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The arrest of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams this week in Northern Ireland is raising questions about academic freedom across the Atlantic.

As NPR's Scott Neuman reported:

"The arrest was prompted in part by a Boston College-sponsored history project on the conflict in Northern Ireland that included taped interviews with individuals that implicated him [in a 1972 abduction and slaying]. Adams has been president of Sinn Fein, a party once considered the political wing of the IRA, for three decades. He played a key role in the 1998 peace agreement that ended the conflict."

At least 19 people are now listed as killed in the second car bomb in a month to hit the Nigerian capital, officials says. It comes days before the city is set to host a major international conference.

The explosion, on a busy street in Abuja on Thursday, occurred near a bus station where 70 people were killed in an April 14 bomb attack, Reuters says. The Islamic extremist terrorist network Boko Haram claimed responsibility for last month's attack.

Police Superintendent Frank Mba told reporters on Friday that the toll had reached 19 dead with as many wounded.

Abuja is hosting the World Economic Forum on Africa May 7-9. The conference is to feature Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. It attracts leaders, policymakers, philanthropists and business leaders from around the world to discuss Africa's economic growth prospects.

The latest violence comes as police in the country said the number of schoolgirls held by Boko Haram militants after a mass kidnapping last month was 276, an increase of more than 30 from earlier reports.

Police Commissioner Tanko Lawan revised the number of girls and young women who have escaped to 53.

The abduction of the girls in Chibok in northeastern Borno state was among the most shocking attacks by Boko Haram in five years of separatist conflict that has left thousands dead in the country's north and central regions.

According to The Associated Press, Lawan says that the figures of the number of girls taken increased "because students from other schools were brought into one school for final exams last month after all schools in Borno state were shut because of attacks by Islamic extremists. Communications are difficult with the military often cutting cell phone service under a state of emergency and travel made dangerous on roads where travelers are frequently attacked by the militants."

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, reporting from Dakar, Senegal, says there's still no word on the fate of the girls.

There are a number of theories, including forced marriages and/or being moved across the border to either Chad or Cameroon, Ofeibea says.

Weeks after the April 14 kidnapping, "the people want answers," she says.

"Someone has to know something, even in the government, because remember this happened at night, after curfew — 22 pickup trucks and 30 motorcycles riding down the main road in plain sight," she says.

The parents have a sense of hopelessness and despair. They've held protests in Abuja and the city of Chibok this week.

"Remember, these are young women who were/are to be the cream of the crop, big dream in an area with such little opportunity for education, especially for girls," Ofeibea says. "These are ones destined to go on to university, to be doctors, teachers. These girls lives are ruined."

On a recent day, just west of Kabul — where the city's sooty sky gives way to fresher air — Abdul Sadiq coaches four young members of the Afghan National Cycling Federation. They're working on their riding technique while dodging the free-form traffic.

"The road is very narrow, make sure you don't get into an accident, as you can see the cars are coming," the former competitive cyclist tells them, amid zooming vehicles and honking horns.

They're at Qargha Lake, whose aquamarine waters sit below a snow-sprinkled mountain backdrop of 13,000-foot peaks. It was here in 2012 Taliban insurgents attacked a resort killing 18 Afghans.

But this day is all about riding: The cyclists wear long sleeve jerseys and full-length tights — and draw hoots, honks and open mouth stares when they pedal past.

These aren't ordinary riders: They're members of Afghanistan's only women's cycling team. And in this deeply conservative country where women have long been confined to the shadows, and they face more dangerous obstacles that just the chaotic roads.

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Al Feldstein, the man who turned Mad magazine into a must-read for teens of the Baby Boomer generation, has died at his home near Livingston, Montana. He was 88.

Feldstein, who died Tuesday, was editor of Mad for nearly 30 years until the mid-80s, taking the magazine to a mass audience with its blend of political and cultural satire tuned to adolescent sensibilities.

Among other things, he turned the freckle-faced, gap-toothed and jug-eared Alfred E. Neuman character, with the "What, Me Worry?" catchphrase, into a staple of the magazine.

The Associated Press writes:

"Neuman's character was used to skewer any and all, from Santa Claus to Darth Vader, and more recently in editorial cartoonists' parodies of President George W. Bush, notably a cover image The Nation that ran soon after Bush's election in 2000 and was captioned 'Worry.'

"Feldstein also helped assemble "a team of artists and writers, including Dave Berg, Don Martin and Frank Jacobs, who turned out such enduring features as 'Spy vs. Spy' and 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions.' Fans of the magazine ranged from the poet-musician Patti Smith and activist Tom Hayden to movie critic Roger Ebert, who said Mad helped inspire him to write about film."