Newsletter Archive

From the physical battlefield to the war on child pornography. For a fifth year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has quietly trained a small team of injured, wounded or sick military veterans for a different type of deployment in the war on child abusers.

Building President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall could mean big money for any company chosen to construct the barrier. VOA checks in with two bidders, including a small manufacturing firm that already protects nearly 50 kilometers of the US border with Mexico, and a Mexican-American who wants to erect a ‘humane wall.’

Historically, Native Americans were not a unified culture; there were hundreds of different cultures and tribes who communicated with each other in what is today known as Plains Indian Sign Language. But when the federal government tried to ‘civilize’ tribal people, this sign language began to die out. Now there’s an effort to preserve the language of Hand Talk.

With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigations, it will be up to his second in command to ultimately decide whether anyone in the Trump administration, or the president’s campaign team, collaborated with Russians to influence the 2016 election. Who is deputy attorney general nominee Rod Rosenstein? Here’s what we know about the 52-year-old federal prosecutor who’s in a position to influence American history.

Trapped in a death grip. Parts of Mosul still held by Islamic State appear to be defended by the most fanatic and best-trained among the extremist group. VOA is in Iraq, where people who’ve managed to escape IS say trapped civilians face a terrible choice. If they run from IS, they could be executed. If they stay, they’ll almost certainly be used as human shields.

Russia plans to label the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a nontraditional Christian movement, as an ‘extremist’ organization, effectively banning the religious group. The move would liquidate the group’s national headquarters and hundreds of local chapters in Russia. VOA reports from Moscow where, if the decision holds, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia face the threat of criminal prosecution.

A weed that has plagued fishermen for years is now a money maker for an enterprising Kenyan man. In Kisumu, VOA checks out the water hyacinth, which is depleting fish stocks, affecting thousands of livelihoods. But innovator Michael Otieno sees possibilities in the flowering weed, and has turned what others see as a nuisance into a profitable business venture.