Two teenage reporters, Teddy Fischer and Jane Gormley, interview the US Secretary of Defence.

Also: an unauthorized immigrant dreams of white picket fences; a Mexican street cart vendor in Los Angeles becomes an overnight celebrity; oil brings wealth and trouble to a small town in North Dakota; Laleh Khadivi’s latest novel is about a surfer-dude turned jihadi; plus we meet a man who listens to trees.

(Image: U.S. Secretary of Defence James Mattis listens to a reporter’s questions at the Pentagon on July 7, 2017 in Arlington, Virginia. Credit: Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

M.J. Khan, the president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, who spent a sleepless night monitoring relief efforts, tells us what Houston’s residents are doing to help each other.

Also: experts weigh in on how Houston can plan for future flooding events; a brewer in Amsterdam turns rain into beer; an activist vows to keep the Marshall Islands from disappearing beneath rising seas; we learn if climate change is behind extreme hurricanes; plus a port city in Maine revitalizes its economy by shipping pregnant cows to Turkey . (Image: A flooded road is seen during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on August 30, 2017 in Houston, Texas. Credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Two journalists set off on a quest to hand deliver a letter to a grandmother in Puerto Rico from her family on the mainland of the United States.

Also: we learn why Che Guevara is being honoured on a postage stamp in Ireland; we admire the art of Martin Ramirez which has been featured on postage stamps in the US; plus we read one of the most timeless job application letters in history, sent by a copywriter, Robert Pirosh, to studio directors in Hollywood, in 1934.

(Image: Janet Franceschini Colon (left), Jennifer Santos Franceschini (middle), Jenelyn Santos (right) and Jennifer's two daughters are pictured. Credit: PRI’s The World)

Selina Wang, a tech reporter for Bloomberg News, says that Twitter could still do more to stop Russian and Ukrainian spam accounts from spreading misinformation on the platform.

Also: people on social media keep blaming “Sam Hyde’’ for mass shootings, even though he's innocent, and we finally find out why; Facebook saves a dying mill town in the Pacific Northwest; Uber meets its match in Lebanon; a robot becomes a Saudi citizen; and a couple of amateur astro-explorers plan a trip to Mars.

Image: Colin Stretch, general counsel at Facebook, Sean Edgett, acting general counsel at Twitter, and Richard Salgado, director of law enforcement and information security at Google, testify before Congress on October 31, 2017 in Washington, DC. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

About 80 percent of garment industry workers are women. For the past few months, Jasmine Garsd has travelled the globe to meet these workers, in person.

We start in Roanoke Rapids in North Carolina, a formerly bustling cotton mill town, that’s gone quiet. Next, we go to Los Angeles, were we learn how a sweatshop raid in 1995 changed the garment industry in the US forever. Lastly, we got to Bangladesh, where a large portion of our clothing now gets made.

Want to find out how fair your fashion is? Here’s the website mentioned in the programme: https://interactive.pri.org/2017/fair-fashion-quiz/

(Image: Mother and daughter, Rongmala Begum (standing) and Mayna Begum, both work in clothing factories in Bangladesh. Credit: Ismael Ferdous/PRI)

Fewer international students are coming to the US for post-graduate degrees in science and engineering. We look into why.

Also: Cuba has a lung cancer vaccine but many US patients can’t get it without breaking the law; a tech start-up synthesizes Marco Werman’s voice; tomato pickers in Florida work together to stop sexual abuse; a bioengineer has a plan to defeat disease-bearing mosquitoes with mobile phones; plus the band Mosquitos releases their first album in 10 years and the buzz is that it’s great.

(Image: Stanford bioengineer Haripriya Mukundarajan, center, began the Abuzz project after contracting malaria while she was in college. Credit: Kurt Hickman)

As Trump ends Obama-era protections for Salvadorans; a family in Minnesota has few good options to stay together.

