US Restricts Certain Visas for Transgender Athletes
The notice, issued by the agency, indicates that certain situations—such as a male athlete's history of competing against women—will be treated as a 'negative factor' when measuring a foreign national's meritorious achievements against criteria for certain immigration benefits, such as EB-1 and EB-2 immigrant status—two classes of lawful permanent residency—as well as O-1A non-immigrant status, which are issued to athletes of 'extraordinary ability' with national or international acclaim.
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Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
US Ally Simulated Attacks on China's Aircraft Carriers
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Japan reportedly conducted a military training exercise simulating attacks on aircraft carriers in June, while China simultaneously deployed two "flattops" in the wider Pacific Ocean. Newsweek has emailed Japan's Defense Ministry and China's Foreign Ministry for comment. Why It Matters China has more than 370 combat ships and submarines—including two aircraft carriers, CNS Liaoning and CNS Shandong—making it the largest navy in the world by hull count. In June, both the Liaoning and the Shandong operated on the eastern side of the First Island Chain—a United States defensive line formed by its allies and partners, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines, in the Western Pacific—for about two weeks, a Newsweek map shows. Facing what it described as "the greatest strategic challenge," Japan has been strengthening the defense of its southwestern islands by converting two warships into aircraft carriers, acquiring carrier-based stealth fighter jets, and deploying tilt-rotor aircraft. What To Know Citing several government sources, Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Thursday that the country's F-2 fighter jets, capable of conducting anti-ship strikes, "checked procedures" for carrying out attacks against aircraft carriers with missiles during a training exercise. This was conducted over the waters north of the disputed Senkaku Islands—part of Japan's southwestern islands but claimed by China as its territory—in the East China Sea. Japanese F-2 fighter jets fly past during an International Fleet Review commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force off Yokosuka, Japan, on November 6, 2022. Japanese F-2 fighter jets fly past during an International Fleet Review commemorating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force off Yokosuka, Japan, on November 6, China's dual aircraft carrier mission, the Liaoning transited near the Senkaku Islands in late May as it headed from the East China Sea toward the wider Pacific Ocean. It sailed near the islands again in mid-June as it returned to China, according to a Newsweek map. The report noted the significance of the training exercise, noting that the F-2 fighter jet has limited stealth capabilities, indicating the drill appeared to be "visible" to Chinese forces. Furthermore, the training area was not what is considered a "standard location" for the Japanese military. The F-2 fighter jet, jointly developed by Japan and the U.S. and based on the design of the American F-16, is optimized for an air-to-surface role to protect Japan's sea lanes. Each aircraft is reportedly capable of carrying up to four anti-ship missiles. According to the report, one of the Chinese aircraft carriers played the role of a U.S. aircraft carrier during the deployment, while the other simulated intercepting it, testing China's capabilities in dealing with U.S. military intervention in the event of war. Chinese aircraft carriers CNS Liaoning, top, and CNS Shandong, bottom, conduct flight operations with J-15 fighter jets in the western Pacific Ocean in early June 2025. Chinese aircraft carriers CNS Liaoning, top, and CNS Shandong, bottom, conduct flight operations with J-15 fighter jets in the western Pacific Ocean in early June 2025. Chinese military What People Are Saying A Japanese government source told the Yomiuri Shimbun: "Given when and where it was conducted and what it involved, this training was clearly intended to make sure China gets the message that it was conducted as a countermeasure [against them]." The Chinese Navy said in June: "During the mission, the two [aircraft carrier] groups, in coordination with relevant arms of the service, conducted joint drills on maritime strikes, air and missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, and integrated long-range support, and thus significantly enhanced real combat capabilities." What Happens Next It remains to be seen how Japan, with U.S. support, will further bolster its defense capabilities amid China's growing military presence around the First Island Chain.
