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US to ‘aggressively’ revoke visas of Chinese students

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US to ‘aggressively’ revoke visas of Chinese students

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US secretary of state Marco Rubio has said the Trump administration would “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students, in its latest move to crack down on foreigners hoping to study in the US.

The move came a day after Rubio ordered US embassies across the world to stop scheduling interviews for new student visas, as the administration tightens the screening of applicants’ social media activities.

Rubio said in a statement that the state department would work with the Department of Homeland Security to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist party or studying in critical fields”.

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He said the US would also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong.

In the 2023-24 school year, nearly 280,000 international students were from China, making up more than a quarter of all foreign students in the US, according to the Institute of International Education. It was the second leading country of origin after India.

The new measures are part of a wide-ranging crackdown on international students that has sent a chill through American campuses and caused anguish for thousands already studying in the US who fear they will not be able to renew their visas.

The moves to restrict student visas are part of President Donald Trump’s broader assault on the US’s elite universities, which he accuses of failing to tackle antisemitism during large-scale pro-Palestinian protests after the start of Israel’s war in Gaza. The president’s critics have accused him of attacking free speech and academic freedom.

Yet the immigration curbs go far beyond students. Rubio also said on Wednesday that the Trump administration would also place new visa restrictions on foreign officials who he said had acted against US citizens over their posts on social media.

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“Foreigners who work to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of travelling to our country,” Rubio said in a statement posted to X. “Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over.”

It was not immediately clear which officials would be affected by the visa restrictions or how the policy changes would be implemented.

But Rubio said in a separate statement that in “some instances, foreign officials have taken flagrant censorship actions against US tech companies and US citizens and residents when they have no authority to do so”.

He added it was “unacceptable” for foreign officials to threaten to arrest US citizens or residents for their social media posts and for foreign officials to “demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States”.

“We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech,” the secretary of state said.

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Trump, vice-president JD Vance and Rubio have all criticised overseas leaders for what the administration sees as infringements of free speech, including online.

Republican lawmakers, including Jim Jordan, chair of the House judiciary committee, have also attacked foreign lawmakers for their regulation of social media platforms and online content, including the EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act.

Vance stunned attendees at February’s Munich Security Conference when he accused European and UK leaders of suppressing speech and said the continent’s “threat from within” was graver than that posed by Russia and China.

More recently, Rubio said there was a “great possibility” of sanctions against Brazilian supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has led a crackdown against online disinformation in the country and made headlines last year after clashing with Trump ally Elon Musk.

The billionaire called Moraes a “dictator” but ultimately backed down and complied with his rulings that blocked users found to be spreading election disinformation after X, his social media platform, was banned for a month in Brazil.

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Musk has also hit out at the UK government for its policing of offensive speech in the wake of far-right riots across the country last August, comparing the country to the Soviet Union.

Europe has taken a tougher approach to regulating digital platforms than the US. The Digital Services Act compels large social media companies and web platforms operating in the region to make efforts to combat misinformation and hate speech.

The UK’s Online Safety Act creates similar sweeping powers for media regulator Ofcom to punish tech giants for failing to police illegal content, such as hate speech and incitement to violence.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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