Valley Meat Co in Roswell, New Mexico, is being green-lighted by the USDA, which will routinely send inspectors to make sure it is slaughtering horses and processing horse meat in a “clean” way. Additional horse meat plants are expected to be approved by the USDA in Missouri and Iowa. While horse meat can’t legally be sold in the USA for human consumption, it can be used in pet food.

It may also turn up in the US food supply despite its legal status because it can be sold to Mexico for human consumption, then re-labeled and shipped back into the USA for use as a low-cost meat filler. Horse meat has already been identified in a scandalous food operation in Europe, where meatballs sold throughout European grocery stores were found to be made with horse meat. The USDA says, "it was required by law to issue the grant of inspection because Valley Meat met all federal requirements," reports Reuters, which also says that 130,000 horses are slaughtered each year in Canada and Mexico.

US companies want a piece of that business, it seems, because horses can be acquired for virtually free.

It is no longer an implausible prospect. "We cannot be seduced," she said, brimming with confidence after her party secured 46 percent of the vote in a by-election earthquake a week ago. Her candidate trounced the ruling Socialists in their own bastion of Villeneuve-sur-Lot. "The euro ceases to exist the moment that France leaves, and that is our incredible strength. What are they going to do, send in tanks?" she told the Daily Telegraph at the Front National's headquarters. "Europe is just a great bluff. One side there is the immense power of sovereign peoples, and on the other side are a few technocrats," she said.

Mrs Le Pen said her first order of business on setting foot in the Elysee Palace will be to announce a referendum on EU membership, "rendez vous" one year later. "I will negotiate over the points on which there can be no compromise. If the result is inadequate, I will call for withdrawal," she said.

The four sticking points are the currency, border control, the primacy of French law, and what she calls "economic patriotism", the power for France to pursue "intelligent protectionism" and safeguard its social model. "I cannot imagine running economic policy without full control over our own money," she said. Asked if she intends to pull France out of the euro immediately, she said: "Yes, because the euro blocks all economic decisions. France is not a country that can accept tutelage from Brussels," she said.

Officials will be told to draw up plans for the restoration of the franc.

As TheBlaze reported last week, Murad, 49, was setting up a monastery in Gassanieh, northern Syria. Last Sunday, on the Christian leader’s Sabbath, extremist militants trying to topple President Bashar Assad breached the monastery and grabbed Murad. Catholic Online reported Saturday: “The Vatican is confirming the death by beheading of Franciscan Father, Francois Murad, who was martyred by Syrian jihadists on June 23.”

In video [footage] posted by Live Leak purporting to show the execution, dozens of men and boys are seen cheering on as three men are seated on the ground awaiting their grisly fate. The men are methodically beheaded one at a time by men holding what appears to be a simple kitchen knife after which the heads are placed on top of the bodies. According to Catholic Online, the first victim was Murad.

Catholic Online is raising alarm that western nations are providing support to the rebels who have shown a proclivity toward persecuting Christians: This should make it clear to Christians around the world what jihadists are about. Make no mistake. Catholics and [other] Christians around the globe are under dire threat, particularly from the spread of militant Islam. Until the threat is recognized and taken seriously, martyrdoms like this will continue.

Franciscan Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa told the Vatican News Agency, “The world must know that the support of gunmen by the west is helping extremists in killing Syrians.”

MAIN CORE uses a variety of intelligence sources as inputs, including your email, web activity, telephone and private financial information. In the event of a major national security crisis, it is alleged that Americans listed in the MAIN CORE database, “Could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.”

Europeans are furious. Revelations that the US intelligence service National Security Agency (NSA) targeted the European Union and several European countries with its far-reaching spying activities have led to angry reactions from several senior EU and German politicians. "We need more precise information," said European Parliament President Martin Schulz. "But if it is true, it is a huge scandal. That would mean a huge burden for relations between the EU and the US. We now demand comprehensive information."

Schulz was reacting to a report in Spiegel that the NSA had bugged the EU's diplomatic representation in Washington and monitored its computer network. The EU's representation to the United Nations in New York was targeted in a similar manner. US intelligence thus had access to EU email traffic and internal documents. The information appears in secret documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden, some of which Spiegel has seen.

The documents also indicate the US intelligence service was responsible for an electronic eavesdropping operation in Brussels. Spiegel also reported that Germany has been a significant target of the NSA's global surveillance program, with some 500 million communication connections being monitored every month. The documents show that the NSA is more active in Germany than in any other country in the European Union.

