Newsletter Archive

Hillary Clinton went to Capitol Hill to boost Democratic Party unity but her biggest challenge might be rank-and-file Democrats. Nearly half of Bernie Sanders supporters say they won’t vote for the presumptive nominee in the presidential election, which could present a big problem for the party.

‘Not exactly’ is what fact checkers are saying about the presidential candidates’ more outlandish claims. Did Hillary Clinton really accept a gold-and-diamond necklace from a Middle Eastern queen? Does Donald Trump really plan to sell the Statue of Liberty in order to cut the national debt? Here are the facts.

While Democrats in the House of Representatives held a marathon sit-in calling for a vote on gun control, VOA was pondering the fact that there’s no federal study on how to reduce gun violence or make guns safer. About 33,000 people in the U.S. are killed by gun violence each year, and experts say they need more information on the subject in order to make us all safer. Australia thinks it might already have the answer to preventing mass shootings. And, while there’s a lot U.S. researchers don’t know, they have been able to figure out who is most likely to commit murder.

Yazidi mass grave sites in northern Iraq face a serious threat of disappearing, according to Yazidi support groups. Human remains were evident during a visit to one such neglected site, where gruesome evidence of possible Islamic State genocide is slowly vanishing, hindering the possibility of seeking justice for Yazidi victims of mass killings.

Today’s the big day. Millions of Britons are heading to the polls to decide whether to leave the European Union. The 28-country bloc is designed to offer economic advantages and more global clout to its members. Polls show the two sides are in a dead heat, which has folks in Belgium — one of the European Parliament’s places of work — on edge. Meanwhile, Brexit has spawned a Twitter trend that’s got voters posting images of #DogsAtPollingStations.

VOA is in China as authorities appear to tighten control on the small village of Wukan, a grassroots model of democracy. Lin Zulian, a democratically-elected local leader, was arrested early Saturday after leading years of protests against allegedly illegal land grabs.

We Americans can be a superficial bunch. Appearances matter, even when it comes to politics. In conservative states, for example, Democrats can pick up votes just by looking more Republican than their rivals. So, what exactly does a Republican look like?

A fake war is on outside of Moscow where VOA joined ‘American’ troops in the forest as they engaged in war games with ‘German’, ‘Russian’ and ‘British’ troops. Historic battle re-enactment is a niche hobby in Russia, where the Kremlin likes to play-up past military victories as a show of national strength.