King Abdullah, who's at least 90, was hospitalized last week and Crown Prince Salman delivered an annual televised speech Tuesday. One analyst says the kingdom is stable, perhaps too much so.
Igor Girkin claims to have touched off the conflagration, and he says he's proud of what he did. The former member of the Russian security service has a knack for turning up in tumultuous places.
The clerics are delivering a growing number of fatwas against what they see as insidious dangers. Liberal Muslims are annoyed by what they say is moral micromanaging.
The so-called weekly "package" allows Cubans to watch every current TV show and series available to the world at a fraction of the cost and without government censors.
The country's economy is a mess and low oil prices are hurting the oil-exporting nation. While President Nicolas Maduro is unpopular among many Venezuelans, the opposition is fractured and weak.
By the summer of 2014, a third of Iraq was under the control of the self-proclaimed Islamic State or ISIS, and people worried the capital might be next. Six months on, that's changed.
It's a scene that reflects China's competing trends: Buddhist monks release fish into Shanghai's Huangpu River to "free" them. A few yards downstream, fishermen quickly scoop them up.
In Berlin, street fashion's trendiest figure is Ali Akdeniz, age 85. His dapper attire is the focus of a blog that went viral. Its creator, Zoe Spawton, won Germany's most prestigious design prize.
With the start of the new year, the more than 10,000 American troops remaining there will take on more of a supporting role. But Afghan forces will still need help fighting the Taliban.
The Russian economy took a big hit in 2014. The U.S. and other countries imposed economic sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea, but it was falling oil prices that really hurt the country.
Three years after the U.S. military officially withdrew from Iraq, 2,000 U.S. troops are back restoring the old buildings they'd left behind and renewing former contacts with Iraqi officers.
