million

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday is expected to approve a bipartisan bill that would give the NCAA and its member conferences the authority to enforce uniform national rules on college athletics.

If the bill is passed by the Senate, it would move to the House and, if approved, on to President Trump for his signature to become law.

What the Protect College Sports Act would do

Under the Protect College Sports Act — co-authored by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — the NCAA would be granted a limited antitrust exemption that would allow the organization to create standardized rules around athlete eligibility, limit conference realignment and prevent the creation of a super league — a private-equity model for college sports that would replace NCAA subdivisions.

The bill is also an attempt to codify the $2.8-billion antitrust settlement reached last year in House vs. NCAA, which allowed Division 1 schools to share revenue with their current players and compensate past players. The new bill would increase the revenue sharing cap to around $50 million per school from $21.5 million, albeit with a more strict and enforceable model.

Under Name, Image and Likeness deals, wealthier schools were able to circumvent the “soft” $21.5-million cap by lining up lucrative corporate sponsorships and endorsements for prospective athletes. The bill would allow the NCAA to crack down on attempts to bypass the limit by incorporating booster or affiliated-entity money into total revenue sharing calculations, while also giving schools an additional $27 million in the funding cap to retain current athletes.

Potential boost for smaller schools

A potential consequence of the bill could be that big-name programs lose their ability to draw the best college athletes with promises of massive compensation, allowing smaller programs to compete under NCAA regulations.

The NCAA and its affiliates have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying for congressional intervention on its rule-making power over the last seven years. Supporters of the bill, including Cruz, have said the bill would bring order and consistent regulation to college sports.

“If we’re going to be having a national competition … it is only Congress that can establish a clear and enforceable legal rule book,” Cruz said on the Senate floor last week.

Influential figures in college sports, including former Alabama head football coach Nick Saban and ESPN analyst Pat McAfee, have publicly called on Congress to pass the measure. It has also drawn support from 24 of the NCAA’s athletic conferences.

“Congress does need to fix the mess in the courts and create a national framework so the people inside college sports can enforce fair rules,” Saban said during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation committee hearing in June. “Without that legal certainty, every rule becomes another lawsuit, every standard becomes another risk, and the system keeps drifting toward a professional model.”

What the opponents say

The legislation is not without its opponents. Some players, labor organizations and members of Congress argue that the bill would prevent highly sought-after college athletes from participating in their own negotiation process.

“What this bill does, at its core, is protect a system of exploitation,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in an AFL-CIO trade union press release. “This bill protects the billions of dollars that coaches and executives are making by suppressing compensation for some of the most highly valued athletes in the world.”

The Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP have also brought forward concerns that the bill does not allow Black athletes — who make up a majority of players in the football and basketball programs — into the collective bargaining process.

The NCAA plans to enforce a five-year eligibility rule, cap agent fees at 5%, put penalties on second transfers and codify student-athlete protections, such as 10-year degree completion assistance and post-eligibility healthcare. If the bill passes, all challenges to these rules would have to be handled in federal court.

Some senior Republican officials in the House, including Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), have expressed some hesitance in passing the legislation without clarity as to whether student-athletes will be considered employees and if further limits should be placed on international student-athletes. If changes are made in the House, the bill would be returned to the Senate for another vote.

Support from Trump

Trump, on the other hand, has expressed strong support for the bill.

“THE PROTECT COLLEGE SPORTS ACT is a great Bill, and the Senate will hopefully stay in D.C. until it passes,” he wrote on Truth Social last month. “Without this Bill, millions of young Athletes will be hurt, programs will be canceled … the fans will be robbed, and Universities will go broke”

Sept. 21, 2026 12:58 PM PT

The Queen of Country is being honored with a special day on Californians’ calendars.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Sunday that establishes Sept. 25 as Dolly Parton Day. The date’s significance may be obvious to fans of the late country legend: 9-2-5 references Parton’s hit single “9 to 5” from the soundtrack of the 1980 comedy film of the same name that starred Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.

“Dolly Parton was an icon,” Newsom said in a video accompanied by his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, announcing the bill’s passage. “Dolly was larger than life with big hair and a bigger heart. People around the world have been touched by her music, by her philanthropy, and by her humor.”

Parton died Aug. 25 at 80 years old following a battle with cancer. The beloved songwriter, recording artist, actor and businesswoman was an honored musician, earning 10 Grammy Awards and 10 Country Music Assn. Awards, as well as two Academy Award nominations and a Primetime Emmy. She was the recipient of the National Medal of the Arts in 2005 and the Kennedy Center for the Arts Award in 2006. Parton was also inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

“Her legacy goes well beyond her music,” Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who co-authored the bill with Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), said in a statement. “Through the Imagination Library, she put books into the hands of millions of children, and throughout her life she led with kindness, acceptance, and a belief that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. She was also no stranger to the Central Coast, where she performed for packed crowds and spent time over the years. Now, every 9-2-5, California gets to celebrate Dolly and the remarkable legacy she shared with all of us.”

