Igor Krolevets and Tatiana Krolevets, both dentists, own a clinic in Kharkiv, Ukraine, which they continue to maintain, despite the dangers of war. The couple and their young son, Danilo, headed west shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.  They were separated at first because Tatiana Krolevets took Danilo to the Netherlands. Igor Krolevets couldn’t join them because it’s illegal for a Ukrainian man of conscription age to leave the country.  So, Igor Krolevets sought refuge in Lviv. After a year and a half apart, the family was reunited in Lviv.  “Khar ..read more

In imperial times, the Great Silk Road was a caravan route from China to the West, made famous by explorers like Marco Polo. In the 20th century, the same route was traversed by Soviet-era train tracks — and it still is. National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek followed the Great Silk Road and its train tracks on foot through Uzbekistan in 2016. This was part of his 24,000-mile walk tracing the path of humans out of Africa and around the globe, a journey being documented in Out of Eden Walk. It’s a trek that Salopek is still walking, and he caught up with The World’s host Carolyn Beeler to sh ..read more

GPS satellites do more than just tell us where we are. The world’s industrial control systems use their signals to tell precise times. That’s why when Russian and Ukrainian officials began jamming GPS satellite signals to throw missiles off course during the war, an unexpected thing happened — the lights went out. That is until some American researchers figured out a fix.  Dina Temple-Raston, host and managing editor of the CLICK HERE podcast from Recorded Future News, explains. Click above to hear the full story. An earlier version of this story appeared on the “CLICK HERE” podcast from ..read more

Benjamin Caton, who is 27 years old, reckons that he has moved to a new home 14 times in three years in Amsterdam. His friend Michiel Voskamp said he has moved six times in the past year alone. Both Dutch nationals, Caton and Voskamp have full-time jobs, but their experience reflects the highly dysfunctional housing market in the Netherlands, where rents have soared in recent years and tenants’ rights have been increasingly restricted. A one-bedroom apartment in the city costs a minimum of $1,300 monthly, while the take-home pay for middle-income earners is a little more than $2,400 a month. B ..read more

Mexico is almost certain to elect its first female president this weekend. Two women, Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez, are pulling over 90% of the vote — an undeniable milestone for the Latin American country. The year 2019 marked a key turning point for Mexican women in politics. The country’s legislature approved a constitutional reform mandating gender balance in all elected and government-appointed positions. Xóchitl Gálvez, left, and Claudia Sheinbaum, right, the frontrunners in Mexico’s presidential election. April 28, 2024. Fernando Llano/AP Photo “This opened the door for a lot of ..read more

Thinking big has brought humanity ambitious, monumental feats of architecture — from the elegance of the Taj Mahal in India to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world’s tallest building. But many others never made it out of the blueprint phase. The new book, “Atlas of Never Built Architecture,” by Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell is a compendium of buildings, city plans, and other structures that were designed, but never actually got off the ground. “Atlas of Never Built Architecture,” by Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin.Courtesy of Phaidon Press “You’re learning about talents that got lost by the wayside ..read more

An earlier version of this story appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune and KUER. Read the original story here. Funding was provided by the Great Salt Lake Collaborative. In the former Kazakh port town of Aral, rusty cranes that once hoisted cargo from ships now rise above a dried-up bay overgrown with spindly shrubs. Several freshly painted fishing boats stand on the town’s boardwalk, monuments to a former way of life. In the distance, camels roam through a vast desert where fish once swam. When Akshabak Batimova was growing up in the 1960s, her father left their village in western Kazakhstan each ..read more

Merced Plaza. Michael Fox/ Under the Shadow In June 1981, Oliva was three months pregnant and had only been married for four months when she witnessed the kidnapping of her husband by the country’s death squad. “I was there when they took him away from me,” she said, adding, “I am a witness to the brutality. I am a survivor of that moment.” Back then, Honduras — unlike its neighbors — wasn’t immersed in war, but its government was authoritarian and violent. The United States fueled that violence by using the country as the staging ground for military operations in the region. The US ..read more

Eduardo Ojeda crossed the US border with his family in December after a five-week journey from Venezuela to a tall border gate in El Paso. Ojeda, his partner, their two teenagers, and their 2-year-old son made a dangerous trek across the Darien jungle.  They took boat rides between remote villages, passed eight border crossings and spent numerous nights sleeping in rainy campsites and crowded shelters.  Eduardo Ojeda poses for a photo after reaching the border between Colombia and Panama in November. Courtesy of Eduardo Ojeda Ojeda, 34, captured some of it with his cellphone, posting ..read more

It may be hundreds of miles away from any coastline, but the Bavarian capital of Munich is home to one of the world’s most iconic — albeit dangerous — waves. The Eisbach wave, which sits on the edge of the Eisbach river, has been attracting wetsuit-wearing surfers since the 1970s, including big names like famed American competitive surfer Kelly Slater. The Eisbach can be intimidating, not just because of the artificial wave itself — which runs in shallow water and can reach up to 4 feet high — but because of everything else surrounding it.  Like the constant audience of dozens o ..read more