Officials have confirmed that one American is dead after the hostage standoff in Algeria Thursday. Officials say the American was a Texas resident, and that it is still unclear how he died. They also confirmed that two Americans escaped, and that five Americans in total were at the plant. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta brought a bit of much-needed clarity to the crisis Friday when he confirmed to ABC's Martha Raddatz in an interview that the attack and hostage taking had been carried out by terrorists linked to al Qaeda. “We’ve faced this kind of terrorism from al Qaeda beginning with 9/11,” he told Raddatz. 

Obama is going nonprofit. In a video message Friday, First Lady Michelle Obama announced that the former Obama campaign organization Obama for America will become a nonprofit renamed Organizing for Action and will continue advocating for the president’s policies. It’s the first time this type of transition has been attempted by a campaign organization. As for what direction the new nonprofit take, “A lot of that will be up to you,” the first lady said. “It will be determined by your energy and ideas and feedback—because after all, this is your movement.”

In one of the most shocking stories to surface this week, Bolivian lawmaker Domingo Alcibia Rivera was caught on camera raping a passed-out female colleague on the Parliament floor after a boozy holiday party. Even more awful, it now appears the state tried to cover up the whole fiasco until a disturbing video of the incident was leaked onto YouTube. Local reports say security guards on duty at the time were immediately fired, while Rivera reportedly left office and the woman he raped was given another job in Parliament. Bolivian President Evo Morales said everyone involved should be put on indefinite leave until more details are known. 

Part two of the highly anticipated interview between Oprah Winfrey and Lance Armstrong aired Friday, and this time, it was all about the fallout. Armstrong said he didn’t expect Livestrong to ask him to consider stepping down. “It was the best thing for the organization, but it hurt like hell,” Armstrong said. The cyclist also said the day he lost his sponsors was a “$75 million dollar day.” Asked by Oprah if he would compete again, Armstrong answered, “Hell yes. Do I think it’s going to happen? No.” Armstrong suggested his punishment was more severe than other players’ more temporary suspensions saying “I’m not sure that I deserve the death penalty.” Armstrong became emotional for the first time while recalling the day he told his children the truth, and said that his mom is “a wreck.”

This is not a bit for his show. Stephen Colbert’s sister, Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, is expect to vie for the same South Carolina congressional seat sought by disgraced former governor Mark Sanford. Colbert-Busch is expected to file Tuesday to run for the Democratic Party in a special election. Though Stephen Colbert has launched two mock bids for president in the past, this will be Colbert-Busch’s first go at national office. In addition to a famous brother, Colbert-Bush has quite the backstory. Her father and two of her brothers were killed in a plane crash in 1974, she once married a man who ended up on America’s Most Wanted, and was sitting in a building across from the World Trade Center when the towers went down on 9/11. She can handle this.

Little did you know that every time you raise your arms and pass through one of those fancy airport security scanners, someone gets an eyeful of your wobbly bits. Not to worry: the Transportation Security Administration has announced plans to remove the “naked image” scanners from U.S. airports because developers can’t write software to make the images less graphic (is that an explosive in your knickers, or are you just happy to see me?). But government agencies across the country will continue to use them, which means federal employees will still have their genitals imaged.

In President Obama’s gun-control speech, he said the only way things will change is if those in power start doing “something to protect our communities and our kids.” Time Warner Cable is among the first company to respond to the call, announcing on Friday a companywide ban on ads showing semiautomatic weapons and guns pointed at people. “If it’s essential to a business owner to show this kind of imagery in their commercials, there are other advertising options in the marketplace,” a TMC statement read. 

Point one for Manti Te’o. A friend of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man accused of duping the disgraced Notre Dame star football player, came forward Friday to say that Tuiasosopo admitted to tricking Te’o. Te’o has remained silent two days after a Deadspin investigation revealed that his inspiring story of a dead girlfriend actually was a lie and the woman never existed. Notre Dame officials said Thursday that Te’o had been a victim of “sick joke,” but a video that surfaced Thursday of Te’o talking about her death after he allegedly had been informed. Meanwhile, Us Weekly revealed Friday that Tuiasosopo once auditioned for The Voice and told a “sob story” about a car accident. Someone call Lifetime.

With the House GOP set to vote next week on a temporary extension of the debt limit, the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 closed at their best levels since December 2007. It’s not all good news, though. Amid a weak consumer-sentiment report and mixed batch of corporate earnings, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) dipped to its lowest level since April 2007. "We've had little pleasant packets of surprises as these corporations keep coming through," said equity strategist John Manley. "You need to remember that the market is near a five-year high and the economy is recovering at a subpar rate."

Livestrong … in living color. The Lance Armstrong doping scandal, predictably, is headed to the big screen. J.J. Abrams (the mastermind behind Lost)  and Paramount Pictures are teaming to make a film based on Juliet Macur’s book proposal Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong, which has yet to receive a release date. Macur is a sports reporter for The New York Times, and has been following Armstrong for more than a decade. An earlier Armstrong biopic was in the works back in the Lance-is-a-hero days and was set to star Jake Gyllenhaal, but was scrapped in light of the doping allegations.

It’s going to be hard to draw a Hitler mustache on this one. The White House unveiled President Obama’s official portrait Friday—and the president seems much happier to be photographed than in 2009. The photo was taken by official White House photographer Pete Souza, and it will replace the current one in all federal buildings. As opposed to the world-weary serious-looking shot from 2008 with a gray background and only an American flag as decoration, the president is grinning in the current photo and standing in front the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. So only good times ahead, right America?

Shocker: Lance Armstrong may not have told the whole truth during his confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey. Armstrong admitted to doping in the interview, but claimed to have "absolutely" stopped taking any drugs in 2005. According to investigators familiar with the case, Armstrong might have been lying through his teeth about that one. They say Armstrong had an unusually high red blood cell count during the 2009 race, pointing to two possible transfusions. The second half of the OWN interview airs tonight at 9 EST.

Um, what? Robert Wagner has declined to be interviewed in the new investigation into wife Natalie Wood’s death, according to a police detective on Friday. Wagner was interviewed by authorities shortly after Wood’s mysterious death by drowning in 1981, and his attorney insists now that Wagner and his family has cooperated fully with the investigation over the past 30 years. Los Angeles Sheriff Dept. Lt. John Cornia said Friday that he Wagner did not give a reason why he would not interviewed in the latest investigation, in which police have spoken to more than 100 people since reopening the case in 2011.

Sorry we’re not sorry that controversial Django Unchained action figures have reportedly been discontinued. Sources involved with the toy company told TMZ that they’ve halted all production of the 8-inch figurines of slaves and their murderous owners depicted in Quentin Tarantino’s film after advocacy groups spoke out against them. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and Project Islamic HOPE allegedly slammed the Weinstein Co., the film’s producer, which then told the toy company to pull the figurines off shelves. Some 1,000 action figures were said to be available for purchase before the toy line was killed.

So the Federal Reserve just thought everything was cool in early 2007 and there was no need to act, despite that people were losing their homes? That explains a lot. According to the central bank’s transcripts that were published Friday, the Fed discussed the health of financial markets in the wake of the foreclosure crisis on Aug. 7, 2007—but decided not to act, despite that the mortgage industry was already imploding. This meeting took place just three days before the Fed was forced to begin pumping money into the financial system due to irregular behavior—a first move of a new era of the Fed, one of intense involvement in keeping the financial system healthy.

The director of Moscow’s renowned Bolshoi Ballet was attacked with acid thrown in his face late Thursday evening as he returned home from a theatrical celebration. Sergei Filin suffered third-degree burns in the attack, underwent eye surgery Friday, and will be flown to Belgium for burn treatment. Katerina Novikova, the press secretary for the Bolshoi, says Filin had been repeatedly threatened recently, including having his tires slashed, his Facebook page hacked, and received ominous phone calls. “I am 100 percent confident [the attack] is linked to his work,” Novikova says. “He is a man of principle, and he never made concessions.”

Retreat! Retreat! House Republicans are backing off of their hardline stance on the federal debt ceiling, agreeing at a closed-door retreat on Friday to offer a three-month extension of the government’s statutory borrowing limit without the attached spending cuts they had previously demanded. There is one catch, though: the deal comes with a demand that Senate Democrats pass a budget on time. “Furthermore,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor ominously warned, “if the Senate or House fails to pass a budget in that time, members of Congress will not be paid by the American people for failing to do their job. No budget, no pay.”

At least Sharon Osbourne can laugh about it. The reality-television star said Thursday that a fire at her house had been caused when she fell asleep before extinguishing a candle. “Please, everybody, always check all the candles lit in the house before going to bed,” Osboune told TMZ. “I didn’t, and at 5 a.m. this morning I was met with five gorgeous men from the B.H. Fire Department as they put out the fire in my house.” Firefighters arrived before the blaze did significant damage.

For every gun massacre there's an inevitable conspiracy theory to muddy the waters. In one short week, a provocative YouTube video, “The Sandy Hook Shooting—Fully Exposed” has been viewed more than 10 million times. With somber music and text, the video allegedly “proves” that the massacre in Newtown, Conn.—which killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School—was carried out by the government. Nicknamed the Sandy Hook Truther movement, it is a familiar story that pro-gun activists love to tell, claiming that socially inept “loners” who open fire on the public have been “programmed by the government.”

Guess there is always a second chance in the fashion industry. Disgraced designer John Galliano, who was convicted of a hate crime in France after declaring his love for Hitler, will be working in designer Oscar de la Renta's studio for the next three weeks, Women’s Wear Daily reported Friday. Galliano resigned from the House of Dior in early 2011 after the video of him making anti-Semitic remarks when viral, and many at the time speculated that his career was over. His comeback began as early as the summer of 2011, when he designed his friend Kate Moss’s wedding dress.

The CEO of Overstock.com was arrested this week at Salt Lake City International Airport for allegedly carrying a loaded firearm during a routine screening of carry-on luggage. Patrick Byrne was one of four people arrested, although he denied knowing about the handgun, a loaded Glock 23 .40-caliber weapon. A charging document said the gun contained 12 rounds, although none was chambered. Federal security director Vera Adams said they didn’t believe there was “malicious intent” in any of the incidents, calling them “an issue of awareness and making sure they know what they cannot travel with in their carry-on luggage.”

At least 60 foreign hostages are still unaccounted for in the standoff with Islamic militants in Algeria, the country’s state news agency said Friday. Half the 132 foreign nationals have been freed, along with 573 Algerians, says Reuters. According to a Mauritanian news agency, the kidnappers offered to trade two American hostages for two jailed terrorists, including Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Some of the hostages were reportedly strapped to explosives, according to Garry Barlow, one of the freed hostages. British Prime Minister David Cameron said the British government had not been told by Algeria about the rescue mission beforehand.

Lance Armstrong is just the beginning—get ready for plenty more doping confessions to come, writes Jonathan Mahler in Friday’s New York Post. The news that a stage IV cancer survivor could go on to win the Tour de France shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone—despite that journalists, teammates, and sports fans all seemed to be caught unaware by the revelation. Historically, drugs have been rampant in cycling. Many are even considered acceptable to use if a doctor prescribes them, begging the question: where does the moral line lie? Mahler points to the real reason steroids have become so popular—“because we value winning above all else, and we pay winners accordingly.”

Uh oh, here come the big guns. A team of U.S. aviation experts arrived in Japan on Friday to inspect the Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet that was forced to make an emergency landing last week as the aircraft were grounded worldwide for battery issues. The five representatives from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Boeing are working with Japanese authorities to investigate the aircraft, as regulators in Japan say it’s unclear when the plane can return to the air. Sources said the U.S. investigation is focused on the Japanese-made batteries—and there’s no indication the ones made by American manufacturer United Technology Pratt & Whitney were involved.

It’s a tough day for climate-change deniers. Wild weather hit across the globe, with snowstorms blanketing the U.S. Southeast and Britain as Australia had its hottest day on record. In the U.S., parts of Mississippi saw 2 to 4 inches of snow Thursday as the storm moved north to Virginia, where it dumped 13 inches on the northwestern part of the state. Across the Atlantic, Britain came to a standstill as much of the country was hit by 40-hour snowstorm with up to 12 inches expected. But in the Southern Hemisphere, Sydney scorched on its hottest day on record, with temperatures 46 degrees Celsius, or 114 degrees Fahrenheit. In Victoria, at least one man was killed by a brushfire, and firefighters battled wildfires in New South Wales and Victoria.

Those unforgettable eyes will soon be seen by aliens from every angle. A digital image of the Mona Lisa will be transmitted via a laser beam to the moon as part of an experiment of NASA’s laser-tracking system. NASA regularly sends laser pulses to its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the moon nearly 240,000 miles away for the past three and a half years, to find its precise location in orbit. NASA had previously sent strings of numbers to space and had those on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter report back which numbers they saw to find their precise location. But last March, researchers chose to beam up a digital rendering of the Mona Lisa, because the painting is so much more visual than strings of random numbers, according to a paper published Thursday.

Pauline Phillips, the woman who founded the ‘Dear Abby’ advice column, died Wednesday at the age of 94. She had been battling Alzheimer’s disease. Phillips started the column in 1956 under the pseudonym Abigail Van Buren, choosing Abigail “after a wise woman from the old Testament” and Van Buren after her favorite president. In nearly 50 years of writing the column, she grew to have a daily readership of 100 million. Her twin sister, advice columnist Ann Landers, died in 2002. Phillips’s daughter, Jeanne, who co-wrote “Dear Abby” starting in 1987 and took over entirely in 2002, said she has “lost my mother, my mentor, and my best friend.”

What election-night meltdown? Fox News has renewed its contract with Karl Rove through the 2016 election, Politico reported Thursday. Rove frequently appears on a variety of Fox shows, including the top-rated Hannity, where he made an appearance Wednesday night to discuss Obama’s proposed assault-weapons ban. Rove joined the network in February 2008, but most recently made headlines on election night in 2012, when he refused to believe that President Obama had won. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, former Democratic congressman Dennis Kucinich made his debut on Fox on Thursday night on The O’Reilly Factor, whose host greeted Kucinich as the “same left-wing nut we know and love.” Way to make your guest feel right at home, Bill.

Capping off what has been an eventful week for Joe Biden, the satirical newspaper The Onion published an “autobiography” of the vice president in e-book form, released Friday. Called The President of Vice, the e-book maintains the same voice as its extensive coverage of Biden, who has starred in some of the newspaper’s most famous parodies over the years. The satirical publication once doctored a photo of Biden washing a Trans-Am shirtless in the White House driveway, which the vice president weighed in on later, saying he has washed cars shirtless, but “at least The Onion could have me washing a Trans-Am convertible.” The authors of the book will participate in a Reddit Ask Me Anything on Friday afternoon.

“I view this whole situation as one big lie,” Lance Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey in a highly anticipated interview on OWN Thursday night. Armstrong said he didn’t think it was possible to win the Tour de France without doping, and that he didn’t consider it wrong or cheating at the time. Armstrong said he was a “bully” and an “arrogant prick,” that he will “spend the rest of his life” trying to earn back America’s trust, and that suing those who accused him of doping was “inexcusable.” Armstrong also told Winfrey he didn’t use EPOs “a lot,” and that he “absolutely” did not dope during 2009 or 2010, and that he stopped using the drugs in 2005. Armstrong also said he tried to “justify” taking testosterone to himself due to his history of testicular cancer.