Congress holds the first hearing today into the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups for unwarranted scrutiny. Over a series of hearings, the House Ways and Means Committee will question current and former officials about the screening of applications for tax-exempt status.

A series of deadly storms tore through an area of North Texas late Wednesday night. Today will be a day of tragedy and cleanup for hundreds of families facing the loss of loved ones, injuries, or even homelessness.

In an op-ed piece for our partner The New York Times, actress and director Angelina Jolie announced that she recently underwent a double mastectomy after learning that she is a carrier of the BRCA1 breast cancer gene and was at high risk for developing the disease. Is her choice one that is available to all women? 

We now know the I.R.S.'s special scrutiny of small-government groups applying for tax-exempt status went far beyond keyword hunts for organizations with “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names. It also included searches for applicants seeking to “make America a better place to live” or “criticize how the country is being run,” according to a draft audit by the inspector general.

17 days after the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh, a resourceful worker was found trapped but alive. She was pulled from the rubble in Dhaka earlier today to the cheers of workers who had for days been only moving wreckage and disposing of bodies of victims.

The twin airstrikes in Damascus on Friday and Sunday attributed to Israel appear to be more about Jerusalem’s broad, mostly covert battle with Iran and Hezbollah than about the bloody civil war raging in Syria. Homman Majd is the author of "The Ayatollah Begs to Differ."

The crisis in Syria escalated yet again this weekend as Israel carried out a powerful aerial assault on military targets near Damascus, opening up the possibility that the currently contained war in Syria could become an international conflict.

This week, the beloved Dutch Queen Beatrix abdicated her throne to make room for her son, Willem-Alexander. In a ceremony outside the royal palace attended by tens of thousands of people, the Queen ended her 33-year reign. What makes the Dutch monarchy so special? We take a closer look at a monarchy that remains relevant in the modern day.

Stephen Sackur has spent most of his professional career reporting on the biggest news events, based both in the United States working as a Washington correspondent for the BBC and abroad, reporting for many years in the Middle East. He joins us to reflect both on the bombings in Boston and the funeral scheduled today for the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

According to her spokesman, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke this morning at 87. She served at the head of the Conservative party from 1979 to 1990. She was the first female prime minster. 

Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy, and now he's courting it overseas. The real estate mogul has been engaged in a years-long battle with the residents of the Scottish city of Aberdeen, but now the project has hit another snag.

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky launched a filibuster to attempt to block the nomination of John Brennan to head up the CIA -- talking for 13 hours straight.  He took to the Senate floor to call attention to a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder which stated that drone strikes on American could be a possibility in the future. Todd Zwillich, Takeaway Washington Correspondent puts Paul's filibuster in context.

Reacting to the prospect of more UN sanctions, North Korea is, for the first time, threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea -- an attack that would turn Washington and Seoul into "a sea in flames." Charles Armstrong, director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University explains what's behind these threats and how the international community should respond.

Now here's something the United States, Russia, and Iran can all agree on: Wrestling should stay in the Olympics. Mike Novogratz is leading the campaign to save the sport's place in the Olympics.

BBC Correspondent Hugh Sykes recently completed another exhaustive trip across North Africa and the Middle East to try and assess, and better understand, what has changed in the region since the Arab Spring uprisings began, two years ago.

Our discussion about BBC broadcaster Alistair Cooke and his iconic radio program, "Letter from America," continues with journalist Alvin Hall. The BBC, in conjunction with Boston University, recently unveiled an archive of Cooke's program, which broadcast every week from 1946 to 2004.

For 58 years, BBC radio host Alistair Cooke hosted "Letter from America" on the BBC, and the show became a singular and unique source of information for Britons on their neighbors across the pond. The BBC and Boston University recently compiled an archive of Cooke's shows and scripts, and broadcaster Alvin Hall explored "Letter from America" in a series of programs, looking at American culture (through British eyes) in the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire agreement that took effect at 9 p.m. local time (2p.m. Eastern). Both Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr formally announced the deal after negotiations took place in Cairo. The conflict has been escalating for the last week, with news of overnight air strikes on Gaza and a bus bombing in Tel Aviv earlier today preceding the announcement. Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Egypt, explains the significance of the cease-fire.

The current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has been the target of Republicans because of her comments following the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi which left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Jendayi Frazer is a longtime friend of Susan Rice, defends the person behind the scrutiny.

As Daniel Craig storms the screen as James Bond in "Skyfall" this weekend, MI6, the British Secret Service, is once again on America's mind. Gordon Corera reveals the secret history of MI6 from World War II to the present in his new book, "The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6."