Newsletter Archive

Bye-bye ‘Black gold.’ For a long time, coal was king in the Appalachian region of the United States. Generations of families depended on the industry for their livelihood. As coal production declined, some of the towns fell on hard times and are now looking to reinvent themselves as an adventure seeker’s paradise.

QUICK TAKE VIDEO: A couple bought an old airplane with plans to restore it, only to discover it’s an important part of African American history: it was flown by the Tuskegee Airmen, the first black aviators in U.S. military history.  The plane will be displayed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opens tomorrow.

Almost one-fifth of Cambodians in the United States finish high school and about 10 percent go on to earn a college degree. However, young Cambodian-Americans in Lowell, Massachusetts, who work hard to get through school often have to resist the lure of drugs, gangs and violence.

Speaking of the Cambodian-American community, in Oakland, California, there’s a question about how many U.S. Cambodians will vote on election day. The community is estimated to be at around 10,000, but the area lacks one key thing that could be instrumental in getting out the vote.

Meet Farmer Subba. More than half of the refugees who settle in the United States each year come from agricultural backgrounds, and they bring valuable farming skills as they rebuild their lives in their new communities. We met up with a refugee farmer who is planting new roots in Charlottesville, Virginia.

VIDEO: It isn’t easy to be a Muslim in France these days. From the religious to the non-practicing, VOA talks to French Muslims in the town of Chartres, near Paris, about how the rise of nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment is affecting their lives.

A harsh 12-year sentence for a prominent Chinese civil rights attorney sparked a heated debate online about the rule of law in China, and whether the case shows an abuse of legal procedure. Xia Lin was found guilty of defrauding several people to pay off gambling debts, but on China’s Twitter-like microblogging platform, netizens vented over what they believe are bogus charges.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently test-fired the country’s latest submarine-based missile, detonated a fifth nuclear bomb, and conducted a rocket-engine test. Why has North Korea accelerated its testing schedule and what exactly does Kim Jong Un want?