Guzmán, once declared by Forbes as one of the richest men on Earth, was the effective ruler of a parallel narco-terrorist state covering large swaths of Mexican states. So far it is unclear what specific charges he will be tried for, or in which prison he will carry out his sentence – he’s currently in the Altiplano prison. The prison that will ultimately host him is doubly important since he already escaped from one once. 

Because drugs are illegal, one can sell them for a huge markup, and that means you can make a living, or even get by, helping to sell drugs instead of getting a legitimate job. That black market stands as an eternal temptation—often quite a rational one—for a young black boy stuck in a lousy school and growing up in a tough neighborhood. Negative interactions with often surly white cops are the main contact he ever has with the world outside his neighborhood. Hence, generations of young black men who feel like aliens in the only country they will ever know.

For the first time, over half of Californians are expressing support for the legalization of non-medical marijuana, according to new statewide survey results. With support having possibly reached a tipping point and efforts to produce a 2014 ballot initiative already underway, what might legalization look like in California? The survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from the James Irvine Foundation, shows that 52 percent of Californians, as well as 60 percent of likely voters, support legalization. 

Americans have long celebrated justice and freedom, but director Eugene Jarecki’s “The House I Live In” forces viewers to look closely at political policies that have turned the nation into the No. 1 jailer in the world. As Jarecki (“Why We Fight,” “Freakonomics”) points out in the documentary, the U.S. contains 25 percent of the world’s prisoners despite possessing only 5 percent of its population.

There have been many failed attempts to bring On the Road to the silver screen by U.S. filmmakers. Francis Ford Coppola, who purchased the rights to the screenplay in 1979, tried several times to adapt the work into film, but his efforts never materialized. “I never knew how to do it,” he remarked when Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles accepted the cumbersome task of filming the unfilmable. It was Salles (best known for the Motorcycle Diaries, another road film) that Coppola finally trusted to make On the Road a reality, with a screenplay developed by José Rivera. 

The economic crisis in Spain, with a crippling jobless rate at 26 percent and labor strikes growing violent, has unleashed a brutal turf war between rival Latin American drug cartels. Spain’s rapid economic and social collapse in the second half of 2012 created compelling opportunities for drug cartels from Mexico to “relocate” their operations. The conflict between rival Colombian and Mexican drug cartels for domination of Spain is producing an unprecedented “turf” war.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, The War on Drugs costs the federal government approximately $15-20 billion per year, and with negligible success in lowering the supply of drugs or drug abuse rates, politicians and experts on all points of the political spectrum have deemed the War on Drugs an objective failure. With particular emphasis on cutting off the supply of narcotics, the United States drug policy has been predicated on the theory that eradication of an unwanted external malefactor can only be achieved through persecution of the malefactor and its backers. 

As President Obama and Mitt Romney squared off in the second presidential debate, New America Media editors posed 10 questions that have largely gone unasked -- and unanswered – in their campaigns: The Federal Poverty Line (FPL) masks U.S. poverty at a time when more Americans are struggling to make ends meet. What will you do to see that government figures are more honest--such as the new measure by the National Academy of Science? And what would you say to the growing numbers of people who aren't considered poor enough to qualify for assistance, but who are struggling just to get by?

In New York, lawmakers also seem concerned about the prophetic predictions of a “zombie apocalypse.” Governor Cuomo stated, "Bath salts and other synthetic drugs pose a direct, serious threat to public health and safety, and we must do everything we can to remove these harmful substances from sale and distribution in New York.” Still, other states have not taken action against the substances. States such as Washington, Oregon, New Hampshire, and Vermont, interestingly, have had no reported zombie incidents and have not moved forward with any bath salt restrictions.

Lance Armstrong has thrown in the towel with all the abhimaan (self-absolution) of a martyr. He has announced that he will not fight the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on doping charges, not because he is admitting guilt, but because “enough is enough" and he is just the victim of an “unconstitutional witch-hunt." Armstrong might lose his seven titles, but he seems confident that he is in little danger of losing anything else. In his book he is still No. 1, and he is still Lance Armstrong, the great white hope of cancer survivors everywhere.