The World: Latest Stories

Writer Bruce Handy reminds us why we still love the books we read as kids.

How and why Danny Strong made a movie about how and why J.D. Salinger made “The Catcher in the Rye.”

The life and death of Vincent van Gogh, as told through his paintings.

The Pulitzer Prize winning author remembers a formative experience with a punk band that didn’t look — or sound — very punk-y.

About 154,000 people are eligible to renew. As of Thursday morning, many still had not applied — cost, the difficulty in getting legal help and fear of how the government will treat them are likely reasons.

Amir Darabi was a child prodigy. He started playing the piano when he was 3 years old. Later, he felt there wasn't enough competition in Iran. But for an Iranian, getting to the US is a Herculean task.

A federally funded medical training program offers new doctors perks to practice in poor and rural areas. But Congress may pull the plug on the funding.

Two women accused of poisoning the half-brother of North Korea's leader plead not guilty as their trial began this week. The women say they thought they were participating in a prank for a TV show.

After a natural disaster, people scramble to rebuild their houses, get food and water. But for sex traffickers, it can also be a scramble to cash in.

The French magazine Charlie Hebdo describes itself as a punch in the face. So get ready America, because Charlie Hebdo is coming to town, online and in English.

Commentary: Author Malka Older lays out her case for allowing for secession.

It's a question that's puzzled historians and investigators for nearly 75 years and we may have an answer soon.

Author and activist Masha Gessen follows the experiences of half-dozen Russians whose lives have been changed by Putin's retro-totalitarian state.

The US says Cuba failed to protect Americans on Cuban soil, while Cuba says Americans are just looking for an excuse to punish the country.

The Trump administration has cut the US diplomatic presence in Havana in half and warned Americans not to visit Cuba, on the suspicion that a secret sonic weapon is making people sick. But scientists say that’s not possible.

Alaska is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country. And Anchorage is feeling the impacts of climate change.

Experts say if no evidence emerges, ISIS will have “blown a mile-wide hole in their credibility.”

The US tops the list of importers and exporters of weapons designed for individual use, according to research by the Small Arms Survey.

Weiss and colleagues dreamed up the idea behind a massive antenna so sensitive it detects faint, invisible ripples in space from 1.3 billion years ago - offering evidence of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

President Donald Trump shook hands with storm survivors on Puerto Rico Tuesday, during a trip designed to quiet critics who branded his initial response slow and ham-fisted.

After a scaled-down annual summit, tensions between the Trump administration and leaders of historically black colleges and universities continue to mount. And some worry it’s their ethnic diversity that could take the biggest hit, a diversity some don’t even know exists.

“I think people like myself in local office,” says Massachusetts state Rep. Jeffrey Sanchez, “they’re hearing pressure from the local constituencies to ... organize the community.”

The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world and high rates of gun violence — far outstripping other developed countries with high gun ownership rates, like Switzerland.

When you're in high school and you're undocumented, it adds a whole new level to the typical teenage stress.

Journalist Gerry Hadden offers a firsthand look, from a Barcelona polling center, at Spanish police's violent operations to disrupt the outlawed referendum on Catalan independence.

In the 1920s, the US demanded that Italy help them vet immigrants. They created barriers for immigrants considered to be a threat — physically, culturally or politically.

Rapid response networks, being replicated in cities across the US, are one neighborhood reaction to President Donald Trump's push to step up deportations.

You may not envy what dung beetles and carrion beetles dine on, but you live in a world that they help keep clean.

We know that one of the first migrant groups, known as the Clovis people, lived here around 13,000 years ago. Beyond that, however, many details about these early Americans are still hazy.

Northern right whales were hunted to near extinction, but they seem to be hanging on after being protected by the Endangered Species Act. After 13 sudden deaths, scientists wonder whether they face a new man-made threat: climate disruption.

At the Aging Aircraft Lab, planes are taken apart piece by piece to learn more about the ravages of time on various aircraft designs — from cracking, to corrosion, to metal fatigue.

"Maybe a little bit less of tweeting about the NFL and more of a humane attitude towards what is being lived here on the island right now."

The Spanish government is taking extreme measures to make sure the vote doesn't happen — but Catalans are pushing back with some tactics of their own.

There have been questions about the speed with which the Trump administration has moved to deploy the US military after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. "It feels a little bit slow," says one former US Navy admiral.

Ukraine-born Eugene Hutz is the lead singer of the band Gogol Bordello. Although the band is based in New York and Hutz himself has lived there for years, identity and Ukraine help define the band.

Farmers reckon with the environmental costs of an annual Thanksgiving tradition.

On Sept. 7, a massive earthquake off of Mexico's southern coast damaged buildings. And then a powerful aftershock a few weeks later finished some of them off. People in the region just want the earth to stop shaking.

Communal detention in Sittwe, Myanmar, might not fit the classic model of detention camps, but author Andrea Pitzer says the Rohingya-only enclaves are just as inhumane.

Doctors and nurses use gallows humor to get through the day. But when is laughter in medicine OK, and when does it cross the line?

Kurt Andersen and Mary Harris, the host of Only Human, check out something called laughter yoga.

The neuroscientist Sophie Scott says modern science is missing a big part of human experience by ignoring laughter.

How does laughter yoga make you feel? And can laughing improve your health?

Comedian Chris Gethard says comedy helped him when he was suffering from depression—but it wasn’t until he got help that his career took off.

When northern Peru's agricultural region was hit by back-to-back extreme weather events, fruit production normally bound for the US was decimated.

Fifteen months into Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the country still knew little about the Vietnam War. This changed in February 1966, when Sen. William Fulbright began the first televised, public hearings into the administration's handling of the conflict.

Chicago is home to more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims who have settled there in the last five years. And from over 8,000 miles away from Myanmar, they want their voices to be heard.

The United States will reduce the number of refugees it is prepared to welcome for resettlement to only 45,000 over the next year — just over half the figure for 2016, officials said Wednesday.

Tuesday was a historic day for women in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom's leader issued a decree that will allow women to drive. It's the culmination of a battle they had fought so hard for, for years.

Recovery efforts by FEMA and other US federal government agencies are only getting started. And they're going to take a very long time to complete.

The US tax code is notoriously dysfunctional. Meanwhile, countries from New Zealand to Estonia have devised equitable, effective tax structures.