The World: Latest Stories

ISIS militants are being squeezed out of their final strongholds in eastern Syria.

There’s been a measurable increase in hate crimes and hate speech in Poland since the far-right Law and Justice party came to power in 2015.

Jack Viertel gives a master class in American musical theater.

Soprano Lily Arbisser shares her secrets for the perfectly-timed subtitle.

Frank Langella knows all about aging gracefully.

For years, Mexican artist Martín Ramírez was only known as a psychiatric patient who made drawings. That narrative is changing.

According to a Muslim custom that is rooted in tradition but not Islamic law, men have to say just three words to their wives if they want to dissolve their marriages.

A new documentary traces the long influence of Native American artists on the American music landscape.

Freelance journalist and Phoenix native Marcos Najera described a "chaotic stampede" after police released tear gas and pepper spray on the crowd of protesters.

The Navy removed a fleet's commander after another deadly collision. It's also putting all international operations on hold to remind its sailors of the fundamentals of seamanship.

In the run-up to the US presidential election, Cristina López came across language online that she didn’t understand — terms like “meme magic,” “red-pilled” and “nimble navigator.” They kept popping up in Reddit and 4chan where Donald Trump supporters posted. López and her colleagues at nonprofit Media Matters for America have spent many hours lurking on these message boards, deciphering what she calls the pro-Trump troll dialect. This week on the podcast, López explains some of the dialect.

The Galapagos Islands are known for the astonishing wildlife that inspired Charles Darwin. But the unique ecosystem of the isolated Pacific islands is in trouble, and now it’s getting an assist from an unexpected source: a local coffee plantation.

Danish inventor Peter Madsen has been accused of the negligent manslaughter of the 30-year-old reporter, who went to interview him aboard his 60-foot submarine on August 10.

The president is talking to the National Convention of the American Legion, and he also plans to sign the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act.

Trump departed Washington for the border town of Yuma, Arizona, where aides say he will tour a stretch of border fence before heading to Phoenix for a raucous campaign-style rally.

Pakistanis are not happy with President Donald Trump's Monday night speech on Afghanistan. Trump singled out Pakistan for sheltering terror groups and destabilizing the region. Trump threatened to cut US aid and to make an alliance with Pakistan's mortal enemy, India.

Amsterdam has a beer habit. It also has a big flooding problem. Now a local entrepreneur is trying to put the city's thirst for beer to use in reducing its flood risk.

Until now, Chile has had one of the world's most draconian policies toward abortion. That changed Monday.

On Aug. 8, all across Kenya, people spent hours in long, chaotic lines waiting to cast their votes in the election. At the polling station inside Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, the scene was a bit different.

Eclipse watchers flocking to the path of totality let out whoops and cheers as the moon covered the sun in the first coast-to-coast total eclipse in nearly 100 years.

President Trump is set to announce a long-awaited shift in strategy for the Afghanistan conflict in a rare prime-time address to the American people Monday evening.

Pidgin unites West Africans of different ethnicities and nationalities. Now speakers can get their news in that language as well.

Guy Consolmagno watched his first solar eclipse on Monday. It’s a pretty big deal for this Jesuit priest who’s also the director of the Vatican Observatory.

Spanish police on Monday shot dead Younes Abouyaaqoub, the suspected driver of a van that mowed down pedestrians in Barcelona, after a massive manhunt for the Moroccan national who was wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt when he was killed.

Seattle had bike sharing, but the system didn’t work out. But the new system — dockless bike sharing — is already off to a hot start.

Most of our knowledge of the human brain comes from the group average of thousands of MRI scans. Dr. Nico Dosenbach felt he could gain more knowledge by collecting detailed individual scans. But with few resources at his disposal, he and his colleagues had to be creative.

A new book argues that the promise of saving what’s left of nature can sometimes be imperiled by the narrow cultural lens employed by people from the developed part of the world.

Haptics are already at your fingertips — they’re the cutting edge of virtual reality and robotics technology.

After the terror attack in Spain on Thursday, President Donald Trump tweeted his condemnation and urged those fighting terrorism to study US Gen. John Pershing.

Barcelona reacts to the attacks on Las Ramblas that killed 14 and injured over 100.

Until this week, Spain remained one of the few European countries where ISIS had not carried out an attack. But the country is a key location in the history of Islam.

Trump parted ways with controversial chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Recently, Bannon contradicted the president's plans on North Korea and called white supremacists "losers" and "clowns."

The protests in Charlottesville drew a large crowd of counter-protesters — people opposed to the racism, white nationalism and other forms of hate espoused by many of the protesters who came for the "Unite the Right" protest.

Kenyan hip-hop artist Octopizzo says he witnessed police officers firing live bullets on protesters and bystanders in Kibera. Kenyan authorities deny that police used disproportionate force, but Octopizzo says he saw it for himself.

What should be done with a monument dedicated to a controversial figure? It's a question Paraguayans had to answer not long ago.

America's standing in the world is dwindling fast under the Trump administration. That's the impression of the BBC's Katty Kay after four weeks in Europe.

After a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Americans are debating whether Confederate monuments should appear in public places. In South Africa, statues celebrating British imperialists and architects of apartheid have also faced calls for removal. A University of Cape Town student explains why that's so important.

Deepak Singh lived in Charlottesville when he first came to the US. Though he had an MBA and years of experience as a journalist, he found himself working retail, where he learned a lot about America.

Do monuments and memorials need to change as society changes? If so, is that changing history or is it changing memory?

The Austrian government wanted to knock down the house where Hitler was born. But the town said no, you can't stop people from remembering history. But you can try to make sure that when they do, they know what really happened.

Writers Richard Russo and Jenny Boylan talk about the plot twists in Russo’s novel “Everybody’s Fool,” as well as the twists in their friendship.

Sadie Stein cannot understand why you would want a cake that is anything but “moist.”

Helen Oyeyemi was born in Nigeria; the tale comes from medieval Germany.

Kurt Andersen’s talks with the award-winning author about her groundbreaking work of poetry.

In 1919, a total solar eclipse confirmed a prediction in Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

According to civics expert Eric Liu, now is the time to take action. And no, it doesn’t involve showing up to the next white supremacist rally.