NFL Honors Cheerleader Turned Soldier; Anna Paquin Cut From 'X-Men' Movie

Dec. 23, 2013 — -- quicklist: 1title: NFL Honors Cheerleader Turned Soldier text: The Philadelphia Eagles Sunday night honored a hometown hero who used to be one of their very own.

U.S. Army Lt. Rachel Washburn was an Eagles cheerleader from 2007 to 2010 while she was in college. After graduating, she traded in her cheerleading outfit for Army fatigues.

Washburn, 25, joined the military and recently completed her second tour in Afghanistan, where she led a platoon of 22 soldiers.

See more of her story here.

media: 21308474

quicklist: 2title: Anna Paquin Cut from Upcoming 'X-Men' Movietext: It looks like not even Rogue could survive the chopping block, also known as film editing.

Bryan Singer, director of this summer's highly anticipated "X-Men: Days of Future Past," revealed to Entertainment Weekly that a scene featuring Anna Paquin as Rogue has been cut from the film.

"Through the editing process, the sequence became extraneous," Singer told Entertainment Weekly. "Unfortunately, it was the one and only sequence Anna Paquin was in, the Rogue character was in. Even though she's in the materials and part of the process of making the film, she won't appear in it."

The director emphasized that the cut had nothing to do with Paquin, who he said did "a fantastic job."

The film is set to be released May 23, 2014.

media: 21308276

quicklist: 3title: #PeopleWhoMadeMyYearGoodtext: #PeopleWhoMadeMyYearGood is trending in the United States on Twitter.

People are using the hashtag to Twitter-honor friends, family and, of course, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Swift.

Go ahead, Twitter. Social Climber is all for a hashtag rooted in gratitude.

media:

quicklist: 4title: Mom's Christmas Letters Reach Family 2 Years After Her Death text: A mother of four surprised her children, husband and his new fiancé with heartbreaking Christmas letters two years after her death from ovarian cancer.

Brenda Schmitz was 46 when she died in September 2011. As a parting gift, she entrusted a letter to a friend, who remains anonymous, to deliver when the time was right. The letter was addressed to a Des Moines, Iowa, radio station, which runs a Christmas wishes program every year. The letter contained two other letters; one for her husband, David, and another for the new love of his life.

Read about Schmitz's wishes and how the radio station made them come true here.

media: 21308231

quicklist: 5title: Christmas Is Almost Heretext: The tree is decorated, the cookies are baked and the presents are wrapped ... or not, if you're a procrastinator.

If you are running a little late, a friendly reminder that Tuesday is Christmas Eve and the day after that is Christmas so today is your last day to rush around and try to do everything you somehow didn't have time to do in the past 364 days. Good luck!

media: 21307816