Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Given the legacy of slavery and discrimination in the United States, race-conscious admissions have shaped US higher education since the civil rights movement of the 1960s. However, in one of the final rulings of its current term, the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court struck down the use of race as a factor in college admissions, overturning decades of precedent. On this encore edition of Encounter Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, Elise Boddie, and Legal fellow and...

In this Encore Presentation of Encounter, host Carol Castiel talks with Dave Workman, spokesperson for the Second Amendment Foundation, and Nick Wilson, senior director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress, about the factors contributing to gun violence, the political impediments to more effective safety legislation and areas of common ground.

Michelle Gavin, former US Ambassador to Botswana and senior fellow in Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and Susan Stigant, Director of Africa Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace discuss the military coup in Niger, the Russia-Africa Summit, the conflict in Sudan, and US-Africa relations with host Carol Castiel.

Host Carol Castiel talks with Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way and John Fortier, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute about a potential second federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, the politicization of the National Defense Authorization Act by House Republicans and the ramifications of a possible third-party candidate by a group called No Labels on the 2024 presidential contest.

Catherine Sendak, director for Transatlantic Security and Defense at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), and Will Pomeranz, Director, Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center, discuss the results and ramifications of the much-anticipated NATO Summit in Vilnius with host Carol Castiel.

Given the legacy of slavery and discrimination in the United States, race-conscious admissions have shaped US higher education since the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. However, in one of the final rulings of its current term, the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court struck down the use of race as a factor in college admissions, overturning decades of precedent. On this edition of Encounter Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, Elise Boddie, and Legal fellow and...

Host Carol Castiel talks with Mark Katz, professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Mason University and Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow in Russian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), about the significance and implications of the attempted mutiny spearheaded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the mercenary Wagner Group, in Russia. They analyze the impact of the aborted revolt on Vladimir Putin’s grip on power, Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and...

On the heels of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to China, experts Bonnie Glaser, Director Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Yun Sun, Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, tell host Carol Castiel that the renewed dialogue between Beijing and Washington constitutes a crucial first step in easing tensions on several contentious issues from Taiwan, climate change and fentanyl flows to military-to-military communications and more.

The 37-count indictment of former President Donald Trump on federal charges of willfully retaining documents containing national defense information and then refusing to return them is especially grave because 31 counts relate to violation of the Espionage Act. Tess Bridgeman, former deputy legal advisor to National Security Council and co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, and Bill Galston, senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, analyze the damage done to US...

Host Carol Castiel talks with Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way and John Fortier, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute about the historic indictment of former President Donald Trump, the expanding field of Republican presidential candidates, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s woes as chaos ensues among conservative members upset over of his compromise on raising the debt ceiling.

Incumbent Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defeated opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in the May 28 presidential runoff, clinching another five-year term in office. Erdogan’s 52-48 margin of victory illustrates a deeply divided electorate and left hopeful followers of the opposition alliance in a state of despondency. Turkish analysts, Merve Tahiroglu, Turkey Program director at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the CATO Institute,...

Edward "Ted" Alden from the Council on Foreign Relations and Tom Jawitz from the Center for American Progress joins guest host Rick Pantaleo on this edition of Encounter to talk about the end of Title 42, the health order that tightly controlled migrant entry into the U.S. during the pandemic. They'll also discuss the ensuing changes in U.S. immigration rules due to its termination.

No candidate received 50 percent of the vote in Turkey’s landmark presidential elections on May 14, so there will be a runoff on May 28. However, incumbent Recep Tayyib Erdogan fared much better than expected against his opponent, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, and Erdogan’s AK party alliance won a majority of seats in parliament. Turkish analysts Merve Tahiroglu and Mustafa Akyol talk with host Carol Castiel about why this occurred and suggest that Erdogan’s use of “identity politics” trumped his...

Host Carol Castiel talks with Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way and John Fortier, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute about the issues dominating the US political landscape like the showdown between the White House and Republican-led House of Representatives, which is trying to exact future budget cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt ceiling, ramifications of the expiration of Title 42, a Covid pandemic-era policy that kept out many...

Ambassador Tibor Nagy, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and Ambassador Donald Booth, former US ambassador to Ethiopia and former special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, discuss with host Carol Castiel the factors behind the ongoing violence in Sudan, the centrality of the rival generals and their constituencies, and a formula to pave the way for stability which the United States can play a critical role in facilitating.

Cameron Hudson, senior associate with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Katherine Zimmerman, fellow in foreign policy and defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute, join host, Carol Castiel to discuss the factors that led to the latest outbreak of violence in Sudan and the daunting challenges of bringing the country back from the brink and toward a democratic transition.

Mass shootings are once again dominating US headlines – whether at a bank in Kentucky, an elementary school in Tennessee, or a sweet sixteen birthday party in Alabama. Host Carol Castiel talks with Dave Workman, spokesperson for the Second Amendment Foundation, and Nick Wilson, senior director for Gun Violence Prevention at the Center for American Progress, about the factors contributing to gun violence, the political impediments to more effective safety legislation and areas of common ground.

Host Carol Castiel talks with Michael Kugelman, deputy director for the Asia program at The Wilson Center and Elizabeth Threlkeld, senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at The Stimson Center spar over the results of the Biden Administration’s “After-Action” Report on Afghanistan, which places most of the blame on the previous Trump Administration for the chaotic US withdrawal from that war-torn South Asian nation.

Host Carol Castiel talks with Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, and John Fortier, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute about the significance and implications of the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump, the first former president ever to face criminal charges. The Manhattan District Attorney charged Trump with 34 counts of making false statements and falsifying business records to suppress negative information that could have adversely affect his...

Elly Rostoum, former US intelligence official, now a political science lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, and David Greene, Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, discuss the national security and civil liberties concerns surrounding TikTok, whose parent company, ByteDance, is owned by China, with host Carol Castiel. Democratic and Republican lawmakers, worried about risks to American users and national security, grilled the TikTok CEO at a recent hearing on...

On this US politics edition of Encounter, Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at Third Way, and John Fortier, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute join host Carol Castiel to discuss the politics of the four government-run probes into former President Donald Trump or his business, Republican reaction to the investigations, what impact they may have on Trump’s prospects to win the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential elections and much more.

On the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, host Carol Castiel speaks with veteran Middle East observers, Ellen Laipson, director of the Center for Security Policy Studies, George Mason University, and Randa Slim, director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute (MEI), about the shifting rationales for the George W. Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and the gains and challenges that remain for a country which has resumed its...

Host Carol Castiel speaks with Gönül Tol, founding director of the Turkey Program at the Middle East Institute (MEI) and Ambassador James Jeffrey, a senior American diplomat, now Chair of the Middle East Program at The Wilson Center, about the pivotal presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey in mid-May. After almost 20 years in power, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces not only deep anger from the population after two earthquakes struck the southeastern part of the country in...