A Somali soldier controls the crowd at a protest in the capital Mogadishu on Jan.3, 2024.
AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh
Somalia has demanded that a memorandum of understanding – which would see Ethiopia gain access to the Red Sea via a Somaliland port – be ripped up.
Judges take their seats prior to the hearing of Israel’s defense at the International Court of Justice on Jan. 12, 2024.
Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images
While the International Court of Justice lacks enforcement powers, it can issue orders that could heighten international pressure on Israel to curtail some of its offensive in Gaza.
Ecuador looks set to entrust its anti-gang fight to the military.
Franklin Jacome/Agencia Press South/Getty Images
Widespread violence tied to Ecuadorian drug gangs has left the country looking at a draconian response.
Houthi supporters rally in Yemen following U.S.-U.K. airstrikes.
Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images
The raid follows warnings from Washington to cease attacks in the Red Sea − but it could serve to strengthen rebels and reignite civil war.
Former NRA Leader Wayne LaPierre arrives for his civil trial at New York State Supreme Court on Jan. 8, 2024, in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The NRA’s new leaders have to make important decisions as they confront a shaky financial future.
The data collectors see all.
DrAfter123/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images
It’s no surprise that corporations harvest vast amounts of data about people, but documents in an FTC lawsuit detail the stunning amount that data brokers know about you and everyone else.
Vendors at work on a bustling Ciudad del Este street packed with stalls.
Jennifer L. Tucker
A smuggling crackdown has threatened the livelihoods of the people who are just scraping by in this South American arbitrage economy.
Libraries can be an oasis from doomscrolling and information overload.
Diliff/Wikimedia Commons
Though they’re sometimes characterized as attention-addled homebodies, younger people see a real value in libraries − one that goes beyond books.
Scenes from ‘The STEAM Plays,’ performed in Michigan schools.
Thalia Lara
Is it a STEM education or a STEAM education? Integrating arts into science programming and vice versa can pique kids’ curiosity − a play touring Michigan aims to do just that.
Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden.
Jim Watson,Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Biden and Trump are polar opposites when it comes to policy. But they have wielded the power of the presidency in similar ways.
Laundry washwater is a major source of microplastic fibers that can end up in water and soil.
Venca-Stastny/iStock via Getty Images
Your washing machine is polluting the ocean.
Producing concrete blocks with captured carbon, like these in Brooklyn, NY., has both economic and climate benefits.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
The combination of the source of the CO₂ and its end use determines its environmental and economic benefits or consequences.
Aisle be damned! Inflation is proving stubborn as the economy moves into 2024.
miniseries via Getty Images
Two important inflation indicators are trending in different directions. What gives?
Sunday Assembly is one of the larger secular congregations aiming to provide community and ritual for nonreligious people.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
A sociologist of religion explains how atheist churches are helping people find meaning and community – serving many of the same purposes as religious churches.
A skier at Palisades Tahoe, home of the 1960 Winter Olympics and site of a small but deadly avalanche in 2024.
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
A deadly avalanche at Palisades Tahoe, home of the 1960 Winter Olympics, shows the risk as snow layers melt and new snow falls.
Wrecks during snowstorms can shut down highways, stranding drivers in the cold for hours.
Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images
Costs quickly rise when things go wrong with roads, roofs and power lines. Many of those risks are also avoidable.
A tiger shark swims among surgeonfish off Fuvahmulah Atoll, Maldives, in the Indian Ocean.
imageBROKER/Norbert Probst via Getty Images
A new initiative is pinpointing areas in the world’s oceans that are key habitats for sharks and their relatives, so that governments can consider protecting these areas.
Only 39% of autistic students who start college finish.
Hill Street Studios / Getty Images
Self-advocacy and taking initiative have proven critical for autistic students who are also gifted, new research shows.
More than 100 people were killed in the blast in Kerman, Iran, on Jan. 3, 2024.
Mahdi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
The terrorist attack in Iran follows a concerted effort by the Islamic State affiliate to ‘internationalize’ its strategy.
In the ‘big tent’ philosophy of free speech, the more views, the better. But how does that hold up in practice?
imageBROKER/Manuel Kamuf via Getty Images
Intellectual humility doesn’t mean anyone can change your mind, a philosopher writes – but it might mean learning from the ‘other side’ in surprising ways.
Otters and other semiaquatic mammals can keep clean even in dirty water.
AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth
The bottoms of boats and docks can accumulate lots of dirt, but semiaquatic animals like otters avoid having ‘fouled’ fur. Their secret could one day help keep underwater infrastructure clean.
Alf Bruseth, ‘Politician Coin Bank’ (1938).
Index of American Design
Why do so many Americans share the concern that success and integrity are in conflict, as if one comes at the expense of the other?
Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., center, leads an anti-Vietnam War demonstration on March 16, 1967, in New York City.
AFP via Getty Images
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. knew the political consequences of speaking out against the Vietnam War − and he did it anyway.
Migrants cross through a gap in the U.S.-Mexico border fence on Dec. 22, 2023, in Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif.
Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images
A GOP proposal would make it nearly impossible for most migrants now crossing the US border to gain asylum and the right to remain in the country.
Two cases centered on Atlantic herring could have widespread impacts on federal regulation.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
An important but controversial legal doctrine, known as Chevron deference, is at issue in two fishing cases. The outcome could affect many sectors across the nation.