NEW YORK TIMES: Black Americans were nearly four times as likely than whites to be arrested on charges of marijuana possession in 2010, even though the two groups used the drug at similar rates, according to new federal data.

HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS: …Just up Route 441 in the shadows of the Lancaster County trash incinerator a vacant field represents the future of another Pennsylvania power crop – soybean oil and its other byproducts.

WE.CONNECT.DOTS: There is one benefit to Pennsylvania being so “politics-as-usual.” A pundit has less difficulty in predicting the race for governor in 2014. For example, next year’s race will not follow the path of other “interim campaigns” for governor. Until Milton Shapp, governors were limited to a single four-year term.

Medicine shines a spotlight on the problem and draws a direct link to our increasingly dysfunctional system of public education. The IOM found that only about half of U.S. school-age children engage in the recommended 60 minutes or more of physical activity every day (boys are more likely to meet the daily goal than girls).

NEWSMAX: Republican governors took over statehouses across the country after the 2010 elections and immediately acted on promises to usher in a new era of budget cutting and conservative labor policies. Public backlash followed just as quickly; they watched their popularity drop while Democrats talked of political retribution.

…That stress takes the form of mass unemployment unseen in the history of modern Europe, and mass youth unemployment that is worse still. In the Continent’s sick-man economies, the jobless rate for those under 25 now staggers the imagination: over 40 percent in Italy, over 50 percent in Spain, and over 60 percent in Greece.

Whether directly from their wallets or through insurance policies, Americans pay more for almost every interaction with the medical system. They are typically prescribed more expensive procedures and tests than people in other countries, no matter if those nations operate a private or national health system.

Corbett pulls together a way to see that most if not all of the debt is paid off, thus not only earning the gratitude of the lenders (likely in the form of huge campaign donations) but also creating still another feeding trough for bankers, attorneys, consultants and others as up to $350 million of bonds from LCSWMA and others are sold (who in turn should express their gratitude with campaign contributions.)

For a heterosexual man in countries where AIDS is common, being circumcised lowers the chance of getting infected by about 60 percent. In the past few years, the United States has paid for more than two million circumcisions in Africa; the W.H.O.’s goal is 20 million by 2015. PrePex can be quickly put in place by a two-nurse team.

DRUG WAR CHRONICLE: France’s first supervised injection site (SIJ) for hard drug users will open in Paris by this fall, local officials announced Thursday. It will be located near the Gare du Nord train station, an area of open hard drug use and sales and petty crime.

USA TODAY: Unemployment across the 17 European Union countries that use the euro has hit another record high, the latest in a series of ignominious landmarks for the ailing single currency zone.

Protect The Hersheys’ Children, Inc. (PHC), a nonpartisan watchdog group seeking reform of the $10.5 billion Milton Hershey School (MHS) Trust, released an open letter today addressed to Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

The planned litigation also seeks to shine a light on the withering report prepared by former FBI director Louis Freeh, whom the university tapped to lead an investigation into the scandal, and calls into question how and why the NCAA used the report as a basis for its sanctions in July, according to Sollers…<