Newsletter Archive

He’s accused her of ‘ruining Europe’ and she’s scolded him for his travel ban, but today President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel finally come face to face at the White House. And when the leaders of two of the world’s two most powerful economies meet, the future of the transatlantic relationship will be hanging in the balance.

After six years of budget cuts, the US Navy is in line for a major funding boost. President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget proposes a $54 billion increase in defense spending. VOA spent time on a US aircraft carrier that’s conducting strikes against Islamic State, and reports why the world’s best-funded Navy thinks it needs more money to prepare for future threats.

Hackers have a bad reputation, but there’s different kind of hacker that is trying to create a more user-friendly world. Tinkerers around the world are starting to come together at so-called hacker spaces to share tools and camaraderie. VOA visits one of the  playgrounds where do-it-yourselfers do their hacking.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s first commercial radio station is expected to go online this summer. Cell phones and satellite radio may have eclipsed radio in urban areas, but radio is particularly important on rural reservations where some tribal members live ‘off the grid’ without access to phone and internet. For Native American tribes, it’s also a critical means of preserving a culture, and perhaps even saving lives.

Aspiring tech entrepreneurs from all over the world have converged at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, to prove their worth. VOA is there and takes a look at what it takes to stand apart from the competition.

The 2017 tobacco-selling season has opened in Zimbabwe and there are hopes the ‘golden leaf’ will help boost the southern African nation’s economic fortunes. VOA was on the country’s biggest auction floor in Harare when a government official saluted the farmers, but not all of the tobacco growers are feeling the love.

This week’s rejection of the ‘Dutch Donald Trump’ in the Netherlands gives hope to European centrists as Germany and France head to elections this year. Dutch voters rejected anti-Islam and anti-immigrant crusader Geert Wilders at the polls on Wednesday. But is the Netherlands a true test of what’s to come in Europe?