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The controversial, best-selling Egyptian novel The Yacoubian Building describes a country that is corrupt, unfair and thuggish. Now it's being made into a star-studded film.

Gary Schroen is one of the CIA's most respected and experienced spies. Two days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, his bosses handed him a new mission targeting Osama bin Laden: "bring his head back in a box." Days later, Schroen and his team were on a plane.

The former U.S. Attorney and longtime New Yorker staff writer has a new book about the nation's highest court. The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court contains new information about the 2000 presidential election challenge.

Ballet dancer Carlos Acosta is known for powerful leaps that make him seem to fly. Those leaps have earned him comparisons with Nureyev and Baryshnikov. He grew up in a poor neighborhood outside Havana. How that boy became a man who dances with grace and power is the subject of Acosta's memoir, No Way Home.

In her new book The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, author Natalie Angier says science doesn't have to be impossible, impenetrable or uncool.

Discover the engineering secrets that launched a technological revolution that changed warfare forever.

In Lawrence, Kan., the owner of the Journal-World newspaper applies ambitious news-gathering approaches to very local issues. The media company's efforts have sparked innovation, controversy — and no small amount of envy within the industry.

According to an analysis by the National Weather Service, 418 people were struck and killed by lightning strikes in the U.S. between 2006 and 2019.

Joshua Bell plays a Stradivarius violin built in 1713 that's been notoriously stolen a few times. On his latest CD, the young virtuoso borrows a few great classical melodies and transposes them. He discusses his results with NPR's Liane Hansen.

A new exhibition at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts offers a rare glimpse into the archives of the late songwriter Lou Reed.

Just as punk rockers broke the rules in the 1970s, so did a slew of equally rebellious singers and their groups a generation earlier. Rockin' Bones, a new CD collection, features the music of 1950s rockabilly artists who were the iconoclasts of their day.

At the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus — a gothic cathedral in Cleveland — classical guitarist Jason Vieaux recently chose a new guitar. It's a crash course in how a musician selects an instrument.

New York plans to offer $14,600 in housing subsidies to lure math, science and special-education teachers to the city. It's the latest tool that several public school districts -- in this case the nation's largest -- hope will attract good teachers to expensive housing markets.

American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino is climbing up the R&B charts. One of her songs, "Baby Mama," is a tribute to young, single mothers. But as her popularity grows, critics worry the song is sending the wrong message.

When MTV first started in 1981, the network broadcast wall-to-wall music videos. Since then the network has grown increasingly corporate with less music and more commercialism. MTV's Movie Awards show, airing tonight, is sign of how far from those beginnings the channel has come.

A new generation of huge telescopes has helped astronomers discover distant planets and galaxies. But they're just the start. Mirrors for what is to be the world's largest telescope are being cast in Arizona.

Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl offers some summer reading recommendations, with the proviso that they're not exactly literature. Hear Pearl and NPR's Steve Inskeep.

The saxophonist, who began his career in the '70s, has played with notable names like the Beach Boys and Cannonball Adderley. He's still flowing with music.

The singer-songwriter had a tough couple of years, losing both parents while balancing new love. The experience fueled the country-leaning balance of her new album, Big Time.

An amateur dramatic society performs a series of half-hour plays for television, all of which go terribly wrong.