An unprecedented surge in border crossings over the last decade reshaped America: Millions of people from more than 150 countries arrived, bringing the U.S. immigrant population to its highest levels.

Now, data obtained exclusively by the Associated Press paint a picture of who these migrants are, where they went and what happened after the border.

Some went to cities that have long been magnets for immigrants — New York, Miami — but increasingly, others found their way to smaller cities with less developed immigrant footholds. Blocks, neighborhoods and entire cities were remade in places like Elkhart, Ind., Knoxville, Tenn.,and Dodge City, Kan.

And while the vast majority of migrants traditionally were from Mexico, this surge included people from an astonishing number and diversity of countries: India, Ecuador, Ghana.

Via a Freedom of Information Act request, AP obtained federal records on the self-reported destinations of 4.5 million migrants released in the United States after crossing the Mexican border — both legally and illegally — between October 2018 and July 2025.

Migrants must provide U.S. Customs and Border Protection with a street address. AP obtained their destination ZIP codes, citizenship by country, ages, genders and the dates and border regions where they encountered authorities.

Some probably never arrived at the addresses they gave. Authorities lacked resources to check, though migrants must report truthfully to pursue their cases in court and get work permits. Some have moved elsewhere in the United States or left the country, voluntarily or involuntarily. But many have stayed put.

Data on their initial destinations after the southern border provides both a sweeping and an unusually granular look at how the immigration surge — one that peaked during President Biden’s administration and was a major reason voters returned his predecessor, Donald Trump, to the White House — is playing out today.

Here are some key takeaways from the data.

Cities drew migrants from several continents

The Border Patrol encountered migrants from 174 countries in one year alone, a sharp departure from earlier periods when they were nearly all Mexican and Central American. The growth of social media and new migration routes were key in bringing people from around the world. Cincinnati, for example, experienced a large number of arrivals from West Africa, Uzbekistan and India.

Some cities — ones that for generations have had robust international communities — were further diversified by the range of countries from which people arrived.

New York City’s Queens borough registered at least 25 nationalities with significant arrivals, including five countries that each sent more than 7,000 people: Ecuador, China, Colombia, Venezuela and India.

Philadelphia had 11 nationalities with at least 1,000 new arrivals, led by Brazil, Haiti and the Dominican Republic but also including Russia and Venezuela. The city’s metro area also received more than 1,000 migrants from Georgia.

Florida remained No. 1, but many people looked elsewhere

While Florida was the most popular state, Latin American immigrants increasingly looked elsewhere for more promising job prospects and a better quality of life. Many turned to places with small but established communities of immigrants from their homelands.

For Cubans, nine of the top 10 destination ZIP codes were in Florida, but people of the Caribbean nation also flocked to Louisville, Ky., Grand Island, Neb., and Odessa, Texas. Colombians went to the Denver suburb of Aurora. Paterson, N.J., was the top pick among Peruvians. Some Venezuelans headed to the growing suburbs south of Salt Lake City; others to pockets of Atlanta, Chicago and Denver.

More women and children came than men

Nearly 6 of every 10 migrants released at the border were women and children, a dramatic shift from a few years earlier when migrants were predominantly men.

The change is visible in many places and across nationalities, but some stand out. Tulsa, Okla., attracted Mexican women and children. Ecuadorian women and children went to Spring Valley, N.Y. Guatemalan women were drawn to Chattanooga, Tenn.

Those who came from China headed to L.A. and New York

Chinese migrants, who trekked by hundreds nightly in California’s mountainous border with Mexico, largely gravitated to two places: New York City, especially the Queens and Brooklyn boroughs, and a cluster of neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.

Trump’s deportation machine hit some migrant magnets and overlooked others

Immigration arrests have hit some areas that ranked among the most popular destinations for migrants in recent years, including Miami and New York. Others that experienced a large migrant influx have gotten less attention from authorities, including Silicon Valley, Madison, Wis, and Stamford, Conn.

Jarrett, Kessler, Lodhi and Spagat write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study.

A report by Protect Democracy found that 34.8 million people — about one in 10 Americans — now live in a different district than they did during the 2024 election cycle. And about one-fifth of all Americans now live in a district where more than a quarter of voters are new to the district compared with the last election cycle.

