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In the working-class city of Commerce, where cars speed past on highways and the Citadel Outlets tower over neighborhoods, there is a steakhouse named Stevens. By day, it’s a classic and charming old restaurant where working people go for quiet, hearty meals.

But every Sunday night, the outside world disappears.

As waiters whisk about in starched button ups, couples lead each other by the hand toward the dance floor in the restaurant’s ballroom, where Stevens’ tradition of Salsa Sundays has been bringing the community together for 73 years.

An eight-piece band plays brass, electric guitar, bongos and timbales, filling the room with music as dancers twirl in a dizzying array. One attendee, 29-year-old Amy Hernandez, greets a few familiar faces before she steps onto the dance floor, spinning in confident steps with a wide smile on her face.

Hernandez is part of a revival that’s been getting younger people excited about salsa music — and flocking to Stevens. She grew up watching her father dance salsa, but started diving back into the genre on her own to find comfort during the L.A. wildfires earlier this year. She credits Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” for re-sparking her interest.

“It was very healing for me,” she says of the album, which blends old-school Puerto Rican boricua samples with Latin dance and reggaeton influences for an emotional imagining of Puerto Rican identity.

When college friends recommended Stevens as an affordable place to dance, Hernandez mentioned it in passing to her dad. “He laughed and said, ‘I remember that place. I used to dance there too,’” Hernandez says.

The increasingly mainstream artists of Latin fusion genre reggaeton are returning to tradition. Along with the music of Bad Bunny, who’s headlining the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, you can find classic salsa references in reggaeton star Rauw Alejandro’s latest album “Cosa Nuestra,” and in Colombian pop star Karol G’s multi-genre summer album “Tropicoqueta,” which will be at the center of her headlining Coachella set.

“You can feel the younger energy,” says longtime Stevens salsa instructor Jennifer Aguirre. “It makes me really happy to see a younger generation take on salsa. Because I was worried for a bit. I didn’t know how salsa is going to continue.”

Los Angeles has a unique relationship with salsa, the Afro-Caribbean dance born from Cuban mambo. In cities like Miami and New York, salsa arrived with Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants. Instead, L.A.’s salsa influence came from Golden Age Hollywood, where Latin dance in movies produced a singular, flashier Angeleno style, characterized by quick turns and theatrical movement, according to salsa historian Juliet McMains.

The 1990s were another high for the genre, when West Coast pioneers like the Vazquez brothers and their first-of-its-kind dance team Salsa Brava sparked a local dance craze. The Vazquezes introduced the “on-1” step and innovated a flashier, dramatic style of salsa in L.A. that brought crowds to competitions and congresses through the 2000s. Legendary late promoter Albert Torres founded the L.A. Salsa Congress in 1999, the first congress on the West Coast, drawing a worldwide audience for Angeleno salsa.

Opened in 1952 by Steven Filipan (and located on Stevens Place), Stevens in Commerce became a local hub for Latin music. “The interesting part was that the area wasn’t Latin at all,” says Jim Filipan, Steven’s grandson and now the third-generation owner of the restaurant. “My grandfather had a foresight that this genre would be the future.”

Jim recalls his childhood growing up in the restaurant. “We would have hundreds of people on Sundays,” he says. “The ballroom, the restaurant, everyone was dancing salsa, and it was incredible. My dad took over in the ‘70s, and I was running it with him in the ‘90s.”

Yet by the 2010s it was apparent that another genre was taking hold of the Latin dance scene: bachata, ushered in by smooth-singing New York stars like Prince Royce and Romeo Santos. Salsa quickly went from being considered hip to rather old-fashioned.

Aguirre witnessed the genre lose interest firsthand. “It was like an immediate switch,” Aguirre says. “Salsa just wasn’t as popular anymore, and people would walk over to the other side of the restaurant to take the bachata lessons.”

The pandemic also dealt a large blow to local salsa clubs, as peers in the long-standing dance club industry fell to lower attendance rates and rising rent. And in the last year, two historic venues, the Conga Room and the Mayan, closed permanently.

Stevens almost had the same fate. The financial burdens during the pandemic made Jim consider closing for good. But he couldn’t help but consider the responsibility of his family’s legacy and the special place Stevens holds for local dancers.

“It’s very emotional for me because I have four generations in this restaurant, and now my daughter works here,” he says.

When Stevens reopened, the community came back in droves, ushering in a new era of excitement for salsa.

These days, at the beginning of every class, dance instructor Miguel “Miguelito” Aguirre announces the same rule.

“Forget about what happened today, forget about your week, forget about all the bad stuff. Leave it at the door,” Aguirre says. “It’s going to be better because we’re going to dance salsa.”

Aguirre has taught salsa at Stevens for 30 years. In many ways, the steakhouse has shaped his life. It’s where he discovered his love for teaching dance and much more.

“I started coming here in the ‘90s, sneaking in through the back door. I was a teenager, so not old enough to show my ID, but one day, Jim just said, ‘You guys cannot come in through the back anymore. You can come into the front,’” Aguirre says. “And then one day he said, ‘Hey, we are missing the instructors. They’re not coming in. Can you guys teach the class?’ And, I’m still here.”

Jennifer Aguirre, a fellow dance teacher at Stevens, is his wife. She met him one day at Stevens’ annual Halloween party.

“He asked me to join his class because they ‘needed more girls,’” Jennifer says, laughing.

Now Jennifer teaches the beginner’s class, while Miguel is on intermediate. But once 10 p.m. hits, it’s social dancing time. The whole floor comes together and a familiar community converges. If attendees are lucky, they might catch Jennifer and Miguel, a smooth-dancing duo, letting loose, stepping and dipping effortlessly.

On a recent Sunday night, the low-lighted ambience of the restaurant met the purple lights of the dance room, with people sitting all around for a peek at the moves on display. Buttery steaks and potatoes cooking in the kitchen tinged the air as the dance floor came alive with women spinning in dresses and men in shining shoes gliding to the rhythm of the music. Miguel Aguirre manned the DJ stand, asking two singles if they knew each other and encouraging them to dance.

