Bill Chappell

He grins, he fumes, he fights — and through it all, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dances his way in and out of preposterous situations. That's the premise of a video that has become popular in China and reportedly sparked a protest from North Korea.

Citing "a source in ...

The Johns Hopkins Health System will pay $190 million to former patients of a gynecologist who used a small camera to secretly film examinations, in one of the the largest sexual misconduct settlements involving a physician.

The Baltimore-based hospital is settling a class-action lawsuit that includes more than 7,000 women ...

This post was last updated at 7:10 p.m. ET.

Pro-Russian separatists have given what they say are Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17's data recorders to Malaysian officials in Donetsk, the city in eastern Ukraine that has been the militants' stronghold.

Along with the release of victims' bodies hours earlier, the transfer ...

Azamat Tazhayakov, a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who police say impeded their investigation of the 2013 attack, has been convicted on some of the charges against him and found not guilty of others.

Tazhayakov was found guilty of obstructing justice and conspiracy. A 12-member jury says ...

Army Sgt. Ryan Pitts will be the ninth living veteran to receive the nation's highest award for valor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan, when President Obama presents him with the Medal of Honor later today.

As NPR's Tom Bowman reports, Pitts is credited with holding off a brutal Taliban ...

If you've not heard of Benjamin Booker yet, get ready. He's a fiery 22-year-old guitar player from New Orleans about to hit the road with Jack White. This tune, "Have You Seen My Son," is about evangelical father praying for his son's soul. The video, directed by Rick Alverson, was ...

Elaine Stritch, an actress whose talent led to a substantial and long career on Broadway and in cabarets, died Thursday at age 89. She had been living in her native Birmingham, Mich., where she moved last year after spending decades in New York. Stritch's publicist says she died of natural ...

This post was last updated at 6:40 p.m. ET.

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 with 298 passengers and crew aboard has crashed in eastern Ukraine in an area of the country that has been wracked by a separatist insurgency.

The airline's senior vice president and European chief, Huib Gorter, told ...

A bank robbery in California ended in a running gunbattle between police and three armed men in an hourlong car chase. The suspects had taken three hostages with them after fleeing the bank in the city of Stockton. Two of the suspects died, along with one hostage.

The chase didn't ...

A large layoff is under way at Microsoft, as the technology company says it will cut 13,000 jobs in the next six months. All but 500 of the layoffs are related to the Nokia phone division the company acquired in April. Microsoft says it might shed as many as 18,000 ...

Texas blues legend Johnny Winter has died, ending a long and expansive career that included working alongside bluesman Muddy Waters and playing at the Woodstock festival. Winter, who was 70, had been set to release a new album this fall.

Winter's death was confirmed by his publicist, who issued ...

This post was updated at 4:10 p.m. ET: Ground Offenses Begin

Israel has sent ground forces into Gaza on Thursday, which we are covering in this post.

Update at 1:15 p.m. ET: Hostilities Resume

A temporary cease-fire had brought relative quiet to Gaza for a few hours earlier ...

The area of Russia is said to be called, ominously enough, the end of the world. And that's where researchers are headed this week, to investigate a large crater whose appearance reportedly caught scientists by surprise. The crater is estimated at 262 feet wide and is in the northern Siberian ...

Clearing up a technicality that had left visitors from Washington, D.C., unable to purchase alcohol in New Hampshire, the state's liquor board says it's now OK to accept D.C. licenses. Earlier this month, some Washington residents were told they couldn't buy alcohol because their IDs weren't from a state.

As ...

Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox says it sought to buy Time Warner last month, confirming reports of a deal that would have reshaped America's media landscape. The offered price, which Time Warner rejected, was reportedly $80 billion.

The deal would have put HBO, CNN and other Time Warner properties under ...

Discrimination against female workers who might get pregnant in the future, or have been pregnant in the past, is against the law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said this week. For the first time in 30 years, the agency has updated its rules against pregnancy discrimination.

The agency clarified several ...

This post was updated at 3 p.m. ET.

Israel has agreed to a United Nations request for a temporary cease-fire in its shelling campaign of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.

The five-hour bombing halt on Thursday will allow humanitarian aid to be delivered in Gaza.

Backers of a plan to cut California into six states say they now have enough signatures from supporters to get their proposal on a general-election ballot in the state. The plan would create new states with names like Jefferson, Silicon Valley and South California.

The initiative's main backer is tech ...

Margaret Low Smith, a longtime NPR executive who has served as senior vice president for news for three years, is leaving the company to become the president of The Atlantic's live events business.

"Her departure will be felt as profoundly as any in recent memory," NPR Chief Content Officer Kinsey ...