The findings display the stark overhaul that partisan redistricting fights kicked off by President Trump last year have caused for Americans across the country. The new congressional maps are increasingly drawn in ways that favor partisan politics over factors like geography and shared communities. That raises concerns among scholars about how the country’s hyperpolarized politics are affecting American democracy.

“If this trend continues, it really brings into question whether or not elected officials are really representing their constituents anymore, or if the voters are being randomly picked by mapmakers to squeeze out partisan advantage,” said Ben Raderstorf, a policy advocate at Protect Democracy and one of the paper’s co-authors.

The bare-knuckled partisan redistricting battle for the House began when Trump urged the Republican-controlled legislature in Texas, the second most populous state, to redraw its congressional map to help the party. The highly unusual plan prompted an immediate response from California, the most populous state, which held a successful referendum to tilt its map toward Democrats.

Other states followed, and Republicans are positioned to potentially gain nine seats because of redistricting.

The Protect Democracy report warns that such partisan tactics reduce faith in American elections generally and insulate incumbent lawmakers from public opinion. That can make political organizing more difficult, the report cautioned, potentially worsening the country’s already highly polarized politics. Both parties may also enter a “doom loop” where they embrace more aggressive and frequent redistricting efforts to avoid ceding any ground to their rivals.

In some states such as Missouri, the mid-decade redistricting has created confusion for voters about which district they live in and which candidates will appear on their November ballot. After conflicting lower court rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court last week blocked new Missouri districts backed by Trump that had been used in the primary, leaving the state to revert to its previous districts for the general election.

The report concludes with a call for new electoral structures the authors believe would eliminate the potential downsides of partisan redistricting, like proportional representation or a formal truce between the parties to implement nonpartisan districting plans.

Nine states already use nonpartisan commissions to draw congressional district lines but those provisions have limits. California, for instance, suspended its nonpartisan maps with a referendum last year in response to Texas’ redistricting measures.

Such remedies would face long odds in Congress and statehouses, but scholars believe there are few other avenues to turn down the temperature in the partisan redistricting fights.

“This is only going to get worse until somebody stops it,” Raderstorf said. “The logic of gerrymandering points inevitably towards maximalist partisan advantage on both sides. There is no off-ramp other than reform. It is the only way to break the cycle.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

After Brian Koppelman and David Levien wrapped their hit Showtime series “Billions,” the co-creators were undecided about where they would go next. A more than hourlong visit from a Netflix executive settled it.

Netflix had been developing a Las Vegas drama with Martin Scorsese, who is executive producing through his Sikelia Productions. The streamer brought in Koppelman and Levien, and the pair pitched a present-day casino story. Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of U.S. and Canada scripted series, went to their office to make the case.

“When she left our office, we looked at each other and said, ‘Well, whatever we do, we want to do it with her,’” said Koppelman, recalling their meeting from two years ago. Their new Las Vegas series, “The Roman” starring Oscar Issac as a casino president, is expected to be released year. Netflix ordered it in December.

Howe has one of the hardest jobs in Hollywood — finding must-see scripted programs that keep Netflix’s subscribers watching. The company said it had over 325 million paid subscribers worldwide at the end of 2025. Her instincts for creators, combined with years as an entertainment executive and a lifelong viewer have given her a track record of championing hits, including thriller “The Night Agent,” drama “The Diplomat” and Regency-era romance “Bridgerton.”

That led to her promotion last year as head of U.S. and Canada scripted series — her fourth advancement in four years. She succeeded Peter Friedlander, who left after nearly 14 years, and reports to Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria.

“In my role, I feel I am really ear to the ground, really listening to what audiences are asking for, and really trying to understand where the culture is, where the conversation is, to really make sure we’re giving these audiences what it is that they want and they crave,” said Howe, 48.

The pressure is on. Key franchises are in their final seasons. “Stranger Things” ended in December, “Outer Banks” concluded with its fifth season last month and “Emily in Paris” finishes with its sixth season in December. Netflix has confirmed that the fifth season of legal drama “The Lincoln Lawyer” will be its last.

Wall Street has soured. Netflix shares, which closed Thursday $76.01, are down 39% over the past 12 months, a slide that began with its $83-billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery in December — a deal it later walked away from — and continued through 2026 when the company lowered its growth projections.

Analysts have also flagged sluggish engagement growth. View hours rose about 2% in the first half of 2026 compared with a year earlier, even as content spending climbed.

After graduating from UCLA, Jinny Howe worked at Brillstein Entertainment Partners and John Wells Productions before joining Netflix in 2018.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Nonetheless, Howe is confident that Netflix continues to outshine its competitors, noting that the streamer is still in a “growth mindset” that bets on original ideas. The streamer also has franchises that continue to pull in large audiences, such as the fourth season of “Bridgerton,” she said.

