The World: Latest Stories

In the second episode of "Lethal Dissent," The World's investigative series with the podcast outfit On Spec, two close friends who work for the Iranian government follow their conscience. But, that puts them at odds with the regime. Now, one of them is dead. To figure out what might have happened, reporter Fariba Nawa goes back to the beginning.

A year ago, Spain's socialist government passed a sweeping law meant to rein in soaring home rental prices. Nevertheless, prices are higher than ever. What went wrong? In essence, it's the classic dynamic of squeezing a balloon. The law applied limits to long-term rentals, so landlords moved their properties into the more-lucrative, less-regulated, short-term tourist rental market. The World's Gerry Hadden reports.

Restaurants all over the world serve Caesar salads. It's pretty simple: romaine lettuce, crunchy croutons and a dressing made with lemon or lime juice, anchovies, Dijon mustard, Parmesan cheese and black pepper. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Caesar salad. And while its name might make you think of a Roman emperor, KPBS reporter Katie Anastas tells us the salad has its origins south of the US border.

Team USA is playing in the T20 Cricket World Cup for the first time, and they're surprising cricket fans around the world with their performance so far. The World's Bianca Hillier reports on their stunning win and how the rest of the tournament is shaping up.

On June 6, 1941, hundreds of American, Canadian and British ships delivered troops, supplies, ammunition and vehicles to the coast of France, and ferried the wounded away from the battlefield back to England. Many craft and their crews did not make it home and rest at the bottom of the English Channel. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with historian Harry Bennett, associate professor at the University of Plymouth and UK shipwreck diver Steve Mortimer. They tell how the sunken ships represent not only history and a final resting place for fallen fighters, but also serve as a place where sea creatures and plants make their homes, building artificial reefs from the wreckage on the ocean floor.

Activists in Sudan say the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has attacked the village of Wad Alnoura, killing about 100 people. The war between two generals for control of the country has steadily become a war of attrition that's killed thousands and shredded the country's infrastructure. Host Marco Werman speaks with Declan Walsh, from The New York Times, for an update on this latest attack and the war as a whole.

Congestion price plans have been around for decades. Singapore, London and Stockholm have all implemented their congestion price plans over the years. New York City was on the verge of implementing its own plan, when the state's governor put it on ice. Host Marco Werman speaks with Matthew Tarduno, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, about how congestion price plans have been implemented in other cities across the globe.

With Korea's pop music scene eclipsing other musicians and styles that can be found in Seoul, we offer one example of an artist who does not perform K-pop. Yeore Kim is a virtuoso harmonica player with a diverse repertoire, from jazz to Radiohead. Host Marco Werman will give us a taste of her music.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened a "very intense" military response in Lebanon. This comes after Israel and Hezbollah recently traded rocket and drone attacks over the border. The World's Shirin Jaafari is in Beirut and speaks with host Carolyn Beeler about a potential larger conflict.

A gated community of apartment blocks on the edge of Doha is now home to more than 1,500 Palestinians evacuated from Gaza. Many injured children still have a parent and extended family remaining in Gaza - so even though they've escaped the bombs, the war always feels close. The World's Durrie Bouscaren takes us inside.

French fashion mogul Louis Vuitton has a blouse in his 2024 collection that looks strikingly similar to a traditional Romanian garment called an ia. But the Louis Vuitton version costs more than $5,000. And the apparent Romanian origins go unacknowledged. The Ministry of Culture in Romania has something to say about that. Hosts Carolyn Beeler and Marco Werman discuss.

Novak Djokovic bowed out of the French Open early this week due to a knee injury. But the action continues on the clay, with underdogs making their way to the final on the women's side. The World's Bianca Hillier reports.

Some 3,000 Palestinian children have suffered at least one amputation in the last eight months, according to UNICEF. That's the largest cohort in recent history. Only a small percentage have been able to be evacuated out of the Gaza Strip. The World's Durrie Bouscaren reports from a hospital in Doha, which is helping treat recent evacuees.

An elite - and enormous - heifer in Brazil named Viatina-19 [vee-AH-ti-nah nineteen] is pregnant for the first time. But the cow already has many offspring, thanks to egg harvesting and cloning. Host Carolyn Beeler tells the story of the most expensive beef cow in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, whose owners plan to export her superior genetic material around the globe.

Statistically speaking, for every baby born in Japan, two people pass away. The country's rapidly shrinking population is, according to Japanese officials, a national emergency" threatening its future prosperity and entire way of life. They're struggling to reverse this trend but some believe fixing this problem calls for a revolution in Japanese fatherhood. The World's Patrick Winn reports with Aya Asakura in Tokyo.

Like in the United States, immigration remains a hot-button political issue in South Africa. There are estimated to be millions of immigrants in South Africa from neighboring countries, in search of work and better livelihoods. Last year, South Africa's president launched a border control unit to deal with immigration. African immigrants from other countries continue to be scapegoated amid high unemployment and economic issues. The World's Halima Gikandi reports from South Africa's northern border.

The top diplomat at the United Nations is once again sounding an alarm about the dangers of climate change. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres likened humanity's role in destructive warming to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. On Wednesday, he called for a new tax on fossil fuel companies to help pay for the fight against global warming.

Border communities across the US southern border are waiting to see the impact of President Joe Biden's executive order on immigration. Border communities have struggled for years to deal with the flow of migration from Latin America. Host Marco Werman speaks with reporter Alisa Reznick about the impact on local communities and potential consequences of the executive order.

Passengers who made plans to fly out of Porto Alegre, Brazil, before the city's airport was submerged underwater during recent flooding are finally able to depart. But their flights are leaving from an air force base, and check-in takes place in a shopping mall. Reporter Michael Fox visits the makeshiift airport to see how it's going.

Jerusalem Day marks the "reunification" of Jerusalem in 1967 and the Jews regaining access to the venerated Temple Mount. The day is generally tense as Jews march through the Arab quarter of Jerusalem's old city to commemorate victory in the Six Day War. This year, the holiday is especially fraught because of the war in Gaza. Young religious men marched through the streets chanting "death to Arabs" and other provocative slogans, and clashed with left-wing demonstrators and Arab youth. As Sarah Ventre reports, even thousands of police officers couldn't keep things from going off the rails.

In coastal communities around the globe - places such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, Egypt, Italy, Brazil and the southern United States - rising sea water levels threaten to infiltrate freshwater drinking supplies. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with journalist Zoya Teirstein about the growing problem of tainted water and its impact on the health of pregnant people and unborn babies.

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run again for president. The controversial figure showed up in a registration station over the weekend, holding up his birth certificate and smiling. Iran is holding elections after the country's President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last month along with the foreign minister and two other officials. The World reports on what Ahmadinejad's registration means and how the race is shaping up.

Cold beet soup is a culinary staple in Latvia and Lithuania and across Eastern Europe. This year, Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, hosted a "Pink Soup Festival" celebrating the dish. But the city's tourism agency also started a public beef with Latvia, claiming that the Lithuanian version of the soup is better. From Latvia's capital, Riga, The World's Daniel Ofman reports.

For most of this war, there has been one way out of Gaza: The Rafah border crossing into Egypt. In a process that predates October of last year, all evacuees must have a security clearance from both Israeli and Egyptian authorities to depart the Gaza Strip. As The World's Durrie Bouscaren reports, only a small portion of children wounded in the war were permitted to leave Gaza before the Israeli military took over the crossing on May 7, and stopped evacuations entirely.

The White House is reportedly preparing an executive order to limit immigration that some legal analysts say mirrors the Trump administration's Muslim ban. It is expected to rely on a section of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act that permits the suspension of entry for anyone determined to be detrimental to the interests of the United States." Lee Gelernt, the deputy director of the Immigrant's Rights Project at the ACLU, speaks with host Carolyn Beeler.

The US is strongly pushing a three-phase ceasefire deal in the Mideast that would bring back Israeli hostages and lead to a permanent ceasefire with Hamas. But members of the Israeli prime minister's Cabinet have threatened to quit if any ceasefire is discussed. That leaves both Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden in a bind.

US Army Major Harrison Mann quit the Defense Intelligence Agency to protest what he calls Washington's "unqualified" support for Israel, saying he has enabled" the killing of Palestinian civilians. The former officer hasn't been free to discuss that post until Tuesday, the first day when he is no longer on active duty. He tells host Carolyn Beeler his Jewish upbringing informed his interpretation of what never again" means.

A roundup of stories and things that may not have caught your attention from hosts Marco Werman and Carolyn Beeler.

Tuesday marks 35 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred in Beijing, China. The day is politically sensitive in China, where the government has spent decades trying to erase the legacy and memories of what transpired. Host Marco Werman speaks with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, professor of modern Chinese history at the University of California, Irvine, about Beijing's continuing crackdown on efforts to remember what happened on June 4 all those years ago.

As expected, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared victory in India's mega-election, but the victory was not the landslide he'd promised his followers. Not only has Modi lost face, but the opposition party has been invigorated by the results, and Modi will likely have to fight harder to pass legislation going forward. Host Marco Werman gets the details from reporter Sushmita Pathak in Delhi.

Most of us spend way too much time on our phones. In the Netherlands, three young Dutchmen came up with a plan to do something about it. It's called The Offline Club and guests pay for the privilege of spending an evening without their smartphones. The World's Europe correspondent Orla Barry reports from Amsterdam.

The World begins a five-part series on Monday on the impact of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip on children. Only a small fraction of children injured in the fighting have been able to evacuate. In a gated apartment complex in Doha, Qatar, 6-year-old Maryam FarajAllah learns to live with a new disability while grieving the loss of her parents and little brother. The World's Durrie Bouscaren reports.

The historic results of South Africa's national elections were announced over the weekend. For the first time since it came to power, the ruling African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, has lost its absolute majority. In its 30 years of leadership since the end of apartheid, the ANC has been mired by corruption scandals and a failure to deliver economic prosperity to South Africans. The World's Africa correspondent Halima Gikandi reports on what comes next.

Farm-raised seafood relies so heavily on brine shrimp that if you eat fish in the US, then you've likely participated in the aquiculture food chain yourself. But brine shrimp have a new vulnerability, one that threatens to jeopardize how we feed the planet. Salt lakes they live in are disappearing because of climate change and overuse of water. Reporter Levi Bridges takes us to Moynaq, Uzbekistan, for the story.

China first put a probe on the far side of the moon in 2019, becoming the first country to do so. Over the weekend, China's space program managed another feat by putting a lander there for the first time. Host Marco Werman speaks with Renu Malhotra, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, about what China is likely to find on the far side of the moon.

The results are in and Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, won Mexico's presidential elections in a landslide victory. Host Marco Werman speaks with The World's Tibisay Zea about the country's first-ever female president-elect.

Hadith Abdulle taught himself to play the oud as a child in Somalia, a childhood disrupted by civil war. Through the upheaval in his life, including racism in the US, this instrument has been his constant and his refuge. He now teaches it at a center for grieving children in Maine. Reporter Caroline Losneck has his story.

A heat sensor in Delhi recorded 127 degrees Fahrenheit recently. Turned out the reading was off, but it still might have broken the historical record for the city. And the results have been lethal. The heat has killed at least 56 people according to the federal government, including election officials overseeing the polls in the world's largest democracy. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Vijay Limaye, the director of applied research initiatives at the National Resources Defense Council, who has worked on this problem of extreme heat.

Papua New Guinea's prime minister made his first visit today to the remote village hit by a deadly landslide last week. He apologized for not visiting sooner, and thanked the international aid community for their work in his country. It's still unclear how many people are buried under the rubble and, as The World's Sarah Birnbaum reports, the rescue mission has turned into a search for bodies.

Reporter Fariba Nawa introduces her investigation into Iranian plots against exiles in Turkey. She tells the story of Iran's history of violence against its citizens at home, and how that violence has grown to cross international borders today. The fate of a dissident in France becomes a blueprint for the questions she seeks to answer in an investigative series by The World and On Spec Podcast, called "Lethal Dissent."

The Silk Road in Uzbekistan was a caravan route, it was a path for explorers and it was traversed by Soviet-era train tracks. National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek tells host Carolyn Beeler about this Central Asian country that has been a thoroughfare for explorers, traders and conquerors across the centuries. Salopek crossed the Silk Road on foot, as part of his 24,000 mile Out of Eden Walk.

Mexico is preparing for its largest-ever election this weekend. More than 20,000 positions are up for grabs, including local, state and congressional offices, as well as the office of the president. It's almost certain that voters will elect their first female head of state. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with The World's Mexico's correspondent Tibisay Zea about the issues in this election.

Over the last few months, Russia has intensified its assault on the Kharkiv region. It has also intensified its missile and drone attacks on Kharkiv city. Many Ukrainians living near the border with Russia, in that region, are fleeing to safer areas further west. Some families from Kharkiv fled when Russia began its full-scale invasion. The World's Daniel Ofman, tells the story of one family that's been internally displaced from Kharkiv to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

US Census and Canada's statistical agency show that the number of Canadians heading south to live in the US has jumped 70%. The World's host Carolyn Beeler talks with Rosanna Berardi, the managing partner of Berardi Law which helps Canadians with US immigration law, about the trend.

The Caribbean is very used to getting hurricanes between June and December. But this year in particular could be especially difficult with even more storms than usual forecast to hit the region. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with climatologist Cedric Van Meerbeeck from Barbados about the factors behind the increasingly powerful storms, and what to expect this year in the region.

The Panama Canal Authority has told shipping companies that it will increase the maximum authorized draft to 45 feet. That means more and larger ships can pass through, thanks to a rise in water levels as the rainy season begins. Host Carolyn Beeler explains how rainfall impacts shipping along this important water route connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

A volcano in Iceland has erupted for the fifth time in five months. The eruption emitted lava and ash and prompted the nearby town of Grindavik to be evacuated. Host Carolyn Beeler speaks with Gro Pedersen, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland, about what is causing the repeat eruptions and the caves newly formed by the lava.

A Hong Kong court today convicted 14 pro-democracy activists of conspiracy to subvert state power." It acquitted two defendants. Emily Lau, the former chairperson of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, was inside the courthouse when the verdict came down. Lau tells The World's host Carolyn Beeler those found guilty face sentences ranging from three years to life in prison.

Partial results in South Africa's national election show the African National Congress party at well below 50% of the vote so far. The party of Nelson Mandela has ruled South Africa since apartheid ended. As host Carolyn Beeler explains, if the ANC doesn't get a majority, it will be forced to form a coalition in order to remain in government.

For decades, Philadelphia's LOVE Park was an iconic skate spot known across the globe. The city closed it down for renovations in 2016, though, and the skate community has been mourning the loss ever since. But, as The World's Bianca Hillier reports, the beloved destination is now getting a second life across the Atlantic.