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The news blackout that Algeria has imposed on the hostage crisis at a gas plant was agonizing for some families with loved ones in danger.

The Inquisition revolutionized record-keeping and surveillance techniques that are still used today, says Cullen Murphy. His book God's Jury draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.

How The Big Lebowski's Dude is schooling us all in the ways of the Zen. Its all in the abiding.

The National Book Critics Circle has announced that two feminist literary scholars, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, will receive a lifetime achievement award. Critic Maureen Corrigan says their groundbreaking 1979 book, The Madwoman in the Attic, changed the way we read.

A helicopter flying across London seeking to land due to bad weather clipped a crane atop one of the city's tallest residential towers and fell into a street crowded with rush hour traffic. The pilot and one person on the ground died, and 13 others were injured.

In the modern era, legislative attempts to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill are nearly half a century old. In many ways, we've made little or no progress. There are numerous reasons for this failure and those reasons explain why the odds of success of any new legislative initiative to the problem of mentally ill having access to guns is very, very low. These challenges explain why none of the three of the most prominent recent mass shooters — Jared Loughner, Seung-Hui Cho and Adam Lanza — would have been affected by any current legislation involving the mentally ill and guns. Loughner had not met the conditions necessary for reporting his name to the federal database and he obtained weapons legally from a dealer. Cho was not deemed at imminent risk of causing harm, and was not involuntarily committed, and he was therefore not reported. Lanza does not seem to have been involuntarily committed, either, and, in any event, he didn't buy guns from a dealer — he simply took guns belonging to a family member.

The outspoken Whole Foods founder tells us why he hates "Obamacare" and why we have trouble cutting the sugar, fat and salt out of our diets. But now he's told CBS he used a poor choice of words when referring to the health law as fascism.

MI6 may be the world's most legendary secret service, but fiction and film can't uncover its actual history. For that, you need BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera and his new book, The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6.

Everyone has relationship problems, even God — at least, according to humorist Simon Rich. His funny, surreal new collection, The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories, explores dating and relationships, but also magic talking goats and rocket ships.

In Words From the White House, linguist Paul Dickson looks at the ways presidents have used the office to create and shape American language. Presidents, Dickson says, must be eloquent and spontaneous, but they also need to communicate in a way that gives listeners something to latch onto.