“We’re not slowing down at all,” Howe said.

This year her department has a slate of 44 new and returning scripted series from the U.S. and Canada, excluding stand-up, comedy formats and adult animation. They span genres and mix seasoned showrunners and bets on emerging talent. Six are run by first-time female showrunners, a notable number at a time when the industry has cut back and women have historically had fewer chances to lead series. Those programs include “East of Eden,” a series based on the popular John Steinbeck novel; YA drama “The Body” and “A Different World,” a sequel series based on the NBC sitcom about Black students at a fictional college.

Howe leads a team of people spanning the U.S. and Canada, with hubs in Los Angeles and Toronto. While she is accountable for the U.S. and Canada scripted slate, the decisions are made in partnership with her team.

Scripted series out of the U.S. and Canada remain central to the business. Many of Netflix’s most-watched shows of all time come from the region, which accounts for about 40% of global revenue — the streamer’s largest market. Netflix reported 89.6 million memberships in the U.S. and Canada at the end of 2024, the last time it broke out regional numbers.

“There’s so many amazing creators and stories to be told from the U.S. and Canada and historically, English language scripted television for many, many years has traveled to lots of different countries around the world,” Bajaria said.

The region also drives Netflix’s awards profile. The streamer collected 111 Emmy nominations in July, second to HBO Max’s 122. Netflix says 83 of them came from scripted series and variety specials under Howe’s slate. “Beef” season 2 led Netflix’s titles receiving Emmy recognition with 16 nominations.

Competition for attention is fierce. Rival streamers are investing in live sports, and YouTube continues to take a significant share of TV viewing time in the U.S. Netflix has responded by adding video podcasts, sports and games to its lineup. It also lacks the deep historic library some competitors hold — the gap its failed Warner Bros. bid would have closed.

So finding new gems matters. In 2015 the streamer bet on Matt and Ross Duffer, then first-time showrunners, for “Stranger Things.” It became one of the biggest hits in the company’s history.

Then the Duffers agreed to produce a show created by Haley Z. Boston, the horror series “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen,” about a woman who is cursed and could die if she doesn’t marry her soulmate. Other studios didn’t see Boston as the showrunner, but Howe and Netflix did.

“We need people to take chances on us,” 31-year-old Boston said. “There is still a glass ceiling … I’m excited about new future where you don’t have to have done the job already to do it. All you need is the right support.”

The series debuted at No. 2 on the streamer’s global top 10 English language shows and reached 20.3 million views on Netflix in the first half of this year, according to the streamer.

“Netflix had the confidence that we can find the right audience for this,” she said.

Connecting with a range of storytellers early is part of the strategy. Howe’s relationship with creator Molly Smith Metzler goes back about a decade, to when Metzler submitted her play “Elemeno Pea” while Howe was working at John Wells Productions. Howe was impressed and recommended her for the “Shameless” writers room. Metzler went on to lead the critically acclaimed 2021 limited series “Maid” for Netflix, her first job as a showrunner, and signed an overall deal with the streamer in early 2022.

One of Howe’s ideas was to build a series out of “Elemeno Pea.” That became the drama “Sirens,” starring Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock and Julianne Moore. Released in 2025, it debuted at No. 1 on Netflix’s global top 10 and earned four Emmy nominations, including a surprise lead actress nod for Fahy.

“We spent so many cups of coffee and walks talking about what that could be and what it could look like, and we really built it from the ground up,” Metzler said. “She is very hardworking, and she’s extremely committed to the projects she does. That commitment and that rigor is contagious.”

Jinny Howe, who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, is one of the few prominent Asian American content leaders in Hollywood.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

In her soul, Howe said, she’s a producer first. Koppelman and Levien said she was instrumental in the casting “The Roman,” including speaking with some of the leading actors. Alongside Isaac, the series stars Betty Gilpin, Alec Baldwin, Jimmy O. Yang and Jason Schwartzman.

“This would not have come together had Ginny not rolled up her sleeves,” Koppelman said. “When we look at this cast, sometimes we can’t really believe what got put together.”

Howe and Netflix also supported showrunner Rebecca Sonnenshine’s push to make a version of “Little House on the Prairie” that includes more of the Osage perspective.

“She was very open to a vision that explored all the things that we wanted to explore in this show,” Sonnenshine said.

Howe grew up in Walnut, in the San Gabriel Valley, a self-described latchkey kid and the daughter of a residential real estate agent and a women’s clothing store owner. She was born in Seoul and immigrated to California when she was 15 months old.

