PRI: Latest Stories

English is spoken with countless accents by both native and non-native speakers. But a hierarchy of accents persists. So whether you're from Thailand or Tennessee, accent reduction may be a goal.

Reports of vulgar, offensive outbursts by the president of the United States have real-world consequences. One is the impact on America's reputation overseas and its ability to lead and influence world events — its "soft power." That's the argument from Norwegian statesman Jan Egeland.

Countries around the globe struggled to come up with a good translation of Trump's vulgarity.

After the 2010 earthquake devasted Haiti, there was an outpouring of international support. Eight years later, most of those who rushed in to help are long gone. But many of those who remain are people with ties to Haiti, and ome of them started businesses that are getting some traction.

Two Rohingya men arrived in Boston. This is how they started their life in the US.

The UK will end its use of coal in power plants in less than a decade. It's hard to imagine the same thing happening in the US.

A letter signed by French actress Catherine Deneuve has sparked controversy surrounding the #MeToo movement. Here's how cartoonists responded.

Politicians in the nation's capital are debating immigration policy changes. Activists are lobbying for an urgent deal to protect those affected by the Trump administration dismantling the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

How did a fictional character from a bread commercial score a #1 hit song and spark the '70s CB radio craze?

Theater designer Joshua Dachs on the history of the stage: how it came to be and how it's still evolving.

June Thomas looks at how sexual harassment is depicted on television.

A new analysis by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center shows that oceans are suffocating as the number of dead zones is dramatically increasing.

Most companies and manufacturing facilities still don't measure water usage. But increasingly, many corporations are. It's paying off for the environment and companies' bottom-lines.

Actress Catherine Deneuve and 100-some other French women wrote an open letter to denounce the #MeToo campaign as becoming a witch hunt, saying the movement has created a backlash against men.

A pub in London, Ontario, is fighting a complaint of gender discrimination, after it gave a food discount to female customers. The pub’s promotion was highlighting the gender gap in pay.

In one instance, more than 200 pages meant to help state, local and tribal governments prepare for climate change have been removed.

After learning about sexually transmitted diseases for the first time in college, two young women decided to bring sexual health awareness to their native Iran.

Officials from the DPRK – North Korea’s official name — and South Korea are talking again. So, what exactly is North Korea after? If you listen to its own propaganda, the North's leader Kim Jong-un intends to win the Korean War.

Social media companies that fail to remove hate speech and fake news from their platforms could face up to €50 million in fines under a new German law. Some free speech advocates say they're worried social media companies will have free reign to censor users, while others say the law is a good first step to establishing regulatory guidelines for tech giants.

Charlie Hebdo spends $1.5 million a year on security measures. In their first issue this year, the satirical weekly opens up and asks “How long will Charlie Hebdo be able to sustain such a financial burden?”

Unless Congress can pass a spending bill by Jan. 19, the federal government will shut down.

Companies that refuse to pay men and women equally for equal work will be fined and publicly outed.

California is home to more than 10 million immigrants. And for those without citizenship, marijuana possession and use could be a deportable offense.

Michael Wolff's book, "Fire and Fury," about life inside Team Trump, is a top story and conversation point outside of the United States. The World gets the view from London.

RIYL, or recommended if you like, helps us understand tropes in genres like folk music. It's not perfect in this case, but the slight similarities in Beatriz and Stambul Naturil come out after a deep listen.

Haiti’s egg problem is a stark symptom — and a symbol — of the cycle of poverty in which the country has been stuck for decades, if not centuries.

In 2015, the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, exposed anew the problem of excess blood lead levels in children. Now a new investigation has identified over 3,800 neighborhoods around the US whose children have blood lead levels twice as high as the levels in Flint.

The Beaufort Gyre, a key Arctic Ocean current that traps huge amounts of ice and cold freshwater, is behaving strangely. When it eventually discharges its contents, the event could begin a period of sharply lower temperatures in northern Europe.

The Saudi prince who owns 1/3 of Twitter disappeared into the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton on Nov. 8 and has not been seen since. But the apparent incarceration of Prince Alwaleed bin Taleel — the 45th richest man on Earth and friend of billionaires Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates — is not getting a lot of media attention. CNBC's Jake Novak explains why few are now talking about Saudi Arabia's Twitter Prince.

Panmunjom has been called "the most tense place on the planet." Here is what it's like to visit.

The US is suspending security assistance to Pakistan for failing to cooperate with the US in the fight against terrorism.

Actor Pablo Azar helped win union representation for fellow performers at Telemundo, a major Florida-based telenovela production house. But the full rights and benefits actors demand have yet to be sealed.

In 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov seemed invincible. But after playing the IBM computer Deep Blue, everything changed.

The northeastern United States has been engulfed in snow and cold. Moscow? Not so much. And that's been a big drag for winter photographer Ivan Boiko.

We love music here at The World, and we love to share our latest favorites with you. Here are some of the artists we featured this week.

The word "bomb" has been used to describe rapidly intensifying winter storms for decades.

Hurricanes Irma and Maria brought a catastrophic power outage to Puerto Rico. But they also created an unprecedented opportunity for solar power and battery storage on the island.

Both Republicans and Democrats have expressed a desire to bring DACA recipients into the fold, but with a president who rode into office using anti-immigrant rhetoric, it’s unclear what kind of concessions might be made.

Guitarist and movie producer Stevie Salas shares the untold history of Native Americans in rock and roll.

Bestselling Young Adult author Angie Thomas on how the late TLC performer Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes spoke to her at a very troubling point in her life.

How “Penelope Ashe” pulled off the biggest literary caper of the century.

Venezuela is flush with oil. But in the past three years its economy has collapsed.

Neha Mahajan won the right to work in the US during the Obama administration, but as the spouse of an H-1B visa holder, her future is uncertain.

Food has become big business in New Jersey, a destination for imports, exports and testing out foreign foods before they enter the US market.

The World speaks with Politico's Susan Glasser who says, "You have no idea what's going on."

Protesters denounced Iran's regime in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, where 85% of Iran's onshore oil and 60% of its gas resources originate.

Nearly 8,000 refugees and migrants are currently stranded in Serbia. Iraqis and Syrians have the best chances of being granted asylum. People with money can pay a smuggler to take them across the border. It's only the most desperate that try to cross the border into Croatia — and the European Union — illegally.

Iranian authorities have temporarily blocked social media platforms Instagram and Telegram in order to "maintain peace," according to Iranian state TV.