drawing

Sept. 18 (UPI) — The fall semester has arrived with fewer international students on campuses in the United States.

NAFSA: National Association of International Educators estimates that the United States will lose $7 billion in revenue and produce about 60,000 fewer jobs due to a 15% drop in overall enrollment this academic year. Contributing to the enrollment decrease is a projected 30-40% decline in new international students.

The estimates are based on State Department and Student and Exchange Visitor Information System information, which is published monthly. There are a few factors contributing to the decline in international students and the primary drivers are related to U.S. visa and immigration policies.

Since its initial revocation of student visas, the Trump administration has begun restricting visas from 19 countries. In late May, the State Department paused student visa processing for three weeks, causing delays for students trying to come to the United States.

International Student and Scholar Services personnel told UPI that some international students were arriving late to campus due to issues with the visa application process over the summer.

Universities also advised international students to remain in the United States, rather than returning to their home countries during the summer.

Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff of the American Council on Education, told UPI visa processing was paused during the peak time when the State Department would normally be processing applications.

More policy changes are being discussed that have Spreitzer concerned about U.S. higher education’s place in the world.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed a new rule that would limit the duration of time visa holders, including international students, can remain in the United States. The proposal would require students to complete their academic program in no longer than four years.

“I’m worried that these are continuing to send messages to prospective international students that it’s going to be difficult to get here, when you’re in the United States there may not be certainty how long you’re going to have your visa and as a result I think we’re going to see drops in our international enrollment for this academic year,” Spreitzer said.

More clarity on how many international students and scholars are on campuses this fall will come in the Institute of International Education’s “Open Doors Report” in November. The report provides data on international students and American students studying abroad.

The Institute of International Education’s spring survey of high education institutions found that 87% of respondents from U.S. institutions expected visa barriers to lead to students not coming to the United States for academic credits. About 71% expected potential problems at ports of entry and 69% shared concerns about students’ visa statuses while they are in the United States.

About 35% of U.S. institutions experienced decreases in international student applications and 32% said the number of applications remained relatively the same.

Colleges and universities in the United States continue to seek international enrollees, despite challenges presented by federal policies.

Spreitzer said the response from American institutions echoes how they responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, international students faced questions about whether they should or could stay on U.S. campuses and if they left, whether they would be able to return to continue their studies.

“Our institutions responded by saying, ‘We want to help our international students,'” Spreitzer said. “Our institutions are doing a lot of the same things. So if a student has been admitted but for some reason their visa processing has been delayed or it’s just taking longer for their student visa to be processed, they’re telling them, ‘You can defer for a year or you could start your studies on a campus we have outside of the United States and then transfer into the U.S. institution.'”

Institutions are also working to keep research laboratories open after the federal government canceled more than $2 billion in grant funds and health research funding.

The efforts of academic institutions and education advocates continue in the face of regulatory barriers. Rather than risking beginning on a degree track in the United States that they may not be able to complete, some international students are looking elsewhere for opportunity.

Global competitors are stepping in to grant students those opportunities.

The United States’ position as a destination for higher education has become more fiercely challenged by the likes of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to name a few.

As of June, international higher education enrollees in Australia have increased by 12% since 2019, according to the Australian Government Department of Education.

In the first quarter of the year, student visa applications in the United Kingdom increased by 32% over quarter one in 2024, according to the Higher Education Policy Institute. In the 2023-2024 academic year, India surpassed China in sending the most students to the United Kingdom for the first time in more than a decade.

The Migration Policy Institute’s July report on international students says the costs of education in the United States, travel restrictions and increasing opportunities in other countries have caused fewer international students to choose to study in the United States in the past decade.

About 16% of the 6.9 million international students in the world attended U.S. institutions in the 2023-2024 academic year, down from 20% of 4.5 million students in 2013-2014.

“We’ve seen countries actually putting together programs and pots of funding to attract those researchers that either are in the U.S. right now and are nervous about staying or those researchers that are choosing not to come to the United States,” Spreitzer said.

