The World: Latest Stories

If you’ve ever turned your dial away from public radio, you have very likely heard Delilah. The self-proclaimed “queen of sappy love songs,” and a powerhouse DJ airs on commercial radio stations across the country.

Vienna valued music; it got Mozart. We value technology; we got Mark Zuckerberg. Author Eric Weiner explains how place and culture shape the rise of geniuses.

"Sex in the Sea" looks at some clever and unusual reproductive strategies unique to sea-dwellers and explains why understanding them is critical for maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem.

"I really think change is coming."

Brazilian sailor Isabel Swan just found out she's a torch bearer for the Olympics in Rio this summer. She's also been heading up efforts to clean up Guanabara Bay's polluted waters ahead of the Games.

The winner of the 2016 presidential election will have a significant impact on people who live outside the US. But all they can do is watch, and wonder.

Twenty years ago, videographer Anne Bailey traveled to Sweden to become a Lindy Hop star. She didn't make it — but recently she got to get her hop on with Rio's Lindy Hoppers.

Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay has become so polluted that catching fish is all but impossible.

Most people already know that Justice Antonin Scalia died earlier this month while a guest at a ranch in Texas. What's less known is that many of the other guests at this ranch belonged to a secretive, ancient aristocratic society.

Iranian folk-rockers from the band Pallett have attracted a huge following in their home country. Interestingly, their music includes a heavy dose of klezmer, a musical tradition from eastern European Jews.

Forty percent of Brazil's homes lack access to any kind of sewer system. Public health workers are afraid to go to crime-ridden neighborhoods. Activists in the country's poorest areas say both investment and mindsets have to change to tackle a public health crisis.

Little Murtaza Ahmadi's picture went viral a couple of weeks ago. A huge Lionel Messi fan, Murtaza was sporting a homemade Argentina soccer team jersey because his family could not afford one. Today, Murtaza is a proud owner of the real thing.

Although many issues divide these right-wing, populist politicians, they all have something in common with the Donald.

Despite being the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, women of color have a hard time raising capital to support their ventures.

How Tom McCarthy turned a story about investigative journalism into an informative, entertaining and critically-acclaimed movie.

He used to be friends with Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations. But now a former Burundian journalist is sanctioned by Washington for advocating violence.

The mammoth Belo Monte dam in Brazil will start generating power next month. But the women who have been fighting against it for decades still haven't given up.

From carpet bombing Syria to banning all Muslims from coming to the US, the presidential hopefuls have not been shy of speaking about the Middle East on the campaign trail. And some of what they have been talking about is far from reality on the ground. But what they talk about matters.

An international investigation finds out how ISIS gets components to make its bombs: mostly from small-time businesspeople and mostly legally.

Brooklyn-raised Iranian American Azita Houshiar visited Tehran last year and then decided to stay in the land where she was born. Houshiar is a former lawyer who writes a food blog about Persian cuisine called “Fig and Quince.”

Brazil will be represented at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. The film "Boy and the World" is up for an Oscar as best animated feature. But the story is told more through music than words.

Authoritarians like strong leaders, feel threatened by outsiders and like plain language and rousing promises like "make America great again." No surprise, then, that Donald Trump is drawing them in. About 18 to 30 percent of Americans skew authoritarian on polling questions, and in recent years, ever more have concentrated in the Republican Party and, specifically, in Trump's camp. Career political consultant and mid-career PhD candidate Matt MacWilliams talks about the phenomenon he's found through his own polling, and other polls, about the appeal of a strongman in a democracy.

And author and a linguist take a single-engine plane throughout the United States. What they find are 11 signs a city will succeed.

James Williamson inspired a punk-rock revolution in the 1970s, then quit music and became an engineer. After three decades of working in tech, however, he went back on a rock-and-roll tour

This Salvadoran American supports Marco Rubio on immigration. "We can't break laws just because," he argues.

The FBI and Apple are battling over whether Apple must help the government gain access to the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooter, reigniting America's ongoing debate of the balance between national security and individual privacy. But the same tension is also being felt in Europe.

Developers of a new app, Walk Freely, hope it will help solve Kosovo’s sexual harassment problem.

The Open Skies Treaty of 1992 allows Russians to fly spy planes over US military bases. Now, they want to improve their cameras.

Brazil's largest city, São Paulo is coming out of a searing drought. But its impact wasn't all bad. One woman saw the drought as an opportunity to empower women and bring her community closer together.

Once again, President Obama has announced plans to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison. Here's what life has been like for some of them in Uruguay.

When Deepak Singh was growing up in India, he always bathed in cold water. Quickly. Now that he lives in the US, he's come to appreciate a hot shower. And luxuriate. When he went home for a visit to India recently, he realized that he'd gone soft.

For public art installations around the world, São Paulo artist Nele Azevedo casts human figures from ice and then lets them melt. The sight — and sound — of that melting is an experience in "impermanence," she says.

Mezar Matar’s witnessed ISIS fighters take over his hometown in the summer of 2013. He saw them violently enforce Sharia law, seize homes, close schools and stage elaborate public executions. He watched as they punished women for their clothes, flogged anyone on the streets during prayer times and beat people for smoking cigarettes. Matar saw ISIS arrest his friends, abduct his brother and recruit children to join its ranks.

Bowing to the ground is an ancient tradition in China. A recent photograph showing a Chinese man kowtowing to his parents is generating some buzz in China about this ancient tradition.

Independent research organization Climate Central has released a map comparing the amount of coastal flooding caused by humans versus natural causes — following a study saying we are living with the fastest sea-level rise in 28 centuries.

Cities across the US, and the globe, are adopting Sweden’s model for road safety. It’s called “Vision Zero” — no loss of life on the roads is acceptable.

In 2013, American and Russian scientists had to improvise the technology needed to destroy Syria's chemical weapons

There’s no love lost between America and the theocratic rulers of Iran. But Marco Werman discovered during a visit to the cinema in Tehran that many Iranians have a whole lot of love for classic American movies.

President Barack Obama released a proposal today to close "once and for all" the Guantanamo Bay detention center. But there are no specifics as to where prisoners will go.

In Britain, a civil war between two old schoolmates and political rivals has broken out. A few months from now, Britons will go to the polls to vote on whether the country should exit the European Union, and go it alone.

Want to introduce a plastic water bottle ban in your town? The residents of Concord, Massachusetts, have some advice for you.

Kristofer Goldsmith received a general discharge from the US Army after missing a deployment flight, because he was in the hospital after attempting suicide. This despite more than a year of cries for help. He wants to make sure no one else suffers like he did.

The "freelance economy" might not be so great after all. Author Steven Hill argues that companies like TaskRabbit and Uber are undermining the American middle class.

Women who won't vote Clinton just because she's a woman. Latinos who won't vote Rubio or Cruz because they're Latinos. Why is this the case, when we're more focused than ever on defining our identity?

Renato Bialetti, the Italian businessman who made a stovetop coffee-maker called the Moka Express famous has died at the age of 93. There are millions of his Bialetti coffee makers in kitchens throughout the world. They are beloved.

Nagin Nasiri wanted to get of Iran. She was accepted to grad school in the US, but she was refused a visa. So, Nasiri started a company with her old friend, Shaghayegh Jahanbani. Now they make stunning custom furniture in a Tehran wood shop.

The mosquito that carries the Zika virus also carries dengue and other deadly diseases. So research into how to kill or alter the mosquito population is crucial in Brazil.

With drone owners now subject to federal regulation, enthusiasts are looking to bring order — and a little competition — to the sky.

Hamburg bans the devices from government offices.