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Abu Anas al-Libi, the man who allegedly planned the 1998 attack on U.S. embassy buildings in East Africa and was awaiting trial in America, has died of complications from liver surgery, his wife says, according to The Associated Press.

Al-Libi, believed to have been an al-Qaida operative, was captured by U.S. special forces in the Libyan capital in Oct. 2013 and brought to the U.S. to stand trial.

As NPR's Leila Fadel reports from Cairo "Abu Anas al-Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was indicted more than a decade ago in a U.S. federal court for involvement in twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The attacks killed more than 224 people."

The AP reports that on Saturday, al-Libi's wife, who asked to be identified as Um Abdullah, told the news agency that the experience of being in U.S. custody had exacerbated her husband's ailments, including hepatitis C, and hastened his death. He was 50.

"I accuse the American government of kidnapping, mistreating, and killing an innocent man. He did nothing," she said, according to the AP.

Um Abdullah was informed of her husband's death by the U.S. embassy in Libya, she said.

The Telegraph reports that after spending a week aboard a U.S. Navy ship in the Mediterranean where he was interrogated, in his first appearance in a U.S. court in October 2013, al-Libi "appeared frail and exhausted as he shuffled into the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind his back."

He pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim Americans and to damage U.S. buildings and property, including U.S. national defense facilities. He was denied bail.

An attorney for al-Libi, who had a $5 million bounty on his head before his capture, said that his client had never sworn an oath to Osama bin Laden and was not involved either directly or indirectly in the 1998 embassy bombings.

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This week, the FBI stood firm on its claim that North Korea was responsible for the hack on Sony Pictures, even though independent cybersecurity experts have questioned the FBI's stance. We also looked at a new app that helps people share their stuff, and at Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's handling of the net neutrality debate.

ICYMI

App Connects People And Stuff: NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports on a new Netherlands-based app, Peerby, that helps people share and borrow their stuff like power drills and bicycle pumps. Peerby connects 100,000 borrowers and lenders in the Netherlands each month, and the company plans to introduce the service in 50 U.S. cities this year.

All Tech Considered

Sony Hack Highlights The Global Underground Market For Malware

All Tech Considered

Doubts Persist On U.S. Claims Of North Korean Role In Sony Hack

Spotlight On The FCC Chairman: When President Obama appointed former cable TV lobbyist Tom Wheeler to head the FCC in 2013, Wheeler probably never imagined he would become a public face of the net neutrality debate. NPR's Brian Naylor reports on how Wheeler is managing the debate.

Tech Trends That Will Stay Hot In 2015: NPR tech reporters Elise Hu, Laura Sydell and Aarti Shahani reconsider 2014 tech trends that are likely to resurface in the year ahead. Among them, Apple's reputation as an innovator, a new age of voice command devices, and the focus on cybersecurity after a year of data breaches.

The Big Conversation

Despite much uncertainty from cybersecurity experts, the FBI wouldn't back down from its claim that North Korea was to blame for the devastating cyberattack on Sony Pictures. FBI officials and data scientists from the U.S. cybersecurity firm Norse met Monday in St. Louis, where Norse representatives presented research linking several people, including a former Sony employee, to the hack, CNN reported.

The new information comes after a wave of speculation regarding the FBI's claim that North Korea is the culprit. As NPR's Aarti Shahani reported, private security researchers doubted the FBI's explanation for blaming North Korea. The FBI said the IP addresses — unique computer addresses — in the attack trace back to North Korea, but experts say it's fairly easy to spoof an IP address. The FBI also said the malware used in the attack was similar to software North Korea used in previous attacks, but experts say criminals are always reusing code.

And The Interview, the comedy film that was pulled from major theaters after threats from the hacking group Guardians of Peace, is booming at the box office. The movie raked in $15 million in online rentals and purchases in the first four days it was available, and it earned the studio nearly $3 million from screenings at mostly independent theaters.

On Friday, President Obama authorized expanded sanctions against North Korea over its alleged role in the Sony hack.

Curiosities

Venture Beat: Chaos Computer Club Says It Can Reproduce Fingerprints From Public Photos

TravelByDrone.com: Best Drone Videos of 2014

The Verge: Hyundai will let you start your car with an Android Wear watch

Samantha Raphelson is a producer for NPR.org. You can reach out to her on Twitter.

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In politics, conventional wisdom can have a certain power. But, sometimes the obviously true thing isn't so true upon inspection.

The new Republican Congress hits Capitol Hill on Monday, but the latest round of that wisdom seems to have already been established — from how it's going to work to its relationship with President Obama. Here's a look at 2 1/2 pieces of that wisdom.

1. Republicans are going to have to show they can govern.

At this point, it's been said so many times it's become an established Washington truth.

In his NPR interview late last month, President Obama said: "They are going to be in a position in which they have to show that they can responsibly govern, given that they have significant majorities in both chambers."

And Colorado Republican Sen.-elect Cory Gardner on Fox News Sunday back in November had a similar sentiment: "If Republicans don't prove that we can govern with maturity, that we can govern with competence, we'll see the same kind of results two years from now, except it will be a wave going back a different direction."

He's saying Republicans could lose their majority if they don't show they can govern. Or not.

"You're creating a test that you cannot pass," says Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor at the conservative publication National Review, which ran an editorial titled "The Governing Trap." "That requires the support of people who have an incentive for you not to pass it."

That is, if the definition of governing is passing bills the president signs into law, then Ponnuru says congressional Republicans shouldn't make that their goal. Instead, he says, they should do the basics, keep the government open for business and outline an agenda they'd implement with a Republican president. That, Ponnuru says, is what Democrats did when they took the majority in 2006 for President Bush's final two years in office.