“I know France, the [European Union], Denmark, they’ve all put together these programs encouraging people to apply. The messaging around it is ‘if you come here, we will make sure that your lab is going to be funded, that your research is going to be funded.'”

Fox News doesn’t want to talk about the crude doodle of a naked woman, with its creepy message printed across her breasts and torso, and a signature — “Donald” — in her pubic area.

And it certainly doesn’t want to draw attention to a newly released photo of the convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein holding an oversized check signed “DJTRUMP,” with a caption that reads, “Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [female’s name redacted] to Donald Trump for $22,500.”

While just about everyone has had something to say about the most damning documents yet to come out of the so-called Epstein files, America’s No. 1 cable news network has opted to sit this one out.

Questions about President Trump’s shared history with the nation’s most notorious sex offender shot to the top of news feeds Tuesday after the Republican-led House Oversight Committee released documents to the public that it had subpoenaed from the Epstein estate. The material included notes, drawings and photos from friends and associates to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003.

Donald Trump, his future wife Melania, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000.

(Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images)

The “body art” letter that appears to be written by Trump features this bizarre, imaginary conversation:

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I already know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

Fox News on Tuesday suppressed the skeezy birthday note like a dark family secret and instead focused on safer, more comfortable subject matter, like Bill Clinton. But there wasn’t much to say since the birthday greeting that appeared to have been signed by the former president lacked drawings of naked females or implications about buying girls and/or women for sex. The short passage praised Epstein’s “childlike curiosity.” Thankfully, Fox had other breaking stories to chase.

Host Sean Hannity focused on a deadly North Carolina train stabbing and how it implicated Democrats’ “woke” criminal policies. Earlier in the day, Fox News was busy plumbing the depths of the Biden “autopen” scandal after a “bombshell report.”

Fox News’ website was equally as busy avoiding the nation’s top story. It led with “Charlotte mayor scores primary reelection victory amid national backlash over gruesome train murder” and another breaking story: “Hellfire missile bounces off mysterious orb in stunning UAP footage shown to Congress.”

Its story on the scandalous documents? “Inside Epstein’s infamous ‘birthday book’: Clinton’s note, poolside candids and bizarre animal pics.” The piece was toward the bottom of the page, tucked away like dirty laundry. It never once mentioned Trump.

Ghislaine Maxwell compiled the birthday book, collecting sentiments from Epstein’s friends and then gifting the album to her high-rolling financier bestie. Less than two decades later, she would be convicted of sex trafficking, among other charges. Epstein died in jail of a reported suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on similar charges. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Trump said Tuesday when asked to respond to the birthday letter, “I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday during a briefing that “the president did not write this letter. He didn’t sign this letter.” She said the administration would be open to a handwriting expert reviewing the signature on the letter.

But several news organizations have beaten them to it and compared the signature on the Epstein letter against Trump’s signature on other documents, and found them to be similar.

The alleged Trump letter was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in July, when the president denied writing it and said it was “a fake thing.” He filed a lawsuit against the paper’s publisher, reporters and executives, including News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch.

The album also contains messages that appear to be from other notable personalities, including the current U.K. ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson; Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who was part of a legal team representing Trump during his first impeachment trial; and billionaire retail magnate Les Wexner.

The caption under the novelty-check photo appears to be written by Joel Pashcow, a Mar-a-Lago club member and former chairman of a New York real estate company. The woman’s name and photo are redacted in the caption and the image. Lawyers for Epstein’s estate removed the names and photos of women and minors who appeared in the book so possible victims of Epstein could not be identified.

Other drawings in the book make Trump’s alleged contribution look docile. They include a queasy illustration of Epstein handing out balloons to young girls. Fox did mention the drawings of Epstein being massaged by several topless women around a pool, and the one of a zebra having sex with a lion. How much time until it’s suggested that it could be the work of Biden’s autopen? 5,4,3…

WASHINGTON — Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released on Monday a sexually suggestive letter to Jeffrey Epstein purportedly signed by President Trump, which he has denied.

