Newsletter Archive

VIDEO: America’s current opioid overdose epidemic started in doctors’ offices. The abuse of prescription opioids along with the illicit use of heroin killed nearly 60,000 people last year. Those kinds of numbers prompted President Trump to declare a public health emergency to deal with the problem. VOA takes a closer look at the grim situation in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, where someone dies from opioid abuse almost every day.

Life hasn’t been easy for Yazan Abdulrahman. VOA met the 20-year-old at a camp in Ain Issa, Syria, where he’d just been released after a 10-day investigation cleared him of any suspicion he fought with Islamic State militants. While living under IS rule, Abdulrahman first lost his job and then his family in an airstrike, and hid from IS militants who wanted to use civilians as human shields. When he finally escaped from IS, the young Syrian man got a small taste of revenge on the militants who destroyed his family and city.

Undiplomatic outburst. An verbal flare-up fueled by regional Mideast rivalries brought a UN meeting to a halt this week. After a special envoy delivered her report on the human rights situation in Iran, and a Saudi Arabia representative had his say, a Syrian diplomat erupted into a shouting tirade.

Today’s repeat of Kenya’s presidential election has been marred by clashes and shuttered polling stations in opposition strongholds. VOA reports from Nairobi, where voter turnout looked significantly lower than at the original August 8 poll. Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified incumbent President Uhuru Kenyattahi’s initial victory due to ‘irregularities and illegalities.’ The new results could meet with public skepticism again, especially since the opposition leader told his supporters to stay home.

VIDEO EXPLAINER: Americans are allowed to own as many guns as they want. At the moment, there are about as many guns in the country as there are people. Gun control is the subject of an ongoing, emotional debate in the United States, but a single paragraph — the Second Amendment — in the US Constitution guarantees Americans the right to keep and bear arms.

More than 500 US women are expected to run in national and state races next year. Right now, even though women are a slim majority in the US, they hold just 19.6 percent of the seats in Congress and 24 percent of statewide offices. Now there are programs that offer training for women who want to run for office and reach for a seat at the table.