Mahinda Rajapaksa, who presided over the end of the island nation's long and brutal civil war, lost to a former ally and Cabinet minister, Maithripala Sirisena.
Sylvie Kauffmann, editorial director of the French newspaper Le Monde, speaks to Renee Montagne about the impact of the events unfolding in Paris and its nearby suburbs on the French people.
Renee Montagne speaks with Andrew Higgins of The New York Times. Higgins was on the scene at a kosher grocery store, where an hostage situation unfolded for hours.
Vivienne Walt, a Time magazine reporter based in Paris, offers the latest on the events involving the suspects in Wednesday's shooting at the offices of satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.
For the latest on Friday's tense situation in Paris, NPR's counterterrorism correspondent Dina Temple-Raston offers information she has learned from U.S. officials who are following the standoffs.
The attack on the satiric magazine has confronted news organizations with a dilemma: whether to republish or broadcast images of the offending cartoons that appear to have inspired the shootings.
Madjid Messaoudene is a city council member from Saint Denis, a primarily Muslim suburb of Paris. He talks with Renee Montagne about his relationship with two Charlie Hebdo staffers.
Renee Montagne speaks with Sylvie Rottman, senior producer at France 24, for the latest on the mood of the French people, who have been rocked by the shooting at the Charlie Hebdo offices.
Steve Inskeep speaks with Robert McFadden, a senior vice president of the Soufan Group and a 30-year veteran of U.S. law enforcement, for details on the security situation in and around Paris.
Steve Inskeep talks with Chris O'Brien of the Los Angeles Times to focus on just one of the standoffs now unfolding in France — the one at the building of a printing company northeast of Paris.