The World: Latest Stories

Cuba stands out as a success story as it battles COVID-19. At the same time, it has seen renewed public attention around police brutality. Despite top-down efforts to silence dissent, activists say they are making some headway.

The nature of the coronavirus has interrupted many rituals of mourning, from visiting the bedsides of the dying to holding funerals. That could lead to mental health impacts down the line, says psychiatry professor Dr. Harvey Chochinov.

South Africa had one of the strictest coronavirus lockdown measures. But as COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the nation returns to a strict lockdown. Host Marco Werman speaks to Dr. John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about his outlook for the pandemic in Africa.

A South Korean globe-trotter and wheelchair user advocates for more accessible tourism.

A Canadian judge ruled the bilateral agreement between the US and Canada violates asylum-seekers’ rights because of what happens after people are turned back to the US.

The show is meant to be lighthearted and fun, but for some, it’s controversial.

Professor Michele Gelfand uses “tight” and “loose” to categorize various societies around the globe based on the strength of social norms and applies this to what we can learn about the range of pandemic responses around the world.

When Victoria Band's son was diagnosed with hearing loss, she wished she could give him a doll with hearing aids to reflect his disability. Last year, she started her own line of dolls with scars, cleft lips, hearing aids and oxygen tanks.

President Donald Trump announced the expansion of a program to send federal agents to several US cities to crack down on violent crime. The World spoke to Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, about the arrival of some 200 agents in his city this month.

Christiana Figueres, the founder of Global Optimism, believes that a determined, optimistic mindset is crucial in the struggle for climate justice.

The Gülenists, dubbed by Turkey as FETO, the Fethullahist Terror Organization, are being purged on a massive scale. Those who have been accused include scientists, schoolteachers, policemen and journalists.

As the coronavirus lockdown forced people indoors, Percibald García, an architect, grabbed a microphone and portable speaker and began doing readings of children’s stories in an empty public square in Mexico City.

In recent weeks, many states have seen significant increases in COVID-19 cases. What will it take to change the trajectory?

Since April, the Yorkshire Museum has hosted 18 different #CuratorBattles under themes such as #CreepiestObject and #BestEgg. One of its latest is #BestMuseumBum.

The Brazilian president has used his illness as a platform to sell both his cynicism about the coronavirus and social restrictions, and his praise for chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff, along with other Democratic lawmakers, wrote a letter this week demanding a prompt FBI briefing on a "foreign interference campaign" targeting the 2020 election.

In a country of 5.5 million, Finland has had just over 320 deaths from the coronavirus. So far, they’ve succeeded in containing the disease. And they’re not making a big deal about it. By some measures, this might be quintessential sisu.

A ship called the Mary Celestia sank in 1864 off the coast of Bermuda. About 150 years later, divers visiting the shipwreck uncovered a perfectly preserved bottle of perfume. Perfumer Isabelle Ramsay-Brackstone worked to re-create the 150-year-old scent.

The coronavirus pandemic turned Jacob Cuenca’s life upside down just before he graduated high school. It's also changed his politics. The Latino teen, who registered as a Republican in March, has switched from a reluctant supporter of President Donald Trump to hesitant supporter of presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Officials say the arrests stem from so-called violations of coronavirus-related sanitation and safety measures. But critics say these arrests specifically target opposition voices. Dr. Norman Matara, with the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, spoke with The World's Carol Hills.

A report issued on July 14 by Mexico’s National Search Commission said 73,218 people have been confirmed missing since 1964, and almost all of them — 71,678 — since 2006 when organized crime and drug-trafficking violence in the country began to increase.

Sixty years ago, in July 1960, Goodall arrived in what is now Gombe National Park, Tanzania, to begin her groundbreaking research on chimpanzees, and ever since, Goodall has been advocating for conservation of the natural world. Goodall believes COVID-19 emerged "entirely because of our disrespect for animals and the natural world.”

A new stress-relieving campaign, rooted in primal therapy, asks people across the globe to record their screams and submit them online to be played in wide-open spaces in Iceland.

The US immigration system is situated within the Department of Justice, a law enforcement agency. That's always been a problem, explains Judge Ashley Tabaddor. But under the Trump administration, immigration judges have faced "unprecedented micromanagement" — and it's causing many of them to resign or retire early.

ISIS no longer holds territory but the crimes it committed are fresh in the minds of survivors and families of victims. Collecting, preserving and documenting the terror group’s crimes has been slow but ongoing. Now, progress is even harder given the pandemic.

Extreme heat often hovers over Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. But each time Shahzad Qureshi transforms a barren patch of land into a dense, urban forest, he helps his city adapt to extreme urban heat.

Last year, 13-year-old Christopher Kapessa, who was Black, drowned when a schoolmate allegedly pushed him into a river. Now, the global Black Lives Matter movement has given the family new hope the suspect will be prosecuted.

