Nation/World

When Najat Hamza, 39, was in her early teens, she fled Oromia, a regional state in Ethiopia, with her father and two older siblings during a violent conflict in the region. They eventually settled in the United States.

After nearly 20 years of living in Minnesota, Hamza came to StoryCorps in 2017 with her cousin, Muntaha Shato, to reflect on the unshakable longing for the home Hamza left behind.

Hamza vividly remembered the night, in 1998, that she suddenly had to say goodbye to the rest of her close-knit family.

It's been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic completely upended our lives. For young people especially, it reprieved them of fully experiencing the world during a crucial time of growth and development.

Parents all over the world are beaming with all sorts of questions to get a grasp on the pandemic's toll, such as: How has the pandemic been affecting our children? Has remote learning slowed their education? Has reduced socializing hurt their development?

Three weeks after it was signed into law, local election officials in Georgia are still trying to understand all the implications of the state's controversial election overhaul.

In a series of interviews, election officials said that while the Republican-led measure has some good provisions, many felt sidelined as the legislation was being debated, and believe that parts of it will make Georgia elections more difficult and expensive.

The venerable doctor drama Grey's Anatomy is adding new characters, bringing back old ones and writing in COVID-19 subplots in its 17th season. When you look at a list of the longest-running scripted shows, Grey's Anatomy is among the very few still airing on primetime TV, along with The Simpsons (32 seasons), Law & Order: SVU (22 seasons), Family Guy (19 seasons) and NCIS (18 seasons.)

President Biden stood in the Roosevelt Room at the White House and declared the end of U.S. involvement in the war in Afghanistan. He spoke from the same spot where former President George W. Bush announced the beginning of the war 20 years ago with a bombing campaign.

"It's time to end America's longest war," Biden said. "It's time for American troops to come home."

In at least 30 states nationwide, lawmakers have introduced bills aiming to keep transgender girls and women from participating on girls' and women's sports teams. These type of restrictions have become a major culture war battle, with Republican lawmakers being the loudest proponents of such bills, while Democrats often oppose them.

When President Biden welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the White House on Friday, concerns about the competition posed by China will be front and center in the talks.

It is Biden's first in-person visit with a foreign leader at the White House since he took office, and it sends a signal about how Biden plans to work through alliances to counter China.

A man identified by police as Brandon Hole, 19, opened fire outside a FedEx warehouse facility in Indianapolis late Thursday night before moving inside the facility, killing eight people and injuring several others. Hole is believed to have shot himself and is among the nine dead, according to police.

"FedEx officials have confirmed that Mr. Hole was an employee at the facility and that he was last employed in 2020," Indianapolis Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said.

Drive west 100 miles from Tucson, Ariz., across the rugged and mountainous Sonoran Desert, and Highway 86 starts getting more potholed and narrow as you get close to the old copper mining town of Ajo.

Here, off the historic Ajo Plaza with its ornate Spanish colonial buildings, a pair of white U.S. Border Patrol vans pulls into a dusty alley, already hot even on an early April afternoon.

For Simranjit Singh, spending time in his family's almond and raisin fields is "the most therapeutic thing I could ever ask for." He says it's something he could never give up.

Singh is a 28-year-old farmer in a town 15 miles west of Fresno, Calif., called Kerman.

His extended family gathered on the farm last weekend to celebrate Vaisakhi, a farming holiday celebrated annually on April 13 or 14, and throughout the month.

The volcano La Soufrière began to explosively erupt on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent last Friday. For nearly a week, periodic eruptions have covered the island in ash and volcanic flows of molten rock and gas have gushed down the mountainside. Residents have been displaced and are left without clean water or electricity, adding a humanitarian emergency into the mix.

Jamel Hill, 30, describes his first few months in medical school in 2016 as a "rude awakening." With few people looking like him in the lecture hall, he felt isolated. But it was some conversations being had in the classroom and the hospital that left him the most uncomfortable.

"I've had patients tell nurses that they don't want Black physicians," Hill says. "You know, we're in the 2020s, and you would think that doesn't happen, but it very much so does."

Health officials in Brazil say many hospitals are running dangerously short of sedatives and other crucial medications used for treating gravely ill COVID-19 patients.

They say some health services have already exhausted stocks of certain drugs, while others expect to do so within the next few days unless they receive fresh supplies.

A majority of the Illinois Supreme Court decided Thursday that the state law governing certificates of innocence only requires exonerated individuals to prove their innocence for the criminal offense with which they were initially charged.

The court’s decision means that an exonerated person who seeks a certificate of innocence does not have to prove their innocence in “every conceivable theory of criminal liability for that offense.”

The former Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer charged in the killing of Daunte Wright made her first appearance in court Thursday as members of the Wright family continued their call for consequences.

Police officials have said Kim Potter, a 48-year-old white woman, mistook her handgun for her Taser when she fatally shot Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, on Sunday. In body camera footage, Potter can be heard yelling "Taser!" just before shooting him.

Chicago has released video footage showing the fatal police shooting of Adam Toledo, more than two weeks after the 13-year-old was killed during a foot chase in the Little Village neighborhood.

A graphic and disturbing video captures what police have described as an alleyway confrontation between Toledo and an officer identified as Eric Stillman in the early morning of March 29.

The Biden administration has been scrambling to care for hundreds of migrant children and teenagers crossing the Southern border alone daily — opening a dozen emergency influx shelters and moving thousands out of jail-like holding cells and tents that have stoked public outrage.

Still, the administration faces big challenges as it deals with the record-breaking surge of unaccompanied minors.