Merrit Kennedy

Decades after they were tortured by Chicago police, 57 people have now received reparations totaling $5.5 million from the city of Chicago.

Sean Kennedy of member station WBEZ tells our Newscast unit that the city hopes the settlements can help mend relations between police and the community, especially in light ...

A visitor to central China's Henan province might expect to see wide green plains of farmland or cliffs dropping down to the Yellow River.

Now, there's a more surprising sight on the horizon in Tongxu county: a towering, golden statue of China's former leader Mao Zedong.

The 121-foot-high homage to ...

Anti-federalist militants continue to hold the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., as law enforcement officials keep their distance. But they say they're willing to leave if local residents ask them to, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

For three days, this heavily armed group has occupied the ...

Saudi Arabia's execution of leading Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday sparked a violent protest at the Saudi Embassy in Iran's capital, Tehran. Saudi Arabia then quickly severed ties with its longtime regional rival.

As the broader Middle East reacts to the dramatic deterioration in relations between the ...

Michael Oxley, a former Republican congressman from Ohio, died this morning at 71. His family says his death was the result of lung cancer — though they add that he was not a smoker.

Rep. Oxley's name is plenty familiar to anybody who works in finance. The Sarbanes-Oxley ...

Oklahoma City residents woke early New Year's Day to a magnitude 4.2 quake. Earlier this week, a magnitude 4.3 quake struck the same area.

The state isn't historically known for earthquakes, but NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce told our Newscast unit that Oklahoma "has recently seen a dramatic rise in seismic activity." ...

Natalie Cole, the Grammy award-winning singer and daughter of legendary crooner Nat King Cole, has died. She was 65.

According to a statement from her family, Cole passed away last night at a Los Angeles Hospital "due to complications from ongoing medical issues."

"It is with heavy hearts that ...

Smoke is still billowing from a luxury high-rise hotel in Dubai a day after a massive fire erupted during New Year's Eve celebrations.

As we reported yesterday, Dubai's fireworks display continued as planned, even as the blaze raged a short distance away.

NPR's Leila Fadel is at the scene:

A shooter opened fire in downtown Tel Aviv on Friday, killing two Israelis and wounding others, hospital officials said.

Daniel Estrin told our Newscast unit that police are searching for the gunman. Here's more:

"Hospital officials say two Israelis died of their wounds, two are in serious condition and ...

Huge crowds of New Year's Eve revelers have gathered to watch the ball drop and count down the final moments of 2015 in New York's Times Square.

You can see how other countries celebrated the holiday at our previous post here.

Happy New Year, everyone!

As protests in Chicago continue against gun violence and police shootings, the city has released emails about the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald, the black teenager shot 16 times by a white police officer.

The Associated Press reports that the emails show "the Chicago mayor's office, police and the body ...

Flooding in Missouri and Illinois has killed at least 20 people and driven hundreds from their homes.

But with dry weather forecast for the next few days and after the Meramec River crested Thursday morning, the worst may be over, as St. Louis Public Radio's Maria Altman told our Newscast ...

Munich police say they have credible information about an impending terrorist attack and have evacuated two railway stations, NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports.

The warning, posted on the official Munich Police Twitter account, also advised people to avoid gathering at the central train station or at Pasing train station.

Meet VertiGo, a new four-wheeled robot that can easily roll from the ground onto a wall.

"VertiGo extends the ability of robots to travel through urban and indoor environments," according to a team from Disney Research Zurich and Swiss university EDH Zurich that unveiled the four-wheeled machine on Wednesday.

Egyptian authorities have raided two pillars of the independent arts and culture scene in Cairo over the past 48 hours.

They targeted the Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art and the Merit Publishing House, both in downtown Cairo.

NPR's Leila Fadel in Cairo tells our Newscast unit that the raids ...

U.S. and Mexican authorities say they have detained fugitive Ethan Couch, who invoked an "affluenza" defense after he killed four people while driving drunk in 2013.

The 18-year-old Texan's mother, Tonya Couch, also was taken into custody Monday evening in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta. This ends a ...

Belgian police have arrested two people suspected of planning to attack popular tourist spots during New Year's celebrations.

The Brussels public prosecutor says the suspects posed a "serious threat of attack," Teri Schultz, reporting from Brussels, tells our Newscast unit. Here's more from Teri:

"The two men under arrest ...

A grand jury has declined to bring criminal charges against two Cleveland police officers involved in the fatal shooting of 12-year old Tamir Rice.

"Simply put, given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and miscommunications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police," ...

The French government is making available for the first time more than 200,000 documents on the Vichy government, which collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

The documents, which were previously only partially accessible to researchers, will make "information such as the activities of the special police, who hunted ...

Parts of North Texas, already reeling from deadly tornadoes over the weekend, could see flooding Monday, the National Weather Service says. Blizzard warnings are also in effect in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and into western Oklahoma.

Possible flooding Monday extends from northeast Texas to the Tennessee and Ohio ...