Gregorio Sines was one of the solo dancers on the floor, swaying partners easily under Miguel’s encouragement. Years ago, his friend, who frequented Stevens, dragged Sines out to dance socials, telling him it would be the best way to meet people and open up.

As someone who began with anxiety to dance in front of others, Sines now performs in Stevens’ dance showcases. He says consistently returning to the steakhouse’s historic floor and immersing himself in the supportive community not only changed his dance game, but brought him out of his shell.

“I tell anyone, if you’re scared to dance, you just have to get out there,” Sines says. “There’s a community waiting for you.”

Google announced it will invest $15 billion to build a new AI hub in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in southeastern India. Pictured from left are: Bikash Koley, vice president of Global Infrastructure and Capacity at Google Cloud; Ashwini Vaishnaw, IT minister; Nirmala Sitharaman, India minister of Finance and
Corporate Affairs; Nara Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh; Nara Lokesh, minister for Information Technology for Andhra Pradesh; and Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. Photo courtesy of Google.

Oct. 14 (UPI) — Google announced it will invest $15 billion to build an AI hub in India, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian announced Tuesday.

The hub will be in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, in southeastern India, and will reportedly be a 1-gigawatt facility.

The investment is Google’s largest Indian investment to date and will create Google’s largest AI hub in the world outside of the United States, Kurian said.

On Monday, Lokesh Nara, Andhra Pradesh’s minister of Human Resources, posted on X about the investment.

“After a year of intense discussions and relentless effort, tomorrow we make history. Google will sign an MOU with the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh for a 1GW project with an investment of $10 billion USD. It is a massive leap for our state’s digital future, innovation, and global standing. This is just the beginning,” he wrote.

The Indian Economic Times reported on Saturday that the investment would come from Google’s Indian subsidiary Raiden Infotech, which will also develop three campuses in Visakhapatnam.

According to an analysis commissioned by Google by Access Partnership, the AI hub is expected to generate at least $15 billion over five years in American gross domestic product because of new economic activity from increased cloud and AI adoption, as well as the American talent and resources involved in developing and operating the AI hub, the Google press release said.

“The Google AI hub in Visakhapatnam represents a landmark investment in India’s digital future,” Kurian said in a statement. “By delivering industry-leading AI infrastructure at scale, we are enabling businesses to innovate faster and creating meaningful opportunities for inclusive growth. This partnership reflects our shared commitment to the Indian and U.S. governments to harness AI responsibly and drive transformative impact for society.”

Part of the investment will be the construction of a new international subsea gateway, including multiple international subsea cables to land in Visakhapatnam, which is on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. This will help India meet its increasing digital demands, giving route diversity to complement subsea cable landings in Mumbai and Chennai and securing India’s digital backbone.

“This significant investment in Andhra Pradesh marks a new chapter in India’s digital transformation journey,” said N. Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, in a statement. “We are proud to host India’s first truly gigawatt-scale data center and Google’s first AI hub in India, which is a testament to our shared commitment to innovation, AI adoption, and long-term support for businesses and startups in the state.”

Ros Wynne-Jones visits a French retreat once revered by royalty and now loved by Hollywood legends. In 1660, King Louis XIV and his mum Anne of Austria made a pilgrimage to the Notre Dame de Grâces church here, to thank the Virgin Mary for Louis’ miraculous birth

Every place has a story, but Cotignac, a village hidden deep in the Provencal countryside in the South of France, is a place with more stories than most. From kings battling infertility to religious apparitions and Hollywood stars, from French crooners to Pink Floyd, this softly painted village at the foot of a huge limestone cliff, has seen it all.

In 1660, King Louis XIV and his mum Anne of Austria made a pilgrimage to the Notre Dame de Grâces church here, to thank the Virgin Mary for Louis’ miraculous birth. As the only place in the world where all three members of the Holy Family have appeared in visions, Cotignac is a major site for Catholic pilgrimage – with around 150,000 pilgrims a year.

But for decades, the village has also been a magnet for Hollywood royalty and musical legends. George and Amal Clooney, live close by – near enough for George to have a preferred baker in the village from which he collects his breakfast bread and croissants, according to one resident.

OPINION

Milo Boyd

READ MORE: Beautiful seaside town named ‘best for Brits’ with no tourists and amazing views

And another villager, Brad Pitt, is allegedly in dispute with ex-wife Angelina Jolie over their neighbouring vineyard.

Joe Dassin, one of the most famous French singer-songwriters, recorded nearby at Studio Miraval – before building his house in the village a few years later and dying at 41 of a heart attack. Which is where our hotel, Lou Calen, enters the story. When Chateau Miraval opened a studio that rose to fame after recording Pink Floyd’s The Wall, a nearby 16-room hotel-restaurant found itself ideally located to wine, dine and accommodate recording artists from all over the world.

Opening it in 1971, Huguette Caren named the hotel, Lou Calen – meaning the Oil Lamp – and her cooking and hospitality soon attracted names from Dassin to Brigitte Bardot, Pink Floyd, The Cure and even Yvonne De Gaulle, wife of Charles.

In 2001, the hotel closed, abandoned with its ghosts for two decades, until a Canadian entrepreneur decided to resurrect it. Graham Porter had spent summers in Cotignac as a student living with a Danish family who spent their holidays here.

He bought a home in the village in the early 2000s, but time spent there during the Covid pandemic convinced him to buy the hotel – and share his passion for pastis and petanque with guests from all over the world.

Porter saw the opportunity to rebuild not just a hotel but a luxe fairytale – a place of quiet eco-luxury where the routes between rooms are overrun with wildflowers, and no view or bedroom is the same. The sound of petanque boules echoes across the hillside, and guests are greeted with a cloudy glass of pastis on arrival.

This may be a wellness destination for well-heeled travellers, but it is far from pious – the hotel even has its own microbrewery with a wide range of beers from cold IPAs to dark porters named after La Tuf – the high cliffs that surround the village.

At the heart of it all remains food as good as that which once attracted the famous recording artists.

Hidden in the olive and lavender-scented grounds is the Secret Garden, an extraordinary restaurant by forward-looking chef Benoit Witz – one of the first in the world to have earned a coveted Green Michelin Star. The Michelin Guide notes the dishes created by Witz – who once trained with top chef Alain Ducasse – are “100 per cent authentic”.

In Witz’s kitchen, not one single stalk or flower is wasted, and seasonal ingredients are king. This, after all, is Provence Vert – Green Provence. The rosé wine comes from the neat rows of vines on the neighbouring hillsides, from vineyards with names like Carpe Diem, and the grapes of Miraval now harvested in the disputed Pitt-Jolie vineyard. Only seconds away, the House of Mirabeau offers wine and gin tasting.

Cheeses come from a tiny footprint of local farms and vegetables from the hotel’s own market garden where edible flowers and goats somehow co-exist.

All can be explored on foot or via electric bikes available at Lou Calen.

Places with so much history need a historian, and ours comes in the form of an American guide John Peck, who leads us up the hot, winding routes into La Tuf to tell us the stories of the place.

The cliff is inset with a giant wooden olive press once used by the entire village to make oil, and inlaid with paths that lead past former troglodyte dwellings, where villagers once hid from the invading Saracens.

We see where local craftsman Jean de la Baume once saw a vision of the Virgin Mary and where Saint Joseph is said to have appeared to Gaspard Ricard, a thirsty shepherd tending his sheep on Mount Bessillon.

At the village’s ancient, magical spring, pointed out to Gaspard by Saint Joseph, John shakes out his “pocket museum” onto a stone wall. It is an extraordinary collection of findings that tell Cotignac’s history better than any guidebook.

There is a Napolean-era greatcoat button, flattened and heavily worn Roman coins, a gladiator’s strigil – or arm-scraper that once removed oil, and even a coin bearing a swastika – a reminder that during World War II Lou Calen was an orphanage for children who had lost their parents in the Nazi occupation.

As we walk past the well-stocked modern art gallery, Centre d’Art la Falaise, a Frenchman from central casting or perhaps the Napoleonic-era, cycles past in a beret.

The next day we tour the wild-flower filled gardens with a local herbalist, Vera Schutz, who tells us the names of the different plants and their ancient uses.

We get a tour of the Jardin Secret kitchen gardens in the quiet of Sunday morning, and even meet Monsieur Witz, who is teaching his friend’s children how to shell broad beans. In our room, a portrait of singer Joe Dassin looks down on us from between windows that perfectly frame views of the village, terracotta roofs dotted between the green.

A line from one of his songs – “elle m’a dit d’allez siffler la haut sur la colline” or “she told me to go whistle up there on the hill” – is inscribed on the wall. There are no screens or televisions at Lou Calen, so we play Dassin’s love songs, “Les Champs-Elysees” and “Et Si Tu N’Existais Pas”, through the wireless speaker.

France’s Mediterranean beaches are just an hour away, but who needs them? Instead of TVs and iPads, guests are instead encouraged to mingle on long tables, play petanque, enjoy the local jazz “manouche”, swim in the bright blue of either the family or adult swimming pools, or to rest and recuperate at a peaceful spa in the round turret of the old pigeon loft.

The food is just as good at the bistro where smiling staff battle smoking barbeques in the afternoon heat to deliver tasty seared swordfish and grilled lamb.

All that is missing is Hugette Caren herself, the founder and spirit who once drew the recording artists from the surrounding countryside with her cooking, the way the magical spring drew visitors to Cotignac. She still lives in the village and is known to visit the bars and restaurants. When you visit you might see her there, like an apparition – pastis in hand.

In 2025 Lou Calen, the oil lamp that Hugette lit back in 1971, is still shining brightly.

GET THERE

Fly from airports across the UK to Nice or Marseille; rail to Aix-en-Provence or Avignon.

BOOK IT

Rooms at the Lou Calen hotel in Cotignac, Provence, South of France, start at around £175 a night.

loucalen.com

MORE INFO

france.fr/en/destination/provence

A UK airport is reportedly in talks to increase its number of flights, with hopes to become a “major hub” for holidaymaker around Europe.

Huge upgrades are included in the plans which hopes to have the airport better connected to more destinations.

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East Midlands Airport is having talks “already underway” with airlines about plans for more cargo and passenger flights.

Currently, passengers can fly to and from 70 destinations through East Midlands Airport.

These include countries in Europe and North Africa.

But new commerical director, Adam Andrews, revealed the airport wants to provide more one-stop connections for passengers.

He said: “We will build relationships with key decision makers and businesses from our region and its large three big cities to understand how we can work together to maximise the airports potential what they want from their local airport.

“This includes looking to increase the mix of leisure destinations, introduce business routes and enable year-round connectivity to the world.”

Increasing flight options during peak seasons, such as summer holidays, is in the works.

And plans for more flights during the traditional off-peak seasons are also being considered.

This would mean travellers are able to just go to their local airport for their flights rather than having to get across the country first.

Andrews hopes to draw on the airport’s success as the UK’s “number one express air freight hub” due to being central to both the country and world.

East Midlands Airport is strategically located between Africa, Europe and the US.

It has been a hub for low-budget airlines like Jet2, Ryanair and TUI Airways.

The airfield was originally built as a Royal Air Force station in 1943, before it was redeveloped as a civilian airport in 1965.

Busiest routes from East Midlands Aiport have been Alicante, Tenerife, and Mallorca.

But it has no direct access via a passenger rail network, with the nearest being East Midlands Parkway about four miles away.

Proposals have been made in the past for a dedicated railway station to be installed at the airport, but is unlikely to be completed for another decade or so.

Plans for East Midlands Airport come after it was announced over the weekend the Gatwick Airport would be getting a new full runway.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander signed off on the plan that involves a £2.2billion expansion.

The project will shift Gatwick’s emergency runway 12 metres north so it can be used alongside the main strip.

