The World: Latest Stories

For decades after an experimental brain surgery, Henry Molaison was known to the world only as Patient H.M. — the man who could not form new memories.

Scientists have used the Standard Model of particle physics since the 1970s. The model has explained and predicted many properties of our universe. But scientists know other particles exist that will fill in the gaps in our current understanding. Finding them is one of the great challenges of this century.

Not long after Toots Thielemans came up with his inspired jazz tune Bluesette in 1961, his style caught the ear of a young Dutch whistler named Geert Chatrou.

A hundred years after the US started its National Park Service, China starts building its own nationwide network of conserved places.

Rykiel will be remembered for upending the fashion world with her sophisticated laid-back chic, iconic bright stripes, fluid fabrics and easy-to-wear yet feminine style.

The last bedraggled and hungry rebel fighters in the Syrian town of Daraya are laying down their arms after being under siege for four years. The government promised them safe passage, but the UN is concerned for their safety. Civilians burned their possessions before being evacuated, and said goodbye to the dead in the cemetery. Few expect to return.

It's all about choice and serving the best Colombian food at this restaurant. But the decor? "It’s sort of like the House of Blues meets Disneyland meets Monty Python."

Senators have started the trial over Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment. She’s due to make her defense on Monday, before a final vote begins Tuesday.

“Sometimes I’d like to imprison the immigration officials, the judge, the president, so that they can endure 19 days in there with their children,” says one woman who was recently released from immigration detention.

Guatemala is reported to be the most evangelical country in the Americas. And, according to the Pew Research Center, it has the highest rate of believers that faith reaps success. Almolonga, a small mountain town, is held up as proof.

The discovery of a planet in the "goldilocks zone" of Proxima Cantauri, the star closest to our own sun, gives new hope to the quest to find life outside our solar system.

The evening of Aug. 13 started out as a reporting assignment for Aaron Mak, a Yale student and intern at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It turned into a lesson about policing, race and protest in today's America.

North Korea is celebrating the launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine. Regime leader Kim Jong Un says his nuclear weapons can now strike the US mainland. Should Americans be worried?

Suthep, a scruffy Thai day laborer, has a message for all you fancy people who sit down to empty your bowels: "Sitting down on a toilet is weird. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a big butt or a small butt. You’re going to touch the seat. It’s just not clean.”

From a storied past as spice market and trading hub, India’s southwestern state of Kerala now aims to become a hub for the Internet of Things. It has joined the Fab Lab network, started by MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, and was the first region or state to sign on as a Fab City.

Colombia's government and the FARC rebels have reached a historic peace agreement to end their half-century civil war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Dating is a relatively modern concept, little more than 100 years old. But in that time, so much has changed.

You probably don't think too much about your car tires, until there's a problem. But environmentalists are thinking about them a lot, or rather, the rubber used to make them. Wide swaths of forests are cut down to build rubber plantations. But there's also a business case to be made for not chopping down the forest.

The national anthem played. Military forces were out in full force. And the president spoke in defiant tone. Ukraine celebrated 25 years of independence, sending a message to Russia.

Did the Olympics whet your appetite for Brazilian music?

Ramen is the currency of US prisons. But in other prisons around the globe it's a far different and, often times, far worse.

The Old City of Istanbul has long been a man's world. But inside one fifth-generation candy shop, times are changing.

The ice-choked Northwest Passage used to be fit only for fearless adventures. Now, thanks to climate change, a 13-deck luxury cruise ship is sailing right through.

La Gente Anda Diciendo collects phrases overheard in Argentina's capital and turns them into Facebook posts, books and notepads.

Turkish tanks help in move to capture of border town from the Islamic State group. But Turkey also wants to prevent the US-backed Kurdish rebels from advancing.

At least 120 people were reported killed and hundreds more injured, trapped or missing from the pre-dawn earthquake.

Nigerian American writer Teju Cole's new collection of essays is all about the intersection of tough topics — politics, art, race and place.

An entrepreneur from MIT took his startup idea to India. Few were impressed. But that disappointment hatched a new idea, and a different pathway for teaching young tech entrepreneurs.

Rosalind Helderman found that new emails show a very tight relationship between donors to the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary.

The war in Syria has left Syrian refugees scattered across Europe. Some of those who have fled are musicians. Now, one classically trained Syrian bassist living in the German city of Bremen is trying to bring his countrymen and women together to form an expat orchestra. Catherine Girardeau has our story.

More than 1,500 years ago, at the height of the Roman Empire, a young woman died. Someone close to her thought she might need some help in the next life. Help from a demon.

The Pentagon says “It's not a no fly zone.” But a Kurdish rebel commander in northeastern Syria interviewed by PRI said, “The American forces are on the ground. ... We asked our partners to create a no-fly zone. ... They accepted this request.” And he said it's working.

The agency's budget is now more than 50 percent dedicated to fighting forest fires, which takes away from what the agency could do for preservation and recreation.

There are striking similarities between today and the Renaissance era. The good news? Humanity survived the Renaissance.

Security fears are keeping visitors away from France, and businesses that serve tourists are feeling the pinch.

Ethiopia's Feyisa Lilesa marked his silver medal in the Olympic Games men's marathon on Sunday by staging a dramatic protest against his country's government, claiming his life could be in peril.

Japan's Prime Minster Shinzo Abe dressed as Super Mario during the closing ceremony at the Rio Olympics. Video games are big in his country and around the globe. Gamers say it's well past time video games were included as an Olympic event.

Cameroon musician Moken won the green card lottery in 1996. Since his move to the US, he's attended design college in Detroit, launched a line of shoes, and this year released his debut CD, "Chapters of My Life."

The bar is over a century old, and has been part of London's gay community since about the 1920s.

Since its creation in the 19th century, the London Underground — or Tube — metro system has never been a 24-hour service. That's changing.

A French American reporter returns to her hometown in Burgundy and is struck by how medieval bells still dictate the pace of life there.

Rio de Janeiro returned to the cold reality of Brazil's political crisis and recession on Monday after bringing a carnivalesque curtain down on its Olympics festival and passing the torch to Tokyo.

The trial of a Malian jihadist charged with war crimes for orchestrating the 2012 destruction of nine Timbuktu mausoleums and a section of a famous mosque, opened on Monday at the International Criminal Court.

The vaquita is a rare cetacean species that lives in the Gulf of California. And efforts by poachers to catch another endangered fish are also entangling the vaquitas.

Humans today live in a sea of chemicals, and we are just beginning to understand how they affect our health. The endocrine disrupting chemical Bisphenol-A has been linked to physical illnesses like cancer and research from the University of Missouri found that the common substance seems to impair parenting behavior in mice.

Technology experts are worried the US voting system is vulnerable — and not to voting fraud from lack of voter ID. They're worried about hacking, especially so after recent attack on Democratic Party computer systems.

The world’s fastest swim stroke probably isn't what you think. It's not the crawl, or the breaststroke. It's the "fish kick" — and here's why.

How actor Danny McBride takes the worst traits in characters — meanness, profanity — plays them up, and still convinces you to love them.

While women are usually the farmers in traditional societies, it’s still a male-dominated business in the US. But women are slowly changing the face of farming in the US, especially by raising and selling home-grown vegetables, flowers, jellies and other farm products.

Wildlife trafficking is a global problem and the US is not immune. In the Pacific Northwest, a small law enforcement and judicial team polices Washington and Oregon for wildlife infractions, but limited resources, budget woes and loose laws allow poachers to evade penalties.