A new development in the fumbled search for Edward Snowden, Russia is really cranking up the homophobia, and Islamists threaten violence on the Winter Olympics.

France is apologizing to Bolivia for its role in grounding the jet carrying President Evo Morales, who was on his way back home from an energy conference in Moscow.  France, Portugal, and other western European nations had suddenly closed their airspace to Morales’ plane, apparently acting on information the NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board (he wasn’t).  For now, France is not saying where it got the bad information.

President Barack Obama issued a statement on the Egyptian Military’s unseating of President Mohammed Morsi, saying he was “deeply concerned”.  But Obama stopped short of calling it a Coup d’Etat, which by American law would require the cessation of more than a billion dollars of US aid to Egypt.  That will be reviewed.  But Egypt’s interim ruler will be sworn in later on Thursday.

Russian terrorist leader Doku Umarov is calling on jihadists to use “maximum force” to strike at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea coast.  Previously, Umarov ordered followers not to attack targets outside the North Caucasus.  Now he says that moratorium is cancelled and he accuses the Olympics of performing "Satanic dances" on the graves of Muslims killed there in centuries past.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning the adoption of children by same-sex couples.  Earlier this week he put his pen to another bill banning so-called “gay propaganda”.  Human rights groups are rightfully concerned this is only fueling the uptick in hate crimes against LGBT people in Russia.

A conservative Brazilian lawmaker has withdrawn a proposal to allow mental health professional professionals to treat homosexuality as a disease, which would have flown in the face of the opinion of practically every legitimate psychiatric and psychological association on earth.  Joao Campos’ request to take it back came after it was clear the bill was about to be soundly defeated in Brazil’s lower house of Congress.

Peru has sent police to guard two remaining ancient pyramids near Lima, after a developer had a 4,000-year-old pre-Incan pyramid destroyed.  Officials are working to confiscate the equipment of the contractors who did it.  Archeological treasures are under threat in other parts of Latin America as well:  Two months ago, a road-building crew bulldozed a 2,300 year old Mayan pyramid in Belize.

The inventor of the computer mouse and more has passed away at age 88.  Doug Engelbart developed the gadget in the 1960s, patenting it long before the computer revolution of decades later.  He was pretty well off, but didn’t get rich off of it:  His company licensed the idea to Apple in 1983 for US$40,000.  He was also instrumental in developing “ARPANET”, a computer network that eventual became the Internet.  Put it this way:  EVERYTHING you are doing right now would not be the same, or even possible, without Doug Engelbart.  His wife Karen O’Leary Engelbart says he died of kidney failure in their home in Atherton, California.