EU High Representative Catherine Ashton said on Sunday the US authorities were immediately contacted about a report in Der Spiegel magazine that the US spy agency had tapped EU offices in Washington, Brussels and at the United Nations. "As soon as we saw these reports, the European External Action Service made contact with the US authorities in both Washington DC and Brussels to seek urgent clarification of the veracity of and facts surrounding these allegations," Ashton said in a statement.

"The US authorities have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us as soon as possible," she said. France also asked for an explanation. "These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. The US government said it would respond through diplomatic channels.

RT: Despite Morsi having strong support in the country, why is there so much anger at him and the Muslim Brotherhood at present?

William Engdahl: I think a number of issues. Number one – is trying to ram a Sharia constitution down the throats of the Egyptian people. That goes against Egyptian cultural tradition – 80-90 per cent of the population are Sunni Muslims – but it is a tradition of tolerance for other religion groups, Coptic and other Islamic groups. The other thing is the economy. Morsi has done nothing to improve the economy. In fact the economy has generated youth unemployment to bulge to an explosive level. That I think is a lot to do with the tinderbox that you see in the streets right now.

But the other thing is that the military hasn’t yet weighed in as to whether they are going to continue to back Morsi as they have done under enormous Washington pressure – they are dependent on Washington for military aid and have been for decades. But the interesting new factor is that the Tamarod campaign – the reorganized opposition group that led the protest a year ago in Tahrir Square and elsewhere – they have claimed to have gathered a 15 million-strong petition asking for Morsi to step down.

I think this is a make or break situation. The Obama administration continues to back the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a very unfortunate thing, but that’s a part of a larger geopolitical agenda that Washington and the State Department have built up over the past years.

The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously "didn't inhale," to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did. Now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion legalization are surprised at how quickly attitudes are changing and states are moving to approve the drug - for medical use and just for fun.

It is a moment in America that is rife with contradictions:

-People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals more about the drug's potential dangers, particularly for young people.

-States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a federal prohibition on its use.

Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more laissez-faire approach without full deliberation. "It's a remarkable story historically," he says. "But as a matter of public policy, it's a little worrisome."

More than a little worrisome to those in the anti-drug movement. "We're on this hundred-mile-an-hour freight train to legalizing a third addictive substance," says Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, lumping marijuana with tobacco and alcohol.

Regardless, researchers at MIT have developed a sensing technology that uses low-power Wi-Fi to detect moving people. It follows other wall-penetrating sensor tech using radar and heavy equipment. The Wi-Vi system by Dina Katabi and Fadel Adib sends out a low-power Wi-Fi signal and tracks its reflections to sense people moving around, even if they're in closed rooms or behind walls.

Part of a Wi-Fi signal transmitted at a wall will penetrate it and reflect off people on the other side. The MIT system ignores all the other reflects, such as from objects, to focus on those from moving people only. It can determine the number of moving people in the room and their relative locations.

British researchers have also been investigating how to use Wi-Fi for surveillance and urban warfare, but the MIT system could be used in applications such as search and rescue, law enforcement, or personal security. "If you are walking at night and you have the feeling that someone is following you, then you could use it to check if there is someone behind the fence or behind a corner," said Katabi, a professor in the department. Or the NSA could use it to see how badly you dance in front of your mirror.

Within moments, gay weddings resumed at the city hall - the first such marriages in the state since the voter-approved ban in November 2008.

On Wednesday the US Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling which had struck down the ban - also known as Proposition 8. The ruling means that 13 US states and the District of Columbia now recognise same-sex marriage.

Supporters of Proposition 8 described the appeal’s court action as "outrageous".

The paper says it was shown the 2010 "top secret" document by fugitive ex-security analyst Edward Snowden. The US National Security Agency document allegedly outlined how it spied on EU internal computer networks, referring to the bloc as a "target".

An EU official said the claim could have a "severe impact" on EU-US ties. "On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations," Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.

Holdings of US Treasuries held at the Fed on behalf of official foreign institutions dropped a record $32.4 billion to $2.93 trillion, eclipsing the prior mark of $24 billion in August 2007. It was the third week of outflows in the past four.

Private investors are also dumping fixed income. Bond funds tracked by EPFR Global, a data provider, saw total redemptions of $23.3 billion in the week to June 26. US funds were the worst hit, with withdrawals totalling $10.6 billion, but emerging market debt funds also saw record redemptions of $5.6 billion.

Over the past five weeks emerging market debt and equity fund outflows have totalled $35 billion, of which $22.5 billion has fled stock market funds. “People are throwing in the towel,” said Markus Rosgen, chief Asia equity strategist at Citigroup. “It’ll drag the market down lower over the course of the summer.”