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(This post was updated at 6:30 p.m. ET)

A panel looking into U.S. electronic surveillance activities in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations has recommended removing the NSA's authority to collect and store Americans' telephone data.

The key recommendation was one of dozens that the panel put forward; however, it did not propose a wholesale scaling back of domestic spying by the National Security Agency and other intelligence branches.

Richard Clarke, a member of the advisory panel, said, "Although we found no evidence of abuse ... the potential for abuse in the future is there, and the technology is certainly there to create a surveillance state in the future."

"We want to put in place more oversight outside of those agencies," he said.

The Associated Press says: "It was not immediately clear whether the proposed changes would limit the scope of the collections." The recommendations, if adopted, would "end the government's systematic collection of logs of all Americans' phone calls, and [keep] those in private hands, 'for queries and data mining' only by court order," the New York Times reports.

The panel also recommended "new criteria that should be met before the United States engages in surveillance of foreign leaders," reports Reuters. "Before spying on such leaders, U.S. officials should determine if there are other ways to obtain the necessary information and weigh the negative effects if the surveillance becomes public, panel members wrote in one of 46 recommendations."

Taken together, The Times says, "the recommendations would remove from the N.S.A.'s hands the authority to conduct many of its operations without review by the president, Congress or the courts. But by themselves, they would terminate few programs."

President Obama ordered the review board after a series of exposes in British and U.S. newspapers detailing leaks by former NSA contractor Snowden, who fled the U.S. and is now living in temporary asylum in Russia. He is not obligated to accept their proposals.

The White House said Wednesday that the president had met with the panel:

"This meeting offered President Obama an opportunity to hear directly from the group's members and discuss the thinking behind the 46 recommendations in their report. The President noted that the group's report represented a consensus view, particularly significant given the broad scope of the members' expertise in counterterrorism, intelligence, oversight, privacy and civil liberties. The President again stated his expectation that, in light of new technologies, the United States use its intelligence collection capabilities in a way that optimally protects our national security while supporting our foreign policy, respecting privacy and civil liberties, maintaining the public trust, and reducing the risk of unauthorized disclosure."

Way back in the 2004 film Anchorman, Ron Burgundy was a local TV-news host in '70s San Diego. Fast-forward to this year's sequel, and that epic haircut is national news: Set in 1980, Anchorman 2 follows Will Ferrell's vain, shallow character as he graduates to a CNN-style cable news network.

"We felt like we needed to jack up the stakes," director and co-writer Adam McKay tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "It was just perfect timing that, in '79, '80 — that's when you saw 24-hour news come about. You saw ESPN, MTV, the whole broadcast media [universe] completely changed. And anytime you say the word 'change,' that's a fun world to throw Ron Burgundy into. You know he's not going to handle change well."

Ferrell and McKay, who co-wrote both Anchorman films, started working together on Saturday Night Live. They've collaborated on the films Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, among others, and co-founded the website Funny or Die. They joined Fresh Air to talk about why the sequel took so long — and the meaning of that mustache.

In the U.S., Big Pizza is locked in a battle that's as much a testament to gluttony as it is to food science: How much cheese can you possibly stuff inside of wheat dough?

Earlier this year, Pizza Hut took it to the next level with the Crazy Cheesy Crust Pizza: a regular pizza ringed with "pockets" oozing a five-cheese blend. (Our friends at Sandwich Monday sampled this addition to the pizza canon during its limited run.) By way of explanation of its existence, Pizza Hut's head chef told Yahoo, "Consumers always want more cheese."

But in Israel, apparently, they don't.

There, the cheese is being voted off the pizza, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported this week. It seems a passionate vegan lobby clamored so loudly for dairy-free pizza that Domino's had to acquiesce. The pizza chain's stores in Israel are now offering a family-size pizza with vegetables and a soy-based topping for about $20.

It all started with a Facebook campaign led by Vegan Friendly, a group that promotes the vegan lifestyle in Israel. Vegan Friendly claims to have a virtual community of 30,000 vegans in Israel, and has stamped hundreds of stores and restaurants with its vegan-friendly seal. The vegans wanted pizza, and they weren't going to stop until they got it.

