U.S. heat on armored car firms to drop pot clubs?

The Obama administration has pressured landlords, banks and credit card companies to cut off services to medical marijuana dispensaries. Now the administration may have found a new target: armored car companies that carry cash for the pot clubs.

The executive director of Oakland's huge Harborside Health Center, already fighting a federal eviction suit, has used armored cars to pay tax collectors and other creditors because he can no longer use checks or credit cards. On Wednesday, he said, the armored car company told him it was terminating service on the orders of an unnamed federal agency.

The National Cannabis Industry Association said the same thing happened to several dispensaries in Colorado within the past month, under pressure from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Colorado and California are among 18 states that have legalized the medical use of marijuana.

"We don't have any written document that the DEA has actually sent to the (armored car) companies. We know that the services have stopped" for most Colorado dispensaries, said Steve Fox, the cannabis association's director of government relations.

http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/U-S-heat-on-armored-car-firms-to-drop-pot-clubs-4758848.php

More shameful behavior, cracking down on sick people and making the legal cannabis trade dangerous.

American Kidnapped and Tortured by Syrian Rebels

Merchants of Meth: How Big Pharma Keeps the Cooks in Business

With big profits on the line, the drug industry is pulling out campaign-style dirty tricks to keep selling the meds that cooks turn into crank.

Shake and bake did two things. It took a toxic and volatile process that had once been the province of people with Breaking Bad-style knowledge of chemistry and put it in the bedrooms and kitchens of meth users in rural America. It also produced the most potent methamphetamine anywhere.

If anyone wondered what would happen if heroin or cocaine addicts suddenly discovered how to make their own supply with a handful of cheap ingredients readily available over the counter, methamphetamine's recent history provides an answer. Since 2007, the number of clandestine meth sites discovered by police has increased 63 percent nationwide. In Kentucky, the number of labs has more than tripled. The Bluegrass State regularly joins its neighbors Missouri, Tennessee, and Indiana as the top four states for annual meth lab discoveries.

As law enforcement agencies scramble to clean up and dispose of toxic labs, prosecute cooks, and find foster homes for their children, they are waging two battles: one against destitute, strung-out addicts, the other against some of the world's wealthiest and most politically connected drug manufacturers. In the past several years, lawmakers in 25 states have sought to make pseudoephedrine—the one irreplaceable ingredient in a shake-and-bake lab—a prescription drug. In all but two—Oregon and Mississippi—they have failed as the industry, which sells an estimated $605 million worth of pseudoephedrine-based drugs a year, has deployed all-star lobbying teams and campaign-trail tactics such as robocalls and advertising blitzes.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/meth-pseudoephedrine-big-pharma-lobby

WWE Wrestler Darren Young Announces He’s Gay

Source: CBS Local

WWE pro wrestler Darren Young has announced he is gay.

Young, who is a member of the Prime Time Players with Titus O’Neil, came out to TMZ when asked if he thought a gay wrestler could be successful in WWE.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Look at me. I’m a WWE Superstar and to be honest with you, right now, I’ll tell you I’m gay and I’m happy. Very happy.”

Young’s disclosure is not part of his onscreen character.

Read more: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/08/15/wwe-wrestler-darren-young-announces-hes-gay/

Sordid details spill out in rare court-martial of a general on sex charges

It was an illicit and volatile love affair that spanned two war zones and four countries. The married general couldn’t stay away from a captain on his staff. She fell hard for her boss and called him “Poppa Panda Sexy Pants.” The three-year entanglement ended disastrously for both, at a time that could not be worse for the Army.

All the raw and sordid details are spilling out in an austere military courthouse here, where the Army is girding — for only the third time in half a century — to court-martial one of its generals.

snip

The final straw came in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in March 2012. The captain was snooping through Sinclair’s e-mail in his office and discovered tender messages to his wife, as well as love notes to another female Army officer.

“I felt so stupid,” the captain testified. “I finally had something to slap me in the face and say, ‘See, he never loved you. He was just using you for sex.’ ”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sordid-details-spill-out-in-rare-court-martial-of-a-general/2013/08/14/f6c89c68-008d-11e3-a661-06a2955a5531_story_2.html

Trail of Blood Leads Police to Major San Francisco Ecstasy Drug Bust

Source: NBC

A trail of blood led San Francisco police detectives to make one of the biggest drug busts in the department's history, seizing more than $1.5 million worth of MDMA powder and pills.

MDMA is the active ingredient in ecstasy.

The discovery, which came by pure luck, was found the same weekend as the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in Golden Gate Park, prompting investigators to wonder whether the drugs were meant to supply concertgoers.