"They don't run in 2008 on the basis of the things they cooperated with President Bush to accomplish, and it's just I think sort of absurd to think that that's the right strategy for Republicans to employ," he says.

2. House Democrats will be totally irrelevant.

They'll have fewer members than they had in the last Congress. "Make no mistake about it, Minority Leader Pelosi would much rather be Speaker Pelosi by any condition," says former GOP Rep. Tom Reynolds. "She is the steward of the minority in some real tough circumstances."

But John Lawrence, former chief of staff to Pelosi, says hold on. "I always refer to it as the Rodney Dangerfield of politics. They get no respect." But in this case, he says, the House Democrats are "very salient" for two reasons.

First, when it comes to legislation where Republicans aren't united — like votes to keep the government funded — some Democratic support will inevitably be needed for passage. And second, Lawrence points to presidential vetoes. Take a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Many expect the president would veto it. Republicans don't need House Democrats to get it passed.

"But you can't override vetoes with only Republican votes and that means that Pelosi and the House Democrats have an ace up their sleeve," Lawrence says. "And then the House Democrats become highly, highly relevant in terms of upholding those vetoes."

2 1/2. The president will start wielding the veto pen.

How often will there even be vetoes to uphold? That's our final bit of conventional wisdom. President Obama has said he expects his veto pen to get a workout. But with only 54 Republican senators in the new Congress, it will be rare for a bill Obama dislikes to get the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles and make it to his desk.

I don't know when people started to think they could successfully make fun of you for being a person who grew up listening to a lot of Billy Joel — and perhaps still does — but they can all forget it.

Friday night, PBS is running a special concert in which Joel gets the Library Of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and it's great fun, and he deserves it. Somehow the model-dating and perceived rock posturing and rehab have been rolled up into something that makes people feel entitled to write hyperbolic essays of contempt that bubble over with bizarre levels of anger at the music itself (while, in that case, choosing "The Longest Time" and "An Innocent Man" as the man's only defensible music, which I personally find the height of hilarity from a self-proclaimed tastesplainer). And, too, where even thoughtful defenses are kind of grudging and "with friends like these"-y. Somehow, people who hate Billy Joel are very, very sure that their critiques are devastating to the people who like him — they are comforting the afflicted (with Billy Joel) and afflicting the comforted (by Billy Joel).

As a longtime listener, I respectfully can say only this: I don't care.

Here's the scoop on Billy Joel, whose music I listened to unrelentingly from about age 10 to about 25, not an unusual length for a fandom that begins in youth: some of his music is good. Some of it is bad. Some of it is dumb. Some of it is wise. Some of it would be good if it weren't really strangely and badly produced, such that it benefits from being revisited and rearranged. Some of it really sticks with you. Some of it is really hard to play on the piano. He really wanted to be a rock star, but some of his best stuff is pretty, hymn-like or lullaby-like. He is not a symbol of either everything good or everything bad in the world. But yes, in those records, there is plenty to justify a position as a celebrated writer of 20th century popular song.

The special is, as these tribute concerts often are, a bit all over the place. It seems a little on the nose to send out Boys II Men to sing "The Longest Time" (a song I've always considered pretty disposable, if charming in the attempt). I wanted LeAnn Rimes to take it easier with "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)," which is pretty and simple and does not need to be sung quite so hard. And if I agree with detractors on anything, it's that I don't need "It's Still Rock And Roll To Me," particularly, sung by Gavin DeGraw. And Josh Groban singing "She's Always A Woman," while I think it's pretty, is not going to win over the people who have written the whole thing off as A Thing For Uncool People.

On the other hand, Natalie Maines has a lovely take on "She's Got A Way" that does bring out the musicality of it nicely (though the third-personing of the song so that the "me" is a "him" seems strange and unnecessary). And "New York State Of Mind" does indeed, when sung by Tony Bennett, sound utterly timeless and classic.

I don't know what to say about the all-hands-on-deck performance of "Piano Man." You have to see it. I will say this: it's not my favorite song of his. I know. But this performance, particularly the way it starts, is ... something.

So yes, it's a little up and down. But I think if you watch the clip of Joel singing "Only The Good Die Young" in Russia, when he was young enough to stand on the piano and jump off it like a goof, and where people stretched their arms toward him, and when he sweated and high-fived them, and you can't understand the appeal of it at all, that's not necessarily an objective, level-headed appreciation of the line between shlock and culture so much as it is an expression of the natural variance in the things people like, which I understand makes for a much less interesting piece than "WHY THIS MUSIC IS TERRIBLE EVEN THOUGH MANY PEOPLE LOVE IT."

The special, the performances, didn't do all that much for me. But the performance clips — the early ones and then the footage of him performing in the concert special itself, where he's in better voice than I've sometimes heard him in recent years — sent me directly back to the music, which is still good. (A clip with Paul McCartney is a good reminder that even the most revered songwriters have their ups and downs.) It's worth listening to the ones that aren't from his radio-pop history: he plays "Vienna," which he's long been known to like very much — as do I — despite the fact that it never was a hit. Same with "Miami 2017," which I consider a high point in cheeky apocalypse pop. (And nobody sang "And So It Goes," which is tragic. That's so pretty.)

Yes, this will show you a lot of awkward-looking people in fancy clothes singing and clapping. That's what I would have been doing had I been there. Even those of us without our own kids ultimately become the people who listen to what becomes defined against our will as Music For Parents. It's all very, very unfashionable if that's the eye with which you look at music. I get it. I accept it.

I don't care. I wish I remembered how to play the beginning of "Vienna" the way I once could. Perhaps that's the best thing you can take away from giving this particular guy a listen: that finger-twitching feeling.

I should get a piano.

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