The World: Latest Stories

Squash star Maria Toorpakai dressed as a boy to in order to play sports in the Waziristan zone of Pakistan. It went well, until the Taliban threatened to kill her for it.

The fire has destroyed 80 percent of one neighborhood in remote Fort McMurray, Alberta.

Scientists have figured out how to use a "mind-reading" computer to let someone who’s been paralyzed move their hands again.

A Yemeni man who saw his daughter killed in a Saudi airstrike may never be done grieving. But now his anger has kicked in, and he's fighting back.

A new book from the curator of the TED Conference discusses some of the best Ted Talks over the years. Here's a list of all 48 he highlights — plus a couple we couldn't not throw in.

But that cruise raises questions about whether we're making climate change worse.

Global warming has profound effects on our planet, including melting Earth’s immense ice sheets. A new study from NASA reveals an unexpected result of all that ice melting: It’s moving the axis of rotation of the entire planet.

He’s been called the first man "to boldly go where no man has been before." Or, at least, no Englishman. Captain James Cook explored and mapped Australia and New Zealand, and became the model for Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek fame.

In Yemen, the city of Taiz is at the heart of a struggle between the Houthis and their enemies for control of the country. But the forces aligned against the Houthis contain some strange bedfellows.

It was a pretty good bet, too. The odds against the team were 5,000-1.

The father of the 5-year-old boy who became an internet sensation after being photographed wearing a homemade Lionel Messi soccer shirt, says the family has been forced to leave Afghanistan after repeated threats.

Workers at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas have cast their votes to unionize. But Donald Trump's hotel company is refusing to recognize the vote.

Abel and Burlee Vang managed to get around the mostly white Hollywood community by turning to their own community, Hmong Americans. Hmong Americans financed their project, which has now been sold to a major motion picture company.

A surprising and perhaps landmark decision shows how climate change could pose a unique challenge for the legal system.

A new book looks at a community in Mississippi that is at the center of a dark piece of American history. On multiple occasions, black residents were lynched on a bridge outside of town — and that's the subject of a new book, "Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America's Civil Rights Century.”

Puerto Rico's financial crisis deepened this week as its governor announced the US commonwealth is defaulting on a $422 million scheduled debt payment.

An Australian computer scientist claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of Bitcoin. But one crypto-currency expert isn't convinced.

Anita Corbin documented women who ruled the punk scene in London. The women are all grown up now ... and the photographer is as well. But Corbin wanted to know what happened to the women of punk. So she's been tracking them down for a new exhibit in London.

When the volcano last erupted in 2002, it displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Now, it's rumbling again.

A woman who fled war in a Syrian city speaks about life under al-Qaeda's strong Syria branch, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Africa’s ambitious Great Green Wall project is getting global support for its twin goals of slowing desertification and helping to provide employment to keep young people on the land.

The new memoir “Lab Girl: The Pursuit of Sanctuary and Science, Inside the Lab” helps readers relate to the world of science.

Israeli-born writer Ayelet Waldman tried to put Israel out of her mind for 20 years. Now she and her husband, Michael Chabon, are bringing writers to the region to write about the West Bank occupation.

Critics earn a living watching, reading and listening to works of film, writing and music. But should it be anyone’s job to tell us what to like or what’s good?

If a Venezuelan makes a film, but theres no electricity to power the cinemas that show it, did it really happen?

In the fictional film "Radio Dreams," members of a rock band from Afghanistan want to jam with Metallica. The group, Kabul Dreams, is now based in San Francisco and is trying to find an audience in the US.

“They said I’d make a good lampshade,” says Julia Ioffe.

Nonagenarian Javier Delgado Corona's bar in Tequila, Mexico, is ranked among the world's best. His advice when it comes to tending bar? "Smile when someone walks in. Greet them ... get them a cool drink in a clean glass," he says.

With greater US arms sales going to Israel's neighbors, Netanyahu has leverage to ask for even more.

He was born in China, but says his immigrant roots make him all the more American.

Sonia Inamugisha lost her brother and both her parents to war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She came to Kansas as a refugee a year ago and felt welcome, but now she worries about what the governor's recent decision says about her new home — and how she's going to explain it to her children.

Paw-ternity leave. Did you catch that? "Paw"-ternity leave. Some companies in the UK are trying out the idea of giving their employees paid time off when they adopt a new pet.

Laredo, UK, is the only living, breathing Wild West town around. It was not created as a film set, but rather for people to live the experience and commit to the lifestyle.

Shahram Rafizadeh is an Iranian poet living in exile outside Toronto. He still watches political events closely back home in Iran, and he’s holding out hope for change.

Soccer's governing body FIFA asked Harvard professor John Ruggie for guidelines on how to handle human rights issues. The big question now is whether FIFA follows his recommendations.

Economists at the London School of Economics say denial of the risks of global warming — from rising seas to droughts to civil unrest — is promoting the overvaluation of certain financial assets — in other words, a bubble.

Public research universities educate 75 percent of all undergraduates in this country. But over the past decade, state appropriations to flagship research universities have plummeted 34 percent. Now public research universities have found an unlikely advocate.

When extremists seized the city, the texts were spirited away to safehouses and eventually carried to Mali's capital, Bamako.

Men wielding machetes hacked to death the founder of the only LGBT magazine in Bangladesh on Monday.

He didn’t break new ground or offer specific foreign policy proposals, but Donald Trump might know what he’s doing. This correspondent says the speech was “smart politics.”

A small town in New Hampshire has a familiar name — Berlin — but with an odd pronunciation. A World in Words producer set out to figure out why.

It's become popular in Thailand lately for adults, mostly women, to collect life-like dolls that they treat like their own children. Considered good luck, most of the dolls are blessed by monks.

"John conducted himself in the most difficult of circumstances with a huge amount of integrity," says longtime friend John Rae.

Welcome to northern Thailand, where bile is a flavor enhancer.

It's been five years since the Arab Spring started, with hopes for tremendous change for residents of dictatorships throughout the region. Most of those protests failed, though two authors say it's too soon to judge.

Every morning, behind a metal door marked “secret," Carlos Martins and two other bakers make enough dough and custard for 20,000 pastries.

Papa Wemba died earlier this week, after he collapsed on stage in Ivory Coast. The star, known as the king of Congolese rumba, was jailed in 2004 for smuggling Congolese people to Europe. Lubangi Muniania, a Congolese arts educator who knew Papa Wemba, explains Wemba's history.

Hundreds of Somalis have died trying to reach Europe just this month; many more over the past year. A group of activists are hoping a hashtag campaign will help inspire others not to make the journey.

A town in Colombia gets new life in East Boston. But now gentrification threatens that rejuvenated community.

Ninety-six fans died after thousands surged into an English soccer stadium back in 1989. At first, the police blamed the fans. Now, 27 years later, a jury has reached a different verdict.