Alumni donations, which in many top tier institutions are a means to buy admission for less deserving students, are considered tax deductible, charitable gifts; working-class Americans can no longer afford marriage; meanwhile, the NSA can access pretty much any smartphone. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

The 1 Percent’s Ivy League Loophole Not only do children of rich alumni get admission preferences, now they can get taxpayers to help them, too!

Marriage Is the New Middle-Class Luxury Item As the American workforce and the American marriage have destabilized over the past half-century, marriage has become an increasingly inaccessible option for working-class Americans.

The True History of Libertarianism in America: A Phony Ideology to Promote a Corporate Agenda Every couple of years, mainstream media hacks pretend to have just discovered libertarianism as some sort of radical, new and dynamic force in American politics.

The Complete Works of Chopin, for Everybody, for Free Frédéric Chopin passed away more than 160 years ago — sufficiently long ago that today all of his compositions belong to the public domain.

NSA Can Tap Data on Most Smartphones The National Security Agency can access data from the smartphones of all major manufacturers.

The President and the Pipeline The campaign to make the Keystone XL the test of Obama’s resolve on climate change.

Fight to the Death In 1972 an awful backroom compromise kept the Supreme Court from abolishing the death penalty.

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