“So I really am a California girl, I grew up just adjacent to the glittering lights of Hollywood, but close enough to know that there was a real business there,” Howe said.

While her parents worked, she and her brother watched a lot of TV, sitcoms like “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Small Wonder” and soaps like “Dynasty” and “Dallas.” That turned into a career. She graduated from UCLA with a bachelor of arts degree in theater, film and television, worked in the talent division at Brillstein Entertainment Partners and rose to executive vice president of television at John Wells Productions before joining Netflix in 2018.

She is one of the few prominent Asian American content leaders in Hollywood, in a position that helps shape what the world watches.

“I definitely do feel it’s not something I take for granted to be in these rooms and to know that my voice matters,” Howe said. “I get to be a decision-maker in a lot of these conversations. It’s really gratifying, and it’s something that I think is not lost on me at all.”

The Trump administration is proposing a dramatic overhaul of the once-a-decade U.S. Census head count that could leave out millions of immigrants based on status and key racial and ethnic data, jeopardizing the allocation of resources and the country’s voting map.

The potential changes, announced Wednesday, would exclude undocumented immigrants, asylum seekers and anyone without permanent status. Certain demographic questions from the traditional questionnaire would also be eliminated.

It echoes Trump’s previous idea to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census.

The U.S. Census Bureau, in a post on the Federal Register website, argued “illegal aliens (among others) should not be included in the apportionment count, as they are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a ‘usual residence’ in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States.”

The census also “should be colorblind and should not be distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics, such as race,” the agency said. It also is considering nixing questions related to people who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community.

These changes would harm the quality of the data, said Beth Jarosz, a data researcher and vice president of the Association of Public Data Users. She called the proposals “unprecedented.”

“Not counting all of the people who reside here is actually where the real threat is,” Jarosz said. “If you think about all of the ways that census data are used.”

Census figures are traditionally used for an “apportionment count” to determine how many seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives. That count also determines the number of votes in the Electoral College.

“You can imagine if we have undercounts or if we have people counted in the wrong place,” Jarosz said. “Then their political power or their political representation gets diluted.”

Immigrants of every status have historically been counted

Historically, the decennial census has not sought to conduct a full count of people by citizenship status, she added. It may come up in the Census’ periodic American Community Survey.

Getting an accurate count of immigrants of various statuses is useful when assigning resources for public health emergencies or natural or human-made disasters.

“If you don’t have a count of everyone who’s there, you’re not going to have the resources you need,” Jarosz said. “And that puts everybody at risk.”

Why race and ethnicity census data matters

Race-related questions have been on the once-a-decade census since 1790. Starting in 2000, the U.S. census began allowing people to identify by more than one race. A 2015 Pew Research Center study found that multiracial people in the U.S. were growing at a rate three times faster than the general population. By 2020, 33.8 million people in the U.S. identified as being more than one race, according to the census.

Race and ethnicity data is essential for researchers who gauge discrimination, crime rates and wealth gaps in communities of color.

Manjusha Kulkarni is co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of AAPI Equity Alliance, two advocacy groups that rely on census counts of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The proposed changes would have tremendous impact on the populations they serve, she said.

“It also seeks to exclude important demographic data from millions that enables lawmakers, health care providers, public safety officials and community advocates — really anyone who cares about the health, safety and well-being of all Americans — from having the necessary data to keep us safe and healthy,” Kulkarni said via text message.

Dropping race and ethnicity data as well as some immigrants sends a message that these communities don’t matter, she added.

Collecting data for the 2030 Census with all these missing elements would be detrimental, Jarosz said.

“These changes are like trying to land an airplane when you are in thick fog and someone has thrown paint across the front window and your instruments are also not working,” she said.

Tang writes for the Associated Press.

Sept. 10, 2026 9:42 AM PT

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is promising $500 rebate checks to an estimated 1 million Affordable Care Act enrollees across 30 states, who the White House alleged were overcharged by the Biden administration for exchange fees.

The promise comes after Trump pledged Wednesday to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections and as affordability has become a central issue for voters heading into November.

“The relief begins with refunding everyone who was overcharged and the rebates are going out in just a few weeks,” President Trump said in a recorded address released on the White House X account Thursday. Enrollees who can expect refunds are those who do not receive premium assistance.

Critics called the move a “gimmick” that doesn’t represent a plan for addressing soaring healthcare costs.

Trump in his address accused former President Biden’s administration of “gross mismanagement” of ACA funds, without providing evidence, and said that the Biden administration collected user fees from insurance companies that consumers paid through higher premiums.

