During the Progressive Era, a culture war was raging over sexuality, alcohol and modern life—as seen in efforts to censure pornography and eliminate “red light” districts—and prohibition offered the best hope of legislating moral certainty. While alcohol prohibition had the largest domestic constituency, drug prohibition fit with foreign policy interests.

NEWSLANC EDITOR: With the arrival of Krasne, an anomalistic era of incompetence, bullying and deceit replaced by sound business practices and respectable reporting. Nevertheless, an attitude of ‘getting along’ largely exempts powerful leaders, advertisers and subscribers from just criticism.

And then, in September, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes Annan, former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) and Ruth Dreifuss (Switzerland), and others, issued a new report, Taking Control: Pathways to Drug Policies that Work. It boldy called on “governments to decriminalize a variety of illegal drugs and set up regulated drug markets within their own countries.”

18:54 After greeting police, paramedics and firemen, participatory democracy expert Csaba Madarász tells the crowd his wife is afraid he’ll lose his job after tonight’s speech. “I have seen civil movements from Iceland to Spain.

USA TODAY: …It’s a deep and common concern across the USA, where employer plans cover 60% of working-age Americans, or about 150 million people. Coverage long considered the gold standard of health insurance now often requires workers to pay so much out-of-pocket that many feel they must skip doctor visits, put off medical procedures, avoid filling prescriptions and ration pills — much as the uninsured have done.

“Birdman,” the movie I discussed last time, plays like one uninterrupted take studded with rapid fire dialogue that seems to burst spontaneously from its character’s guts. This season’s other compelling drama on the artistic life, “Whiplash,” is realized in a completely opposing style.

It’s a crowded agenda – a full plate even for a seasoned government hand. And Wolf, despite his decades of running his family’s business, is a rookie whose only previous state government service is the less than two years he served as revenue secretary in Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 17,790 of the dead were civilians, including 3,501 children.

Mr. Samaras’s governing coalition has, with some reluctance, pursued deeply unpopular austerity policies demanded by lenders and backed particularly by Germany. But early signs of economic improvement have not translated into tangible benefits for average Greeks laboring under a surge in joblessness and widespread hardship…

According to Crone, the average age of a carpenter is 49; welder, 55; plumber, 56; and stonemason, 69 and, in five years, 20 percent of skilled laborers in the industry will have retired, with few trained workers to take their place…

ROCK THE CAPITAL: As part of the smoke and mirrors of the Corbett Administration’s state-imposed bailout of 2013, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is supposed to give Harrisburg at least $10 million a year in subsidies for years ahead to keep the city afloat.

“Three years ago, you fired an employee of 61 years of service for a failure of leadership,” she said of coach Joe Paterno. “I suggest that most of you should have been fired long ago.”