This will pave way for 100,000 extra flights a year from the second busiest airport in the UK.

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We whine and purr and howl, a collective release.

About 20 of us are huddled in a patch of shade, beneath a cluster of palm trees, in a sleepy Culver City garden. Paired up, we face our partners, cup our hands behind our ears and let out loud, primal noises. And we laugh.

We’re participating in a “tuning exercise” led by the performing arts group Cantilever Collective. It’s part of a movement workshop meant to facilitate connection between individuals and help regulate our central nervous systems so as to release stress and promote a sense of overall well-being.

Where are we, exactly? At one of Los Angeles’ newest and most robust wellness hubs — held, perhaps counterintuitively, inside the Wende Museum of the Cold War. The Culver City museum, which opened its doors in 2017, debuted its Glorya Kaufman Community Center last weekend, a 7,500-square-foot space for cultural programming and wellness activities. The three-story, modernist concrete building, which sits across the sculpture garden from the museum’s exhibition hall, was made possible with funding from the late philanthropist Glorya Kaufman, who passed away in August. Her foundation provided the lead gift toward the $17-million new building and committed $6 million toward programming.

The new community center includes a 150-seat theater inside a refurbished, century-old A-frame structure, an old MGM prop house. It will host all the expected cultural programming such as screenings, live talks and dance performances, among other events. But it will also offer yoga classes, guided meditations, sound baths, dance and movement classe, and healing writing workshops for L.A. wildfire victims, as well as herb and incense-making workshops and matcha tea-making classes.

Most notably? All of these wellness activities are free to the public. The center will also offer about 100 hours of free therapy a year, with licensed psychologists, as well as life-coaching sessions.

The Wende is quickly becoming “the living room of Culver City,” as visitor Lisette Palley, 74, describes it. She attends meditations at the community center, which soft-launched in January, weekly. “This place, it has an ease about it, an openness, a generosity that you don’t find everywhere you go,” Palley says.

Increasingly, museums and art galleries have been adding wellness activities to event calendars. The Hammer Museum has long held weekly mindfulness meditations on its campus, the Huntington regularly holds forest bathing and tai chi workshops and the J. Paul Getty Museum’s education department offers a “Wellness Day for Educators” at the Getty Center that includes yoga, a sound bath and guided mindfulness — to name a few. But typically, such wellness events are the programming exception at museums, and often they’re in conversation with an exhibition on view. The Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende will host wellness activities nearly every day of the week, with “Wellness Wednesdays” being especially robust.

“There’s an affordability crisis in this country right now, and the things we’re providing are human rights,” says Wende founder and executive director Justin Jampol. “This museum — art — has always been sustenance for your soul. Now it’s sustenance for your mind and body. We realize we can’t inspire people if they’re hungry or sick. We have to tend to the whole person.”

Earlier in the day, about 50 visitors enjoyed a mindfulness meditation in the A-frame theater led by Christiane Wolf, a former physician turned meditation teacher. Wolfe encouraged the crowd to “just be … lean on the strength of community.”

Afterward, guests mingled in the courtyard over borscht and Russian tea made from fermented fireweed, honey and pine bud, among other offerings. A soon-to-debut Konsum Cafe will serve freshly baked bread from Clark Street, specialty coffees and teas, and a rotating menu of homemade soups from regions around the world that relate to its exhibition programming (first up: borscht, Hungarian goulash and Vietnamese pho). All of the food and drink in the cafe will also be free.

“We’re hardwired to come together as communities, and if we’re sharing food, it’s very regulating for our nervous systems,” Wolf says. “It creates a sense of safety.”

Early on, there were some concerns that people would balk at a Cold War history museum entering the wellness space. But Jampol says it actually makes sense paired with the collection.

“This place, it’s become this subversive museum,” he says. “First, because of the collections — they’re so much about dissonant movements and revolutions — and because it documents and celebrates the human spirit. Even in the face of totalitarian authority and oppression and restrictions, the human spirit has a way of fighting back; the human spirit always finds a way.”

Considering the federal government’s slashing of funding for the arts and public health programs in U.S., the community center is even more relevant now, Jampol says.

“The things that get cut first are the things people need most: self-care, eating right, having opportunities for art and culture, going to the theater — those are stress relievers,” he says. “So the idea is to try and address that here in our own small way.”

Kaufman, who died at 95, was a transformative dance world philanthropist in L.A. She established the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, as well as the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. At the Wende, she did more than just fund the new center — it was her idea in the first place. She regularly attended music programs and dance events at the Wende, starting not long after its opening. Back then, museum staffers would move chairs and art around to make space for public events. One day in 2019, Kaufman told Jampol, “This is ridiculous. You can’t have heads poking around a statue; this is super weird,” he recalls. They began hatching plans to create a new space for events.

Kaufman and Jampol felt the COVID pandemic only heightened the need for health and wellness programming. The new building broke ground in 2022, designed by AUX Architecture (which designed the Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services). Other lead donors include the Ahmanson Foundation, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Rose Hills Foundation. Culver City donated the plot of land. Wellness activities debuted in the nearby sculpture garden even as construction was underway.

Visitors weren’t deterred by the construction cacophony. Event attendance has more than doubled since last year, Jampol says: about 15,000 program attendees in 2024 compared with about 32,000 so far in 2025.

The theater, with its restored slow-growth Douglas fir, is the crown jewel of the new building. It has a retractable seating system so it can morph into a space with room for a dance floor or sound baths. Practitioners can select the type of event they’ll be leading on a digital keypad and the room will automatically reconfigure itself. Hit “screening” and the lights dim in the audience and a screen drops down, for example. Select “dance hall” and disco lights swirl around the room.

The Wende’s wellness vision also includes a 4,000-square-foot Zen-inspired mediation garden, created by designer Michael Boyd, a scholar of postwar gardens and Midcentury Modern architecture. It features a decomposed granite ground surface studded with river stones and succulents, and is filled with the sounds of crickets and a rushing stream, digitally piped in. The museum is also turning about 200 feet of a median strip along Culver Boulevard into an “herb and incense garden” that will serve the cafe and upcoming incense-making workshops.

