Most Recent Posts

Omar Hammami grew up in the small of town of Daphne, Ala., but ended up in southern Somalia on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list. Last week, Hammami was reportedly killed by members of al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked militant group, after a falling out with its leadership.

He was known for rapping in an al-Shabab propaganda video and was the subject of an extensive profile in The New York Times Magazine. He also went by the name of Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, or "the American."

The story of how a young, charismatic kid from Alabama became a self-described terrorist has fascinated many people, including counterterrorism expert J.M. Berger, author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam.

Berger struck up a relationship with Hammami on Twitter, and wrote about it for Foreign Policy in a piece called "Omar and Me: My Strange, Frustrating Relationship with An American Terrorist." Weekend Edition Sunday's Rachel Martin talked to Berger about Hammami's death and their "strange kind of camaraderie."

Updated Sunday 5:46 a.m. ET

The death toll at an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi has increased to at least 52, and civilians are still inside as militants exchange sporadic barrages of gunfire with Kenyan security troops outside.

"The priority is to save as many lives as possible," Joseph Lenku, Kenya's Interior cabinet secretary told AP early today. Kenyan forces have already rescued about 1,000 people, he said.

He said that five to 15 attackers are involved in the standoff, but declined to estimate the number of hostages.

Original Post, Saturday 8:38 a.m. ET

An upscale mall in Kenya was the scene of gunfire and explosions Saturday, after a group of attackers used assault rifles and grenades to strike during lunch hour in Nairobi. At least 39 people have died in the attack, Kenya's president says, along with more than 150 wounded.

American citizens are among the victims of the attack, although it's not yet clear what their status is. The attack shocked people in the mall, which is known for attracting wealthy and foreign shoppers.

"Rob Vandijk, who works at the Dutch embassy, said he was eating at a restaurant inside the mall when attackers lobbed hand grenades inside the building," the AP reports. "He said gunfire then burst out and people screamed as they dropped to the ground."

The AP reports that police arrived at the mall roughly 30 minutes after the attack began. A gun battle ensued; the situation was described as a standoff. Sporadic gunfire is being reported from the scene.

Updated at 7:40 p.m. ET: Some Attackers Still Holed Up In Mall

The Associated Press reported that 12 hours after the attack began, some of the attackers remained inside the mall holding an unknown number of hostages.

The New York Times reported:

Several Western intelligence officials said they suspected that the attack was carried out by the Shabab, an Islamist militant group based in Somalia that has carried out suicide attacks and beheadings inside Somalia and threatened Kenyan malls before. A confidential United Nations report on Saturday described the attack as "a complex, two-prolonged assault" with two squads of gunmen dashing into the mall from different floors at the same time and opening fire immediately.

The Shabab sent out several Twitter messages after the massacre suggesting that its fighters were responsible for an attack they said represented "just a very tiny fraction of what Muslims in Somalia experience at the hands of Kenyan invaders." One message said the Shabab had warned the Kenyan government "that failure to remove its forces from Somalia would have severe consequences." Kenya sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to help fight the Shabab and to prevent violence from spilling over across the border the countries share.

Wadjda, being touted as the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia — a country with no movie theaters and a relationship with cinema that's complicated at best — tells the story of a defiant 10-year-old pushing back against the social expectations that define her life as a young Saudi woman.

Wadjda's source of independence comes in the form of a green bicycle she wants to buy for herself. But girls in Saudi Arabia don't ride bicycles, so she has to be creative.

Director Haifaa Al Mansour tells NPR's Rachel Martin that she wanted to make a film "that mirrors reality as much as possible."

"I couldn't make a film where women are all innocent and they're all striving to be free and all that; it's not real," she says. "I think a lot of women are the gatekeepers, a lot of women reinforce the values ... For me, it was not making women all the victims, and men are the oppressors."

It might seem like the only TV serious viewers are paying attention to right now is Breaking Bad, but on Sunday night, just as Walter White's penultimate episode is unfolding on AMC, we'll be finding out over on CBS whether his show, his portrayer Bryan Cranston, or other personnel will be taking home Primetime Emmy Awards.

An awful lot of familiar faces seem likely to win, as 2012-13 wasn't a big season for new breakout shows. You could easily see Breaking Bad take Outstanding Drama Series (which would be a first), or last year's winner, Homeland, or Mad Men, which had a four-year streak going before Homeland crashed the party in 2012.

It will almost certainly be a big year for the HBO film Behind The Candelabra, directed by Steven Soderbergh, and for Michael Douglas' performance as Liberace. And it's the last shot for 30 Rock, which has several shots at adding to what has been a very rich Emmy haul.

But the biggest curiosity on Sunday night will be the presence of Netflix, which has nominations in major categories for both House Of Cards, the political thriller that starred Kevin Spacey, and Arrested Development, the new and unconventionally structured season of a comedy that spent its three on-air years being celebrated but little-watched on Fox. Both series face stiff competition where they're nominated, but if Netflix were to win anything big in the very first year it was even trying, that would be a fairly authoritative arrival. (It will likely be back next year with Orange Is The New Black, which wasn't eligible this year.)

Hosted again by Neil Patrick Harris, a past Emmy host as well as everything-else host, the Emmys are likely to be — what else? — a long evening of celebrity speeches and corny montages. But in there somewhere, they're likely to be recognizing some pretty terrific television. Because there is, in fact, an awful lot of terrific television.