The World

On Friday, the Women’s National Basketball Association’s season opens but star player Brittney Griner can’t compete. That’s because Griner was “wrongfully detained,” in Russia 78 days ago, according to the US State Department. And Spain has one of the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. But abortion rights activists say there are still setbacks, including the increased presence of outlier anti-abortion groups, many with ties to the US. Plus, a major sandstorm in northern and western Iraq this week has sent hundreds of people to the hospital with respiratory issues. We hear from an Iraqi environmentalist about what's causing the powerful sandstorms.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, 12 Russian generals have been killed. Ukraine's successful targeting of Russian generals has been helped by a classified intelligence gathering effort by the US. And police around the world use Pegasus spyware to track criminals and terrorists. But it’s also been used to hack the electronic devices of others, including the Spanish prime minister. Plus, “beachcombing scholarship” is the latest in a line of indirect methods used to study North Korea. Picking up trash washed ashore on South Korea’s beaches helps researchers get a handle on what’s happening inside the insular country.

The European Union is looking at a proposal to cut itself off of Russian energy as part of a new package of sanctions. Putting the embargo in place would take some time to implement, and it would require all 27 member states to agree. And polls indicate that voters on Thursday are going to make Sinn Fein the largest electoral force in Northern Ireland. It would be a first for the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Plus, what’s in a name? Italy’s top court has declared that the automatic practice of only giving children their father’s last name is discriminatory.

Russian troops resumed bombing a steel plant in the port city of Mariupol today, even though many civilians are apparently still trapped inside the factory. More than 100 Ukrainians who had escaped from bunkers below the steelworks have arrived in Kyiv-controlled Zaporizhzhia. And, a leaked draft opinion suggesting that the Supreme Court has a majority to overturn Roe v. Wade has implications both domestically and globally. Globally, if overturned, it could affect US funding for reproductive health around the world. Plus, Ukrainian poet Iya Kiva is no stranger to war. In 2014, she had to flee her hometown of Donetsk. Now a refugee once more, she turns again to poetry.

At least 100 people have been evacuated from hiding in bunkers in Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant, in southern Ukraine. As Russia enters the second phase of war with Ukraine, most of its ground troops are now concentrated in the eastern Donbas region. And, at the Venice Biennale, the world's largest art show in Italy, the Nordic pavilion is featuring art made by the Indigenous Saami people of Arctic Europe. Plus, the metaverse is upon us. South Korea’s tech hub is spending nearly $200 million to create the future’s virtual worlds — and 1.5 million new jobs.

The effort to document war crimes in Ukraine has gotten strong international support and the International Criminal Court is currently on the ground investigating. But what does it actually take to put a former leader on trial at The Hague? Before the International Criminal Court existed, there was the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The marquee case was the trial of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the so-called “Butcher of the Balkans.” The World’s Chris Harland-Dunaway tells the story of two men from the court: a prosecutor and an insider who flipped on Milosevic.

The United States plays a leading role in the global response to disease threats and pandemics. But the momentum for addressing COVID-19 worldwide is slowing down, according to the director of USAID’s pandemic task force, while global leaders warn that the world remains vulnerable. And one of Ukraine’s leading artists, Pavlo Makov, has become a spokesperson for Ukraine’s cultural resistance at this year’s Venice Biennale. Makov was able to escape from the eastern city of Kharkiv just in time. Plus, the US Army has delivered a birthday cake to Italian woman Meri Mion on her 90th birthday. The cake replaces the one stolen by US soldiers in 1945.

Explosions this week rocked Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria, which borders Ukraine. A Russian military commander has said that the Kremlin plans to set up a corridor through southern Ukraine, connecting it to the separatist region. And Ukrainian families who fled to Poland are finding ways for their children to continue their education in Ukrainian, help them learn Polish and ease the trauma of war. Plus, France said it was leaving Mali in February, after French troops spent a decade in the region fighting militant groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. But two months on, 5,000 French troops still remain in Mali and neighboring countries.

Moscow has cut off natural gas supply to Poland and Bulgaria because they have failed to make their payments in rubles, a demand of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The European Union has countered that Russia is just trying to blackmail countries that support Ukraine. And, in a rare form of diplomacy between the US and Russia, the two nations agreed to an unexpected prisoner swap: Russia released former US marine Trevor Reed while the US released a Russian pilot. Both men were facing long prison sentences. Plus, when the American band Sonic Youth played for a crowd in Kyiv in 1989, it changed teenager Eugene Hutz’s life, inspiring him to find his own musical voice.

The letter Z has become a symbol of support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, appearing on T-shirts, billboards and social media accounts in defense of the war. Now, some European countries have decided to ban public displays of the letter altogether. And Twitter is one of the world's most influential public spaces. Its purchase by Elon Musk, who calls himself a “free speech absolutist” is likely to shake up Twitter’s role on the global stage. Plus, the oldest-known person in the world, Kane Tanaka of Japan, has died at the age of 119.