Much of the programming will be internally curated and the museum will pay its practitioners (those events will still be free to the public). Other programming will be “community curated.” Meaning, the Wende will make its center available, for free, to any wellness practitioner in L.A. who wants to hold an event there. The only caveat? Their event must be free to the public.

Kaufman may not be able to attend any of these events, but her presence is deeply felt. A portrait of the late philanthropist, by Russian-born, Swiss artist Boris Vansier, hangs by the entrance to the theater.

Surveying the new building, as Wellness Wednesday attendees stream in and out of it, Jampol appears certain of the museum’s mission and role in the city.

“It’s about these moments of joy and happiness and togetherness amidst awfulness,” he says. “Having these kinds of oases in our lives is so important. There’s a certain tranquility in being in beautiful spaces and being present and being in community with one another. In a way, that is the ultimate purpose of museums.”

In a social media post on August 22 2025 the German Ambassador to India Dr Philip Ackermann said:‘New numbers are out! Almost 60,000 students from India are currently studying in Germany – a leap of 20 % over a year.’ He also said that public universities in Germany were a “great choice” due to their reputation and affordability.

The number of Indian students, surpass Chinese students for two successive years

In recent years, the number of Indian students studying in Germany has risen significantly. In 2018-2019, this number was estimated at a little over 20,000 but it has been growing steadily and in 2023-2024 it reached 49,000. Another important point is that Indian students emerged as the largest international student group — surpassing Chinese students —  in Germany for the second year in a row. For long, India and China have been the largest contributors to the International Student Pool in the Anglosphere – US, UK, Canada and Australia. Apart from Canada – especially in the recent past — the number of students from China exceeded students from India in other nations in the Anglosphere. As ties between Washington and Beijing deteriorated, this began to change and the number of Indian students in US higher education institutions surpassed that of Chinese students in 2024.

Indian students and higher education in the US

With the US making several revisions to its student visa policies, the enrolment of Indian students has witnessed a significant decline. In July 2025, the number of Indian student arrivals was estimated at 79,000. This is a dip of 46%. Apart from the policy changes of the Trump administration, it is the delays in visa processing which are discouraging Indian students from pursuing higher studies in the US. One more step which could further discourage Indian students is the proposal of removing the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program. The OPT gives students, on an F-1 Visa, an opportunity to gain experience post their degrees often leading to full time employment and getting a work visa and residency eventually. This is especially handy for STEM students (it was the George W Bush Administration which had raised the duration of the OTP from 12 months to 29 months). In 2024, 200,000 students gained experience via the OPT. Apart from using the OPT for gaining work experience, it is also important since several of the individuals on F1 visas use the visa as a means for re-paying student loans. The US Department of Homeland Security is also planning some drastic changes to the existing F-1 visa rules.

The recent criticisms of the H1-B Visas by senior officials in the Trump Administration, and possible overhaul of the H1-B visa regime could also discourage several Indian students from going for higher studies to the US.

Indian students showing more interest in Germany

If one were to look at Indian students opting for European countries like Germany, it is important to bear in mind, that while some of the policies of the Trump administration may have encouraged students to look at alternative destinations. Germany by itself has been attractive for several reasons even earlier. The first is affordability. Public universities in Germany charge a nominal-fees (and no tuition fees). Second, the high academic standards of programs in the Sciences and Engineering, along with the fact that the programs are run in English. At a time when the US is thinking of removing the OPT, Germany provides an 18-month job seeker permit after completion of the degree. After this, students can apply for a Blue Card. Germany’s relaxation of citizenship rules and work visas could also add to the country’s attractiveness as

While several German Universities are reputed for having excellent departments of engineering, the country is also home to some top higher education institutions in humanities.

Both the employment opportunities as well as Germany’s growing emphasis on strengthening the country’s Research and Development – R &D eco-system – also could make it an attractive destination for international students.

Germany looking to draw Indian talent

In June 2025, the German Ambassador made a strong pitch for Germany pointing to the strengths it possesses as well as the predictability and stability in immigration policies:

“We are interested in Indian talent, we are interested in Indian brains. We are interested in those Indians who really want to achieve something, and Germany will always be a partner for such people. So, we are not erratic, we are not volatile, we are very, very steady,”

Apart from all the advantages discussed during the article, predictable and stable student visa policies are likely to be an important factor in drawing international students.

Conclusion

Given the strengths which Germany possesses – both in terms of academic standards and logistics – discussed in the article it is likely, that Germany has the potential of emerging as an important destination for higher education for international students – especially from India.

Reporting from Alexandria, Va. — Landini Brothers is an old-fashioned Italian joint that lacks the sleek aesthetic of the power lunch spots in Washington, and makes no apologies for it. The walls are stone, the ceilings are low and a sign behind the bar declares: “Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy.”

But it’s one of the best places to catch top Republican operatives in action, thanks to one attribute the trendy eateries near the White House cannot claim: proximity to the GOP’s political hub. Within several blocks of the restaurant’s King Street location are more than two dozen Republican media, polling and public relations firms.

Tucked away discreetly in the quaint row houses of Old Town Alexandria, the political shops are largely invisible to passersby. But they are mightily influential in shaping the party’s message and strategy. Many helped produce and place the ads that battered Democratic candidates in November’s midterm election. Several of the secretive nonprofit organizations that paid for those ads are also based in Alexandria.

Together, they’ve turned King Street into a small-town version of K Street, Washington’s famed corridor of lobbying and law firms.

“We used to always joke that if they wanted to wipe out Republican Party, all they had to do was [destroy] Old Town,” said GOP ad maker Jim Innocenzi, whose office is a block south of King Street.

The glut of Republican consultants leads to sidewalk chit-chat and tactical confabs in local restaurants. The tavern Jackson 20 — named for President Andrew Jackson, whose image is on the $20 bill — is said to have the best breakfast. Landini Brothers and the Majestic Cafe are lunch favorites. (Recently spotted dining together at the latter: veteran pollster Tony Fabrizio and Phil Musser, who runs the political action committee of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a possible 2012 presidential candidate.) The Morrison House — dubbed “MoHo” by some — is the place for after-work libations.

