Key facts from the late Michael Hastings' profile of the freed Taliban POW. ● The late Michael Hastings wrote the definitive magazine profile of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for Rolling Stone in June 2012. Now that America's Last Prisoner of War has been released, in a prisoner exchange for five high-ranking Taliban officials, Hastings' piece continues to offer crucial context – about why Bergdahl volunteered for service in the first place, about how this intense, moral young man became so horrified by America's "good war" that he walked away from his unit's remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan in 2009, and about the abortive negotiations that could have secured Bergdahls release years ago. Here 13 things you need to know about the American POW who is coming finally home, in the words of Hastings' 2012 feature.

Le Figaro: Les circonstances troubles de la capture du sergent Bergdahl par les talibans

Nearly a year after Edward Snowden first leaked classified documents revealing the extent of National Security Agency surveillance programs, more than half of employed Americans believe he was in the right, according to a survey commissioned by cloud storage service Tresorit. ● The survey found that 55 percent of respondents think Snowden did the right thing in exposing PRISM, the mass data-mining program, while another 29 percent believe he was in the wrong, and 16 percent endorse neither statement. Of Snowden’s supporters, 80 percent said he exposed constitutional violations. Eighty-two percent of respondents said they still believe corporate information is being monitored by the U.S. government, and 51 percent said their employer has taken steps to make sure corporate files are secure. Research firm YouGov carried out the study by surveying more than a thousand “employed American adults.”

Yahoo: Snowden seeks asylum in sunny Brazil || Former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by US authorities and currently living in Russia, said in a TV interview that he has applied for asylum in Brazil. Snowden's temporary asylum in Russia expires in August. Washington has revoked his US passport, so his travel options are limited.

Thousands of Palestinians have been without clean water in the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) for more than 60 days, Press TV reports. ● According to the report, 80,000 residents in the region have been denied access to running water by Israeli authorities. The report says that despite calls by Palestinian residents and human rights groups for providing residents in the region with running water, the Israeli water company, Gihon, denies water to Palestinian areas, including Shuafat Refugee Camp, Ras Khamis, Ras Sh'hadeh and Dahiyat As-Salam. “The water comes only once a week here and it is not good. Israel sends only a small amount of water," Nutfah Rajah, a resident of Shuafat Refugee Camp, told Press TV.

One of the consequences of Obamacare is that health insurance company profitability is soaring, causing corporate CEOs of health insurance companies to pocket millions of dollars in annual salaries and bonuses. This is what happens when a government colludes with private industry to force the entire population to purchase a for-profit product that many don't want (or need). Sales skyrocket and profits head for the stratosphere. That's why CEOs of the nation's largest health insurance companies are raking in record salaries right now, earning as much as $90,000 per day.

Michael Snyder ■ Will Israel be the first cashless society on the entire planet? A committee chaired by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff has come up with a three phase plan to “all but do away with cash transactions in Israel”. Individuals and businesses would still be permitted to conduct cash transactions in small amounts (at least initially), but the eventual goal is to force Israeli citizens to conduct as much business as possible using electronic forms of payment. In fact, it has been reported that Israeli officials believe that “cash is bad” because it fuels the underground economy and allows people to avoid paying taxes. It is hoped that requiring most transactions to be conducted in cash will reduce crime and help balance the national budget. And once 98 or 99 percent of all transactions are cashless, it will not be difficult for the Israeli government (or any other government) to go the rest of the way and ban cash transactions altogether. But is a cashless society actually desirable? This is a question that people all over the world will have to start asking as governments increasingly restrict the use of cash.

News media reporting of the situation in Ukraine has nearly vanished in the past couple of weeks. Here is an update from reader Jacob Dreizin, a US citizen who is fluent in Russian and can read Ukrainian. || The rebels in the eastern regions are clearing their hinterland of minor government positions, and securing their supply lines from Russia. The Russian government has started to allow volunteers and weapons to move across the border without interference from its side. Whether intended or not, it is the classic insurgent battle plan. Once this stage is completed, the remaining government forces in Donetsk and Lugansk regions will be so isolated as to have no choice but to "temporarily redeploy and regroup", that is, to retreat. The rebels now have MANPADS, Man-Portable-Air-Defense-Systems. Keep in mind that the average Ukrainian soldier is being paid around $100 per month, which often arrives late. Most of these people have no motivation to risk their lives in a prolonged war of subjugation and occupation in the eastern regions. So far, Kiev has been compensating for this with its better-paid special police detachments as well as with various yahoo militias funded by the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, owner of Ukraine's largest bank. This cannot last.

RT.com: 181 people killed, 293 injured in Kiev military op in eastern Ukraine
RT.com: Kiev's ‘indiscriminate shelling of residential areas’ must be stopped – Russia
The Saker: Lugansk attacked by Ukrainian Air Force - Video

US President Barack Obama left Washington on Monday to begin a four-day European trip to Poland, Belgium and France to urge more pressure on Russia over their dispute on the Ukrainian crisis. Obama will land in Poland on Tuesday and hold meetings with the Polish president and prime minister. On Wednesday, he will meet Ukraine's president-elect Petro Poroshenko in the Polish capital Warsaw. The crisis in Ukraine will be at the heart of the conversations. After Poland, Obama will travel to Brussels to attend the G-7 summit, which will be dominated by a US push to a sometimes reluctant Europe to maintain the economic pressure on Russia.

Patrick Martin: Obama heads to Europe for week of meetings directed against Russia

Press TV’s Canadian correspondent Joshua Blakeney says he has received a threatening email from the Jewish Defense League (JDL) over his criticism of Israel. ● In an article published on the Press TV website on Tuesday, the Iranian news channel’s Calgary-based reporter disclosed an email by the JDL, in which he had been threatened to be attacked with “extreme prejudice.” The JDL had called Blakeney an “anti-Semite,” stating, “When we are attacked by hate-filled anti-Semites like you, we respond with all the resources at our disposal, and with extreme prejudice.” Blakeney rejected the anti-Semitism allegation leveled against him in the harassing message and argued, “You have to dislike all Jews and irrationally so to qualify as an anti-Semite.” “I merely oppose the actions, arguments and assumptions of those Jews who are oppressors, warmongers, apologists for Israel and proponents of a Zionist exceptionalist police state,” wrote the Press TV correspondent.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Risen’s case amounts to a stamp of approval for US government prosecutions that violate the First Amendment. ● The US Supreme Court on Monday decided not to intervene in the case of James Risen, an author and reporter who is facing imprisonment for refusing to reveal the identity of one of his sources to the government. The court, in line with the recommendation of the Obama Justice Department, rejected Risen’s petition, upholding a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Risen is a leading investigative journalist who has exposed various illegal activities carried out by the US government. His recent work includes a piece for Sunday’s New York Times, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, in which he documents the National Security Agency’s use of facial recognition technologies to compile facial images of hundreds of millions of people in the US and around the world. Responding to the publication of Risen’s book, the Justice Department filed ten criminal counts against Jeffrey Sterling, believing him to be the source of the leaks. Risen was listed as an intervener in the ensuing case, United States v. Jeffery Sterling. [...] The Risen case is only the latest in a series of attacks on democratic rights launched by the Obama Justice Department, which has brought more cases against so-called “leakers” and whistle-blowers than all previous administrations combined.

New York Times: Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Times Reporter Over Refusal to Identify Source

Authorities in Israel suspect former soccer player headed crime ring that paid Israeli women for kidneys. ● An Israeli man suspected of illegally trafficking in human organs has been detained in Cyprus for using a fake passport. Uzi Shmueli, a former professional soccer player for Hapoel Beersheba, allegedly headed a crime ring that lured struggling young Israeli women, mostly from the south of the country, to Turkey and paid them NIS 20,000 (some $5,750) for their kidneys. Israeli authorities suspected that he had fled abroad after they opened an investigation into the alleged trafficking ring.

White House Purchases Google Key Words to Slam Putin.

Scientists have just discovered the "Godzilla of Earths" — a new type of huge and rocky alien world about 560 light-years from Earth. || Dubbed a "mega-Earth," the exoplanet Kepler-10c weighs 17 times as much as Earth and it circles a sunlike star in the constellation Draco. The mega-Earth is rocky and also bigger than "super-Earths," which are a class of planets that are slightly bigger than Earth. Theorists weren't actually sure that a world like the newfound exoplanet could exist. Scientists thought that planets of Kepler-10c's size would be gaseous, collecting hydrogen as they grew and turning into Jupiter-like worlds. However, researchers have now found that the newly discovered planet is rocky, Christine Pulliam, a spokeswoman with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, wrote in a statement announcing the find.

Business Insider: Scientists Have Discovered A Planet They Thought Was Impossible

The bodies of nearly 800 babies are believed to have been interred in a concrete tank beside a former home for unmarried mothers. ● The dead babies are thought to have been secretly buried beside a home for single mothers and their children in County Galway, Ireland, over a period of 36 years. It is suspected that 796 children were interred on unconsecrated ground without headstones or coffins next to the home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam between 1925 and 1961. Newly unearthed reports show that they suffered malnutrition and neglect, which caused the deaths of many, while others died of measles, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia.