On the Move: NSA leaker Edward Snowden has left the Moscow airport and entered the country. Russian authorities say he has been granted refugee status for at least one year. Snowden left Hong Kong more than a month ago and has been holed up ever since at the Moscow airport because the US suspended his passport.

EyeSpy: Senators from both parties yesterday challenged the scope and success of the massive NSA electronic surveillance program. Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said the results of the program were exaggerated and that the NSA had not uncovered “dozens” let alone just a few terrorist plots. He said, “If this program is not effective it has to end. So far, I’m not convinced by what I’ve seen.”  A recent Pew Research Center poll says 56% of Americans believe the federal courts do not sufficiently protect their privacy from electronic surveillance.

Three Strikes: USA Today reports that Major League Baseball is preparing to drop a lifetime suspension on Yankee 3d baseman Alex Rodriquez for his involvement with the Biogenesis drug laboratory in Florida. The paper says eight other stars are in line to get a 50 game suspension. Documents from the Biogenesis lab say Rodriguez used their performance enhancing juice from 2010-2012. Rodriguez is playing in the minors now, recovering from injuries.

National: The House approved a Senate bill that controls student loan interest rates that were threatening to double. Interest rates for undergrads will be 3.86%, and 5.41% for graduate students.

The Obit Page: Berthold Beitz, who was credited with saving hundreds of Jews from liquidation by the Nazis, has died at age 99. Beitz managed an oil field in Poland and kept Jewish workers out of the death camps by claiming they were indispensible to production. According to records at Yad Vashem, which documents the holocaust, Beitz said he saved Jews because “When you see a woman with her child in her arms being shot, and you yourself have a child, then your response is bound to be completely different.”

Really, He Did: The lawyer for San Diego Mayor Bob Filner says the city should pay for the mayor’s legal defense because Filner never received training in proper workplace behavior. “The city failed to provide such training to Mayor Filner,” the lawyer wrote in a letter to the city attorney. In other words, the 70-year-old Filner believes he needed to be told that he shouldn’t ask women to come to work without underwear.

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