Newsletter Archive

Giving of themselves. After the massive bomb attack that killed 358 people and wounded hundreds more in Mogadishu earlier this month, hundreds rushed to hospitals to donate blood for the victims. Giving blood after a major disaster might be commonplace in many Western countries, but it’s unusual in a country with no blood banks, where social stigma and unfounded fears of needles or anemia keep most people from donating blood.

African safaris are a little passé for millennial tourists who are looking for a more ‘authentic’ travel experience. Visits to the continent are way up and the industry expects Africa to become a huge destination market. But forget packaged tours — the lures for these young travelers are intimate, Instagrammable ‘experiences.’

It isn’t easy to go solar in New York City where few residents have a roof to call their own. The majority of New Yorkers are apartment renters, so the benefits of solar power are elusive. That’s where community-shared solar programs come in.

Deciding which government to obey puts Catalonia police in a difficult position. The central government in Madrid ordered the 17,000-member regional police team to work with national forces to prevent the separatists’ independence referendum earlier this month. And now, with Madrid likely to start imposing direct rule over Spain’s rebellious northeastern region, the officers are again struggling with conflicting loyalties.

VIDEO: When America first declared a ‘war on drugs’ almost 50 years ago, the battle was on to to, first, keep drugs out of the country and, then, to incarcerate our way out of the drug epidemic. Now the US is experiencing a deadly wave of opioid and prescription drug overdoses. Some believe a new shift from criminalizing drug abuse to treating it as a public health concern has racial overtones.

Journalists on both sides of the border face extraordinary challenges while covering the Rohingya crisis. About 600,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape what both the UN and US lawmakers have called an ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the mostly Muslim group. Restrictions, suspicion, religion and nationality are all impediments for journalists trying to get the story out to the world.