"We're happy if it is just a coincidence," Police Chief Greg Suhr said at a Tuesday news conference. "If it's not, we're very happy that none of this found its way out to the Polo Fields."


Read more: http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/national-international/SFPD-Trail-of-Blood-Leads-to-Major-MDMA-Drug-Bust-219468781.html

6 People Killed During Stolen Truck Police Chase

Source: CBS

Authorities say six people were killed after a stolen truck being pursued by authorities crashed into several vehicles at an intersection in South Texas.

According to a Texas Department of Public Safety statement, a DPS sergeant was pursuing the truck Monday afternoon just north of the city of Mission when the stolen vehicle hit three other cars.

DPS says besides the fatalities, an unknown number of individuals were injured. They were taken to various local hospitals and their conditions were not immediately known.

The names of those killed in the crash were not immediately released.

Read more: http://houston.cbslocal.com/2013/08/13/6-people-killed-during-stolen-truck-police-chase/

Senior U.S. senator says Putin acting like 'schoolyard bully'

A senior Democratic senator said on Sunday that the U.S.-Russia relationship had become "poisonous" and urged President Barack Obama to consider moving next month's Group of 20 summit away from the Russian city of St. Petersburg.

Charles Schumer, the U.S. Senate's third ranking Democrat and a close Obama ally, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to antagonize the United States by granting American fugitive Edward Snowden asylum for one year.

"President Putin is behaving like a schoolyard bully," Schumer said on the CBS television talk show "Face the Nation." "In my experience, I've learned unless you stand up to that bully, they ask for more and more and more."

He said Obama should cancel plans to meet Putin in Moscow for a bilateral summit next month that was expected take place during the U.S. president's trip to Russia for the G20 gathering.

Schumer said he also would call on Obama to "urge our allies, if it were possible," to try to move the G20 summit from St. Petersburg to another country.

http://news.yahoo.com/senior-u-senator-says-putin-acting-schoolyard-bully-165049662.html

Texas Democrat isn't giving up on abortion class

The lone Democrat in the Texas Senate who backed the state's new abortion laws says he'll keep pushing for women to be required to complete an adoption course before terminating a pregnancy.

Sen. Eddie Lucio first proposed the measure in July, when Republican Gov. Rick Perry and GOP leaders made good on vows to pass tighter abortion restrictions previously stalled by an 11-hour Democratic filibuster and hundreds of shouting protesters.

The new laws ban abortions after 20 weeks in Texas and only allow the procedure in surgical centers. But Lucio wants the state to go further and mandate that women seeking an abortion complete a short course that would lay out options for putting the child up for adoption.

Critics call Lucio's proposal simplistic and burdensome. The Brownsville lawmaker told the Austin American-Statesman (http://bit.ly/15BIhRV ) that the requirement could help prevent more abortions.

http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/apexchange/2013/08/03/tx-xgr--abortion-restrictions-texas.html

DINO

Bahrain's Twitter Army Cracks Down on Dissent

n Bahrain, all it takes is clicking on the wrong link to end up in jail. A new report prepared by Bahrain Watch, an activist organization critical of the ruling monarchy, details how the Bahraini government creates fake Twitter accounts to reveal the identity of anonymous anti-regime tweeps -- and then prosecutes them on the basis of "secret evidence."

Here's how it works. Dozens of shell accounts -- many designed to impersonate top figures within the Bahraini opposition -- have tweeted links to anonymous Twitter users who comment on Bahrain. The links include spyware that reveals the user's IP address, which the government can use to identify the name and street address of the person behind the account. From there, it's simple police work: The government can raid the house and build a case against those living there, usually on charges of "insulting the king." In total, Bahrain Watch found that more than 120 accounts were targeted by the government in this way.

With the government having crushed large street demonstrations in the capital, the online debate has become the new front line of the revolt. In May, five men were sentenced to a year in prison for violating Article 214 of Bahrain's penal code, which prohibits "offending the emir [king] of the country, the national flag or emblem." During the trial of one of those men, Ammar Makki Mohammed al-Aali, an official for the Bahraini police's Cyber Crime Unit said that his IP address was obtained through "a private way I cannot reveal."

But the government's tactics are not only repressive -- they're inexact. A Twitter user other than the one being targeted may click on a publicly available link, or the targeted user may click on the link -- but do so while using a connection not registered in their name, directing the government to someone else's IP address. Take the case of Mahdi al-Basri, a lawyer who was sentenced to a year in prison in May for operating the anti-regime account @karrana14. However, one of the account's operators said Basri was not involved -- the account operator had merely clicked on a "suspicious link" while using Basri's Internet account.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/01/bahrains_twitter_army_cracks_down_on_dissent