Israeli officials took quick action against the coronavirus this spring and reduced the rate of infections to one of the lowest in the world. The situation is quite different today. Experts say Israel went from being a model for other nations to a cautionary tale on what happens when a nation opens too much and too quickly.

Artist Ysabel Turner says she realized years ago that she needed to divorce her Puerto Rican identity from the Goya brand. She used her photographic series to do just that.

Many Chinese families have staked their futures on education in the US but more and more are wondering if it’s worth the risk.

Since becoming legal in 1985, right-wing politicians have periodically made feeble attempts to limit or ban access to abortions. Each time it happens though, the action is met with strong pushback from the public.

When author Brigit Strawbridge Howard realized she wanted to recapture her childhood connection to nature, she chose the humble bee as ambassador to the world she wanted to explore. She documents her experience in her new book "Dancing with Bees: A Journey Back to Nature."

Officials in Bogotá, Colombia are ordering residents in some boroughs to stay in their homes for two-week intervals in hopes that staggering a shutdown across swaths of the city will allow most economic activity to continue while slowing the rate of coronavirus infections.

Physicist Yangyang Cheng was born in mainland China and took advantage of a visa program a decade ago to come to the United States to study. She says she's troubled by the language politicians and governments are using to promote resettlement policies for Hong Kong residents.

With four months left until Election Day in November, US presidential candidates are ramping up their efforts to court Latino voters.

In a statement this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its "maritime empire." Bonnie S. Glaser, senior director for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, joins The World's Carol Hills to discuss the significance of this policy shift and what it means for China-US relations.

Closed borders during the coronavirus pandemic have taken long-distance relationships to a whole new level. Now, some countries are providing sweet relief for cross-border couples. Norway's new rules took effect July 15.

Siberia hit a record-high temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit on June 20 in the town of Verkhoyansk, north of the Arctic Circle. Scientists say it is an ominous sign of things to come. “I was shocked at the magnitude of it ..." says Susan Natali, Arctic program director at Woods Hole Research Center.

Researchers discovered that a special type of antibody found in llamas could be vital in fighting the coronavirus infection in humans. The World speaks to professor James Naismith, the director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute in the UK, and lead researcher in a new study on llama antibodies.

It’s a demand that Indigenous activists have been demanding for years. But it may be too early to call it a victory. “...Until we actually see what that replacement is, I think it’s probably too early to celebrate," said Tristan Ahtone, president of the Native American Journalists Association. "The team still could come back with native-themed imagery."

His latest work, titled “If you don't mask - you don't get,” is set in London's Underground and features spray-painted rats sneezing, wearing masks and using hand sanitizer.

If one thing is clear about this teeny tiny new coronavirus, it’s that it has changed the world. Its mark is massive. But SARS-CoV-2 is still clouded in mystery, and front and center in this puzzle is understanding immunity.

After spending almost his entire adult life in a cell, Chanthon Bun was released from prison July 1 and expected to be put in ICE custody for potential deportation. But ICE agents never showed up — and it may be due to a public campaign to keep immigrants out of ICE detention during the coronavirus pandemic.

In recent years, Mali has experienced a combination of security challenges, including growing violence from armed militias and terrorist groups that has displaced more than a million people in the Sahel region, and killed thousands, including Malian and foreign troops.

Tianna Spears says she faced racial discrimination as a US consular officer abroad. "America loses, first of all, when we're not an inclusive society and when we're not welcoming to others," she told The World. "But secondly, when we're overseas at our embassies and consulates abroad, we have a great opportunity to advance diplomacy and show what America truly represents."

Students in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq saw their education come to a stop when ISIS took over their city. In 2017, Iraqi and American forces liberated the city but reconstruction has been painfully slow and online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has proven difficult.

Parkour star Alireza Japalaghy's video landed him in hot water with Iranian authorities for violating public decency codes, forcing him to escape to Turkey. The possibility of extradition back to Iran has human rights activists concerned.

For more than a month, four mothers of the Sanöma tribe were looking for the bodies of their children in the Roraima state capital. Officials eventually said they'd been buried under suspicion of having COVID-19, according to protocol — but the mothers said they weren't notified.

In 1990, Bosnian Serb forces killed about 8,000 Muslim men and boys during the Balkan conflict in what’s now known as the Srebrenica massacre. It was the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II. But 25 years on, war crimes and crimes against humanity are rarely prosecuted. David Scheffer, who was the US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues from 1997 to 2001, explains why.

South Koreans are mourning the death of Park Won-soon, a prominent liberal politician and presidential hopeful. But the Seoul mayor’s apparent suicide coincides with reports that he was under investigation for sexual harassment.