Rio de Janeiro

Demonstrators protested around the world over the weekend to decry the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

Since leaders first started talking about tackling the problem of climate change, the world has spewed more heat-trapping gases, gotten hotter and suffered hundreds of extreme weather disasters. Fires have burned, ice has melted and seas have grown. The first United Nations diplomatic conference to tackle climate change was in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Here’s what’s happened to Earth...

Molly Solomon began her career at NBC Sports as a researcher for its Olympics coverage. Nearly 30 years later, she will lead its coverage. NBC announced Tuesday that it has promoted Solomon to executive producer and president of the network’s Olympics unit, becoming the first woman to be an executive producer for a network sports division.

Roger Bannister, 1954. Eliud Kipchoge, 2019? Like the sub-four minute mile, running a marathon in less than two hours had seemed impossible — until Saturday. But this time there’s an asterisk: Olympic champion Kipchoge performed his feat under conditions so tightly controlled to maximize his success that it won’t appear in the record books. The 34-year-old Kenyan completed the 42.195...

A fire raced through a hospital in Rio de Janeiro, forcing staff to wheel patients into the streets on stretchers or in wheelchairs and killing at least 11 people, many of them elderly. Four firefighters were hospitalized after battling the overnight blaze at Badim Hospital and about 90 patients were transferred to other hospitals, the fire department said. A rope...

Simone Biles is looking for action more than words when it comes to the response by USA Gymnastics in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal involving former team doctor Larry Nassar. In an exclusive interview on TODAY Tuesday, the four-time Olympic gold medalist spoke about the organization’s reaction to her emotional comments on Aug. 7 in which she condemned...

A Brazilian judge accepted a recommendation from prosecutors Thursday to close the investigation of soccer star Neymar on a rape allegation on the grounds of there being a lack of evidence against him. Sao Paulo state prosecutors Flávia Merlini and Estefânia Paulin announced during the day that they agreed with a July 30 decision by police not to bring charges...

Clauvino da Silva dressed in his visiting daughter’s clothing and donned a wig and silicon mask as he attempted to escape Gericino prison. He was later found dead in his cell of apparent suicide.

A Brazilian gang leader who tried to escape prison dressed as his daughter has been found dead in his cell Tuesday, according to Rio de Janeiro prisons authorities. An investigation has been opened. Clauvino da Silva was caught over the weekend as he tried to head out of a jail in western Rio wearing a female silicon mask, a long...

At least 52 prisoners were killed by other inmates during clashes between organized crime groups at the Altamira prison in northern Brazil on Monday, according to prison officials. Para state prison authorities said 16 of the victims were decapitated while others were asphyxiated. The count of victims potentially could rise when authorities have searched all areas involved, state prisons chief...

Brazilian prisons are no stranger to gang violence. In 2017, fights between gangs went on for three weeks and claimed more than 120 lives.

The countdown for the Tokyo Olympics has hit 365 days. To mark the year-to-go mark, the gold, silver and bronze Olympic medals are to be unveiled Wednesday as part of daylong ceremonies around the Japanese capital. Tokyo’s 1964 Olympics showcased bullet trains, futuristic designs and a new expressway, underlining Japan’s recovery following World War II. Those games were the first...

João Gilberto, a Brazilian singer, guitarist and songwriter considered one of the fathers of the bossa nova genre that gained global popularity in the 1960s and became an iconic sound of the South American nation, died Saturday, his son said. He was 88. João Marcelo said his father had been battling health issues though no official cause of his death...

A Brazilian judge on Friday absolved the man who stabbed then-presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in his torso last year, citing his mental illness and ordering him held indefinitely in a prison mental facility. Adélio Bispo de Oliveira has been in police custody since Sept. 6 when he was accused of stabbing Bolsonaro while he was campaigning in the streets of...

Three stars on their uniform, one for each conquest, distinguish the U.S. women’s national soccer team as three-time FIFA World Cup champions. Of the 24 participants in the 2019 FIFA World Cup in France, which begins Friday, the U.S. is the only team that boasts so many feats. But this year they’ll have to face two strong lineups in group...

A woman who has accused Brazilian soccer star Neymar of raping her in a Paris hotel went on television in an interview aired Wednesday to reaffirm her allegation against him in her first public comments on the case. Talking to Brazilian station SBT, the woman described herself as an “ordinary person who works, studies; I’m a model and a student...

Tsunekazu Takeda is stepping down as the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee amid a vote-buying scandal that French investigators suspect helped Tokyo land next year’s Olympics. Takeda announced Tuesday at the committee’s executive board meeting that he will resign when his term ends in June, and he again denied corruption allegations against him.

Fire tore through the sleeping quarters of an academy for one of Brazil’s most popular professional soccer clubs Friday, killing 10 people and injuring three, most likely teenage players, authorities said. Firefighters were called just after 5 a.m. local time to the sprawling Ninho de Urubu training grounds of the Flamengo soccer club in Rio de Janeiro’s western region. Overhead...

Iggy Azalea experienced a terrifying moment when one of her backup dancers suffered a seizure during a concert. The incident took place on Thursday night, when Azalea was performing for a concert in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The rapper was singing her song “Black Widow,” when one of her three dancers suddenly fell to the floor in front of the...