Also on the program: An American family finds their way in Mexico after deportation; a group of indigenous people from South West Africa visit a museum in New York City to view the remains of their ancestors; A Korean adoptee meets his birth mother and winds up moving in with her; plus why 'Arirang' is the perfect song for a divided Korea.

(Image: David, who came to the US from El Salvador without papers, has three children who were born in the US. Credit: PRI’s The World)

In 2015, Summer Nasser traveled from her home in New York City to marry Muntaser Yaghnam in his home country, Yemen. Then, civil war broke out. They tell us about what it was like to get married amid airstrikes and their long wait to travel back to the US.

Also on the programme: US car companies scramble to figure out how to market their cars to Saudi women; a high-tech video portal offers one Milwaukee neighborhood a global perspective; plus we create the perfect playlist for your next journey, with jams by Cosmo Pyke and Frank Ulwenya.

(Image: Muntaser Yaghnam and Summer Nasser at home in New York. Credit: PRI’s The World)

Did Donald Trump commit treason in Helsinki? Legal experts weigh in on the “T” word.

Also: we learn all about Russia’s GRU, the country’s largest military intelligence agency; we remember Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 four years after it was shot down over eastern Ukraine; we meet Crimean families who have been displaced after Russia’s annexation of the peninsula; and finally Alina Simone, a Russian immigrant living in New York, explains why she has given up on teaching her daughter Russian.

(Image: US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin attend a joint press conference in Helsinki. Credit: Getty Images)

One of America's biggest exports to china is its recycling. But in recent months, China has been refusing shipments because so much US recycling is contaminated with food and other waste. That's forcing communities across the US to clean up their acts.

Also: Burberry sends its unsold fashion up in smoke; H&M attempts to market itself as a greener company; a climate scientist in California changes his lifestyle to reduce his carbon footprint; a travel writer grapples with the ethics of visiting Antarctica; plus music from the Small Island, Big Song project. (Image: Cody Marshall, with The Recycling Partnership, looks through a recycling bin in Lynn, Massachusetts. His organization is working with cities across the US, helping them educate residents on how to recycle better. Credit: Jason Margolis/PRI’s The World)

Every Day Is Extra is the title of a new memoir by former US senator and secretary of state John Kerry. He chronicles his time serving in Vietnam, five terms in the Senate, his presidential run, and his tenure as secretary of state. He records a decades long pursuit of multilateral diplomacy and civil political discourse. John Kerry talks to Marco about the state of US politics in 2018.

Also: We visit a Persian bookstore in Los Angeles that sells banned Iranian books; Patrick Winn takes us on a ride through Southeast Asia’s drug-fuelled underworld; In her new memoir, Jean Guerrero takes readers on a cross border journey; and, a library in Canada offers a dial-in story reading service in 16 languages.

(Former US secretary of state John Kerry in the Boston Calling studio at WGBH. Credit: Steven Davy/The World)

One of the stated goals recent United Nations report on climate change is to prevent the planet from warming more than one and a half degrees Celsius. We ask what would happen if the world warmed by, say, two degrees.

Also: Calculating the cost of climate change is doable but difficult -- too difficult says the US Department of Defense; we fact check President Donald Trump on one of his recent statements about climate change; plus we take a journey to the remote Alaskan village of Shishmaref, where climate change and rising sea levels are a present threat.

The next couple of years will be crucial for governments to take action on climate change. In this edition we hear why and what’s being done about it.

We meet Hilda Heine, a global leader on climate change and President of the Marshall Islands; we’ll look at how Americans recycle and find out why it’s not good enough for China; Economist Michael Greenstone explains how air pollution shaves two years off of the average life expectancy; A team of Israeli students create a new variation of falafel with spirulina, a kind of microalgae, that could be a sustainable food solution of the future; and we check out the environmentally friendly sounds of the Colombian band, Bomba Estereo.