Fox News
4 hours ago
- Fox News
The human cost of Biden's shameful 'Children's Crusade' at the border
Around the year 1212, a boy preached to children in France that they should take up the cross and follow him to the Holy Land. Thousands did. None reached Jerusalem. Most gave up before leaving Europe. Others were shipwrecked or sold into slavery in the Islamic caliphate of Tunisia. Centuries later, the Biden administration's facilitation of mass illegal entry by unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and releasing them into the hands of unvetted adults has caused misery on an even larger scale. The seed was planted years earlier. As Lora Ries, a former official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, wrote, a 2008 law called the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) created incentives to "entice parents to send their children across the border unaccompanied to receive immigration benefits and gain a foothold in the U.S. so their families could hopefully later follow." In the early 2000s, between 4,800 and 8,200 UACs were encountered at the border per year. After the TVPRA, numbers rose, hitting 68,000 in 2014. Under Biden, federal agencies became the last leg in an international smuggling business that brought millions of inadmissible aliens to the U.S. from around the world, including 550,000 minors. As expert witness Tara Rodas testified to the House Homeland Security Committee in November 2024, "Criminal sponsors are defrauding the U.S. government by using this government program as a logistical chain in their trafficking operation." While illegal alien parents and labor-exploiting employers paid for UACs to get to the U.S. border, it was often our tax dollars that brought them inside the country and delivered them into the hands of barely vetted adult sponsors. Inadmissible UACs from further than Mexico who try to enter the U.S. illegally become the responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Under Biden, children were released to putative sponsors in a matter of days. Verification of the sponsors' identities was inexcusably lax. HHS released children to sponsors with whom they had no blood relation and allowed adult sponsors to send photos of identification documents rather than come in personally. There was little follow-up to check on the children's welfare after placement with the sponsors. A February 2024 HHS inspector general's report looked at 342 of 16,790 UACs they had released to parents or sponsors in March and April of 2021. In 16% of cases, there was no evidence that required sponsor safety checks had been done. Almost one in five UACs were "released to sponsors with pending FBI fingerprint or State child abuse and neglect registry checks" – and when those results came in, the files were never updated. In a third of the cases, the identification documents the sponsors submitted "contained legibility concerns" – a nice way of saying ORR couldn't read them properly to confirm they were valid. What if the sponsors weren't caring for the children or were exploiting them? No one knew. ORR's follow-up was in most cases only a phone call. In 22% of cases HHS examined, "ORR did not conduct timely Safety and Well-Being Follow Up Calls," and in another 18% of cases they didn't document those calls in the case files. That was in early 2021 – and the UAC numbers got worse later in the Biden years. As this chart shows, every year from 2021 – 2024 saw more than 100,000 UACs apprehended entering illegally – nearly all of whom would have been released into the U.S. Under our immigration laws, UACs should be removed unless they are given asylum or other protection. But incredibly, ICE failed to issue Notices to Appear in immigration court to over 291,000 UACs they released between 2019 and 2024, according to the DHS Inspector General. And when they did, more than 43,000 of them never showed up for a hearing. The New York Times reported that "[m]igrant children have ended up working dangerous industrial jobs in violation of child labor laws across the country — in slaughterhouses, factories, construction sites and elsewhere… Some have been gravely injured or killed." Having ended Biden's catch-and-release at the border, the Trump administration is now repairing the damage done over four years of recklessness and negligence. This means not only arresting, detaining, and deporting adult illegal aliens, but also finding thousands of UACs whom HHS has lost track of. The aim is to return as many children as possible to their parents, ideally back in their home countries. So far, the Trump administration has found 13,000 of the UACs who dropped off the radar. Today, ORR is requiring proper identification, with fingerprints, photos, DNA samples, as well as background checks and financial records before they release children. Alien adults in the U.S. who have pending asylum claims – even bogus or fraudulent ones that will ultimately fail – can still pick up their children from ORR and keep custody pending the family's immigration process. Many don't, because they aren't really relatives. Or they fear due process because they are here illegally and haven't taken even basic steps to try and legalize their status. Now that ORR is strictly verifying parent and sponsor identities, the average time children remain in ORR custody has grown from a few weeks to months. That is testament to how weak the vetting standards for sponsors have been for the last four years. Many teens who came to work here leaving their parents abroad are opting to go home rather than stay longer in ORR custody. Federal law requires the government to "ensure that unaccompanied alien children in the United States are safely repatriated to their country of nationality." That should be the priority now. Then, Congress needs to close the UAC loopholes in immigration law and return custody responsibility from HHS back to DHS, so that never again will so many children be at risk of serious harm and fall through the cracks of an immigration system spread among too many federal agencies.
NBC News
14 hours ago
- NBC News
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones credits experimental drug after cancer diagnosis
OXNARD, Calif. — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones credited an experimental trial drug for successfully treating advanced melanoma as he disclosed his cancer diagnosis publicly for the first time. Jones revealed his illness in a documentary series, "America's Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys," which will debut on Netflix next week. The 82-year-old Jones then told The Dallas Morning News how he was initially diagnosed in June 2010 and underwent two surgeries on his lung and two on his lymph nodes over the next 10 years after skin cancer cells metastasized to other parts of his body. "Well, you don't like to think about your mortality, but I was so fortunate to have some great people that sent me in the right direction," Jones said after practice on Wednesday. "I got to be part of a trial that was propitious. It really worked. It's called PD-1 [therapy], and it really, really, really worked." First-year Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer described Jones' fight with cancer as an "amazing story" and praised him for going public. "I'm glad that Jerry shared it, just because I think it gives people hope," Schottenheimer said Wednesday. "It gives people the strength to say ... 'Hey, you can beat this.'" Schottenheimer, 51, used his last news conference of the Cowboys' nearly monthlong stay in Southern California to talk about his own cancer diagnosis. He underwent surgery in 2003 for thyroid cancer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Then-Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder helped arrange Schottenheimer's treatment two years after firing his father, Marty Schottenheimer, as coach. Brian Schottenheimer was Washington's quarterbacks coach during the 2001 season, the same year Snyder himself was treated for thyroid cancer. "It doesn't discriminate against anybody," Schottenheimer said. "And mine was certainly less serious, but I was 28 when I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Nothing like Stage 4, nothing like what Jerry and other people have to go through. But you hear that word 'cancer,' and it scares the hell out of you."
