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Two new novels should keep science fiction fans happy through the winter: Charlie Huston's Sleepless, the story of an insomnia plague, and Douglas Preston's Impact, in which human beings find themselves threatened by strange bombardments from the direction of Mars.

The nation's top military officer told senators Tuesday he supports overturning the law barring gays from serving openly in the ranks. Adm. Mike Mullen's comments were the first time a senior active-duty officer has called for ending what's known as don't ask don't tell, which has forced thousands of gay servicemen from the ranks since it was enacted in 1993.

The U.S. director of national intelligence says al-Qaida will continue to try to attack the U.S. until its two top leaders are dead. Dennis Blair was briefing a congressional panel Tuesday on the assessment of global threats.

In 1951, Henrietta Lacks died after a long battle with cervical cancer. Doctors cultured her cells without permission from her family. The story of those cells — known as HeLa cells, in Lacks' honor — and of the medical advances that came from them, is told in Rebecca Skloot's book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

For almost every major world event — from the Apollo moon landing to Hurricane Katrina — there's a conspiracy theory to undermine the conventional view of the way things took place. Voodoo Histories, a new book by David Aaronovitch, takes aim at some of the most notorious.

Since the Manhattan Project, the U.S. president has wielded more military power than ever before. And in the opinion of historian Garry Wills, more than the commander-in-chief is allowed by the Constitution. Guy Raz talks with Wills about his new book, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State.

Denis Antoine spent more than a decade as Grenada's ambassador to the United States, and he's written a self-help book for disoriented diplomats from small nations. It's called Effective Diplomacy, and Antoine shares some of his advice with Guy Raz, including this key lesson: "Get a good driver ... or at least a good GPS unit."

President Obama called on Congress Friday to enact a new job-creation bill that includes tax breaks for small business hiring, and for people who make their homes more energy efficient. The comments came in Ohio, which has been hard-hit by the economic crisis.

With the bursting of the economic bubble in Iceland at the end of 2008, many people have been thrown out of work. Lines now form every week at a soup kitchen that hands out free food, and there is a growing acknowledgment that Icelanders need to get back to their core industries such as fishing and agriculture.

The joke used to be that some women went to college to get their M.R.S. — that is, a husband. But a study by the Pew Research Center finds that women today are more likely to marry men who have lower education levels and lower income levels than they do.