Trump has said he did not write the letter or create the drawing of a curvaceous woman that surrounds the letter. He filed a $10-billion lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for a report on the alleged letter.

The letter was included as part of a 2003 album compiled for alleged sex trafficker Epstein’s birthday. The president has denied having anything to do with it. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee received a copy of the birthday album on Monday as part of a batch of documents from Epstein’s estate.

The White House did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Trump has denied writing the letter and creating the drawing, calling a report on it “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” Trump said.

The letter released by the committee looks exactly as described by the the Wall Street Journal in its report.

The letter bearing Trump’s name and signature includes text framed by a hand-drawn outline of what appears to be a curvaceous woman.

“A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” the letter says.

Price writes for the Associated Press.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Many fled when wildfires devastated Los Angeles earlier this year, but Guillermo del Toro rushed back in, determined to save his lifelong collection of horror memorabilia.

It’s the same loyalty that finds him making another tough decision to protect the items he loves like family: letting some of them go.

Del Toro partnered with Heritage Auctions for a three-part auction to sell a fraction of a collection that is bursting at the seams. Online bidding for the first part on Sept. 26 started Thursday and includes over a hundred items, with more headed to the auction block next year.

“This one hurts. The next one, I’m going to be bleeding,” Del Toro, 60, said of the auction series. “If you love somebody, you have estate planning, you know, and this is me estate planning for a family that has been with me since I was a kid.”

Del Toro is one of the industry’s most respected filmmakers, whose fascination with monsters and visual style will shape generations to come. But at his core, the Mexican-born horror buff is a collector. The Oscar winner has long doubled as the sole caretaker of the “Bleak House” — which stretches across two and a half Santa Monica homes nearly overflowing with thousands of ghoulish creatures, iconic comic drawings and paintings, books and movie props.

The houses function not just as museums, but as libraries and workspaces where his imagination bounces off the oxblood-painted walls.

“I love what I have because I live with it. I actually am a little nuts, because I say hi to some of the life-size figures when I turn on the light,” Del Toro told The Associated Press, sitting in the dining room of one of the houses, now a sanctuary for “Haunted Mansion” memorabilia. “This is curated. This is not a casual collection.”

The auction includes behind-the-scene drawings and one-of-a-kind props from Del Toro’s own classics, as well as iconic works like Bernie Wrightson’s illustrations for “Frankenstein” and Mike Mignola’s pinup artwork for “Hellraiser.”

A race to save horror history

In January, Del Toro had only a couple hours, his car and a few helping hands to save key pieces from the fires. Out of the over 5,000 items in his collection, he managed to move only about 120 objects. It wasn’t the first time, as fires had come dangerously close to Bleak House twice before.

The houses were spared, but fear consumed him. If a fire or earthquake swallowed them, he thought, “What came out of it? You collected insurance? And what happened to that little segment of Richard Corben’s life, or Jack Kirby’s craft, or Bernie Wrightson’s life?”

An auction, Del Toro said, gives him peace of mind, as it ensures the items will land in the hands of another collector who will protect the items as he has. These are not just props or trinkets, he said, but “historical artifacts. They’re pieces of audiovisual history for humanity.” And his life’s mission has been to protect as much of this history as he can.

“Look, this is in reaction to the fires. This is in reaction to loving this thing,” Del Toro told the AP.

The initial auction uncovers who Del Toro is as a collector, he said. Upcoming parts will expose how the filmmaker thinks, which he called a much more personal endeavor. The auction isn’t just a “piece of business,” for him, but rather a love letter to collectors everywhere, and encouragement to think beyond a movie and “learn to read and write film design in a different way. That’s my hope.”

A house full of ‘unruly kids’

Caring for the Bleak House collection feels like being on “a bus with 160 kids that are very unruly, and I’m driving for nine hours,” Del Toro said. “I gotta take a rest.”

The auction will give the filmmaker some breathing room from the collection’s arduous maintenance. The houses must stay at a certain temperature, without direct sunlight — all of which is monitored solely by Del Toro, who often spends most of his day there.

