The World: Latest Stories

The Philippines is the last country in the world that does not allow divorce.

Marshall Bang was born in the US, which was only the first barrier he faced if he was going to make a living as a K-pop singer.

Lava that has cooled into black, bubbly basalt might one day jump into action to help fight one of humanity’s biggest challenges: rising levels of carbon dioxide.

Glyphosate, a widely used herbicide, has been classified as a "probable carcinogen" by the World Health Organization, yet the US FDA routinely skips testing agricultural products to measure its levels. When one scientist took matters into his own hands, he found traces of it in virtually everything.

On June 1, 1868, the Navajo Nation treaty was signed and almost immediately, the Navajo at Fort Sumner began the long journey home.

Eyewitness perspectives, like those of survivor Halina Litman Yasharoff Peabody, have served as invaluable educational resources for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since the institution opened 25 years ago. But as the number of survivors dwindle, the museum must prepare for a future without them.

Students at Williams College in Massachusetts are joining other institutions to demand Asian American Studies programs. It is a push, some scholars say, that is about advancing other programs, too, including African American and Latino academic programs.

In 1942, there were 44 people living on Attu Island, nearly all Alaska Natives. They were taken as captives to Japan, where half of them died. And after the war, the federal government forbade them from returning.

This week on the podcast we talk about Basque. How did this language survive the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco when speaking and writing and reading were illegal? With more than six dialects, how did Basque develop a language standard? And how has this minority language thrived and even grown in the years since Francisco Franco’s dictatorship ended?

In Germany, some right-wing groups blame the recent arrival of Muslim asylum-seekers for an apparent rise in anti-Jewish incidents. But others say that's only part of the story. They point out that anti-Semitism in 21st century Germany has been around for a while.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters on a telephone briefing that a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports from the EU, Canada and Mexico would go into effect at midnight.

Arkady Babchenko didn't even tell his wife about the scheme.

Seventy-five years ago, Japan and the United States were locked in one of the bloodiest battles fought on American soil: the Battle of Attu.

Venezuela has been wracked by a severe economic crisis and food shortages for several years. It's become so bad that truck drivers who deliver food fear for their lives.

Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee and formerly head of a top North Korean military intelligence agency, will meet with Mike Pompeo later this week, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

Right up until the day of the referendum, pretty much everyone thought Ireland’s vote on abortion this past Friday was going to be close. It wasn’t. Two-thirds of voters said "yes" to repealing the country’s constitutional ban on abortion.

Video shows Mamoudou Gassama, 22, risking his life on Sunday as he climbed up the balconies to rescue the 4-year-old who is clinging to a railing.

The Bollywood Boys used to watch movies on bootleg VCDs with their parents. Now, they’re watching them on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video — and rediscovering what they once loved about them.

Sweden joins 10 other western European countries with a new affirmative consent law.

As the close ties between fossil fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch and the Trump administration come to light, Democratic senators are demanding answers about how much influence the Koch brothers have had in shaping key federal policies, including the decision to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement and the shrinking of national monuments.

Democrats in Congress are pushing for his resignation, but so far most GOP members have remained quiet.

In the past few months, Saudi Arabia has seen some of the most drastic social changes in its history. But the rejoicing has been short-lived. A number of recent arrests has raised alarms for many Saudis.

Film producer Harvey Weinstein surrendered on Friday to authorities at a New York City police station on sex crime charges, months after he was toppled from Hollywood's most powerful ranks by scores of women accusing him of misconduct.

Stephanie Labbé is one of Canada's best women soccer players. Two years ago, she was the goalkeeper for Canada's bronze-medal winning Olympic soccer team in Rio. After the games, Labbé wanted to keep playing professionally in Canada, but there are no professional women's teams.

The cancellation has eased the anxiety of foreign policy and nuclear nonproliferation experts who said that President Donald Trump had rushed headlong into a meeting unprepared. Ever since Trump accepted Kim’s invitation to meet in March, experts warned such a high-level dialogue would go south without a specific and careful diplomatic strategy.

Ever wondered about people who can improvise on stage? Neuroscientist Charles Limb and comedian Anthony Veneziale did. First came the bromance, then Veneziale found himself improvising inside an fMRI machine.

Ireland votes on abortion this week. Ciara O’Connor Walsh, who's a supporter of abortion rights, knows where she stands on the issue. But she wondered, what do folks on the other side have to say? She's produced a podcast series called, The Eighth.

Singer Angélique Kidjo on her new Talking Heads cover album.

Growing up, Wally Feresten never dreamed of being a cue card holder. Now, 28 years later, he can't imagine doing anything else.

Back in January, the Trump administration imposed tariffs of 30 percent on imported solar panels and modules. It was aimed at Chinese and Asian imports.

The story behind Jim Henson’s beloved creature creations.

Little Haiti, a once predominantly Haitian enclave, has seen a burst of new development and interest from real estate investors and developers because of its central location in Miami. New projects are underway in the neighborhood, rent prices are soaring and Haitian business owners say that they are being pushed out.

Several MEPs blamed the meeting's format for the lack of answers. After nearly an hour of questioning, Zuckerberg was left with about 25 minutes to selectively answer them. He gave away little and promised to provide more details in writing.

Kerala, India, hosts a highly literate workforce and many people choose to work abroad, so the state used to rely on imported food. When doctors and the public started to blame rising cancer rates on chemical pesticides from this imported food, it kickstarted an urgency to go organic.

Adeline Hocine saw the holy month — when everyone would abstain from food and water — as an opportunity to hide her illness.

In the Shatila camp in Beirut, there's a tiny museum crammed with hundreds of items that Palestinians brought with them when they fled what is now Israel.

After lots of initial fanfare, the lead-up to a planned Trump-Kim summit has hit some serious bumps in the road. But one former US adviser on North Korean affairs says President Trump should stick with his game plan.

Venezuela's mainstream opposition boycotted Sunday's vote, given two of its most popular leaders were barred, authorities had banned the coalition and various of its parties, and the election board is run by Maduro loyalists.

This year’s Goldman Environmental Prize for Europe and the Island Nations went to a Filipino who took on the neurotoxin lead in paint and a French safe fishing activist who launched a campaign to end deep-sea bottom trawling in the EU.

Migrating songbirds have finally found the springtime weather in North America that they need to survive and thrive. Only a couple of weeks ago, they had to fight unusual cold and deep snows in the Northern states.

Two winners of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize were a team of grassroots activists from South Africa. Their efforts quashed a secret deal between Russia and the South African government to build expensive and wasteful nuclear power plants.

A pregnant woman from Honduras and her young daughter broke away from a caravan and crossed the Rio Grande to get to the US. Had she done so just a few weeks later, she would have been arrested and separated from her child under a new DHS policy.

From dog painters to elephant orchestras, can creatures really be creative?

Crazy or brilliant? Jazz legend Charles Mingus came up with a method for toilet training his cat, so we tried it out on a kitty named Dizzy.

Trust the man. He’s photographed 15,000 dogs.

Here's what it took to get a cute, slobbery dog to play the tough guy in the Hungarian film "White God."

The celebrated Soviet dog launched into space in 1957 … and never came home.

Multimedia artist Laurie Anderson performs concerts for the most loyal fans of all — dogs.

“My parents told me that he killed his brother, so I was scared of him,” says 11-year-old Chung Ye-in. “I thought he was a bad person, but after seeing him, I think he looks friendly.”