The World: Latest Stories

Believe it or not, Christmas used to be illegal in Massachusetts. The Puritan fathers of America thought it was un-Christian, and prosecuted merry-making revellers for centuries. The truth behind America’s first ‘War on Christmas.

Luna Acharya Mulder has a rare window on the refugee psyche. She and her sisters grew up in New York but all of her cousins grew up in refugee camps in Nepal. Every summer, she went back and forth between two vastly different worlds.

We’re much closer to genetically modifying ourselves than you think. But professor Michael Bess warns that toying with our genetics could create a divide between the modified and unmodified.

Are we all actually living inside the matrix-like mind of a TV character named Tommy Westphall? We are, according to TV multiverse fans.

Despite a state-level effort to bar Syrian refugees, the mayor of Dallas, already home to thousands of refugees, is ready to keep welcoming Syrian refugees with open arms.

Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral and landed safely after completing its mission.

Washington and London are seen to be enabling the Saudi-led coalition to continue to bomb and blockade Yemen, in the throes of the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"You're not going to separate us," Muslim bus-riders told Islamic militants who demanded the Muslims and Christians separate. The Muslims told the militants to kill us all, but we will not sacrifice our Christian colleagues.

After the Taliban fell from power in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, the hunt for Osama bin Laden began in earnest. One American in particular led the search. He was CIA commander, Gary Berntsen, who had been tracking the al-Qaeda leader for years. In December 2001 he ordered a small group of special forces soldiers and Afghan fighters into the White Mountains close to Pakistan in the hope of cornering bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora.

The war against the Taliban continues. And some rural residents hope the group wins as they allow them to produce opium.

Norway’s neighbor to the east — Finland — will be celebrating its centennial in 2017. 100 years since independence. So, to mark the centennial, some friendly Norwegians have come up with the idea of giving Finland an unusual present: a mountain.

The Philippines largely escaped the global AIDS epidemic in the 80s and 90s. But now it has one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics in the world.

Nova Scotia hasn’t forgotten the generosity of the volunteers and doctors from Boston who rushed to the scene of the Halifax Explosion to help in 1917. And each Christmas, it sends a tall, sturdy thank-you southward.

No matter the court victory the victims of Daniel Holtzclaw won - and Bill Cosby's accusers hope to win - all of them have been scarred for life, writes Callie Crossley.

Most people agree that the Paris climate agreement is a good start toward curbing the worst impacts of climate change. But others worry too much self-congratulating will jeopardize the path toward stricter carbon cuts.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, says Donald Trump is "bright and talented." Trump repaid the compliment, saying Putin is a strong, powerful leader. The blossoming bromance is no surprise to some.

A new trade agreement makes it harder for poorer countries to buy cheaper generic medications.

Graft is the norm in FIFA. And it just took down its president.

In South Korea, mastery of American English is a status symbol. Families send their kids to academies chosen for their American instructors. We hear from an English teacher from Ireland who was told by a Korean recruiter, "You don't speak English."

China’s economy is cooling off, but that hasn’t stopped globetrotting Chinese tourists from sightseeing. Chinese tourists are expected to soon be the largest group of overseas visitors to the US, and cities across the nation are trying to cash in.

The UN surveyed factors affecting gender equality in 151 countries, and found that US is coming up short. Part of the reason? Workplace inequality, but also a rise in the number of women dying from complications of childbirth.

Two satellites accidentally launched into the wrong orbit may help researchers test an aspect of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

These days, scientists are increasingly interested in thinking about multiple universes, but the idea of a multiverse is at least 2500 years old according to professor Mary-Jane Rubenstein and chair of religion at Wesleyan University.

A landscape artist in Scotland is trying to help us experience the multiverse with his work of landscape art, “The Crawick Multiverse”

More than 2,500 cops from as far away as New Hampshire and New York responded to the pursuit and search for the Boston Marathon bombers, and it wasn’t always clear who was in charge.

Community colleges often have abysmally low graduation rates. Could this be in part because we don’t hold community college students in high enough esteem?

Fifty-three years ago, a sailor found a scrap of paper in his barracks. At the time, he didn't know it would lead him to his future wife.

Kansiime Anne is a comedic superstar in East Africa. But she's not just making people laugh. She's also starting conversations.

A major attack by ISIS has been defeated by Kurdish Peshmerga forces north of Mosul

The US government has wasted billions of dollars in Afghanistan, and until now, no one has added it all up. Project after project blundered ahead ignoring history, culture and warnings of failure.

Germany is expanding its counterterrorism security forces. But local police in the nation's capital worry that they would be "cannon fodder" in the event of a terrorist attack.

Love for Adele crosses all borders and languages.

This year for the first time ever, a Canadian whisky was selected as the world's best in the Whisky Bible. But one Canadian whisky connoisseur says there's plenty of fine Canadian whiskies that are worthy of praise, and that singling out only one as the world's best is ridiculous.

Media activist Rami Jarrah tells the story of a father who could afford to flee the besieged city of Aleppo, but has instead decided to stay.

Abby Wambach played her last game last night. She also shut down all of her social accounts and said she wants people to forget her — because that means the next generation of women athletes will have taken over the spotlight.

Woman-bashing seems to be a popular sport on Kenyan talk radio and weekend lifestyle sections. Buzzfeed's Jina Moore looks at the consequences.

Catherine Njeri discovered yoga at a time of crisis in Kenya, when a disputed presidential election threw the country in turmoil. She found yoga fostered rare moments of calm in camps for displaced survivors. Now years on, she helps others learn to teach it through the Africa Yoga Project.

Kenyan women are gaining weight fast, especially in the capital Nairobi. The reality show "Slimpossible" tries to send a message that healthy eating is still important.

The woman tasked with revamping language education in the Boston Public Schools grew up in East L.A. with a mother who was punished for speaking Spanish in elementary school.

As violence escalates back in their home country, Burundians in Pittsburgh keep up a tradition of prayer and song born in refugee camps

Burundi is edging toward civil war, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Meanwhile, the African Union has warned that Africa should "not allow another genocide to take place on its soil."

With California heading into its fifth year of drought, many in the state are looking for more water-efficient ways of growing food. One transplanted Israeli farmer is helping show the way.

Your genome tells part of your story; so do your biometrics, data about how and where you choose to live your life. A new approach to medicine, and genomics, aims to bring together many different layers of such data, resulting in precision medicine, targeted for you. What is that worth to you? Enough to give up some privacy? Enough to pool your data with many others, so scientists can better understand how and when certain genes are expressed? In southern China, leading genomics sequencing company BGI, and a new venture, iCarbonX, are among the global players exploring what's possible.

The first observant Sikh of his generation to join the US military is on a campaign to eliminate the dress code that has blocked all but a handful of Sikhs from serving the country they love.

Wen Stephenson was a moderate liberal and a journalist with NPR before an epiphany about global warming changed everything.

Walla Walla Community College in Washington State won the Aspen Prize for community college excellence in 2013. Here’s the school's secret to success.

George Lucas cites many influences for his legendary "Star Wars" series but one unknown influence may have been the French comic, "Valerian and Laureline," by Jean-Claude Mézières. You can see influences on everything from the millennium falcon to the characters of Jabba the Hutt and Chewbacca. And, perhaps, an infamous bikini.

Afghan journalists like Samiullah Mahdi are creating popular, controversial TV programs that take big risks to reach an eager audience.