The World: Latest Stories

North Korea is waging its own culture war, stepping up a crack down on bourgeois fashion: sunglasses, frilly wedding dresses, even unauthorized haircuts. But more vexing, to the regime, is speech: controlling not only what people say. But how they say it. The World's Patrick Winn reports on North Korea's fresh attacks on what it calls the language of puppets."

The first Chinese settlers only showed up in Taiwan 400 years ago, just a few years after the Mayflower landed in Plymouth Rock. Before that, Taiwan was home to the Austronesian peoples. Some of these peoples would sail far away - settling places like Madagascar, Southeast Asia, and Hawaii. Others stayed until today - making up 16 officially recognized Indigenous groups in Taiwan. Some of them, such as the Saisiyat community, have stories of ancient peoples who shared the island with their ancestors, or maybe even got there before they did. From a village high up in the mountains of northern Taiwan, Ashish Valentine reports that researchers may be closing in on who the earliest people to settle the island may have been.

Donald Trump has said, on more than one occasion, that he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. More than a day into his presidency, the war in Ukraine rages on. But ending wars" does still appear to be a top priority for the new administration. The World's Daniel Ofman reports on what Trump's Cabinet members have said about the war in Ukraine, and what their statements suggest, about their Russia-Ukraine policy to come.

The Rwanda-backed M23 fighters have taken control of a key town in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Residents in the provincial capital, Goma, fear their food and supplies will be cut off. The World's Sarah Birnbaum reports the rebels' proximity to Goma threatens the army's control over the city.

Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been in the US Senate for 14 years, serving on the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees. Yet his long-established foreign policy worldview is subject to change in his new position, New Yorker staffer Susan Glasser tells The World's Carolyn Beeler.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the US to leave the World Health Organization, or WHO. It needs to be approved by Congress, but if it goes into effect, the WHO will lose its largest donor and access to all the data the UN organization collects and disseminates to member countries. Devi Sridhar is co-author of the book, "Governing Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?"

Hosts Carolyn Beeler and Marco Werman catch you up on headlines in the news you may have missed.

Several hours from the city of Mumbai is the headquarters of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) - one of the most-sensitive telescopes in the world - which listens for low-frequency emissions from the farthest reaches of the universe. However, there is now a proposal to build a semi-high-speed rail line within range of the GMRT, seriously threatening its abilities to detect these faint signals. Namrata Kolachalam reports from the western state of Maharastra.

During World War II, as Nazi forces besieged the Russian city of Leningrad, scientists at the city's famed seed bank made a pact to protect the collection and consume nothing, even if it could have extended their lives. The siege lasted nearly three years, killing an estimated 1.5 million people. A new book by British author Simon Parkin details this foundational story of modern plant gene banking, and what it means when hunger is used as a weapon of war.

The NFL's International Player Pathway Program started in 2017 as a way for the league to bring talented athletes from other sports into the world of American football. More than 40 athletes have signed with NFL teams so far, proving that the pathway works. The World's Bianca Hillier reports on this year's class of 14 athletes from 13 nations.

In Tromso, Norway, it's traditional to eat solboller or "sun buns'"when the sun returns after the long polar night. January 21 is the traditional day of celebration known as Sun Day. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with baker Jorn Olson of Kaffebonna cafes in Tromso about the special pastry his crew baked and served on Tuesday.

About 270,000 migrants waiting in Mexico suddenly lost their ability to enter the US. That's after the Trump administration suspended an app called CBP One just minutes after being sworn in. The app allowed nearly 1 million people to enter the US legally and seek asylum. The World's Tibisay Zea reports from Mexico City on what's next for migrants.

Israel's military is conducting raids in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. The army is seeking to flush out armed Palestinian factions in the area. This comes as some 90 Palestinians prisoners were released from Israeli prisons following a ceasefire deal in Gaza with Hamas. Host Marco Werman speaks with Fatima Abdul Karim, a Palestinian journalist based in Ramallah.

Officials have begun an investigation in Bolu Province, Turkey, where a hotel fire killed at least 66 people at ski resort. The Grand Kartal hotel was at full capacity for school break when the fire started overnight. Hosts Carolyn Beeler and Marco Werman have more.

After being deported from the United States, Maria Butina has become a member of parliament in Russia's Duma. She's become a public persona, often appearing on Russian state TV. She's also been active on social media, advertising multiple initiatives that she's working on, including encouraging foreigners to move to Russia. The World's Daniel Ofman reports.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered in the US for his leadership on civil rights, but that legacy extends to other countries, as well. Hosts Carolyn Beeler and Marco Werman have more on King's universal message.

The chief minister of India's Tamil Nadu state has announced a $1 million reward for the person who can decode an ancient Indus Valley script. The civilization thrived in what is today Pakistan and northwestern India over 5,000 years ago. But when it ended, so too did the understanding of what scholars believe to be its written language. The World's Host Marco Werman spoke to Marta Ameri, associate professor of art history at Colby College in Maine, to learn more.

