World Story of the Day

Tulip tree in Alley Pond Park, Queens, taken on Nov. 4, 2005. When it was last measured, it stood 134 feet tall.

New York: A Concrete Jungle And 'City Of Trees,' Too

8:26pm April 30, 2013

by Margot Adler

People generally don't associate trees with New York City, and if they do, they tend to think only of Central and Prospect parks. But the city is filled with old, beloved trees, some dating back more than 200 years, many of them located in the unsung outer boroughs.

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A woman in downtown Beijing walks past a building adorned with a patriotic mural by Chinese graffiti artists on April 22.

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Chasing The Chinese Dream — If You Can Define It

8:16pm April 29, 2013

by Louisa Lim

Touted in the state-run media, "the Chinese dream" is Beijing's latest official slogan. The man who made the phrase famous says it means China becoming the world's No. 1 superpower. But as censors scrub unapproved versions of the concept from the Internet, people wonder: Just whose dream is it anyway?

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Egyptian Activists: Our Religion Is None Of Your Business

8:17pm April 27, 2013

by Leila Fadel

Violence between Muslims and Christians in Egypt, which has only increased since the revolution, is prompting public debate about religious identity. To try to ease tension and de-emphasize differences, one group of Egyptians wants to remove religious labels from national ID cards.

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787 Dreamliner Could Mean Big Things For Africa's 'Air Wars'

5:06pm April 26, 2013

by Gregory Warner

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner was supposed to be a game changing new aircraft, but battery problems grounded the fleet, costing Boeing an estimated $600 million. Now the Federal Aviation Administration has approved a fix to the battery issue, and the first Dreamliner will return to the skies this weekend in Africa. Ethiopian Airlines is relaunching the "continent's first" Dreamliner in its effort to distinguish itself in the increasingly competitive, increasingly crowded African aerospace market.

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French jockey Olivier Peslier celebrates a win at Longchamps racecourse near Paris in 2012. While many drugs can legally be used on horses in U.S. racing, they are barred in Europe.

Routine On U.S. Racetracks, Horse Doping Is Banned In Europe

8:30pm April 23, 2013

by Eleanor Beardsley

The Americans and the Europeans have different approaches to horse racing, and one key split is over the question of doping. While many drugs are allowed in the U.S., they are banned in European racing.

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After being frozen for thousands of years in a Siberian riverbed, this pristine mammoth tusk is a financial boon to the hunter who found it.

As Arctic Ice Melts, It's A Free-For-All For Oil ... And Tusks

11:47am April 23, 2013

by NPR Staff

The melting of ice in the northern latitudes is feeding new industries. Among them: speculating for petroleum products where vast amounts of undiscovered oil and natural gas are believed to be, and hunting for mammoth tusks unearthed in the softening tundra.

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A portrait is projected on the walls of a building as part of a project promoting art through re-evaluating urban spaces and buildings in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Nov. 22.

In Gritty Sao Paulo, Artists Take To The Streets

9:52pm April 22, 2013

by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

Brazil's largest city is more about business than art. But a new crop of creators — who work in media as different as crochet, graffiti and poetry — is trying to change that by sprucing up public spaces.

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The small squares superimposed on this image of the Milky Way galaxy show where in the sky the Kepler telescope is hunting for Earth-like planets. Kepler, which launched in 2009, has identified more than 100 planets.

Kepler Telescope Spots 3 New Planets In The 'Goldilocks Zone'

10:26pm April 18, 2013

by Joe Palca

The planets orbiting far-off stars are close to Earth-sized and are a distance from their suns that makes their surfaces neither too hot nor too cold. Since launching in 2009, the Kepler telescope has identified more than 100 planets.

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World News

Large Police Presence Surrounds Margaret Thatcher's Funeral

10:22pm April 17, 2013

by Eleanor Beardsley

Margaret Thatcher was laid to rest in a funeral attended by dignitaries from around the globe as well as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on Wednesday. It's the first funeral of a British politician attended by the Queen since Sir Winston Churchill's in 1965.

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North Korean Rhetoric Isn't Out Of The Ordinary

2:48am April 16, 2013

Monday is the birthday of North Korea's founder, and it's always marked by a massive military display. In the run-up to this day, Pyongyang unleashed a round of bellicose military rhetoric, and sparked another round of international anxiety over North Korea's nuclear intentions. Steve Inskeep talks to North Korea scholar Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea, and author of the new book: The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia.

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