“It’s not like we all get together in some bunker in the morning,” joked Craig Shirley, an author of books about Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns whose public relations firm, Shirley & Banister, is in a 1740-era townhouse off King. “It’s nice because it’s a heck of a lot cheaper than K Street and you can be on Capitol Hill in the same amount of time.”

The first major Republican firms arrived in the 1980s, drawn by affordable rent, lower taxes and the easy commute for Virginia residents. Today, Old Town is home to such groups as the American Conservative Union and L. Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center. It’s also attracted onetime K Street denizens such as former GOP national Chairman Ed Gillespie, who opened a consulting firm on Prince Street after leaving the White House in 2009.

A few blocks away, above the boutiques on King Street, are 60 Plus and the Center for Individual Freedom, two of the conservative non-profit groups that spent millions on political ads targeting Democrats this past fall.

“I think for a lot of conservatives there’s something about being outside Washington, even though it’s not very far outside,” said Greg Mueller, whose Alexandria-based CRC Public Relations has represented clients such as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry’s Vietnam War record during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Still, Alexandria — seven miles from downtown Washington and just across the Potomac — is a somewhat incongruous base for conservatives. The town voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama in 2008 and is known for its liberal politics.

“We’re very open and everyone is welcome, even Republicans,” said Brian Moran, chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, who lives in Alexandria and whose brother, James, represents the area in Congress. “But I do hope they entered short-term leases, because the Democrats will be back in charge in 2012.”

A walking tour of Old Town provides a window onto the extensive GOP network that has taken root. Start off with a cappuccino at Landini Brothers at 115 King, then stroll west, past the 1724 home of city founder William Ramsay, now the Alexandria Visitors Center.

At 515 King, three floors above a SunTrust Bank branch, is the small, unmarked office of 60 Plus, which bills itself as a conservative version of AARP. The organization plowed at least $7 million into defeating Democratic House candidates in 2010, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. There’s no sign on the door, but a large photo of former President George W. Bush and 60 Plus Chairman Jim Martin can be glimpsed through the window.

Farther west on King, above the fabric store Calico Corners, is the office of GOP media buyer Kyle Roberts, who handled the presidential campaign account of Sen. John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin in 2008. At the same location are Scott Howell, a Dallas-based ad maker, and political consultant Blaise Hazelwood, former political director of the Republican National Committee.

Proceed west to Alfred Street. A half-block north, in a stately townhouse, is the polling firm run by Whit Ayres, who moved here from Atlanta in 2003 to be closer to the GOP political center.

“If a client comes to town to look at polling firms, you’re more likely to get an interview if you’re along the tracks they’re walking,” Ayres said.

Another block west along King are two row houses owned by Tony Fabrizio, who was chief pollster and strategist for Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential bid. His unmarked office is at 915 King above Ten Thousand Villages, a store featuring fair trade crafts from countries such as Uganda and India. He shares the second floor with Multi Media Services, a media-buying firm that has placed ads for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican National Committee.

Next door, above a spa that offers massages and Botox treatments, is the Center for Individual Freedom, an organization formed in 1998 by a former tobacco lobbyist. Fabrizio is listed in public records as its chairman. In the recent midterm election, the center spent at least $2.5 million on negative ads against about 10 Democratic members of Congress.

There’s no sign or nameplate for the center, just an unmarked buzzer next to a locked wooden door.

Take a right on North Patrick Street and left on Cameron Street to find the American Conservative Union, housed in a modest gray row house with peeling green shutters. Several blocks south, a large brick complex at 325 S. Patrick Street houses the Parents Television Council and Media Research Center, conservative watchdog groups founded by Bozell, nephew of the late arch-conservative William F. Buckley Jr.

The tour is not complete without a drive past 66 Canal Center Plaza, a modern office building along the Potomac. Suite 555 houses a battery of Republican political shops. There’s Americans for Job Security, a pro-business group that ran at least $9 million worth of ads against Democrats in 2010, and Crossroads Media, which placed many of those and similar spots.

Crossroads’ founder, Michael Dubke, is a partner with GOP strategist Carl Forti in another firm in Suite 555, the public affairs consultancy Black Rock Group. Forti is also political director of the nonprofit groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — not to be confused with Crossroads Media — which together raised more than $70 million for conservative candidates last year.

Forti said he picked the location because the rent is cheaper than in Washington and it’s close to his Mount Vernon, Va., home.

Ad maker Steve Murphy, who runs one of the few Democratic political shops in Alexandria, has another theory: “What I’ve noticed over the years is that Democratic firms want to be in the District of Columbia, where they are proud to associate themselves with the federal government, and Republican firms want to be in northern Virginia, where they are proud to disassociate themselves from the federal government. It really is a political cultural thing.”

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Tom Hamburger in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

June 3 (UPI) — At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured early Tuesday near an aid hub run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in southern Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.

The Hamas-run ministry said in a social media update that the people were waiting at an area designated as an aid distribution point in Rafah and that 27 bodies and 90 injured had been brought to hospitals, “some of them in a critical condition.”

The statement did not say how the victims were killed and injured, but the incident follows the deaths of at least 31 Palestinians and injuring of more than 200 after Israel Defense Forces allegedly opened fire on a crowd at the same location Sunday.

The IDF said on its official account on X on Tuesday that troops fired warning shots to deter “several suspects moving toward them, deviating from the designated routes” leading to the aid site. When the suspects failed to turn back, the soldiers directed additional fire toward individuals continuing to advance toward their positions.

The IDF said it was aware of Tuesday’s reports of casualties and was looking into the details.

“The IDF allows the American Civil Organization (GHF) to operate independently in order to enable the distribution of aid to the Gazan residents — and not to Hamas. IDF troops are not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites. The warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometer away from the humanitarian aid distribution site toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them,” the military’s statement read.

However, an overseas volunteer doctor working in a nearby hospital told the BBC it had been “total carnage” since just before 4 a.m. local time and that they had been deluged with injured people.

On Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an urgent, independent probe into the violence that reportedly occurred Sunday.

“I am appalled by the reports of Palestinians killed and injured while seeking aid in Gaza yesterday. It is unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food,” he said.

The IDF has categorically denied any involvement in Sunday’s incident, insisting an initial investigation had found “the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site.”

The Gaza Health Foundation, set up to run the new U.S.-Israeli mechanism for delivering humanitarian assistance into Gaza, which bypasses the United Nations and other aid agencies, also denied the reports of Sunday’s violence, saying aid had been distributed without incident and that there had been no injuries or fatalities.

However, GHF has been plagued by problems since it began operations in Gaza a week ago with thousands of hungry Gazans swamping its Tel al-Sultan Secure Distribution Site One from day one.

The scheme aims to prevent aid from allegedly being stolen and resold by Hamas to fund its military operations against Israel, but the U.N. and legacy aid agencies have roundly condemned it as being in breach of humanitarian ethics and “weaponizing” the issue of aid.

GHF’s two top officials, Executive Director and former U.S. Marine Jake Wood and Chief Operating Officer David Burke, both resigned in the days before the scheme began operating.

Burke has not publicly commented on his decision, but Wood said he resigned because the scheme was out of step with the key humanitarian principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.”

Dimapur, Mokokchung, Wokha, Chumoukedima and Kohima, India — With its high ceilings, soft lighting and brown and turquoise blue cushioned chairs, Juro Coffee House has the appearance of a chic European cafe.

Sitting right off India’s National Highway-2, which connects the northeastern states of Assam, Nagaland and Manipur, the cafe hosts a live roastery unit that was set up in January by the Nagaland state government.  Here, green coffee beans from 12 districts in Nagaland are roasted live, ground and served, from farm to cup.

On a typical day, the cafe gets about a hundred customers, sipping on coffee, with smoke breaks in between.

Those numbers aren’t big – but they’re a start.

For decades, an armed rebellion seeking the secession of Nagaland from India dominated the state’s political and economic landscape. Thousands have been killed in clashes between security forces and armed rebels in Nagaland since India’s independence, soon after which Naga separatists held a plebiscite in which nearly all votes were cast in favour of separating from the Indian union. India has never accepted that vote.

The state’s economy has depended on agriculture, with paddy, fruits like bananas and oranges and green leafy vegetables like mustard leaves, the main crops grown traditionally.

Now, a growing band of cafes, roasteries and farms across the state are looking to give Nagaland a new identity by promoting locally grown Arabica and Robusta coffee. Juro Coffee House is among them.

While coffee was first introduced to the state in 1981 by the Coffee Board of India, a body set up by the Indian government to promote coffee production, it only began to take off after 2014.

Helped by government policy changes and pushed by a set of young entrepreneurs, Nagaland today has almost 250 coffee farms spread across 10,700 hectares (26,400 acres) of land in 11 districts. About 9,500 farmers are engaged in coffee cultivation, according to the state government. The small state bordering Myanmar today boasts of eight roastery units, besides homegrown cafes mushrooming in major cities like Dimapur and Kohima, and interior districts like Mokokchung and Mon.

For Searon Yanthan, the founder of Juro Coffee House, the journey began with COVID-19, when the pandemic forced Naga youth studying or working in other parts of India or abroad to return home. But this became a blessing in disguise since they brought back value to the state, says Yanthan. “My father used to say, those were the days when we used to export people,” he told Al Jazeera. “Now it’s time to export our products and ideas, not the people.”

‘Back to the farm’

Like many kids his age, Yanthan left Nagaland for higher studies in 2010, first landing up in the southern city of Chennai for high school and then the northern state of Punjab for his undergraduate studies, before dropping out to study in Bangalore. “I studied commerce but the only subject I was good in was entrepreneurship,” said the 30-year-old founder, dressed in a pair of smart formal cotton pants and a baby pink polo neck shirt.

The pandemic hit just as he was about to graduate, and Yanthan left with no degree in hand. One day, he sneaked into a government vehicle from Dimapur during the COVID-19 lockdown – when only essential services like medical and government workers were allowed to move around – to return to his family farm estate, 112km (70 miles) from state capital Kohima, where his dad first started growing coffee in 2015.

He ended up spending seven months at the farm during lockdown and realised that coffee farmers didn’t know much about the quality of beans, which wasn’t surprising considering coffee is not a household beverage among Nagas and other ethnic communities in India’s northeast.

Yanthan, who launched Lithanro Coffee, the parent company behind Juro, in 2021, started visiting other farms, working with farmers on improving coffee quality and maintaining plantations. Once his own processing unit was set up, he began hosting other coffee farmers, offering them a manually brewed cup of their own produce.

Gradually, he built a relationship with 200 farmers from whom he sources beans today, besides the coffee grown on his farm.

Yanthan sees coffee as an opportunity for Nagaland’s youth to dream of economic prospects beyond jobs in the government — the only aspiration for millions of Naga families in a state where private-sector employment has historically been uncertain. “Every village you go to, parents are working day and night in the farms to make his son or daughter get a government job,” Yanthan told Al Jazeera.

Coffee, to him, could also serve as a vehicle to bring people together. “In this industry, it’s not only one person who can do this work, it has to be a community,” he said.

Brewing success

So what changed in 2015? Coffee buyers and roasters are unanimous in crediting the state government’s decision to hand over charge of coffee development to Nagaland’s Land Resources Department (LRD) that year. The state department implements schemes sponsored by the federal government and the state government, including those promoting coffee.

Unlike in the past, when Nagaland – part of a region that has historically had poor physical connectivity with the rest of India – also had no internet, coffee roasters, buyers and farmers could now build online links with the outside world. “[The] market was not like what it is today,” said Albert Ngullie, the director of the LRD.