The Salt

Billboards Slather On The Guilt With Anti-Cheese Campaign

Texas Republicans can't get hold of enough guns.

Greg Abbott, the party's frontrunner for governor, posed for a recent cover of Texas Monthly with a rifle over his shoulder. Nearly every other GOP statewide candidate has put out pictures or videos proudly displaying firearms.

"Perception becomes reality in so many areas," says state Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, a Republican who is running for lieutenant governor. "Voters want to know who you are and what you stand for, and your comfort level with what you're talking about."

It's not just Texas, and it's not just guns.

For all the innovations wrought by technology, politicians around the country — and around the globe — continue to embrace the most basic symbols as a means of getting their points across more powerfully to voters.

"It sends a subtle, or sometimes not so subtle, message about who you are and what's important to you," says David Heller, a Democratic media consultant.

Whether it's holding the flag, wearing a pin or posing alongside individuals of obvious ethnic identity, candidates know that symbol-laden pictures often speak louder than words.

"These sorts of images just stay with us better than text," says Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, a political scientist at the University of North Texas. "We're better able to remember something that's striking visually."

Belonging To The Team

Politicians and their handlers understand it makes no sense to announce new policies on education from inside a conference room when they can easily find a classroom that will provide a more telling backdrop.

The same holds true with hospitals, or groups of farmers, or other photo-friendly settings.

"We don't believe for one second that Democrats ought to be ceding the symbolism of the flag or church or any other widely respected institution to the Republicans," Heller says.

Symbols become more prominent at moments of conflict, says David Butz, a Morehead State University psychologist who has studied political imagery.

"Symbols serve as reminders of group membership, that you're part of something, whether you're part of a nation or a subgroup within that nation," Butz says. "In times of war and especially after Sept. 11, flag displays become pervasive."

Photo Ops May Backfire

Nothing seems more phony than a politician trying to appropriate a symbol to which he has no real connection.

"Don't walk around with your wife and kids in every shot if you're running around on the side," says Heller.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani drew Bronx cheers when he announced in Massachusetts that he was rooting for the Boston Red Sox in the 2007 World Series. "Maybe the Devil made him do it," opined the Daily News.

When a politician tries to prove his bona fides through the use of props or symbols and fails to pull it off, such missteps can linger in the mind longer than an errant remark, whether it's Michael Dukakis drawing unflattering comparisons to Snoopy after riding around in a tank during the 1988 presidential race or John Kerry offending Philadelphia sensibilities by asking for Swiss cheese to adorn his cheesesteak hoagie a decade ago.

"Gerald Ford trying to eat a tamale and biting through the corn husk is still in textbooks," says Eshbaugh-Soha, the UNT professor, referring to an infamous 1976 presidential campaign trail gaffe at the Alamo.

Gaming Out The Situation

For that reason, campaign aides and consultants think long and hard about staging photo ops.

President Obama is drawing some criticism from conservative quarters right now for embarking on a long, expensive vacation in Hawaii. Back in 1996, President Bill Clinton went camping in the mountains due to polls that suggested vacationing in tony Martha's Vineyard had come across as elitist.

In an early episode of HBO's Veep, the vice president, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is set to visit a yogurt shop that's owned by "three generations of African Americans," as one aide notes. "There's a narrative built right in."

Her team then debates what flavor she should order. Mint suggests "freshness, trust, traditional values," one character suggests, while swirl hints of "racial harmony, crossing the aisle."

Such decisions are no joke, says Republican media consultant Doug McAuliffe. While corporations spend millions testing and honing images, political campaigns too often make decisions out of hand.

He notes that during the recent campaign for attorney general in Virginia, he and other aides to Mark Obenshain spent considerable time debating what colors to use in graphics. Republicans traditionally favor red, white and blue, McAuliffe notes, but "the colors that appeal to women are blue and green.

"That's the great art of this business," McAuliffe says, "understanding how voters are going to react and how the press is going to run with it."