options is available to the court, from outright termination of parental rights to outright dismissal of the case. Both of these extremes are rare. The usual outcome is some kind of remediation program, whereby the parents are encouraged and coached in childcare matters. Sometimes the children are placed in foster homes pending resolution of issues in the home. If the home issues aren't resolved, the foster care placement can be lengthy.

The system isn't perfect. Mistakes get made, and sometimes the mistakes are serious. I have no way of knowing if the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families was more error-prone than social service departments in other states. Obviously the commissioner Olga Roche has to take responsibility. But whether she was personally derelict in her duties or was just the designated fall-gal, I don't know.

But this I do know: the spotlight has been taken off psychiatry.