Newsletter Archive

Female genital mutilation is illegal in the United States, but its aftereffects haunt many Somalis now living in the U.S. These women underwent FGM as young girls and still live with pain.

Millions of Americans have already voted even though election day is more than two weeks away. Early voting could swell beyond 50 million this presidential election, the most ever, according to the experts. When do advance votes help, or hurt, a candidate?

VIDEO EXPLAINER: The United States elects its presidents using a state-by-state system. There are about a dozen battleground states — places where it’s hard to predict which candidate will win. Here’s everything you need to know about these so-called ‘swing states.’

Passing storm? It’s possible the Cambodian-American community in Lowell, Massachusetts, the second largest in the United States, has never been as politically fragmented as it is today. But it’s not the U.S. presidential election that’s got folks all worked up, it’s a feud between rival political camps nearly 13,000 kilometers away.

For Hollywood, the Chinese market represents big bucks. By 2026, the Asian country is expected to have almost four times as many movie screens as the United States. Tinseltown is eager to cash in on Chinese investors and audiences, but there might be a free speech price to pay if U.S. movies must avoid offending Chinese censors.

PODCAST: Heroin use along Kenya’s coast has skyrocketed as the drug trade finds a new route from Afghanistan through Africa to Europe. VOA travels to Mombasa and Malindi to explore how the drug wreaks havoc on users and their families.

Stuck on Italy’s border with France, migrants ponder what to do next. Most of them are Africans who hope to continue on to other European countries. But emergency border checks have left many migrants unsure of what to do next. We wanted to know what goes through people’s minds when they’re living in limbo.

How about if we had a spellchecker for hate? A new browser plugin could help temper online discourse before it gets out of hand. The Hate Speech Blocker doesn’t prevent anyone from posting — no free speech problems here — but it does gently remind you that certain words could be construed as hateful.