(Photo: The leaves of a Russian River Valley pinot noir vineyard begin to turn colour near Sebastopol, California. A cool spring and mild summer have contributed to a later-than-usual harvest and a bumper crop of premium wine grapes throughout the state of California. Credit: George Rose/Getty Images)

When Wajed al-Khalifa and her family arrived in the US as refugees in 2015, everything about the United States seemed foreign. They were now far away from their home in Syria and it was time to acclimate to a new life. It wasn’t long though before they started hitting milestones: Khalifa and her husband got driving licences, their four children excelled in school, quickly overcoming barriers such as English-language instruction and a new education system. Over the past 4 years reporter Monica Campbell has been checking in with the family and their story is still unfolding.

Also, US congresswoman Ilhan Omar tells us about her experience as a refugee from Somalia, and how this informs what she thinks about the US migration crisis.

(Gasem Al Hamad and his children in their new home in Turlock, California. He and his wife fled Syria with their kids after several family members were tortured or killed as the civil war rages on. Al Hamad is now a halal butcher at a nearby slaughterhouse. Credit: Monica Campbell/The World)

President Trump has backed away from his efforts to include a citizenship question on the 2020 US census. But immigrants still fear being asked that question. Also, there’s an outbreak of measles in two ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in New York City. A nurse there is trying to convince those in the community to get vaccinated; former US Defence Secretary Ash Carter offers his views on current tensions with; and a Venezuelan family divided by distance and politics, a daughter laments.

Next month, roughly two million Muslims will travel to the holy city of Mecca for one of the most important religious rituals in Islam. As long as they are in good health and can afford it, every Muslim must complete the Hajj at least once in their lifetime. But the Hajj can only be done in Saudi Arabia, which is making some people feel conflicted about making the journey.

Also, Dutton Books is trying to reinvent books for the smartphone generation with something called the ‘Dwarsligger’; Disney is remaking a live action version of the hit film ‘Mulan,’ this time though, they’re paying attention to their Chinese audience; Some women in Argentina are challenging gender roles on the dance floor, taking the macho out of tango; and in their new album, three Israeli sisters pay tribute to a family member going three generations back, from Yemen.

(Every year, millions of Muslims from around the world descend upon Mecca, Saudi Arabia, for the hajj. Credit: Shirin Jaafari/The World)

In recent years, it’s become fairly common for people to take their own bags when they go grocery shopping. But for the past 18 months, Philippa Robb and her son, Haydn, have also been bringing their own containers, to avoid food packaging and other single-use plastics. Now Philippa’s goal is to have a zero-waste home.

Also, Greta Thunberg is now a household name in environmental activism. Find out how she’s been able to inspire an international youth movement; With a camera strapped to his back, Victor the white-tailed eagle is providing a bird’s eye view of how climate change is melting Alpine glaciers; and China has hundreds of thousands of emissions-free electric buses. Now the US is trying to catch up.

(Philippa Robb and her 16-year-old son, Haydn Robb Harries, stand in their London backyard with one of their three chickens. Robb feeds the chickens leftovers in an attempt to cut down on food waste. Credit: Brenna Daldorph/The World)

At the center of the impeachment showdown in the US, is nearly 400 million dollars in military aid that the Trump administration temporarily withheld from Ukraine. At a US military base in western Ukraine, business goes on as usual but Ukrainian military veterans are worried that they may be losing support. President Trump has been a reluctant supporter of Ukraine, and he has called Ukraine a corrupt country on numerous occasions. Ukrainians are under pressure, as they fight to overcome corruption and continue to seek US support in their conflict with Russia.

(US military personnel from the Wisconsin National Guard participate in a transfer of authority ceremony at the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine base in Yavoriv, Ukraine. Credit: Daniel Ofman/The World)

Several former contractors, who did content moderation work for Facebook, are suing in Europe over the psychological trauma they say the work has caused them. The lawsuit is bringing new scrutiny to the content moderation ecosystem that Facebook and other platforms rely on to police what gets posted on their platforms. Author Sarah T. Roberts says that human content moderation isn’t going away anytime soon.

Also, a North Korean cartoon called ‘Bunny Brothers and the Wolf’, may not be the thinly disguised anti-American propaganda it appears to be; Sesame Street, revolutionized children's television in the US, now it’s doing the same and around the world; and Blue’s Clues, an iconic kids TV program in the US has a new host, Filipino actor Josh Dela Cruz. He tells Marco what the reaction has been like among Asian-American kids.

(Woman looking at the internet site of the online network Facebook. Credit: Classen/ullstein bild/Getty Images)

An impeachment trial is a rare event in the United States but there is something unprecedented about this one. President Trump's troubles are rooted in his approach to US foreign policy and diplomacy. The president is accused of pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his son, in exchange for US military assistance. The implications of the senate's verdict will be felt far beyond America's borders. Former US ambassador Nicholas Burns says that despite the pressure, diplomats from the US state department have acted courageously and have set a positive example for a new generation of foreign service officers.

Also, the death of a US citizen in an Egyptian prison raises questions about US diplomacy; the internet has made cheating by students more digital and more global than ever before, and that has opened up business opportunities in places like Kenya; we look to the Mexico-Guatemala border where a new migrant caravan has been stopped by Mexican security forces; and we compare the cost of maternity healthcare in the US with other countries around the world.

(Former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns testifies during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Nine years have passed since Syrians took to the streets to demand the ouster of the government of Bashar al-Assad. During those nine years, thousands of lives have been lost, many have been displaced and much of the country is in ruins. For many Syrians, displacement has led them to look for a new life in Europe, which has meant spending time on the Greek island of Lesbos. Tens of thousands of Syrians and migrants from other countries have passed through Lesbos. We’ll hear from Syrians reflecting on the crisis in Syria and from migrants who are now seeking asylum, while waiting in limbo in makeshift camps on Lesbos.

Photo: A drone image shows a displaced camp in the town of Kafr Uruq southwest of the town of Sarmada in Syria's northwestern Idlib province. Credit: Omar Haj Kadour/Getty Images

Adam Carter was awarded a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to teach English to teenagers in Beijing. When the coronavirus outbreak hit, his school there was shut down. Carter is still teaching his students remotely, but he also came up with an idea for a side project: trying to broker deals of Chinese-made personal protective equipment - things like masks and gloves - to American hospitals in need. It's been far more complicated than he imagined.

A group of Harvard university graduate students have also created a new PPE supply chain from China to Boston, while other students are on the front lines of debunking Covid-19 misinformation; international students continue to face uncertainty over what the coming school year will look like; while yet another student, her friends and her family, find a unique way to celebrate her graduation; and professional athletes find creative ways to train from while staying at home.

Photo: From left, statues of Lucy Stone and Abigail Adams are heeding the advice of the CDC by wearing face masks on Commonwealth Avenue Mall in Boston. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)

The homicide of George Floyd, an unarmed man, while he was in police custody has sparked demonstrations and protests in the US and across the globe. From London and Berlin to Australia and the Netherlands, thousands marched in solidarity after a video showed a white police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes before he died. The incident touched off outrage in the United States, amid a polarizing presidential campaign and the coronavirus pandemic that has thrown millions out of work. Darnella Wade, an organizer for Black Lives Matter in St. Paul, Minnesota, hopes that this becomes a galvanizing moment for lasting change.

Also, black Americans once largely fought alone against police brutality, but as Somali American kids grew up in the same environment, they began to join Black Lives Matter; Dr. Michelle Morse, a professor of medicine at Harvard University explains why the racism in public health is so harmful in the age of Covid-19; America's adversaries are using global attention on the George Floyd protests as anti-US propaganda; and America’s foreign adversaries are also using social media to deepen division in the US.

