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The National Geographic Society announced this week that it is recognizing the waters around Antarctica as an ocean. Host Marco Werman tells how the organization decided to name the Southern Ocean, bringing the number of Earth's oceans to five.

President Joe Biden is on day three of his first official overseas trip as US president. On Friday, he met with world leaders from the rest of the G-7 countries in Cornwall, Britain. Issues on the agenda for the weekend will include the pandemic and the global economic recovery as well as climate change. But trouble in Northern Ireland and the global vaccine rollout are overshadowing proceedings....

A $250 billion Senate bill, passed with bipartisan support this week, invests heavily in US production of computer chips while threatening punishments against Beijing. Host Marco Werman speaks with economist Willy Shih of the Harvard Business School about the bill's proposed $53-billion investment in US semiconductor production, and the significance of its inclusion in an anti-China bill.

Scientists estimate there are 200,000 edible plants on Earth. And yet, many of us humans base our entire diets on just a few crops. As the climate crisis deepens though, we need to be more flexible. Some researchers say that improving the diversity of plants could help us adapt to our changing world. In Turkey, a network of farmers is doing this by preserving rare indigenous plants. From southern...

Host Marco Werman continues his conversation with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation.

When residents in Jordan hear electronic jingles coming from a truck, it doesn't mean they're coming to sell you ice cream. It's time to get cooking gas. Some think it's part of Jordan's daily soundtrack, others say it’s noise pollution. Journalist Elise Burr described these sounds for our partners at Economist Radio.

President Daniel Ortega has launched a brutal crackdown on his political opponents in Nicaragua, seeming to clear the field so he can run virtually unopposed in the November elections. From Managua, Nicaraguan analyst Mateo Jarquin talks with The World’s Marco Werman about the shrinking space for dissent in Nicaragua’s political landscape .

Around the world, every day, people send cash back — remittances — to relatives in their home countries. The cash transfers, usually averaging around $200 each, can help build a new home, buy a kid's shoes, or just put food on the table. The World’s Monica Campbell has been tracking the flow of remittances during the pandemic. It turns out that even the world’s top economists are surprised by how...

Host Marco Werman speaks with Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, US special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the slow progress in the negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Host Marco Werman talks about the protest art installation known as "Mount Recyclemore." It's a project that will be seen by the attendees of the G-7 summit in Cornwall, England: a massive replica of Mount Rushmore, featuring the faces of the G-7 leaders themselves.

Earlier this week, El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. The new law will go into effect in about three months. And from then on, citizens will be able to use bitcoin to do everything from paying taxes to buying goods and services. Host Marco Werman speaks with Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst for Markets.com .

A teen in Malaysia is using TikTok to take on what she and other activists say is a culture of sexual harassment and misogyny allowed to run rampant in the country’s schools. While a nationwide conversation has erupted, as Ashley Westerman reports, there’s been little movement toward addressing the issue.  

For months, parts of eastern Australia have been overrun by millions of mice, which have caused serious crop damage. Host Marco Werman speaks to Steve Henry, a mice expert at CSIRO, the Australian government's scientific research agency. 

Just days before his case was set to go to trial, prosecutors have dropped charges against a Congolese Canadian physician who was accused of failing to quarantine last year, leading to an outbreak. As The World's Rupa Shenoy reports, the doctor blames a provincial premier for making him a scapegoat, and wants an apology.

The oil industry is hugely important for the Canadian economy. That's why many people in Canada were hoping that President Joe Biden would change his mind about canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. That didn't happen. So, what's the reaction north of the US border? Host Marco Werman speaks with reporter Anita Elash in Toronto.

Twitter deletes a tweet by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari saying it violates their terms and two days later, Nigeria bans Twitter indefinitely. Charges of censorship and a crackdown on freedom of speech come fast and furious from within Nigeria and the world. Marco Werman speaks with two Nigerians deeply committed to freedom of expression who have somewhat divergent reactions to the tweet del...

Japan is seen as a country on the cutting edge of technology and medicine and yet its vaccine rollout is pretty grim. Only 4% of the population is vaccinated. All at a time when Japan is set to welcome world athletes for the Tokyo Olympics next month. So what happened? The World’s Patrick Winn explains to host Marco Werman.

Rich countries are failing their commitment to help poorer countries tackle the climate crisis, but the tiny nation of Luxembourg is proving to be a giant when it comes to creating new ways to funnel money to climate projects in developing countries. The initiative is part of a national strategy to improve the global reputation of their banking sector. For this week's The Big Fix, Anna Kusmer repo...

Rich nations pledged more than 10 years ago to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 for developing nations to adapt to and mitigate climate change. The UN estimates countries are $20 billion short of that goal, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and developing countries themselves are calling on G-7 leaders to significantly increase their climate finance at t...

The International Olympic Committee is charging ahead toward this summer’s games in Tokyo. This week, IOC President Thomas Bach announced the Refugee Olympic Team, which consists of 29 athletes competing across 12 sports from 11 countries. In Tokyo, they’ll march together under the Olympic flag. But each athlete has a distinct story. The World's Bianca Hillier reports.

The presidential race in Peru is still too close to call, even with almost all votes counted. Socialist Pedro Castillo leads with a razor-thin margin ahead of right-wing Keiko Fujimori. The World’s Latin America correspondent Jorge Valencia reports.

On Tuesday night, there was an attack in Afghanistan's Baghlan Province in the northeast of the country on the staff of the HALO Trust, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to clearing landmines. Host Marco Werman speaks with Chris Woolf, a former BBC and World journalist who credits the HALO Trust with helping to save his life while he was working for the BBC in Afghanistan in the ea...

If your city’s air is filthy, can you sue the government — and the president too. That’s what a group of people is doing in Jakarta, an Indonesian megacity with some of the foulest air in the world. These residents are sick of wiping black film off their faces at the end of the day. They accuse Indonesia's government of doing too little to clean up the air. They’re suing not for money, but to shif...

The White House has been under pressure to do more to address worldwide vaccine shortages. Those shortages are especially acute in less wealthy nations, where the spread of powerful new variants means the worst of the pandemic may be yet to come. Author Zeynep Tufekci talks with The World’s Marco Werman about the Delta variant of COVID-19 and why it's gotten a lot more ominous.

A herd of 15 wild elephants in southwest China have become social media stars as they trek through forests, farmland and a bustling city hundreds of miles from their home. Many people have been asking where the elephants are headed, but professor Joshua Plotnik says the more important question for scientists is why did they leave? Plotnik, an expert on Asian elephant cognition and behavior at Hunt...