Under Mayor Anne Hidalgo, 11 female and five male officials were appointed in 2018 to high-level roles — despite a rule that at least 40% of such positions should go to people of each gender.

On the United Nations' new Planetary Pressures-Adjusted Human Development Index, the United States drops 45 places from its overall ranking, a reflection of the country's outsize environmental impact.

Amid a spike in new cases, leaders in Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have announced the return of strict measures to dissuade people from attending large holiday gatherings.

Recent polls show consistent support among Scots for leaving Great Britain. Many in Scotland think Prime Minister Boris Johnson is poorly suited to handle the pandemic and trust Scottish leaders more.

The Russian leader contacted U.S. President-elect Joe Biden after the Electoral College affirmed his victory. Putin was one of the last major world leaders to do so.

Takahiro Shiraishi murdered and dismembered eight women and one man in his apartment near Tokyo. He used Twitter to lure most of his victims, promising he could help them kill themselves.

Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest, and one of the highest-profile victims of shadowy assailants, who've killed journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators.

"Donors will no longer be asked to declare if they have had sex with another man, making the criteria for blood donation gender neutral and more inclusive," the National Health Service explains.

Canada joins the United Kingdom and the United States as the first Western countries to provide the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, as the coronavirus pandemic rages toward winter.

Dr. Chizoba Barbara Wonodi of Johns Hopkins University explains why a strategy to vaccinate everyone may not be the best approach to fighting the virus in lower-income countries such as Nigeria.