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Egyptian authorities are stepping up efforts against a popular TV comedian known as the "Egyptian Jon Stewart" and are now threatening to revoke the license of the private TV station that airs his weekly program.

As we reported Sunday, satirist Bassem Youssef was questioned for five hours over accusations he insulted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and Islam.

Morsi's opponents say Youssef's questioning, along with arrest warrants issued against five anti-government activists accused of inciting unrest, demonstrate a campaign to intimidate his critics, The Associated Press reports.

On Monday night's episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart defended Youssef, who has been a guest on his Comedy Central show. He criticized Morsi and said it was undemocratic to prosecute the Egyptian comic.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Sheryl Sandberg's controversial new book on women and leadership, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, currently tops Amazon's best-seller list in "Business Management and Leadership" alongside Decisive (Chip Heath and Dan Heath), StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Tom Rath), Give and Take (Adam Grant), The Millionaire Next Door (Thomas Stanley and William Danko) and The Power of Negative Thinking (Bob Knight and Bob Hammel) — all authored by men.

The demographics of this list reflect the broader trend that motivates Sandberg's manifesto: Women are woefully underrepresented in top leadership positions in business, government and beyond. Sandberg advises women to "lean in" to their careers, embracing ambition and resisting the tendency to hold back due to actual and anticipated challenges in negotiating work-life balance.

Sandberg's book has generated a spectrum of responses — some positive, some mixed and some outright hostile. Most common is the complaint that Sandberg seems to put the burden on women to change, rather than challenging the institutional, cultural and psychological factors that present extra challenges for women.

But another common refrain is that Sandberg fails to represent all women. As one of the richest and most powerful women in America, and one with a supportive husband, she has a few resources that most women lack — whether it's household help or another parent who can step in when she needs to miss dinner with the kids. Here are just two representative comments:

Sandberg has already gotten some flak from women who think that her attitude is too elitist and that she is too prone to blame women for failing to get ahead. (Not everyone has Larry Page and Sergey Brin volunteering to baby-sit, and Zuckerberg offering a shoulder to cry on.) Noting that her Facebook page for Lean In looks more like an ego wall with "deep thoughts," critics argue that her unique perch as a mogul with the world's best husband to boot makes her tone-deaf to the problems average women face as they struggle to make ends meet in a rough economy, while taking care of kids, aging parents and housework. (Maureen Dowd, The New York Times)

If you've earned a paycheck in recent years, you'll probably want want to know about this:

The Equifax credit reporting agency, NBC News reports, has collected 190 million employment and salary records on about one-third of U.S. adults and has sold some of the information "to debt collectors, financial service companies and other entities."

Robert Mather, who runs a small employment background company named Pre-Employ.com, tells the network that "it's the biggest privacy breach in our time, and it's legal and no one knows it's going on. ... It's like a secret CIA."

In an email to NBC News, Equifax says it complies with Fair Credit Reporting Act guidelines, that the companies buying the information "must have a permissible purpose" and that consumers give the companies the OK to get the data when they apply for credit. Presumably, the OK is in the fine print.

OK, we've checked the date, and it's April 2, but this story from the Pacific island nation of Samoa left us scratching our heads: Samoa Air says it's charging passengers based on what they weigh.

"We at Samoa Air are keeping airfares fair, by charging our passengers only for what they weigh," the airline says on its website. "You are the master of your Air'fair,' you decide how much (or little) your ticket will cost. No more exorbitant excess baggage fees, or being charged for baggage you may not carry. Your weight plus your baggage items, is what you pay for. Simple."

The policy was introduced in January, the Australia News Network reports.

"People who have been most pleasantly surprised are families because we don't charge on the seat requirement even though a child is required to have a seat, we just weigh them," airline CEO Chris Langton told Radio Australia. "So a family of maybe two adults and a couple of mid-sized kids and younger children can travel at considerably less than what they were being charged before."

The airline flies within the Pacific island nation of Samoa, as well as to other Pacific island nations.

Rates per passenger range from $1 a kilogram (2.2 pounds) on some domestic routes to about $4.16 per kilogram to American Samoa.

The news comes just days after an economist in Norway argued that charging airline passengers by weight would benefit them in the long run.

"To the degree that passengers lose weight and therefore reduce fares, the savings that result are net benefits to the passengers," Bharat P. Bhatt, a professor at Sogn og Fjordane University College, wrote in the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management.

No U.S. airline has such a policy, but Southwest asks passengers who cannot lower armrests on a single seat to purchase another. It refunds the cost of the extra seat after travel.

[h/t Gawker]