In a half-hour speech today, President Donald Trump laid out some foreign policy promises, goals and predictions. They included a name change for the Gulf of Mexico and the return of the Panama Canal to American hands. Meanwhile, for many communities, Trump's announcement today that he will begin deportations is nothing new. Arizona has experienced roundups of undocumented immigrants before, as a result of the state's the infamous SB1070 act. So now, families and community groups are doing things like making plans for guardianship of their kids in case they get deported and creating 24-hour hotlines that people can call for legal aid. KJZZ's Alisa Reznick reports from Tuscon.

The UN says 630 aid trucks have entered Gaza since the start of the ceasefire deal over the weekend. This comes as thousands of Palestinians return to their homes across the Gaza Strip. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Amande Bazerolle, a coordinater with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, about the needs on the ground and what's happened since the ceasefire went into effect.

A cafe in downtown Tokyo has robotic waiters controlled remotely by people with disabilities as a way to allow people who have significant mobility issues to work. The World's Carolyn Beeler visited the spot in Japan.

With their outrageously long horns and sleek auburn coats, Ankole cattle are a symbol of western Uganda. But they're now considered an endangered breed, as farmers switch to imports such as Holsteins. And this is a problem because Ankole cattle are equipped to withstand harsh conditions such as high temperatures and droughts - both of which are occurring more often. Anita Elash reports from western Uganda.

An important US ally like South Korea would normally send officials to meet with members of the new US administration. But South Korea's government is currently in crisis, with the country's president sitting in a prison cell. Yoon Suk Yeol is being investigated on charges of insurrection. Over the weekend, hundreds of his supporters smashed their way into a court building in Seoul. Police restored order early Sunday morning, but not before making dozens of arrests. The World's Matthew Bell has the latest from South Korea's capital.

The Battle of Okinawa in 1945 was one of the bloodiest of World War II. More than 200,000 people were killed during the three months of fighting, more than half of them civilians. Okinawans were victims not only to American artillery bombing, but also from the very people meant to be protecting them - Japanese forces. But that history, of the role the Japanese military played in Okinawan suffering, is getting left out of textbooks. Rebecca Rosman reports from Okinawa on some people who are trying to preserve the memory of what actually happened.

"Remigration" has become a buzzword among far-right lawmakers in Germany and Austria recently. The term is widely understood to mean the mass deportation of people from a migrant background. Just a year ago, the word was considered taboo in Germany even among far-right politicians there. But a lot has changed since then, as The World's Europe correspondent Orla Barry reports.

Hosts Carolyn Beeler and Carol Hills catch you up on headlines in the news you may have missed.

With much of Syria now under the control of rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a new battlefield is emerging in the country's northeast, as Turkish airstrikes target Kurdish-led militias. Turkey says the militias are an extension of the Kurdistan Worker's Party, which has waged an insurgency in Turkey for the past 40 years. But some within the Turkish government suggest that now may be the time to end the conflict for good. The World's Durrie Bouscaren reports.

Over the past few weeks, Greenland has been in the spotlight as Donald Trump renewed his interest in taking possession of the world's largest island. But this comes at a time when Greenland's Prime Minister Mute B. Egede is discussing independence from Denmark. The World's Carolyn Beeler spoke to Maaliaaraq Engell. She grew up in Greenland and is a member of its Indigenous Inuit community. Now, she is a student at the University of Copenhagen.

One of the founding members of the pioneering Afro rock band, Osibisa, Teddy Osei has died at age 88. Hosts Carol Hills and Carolyn Beeler explore the monumental career of this Ghanaian-born multi-instrumentalist whose music is credited with bringing African rhythms and harmonies to Western pop music, beginning in the 1970s.

Israel's Cabinet has approved the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. This followed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's confirmation that a deal had been signed with Hamas to pause the 15-month conflict. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Israeli journalist, Noga Tarnopolski, about what this means politically for Netanyahu.

Hockey is Canada's most-popular sport. This year, broadcasters are making professional games more accessible than ever before by producing shows with commentators speaking Cree and Inuktitut, two Indigenous languages. The World's Bianca Hillier has the story.

Romesh Ranganathan took a circuitous route to comedy. The son of Sri Lankan immigrants in the UK, he taught high school math for about a decade before abandoning it for a full-time career in entertainment. He does standup, radio shows, podcasts and TV specials. As he started the North American leg of his current Hustle tour, Ranganathan stopped in at The World's studio in Boston for a conversation with The World's Carol Hills.

Using AI technology to produce child sexual abuse material is a growing problem around the globe. It poses policy issues at the local, state and national level to prevent it at the point of content creation and how to prosecute it in the courtroom. Carol Hills speaks to Dan Sexton of the Internet Watch Foundation about the breadth of the problem and what's being done to combat it.

In his farewell address, President Joe Biden warned that an oligarchy is taking shape in the US. Katie Drummond, the global editorial director for Wired magazine, talks about how their latest issue scrutinizes how this is true abroad.

