According to the Brazilian Public Security Forum, a research institute based in São Paulo, a record number of 63,880 people were murdered in Brazil in 2017, resulting in a murder rate of 30.8 per 100,000 people. This was 3% higher than the rate in 2016, itself a record.

The state of Rio Grande do Norte, on the northeast coast, had the highest murder rate in the country: 68 murders per 100,000. The second highest was in the northwestern state of Acre, at 63.9. São Paolo, in the south,...

In eastern Ukraine, two Ukrainian soldiers and two pro-Russia rebel soldiers were killed in clashes on Aug. 18, the first such deaths in many months following a cease-fire agreement.

On Aug. 23, five Ukrainian soldiers were killed and seven were injured when pro-Russia rebels attacked a stronghold outside of the rebel-held region of Luhansk.

Each side blamed the other for the sudden escalation of the civil war that has been ongoing in Ukraine since 2014 and has left more than...

A nearly 700-foot section of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy, collapsed on Aug. 18, killing at least 43 people and injuring dozens more. The bridge, built in the 1960s as part of the A10 motorway linking Italy with France, collapsed during a rainstorm. The cause of the collapse was under investigation at press time.

The section that fell, which crossed the Polcevera River as well as train tracks and a road more than 100 feet below, had stood over an area without heavy traffic or...