The LRD builds nurseries and provides free saplings to farmers, besides supporting farm maintenance. Unlike before, the government is also investing in the post-harvest process by supplying coffee pulpers to farmers, setting up washing stations and curing units in a few districts and recently, supporting entrepreneurs with roastery units.

Among those to benefit is Lichan Humtsoe. He set up his company Ete (which means “ours” in the Lotha Naga dialect) in 2016 after quitting his pen-pushing job in the LRD and was the first in the state to source, serve and supply Naga specialty coffee. Today, Ete runs its own cafes, roasteries and a coffee laboratory, researching the chemical properties of indigenous fruits as flavour notes. Ete also has a coffee school in Nagaland (and a campus in the neighbouring state of Manipur) with a dedicated curriculum and training facilities to foster the next generation of coffee professionals.

Humtsoe said the past decade has shown that the private sector and government in Nagaland have complemented each other in promoting coffee.

Nagaland’s growing coffee story also coincides with an overall increase in India’s exports of coffee beans.

In 2024, India’s coffee exports surpassed $1bn for the first time, with production doubling compared with 2020-21. While more than 70 percent of India’s coffee comes from the southern state of Karnataka, the Coffee Board has been trying to expand cultivation in the Northeast.

Building a coffee culture in Nagaland is no easy feat, given that decades of unrest left the state in want of infrastructure and almost completely reliant on federal funding. Growing up in the 1990s, when military operations against alleged armed groups were frequent and security forces would often barge into homes, day or night, Humtsoe wanted nothing to do with India.

At one point, he stopped speaking Nagamese – a bridge dialect among the state’s 16 tribes and a creole version of the Indian language, Assamese. But he grew disillusioned with the political solution rooted in separatism that armed groups were seeking. And the irony of the state’s dependence on funds from New Delhi hit the now 39-year-old.

Coffee became his own path to self-determination.

“From 2016 onwards, I was more of, ‘How can I inspire India?’”

The quality challenge

Ngullie of the LRD insists that the coffee revolution brewing in Nagaland is also helping the state preserve its forests.

“We don’t do land clearing,” he said, in essence suggesting that coffee was helping the state’s agriculture transition from the traditional slash-and-burn techniques to agroforestry.

The LRD buys seed varieties from the Coffee Board for farmers, and growers make more money than before.

Limakumzak Walling, a 40-year-old farmer, recalled how his late father was one of the first to grow Arabica coffee in 1981 on a two-acre farm on their ancestral land in Mokokchung district’s Khar village. “During my father’s time, they used to cultivate it, but people didn’t find the market,” he said. “It was more of a burden than a bonus.”

Before the Nagaland government took charge of coffee development, the Coffee Board would buy produce from farmers and sell it to buyers or auction it in their headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. But the payments, said Walling, would be made in instalments over a year, sometimes two. Since he took over the farm, and the state department became the nodal agency, payments are not only higher but paid upfront with buyers directly procuring from the farmers.

Still, profits aren’t huge. Walling makes less than 200,000 rupees per annum (roughly $2,300) and like most farmers, is still engaged in jhum cultivation, the traditional slash-and-burn method of farming practised by Indigenous tribes in northeastern hills. With erratic weather patterns and decreasing soil fertility in recent decades, intensified land use in jhum cultivation has been known to lead to further environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating climate change.

“Trees are drying up and so is the mountain spring water,” Walling told Al Jazeera, pointing at the evergreen woods where spring leaves were already wilting in March, well before the formal arrival of summer. “Infestation is also a major issue and we don’t use even organic fertilisers because we are scared of spoiling our land,” he added.

And though the state government has set up some washing stations and curing units, many more are needed for these facilities to be accessible to all farmers, said Walling, for them to sustain coffee as a viable crop and secure better prices. “Right now we don’t know the quality. We just harvest it,” he said.

Dipanjali Kemprai, a liaison officer who leads the Coffee Board of India operations in Nagaland, told Al Jazeera that the agency encourages farmers to grow coffee alongside horticultural crops like black pepper to supplement their income. “But intercropping still hasn’t fully taken off,” said Kemprai.

Meanwhile, despite the state’s efforts to promote sustainable agriculture, recent satellite data suggests that shifting cultivation, or jhum, may be rising again.

The future of Naga coffee

Though it is the seventh-largest producer of coffee, India is far behind export-heavy countries like Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia and Italy.

And while the Nagaland government maintains that exports have been steadily growing, entrepreneurs tell a different story. Vivito Yeptho, who co-owns Nagaland Coffee and became the state’s first certified barista in 2018, said that their last export of 15 metric tonnes (MT) was in 2019, to South Africa.

Still, there are other wins to boast of.

In 2024, the state registered its highest-ever production at 48 MT, per state department officials. Yeptho said Nagaland Coffee alone supplies 40 cafes across India, of which 12 are in the Northeast region. And Naga coffee is already making waves internationally, winning silver at the Aurora International Taste Challenge in South Africa in 2022 and then gold in 2023.

“To aim for export, we need to be at least producing 80-100 MT every year,” Yeptho told Al Jazeera.

But before aiming for mass production, entrepreneurs said they still have a long way to go in improving the quality of beans and their post-harvest processing.

With a washing mill and a curing unit in his farm, where he grows both Arabica and Robusta varieties, Yanthan’s Lithanro brand is the only farm-to-cup institution in the state. He believes farmers need to focus on better maintenance of their plantations, to begin with.

“Even today, the attitude is that the plants don’t need to be tended to during the summers and monsoon season before harvest (which starts by November),” Yanthan told Al Jazeera. “But the trees need to be constantly pruned to keep them within a certain height, weeding has to be done and the stems need to be maintained as well.”

Even as these challenges ground Naga farmers and entrepreneurs in reality, their dreams are soaring.

Humtsoe hopes for speciality coffee from Nagaland to soon be GI tagged, like varieties from Coorg, Chikmagalur, Araku Valley and Wayanad in southern India.

He wants good coffee from India to be associated with Nagas, not just Nagaland, he said.

“People of the land must become the brand”.