Most Russian media outlets are already loyal to Putin, and opponents get little air time, but the shake-up underlined their importance to Putin keeping power and the Kremlin’s concern about the president’s ratings and image…

Sen. Daylin Leach, a Democrat from Montgomery County, asked the nominee about climate change. He replied: “I have not read any scientific studies that would lead me to conclude that there are adverse impacts to human beings or to animals or to plant life at this small level of climate change.

About one in four law-enforcement agencies have used a tactic known as a “tower dump,” which gives police data about the identity, activity and location of any phone that connects to the targeted cellphone towers over a set span of time, usually an hour or two.

NEW YORK TIMES LETTERS: …In the 18th and early 19th centuries, American journalism was highly political, often polemical and openly biased. That was the kind of journalism in which the likes of Sam Adams and Thomas Paine gloriously argued for liberty, and it was the form of journalism that was on the founders’ minds when they enshrined the doctrine of a free press in the First Amendment.

While our attention is diverted elsewhere, in large part due to partisan politics, the Cold War is making a come back in Central and Eastern Europe under the orchestration of Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.

“It’s about time that we see a country bravely break with the failed prohibitionist model and try an innovative, more compassionate, and smarter approach. By approving this measure, Uruguay will represent a concrete advance in line with growing opposition to the drug war in Latin America and throughout the world,” said Hannah Hetzer, DPA’s Montevideo-based policy manager for the Americas.

Nonprofit hospitals are among the largest recipients of charitable donations. Yet their activities are often indistinguishable from those of for-profit hospitals. Both receive compensation for the services they provide.

After years of frustrating fits and starts in the wake of the financial crisis and the Great Recession, the United States economy finally appears to be generating jobs at a healthier, more sustainable pace that many analysts now think will continue into 2014. The official unemployment rate fell in November to its lowest level since 2008.

1. Become a public school teacher in a low-income area.

Thanks to the government’s Teacher Forgiveness Program, up to $17,500 of your federal Stafford loans or the entirety of your Perkins loans can be forgiven in exchange for five consecutive, full-time years as a teacher at certain low-income elementary or secondary schools.

Paul Jones is our ‘hero’.

Here is what the Intelligencer Journal New Era sports reporter said of him in an article summarizing the subsequent careers of players who transferred out of Penn State:

The bill allocates $40 million for general transportation projects to be determined by the Commonwealth Financing Authority, a state board that includes legislative appointees. Critics consider that money to be akin to “walking around money” to pay for legislative pet projects…

Federal prosecutors routinely threaten extraordinarily severe prison sentences to coerce drug defendants into waiving their right to trial and pleading guilty, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. In the rare cases in which defendants insist on going to trial, prosecutors make good on their threats.