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Who says moviemakers are out of ideas? Hollywood studios may not always score, but for at least the third year in a row, foreign directors, indie auteurs and documentarians have served up enough eye-opening films that NPR's critic had trouble narrowing his best-of list to anything near a Top 10.

More than 1,500 people have died in narcotics-related killings in Mexico this year. Dozens of people have been beheaded and tortured as cartels across Mexico fight for the lucrative drug trafficking routes into the United States.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Imagine having a revolutionary idea, and then sitting on it for more than 20 years. That's what Charles Darwin did. His theory that nature — not God — was responsible for the marvelous variety of life on Earth was heretical. But then a young butterfly collector forced Darwin's hand.

San Diego County's winter rains are getting the blame for a massive swarm of insects. Thousands of moths, butterflies and long-legged crane flies have been spreading across the county this past week.

President Bush's eight-day trip to the Mideast continued Tuesday with another round of talks with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah at the monarch's desert horse ranch. The president also dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Baghdad to urge Iraqi leaders to speed reconciliation efforts.

Buck O'Neil, a famed baseball player and manager for the legendary Negro League team the Kansas City Monarchs, died Friday at 94. He was the first African American coach in Major League Baseball, working for the Chicago Cubs in the 1960s. O'Neil recently was nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame, falling one vote short of induction.

After two months, the U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria has not yet dealt a major blow to the Islamic State. And the Pentagon still hasn't come up with a moniker for the operation.

Charles Darwin is known as the father of evolution. But another British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, played a major role in developing the theory of natural selection before fading into obscurity. A trip to what's now Sulawesi in Indonesia, and the unique animals he found there, helped form his seminal ideas.

President Obama has been reluctant to call it a war, yet the administration and the Pentagon boast of a 40-nation coalition and warns of a military operation that could last for years.