U.S. Slows Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan, Senators Battle Over Pot, Charter Schools Excel After All: P.M. Links

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  U.S. Department of Defense

  More U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan for longer than originally anticipated, says President Obama. You can't see it, but I'm wearing my surprised face.

• Senators Rand Paul, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand face off against the prohibitionist dinosaurs on the Senate Judiciary Committee in an effort to get the federal government to leave marijuana users and businesses alone in the states that have partially legalized the stuff.
• Venezuela's teetering socialist government is going old school as it loses support—President Nicolas Maduro called out the military for maneuvers and maybe a little fun in the streets.
• Urban charter schools outperform traditional public schools, reports a Stanford University study. And when they don't, I might add, parents can take their kids elsewhere.
• Boston-area residents favor life in prison over the death penalty for accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
• David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will return for an X-Files miniseries in which they discover that a vast federal security state apparatus tracks people's communications and movements, subverting—. Oh wait. Maybe aliens.
• About half of Obamacare customers who received subsidies to pay health care premiums will have to pay an average of $800 back to the federal government. That should go over well.

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