The World: Latest Stories

When French Jews were advised to remove their skullcaps to reduce the risk of anti-Semitic violence, social media responded in a surprising way. Two friends in particular decided that what was needed was not fewer skullcaps, but more. Many more.

Back in the 1970s, David Bowie pioneered gender neutrality with his androgynous look. Two days before his death, the gender-neutral pronoun got a seal of approval.

The site of the Salem Witch Trials execution has finally been discovered — behind a Walgreens.

Dr. Zoi Livaditou is a Lesbos native. She's had a career saving lives as an emergency medicine doctor who has spent time in war and disaster zones in places like Afghanistan, Gaza and Haiti. Now the emergency has arrived at her home — in the form of the massive refugee crisis.

La Cuneta Son Machín is a band from Nicaragua composed of young musicians whose older family members were musical superstars during the Sandinista regime. They didn't want to sound old, but they wanted to use the same record producer, which has resulted in a Grammy nomination.

The public knows very little about the Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Many US nuclear systems are aging, and the US military is moving to upgrade and replace them. So how does that square with President Barack Obama, who won a 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward denuclearization.

The global media company Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, is closing down the US cable news channel that it launched with great fanfare in 2013. Despite investing billions of dollars in the channel, the numbers didn't add up.

Terrorists attempted to attack targets in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on Thursday. But they were quickly killed. ISIS claimed responsibility for the effort. Sandra Siagian, an Australian UN worker, lived through it.

Liberia is Ebola-free, says the World Health Organization. But experts say that the problem of Ebola is far from over.

The UN set up a system for people attending last month's landmark climate summit in Paris to offset the carbon footprint of their travel to the meeting.

Scientists say a warm Pacific Ocean could be pushing seabird prey to cooler areas, or killing the fish off. And that's hurting Alaskan birds as well.

Burma used to be one of the most isolated countries on earth, thanks to military rulers who didn't want outside interference. Now known as Myanmar, it's opening up. A new pro-democracy government was elected in November. And a dramatic surge in mobile phone and smartphone users is accelerating change.

"You are the best in the world," the druglord tells the actress. The texts published by a Mexican newspaper show his flattery, her fear of authorities and their negotiation over a pink or gray Blackberry.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy, the daughter of former Alabama governor George Wallace, is now an advocate for racial healing and racial harmony.

Among the mansions and golf clubs of the Hamptons, Shinnecock Indians are trying to re-learn a language that died out more than a century ago.

Richard Schiff starred as Toby Ziegler in the hit series The West Wing — as a lead writer for President Jed Bartlett. The day after President Obama delivered his last State of the Union, Schiff looked at what Obama said.

Crypto, a fungal infection of the brain and spinal cord, is a threat primarily to people living with HIV/AIDS. A so-called opportunistic infection, it preys on those who lack access to the antiretroviral therapy that can keep HIV in check.

US officials said on Wednesday that Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif spoke at least five times in the span of 10 hours on Tuesday. Their discussion led to the quick release of the American sailors.

President Barack Obama in his final State of the Union address made a serious effort to calm fears about terrorism. He acknowledged the danger was real, but also stated that in no way did terrorism threaten America’s national existence. In the Republican response, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina talked of the most dangerous threat to the US since September 11. So where does the truth lie?

Here’s the story of how legendary Malian singer Kandia Kouyaté’s new album got made. It took the dedication of two producers, Ibrahim Sylla and his daughter, Binetou.

The US is much more tolerant of different religions than in Europe, which tends to be more secular.

After reports of women being harassed and groped on the streets of Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve, mostly by men of Arab descent, German officials are promising changes. They've beefed up the police presence in public areas and vowed to deport migrants convicted of serious crimes. And Arab and Muslim migrants in Germany say the welcoming atmosphere is starting to change.

Venezuela's late Socialist leader Hugo Chavez picked his own successor as the country's president and left his party firmly in control of the National Assembly. That allowed the Chavistas to stifle the opposition for a long time. But that changed in December, when voters handed the opposition a majority in the National Assembly.

People in Europe and the US worry that Syrians fleeing the war will bring violence with them. But some young Syrian men say they want no part of the violence. That's why they're leaving.

Help finally arrived in the Syrian town of Madaya, where residents are reportedly starving to death. A convoy led by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross arrived Monday, bringing desperately needed food and medical supplies.

An invite to the State of the Union address boosted the spirits of this Syrian activist.

In 2014, the US sent a dummy Hellfire missile to Europe to be used in training. But once the training was over, instead of the missile being shipped back, somehow it wound up in Cuba.

Larycia Hawkins is a political science professor at Wheaton College in Illinois who wanted to show her support for Muslims on Facebook. Now, she might loose her job.

It's been a big year for US Soccer star Carli Lloyd. First she helped the US Women's National Team win the Women's World Cup this past summer. Then Monday night, she was awarded one of soccer's biggest honors: 2015 FIFA Woman Player of the Year.

An alleged ISIS suicide bombing has killed 10 people in Istanbul, with more injured. The target appears to have been foreign tourists: most of the victims were German visitors, and the blast took place in the Sultanahmet area, a major tourist attraction.

VW head Matthias Mueller is expected to propose a fix Wednesday to a fleet of diesel cars that have been cheating emissions tests.

More than three decades after the worldwide communications network was born, David Clark and Yochai Benkler say they’re deeply concerned that the Internet is headed in a dangerous direction that its founders never intended.

It's six years since a massive earthquake devastated Haiti. Americans poured out their hearts to help. But it seems that after the clean-up and rescue mission, much of the development assistance has been wasted.

Many Haitian migrants fled the Dominican Republic under threat of violence. But some continue to commute back across the border because they can't make a living in Haiti.

Only 3 percent of students at top colleges come from the lowest 25 percent of incomes — and that's largely because of schools' admissions processes. In comparison, 72 percent of the students come from the top 25 percent.

David Bowie might sing the song, "Fashion," but it's Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto who influenced David Bowie's fashion sense.

Mexico has agreed to extradite notorious drug kingpin Joaquin Guzman, also known as El Chapo, to the US. Guzman was captured, for a third time, on Friday. Mexican officials have said contacts between actor Sean Penn and the notorious drug lord helped in the recapture. But Penn's interview and article in Rolling Stone have infuriated Mexican journalists.

Maziar Bahari was a teenager in Iran when he first learned about David Bowie. He was hooked as soon as he heard "Five Years" for the first time. But being a fan of Bowie in there had its challenges.

When English is not spoken at home, and parents have not even been to college themselves, their children can get lost in the college application process.

A museum in Amsterdam has begun changing the names of its paintings to avoid offensive words like “negro” and “dwarf.”

Callie Crossley asks whether the cases of Tamir Rice and Ethan Couch answer the debate about the power of fate versus free will.

Can creativity be taught?

“Findings” author Rafil Kroll-Zaidi combs the journals for science’s most fascinating — and flummoxing — facts. Now he has combined the best of the best into one illustrated book

Scientists are studying the jerboa, which has been described as “fuzzy rodent t-rex,” to learn about the evolution of our own bones.

Saudi Arabia has spent the past year taking actions that have alarmed and angered some of its neighbors, especially Iran. There have been warnings this could provoke a war. So who's driving these policies, and why?

South Korea began blasting K-Pop music, and anti-Pyongyang propaganda out of loudspeakers along its border with North Korea. Loudly.

Residents of Madaya in Syria have been under siege since July. The last time food entered the town was back in October. Now horrific images of children suffering from acute malnutrition have left the world in shock.