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Launched in August, the Maersk McKinney Moller is the first of a new class of megaships. It's 20 stories high and a quarter-mile long. NPR's Jackie Northam hopped on board in Poland.

A Human Rights Watch report documents brutal force used by Venezuelan security forces against peaceful demonstrators — including beatings, shootings and, in some cases, torture. The report also shows how security forces work in cahoots with pro-government armed gangs, calling the abuses the worst they have seen in years.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, one of Iran's most prominent human rights lawyers, says President Hassan Rouhani has opened a space for dissident voices, but the country is still a "big prison."

Former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died last month, is supporting Nicolas Maduro in Sunday's presidential election. How do we know? Maduro says Chavez came to him, as a bird, in a dream. For some Venezuelans, that's enough: Maduro leads the race by a considerable margin.

The paralyzing virus had seemed on the verge of disappearing. But this year cases are being reported in 10 countries. The World Health Organization has responded with strict vaccination rules.

Following two doctrinally conservative leaders, Pope Francis' pastoral approach in his first year has given the Catholic Church a new glow. But it's still unclear where he intends to take the church.

Around the world, many of us start our day with a drug derived from a natural insecticide: caffeine. Murray Carpenter tells the tale in Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us.

The Obama administration just released the latest sign-up numbers for its troubled health insurance exchange website. Enrollment picked up last month, after a disastrous start in October. Still, the number of people signing up for coverage is below the administration's original forecasts.

Nationwide elections in Venezuela have provided some breathing room for President Nicolas Maduro, who has been struggling with skyrocketing inflation and shortages of basic goods. Opposition parties had hoped to deal a stinging blow to Maduro, but instead he proclaimed victory and pledged to deepen the socialist revolution, including more government measures to control the economy.

As 2013 wraps up, NPR is looking at the numbers that tell this year's story. The number 1,134 got us all talking about where our clothes come from, who's making it, and under what conditions. It's the official death toll of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh.