Liam Neeson is just as protective of his Taken (and Taken 2 and Taken 3) daughter Maggie Grace in real life as he is in the movies. Grace told Conan O'Brien that once, when she was feeling down over a breakup, she had occasion to employ Neeson's particular set of skills, which apparently include prank calling.

"This is how it's supposed to be. We feel safe. And for once, we're not running late—usually we always be running late because of having been hassled." An illuminating interview with some residents of the Marcy projects in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, about their firsthand experience with the NYPD slowdown.

Louisiana rap star Kevin Gates recently discovered that the woman he's been sleeping with for 3 months, who some people said looked like she could be his sister, is actually his cousin. Rough news for a couple to get. I guess they'll have to break up and stop having se—wait, what's this?

The BBC published a report on a 20-year-old in Stockport, England who suffers from an extremely rare disease that causes her to sleep 22 hours a day and crave unhealthy foods. Beth Goodier, a normal-looking youth by any definition, has Kleine-Levin Syndrome, or "sleeping beauty disease," as it's more commonly known.

The state of Ohio says it is getting rid of its two-drug lethal injection formula, which led to a botched execution last year. Now they'll use one drug that just kills you.

In a separate hostage situation unfolding in France today, police have surrounded a kosher market in eastern Paris where a gunman believed to be responsible for Thursday's killing of a police officer and injuring a street sweeper has reportedly taken several hostages, including children.

A French official has confirmed to the Associated Press that Cherif and Said Kouachi have holed up inside a printing house in Dammartin-en-Goële, northeast of Paris, and have reportedly taken at least one person hostage. Police and the gunmen, accused of killing 12 people in Wednesday's Charlie Hebdo office massacre, traded fire Friday as helicopters descended on the scene.

Just days after extolling the steamy pleasures of traditional gender-role relationships, actress Kaley Cuoco forgot to mention her husband while accepting an acting award for her popular science television program.

Bill Cosby finally acknowledged the allegations piling up against him during his second night of stand-up in Canada by warning a female audience member to be careful drinking around him, according to reports.

President Obama announced Thursday night a multibillion dollar plan to make the first two years of community college free for all students "willing to work for it."

A group of flight attendants say United fired them for refusing to fly on a Hong Kong-bound 747 that had the words "BYE BYE" and a frowning face mysteriously written in oil on the fuselage.

Near the end of 2013, country music critic Grady Smith came to the depressing realization that the most popular songs in the genre that year were all basically the same song.

Even Ross Douthat came out swinging yesterday in favor of the slain cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo ("The Blasphemy We Need"). Since it is difficult to find even one square inch of common ground between right and left in American politics, this ought to have come as good news. Unfortunately, Douthat's Take is yet another of the many, many exercises in facile hypocrisy we've seen since yesterday.

New York City courts have been quiet in the two and a half weeks since the NYPD essentially stopped arresting people. The New York Times reports that arraignments have dropped 60 and 91 percent for misdemeanor offenses and low-level violations like disorderly conduct over the past two and a half weeks compared with the same period last year. Overall, arraignments in December were down 34 percent compared to last year.

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The New York Times, is defending his decision not to reprint any Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting Mohammad with an argument that might confuse Times readers. Today he told Politico: “We don’t run things that are designed to gratuitously offend.”

In the weeks since Officer Daniel Pantaleo escaped indictment for killing Eric Garner, the NYPD and organizations that support it have targeted Bill de Blasio with airborne banners, mass back-turnings, and memes about his wife's choice of legwear. It's a horrible display of police fearmongering and entitlement—but it all pales in comparison to "Welcome to Fear City," a pamphlet law enforcement unions published four decades ago to attack the mayor they hated.

17-year-old Swedish pop star Zara Larsson, formerly best known as a Sweden's Got Talent winner, is now primarily known as the woman who wore a condom like a stocking to call out men who claim they're "too big" to wear one.

Terrorism persists because terrorism works. Terrorism works because we let it.

Karl Rove's predictions for 2015 include a Supreme Court vacancy, a Seahawks Super Bowl win, and Republican Congressional leaders "producing a governing conservative vision for 2016." Our prediction for 2015: Karl Rove will look like an egg.