Newsletter Archive

Getting up close and personal is worth more than a speech in American politics. There’s an old saying that all politics is local, even during a presidential race. While Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump draw big crowds to their rallies, candidates in small communities across America are going door-to-door, or finding other ways to reach out to voters because the ‘personal touch’ strategy works.

Stating the obvious? Donald Trump believes President Barack Obama was indeed born in the United States after all. The Republican presidential candidate was a force behind the movement that raised questions about whether Obama is American born. On Friday, Trump ended five years of speculation and blamed rival Hillary Clinton for starting the so-called birther rumors.

New immigrants in America should not have to assimilate in the view of London’s mayor, who is visiting the United States. Here’s what Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor, thinks should happen instead.

VIDEO: Athletes from their 50s into their 90s prove you’re never too old to go for the gold. Many participants in this Senior Olympics didn’t play sports in high school or college, but they’re making up for lost time now.

Methamphetamine use is on the rise in Thailand, Indonesia and Brunei, while heroin is a bigger problem in Indonesia. A group of Southeast Asian nations is banding together to combat the growing drug problem across the region. They plan to start by creating a centralized data source for law enforcement and carrying out joint patrols.

Nigerians are reliving the ebola crisis — only this time it’s just on screen. VOA was in Lagos for the premiere of a new docudrama that chronicles the harrowing weeks in the summer of 2014 when ebola spread across the region, killing thousands. The movie hits close to home because many of the scenes were filmed in the actual neighborhoods where people fell sick.

Speaking of Nigeria, that country is near the bottom when it comes to attracting tourism dollars. Ghana ranks among the continent’s best tourism performers, along with Tanzania, Rwanda and Senegal. At the bottom, Nigeria is second only to the Democratic Republic of Congo. It could all come down to how easy it is to get a visa.

Faced with arms shortages, Islamic State is reduced to making its own weapons. Months of separate bombing campaigns by the U.S. coalition, Russian, and Iraqi government planes have wiped out much of the terror group’s heavy weaponry. VOA is in Mosul, where armaments made from gas canisters and thick iron pipes, filled with explosives or fertilizer, were discovered in a homemade arsenal recently uncovered by Kurdish forces in Iraq.