World News

Updated at 11:15 a.m. ET Tuesday

U.S. trade negotiators opened a new round of talks in China on Tuesday. But there appears to be little pressure for a settlement, even as the year-old conflict begins to weigh on the global economy.

"We'll see what happens," President Trump told reporters Tuesday. "We're either going to make a great deal or we're not going to make a deal at all."

More than 60 people were killed when armed men attacked a funeral procession Saturday in northeast Nigeria, according to Nigerian state media. The country's president has vowed to hunt down the perpetrators, widely suspected to be Boko Haram militants.

The United States is trying again to persuade North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.

A senior U.S. official tells NPR that U.S. diplomats are communicating with the reclusive regime. They are passing messages through North Korea's mission to the United Nations in New York.

On a frigid morning in January 2000, Oyutan Gonchig rose at first light to check on his animals. A blanket of snow — over a foot deep — had fallen in the night. He shoveled himself out of his ger, a felt-covered tent traditionally used by semi-nomadic herders. The temperature was minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit, the kind of cold that freezes your eyelashes and stiffens your joints.

Stepping over the threshold and into this blindingly white world, he noticed it was eerily quiet outside.

Four days after being arrested by Russian authorities, Alexei Navalny, a longtime critic of President Vladimir Putin, has been hospitalized with what his spokeswoman has described as an "allergic reaction."

Navalny, one of the most prominent leaders of Russia's opposition movement, was arrested after calling for protests on Saturday against the exclusion of opposition candidates from city council elections in Moscow. He was sentenced to 30 days in prison.

Germany's government has been headed by a woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel, for 14 years. Another German woman, Ursula von der Leyen, recently was chosen to lead the European Commission, the first woman to hold the job. But there is a gap when it comes to women in powerful positions in the German workplace.

When Hassan Baigi arrived in Paris from Afghanistan as an asylum seeker in 2017, he thought his days of sleeping outside were over. But when he got to the City of Lights all the refugee camps were full, so Baigi ended up sleeping under a crowded, noisy metro station in northeast Paris. At one point, as many as 1,200 migrants were sleeping in tents at La Chapelle station.

"It was awful," Baigi says. He had a hard time really accepting that he was in Paris. "I thought I was somewhere else," he recalls.

Protesters in Hong Kong defied orders to not demonstrate on Saturday, gathering to denounce the police and government in an area where pro-democracy activists were attacked last weekend.

Protesters swarmed a major road in the district of Yuen Long clutching umbrellas to shield themselves from police cameras and tear gas that was later used against them at various sites along the route of their march.

Police in Moscow have arrested hundreds of people for demonstrating outside of City Hall. Protesters are calling for fair elections and for opposition candidates to be allowed to run for the city council.

Police had detained 648 people by Saturday afternoon, according to the OVD-Info group, an independent monitor that tracks police departments in Russia.

It's hot: historically, treacherously hot this week, in surprising places.

It was 109 degrees in Paris, the highest temperature ever recorded there. People plunged into the Jardins du Trocadéro fountains to cool down, while officials worried some of the charred walls of Notre Dame Cathedral that didn't fall in April's fire might now dry out and collapse in the furnace of summer heat.

Updated at 5:22 p.m. ET

President Trump announced Friday that Guatemala has agreed to sign a so-called "safe third country asylum agreement" as part of Trump's strategy for reducing the flow of migrants to the U.S.

Trump made the announcement before reporters in the Oval Office as Guatemalan interior minister Enrique Degenhart signed the agreement.

Thousands of protesters are occupying Hong Kong International Airport, filling the arrivals terminal of one of the world's busiest airports. Pro-democracy organizers are hoping to take their message to an international audience, in the latest in a string of protests that began weeks ago.

"Now is the summer of discontent, and as a Hong Konger, I am born, I live, and I love my hometown," leading pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong tells NPR. He adds that in Hong Kong, 'we should determine our own destiny instead of the Hong Kong people's future being dominated by Beijing."

As many as 150 refugees are believed dead after their wooden boat that had been bound for Europe capsized off Libya's coast. According to the United Nations, it's the worst loss of life this year in Mediterranean.

On Wednesday night, the boat departed from Al Khoms, Libya, about 75 miles east of the capital, Tripoli. It sank on Thursday, five miles from Libya's coast.

Updated at 9:53 a.m. ET on July 30

The skies above Lebanon have been filled with colorful balloons in recent days. They're not in celebration, but in protest, and bear the message "Enough, we want dignity" scrawled in Arabic in black marker.

President Trump has vetoed a series of measures approved by bipartisan lawmakers that were aimed at blocking the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Trump said the three resolutions would "weaken America's global competitiveness and damage the important relationship we share with our allies and partners."

Lawmakers in support of the bills have criticized the Saudis' actions in the Yemen conflict where thousands of civilians have died, and the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

A French daredevil known for his souped-up hoverboard tried to glide over the English Channel on Thursday — but he ended up in the soup. Franky Zapata's jet-powered contraption sent him into the water when he tried to refuel more than halfway across the Channel.

At a press conference, Zapata said that while the airborne mission was cut short, it was worth it for pushing his body to the limit, perhaps enabling him to be more prepared for his next attempt.

Updated at 3:42 p.m. ET

Battered by a drop in sales and dive in profits, Nissan says it plans to cut 12,500 jobs around the world — including more than 1,400 in the United States — after posting a big drop in profits for the first quarter.

The cuts — due to come over the next four years — are the latest sign of tumultuous times for the car industry as automakers scramble to retool their factories to focus on electric vehicles and driverless technology.