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OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Faizan Zaki nearly threw away his opportunity to go from runner-up to champion at the Scripps National Spelling Bee with a shocking moment of overconfidence. Given a second chance, he seized the title of best speller in the English language.The 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, who lost in a lightning-round tiebreaker last year, outlasted eight other accomplished spellers to win the title on Thursday night, including two that he let back into the competition after his own careless flub.Told to take a deep breath before his final word, “eclaircissement,” he didn’t ask a single question before…

Washington, DC – For Anson, hearing the news that Chinese student visas were the latest target of US President Donald Trump’s administration was “heartbreaking”. The Chinese graduate student, who is studying foreign service at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera that he feels uncertain about the future of students like himself after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US would begin to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields”. “There is definitely a degree of uncertainty and anxiety observed amongst us,” Anson said, asking that only…

US administration said it will revoke the visas of Chinese students.It is the latest move by the Trump administration in a campaign against US universities and international students: a decision to revoke the visas of Chinese students, who number in the hundreds of thousands in the United States. The US secretary of state has also announced the suspension of interviews for new student visa applicants – and an increase in the vetting of their social media postings. With China being the second-biggest source of international students in the US after India, the reduction in revenues for American schools and universities…

SAO PAULO (AP) — Videos featuring emotional moments with hyper-realistic baby dolls have sparked both online fascination and political debate in Brazil, with lawmakers even bringing the lifelike dolls into legislatures. Influencers have staged situations such as birth simulations and strolls in shopping malls with the hand-crafted baby figures, known as “reborn” dolls, creating videos that have gone viral. A hyper-realistic reborn baby doll lies in an incubator for sale at a store in Campinas, Brazil Saturday, May 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Andre Penner) A hyper-realistic reborn baby doll lies in an incubator for sale at a store in Campinas, Brazil…

By contrast, about six out of 10 LGBTQ adults said gay and lesbian people are generally accepted in the US. A new poll by the Pew Research Centre has found that transgender people experience less social acceptance in the United States than those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, according to LGBTQ adults. About six out of 10 LGBTQ adult participants in the poll said there is “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of social acceptance in the US for gay and lesbian people, according to “The Experiences of LGBTQ Americans Today” report released on Thursday. Only about one in…

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — An American who was extradited from France this year to face allegations of a 2013 campus sexual assault after the accuser went public with her story hired a private lawyer to review a potential plea deal, lawyers in the case said in court Thursday.Ian Cleary, 32, of Saratoga, California, made his first in-person court appearance in Adams County, a half-mile from where the encounter occurred at Gettysburg College.A plea had been in the works, according to Assistant Public Defender Joshua Neiderhiser, who has represented Cleary since he was brought back to the U.S. However, after speaking…

Billionaire and Tesla chief Elon Musk has stepped down from his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in which he was charged with reducing federal spending, as he nears the maximum limit for his tenure as a special government adviser. His departure comes just after his first major public disagreement with President Donald Trump over the administration’s much-touted tax-and-spending budget bill, which was passed by the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on May 22 by a single vote. In a post on X on Wednesday, Musk said his time with the administration had “come to an…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Frayed by tariff wars and political battles, the academic ties between the U.S. and China are now facing their greatest threat yet as the Trump administration promises to revoke visas for an unknown number of Chinese students and tighten future visa screening.In a brief statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. will “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with ties to the Chinese Community Party or studying “critical fields.”Rubio’s statement threatened to widen a chasm between the two nations, building on a yearslong Republican campaign to rid U.S. campuses of Chinese influence…

A United States trade court has ruled that President Donald Trump’s global reciprocal tariffs are illegal, finding that the president overstepped his authority by imposing the import levies last month. Wednesday’s ruling could throw Trump’s sweeping trade policies into disarray, experts say. The Court of International Trade in New York ruled that an emergency law invoked by Trump during his “Liberation Day” announcement in April does not give him unilateral authority to impose certain tariffs. Instead, the court ruled, that power resides with Congress. It also extended this ruling to previous tariffs levied earlier this year on Canada, Mexico and…

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration will “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students studying in the country. The move comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to crack down on international students attending universities in the US, and at a time when Washington and Beijing are trying to negotiate a trade deal to end a spiralling tariff war between the world’s two largest economies. While China hawks in the US have long called for greater oversight of the country’s students at American universities, alleging that some among them might secretly…