Obama unaware as U.S. spied on world leaders: officials.  —  The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders after an internal Obama administration review started this summer revealed to the White House the existence of the operations, U.S. officials said.

60 Minutes: Benghazi  —  The following script is from “Benghazi” which aired on Oct. 27, 2013.  The correspondent is Lara Logan.  Max McClellan, producer.  —  When Chris Stevens was killed in Benghazi, Libya, on the anniversary of September 11th last year, it was only the sixth …

PARTY CRASHERS  —  In the late nineteen-sixties, Mitch McConnell came to Washington to work as an aide to Senator Marlow Cook, a Kentucky Republican.  Cook backed clean-air standards and limits on strip mining.  It was a time of political diversity among Republicans: in 1970 …

House leaders plot new fall GOP strategy  —  For the first time in months, House Republicans are facing no immediate cataclysmic deadlines, and GOP leaders are struggling to come up with an agenda to fill the 19 legislative days that are left in 2013.  —  Need evidence?

Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71  —  New York legend, who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, underwent a liver transplant in May  —  Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today.

The Big Kludge  —  The good news about HealthCare.gov, the portal to Obamacare's health exchange, is that the administration is no longer minimizing its problems.  That's the first step toward fixing the mess — and it will get fixed, although it's anyone's guess whether the new promise …

Why is broadband more expensive in the US?  —  Home broadband in the US costs far more than elsewhere.  At high speeds, it costs nearly three times as much as in the UK and France, and more than five times as much as in South Korea.  Why?  —  Men's haircuts, loaves of bread …

A model for Hillary Clinton 2016: Hillary Clinton 2000  —  The most urgent question Hillary Clinton would face if she runs for president again is whether she could avoid the blunders — the bitter staff rivalries going public, the poisonous relationship with the press, the presumption of inevitability …

Meet The Florida Men Who Got Dressed Up As George Zimmerman And Trayvon Martin For Halloween  —  Buster  —  A pair of Florida men decided to celebrate Halloween this year by dressing up as George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, complete with blackface and blood-stained hoodie.

Florida Blue CEO Refuses to Play Along with David Gregory's Concern Trolling  —  You hear it on the lips of every single one of the Republican talking heads on every single Sunday news show: President Obama promised that if you liked your healthcare, you could keep it and HE LIED!!! (cue sobbing) …

Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?  —  Much of the speculation about the future of news focuses on the business model: How will we generate the revenues to pay the people who gather and disseminate the news?  But the disruptive power of the Internet raises other profound questions …