The Guardian has since published a follow-up story that reports that "The president of the European parliament has called for full clarification from the US over claims it bugged EU offices in America and accessed computer networks."

From earlier:

The NSA has been working with at least seven European other countries to collect personal communications data, according to Wayne Madsen, a former NSA contractor who has come forward because he thinks the public should not be "kept in the dark." According to Madsen, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Italy all have formed secret agreements with the US to submit sensitive data.

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From Der Spiegel, translated to English by Google Translate:

In a "top secret" classified NSA paper in September 2010 describes how the intelligence attacked the EU's diplomatic representation in Washington.

Thus, not only bugs were installed in the building in the U.S. capital, but also the internal computer network was infiltrated. In this way, the Americans not only get access to meetings at the premises of the EU , but also to e-mails and internal documents on the computers.

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"He communicated a very courteous request from the United States that we reject the (asylum) request," Correa said during his weekly television broadcast, praising Biden's good manners in contrast to "brats" in Congress who had threatened to cut trade benefits over the Snowden issue.

Biden initiated the phone call, Correa said.

"When he (Snowden) arrives on Ecuadorean soil, if he arrives ... of course the first opinions we will seek are those of the United States," Correa said.

Snowden is reportedly in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport after flying to Russia from Hong Kong.

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MSNBC contributor Perry Bacon, Jr. explained on the show that "It's still really hard as an African-American politician to win in a big state":

"We only have on black governor, Deval Patrick (D-Mass.). This is not an accident. It's really hard. A lot of members of CBC districts are pretty liberal, don't have big fundraising bases, so they have a hard time winning races, but it's really galling. And it also really matters in terms of policy as well. Think about the Voting Rights Act this week -- was struck down -- who in the senate is going to take that out? You watch the female senators handing sexual assault in the military? The female senators are really driving that because there are 20 of them and they can speak to the issues."

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Sears, J.C. Penney, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Novo Nordisk, Smithfield Foods, Caesars Entertainment and The Food Network have all parted ways with the disgraced celebrity chef as well.

On the bright side, Deen might be going on more cruises this year.

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My ill-advised attack on George Stark of the Daily Mail had absolutely nothing to do with issues of anyone's sexual orientation. My anger was directed at Mr. Stark for blatantly lying and disseminating libelous information about my wife and her conduct at our friend's funeral service. As someone who fights against homophobia, I apologize.

I have worked, periodically, with numerous marriage equality organizations, especially over the past couple of years, to achieve the very rights that gay couples are earning by recent court decisions. I would not advocate violence against someone for being gay and I hope that my friends at GLAAD and the gay community understand that my attack on Mr. Stark in no way was the result of homophobia.

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From the New York Times:

Mr. Pochter, who was to enter his junior year at Kenyon in the fall, worked as an intern at Amideast, a nonprofit organization “engaged in international education, training and development activities in the Middle East and North Africa,” according to the group’s Web site. A statement issued by Mr. Pochter’s family said that he had planned to return to the Middle East for his spring semester abroad.

“Our beloved 21-year-old son and brother Andrew Driscoll Pochter went to Alexandria for the summer, to teach English to 7- and 8-year-old Egyptian children and to improve his Arabic,” the statement said. “He was looking forward to returning to Kenyon College for his junior year and to spending his spring semester in Jordan.”

"He went to Egypt because he cared profoundly about the Middle East, and he planned to live and work there in the pursuit of peace and understanding,” the family said.

Following the violence, the American State Department issued a warning for Americans "to defer nonessential travel to Egypt at this time due to the continuing possibility of political and social unrest.”

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"As my LGBT fans and friends always said to me, 'I knew Laday Gaga when,'" Gaga said. "Well, look who the star is now. Now I get to say that I knew you when. Now I get to say that I knew you when you suffered, when you felt unequal, when you felt there was nothing to look forward to."

Waving a rainbow flag, Gaga then sand the national anthem:

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1. KitchenAid's Twitter incident

KitchenAid insulted Obama's dead grandmother during the presidential debates in October, tweeting "Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’ #nbcpolitics." To its credit, the company stemmed the bleeding by deleting the tweet and immediately issuing an apology on Twitter and later to news outlets.

