Washington D.C., USA

Just weeks after President Barack Obama signed a bill to lift the government shutdown, a trio of troubles befell the Obama administration. Authorities are investigating allegations that the NSA repeatedly spied on American allies without Obama’s knowing. At the same time, Senate Republicans threatened to block presidential appointments to the Senate if the administration fails to be transparent about the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans dead. Most recently, millions of Americans lost health care coverage during an Obamacare website crash, forcing consumers to buy new insurance policies.

Santiago, Chile

After he was burned with cigarettes, beaten with glass bottles and had swastikas engraved into his skin, gay 24-year-old Daniel Zamudio died on Mar. 12, 2012. A year and a half later, Zamudio’s attackers have been found guilty and punished by a court in Santiago. The court sentenced the leader of the attackers to life imprisonment but jailed the youngest of the group for seven years. “I just want them to rot in prison for what they did,” Jacqueline Veras, Zamudio’s mother, said of the attackers in an interview with the Associated Press. “Let them dry up behind bars.”

Kismayo, Somalia

In response to Islamist militant group al-Shabaab’s recent terror strike in Kenya, the U.S. used drones to track and assassinate two senior members of the insurgent group. Among the dead is Ibrahim Ali, al-Shabaab’s top explosives expert.

Damascus, Syria

Last reported domestically in 1999, wild poliovirus resurfaced 15 years later on Mon, Oct. 28. The World Health Organization confirmed the outbreak: 10 cases of polio in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour. A further 12 cases are being investigated, and the majority of victims are below the age of two, the BBC reports. With Deir al-Zour engulfed in the ongoing civil war, WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer fears that over 100,000 children under the age of five are at risk of contracting the disease.