NPR News

Sexual violence against children happens everywhere: in wealthy enclaves, in slums, in suburbs, in rural villages.

Invariably, it happens in secret: in the privacy of family homes, in dark corners of schools and churches, and in murky shadows at neighborhood, community, sporting and scouting events.

For decades, Bruce Bagley has been regarded as a leading expert on organized crime in Latin America, particularly on money laundering. Now, the University of Miami professor is under federal investigation for the way he may have applied that knowledge.

Bagley was arrested Monday on charges of laundering $3 million on behalf of corrupt foreign nationals who collected the illicit funds through bribes and by embezzling from a public works project in Venezuela.

The use and importation of electronic cigarettes will soon be outlawed in the Philippines, according to President Rodrigo Duterte. He criticized vaping devices at a press conference Tuesday, four days after Filipino health regulators saw their first case of vape-associated lung injury.

A days-long tense standoff between protesters and police is grinding on at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The numbers of protesters barricaded inside the school has dwindled to about 100, and their food supplies are rapidly depleting after police surrounded the campus on Sunday.

Two days after a shooting that killed four men and wounded six at a backyard party in Fresno, Calif., police are seeking at least two gunmen — and the city's large Hmong community is looking for answers.

Police say the two men said nothing as they entered the yard where people were watching football and started firing shots from semiautomatic handguns. "Witnesses only indicated that they saw the muzzle flash from the weapons," said Fresno Police Chief Andy Hall.

In an escalating dispute over how much allies should pay the U.S. to station troops on their soil, U.S. negotiators walked out on talks with South Korea in Seoul on Tuesday, as the two sides staked out vastly differing positions and accused the other side of being unreasonable.

Updated at 3:50 p.m. ET

Four witnesses are testifying in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, starting the second week of public hearings in the ongoing impeachment inquiry investigation.

The morning session features Jennifer Williams, a career State Department staffer detailed to work with Vice President Pence's staff, as well as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council. Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former Russia director for the NSC Tim Morrison are testifying in the afternoon.

It was a moment of genuine bipartisanship at the House Ways and Means Committee in October, as Democratic and Republican sponsors alike praised a bill called the "Restoring Access to Medication Act of 2019."

The bill, approved by the panel on a voice vote, would allow consumers to use their tax-free flexible spending accounts or health savings accounts to pay for over-the-counter medications and women's menstrual products.

Updated at 5:18p.m. ET

Two correctional officers who were assigned to guard Jeffrey Epstein on the night he died in his cell have been indicted for allegedly ignoring more than 75 mandatory checks on the wealthy financier then fabricating records to cover it up.

Federal authorities charged Michael Thomas and Tova Noel with multiple counts of falsifying records and conspiracy. The two worked as guards at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, a federal facility in Manhattan that is mostly used for defendants awaiting trial.