The World: Latest Stories

Ron Fournier, the senior political columnist at the National Journal, argues that Americans at all levels — politicians on down — deserve some of the blame for what Flint, Michigan, has beeen allowed to become.

An official investigation in the UK has concluded it's highly probable that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the assassination of an exiled opponent in London in 2006. Alexander Litvinenko took three weeks to die, in excruciating pain, after being poisoned with highly radioactive Polonium-210 by Russian agents.

A bakery owner from Massachusetts used her vacation days to volunteer in a refugee transit camp. She slipped aboard one of the decrepit trains that take refugees from Macedonia to Serbia and this is what she saw.

So, what would you call Planet 9? Now that scientists at CalTech have found evidence for a ninth planet in our solar system, it's your turn.

The Pakistani military's strategy to deal with militants is to pack the country's border with soldiers to prevent their entry. But a bloody extremist attack at a university in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday has citizens worried that militants are already inside the country.

Zika virus is a distant relative to yellow fever. It's native to Uganda and was mostly considered harmless. That is, until it came to Brazil, where it's being blamed for babies being born with unusually small brains. And now, paralysis.

Here's the story of the only Syrian on Korea's Jeju Island. He's asked for asylum there, but Korean authorities say the war back home isn't enough of a reason to get it.

Whether with refugees or recalcitrant dictators, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power has ambitious plans for how the last year of her tenure will unfold.

Essa Hassan is new to Mexico and the first participant in a project to give Syrians scholarships to study there. Thirty more students may be on the way.

Since October, a leaking underground natural gas storage facility near Los Angeles has released vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere, becoming one of the nation’s worst environmental accidents. Some experts believe this disaster may be a harbinger of what's ahead for these aging storage facilities.

Consumers should expect to see more and more electric vehicles soon. But with falling gas prices and plunging stock prices, who is going to buy them?

American neuroscience student Caitlin Duncan was among the women caught up in the mob outside Cologne's train station on New Year's Eve. A group of Syrian refugees came to her rescue.

ISIS is out with a new edition of its propaganda magazine, Dabiq. Their lead story is the attack in San Bernardino. It’s claiming responsibility and encouraging its supporters to emulate it.

BBC reporter and presenter Rana Rahimpour was born in Iran. She also has a British passport. Before, that would have allowed her to travel to the US without a visa. Not any more.

The US Patent and Trademark Office says the name is Cuba's to keep. But the Bacardi company has vowed to carry on the fight.

You might wonder why a doctor from Atlanta, a successful heart surgeon, would bother to go to a Syrian refugee camp as a volunteer? Dr.Omar Lattouf knew very little about the Syrian crisis and the massive refugee problem until he arrived at Jordan's Al-Zaatari Syrian Refugee Camp.

Sometimes it can feel like children of immigrants in the United States have a duty to be grateful. But Bianca Tylek felt she had to speak out — after the public defacement of black faculty portraits at Harvard Law.

Lead mining, smelting and other exposures kill an estimated 143,000 people per year.

The war back home in Syria forced women into new roles outside of Syria. Some of them are creating opportunities for themselves.

With so many men killed or missing, it’s up to the women to run their community, and they’re making a difference in people’s lives, including their own.

People in Flint, Michigan, are rightly concerned about the quality of their water. But, it turns out, there are really few safeguards for any Americans.

After 14 months of negotiations, last weekend Iran agreed to release five American prisoners. In return, the US released seven Iranians from its jails in the US. So who are these Iranians?

Scientists working in Greenland are looking for tiny clues to help fill in the big picture about the fate of the island's giant ice pack. They're using cutting edge technology to track minute changes that could help predict what a warmer future might hold for Greenland and the rest of the world.

China’s economy, one of the drivers of global growth, has begun to slow.

Comedian Gad Elmaleh is a huge success in France. He performs for arenas around Europe to thousands of fans. So why did he want to leave that all behind and try his hand at stand-up in the US in English?

Undocumented Central Americans in the United States worry about their futures as deportations rise, along with violence back in their home countries.

Yes, Jason Rezaian is free. But what was it like to be inside Iran's notorious Evin prison? She knows.

It's easy to fix matches in tennis. All you need is one person on the hook. And betting on yourself to lose in the first round could net a bigger windfall than winning a tournament.

About a decade ago, several of Greenland's biggest glaciers suddenly began melting. A decade later, two groups of scientists are trying to unlock the secrets behind a scientific mystery story with potentially big consequences for the future of the island's rapidly-melting ice sheet.

One day after punishing economic sanctions against Iran were lifted, the Obama administration announced new sanctions on Iran’s missile program. It’s a hint of the tough road ahead.

Back in Boston, out of an Iranian prison, Matthew Trevithick wasted no time hitting his favorite burger joint.

This is prime wildflower blooming season in Israel. But not so long ago, the country's wildflowers were under threat of extinction because people were picking way too many of them. Then, a PSA campaign was launched that got Israelis to stop picking flowers in order to preserve them.

Alejandro González Iñárritu is a vocal supporter of immigrants, no matter how they got here. This political cycle, he's been disappointed by xenophobic and anti-immigrant statements from candidates.

The Chicago Police Department has been beset by reports of potential misconduct and police-on-civilian violence. There's an effort to change the legal situation so there is more oversight.

Tem Blessed, an environmentally and socially-conscious hip hop artist, uses contemporary music to communicate the importance of the environment and sustainability to young audiences.

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.