Newsletter Archive

Islamic State might be gone in Iraq, but what about the wives and children? Tens of thousands of Iraqi IS militants were killed or captured in recent years. Many of their families now live in camps after being shunned by relatives and former neighbors. At the Haj Ali Camp in Iraq, IS widows talk to VOA about their bleak expectations for the future because ‘no one will marry a wife of IS.’

Is it time to revive Star Wars? Not the movie, but the controversial space-based missile defense system from the 1980s. The US Space Defense Initiative (SDI) started under President Ronald Reagan was largely abandoned at the end of the Cold War. But after false alarms over a North Korean missile attack on Hawaii this month, scientists and NASA officials involved in the original project say it might be time to give SDI another try.

VIDEO EXPLAINER: President Trump is scheduled to give the State of the Union on Tuesday. The update to Congress is required by law; it’s in the US Constitution. Here’s how the delivery of the speech has evolved since George Washington gave the first State of the Union.

Sex workers in Sierra Leone say they routinely face assault and intimidation by police, clients and others. Prostitution is prevalent in the West African nation, where many girls orphaned during the country’s civil war had to survive on the streets alone. Among the local activists trying to help these young women is Mariatu Sesay. VOA visits Sesay’s small roadside cafe in Freetown, and learns her passion for helping prostitutes is partly motivated by her own past — being forced into sexual slavery at the age of 11.

Radical rehab: Thirty-five children rescued from an Al-Shabab camp last week will be sent to rehabilitation centers for ex-militants before reuniting with their families, according to Somalia officials. The government program aims to re-integrate former Al-Shabab foot soldiers and low-risk defectors from the group back into Somali society. The children will also be given religious lessons to guide them away from radical views of Islam.

The safest spot to survive Doomsday just might be in what some might consider the middle of nowhere. A South Dakota company is transforming abandoned US Army bunkers into stylish shelters that will reportedly be able to protect bunker buyers from a nuclear winter or other catastrophes. VOA takes a tour of the model home bunkers in the making.