* Diplomats scurry to mollify Karzai over U.S.-Taliban talks after the Taliban portrayed itself as a government in exile. * Report gives Russia lowest grade for failing to address human trafficking; government doesn't even investigate reported abuses. * Police stop 35,000 protesters from entering a stadium in Brazil,
* A step-by-step guide on how to use metadata to catch a terrorist. * "Priming" techniques can work, but imagining a professor doesn't mean you'll win at Trivial Pursuit. * An engineering breakthrough results in an elevator that raises twice as high as current models.
A sharp-dressed private eye can’t escape corruption in 1930s Los Angeles.
* Journalist Michael Hastings, who ended Gen. McChrystal's career with a revelatory 2010 profile, dies at 33. * Missing Michael Hastings. * Advice from Hastings to young reporters: "When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence." * Collected articles by Michael Hastings. * A survey finds today&
Micro-living is no longer just for the very poor and the very bohemian. But how much space do we really deserve? Tracking down the minimum square-footage below which no one should be forced to endure.
* Owners of 7-Eleven franchises in New York and Virginia charged with running a "modern day plantation system." * See also: Photographs of prisons that have been converted into stylish hotels. * Tips for arming rebels. * Report from inside the world of very expensive, "black-ops" online reputation
* After leaking more files, Snowden seems to have plenty more to give, and may continue pegging releases to news events. * Cosmopolitan magazine asks Snowden what message he'd like to leak to his girlfriend. * Seventy percent of America’s intelligence budget now goes to private contractors; half a million
* China calls speculation that Snowden spied for Beijing "completely groundless." * Russia says it won't allow no-fly zones over Syria, calls such sanctions a disrespect of international law. * The U.S. puts more children and teens in detention than any other developed nation—research shows it&
* Brief profiles of victims from this weekend's gun violence in Chicago, which left seven dead and 41 wounded. * More violent clashes in Istanbul; Erdogan talks of foreign conspiracy, blaming the BBC and CNN. * If you are Hawaiian, how do you seduce Barack Obama? Do you stroke his heart
* Crimes against women are more common in New Delhi than four of India's other metropolises combined. * Study suggests that, on an evolutionary level, menopause was caused by men's preference for younger women. * In a Father's Day protest, man defaces portrait of Queen Elizabeth in
