The World: Latest Stories

Rates of childhood asthma, learning problems and cancer have been on the rise for decades, and toxic chemicals appear to be major culprits. In the US, most chemicals are never tested for safety before they're brought to market. There are some steps parents and others can take to protect children and other loved ones.

An Egyptian court has sentenced one of its country's top singers to six months in prison for a comment she made about the Nile River. Pop singer Sherine made a crack about getting ill from drinking from the river when she was asked by a fan to sing, "Have You Ever Drunk From the Nile."

One woman in Schio, Italy works to maintain the town's acceptance of foreigners.

Since 2014, some Central American youth were given temporary permission to join their parents in the US. The government acknowledged the danger they were in. But now, the Trump administration has canceled the programs that brought them. Meet one family, who waited 15 years to reunite, but whose time is almost up.

Canada has tariffs and quotas on imported cheese, which results in higher prices and limited availability. So some Canadians resort to cheese smuggling.

While it's been unusually cold and snowy in much of Europe, the Arctic has been seeing record warm temperatures and a huge loss of ice. Here's how the two are linked, and what they might have to do with climate change.

A small, family-owned bank in New York City's Chinatown faced nearly 200 counts of mortgage fraud — the only company ever criminally charged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” chronicles the legal battle fought by the Sung sisters.

There have been a record 18 deaths and zero births of the species over the past year.

A battle is on over the constitutionality of indefinite immigrant detention.

How Doug Jones turned a fish monster into a romantic lead.

The messy art of political speechifying at the Oscars.

Why are Oscar contenders so mediocre?

The cost of smuggling has gone up in the last year — sharply. But, for the safety of their children, parents get references, take out loans and make the best smuggling decision they can.

The $110 million drone base is slated to open later this year. Residents of the city of Algadez have a lot of conspiracy theories about exactly why US troops are nearby.

Jonathan Erland and the visual effects crew that worked on the original "Star Wars" had to build everything from scratch. And afterward, they threw a lot of it in a dumpster, including the models for the original Death Star.

Audiences often go to movies to see a great actor give a great performance. But often a film gets its life and energy from a stellar company of actors working together as an ensemble.

Nour lives in Eastern Ghouta, a rebel stronghold. Naamat is in government-controlled Damascus. They both wonder if they can forgive an enemy who took the lives of friends and family.

In France, most people retire at around 62 years old. But it wasn’t until he turned 100 that Robert Marchand set his first world record in competitive cycling.

Has the White House been meddling in Moscow? Here's a view from on the ground in Russia.

Vitali Shkliarov was mesmerized by Barack Obama's Berlin speech in 2008, though he didn't speak English at the time. Shkliarov went on to work for Obama and then Bernie Sanders. Now he's an adviser in the Russian elections.

Residents in Pueblo, Colorado are engaged in a fight with their utility company, tired of paying among the highest electricity rates in the state. The city is looking into becoming its own utility — one powered by 100 percent renewable energy — a noble goal to lower rates and combat climate change.

Solar energy is a renewable resource, but the sun doesn’t always shine. Using molten salt to capture and store heat captured from the sun promises to save solar energy for use well into the night.

The credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Services has issued a company memo that outlines its plans to quantify the increasing risks posed by climate change.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, known as RGGI, may be growing. New Jersey’s new Democratic Governor has vowed to bring his state back into the compact and Virginia is the first coal-producing state to take steps to join.

The mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, is still grabbing headlines more than a week after the tragedy, and many of those headlines are overseas. We spoke with two foreign correspondents based in the US about what it's like to cover mass shootings and gun rights for audiences overseas.

When Ugandan rapper Keko moved to Canada, she became a hockey fan. But she was less excited about learning how to skate.

President Nicolás Maduro hopes it will help fix the country’s dire financial situation by sidestepping US sanctions and providing an alternative to cash, which is nearly worthless in Venezuela due to the soaring inflation rate.

The sport’s growth in Mexico corresponds with a broader push to develop the game internationally and expand its popularity beyond traditional strongholds like England and former British colonies.

Temperatures in Alaska on Tuesday were as high as 45 degrees above average.

When teenage migrants reach France and apply for asylum as unaccompanied minors, they often find that proving they're under 18 is yet another challenge on their journey. Some end up living on the streets while trying to confirm their age.

Alaska is warming up roughly twice as fast as the rest of the US and that means big new challenges for Native communities that rely on hunting for survival. Hunters are trying to adapt by changing both how and what they hunt.

South Korea has one of the world’s highest human-to-convenience-store ratios, but increasingly, those stores are operating without staff, instead relying on machines to allow customers to purchase goods.

For many years, Kim Phuc was known as the Napalm Girl. She was in an iconic photograph that pictured her running naked down a road, screaming after a napalm attack on her village. That photo won a Pulitzer Prize and changed the way the world looked at the Vietnam War. For many years, Kim was angry and in pain. But, she found a way to forgive and find peace.

The Rev. Billy Graham was known as "America's pastor." But his legacy as a Christian leader is very global.

In the mid-20th century, National Brotherhood Week was a huge public relations campaign in the US aimed at promoting tolerance and brotherhood as American virtues. Most people don't remember it anymore.

A deep dive into the 'K' in K-pop and traditional Korean music.

The team practices all over Asia and the Middle East. "Our goal is to find safe places outside of Afghanistan," she says, "so everyone who comes to camp can feel safe and can train and feel good about the environment, and focus on football."

"China's ultimate goal is to use democracy to undermine democracy," says one expert on Chinese dissent.

Humans are the only creatures on Earth that can choke on their own food. Yes, that’s right. Why would humans have evolved such potentially fatal architecture? Some experts say the reason is speech. This week on the podcast, we explore several theories about where language comes from.

These days, the online debates about gun control come with a steroid boost from Twitter bots seeking to divide Americans even further. Host Marco Werman speaks with Erin Griffith, a senior writer at Wired, who wrote about the surge in bot traffic.

New research suggests Caesar's forces may have landed further north — and locals don't want to believe it.

The tragic shooting death of 17 people at a Florida high school is renewing calls for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research the causes of gun violence. The CDC used to study what triggers mass shootings and how to end gun violence until Congress threatened to cut off funding if research continued. Is it time to revisit?

"I’m not here to say that my experience ... is the definitive Filipino American experience," said Ruby Ibarra, who is out with her first album. "It’s just one lens, one glimpse of the story.”

Marvel Comics reimagines the sub-Saharan.

Doctors call it “a concussion without concussion.” But what’s causing it? The medical mystery continues.

Most of the chain's 900-some UK stores are closed after a new supplier couldn't deliver chicken to stores

The United States and Australia struck a deal back in 2016. The US agreed to accept about 1,200 refugees from Australia's offshore detention centers. In return, Australia would resettle refugees from Central America.

The US military conducted nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands in the 1940s and '50s, leaving a legacy of radioactive waste that could be washed into rising seas.