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A former Afghan warlord was sentenced in a London court this week to 20 years in prison for torture and hostage-taking in Afghanistan. The trial coincided with appeals from human rights groups for many more of Afghanistan's warlords -- including those now in government -- to be called to account for crimes committed during that period. There are many such men who are still fighting.

Boston Herald sports columnist Howard Bryant is author of Juicing the Game. Baseball in the '90s — with greater profit and more record breakers than ever — has come to be known as "The Juiced Era." But the dark side has been the use of performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids.

Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You, aruges that rather than turning our brains to mush, entertainment options like video games are so complex that our brains rise to the challenge.

A new book explores Myanmar's people and brutal military junta by retracing George Orwell's path through Burma, where he lived as a young man in the 1920s.

Journalist Karl Fleming's new book is Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. As a civil rights reporter for Newsweek in the 1960s, he wrote about major events such as the Birmingham church bombing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. While at the 1966 riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Fleming was severely beaten.

The road from Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, to the Pakistani border is vital to trade and other concerns. But it's also treacherous, despite recent improvements.

The highly anticipated sixth installment of J.K. Rowling's novel about a child wizard was released Saturday. NPR's Neva Grant followed two youngsters who spent the weekend immersed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Melissa Block and food writer Grace Young trek through New York's Chinatown in search of wok hay, the magical essence released by a good wok when it's properly cared for and heated just right.

Melodrama is essential to any American soap opera, and the same holds true for their Chinese counterparts. Rachel DeWoskin talks about her role as an aggressive Westerner in a Chinese daytime drama, and her new book, Foreign Babes in Beijing.

The United States and Australia are sending hundreds more troops to Afghanistan in the run-up to September's parliamentary elections. In recent months, the Taliban and other militants have stepped up their attacks. The elections are seen as a step toward democracy, but warlords continue to hold considerable power.