Boston Calling

An unauthorized Muslim immigrant from Uzbekistan was offered a deal by the FBI: You can remain in the US, but only if you'll spy on your fellow Muslims. He did, but then he decided he wanted to stop. Also, the Trump administration declassified thousands of documents that reveal details of Argentina's so called ‘dirty war’; In Northern Thailand, the grandchildren of one-time CIA backed Chinese rebels transformed what used to be a secret hideaway to a tea-drinking tourist haven; and the FBI has had agents dedicated to fighting war crimes, but now that team is being disbanded. (The J. Edgar Hoover Building of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Washington, DC. Credit: Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images)

When US presidents get on the phone to speak with foreign leaders, staff are on hand to take diligent notes. But is there a set procedure of how calls with foreign dignitaries are handled? Tom Blanford from the National Security Archives in Washington, DC says that Trump’s style has been very different compared with his predecessors. Also, TikTok, is one of the most popular social media apps in the world but the company that owns it is based in China, and some say that's leading to censorship; When you think about the Soviet Union, you don’t often think about comedy, Michael Idov’s film ‘The Humorist’ delves into the life of a Soviet comic; the power of comedy is something stand-up comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi is trying to harness in order to start a more honest conversation between Israelis and Palestinians; and the tale of a Russian ship captain whose message in a bottle was recently discovered on a beach in Alaska. Image: Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump (Credit: Ukraine Presidential Press Service via EPA)

As the 2020 presidential campaign in America heats up, evangelical Christians will be getting more and more attention in the US news media. They always do during election season as they have long been seen as reliable Republican voters. But people who identify as evangelical or born-again Christians are more than just a voting bloc. Evangelicals make up a huge swath of the US population and they are rapidly becoming more diverse than ever before. (Jason Petty is shown on stage performing under his spoken word artist and rapper name, Propaganda. Credit: Matthew Bell/The World)

The Mississippi river could be called America’s inland hydro highway. It carries US goods and commodities out to the rest of the world and allows trade flows to return. But up and down the Mississippi River, there are new pressures. The strain on the river system is only becoming more acute with the impacts of climate change. Reporter Jason Margolis recently traveled nearly 1800 kilometres down the Mississippi to assess the health of the river, its economy and its people. (A fish is pulled from the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Further south, oysters thrive in brackish water, a mix of freshwater and saltwater in coastal Louisiana. Credit: Leyland Cecco/The World)

How quickly will Antarctica’s massive Thwaites Glacier melt, and what will that mean for global sea levels and coastal cities? Scientists spent several weeks aboard the research ship Nathaniel B Palmer, studying Thwaites as part of a five-year, international effort to try to answer those pressing questions. Our reporter Carolyn Beeler takes us onboard for a deep dive into the science and the stakes for our future. (An iceberg in the Southern Ocean, is pictured here as the Nathaniel B. Palmer sailed by during its return trip from Antarctica in March 2019. Carolyn Beeler/The World)