There's been a mixed reaction to the ceasefire and hostage deal in Israel. Different parties and movements are reacting with joy or anger in response to the deal which will see Israeli hostages released in a first phase of the deal. But hostage support groups are so far elated at the news that the hostages will come home. Host Marco Werman speaks with Amir Blumenfeld, a doctor and health member of the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, to get his reaction to the deal and what these hostages will require as they return to the daily lives.

Twenty-one-year-old Palestinian computer engineering student from Gaza, Shaimaa Ahmed, says she's hopeful, but at the same time very scared, that a ceasefire deal recently negotiated between Hamas and Israel won't stick. Ahmed lives in the central city of Deir al-Balah. She tells The World's Host Carolyn Beeler that she's still deeply worried that she'll wake up to find the people she loves are gone.

One place where many try to build new lives is Agadir, a city along Morocco's Atlantic Coast. It isn't perfect but there is work there, and a sense of welcoming, as Morocco tries to integrate migrants. The World's Gerry Hadden reports from Agadir.

Global shipping is a huge business - and a relatively huge contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. But the International Maritime Organization aims to change that by cutting its emission to zero by 2050. To this end, individual ports are changing the way they do business and new ships are using different types of fuel. David Kattenburg reports.

This month, Indonesia rolled out a new free meal program for school children, a massive undertaking for the world's fourth most populous country. The initiative has the potential to reduce stunting and poverty in the country, improve educational outcomes and increase incomes of farmers. Leila Goldstein reports on how the program is going so far.

As the implementation approaches of a law that would ban TikTok in the United States, many American TikTok users are downloading RedNote, a video-sharing app written mostly in Mandarin, as an act of protest. Hosts Marco Werman and Carolyn Beeler examine the user migration to Chinese-owned RedNote that openly dismisses concerns about TikTok's ties to Beijing.

Mozambique has a new president, but Daniel Chapo represents nothing new for the country. His party Frelimo has controlled the government since independence from Portugal 50 years ago. But as months of protests have demonstrated, people in Mozambique are not satisfied with the status quo. The World's Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Armando Nhantumbo, a journalist with Savana News, a Mozambican newspaper, who joined the show from the capital Maputo.

BMI, or Body Mass Index, is often used to determine obesity. But a new report by a group of international researchers suggests that there may have been an overreliance on BMI to determine whether someone fits the criteria for obesity. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Doctor Ricardo Cohen, director of the The Center for Obesity and Diabetes in Brazil, about the new report and what it means for how we determine obesity.

South African authorities sought to end illegal gold mining in a derelict gold mine in Stilfontein. Their strategy was to cut off the supplies that were being sent down to the miners to keep them alive. Now, in one mining complex below, it's clear a large number of the miners have died. Kimon de Greef is a South African reporter who's followed the standoff between the miners and the police at Stilfontein and explains the miners' dark world beneath the surface.

Donna Burke has the most famous voice you've never heard about. The Australian first moved to Japan in the 1990s, hoping to make it as a singer. Now, she's the voice of the Tokaido Shinkansen, commonly known as the bullet train, and her announcements are heard by more than 400,000 people in Japan every day.

In 2024, there were 692 packed, wooden boats that reached the Atlantic Archipelago off the west coast of mainland Europe, carrying in total more than 47,000 people. Most came to the tiny, western-most island of El Hierro where emergency services struggle to help the new arrivals. But as The World's Gerry Hadden reports, most islanders receive the migrants warmly.

US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns speaks with The World's Host Marco Werman about what he's accomplished as top US Envoy in Beijing, and the fraught relations between the two superpowers as President-elect Donald Trump takes the helm.

After months of back and forth, Hamas and Israel appear to have reached a ceasefire deal. The agreement, which was mediated by Egypt, the US and Qatar, will be carried out in three phases. The World's Shirin Jaafari speaks with Host Marco Werman about the latest.

After defying government investigators for weeks, Yoon Suk Yeol became South Korea's first sitting president to be placed under arrest. Around 1,000 security officers moved in on the president's official residence in the early hours of Wednesday. Yoon is being investigated on charges of insurrection, after declaring martial law in early December. He essentially gave himself up today, saying that he would cooperate with investigators in order to prevent bloodshed. But Yoon called the action against him "illegal." The World's Matthew Bell is in Seoul and has the latest.

Morocco's western Atlantic coast is popular for migrants trying to enter Europe without permission. But the trip in fishing boats to Spain's Canary Islands is just the final leg of a long, harrowing trip that can last years. In Part 2 of The World's North From Africa project, Gerry Hadden reports from Agadir, Morocco.

A massive collection of sheet music spanning the whole career of 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg was lost in the Pacific Palisades fire. The collection, maintained by a publishing company run by the composer's heirs, was used extensively by scholars and musicians to study and perform Schoenberg's works. The company has said it will digitize and rebuild its collection over the next several months.

A trial is underway this week in South Korea's Constitutional Court that could remove the country's president from office. Yoon Suk Yeol sent this nation into a democratic crisis six weeks ago, when he declared martial law. That got him impeached. Now, Yoon is facing an arrest warrant and he's refusing to appear in court, out of concern for his personal safety. The World's Matthew Bell has the latest from Seoul.