2. Lance Armstrong's interview with Oprah

After several missed opportunities to admit that he took performance enhancing drugs, a USDA investigation charged seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong with doping. Only then did Armstrong try to come clean in a tell-all interview with Oprah -- but by then it was too little, too late.

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Daily Mail writer George Stark first reported that Baldwin's wife, Hilaria, had been rudely tweeting during the funeral of actor James Gandolfini, noting that the Twitter timestamps coincided with the time of the late "Sopranos" actor's funeral.

The allegation launched the hot-tempered Baldwin, who has also thrown tantrums on airplanes, into an offensive homophobic rant on Twitter before he deleted it.

But thanks to a technical glitch on Twitter that reflected GMT instead of ET, it turns out that Baldwin was correct. An analysis of the source code of Hilaria Baldwin's tweets reveals that she tweeted between 11 am and 2 pm, as opposed to 8 am to 11 am:

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Many found the remark offensive. But Jones, who has apologized for her ill-conceived attempts at humor before, has not yet responded to her critics, at least on Twitter:

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Instead, she issued the following statement via Twitter:

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There's this take, which strips away any subtext -- just two friends on a couch watching "Seinfeld":

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The magazine found artist Jack Hunter's image, titled "Moment of Joy," on Tumblr. Hunter said, “It’s amazing to witness how attitudes on gay rights have evolved in my lifetime."

“This is great for our kids, a moment we can all celebrate.”

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Her steadfastness for women's rights has already spawned an Internet meme, nail art and now people are taking to Amazon to review the shoes made famous during her stand:

Men, do not try these on!, by Joshua Jones

I tried on a pair at the local mall and suddenly Texas Republicans started telling me what to do with my genitals. They started explaining reproduction to me like I was a seventh grader. Unfortunately, being male, I had no way to shut the whole thing down. I'm so confused...

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I also feel you're my brother in that we have different tastes, but there are things we both love, which was family, work, people in all their imperfection, food, alcohol, talking, rage, and a desire to bring the whole structure crashing down. We amused each other.

The image of my uncles and father reminded me of something that happened between us one time. Because these guys were such men — your father and these men from Italy. And you were going through a crisis of faith about yourself and acting, a lot of things, were very upset. I went to meet you on the banks of the Hudson River, and you told me, you said, "You know what I want to be? I want to be a man. That's all. I want to be a man." Now, this is so odd, because you are such a man. You're a man in many ways many males, including myself, wish they could be a man.

The paradox about you as a man is that I always felt personally, that with you, I was seeing a young boy. A boy about Michael's age right now. 'Cause you were very boyish. And about the age when humankind, and life on the planet are really opening up and putting on a show, really revealing themselves in all their beautiful and horrible glory. And I saw you as a boy — as a sad boy, amazed and confused and loving and amazed by all that. And that was all in your eyes. And that was why, I think, you were a great actor: because of that boy who was inside.

Chase wrapped the speech with a nod to the show: "You know, everybody knows that we always ended an episode with a song," he said.

"And the song, as far as I'm concerned, would be Joan Osborne's "(What If God Was) One Of Us?"

Read the full eulogy here.

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From THR:

The "Paula Deen Cruise" is held on Royal Caribbean ships, and Deen remains aboard during each excursion, spending much time with guests, says Loverdi. The last cruise set sail in January with about 500 fans along for the ride. Loverdi said she expects about 1,000 in total for next year. Deen launched her cruise line in

Earlier this week, a rep for Royal Caribbean told THR that the company "has never had a partnership or any formal association with Paula Deen. She has sailed with our brands a couple of times, but as host of group cruises, and each time, the groups were booked through a specific travel agency, not through Royal Caribbean."

Deen was recently dropped from Wal-Mart, The Food Nework, Smithfield Foods, and other major partnerships after receiving negative publicity for using racial slurs and other offensive practices.

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I’ve heard that Lionsgate and director Francis Lawrence are eyeing Julianne Moore to play the role of President Alma Coin. She is the manipulative politician who figures brightly in the finale as Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) becomes a symbol of rebellion against the autocratic Capitol government. This is likely to happen quickly, and Moore would star in both of the final films, which brings back Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth and the returning cast along with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who will be making his first appearance in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire," directed by Francis Lawrence, will be released November 22, 2013. "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" will be filmed in two parts, to be released in 2014 and 2015.

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