US Senate Republican Leader McConnell Briefly Freezes at Event

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Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell appeared to briefly freeze and be unable to answer a reporter’s question during an event in Kentucky on Wednesday, weeks after he had a similar episode in Washington.  According to video from a local news station, the 81-year-old was asked whether he would run for reelection in 2026. The senator asked the reporter to repeat the question before trailing off and staring straight ahead for about 10 seconds.  A woman standing at the front of the room with McConnell asked him whether he heard the question, and she repeated it. When McConnell did not answer,more

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Judge Holds Giuliani Liable in Georgia Election Worker Defamation Case; Orders Him To Pay Fees

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A federal judge on Wednesday held Rudy Giuliani liable in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers who say they were falsely accused of fraud, entering a default judgment against the former New York City mayor and ordering him to pay tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said the punishment was necessary because Giuliani had ignored his duty as a defendant to turn over information requested by election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea’ ArShaye Moss, as part of their lawsuit. Their complaint from December 2021 accused Giuliani, one ofmore

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Scholarships for International Students Wanting Master’s Degrees in the US

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Keystone Masterstudies, which specializes in student recruitment, higher education marketing and enrollment management, has a roundup of scholarships for international students seeking a master’s degree in the United States. They include university scholarships, scholarships funded by governmental bodies and external organizations, and major-specific scholarships. Get the full list here. (July 2023) …

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Race-Based Affirmative Action Is Over; Legacy Admissions Might Be Next

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The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled as unconstitutional affirmative action — the practice of giving underrepresented racial groups a leg up in admissions. Now Wesleyan University, a prestigious liberal arts school in Connecticut, is voluntarily getting rid of legacy admissions, which give an advantage to people whose relatives previously attended the college. Many schools are now facing lawsuits over legacy admissions, including Harvard. At a few schools, including Cornell and Dartmouth, legacy students outnumber Black students, a survey found. Kate Perez of USA Today has more. (July 2023) …

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Viral Singer Scoffs at Republicans Who ‘Act Like We’re Buddies’

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Oliver Anthony, the previously unknown singer whose Rich Men North of Richmond went viral and topped the charts over the past week, hit out Friday at politicians, particularly on the right, for co-opting his message. In a more than 10-minute clip posted on YouTube, the songwriter from Virginia reflected on his breakout success, and said that “the one thing that has bothered me is seeing people wrap politics up in this.” “It’s aggravating seeing people on conservative news try to identify with me like I’m one of them,” he said. “It’s aggravating seeing certain musicians and politicians act like we’remore

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Could America’s AI Industry Exist Without International Students? Probably Not

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According to new research from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), 42% of major AI companies in the United States have a founder who came to the U.S. as an international student. Furthermore, nearly 4 out of 5 of these companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. And of all the graduate students in the U.S. studying AI-related fields, 70% come from another country. Keeping international students in the U.S. after graduation is “essential for U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence,” the study concludes. Stuart Anderson, the executive director of NFAP, summarizes his findings in Forbes. (Julymore

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Republican Candidates Sharply Divided on Support for Ukraine

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Republican hopefuls in the 2024 presidential race held their first debate Wednesday evening, vying to appear the toughest on China and sharply divided over US support for Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders. The GOP nomination front-runner, former President Donald Trump, was not onstage, but experts told VOA that he still left his imprint on foreign policy issues. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports. …

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International Students Want to Work, But Visa Rules Can Get in Their Way

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Foreign undergraduate students at the University of Missouri hail from Afghanistan, India and South Korea. This year, some have been accepted into study abroad programs in Iraq and internships with local crisis shelters. But student visa rules forbid first-year students from working off-campus. And even when they are eligible, the permit process is complex and takes months. Adeleine Halsey of the Columbia Missourian profiles undergraduates who are running into these restrictions. (July 2023)  …

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Trump to Skip Republican Debate, NY Times Says

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump plans to skip the first Republican primary debate next week and instead sit for an online interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, The New York Times reported, citing people briefed on the matter. Trump has for months suggested that he would likely pass on Wednesday night’s debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, arguing that it did not make sense to give others a change to attack him given his sizeable lead among Republicans in national polls. Trump has also criticized Fox, which is hosting the debate, over its recent coverage of him. Trump’s absence couldmore

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Trump Cancels Press Conference on Election Fraud Claims