He selects the picture frame for every drawing, dusts all the artifacts and arranges every bookshelf mostly himself, having learned his lesson from the handful of times he allowed outside help. One time, Del Toro said, he found someone “cleaning an oil painting with Windex, and I almost had a heart attack.”

“It’s very hard to have someone come in and know why that trinket is important,” he said. “It’s sort of a very bubbled existence. But you know, that’s what you do with strange animals — you put them in small environments where they can survive. That’s me.”

Each room is organized by theme, with one room dedicated to each of his major works, from “Hellboy” to “Pacific Rim.” Del Toro typically spends his entire work day at one of the houses, which he picks depending on the task at hand. The “Haunted Mansion” dining room, for instance, is an excellent writing space.

“If I could, I would live in the Haunted Mansion,” he said. “So, this is the second best.”

Building a mini Bleak House

In selecting which items to sell, Del Toro said he “wanted somebody to be able to re-create a mini version of Bleak House.”

Auction items include concept sketches and props from Del Toro’s 1992 debut film, “Cronos,” all the way to his more recent works, like 2021’s “Nightmare Alley.”

The starting bids vary, from a couple thousand dollars up to hundreds of thousands. One of Wrightson’s drawings for a 1983 illustrated version of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is the highest priced item, starting at $200,000.

The auction also includes art from legends like Richard Corben, Jack Kirby and H.R. Giger, whose work Del Toro wrote in the catalog “represent the pinnacle of comic book art in the last quarter of the twentieth century.”

Other cultural touchstones in illustration that are represented in the auction include rare images from the 1914 short film “Gertie the Dinosaur,” one of the earliest animated films, and original art for Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” by Eyvind Earle and Kay Nielsen.

“As collectors, you are basically keeping pieces of culture for generations to come. They’re not yours,” Del Toro said. “We don’t know which of the pieces you’re holding is going to be culturally significant … 100 years from now, 50 years from now. So that’s part of the weight.”

Luna writes for the Associated Press.

United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will allow 600,000 Chinese students into US universities.

His announcement on Monday, which marks a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s crackdown on Chinese students launched earlier this year, has caught his conservative base off guard.

Here is more about what Trump is saying now, in contrast to what the administration has said in the past – and how some within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) support base are reacting.

What has Trump announced about Chinese students?

During a meeting on Monday at the Oval Office with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, reporters asked Trump whether he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump responded: “President Xi would like me to come to China. It’s a very important relationship. As you know, we are taking a lot of money in from China because of the tariffs and different things.”

He then talked about Chinese students: “I hear so many stories about ‘We are not going to allow their students’, but we are going to allow their students to come in. We are going to allow it. It’s very important – 600,000 students.”

On Tuesday, during a cabinet meeting, Trump reiterated his recent sentiments about Chinese students, saying, “I told this to President Xi that we’re honoured to have their students here.

“Now, with that, we check and we’re careful, we see who is there.”

Trump said that the US would struggle without Chinese students.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Trump told Xi during a phone call in June that “the US loves to have Chinese students coming to study in America”.

How has the Chinese government reacted?

Speaking at a regular news conference on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun expressed hope that Trump would act on his commitment to admit Chinese students into US universities.

Guo also urged the US to stop “unprovoked harassment, interrogation and deportation” of Chinese students.

What has the Trump administration said about Chinese students in the past?

In late May, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Trump would “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students.

In an X post, Rubio wrote: “The US will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”

The Trump administration did not provide clear details at the time about which students would be affected by the revocations. Observers viewed the brief announcement as intentionally vague.

“I think the vagueness is part of the [Trump administration’s] strategy, because it is not about a concrete policy,” Kyle Chan, a researcher on China at Princeton University, told Al Jazeera in May. “I don’t think it’s really, at the end of the day, about national security and trying to find the few individuals who may pose a genuine risk.”

In August, the US State Department revoked 6,000 international student visas because of violations of US law and overstays, according to the BBC, which quoted an unnamed department official. The nationalities of the students whose visas had been revoked were not known.