In a fact sheet, the White House claimed that Biden’s administration “accumulated a significant surplus of funds that were not used to benefit the Americans who paid these higher premiums.” It said the rebates would be sent out beginning next month.

It is unclear whether the $500 rebate represents what each enrollee may have overpaid, where the money for the rebates would come from and whether it requires congressional approval for disbursement.

Trump’s announcement comes as the price of ACA insurance has skyrocketed for many Americans during his own second term. The Trump administration opposed extending COVID-era subsidies that had helped offset the costs of health insurance for most enrollees during Biden’s term.

After the Republican-led Congress allowed the subsidies to expire this year, premiums doubled or tripled for many enrollees, prompting millions to downgrade their plans or exit the program entirely.

Brad Woodhouse, a Democratic strategist and executive director of advocacy group Protect Our Care, called the rebate plan “an absolute joke” in a statement.

“Since Republicans took away tax credits from working families, millions of people have seen their monthly premiums rise by hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars,” Woodhouse said. “At a time when people are scraping by to keep up with the high cost of groceries, rent, and healthcare, this $500 gimmick won’t even begin to dig them out of the hole that Trump and Republicans created.”

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment, and a White House official referred back to the fact sheet.

Roughly 19 million people receive insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchange.

Hussein and Swenson write for the Associated Press.

A MAJOR UK railway firm is giving travellers the chance to secure £2 tickets.

As part of a flash sale, customers can snap up train trips for next to nothing.

Northern Rail’s generous offering means four million £2 advanced single tickets are up for grabs.

The chance to snap them up won’t last long and there is just hours left to make the most of the flash sale.

Lasting between September 2 and September 4, the ticket discount is available for travel between September 9 and October 23.

Taking advantage of the deal is a great way to explore the UK for less as autumn begins.

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Ryanair to axe two million seats this winter affecting THOUSANDS of flights

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Northern operates over 2,600 trains a day across the north of England, with services running to more than 500 stations.

With so many routes available, travellers can make journeys to and from the likes of Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Harrogate, Crewe, Chester, York and more.

While Railcards can’t be used alongside the offer, the half price children’s ticket offer still stands.

That means kids travel for just £1 with sale tickets.

There isn’t long left until the flash sale draws to a close – and when tickets are sold out, they’re sold out.

Tickets can be bought via the Northern website, app or at ticket machines and at ticket offices at participating stations.

Speaking about the rare offer, Alex Hornby, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “With four million tickets up for grabs, this is one of our biggest Flash Sales yet, and there’s something for everyone.”

He added: “With millions of tickets available for just £2 each, our Flash Sale will make the railway even more appealing, and we believe it will inspire everyone to explore everything our fantastic region has to offer, from bustling cities to countryside and stunning coastlines.”

THE budget airline will axe two million seats across its 2026 winter schedule.

Ryanair cited high jet fuel costs as the reason for the reduction – and it has warned of rising prices too.

The airline announced that it has cut estimates for the expected number of passengers it will carry between April 2026 and March 2027.

The number has dropped from 216 million to 214 million.

In a statement, the airline explained that it was “sensible to strategically reduce the group’s exposure to unhedged jet fuel during the unprofitable winter schedule.”

It continued: “Subject to pricing and passenger demand, Ryanair expects this one-off winter schedule cut to reduce [November 2026 – March 2027 losses] by €70 million to €100 million (£85.8million).”

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It won’t be the first time Ryanair has cut flights.

As a result of rising air tax, budget-friendly Ryanair has cut a huge amount of routes over the last year.

Lots of the axed routes affected Spain with flights to Vigo, Valladolid, Jerez and Tenerife (North) stopped.

Other places that lost connections through Ryanair were to the Azores in Portugal and Thessaloniki in Greece where the airline closed its base.

At the same time, the airline announced it would be scrapping off-season flights to Chania and Heraklion in Crete and will reduce its Athens services too.

All of this will result in 700,000 fewer seats on sale this winter.

In 2025, France lost 25 routes and some 750,000 seats last winter from and completely stopped services completely to Strasbourg and Brive.

In Brussels, Ryanair has axed 20 routes and cut one million seats across Brussels-Zaventem and Brussels South Charleroi airports.

The budget airline also warned that the prices of tickets could rise next year.

Conflict in Iran has caused jet fuel costs to climb due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and it will continue to affect holiday prices.

In a statement, Ryanair said: “If high oil prices continue through to S.27 (summer 2027), Ryanair believes short-haul airfares in Europe will increase materially to reflect higher oil prices as some less well-hedged competitors will struggle to maintain capacity or even survive this coming winter season.”

Ryanair said it currently hedges fuel (which means it pays a set price).

The airline added that 80 per cent of its jet fuel is hedged through March 2027 at about $67 (£50) a barrel.

The price of jet fuel is around $140 (£103) a barrel.

As many as 20 million children in 21 countries have experienced online sexual abuse or exploitation each year, according to new findings from the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF.

More than one in five children aged 12 to 17 in countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe have been targeted on digital platforms, according to the UNICEF report released on Thursday.

Researchers surveyed 21,000 children aged 12 to 17 who used the internet across 21 countries between 2020 and 2021, and then again between 2024 and 2025. They also conducted in-depth interviews with 100 young people who have experienced childhood abuse.

Social media facilitated more than half of the abuse cases, according to UNICEF, which cautioned that figures could be inaccurate due to underreporting by children. Less than 1 per cent of all abusive incidents were reported to authorities, the researchers found.

Last week, US social media giant Meta agreed to a landmark $18bn settlement in a major US federal case accusing the company of endangering children. Meta has faced an avalanche of legal cases this year, most arguing that it has deliberately designed its platforms to be addictive and that they have harmed children. The company has now agreed to make major changes to the features of its social media platforms.

What are the key findings of the UNICEF report?

The report estimated that in the periods studied, more than 15 million children were exposed to unwanted sexual content, nine million were asked to engage in sexual conversations or share sexual images against their will, and four million children had sexual images of themselves shared without their consent.

UNICEF said the issue is compounded by the fact that children often don’t recognise abuse or know who to report it to, and fear repercussions if they do. Formal systems can feel distant, complex or intimidating, the report noted.

“The report reveals a painful reality. More than 20 million children across the countries studied were subjected to unwanted explicit sexual content or exploitation online, often in the digital spaces where they learn, play, and connect with friends,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “These experiences cause profound emotional and mental distress. Many children suffer in silence, unsure where to turn for help. We cannot look away.”

Where was data collected?

Information for the report was based on nationally representative survey data collected between 2020 and 2025 from approximately 21,000 internet-using children from the following countries:

• Eastern and South Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda 
• Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam
• Latin America and the Caribbean: Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico 
• Eastern Europe: Armenia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia
• South Asia: Pakistan

Where are children being abused?

Abuse often begins in public spaces, such as in schools or local neighbourhoods, before moving to digital spaces which can further facilitate harm.

Social media and messaging platforms enable different stages of abuse, “including initial contact, relationship-building, sexual solicitation, image-sharing, coercion, blackmail and the continued circulation of sexual content”, the report said.

Sometimes abuse takes place solely online.

According to the report’s findings, more than 60 percent of cases occurred on social media platforms, with the majority on Facebook (50 percent), WhatsApp (29 percent), Instagram (24 percent), SnapChat (13 percent) and TikTok (12 percent).

Do children report abuse?

Most children do not seek help if they are being abused. Less than one percent of cases are reported to the police, a social worker or a helpline, while more than four in 10 cases not being disclosed to anyone at all.

“Children are not failing to report; they have correctly worked out that there is nowhere to report to,” Nighat Dad, executive director of the Pakistan-based Digital Rights Foundation, told Al Jazeera.

Dad, whose NGO works to provide safe online spaces in Pakistan, noted that incidents repeatedly occur online because of a “design problem – the message request, the move to a private chat, the reshare, the ability to return after being blocked”.

Many children minimise their experiences or do not recognise when they’ve been abused, she said.

Even when children do speak out, to a close friend, sibling, or parent, doing so may not necessarily stop the abuse or bring perpetrators to account.

UNICEF emphasised that its research interviews were the first time many of the children it interviewed had spoken to someone about the abuse they were subjected to.

Dad also cautioned that Pakistan, for example, is a “low-disclosure country” where notions of family “honour” and other cultural barriers prevent children from disclosing the harm they’ve experienced.

“A girl who speaks risks her phone, her schooling and sometimes her safety, and a boy is expected to cope in silence,” Dad said.

How does gender factor into online abuse?

Perpetrators often play on gender norms when exploiting children. Stigma and blame are used against girls to keep them silent, while boys are expected to cope alone, or threatened by perpetrators.

“Peer cultures and harmful norms around gender or masculinity can further normalise behaviours that cause significant harm, making abuse harder to recognise and address,” UNICEF noted.

What kind of impact does online sexual abuse have on children?

The repercussions are severe, UNICEF said: Children exposed to technology-facilitated sexual abuse and exploitation are four times more likely to have suicidal thoughts and to self-harm, along with higher levels of anxiety.

In Mexico or North Macedonia, for example, the risk of suicidal thoughts or behaviours was more than eight times higher among children who experienced abuse, while in Pakistan the risk of self-harm was more than seven times higher than average, the report found.

