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Kobe Bryant not only unleashed a gay slur against an NBA ref last night, he did so in view of TNT’s cameras. After outrage mounted today, the league fined him $100,000 and called his actions “offensive and inexcusable.” Bryant got ticked off at referee Bennie Adams when he got…

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Only Joe Biden knows for certain, but it sure looks like he nodded off today during President Obama’s big budget speech . Either way, the VP is taking a ribbing as the video makes the rounds: See ABC , Politico , Mediaite , and the Daily Caller .

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US citizen Jun Young Su was arrested in November for committing an as yet unspecified crime against North Korea North Korea has confirmed it has arrested an American man for committing an unspecified crime and is preparing to indict him. The man, identified by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency as Jun Young Su, is the latest US citizen to be detained in the reclusive communist state in recent years. North Korea informed Washington about the situation and Jun is being given necessary humanitarian conveniences including consular contact with Swedish Embassy officials in Pyongyang, the news agency dispatch said. Earlier this week, the US State Department called for North Korea to release one of its citizens and said Swedish officials had visited the American. The US which fought on South Korea’s side during the 1950-53 Korean War doesn’t have diplomatic staff inside North Korea and Sweden handles Washington’s interests there. Several Americans have been detained in North Korea in recent years and freeing them often requires high-profile negotiations. In August, former President Jimmy Carter brought home Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years’ hard labor for crossing into the North from China. He was detained for seven months in all. Korean-American missionary Robert Park defiantly walked into North Korea on Christmas Day in 2009 to draw attention to the North’s alleged human rights abuses and to call for the resignation of leader Kim Jong Il. He was released weeks later without charge. Also in 2009, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested for trespassing in North Korea and released only after former President Bill Clinton made a trip to Pyongyang to ask for their freedom. The latest arrest came as Carter plans to travel to Pyongyang again as early as this month. Carter said last week that he plans to focus on trying to revive international disarmament talks on the North’s nuclear program and seek ways to help with the country’s humanitarian woes. North Korea United States guardian.co.uk

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Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice today, but a jury failed to reach a verdict on three other counts that the home run king lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he denied that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone. Federal prosecutors and the…

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A sampling of Republican reaction to President Obama’s budget speech today, from USA Today and Politico : Paul Ryan: He called it “excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate, and hopelessly inadequate” in getting the nation’s debt under control. It was “a political broadside from our campaigner in chief.” Jeb Hensarling: “I missed lunch…

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Joran Van der Sloot—the Dutchman suspected of killing two women, including American teen Natalee Holloway—has stabbed three fellow inmates in his Peruvian prison, reports AOL News . At least one required emergency care. The tidbits come from a Peru magazine that also portrays him as a heavy drug user…

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Russian cops think they have some literary jewel thieves on their hands. The gang borrowed the plot of a Sherlock Holmes story, tunneled into a jewelry shop, and made off with hundreds of gold bars and silver gems, reports the Telegraph . The thieves paid a 74-year-old woman to stay out…

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According to the Texas state penal code, “homosexual conduct” is still a criminal offense—even though the Supreme Court deemed the state’s anti-sodomy law unconstitutional eight years ago. Though the state stopped enforcing the law after the Supreme Court’s decision, it’s still on the books—and will likely remain so,…

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Attention Chris Christie, or maybe Paul Ryan? Donald Trump’s strong showing in recent polls illustrates just how shaky the GOP’s 2012 field is, writes Nate Silver at the New York Times . He breaks the candidates into three groups: The Fairfax Five (think establishment candidates) of Romney, Pawlenty, Huntsman, Barbour, and…

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President Obama was in fighting form today in his speech on the deficit, lambasting Paul Ryan’s budget proposal , and insisting on higher taxes for the wealthy. He laid much of the current deficit problem at the feet of the Bush tax cuts, and pledged to eliminate them. “We cannot afford…

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