While Rubio did not specify what qualifies as a “critical field”, in March, a US congressional committee of the House of Representatives sent a letter to leadership at multiple US universities requesting information about Chinese nationals enrolled in advanced science, technology, engineering, and medicine programmes on their campuses.

John Moolenaar, chair of the congressional committee, claimed that the Chinese Communist Party was placing Chinese researchers in top US institutions to access sensitive technology.

How many Chinese students are there in the US?

During the 2023-2024 academic year, 277,398 Chinese students were enrolled in US universities, making up 24.5 percent of the 1.13 million international students, according to the annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the US State Department.

According to the report, Chinese students were second only to Indian students, who constituted 29 percent of international students in the 2023-2024 year.

During the 2022-2023 academic year, Chinese students made up 27.4 percent of the international student population.

The proportion was even higher in 2020-2021, when 34.7 percent of international students in the US were from China.

What is behind Trump’s latest announcement about admitting Chinese students?

During an interview with Fox News on Monday, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said Trump’s recent statements stem from a “rational economic view”.

Lutnick said that 15 percent of US universities would go out of business without international students.

International students at US colleges and universities contributed $43.8bn to the US economy and supported more than 378,000 jobs during the 2023-2024 academic year, according to data released by the nonprofit organisation, NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

According to NAFSA, there were 1.1 million international students in the US, each contributing about $39,800 on average.

By that calculation, the 277,398 Chinese students in the US in 2023-24 would have contributed in excess of $11bn to the US economy that year.

How have Trump supporters reacted?

Trump’s recent statements have drawn ire from some within his MAGA base.

Republican Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote in an X post on Monday: “If refusing to allow these Chinese students to attend our schools causes 15 percent of them to fail then these schools should fail anyways because they are being propped up by the CCP.”

We should not let in 600,000 CHINESE students to attend American colleges and universities that may be loyal to the CCP.

If refusing to allow these Chinese students to attend our schools causes 15% of them to fail then these schools should fail anyways because they are being…

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) August 26, 2025

Trump ally and far-right internet personality Laura Loomer made a series of posts on X opposing Trump’s idea of bringing in Chinese students. One of the posts read: “Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese ‘students’ aka Communist spies in the United States.”

News site Axios reported that former White House adviser and Trump aide Steve Bannon said on Tuesday: “Any foreign student that does come here ought to have an exit visa stapled to his or her diploma to leave immediately. Give them 30 days.”

Right-wing internet personality Christopher Rufo wrote in an X post on Monday: “We can’t accept 600,000 Chinese students. If anything, we should reduce the number of Chinese visas, especially for students with political connections to the CCP.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the main party in China, with about 100 million card-carrying members. China has about 400 million families, so on average, one in every four Chinese citizens has an immediate relative in the CCP.

‘Eye-catching’ was how Gray described Mulligan when he arrived in the summer, and the 22-year-old has only continued to win over the fans with his performances.

He tops the charts when it comes to successful dribbles, and ranks highly for touches in the opposition box and duels won.

What that boils down to is a box-to-box midfielder who not only gets stuck in, but drives forward and gets Hibs into the right areas of the pitch.

“Looks like a brilliant signing,” said Hibs’ fan David when BBC Sport Scotland asked for opinions on Mulligan’s arrival. “A very versatile player who can play in multiple positions, so it will be very interesting to see how he settles in.”

“Brilliant signing,” added Alex. “Good young Scottish talent with good experience at a young age. He will thrive at Hibs.”

Thrive is the word. Although he was rested from the starting XI against Livingston at the weekend, he came on in the 82nd minute to score the second goal – an absolute screamer from outside the box that rattled in off a post.

Having been moved between midfield and right wing-back during his time at Dundee, it’s unsurprising that goals never featured heavily in his previous stats.

But he seems to have added that dimension to his game, having been allowed by Gray to roam forward in attack, which continues to excel in his nascent days at Easter Road.