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump now says he won’t be holding a press conference next week to unveil what he claims is new evidence of fraud in the 2020 election in Georgia, citing the advice of his lawyers. No compelling evidence of the wide-scale fraud Trump alleges has emerged in the 2½ years since the election. Republican officials in the state — where three recounts confirmed Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden — have long said he lost legitimately. “Rather than releasing the Report on the Rigged & Stolen Georgia 2020 Presidential Election on Monday, my lawyers would prefer puttingmore

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Colleges Could Recruit Using Generative AI

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Himanshu Barthwal is the CEO of Admission Overseas, a startup whose platform helps international student recruiters make recommendations. The recruiters can use it to guess which schools will be a good academic and financial fit for a student. The program is already being used to fill vacant healthcare positions in Canada, where Barthwal lives. Read his interview with Hessie Jones of Forbes. (July 2023) …

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Protesters in Miami Blast Florida’s Black History Teaching Standards

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Dozens of teachers, students and labor leaders marched to a Miami school district headquarters Wednesday to protest Florida’s new standards for teaching Black history, which have come under intense criticism for what they say about slavery. The protesters who marched to the School Board of Miami-Dade County objected to new curriculum standards that, among other things, require teachers to instruct middle school students that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Governor Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has repeatedly defended the new language while insisting that hismore

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Majority of Ivy League Schools Have Women Presidents, Yet Only a Third of US Colleges Overall Do

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Six of the eight Ivy League schools, which include Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia, now have women presidents. Yet, according to the American Council of Education, just 32% of all U.S. colleges do, even though a majority of collegiate-level students are women. But do students care about the president when choosing a school? And which way are these numbers trending? Dan Friedell of VOA Learning English answers these questions, with contributions from Andrew Smith. (July 2023) …

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US Universities Launch Partnership to Elevate Free Speech

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The presidents of 13 universities in the United States are elevating free speech on their campuses this academic year, as part of a new nonprofit initiative announced Tuesday to combat what organizers call dire threats to U.S. democracy.  The Campus Call for Free Expression will take different forms on different campuses. The campaign, created by The Institute for Citizens & Scholars with funding from the Knight Foundation, is designed to cultivate the freedom of expression on campuses and help students work together to find solutions to complicated, divisive problems.  “The national context of the deep political polarization, the inability ofmore

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Explaining Four Trump Indictments

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Former President Donald Trump’s legal woes keep mounting. On Monday, prosecutors in the southern U.S. state of Georgia unveiled a new indictment, charging Trump and 18 others in connection with efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. This is the fourth indictment against Trump in less than five months — two at the state level and two at the federal level. The former president is now facing 91 criminal charges, ranging from falsifying business records in New York to seeking to subvert the 2020 presidential election. Many of the charges carry hefty prison sentences of 10 tomore

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Republican Presidential Candidates Descend on Iowa State Fair

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Over a million people visit the Iowa State Fair during its annual 11-day run in August. But this year, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, resident Rick Stewart isn’t attending the fair to judge the livestock contests, sample the diverse food offerings — including pork chops on a stick — or lining up to see the life-size cow made entirely of butter. He’s here to perform a civic duty. “It’s a chance to see all the candidates for president,” Stewart told VOA. “They’ve got a soapbox event. They’ve got a sit-down with [Iowa Governor] Kim Reynolds if they are a Republican. And Imore

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International Students Prefer a Third of Their Classes be Online

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Despite the end of COVID-19 restrictions in many places, international students say they’d prefer that about a third of their classes be online. Students say they appreciate the flexibility, and students whose first language isn’t English can benefit from being able to rewatch a lecture afterward. However, 25% of students said they would like all their classes to be in person. Patrick Jack reviews the survey data in The Times Higher Education. (July 2023) …

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Biden Administration Urges Colleges to Pursue Racial Diversity Without Affirmative Action

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New guidance from the Biden administration on Monday urges colleges to use a range of strategies to promote racial diversity on campus after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in admissions. Colleges can focus their recruiting in high minority areas, for example, and take steps to retain students of color who are already on campus, including by offering affinity clubs geared toward students of a certain race. Colleges can also consider how an applicant’s race has shaped personal experience, as detailed in students’ application essays or letters of recommendation, according to the new guidance. It also encourages them tomore

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Collegiate Athletes, Including International Students, Can Receive Scholarship Aid

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In U.S. collegiate sports, schools sometimes give full scholarships to students who commit to a team, including international ones. Some sports are dominated by international students, such as women’s tennis: 66% of top-tier Division I players are not from the U.S. However, there is mounting domestic pressure for schools to focus on financial need, and not athletic ability, and scholarships are often swallowed up by the high tuition and cost of living in the U.S. Sophie Hogan of The PIE News has more. (July 2023) …

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