Abuse extends well beyond the digital sphere, seeping into children’s everyday lives, schooling and relationships.

What should be done about this?

UNICEF said the onus to protect children online must be placed on governments and technology companies, which must change how online spaces are designed and regulated.

It also highlighted that while children often take steps to protect each other, societies, schools and families must work to shift the burden of protection away from children.

Citing Meta’s recent settlement, Dad acknowledged that design changes, such as better age verification and parental controls, can and should happen.

“For years those of us working outside the US were told these defaults would break the product. Meta has now shown the product can change.”

A spokesperson for Meta told Al Jazeera, “This report is based on surveys from as far back as 2020, before we introduced the protections UNICEF recommends, like automatically defaulting teens into private accounts and preventing adults from messaging teens they’re not connected to.

“While the report doesn’t provide any specific evidence of abuse, we’ll continue to fight child exploitation aggressively across our apps and support law enforcement in prosecuting the criminals behind it.”

The spokesperson also pointed out that Meta-owned WhatsApp is a private messaging service rather than a social media platform. “We don’t have algorithms that make a piece of content more or less likely to be viewed, and you need someone’s phone number or exact username to connect with them for the first time.”

Snapchat and TikTok have not responded to requests for comment for Al Jazeera.

By Euronews Persian

Published on 02/09/2026 – 14:37 GMT+2•Updated
14:42

The US dollar broke above 2.1 million Iranian rials on Tehran’s free market on Wednesday, setting a new record as the rial lost around 60% of its value against the dollar since the start of the Iranian calendar year in March — when the dollar traded at approximately 1.35 million rials.

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The rial’s slide has accelerated since the US reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports in July, following the collapse of a short-lived ceasefire.

The euro hit an unprecedented 2.55 million rials, and the UK pound reached 2,976,000 rials.

The UAE dirham, which serves as the benchmark for pricing the rial on regional markets, reached 600,000 rials for the first time.

One gram of 18-carat gold climbed above 225.7 million rials, and the Imami gold coin — a standard unit of value in Iran — changed hands at 2.26 billion rials.

Iran operates a dual exchange rate system. The official rate, set by the Central Bank and used for state transactions and subsidised imports of essential goods, is significantly stronger than the free market rate available to ordinary Iranians and businesses.

The gap between the two has widened sharply since the war began, with the free market rate now more than double the official rate.

The rial has been in freefall since the US-Israeli strikes against Iran on 28 February launched the ongoing war, now in its seventh month, and has accelerated as Washington has tightened its economic pressure campaign.

The US Treasury has cut off Iran’s access to regional banks, severing one of the Islamic Republic’s main channels for accessing foreign currency and clearing import payments.

The naval blockade of Iranian ports has compounded the pressure by restricting trade routes and reducing Iran’s oil export revenues.

Abdolnaser Hemmati, governor of the Central Bank of Iran, said the bank was ready to inject $2 billion into the foreign exchange market to stabilise the rial. He attributed the latest slide primarily to psychological factors rather than fundamental economic ones.

“The dust created in the foreign exchange market will settle, and the recent increase in exchange rates is driven more by psychological factors than by real economic factors,” he said.

Hemmati acknowledged that inflation had placed heavy pressure on households.

“Although inflation and rising prices have placed heavy pressure on people’s livelihoods and daily lives, and these difficulties are tangible, the Central Bank has been able to control the accelerating pace of inflation by using monetary, supervisory and prudential tools,” he said.

He rejected US claims that Tehran lacked access to financial reserves.

“These claims are completely baseless. The reserves have not been frozen, and the Central Bank has access to stable resources as well as multiple oil and non-oil revenues,” he said, claiming that more than $18 billion in foreign currency had been provided for imports of essential goods, medicines, animal feed and raw materials since March.

He provided no further details to support the figure.

The rial’s collapse is feeding directly into consumer prices. Iran was already experiencing high inflation before the war, while the currency’s further depreciation has raised the cost of all imported goods, raw materials and energy inputs.

Iranians who hold savings in rials have seen their purchasing power roughly halved in less than six months. Gold and hard currency have become the primary store of value for those who can access them.

Iran’s official currency is the rial, although most Iranians conduct everyday transactions in tomans — a colloquial unit equal to 10 rials that is so deeply embedded in daily use that shops, restaurants and property listings quote prices almost exclusively in tomans.

At Wednesday’s free-market rate, the US dollar traded at about 220,000 tomans. The government announced plans in 2020 to formally replace the rial with the toman and remove four zeros from the currency, a redenomination that has not yet been fully implemented.