In the penultimate edition of Boston Calling, we’re looking back at some of the moments, from the past eight or so years, that have shaped the world and this programme. We start in 2012, also an election year, finding out how the role of the US presidency and American power looked to the world then. We also take a look back at the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. We reflect on the US role in the Middle East, and the impact that military deployments have on the lives of US soldiers. Finally, we revisit a conversation with comedian Trevor Noah, from the day after the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

Photo: Passengers pass through the main concourse at St. Pancras Station, in April 2018, in London, England. Credit: Richard Baker/Getty Images Images

By baseball’s modern viewership standards — and the standards of some other major professional sports — the World Series was a huge success.

The post Dodgers-Yankees World Series was a hit with viewers, but it could’ve been so much more appeared first on Boston.com.

"SNL" returned for the fifth episode of its 50th season on Nov. 2 with host John Mulaney, musical guest Chappell Roan, and a guest appearance from Vice President Kamala Harris.

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"I promise you, this is not the end," "The Daily Show" host said late Tuesday night.

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The best of what's new streaming on Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney Plus, and more.

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"SNL" returned for the sixth episode of its 50th season on Nov. 9 with host Bill Burr playing into his Boston-area roots.

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With Bill Burr back hosting 'Saturday Night Live,' the 'SNL' writing staff came up with three Boston-adjacent sketches for the Canton native.

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The post Join Book Club tonight: ‘Horror Movie’ by Paul Tremblay appeared first on Boston.com.

The post Book Club’s November read is ‘Swift River’ by Essie Chambers appeared first on Boston.com.

Help us update our list of reader-recommended bookstores around Greater Boston.

The post Tell us: What is your favorite independent bookstore in Greater Boston? appeared first on Boston.com.

Chickens outnumber people 4:1, they have more in common, anatomically, with dinosaurs than humans, you can mail order up to 350 different varieties of chicks, and roosters really are much meaner than hens.

The post Book Review: Sy Montgomery shares ‘What the Chicken Knows’ in new mini hardcover appeared first on Boston.com.

In a Facebook post, the WPL thanked the Cambridge Public Library for their help in returning the book to its 'rightful collection.'

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More social workers are working in libraries in recent years.

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The paper was never completed after the teacher discovered its use of AI. The high schooler received a zero and was allowed to start again. He was given a D on the second effort.

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The technology to put a name to a face is now free or cheap to use, so it is mostly a matter of ethics and propriety about whether to exercise the ability or not.

The post Two Harvard students created face recognition glasses. It wasn’t hard. appeared first on Boston.com.

Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The post Robert Downey Jr. says he ‘intends to sue’ all future executives who use his AI replica appeared first on Boston.com.

The Russian Embassy called the officials' announcement “baseless” in an emailed statement, saying Russia “has not interfered and does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the United States.”

The post Federal agencies say Russia and Iran are ramping up influence campaigns targeting U.S. voters appeared first on Boston.com.

The world’s richest man gave his money and time in campaigning for the president-elect and now is putting in his requests for a friendlier regulatory environment.

The post Elon Musk helped elect Trump. What does he expect in return? appeared first on Boston.com.

Some students of color at Stoughton High School were among those who received such messages, according to a statement from Stoughton Public Schools.

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Plus: New England's scariest attractions, a cruise with celebrity chefs, and Kennebunkport Hotel Week.

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From a headless horseman to DunKings to Barbie.

The post These are the very best Halloween costumes we saw in Salem appeared first on Boston.com.

One is in Massachusetts.

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A new ranking by HomeToGo highlights affordable skiing slopes in New England.

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According to city officials, 87,351 visited on Oct. 31 alone.

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"We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience."

The post Steamship Authority ferry out of commission, vehicle reservations on hold appeared first on Boston.com.

It is "one of the most picture-perfect places to go for Christmas."

The post One of the best Christmas getaways on the planet is in Vermont, according to Travel + Leisure appeared first on Boston.com.

Plus: Holidays at the Newport Mansions, best places to visit in December, and the final Memorial Drive Recreation Sunday of the year.

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