Newsletter Archive

Tonight’s presidential debate could be the defining moment of the 2016 campaign. The first match-up between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump is expected to draw a record number of viewers who will see the candidates on the stage together for the first time. But the substance of the debate is not the only thing people will be watching for.

If there’s one group of voters that isn’t particularly excited about tonight’s debate, it’s probably the millennials. Young people between the ages of 18 and 35 have the same voting power as the aging Baby Boomers but they rarely exercise that influence. To understand millennials’ general lack of enthusiasm toward the 2016 election, you have to grasp their profound dissatisfaction.

American confidence in the police, and in major institutions overall, remains very low. In the past week, two African-American men were shot and killed by police officers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. A majority of African-Americans don’t trust the police, according to a recent poll, but then again, neither do white Americans.

Russians often call San Francisco the most Russian city in America. We wondered why, so VOA took a walking tour around Frisco to learn more about the connection Russians feel to the city they sometimes call the ‘Paris of the West.’

Sell or destroy? A global conservation group is trying to decide what African countries should do with the illegal ivory they seize. Should they destroy the banned product or sell it to fund conservation efforts? Others point to a third option — selling the seized ivory in order to pay off the national debt of certain African nations.

Student protests turned violent in South Africa after the government proposed an 8-percent college tuition hike. The demonstrations have prompted at least four universities to close. Angry students want the equality and prosperity that was promised when apartheid ended two decades ago, and they’d like to start with a free university education.

The arrests of 24 Kurdish teachers, who are accused of supporting the PKK Kurdish rebel group, have intensified criticism of the Turkish government’s use of the emergency powers it introduced following July’s failed coup. Critics accuse the government of using its powers to target opponents, rather than coup plotters.

In a country unable to elect a president, one man reigns as a self-appointed emperor. Michel Elefteriades, a former militia leader turned producer and king of Beirut’s nightlife, is a man in search of a new way of doing things. That’s why he calls himself the emperor of Nowheristan — as in no-where-istan — with a nation with followers from across the world.